Part 6 (1/2)
”An eddy of purposeless dust, Effort unmeaning and vain.”
_But it is obvious that if G.o.d is not in control of creation, with personal purpose of good will, directing its course, there is no solid basis for hope._ If the universe is in the hands of physical forces, then a long look ahead reveals a world collapsing about a cold sun, and humanity annihilated in the wreck. Some such finale is the inevitable end of a G.o.dless world. As another pictures it, mankind, like a polar bear on an ice floe that is drifting into warmer zones, will watch in growling impotence the steady dwindling of his home, until he sinks in the abyss. All optimistic philosophies of life have been founded on faith in a personal G.o.d, who purposes good to his children, and without such faith no hope, with large horizons, is reasonable. Paul is fair to the facts when he says, ”Having no hope and without G.o.d in the world” (Eph. 2:12). When one asks why men have believed in a personal G.o.d, this clearly is part of the answer: only a personal G.o.d can be ”the G.o.d of hope.”
_O G.o.d of heaven above and earth beneath! Thou art the constant hope of every age--the reliance of them that seek Thee with thoughtfulness and love. We own Thee as the guardian of our pilgrimage; and when our steps are weary we turn to Thee, the mystic companion of our way, whose mercy will uphold us lest we fall. Thou layest on us the burden of labor throughout our days; but in this sacred hour Thou dost lift off our load, and make us partakers of Thy rest. Thou ever faithful G.o.d, our guide by cloud and fire! without this blest repose our life were but a desert path; here we abide by the refres.h.i.+ng spring, and pitch our tents with joy around Thy holy hill. Yet when we seek to draw nigh to Thee, Thou art still above us, like the heavens. O Thou that remainest in the height, and coverest Thyself with the cloud thereof! behold, we stand around the mountain where Thou art; and if Thou wilt commune with us, the thunder from Thy voice of love shall not make us afraid. Call up a spirit from our midst to serve Thy will; and take away the veil from all our hearts, that with the eye of purity we may look on the bright and holy countenance of life. And when we go hence to resume our way, may it be with n.o.bler spirits, with more faithful courage, and more generous will. For life and death we trust ourselves to Thee as disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen._--James Martineau.
Third Week, Fifth Day
=Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: Thou maintainest my lot.
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; Yea, I have a goodly heritage.
I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons.
I have set Jehovah always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall dwell in safety.
For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.=
=--Psalm 16:5-11.=
Many things in human life bring joy. From the sense of a healthy body and the exhilaration of a suns.h.i.+ny day to the deep satisfactions of home and friends--there are numberless sources of happiness. But man has always been athirst to find joy in thinking about the total meaning of life. Lacking that, the details of life lose radiance, for, in spite of himself, man
”Hath among least things An undersense of greatest; sees the parts As parts, but with a feeling of the whole.”
If when he thinks about G.o.d, he can, like this psalmist, rejoice in the love behind life, the good purpose through it, the glorious future ahead of it, then all his other blessings are illumined. Not only are there happy things _in life_, but _life itself_ is fundamentally blessed. But if when he raises his thought to the Eternal, he has no joyful thoughts about it, sees no love or purpose there, then a pall falls on even his ordinary happiness. Alas for that man who does not like to think about life's origin and destiny and meaning, because he has no joyful faith about G.o.d! Some men have what Epictetus called ”paralysis of the soul” every time they think of creation, for to them it is a huge physical machine cras.h.i.+ng on without reason or good will.
But some men have such a joyful faith in the divine that their gladness about the whole of life redeems their sorrow about its details. So Samuel Rutherford in prison said, ”Jesus Christ came into my room last night and every stone flashed like a ruby.” For the thought of G.o.d in terms of friendly personality is the most joyful idea of him that man has ever had. Man's thirst for joy is one of the sources of his faith in a personal G.o.d. He has wanted what Paul called ”joy and peace in believing” (Rom. 15:13).
