THE FIRST EXPERIMENT
THEN you reduce religion to a common
Friendship? A common Friendship--Who talks of a common Friendship? There
is no such thing in the world. On earth no word is more sublime. Friendship is
the nearest thing we know to what religion is. God is love. And to make
religion akin to Friendship is simply to give it the highest expression
conceivable by man. But if by demurring to "a common friendship" is meant a
protest against the greatest and the holiest in religion being spoken of in
intelligible terms, then I am afraid the objection is all too real. Men always
look for a mystery when one talks of sanctification; some mystery apart from
that which must ever be mysterious wherever Spirit works. It is thought some
peculiar secret lies behind it, some occult experience which only the initiated
know. Thousands of persons go to church every Sunday hoping to solve this
mystery. At meetings, at conferences, many a time they have reached what they
thought was the very brink of it, but somehow no further revelation came.
Poring over religious books, how often were they not within a paragraph of it;
the next page, the next sentence, would discover all, and they would be borne
on a flowing tide for ever. But nothing happened. The next sentence and the
next page were read, and still it eluded them; and though the promise of its
coming kept faithfully up to the end, the last chapter found them still
pursuing. Why did nothing happen? Because there was nothing to happen--nothing
of the kind they were looking for. Why did it elude them? Because there was no
"it" When shall we learn that the pursuit of holiness is simply the pursuit of
Christ? When shall we substitute for the "it" of a fictitious aspiration, the
approach to a Living Friend? Sanctity is in character and not in moods;
Divinity in our own plain calm humanity, and in no mystic rapture of the
soul.
And yet there are others who, for exactly a
contrary reason, will find scant satisfaction here. Their complaint is not that
a religion expressed in terms of Friendship is too homely, but that it is still
too mystical. To "abide" in Christ, to "make Christ our most constant
companion" is to them the purest mysticism. They want something absolutely
tangible and absolutely direct. These are not the poetical souls who seek a
sign, a mysticism in excess; but the prosaic natures whose want is mathematical
definition in details. Yet it is perhaps not possible to reduce this problem to
much more rigid elements. The beauty of Friendship is its infinity, One can
never evacuate life of mysticism. Home is full of it, love is full of it,
religion is full of it. Why stumble at that in the relation of man to Christ
which is natural in the relation of man to man?
If any one cannot conceive or realize a mystical
relation with Christ, perhaps all that can be done is to help him to step on to
it by still plainer analogies from common life. How do I know Shakespeare or
Dante? By communing with their words and thoughts. Many men know Dante better
than their own fathers. He influences them more. As a spiritual presence he is
more near to them, as a spiritual force more real. Is there any reason why a
greater than Shakespeare or Dante, who also walked this earth, who left great
words behind Him, who has great works everywhere in the world now, should not
also instruct, inspire, and mould the characters of men? I do not limit
Christ's influence to this. It is this, and it is more. But Christ, so far from
resenting or discouraging this relation of Friendship, Himself proposed it.
"Abide in Me" was almost His last word to the world. And He partly met the
difficulty of those who feel its intangibleness by adding the practical clause,
"If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you."
Begin with His words. Words can scarcely ever be
long impersonal. Christ Himself was a Word, a word made Flesh. Make His words
flesh; do them, live them, and you must live Christ. "He that keepeth My
commandments, he it is that loveth Me." Obey Him and you must love Him.
Abide in Him and you must obey Him. Cultivate His Friendship. Live after
Christ, in His Spirit, as in His Presence, and it is difficult to think what
more you can do. Take this at least as a first lesson, as introduction. If you
cannot at once and always feel the play of His life upon yours, watch for it
also indirectly. "The whole earth is full of the character of the Lord." Christ
is the Light of the world, and much of His Light is reflected from things in
the world--even from clouds. Sunlight is stored in every leaf, from leaf
through coal, and it comforts us thence when days are dark and we cannot see
the sun. Christ shines through men, through books, through history, through
nature, music, art. Look for Him there. "Every day one should either look at a
beautiful picture, or hear beautiful music, or read a beautiful poem." The real
danger of mysticism is not making it broad enough.
Do not think that nothing is happening because
you do not see yourself grow, or hear the whirr of the machinery. All great
things grow noiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Mr.
Darwin tells us that Evolution proceeds by "numerous, successive, and slight
modifications." Paul knew that, and put it, only in more beautiful words, into
the heart of his formula. He 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 for ever; 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 God. 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 passion of their lives can even
begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it has seemed up to this point as if
all depended on passivity, let me now assert, 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. Not 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 entered the dark vault of the
Observatory you saw him begin by lighting a candle. To see the star with? No;
but to see 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, screwing tubes and polishing lenses and adjusting
reflectors, and only after much labour the finely focussed instrument was
brought to bear. Then he blew out the light, and left the star 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 Worship, 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
let it out. To-morrow, the next moment, he, a poor, darkened, slurred soul, may
need it again to focus the Image better, to take a mote off the ens, to clear
the mirror from a breath with which the world has dulled it.
No re-adjustment is ever required on behalf of
the Star. That is one great fixed point in this shifting universe. But
the world moves. And each day, each hour, demands a
further motion and re-adjustment 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 passivity 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 a 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 labour 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 Galerie 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 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 neighbours entered the room the sculptor was dead. But the
statue lived.
The Image of Christ that is forming within
us--that is life's one charge. Let every project stand aside for that "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.