Now it follows very directly from the conception of God as a finite
intelligence of boundless courage and limitless possibilities of growth
and victory, who has pitted himself against death, who stands close to
our inmost beings ready to receive us and use us, to rescue us from the
chagrins of egotism and take us into his immortal adventure, that we
who have realised him and given ourselves joyfully to him, must needs be
equally ready and willing to give our energies to the task we share
with him, to do our utmost to increase knowledge, to increase order and
clearness, to fight against indolence, waste, disorder, cruelty, vice,
and every form of his and our enemy, death, first and chiefest in
ourselves but also in all mankind, and to bring about the establishment
of his real and visible kingdom throughout the world.
And that idea of God as the Invisible King of the whole world means not
merely that God is to be made and declared the head of the world, but
that the kingdom of God is to be present throughout the whole fabric
of the world, that the Kingdom of God is to be in the teaching at the
village school, in the planning of the railway siding of the market
town, in the mixing of the mortar at the building of the workman’s
house. It means that ultimately no effigy of intrusive king or emperor
is to disfigure our coins and stamps any more; God himself and no
delegate is to be represented wherever men buy or sell, on our letters
and our receipts, a perpetual witness, a perpetual reminder. There is no
act altogether without significance, no power so humble that it may not
be used for or against God, no life but can orient itself to him. To
realise God in one’s heart is to be filled with the desire to serve him,
and the way of his service is neither to pull up one’s life by the
roots nor to continue it in all its essentials unchanged, but to turn it
about, to turn everything that there is in it round into his way.
The outward duty of those who serve God must vary greatly with the
abilities they possess and the positions in which they find themselves,
but for all there are certain fundamental duties; a constant attempt
to be utterly truthful with oneself, a constant sedulousness to
keep oneself fit and bright for God’s service, and to increase one’s
knowledge and powers, and a hidden persistent watchfulness of one’s
baser motives, a watch against fear and indolence, against vanity,
against greed and lust, against envy, malice, and uncharitableness. To
have found God truly does in itself make God’s service one’s essential
motive, but these evils lurk in the shadows, in the lassitudes and
unwary moments. No one escapes them altogether, there is no need for
tragic moods on account of imperfections. We can no more serve God
without blunders and set-backs than we can win battles without losing
men. But the less of such loss the better. The servant of God must keep
his mind as wide and sound and his motives as clean as he can, just as
an operating surgeon must keep his nerves and muscles as fit and his
hands as clean as he can. Neither may righteously evade exercise and
regular washing--of mind as of hands. An incessant watchfulness of
one’s self and one’s thoughts and the soundness of one’s thoughts;
cleanliness, clearness, a wariness against indolence and prejudice,
careful truth, habitual frankness, fitness and steadfast work; these are
the daily fundamental duties that every one who truly comes to God will,
as a matter of course, set before himself.