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THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 


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MOUNT   Ol     \  iSUiis 

BEING    A    Si  uir     Liri. 

IN  TERMS  .iiE  WHOLE 


THF. 


OF  LON 


LONGMA^  :KKE^     AND     CO 

FOURTH  AVE  ^  ■  '  STREET,  NEW  YORK 

39     PATER.N  KOW,     LONDON 

BOMBAY,   CALCtJlTA,   AND   MADRAS 

I918 


fViAR  28  1918 

MOUNT   OF  VISIOISJ^ 


BEING    A    STUDY    OF    LIFE 
IN  TERMS   OF  THE  WHOLE 


BY 

CHARLES  H.  BRENT 

BISHOP   OF    THE    PHILIPPINE   ISLANDS 


WITH   AN  INTRODUCTION   BY 

THE  BISHOP  OF  LONDON 


LONGMANS,     GREEN    AND     CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  &  30th  STREET,  NEW  YORK 

39     PATERNOSTER     ROW,     LONDON 

BOMBAY,   CALCUTTA,    AND   MADRAS 

I918 


Copyright,  191 8,  by 
LONGMANS,  GREEN  AND  CO. 


ACHATAE   FIDO 

REMSEN   BRINCKERHOFF   OGILBY 

NECNON   OMNIBUS 

COLLEGIS   AMICIS  PLUS   QUAM   FRATRIBUS 

QUI   MECUM  PER   ANNOS   XVI 

APUD    INSULAS    PHILIPPINAS 

VEXILLA   CHRISTI 

PROFERRE    STUDUERUNT 


INTRODUCTION 

It  was  by  what  the  world  would  call  Luck, 
but  by  what  I  feel  to  be  Divine  Providence, 
that  I  was  asked  to  fix  upon  a  writer  for  our 
Lenten  book  for  1918  on  April  20,  191 7.  I 
was  driving  the  author  of  this  inspiring  book, 
if  I  remember  right,  down  to  the  great  service 
which  we  held  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  to  com- 
memorate the  greatest  event  which  has  happened 
for  100  years — the  entrance  of  the  United  States 
into  the  Great  War  for  the  Freedom  of  the  World — 
a  service  at  which  Bishop  Brent  himself  preached 
a  striking  sermon. 

But  for  this  I  should  not,  I  think,  have  had 
the  presimiption  to  ask  so  busy  a  man,  and 
one  so  well  known  throughout  the  world,  to 
write  our  Lenten  book.  However,  as  he  is  a  dear 
personal  friend  of  mine,  I  took  my  coiurage  into 
both  hands  and  asked  him  after  the  service  to  do 
so;  he  at  once  consented.     This  book  is  the  result. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  summarize  its  close 
reasoning  and  deep  thinking.  I  can  only  say 
that  its  very  title  gives  us  the  inspiration  we 
need  to-day. 

If  we  only  look  at  what  is  close  at  hand  to-day, 
the^bloodshed,  the  mourning  and  the  tears,  we 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

should  be  bound  to  be  depressed,  but,  if  we 
ascend  the  Mount  of  Vision,  and  see  things  in 
their  true  perspective  against  the  background  of 
the  Character  and  the  Purpose  of  God;  if  we 
see,  as  the  Bishop  so  finely  says,  that  the  Cross 
is  part  of  the  Character  of  God,  then  we  shall 
see  life  sanely,  see  it  whole;  things  will  fall  into 
their  true  perspective;  pain  will  be  seen  as  part 
of  Love  and  as  a  necessary  condition  of  the  new 
birth  of  the  world;  death  will  become  "the  last 
great  adventure"  (Chap.  IX),  and  the  whole 
of  life  will  be  seen  as  leading  up  to  the  com- 
pleteness and  symmetry  of  "  a  city  that  lieth 
foursquare"  (Chap.  X). 

I  commend,  then,  this  book  to  the  careful  and 
prayerful  study  of  my  people  during  this  coming 
Lent.  Some  may  find  it  a  little  more  difficult 
book  than  many  that  we  have  had  written  for 
us  during  past  years,  but  it  is  none  the  worse 
for  that,  and  its  great  spiritual  value  is  most 
striking  and  undeniable;  it  is  the  work  of  a  man 
who  has  lived  out  what  he  has  written  in  his 
own  life  first,  and  I  ask  their  prayers  for  the 
author,  who  left  the  manuscript  of  his  book  here 
on  his  way  to  the  Front,  to  which  he  had  been 
hastily  summoned,  that  he  may  be  long  spared 
to  carry  on  his  splendid  work. 

A.  F.  London. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction   by  the   Bishop   of 

London      .....        vii 

Preface  ....  xi 

I.  The  Groundwork  of  God's  Char- 


acter .... 

II.  The  Self-Identification   of   God 
WITH  Man  .... 

III.  The  Lamb  as  it  had  been  Slain 

IV.  God's  Austerities 

V.  In  the  Image  of  God    . 
VI.  Man  in  Mankind  . 
VII.  The  Wholeness  of  Holiness 
VIII.  Purified  as  by  Fire 
IX.  The  Last  Great  Adventure 


i6 
23 
41 
52 
63 
77 
90 
100 


X.  The  City  that  Lieth  Foursquare     119 


IX 


PREFACE 

It  is  a  striking  fact  that  two  great  workers  for 
the  bHnd,  Samuel  Gridley  Howe  and  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  have  associated  the  exercise  of  a  high 
degree  of  sight  with  blindness  and  the  bUnd. 
On  the  chime  of  bells  of  the  Perkins  Institute 
for  the  Blind  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  which 
Dr.  Howe  founded,  is  inscribed:  ''Mine  eyes 
have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord," 
being  the  opening  line  of  Mrs.  Howe's  Battle- 
hymn  of  the  RepubHc,  which  is  the  watchword 
for  our  times . 

It  is  to  the  topmost  peak  of  the  Mount  of 
Vision  that  we  must  struggle  to-day.  Fortitude 
is  never  blinded  or  stifled  by  the  smoke  of  battle 
any  more  than  it  is  dismayed  by  its  carnage. 
Above  the  confusion  and  bewilderment  of  the 
moment  soars  God's  ordered  plan  for  His  crea- 
tion, which  is  not  so  complex  or  difficult  as  to 
be  beyond  man's  comprehension,  nor  so  remote 
as  to  be  beyond  his  ken.  Indeed,  human  life 
was  constructed  by  its  Architect  to  fit  the  plan, 
and  the  plan  to  fit  human  life.  More  than  that, 
it  is  awaiting  our  individual  and  corporate  recog- 

3d 


xii  PREFACE 

nition  for  its  effective  inauguration.  Without 
man's  co-operation  God's  operation  falls  short 
of  its  aim. 

The  first  step  toward  achievement  is  the  exer- 
cise from  the  highest  vantage  ground  of  our 
power  of  vision.  There  can  be  no  future  for  us 
without  it.  Where  there  is  no  vision  the  people 
perish.  Sight,  that  most  royal  of  endowments, 
is  ours  wherewith  to  grasp  God's  purpose  for 
creation  and  for  ourselves  as  creation's  climax 
and  crown.  The  eye,  whether  of  the  body  or 
of  the  soul,  can  lay  hold  of  immensities  with  the 
same  facility  as  it  lays  hold  of  trifles.  It  is  our 
privilege  and  duty  to  live  in  the  future  as  much 
as  in  the  present  through  our  inner  faculty  of 
sight,  by  means  of  which  we  draw  the  contents 
of  to-morrow  into  to-day.  Foresight,  which  simply 
means  looking  as  far  as  we  can  ahead,  is  not 
merely  an  encouragement  to  cheer  us  on  our 
way,  but  is  achievement  by  anticipation.  The 
seers  of  old  made  it  possible  for  Christ  to  come 
by  rousing  expectancy  through  their  vision  of 
His  coming.  They  prepared  a  path  for  His 
feet  as  surely  as  the  road-makers  build  a  high- 
way for  traffic.  Upon  our  ability  to-day  to  see 
life  steadily  and  to  see  it  whole  hangs  the  fate 
of  the  world. 

This  does  not  mean  that  we  must  hysterically 


PREFACE  xiii 

seize  upon  all  that  is  smiling  and  cheering,  to 
dangle  it  before  the  aching  eyes  of  men.  Un- 
reasoning optimism,  the  child  of  lopsided  knowl- 
edge, is  unwarranted  and,  in  its  dire  effect,  a 
running  mate  of  despair.  God  gives  us  twin 
organs  of  sight  that  we  may  see  evenly,  and, 
that  the  one  eye  may  act  as  a  check  on,  as  well 
as  a  companion  of,  its  fellow.  There  is  similar 
balance  provided  for  our  inner  power  of  vision. 
The  man  who  saw  most  clearly  the  beauty  and 
grandeur  and  symmetry  of  God  and  God's  uni- 
versal plan  was  the  same  who  saw  in  the  vision 
of  Revelation  the  ugliness  and  horror  and  dis- 
order involved  in  the  process  of  working  it  out. 
Dante,  the  greatest  interpreter  of  life  since 
Apostolic  days,  went  through  Hell  and  Purgatory 
before  he  reached  Paradise.  It  is  the  senti- 
mentaUsts  who  read  out  of  the  Divine  scheme 
what  is  uncomfortable,  much  more  what  is 
terrible.  This  they  do  because  their  conception 
of  God  is  weak  and  incomplete. 

Probably  the  gravest  fault  of  which  the  majority 
are  guilty  in  their  mode  of  approach  to  life  is 
what  is  called  selfishness  in  the  individual,  pro- 
vincialism or  insularity  in  social  matters,  and 
sectarianism  in  rehgion.  They  are  all  devotees 
of  the  cult  of  the  incomplete.  More  often  this 
cult  has  to  do  with  a  faulty  use  of  vision  than 


XIV 


PREFACE 


with  defective  sight.  All  that  is  needed  to  change 
many  a  life  from  darkness  to  light,  from  fear 
to  cotirage,  from  defeat  to  victory  is  a  lifting  of 
the  eyelids.  When  God  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
young  man  by  Elisha's  side,  he  saw  that  man's 
plan  of  destruction  was  dwarfed  into  insignifi- 
cance in  the  Hght  of  God's  plan  of  protection. 
We  need  to  rub  the  cobwebs  of  prejudice  from 
our  eyes  as  a  preliminary  to  any  survey  of  the 
landscape,  so  that  we  may  see  that  which  is, 
rather  than  the  reflection  of  oiu*  own  ideas. 
Prejudice  is  the  beginning  of  self-inflicted  blind- 
ness. Men  choose  to  take  partial  views  of  life 
to  stiit  their  whim  and  fancy.  Catholicity  has 
nothing  to  recommend  it  unless  it  is  the  con- 
dition in  which  everything  is  measured  and  con- 
sidered in  terms  of  the  whole.  There  is  no 
graver  offence  than  to  use  a  cathoHc  garment 
to  hide  a  sectarian  heart.  Partial  views  may 
result  in  all  the  difference  between  darkness 
and  light,  between  a  curse  and  a  blessing,  as 
the  classic  story  of  Balaam  and  Balak  testifies. 
One  of  the  curious  things  in  human  experi- 
ence is  that  the  power  to  see  far  and  deep,  cer- 
tainly in  the  case  of  leaders  in  sight,  seems  to 
be  sharpened  rather  than  dimmed  by  darkness. 
When  Christ  in  vivid  language  depicted  just  such 
days  of  gloom  as  we  are  going  through,  He  made 


PREFACE  XV 

them  a  call  to  expectancy  and  announced  them 
to  be  in  themselves  a  Mount  of  Vision:  When 
these  things  begin  to  come  to  pass,  look  up, 
and  lift  up  yotu-  heads;  because  your  redemp- 
tion draweth  nigh.  Hope  almost  ceases  to  be  a 
virtue  when  all  conditions  are  propitious.  It  is 
like  a  candle  in  the  sunHght.  The  fairest  songs 
ever  sung  are  those  which  so  far  from  being 
silenced  are  quickened  by  a  furnace  of  hostile 
flame.  It  was  when  John,  the  Beloved  Disciple, 
was  in  exile  for  the  Word  of  God  and  the  testi- 
mony of  Jesus  that  he  became  John  the  Seer. 
Of  the  seers  of  pre-Christian  days,  Abraham, 
Isaac,  Moses,  and  Isaiah  to  go  no  further,  each 
had  his  most  brilliant  vision  when  he  was  in  a 
hard  place.  Coming  to  later  times,  it  was  in 
a  cemetery  during  the  throes  of  Civil  War  that 
Lincoln  caught  his  immortal  glimpse  of  democracy. 
In  brief,  the  highest  mountains  of  vision,  in  a 
spiritual  sense,  are  frequently  if  not  always  deep 
valleys. 

So  we  are  to-day  on  a  Mount  of  Vision  of  a 
towering  sort.  Our  very  gloom  is  a  call  to 
declare  our  untrammelled  freedom.  We  must 
use  our  eyes  and  lay  hold  of  visions  that  will 
disclose  oiu:  present  duty  and  be  an  instrument 
of  emancipation  into  a  higher  order  and  a  better 
world.     Our    courage    is    going    to    be    severely 


xvi  PREFACE 

taxed.  Whatever  things  can  be  shaken  in  the 
whole  human  structure  are  being  shaken,  and  are 
tottering  to  inevitable  ruin.  We  must  be  pre- 
pared to  see  much  fall  and  disappear  that  we 
cling  to  and  cherish.  God  has  permitted  this 
imiversal  earthquake  in  order  that  we  may  be 
forced  to  do  that  which  our  self-satisfaction  has 
restrained  us  from  doing — that  we  may  rear- 
range the  true  factors  of  life  on  a  larger  plan  and 
in  truer  perspective.  Too  many  of  us  are  settling 
down  into  a  process  of  viewing  all  things  in  terms 
of  the  existing  disorder.  We  colour  our  whole 
outlook  with  its  red  dye.  Whereas  the  war  is 
a  momentary  phase  of  a  disease  which  was  just 
as  grave  an  evil  before  it  broke  out  in  a  rash 
as  since.  The  wrath  of  the  cancer  is  in  its  roots 
rather  than  where  its  teeth  have  gnawed  the 
surface  of  the  flesh. 

The  war  is  to  be  viewed  without  dismay, 
like  all  other  incidents,  in  terms  of  the  whole  of 
God's  plan.  It  is  not  putting  it  too  strong  to 
say  that  our  chief  obligation  is  to  conserve  and 
develop  life  so  successfully  that  victory,  when 
it  comes,  will  be  justified  by  the  heightened 
value  of  society  for  which  we  are  fighting.  Our 
struggle  is  not  to  recall  the  past;  it  is  not  worth 
recalling. 

Through   the   purging   of    destruction   we    are 


PREFACE  xvii 

endeavouring  to  insure  a  future  for  the  world 
which  will  be  true  to  the  principles  with  which 
we  have  trifled  or  half-embodied  in  what  we 
call  Christendom  or  Christian  civilization.  It  is 
for  the  ideal  upon  which  progressive  society  is 
built  rather  than  the  incomplete  manner  in  which 
hitherto  it  has  found  expression  that  we  are 
contending. 

The  aim  of  my  book  is  to  make  a  contribution 
to  this  end.  No  least  individual  is  exempt  from 
the  responsibility  of  straining  to  see  and  share 
in  God's  big  plans  for  the  part  and  for  the  whole, 
for  the  individual  and  for  society.  From  the 
Mount  of  Vision  we  shall  take  large  views  and 
always  treat  the  part  in  terms  of  the  whole. 
In  this  way  we  shall  study  the  groundwork  of 
God's  character,  His  self -identification  with  the 
human  race,  the  basic  plan  of  His  creation,  the 
place  of  suffering  in  the  Divine  Life  and  the 
universal  scheme  of  things,  the  individual  in  his 
social  setting,  the  nation  in  its  relation  to  man- 
kind, the  significance  of  democracy,  the  Church 
or  society  organized  in  God,  its  representative 
literature,  its  saving  treasure  of  forgiveness,  its 
nourishing  activities,  its  illumination  by  educa- 
tion of  the  whole  man,  its  privilege  of  comrade- 
ship with  yesterday,  to-day  and  for  ever,  and  the 
last  great  adventure. 


xviii  PREFACE 

In  order  not  to  break  the  continuity  of  the 
text  I  am  minimizing  quotation  marks  and  foot- 
notes. Frequently  I  have  used  the  thought  of 
other  men,  framed  in  my  own  language.  After 
all,  originality  of  thought  has  long  since  been 
exhausted,  and  in  so  far  as  it  still  exists  it  is  but 
the  passing  of  ancient  verities  through  fresh 
personality. 

These  pages  cannot  but  be  closely  and  happily 
associated  with  America  Day,  April  20,  191 7. 
At  the  close  of  the  memorable  service  in  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral  on  that  date,  while  the  words 
of  the  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic  were  still 
ringing  in  our  ears,  the  Bishop  of  London  asked 
me  to  write  a  book  for  his  people  for  Lent  of 
the  following  year.  I  undertake  the  responsibility 
as  a  service  of  love  rendered  in  behalf  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  America  to  the  Christian 
Church  in  England.  It  is  ambitious  in  scope, 
and  I  only  wish  that  time  and  conditions  would 
allow  me  to  give  it  the  attention  it  merits.  It 
has  been  thought  out  during  journeys  by  land 
and  sea,  the  preliminary  draft  having  been 
sketched  while  travelling  on  horseback  over  the 
mountains  of  Luzon.  These  very  words  are  being 
penned  at  a  resthouse  in  a  remote  canon  to  the 
accompaniment  of  the  music  of  the  little  rivers 
that  run  among  the  hills. 


PREFACE  xix 

The  book  is  not  of  the  stereotyped  Lenten 
pattern,  but  I  trust  that  it  will  none  the  less  on 
that  account  prove  of  service  in  welding  human 
life  to  God  and  to  His  will,  which,  as  I  under- 
stand it,  the  Lenten  season  inspires  us  to  do. 
Part  of  our  Lord's  Lent  at  least  was  spent  on  a 
Mount  of  Vision,  where  He  saw  the  evil  and 
chose  the  good. 

Charles  H.  Brent. 

BUTAC,   p.    I., 

4  September ^  19 1 7- 


NOTE 

The  writer  wishes  to  thank  Professor  W.  R.  Sorley  for 
permission  to  quote,  on  page  ^2>^  a  sonnet  by  his  son,  Charles 
Hamilton  Sorley,  from  Marlborough  and  Other  Poems. 


DEUSIQUI  OMNIPOTENTIAM  TUAM  PAR- 
CENDO  MAXIME  ET  MISERANDO  MANI- 
FESTAS  MULTIPLICA  SUPER  NOS  MISERI- 
CORDIAM  TUAM  UT  AD  TUA  PROMISSA 
CURRENTES  COELESTIUM  BONORUM  FA- 
CIAS ESSE  CONSORTES  PER  DOMINUM 
NOSTRUM  JESUM  CHRISTUM 


THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 


THE  GROUNDWORK  OF  GOD  S  CHARACTER 

It  is  a  just  complaint  against  every  existing 
phase  of  religion  that  it  lacks  in  dynamic  force 
expressing  itself  in  that  supreme  degree  of  char- 
acter which  theoretically  we  all  admit  to  be 
within  the  reach  of  the  least  and  lowliest.  The 
situation  is  all  the  more  alarming  because  ideal- 
ism in  every  conceivable  form  walks  openly  in 
our  streets  and  decks  itself  in  attractive  garb. 
Now  it  appeals  to  us  in  the  polished  language 
of  intellectual  culture,  now  in  the  tempestuous 
oratory  of  emotional  fervour,  now  in  the  clear- 
cut  terms  of  ecclesiastical  dogma.  But  the  re- 
sult is  ineffective.  It  is  not  merely  that  society 
as  a  whole  pursues  a  course  of  gilded  paganism, 
but  also — and  this  is  the  serious  thing — that 
the  Churches  which  proclaim  holiness  as  their 
chief  programme  fail  to  deliver  this  treasure  to 
those  who  truly  hunger  and  thirst  after  right- 
eousness.    If  the  ecclesiastic  lays  it  to  the  charge 


2  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

of  the  disciple  that  the  fault  is  due  to  his  apa- 
thetic reception  of  the  truth,  the  disciple  can 
justly  retort  that  it  is  rather  due  to  the  apathetic, 
incomplete  and  uninspiring  presentation  of  the 
truth.  There  are  saints  and  many  of  them, 
thank  God!  But  for  the  most  part  they  are  of 
the  hidden  sort.  It  is  they  who  are  the  saving 
element  in  Christian  society.  An  honest  mind 
cannot  fail  to  be  perturbed  because  in  the  ranks 
of  spiritual  leaders  there  are  so  few  who  achieve 
great  heights  of  moral  and  spiritual  character. 
The  Churches  for  the  most  part  in  their  organic 
life  accept  average  standards  as  being  satisfactory. 
Most  of  them  are  controlled  by  gusts  of  thought 
and  devotion.  Some  one  produces  a  single  phase 
of  truth  or  of  virtue  or  of  both,  and  sets  it  walking 
down  the  public  highway  arm  in  arm  with  the 
Gospel,  proclaiming  it  to  be  the  whole  instead 
of  a  meagre  part  of  God's  revelation.  A  crowd 
gathers  and  a  following  is  created.  The  pathetic 
spectacle  of  arrested  development  is  one  of  the 
commonest  incidents  of  religious  history.  A 
catchword  not  only  catches  but  also  imprisons 
its  victim.  May  it  not  be  that  in  this  readiness 
to  accept  a  part  for  the  whole  is  the  cause  of 
our  spiritual  slackness  and  stunted  growth?  We 
slight  our  capacity  grievously  when  we  allow 
ourselves    to    be    satisfied    with    half-truths    and 


GOD'S   CHARACTER  3 

isolated  virtues.  And  we  discredit  the  veracity 
and  the  capabihty  of  God  Himself  when  we  let 
our  standards  for  the  individual  and  for  the  social 
whole  fall  short  of  the  rich  expectations  and 
promises  with  which  He  has  strewn  the  ages. 

It  is  one  thing  to  recognize  unpalatable  fact 
as  undeniable,  and  quite  another  to  surrender 
ourselves  to  it  as  inevitable.  Christianity  de- 
mands of  us  honesty  and  reality  as  our  primary 
volitional  disposition,  preparatory  to  our  arming 
for  battle  and  deploying  our  forces  to  win  a 
victory  over  the  average,  as  well  as  over  the 
positively  evil.  It  is  fatalism  that  rests  sat- 
isfied with  the  result  of  effort  whatever  that 
result  may  be.  The  one  justification  of  Chris- 
tianity is  its  unquenchable  thirst  for  the  best, 
its  determined  claim  upon  completeness  accord- 
ing to  God's  explicit  plan.  It  is  necessary  to 
say  this  in  view  of  the  recognition  of  the  failure 
of  Christians  to  be  Christian,  a  recognition  to 
which  we  are  driven  by  the  spectacle  of  modern 
life  within  and  without  the  Churches.  The  duty 
of  living  men  is  to  wipe  out  the  blot  which  stains 
our  generation.  If  historians  of  the  future  are 
compelled  by  the  facts  of  the  case  to  say  that 
we  split  mankind  into  warring  fragments  by 
submission  to  the  average  and  by  devotion  to 
the  incomplete,  it  is  incumbent  upon  us  to  com- 


4  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

pel  them  to  add  that  we  recognized  our  cul- 
pabihty  and  its  cause,  and  that  we  flung  ourselves 
adventurously  in  the  direction  of  the  complete. 

The  little  Christian  can,  of  course,  pursue  his 
little  way  in  the  seclusion  of  his  sect,  polishing 
his  self-conscious  culture  and  resting  satisfied  in 
his  puny  ideas  of  God  and  mankind.  But  we 
must  try  to  drive  him  out  of  his  small  ways. 
We  must  rouse  him  to  acceptance  of  massive 
responsibility  for  the  betterment  of  Christendom, 
responsibility  which  will  not  break  but  which 
will  make  him.  He  must  be  shaken  out  of  his 
prejudices  into  the  broad  freedom  of  fairness. 
All  this  can  be  accomplished  without  any  sacri- 
fice of  that  fine  carving  of  character  which 
Christian  culture  demands.  Indeed,  large  views 
of  life  give  new  point  and  interest  to  moral 
and  spiritual  effort.  The  individual  is  revealed 
to  be  not  an  isolated  statue  but  a  pillar  builded 
into  a  stately  temple.  Salvation  of  self  is  im- 
possible without  the  intention  to  save  society. 

Is  it  unfair  to  say  that  the  conventional  Lenten 
appeal  is  largely  ineffective  in  that  it  drives  men 
too  exclusively  into  the  depressing  realm  of  self- 
criticism  looking  toward  self-improvement  with- 
out at  the  same  time  letting  loose  upon  them 
the  whole  flood  of  inspiring  truth?  It  is  a  deep- 
ening consciousness  of  what  God  is  and  of  what 


GOD'S   CHARACTER  5 

He  expects  and  why,  that  alone  can  make  peni- 
tence bear  permanent  fruit.  We  must  have  at  hand 
a  mountain  of  vision  to  chmb  as  well  as  a  valley 
in  which  to  descend.  There  are  two  ways  of 
progress,  the  self-conscious  and  the  self -uncon- 
scious. The  former  lays  emphasis  on  direct 
attack,  the  latter  upon  indirect  attack.  The  one 
compels,  the  other  invites.  The  one  looks  chiefly 
at  self,  the  other  looks  chiefly  at  God.  The 
former,  unless  it  has  the  latter  as  its  substructure, 
creates  at  best  an  un joyous  character;  the  latter, 
if  it  steadfastly  refuses  to  sacriflce  detail  in  its 
loyalty  to  vastness,  walks  with  gleaming  eye 
and  buoyant  step  straight  toward  the  goal.  The 
purpose  of  these  pages  is  to  help  men  to  a  moun- 
tain top,  where  perhaps  the  vision  will  serve  to 
make  them  remember  themselves  by  forgetting 
themselves  and  find  themselves  by  losing  them- 
selves in  God  and  God's  plan  for  them. 


The  beginning  and  the  end  of  everything  is 
to  be  found  in  God.  He  is  the  Author  of  life. 
It  is  He,  therefore,  who  has  supreme  authority 
over  us,  for  authority  is  the  just  prerogative 
and  right  of  an  author.  From  Him  we  came, 
in   Him,    consciously   or   unconsciously,   we  live. 


6  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

to  Him  we  go.  As  a  mere  First  Cause  we  may 
study  Him  out  of  sheer  curiosity,  but  we  are 
under  no  obligation  to  do  so.  Purely  imper- 
sonal things  are  of  only  secondary  importance 
to  persons.  But  a  First  Cause  who  is  respon- 
sible for  the  existence  of  personality  must  and 
does  include  and  contain  in  Himself,  in  addition 
perhaps  to  much  else,  all  that  personality  means 
and  connotes.  Possibly  it  is  quite  legitimate  to 
speak  of  God  as  Personality — not  as  a  Person- 
ality— though  it  is  more  accurate  to  think  of 
Him  as  being  the  source  of  personalit3\  The 
point  to  grasp  is  that  in  His  creation  of  us  He 
estabHshed  a  relationship  between  Himself  and 
us  which  is  organic,  and  which  we  are  bound 
to  perpetuate  by  the  dehberate  purpose  of  our 
wills.  It  is  not  we  who  by  the  action  of  our 
.minds  create  God  after  our  own  image,  but  it 
is  God  who  has  created  us  after  His  image 
to  be  conformed  to  His  hkeness.  Having  cre- 
ated us,  He  cHngs  to  us  in  protective  and  form- 
ative love,  looking  for  responsive  and  co-operative 
effort  on  our  part. 

Of  course  the  greatest  operative  force  in  and 
behind  life  is  God.  Second  to  it  comes  our 
practical  (as  distinguished  from  our  theoretical) 
conception  of  God,  energized  by  faith  declaring 
itself  in  works.     God's  plans,   powerful  as  they 


GOD'S  CHARACTER  7 

are,  are  dependent  for  ultimate  success  on  our 
energizing  of  them.  Thy  kingdom  come,  is 
impossible  without,  Thy  will  be  done  in  earth 
as  it  is  in  Heaven.  A  wrong  conception  of 
God  must  mean  a  wrong  conception  of  Hfe.  A 
partial,  that  is  to  say  a  sectarian,  view  of  God 
issues  in  a  mutilated  view  of  Hfe.  Augustine, 
at  a  moment  when  his  morals  were  corrupt  said 
that  his  error  was  his  God.  He  would  seem 
to  mean  that  there  was  a  close  and  logical  con- 
nection between  what  he  thought  of  God's  char- 
acter and  what  he  made  of  his  own. 

This  is  always  and  inevitably  so.  It  is  behef 
that  rules  the  controlHng  faculties  of  man.  If 
in  our  heart  of  hearts  we  think  of  God  as  mere 
justice,  we  will  become  mere  slaves  of  duty  or 
else  try  to  run  away  from  His  wrath  in  bitter 
revolt.  If  we  view  Him  as  a  revealer  of  ideals 
only,  and  not  also  as  the  force  available  to  man- 
kind to  bring  them  to  good  effect,  we  will  lapse 
into  moral  dreamers  and  be  satisfied  with  thinking 
good  rather  than  being  and  doing  it.  What  we 
need  is  a  whole  conception  of  God,  or  a  con- 
ception of  whole  God.  This  is  not  something 
which  we  can  achieve  in  a  single  convulsive 
effort.  But  we  must  try  to  get  a  clear  view  of 
the  groundwork  of  God's  character  on  which 
to  work  out  our  personal  relationship  with  Him. 


8  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

That  is  the  first  and  the  important  thing.  Knowl- 
edge is  a  growth  not  an  act.  This  is  peculiarly 
true  of  fellowship  between  persons.  To  rest  in 
one  idea  of  God  is  to  rest  in  error.  We  must 
move  into  new  phases  of  His  life  incessantly, 
never  allowing  ourselves  to  confuse  our  con- 
ception of  Him  with  Him.  We  must  accept  the 
penalty  of  possessing  personality. 

It  has  happened  that,  owing  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  modem  nation,  we  have  been  accept- 
ing a  national  interpretation  of  God's  character 
as  being  complete.  In  addition  to  the  disable- 
ment resulting  from  this  provincialism,  we  have 
had  the  conflicting  ideas  of  Him  promoted  by 
the  ntunerous  Churches,  no  one  of  which  is 
unbiased.  The  real  reason  why  Christendom  is 
divided  is  because  of  diverse  and  static  conceptions 
of  God.^ 

It  has  been  rightly  maintained — and  this  is 
the  meaning  of  catholicity — that  safety  so  far 
as  fundamentals  are  concerned  is  to  be  found 
in  the  universal.  That  which  belongs  to  the 
totality  of  the  ages  is  dependable,  and  gives 
us  secure  foothold  for  personal  experience.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  the  groundwork  of  God's 
character.  Upon  it  rests  all  else  in  eter- 
nity and  time.  It  is  the  source  from  which 
reality  flows,  the  foundation  on  which  it  stands. 


