ADDRESSES
BY
THE RIGHT REVEREND
PHILLIPS BROOKS
BISHOP OF MASSACHUSETTS
PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS
1895
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. THE BEAUTY OF A LIFE OF SERVICE 9
II. THOUGHT AND ACTION 34
III. THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MAN 63
IV. TRUE LIBERTY 88
V. THE CHRIST IN WHOM CHRISTIANS BELIEVE 110
VI. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 140
I. THE BEAUTY OF A LIFE OF SERVICE.
I should like to read to you again the words of Jesus from the 8th
chapter of the Gospel of St. John:--
"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, if ye
continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered
him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man;
how sayest Thou, ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the
servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house forever,
but the Son abideth ever. If the Son, therefore, shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed."
I want to speak to you to-day about the purpose and the result of the
freedom which Christ gives to His disciples and the freedom into which
man enters when he fulfils his life. The purpose and result of freedom
is service. It sounds to us at first like a contradiction, like a
paradox. Great truths very often present themselves to us in the first
place as paradoxes, and it is only when we come to combine the two
different terms of which they are composed and see how it is only by
their meeting that the truth does reveal itself to us, that the truth
does become known. It is by this same truth that God frees our souls,
not from service, not from duty, but into service and into duty, and he
who makes mistakes the purpose of his freedom mistakes the character of
his freedom. He who thinks that he is being released from the work, and
not set free in order that he may accomplish that work, mistakes the
Christ from whom the freedom comes, mistakes the condition into which
his soul is invited to enter. For if I was right in saying what I said
the other day, that the freedom of a man simply consists in the larger
opportunity to be and to do all that God makes him in His creation
capable of being and doing, then certainly if man has been capable of
service it is only by the entrance into service, by the acceptance of
that life of service for which God has given man the capacity, that he
enters into the fulness of his freedom and becomes the liberated child
of God. You remember what I said with regard to the manifestations of
freedom and the figures and the illustrations, perhaps some of them
which we used, of the way in which the bit of iron, taken out of its
uselessness, its helplessness, and set in the midst of the great
machine, thereby recognizes the purpose of its existence, and does the
work for which it was appointed, for it immediately becomes the servant
of the machine into which it was placed. Every part of its impulse flows
through all of its substance, and it does the thing which it was made to
do. When the ice has melted upon the plain it is only when it finds its
way into the river and flows forth freely to do the work which the live
water has to do that it really attains to its freedom. Only then is it
really liberated from the bondage in which it was held while it was
fastened in the chains of winter. The same freed ice waits until it so
finds its freedom, and when man is set free simply into the enjoyment of
his own life, simply into the realization of his own existence, he has
not attained the purposes of his freedom, he has not come to the
purposes of his life.
It is one of the signs to me of how human words are constantly becoming
perverted that it surprises us when we think of freedom as a condition
in which a man is called upon to do, and is enabled to do, the duty that
God has laid upon him. Duty has become to us such a hard word, service
has become to us a word so full of the spirit of bondage, that it
surprises us at the first moment when we are called upon to realize that
it is in itself a word of freedom. And yet we constantly are lowering
the whole thought of our being, we are bringing down the greatness and
richness of that with which we have to deal, until we recognize that God
does not call us to our fullest life simply for ourselves. The spirit of
selfishness is continually creeping in. I think it may almost be said
that there has been no selfishness in the history of man like that which
has exhibited itself in man's religious life, showing itself in the way
in which man has seized upon spiritual privileges and rejoiced in the
good things that are to come to him in the hereafter, because he had
made himself the servant of God. The whole subject of selfishness, and
the way in which it loses itself and finds itself again, is a very
interesting one, and I wish that we had time to dwell upon it. It comes
into a sort of general law which we are recognizing everywhere--the way
in which a man very often, in his pursuit of the higher form of a
condition in which he has been living, seems to lose that condition for
a little while and only to reach it a little farther on. He seems to be
abandoned by that power only that he may meet it by and by and enter
more deeply into its heart and come more completely into its service. So
it is, I think, with the self-devotion, consecration, and
self-forgetfulness in which men realize their life. Very often in the
lower stages of man's life he forgets himself, with a slightly
emphasized individual existence, not thinking very much of the purpose
of his life, till he easily forgets himself among the things that are
around him and forgets himself simply because there is so little of
himself for him to forget; but do not you know perfectly well how very
often when a man's life becomes intensified and earnest, when he becomes
completely possessed with some great passion and desire, it seems for
the time to intensify his selfishness? It does intensify his
selfishness. He is thinking so much in regard to himself that the
thought of other persons and their interests is shut out of his life.
