THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
THE INNER LIFE
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
THE INNER LIFE
SERMONS
BY
TIMOTHY DWIGHT
PRESIDENT OF YALE UNIVERSITY
^ije ftinfiliam of (Koti is Suitfjin sou
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1899
U^
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
108809
AfTOR, LENOX ANC
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.
1899.
Copyright, 1899,
By Dodd, Mead and Company.
SEnibcrsttg press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
TO
8rf)e 33rotf)crI)ooti of gale ^nibersits,
Gradtiates and Undergraduates^
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME
AS A TESTIMONIAL OF MY KINDLY FRIENDSHIP FOR
THEM, AND OF MY INTEREST IN THEIR
HIGHEST WELFARE.
PREFACE.
THE thoughts expressed in these sermons are,
in accordance with the title which is given
to the vohnne, thoughts of and for the inner hfe.
Such sermons are perhaps less often presented to
hearers and readers in these now passing years
than those which deal with external work and ser-
vice and with the great activities of the Church on
behalf of men who are outside of its limits. The
inner life, however, does not lose its interest, or
its infinite worth, to the Christian mind. The
author hopes that some thoughtful Christians may-
find in what he has written a measure of useful
suggestion that may repay them for the time which
they chance to spend in looking over the pages of
the volume. Thoughts are among the richest bless-
ings which come to us in this world. Thoughts of
the inner life are often richer than those of the
outer life.
The idea of the Christian life, which, in large
measure at least, underlies the suggestions of the
sermons, is that of a personal fellowship, a Divine-
human friendship, if we may use the term, between
the believer and Christ. This is the Johannean
idea, as set before us in the Fourth Gospel and
Viii PREFACE
the First Epistle, and is, to the mind of the writer
of these discourses, one of the most beautiful
and inspiring of all the thoughts presented to us
in the New Testament.
The sermons have, most of them, been preached
in the Chapel of Yale University to the audiences
assembled there from time to time. Two or three
of them have within themselves, as they are now
printed, the evidences, very strongly marked, of
their special purpose in relation to a company of
young College men. Two or three others bear in
them indications that they were written with refer-
ence to persons in a different sphere of life, or of a
more advanced age. These things, however, are
merely incidental, and, it is believed, will in no
case lessen the interest or helpfulness — if, indeed,
there be anything of this character pertaining to
them — which they may have for any reader.
The volume now goes forth whithersoever it will
— or whithersoever it may. May it bear a message
of peace and of love in itself,
TIMOTHY DWIGHT.
Yale University, April, 1899.
CONTENTS.
Page
I. The Unnamed Disciple i
II. Each Man's Life a Plan of God 19
III. Thou shalt know hereafter 32
IV. What Good Thing shall I do 48
V. The Heavenly Vision 64
VI. In Nothing be Anxious 80
VII. The True Life of Man not in his Possessions 94
VIII. The Following of Christ 108
IX. Our Citizenship in Heaven 121
X. For my Sake 134
XI. The True Seer 150
XII. The Transformation of Character . . . 166
XIII. Love is the Fulfilling of the Law ... 182
XIV. Likeness to Christ the Beginning and End
of our Sonship to God 198
XV. The Peace of Christ a Ruling Power . . 212
XVI. The Law of Liberty 228
XVII. The Passing of Life 242
XVIII. The Things that remain 258
XIX. The Power of Personal Life 275
XX. The Gifts and Lessons of the Years . . . 290
I
THE UNNAMED DISCIPLE
One of the two that heard John speak, and followed Jesus,
was Andrew, Sijnon Peter'' s brother. — John i. 40.
THE words of this verse form a part of a brief
story from which as a centre or starting-point
the entire Gospel which the Church ascribes to the
Apostle John moves toward the fulfilment of its pur-
pose. The story tells of two disciples of John the
Baptist, who were pointed by him to Jesus as the
Son of God. They followed Jesus, and at His
invitation spent two hours with Him at the place of
His temporary sojourning. In that brief interview
they heard and saw enough to strengthen in their
minds the conviction that He was, indeed, what the
prophet-teacher had testified concerning Him, and
at its close they returned to their own lodgings.
This is all that the narrative relates ; but the writer
adds the statement, that one of the two was Andrew,
Simon Peter's brother. Of the other he says nothing
which may determine his personality. What does
the verse, as thus connected with the story, — what
does the story, as we think of the two young men,
suggest to us?
It is certainly interesting to notice, that, so far as
the Gospels give us any account of the ministry of
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
Jesus, these tvvo young men were the first ones who
became His disciples. As that Jewish day closed at
six o'clock in the evening, and their two hours'
conversation came to its end, they constituted the
company of behevers — the Christian Church. What
was their personal condition? How much did they
know? We cannot suppose that they had made
any considerable progress in the understanding of
the great spiritual truths which Jesus had come to
reveal. It was long after this that they were so
undeveloped and uncomprehending as to awaken
His astonishment at their slowness of heart to
believe. It was even at the very latest hour of His
life with them, that they continued to cherish the
thought of a temporal kingdom, and were filled not
only with sorrow, but with wonder and disappoint-
ment of their hopes, when His departure from them
to the heavenly world was revealed as a thing of the
immediate and certain future. They could have
heard but little from Him in those short hours —
only enough to give them some impression of His
personality and some passing glimpse into the
depths of His inner life. But they certainly saw for
themselves — this the narrative makes abundantly
clear to us — that which caused the declaration of
John the Baptist to become a living reality to their
own consciousness. He had said to them, the day
before, that a certain sign had been made known to
him, and that he had been told that, when that sign
should be manifested with reference to one among
the number of those who were coming to him for his
baptism, he could recognise by means of it the
2
THE INNER LIFE
Messiah, to prepare whose way was his appointed
mission ; — and he had added the statement that,
after a time, he had seen the sign appear as this
man was baptised. The interview with Jesus had
led them to beheve that John was right, and that the
Divine Spirit was with this extraordinary man.
But this was probably the sum of the impression
produced upon them. What the wonderful power
was which lay within His mind and heart, they
probably did not appreciate in any measure; nor
did they know, if they put themselves under His
guidance, to what He would lead them. We may
believe, also, that the faith which they had was not
secure against all dangers of the future. They could
scarcely, in those two hours, have gained a founda-
tion for their living, in whose security they could
themselves have had entire confidence. They had,
however, made a beginning, and it was a peace-
ful one for their hearts. There are some things
very instructive in their progress from that hour
onwards.
One of these is, that they came to Jesus again,
the next day, and sought to learn more of what He
might have to tell them. They went with Him to
Cana, where they saw the great miracle — perhaps
to Jerusalem, where He first entered publicly upon
His office. They suffered themselves to be won by
His words and teachings, and to open their hearts to
receive more and more. They did not give way to
doubts or questionings which might naturally have
arisen, but seeing in Him from the outset a helpful
3
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
friend, they trusted and waited. A little while after-
wards, they joined Him for their life's work, and
lived in His society. They entered more and more
fully into His living, and tried more and more com-
pletely to transfer the secret of that living to their
own souls. They found, as they moved onward, that
life became richer and deeper, broader and more
far-reaching, as they did this. In a wonderful way,
they discovered themselves to be ready to give up
all things for His sake. Still more wonderfully —
when the years had passed and, with them, He had
gone into the unseen — they learned that, in His
absence, He was nearer and more to them than He
had been even in His personal presence. As they
looked back from the time near the end of their
earthly career, they saw that the progress had been
unbroken and uninterrupted, and they believed, as
sincerely as men ever believe anything — they knew,
with as much confidence as men ever know anything
— that they had made no mistake in following the
impulses of that hour of their early manhood. And
then they died, in a calm, sweet, joyful hope of some-
thing better — of a reunion with the Friend whom
they had learned to love, and of being hke Him
when they should see Him again.
Another thing is, that the two — so far as we get
any knowledge of them from the Gospels and in
their subsequent career — were very different men.
Andrew seems, probably, to have been a solid,
earnest, yet ordinary character ; a man to be trusted
and respected, but not prominent like his brother,
4
THE INNER LIFE
Simon Peter. He was one of the two. The other
was the writer of the Fourth Gospel and the one
who tells this opening story. The Christian Church,
in all the ages, has supposed him to be the Apostle
John. But he gives himself no name. The book,
however, reveals to us much of what he was and
brings us into a knowledge of his inner life. He
was, evidently, a man who dwelt largely in the
region of that inner hfe. He was contemplative,
introvertive, rich and deep in his thoughts ; finding
his delight in his own meditations ; watchful of the
workings of truth in his individual character; with a
singular capacity for a pure friendship ; having deep
emotions ; fitted to teach the lessons of holy love ;
able to realise in himself, more than most men, the
highest ideal of the soul. He was worthy to be the
disciple whom Jesus loved.
But, not\vithstanding the wide difference, what
they began to learn at that first meeting with Jesus
accomplished the same result for the two. It be-
came the origin of and starting-point for the peculiar
growth of character which they knew in their ex-
perience afterwards. It showed the same marvel-
lous power to work along the lines of Andrew's life,
which it manifested in the life of his companion. It
gradually made him more earnest, more trustworthy,
more devoted to good works, more ready to live
for others, more confident that life belongs to the
future rather than the present. If he had anything
of Peter's character and Peter's experience, — if he
resembled, even though with less of the same quali-
ties, his brother, as he may well have done, — he
5
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
found his earnestness and his impulses coming con-
stantly under the controlling influences of a new
power, and his life glorified by an ennobling princi-
ple. What it did for his associate the following
narrative tells too plainly, and the world knows too
well, to require it to be set forth anew. But it
moved in the region of his emotions, his impulses,
his love, his thoughtfulness, his rich, calm living, as
if it were adapted only to natures like his. It took
hold upon the ardor of his fiery passions, which
would, at the first, have called down fire from
heaven upon those who refused his message, and
made the latest and often-repeated exhortation of
his closing years, which he addressed to every
Christian believer within his influence, to be in the
words. Little children, love one another. It pene-
trated within the ambitious feeling of the earlier
manhood, whose desire and demand were for the
highest places in the new kingdom, and, by its grad-
ual yet silent energy, so transformed it into a loftier
sentiment that, half a century afterward, he was not
willing even to name himself in his own writing.
He was gladly ready to leave the world without the
knowledge of the author of the beautiful story which
he had to tell, if so be that it would only believe
in Him of whose kingdom and power and love the
story was designed to be full.
We can think of the two, at the end, and so of
Peter and James, of Nathanael and Philip, who came
to Jesus immediately afterward, as each one of them
feeling in his own soul and saying to himself, that
the energising force gained on that first day, which
6
THE INNER LIFE
had wrought such a change in character as the
years moved on, could hav^e been fitted for no other
hfe so perfectly as for his own, — and wondering,
as we sometimes do when we are thinking, in the
joy of our own experience, of the best and truest
things of life, such as friendship, love, and home,
whether they can be to any other what they are to
us. But that they are to every one what they are
to us — only with a richer gift as the nature, which
is open to receive it, is richer and deeper — is the
very proof that they are the truest and best things
in our living. And so that friendship with Jesus
was the most real of all things to each one of that
company while they lived, and v/hen they died.
Another thing, which w^e may notice, is, that the
confidence of the two men in the reality of the
friendship and its life-giving force was the same,
and that all their life's progress, so far as their belief
in what Jesus taught them was concerned, was a very
quiet and restful one. They had stormy conflicts in
their lives, as all men have ; as all men engaged in a
good cause In such an age most peculiarly must
have had. They were exposed to the doubtings and
opposition of enemies to their faith. They may,
moreover, have seen many difficulties in the system
of doctrine to which they were committed, whose
full solution must be waited for until some coming
time or clearer day. They certainly had a terrible
trial of their belief when they saw all the old ideas
derived from their early education overthrown by
the crucifixion of the Messiah. They may, no
7
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
doubt, have been despondent; and have questioned
the reahty of their own belief or love sometimes.
But it is manifest that, when they retired in thought
into that central place in their minds where their
faith in Christ and His teaching dwelt, they were
perfectly peaceful. Whether their faith was weaker
or stronger ; whether it was as at the first hour, or
at the last ; it was m itself calm and conscious of its
own foundation. They did not have to argue for it
with themselves, or strengthen it by contending
against other systems of belief, or spend their time,
on their own behalf, in supporting it and undertak-
ing laborious defences of it, or encourage their
hearts against the dangers of its possible failure by
making a continual outcry about it of any sort. So
far as it existed in their hearts, the wonderful fact
about it was, that it was something /^r tJicm to rest
tcp07ty — and not something which needed, /<?;' itself
to lean tipon tJiem — their confidence, their argu-
ments, or even their willingness to keep it alive
within themselves. It was wonderfully like the
truth, in this regard. It seemed to be wonderfully
near to the truth.
This was the fact, also, with the whole Apostolic
company in the subsequent years. The argumen-
tative writer of the Pauline Epistles, who seems as
if eager for conflict with any and every enemy, who
moves along the defences of the Christian system
as if the hero of a hundred battles, and tries every-
where to subdue the assailant and strengthen the
courage of the doubting by appealing to proofs
and evidences ; and, on the other hand, the medi-
8
THE INNER LIFE
tativc author of the Gospel narrative, who tells
a simple story of what he saw in earlier years,
and leaves the strange facts and the deep thoughts
to make their own impression, are alike, when they
come to their individual faith. They are not
afraid of discussions with other men when necessity
arises, but they do not live on them or in them
within themselves. Different from each other as
they may be in every other regard, they are at one
here. And so are all the rest, Andrew and Peter,
Philip and his friend Nathanael, James the Lord's
brother and James the son of Zebedee, each and
all find something, as they first meet the Lord,
which becomes to their souls, and remains ever in
their souls, a firm foundation of character and of
hope — which bears in itself, for the personal life,
the gift of a calm, and peaceful joy, when it makes
its first entrance into that life, and which knows
no fears for its own safety or dangers for its own
permanence ever afterward.
We may notice again, that the effect of the meeting
with Jesus upon the action of the two men was the
same. The narrative distinctly states, with respect
to one of them, that he went immediately to his
brother, and made known to him what he beheved
himself to have found. It indicates — what is more
clear to the reader of the original than it can be in
our English Version — that the other did the same
thing. With the impulse which comes to every
generous, manly man, to give to another the knowl-
edge of what has proved a great blessing in his
9
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
own experience, they told their story to these mem-
bers of their households. Apparently, from the
records of the other Gospels, these two pairs of
brothers and their families had been previously in
the relations of friendship. We cannot wonder,
therefore, that the two who had the first opportunity
of a conversation with the man to whom John the
Baptist had pointed them, and who had been so
impressed by His personality and His words, should
have desired to bring the other two to meet Him
and to hear Him. Philip did the same thing for
Nathanael.
How naturally it was done ! How quietly, and
away from the knowledge of the rulers and the
world ! How far from the dreamings even of the
Jewish authorities, or the Pharisees and the scribes,
was the thought that a new power had begun to
work in the world on that afternoon. But the next
morning there were six disciples, where there had
been before none at all ; and the number was
never to be so small as on that second morning,
for eighteen hundred years. It was, on the other
hand, to grow and enlarge — until, after a season,
the Jewish authorities were to pass away — and,
after a longer period, the new power was to lay
hold upon governments and nations — and, when
centuries had elapsed, was to become the mightiest
force in the world. But the growth was to be con-
stantly in the same way. The one man — or each
one of the two men, if so it has chanced to be —
discovers the power for himself and in his own life.
He comes, by some means, into communication
THE INNER LIFE
with Jesus Christ, into His society, under His in-
fluence. He gains what each of those men gained
on that afternoon, and he tells the story of his own
happiness to his friend. Who shall know it? Who
can prevent it? But the secret of the power is
there.
The Church began its history in the hours of
that first meeting. It took to itself in those first
hours, and in the hours that followed after them,
its Divinely given life and its ever-living forces.
By reason of these forces it put forth its power, as
the very necessity of the life to which they belonged
— a power which moved, like the forces of nature,
quietly but resistlessly — and the great work went
onward as with a Divine energy. The beginning,
we may well remember, was with the two men and
the one man, and in their coming together. The
first movement forward was with the two men and
their brothers, and in the words which were spoken.
The progress of the history has been like the
beginning.
Once more we may notice, that the two persons
in the story were, in a special sense, unknown men.
Not only were they obscure Galilean fishermen,
away from the centres of life and influence. Even
so far as the history presents them to us, they were
out of the world's view. One of them appears in
the Gospel narrative only in three or four places,
and of his life we have but little information, either
then or afterwards. The other withdraws himself
almost wholly from sight, and is the unnamed dis-
II
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
ciple. His personality becomes known to us only
by testimony from others, and by inferences which
we draw from what he says. Their inspiration
sprang from sources hidden, as far as possible, from
the notice of mankind. They doubtless thought of
themselves, that afternoon, as quite insignificant
persons, who had little chance or hope of wide in-
fluence. They had been attracted by the power of
John the Baptist's preaching, and had been aroused
to new and deeper views of life through what he
said. They now came to Jesus, because of what
John had told them, that they might discover some
good for themselves — perhaps, without a thought or
expectation of ever talking with Him again — almost
certainly without the idea of becoming preachers
of His truth and doctrine. But in those two hours
they received the beginning of a new life, and a
strange impulse to speak of it to their friends. They
began immediately the work of building up the
Church in the world. Half-unconscious they were,
no doubt, of what they were doing. But they were
doing ; — obscure men, as they were, setting in
motion forces which would never cease.
What an impressive scene, that on which our
thoughts are turning is, as we think of it thus. One
of the two that heard John speak and followed Jesus
was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. Andrew was
only Simon Peter's brother — and nothing in him-
self. And he was one of the two. Who was the
other, we ask instinctively, as we read the words.
With how much deeper interest — with an interest
and wonder how continually increasing and deepen-
12
THE INNER LIFE
ing — does the question repeat itself, as we read on
through the chapters and see what a man he was.
But the only answer is, He was the disciple whom
Jesus loved. He follows along the pathway of the
Master's life. He goes with Him in the bright
hours, and the dark hours. He finds his place next
Him at the last supper. He is with Him in the gar-
den, at His examination in the house of Annas, and
at the cross. He is the one for whom the longest
life and work seem to be appointed. But he never
tells us his name, or fully answers our question.
He moves our souls, and testifies for the Lord, not by
his position or the honours bestowed upon him ; but
simply by the story which he has to relate, and the
evident transforming and uplifting power of the
things recorded in the story upon his own character.
The unnamed disciple has had more elevating influ-
ence for the noblest minds and hearts, by the inci-
dental manifestations of what he was and what
Christianity did for him, than any other man, per-
haps, that has ever hved.
I know of no little narrative in all the Gospel
story, which has more of suggestion in it than this
one whose closing words are in our text. And
especially are the suggestions those which encourage
confidence in our Christian faith.
As we look along the line of our own experience,
how remarkable it is, that, while sceptics and
doubters all about us are always discussing and
questioning — never themselves at rest, and never
suffering those who disagree with them, and believe
13
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
the Christian truth, to be in the undisturbed pos-
session of their faith, — every Christian behever
finds peaceful quiet in himself so soon as he accepts
the Christian teaching ; that he does not find him-
self compelled to prop his faith by constant argu-
ments, or to strengthen it by showing his enemy's
weakness ; that he lets it take care of itself, and feels
sure that it will take care of him ; that he has the
same sense of restfulness in it, when he is seventy,
as when he is thirty; that this is so in men of all
characters, and all ages, and all differences, so soon
as the faith comes to them, and they are near to
Christ. I think that the things which we can leave
thus in our souls, without supposing them to be in
danger unless we are always contending for them in
ourselves or with others — which every man who has
them is disposed thus to leave, because they seem
to him, at once and always, to have a firm founda-
tion— bear with them, in this very fact, the strongest
evidence that they are thus founded. The doubters
do not rest quietly in their doubts, and the mind
never does in negations.
And then, what a wonderful thing is influence.
It seemed but an accident that Jesus happened to be
passing in the neighbourhood of John the Baptist on
that afternoon, and that those two young men had
the opportunity of meeting Him for an hour or two.
But there went forth from His words and His pres-
ence a force which took hold upon them both.
The force moved them both to action, as has been
already said. In the case of the one, we have no
14
THE INNER LIEE
record of the later years, but we know that his new
influence began at once in the persuasion of his
brother, and we know that it went out everywhere,
wherever that brother carried the Gospel message, as
well as wherever he carried it himself. And thus it
reached beyond his knowledge of its limits, as well
as beyond our knowledge. The other of the two,
long years afterwards, when his associates of the
Apostolic company had passed away and life was
advancing far onward towards its ending for himself,
was moved — perhaps by the discussions of culti-
vated men around him in the city where he lived,
respecting God and His connection with the world
— to tell of his own life with Jesus. With no desire
to speak of himself, except as showing that he had
seen and heard the things which he relates, and thus
giving weight to his testimony, he presents much of
the record of his own history and of the explan-
ation as to how his life came to be what it was. The
little book goes out to those for whom it was in-
tended, and, by accident or Providence as we say, it
is preserved for the future. It goes hither and
thither, — and down the generations. A few years
ago, it opened its power in my soul, or yours. The
world put on a new aspect to our view, and seemed
under a heavenly influence all at once. Life grew
to us less external, and more internal. The Friend,
whom he met so long ago, appeared as a real pres-
ence to our thought. He spoke to us by His Spirit,
as He did with the voice to this writer and his
associate. New impulses came to us ; new faith was
awakened ; deeper life began. The old question-
is
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
ings passed away, and peacefulness followed. And
we tell the story of it all to those whom we love most
tenderly, as the best thing which we can give them
in life, and for life. One of the two was Andrew.
Who was the other? He was a man in the ages
long since passed away, who had a beautiful life in a
beautiful soul, and it was gained in Christ's presence
from Christ's teaching. It was the thought that
worked in his mind and heart, which constituted the
peculiar influence — and it matters little who he
was, or who we are. The greatest of Heaven's gifts
to us may be just this — that the influence came
forth from him and reached to our souls ; and, in the
future, the sower and the reaper will rejoice together.
And so the single thought or word — the mani-
festation of true life in the soul — which may go
forth from you or me, to-day or to-morrow; which
may be forgotten even by ourselves in a little while,
or of which, at the time, we may be ourselves uncon-
scious— may enter the life and thought of another,
and, as it works through him, may go forth into his
future influence and thus perchance find a permanent
lodgment in some mind, after a season, which knows
nothing of our having ever lived, and whose sphere
of thought may be in a far distant part of the world.
But it was a word spoken or lived for the truth, and
the one who gave it forth, and the one who shall
receive it, find in it, alike, the same testimony : that
Jesus Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life.
As a force, also, in the souls of both, it is and will
be the same thing. We may be apart from each
i6
THE INNER LIFE
Other in our employments, in our mode of earthly-
living, in our associations, in our style of thinking,
in our views of Christian doctrine even, in many
respects. We may even misunderstand each other,
and, from a half knowledge of the truth on either
side, may contend, and pass condemnation, and
sometimes lose out of our hearts, for a season, the
love that bclicveth and hopcth all things. But the
energy of that something which we gained through
the Divine influence will enter into our souls under-
neath all peculiarities of our thinking or living — far
below the sphere of our misapprehensions of one
another and our earnest conflicts — and will move, in
each one of us, along the lines of individual charac-
ter toward the same ennobling of the soul, reaching
out ever towards the perfection of true life. Peter
and Paul contended; the Apostles were but partially
enlightened in the early years ; the truth in its ful-
ness was beyond them. But Christ, the common
Master, was the same. The work which His life-
power did in them and for them was, also, the same.
The influence which they passed over to the future
was to the same great end. And the one thing, need-
ful for all, was accomplished equally, and by the
same power, for the humblest peasant in Galilee who
entered in the earliest days into fellowship with Jesus,
and for the most cultivated and honored saint who
may have died, the last year, in a Christian country.
The power was unto salvation in both cases alike.
I do not see how any thoughtful man, with his
heart open to purest thought and influence, can read
17
THE INNER LIFE
the simple story to which this suggestive verse
belongs, and doubt afterward the final triumph of
the kingdom ; or how such a man can fail to believe
that, in those early hours of communion with Jesus,
the author of the record discovered that which
transformed his living into an immortal beauty.
And if the record of the reader of the story in the
future is, like that of the writer of it, lost, as it were,
in the words : '' And one of the two that followed
Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother," he will
still find for himself in the hour of his first friendship
with Christ the value of all life, and the glory of it
also.
i8
II
EACH MAN'S LIFE A PLAN OF GOD
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when ihoii ivast yoimg, thou
girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldest : but
when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands,
ajid another shall gird thee, and carty thee whither thou
wouldest not. Now this he spake, signifying by what death
he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this he
saith unto him. Follow 7ne. Peter, turnifig about, seeth
the disciple whom fesus loved following ; whicJi also leaned
back on his breast at the sitpper and said, Lord, who is he
that betray eth thee? Peter therefore seeing him saith unto
fesus, Lord, and what shall this ma7i do? fesus saith unto
him. If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to
thee? Follow thou 7ne. This sayiftg therefore went forth
ajnong the brethren, that that disciple shotild not die : yet
fesus said not 7into him, that he should not diej but, If I
will that he ta?'ry till I come, what is that to thee ?
John xxi. 18-23.
THESE verses of the closing chapter of John's
Gospel present before us some of the last
words of Jesus, which were addressed to two of His
most prominent disciples. With reference to both
of them the words apparently foretell something of
their future career, and especially somewhat as to
the manner of their dying. I propose to consider
them as they may offer directly or indirectly certain
thoughts and teachings.
19
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
The characters and work of the two men were
very different. Peter, as he is presented before us
in the New Testament, and according to the picture
which we form of him, was full of energy, ardent,
impulsive, ready for every new and worthy under-
taking, practical, a leader for other men of action to
follow. John, at least as we know him in his later
years, was quiet, calm, thoughtful, dwelling more in
the internal than the external, a lover of the truth
and meditating upon it, rather than one who found
his chief joy and satisfaction in the activities of the
world. It is certainly suggestive to thought, if we
notice what Jesus said to them, as connected with
these differences, — especially if we bear also in
mind what the future in each case proved to be, so
far as the tradition of the Church has made it known
to us.
In the first place, the manner of living and dying
which is predicted for each of the two men is in ac-
cordance with the character of each. The man of
fiery energy, and eager for action and conflict, had
begun his career by the carrying out of his own im-
pulses. He was the impersonation, as we may say, of
youth, in his younger years, — pushing his way for-
ward according to his personal will; a firm believer
in himself and his own powers ; arrested by no diffi-
culties or opposition ; determined to conquer and to
succeed. The future for him, according to the ordi-
nary laws of life, was to open toward greater conflicts
and harder struggles. His very method of working
would bring him into the midst of dangers and
20
THE TNNER LIFE
enmities. He would rouse the evil passions of men,
and excite them to throw every possible hindrance
in his path, or even to contend against him with
their deadliest weapons. In an age hke that in
which he hved and a work such as the one in
which he was engaged, a man of his character would
be peculiarly exposed to violent opposition. He
would be as a single man contending against a
thousand. The truth for which he strove was dis-
believed. It was rejected by men of every class.
It was hated by all who saw in it danger to their
own systems of faith, or to their personal success or
power. The career of such a man must be filled
with fightings. In any period of the world's history,
it must be liable to end in defeat for himself, if not
for the cause which he advocates. But, in such an
epoch as that in which Peter w^as living, defeat meant
death, and that by violence. Jesus predicted only
what might, not unnaturally, be expected, — that
the time was coming when, having grown old in the
conflict and in years, the ardent and active disciple,
who had in his earlier life girded himself and moved
whithersoever he would, would be overcome and led
forth at the will of others, even to execution. He
would glorify God by a martyr's death.
But equally in the case of the other disciple was
the prophecy of Jesus in accordance with the natural
movement and ending of a life like his. The calm
spirit, which thinks and loves, — which tells its
thoughts and shows its love, — awakens no violent
opposition. It dwells apart from strifes, even if it
dwells near the world's active life. It moves serenely
21
THOUGHTS OF A AW FOR
forward, and the years go by. If the Hfe chances to
be lengthened out to extreme old age, and the mind
is in its full power at the latest season, the passing
on and the passing away may be but as the change
of the daylight hour to the beautiful evening time.
The suggestion of the text, in this view of it, I
think may be this : — that as, in the ordering of
Providence, we are born with varying characters
and gifts, and are assigned to different works for
God in the world, so we may believe that there is
a plan for every one, formed, and watched over,
and carried to its completion by the Divine Friend
who calls us into His service. How often we find,
in our individual experience, that we never escape
the besetment of peculiar difficulties or trials, which
other men around us either do not have, or grow
out of as the years move onward. We hope to
escape them — we wonder that we do not, it may
be — but we find them always with us. Is it not
the Lord's appointment — not as an arbitrary or
outward thing, but as a part and outgrowth of our
peculiar nature? Is not the true way of looking at
it this: that we — in our individuality of nature —
were made for the accomplishment of a special
Divine purpose ; for the showing forth of a Divinely-
formed character and life in one particular light;
and that all allotments of experience are wisely
fitted to realise the end? The work of Peter as a
disciple of Jesus was intended to be different from
that of John. He was to show the development of
true life in a different way. The career followed the
line of the native endowments. The trials and suc-
22
THE INNER LIFE
cesses, the defeats and victories, as they were seen
in the progress of his Hving and foreseen by the
Master, were in accordance with what was fore-
shadowed in that manifestation of the Divine pur-
pose which was seen in the making of the man.
We do not penetrate the heavenly wisdom, in-
deed, and we cannot say that this is a full account
of what we call the Providential dealing with us.
But may we not say that it is a partial one? And
if it is so, surely it takes up all our living, and every
part of our experience, into God's plan and pur-
pose — and brings us the lesson of trust and con-
fidence that the natural movement of our life, as
we call it, is under a supernatural guidance, and
that, in our allotment of every sort, and in the
dying at the end, we are guarded and guided by
a Father's love.
In the second place, we may notice what Jesus
says to Peter in answer to his inquiry respecting the
appointed destiny of his friend and associate. The
manner of his own dying had been foretold to him ;
and now, as he sees this friend approaching, his
mind naturally turns to the thought of his future.
What of this man — what shall be his experience?
The Lord answers, If I will that he tarry till I come,
what is that to thee? There is in this answer
nothing of definiteness, — at the most, only a sug-
gestion that John's life would be longer and quieter
than that of Peter himself But the main word for
the latter disciple is the pointed question, What is
that to thee? with the bidding. Follow thou me.
23
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
What is the lesson given here? Evidently, as a
first part of it, that curious inquiry into what may
lie before our friends, or even ourselves, is not the
thing to occupy our minds. The appointed work
for us is, to follow the Lord, each one for himself.
Peter had, indeed, been told, as most men are not,
and even the other disciples were not, that a death
of violence was before him, and would come when
he should have passed within the limits of old age.
But the language used in giving him this assurance
was figurative in its character, and might naturally
suggest a career of trial and defeat, rather than its
ending only. Indeed the form of expression used
by the evangelist is such as to intimate that the
understanding of the words with reference alone to
Peter's death came to the minds of the disciples only
at a later period. As to the time and the particular
mode of dying, they were certainly indefinite. But
when the inquiry was turned to John's fate, the answer
was only with an if^ and it revealed nothing beyond
the possibility of the Divine will. The if did not
gain its interpretation till the fact was realised —
nor, indeed, even then, for, if we may believe in any
measure the story which has come down to us,
many thought, after John had made the correction
which he gives, and after he had passed away, that
he was not dead, but was to live until the Lord's
second coming. Not questioning, but working, is
the Christian's duty ; — this is the first part of the
lesson.
And a second part seems to be this : — that, in
the working, duty lies in the pathway of individual
24
THE INNER LIFE
capacities and powers. Peter was called to follow
the Lord in the line where, with his natural charac-
teristics, he could best serve Him ; the line which
would end, indeed, in martyrdom. But he was not
to be planning for martyrdom, or thinking of it.
The prophecy which foretold it w^as, at the most,
to be an inspiration to him in his career — for the
reason that the career was to end in a glorifying of
God after the manner in which Jesus Himself was
about to glorify Him. The following of the Master
was to be the object of his thought — a daily follow-
ing, according as the way of service should become
manifest, and the way in w^hich the Master would
have walked, had He been in his place, should be
made known. Think not of to-morrow, or the end,
is the teaching — think of to-day, and its work.
How simple the bidding was : Follow me. How
peaceful it was — The future belongs to God; it is
the object of His care and thought; it will be one
thing for one of his children, and another for an-
other ; and for both alike it will be but the following
out of that plan which He undertook to carry on
at the beginning. If each shall follow — to-day as
it comes, and to-morrow as it comes — the call of
the Lord, the ending will be provided for, and,
whatever it be, it will be a glorifying of God.