GOD'S  CHARACTER  9 

It  is  permanent  and  unchangeable.  No  opinion 
of  ours  can  alter  it.  The  most  that  a  wrong 
conception  of  it  can  do  is  to  help  or  hinder  its 
complete  working  in  the  person  who  entertains 
the  conception. 

Because  the  groundwork  of  God's  character  is 
final,  the  most  important  errand  in  life  is  to  discover 
and  claim  it  as  a  personal  possession  after  which  to 
model  the  groundwork  of  our  own  character.  The 
knowledge  of  God  is  not  only  life  but  also  the 
"highest  kind  of  life,  life  eternal.  Our  working  capi- 
tal is  our  operative  belief,  our  success  as  immortals 
rises  and  falls  according  to  the  measure  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  there  is  in  us.  There  is  no 
possible  escape  from  the  unassailable  logic  of  our 
Lord's  conclusion:  This  is  life  eternal,  that  they 
should  know  Thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Him 
whom  Thou  didst  send,  even  Jesus  Christ. 


II 

Some  one  ^  has  finely,  and,  as  it  would  seem, 
truly  intimated  that  the  groundwork  of  God's 
character  is  the  Cross.  Thinking,  as  is  our  cus- 
tom, in  terms  of  time,  we  may  have  reached  the 

^  E.  Herman  in  the  Meaning  and    Value  of  Mysticism,  the 
reading  of  which  has  coloured  much  that  these  pages  contain. 


lo  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

conclusion  that  it  eventually  became  so,  rather 
than  that  it  was  always  so.  A  moment's  re- 
flection shows  us  that  this  could  not  be.  We 
human  beings  are,  or  ought  to  be,  becoming 
that  which  we  as  yet  are  not.  God  is  only  what 
He  ever  was.  Revelation  is  never  the  taking 
on  by  God  of  some  fresh  attribute.  It  is  the 
unveiiling  to  our  eyes  of  that  which  He  always 
was,  but  which  hitherto  we  have  been  imable 
to  see.  God  lives  in  the  present  tense,  so  that 
it  is  always  fitting  to  declare  of  Him  that  which 
is  to  be  in  the  language  of  now.  His  completeness 
is  not  fluid.  When  once  He  has  declared  Him- 
self there  is  no  mistake  to  be  corrected,  no  false 
expression  to  be  recalled.  This  is  equally  true 
to  the  facts  of  historic  revelation  and  of  the 
progressive  manifestations  of  God  in  individual 
experience.  There  may  be  expansion  and  devel- 
opment in  the  sense  of  our  receiving  larger  views 
of  unchanging  reality.  But  God  can  never  be- 
come in  essence  that  which  He  has  not  always 
been.  If  in  these  pages  words  may  at  times 
be  used  as  though  their  writer  were  oblivious  to 
or  forgetful  of  the  fact,  the  real  explanation  is 
to  be  found  in  the  inadequacy  of  language  for 
the  sublime  task  that  has  been  set  it.  It  is 
stimulating  and  provocative  of  spiritual  effort 
to  remember  that  our  capacity  is  the  full  knowledge 


GOD'S  CHARACTER  ii 

of  God,  that  growing  capacity  involves  growing 
knowledge,  full  capacity  full  knowledge. 

We  cannot  afford  to  ignore  or  depreciate  any 
revelation  of  God  in  the  whole  stretch  of  history 
of  which  the  Bible  is  the  representative  volume. 
Men  talk  as  though  there  were  an  Old  Testa- 
ment and  a  New  Testament  God,  two  distinct 
and  somewhat  contradictory  beings.  The  Old 
Testament  God  is  the  New  Testament  God,  the 
difference  being  that  God,  as  revealed  in  the 
New  Testament,  is  but  the  God  of  old  with 
completer  light  shed  upon  His  character.  The 
groundwork  of  His  character  can  be  expressed 
in  terms  of  the  Cross  in  latter  times  only  because 
it  has  always  been  in  the  form  of  the  Cross. 
The  Cross  represents  self-giving  to  the  utter- 
most, with  everything  that  dares  to  limit  or 
aims  to  thwart  it,  defeated  and  destroyed.  All 
else  must  be  painted  in  on  this  background. 

It  is  obHgatory  that  personality,  if  it  gives  as 
personality,  gives  itself  with  and  in  its  other 
gifts.  God's  first  gift  to  man  was  His  own 
nature.  God  identified  man  with  Himself  when 
He  made  him  in  His  own  image.  All  subsequent 
revelation  is  built  on  this  great  fact.  God's 
a  mightiness.  His  holiness.  His  justice.  His  mercy 
rest  upon  His  self-giving  to  the  uttermost.  An- 
other   word    for    self -giving    is    service,    and    he 


12  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

who  serves  is  a  servant.  It  is  startling  but  true 
to  maintain  that  God  has  been,  fundamentally 
and  always,  a  servant,  the  servant  of  man.  We 
call  Him  love.  Service  is  love  in  active,  intel- 
ligent operation. 

From  the  beginning  the  claim  on  man  for  service 
by  God  has  been  based  upon  the  service  of  man  by 
God  with  the  fulness  of  His  nature.  There  has 
never  been  a  moment  in  which  God  has  expected 
or  exacted  from  man  anything  which  He  Himself  is 
not  or  does  not.  Having  made  us  in  the  image  of 
Himself,  He  could  do  nothing  short  of  requiring 
us  to  live  up  to  the  inherent  requirements  of  the 
Divine  character.  His  struggle  with  the  human 
race  has  been,  and  is,  a  struggle  to  identify,  in 
all  respects,  the  life  of  man  with  the  life  of  God, 
individually  and  corporately.  If  we  complain 
that  too  much  is  expected  of  us  and  that  the 
strain  is  excessive,  reduced  to  its  final  elements 
our  complaint  is  that  we  are  made  in  God's 
image.  God  being  what  He  is  could  not  have 
made  man  anything  but  what  he  is. 


Ill 

It  is  customary  to  think  of  God  as  made 
known  in  the  Old  Testament  as  chiefly  the 
God    of    might,    hoHness    unapproachable,    and 


GOD'S  CHARACTER  13 

austerity.  But  surely  He  is  also  portrayed  there 
as  the  God  of  passionate  gentleness  and  un- 
speakable patience.  No  Hterature  in  the  world 
can  produce  such  a  splendour  of  compassion  as 
shines  from  the  pages  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Its  groundwork  is  shaped  in  the  form  of  a  Cross, 
and  the  chief  sufferer  depicted  is  not  man  but 
God.  His  kingliness,  His  justice,  His  holiness. 
His  almightiness  are  each  and  all  called  in  to 
do  men  service.  More  than  that,  they  are  re- 
vealed to  be  the  attributes  of  God,  not  in  terms 
of  formal  theology  but  in  the  main  in  those  of 
vivid,  human  experience  looking  toward  the  well- 
being  of  the  race.  The  recognition  of  God  as 
He  is  is  required  of  us  in  order  that  we  may 
become  what  we  may  be.  There  is  no  other 
route  or  method.  God  has  bound  up  His  for- 
tunes, so  to  speak,  with  ours  in  the  act  of  creation. 
It  is  not  merely  that  our  life  must  rise  or  fall 
with  God's,  but,  as  the  experience  of  the  Son 
of  God  as  the  Son  of  Man  declares,  God's  life 
rises  and  falls  with  ours.  All  this  the  Old  Testa-" 
ment  shows.  It  was  for  that  reason  that  it 
was  written.  It  is  stupid,  self-conscious  pride 
that  leads  us  to  think  that  God  has  told  us  the 
story  of  His  life  and  being  through  history  for 
His  own  aggrandizement.  Our  ways  are  not 
God's  ways,  our  thoughts  are  not  God's  thoughts. 


14  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

When  God  reveals  Himself  as  King,  He  does 
so  to  establish  the  heights  and  depths  of  His 
service.  For  unto  us  a  Child  is  born,  unto  us 
a  Son  is  given;  and  the  government  shall  be 
upon  His  shoulder :  and  His  name  shall  be  called 
Wonderful,  Counsellor,  Mighty  God,  Everlasting 
Father,  Prince  of  Peace.  It  is  ''unto  us"  that 
all  this  is.  And  note  the  element  of  giving  or 
service  in  every  member  of  His  five-fold  name. 
He  ministers  to  the  ecstatic  part  of  our  being 
as  He  flashes  Himself  before  us  in  the  baffling, 
dazzling,  beckoning  glory  of  Divine  mystery :  He 
is  Wonderful.  He  sets  flowing  manward  the 
flood  of  His  wisdom,  which  is  as  honey  to  the 
mouth  and  as  sunshine  to  the  mind:  He  is 
Counsellor.  He  upholds  with  the  unexcelled 
might  of  Supreme  Sovereignty  the  fate  of  men 
and  things;  He  is  Mighty  God.  His  character 
as  the  author  and  sustainer  of  His  children  is 
for  ever  and  ever:  He  is  Everlasting  Father. 
He  is  dispenser  and  steward  of  that  which  is 
deeper  than  joy  and  as  stable  as  eternity  among 
the  storm-tossed  sons  of  mortahty:  He  is  Prince 
of  Peace.  Such  is  one  flashlight  vision  of  the 
God  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Again,  where  can  be  found  in  human  language 
a  fairer  picture  of  hovering  solicitude,  rivalling 
maternal  tenderness  than  this? 


GOD'S  CHARACTER  15 

The  Lord's  portion  is  his  people: 

Jacob  is  the  lot  of  his  inheritance. 

He  found  him  in  a  desert  land 

And  in  the  waste  howling  wilderness: 

He  compassed  him  about,  he  cared  for  him, 

He  kept  him  as  the  apple  of  his  eye : 

As  an  eagle  that  stirreth  up  her  nest, 

That  fluttereth  over  her  young. 

He  spread  abroad  his  wings,  he  took  them. 

He  bare  them  on  his  pinions. 

And  who  were  the  people  whom  He  thus  treated  ? 
Why  just  the  same  sort  as  ourselves,  a  people 
void  of  understanding,  a  perverse  and  crooked 
generation.  Yet  He  was  their  Rock,  a  God  of 
faithfulness  and  without  iniquity.  Just  and  right 
is  He.  This  great  song  of  Moses  might  belong 
to  the  repertory  of  the  Christian  mystics.  It 
suggests  the  lovely  language  of  Julian  of  Nor- 
wich: "This  is  a  sovereign  friendship  of  our 
courteous  Lord  that  He  keepeth  us  so  tenderly 
while  we  be  in  sin;  and  furthermore  He  touches 
us  full  privily  and  sheweth  us  our  sin  by  the 
sweet  light  of  mercy  and  grace." 

Just  as  the  kingliness  of  God  finds  expression 
in  royal  service,  so  the  humility  of  God  descends 
to  such  depths  of  service  that  extremes  meet, 
and  in  its  own  might  it  scales  the  absolute  heights, 
and  we  learn  that  lowliness  is  the  most  regal 
of  God's  attributes.  He  was  despised  and  re- 
jected of  men;  a  Man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted 


1 6  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

with  grief;  and  as  one  from  whom  men  hide 
their  face  He  was  despised,  and  we  esteemed 
Him  not.  Surely  He  hath  borne  our  griefs, 
and  carried  our  sorrows;  yet  did  we  esteem 
Him  stricken,  smitten  of  God  and  afflicted.  But 
He  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions.  He  was 
bruised  for  our  iniquities ;  the  chastisement  of  our 
peace  was  upon  Him :  and  with  His  stripes  we  are 
healed.  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray ;  we 
have  turned  every  one  to  His  own  way :  and  the 
Lord  hath  laid  on  Him  the  iniquity  of  us  all. 

God,  yes  God,  is  on  the  Cross  for  the  Cross 
is  the  groundwork  of  His  being  and  always  has 
been  so.  In  His  people  He  has  always  suffered 
in  their  sufferings  with  a  degree  of  suffering 
that  surpassed  theirs.  The  pangs  of  time  in 
their  manifold  and  multitudinous  manifestations 
dart  through  the  eternal  nature  of  God.  God 
has  made  common  lot  with  man. 

O  God,  I  praise  Thee  for  Thy  love — that  which  Thou  art 
and  without  which  Thou  couldst  not  be  God  of  man.  Thy 
love  controls  and  shapes  Thy  power  so  that  Thy  almighty 
hand  never  slips  in  its  creative  task  but  makes  and  moulds  all 
things  well.  Thy  love  melts  Thy  disciplines  into  the  gold  of 
spiritual  treasure,  and  distils  the  soft  rain  of  compassion  from 
the  clouds  of  trouble.  Nothing  can  escape  the  transfiguring 
touch  of  Thy  love,  love  finding  utterance  in  lowly,  regal  service. 
Under  its  reign  the  darkness  becomes  as  the  light,  and  the 
unseemly  face  of  evil  flees  away  in  shame  and  defeat.  O  God, 
I  praise  Thee  for  Thy  love  which  bathes  mankind  and  me, 
even  me. 


II 

THE    SELF-IDENTIFICATION    OF   GOD   WITH    MAN 

We  are  not  trying  to  reach  a  complete  anal- 
ysis of  the  character  of  God.  The  very  effort 
would  involve  such  a  discrediting  and  beUttUng 
of  His  nature  as  would  undeify  Him.  ''The 
consciouness  of  the  depth  and  mysteriousness 
of  life  and  reaUty  is  ever  with  it,  as  rehgion, 
from  first  to  last.  'How  unsearchable  are 
God's  judgments,  and  His  ways  past  finding 
out!'  and  'One  of  the  greatest  favours  bestowed 
on  the  soul  in  this  life'  (thus  like  to  the  blessed 
in  heaven)  'is  to  enable  it  to  see  so  distinctly, 
and  to  feel  so  profoundly,  that  it  cannot  com- 
prehend God.'  These  exclamations  of  the  in- 
tensely ontological  [i.e.  devoted  to  the  science 
of  being  and  its  analysis]  St.  Paul  and  of  the 
Spanish  peasant  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  merely 
express,  respectively,  the  very  soul  of  rehgion 
and  a  dehcate  concomitant  of  aU  its  deepest 
experiences."  The  charm  of  science,  art,  liter- 
ature, mathematics,  theology  or  what  not  con- 
sists not  in  its  finalities  but  in  its  infinitudes, 

17 


i8  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

not  in  what  we  have  attained  in  them  but  in 
what  always  Hes  beyond,  not  in  rest  but  in 
motion,  not  in  endings  but  in  beginnings.  Mys- 
tery is  not  incompatible  with  the  familiarity  of 
comradeship.  The  best  comrade  is  the  deepest 
rather  than  the  shallowest.  Of  course  if  God  were 
mere  mind,  mere  mind  might  measurably  compass 
Him  if  it  were  fashioned  after  His  image,  or,  if 
He  were  mere  personality,  mere  personality  might 
fathom  Him  if  our  personality  were  patterned 
on  the  scale  of  His.  But  in  God  there  is  that 
which  we  call  eternal  and  infinite,  and  which 
baffles  us  while  it  delights  us. 

It  is  necessary  to  remember  this  lest  by  too  exclu- 
sive a  devotio;!  to  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  we  shut  out 
the  full  vision  of  God's  fascinating  mysteriouness. 
^>r/^Our  Lord  is  the  Word  of  God  in  His  final  essence 
and  also  with  reference  to  His  intelligibleness  to 
man.  The  same  who  is  the  Word  is  also,  in 
the  awed  language  of  the  mystics.  Silence.  In 
the  seeker  after  God  there  are  always  heights 
hidden  not  in  the  clouds  but  in  the  climbing, 
limitless  blue  above  and  beyond  us.  The  im- 
manent loses  itself  in  the  transcendent.  The 
truest  and  only  reverent  agnostic  is  the  devout 
believer.  He  alone  can  say  that  in  knowing 
Him  he  discovers,  not  in  despair  but  in  pal- 
pitating joy,  that  he  knows  so  little  of  Him  in 


SELF-IDENTIFICATION  OF  GOD  19 

whom  there  is  so  much  to  know  that  it  is  as 
though  he  as  yet  knew  Him  not. 

''Mad  is  he  who  hopes  that  our  reason  may 
compass  that  infinitude  which  one  substance  in 
three  persons  fills.  Be  ye  content,  O  human 
race,  with  quia!  For  if  ye  had  been  able  to  see 
the  whole,  no  need  was  there  for  Mary  to  give 
birth." 


The  Old  Testament  leaves  no  doubt  as  to 
the  shape  of  the  life  of 'God.  It  is  in  the  form 
of  the  Cross.  ''The  Cross  is  not  an  afterthought 
of  God — a  heroic  remedy  for  a  desperate  emer- 
gency— but  the  corner-stone  of  creation."  Con- 
sequently when  the  Word  speaks  in  language 
intelHgible  to  the  human  race  He  speaks  accord- 
ing to  this  unvarying  pattern.  The  Cross  is  the 
chief  eternal  symbol  in  time.  Like  the  Chinese 
ideograph  it  always  presents  the  one  idea  under 
whatever  terminology  the  human  tongue  may 
give  it  voice.  God  is  in  the  deepest  foundations 
of  His  being  a  servant.  Whenever  and  however 
He  speaks  the  accents  of  service  are  in  His  voice. 
Even  in  the  fragmentary  utterances  caught  by 
the  dimmest  religions,  there  is  a  faint  murmur 
at  least  of  His  inmost  self.  Nothing  that  history 
has  produced  casts  doubt  on  what  St.  Paul  said : 


20  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

The  invisible  things  of  Him  since  the  creation 
of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  perceived 
through  the  things  that  are  made,  even  His 
everlasting  power  and  divinity.  And  what  the 
same  Apostle  said  to  the  men  of  Athens  could 
be  said  to  any  untutored  and  unevangelized 
people  with  some  measure  of  appropriateness. 
If  men  live  and  move  and  have  their  being  in 
Him,  He  is  their  perpetual  servant. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  when  Jesus  came 
into  the  world  God  for  the  first  time  entered 
upon  and  fulfilled  a  period  of  service  begun  in 
Bethlehem  and  terminated  on  Calvary.  God's 
service  in  the  very  nature  of  things  must  be 
limited  by  our  acceptance;  God's  teaching  is 
hidden  except  to  the  extent  that  His  pupils  are 
students.  He  was  in  the  world,  and  the  world 
was  made  by  Him,  and  the  world  knew  Him 
not.  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  they  that 
were  His  own  received  Him  not.  But  as  many 
as  received  Him,  to  them  He  gave  the  right  to 
become  children  of  God. 

The  Incarnation  is  a  reiteration  of  revelation 
already  given,  not  less  than  a  new  and  unique 
manifestation  of  the  Divine  life  and  character.  It 
is  the  most  eloquent  language  of  love  and  service, 
the  self -identification  of  God  with  us  human  folk. 
It  is  God  throwing  off  all  reserve,   so  to  speak, 


SELF-IDENTIFICATION  OF  GOD  21 

and  laying  bare  His  heart  for  all  to  behold. 
It  is  the  dramatic  acting  out  of  His  character 
under  the  sun,  suiting  his  method  to  the  simplest 
understanding  and  the  greatest  culture  at  a 
single  stroke.  Having  identified  man  with  Him- 
self in  the  original  creative  act  or  process,  He 
now  identifies  Himself  with  man  in  this  creative 
act  or  process.  And  yet  all  the  while  He  is  and 
does  nothing  new,  though  in  and  through  Him 
all  things  are  made  new.  It  behooved  Him  in 
all  things  to  be  made  like  unto  His  brethren, 
that  He  might  be  a  merciful  and  faithful  high 
priest  in  things  pertaining  to  God  to  make  pro- 
pitiation for  the  sins  of  the  people.  For  in  that 
He  Himself  have  suffered  being  tempted,  He  is 
able   to   succour   them   that   are   tempted. 

The  exact  words  of  ^  ripture  are  used  here  and 
elsewhere  not  because  of  any  devotion  to  the  lit- 
eral language  of  the  Bible,  or  because  Biblical  quo- 
tation is  itself  considered  final,  but  because  they 
are  so  perfect  an  expression  of  the  thought  to 
be  conveyed  that  there  could  be  no  improvement 
on  them. 

In  all  literature  I  know  of  no  passage  of 
the  sort  that  can  parallel  the  kenotic  (i.e. 
self -emptying)  paragraph.  Listen  to  its  stately, 
thrilling  tones!  Have  this  mind  in  you,  which 
was   also  in    Christ   Jesus;    who,    being    in    the 


22  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

form  of  God,  counted  it  not  a  prize  to  be 
on  an  equality  with  God,  but  emptied  Himself, 
taking  the  form  of  a  servant,  being  made  in  the 
likeness  of  men;  and  being  found  in  fashion  as 
a  man.  He  humbled  Himself,  becoming  obedient 
even  unto  death,  yea,'  the  death  of  the  Cross, 
wherefore  also  God  highly  exalted  Him,  and 
gave  unto  Him  the  name  which  is  above  every- 
name;  that  in  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee 
should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven  and  things  on 
earth,  and  things  imder  the  earth,  and  that 
every  tongue  should  confess  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father. 

The  service  of  God,  in  Jesus  Christ,  takes 
definite  human  shape.  The  eternal  Cross  forms 
itself  into  the  Cross  of  Calvary.  God's  coming 
in  the  Incarnation  must  have  been  what  it  was. 
In  no  other  way  could  He  come  except  as  a 
servant.  The  human  form  corresponded  exactly 
with  the  Divine  reality.  The  servant,  wherever 
and  under  whatever  guise  He  is,  must  always 
be  the  servant.  To  call  God  servant  is  not  to 
depreciate  Divinity.  Rather  is  it  to  dignify  ser- 
vice. If  service  be  the  occupation  of  God,  it 
cannot  be  an  occupation  unworthy  of  man.  To 
be  a  servant  is  another  way  of  expressing  like- 
ness to  God,  kingliness,  greatness,  manliness. 


SELF-IDENTIFICATION  OF  GOD  23 

II 

The  groundwork  of  the  character  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  Cross,  because  the  Cross  is  the 
groundwork  of  the  character  of  God.  It  is  chosen 
on  earth  because  it  is  inherent  in  heaven.  But 
Jesus  Christ  did  not,  during  His  earthly  career, 
exhibit  all  that  God  is.  Neither  the  Almight- 
iness  of  God,  nor  His  Omniscience  were  exercised 
by  Him.  This  is  not  to  say  that  they  were 
altered  in  substance  or  degree.  As  to  how  they 
were  held  in  abeyance,  no  one  can  tell.  The 
object  and  end  of  the  Incarnation  was  exactly 
what  the  object  and  end  of  all  God's  previous 
revelations  was — insistence  upon  the  self-giving 
character  of  God's  nature.  It  was  exhibited  in 
order  that  human  capacity  and  the  laws  that 
govern  human  life  might  be  clearly  illustrated — 
in  short,  it  was  exhibited  because  God  could 
not  help  it  and  remain  God.  With  God  can 
be  no  variation,  neither  shadow  that  is  cast  by 
turning. 

So  we  find  God  stating  in  the  person  and  the 
conduct  and  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ  what  all 
revelation  up  to  that  time  had  declared  Him 
to  be.  Fire  from  on  high  had  not  yet  been 
kindled  in  men.  Flashes  from  heaven  had  made 
but  fitful  and  momentary  flame.     Now  heaven 


24  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

presses  itself  so  closely  into  earth  that  the  one 
mingles  with  the  other.  If  God  were  to  do 
things  for  us  only  and  not  also  in  and  with  us, 
our  outlook  would  be  hopeless.  Herein  is  love, 
not  that  we  loved  God  but  that  He  loved  us, 
and  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our 
sins.     We  love  because  He  first  loved  us. 

In  thinking  of  self-giving  in  relation  to  pain, 
we  must  not  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that 
suffering  is  always  and  everywhere  necessary 
to  service.  Certainly  it  is  not  its  dominant 
note.  In  that  self-giving  is  the  chief  law  of 
God's  being,  in  it  is  His  supreme  bhss.  Though 
somehow,  in  a  way  that  does  not  appear  to  the 
human  mind,  suffering  has  its  roots  and  origin 
in  God,  it  is  only  as  a  process  of  love,  so  that — 

Love's  very  pain  is  sweet. 

The  Cross  as  the  groundwork  of  God's  char- 
acter is  painless  so  far  as  it  is  the  expression  of 
His  inmost  desire  and  purpose.  It  has  no  more 
pain  in  it  than  the  surrender  of  a  bride  to  the 
encompassing  love  of  her  betrothed,  than  the 
outpuring  of  a  mother's  love  upon  a  reciprocating 
child.  But  there  is  a  suffering  imported  into 
God's  self-giving  by  us  creatures  of  time. 

Self-will,  that  is,  the  power  of  our  free  choice 
exercised  away  from  self-giving  or  service,  is  erected 


SELF-IDENTIFICATION  OF  GOD  25 

as  a  barrier  to  the  fulfilment  of  God's  purpose 
for  and  in  and  with  us,  and  the  floodgates  of 
suffering  and  tragedy  are  thereby  opened  on 
God  and  the  race.  It  is  our  rejection  and  re- 
pudiation of  Him  that  makes  the  Cross  a  torturing 
thing.  No  one  who  has  struggled  to  express  his 
life  in  terms  of  self-giving  finds  it  a  burden  or 
a  pain.  Service  which  finds  its  mark  and  is 
accepted  loses  the  very  memory  of  this  effort 
and  suffering  through  which  it  reached  its  goal. 
Better  still  the  memory  of  the  suffering  ceases 
to  have  any  suffering  in  it  and  becomes  an  actual 
ingredient  of  joy. 

Whether  then  it  is  of  God's  life  through  the 
ageless  ages,  or  during  the  thirty- three  years 
when  He  tabernacled  in  the  flesh  of  our  mortality, 
that  we  are  thinking,  the  only  suffering  which 
was  not  an  inherent  part  of  joy,  which  was 
scalding  and  bitter  and  torturing  in  His  self- 
giving,  was  (and  is)  the  direct  result  of  human 
self-will. 

Ill 

Self-giving  reaches  its  climax  in  the  self- 
identification  of  the  one  who  loves  with  those 
who  are  loved.  There  is  nothing  beyond  this 
height  for  God  or  man.  God  made  us  His  neigh- 
bour.    He  loves  us  as  Himself.     Then  He  made 


26  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

Himself  our  neighbour  and  asked  us  to  love  Him 
as  ourselves.  He  loves  us  with  all  His  might 
and  expects  of  us  only  the  same  treatment  that 
we  receive  from  Him.  The  first  and  great 
commandment — Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul 
and  with  all  thy  mind — is  not  arbitrary  or  one- 
sided but  invitatory  and  reciprocal.  Did  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  do  anything  less  in  His  love 
toward  mankind?  The  Son  of  God  as  the  Son 
of  Man  acted  out  the  Second  Commandment  in 
making  known  the  first — or  vice  versa,  if  you 
choose.  Is  there  anything  conceivable  worthy 
the  name  of  love  which  would  add  to  the  per- 
fection of  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ  and  which  He 
failed  to  exhibit?     If  there  is  I  know  it  not. 

In  the  creation  God  identified  man  with  Him- 
self by  making  him  in  His  own  image:  in  the 
re-creation  He  identified  God  with  man  by  the 
great  incarnate  act.  This  was  done  not  so  as 
to  merge  and  confuse  the  Divine  and  the  human, 
but  with  due  recognition  of  both.  Manhood 
stands  out  with  new  distinction  and  distinctness 
on  the  background  of  God  because  and  by  means 
of  the  Incarnation.  The  Incarnation  is  order 
and  symmetry  as  well  as  vastness  and  mystery. 
It  is  the  recognition  of  a  whole  where  everyone 
and  everything  has  place,  from  God  to  a  sparrow 


SELF-IDENTIFICATION   OF  GOD  27 

and  from  man  to  a  lily.  It  is  a  condemnation 
of  sectionalism  and  self-will,  self-will  that  is  not 
merely  evil  but  the  chief  and  fruitful  source  of 
all  evil.  The  whole  of  God's  scheme  is  unrolled 
and  exalted.  The  greatness  of  the  least  is  pro- 
claimed by  recognizing  the  Httle  child,  the  aban- 
doned sinner,  the  grass  of  the  field,  each  as  being 
important,  and  bearing  such  a  relation  to  the 
whole  as  to  have  the  constant  personal  considera- 
tion of  God  Himself.  In  the  Hght  of  the  Incarna- 
tion we  come  to  know  that  the  quivering  leaf 
is  organically  related  to  the  quivering  star,  and 
that  unity  of  purpose  and  of  life  is  the  energizing 
force  of  the  universe.  When  mankind  shall  have 
come  to  an  effective  recognition  of  this  fact 
there  will  be  no  more  war,  and  tears  and  sin  and 
death  will  flee  away. 

The  only  difference  between  chaos  and  order 
is  that  the  constituent  elements  in  the  one  are 
actuated  by  antagonisms  and  in  the  other  by 
affinities.  Order  everywhere  takes  its  beginning 
in  mutual  understanding.  It  is  not  mechanical 
but  organic.  The  whole  gives  of  its  vitality  to 
the  parts  not  by  cogs  but  by  arteries.  The  parts 
fulfil  their  duty  to  the  whole  by  functional  loyalty 
that  does  not  usurp  the  office  of  neighbouring 
parts  in  performing  their  own  tasks. 

It  may  be  a  startling,  though  I  hope  not  an 


28  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

inaccurate  or  irreverent,  way  to  express  it,  but 
God  in  order  to  make  clear  the  unity  of  Himself 
and  His  universe  did  not,  could  not  rest  content 
with  being  immanent  in  it,  and  in  Jesus  Christ 
He  became,  or  revealed  Himself  to  be,  part  of 
it.  Self-identification  could  rise  no  higher  or 
reach  no  further  than  the  Incarnation  rises  and 
reaches.  I  am  the  Vine:  ye  are  the  branches. 
Abide  in  Me  and  I  in  you.  We  are  members  oi 
His  body.  He  is  a  true  member  of  the  human 
family,  albeit  the  chief  member,  the  Head.  We 
are  to  grow  up  in  all  things  into  Him,  which 
is  the  head  of  the  Church;  from  Whom  all  the 
body  fitly  framed  and  knit  together  through 
that  which  every  joint  supplieth,  according  to 
the  working  in  due  measure  of  each  several  part, 
maketh  the  increase  of  the  body  unto  the  building 
up  of  itself  in  love. 

Translated  into  Christian  terms,  the  words  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  compass  the  thought — 

I  am  at  one  with  everything,  O  Universe,  which  is  well-fitting 

in  thee, 
Nothing  to  me  is  early  or  late  which  is  timely  with  thee, 
All  is  fruit  to  me  that  thy  seasons  bring. 
O  Nature,  from  thee  are  all  things,  in  thee  are  all  things,  to 

thee  all  things  return. 
The  poet  saith.  Dear  city  of  Cecrops;    shall  not  I  say,  Dear 

City  of  God?  ^ 

^  Bridge's  translation. 


