MORAL CURVATURES.
"I think we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope
Of yon gray blank sky, we might grow faint
To muse upon eternity's constraint
Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop,
For a few days consumed in loss and taint?"
--MRS. BROWNING.
Our Lord's miracles are parables in act. A woman came to him bent
almost double, and went away straight. The human form is made for
erectness. This is one of the marks of nobility in man, in contrast
with the downward bending and looking of other animals. Man is the
only creature that bears this erect form. It is a part of the image of
God upon him. It indicates heavenly aspiration, hunger for God, desire
for pure and lofty things, capacity for immortal blessedness. It tells
of man's hope and home above the earth, beyond the stars. Says an old
writer, "God gave to man a face directed upwards, and bade him look at
the heavens, and raise his uplifted countenance toward the stars." The
Greek word for "man" meant the upward looking. The bending of the form
and face downward, toward the earth, has always been the symbol of a
soul turned unworthily toward lower things, forgetful of its true home.
Milton has this thought in describing Mammon:--
"Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From heaven; for even in heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent."
The look of a man's eyes tells where his heart is, whither his desires
are reaching and tending, how his life is growing.
There are a great many bent people in the world. Physical bending may
be caused by accident or disease, and is no mark of spiritual
curvature. Many a deformed body is the home of a noble and holy soul,
with eyes and aspirations turned upward toward God. I remember a woman
in my first parish who then for fourteen years had sat in her chair,
unable to lift hand or foot, every joint drawn, her wasted body
frightfully bent. Yet she had a transfigured face, telling of a
beautiful soul within. Joy and peace shone out through that poor
tortured body. Disease may drag down the erect form, until all its
beauty is gone, and the inner life meanwhile may be erect as an angel,
with its eyes and aspirations turned upward toward God.
But there are crooked souls--souls that are bent down. This may be the
case even while the body is straight as an arrow. There are men and
women whose forms are admired for their erectness, their graceful
proportions, their lithe movements, their lovely features, yet whose
souls are debased, whose desires are grovelling, whose characters are
sadly misshapen and deformed.
Sin always bends the soul. Many a young man comes out from a holy home
in the beauty and strength of youth, wearing the unsullied robes of
innocence, with eye clear and uplifted, with aspirations for noble
things, with hopes that are exalted; but a few years later he appears a
debased and ruined man, with soul bent sadly downward. The bending
begins in slight yieldings to sin, but the tendency unchecked grows and
fixes itself in the life in permanent moral disfigurement.
A stage-driver had held the lines for many years, and when he grew old,
his hands were crooked into hooks, and his fingers were so stiffened
that they could not be straightened out. There is a similar process
that goes on in men's souls when they continue to do the same things
over and over. One who is trained from childhood to be gentle, kindly,
patient, to control the temper, to speak softly, to be loving and
charitable, will grow into the radiant beauty of love. One who
accustoms himself to think habitually and only of noble and worthy
things, who sets his affections on things above, and strives to reach
"whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely," will grow continually
upward, toward spiritual beauty. But on the other hand, if one gives
way from childhood to all ugly tempers, all resentful feelings, all
bitterness and anger, his life will shape itself into the unbeauty of
these dispositions. One whose mind turns to debasing things, things
unholy, unclean, will find his whole soul bending and growing toward
the earth in permanent moral curvature.
There is also a bending of the life by sorrow. The experience of
sorrow is scarcely less perilous than that of temptation. The common
belief is that grief always makes people better. But this is not true.
If the sufferer submits to God with loving confidence, and is
victorious through faith, sorrow's outcome is blessing and good. But
many are crushed by their sorrow. They yield to it, and it bears them
down beneath its weight. They turn their faces away from heaven's blue
and the light of God, toward the grave's darkness, and their souls grow
toward the gloom.
Here is a mother who several years since lost by death a beautiful
daughter. The mother was a Christian woman, and her child was also a
Christian, dying in sweet hope. Yet never since that coffin was closed
has the mother lifted up her eyes toward God in submission and hope.
