The brother and the brotherhood

^a. sio. 1^

^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^

Presented by President Pott on.

BX 9178 .D6 B7
Dodd, Ira Seymour, b. 1842
The brother and the
brotherhood

THE BROTHER
AND THE BROTHERHOOD

V

,?\»^

(\\ «J«

n.i^,

DEC 20 1912

THE BROTH

^

AND

THE BROTHERHOOD

BY

IRA SEYMOUR DODD

Author of '' A Lesson from the Upper Room
^^The Song of the Rappahannock j"" etc.

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY

1908

Copyright, 1908
By Ira S. Dodd

Published, May, 1908

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

TO MY PEOPLE

WHO THROUGH THESE YEARS HAVE BEEN MY
FAITHFUL FRIENDS

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY THEIR MINISTER

INTRODUCTORY

The Riverdale Presbyterian Church has a
character of its own. The picturesque house
of worship, built of the gray stone native to
the region and now beginning to show the mel-
lowing touch of time, stands embowered amid
great trees which are relics of the primeval forest.
And yet Riverdale is in and part of New York
City.

The membership of the church includes
men and women distinguished in the business
and philanthropic life of the city ; it includes
also those people whose homes and work
have been for generations in the immediate
neighborhood. «

The congregation is not large ; yet few city
churches represent so wide a variety of worldly
condition or mental attainment. In the House
of God the people meet together in a spirit of
brotherhood; there are no rented pews, the

[ vii ]

INTRODUCTORY

church is like a family, not indeed faultless,
but Christian. A pastorate of twenty-five years
with such a congregation is a rare privilege.

And now the people ask their minister for a
volume of sermons as a memento of his quarter
century of service. If others besides those who
have already heard them should read these
sermons, the author asks a remembrance of their
original purpose. They are lessons in the
gospel of Christ prepared by a pastor for his
people. But the idea which more or less dis-
tinctly runs through the series and is suggested
by the title reflects a truth of such far-reaching
and present-day importance that such studies as
these may possibly appeal to a wider audience.

If anything in this book should prove help-
ful toward a clearer vision of our brother Christ,
showing us His Father and ours ; if a sharper
sense of the duties, or a fresh glimpse of the
blessings of Christian and human brotherhood
should come to any one, the author will be
thankfully content.

[ viii ]

CONTENTS

Page

The Beginning of the Brotherhood . . i

The Reality in God and in Man ... 21

Communion with Christ in the Common-
place 39

Consider the Lilies 57

The Mutuality of Forgiveness .... 73

The Dreadful Prayer 91

Woe to that Man by whom the Offence

Cometh 107

The Man who Kept his Life .... 125

The Man who Looked on the Dark Side 143

When Recklessness is Precious .... 161

Mary the Blessed 181

I WILL Declare Thy Name 205

The Resurrection and the Life . . . 225

The Naturalness of the Risen Lord . 241

The Completed Brotherhood .... 255

CONTENTS

Pack

Prayer is More than Asking . . . . 271

The Hardship of Faith 289

Memorial Day 309

The Bread Question 329

The Mystery of Time 351

[x]

THE BEGINNING OF THE
BROTHERHOOD

Again the next day after John stood, and two
of his disciples ; and looking upon Jesus as He
walked, he saith. Behold the Lamb of God !

And the two disciples heard him speak, and
they followed Jesus.

Then Jesus turned, and saw them following,
and saith unto them. What seek ye ? They said
unto Him, Rabbi (which is to say, being inter-
preted. Master), where dwellest Thou?

He saith unto them. Come and see. They
came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with
Him that day : for it was about the tenth hour.

John i. 35-39.

THE BEGINNING OF THE
BROTHERHOOD

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus is the
beginning of a story of brotherhood. At the
outset of the earthly ministry of the Christ men
were drawn to Him in fellowship and He began
to share His life with them in friendship.

There is a wondrous charm in the story.
It is a poem breathing the profound simplici-
ties of nature and of life.

If we would enter its atmosphere and catch
its meaning we must remember that it tells
of the coming together of three young men
attracted by a mutual enthusiasm. Jesus Him-
self was young. " He had begun to be about
thirty years of age." John was much younger,
and Andrew could scarcely have been very
different in age from Jesus. Along with the
multitude out of all Israel drawn by the soul-
stirring message of John the Baptist, they had
come to the Jordan.

[3l

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

It was a lonely place. No city, no houses,
were near : just the river, with its slightly
wooded grassy banks and the bare hills beyond
— an out-of-door place and scene. The people
who thronged it had come from far. They
camped out, they brought their own simple
provisions, they lived in tents or in extem-
porized booths.

The Baptist, whose preaching had brought
them together, was more than a stern prophet
of righteousness. His denunciations of sin,
his call to repentance, had a reason behind
them. He was preparing the way for a
Coming One. Even when his message was
most severe, a great Hope shone through it
like a star.

Many — and they the more earnest ones —
came to John at the Jordan because they ex-
pected the advent of Messiah. The hope in
the message answered the hope already burn-
ing in their hearts. Among such seekers we
must surely place the first disciples.

We call them common men ; simple, un-
educated fishermen. But have we forgotten

[4]

THE BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD

that in the souls of just such men the mighty
enthusiasms which have changed the course of
history have taken deepest root and brought
forth richest fruit ? Have we ceased to remem-
ber that many noblest saints and heroes have
arisen out of the ranks of the lowly born ?

But in a true and high sense these men were
not uneducated. Not only had they drunk
deep of that purest fountain of truest culture,
the Word of God in Holy Scripture, but their
minds had been exercised by strong thinking
about great things. From their standpoint
the coming of Messiah was an event which
must touch every social and political, as well as
every religious, question of the stirring age
in which they lived. To say that John and
Andrew were young men fired by a Messianic
enthusiasm is to say that they were young men
fired with an enthusiasm which necessarily
aroused and quickened all their intellectual and
spiritual powers. In the perfection of His
nature Jesus was indeed infinitely above His
disciples ; yet between Him and them there
was the common standing ground of mutual

[5]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

interests and true sympathies which made
fellowship both possible and real.

Another thing we must keep in mind if we
would appreciate this story. We must remem-
ber that it is reminiscence. An old man recalls
the most precious moments of his youth.

Like a deathless, unfading picture, that never-
to-be-forgotten day lives in the memory of the
Beloved Disciple, who is now the aged Apostle,
— that day when in the first flush of manhood
he stood with Jesus beside the shore of Jordan.
He feels again the hot sunshine and the warm
desert air flowing down from the brown hills.
As though it were yesterday, he sees the
hitherto unpeopled valley filled with crowds
flocking to the preaching of the Desert Prophet.
Once more the heart-clutch of that moment
comes when the Baptist with whom he is walk-
ing stops, stretches out his sinewy, naked
arm, points to the young Nazarene, and says :
" Behold the Lamb of God ! "

The leap of fulfilled hope thrills his breast ;
and, not as though it were yesterday, but as
though it were rushing afresh upon him at the

[6]

THE BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD

moment, he feels the strange, the irresistible
attraction which instantly drew him and An-
drew away from the old Master to the side
of the New.

He sees Jesus turn and look upon him. Oh
that face ! Through the long years it has been
to him more real, more dear, than any face of
man. And the voice, which in sudden question
shook his very soul ! Yet John knows, — he
* vividly remembers how, overleaping even awe
or reverence, a new-born love sprang up within
him casting out fear, demanding fellowship as
he answered :

" Master, where dwellest Thou ? " " Where
dwellest Thou ? for we cannot leave you ; we
must stay by you ; we are going home with
you.

Even yet the frank and manly welcome of
the response lingers. Jesus says, " Come and
ye shall see " ; and the comradeship is sealed.
Together the three young men thread their
way through crowded groups until they reach
the rude booth by the river side ; and if either
John or Andrew had at first thought of a brief,

[7]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

respectful visit the thought is quickly lost in
the discovery that they have found, not only
a Christ, but a Friend.

There under the leafy boughs, while turbid
Jordan rolls at their feet, they abide with Jesus ;
the moments fly unheeded while they sit to-
gether in sweet communion until the sun goes
down and evening shadows deepen.

John was young then, scarce twenty years
of age. Now he is old. He has become
" The Venerable," and, it may be, the very
last man living on earth who has seen Jesus
face to face. But that day by the river side
where he and Andrew abode with Jesus, was
the bright beginning of a friendship which has
never ceased, which has grown deeper, richer,
more real as the years have gone by.

Perhaps there was never on earth a com-
munion so perfect as that of the Beloved Dis-
ciple with his Master ; yet it differed only in
degree from that which all the disciples experi-
enced. No brotherhood could be more beau-
tiful than that of Jesus and the Twelve ; and
never had any brotherhood such significance.

[8]

THE BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD

At the beginning, before a single mighty
work, before the first utterance of the teach-
ing with authority, immediately following the
proclamation of the Lamb of God, as a first
result of the proclamation of the Christ a
communion forms itself: it flows together in-
evitably, naturally, as though it were in itself
a manifestation of Christhood.

The mission of the Christ begins with
Communion.

But lest any might imagine this an accident,
or merely a prelude to affairs more important,
we behold at the close of the ministry of Jesus
that Last Supper whose bread and wine be-
comes the symbol of His life given in love for
His friends ; and we see communion raised
into the place of the highest, holiest sign of the
Christian faith, — the sacrament which above all
else represents the life of the Church of Jesus !
Surely there must be a meaning in this ! And
there is. The earthly ministry of Jesus began
and ended in communion, because the com-
munion of brotherhood enfolds the very core
of His gospel.

[9]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Communion is the sharing by kindred
natures of what belongs to each of them in
common.

And the great word of the gospel of Jesus
is, Father I " Your Father which is in
heaven."

The Fatherhood of God was, to Jesus, no
abstract proposition, nor any legal fiction, nor
any hazy religious sentiment. In the sight of
Jesus the bond of nature between man and God
was a living fact. The confession of this bond
by men, with the communion of spirit and the
fellowship of life implied in it, was the need
of needs involving the issue of life or death,
salvation or perdition.

For, Jesus beheld men, like the younger son
in His great parable, repudiating their Father in
their lives ; or like the elder son repudiating
their Father in their hearts. Therefore His
gospel is a call to repentance, commanding men
to turn from the sin that is both crime against
the Father and death to their own souls, since it
breaks the bond which unites them to their
true and only life.

[10]

THE BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD

But the gospel of Jesus speaks not in His
words alone. Above any uttered word it
speaks in the very Person of Him who is at
once God's Well Beloved Son and our Brother.
The communion of brotherhood in which
Jesus lived with His disciples was the expres-
sion of His nature in His daily life.

Moreover, it is a concrete witness to the
truth of the kinship between the human and the
divine. The loving fellowship between Jesus
and His disciples leads straight from Himself
up to the Father. It becomes an object lesson
given by our great Brother to His little broth-
ers, teaching the first principles of the life of
the Family to which we belong.

But words when applied to such great sim-
plicities as the living gospel of Jesus are poor
and often misleading. To name the fellowship
of Jesus with His disciples " an object lesson "
or "an example" is to risk suspicion of un-
reality, because the notion of example too easily
runs into the notion of some decorous, unnat-
ural stiffness of conscious effort. And the risk
is greater because the idea of conscious effort

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

for effect readily falls in with the religiously-
conventional idea of a " proper " Christ con-
descending to those with whom He can have
nothing naturally in common.

We must cleanse our minds of all such fool-
ishness and falseness if we would understand
Him.

Jesus was too great and too greatly human
to allow any compromise of His humanity by
His official dignities.

It may help us if we return and look once
more upon the picture of the first communion
of the disciples with their Master, remembering
that the picture is a reminiscence.

Sixty or more epoch-making years have
passed away. The earlier simplicities have
become somewhat clouded by the growing
greatness of the official Christ. Already men
are debating the mysteries of His Person.
John himself in his old age has become a
Personage, last and chiefest of apostles.

If, then, the reminiscence is not colored by
the years through which it is projected, nor by
John's environment; if the enlarged impres-

[ 12]

THE BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD

sion of the dignity of the Christ does not
shadow his picture of Jesus ; if we can detect
neither any note of wonder at the condescen-
sion of the Christ nor any shade of gratulation
over the honor conferred on Himself, — then
there must be a mighty reason for it. Upon
the memory of those hours by the river side,
the indehble stamp of genuineness is too deep
to permit even suggestion of a communion
filtered through the medium of a gracious
condescension.

The picture in the mind of John is the pic-
ture of a comradeship, and it glows with the
genuineness of life. Through it all we feel the
warm radiance of a true, honest, manly com-
panionship, friendship, fellowship. Is the
Christ lost sight of? The official Christ, per-
haps. But the real Christ dominates the pic-
ture, and the very crown of His Christhood is
Brotherhood.

If we could but clear our vision of cobwebs
we should see that Jesus did not have to stoop
to fellowship with His disciples. The instinct
of brotherhood was an integral part of His

[13]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Christhood ; the sense of kinship between
their souls and His was sweet to Him. He
craved their companionship with a craving
deeper than they could know, because His was
a perfect human nature. He did not stoop to
them, He lifted them up to His own heart.

It was not always easy ; they often failed to
understand. Like later disciples in after ages,
their littleness cheapened the bond. Things
which might come out of the fellowship —
things for themselves — blurred its precious-
ness. Peter presumed upon the personal im-
portance which it seemed to give him. Even
John, the Beloved, wove out of his intimacy
with the Christ the glittering fabric of a dar-
ingly ambitious dream. All the disciples were
touched with a consciousness of the probable
advantage of their association with the coming
Christ. And like others who have come
after them, they had their doubts, their fears,
their stupidities.

How beautiful the patience of Jesus with
the faulty fellowship of His brethren ! But
its real beauty is its strength. It is the pa-

[14]

THE BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD

tience of a conquering love constantly, surely-
lifting them into likeness with Himself. We
begin to see the power of it while He was with
them in the growth of that personal affection
for their Master which more than once saved
their faith from shipwreck ; but its full power
was only felt afterward, when their Lord had
been taken from them. Then they began to un-
derstand. Then, Spirit taught, they discovered
that the real blessing of His Christhood had
been hidden in their companionship with His
very Self, and now it was revealing itself in a
communion with the Father, into which the
heart of their Brother had raised them.

And then they began to comprehend that
His fellowship with them was but the seed
from which a mighty harvest should ripen,
even the brotherhood which no man can
number, out of all nations and kindreds and
tongues, confessing the communion with the
Father into which Christ has raised them,
proclaiming in hymn of mighty unison, " Sal-
vation unto our God which sitteth upon the
throne and unto the Lamb ! "

[15]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

But this brings us face to face with Christ
upon the Cross. There we see Brotherhood
rising to its highest height, reaching to its
deepest depth. We behold the Christ who
craved fellowship with men in life claiming
fellowship with men in their common lot of
death, yea, even in their doom of the death
which came by sin.

And as we gaze upon Him, numbered for
our sake with the transgressors, perhaps we
wonder how the Holy Christ could condescend
to such a death for the sake of such sinners
as ourselves.

But if we understand, this passing wonder
will be quickly lost in the more real vision of
a Christ whose conquering love makes Him
great enough to be the Brother of men in their
extremest need, even to the bearing in His
own body of the awful load of human grief
and human guilt.

Such a Christ is too mighty for Death to
hold. The powers of Life Eternal are in
Him. And as He rises above vanquished
death. His conquering love becomes more and

[i6]

THE BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD

more resplendent. He raises up with Himself
those for whom He gave Himself in sacrifice,
and makes them sit together with Him in the
heavenly places of fellowship with God.

In those hours at the Last Supper, whose
shadows were shot through with the glow of
communion, the disciples told Jesus their per-
plexities, and, as friends in dear fellowship with
their great Friend, they asked questions.

Philip, faintly understanding what Jesus had
just said, exclaimed:

" Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth
us ! " and Jesus answered :

" Have I been so long time with you, and
yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? He
that hath seen me hath seen the Father."

Yes ! He who sees Jesus as Philip saw
Him, not with casual curious glance, nor with
detached critical inspection, but in fellowship
by day and by night, he hath seen the Father.

"Have I been so long time with you,
Philip ? " Jesus counts the days from the day-
following the one by the river side, when
Andrew found Philip and brought Him to

[ 17 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Jesus, down to the present precious moment.
He knows that Philip too is counting them,
and that Philip's heart is wrung by the thought
of parting with his Lord, who through all the
long time has been also his comrade and closest
Friend. Jesus appeals to the tried intimacy
between them.

Reading between the lines we hear Jesus
saying to His disciple, " The fellowship which
so long time you and I have lived in is not
only like, but it is itself the very fellowship of
the Father come down to you in me, your
Brother and His Son."

We see the Father when we come into
communion with Jesus.

Too often the love of God is represented as
though it were some pale reflection of a far-off
benevolence, or perhaps as though it were
the easv good nature of a carelesslv indulgent
governor of the Universe. But the love of
God is the love of a Father.

Now, a Father's love demands response ; it
asks for confession of kinship, and for fellow-
ship of life on the part of the Father's children.

[i8]

THE BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD

A Father's love reaches after reality in com-
munion. His own heart can be satisfied with
nothing less, His wisdom knows that this
alone is life for His children.

The presence of His Christ in the flesh, in
the midst of humanity, is God's declaration of
Himself to men. It also reveals us to our-
selves, for our Brother Jesus is God's Son!

The reality of the fellowship of Jesus with
His disciples and His friends, the genuineness
of His comradeship, His craving of their com-
pany. His deep joy in every response of their
love to His brotherly heart, is, all of it, the
call of the Father for communion with His
children. And for us the way of response
must be found in tracing the path of commun-
ion made for us by the footsteps of Jesus.
The things He cared for, the things He did.
His thoughts, His ways are the ways of the
Family to which we belong.

When we follow Jesus in the sincerity of
an honest fellowship, then we answer the call
of our Father's heart.

[19]

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

God is a Spirit : and they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth. — ^John iv. 24.

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

W^HETHER we regard this word of Jesus as
theology or philosophy, or as simple religion,
it is most profound. It goes to the very
foundation of the nature of God ; it reflects
a wonderful light upon the nature of man
and upon the relation which exists between
man and God.

But scarcely less remarkable than the word
itself is the way in which it was spoken.

Such a declaration as this would seem suit-
able for the consideration of a company of
learned rabbis or the attention of some circle
of eminent philosophers.

To no such assembly of trained and cultured
minds does Jesus speak. His only audience
was one poor woman, — the woman of Samaria.
Look at her as she listens to this greatest of the
great words of Jesus ! She is ignorant. She
could scarcely read the simplest sentence in the
Bible, or write her own name. She is coarse

[23]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

and common ; her thoughts run in a narrow
circle bounded by her life of rude, daily labor
and the crude notions of the petty village com-
munity of which she forms an insignificant and
not very desirable part. Except for a certain
shrewd, half animal quick-wittedness she is re-
pulsive rather than interesting, and she bears
the mark of loose and immoral living.

According to the received ideas of the fitness
of things, nothing could be more unsuitable
than the conduct of Jesus in addressing such
profound doctrine to such a person as the
woman of Samaria. A few plain lessons in
decency and honesty would certainly seem to
include the limit of her capacity ; and to talk
to such a listener about " the water of life '* or
the spirituality of God surely appears the height
of absurdity.

Was it a blunder? Did Jesus waste His
words upon the woman of Samaria ? Did He
send this poor sinner away mystified, unfed,
or, worse still, puffed up with vain conceit
of useless and uncomprehended knowledge?

Now, let us not forget that Jesus was the

[24]

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

wisest and the most wisely practical teacher
who ever lived. Let us remember that He,
more thoroughly than any other who ever
taught on earth, knew what is in man ; and if
He spoke the deepest truth, — truth which
commands the admiration of the ages to an ig-
norant and degraded peasant woman instead of
to a college of sages, — then there is a meaning
as strong as the word itself in the manner of
its utterance. There are lessons for us in the
fact that to the woman of Samaria Jesus said :

"God is Spirit : and they that worship Him
must worship in spirit and in truth."

Perhaps the first lesson is the oneness of
humanity in its nature and its need.

The meeting of Jesus with the woman of
Samaria seems like the outcome of the merest
chance.

Wearied with his journey, Jesus sits down by
the well while His disciples go on to the village
to buy food for evening repast.

The woman, during her noonday rest from
her work, it may be as a common laborer in
the field, comes to the well to draw water.

[25]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

But glance beyond the conversation that
followed, read what Jesus said after the dis-
ciples had returned and the woman had de-
parted, and you will see that for Him this
meeting was no chance. It was an appoint-
ment to do His Father's will ; it was a work to
be finished, not for the sake of the woman only,
but for the sake of humanity.

This revelation of the mind of Jesus is need-
ful for the interpretation of His talk with the
woman.

He has never seen her before, He may never
see her again, He has but a few moments in
which to finish this work given for His doing.
We must admire the patience of Jesus and the
faultless tact with which He leads the woman on
and draws her out. The narrative yields no
sense of hurry or of slurring, but it does carry
an impression of solemn urgency. No time is
wasted upon little things or side issues. Care-
fully, calmly, step by step yet with swift de-
cision Jesus reaches toward that which is
deepest and most real in this woman's life and
nature.

[26]

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

It is remarkable how in this short conver-
sation the needs, the impulses, and the instincts
of common human life make their appearance
only to be passed by. The woman prays for
deliverance from thirst and the drudgery of
daily toil. But even while she prays the sug-
gestion of Jesus is beginning to make her bodily
and earthly needs merge and lose themselves
in the sense of a higher need.

The question of social relations and of com-
mon morality comes up, and is used by Jesus
only as a goad for conscience, and in a way
which shows that He does not regard morality
as the final thing. And the subject of religion
— the subject which to a multitude of men has
always been considered chief of all — is intro-
duced and dealt with as a matter of minor im-
portance and made a mere stepping-stone to
something more real. Jesus cared for all these
things. He cared for wholesome conditions
for the laborer, and for morality, and for re-
ligion. But His work now at this moment is
the saving of a human soul. He cannot stop
at anything short of that which is final. His

[27]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

appeal must be made to that which lies at the
foundation of the nature of this human being,
it must reach her actual inmost self. The
moment which Jesus chooses, the word which
He takes hold of, is significant.

The woman in her ignorant manner has been
speaking of the difference between Jews and
Samaritans in their fashions of worship. Jesus
seizes the idea of relationship between God and
man implied in worship. He says to the
woman :

" God is Spirit : and they that worship Him
must worship in spirit and in truth."

Remember, now, this is not abstract doctrine,
it is part of the talk of Jesus with the woman
of Samaria. It can mean but one thing ; it
says to her :

" God is Spirit. And you — since you can
worship Him — you also are spirit I '^

Coarse, common, sinful, far from spiritual
though she may be in appearance or in disposi-
tion, yet it is true that even the woman of Sama-
ria mav come face to face with God who is Spirit,
because her actual inmost self is spirit too.

[28]

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

The manner of this word of Jesus, the sort
of person to whom it is spoken, gives to his
saying a world-wide, all-embracing sweep.

If the other person in this conversation had
been Nicodemus, or Mary of Bethany, or the
Apostle John, then the quiet but decisive as-
sumption of Jesus that there is in his listener
a spirit able to come into the communion of
worship with God who is Spirit might appear
less astonishing. We might say, and we would
say :

The spiritual nature in Nicodemus has been
developed by his training ; Mary and John
belong to that choice company of exceptional
natures who are born spirituals.

But the Woman of Samaria ! how can such
a thing be true of her ?

Now blessed be His Holy Name ! the Lord
did speak His great word, with all its implica-
tions, to the Woman of Samaria ! And thereby
He says to us :

" Not selected specimens, not a few chosen
ones out of the mass, but every human being,
yea, even the lowliest, even such as this woman

[29]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

possesses a spirit ; and in every one alike the
spirit is the real self.'*

Do you ask, then, What is spirit ?

That is one of those questions to which
no answer in words is possible. We are fear-
fully and wonderfully made even as to our
mortal bodies. Still more marvellous, still
more full of mystery is the life which animates
our bodies. But the animal life is not spirit.
If the anatomist cannot lay bare the secret of
life, if the biologist cannot find or define or
analyze life, much less can any human science
grasp the mystery of spirit. The spirit is not
simple brain-power ; it is more than intellect.
It is not thought, or feeling, or love, or liking ;
though it lives and moves through all these
and uses body, life, mind, affections, and colors
them all as the sunligrht colors the stones and
plants upon which it falls ; but deeper, more
real than all it uses or stamps with its mysteri-
ous imprint, when all else that goes to the
making of a man has perished, spirit lives on
deathless. Spirit is like the wind that bloweth
where it listeth and thou hearest the sound

[30]

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or
whither it goeth. And yet without argument,
above all argument we know Jesus is right. We
are conscious, we know that within us, deeper
than our very life there is something — and that
something our real self — which reaches toward
and responds to the call of God who is Spirit.

But no sooner do we try to explain or define
this something than we become confused. We
fall back upon what has been taught us —
perhaps when we were children.

We say, " Yes, I suppose I have a soul, —
or spirit, if you choose to call it so, — and it is
the most important part of me, because it must
live after the death of the body."

It is remarkable how commonly the first,
and often the last and only idea of spirit is the
thought of its immortality. To describe spirit
as " the immortal part of us " seems a sufficient
definition.

And well for us it surely must be if this
truth of the immortality of our spirit takes hold
of us, for one of the most awful attributes of
spirit is its power of deathless life.

[31]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Yet in this very truth, or rather in our
treatment of this truth, there is a danger. Too
easily we dismiss all thought of the spirit's
activity from this present life and transfer it to
a life beyond. We let the life of flesh and
blood and the things that are seen fill all our
horizon here, and try to satisfy our higher self
with a hazy hope that hereafter, in some in-
definite future, spirit may perhaps have its
turn.

The ancients used to illustrate immortality
by the cycle of the worm, the chrysalis, and the
butterfly. Man in his present state, they said,
is the worm. Death is only seeming. The
worm spins a chrysalis out of its body when
winter approaches ; it is not dead, but sleepeth.
And when summer comes again, out of the
chrysalis bursts a glorious butterfly. The
butterfly was their emblem of the soul, the
spirit.

The parable is beautiful, and there is noble
truth in it ; yet, after all, only a half-truth. It
will not do to imagine in ourselves only bodies,
only worms now. For now^ as truly as here-

[32]

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

after ; yea, now for the sake of the hereafter
Spirit is in us the real things the true self I

In the saying of Jesus there is, in the origi-
nal, no definite article. He did not say, "God
is a Spirit." He said, " God is Spirit."

That is a wonderful definition of God ! It
lifts our thought of God far above and beyond
all accidents of time and space, and all limita-
tions of bodily form.

But let us not forget that there is more than
a grand idea in this great word of Jesus ; let
us remember how it was spoken to the Woman
of Samaria, and therefore to the spirit in each
one of us, opening for us all the door of
communion with our Father through worship,
saying to us,

" God is Spirit ; and they that worship Him
must worship in spirit and in truth."

The record of the religions of the world is
mostly a sad story of attempts to realize and
worship God as something else than Spirit.
There is a terrible twist in human nature
warping men toward worship of the Creature
rather than the Creator. But the Second
3 [ 33 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Commandment, which says, " Thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven Image or any like-
ness of anv thino; that is in heaven above or in
the earth beneath," has not lost its meaning
with the decay of the ancient heathenism.

To-day, when our new knowledge has
brought such new and overpowering awe of
Nature, and with bated breath we speak of
the Unknown Force dwelling in the universe,
are we not in danger of putting Nature in the
place of Nature's spiritual God ?

Now, the harm of it is not only the dis-
honoring of God : it is also the deep hurt to
ourselves. It logically becomes denial that we
are spirit, and separates us from our Father.
Or if some shadowy communion with the
mysterious Power in Nature may be had, this
can appear possible only to the specially gifted
or the supremely cultured. Every religion
and every philosophy which regards God as
an outside Being or Force dwelling in a dis-
tant heaven or identifies God with Nature
tends toward spiritual aristocracy. Only when
we know that God is Spirit, and that we

[34]

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

too are spirit, does His Fatherhood and our
brotherhood with each other come into clear
view.

We may differ in earthly circumstances and
in mental endowments, but down deeper than
all else is the real self, the essence of hu-
manity, the spirit which is common to each of
us. And that was made to, and can come
into communion with the Spirit who is Father
of our spirits.

Augustine says, " We had gone out of doors
and we are sent inward. God is near. To
whom ? To the high ? Nay, to them that
are contrite of heart. Dost thou seek some
mountain to lift thee up to Him ? Come
down that thou mayst come near Him. But
wouldst thou ascend? Then ascend; but
seek not a mountain, the ascents are in His
heart. Make thyself a temple of God within
thee."

" God is Spirit : and they that worship Him
must worship in spirit and in truth."

Why was the last word added ? Why does
Jesus say we must worship in truth as well as

[35]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

in spirit ? A moment's reflection will show
that it must mean more than just honest
intention. We may understand if we catch
the keynote of this word of Jesus. The key-
note is reality, God is Spirit. That is His
real essence. We are spirits : spirit is our
essence, our real self. We worship in truth
when we face the realities and accept the facts.

A communion between God and men is
here declared which cannot be conjured up by
outward forms or appealing ritual. Nor can
this worship in spirit and in truth be realized
through any mystical state of mind or wrought-
up feeling. It is the simple acceptance of
the actual relationship of your spirit to your
Father who is Spirit.

This communion with God is not tied to
time or place or circumstances, nor to moods
or feelings. Such worship, such humble, lov-
ing, reverent fellowship of your spirit with
your God may be calm as a summer evening,
or it mav fill your soul with strength amid
life's stormiest days. It goes on always. It
may be with us even in the midst of business

[36]

THE REALITY IN GOD AND IN MAN

cares. There is no truer worship than that
which ascends out of the turmoil of the most
common and sordid distractions, claiming the
fellowship of your Father's Spirit with your
spirit and His mighty help when the world
would claim you for all its own.

This divine, this spiritual communion in
worship goes on, if we have accepted it in
truth, even when we are scarcely conscious of
it. Instinctively the spirit of one who has
learned what it means to worship in spirit and
in truth glances upward out of the mists of
sorrows, or the distractions of joys, or the
clamor of duties and feels that the Father
of our spirit is near.

Perhaps the idea of such fellowship with the
mighty and mysterious Spirit of God may
seem extravagant. And not only would the
idea be extravagant, but the actuality impossible
but for one significant fact.

Jesus told the Woman of Samaria that
". . . true worshippers shall worship the
Father in Spirit and in truth, for the Father
seeketh such to worship Him."

[37]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

God does not wait for us to find Him ; God
does the seeking. The mighty Spirit whom
we approach is the Spirit of our Father, who
meets us more than half way. We hear, in
the words of Jesus, the call of His Spirit to our
spirit. For us, the blessedness of worship in
spirit only waits on willingness to worship in
truth, to face the facts, to acknowledge the re-
lationship between our spirit and God who is
Spirit, to confess that between us is the bond
of Father and child.

[38]

COMMUNION WITH CHRIST IN THE
COMMONPLACE

Is not this the Carpenter, the Son of Mary, the
brother of James and Joses and of Juda and Simon?
and are not his sisters here with us ? And they
were offended at Him. — Mark vi. 3.

COMMUNION WITH CHRIST IN THE
COMMONPLACE

What a touch of human nature ! Here is
something the like of which is happening
every day and has always happened since the
world began.

Envy, jealousy, mean and petty spite, block-
ing the way of goodness and truth and wound-
ing noble souls to the quick !

And yet these things are so common, they
are so unavoidable a part of every-day life al-
ways and everywhere, that to complain of
them seems foolish and unmanly.

Nothing could be more realistic than the
gospel treatment of the Nazareth incident.

Not only does the scene in the synagogue
live before our eyes, but the very minds of
the Nazarenes are laid bare ; and we feel, as
no homily could make us feel, the deadly,
self-inflicted hurt of the unbelief born of their

[41]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

blind jealousy, the paralysis of spiritual sense
produced by their unrealized sin !

But we also see something else. We have
in this Nazareth scene a singular picture of
the daily cross which Jesus carried. The cur-
tain which covers His private and personal
life is lifted, and we behold Him tempted like
as we are, not alone with great occasional
temptation, but with the sting of those small
yet exasperating and most wearing trials which
meet us in the ordinary course of our lives.

The Nazareth narrative, moreover, helps to
show us what sort of person this Christ of
ours really is.

One of the familiar facts of the life of Jesus
is that He was a man of the people, — the
"Galilean peasant" He is sometimes called;
and building upon that picturesque descrip-
tion it is possible to construct a sort of fairy
story and call it " His Beautiful Life." Such
a picturing of the life of Jesus fits well enough
into the idea of a Christ who is only a Senti-
ment, a far-off example shorn of power to
save. It may also be made to fit the idea of

[42]

COMMUNION IN THE COMMONPLACE

a Christ who is nothing but a Religious Being
shedding forth a misty halo of condescensions
upon men.

The real Christ is different. His humanity-
is genuine. He takes His place without re-
serve as a man in the midst of His fellow-men.
He is hedged about by no special privileges
protecting him from the common lot ; nor is
He any mystic dreamer withdrawing Himself
from rude contact with common people and
their vulgar, sordid faults and sins. " Is not
this the Carpenter, the Son of Mary, the
brother of James and Joses, and of Juda and
Simon ? And are not his sisters here with
us r

From whence hath this man these things,
— this wisdom, these mighty works? The
Carpenter forsooth ! The man whom we have
seen every day in his shop making our ploughs
and ox-yokes, — He to set himself up for
an inspired teacher ! And then the envy-
poisoned tongues of spiteful gossip are let
loose and vent themselves upon His brothers,
His sisters, even upon His holy Mother !

