who, before His birth, had two journeys to make, of love and of
obedience, to the mountains and to Bethlehem. He was born in a
stable, and laid in a manger. He was hurried off to Egypt to sojourn
there; then He lived till He was thirty years of age in a poor way,
by a rough trade, in a small house, in a despised town. Then, when
He went out to preach, He had not where to lay His head; He wandered
up and down the country, as a stranger upon earth. He was driven out
into the wilderness, and dwelt among the wild beasts. He endured
heat and cold, hunger and weariness, reproach and calumny. His
food was coarse bread, and fish from the lake, or depended on the
hospitality of strangers. And as He had already left His Father's
greatness on high, and had chosen an earthly home; so again, at
that Father's bidding, He gave up the sole solace given Him in this
world, and denied Himself His mother's presence. He parted with her
who bore Him; He endured to be strange to her; He endured to call
her coldly "woman," who was His own undefiled one, all beautiful,
all gracious, the best creature of His hands, and the sweet nurse of
His infancy. He put her aside, as Levi, His type, merited the sacred
ministry, by saying to His parents and kinsmen, "I know you not."
He exemplified in His own person the severe maxim, which He gave to
His disciples, "He that loveth more than me is not worthy of me."
In all these many ways He sacrificed every wish of His own; that we
might understand, that, if He, the Creator, came into His world, not
for His own pleasure, but to do His Father's will, we too have most
surely some work to do, and have seriously to bethink ourselves what
that work is.
Yes, so it is; realize it, my brethren;--every one who breathes,
high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman,
has a mission, has a work. We are not sent into this world for
nothing; we are not born at random; we are not here, that we may go
to bed at night, and get up in the morning, toil for our bread, eat
and drink, laugh and joke, sin when we have a mind, and reform when
we are tired of sinning, rear a family and die. God sees every one
of us; He creates every soul, He lodges it in the body, one by one,
for a purpose. He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us. He has
an end for each of us; we are all equal in His sight, and we are
placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can
out of them for ourselves, but to labor in them for Him. As Christ
had His work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we
must rejoice in ours also.
St. Paul on one occasion speaks of the world as a scene in a
theater. Consider what is meant by this. You know, actors on a stage
are on an equality with each other really, but for the occasion they
assume a difference of character; some are high, some are low, some
are merry, and some sad. Well, would it not be simple absurdity
in any actor to pride himself on his mock diadem, or his edgeless
sword, instead of attending to his part? What, if he did but gaze at
himself and his dress? what, if he secreted, or turned to his own
use, what was valuable in it? Is it not his business, and nothing
else, to act his part well? Common sense tells us so. Now we are
all but actors in this world; we are one and all equal, we shall be
judged as equals as soon as life is over; yet, equal and similar in
ourselves, each has his special part at present, each has his work,
each has his mission,--not to indulge his passions, not to make
money, not to get a name in the world, not to save himself trouble,
not to follow his bent, not to be selfish and self-willed, but to do
what God puts on him to do.
Look at the poor profligate in the gospel, look at Dives; do you
think he understood that his wealth was to be spent, not on himself,
but for the glory of God?--yet forgetting this, he was lost for
ever and ever. I will tell you what he thought, and how he viewed
things: he was a young man, and had succeeded to a good estate,
and he determined to enjoy himself. It did not strike him that his
wealth had any other use than that of enabling him to take his
pleasure. Lazarus lay at his gate; he might have relieved Lazarus;
that was God's will; but he managed to put conscience aside, and
he persuaded himself he should be a fool, if he did not make the
most of this world, while he had the means. So he resolved to have
his fill of pleasure; and feasting was to his mind a principal part
of it. "He fared sumptuously every day"; everything belonging to
him was in the best style, as men speak; his house, his furniture,
his plate of silver and gold, his attendants, his establishments.