She visits the cemetery on Sundays, but never the church. She goes
with downcast look about her home, weeping whenever her daughter's name
is mentioned, and complains of God's hardness and unkindness in taking
away her child. She is bent down with her eyes to the earth, and sees
only the clods and the dust and the grave's gloom, and sees not the
blue sky, the bright stars, and the sweet face of the Father. So long
has she now been thus bowed down in the habit of sadness and grieving,
that she can in no wise lift herself up.
Since I began to write this chapter I have had a long talk with one
whose life is sorely bent. Ten years since I first knew her as a
bright and happy young girl, her face sunny in the light of God's love.
Trouble came into her life in many forms. Her own father proved
unworthy, failing in all the sacred duties of affection toward his
child. Events in her own life were disappointing and discouraging.
Friends in whom she had trusted failed in that faithfulness and
helpfulness which one has a right to expect from one's friends. There
was a succession of unhappy experiences, through several years, all
tending to hurt her heart-life. As the result of all this, she has
become embittered and hardened, not only against those who have wronged
her and treated her unjustly, but even against God. So long has she
yielded to these feelings that her whole life has been bent down from
its upward, Godward look into settled despondency. God has altogether
faded out of her soul's vision, and she thinks of him only as unkind
and unjust. To restore her life to its former brightness and beauty
will require a moral miracle as great as that by which the body of the
crooked woman was made straight.
Then there are lives also that are bowed down by toil and care. For
many people, life's burdens are very heavy. There are fathers of large
families who sometimes find their load almost more than they can bear,
in their efforts to provide for those who are dear to them. There are
mothers who, under their burdens of household care, at times feel
themselves bowed down, and scarcely able longer to go on. In all
places of responsibility, where men are called to stand, the load many
times grows very heavy, and stalwart forms bend under it. This world's
work is hard for most of us. Life is not play to any who take it
earnestly.
And many persons yield to the weight of a duty, and let themselves be
bent down under it. We see men bowing under their load, until their
very body grows crooked, and they can look only downward. We see them
become prematurely old. The light goes out of their eyes; the
freshness fades out of their cheeks; the sweetness leaves their spirit.
Few things in life are sadder than the way some people let themselves
be bent down by their load of duty or care. There really is no reason
why this should be so. God never puts any greater burden upon us than
we are able to bear, with the help he is ready to give. Christ stands
ever close beside us, willing to carry the heaviest end of every load
that is laid upon us.
Men never break down so long as they keep a happy, joyous heart. It is
the sad heart that tires. Whatever our load, we should always keep a
songful spirit in our breast. There are two ways of meeting hard
experiences. One way is to struggle and resist, refusing to yield.
The result is, the wounding of the soul and the intensifying of the
hardness. The other way is sweetly to accept the circumstances or the
restraints, to make the best of them, and to endure them songfully and
cheerfully. Those who live in the first of these ways grow old at
mid-life. Those who take the other way of life keep a young, happy
heart even to old age.
The true way to live is to yield to no burden; to carry the heaviest
load with courage and gladness; never to let one's eyes be turned
downward toward the earth, but to keep them ever lifted up to the
hills. Men whose work requires them to stoop all the time--to work in
a bent posture--every now and then may be seen straightening themselves
up, taking a long, deep breath of air, and looking up toward the skies.
Thus their bodies are preserved in health and erectness in spite of
their work. Whatever our toil or burden, we should train ourselves to
look often upward, to stand erect, and get a frequent glimpse of the
sky of God's love, and a frequent breath of heaven's pure, sweet air.
Thus we shall keep our souls erect under the heaviest load of work or
care.
The miracle of the straightening of the woman who was bent double, has
its gospel of precious hope for any who have failed to learn earlier
the lesson of keeping straight. The bowed down may yet be lifted up.
The curvature of eighteen years' growth and stiffening was cured in a
moment. The woman who for so long had not been able to look up, went
away with her eyes upturned to God in praise.
The same miracle Christ is able to work now upon souls that are bent,
whether by sin, by sorrow, or by life's load of toil. He can undo
sin's terrible work, and restore the divine image to the soul. He can
give such comfort to the sad heart that eyes long downcast shall be
lifted up to look upon God's face in loving submission and joy. He can
put such songs into the hearts of the weary and overwrought that the
crooked form shall grow straight, and brightness shall come again into
the tired face.