followed it; and another Gospel tells the same story of quite an
opposite kind of people. Matthew says that the wise men of the time
were the first to appreciate the coming of Christ. Luke says that it
was the plainest sort of people, the shepherds, who first greeted that
coming. There is the same variety of impression still. Many people
now write as if religion were for the magi only. They make of it a
mystery, a philosophy, an opinion, a doctrine, which only the scholars
of the time can appreciate, and which plain people can obey, but cannot
understand. Many people, on the other hand, think that religion is for
plain people only; good for shepherds, but outgrown by magi; a star
that invites the superstitious and ignorant to worship, but which
suggests to scholars only a new phenomenon for science to explore.
{75}
But the Christmas legend calls both, the wise and the humble, to
discipleship. Religion has both these aspects, and offers both these
invitations. Religion is not theology. There are many things which
are hidden from the magi, and are revealed to simple shepherds. But
religion, on the other hand, is not all for the simple. The man who
wrote that there were many things hidden from the wise and prudent, was
himself a scholar. It was like that dramatic day, when Wendell
Phillips arraigned the graduates of this college for indifference to
moral issues, while he who made the indictment was a graduate himself.
The central subject of the highest wisdom to-day is, as it always has
been, the relation of the mind of man to the universe of God.
Thus both these types of followers are called. Never before was the
fundamental simplicity of religion so clear as it is now; and never
before was scholarship in religion so needed. Some of the secrets of
faith are open to any receptive heart, and some must be explored by the
trained and disciplined mind. The scholar and the peasant are both
called to this comprehensive service. The magi and the shepherd meet
at the cradle of the Christ.
{76}
XXX
THE SONG OF THE ANGELS
_Luke_ ii. 8-14.
We are beginning to feel already the sweep of life that hurries us all
along to the keeping of the Christmas season; our music already takes
on a Christmas tone, and we begin to hear the song of the angels, which
seemed to the Evangelists to give the human birth of Jesus a fit
accompaniment in the harmonies of heaven.
This song of the angels, as we have been used to reading it, was a
threefold message; of glory to God, peace on earth, and good-will among
men; but the better scholarship of the Revised Version now reads in the
verse a twofold message. First, there is glory to God, and then there
is peace on earth to the men of good-will. Those, that is to say, who
have the good-will in themselves are the ones who will find peace on
earth. Their unselfishness brings them their personal happiness. They
give themselves in good-will, and so they obtain peace. That is the
true spirit {77} of the Christmas season. It is the good-will which
brings the peace. Over and over again in these months of feverish
scrambling for personal gain, men have sought for peace and have not
found it; and now, when they turn to this generous good-will, the peace
they sought comes of itself. Many a man in the past year has had his
misunderstandings or grudges or quarrels rob him of his own peace; but
now, as he puts away these differences as unfit for the season of
good-will, the peace arrives. That is the paradox of Christianity. He
who seeks peace does not find it. He who gives peace finds it
returning to him again. He who hoards his life loses it, and he who
speeds it finds it:--
"Not what we give, but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,--
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."
That is the sweet and lingering echo of the angels' song.
{78}
XXXI
THE SECRET OF HEARTS REVEALED
_Luke_ ii. 30-35.
The prophecy of the aged Simeon for the infant Christ was this,--that
through him the secrets of many hearts should be revealed. Jesus, that
is to say, was not only to read the secrets of others' hearts, but he
was to enable people to read their own hearts. They were to come into
self-recognition as they came to him. They were to be disclosed to
themselves. You know how that happens in some degree when you fall in
with other exceptional lives. You meet a person of purity or
self-control or force, and there waken in you kindred impulses, and you
become aware of your own capacity to be better than you are. The touch
of the heroic discovers to you something of heroism in yourself. The
contagion of nobleness finds a susceptibility for that contagion in
yourself.
So it was that this disclosure of their hearts to themselves came to
the people who met with {79} Jesus Christ. One after another they come
up, as it were, before him, and he looks on them and reads them like an
open book; and they pass on, thinking not so much of what Jesus was, as
of the revelation of their own hearts to themselves. Nathanael comes,
and Jesus reads him, and he answers: "Whence knowest thou me?" Peter
comes, and Jesus beholds him and says: "Thou shalt be called Cephas, a
stone." Nicodemus, Pilate, the woman of Samaria, and the woman who was
a sinner, pass before him, and the secrets of their different hearts
are revealed to themselves. It is so now. If you want to know
yourself, get nearer to this personality, in whose presence that which
hid you from yourself falls away, and you know yourself as you are.