SELF-IDENTIFICATION  OF  GOD  29 

There  are  other  methods  of  stirring  life  God- 
ward  which  is  its  goal,  but  none  to  match  the 
simple  exposition  of  God's  movement  manward. 
The  cold  spear-prick  of  duty  can  drive,  and  some 
natures  become  and  do  marvellous  things  under 
its  compulsion,  but  man  cannot  live  on  com- 
mandments even  when  they  are  uttered  by  God. 
They  must  be  moved  by  a  force  that  inspires 
and  inflames.  By  His  self-identification  with 
man,  God  has  solved  the  problem.  This  can  be 
said  in  all  sincerity  in  the  face  of  a  world  in  dis- 
order and  of  a  Church  in  tattered  fragments. 
The  Spirit  of  God  is  brooding  over  the  face  of 
our  troubled  waters. 

O  God,  I  praise  Thee  for  the  gift  of  Jesus  Christ,  Who  is 
the  image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  first-born  of  all  creation; 
for  in  Him  were  all  things  created  in  the  heavens  and  upon  the 
earth,  things  visible  and  invisible;  all  things  have  been  created 
through  Him  and  unto  Him;  and  He  is  before  all  things,  and 
in  Him  all  things  consist.  And  He  is  the  head  of  the  body 
of  the  Church;  who  is  the  beginning,  the  first-born  from  the 
dead;  that  in  all  things  He  might  have  the  pre-eminence.  For 
it  was  the  good  pleasure  of  the  Father  that  in  Him  should  all 
the  fulness  dwell.  Now  unto  our  God  and  Father  be  the  glory 
for  ever  and  ever.     Amen. 


Ill 

THE    LAMB    AS    IT   HAD    BEEN    SLAIN 

It  is  not  a  true  distinction  to  differentiate 
between  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  man  of  history 
who  figured  in  His  generation  similarly  to  Julius 
Caesar  or  Shakespeare,  and  the  Christ  of  the 
ages  who  startled  Paul  into  flaming  belief,  and 
whom  the  exiled  theologian,  John,  saw  walking 
in  the  midst  of  the  golden  candlesticks.  You 
might  as  well  call  a  man  a  personality  wholly 
apart  from  the  boy  he  was  and  who  is  still  part 
of  him.  But  it  is  a  mistake,  a  mistake  fruitful 
of  grave  results,  to  fix  exclusive  attention  on 
the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels.  It  is  an  aspect  of 
resting  in  a  part  as  though  it  were  the  whole. 

There  is  also  a  converse  error,  that  of  giving 
oneself  up  to  a  contemplation  of  the  Christ  of 
faith  and  experience  to  a  degree  that  eventuates 
in  the  wildest  vagaries  of  pseudo-mysticism,  or 
claims  as  development  that  which  has  as  little 
affinity  to  the  Gosepl  seed  as  a  head  of  wheat 
has  to  an  acorn.  There  is  perfect  imity  in  all 
God's  operations  in  time.     He  has  never  changed 

30 


THE  LAMB  AS  IT  HAD  BEEN  SLAIN    31 

His  mind,  He  has  never  made  a  false  move,  He 
has  never  had  to  retrace  His  steps.  His  self- 
manifestation  in  pre-Christian  days,  in  the  times 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  in  all  subsequent 
centuries  has  been  consistent  throughout  in  sub- 
stance and  method.  It  is  all  part  of  a  great 
whole,  its  only  variation  being  one  of  degree. 
He  is  more  to-day  than  He  was  yesterday  not 
because  He  has  added  to  Himself  or  His  efforts 
but  because  we  have  added  to  the  energy  and 
reality  of  our  faith,  which  is  co-operative  accept- 
ance of  God.  Not  only  does  God  not  contradict 
Himself  but  He  also  does  not  repeat  Himself. 
The  old  is  ever  becoming  new  under  His  touch 
either  by  coming  to  fresh  maturity  or  else  by 
transfiguration. 

I  would  make  here  a  passionate  plea  for  a 
whole  Bible,  Apocrypha  and  all.  More  than  that, 
a  Bible  which  is  but  the  beginning  of  a  Christian 
library.  Divine  and  human,  and  which  will  rest 
not  on  a  lonely  table  as  a  thing  apart,  but  which 
will  rub  covers  with  Dante  and  Bacon  and  the 
sages  of  the  Orient,  and  be  the  richer  and  the 
more  masterful  because  of  its  company  on  a 
crowded  shelf.  The  Bible,  in  one  sense,  is  a 
new  starting-point  for  Hterature.  Its  last  book 
launches  us  out  into  unlived  centuries,  just  as 
the    Old    Testament    carries    us    into    past    and 


32  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

representative  history.  The  Bible  is  a  prelude, 
not  a  conclusion.  Its  last  words  are  against 
incompleteness  and  in  defence  of  wholeness.  The 
context  of  the  Bible  is  the  immortal  literature 
of  the  ages,  past,  present  and  future.  The  con- 
text of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  the  God  of  old  times, 
He  of  the  hoary  locks,  the  Ancient  of  Days, 
and  the  God  of  now,  the  Son  of  Man  with  eyes 
as  a  flame  of  fire,  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  Christ 
who  animates  the  Church.  God  is  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day  and  forever,  whether  we  view 
Him  as  Javeh  or  Jesus,  or  the  Holy  Spirit  or  the 
Triune. 

In  dealing  with  the  Bible  we  must  remember 
about  revelation  that  it  was  not  given  to  a  book 
but  to  men.  The  book  that  contains  the  record 
of  it  is  very  sacred,  but  it  is,  after  all,  but  a 
book.  It  can  leap  into  life  only  when  it  is  poured 
through  man.  The  Bible  without  a  Divine  So- 
ciety to  guard  and  interpret  and  vivify  it  is  not 
necessarily  an  open  or  life-giving  book. 


The  Book  of  Revelation  begins  exactly  as  a 
logically-minded  man  would  expect  it  to  begin 
from  a  knowledge  of  Gospel  history.  Where  the 
biography  of  an  ordinary  man  closes  or  retreats 


THE  LAMB  AS  IT  HAD  BEEN  SLAIN    33 

into  the  unexplored  shadows,  that  of  Jesus 
breaks  out  afresh.  **It  is  after  the  Saviour's 
death  that  men  are  mostly  saved" — this  not  by 
reverting  to  what  He  has  done  but  by  what  He 
continues  to  do  on  the  basis  of  what  He  has 
done.  A  Saviour's  march  is  ever  onward,  im- 
peded by  death  as  little  as  by  life.  The  Cross 
of  Calvary  saves,  yes,  but  only  so  far  as  it  is 
identified  with  that  eternal  Cross  which  is  the 
groundwork  of  the  character  of  God,  that  self- 
giving,  that  self-identification  of  God  with  man, 
which  flows  as  continually  from  the  heart  of 
God  as  the  spring  from  a  perennial  source.  Sal- 
vation cannot  be  mechanical,  for  God  is  not  a 
machine  dealing  with  machines.  He  is  the 
source  of  personality  dealing  with  persons.  Sal- 
vation may  begin  with  a  touch,  but  it  must 
continue  in  a  relationship  where  there  is  a  per- 
petual and  mutual  flow  of  confidences,  from 
the  Saviour  to  the  saved,  and  from  the  saved 
to  the  Saviour. 

John,  the  Seer,  introduces  us  to  the  Christ 
beyond  the  veil.  There  He  is,  unchanged  except 
for  the  glory  of  His  cumulative  experience!  The 
manhood  is  there,  transfigured  as  manhood  must 
be  transfigured  that  has  victoriously  passed 
through  crises  like  death  and  resurrection  and 
ascension.     He  is  doing  what  we  would  expect 


34  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

Him  to  be  doing.  He  is  moving  about  among 
men,  commending  and  nurturing  what  is  good 
in  them,  condemning  and  scorning  what  is  evil, 
and  making  the  heavens  echo  with  marvellous 
promises  to  those  who  overcome.  The  mind 
travels  back  through  the  centuries  to  the  God 
of  the  Psalmist  who  is  gracious  and  full  of  com- 
passion, or  to  the  God  of  Isaiah  who  promised 
to  those  who  would  put  away  their  evil  doings 
that  though  their  sins  were  as  scarlet,  they  should 
be  as  white  as  snow;  though  they  were  red 
like  crimson,  they  should  be  as  wool,  or  to  God 
the  Law  Giver  who  proclaimed  penalties  for 
transgression  in  the  same  breath  with  rewards 
for  obedience. 

It  is  an  easy  and  natural  journey  from  thq  com- 
plete understanding  by  the  Figure  of  Revelation 
of  the  character  and  conduct  of  the  Seven  Churches 
to  the  complete  understanding  of  the  Nazarene 
who  read  men  as  an  open  book,  for  He  knew  all 
men,  and  needed  not  that  any  one  should  bear 
witness  concerning  man;  for  He  Himself  knew 
what  was  in  man.  Repeatedly  He  connects  Him- 
self with  His  past — He  claims  to  be  the  first  and 
the  last,  which  was  dead  and  is  alive  for  ever- 
more, the  Amen,  the  faithful  and  true  witness, 
the  beginning  of  the  creation  of  God. 


THE   LAMB  AS   IT  HAD  BEEN   SLAIN     35 

II 

In  the  first  four  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion is  the  figure  of  one  Hke  unto  a  Son  of  Man, 
and  His  messages  hold  our  attention.  Then 
with  the  door  opened  in  heaven  Christological 
thought  mounts  into  pure  theology.  No  more 
do  we  see  the  commanding  presence  of  Christ 
in  glory.  Instead  there  is  a  throne  set  in  heaven, 
and  One  sitting  upon  the  throne.  We  are  ushered 
into  the  audience  chamber  of  God  Himself.  In 
the  midst  of  the  throne  and  of  animated  and  of 
intelHgent  nature  there  is  a  Lamb  standing,  as 
though  it  had  been  slain.  With  the  Lamb  and 
with  Him  alone  rests  the  ability  and  the  right 
to  open  the  Book  of  Life  and  reveal  its  contents 
and  meaning.  The  Seer,  fearful  that  there  was 
no  one  worthy  the  task,  was  told  that  one  there 
was  of  .leonine  strength  and  courage  and  of  royal 
lineage,  who  could  open  the  book  and  break 
the  seals.  He  looked  for  this  superb  being,  and 
lo!  it  was  a  Lamb  with  the  marks  of  past  death, 
violent  death,  upon  it. 

The  transition  is  instantaneous  and  illuminating. 
It  is  one  of  those  fine  paradoxes  with  which  the 
lips  of  Christ  were  famiUar — eternal  gain  by 
temporal  loss,  Hfe  by  way  of  death,  acquisition 
by  meekness.     The  Lion  of  Judah  was  there  in  the 


36  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

Lamb.  How?  Because  the  Almightiness  of  God 
is  as  much  in  His  meekness  and  lowliness  as 
in  the  irresistible  force  by  which  He  spins  the 
world  and  upholds  the  universe. 

There  is  a  measure  of  magnificence  in  the  words 
of  one  of  the  Church's  prayers  ^  which  is  brought 
out  only  when  they  are  illumined  by  the  Lion  that 
is  a  Lamb — O  God,  who  declarest  thy  almighty 
power  most  chiefly,  supremely  [maxime]  in  showing 
mercy  and  pity  [parcendo  et  miser ando].  In  the 
presence  of  the  Lion  which  is  a  Lamb  we  can  ven- 
ture on  the  passionate  petition  that  clamours  for  a 
multiplication,  a  deluge,  a  superabundance,  of 
mercy  [multiplica  super  nos  misericordiam  tuam]. 

God's  mercy  is  not  a  condescension  or  a  mo- 
mentary sweeping  aside  of  austerity.  It  is  the 
towering  [maxima]  disposition  of  a  Father  toward 
His  children.  It  is  fellow-feeling  and  gentleness. 
That  which  is  severe  is  painted  in  upon,  and 
finds  its  interpretation  in,  that  which  seemingly 
contradicts  severity  but  which  actually  changes 
it  from  cruelty  into  beneficence. 

God's  meekness  and  gentleness  and  lowliness 
did  not  begin  upon  earth  as  new  or  as  tem- 
porary attributes.  They  were  simply  manifested 
then  by  and  in  Jesus  Christ  under  human  con- 

*  Collect  for  the  Eleventh  Sunday  after  Trinity. 


THE  LAMB  AS  IT  HAD  BEEN  SLAIN    37 

ditions.  God  is  meek  and  gentle  and  lowly 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  ever  in  heaven  and 
on  earth.  Love  has  stem  qualities,  as  we  shall 
come  to  consider  later,  but  they  are  all,  as  I 
have  just  intimated,  subsidiary  to  the  gentle 
qualities.  It  is  full  of  significance  that  the 
human  form  in  St.  John's  apocalyptic  portrait 
of  God  on  His  throne  does  not  appear.  In  its 
stead  is  the  Lamb,  that  is  the  essential,  dom- 
inating feature  of  the  person  and  teaching  of 
our  lowly  Saviour,  who  was  oppressed,  yet  He 
humbled  Himself  and  opened  not  His  mouth; 
as  a  lamb  that  is  led  to  the  slaughter,  and  as  a 
sheep  that  before  her  shearers  is  dumb;  yea. 
He  opened  not  His  mouth. 

It  will  astonish  the  reader  of  the  Book  of 
the  Revelation,  who  has  not  studied  the  place 
of  the  Lamb  in  its  mysterious  chapters,  to  dis- 
cover how  constant  and  high  a  position  this 
symbol  holds.  The  praise  of  heaven  and  earth 
is  directed  to  the  Lamb  that  hath  been  slain; 
it  is  the  Lamb  that  alone  understands  life;  around 
the  Lamb  the  redeemed  gather  as  the  saved 
about  their  Saviour;  the  wrath  of  heaven  is 
the  wrath  of  the  Lamb;  the  holy  city  coming 
down  out  of  heaven  from  God,  having  the  glory 
of  God,  is  the  bride,  the  wife  of  the  Lamb;  the 
Lord  God  the  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the 


38  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

temple  of  heaven;  the  glory  of  God  lightens  the 
celestial  city,  and  the  lamp  thereof  is  the  Lamb. 
It  would  be  a  natural  question  to  ask  why, 
instead  of  the  Lamb,  the  Son  of  Man  should 
not  appear?  The  answer  is  that  the  Lamb  is 
the  Son  of  Man  in  His  supreme  character  of 
meek,  gentle,  forgiving,  sacrificial  love  wherein 
consists  His  leonine,  His  regal  strength. 

So  the  meekness  and  forbearance  and  lowliness 
of  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  repeat  them- 
selves in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  still  again  pro- 
claim their  age-long  sovereignty  on  the  Throne 
of  God  and  of  the  Lamb,  as  the  seer  leads  us 
to  the  door  open  in  heaven  and  bids  us  look 
through.  It  is  not  only  the  Lamb  as  though 
it  had  been  slain  upon  which  our  gaze  is  fixed, 
not  merely  the  Christ  of  Calvary,  but  also  the 
Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world, 
the  God  whose  eternal  character  is  self -sacrificial, 
self-donative,  in  the  form  of  the  Cross. 


Ill 

The  Book  of  the  Revelation  might  be  accurately 
described  as  being  a  study  of  life  in  terms  of 
the  whole.  No  element  that  belongs  to  life  is 
missing,  no  force  that  strives  and  threatens  to 
overthrow   it   is    overlooked,    no    tie    that    binds 


THE   LAMB  AS   IT  HAD   BEEN   SLAIN     39 

together  the  myriad  parts  of  the  unity  of  God's 
perfect  plan  is  neglected.  And  all  the  while 
the  self-giving  character  of  Deity  is  forced  on 
our  attention  by  the  Lamb.  Though  we  recog- 
nize that  we  are  moving  in  the  realm  of  sym- 
bolism, it  is  startling  to  find  as  the  conspicuous 
feature  in  the  Godhead  a  lamb,  a  member  of 
the  brute  creation,  rather  than  a  man,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  human  family.  The  explanation,  of 
course,  is  found  in  the  ancient  scheme  of  Jewish 
sacrifice.  In  the  Old  Testament  the  lamb  is 
offered  by  the  hands  of  others.  That  was  the 
shadow  of  the  reaHty.  But  the  Lamb  of  God 
that  beareth  the  sin  of  the  world,  when  He  was 
offered  was  both  priest  and  victim. 

I  am  jealous  for  the  word  sacrifice.  Its  Old 
Testament  significance  is  ordinarily  too  prom- 
inent in  Christian  teaching.  Pain  and  death  are 
there,  if  not  as  chief,  at  any  rate  as  conspicuous 
features.  I  am  not  saying  that  self-sacrifice  al- 
ways or  usually  dispenses  with  them.  That  is 
not  so.  But  surely  they  hold  a  subsidiary,  or, 
better  still,  a  conquered  place  in  self-donation 
as  considered  in  the  light  of  the  sacrificial  char- 
acter of  the  life  of  God,  whose  bHss  is  supreme. 
They  are  the  discords  that  are  necessary  to 
harmony.  The  Puritan  conscience  makes  men 
suspicious  of  a  duty  whose  chief  characteristic 


40  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

is  its  pleasantness  or  which  is  not  actually  dis- 
tasteful. The  thought  is  as  dangerous  as  its 
converse,  that  we  have  already  reached  a  stage 
where  joy  is  its  own  security,  and  that  everything 
we  want  to  do,  it  is  our  duty  to  do  because  we 
like  it.  Self-giving  must  always  give  at  least 
a  twinge  to  undue  self-love,^  but  viewed  as  the 
perpetual  flow  of  God's  life  it  is  the  consummation 
of  joy.  Our  Lord  incorporated  pain  and  death 
into  His  self-giving  because  they  blocked  His 
path,  but  He  would  have  had  the  cup  pass  from 
Him  had  it  been  morally  and  spiritually  possible. 
The  mind  of  the  self-giver  is  set  on  saving.  It 
never  gives  merely  for  the  sake  of  giving  or 
without  reference  to  a  set  purpose.  Nothing  is 
more  demoralizing  than  to  give  carelessly  and 
without  a  purpose  supported  by  the  pillars  of 
principle.  Herein  consists  the  difference  between 
waste  and  sacrifice.  The  one — I  speak  in  the 
terms  of  Old  Testament  thought — is,  as  it  were, 
the  slaughter  of  a  lamb  because  one  chances  to 
meet  it;  the  other  is  the  solemn  offering  of  a 
sacrificial  victim  at  the  appointed  hour  in  the 
Temple  for  the  sins  of  the  people.  The  former 
seeks  mainly  for  that  which  is  self-disciplinary; 
the  latter  for  opportunity  to  serve  others  in  the 

^  Self-love  is  wrong  only  so  far  as  it  is  incomplete  or  exclusive 
or  disproportionate.     Self-love  is  not  selfishness. 


THE  LAMB  AS  IT  HAD  BEEN  SLAIN    41 

most  effective  way,  be  the  pain  great  or  the 
joy  great.  The  one  is  self-conscious,  the  other 
is  other-self-conscious. 

Think  of  the  wonderful  heroic  women  of  Belgium 
who  ''have  not  taken  a  day's  rest  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war.  How  should  they,  since  every 
day  thousands  of  hungry  children  wait  at  their 
gates  to  be  not  only  fed  but  weighed,  watched, 
medically  examined."  They  are  saving  others, 
therefore  themselves  they  cannot  save.  Their  sacri- 
fice is  of  the  Christ  sort.  A  great  purpose  looking 
toward  a  great  end  anticipates  the  joy  of  achieve- 
ment so  that  the  pain  of  effort,  or  the  suffering 
involved  in  the  process  of  achieving,  is  more  or 
less  smothered  by  the  coming  joy.  The  Lamb 
of  God,  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him, 
endured   the   Cross,    despising   the   shame. 

To  sum  it  all  up — would  it  not  be  truer  to  bid 
people  look  for  the  joy  in  self-sacrifice  rather 
than  for  the  suffering?  They  are  both  there, 
and  the  former  is  the  higher  as  well  as  the  stronger. 
This  I  say  with  the  picture  of  the  trenches  before 
my  eyes.  As  Julian  Trenfell's  Into  Battle,  written 
by  him  after  he  was  a  seasoned  soldier,  with 
death  in  full  view,  makes  clear,  there  is  a  pas- 
sionate joy  in  the  white  souls  of  the  unsmirched 
manhood  that  daily  goes  ''over  the  top,"  in 
both  senses,  which  neither  the  ripping  shrapnel 


42  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

can  rend  nor  the  poisonous  shroud  of  gas  can 
smother.  If  the  superior  joy  is  not  always  co- 
incident with  the  inferior  suffering,  it  is  the 
latter 's  prelude  and  cadence. 

Space  will  allow  me  to  do  no  more  than  touch 
upon  the  one  further  feature  of  the  Lamb  with 
which  I  shall  deal — His  wrath.  In  the  light 
of  the  Old  Testament  teaching  and  the  unchange- 
able character  of  God  as  written  across  the 
face  of  human  experience,  the  wrath  of  the 
lamb  contains  in  it  the  scourging,  punitive 
element  from  which  there  can  be  no  escape. 
Patience,  meekness  and  self -giving  do  not  for- 
feit for  their  possessor  the  right  or  the  power  to 
become  terrible  in  denuncication  and  condem- 
nation here  or  hereafter.  The  wrath  of  outraged 
righteousness  may  be  restricted  to  a  last  resort 
and  confined  within  narrow  channels,  but  be- 
cause of  the  fact  it  is  all  the  more  terrible  when 
its  clean  white  flame  leaps  forth.  The  punish- 
ment of  Cain  and  the  cleansing  of  the  Temple 
were  performed  by  the  same  Being.  The  same 
mind  framed  the  penalties  attendant  upon  sin, 
whether  in  the  Mosaic  code  or  in  the  w^oes  of 
the  New  Testament. 

But  I  think  there  may  be  another  interpre- 
tation of  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb.  I  dimly  con- 
ceive of  it  as  being  a  fury  of  forbearance,  to  use 


THE  LAMB  AS  IT  HAD  BEEN  SLAIN    43 

a  paradox  as  legitimate  as  the  one  which  it  aims 
to  elucidate.  The  emphasis  is  thrown  on  the 
last  rather  than  the  first  member  of  the  phrase. 
After  all  it  is  the  fixed  character  of  the  agent 
which  determines  the  quality  of  his  temper, 
and  not  vice  versa.  Was  it  not  the  wrath  of  the 
Lamb  that  looked  upon  Peter  so  that  he  went 
out  and  wept  bitterly?  Was  it  not  the  same 
wrath  that  later  said:  Feed  My  lambs:  tend 
My  sheep,  so  that  the  rebuke  of  his  sin  struck 
into  the  quick  of  the  penitent  disciple's  soul 
as  it  would  never  have  done  had  austerity  been 
substituted  for  understanding  gentleness? 

I  can  understand  God  showing  such  a  superabun- 
dance of  considerateness  and  tenderness  and  mercy 
as  to  make  the  soul  cry  aloud  for  the  thunder  of 
rebuke.  In  more  ways  than  one  God  is  a  con- 
suming fire,  for  in  Him  is  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb. 
The  thought  of  the  terrors  of  the  Lord  terrify 
me  and  make  me  want  to  flee  away;  the  thought 
of  God's  patience  and  sympathy  brings  me  to 
,my  knees  and  to  Him.  If  the  end  of  wrath  is 
redemption,  then  I  can  understand  how  the 
punitive  and  purgative  effect  of  the  wrath  of 
the  Lamb  exceeds  any  other  wrath,  and  how 
there  is  wrath  in  its  seeming  opposite. 

I  doubt  not  that  among  the  major  surprises 
awaiting  us  on  our  arrival  in  the  world  beyond 


44  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

this,  will  be  the  melting  rather  than  the  crushing 
power  of  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb.  It  will  scorch 
and  scald  as  all  the  woes  pronounced  by  al- 
mightiness  never  could.  And  it  will  draw  us  to 
Him  purified  and  healed.  Whatever  that  wrath 
will  be,  it  already  is. 

HYMN   OF  REDEMPTION 

Worthy  art  Thou  to  take  the  roll, 

And  to  open  the  seals  thereof, 

For  Thou  wast  slain. 

And  didst  buy  to  God  in  Thy  blood 

Out  of  every  tribe  and  tongue  and  people  and  nation, 

And  didst  make  them  a  kingdom  and  priests. 

And  they  reign  upon  the  earth. 

Angels'  Chorus 

Worthy  is  the  Lamb 

That  hath  been  slain, 

To  receive  the  power. 

And  riches  and  wisdom  and  might, 

And  glory  and  honour  and  blessing. 

All  Creation's  Chorus 
To  Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne. 
And  to  the  Lamb, 
Be  the  blessing  and  the  honour, 
And  the  glory  and  the  might. 
To  the  ages  of  the  ages. 


IV 

god's  austerities 

God's  austerities  are  as  inflexible  and  immuta- 
ble as  His  patience  and  meekness  and  forbearance. 
If  the  Old  Testament  is  presented  too  frequently 
as  portraying  a  cruel  God,  the  New  Testament 
is  too  often  presented  as  portraying  an  effemin- 
ized  God  whose  gentleness  is  mere  amiability  and 
whose  meekness  is  nothing  but  weakness.  The 
Fatherhood  of  God  during  the  past  half-century 
has  tended  toward  becoming  a  reflection  in 
theology  of  the  self-indulgent,  easy-going  temper 
of  our  age.  The  effect  of  this  on  morals  has 
been  and  still  is  disastrous.  We  must  have  a 
God  who  hates  as  passionately  as  the  God  of 
the  Old  Testament  hates — who  hates  evil  with 
consuming  force  wherever  it  is  and  in  whom- 
soever. Such  a  God  we  have.  Just  as  all  the 
gentleness  of  Jesus  Christ  and  His  revelation  are 
to  be  found  at  the  base  of  God's  character  as 
manifested  in  Old  Testament  times,  so  all  the 
fine  austerity  and  severity  of  Javeh  reappear 
in    the    person    and    teaching    of    Jesus    Christ. 

45 


46  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

Though  the  Lamb  of  the  Revelation  stands 
fixed  in  the  centre  of  Godhead,  anger  and  pun- 
ishment and  violent  force  rise  and  swell  through 
the  universe  in  its  march  toward  the  goal  of 
God's  placing.     There  is  even  war  in  Heaven. 


It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  hold  that 
the  revelation  of  love  in  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
amplification  and  completion,  not  the  nullifica»- 
tion,  of  all  the  revelation  that  has  preceded. 
It  is  the  stability  of  God  that  is  the  soiu-ce  of 
our  confidence  in  Him.  Whim  and  caprice  find 
no  foothold  in  Him,  or  in  that  which  emanates 
from  Him.  With  Him  there  can  be  no  varia- 
tion, and  whatever  shadows  there  may  be,  they 
are  not  shadows  cast  by  turning. 

Carry  this  thought  up  to  date  and  we  find  our- 
selves secure  in  the  character  of  God  as  given  _to 
us  by  the  Church  of  the  ages  and  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  which  constitute  its  basic  literature. 
There  must  be  a  fixed  theology,  if  there  be  a  God 
with  a  fixed  character.  There  must  be  a  progressive 
theology  if  there  is  spiritual  growth  in  the  souls 
of  men.  But  in  theology  as  in  the  Subject  of 
theology  there  can  be  no  contradiction  and  no 
shadow  cast  by  turning.     The  sole  change  pos- 


GOD'S  AUSTERITIES  47 

sible  and  necessary  is  one  not  of  destruction 
but  of  fulfilment.  I  came,  said  Christ,  not  to 
destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  Heresy  is  incomplete 
thinking.     Schism  is  incomplete  conduct. 

The  almightiness,  the  justice  and  the  austerity 
of  the  God  of  power  as  made  known  in  the  Old 
Testament  are  not  minimized  or  superseded  by 
the  revelation  of  the  God  of  love  as  made  known 
in  Jesus  Christ.  They  are  interpreted  and  trans- 
figured. Our  eyes  are  purified  so  that  we  can 
see  more  clearly,  and  we  are  emancipated  from 
the  cult  of  the  incomplete  into  catholicity  of 
intention  and  belief.  What  we  shall  come  to 
know  of  God's  character  in  the  future  does  not 
indicate  some  hitherto  undeveloped  element  in 
Him;  it  is  simply  developed  sight  on  our  part 
which  enables  us  to  see  what  formerly  we  were 

blind  to. 

I  could  see 
The  revelation  that  is  always  there, 
But  somehow  is  not  always  clear  to  me. 

God  is  almighty  in  the  sense  of  being  the 
author  and  absolute  controller  of  all  might. 

O  God,  creation's  secret  force, 
Thyself  unmoved,  all  motion's  source. 

So  runs  the  ancient  hymn.  God  does  not  make 
futile  experiments.  The  issue  of  His  works  is 
as    siire    as    their    beginning.     His    almightiness 


48  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

includes  in  it  physical  force  as  operative  in 
nature.  It  would  appear  to  me  as  though  a 
dangerous  and  spurious  distinction  were  fre- 
quently made  between  what  God  does  and  what 
He  permits.  Except  where  the  human  will  en- 
ters in  to  thwart  God's  operations  on  earth, 
God  is  the  ultimate  agent  of  that  which  happens. 
The  thunder  of  the  avalanche  and  its  conse- 
quences, and  the  flash  of  the  Hghtning  and  its 
destination,  are  not  the  activity  of  irresponsible 
nature  but  of  nature's  Almighty  Creator  and 
Sustainer.  Physical  force  is  not  necessarily  brute 
force.  It  may  be,  and  is,  Divine  force  so  far 
as  it  has  in  it  the  ethical  and  ultimate  purpose 
of  God.  It  is  because  we  see  only  in  part,  be- 
cause we  think  and  live  incompletely,  that  we 
incHne  to  conclude  otherwise.  We  forget  that 
time  is  a  little  figment  of  the  sun  soon,  at  longest, 
to  be  blotted  out.  If  physical  force,  including 
that  process  of  disintegration  called  death,  forms 
part  of  a  process  productive  of  more  abundant 
life,  it  is  not  contrary  to  love.  It  is  unkind  to 
the  lower  in  order  to  be  kind  to  the  higher.  In 
a  scheme  that  looks  beyond  time  it  has  an  im- 
portant function.  May  it  not  be  that  we  are 
laying  too  much  stress  on  the  value  of  physical 
Hfe?  It  is  much  stronger  to  think  of  God  as 
King  of  the  universe  which  He  made,  and  using 


GOD'S  AUSTERITIES  49 

the  inexplicable  physical  forces  which  have  always 
been  operating,  now  violently,  now  kindly,  than  to 
credit  them  to  the  control  of  evil  agents,  who  are 
using  them  successfully  against  God  and  His  plan. 
So  far  as  justice  and  the  infliction  of  punish- 
ment is  concerned,  there  is  nothing  in  the  Old 
Testament  quite  comparable  with  what  is  found 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  God  is  revealed 
as  an  exacting  God: — Not  every  one  that  saith 
unto  me  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of 
my  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  Many  will  say 
to  me  in  that  day.  Lord,  Lord,  did  we  not  proph- 
esy in  Thy  name,  and  by  Thy  name  cast  out 
devils,  and  by  Thy  name  do  many  mighty  works  ? 
And  then  will  I  profess  unto  them,  I  never  knew 
you:  depart  from  me  ye  that  work  iniquity. 
— Such  a  passage  is  by  no  means  isolated. — 
Be  not  afraid  of  them  which  kill  the  body,  and 
after  that  have  no  more  that  they  can  do.  But 
I  will  warn  you  whom  ye  shall  fear:  fear  him, 
which  after  he  hath  killed  hath  power  to  cast 
into  hell:  yea,  I  say  unto  you,  fear  him. — Every 
one  who  shall  confess  me  before  men,  him  will 
I  also  confess  before  my  Father  which  is  in 
heaven.  But  whoseoever  shall  deny  me  before 
men,  him  will  I  also  deny  before  my  Father 
which   is   in   heaven.     Think   not   that    I    came 


50  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

to  send  peace  on  the  earth:    I  came  not  to  send 
peace  but  a  sword. 

