a mother learns from the light of her baby's eyes more than all wisdom of
books can teach. When the little, unconscious thing is taken from her
arms, there is given to her sometimes a feeling, "My baby is _mine_
forever;" a feeling in whose presence we stand in reverent, tender awe.
It is not every experience of bereavement which brings with it this
uplift of comfort. But to the noble love of a noble object there comes
the sense of something in the beloved that outlasts death. To the
_noble_ love, for most of our affection has a selfish strain in it; the
clinging to another for what of present enjoyment he yields to us brings
small illumination or assurance. But as self loses itself in another's
life, there comes to us the deep instinct of something over which death
has no power. Above all, when we unselfishly love one in whom dwells
moral nobility,--when it is a great and vital and holy nature to which we
join ourselves,--there comes to us a profound and pregnant sense of its
immortality. It is when death's stroke has fallen that that sense rises
into full, triumphant bloom.
No wonder the disciples felt that their Master lived! Theirs was the
experience that in substance repeats itself whenever from among those who
love it a noble soul goes home. It was because Jesus was supremely
noble, and they had loved him with consummate affection, that their
experience was so intense and vivid. Its true significance lay in this,
that it was not supernatural but natural. It is standing the pyramid on
its apex to deduce all human goodness from the goodness of Jesus, and to
argue a universal immortality solely from his rising. Let us place the
pyramid four-square in the universal truth of human nature. Let us
ground our religion upon the moral fidelity, the human love, the
spiritual aspiration, and the sober regard for fact, in which all loyal
souls can agree. Then at its summit we shall get that character of which
Jesus is the type, a character in which self-sacrifice and joy divinely
blend, and which in its passage from earth imparts the irresistible
assurance of a higher life beyond.
This morning the sun rose upon earth and trees encased in blazing jewelry
of ice. Fast, fast the beauty melted and was gone,--and in its place,
behold the brown earth touched with living green and teeming with
promise; the trees' strong limbs tipped with swelling buds; and over all
the tender, brooding sky of spring. Even so, the pageant of the
miracle-story dissolves, to give place to the natural consciousness of
eternal beauty and eternal life.
A group of Americans meet in a foreign city, and they talk fondly of
home, and to each of them home has its special meaning. One says: "I
remember the green hill-pastures and the great elms and the white
farmhouses; I know just how the autumn woods are looking, and the stocked
corn, and the pumpkins ripening in the sun; and I am homesick for a sight
of it all." Another says: "It is the nation that I think of. To me
America seems the home of the poor man, the common man. She is working
out great and difficult questions in government and society, and I have
strong faith that the outcome of it all is going to be a great good to
the world. I long to take part once more in that national life; and over
here among strangers I want at least to Le no discredit to the dear old
country, and if possible to pick up some bit of knowledge or experience
that I can add to the common stock when I get home." A third man says:
"Yes, that's all true; but I don't often think of it in so big a way as
that. I want to see my old neighbors. And in these foreign Sundays I
get hungry for the old church I've been to ever since I was a boy, and
the prayers, and the old tunes." Another, perhaps, is silent; but to his
heart all the while are present the faces of his wife and children.
As they end their talk and go out together, up the harbor comes a gallant
ship, and at her peak float the stars and stripes; and at the sight
through each heart runs a common thrill of love and devotion. One man's
thought of home is the broader, and another's is the tenderer; but
America is home to them all.
So into each loyal soul there shines a ray from the divine Sun and Soul
of the universe. Each, according to his individual capacity, receives of
the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
To some minds the beauty of nature brings a deep and inspiring sense of
divinity. As one who has this sensibility looks on the hills and woods
flushing in the tender radiance of autumn, there comes to him perhaps no
articulate and conscious thought. He may not name the name of God, or
think it. But the soul is uplifted. There flows in upon it some high
serenity, some mysterious sense of ineffable good. If from such a scene
one returns to life's activities in braver, truer, and gentler mood,
there has been to him a divine revelation.
