shall not only find our yoke easy and our burden light, but that they
communicate ease and lightness; not only will they not make us weary,
but they will give us rest from all other weariness. Let us not waste a
moment in asking how this can be; the only way to know that, is to take
the yoke on us. That rest is a secret for every heart to know, for never
a tongue to tell. Only by having it can we know it. If it seem
impossible to take the yoke on us, let us attempt the impossible; let us
lay hold of the yoke, and bow our heads, and try to get our necks under
it. Giving our Father the opportunity, he will help and not fail us. He
is helping us every moment, when least we think we need his help; when
most we think we do, then may we most boldly, as most earnestly we must,
cry for it. What or how much his creatures can do or bear, God only
understands; but when most it seems impossible to do or bear, we must be
most confident that he will neither demand too much, nor fail with the
vital creator-help. That help will be there when wanted--that is, the
moment it can be help. To be able beforehand to imagine ourselves doing
or bearing, we have neither claim nor need.
It is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden,
however slight, may be got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to
the yoke of the Father's will. There can be no other rest for heart and
soul that he has created. From every burden, from every anxiety, from
all dread of shame or loss, even loss of love itself, that yoke will set
us free.
These words of the Lord--so many as are reported in common by St Matthew
and St Luke, namely his thanksgiving, and his statement concerning the
mutual knowledge of his father and himself, meet me like a well known
face unexpectedly encountered: they come to me like a piece of heavenly
bread cut from the gospel of St John. The words are not in that gospel,
and in St Matthew's and St Luke's there is nothing more of the kind--in
St Mark's nothing like them. The passage seems to me just one solitary
flower testifying to the presence in the gospels of Matthew and Luke of
the same root of thought and feeling which everywhere blossoms in that
of John. It looks as if it had crept out of the fourth gospel into the
first and third, and seems a true sign, though no proof, that, however
much the fourth be unlike the other gospels, they have all the same
origin. Some disciple was able to remember one such word of which the
promised comforter brought many to the remembrance of John. I do not see
how the more phenomenal gospels are ever to be understood, save through
a right perception of the relation in which the Lord stands to his
father, which relation is the main subject of the gospel according to St
John.
As to the loving cry of the great brother to the whole weary world
which Matthew alone has set down, I seem aware of a certain
indescribable individuality in its tone, distinguishing it from all his
other sayings on record.
Those who come at the call of the Lord, and take the rest he offers
them, learning of him, and bearing the yoke of the Father, are the salt
of the earth, the light of the world.
_THE SALT AND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD._
'Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour,
wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to
be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of
the world. A city that is set on an hill, cannot be hid. Neither do men
light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it
giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine
before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father
which is in heaven.'--_Matthew_ v. 3--16.
The Lord knew these men, and had their hearts in his hand; else would he
have told them they were the salt of the earth and the light of the
world? They were in danger, it is true, of pluming themselves on what he
had said of them, of taking their importance to their own credit, and
seeing themselves other than God saw them. Yet the Lord does not
hesitate to call his few humble disciples the salt of the earth; and
every century since has borne witness that such indeed they were--that
he spoke of them but the simple fact. Where would the world be now but
for their salt and their light! The world that knows neither their salt
nor their light may imagine itself now at least greatly retarded by the
long-drawn survival of their influences; but such as have chosen
aspiration and not ambition, will cry, But for those men, whither should
we at this moment be bound! Their Master set them to be salt against
corruption, and light against darkness; and our souls answer and say,
Lord, they have been the salt, they have been the light of the world!
No sooner has he used the symbol of the salt, than the Lord proceeds to
supplement its incompleteness. They were salt which must remember that
it is salt; which must live salt, and choose salt, and be salt. For the
whole worth of salt lies in its being salt; and all the saltness of the
moral salt lies in the will to be salt. To lose its saltness, then, is
to cease to exist, save as a vile thing whose very being is
unjustifiable. What is to be done with saltless salt!--with such as
would teach religion, and know not God!