But  enough  of  quotation.  The  teaching  of  our 
Lord  is  full  of  similar  passages,  whose  austerities 
more  than  match  those  of  the  Old  Testament. 
As  for  hell,  the  New  Testament  portrayal  of  it 
is  far  more  awful  than  is  to  be  found  elsewhere. 
A  modern  writer,  in  view  of  current  events, 
refers  to  "the  stern  necessity  of  the  once  dis- 
credited, but  now  grateful  doctrine  of  hell." 


II 

The  awful  passages  of  the  New  Testament, 
especially  those  dark,  mysterious  ones  which 
were  uttered  by  our  Lord's  own  lips,  would  be 
paralyzing  but  for  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation. 
A  God  who  made  Himself  known  as  we  have 
come  to  know  Him  in  history  and  personal 
experience,  even  though  He  proclaimed  Himself 
merciful  and  gentle,  would  repel  rather  than 
attract  unless  there  w^ere  some  assurance  more 
than  mere  words  that  He  was  not  arbitrary  or 
cruel  in  His  seeming  severities.  Such  asstirance 
we  have  in  the  Incarnation.  In  Jesus  Christ 
God  reveals  Himself  as  being  under  His  own 
disciplines,  penalties  and  austerities.  It  would 
be  incomplete  to  say  that   He  first  became  so 


GOD'S  AUSTERITIES  Si 

when  Jesus  Christ  entered  into  the  world.  God 
did  indeed  then  stoop  that  man  might  rise.  But 
in  another  sense  He  revealed  in  incontrovertible 
terms  the  eternal  truth  that  God  in  creating 
man  laid  upon  him  no  necessity  except  that 
which  was  inherent  in  the  Divine  life  as  such, 
and  not  merely  in  the  Divine  character  as  Ore-, 
ator.  The  Incarnation  lays  it  all  open  as  in  a 
scroll  unrolled . 

Was  there  anything  which  man  is  subjected 
to  that  Jesus  Christ  did  not  voluntarily  and 
deliberately  subject  Himself  to?  He  plumbed 
the  depths  and  scaled  the  heights.  Being  formed 
in  fashion  as  a  man,  He  humbled  Himself,  be- 
coming obedient  unto  death,  yea,  the  death  of 
the  Cross.  Though  as  sinless  as  God,  He  bowed 
Himself  to  the  worst  penalties  of  wrongdoing 
— He  became  sin  for  us.  He  was  recognized  by 
His  forerunner  as  the  sin-bearer.  Entering  into 
a  society  of  sinful  men.  He  felt  the  bitterness 
and  wickedness  of  the  sins  of  others  as  none 
but  a  sinless  one  is  capable  of  doing.  The 
physical  force  which  desecrated  His  sacred  body 
was  worse  than  the  ruthlessness  of  the  avalanche 
or  the  swift  stroke  of  the  lightning.  It  was  the 
unclean  battering  of  brute  force  put  into  exe- 
cution by  the  hands  of  those  who  were  made 
in  His  image. 


52  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

God  has  so  ordered  His  revelation  that  He 
does  not  depend  upon  the  championship  of 
human  argument  to  vindicate  His  character. 
He  Himself  is  best  able  to  make  clear  to  man- 
kind what  He  is  and  what  His  estimate  of  the 
value  of  human  life  is.  By  the  spectacle  of  Him- 
self living  victoriously  as  man  not  merely  under 
the  normal  discipHnes  and  austerities  which 
inhere  in  Him  as  God,  but  also  under  the  ab- 
normal conditions  bred  and  inflicted  by  human 
self-will,  His  love  is  vindicated,  and  declared 
in  new  and  triumphant  tones  which  come  echo- 
ing down  the  ages. 

O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom 
and  knowledge  of  God!  how  unsearchable  are 
His  judgments,  and  His  ways  past  tracing  out! 
For  who  hath  known  the  mind  of  the  Lord? 
or  who  hath  been  His  counsellor?  or  who  hath 
first  given  to  Him,  and  it  shall  be  recompensed 
unto  Him  again?  For  of  Him,  and  through 
Him,  and  unto  Him  are  all  things.  To  Him  be 
the  glory  for  ever.     Amen. 

Ill 

Fortified  by  the  Incarnation  we  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  look  hfe,  as  we  of  to-day  know  it,  squarely 
in  the  face  with  both  hope  and  expectancy, 
hope  which   never   allows  Hfe   to  be  without   a 


GOD'S  AUSTERITIES  53 

future  and  expectancy  that  forms  the  highway 
for  the  feet  of  the  always  coming  Son  of  God. 
The  age  is  brimming  with  pain,  self-inflicted 
by  society  upon  itself,  in  addition  to  the  in- 
scrutable dark  mysteries  which  originate  and 
operate  quite  independently  of  what  men  may 
think  or  do.  The  crown  of  almightiness  is  its 
kingliness.  God  has  proved  in  Jesus  Christ  that 
not  only  have  hostile  forces  no  victorious  power 
over  Himself  or  anything  that  is  His,  but  also 
that  eventually  they  prove  to  be  tributary  to 
His  purposes.  When  human  self-will  clothes 
itself  in  the  forces  of  nature  and  is  manifested 
as  ''science  without  a  soul,"  such  triumph  as 
is  achieved  is  momentary  and  in  reality  an 
element  in  its  own  ultimate  defeat.  Long  ages 
ago  this  was  the  interpretation  of  God's  almighti- 
ness by  a  poet — 

Why  do  the  nations  rage, 

And  the  peoples  imagine  a  vain  thing? 

The^kings  of  the  earth  set  themselves, 

And  the  rulers  take  counsel  together 

Against  the  Lord,  and  against  His  anointed,  saying, 

Let  us  break  their  bands  asunder, 

And  cast  away  their  cords  from  us. 

He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  shall  laugh ; 

The  Lord  shall  have  them  in  derision. 

Then  shall  He  speak  unto  them  in  His  wrath, 

And  vex  them  in  His  sore  displeasure: 

Yet  I  have  set  my  king 

Upon  my  holy  hill  of  Zion. 


54  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

We  have  neither  reason  nor  right  to  allow 
ourselves  to  suppose  that  God's  plans  can  suffer 
ultimate  defeat.  It  is  a  species  of  doubt  to  which 
the  Incarnation,  the  greatest  fact  in  history, 
gives  fiat  and  emphatic  denial.  Delay  is  nothing 
but  a  salutory  discipline  for  us  men  of  the  moment. 
Reverses  stimulate  courage  and  give  occasion 
to  furbish  ideals  and  simplify  motives.  Bondage, 
the  defeat  of  a  generation,  treachery  within, 
do  not  mean  victory,  for  the  enemy  where  God's 
cause  is  concerned.  God's  plans  are  indestruct- 
ible, and  His  purpose  cannot  be  deflected,  for 
He  is  Almighty  and  is  the  Master  of  all  force. 
He  is  well  experienced  in  wars,  and  knows  how 
to  distil  the  red  flood  of  tragedy  into  a  perpetual 
deed  of  benediction. 

At  a  grave  crisis  in  the  slow  working  out  of 
personal  freedom  in  America  for  herself  and  for 
the  world,  James  Russell  Lowell  wrote  in  terms 
peculiarly  suited  to  the  crisis  of  to-day — 

Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger;  history's  pages  but  record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt  old  systems  and  the 

Word; 
Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong  forever  on  the  throne, — 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and,  behind  the  dim  unknown, 
Standeth   God   within   the   shadow,   keeping   watch  above  His 

own. 

Again  in  another  passage  the  poet  sings — 


GOD'S  AUSTERITIES  55 

Though  the  cause  of  Evil  prosper,  yet 

'Tis  Truth  alone  is  strong, 
And,  albeit  she  wander  outcast  now, 

I  see  around  her  throng 
Troops  of  beautiful,  tall  angels,  to 

Enshield  her  from  all  wrong. 

We  have  been  thinking  of  the  mighty  sweep 
of  world  movements.  But  a  man  cannot  be 
brave  for  others  unless  he  is  first  brave  in  him- 
self; he  cannot  be  hopeful  for  others  unless  he 
is  first  hopeful  for  himself;  in  the  high  altitudes 
of  moral  and  spiritual  reaHties  you  cannot  give 
to  others  except  so  far  as  you  are  winning  or  have 
won  them  for  yourself.  There  is  not  one  of  us 
who,  either  as  a  part  of,  or  apart  from,  the  tempest 
of  destruction  that  is  raging,  is  not  obHged 
daily  to  face  some  phase  of  the  antagonisms, 
contradictions  and  austere  forces  which  originate 
either  in  the  perversity  of  men  or  in  unsolved 
mystery.  Our  outlook  for  the  world  is  coloured 
by  our  mind  on  that  which  is  personal. 

The  Incarnation  teaches  us  not  only  the  art  of 
fearlessness  but  also  the  science  of  super-victory — 
the  phrase  is  St.  Paul's,  not  mine.  Who  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love,  the  operative,  ceaseless 
self -giving,  of  Christ?  In  answer  the  Apostle 
proceeds  to  enumerate  such  things  as  are  due 
to  or  aggravated  by  the  will  of  man,  concluding 
with  one  of  the  most  trenchant,   thrilHng  sen- 


S6  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

tences  in  all  literature: — In  all  these  things  we 
are  more  than  conquerors,  we  are  super- vie  tors, 
through  Him  that  loved  us.  As  for  the  great 
forces  that  emanate  from  and,  with  all  their 
elements,  are  controlled  by  God,  he  says  in  fine 
climax: — I  am  persuaded  that  neither  they  nor 
any  other  creature  shall  be  able  to  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
our  Lord. 

In  short,  God  reigns.  The  thought  is  vast 
and  adequate,  be  unsolved  mysteries  of  His 
being  and  operation  what  they  may. 

It  is  easy  to  praise  Thee,  O  God,  for  the  joys  that  flow  from 
Thee  and  for  Thy  beauty.  But  in  the  mystery  of  Thy  control 
of  Hfe  are  dark  places  which  cloud  my  soul.  Thine  austerities 
loom  large  and  threatening.  How  can  I  find  music  in  my  soul 
for  these?  Whatever  it  may  be,  it  must  be  the  music  of  faith. 
The  mystery  is  too  deep  for  me  to  plumb.  But  Thou  dost 
not  allow  evil  to  reign.  Thine  is  the  victory,  the  super- victory. 
The  very  wrath  of  man  can  be  turned  to  Thy  praise.  Dark- 
ness and  sorrow  and  pain  may  call  forth  a  minor  note,  but  even 
a  sobbing  song  can  praise  Thee.  Therefore,  O  Lord,  I  praise 
Thee  in  storm  and  tempest.  Praised  be  God  our  Father  in 
whom  can  be  no  variation,  neither  shadow  that  is  cast  by 
turning! 


V 

IN   THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD 

In  moving  from  a  consideration  of  God  to  a 
consideration  of  man,  the  transition  is  easy. 
We  pass  from  God  to  God's  image.  No  intro- 
duction of  human  life  into  the  pages  of  immortal 
literature  could  excel  the  single  sentence  which 
sets  man  in  the  world,  second  only  to  God  Him- 
self— God  said.  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image, 
after  our  likeness.  And  God  created  man  in 
His  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  He 
him.  In  the  truth  of  this  statement  consists 
our  only,  though  our  sufficient,  hope  for  the  race. 
Human  nature  is  insured  of  a  worthy  destiny. 
It  can  never  become  the  caprice  or  puppet  of  a 
mere  creator.  Man  is,  in  his  main  character, 
the  beloved  child  of  a  loving  Father  whose  like- 
ness is  stamped  upon  his  inmost  self-hood. 


Wherein  does  man's  likeness  to  God  consist? 
In  capacity  for  self-giving — I  use  this  term  rather 

57 


58  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

than  love  because  it  accentuates  the  power  and 
effort  of  choice,  which  is  the  keynote  of  liberty. 
Whatever  human  life  becomes,  it  becomes  by 
cumulative  decision,  not  by  chance.  Power  of 
choice  is  the  heritage  of  our  manhood ;  its  neg- 
lect or  destruction  is  the  abdication  of  human 
personality. 

It  is  not  with  the  will  alone  but  with  the  total 
self  that  high  choice  is  made.  This  includes  our 
affections  and  intelligence  as  well  as  the  cate- 
gorical imperative  of  our  being.  The  will  alone, 
it  is  true,  can  force  us  and  hold  us  to  duty  with 
the  balance  of  our  nature  in  violent  revolt, 
and  there  is  something  sternly  splendid  in  the 
process,  but  it  is  stoical  rather  than  Christian. 
There  are  occasions  when  the  will  as  helmsman 
and  the  conscience  as  captain  must  keep  the 
ship  steady  to  her  course  with  the  whole  creed 
of  inner  faculties  and  outer  senses  in  mutinous 
mood.  But  the  triumph  of  choice  is  achieved 
when  the  personality  decides  as  a  unified  whole. 
This  can  come  about  only  by  living  life  steadily 
and  living  it  whole.  Preference  frequently  must 
be  put  to  school  to  conscience,  and  the  lower 
is  always  a  laggard  pupil  of  the  higher. 

The  highest  choice  that  self  can  make  is  to 
give  self  to  the  Self-giver.  This  is  living  re- 
ligion.    Just    as    God's    first    gift    to    man    was 


IN  THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD  .59 

Himself  in  the  endowment  of  the  Divine  image, 
so  the  first  gift  of  man  to  God  must  be  in  kind. 
Anything  less  than  self  is  a  denial  of  organic 
relationship.  Let  us  once  admit  that  God 
has  made  common  lot  with  us,  and  it  follows 
that  making  God  our  first  and  fullest  choice 
should  be  spontaneous.  Our  co-likeness  with 
God  insiu*es  our  success  in  finding  Him.  If 
we  are  discouraged  in  our  religious  experience, 
let  us  linger  awhile  over  the  thought  of  our 
being  built  in  the  image  of  God  and  we  shall 
soon  find  ourselves  moving  towards  Him  with 
the  naturalness  of  children  to  their  Father. 

We  must  emphasize  the  firstness  of  our  choice 
of  God  as  the  receptacle  into  which  to  pour  self. 
We,  the  first-born  of  His  creatures,  must  give 
Him  in  intensity  and  in  order  the  firstness  and 
then  the  fulness  of  our  choice.  Von  Hiigel,  in  his 
curious  forcible  language,  drives  home  the  thought 
when  he  says:  "Religion  is  essentially  Social 
vertically — indeed,  here  is  its  deepest  root.  It 
is  unchangeably  a  faith  in  God,  a  love  of  God, 
an  intercourse  with  God."  There  is  something 
splendidly  suggestive  in  the  thought  of  the 
soul's  'Vertical"  choice.  It  chooses  ambitiously 
the  highest  heights,  surmounting  clouds,  adven- 
turing sunwards  and  beyond.  The  soul  leaves 
side  issues  and  dilettantism  far  in  the  rear  as  it 


6o  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

rises  vertically,  a  ''convinced  follower  of  the 
straight  line." 

There  is  something  of  the  mystics'  thought 
that  God  ''needs  us,"  in  a  writer  whom  we 
would  harldy  suspect  of  mysticism,  William 
James,  the  great  exponent  of  pragmatism: — 

"I  confess  that  I  do  not  see  why  the  very 
existence  of  an  invisible  world  may  not  in  part 
depend  on  the  personal  response  which  any  one 
of  us  may  make  to  the  religious  appeal.  God 
himself,  in  short,  may  draw  vital  strength  and 
increase  of  very  being  from  our  fidelity.  For 
my  own  part,  I  do  not  know  what  the  sweat 
and  blood  and  tragedy  of  this  Hfe  mean,  if  they 
mean  anything  short  of  this.  If  this  life  be  not 
a  real  fight,  in  which  something  is  eternally 
gained  for  the  universe  by  success,  it  is  no  better 
than  a  game  of  private  theatricals  from  which 
one  may  withdraw  at  will.  But  it  feels  like  a 
real  fight, — as  if  there  were  something  really  wild 
in  the  universe  which  we,  with  all  our  idealities 
and  faithfulnesses,  are  needed  to  redeem;  and  first 
of  all  to  redeem  our  own  hearts  from  atheisms  and 
fears.  For  such  a  half -wild,  half -saved  universe 
our  nature  is  adapted.  The  deepest  thing  in  our 
nature  is  this  dumb  region  of  the  heart  in  which 
we  dwell  alone  with  our  willingnesses  and  our 
unwillingnesses,  our  faiths  and  our  fears." 


IN  THE   IMAGE  OF  GOD  6i 

I  have  gone  on  quoting  beyond  that  which  is 
apposite  because  of  the  discerning  beauty  and 
power  of  the  entire  passage. 

We  best  learn  that  we  are  made  in  the  image 
of  God  by,  so  to  speak,  matching  our  Hkeness 
with  His  in  the  mirror  of  Jesus  Christ.  No  one 
can  seriously  and  thoroughly  siu-vey  the  reasoned 
as  well  as  the  instinctive  sacrificial  history  of 
the  race  without  seeing  in  it  the  likeness  to  the 
Lamb  that  was  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world  to  the  Christ  of  Calvary.  The  ground- 
work of  the  universe  and  of  man,  its  crown  and 
climax,  is  patterned  after  the  groimdwork  of 
the  character  of  God,  and  more  and  more  it 
reveals  itself  to  be  in  the  form  of  the  Cross. 

In  the  reckless,  and  yet  calculated,  self-giving 
of  to-day  for  the  benefit  of  to-morrow,  out  of 
sheer  loyalty  to  dominating  ideals  of  righteous- 
ness, justice  and  liberty,  self-sacrifice  has  reached 
a  summit  hitherto  unsealed.  The  horrors  of  the 
Great  War  are  compensated  for  by  the  wealth 
of  self -giving  found  behind  its  scarlet  veil.   ^ 

What  heart  does  not  quicken  to  the  tramping  of 
that  massed  human  courage,  which  to  quote  an 
American  lad  who  fought  with  the  British  forces 
before  his  own  country  came  in,  one  moment 
is  clothed  in  the  superb  glory  of  young  manhood 
and   the   next   is   nothing   but   a   few   fluttering 


62  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

rags  on  a  tangle  of  barbed  wire?  Who  is  so 
tame  as  not  to  be  thrilled  by  the  self-abandonment 
of  the  youth  who  sends  home  this  message  as, 
under  no  compulsion  save  his  own  glorious 
choice,  he  strides  away  to  take  his  place  by  the 
big  guns: — "I  hate  war  and  loathe  everything 
military,  but  I  see  the  issue  at  stake  and  must 
go.  I  am  not  afraid  to  die,  except  that  it  will 
give  pain  to  mother."  What  is  there  on  record 
more  enduring  and  vital  than  the  sacrificial 
victory  of  the  Belgian  defiance  of  ''science  with- 
out a  soul"  and,  its  sister,  the  Gallipoli  adventure 
in  which,  as  Masefield  insists,  men  aimed  at,  and 
almost  achieved,  not  merely  the  impossible  but 
also  the  unimaginable? 

Let  us  thank  God  that  He  "has  matched  us 
with  this  hour."  Our  day  and  generation  is  full 
of  men  conformed  to  the  likeness  of  God  and 
worthy  to  follow  the  Lamb  whithersoever  He 
goeth.  ReHgion  may  be  halting  and  crude  in 
its  form,  but  it  is  powerful  in  its  substance. 


II 

Self-giving,  to  borrow  further  from  von  Hiigel, 
is  horizontal  as  well  as  vertical.  Of  course  it 
must  be  so.  We  cannot  choose  God  without 
choosing    what    God    chooses.     If    we    recognize 


IN  THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD  63 

God  as  Father  we  do  so  solely  on  the  basis  of 
being  made  in  His  image.  Involved  in  our  choice 
of  Him  is  the  choice  of  all  the  rest  of  the  family 
constructed  after  the  same  pattern.  The  in- 
spiration of  the  thought  that  the  human  race 
is  our  heritage  and  the  measure  of  our  capacity 
for  fellowship,  is  second  only  to  the  thought 
that  we  are  made  in  the  image  of  God  and  that 
He  is  ours  as  well  as  we  His.  The  horizontal 
choice  strikes  across  the  vertical  and  makes  the 
sign  of  the  Cross,  or  self-giving,  over  our  human 
relationships.  With  and  for  the  rest  of  humanity 
we  must  work  out  our  sacrificial  or  self-donative 
career. 

Even  if  but  two  men  sincerely  and  fully  were 
to  choose  vertically  and  horizontally  there  would 
be  of  necessity  group  self-giving  or  a  Catholic 
Church — a  Church  whose  life  found  expression 
in  the  terms  of  the  whole.  Such  a  Church  there 
is,  vast  beyond  knowledge,  hidden  rather  than 
manifest.  It  comprises  a  family,  each  member 
of  which  knows  the  Father,  and  is  known  of 
Him,  though  each  with  his  own  intimate  secrets 
and  each  with  his  own  personal  knowledge  and 
experience.  By  mutual  interchange  of  all  their 
treasures  each  is  enriched  by  and  enriches  the 
rest.  The  giving  of  self  does  not  mean  the 
suppression  of  self;    on  the  contrary,  it  means 


64  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

the  realization  of  self.  All  that  every  one  knows 
of  God  is,  so  far  as  it  goes,  good.  It  is  incom- 
plete in  itself.  It  needs  amplification  and  rela- 
tionship to  the  whole.  Whatever  pruning  it 
may  require  it  is  never  abrogated  or  nullified 
by  any  subsequent  manifestation  or  discovery. 
God  never  makes  mistakes  in  His  self -showing. 
Man  never  makes  hopeless  mistakes  in  his  dis- 
covery of  God  except  so  far  as  he  tries  to  make 
his  own  experience  or  conception  of  God  the 
whole  of  revelation  without  regard  for  what  God 
has  revealed  of  Himself  to  others.  Sectarianism, 
in  spirit  and  in  form,  is  par  excellence  the  cult 
of  the  incomplete.  It  is  a  refusal  to  consider 
truth  and  life  in  terms  of  the  whole,  not  merely 
the  whole  of  now  but  the  whole  of  yesterday. 
It  pins  its  trust  to  the  dicta  of  a  group  or  the 
findings  of  a  fixed  period.  It  is  content  to  wor- 
ship and  to  defend  a  conception  of  God  instead 
of  God.  It  lacks  the  shape  of  the  Cross  which 
rises  vertically  as  high  as  God,  and  stretches 
right  and  left  to  the  outermost  bounds  of  hu- 
manity. In  its  extremist  form  it  not  only  refuses 
to  recognize  as  acceptable  to  Christ  any  group- 
culture  save  its  own,  but  it  also  questions  others* 
right  to  continue  to  be.  It  is  precisely  this 
spirit,  not  in  one  special  Church  but  in  many, 
which  has  disrupted  Christendom. 


IN  THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD  65 

Unity,  visible  and  invisible,  is  not  an  accident 
of  the  Gospel.  It  is  the  Gospel.  There  is  one 
body,  and  one  Spirit  even  as  also  ye  are  called 
in  one  hope  of  your  calHng;  one  Lord,  one  faith, 
one  baptism,  one  God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is 
over  all  and  through  all  and  in  all.  Upon  honest 
recognition  of  this  depends  our  knowledge  of 
God  and  our  understanding  of  man  in  all  their 
richness  and  power.  We  need  not  wait  for  the 
outward  manifestation  of  cathoHcity  before  think- 
ing and  praying  and  loving  in  terms  of  the  whole. 
We  can  direct  our  choice  toward  cathoHcity  now. 

We  can  begin  by  refraining  from  condemning 
doctrines  with  which  we  are  not  famiHar,  and 
which  we  know  solely  from  the  standpoint  of 
controversial  prejudice.  If  we  are  moved  to  a 
study  of  phrases  of  thought  or  usage  foreign  to  our 
experience,  let  our  study  of  the  subject  be  in  the 
best  constructive  expression  of  its  own  exponents. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  that  Truth  is  that  which 
men  live  by.  When  individuals  or  group-Chris- 
tians, commonly  called  churches,  though  I  shrink 
from  applying  so  sacred  and  complete  a  term  even 
to  the  largest  fragment  of  Christendom — when 
they  are  found,  generation  after  generation,  ad- 
hering to  a  given  doctrine,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
a  vital  truth  is  imbedded  in  that  doctrine. 

To  take  a  single  illustration :  The  major  portion  of 


66  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

the  Church  has!from  an  early  moment  practised  the 
Invocation  of  Saints.     A  little  examination  might 
reveal  to  those  to  whom  it  is  an  imaccustomed 
doctrine,  that  its  chief  offence  is  in  their  idea  of 
it  or  in  its  abuse.     It  stands  for  the  permanent 
interrelationship  of  life  on  earth  and  beyond.     It 
has  its  scientific  counterpart  in  psychical  research. 
At  its  root  is  the  superb  conception  of  the  un- 
loneliness  of  God— so  that  in  approaching  God 
you  approach  the  crowded  self-giving  life  of  all 
heaven.     Look  through  your  Bible  and  see  how 
God  hates  separateness  or  loneliness.     From  Gen- 
esis to  Revelation  He  gathers  close  to  Him  His 
beloved  in  men  and  angels  and  Hving  creatures. 
The  figure  of  a  lamb  is  part   of  His  symbolic 
life.     The    Invocation    of    Saints    makes    direct 
appeal  to  those  who  stand  nearest  to  Him  and 
share    His    life    of    self-giving.     I    write    as    one 
who  prefers  to  reach  the  saints  on  high  through 
God,  but  I  refuse  to  condemn  those  who  prefer 
to  reach   God  through  the  saints.     Provided  it 
is  not  the  chief  or  only  way  of  approach  to  Him, 
it  is  quite  Christian.     The  matter  is  only  one  of 
formal  usage.     Underneath  lies  the  splendour  of 
the  unloneliness  of  God  and  the  Communion  of 
Saints. 

Let  this  one  illustration  suffice. 


IN  THE   IMAGE   OF  GOD  67 

III 

The  churches  will  become  the  Church  when  there 
is  in  them  all  mutual  horizontal  as  well  as  unified 
vertical  self-giving.  We  have  this  to  encourage 
us  that  there  is  an  increasing  disposition  in  this 
direction,  a  growing  readiness  to  think  in  terms 
of  the  whole  and  a  deliberate  group-choosing 
of  a  life  larger  than  that  of  its  own  prescribed 
boundaries.  A  self-centred  church  is  self -de- 
structive. Aloofness  is  something  worse  than 
schism.  It  is  the  root  and  origin  of  schism, 
deliberate  segregation  and  isolation  of  the  jewel 
from  its  setting,  the  part  from  its  whole.  Like 
the  individuals  who  compose  it,  a  church  must 
be  signed  with  the  sign  of  the  Cross,  as  well  as 
be  able  to  sign  others  with  it.  Its  efficacy  of 
signature  is  bound  up  with  its  completeness  of 
surrender.  All  life  comes  in  to  being  and  is 
sustained  by  the  One  Spirit  in  His  perpetual 
flow  of  self-giving.  So  far  as  a  church  fails  to 
be  a  self-giving  body  it  belies  its  origin  and  its 
character  as  a  Spirit-bearing  body,  for  it  is  the 
character  of  the  Spirit  to  give  without  measure, 
deeply  and  inwardly  as  well  as  extensively. 

Salvation  consists  in  being  lost  in  the  universal. 
No  individual  or  group  experience  becomes  a 
permanent  contribution  to  the  world  or  reveals 


68  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

a  dependable  principle  upon  which  to  construct 
future  experiences,  until  it  has  submitted  to  and 
stood  the  test  of  the  universal.  Churches  must 
be  ready  to  die  before  they  are  worthy  to  live. 
We  hug  our  tenets  because  they  are  ours,  and  we 
reject  the  tenets  of  others  because  they  are  theirs. 
We  look  at  the  brand  on  this  or  that  embodiment 
of  truth  rather  than  at  the  embodiment,  and 
judgment  is  pronounced  on  appearances  instead 
of  merits . 

The  same  Spirit  that  is  searching  out  the  heart 
of  nations  to-day  is  searching  out  the  heart  of 
national  churches  and  revealing  to  them  their 
provincialism.  The  time  has  come  when  we  can 
no  longer  rest  satisfied  to  express  Catholic  truth 
and  order  in  terms  of  national  religion,  the  greater 
in  the  terms  of  the  lesser;  we  must  begin  to 
express  national  religion  in  terms  of  catholicity, 
the  part  in  terms  of  the  whole. 

Praised  be  God  for  the  image  of  Himself  with  which  He 
has  indelibly  stamped  me.  Thou  hast  endowed  me  with  powder 
of  choice.  It  is  Thy  power,  and  without  Thee  it  is  a  menace 
to  myself  and  my  fellows.  In  its  right  direction  is  freedom. 
By  choice  we  fall:  by  choice  we  rise.  No  choice  is  free  unless 
it  be  guided  by  Thee.  No  choice  is  wise  except  it  be  inspired 
by  Thy  wisdom.  I  praise  Thee,  O  God,  for  all  the  right  choices 
that  I  have  made.  I  praise  Thee  for  that  I  can  reverse  all 
the  wrong  choices  of  the  past  by  a  new  and  right  choice.  Lord, 
I  would  praise  Thee  by  choosing  right,  by  choosing  Thee  in- 
stead of  me,  by  choosing  Thy  way  and  not  mine,  by  choosing 
shame  and  pain,  if  need  be,  rather  than  honour  and  ease.  Save 
me  from  the  sectariansim  of  self  into  the  catholicity  of  Thee. 


VI 

MAN    IN   MANKIND 

We  are  responsible  to  two  primary  loyalties 
in  the  terms  of  which  all  lesser  loyalties  must 
be  expressed,  loyalty  to  God  or  the  vertical 
loyalty,  and  loyalty  to  mankind  or  the  horizontal 
loyalty.  Our  potential  greatness  is  announced 
in  our  being  built  God-high  and  man-wide. 

