VICTORY OUT OF RUIN
The world has always been a hard place for minorities. Majorities are
capable of crimes which, as individuals, they would shrink from in
horror. And no crimes that stain the pages of history can equal in
ghastly cruelty those which have been perpetrated under the influence
of religious passions. The Founder of Christianity was crucified at
the frenzied call of those who were the most devout and religious of
their day. The Pharisees prayed nine hours a day! Their cry,
'Crucify! Crucify!' still rings in the ear.
I
Human nature has not changed very much in these nineteen centuries.
And the majority of mankind are still pretty much as they were. There
is not much good in getting suffused with sentiment over a minority of
one crucified so long ago. It is more important to realise that the
grim tragedy is for ever and for ever being repeated. It is a grim
thought to think that the very passions of self-righteousness and
self-interest which crucified the Galilean are now operating in His
name. In a little village in the Hebrides well known to me, four
Presbyterian churches celebrate the Communion in August. Here they
are--the Parish Church; the United Free Church; the Free Church; the
Free Presbyterian Church! If you attended a service in any of these
you would not know any difference between them. On all vital matters
they are at one. But there they are in the very name of Christ
negating His purpose and breaking His law. For His purpose is to unite
men together; bring them into the fellowship and unity of love. And
they break up that small community into four fragments--and they do it
from the highest motives and under the sanctions of the name of the
Highest. They act exactly as the Pharisees acted nineteen centuries
ago. They too were moved by the highest motives; they too had a
passion for the Sabbath. The Christians to-day, like the Pharisee of
old, make the gospel vain by their traditions. If He came Himself and
said to them, 'You are wrong: my law is that ye love one another: the
sign of my faithful followers is the love their lives evince,' ... He
wouldn't be listened to. They would not cry 'Crucify.' ... No! They
would only give Him a nickname and declare that He had no right
principles! ... But it isn't in remote villages one beholds that. It
can be seen anywhere. Moderators and bishops and dignitaries have met
for a quarter of a century in Edinburgh to knock at the door of heaven
with petitions asking God to unite them! And they will meet
anywhere--in licensed premises even--except in a church; they will do
anything except have the Communion together.... And they go on
praying! To-day the very bigotry that sent the Lord stumbling to
Calvary under a Cross is glorified by the name of Christ. That to-day
is His crucifixion.
II
That, however, is but half a truth. When we take long views we can
realise that there is no day in the year when we have more right to
cherish the spirit of hope than on this day when the world waits for
the Easter joy bells: Rejoice, Rejoice. The message of a day such as
this is that no cause that has in it the seed of righteousness, however
feeble it may be and however overwhelming its opponents, need give way
to despair. There never was a minority so feeble on the face of the
earth as these Galileans whose Master had been crucified. The cause
was lost. They had not even understood what He had tried to teach
them. While He spoke of a kingdom not of this world they could think
of nothing but pitiful thrones such as Herod's! They left Him in a
minority of one--and that minority was crucified. Nobody in all the
wide world knew or understood why He hung there.... He who was to
smash the Gentiles, as the Jew believed, was there crucified by
Gentiles; He who was innocent was stamped for ever with the criminal's
brand--done to death with two thieves. If ever there was an end made
of any cause there was an end made of that personified by the Carpenter
of Nazareth. The majority trampled the minority into extinction.
The body can be crucified and can be sealed up in a tomb, but
majorities are powerless against the spirit. When his disciples asked
Socrates where they would bury him he replied: 'You can bury me
anywhere if you can catch me!' The soul can never be caught; can never
be sealed up in a tomb. The wind bloweth where it listeth; and no
walls, however high, can imprison it; no tomb hold it. Out of the dust
the new life arose--the life of the spirit. And suddenly men realised
that a kingdom not of this world--an empire without legions--was not
only thinkable and possible, but was actually established. So has it
always been since: the perishing of the body has been but the
triumphing of the spirit.
III
One of the miracles of history is the way in which that crucified ideal
arose and conquered; in which peasants and fishermen went forth to sow
the seed of an invisible kingdom beneath the feet of militarists and
tyrants, who though they rooted it up could never destroy it, until at
last the minority was transformed into a majority. And that same
miracle is for ever being repeated. What happened then happens now.
