Then you reduce religion to a common Friendship? A common
Friendship--who talks of a COMMON Friendship? There is no such
thing in the world.
On earth no word is more sublime. Friendship is the nearest thing
we know to what religion is. God is love. And to make religion
akin to Friendship is simply to give it the highest expression
conceivable by man. But if by demurring to "a common friendship" is
meant a protest against the greatest and the holiest in religion
being spoken of in intelligible terms, then I am afraid the
objection is all to real. Men always look for a mystery when one
talks of sanctification, some mystery apart from that which must ever
be mysterious wherever Spirit works. It is thought some peculiar
secret lies behind it, some occult experience which only the
initiated know. Thousands of persons go to church every Sunday
hoping to solve this mystery. At meeting, at conferences, many
a time they have reached what they thought was the very brink of
it, but somehow no further revelation came. Poring over religious
books, how often were they not within a paragraph of it; the next
page, the next sentence, would discover all, and they would be
borne on a flowing tide forever. But nothing happened. The next
sentence and the next page were read, and still it eluded them;
and though the promise of its coming kept faithfully up to the end,
the last chapter found them still pursuing.
Why did nothing happen? Because there was nothing to happen--nothing
of the kind they were looking for. Why did it elude them? Because
there was no "it." When shall we learn that the pursuit of holiness
is simply
The pursuit of Christ?
When shall we substitute for the "it" of a fictitious aspiration,
the approach to a Living Friend? Sanctity is in character and not
in moods; Divinity in our own plain calm humanity, and in no mystic
rapture of the soul.
And yet there are others who, for exactly a contrary reason,
will find scant satisfaction here. Their complaint is not that a
religion expressed in terms of Friendship is too homely, but that
it is still too mystical. To "abide" in Christ, to "make Christ
our most constant companion," is to them the purest mysticism. They
want something absolutely tangible and absolutely direct. These
are not the poetical souls who seek a sign, a mysticism in excess,
but the prosaic natures whose want is mathematical definition in
details. Yet it is perhaps not possible to reduce this problem to
much more rigid elements. The beauty of Friendship is its infinity.
One can never evacuate life of mysticism. Home is full of it, love
is full of it, religion is full of it. Why stumble at that in the
relation of man to Christ which is natural in the relation of man
to man?
If any one cannot conceive or realize a mystical relation with
Christ, perhaps all that can be done is to help him to step on
to it by still plainer analogies from common life. How do I know
Shakespere or Dante? By communing with their words and thoughts.
Many men know Dante better than their own fathers. Many men know
Dante better than their own fathers. He influences them more. As
a spiritual presence he is more near to them, as a spiritual force
more real. Is there any reason why a greater than Shakspere or
Dante, who also walked this earth, who left great words behind Him,
who has greater works everywhere in the world now, should not also
instruct, inspire and mould the characters of men? I do not limit
Christ's influence to this: it is this, and it is more. But Christ,
so far from resenting or discouraging this relation of Friendship,
Himself proposed it. "Abide in me" was almost His last word to
the world. And He partly met the difficulty of those who feel its
intangibleness by adding the practical clause, "If ye abide in Me,
AND MY WORDS ABIDE IN YOU."
Begin with His words. Words can scarcely ever be long impersonal.
Christ himself was a Word, a word made Flesh. Make His words flesh;
do them, live them, and you must live Christ. "HE THAT KEEPETH
MY COMMANDMENTS, he it is that loveth Me." Obey Him and you must
love Him. Abide in Him, and you must obey Him. CULTIVATE His
Friendship. Live after Christ, in His Spirit, as in His Presence,
and it is difficult to think what more you can do. Take this at
least as a first lesson, as introduction.
If you cannot at once and always feel the play of His life upon
yours, watch for it also indirectly. "The whole earth is full of
the character of the Lord." Christ is the Light of the world, and
much of his Light is reflected from things in the world--even from
clouds. Sunlight is stored in every leaf, from leaf through coal,
and it comforts us thence when days are dark and we cannot see the
sun. Christ shines through men, through books, through history,
through nature, music, art. Look for Him there. "Every day one
should either look at a beautiful picture, or hear beautiful music,
or read a beautiful poem." The real danger of mysticism is not
making it broad enough.
Do not think that nothing is happening because you do not see
yourself grow, or hear the whir of the machinery. All great things
grow noiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child.
Paul said for the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that
they grew "from character to character." "The inward man," he
says elsewhere, "is renewed from day to day." All thorough work
is slow; all true development by minute, slight and insensible
metamorphoses. The higher the structure, moreover, the slower the
progress. As the biologist runs his eye over the long Ascent of
Life, he sees the lowest forms of animals develop in an hour; the
next above these reach maturity in a day; those higher still take
weeks or months to perfect; but the few at the top demand the long
experiment of years. If a child and an ape are born on the same
day, the last will be in full possession of its faculties and doing
the active work of life before the child has left its cradle. Life
is the cradle of eternity. As the man is to the animal in the
slowness of his evolution, so is the spiritual man to the natural
man. Foundations which have to bear the weight of an eternal life
must be surely laid. Character is to wear forever; who will wonder
or grudge that it cannot be developed in a day?
To await the growing of a soul, nevertheless, is an almost Divine
act of faith. How pardonable, surely, the impatience of deformity
with itself, of a consciously despicable character standing before
Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that! Yet must
one trust the process fearlessly and without misgiving. "The Lord
the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste
for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less spiritual,
or to defeat the end by watching for effects instead of keeping
the eye on the Cause. A photograph prints from the negative only
while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see
how it is getting on he simply stops the getting on. Whatever of
wise supervision the soul may need, it is certain it can never be
over-exposed, or that, being exposed, anything else in the world
can improve the result or quicken it. The creation of a new heart,
the renewing of a right spirit, is an omnipotent work of God.
Leave it to the Creator. "He which hath begun a good work in you
will perfect it unto that day."
No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and solemnity of what is
at stake will be careless as to his progress. To become