And so very often when a man has set before him the great passion of the
divine life, when he is called by God to live the life of God, and to
enter into the rewards of God, very often there seems to close around
his life a certain bondage of selfishness, and he who gave himself
freely to his fellow-men before now seems, by the very intensity,
eagerness, and earnestness with which his mind is set upon the prize of
the new life which is presented to him--it seems as if everything became
concentrated upon himself, the saving of his soul, the winning of his
salvation. That seat in heaven seems to burn so before his eyes that he
cannot be satisfied for a moment with any thought that draws him away
from it, and he presses forward that he may be saved. But by and by, as
he enters more deeply into that life, the self-forgetfulness comes to
him again and as a diviner thing. By and by, as the man walks up the
mountain, he seems to pass out of the cloud which hangs about the lower
slopes of the mountain, until at last he stands upon the pinnacle at the
top, and there is in the perfect light. Is it not exactly like the
mountain at whose foot there seems to be the open sunshine where men see
everything, and on whose summit there is the sunshine, but on whose
sides, and half way up, there seems to linger a long cloud, in which man
has to struggle until he comes to the full result of his life? So it is
with self-consecration, with service. You easily do it in some small
ways in the lower life. Life becomes intensified and earnest with a
serious purpose, and it seems as if it gathered itself together into
selfishness. Only then it opens by and by into the largest and noblest
works of men, in which they most manifest the richness of their human
nature and appropriate the strength of God. Those are great and
unselfish acts. We know it at once if we turn to Him who represents the
fulness of the nature of our humanity.
When I turn to Jesus and think of Him as the manifestation of His own
Christianity--and if men would only look at the life of Jesus to see
what Christianity is, and not at the life of the poor representatives of
Jesus whom they see around them, there would be so much more clearness,
they would be rid of so many difficulties and doubts. When I look at the
life of Jesus I see that the purpose of consecration, of emancipation,
is service of His fellow-men. I cannot think for a moment of Jesus as
doing that which so many religious people think they are doing when they
serve Christ, when they give their lives to Him. I cannot think of Him
as simply saving His own soul, living His own life, and completing His
own nature in the sight of God. It is a life of service from beginning
to end. He gives himself to man because He is absolutely the Child of
God, and He sets up service, and nothing but service, to be the ultimate
purpose, the one great desire, on which the souls of His followers
should be set, as His own soul is set, upon it continually.
What is it that Christ has left to be His symbol in the world, that we
put upon our churches, what we wear upon our hearts, that stands forth
so perpetually us the symbol of Christ's life? Is it a throne from which
a ruler utters his decrees? Is it a mountain top upon which some rapt
seer sits, communing with himself and with the voices around him, and
gathering great truth into his soul and delighting in it? No, not the
throne and not the mountain top. It is the cross. Oh, my brethren, that
the cross should be the great symbol of our highest measure, that that
which stands for consecration, that that which stands for the divine
statement that a man does not live for himself and that a man loses
himself when he does live for himself--that that should be the symbol of
our religion and the great sign and token of our faith? What sort of
Christians are we that go about asking for the things of this life
first, thinking that it shall make us prosperous to be Christians, and
then a little higher asking for the things that pertain to the eternal
prosperity, when the Great Master, who leaves us the great law, in whom
our Christian life is spiritually set forth, has as His great symbol the
cross, the cross, the sign of consecration and obedience? It is not
simply suffering too. Christ does not stand primarily for suffering.
Suffering is an accident. It does not matter whether you and I suffer.
"Not enjoyment and not sorrow" is our life, not sorrow any more than
enjoyment, but obedience and duty. If duty brings sorrow, let it bring
sorrow. It did bring sorrow to the Christ, because it was impossible for
a man to serve the absolute righteousness in this world and not to
sorrow. If it had brought joy, and glory, and triumph, if it had been
greeted at its entrance and applauded on the way, He would have been as
truly the consecrated soul that He was in the days when, over a road
that was marked with the blood of His footprints, He found His way up at
last to the torturing cross. It is not suffering; it is obedience. It is
not pain; it is consecration of life. It is the joy of service that
makes the life of Christ, and for us to serve Him, serving fellow-man
and God--as he served fellow-man and God--whether it bring pain or joy,
if we can only get out of our souls the thought that it matters not if
we are happy or sorrowful, if only we are dutiful and faithful, and
brave and strong, then we should be in the atmosphere, we should be in
the great company of the Christ.
It surprises me very often when I hear good Christian people talk about
Christ's entrance into this world, Christ's coming to save this world.