And there are two reasons for that. The first is that man is much
nobler than he is himself aware of. Beneath the subliminal
consciousness there are untold riches--golden ore waiting to be mined.
Under the influence of the herd-instinct and of crowd-psychology a man
can on Friday yell, Crucify! Crucify! but on Saturday he may enter the
valley of repentance and be made anew. Memory awakes in him when he is
alone. He recalls the face and the words of the Crucified; doubts
arise as to whether it was right--that cry of Crucify. No malefactor
could have borne himself like that.... Long-forgotten feelings are let
loose. Truly that Man had a regal spirit. However much a man may
sink, he never sinks below the capacity of feeling the contagion of a
triumphant spirit. Where is the man who cannot thrill as he hears
Livingstone say, 'I'll go anywhere, provided it is forward'? It is in
that hidden depth the hope of humanity lies. The cause that seems lost
rallies to its side the multitudes that no sooner do the wrong than
they are smitten with shame therefor and repent thereof. From the
ranks of its enemies the cause of righteousness ever recruits its most
valiant fighters. The Sauls are transformed into Pauls, and powerless
minorities into triumphing majorities.
Not only are the laws of the spirit on the side of the righteous
minority, but also the laws of the universe. The cause of reform
cannot ultimately be defeated because the unchanging laws of nature are
arrayed against evil. The great ally of every righteous minority is
death. That was how Christianity conquered at the first. The
Christians lived righteous lives, and by the very laws of life outlived
the Pagans. So is it now. The life of self-indulgence and
self-interest has no vitality to resist. Death removes it. The ranks
of the devotees of pleasure are being swiftly depleted. Death is the
great ally of righteousness. The multitude, who wanted to turn back to
Egypt, 'died by the plague before the Lord' in the wilderness. Some
virulent influenza came--and they hadn't the stamina to resist! ...
That's how majorities vanish and room is made for the vigorous and
healthy minority to possess the land.
IV
The Calvaries of Christ are to-day everywhere. Wherever a child
hungers or perishes, wherever men and women decay and die, there He,
who identifies Himself with men, is again crucified. Where little
babies die, 200 out of every thousand; where in proportion to the
number of licensed premises is the death-rate among the babes--there He
is crucified. Here, in this capital city, an hour in the evening has
been added to the hours on which the monopolists in alcohol prey on the
people, that more homes may be ruined and more children perish. It
seems utterly hopeless. What is the use of trying to arouse people so
dead to the decencies of life as this? But, to-morrow, the city will
begin to be ashamed. The Church will begin to rouse itself. When Lord
Shaftesbury was toiling to free 35,000 children from five to thirteen
years in Lancashire alone from the Moloch of the factory he wrote--'The
sinners are with me and the saints against me.' That is indeed weird:
how often has the Church looked on, indifferent, while wrong triumphed.
There is nothing more pathetic than to see the Church mustering up
courage to condemn what the world has already judged and set aside! ...
But to-day the message that comes across all the centuries to the heart
of all minorities struggling for the right is this--'Be of good cheer:
victory is on the way: though it tarry, wait for it!' The darkness of
Calvary is but the prelude to the triumph of Easter morning.
STAND UP, YE DEAD
3rd Edition, 3s. 6d. net.
'It is a book that shakes the heart.... We know no man who has seen
into the heart and verity of things more clearly, "Awake thou that
sleepest...." In the hands of a master in Israel the same thrilling,
disturbing cry will wake men from their apathy and complacency.'--_The
British Weekly_.
'One of our prophetic voices is Norman Maclean.... Some people do not
know how dead they are, and others do not know how much life there is
in the apparently dead. Let both sorts read this book and awake.... A
terrible chapter is called "The Slum in the Man."'--_Public Opinion_.
'Unless you have the heart of a Kaiser it must thrill you through and
through.'--_From Defeat or Victory_, by ABTHUR MEE and J. STUART HOLDEN.
'There are few writers in whom sympathetic insight and uncompromising
moral judgment, mystic intuition and prophetic fire, are so perfectly
blended.'--_The Christian_.
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