We all like to have the esteem of our fellows and we ought to like it.
That queer stick who is always flinging out sneers about popularity,
who insists that he does not care a straw what people think about him,
cares more than any of us. He has an idea that by this strange course
he will be talked about more and be regarded more highly for his oddity
than he would be if he shaped up his life in a more rational way.
Reputation is not character; it may be only the uncertain shadow cast
by character, but it can be, for all that, a pleasant and a healing
shadow. One of the wisest of men said, “A good name is rather to be
chosen than great riches.” A good name is simply what people say about
a man. The appreciation and the esteem which right living wins is a
legitimate form of reward.
But this also is liable to be distorted. Jesus saw certain people
making this form of reward the object of supreme desire. He warned his
disciples against that course. “Take heed that you do not your alms
before men to be seen of them. When thou doest thine alms sound not a
trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do, that they may have glory of
men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.” These men rendered
their generous service with showy ostentation, blowing their horns as
they went. They did it that they might have glory of men and they had
glory of men--they got the dividends they desired.
“And when thou prayest thou shalt not be as the hypocrites: they love
to pray standing on the street corners that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.” They prayed on the
street corners that they might be seen of men and they were seen of
men--they got what they prayed for.
The desire for esteem is not a satisfactory source of motive. The boy
who cannot do his duty unless he is praised and petted for it afterward
is a poor specimen--he is likely to become a vain, self-conscious
little prig. The man who cannot perform unless he is in the lime-light,
hearing the plaudits of the many, is made of poor stuff--he is lath
and plaster, where there should be sound material. All such speedily
lose the finer qualities out of whatever measure of righteousness they
seem to possess. When a man goes straight along about his business,
intent upon doing his own piece of work well and succeeds in such
a way that the gratitude, esteem, and appreciation of his fellows
come, he scarcely knows how, he finds this a beautiful and enduring
source of satisfaction. But here as everywhere the law of indirection
operates--he that saves his popularity by aiming for it loses it; he
that loses all thought of it by investing his life in useful service
finds it.
There are men who think of the highest form of reward as standing
in the approval of one’s own conscience and in the sense of having
the favor of God. The throne of judgment where I must stand and give
account is not away yonder among the clouds--it is in here where I am.
It is within my own heart where God is--where my God is. It is here
that I meet him now and must meet and face him ever.
And no quantity of outward success, no full, warm tide of popular
esteem will supply the lack of moral self-respect within. If any man
knows that his heart is not right before God, that his purposes are
not true, that his aspirations are low, then no amount of material
success or popular applause will give him tranquillity of spirit. And,
conversely, where there is honesty of purpose, where a man may look
himself in the face with unsparing candor and know that he is entitled
to respect, this fact of itself brings a peace which passeth all
understanding. This inner sense of worth and peace is from on high and
it becomes a fine form of reward.
There are ugly distortions of it. The Pharisee who went into the
temple to pray felt very comfortable in his own mind. We saw it in
his strut as he walked down the aisle. We noticed it in the way he
stood, when he prayed thus with himself, “God, I thank thee, that I
am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers.” He named
the lowest, meanest men he could think of. It would not be hard to
outrun such men morally, but such a race as it was the Pharisee had
won it. “I thank thee that I am not as other men are, or even as this
publican.” It was fortunate that the publican chanced to be there; it
added a cubit of self-complacency to the Pharisee to have the publican
present. “I fast twice in the week; I give a tenth of all that I
possess,” the Pharisee continued. He had been doing right for the sake
of the self-satisfaction which would result--and he had his reward. I
do not know of a man in history who seemed to have more of it. He was
comfortable to “the thirty-third and last degree” in that feeling of
self-approval which clothed him as with a garment.
But what a narrow, self-centered life it produces where this becomes
the chief form of reward for which a man strives! “I will speak this
kind word and do this generous deed and stand firm in the path of duty,
because of the warm feelings of self-approval which will steal upon my
heart,” such a man cries. It is better to have the approval of one’s
conscience than not to have it; it is better to strive for inner peace
and satisfaction than to have one’s eye constantly on material success
or popular applause. But where this becomes the object of supreme
interest it is a disappointing and a narrowing form of reward.
What shall we say, then, is the highest form, if neither material
success nor popular esteem nor the approval of one’s own conscience
is worthy to stand in that holy place? I find the highest form of
reward named by the Master in the parable of the Good Samaritan, “This
do and thou shalt live.” The reward for right living, for loving God
and loving one’s neighbor after the manner indicated in the parable,
lies in the increased power we gain to live. This do and thou shalt
live--live more abundantly, more effectively, more serviceably. The
reward of right life is a larger life.
The man in the parable who had been faithful and diligent with the one
pound entrusted to him received this reward: “Well done, thou good and
faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will
make thee ruler over many things! Have thou authority over ten cities.”