They say it was so marvellous that Jesus should be willing to come down
from His throne in heaven and undertake all the strange sorrow and
distress that belonged to Him when He came to save the world from its
sins. Wonderful? There was no wonder in it; no wonder if we enter up
into the region where Jesus lives and think of life as He must have
thought of life. It is the same wonder that people feel about the
miracles of Jesus. Is it a wonder that when a divine life is among men,
nature should have a response to make to Him, and He should do things
that you and I, in our little humanity, find it impossible to do? No,
indeed, there is no wonder that God loved the world. There is no wonder
that Christ, the Son of God, at any sacrifice undertook to save the
world. The wonder would have been if God, sitting in His heaven, the
wonder would have been if Jesus, ready to come here to the earth and
seeing how it was possible to save man from sin by suffering, had not
suffered. Do you wonder at the mother, when she gives her life without a
hesitation or a cry, when she gives her life with joy, with
thankfulness, for her child, counting it her privilege? Do you wonder at
the patriot, the hero, when he rushes into the battle to do the good
deed which it is possible for him to do? No; read your own nature deeper
and you will understand your Christ. It is no wonder that He should have
died upon the cross; the wonder would have been if, with the inestimable
privilege of saving man, He had shrunk from that cross and turned away.
It sets before us that it is not the glories of suffering, it is not the
necessity of suffering, it is simply the beauty of obedience and the
fulfilment of a man's life in doing his duty and rendering the service
which it is possible for him to render to his fellow-man.
I said that a man when he did that left behind him all the thought of
the life which he was willing to live within himself, even all the
highest thought. It is not your business and mine to study whether we
shall get to heaven, even to study whether we shall be good men; it is
our business to study how we shall come into the midst of the purposes
of God and have the unspeakable privilege in these few years of doing
something of His work. And yet so is our life all one, so is the kingdom
of God which surrounds us and infolds us one bright and blessed unity,
that when a man has devoted himself to the service of God and his
fellow-man, immediately he is thrown back upon his own nature, and he
sees now--it is the right place for him to see--that he must be the
brave, strong, faithful man, because it is impossible for him to do his
duty and to render his service, except it is rendered out of a heart
that is full of faithfulness, that is brave and true. There is one word
of Jesus that always comes back to me as about the noblest thing that
human lips have ever said upon our earth, and the most comprehensive
thing, that seems to sweep into itself all the commonplace experience of
mankind. Do you remember when He was sitting with His disciples, at the
last supper, how He lifted up His voice and prayed, and in the midst of
His prayer there came these wondrous words: "For their sakes I sanctify
myself, that they also might be sanctified"? The whole of human life is
there. Shall a man cultivate himself? No, not primarily. Shall a man
serve the world, strive to increase the kingdom of God in the world?
Yes, indeed, he shall. How shall he do it? By cultivating himself, and
instantly he is thrown back upon his own life. "For their sakes I
sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified." I am my best, not
simply for myself, but for the world. My brethren, is there anything in
all the teachings that man has had from his fellow-man, all that has
come down to him from the lips of God, that is nobler, that is more
far-reaching than that--to be my best not simply for my own sake, but
for the sake of the world into which, setting my best, I shall make that
world more complete, I shall do my little part to renew and to recreate
it in the image of God? That is the law of my existence. And the man
that makes that the law of his existence neither neglects himself nor
his fellow-men, neither becomes the self-absorbed student and cultivator
of his own life upon the one hand, nor does he become, abandoning
himself, simply the wasting benefactor of his brethren upon the other.
You can help your fellow-men: you must help your fellow-men; but the
only way you can help them is by being the noblest and the best man that
it is possible for you to be. I watch the workman build upon the
building which by and by is to soar into the skies, to toss its
pinnacles up to the heaven, and I see him looking up and wondering where
those pinnacles are to be, thinking how high they are to be, measuring
the feet, wondering how they are to be built, and all the time he is
cramming a rotten stone into the building just where he has set to work.
Let him forget the pinnacles, if he will, or hold only the floating
image of them in his imagination for his inspiration; but the thing that
he must do is to put a brave, strong soul, an honest and substantial
life into the building just where he is now at work.
It seems to me that that comes home to us all. Men are questioning now
as they never have questioned before whether Christianity is indeed the
true religion which is to be the salvation of the world. They are
feeling how the world needs salvation, how it needs regeneration, how it
is wrong and bad all through and through, mixed with the good that is in
it everywhere. Everywhere there is the good and the bad, and the great
question that is on men's minds to-day, as I believe it has never been
upon men's minds before, is this: Is this Christian religion, with its
high pretensions, this Christian life that claims so much for itself, is
it competent for the task that it has undertaken to do? Can it meet all
these human problems, and relieve all these human miseries, and fulfil
all these human hopes? It is the old story over again, when John the
Baptist, puzzled in his prison, said to Jesus, "Art thou He that should
come? or look we for another?" It seems to me that the Christian Church
is hearing that cry in its ears to-day: "Art thou He that should come?"
Can you do this which the world unmistakably needs to be done?
