Originality of this utterance.
how novel the connection between these two words "Learn" and "Rest."
How few of us have ever associated them--ever thought that Rest was
a thing to be learned; ever laid ourselves out for it as we would
to learn a language; ever practised it as we would practice the
violin? Does it not show how entirely new Christ's teaching still
is to the world, that so old and threadbare an aphorism should still
be so little known? The last thing most of us would have thought
of would have been to associate REST with WORK.
What must one work at? What is that which if duly learned will
find the soul of man in Rest? Christ answers without the least
hesitation. He specifies two things--Meekness and Lowliness.
"Learn of me," He says, "for I am MEEK and LOWLY in heart."
Now these two things are not chosen at random. To these
accomplishments, in a special way, Rest is attached. Learn these,
in short, and you have already found Rest. These as they stand
direct causes of Rest; will produce it at once; cannot but produce
it at once. And if you think for a single moment, you will see
how this is necessarily so, for causes are never arbitrary, and
the connection between antecedent and consequent her and everywhere
lies deep in the nature of things.
What is the connection, then? I answer by a further question.
What are the chief causes of unrest?
If you know yourself, you will answer--Pride, Selfishness, Ambition.
As you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not
true that its unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of
personal mortifications and almost trivial disappointments which
the intercourse of life has brought you? Great trials come at
lengthened intervals, and we rise to breast them; but it is the
petty friction of our every-day life with one another, the jar
of business or of work, the discord of the domestic circle, the
collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our will or the taking
down of our conceit, which make inward peace impossible. Wounded
vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness--these
are the old, vulgar, universal
Sources of man's unrest.
Now it is obvious why Christ pointed out as the two chief objects
for attainment the exact opposites of these. To meekness and
lowliness these things simply do not exist. They cure unrest by
making it impossible. These remedies do not trifle with surface
symptoms; they strike at once at removing causes. The ceaseless
chagrin of a self-centered life can be removed at once by learning
meekness and lowliness of heart. He who learns them is forever proof
against it. He lives henceforth a charmed life. Christianity is
a fine inoculation, a transfusion of healthy blood into an anaemic
or poisoned soul. No fever can attack a perfectly sound body; no
fever of unrest can disturb a soul which has breathed the air or
learned the ways of Christ.
Men sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly away and be at
Rest. But flying away will not help us. "The Kingdom of God is
WITHIN YOU." We aspire to the top to look for Rest; it lies at the
bottom. Water rests only when it gets to the lowest place. So do
men. Hence, BE LOWLY. The man who has no opinion of himself at
all can never be hurt if others do not acknowledge him. Hence, BE
MEEK. He who is without expectation cannot fret if nothing comes
to him. It is self-evident that these things are so. The lowly
man and the meek man are really above all other men, above all other
things. They dominate the world because they do not care for it.
The miser does not possess gold, gold possesses him. But the meek
possess it. "The meek," said Christ, "inherit the earth." They
do not buy it; they do not conquer it; but they inherit it.
There are people who go about the world looking out for slights,
and they are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every
turn--especially the imaginary ones. One has the same pity for
such men as for the very poor. They are the morally illiterate.
They have had no real education, for they have never learned
How to live.
Few men know how to live. We grow up at random carrying into mature
life the merely animal methods and motives which we had as little
children. And it does not occur to us that all this must be changed
that much of it must be reversed; that life is the finest of the
Fine Arts; that it has to be learned with life-long patience, and
that the years of our pilgrimage are all too short to master it
triumphantly.