Many men never go to this school at all till their disposition is
already half ruined and character has taken on its fatal set. To learn
arithmetic is difficult at fifty--much more to learn Christianity. To
learn simply what it is to be meek and lowly, in the case of one who
has had no lessons in that in childhood, may cost him half of what he
values most on earth. Do we realize, for instance, that the way of
teaching humility is generally by _humiliation_? There is probably no
other school for it. When a man enters himself as a pupil in such a
school it means a very great thing. There is much Rest there, but
there is also much Work.
I should be wrong, even though my theme is the brighter side, to
ignore the cross and minimize the cost. Only it gives to the cross a
more definite meaning, and a rarer value, to connect it thus directly
and casually with the growth of the inner life. Our platitudes on the
"benefits of affliction" are usually about as vague as our theories of
Christian Experience. "Somehow" we believe affliction does us good.
But it is not a question of "Somehow." The result is definite,
calculable, necessary. It is under the strictest law of cause and
effect. The first effect of losing one's fortune, for instance, is
humiliation; and the effect of humiliation, as we have just seen, is
to make one humble; and the effect of being humble is to produce Rest.
It is a roundabout way, apparently, of producing Rest; but Nature
generally works by circular processes; and it is not certain that
there is any other way of becoming humble, or of finding Rest. If a
man could make himself humble to order, it might simplify matters; but
we do not find that this happens. Hence we must all go through the
mill. Hence death, death to the lower self, is the nearest gate and
the quickest road to life.
Yet this is only half the truth. Christ's life outwardly was one of
the most troubled lives that was ever lived: tempest and tumult,
tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time till the
worn body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of
glass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might have
gone to Him and found Rest. Even when the blood-hounds were dogging
Him in the streets of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples and
offered them, as a last legacy, "My peace." Nothing ever for a moment
broke the serenity of Christ's life on earth. Misfortune could not
reach Him; He had no fortune. Food, raiment, money--fountain-heads of
half the world's weariness--He simply did not care for; they played no
part in His life; He "took no thought" for them. It was impossible to
affect Him by lowering His reputation. He had already made Himself of
no reputation. He was dumb before insult. When he was reviled, He
reviled not again. In fact, there was