It is significant that this same bidding follows the
prophecy of Peter's death and the answer respecting
John's future. As if Jesus had said: When the
vision is given for a moment, and in a figure as it
were, of what is before thyself, let it only move thee
to a more earnest devotion to the duty which offers
25
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
itself at the same moment ; — and when the sight of
another's destiny is absolutely denied thee, still have
the same earnestness. And so His last words to
these two most intimate and beloved friends are the
words which He uttered at the beginning of His
public ministry : Live the right life to-day, and be
not anxious for to-morrow.
What a wonderful peace there must have been
in the inmost souls of these two disciples if they
guided their lives by these words in the years which
came afterward — the one moving on to his martyr-
dom, and the other to his quiet death and the falling
asleep that seemed to those about him to be another
thing than death, but both hearing the Lord's voice
daily, saying, " Follow me," for the present ; and,
"What is it to thee?" of the future.
A third suggestion of the text is as to the true
estimate which is to be placed upon different kinds
of life. The praise of mankind is always prone to
go towards those whose lives are passed, as we say,
on the scene of action — the leaders of men in the
struggle and warfare. But it is a striking fact,
worthy of serious reflection, that it was not Peter,
but John, to whom in the Divine plan the longest
hfe was assigned. And this longest life was not
mere living, but the accomplishing of a great work.
Peter followed the Master, and did an honourable
service, and glorified God, at its ending, by a death
which corresponded with his Hfe. But we may not
forget that it was the meditative and thoughtful
disciple — the one whom Jesus loved, and who
26
THE INNER LIFE
leaned on His breast at the supper — to whom the
last work of the Apostolic age was appointed. After
Peter and Paul had fulfilled their mission, he came
to finish what they had begun. And the message
which he sent down the ages is the most precious
inheritance of the Church. Peter is an interesting
character, but we know little of what He taught or
thought, in its distinctive pecuHarities, and compar-
atively little of what he did. But the thoughts of
John give us the setting forth of the deepest
mysteries of the Christian truth, and let us into the
innermost secret of Christian living, and open before
us the heart of God, and read us lessons for which
the thoughts of the other greatest Apostles are only
preparatory. Our vision of the future places, as all
Christian thinkers hold, the Johannean age as the
final one in Christian development, and the disciple
of love as greater than those of faith and of hope.
The world is governed more by men of thought
than by men of action — when we take the great
progress of the ages into account — and it is so
peculiarly in Christian history, and above all in
Christian experience.
But the teaching of the text, in this line of thought,
is also that, according to the true Christian esti-
mate, what seems the quiet, calm life, away from the
stir and strife of the world — withdrawn, perhaps by
necessity, from the great activities of mankind — is
a life as near, or even nearer it may be, to the heart
of Christ, than the one which is most conspicuous
in its Christian labours seen of men. It was the
meditative, loving disciple, whose work came after
27
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
the struggles and conflicts were over — the one
whose life was longest, partly no doubt because he
was outside of the tumult, and whose death was so
like a sleep, — it was this disciple, whom the Lord
loved, and to whom He committed the task of writ-
ing the story of His own Divine life among men,
which should bear witness most fully of the Divinity
and the humanity in their marvellous union. The
believer who thinks and loves stands on an equality
with the one who works and wars ; Peter and John
were together in that final interview recorded in
this Gospel. He may even have a higher standing ;
as John was living after Peter and Paul had passed
away.
We may also observe, in connection with the
thought of the future of these two men as that future
is hinted at in these verses, the importance to the
Christian work in the world of the union of the
two characters within the Church. The work of
Christianity is to bring the world towards the per-
fectness of God. But the work is to be accomplished
by human agencies and in human lives. The per-
fectness is therefore to be realised, not in any one
individual, but rather in the combining together of
the full developments in all. Each man is to mani-
fest what the Divine power in Christianity can do
for him. Were the more active virtues alone to be
seen, the end would be but half secured. Were they
not seen at all, the aggressive force upon the world
would be mainly lost. But God has joined the man
of energy and the man of quiet and thoughtful spirit,
and given to each his own sphere of working for
28
THE INNER LIFE
Him ; — and if they follow along the line of His
appointment, with no misunderstanding of each
other, the result is reached — all combining for the
common end, even as the writings of Peter and Paul,
on the one hand, and John on the other, have made
their way together into human souls everywhere,
and transformed them from the earthly into the
heavenly mode of living. And so the teaching of
these words is that those who believe are to grow
and work together, but not after precisely the same
pattern, or in the same way.
I think we may fitly notice, once more, what I
may call the incidental character of the words. The
meeting of Jesus with the disciples on this occasion
seems to have taken place almost by an accident.
They had come together for an ordinary occupation,
and apparently they were not thinking of Him, or
of His possible presence with them. In the early
morning, as they were in the disappointment of a
failure of their work, He stands upon the shore, and
gradually, and in a peculiar way. He makes Himself
known. He teaches them of their office and their
dependence upon Himself, and perhaps of the con-
fidence which they may have in His aid whenever
they put forth their efforts in His cause. This is
what comes first and foremost. Then he seems to
take this opportunity — because it chances to pre-
sent itself — to call Peter's attention to his three
denials, his threefold failure in love, and to ask him
to look into his own character. But the object is
not self-examination, but forgiveness ; and so He
29
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
restores him fully to his office, committing to him
once more the care of the flock, and bidding him
feed and tend and shepherd all the sheep. Direct-
ing his thought in this way to his work and duty,
He easily and naturally speaks of what was awaiting
him in the future, and of the death which should
terminate his career. The allusion to the future and
the death of John was even more accidental, as it
were — occasioned simply by the fact of his happen-
ing to move along the path by which Jesus was
walking with Peter, and then by the chance question
suggested to Peter's mind by what he had heard
respecting himself How prominent the thought of
the ending is as we look at the close of the chapter.
How secondary and subordinate, as we move towards
it from the hcginnvig.
Is it not so with the ending of every life? In our
ordinary thinking of this ending, it seems like the
one great event, which gathers about itself all
solemnity, and seems to include within itself the sum
of all the past and all the future. But when we move
forward in our thought from the beginning and
through the life, it becomes an incidental thing — the
natural ending of the life whatever it may be ; — the
subordinate, not the principal event — subordinate
to duty and service and character, which are the
principal things ; — the passage-way from a living in
one sphere of activity to a living in another. And,
in this view of it, does not the question which was
addressed to Peter respecting his fellow- apostle come
with a Divine emphasis, and a Divine tenderness, to
each one of us with reference to himself: What is
30
THE INNER LIFE
it to thee? We enter upon the duties and struggles
of our coming Hfe — and the call from the Master is,
Follow me. We know not the end, but it will be
the end of service to Him here, and the opening
of something higher and better than earth.
The writer of the Gospel closes the chapter in
which this story of the two disciples is found with the
words : And there are also many other things which
Jesus did, the which if they should be written every
one, I suppose that even the world itself would not
contain the books that should be written. We may
often wish that the words which He said might have
been all preserved to us. But those which we have
received are full of suggestion, and the thoughts of
Jesus grow in their greatness and power within our
hearts until they more than fill all the sphere of our
living. The one word : Follow me, fills all the
sphere of duty ; and the one word : What is it to
thee? commits the future to His keeping, and thus
may give to us, each and every one, a perfect peace.
31
Ill
THOU SHALT KNOW HEREAFTER
Jesiis answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest
not now J but thou shalt tinderstand hereafter.
John xiii. 7.
THESE words, as we read them in the connec-
tion of the verses, have reference to the par-
ticular act of Jesus which is here recorded. They
assure the disciple to whom they are addressed that
the meaning of what had just been done, though not
recognised by him at the moment, would be unfolded
at a later time, and they thus suggest to him that
he should accept willingly and trustfully the service
which was offered, and should be content to wait
until the time of revelation should arrive. In them-
selves, however, and apart from the limitations of the
passage and the occasion, they involve, as we may
say, a great principle and law of our human life.
They set forth before us the divine method of pre-
paring the soul for its future, in one striking aspect
of it. They read us a lesson which life itself enforces
and emphasises as it passes on in its course. It is
in this latter view of the words especially — and yet
not without considering the former view also — that
I would ask for thought and attention at this time.
There are two leading suggestions which I would
mention as connected with the words.
32
THE INNER LIFE
The first suggestion which the words bring to us,
I think, is that of the Christian idea of Hfe. It re-
quires but a small and brief experience to lead any
reflecting man to the knowledge and conviction that
much of what befalls him is beyond his present
understanding. The child's question, Why^ is one
which arises in this regard, as it does in others, very
early in the child's thinking as to himself. It is a
question which returns as the deeper thoughts of
later years impress the soul, more and more, with
the mystery of its movement along the line of its
development, and the equal mystery of its surround-
ings. The wonder of our being — what life means;
what it is and is to be ; what are the design, if
there be design, and the significance of the many
strange things that enter into it, or perchance destroy
it — becomes greater, the longer we study the
matter. It reaches out into the wonderful to a
longer distance, and to an obscurity which seems
more impenetrable, as we come nearer to the end of
what we think of as the allotted period of our living ;
so that the man of sixty or seventy questions, and
meditates, and tries in vain to answer, many times
and in many places, where, at twenty or thirty, he
had not yet entered into the mystery, or had lost
thought of it in the eagerness of his action or his
hope. Thou knowest not now, is a truth which we
all learn from the beginning onward, whenever we
turn our thoughts inward upon ourselves, and then
look out from within upon the future and its relations
to the past and the present.
But the Christian idea goes beyond this. It does
3 ZZ
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
not, indeed, reveal all things, and thus remove the
mysteries in the midst of which we are. This it
could not do, by reason of the limitations of our
vision. But it opens Hfe to us as an education for
a future that follows it, and thus gives us the promise
which belongs to all education — that what is not
known to-day will be known hereafter — that the
steps forward which we take are steps bearing us
into the light, and so we have only to wait a little, or
to wait until the end, and the pathway which was
dark before us will be clear and plain behind us, —
and not simply plain i7i itself, but clear in its leading
to the end.
There is nothing more essentially connected with
education than this fact or law, of which we speak.
The beginner in any line of study or of art, as we
may all know by our own experience, must have
rules, and details, and imperfect and separate parts
placed before him. He must occupy himself with
these, and move in all his mental activity within
their sphere ; and make them, as it were, to be of
his intellectual life and force, long before he can
appreciate their full bearing upon the result which
he proposes to accomplish. The work may often-
times look forbidding and meaningless, as it is as-
signed to him to do, and he may be often ready to
turn aside from it as of no profit, or as never lead-
ing to anything of worth. He cannot see far enough
to understand what will come. But he must never-
theless hold firmly to the task, if he would not fail ;
— and if he does so, after a season the separated
things will begin to come together, and take their
34
THE INNER LIFE
places in what is greater and wider than themselves.
They will combine with each other, and form a
whole which in its turn, and when it has served its
separate purpose, will unite with something else,
formed perhaps after the same manner, and thus
will grow ever towards the end of perfect knowl-
edge. This is the way in which the mind always
works.
But it works by the force of a promise. The
teacher does not say to the child, simply or as the
chief thing: You do not know the purpose and
meaning of what I do, when I set your mind upon
the rudimentary details, and call you to the learn-
ing of rules or the drawing of lines. This also is
not what we say to ourselves when, in later years,
of our own choice we begin for ourselves some new
study, which may seem harder to us even than did
the studies of our childhood. The word which we
address to our own minds, and which the teacher
utters to his young pupil, is a word of assurance :
You will understand by and by. There is no im-
pulse or moving power in the former word. It is,
moreover, understood well enough, and sadly enough,
by each one for himself, without the utterance of
it. But in this word there is hope and encourage-
ment. In it is mental life. The faith in the future
becomes the evidence of the things not yet seen,
and the mind moves forward under the inspiration
of the thought that the faith will be, at some time,
changed into realisation.
The same thing is true with relation to character.
The child, in the formative period, is necessarily
35
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
subjected to laws of conduct and of thought, the
significance of which he does not comprehend.
They may seem to his mind to be merely arbitrary,
and to bear upon nothing that is really good. And
not only is it so with the child. We all, as we pass
on to the years of self-control and self-government,
find ourselves limited in a similar way. So long as
we think only of the present and of the life which
belongs wholly to it, the meaning of the rules which
we obey is often lost to us — and men about us we
see continually so losing it, that they ruin them-
selves by their neglect and want of understanding.
But when character is looked at from the point of
view where we regard it as developing for the future
— its growth an educational process, and its value
to be seen in the manhood which is secured — a
new light shines for us. There may be still no ad-
equate apprehension of what the disciplinary rules
and duties mean; but the great fact that they point
forward, and draw a life-power from what is beyond
themselves, brings into them the element of prophecy
and promise. We can now say to those to whom
we would give our friendly help, or to our own
souls in the working of their inner life: Give obedi-
ence at the beginning, though you do not yet under-
stand. The rules will turn into spontaneous action,
after a season, and will find the explanation which
you ask for now, but are unable to discover, in the
living forces of a strong and noble character.
" Hereafter " is the great word of the mental and
spiritual life. It is the characteristic word, as we
may say, of such life, when viewed as having in
36
THE INNER LIFE
itself the element of growth, and as being, in its
early stages, a preparation for what is later. The
growing mind and soul cannot, from the nature of
the case, apprehend to-day, in its fulness, what may
be apprehended in some to-morrow, when there is a
larger development. But if there is an education in
each to-day for each to-morrow, and always for the
distant to-morrow, then the unknown of the present
seems to borrow from the knowledge of the future
an influence and vital power, which bear the man
forward intelligently and with confidence.
The Christian doctrine lays hold, as it were, upon
this thought, and makes life an educational period
preparatory to something greater than itself, yet like
itself. It conceives of the whole of the earthly life
as having a relation to the eternal future, similar to
that which the earlier part of the earthly life bears
to the later part. Life, according to its idea of it, is
one thing — one great and long development — one
grand movement from the beginning — never ceas-
ing, ever growing in its power and in its progress.
To-day is for to-morrow; to-morrow for the next
to-morrow ; the next for still another ; and all for a
time which is beyond the boundaries of our earthly
planning or thinking — the time of perfected char-
acter in heaven.
In a peculiar sense and measure, therefore, does
it emphasise the "hereafter" of the text, and take
into itself, as what must characterise its whole con-
ception of our human living, this fact : — that the
future is to understand the present, while the pres-
ent does not, and often cannot, understand itself.
37
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
If we are born for an eternal existence — if the few
years which we pass here are but the beginning of
an endless future, and as if the early childhood of an
ever-enduring manhood — surely we cannot expect
to discover, in the days as they pass, the meaning
of what meets us and bears upon our souls in these
days. But as surely may we expect with confidence
to find it afterwards. Life is education, all of it.
Its significance is in the results of its growth. Its
reality is its future. Its time of realization is when
it can give, by reason of its progress, a look back-
ward. And the more distant that time is, accord-
ing to the true view of life, the more completely must
this law of education manifest itself as the control-
ling, all-pervading law.
It is of the necessity of the Christian idea of life,
that it bears this thought, of which we are speaking,
with itself. But there is more in the Christian
doctrine than this which has been mentioned. Life
according to its view is not only the educational
time, with all which this involves as bearing upon
our present thought. There is something additional
to this. The education is under the guidance of a
Divine teacher, whose plan takes into itself all things
from the beginning onward to the remotest future —
a teacher also who is full of wisdom, and full of
love. The mind which is moving forward through
the years with limited powers is, therefore, under
the direction and leadership of a mind which is
unlimited. The limited mind may not know indeed,
in the midst of the present experience, what the
38
THE INNER LIFE
teacher means or docs, but there is no darkness or
misapprehension in the unhmited mind. Jesus said
to Peter: What I do tJioit knowest not now. He
does not say : / know not now. On the contrary,
His words carry in them the suggestion and assur-
ance that He had this knowledge, and that He saw
the end from the beginning. If so, what must the
declaration have involved to the disciple's mind as,
after the surprise and bewilderment of that sorrow-
ful evening had passed, he thought of it in the light
of all that he had learned of Jesus. He must have
seen in it the promise of an all-seeing Friend, who
was watching over and carrying forward the plan of
his personal life.
This word was spoken, we must remember, at the
end, not at the beginning, of the three years of their
life together. It was spoken at a time when the
wonder of the great Teacher's wisdom, and of His
insight into the soul and its life, and of His clear
vision of the future, and of the working of the pres-
ent for it and towards it, and of His love for His
friends, had long been manifesting itself, and with
ever-increasing impressiveness. It was spoken thus
when the full light of Jesus' life was breaking in
upon the mind of the disciple. It must have meant,
therefore, to Peter's thought, that the progress and
growth of his own life were, and were to be, a true
education for the great future — with all the natural
movements, and all the privileges, and all the
promise, which such education, when under the
wisest and most loving teacher, can know as belong-
ing to itself.
39
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
And what is this privilege and this promise in its
highest form, but the certainty, that, as the man
goes forward out of the present, where he knows not
the meaning and deepest reahty of that which he
experiences, he will pass into a future of under-
standing— a future, not immediate perchance, but
sure and blessed in its coming. The want of
knowledge in the present, therefore, has in it no
intimation of continued want. It cannot have such
an intimation, when the word of Jesus is spoken.
The darkness is not the deep darkness of the night
season, in which there is no prophecy or hope. It
is that which precedes the dawn of the morning, and
into which the illumination of the approaching day
seems to penetrate as each moment, in its passing,
brings on the promised time.
The Christian doctrine is blessing everywhere.
The gospel, in every aspect of it, is indeed good
tidings. It lays hold upon life, in all its parts and
possibilities, and shows it to be full of the goodness
and the gifts of God. It glorifies life everywhere, by
making manifest its relation to the future, and re-
vealing the truth that, once begun, it never ends,
but grows under the loving Teacher's and Father's
care continually, ever attaining new and larger
knowledge, greater and more ennobling virtue.
And so here, it enters with its glorifying power into
the limitations of our seeing and our knowing; and
by telling us that our life is education, and telling
us also who is the teacher, it seems almost to remove
the limitations themselves by its assurance and the
prospect which it opens. The childhood which is
40
THE INNER LIFE
growing up under the unerring care and guidance
of the loving Divine Teacher may be fettered in its
understanding and apprehension, because it is still
childhood. But the light is before it, and it may-
move onward hopefully, for the preparation to which
it is called is a preparation for manhood — a man-
hood in which the past and the present will alike be
full of brightness, and" reality, and deepest and
divinest meaning. Not now indeed, but hereafter.
Yet the hereafter abides, while the now passes away
— and the blessing is ever with that which abides.
We may now turn to the second and remaining
suggestion which the words bring to us at this time
— that of the wonderful and beautiful way in which,
as these words show us, our lives are made to move
forward in this education, and by the Divine Teacher.
The plan develops itself in great wisdom, as we our-
selves are brought to understand it.
Sometimes, as in the case of Peter when the
words were first spoken, the unfolding of the mean-
ing is given, partially or wholly, in the immediate
future. Many have thought that it was given
wholly to this disciple in the words which were
added a few moments later. The washing of the
disciples' feet was designed to teach the lesson of
humility and service. If this was the fact in this
particular case, it illustrates much that comes within
the experience of every believer. How many times
the thoughtful man finds himself suddenly arrested
in his career for a moment, as Peter was, by what
seems a strange thing, perhaps a small one, affect-
41
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
ing himself. He knows not what it means. But
it sets him upon thinking. The very strangeness
of it makes him thoughtful of its bearing upon his
character and inward life; and even as he medi-
tates upon what it may possibly have to teach him,
the light shines clearly, and the lesson is read in
the light. He is ever afterwards, if he faithfully
learns the lesson, more of a true man in one part
of his living — it may be, a limited and narrow
one, but yet one part — than he was before. Peter
knew more of what this lesson of humility and
service would teach, at the end of that memorable
evening, than he did at the beginning of it; and we
may well believe that the knowledge never failed
him. Thus it is with all true men. There are
persons in every Christian company — younger and
older alike — who have realised such sudden for-
ward-movements in their own history, when some
unexpected thought or event has affected the life,
because it brought with itself a teaching imperfectly
understood, or perhaps wholly unknown before.
Character starts into new and higher development
from such starting-points, and the man gains strength
for the future from the revelation that quickly follows
a thing which, in itself, was at the most the wonder
of a moment.
But the meaning of Jesus' words, as addressed
to Peter, according to the view of many others —
and not improbably their view is correct — was
not exhausted in the simple application which He
then gave them. There may have been a deeper
and more far-reaching significance, which was to be
42
THE INNER LIFE
unfolded to the disciple by the events which fol-
lowed that evening, and by the later experiences
of the subsequent years. And if this be so, how
truly, again, it answers to Christian history every-
where. The strange, surprising thing, which hap-
pened at a certain moment, and which seemed to
find some explanation of its meaning soon after-
ward, proves to have a deeper significance than
was believed. Time and experience show that it
has a wider teaching, and that it enters, by its
lessons, into the individual character at new points.
The voice which it utters speaks after it was sup-
posed to have given its full message, and it is
heard in some other region of the soul's hving.
The first thought dies away apparently, it may be,
when it has imparted its quickening influence to
the mind. But it becomes, in fact, the origin of
new suggestions, and new quickening power, until
the whole character of the man may be set forward.
A striking peculiarity of the teaching of Jesus,
which cannot fail to be noticed by every careful
student of the Gospels, is the suggestion of such
seed-thoughts, as we may call them. He said what
was above the present understanding of those who
heard Him, or what had wide-reaching application
beyond the teaching or the circumstances of the
hour. Nothing is more characteristic of Him than
this, as He appears before us in His conversations
with thinking men, or with His twelve disciples,
which are recorded in the Fourth Gospel. He
taught and spoke thus, because His teaching was
life-teaching, not that of the philosophers and the
43
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
doctors. Life-teaching, such as His, is always sug-
gestive. It is always intended to plant itself in the
soul as a power, and to reveal its vivifying force
whenever and wherever it may. Hence it is ever
creative, and always a blessing. Hence also, it
always carries within itself the promise of the here-
after — a hereafter which may begin with a first
explanation in a moment or an hour, but which
may become richer in its gifts of understanding
for years, or even beyond the counting of years.
What an emphasis must have been given to the
teaching of service and humility in the mind of
Peter as he carried the remembrance of this act of
the Divine Friend through his after life. How
much, and how many things, it must have opened
to him, as he told the story of the Master to the
churches which he established, and as he found
the greatness and honour of his apostolic office to
be in the sphere of humble service to the brother-
hood. Thus it was with the other disciples. John's
character, which was so rich and beautiful that it
has challenged the world's admiration, was, as we
may not doubt, the growth out of such seed-
thoughts. The richness of his inner life was the re-
sult of what Jesus had done and said, as this worked
its way into the recesses of the soul with a con-
stantly new manifestation of that which was hidden
within itself at the first. And this is the beautiful
thing in the growth of all purest life. We are
placed by the Divine teacher in a school of thought
and character, as it were. We are assured that our
life is to be an education, pointing by the necessity
44
THE INNER LIFE
which pertains to it as such, to the future, and then
we are left to the influence of the events, and the
teachings, and the thoughts, which may be sent
to us by the Master's will. Each one of these
may become a seed for growth. Each one of them
may be taken by us into our inmost souls, and may
abide there as a force for the developing and per-
fecting of character. They may be forgotten for a
while, or may seem to have finished their work for
us. But they remain with perpetual life ; and, like
the half-forgotten knowledge or study of the past,
they waken again for new influence and new uses
when, in some unexpected hour, the soul's experi-
ence or need moves near them. And when they
are thus awakened, the understanding of what they
are, and what they have in themselves, becomes
more complete; and the hereafter stands in yet
more glorious contrast to the now of the beginning.
The thought of a verse like this is often under-
stood as applying exclusively to the sorrowful
things of life. But that to which Jesus here applied
the words was no sorrowful thing. It was loving
service. It was humility, one of the sweetest of all
the virtues. Jesus was teaching lessons of char-
acter. He was, in all His words, giving the Divine
idea of life. He was telling how the soul grows
through the promise of the future — the assurance
of knowing hereafter what it does not now know —
and not only this, but of knowing the meaning of
what now comes within its vision, or its experience,
with a depth of knowledge which passes far beyond
45
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
our present understanding. This is the way in
which we are educated, according to the Christian
method, and the Christian conception of Hfe as an
education. It is a wonderful way of growing indeed,
and a beautiful one. Nothing can be thought of
that is better or happier — a way in which all our
experiences, and all that is done with us, or for us,
by the Divine Teacher and Father may become
more and more suggestive of the thought and feel-
ing which strengthen character, and more and more
full of meaning and of light, as the years move for-
ward in their course. All things must work together
for good for those who are in such an education for
a perfected life in the future.
But one of the chief wonders of this wonderful
process is seen in connection with the sorrowful
things. In these things, some of the greatest forces
for the building of lofty character are found. They
tell the soul more of its deepest emotion, and its
richest life, than the joyful things do ; for truth, as
it bears on the soul's growth, lies very near to
tender feeling, and to that sense of dependence
which comes with loss or trial. But the sorrowful
things, like the joyful ones, point to the revelation
of the hereafter, and when they are taken into the
soul's thinking and its learning, they work towards
the light. Nothing is more true in Christian ex-
perience than this. The man who, as the years
have passed, finds himself already having attained
to some large measure of true manhood, will always
bear witness, that in these things was the largest
influence which worked to the realisation of the
46
THE INNER LIFE
end ; and the testimony will also be, that, in this
way and for this reason, the sorrowful things
became joyful ones in their result, and for the
hereafter.
Thus as we leave our meditation at this time on
these words of Jesus let us carry in our remem-
brance what they reveal of the Christian idea of
life and of the promise of the ever-opening future,
and let us place ourselves under the guiding wis-
dom of the loving Teacher, who always repeats to
each one of us, in our limitations and our imperfect
present knowledge : *' What I do thou knowest not
now, indeed, but thou shalt understand hereafter."
47
IV
WHAT GOOD THING SHALL I DO
A fid behold 07ie came to hiin and said, Master, what good
thmg shall I do, that I may have eternal life f And he
said unto him, Why askcst thou 7ne concerni?ig that which
is good f One there is who is good: but if thou wouldest
enter into life, keep the cojujuandments. He saith u7ito him,
Which ? And Jesus said. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt
not cofnmit adulte?y. Thou shalt 7iot steal, Thou shalt 7iot
bear false witness, Ho7iour thy father a7id thy 7nother : a7id.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself The you7ig 7nan
saith ti7ito hi77i. All these thi7igs have I observed : what
lack I yet? Jesus said U7ito him, If thou wouldest be per-
fect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in heave7i : a7id co7ne, follow 7ne. But
whe7i the you7ig 7na7i heard that sayifig, he wefit away
sorrowful J for he was 07ie that had great possessio7is.
Matthew xix. 16-22.
THE person who is represented in this brief story
as coming to Jesus is brought before us in a
very interesting Hght. He is a young man of high
position, — Luke speaks of him as a ruler, — and of
lovable character. He is one who has evidently
studied the questions which most deeply concern
us as men ; the questions relating to the true life of
the soul. He believes in the good, and naturally
turns to one in whom he has seen the evidence of
genuine goodness, or of whom he has heard as
48
THE INNER LIFE
teaching the way to attain it. He is honestly try-
ing, and has been trying in the past, to lay hold
upon the blessing according to the rules which
have been set before him. He has meant to do
right, as he thinks, and thus to be right. He has,
in one sense at least, observed and kept the com-
mands of the Divine law, as revealed to his mind.
But with all his doing and effort, he has not found
inward peace. The assurance of the life eternal,
which he seeks, has eluded his seeking. The
question of all significance is not yet answered.
Jesus often, in His ministry, met with doubters
and enemies. He was compelled to set His truth
before those whom He knew were unwilling to
receive Him, and to subdue within them a strong
opposition, before He could secure them for Him-
self. But here was no sceptic, and no open adver-
sary. Here was a man who was so hopeful of
finding in Him something to help and satisfy his
soul that, as one of the evangelists tells us, he ran
towards Him with all eagerness as He was going
forth on His journey. He would lay before the
new Teacher the want and difficulty which he felt,
and would trust that, peradventure, a light would
come from the words that should be uttered, which
would guide him safely to the desired end. Such,
I think, may be regarded as his real position. He
was, as one has said, an honest, though erroneous,
seeker after truth and life.
His education, however, had been under the
Pharisaic influences of the time, and while he
seems to have realised that there was something
4 49
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
beyond the mere perfunctory righteousness which
many of these teachers taught, he still centred his
thoughts, as they did, upon doing, rather than being.
The gift of eternal life, to his mind, was to be the
reward for the doing of some good thing; and as
he did not seem to have attained it as yet, or the
sure hope of it, as the result of what he had already
done, he would learn, if possible, what the thing,
till now unknown, was, which, being done, should
carry within itself the rich promise of the future.
" What good thing shall I do?" was his question.
The good things to which I have devoted myself in
the past have not proved sufficient. What is it that
remains? Tell me where I shall find it, and the
doing on my part shall be ready, in order that the
happiness may follow.
The sincerity of the young man's spirit, and the
rectitude and innocence, as men call it, of his life,
were such that Jesus loved him, as the truest souls
love all that is beautiful in character, even though
the divinest beauty is not in it. But while He was
thus moved towards affection for him, He saw that
the essence of true living was not to be found in
him, because he rested in the doing, and his thoughts
did not go out beyond it, or into the deeper life
within.
There are lovable and yet restless souls every-
where, I am sure, whose position in this regard is
like that of the young ruler. They have seen the
right, and in a sense desired it. They have set be-
fore themselves the eternal life as the great thing to
be secured at the end, and have always felt that,
50
THE INNER LIFE
without the attainment of this reward, the life here
will prove to be a hopeless failure. They have, as
they thought, sincerely endeavoured to do the duties
of life, and thus to make the end their own. But
they have limited their thought and energy to the
sphere of action only, and have lost sight of the
sources from which action derives all good that
there is, or can be in it. And when they have dis-
covered that peace has not come to their souls with
the doing of this good thing or the other, which has
just entered with its influence into their lives, they
are restless to find some new good thing, different
perchance from what they have known before, that
by the doing of this also they may gain the prize.
Lovable souls they often are in the earlier years, but
they are moving away from the true line of living ;
and by and by, as if by a law of the soul's nature,
they lose out of themselves the lovable element more
and more, and become, at the best, mere men of
good works without any inspiring life-force — that
is, of works which are dead and valueless to the view
of every man who knows what the deepest life is.
We may next observe how Jesus answered the
young man's question. It is noticeable, in the first
place, that He met him on the ground of his inquiry.
He did not turn his thought to faith and repentance
directly, but, as the question had been with reference
to something to be done. He reminds him of the
sphere within which it is to be found. The keeping
of the divine commandments is the means by which
eternal life is to be gained. To do God's will, as it
51
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
Is made known, is to secure the reward. And wlien
the questioner, who is filled with the idea of some
special and remarkable good thing as essential to
the end, asks in reply, Which command, or as the
expression more properly means. What sort of com-
mand — Of what singular and peculiar character is
this command of which you speak, He simply
points him to the well-known requirements of the
law: Do not kill; Do not bear false witness;
Honour thy father and mother. The way to life is
not a far-off path. It lies before you, along the line
of your daily living. Do the duty, refrain from the
evil, which you meet from day to day. The answer
was so simple that the man could scarcely under-
stand it. I have been fulfilling all these things from
my early youth until now, he says, but no peace has
come. Tell me of something more and further —
some great thing which is, at the same time, the
good tiling. But no — Jesus has only the simple
words : Do not kill, Do not bear false witness.
The purpose of Jesus was to teach him the truth
from his own starting-point. So long as you think
of mere doing, there is no one great thing to be dis-
covered. The sum of duty is the law, with its words
which you think you have always obeyed. If you
have not realised in your soul the blessing which
you seek, you must ask some other question than
this which you are thinking of. Life goes with the
doing of the requirements indeed, but not with
the doing as an outward act. The law is fulfilled in the
spirit of it, and there is no keeping of its commands
until this spirit rules and guides the soul.
52
THE INNER LIFE
The Christian teaching is hke the teaching of the
Master. It approaches all who would seek life in
the mere fulfilment of prescribed duties as Jesus ap-
proached this ruler. They are ever asking for some
new thing to be done, as they come to know that
what has been done has failed. They persuade
themselves that they are ready to do anything, how-
ever great it may be, and however much of effort
and self-sacrifice it may require, if they can only
have tJie one thing made known to them which will
surely bring the result. The unsatisfied want of their
hearts is ever asking where it is. But the Christian
teaching constantly reminds them, that the old and
familiar commandments are those whose fulfilment
is required — that eternal life lies near to them ; and,
in this way, it strives to lead their minds to some
truer conception of what obedience unto life is —
not mere doing the good thing, or turning away from
the bad thing, but doing, or turning away, with the
obedient and loving spirit. The same outward act
may have two different characters, as determined by
the presence or absence of this inward spirit ; and,
when determined in character by its presence, it
takes hold upon the blessing, no matter whether in
itself it be small or great.