Everything was for enjoyment, and for show, too; to attract the
eyes of the world, and to gain the applause and admiration of his
equals, who were the companions of his sins. These companions were
doubtless such as became a person of such pretensions; they were
fashionable men; a collection of refined, high-bred, haughty men,
eating, not gluttonously, but what was rare and costly; delicate,
exact, fastidious in their taste, from their very habits of
indulgence; not eating for the mere sake of eating, or drinking for
the mere sake of drinking, but making a sort of science of their
sensuality; sensual, carnal, as flesh and blood can be, with eyes,
ears, tongue steeped in impurity, every thought, look, and sense,
witnessing or ministering to the evil one who ruled them; yet, with
exquisite correctness of idea and judgment, laying down rules for
sinning;--heartless and selfish, high, punctilious, and disdainful
in their outward deportment, and shrinking from Lazarus, who lay at
the gate, as an eye-sore, who ought for the sake of decency to be
put out of the way. Dives was one of such, and so he lived his short
span, thinking of nothing but himself, till one day he got into a
fatal quarrel with one of his godless associates, or he caught some
bad illness; and then he lay helpless on his bed of pain, cursing
fortune and his physician that he was no better, and impatient that
he was thus kept from enjoying his youth, trying to fancy himself
mending when he was getting worse, and disgusted at those who would
not throw him some word of comfort in his suspense, and turning more
resolutely from his Creator in proportion to his suffering;--and
then at last his day came, and he died, and (oh! miserable!) "was
buried in hell." And so ended he and his mission.
This was the fate of your pattern and idol, oh, ye, if any of you
be present, young men, who, tho not possest of wealth and rank, yet
affect the fashions of those who have them. You, my brethren, have
not been born splendidly, or nobly; you have not been brought up
in the seats of liberal education; you have no high connections;
you have not learned the manners nor caught the tone of good
society; you have no share of the largeness of mind, the candor, the
romantic sense of honor, the correctness of taste, the consideration
for others, and the gentleness which the world puts forth as its
highest type of excellence; you have not come near the courts of the
mansions of the great; yet you ape the sin of Dives, while you are
strangers to his refinement. You think it the sign of a gentleman
to set yourselves above religion; to criticize the religious and
professors of religion; to look at Catholic and Methodist with
impartial contempt; to gain a smattering of knowledge on a number of
subjects; to dip into a number of frivolous publications, if they
are popular; to have read the latest novel; to have heard the singer
and seen the actor of the day; to be well up with the news; to know
the names and, if so be, the persons of public men, to be able to
bow to them; to walk up and down the street with your heads on high,
and to stare at whatever meets you; and to say and do worse things,
of which these outward extravagances are but the symbol. And this
is what you conceive you have come upon the earth for! The Creator
made you, it seems, oh, my children, for this work and office, to
be a bad imitation of polished ungodliness, to be a piece of tawdry
and faded finery, or a scent which has lost its freshness, and does
not but offend the sense! O! that you could see how absurd and base
are such pretenses in the eyes of any but yourselves! No calling of
life but is honorable; no one is ridiculous who acts suitably to
his calling and estate; no one, who has good sense and humility,
but may, in any state of life, be truly well-bred and refined;
but ostentation, affectation, and ambitious efforts are, in every
station of life, high or low, nothing but vulgarities. Put them
aside, despise them yourselves. Oh, my very dear sons, whom I love,
and whom I would fain serve;--oh, that you could feel that you have
souls! oh, that you would have mercy on your souls! oh, that, before
it is too late, you would betake yourselves to Him who is the source
of all that is truly high and magnificent and beautiful, all that is
bright and pleasant and secure what you ignorantly seek, in Him whom
you so wilfully, so awfully despise!