Having thus carried the figure as far as it will serve him, the Master
changes it for another, which he can carry farther. For salt only
preserves from growing bad; it does not cause anything to grow better.
His disciples are the salt of the world, but they are more. Therefore,
having warned the human salt to look to itself that it be indeed salt,
he proceeds: 'Ye are the light of the world, a city, a candle,' and so
resumes his former path of persuasion and enforcement: 'It is so,
therefore make it so.'--'Ye are the salt of the earth; therefore be
salt.'--'Ye are the light of the world; therefore shine.'--'Ye are a
city; be seen upon your hill.'--'Ye are the Lord's candles; let no
bushels cover you. Let your light shine.' Every disciple of the Lord
must be a preacher of righteousness.
Cities are the best lighted portions of the world; and perhaps the Lord
meant, 'You are a live city, therefore light up your city.' Some
connection of the city with light seems probably in his thought, seeing
the allusion to the city on the hill comes in the midst of what he says
about light in relation to his disciples as the light of the world.
Anyhow the city is the best circle in which, and the best centre from
which to diffuse moral light. A man brooding in the desert may find the
very light of light, but he must go to the city to let it shine.
From the general idea of light, however, associated with the city as
visible to all the country around, the Lord turns at once, in this
probably fragmentary representation of his words, to the homelier, the
more individual and personally applicable figure of the lamp: 'Neither
do men light a lamp, and put it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, and
it giveth light to all that are in the house,'
Here let us meditate a moment. For what is a lamp or a man lighted? For
them that need light, therefore for all. A candle is not lighted for
itself; neither is a man. The light that serves self only, is no true
light; its one virtue is that it will soon go out. The bushel needs to
be lighted, but not by being put over the lamp. The man's own soul needs
to be lighted, but light for itself only, light covered by the bushel,
is darkness whether to soul or bushel. Light unshared is darkness. To be
light indeed, it must shine out. It is of the very essence of light,
that it is for others. The thing is true of the spiritual as of the
physical light--of the truth as of its type.
The lights of the world are live lights. The lamp that the Lord kindles
is a lamp that can will to shine, a soul that must shine. Its true
relation to the spirits around it--to God and its fellows, is its light.
Then only does it fully shine, when its love, which is its light, shows
it to all the souls within its scope, and all those souls to each other,
and so does its part to bring all together toward one. In the darkness
each soul is alone; in the light the souls are a family. Men do not
light a lamp to kill it with a bushel, but to set it on a stand, that
it may give light to all that are in the house. The Lord seems to say,
'So have I lighted you, not that you may shine for yourselves, but that
you may give light unto all. I have set you like a city on a hill, that
the whole earth may see and share in your light. Shine therefore; so
shine before men, that they may see your good things and glorify your
father for the light with which he has lighted you. Take heed to your
light that it be such, that it so shine, that in you men may see the
Father--may see your works so good, so plainly his, that they recognize
his presence in you, and thank him for you.' There was the danger always
of the shadow of the self-bushel clouding the lamp the Father had
lighted; and the moment they ceased to show the Father, the light that
was in them was darkness. God alone is the light, and our light is the
shining of his will in our lives. If our light shine at all, it must be,
it can be only in showing the Father; nothing is light that does not
bear him witness. The man that sees the glory of God, would turn sick at
the thought of glorifying his own self, whose one only possible glory is
to shine with the glory of God. When a man tries to shine from the self
that is not one with God and filled with his light, he is but making
ready for his own gathering contempt. The man who, like his Lord, seeks
not his own, but the will of him who sent him, he alone shines. He who
would shine in the praises of men, will, sooner or later, find himself
but a Gideon's-pitcher left broken on the field.
Let us bestir ourselves then to keep this word of the Lord; and to this
end inquire how we are to let our light shine.