The most immediate effect of Christian discipleship is this,--not that
the mysteries of heaven are revealed, but that you yourself are
revealed to yourself. Your follies and weaknesses, and all the
insignificant efforts of your better self as well, come into
recognition, and you stand at once humbled and strengthened in the
presence of a soul which understands you, and believes in you, and
stirs you to do and to be what you have hitherto only dreamed.
{80}
XXXII
THE GRACE OF JESUS CHRIST
These are the last words of most of the Epistles of the New Testament.
They are the last words of the New Testament itself. They are commonly
heard as the last words of Christian worship; the most familiar form of
Christian benediction. But what is the grace of Jesus Christ? Grace
is that which acts not for duty's sake, but for sheer love and
kindness. What is the grace of God? It is just this overflowing
benevolence. Who is the gracious man? It is he who gives beyond his
obligations, and seeks opportunities of thoughtful kindliness. What is
the grace of Christ? It is just this superadded and unexpected
generosity.
So the life of duty and the life of grace stand contrasted with each
other. The duty-doer thinks of justice, honesty, the reputable way of
life. But grace goes beyond duty. Duty asks, What ought I to do?
Grace asks, What can I do? Where duty halts, grace begins. It touches
duty with beauty, and makes it fair instead of stern. Grace is not
looking {81} for great things to do, but for gracious ways to do little
things. In many spheres of life it is much if it can be said of you
that you do your duty. But think of a home of which all that you could
say was that its members did their duty. That would be as much as to
say that it was a just home, but a severe one; decorous, but unloving;
a home where there was fair dealing, but where there was little of the
grace of Jesus Christ.
Thus it is that the grace of Jesus Christ sums up the finest beauty of
the Christian spirit, and offers the best benediction with which
Christians should desire to part. As we separate for a time from our
worship, I do not then ask that we may be led in the coming year to do
our duty, I ask for more. I pray for the grace of Jesus Christ; that
in our homes there may be more of considerateness, that in our college
there may be a natural and spontaneous self-forgetfulness, a free and
generous offering of uncalled-for kindness. Some of us are able to do
much for others, to give, to teach, to govern, to employ. There is a
way of doing this which doubles its effect. It is the way of grace.
Some of us must be for the most part receivers of instruction or {82}
kindness. There is a way of receiving kindness which is among the most
beautiful traits of life. It is the way of grace. No one of us, if he
be permitted to live on in this coming year, can escape this choice
between obligation and opportunity, between the way of life which is
discreet and prudent and the way of life which is simply beautiful.
When these inevitable issues come, then the prayer, which may lead us
to the higher choice, must be the prayer with which the Bible ends; the
benediction of the Christian spirit; even this,--that the grace of
Jesus Christ may be with us all.
{83}
XXXIII
THE EVERLASTING ARMS
_Deuteronomy_ xxxiii. 27.
"Underneath are the everlasting arms,"--that was the repeated burden of
the great men of Israel. They lived in the midst of national
calamities and distresses. They were defeated, puzzled, baffled. The
way looked dark. Then they fall back on the one great re-establishing
thought: after all, it is God's world. It is not going to ruin.
Changes which seemed tremendous are not fatal or final. Israel dwells
in safety, for God holds us in his arms.
We need some such broad, deep confidence as we enter a new year. We
get involved in small issues and engrossed in personal problems, and
people sometimes seem so malicious, and things seem to be going so
wrong that it is as if we heard the noise of some approaching Niagara.
Then we fall back on the truth that after all it is not our world. We
can blight it or help it, but we do not {84} decide its issues. In the
midst of such a time of social distress, Mr. Lowell in one of his
lectures wrote: "I take great comfort in God. I think He is
considerably amused sometimes, but on the whole loves us and would not
let us get at the matchbox if He did not know that the frame of the
universe was fireproof." That is the modern statement of the
underlying faith and self-control and patience which come of confessing
that in this world it is not we alone who do it all. "Why so hot,
little man?" says Mr. Emerson. "I take great comfort in God," says Mr.