[43]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Yes, Jesus the Christ, whose name has been
reverenced by the ages, when He comes to
Nazareth where He had been brought up
finds Himself only the Carpenter, and the vul-
gar jealousies of rude and narrow-minded vil-
lagers buzz about Him ! Verily He took not
on Him the nature of angels, but He was
made in the likeness of men !

None of us dare look down upon God's
Christ. To pity Him would be impertinence
for the highest of us ; yet to the lowliest He
is close at hand, a true yokefellow in the most
threadbare and contemptible of our trials.

He met, it is true, with larger trials; He
was set upon high mountains of temptation
where dazzling ambitions glittered before His
vision. No man ever reaches a place so high
that he can have reason to feel that Jesus no
longer is able to understand his temptations,
and not one of us has the right to imagine
that our Saviour cannot sympathize with our
miserable worries ; yes, even though these be
the fret and irritation of the idle or envious
talk which our neighbors chatter about us.

[44]

COMMUNION IN THE COMMONPLACE

The Lord knows it all. He can feel with us
down to the last, the most trivial, the most
unspiritual of our trials.

Yes ; Jesus can sympathize with us, but
can we sympathize with Him?

And this does not mean. Are we sorry for
Him ? but it means. Can we feel with Him ?
Can we stand beside him in the fellowship
which He held fast to, — fellowship with even
the meanly disagreeable among His fellow-
men and ours ?

The atonement of Christ carries a signifi-
cance which we often fail to realize ; we forget
that He bore the sins of our neighbors as truly
as He bore our own, and that communion
with Him involves the sharing of His cup,
the bearing with Him of the burden of the
sins of our brethren. The Nazareth incident
reveals this burden as, in part, the dull load
of the common, contemptible sins of envy,
jealousy, evil speaking.

The lesson is not an easy one. Nothing
cools love for our fellow-men more quickly
or more surely than such sins. When people

[45]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

say mean things about us, when they slander
us or vent their spite against us, our hearts
harden. Perhaps we return hatred for envy
and let the floods of bitterness overflow in
our souls. Or perhaps we simply shut the
ofl^ender out of the reckoning of our fellow-
ship and allow a cold disdain, a freezing indif-
ference, to take possession of us. And this
not only envelops those who have abused us,
but it develops into a general distrust, and
causes us to shut ourselves up within ourselves
until the wells of sympathy with our fellow-
men run dry. But how was it with Jesus?
Did He feel the bitter words of His old
neighbors ? Yes, they cut him to the quick ;
and yet we can see that His desire went out
to the Nazarenes. Not His unwillingness but
their unbelief, alone prevented His doing many
mighty works of blessing in Nazareth. And
what He could, that He did : He laid His
hands upon a few sick folk and healed them ;
He departed, not with bitterness but with pro-
found sorrow in His soul, marvelling at their
unbelief. And although on this, or perhaps

[46]

COMMUNION IN THE COMMONPLACE

on a former occasion the madness of their
envy went to the length of an attempt to kill
Him, Jesus never repudiated Nazareth. Again
and again He returned to His old home.
Among those jealous of Him were apparently
his own brethren. He never disowned them,
and they finally became His devoted disciples.

We might be tempted to think Jesus too
large-minded to care for what the Nazarenes
could say or think. But He did care, and
was too large-hearted to turn away from them.
He loved them too truly to allow their sins
against Him to harden His soul, and He
loved all His fellow-men too deeply to make
it possible for Him to try to escape the full
burden of all their faults. It is the glory of
Jesus that He was always willing to accept
the full consequences of His fellowship with
men.

If any one ever had reason to feel him-
self above men, this was Jesus ; for He was
the Christ of God and heir to a kingdom
beside which the Roman Caesar's was poor
and temporary. If any one ever had the

[47]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

right to hold himself apart from men He
had ; for He was the one spotlessly pure
man who ever lived. But He never did hold
Himself apart from men. As no one else
ever did or could. He made Himself not only
one of His fellow-men, but one wi^/i them.
And because He was so high and so holy
the consequences to Him of this human fel-
lowship were peculiar. He could not share
our sins and faults by partaking in them, and
therefore — shall we say. He had to bear with
them ? Now that is what we sometimes try
to do ; but there is no real fellowship in it.
Bearing with people's faults, putting up with
them, commonly means that we try to make
the best of what cannot be helped. There may
be patience in it ; there may also be, there is
often in it separation instead of fellowship.

Jesus did something far greater. He car-
ried the burden of our sins as His own, — a
cumulative burden that culminated on the
Cross !

The patience of Jesus was no softness, nor
any weakness. It almost misrepresents the pa-

[48]

COMMUNION IN THE COMMONPLACE

tience of Jesus to call it gentleness ; for it was
love, so broad, so deep, so high, that it made
the sins and sorrows of the world His very
own, so that He carries the scars of their
wounds with Him up even into the heavenly
glory.

Now I think we feel this in its largeness ;
but its grandeur affects us more than its de-
tails. Thank God our Christ carried the bur-
den of the great sins of men ; but thank God
again, He carried the more wearing burden
of the far more common sins, — the little con-
temptible faults which are always bubbling
up from the seamy side of human nature
everywhere.

Can we sympathize with Jesus in this ? Can
we drink of His cup? Have we caught His
spirit, so that our love for our fellow-men rises
not only above social fences, but higher still,
above the meanness, the narrowness, the stu-
pidity, the envies and jealousies and hatefulness,
which make so large a part of the wearing fret
and irritation of daily life in the midst of our
fellow-men ? Can you bear such things from a
+ [ 49 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

person and say in your heart, " Yes, he is all this,
but he is my brother, and his faults are part of
my burden " ?

Our constant tendency is to make our re-
ligion, not perhaps a thing of Sundays and
of special occasions, but something which be-
longs to the great affairs of our souls, and
therefore has little to do with the small, the
mean, the disagreeable things of life. Partly
this is a result of a natural bent toward unreality
and formalism, or, as it might more honestly be
called, a bent toward unbelief in the reality of
our relation to God. A great deal of religion
is either superstition or conventionality, — either
a vague feeling that it may be well to keep on
the right side of the Higher, Unseen Powers,
or else a matter of habit or fashion, — and in
neither case can it have much to do with what
are, after all, the ever present realities of life.

But there is a more creditable reason why
it is difficult for some persons to allow any
contact between their religion and the prosaic
things of daily experience.

It is doubtless true of certain refined, sensi-

[50]

COMMUNION IN THE COMMONPLACE

tive, and deeply reverential natures that their
thoughts of God make Him appear too high
and too sacred to be touched or troubled with
the pettiness, and especially the degrading petti-
ness, of human life. The things which such
natures hate and shrink from, whose very touch
is felt as contamination, they cannot bring into
His presence. And so, when evil passions
rise in their souls and perhaps break out, as
such things will break out even from the souls
of such persons ; or when they suffer, as some-
times they must, from the coarseness or the
spitefulness of meaner men, they feel themselves
shut out from God, — either unfit for His pres-
ence or unable to ask His help ; unworthy to
approach the Holy One until there is a lull in
the storm of disturbed emotion and it seems
possible to come to Him in suitable mental
and spiritual poise.

We can all pray when the great troubles
come; but when the little vexations — above
all, the belittling ones, those that make us
ashamed of ourselves or disgusted with our
fellow-men — buzz about us like swarms of ven-

[51]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

omous insects, then there are few of us who feel
in a mood for prayer, and fewer still who have
the deep and real faith which keeps our com-
munication with Our Father unbroken.

What a lesson for us rises out of this picture
of Jesus at Nazareth ! The bare fact that He
was there, — He the Holy One, the Christ, tak-
ing His place in the synagogue of that dreary
country town, in the midst of its quarrelsome,
narrow, bigoted congregation, exposing Him-
self to their mean gossip, their despicable spite,
their degrading envies and the angry impulses
of their small-minded jealousies, — the very fact
that He, our Saviour, endured this, not only
proves that He knows all about the temptations
that arise out of such things and can sympa-
thize with all who suffer from them, but it
ought to dispel at once and forever any idea
that the humiliating vexations of our lives can
be a bar to communion with His Father and
ours.

The truth about Nazareth appears to be that
it lacked the poetic charm of the veritably rural
village. It was not so very small a place, it

[52]

COMMUNION IN THE COMMONPLACE

numbered three or four thousand inhabitants,
it was upon a frequented route of trade and
travel, its people were hardly unsophisticated
peasants. There was little of the picturesque
about the town except its situation, and it bore
an unpleasant reputation. " Can any good
come out of Nazareth ? " So Nathaniel said,
doubtless because others said it and also be-
cause he knew the place.

Nazareth was not even picturesquely wicked,
but just common, quarrelsome, low in social
tone. Yet there, fellow-Christian, your Saviour
passed by far the greater number of His
earthly years. There he lived His boyhood,
and grew up, and worked at His trade ; there
He was the Carpenter. Nazareth was His
home, to which he often returned even after
the eyes of all Israel began to be fixed on
Him as the hoped-for or the feared Messiah.
He was always known as Jesus of Nazareth ;
yea, the very inscription on His Cross named
Him Jesus of Nazareth, and Jesus of Nazareth
He will be until He comes the second time in
power and glory to judge this world. All

[53]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

through His life Jesus carried the monotonous,
leaden burden of the vulgar sins of His earthly
dwelling-place, and the depressing cloud of its
colorless cares ever hung about Him.

Jesus never repudiated this fellowship with
the commonplace, with the low average which
is the dark average of humanity. In His spirit
we know He lived above it all ; He never al-
lowed it to degrade or conquer or even depress
Him. But He never refused or shrank from
the burden of it ; He was never ashamed to be
called The Nazarene. And never for one
moment did this fellowship with the common-
place make Him love men less ; nay. He
loved them the more for it, with deeper sym-
pathy because by experience He knew their
need.

If we would follow Jesus, we must follow
Him through Nazareth. There is no place
where communion with Him and through
Him with Our Father may be more real than
in the Nazareth of those little degradations
which constantly fall upon every one of us as
the bitter crosses of our day's work.

[54]

COMMUNION IN THE COMMONPLACE

What a light Nazareth casts upon the prayer
of Jesus for his disciples that they may be, like
Himself, " in the world, but not of it" !

It is possible and blessed to live in such
fellowship with Jesus that our fellowship with
our most faulty brother-men and the bearing
of our share of the burden of common, thread-
bare sin and fault, instead of degrading us, may
refine our souls, and show us a clear path up
that shining way whither Jesus our Master has
gone into His Father's Presence.

[55]

CONSIDER THE LILIES

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ;
they toil not, neither do they spin : and yet I say
unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these. — Matthew vi. 28, 29.

CONSIDER THE LILIES

The sympathy of Jesus with men is felt in
all His life and His words ; but here we catch a
glimpse of His sympathy with nature. Nothing
He ever said is more beautiful; and yet, the
doctrine of this text — for it is not only poetry
but doctrine — is as hard a saying to worldly
minds as anything Jesus ever spoke. The glad
dependence on our Heavenly Father, the un-
limited trust in His power and His love which
Jesus commends in this portion of the Sermon
on the Mount have always appeared, to worldly
minds, visionary and unpractical. The feeling
toward this text is well shown by its most com-
mon literary use. It furnishes a semi-humorous
proverb satirizing the ways of the butterflies
of fashion, or of the happy-go-lucky ne'er-do-
wells who, like the lilies, toil not, neither do
they spin.

But we can scarcely afford to dismiss this
word of the Lord in any such flippant manner.

[59]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Embedded in Jesus' doctrine of Divine Provi-
dence is a precious vein of teaching about Beauty
and its place in God's world. The teaching,
though not always clearly understood, is felt by
all who are in sympathy with Jesus; and to many
of His truest lovers it comes with peculiar satis-
faction. Nothing brings their worshipped com-
rades nearer than this revelation of the soul of
Jesus.

But there are several sorts of people, Chris-
tians and others, to whom this warm confes-
sion of the love — nay, the reverence — of
Jesus for the beautiful must be bewildering.
Is it possible that He, Son of God, Saviour
of the world, can seriously care for so trivial,
so inconsequent, so useless a thing as mere
beauty ?

Can it be consistent with the dignity of His
solemn mission to regard His admiration of the
lilies as anything more than a passing emotion ?
Is it not sufficient to find in this word of the
Great Teacher an illustration of Divine Provi-
dence, or an example of the wisdom and power
of the Creator who condescends to add the

[60]

CONSIDER THE LILIES

trifle of adornment to His work and in the very
by-play of His skill so easily puts to shame
man's most ambitious efforts ?

Now, it is indeed true that God's care for
the lilies does illustrate His greater care for
human souls ; and true that His inimitable
skill is shown in garniture of the flowers.

And yet, when the merely illustrative teach-
ing of these words of Jesus is exhausted we are
left unsatisfied. A tone lingers in our ears
which assures us that in the very words them-
selves there is a larger message. Let us read
them over carefully.

" Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : and
yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all
his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

Try to forget that this is the Christ, the Son
of God, who speaks. Think what it would
mean if some unknown man had said this ;
think of him, talking to a crowd gathered out
of doors in the warm sunshine on an open
hillside whose slopes are covered with tangled
growth of grass and thorny shrubs, through

[6i]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

which, here and there, flowers of the wild lily
rear their glorious heads.

Tell me now ; what is in the mind of this
man, speaking through his words !

You will surely say, he has a very tender
feeling for nature ; he more than admires, he al-
most worships pure and essential beauty; and he
has a keen taste, he knows the difference between
man's pretentious imitations and the perfect
touch of God's hand. Solomon's oriental
splendor does not appeal to him, but the shape
and hue of a wild lily goes straight to his heart.

Is the case in any way different because, in-
stead of some unknown man, this is Jesus, Son
of God, who speaks ? It is different only be-
cause it is far stronger ; for in Jesus we have
the emotions and the knowledge of the Perfect
Man ; we have here, in His word, a revelation
of the mind of Him who is the Truth.

The revelation goes farther than we think.
It is not enough to say that Jesus loved nature
and appreciated beauty ; we grievously misun-
derstand Him if we allow ourselves to imagine
that His feeling for the beautiful was a passing

[62 ]

CONSIDER THE LILIES

emotion, a grudgingly permitted relaxation in
the midst of more serious affairs. As Jesus
saw it, nothing could be more serious ; for
beauty, in the way He saw and felt it, is eternal
truth. It is an element of the nature of God.

There is something vastly pathetic, and en-
lightening as well, in the after history of the
lily, as it lay in the mind of Jesus and is dis-
closed in His words.

" If God so clothe the grass of the field,
which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the
oven . . . *'

I think we shall hardly mistake if we read
into His words a gentle reproach, not precisely
of man's ruthlessness, but of human indiffer-
ence to God's finest and most loving skill.

Now, mark it well ! Jesus does not complain
because people too poor to buy better fuel cut
down the lilies along with the bushes surround-
ing them to make the fire needful for cooking
their humble food. He knows that God never
grudges His best gifts for man's most common
use. Man comes first ; all things in this world
are for the sake of God's children : " If God so

[ 63 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

clothe the grass of the field (and the lilies),
how much more shall He clothe you, O ye of
little faith ? "

And for that very reason we are guilty of a
wretched blunder if we conclude that God's
heaping of His finest handiwork upon us for
the supply of our coarsest needs proves that He
sets no value upon it ; and if we therefore ar-
gue that He gives the lily its heavenly hue
from mere caprice, or makes the sunlight un-
speakably glorious as it strikes through morn-
ing mists, or colors the sunset clouds at even-
ing, just for His own amusement.

The beauty of God's world has a meaning to
Him ; and to us because we are His children.
It ought to have for us a meaning far beyond
those baser uses which in His lavish love He
allows for the sake of our earthly needs.

The whole argument of Jesus in this part of
His immortal sermon is one of protest against
that dull, narrow, selfish earthiness which
sees no good in anything that is not what we
stupidly call "useful," — that worldly disposition
which measures everything by the rule of bodily

[64]

CONSIDER THE LILIES

necessity or comfort, and asks, even when the
question is one of truth or righteousness or our
soul's salvation, " Will it pay ? "

We have in these words of Jesus about the
lilies, a profound lesson upon the general sub-
ject of worldliness.

There has been, there is still a tendency in
certain minds to count everything in the world
as worldly, to separate the spiritual from all
that belongs to the natural order of things, and
regard the spiritual life as something antag-
onistic to the world, — even the natural world.

The logical outcome of such ideas is that
the natural enjoyments of our earthly life are
accepted only with hesitation, and justified only
by necessity, and the beauty which fills the
world is looked upon with suspicion.

Nor should every one who feels in this way
be harshly condemned. This feeling is often
a disease of noble souls on whom the prob-
lems of life in a world cursed by sin, the
awful facts of the present, and more awful pos-
sibilities of the future weigh with crushing
cruelty.

5 [ 65 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

The earnestness which fears everything pleas-
ant as a probably dangerous allurement, and
disowns everything which might distract from
one high aim, merits only our deep respect.
And the more so since, being out of fashion,
it troubles us scarcely at all. There is little
enough left of it, God knows, in the world of
our day.

Our temptations lie in a different direction.
Our danger lurks in a tendency to regard this
world as the sum of our existence, and the
life here as complete and an end unto itself.
The beauty of the world seems made for
nothing more than our personal, passing, and
selfish pleasure ; and therefore its sensuous,
rather than its spiritual aspect appeals to us.

Again the logical outcome is that, the idea
of beauty is degraded. Beauty becomes a
mere adjunct, an ornament of life ; the idea
of beauty falls even lower and becomes not
only sensuous but sensual, and thus our world-
liness ' has its revenge and becomes its own
punishment in our degradation. The light of
God which shines upon the world is darkened,

[66]

CONSIDER THE LILIES

and beauty appears, even to honest worldings
at best a trifling thing, of doubtful usefulness,
and therefore something whose enjoyment must
be relegated to idle hours when money-making
is out of the question.

The ways in which a stern, religious asceti-
cism and a gross worldliness may approach
each other are remarkable ; and in nothing do
they come more nearly together than in their
treatment of the beautiful. Both regard beauty
as something frivolous, of small importance ;
a possible and probable hindrance to the seri-
ous business of life. Both alike, though in
different ways, suspect the beautiful as full of
lurking dangers. Both fall into the folly which
Christ condemns, and make life consist in per-
sonal anxieties, and look upon the real things
of life as hard necessities to be mastered by
force of personal will. Both practically refuse
to see that God is our Heavenly Father and
that this is His world, — a world full of His
thoughts which are higher than our thoughts,
and His ways, which are higher than our
ways.

[67]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Let us turn to Jesus. It is clear that He
knows that the world is full of unworldly facts.
In the same breath in which He warns us not
to lay up treasures upon earth and implores
us to make our investments in heaven, He calls
upon us to consider the lilies. And His words
imply that, though the lilies grow out of the
ground in the midst of the neglected spaces
of the world*s bosom, there is something heav-
enly about them, — a quality not to be com-
pared to man's clumsy art. In effect, Jesus
tells us that the beauty of the lilies is the re-
flection of our Father's perfection.

There may be a significance in the particu-
lar example chosen of Jesus. The lily, though
often one of the most gorgeous of flowers, is
one of the least sensuous in its suggestions.
It bears in itself a hint of the spiritual. The
white lily is not only the chosen, but the
naturally chosen emblem of purity.

But whether the lilies of the field as Jesus
saw them were white or flaming red ; whether
they may even have been some other flower
known to us by a different name makes no

[68]

CONSIDER THE LILIES

difference. It is enough that Jesus teaches
how the world, even in its obscurest and most
neglected corners, is full of God's thoughts ;
and enough that the glory and beauty of His
thought puts to shame our worldly wisdom
concerning useful and necessary things. He
teaches us that this world is full of heavenly
reflections. And by means of these, in one
heart-searching word He reverses the worldly
order. He shows us that Spirit is the real
thing; and the things of the body and of
the earthly life are only adjuncts, necessary
indeed, yet simply servants to the real and
great thing.

Can anything be more intangible than
beauty? You cannot analyze it. You can
tell that a flower is red, or golden yellow, or
sky blue, or pearly white ; you may say that
its form is graceful or glorious. You have
not in the least explained the impression it
makes.

You call the ocean grand, or the mountains
majestic, or the sky heavenly. Your words
have no meaning, except that they attempt in

[69]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

some feeble way to express an impression made
upon your inmost soul.

The idea of beauty may indeed, be mixed
with fleshly thoughts ; but then we know it is
corrupted. Beauty, pure and simple, touches
only your soul, your spirit.

It is mockingly said by anatomists that
beauty is only skin deep. The saying is false,
because beauty is not even skin deep. Per-
sonal beauty is in some mysterious way a
reflection from the soul which lives in the
body. A human face may be fair to look
upon, yet only sensuous ; or the features may
be homely, yet full of an unexplainable light
that makes the face most beautiful.

And that sort of beauty, whether in a flower
or a human face, is something no human art
can produce and all the money in the world
could not buy. There is no use in it, meas-
ured bv our coarse standard of the useful.
You cannot live on beauty, or turn it into
food or clothes, or build up towns, or create
steamship lines or trolley roads with it. It
is n't business, it does n't pay. But when all

[70]

CONSIDER THE LILIES

the roar of the world's business is hushed, and
all the greedy grasp after earthly goods has
become nerveless and dead, and all the anx-
ieties, great and small, of this life of busy
trifling have sobbed themselves into eternal
sleep, and all the world's hard-won wealth is
melted in the fervent heat of the final confla-
gration,— then this reflection of the Eternal
Mind of God will live on, along with other
intangible yet undying things, like righteous-
ness, truth, love.

The world is full of beauty, yet beauty does
not find an altogether congenial home here.
The lily fades quickly ; to-day resplendent,
to-morrow it may ignobly help to cook a poor
man's dinner. Yet beauty is everlastingly re-
produced. God keeps the world full of it
for our teaching.

Beauty is in the world, but not of it. In
heaven it is native, part of eternal life, because
it is part of God's nature.

In this world the beauty of the Lord our
God is upon us because it shines down from
Him into His world — even into a sin-stained

[71]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

world. In heaven the beauty of the Lord our
God will be in us as well as round about us,
an everlasting light and splendor.

I think in heaven they would laugh at the
notion that beauty is not useful. Beauty and
Truth would seem to stand there in a place
something like that of food and clothing in
this temporary life.

Christ's word about the lilies calls us back
to its beginning in that other word :

" Lay not up treasures upon earth, where
moth and rust corrupt, . . . but lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, . . . for where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

[72]

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

Wherefore I say unto thee. Her sins, which are
many, are forgiven ; for she loved much ; but to
whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

Luke vii. 47.

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

The Gospels are full of suggested biog-
raphies, glimpses of lives with untold histories.
The story of the woman who was a sinner,
whom we see as a forgiven sinner is one of
them, A protecting veil of brotherly love is
thrown over her past.

Both tradition and criticism have tried, in
their equally clumsy and impertinent ways, to
tear away the veil. Criticism would make this
story nothing more than Luke's version of the
anointing of Jesus by Mary of Bethany. Tra-
dition identifies the woman who was a sinner
at once with Mary Magdalene and with Mary
of Bethany.

A foul wrong is thus done against one of the
most holy and beautiful characters in Gospel
history ; and Jesus is wronged by the impli-
cation that His forgiving love was sufficiently
uncommon to make it necessary to give a
name to each forgiven one.

[75]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

We do not know who this woman was. We
know neither her name nor her story. But
the circumstances in the midst of which we see
her make it well nigh certain that she had met
Jesus before. Possibly she may have listened
to Him as hundreds of others listened while
He declared His gospel of Divine love and
forgiveness. It is, however, scarcely satisfying
to regard this woman simply as an impressed
auditor of public preaching. The scene in
Simon's house points backward to something
more personal. We cannot escape the feeling,
which amounts almost to conviction, that in
some way she had met Jesus face to face.

The story which lies behind what we are
allowed to see belongs indeed to those many
other things which Jesus did which are not
written ; and yet some searching glance of the
Christ into her very soul must have revealed
her to herself Some mighty word of His
must have opened a door of hope in her ap-
parently hopeless life and made her a new
creature in possession of an incredible salva-
tion ; because this deed of hers, this so costly

[76]

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

anointing of her Saviour, was evidently not
prayer, but praise.

The very tears with which she washed the
feet of Jesus were tears of joy, even though
the sorrow of past sins may have mingled in
them. This uncalculating, this passionate ado-
ration is not so much imploration as it is a
most profound gratitude. Nay, it is more
than gratitude : it is the devotion of her res-
cued soul shown in demonstration of a love
whose depth can be measured only by the
unbounded reverence through which it appears.
The lack of sympathy with which her adora-
tion was viewed by Simon and his guests, the
loneliness of it in the midst of that coldly
respectable company, does but accentuate its
strength and beauty.

But Simon's unexpressed comment betrays
him as surely as the woman's adoration reveals
her.

It would probably be unjust to reckon
Simon, even though a Pharisee, among the
enemies of Jesus. " He desired Jesus that
He would eat with him."

[77]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

From religious as well as from personal
reasons a Pharisee would be fastidious in the
choice of guests at his table. We must give
Simon the credit of believing that his desire
was an honest desire. Possibly he thought he
was helping Jesus : doing Him a favor, giving
Him a social Hft.

There would seem a touch of patronage in
Simon's treatment of Jesus. It was enough
to ask this Prophet of Nazareth, this young
man from the back country of Galilee, to eat
with him. It was uncalled-for to offer such
attentions as would be suitable to a Rabbi
from Jerusalem. The washing of the feet, the
anointing appropriate to a really distinguished
guest, might well be omitted. No insult was
necessarily intended. Simon's neglect may
easily have been nothing worse than the care-
less yet keen sense of social discrimination
common with such men as he.

The conventionality of Simon's mind is
vividly seen in his criticism of Jesus' reception
of the worship of the sinful yet forgiven
woman. A prophet — a real prophet — would

[78]

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

have known what sort of creature this is who
is touching Him : He would have recoiled in
holy horror.

Simon was a good man ; but his sympa-
thies, his knowledge of himself, his sense of
humanity, his sense of sin, were all fettered,
cramped, dwarfed by the social and religious
proprieties which had grown with interlacing
bands about his soul.

So much for the characters in this story.
It is needful to have them in clear view if we
would understand the teaching about forgive-
ness which the events of the story drew forth
from Jesus.

The parable with which Jesus answered the
unspoken thought in Simon's heart is exceed-
ingly simple. It was meant to be; it was
spoken to Simon and adapted to his under-
standing. We may for the present pass by
both the simple little parable and its applica-
tion, so dramatic, so crushing, and come at
once to the doctrine announced in the text :
" Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which
are many, are forgiven ; for she loved much :

[79]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth
little/'

The phrasing of this word of Jesus is
curious : "Her sins, which are many, are for-
given ; for she loved much."

This might seem to hint at a price-list, and
a strange one : so much forgiveness for so
much love.

But the second clause is different. It drops
the commonplace of the parable of creditor and
debtor. '* To whom little is forgiven, the same
loveth little."

The price-list — if it be a price-list — is
reversed. The Lord does not pay us in for-
giveness according to the measure of our love.
We pay Him. So much love for so much
forgiveness.

Now, I believe there is a meaning in this
apparently confused manner of statement:
there is a higher logic here than any logic
of mere legality. Jesus is not stating a formal
law ; He is not laying down a rule by which
we may regulate feeling or action. Jesus gives
us here a psychological reflection, a penetrating

[80]

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

meditation upon the way in which forgiveness
and love act and react upon each other in the
human soul.

We have in this word of Jesus something
truly profound. He tells us that a certain
condition of soul is needful before forgiveness
can come in. Not only is it true that the
loving soul is open to forgiveness, but only in
a loving soul can forgiveness live and breathe
and come to the ripeness of full blessedness.

It would be absurd to suppose that this
woman who was a sinner was paid for anoint-
ing the feet of Jesus, for her tears, for her
devotion with an extra portion of His forgive-
ness. And yet it is true that she was greatly
forgiven, because she loved much.

The truth is that such a sense of forgiveness
as was hers, such a blessed power of it in her
life, such an overwhelming joy, could never
have come to her without some deep, strong
sympathy between her soul and the soul of
her forgiver.

On the other hand, the soul of a Simonite,
ready to give only legal interest of gratitude
6 [8i]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

for pardon received ; unwilling to believe in
the need of any great forgiveness, — the soul
of the Simonite, legal, critical, self-satisfied,
stifles even such forgiveness as it is compelled
to receive and makes it " little^

Forgiveness, according to Jesus, has in it a
mutual quality. Before forgiveness can be
real, in order that forgiveness may become a
living fact, there must be sympathy between
the Forgiver and the Forgiven.

And is not this in accord with human na-
ture ? Do we not find precisely this in our
human experience ?

To forgive is not easy ; but it is scarcely
easier, in fact it may easily be harder, to be
forgiven than to forgive.

It is a common saying, founded on bitterly
common experience, that when a man wrongs
you he begins from that moment to hate
you. Certainly it is true that the effect of
sin against a fellow-man is the hardening of
the heart against him. This is but natural.
The sinner must do it in order to justify
himself

[82]

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

If you are uncommonly large-hearted you
may want to forgive the man who has wronged
you. But how can you forgive while he re-
mains hard and bitter in soul toward you ?
You may say to him, " I forgive you ! " But
until his feeling is changed your forgiveness
falls upon flint, and flutters back to you a
poor, broken-winged messenger. Forgiveness
must be not only given, but received, before it
becomes real and living forgiveness.

Very likely the man knows he has sinned
against you. His conscience tells him he is
in the wrong. And yet, do you think it is go-
ing to be easy for him to crush out that bitter-
ness, to humble that pride of self-justification
which stands between him and the acceptance
of your forgiveness ? It means much to be
forgiven. There is necessarily a humiliation
in it as hard to endure as the revengeful, un-
forgiving spirit is hard to conquer. By its very
nature forgiveness is give and take. It must
be mutual before it can be perfected.

No doubt it is true — and blessed be God
it is true — that the patient long-suffering of a

[83]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

true forgiver can sometimes conquer the bitter-
ness and pride of the one who needs forgive-
ness and by its very magnanimity, or rather by
its proof of love, bring him to repentance.

And yet even so, the forgiveness cannot
complete itself until it is accepted. There must
be some outgoing toward the forgiver ; some
confession, not only of sin but of sympathy ;
some recognition of a bond of love between
forgiver and forgiven, — to consummate the
forgiveness.

When love does conquer, when the sinner
says to himself " I can stand this no longer,**
and comes confessing and craving the forgive-
ness waiting for him, then what bursting of
barriers, what flood-gates are opened in his
soul ! Then it is feeble to call his emotion
by the cold name of gratitude !

I believe, if we could know, we should dis-
cover that some of the deepest, strongest loves
between men had their fountain-head in some
great forgiveness. Could you call the love
of the forgiven one a payment for forgive-
ness received ? Or could you think of the

[84]

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

forgiveness of the forglver as pay for the
love ?

No ! Not for one moment ! You feel in-
stinctively, you know in your soul, that the
love is something too big, too noble for any
such debasing measure. In it you recognize
at once the evidence and the result of forgive-
ness. Because the forgiven loves much, he is
able to forget the humiliation of the forgiveness,
and look above and beyond it. In a cleansed
soul he is able to receive all the freedom, the
joy, the blessing of the forgiveness.

To be much forgiven is something that
depends upon, and lies within one*s own soul.
He is much forgiven who is willing to be for-
given because love has made him willing.

Is not something like this, however imper-
fectly it may have been sketched, at least an
outline of the psychology of the forgiveness of
man by man ? And is the forgiveness of God,
when He forgives men, and men receive His
forgiveness — is it anything different?

The truth is, we shall never understand the
forgiveness of God until we confess that be-

[85]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

tween our souls and God there is a bond of
nature.

Let us believe Jesus when He bids us call
God " Our Father ! " when by His uttered
word, yea, even more by the Word made flesh,
by the message of His very self and the true
humanity of the very Son of God, He declares
us His brethren and God's children. The
laws of forgiveness are not the legal enactments
of a strange king sitting on his throne in a
distant heaven. They are the natural laws, the
psychology, of the Father and His children.
God's forgiveness is higher, infinitely more
splendid and blessed than any forgiveness be-
tween man and man can be : it comes with a
compelling graciousness hopelessly beyond our
feeble powers.

And yet it is true of the forgiveness of
God, as it is true of forgiveness between men,
that there is in it an element of mutuality.
Even God's forgiveness cannot be consum-
mated until this mutuality is recognized. By
no arbitrary rule, but by the nature of things,
because of your nature and of God's, His for-

[86]

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

giveness cannot lay hold of you until you are
willing to lay hold of it. Your soul must be
open before even God's forgiveness can come in.
Something like this would appear to be the
teaching of the Lord's Prayer.

'' Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors " ; and of Jesus' comment upon that
petition : " For if ye forgive men their tres-
passes your heavenly Father will also forgive
you. But if ye forgive not men their tres-
passes, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses."

The forgiving heart is able to receive for-
giveness from God. The unforgiving soul is
closed even against the Divine forgiveness.

The woman who was a sinner was much
forgiven because she loved much. Yes ! Be-
cause, when by confession she had broken the
barriers between her soul and her Saviour His
mighty love melted them all away and set
her soul on fire with a love which cleansed
and cleared a great, wide road by which the
splendor of the mercy of the Lord could
come in.

[87]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Simon and his tribe of Simonites, with their
self-satisfactions, their conventional moralities,
their incapability of anything more than a
little love, can receive only driblets of forgive-
ness. Their dull, decorous fences keep out
all save the spray that will dash over from the
towering waves of the Divine forgiveness.
They love little, and are therefore little for-
given, not because God is not a great forgiver
but because they are poor receivers, unrespon-
sive to the Divine largeness.