He, alone, the Son of God, "the brightness of the Eternal Light, and
the spotless mirror of His Majesty," is the source of all good and
all happiness to rich and poor, high and low. If you were ever so
high, you would need Him; if you were ever so low, you could offend
Him. The poor can offend Him; the poor man can neglect his divinely
appointed mission as well as the rich. Do not suppose, my brethren,
that what I have said against the upper or the middle class will
not, if you happen to be poor, also lie against you. Though a man
were as poor as Lazarus, he could be as guilty as Dives. If you
were resolved to degrade yourselves to the brutes of the field,
who have no reason and no conscience, you need not wealth or rank
to enable you to do so. Brutes have no wealth; they have no pride
of life; they have no purple and fine linen, no splendid table, no
retinue of servants, and yet they are brutes. They are brutes by the
law of their nature; they are the poorest among the poor; there is
not a vagrant and outcast who is so poor as they; they differ from
him, not in their possessions, but in their want of a soul, in that
he has a mission and they have not, he can sin and they can not. Oh,
my brethren, it stands to reason, a man may intoxicate himself with
a cheap draft, as well as with a costly one; he may steal another's
money for his appetites, though he does not waste his own upon them;
he may break through the natural and social laws which encircle him,
and profane the sanctity of family duties, tho he be not a child of
nobles, but a peasant or artisan,--nay, and perhaps he does so more
frequently than they. This is not the poor's blessedness, that he
has less temptations to self-indulgence, for he has as many, but
that from his circumstances he receives the penances and corrections
of self-indulgence. Poverty is the mother of many pains and sorrows
in their season, and these are God's messengers to lead the soul
to repentance; but, alas! if the poor man indulges his passions,
thinks little of religion, puts off repentance, refuses to make an
effort, and dies without conversion, it matters nothing that he
was poor in this world, it matters nothing that he was less daring
than the rich, it matters not that he promised himself God's favor,
that he sent for the priest when death came, and received the last
sacraments; Lazarus too, in that case, shall be buried with Dives in
hell, and shall have had his consolation neither in this world nor
in the world to come.
My brethren, the simple question is, whatever a man's rank in life
may be, does he in that rank perform the work which God has given
him to do? Now then, let me turn to others, of a very different
description, and let me hear what they will say, when the question
is asked them. Why, they will parry it thus: "You give us no
alternative," they will say to me, "except that of being sinners or
saints. You put before us our Lord's pattern, and you spread before
us the guilt and ruin of the deliberate transgressor; whereas we
have no intention of going so far one way or the other; we do not
aim at being saints, but we have no desire at all to be sinners. We
neither intend to disobey God's will, nor to give up our own. Surely
there is a middle way, and a safe one, in which God's will and our
will may both be satisfied. We mean to enjoy both this world and the
next. We will guard against mortal sin; we are not obliged to guard
against venial; indeed it would be endless to attempt it. None but
saints do so; it is the work of a life; we need have nothing else
to do. We are not monks, we are in the world, we are in business,
we are parents, we have families; we must live for the day. It is a
consolation to keep from mortal sin; that we do, and it is enough
for salvation. It is a great thing to keep in God's favor; what
indeed can we desire more? We come at due time to the sacraments;
this is our comfort and our stay; did we die, we should die in
grace, and escape the doom of the wicked. But if we once attempted
to go further, where should we stop? how will you draw the line
for us? The line between mortal and venial sin is very distinct;
we understand that; but do you not see that, if we attended to our
venial sins, there would be just as much reason to attend to one as
to another? If we began to repress our anger, why not also repress
vainglory? Why not also guard against niggardliness? Why not also
keep from falsehood, from gossiping, from idling, from excess in
eating? And, after all, without venial sin we never can be, unless
indeed we have the prerogative of the Mother of God, which it would
be almost heresy to ascribe to any one but her. You are not asking
us to be converted; that we understand; we are converted, we were
converted a long time ago. You bid us aim at an indefinite vague
something, which is less than perfection, yet more than obedience,
and which, without resulting in any tangible advantage, debars us
from the pleasures and embarrasses us in the duties of this world."
This is what you will say; but your premises, my brethren, are
better than your reasoning, and your conclusions will not stand.