Some men are of a metaphysical turn of mind, and not only their thoughts
but all their emotional experience, all that directs their purpose and
animates their feeling, is cast in the mould of highly abstract ideas.
They express themselves in phrases which to most people seem cold or
meaningless,--an empty substitute for the warmth of religious life. But
to the thinker himself these phrases stand for profound realities. It
may be that words which have to other ears the dryness of a mathematical
formula are to him the expression of moral purpose and sacred trust.
Such an one may say: "I do not recognize a personal God, I do not know
that I shall have any personal immortality; but I believe in the moral
order of the universe and seek to conform to it. I fearlessly trust my
destiny here and hereafter." Perhaps on most of his hearers the words
fall coldly; but if they see that the speaker's life bears fruit of
goodness and heroism and service, they may be sure that, though in a
language strange to them, God has spoken to his soul.
There are a great many people, and some of the very best of people, who
never get any vivid or distinct apprehension of realities above the
sphere of their personal activity. Often they conform to the usages and
the language of a religious faith in which they have been educated, and,
very likely, feel some self-reproach that they know so little of the
spiritual experiences which others speak of. There are men, too, who
frankly say, "I don't know much about God; I can't get hold of what folks
call religion; but I try to do my work honestly, and I want to help other
people just as much as I can." Some of the most genuine religion in the
world exists in people who are almost unconscious that they have any
religion. The simple desire to do right, and the constant readiness to
"lend a hand,"--that is the revelation which such souls receive.
Another very large class--a class which once included most of the
distinctively religious world--crave and find the warmth of a personal
relation with Christ as the only satisfying thing. It is one of the
great and wonderful facts of human history, this personal devotion of
unnumbered souls throughout the ages to Jesus. In its intensest form it
is affection to a living personality. Any attempt to explain it as an
appreciation of beneficent influences of which Jesus was the historical
originator, or as the reproduction of a temper and purpose resembling
that which was in Jesus, fails to satisfy those in whom love to Christ is
the ruling sentiment. It is a person, and a living person, that they
love. One may decline to accept the theories which are wont to accompany
the sentiment; one may not believe that Jesus was God, nor that personal
love for him can be required as an essential part of religion; and, at
the same time, one may believe that when a noble soul passes from earth,
it rises into yet nobler existence, and may be truly apprehended and
profoundly loved by those who are here. Certainly we see this: that to
many men and women the strongest and holiest sentiment of life is
affection for a personal embodiment of goodness and love, who once walked
in Galilee and Jerusalem, existing now in the invisible realm,
sympathizing with all human aspiration, pitiful to all human weakness and
sorrow, inspiring to all effort and hope and trust. That sentiment is
surely a blessed revelation to those in whom it exists,--the warm and
living symbol of an eternal reality.
To many, the disclosure of God is made in some way especially personal to
themselves. Very often some human friend is the best manifestation and
assurance of divinity. Our faith leans on the faith of the best and most
loving person we have known. Sometimes the heart's natural language is
"My father's God," "my mother's God." With some, the life beyond death
first becomes real to consciousness when the heart's treasure has been
taken there. Sometimes, in looking upon one's own life, one becomes
deeply conscious of the higher guidance that has led it. There are hours
in which past sorrows shine out as heavenly messengers of good. There
dawns upon us a sense of the blessedness that life has held; all its
highest experiences become instinct with the suggestion of a celestial
meaning that we as yet but half apprehend. We escape for the moment from
the thralldom of self; personal happiness merges in something higher; we
are glad and still in the sense of a divine Will working in us and in all
things. In such hours the soul says, "_My_ God."
There is infinite variety of personal experience; "so many kinds of
voices in the world, and none of them without signification." One man
has been deep in drunkenness and debauchery, he has grown reckless and
hopeless; but through some friendly voice there reaches him an impulse to
a new and successful effort; there comes in upon him the sense of a
divine love; a mighty forgiving and restoring force seems to seize him
and draw him back to life. In his religion thereafter there may be the
glowing emotion of one who has been forgiven much and loves much.