The  vastness  which  these  loyalties  connote  is 
so  far  from  being  oppressive  as  to  be  inviting. 
Human  life  at  its  eariiest  conscious  moments 
claims  completeness  rather  than  detail.  The 
child's  questions  are  so  profound  as  to  puzzle 
the  wise.  Only  a  youth  would  venture  to  choose 
as  the  topic  of  an  early  theme  the  ''World 
and  its  Contents."  Even  Freudian  psychology 
preaches  in  somewhat  pompous  though  indefinite 
language  the  capacity  of  human  life  for  catho- 
Hcity: — "There  is  at  any  moment  of  life  some 
course  of  action  (behaviour)  which  enHsts  all 
the  capacities  of  the  organism:  This  is  phrased 
voluntaristically  as  'some  interest  or  aim  to 
which  a  man  devotes  all  his  powers,'  to  which 

69 


70  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

his  whole  being  is  consecrated.  .  .  .  The  more 
integrated  behaviour  is  harmonious  and  con- 
sistent behaviour  toward  a  larger  and  more 
comprehensive  situation,  toward  a  bigger  sec- 
tion of  the  universe:  it  is  lucidity  and  breadth 
of  purpose."  Only  that  which  challenges  can 
inspire  human  nature.  It  is  the  limitless,  the 
unexplored,  the  unknown  that  draw  out  our 
best  effort  and  reveal  our  capacity. 

A  normal  man  finds  only  elbow-room  in  the 
world  of  men.  Human  society  is  not  too  big 
for  him.  It  is  just  large  enough.  Theoretically 
it  has  long  been  held  that  the  limits  of  human 
fellowship  and  service  were  the  human  race.  It 
has  been  reserved  for  our  day  to  see  myriads  of 
men  freely  giving  self  and  treasure  in  behalf, 
not  of  local  or  personal  interests  and  purposes, 
but  for  the  sake  of  humanity  and  the  funda- 
mental principles  which  make  human  society 
stable.  Rising  out  of  the  welter  of  battle,  there 
is  an  enlarged  conception  of  man's  responsibilities 
to  mankind  which  seemingly  needed  a  cataclysm 
for  its  unveiling.  Its  splendour  tinges  the  heavy 
war-cloud  with  glory.  Please  God,  never  again 
will  we  sink  back  into  the  smallness  of  mere 
petty  nationalism  or  other  sectional  life.  To  do 
so  would  be  to  abandon  God's  master  plan  for 
us,  and  to  shrivel  into  the  mean  stature  of  pigmies. 


MAN  IN  MANKIND  71 


With  most  of  us,  at  any  rate,  the  nation  in 
our  early  days  and  even  later  stood  for  a  finality. 
Whether  or  not  we  expressed  it  in  the  language 
of  Stephen  Decatur,  our  loyalty  was  to  the 
nation,  right  or  wrong.  Other  nations  were  judged 
by  their  nearness  to  or  farness  from  our  own 
ideals  and  customs.  Our  own  nation  was  the 
norm  by  which  all  others  were  tested.  Its  su- 
periority was  so  patent  that  it  was  a  matter  of 
honest  surprise  to  us  when  the  citizens  of  other 
countries  failed  to  recognize  it.  As  for  the  ori- 
ental world,  it  was  valuable  so  far  as  it  con- 
tributed of  its  wealth  and  curios  to  our  own 
gratification.  Its  inhabitants  enjoyed  only  a 
modified  humanity,  worthy  of  missionary  en- 
deavour, it  is  true,  but  missionary  endeavour  as 
an  outlet  for  our  generosity  of  soul  rather  than 
as  an  honest  recognition  that  God  has  made 
of  one  all  nations  of  men  to  dwell  on  the  face 
of  the  whole  earth.  I  am  recalHng  my  own 
state  of  mind  in  youth  and  not  appealing  to 
imagination.  I  know  that  most  of  the  people 
I  knew  viewed  things  in  the  same  manner.  Such 
a  frame  of  mind  in  child  or  man  is  mischievous, 
imtn.ie   and   unnecessary.     It   is   mere   bald   pa- 


72  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

triotism  devoid  of  the  checks  and  balances  of 
a  cathoHc  outlook,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  arrogance, 
conceit,  and  a  denial  of  brotherhood,  made  under 
the  shelter  of  and  in  the  name  of  the  nation. 

Such  a  spirit,  nurtured  imto  a  passionate  con- 
viction throughout  its  citizenship,  was  bound  to 
do  that  which  it  has  done — precipitate  Arma- 
geddon. The  set  purpose  of  one  nation  to  im- 
pose its  culture  and  supremacy  on  all  others  has 
startled  us  into  the  recognition  that  mere  pa- 
triotism not  only  breeds  strife,  tyranny  and 
barbarity,  but  also  tends  to  denude  men  of  that 
freedom  of  choice  which  in  the  sphere  of  govern- 
ment as  elsewhere  is  their  inherent  right  as  beings 
made  in  the  image  of  God. 

The  nation  becomes  much  more  splendid  when 
viewed,  not  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  in  its  true 
character  of  group-personality,  organically  and 
responsibly  related  to  all  similar  group-person- 
alities, unable  to  fully  realize  its  possibilities 
except  in  sympathetic  and  intelligent  relation- 
ship with  the  rest.  The  nation  is  a  permanent 
social  unit  in  mankind.  It  can  best  develop  its 
powers  by  making  as  its  chief  aim  universal 
service.  This  is  not  a  new  conceit  or  an  idea 
of  my  own.  The  prophet  Lowell  put  it  in  im- 
mortal form  before  the  middle  of  the  last  century 
was  bom: — 


MAN  IN  MANKIND  73 

For  mankind  are  one  in  spirit,  and  an  instinct  bears  along, 
Round  the  earth's  electric  circle,   the  swift  flash  of  right  or 

wrong; 
Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet  Humanity's  vast  frame 
Through   its   ocean-sundered   fibres   feels   the   gush   of   joy   or 

shame ; 
In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race  all  the  rest  have  equal  claim. 

The  nation  can  no  more  escape  the  sign  of 
the  Cross  than  anything  else  Divine  or  human 
can.  Belgium  and  France  in  their  sacrificial  life 
of  the  past  three  and  a  half  years  have  taught 
us  the  lesson  in  a  way  that  can  never  be  for- 
gotten. That  which  has  proved  a  necessity  in 
time  of  war  bids  fair  to  become  a  preferred  and 
chosen  element  of  conduct  in  time  of  peace. 

Patriotism,  then,  is  loyalty  to  the  nation,  the 
nation  as  a  social  unit,  the  nation  as  responsible 
to,  and  expressed  in  the  terms  of,  mankind. 
The  word  is  magnificent  by  tradition.  It  is  not 
to  be  discredited  much  less  abandoned,  but  to  be 
given  new  magnificence  by  an  expanded  concep- 
tion of  its  scope  and  meaning. 


II 

Patriotism's  function  is  to  make  itself  felt  and 
heard  chiefly  in  the  language  of  service  or  self- 
giving.  It  recognizes  the  nation  as  the  vehicle 
by   means  of  which   a   citizen   can  reach,   and 


74  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

contribute  to,  the  commonwealth  of  mankind. 
Its  loyalty  is  impassioned — ^loyalty  to  the  nation 
not  solely  as  it  was  or  is  but,  in  addition,  as  it 
is  becoming. 

In  its  full  meaning  the  nation  shares  in  that 
eternal  character  which  is  the  heritage  of  every- 
thing human.  It  certainly  does  not  consist  only 
in  the  sum  total  of  the  citizenship,  their  thoughts 
and  activities,  of  any  given  moment  or  gener- 
ation. It  comes  to  us,  striding  down  the  cen- 
turies, endowed  with  the  glory  of  all  its  past 
triumphs,  proudly  bearing  in  its  bosom  the 
royal  contribution  of  the  lives  and  characters 
of  its  heroes,  saints  and  patriots.  Its  form  and 
incidental  features  may  and  do  change,  but  its 
distinctive  soul  and  character  abide.  We  hold 
the  nation  of  our  day  in  trust.  We  are  its 
stew^ards  not  less  than  its  beneficiaries.  We  are 
to  see  that  its  immortal  traditions  receive  no 
harm  or  blot  because  of  us. 

But  while  the  nation  comes  to  us  with  all 
the  completeness  of  the  past,  it  also  comes  with 
all  the  incompleteness  of  the  past.  We  must 
refuse  to  allow  it  to  be  static.  Our  contribution 
to  its  progress  must  be  more  than  imitative; 
it  must  be  original  under  the  inspiring  force  of 
the  Spirit  of  God,  who  gives  to  men  without 
stint   or  measure,     At   the  risk  of   the  literary 


MAN  IN  MANKIND  75 

fault   of   over-quoting,    again   I   turn   to   Lowell 
to  say  what  cannot  be  said  in  prose : — ■ 

New  occasions  teach  new  duties;    Time  makes  ancient  food 

uncouth; 
They  must  upward  still,  and  onward,  who  would  keep  abreast 

with  Truth. 

In  the  dawning  nation  each  citizen  is  charged 
with  a  stewardship  not  less  than  clothed  with 
a  privilege.  He  is  responsible  up  to  the  measure 
of  his  developed  gifts  and  capacity  for  the  nor- 
mal growth  of  his  country's  life.  Of  him  that 
hath  much,  much  will  be  expected.  Unless 
democracy  means  this,  it  is  a  dangerous  principle. 

In  the  working  out  of  the  Chinese  ideo- 
graph for  country  there  is  an  interesting  bit  of 
democratic  history.  The  first  symbol  represented 
within  the  four  sides  of  a  boundary,  the  earth, 
the  mouths  of  the  people  and  a  spear.  An 
imperial  tyrant  for  a  short  time  displaced  the 
symbol  of  the  people  and  put  that  representing 
emperor  instead.  The  other  day  when  the  Re- 
public was  proclaimed,  the  ideograph  adopted 
was  that  for  the  people  with  the  prolongation 
of  an  upward  stroke  which  makes  it  read  "the 
people  who  have  lifted  up  their  heads.  "| 

From  the  conception  of  an  eating,  fighting  people 
we  rise  to  something  approximating  men  made  in 
the  image  of  God,  moral,  self -determining.     The 


76  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

character  of  the  nation  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
citizen,  who  is  primarily  not  a  member  of  a 
local  community  or  of  a  section  of  the  nation 
but  of  the  whole.  Just  as  nationalism  must 
find  expression  in  terms  of  the  universal,  so 
local  loyalties  must  utter  themselves  in  terms 
of  the  State.  In  its  last  analysis  democracy  is 
based  upon  a  frank  recognition  that  man  was 
made  in  the  image  of  God  and  that  he  (or  she) 
possesses  the  inherent  right  and  responsibility 
of  exercising  free  choice  in  all  that  pertains  to 
his  or  her  life  as  a  citizen,  with  due  respect,  of 
course,  to  the  instruments  and  occasions  pro- 
vided by  the  will  of  the  majority  in  any  given 
State. 

The  requirement  which  the  nation  lays  upon 
the  citizen  is  that  he  should  do  his  share  in 
universal  service.  The  term  is  so  great  that  we 
are  only  just  beginning  to  understand  its  com- 
plete significance.  It  has  come  into  prominence 
during  war'  times,  but  it  is  not  exclusively  a 
war  term.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  government 
by  the  people.  That  which  is  necessary  in  a 
moment  of  peril  as  a  defensive  measure  is  equally 
necessary  in  times  of  peace  as  a  constructive 
principle.  It  remains  for  the  several  nations, 
each  in  its  own  way,  to  give  worthy  and  effective 
embodiment  to  it.     The  unchartered  freedom  of 


MAN   IN   MANKIND  77 

democracy's  past  has  not  only  been  a  weariness 
but  also  a  menace  to  the  well-being  of  more 
nations  than  one.  Universal  service,  when  ex- 
pressed in  legislative  form,  is  no  more  to  be 
singled  out  for  opprobrium  than  any  other  law 
which  is  the  will  of  the  people.  It  is  compul- 
sory only  in  the  sense  of  self-compulsory  wherever 
there  is  government  by  the  people.  Law  in  its 
highest  sense  is  a  formal  embodiment  of  a  people's 
ideals.  Obedience  to  law  is  voluntary  rather 
than  compulsory  for  the  people  who  originally 
willed  the  law  into  being.  Minorities  have  rights, 
of  course,  but  they  are  constitutional  rights 
restricted  by  the  principles  which  animate  or- 
ganic life. 

Ill 

Such  a  consideration,  which  keeps  the  w^hole 
of  mankind  in  full  view  without  losing  sight  of 
the  individual  man,  enhances  enormously  the 
value  of  each  personal  unit  in  the  social  whole. 
The  citizen  is  of  value  to  the  nation,  and  beyond, 
in  proportion  to  his  contents.  Hence  it  is  at 
once  incumbent  upon  the  State  to  give  every 
citizen  full  opportunity  to  rise  to  his  best,  and 
upon  every  citizen  to  wring  from  opportunity 
everything  that  will  make  for  his  growth  in  all 
departments   of   his   manhood.     In   the   nation, 


78  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

broadly  viewed,  there  is  exactly  the  measure 
and  kind  of  inspiration  needed  to  set  working 
that  high  spirit  of  self-respect  which  is  a  chief 
factor  in  the  life  of  self -giving.  Conrad  expresses 
the  thought  finely  in  a  sentence:  ''I  have  a 
positive  horror  of  losing  even  for  one  moving 
moment  that  complete  possession  of  myself  which 
is  the  first  condition  of  good  service." 

The  seeming  smallness  of  the  individual  life 
is  an  illusion  hard  to  dissipate.  Obscurity,  con- 
finement in  circumscribed  or  dull  conditions, 
mediocre  endowments,  are  obstacles  hard  to  com- 
bat. Nothing  but  stubborn  idealism  can  make 
a  lasting  impression  on  them.  And  we  must 
be  reconciled  to  the  burden  of  weak,  incompetent, 
perverted  elements  which  society  always  has  to 
carry.  But  the  wreckage  among  men  does  not 
minimize  the  responsibility  of  those  of  us  w^ho 
have  not  suffered  disablement.  On  the  con- 
trary it  enhances  our  duty.  It  is  a  complaint 
against  democracy  that  it  is  the  "cult  of  the 
incompetent,"  that  it  is  capable  of  producing 
only  an  average  of  a  lowest  common  denom- 
inator sort.  For  a  double  reason  the  charge  is 
unfair — because  as  yet  democracy  has  little  more 
than  a  chapter  or  so  of  crude  experiments  to  its 
credit,  and  because  it  has  given  its  main  atten- 
tion to  protecting  the  liberty  of  the  citizen  rather 


MAN  IN  MANKIND  79 

than  to  the  development  of  his  responsibilities. 
The  plea  that  the  liberty  of  the  subject  cannot 
be  interfered  with  has  been,  and  is  yet  being 
used  by  many  as  a  bulwark  of  selfishness  and 
so  a  stumbling-block  in  the  growth  of  the  com- 
monwealth. So  far  as  the  average  is  concerned 
it  may  not  be  as  high  as  it  should  be,  but  it  is 
appreciably  higher  in  intelligence  and  character 
than  it  could  be  under  other  conditions.  There 
is,  however,  no  standard  on  which  to  base  a 
comparison,  for  the  modem  nation  in  its  con- 
stituent life  and  conditions  is  a  thing  apart. 
Most  men  of  enlightenment  are  sufficiently  con- 
fident of  the  central  principle  of  democracy  to 
be  glad  to  commend  themselves  and  their  for- 
tunes to  its  keeping,  and  to  give  their  lives  and 
treasure  ungrudgingly  that  ''democracy  may  be 
made  safe  for  the  world." 

This  is  sure,  that  in  a  democracy  the  man 
who  does  rise  to  a  conspicuous  position  of  power 
and  leadership  can,  if  he  so  wills,  always  reach 
his  goal  on  his  substantial  merits  and  with  clean 
hands.  If  he  does  not  do  so,  he  is  guilty  of 
abusing  liberty  and  choosing  the  lower  when 
the  higher  was  available.  The  development  of 
outstanding  character  is  as  necessary  as  ever 
and  for  the  same  purpose  now  as  in  the  past. 
As  the  war  has  shown,  democracy  is  not  afraid 


8o  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

of  one-man  power.  Indeed,  it  is  her  glory  that 
she  can  use  it  with  a  security  unknown  to  other 
systems  of  government.  In  a  democracy  there 
are  moments  and  circumstances  when  much 
must  be  committed  to  the  control  of  a  single 
man.  He  is  selected  by  the  people.  He  is 
what  he  is  because  the  nation  has  given  him 
the  opportunity  and  provided  the  facilities  by 
which  he  made  himself.  Now  he  is  called  upon 
to  become  a  public  servant  with  large  powers, 
limited  and  controlled  by  the  laws  of  the  State 
and  always  responsibile  to  the  people  in  whose 
behalf  he  is  administering  a  trust.  Not  only 
is  one-man  power  not  undemocratic,  but  also 
an  instrument  of  government  that  is  safe,  and 
in  the  same  degree  powerful,  nowhere  else  but 
in  a  democracy. 

It  is  told  of  Lord  Roberts  that,  years  back, 
he  had  an  inborn  conviction  that  he  was  some 
day  going  to  be  called  upon  by  his  nation  for 
an  important  service.  This  led  him  through  two 
decades,  silently  and  unremittingly,  to  prepare 
himself  for  the  contingency  should  it  arise.  He 
resolved  that  if,  or  when,  the  call  to  give  himself 
came  he  would  be  ready  to  give  something  worth 
while.  We  know  that  he  did  not  fail  in  his 
purpose,  and  because  of  his  foresight  and  pre- 
paredness, he  was  equipped  to  accept  his  sue- 


MAN  IN  MANKIND  8i 

cessive  opportunities  as  a  king  mounting  a 
throne. 

His  case  is  a  parable  of  the  relation  of  the  nation 
to  the  citizen  and  of  the  citizen  to  the  nation. 
The  larger  and  wider  our  sense  of  responsibility 
within  the  extreme  limits  of  our  capacity,  the 
better  it  is  for  both  man  and  mankind.  With- 
out it  the  processes  of  growth  go  in  halting  fashion 
at  best.  With  the  knowledge  not  only  that  a 
man  cannot  save  himself  except  by  losing  himself 
in  the  services  of  the  public  weal,  but  also  that 
the  commonwealth  of  mankind  is  in  his  keeping, 
the  citizen  rests  in  the  assurance  that  his  is  no 
mean  destiny.  The  relationship  is  reciprocal. 
The  citizen  must  duly  exalt  the  State  and  serve 
it  with  loyalty:  the  State  must  nurture  the 
citizen  and  not  have  it  laid  to  its  charge  that 
through  its  deficiencies  or  provincialism  there 
has  been  lack  of  fostering  care  or  inspiring  claims. 
The  citizen  as  a  soldier  suddenly  leaps  into  un- 
wonted splendour.  But,  after  all,  the  soldier 
is  only  the  citizen  in  the  garb  of  self-sacrificing  ser- 
vice.    The  garb  may  change,  the  character  never. 

"For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself"  has  a 
new  and  thrilling  meaning  in  the  light  of  the 
narrowed  and  intimate  world  which  current 
events  have  suddenly  revealed  to  us.  Every  one 
has  a  mission  of  influence  to  the  whole  of  man- 


82  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

kind.  It  is  not  necessary  that  there  should  be 
conspicuous  position  for  the  exercise  of  it.  It 
manages  itself,  and  is  so  certain  of  its  path,  that 
it  never  loses  its  way.  The  curious  thing  is 
that  usually,  if  not  always,  a  self-conscious 
attempt  to  direct  or  control  or  place  on  high  our 
good  works  impedes  the  operation.  Secrecy  is 
a  potent  factor  in  all  life  processes,  and  the 
steady  rise  to  superior  character  is  the  most 
hidden  of  all  operations. 

The  future  development  of  democracy  is  at 
this  juncture  only  just  hinted  at,  but  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  it  aspires  to  control  the  fortunes  of 
mankind.  It  cannot  rest  in  circumscribed  areas. 
It  is  a  force  working  for  social  coherence,  and  for 
a  vast  unity  without  devitalizing  lesser  per- 
manent group-unities  such  as  the  nation.  Just 
as  in  an  emergency  it  has  created  an  intimacy 
between  nations  of  a  deeper  and  richer  tone 
than  the  term  "alHance"  denotes,  so  in  normal 
conditions  it  is  capable  of  so  cementing  the 
component  parts  of  the  human  race  together,  as 
to  enable  mankind,  as  such,  to  deal  effectively 
with  those  colossal  problems  which  are  inherently 
the  problems  of  mankind.  We  have  already 
made  a  successful  beginning  in  this  direction. 

We  must  not  allow  self -preference,  not  to  say 
self-righteousness,  to  blind  us  to  the  measure  of 


MAN  IN  MANKIND  83 

truth  in  the  following  poem  to  Germany,  written 
by  the  young  British  poet  and  patriot  who  died 
for  his  country  at  the  age  of  twenty — 

You  are  blind  like  us.     Your  hurt  no  man  designed, 
And  no  man  claimed  the  conquest  of  your  land. 
But  gropers  both  through  fields  of  thought  confined 
We  stumble  and  we  do  not  understand. 
You  only  saw  your  future  bigly  planned, 
And  we,  the  tapering  paths  of  our  own  mind, 
And  in  each  other's  dearest  ways  we  stand, 
And  hiss  and  hate.     And  the  blind  fight  the  blind. 

When  it  is  peace,  then  we  may  view  again 
With  new-won  eyes  each  other's  truer  form 
And  wonder,     Grown  more  loving-kind  and  warm 
We'll  grasp  firm  hands  and  laugh  at  the  old  pain, 
When  it  is  peace.     But  until  peace,  the  storm, 
The  darkness  and  the  thunder  and  the  rain. 

Lord,  I  praise  Thee  for  the  spaciousness  of  life,  its  firm 
foundations  and  its  limitless  reaches.  Thou  hast  put  my  feet 
in  a  large  room  and  cast  my  lot  in  a  fair  ground.  Yea,  I  have 
a  goodly  heritage.  I  praise  Thee  for  the  vast  family  of  man- 
kind which  winds  down  the  ages,  gathering  into  its  completeness 
the  successive  generations  of  men.  In  the  shaping  of  the 
nations  I  see  Thy  creative,  superintending  hand.  Thou  art 
the  Father  of  them  all,  and  it  is  of  Thy  purpose  that  they 
should  all  flow  into  a  unity  of  mutual  understanding,  forbearance 
and  sympathy.  Lord,  I  would  endeavour  to  further  Thy  plan 
by  preserving  the  unity  of  spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace  in  the 
home,  the  community,  and  that  part  of  the  society  of  man  in 
which  I  have  responsibility. 


VII 

THE   WHOLENESS    OF   HOLINESS 

It  would  be  good  for  the  English-speaking 
world  if  we  were  to  dispense  for  a  while  with 
the  use  of  the  word  holiness,  because  it  has 
been  smirched  like  the  word  church  with  sec- 
tarian meaning.  It  may  seem  too  much  like 
a  pun  to  claim  that  it  is  the  most  complete  word 
in  the  language.  But  it  is  a  sober  fact.  Holy 
and  whole,  holiness,  and  wholeness  are  synon- 
ymous ;  and  health  is  but  another  way  of  writing 
holth  or  wholth,  holiness  or  wholeness.  We  have 
confused  piety  or  virtue  or  a  combination  of 
both  with  holiness.  Piety  and  virtue  and  a 
lot  of  other  qualities  are  component  parts  of 
holiness,  but  in  themselves  they  are  no  more 
holiness  than  the  sun's  ray  is  the  sun . 

Holiness  is  the  normal  condition  of  a  whole 
man  as  God  designed  him.  The  wholeness  of 
God  is  His  holiness  or  vice  versa,  as  you  choose. 
We  can  say  with  perfect  reverence  that  God's 
state  is  one  of  eternal  health.  It  is  at  moments 
when  the  doors  of  heaven  are  widest  open  that 

84 


THE  WHOLENESS  OF  HOLINESS         85 

God  appears  as  the  Holy  or  Whole  One.  Of 
course  it  must  be  so.  Full  views  shew  us  the 
whole.  It  was  when  Isaiah  saw  the  Lord  sitting 
upon  a  throne,  high  and  lifted  up,  and  His  train 
filled  the  temple,  that  the  completest  song  that 
can  be  sung  moved  the  foundations  of  the  thres- 
hold and  came  soaring  down  the  ages — Holy, 
holy,  holy,  is  the  Lord  of  hosts.  Of  course  such 
a  God  is  immanent,  of  course  the  whole  earth 
is  full  of  His  glory  or  excellence,  for  of  Him  are 
all  things  and  in  Him  all  things  consist.  Again, 
it  was  when  John  the  Seer  was  led  to  a  door 
opened  in  heaven  and  bidden  to  come  up  hither, 
that  he  saw  a  throne  set  in  heaven  and  one  sitting 
upon  the  throne — it  was  then  that  the  one  com- 
plete song  was  heard  also  by  him.  There  was 
no  improvement  on  what  Isaiah  heard;  that 
could  not  be.  The  thrice  holy  is  the  superlative 
or  eternal  degree  of  holy — Holy,  holy,  holy,  is 
the  Lord  God,  the  Almighty,  which  was  and 
which  is  and  which  is  to  come. 

Another  implication  of  the  English  word  hoH- 
ness  is  that  it  cannot  be  in  the  nature  of  things 
aught  but  social  manward  as  well  as  Godward. 
Personal  hohness  is  bound  up  with  group-hoHness. 
No  one  can  claim  it  for  himself  without  claiming 
it  for  all  those  organically  related  to  him  at  the 
same  time.     There  must  be  leaders  in  holiness. 


86  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

but  there  are  also  the  beneficiaries  of  those  whom 
they  lead.  If  I  refrain  from  expanding  this 
important  point  it  is  because  it  is  implied  in 
all  I  say. 

I 

Holiness,  then,  is  wholeness  as  applied  to  God 
and  those  made  in  His  image.  It  is  in  God's 
wholeness  that  our  wholeness  consists.  He  is 
all  in  all.  What  a  rebuke  this  is  to  small  or 
sectarian  views  of  God  and  His  purposes!  His 
completeness  is  available  to  us,  is  our  inspira- 
tion, is  our  heritage.  God  is  so  careful  to  pre- 
serve for  us  our  vastness  that  He  never  invites 
us  to  clip  off  corners  of  Himself  to  tuck  away 
in  our  little  selves. 

It  is  for  righteousness  that  we  are  expected  to 
hunger  and  thirst,  and  it  is  with  righteousness  that 
we  shall  be  filled.  At  the  dawn  of  wonders,  in  the 
dim  ages  of  the  past,  He  said.  Be  ye  whole  (holy) 
for  the  Lord  your  God  is  whole  (holy).  And  when 
the  Light  that  lighteth  every  man  coming  into  the 
world  came  unto  His  own.  He  said,  after  an  exposi- 
tion of  blessedness  and  exalted  interior  conduct 
in  specific  instances.  Ye  therefore  shall  be  per- 
fect, as  your  heavenly  Father  is  perfect.  The 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  would  be  sadly  incomplete 
if  this  keystone  to  the  whole  arch  were  missing. 


THE  WHOLENESS  OF  HOLINESS         87 

In  it  is  the  same  call  to  holiness  as  from  the 
beginning.  It  suggests  that  all  which  preceded 
and  all  which  comes  after  in  the  Sermon  is  illus- 
trative rather  than  exhaustive.  Were  we  to 
have  anything  short  of  this  given  us  as  our 
goal,  it  would  be  an  indication  that  God  thought 
us  to  be  something  less  than  His  children.  We 
have  no  surer  proof  that  we  are  made  in  the 
image  of  God  than  this  injunction  to  be  holy 
because  our  God  is  holy.  The  thought  is  teem- 
ing with  glorious  implications. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  the  constant  assurance 
to  the  individual  that  he  is  worth  while.  If 
he  were  not  a  potential  part  of  wholeness,  neither 
God  nor  man  would  be  the  richer  for  his  success 
or  poorer  for  his  failure.  But  the  fact  that 
individual  wholeness  is  a  contribution  to  the 
wholeness  or  perfection  of  God's  plan  stings  the 
soul  into  activity.  This  is  something  that  the 
Bible  refuses  to  let  us  get  away  from.  There 
is  no  taint  of  compromise  in  its  unvarying  ideal. 
The  vine  and  the  branches,  the  body  and  the 
members,  the  temple  and  the  living  stones,  and 
all  other  kindred  teaching  drive  the  thought 
home.  Language  has  been  exhausted  in  the 
endeavour  to  defend  man  from  resting  in  the 
incomplete  and  to  connect  him  with  the  entirety 
of  life. 


88  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

Then  there  is  the  thought  of  intimacy,  personal 
and  individual,  which  the  wholeness  of  holiness 
involves.  It  is  the  cause  and  the  soul  of  mys- 
ticism, finding  expression  in  the  simple  piety  of 
faith,  and  in  the  exalted  experiences  of  richly 
endowed  spiritual  natures.  The  part  nestles  close 
to  the  whole,  in  order  to  partake  of  its  health. 
The  real  wealth  of  life  with  God  thus  becomes 
a  living  fact  to  us.  His  holiness  is  at  our  dis- 
posal waiting  for  our  appropriation.  The  sac- 
raments refuse  to  be  anything  short  of  the  im- 
parting of  God  Himself  and  our  rising  to  meet 
Him. 

Still,  again,  it  is  a  warning  against  the  self- 
mutilation  bound  up  with  partial  and  prejudiced 
views  of  truth  as  a  substitute  for  the  Truth 
itself.  If  we  feed  on  an  ill-proportioned  diet 
we  run  the  risk  of  disease  of  more  serious  char- 
acter than  if  we  are  simply  on  short  rations. 
Worse  still,  it  maims  our  power  of  self -giving 
and  limits  its  scope.  It  confines  us  to  a  field 
of  operation  of  our  own  choosing  instead  of 
launching  us  out  into  the  glorious  freedom  of 
the  children  of  God.  To  rest  in  the  last  illu- 
minating thought  that  has  inspired  us,  or,  to 
do  what  is  very  frequent,  to  accept  as  the  whole 
truth  the  single  ray  that  brought  us  to  ourselves 
and  to   God,   to  forget  that  what  is  our  chief 


THE  WHOLENESS  OF  HOLINESS         89 

asset  is  not  what  ripples  along  on  the  surface 
of  our  conscious  life  but  that  which  permeates 
and  sustains  our  subconscious  life,  is  to  endanger 
wholeness. 

Finally,  it  is  a  death  blow  to  the  Puritanism 
that  confuses  a  group  of  virtues  with  holiness, 
and  wastes  much  valuable  vitality  in  manu- 
facturing artificial  sins.  A  Puritan  conscience 
impedes  holiness  as  much  as  it  aids  it.  The 
Puritan  element  has  an  invaluable  place  in  the 
entire  scheme  of  the  reHgion  of  life,  but  it  is  a 
mischievous  thing  when  it  claims  for  itself  rights 
and  prerogatives  which  are  beyond  its  powers 
to  wield. 

It  has  been  maintained  that  ''constantly  striv- 
ing for  the  unobtainable  frequently  results  in 
neglect  of  important  matters  close  at  hand — such 
things  as  bread  and  cheese  and  children  are 
neglected."  This  cannot  be  if  we  bear  in  mind 
the  wholeness  of  holiness,  Godward  and  manward. 