Simon was a good man, with a highly re-
spectable respect for God. He had acquired
a mild admiration of Jesus. It would almost
seem that he cherished a good-natured rather
patronizing affection for this good young man
from Galilee. He really wanted His company
at dinner, and he was beginning to beHeve that
Jesus might actually prove to be a prophet.
We can imagine that Simon felt a shock of
honest disappointment when he saw Jesus will-
ingly receiving the adoration of the woman
whom he knew for a sinner in that town. To
himself he says, " It is a pity ! After all, the

[88]

THE MUTUALITY OF FORGIVENESS

Galilean is no prophet or He would have
known ! "

In truth, neither God, nor God's Christ, nor
his own brother men were crowning realities
to Simon. Society and its rules were real ;
business was real ; his religion was real ; its
church-going, its ceremonial, its doctrines, — all
the outside things of religion, — were part of
Simon's very existence. In this as in all else
he lived upon the surface. Between him and
actual life ; between him and his heavenly
Father and his sins against his Father ; yes,
between Simon and his own inmost soul with
its crying needs and its towering possibilities,
— a crust of commonplace, conventional earth-
liness had grown, and he lived on the pitiful
and perilous surface of it.

I wonder, was the crust cracked by what
happened on that memorable day when he
asked Jesus to dine with him ; when the Lord
made such a searching object-lesson for Simon
of that poor outcast woman whose sins which
were many had been forgiven, whose passion-
ate adoration of her Saviour witnessed the

[89]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

depths underneath her broken and contrite,
vet mightily rejoicing soul ? Or did Simon,
with the others who sat at meat with him
begin scornfully to say, '* Who is this that
forgiveth sins also ? "

We do not know. Simon and the forgiven
sinner appear before us but for a moment, and
then they fade from sight. For one enlighten-
ing moment they appear to tell us that God
our Father, and Christ His Son, our Brother,
do indeed bring near us the power and blessing
of a great salvation. And they tell us that
even God cannot give what we will not take !
The power, the jov, the blessing of God's
forgiveness and Christ's salvation waits our
welcoming.

" Behold," says Jesus, " I stand at the door
and knock. If any man hear my voice and
open the door, I will come in to him and sup
with him and he with me."

[90]

THE DREADFUL PRAYER

And behold, the whole city came out to meet
Jesus : and when they saw him, they besought
Him that He would depart out of their coasts.

Matthew viii. 34.

THE DREADFUL PRAYER

JESUS had done one of His mightiest works.
He had cast out a legion of devils from the
demoniac of Gadara, who had his dwelling in
the tombs.

Incidental to that great salvation a herd of
two thousand swine had been destroyed.

There are modern communities which might
sympathize with the Gadarenes when they be-
sought Jesus that he would depart out of their
coasts.

The " city " was little more than a good-
sized village. Apparently the inhabitants held
a sort of town meeting. We can see them
discussing the situation with excited talk and
many gestures. Doubtless there was at first
some difference of opinion. It was impos-
sible to behold that erstwhile dangerous de-
moniac now sitting quietly, clothed and in his
right mind, without feeling that his Saviour
had conferred a great benefit upon the com-

[93]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

munity. But the swine ! Two thousand of
them ! all that property sacrificed for the sake
of one poor crazy man's soul !

The perished swine decided the question.
Jesus was a dangerous character ; he must go.

The narrative implies that they went to
meet Jesus in formal deputation, as a sort of
committee of the whole, and respectfully but
decidedly besought Him that He would de-
part out of their coasts.

A moment's reflection will show that we
have here an instance of prevailing prayer.

The beseeching of the Gadarenes was not
only genuine, but it fulfilled a requirement of
Jesus which often perplexes sincere Christians
and sometimes excites the scorn of unbelievers.
The Gadarenes prayed, expecting to receive
what they asked. In no hesitating or doubt-
ing spirit did they come to Jesus, trying no
experiment, but demanding that which they
firmly believed He must grant.

Perhaps a little common sense might help
us to understand Jesus. God is not the only
person to whom we prav. We offer prayers

[94]

THE DREADFUL PRAYER

to each other, we ask people to do things for
us. Do we ask what we do not expect will
be granted ? Never, if we can avoid it. A
request — or a prayer — which seems to ques-
tion the willingness or ability of the person
prayed to, compromises itself in its very utter-
ance. In prayer, expectation is the mark of
respect ; it is the test of sincerity ; it is also
the way to success. The attitude of the citi-
zens of Gadara, their position of respectful but
firmly expectant demand is the winning stand-
point ; not simply because of its forcefulness,
but because it gives guarantee of honesty and
of the reality of need.

And if this is true of our prayers to our
fellow-men, is it less true of our prayers to
our Heavenly Father ^

The Gadarenes teach us a lesson. Their
beseeching of Jesus carried with it that con-
fident note which must always be heard in any
true prayer. It is the more worth our while
to mark this because the prayer of the Gada-
renes was a dreadful prayer, and yet it was
answered at once.

[95]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

They besought Jesus that He would depart
out of their coasts. Without delay, without
remonstrance he granted their petition. He
entered a ship and returned to His own city.

Do we ever pray the prayer of the Gada-
renes ? Do we ever ask Jesus to depart from
us ?

No. Not in the open manner in which the
Gadarenes besought Him. We have informa-
tion concerning Jesus which was hidden from
those half-heathen men of the long ago ; we
know that which makes us unwilling to com-
mit ourselves openly as they did.

And yet in the recesses of our souls do we
not sometimes pray their prayer ? And for
reasons not very unHke those of the men of
Gadara. They were afraid of Jesus, and his
work of salvation interfered with their business.

In us too, the awe of Him persists in spite
of the lapse of centuries, and in spite of — yes,
increased by — our better knowledge.

We have learned that Jesus came to reveal
God to us and show us the Father.

We may not be — probably we are not —

[96]

THE DREADFUL PRAYER

theologians ; we concern ourselves very little
with the philosophy of the astounding gospel
of God's manifestation of Himself through
His Christ.

And yet the facts of it search and find us
in our inmost spirit ; and when Jesus comes
near we know that God is near ; we feel our-
selves in the Awful Presence of the Almighty !

Nor is the awe lessened because we know
that Jesus is our human Friend and Brother.
Nay, it is deepened ; for a friend, a brother
is a sharer of one's life.

The sympathy of Jesus brings Him into a
solemn nearness ; it leaves not a nook or corner
of our souls or our daily doing from which we
can safely shut Him out. We know that He
will not, and cannot take the place of a mere
acquaintance to whom we might say :

" To-morrow, when I have more time, I '11
be glad to see you, but to-day I 'm busy."

Oh, no ! The very nature of the relation
of Christ to us is that of a personal intimacy
nearer than the nearest earthly friend ; a near-
ness from which nothing can be hidden. The
7 [ 97 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

manner of the salvation with which He saves
us makes us no more our own, and gives Him
the place of one who leads, whom we must
follow.

The love of Jesus, like all great love, and
most greatly of all love, has in it an element of
awfulness which is sure to oppress the spirit
of one who does not wholly yield to it. The
very blessedness of the demand which it makes
upon us may easily stir up revolt.

Perhaps in some enlightening moment the
spirit ot Jesus has come to you revealing His
great salvation, making you feel the difference
between life as you are living it and the life
you might live if you would but let your Great
Friend take His rightful place. You are
mightily drawn toward Him. You long for
the peace and the power which you know His
indwelling can give ; you know that you ought
to open your heart and let Him take posses-
sion. And then the very splendor of His
love frightens you ; its high demand angers
you. And you do just what the Gadarenes
did ; you cry out in your secret soul :

['98]

THE DREADFUL PRAYER

"Depart out of my coasts; leave me alone;
let me be as I was before you visited me ! "

And the Lord answers your prayer as
promptly as he answered that which came
from the shores of Galilee ; and by Sunday
afternoon or by Monday morning you are
back in the old rut, — going your own way,
looking after your herds of earthly swine ;
missing and perhaps grieving over those
drowned in the sea ; vexed because you have
been troubled by the Divine Presence, yet
relieved, since now you feel yourself free from
the consciousness of that presence and the
agitating desire for it.

There are varied ways of praying the fatal
prayer.

Perhaps you are a member of Christ's
church. There was a time when the Presence
of Jesus was welcome ; but now, things are
different. The demands of the world have
become heavy. There Is little time for
prayer, and little Inclination for the detach-
ment of spirit which prayer requires ; you are
preoccupied, you are very busy, your leisure
• [ 99 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

time, perhaps even your Sabbaths, must be
reserved for rest and amusement.

There are moments when conscience troubles
you. There is occasionally a bad half-hour
with the spiritual situation. You admit that
you have grown careless ; yet the carelessness
does not after all seem so very serious a matter.
It appears simply as a laxness in not very
essential religious observances. You excuse it
to yourself and to others, you justify yourself
and rather easily make out a very fair case in
your own favor.

You can make out a fair case and find plaus-
ible excuse for your religious neglects because
of a singular reason. And that is, you are not
conscious of any personal consideration at all.
Your laxness, or carelessness, or more broad
and liberal practice — whatever you choose to
call it — appears simply as a neglect of certain
rites or observances, good certainly, perhaps
necessary for some people, but not binding
upon you in your circumstances. It does not
appear to you as in any way a question between
your soul and the spirit of Some One Else ! In

[ 100 ]

THE DREADFUL PRAYER

truth, you have lost the Presence of Jesus ; and
you are scarcely conscious of your loss. In a
formal way you still confess yourself one of
His followers, you do many good and com-
mendable things that are in accord with His
teaching, you belong to His party, you are a
member of His church.

But He Himself, His warm, living Pre-
sence, which once, even though perhaps only
faintly, you surely felt — that has gone!

You no longer feel the need of prayer,
you have grown into an apparently prayer-
less habit.

And yet the truth is, your whole life has
gradually, unconsciously become a dreadful
prayer. Silently, stealthily, without any ag-
gressive intention but as it were by default,
your life has become a prayer to Jesus that he
would depart out of your coasts. And the
prayer has been answered !

This sort of prayer is always answered, be-
cause, sadly enough, it is always real. It may
not be, seldom or never is it expressed in
words ; yet it is a believing prayer, a demand

[101]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

of the soul, and a demand that expects to be
complied with.

The Lord once said that, " The children of
this world are wiser in their generation than
the children of light : " and the effectiveness of
our dreadful prayers illustrates the truth of his
words.

If we would but ask for Christ's presence as
honestly as we ask that He shall depart out of
our coasts, if we would ask by our actions and
not with empty words only ; when we really
want Him ; when our prayer for His Presence
is truly part of our life so that it becomes like
the other, the dreadful prayer, an unconscious
wish, a demand that will not take denial and
expects compliance, — then we shall know the
strength of fellowship with Jesus and the
blessedness of a real Christian life.

There are varied views of the nature of the
Christian life. It is interpreted in terms of
the observance of religious rules, or the ex-
perience of religious emotions. It is viewed as
an attitude of the intellect toward doctrine, or
of the ethical sense toward conduct.

[ 102]

THE DREADFUL PRAYER

There is truth in all these ideals. The dis-
cipline of religious rule, the power of religious
emotion have both their place within the Chris-
tian life. The Life is based upon truth which
must take human shape in doctrine, and the
Christian Life is in itself the highest morality.

But the real thing goes far deeper than any
of these partial manifestations. The real
Christian life is the life of God our Father
given us through Christ His Son ; born in us
by the mighty Spirit of Jesus ; living by His
Presence ; growing through companionship with
Him.

The real Christian life does not make a man
less human ; nay, it makes him more truly
human and fit for human duties ; stronger,
more faithful, more courageous for all holy
living and righteous doing. It does not re-
quire us to separate ourselves from our
fellow-men. It brings us into nearest fellowship
with all mankind. It is a life in this world —
but not a life of this world.

The presence of Jesus is indeed awful when
we come face to face with Him from the out-

[ 103 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

side. We cannot forget that He is the same
mighty One who could cast out devils or
still the stormy winds and waves with a word.
Our sinfulness shrinks from His holiness ;
His righteousness makes our worldliness fret
and whimper ; His love, with its intimate
searching of our inmost thought and doing,
is something before whose nearness and whose
high demand our souls falter. And yet we
need Jesus! Above all else we need Him!
We cannot live the life we were made for,
the life of God's true children, without the
saving power and inspiring presence of Jesus.

And though that presence may seem awful
when viewed from without, the awfulness melts
into blessedness when we honestly receive Him
and come into the holy of holies of His friend-
ship. Then comes the peace that passeth
understanding.

It is true; the wretched, the dreadful prayer,
" Depart out of our coasts ! " is heard and an-
swered. Jesus never stays where He is not
wanted. But blessed be His Holy Name !
He is better to us than our deserts. He

[ 104 ]

THE DREADFUL PRAYER

goes ; yet never so far away that we cannot
call Him back, if we call honestly I — as hon-
estly as when we asked Him to depart.

We do not hear that Jesus ever returned in
person to the country of the Gadarenes : but
he had pity on their ignorance and made the
spiritual finding of Himself possible for them
whenever they should repent.

Nothing in the Gospel is more touching
than the prayer of the healed demoniac.

He had no eyes or heart for any but his
Saviour ; and when his fellow-countrymen cast
Jesus out, he took it as though they had cast
him out also. Home and friends were hence-
forth as nothing to him. He begged only
that he might stay beside Jesus.

Surely this was an honest prayer. Was it
answered ?

Yes, but with a better blessing than that
which the man craved. Jesus made him His
ambassador; He told him,

" Go home to thy friends and tell them how
great things the Lord hath done for thee."

The man obeyed. He went his way and
[ 105 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

published through all the city how great
things Jesus had done for him.

And we know that, in thus doing Christ's
will he gained a closer intimacy, a nearer pres-
ence of his Lord and Master than even bodily
companionship could have given. This man
who longed only to be with Jesus, henceforth
held the great fellowship of the love of Christ
for men's souls. He reopened and held open
for his Lord that door which the Gadarenes
had tried to shut in the face of their Saviour.

And even though you may have prayed
their dreadful prayer, though you may have
besought Jesus that He would depart out of
your coasts, His heart still yearns for you.
That Cross on which He suffered and bore
your sin — yea, even the sin of refusing Him
— is the pledge of His immortally patient love
and sleepless willingness to hear when you
call.

But oh ! be honest with Him !

[io6]

WOE TO THAT MAN BY WHOM THE
OFFENCE COMETH

Woe unto the world because of offences ! for it
must needs be that offences come ; but woe to
that man by whom the offence cometh !

Matthew xviii. 7.

WOE TO THAT MAN BY WHOM THE
OFFENCE COMETH

The Greek word translated " offence " is
" skandalon." It has been transferred into
English in our familiar word " scandal."

The text might be rendered " Woe unto
the world because of scandals." But such a
translation, literal and racy though it might
be, would not express the thought of Jesus.

" Scandal," in our use of the word, means
something disgraceful, something to be ashamed
of; and often it means nothing more than a
scandalous rumor.

The meaning of Jesus is deeper and stronger.
The word He used is elsewhere translated
"a stumbling-block." Its idea is that of
something which trips one up in the dark and
gives him a bad fall. There is no single
English word which quite represents it. The
Revised Version, which tries to be, and usually
is, very exact, renders : " Woe unto the world

[ 109 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

because of occasions of stumbling " ; and this
colorless circumlocution is really farther from
the spirit of the original than our Old Version
with its more vigorous simplicity.

Let the text stand, then, just as our Old
Bible gives it ; only let us remember that the
" offences " are offences against righteousness,
against truth, against honesty ; offences which
trip up the weak and make them sin ; offences
against brotherly love, against the spirit of
Jesus ; and then let us re-read our text :
"Woe unto the world because of offences ! for
it must needs be that offences come; but woe
to that man by whom the offence cometh ! **

Scattered through the great books of litera-
ture are sentences which give us pause when
we come to them in our reading. Perhaps
their beauty fills us with admiration ; or they
roll in upon our minds the impact of a mighty
truth ; or perhaps, as here in this word of
Jesus, they make our hearts stand still in the
clutch of some dreadful apprehension. But
this text is literature only because it is some-
thing greater. It is the written record of a

[no]

WOE TO THAT MAN

living, spoken word; moreover, it is prophecy
in the widest sense. There is teaching in this
word of Jesus ; there is a warning message.
There is also prediction which has been so
completely and so progressively fulfilled in the
life of the world, that we cannot but shudder
when we think of the cumulative woe toward
which it points in the future.

A text like this is timely. It throws light
upon the nature of Jesus ; it turns toward us
a side of His character which we men of to-
day have not been entirely ready to face.

We are quite willing to look at the Gentle
Jesus. The reality of His sweet humanity
brings Him very near to us. And yet in
this nearness, and in our free gaze upon the
Man of Nazareth, there is a singular peril.

It is the peril which comes from compari-
sons. We compare His knowledge with the
sunburst of our own time ; we compare His
world, so contracted, with the splendid world
in which we live. We remember His humble
birth. His poverty. His fishermen disciples.

Yes ! we admire Jesus ; we even imagine
[III]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

that we worship His saving love and His
beautiful self-sacrifice ; while all the time,
insensibly it may be, yet really, we patronize
the Galilean peasant, the Gentle Jesus !

But the truth is, our mental picture of the
Gentle Jesus is an illusion. None of the men
of His own day cherished any such idea of
Him. There was division of opinion con-
cerning Jesus ; but no one thought of Him
as a weakling. There were those who de-
spised or scorned or hated Him. But even
these did Him the homage of regarding Him
as a dangerous character.

The High Priests who prosecuted Him,
and Pilate, the Roman governor who crucified
Him, were afraid of Jesus. They crucified
Him because they feared Him. The Cross
was a tribute to the awe which He inspired.

Even the disciples with whom He was so
free, to whom He was such a perfect comrade ;
even the men and women whom Jesus healed
and helped felt in His very love and gentle-
ness, the compelling might and majesty of an
awful Presence.

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WOE TO THAT MAN

The sense of the majesty of Jesus arose,
not from His mighty works alone, it was
even more deeply felt as an effect of His
words.

After the Sermon on the Mount, when the
congregation broke up the people did not
begin to chatter about all sorts of indifferent
things. They went away saying to one an-
other in hushed and astonished tones, " He
speaks as one having authority ! **

One day in Jerusalem Jesus was talking to
the throng assembled in the Temple. The
officers of the Sanhedrin were sent to arrest
Him. They returned empty-handed, with an
excuse unprecedented in police circles. All
they could say for themselves was, " Never
man spake like this Man ! "

Even to-day we feel the majesty of the
words of Jesus. Our Sunday-school notions
of His gentleness, our critical ideas of His
limitations die away when we actually listen to
Him.

The words of Jesus are becoming portentous
in face of the problems of our modern life.
" ["3]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Men are beginning to understand that His
love has an edge sharp against violators of
His law of Brotherhood; we are beginning
to see that His gentleness is the forbearance
and the patience of conscious power ; and that
the humility of Jesus, the fact that He was
the Friend of the poor and the Prophet of the
People, is a fact big with serious meaning.

Our text would have its own solemnity,
no matter who might have spoken it. The
woes which come upon the world because of
offences, and the woe which visits the man
who makes his fellow-men stumble into sin
is witnessed by every page of history and by
every daily newspaper. But this saying takes
a new solemnity and a deeper awfulness when
we remember that it was spoken by Christ,
the Judge of Mankind.

But notice now how different from the
fashion of human reformers and popular
prophets is this word of Jesus ! The popular
prophets are always foretelling a ready-made
heaven on earth as soon as their reforms are
accepted. They promise a magical cure of all

WOE TO THAT MAN

evils if only we elect them to office. Jesus
has no quack medicines to offer.

His prophecy is not only penetrating in its
exposure of evil, it is divinely large in its
sweep and in its outlook. He blinks no facts.
He faces human nature with its dreadful twists
and its wretched selfishness, not only as it
appeared in the men about Him, but as His
clear vision beheld that same human nature
through the weary vista of coming centuries.

" Woe unto the world because of offences !
for it must needs he that offences come. ..."

It is significant that this saying was not
wrung from Jesus by the sight of what was
going on in the great world about Him. The
offences were not the things that the Herods,
or Pilate, or Annas, or Caiaphas were doing ;
though God knows they might easily have
furnished examples with their vile intrigues,
and their reckless self-seekings, and their cyni-
cal disregard of each other's rights, and their
cruel tramplings on the rights and welfare of
the people. No ! The offences were nearer
home, within the family circle of His own

[115]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

disciples. The large wisdom of Jesus saw
how temporary was the power of the at pres-
ent great ones, and how surely that power
contained within itself the seed of its own
speedy destruction. He saw also how big
with consequences to the world was the living
force held in the now obscure band of progeni-
tors of the new and coming order. The of-
fences which would hurt,. must come from their
successors, and therefore the first signs of these
things in the disciples themselves awakened
the anguish of Jesus.

The disciples had gotten it into their heads
that their Master was none other than the
Messiah of Israel, as He was indeed ; but they
were drawing their own conclusions. They
obstinately spelled Messiahship in terms of
earthly kingship.

Incidentally this shows how Jesus impressed
those nearest Him. He was more than the
gentle Teacher or the loving Healer ; He was
not Elias, or Jeremias or one of the prophets,
to those who knew Him best; but He was
Christ the King. They felt the commanding

[ii6]

WOE TO THAT MAN

quality, the imperial force, that was in the
nature of Jesus. Their Master, so they be-
lieved, was soon about to set up His kingdom
and reign like an emperor in Jerusalem.

" And what is going to be in it for us ^ "
thought these disciples. Not only did they
let ambitious dreams of earthly glories possess
them, but they actually began to dispute
among themselves ; they even came to Jesus
demanding, " Who is the greatest in the king-
dom of heaven ? " — the heaven-sent kingdom
on earth. Which is going to have the best
place ? How are the offices to be distributed ?

All the greed of churchmen and of politi-
cians and of business competitors ; all the
clutching after personal advancement and ad-
vantage careless of consequences to others,
which has cursed the world from that day to
this ; all the evil brood of offences were there
in the germ, in the breasts of those good men,
those disciples of Jesus !

How penetrating the vision of Jesus ! At
a glance He sees not only the present fault
so natural to these enthusiastic young men, but

[117]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

He sees the woe that in after time shall come
upon the world from the same sort of selfish-
ness let loose.

He must correct the fault, now in the bud,
in these His own comrades. And the gentle-
ness of quiet, self-contained force is seen in
His correction.

Jesus called a little child unto Him and set
him in the midst of them and said, " Verily I
say unto you. Except ye be converted, and be-
come as little children, ye shall not enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore
shall humble himself as this little child, the
same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Then the great love of the Christ for the
little ones began to swell in His bosom, and
I think Jesus put His arm about the little
boy and drew him closer to Himself, while
He said, "And whoso shall receive one such
little child in my name, receiveth me ! "

And then, as He thinks of those who are
not simply children in years but in character
and position ; of the little ones, unimportant,
inconspicuous in the sight of the big world ;

[ii8]

WOE TO THAT MAN

when He thinks of the multitude of plain
common people who shall call Him their
Christ, and yet shall be made to fall into sin
by the stumbling-blocks of the selfish grasp-
ings of men prominent in church or state, —
then the wrath of love arises in the soul of
Jesus and He exclaims, " But whoso shall put
a stumbling-block in the way of one of these
little ones which believe in me, it were better
for him that a great millstone were hanged
about his neck and that he were drowned in
the depths of the sea ! "

And now, with that far look, that vision
piercing the future so characteristic of Jesus,
He beholds how through ages to come His
righteousness shall be corrupted by those who
stand in high places in His church so that
they may grasp higher places ; and how His
truth shall be denied by men who profess
faith in Him, because Christ's truth crosses
their selfish desires or their vain conceits ; and
how men who call themselves Christians shall
bring contempt upon the name they bear be-
cause, reckless of justice or righteousness, they

Li'9]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

ride rough-shod toward what they call " suc-
cess " ; and there is wrung from the soul of
Jesus the dreadful sentence, " Woe unto the
world because of offences : for it must needs
be that offences come."

Do we catch the true tone of this awful
word of Jesus ?

If you will think of it and remember how
it came to be spoken, I believe you will see
that it does not denounce woe against the
world for the world's sins ; but it prophesies
woe to the world, and laments the sorrows
which must come upon the world because of
the sins of Christians.

The imperial nature of the Christhood of
Jesus appears in this saying. He claims the
world for His own. He claims the world in
the mighty empire of His kingly love, and
His great heart bleeds when He thinks of
this collective humanity. His own world. His
dear men and women and children. His little
ones who must suffer by the selfish sins of
those who profess His name !

The most dreadful things ever said were

[120]

WOE TO THAT MAN

spoken by Jesus ; and I think He never said
anything more fearful than this.

We think of the far-sightedness of Jesus,
of the prophecy of His saying as proved by
centuries of history.

But reflect now, think also of the magnifi-
cent faith of Jesus in His own Christhood !
Think of the divine patience of Jesus and
of His sublime confidence of final triumph,
yea, even in spite of the corruptions His Gos-
pel must suffer by the sins of its professed
friends !

The world must suffer, but the world shall
be saved ; for the woe falls finally in its fatal
consequences, not upon the world, but upon
that man by whom the offence cometh.

And this condenses the awfulness of the
word of Jesus. It makes the weight of it
personal. " Woe to that man by whom the
offence cometh ! "

Woe to the minister of Christ who preaches
to please men and make himself popular !
Woe to him if he uses his office for his own
comfort, and lives so that men have an amused

[121]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

contempt for him, and because of him despise
Christ^s church !

Woe to the rich Christian who sets his
business interests above the law of the land,
and above that law of plain righteousness
taught by the Master whose name he bears !

Woe to the Christian, rich or poor, who
uses his church membership as an asset in his
selfish affairs !

Woe to the church member whose disloyalty
to his sacred obligations makes plain people
imagine that Christ's yoke means nothing !

Woe to us all, if we dim the light of Christ-
likeness which the Lord our Master, who is
to be our Judge, has given us in sacred trust
for the salvation and the blessing of our fellow-
men !

Let us remember that this final, this per-
sonal woe, like the woe to the world, is not
vindictive ; it is not sentence of punishment :
it is prophecy of consequences.

If offences have come through us, then as
surely as night and darkness follow the with-
drawal of the daylight sun, so certainly we

[ 122]

WOE TO THAT MAN

shall suffer. Perhaps we shall suffer here, in
this life ; perhaps in the life to come. But
whenever, however our eyes shall be opened
and we see the harm done by our selfish and
dishonest use of God's grace and Christ's
name, when we see how we have caused the
little ones to stumble, then we shall wish we
had rather cut off the hand or foot that walked
in wilful self-seeking, we shall wish we had
plucked out the eye that looked only to our
own interest while our recklessness brought
sin upon our brother.

The day will come when we shall see what
the littleness and narrowness of selfhood makes
it hard to see now; and we shall see that there
are seeming gains which are real losses, and a
saving of life that is the losing of life, and a
losing of self which is the gain of all things.

The Gospel of Jesus is a gospel of Divine
love ; and therefore it is a gospel of judgment.
Out of the doctrine of Christ's Brotherhood
with us comes the doctrine of our brotherhood
with each other. We cannot live apart from
our fellow-men, regardless of the effect of our

[ 123]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

lives upon their lives. Out of our brother-
hood with Christ and with His world comes
a possibility of consequences which ought to
make us humble ourselves in the dust, while
we implore our Father for help to see clearly
and act truly.

[ 124]

THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

And the lord commended the unjust steward,
because he had done wisely : for the children of
this world are in their generation wiser than the
children of light. — Luke xvi. 8.

THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

\Vhat is our idea of Jesus ? It is possible to
think of Him with a reverence which shuts the
eyes to all beside the sacredness of His Di-
vinity so that we forget that He was really
human.

It is also possible to forget His Divinity
and to view Him in a belittling way as the
Galilean peasant, beautiful in His simplicity
and ignorance of the ways of the world.

But we shall never understand Jesus until,
distinct from the vision of His Divinity we
realize the largeness of His Humanity.

Simply as a man, Jesus was a great man.
He possessed the keen and accurate perception
of human nature both in its lower and its
upper strata, and the swift, the easy grasp of
the true inwardness of affairs, social, political,
commercial, and religious which belongs only
to the few who are rightly called great.

[ 127 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

It is true, Jesus drew the lowly, the dis-
tressed, the nameless masses to Himself in
touching confidence and affection. If you will
but think of it, that is something the greatest
men have generally done. But, as we can see
from the brief and fragmentary records of His
life. He also compelled the respect, yea, even
the awe, of men of high degree. Some of these
men, leaders in church and state, began by
despising Him. Before the end came they
had learned to fear Him. They feared Him
even after they had crucified Him.

In a high and true sense we have the right
to say that Jesus was a Man of the World.

The human world, with its strength and its
weakness, its virtues and its vices, its craft and
its littleness was an open book to Him ; and
He translated the vernacular of this most puz-
zling and difficult volume with a skill so facile,
and in a way so broad and vivid that He often
surprises and sometimes perplexes us.

The Parable of the Unjust Steward, for ex-
ample, is not of the sort that a simple-minded
peasant could conceive nor a dainty religionist

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THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

dare to use. It is in itself a difficult parable ;
but specially difficult because Jesus is the au-
thor of it.

We are startled when we find Him using an
incident of most consummate worldliness, a
tale of what, in the slang of our day, we should
call " graft," — and most complicated graft at
that, — to enforce high and spiritual truth.
The parable begins to become intelligible only
when we consent to think of it as the utterance
of a man familiar with the ways of the world,
— a man of such assured position and admitted
knowledge that men must listen to him with re-
spect, and of such acknowledged loftiness of
character that none shall dare misconstrue his
handling of his illustration.

•As to the principal character in the story, we
must not imagine that the Unjust Steward was
any mere underling. The measures of oil and
of wheat in which he dealt when translated into
terms of gallons and bushels, are at once seen to
be too large for anything less than big, whole-
sale transactions.

Moreover, we know what manner of officials

9 [129]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

were the stewards of the princes of that day.
They were the trusted and powerful managers
of great estates, and men of high importance in
the financial world.

The accusation against this Steward was not
actual dishonesty. It was " wastefulness ^ The
word is carefully chosen, and it is a note of
character.

A man who is wasteful and extravagant in
the management of his business affairs is almost
sure to be extravagant and luxurious in his
personal habits. And precisely this is the
character we see mirrored in the Steward's own
words.

When his resignation is demanded, as he
faces the awkward situation he says, " What
shall I do ? for my lord taketh away from me
the stewardship. I cannot dig : to beg I am
ashamed ! "

He has lost the manly hardiness needful for
honest toil. He might beg loans from his
lord's rich customers who have profited by his
extravagance ; but this would be too precarious
— and too humiliating.

[ 130]

THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

He has grown into the habits of a soft and
pleasant life ; and, true Child of this World
that he is, this easy, luxurious worldliness is
his all in all, and too precious by far to lose.

The Child of the World must keep his life;
and no nice scruples can for one moment be
permitted to stand in the way.

And he is shrewd, he is resourceful, this
Child of the World!

With our imperfect knowledge of the busi-
ness methods of that ancient time, it is not
easy to understand the details of the transac-
tion by which the Unjust Steward put his
lord's debtors under personal obligation to
himself The deal was evidently fraudulent,
and apparently one of those cunning frauds
which the law cannot easily reach. It has
been conjectured that the oil and wheat owed
to the lord of the manor were not paid in kind,
but that they represented amounts of produce
purchased from the estate by merchants who
gave their notes in payment ; and that these
notes were the " bills '* which the crafty Stew-
ard invited them to scale down.

[131]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

But the main point of the story is clear.
The Unjust Steward made these wealthy debtors
parties to a fraud in such a way that thereafter
he could compel them to receive him into
their houses and provide for him in the style
to which he was accustomed.

He kept his life, that worldly life of sensual
ease which to him was alone real living.

" And his lord commended the Unjust
Steward because he had done wisely."

There are various interpretations of this dif-
ficult parable, but we may let them rest while
we try to grasp one single lesson which surely
is taught in this peculiar utterance of Jesus.

When trouble came and disaster threatened,
the Child of this World did not give up. Not
for a moment did he allow doubt to weaken,
or misfortune to unman him. He set his wits
at work. He resolved what to do. And the
thing he did was effective ; also, it was consist-
ent,— it was the sort of thing natural to the
sort of life which was all in all to him.

This Child of the World used his worldly
knowledge promptly, thoroughly, unsparingly,

[ 132]

THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

skilfully to save and keep the worldly life so
dear to him.

" The Children of this World/* says Jesus,
" are in their generation wiser than the Chil-
dren of Light.'*

What a contrast of names ! " Children of
this World." " Children of Light."

While reading the story of His Life, you
have surely felt — for it is often something
more readily felt than actually perceived —
you have felt what might be called the far
look, the wide vision of Jesus. The influ-
ence of it envelops Him like an atmosphere.
And yet it is no hazy atmosphere of mysticism
beclouding every-day actualities. On the con-
trary. He ever speaks like One who sees things
— even the most common and most sordidly
earthly things — with more than common clear-
ness, through a light more sharply defining and
more largely revealing than any light we know.

The unquestioned yet mysterious fascination
in which Jesus and His teaching holds us lies
not a little in this always felt though not al-

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

ways understood fact of His wide. His large
vision, and perhaps even more in His peculiar
use of it.

The very soul of His Gospel is, " I am the
First Born Son of Light; and you, my brothers,
Children of My Father, you also are Children
of Light, if you will but accept your birthright!"