The reward for good conduct was enlarged capacity and enlarged
opportunity for more good conduct. The man’s powers were increased by
what he had been doing and his chance for the exercise of them was
greater; now, in place of the single pound to be used in trading, he
had authority over ten cities. In this sense of increased capacity to
meet the increasing obligations of life lies the highest form of reward.
In one of his little books, Henry van Dyke speaks of three ideals of
education. The man with “the decorative ideal” thinks it is a fine
thing to go through college. It gives one an air of distinction. It
enables him to belong to the University Club in the city where he
lives. It enables him to refer to “my class,” and to the “good old
days” at Harvard or Yale, at Cornell or Princeton, at Stanford or
California. He may even be prompted to become a “dig” in the hope that
a Phi Beta Kappa key will unlock doors closed to other men. And because
he is a university man he feels that he possesses a rare and cultivated
taste in poetry and in philosophy, in music and in art. He thinks of
his education as a highly decorative appendage to his personal life.
The second man has no use for all this; he has “the marketable ideal”
of education. He is one of those “no-nonsense-about-me” fellows. In
selecting his courses he has a thoroughly practical eye to the main
chance. He is very contemptuous in his attitude toward the study of
dead languages or of metaphysics. “What good would all that do me, when
I got out into the world?” he says. He thinks of himself as a tool to
be ground and sharpened so that in the world of business it will cut
where other tools fail. He is intent upon gaining an education not for
the purpose of living but for the purpose of making a living, which is
a very different thing.
The true ideal of education is “the creative ideal.” The work of the
school is not to enable the shoemaker to stick to his last and make
more money out of it than uneducated men are making out of their lasts.
“Education is to lift the shoemaker above his last, and to carry the
merchant beyond his store, the lawyer beyond his brief, the minister
beyond his sermon.” The supreme reward for being educated lies in
the enlarged capacity one gains for life. The reward for physical
exercise, for mental drill, for hard study, for the steady effort to
do one’s duty, is to be found in that increased power to live. This do
and thou shalt live a larger, freer, finer life. This do and thou shalt
be alive at more points, on higher levels, and in more efficient and
serviceable ways.
We cannot possibly stop short of that. If a man thinks of his education
as only making him more marketable, he has his mind fixed upon material
success as the highest form of reward. If he thinks of it mainly as a
thing that will win the admiration of his less cultured associates, he
is still in the clutches of that decorative idea. If he thinks of it
mainly as having value in giving him the consciousness of intelligence
and culture, he is still on an unsatisfactory level of thought and
purpose.
“Come on up to the head of the stairs,” the great educational processes
of the world call to us! “Come on up where you can see and breathe
and grow.” This do and thou shalt live; this alone indicates the
great end in view. Enlarged capacity for real life is the goal of all
serious endeavor. We may or may not gain material success; we may or
may not secure a large measure of popular applause; we will beyond a
peradventure have a deep, sweet feeling of peace within as we face that
way, but the main result will be that, by doing all these things well,
we shall gain increased power and capacity for living the life. Here
we reach that which is ultimate. “This do and thou shalt live” is the
final word on the subject of reward.
The highest return for doing anything lies in the power one gains to do
it better and to do more of it. The reward for reading is not in the
information gained or in the ideas acquired so much as in the mental
stimulus which comes, enabling one to read more books and better ones
and in time to produce ideas of his own. The artist goes out into the
world to see the beauty of it in tree and flower, in landscape and
mountain, in the quiet lake, and in the restless sea. His reward comes
in increased power to see more beauty there than other people see and
to transfer what he sees to canvas. “I never saw anything like that
in nature,” a woman once said to Turner as she looked at one of his
pictures. “Very likely,” replied the artist; “how much would you give,
madam, if you could?” Turn your face any way you choose and the great
statement of the Master about reward holds true,--this do and thou
shalt live.
Carry it up to the moral level. The reward for doing your duty lies in
the increased power you gain to keep on doing it and to do it better.
The reward for loving lies in the increased power to love and to love
more worthily. The reward for meeting and mastering some hard situation
in life, temptation, disappointment, struggle, sorrow, lies in the
added strength you gain to master still harder situations which may
arise. In your spiritual pilgrimage you go “from strength to strength,”
from one form of strength to another and a higher form, from one
measure of strength to another and a fuller measure, until at last you
reach the fulness of the stature of Christ.
You may recall that great promise made in the last book of the Bible!
“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee”--what? What form
will the ultimate reward take? “I will give thee a crown,” not of
gold with diamonds in it larger than the Kohinoor, not the crown
of material success. “I will give thee a crown,” not of laurel such
as the Greeks placed upon the brow of the victors in the games, the
crown of popular applause. “I will give thee a crown,” not of personal
satisfaction such as men of honest purpose may be entitled to wear. “Be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown _of life_!”
