Part 3 (2/2)

In vision, in insight, in purity, in stainlessness, in all that we reverence in human life and that good men strive to attain, we have no model to set beside His example. All the more, then, this fact deserves our notice, and calls us to follow Him, that we find Him, as His custom was, in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He was there Sabbath after Sabbath listening to the provincial teacher, wors.h.i.+pping with the village labourer, praying with the ignorant and the foolish, there as a matter of life custom and for His soul's benefit.

I have said that it deserves our notice; but more than this--it should be graven on the minds of the young, so that they may never lose the impression of it, so that it go with them through all their years of manhood, to preserve in them the devotional and reverent habit.

It is indeed good for all of us to think of Him there in that primitive and unattractive house of G.o.d, listening to the rude Galilean accents, and bowing His head in the habitual wors.h.i.+p of that obscure community.

I do not think it is possible for us, unless we are quite indifferent about our moral and spiritual condition--unless, that is, we have low notions about our life, a low aim and a low standard--to be unaffected in our practice by this example of the Lord. We can hardly believe that those exercises of the spirit which were so fruitful in His life will fail to bear their fruit in ours also.

What have we to say as we picture Him with all the great thoughts of His new work swelling up in His soul, the divinely appointed teacher of new wisdom and new faith, the bringer of new light among men, the voice of a new world, and yet, being all this, at the same time, and as a means for working out His mission more completely, a regular and devout wors.h.i.+pper in a village house of prayer?

If it should ever happen to any of us that we come to fancy we do not need such common prayer, or that because of defects in public wors.h.i.+p we do not profit by it, does not this example of the Saviour rise up and rebuke us? Yes, you may rest a.s.sured, if that day ever comes to you, that you are in danger of drifting away from the great saving tides of the human spirit into some shallow or artificial stream of your own time and generation. But, on the other hand, it is a happy thing for our life if, growing up in the habitual use of time-honoured spiritual exercises, we have truly learnt to know by our own experience, as by the example of the Saviour set before us in the Gospel, that they are the support and safeguard of all that is highest and purest and best in us, if only we are careful to use them with sincerity and reverence.

VIII. AN UNANSWERABLE QUESTION.

”Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.”--JOB xiv.

4.

This is one of those simple questions which, by their very simplicity and directness, set us thinking about the importance of our personal life.

”Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” But all our common life is somehow the outcome of our separate individual lives--of your life and mine. Therefore how important it is in the common interest that each of us should look above all things to his own life and its character, for this will determine his contribution to the life of his society.

Nearly all men are keen about the reputation of their society, about the name it bears, about the way in which men think and speak of it.

Thus you are no doubt sensitive, almost every one of you, about the good reputation of your school or your house, or any society with which you may happen to be closely connected or identified.

And this is a healthy and praiseworthy feeling. It would indeed be a bad sign if such a feeling were wanting or weak in any society.

But I am not sure that we keep it before us--all of us--as clearly as we ought to do, that this reputation of the society is simply the outcome of our separate lives and habits.

The reputation is the reflex of the life; hardly ever, perhaps, an exact reflex, very often a distorted reflex with this or that feature exaggerated; but yet always a reflex.

The reputation you bear is the impression made by your common life on the minds of those who see it from the outside, or who hear men's talk about it.

And we do well to be sensitive on such a subject; but we do still better if we bear in mind that this common life is what comes out of our own life, and is the result of its contact with that of our neighbour.

And with this thought in our minds we feel how searching and how directly personal is this primitive and childlike question, Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?

Societies, especially young societies, are very impressible, and their character--the quality, that is, of their life--is fixed by prevailing influences, which show themselves in fas.h.i.+ons, habits, and tendencies, in the common types of thought, or taste, or behaviour, or conduct.

This is obvious enough to every one; but what we do not seem always to consider is the extent to which these influences or fas.h.i.+ons have their origin, so far as our own society is concerned, in our own lives. They are, in fact, in the main the general outcome of our separate lives.

Do you, then, think of yourselves--this is the practical question to which these considerations lead up--as sources or centres of such influence, contributing your personal share to this common life?

It may make an immense difference to all your thoughts about your common habits, and your standards of daily conduct and duty, if you remember this ancient saying, that no man can bring a clean thing out of an unclean. And so I have to ask you to consider a little how the common life of this society is dependent upon your life.

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