Christian men, it is for us to give our bit of answer to that question.
It is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially
embodied, to declare that Christianity, that the Christian faith, the
Christian manhood, can do that for the world which the world needs. You
say, "What can I do?" You can furnish one Christian life. You can
furnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so
determined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian Church
shall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the
world be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor,
perplexed phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what
Christianity is. Yes, Christ can give the world the thing it needs in
unknown ways and methods that we have not yet begun to suspect.
Christianity has not yet been tried. My friends, no man dares to condemn
the Christian faith to-day, because the Christian faith has not been
tried. Not until men get rid of the thought that it is a poor machine,
an expedient for saving them from suffering and pain, not until they get
the grand idea of it as the great power of God present in and through
the lives of men, not until then does Christianity enter upon its true
trial and become ready to show what it can do. Therefore we struggle
against our sin in order that men may be saved around us, and not simply
that our own souls may be saved.
Tell me you have a sin that you mean to commit this evening that is
going to make this night black. What can keep you from committing that
sin? Suppose you look into its consequences. Suppose the wise man tells
you what will be the physical consequences of that sin. You shudder and
you shrink, and, perhaps, you are partially deterred. Suppose you see
the; glory that might come to you, physical, temporal, spiritual, if you
do not commit that sin. The opposite of it shows itself to you--the
blessing and the richness in your life. Again there comes a great power
that shall control your lust and wickedness. Suppose there comes to you
something even deeper than that, no consequence on consequence at all,
but simply an abhorrence for the thing, so that your whole nature
shrinks from it as the nature of God shrinks from a sin that is
polluting and filthy and corrupt and evil. They are all great powers.
Let us thank God for them all. He knows that we are weak enough to need
every power that can possibly be brought to bear upon our feeble lives;
but if, along with all of them, there could come this other power, if
along with them there could come the certainty that if you refrain from
that sin to-night you make the sum of sin that is in the world, and so
the sum of all temptation that is in the world, and so the sum of future
evil that is to spring out of temptation in the world, less, shall there
not be a nobler impulse rise up in your heart, and shall you not say: "I
will not do it; I will be honest, I will be sober, I will be pure, at
least, to-night"? I dare to think that there are men here to whom that
appeal can come, men who, perhaps, will be all dull and deaf if one
speaks to them about their personal salvation; who, if one dares to
picture to them, appealing to their better nature, trusting to their
nobler soul, that there is in them the power to save other men from sin,
and to help the work of God by the control of their own passions and
the fulfilment of their own duty, will be stirred to the higher life.
Men--very often we do not trust them enough--will answer to the higher
appeal that seems to be beyond them when the poor, lower appeal that
comes within the region of their selfishness is cast aside, and they
will have nothing to do with it.
Oh, this marvellous, this awful power that we have over other people's
lives! Oh! the power of the sin that you have done years and years ago!
It is awful to think of it. I think there is hardly anything more
terrible to the human thought than this--the picture of a man who,
having sinned years and years ago in a way that involved other souls in
his sin, and then, having repented of his sin and undertaken another
life, knows certainly that the power, the consequence of that sin is
going on outside of his reach, beyond even his ken and knowledge. He
cannot touch it. You wronged a soul ten years ago. You taught a boy how
to tell his first mercantile lie; you degraded the early standards of
his youth. What has become of that boy to-day? You may have repented. He
has passed put of your sight. He has gone years and years ago. Somewhere
in this great, multitudinous mass of humanity he is sinning and sinning
and reduplicating and extending the sin that you did. You touched the
faith of some believing soul years ago with some miserable sneer of
yours, with some cynical and sceptical disparagement of God and of the
man who is the utterance of God upon the earth. You taught the soul that
was enthusiastic to be full of scepticisms and doubts. You wronged a
woman years ago, and her life has gone out from your life, you cannot
begin to tell where. You have repented of your sin. You have bowed
yourself, it may be, in dust and ashes. You have entered upon a new
life. You are pure to-day. But where is the sceptical soul? Where is the
ruined woman whom you sent forth into the world out of the shadow of
your sin years ago? You cannot touch that life. You cannot reach it. You
do not know where it is. No steps of yours, quickened with all your
earnestness, can pursue it. No contrition of yours can drawback its
consequences. Remorse cannot force the bullet back again into the gun
from which it once has gone forth. It makes life awful to the man who
has ever sinned, who has ever wronged and hurt another life because of
this sin, because no sin ever was done that did not hurt another life. I
know the mercy of our God, that while He has put us into each other's
power to a fearful extent, He never will let any soul absolutely go to
everlasting ruin for another's sin; and so I dare to see the love of God
pursuing that lost soul where you cannot pursue it. But that does not
for one moment lift the shadow from your heart, or cease to make you
tremble when you think of how your sin has outgrown itself and is
running far, far away where you can never follow it.