We may well notice, also, the manner in which
the test of his own character was placed before the
questioner. Jesus did not set up some abstract rule
or method of deciding what right character or good
action is. He did not proclaim the truth in the case
as a moral teacher or philosopher might do. But
53
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
with that wonderful knowledge of the soul which He
manifested everywhere, He adapted His words to
the individual man before Him. He penetrated, as
with divine wisdom, the secret recesses of this man's
character, and taught him personally what he needed
to be taught. Moreover, in doing this, He revealed
him to himself. It was for this end, no doubt, that
He dealt with him as He did. The individual soul
was what Jesus was ever seeking; and whether the
soul should be gained, as the result of the seeking,
or should be lost. He desired ever to make it know
itself and know its real attitude towards the truth.
The young man was not told that, so far from keep-
ing the commandments, all of them, as he supposed,
he had in reality transgressed some of them, or
failed in the right doing of the special things which
they required. He was not reminded m words that
he was self-righteous, or even that his mind was
dwelling in the sphere of mere external acts. So
far from this, which might have turned him away
from Jesus, with a justification of himself, or into a
determined opposition, and have accomplished noth-
ing for the opening of his true character to his
own consciousness, Jesus called his thought to a
single action, which was connected with the peculiar
condition of his own personal life. He was very rich
and had great possessions, the evangelists tell us.
Jesus bids him sell what he has, and give to the poor.
If you desire to know the good thing to be done, or
the thing which, in your individual case, will be the
fulfilling of the commandments, Jesus says to him as
it were, do this which the animating spirit of the law
54
THE LYNER LIEE
in all its requirements calls upon you personally to
do, and then you may come and follow me to the
securing of eternal life. How central, as related
to character, do these words become to the one to
whom they are spoken. How clearly, in and of
themselves, and with the addition of no further
word, do they reveal to him the depths of his
inner self.
And so it is always with the Christian teaching.
It deals with the individual soul, and adapts its de-
mands and lessons to each one for himself. There
is no call sent forth to every man to sell his prop-
erty and give to the poor about him. The over-
powering love of riches may not be in the heart
of every person who has great possessions, or even
if it is present, it may not be the thing which deter-
mines the character and constitutes the turning
point of life or death. It was so in this young man's
case, and doubtless is in many similar cases. But
there may be, in many others, no such love of
wealth, and the turning point of character may be
elsewhere. Let it be where it will, however, there
is, at that point, some act or decision which is, in the
sense in which Jesus uses the words, the doing of
the commandments. And this, not because of the
value or life-giving power of the act in itself, but
because in the doing of the act at the demand of
righteousness and of God the man has born within
him the spirit which fills the law and gives it its
living force.
There come to each one of us some such critical
moments of decision and action, at which character
55
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
turns in one direction or another — and the turning,
at such a moment, may involve all the future.
These moments become tests for the soul. The
thing involved in the divine demand may be not as
great as that which is here mentioned by the evan-
gelist — it may be of a very different character.
But it will be a thing in which self is sacrificed, and
the man is brought under the rule of love. If the
sacrifice is refused, the nobleness of the soul gives
way. The evil power gains new strength and, it may
be, becomes ever afterward resistless. If the sacri-
fice, on the other hand, is willingly made, the soul
finds the thing which has hitherto been lacking —
the good thing which secures for it eternal life. So
soon as this demand has been met, the way to go
forward into the true and eternal life is opened ;
and the man has only to follow after the Master, as
the impulse of his soul will move him to do, and to
find the life where He found it.
The young man went away sorrowful. The test
made him known to himself. He saw, in a moment,
that he had not fulfilled the commandments, and
that the Hfe-principle was not within him. He saw
also that, for the unwilling soul, the giving entrance
to the life-principle was a far harder and more try-
ing thing than the doing of the most difficult acts,
and that, in asking for some great thing to be done,
he had failed to comprehend the greater things of
character and loving obedience to duty. He was
brought into the life-struggle of the soul by the
words of Jesus, and the victory, as he knew, was
lost. He was grieved, but he turned away.
56
THE INXER LIFE
What a different thing hfe would have been for
him in the future, if he had turned its course in the
opposite direction ! The words of the story are
very suggestive in this regard. Jesus assures him
that, if he will yield to the demand which carries for
his soul the life-forces within itself, he will have at
oiice tJie great possession, in place of tJie great posses-
sions. The eternal life is not simply an inheritance
to be bestowed and waited for. It is something to
be gained in the very fulfilment of the required duty.
And this, because it is life. The act is nothing in
itself, as we may say, — hard as it is, it is a mere
doing of one thing rather than another. But in it
the mind and purpose turn from selfishness to love,
and the man is changed. Yesterday the man was
moving downward, in the controlling impulses of
the soul, but now he begins to move upward. The
life-principle was at the point of the action, and the
movement follows where the principle impels, just
as the stream flows westward, or eastward, as the
fountain turns on the mountain summit. Life moves,
indeed, and grows afterward, and takes into itself all
that may naturally belong to it, and reaps con-
tinually its own reward ; and thus there is progress,
and gradual development, and slow advance, as it
may seem to be, towards a distant future. But,
nevertheless, it has at the beginning what it has at
the end, its own vital power, which is the reward.
And so Jesus says to the questioner, in the very
words of His sentence : not, Give to the poor and
then follow me ; and thou shalt find at the end a
treasure in heaven; but, Give to the poor and thou
57
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
shalt have the treasure in heaven ; and Come, follow
me. The assurance of the heavenly treasure — that
is, the true and eternal life of the soul, with all the
blessings which it does, and may, involve — is thine
already, when this act of giving, which is the turn-
ing act of the life, is done. What thou mayest do,
and wilt do joyfully, after the moment of turning, is
to follow me.
The whole thought and idea of the young man,
as he approached Jesus with his earnest inquiry and
with his hope of gaining light from Him, were mis-
taken from the very foundation. His mind had
been moving, as the minds of many like him even
in this age, to whom we have alluded, are now mov-
ing, in the sphere of the legal system and of reward
for works. But discipleship to Christ is not a long
labour, or a long pathway, at the end of which we
secure a reward in payviciit for what we have done.
It is a life which has its inheritance as its birthright
at the outset, and moves forward in the conscious
possession of it. In this sense it follows, rather than
precedes, the attainment of the end. It is a move-
ment along the line of true living, which begins
from the self-propelling impulses of a new life. It
is a learning from Christ ; a service and imitation of
Him; a following after Him as the great Master
and Teacher, because in Him is manifestly set forth,
in its perfectness and glory, this life into which the
soul has newly entered. And thus the turning to
the new life — whatever may be the special act of the
man in the doing of which it takes place — is always
a joyful turning. It takes into itself the joy which
58
THE INNER LIFE
Jesus meant to have the young ruler take, when He
said to him: Sell that thou hast and give to the
poor. The young ruler's countenance fell as he
heard the saying, and he moved on into the future
sorrowful, because he had turned backward along
the old course of his living. But there was nothing
like this where Jesus pointed him. There was the
beginning of a new Hfe-force there, just within his
grasp — just ready to be the inspiration of all his
future existence — just waiting to give him the
blessing to which no sorrow is added. There was
a new life there, which should be, like all true and
beautiful life, full of joy because full of its own
activity ; growing stronger and richer because of the
continual forth-putting of its own powers ; realising
ever more and more fully the greatness of the in-
heritance, the possession of which it knew to be an
essential part of itself at the moment when it began
to know its own being. The treasure becomes yours
when you turn toward God, instead of turning away
from Him — such is the meaiimg of the words ad-
dressed to the young ruler, as they go forth beyond
him to all who ask the question which he asked —
the treasure becomes yours so soon as you turn
toward God, instead of turning away from Him.
Come, is the invitation^ learn what the treasure is
in its joy and blessing, by following after Christ.
And now, as we have followed out the line of
thought thus far, we find a suggestion as to the sig-
nificance of the words which seem strange to us at
first, and with which Jesus opens His part of the
59
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
conversation: — Why askest thou me concerning
that which is good? One there is who is good.
The Christian message does not come to teach us
what is good, as if this had never been revealed to
men before. The good lies in the fulfilling of what
God commands — that is, the expression of His
will, which is the outcome of the perfect life within
Himself. Do the will of God, and become like
Him. This is the fundamental truth of all soul-life.
But this is a revelation of God in the consciences of
men, and in the law which was given long ages be-
fore the coming of the Gospel. Jesus was not a
new teacher, in the sense in which his questioner
seemed to look upon Him as such — a teacher who
could add to the old commandments and services
some one great thing, in the doing of which the
secret of life and peace was to be discovered. His
purpose and work were to a different end from this.
He came only to point the way, and to open the
way to God — to bring the soul back to that start-
ing-place of life, as it were, where with a newly
awakened and efficient life-force it could successfully
begin the work of true, loving obedience. There-
fore, His bidding to this young man was : Do the
commandments — the simple, plain, old commands
of the law: not to kill, or steal, or bear false witness
— but do them, not as you have been doing them,
but with a full sense of their meaning and with the
spirit of God's children. To give you this sense
and this spirit, which you have lost out of yourself,
as you will realise in your own mind in a little while,
when I call you to give up your possessions for the
60
THE INNER LIFE
help of the poor around you, — to make you this
gift was the purpose of my coming to you as a
teacher. To receive this gift should be the purpose
of your coming to me. Do not call inc^ Good Master
— none is good save one, that is, God. Do not ask
me respecting the good. One there is, who is good
— the Divine Father. Let vie only reveal you to
yourself, and open your mind and your way to
Him. My doctrine is no new commandment ; it is
the old commandment which was from the begin-
ning. My words are spirit, and they are life.
Take them into yourself, and you are a new man.
The secret of the life which you desire is in the
life-force.
We come thus at this point to the central truth.
The Christian doctrine is not a revealing of what the
good is, as if this had never been made known
before, but a revealing of the way to attain it. The
good is righteousness. The good is conformity
in the life to the will, and thus to the character, of
the one Being who is good — that is, God. But
how shall we gain it? This is the question which
we need to have answered for us, and Christianity
gives us its answer.
It is worthy of notice, as we take leave of the
story and its thoughts, how completely this answer
turns the man away from self and selfishness.
Jesus bids the young ruler seek after the good,
which brings life and is life, in God. He is to find
what he asks for in a personal communion with the
source and author of the wonderful gift. He is to
6i
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
attairx to this communion by a fulfilment of what is
required as the essential element of true action and
life; — and this fulfilment is to be the result and
outgrowth of that principle of love which is the
opposite of all selfishness. He bids him, again, in
his movement towards fulfilling the law, to do those
things which the law requires in his relations to his
fellow-men. Do no ill to those about you, but ever
do them good. Have that loving spirit within you,
the out-flowing of which is service and helpfulness,
and thus abide in the sphere of that golden rule of
life which inspires yoti, while it commands you, to do
to others as you would have them do to you. In
this way, take the demands of the Divine law, as it
was given at the beginning, into the deepest and
inmost part of your soul, and make it the spring and
fountain of all good deeds. He bids him, once
more, to follow after Himself. Come, be my dis-
ciple — not as asking me one question, or how to do
one thing, and then going away to depend on your-
self, and to deceive yourself with the thought that
you are obedient to the law ; — but, as a true follower
in the way of the soul's true life, imitating, trusting,
believing in, and yielding the soul, with its active
powers and its loving powers, to the Teacher who
will lead you away from the evil that is in yourself
towards and into that good which dwells, in its ful-
ness, in the one God. And so the bidding and
the lesson are from the beginning to the end the
same. Let him deny himself and follow me. Let
him gain his life by losing it, and let him receive the
hundredfold reward in the eternal good — which is
62
THE INNER LIFE
the perfected soul, perfect in love — through giving
up all that centres the soul in its selfishness and
itself.
How clearly the lesson gathered itself into one
word and one act, when Jesus said, Go, sell that
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven. The life in the lower sense
would be lost in the moment of the doing of that
act, and the life in the higher sense would be gained
at the same moment, because the act was so central,
as related to the life-forces, that it carried within it-
self the change for all the future. The same is true
of us. There is somewhere, for each one of us, a
movement towards God which takes hold of loving
trustfulness in Him, and is the beginning of the
eternal life. It is a movement which answers to the
inviting and teaching word of Jesus, and is ever
afterward a following after Him. The supreme
moment of our life-time is the moment when this
word is spoken. The question of the eternal good
for us is the question of our yielding to the call and
bidding of the Master, or our turning away. The
young ruler heard the word, and sorrowfully went
to his old life once more. But the true life-forces
were not to be found in the old path ; and his going
away was a far more sorrowful thing than he
thought.
63
THE HEAVENLY VISION
Wherefore^ O King Agrippa^ I was not disobedient unto the
heaveftly visio7i. — Acts xxvi. 19.
THE conversion of the Apostle Paul from his
Jewish belief to his Christian faith, from his
bitter enmity against Jesus to an all-constraining
love for Him, and from an old life of harassing
inward struggle to a new life of inward peace, has
always stood forth in the history of the Church so
conspicuously as to arrest the attention of every
serious mind. The suddenness and the complete-
ness in the change of the man bear witness of a
remarkable power putting forth its energy, the real-
ity of which it is impossible to deny. One day a
persecutor; the next day a preacher; and the great
transformation taking place by reason of a wonder-
ful Hght breaking forth at noon-day — there must
have been something in the scene and event, the
reader of the narrative is impelled to say, which had
a marvellous, if not mysterious, force for character
and life. There must have been behind what was
made manifest to the bodily eye, or in the centre, as
it were, of that which was revealed to the senses, a
life-moving element for the soul. The man does
not become a new man — the newness does not
64
THE INNER LIFE
make itself known as absolute and immediate • — un-
less new and mighty energies arc in movement at
the hour. The wonder of the result proves the
wonder of the cause, and there is no room for
doubting when the result appears. Life testifies
unmistakably of what lies back of it, for life is itself
the movement of living forces.
It cannot but be interesting, if we are interested in
Christian history and experience, or even if we are
interested, as every manly man must be, in the con-
dition and possibilities of the soul within us, to look
into what the person who had this great change in
his own life said about it, and to interpret his words
by what we know of him after the hour of the won-
derful scene.
The words of the verse which is taken as the sub-
ject of our thought give us tJie cause of the change,
and the working force in the life that followed it.
We may look at the words from the two points of
view.
The cause of the change is represented in the
expression : the heavenly vision. What w as it, that
was seen? It was a person. The Apostle saw Jesus.
The wonderful man concerning whom he had heard
so much, but in whom he had had so little disposi-
tion to believe — whose career he thought to have
been ignominiously and disastrously ended by His
ignominious death, and whose influence he doubted
not would cease, so soon as His few followers could
be scattered or suppressed — appeared in a marvel-
lous way. He manifested himself as still alive ; as
5 6S
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
exalted to a higher position, and higher power ; as
standing in close relation to His disciples ; as plan-
ning for and ordering His cause in the world ; as
uniting in Himself and in His thought the heavenly
things and the earthly, now that He had passed
from the latter to the former. He stood forth
clearly as what He had claimed to be, and as what
those who had trusted Him supposed that He was
— the divine messenger and Messiah sent from God.
But there was something beyond this, and some-
thing which was even more and nearer to Paul's per-
sonal life. The wonderful man declared Himself to
be affected by what he had individually been doing.
The persecution of His followers had not found its
end in them ; it had reached Him. The attempt to
destroy the new belief was, in reality, an attempt
put forth against Him who had awakened it. The
onward movement in the line which Paul had
chosen, and along which he was pressing so deter-
minately and earnestly, was a movement in opposi-
tion to Him whose voice called to another line of
action and another manner of living. There was a
revelation of one personality to another personality,
involving all which the one could reveal to the other.
I am Jesus — so the voice said; — What am I to
you, and what are you to me? These were the
questions and thoughts which the scene brought to
the mind of the one who witnessed it. They were
thoughts to be dwelt upon, and questions to be
answered, in the meditations of the years that fol-
lowed, as well as in the first thinking of the present
hour.
66
THE INNER LIFE
This is the representation of the matter which the
Apostle gives in both of his two descriptions of the
vision recorded in the narrative of the historian, and
in all the passages of his own writings, also, in which
he makes allusion to it. The sight which he had
was a sight of Jesus; and the moving force for life
was the force which came from His personality.
We miss the very essence and central significance
of the whole matter when we view it in any other
way. The Apostle was not, as related to the great
and remarkable change which took place in his
inmost life, a man of reflection, or a philosopher,
who had long been searching after the true doctrine
of righteousness, and had finally reasoned out for
himself the doctrine of faith. Much less was he one
who, having been dissatisfied with all experiments
and experiences which he had known in the past,
had suddenly, as it seemed to himself at the moment,
though probably not so afterwards, come to the
conviction that the way of faith was the only way to
attain forgiveness and salvation. His mind, even in
the after years, when he became a great teacher of
the churches, — much as it had to do with doctrine,
or dwelt upon it for the benefit of others — never
had the real movement of its living powers in the
sphere of doctrine. This movement was in the
sphere of personal living. All new thoughts which
came to him — all new revealings — were of life, and
for life. The doctrine entered through the door of
the life, and was a secondary thing, while the life
was primary. It was but the setting forth in words
of the way in which the living begins and goes for-
67
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
ward — useful for Its purpose, but not the first and
all-important and all-embracing thing. Life was
this all-important thing. It was so as truly in the
earlier days as it was in the later days. The deeply-
implanted and fundamental characteristics of the
man were not altered as the strange light shone in
upon him. The same enthusiasm for living, as dis-
tinguished from everything else, was in him at the
first, and remained in him. The line of its outgoing
only was, in the later time, a new one. The pur-
pose of the man at the first, as always, was a pur-
pose of life, and to the movement of life, and of
its forces, all his thinking was wholly subordinate.
The fact that it was thus, made the suddenness and
the wonder of the change possible. There could be
no great visions and revelations for such a man,
except visions and revelations for personal life.
How was it, then, that Paul saw the truth, or the
way of life and peace for his soul? He saw, in the
sudden light of the moment, what the other disciples
had seen in the years preceding. He saw that in
Jesus the Divine Father was manifesting Himself in
relation to men as His children, and that thus, In and
through Jesus, he could come into personal relation
to God as his Father. The whole matter of life for
himself was thus changed at once for his thought.
He was not living, as he had supposed himself to be,
under a system of rules appointed for him by a
governing power, in which the starting-point of all
action was within himself, and through which noth-
ing but law moved towards his soul. He was living
68
THE INNER LIFE
under a system, though he had not realised it at all,
of personal love. The voice which called him was
a Father's voice. Because it was so, it carried the
offer of forgiveness in itself — a free forgiveness, full
and without conditions — immediate, and not depen-
dent on a previous testing of long-continued action.
Because it was so, it bore witness of loving trust as
the uniting and re-uniting power which should bind
the soul to God — uniting, where no sin had entered
to break the union ; re-uniting, where there had
been such an entrance. How strange that he had
never, before this, seen the truth ! How beautiful it
seemed, now that he saw it !
The words were very few, and very personal
words : I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. I am
the messenger of God bearing to you, and to all men,
the message of the Divine love, and you are resist-
ing the message and persecuting the messenger. I
place myself now before you, and place you, also,
before myself. Think what we are, in our relation
to each other — how you ought to feel towards me,
and how you are feeling. You are moving in the
wrong direction — wrong in a sinful way. You are
acting as an enemy to one whom you ought to love
— to one who has said all things and done all things
in love to you. The soul's life is not, and cannot
be, found where you are moving. It is not in
enmity, but in love. How can you find your way
back to it? By the pathway, and the only pathway,
in which souls move into union — the pathway of
loving confidence, the pathway of faith. Turn
back upon your course and into this way; and for-
69
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
giveness and peace will meet you at once. They
will meet you at once, for I am in the pathway, and
the Father is in me.
Such were the thoughts that the voice brought to
him. They were involved in the words which were
spoken. They bore in themselves a revelation which
included everything for the man's personal living.
They constituted, as we may truly say, the vision,
for in the sight of Jesus, as the vision made Him
known, they were opened to the mind. It is no
wonder that they came in a moment, or that they
changed the whole of life for the man who received
them into his soul. This is the manner in which
great life-thoughts come and work — oftentimes, if
not always. Every true man knows somewhat of
such experiences in his own mental and moral
development. That is a beautiful story — as real in
the history of the soul as it is beautiful in the telling
of it — that story of the Prodigal Son, which Luke
has recorded for us among the sayings of Jesus. It
gathers up and centres in itself the gospel-teaching
of forgiveness and life. But of all the wonderful
and real things suggested in it, there is nothing more
impressive for our thought than the suddenness of
the new revelation for tJie soiiV s life, which came to
the returning son when he saw his father in the
pathway. He had before this, in all the seriousness
of his mind which followed what the writer of the
Gospel calls his coming to himself, been thinking of
action beginning on his own part, and of earning
favour by good deeds in the future, and of full
reconciliation and restoration to the old tenderness
70
THE INNER LIFE
of love on the father's side, when he had proved, by
days or years of better Hving, his right to be trusted.
But as the father stood before him, suddenly and
unexpectedly revealed, the vision opened to him the
inner life of the man whom he saw, and at the same
moment opened to him also a new understanding of
the relation of his own inner life to the life which
he saw. He apprehended, as through the breaking
forth of a light from heaven, that the renewed union
of the two souls was to be secured through loving
faith, to which immediate forgiveness answered, and
thus that the life-pathway was the plainest and
easiest of all pathways — with forgiveness and trust
meeting each other at the very beginning of the
path.
Paul was not a man like the prodigal, indeed, —
far from it, — but he had the same revelation of the
true life-way, and it came with the same suddenness,
and after a similar manner. The old thinking gave
way before the new vision. The new vision was the
vision of the personality of him who was revealed
in the one case as truly as it was in the other, and it
carried in itself, in both cases alike, all the forces of
the changed life. These forces were loving trust on
the one part, and loving favour on the other — a thing
on each side which the man had not comprehended
before, but which, when comprehended, could not
but stir, for all the future, the deepest thoughts of
the soul.
The reasoning, the arguments and proofs, the de-
velopment of the true doctrine, the unfolding of the
plan and system of the Divine working for the re-
71
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
newed life of men — all this belonged to a later
season. All this had relation to the mind's thinking
and to the presentation of the truth to others. It
needed the growth of thought out of the first seed-
thought. It could wait for a time till the coming of
its own appropriate hour. But the man, at this
critical moment, was in another sphere. He was in
the great personal crisis for himself. He needed
only — and imperatively — the seed-thought, which
should have its growth afterwards. This seed-
thought was connected with the relation of his own
personality to the Divine personality, and it required
for its coming to the man, and its implantation
within him, one thing alone — the meeting of the
two personalities. The vision realised this meeting.
It had in itself the cause of what followed in the after
time, but did not gather into itself everything that
followed, whether in thought or in act. The soul-
movement which it knew as a real experience set in
motion the mind-movement and the life-movement,
but these in their completeness became real experi-
ences only when the after-time had come. The
cause was not the effect ; but it produced the effect.
What pertained to the vision was not the whole of
the changed life of the future ; but it was the whole
of the change, out of which the future naturally, and
as by a necessity, came into being. It was, as life-
changes are, the matter of a single momentous hour
which centres all in itself
Such was the cause of the change. The working-
force, by which the cause of the change was con-
72
THE INNER LIFE
nected with the result, is also indicated in the words
of Paul. Let us look at this for a few moments.
*' I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision."
I did not resist, but I yielded myself to the influ-
ences which came to me from it. How simple and
natural it was ! The son met his father in the path-
way, as he had not thought of meeting him. At
the moment of the meeting, he saw in the father
what he had not thought to see. The revelation
was as distinct, and as complete, as it was unex-
pected. It opened an entirely new view of life and
its forces. It revealed love, and forgiveness, and
far-reaching possibilities, and wonderful hopes.
But there was a further revelation for the son's
life which came forth from that of the father's
life. It was the revelation of a new impulse
withm himself ^ which was to make the life's move-
ment afterward an easy one, and which would
prove a uniting power linking the cause of the
changed life to all the results. The impulse was
that of obedience to what the vision carried in
itself. The vision for Paul bore witness that the
Divine Father's love was ready, with a boundless
readiness, to forgive and pass over the past at the
very moment of the first turn in the soul's attitude
and feeling. The impulse of his manly soul was
to meet the love on God's part with an answering
love on his own. The Friend who had stayed him
on his journey through the suddenness and bright-
ness of the light from heaven, had said all things
in testimony of love and of the Father when He
said, I am Jesus whom thou art persecuting. The
73
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
response could be no other than it was : What
wilt thou have me to do? The reconciliation,
which terminated the old life for him and began
the new life, was a change from enmity to love on
the one part, because of the overflowing fulness
of love on the other — and the impulse of the new
life was inseparable from the life itself.
We look along the course of the life-time after
that hour, and we see the new force working every-
where, and at all times. No sooner had the vision
passed, in the wonderful effect which it produced
for the moment, than the carrying out of the obedi-
ence to it began. In the very city to which he
had directed his way that he might accomplish his
hostile purpose, destroying the faith in Jesus if
this should be possible, he begins to tell of Him
as the hope of the soul and the power of God.
The movement of his energy is, at once, in entire
contrast to what it had ever been before. He
cannot be earnest enough to satisfy his own desires
and to meet with fulness of result the obligation
which he feels. The years pass on, and it is ever
the same. The sentiment of his life is expressed in
the words which, at the middle point of his career,
he addressed to the Corinthian believers : ** The
love of Christ constraineth us, because he died for
us all; and he died for us that we should no longer
live for ourselves, but for him." These words were,
in reality, the remembrance of the vision. They
contained in themselves the essence of its mean-
ing, and, by their living presence and power within
his soul, caused it to abide with him always. So
74
THE INNER LIFE
he passed from city to city — so he preached to
Jews and Greeks — so he made his defence before
the high-priest and the emperor — so he endured
all sufferings and trials — so he fought the good
fight and kept the faith — so he finished his course,
as he had begun it, with the one principle always
triumphant in his soul, the principle of love for the
one who had loved him and manifested Himself to
him.
This is the way in which life moves, when it is
impelled by a great and grand impulse, taken into
himself by one man by reason of his meeting with
another. But the peculiar expression of the Apostle
is worthy of notice, and it has a revelation in itself.
" I was not disobedient." He does not say, I put
forth mighty effort; or I roused my energy anew
by daily and continual awakening; or I stirred
my enthusiasm by the thoughts of duty or of suc-
cess; or, even, I was active in obeying what I
seemed to have heard. He says simply, I was not
disobedient. The vision was a beautiful one, a
wonderful one. It had in it all thoughts of God in
His relation to my soul. It revealed to me Jesus
and all that is in Him. It set before me Jesus and
myself in the meeting together of the two person-
alities. There was but one thing needful for me to
do — and there never has been but this one thing,
from that far distant hour of my seeing the vision
to this late hour of my telling of it — and that was
not to resist its teaching and its influence. If I did
not resist these, the power for the life came forth of
itself. If I let it come, in the early or the late
75
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
hour — in the one equally as in the other — it came
directly, easily, sweetly, with heavenly naturalness,
to my soul, and showed itself in every way to be
fitted for my soul. So I have worked on, with
never-failing earnestness and with boundless enthu-
siasm, simply keeping the door of my soul open to
receive what the vision ever held within itself for
me. This is the story of my life, and now, as the
end seems to be drawing near, and I stand before
the great earthly powers awaiting their decision as
to my fate, I am calm and peaceful in my memory
of the vision and my thought of what it has done
for me. I am even doubtful as to what I may wish
to be the result, for I find, with an ever deepening
sense of the reality of the experience, that it is
Christ for me to live, and I know, with an ever
growing confidence, that it is Christ in me, and
with me, if I die.
This, my friend, is Christian experience from the
beginning to the end. I commend it to you, that
you may make it your own. The vision of Jesus is
before you, if you will only open your eyes to
behold it. You may see it to-day, if you will retire
into the depths of your own soul and let your true
personality meet His. The vision will be a more
beautiful one than you ever saw before. It will
have the great revelation of life for you. It will
have in itself the life-power and the life-impulse.
And the impulse which moves all forces within you
will come into your soul, at the first, — and ever,
again and again, through all the years — if you will
only not be disobedient to the vision, but will suffer
76
THE INNER LIFE
it to be for you what it truly is. The marvel of the
Divine impulse for noblest living is, that it enters
the soul of itself, when the vision is seen and the
man opens the door. It is the working-force of
the changed and renewed life, whose source is the
love made known in the vision. It starts all ener-
gies and activities ; moves to duty and endurance ;
gives strength for labour and trial ; stirs the man-
hood to enthusiasm and heroism ; makes life to be
full, and great, and victorious everywhere. But it
comes itself to the man gently and easily, asking of
him nothing but that the door may be opened to
receive it. It is breathed into his open soul with
the breathing of Divine love, even as Jesus breathed
on the earliest disciples when He met them on that
first Sunday evening, and said. Receive ye the Holy
Spirit. The effort, the struggle, the victory, come
with the years, and along the years. But they all
grow out of the impulse. It takes care of them
and secures them ; and, as it does so, it makes hfe
strong, and manly, and ready for the present and
the future alike. Let it enter in its own sweet way,
through your seeing the heavenly vision, and not
being disobedient to it. The life-time that follows
will be ever realising more fully for you, and within
you, what the life has in its possession and its
promise.
It is a very significant circumstance connected
with these words of the Apostle, as here recorded,
that they were addressed to a man who had no
interest in the speaker except that of curiosity, and
77
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
no openness of mind at all for the doctrine which
he declared. The man said to him a few moments
later, in a tone half of pity and half of contempt :
It is with a very little of persuasive power that you
are trying to make me a Christian. Your visions,
as you call them, have no meaning for me. They
have, as I believe, no reality for yourself. You are
a dreamer — a dreamer even to madness. My old
faith, or my no faith, is better than this ; and I have
known too much of life to trust to such dreamings.
Paul made the answer which came from the
inmost soul and from the soul's deepest experience :
I would to God that not only thou, but also all
that hear me, might become such as I am. What
I am is tJic reality of the vision. Life-power, which
transforms, and builds up, and new-creates the soul,
pertains to no dreaming. It is the most actual
and vital of all things. It comes to the soul, when
it comes from another as it came to me, not from
the picture of the man, or the dreaming of the man,
but from the man himself. Call to mind what I
was in the early days, and what I am now — think
of what I was just before the vision, and what I was
just afterwards; — and you may know for yourself
what the vision had in it — reality and vital force —
the cause and moving power of all that followed.
And this is the Christian testimony, which every
believer has for himself and for the doubting or
hostile world. I saw the vision, and it made me
what I am. The growing years, since I saw it,
have witnessed the growing life. The forces of the
growing life are still working, and they are making
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THE INNER LIEE
the man. The man within me, that is made, is the
reahty of all realities. No dream has made it.
Dreams fade away and die. No empty vision has
made it. The empty vision passes into nothing-
ness. It was the meeting of my personal soul
with the personality of Jesus which accomplished
the result, and is still accomplishing it. I am not
yet what I might be or ought to be — the years
have not wrought in me all that the vision would,
if unhindered in its influence, have realised. But I
am something, and more than I once was, in the
life of the soul that is worthy of the vision ; and
from the depth of the realised experience within
myself I say to each and every one, I would to
God that you all might become, in this regard,
what I am. The life which I now live, I live in
faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave Himself for me. It was a
beautiful vision. It is a glorious reality. The love
and the impulse came from the vision, and they
make the reality. They will make it for you, as
they have made it for me.
So the Christian stands in the world, ever bearing
witness as the Apostle did. His witness has in it a
Divinely-given power, and it testifies for the truth
of revelation and of experience.
79
VI
IN NOTHING BE ANXIOUS
In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and sup-
plication^ with thanksgivi?ig, let your requests be made
known unto God. A nd the peace of God, which passeth all
understandifig, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts
in Christ Jesus. — Philippians iv. 6, 7.
THE Epistle from which these words are taken
was written near the end of Paul's life, within
the two years of his stay in Rome, the reference to
which is found at the close of the Book of Acts.