The ultimate reward for living right lies in the increased power and
the increased opportunity which will be ours to live on and to live
more abundantly.
IX
THE USE OF THE INCOMPLETE
“We know in part.” This is not the statement of some indifferent
agnostic, who, because religious questions are difficult, insists that
he does not know anything about them. It is not the statement of a
defiant infidel, who, because he does not understand everything about
religion, declares that neither he nor any one knows anything about
it. It is not the statement of one of those hesitating individuals who
are always trying to steer a safe course somewhere between yes and
no, between the right of it and the wrong of it; who are never quite
sure whether there is or is not a God, but think that the truth lies,
perhaps, about halfway between the two claims.
This man Paul was not an agnostic, nor an infidel, nor a hesitator. He
knew certain things, he was sure of them. He was ready to say so right
out loud, and to stand up and be cut in two for them if need be. “I
know whom I have believed,” he cries; there was no uncertainty in his
mind on that point. “I know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ”--and
it had changed him from a narrow, bigoted, persecuting Pharisee into
one who wrote the best hymn on love to be found in print and who
embodied the spirit of it in his daily conduct. “I know that all things
work together for good to them that love God”--and in Paul’s case
“all things” included a great deal of hardship and persecution, of
disappointment and sorrow, but he never wavered in his confidence that
some wise purpose was being furthered by it all. These and many other
things he knew. “In part we know,” was the way he would have placed his
emphasis and the actual content of his knowledge was large indeed.
He makes this statement as an honest, modest, reasonable man face to
face with spiritual realities too great for perfect comprehension or
final statement. His knowledge of them was large, but they were still
larger. He must have known when he wrote those words that he was a
man of no mean attainments. He wrote a third of the New Testament with
his own hand. He did more to shape Christian thought than any one save
Christ himself. He had been “caught up into the third heaven,” whatever
that may mean. He was the most effective missionary of the new faith
the world has ever seen. He was a man of marvelous reach and grasp, but
face to face with these great spiritual realities, God and redemption,
prayer and duty, immortality and the final judgment, he frankly
confesses that the returns are not all in; the last words have not been
said and cannot be said; the full appreciation of these high values has
not been reached. We know in part.
We are glad to find these words on the lips of the world’s greatest
apostle. They are reassuring to those of us who are troubled by the
limitations of our own religious knowledge. They match the mood of this
modern time of questioning and unrest which is so much in evidence
on the college campus and in university circles. They suggest that
finality is much more difficult than some of the earlier generations
in their simplicity supposed. One does not find those familiar words,
“Finis” or “The End,” printed on the last page of a book so commonly
as in other days. Even where the author has said his say in several
volumes, each one as bulky as a volume of the “Britannica,” he knows
that there is more to be said. He leaves the way open without trying to
block it by writing, “The End.”
We are conscious that we have not reached the terminus on any of the
great trunk lines of religious inquiry. We are scattered along at
various way stations, thankful for the part we know, grateful for
progress made, but confessing with Paul that we have not attained, that
we are not made perfect either in theory or in practise. But whatever
headway we have made we are determined in the spirit of Paul to use
the part we know and press forward toward the mark of the prize of
the high calling of God. This is the dominant mood of the serious but
cautious, inquiring element in modern life. We are, therefore, grateful
for the word of this modest, reasonable man, who with all his store of
spiritual experience said quietly, “We know in part.”
We might carry these words in many directions and find them helpful.
Some of us have been greatly disturbed as to the doctrine of
Providence. We have been told on high authority that God reigns and
that “He doeth all things well.” When times are good we really believe
it. We see that the way of the transgressor is hard, as it ought to be,
and that on the whole the way of righteousness is the way of peace and
honor. We have a comfortable persuasion that all things taken in their
completeness and final outcome are working together for good to those
whose purposes are right.
But just when we have gotten our doctrine of Providence all snug we
witness something like this: Yonder a young Christian mother dies. She
was an ideal daughter, a devoted wife, and the beautiful mother of
children who loved her and needed her more than they did anything else
on earth. But with a whole community of people, perhaps, praying for
her recovery she dies, while just around the corner a group of scamps,
who are making the world worse, rather than better, live on, fat and
hearty. And then somehow our doctrine of Providence, our belief as to
the reign of a wise and good God, receives a hard shock.
But we know in part. We know the usefulness of that life here; we do
not know to what further and, perhaps, higher service it has been
called there. We see what has been interrupted here; we do not see what
has been taken up further on. We do not know the ultimate effect of
this stern sorrow upon that household, the result of this necessity for
the regirding of all their powers as they walk now in the shadow of a
great bereavement. We do not even know God’s ultimate purpose for those
scamps who live on; the returns are not all in for them either. We know
in part, and what we know, taking human life broadly, is so reassuring
that we are willing to trust God and walk on by faith.