Thank God the other thing is true as well. Thank God that when a man
does a bit of service, however little it may be, of that too he can
never trace the consequences. Thank God that that which in some better
moment, in some nobler inspiration, you did ten years ago to make your
brother's faith a little more strong, to let your shop boy confirm and
not doubt the confidence in man which he had brought into his business,
to establish the purity of a soul instead of staining it and shaking it,
thank God, in this quick, electric atmosphere in which we live, that,
too, runs forth. Do not say in your terror, "I will do nothing." You
must do something. Only let Christ tell you--let Christ tell you that
there is nothing that a man rests upon in the moment, that he thinks of,
as he looks back upon it when it has sunk into the past, with any
satisfaction, except some service to his fellow-man, some strengthening
and helping of a human soul.
Two men are walking down the street together and talking away. See what
different conditions those two men are in. One of them has his soul
absolutely full of the desire to help his fellow-man. He peers into
those faces as he goes, and sees the divine possibility that is in them,
and he sees the divine nature everywhere. They are talking about the
idlest trifles, about the last bit of local Boston politics. But in
their souls one of those men has consecrated himself, with the new
morning, to the glorious service of God, and the other of them is asking
how he may be a little richer in his miserable wealth when the day
sinks. Oh, we look into the other world and read the great words and
hear it said, Between me and thee, this and that, there is a great gulf
fixed; and we think of something that is to come in the eternal life. Is
there any gulf in eternity, is there any gulf between heaven and hell
that is wider, and deeper, and blacker, that is more impassable than
that gulf which lies between these two men going upon their daily way?
Oh, friends, it is not that God is going to judge us some day. That is
not the awful thing. It is that God knows us now. If I stop an instant
and know that God knows me through all these misconceptions and blunders
of my brethren, that God knows me--that is the awful thing. The future
judgment shall but tell it. It is here, here upon my conscience, now. It
is awful to think how the commonplace things that men can do, the
commonplace thoughts that men can think, the commonplace lives that men
can live, are but in the bosom of the future. The thing that impresses
me more and more is this--that we only need to have extended to the
multitude that which is at this moment present in the few, and the world
really would be saved. There is but the need of the extension into a
multitude of souls of that which a few souls have already attained in
their consecration of themselves to human good, and to the service of
God, and I will not say the millennium would have come, I don't know
much about the millennium, but heaven would have come, the new Jerusalem
would be here. There are men enough in this church this morning, there
are men enough sitting here within the sound of my voice to-day, if they
were inspired by the spirit of God and counted it the great privilege of
their life, to do the work of God--there are men enough here to save
this city, and to make this a glowing city of our Lord, to relieve its
poverty, to lighten its darkness, to lift up the cloud that is upon
hearts, to turn it into a great, I will not say psalm-singing city, but
God-serving, God-abiding city, to touch all the difficult problems of
how society and government ought to be organized then with a power with
which they should yield their difficulty and open gradually. The light
to measure would be clear enough, if only the spirit is there. Give me
five hundred men, nay, give me one hundred men of the spirit that I know
to-day in three men that I well understand, and I will answer for it
that the city shall be saved. And you, my friend, are one of the five
hundred--you are one of the one hundred.
"Oh, but," you say, "is not this slavery over again? You have talked
about freedom, and here I am once more a slave. I had about got free
from the bondage of my fellow-men, and here I am right in the midst of
it again. What has become of my personality, of my independence, if I am
to live thus?" Ay, you have got to learn what every noblest man has
always learned, that no man becomes independent of his fellow-men
excepting in serving his fellow-men. You have got to learn that
Christianity comes to us not simply as a luxury but as a force, and no
man who values Christianity simply as a luxury which he possesses really
gets the Christianity which he tries to value. Only when Christianity is
a force, only when I seek independence of men in serving men, do I cease
to be a slave to their whims. I must dress as they think I ought to
dress; I must walk in the streets as they think I ought to walk; I must
do business just after their fashion; I must accept their standards; but
when Christ has taken possession of me and I am a total man, I am more
or less independent of these men. Shall I care about their little whims
and oddities? Shall I care about how they criticise the outside of my
life? Shall I peer into their faces as I meet them in the street, to see
whether they approve of me or not? And yet am I not their servant? There
is nothing now I will not do to serve them, there is nothing now I will
not do to save them. If the cross comes, I welcome the cross, and look
upon it with joy, if, by my death upon the cross in any way, I may echo
the salvation of my Lord and save them. Independent of them? Surely. And
yet their servant? Perfectly. Was ever man so independent in Jerusalem
as Jesus was? What cared He for the sneer of the Pharisee, for the
learned scorn of the Sadducee, for the taunt of the people and the
little boys that had been taught to jeer at Him as He went down the
street, and yet the very servant of all their life? He says there are
two kinds of men--they who sit upon a throne and eat, and they who
serve. "I am among you as he that serveth." Oh, seek independence.