There are many evidences in the letter that he had
gathered into his heart the lessons of a life-time, and
was now in the calmer and quieter mood of advanc-
ing age. He says that he has learned in whatsoever
state he is, therewith to be content ; that he knows
how to be abased, and how to abound ; that he can
do all things through Him that strengtheneth him ;
that he forgets the things which are behind, and
presses on beyond them towards the goal ; that he
is willing to have the Gospel preached, whether it be
by those in sympathy with himself or those strongly
opposed to his views, if so be that Christ is pro-
claimed ; that he is ready either to live or to die, as
may be best for the cause. These things are, all of
80
THE INNER LIFE
them, utterances which come more naturally from
one who has been long engaged in the struggle of
life, and to whom the ambitions, the hopes, and the
victories of the earthly warfare are becoming less
powerful in the soul than they once were. Paul did
not lose his energy, or his consecration to the work
of Christ, as the years carried him forward beyond
the age of sixty. But life became a different thing
from what it had been at his entrance upon his
labours; and he looked upon it from a different
standing-place.
It is certainly fitting, and may well be a matter of
interest, to contemplate him as he comes to this
quiet Christian feeling at the later period — de-
veloped, as it was, so beautifully, and so much more
fully than it could have been before. The life under
the educating influence of religion does not remain
always at one stage, or in one condition, but it grows
into greater richness and deeper power as it moves
on from period to period, until it passes into the
perfectness of heaven. But, as it is ever growing,
it gains the truest views in the later season — unless
it suffers other and evil influences to becloud the
clear mental vision.
The verses which have been chosen as the subject
of our thought contain a most appropriate suggestion
for a rule of living, and one which gains an especial
force because it comes to us from the earnest and
ardent Apostle in the calmer and later period of his
life. I know of nothing in all hterature which gives
such a picture of what our feeling and action ought
to be, or is a more beautiful motto for every man.
6 8i
THOUGHTS OF AXD FOR
In nothing be anxious. This is the Apostle's
reflection of the words of Christ in the Sermon on
the Mount, Be not anxious for the morrow. But it
bears the testimony of Paul's own life to these words.
The words suggest what he deemed life to be, in
the right view of it; and I am sure that we must
hold that he saw the truth. The view of life here
on earth which he had was, that it was a service like
that of a commissioned agent, or a soldier. The
plan of all working was not in the soldier's mind.
It belonged to his leader. Labour and duty, there-
fore, were the things for him ; results pertained to
the sphere of another. Now anxiety begins when
the soldier or servant allows his thought to go
beyond his appointed work, and when he demands
for his happiness success in his own part of the field,
and not merely success in the whole undertaking at
the end of all the conflict.
We see how Paul looked upon the matter for him-
self. He regarded himself and the other teachers
as mere ministers employed by God in different
parts of the one common work. The station assigned
to each, the success granted to each, was determined
by God. Whether as the layer of foundations, or
the builder upon them ; whether as a preacher to the
Gentiles where the Gospel had never been carried
before, or a presiding presbyter at Jerusalem;
whether to fail and be driven off in one city, or to
gain many converts in another; all these things
alike were in the Divine counsels. What was best
and wisest for the kingdom, he could not tell ; but
God who saw the end from the beginning could.
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THE INNER LIFE
He would be only the soldier, to go whither he was
sent, and to do what he was bidden. He would do
earnestly and enthusiastically what he had to do.
He would do it hopefully, also. He would know
how to abound, when abundance came. But he
would not be disheartened by failures, or let his fear
of coming failure, which might indeed never come,
disturb his trustfulness or his peace. His work was
done to the best of his ability. What could he do
more? The results must be committed to a higher
wisdom and a mightier power than his own.
We, also, ought to be living in this way. It is a
hard lesson for any of us to learn ; but certainly, as
the Apostle intimates, it is a peaceful one when it
is learned. Take the case of your entrance upon
the work of life, for example, or of a call to a par-
ticular service. You may be in some questioning
as to the summons of duty. But if you determine
this point as you best may, and then go forward,
you may joyfully perform the labour of each day as
it comes, and believe that all will be well at the end.
And so in all your course. Like the daily bread
which we are taught to ask for only for a single day,
the daily duties are to occupy the thoughts. They
come upon us clearly and plentifully enough, with
each day as it passes. They bear with them the
Divine voice, and the Divine summons. They are
the private soldier's work. Why look beyond them
to uncertain possibilities of the future, to bring a
burden of distress upon the soul?
The Christian plan of living says to every man :
Do what to-day calls for; fill it with everything
83
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
which it asks ; make such preparations for the future
as the work which is under your care demands, and
the probabihties of continued Hfe suggest as wise.
But be content when you have done this. Do not
hinder the efficiency of to-day by anxiety for to-
morrow. Do not make the uncertainty of results
which you cannot control a burden upon your soul.
That this plan is the right one for limited beings
like ourselves can scarcely be doubted. That it is
a reasonable one is certain, when we observe the
facts of our earthly life. But, for peaccfubicss, it is
the only plan. The man who makes it his rule to
do the utmost that he can, and ought to do, to-day,
and waits calmly for to-morrow, to follow the same
course in its work, must be undisturbed. He must
be in the line of the Divine appointment ; and it is
only because we forget this, that the worrying cares
and fears that break in from the future destroy our
happiness and our peace.
There is surely nothing grander than the words
of the Apostle which have been quoted at the
beginning of our discourse. There is nothing in
human experience which seems to come forth more
truly from, or testify more sweetly of, the peace of
God that passeth all understanding. Filling each
day with his duty as a preacher of the Gospel to all
who would come to him, he was ready for whatever
the Divine Master might send. To live would be
for him, as he well knew, Christ; to die would be
gain. He could scarcely determine which to choose.
He was ready for either; and ready to leave the
decision with the wisdom of that loving Friend who
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THE INNER LIFE
liad led him for so many years, and who had taught
him, by many an experience, that the abounding
and the abasing ahke wrought out results of blessing
at the end. Why should not the years have taught
him to be anxious in nothing?
But, while the Christian disciple fulfils his ap-
pointed duty, leaving results with God, and thus, so
far as he accords in his life with the doctrine, is free
from anxiety that burdens the heart, he is not left
with no manifestation of God, or communion with
God. In everything, the Apostle adds, by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your re-
quests be made known unto God. These words
open before us a most delightful representation of
Christian living. They show that, in the course of
all His work and service, the Divine Father abides
near the believer, and is ready to know and consi-
der the wants, desires, and aspirations of his soul.
They encourage him to present his thoughts and
earnest wishes before God ; and they allow and even
direct him to let the range of his supplication extend
itself to the whole circle of the things that interest
his mind. The teaching of the New Testament is
not, that we need not or should not be anxious for
anything, because there is a destiny and fate which
we cannot change — that we can only perform
blindly the task which falls to us, there being no
thought of us, or care for us, above ourselves. But
it is, that we may make known our requests to a
wiser Friend — laying before Him every pure
thought, every plan and purpose and hope, every
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
conception we have of what is best for the success
of our working — that we have with Him the inter-
course of a reverential fellowship ; — but only that,
in the appreciation and acknowledgment of His
wisdom as far greater than our own, we commit the
decision to Him.
And this is to be in everything, and with giving
of thanks. What is prayer, but the communing of
the child with his father? It begins, indeed, in the
earlier stages of the life, with simple petitions for
the fundamental and necessary things. It asks for
the first forgiveness, and the elementary teaching,
and the tender care of the soul. But as the Chris-
tian grows into maturity, and his thoughts move
through a wider circle, and his living becomes in
all its parts a preparation for a greater life in another
world, prayer rises into something higher. It is
tJien the opening to God of what the mind is dwell-
ing upon, and the meeting with Him in the medita-
tion of the soul. As the child, in his later years,
when he comes to the borders of manhood, enters
into a new relation to his father, and there is a con-
ferring of mind with mind on higher themes, so the
disciple finds his thoughts going out towards God in
every line. He lets the sanctifying influence of the
Divine presence and communion rest upon all his
inner life.
There is, thus, no limitation imposed with regard
to any request which can find lodgment in a right
thinking mind. But earthly and heavenly things
alike are the proper subjects of our supplication;
and where the man outside of the Christian sphere
86
THE INNER LTEE
is filled with anxiety, the Christian is allowed to
present his request for help or success, while the
anxious feeling alone is put aside. We do not
know, in our ordinary living, the full privilege of
prayer; and therefore it loses for us, oftentimes, its
richness and its blessing. But when we let it range
throughout the whole circle of life, it makes God a
personal present friend to us, — one to whom we
can turn at any moment, and one through whom we
can rise above the perplexities, and lose the anxious
cares that press upon us.
Thus it is that thanksgiving naturally comes into
the heart. The view of the true believer which the
Apostle presents to us, is this : The man is placed
in a condition where he cannot see the future. He
is, however, appointed to a life which, in many ways,
takes hold upon that future. He can realise it only
as it comes, but he cannot fail to hope, or to plan
for it. His mind reaches beyond its vision. What
must he do? He must work as the duties open
themselves, but he must leave the results. He must
live the life of trust and faith. But, as he looks back-
ward over what was a little while ago as uncertain as
the coming time now is, he must observe the move-
ment of the Divine plan and be thankful.
The call of the Christian teaching is to look be-
hind us, as truly as it is to look before us. It is,
indeed, to have our outlook upon the future wholly
free from anxiety, as connected with the review
of the way by which blessings have come to us in
the past. No lesson of life is more universal in the
experience of the disciples of Christ, than that the
87
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
overruling of God Is always towards good. Those
things which for the present seem not to be joyous,
but grievous, work out afterwards the peaceable
fruits. The darkness of the days past has given
way to the light of to-day. It has how often, to
our own appreciation and knowledge now, been
itself the thing which has brought the light, and
been transformed into the light. And as we get
more fully the consciousness that life for each one
of us is God's plan of good, we may have confidence
that all this is so as truly in what we do not yet un-
derstand, as in what we do. Acknowledgment of
the goodness of God is, therefore, a part of every
true prayer; and as we utter our thanksgiving, both
for what we have always known as blessings, and
for what we did not once realise to be such, but are
now understanding more completely, the gratitude
for the past brings with it a calm and loving com-
mittal of the future to Him who has guided us all
the way from the beginning.
And now the Apostle adds his word of assurance
and promise. If the soul moves on in this way —
in nothing allowing anxious care and fear to abide
within itself; in everything, with filial affection, and
with no doubtings as to the freeness of the offer,
making known its requests ; in review of the past,
giving thanks for the working of all things together
for good, and in the outlook upon the future, asking
for what we desire, yet only realising that our desire
afterwards may be opposite to what it is now, when
we come to see the end — and thus ready to leave
S8
THE INNER LIEE
the issues with Divine love and wisdom ; — the
declaration is, that the peace of God shall guard
the heart and the thoughts in Christ Jesus. It re-
quires no word from heaven, to assure us that there
must be peacefulness in the soul when a man is
living thus. But there is more than a simple assur-
ance of peacefulness, in the Pauline sentence. The
peace, it declares, will be the peace of God. The
relation of the Christian soul to God, at the very
beginning of the new life, involves as its chief
element, or one of its chief elements certainly, a
peculiar peacefulness. It is the peacefulness of
reconciliation and reunion. The forgiveness of the
past sins and the justification which accompanies it,
as the Apostle says elsewhere, bring peace with
themselves. But this is, as it were, the first expe-
rience, the first consciousness of the child-relation-
ship to the Divine Father. With reference to what
follows afterwards, it is but as the door which opens
into the richer blessedness — the child's foretaste of
what is to be realised in a measure, and with a ful-
ness beyond present imagination, in the long-con-
tinued and growing manhood of the future years.
The peace here described is that which God gives
to the trusting soul in ever-enlarging measure, and
which answers to His own peace. My peace, said
Jesus to the disciples, I give unto you. Not as the
world giveth, give I unto you. The peace of Jesus
was that which belonged to Him and dwelt within
Him, because of His union of love and purpose
and inmost life with God. It was the peace which
pertains to communion of souls, and its impartation
89
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
from one to the other is the result of the fellowship
of the two — the measure of the blessing being pro-
portioned to the perfectness of the fellowship.
Into such fellowship the believer enters, who lives
after the manner which Paul sets forth. By his trust-
fulness, by his confidence in God which rises above
the power and the disturbing influence of anxiety,
by his prayer and supplication which go out into the
widest range of pure thought and desire, by his ever-
arising and ever-enduring thankfulness, he brings
his soul into that harmony with the Divine which
makes the gift of a peace like that of God Himself
possible for his experience. This peace, in its com-
pleteness in the Divine Father, is founded, as we
may believe, upon the two great truths, that He
abides in the light in which there is no darkness at
all, and is Himself this light, and that He also abides
in love, and is Himself love. The trustful soul does
not see all things and for this reason feel safe be-
yond all questionings. It does not have in itself the
perfection of the life of love. But it believes where
it does not yet see, and is moved to confidence and
steadfast hope by the love-power within itself; and
thus in the limitations of its knowledge it takes to
itself its measure of what God has and of what God
bestows. Its peace becomes like that of Jesus,
which dwelt in His soul always, and was, even in the
darkest hours, calm as the calmness of the ocean's
depths, because He knew the storms of life to be
under His Father's power, and therefore without the
ability to shake or disturb the trusting heart.
This peace it is, which the Apostle declares shall
90
THE INNER LIFE
be with the prayerful, grateful Christian, who lays
aside his anxious fears and doubts.
But there is one peculiar word in the assurance
set before us in the Pauline expression, which seems,
in a sense, to involve the force of the promise. The
peace of God, he says, shall guard your hearts and
your thoughts. The figure is that of a city guarded
from its enemies, or of a fortress, where the disciple
is protected, as by an irresistible power, from all
assaults from without. The thoughts and the whole
sphere of the heart and mind will be kept secure
from disturbing forces of uncertainty, or appre-
hension, or distress in view of the future. "Thou
shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed
upon thee." The heavenly existence is begun al-
ready for the man who has truly and fully come into
this peace, guarded by the Divine presence and
guarding every thought in the sphere of Christ's own
living. It is realised, in some measure, just as the
soul enters into the trust that turns away anxiety
and makes prayer and thankfulness the atmosphere
of its life.
The years are steadily moving on, and they are
rapidly passing away. What are they teaching us?
More and more, surely, of the uncertainty of life ;
more and more of the unsatisfactoriness of it, if there
is nothing beyond. The men who were a little way
before us, and who have suddenly passed within the
region of the unseen, are testifying to us of what we
are learning for ourselves — that the things of this
91
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
world, good, and valuable, and worthy of thought as
they may be, are only preparatory to something
higher and future. The manly way of living, there-
fore, is not that of absorption in these things, as if
these were all, but that of using them for what they
may help us to attain. Life thus teaches us that
they belong to a single and passing stage of our
being, and that it is what they prepare us for in
character and service, which gives them their true
meaning. To be anxious for them in themselves, is
like living for the day, and not for life. To be over-
burdened with trouble respecting what they may
bring in the immediate future, is to forget that the
temporary loss or trial in human experience often
transforms itself into glorious blessing. It is to
make the future subordinate to the present, for we
lose sight of what the present may do for the
future, and lose care for it.
I cannot but think that, as life moves on, the man
who lives aright sees more clearly that he is in a
process of education, and understands more fully
that he is dependent for wisdom and guidance on a
higher power. We know, in the retirement of our
own souls, that wc are limited, weak, and ignorant
beings, whose knowledge and vision reach but a lit-
tle way. How can peace come to us, except through
committing our way to the Divine Father, and losing
our anxiety in prayer to Him for the future, and
grateful feeling for the past?
The Apostle to the Gentiles had a manly soul, if
any one ever had. He was earnest in labour ; ar-
dent in feehng; enthusiastic as a youth, through all
92
THE INNER LIFE
his life ; intensely full of energy for the completion
of his work before the end ; hopeful for the future,
and burning with desire that it should bring triumph
to the cause. But he died while the victory was still
in the distant and unseen coming age; yet he had
no doubts; no cloud gathered over his spirit; no
weariness made him ready to lay down his work in
despair, for another to take it. He finished his
course with the same confidence with which he had
passed through it. He went away from the peace
of earth, as his soul had experienced it in Jesus
Christ, to the peace of heaven. But it was here, as
it was to be there, a peace that had no anxious fore-
bodings — the peace which passes all understanding
— the peace of God, which kept his heart and
guarded every thought. A grand living and a
grand dying — like that of the Master Himself.
What a blessedness for us, if it may be ours also !
The lesson is a Divine one, full of love ; — but it is
a difficult one to learn. I commend it to all others,
and to myself.
93
VII
THE TRUE LIFE OF MAN NOT IN HIS
POSSESSIONS
A 7Ha)i's life co7isisteth not in the abundance of the things
which he possesseth. — Luke xii. 15.
THIS sentence is also translated, and perhaps
more properly: A man's life, even if he have
abundance, does not consist in what he possesses.
In either case — only that there is a certain
greater emphasis with the latter rendering — the
declaration is the same : — that life is not to be
found in what a man has, however abundant what he
has may be, but in something independent of this.
One of the multitude accompanying Jesus at the
time, and listening to His teachings, said to Him :
Master, bid my brother divide the inheritance with
me. Jesus reminded him, in answer to his request,
that it was not a part of His mission in the world as
the Christ to pass judicial decisions in such matters,
and then, perceiving the motive which had impelled
the man in his demand, He turned to the people
about Him, and addressed to them these words:
Do not be ever desiring and striving to have more
than you already have. The gaining of more does
not bring you life. Even if you gain more, and
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THE INNER LIFE
much more — up to the limits of great abundance —
life, in case you then have it, will not consist in
what you have gained. Life is something deeper
and more personal than this. It is, like the king-
dom of God itself, not around you, but within you.
This is the Christian doctrine concerning life, and
it is in accordance with all analogies, and with all
that we know. Among the questions of these
recent days, one which awakens greatest interest is.
What is life? The search which is pressed further
than all other searchings is that which seeks to dis-
cover it. We would lay our hands upon life, and
determine its nature and its essence. It eludes our
grasp, indeed, and leaves us in disputation. We
are compelled to wait for the future to answer our
questioning, or to acknowledge the possibility that
no answer may ever be given. But however we
may divide in our thoughts about it, or whatever
may be the measure of our knowledge or fancied
knowledge, there is one thing revealed to us the
more clearly and impressively, the further we carry
forward our investigations. This one thing is told
us, each and all alike. It is, that life lies back of
anything which we have yet discovered. We know
life's acquisitions, its activities, its varied revelations
of itself But it is not itself these, or in these alone.
It has a being of its own, and moves and gains by its
own vital force. The movement is not itself. It is
the outreaching of its energy towards and after that
which will minister to its growth, or enjoyment, or
well-being. But the life precedes the motion. The
95
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
gains, also, are not the life. They are additions to
it, in one form or another — sometimes near its
inmost self, far more often quite outside of it, and
never, and nowhere, of its own primal and indepen-
dent essence. Life by its living power gains for, or
even in, itself; but its existence is the condition of
the forthputting of the power which gains. It is
the source of the power, as well as of that which the
power secures.
All this is true, moreover, not only in the physical
sphere, within which the questioning is so often
and so urgently raised, but in every sphere. The
essence of the intellectual life of the student, in any
department of learning, is not to be found in that
which he brings into his mind by his studies, or in
the act of his studying. These things are the results
of the life. They are the evidences of its existence,
it may be. But they are not the life itself. Let a
man examine himself, and he may know this. You
and I, if we enter into the realisation of our souls'
deepest experience, do not rejoice as men of living
minds in what we have acquired of learning or
knowledge, within the last week or the last year, as
if this were the most joyful thing. We rejoice in
the living mind which acquired for itself the knowl-
edge of the past time, and which may acquire for
itself far different knowledge, and far more, in the
future time. However abundant the acquisitions
may be, we know that they are added to ourselves
— possessions which we have gained — things
which we have made our own. But the thing which
is gained is not a blessing like the thing by which it
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THE INNER LIFE
is gained. The former may pass away perchance,
or may lose itself in what is greater and comes
afterward, or may prove itself to be almost useless
at times. But the latter is ever-abiding. It is a
power through whose energy losses may be repaired,
new and ever-enlarging acquirements may be brought
into the possession of the life, the development even
of itself may become continually greater. The
knowledge which the mind possesses is one thing.
The knowing mind is another and far better thing.
It is better and grander, because it can gather into
itself all the possibilities of the other; and because
the life is in it, and not in the other. The central
blessing which we have as educated men, is the in-
tellectual life. Forth from this centre moves every
energy which fills the life with its possessions.
The moral and spiritual life follows, as it were,
the same law of our being. It is to be discovered,
if discovered at all, in the deep recesses of the man,
far away from and below all external things. It is
the breath of God, which is breathed into the man
as he first enters upon the sphere where these things
have their being. It is the inspiration of the Divine
nature within him, by which he is made fit for a
purer and higher atmosphere than that of the evil
and passing world. It is most truly a life from
above, imparted to him and implanted within him.
It must therefore, in a pre-eminent degree, be an
energising force, which gains great things for itself,
but which is independent of these things. They
are what it has. It is what it is. They are the
fruits which it puts forth — the possessions which it
7 97
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
places, it may be, in closest relation to itself, and
uses for its own development — the glorious mani-
festion of what it contains within itself, perchance,
and thus the revealing of itself to the eye that sees.
But it is the God-given principle — the power that
worketh all things.
But if life, in any department of our being, is not
to be discovered in what it gains for itself, much
less even, it would seem, can life in one department
consist in the possessions secured by life in another
department. The intellectual life, surely, cannot
have its being in that w^hich the physical life
acquires by the forthputting of its peculiar powers.
It must move in its own sphere, and reach out after
what may satisfy its own desires. The forces of the
two lives work along different lines. They may in-
deed co-operate with each other, in some degree, so
that the gains of the former may be larger by
reason of what the latter has done for itself. But if
this be the fact in any case, the things which the
one life is partly enabled to secure through the aid
of the other are essentially unlike anything which
that other knows as its own possession. The re-
wards of the mind belong within the sphere of
mental effort and working, and this sphere is not
that of the physical powers, even when these,
by reason of the mysterious union of body and
mind, may quicken or strengthen the mental effort.
Indeed, so true is this, that we often find the one
life active while the other is not, or the energy
which is put forth in the line of the one so exclu-
98
THE INNER LIFE
sively taking possession of the man, as it were, that
there is a corresponding loss of power in the line of
the other. One of the great difficulties in every
man's work for himself is to adjust the two in their
mutual relations, and thus to guard successfully
against the danger of losing the life in one sense,
while it is saved in another. This, indeed, is a
problem of chief importance in all education — a
problem in connection with which the successes and
failures alike show the one truth, that each life
must gain for itself, and cannot consist in, or depend
upon, what the other gains.
We may compare the spiritual life, again, with
either of the other two, and the truth will manifest
itself, only if possible the more clearly. The spirit-
ual life is character. Its gains are gains in virtue,
and purity, and the development of all goodness.
How can its living force be found in knowledge, or
physical strength or beauty, or in anything which
may be secured for the man without building up
the moral part of him?
The story in the Gospel from which our verse is
taken may reveal the fact to us. Jesus was speak-
ing of the spiritual life, when He used these words.
The man who had come to Him — with the strange
request, as it would seem, to be made of such a
teacher — was thinking of the inheritance which
pertained to his family. It was houses and lands
and goods of every sort — possessions, in the sense
in which we use the word in our ordinary conver-
sation— that he was thinking of and asking for.
An abundance greater than what he at present had
99
108809
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
was the object which he desired ; and seeing plainl};
where it was, and how it might be at once secured,
he presented the case to Jesus for His aid. What
were his thoughts respecting Hfe? They were cer-
tainly thoughts concerning it as moving, and having
its being, in one sphere only — that of the' abun-
dance of the things possessed through the inheri-
tance of an estate. But how could it be possible to
discover the life which Jesus thought of simply in
such abundance? The things which made up the
inheritance had been acquired by the powers of
another sort of life than this. They were independ-
ent of it, and it was independent of them. They
might pass into the possession of the man without
touching the character, whether for good or for
evil. They might even impoverish the character,
while they enlarged the estate. It is evident,
indeed, that in the case of this man such impover-
ishment was the result which was distinctly foreseen.
The life, therefore, could not consist in the abun-
dance of the possessions. It might, perchance,
co-exist with such abundance, even for this man,
if he would take into himself the true idea, and live
by it; but, whether he should do so or not, it could
not consist in it. It could not, because the life and
the abundance were widely and essentially separate
from each other. The abundance was an acquire-
ment of the mental or physical life, or both to-
gether ; but the life now thought of was spiritual,
and pertained to the soul. The life of the soul,
surely, the central part of the man, cannot be the
external possessions of a less central life. It cannot
THE INNER LIFE
depend on houses, and lands, and rich inheritance,
and the right sharing of ancestral property. It lies
back even of what it gains for itself by the exercise
of its own powers. Surely, it must lie far away from
what is gained by powers other than its own, and
from that abundance of which it knows nothing and
thinks nothing within its own sphere.
For this reason it was, that Jesus said to the
people who were standing by Him : Keep your-
selves carefully from the overweening, all-control-
ling desire for abundance of possessions. The
thing to be desired, with the all-controlling move-
ment of the soul, is life. Take heed — the life is in
one place, the abundance in another; and when
the desire for the abundance becomes an inordinate
desire, the life is lost. How true His words are to
human experience — and how true they are also,
when He points forward to the future and gives
another reason why the life does not consist in the
possessions. The little illustrative story that follows
tells of the ending of the one, and the continuance
of the other. The life moves onward, and the
abundance falls away. The gain which the powers
have secured in one department of the man's liv-
ing is a treasure which may be lost for him in a
day. The ever-living life of the man, certainly,
must be independent of this, and must be separate
and distinct from it, however abundant it may be.
This indeed it is, which glorifies us as men. We
are ourselves, in every line, greater and deeper than
anything that we have gained outside of ourselves.
We live, and the gains pass away or are forgotten.
lOI
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
They pass away because of the earth and time, or
they are forgotten by reason of the far greater ones
that we make for ourselves afterwards. But we
move on, with living power, beyond them and
above them. The life of to-day, for each one of us,
is not found in the abundance which we secured ten
years ago. No more is it in that which we now
possess. The abundance is dying, it may be, but
we are living. The abundance is of this world, but
we are taking hold in our life upon what is higher
than this world. The immortal part cannot consist
in the mortal part. Most truly it cannot have its
life in what the mortal part only possesses.
These thoughts are clear to us, so soon as we
give them a lodgment in our minds. They seem
so plain, perhaps, as scarcely to need any expres-
sion. Of course, we are prompted to say, Of
course, life is different from the gains of life, and
life in one sphere cannot be made out of the acqui-
sitions of life in another sphere. But how many
are there in any company of men who bear within
themselves the thought — and give it a practical
realisation in their daily thinking — that they are
themselves more than all that they are doings or
gainmgy or making their ozv?t, and that their life is
behind and beneath all these things ? The mass of
men about us are like the man who came, at this
time, to Jesus. They are pressing after the posses-
sions — seeking after the inheritance — struggling
for a division of it — striving everywhere for more.
It is the additions to the life, which fill their minds
I02
THE INNER LIFE
and impel their efforts. Happiness is to be found
in these additions, for it is these which give com-
fort and restfuhiess and freedom from all burdens,
it is said : One may well sacrifice all else for these,
and put forth the labour of years to secure them.
Perhaps no age in the world's history has been
more full of such thoughts than the one which is
now opening upon us. This influence is w^ork-
ing rapidly into the minds of educated men, and
they are beginning everywhere to feel that life
needs more of what is external, if its perfect
ideal is to be attained. Even the student moves
after wealth as one of the greatest things — or if
perhaps not after this, after station, and comfortable
place, and large fame, as if these were the main
ends of living. Everything centres, as it were, in
what one has ; and so the desire to have more lays
ever stronger hold upon the soul.
The message which comes over the ages to us,
in the midst of our thinking, is the word which
came to this man. The life is not in the posses-
sions. It is elsewhere. It is no more in them
when they are abundant, than it is when they are
scanty. It has, so far as its essence and central
forces are concerned, nothing to do with them.
It may use them, but they are not itself. It may
enjoy what they may enable it to secure, but it may
have its true enjoyment without them, as well as
with them. It is, in the widest and deepest mean-
ing of the expression, 07ie things while they are
another.
To educated men this message may have an
103
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
especial emphasis, for their own experience may
tell them somewhat of its truth. The true student
knows, when he comes to himself in his thinking,
that his peculiar life is within, not without himself
— that he is independent of lands and houses and
the external gifts for which so many seek — that
the treasure of his mind and soul is the treasure of
knowledge and thought. He may live anywhere,
and this treasure abides with him. He may share
the inheritance and gain the abundance, or not, and
the essential life is the same. But even the edu-
cated man may lose the power of the lesson. The
Christian teaching is needed for him, as it is needed
for all, while it utters its voice concerning a life
deeper than his, as it is also deeper than that of
those who live wholly in the outward possessions.
The life is the central thing in the man. It is what
makes the man in his manhood; — not in his learn-
ing, not in his inheritance, not in his wealth, but in
his ina7iJwod. And the manhood alone is the essence
of the man. This is what Jesus taught the people.
This is the great truth of the matter. Take heed,
He says, and do not forget it. Keep yourselves
from the ever-continuing desire for more, as if in
the possessing of more the secret of the life were
to be discovered.
My friend, you arc, perchance, preparing in your
earlier years for the future — for your own future.
You believe in that future ; you anticipate it joy-
fully and hopefully ; you feel, in your most thought-
ful moments, that it is far better and far more than
the present, and that your life is in it. What is the
104
THE INNER LIFE
end in view of your preparation? Is it to he some-
thing, or to have sometJimg? If the primary object
is, to have something, your years and efforts will be
given to gaining possessions of one kind or another.
Your desires will continually be for more, and the
result, if you are successful, will be additions to
yourself — additions in the outward sphere, and in
the field of the abundance of which Jesus was speak-
ing. But you will be working away from the centre,
and may be losing, daily, more and more of that
which abides there. The inheritance of the man in
the story would have been secured to him, we may
believe, if Jesus had yielded to his request and
bidden the brother give him his rightful portion.
He would have lived on his estate, and stored his
possessions, and laid up his treasure ever more
abundantly for himself, and found the wishes of the
early days fulfilled. But the abundance would have
been around him, not within him. Within him, if
we may listen to the suggestion of the narrative,
would have been one of the baser of the passions —
and constantly increasing in its strength — the un-
satisfied desire for more; covetousness, as the
Scriptural word describes it. The outward things
would have been growing, but the inward things —
so far as they were worthy of a noble manhood —
would have been steadily diminishing and dying
away, while, in place of them, would have been
rising into being and victorious power evil affections
and impulses destructive of the true life. The liv-
ing in the one sphere would have been attended
by the dying in the other, and the manhood of
I OS
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
the man would have been gradually ruined and
lost.
There are men of the highest positions in the
world, at this moment — strange to say, there are
men whose educated Hfe should, by its most im-
pressive lessons, be giving them a nobler inspiration
— of whom this melancholy truth is as true as it
was, or could have been, of the man in the Gospel
story. Their manhood is perishing, while their
fame or wealth is growing. The inward life is dying,
while the outward life is continually gathering more
into its forces and its gifts. But the man comes to
himself now and again, in some serious hour of self-
contemplation, or he will come to himself in the
future, — and then he knows, or will know, where
the life is — not in the abundance, but in the man-
hood. If the manhood is gone, the abundance has
no vital source beneath it. The things possessed
are worthless when the possessor is nothing.
But, with the life in its living force, the man is
triumphant. He finds in every place enough of duty
and service for the exercise of all his powers. He
finds in himself an ever-springing fountain of thought
and love. He sees the divinely-implanted seed
growing within him, and yielding its fruit day by
day. He knows himself to be what he ought to be
— not all that he ought to be, perchance, or all that
he hopes to be, but moving towards it; — living
within himself, and therefore to live always.
How fitting it seems that, just after this story and
the parable that accompanies it, the evangelist should
io6
THE INNER LIFE
place the words which Jesus addressed to the dis-
ciples : Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious
for your life, what ye shall eat; nor yet for your
body, what ye shall put on. For the life is more
than the food, and the body than the raiment. Seek
ye God's kingdom and His righteousness, and these
things shall be added unto you. Where your treas-
ure is, there will your heart be also. Fear not, little
flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the kingdom.
It is the kingdom for which we should ever be
preparing, for the abundance of the life itself is
there. All else is an addition, but the life is the
man. All else may pass away, but the life moves
on to the greater life beyond. All else may be laid
aside or forgotten, without a permanent loss to the
soul, but the life is yourself. Take heed, says the
Master, the life is not in the world ; it is more than
the world. It is infinitely better to gain it, than to
gain the world. It is infinitely sad to lose it, for it
is the loss of the man.
107
VIII
THE FOLLOWING OF CHRIST
Follow me. — John i. 43.
[The entire verse reads as follows : On the morrow he was
minded to go forth into Galilee, and he Jindeth Philip : and
Jesus saith unto him, Follow me.'\
THE passage from which these words are taken
as the subject of our thought is the first one
in the order of the biographical record of the career
of Jesus, in which they are found. We meet them,
however, in six other places, as we move forward in
our reading of the Gospel story from its beginning
towards its ending, and we find them unfolding
their meaning to us as they are spoken on different
occasions and are addressed to different persons.