Lowell; and the Old Testament, with a much tenderer note repeats:
"Underneath are the everlasting arms."
{85}
XXXIV
THE COMFORT OF THE TRUTH
_John_ xiv. 14, 16.
Jesus says that he will send a Comforter, and that it will be the
spirit of the truth. Many people say just the opposite of this. If
you want comfort, they think that you must not have truth. Is not the
truth often an uncomforting and uncomfortable thing? Too much truth
seems dangerous. The spirit of the truth is a hard, cold spirit.
Should not a comforter shade and soften the truth? But Jesus answers
there is nothing so permanently comforting as the truth. Why, for
instance, is it that we judge people so severely? It is not as a rule
that we know the whole truth about them, but that we know only a
fragment of the truth. The more we know, the gentler grow our
judgments. Would it not be so if people who judge you should know all
your secret hopes and conflicts and dreams? Why is it again that
people are so despondent about their own times, their community, the
tendency of things? It is because {86} they have not entered deeply
enough into the truth of the times. The more they know, the more they
hope. And why is it that God is all-merciful? It is because He is
also all-wise. He knows all about us, our desires and our repentances,
and so in the midst of our wrong-doing He continues merciful. His Holy
Spirit bears in one hand comfort and in the other truth. How does a
student get peace of mind? He finds it when he gets hold of some
stable truth. It may not be a large truth, but it is a real truth, and
therefore it is a comfort. How does a man in his moral struggles get
comfort? He gets it not by swerving, or dodging, or compromising, but
by being true. The only permanent comfort is in the sense of fidelity.
You are like a sailor in the storm; it is dark about you, the wind
howls, the stars vanish. What gives you comfort? It is the knowledge
that one thing is true. Thank God, you have your compass, and the
tremulous little needle can be trusted. You bend over it with your
lantern in the dark and know where you are going, and that renews your
courage. You have the spirit of the truth, and it is your comforter.
{87}
XXXV
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT
_Ephesians_ vi. 14-17.
In this passage the apostle is thinking of the Christian life as full
of conflict and warfare. It needs what he calls the good soldier of
Jesus Christ, and for the moment St. Paul is considering how such a
soldier should be armed for such a war. He is like some knight of the
Middle Ages, standing in his castle-yard and serving out to his vassals
the weapons they need for the battle which is near at hand. "Take all
your armor," he says. "This is no holiday affair, no dress parade.
You are to fight against principalities and powers. So take the whole
armor of God." And then he puts it into their hands. There is,
however, one curious thing about this armor. It has but one offensive
weapon. The soldier of Jesus Christ is given, to defend himself from
his enemies, the shield of faith, the tunic of truth, the helmet of
salvation; but to fight, to overcome, to disarm, he has but one
weapon,--the {88} sword of the spirit. Is it possible, then, that the
Spirit of God entering into a man can be to him a sword; that a man's
character has this aggressive quality; that a man fights just by what
he is? Yes, that seems to be the apostle's argument. Looking at all
the conflicts and collisions of life, its differences of opinion, its
causes to be won, he thinks that the best fighting weapon is the spirit
of a man's life. Behind all argument and persuasion the only absolute
argument, the final persuasion, is the simple witness of the spirit.
When a man wants to make a cause he believes in win, his aggressive
force lies not in what he says about that cause, but in what that cause
has made of him. He wins his victory without striking a blow when he
wields the sword of the Spirit. He comes like the soft, fresh morning
among us, and we simply open our windows and yield to it, greeting it
with joy. It is the air we want to breathe, and we accept it as our
own.
{89}
XXXVI
LIFE IS AN ARROW
_John_ xiv. 6.
When Jesus says: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," he names
the three things which a man must have in order to lead a straight
life. Such a man must have first a way to go, and then a truth to
reach, and then life enough to get there. He needs first a direction,
and then an end, and then a force. Some lives have no path to go by,
and some no end to go to, and some no force to make them go. Now Jesus
says that the Christian life has all three. It has intention, the
decision which way to go; it has determination, the finding of a truth
to reach; it has power, the inner dynamic of the life of Christ. Life,
as has been lately said by one of our own preachers, is like an arrow.