Insist upon independence. Insist that you will not be the slave of the
poor, petty standards of your fellow-men. But insist upon it only in the
way in which it can be insisted upon, by becoming absolutely the servant
of their needs. So only shall you be independent of their whims. There
is one great figure, and it has taken in all Christian consciousness,
that again and again this work with Christ has been asserted to be the
true service in the army of a great master, of a great captain, who goes
before us to his victory, that it is asserted that in that captain, in
the entrance into his army, every power is set free. Do you remember the
words that a good many of us read or heard yesterday in our churches,
where Jesus was doing one of His miracles, and it is said that a devil
was cast out, the dumb spake? Every power becomes the man's possession,
and he uses it in his freedom, and he fights with it with all his force,
just as soon as the devil is cast out of him.
I have tried to tell you the noblest motive in which you should be a
pure, an upright, a faithful, and a strong man. It is not for the
salvation of your life, it is not for the salvation of yourself. It is
not for the satisfaction of your tastes. It is that you may take your
place in the great army of God and go forward having something to do
with the work that He is doing in the world. You remember the days of
the war, and how ashamed of himself a man felt who never touched with
his finger the great struggle in which the nation was engaged. Oh, to go
through this life and never touch with my finger the vast work that
Christ is doing, and when the cry of triumph arises at the end to stand
there, not having done one little, unknown, unnoticed thing to bring
about that which is the true life of the man and of the world, that is
awful. And I dare to believe that there are young men in this church
this morning who, failing to be touched by every promise of their own
salvation and every threatening of their own damnation, will still lift
themselves up and take upon them the duty of men, and be soldiers of
Jesus Christ, and have a part in the battle, and have a part somewhere
in the victory that is sure to come. Don't be selfish anywhere. Don't be
selfish, most of all, in your religion. Let yourselves free into your
religion, and be utterly unselfish. Claim your freedom in service.
II. THOUGHT AND ACTION.
I want once more to read to you these words from the eighth chapter of
the Gospel of St. John:
"As He spake these words, many believed on Him. Then said Jesus to
those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in My word, then
are ye My disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free. They answered Him, We be Abraham's seed,
and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be
made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant
abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the
Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."
There are two great regions in which the life of every true man resides.
They are the region of action and the region of thought. It is
impossible to separate these two regions from one another and to bid
one man live in one of them alone and the other man live only in the
other of them. It is impossible to say to the business man that he shall
live only in the region of action, it is impossible to say to the
scholar that he shall live only in the region of thought, for thought
and action make one complete and single life. Thought is not simply the
sea upon which the world of action rests, but, like the air which
pervades the whole solid substance of our globe, it permeates and fills
it in every part. It is thought which gives to it its life. It is
thought which makes the manifestation of itself in every different
action of man. I hope we are not so deluded as men have been sometimes,
as some men are to-day, that we shall try to separate these two lives
from one another, and one man say, "Everything depends upon my action,
and I care not what I think," or, as men have said, at least, in other
times, "If I think right, it matters not how I act." But the right
thought and the right action make one complete and single man.
Now we have been speaking, upon these Monday noons, with regard to the
freedom of that highest life which is lived under the inspiration of
Jesus Christ and which we call the Christian life. We have claimed that
it is the highest of all lives because it is the freest of all lives,
that it is the freest of all lives because it is the highest, and it
may be that we have thought that it was true with regard to the active
life in which men live, it may be that we have somehow persuaded
ourselves, that it has seemed to us as if there were evidence that a man
who lived his life in the following of Jesus Christ was a free man in
regard to his activity. But now there comes to us the other thought, and
it is impossible for us to meet together as we have met together again
and again here without asking with regard to the other region of man's
life and how it is with man there, for there are a great many people, I
believe, who think that while the Christian faith offers to man a noble
sphere of action and sets free powers that would otherwise remain
unchanged, yet when we come to the region of thought or belief, there it
is inevitable that man should know himself, when he accepts the faith of
Jesus Christ, it is inevitable that there the man should become less
free than it has been thought that he was before the blessed Saviour
was accepted as the Master and the ruler of his life. Men say to
themselves and to one another, "Yes, I shall be freer to act, I shall be
nobler in my action, but I shall certainly enchain mind and spirit, I
shall certainty bind myself to think, away from the rich freedom of
thought in which I have been inclined to live." We make very much of
free thought in these days. Let us always remember that free thought
means the opportunity to think, and not the opportunity not to think. We
rejoice in the way in which our fathers came to this country and in
their children perpetuated the purpose of their coming, in order that
they might have freedom to worship God. Do we worship God? Simply to
have attained freedom and not to use freedom for its true purpose, not
to live within the world of freedom according to the life which is given
to us there--that is to do dishonor to the freedom, to disown the
purpose for which the freedom has been given to us. I want to speak to
you then, while I may speak to-day, with regard to the freedom of the
Christian thought.