And the minor tone of sadness which runs
through the message of Jesus, which we also
feel, which makes Him the Man of Sorrows,
comes from grief because He sees that so
many of us love darkness rather than light
and scorn our magnificent birthright, and re-
main content to be children of this poor, little,
perishing world.

And the sadness of Jesus is deepened when
He sees that even the Children of Light hold
their inheritance with feeble grasp, and are less
true to their real, their infinitely large and
eternal life, than the Children of this World
are to their poor and petty life.

If you study the parables of Jesus you will
discover that almost every one of them looks
out from some little window of familiar earthly

[134]

THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

fact or incident into the greater life which lies
above, yet round about this world. The par-
ables of Jesus are like powerful field-glasses
bringing into near and convincing reality those
solemn mountains which we carelessly imag-
ined were only cloud-land.

And the Parable of the Unjust Steward,
this strange story reeking with earthliness,
showing how truly Jesus was a man of the
world familiar with the seamy side of high life
in His day, — this parable, so amazing as an
utterance of the Holy Christ, is no exception.
If it descends into the depths of sordidness, it
rises thence into heights of severe and heav-
enly demand. The air which Jesus breathes
while He tells this story of worldly crooked-
ness is evidently an atmosphere more rarefied
than that of this world.

If the crystalline clearness of that upper air
exposes the repulsiveness of the shrivelled soul
scantily hidden under the gay robes of the
Child of this World, then this is because Jesus
would have His little brothers, the Children
of Light, learn the truth. He would have the

[ 135 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Children of Light, who yet must live in this
world, exposed to its influences while they are
passing through it, — He would compel them,
to see the folly of a divided life.

The Unjust Steward, the poor, smart, frivo-
lous Child of this World, was guilty of no such
crime. His life — that which to him was life
— was only a starved phantom of luxurious
flabbiness ; but he was true to it, even when
it called for the sacrifice of his reputation and
his self-respect.

We see the self-same thing all about us in
this latter day of excessive worldly prosperity
with its consequent luxuriousness.

There is a certain sort of thing called "life."
It may be in reality a wretched, tiresome,
empty thing; but the livers of it — how loyal
they are !

And the gaudy standard they set up is held
so high, it is flaunted so boldly, it glitters so
brilliantly, that even the Children of Light are
drawn toward it.

" The Children of this World are wiser in
their generation than the Children of Light ! "

[136]

THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

The sadness of the Man of Sorrows speaks
in these words ; the grief of One who, stand-
ing in clear light, sees plainly how those He
dearly loves are degrading themselves.

This parable is not for the outside world,
nor for Pharisees, but for the Brotherhood of
Christians.

Its place is significant. It follows the par-
ables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and
the Two Sons, in which Jesus lifts the veil
and lets us see how this world appears to the
larger life beyond its little, provincial bounds,
and lets us listen to the public opinion of
heaven and hear the echo of the joy of the
bright spirits of the universe over one sinner
that repenteth — yea, the voice of the deep joy
of the Almighty Father's heart over the return
of a lost son.

If anything could make us understand the
meaning and the value of Eternal Life and
the high privilege and dignity of a place amid
the Children of Light; if anything could teach
us what the life of a Christian means and what
it is worth, then these parables in the fifteenth

[ 137 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

chapter of Luke^s Gospel, read from Jesus'
standpoint, ought to do it. The Man who
Knows, the Great Expert who has been there,
who sees by Heaven's light, tells us what
Heaven thinks about these things.

And then He turns to His disciples and
speaks to them in this Parable of the Unjust
Steward, and shows them — and us — by an
earthly satire what fools we are if we live the
life of Children of the Light and Citizens of the
grander worlds outside this little back country
of earth, — if we live this new and real life
hesitatingly, doubtfully, feebly, disloyally.

The Unjust Steward, the Child of this World,
was wise because he was true to the only thing
he knew as life. He was wiser than we, even
though Children of the Light, if we fail to keep
faith with our infinitely glorious life.

Oh, it is not easy ! We are still in the world.
Its littleness, its narrowness, its provincialism,
its vulgarities, its fleshliness surrounds us. In
this murky atmosphere the world seems real,
and the real, the eternal life seems like some
misty shadow. In our inmost souls we know

[138]

THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

it IS not so ; we know that the things that are
seen are temporary, and that the things unseen
are eternal.

But the thing which the world calls " life,"
even though our spirit knows it is nothing but
emptiness and folly, is strong, here on its own
ground.

It is not easy to live above it. But we must
live above it. And here, on its own ground
we must meet and overcome the world.

Something like this must be what Jesus
means by His strange conclusion from this
strange parable.

" And I say unto you, make to yourselves
friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness,
that when ye fail, they may receive you into
everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in
that which is least, is faithful also In much ; and
he that Is unjust in the least, is unjust also In
much."

And if we would know what Jesus, The
Light, sees as "least" and "much," He gives
us a hint when He adds :

" If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in
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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to
your trust the true riches ; and if ye have not
been faithful in that which is another man's,
who shall give you your own?'' which seems
to say : the things men call big, the business,
the politics, the society of this world, are really
little things. And these little things are not
your own. " Your own '* is something un-
speakably larger and richer. But here in this
world you must mix and mingle with the little
things. You must have business transactions
with the " other man." In the course of your
pilgrimage his little things get themselves com-
mitted to you in trust. And the skill and
faithfulness you show in dealing with the little
things of the other man must prove your fit-
ness or unfitness for a higher trust : for the
*' Much," for " Your Own," for the inheritance
of Reality which very soon is coming to every one
of you.

But through it all we must hold our banner
high. We must remember that no servant can
serve two masters, and that we cannot serve
God and Mammon. We must live in this

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THE MAN WHO KEPT HIS LIFE

world and deal with this world, but we must
not stoop to its yoke nor let the world call
itself our Master. We dare not live a divided
life, we dare not let the Unjust Stewards all
about us put us to shame and show themselves
wiser than the Children of the Light, because
they are true to the thing they call " life,"
while we show a weak and wavering loyalty to
Our Own, to Reality, to Eternal Life.

May God give us light — His light — so
that we may see things, not as they appear
through the mad whirl and blinding dust of
earthliness, but as they are in truth, as the
perfect vision of Jesus declares them 1

[141]

THE MAN WHO LOOKED ON THE
DARK SIDE

Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus,
unto his fellow-disciples. Let us also go, that we
may die with Him. — John xi. i6.

THE MAN WHO LOOKED ON THE
DARK SIDE

The man who expects the worst, and habitu-
ally looks upon the dark side of things cannot
hope to be a popular person. Pessimism is
gloomy and forbidding. Moreover, it checks
"snap" and "go." It is a sort of treason
against the spirit of our age. One of the arti-
cles of present-day faith is that we must look
on the bright side.

But our anxiously cheerful optimism cannot
hide the fact that there is a dark as well as a
bright side of things ; and there are people who
are neither bad nor weak, people of high and
noble character who are by nature so made that
it is difficult for them to see any other than the
dark side.

I believe we have an example in the Apostle
Thomas.

" Doubting Thomas," he is called ; but we
shall better understand the nature of his doubts

[ 145 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

and the nature of the man himself if we call
him Desponding Thomas.

One must be dull indeed who fails to see
that his doubt of the Lord*s resurrection, his
refusal to believe unless he should see the
print of the nails and thrust his hand into the
wounded side of Jesus was no speculative scep-
ticism. His doubt is explicable only when
we see in it the expression of deep dejection
and hopeless sorrow.

The darkness of the Cross, the pang of the
remembrance of the nails driven through the
hands that had clasped his own in love, the spear
rudely thrust through the sacred heart of his
dear Master, the gloomy certainties of death
were the things which the disposition of Thomas
made most real. His sensitive soul had brooded
over these horrors until he was incapable of
accepting the testimony of his more cheerful
and hopeful brethren.

The doubt of Thomas was but the expres-
sion of a hopeless love. The text gives a
glimpse of the man as he really was.

" Let us also go, that we may die with Him!'*
[146]

THE LOOK ON THE DARK SIDE

The circumstances are familiar to us all.
Jesus had sought refuge from the rage of the
Jews in the region beyond Jordan. His life
was not safe in Judea. Then news came that
Lazarus, the head of the house so dear to Him
at Bethany, was sick. Jesus, knowing that by
the time the messengers reached Him Lazarus
had died, waited two days and then said, " Let
us go into Judea again."

The disciples, very naturally, remonstrated :
" Master, the Jews of late sought to stone
Thee : and goest Thou thither again ? "

Then Jesus spoke those memorable words
about walking in the daylight of duty, where
alone is true safety. He told them plainly
that Lazarus was dead : and gave them to
understand that the obligations of friendship,
the glory of God required His presence at
Bethany. He said, " Let us go ! "

The other disciples appear to have been
content, but Thomas shows out his character.
There was a bright side. More than once be-
fore Jesus had faced danger and come through
it unharmed. The Master was mighty ; the

[ 147 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

known power of His presence gave promise of
safety and success. But there was also a dark
side ; even the courageous assurance of Jesus
did not deny the danger. The natural dispo-
sition of Thomas compelled him to see only
the worst possibilities. The death of Jesus
at the hands of His enemies was possible ; to
the imagination of Thomas it appeared as a
foredoomed certainty ; he believed that going
again into Judea could have but one result.
His was an anxious love ; a love which, just
because it was so deep, so all absorbing was
ever jealous, ever fearful of disaster, always
expectant of the worst in the face of danger.

How many fathers, how many mothers know
just what that means !

But Thomas was no coward. Who had most
courage — those other disciples who went, as
we may suppose, with a light heart looking on
the bright side, or this gloomy man full of
foreboding, looking death in the face and
saying, " Let us also go that we may die with
Him " ?

Thomas appears but seldom in the gospel

[148]

THE LOOK ON THE DARK SIDE

Story ; yet on each occasion, with surprising
consistency this ruhng trait of his character is
seen.

We meet him again at the Last Supper.

Jesus has been saying, " Let not your heart
be troubled. ... in My Father's house are
many mansions. ... 1 go to prepare a place
for you. . . . And if I go ... I will come
again and receive you unto Myself; that where
I am, there ye may be also. And whither 1
go ye know, and the way ye know."

But the heart of Thomas was troubled.
One sad fact hid all else. The bright side
was indeed exceeding bright with its picture
of the mansions in the Father's house, and
the special room for each disciple prepared
by the personal care and endeared by the per-
sonal touch of the Lord ; and there was the
promise of the Lord's return to take them
into His eternal fellowship.

But for Thomas, all the fair prospect was
clouded by one dark fact that rose immedi-
ately in front. His Master was going away,
going now. The sinking sense of loneliness,

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

the painful wrench, the actual sorrow cancelled
all comfort of what might lie beyond in the
future. And when Jesus said, " Whither I
go ye know, and the way ye know," the
impatience of blinding grief could no longer
restrain itself. Thomas exclaimed, " Lord, we
know not whither Thou goest, and how can
we know the way ? "

Did he not blurt out the very thought that
comes — it may be unbidden — into our own
souls in our moments of bereavement ?

Lord, you may know the way to heaven ;
you think I ought to know too ; but I don't.
Heaven seems far off and unreal. But my
loss ! — that is real ; that is here^ now. And
my soul is all dark with it !

I have already mentioned the incident which
has made Thomas best known, and has earned
for him the name of The Doubter.

But his attitude when he refused to believe
that the other disciples had seen the Risen
Lord is in strict consistency with his char-
acter as elsewhere seen. It is simply the at-
titude of a sensitive, anxiously loving man who

[150]

THE LOOK ON THE DARK SIDE

habitually looks upon the dark side. Such a
disposition does indeed often make faith dif-
ficult; and yet, to confound the doubt of
Thomas with any coldly reasoned scepticism
is to betray ignorance of human nature. It
is also a sore injustice to a true disciple
who loved his Lord devotedly and whom his
Lord loved very tenderly. Jesus understood
Thomas.

There is nothing in the gospel story more
beautiful than the way in which the Lord drew
out and brought to light those fine pearls
of noble thoughtfulness and discerning faith
which lay hidden under the blackness of the
despondency of His friend; and by His chal-
lenge of the wounded hands and side made
Thomas dare the boldest, the most advanced,
the truest confession of faith in the Christ
which had been made by any disciple.

" My Lord and my God ! " This confes-
sion, more truly than any surface trait, re-
veals the character of Thomas. It lights up
the inner shrine of his soul. We see the
nature of that love which underlay all his

[151]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

despondency and his hesitations. It was a
love whose repressed but intense flame only
waited opportunity to yield vision of mighty
truth.

There is nothing speculative in the confes-
sion of Thomas ; it is far from the dryness of
a theologic formula ; it is the living word
of an enlightened man. It is a wonderful
confession. Not even its declaration of the
Divinity of Christ strikes its highest note. Its
highest note vibrates with the thrilling tone
of life. It is the confident claim of human
fellowship with God.

Thomas did not say, " The Lord and the
God ! "

He said, " My Lord and my God ! "

The Master whom he had so anxiously, so
jealously loved as his own, he beholds not less
but more his very own now that this Master
and Lord is discerned as very God !

What marvellous variety of character is seen
in the circle of the Twelve ; and what depth
of character is revealed in the lives of these
comrades of Jesus 1

[ 152]

THE LOOK ON THE DARK SIDE

We may thank God for the variety ; and
for the fact that such strength in variety
appears in such plain, every-day men.

For, the Apostolate is the Church in minia-
ture ; inclusive and not exclusive ; not an ec-
clesiasticism moulded into lifeless uniformity,
but a family, full of the vitality of a very
human humanity with its varied idiosyncrasies.

There are more Thomases than we think
amid the host of Christ^s chosen ones, — men
and women who by inborn disposition are
despondent, irresistibly inclined to look on
the dark side, yet fine and sensitive souls who,
because they are fine and sensitive, in silence
suffer untold agonies in face of the facts of life.
There is a dark side of human life, — a very
dark side, and they see it more clearly and feel
it more keenly than others see and feel it.

The pity of ordinary, cheerful persons for
such men and women is ignorant and often
impertinent.

Only those have the right to either pity or
blame them who have themselves gone through
the deep waters, because thus only can any one

[153]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

criticise such souls with the sympathy needful
for understanding. But, after all, the most of
us can give them our sympathy. There are
few of us who have never had our darkened
moments, when the joy has been taken out of
life by trouble or anxiety, when sorrow has
clouded all life's brightness so that the days
are a burden and the nights bring no rest, and
life seems scarce worth living, and instead of
hoping for the best we find ourselves fearing
the worst.

Let us thank God if such times come but
seldom and quickly pass. But the memory of
the pain of them ought to compel sympathy
with those who are constitutionally inclined
toward the dark-sided view.

The correctives for such despondency,
whether habitual or occasional, are not so
simple and obvious as they may seem. It may
be true, it often is true that things are not as
bad as we imagine ; it is a fact that behind the
clouds the sun is still shining. But the com-
fort to be had from these rather threadbare
truths serves better after the trouble begins to

[ 154]

THE LOOK ON THE DARK SIDE

clear up than while the reality of its denser
shadow rests upon us. A stronger corrective
is needed, such a corrective as may be found
in Duty. If ever there is a time when duty
for duty's sake is precious and good for the
soul, it is in the dark moments. When
Thomas said, " Let us also go, that we may
die with Him ! " he plucked the dignity and
the inspiration of high, courageous, and self-
sacrificing resolve out of the mire of his slough
of despond. The dignity of duty will grow
upon us if we school ourselves to do it all the
more carefully and faithfully when grief or de-
spondency make duty seem least worth while.
And the discipline of duty, stern though it may
seem at such times, is needful for our very
safety.

When a ship runs into a storm the captain
orders all the other sails furled, but to the very
last, through the very worst he keeps the close-
reefed topsail or storm staysail set, to hold the
ship's head up toward the wind and compel
her to face rather than flee from the threaten-
ing waves. Something like that is what duty

[155]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

does for us in the midst of the tempests that
overtake our souls. Running before the wind
is most dangerous of all ; it gives the storm
its opportunity to have its own way with us.

Our dark moments are those which ought
to, which well may make us thankful for those
obligations to others which at other times may
appear simply troublesome. When life may
not seem worth living for ourselves, then it
may be seen to be most worth living for the
sake of those near to us, those whom we love ;
and most worth living for the sake of our
fellow-men, with whose griefs we now can
sympathize.

But not even the corrective of duty can have
its full and its complete effect until duty is
linked fast to a faith in God that grasps Him
and will not let Him go even when His
smitings lame us.

Compare Thomas with his Master. In
some respects they were not unlike. There
was never any one more deeply pierced with
the bitterness of human life than Jesus. Never
did anyone see more clearly the dark facts of

[156]

THE LOOK ON THE DARK SIDE

the world. He bore in Himself the dreadful
cross of our griefs and our sins. The prophet
who pictured His coming and saw what it
would mean named Him " the Man of
Sorrows."

Yet He was never the man of gloom. In
spite of the load which Jesus constantly carried
His presence was never depressing or forbid-
ding. The shadows of His own soul were
never cast over others.

One of the most remarkable things about
Jesus was His attractiveness. And this was
felt not only by the good and spiritual, but
by all sorts of people. Little children felt it ;
the poor, the rude, the ignorant, were drawn
to Him. Publicans and sinners welcomed
Jesus at their feasts. I doubt if they wel-
comed Thomas.

The secret of the attractiveness of Jesus
was that He carried the burdens of His
fellow-men and forgot Himself. Jesus never
did things for Himself. He even neglected
the luxury of the expression of His personal
emotions. Only incidentally, in His brief and

[157]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

seldom recorded prayers, or in words wrung
from Him by the sins and sorrows of men, by
His sympathy with their joys or sufferings
do we discover His own personal feelings.
The cheerfulness of Jesus did not come from
what we lightly call " a happy disposition " ;
least of all was it the cheerfulness of insensi-
bility. And it was never forced. Always
natural, there was always something in it
uplifting and attractive ; and for a significant
reason. The deeper secret of the attractive-
ness of Jesus was that, in His darkest mo-
ments His faith in His Father never wavered.
He claimed God for His own even when
upon the Cross He cried, " My God, why
hast Thou forsaken me ! " Jesus never doubted
the victorious result which lay beyond His
keenest griefs. For the joy that was set be-
fore Him He endured the Cross, despising
the shame. The dark side of life, more dis-
tinct, more dreadful to Him than to any other
who ever lived, never overcame Him. He
never doubted the purpose of the Father that
He Himself should be at last the conqueror

[158]

THE LOOK ON THE DARK SIDE

of earth*s darkness. Even while the darkness
of the world's sins and sorrows compassed
Him most closely He called Himself "the
Light of the World ! "

Oh, Thomas, godly man, true disciple
though you are, how far below your Master
you must take your stand !

The trouble with Thomas, and with those
who are kindred to him, is not so much their
look upon the dark side; but the real trouble
is that they feebly permit the darkness to hide
God.

Thomas habitually looked about him and
within himself, instead of lifting his eyes
toward the Almighty Light which penetrates
all mists and shadows.

So he went his self-darkened way, until that
great moment when the Lord, in love for his
true friend, gave him the vision of God re-
vealed in the victory of the Suffering Christ.

The salvation of Thomas was his true com-
radeship with Jesus. He loved this Master
who was his friend with a passionate love which
by its very intensity reflected, and for the

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

moment intensified, all the gloom of his de-
spondent nature. If the love of Thomas had
been lavished on some mortal man or woman,
it might well have proved his ruin. With
such a disposition as his, any disaster to the
one he loved would most likely have left him
a hard cynic, or perhaps driven him crazy.
But the love given to Jesus anchored his soul
fast to the Conqueror of all darkness.

And one spark of honest love of Jesus will
do more to save any of us than all the moral
maxims or all the sound theology in the world.
Because He, the Mightiest and Best, is still
Our Brother, who so keenly craves our love
that His heart leaps out to its feeblest flame
and answers it a thousand-fold.

Then let us hold fast to the facts of Our
Lord's nature and character ; and while we
confess our fears, our coldness, and our doubts,
let us also courageously confess the strength
of that victorious Love which could dissolve
the gloom of Thomas in the vision of " My
Lord and my God ! "

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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

And David longed, and said. Oh that one would
give me drink of the water of the well of Bethle-
hem, which is by the gate !

And the three mighty men brake through the
host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the
well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took
it, and brought it to David : nevertheless he
would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto
the Lord.

And he said. Be it far from me, O Lord, that
I should do this : is not this the blood of the men
that went in jeopardy of their lives ?

2 Samuel xxiii. 15-17.

WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

Xhy will be done/* So the Lord Jesus
bids us pray. And with strange perversity
we imagine that He is giving us only a
proper prayer for the grace of submission to
that dreadful Will whose doing must always
m.ake us suffer.

But the emphasis of this prayer is really
not upon the suffering, but upon the doing of
God's wdll ; and upon its doing by men upon
the earth with exultant eagerness, like that
of those mighty angels in heaven who hold
themselves in readiness to anticipate the very
wish of God.

From the angels in heaven to the mighty
men of David's band at the Cave of Adullam
may seem a long descent ; and yet in the story
of their romantic devotion to their captain we
have a fine illustration of the inner spirit of
the petition in the Lord's Prayer, which bids

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

US pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is

done in heaven.'*

That was a strange company which gathered
about David. David himself was not only an
exile, but an outlaw driven from the court of
Saul, who sought to kill him. At first he had
found refuge with the Philistines ; but the re-
membrance of his victory over their champion
Goliath made them suspicious, and he felt
himself unsafe in their country. " David there-
fore departed thence and escaped to the Cave
Adullam. And when his brethren and all his
father's house heard it, they went down thither
unto him. And every one that was in dis-
tress, and every one that was in debt, and
every one that was discontented, gathered
themselves unto him ; and he became a cap-
tain over them : and there were with him
about four hundred men.**

A motley company, it would seem. And
the Cave of Adullam has become a byword
expressive of the gathering together of politi-
cal discontent. Yet the nucleus of a new and
mighty kingdom was forming itself there.

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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

The discontent of that time was disgust with
the unreasonable and inefficient rule of a self-
ish despot. The distress was that of men
driven to desperation by a tyranny unable to
either keep peace with or conquer the nation's
enemies ; and the debtors may well have been
men deprived by arbitrary exactions of the
ability to meet their obligations.

We know that there were at least a few
noble souls at the Cave of Adullam with
David. Joab and Abishai and Ashael, three
brothers who afterward became renowned cap-
tains, were apparently with him ; and Abi-
athar, the priest of the Lord, whose father
had been slain by Saul's command, was either
there or soon afterward joined the company ;
and the prophet Gad was a visitor amongst
them.

A man naturally attracts men of his own
sort, and a man who is a born leader draws
to himself spirits kindred with his own. The
men who collected at the Cave of Adullam
were men who saw in David the hope of their
country, and the sort of devotion he could in-

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

spire is shown by the incident recorded in the
text.

In order to measure this devotion rightly,
we must remember that David was no king
with rewards to bestow. He was a hunted
outlaw with a price upon his head. There
could scarcely be any selfish afterthought in
anything any one did for David at that time.
If men served him, this was because they
loved him and trusted him.

The Cave of AduUam was in one of the
ravines leading down from the Judean high-
lands toward the Dead Sea. It was not far
from Bethlehem ; and it is illustrative of the
condition of the country under Saul's regime
that such a commanding place as Bethlehem
should be in possession of the Philistines and
held by a garrison of invading oppressors.

Perhaps the fact that these enemies held his
native town made David think the more ten-
derly and longingly of it. He remembered
the well that was by the city gate, from which
while a boy, he had so often quenched his
thirst, — that well, the village meeting-place

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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

of all the shepherds when he was himself a
shepherd. What sweet memories clustered
about it !

Water is not, for us, the scarce and precious
thing that it was, and is still, to people of
Eastern lands. And yet few of us — few, at
least of those of us who were country or vil-
lage born — fail to count among the precious
memories of our youthful days the well or
spring to which we used to go when thirsty.

It is a touch of nature which makes David
kin with every wholesome soul, that when he
was at the Cave of Adullam, where the water
supply was doubtless scant and not over-good,
he should have longed for a drink from the
well that is by the gate at Bethlehem. One
of the traits in David's character which make
us love him is this strong love of sweet and
simple things, — the love of green fields and
starry skies and his boyhood's home and his
shepherd life, which all through his great
though stormy career stayed by him.

Just now David was homesick and heartsick,
— homesick because heartsick. The Cave of

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Adullam was a trying change from life in the
royal court.

It was hard to be treated as an enemy by
his king while his country's enemies were at
the gate of his native town. He wished him-
self a shepherd lad once more, and his thought
spoke in the words, " Oh that one would give
me to drink of the water of the well that is by
the gate of Bethlehem ! "

I think he spoke to himself without a
thought of any listener, though the great
longing in his heart made him speak aloud.
But some of his companions heard, and under-
stood. They knew it was far from David's
thought to order any man, or even ask any
man to take the risk of going to that well.
But their hearts felt for him. I think they
said in undertone to each other, " How it
would please the Captain if we could really
give him a drink from the well at Bethlehem ! '*
and there were three friends who looked into
each other's faces and said, with common im-
pulse, " We will do it ! "

Perhaps the three were Joab and Abishai
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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

and Beniah ; or perhaps they were the other
three afterward known as the mightiest of
David's mighty men. It matters not ; they
were three heroes. They went quietly out of
the camp, they broke through the Philistine
guards, they cut their way into the outposts,
they reached the well and drew the water,
and then, with their hard-won treasure they
fought their way back again through the host
of their enemies and came down to Adullam
and offered the gift of their perilous valor to
David.

We can see them as they stood before him
with faces flushed at the thought of their deed ;
we can almost hear them say, " Here, Captain,
here is what you were wishing for ; here is
water from the well that is by the gate of
Bethlehem ! "

They were young men. Partly it was the
love of adventure that sent them on their
errand. They were proud of their prowess;
their eyes flashed with the triumph of it as
they held out the precious water-jar to their
Captain. But they had done what they never

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

would have dreamed of doing had they not
loved David. The sort of love they bore him
is seen in the fact that they waited for no com-
mand, but willingly obeyed what they saw was
a wish of his heart. And all the reward they
sought was to make him glad.

But why is such a deed as this recorded, not
once, but twice, in the Bible history ? It was
a reckless deed ; the risk of it, the peril of
sacrifice in it was altogether disproportioned
to any useful service that could be rendered.
Why was it worth while to tell it twice so that
future ages should be sure to know it?

The answer is plain to those who can under-
stand.

This was a service of love. It was an offer-
ing of romantic, unselfish, uncalculating friend-
ship that went straight to David's heart and
which he could never forget, nor could those
who loved David allow it to be forgotten.
David's power was built on just this sort of
personal devotion. He was one of those rare
souls who drew men's very souls to himself.
This is a typical instance of the way in which

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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

men were ready to serve him ; and the real
wealth and glory of his royalty was that royal
heart in him which always gathered abundance
of such service.

Royal also was his acceptance of the offering
of the three heroes ; and not the less so be-
cause he was not a king, but only captain of
an outlaw band when it was rendered him.
If they loved him before, they loved and rev-
erenced him tenfold more afterward.

We can see him as he stood surrounded by
the excited throng of his followers, with the
three battle-stained young men before him
holding out the water-jar. There is a glad
flush of pride in his face, answering in sym-
pathy the exultation in their faces ; but his
eyes moisten in tenderness, at once at the
thought of their love for him and at the
thought of the peril they had undergone.
A brave man knows the cost of a brave deed.
David takes the water-jar into his own hands.
I almost think he raised it reverently toward
his lips ; and then suddenly he said, " I can-
not drink it." And with a deeper reverence,

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

with a prayer or invocation, he poured out
the precious gift as an offering to the only
One worthy of such self-devotion. " He
poured it out unto Jehovah, and he said :
" Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should
do this. Shall I drink the blood of the men
that went in jeopardy of their lives ? "

In the fulness of time there came to earth
a son of David, the Child of a great prophecy
and promise, whom David himself in one of
his Psalms calls " Lord." In Him dwelt the
Presence of that Holy One to whom David
poured out the water brought at the peril of
his friends from the well that is by the gate
at Bethlehem.

His name is Jesus, and He is our Christ.
The character of His person is such that He
draws to himself a devotion even more un-
measured than that which was given to David.

There is a story of devotion to Jesus which,
in spite of its contrasts, bears in the spirit of
it a singular hkeness to the deed of David's
recklessly brave friends ; and it is noteworthy

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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

that this service was offered by a woman. It
was when Mary broke the precious vase of
costly ointment and anointed the feet of
Jesus at the feast given in thanksgiving for
the raising of her brother Lazarus from the
dead.

In the gospel incident there is the same
reckless, extravagant, uncalculating love that
we see in David's companions. Both alike
rendered a service strictly personal. What
Mary did to Jesus was not done for His
Cause, but for Himself; precisely as the water
from the well at Bethlehem was won for
David's very self alone.

At first sight it may seem that Mary was
reckless only of property, while David's men
risked their lives. But the criticism of Mary's
act, even by some of the disciples, — and sig-
nificantly by Judas, — is enough to show that
she was closely watched. She was not an
obscure person who could safely do such a
deed of devotion without attracting attention
and inviting personal risk. Mary and her
sister Martha and her brother Lazarus were

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

well known in Jerusalem. It appears that
they were connected by social ties with those
very rulers of the Jews who were already
plotting the death of Jesus. It is often more
dangerous to offend your friends than to defy
your enemies, especially when those " friends "
are only social or party acquaintances. Mary's
act was nothing less than worship of Him
whom her powerful associates had marked for
death. She offered far more than the costly
vase of rare ointment. Her anointing only
marked the fulness of the personal and daring
devotion to Jesus that was seen shortly after-
ward when Mary with a few other women
stood beside the Cross, from whence the dis-
ciples had fled. Her deed was extravagant —
wasteful, if you will ; Judas thought so. And
it was dangerous; it exposed a young, delicately
nurtured woman to the peril of that most
deadly of all hatred, the peril of religious
hatred. Moreover, so far as the result was
concerned, it was seemingly useless.

But how did Jesus receive it? He not only
accepted Mary's devotion ; He praised her ap-

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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

patently useless, her seemingly wasteful, her
unmeasured, unpractical offering as He never
praised anything else ever done by any one
in His service. He declared : " Wheresoever
this gospel shall be preached, there shall this
also that this woman hath done be told for a
memorial of her."

He made her deed immortal ; and signifi-
cantly He placed such service as that of Mary,
extravagant, reckless, useless though it may be
in the world*s sight, above what men call
" charity " ! He placed it above giving to
the poor ! — just as David lifted the reckless
daring of his three heroes into the sacredness
of a religious act.

Surely there are lessons for us in these facts
of divine history. And, first of all, there is
enlightenment as to the true test of success in
Christian doing.

We are forever tempted to abide by what
is called the " practical " test. How wise peo-
ple will look when they gravely tell you that
this or that sort of Christian effort or sacrifice
" does not pay ! " With what an air of finality

1^75]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

they will assure you that it produces no results
commensurate with the expenditure of life or
labor or money ! Christian missions to for-
eign lands in particular have always suffered
from a constant running fire of such criticism.
And, in fact, almost every form of supremely
self-sacrificing devotion to Christ has had to
eudure the Judas argument of the waste of
precious ointment.

But is this so-called practical test a true
one? No! It is not. Tried in the light of
the deed of David's friends, measured by the
standard of Mary's offering, it is found wo-
fully wanting ; it shows itself but a grovelling,
a shameful test.

The truth is, our plans, our work, our
efforts are by themselves of little importance.
The Lord lets us try to do things so that we
may learn the ways of His service ; and until
He with His masterful skill finishes off and
completes the ragged edges of our work, it
amounts to nothing.

We talk entirely too much about " work for
Jesus," as though we could really do anything

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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

which adds to His power or His success!
We ought to be thinking more about work
with Christ and service under Christ. The
spirit of our doing is of far more consequence
than the things we do. It is less impor-
tant that christian and churchly organization
should be perfect, and christian effort have
results to show that can be counted in figures
or reckoned in dollars and cents, than that
there should be in Christ's Church the spirit
that is seen in David's mighty men or in
Mary of Bethany.

When Jesus bids us pray, "Thy Will be
done ! " He puts no ineffectual prayer into our
mouths, but with the prayer goes an implied
pledge that the Will of Our Father shall surely
be done upon this earth as it is done in heaven.
And if we would be fit for a place in the ranks
of that army marching through earth with the
power of the Heavenly Hosts, we must catch
their spirit. We must cease our impotent in-
terpretation of God's Will as a hard and dread-
ful thing which must be suffered, and our
impudent imagining that we can better His

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Will by our puny doing. We must draw near
to Our glorious Lord, and look up to Him,
and let the charm of His Presence sink into
our very souls, until, with reckless self-aban-
donment, our highest joy shall be to obey
His wish without waiting for His command,
until —

" Our faith springs like the eagle
Who soars to meet the sun,
And cries, exuking unto Thee,
' O Lord, Thy will be done ! ' "

The Church of Jesus Christ can never afford
to slight or undervalue the service of personal
self-sacrifice. In fact the most extravagant,
the most romantic self-devotion is just that
which has proved itself richest in actual and
visible results ; as is witnessed by the career
of Paul of Tarsus and a long line of martyr
heroes of like self-devotion.

After all, there is but one thing we can give
King Jesus. The silver and the gold and the
product of the industry of men are already
His by right. One thing alone is left us

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WHEN RECKLESSNESS IS PRECIOUS

for our very own, and that He craves and
longs to receive from us as our free gift.
That one thing is the heart's love of His
brethren and His comrades in His Father's
service.

