The pathway of true brotherly love is bordered with deformed social
conditions which must be faced and remedied. Entering the temple at the
hour of prayer, Peter and John had their pious meditations interrupted
by the appealing cry of a crippled beggar, who was crouching helplessly
at the temple door. His haggard face, his wistful eye, his bony,
outstretched hand, pleaded so passionately that the singing of the
Levites was drowned and the temple call to prayer unheeded. The eyes
of Peter and the beggar met, and Christlike spirituality stood face
to face with the practical aspect of the world’s need. Instantly
the great-hearted, impetuous Peter took notice of the helpless man,
whose wan face began to brighten with hope. Taking him by the right
hand, Peter said: “Silver and gold have I none. I cannot meet the
requirements that you ask, knowing that it is not money that you need,
so much as health and strength, with which to earn a livelihood for
yourself and for your loved ones. Silver and gold have I none; but
such as I have, give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth
rise up and walk.” The cripple did not have time to waver, nor to
debate, for the warm handclasp and the strong arm of the enthusiastic
servant of Christ was lifting him to his feet and teaching him how to
leap, and run, and sing the praises of God. Peter and John felt that
they could not enter the temple to pray until they had proven their
right to worship by practically meeting whatever part of the world-wide
social needs chanced, at that moment, to confront them.
But their benevolence was misinterpreted by those who should have been
the most appreciative. Overzealous religionists, who usually mistake
the form for the spirit of worship, had the two benefactors arrested,
accused of violating their law concerning the observance of the Sabbath
day. After a night spent upon the cold, damp stones of the inner
prison, the two disciples were brought before the learned magistrate to
explain their conduct.
There is nothing more interesting than these unfriendly scholarly
investigations of religious phenomena, conducted for the purpose of
securing a rational psychological explanation. The high priests, the
scribes, the rulers of city and province were seated in state, when
the two humble followers of the Social Christ, with common garb, and
net-calloused hands, stood at the judgment bar and heard the question:
“By what power have ye done this?” A more modern phraseology of the
question would be, “State to the Court what is the psychological
explanation of this purported miracle?”
It was a critical moment to these judges, for scholarship, with much
ado, was studying and analyzing ignorance. But the Peter of Pentecost
was not to be dismayed. He knew that the service of Christ is not
formal but practical, and that his conduct in curing a lame beggar was
more important to God than the observing of a thousand man-made forms
and ceremonies. He knew from his former experience that ignorance need
have no fear of the scoffer’s sneer, or the scholar’s questioning, when
once the heart has been fully consecrated to the service of God. With
confidence they faced the inquirers saying, frankly: “The power is not
ours. This miracle was performed through the power of Christ, which
you, in your learning, threw aside, and which we, in the simplicity of
our untutored hearts, have accepted as the gift of God.” The power of
Pentecost was with the preacher again, and the judges were filled with
fear and wonderment. Against their most earnest desires they liberated
the men, wondering why they, as learned men, should be influenced by
men of such untrained intellects.
While Christianity has always waged warfare against ignorance in all
forms, and has been the leader in founding schools and colleges, the
fact remains that many of our greatest achievements have been wrought
by untrained men. God often takes the weak things of this world to
confound the mighty.
When an unorganized and badly scattered people needed a wise ruler, God
passed by the palace doors and over the seats of learning that, in the
open fields, he might crown David, a shepherd lad. When Jerusalem was
a ruined city, overgrown with weed and briar, God ignored commanding
generals and ruling monarchs, to honor Nehemiah, whose conquering
courage rebuilt the city. When mad with power and wild excesses of sin,
a mighty nation needed restraint, God stepped over the royal houses as
though they were playthings upon the nursery floor, and lifted Daniel,
an exile, to become the condemning conscience for them who had slain
their consciences, and to become a radiant hope for those who were
enslaved and had lost all courage. When the time had fully come for
the kingdom of Christ to be preached to the cultured and aristocratic,
he chose these two men of the fisher-craft, who, though ignorant
and unlearned, made the scholars and statesmen dumb with wonderment,
while the crowned power of the age was humiliated, unable to cope
successfully against the growing faith.
Christianity, while not encouraging ignorance, recognizes what
the world often overlooks, that learning, in itself, has woeful
limitations. When rightly employed, mental training multiplies one’s
powers and talents, as the circling moon gives strength and swiftness
to the rising tides; but misapplied book-learning has little value.
In the crises of life the general information gleaned from books
counts for but very little. The knowledge that water, when reduced in
temperature to thirty degrees or less, freezes, so that a dangerous
river is changed into a solid highway over which one can walk in
safety, is of small value to a man who is drowning in the summer time,
and very few drowning men would call for a thermometer to take the
temperature of the water in which they were sinking. Standing beneath
a falling wall, no man is going to begin to calculate the specific
gravity of the falling elements or estimate the force of impact upon
his head. All learning is good, and nothing in the line of information
should be ignored, for, along the more or less narrow line of its own
application, each truth is of inestimable value. Each added truth that
one learns pulls up the tent stakes of the horizon and widens the
world just so much, but no man can save himself with learning alone.
Success depends, not upon scholarship, but upon a spotless love for God
and a boundless love for man. Herein is the wisdom of life, and the
weakest man or woman may possess it. All men may not become learned,
but all men may become great and enthusiastic lovers of their fellow
man. The little child that bends its arms in fervent hugs to show the
measure of its affection; the struggling youth that stops to help a
wounded companion; the widow, fighting against poverty in the tenement;
the old man, patiently looking for the coming day--all these may
possess the secret of royal living.
The world will be saved, not by the scholar, as a scholar, but by the
loving heart; not by platitude, but by kindly deeds. Goodness is such
an easy thing to acquire, that it is within the reach of all. A little
London newsboy was seen to daily follow an unknown man for many blocks.
When asked by an observer why he did so he responded, “When he buys a
paper from me, he always smiles, and calls me his boy. He is the only
one who ever called me that, and I just love to see him.” Here was
a life brightened and perhaps redeemed because a busy man of wealth
took time to say what any one of us is able to say each day. When
King Humbert would have lost his nation he saved it, not by scholarly
exhortations or startling state papers, but by visiting the hospitals
of Naples and ministering with genuine affection a plague-smitten
people. It was a task of love that the weakest person might be able to
perform, but it saved a nation for a king.
The world will be saved. Righteousness shall ultimately prevail. The
kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Christ. There
are no failures in God’s mighty plans. We may vary in our beliefs,
and differ greatly as to the process by which he shall accomplish his
wise designs, but this is true: when this world is brought ultimately
to the feet of Christ, it will have been accomplished not by prayer
alone but by work and prayer, not by the scholar as a scholar but by
the men, learned or unlearned, who have discovered the compelling and
transforming power of a boundless, undying love.