II 

It  is  the  entire  self  that  must  strive  after  and 
claim  holiness  or  health.  For  the  moment  let 
us  deliberately  lose  sight  of  the  difference  in 
current  meaning  between  the  two  synonyms. 
Heart,  soul,  mind,  body,  are  the  component 
parts   of   that   unity   called   self   or   personality. 


go  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

That  which  has  to  do  with  all  has  to  do  with 
each.  Each  shares  in  the  others'  losses  or  gains. 
It  is  not  easy  to  find  the  dividing  line  between 
them,  not  even  between  the  body  and  the  soul. 
The  normal  condition  of  each  and,  of  course, 
of  all  is  that  of  wholeness  or  health.  Nor  is 
there  doubt  that  the  condition  of  any  one  of 
them  affects  all  the  others. 

It  is  significant  that  when  our  Lord  enunciated 
the  first  and  great  Commandment,  He  repeated 
before  each  of  the  words,  heart,  soul  and  mind, 
the  world  "all."  The  entireness  or  totality  of 
self  must  pour  itself  out  Godward.  In  the  self- 
giving  of  all  the  heart  and  of  all  the  soul  and  of 
all  the  mind  to  God  is  the  certainty  of  ultimate 
holiness.  As  for  the  body,  it  will  follow  where 
the  inner  faculties  determine.  It  becomes  the 
adequate  agent  of  spirit. 

The  New  Testament  is  full  of  explicit  messages 
to  all  four  component  elements  of  personality. 
The  affections  are  to  be  set  on  high,  not  on  things 
on  the  earth;  it  is  in  the  heart  that  goodness 
is  conceived.  The  soul  (or  life)  finds  itself  by 
losing  itself  for  Christ's  sake;  it  is  the  chiefest 
of  man's  gifts  to  personality  for  which  there 
can  be  no  equivalent.  The  mind  is  charged  in 
inspiring  terms  to  think  whatsoever  things  are 
true,  whatsoever  things  are  honourable,  whatso- 


THE  WHOLENESS  OF  HOLINESS         91 

ever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure, 
whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things 
are  of  good  report;  if  there  be  any  virtue  and  if 
there  be  any  praise,  the  mind  has  to  think  on 
these  things.  Even  the  body  is  reminded  that 
it  is  nothing  less  than  God's  temple  and  that 
men  can  glorify  God  in  their  bodies. 

It  is  a  conviction  of  our  day  that  the  whole 
of  man  has  not  hitherto  been  brought  into  suf- 
ficiently close  volitional  contact  with  God  and 
therefore  the  body  becomes  diseased.  The  mind 
thinks  disease  and  so  breeds  disease — an  indis- 
putable fact  in  probably  more  cases  than  we  can 
enumerate.  This  much  has  been  established — 
the  effect  upon  the  body  of  inner  health  or  disease 
is  potent  for  good  or  for  ill.  There  are  also 
conditions  of  the  body  that  eat  into  the  moral 
and  spiritual  tissue.  He  who  waves  away  the 
healing  power  of  Christ  as  belonging  only  to 
early  New  Testament  times  is  not  preaching 
the  whole  Gospel.  He  was  and  is  the  Saviotir 
of  the  body.  God  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day 
and  for  ever.  He  who  in  Jesus  Christ  healed 
by  stimulating  spiritual  faculties  to  appropriate 
health  is  not  dependent  upon  what  doctors  can 
do,  nor  helpless  when  doctors  fail.  The  prayers 
in  the  Prayer  Book  touching  sickness  and  dis- 
ease  are  wretchedly   inadequate,    mournful   and 


92  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

halting.     It  is  high  time  they  were  mended  if 
they   are   to   be  used   as   vehicles  for   mending. 
Our  Lord's  words  to  the  imprisoned  Baptist  are 
also  for  those  of  us  who   are  in  the  prison  of 
medical  materiahsm — Go  your  way  and  tell  John 
the  things  which  ye  do  hear  and  see;    the  blind 
receive  their  sight  and  the  lame  walk,  the  lepers 
are  cleansed  and  the  deaf  hear,  and  the  dead  are 
raised  up,  and  the  poor  have  good  tidings  preached 
to  them.     According  to  thy  faith  be  it  unto  thee. 
As  I  write  I  see  the  whole  pathetic  body  of 
the  sick  and  diseased  rising  up  and  claiming  their 
right   to  that  sacrament  of  anointing  which  is 
denied  them  by  Churches  that  should  know  better. 
Is  it  that  we  are  afraid  that  it  will  not  be  effective 
for  heahng?     If  so  it  is   an   acknowledgment  of 
weak  faith.     Anointing  is  the  representative  re- 
medial   act    and    sanctifies    whatever    physical 
treatment  may  be  necessary.     It  ought  to  have 
behind  it  the  sanction  and  blessing  of  the  entire 
Church,  and  not  be  left  to  individuals  to  adopt 
on  their  own  initiative.     Often  the  only  treat- 
ment, or  at  any  rate  the  main  treatment,  needed 
for    certain    ailments    is    a    spiritual    challenge. 
According  to  thy  faith  be  it  unto  thee.     God  is 
not  the  last  resort  in  sickness:    He  is  the  first. 
He  is  not  only  the  physician  for  great  ills  but  also 
for  small. 


THE  WHOLENESS  OF  HOLINESS         93 

III 

I  would  not  dare  speak  about  holiness  in  terms 
which  surpass  my  personal  experience  unless  in 
the  same  breath  I  could  speak  from  joyous 
experience  of  the  forgivingness  and  the  forgive- 
ness of  God.  His  mercies  are  new  every  morning, 
and  His  compassion  fails  not.  His  forgivingness, 
or  His  permanent  will  to  forgive,  a  disposition 
which  has  not  to  be  opportuned  into  full  activity 
before  it  operates,  is  no  afterthought  of  His 
character.  If  He  is  the  self-giver,  the  servant 
of  mankind,  He  must  be  the  forgiver.  He  gives 
not  only  full  measure,  pressed  down,  running 
over,  all  of  which  is  implied  in  forgiveness,  but 
also  He  gives  in  anticipation  before  we  have 
any  claim  upon  Him,  except  the  claim  of  failure 
upan  the  Source  of  all  victory.  For-giveness  is 
both  fore-giveness  and  full-giveness.  Our  health 
is  gone  by  our  own  act,  the  whole  head  is  sick 
and  the  whole  heart  faint,  and  the  Holy  One 
comes  and  gives  us  of  His  health.  The  cost  to 
Him  is  for  ever  held  on  high  in  the  Cross  of 
Calvary.  Forgiveness  is  the  most  costly  of  all  ^^( 
gifts  because  the  most  precious. 

Sin  is  disease  or  absence  of  health  or  whole- 
ness.'  'The  phrase  sometimes  used  for  the  restor- 
ation of  the  sick  is  that  they  were  made  whole. 


94  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

There  are  many  aspects  of  sin,  and  the  teaching 
of  the  Christian  Church  has  made  us  familiar 
with  them  all.  But  for  our  immediate  purpose 
it  will  be  sufficient  to  view  sin  as  the  forfeiting 
of  wholeness  by  choosing  away  or  apart  from 
the  Holy  One  and  those  who  in  Him  are  holy. 
God's  forgiveness  is  the  lifting  us  back  again 
into  the  relationships  of  health — with  Himself 
and  with  his  fellows.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
the  Church  was  given  authority  to  forgive  sins. 
It  is  the  primary  duty  of  the  society  that  stands 
for  health,  the  Holy  Church,  to  give  out  of  the 
abundance  of  its  health  to  any  member  who 
falls  ill  morally  or  spiritually.  It  is  as  natural 
and  right  for  the  Church  to  dispense  forgiveness 
as  it  is  to  share  any  other  treasures  it  may 
possess.  Here  again  lack  of  faith  makes  us 
hesitate  to  speak  with  assurance  both  in  the 
name  of  the  holy  God  and  in  the  name  of  holy 
men.  No  Church  is  functioning  right  that  is 
not  dispensing  absolution  freely  and  constantly. 

Forgiveness  is,  like  other  inner  gifts,  dependent 
for  its  efficacy  upon  the  disposition  to  receive  it. 
It  must  be  used  or  its  value  is  nullified.  It  ex- 
pects much  of  the  recipient.  Tradition  and  usage 
have  summed  up  all  that  is  necessary  in  the  word 
penitence,  which  is  a  disposition  shaping  itself 
into  conduct,   based  upon  the   abandonment  of 


THE  WHOLENESS   OF  HOLINESS         95 

sin.  God's  forgivingness  can  never  be  exhausted, 
but  by  a  light  use  of  forgiveness  power  to  appro- 
priate it  becomes  depleted.  Forgiven  sin  is  for- 
saken sin,  and  the  converse  is  equally  true  if, 
included  in  the  forsaking,  is  as  complete  an 
undoing  of  the  wrong  as  the  sinner's  power  of 
choice  can  compass. 

Modem  psychology  in  many  ways  is  justi- 
fying the  age-long  position  of  the  Church.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  theory  that  until  a  certain 
"suppressed  emotion,"  however  remote,  is  def- 
initely dealt  with,  depression,  nervous  debility, 
or  whatever  the  morbid  condition  may  be,  can- 
not be  relieved.  In  other  words,  when  human 
nature  has  been  violently  dealt  with  at  the  springs 
of  being,  disease  in  the  subconscious  life  is  the 
penalty.  Nothing  short  of  subconscious  treat- 
ment will  suffice  to  get  rid  of  both  it  and  its 
operation.  Wounds  of  the  soul  do  not  neces- 
sarily disappear  by  being  forgotten.  Their  poison 
continues  to  work  until  they  are  vSubjected  to 
forgiveness,  which  is  a  remedial  process,  both 
tender  and  severe,  as  well  as  a  remedial  act. 

We  are  but  beginning  to  understand  the  whole- 
ness of  life  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  The 
career  of  a  man  is  not  a  succession  of  more  or 
less  jerky  acts:  it  is  a  continuous  flow,  so  that 
all  the  past  is  always  in  the  present.     The  past 


96  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

cannot  be  obliterated,  but  where  it  constitutes 
a  break  it  can  be  repaired,  and  where  it  con- 
stitutes a  shame  it  can  be  transformed,  by  pen- 
itence and  forgiveness. 

It  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  to  find  men 
shy  of  associating  themselves  with  the  Church 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  in  a  scrape  and 
that,  inasmuch  as  they  did  not  trouble  insti- 
tutions or  ministers  of  religion  when  the  times 
were  fair,  it  would  be  rather  a  mean  business 
to  come  to  the  Lord  in  their  distress.  There  is 
in  such  an  attitude  a  recognition  that  true  re- 
ligion is  something  more  than  a  last  resort. 
So  far  it  has  good  in  it.  But  it  is  obviously  a 
wrong  course  if  the  Church  be  indwelt  by  the 
Spirit  of  Him  who  said.  Come  unto  Me  all  ye 
that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden.  They  that 
are  whole  need  not  the  physician,  but  they  that 
are  sick.  It  is  by  no  means  an  unworthy  motive 
to  move  Godward  because  of  trouble.  It  is 
exactly  what  God  has  declared  He  desires  and 
expects  men  to  do. 

It  is,  perhaps,  a  truism  to  say  that  incom- 
pleteness is  best  prevented,  or,  if  we  are  suf- 
fering from  it,  best  cured  by  cultivating  a  passion 
for  wholeness.  Walk  in  the  spirit  and  you  can- 
not fulfil  the  lusts  of  the  flesh.  The  Student  in 
Arms  sums  up  the  principle  in  a  striking  pas- 


THE  WHOLENESS  OF  HOLINESS         97 

sage:  "Let  us  be  frank  about  this.  .  .  .  The • 
only  men  who  are  pure  are  those  who  are  absorbed 
in  some  pursuit,  or  possessed  by  a  great  love; 
whether  it  be  the  love  of  clean,  wholesome  life, 
which  is  religion,  or  the  love  of  a  noble  man, 
which  is  hero-worship,  or  the  love  of  a  true 
woman.  These  are  the  four  powers  which  are 
stronger  than  the  'flesh' — the  zest  of  a  quest, 
religion,  hero-worship,  and  the  love  of  a  good 
woman.  If  a  man  is  not  possessed  by  one  of 
these  he  will  be  immoral." 

It  is  very  meet,  right,  and  our  bounden  duty,  that  we  should 
at  all  times,  and  in  all  places,  give  thanks  unto  Thee,  O  Lord, 
Holy  Father,  Almighty,  Everlasting  God :  therefore,  with  angels 
and  archangels  and  with  all  the  company  of  heaven,  we  laud 
and  magnify  Thy  glorious  Name;  evermore  praising  Thee, 
and  saying,  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord  God  of  hosts,  heaven  and 
earth  are  full  of  Thy  glory.  Glory  be  to  Thee,  O  Lord  most 
high.     Amen. 


VIII 

PURIFIED   AS   BY    FIRE 

Our  age  has  an  opportunity  and  a  duty,  su- 
perior to  that  of  any  moment  of  the  worid's 
past,  to  understand  and  master  the  mystery  of 
suffering,  for  we  in  a  supreme  sense  are  toeing 
tried  as  by  fire.  May  we  so  walk  in  the  midst 
of  the  burning,  fiery  furnace  that  the  men  of 
to-morrow  will  be  able  to  say  that  we  came  out 
of  it  purified  and  refined.  In  unprecedented 
volume  and  with  unwonted  fury,  hot  blasts  of 
pain  are  sweeping  over  mankind  in  swift  suc- 
cession, sparing  few  and  menacing  all.  There 
is  no  abatement  in  the  operation  of  those  cosmic 
processes  which  have  made  for  suffering  since 
the  beginning  of  time,  and  whose  origin  does  not 
spring  from  human  sources.  Then,  too,  the 
average  amount  of  trouble  clearly  traceable  to 
the  weakness  and  wickedness  of  individuals  and 
the  plottings  of  groups  of  men  continues.  Super- 
added is  this  stupendous  war  which,  drunken 
with  the  wine  of  young  men's  blood,  infamous 
with  its  atrocities,  foul  with  its  corruptions,  is 
engulfing  mankind  from  east  to  west  and  from 

98 


PURIFIED   AS  BY  FIRE  99 

pole   to  pole.     Its  massed  suffering  is  colossal, 
so  that  the  sensitive  nature  which  opens  its  doors 
to   it   through   fellow-feeling,    understands   more 
fully  than  ever  before  the  meaning  of  the  Atone- 
ment.    There   is   no    comer    of   being   which   it 
does    not    besiege    and    mutilate    and    destroy. 
Minds,    characters   and  bodies   are   smitten  and 
tortured  out  of  human  semblance.     The  tempest 
of  battle  is  continuous  and  knows  no  rest.     The 
world  is  writhing  with  pain.     Every  bullet  that 
stills  the  beat  of  a  soldier's  pulse,  speeds  on  until 
it  reaches  the  heart  of  wife  or  mother,  half  the 
world  away,   and  puts  out  the  lamp  of  joy  in 
many    a    life.     The    infamous,    brutal    abomina- 
tions which  enslave  nations,  torture  men,  ravish 
women,  and,  worst  of  all,  despise  and  violate  the 
sanctity  of  child-Hfe,  are  mixing  with  the  lives 
of  myriads  near  and  far,  so  that  the  vicarious 
suffering  is   as   deep   as   the   direct  pang  which 
shivers   through   its  immediate   victim.     To-day 
every  man  but  the  arrant  coward  is  suffering, 
not  merely  with  his  own  petty  aches  and  ail- 
ments,  but  more  still  with  the  writhing  agony 
of  the  human  race. 


Now  let  us  be  honest  with  ourselves — indeed, 
how    dare   we   be    anything   but   honest   in   the 


loo  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

face  of  such  horrors?  Any  claim  that  we,  of 
any  race  of  people  whose  heritage  for  genera- 
tions has  been  one  of  privilege  and  illumination, 
are  without  culpability  for  the  present  chaos 
and  its  super-pain  is  as  foolish  as  it  is  untrue. 
There  are  degrees  of  guilt,  and  whole  nations 
have  slowly  risen  from  a  position  of  neutrality 
or  doubtfulness  to  a  flaming  conviction,  finding 
flaming  utterance,  as  to  where  the  major  re- 
sponsibility lies.  The  super-man  is  the  super- 
criminal.  But  this  does  not  absolve  us  from 
recognizing  and  correcting  our  own  grave  defects. 
The  fact  that  your  neighbour  is  a  highwayman 
and  murderer  does  not  justify  you  being  a  brag- 
gart and  a  snob.  The  pride,  the  boastfulness 
and,  that  most  sinister  of  qualities,  the  snob- 
ishness  of  us  Anglo-Saxons,  have  been  and  are 
active  factors  in  world  confusion.  While  repro- 
bating and  resisting  unto  death  the  unmeasured 
and  immeasurable  injustice  which  is  endeavouring 
with  fiendish  persistence,  and  also  with  the  im- 
potence of  an  Instans  Tyrranus,  to  squeeze  out 
the  life  of  Belgium  and  Serbia,  and  to  annihilate 
the  Polish  and  the  Armenian  races,  let  us  abjure 
self-righteousness  and  court  self-criticism  con- 
cerning our  own  faulty  career. 

Behind  and  at  the  root  of  the  fiery  trial  of 
the  moment  are  national  and  individual  faults 


PURIFIED  AS  BY  FIRE  loi 

of  temper,  which  leave  us  guilty  before  the  bar 
of  God  and  of  history.     They  are  so  grave  that, 
as  in  the  past  they  have  brought  great  democ- 
racies to  the  verge  of  open  conflict,   so  in  the 
future  they  will  actually  precipitate  and  invite 
the  scourge  of  war  unless  we  deal  with  them  m 
unsparing  fashion.     Democracy  is  not  and  can- 
not   be    its    own    security.     Its    very    existence 
depends  upon  the  character  and  temper  of  the 
people   who   compose   it.     It   is   nothing   but    a 
single    principle.     Used    aright    it    is    a    unitive 
force  and  a  friend  of  liberty,  but  in  the  hands  of 
an  unenHghtened  and  selfish  people  it  is  a  menace 
of   major   proportions.     Of    all    corrupt    govern- 
ments, there  is  nothing  equal  to  the  corruption 
of  a  corrupt  democracy . 

This  is  no  digression.  It  is  pertinent  to  the 
moment  and  to  the  discussion.  We  are  seeking 
a  way  to  preclude  the  repetition  of  such  horrors 
as  those  which  are  now  our  daily  diet.  We 
are  determined  upon  ehminating  war  from  the 
scheme  of  life.  Democracy  is  the  watchword  of 
the  day.  But  in  itself  and  by  itself  it  can  do 
nothing  but  disappoint  our  hopes,  unless  we 
briskly  set  to  work  to  clean  its  skirts  from  the 
stains  which  defile  it— its  hypocrisies,  its  venal- 
ities, its  corruptions,  its  graft,  its  aristocratic 
spirit,    its    self -righteousness.     Democracy    as    it 


I02  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

has  been  is  a  pale  ghost  of  what  it  must  become 
if  it  is  to  bar  the  door  of  mankind  to  war. 

Nor  may  we  wait  till  to-morrow,  when  at  last 
peace  lets  her  gentle  mantle  fall  upon  the  maimed 
and  panting  world.  There  can  be  no  days  of 
reconstruction  which  have  not  their  roots  deep 
in  the  present.  There  is  no  moment  like  now 
in  which  to  get  rid  of  patent  national  vices,  like 
covet  ousness  expressed  in  legislation,  getting 
revenue  from  vice,  mitigating  and  permitting 
graft  for  the  sake  of  political  ease,  grinding  the 
faces  of  the  poor  and  all  the  while  prating  about 
liberty,  condoning  vice  because  it  is  gilded. 

These  are  the  most  important  days  of  recon- 
struction, and  unless  national  democracies  mend 
their  ways  a  world-wide  democracy  can  be  nothing 
better  than  a  doubtful  blessing.  Each  new  epoch 
has  had  its  panacea  for  the  major  ills  of  the 
human  race,  from  the  establishment  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  to  the  Reformation,  and  from 
the  Reformation  until  now.  There  is  no  panacea 
but  wholeness,  in  which  impartial  recognition 
is  given  to  the  entire  wealth  of  God  and  His 
purposes.  Let  us  pursue  the  development  of 
democracy  by  all  means,  but  let  us  pursue  it 
as  a  single  factor  in  a  whole  army  of  principles 
of  equal  cogency . 

Every  word  that  has  been  said  about  the  whole- 


PURIFIED  AS  BY  FIRE  103 

ness  of  democracy  is  true  about  the  Church.  In 
plain  language,  she  is  at  war  within  herself. 
Much  of  the  anguish  of  soul,  of  the  doubt,  of 
the  ahenation  of  men  from  the  Kingdom  of 
God  and  His  righteousness,  lies  at  the  door  of 
the  broken  condition  of  the  Church,  her  uncath- 
olic  temper,  and  her  apathetic  acceptance  of 
the  divisions  which  rend  her  as  though  they 
were  not  her  own  fault.  It  is  encouraging  to 
find  that  there  is  an  increasing  discontent  with 
the  intolerable  conditions  which  obtain,  and  a 
feehng  after  the  remedy  for  our  provinciaHsm 
and  incompleteness.  We  needed  this  monstrous 
war  to  purge  the  Church  of  her  belHgerency  and 
dilettantism.  It  is  forcing  us  to  a  recognition 
of  unpalatable  fact. 

We  must  not  take  for  granted  that  this  premier, 
or  any  outstanding,  trial  by  fire  is  going  to  do 
any  good  unless  we  deliberately  will  that  it 
should,  and  line  up  our  activities  with  our  pur- 
pose. "If  when  silence  comes  down  on  a  deci- 
mated, an  exhausted,  a  bankrupt  world,  the 
old  ways  are  sought  out  again  and  men  go  on 
as  before,  then  the  myriad  lives  and  the  dreary 
rain  of  tears  are  indeed  a  vain  oblation,  and  all 
will  be  to  do  over  again.  God  sets  no  lesson 
that  need  not  be  learned,  and  unless  out  of  it 
all  comes  an  old  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  then 


104  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

the  lesson  is  set  again,  as  time  after  time  it  was 
set  for  imperial  Rome,  until  a  century  of  war 
and  pestilence  and  famine  broke  down  her  in- 
solent pride  and  made  from  the  ruins  of  her 
vain  glory  a  foundation  for  a  new  civilization  in 
the  strength  of  the  Christianity  she  had  denied." 
We  want  the  fire  to  bum,  we  beg  of  it  to  bum, 
we  put  ourselves  in  the  way  of  the  burning, 
that  the  unclean  in  us  may  be  cleansed,  and  that 
the  steel  in  us  may  be  tempered  like  a  Damascus 
blade.  Suffering  is  ready  to  be  milked  by  cour- 
ageous and  steady  hands,  but  it  will  not  yield  a 
drop  of  nourishment  to  the  dilettante  or  the 
coward. 

II 

There  are  few  of  us  who  have  not  learned  by 
experience  the  remedial  value  of  suffering  when 
we  have  used  it  as  a  sacrament.  It  is  aston- 
ishing how  evanescent  the  memory  of  pain  is, 
both  in  its  acute  and  in  its  more  prolonged 
forms,  and  how  living  a  thing  is  the  deposit 
made  by  a  right  correspondence  with  the  oppor- 
tunity hidden  in  the  heart  of  suffering.  This 
latter  softens  the  disposition  of  that  which  at 
the  moment  seemed  like  unrelieved  disaster  and, 
as  we  look  back,  gives  a  benign  expression  to  its 
severe  countenance.     To  the  growing  character 


PURIFIED  AS  BY  FIRE  105 

all  his  past  suffering  is  a  distinct  asset,  and 
from  none  of  it  would  he  be  separated.  He  would 
not,  if  he  could,  eliminate  a  single  pang. 

The  memory  of  past  suffering  and  its  deposit 
is  varied.  First  and  highest  stands  the  vicarious 
suffering  by  which  we  lived  in  the  lives  of  others 
and,  without  fault  ourselves,  shared  the  shame 
and  sorrow  of  others,  or  else  entered  into  the 
rich  experience  of  blameless  sufferers.  Perhaps 
there  is  no  pain  quite  like  it  for  intensity.  Then 
there  comes  the  sharing  of  the  common  lot  in 
which  we  receive  our  due  portion  of  harsh  treat- 
ment at  the  rough  hand  of  those  relentless  forces 
which  are  resident  in  the  nature  of  which  we 
are  a  part.  Some,  many,  there  are  who  appear 
to  be  afflicted  beyond  measure  and  without  ap- 
parent reason.  The  disparity  of  suffering  is  one 
of  the  most  baffling  features  of  the  mystery  and 
would  be  a  fatal  one  were  it  not  that  the  most 
perfect,  the  one  altogether  perfect,  representative 
of  the  human  family  was  afflicted  beyond  His 
brethren  of  every  age,  and  not  only  took  no 
hurt  but  even  reaped  a  golden  harvest  for  the 
world  from  the  field  of  His  suffering.  With  His 
stripes  we  are  healed. 

And  then  there  are  the  pangs  which  we  can 
trace  directly  to  our  own  fault,  and  which  are 
nothing  more  or  less  than  the  chastising  of  the 


io6  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

benignly  austere  hand  of  God.  It  is  an  indignity 
to  the  character  of  God  as  love  to  separate 
penalties  for  wrong-doing  from  His  direct,  pur- 
poseful operation.  I  would  rather  take  a  thousand 
lashes  from  the  hand  of  love  than  a  single  stroke 
from  Fate  or  mere  Justice.  The  lash  of  love 
has  wholeness  for  the  culprit  as  its  aim.  Fate 
hits  blindly  and  without  purpose.  Mere  Justice 
exacts  retribution. 

It  is  a  puzzle  to  me  why  men  should  assume 
that  pure  love  is  without  pain  and  does  not  in- 
flict pain.  We  can  know  love  as  it  is  only  by 
examining  it  as  it  reveals  itself  in  the  manifesta- 
tions of  God  in  our  own  sphere.  It  is  unscientific 
of  science  to  study  love  as  a  theory  apart  from 
the  data  in  hand.  If  we  resort  to  speculative 
thought,  I  can  dimly  see  how  in  an  eternal 
character  the  counterpart  of  pain  or  the  reality 
of  which  pain  is  the  shadow  and  symbol  is  a 
necessity,  but  it  is  so  bound  up  with  the  whole 
that  every  pang  is  an  ecstatic  note  in  joy.  It  is 
the  lack  of  immediacy,  the  discipline  of  waiting, 
that  pain  of  pains,  which  casts  doubt  over  the 
function  of  suffering.  When  the  imagination 
soars  above  time,  which  after  all  is  only  the 
standard  of  measurement  in  terms  of  a  planetary 
system,  of  a  part  instead  of  the  whole,  it  is  quite 
possible  to  think  of  all  the  cumulative  suffering 


PURIFIED  AS  BY  FIRE  107 

of  the  ages  of  mortality  becoming  a  glittering 
ray  of  joy,  as  the  sun,  the  responsible  agent  of 
time,  winds  up  his  affairs  and  hands  his  record 
to  God. 

The  sign  of  the  Cross  is  eternal  and  can  never 
be  wiped  out.  The  Lamb  slain  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world  is  inherent  in  Godhead. 
There  is  a  timeless  element  in  suffering.  Even 
here  and  now  we  have  moments  of  joy  which 
are  so  intense  that  they  shiver  with  pain,  and 
in  retrospect  we  find  it  hard  to  separate  the 
pain  and  the  blessing  into  which  the  pain  eventually 
resolved  its  discord.  Studied  as  a  thing  apart, 
as  an  entity  in  itself,  as  a  mere  ingredient  of 
time,  pain  is  an  evil.  But  give  it  its  proper 
place  in  the  whole  scheme  of  love  and  it  becomes 
not  only  bearable  but  also  desirable  in  the  process 
making  for  completeness. 

Ask  the  Belgian  whether,  in  the  light  of  sub- 
sequent events,  he  regrets  that  he  refused  to 
lie  down  in  passive  slavery  to  the  infamous 
demand  of  Teuton  ambition,  and  what  will  he 
say?  His  triumphant  No  climbs  to  the  stars 
and  shakes  heaven  itself.  Men  are  already  saying 
that  the  two  great  events  of  the  war  are  the 
resistance  of  Belgium,  and  Gallipoli,  where  the 
immortal  will  of  man  willed  to  dare  an  under- 
taking beyond  its  power  and  honoured  itself  in 


io8  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

the  failure.  Gallipoli  was  the  Charge  of  the 
Six  Hundred  multipHed  by  a  hundred. 

Ask  the  women  of  Portsmouth  who,  when  it  was 
announced  that  all  but  a  handful  of  their  husbands 
and  sweethearts  had  gone  gallantly  to  God  by  way 
of  the  sea,  broke  spontaneously  into  Rule,  Britan- 
nia!— ask  them  if  they  would  call  their  heroes 
from  the  ocean  depths  in  order  that  their  lives 
may  be  easier  and  smoother?  Their  negative 
will  have  no  tremor  in  its  trimipet  note. 

Ask  America  as  she  feels  the  iron  entering  into 
her  soul  if  she  wishes  to  draw  back  or  whether  she 
will  go  on  with  invincible  spirit  laying  her  best 
on  the  altar  of  sacrifice.  Her  answer  is  em- 
bodied in  her  unswerving  course  toward  the 
goal.  If  she  has  any  regret  it  is  that  she  chose 
the  common  lot  of  her  Allies  late  rather  than 
early.  And  so  it  goes.  Even  in  time  there  is 
enough  of  the  eternal  to  enable  us  to  see  in 
retrospect — also  in  anticipation — that  pain  is  an 
asset  too  precious  to  be  separated  from. 

The  mystic  sense  or  element  in  man  is  not 
the  property  of  a  few.  All  of  us  have  it.  It  is 
the  heart  and  soul  of  idealism.  The  prospect  of 
adventure,  and  of  trouble,  and  of  suffering,  does 
not  deter  the  youth  of  our  day  from  advancing 
in  cohorts  upon  the  hosts  of  evil.  Dimly  in 
most   hearts,    clearly   in   some,    exultantly   in    a 


PURIFIED   AS  BY  FIRE  109 

few,  our  lads  stream  out  to  war  not  to  destroy 
the  power  of  a  visible  foe  alone  but  to  smite  a 
vicious  principle.  They  know  that  their  wrestling 
is  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  the 
principalities,  against  the  powers,  against  the 
world-rulers  of  this  darkness,  against  the  spiritual 
hosts  of  wickedness  in  the  heavenly  places. 
Consequently  we  must  not  preach  to  them 
democracy  alone  as  though  that  had  sufficient 
inspiring  force,  or  nationalism,  or  internationalism, 
or  a  sectarian  Church.  They  are  ready  for 
something  greater  and  grander,  and  if  the  de- 
mand is  made  of  them  they  will  put  on  the 
whole  armour  of  God,  and  having  done  all  will 
stand. 