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MARY THE BLESSED

And Mary said.

My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For He hath regarded the low estate of His

handmaiden.
For, behold, from henceforth all generations

shall call me Blessed. — Luke i. 46—48.

MARY THE BLESSED

Save for two slight though significant remarks,
this Hymn of Praise is the only recorded ut-
terance of Mary the Mother of Jesus.

Can we take this Magnificat as an expression
of her character ? I believe we may most confi-
dently do so. But we shall probably discover
that the picture of Mary which arises out of
the Magnificat is different from that to which
we have been accustomed.

After the first impression of the music of
this grand song has subsided sufliciently for
reflection upon its thought and sentiment, we
shall surely find ourselves asking questions.

To say nothing about the questions raised
by the nature of such an utterance as a whole
from such a person as Mary, what must we
think when we hear her saying,

" He hath scattered the proud in the imagina-
tion of their heart.

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

He hath put down the mighty from their

seats,
And hath exalted them of low degree.
The hungry He hath filled with good things ;
And the rich He hath sent empty away.'*

How shall we account for this almost vin-
dictive exultation over the defeat of the rich
and mighty ?

How can we explain such a feeling of almost
fierce triumph in the heart of the gentle maiden
who was the Mother of Jesus?

Perhaps you may say, "She does but echo the
world-old protest of the down-trodden against
oppression and the outcry of the poor against
the rich."

If Mary was indeed nothing more than a
simple peasant girl, then something of this sort
is about all that can be said. But the expres-
sion of such a sentiment in such a form as that
of this hymn does not come naturally from
a simple peasant girl. Few things in Holy
Scripture can compare with the deep-toned
majesty of the Magnificat. There is in it a

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MARY THE BLESSED

conscious dignity — I had almost said, a proud
defiance — scarcely matched by the Psalms of
David. There is also a singular likeness in
Mary's Song to some of the Psalms in which
David exalts over his enemies.

I wonder if we sufficiently remember who
Mary was, and recall as distinctly as we might
that she is a descendant of David ?

Doubtless you have noticed the difference
between the genealogy in Matthew's Gospel
which traces Joseph's descent from David and
the genealogy given by Luke, so singularly
worded at the beginning that it seems to imply
that this is the pedigree of some one else than
Joseph. There is a theory strongly maintained,
though not very generally accepted, that this
genealogy in Luke is in reality Mary's family
tree.

But apart from the somewhat complicated
argument concerning the names, there is one
large consideration which cannot be lightly dis-
missed; which is that this is the record of the
descent of the Son of Man not only from
David, but through David up to Adam the

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

first son of God ; and thus it seems scarcely
appropriate to any one but Mary.

Beside all questions of the genealogy how-
ever, it is unquestioned that Mary and Joseph
were not very distant cousins. They were both
members of the same royal race.

It has been too hastily assumed that the
family of David was, at the time when Jesus
was born lost in utter obscurity.

Several facts seem to prove the contrary. It
would be surprising if this family alone escaped
the scrutiny of the carefully kept records by
which the pedigree of every son of Israel was
religiously preserved. That they did not es-
cape is proved by the journey of Joseph and
Mary to Bethlehem to be taxed — or enrolled.
Joseph went from Nazareth to the city of
David which is called Bethlehem because he —
and Mary also — were of the house and lineage
of David.

The house and lineage of David had indeed
become hidden from public view ; and yet the
name of it was still a name to conjure with,
as may be seen all through the course of the

[i86]

MARY THE BLESSED

life of Jesus. And it was a name to be
dreaded by the corrupt creatures — kings and
priests — who ruled in Jerusalem.

When the wise men came from the East with
their story of the star, Herod was troubled
and all Jerusalem with him. Doubtless Herod
had the superstitious faith in astrology and in
astrologers common to his time; but some-
thing more than the star troubled him. He
was a shrewd, practical politician. He knew
that the countryside was seething with an al-
most fanatical hope of a coming Messiah. He
must have known that the ancient prophecies
promised a Messiah of the house of David.
When, in answer to his demand the obsequious
scribes told him that Christ was to be born in
Bethlehem, I do not think Herod was sur-
prised. We can almost hear him saying within
himself, " I thought so. That is the City of
David ; that is the very nest of this dangerous
family. And just now they are all assembled
there for the census which has been ordered."
The devilish cunning of a great fear was in that
bloody command to slay all the male children

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

from two years old and under in Bethlehem
and the coasts thereof.

Yes, Herod was a practical man ; and there
had been others like him through several cen-
turies past. There were strong reasons why
the descendants of David should keep them-
selves in the shadow. It is easy to under-
stand why the family of David should not
be conspicuous.

Those who fall from a high place fall far-
thest, and the memory of a lost inheritance
easily serves to unman and unnerve. Disaster,
poverty, neglect, the very peril of a great
name, had done its work. Rarely could any
sign of princely quality be discerned in this
once royal but now crushed race. But here
and there some royal soul rose above all
disaster and degradation and kept its lofty
poise and was inwardly ennobled by outward
loss. Daniel, the captive boy, afterward prime
minister in Babylon, was one of them, and I
believe we must reckon Mary among these
glorious spirits.

Now, is it not wonderful, is it not beautiful,

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MARY THE BLESSED

that in the crisis moment of its history, the one
member of the fallen house of David in whom
David's spirit survived should have been a
woman, — a young, poor, inconspicuous girl !

We have drifted into an ignorant sentimen-
talism concerning the mother of Jesus. It is
so pretty, so picturesque, to imagine her as a
simple, unsophisticated peasant maiden ! And
the mindless Madonnas of the semi-pagan
Italian Renaissance, the exquisite dolls of Ra-
phael and his contemporaries, — how mightily
they have helped to fasten this unbiblical no-
tion upon the Christian world ! Even theol-
ogy in its presumptuous effort to uphold the
sovereign grace of God by insistence on the
humility of the channel of His greatest gift
has helped our blindness.

But we have our Bibles. We know, or we
ought to know, something of the severe gran-
deur of those Christ prophecies upon which
the Christ hope of Mary*s day rested, — those
prophecies which we may be sure Mary knew
by heart and had pondered deeply, for her
Magnificat breathes the very spirit of them.

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

And we know, if we have studied our Bible to
any purpose, that while God often chooses
the lowly in earthly station, He chooses the
high-souled for the ministry of His great
grace.

David was only a shepherd lad, but he came
of grand stock. The blood of Ruth and Boaz
was in him, and even in his boyhood the
kingjlv soul within him shone out.

The kingly soul was in Mary. She was a
true child of David. When she magnifies
the Lord and rejoices in God her Saviour, is
not her heart swelling with triumph because
David's blood is coming to its own again ^
Does she not exult because its long night of
eclipse is beginning to be touched with the
finger of a dawn of vindication and victory ?
When she says, " His mercy is from genera-
tion to generation upon them that fear him ! **
is she not mindful of the mighty promise, the
promise of the Lord to David and to his
seed ? Does she not feel the fulfilment of
that promise in herself and to her family ?

If we would picture Mary as the Gospel
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MARY THE BLESSED

pictures her, as she really was and not as
sentiment and tradition picture her, we must
think of her as an Old Testament saint.
Something of the character of her namesake
Miriam, sister of Moses may be traced in
Mary ; more of the character of Ruth, her an-
cestress ; or of Hannah mother of Samuel,
whose thanksgiving at the birth of her son
Mary's Magnificat seems to echo.

Mary was a large-minded woman, deeply
imbued with that patriotic hatred of wrong to
her people which is so passionately voiced in
the Psalms of David, her forefather.

And Herod, the Idumean Usurper, —
Herod called " The Great " because of the
splendor of his powers of wickedness, — oc-
cupied the throne of David !

And Annas, grown rich by corrupt financing
of the Temple revenue, — Annas, the con-
temptible creature of Roman intrigue, — sat
in the High Priest's place ! Can you wonder
that this high-souled Hebrew maiden, this
daughter of David, magnifying the Lord
because the King of Righteousness is about

[191].

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

to be born of her exults and says, as she
remembers Herod and remembers Annas, —

"My Lord hath shewed strength with His
arm ;

He hath scattered the proud in the imagina-
tion of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seats
and hath exalted them of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry with good things.

And the rich hath He sent empty away ! '*

Here is the courage of that high faith which
grasps the future results contained in present
facts and sees the end from the beginning.

Mary's Magnificat glows with the far-reach-
ing vision, the sublime patience, the passionate
faith in the promise shining star-like in the be-
yond, which is the finest characteristic of the
Hebrew race, which made Abraham magnifi-
cent and changed Jacob's name to Israel.

This prophetically regal spirit suggests itself
throughout the life of Mary ; and by a strange
paradox it is just this which makes her such an
elusive character in the Gospel history.

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MARY THE BLESSED

There Is a queenliness, imperious, self-assert-
ing, greedy of power and applause. It is not
the highest sort. It clouds the womanly quali-
ties ; nay, it belittles the highest humanity of its
possessor. We see it in Elizabeth of England
whose unquestioned greatness is so marred by
exasperating littlenesses. The highest queen-
liness shows itself in an inborn dignity that
rises above both prosperity and adversity, and
in a soul centred not in the personal gains,
but in the solemn duties of high position.

Mary was reticent. Just once she opens the
floodgates of her thoughts in the winged words
of the brief but majestic Magnificat. After
the birth of her Holy Son we scarcely hear
her speak.

The Shepherds come to Bethlehem with their
wondrous story of the heavenly vision, and
everybody's tongue is loosed in talk. But
Mary kept these things and pondered them in
her heart. To her " these things " were too
great for talk. They made her silent in the
thoughtful dignity of a holy reserve.

Hers was a magnificently difficult position, —

^3 [ 193 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

mother of Him who was the Christ of God
and King of Mankind, yet utterly destitute
of all the earthly trappings which have always
seemed necessities for royalty.

It is not the easiest thing in the world to
sustain the dignity of high station with all the
advantage of abounding wealth and acknowl-
edged social position ; but only souls of finest
temper can sustain and adorn lofty station
amid deprivation.

Yes ! Mary was a peasant woman. She lived
in a poor little house, destitute of almost every-
thing that we would call comfort. Her earthly
husband was the village carpenter. Doubtless
she did her own housework and cared for her
baby with never a nurse or servant to help
her.

But she was a peasant woman by accident,
by force of cruel circumstances. By birth she
was of the blood royal, and by nature and the
grace of God she was queenly in soul, endowed
with a character suited to her high degree.

We gaze with wondering pity upon the
manger at Bethlehem and the poor cottage at

[ 194]

MARY THE BLESSED

Nazareth. But to Mary I believe these things
were only incidents of small moment. Not
complaint against her present deprivations, but
indignation because the rights of her race are
usurped by the rich and mighty is the note
which sounds in the invective of the Magnifi-
cat, and the silences of Mary are those of a
soul detached from the petty considerations of
earthly condition. It was enough for her that
God Almighty, her King and the Lord of her
heart, had made her the mother of His Son.
That overtopped all else. She knew and she
exulted in the prophetic knowledge that thereby
the ages would prove how He scattered the
proud in the imagination of their hearts and
put down the earthly mighty from their seats.
Her soul was fed with heavenly food, and she
could look down calmly upon bloody Herods
and corrupt High Priests.

If Mary could have stepped from her hum-
ble home in Nazareth in her peasant garb
into the midst of the royal court, or into
some proudly fashionable circle, would she
have cringed with shame and embarrassment ?

[ 195 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Nay ! I believe she would have stood, reticent,
reserved, but unabashed, unmindful of her poor
clothes or her lowly social position, with lofty
unconsciousness of worldly accidents exhal-
ing from her noble self an innate, queenly
dignity that would have compelled profound
respect.

After the Magnificat we hear no faintest
shadow of complaint of her earthly condition
from Mary. To care for her Blessed Child
with her own hands amid earthly deprivations
was, for her, no hardship but the highest of all
holy employment.

Mary is the type and the flower of sacred
motherhood.

How much of the character of Jesus was
derived from His mother? His human nature
comes from her. He is our Brother because
He is the Son of Mary. Great men have
usually had great mothers. Was Jesus an
exception ? We cannot think so.

The Jews had high ideas of the importance
of the mother's place in the teaching of chil-
dren. Mary would surely not fall below these

[196]

MARY THE BLESSED

ideals ; and the earliest and therefore most
vital lessons of Jesus were learned at her knee.
It is the received opinion that Joseph died
while Jesus was yet a boy. Much of the
father's duty in teaching the Scripture must
have fallen upon Mary. Did you ever notice
Jesus' familiarity with the Psalms of David,
and the mingled reverence and exultation with
which He uses them ?

For thirty years Jesus was His mother's
Son, dwelling with her for His chief, almost
His only near companion.

And it is possible to trace characteristics of
His mother in Jesus. There was the same
quiet, almost stern dignity ; the same deep,
meditative though tfulness ; even the reticence
of Mary is not absent in the character of Jesus.
We do not so readily realize this because we
are so enchained with His speech. But did
you ever notice the moments when men try to
make Him talk and He answers not a word,
or the way in which He disdains to satisfy
curiosity, or the sternness with which He
silences impertinence ?

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

If Jesus can be said to owe anything to any
one on earth in the moulding of His character,
then it is to His mother.

Mary was a noble woman ; but out of the
very loftiness of her nature and out of the
greatness of the place into which God had
called her, a sorrow came which in the depths
of its pathos sets her apart from all other
mothers.

When JesuSj an infant of eight days, was
presented in the Temple with the sacrifice
required by the law, old Simeon, the just and
devout man, took the Child in his arms and
blessed him, and then said to Mary : " Behold,
this child is set for the fall and rising again of
many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be
spoken against. Yea, and a sword shall pierce
through thine own soul also.*'

The moment when most evidently and most
deeply the sword pierced the soul of Mary has
been seized by the unknown writer of one of
the greatest and the most poignant of Christian
hymns, the " Stabat Mater,'* —

[198]

MARY THE BLESSED

" At the Cross her station keeping
Stood the mournful mother weeping,

Close to Jesus at the last.
Through her soul of joy bereaved,
Bowed with anguish, sorely grieved.

Now at length the sword hath passed."

But, in truth, the sword began to enter
Mary's soul long before the Cross was reached.
Very early in the life of Jesus she was com-
pelled to understand that this Child of hers
had in Him a nature which set Him apart
from His mother.

When, after anxious search Jesus, the boy
of only twelve years is found in the Temple
listening to the reverend doctors and asking
them questions, the mother's heart speaks as
Mary says, " Son, why hast thou dealt thus
with us ? Behold thy father and I have sought
thee sorrowing ! " The mother's heart speaks,
but it speaks in Mary's character with no
hysterical gush, with dignified, almost stern
rebuke. And one word in her rebuke brings
startling reproof in answer from her Son :
" How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

that I must be about my Father's business ? '*
Such a woman as Mary could make no reply
to such an answer ; but we are told that " His
mother kept these things in her heart.'*

At Cana of Galilee the proud reticence of
Mary's compressed utterance suggests not so
much a prayer as a command, "They have
no wine ! " We can almost see her thought,
which seems to say, " It is for you to supply
the want." The reply of Jesus is a reminder
of the difference and the distance made by
His Divine mission between Himself and
His dearly loved mother.

Again we see Mary, though we do not
hear her speak — at least, not in words of her
own. In the midst of the teaching of Jesus,
at a critical moment of His controversy with
Scribes and Pharisees His mother and His
brethren, alarmed for His safety, imagining
Him beside Himself, try to take Him away
from His work. They sent a message to
Him through the crowd, saying, " Thy mother
and Thy brethren stand without desiring to
speak with Thee." And once again, a most

[ 200 ]

MARY THE BLESSED

pathetic, a heart-broken and heart-breaking
rebuke comes from Jesus : " Who are my
mother and my brethren ? For whosoever
shall do the will of my Father which is in
heaven, the same is my mother and my sister
and my brother ! "

There are women who take a weak pride,
often a garrulous pride, in the superiority of
their sons, and are only pleased when they
are ruled or even rebuked by their children.
Mary was not in this class. She felt herself
the mother of the Messiah, the Queen
Mother. With her strong character it was
not easy to take a submissive place beneath
Him and yield her place beside Him. And
reserved, reticent and thoughtful natures like
hers crave the confidence, even more than the
submission of those nearest them. The sense
of separation between her soul and the soul of
her Holy Son was a sharp and enduring pang.
Moreover, with her clear and penetrating vision
she must have seen more clearly than others
saw, that He was treading a road that could
lead only to sacrifice. In the very blessedness

[ 201 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

of the life of her Son there was keenest agony
for her mother's heart !

But the nobility of Mary's character is seen
in the silent dignity, the patient humility and
lofty, self-effacing loyalty with which she ac-
cepted the blessing and the burden of her
unique and trying position. There is a pathos
in the very greatness of this great mother
which must pierce our souls in sympathy when
we think of her. I almost think the " Stabat
Mater " fails to picture Mary truly when it
tells of her weeping and groaning beside the
Cross. No weak woman could have stood
as she stood beneath that awful Cross. It
would seem truer to think of her as tearless
in the depth of her grief. And the most
touching incident of the Cross is when the
dying Christ speaks to His mother and com-
mends her to the care of His beloved disci-
ple John, who doubtless led her away at
once.

We have a final glimpse of Mary after the
Resurrection of Jesus. She appears in the
Upper Room with the other holy women and

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MARY THE BLESSED

the disciples and brethren of Jesus. We see
her, not above, but in the midst of the saints
as one of them ; and there the gospel history
leaves her.

We may not give her a higher place, but let
us at least give her that which is her own.
Do not we Protestants too easily fall into ex-
cess of protestation when Mary's name is
mentioned ?

We may not worship her ; and yet is not
a unique reverence due her ? For the sake
of her Holy Son; for her own sake, because
of her noble character, because Holy Mother-
hood is crowned in Mary, all generations
shall call her Blessed.

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I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

I will declare Thy name unto my brethren : in
the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee.

Psalm xxii. 22.

I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

Just what particular sorrows of his own or
sufferings of his nation the writer of this
Psalm attempted to describe, we are not told
and we can never know. But for us this
matters nothing ; for us the Twenty-second
Psalm speaks with only one voice, the voice
of Jesus upon the Cross. It is a wonderful
Psalm. It does not profess to be prophecy,
and yet it presents an amazingly realistic pict-
ure of that crucifixion of Messiah which took
place centuries after it was written. It is more
than description ; it is the awful expression of
the experience of the sufferer. The very first
words of the Psalm are the cry of Jesus upon
the Cross : " My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken me ! " And we hear the suf-
ferer say : " They pierced my hands and my
feet . . . they part my garments among them,
and cast lots upon my vesture ! **

[ 207 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

No wonder John and the other Evangelists
who saw what took place on Calvary, said :
" This was done that the scripture might be
fulfilled."

More and more impressive this Psalm be-
comes as we study it. For example, in those
other Psalms where we hear as in this one,
the cry of a sufferer, there is always also the
confession of personal sin. Nothing of the
sort can be found here. This sufferer cries
to God for strength, for help, but not for
pardon. What he endures is the result of
the iniquity of others, and not of his own.
This is the sinless Christ who cries, " My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me ! "

Another significant fact is the triumphant
close of this sufferer^s song. In the very
midst of his agony he suddenly perceives that
God to whom he cries has heard him and
has not forsaken him. A vision of the future
glows before his dying eyes. He sees how
generations yet unborn shall be blessed by his
sacrifice : " All the ends of the world shall
remember and turn unto the Lord : and all

[ 208 ]

I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

the kindreds of the nations shall worship be-
fore Thee. . . . They shall come, and shall
declare His righteousness unto a people that
shall be born, that He hath done this/* We
might well give this Psalm the title of " Cross
and Crown."

But just where the tone of the song changes,
where the plaint of agony is silenced by the
vision of victory, we hear an exclamation which
seems to spring to his lips from a revelation
which has flashed into the mind of the suf-
ferer. He sees that his suffering is not per-
sonal aflliction ; he beholds its purpose. In
what he endures and in its result he is declar-
ing God's name : " I will declare Thy Name
unto my brethren : in the midst of the con-
gregation will I praise Thee ! '* And is not
this verily the largest meaning of the Cross
of Jesus ?

According to our point of view we may see
various things in the Cross. We may see the
constancy and courage of the greatest of all
martyrdoms ; we may see the highest example
of the most perfect love ; we may see the final
14 [ 209 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

atonement for human sin. But above all else,
including all else, we must see that the Christ
upon the Cross declares the Name and the
Nature of the Holy One. And if you would
know how large a meaning is here, you must
turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the
second chapter, where this Psalm is quoted,
and read : " . . . We see Jesus . . . because
of the suffering of death crowned with glory
and honour, that He by the grace of God
should taste death for every man. For it
became Him, for whom are all things, and
through whom are all things, in bringing many
sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings ... for
which cause he is not ashamed to call them
' brethren,' saying,

" ' I will declare Thy name unto my
brethren :

"'In the midst of the congregation will I
sing Thy praise.' "

And always, when we gaze upon that Cross,
we shall see that round about and above it
shines a light which never was on land or sea,

[ 210 ]

I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

a glory not of this world, a revelation of the
name and nature of the Ever Living and Holy
God.

Not without reason does Christendom ob-
serve, not only the day of Christ's death, but
the last week of His life on earth, because the
full meaning of His sacrifice, the way in which
His Cross declares God's Name begins to ap-
pear with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.
Up to that moment we have seen Him as the
lowly prophet of Nazareth, but now God's
chosen King is about to be proclaimed.

Look at that procession winding down the
slopes of Olivet ! See the people spreading
their garments on the ground before Jesus,
waving palm branches in prophetic token of
victory. Hear their cry :

"Hosanna to the Son of David!"

" Blessed be the King that cometh in the
Name of the Lord ! "

An idealizing religious sentiment has, for
us, obscured the real meaning of that moment.
But those people knew, or thought they knew,
precisely what they were doing. To them

[211]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

the ancient prophecies were more than poeti-
cal figures of speech ; they were sure promises
bearing in their glowing words not only re-
ligious but also political assurances. More-
over, the signs of the times seemed to point
to a speedy fulfilment of the promise of
Messiah's coming; and when Jesus appeared
at Bethany the wavering expectations awak-
ened by His career suddenly crystallized.
The man and the hour seemed to have met.
All Israel was gathering in vast multitude
for the Passover feast, and here was He who
could feed five thousand with five loaves and
two fishes, — yea, and raise Lazarus from his
grave. The King, the Son of David, had
come. His kingdom must be proclaimed.
With shouts of " Hosanna " they escorted
Him toward the gates of the Holy City.

Within the city, too, there was excitement.
They saw the procession. They said, " Who
is this? " The people said it; the priests and
rulers said it. And when the answer came,
" This is Jesus ! " some feared, and others
hoped he would put forth His mighty power

[212]

I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

and sweep away the rule of priests and scribes
and Romans and reign King over them all.

But Jesus! — what did it mean to Him?
Not what either rulers or multitude imagined.
No visions of earthly glory shone before His
eyes. He saw clearly what the end would be.
The shadow of the Cross which had followed
Him so long, now loomed up near and awful.
Yet none the less He knew Himself the King.
Neither in weakness nor by any deceit did He
permit the cry of " Hosanna to the Son of
David ! " He knew that He was the son of
David, and heir to the kingdoms of the world ;
yea, God's anointed one, the Christ. It was
right He should be proclaimed ; the homage
they were giving was but His due.

When the Pharisees asked Him to rebuke
the enthusiasm of His disciples, He answered :

" I tell you that if these should hold their
peace, the stones would immediately cry out ! "
not only Israel, but the world, yea, the very
ground beneath His feet, cried out for earth's
coming King.

But His kingdom was utterly different from
[213]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

any that men had ever conceived — yes, different
from any kingdom men have even yet learned
to understand. It was a kingdom which de-
clared God's name and nature ; a kingdom of
heavenly truth and everlasting righteousness
and infinite love. All the more, therefore,
was it needful that He should go into Jeru-
salem and toward His cross with the shouts
of" Hosanna ! " and the great word, " Son of
David! " echoing from the multitude. Israel
must know, the world must kr^ow, who this is
to whom they are about to give a Crown of
Thorns and a Cross.

The words and deeds of Jesus in this last
week of His earthly life are in striking contrast
to the things He said and did before. There
is no Sermon on the Mount, no teaching of
the principles of love and righteousness, nor
any parables like that of The Sower and the
Seed. There is, instead, the fearful parable of
The Vineyard, and that of The King's Son,
and of The Ten Virgins, and the Final
Judgment scene. There is the terrible de-
nunciation of the Pharisees, and the solemn

[214]

I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, and
the prophecy of His own Second Coming.
The voice of Jesus is no longer that of a
teacher ; it is the voice of a king sitting in
judgment, declaring God*s awful name and
His sure justice. Jesus was crucified because
He was the King, God's King, God's Christ.
The Passover pilgrims were enraged because
He would not proclaim a political revolution
such as they desired and hoped for. Scribes
and priests could not endure the thought of a
king who was from God, who would not con-
sult or be ruled by them, who demanded purity
and righteousness and cast out the money-
changers from God's House. The Romans
had no use for a king who came in any other
way than with the power of the mailed fist.

"Away with Him!" "Crucify Him!"
All of them either joined in that cry or con-
sented to it. Human pride, human greed,
human selfishness, yea, human sin, mingled in
that fearful cry. All the hatred of God's
righteousness, all the contempt for His Holi-
ness and His spirituality, all the earthliness

[215]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

and meanness and cruelty, all the iniquity that
is in man, gave tongue in that cry.

" Shall I crucify your king ? '* said Pilate.
And they answered, " We have no king but
Caesar ! "

So this world has ever said. The only
kingship the world confesses is the kingship
of brute force or the kingship of material pos-
sessions,— money or power; something the
flesh can see and touch and handle, and some-
thing the flesh must bow down to. Even to-
day men ask in derision, " Where is your
unseen God ? what can he do ? '* Jesus came
declaring God's name, and the world cried,
" Crucify Him ! "

Verily they knew not what they did ; for
they were enthroning God's Christ ! The
iniquity of us all is heaped upon Him, and
He bears it, not because He must, but be-
cause He wills to bear it, — not in anger, but
in Divine love. He is declaring God's name;
He suffers for our sin ; He is the perfect
sacrifice.

Perhaps our first thought of the Cross is
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I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

the pity of it, the sorrow of it, the dreadful
suffering of its victim. And there is little
danger that we shall make too much of this.
On the contrary, the Cross appears in such a
distant past ; its result has so greatly glorified
the Cross, that we have lost sight of its real
and unspeakable horror. For the mere bodily
pain of it, burning at the stake would be, in
comparison, a quick and easy death. But that
was not all. No punishment ever invented by
the fiendishness of man was so cruel, and none
so inhuman in what it stood for.

Crucifixion declared the crucified unworthy
of the name of man. Crucifixion was a dog's
death ; the infliction of it was the brutal ex-
pression of the feeling that the masses of man-
kind were as dirt beneath the feet of the
favored few, — yea, beneath even the poor
meed of pity. A Roman citizen, no matter
what his crime, could not be crucified. Only
slaves — and the world of that day was full
of slaves — or barbarians, only the lowest
criminals of the common herd could be cruci-
fied. And yet crucifixion was a fearfully com-

[217]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

mon punishment. " The shame of the Cross "
was only too well known to people of that
day. Can you imagine anything more fright-
ful than the prospect of such a death to such a
person as Jesus?

Yet He faced it, not only bravely but wil-
lingly, and His acceptance of this horrible
death was in itself a declaration of God's name
to his brethren, because it was such an accept-
ance of the burden of human brotherhood as
never before or since has been witnessed in this
world.

Has human pride, in its daring yet despica-
ble sin, mounted so high that it denies human
kinship with the lowly, the oppressed, the de-
graded, and treads them under foot, and shuts
all heart of compassion, and condemns these
repudiated brethren to a pitiless and inhuman
death ?

Have men denied their fellow-men, and thus
denied their Father, God?

Then our Christ, the Son of the Heavenly
Father, the stainless man in whom even base
Pilate could find no fault at all, takes His

[218]

I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

place alongside the helpless and despised, —
yea, even in that dog's death by which men
most cruelly showed their contempt for brother
men ! Along with the slave, the wretched,
the outcast. He goes with them to the Cross,
and there proclaims Himself their brother and
thus declares God*s Name !

A new sacredness of human life has been
felt in the world, a new idea of human rights
has dawned before the eyes of men since that
moment when the Cross of Jesus rose on high
with its new vision of God and of the love
of the Heavenly Father for mankind.

But let no one imagine that this exhausts
the meaning of the Cross of Jesus. The mes-
sage of that Cross comes not to the downtrod-
den only ; but to every one of us, to each
human soul the Cross declares God's Name
with awful intimacy.

One of the most remarkable incidents of
the Crucifixion is that of the Dying Thief
As if to accentuate the shame of the Cross
Jesus was not permitted to suffer alone. He
was numbered with the transgressors, — cruci-

[219]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

fied between two robbers. Doubtless they had
belonged to one of those cut-throat bands
which infested such highways as that leading
from Jerusalem down to Jericho. Both were
desperate characters, but there was a difference
between these two companions of the suffering
Christ. One of them in his agony reviled
Jesus. But the other, answering, rebuked
him saying, " Dost thou not fear God, seeing
thou art in the same condemnation. And we
indeed justly : for we receive the due reward
of our deeds." Think of that man enduring
the slow, the frightful, the deadly torture of
the cross, yet confessing, " We indeed justly :
this is the due reward of my deeds." Think
what those deeds must have been as they rose
before his memory in his dying hour, and
then think of the honesty of that confession !
Now turn to priests and people crowding
about the suffering Christ bleeding from un-
just scourging, crowned in cruel mockery with
thorns as He stands before Pilate*s judgment
seat. Hear them cry, "Away with Him!"
"Crucify Him!" Set them side by side, —

[ 220 ]

I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

people and priests on the one hand, the dying
robber on the other, — set them before a higher
Judgment Seat than that of Pilate, and answer.
Which will be accounted the worst? Whose
sin will appear the deepest ?

But remember, also, in that crowd crying,
" Crucify Him ! " there were men whose
every-day life had been up to that moment
as good as yours or mine, — men who had
never done anything disgraceful, who paid
their debts and were honest, kind, and chari-
table. And by their sin the sinless Christ
was numbered with the transgressors, nailed
to the Cross !

It was human nature, — the nature that is
in you and me, with its dark possibilities of
evil ; it was human nature truly confessed by
the dying robber, truly uncovered by consci-
entious Israelites crying, " Crucify Him ! " it
was the Sin which is in us all that brought
Jesus to His Cross !

There is an awful meaning in that Cross.
The lifted up Son of Man, the crucified Son
of God, by His blood and suffering uncovers

[ 221 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

the blackest depths of human sin and brings
our inner selves openly before the white light
of Eternal Righteousness.

And yet most wonderfully this very judg-
ment becomes the most convincing of all proof
of the love of God for men.

He who suffers on the Cross is more than
a martyr. The judgment which, silently yet
with awful clearness He declares, falls not on
those who deserve it but upon Himself, the
willing victim. The stainless Jesus, the Lamb
of God, the perfect sacrifice, bears our sins in
His own body on the tree. The iniquity of
us all was laid upon Him, and by His stripes
we are healed.

We sometimes say, and say it coldly, in con-
ventional religious phrase, "Jesus died for us."
But remember; recall that Cross as it really
was. What your Christ suffered there, was
it something cheap ? What He endured for
you, was it anything easy ? Think of the
dreadful cost of the Cross to the Sinless Jesus
— yes, and to God His Father; remember
how God's Name is declared on that Cross,

[ 222 ]

I WILL DECLARE THY NAME

and how the very sin in you is responsible for
the suffering of the Christ ; think of the judg-
ment declared and of the judgment endured
there by God*s only begotten and well-beloved
Son ; think of the love that could give that
Son for your salvation !

And then say no more, " Jesus died for
us," but with honest confession, like that of
the dying robber, say, "Jesus died for me T^

[ 223 ]

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and
the Life. — John xi. 25.

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

What a daring word !

Remember who said it ; recall His circum-
stances. He is the rejected Christ. In peril
of His life He has returned from the hither
side of Jordan into the land of the Jews, who
seek to kill Him. At the call of Mary and
Martha, His beloved friends. He has come, —
and apparently too late ; for Lazarus is dead.
He stands before that helpless, hopeless grief
so fearfully common, — the grief we all have to
meet, before which we are dumb. The dead
body of the brother of His friends — yea, the
body of His own friend — has been committed
to the tomb and covered with the great stone.
The tomb is in the midst of hundreds of other
tombs, a single instance amid myriads which
prove death's power and man's helpless mortal-
ity ; and He says, " I am the Resurrection and
the Life!"

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Scarcely less daring is the faith witnessed on
every Easter morning by thousands of believers
in Jesus. As the sun lights up each continent
and island, in every language of every race on
earth, they confess Him who nineteen hundred
years ago declared, " I am the Resurrection
and the Life ! "

So we confess Him, and joyfully acclaim His
word as truth. Through all these centuries, on
every morning of every first day of the week,
and specially on the Easter morning, this faith
has been proclaimed.

And it has been a prolific faith. At first a
little band, the personal friends and followers
of Jesus, held it, preached it, and the faith
spread far and wide. It revolutionized the
world ; it changed men's ideas of life and of
death ; it placed life above death ; it gave life
the conquering, the victorious place.

Mightily the faith has grown. From the
Syrian hills, like a miraculous sunrise it has
spread westward over land and sea, and from
the farthest west it has reached out again toward
the Orient till it has encircled the world. Em-

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THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

pires have fallen, new civilizations have arisen,
knowledge has broadened and deepened ; but
through all changes this one Voice has been
heard saying, " I am the Resurrection and the
Life ! " The faith is sublime, not in itself
alone, not only in the astounding thing it
proclaims, but in the way in which it has
triumphed and still triumphs over all ap-
pearances.