You have a right view why God has sent you into the world; viz., in
order that you may get to heaven; it is quite true also that you
would fare well indeed if you found yourselves there, you could
desire nothing better; nor, it is true, can you live any time
without venial sin. It is true also that you are not obliged to aim
at being saints; it is no sin not to aim at perfection. So much
is true and to the purpose; but it does not follow from it that
you, with such views and feelings as you have exprest, are using
sufficient exertions even for attaining purgatory. Has your religion
any difficulty in it, or is it in all respects easy to you? Are you
simply taking your own pleasure in your mode of living, or do you
find your pleasure in submitting yourself to God's pleasure? In a
word, is your religion a work? For if it be not, it is not religion
at all. Here at once, before going into your argument, is a proof
that it is an unsound one, because it brings you to the conclusion
that, whereas Christ came to do a work, and all saints, nay, nay,
and sinners to do a work too, you, on the contrary, have no work to
do, because, forsooth, you are neither sinners nor saints; or, if
you once had a work, at least that you have despatched it already,
and you have nothing upon your hands. You have attained your
salvation, it seems, before your time, and have nothing to occupy
you, and are detained on earth too long. The work days are over,
and your perpetual holiday is begun. Did then God send you, above
all other men, into the world to be idle in spiritual matters? Is
it your mission only to find pleasure in this world, in which you
are but as pilgrims and sojourners? Are you more than sons of Adam,
who, by the sweat of their brow, are to eat bread till they return
to the earth out of which they are taken? Unless you have some
work in hand, unless you are struggling, unless you are fighting
with yourselves, you are no followers of those who "through many
tribulations entered into the kingdom of God." A fight is the very
token of a Christian. He is a soldier of Christ; high or low, he is
this and nothing else. If you have triumphed over all mortal sin,
as you seem to think, then you must attack your venial sins; there
is no help for it; there is nothing else to do, if you would be
soldiers of Jesus Christ. But, oh, simple souls! to think you have
gained any triumph at all! No; you cannot safely be at peace with
any, even the least malignant, of the foes of God; if you are at
peace with venial sins, be certain that in their company and under
their shadow mortal sins are lurking. Mortal sins are the children
of venial, which, tho they be not deadly themselves, yet are
prolific of death. You may think that you have killed the giants who
had possession of your hearts, and that you have nothing to fear,
but may sit at rest under your vine and under your fig-tree; but the
giants will live again, they will rise from the dust, and, before
you know where you are, you will be taken captive and slaughtered by
the fierce, powerful, and eternal enemies of God.
The end of a thing is the test. It was our Lord's rejoicing in His
last solemn hour, that He had done the work for which He was sent.
"I have glorified thee on earth." He says in His prayer, "I have
finished the work which thou gavest me to do; I have manifested
thy name to the men whom thou hast given me out of the world." It
was St. Paul's consolation also, "I have fought the good fight, I
have finished the course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there
is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord shall render
to me in that day, the just judge." Alas! alas! how different will
be our view of things when we come to die, or when we have passed
into eternity, from the dreams and pretenses with which we beguile
ourselves now! What will Babel do for us then? Will it rescue our
souls from the purgatory or the hell to which it sends them? If we
were created, it was that we might serve God; if we have His gifts,
it is that we may glorify Him; if we have a conscience, it is that
we may obey it; if we have the prospect of heaven, it is that we
may keep it before us; if we have light, that we may follow it, if
we have grace, that we may save ourselves by means of it. Alas!
alas! for those who die without fulfilling their mission; who were
called to be holy, and lived in sin; who were called to worship
Christ, and who plunged into this giddy and unbelieving world; who
were called to fight, and who remained idle; who were called to be
Catholics, and who did but remain in the religion of their birth!
Alas for those who have had gifts and talent, and have not used, or
have misused, or abused them; who have had wealth, and have spent
it on themselves; who have had abilities, and have advocated what
was sinful, or ridiculed what was true, or scattered doubts against
what was sacred; who have had leisure, and have wasted it on wicked
companions, or evil books, or foolish amusements! Alas! for those of
whom the best can be said is, that they are harmless and naturally
blameless, while they never have attempted to cleanse their hearts
or to live in God's sight!
The world goes on from age to age, but the Holy Angels and Blessed
Saints are always crying Alas, alas! and Wo, wo! over the loss of
vocations, and the disappointment of hopes, and the scorn of God's
love, and the ruin of souls. One generation succeeds another, and
whenever they look down upon earth from their golden thrones, they
see scarcely anything but a multitude of guardian spirits, downcast
and sad, each following his own charge, in anxiety, or in terror,
or in despair, vainly endeavoring to shield him from the enemy,
and failing because he will not be shielded. Times come and go,
and man will not believe, that that is to be which is not yet, or
that what now is only continues for a season, and is not eternity.