To the man who does not try to order his thoughts and feelings and
judgments after the will of the Father, I have nothing to say; he can
have no light to let shine. For to let our light shine is to see that in
every, even the smallest thing, our lives and actions correspond to what
we know of God; that, as the true children of our father in heaven, we
do everything as he would have us do it. Need I say that to let our
light shine is to be just, honourable, true, courteous, more careful
over the claim of our neighbour than our own, as knowing ourselves in
danger of overlooking it, and not bound to insist on every claim of our
own! The man who takes no count of what is fair, friendly, pure,
unselfish, lovely, gracious,--where is his claim to call Jesus his
master? where his claim to Christianity? What saves his claim from being
merest mockery?
The outshining of any human light must be obedience to truth recognized
as such; our first show of light as the Lord's disciples must be in
doing the things he tells us. Naturally thus we declare him our master,
the ruler of our conduct, the enlightener of our souls; and while in
the doing of his will a man is learning the loveliness of righteousness,
he can hardly fail to let some light shine across the dust of his
failures, the exhalations from his faults. Thus will his disciples shine
as lights in the world, holding forth the Word of life.
To shine, we must keep in his light, sunning our souls in it by thinking
of what he said and did, and would have us think and do. So shall we
drink the light like some diamonds, keep it, and shine in the dark.
Doing his will, men will see in us that we count the world his, hold
that his will and not ours must be done in it. Our very faces will then
shine with the hope of seeing him, and being taken home where he is.
Only let us remember that trying to look what we ought to be, is the
beginning of hypocrisy.
If we do indeed expect better things to come, we must let our hope
appear. A Christian who looks gloomy at the mention of death, still
more, one who talks of his friends as if he had lost them, turns the
bushel of his little-faith over the lamp of the Lord's light. Death is
but our visible horizon, and our look ought always to be focussed beyond
it. We should never talk as if death were the end of anything.
To let our light shine, we must take care that we have no respect for
riches: if we have none, there is no fear of our showing any. To treat
the poor man with less attention or cordiality than the rich, is to show
ourselves the servants of Mammon. In like manner we must lay no value on
the praise of men, or in any way seek it. We must honour no man because
of intellect, fame, or success. We must not shrink, in fear of the
judgment of men, from doing openly what we hold right; or at all
acknowledge as a law-giver what calls itself Society, or harbour the
least anxiety for its approval.
In business, the custom of the trade must be understood by both
contracting parties, else it can have no place, either as law or excuse,
with the disciple of Jesus. The man to whom business is one thing and
religion another, is not a disciple. If he refuses to harmonize them by
making his business religion, he has already chosen Mammon; if he thinks
not to settle the question, it is settled. The most futile of all human
endeavours is, to serve God and Mammon. The man who makes the endeavour,
betrays his Master in the temple and kisses him in the garden; takes
advantage of him in the shop, and offers him 'divine service!' on
Sunday. His very church-going is but a further service of Mammon! But
let us waste no strength in despising such men; let us rather turn the
light upon ourselves: are we not in some way denying him? Is our light
bearing witness? Is it shining before men so that they glorify God for
it? If it does not shine, it is darkness. In the darkness which a man
takes for light, he will thrust at the heart of the Lord himself.
He who goes about his everyday duty as the work the Father has given him
to do, is he who lets his light shine. But such a man will not be
content with this: he must yet let his light shine. Whatever makes his
heart glad, he will have his neighbour share. The body is a lantern; it
must not be a dark lantern; the glowing heart must show in the shining
face. His glad thought may not be one to impart to his neighbour, but he
must not quench the vibration of its gladness ere it reach him. What
shall we say of him who comes from his closet, his mountain-top, with
such a veil over his face as masks his very humanity? Is it with the
Father that man has had communion, whose every movement is
self-hampered, and in whose eyes dwell no smiles for the people of his
house? The man who receives the quiet attentions, the divine
ministrations, of wife or son or daughter, without token of pleasure,
without sign of gratitude, can hardly have been with Jesus. Or can he
have been with him, and have left him behind in his closet? If his faith
in God take from a man his cheerfulness, how shall the face of a man
ever shine? And why are they always glad before the face of the Father
in heaven? It is true that pain or inward grief may blameless banish all
smiling, but even heaviness of heart has no right so to tumble the
bushel over the lamp that no ray can get out to tell that love is yet
burning within. The man must at least let his dear ones know that
something else than displeasure with them is the cause of his clouded
countenance.