It must have its course, it must have its mark, and it must have the
power to go.
"Life is an arrow, therefore you must know
What mark to aim at, how to bend the bow,
Then draw it to its head, and let it go." [1]
[1] Henry van Dyke, D. D., in the _Outlook_ for Feb. 23, 1895.
{90}
XXXVII
THE DECLINE OF ENTHUSIASM
_Revelation_ ii. 1-7.
I do not propose to consider the character or intention of this
mystical Book of Revelation. However it may be regarded, it is first
of all a series of messages written in the name of the risen Christ to
the churches of Asia, singling out each in turn, pointing out its
special defects, and exhorting it to its special mission; and there is
something so modern, or rather so universal about these messages to the
churches that in spite of their strange language and figures of speech
they often seem like messages to the churches of America to-day. First
the word comes to the chief church of the region, at Ephesus. It was a
great capital city, with much prosperity and splendor, and the church
there abounded in good works. The writer appreciates all this: "I know
thy works, and thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil
men." It was a substantial, busy city church. What was lacking in the
church {91} of Ephesus? It had fallen away, says the message, from its
first enthusiasm. It had "lost its first love." The eagerness of its
first conversion had gone out of it. It had settled down into the ways
of an established church, with plenty of good works and good people,
but with the loss of that first spontaneous, passionate loyalty; and
unless it recovered this enthusiasm "its candlestick would be removed
out of its place," and its light would go out.
How modern that sounds! How precisely it is like some large church in
some large city to-day, a respectable and respected and useful church,
a Sunday club, a self-satisfied circle; and how it explains that
mysterious way in which, in many such a large church, a sort of dry-rot
seems to set in, and even where the church seems to prosper it is
declining, and some day it dies! It has lost its first love, and its
candle first flickers and then goes out.
Indeed, how true the same story is of many an individual inside or
outside the church, perfectly respectable and entirely respected, but
outgrowing his enthusiasms. He becomes, by degrees, first
self-repressed and unemotional, then a cynical dilettante. How you
wish he {92} would do something impulsive, impetuous, even foolish!
How you would like to detect him in an enthusiasm! His life has moved
on like the river Rhine, which has its boisterous Alpine youth, and
then runs more and more slowly, until in Holland we can hardly detect
whether it has any current.
"It drags its slow length through the hot, dry land,
And dies away in the monotonous strand."
That is the church of Ephesus, and that is the man from Ephesus, and
unless they repent and regain their power of enthusiasm their light
goes out. Ephesus lies there, a cluster of huts beside a heap of
ruins, and the future of the world is with the nations and churches and
people who view the world with fresh, unspoiled, appreciative hope.
{93}
XXXVIII
THE CROWN OF LIFE
_Revelation_ ii. 8-10.
The Church of Ephesus needed a rebuke; the Church at Smyrna needed an
encouragement. The first was a prosperous, busy church, without
spiritual vitality, and the prophecy was that its light should go out.
The second was a persecuted church, with much tribulation and poverty,
and the promise was that for its faithfulness it should have a crown of
life. And if the traveller, as he stands among the ruins of Ephesus,
cannot help thinking how its candle-stick has been removed, so he must
think of the reward of fidelity, as he stands among the busy docks and
bustling life of Smyrna.
A crown of life! There is no discovery of experience more important in
a man's life than the discovery of its legitimate rewards. A man
undertakes to do the best he can with his powers and capacities, and
inquires some day for the natural reward of his fidelity. Shall he
have gratitude, or recognition, or praise? Any one of these things may
come {94} to him, but any one of them, or all of them, may elude him;
and all sooner or later show themselves to be accidents of his
experience, and not its natural and essential issue. Then he discovers
that there is but one legitimate reward of life, and that is increase
of life, more of power and capacity and vitality and effectiveness.