The world goes on as always, in its ever-
lasting procession of changes, with its ceaseless
succession of beginnings and endings. Life, as
we see it, as we know it through our bodily
senses is as short, as uncertain as ever. Death
is no less busy than in the days when Jesus
stood beside the tomb of Lazarus. The old
law of decay and dissolution and earth to earth
and dust to dust remains. Men depart out
of this life as from the beginning they have
departed, and return no more. No news is
borne to our eyes or our ears from the dark-
ness of the beyond. To all appearance there
is no beyond. It would seem the natural, the
common-sense conclusion that life is nothing

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

more than the little span of existence which we
know here on earth. The word of Him who
says, " I am the Resurrection and the Life,"
flies in the face of apparently universal experi-
ence and of all most evident appearance.

The faith in that word witnessed through
nineteen centuries can be called nothing less
than sublime, — sublime in its steadfastness; in
its ever increasing volume ; in its ever widening
and deepening growth ; in its hold upon men
of all sorts, from the most ignorant who have
least beside appearance and experience to guide
them, up to the most learned and thoughtful
who can best appreciate the force of experience
and the reality which is in appearance.

In the midst of a world that lives by what it
sees and can touch and handle, here is a faith
that rises superior to appearance and experience,
and will not be smothered, and does not fade,
but always above the din of the business of
this present life with its supreme concern for
the here and the now, with its anxious care for
the present wants of perishing bodies, in de-
fiance of the ever-present death, hears and

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THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

believes the voice which says, " I am the
Resurrection and the Life."

And this is the more remarkable because
the faith has never been universally accepted.
Always, from the beginning, men counted
shrewd, wise, clear-headed, have argued against
it the evident, easily understood argument.
Against a tremendous inertia of the things that
are seen and the reasoning so readily drawn
from them, the reasoning which lies upon the
surface of all appearance, this faith has persisted.
To one point of light it ever turns, — to the
stone rolled away from the empty sepulchre
and the living Presence of the Lord, who said,
" I am the Resurrection and the Life ! " To
that glowing light faith ever turns, and rests
confident and unconquerable.

In truth, mankind has never been satisfied
with the appearances, and no arguments drawn
thence have ever brought content. From the
earliest beginning heart and flesh have cried
out for the Living God, and humanity has felt
that some inheritance larger than any possi-
ble to earthly experience is rightfully its own.

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Always men have tried to pierce the shadows
of the beyond ; but always with a half-despairing
trust, with a painfully uncertain hope, until He
came who said, " I am the Resurrection and
the Life!"

And the hearts of men have leaped toward
Him and toward His word because there is in
it no "perhaps," — because He leads toward
no wavering shadow of uncertainty, but calm,
clear, positive in its far-reaching tone of
almighty power, they hear the Christ of God
saying, " I am the Resurrection and the Life :
he that believeth in Me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and
believeth in Me shall never die ! "

This word of Jesus is as notable for what it
does not say as for what it says. He does not
speak of " another life," nor of a distant heaven.
He is almost contemptuous toward death.
His word glows with the fire of overmastering,
present, living, and real life. He is the Resur-
rection because He is the Life. Death cannot
hold Him or His, because there is in Him a
death-destroying force of life ; and whosoever

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THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

liveth believing in Him receives this conquer-
ing life against which death is helpless.

I believe we are wrong when, in the old
sense of that much-abused word, we call the
resurrection of Jesus ^'a miracle." I believe
that His resurrection was natural — for such a
Person as He — and that the really wonderful
thing in His earthly career was His death.

Life is known to us only in fragments. Life
is never finished ; it is always a broken column.
And yet in these fragments there is a wonderful
persistence of life, an unending series of res-
urrections which constantly suggest what life
might be in its perfection.

A life unbroken because perfect is something
we can only imagine, but we do know that the
force of it would be something beyond our
reckoning. It would be far easier to imagine
its possibilities than to fix its limits.

But is not just this the life which we see in
the person of Jesus ? " In Him was Life.''
"Eternal life," He calls it, — not simply because
it goes on forever, but because it comes out of,
and is one with the life of the Eternal God.

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

In the full and flawlessly perfect humanity of
Jesus, the unbroken and limitless power of life
as it comes fresh and untainted from the bosom
of the Father is manifested. He is the " Light
of men," who interprets to us the power and
blessing of our original, unmarred birthright.
Only by accommodation to the weak compre-
hension of our imperfect, fragmentary life can
the works of Jesus be called " miracles.'* He
called them "signs," and they are — if we do
but use " natural " in its larger sense — the
natural outgoings of such a nature with such
real life as His.

And so the really mysterious thing in the
earthly career of Jesus was His death.

It is significant that death came to Him
by no ordinary process of decay or dissolution.
A young man, in full flower of life. He was
"cut off out of the land of the living.*' It
is also significant that He Himself says of
His life, " No man taketh My life from Me,
but I lay it down of myself. I have power
to lay it down, and I have power to take it
again."

[ 234]

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

But the reason for His death, the purpose
of it, is one that moves us to our inmost soul.
In fellowship with us. His brethren ; in com-
munion with us who must die, He tasted
death and bore our load of sorrow and of
sin.

The resurrection of Jesus was the reasser-
tion of His nature. And it was more. Res-
urrection had to be because there had been
death. And as His death was fellowship
with us. His resurrection becomes our fel-
lowship with Him in the victory of conquer-
ing life. He is the Resurrection because
He is the Life; and His resurrection is
not alone His, but also ours. The resurrec-
tion of Jesus the Christ is the living, actual,
experienced Gospel of Eternal Life for His
brethren.

And that is why we say with mighty glad-
ness in our hearts, " Christ is Risen ! '' That
is why Easter is the most profoundly joyful
day in all the year. It is the memory of the
great, living, fulfilled pledge of eternal life to
whosoever liveth believing in Him ; it is the

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

day that commemorates the sunrise of un-
broken life upon this world.

Can you wonder that those who have caught
one glimpse of that unspeakable blessing hold
fast to it ?

We cannot grasp all that Jesus meant when
He said, " I am the Resurrection and the
Life ! " — not now. The full interpretation of
His glorious word can come only in the ripe-
ness of a stage of eternal life which is not
reached in this world. But its early sunrise
sends a warm glow of the light of truth across
this world, which gives the lie to all the
groping, close-to-the-ground experiences and
all the murky appearances of the world's
darkness.

When one ray from the Presence of the
Risen, the Living Christ, who is the Light of
men, has shone into the soul of a man, then
forever after everything is changed for him.
Life has received a new interpretation. A
corner of the veil which hides Eternity from
Time has been lifted. We may go our way,
our busy way of worldly work and anxious

[236]

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

care, letting the glitter of the things that are
seen blind us and the noise of the earthly, un-
believing babble drown all heavenly thoughts,
— for the moment. But underneath it all the
memory of that glimpse of reality and of
eternity remains stamped indelibly upon our
souls. We cannot lose its impression. It
has forever made our whole view of things
different.

Perhaps we are afraid of the light and of its
consequences. And well we may be afraid
while we persist in living in the Far Country
of Forgetful ness, squandering our birthright
as children of God and of Eternal Life.

But down in our hearts we know that we
would not really lose that hope, — no, not
for worlds !

The whole point of view of this world's life
has been changed, since that first-day morning
when the Lord, who is the Resurrection and
the Life came forth from the tomb, victor
over death, with resumed powers enlarged by
His fellowship with the sufferings of mankind.

The light which has guided human progress

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

and enlarged the bounds of knowledge and
shown the way for freedom and truth is the
light that shines from the empty sepulchre
forth from which the Risen, Living Christ has
come. It is the light of Life because it is the
light of eternity shining into time. The mean-
ing of this world, and of our passage through
it, of our years and days and moments of time
has been immensely enlarged by the Risen
Christ, who said, " I am the Resurrection and
the Life."

We remember His victory and His con-
quest. Has the meaning of it come anew to
our souls ? To-morrow, when we go forth to
our work or our pleasure, are we going to let
the doors of earthliness shut in upon us, and
shut out the light ? Are we going to forget
the Risen One who is the Resurrection and
the Life?

But there is no light without Him. Out-
side of Him is only the dull shadow of the
Outer Darkness. God grant that the spring-
time of His Eternal Life may come into the
soul of every one of us ! God grant that the

[238]

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

radiance of that light which is Life and Love,
given in fellowship with us even unto death,
may show us the way by which we may arise
into eternal life with Him who said, " I am
the Resurrection and the Life " !

[ 239 ]

THE NATURALNESS OF THE
RISEN LORD

And it came to pass, as He sat at meat with
them, He took bread and blessed it and brake and
gave to them.

And their eyes were opened and they knew
Him. — Luke xxiv. 30, 31.

THE NATURALNESS OF THE
RISEN LORD

As a piece of literature the story of the dis-
ciples of Emmaus and Jesus is marvellous.
In the first place, the simplicity, the sincerity,
the vividness of it is the perfection of narra-
tive style.

And then the characters of the story ! we
seem to have known them always ; we look
into their faces, yea, into their very souls, and
yet one of them is unnamed, and Cleopas is a
name found nowhere else. They appear sud-
denly out of the crowd and disappear almost
as mysteriously as Jesus. And Jesus Himself!
He has passed death's portals. He is the Risen
Christ; yet never was the Man of Nazareth
more human. We behold Him, a wayside
traveller, overtaking two other wayside travel-
lers ; we see Him, with that gift of hearty human
comradeship which was His in such supreme
measure joining Himself to these others, with

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

quick insight of sympathy making Himself
their friend, drawing out their inmost thoughts,
and then lifting them up with masterly teach-
ing, — what would we not give for a verbatim
report of that exposition beginning with Moses
and all the prophets, of the things in the Old
Testament Scriptures concerning Himself! —
but all so naturally, so humanly, that although
their hearts kindled by the fire of his wayside
spoken words burned within them, they never
once suspected who He was.

The test of a story is its ending. Many a
story otherwise beautiful fails in this. But
here the ending is the thrilling touch, the
perfect climax. Nothing could be more dra-
matic, yet how far from any sensational trick-
ery ! The local color is flawless to the very
end. We feel the breath of the spring day,
and the sweetness of the twilight, and the
warm comradeship which in these few hours
has grown so strong that when Cleopas and
his companion draw near their village home
they cannot let their new-found Friend go.
He must abide with them, because it is toward

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THE NATURALNESS OF THE RISEN LORD

evening and the day is far spent. They enter
the humble house and then the Christ, the
Risen Christ, is known — how ? By some out-
flashing of the glory within Him ? Nay, by
the simple act of blessing and breaking the
bread of the evening repast ! It is the very
homeliness of the act which discloses the Christ
and holds our hearts still as this story comes
to a close.

" He took bread, and blessed it, and gave
to them : and their eyes were opened, and
they knew Him ! *' We have here almost
the very words of the institution of the Lord's
Supper. Was it the remembrance of His
breaking the bread on the night before He
was crucified that revealed Jesus to these dis-
ciples of Emmaus ? This is scarcely possible.
There had been as yet but one Lord's Supper,
and Cleopas certainly had not been there.
His name, a Greek name, is not that of any
of the Apostles, and there is no reason for be-
lieving that his unnamed companion any more
than himself was one of the twelve. The un-
named one might possibly have been Luke,

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

the writer of this Gospel and the recorder of
this story. No, not the Lord's Supper, but
something else made Jesus known to them by
His breaking of bread.

I believe we have here a glimpse of the daily
life of Jesus in companionship with the dis-
ciples who gathered about Him. Comrade-
ship and Masterhood always joined themselves
in Jesus. Always He was the real, the honest,
the familiar friend with every one of His friends,
and always also, and as naturally He was first.
No assertion of any claim was needed to seat
Him at the head of the table ; not one of the
little company of His friends could ever have
thought of anything else, or permitted Him to
take any lower place. They loved Him with
the love of a deep reverence. And so, often
and often, in Peter's house at Capernaum, or
beside the shore of Galilee, or on some lonely
hillside where they sat down to their frugal
repast they had heard Him ask the blessing,
and before any others touched it they had seen
Him break the bread in pledge of fellowship,
and from His hand they had received it.

[246]

THE NATURALNESS OF THE RISEN LORD

You can imagine how it was. You remem-
ber how your father used to ask the blessing at
the family table ; his very words, the peculiar
turn of his speech and his manner are graven
upon your memory. Every one, especially in
these more intimate and sacred acts has his
own peculiar way ; and Jesus had His, a very
sweet and noble way, expressing at once joyful
thanksgiving to Our Father in Heaven and
strong love of brotherhood with the friends
who sat at meat with Him. I think His very
manner of breaking the bread was all His own,
with something so gracious in it that it never
could be forgotten.

Every touch of this story is true to life. It
was natural that the eyes of the two disciples
should be holden when they first met Jesus
on the road. They were preoccupied. The
events of the past few days in Jerusalem had
overwhelmed them and drowned their hopes
in a flood of grief so that their senses were
stunned and blunted. We see things and
persons because we are looking for them.
They were not looking for Jesus. Their very

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

devotion to Him had shot the pain of His
Cross into their souls so that only the dying,
the dead Christ had any place in their vision.
The farthest from their thoughts was that this
wayfarer, this fellow-traveller could be their
Lord. Not even the tones of His voice
seemed familiar.

And then there 'was something different
about Jesus. For a vear past the shadow of
the coming Cross had rested upon Him. He
was the INlan of Sorrows. And though He
was never, even in darkest moments the man
of gloom, though His courage and constancy
helped the self-deception of the disciples who
never believed in the Cross until it came, the
shadow of that sacrifice could not but hav^e had
a subtle effect upon Jesus, — upon His words.
His manner, yea, the very tones of His voice.

Now the shadow is gone. He has come
through death into victorious life. He is the
same Jesus, the same human friend with the
same spirit of true comradeship, yet with a dif-
ference which was easily, in the state of mind
of those disciples, enough to hold their eyes

[248]

THE NATURALNESS OF THE RISEN LORD

that they should not know Him. The very
humanness of Jesus helped. He seemed, and
was, just a fellow-traveller.

And what a graciousness was in His self-
effacement! How kind to these friends, to
keep the precious secret for the moment when,
their souls having been enlightened and their
hearts prepared and the day*s journey done,
they sat down together at home in the old
way, and then — the familiar blessing, the
well-remembered gracious gesture with which
He broke the bread, the manner which so
inevitably revealed Him ! For no one else
ever did it in just that beautiful way !

This was not like the world's idea of a God,

— solemn, distant, splendid, — nor even like
the conventionally religious idea of the Christ,

— ceremonious and condescending, — but it
was like the real Christ; it was the very way
of Jesus.

The lesson of the Christ made known by the
breaking of bread is a lesson for us to-day.
Our Christ is the Christ of the disciples of
Emmaus. The Christ whom we know, whom

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

we worship, with whom we come into personal
fellowship, has passed beyond the stage of His
life as the Man of Nazareth ; He has become
the risen, the living, the victorious Christ.
Doubtless, as you have read the Acts and the
Epistles, you have noticed how little is said
about the life of Jesus before His crucifixion,
and what a triumphant stress is laid upon His
resurrection and His glory. Indeed, we hear
Paul say, " Yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we
Him [thus] no more.'*

And when we come to think of it, was not
this just what might have been expected ? Con-
trast the feeling of the two disciples of Emmaus
before Jesus revealed Himself with their feeling
about Him and toward Him after he He had
made Himself known by the breaking of bread.
Before that moment they had built their hopes
— and earthly though these may have been
they were lofty expectations — upon Him who
should redeem Israel. They looked for a half-
religious, half-political Saviour, a Christ after
the flesh. His crucifixion was for them noth-

[ 250]

THE NATURALNESS OF THE RISEN LORD

ing less than black disaster and the tomb in
Joseph's garden seemed the grave of their
hope. But now all was changed in a moment.
As they walked with Him over the hills in the
sunset glow, Jesus had shown them how it
behooved Christ to suffer and to enter into His
glory. And then. He whom they had thought
done to death by the Cross and the Roman
spear made himself known to them by the
familiar blessing and the never-to-be-forgotten
manner, all His own, of breaking the bread,
so that, even though coarse and common
food, it seemed a gift of love from His hand.
And instantly they knew Him, — yes, as they
had never known Him before. His talk by
the way which had made their hearts burn
within them. His opening of the truth in
Scripture about Himself, had, like a flash of
light become a living truth ; now they knew
Him, the Risen, the Deathless One, the Re-
deemer by sacrifice, the glorified, the almighty.
Can you not see that forever afterward the
Christ of their enlarged vision must be the
Christ who filled their thoughts and was pro-

[251]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

claimed in their words ! And yet He was
nearer to their hearts than they had ever been
able to let Him come in the old days.

When they constrained the unknown yet
strangely fascinating companion of their jour-
ney and said, " Abide with us, for it is toward
evening and the day is far spent," and He
went in and sat down with them to their poor
supper and made Himself known by the break-
ing of bread, what a deep, what a heavenly,
meaning was in it all ! He was the same
Jesus, the same gracious comrade who in past
days perhaps they had thought almost too
free and familiar for the Christ who was soon
to be King in Jerusalem. But now they knew,
they knew how His freedom. His fellowship,
was real with a deeper, holier reality than they
had ever dreamed. The very nearness, the
very comradeship of the Master took upon
itself awe which searched their souls. The
very love of God Himself seemed to over-
shadow them. And this is our Christ, our
Friend, our Comrade, yet our Risen, Living
Lord!

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THE NATURALNESS OF THE RISEN LORD

In this latter day, in this age of the ripeness
of things, — a ripeness which may be the sign
of coming judgment, — in this age of a mad-
ness for material success which threatens the
very foundations of morality, when conduct
has become more than ever the test of faith,
yea, perhaps its martyrdom, we look longingly
toward that Life, lived in a world too much
like our own in its darker aspects. We seek,
as the world has never sought before, the
measure of true living and its inspiration in
the life and example of Jesus as He passed
through His conflict with the sins of the
world. We long for just that homely fellow-
ship with Him which the disciples had while
He was still the Man of Nazareth. We want
the human touch of Jesus.

And we have it. But it is the touch of
Him who made Himself known as the Risen
Christ, the Living Christ, by the breaking of
bread. Not less human nor less real, but
more near is He because to us He is some-
thing and Some One infinitely greater than the
dim record of the example of a life lived nine-

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

teen hundred years ago. That life of the long
ago comes into living touch with our lives
to-day, since the Risen Christ has made him-
self known by the breaking of bread. Our
Comrade, our Friend? yes! But our Living
Lord!

And therefore we do not despair even of a
world burdened with its sins ; we do not sadly
say, like the disciples of Emmaus before
Christ was made known to them, " We trusted
that this had been He who should have re-
deemed Israel." For our Living Lord is He
to whom all power in heaven and earth is
given, and we know Him as the Redeemer
not of Israel only but of mankind.

[ 254]

THE COMPLETED BROTHERHOOD

And He said unto them : Cast the net on the
right side of the ship and ye shall find. They
cast therefore, and now they were not able to
draw it for the multitude of fishes.

John xxi. 6.

THE COMPLETED BROTHERHOOD

At the beginning of the Gospel of John, in
the latter part of its first chapter, there is an
idyl of friendship telling how Jesus and the
Galilean fishermen first met and were drawn to
each other. In the last chapter, at the end of
the Gospel, the note of the beginning is heard
once more. We see what the friendship has
become after trial, — how firm, how sweet,
how familiar, yet with that touch of awe with-
out which no great love is complete. But the
poem is also a parable. The story of the dis-
ciples' night fishing with its wonderful morning
sequel has a lesson whose freshness remains
unfaded.

To understand the parable we must recall
the history of the few weeks preceding the
event which it records.

The disciples followed Jesus in his last
entry into Jerusalem inflamed with hope of the
immediate coming of His kingdom. Their
17 [ 257 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

old employments had been forsaken ; they
seemed to have bid farewell forever to Galilee
with its boats and nets ; visions of honors and
responsibilities in a world-wide empire filled
their minds.

The crucifixion of Jesus was not only a
bitter personal grief; it was a black disap-
pointment, shattering at a stroke the dream
of their lives ; and the resurrection of Jesus
while it turned their mourning into joy, failed
to restore the dream intact. The looked-for
kingdom did not come. The days passed by,
brightened by occasional visions of their Risen
Lord, yet without any call to action, without
any call even to the sort of service which the
Lord had asked of them before the events of
the Cross.

They returned to their old homes in Gali-
lee ; and at last one day Peter announced, " I
go a-fishing ! " which appears to mean, " Since
there is nothing else to do, I am going to
work at my old trade once more." The
others fell in with his suggestion. They said,
" We also go with thee."

[258]

THE COMPLETED BROTHERHOOD

Their resolve shows the healthy moral con-
dition of these men. High spiritual work and
experience such as had been theirs for three
years past is not without its perils, one of
which is that it often unfits the workers for the
plain duties of life. But these disciples had
been with Jesus and they were unspoiled.

Probably the fishing-business of Zebedee
and Sons, in which perhaps Peter was a part-
ner, had not been discontinued during the
absence of the disciples. Zebedee had man-
aged it with the help of his hired servants ;
and it is altogether likely that James, John,
Peter, and the others had been supported from
its proceeds while they were busy with their
Master's work. It was but right now, when
their Lord was not demanding their personal
attendance, that they should take hold again
and do their part.

Moreover, an old fisherman, like Peter,
could scarcely see the boats go out and return
again with their shining catch and not feel the
fishing instinct rising in his breast. And if
any one imagines that such a feeling would

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THE BPvOTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

betray a worldly or unspiritual disposition, or
that turning to such work would be inconsistent
with the dignity of an apostolic calling, then
he little understands true apostleship, or the
sacredness with which Jesus has invested all
the work of common life.

What happened on their first fishing-trip,
or during the first part o£ it, is an old story.
" That night they caught nothing." Often
before they had met the same experience.
Every fisherman knows it. Nothing is more
uncertain than the ways of the fish in the
waters. And that is one reason why some
people dislike fishing, and amuse themselves
with humorous scorn of fishermen and their
luck. But in this apostolic occupation there
is not only an education in patience, but a
training in trust of Divine Providence. The
true fisherman is always getting a blessing, even
when he does not fill his net; he can aflFord
to let other people laugh.

This is part of the parable. " That night
they caught nothing." Yet they were in the
way of their duty; they were waiting upon a

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THE COMPLETED BROTHERHOOD

higher than human power. Nor was their
apparently fruitless labor wasted. Their labor
kept them in readiness in the right position
for rich reward when the right moment should
come.

The night wore slowly away in resultless
toil. Again and again, now here, now there,
they cast the net and caught nothing. The
flush of dawn began to redden the eastern sky
beyond the dusky hills ; and still they labored
on, still they cast the net; for your true fisher-
man is not a man that gives up easily. Nor
is it simply a dull patience, or foolish trust in
mere luck that lures him on, — not if he be,
like Peter and his comrades, experienced in
fishing; but he knows that this is the way to
success. To work on against all apparent
hope is part of his calling, because his work
must always be concerned with a mystery :
and no matter what his skill or craft, for the
largest part of such success as may come to
him he must trust in a Power which is beyond
his ken.

Upon those disciples, upon those all-night
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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

fishers, the day dawned at last and morning
came. On the shore, perhaps a hundred yards
away, they see a man standing, — some fellow-
fisherman, very likely, come to look out over
the water and watch fiDr signs of a school of
fish, as fishermen do to this day from the
bluffs of the New England coast. He must
be a fisherman, so they think, for in true fisher
phrase he calls to them, " Children, have ye
any meat ? " And the Greek suggests, as a
more idiomatic English equivalent, " Boys,
have you caught anything?" They shout
back the discouraged answer, " No ! " Again
the man on the shore calls, " Cast the net on
the right side of the boat and ye shall find ! **
They obeyed. Do you ask why ? Then re-
member they had toiled all night in vain, and
any suggestion might be welcome ; but be-
yond this, I believe they thought, " This
fisherman from his vantage ground sees what
we cannot see; he sees a school offish."

They cast the net therefore, according to
his advice. And now, behold, they were not
able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.

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THE COMPLETED BROTHERHOOD

Their all-night quest was rewarded in the
morning. Richly blessed was their work.

" In this wise Jesus showed Himself to His
disciples/*

The marvellous in this story dwells not on
what is called " the miraculous.'* The great
draught of fishes is something the like of
which has happened to many a fisherman ; and
the part of the Lord in it is only natural to
Him who knows the mysteries of the waters
and of life, and can command the movements
of men upon the land or of the fish in the
sea.

The real marvel is a marvel of Divine love,
and it lies in the manner in which Jesus
showed Himself to His disciples. Remember
He is the Risen Christ ! Not in shining
glory attended by mighty angels, attired in no
priestly or regal robes, speaking in no solemn
other-world accents, but as a comrade He
shows himself. Alone on the lake shore in
the morning's dawn, in fisherman's garb, in
fisherman's fashion. He salutes the all-night
toilers in the boats with their own familiar

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

phrase, with the call of their craft. As a
brother fisherman He shows Himself, so that
they take His advice without question and
discover who He really is only by the great
gift He gives them. And this is the Risen
Christ ! The victor over death and sin, the
Lord of Life whom we worship !

The parable is complete. But do we un-
derstand it? ■ Indeed it would almost seem
that the marvel is not even the manner in
which Jesus showed Himself The greatest
marvel is the unbelief that makes such a reve-
lation of the Christ appear unnatural or in-
appropriate.

But why should it be hard for Christians
to understand that to be genuine is natural
to Jesus, and that His fellowship with His
friends was always, and always shall be, com-
plete ? Our Brother scorns condescension.
He is too great to need the fuss and ceremony
which our littleness imagines necessary to great-
ness. The Lord of Life comes close to our
common lives with the divine ease of a perfect

love.

[264]

THE COMPLETED BROTHERHOOD

But the parable widens; it becomes a proph-
ecy. This is the second time that Jesus taught
his disciples a lesson about their greater work
out of their common work in the fishing-boats.
And this time the lesson is taught by the
Christ, crucified and risen, ready to send His
Apostles forth armed with the power of a
completed gospel for the conquest of the
world.

The prophecy in the parable is for all time ;
it is for us even more than for the first dis-
ciples. Over and over again Christ's church
in her quest for men's souls has repeated the
experience of the Galilean disciples in their
all-night fishing. The Lord's presence seems
withdrawn. Our labor seems in vain, without
progress, without success, just a ceaseless cast-
ing of the net which ever comes back empty.
Fishing for men is like fishing for fish. There
is many a fruitless night of toil when nothing
is caught and work seems thrown away. In
other things also there is likeness. There is
ever the same dealing with a mystery beyond
our ken. The ways of the fish in the waters

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

have been studied for ages by men whose wits
have been sharpened by need of daily food,
and latterly they have been investigated with all
the appliances of science by government com-
missions. Yet the mystery remains. Who
knows, for example, why the fish that wander
in great schools are abundant one year and the
next year can scarcely be found ? Of course,
for this and other mysteries of life beneath the
waters there are theories in plenty ; but few of
them can be proved.

God alone knows the way of the fish in the
sea, and God only knows the way of human
souls. Does any one but God really know
why one generation will be responsive to His
Spirit's call and with open mind receive His
gospel of eternal life, and the next generation
will prove refractory, indifferent, shy of the
net ? Or why should one country or one city
or one congregation receive Christ's message
of salvation gladly, and another, very little
different in circumstances or mental character,
remain untouched ?

We think we can see reasons. Sometimes
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THE COMPLETED BROTHERHOOD

the reasons appear quite clear — up to a certain
point, within limited bounds. We say " The
spirit of the age is against faith," or " The min-
istry has lost spiritual power," or " Religious
methods are faulty and fail to adapt them-
selves to the need of the hour," or " Theology
needs reconstruction." And some or all of
these things may be perfectly true. Yet why
they should be true at one time and not at
another remains a mystery, and the discus-
sions concerning them and the remedies pro-
posed remind one of the talk you may hear
when a group of fishermen gather about the
fire in the evening after an unsuccessful day's
work.

The great spiritual movements which at in-
tervals agitate men are, after all, a profound
mystery. They follow a law higher than any
we are acquainted with, and obey the will of
Him whose way is in the sea and His paths
in the great waters and whose footsteps are
unknown.

Meantime what shall we do ? Shall we draw
the boats ashore and wait idly for the Lord's

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

appearance? Nay ! we know neither His day
nor His hour, but we do know that no reward
comes to the unready. Through all the night
the boats must be manned and the nets out.
Nor shall our toil be really in vain even when
it seems most fruitless. It brings always the
blessing of discipline, and keeps our souls alert,
and teaches that truest of faith which is faith-
fulness, and makes us ready for the morning.
Nor shall every night be like that one when
the disciples caught nothing. If there are no
net-trying hauls, there shall be at least enough
success to make us know that the Master is
not far away.

But we shall see some strange things in our
all-night quests, — man-made revivals, with glit-
tering equipment of boats and gear and captains
whose great " I '* sounds so loud that men can
scarcely hear the plain Lord Himself; we shall
see much threshing of the waters and appear-
ance of success, yet pitiful results when flimsy,
broken nets are actually drawn ashore.

We shall see what is even worse, — boats
whose crews deny the work for which they

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THE COMPLETED BROTHERHOOD

sailed forth, and ceasing to be fishers for souls
turn their craft into carriers of excursion parties
or form them into meaningless parades of
empty ceremony, while they quarrel with each
other for precedency.

But for honest fishers the prophecy in the
parable is bright with the strength of a great
hope. We may work in the dark now, or at
best by the dim, reflected light of the stars.
We may, we do, make mistakes. The careless
crews and the crowd ashore mock us ; perhaps
doubts disturb us. But we know that though
His face and form may be hidden for the
moment. He, the Mighty Fisherman, our
Brother, the Lord of Life, never forgets us and
is never really far away. And we know that
the sure-coming dawn shall reveal Him bring-
ing a result that shall fill our souls with awe
and thanksgiving.

When we reflect upon the place of this story,
of the all-night fishing with its morning bless-
ing ; when we remember that this is almost
the very last scene in which Jesus appears in
visible presence on earth ; when we see how

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

past and future, the assurance of the perpetual
comradeship of Jesus, and the promise of awful
power, are here linked together, then the
prophecy in the story becomes portentous.
Many a time the prophecy has been fulfilled in
part. Blessings have come from the realized
presence and manifest power of the Spirit of
the Christ. Yet the promise seems to point
toward some richer blessing than any the
Church on earth has yet known, — some morn-
ing after darkest night, bright with the very
Presence of Him whom the disciples saw be-
side Galilee, speaking with such power that
our hearts shall leap with joy and, awestruck,
we shall say, " It is the Lord ! He has
come !

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PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon
the tower, and will watch to see what He will say
unto me, and what I shall answer when I am
reproved. — Habakkuk ii. i .

PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

What is prayer ? The readiest answer would
be, " Prayer is asking something from God."

But this defines prayer only in its narrowest
sense. We must remember that prayer has
a human use which has colored our idea of its
meaning. We ask things of our fellow-men ;
we pray to them as truly and quite as often as
we pray to God. Even now people sometimes
say " I pray you." Several centuries ago they
commonly said " I pray thee," when we would
say " Please," and always expressing a request,
always asking something. The old use of the
word is enshrined in legal documents. A
petition to a Court of Law ends, " Your peti-
tioners do ever pray."

Asking, is indeed prayer : and because this
is the first, the most common sort of prayer
we forget that prayer to God may become
something else and something more than ask-
ing. At the outset we becloud the issue; we
^8 [ 273 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

think of prayer only as asking and thus we
raise the questions, " Is it of any use to pray ?
Does God hear? Does He answer? Will He
give what we ask ? "

The old theology called Calvinism — though
it is much older than Calvin, and in its most
rigid form more extreme than anything he
taught — viewed God as an absolute Sov-
ereign, self-limited in His sovereignty by His
own predestination from all eternity of every-
thing that comes to pass. The predestinarians
were devout men ; they believed in prayer,
they practised prayer. And yet, to the ques-
tions " Will God hear our prayers ? Will He
answer ? " their reply was, " Yes, if we ask
according to His will/' And while that doc-
trine has been a comfort to many Christians
and a conservator of faith to those able to dis-
cern the deep truth in it, to many others it has
been a stumbling-block. It has clipped the
wings of their prayer ; it has left them in doubt
about the real efficacy of prayer.

Into the midst of these doubts, reinforcing
them, the new scientific philosophy has come.

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PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

It has not been often noticed — indeed it almost
seems as though the notice of it were carefully
avoided ; but is it not true that the modern
scientific philosophy is practically, not only
a new but an extreme Calvinism ?

In place of a Sovereign God this philosophy
puts an absolutely Sovereign Law of Nature.
In place of predestination it teaches a re-
morseless evolution going on from eternity to
eternity, ordering all things according to an
inevitable process, under the pressure of an iron
necessity smothering the cry of feeble man to
the Powers above.

Now, few of us are either theologians or
philosophers. We have at most some super-
ficial, second-hand acquaintance with the history
of religious thought or the doctrines of the
day. Yet percolating down through the mental
strata of the times these doctrines affect us all ;
and in nothing do they affect us more quickly
than in our attitude toward prayer. The ques-
tion about prayer comes in a new form. No
longer is it simply " Will God hear ? Will He
answer P " But the question now is, " Can God

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

hear ? Can He answer ? " Can the Being who
fills the immensity of the universe hear us when
we pray ? Can He whose impartial, eternal
Law rules everywhere change one jot or tittle
of that fixed and unalterable order, or allow its
majestic march to swerve in the least because
of our puny asking ? If we follow the path
of a narrow logic, it is easy to make prayer
seem useless, hopeless.