They involve the one central demand and call of
the Christian life — the words remaining always the
same ; — but they suggest more and more of the
detail of duty, and indicate the varied applications
of the call, when the several narratives in which
they occur are gathered together in one, as it were,
and they are viewed in comparison with each
other.
To the young ruler who asked Him what he
should do to inherit eternal life, Jesus said. Go, sell
108
THE INNER LIFE
that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt
have treasure in heaven : and come, follow me. To
the man who proposed to begin his service and
discipleship, but asked for delay that he might first
go and bury his father, the answer was, Follow me;
and leave the dead to bury their own dead. To
Matthew, who was in the ordinary business of his
life as a tax-gatherer, the sudden and abrupt sum-
mons came — possibly without any previous intima-
tion of such a change — to leave his occupation,
and be a new man in a new work. Jesus saw him
sitting at the place of toll, says the evangelist, and
said unto him, Follow me ; and he arose and fol-
lowed him. Philip, whom John mentions in the
verse selected for our text, was found by Jesus,
perhaps accidentally, and was asked to join the two
disciples who had met Him on the day before, and
to accompany Him on His return to Galilee. Fol-
low me was to him, as to them, an invitation to form
the acquaintance of Jesus, and to come under
those influences which might lead to faith and dis-
cipleship. Peter and Andrew, James and John, two
of whom, and perhaps all of whom, had thus been
summoned to acquaintanceship, and to the friendly
study of Jesus' character and claims, in the earlier
days, were afterwards, by the same words, Follow
me, bidden to enter upon the Apostolic office, and
become permanent associates of the Master, whom
they had already learned to love, in His proclama-
tion of the kingdom. One of these four — the
leader of them all — heard the bidding once more,
when the ministry of Jesus had come to its end and
109
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
the rising from the dead had given its witness to
His power. The Lord told him of what was await-
ing him in the future, and of the manner of his
death, and then said to him, Follow me — words
which were repeated, a few moments afterward, in
answer to his question with respect to John's com-
ing experience and destiny : If I will that he tarry
till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.
Finally, we discover the same call and bidding in
that last prophetic utterance of Jesus, when He was
reminded, by the desire of certain Greeks to see
Him, and talk with Him, of the universal triumph of
His kingdom. Turning the thought of Andrew and
Philip, the very disciples whom He had met on the
first two days of His working, to the great fundamen-
tal principle of self-sacrifice. He uttered the com-
prehensive sentence, applicable to all who would
hear His voice, If any man serve me, let him fol-
low me. These are the several recorded instances
in which the words were used. What may we say of
the words, as we review them?
We say of them : The same and yet not the same.
The word meant to one a sacrifice at the central and
inmost point of his soul's life — the consent to part
with his great possessions for the good of the poor,
and thus the contradiction of his deepest affections
and desires, in order that he might gain even the
first entrance into the life of which he had been
thinking. No following was possible for such as he,
unless the man was changed in that secret region of
his character which, as yet, he had not opened to
no
THE INNER LIFE
his own view, and into which he did not wish to
look, even for a moment. To another, who thought
himself a disciple and declared himself ready to act
accordingly, only with an excuse for a temporary
delay, the meaning was, the immediateness of the call
of duty. No excuse can defer the first and for-e-
most obligation of life. Natural affection is, indeed,
a beautiful thing, and the love of parents is no less
truly a Divine command, than it is a pure and noble
impulse of the heart. But even the demands which
come from this must not hinder the response of the
soul to a voice from the Divine Father, who claims
the supreme place for Himself. Let the spiritually
dead take care of the burial of the physically dead
— leave them alone to do this — is a word which
may not need to be often spoken ; for the life of dis-
cipleship moves ordinarily along the lines of the
common earthly loves and duties. But there are
times when it carries with it the summons of the
only true life, and when — by the startling emphasis
with which it bids us neglect, and leave behind us,
that service of the family and of dearest friend-
ships which, as we are wont to say, glorifies our man-
hood — it teaches the solemn lesson that character
cannot wait, and that the turning of the soul towards
the right which, for any reason, is put off to a later
season, is no true turning at all. Character lies not
in a coming time, but in the present. Life belongs
to to-day, and the reformation or renewal which
we only propose to ourselves for to-morrow is far
more uncertain than is to-morrow itself.
But, on the other hand, the significance of the
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
words as they were uttered to Philip, in the text, and
to Andrew and his friend, on the previous day, was
all in the line of gentleness. We would know where
you are abiding, they said to Jesus, in order that we
may speak with you in confidence of the great things
for which we are waiting in the kingdom of God, and
may know also something of yourself Come and
see ; follow me ; was the answer. Come with me,
and let us talk together ; and suffer the impressions
of what you see and hear to-day, and to-morrow, and
the day following, to take their rightful hold upon
your souls, as you would in the intercourse of any
friendship. I ask nothing more of you now. When
I say. Follow me^ to honest, earnest men like you, I
mean live for a season in a nearness of mind and
heart to me, according to the laws and nature of a
friendly union, and then test the matter by your own
experience and form your decision. I have no fears
for the result; and you will not have, I am sure,
two or three days hence. Only follow me naturally,
easily, not suspiciously, not demanding more than I
do, for these days. This was His meaning. They
yielded to His reasonable demand, and the forces of
the new life were implanted in their hearts.
Then, after the few days had passed. He suffered
them — we may believe that He even urged them —
to return to their homes and their occupations again.
There — by the lake-side, and in their daily round of
homely duties — they were to let the impulse and
spirit, which they had gained in their brief union
with Him, work out into action and life quietly, while
they had no thought of greater things for themselves,
112
THE INNER LIFE
until the new teaching of the new friend should
manifest itself as the truth by reason of its recognised
power within their souls. The character was to
grow gently and easily — even as the living seed had
been so naturally and tenderly planted at the first —
until it should be ripened and strengthened enough
for the Master's use. This was the plan and the
movement, as we see by the story; and, after a
season, Jesus called them again.
But when the call came again, with its repetition
of the same words which they had heard before,
what a depth and breadth of meaning it carried in
itself! It meant now a life-long service, with all of
self-denial and labour and persecution, and with all
of joy also and courage and victory, which it might
involve. They were prepared to understand it now
— that it signified a giving up of all that they had
known and done in their past experience, for His
sake ; — and they were ever ready to yield obedience
to the summons. They heard the familiar words,
uttered by the voice which they knew, and in a
moment, without a hesitating thought, they left their
boats, and their father, to follow Him for all the
future. The decisive step which should never be
recalled, was taken immediately. But, because of
the quiet preparation and the time allowed for it,
it was taken as naturally as the step which turned
their course towards the house where He was tem-
porarily abiding, when He said to them. Come and
see.
Thus it was in all the cases. The suddenness of
the call to Matthew, if indeed it was as sudden and
8 113
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
unexpected as it appears in the story to have been,
and the instantaneousness of his answering act, bore
evidence of something, in his Hfe and thought,
which filled the words for him with a controlling
force and energy for the will. There have been
lives since the Apostolic age, in every generation,
in which such calls, at a critical moment, have been
the first and effective summons to a permanently
changed career. The significance of the call was
appreciated by the man himself; the result only,
which seemed perchance to have been without a cause
proportioned to its greatness, was visible to others.
But with most men, it is not so. They move along
the more even paths ; and, if they hear the Christian
call at all, they reason according to the way which
Jesus Himself pointed out in His more general word :
If any man serve me, let him follow me. If I enter
the service of any master who calls for the exercise
of the true life-powers of the soul, it becomes me to
obey his voice as it utters the command /(9//(9w me ;
and as a genuine man, worthy of the name, I will
do that which alone befits the life which I have
chosen. The reasoning which they thus carry for-
ward in their minds abides with them. It afTects
their living gradually, yet constantly and powerfully,
and they become, as time passes on, thoughtful and
earnest followers of him whom they serve.
The summons which these words bear with them
thus had in the Gospel stories a special significance
in each several case — and we may believe that it
was so, also, in the many instances in Jesus' lifetime
where He gave utterance to the bidding follow me.
114
THE INNER LIFE
but which have not been recorded for our reading
by the evangehsts. The call to all alike was one,
but its meaning varied with the circumstances and
peculiarities of each individual case. As we have
said at the outset, The same, and yet not the
same.
But with equal fitness, and in accordance with
what the several narratives suggest to us, we may
turn our expression into its opposite in order and
in thought, and say: Not the same, and yet the
same. And the full presentation of what the words
contain will not be brought before us, until we view
the summons in this light also.
The words involved, first of all — in every case —
decision and promptness of action. We may
observe this most clearly in the story of the man
who wished to wait until he had fulfilled the office
of natural affection in the burial of his dead father,
and in the call to the young ruler to give up for the
help of others the wealth which was the dearest pos-
session of his soul. Decision was essential, in these
cases, at the moment and in preparation for the first
step in the life of discipleship. So, on the other
side, it was evidently essential, when the call came to
Matthew, at the receipt of toll, or to Andrew and
John, at the sea of Galilee. The immediateness of
the decision, which these men made, was manifest
in what they did. Without a thought or a ques-
tion, they rose and left all. They formed in a
moment the determination of a life-time. The
brief record of this call to Matthew which the evan-
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
gelist gives, and the single sentence wherein he
sums up the action on which all the future de-
pended, have arrested and impressed the mind of
every thoughtful reader from the writer's day to
ours.
But these were not the only cases. The same
promptness of decision was involved in the simple
invitation which was given, on the first day, to the
two young disciples of John the Baptist. By reason
of their condition, and of the end which both they
and Jesus had in view, the change of character was
not centred so wholly, and so apparently, in the
one act, as it was in the cases previously mentioned.
But the one act here, as elsewhere, was nevertheless
the first essential thing. The consent to follow Jesus
to His lodging, or to Galilee, was that which opened
the mind and heart, instead of closing them. The
life-movement afterward was in the new direction,
and towards the light and truth of the kingdom,
because the footsteps were turned, at that hour, into
the way along which the words of Jesus called them.
If the men had lingered for a while doubting, or had
refused to obey the call, the opportunity might have
passed, and the life might never have grown into
faith and discipleship. And we may easily believe
that those who had been slow to be trustful and to
act, at that moment, would not have received, at a
later season, the summons to the service and glory
of the Apostolic office. The greater calls of the
future, in all our living, follow along the line of the
lesser ones of the past and the present, and the man
who refuses a decision for right character as the
ii6
THE lA^NER LIFE
S^ateway towards the attainment of it opens, may
find the path beyond the gateway closed to his life.
The words of Jesus may come to us, in many
ways, bidding us follow Him. They may have
their own significance for each one of us, because
of something which is individual and peculiar to
our lives. But however they come and whatever
may be their special meaning, they call for prompt
decision somewhere ; and this prompt decision is
vitally connected with character, and lies near the
sources and foundation of the inner life.
The words of the call of Jesus involved also, in
every case, a personal relation to Him. Philip was
invited to follow Him, that he might grow into the
friendship of Jesus and grow into friendship towards
Him. So it was, even pre-eminently, when the two
pairs of brothers were called away from their friends
and their business, at the sea of Galilee, and bidden
to be fishers of men as preachers of the Gospel. So
it was, also, at the end, when Peter was told of his
own future and his martyrdom. Follow me meant
to him that, in his coming years, he should live, in
the soul's life, in union with the Friend who was now
to be removed from his bodily sight and presence,
and, in loving service and work for Him, should
triumph over the thought of the trial before him,
and even glory in it.
So it was everywhere. Following after Jesus was
never presented in His teaching as a mere imitation
of His example, or obedience to His commands.
It had a significance far deeper than this ; and, by
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
reason of this deeper significance, the teaching set
itself apart from every other doctrine and system.
It meant the personal union of the disciple with the
Master — a commimion between the souls of the
two, kindred to that between the souls of loving men
— as real and vital as such human communion, and
laying hold even more powerfully upon the inmost
spirit. This is of the essence of Christianity. It
is its central truth, so far as life and experience are
concerned. The Christian call, whenever it comes
to us, is to the attainment of this. Its promise is
the promise of the realisation of what it tells us of
and offers to us. Why should not wealth and
earthly good be sacrificed for the union of the soul
with the Divine? Why should not the privilege and
duty of earthly affection be set aside, when the
heavenly friendship opens itself to our personal ex-
perience? Why should not the cross itself be taken
up by any man, when it is found in the pathway
which leads toward that following after Christ which
is communion and fellowship and friendship with
Him? The Gospel stories place these questions
before us, as we pass from one of them to another,
and they bear with them their answer. To follow
Jesus means to be united with Him, in such a
union that His life becomes the disciple's life, and
the two are, at the end, one — even with that one-
ness which unites the Father and the Son in love.
The words of the call, we may say once more, in-
volved a complete consecration to the work of the
Master. Christian character grows indeed, like
ii8
THE INNER LIFE
all character. Christian principle develops and
strengthens in its power and energy. The full
fruits we see at the end, not at the beginning. But
who can fail to observe, as he studies carefully the
New Testament narratives, that the young ruler's
selling his property, or Philip's consenting to accom-
pany Jesus — different as the one act was from the
other — was a first and decisive step towards that
fulness of devotion to which Jesus pointed the
thought of Peter, when He gave him, as His final,
personal word, the bidding to put aside all care as
to the manner of his own dying, and all questioning
as to allotments of life for his nearest friend, and
to concentrate his whole mind and soul and spirit on
one thing — the following after Christ. And then,
if we turn from the history to the letters of this
Apostle, and his friend also, about whom he asked
his question, and find the men revealed in what they
wrote long years after the ending of Jesus' life, how
clearly we see that the growth and fruitage of the
last days were only the development of that which
was planted in their souls when they first listened to
the 'words follozv vie.
It was the same thing from the beginning to the
ending. The devotion of the life to the Apostolic
work, when the call was given at the Galilean lake-
side, was in itself but one manifestation of the spirit
which the call involved. The act and course to
which it moved the four disciples pertained to their
peculiar work and duty. But it was illustrative of
the spirit involved in every call, in which the words
follow me came from the lips of Jesus. The im-
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THE INNER LIFE
mediateness and, as we may say, comprehensiveness
of the act on their part strikingly exhibit the distinc-
tive feature of all obedience to such a summons,
which in and of itself, means the absolute and com-
plete turning of the character at the outset, and its
full development at the end.
And so the call comes down the centuries, from
those early days to ours — the same, yet not the
same ; or, on the other side, though not the same,
yet indeed one and the same. It meets us now, as
we ask where we shall find Jesus, and what we shall
find in Him — the question which Andrew and Philip
asked. It meets us again, when we inquire the way
to eternal life ; or propose to enter into discipleship
when the earthly calls are satisfied ; or think of our
future hopes and possibilities; or see the crosses
which life brings to all of us ; or raise the question
of life's permanent work and duty. But everywhere
it sounds in our hearing the words follow mCy and
tells us the meaning of those words : — that their
meaning is service, as to a Divine Friend — that it
is yielding to His influence, and knowing His friend-
ship — that it is the immediate devotion of our souls
to Him, and the receiving into our souls the princi-
ples and powers of the true life, which shall develop
into strength and beauty of Christ-like character
through all the future.
IX
OUR CITIZENSHIP IN HEAVEN
For otir citizenship is in heaveti. — Philippians iii. 20.
THE prominent word which Paul uses in this
sentence is derived from the Greek noun de-
noting a citizen, or member of a city or state. Its
precise significance as here employed has been a
matter of some discussion — particularly as to the
question whether it should be rendered in our lan-
guage by the word citizenship, as given in the text
of the Revised English Version, or commonwealth^ as
the margin of that version reads. In either case,
the Apostle applies to the condition and life of the
believer in Christ a term which involved the idea of
membership in a state, and especially in a free state,
with the privileges and rights pertaining to such
membership. The other word which he uses marks
the locality of this state, and thus indicates the char-
acter of the citizenship. The commonwealth to
which the Christian belongs is the heavenly, and not
an earthly one. He is a free citizen of this com-
monwealth ; and, as the Apostle views his condition,
the privileges and membership are his now, for he
joins the words of his sentence by the present tense
of a strong verb : Our citizenship is — our common-
wealth subsists, and has a real, and objective, and
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
present existence, in heaven. The fact, however,
that it is in heaven, while the beUever is yet on
earth, and the intimation given in the latter part of
the verse of a waiting for a future event — the com-
ing of the Lord Jesus — which alone is to bring the
complete realisation of the blessing, show that, ac-
cording to the thought of the writer, the citizenship
is viewed in its relation to one who is, for a time, ab-
sent from the home city and sojourning elsewhere.
The believer is not in heaven, but the citizenship,
the commonwealth to which he belongs, is there.
The close connection of the words, finally, with those
which precede and follow, indicate the bearing of
this thought of citizenship, as the Apostle desired to
present it to his readers. The sentence begins with
the word for, and, through it, points backward to a
context suggestive of duties ; and it passes, at its
ending, into words referring to heaven and what
shall be accomplished in the future, and thus turns
the mind to privileges and Jwpes.
Such is the text. I present it for consideration,
for a little time, as we view it in this light. What is
the privilege ; and what is the hope ; and what is the
duty, involved for the Christian in his membership in
the heavenly commonwealth, while he is on earth?
We may consider it, first, with respect to privilege.
It is evident that the citizen of any state, when
absent from his home and resident in a foreign land,
cannot be in the full exercise and enjoyment of the
privileges which appertain to him as a citizen. Lim-
itations, in this regard, are connected necessarily
122
THE INNER LIEE
with his present condition, and so there is a sphere
for patient waiting and for hope of a larger and
better future. It is evident, also, that these limita-
tions may check or hinder, for a time, the develop-
ment of the life and character along the lines of
these privileges. We grow, as we enjoy, where the
conditions of our life are perfectly fitted for its
growth. Where the conditions are not thus fitted,
the powers may become weaker, or they may work
toward loss and failure. But the man who has that
within himself which his birthright in the state has
made his own will bear it with him everywhere, and,
notwithstanding the limitations, will be conscious of
its presence as a privilege and a power.
The first element in this privilege is the life-prin-
ciple of the commonwealth — that which is central
to its own being. The citizen of the free common-
wealth knows within himself such a life-principle of
freedom, which makes him a different man from the
men of the foreign land where he may be temporarily
abiding, and as he knows it, he knows also the bless-
ing which belongs to him in consequence of its
indwelling power. The fundamental idea on which
the constitution and organisation of the state are
based has become, by reason of his citizenship, the
foundation of his own character. The manhood in
him takes hold upon this idea and principle, and in
all its development makes itself strong by reason of
its hold upon them. The Christian believer has a
possession of a kindred sort. He does not yet
reaHse the full privileges of the heavenly common-
wealth, but he has powers and gifts which come
123
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
forth from it. The laws and principles of the com-
monwealth work upon and into his personality, and
make him a new man. The fundamental idea of
this commonwealth is righteousness — a righteous-
ness which is based upon love and enters into the
heart as a living reality through faith. Its laws are
directed to this end. Its principles find their centre
and source of being in this. This righteousness is
secured to him from the moment of his spiritual
birth, and is the atmosphere of the life to which he
is born, as truly as is liberty in the case of one who,
by his birthright, is a member of the civil state that
is established for freedom. Having once entered
his life, it never leaves him. It only grows in its
strength as time moves forward.
The privilege of the citizenship is here. I am not,
indeed, perfect in the development of my life as yet;
I am subject to the assaults of temptation,- and am so
weak in my powers until now, and so involved in
the evils of the world in which I am hving, that I
sometimes or oftentimes fall, under the force of
these assaults, into wrong-doing and sin. My
actions belong, as they seem, to the commonwealth
in which I have my dwelling-place for a season,
rather than to that which claims me for itself, and
to which I am hoping to take my way. But this Is
the weakness which comes from absence from my
home and its surroundings, and from the forgetful-
ness, for the time, of the great principles of the life
of my own commonwealth. When I come back to
myself, and look into the deeper recesses of my soul
for the life-power which is central to my spiritual
124
THE INNER LIFE
being, I find that it is still that which made its
entrance within me, at the beginning, from heaven,
and secured to me the citizenship of the heavenly
state. And so I rejoice in my birthright, and try to
live up to it. And so I take heart for the new con-
flict with temptation, and, peradventure, I win a vic-
tory, where I lost one before. And so I see that
the vital force becomes stronger and more all-con-
trolling— gradually, it may be, but surely — as my
course moves onward, and the citizenship bears new
witness continually for itself. This is the Christian
career. It is privilege and possession at the begin-
ning, and not merely at the end. It is, under what-
ever figure we may represent it, reality to-day,
though, with reference to its fulness, it may be
realisation only hereafter. It is therefore, as we use
the figure now before us, a citizenship whose life-
principle for the inner life is present with its trans-
forming and ennobling energy when we are in the
foreign land, and whose promise is ever laying hold
upon the future.
But the privilege of the citizen is not merely in
the fundamental principle of the commonwealth. It
is found also in the influence of the life of the mem-
bership. We do not, as we grow up into the pos-
session of the freedom of the civil state, gain the
privilege of our citizenship through the working of
liberty in our individual lives only. This is but
half of what is accomplished for us. The fact that
we do not breathe the atmosphere alonCy is as im-
portant to our attaining the full results, as that we
breathe it at all. No man liveth for himself or by
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
himself, in any sphere of the inner Hfe, who Hves for
the best ends. He draws from the common hfe, and
becomes greater and better by receiving into him-
self the lessons, and influences, given forth from the
growths of character, which are manifest in the large
and noble and pure-minded men around him, who
have been taught by the same masters or have been
impelled by the same forces.
It is thus, even in a peculiar measure, with the
Christian believer. It is a distinguishing mark of
the commonwealth to which he belongs, that love is
not only the foundation-principle in the righteous-
ness for which the commonwealth exists, but also
the uniting-power which binds the community to-
gether— that the inspiration of the common life and
of the individual life are thus the same. The Chris-
tian believer, therefore, cannot grow in his true
development along the line of the ideas of the
Christian state, unless he comes into vital union
with the brotherhood of believers. But the ca7inot
is not so much one of necessity, as one of privilege.
It is the blessed possibility of life in the Christian
commonwealth — not tJie reqidrement of a stern and
hard law — that, through the binding force of that
love for one another which rests upon the common
love of the Lord for all, the individual believer may
know within himself the influence of the communion
of saints and so of what is universal in the brother-
hood. The citizen of the civil state, even when he
dwells by himself in a foreign land, is not a single
personality, confined within the limits of his own
being. As truly as he carries with him the freedom
126
THE INNER LIFE
to which he was born, so truly does he possess in his
mind and soul the life of the community and the
state in which he was born. Wherever he may be,
his thought and character, and his very self, are in-
woven with what is innermost in all to whom has
been given the same inheritance ; and only thus,
and for this reason, is he a true citizen. How much
more truly, may we say, is this the fact in the case of
the citizen of the heavenly commonwealth, in whom
love moves ever parallel with faith, and for whom
the life of the state is the life of the individual multi-
plied, and united in its manifold manifestations,
through an ever outgoing and incoming love.
A third element in the privilege of citizenship,
which one carries with him whithersoever he goes, is
the consciousness of his relation to the state and its
government. The member of a strong common-
wealth has within himself abroad, as well as at
home, a kind of personal consciousness of the
strength which the state possesses. He is strong,
because of its power. He is firm, because of its
stability. He has a deeper sense of his own man-
hood, by reason of his assurance that the freedom
which it has bestowed upon him is made secure
by its ability to defend itself and him against all
enemies. What was the significance, in this regard,
of the words, I am a Roman citizen, to the Apostle
who was now writing to the church In Philippi,
where a few years before he had boldly challenged
the magistrates of the city by the assertion of this
claim ! He knew that the power and glory of Rome
were In the citizenship, and he rejoiced, with a
127
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
noble pride, that he was born to this privilege. The
citizenship in heaven had a similar significance to
his thought. The kingdom to which I belong, he
said to himself, is a kingdom which cannot be
moved. Its immovable character passes into myself,
as I enter into its membership. The agitations and
oppositions and conflicts of the world cannot dis-
turb my confidence or my peace. The seizure of
my person for imprisonment or the hindrance of my
work cannot shake my faith. All things are moving
forward according to the plan of Divine wisdom, and
the kingdom pertains to God.
And so — even, as it would seem, with less incom-
ing of questioning or fear — may the believer of this
quieter age take to himself the same thoughts. The
warfare of the spiritual enemies of to-day is less
dangerous, than that of the forces and governments
of the earthly states was then, and the doubts and
denials which the Christian finds about him on every
side are only different in their character now from
what they have been in other generations. They
are not more formidable than those which have
been overcome by the powers of the heavenly com-
monwealth many times in the past history. The
triumphs already witnessed, therefore, bear testimony
for the issue of the present and coming struggles. I
may not disquiet my soul because I am pressed into
the midst of them, or because I see them fiercely
moving on about me, or even breaking in upon the
Church itself. The ages tell me their own story,
and it is one which brings calmness and peace. The
immovableness of the kingdom has ceased to be a
128
THE INNER LIFE
thing of promise only, and has become a thing of
experience.
The citizen of the heavenly commonwealth thus
has the privilege of rest and confidence in his soul.
His inheritance and home are not in a weak state,
which has no strength to defend and secure him in
all his rights and blessings, and no influence or
authority extending beyond its own borders. He
is a member of the eternal commonwealth, and of
the city which hath the foundations, and he can
abide among strangers while he must do so, or in a
foreign land, with a sense of the power and greatness
of that which is eternal. His privilege, therefore,
takes hold upon the assured existence of the state,
as well as upon the life-principle pertaining to it,
and the life-powers which inspire his own life and
that of the community — and all the elements of
privilege combine to ennoble him in his citizen-
ship, while he experiences its blessings.
But this last point in the matter of privilege —
the assurance of the permanency and immovable-
ness of the power of the commonwealth — is closely
akin to the hope which belongs to the heavenly
citizenship. The Apostle points us towards this
hope as he moves on in his words, and shows us
that the possession of it is a chief ground of his
glorying and his joy. The particular thing upon
which his mind centres, indeed, is that in which
it finds its consummation. But there can be no
doubt that in the final completeness, to his thought,
there are gathered up, as it were, and presupposed
9 129
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
all those blessings the realisation of which prepares
the way for the end.
If the state is permanent in its hfe and victorious
in its power, it will fulfil its promises to its citizens.
They may be but in a partial experience, for the
present, of that which pertains to them in their
right as members of the state. They may have
only somewhat of the inner life of the home-country,
while they are sojourning in another land far away,
and may know only half of the privilege which they
might otherwise enjoy. But they can look forward.
It will not be thus always. The state will gather
its citizens to itself, and will put them in full
possession of that which it has within its own
boundaries. It will bear them forward in the
experiences of its distinctive and peculiar life,
until it has realised for them all that it has to
bestow.
The thought of Paul, which he indicates here and
to which he gives more full expression elsewhere,
is that from the beginning of the Christian course
the spirit of the man becomes possessed of a new
life — the true soul-life — because of righteousness,
but that the work is finished only in the future
when, at the end and the coming of the Lord, the
last enemy, death, shall be destroyed, and the per-
fected spirit shall have united with the perfected
spiritual body, the instrument of its action and the
home for its dwelling forever. The movement of
the heavenly commonwealth will be steadily onward
until that time. The principle that animates and
governs the life of the state — righteousness, founded
130
THE INNER LIFE
on faith and inspired by love — which was implanted
in the citizen at his entrance into it, gives to him
this life. The life develops ever afterwards — as it
can and may, while he is absent from his own coun-
try ; as it must and will, when he comes into it ; —
and by and by, when it is perfected in fitness
for the highest blessings, the outward and the
inward are brought together in a beautiful union,
and the soul has its building from God, its house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. This
is the perfected soul's dwelling-place in the eternal
city — the commonwealth of God.
Hope thus moves along the hne of the ever con-
tinuing progress and is, as we may say, essentially
and vitally connected with it. It is a part of the
life-power of the commonwealth and its citizenship,
and rests upon the basis of what is enduring in the
commonwealth itself
Such is the Apostle's conception ; and how can
it be otherwise? The citizen in his absence from
home looks forward, as by a necessity, to the hour
of his return to his own country and to the fulness
of blessing of the time which shall follow that hour.
The greater his confidence in the strength and
stability of the state to which he belongs, the more
sure and undoubting is his hope. If the power is
there, the result will be secured. The hfe that Is
stirring within him, and is growing towards the
completeness which can be realised only in the
experiences and surroundings of this home-country,
is itself the evidence that the hope will not be
disappointed. The citizenship involves and proves
131
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
the hope — and the citizen of the heavenly common-
wealth may well glory in it.
But the privilege of the citizenship, as the Apostle
speaks of it, points backward to the thought of
duty, as well as forward to the thought of hope.
The citizen of the heavenly state has a duty as
related to it, while he is dwelling in another country.
It is interesting to notice that the words which Paul
uses are in accordance here, as they are in other
points, with the suggestion of the figure of the text.
The sojourner in a stranger's land, who makes that
land his home for a season, does not owe it to his
native country to be careless of the life about him,
or to neglect or refuse to mingle in it. He is not
under obligation to dwell apart, and decline to be
a true man among men. Quite the opposite of this.
The call of the home-country, as well as of his
manhood, is to do faithfully whatever lies before
him in the pathway of right and truth and service
and love, and to grow in his fitness for the blessing
of the home-life through the fulfilment of duties in
the life abroad.
But the duty of his citizenship to his native land
is to be the first of all things — so penetrating his
life with its influence and summoning his powers
towards itself, that his work and heart shall turn
homeward in their final purpose and deep devotion.
And this is Paul's thought of the Christian beHever.
He is to live in the worlds but not to be of it. He
is to be earnest in the world's work as it falls to him
to do it, and to live as a man for the progress and
132
THE INNER LIFE
welfare of the world ; but he is not to mind earthly
tilings; — that is, the bent and direction of his
mind — his desires, and purpose, and will, and soul
itself — are not to be toward earth, but toward
heaven. He is to keep in thought, always, that
his citizenship is in the heavenly commonwealth,
and that the fulness of his life towards which he
should be -ever moving is there. The duty of his
years of sojourning and absence from home is to
be in the line of the hope which pertains to his
citizenship, and of the privileges also. We cannot
separate the hopes and privileges of our citizenship
from its duties. They combine together in the
citizen's life. They are a part of himself, wherever
he may be. As he glories in the privileges and
rejoices in the hopes, so he must consecrate himself
to the duties. Thus only can he be a citizen, in
the true and full sense of the word.
The Christian life is a peaceful, happy one. It
has the three elements of such a life — duty, and
privilege, and hope. It moves on heavenward while
it abides on earth, ever bearing within itself the
knowledge of its origin and its future. It gathers
into itself all good, and puts forth its powers for all
helpfulness and service in the earthly sphere ; but it
grows, as by the impulse of its own nature, under
the influences of the heavenly sphere. Its perman-
ent and joyful peace will be there.
^ZZ
X
FOR MY SAKE
Jesus said, Verily, I say unto you, There is no 7nan that hath
left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or
children, or lands, for jny sake, and for the gospeVs sake,
but he shall receive a hundredfold 7iow in this ti?ne, houses,
and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and
lands, with persecutions, and in the world to cotne eternal
life. — Mark x. 29, 30.
THESE words, which are recorded after substan-
tially the same manner in all of the first three
Gospels, follow, according to each of the narratives,
immediately upon the story of the conversation
between Jesus and the rich young ruler. As the
young man turned away sorrowful, when the demand
was made that he should give up his possessions,
and distribute to the poor, as the condition of
entrance into the soul's true life, Jesus called the
thoughts of the disciples to the great and almost
insurmountable difficulty which those who loved
riches had in forsaking them for the kingdom of
God. In response to what He said, Peter, speaking
for himself and his companions, reminded Him that
they had left their homes and everything to become
His followers, and then, in the line of the suggestion
of the moment, asked the question as to what the
134
THE INNER LIFE
reward should be for doing this. The answer to
the question was given in this general form, and with
application to all disciples. Let us consider some
part of the teaching which the words suggest to us
respecting the Christian's service and reward.
The expression which holds the central place in
the order of the words and in the thought, is the
expression " for my sake." These words are funda-
mental to the Christian doctrine everywhere. The
disciple asks for, and receives forgiveness, at the
outset of his new life, for the sake of Jesus. He
consecrates himself to duty in His name. He makes
the work to which he devotes his energies a work
for Him. He offers his petitions to God for needed
gifts, and presents his thanksgiving for past bless-
ings only through Him. He finds the inspiration
which moves him to manly living and to service for
the good of men in his love for Him. He abides in
the joy of his own thoughts, and grows in the sweet-
ness and beauty of character in the hope of His
approval. He looks forward to the future with the
most delightful anticipation, because he is then to
be with Him and to be like Him. From the begin-
ning he lives for Him, and at the end he even dies
lor Him. The personal relation of the soul to Jesus
is insisted upon, under all circumstances, as essential
to that life of true righteousness which is acceptable
to God ; and in this personal relation is declared to
exist the life-giving force which opens the way into
it, and impels the soul forward in it.
