And now, to bring matters to a practical issue, have we who profess the
faith of Christ learnt to set, either upon others or upon ourselves, the
value which Christ put upon all men? Far as we have travelled from
ancient Greece and Rome, are we not still, in our thoughts about men,
often pagan rather than Christian? Our very speech bewrayeth us, and
shows how little even yet we have learnt to think Christ's thoughts
after Him. He declared, in words which have already been quoted, that "a
man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth." Nevertheless, in our daily speech we persist in measuring
men by this very standard; we say that a man "is worth" so much, though,
of course, all that we mean is that he has so much. Again, we allow
ourselves to speak about the "hands" in a factory, as if with the hand
there went neither head nor heart. If we must put a part for the whole,
why should it not be after the fashion of the New Testament? "And there
were added unto them in that day"--so it is written in one place--"about
three thousand souls"--"souls," not "hands."[33] And we may depend upon
it there would be less soulless labour in the world, and fewer men and
women in danger of degenerating into mere "hands," if we would learn to
think of them in Christ's higher and worthier way.
Let me try to show, by two or three examples, how Christ's teaching
about man is needed through all our life.
(1) There was, perhaps, never a time when so many were striving to
fulfil the apostle's injunction, and, as they have opportunity, to do
good unto all men. More and more we busy ourselves to-day with the good
works of philanthropy and Christian charity. And what we must remember
is that our philanthropy needs our theology to sustain it. They only
will continue Christ's work for man who cherish Christ's thoughts about
man. Sever philanthropy from the great Christian ideas which have
created and sustained it, and it will very speedily come to an end of
its resources. All experience shows that philanthropy cut off from
Christ has not capital enough on which to do its business. And the
reason is not far to seek. They who strive to save their fellows, they
who go down into the depths that they may lift men up, see so much of
the darkened under-side of human life, they are brought so close up to
the ugly facts of human baseness, human trickery, human ingratitude,
that, unless there be behind them the staying, steadying power of the
faith and love of Christ, they cannot long endure the strain; they grow
weary in well-doing, perchance even they grow bitter and contemptuous,
and in a little while the tasks they have taken up fall unfinished from
their hands. "Society" takes to "slumming" for a season--just as for
another season it may take to ping-pong--but the fit does not last; and
only they keep on through the long, grey days, when neither sun nor
stars are seen, who have learnt to look on men with the eyes, and to
feel toward them with the heart, of Jesus the Man of Nazareth.
(2) "Whoso shall cause one of these little ones that believe on Me to
stumble, it is profitable for him that a great mill-stone should be
hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the
sea." Once more is revealed Christ's thought of the worth of the soul.
How the holy passion against him who would hurt "one of these little
ones" glows and scorches in His words! Is this a word for any of us? Is
there one among us who is tempting a brother man to dishonesty, to
drink, to lust; who is pushing some thoughtless girl down the steep and
slippery slope which ends--we know where? Then let him stop and listen,
not to me, but to Christ. Never, I think, did He speak with such solemn,
heart-shaking emphasis, and He says that it were better a man should
die, that he should die this night, die the most miserable and shameful
death, than that he should bring the blood of another's soul upon his
head. It must needs be that occasions of stumbling come, but woe, woe to
that man by whom they come, when he and the slain soul's Saviour shall
stand face to face! Oh, if there be one among us who is playing the
tempter, and doing the devil's work, let him get to his knees, and cry
with the conscience-smitten Psalmist, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness,
O God, Thou God of my salvation"; and peradventure even yet He may hear
and have mercy.
(3) Let fathers and mothers ponder what this teaching of Jesus
concerning man means for them in relation to their children. There came
into your home a while ago a little child, a gift from God, just such a
babe as Jesus Himself was in His mother's arms in Bethlehem. The child
is yours, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, and it bears your
likeness and image; but it is also God's child, and it bears His image.
What difference is the coming of the little stranger making in you? I do
not ask what difference is it making _to_ you, for the answer would be
ready in a moment, "Much, every way"; but, what difference is it making
_in_ you? Does it never occur to you that you ought to be a different
man--a better man--that you ought to be a different woman--a better
woman--for the sake of the little one lying in the cradle? Do you know
that of all the things God ever made and owns, in this or all His
worlds, there is nothing more dear to Him than the soul of the little
child He has committed to your hands? What hands those should be that
bear a gift like that! Perhaps we never thought of it in that way
before. But it is true, whether we think of it or not. Is it not time to
begin to think of it? This night, as we stand over our sleeping child,
let us promise to God, for the child's sake, that we will be His.
(4) Last of all, we must learn to set Christ's value upon ourselves.
This is the tragedy of life, that we hold ourselves so cheap. We are
sprung of heaven's first blood, have titles manifold, and yet, when the
crown is offered us, we choose rather, like the man with the muck-rake,
in Bunyan's great allegory, to grub among the dust and sticks and straws
of the floor. In the times of the French Revolution, French soldiers, it
is said, stabled their horses in some of the magnificent cathedrals of
France; but some of us are guilty of a far worse sacrilege in that holy
of holies which we call the soul. "Ye were redeemed, not with
corruptible things, with silver or gold," but with blood, precious
blood, even the blood of Christ. And the soul which cost that, we are
ready to sell any day in the open market for a little more pleasure or a
little more pelf. The birthright is bartered for the sorriest mess of
pottage, and the jewel which the King covets to wear in His crown our
own feet trample in the mire of the streets. The pity of it, the pity of
it!
In one of Dora Greenwell's simple and beautiful _Songs of Salvation_, a
pitman tells to his wife the story of his conversion. He had got a word
like a fire in his heart that would not let him be, "Jesus, the Son of
God, who loved, and who gave Himself for me."
"It was for me that Jesus died! for me, and a world of men,
Just as sinful, and just as slow to give back His love again;
And He didn't wait till I came to Him, but He loved me at my worst;
He needn't ever have died for me if I could have loved Him first."