But some one says--"I find pictures are a great help to me, and
images. I know that they are not themselves sacred, but they help me
in my devotions to fix my thoughts on God."
When Dr. Trumbull was in Northfield, he used an illustration that is a
good answer to this. He said, "Suppose a young man were watching from
a window for his absent mother's return, with a wish to catch the
first glimpse of her approaching face. Would he be wise or foolish in
putting up a photograph of her on the window-frame before him, as a
help to bear her in as he looks for her coming? As there can be no
doubt about the answer to that question, so there can be no doubt that
we can best come into communion with God by closing our eyes to
everything that can be seen with the natural eye, and opening the eyes
of our spirit to the sight of God the Spirit."
I would a great deal sooner have five minutes communion with Christ
than spend years before pictures and images of Him. Whatever comes
between my soul and my Maker is not a help to me, but a hindrance. God
has given different means of grace by which we can approach Him. Let
us use these, and not seek for other things that He has distinctly
forbidden.
Dr. Dale says that in his college days he had an engraving of our Lord
hanging over his mantlepiece. "The calmness, the dignity, the
gentleness, and the sadness of the face represented the highest
conceptions which I had in those days of the human presence of Christ.
I often looked at it, and seldom without being touched by it. I
discovered in the course of a few mouths that the superstitious
sentiments were gradually clustering about it, which are always
created by the visible representations of the Divine. The engraving
was becoming to me the shrine of God manifest in the flesh, and I
understood the growth of idolatry. The visible symbol is at first a
symbol and nothing more; it assists thought; it stirs passion. At last
it is identified with the God whom it represents. If, every day, I bow
before a crucifix in prayer, if I address it as though it were Christ,
though I know it is not, I shall come to feel for it a reverence and
love which are of the very essence of idolatry."
Did you ever stop to think that the world has not a single picture of
Christ that has been handed down to us from His disciples? Who knows
what He was like? The Bible does not tell us how He looked, except in
one or two isolated general expressions as when it says--"His visage
was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of
men." We don't know anything definite about His features, the color of
His hair and eyes, and the other details that would help to give a
true representation. What artist can tell us? He left no keepsakes to
His disciples. His clothes were seized by the Roman soldiers who
crucified Him. Not a solitary thing was left to be handed down among
His followers. Doesn't it look as if Christ left no relics lest they
should be held sacred and worshipped?
History tells us further that the early Christians shrank from making
pictures and statues of any kind of Christ. They knew Him as they had
seen Him after His resurrection, and had promises of His continued
presence that pictures could not make any more real.
I have seen very few pictures of Christ that do not repel me more or
less. I sometimes think that it is wrong to have pictures of Him at
all.
Speaking of the crucifix Dr. Dale says; "It makes our worship and
prayer unreal. We are adoring a Christ who does not exist. He is not
on the cross now, but on the throne. His agonies are passed forever.
He has risen from the dead. He is at the right hand of God. If we pray
to a dying Christ, we are praying not to Christ Himself, but to a mere
remembrance of Him. The injury which the crucifix has inflicted on the
religious life of Christendom, in encouraging a morbid and unreal
devotion, is absolutely incalculable. It has given us a dying Christ
instead of a living Christ, a Christ separated from us by many
centuries instead of a Christ nigh at hand."