Another man walks always in steady allegiance to conscience and right,
and never has any rapturous emotions; is not he, too, the child of God?
We dislike the prodigal's elder brother for his jealousy; but his
father's word to him, despite that touch of unworthiness, was: "Son, thou
art ever with me, and all that I have is thine."
One whose life flows with smooth current may find the significance of
religion in duty rather than in trust. To such a one God may appear as
an ideal, inspiring conduct, but not as a power, controlling events. But
upon him, it may be, there breaks some great emergency of life and death;
the heart cries out like a child waking frightened in the night, and
there answers it, from some depth far below its fear, a voice that says
"Peace!" In that hour the soul finds its father. Thereafter passing
doubts and fears can but ruffle the surface for a moment.
In our northern winter, how perfectly the trees blend with the scene
about them! They seem wholly a part of winter's grand but lifeless
world, and with what beauty do they crown that world,--the columnar
trunks, the mighty grip of the roots upon the firm earth, the arching
sweep of stalwart boughs, the delicate tracery against the sky! They
answer to the season's mood, bending in patient grace beneath a load of
snow, casing themselves in jewels, or springing up again in slender
strength; silent, except when the deep voice of the wind speaks through
them. Their shadows soften the sunlight glittering on the snow, or weave
a black fretwork when the cold moon shines. Yet vital in their hearts
the trees hold summer's secret. A little while, and they will be clothed
in the leafy glory of June. The robin and catbird and oriole will sing
hidden among their branches. Of that summer season the trees will be the
delight and crown, that now stand like true children of winter. They
stand now so strong and true because of that hidden life within them
which summer will fully disclose. It is because it is alive that the
trunk bends to the storm but does not break, and the twigs hold up their
load of snow. So, there are lives that so fit themselves to this world
in which they stand that they become its finest part. Their sympathy
finds out the secret needs and possibilities of those about them. Their
insight discerns the work which society most needs, and their fidelity
accomplishes that part of the work which falls to them. Their natures
stand open to all the glad influences of earth; their hearts rejoice with
them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. They make full proof
of those experiences in which fortitude and silent endurance are the only
resource. Sometimes they are happy, and sometimes they are sad; but
always other people are happier because of them. They are the children
of a better country. For them the soul's full summer waits. Knowing
them, we do indeed know something of God and the eternal life.
There is freedom to be achieved from the pettiness of our lives. They
never, perhaps, look so pitiful as when they seem made up altogether of
little, necessary details. Our planting and reaping, building and
buying, all the half-mechanical operations that absorb our thought and
time, seem sometimes little better than the bustle of a colony of ants.
When we look down upon it all from the height of some quiet, meditative
hour, are we not at times oppressed with a sense of its triviality and
worthlessness? Trivial and worthless it is, except as amidst it all we
are working out something higher. But to a man whose heart is set on
noble ends; one whose great aim is, not to get his bread and butter, but
to be a man; one who wants, not just to make a profit out of his
neighbors, but to serve them and help them, these details are no more
trivial or degrading than the rough dress and homely tools of a sculptor
are unworthy of the marble beauty that is growing under his hands. The
high purpose consecrates and transfigures all, the want of purpose
degrades all. I have stood in Switzerland upon the Gorner Grat, looking
upon the grandest scene in Europe. On every side a circle of towering
heights look down; against the sky rise dazzling snowy summits,
celestially pure, celestially tender; the Matterhorn frowns in awful
majesty; vast ice-rivers sweep down toward the valley in solemn, silent
march. If there be upon earth a spot that of itself has power to hush
the soul with noblest emotion, it should be that. Yet there I have seen
a company of travelers spend their half-hour in senseless gabble and
banter and the laughter of fools. Amid the squalid surroundings of a New
York tenement-house, I have seen a poor Irish woman living with such
fortitude and faith and generosity that it was a comfort and inspiration
to meet her. That brave soul ennobled its mean surroundings with a glory
which not the Alps and the sky could flash in upon a heart made blind and
dull by ignoble thoughts.