What a sweet colour the divine light takes to itself in courtesy, whose
perfection is the recognition of every man as a temple of the living
God. Sorely ruined, sadly defiled the temple may be, but if God had left
it, it would be a heap and not a house.
Next to love, specially will the light shine out in fairness. What light
can he have in him who is always on his own side, and will never descry
reason or right on that of his adversary? And certainly, if he that
showeth mercy, as well he that showeth justice, ought to do it with
cheerfulness.
But if all our light shine out, and none of our darkness, shall we not
be in utmost danger of hypocrisy? Yes, if we but hide our darkness, and
do not strive to slay it with our light: what way have we to show it,
while struggling to destroy it? Only when we cherish evil, is there
hypocrisy in hiding it. A man who is honestly fighting it and showing it
no quarter, is already conqueror in Christ, or will soon be--and more
than innocent. But our good feelings, those that make for righteousness
and unity, we ought to let shine; they claim to commune with the light
in others. Many parents hold words unsaid which would lift
hundred-weights from the hearts of their children, yea, make them leap
for joy. A stern father and a silent mother make mournful, or, which is
far worse, hard children. Need I add that, if any one, hearing the
injunction to let his light shine, makes himself shine instead, it is
because the light is not in him!
But what shall I say of such as, in the name of religion, let only their
darkness out--the darkness of worshipped opinion, the darkness of
lip-honour and disobedience! Such are those who tear asunder the body of
Christ with the explosives of dispute, on the plea of such a unity as
alone they can understand, namely a paltry uniformity. What have not the
'good church-man' and the 'strong dissenter' to answer for, who, hiding
what true light they have, if indeed they have any, each under the
bushel of his party-spirit, radiate only repulsion! There is no schism,
none whatever, in using diverse forms of thought or worship: true
honesty is never schismatic. The real schismatic is the man who turns
away love and justice from the neighbour who holds theories in religious
philosophy, or as to church-constitution, different from his own; who
denies or avoids his brother because he follows not with him; who calls
him a schismatic because he prefers this or that mode of public worship
not his. The other _may_ be schismatic; he himself certainly _is_. He
walks in the darkness of opinion, not in the light of life, not in the
faith which worketh by love. Worst of all is division in the name of
Christ who came to make one. Neither Paul nor Apollos nor Cephas
would--least of all will Christ be the leader of any party save that of
his own elect, the party of love--of love which suffereth long and is
kind; which envieth not, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself
unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil,
rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
'Let your light shine,' says the Lord:--if I have none, the call cannot
apply to me; but I must bethink me, lest, in the night I am cherishing
about me, the Lord come upon me like a thief. There may be those,
however, and I think they are numerous, who, having some, or imagining
they have much light, yet have not enough to know the duty of letting it
shine on their neighbours. The Lord would have his men so alive with his
light, that it should for ever go flashing from each to all, and all,
with eternal response, keep glorifying the Father. Dost thou look for a
good time coming, friend, when thou shalt know as thou art known? Let
the joy of thy hope stream forth upon thy neighbours. Fold them round in
that which maketh thyself glad. Let thy nature grow more expansive and
communicative. Look like the man thou art--a man who knows something
very good. Thou believest thyself on the way to the heart of things:
walk so, shine so, that all that see thee shall want to go with thee.