_We rejoice, O Lord our G.o.d, not in ourselves nor in the firm earth on which we tread, nor in the household, nor in the church, nor in all the procession of things where mankind moves with power and glory. We rejoice in the Lord. We rejoice in Thy strength. A strange joy it is. Day by day we find ourselves breaking out into gladness through the ministration of the senses, and by the play of inward thought; but Thou art never beheld by us.... Thou never speakest to us, nor do we feel Thy hand, nor do we discern Thy face of love and glory and power. We break away from all other experiences, and look up into the emptiness, as it seems to us, which yet is full of life; into that which seems cold and void, but wherein moves eternal power; into the voiceless and inscrutable realm where Thou dwellest, G.o.d over all, blessed forever.... O Lord our G.o.d, how near Thou art to us! and we do not know it. How near is the other life! and we do not feel it. It clothes us as with a garment. It feeds us. It s.h.i.+nes down upon us. It rejoices over us.... Thither, out of narrow and anguishful ways, out of sorrows, out of regrets, out of bereavements, we look; and already we are rested before we reach it._
_Grant unto us, today, we beseech Thee, this beatific vision.
Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher.
Third Week, Sixth Day
=For when one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men? What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye believed; and each as the Lord gave to him. I planted, Apollos watered; but G.o.d gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but G.o.d that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are G.o.d's fellow-workers: ye are G.o.d's husbandry, G.o.d's building.--I Cor. 3:4-9.=
One of the profoundest motives that can grip man's heart is the conviction that he is a fellow-worker with the Divine. To feel that there is a great Cause, on behalf of which G.o.d himself is concerned, and in the furtherance of which we can be G.o.d's instruments and confederates, is the most exhilarating outlook on life conceivable.
Even people who deny G.o.d try to get this motive for themselves. One such man hopes for the success of his favorite causes in ”the tendency of the universe”; another talks about ”the nature of things taking sides.” _But nothing save personality has moral tendencies, and only persons take sides in moral issues._ If the guidance of the world is personal, then, and then only, can we rejoice with confidence in a great Ally, who has moral purposes and who has committed to us part of his work. This was the Master's motive when he said, ”My Father worketh even until now, and I work” (John 5:17). But one clearly sees that such an inspiring consciousness of cooperation with the Eternal depended on the certainty with which the Master called the Eternal by a personal name--Father. When men like Livingstone have gone out in sacrificial adventure for the saving of men they have not banked on the ”tendency of the universe,” nor trusted in any abstract ”nature of things taking sides”; they have been servants of a personal G.o.d, under orders from him, and they have counted on personal guidance in the service of a cause whose issue was safe in G.o.d's hands.
_O G.o.d, we pray Thee for those who come after us, for our children, and the children of our friends, and for all the young lives that are marching up from the gates of birth, pure and eager, with the morning suns.h.i.+ne on their faces. We remember with a pang that these will live in the world we are making for them. We are wasting the resources of the earth in our headlong greed, and they will suffer want. We are building sunless houses and joyless cities for our profit, and they must dwell therein. We are making the burden heavy and the pace of work pitiless, and they will fall wan and sobbing by the wayside. We are poisoning the air of our land by our lies and our uncleanness, and they will breathe it._
_O G.o.d, Thou knowest how we have cried out in agony when the sins of our fathers have been visited upon us, and how we have struggled vainly against the inexorable fate that coursed in our blood or bound us in a prison-house of life. Save us from maiming the innocent ones who come after us by the added cruelty of our sins. Help us to break the ancient force of evil by a holy and steadfast will and to endow our children with purer blood and n.o.bler thoughts. Grant us grace to leave the earth fairer than we found it; to build upon it cities of G.o.d in which the cry of needless pain shall cease; and to put the yoke of Christ upon our business life that it may serve and not destroy. Lift the veil of the future and show us the generation to come as it will be if blighted by our guilt, that our l.u.s.t may be cooled and we may walk in the fear of the Eternal. Grant us a vision of the far-off years as they may be if redeemed by the sons of G.o.d, that we may take heart and do battle for Thy children and ours.
Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch.
Third Week, Seventh Day
=I will extol thee, my G.o.d, O King; And I will bless thy name for ever and ever.
Every day will I bless thee; And I will praise thy name for ever and ever.
Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised; And his greatness is unsearchable.