Ships in Norway, entering the great fiords, sometimes sail so close to
the cliffs that one can stand on deck and almost lay his hand upon the
face of the rock. When one captain was asked about it, he said, “That
which is in sight indicates what is out of sight. The slant above the
water-line indicates the slant below and we are perfectly safe.” The
general slant of God’s dealings with us, taking the facts we know in
the total impression they make as to his wisdom and justice, is such
that we are prepared to trust him below the water-line. Therefore when
I cannot in some difficult situation make out his ultimate purpose with
the naked eye, I fall back upon my confidence in his moral character.
As to this faith in the divine integrity no serious, observant man
should remain in doubt. It is a faith which rests upon a wide induction
of fact, vaster by far than my own experience of his dealings with me.
It is like repeating an axiom to say that the creature does not rise
above the Creator. If men at any time, anywhere are good, there must be
goodness in the Creator of those men, goodness in the force or forces
lying back of them, call those forces by what name we may. And if the
stream of human goodness has been widening, deepening, flowing more
strongly as the ages have come and gone, it points back to character
and purpose in the One who created the stream itself. That goodness
in man argues goodness in God, while badness in man does not argue
badness in God is plain, in that sane men everywhere regard goodness as
normal, while badness is abnormal.
And look at the swelling tide of human goodness down through the ages!
Look at Livingstone laying down his life to carry light into the dark
continent! Look at Cromwell fearing God and none else, neither king nor
pope, neither nobles nor bishops, and giving his life that he might win
constitutional and religious freedom for the English-speaking race!
Look at Lincoln counting not his life dear if he might serve the cause
of the Union and the interests of his brothers in bonds! Look at the
vast array of human goodness massing itself in saints and seers, in
heroes and martyrs, in teachers and mothers, going forth not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, giving their lives for the betterment
of the world! Look at it all and then ask yourself if you can believe
for one moment that all this goodness originated itself, persisted, and
increased in opposition to the will of the Creator or in the face of
his moral indifference or without creative goodness in him! The claim
would be monstrous! This wide induction of fact begets a profound
faith in the moral character of God and when we cannot see we trust,
because as to the final meaning of many strange experiences we know in
part.
Take the matter of prayer and the way it enters into the formation of
character and the shaping of events. We know that prayer registers
a definite and wholesome influence on many a life. Those who loudly
assert that virtue and vice are as purely physical products as sugar
and vitriol, that all right action and wrong action can be accounted
for on material grounds, have not made out their case, they have not
begun to make it out. There is something unseen, mysterious, but real
and powerful, which impels certain people to love the unlovely, to
make sacrifices for the thoughtless and ungrateful, to stand firm in
the path of duty when it is anything but the line of least resistance.
The love of right, the sense of obligation, the habit of adherence
to principle, all these are as real as granite. But the forces which
make them strong are spiritual, and these forces receive constant
reenforcement from the habit of prayer.
This part we know. We have seen the hearts of men turned from anger
to love, from unholy to holy purpose, from weakness to strong resolve
by prayer. We have seen home life made sweeter because once at least
in every twenty-four hours the members of the household came together
and knelt before God, confessing their faults, asking his guidance
and allowing that which was true and right within them to grow by its
communion with him who is altogether true and right. Any sensible man
would feel that his life, his property, his family were all safer in a
community where men prayed, than in one where they only used the name
of God profanely. This part we know about prayer.
But as to the ultimate effect of it, the final philosophy of it, the
precise way in which the finite spirit becomes a colaborer with the
Infinite Spirit in shaping events, I freely confess that there is a
great deal which I do not understand. I know in part, but the part I
know is so full of blessed and beautiful results that I want my prayer
for the coming of God’s kingdom, for the doing of his will on earth,
for the gift of bread for the daily need, for forgiveness, and final
deliverance from evil--I want that prayer to go up, winging its way to
the throne backed by all the faith and hope and love I can put into it.
And I am not troubled by the fact that I cannot explain all the grounds
of my confidence, for, like Paul, I know in part.
Take the matter of the future life! There is much here we would like
to know. What are our loved ones who have gone on doing now? Are they
witnesses of the blunders and the failures we make here? Just how is
right rewarded and wrong punished when the two are so intricately
interwoven? No man is so white a sheep but that there are patches of
goat about him here and there. No man is so bad but that there is some
good in him if we observingly distil it out. And what of the final
outcome--can good people be happily content if the sinful souls they
loved are in conscious pain or even if they have been remorselessly
wiped off the slate of existence? Is it too much to hope that God’s
persuasions to righteousness being infinite may prove irresistible
and so at last successful in every case? So men and women who have
loved and lost those who passed out of this world without a sign of
genuine repentance or of saving faith have queried ever. A child can
ask more questions here in five minutes than all the philosophers and
theologians on earth can answer in as many years.