What is the reward of learning one's lessons? Marks, or praise, or
distinction, may come of this, or they may not. The legitimate reward
is simply the power to learn other lessons. The expenditure of force
has increased the supply of force; the use of capacity has developed
capacity. What is the reward of taking physical exercise? It is not
athletic prizes, or athletic glory; it is strength. You have sought
strength, and you get strength. The crown of athletic life is increase
of athletic vitality. What is the reward of keeping your temper? It
is the increased power of self-control. What is the reward of doing
your duty as well as you can? It is the ability to do your duty
better. Out of the duty faithfully done opens the way to meet the
larger duty. You have been faithful over a few things, and you become
the ruler over many things.
{95}
And what is the crown of the whole of life lived faithfully here? It
is not a crown of gold or gems in another life; it is simply more life;
a broader use of power, a healthier capacity, a larger usefulness. You
are faithful unto death, through the misapprehensions and imperfections
and absence of appreciation or gratitude in this preparatory world, and
then there is offered to you inevitably and legitimately the crown of a
larger, more serviceable, more effective life.
{96}
XXXIX
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND THE WHITE STONE
_Revelation_ ii. 12-17.
Both of these are Jewish symbols. One refers to that food which, as
Moses commanded, was kept in the sanctuary and eaten by the priest
alone; the other apparently refers to a sacred stone worn by the
priest, with an inscription on it known only to him. Both symbols mean
to teach that the Christian believer has an immediate and personal
intimacy with God. There is no sacerdotal intermediation for him. He
can go straight to the altar and take of the sacred bread. He wears on
his own breast the mark of God's communication. It is the doctrine of
the universal priesthood of believers; the highest promise to a
faithful church. But on this white stone, the message says, there is a
name written which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it. How
quickly that goes home to many a faithful life. Hidden from all that
can be read by {97} others is the writing which one bears upon his own
breast, legible only to himself and to his God. Think how hardly and
carelessly people try to judge one's life, to read its characteristics
of strength or weakness. Think how we all thus deal in hasty judgment,
stamping our neighbors as jovial or moody, generous or selfish, as kind
or stern, as sinner or saint; while all the time, deeper than any
interpretation of ours can reach, there is the central sanctuary of the
man's own soul, where is worn against his breast the real title which
to his own consciousness he bears, and which may quite contradict all
external judgments. What is written on that interior life? What is
that name you bear which no man knoweth save you;--that life of
yourself which is hidden with Christ in God? That is the most solemn
question which any man can ask himself as he bends to say his silent
prayer.
Is it just your own name, the badge of selfishness; or is it some vow
of irresponsibility,--Am I my brother's keeper?--or is it just a sheer
blank white stone, marking a life without intention or character at
all? Or is there perhaps written there the pure {98} demand to be of
use?--"For their sakes I sanctify myself;"--or is there written on your
heart the name of God, or of his Christ, so that this interior maxim
reads: "I live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me"?
{99}
XL
THE MORNING STAR
_Revelation_ ii. 18-28.
The morning star is the symbol of promise, the sign that the dawn is
not far away. Thyatira was a little place, with a weak church, with
small hopes and great discouragements, much troubled by the work of a
false prophetess, tempted by "the deep things of Satan," as the message
says, and yet to it the promise is committed, that it shall have
authority over the nations, and receive "the morning star." It was the
same great promise that had been already given to the early Christians:
"Fear not, little flock, for it is my Father's good pleasure to give
you the kingdom." It was the same amazing optimism which made Jesus
look about him, as he stood with a dozen humble followers, and say:
"Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, they are white already to my
harvest."
There is certainly passing over the world in our day a great wave of
intellectual and {100} spiritual discouragement and despondency. What
with philosophical pessimism and social agitations and literary
decadence and political corruption and moral looseness, a great many
persons are beginning to feel that the end of the century is an end of
faith, and are not able to discern in the darkness of the time any
morning star. As one distinguished author has said: "This is not a
time of the eclipse of faith, but a time of the collapse of faith." It
was much the same in the times of Thyatira. There was the same luxury
and self-indulgence in the Roman world, the same social restlessness,
the same intellectual despondency. Now, who is it that can view these
perturbations of the world with a tranquil and rational hope? I
answer, that it is only he who views his own time in the light of the
eternal purposes of God. The religious man is bound to be an optimist,
not with the foolish optimism which blinks the facts of life; but with
the sober optimism which believes that--
"Step by step, since time began,
We see the steady gain of man."