But the new knowledge of our time suggests
something beside God's vastness and the rigid-
ity of His law. More and more the absurdity
of attempting to measure the universe in the
pint cup of our little human logic is becoming
evident ; less and less is it possible to think of
God as an impassive Sovereign throned in dis-
tant skies, or as an impersonal Force acting
mechanically upon all things. Our new knowl-
edge discloses something which can only be
called the intimacy of God with every atom of
His creation. We discover — and our grow-
ing knowledge makes the discovery growingly
impressive — that the Power which holds the
universe embraces its minutest particle. The

[276]

PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

dust which we brush from our clothes is not
different from star dust. We dare no longer
call anything " little." Not even the micro-
scope can find a particle that has escaped the
touch of God.

Most significant of all, we find that the mys-
tery of Life is larger than we dreamed. We
scarcely dare speak of the ground under our
feet as " dead." And yet the secret of the
principle of Life more and more retires into
some evident kinship with those mighty An-
gels of the Lord, like Light, which pervade
infinity.

The significance of Life deepens ; the mean-
ing of that expression of Life which we call
" Mind " or " Spirit " widens. The goings of
the Eternal Spirit, in which we live and move
and have our being, are heard as He walks in
His garden of our earth in the cool of the day.
The intimacy of God with His world and with
our souls takes a new solemnitv.

The Fatherhood of God is not a doctrine of
modern science ; but the conception of God
which science is — it may be unconsciously —

[ '^11 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

shaping can be reasonably described only in
terms of Fatherhood.

Now, to us Christians the thought of God as
the Almighty Father is nothing new. It is a
teaching which pervades all the Bible from be-
ginning to end ; it is the very centre and soul
of the Gospel of Christ. But the new knowl-
edge of the intimacy of God with His world
and with life ought to help us to understand
how absolutely, how precisely Jesus meant
what He said when He taught that God is
Our Father.

We have not always understood Jesus. With
minds confused, sometimes by a teaching of
theology which made God seem a Sovereign so
far above and so foreign to ourselves that no
real Fatherhood was possible ; sometimes by
gloomy, scientific dogmas representing God as
some vast, unknown, impersonal Force, Jesus*
Gospel of the Fatherhood of God has appeared
only figurative, sentimental, or at best appli-
cable only to select souls.

But Jesus verily meant all He said, and all
that great word implies when He told us to

[278]

PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

call God " your Father which is in heaven."
Yes ! in Heaven, in all His Universe !

And this thought of God changes the whole
idea of prayer. Prayer ceases to be begging
for something from some Power outside of and
foreign to ourselves. Prayer becomes some-
thing more than petition to the Governor of
the world, and something different from mere
asking.

Jesus tells us, " When ye pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do," — do not pray
like beggars teasing a superior — "for they
think that they shall be heard for their much
speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them :
for your Father knoweth what things ye have
need of before ye ask Him^

It is true, a dumb Force cannot change in
answer to prayer. A Sovereign who is simply
the head of the government must keep coldly
and impartially within the limits of the letter
of the law. But a Sovereign Father whose
name and nature is Sovereign Love, whose in-
timacy with His children is that they are part
of Himself, easily finds ways within His law

[ 279]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

to answer His children's cry. And since He
is Father, the very fact that He knows before-
hand what we need instead of making prayer
needless makes prayer natural.

A new aspect of prayer is brought to light
in this great word of Jesus. God's side of
prayer is revealed. A Father loves to have
His children talk with Him and freely tell
Him their wants. Prayer is asking for the
things we need from Our Father. But prayer
to a Father must always be more than asking;
it must be the expression of the fellowship of
love. Prayer to a Father is a communion in
which two persons share.

God always answers our prayers. He an-
swers them in the spirit and after the manner
of a Father who knows our needs before we
speak. The expression of our heart's desire
always moves Him, because it is the desire of
His own children ; and though He may not
always give the very thing for which we ask ;
because the wisdom of Divine Love knows
what we really need, yet He never gives us a
stone for bread.

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PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

If prayer were mere asking, and if we could
have every whim satisfied by teasing, then the
power of prayer would be a fatal power. The
real power of prayer is given to those who
have learned that prayer is more than ask-
ing. The real power of prayer belongs to
those who know prayer as fellowship with
Our Father.

But before we can enjoy the privileges or
experience the powers of children, we must
take our place within the family life. The re-
lation between Father and children is mutual ;
the blessing of it, the efficiency of it rests in
fellowship. You have no right to stand out-
side the family, unbelieving and loveless to-
ward your Father, and then demand what you
may deem your rights.

There is a treatment of the doctrine of God's
Fatherhood which ought to make those guilty
of it ashamed and afraid. To ignore the mutu-
ality of our relationship with Him ; to demand
the advantages while we refuse the obligations ;
to care only for what we think we ought to get
from Our Father while we deny Him our

[281]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

love, our submission, and our service, — this
is nothing less than treason. This is the great
sin from which all lesser sins proceed. There
is a dreadful, as truly as there is a blessed as-
pect of the Fatherhood of God. Because He
is a God of love He is a jealous God.

But inside the family, in our place as loving
and loyal children, not only have we the right
to pray, but prayer is the natural, the sponta-
neous expression of our fellowship with Our
Father. Since God is Our Father, it is not
too much to say that our prayers may influence
Him, — yes, and thus move the hand that
moves the world.

The Weisshorn is one of the highest and,
many travellers say, the most beautiful of the
snow-clad peaks of the Alps. Professor Tyn-
dall in his vivid description of his ascent of
that mountain, tells how from hour to hour
of toilsome and perilous climb the summit,
though often in view seemed no nearer and
he almost despaired of the possibility of reach-
ing it, until, rounding the sharp shoulder of a
ridge, there it stood, in all the unspeakable

[ 282 ]

PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

glory of its spotless whiteness, only a few
yards away !

I think a full experience of the meaning of
prayer will be something like that. We climb
toward its holy and beautiful crown, toiling,
often doubting, yet always climbing, until we
reach the point where we can speak no more,
when our asking seems at an end. We come
to some place in our experience like that of the
prophet Habakkuk. The sins of his people
troubled him ; he cried to God against them.
And the answer came in a vision of judgment
so fearful that the prophet's soul stood aghast.
In passionate words of prayer he protests,
until, alarmed at his own freedom and pre-
sumption, he breaks off abruptly and keeps
silence. He can say no more to God, — he
can only say to himself, " I will stand upon
my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will
look forth to see whai He will say unto me!''
Out of the very agony of his prayer he has
grasped the highest truth about prayer, — the
truth that prayer is a real communion, and
that prayer is not alone our speaking to God,

[ 283 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

but that it is also God speaking to us. Only
when we have come to the place where we stop
asking and say, " I will look forth to see what
He will say unto me/' " I will hear what God
the Lord will speak," only then do we ap-
proach the summit of prayer. But then, the
beautiful summit is close at hand ; then we
shall know that prayer is mutual, prayer is
communion.

We believe that God is Our Father : in our
hearts, in our better and clearer moments we
believe God knows us for His own children.
The moment we do thus believe and accept
the truth of our relationship with God, com-
munion between Him and our soul becomes a
fact even though we may not be clearly con-
scious of it. The consciousness of it waits
upon our patience and our willingness to be
still and listen. We shall know the blessing
of praver when we learn the practice of silence
before God, waiting for Him to speak to our
souls.

Too often our prayers are mere words,
habitual phrases uttered while the mind wan-

[ 284 ]

PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

ders elsewhere ; the spirit may be willing while
the flesh is weak. And even when most sin-
cere and most earnest our prayers may be, not
too long, but too full of our own words, too
absorbed in eager and continued asking.

Did you ever study the prayers of Jesus ?
There is but one, the prayer for His disciples
at the Last Supper, which has any length ; and
that is really short when we consider how much
it says. His other prayers are scarcely more
than sentences; and all of them, even the great
prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John, are
like fragments of a conversation. The prayers
of Jesus always make us feel that what He says
is for the sake of what His Father is going
to say to Him. The effect upon us of the
prayers of Jesus might be likened to that which
we feel when a friend in the same room with
us talks through the telephone, and we know
that some one else, unseen and unheard by us,
is listening and answering.

The recorded prayers of Jesus are brief, they
are fragments of one side of a conversation ;
but we know that His prayer hours were not

[285] •

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

hurried or abridged. With days as busy as
those of the busiest of us. He passed whole
nights in prayer. And while we dare not even
wish the report of those all-night vigils might
have been given us, because we feel that they
were too sacred and personal for our hearing,
the manner of His prayer which we do behold
makes us certain that the all-night prayers of
Jesus were communion more than asking, —
listening while His Father spoke, more than
utterance of His own words.

But will God answer? Will He speak so
that we can hear and understand ? Will any
word or voice come to us out of the dark and
the silence ? Now, there are ways of speaking
without words. A friend speaks to us with a
look. Nature speaks to some of us without
audible voice when we hold our own thought
quiet so that our souls can listen. We say
" Conscience speaks within us." And God
can make your spirit understand if you will
but keep silence and wait for Him. Perhaps
you may say, " This is only mysticism, and
only possible to certain mystical temperaments."

[ 286 ]

PRAYER IS MORE THAN ASKING

But, no ! This is communion with Our Father
in its most practical working. How can we
know the reality of communion if we fill all
the moments — too often brief and hurried
moments — of our prayers with our asking
and then never wait for the answer? How
can we know what He, Our Father, will say
to us while we persist in doing all the talking
ourselves ? I believe many of us would find,
if we should recall our experiences, that those
of our prayers which were most clearly and
certainly answered were ejaculations, like the
prayers of Jesus, uttered in the midst of our
daily work, perhaps not even spoken aloud ;
and then, while in silent and waiting faith our
souls kept still, the answer came in some bright
path seen through our maze of apparently
hopeless perplexity, or in some clear vision
of duty, or some deep peace in the midst of
trouble, or strength and joy of soul where all
had been weakness and doubt.

The practice of silence before God is the
practice of the Presence of God. At its least
and lowest the respect, the reverence we owe

[ 287 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Our Father should make us wait and hear
what He will speak. Silence before God is
but the common sense of an actual faith ; and
a wholesome discipline, if we are inclined to
be wordy or tempted to be eloquent, or if we
find ourselves framing our prayers in conven-
tional and hackneyed phrase. Silence before
God is escape from ourselves into Our Father's
presence.

Yes ! Prayer is more than asking ; prayer
is the fellowship of the spirit of the Father
with the souls of His children.

We shall know the power and the blessing
of prayer when we know the reality of the
bond which joins us to Our Father in Heaven,
and when in humble faith we confess ourselves
His real and honest children.

[ 288 ]

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

We walk by faith, not by sight.

2 Corinthians v. 7.

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

>Ve are quite ready to confess that faith is
not easy. It seems a matter of course that
faith must be tested, proved, disciplined. The
" trial of faith " in this sense can be accepted
without trespassing upon the religious proper-
ties. But does not something different some-
times arise in our soul, — something we are
not quite ready to speak out loud, but which
if put into words would say, " Faith is itself a
trial. Faith is a hardship *' ?

Have you never asked yourself, "Why
should I be compelled to believe in what I
cannot see ? Is faith real ? Is it reasonable ?
Is there any use in it?"

The last question alone is pertinent, because,
whether faith is reasonable or not, it certainly
is real. A larger part of life than we often
think rests upon faith. Even as a trial faith
is always with us, and faith as a trial is by no
means confined to the religious life. Some

[291]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

of you who are mothers will go to the city to-
morrow. You will leave your house and your
children to the care of servants or friends.
You will trust these precious possessions to
those who are out of your sight and your
reach. All day long you will walk by faith
and not by sight. Is this never a hardship ?

You are a man of business. You go to
your office and every moment of your busy
day, even when it seems to yourself and to
others that your hand alone is on the lever
guiding the machine you are really, in ways
large and small, trusting other people who are
out of your sight and beyond your control ;
and when you return home in the evening you
know that enterprises started during the day,
which closely concern your personal interests
have passed into the management of men
whom you do not see and can only trust.

In general this does not trouble us. Indeed,
it has become an axiom that, not only must
business be carried on by faith, but that faith
is a most advantageous foundation for affairs
and one which greatly enlarges the power of

[ 292]

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

action. The walk by faith and not by sight
works well, as a rule, until some trouble, some
panic of distrust takes possession of men.
And then, does not faith itself become a trial
hard to bear ?

Few of us concern ourselves with the prob-
lems of the universe ; yet few of us escape
moments when, the feeling of our seeming in-
significance and our real helplessness in the
grasp of the mighty forces of nature comes
over us with dark oppression. This life so
precious to us, the life which is our own sen-
sitive self, hangs poised upon the unknown
will — or caprice, as it sometimes seems —
of mysterious and awful powers. A slight
mistake in the adjustment of ourselves to our
circumstances is enough to quench our life
like a snuffed candle. We walk, because we
must, by faith in the midst of constantly pres-
ent and unseen dangers. And if faith is sel-
dom a conscious trial, then this is only because
use and wont have dulled our sense of what
we call " the uncertainties of life."

But the sense of these uncertainties does
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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

awake at times. Some malignant flash out of
the portentous shadows that flicker about our
path, some " accident," some harsh grazing
of terrifying peril, makes us cry out against
the lack of light; our soul revolts against the
dim lamp of faith which alone is given to
guide us.

The trials of faith which meet us along our
common earthly way ought to make it evident
that the difficulties of Christian faith and the
burdens of it are not artificial or unnecessary,
though it may be doubted whether the facts
about faith in common life make Christian
faith any easier or any the less a trial.

The trial of our faith as Christians is rooted
deep in the nature of the faith itself and also
in our own nature. Here we are in this world,
— this material, apparently substantial world, —
and we are living in a fleshly body which cor-
responds with the material world and has
grown out of it. We are part and parcel of
the visible, tangible, to-be-felt things in the
midst of which we are placed. Our knowl-
edge comes to us largely through our physical

[ 294]

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

senses. We know what we can see and touch
and handle and measure and weigh, in terms
of length, breadth, thickness, and heaviness.
All else seems uncertain and problematical.

We are, indeed, constantly learning that
there are vast realms of truth beyond the grasp
of our bare senses. Even the Multiplication
Table, which every child learns at school, has
in it actually spiritual implications. But we
shut our eyes against the hint of the spiritual.
We value the Multiplication Table for the
sake of what we call its " practical " — which
means its earthly and sensible — use. The
most of us always, and all of us for the most
of the time, do positively shrink from what-
ever leads above or beyond the well-defined
bounds of life in the flesh on a visible, solid
earth. There alone we breathe easily and are
comfortably at home. The very stars are
acceptable because they are visible and solid
amidst the mystery which we call " empty
space." We live in the body; we are of the
earth, earthy ; even the thoughts of that spirit-
ual thing which we call " mind " are colored,

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

warpedj formed, fashioned, by the influences
of our fleshly and earthly existence. And now
to us, bodily earthites, comes the message of
the spiritual, invisible, eternal, ever present,
and Almighty God !

The idea of God is a necessary idea, which
forces itself upon us ; and yet the idea of God
contradicts all our experience, all the custom
and teaching of our senses. We must believe
in God. Only the fool says in his heart.
There is no God. And yet is the belief easy?

We may have been trained, or we may have
trained ourselves into a sort of mechanical
acceptance of a credal formula ; but when we
really try to think or feel our creed when we
try it alone, in the recesses of our own soul,
are we never troubled? We need be neither
philosophers nor theologians to discover that
faith is a trial. Even children often find
faith a heavier trial than their elders are aware.
Some of us can never forget the spiritual tor-
tures through which we passed in childhood or
early youth.

The human mind, unable to escape God,
[296]

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

yet recoiling with confused, terrified amaze-
ment from the thought of One so foreign to
fleshly experience, seeks ways of escape. One
way is that of the idolatry which has fastened
itself upon the religion of so large a portion of
mankind. This is the primitive way, charac-
teristic of the childhood of the race. Another,
which we might call the decadent way of super-
cultivation, is the denial of God*s Personality,
the degradation of the idea of God into the idea
of an Unknown Force. After its fashion this
is as fleshly as idolatry, because it attempts the
elimination of every living touch of God upon
our own living souls, and compels us to think
only of some blind Power working upon the
materials of which our bodies are made. Both
idolatry and agnosticism are, after all, just
pathetic protests against the hardships of faith.
The Christian revelation, — the proclamation
of God manifest in the flesh in the person of
Jesus, God's Christ, — is certainly an aid to
faith. The craving which idolatry represents ;
the longing for a God who can be seen and
touched, is answered in Christ. Yet Christ

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

does not lift the burden of faith. He makes
the burden a more personal and pressing one.
The Person of Christ Himself makes a strange
demand upon our faith. And the hardship of
the demand is little, if not all relieved when
we deny Christ's Virgin birth and His resur-
rection and His miracles, — in short, when we
deny Christ altogether and try to content our-
selves with a human Jesus. He becomes only
more inexplicable thus. The fact remains that,
through Him, a flood of light from the Un-
seen and the Spiritual has descended upon
this world, — a flood of light which neither
the semi-paganism of the Church in its dark
ages nor the cult of a semi-materialistic agnos-
ticism in our later and more sophisticated time
has been able to quench.

Account for it as you may, it must be con-
fessed that Jesus has opened a new world to
faith. He has enlarged both our conception
of a world to come and our conception of life
in this present world. Faith must hereafter
lay hold of relations which have been estab-
lished between the spiritual and the earthly.

[298]

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

The face of Jesus is a mirror in which we see
our true life. We discover ourselves and,
behold, we are children of the Unseen, the
Spiritual God !

The discovery reverses the familiar order
mirrored from our earthly experience, and
shows that the things which are seen are tem-
porary and the things which are unseen are
eternal. Christian Faith calls to us with im-
perative demand, and says, " Lay hold upon
the eternal realities ; clasp hands with your
unseen Heavenly Father!" And we are yet
in the body, living on this visible, material
earth ! Is faith no trial ? Is there no hard-
ship in faith ?

But is not the trial, the hardship, the strife,
the struggle, which Faith calls us into pre-
cisely that which we most need ? A little
reflection upon the nature and meaning of
the gospel of Jesus is enough to prove the
need.

We say that Jesus reveals God to us. And
this is true. This is why Jesus is the Christ,
and this proves Him the Christ. In a true,

[ 299]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

visible, living body of flesh and blood, in a
true human life like our own, Jesus shows us
the Father, That great word, which contains
the soul of the gospel of Jesus, needs no prov-
ing. The spirit within us leaps to meet its
message. Heart and soul cry out for the Liv-
ing God, and when we hear Jesus say "Your
Father ! " we find the explanation of our-
selves. And we love the Christ who in a
life like our own, subject to our limitations,
tempted in all points like as we are, exhales
from His very humanity the righteousness
and love of God. We see God in our Brother
Jesus, and in our Brother we behold our
Father.

But this is not all. In Jesus we see God
through a life which, human as it is, most
evidently springs from something infinitely
larger than this life of the body in a world
of dust. We feel his kinship with the spiritual
mysteries and majesties of the eternal world
even while He walks upon the earth. He
declares that He has come to give Eternal
Life ; and His own life has in it that which

[ 300]

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

compels our recognition of something in Him
which cannot be measured by any earthly
rules.

A grave doubt may be permitted whether
the credal definitions and affirmations of the
divinity of Christ have not served to hide
rather than clarify this mysterious, this awful
kinship of Jesus with the Spiritual and Eternal.
It is something felt too deeply for adequate
expression in words. Through all the cen-
turies down to to-day men of all sorts, even
unbelieving men, have felt and do feel it.
And this kinship of Jesus with the spiritual
and eternal, with the Larger Life above this
earth, has had more power over men than His
moral teaching. In fact, His moral teaching
compels reverence because of the awful author-
ity behind it. In the doctrine of Jesus' right-
eousness and love appear as mighty angels of
eternity. You may, if you think it will help
you, leave the miracles of His mighty works
out of the account when you try to understand
Jesus ; but this greater miracle inherent in His
nature and character remains inexpugnable.

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

The message of the very life of Jesus,
of His human life as our Brother, calls us
toward a life larger than any native to this
world. It is the message of the Life of God,
His Father and ours. And clearly, as He
teaches that this Eternal Life when received
from Him is ours now, here, while we are
still in the body, with equal clearness does His
message imply that Eternal Life must go on,
eternally growing in a wider, freer, more real
and true existence than any possible in this
world.

As Jesus is about to leave this world. His
parting prayer for His brethren who are God's
children is, " Father, I will that they also
whom Thou hast given me be with me where
I am ; that they may behold my glory which
Thou hast given me ! "

Such, then, is the nature of our Christian
life, our life as brethren of Jesus and children
of Our Father. Yet here we are, still in the
flesh, with bodies half animal, and moulded
out of the stuflf" that must return to the dust
of this material world upon which we live ;

[ 302]

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

here we are, part of the busy, swarming life,
— the life of the world which takes the tem-
porary things seriously as though they were
the only reality. We live in a world of sight
and sound and touch and sense and body and
birth and death, where everything tends to
make mere earthites of us. And we are not
earthites : we are in the world, but not of
it; we are children of the Infinite, Eternal,
Spiritual God ! And our real life, the life
that is going to endure and grow into true
freedom and greatness, is not earthly but
heavenly.

We must conquer the Canaan of this our
inheritance as children of God. Faith is the
strong right hand by which we may grasp our
own. Let us thank God for the hardships
which make faith hardy ; and for the diffi-
culties which compel faith to be daring !

Moreover we need initiation into the ways
and instincts of the Family to which we belong.
The lessons of this learning cannot wait. Here
on earth we must master the knowledge of those
rudiments of eternal life without which we

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

would be unfit for its larger phase. Here
only, amid the contrasts and conflicts between
flesh and spirit, can these lessons be rightly
learned. Faith is our schoolmaster. The teach-
ing of Faith is not easy : it was not meant to be
easy. Faith is a stern discipline, training us in
the mastery of reality.

It is never easy to believe in the Unseen and
the Spiritual ; yet even without Christ's gospel
we might know, and we do know, that the real
things in human life are spiritual and unseen.
These minds within us that can reach up to the
stars ; this conscience that whispers to us the
truth of such an immaterial thing as Righteous-
ness ; these souls capable of a Love immeas-
urably beyond any fleshly love ; this spirit
within us, — is not this the real thing which
makes us men and not brutes ^

The gospel of Christ comes with its strong
message answering the vague cravings, the
undeveloped spiritual instincts, of the real
human in us. It tells us, "You are children
of God; your life is His Hfe, eternal life!"
Faith guides our hands to reach the gracious

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THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

gift. Faith strengthens our arms to grasp the
inestimable blessing.

In the nature of the case the discipline of
Faith cannot be always easy or gentle. Like
the children that we are, we whimper; we com-
plain; we cry out, "O Lord, I don't like Faith i
Faith is too hard. I want to see. I want to
walk by sight ! " No ! We cannot walk by
sight, we must walk by Faith, because " This
is the victory that overcometh the world, even
our Faith ! "

It is more than doubtful whether we should
find it easier to lay hold of God if we could see
Him. The experience of Jesus with his dis-
ciples shows that visible presence does not
make the way of faith easier. The one com-
plaint of Jesus against His disciples while He
was with them was, their "little faith." When
He left them and ascended to His Father in
the unseen heaven, their faith grew larger and
stronger. Faith is at home only while teaching
spirit to lay hold of Spirit ; and Faith exults
when the spirit in us grasps Our Father, who is
Spirit.

20 [ 305 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Love will indeed outlast Faith, but Love
will not reign supreme until Faith has made
our Father's Presence real and His love un-
questioned. Then only will Faith's task be
finished.

And Faith must have us now, while we are
children, when the lasting impress can yet be
made upon our souls. Now, through the hard-
ship of faith, we must begin to learn the differ-
ence between the illusions of the flesh in a world
of perishing material, and the life of Our
Father's house, where such immaterial and spir-
itual things as righteousness, love, truth, beauty,
are the real riches.

Faith is the cross upon which unreality dies
and the true and eternal realities are revealed.

" Thou say'st, ' Take up thy Cross,*
O man, and follow Me !
The night is black, the feet are slack,
Yet we would follow Thee.

" But, O dear Lord, we cry

That we Thy face could see,
Thy blessed face, one moment's space —
Then we might follow Thee !
[3°6]

THE HARDSHIP OF FAITH

" O heavy Cross — of faith
In what we cannot see !
As once of yore, Thyself restore
And help to follow Thee.

" If not as once Thou cam'st
In true humanity,
Come yet as Guest within the breast
That burns to follow Thee.

" Within our heart of hearts
In nearest nearness be ;
Set up Thy throne within Thine own ;
Go, Lord : we follow Thee."

1^07 ]

MEMORIAL DAY

And it came to pass after these things, that
Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord,
died, being an hundred and ten years old.

And they buried him in the border of his in-
heritance in Timnath-serah, which is in Mount
Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash.

And Israel served the Lord all the days of
Joshua, and all the days of the elders that over-
lived Joshua, and which had known all the works
of the Lord that He had done for Israel.

Joshua xxiv. 29—31.

MEMORIAL DAYi

The going forth of Israel from Egypt and
their settlement in Caanan was a revolutionary
event whose results reach down to the distant
shores of our own time. Great ideas were born
with the birth of that little nation, ideas which
have had a mighty influence in the world. To
say nothing of the religious principles which
have descended through Israel as a heritage for
mankind, it is of special interest to us at present
to recall the fact that the idea of a genuine
nationality was first incarnated in the Hebrew
people.

The world of the days of the Exodus might
be compared with Europe before the French
Revolution. Instead of nations there were

1 The author of these sermons is Chaplain of McKinley Post,
Grand Army of the Republic. It has been customary for the
Post to attend Divine worship at Riverdale on the Sunday pre-
ceding Memorial Day. This sermon was preached on one of
those occasions.

[3"]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

dynasties. The kings owned their subjects ;
the mass of the people, who were often of
diverse races, were Httle better than slaves.
The armies of these empires were composed
of members of a military caste, and wars were
affairs of the rulers.

Do we understand what it meant to that an-
cient world when the people of Israel became
lost to view in the deserts of Sinai ? Do we
realize what a revolutionary force was let loose .^
Here was a people without an earthly king,
owning allegiance to Almighty God alone; a
people without an aristocracy, whose humblest
member was by right of birth a son of Israel
and therefore a full citizen ; a people whose
army was composed of all its able-bodied
men !

And the discipline of those forty wilderness
years — the severely simple life, the stern
regimen of spiritual, moral, and physical train-
ing— was making this people a nation knit
together in all its parts, a true commonwealth,
a social organism of living brotherhood, and a
nation of such soldiers as the world of that day

[ 312]

MEMORIAL DAY

had never yet seen. The national armies of
modern times, such armies as those of our Civil
War, had their prototype in the embattled host
of Israel.

Our text, with its mingled note of pride
and pathos, describes a moment in the history
of Israel which corresponds to that in which
we are now living. The wars which won
Canaan and a country for the nation are past.
Joshua, the incomparable leader, dies. There
are elders who survive him, who were perhaps
mere boys when they stood in the ranks of the
nation*s victorious army. Now they are vet-
erans, and they remember; they have known
all the works of the Lord that He has done
for Israel.

Can we not see the similitude between these
comrades of Joshua and that Grand Army of
which we are the rapidly waning remnant?
The similitude does not end here. These vet-
erans recall the days of old. In memory they
live over again their battles and victories ; but
through the memory runs an undertone of
solemn reminder to generations yet to come,

[ 313]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

— a warning that the mighty impulse whence
those victories came, the impulse which alone
can give future victories, may easily be lost.
" And Israel served the Lord all the days of
Joshua; and all the days of the elders [the
veterans] who overlived Joshua, which had
known all the works of the Lord that He had
done for Israel."

Would to God it might be so with us !
Would to God the veterans of our Grand
Army might be such witnesses holding up high
and effective example of godliness and faithful-
ness to the younger men of our time !

I believe we do feel such an obligation rest-
ing upon us. We feel it more keenly than the
world outside our own ranks can understand.
And if our influence is not all we could wish
there are solemn reasons for the seeming fail-
ure. Our Civil War was terribly destructive
of life ; the sacrifices called for were extreme,
and in the nature of the case they were to a
sad extent the sacrifice of our best, our bravest,
our noblest young men.

No small part of the pathos of our Memorial
[3H]

MEMORIAL DAY

season is the fact — a fact which we veterans
know too well — that we who survive are not
the best of those who with us went forth to
battle.

We are justly proud of our association with
those heroic souls who so freely gave them-
selves and their lives ; we esteem it a high and
a sufficient honor that we stood shoulder to
shoulder with them and strove honestly, as
they did, to give our nation's cause full meed
of faithful service. But when memory brings
back their faces, we know that among the
comrades who fell at our side were many who
could ill be spared ; whose lives, had they
lived, would have been an invaluable rein-
forcement to the cause of God and our country.

There is another reason why the impulse
which sustained the nation in its dark hour
has waned, — as the similar impulse was evi-
dently waning at the time when Joshua died.
And that reason is now, as it was then, the
success of the cause for which we battled.

The people of this country did not thor-
oughly become an undivided and complete

[3«S]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

nation until after the victorious termination of
the Civil War. And then the consolidation of
the country into one mighty nationality reach-
ing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the
Lakes to the Gulf, ushered in a period of un-
exampled material prosperity. Ever since the
war the people of this country have been so
busy with business, so drunk with the excite-
ment of great industrial and financial enter-
prises,— and latterly so absorbed in spending
the wealth created, that it has been hard in-
deed for any voice of high moral or spiritual
endeavor to make itself heard.

A reaction has come at last, and not a
moment too soon. A wave of reform has
overspread the land ; a public conscience is
apparently aroused.

But even this awakening has its dangers,
one of the most evident of which is that a
vicarious conscience is a cheap and often a
frightfully mischievous possession. It costs
nothing; it is often positively pleasurable,
and also most morally deadening, to indulge
in spasms of conscience for other people, and

MEMORIAL DAY

gloat over the exposure of sins from which we
ourselves have been mercifully preserved.

More than any reform of abuses, we need,
in this land of ours, a revival of personal re-
pentance which shall make every man feel the
burden of his own sins, and make us, each for
himself, humbly willing to return to God and
seek His righteousness.

Perhaps it may be wholesome to look back-
ward at things as they were, as some of us
well remember them on the eve of the Civil
War. No one can reasonably pretend that
those older times were faultless. Politics were
far from being pure ; political controversies
were full of peculiar bitterness, even the pre-
vailing religiousness of the people of that day
was not without its taint of conventionality
and lack of true Christian brotherhood. And
yet, recalling the days immediately preceding
the war and comparing them with the present
time, we can see that certain things were pres-
ent then which now we sorely lack.

Political issues rightly apprehended are al-
ways moral issues. But the political questions

[ 317 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

of that period were such that they were clearly-
seen and vividly felt as moral questions. And
what is of more consequence, the moral ear-
nestness, the religious fervor needful for meet-
ing those issues dwelt deeply in the minds and
hearts of the people. The questions before
the people involved the right or wrong of
human slavery, and back of that they involved
the very life of the Republic.

Not only were these questions large and
vital, but their largeness and their living force
were so evident that no one could escape
their impact. And the mass of the people
had neither wish nor thought of escaping the
responsibilities of the hour.

I said, a moral earnestness and a religious
fervor were present in the minds and hearts of
the people. I wonder if any of us remember
the religious revival which swept the land in
1857 and the following years? Very different
from anything which is now called " a revival '*
was that tidal wave of spiritual awakening.
There were no evangelists, few or none of the
meetings were advertised, no patent methods

[318]

MEMORIAL DAY

were employed, but a strange power spread
from church to church, from one community
to another. There was little outward excite-
ment, and no effort made to produce either
excitement or sensation. But the impression
was deep, solemn, searching. I think it rested
chiefly upon regular churchgoers, — though
this would not mean what it means to-day,
because non-churchgoers in that time were few
and far between.

That spiritual impulse formed the character
and remained deep and strong in the breasts
of a multitude of young men who a few years
later were to be found in the ranks of our
armies ; and it helped to color the thoughts
and feelings and purposes of the people
generally.

The Revival of 1857 was but one of the
fervid impulses of that time. Every one
knows something of the deeply religious tone
of the Abolitionist propaganda, even when it
came into conflict with established orthodoxies.
The very politics of the time took a tone of
more than worldly importance. The Kansas-

[ 319 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Nebraska controversy touched the deepest feel-
ing of the whole country. I well remember
how a pastor of a large congregation drew
upon himself the bitter criticism of a minority,
and awakened the enthusiasm of the mass of
his people, by proposing from his pulpit a
subscription to buy Sharp's rifles to arm the
Free State men in Kansas.

The first Lincoln campaign was like a cru-
sade with its strong enthusiasm, and its pro-
cessions of " Wide Awakes " with their torches
and semi-uniforms. Many a boy learned
enough miHtary drill in those processions to
be of good service to him a few months later;
and over and above the drill he drank deeply
of that solemn, that almost religious spirit
which he carried with him into the army when
he became a soldier.

In its turn, this moral, this religious fervor
was aided by the prevailing simplicity of life.
There were comparatively few rich men, and
the richest of them would scarcely be counted
wealthy to-day. There was little luxury even
in well-to-do homes. The amusements after

[ 320 ]

MEMORIAL DAY

which people run so madly to-day were either
unknown or they were frowned upon. Life
was serious : at least, it was serious compared
with the life of to-day.