What light issues from such as make their faces long at the very name of
death, and look and speak as if it were the end of all things and the
worst of evils? Jesus told his men not to fear death; told them his
friends should go to be with him; told them they should live in the
house of his father and their father; and since then he has risen
himself from the tomb, and gone to prepare a place for them: who, what
are these miserable refusers of comfort? Not Christians, surely! Oh,
yes, they are Christians! 'They are gone,' they say, 'to be for ever
with the Lord;' and then they weep and lament, and seem more afraid of
starting to join them than of aught else under the sun! To the last
attainable moment they cling to what they call life. They are
children--were there ever any other such children?--who hang crying to
the skirts of their mother, and will not be lifted to her bosom. They
are not of Paul's mind: to be with Him is not better! They worship
their physician; and their prayer to the God of their life is to spare
them from more life. What sort of Christians are they? Where shines
their light? Alas for thee, poor world, hadst thou no better lights than
these!
You who have light, show yourselves the sons and daughters of Light, of
God, of Hope--the heirs of a great completeness. Freely let your light
shine.
Only take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen
of them.
_THE RIGHT HAND AND THE LEFT._
Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men to be seen of
them; otherwise ye have no reward of your father which is in heaven....
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand
doeth; that thine alms may be in secret; and thy father which seeth in
secret, himself shall reward thee.--_Matthew_ vi. I,3.
Let your light out freely, that men may see it, but not that men may see
you. If I do anything, not because it has to be done, not because God
would have it so, not that I may do right, not because it is honest, not
that I love the thing, not that I may be true to my Lord, not that the
truth may be recognized as truth and as his, but that I may be seen as
the doer, that I may be praised of men, that I may gain repute or fame;
be the thing itself ever so good, I may look to men for my reward, for
there is none for me with the Father. If, that light being my pleasure,
I do it that the light may shine, and that men may know _the_ Light,
the father of lights, I do well; but if I do it that I may be seen
shining, that the light may be noted as emanating from me and not from
another, then am I of those that seek glory of men, and worship Satan;
the light that through me may possibly illuminate others, will, in me
and for me, be darkness.
_But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right
hand doeth_.
How, then, am I to let my light shine, if I take pains to hide what I
do?
The injunction is not to hide what you do from others, but to hide it
from yourself. The Master would have you not plume yourself upon it, not
cherish the thought that you have done it, or confer with yourself in
satisfaction over it. You must not count it to your praise. A man must
not desire to be satisfied with himself. His right hand must not seek
the praise of his left hand. His doing must not invite his
after-thinking. The right hand must let the thing done go, as a thing
done-with. We must meditate nothing either as a fine thing for us to do,
or a fine thing for us to have done. We must not imagine any merit in
us: it would be to love a lie, for we can have none; there is no such
thing possible. Is there anything to be proud of in refusing to worship
the devil? Is it a grand thing, is it a meritorious thing, not to be
vile? When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants. Our very best
is but decent. What more could it be? Why then think of it as anything
more? What things could we or any one do, worthy of being brooded over
as possessions. Good to do, they were; bad to pride ourselves upon, they
are. Why should a man meditate with satisfaction on having denied
himself some selfish indulgence, any more than on having washed his
hands? May we roll the rejection of a villainy as a sweet morsel under
our tongues? They were the worst villains of all who could be proud of
not having committed a villainy; and their pride would but render them
the more capable of the villainy, when next the temptation to it came.
Even if our supposed merit were of the positive order, and we did every
duty perfectly, the moment we began to pride ourselves upon the fact, we
should drop into a hell of worthlessness. What are we for but to do our
duty? We must do it, and think nothing of ourselves for that, neither
care what men think of us for anything. With the praise or blame of men
we have nought to do. Their blame may be a good thing, their praise
cannot be. But the worst sort of the praise of men is the praise we give
ourselves. We must do nothing to be seen of ourselves. We must seek no
approbation even, but that of God, else we shut the door of the kingdom
from the outside. His approbation will but quicken our sense of
unworthiness. What! seek the praise of men for being fair to our own
brothers and sisters? What! seek the praise of God for laying our hearts
at the feet of him to whom we utterly belong? There is no pride so
mean--and all pride is absolutely, essentially mean--as the pride of
being holier than our fellow, except the pride of being holy. Such
imagined holiness is foulness. Religion itself in the hearts of the
unreal, is a dead thing; what seems life in it, is the vermiculate life
of a corpse.