So it is represented here. When the first act is
135
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
Spoken of by which, in the Hght of the call to the
young ruler that had just been given, the entrance
into the kingdom is pictured forth — an act of self-
sacrifice and of leaving possessions, or home, or
family — it is described as done for the sake of Jesus.
It is not simply that self is sacrificed or duty is ful-
filled, but chiefly, and above all, that the offering
and fulfilment are for Him. The answer of Jesus
was an answer to Peter's word, " We have left all
and followed thee." It was an answer which met
the demands of the case that was presented, and
which promised a reward to the action of those, who,
like him, had left their homes and their possessions
to the end of the following.
What, we may ask, are the elements of power in
this great motive and impulse of the Christian life,
as they are indicated in the two verses? The first
element is found in the leaving of all things for the
sake of a friend. It is sometimes claimed that this
is not the noblest ground of self-sacrifice — that
consecration to duty for its own sake, and because
it is right, is more worthy of the truest manhood,
than any devotion which rises out of personal affec-
tion. But no one can doubt that in such affection
there lies a powerful incentive, which must affect
and energise the soul. Friendship, wherever it
exists, bears witness to its force. It testifies, also,
that it is effective for the upbuilding of character.
Upon this force Christianity lays hold. The man
whom it approaches, and who has lost the true
righteousness, is pointed to a Friend who has loved
136
THE INNER LIFE
him. This Friend has seen his fall into sin, his
hopeless condition, his forfeiture of the blessedness
of union with God, his dark prospect for the future.
He has seen, also, how fatally sin has wrought by
its influence upon his soul, so that the eye of the
soul has been dimmed, or even blinded, to the
beauty of what is good, and its faculties have been
weakened in their outgoing towards right affection
or right action. Moved by the sight, He has drawn
near to help him. He has entered, as far as pos-
sible, into his limitations and temptations ; into his
experiences and possibilities; into his weakness
and darkness; and has offered him all things for
the future — forgiveness, to meet and set aside his
sin ; light, to illumine the darkness into which he
has fallen ; strength coming from a Divine source,
to enable him to resist evil; a pure and perfect
example for him to imitate ; a beautiful life to in-
spire and allure him by what it has to give ; and a
hope reaching into the invisible, which carries in
itself the promise of a glorious realisation. The
Friend thus raises him from death to Hfe — a death
the reality and sadness of which he apprehends
more fully, as the new life begins and moves for-
ward in its course. He is, in a sense in which no
other friend is or can be, the author of all things
on which the man now centres his thought and his
hope. When the words " for my sake " are spoken
by such a friend, and accompany the request or
demand to leave houses, or lands, or anything that
seems good, what a living and life-transforming
power they must bear with them ! Who that real-
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
ises what the things which have been done, and
those which are offered, are, can fail to respond to
these words with the answering sacrifice of all
things at the very door of the new hfe?
The motive may not, indeed, affect every man,
for it may not be that every man will believe in the
story of what the Friend has accomplished in his
behalf, or even that He is a friend. But where it
finds entrance into the soul far enough to stir the vital
forces, it must stir them as with a mighty energy,
and in the direction in which the friend calls them
forth. This impulse also, whatever we may say of
the comparative measure of nobleness which be-
longs to it, cannot but be an added power for the
soul's movement, beyond anything which can spring
from the sense of right, or devotion to duty — the
power of personal affection, of gratitude and love.
Why did Peter and his companions leave all and
follow after Jesus, while the young man who had
just departed, turned back to his great possessions
sorrowful? Because they had received into them-
selves, as he had not, this power. From the first
day of their meeting with the wonderful teacher,
they had learned from His words and His actions
how much He had done for them. They saw in
Him at the beginning a light, which shone more
and more brightly as the days passed, and they
believed that He had brought a great blessing to
their lives, and had wrought a great work in their
behalf The thought of Him grew richer and the
love for Him grew deeper, and a wonderful force
for the life came with the love and the thought.
138
THE INNER LIFE
When the call was made for the life-service and
the life-fellowship, the soul at once responded to
the influence. They forsook all which had filled
their minds and moved their hopes before, and
gave themselves to Ilim and His work. They rose
up immediately as He summoned them, and went
after Him in His way, not their oivn. This, also,
was but the beginning. In the inner life, as well as
the outer, they listened to His voice ever afterward.
They heard in their deepest souls the words ** for
my sake," and they moved on to new duty, and
new love, and new hope — realising within them-
selves the meaning and impulse of the divine fel-
lowship. And thus it has always been, from that
early time to ours. These tender and heart-moving
words, which bear witness of so much in the life of
the great Friend, and of the disciple, also, in his
discipleship, have possessed for all believers the
secret of the vital force which has made them ever
ready after the same manner to follow Him.
The verses, however, suggest another element in
the power of the motive. The words, ** for my
sake," are joined with the words, "for the gospel's
sake." The forms of expression used by the differ-
ent evangelists at this point are quite significant, as
they are compared with each other. Matthew has
the expression, "■ for my name's sake," Mark has, " for
my sake and the gospel's," Luke has simply, " for
the kingdom of God's sake." The sacrifice and
service, which are demanded for the sake of the
friend, are demanded for the kingdom. The whole
139
THOUGHTS OF AXD FOR
matter is centred in the one thing, or the other, or
in the two together, according as the thought is di-
rected towards it from one place of observation or
from another. It is in this way that the motive be-
comes the noblest one possible, for — while it bears
in itself the force and inspiration of affection for a
friend, who has given all things, and even himself,
for those who needed his help — it also moves the
man by the impulses which send him forth to un-
selfish service on behalf of the world. The person
and the kingdom become in this sense one, and the
love which goes out in gratitude towards the person
for what he has accomplished for the individual
soul, goes forth also, and by the very necessity of
the case, in helpfulness for all others.
The Christian's love is not, therefore, and cannot
be, other than benevolent and all-embracing. It
cannot ever, while it remains itself, become, as the
love of earthly friendship sometimes docs, a thing
in the enjoyment of which the possessor of it
indulges for himself alone, and thus unworthy of
his purest and most exalted manhood. But moving
along the same line of grand unselfishness in which
the spirit of consecration to right and duty moves,
it unites the most exalted impulses belonging to the
heart with those which rise from thought and moral
principle, and thus urges the man forward, as by
the common life-force of his whole being. It sup-
plies for him, and in him, what the mere moral sense
and the obligations of the soul to the law of right-
eousness can never of themselves furnish — and the
thing which it gives is a wonderful power for the
140
THE INNER LIFE
development of character, and for its outworking
in all good service.
Jesus entered our human life, and fulfilled His
work among men, and suffered and died, in order
that the Gospel might be made known, and the king-
dom established. He made all men His brethren to
this end, and as He tenderly and graciously told the
story of the love of God, He revealed impressively
His own self-sacrifice in love to all. The signifi-
cance of His work was to be found in the Gospel
and the kingdom. When He summoned His fol-
lowers, therefore, to leave possessions and friends
for His sake. He called them, at the same time and
by the same act, to give themselves to the kingdom.
They were to devote their lives to the cause to which
He had devoted His life. They were to tell the
story, and labour for the kingdom, and bear witness
of the true righteousness, and proclaim the way of
faith, and make God known as ready to forgive and
to save all who would turn to Him — placing this
work above all others, with whatever of self-sacrifice
it might involve. They were to do it for His sake,
because they had for themselves, and their own souls,
received such inestimable blessings from Him. But,
as they did it for His sake, they were to give them-
selves, in the deep and true understanding of the
meaning of these all-inspiring words, for His sake,
— and in a love and service, after their measure,
like His own, — to the extending of the same bless-
ings to their fellow-men. To leave all things for my
sake — such is His word to His disciples — is to
leave all things for the Gospel's sake. To tell the
141
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
Gospel story, and thereby bring in the reahsation of
the kingdom, is to do the work of God's righteous-
ness with an abounding and unselfish love. And so
the motive power of the words, " for my sake," is a
soul-stirring and all-victorious force.
The verses suggest, also, another element in the
power of the motive, which we may well notice for
a moment. By the call, which is given, to leave all
things for His sake, Jesus puts Himself in compar-
ison not only with houses and lands — that is, the
great possessions, which had proved sufficient to
keep the young ruler from entering the gateway of
life, even when he saw it opening before him — but
also with brethren, and parents, and children. The
friendship of Jesus is set above he nearest and
truest earthly friendships, and the suggestion is thus
given of what it is for the soul. The impelling
force of which we are speaking is found in the
character of the Friend and of the personal relation
with Him. The weakness or even selfishness of
human love, as it exists at times between two friends,
is connected closely with the imperfection which
pertains to human character. The higher the one
whom we love rises in the beauty and glory of man-
hood, however, — the more nearly he approaches
the perfection which we picture to ourselves, but do
not realise, — the less are we in danger of making
the love minister to self, as we exercise and enjoy
it. This must be so, because the influences that
come through such a personal relation are those
which move from the inmost life of the one party in
142
THE INNER LIFE
the union into the inmost Hfe of the other. This
hfe in the centre and fountain of the soul being all
purity, and truth, and self-sacrifice, and readiness
for faithful service, the teaching and the impulse
which come from it must be of the same character.
The man of magnanimous feehng, or lofty purpose,
or elevated sentiment, or sweet reasonableness, or
warm affection, inspires his intimate and loving friend
with what goes forth from himself, and by means of
the inspiration brings him into his own hkeness.
This inspiration is a transforming and purifying and
glorifying power which works with continual, though
oftentimes, it may be, with silent energy. It is,
moreover, a power which is recognised, as its re-
sults in the life are seen, with the deepest gratitude.
When the request for service or sacrifice, accord-
ingly, presents itself from such a man to such a
friend in the words, '' for my sake," there is hidden
in these words a secret force that reveals itself more
and more clearly — and with an ever-increasing
energy — as the call seems to sound along the
avenues of the soul, awakening there the remem-
brance of all the influence which has come from the
one to the other. It can only be a power for good
action, for the source from which it springs is the
goodness of another's character. It can only be a
power in harmony with true and generous feeling,
because the generous life of one soul must pro-
duce generous life in another. Its measure can
be estimated only by experience. The soul deter-
mines it for itself.
The life of Jesus, however, was the life of perfect
143
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
manhood, beyond any other that the world has
known. This is the thought of all respecting Him,
whatever differences there may be in the other
thinking of men as to His nature or His work.
What then must have been the influence which
passed from Him to those who sat beside Him, and
lived in His society and fellowship ! They must
have been conscious as the years passed on, that
they were growing larger in their manhood, and
nobler in their soul's Hving in every part of it, by
reason of their nearness to His thought and love and
perfectness. And when the call came, which they
obeyed, to follow Him in anything, and anywhere,
for His sake, they must have felt that the love of
Jesus, which constrained them, was the most divine
motive which could impel their souls.
The words " for my sake," therefore, as they read
their true lesson to us and speak of their true mean-
ing, tell us of an incentive for life which rejects from
itself all that is unworthy, or of self alone, and which
gathers into itself in different ways, and through
varied thoughts, the most effective force for the
transformation of character — a force which alHes
itself actively with every other that inspires for
good, and gives new energy to every other.
It is a force also which works towards a reward.
The verses of the evangelist tell us of this, and, as
in the case of the motive-power, they reveal to us
something of its nature. The Christian doctrine
lays hold, for its followers, of the influence derived
from hope. It promises a blessedness in the future,
144
THE INNER LIFE
in recompense for the sacrifice of the present. But
as it turns the mind of the one who beheves it away
from selfishness, when it imparts to him its impulse
at the beginning, and along the course, so it does
the same thing when it points to the end. The
reward that it offers is one which belongs only to
the unselfish soul. The words of Jesus show this.
The very peculiarity of the call to leave all things
suggests the idea. The man who would be a disciple
is bidden to sacrifice himself Possessions, it may
be great ones ; friends, even the nearest and most
precious ; a chosen and happy way of living, and a
work for one's own growth and to one's own advan-
tage; these things, and things like them, must be
given up, if the true life is to be gained. The inti-
mation of such a demand is, that the true life, and
whatever rewards there may be connected with it,
are to be found only in a sphere where self cannot
reign supreme. And the intimation is strengthened,
when the leaving of all is called for, not that one
may serve his own purpose or gain his own end, but
for the sake of a kingdom and a gospel which per-
tain to the true righteousness — the fruit of love
and of faith. It is made still further impressive,
when it is declared that all is to be done for the
sake of a friend whose whole work was an offering
of himself on behalf of others, and whose self-sacri-
ficing love led him even to die for the world.
But — apart from and beyond these intimations —
the words themselves which describe the reward
give their own suggestion. The assurance and
promise are presented in the verses in two parts.
'° 145
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
In the former part, which sets forth what is promised
in this world, the description of the reward is given,
after a manner which is characteristic of Mark's
Gospel, in expressions answering to those employed
in the giving of the call and demand. As the sacri-
fice is of houses and lands and friends, so the recom-
pense is said to be in a greater measure of the same
gifts. But the conversation with the rich ruler, and
the sayings which follow after it with respect to the
love of riches, as well as the very peculiarity of the
expressions themselves, make it manifest that their
meaning is not to be discovered in a literal interpre-
tation of them, but in the thought which the occasion
and the context place beneath and within the words.
Interpreted thus, they teach us the truth to which
all Christian experience bears witness, that for the
self-sacrificing soul the possessions which are left
behind, and which pertain to the outward life, are
replaced, as it were, by possessions of the inward
life. The joy of Christ, which came through His
offering of Himself in obedience to the Father's will,
is imparted to His followers. His peace becomes
theirs. The hope and blessedness of the Gospel
enter into their souls. They take hold upon all
that is heavenly, rather than earthly, in character;
and the life within them which is worthy of the name
in all its full significance — the soul life — is saved.
This is, indeed, in accordance with the very law
of self-sacrifice. The soldier, who consecrates him-
self to the service of his country and goes to the
front in battle for its well-being, must leave his pos-
sessions behind him, but he gains a hundredfold in
146
THE INNER LIFE
the loss of them. He knows within himself '^ovao:-
thing which is far better, even as it is far grander,
than that which he once had and which was without
Jiimself. The man who renders self-denying service
in love for a friend knows the same experience, only
in smaller measure, it may be, by reason of the more
limited nature of the service rendered. This mani-
folding in the inward life is the rich experience
which the years bring to all of us, if we are noble
men. But the manifolding is to the limit of the
hundredfold for the Christian disciple, because he
gives himself to the greatest of all causes, that of
God and man alike, and offers his service, in sacrifice
of self, for the sake of a Friend who is above and
beyond all others.
The continual movement towards him of love is
also realised in his experience, as it comes from
those who, by reason of his leaving all things for
the Gospel and the kingdom's sake, are themselves
brought to the membership of the kingdom and the
full blessing of the Gospel. This love is ever repay-
ing him, by its gifts, for the sacrifices which he has
made.
In the early time, when the words of Jesus were
first spoken, the new love, which had a purer and
more sacred element in it than the old love had, was
the whole, and indeed the sufficient, recompense for
what was given up. But, in these later and Chris-
tian ages, the love of the old friends, who are left
behind for the sake of Jesus and the kingdom, often-
times becomes itself a holier affection for this very
reason, and realises by its ever-increasing power a
147
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
special reward for the self-sacrificing disciple. The
gift thus bestowed — when viewed in relation to
friendships or possessions — seems even to be a mul-
tiphcation of those which were enjoyed before ; and
in the deeper satisfaction of the soul, and the richer
blessing of its experience, the literal fulfilment of the
words, as it were, comes to pass — now, in this time,
a hundredfold in houses^, and lands, and brethren,
and friendships ; now, in this time — so truly does
the Gospel bear within itself the promise of the life
that now is, as well as of that which is to come.
Indeed, its second promise only grows out of, and
foUo^vs in the same line of blessing with, the first.
The eternal life is only the fulness of that which
enters the soul at the time of the leaving of all
things for the Divine Friend's sake, and which
abides there afterw^ards. It is no outward reward
which can be selfishly sought after, like so many of
the recompenses of the earthly career. It is the
perfecting of holy character in love and every grace
and beauty — the very beginning and ending of
which is the loss of self in faithful service, and in
the doing and living for His sake.
How impressively is this taught us by that single
other word which Jesus adds to the picturing of the
earthly rewards — witJi pcrsccutioiiSy a word which,
through the victories of the faith, has lost for us its
depth of meaning known so well by the first disciples,
yet still has an abiding force in the tests and trials
which beset us all. These, as the verses assure us,
move on with the reward, and work into it con-
tinuously. The perfectness of the result at the end
148
THE INNER LIFE
is reached, In part, by means of their mysterious
working. But their working is ever, through losses
and sacrifice of the outward, into the growth and
development of the inward. The soul becomes
wonderfully stronger through that which it loses.
It finds itself y when it gives up all things. And
thus its growth into its own fulness, through what
were in the old time persecutions, and are noiv trials
and sorrows, is ever realising for it more perfectly
the banishing of selfishness in the discovery of its
true self. The movement is a beautiful and a grand
one, in the line of the manliest living, from the first
act of sacrifice for His sake to the final experience
of reward in the eternal future. What a blessed
assurance it is, which the words give to us all, if we
will listen to them : There is no man w^ho has left
all for me and for the Gospel, but he will receive a
hundredfold in his soul's experience here, and the
eternal life of the soul hereafter.
149
XI
THE TRUE SEER
And one of the Pharisees desired hwt, that he %uould eat with
hi?n. And he entered into the Pharisee's house, and sat
down to meat. — Luke vii. 36-50.
[The verses contain the story of the woman who anointed
the feet of Jesus in the Pharisee's house.]
T WOULD offer for consideration a few thoughts
^ which are suggested by this story as we look at
it from certain special points of view. In the first
place, it has a revelation for us as to the method by
which Jesus met the difficulties of those who ques-
tioned His claims as a teacher of the Divine truth,
and, though not meeting Him with hatred or with
obstinate rejection of His words, were yet unwilling
to come to Him for the truth until these difficulties
should be removed. The person whom the story
represents as inviting Jesus to his house was one of
the Pharisees. We are told nothing else with dcfi-
niteness concerning him. But we may infer, from
the indications of the verses, that his purpose in
giving the invitation was not a hostile one, such as
we find manifested by others of the sect to which he
belonged as they came into contact with Jesus. He
did not desire, apparently, to catch Him in His talk,
as the sacred writers express it, or so to entangle
150
THE IXXER LIFE
Him in His answers to what he asked, that he
might have some foundation for accusing Him
before the authorities of the nation. He simply
wished to satisfy himself, as we may believe, as to
whether Jesus was worth listening to and whether
He had any message from Heaven. He thought that
by offering Him his hospitality he would have Him
alone by Himself, and thus could, in the best and
most successful way, determine the matter which he
had in mind. Everything in the story points to
this as the correct supposition respecting him. Its
consistency with the details which are mentioned,
and the explanation which it presents for the
absence of certain details which we might otherwise
have expected to find, render it so probable that we
may without hesitation accept it. This Pharisee,
therefore, was a questioner in the sphere of right-
eousness and life, as all members of his party were in
greater or less degree, so far as they were truly
worthy of a place within it. He would know what
Jesus had to say, and would test Him.
If this is the right view of the matter, we may
believe that, for the carrying out of his purpose, he
had his direct questions in mind — many of them,
perchance — which he was prepared to present. He
was ready to offer them so soon as the supper
should have proceeded far enough to make it fitting
to do so. He was waiting, perhaps impatiently, for
the proper moment to come. But suddenly, and by
an accident as it seemed, a new turn was given to
his thought, and a question which appeared to him
fundamental to all others was started in his mind.
151
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
It was a question of doubt as to whether Jesus was
a prophet-teacher at all — whether He had any
prophetic relation to the truth whatever.
According to a custom of the region and of the
time, which allowed strangers to enter unbidden
at such a meal, and to approach the guests and
speak with them, a woman suddenly came into the
room where they were, and at once drew near to
Jesus and proceeded to anoint His feet with oint-
ment which she had brought. This person was, as
the writer tells us, a sinner. Evidently she was, to
the mind of the Pharisee, a sinner of so marked a
character that her very touch was a defilement. The
current of his thoughts was immediately arrested.
The difficulties connected with his old system of
belief rushed in upon him at once, and the inquiries
after the truth must, as he felt, wait until these were
settled. Is the man a prophet at all? he said to
himself. A prophet, surely, would know what sort
of a person this is. But apparently he does not
know. A prophet must not suffer himself to be de-
filed. But he is allowing this to happen, with no
resistance or objection. The manifest presence of
the sinner here, does it not prove that there is no
prophet here ? My questions, which I had promised
myself the asking, are useless until this matter is de-
termined ; and I do not see how it can be determined
except unfavourably for the professed teacher. So
long as this difficulty, thus suggested, remains, he
can have nothing for me. The teacher, surely, must
precede the teachings, and be the authority for them.
I doubt his right to the teacher's office, and I do not
152
THE INNER LIFE
believe that he can establish it. What I had hoped
for fails, and I may well allow him to depart.
We may observe with interest how Jesus met his
difficulty. He did not meet it by argument, or by
a renewed and emphatic assertion of what He claimed
for Himself He did not attempt to show him
directly or by reasoning that his view of the matter
of pollution was a narrow one, founded upon a mere
superficial view of the letter of his own system. He
did not enter at all into the sphere of his questionings.
He went behind all this, and farther down into the
depths of human experience. He said to him in
briefest words : Let me tell you a simple story of
common hfe. A money lender had two debtors, to
one of whom he had lent ten times as much as he
had to the other. Time passed on. The debts
became due, and when he found that both alike had
nothing wherewith to pay him, he forgave them
both. The story is a very simple one — is it not?
It has not much to do with the question whether a
man has a prophetic gift from God, or is a divinely-
commissioned teacher, you may think. Be it so, if
you will — at least, for the moment. We will wait
for the decision of that question, which will come in
Its own time. But its own time is not now. Now is
the time for something other than this. How will it
be about what follows the forgiveness? Which of the
two men, who have their debts forgiven, will love
the kindly friend the most? There cannot be much
doubt as to this point, surely. We may dispute
about the other question, but we shall agree in our
answer to this: The one to whom he forgave the
153
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
most. Let us make our starting-point then where
we agree, and after this look outward in two direc-
tions. There are two matters on which your mind
is resting — righteousness, and my claim to be a
prophet. The one is a matter of the soul's life; —
the other, as you put it, a question of the mind's
thinking. You are placing the latter before the
former. You should place the former before the
latter. If you move from the right beginning, you
may hope to reach the right end. What then does
the story tell you about the true righteousness?
Think of this. It tells you how it originates, and
what it is. Apply the story to real life, and you
will understand it.
Thus he speaks with his questioner. The man
who in his own view had lived in accordance with
rules and had had few failures ; who had made the
letter of the law his study and had been punctilious
in his observance of it; who regarded himself even
as within the kingdom of God because of his birth
and education, and had little sense of sin, makes no
demonstration of love, because he has none. He is
cold and formal and critical, because there has been
no deep movement of his soul and no sense of ruin
or danger. The sinner, on the other hand, who is
conscious of the fact, and who therefore feels his
need of help and of deliverance, is the one who is on
the way to the true life, because the soul within him
is stirred. He knows where he stands, and will love
the Divine helper who lays hold upon and helps him.
It is when the soul is stirred that the life begins.
All life shows this. What a new light the words
154
THE IN.YER LIFE
were fitted to bring into the Pharisee's mind. The
action of the woman, which seemed to his dull ap-
prehension— dulled by his own self-righteousness
and legalism and Hteralism — to be polluting in its
character because she was a sinner, was in reality the
evidence and outflow of that love which had within
itself the power to overcome the sin and reform the
life. Righteousness is not mere action. It is not
mere conformity to the words of a law. It is such
action and conformity founded upon a life-principle.
Common life everywhere tells us this. Human ex-
perience, in its inmost and central sources, proves
it. Look within yourself, and you will be a witness
to the truth. Let the questions of life thus move
within the sphere of life ; — and when these ques-
tions are answered, it will be the time for further
questioning.
And now, who is the prophet? The man who
knows this, or the man who does not? The man
who penetrates by his clear vision into the secret
beginnings of human action as they are found in
the first impulses of the soul, or he who never gets
far enough below the surface of things to think of
anything except the external defilement of meeting
with one who has been a sinner? The prophet is a
seer. Which of the two is it that sees ? The prophet
is inspired to understand the Divine idea of right-
eousness. Which of the two gives evidence of the
inspiration? — The story of experience answers both
of the questions, if they are placed in their right
order. And why should it not — for the forces
which are illustrated in human experience are the
155
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
forces which move life, and the movement of life is
that which makes the man. To know this is to see
the truth, for all that is good centres in this
movement.
Another revelation which the story has for us is,
as to the way in which Jesus met those who came
to Him from the starting-point of the deep wants
of the inner life, and not from that of difficulties or
intellectual questionings. The sinner in the story
knew little, as we may believe — certainly, she
thought little now — of the points in the legal
system, which were filling, all at once, the mind
of the Pharisee. Life had passed, to her apprehen-
sion, so far beyond the questions of external and
ceremonial defilement, that this had become one of
the minor and secondary things. The helper whose
aid she felt to be necessary for her was one who
should see the life's sources, and should purify and
vitalise them. The sense of sin removed all diffi-
culties but one from the mind. That one was, how
to become free from sin's power. Everything in the
narrative, moreover, seems to indicate that, even
with regard to the great question of the renewal
of character, she had but limited knowledge. She
did not recognise her own faith, apparently. To
the Pharisee's mind, she did not know enough to
know her right position before a religious teacher,
or to ask for forgiveness. Perhaps she had not
thought far enough, to think of asking for it. But,
in some way, the mind of this sinner had been
turned to Jesus. From what she had seen of Him
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THE INNER LIFE
or heard of Him she felt that there was a great
outflow of love and blessing in His soul, which was
ready for all who would receive it. Possibly, she
was conscious of having experienced already some-
what of its life-giving power. The confidence that
the blessing was in Him, or the consciousness that
the beginning of its influence had come to herself,
led her to draw near to Him now, and to bestow
upon Him a gift of aff"cction and reverence. Her
thought was wholly occupied with this one thing.
If the Pharisee, or if Jesus Himself had asked her
how she expected to secure the Divine forgiveness
and to be set right with God, — what were the
steps by which she would seek the gift, in order
surely to attain it, or what was the precise pathway
back from sin to righteousness, — she would prob-
ably have found herself unable to answer. She
would certainly have said that all this was aside
from her thought at the moment. She was now
thinking only of an act of love, — perchance, of
grateful love, — and in this was the whole purpose
of her entering the house where they were. How
different was her condition from that of the Phar-
isee ! The difference was that which always exists
— which manifests itself a thousand times to every
careful observer of human nature, and is illustrated by
examples everywhere — between the cold and doubt-
ing questioner who stands outside of the Christian
system, and sees difficulties on every side for the
mind to grapple with, and the man who knows that
sin is a deadly evil, and feels its power within himself
to be too great for his own strength to overcome.
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
But what did Jesus say to the sinner? He did
not ask questions concerning her feeHng ; or try to
draw from her a story of the way in which her mind
was now turning; or bid her place her present
thoughts and impulses beside the true order of the
plan of forgiveness and the new life, and thus set
her upon an examination of herself; or even in any
way attempt to make her look into the movement
of her soul, in order to determine its character or
its reality. With the seer's eye which belongs to
the true prophet, He saw for Himself, in the act
which she had just performed, all that He needed to
see, and then, with the same seer's eye, He saw that
she was not yet prepared to study the movement.
But He turned to the Pharisee, and said, Seest
thou this woman? Let the story of the debtors
apply itself to you and to her, and study the question
of the forces of life, as you make the application.
You will find what you do not yet know — what she
herself does not yet fully realise — that these forces
are behind the act, and thus that the true life has
begun in her, while you are still questioning and
doubting. Then He details what she had done, in
contrast with what the Pharisee himself had done,
and shows by the repetition and the contrast the
reality of the vital force — that her action was the
overflowing and outpouring of a love which involved
all things in itself. The very essence of the living
righteousness, which had been lost out of the
Pharisee's conception of it, was in this love. The
love, therefore, may prove, even to your questioning
mind, he says to him at the end, that the sinner
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THE INNER LIEE
whose presence here so troubles you, — however
many her sins have been, and they have indeed
been many, — has come into a new position. Her
sins are forgiven, and the Divine renewal has begun.
She has found God's righteousness, while you have
lost your way utterly in seeking your own.
Moreover, He does not even tell what she has
done, or picture the beauty of her act by its con-
trast, to the sinner herself. He lets her hear it, but
does not set it before her as an explanation of the
way in which she had come to be forgiven. So
far is He from dealing with her after the manner
of an examiner into the evidences of character, or
according to the successive stages of a plan, — He
says nothing at all of the relation of her love to her
forgiveness, except to the Pharisee, and to him
nothing except that he might know that she was
forgiven, by reason of the evidence of the new Hfe-
power which her love gave. Indeed He says noth-
ing in any way to herself, until all this had passed.
The reasoning, the explanation, the pointing to the
forces of life, were needed only for the questioning
Pharisee. His dull mind — dulled by his own doubt-
ing— must have some answer. For the sinner,
who was as yet moving according to the simplest of
the nobler impulses of the soul, and was not ready to
ask or understand the explanation, or to know any-
thing of the philosophy of life, there was nothing until
the end, and then only the one word of assurance.
Surely there is a lesson which is full of suggestion
for us in the story, as we read it thus. But there is
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
another revelation which it has for us, as we notice
what He said to the sinner, after those who were
at the table with Him had expressed their astonish-
ment at His assuming the power of forgiving sin.
He now tells the woman herself the great truth of
her renewed life — how it originated : Thy faith
hath saved thee. The woman did not apprehend
the truth at the time. Those who sat at meat with
Jesus did not apprehend it. The questioning Phari-
see, no doubt, had his mind closed against it as the
words were uttered, for his thought and view of
righteousness had been altogether in another line.
But the words, nevertheless, contained the central
point of the Christian teaching, and they declare the
truth for all. The faith was saving because it was
an active force. It went forth in a heartfelt con-
fidence towards the source of help. It laid hold,
believing, upon the blessing which was offered, and
upon the one who offered it. And as it went forth,
it proved itself to be a uniting power between the
souls, which opened the way for all life-giving in-
fluence to pass from the greater Friend to the
weaker one, and all loving feeling and action to go
from the one who needed help to the one who gave
it. The life-time afterwards was but the unfolding
of what was here said. Faith originated what love
proved. Faith worked, through the love-element in
it, towards all good ; and love grew deeper and
richer, as faith became more and more beautifully
an undoubting confidence.
We question the Christian system from outside of
it, and then from inside of it; and we involve our-
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THE INNER LIFE
selves, how often, in difficulties everywhere. What
is the relation of faith to love, we ask from the outer
position, and the inner one also ; and, Has the
movement of the two been, in our individual ex-
perience, we say to ourselves, just what it ought to
have been? We can separate the two things in our
philosophy, and in our setting forth of the plan.
But in human life they move, many times, in such
close and intricate intermingling, that they can
scarcely be recognised in their independence. The
man distresses himself in seeking after faith, when
the loving actions of his life bear clearest testimony
to its existence. Or he deceives himself, perchance,
by the thought that his love has no divine origin or
evidencing power, when, if he will look into his
soul's workings, he will see that everything in the
inward, or the outward, life is inspired by an un-
doubting confidence and trust in the Divine Friend.
The faith, as in every union of souls, is the first life-
producing force. The love is the offspring and the
proof — the flower and fruitage — of the faith. But
they abide together through the years, working
harmoniously in every line, and become so nearly
one that the man only knows the oneness — the
believing love and the loving belief. Yet the faith,
notwithstanding this, ever saves, and the love
proves; and the answer of both together to the
man's questionings as to himself is: Thy sins are
forgiven.
There is one more revelation or suggestion which
the story gives, as it leaves us. The last word
II i6i
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
addressed to the sinner bids her go in peace.