You, comrades, remember how largely the
ranks of our armies were filled with boys. It
is a fact shown by the records that the largest
number of enlistments were at the age of eigh-
teen,— which, as we well know, often meant
seventeen or even sixteen. Is this to be ac-
counted for on the score of mere youthful en-
thusiasm or boyish love of adventure ? We
who remember, we who perhaps were ourselves
boys when we enlisted, would scarcely accept
such an explanation. We know that the boys
still went into the army after the first enthu-
siasm had cooled and the grim nature of the
business of war had become sadly evident. It
would be nearer the mark to say that the
temper of that time matured men early. There
was a vein of sternness in that time ; the sense
of duty and of responsibility grew early in
young hearts.

And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, the

[321]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

boys remained boys, with the freshness and
light-heartedness of youth, even after manhood
overtook them. The simplicity of their up-
bringing had not prematurely robbed life of
its bloom. In a double sense our Grand
Army was an army of boys. We called each
other, our officers called us, " Boys." And
that elastic spirit of youth carried us through
hardship and suffering, and made us cheerful
in the midst of ghastly peril, as no moulding
of ironclad drill could have done. But under-
neath all the youthful light-heartedness the
sense of duty, the stern devotion to the cause,
the high consent to sacrifice remained ; and
the brightest examples were often seen in those
youngest in years.

Such a war as ours was an awful use for the
devotion of such young manhood : only a
supreme emergency could justify it. But men
felt that the very life of the nation was at
stake ; and the stern temper of the time not
only justified the sacrifice but glorified it.
The young man who in that crisis stayed at
home did not save his life ; he risked the

[ 322]

MEMORIAL DAY

losing of that self-respect which is the sweetest
thing in life. The young lives given for God
and country were the lives truly saved.

Their memory has become a precious treas-
ure, a heritage for future years. Our Memo-
rial Day is the reminder of it. And we have
need to recall the spirit of the time out of
which our Grand Army arose in order to
catch the true spirit and the real sacredness of
this Memorial season.

A comparison between the times and the
impulses out of which our Nation's greatest
sacrifices were made and the times in which we
are now living ought also to be profitable for
its present-day lesson.

Let us frankly admit that there was much
in that older period which we would not wish
to call back again. Let us thankfully acknowl-
edge that the world has made a great advance
during the almost half a century which has
gone by. Let us bless God that the sacrifices,
the blood and tears of the generation of our
youth have not been in vain.

And yet we cannot but wish that the higher

[ 323 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

and finer elements of that life of a former day
might be revived and perpetuated. We pay
a ruinous price for material prosperity if we
pay in terms of cheapened conscience, or loss
of the sense of spiritual values, or deadened
fear of God. We are buying the increased
luxuries and comforts of life very dearly if
they are costing us a lessened willingness for
sacrifice and a dulled sense of personal respon-
sibility. Even advance in culture and in
knowledge can never compensate for a weak-
ened moral power, a debilitated sense of duty,
a shrinking from the hard or terrible tasks of
manhood.

For such a nation as ours, where the only
real sovereign is the People, a certain sternness
in the purpose and tone of life is a condition
of salvation. And this must be, first of all, a
sternness toward ourselves, a holding of our
individual selves up to the measure of high
principle and readiness for sacrifice. Charac-
ter in the citizens is of far more importance
in this Republic than material wealth or even
than the comforts of life.

[324]

MEMORIAL DAY

We who know what it was at its best, cannot
but feel that a breath of the spirit of the early
sixties would be of inestimable value to our
country to-day. But God forbid that we
should doubt that the spirit of duty is still
alive in our land, even though to us it may
seem to sleep.

When the writer of the Book of Joshua
said that " Israel served the Lord all the
days of Joshua, and all the days of the
elders who overlived Joshua," he apparently
felt, as perhaps we may feel to-day, that
the early devotion had paled, and the impulse
of the great days of the past had spent
itself. But if he could have looked into the
future he would have seen greater glories for
Israel and higher service than any he had
dreamed of.

And this is our faith for our country.
We cannot believe that the sacrifices of the
past shall have been in vain ; we trust the
Almighty One who led us through the Red
Sea of the nation's great trial. We believe
His spirit is still with us, and that whenever

[325 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

new crises arise. He will sift us and purify us,
and put into us a new spirit of devotion to
duty fit for the need of the hour.

Comrades ! the fellowship of our Order is
unique. The tie that binds us is no artificial
tie, nor any social convention. It is the vital
tie of the memory and the brotherhood of a
great service in which we shared a common life
and faced a common death. And we remem-
ber that we are the survivors of a great sacri-
fice. We feel toward each other as I think
scarce any other band of men can feel. In all
brotherhood and frankness then, let us ask
ourselves, " Is the higher and more sacred
spirit of the sacrifice and service which we
commemorate alive in our hearts ? Are we
taking our orders from the Great Captain of
our Salvation ? Are we living according to
His commands ? "

Our ranks are fast thinning with the fleeting
years.

" Part of our host has crossed the flood,
And part is crossing now."

[326]

MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial Day will soon include us in
its memories and then " May we all be
received into that Grand Army above,
where Thou, O God, art the Great Com-
mander."

{.'h'^l ]

THE BREAD QUESTION

And when His disciples were come to the other
side, they had forgotten to take bread.

Then said Jesus unto them. Take heed and be-
ware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the
Sadducees.

And they reasoned among themselves, saying.
It is because we have taken no bread.

Matthew xvi. 5—7.

THE BREAD QUESTION

Churchly tradition may swathe the Apostles
in an atmosphere of religious unreality and
clothe them in uniforms of official sainthood,
but the Gospels show us something diffisrent.
The Gospels are alive with elemental human-
ity ; they tell of disciples who were men of like
passions with ourselves. Do we not know
just how they felt when they said, " It is
because we took no bread" — because we for-
got!

Have we not felt the sudden blankness, the
vexation with ourselves, the miserable sense
of petty shame when we have discovered that
we have forgotten ?

But when we understand why the disciples
forgot to take bread, then the story grows
upon us ; we begin to feel its touch of tragedy.
Not simple carelessness or inattention caused
the forgetful ness, but poignant sympathy with
their Master.

[ 331 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

In company with Him they had just passed
through a stormy scene. Certain Pharisees
and Sadducees, a committee sent from the seat
of government, had been investigating Jesus,
prying with no friendly intent into His ortho-
doxy, asking — and the asking had a threat in
it — for a sign from heaven to prove His right
to teach and work mighty works.

With cutting severity Jesus had rebuked his
inquisitors. He had refused to be judged by
them. He said to them, "A wicked and
adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and
there shall no sign be given unto it but the
sign of the prophet Jonas." And then he
left them and departed.

Perhaps you can put yourselves in the dis-
ciples* place, and with them feel the agitation
of that moment. When they stepped into the
boat to carry Jesus across the lake, they were
starting on no picnic party. Even such a
necessary as bread went clean out of mind.
And no wonder! They were just human.

And now their human nature shows itself in
a fresh way. They prove themselves children

[ 332]

THE BREAD QUESTION

of their day, moulded by the opinion of their
time and their race. To accept bread from a
person was confession of fellowship with him.
It was, to say the least, awkward to accept
bread from an enemy. When Jesus said,
" Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and
of the Sadducees," he seemed to them to say,
" You have forgotten to take bread. We must
now run the risk of going hungry. After
what has passed we cannot accept bread from
either Pharisees or Sadducees.** And they
did what men in all ages have done, — they
interpreted the words of Jesus according to
the ideas of their time, and thereby they took
themselves as far away as possible from His
actual meaning. Jesus, when He spoke, was
thinking of one thing ; and the disciples, as
they listened, imagined that they heard Him
say another and quite a different thing. They
thought he was rebuking their forgetfulness of
that which seems the most practical and press-
ing of all things in our earthly life.

The Bread Question is always with us. It
lies at the bottom of all the work and business

[ 333 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

and enterprise of this world. The great finan-
cial problems, always so pressing and often so
threatening, are, after all, only phases of the
Bread Question.

All the activities of human life are set in
motion and kept going by the necessity of
daily food. When the bare necessity is satis-
fied, what is left over goes toward those com-
forts and luxuries which make up the material
side of civilization. But in spite of the com-
fort and luxury so much in evidence in the
world of our day, it is still true that a large
proportion of mankind live close to actual
want. The Bread Question still comes home
to multitudes directly and by no round-about
way.

If human nature could be changed so that
food were no longer needed, if the Bread
Question could be wiped off the slate of
human life, society would be revolutionized
from top to bottom. An inconceivable change
would be wrought in the whole life of the
world.

As it is, the Bread Question is not only
[ 334 ]

THE BREAD QUESTION

always with us, but constantly it thrusts itself
upon us as though it were the most serious of
all human questions.

Jesus' treatment of the Bread Question is
most remarkable. At first sight He appears
to minimize its importance ; in fact, He seems
impatient, almost contemptuous, of the Bread
Question. We hear Him say, " Lay not up
for yourselves treasures upon earth." "Take
no thought what ye shall eat." We recall
His parable, so scornful of the man whose
bursting barns contained provision for many
years. And now we hear Him rebuking His
disciples because they could imagine that He
cared for such a trifle as forgetful ness to take
bread.

But a little reflection will quickly dispel the
hasty, first impression. Jesus neither ignored
nor belittled the Bread Question. On the
contrary. He asserted its large importance. In
the same breath in which He forbade anxiety
concerning bodily wants He declared, "Your
Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need
of these things." He commands us to " seek

[ 335]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

first the Kingdom of God and His righteous-
ness, and all these things shall be added unto
you.

Again the first impression is that Jesus,
though He may yield a certain importance to
the Bread Question, puts it and all that goes
with it in subordinate place, and bids us regard
it only as an humble second consideration in
the management of our lives. And again the
first impression misses the largeness of the
teaching of Jesus.

His teaching is, in reality, startling. He
denies that we have anything to do with the
Bread Question. He asserts that it never was,
and never can be, a concern of ours. He
does not make it subordinate to other ques-
tions, but He teaches that it is out of our
reach and none of our business. He lifts the
Bread Question up into the almighty care of
Divine Power and Divine Love.

The practical things for us, so Jesus teaches,
are not worry over or planning for the where-
withal we shall be fed. The things that lie
within our power of planning and doing are

[336]

THE BREAD QUESTION

the things of the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness.

And is not this absolutely true ? Bread is
made of grain. Does the farmer make the
grain ? Does he even, in any true sense,
" grow " the grain ? But what does he do ?
He tries to learn the laws — God's laws — of
the growth of grain, and then he conforms his
doing and his work to those laws.

But with his seed selection and his fertilizer
and his cultivation does he not help nature —
or God ? No ! He does but seek deeper into
the Kingdom of God. Not one single thing
can he do outside the Kingdom of God, with
its laws of life and growth. In faithful seeking
and righteous obedience he works and waits
for a result which God alone can give.

Men make discoveries or inventions. What
are these but seeking the Kingdom of God ?
Wireless telegraphy, for example. Has Mar-
coni made anything new? No! He and
others have by right seeking discovered cer-
tain facts concerning one of the most awful
and spiritual forces of the universe ; they have

[ 337 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

discovered attributes of electricity which, applied
in the right way, according to the laws of God*s
Kingdom, enable us to speak to each other
through the air across seas and continents.

In such a prosy, apparently unspiritual busi-
ness as banking there are laws, not all of which
are in the statute books, but principles of
mathematical and eternal justice and righteous-
ness that must be sought, known, and obeyed
on penalty of failure in the business.

If we could follow out the teaching of Jesus,
we should find it true in every department of
human work, — in the highest and most com-
plex, in the most far-reaching and daring
enterprises of human industry as truly as in
the most simple. We make a wretched and
damaging mistake when we imagine that the
Kingdom of God reigns only in the religious
emotions. The Kingdom of God governs all
our doing in this world. It concerns itself with
every man's daily life and business, with the
work of the farmer and the mechanic and the
financier alike. We must seek out and con-
form ourselves to the law of nature in the

[338]

THE BREAD QUESTION

world and man if we would accomplish any-
thing worth our doing. And what we call the
" law of nature " is but a clumsy name for the
Law of the Kingdom of God. The results of
our work are imperfect because we do not
know all the ways of the Kingdom.

And there is a blessing in our very ignorance.
It compels us to seek, and the seeking develops
our powers. More than that, seeking the right
way to do what must be done brings us near
Our Father. Seeking the right way to do the
things given us to do in our daily work is seek-
ing the righteousness of God. And doing a
thing in the right way because it is right is
seeking first His Kingdom, whether the thing
to be done is a piece of carpenter work or a
great financial transaction.

But when we think more of the wages we
hope to receive than of the honesty of our
work, when we set our minds upon the other
things to be added unto us and employ our
seeking in a grasping effort to anticipate these
things, then we meddle with the Bread Ques-
tion ; we tamper with the order of the King-

[ 339 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

dom of God, and our fingers are sure to be
burnt. Then, for our very salvation, God
sends us trouble, warning us away from the
danger zone on which we are trespassing.

We are emerging from the whirl of a strange
and destructive panic, a panic which appeared
to be absolutely without reason. The country
was rich as it never had been before in all that
makes for worldly wealth. Crops had been
good during a succession of years. We were
at peace with the world. Endless enterprises
demanded the employment of the industry of
all the people. And all at once things went to
pieces. Rich men were made poor, and many
who had been comfortable were doomed to
want and suffering.

Of course, various causes for the panic are
assigned. Blame is visited on this or that
man or set of men. There are theories in
plenty, as naturally there must be. But ask
yourself now ! If instead of that covetous
grasping after pay before it is due, which has
poisoned the lives of our people rich and poor
alike ; if, instead of meddling with the Bread

[ 340]

THE BREAD QUESTION

Question, the people of this land had had their
minds set upon faithfully doing the work God
gave them to do, and their hearts set upon
doing it righteously because it was their
Father's work, — would the disaster have
come ! If men in the workshops had cared
most of all for honest workmanship, and men
in the market-place had held the justice of
human brotherhood high above personal ad-
vantage, would there have been any panic,
and would this country and this people have
been the poorer for seeking first the Kingdom
of God and His righteousness ?

A curious product of meddling with the
Bread Question is a state of mind which can
only be described as a mental and moral lazi-
ness. It may seem absurd to suggest anything
like laziness as a fault of the intense activity of
our time. But the anticipative temper which
reaches after results before they are earned, is
scarcely conducive to thinking things out with
honest thoroughness of mental pains. The
patient labor needed in searching out right
ways in business or public affairs, the bright

[3+1]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

willingness for righteous tasks which do not
promise to be quickly paying, is not conge-
nial when we have accustomed ourselves to
dabbling with the easier, though dangerous
things which are none of our business. May
it not be possible that our pride in our
" push " and " hustle," and our boast of our
facility in getting things done, is, after all, little
more than the garrulity of a mental laziness
unwilHng to set itself to the task of working
out the sum of future consequences ?

And this mental laziness, which is itself an
immorality, begets the deeper sin of moral
laziness. When we begin to see that things
are working themselves out unrighteously, it
requires an effort not too willingly made to
pause in the gait we have grown used to,
and check our inertia, and set ourselves to
seeking first the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness.

The tangles of our affairs, the waste of our
resources, the troubles of our times, have prob-
ably come not so much from deliberate wicked-
ness as from unwillingness to face the pains and

[342]

THE BREAD QUESTION

costs of right thinking and right doing. And
if the check to our prosperity shall compel us
to stop our selfish, ineffectual, and perilous
meddling with the Bread Question and turn
our activities into channels where they may
safely and righteously run, then we shall have
reason to thank God for His Fatherly
judgments.

The Lord Jesus did not belittle the Bread
Question. Far from it. In that mighty work
of His which all the four Evangelists describe,
in that Sacrament of the Loaves when Jesus
fed the five thousand, He was showing us the
Father. He was renewing on the Galilean
hillside God's primal pledge of provision for
the earthly needs of His earthly children.

Agitated by the conflict between their Master
and the agents of the rulers, the disciples for-
got to take bread. Jesus bids them beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the
Sadducees. They imagine He is blaming them
for not taking care of the Bread Question. But
listen to His answer to their foolish fears :
" Oh ye of little faith ! Why reason ye among

[ 343 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

yourselves because ye have brought no bread?
Do ye not yet understand neither remember
the five loaves of the five thousand and how
many baskets ye took up ? Neither the seven
loaves of the four thousand and how many
baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do
not understand that I spake it not concerning
bread that ye should beware of the leaven of
the Pharisees and of the Sadducees ? "

No ! Jesus neither belittled nor ignored the
Bread Question. He lifted it up and showed
these disciples and us that the Bread Question
is not ours because it belongs to God. He
taught them, and He teaches us, that this
question so near our very lives rests safe under
the pledge of Almighty Power and Love.

Jesus brought the disciples back from their
useless anxieties to the real and practical things,
to the questions Vv^ithin the power of their
answering. He made them face the question
of their own conduct under the stress of an
actual and immiediate temptation.

The leaven of the Pharisees and of the
Sadducees is the corrupting germ which spir-

[ 344 ]

THE BREAD QUESTION

itual presumption insinuates into the most
intimate relations between God and His chil-
dren. Its root is the same foolish belief in
human ability to provide daily bread ; but the
belief has grown arrogant. It assumes that
men can provide their own spiritual food. The
leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees
thrust itself upon the appetites and the neces-
sities of men in that day, and therefore Jesus
anxiously warns his disciples.

The Pharisees were orthodox in doctrine,
strict in religious observance, earnest in faith
and practice. But their religion was an end
and not a means. They worshipped worship,
they served service, they were zealous for an
artificial " law." Their very earnestness be-
came a self-deceit. Without realizing what
they were doing they were actually worshipping
worship and service and the law, instead of
worshipping God. Their religion had become
a vast snare of insincerities.

The Sadducees are less distinctly etched
upon the gospel page, but we see them as
sceptics concerning the resurrection and the

[ 345 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

larger life beyond this world. We catch an
impression of them as men scornful of sa-
cred things, contemptuous of moral scruples,
haughty, self-sufficient. The Sadducees were
members of the High Priest's party, — the
worldly, intriguing, power-grasping party in the
Jewish nation. Pretending to believe in God,
affecting reverence for the simple Law of
Moses, their real God was success, and their
real worship was the worship of worldly wealth
and luxury.

We hear the,^voice of Jesus saying, "Take
heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and
of the Sadducees ! " Does His word sound
like some far-off cry against sins of ancient
Jews ? Or do we recognize the universal note
which echoes always from the words of Jesus ?

You can have the essence of Phariseeism
without its phylacteries and its solemn robes.
When religion becomes a conventionality in-
stead of a Godliness ; when the Church sinks
into the place of a mere institution sufficient
unto itself, and the manner of the preacher's
preaching, or the order of the service, or the

[346]

THE BREAD QUESTION

Style of the music, or the working of the
wheels of " church work " becomes The Thing
Itself, taking God's place, — what is that but
the leaven of the Pharisees ?

And this cold belief in the adequacy of
worldly resources for the work of Christ's
Church, this presumptuous assumption of the
ability of human knowledge to settle all ques-
tions about the truth of God, this narrowing
of men's horizon to the limits of passing
things on this little earth, this practical mate-
rialism which corrodes the lives and character
even of God's own children, — what is that
but the leaven of the Sadducees ?

Religion, by itself, is a negative thing. Re-
ligion is good when it is content to serve in the
temple of our souls ; when it humbly lights
the lamp of God's truth and opens the win-
dows to let in the sunshine of His love. Re-
ligion is an awful mockery, a hollow emptiness,
nay, a corrupt and corrupting thing, when it
hides God with its own pretentious bulk.

And this world, God's world, this expres-
sion of Himself, full of reflections of His

[ 347 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

Truth and Beauty, and full of the wondrous
working of His righteous Law ! — When men
grasp the outside things of God's world and
claim them for their own, and quarrel for the
very husks and shells of the world, and fling
on high the dust made by their destructive
tramplings until they hide God behind its
foul cloud, — what treason is that !

When Christ's disciples partake of the
leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees,
can you wonder if men stand aloof from His
Church and with cold disdain refuse to listen
to her call ?

The passion of the soul of Jesus is a passion
for sincerity, for reality. His warning cry is
sure to sound out against anything that threat-
ens to hide our vision of God. With all the
mighty desire of His Holy Soul He longs to
bring us simply, clearly, face to face with Our
Father.

And it IS piain common-sense to affirm that
for our country, for the world, for your soul
and mine, this is a more practical matter than
the finding of our daily bread. Because, neces-

[348]

THE BREAD QUESTION

sary as our daily bread is, the providing of it
is taken out of our hands. We hunt wind-
mills when we imagine we can do it for our-
selves.

But this other thing, this gaining clear vis-
ion and getting into right relations with Our
Father, is within our power. This is the work
God has given us to do. His Spirit waits to
aid us ; and on our doing of this, on our seek-
ing first the Kingdom of God and His right-
eousness, everything else depends.

In this world, which is God's world and an
expression of His love and law and truth, you,
a child of God, cannot live happily or safely
while you hide yourself, or allow mere things
or men's opinions to hide you from Him.

May He send abroad His Mighty Spirit of
Truth with power, to open our eyes and bring
us to repentance for our sin and folly !

[ 349]

THE MYSTERY OF TIME

Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in
all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever
Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God.

Thou turnest man to destruction ; and sayest.
Return, ye children of men.

For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as
yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the
night. — Psalm xc. 1—4.

THE MYSTERY OF TIME

The Ninetieth is the most sublime of all the
Psalms. The other Psalms have a beauty of
their own, but none of them equal the majesty
of this Prayer of Moses, the Man of God.

The Ninetieth is also one of the most
familiar of the Psalms. It commonly forms
part of the funeral service. And the reason
why it is thus used is not because of its mel-
ancholy, but because it so powerfully lifts our
thought and feeling away from the fleeting,
passing things of earth up to God's eternity
and the calm hope that glows in His unchang-
ing love. For a similar reason this Psalm is
also appropriate for such a season as the New
Year.

There is something not only solemn but
agitating in the period made by the New Year.
The New Year's day divides the past from
the present ; it draws a sharp line between the
has been and the may be. It compels us to

23 [ 353 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

think of what is gone forever; it brings us
face to face with the unknown possibilities of
what is to come.

Every new day does this ; each night when
we lie down to rest marks something that has
slipped away beyond our grasp, and each
morning sunrise opens a new unwritten and
unknown chapter in our lives. The New
Year does the same thing, only in a larger
and therefore more searching and disturbing
manner. It compels us to think, not simply
of yesterday, but of a whole year of yesterdays
past and gone. Few of us can look back over
a year of yesterdays without being reminded
of things that have made a difference in our
lives.

The new year also compels us to look for-
ward, not simply toward to-morrow, but into
the unknown possibilities of three hundred
and sixty-five to-morrows. It matters little
that no vision of ours can pierce those mor-
rows ; the very fact of the New Year projects
the shadow of these morrows before our faces.
We wish each other a Happy New Year. It

[354]

THE MYSTERY OF TIME

is a good, a kindly wish ; yet the wishing of
it is a confession that the New Year contains
possibilities beyond our power to reach with
anything more than kindly wishes. The New
Year brings us face to face with the ever pres-
ent Mystery of Time. Ordinarily we live in
the present, and it is well for us that we must
do so. Our duties, our work in life require
our presence in the present. But it is a mis-
take to depreciate the past, and a greater mis-
take to be unmindful of the future.

The past is our school — or, rather, it is
our library of reference stored with lessons of
experience. The future contains our hopes.
All growth and advancement belongs to the
future. What we are, is carried into the future
along with all the possibilities of what we may
become. Both past and present take their
meaning from what is before us in the future.

It is right to live in the present. To live only
for the present is narrow and debasing. There
are those who try to do so, and they shrivel
their own souls thereby. But no human being
ever really succeeds in living in the fleeting

[ 355 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

present. The yesterdays and the to-morrows
leave their mark upon us all. Our life is,
after all, in the yesterdays and the to-morrows ;
the present is never anything more than a
moving point. To-day is the future of yes-
terday and the past of to-morrow. And this
is the Mystery of Time. The most energetic,
the most fiercely, impatiently busy man cannot
hurry time ; the most indolent cannot stay
time. With unvarying rhythm, with remorse-
less, unhurried, yet ceaseless tread time carries
us all onward. We never " have time " ; time
forever has us, and holds us in an iron grip
whether we will or no. There is something
infinitely wearying, yea, terrifying in the cease-
less successions of time. The restlessness,
the fever and the fret of life, its uncertainties,
its anxieties, are all the inevitable result of the
dealing of Time with us. But the very rest-
lessness and weariness are an instinctive revolt
of our souls against the tyranny of Time ; they
are the cry of a life within our life which is
not an ever moving point.

The regrets and the longings with which we
[356]

THE MYSTERY OF TIME

come to a period like that of the new year ;
the hopes and fears which mark time so dis-
tinctly, which bring us so sharply face to face
with its mysteries ; the protest against Time
which the new year raises in our soul, — are
evidences of a spirit working in us with a power
of liberty larger than Time can hold.

And this brings us back to our text, " Lord,
Thou hast been our dwelling place in all
generations." Perhaps, when Moses wrote
this, he was thinking of the way in which God
had always been with His people Israel. But
if that was all his thought, then he wrote larger
than he knew. I do not believe it could have
been all his thought ; he does not say, " God
has always been with us " ; he says, We have
always been in God. " ^hou hast been our
dwelling-place.** Our life is in Thee. And who
is He in whom we have our dwelling-place?
He is not a child of Time : " Before the moun-
tains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst
formed the earth and the world, even from
everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God."

In contrast are we, children of Time. "Thou
[ 357 ]

THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

turnest man to destruction and sayest, Return,
ye children of men."

John Calvin has a wonderful comment upon
this verse. He says : " The Psalmist com-
pares the course of our life to a ring ; because
God placing us upon earth turneth us about
in a narrow compass, and when we come to the
last point of our life, then plucketh He us back
to Himself in a moment."

He is our dwelling-place in all generations, —
He, the Eternal One who was, before the
mountains were brought forth. He places us
in the ring of Time, whence we return into His
Eternity.

The restlessness which we experience in Time
is not wholly Time's work with us ; it is not
simply the weariness of the hurry of fleeting
days and quickly recurring new years. It is
the revolt of a nature meant for something else;
it is the protest of a life whose real home is in
the bosom of God and His Eternity.

Sometimes we hear things said which seem
to imply that the activities of our life belong
to this world, and the hoped-for rest at the

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THE MYSTERY OF TIME

close of earthly life, a sort of everlasting in-
dolence. This is far from what is either taught
or implied in Holy Scripture.

God is not idle. God is the Great Doer.
But His doing is different from the feverish
haste of the doing which belongs to Time.
With Him, " A thousand years are like yes-
terday when it is past, and as a watch in the
night."

We, with our limitations, must speak of
eternity in terms of time. The text is an illus-
tration, but what an illustration ! How near
are the past and gone yesterdays, how brief
their hours seem as we look back upon them !
We lose the sense of duration when we look
backward. Days that are gone seem like mo-
ments. In God's sight, in His looking back-
ward, a thousand years are like yesterday when
it is past. They are like a flash of memory !
They are like a watch in the night. Now, that
is a Hebrew phrase for an hour of the night,
an hour passed in sleep. Did you ever notice
how you will sometimes wake up from a dream
in which you seem to have passed through

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

hours or even days of action, and as you wake
you hear the clock strike, and you discover
that your dream was really an affair of only a
few moments when measured by time? Or,
perhaps, healthily tired, you fall sound asleep,
and when you are awakened by the rays of the
morning sun streaming in at your window, you
feel as though it were only an hour ago that
you laid yourself down upon your bed. In the
night watches we lose the sense of duration.
Sleep is a foretaste of the mystery of eternity
cast across the Mystery of Time.

The illustration in the Psalm is indeed in
terms of time, with its thousand years like past
and gone yesterday, and its watch in the night ;
but an illustration in temporal terms so chosen
as to make us understand that these years of
God's Eternity are like the things which though
in Time are most unlike Time ; like the yes-
terdays and the night watches in which the
sense of successive hours and minutes becomes
blurred and almost lost. God is a Doer, but
His doing is not hampered and hindered by
Time's successive rhythms.

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THE MYSTERY OF TIME

Now the active use of our powers is not, in
itself, a weariness. What wearies and wears is
partly our blindness, which makes our doing a
series of anxious and uncertain experiments ;
and even more the fact that, blind as we are,
we must also work against the cruel, remorse-
less march of Time.

One of the regrets of the new year's period
is that the old year has gone, leaving so many
things unfinished or undone, — not always be-
cause of our neglect, but because our powers
were too feeble to grasp and conquer our op-
portunities while we remained bound in the
ring of Time.

If our powers were developed, if our souls
were but free to use their powers unhindered,
if we could but see clearly and work without
hurry, what joy, what exultation would be
ours ! What rest, not in idleness, but in
highest, most glorious, most intense doing !

This noblest of blessings is ours in foretaste^
and shall, when our childhood in time is ac-
complished, be ours in full, because the Eter-
nal God is ours and we are His. He is our

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

dwelling-place in all generations ; our life is
hid with Him in whose sight a thousand years
are like yesterday when it is past and as a
watch in the night.

The discipline of Time is ours now, for a
little while, with its passing old and its coming
new years. Part of the discipline is the with-
held knowledge of the full meaning of its proc-
ess. Time has its mysteries as hard to fathom
— yea, even harder to penetrate than those of
eternity. The things we know as really alive,
and great because alive, are not things of Time.
Truth, righteousness, love, beauty, are the
bright children of Eternity, too large for Time
to hold, too splendid in their living power for
Time to measure ; yet even here in Time these
visitants from Eternity are the realities which
alone give life a worthy meaning.

We can see this much of the meaning of the
discipline of Time ; we can see that it must
consist in living out these principles of eternal
life in the midst of passing things of earthly
days and years. The discipline of Time is a
training in reality, a test which tries our souls.

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THE MYSTERY OF TIME

To seek for truth, to strive after righteous-
ness, to learn the experience and the practice
of the love of God, to live the eternal life in
the midst of the hurry of the ring of Time, —
this is not easy, but this must be the instinct
and the ambition of every child of God who
knows his Father.

The new year is often treated as though it
were a new beginning, when we write a new
date. Some magic seems to divide the affairs
of 19 — from the affairs of 19 — . And we
talk about turning over a new leaf; we make
resolutions. But in reality there is no new leaf
to turn over. There is no past to bury nor
any new beginning to be made. The new year
is just a point in the ring of Time, — an imagi-
nary point, if you will ; and the advantage to
be had from it is that it brings sharply, clearly
before our minds both the known meaning and
also the solemn mystery of Time, and compels
us to look beyond Time into that immeas-
urable Eternity toward which Time is swiftly
bearing us.

The new year may be made useful if we

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

take it as a point from which to measure our-
selves and test the effect of the discipline of
Time upon our souls.

Are we better men and women than we were
last year, — sweeter in disposition, purer in
heart, more patient under the trials of our
lives? Do we care more for truth? Have
we gained a deeper love for God and a clearer
vision of Him ? Have we an increased hunger
and thirst after righteousness ? Are we more
unselfish ? Is the power of this passing world
of Time growing less, and the power of the
beauty of the Lord our God growing stronger
within us ?

The sweet hope of a Happy New Year to
come would be ours if we could answer " Yes "
to such questions as these ; or if our nearest
friends, who know us best, could answer for
us and say, " Yes ; there has been growth in
his soul, in her life."

And the reason why such an answer would
be the surest pledge of a Happy New Year is
that the discipline of Time does not end with
the old year, or begin with the new, but it

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THE MYSTERY OF TIME

goes right on, year by year, week by week,
day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
The spiritual gains of the past year will be
carried over into the coming year, and the
spiritual losses also.

Perhaps we dare not try to reckon our gains,
perhaps we fear to face our losses ; or it may
be that we know them so mingled that we
cannot disentangle them. We hope we may
have gained, we are conscious that in many
things we have come short.

So Moses, the man of God, must have felt
when he wrote this Psalm. Through it all
the thought of God's eternity is set over
against the mournful consciousness of human
sin and frailty, and the agonized prayer of the
Psalmist is : " So teach us to number our days
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom !
Return, O Lord, how long, and let it repent
Thee concerning Thy servants ! "

His thought comes back to God ; but this
time he claims, not the clearing of the mystery
of Him in whom we dwell, — this time he
pleads for the mercy which descends out of

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THE BROTHER AND THE BROTHERHOOD

the Person of the Eternal One to us who are
still living in Time: "O satisfy us early with
Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad
all our days."

And in his vision, as an answer to his
prayer, the very pain of the discipline of Time
begins to glow with Eternal Love : " Make
us glad according to the days wherein Thou
hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we
have seen evil." Bring us around in the ring
of Time through its trials into the light and
glory of the full life of Him who is our dwell-
ing-place. And then, like the spiritual glory
of the sunset glow after a day of storm, the
Psalm closes with a vision of splendor:

" Let the beauty of the Lord our God be
upon us, and establish Thou the work of our
hands upon us ; yea, the work of our hands
establish Thou it."

If we have found God, if we know Him,
if we are resting in Him who is our eternal
dwelling-place, then, as we wish each other
a Happy New Year, our wish, our hope, pro-
jects itself beyond the uncertainties of the

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THE MYSTERY OF TIME

future of Time into the Presence of the un-
changing glory of the Beauty of the Lord our
God, and in the vision of that sure hope we
know that no vicissitudes of Time can wreck
us ; we know that through the very discipline
of the mystery Time, through its trials and its
darkness, God's work is being done in us, and
we are sure that at last the work of our hands
shall be established upon us.

The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.

Date Due

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