The end is the trial; the world passes; it is but a pageant and a
scene; the lofty palace crumbles, the busy city is mute, the ships
of Tarshish have sped away. On heart and flesh death is coming; the
veil is breaking. Departing soul, how hast thou used thy talents,
thy opportunities, the light poured around thee, the warnings given
thee, the grace inspired into thee? Oh, my Lord and Savior, support
me in that hour in the strong arms of Thy sacraments, and by the
fresh fragrance of Thy consolations. Let the absolving words be said
over me, and the holy oil sign and seal me, and Thy own body be my
food, and Thy blood my sprinkling; and let my sweet mother Mary
breathe on me, and my angel whisper peace to me, and my glorious
saints, and my own dear father, Philip, smile on me; that in them
all, and through them all, I may receive the gift of perseverance,
and die, as I desire to live, in Thy faith, in Thy Church, in Thy
service, and in Thy love.
BUSHNELL
UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
HORACE BUSHNELL was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1802.
Graduated at Yale 1827. In 1833 he became pastor of the North
Congregational Church, Hartford, Conn., resigned in 1859 and died
in 1876. He wrote many theological works. Among them "Christian
Nurture" (1847), a book now looked upon as of classical authority.
Considerable discussion among Calvinists was aroused by his "Nature
and the Supernatural," and his "The Vicarious Sacrifice" (1865) as
being out of accord with the accepted creeds of the Congregational
churches. He lacked the sympathy and dramatic instinct necessary
to great oratorical achievement, but his sermons prove by their
profound suggestiveness that he was a man of keen spiritual insight,
and preached with force and impressiveness. His influence upon the
ministers of America in modifying theology and remolding the general
type of preaching is fairly comparable with that of Robertson.
BUSHNELL
1802-1876
UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE[4]
[4] From "Sermons for the New Life," published by Charles Scribner's
Sons.
_Then went in also that other disciple._--John xx., 8.
In this slight touch or turn of history, is opened to us, if we scan
closely, one of the most serious and fruitful chapters of Christian
doctrine. Thus it is that men are ever touching unconsciously the
springs of motion in each other; thus it is that one man, without
thought or intention, or even a consciousness of the fact, is ever
leading some other after him. Little does Peter think, as he comes
up where his doubting brother is looking into the sepulcher, and
goes straight in, after his peculiar manner, that he is drawing in
his brother apostle after him. As little does John think, when he
loses his misgivings, and goes into the sepulcher after Peter, that
he is following his brother. And just so, unaware to himself, is
every man, the whole race through, laying hold of his fellow-man, to
lead him where otherwise he would not go. We overrun the boundaries
of our personality--we flow together. A Peter leads a John, a John
goes after Peter, both of them unconscious of any influence exerted
or received. And thus our life and conduct are ever propagating
themselves, by a law of social contagion, throughout the circles and
times in which we live.
There are, then, you will perceive, two sorts of influence belonging
to man; that which is active or voluntary, and that which is
unconscious--that which we exert purposely or in the endeavor
to sway another, as by teaching, by argument, by persuasion, by
threatenings, by offers and promises, and that which flows out from
us, unaware to ourselves, the same which Peter had over John when
he led him into the sepulcher. The importance of our efforts to do
good, that is of our voluntary influence, and the sacred obligation
we are under to exert ourselves in this way, are often and seriously
insisted on. It is thus that Christianity has become, in the present
age, a principle of so much greater activity than it has been for
many centuries before; and we fervently hope that it will yet become
far more active than it now is, nor cease to multiply its industry,
till it is seen by all mankind to embody the beneficence and the
living energy of Christ Himself.
But there needs to be reproduced, at the same time, and partly for
this object, a more thorough appreciation of the relative importance
of that kind of influence or beneficence which is insensibly
exerted. The tremendous weight and efficacy of this, compared with
the other, and the sacred responsibility laid upon us in regard to
this, are felt in no such degree or proportion as they should be;
and the consequent loss we suffer in character, as well as that
which the Church suffers in beauty and strength, is incalculable.
The more stress, too, needs to be laid on this subject of insensible
influence, because it is insensible; because it is out of mind, and,
when we seek to trace it, beyond a full discovery.