There is no such last word to the Pharisee. So far
as we are told, he remains in the midst of his ques-
tionings and his difficulties — waiting for the answer-
ing and removing of them by some explanation
which shall be more direct, and shall be more satis-
factory to his mind or his reasoning powers. The
accident of the hour had brought him very near to
the gate of the true life. But he could not sufter
Jesus to open it for him, because an old thought
connected with his old system of opinions made him
doubt whether Jesus was, after all, a prophet How
could a prophet stand by the gate with such a sin-
ner and allow himself to be defiled by a polluting
touch. Settle the difficulty first, and look for the
life afterwards. So it is always with the doubting
questioner — in this age, as in the first age — in our
company, as in the company of those who were at
the table with Jesus on that memorable day. The
error into which the doubter falls is a fundamental
one. Christianity deals with life. It is life. Its
working moves along the line of the soul's deepest
and truest experience. It is the most natural of all
things, as it moves thus. What could be simpler or
truer than the movement of the renewing forces in
the case of this sinner, of whom the story tells us?
Who can question for a moment the reality of the
power which was within her as she came to Jesus,
and as she went forth from His presence? And
who that understands anything about human ex-
perience, and the relations of one soul to another,
can fail to see, that peace and forgiveness are
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THE INNER LIFE
vitally related to faith and love as she manifested
them ?
Christianity goes with us, indeed, into the mys-
teries of life and of thought. It answers many
questions and unfolds many mysteries for us as we
move patiently, and with open and honest minds,
through the years. But its office is not to remove
difficulties, but to remove sin. Its mission and pur-
pose are not to satisfy the mind in all its inquiries
and reasonings, but to give new life to the soul.
The mind may fall into disbelief anywhere in the
sphere of life and its impelling forces. It may
originate it for itself and by its own efforts. You
can doubt friendship, or family love, or patriotism,
or true righteousness — and can lose them all in your
doubtings — if you put yourself outside of them, as
it were, and refuse to believe until every difficulty
which your philosophy or your scepticism may start
is set aside. They are, however, none the less real
on this account. Their very life and sweetness and
power belong in another sphere than that of the
difficulties, and the questioning of the soul which
brings it to the door of the sphere where they
belong is the only one which reaches the blessing.
So is it with Christian living. What an insignifi-
cant thing as related to this, was the question
whether Jesus was a prophet who had never been
defiled by the touch of a sinner, and thus a prophet
who could meet the demands of the Pharisee's pre-
conceived ideas. What a momentous one, on the
other hand, it was, that He was a seer into life — a
man who knew the way to forgiveness, and right
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
character — that character which comes out of the
purified fountains of the soul, and is, when it thus
comes, the grandest and most real thing in exis-
tence. Life has its own laws and its own forces.
The way to live is the way of discovering the forces
and using them. Doubts and questionings are not
life. They are, rather, its opposite. Life is posi-
tive. Life is movement. Life is faith in the reality
of things. Life is love which animates and inspires
and glorifies the soul. The sinner of the story —
many as her sins had been — had life, at this hour.
The Pharisee had doubtings, and no noble impulse
which stirred the man.
And so peace came to the one, but not to the
other. The peace of the soul is the result of faith.
The man who doubts and questions cannot be at
rest. The settlement of his questionings must be
secured before quietness and truest happiness can
be his. But when faith enters the heart as an active
power, and puts forth its energy through love, and
unites the soul with God, — then the Divine gift
comes in answer to the faith. The man lives, and
works, and moves in all his movements after the
Divine manner. There is peace in believing —
an ever-abiding, ever-deepening peace. Jesus knew
this, and knew the way to realise it. He was a
seer who saw the centre of the soul and saw how
it could be purified. He was one whom no sinner
with the true life-impulse within him could defile
by his touch, for He carried within Himself the
transforming power through which all life is made
holy. He was the helper for the sin-burdened man,
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THE INNER LIFE
and the one who spoke, as with the Divine voice,
the word of forgiveness for the past and peace for
the future. If you will place yourself near to Him,
my friend, as He stands at the gateway of life, you
will find the great blessing. As you recognise in
Him the seer who sees the sources and forces of
the soul's living, you will also discover Him to be
the true prophet of the truth and of the ages.
165
XII
Let him that stole steal no itiore. — Ephesians iv. 28.
THE words of this sentence are a part of the
practical section of the epistle addressed by
Paul to the Ephesian Christians. They form one of
the elements which make up the leading exhorta-
tion of the letter : that the readers should walk
worthily of the calling wherewith they were called ;
and this exhortation, by the very manner in which
it is introduced — I therefore beseech you — is
founded upon the doctrinal teaching of the preced-
ing chapters. They afford us, accordingly, an
illustration of the way in which the Divinely-com-
missioned Apostle would bring the Christian truth
to bear upon conduct. Examples, however, always
pass in their teaching beyond their own immediate
and narrow limits, and impress upon the mind not
only particular lessons, but general ones. Let me
offer some thoughts in connection with the words
as bearing upon the results of our faith in our ac-
tion and daily living.
In the first place, we may notice the immediate
connection between this exhortation and the urgent
request or demand, which the writer makes, that
these Christians should hold firmly the true Chris-
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THE INNER LIFE
tian doctrine. There is one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, he says. In walking worthily of your
calHng, therefore, you should give all diligence to
keep the unity of the Spirit and the unity of the
faith. You should be careful not to be carried
about with every wind, or to be tossed to and fro,
after the wiles of error, but should possess, and
cherish, and grow up more and more into the truth.
But, in order to do this, and in doing it, you should
cease — because of the new life-principle in the inner
life — to give yourselves up any longer to the old
practices of your former unchristian state, and
should do what is right and good. The truth of
the doctrine is to be sought for and to be main-
tained, for it alone is the Divine truth. But the
doctrine has no vitality, and no fulness of meaning,
without the true living which is the legitimate out-
growth of it. Hence the true living is the end, —
the doctrine is only the means.
The Apostolic preachers were not the founders of
a philosophical system, or professors in a school
of theological science, to whose minds the setting
forth of truth in definite and accurate and system-
atic formulas was the aim of their efforts or the
object of their career. They were proclaimcrs of
a way of salvation — of reforming and sanctifying
the soul — of delivering mankind, and each individ-
ual man, from sin, and bringing all to righteousness.
Their unfolding of the system which they taught
was wholly for a practical end. We find them
accordingly, in all their writings, placing the prac-
tical application to the personal and inmost life
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
after the doctrinal teaching and argument, and
making the latter preparatory to the former. They
did not enter into religious controversy for its own
sake. They did not stand on the watch-towers of
Zion to defend the truth simply as truth, but rather
to defend, and explain, and enforce it because they
believ^ed it to be the only foundation of right living.
It was for the reason that the Christian teaching
would, through the working of its power within his
soul, lead the man who had been wont to steal to
do so no more — and for this reason as the first and
great and all-important reason — that Paul urged
upon him to guard himself against the deceits of
error, and to keep the faith. If the man succeeded
in holding the faith-system in its every minutest
point, so that the sleight of men or their cunning
craftiness could not move him in the smallest degree
from the form of sound words — so long as he did
not cease to steal his right belief was worthless, —
the Apostolic message had done him no good.
The claim which Christianity made for itself, as
it entered the world ; the ground on which it asked
men to receive it, was, not that it contained a
system of doctrine beautiful to contemplate, but
that it presented the best, and even the only way of
developing the life of God in the soul of man. On
the satisfying of this claim its success in the world
must depend. The Master accepted the necessity
of the position which He assumed. By their fruits
ye shall know them, He set forth as the principle
of judging; and His immediate followers fully
recognised what He had set before them. As the
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THE INNER LIFE
ages have moved forward, however, the Church
has, many times, forgotten, or in large measure lost
sight of this fact. It has, how often, given itself to
fiery, and even savage discussion about the details
of believing, and become careless and negligent
about the heart-power of faith in the individual
man, and its results in action. It has demanded the
acceptance of doctrine as the essential condition of
entrance into the heavenly kingdom, and has ceased
to remember the Pauline word : If I know all mys-
teries and all knowledge in the Christian system,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing. But this is because
the Church has not reached the standard of the
Christianity which it professes, or been guided by
the teaching of Christ and His Apostles in the truest
and deepest meaning of it.
I ask you then, in the second place, to observe
how Christianity approaches those to whom it offers
its teaching. To take what will seem to us all,
doubtless, one of the more extreme cases — how
does it come to the man who has been a thief?
It lays before him its doctrine of salvation by faith,
in the simplest way, and asks him to accept it and
make it a power — the power — in his life. How
shall I do this? he says. The first thing for you to
do, it answers — the special thing for you as an
individual man — in developing the new life within
you and opening the way for its fruitage is, to give
up your old habit. Let him that stole steal no
more. This ceasing to steal is, for you, the turning-
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
point of your career. In this way only can you
reverse your course, and free yourself from your sin.
You may believe anything or everything — you may
admire the precepts or doctrines given you by the
New Testament — you may cultivate many virtues
and have many good emotions, but if you continue
your course of stealing, without effort to alter it, you
are no Christian. After the same manner, as he goes
on in his life — when the temptation and the weak-
ness which come down to him from his old way of
living make him liable to fall into sin, the same voice
addresses itself to his mind and heart. Steal no
more : — let this be the motto and maxim of your
Hfe.
Christianity does not say to such a man, guard
yourself against drunkenness; perhaps the man has
never been intoxicated in his life-time; — nor, take
care not to be angry; perhaps he is good-natured
under all circumstances ; — nor, let no corrupt
speech proceed out of your mouth; possibly his
speech is not corrupt. It does not divide its forces,
or begin its attack upon him in the wrong place. It
concentrates its energy upon that which is the centre
of the evil, — that which stands in the way of the
Divine life in the soul — and says, in a trumpet-tone
and with a never-ceasing repetition. You have been
a thief Be an honest man.
The extreme character of the case supposed takes
it out of our experience, but may only render its
lesson more clear and more emphatic. It is a rare
thing, no doubt, that one of our ordinary churches
contains in its membership a man who lived, before
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THE INNER LIFE
his conversion, the hfe of a thief. The churches of
the Apostolic age, whose members had been brought
out of the vices of heathenism, may have had in
their circle many such persons. But the message of
Christianity is a similar one to all. As it opens its
teaching to every man, it bids him cease to practise
his own peculiar sins and become a new man.
What is the membership of our churches? Not
composed, indeed, of men who, in the vulgar sense,
have been in the habit of stealing. But, in how
many cases, of men who are willing to take advan-
tage of their neighbours, or who in a petty way and
in minor things. fall below the highest standard of
honesty, or who cherish their money as if it were the
greatest good, or who are ungenerous, or are tyran-
nical in their families, provoking their children to
wrath, or are so immovably obstinate as to make all
who are dependent on them lose much of the happi-
ness of life, or are so narrow-minded that they have
no charity for others' views. To each of these classes
of persons, and the many others of which we see
examples in the churches of every name, the
Christian teaching directs its ddmands just where
they are needed. To the man who never gives
away his money, for example, it does not say, first of
all, Attend the weekly prayer-meeting; Give an
hour daily to religious meditation ; Establish family
prayers in your house. Much less does it exhort
him to give up slandering his neighbours — a thing
which he has never had any i-mpulse to do; or to
avoid quickness of angry passion — to which his
natural disposition is a stranger. It penetrates the
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
inmost heart of his Hving, and bids him begin, and
begin at once, to give away his money as he ought
to give it. The love of that money is the stronghold
of evil within his soul ; and, until it is taken away in
its all-controlling force, the work of Christianity is
either not begun, or not perfected, in his case, no
matter how sweet-tempered he may be, or how many
hours he may spend in meditation. So to the
obstinate man, it says, Lay aside your obstinacy ; to
the narrow-minded. Give up your narrow-minded-
ness ; to the man who is indolent, Be earnest and
laborious ; to each and every man, Cease to do the
particular evil thing or things which you, personally
and individually, are in the habit of doing. Build up
character by beginning at the foundation.
It deals with men as John the Baptist did with the
different classes who came before him. To the
publicans, — as they asked him. What must we
do? — he answered. Extort no more than that which
is appointed you. This was the gateway of a
righteous life in their case. To the soldiers, pre-
senting the same question, his reply was, Do violence
to no man, and, Be content with your wages. To
the multitudes of selfish listeners, who desired to
know his demand upon them, he said. He that hath
two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, and
he that hath food, let him do likewise. How simple
the answer was. Be content with your wages. Be
satisfied with your just dues. Be charitable and
generous. The answer is the same to-day : Do the
duty which lies directly before you in your individ-
ual pathway. Abandon the wrong in your feelings,
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THE INNER LIFE
your action, your attitude towards others, your daily
living, whatever it may be. Let the inward life-
power which you receive from the new faith impel
you to do thus. This is the way in which you are
to begin or to go forward in the Christian course.
Whether you are a Christian believer already or
not, my friend, the Christian teaching calls you to
one thing : to look at your own life — not at mankind
in general, or at the men around you, but at your
own life — and to see what is your own evil habit or
sin. Is it dishonesty, or unfaithfulness in the dis-
charge of duties, or idleness, or censoriousness, or
frivohty, or disregard of others' feelings, or any
major or minor fault, as the world measures the
greater and the less. Whatever it may be, — and
we all know what it is, in the depths of our souls —
the word that comes to us is: Put an end to it;
overcome it ; let its place be taken by the opposite
virtue ; just as to him that stole it is. Steal no more,
but labour, working with your own hands, that you
may have whereof to give to him that hath need. It
is a thoroughly individual matter — this Christian
doctrine. For this reason, it strikes at the root of
character, and is truly reformatory of the life. It
does not leave the inquirer or the disciple to fill his
hours with mere meditation on the beauty of hoh-
ness, or even on the love of Christ — much less with
passing judgment on sins of which some men, but
not himself, are guilty. But it summons him, for
the love of Christ and for His sake, to commit his
own sins no more ; and if it cannot persuade him to
do this, its work for him is a failure.
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
We see thus, in the third place, that the success
of Christianity in the world can be hoped for mainly
— if not, indeed, only — from its success in this
way in individual lives. We are passing, at present,
through a season of great and widespread doubt.
Everything connected with the Christian system is
questioned or denied. The enemies of the faith are
growing bolder, and its friends are sometimes prone
to be discouraged. What — above all things else —
is to check the evil, and to prove to mankind — to
the doubters and deniers, even — the truth of our
faith? The thing which can surely accomplish the
end is, that every Christian believer should do just
what has been referred to — put aside, by reason of
his faith and because of its power within him, the
wrong that is in his own life, and bring into its place
the right. When this is done, the fruits will bear
their own irresistible witness to the tree. The world
will believe the doctrine, when it sees the life.
Let us take the case of a single community —
the one, for example, in which we have our abiding
place. Who can doubt that, if every professing
Christian in such a community were to show to all
about him that the Christian principle, implanted in
his heart, was really overcoming the evils of his char-
acter, the power of Christianity would be multiplied
tenfold throughout the community. And if it were
so everywhere, how long would doubts about the
truth of the system continue? We do not need
laborious defences of the faith by able disputants
so much as conformity to what the faith teaches in the
daily actions which spring from the inner life of the
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THE INNER LIFE
man. Keep the unity of the faith, not by discus-
sion and reasoning among yourselves or with the
enemy, but rather by living and acting as true dis-
ciples of Christ. The power of the truth and the
triumph of the faith are in the hands of each be-
liever. He must be faithful to the charge committed
to him, faithful in his own sphere and in his own
life, or the victory will become so much harder to
attain or so much longer delayed. If Christian men
everywhere, and always, will practise the virtues —
the common, human virtues, as they are sometimes
called — which Christianity teaches, and will show
by their lives that they practise them under the in-
fluence and teaching of Christian love, the sceptics
will lose the power of their scepticism, so far as
other men are concerned, and they will be the ob-
ject of fear and apprehension no more.
Our train of thought thus far readily suggests to
us, as a fourth matter of reflection, the answer to the
question of duty for each and every Christian as
he stands related to the church and to the world.
Those who have recently entered the Christian life,
and especially those who are young men or women,
are often anxious about the matter of work. What
shall they do as disciples of Christ? This matter of
religious work has been made peculiarly prominent
of late years, and many are perplexed about it —
ready to put forth their efforts, but not knowing
how, or when, or where. To such persons, and to
all, the Christian teaching says : The great power
of the truth in the world is the individual life — the
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
inner Dfe of the individual as manifesting itself by the
outgoing of its own forces into true and righteous
personal living among men. Your greatest power,
my friend, lies in your ceasing, evidently to all
around you, to be what you were as an unconverted
man, and in being the opposite. What did Paul say
to the Ephesian church members, old and young
alike? He said. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and
anger, and clamour, and railing be put away from
you, with all malice. Let there be no covetousness,
or uncleanness, or falsehood, or unfruitful works of
darkness among you. Speak the truth, each one of
you, with his neighbour. Let not the sun go down
upon your wrath. If any one has been accustomed,
in his former life, to steal, let him steal no more.
In any and every way, be no longer a partaker with
the sons of disobedience. Put off the old man from
yourself, and put on the new man. Give to him
that hath need. Be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving
each other. If you are a child, obey your parents,
and honour them. If you are a father, see that you
do not provoke your children. Whatever your con-
dition, walk in that condition worthily of the calling
wherewith you were called. Be thus imitators of
God, as dear children. This was the work which he
gave these early Christians to do ; and as they did
it they commended the faith which they professed to
all about them, and the Church grew in numbers
and in power.
The same message comes to Christians every-
where, in our day. You desire, my friend, to do
something for Christ — to exert an influence for
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THE INNER LIFE
Him, and His cause, in the place and among the
community where you live ; and you ask. What is
the work, and where is the opening for it? The
Apostle's answer is : It opens in your own individual
daily living. Your life may be very limited in its
circle of action ; it may be very wide in its range.
But the message is the same. Are you a father? —
I take an example from the life of those who are
mature or older men — see how you are living with
and before your household and your children. If
you have been wilful, or tyrannical, or unsympa-
thetic, or prone to insist upon your own views or
wishes, to the disregard of those who are under
your care — if you have not been tender-hearted or
forgiving, considerate or magnanimous, free from
wrath or bitterness — go home to your house to-
day, and apply to yourselves the bidding which Paul
gave to the men who had been stealing : that they
should do so no more, but should live as honest
and true men. Begin to be kind ; put away wilful-
ness ; let your children know that you are ready to
consider their feelings, and not only their feehngs,
but their thoughts and opinions; show them that
your own opinions are not held, and violently en-
forced upon them, because you inherited them from
your fathers, or formed them under the influences
of a former generation, which influences no longer
exist. Be a Christian man, in all sympathy, gentle-
ness, large-mindedness, self-sacrifice, sincerity, per-
fect truth — doing every duty of your position as a
father, as Christ would have you do it.
How long a time would pass, my friend, before
12 177
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
your household would begin to feel the power of
Christianity as they, perchance, had never felt it
before? How long, before the knowledge and in-
fluence of your Christian living would reach men
outside of your household, and they would begin
to say to one another, and to themselves, There is
a truth in the doctrine which that man professes to
hold, for it has gone down into the recesses and
fountains of his moral being, and made him a new
and lovely man? And what Christian work for the
neighbourhood, or town, or city, could be better
than this? What work of yours could, by any
means, be half as effective? But this lies directly
before you, and may be begun in your own dwelling
to-day.
You are a young man, perchance, just working
your way into life. What is the call to you? To
exhibit faithfulness in all little things ; to be truth-
ful, honest, upright; to be manly, earnest, devoted
to what is good ; to be kindly, ready for every ser-
vice of friendliness, a generous Christian youth.
There is work enough to do, without turning aside
from that which God opens before you where you
are. You need not seek it. It is present with you,
and meets you at every step. Christ desires you to
be a Christian in your own sphere, and in your own
heart. By being so, you exert an influence greater
than you can in any other way.
That positive Christian efforts for the religious
welfare of the community — teaching, and exhorta-
tion, and persuasion, and benevolent aiding and giv-
ing, and the many other things which we think of as
178
THE INNER LIFE
connected with this matter — are demanded, no
Christian will deny. These things are of vast im-
portance. They are a vital and essential part of the
duty of the Church. They constitute, in no incon-
siderable measure, that for which the Church exists.
But as we read the Apostolic letters to the early
churches — though the command to make known
the good-tidings everywhere is most clearly set
forth — it is a most noticeable and impressive fact,
that the burden of the practical exhortations, which
are represented as growing out of the Christian
truth, is not the fulfilling of this command, but the
developing of personal Christian life. How strik-
ingly all the Epistles abound in urgent appeals to
the readers to be honest, honourable, merciful, pure,
generous, truth-telling, gentle ; — not to be extor-
tionate, covetous, lovers of money, wrathful ; — not
to be contentious, or given to much wine, or men-
pleasers, or full of envyings and jealousy ; — not
to lie, or deceive, or be guilty of slander, or of
hatred.
It was the individual soul that the Divinely com-
missioned preachers were aiming at and seeking for.
They knew that, if the doctrine purified and per-
fected the soul of one man, it would be irresistible.
It would extend its influence to other souls, because
it would show, beyond all possibility of doubting,
that it could bring the life of God into human living
— and a doctrine that can do this must be true.
If the man who had stolen all his life could be
brought to cease from stealing; — if — though at a
wide remove from this man — the one who had
179
THOUGHTS OF AXD FOR
never been tender-hearted could be made kind and
forgiving, Paul knew that his work and mission
would be accomplished. It is so everywhere and
in all ages. The mightiest influence of Christianity
in the city or town where you reside, my friend, or in
the one where I am Hving, is not to be found in any
benevolent organisation, or mission work, or even
in any pastor's ministrations and efforts more truly
than it is in the simple daily Hfe of some individual
man, prominent before the entire community, who
is, in the expressive language of the Scriptures,
known and read of all men as a true Christian —
a man whose faith works by love, and purifies the
heart — a man who in every recess and corner and
secret place of all his being lives the life which he
professes.
The words of the Apostle may seem to the reader
whose eye and thought pass quickly over them, or
by whom the depth below the surface is not seen, to
move only in the outward sphere — the sphere of
action. Do not continue to do what you have been
doing. The man that stole is exhorted to steal no
more. It is all external. But when the mind pene-
trates below the surface, and gets the vision of the
origin and movement and vital power and new-creat-
ing results of the forces which were in the Apostle's
thought when he used the words, it grasps the sig-
nificance of what is said, and knows that the depths
are in the internal. The man who has sinned gives
up the old sinning and puts the opposite virtue in
its place, because there is a new manhood in him ;
i8o
THE INNER LIFE
and, as he does the one thing and the other, a force
goes into the new manhood which makes it grow in
strength and beauty. The inward and the outward
move together. But the movement begins with the
inward and ends also with the inward ; and so the
thoughts which the PauHne words that we have been
considering bring to us are thoughts of and for the
inner hfe.
XIII
LOVE IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW
He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law. For this^
Thoji shall not conunit acUcltery., Thou shalt not kill^ Thou
shall not steals Thoit shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt
not covet, and if there be any other co7njnand?nent, it is
sujnjned up in this word, namely, Thoti shalt love thy neigh-
bour as thyself. Love worketh 710 ill to his neighbour : love
therefore is the fulfihnent of the law. — Romans xiii. 8-10.
^"T^HE reader of this passage, when he views it in
-■- the Hght of the suggestions which it offers with
respect to the Christian teaching and hfe, cannot fail
to be impressed by the contrast presented in the two
expressions which give it much of its characteristic
force and emphasis — the contrast between TJioic
shall not, and Tho?t shall. This contrast, in one
view of the matter, may be regarded as a contrast
between the Old Testament system and the New.
The Old Testament system dealt very largely with
prohibitio.ns as connected with special wrongs and
sins. The several commands which are here cited
from the great and central law itself arc of this char-
acter. They together make up the entire second
portion of that law, which relates to our duties to
our fellow-men. We are not to kill or to steal, not
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THE liXNER LIFE
to bear false witness or to covet — that Is, the
thought is fixed upon one or another of the things
which men, and particularly the men to whom the
words were originally addressed, are or were dis-
posed to do or to feel, and each one in its turn is
forbidden. It sometimes seems strange to us, as
we hear the words read as the Divine law still bind-
ing, that nothing further or more comprehensive
should have been added. Can it be, we say, that
there is no more than this in the setting forth of
human duty as connected with those about us?
And so, at times, it happens that the attempt is
made to find in these individual prohibitions a wider
significance than the words contain, as if all that we
can see in the sphere of obligation were intended to
be conveyed in words which, of themselves, have so
much of limitation. But this mode of dealing with
the commands is one which loses sight of what they
really are. They prohibit special sins and evils,
and have reference to these.
The same thing is true, very largely, of the law,
in its more detailed presentation, as belonging to
the older revelation of it. Thou shalt not, as we
may say, was the characteristic form of its expres-
sion. It was so, because of the stage of develop-
ment of those to whom the teaching came. In the
great progress of the Divine plan of education for
the race, the men of those ages represented the
period of childhood. They were to be led to right
moral ideas and right moral action, as all who are
at the beginning must be, in largest measure by
knowing what they should not do. The prohibition
1S3
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
of wrong \v^?>y by the necessity of the age, the chief
means of communicating the tJwugJit of right, and
bringing men to it. The early moral systems of
teaching answered, in this regard, to the Divine
system. They did so, because there was not readi-
ness as yet for what was of another order, or what
moved from another starting-point. The result was,
that character did not reach its highest point. It
never does when the limitations of the age necessi-
tate the limitations of the teaching, after this manner
— and we are not to find fault with the men, or the
system, because of what could not be expected at the
time. It is those to whom much is given, of whom
much will be required. The child's development is
not the man's, and the method of leading the child
in his moral life may fitly be different from that by
which the man is led.
But the latter method is higher than the former,
even as the man's development is higher. The
positive system is more and greater than the nega-
tive. Thoti shall reaches beyond Thou shall not
And here we come to the first characteristic of the
Christian teaching. It is not. Thou shalt not kill,
or steal, or bear false witness, but, Thou shalt love.
We may look through the New Testament, and we
shall find it everywhere the same. There are, in-
deed, prohibitions in many places within the range
of its different books — and prohibitions which
relate to particular and special evils. But no stu-
dent of these writings, who observes what they set
before him and grasps their controlling thought,
can be without the impression that it is the positive
184
THE INNER LIFE
side of moral teaching, which is altogether prom-
inent and everywhere the same. Whether it be
Jesus himself who speaks, or Paul, or John, the
negative sinks into comparative insignificance. The
great active force is demanded, and is called into
being by the demand. As it comes forward into
activity, it accomplishes the result. The single
prohibitions fall into the line of its working and lose
themselves in its living and transforming energy.
In this very passage, how clear and plain it is:
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. He that
loveth his neighbour hath, in that very act and fact,
fulfilled the law. All that is forbidden is included
in this one positive command. And after the
same manner in the comprehensive exhortation for
Christian life, which opens and covers the entire
practical section of the epistle from which the pas-
sage is taken, we have the words: Present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God ;
and be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
If this exhortation is fulfilled, the opposite negative.
Be not conformed to this world, as well as every sug-
gestion which is subordinate to it, is also fulfilled.
The power of the Christian teaching, in one aspect
of it, is in its seizing thus upon the positive element
in the moral and spiritual sphere and pressing this
upon the soul as the force for character and for
true life. Herein also is its adaptation for the
moral development of manhood, as contrasted with
childhood. It is the positive force which makes
the man. The command to do the right appeals
to the manly energies and sets them in motion. It
185
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
has life in itself in a degree and measure of which
the prohibition knows nothing.
In the second place, the reader who carefully
observes the passage in its negative and positive
parts will notice that, while the prohibitions are of
the nature of rules of living in special lines, the
positive command takes hold of a great principle.
Love is the controlling power of the soul. When
once implanted within the soul, it applies its force
wherever it needs to be applied. This is strikingly-
manifest in the matters of which the writer is speak-
ing in these verses. They refer to specific wrongs
inflicted by one man upon another. How shall
they be prevented and the tendency towards them
be overcome? Not by forbidding them, one after
another, as if this were the main thing to be done,
says the New Testament teaching, but by bringing
a principle of life to bear upon all action and feel-
ing as between man and man. The law in its
relation to one's fellow man is fulfilled by love, for
the simple and sufficient reason that love does no ill
to the fellow man. Love must, for this reason,
cover and include within itself every prohibition of
the doing of particular evil. It does no ill, because
it pervades life and character everywhere. It ac-
complishes its end also, because as a positive force
it excludes the desire to do evil — overcoming, at
the very centre of character, the source of evil
action by establishing itself as the source of good.
It is interesting to observe — and this is of the
very essence of the Gospel — how Jesus, in His
i86
THE INNER LIEE
teaching, everywhere turns the thought of His
hearers from the outward act to the inward thought
and feehng. The sin itself, He says, in referring to
these very commands of the law which Paul here
cites, is not to be discovered in the mere action,
but rather behind and beneath it. It lies in the
thought or desire of the soul which prompts the
act. If this desire and thought be made right, all
danger of the committing of the act is at once
removed. Put love at the centre, and the work is
complete. After a similar manner, He declares to
the scribe who asked Him, as if there were higher
and lower commands in the law, which command-
ment was first, that love is the first and all-inclusive
thing enjoined by God. So also, He calls upon
His most immediate and intimate disciples, along
their course of life with Him and especially at the
end, to let love abide in their hearts, and bids them,
for the future, in their separation from Him, to love
one another.
It is remarkable also how Jesus — even as Paul
does here — when He was dealing with those to
whom the Old Testament law was familiar, seized
upon those thoughts and sentences of the Old
Testament in which the deepest or widest meaning,
as yet not fully apprehended, lay, and threw the
Hght of great principles upon them. Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself — which had been
limited in its application, and only half understood
in its life-power — became, as Jesus used the words,
and as Paul used them in imitation of Him, the
summation of all that God would ask of men in
187
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
their relations to each other. Love avoids all evil
and urges to all good, and thus there can be noth-
ing greater in the commandments than this, and
nothing that reaches beyond this.
The same thing is evident in the other great
matter of the law — the relation of man to God
Himself. The various duties and services, which
the Jewish system asked for in its training of the
people for what was far off in the future time, were
only manifestations of the loving spirit, or means of
brineinfr the mind and heart into nearness to God.
When they sank into outward and formal service, or
lost their deepest significance as duties by becom-
ing spiritless and perfunctory, the educating force,
and the very life itself, passed out of them. So far
as they were counted as so much doing attended by
so much result, and the saving of the soul became a
mere reward of outward action, the divine element
in the system gave place to the human, and the
true righteousness was unknown. So plain is it
that the real vitality and living power of the older
system were wholly in the central force of love.
But it was Jesus who made this central force
known in all its significance. By His teaching the
first part of the law was filled with love, even as
was the second part; and, in the words. Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, was found
the summation of all the prohibitions of the law —
to worship no other gods, to make no graven image,
not to take the Divine name in vain ; and not only
this, but of all positive duty and all holy feeling
towards the Divine leather. The answer to the
THE INNER LIFE
scribe, which involved the statement of love to God
and man, contained in itself the substance of the
Christian teaching. There is, there can be, no
other commandment greater than these.
Thus — as in the former case, where Thou shalt
not precedes, and at length gives way to. Thou shalt
— the Divine movement here again is in the line of
education. The rules are for the early time, as
they are, ever and everywhere, for childhood. The
principles which include and pervade the rules, and
which become the living force for character, are
made known, and brought to bear upon the soul in
their true influence, when the early time gives way
to the later and childhood passes into manhood.
We are not therefore — if we would be right-minded
in our thinking — to find fault with or misjudge the
earlier system, or the men who lived under it, as if
God could not have been dealing with them to the
end of righteousness, or leading them, according to
the possibilities of the age indeed, yet really, to the
attainment of it. But above all, we are not to misap-
prehend the significance and privilege and power of
that system and teaching under which we ourselves
live. The Christian doctrine has its meaning in a
life-principle, and its power is found where its
meaning is.
The careful reader, who considers these verses,
will also see in them the suggestion that the life-
principle, according to the Christian teaching, is
expected to work in the life in a reasonable and
natural way. As thyself is set, in the command, as
189
J
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
the measure of the love to a fellow-man. And this
expression is defined and limited, as it were, by the
following words. Love worketh no ill to his neigh-
bour; therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.
The man who comes under the true influence of the
teaching is so far to love, as to do no evil ; to refrain
from all such injury to his fellow-man as is indicated
in the prohibitions of the ancient law, and from all
evil of a minor character which is suggested by them,
even as he would refrain from injury to himself. He
is, as he turns to the positive side of the matter, to do
his neighbour good as readily and earnestly as he
would do himself good. The impulses of his heart,
that is, as impelling to action, arc not to centre in or
upon himself and his own well-being, but arc to
move outward towards the welfare of others.