If there dwells in us the spirit of life we shall be freed from the
bondage of doubt. On how many earnest and aspiring lives does doubt
throw its chill shadow! The world is crossing the flood that divides the
old form of faith from the new. The rising water strikes cold to many a
heart. Here and there the waves sweep men off from all moral footing. I
know not that for the resolute and thoughtful there is any escape from
some suffering in the transition. Could we be always sure that it is
only a transition,--could we know always that a better country lies
waiting us,--all might be easily borne. The suffering we may not
decline; but safety, utter safety, we may keep through all. _Life_ is
always possible to us. Fidelity, purity, self-sacrifice,--these may
always be ours. Are we baffled in our search for a divine plan in the
universe? Let us look nearer home; can we not find the clew to a divine
plan in our own lives? Yes, there need never fail to us an immediate
token of divinity. There is always, at the lowest, a duty to be done.
There is always, at the very lowest, a burden to be bravely borne. There
is always some one to be helped. Do we say, But this does not comfort
me, does not reassure me? Then let it guide me! It is not essential
that I should be always in the sunshine. It is only essential that in
sunshine or in darkness my steering should be true. And I am never
without a compass while I see that there is for me a higher and a lower,
a right and a wrong, to choose between.
Does any sense of bondage weigh you down? Disappointment, it may
be,--failure, life's fair promise blighted. It may be the bitter slavery
of evil habit. It may be a dull and apathetic way of life, stirred with
a vague yearning toward higher possibilities. It may be the darkness of
a lost faith. It may be a bereavement that has emptied life. Whatever
it be, the angel of deliverance stands beside you. He is perhaps in very
humble garb, unsuspected of you. Some lowly duty awaits you. Some
saddened life, unnoticed by your side, asks you to cheer it. Whatever
opportunity of duty or of service lies in the path before you is God's
own messenger. Meet it like the messenger of a king! So meet every
duty, every opportunity. Find them, make them, for yourself. Live no
longer in solitude but in brotherhood. So shall the very spirit of God
dwell in you; so in his service shall you find perfect freedom.
The end of February is near, and not a hint or whisper of spring does
Nature give us yet. We are wont to have earlier than this a few days at
least that seem to start the sap in the trees and the blood in the veins,
when the first bluebird is heard, and we get one swift, delicious glimpse
of the good time coming. But this year the cold only takes a sharper
clutch. At its average, our northern winter has a fierce and almost
merciless persistence. Those first days of spring are hardly more than
the taste of freedom with which the cat tantalizes the mouse. It is this
lingering close of winter that is hard to bear. The supplies begin to
give out. The wood-pile that stood so high when the first snow came is
getting lowered to very near the ground. The poor man's little hoard,
that was to bridge him over till the season of good work, is perilously
shrunken. Vitality, too, begins to run low. The body pines for the
out-door life from which it has too long been shut off. Winter is a
hard-fisted churl who does n't give just measure. He drives off the
mellow and jolly Autumn before its mid-month October is fairly gone. He
bullies Spring so that the poor, gentle-hearted thing has to get almost
under the wing of Summer before she dares take possession of the remnant
of her own. The great robber gets almost half the year. The very bears,
curled up for their long nap, must in these days wake sometimes with an
uneasy shiver and wonder whether their stock of fat will hold out.
This last and worst onset of winter may stand for those experiences that
come as the sharpest test of the stuff that is in men. The pressure of
adversity goes on and on, until we say it has reached the last point of
endurance, and then another turn is given to the screw! For three long
days the battle has raged around the heights of Gettysburg, and each side
seems to have done its utmost, when the word is given for Pickett's
division in solid column to throw itself straight against Cemetery Hill,
that becomes a volcano to meet it. Those are the times that mark men for
the rest of their lives as heroes. Yet there are finer heroisms than
this. The very splendor of such an hour, with a nation's fate at stake
and the world looking on, is enough to find out and kindle any spark of
manhood in a man. With no such inspiration as that, there are in every
community men and women who are battling with poverty and adversity and
all kinds of trouble with a finer courage than that of the battlefield.
