Part 11 (2/2)
Paul said for the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they grew ”from character to character.” ”The inward man,” he says elsewhere, ”is renewed from day to day.” All thorough work is slow; all true development by minute, slight and insensible metamorphoses. The higher the structure, moreover, the slower the progress. As the biologist runs his eye over the long Ascent of Life, he sees the lowest forms of animals develop in an hour; the next above these reach maturity in a day; those higher still take weeks or months to perfect; but the few at the top demand the long experiment of years. If a child and an ape are born on the same day, the last will be in full possession of its faculties and doing the active work of life before the child has left its cradle. Life is the cradle of eternity. As the man is to the animal in the slowness of his evolution, so is the spiritual man to the natural man. Foundations which have to bear the weight of an eternal life must be surely laid. Character is to wear forever; who will wonder or grudge that it cannot be developed in a day?
To await the growing of a soul, nevertheless, is an almost Divine act of faith. How pardonable, surely, the impatience of deformity with itself, of a consciously despicable character standing before Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that! Yet must one trust the process fearlessly and without misgiving. ”The Lord the Spirit” will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end by watching for effects instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. A photograph prints from the negative only while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he simply stops the getting on. Whatever of wise supervision the soul may need, it is certain it can never be over-exposed, or that, being exposed, anything else in the world can improve the result or quicken it. The creation of a new heart, the renewing of a right spirit, is an omnipotent work of G.o.d.
Leave it to the Creator. ”He which hath begun a good work in you will perfect it unto that day.”
No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and solemnity of what is at stake will be careless as to his progress. To become
Like Christ
is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing before which every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement vain.
Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and pa.s.sion of their lives can ever begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it has seemed up to this point as if all depended on pa.s.sivity, let me now a.s.sert, with conviction more intense, that all depends on activity. A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion for an angel, but never for a man. No in the contemplative, but in the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, but in reality, lies true life; not in the realm of ideals, but among tangible things, is man's sanctification wrought. Resolution, effort, pain, self-crucifixion, agony--all the things already dismissed as futile in themselves, must now be restored to office, and a tenfold responsibility laid upon them. For what is their office? Nothing less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, and place it, and keep it where the spiritual forces will act upon it. It is to rally the forces of the will, and keep the surface of the mirror bright and ever in position. It is to uncover the face which is to look at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights are near.
You have, perhaps, gone with an astronomer to watch him photograph the spectrum of a star. As you enter the dark vault of the observatory you saw him being by lighting a candle. To see the star with? No; but to adjust the instrument to see the star with.
It was the star that was going to take the photograph; it was, also, the astronomer. For a long time he worked in the dimness, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g tubes and polis.h.i.+ng lenses and adjusting reflectors, and only after much labor the finely focused instrument was brought to bear. Then he blew out the light, and left the start to do its work upon the plate alone.
The day's task for the Christian is to bring his instrument to bear.
Having done that he may blow out his candle. All the evidences of Christianity which have brought him there, all aids to Faith, all acts of wors.h.i.+p, all the leverages of the Church, all Prayer and Meditation, all girding of the Will--these lesser processes, these candle-light activities for that supreme hour, may be set aside.
But, remember, it is but for an hour. The wise man will be he who quickest lights his candle; the wisest he who never lets it out.
Tomorrow, the next moment, he, a poor, darkened, blurred soul, may need it again to focus the Image better, to take a mote off the lens, to clear the mirror from a breath with which the world has dulled it.
No readjustment is ever required on behalf of the Star. That is one great fixed point in this s.h.i.+fting universe. But THE WORLD MOVES. And each day, each hour, demands a further motion and readjustment for the soul. A telescope in an observatory follows a star by clockwork, but the clockwork of the soul is called THE WILL. Hence, while the soul in pa.s.sivity reflects the Image of the Lord, the Will in intense activity holds the mirror in position lest the drifting motion of the world bear it beyond the line of vision. To ”follow Christ” is largely to keep the soul in such position as will allow for the motion of the earth. And this calculated counteracting of the movements of the world, this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to the Mirrored, this steadying of the faculties unerringly through cloud and earthquake, fire and sword, is the stupendous co-operating labor of the Will. It is all man's work. It is all Christ's work. In practice it is both; in theory it is both. But the wise man will say in practice, ”It depends upon myself.”
In the Gallerie des Beaux Arts in Paris there stands a famous statue. It was the last work of a great genius, who, like many a genius, was very poor and lived in a garret, which served as a studio and sleeping-room alike. When the statue was all but finished, one midnight a sudden frost fell upon Paris. The sculptor lay awake in the fireless room and thought of the still moist clay, thought how the water would freeze in the pores and destroy in an hour the dream of his life. So the old man rose from his couch and heaped the bed-clothes reverently round his work. In the morning when the neighbors entered the room the sculptor was dead, but the statue was saved!
The Image of Christ that is forming within us--that is life's one charge. Let every project stand aside for that. The spirit of G.o.d who brooded upon the waters thousands of years ago, is busy now creating men, within these commonplace lives of ours, in the image of G.o.d. ”Till Christ be formed,” no man's work is finished, no religion crowned, no life has fulfilled its end. Is the infinite task begun? When, how, are we to be different? Time cannot change men. Death cannot change men. Christ can. Wherefore PUT ON CHRIST.
Dealing With Doubt.
There is a subject which I think workers amongst young men cannot afford to keep out of sight--I mean the subject of ”Doubt.” We are forced to face that subject. We have no choice. I would rather let it alone; but every day of my life I meet men who doubt, and I am quite sure that most Christian workers among men have innumerable interviews every year with men who raise skeptical difficulties about religion.
Now it becomes a matter of great practical importance that we should know how to deal wisely with these. Upon the whole, I think these are the best men in the country. I speak of my own country. I speak of the universities with which I am familiar, and I say that they men who are perplexed,--the men who come to you with serious and honest difficulties,--are the best men. They are men of intellectual honesty, and cannot allow themselves to be put to rest by words, or phrases, or traditions, or theologies, but who must get to the bottom of things for themselves. And if I am not mistaken,
Christ was very fond
of these men. The outsiders always interested Him, and touched Him.
The orthodox people--the Pharisees--He was much less interested in. He went with publicans and sinners--with people who were in revolt against the respectability, intellectual and religious, of the day. And following Him, we are ent.i.tled to give sympathetic consideration to those whom He loved and took trouble with.
First, let me speak for a moment or two about
The origin of doubt.
In the first place, WE ARE BORN QUESTIONERS. Look at the wonderment of a little child in its eyes before it can speak. The child's great word when it begins to speak is, ”Why?” Every child is full of every kind of question, about every kind of thing, that moves, and s.h.i.+nes and changes, in the little world in which it lives.
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