Ill 

It  seems  almost  like  saying  that  blindness  is 
a  vantage  ground  for  the  exercise  of  sight  to 
claim  that  never  in  human  experience  had  an 
age  the  chance  to  see  and  measure  realities 
like  that  which  we  have.  But  it  is  so.  The 
illuminating  power  of  trouble  and  suffering  make 
it  a  very  mount  of  vision. 

The  things  which  can  be  shaken  are  shaken 
and  the  stable  and  unchangeable  abide.  The 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  could  never 
have  produced  his  understanding  treatise  on  suf- 


no  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

fering  and  God's  relation  to  it  except  from  the 
house  of  pain  and  during  an  age  of  palpitating 
uncertainty.  His  picture  of  victory  by  faith  is 
in  every  line  of  it  the  child  of  pain.  Nor,  I  am 
convinced,  could  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved 
have  made  his  spiritual  pilgrimage  as  recorded 
in  the  Revelation  had  his  lot  been  one  of  home 
comforts  and  freedom  from  anxiety.  His  exile 
in  the  lonely  isle  of  Patmos  gave  him  the  rich 
opportunity  which  his  rich  nature  seized,  and  he 
made  the  desert  to  blossom  as  a  rose. 

Our  Lord  seems  to  lay  down  the  principle 
that  spiritual  vision  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the 
ease  and  calmness  of  prosperity  and  peace.  Its 
height  is  reached  when  the  confusion  of  the 
universe  excels  what  we  ourselves  are  familiar 
with.  After  a  description  of  horrors  which  spread 
over  the  face  of  earth  and  sky  he  says:  Then 
shall  they  see  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  a  cloud 
with  power  and  great  glory.  But  when  these 
things  begin  to  come  to  pass,  look  up  and  lift 
up  your  heads ;  because  your  redemption  draweth 
nigh.  If  I  interpret  this  aright,  it  means  that 
we  of  to-day  have  a  chance  to  get  into  intimate 
relationship  with  the  living  God  in  Jesus  Christ 
such  as  cannot  well  be  surpassed.  In  part  it 
is  that  we  are  driven  by  the  stress  of  the  moment 
away  from  that  which  is  unstable  to  that  which 


PURIFIED  AS  BY  FIRE  iii 

is  secure,  and  that  being  stripped  of  the  veil  of 
material  comforts  and  lifted  out  of  the  fog  of 
side  issues  we  are  in  a  clear  and  unimpeded  air 
in  which  the  heavens  press  themselves  on  our 
gaze.  At  any  rate,  whatever  the  metaphysic  of 
it  all  be,  the  day  is  one  of  fine  and  true  ideaHsm 
which  enables  us  to  endure  because  of  the  joy 
that  is  set  before  us. 

I  am  not  trying  to  deal  exhaustively  with 
suffering,  or  to  speculate  on  how  much  superior 
a  world  God  would  have  made  if  He  had  only 
waited  for  some  of  the  modem  rationalists  to 
advise  Him.  I  am  trying  to  reach  fundamental 
principles  that  may  prove  solid  ground  for  slip- 
ping feet.  The  great  mass  of  unmerited  and 
meaningless  pain  which  belongs  to  the  human 
race  cannot  be  dealt  with  in  detail.  But  of  it 
may  be  said  two  things.  First,  supposing  men 
go  under  from  the  excessive  weight  of  suffering, 
what  then?  The  bruised  reed  will  He  not  break, 
the  smoking  flax  will  He  not  quench.  For  every 
pang  of  seemingly  wanton  or  unmerited  pain  in 
time,  God  has  double  compensation  in  timeless- 
ness.  The  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are 
not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  that 
shall  be  revealed  in  us.  The  sufferings  are  out- 
ward, the  glory  is  inward.  You  cannot  consider 
the   question  of  suffering  except  in  relation  to 


112  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

God's  whole  self  and  whole  scheme.  In  the 
second  place — and  this  is  the  all-encompassing 
argument,  the  irrefutable  logic,  which  enables  us 
to  accept  what  we  cannot  understand — the  pain 
Giver  in  Jesus  Christ  reveals  Himself  to  be 
the  pain  Bearer.  God  thus  stoops  His  shoulders 
to  His  own  austerities  and  learns,  through  suf- 
fering, obedience  to  His  own  laws.  If  He,  then 
why  not  we? 

O  what  great  troubles  and  adversities  hast  Thou  showed 
me!  and  yet  didst  Thou  turn  and  refresh  me:  yea,  and  broughtest 
me  from  the  deep  of  the  earth  again.  Praised  be  God  for  His 
discipHnes!  It  is  good  for  me  that  I  have  been  in  trouble. 
Thy  terrors  have  I  suffered  with  a  troubled  mind,  but  out  of 
the  austerities  of  Thy  love  have  come  visions  of  hope  and 
encouragement.  I  thank  Thee  that  Thy  fire  is  a  purifying 
fire  and  that  Thou  dost  not  chastise  to  destroy,  but  to  build 
up  and  save  to  the  uttermost. 


IX 

THE    LAST   GREAT   ADVENTURE 

The  last  great  adventure  is  the  phrase  by 
which  a  man  once  described  death  as  appHed 
to  himself,  when  the  disabled  ship,  on  which  he 
was,  plunged  to  her  doom.  We  can  understand 
how  gallant  a  heart  it  was  to  whose  lips  these 
words  sprang  instinctively  when  he  was  sud- 
denly called  upon  to  die.  He  was  not  an  eccle- 
siastic or  a  rehgionist.     He  was  an  actor. 

I 

That  is  exactly  what  death  is— not  something 
apart  from  or  hostile  to  Hfe,  but  the  final  stage 
in  the  experience  of  mortality.  If  we  have  been 
walking  by  faith,  that  is  to  say,  making  each 
day  a  new  adventure  into  the  unknown,  death 
cannot  take  us  by  surprise  or  do  anything  worse 
than  challenge  us  to  move  into  the  inevitable  as 
though  it  were  our  deliberate  choice.  A  man 
can  never  choose  death  for  death's  sake.  That 
is  suicide,  the  largest  insult  to  human  nature 
which  can  be  offered.  It  is  due  to  the  fear  of 
living.     There  is  no  temper  of  soul  more  hor- 

113 


114  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

rifying  and  cowardly  than  fear  of  living.  Here 
is  the  classic  description  of  its  ultimate  fate. 
The  Lord  shall  give  thee  a  trembling  heart, 
and  failing  eyes,  and  pining  of  soul;  and  thy 
life  shall  hang  in  doubt  before  thee;  and  thou 
shalt  fear  night  and  day,  and  shalt  have  none 
assurance  of  thy  life;  in  the  morning  thou  shalt 
say,  Would  God  it  were  even!  and  at  even 
thou  shalt  say,  Would  God  it  were  morning!  for 
the  fear  of  thy  heart  which  thou  shalt  fear,  and 
for  the  sight  of  thine  eyes  which  thou  shalt  see. 
The  fear  of  living  is  always  due  to  a  single 
cause,  the  deliberate  refusal  to  accept  life  as  a 
high-hearted  adventure  in  the  name  of  God  and 
for  the  sake  of  mankind.  It  takes  its  beginnings 
in  shirking  duty,  in  seeking  ease,  in  sheltering 
self.  Its  cure  consists  in  flinging  self-protection 
to  the  winds  and  trusting  oneself  to  some  big 
scheme,  the  bigger  the  better,  of  a  sort  of  which 
we  are  assured  God  will  not  be  ashamed.  Many 
a  man's  life  has  been  suddenly  simplified  and 
given  point  to  by  the  call  of  humanity  for  help 
in  the  war.  There  has  happened  to  him  what 
happened  to  a  character  in  modem  fiction.  His 
course  ''was  simple  because  he  now  took  no 
thought  of  what  would  happen  to  himself; — 
that  no  longer  even  interested  him, — he  was 
thinking   only   of   what   he   ought    to    do.     And 


THE  LAST  GREAT  ADVENTURE        115 

strangely  enough,  while  he  was  not  considering 
his  own  needs,  he  knew  without  any  doubt 
what  he  ought  to  do  for  others."  It  is  the  old 
story  of  losing  life  to  save  it. 

The  awful  fate  of  fearing  to  live  was  some- 
thing our  Lord  meets.  He  urges  upon  us  not 
to  give  ourselves  up  to  anxious  thoughts  for 
material  needs  or  the  contents  of  to-morrow. 
God  removes  all  the  menace  there  may  be  in 
them  without  the  help  of  perturbed  or  gloomy 
anticipations.  Indeed,  most  of  the  terrors  of  the 
unknown  are  those  we  inject  into  them  by  our 
timorous  proleptic  disposition.  It  is  the  com- 
pleteness of  God's  grasp  of  affairs  that  is  our 
assurance  that  we  can  trust  Him  to  look  after 
His  business,  provided  we  do  not  thwart  Him 
by  trying  to  do  it  for  Him,  and  if  we  attend  to 
our  own.  We  have  a  right  to  become  solicitous 
for  the  future  and  for  the  condition  of  man- 
kind only  to  the  extent  we  are  responsible  for 
it.  Solicitude  for  others,  their  present  and  fu- 
ture, meets  with  no  rebuke  from  God.  Such 
solicitude  is  but  a  phase  of  love  and  is  the  parent 
of  remedial  and  saving  effort  on  our  part.  It 
has  its  suffering,  of  course,  for  it  is  signed  power- 
fully and  deeply  with  the  sign  of  the  Cross,  but 
it  is  not  a  disease,  like  self -solicitude  is;  it  is  a 
vitality. 


ii6  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

Self -saving  is  a  process  of  death ;  saving  others 
a  process  of  Ufe.  Consequently  the  self -saver 
must  be  afraid  to  live,  for  life  is  his  antipode. 
The  saviour  of  others  cannot  be  afraid  to  live, 
for  his  sole  business  is  life  and  abundant  life. 
The  self-saver  must  be  afraid  to  die  because 
he  is  not  experienced  in  adventure  into  any 
sphere  where  he  cannot  handle  affairs  to  his 
own  advantage.  He  fears  what  lies  lurking  in 
the  unknown.  It  is  full  of  possible  enemies  and 
terrors.  The  saviour  of  others  cannot  be  afraid 
to  die  because  having  died  daily,  he  is  skilled 
in  the  practice  of  immortality.  His  large  ex- 
perience in  adventure  has  revealed  to  him  the 
glory  of  the  unknown,  so  that  he  is  assured 
that  behind  the  last  great  adventure  is  the 
grandest  and  best  part  of  life.  For  him  there 
can  be  no  shadows  or  terrifying  foes  in  any 
realm  presided  over  by  his  Father,  in  whom  and 
from  whom  are  all  things. 

St.  Paul,  who  is  a  master  of  simplicity  where  he 
is  not  a  master  of  obscurity,  gets  at  the  root  of  the 
matter  in  brief  and  simple  language.  O  death, 
where  is  thy  victory?  O  death,  where  is  thy  sting? 
The  sting  of  death  is  sin;  and  the  power  of  sin  is 
the  law;  but  thanks  be  to  God  which  giveth 
us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Wherefore,   my   beloved   brethren,   be  ye   stead- 


THE  LAST  GREAT  ADVENTURE        117 

fast,  unmoveable,  always  abounding  in  the  work 
of  the  Lord,  for  as  much  as  ye  know  that  your 
labour  is  not  vain  in  the  Lord. 


II 

In  these  days,  when  the  beat  of  the  wings 
of  the  angel  of  death  is  ever  sounding  in  our 
ears,  and  when  daily,  hourly,  whole  legions  of 
young  men  are,  to  use  the  stock  phrase,  going 
before  their  time,  in  the  sense  of  dying  with 
but  few  years  to  their  credit,  it  is  our  duty  to 
look  at  the  unf earful  side  of  death.  Let  it  be 
said,  with  the  glorious  certainty  that  belongs 
to  the  assertion,  death  in  its  Christian  character 
is  a  superb  victory,  crowning  all  the  victories 
of  life.  As  a  natural  process  it  is  the  direct 
act  of  God,  long  antedating  man's  appearance 
on  earth.  It  is  the  counterpart  in  man  of  that 
spring  seedtime  when  the  com  of  wheat  is  joyously 
put  into  the  ground  that  the  world  may  be  clothed 
in  verdure  and  beauty  and  nourishment.  It  be- 
longs to  the  same  category  as  birth,  and — I  am 
not  speaking  of  the  process  of  dying  which  is  slow 
and  painful  often — is  less  painful.  Its  sinister 
and  inimical  character  is  that  which  becomes 
attached  to  it  by  human  self-will,  which  is  dis- 
obedience to  God  and  the  source  of  all  wicked- 


ii8  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

ness.  It  is  hostile  to-day  only  so  far  as  we 
choose  to  make  it  so.  The  terror  of  death  is 
in  ourselves  rather  than  in  death.  Christ  made 
clear  by  illustration  that  in  Him  death  was  a 
new  upward  and  onward  stride.  Apart  from 
life  as  a  Son  of  God  it  is  animal  dissolution. 
As  the  last  experience,  like  birth  a  sort  of  bound- 
ary experience,  of  the  life  of  a  Son  of  God  it  is 
spiritual  transfiguration.  St.  Francis,  the  most 
healthy-minded  of  saints,  spoke  of  his  sister, 
the  death  of  the  body.  The  only  death  which 
he  considered  hostile  was  the  death  of  sin — 
soul  death. 

I  believe  that  it  is  the  horror  and  fear  of 
dying  that  is  our  chief  trouble.  The  protracted 
suffering,  the  fading  faculties,  the  repulsiveness 
of  the  natural  processes,  lead  us  astray.  Prob- 
ably all  of  us  would  choose,  if  we  were  allowed 
to,  the  manner  of  our  going.  We  would  prefer 
to  stride  out  quickly  at  an  opportune  moment. 
We  would  avoid  the  autumnal  method  for  our- 
selves and  others.  But  the  autumn,  the  canker 
and  the  storm  are  for  men  as  for  trees.  What- 
ever the  guise  in  which  death  greets  us,  death 
is  in  itself  never  more  and  never  less  than  death. 
To  the  person  concerned,  the  disfigurement  and 
physical  mutilation  of  war  probably  means  a 
much    speedier   and   less   tedious   entrance   into 


THE  LAST  GREAT  ADVENTURE        119 

the  last  great  adventure  than  if  he  had  lived 
to  succumb  to  disease.  Our  over-careful  preser- 
vation of  the  dust  of  the  dead  is  receiving  a  shock, 
a  needed  shock  to-day,  when  frequently  no  dust 
is  found  to  care  for. 

If  I  should  die,  think  only  this  of  me: 

That  there's  some  comer  of  a  foreign  field 

That  is  for  ever  England.     There  shall  be 

In  that  rich  earth  a  richer  dust  conceal'd; 

A  dust  whom  England  bore,  shaped,  made  aware, 

Gave,  once,  her  flowers  to  love,  her  ways  to  roam. 

The  dust  which  is  part  of  the  great  world 
even  when  it  is  animated  by  a  living  soul,  can- 
not be  kept  from  mingling  with  mother  earth. 
We  can  label  it  as  though  we  were  cheating 
her  of  her  own,  but  it  is  only  a  label.  There  is 
something  fine  in  the  thought  that  the  whole 
earth  or  the  whole  sea  is  the  grave  of  gallant 
men  who  gave  their  lives  for  the  whole  and  for 
the  holy.  Who  could  choose  for  Kitchener  a 
more  appropriate  grave  than  the  transparent, 
calm  depths  of  the  great  ocean ! 

The  moment  is  an  opportune  one  in  which  to 
get  a  truer  and  more  wholesome  and  more  whole 
view  of  death  than  that  which  ordinarily  pre- 
vails. There  is  too  much  black  about  Christian 
death.  If  for  us  it  is  a  hard  discipline  to  say 
good-bye  for  a  while,  the  going  from  earth  marks 
a  gala  day  for  the  one  who  goes.     The  house  of 


120  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

death  should  abjure  the  artificial.  The  tone  of 
triumph  should  dominate  our  farewell.  We  can- 
not force  ourselves  into  this  temper  of  mind, 
but  it  will  follow  on  as  the  logical  result  of  a 
Christian  view  of  death. 

The  mournful  death  is  that  which  is  due  to 
our  own  fault,  the  death  that  snatched  away 
the  sinner  in  his  sin.  Even  here  the  mercy  of 
the  Father  rises  and  overshadows  the  weak  and 
erring  child.  The  Fatherhood  of  God  is  as  potent 
in  death  and  after  as  it  is  in  life. 

We  can  afford  to  leave  the  time  and  the  man- 
ner of  death  to  Him  Who  is  the  Conqueror  of 
death.  We  should  shut  our  minds  to  a  con- 
sideration of  these  elements  over  which  we  have 
no  control.  Brooding  over  these  diseases  of  the 
imagination,  frequently  it  induces  or  aids  pro- 
cesses which  end  in  physical  disablement.  There 
is  among  the  soldiers  at  the  front  a  rather  fine 
type  of  fatalism  which  is  not  fearful  but  trustful. 

Through  joy  and  bHndness  he  shall  know, 
Not  caring  much  to  know,  that  still 
Nor  lead  nor  steel  shall  reach  him,  so 
That  it  be  not  the  Destined  Will. 


Ill 

I  have  wondered  at  times  whether  the  Church 
has   not   over-mysticized   the   conception   of   life 


THE  LAST  GREAT  ADVENTURE        121 

beyond  the  grave,  and,  in  so  doing,  made  death 
not  an  incident  but  a  break  in  life.  The  book 
of  the  Apocalypse  is  the  basis  of  most  pictures 
of  the  other  world.  Its  oriental  colour  and 
richness,  its  deep  symbolism,  its  figurative  mode 
of  expression  are  foreign  to  Western  thought  and 
method.  It  has  not  been  translated  enough,  and 
we  have  failed  to  get  the  purport  of  its  mys- 
tical measures.  Our  untrained  imaginations  have 
fallen  a  prey  to  literalism.  I  am  not  objecting 
to  the  glow  of  mystery  which  is  part  of  the 
charm  and  part  of  the  reality  of  any  attempt 
to  depict  that  which  is  interior  to  and  beyond 
our  life  and  experience.  Nor  is  it  desirable  to 
express  the  other  world  in  terms  of  this.  What 
is  necessary,  however,  is  to  leave  no  room  to 
men  to  suppose  that  after  death  they  are  any 
different  than  they  were  before  in  their  inmost 
self,  to  accentuate  the  continuity  of  life,  and 
to  keep  all  artificiality  out  of  the  picture  of  the 
great  beyond. 

The  first  and  best  illustration  of  the  effect  upon 
personality  of  death  is  found  in  Jesus  Christ. 
After  His  reappearance  from  the  grave  He  is 
unaltered  in  character,  tone  of  thought  and 
fundamental  relationships.  He  is  the  Son  of 
Man  that  He  was,  with  widened  scope  and  powers, 
and  freedom  from,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word, 


122  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

unnaturalness.  The  life  of  His  companions  fits 
into  His  and  His  into  theirs.  What  strikes  one 
forcibly  is  the  absence  of  anything  like  a  break 
in  the  continuity  of  His  personality. 

If  we  think  of  death  as  an  introduction  into 
conditions  wholly  foreign  and  unsuited  to  human 
nature,  death  must  be  something  to  be  feared. 
It  is  unwonted  in  that  it  is  untried.  But  it  is 
thoroughly  human  in  that  it  is  part  of  universal 
human  experience.  It  is  suited  to  us.  It  is  the 
next  thing  we  need  when  we  have  finished  here. 
Our  Lord  promises  by  His  own  representative 
career  what  will  happen  to  us.  Of  course  the 
Resurrection  and  all  it  means  still  lies  beyond, 
but  the  interim  period  is  as  well  fitted  to  human 
life  as  the  post-Resurrection  period. 

Dante  does  a  great  service  in  the  Divine  Comedy 
by  his  method.  He  carries  earth  down  to  the 
Inferno  and  up  to  the  Purgatorio  and  the  Para- 
diso.  The  language  used  and  the  country  de- 
picted are  such  as  are  familiar.  The  mystical  is 
not  absent,  but  it  is  not  overwhelming.  As  we 
think  of  the  multitudes  of  our  own  generation 
who  are  going  into  the  other  world  in  close 
comradeship,  it  will  be  well  for  us  to  consider 
the  wholeness  of  life,  and,  whatever  new  and 
developed  features  there  may  be,  how  fitted  it 
is  for  those  who  are  entering  it.     A  friend,   in 


THE  LAST  GREAT  ADVENTURE        123 

full  view  of  the  great  change,  once  wrote  me: 
''Paradise  by  every  description  is  a  nice  place, 
and  it's  a  wonder  how  reluctant  most  of  us 
Christians  are  to  go  there.  This  is  a  jolly  old 
world  full  of  discouragement  and  joy,  pain  and 
triumph,  a  continual  riddle  and  paradox — which 
is  one  of  the  things  which  makes  it  interesting. 
.  .  .  The  thought  is  overwhelming  that  by  the 
time  you  get  this  letter  ...  I  may  know  more 
than  you  do  about  lots  of  things." 

Then  as  to  our  nearer  relationship  with  God. 
We  use  the  phrase   Beatific  Vision  to  indicate 
that  complete  reaHzation  of  God's  presence  and 
our  nearness  to  Him  which  is  the  greatest  gift 
of  heaven.     After  death  the  earHest  impact  of 
God,   so  to  speak,   will  be   His   self-giving.    His 
tender   love.     A   Httle   while    since    a    child   lay 
dying,    and   exclaimed:     *'I    see   the    good    God 
and  He  is  so  gentle  to  me.     I  want  to  pray." 
Then  later:    "This  is  a  beautiful  house,  I  think 
I    shall   stay   here," — the   child   spoke   profound 
truth  to  the  age  to  which  she  belonged  for  so 
short  a  moment.     The  other  world  which  wel- 
comed   her  was  a  place    prepared  for  her,   and 
God  was  chiefly  gentle. 

Julian  of  Norwich  is  always  eloquent  on  this 
last  point.  In  her  Sixth  Revelation,  which  is 
one  of  the   choicest,   she  pictures  God's  appre- 


124  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

ciation  of  what  His  children  do.  ''The  good 
Lord  said:  I  thank  thee  for  thy  travail,  and  es- 
pecially for  thy  youth.''  Her  vision  is  of  our 
Lord  as  lord  in  His  own  house  entertaining  His 
dear  worthy  servants  and  friends  at  a  stately 
feast.  His  humility  is  the  first  thing  she  noticed — 
the  Lord  took  no  place  in  His  house,  but  He 
reigned  there  royally,  filling  it  full  of  joy  and 
mirth,  ''Himself  endlessly  to  gladden  and  to 
solace  His  dear  worthy  friends,  full  homely  and 
full  courteously,  with  marvellous  melody  of  end- 
less love,  in  His  own  fair  blessed  countenance." 
Then  she  describes  the  three  degrees  of  bliss 
that  every  "soul  shall  have  in  heaven  that 
willingly  served  God  in  any  degree  on  earth." 
The  first  is  the  worshipful  thanks  of  our  Lord 
God — you  see  He  is  not  exacting  but  giving — 
the  second  is  that  the  thanks  are  made  publicly 
in  the  presence  of  all  Heaven.  "A  king,  if  he 
thank  his  servants,  it  is  a  great  worship  to  them, 
and  if  he  maketh  it  known  to  all  the  realm, 
then  is  the  worship  greatly  increased."  And 
the  third  is,  that  "as  new  and  as  gladdening  as 
it  is  received  in  that  time,  right  so  shall  it  last 
without  end." 

It  is  not  because  I  believe  there  is  absence 
of  discipline  beyond  the  grave  when  we  have 
achieved  the  last  adventure  that  I  have  given 


THE  LAST  GREAT  ADVENTURE        125 

chief  place  to  the  gentle  courtesy  of  God,  but 
because  the  thought  of  God's  austerity  can  be 
borne  only  upon  the  background  of  His  mercy. 
Such  discipline  there  is.  I  know  I  shall  need 
it.  Our  own  sense  of  justice  will  welcome  it. 
Whatever  it  may  be  we  have  no  reason  to  fear 
it,  for  it  will  be  but  a  single  element  in  the  great 
bath  of  God's  love  which  will  receive  us,  and 
will  be  exactly  that  which  we  need  to  shape  us 
into  the  sort  of  persons  we  most  desire  to  be. 
Beloved,  now  are  we  children  of  God,  and  it  is 
not  made  manifest  what  we  shall  be.  We  know 
that,  if  He  shall  be  manifested,  we  shall  be  like 
Him;  for  we  shall  see  Him  even  as  He  is.  And 
every  one  that  hath  this  hope  set  on  Him  purifieth 
himself,  even  as  He  is  pure. 

We  bless  Thy  holy  Name  for  all  Thy  servants  departed 
this  life  in  Thy  faith  and  fear;  beseeching  Thee  to  give  us 
grace  so  to  follow  their  good  examples,  that  with  them  we  may 
be  partakers  of  Thy  heavenly  kingdom.  Grant  this,  O  Father, 
for  Jesus  Christ's  sake,  our  only  Mediator  and  Advocate. 


X 

THE    CITY   THAT   LIETH    FOURSQUARE 

The  child-mind  would  probably  find  the  at- 
mosphere of  a  city  that  lieth  foursquare  some- 
what heavy  and  its  space  cramped.  There  is 
not  enough  of  the  out-of-doors  about  it.  High 
walls  and  measured  spaces  do  not  seem  con- 
sonant with  freedom. 

But  of  course  the  symbolism  is  the  opposite 
of  exclusiveness  and  restriction.  It  is  complete- 
ness and  symmetry.  Even  our  physical  life 
rebels  against  anything  suggesting  confinement. 
A  sky  above  us  any  lower  than  the  blue  dome, 
which  is  our  generous  covering,  would  be  un- 
bearable. A  few  days  of  fog  and  cloud  teach 
us  that.  It  is  essential  that  we  should  always 
have  the  consciousness  that  boundlessness  stretches 
upward,  above  and  beyond  anything  that  limits 
or  confines.  There  can  be  no  lid  on  either  the 
world  or  heaven.  And  a  round  world  that  has 
horizons  which  retreat  as  rapidly  as  we  advance 
is  also  a  necessity.  Even  supposing  a  flat  world 
had  almost  an  indefinite  stretch  of  space  before 

126 


THE   CITY  THAT  LIETH  FOURSQUARE     127 

you  reached  its  final  boundary,  the  consciousness 
that  there  was  a  boundary  would  imprison  us. 
The  assurance  that  there  is  out-of-doors  beyond 
the  walls  of  our  home,  be  it  hut  or  palace,  gives 
us  that  sense  of  freedom  that  is  part  of  whole- 
ness. This  is  another  evidence  that  we  belong 
to  the  universe  and  the  universe  to  us. 

If  there  is  a  touch  of  timelessness  in  man, 
there  is  also  a  touch  of  spacelessness.  Conse- 
quently, when  we  try  to  get  vision  of  the  consum- 
mation of  God's  purposes,  there  must  be  eternity 
and  infinity  to  satisfy  us.  It  is  only  those  who 
have  become  so  engrossed  in  short  views  of  life 
as,  for  the  time  being,  to  be  blind  to  anything 
else,  who  do  not  find  the  need  of  some  sense  of 
God's  mighty  purpose  as  a  daily  support.  Even 
with  them  there  is  that  undercurrent  of  im- 
mortality which  lends  its  aid  when  they  are 
least  conscious  of  it.  The  man  who  has  the 
most  tedious  job  can  do  it  with  zest  if  he  is  able 
to  realize  that  it  is  an  important  part  of  a  great 
scheme.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  are 
given  large  responsibilities  can  rise  no  higher 
than  a  mechanical  fulfilment  of  them  unless  the 
inspiring  force  comes  from  what  I  have  termed 
an  out-of-door  conception  of  life.  The  part  must 
be  in  relation  to  the  whole.  Detach  any  under- 
taking, whether  the  manufacture  of  a  piston-rod 


128  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

or  the  ordered  completeness  of  any  given  organ- 
ization, from  the  end  for  which  it  was  set  in 
operation,  and  it  becomes  valueless  and  unworthy 
of  the  attention  of  men.  Apply  this  principle  to 
the  world  and  mankind  and  you  will  get  a  whole 
view  of  the  human  situation.  Eschatology,  which 
means  the  philosophy  of  finalities,  is  as  essential 
to  a  rounded  view  of  life  as  is  the  study  of  origins. 
Such  study  or  any  findings  of  physical  science 
apart  from  a  search  for  the  ultimate  purpose  of 
God  in  creation,  would  be  as  meaningless  and 
worthless  as  a  piston-rod  without  an  engine. 

Doubtless  most  men,  when  they  allow  time 
for  serious  thinking,  dimly  believe  that  there  is 
some  far-off  divine  event  toward  which  the  whole 
creation  moves.  But  unless  it  is  pressed  on  their 
attention  they  do  not  easily  apprehend  that  their 
effectiveness  in  their  own  local  job,  and  their 
own  inspiration  in  its  performance,  is  in  pro- 
portion to  their  clearness  of  vision  of  God's 
complete  and  ultimate  plan.  A  visionless  devel- 
opment of  material  resources  and  an  enslavement 
of  the  secrets  of  the  universe  for  our  immediate 
enjoyment  ends  in  "science  without  a  soul." 
And  if  this  war  is  being  fought  solely  with  a 
view  to  compass  temporal  ends,  however  lofty, 
it  lacks  sufficient  motive  and  justification. 

The  least  little  scrap  of  humanity,  the  urchin 


THE  CITY  THAT  LIETH  FOURSQUARE    129 

of    the    streets,    and    the    most    influential    and 
conspicuous  leader  of  men,  have  alike  the  capacity 
and  the  right  to  know  that  there  is  a  final  goal 
and   of  what   sort   it   is.     The  hymns   of   early 
childhood   which   open  up   limitless   spaces   and 
beauty  to  the  child-mind  are  elements  in  giving 
the  young  the  legitimate  freedom.     The  constant 
pressing  upon  adult  attention  of  the  other  world 
and  the  end  of  all  things,  not  only  has  the  sanc- 
tion and  example  of  Scripture,  but  also  finds  its 
justification  in  that  craving  for  wholeness  which 
is  inherent  in  us.     We  must  not  be  allowed  to 
forget  that  here  there  is  no  continuing  city.     If 
we  do,  fife  is  jolted  out  of  perspective  and  the 
scale  of  values  goes  all  awry. 

This  is  a  moment  in  which  we  should  compel 
men  to  recognize  that  God  has  an  ultimate  and 
worthy  purpose  for  mankind,  and  as  far  as  may 
be,  help  them  to  see  it.  It  is  not  a  mere  saving 
of  the  individual,  though  it  includes  that.  It  is 
something  which  can  be  expressed  in  terms  of 
the  nation,  though  the  nation's  fate,  too,  is 
included.  Nor  can  the  word  democracy  with  its 
largest  connotations  satisfy  the  requirements  of 
the  case,  though  democracy  also  has  its  part  to 
play  in  the  whole.  Even  the  estabHshment  on 
earth  of  universal  peace  and  righteousness  is 
incomplete  and  provincial  by  the  side  of  what 


I30  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

God  purposes  and  the  instinct  of  the  human 
soul  expects  and  demands.  It  is  something  which, 
except  in  allegory,  cannot  find  expression  in 
terms  of  our  planetary  system,  and  the  little 
conceit  of  time  for  which  the  sun  is  responsible. 
Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  hath  it 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  to  perceive  the 
good  things  which  God  has  prepared  for  them 
that  love  Him. 