I want to claim, that which I believe with all my soul, that he who
lives in the faith of Jesus Christ lives in the freest action of his
mental powers, and there sees before him and makes himself a part of the
large world into which man shall enter, in which he has perfect liberty
and can exercise his powers as he could never have exercised them
without. It is not very strange to think that men should have sometimes
come to think that the religion of Jesus Christ was a slavery that was
laid upon the mind of man, because very often those who have been the
disciples of that religion, those who have been the preachers and
exponents of that religion, have claimed just exactly that thing. They
have seemed to say to themselves and to one another, to the world to
which they speak, that man does give up the powers of his reason when he
enters into the powers of his faith, when he enters into the great realm
of faith. Led by some sort of influence, led by some heresy with regard
to the capacity of man, or with regard to the dealing of God with man,
or with regard to the purposes of man's life upon the earth, they have
been content to say that man must give up the power of thought in order
that he might enter into the Christian life and attain to all the
purposes of the Christian discipline, they have been content to say that
man must give up the noblest power of his nature in order to enter upon
the highest life. Well might a man hesitate, hesitate whatever the
blessings that were offered to him in the fulness of the Christian
experience, if he were called upon to give up that which made the very
centre and glory of his life, that which linked him most immediately to
the God from whom he sprang. It would be as if in the storm the ship
should cast over its engine in order to save its own life. The ship
might be saved a little while from going down in the depths of despair,
but it never would reach the port to which it had been bound; it never
would accomplish the purpose of the voyage upon which it had set forth.
Let us put absolutely away from, us all such thoughts. Let us come under
the inspiration of Jesus Christ Himself, who says to us, in these words
which we have repeatedly read to one another, that it is the truth that
is to make us free, and that the entrance of the man therefore into that
freedom is the largest freedom, of every region of man's life.
I want to speak to you of the way in which my Master, Jesus Christ,
appeals to the intelligence of man, of the way in which He comes to us
in the noblest part of our nature, and claims us there for our true life
within Himself. I would feel altogether wrong if I let you depart, if I
allowed you to meet here with me week after week and say these words
which I am privileged to speak to you unless I did thus claim that the
Christian life is the largest life of the human intellect, that in it
the noblest and central powers of man shall attain to their true
liberty. It is given for us perhaps to ask ourselves for one moment why
it is that man thinks, is ready to think, that he must give up the very
noblest part of his life, his powers of thinking, in order that he may
enter into Christianity. It seems to me that there are certain reasons
for it which we can see; but how fallacious those reasons are! Is it not
partly because man, when he is called upon to live Jesus' life, when he
is called upon to be a spiritual creature, immediately sees that he is
entering into a new and different region from that in which his reason
has always been exercised. He has been dealing with those things that
belong to this earth, with the different duties and opportunities and
pleasures that present themselves to him every day, and that higher and
loftier region into which he has entered seems to have no capacity to
call forth those powers which he has been using in this lower region.
And then I think again there is upon the souls of men who deal with
Christianity one great conviction which is very deep and strong. It is
that the Christian religion cannot be absolutely that which it presents
itself to human mankind as being, because it is so rich in the blessings
that it offers, because it comes with such a large enjoyment to our
human life, and opens such great opportunities for human living. Is it
not because it seems to us too good to be true that we sometimes turn
away from Christianity, and think that if we enter it at all we must
enter it in the dark, that it cannot possibly appeal to these human
natures and make them understand its truth, and let them take it into
their intelligence that thence it may issue into the soul and become the
guiding power of the life? Sometimes it seems as if Christianity were
so high that it was impossible that man should attain to it, as if it
were something altogether beyond our human powers. Do you want me, a
creature with this human body and this human relationship, with this
body and with these perpetual bindings and connections with my
fellow-men, do you want me to mount up and live among the stars and hold
communion with the God of all? And if you want me to, is there any
possibility of my doing it? Such a life is glorious, but not for me. It
goes beyond any capacity that I possess. Ask yourselves, my friends, if
something like this which I have tried to describe is not very often in
your minds as you hear the magnificent invitations which Christ gives to
the human soul to live its fullest life, to man to be his fullest being.