They cover an anxious heart with a cheerful face, for the sake of husband
or wife or children who are watching the face. No winter is long enough,
no lifetime is long enough, to tire out their fortitude and patience and
love. There are resources in human nature that never are known until
things are at their hardest.
So at winter's worst--come it in one form or another--man summons up his
courage, and though the winter be longer and sharper than he had
thought--though poverty pinches him or trouble weighs upon him--he sets
himself stoutly to bear it. Alone and unhelped he seems, perhaps,--the
march of the seasons and the vast order of the universe taking no account
of him; yet manfully he will face whatever comes. Whatever comes? It is
the summer that is coming! As certain as to-day's snow and cold, the
season of all beauty and warmth and delight is on its way! The
apple-blossoms, the wild-flowers, the budding of every twig, the
greenness of the pastures, the rejoicing life of animals and birds and
insects, the sweet airs of May, the sunshine of June,--these, and all
varied loveliness beyond imagination's reach or heart's desire, lie just
before us. So for every soul that patiently endures an unimagined summer
waits. Our patient endurance seems to us now a great matter, and indeed
if we have it not we are little worth; but when the more genial season
comes--when there fully reveals itself to us that high meaning of our
lives and that divine destiny of which now we catch but a glimpse--we
shall say, not "How well we endured the winter," but "How glorious is
God's summer!"
Take the case of a man who, having engaged in the active business of
life, feeling himself amply capable of it and longing for it, finds
himself by force of circumstances kept out of work. Perhaps he has his
living to earn, perhaps he has a wife and children to support, and he can
get nothing to do. Well, that is about as hard a place as a man can be
called to stand in. Idleness in itself is hard. It is a burden even to
those who have wealth and all the luxuries and amusements that can be
devised to while away their leisure. It is the very nature of a man who
is good for anything to _do_. Idleness is as unnatural and trying to the
mind as sickness is to the body. But to see those you love in need, to
see them threatened with suffering, to know that you could amply provide
for them if you had a chance, and not to find a chance,--what is so hard
as that?
It is so hard, my friend, that, if you can bear it and not be conquered
by it, you are a hero. If under that load you can keep your patience and
your temper and your courage, you have won a victory such as makes life
worth living. Just as in battle it is the post of danger that is most
honorable, so always the hard place is the place of honor. "But," you
say perhaps, "I don't care about being a hero; I want to see my wife and
children taken care of." That is the best of all reasons for keeping up
heart. When a good wife sees her husband unfortunate and out of work,
what is it that she most dreads? Not that they will starve,--starvation
seldom happens in this country. Not that they will be poor, though of
that she may be somewhat afraid. Her greatest fear is lest her husband
should get discouraged and down-hearted; should take to drink, perhaps;
at any rate, should become so despondent and embittered that the light
shall go out of their lives and their children's. Now it is his business
not to let that happen. It is his part to keep up for her sake a
resolute heart and a cheerful face. And if she is a true woman, how
gladly will she do the same for him! Out of just such circumstances
there come two opposite results, according as people meet them. There
comes failure of effort and resolution, then despondency, then
recklessness, drunkenness perhaps, and at last ruin, the break-up of
character, the destruction of the children's prospects, or sometimes
suicide. When a man, under pressure of such trouble, really gives up,
even for an hour, the effort to be brave and make the best of things, he
takes a step on a road at the end of which is suicide. _That_ is the
consummate act of cowardice; that is the last logical result of refusing
to face and conquer our troubles. Heaven have mercy on the man who seeks
in death a refuge, and so multiplies the suffering of those he leaves
behind! And at the point where begins the wretched road of despondency,
which if followed out leads to this or some other ruin, there branches
another road--manly endurance of the worst, courage which is strong
because it is loving,--a road which leads to heights beyond our sight.
To bear trouble together, and for each other's sake to rise above
it,--what knits hearts together like that?