The  City  that  lieth  foursquare  is  the  home 
of  an  ordered  society,  big  enough  for  redeemed 
mankind,  for  it  is  complete  and  whole  with 
the  completeness  and  holiness  of  God.  The  king- 
dom of  God,  noble  phrase!  is  the  measure  of 
the  City.  This  kingdom  is  so  humble  and  lowly 
that  it  can  be  and  is  within  us.  It  is  so  com- 
prehensive that  it  can  contain  mankind,  and 
yet  there  is  room.  The  capacity  for  sight  is 
so  great  in  one  human  soul  that  we  can  hold 
within  ourselves  the  world  that  holds  us.  Per- 
haps this  very  fact  is  a  testimony  to  the  greatness 
of  the  kingdom  of  God — certainly  it  bears  witness 
to  the  fitness  of  that  kingdom  for  our  make  up. 

One  of  the  just  demands  that  the  human  heart 
urges  is  that  the  ultimate  abode  of  men  should 


THE  CITY  THAT  LIETH  FOURSQUARE     131 

be   thoroughly   human.     By   that    I   mean   that 
every  feature   of  the  Hfe   shall  respond   to   the 
expectation   of   every   feature   of   our  nature  in 
its  highest  development.     So  the  social  aspect  of 
Heaven   is   symbolized   by   the   great   multitude 
which   no   man   could  number.     Men   move  up 
thither,  with,  as  it  would  seem  and  as  we  would 
expect,  the  acuteness  of  self-consciousness  worn 
down  by  a  corporate  consciousness  which  trans- 
cends our  experience  because  of  its  vastness  and 
its  unity.     The  self -giving  element  rushes  through 
the   whole,    vertically    and   horizontally,    in   full 
and    pure    stream.     Racial    and    national    char- 
acteristics and  achievement  are  seen  there,  and 
lend  special  value  to  the  whole.     In  other  words, 
there  is  there  all  that  which  on  earth  we  are 
trying   to   bring   about   in   national  life   and  in 
our  scheme  for  a  league  of  nations  forming  a 
commonwealth  of  mankind.    Magnitude  and  order, 
according   to   Aristotle,    make   beauty.     So  that 
in  Heaven  there  will  be  the  satisfaction,  accord- 
ing to  the  philosopher's  definition,  of  a  beauty 
which  we  yearn  for,  but  which  is  out  of  reach 
because   of   the   smallness  of  earth's  population 
at  any  one  time,  even  supposing  we  were  able  to 
secure  order  among  those  who  were  here. 

Putting  the  completeness  of  the  social  life  of 
Heaven   over   against   the   human   normality   of 


132  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

the  Christ  who  had  passed  through  death,  and 
you  have  such  a  human  society  as  would  satisfy 
the  ideaHsm  of  ultra-Utopians.  It  is  not  unim- 
portant to  give  emphasis  to  the  fact  that  this 
society  is  human.  Our  life  here  with  its  tem- 
poral and  temporary  occupations  and  interests 
is  not  going  to  be  magically  changed  into  some- 
thing quite  different  when  death  shall  have  waved 
his  wand  for  the  last  time.  The  flow  and  con- 
tinuity of  human  character  is  no  more  dislocated 
by  death  than  it  is  by  sleep.  Everything  worthy 
here,  down  to  the  playing  of  the  boys  and  girls 
in  the  street,  has  its  counterpart  and  full  in- 
wardness there. 

If  I  do  not  draw  any  sharp  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  Paradise  and  Heaven  it  is  because 
Scripture  does  not  encourage  it  or  show  me 
how.  The  suggestive  value  of  Paradise  is  in 
its  protection  of  the  principle  of  growth  or  devel- 
opment which  is  so  distinctively  human.  What- 
ever cataclysmic  elements  there  are  in  life,  they 
are  a  climax,  a  part  of  normal  growth,  and  not 
a  mere  introduction  of  a  foreign  or  interfering 
and  explosive  power.  As  Bergson  has  estab- 
lished, life  is  not  cinematographic  either  in  short 
or  big  jerks.  It  is  a  steady  flow  through  mor- 
tality and  death,  and  intermediacy  and  beyond. 
So  when  I  speak  of  the  society  of  Heaven  I  refer 


THE  CITY  THAT  LIETH  FOURSQUARE     133 

to  the  whole  stretch  of  human  Hfe  the  other  side 
of  the  grave. 


II 


That  society  is  the  major  part  of  the  human 
whole.     It  already  exists.     It  is  the  greatest  social 
reality  there  is,  this  City  that  lieth  foursquare. 
Its  white  company  is  composed  of  all  mankind 
since  the  first  man,  who  have  set  their  course 
thither  and  made  it  their  deliberate  and  reiterated 
choice.     In   them  history  suddenly   springs  full- 
fledged  into  present   life.     It  is  no   longer  a  tor- 
tuous  procession   winding   through   the   vale   of 
time,  but  a  compact  society,  unified  by  a  common 
motive,  enjoying  a  fellowship  of  limitless  extent 
and   unmeasured   richness.     The   commonwealth 
of  mankind  is  a  fact  that  is  the  most  towering 
of  all  reahties  after  God  Himself.     Not  a  passing 
pageant  like  the  nations  of  earth,  it  is  permanent, 
for  the  city  hath  foundations  builded  of  God. 
God    has    not    stimibled   in    His    purpose.     The 
eccentricities  and  Hmitations  of  time  have  not 
blocked   Him   in   His   onward   march   with    His 
children    folded    to    His    breast.     They    are    all 
there  in  unnumbered  throng.     Not  one  of  them 
is  lost  or  misplaced. 

As  for  our  society  on  earth  with  its  jangling 
discords  and  frayed  ends,  it  is  to  the  great  white 


134  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

company,  a  handbreadth  away,  as  a  murky  low- 
land stream  to  the  clean  ocean.  Men  who  have 
striven  for  well-ordered  cities  and  states  and  a 
peaceful  world,  have  there  that  for  which  they 
have  striven.  There  is  no  principle  of  order  or 
culture  or  beauty  or  fellowship  which  we  hold 
precious  on  earth  that  is  not  in  tritmiphant  oper- 
ation in  Heaven . 

The  wonderful  thing  is  that  this  marvellous 
society  is  man's  handiwork  in  close  co-operation 
with  God's.  We  are  building  it  to-day  as  the 
men  of  yesterday  built,  each  our  share  and 
portion. 

For  an  ye  heard  a  music,  like  enow 
They  are  building  still,  seeing  the  city  is  built 
To  music,  therefore  never  built  at  all, 
And  therefore  built  for  ever. 

We  must  not  take  too  seriously  or  too  sadly 
the  failures  to  perfect  our  hopes  and  plans  on 
earth,  as  long  as  our  conviction  that  God  intends 
for  us  eventually  to  enter  a  complete  life  abides 
unmarred,  and  our  efforts  toward  that  life  per- 
severe. The  cross  proclaims  that  we  can,  if  we 
so  choose,  reign  through  defeat,  and  that  that 
for  which  we  have  striven  makes  its  full  deposit 
only  the  other  side  of  death.  When  we  aim  to 
make  ourselves  and  society  whole,  and  set  our 
lives  upon  our  aim,  failure  is  impossible.     If  we 


THE  CITY  THAT  LIETH  FOURSQUARE     135 

were  to  fail,  God's  throne  would  totter  and  the 
City  that  lieth  foursquare  dissolve.  It  is  only 
the  impatience  of  the  mortal  in  us  that  lures  us 
to  despair  and  leads  us  out  into  the  wilderness 
to  die  with  inert  hands,  because  the  new  sown 
grain  refused  to  bear  fruit  in  a  night,  and  we 
expected  one  nation  or  one  generation — or  per- 
haps one  Httle  man! — to  build  the  complete 
City  in  a  day  and  to  make  Heaven  unnecessary 
by  converting  earth  into  Heaven.  Heaven  must 
first  live  in  the  soul  if  the  soul  is  to  live  in  Heaven. 
Our  chief  responsibility  on  earth  is  not  only  to 
defend  our  vision  of  God  and  God's  place  from 
the  bhght  of  doubt,  but  also  to  commit  ourselves 
to  it  more  unreservedly  to-day  than  yesterday. 
It  is  this  that  enables  us  to  do  the  two  things 
our  high  destiny  requires  of  us.  To  contribute 
to  the  passing  structure  of  mortal  society  some- 
thing that  will  strengthen  and  invigorate,  even 
if  it  does  not  perfect  it.  And  to  carry  on  in, 
rather  than  with,  as  a  deposit  of  value  for  the 
City  that  lieth  foursquare. 

That  City  is  so  dependent  upon  us  for  a  worthy 
contribution  that  without  us  it  cannot  lie  quite 
four-square.  To  go  to  the  City  without  any 
trophy  of  our  own  winning  would  be  humiliating. 
Even  the  lowliest  and  least  endowed  member 
of  a  family  is  ashamed  to  rejoice  in  the  privileges 


136  THE   MOUNT  OF  VISION 

built  up  by  the  activities  of  his  parents  and 
brethren  without  making  some  contribution  of 
love,  however  tiny,  to  the  common  treasury. 
Only  those  well  skilled  in  self-giving  would  be 
at  home  in  a  City  where  the  sole  competition 
is  a  vying  with  one  another  in  the  practice  of 
love,  and  where  the  Hght  which  lightens  the 
inhabitants  is  the  Lamb  Who  laid  down  His  life 
for  mankind. 

The  society  for  which  we  are  struggling,  there- 
fore, cannot  be  realized  in  the  nation,  and  not 
even  in  mankind,  either  to-day  or  to-morrow, 
any  more  than  it  was  realized  yesterday.  For 
we  are  not  creatures  of  time  strutting  across  the 
tiny  stage  of  space  with  imperial  tread.  We 
are  the  builders  of  the  City  that  lieth  foursquare. 
There  is  our  ultimate  goal,  and  all  our  schemes 
and  efforts  here  must  be  directed  toward  it  and, 
in  all  our  motives  and  methods,  be  referred  to  it. 
The  mankind  of  a  day,  even,  is  not  a  large 
enough  unit  in  the  terms  of  which  to  express 
our  national  character.  When  we  talk  of  doing 
things  for  humanity's  sake  we  mean  for  the 
whole  race,  reaching  backwards  and  forwards  and 
gathering  up  in  its  torrent  the  little  present  by 
means  of  which  we  make  our  offering. 

Whether  it  be  times  of  war  or  of  peace  our 
modus  operandi  must  be  such  as  will  stand  the 


THE  CITY  THAT  LIETH  FOURSQUARE     137 

test  of  life  in  the  City  that  Heth  foursquare. 
An  ad  interim  reHgion  for  war  time  is  as  incon- 
sistent as  it  would  be  for  days  of  peace.  To 
make  terms  with  vice  as  a  necessity  of  war  is 
as  abhorrent  to  an  honest  mind  as  any  other 
compact  with  the  devil.  The  one  thing  that 
gives  war  any  place  or  justification  in  human 
affairs  is  that  its  soldiers  are  called  to  play  their 
part  with  mind  and  body  kept  clean  and  ready 
for  the  pouring  out  of  the  soul  into  sacrificial 
death  for  a  holy  cause,  and  that  all  the  forces 
of  the  nation,  official  and  unofficial,  are  pledged 
to  throw  arms  of  protection  and  support  about 
them. 

Ill 

We  must  not  allow  our  contemplation  of  the 
complete  order  of  the  City  that  lieth  foursquare 
to  exclude  our  social  whole  on  earth,  for  the 
link  that  binds  the  one  to  the  other  is  organic, 
vital  and  intimate.  The  ''here"  is  the  "there" 
in  the  process  of  becoming.  All  that  vast  multi- 
tude which  composes  the  majority  of  the  race 
from  the  beginning  has  been  able  to  reach  the 
goal  only  by  the  way  we  are  now  treading. 
When  they  went  to  the  City  that  lieth  four- 
square, they  did  not  lose  any  of  the  fragrance 
in  which  life  on  earth  is  rich,  but  carried  it  with 


138  THE   MOUNT   OF  VISION 

them.  The  tie  that  binds  us  together  is  the  tie 
of  a  common  lot  Kved  out  with  a  common  pur- 
pose, which  purpose  still  animates  both  those 
who  are  there  and  those  who  are  here.  There 
memories  of  the  past  are  quickened  rather  than 
dimmed  by  timelessness,  for  all  their  ''then" 
is  in  their  "now."  That  their  vitality  is  shared 
with  us,  I  am  sure.  The  deposit  they  left  on 
earth  is  our  chief  asset.  On  it  we  build  our 
own  contribution.  What  direct  efforts  they  are 
making  for  our  edification  and  encouragement, 
to  what  extent  an  individual  hand  there  touches 
a  life  here,  does  not  appear.  But  the  self-giving 
of  the  whole  rushes  earthward  through  generous 
arteries,  and  gives  us  nourishment  and  cheer. 
We  are  compassed  about  with  a  great  cloud  of 
witnesses — not  idle  observers  but  sympathetic 
brethren. 

There  is  a  query  to-day  as  to  whether,  except 
in  mystical  fashion,  there  can  be  inter-com- 
munion between  ourselves  and  our  friends  yonder. 
Love  chafes  under  the  discipline  of  silence,  and 
seeks  to  break  its  bars.  Psychic  phenomena  are 
being  called  in  to  lend  their  aid  and  to  produce 
voices  of  comfort.  They  are  studied  and  em- 
ployed in  the  name  of  science,  and  must  be 
scientifically  judged.  They  can  be  said  to  em- 
anate  from   the   spirit   world   only   by   ignoring 


THE   CITY  THAT  LIETH   FOURSQUARE     139 

the  more  probable  hypothesis  that  they  are  the 
self -induced  utterances  of  our  own  desires,  stored 
memories,  and  thought  transference,  evoked  from 
that  subconscious  life  which  is  an  established 
fact  of  science.  Until  they  are  excluded  from 
all  possibility  of  finding  their  explanation  in  this 
or  any  other  cause,  it  is  an  unwarranted  conclusion 
to  attribute  them  to  disembodied  spirits.  As 
phenomena  opening  up  a  new  sphere  for  psy- 
chological study  they  are  interesting.  As  means 
of  communicating  with  the  world  of  spirits  they 
are  doubtful,  perilous  and  unprofitable.  He  would 
indeed  be  rash  who  maintained  that  there  are 
not  degrees  of  nearness  between  the  society  of 
earth  and  that  of  the  life  beyond  the  grave,  and 
that  there  has  been  no  vocal  or  visible  inter- 
change of  confidences  between  the  two  parts 
of  the  organic  whole.  But  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  such  intercommunication  is  not  the  norm. 

The  veil  that  shuts  out  God  and  the  deep 
things  of  God  on  earth  from  touch  and  sight 
and  hearing  is  not  lifted  when  men  shed  their 
material  self,  and  climb  to  that  fuller  life  of  God 
which  takes  them  from  our  conscious  sphere. 
It  is  sufficient  to  know  that  the  unlonely  God 
has  gathered  them  close  to  Him,  and  that  in 
turning  to  Him  we  reach  them,  inevitably  and 
securely.     It  is  the  mystical  part  of  life  that  is 


I40  THE  MOUNT  OF  VISION 

the  deepest.  By  means  of  it  we  apprehend  Him, 
and  through  it  He  communicates  with  us.  The 
logical  presupposition,  a  presupposition  supported 
by  the  experience  of  the  ages,  is  that  so  far  as 
those  who  are  absent  from  the  body  can  com- 
municate with  those  of  us  who  remain,  it  is 
normally  through  the  same  mystical  faculty  or 
element  of  our  nature. 

The  last  figure  of  Revelation  is  the  first.  Alpha 
is  Omega,  unchanged,  unchangeable.  He  who 
is  the  source  must  be  the  goal  of  life.  When 
all  is  said  and  done,  when  the  words  of  the  wise 
have  exhausted  themselves  in  trying  to  give 
suitable  expression  to  the  cravings  and  the  capac- 
ity of  human  life,  we  turn  to  the  inexhaustible 
wealth  of  God  in  whom  alone  is  our  sufficiency. 
He  is  all  in  all.     His  holiness  is  our  wholeness. 

The  fullest  vision  of  Him  of  which  we  are  now 
capable  is  only  an  earnest  of  that  which  is  to 
be.  But  in  this  we  can  rest  secure  that  in  future 
manifestations  of  Himself  God  will  not  surprise 
us  by  suddenly  showing  Himself  to  be  some- 
thing contrary  to  the  basic  revelation  of  His 
character.  The  groundwork  of  the  Cross  holds 
all  the  rest  in  its  safe  keeping.  And  all  the 
comings  of  Jesus  Christ  in,  and  at  the  close  of, 
time  will  be  in  loving  self-giving  even  though 
they   be   in    clouds   and    great    glory.     For   His 


THE  CITY  THAT  LIETH  FOURSQUARE     141 

glorious  Majesty,  too,  will  bear  the  sign  of  the 
Cross. 

THE  CANTICLE  OF  THE  SUN 
O  most  high,  ahnighty,  good  Lord  God,  to  Thee  belong  praise. 

glory,  honour,  and  all  blessing!  , 

Praised  be  my  Lord  God  with  all  His  creatures,  and  especially 
our  brother  the  sun,  who  brings  us  the  day  and  who  brings 
us  the  Ught;  fair  is  he  and  shines  with  very  great  splen- 
dour;  O  Lord,  he  signifies  to  us  Thee!  ,  ,      ,^      ,    , 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister  the  moon,  and  for  the  stars, 

the  which  He  has  set  clear  and  lovely  m  heaven.  ^ 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  brother  the  wind,  and  for  air  and 

cloud!  caLs  and  all  weather  by  the  which  Thou  upholdest 

hfe  in  all  creatures.  ,  •      ui^ 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister  water,  who  is  very  serviceable 

unto  us.  and  humble  and  precious  and  clean. 
Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  brother  fire,  through  whom  Thou 
gVvest  us  light  in  the  darkness;  and  he  is  bright  and  pleasant 
and  very  mighty  and  strong.  ,  ■  ■.    a  a-u 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  mother  the  earth,  the  which  doth 
sustain  Z  and  keep  us,  and  bringeth  forth  the  drvers  f rurts. 
and  flowers  of  many  colours,  and  grass. 
Praised  be  my  Lord  for  all  those  who  pardon  one  another  for 
"^ffis  love-Lake,  and  who  endure  weakness  and  tnbulaUon; 
blessed  are  they  who  peaceably  shall  endure,  for  Thou, 
O  most  Highest,  Shalt  give  them  a  crown. 
Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister,  the  death  of  the  body,  from 

which  no  man  escapeth. 
Woe  to  him  who  dieth  in  mortal  sin! 

BWst  are  they  who  are  found  walking  by  Thy  most  holy  w^. 
for  the  second  death  shall  have  no  power  to  do  them  harm. 
Praise  ye  and  bless  the  Lord,  and  give  thanks  unto  Hm,  and 
serve  Him  with  great  humility. 


ADVERTISEMENTS 


PRINTED  BY  BEADNWORIH  &  CO.,  BROOKLVN,  N.  V. 


By  the  Rt.  Rev.  CHARLES  H.  BRENT,  D.  D. 

Bishop  of  the  Philippine  Islaivds 


THE  CONSOLATIONS  OF  THE  CROSS 

Addresses  on  the  Seven  Words  of  the  Dying  Lord 

Together  with  Two  Seri^ions 

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Contents:  Prelude;  The  Consolation  of  Christ's  Intercession; 
The  Consolation  of  Present  Peace  and  Anticipated  Joy;  The  Con- 
solation of  Christ's  Love  of  Home  and  Nation ;  The  Consolation 
of  the  Atonement ;  The  Consolation  of  Christ's  Conquest  of  Pain; 
The  Consolation  of  Christ's  Completeness;  The  Consolation  of 
Death's  Conquest.  Two  Sermons;  In  Whom  was  no  Guile;  The 
Closing  of  Stewardship. 

"These  expressive  addresses  ...  we  commend  them  to  all 
who  desire  fresh  and  virile  instruction  on  the  Mystery  of  the 
Cross."  Church  Times. 

''Will  be  heartily  welcomed.  They  reflect  a  deep  and  genuine 
spirituality."  The  Churchman. 

"The  devotional  tone,  the  high  spiritual  standard,  and  the 
pleasing  literary  style  combine  to  make  this  one  of  the  most 
excellent  of  the  volumes  current  for  Good  Friday  use." 

Living  Church. 
"These  addresses  have  struck  us  very  much."  The  Guardian. 

THE  SPLENDOR  OF  THE  HUMAN  BODY 

A  Reparation  and  an  Appeal 

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Contents:  1.  Order;  2.  Magnitude;  3.  Divinity;  ^.  Sanctity; 
5.  Glory;  6.  Therefore — . 

"...  the  Bishop,  even  in  these  simple  addresses,  shows  his  pro- 
found learning  along  various  lines,  and  at  the  same  time  his 
power  to  use  it  in  plain  and  very  practical  ways."  Living  Church. 

"We  consider  this  little  book  to  be  one  which  all  parents 
may  study  with  advantage  and  may  give  to  their  children." 
The  Lancet,  London. 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK 


Works  BY  THE  Rt.  Rev.  CHARLES  H.  BRENT,  D.D. 

Bishop  of  the  Philippine  Islands 


LEADERSHIP 

The  William  Belden  Noble  Lectures  Delivered  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, 1907.     Crown  Svo,  $1.25  net 

Contents:  Introductory;  The  Metapliysic  of  Leadership; 
The  Power  of  the  Single  Motive;  The  Power  of  the  Human 
Will  ;  The  Power  of  the  Blameless  Life  ;  The  Power  of  Fellow- 
ship  with  the  Divine;  The  Representative  Leader  of  Men; 
Notes. 

**....  His  lectures  exhibiting  the  philosophy  of  leadership 
and  the  ethical  qualifications  of  the  true  leader  of  men  will 
stand  as  a  classic  work  on  that  subject.  .  .  .  These  discourses 
are  distinctly  inspirational  in  their  presentation  of  great  mo- 
tives and  noble  examples."  The  Outlook. 

"  We  rejoice  in  these  splendid  lectures,  so  full  of  power  and 
persuasiveness.  ...  It  is  a  book  which  every  young  man 
ought  to  read  and  one  which  has  within  it  suggestions  for 
many  useful  sermons."  The  LivmG  Church. 


PRESENCE 

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The  attempt  is  made  in  this  little  book  to  analyze  the  meaning  of 
"  presence" .in  all  its  bearings.  It  has  as  its  basic  thought  the 
idealistic  conception  of  the  universe  and  the  creative  character  of 
human  personality.  ^' Presence" in  its  highest  aspect  is  por- 
trayed as  being  peculiarly  a  human  attribute  linking  man  to 
Qod. 

**  Bishop  Brent's  very  suggestive  essay."  The  Living  Church. 

*'  A  remarkable  little  book  setting  forth  the  idea  that  presence 
or  relationship  in  the  highest  sense  is  possible  only  between 
God  and  man,  and  that  man  is  distinguished  from  animals  by 
this  power  of  spiritual  relationship."  Canadian  Churchman. 


LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK 


Works  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  CHARLES  H.  BRENT,  D.D. 
Bishop  of  the  Philippine  Islands 

WITH  GOD  IN  THE  WORLD 

Ifth  Impression 
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Contents:  The  Universal  Art ;  Friendship  with  God:  Looking; 
Friendship  with  God:  Speaking;  Friendship  with  God:  The  Re- 
sponse; The  Testing  of  Friendship ;  Knitting  Broken  Friendship; 
Friendship  in  God;  Friendship  in  God  (continued);  The  Church 
in  Prayer;  The  Great  Act  of  Worship;  Witnesses  unto  the  Utter- 
most Part  of  the  Earth;  The  Inspiration  of  Responsibility ;  Appen- 
dix: Where  God  Dwells. 

Sine^ularly  straightforward,  manly  and  helpful  in  tone.  They 
deal  with  questions  of  living  interest,  and  abound  in  practical 
suggestions  for  the  conduct  of  life.  The  chapters  are  short  and 
right  to  the  point.  The  great  idea  of  Christian  fellowship  with 
God  and  man  is  worked  out  into  a  fresh  and  original  form  and 
brought  home  in  a  most  eifectual  way.  The  Living  Church. 

The  subjects  treated  in  this  book  are  not  only  admirably  chosen^ 
but  they  are  arranged  in  a  sequence  which  leads  the  mind  nat- 
urally to  ever  higher  levels  of  thought;  yet  so  simply  are  they 
dealt  with,  and  in  such  plain  language,  that  no  one  can  fail  to 
grasp  their  full  meaning.  ...  St.  Andrew's  Cross. 

ADVENTURE  FOR  GOD 

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Contents:  i.  The  Vision;  ii.  The  Appeal;  in.  The  Response; 
IV.  The  Quest;  v.  The  Equipment;  vi.  The  Goal. 
This  volume  is  of  singularly  living  interest.  Lectures  on  the 
Paddock  foundation  that  have  to  deal  rather  with  what  may 
be  called  the  poetry  of  missions  than  with  theological  pro- 
blems, afford,  no  doubt,  a  striking  contrast  to  previous  vol- 
umes of  those  lectures,  but  the  contrast  is  not  one  in  which 
the  value  of  the  present  volume  becomes  lessened.  We  have 
here  no  direct  discussion  of  missionary  problems,  but  rather 
an  original  manner  of  treatment  of  the  missionary  life  from 
the  personal  point  of  view.  The  volume  is  of  interest  quite 
as  truly  as  of  value.  The  Living  Church^ ^ 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO. 
LONDON,  NEW  YORK  AND  BOMBAY 


By  the  Rt.  Rev.  CHARLES  H.  BRENT,  D.D. 
Bishop  of  the  Philippine  Islands 


LIBERTY  AND  OTHER  SERMONS 

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Contents  :  Liberty;  Truth  in  the  Inward  Parts;  Health;  Riot  and 
Harmony;  Compassion;  Dedication;  The  Commendable  Debt; 
Christmas  Haste;  the  Garden  of  the  Lord;  Opportunity  and  Risk; 
Two  Shakespearian  Sermons  for  the  Times  :  (i)  Portia 
Preaches;  (ii)  Othello  Preaches;  Two  Addresses:  (i)  Patriotism; 
(a)  The  True  Corner-stone ;  L' envoi. 

^' .  .  .  The  reading  will  disclose,  with  the  terseness  of  the 
thought  and  its  inherent  vitality,  a  clarity  of  vision  and  con- 
sequently of  style  which  entitle  the  least  of  the  sermons  and 
addressesinthe  volume  to  rank  as  literature.  .  .  .  Finally,  they 
have  breadth,  both  in  the  selection  of  topics  for  discussion,  and 
in  the  views  imparted  during  discussion.  .  .  .  The  book  is  a 
contribution  to  the  thought  of  the  age  that  proves  its  own  im- 
portance. .  .  ."  Chicago  Daily  News. 

^' .  .  .  Shows  his  power  as  a  preacher  of  righteousness  who  has 
the  larger  grasp  and  wider  outlook  of  a  true  prophet  of  his 
age.  The  sermons  are  widely  different  in  character,  having 
been  preached  on  various  occasions  to  very  different  mixed 
congregations,  but  through  them  all  runs  the  same  clear  vi- 
sion. .  .  ."  The  Churchman. 


THE  MIND  OF  CHRIST  JESUS 
ON  THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  LIVING  GOD 

Small  8vo,  50  cents  net 

" .  .  .  It  holds  very  much  that  is  of  interest  and  of  vital  im- 
portance to  the  whole  Anglican  Communion  and  especially  to 
the  clergy.  .  .  .  There  can  be  no  question  about  the  high  spir- 
itual tone  and  infectious  earnestness  of  his  deliverances,  and 
there  is  much  sound  common  sense  in  his  dealings  with  ^burn- 
ing questions.'  .  .  ."  Pacific  Churchman. 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK 


Works  BY  THE  Rt.  Rev.  CHARLES  H.  BRENT,  D.D. 

Bishop  of  the  Philippine  Islands 


PRISONERS  OF  HOPE 

AND  OTHER  SERMONS 

Crown  Qvo,  cloth,  $1.50  net 
Contents:  i.  Revelation   (i-v);  ii.  Christian   Thought  and 
Life  (vi-xiv);  iii.   The  Nation  (xv-xxiii). 
"  These  sermons   cover   many  years   and   girdle  the  world. 
They  represent  many  of  the  ideals  I  hold  for  Church,  State, 
and   individual."   Prefatory  Note. 

*'  Another  inspirational  volume  from  Bishop  Brent.  This 
is  a  collection  of  sermons  preached  in  many  places  and 
on  various  occasions.  All  of  them  are  of  the  highest  order 
and  many  of  them — very  many — will  be  called  great.  Bishop 
Brent  has  always  been  able  to  take  people  up  with  him 
where  a  vision  could  be  seen.  .  .  .  For  the  clergj^man  it  will 
prove  a  help  in  seasons  of  aridity.  It  is  decidedly  a  man's 
book  and  should  be  pressed  upon  the  notice  of  laymen." 
Brian  C.  Roberts  in  the  Living  Church. 

"  These  sermons  have  the  prophetic  quality  which  differenti- 
ates them  at  once  from  the  great  mass  of  sermonic  litera- 
ture. They  are  characterized  by  broad  information,  fervent 
imagination,  and  the  spirit  of  devotion.  The  first  four 
sermons  which  Bishop  Brent  puts  under  the  general  head 
of  'Revelation'  have  a  special  significance  to-day;  they 
press  through  the  misery  and  blackness  of  the  war  to 
the  great  liberating  spiritual  results  which  the  Bishop  fore- 
sees.  ..."  Outlook,  N.  Y. 

THE  REVELATION  OF  DISCOVERY 

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Contents:  i.  The  Relation  of  Discovery  to  Revelation;  ii.  The 
Revelation  of  Ideal  Love;  in.  The  Discovery  of  Ideal  Love; 
IV.  The  Incarnation,  the  Intellect,  and  the  Heart;  v.  The 
Virgin-Birth  and  the  Virgin-Born;  vi.  The  Parable  of  the 
Cross;  vii.  Jesus  of  the  Passion;  viii.  Jesus  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion; IX.  Instruments  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  x.  The  Realiza- 
tion of  the  Communion  of  Saints. 

"...  There  is  not  one  of  the  130  pages  that  does  not  hold 
something  worth  marking  and  above  all  digesting.  .  .  ." 
Pacific  Churchman. 

I.ONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK 


Theolo9>cal  Sem,nary-Speer  Ubrary 


1   1012  01130  3072 


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