Part 10 (1/2)
And it has been so with all the great servants of G.o.d; out of this feeling the love of souls has grown in men.
But this feeling of the value of each individual life, because of the Divine element and presence in it, is a peculiar gift of the Christian revelation.
In the ancient pagan world a man's life was of little account; it is out of the Bible that this new thought has come that every soul has in it an indefinite element of Divine possibilities, and is therefore of value in the sight of G.o.d. It is by virtue of this contribution to our thought that the Bible is truly described as the Great Charter of human rights, and as the source of the great stream of charity and self-sacrifice, of that enthusiasm of humanity which more than all else separates and distinguishes our life from that of heathen antiquity.
It would indeed be difficult to point to any one single thing which makes so great a difference between the quality of one man's life and another's as the presence or absence of this feeling about the value, the possibilities, the sanct.i.ty of each individual soul.
”Let man estimate himself,” said Pascal, ”let him estimate himself at his true value, honour himself in his capacities, and despise himself in his neglect of those capacities.” Yes, if a man is once brought to this condition that he feels the greatness of the ends for which G.o.d has made him, and that he estimates his life by the possibilities of growth that are in it, and by the thought of the Divine influences that work in it; and if he despises himself for neglect of these capacities or possibilities and of these influences, he has awoke to a sense of the first word of Christ and His Apostles.
Your soul is G.o.d's seed-field, G.o.d's building; we are labourers together with G.o.d. Such a description of each individual life is very significant everywhere, and not least in such a society as ours.
To us who are here in this society as masters they are just a parable of our own life; setting forth to each of us what should be his estimate of his own work and aim and purpose, exhibiting to him his field of work with the Divine light on it, and interpreting to him his own endeavours as a fellow-labourer with G.o.d, hoping to contribute in some degree towards the filling in and completing that Divine plan, that ideal picture of the life of every one of you which is in the heavens, and which in imagination he sees as a thing some day to be realised, and the realisation of which, or its failure, may largely depend on his own share in our life and work. It is this feeling that every heart contains the germ of some perfection that makes our life so profoundly interesting, and, it may be added, our responsibilities for the cultivation or neglect of any such germ or capacity so serious and engrossing.
But to you, too, these apostolic suggestions about the Divine influences at work in each heart, and the value of each life in G.o.d's sight, and the Divine voices claiming to be heard in it, should be quite as stimulative as they are to us.
They have in them the germ of all striving after purity and goodness, and of all hatred of sin, and enthusiasm for the uplifting of social life.
The words of Paul to his Corinthian converts may furnish you with new interpretations of your own daily life and duty.
If they were G.o.d's husbandry, or G.o.d's building, are not you? If the Spirit of G.o.d dwelt in them, how does He not dwell likewise in you?
striving for your growth in holiness and good purpose, and for your salvation from sin and its defilements, as he strove for theirs?
And if it was good for every man in that Corinthian community to be warned how he built upon the foundation of life that had been laid in Christ; if it was good for them to be reminded that every man's work would be made manifest, and that the fire would try it, of what sort it was; it is good also for us, masters and boys alike, to remember that we are living under the same law, and that we should take care lest haply we be found to be working against G.o.d.
That Epistle of St. Paul's was written in pain and anguish of heart. The seeds of Christian life which he had sown among them, the purifying influences of the Holy Spirit which were working among them through him and his fellow-labourers, all these ought to have produced fruits easily described, such as peace and love, and purity, and good works; but instead of these, and threatening their destruction, there had sprung up dissension and strife, party spirit, self-conceit, and gross sins which I need not name.
In all this there was grief, disappointment, bitterness; for did they not prove that his work was threatened with failure?
Yet in all that storm of feeling his chief exhortation is this reminder of the dignity of their calling. In the midst of all their sin and failure, though he does not spare rebuke and warning, he always aims at inspiring them by uplifting. And we know that this is the true method, because there is nothing which exercises an influence so strong to uplift and purify as the feeling of our kins.h.i.+p with the life above us, and that we are degrading our life when we forget this or ignore it. And herein is the value of this word of his that G.o.d is dwelling and working in us.
”Know ye not that ye are the temple of G.o.d, that the Holy Ghost dwelleth in you, and that G.o.d's temple is holy? and if any man destroy the temple of G.o.d, him shall G.o.d destroy.”
Let us then begin again our common life with a determination to bear in mind the possibilities and the sanct.i.ty of each separate soul that comes amongst us.
Living in crowds, we are apt to forget this; and, forgetting it, some treat their own souls as if they were of no value, and some the souls of others, and so the work of sin and waste goes on from generation to generation.
But in our best moments, in our times of serious thought, if we have been once enlightened, we can never again cease to feel the dignity and the value of each human life.