There are, no doubt, other reasons which present themselves to men, and
of those I do not speak. I will not think that the men who are listening
here to me now, in a base and low way shrink from the evidence of
Christianity and from the life of Christ because they do not want to
enter into that religion because it would make too great demands upon
them in the sacrifices that they would be called upon to make. It is
said sometimes, and I doubt not that it is sometimes true, that men will
not see the power and truth of Christianity because they do not want to
see it. It seems to me that the other is also often true, and it is
that upon which we would much rather dwell. Men sometimes hesitate at
Christianity and tremble, and will not enter into the great region that
is open to them, because they do not want it so intimately. The
critical, the sceptical disposition is very often born just of man's
perception of the glory of the life that is offered to him, and of the
intense desire that is at the bottom of his soul to enter into that
life. Who is the man that criticises the ship most carefully as she lies
at the wharf, that will see what capacity she has for the great voyage
that she has set before her? Is he the man who means to linger
carelessly upon the bank and never sail away, or the man who is obliged,
if she can sail across the ocean, to go with her? Just in proportion to
the depth of interest with which we look upon all Christian truth we
must be deep questioners with regard to the truth of that truth. We must
search into all its evidence. We must try to understand how it commends
itself to all our minds. But first of all we want to know certainly what
Christianity is, if it is able to deal with the thing with which we are
puzzling or never to give an intelligent definition of it.
How is it now? I go to a certain man and ask him, "Why do you not
believe in Christianity?" and he says, "It is incredible. I cannot
believe in it." "What is it that you cannot believe in?" and then he
takes forsooth some little point of Christian doctrine, some speculation
of some Christian teacher, some dogma of some Christian church, and
says, "That is incredible," as if that were Christianity. Over and over
again men are telling that they do not believe in Christianity, when the
real thing that they do not believe in is something that is no essential
part of Christian faith whatsoever. They never have given to themselves
a real definition of what the Christ and the Christianity in which they
are called upon to believe, into which they are invited to enter, really
is. The lecturer goes up and down the land and in the face of mighty
audiences he denounces Christianity. He declares it to be unintelligible
and absurd, to be monstrous and brutal. And when you ask what it is that
he is thus denouncing, what it is that he is thus convicting over and
over again, you find that it is something not simply which makes no part
of Christianity, but which is absolutely hostile to the spirit of
Christianity itself. Many and many a sceptical lecturer is denouncing
that which Christian men would, with all their hearts, denounce; is
declaring that to be untrue which no true Christian thinker really
believes, that which is no real part of the great Christian faith, which
is our glory. Do not think when I speak thus, when I say that there are
things attached to Christianity which men do not believe, that they do
not believe in the great truth of Jesus, without them, which men
denouncing think that they are denouncing the religion which is saving
the world. Do not think that I am simply paring away our great Christian
faith, and making it mean just as little as possible in order that men
may accept it into their lives. I am coming to the heart and soul of it.
I want to know, if my life is all bound up with this religion of Jesus
Christ, I want to know intrinsically what that religion is. I will
scatter a thousand things which in the devout thought of men have
fastened themselves to it. It is but clearing the ship for action, the
making it ready that it may do its work, the binding everything tight
just before the storm comes on, for that is just the moment when nothing
essential to the ship itself must be cast away, when I make sure, if I
can, that every plank and timber, that every iron and brass is in its
true place and ready for the strain that may be put upon it.
But what, then, is the Christian religion? It is the simple following of
the divine person, Jesus Christ, who, entering into our humanity, has
made evident two things--the love of God for that humanity, and the
power of that humanity to answer to the love of God. The one thing that
the eye of the Christian sees and never can lose is that majestic,
simple figure, great in its simplicity, in its innocence, in its purity
and in its unworldliness, that walked once on this earth and that walks
forever through the lives of men, showing Himself to human kind,
manifest in human kind. The power to receive it, the divine life wakened
in every child of man by the divine life manifested in Jesus Christ.
That is the great Christian faith, and the man becomes a Christian in
his belief when he assures himself that that manifestation of the divine
life has been made and is perpetually being made, and he answers to that
appeal of the Christ. He manifests his belief in action when he gives
himself to the education and the guiding of that Christ, that in him
there may be awakened the life of divinity, which is his true human
life. Is it not glorious, this absolute simplicity of the Christian
faith? It is not primarily a truth; it is a person, it is He who walked
in Galilee and Judea, who sat in the houses of mankind, who hung upon
the cross, in order that He might perfectly manifest how God could live
and how man could suffer in the obedience to the life of God, and then
sent forth out of that inspiration and said, "Lo, I am with you always,
doing this very thing, being this very Saviour, even to the end of the
world." That which the Christian man believes to-day as a Christian,
whatever else he may believe in his private speculation, in his personal
opinion, is this: The life of God manifest in Jesus of Nazareth and
thenceforth going out into the world wakening the divine capacity in
every man.