But he is not called upon in every sense, and every
outlook of his life, to do for them what he does for
himself The life of each man is entrusted in a
peculiar manner to his own keeping, and there must
be an interest in and devotion to it, which cannot be
given to any or every other life. When Jesus said
to His own disciples that they should love one
another as He had loved them, He did not mean
that they should love every disciple with an equal
love, or that the love, in any case, should absolutely
equal His own. This could not have been His
demand, for His power of loving was greater than
theirs. He meant that, in every case, they should
love according to the possibilities of their nature
and condition, even as He had done. He had loved
them all alike, in that He had lived to do them
190
THE INNER LIFE
f^ood. He called upon them to love one another
after the same manner. The meaning of the law, as
interpreted by His teaching, is readiness ever to do
good and unwillingness ever to do evil. It is, in a
single word, love which thus moves the man always
in his relation to his fellow-man.
This love — which duly regards the personal life,
but continually reaches out to other lives — lifts the
soul in love to Him who is higher than all. The
brotherhood of men opens towards the fatherhood
of God. And so, as the command which enjoins
the spirit of the brotherhood carries on the man to
the fulfilment of that greater command, which calls
for all-controlling love towards the Divine Father,
the end of all true living is secured. The life-prin-
ciple is one, only with different outworkings. It
pervades the soul, and inspires its movements
whithersoever it turns in all its relations, and thus
becomes for each and every man the complete ful-
filment of the law in both of its parts. The enmity
to God and man alike is done away in every mani-
festation of it, and it passes into an affection which,
as related to the one, is more than the love to one's
self — supreme and above all things; — and, as re-
lated to the other, is equal to the love to self — ever
moving outward, as readily as it turns inward. The
working, everywhere, is in accordance with the
natural movement of the life.
In view of the thoughts which have thus been pre-
sented, let us not misunderstand what the Christian
system is. We are all prone to put ourselves on
191
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
the standpoint of the older teaching. As we are
called to the new life, or as we go forward in it, the
rules and prohibitions assume the place of promi-
nence in our thinking. We stand just outside the
gate of Christian living, and, as we look inward
upon the path along which we arc asked to move,
we seem to see everywhere placed before us the
words. Thou shalt not. These words appear to attach
themselves to actions, and pleasures, and purposes
for our own well-being, and plans and hopes for the
earthly career. The doctrine, we say to ourselves,
is a forbidding one. It denies us almost everything
on which we have fixed our thoughts and desires.
It penetrates everywhere, and makes life a hard ser-
vice. It may perhaps be fitted for the later years,
when the joy of youth and manhood come to their
end, and preparation must be made for what lies
beyond the boundary of this world. But we cannot
listen to the call now, when life is too happy in its
possibilities and enjoyments for the suffering of pro-
hibition on every side. And so we turn back from
the gate as it opens for us and refuse to obey the
summons.
But all this is misapprehension. Christianity is
not a negative moral system, or one that is made
up of rules or prohibitions only which attend the man
at every step. Its teaching is positive. The spring
and power of life, which it gives, is a principle.
You are invited, my friend, to take the love-principle
into your soul, and let it work there. To move you
to accept the invitation — the love of God as your
Father, dealing tenderly with you, watching over
192
THE INNER LIFE
you always, bestowing upon you a multitude of
blessings, filling the years for you as they pass with
more and more of good, is set before your mind, to
the end that you may, if possible, see how much
greater and better He is than all other friends.
To impel you still further, the relation of all other
men — like the relation of yourself — to Him as
Father is made known, and you arc awakened, if
you can be, to the grand, inspiring thought of the
great brotherhood, with common needs, and hopes,
and life. And, as uniting in Himself the Divine and
human, Jesus appears before you, according to the
Christian teaching, with His divine example and
His Jmman affection, and asks you to become like
Him in your soul's living. The principle is im-
planted within you, if you will receive it, and you
are left to its working. Life now begins from a
new point — from the opposite point, as contrasted
with what you were thinking of, — and it develops
in the happiest and most natural way.
What is the working? It is the same with that
of the love-principle everywhere. It excludes the
wrong things and the evil desires, not by turning
the mind to the prohibitory command relating to
each sinful act or course of action, but by so fiUing
the mind with itself that the wish to do ill passes
away. It is wonderful how the Christian teaching,
with a sublime confidence, leaves the love-principle,
as it enters the disciple's soul, to itself — assured
that it will accomplish its work. It has no doubts
or fears, for it knows the transforming power which
the living principle has within it. Its outlook is ever
13 193
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
forward, and it sees the results in the future. And
well it may have this confidence, for the love-force
is the positive all-creating and all-subduing life-
force. You are asked to begin the Christian life just
as you would begin any other life where the love-
force is the governing principle. The positive ele-
ment of the life takes care of all on the negative
side; and, just as far and as fast as the character
grows, the hardness of giving up what is forbidden
ceases, and the development becomes continuous
and joyous. Look at the growth of love anywhere,
and you will see that it carries all this in itself.
The Christian life has great promises, my friends.
Whatever else we may do respecting it, let us not
turn aside from its call, and lose its gifts, through
a misapprehension of what it asks of us, and of what
it offers to us as its moving power.
But our misunderstanding is not only at the
beginning and while we are yet outside of the gate-
way. We linger often under the influence of the
old ideas, after we have been long moving on in
the new way of living. We think of the Christian
system still as one of rules and prohibitions, and
concentrate our thought upon these. Thou shaltnot
continues to be the great word of command. As
the result of this we become severe in our judgment
of others and, oftentimes, of ourselves, also. The
prohibitions of the law are studied, perhaps, in all
their minuteness as they may be made to bear upon
present action, or they are extended to a sphere
of conduct which they were not intended to cover.
If another violates them in any measure, as they
194
THE INNER LIFE
are thus extended and applied, we declare him to
be losing sight of duty or wandering off from the
Christian path. If we find ourselves failing at times,
even in matters the wrong of which is questionable,
we become anxious for our own well-being. We
move downward or backward from the Christian
idea to the idea of the old system as the Jews of
the time of Jesus understood it — losing sight of
its truest and deepest significance.
The revelation of the Gospel was other than this.
It was the revelation of the love-principle as the
transforming life-power. It was the revelation, in
all clearness, of what had not been apprehended
before — the revelation of God as the Father of the
great brotherhood of men, and of love as the unit-
ing force binding the membership of the brother-
hood to one another and all alike to God. If the
love which answers the demands of the relationship
in which the man stands dwells in his heart, he can
be trusted in his action. The love itself fulfils the
law. Whatever he may do while love is trium-
phant within him, and while there is in the act, or
the feeling which prompts it, no inconsistency with
love, he may do rightly. If love be thus all-con-
trolling, all questions will settle themselves, and the
man may be where he will with the true life still
abiding in all its strength. The system of rules,
and of these only, has passed for him into a system
of principle, and he is free with the freedom that
is given by Christ.
And here is the educating power for manhood.
It is easier, in one sense, to be in the childhood
195
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
State, and to have rules set for us at every step, so
that we know just what we may, and may not, do.
Life needs comparatively little thought or decision
or resolution, when it is adjusted thus. But man-
hood is not appointed to be without thought, and
decision, and resolution. These are essential ele-
ments pertaining to it, as distinguished from child-
hood. The man is designed for principles, not rules
— to take them as the governing force of life — to
apply them in every critical moment of thought and
action. The responsibility of decision continually
develops the manly power.
And so Christianity works upon us, and in us, by
imposing upon our lives this responsibility. It deals
with us and treats us, thus, in the manliest way. It
tells us, at its first meeting with our souls, of what
we know in some measure from our own experience
— that love is the great working force for character.
It reveals to us — what is beyond our limited human
knowledge, but what we might hope to be true from
what we see of the human soul — that the same
force is that which brings us into nearest relation to
God and transforms us into His likeness. It points
us to God Himself, as having the same life-force in
His own Divine life, and as ever sending forth His
love to those who love Him. It thus offers to us
its great gift and bids us take it, with its word of
command, Thou shalt love God supremely, and thy
fellow-man as thyself. And then, when we accept
its offer and yield to its bidding, it tells us to go on
our way rejoicing. Love, it assures us, will answer
all questions, prompt all actions, control all life,
196
THE INNER LIFE
reject all evil, take to itself all good. Let it always
abide in the soul and do its own work. This is
what it says — and along the way, and at the end,
it brings its peaceful message to the soul in the
words, Love is the fulfilment of the law.
I commend to you, once more, my young friends,
the Christian message and the Christian teaching.
If you will receive into your souls the great life-
principle which is presented to you for your accep-
tance, it will become for you an ever-working power
— whose working will overcome evil as the days
and years pass. It will continually develop largest
and grandest manhood, and will bring beautiful and
peaceful life for all the future. The gift which
Christianity offers is a great one. It will become
greater to your thought, the more you know of it in
your own personal experience. Let your mind rest
upon it, and upon all that it bears with itself.
197
XIV
LIKENESS TO CHRIST THE BEGINNING
AND END OF OUR SONSHIP TO GOD
Beloved, now a7'e we children of God, and it is not yet made
ina7iifest what we shall be. We know that if he shall
be manifested, we shall be like himj for we shall see him
even as he is. — i John iii. 2.
THE writer of these words, at the time of his
writing them, had had a very pecuhar exper-
ience as related to the Christian truth and hfe. He
had been summoned very soon after the beginning
of the ministry of Jesus to the office and work of the
Apostleship and had, accordingly, had the most
abundant opportunities to learn from Jesus what He
had to teach on every subject connected with His
mission to the world and with the Divine revelation.
With a mind wonderfully adapted to receive the
truth and ever ready to penetrate as far as possible
into its deepest meaning, he must, as we cannot
doubt, have sought by questioning, by continued re-
flection, by careful study of the working of the truth
in his own mind and heart, and in the minds and
hearts of his fellow disciples, and by every means
within his power, to enter into the full possession of
what he had heard from the Hps of his Master. A
long period had now passed since the Master's death,
198
THE INNER LIFE
and, with the progress of these years, the more out-
ward communion, as it might be called, had changed
into the more inward one. But he had meditated
upon the truth, and in his soul had drawn near to
the source of truth, and had dwelt in thought upon
the development of his own interior life, and had
looked intently backward to the old experience, now
become the richest of all memories, and forward to
the great mysterious future ever drawing nearer to
himself. He was, at the date of his writing, almost
at the end of life here, and almost at the beginning
of life hereafter — when the hopes and dreams of
what is beyond most fill the soul.
It cannot but be a matter of interest to think of
these words of the epistle as revealing what one who
had been so intimately related to Jesus, and who was
so near to the promised reunion with Him, had
learned of the future life in its connection with the
present, and what he had not learned.
Of the special experiences of the future life he
had learned nothing. Two things in the teaching of
Jesus, and His intercourse with the Apostles, impress
us as very remarkable, I think, when we study the
Gospel history in relation to this matter. The first
is, that, although His teaching was continually of
the things belonging to the soul's life, and thus
moved oftentimes, as If by necessity, on the borders
of the hereafter, He seems never to have lifted the
veil for a moment, or given the Apostles even a
passing vision of the things which lay behind it.
He told them nothing which could be wrought
199
THOUGHTS OF AMD FOR
by their subsequent reflection into the semblance of
knowledge. The other thing is, if possible, more
strange and striking, to my own mind, than this.
It is, that they did not press Him with questions on
this matter, and try to gain from Him thereby some-
thing which might satisfy the eager inquiries and
strong desires of their own minds. There must
have been, as it would seem, some mysterious influ-
ence in His presence and character, and some won-
derful concentration of His words, in all His
intercourse wdth them, upon duty and service and
the inner life, which awed them into a silence almost
like His own with reference to the unseen world. A
similar silence, if we may so express it, seems to
have continued with them and stilled their question-
ings, after they were left to their own thoughts, and
when the revelations of the Spirit came to them, to
lead them into the truth.
How often, and with how much interest, a mind
like that of the writer of this epistle, it would seem,
must have dwelt upon the circmnstajiccs and condi-
tions under which his own character might grow into
a higher than earthly completeness in another state of
existence. So we should say to ourselves, before
we read the record of his thoughts. But when we
read it, we find him telling us no more of these
things than we, who never saw the Lord and talked
with Him, can tell one another ; and even the ques-
tions which rise so often in our minds seem to have
been lost for him in the peaceful and loving confi-
dence in which he moved forward in the daily service
of God. We are children of God, he says, but what
200
THE INNER LIFE
we sJiall he is not yet made manifest. He says this
as calmly as if he had never dreamed of the possi-
bility of answering the question respecting the
future ; as if he had never seen a messenger from
the other world who knew everything relating to the
life there ; almost as if the details of that life had
been beyond the limits of his thought.
That he had thought, however, of the life beyond
is manifest from many passages in his writings, and
even from the one before us. It is manifest, also,
from what his writings reveal to us of himself. A
meditative, self-contemplative man, such as he was —
to whom the growth of mind and character is the
most important of all things in the world, and who
has an intense interest in the working and movement
of his own mind and character — cannot make the
present life the boundary of his thinking. As he
sees the wonderful capabilities of his soul, and the
hindrances and imperfections which beset it here, he
must go out in his hopes and imagination to a more
perfect state, in which the growth will be an un-
ending one. And so it doubtless was in his case ;
and he came to deep conviction, and even to as-
surance, as he meditated. Of the details and precise
conditions of the future he knew nothing indeed.
He was content to wait for this knowledge until all
should be revealed. But that a better and higher
life was before him he was well-assured, and what
would be its great characteristic, and the source of
its blessedness, he knew with a knowledge that was
like the realisation of the blessedness in his own
soul. It is not yet made manifest what we shall be ;
20I
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
but we know that when He shall be manifested, we
shall be like Him.
Let us look somewhat more closely at what this
knowledge was, and how it grew within him. The
foundation of the thought of the verses seems to
be in the expression : children of God. The Johan-
nean idea of the child-relationship to God is that
of likeness to Him in character. As the human
soul comes into union and fellowship with God, a
new principle is implanted within it, which corres-
ponds with that by which the Divine Hfe itself is
guided. The entrance of this principle makes the
man God's child. This entrance is secured by faith,
which is the basis and essential element of spiritual
union. We may believe that the Apostle gained this
conception, so far as it was peculiar to himself, from
his own experience. We cannot suppose that,
when he first came to Jesus and gave himself up
to friendship with Him, there was any great crisis
or violent overturning in his life, as there was, for
example, in the case of Paul. His nature and his
earher life were of a different sort. He was a man
of thoughtfulness, far more exclusively than Paul
was, and he had turned already with willingness to
the teachings of John the Baptist and had, not im-
probably, been from the beginning a follower of
the light so far as it had come to him from the Old
Testament. When he found in Jesus the promised
messenger from heaven, therefore, he simply sat at
His feet and learned of Him. As the Divine influ-
ence passed from the Master to the disciple, faith
202
THE INNER LIFE
became to him immediately a working and trans-
forming principle. It was the power of a new life
springing up in his soul. Spiritually, he found
himself to be what he had not been before. His
mind and heart had been born again. The life
within him had only to grow from this begmningy
in order to become perfect. He saw, as at the time
of his writing he looked backward from his far-
advanced age, that it had been growing steadily,
and that it was now much deeper and larger and
stronger than in the first days ; — but it was still
the same thing, and it had not yet reached its high-
est possibility. We cannot wonder that it seemed
to him to be like the natural life, which comes into
being by a force outside of itself, and then only
goes on and develops, under all the influences sur-
rounding it and through all the powers within it,
until it reaches the fulness of its growth. He was
a child of God on the first day of the revelation of
Jesus to his soul. He was a child of God still,
though half a century had passed away, and what he
had gained seemed almost too great to be measured.
The change which had taken place was only the natu-
ral progress of a life in its appropriate conditions.
The influence also, which had been most power-
ful in causing the growth, and had been working
constantly through all the years, was the same that
had originated the life within him. As he saw
Jesus, and heard Him speak of Himself and of the
truth, he believed, and thus entered into fellowship
with God. The inner life of Jesus infused itself
into his own inner life, as he communed with Him
203
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
in the daily intercourse of the time that followed,
even to the day of the crucifixion. How evident it
is, that in his association with Jesus there was real-
ised a union in which the character of the one
absorbed into itself, in a wonderful degree, the
character of the other, and the two persons became
one, as we say, not only because they were closely
joined together in affection, but especially because
there was a common life-principle filling their souls;
a Hfe-principle given forth by the one and received
as the source of life by the other. And, after their
separation by reason of the death of Jesus, the
Apostle grew in his soul's living by the remem-
brance and study of what Jesus was.
No reader of his Gospel and first Epistle can
question this. Indeed, so manifest are the evi-
dences which establish the fact, that some, who
have not appreciated the striking proofs of historic
truthfulness in his narrative in the Gospel, have
thought the whole of it to be but the result of
musings and reflections on what the author had
learned of Jesus from the other Gospel stories.
If it be true of any person in the world's history,
that he developed gradually into what he was in
his inmost character by the seeing of another's
character and life, this was true in the highest
degree of John in relation to Jesus. He sat at
Jesus' feet ; he gathered into himself the lessons of
His history; he contemplated Him as the perfect
man who was to be imitated by other men, if they
desired perfection ; he looked to Him as revealing
and possessing within Himself that life of God which
204
thb: inner life
is light, and in which there is no darkness at all ;
and, as he looked, he became more and more like
Him.
Now he was conscious of all this. He knew that
he was, and had been for long years past, a child
of God, and that he had been growing in his char-
acter, from the first days, into the Divine likeness
through his seeing the Lord Jesus with the eye of
his mind and soul. But if he knew this with refer-
ence to the past, what did the knowledge bear with
it respecting the future? Nothing, indeed, as to the
particular circumstances, or employments, or condi-
tions of growth, or other details of the new state of
being upon which he should enter. Of all this he
knew no more as he came to the closing day of his
Christian life on earth than he had known on the day
of its beginning. But one thing his experience had
placed within his knowledge: — that, as his life had
grown, in some measure, into the likeness of God's life
through the sight of Jesus in the past — a partial and
limited vision, at the best, because of the hmitations
of the earthly state, — it would grow into the perfect
likeness of that life when he should come to see Him
in all the glory of His being, precisely as He is.
The promise of Jesus, on the last evening of His life,
had assured him that the time was coming when He
would be manifested. The history of his own inner
life had made known to him all the rest — had made
it certain, beyond a doubt or a fear, that when Jesus
should be manifested he would be like Him; and
this because of the more perfect vision. I shall see
205
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
Him as He is, and His life will become mine. The
influence of the Divine friendship, which begins in
this world, will continue forever — ever penetrating
and transforming and glorifying the soul which has
once trusted itself and its future to the love and care
of that friendship.
The verses declare to us that every believer has
this child-relationship to God, which the writer is
himself conscious of possessing. If the life of the
soul is the development of a principle which is
implanted through a Divine influence, the life must,
of course, come into being at the very moment of
the implanting of the principle. The child-relation-
ship begins from birth. The Apostle addresses all
the members of the Christian body, to whom he
wrote, with the words before us, and declares them
to be true of all alike. He claims nothing of privi-
lege or blessing for himself as distinguished from
them, and nothing apparently for himself, at this
later period of his life, beyond what he saw that he
had fully possessed in the hour when he first
believed. There had been growth since then, but
no change of life-principle. What is involved in his
words, therefore, both for the present and the future,
belongs to all — to the youngest Christian as truly
as to the oldest.
It is also worthy of notice that — when he sug-
gests the evidences or indications of the new life —
they are those which the youngest, as well as the
oldest, may find within himself. The two evidences
which arc brought before us are the indwelling in
206
THE INNER LIFE
the soul of something which the world — the un-
believing, sinful world — does not know; and the
out-going of the soul's desire after purity; that is, a
life-principle, and a life-movement, both of which are
marked by a likeness to Christ. The reality of the
life is not determined by the strength of this principle,
or tJie secured results of this movement, but by their
existence in the soul. The man who is conscious of
an impulse towards right living therefore, as a fol-
lower of Christ, which he did not have in former
years, or which he did not have yesterday it may
be, and who is ready to act in accordance with it in
a loving, trustful, childlike way, may know that he
is now a child of God — just beginning his new hfe
perhaps, but yet a true child of the Divine family.
And the work for to-morrow, for the coming years,
for the life-time, is only to grow towards the fulness
of Christ himself.
What a simple and beautiful thing it is, as we view
it in the light of the experience which is revealed to
us in these verses. Likeness to Christ is that which
enters the soul at the hour when the act of faith
opens to the Christian the new career. Likeness to
Christ is the consummation at the end, when the
earthly living has passed into the heavenly, and the
imperfection of the one has become the perfectness
of the other. And all the way from the beginning
to the ending, this likeness is the result of a study
of Christ's character — the lessons and influences of
His life transforming themselves into the principles
and actions of the disciple's life. This is what every
believer may know : — that he is to-day a child of
207
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
God's household, and that, therefore, he wiU be Hke
Him as He is revealed in Christ; — that the life-
principle unknown by the world and the life-move-
ment of pure desire will, in the day when He is
manifested, have their complete and victorious
power over every faculty of the soul. As the
imperfect sight of the present has occasioned the
partial resemblance, which he now sees within him-
self, the seeing Him in the future as He is will make
the resemblance forever complete.
This is the wonderful thing about the child-rela-
tionship, and the thing which makes it, in a pure
and thoughtful and noble household, so great a
blessing for the life. As we closely observe a family
history, how remarkable it is. As soon as the child
begins his development, he shows to all about him
— perhaps unconsciously to himself — a sort of
peculiar life-principle which came to him from his
father or his mother, and which makes him different
in his qualities, his mental growth, his peculiar ex-
hibitions of virtue and character, from the children
of other families. The life-movement is along the
line of the life-principle ; and, as he grows up to ma-
turity, he bears on the ancestral character from the
past generations towards the future. How is it that he
grows thus? Not by rules and precepts which are
laid down for him. Not by a paternal command
that requires him to imitate his parents. Not even
by laboured efforts on his own part to be like those
whom he loves in his home. These things, especially
the one last mentioned, have their influence on his
208
THE INNER LIFE
living. But — more than all these things, and
nearer to the centre of life's forces — he grows by
seeing his parents as they are. He lives in their
presence, as he passes from childhood to maturity,
and their life becomes his life. If they have Chris-
tian piety filling the atmosphere of their home, the
same piety comes so gradually, and gently, and
sweetly, into his soul, that he is often unconscious,
and they are also, of the hour when the new power
begins to bear sway over his soul. If they are intel-
ligent and thoughtful, he grows into their likeness.
If generosity, and kindness, and purity, and peace,
and love are in their hearts, the years pass on a
little way, and we see the same virtues taking strong
hold upon his character and life. The religious
atmosphere makes the child religious ; the thought-
ful atmosphere makes him thoughtful. So we often
say ; and sometimes we wonder at the result, because
so little of what we call positive effort seems to have
been put forth. But the child sees the inner life of
those whose child he is, and his life, in after years,
is like theirs beeause he has seen it. And how little,
as his course begins and the days pass by him, he
realises what is going on within himself! How dim
is his vision of what is to follow in the result ! He
simply goes through his daily employments and
amusements, his pleasures and his duties, — what
is before him, he cannot tell. But he is seeing
a pure life and breathing a thoughtful and Chris-
tian air, and, by and by, the future unfolds to him
with the richest blessing which this world can
give.
14 209
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
Such also, and after the same manner, is the
child-relationship to God, only He is infinitely purer
and better than we are, and infinitely nearer, we
may almost say, to our souls than we can be to one
another. To see Him, is the education of the soul.
To see Him as He is, is to be like Him. The
message, which the Divine messenger, whom this
writer had known in the past years and with whom
he hoped soon to be re-united, brought to His
followers, was of this child-relationship and its
promise.
What the Apostle did not understand, therefore,
because it was not yet made manifest, — and what
we, like him, cannot yet know, — was only the
peculiar circumstances of the remoter future; the
special conditions of the life beyond the veil. The
place of living would change, and what the change
would be, precisely, had never been revealed to him,
as it has not been to us. But this is a comparatively
small matter. It belongs, as we may say, to the
externals and the accidental only. The great reality
is tlie child life as related to God, which came into
your soul or mine at some past moment, as it came
to the Apostle in his early manhood. That life takes
hold upon the eternal future and, whatever may be
the imperfection of its growth thus far, so it be really
existing, it bears within itself the promise of an all-
glorious perfectness. It is not yet made manifest
what we shall be, but we know that when He shall
be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall
see Him even as He is.
2IO
THE INNER LIFE
It is not strange, then, that as this writer saw and
felt all this, he rose into a lofty conception of the
power of faith, and thought of the hfe that begins
with faith as never having a sight or taste of death.
Death, to the believer, is simply the passing from
the partial seeing to the seeing Him as He is.
The sadness and sorrowfulness of its meaning are
lost, and it ceases to be itself. The life becomes
one and perpetual, now here and after a season
there, but ever more full of light and blessedness
because ever more in the likeness of His life.
211
XV
THE PEACE OF CHRIST A RULING
POWER
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts^ to the ivhich
also ye were called in one body j and be ye tha^ikful.
CoLOSSiANS iii. 15.
THESE words have a striking and peculiar
character which is fitted to arrest the atten-
tion of the thoughtful reader. There is seemingly a
strange significance in themselves — what can they
mean? There is something even more remarkable,
if possible, in their position and prominence — what
is the thought which they press upon the mind?
That peace should dwell in our hearts; that it
should be within them a power for calmness or com-
fort; that it should be as a guard keeping the
thoughts in restfulness — all this is in accordance
with its nature, we say, and the suggestion of these
things by the Christian teachers is clearly harmoni-
ous with the doctrine which they teach. But when
we think of a ruling power, is not something more
active and forceful needed in the soul's life, we ask,
and does not Christianity so represent it? Love,
with its propelling energy, may well be spoken of
as such a power. So may faith, with its inspiration
and its hold upon the invisible. So again may
212
THE INNER LIFE
hope, with its confident and courageous outlook
towards the future. But peace is quiet, and still,
and peaceful — how can it rule ; especially, how
can it rule in the midst of that struggle of the
soul, in which the old evil forces, all-controlling in
the past, are to be put away and destroyed, and
the new forces of the new life are to be made
victorious?
In this remarkable passage, however, peace is set
forth as governing, rather than love itself, although
love is in the very same passage called the bond of
perfectness and is urged as above all things else
that are mentioned — and even more than this,
the exhortation respecting peace is added to all the
other exhortations, as if in the fulfilment of this
were the consummation and completeness of that
which was demanded and desired by the Christian
teaching. It is as if the writer had said to his
readers : In order that you may so set your mind on
the things that are above as to find and possess for
yourselves the life which is in Christ and God, and
may thus put off the old man with his doings, and
put on the new man who is renewed after the image
of Him that created him, you must let the peace of
Christ rule in your hearts. This is that to which
you were called. This is that for which, as you
realise it in your own experience, you may be most
truly thankful. The very strangeness of the words,
as they first present themselves to our thought, may
appropriately lead us to consider them more atten-
tively. Such an attentive consideration, I think,
will give us a clearer apprehension of their meaning
213
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
and, at the same time, a sense of their fitness and
truthfulness.
The peace here spoken of is not mere quietness
of spirit, or evenness in the movement of the Hfe
and its powers. Were it this alone, it could hardly
with justice be described, or demanded, as a govern-
ing force. And yet even such peace is no insignifi-
cant element in the matter of developing character
or of accomplishing a man's best work. We may
look about us, and we shall see that those in whom
the mental or moral faculties are constantly oper-
ating without friction or fretfulness, are the men
who, at least when other things are equal, are the
most successful. The mind or soul which is not in
peace — which is disturbed by anxiety or doubt or
fear or foreboding — loses a part, often a large part,
of its energy in connection with these things. It
must overcome them, if they are to be overcome, by
using a portion of its forces in a struggle with their
power or, in case it docs not resist them, it must of
necessity abide with half of its life among them, not
escaping from their dominion into the full liberty of
its own joyous action. The evenly, easily moving
mind on the other hand, tied down by no fetters,
and freely working by the exercise of all its facul-
ties, is ready for each new effort. It may concen-
trate itself upon that to which it is called at any
moment, and may command itself wholly for the
task assigned. It has nothing behind, or apart, to
hinder its progress, but is able to pass on with its
full strength from what has been accomplished to
214
THE INNER LIFE
what is to be effected in the early future. So too
with the soul. It is the anxiety about the old
things and the dwelling* among them that restrain
the soul, oftentimes, in the putting forth of all its
efforts for the one end of gaining for itself the new
things. Character develops slowly, because the
development is with but a part of the forces. The
man is divided^ according to the expressive word
which the New Testament writers use to set forth
the idea of anxiety. He is drawn this way and that
way, and is not one witJiin himself. He cannot for-
get the past in such a sense as to give himself
entirely to the pressing forward towards that which
is before him. He fails therefore, or half-way fails,
where he might otherwise succeed. There must be,
in this sense as it would seem, even a certain
dominion of peace within the soul, or the end is not
perfectly secured. If the peace is not strictly, and
in the full meaning of the word, the ruling force, it
unites itself with the ruling force and helps it every-
where and always. We realise this, all of us, for
ourselves so soon as we begin to study the expe-
riences of our inmost life — and the more so, as we
advance along the line of the years. We learn the
lesson and understand the truth, whether we know
the peacefulness as our own personal possession or
not. The case is one where the absence or the
presence of the thing desired tells the same story,
though it tells it from a different starting-point and
in a different way. And I believe that the thought-
ful man, in his estimate of the elements of his real
life-power, as to their relative importance, will often
215
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
question which is of greater vakic — the energy
that impels him to action, or the pcacefuhiess
which enables the energy to have its ///// impulse
unrestrained.
But the peace to which our verse from the
Apostle's letter refers is something more than this
quietness or evenness, of which we are speaking.
It is called the peace of Christ, and is counted
among the powers of Christian living. It is an
element of Christ's life which is imparted to His
followers' lives, and is to be apprehended, in its
significance, only as we see what it was for Him.
The expression itself seems to be suggested by the
words which Christ used in His talk with the dis-
ciples on the last evening before His death. Peace
I leave with you, He said to them at that time; my
peace I give unto you. And then He added the
impressive sentence : Not as the world giveth, give
I unto you. It was not a worldly peace in any
sense of the word, which He would impart to them
— not a peace even which might, by any possibility,
enter the mind or the heart apart from Himself, and
might, by reason of the calm and even movement
of the life which it should secure, add to all the
powers and successes of the man to whom it came.
It was above and beyond this — a possession be-
longing only to Himself, which should be for His
disciples what it was for Him and which they could
see in the manifestation of its nature and its effi-
cacy, if they would, as they looked upon Him at
that honr. If they thus looked, they would recog-
nise it as an active, not a mere passive thing — a
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THE IiVNER LIFE
thing of force and energy, which could rule and
luas ruliug\\\Q Hfe of the man. If tliey looked more
carefully and more continuously, they would dis-
cover it as fundamental to all His living — as true
and controlling a life-power as love itself.
The hour when Jesus thus used the words in
speaking to the eleven was the darkest hour in His
career. It was the closing hour in a long succes-
sion of dark ones, in which His soul had been tested
and tried to its deepest depths. It was the critical
hour towards which all the past had been moving,
and the movement — to human thought, at least —
seemed to have been towards failure and loss.
What did the peace which He then called His
peace do for Him — what was it within Him? It
was surely something more than mere calmness of
spirit, which kept Him at rest among the doubts
and dangers that surrounded His life and His cause.
It was this, but it was, at the same time, much more
than this. It was something which gathered into
itself all His far-reaching thought of the Divine
plan for the Divine kingdom — all His willing obe-
dience to His Father's will, whithersoever that will
should call Him — all His fixedness of resolve to
carry out the idea and purpose of His earthly mis-
sion — all His heroism of self-sacrifice, even to the
consummation of His sufferings — all the mighti-
ness of His power to be and to do at the end that
for which He had been sent at the beginning. It
was thus inseparable from every force that was dis-
coverable within Him. It regulated all these forces,
and held them in their true adjustment to one an-
217
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
other. It directed their activity in accordance with
the demand of the hour, and so imparted its own
influence that they moved harmoniously. It be-
came, in and of itself, an inspiration and life-giving
power for all the forces. We see its sovereign
authority and its impelling energy in His words of
every sort during those last days.
How wonderful those words were as they turned
towards one and another person or towards one or
another experience. The word of prayer addressed
to the Father, Shall I say, save me from this hour
— no — it was for this cause that I came unto this
hour. The word to the disciples. That the world
may know that, as the Father hath given me com-
mandment, even so I do, arise, let us go hence.
The word to Peter, Thinkest thou that I cannot
pray unto my Father, and he shall even now send
me more than twelve legions of angels, but how
then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that so it
must be? The word to the Roman governor. Thou
wouldest have no power at all against me except it
were given thee from above. The word to the Jew-
ish high-priest. Henceforth ye shall see the Son of
Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming
on the clouds of heaven. The word to the scorn-
ful sceptic, who had a half-compassionate contempt
for him, Every one that is of the truth heareth
my voice. The word to His mother, Woman, be-
hold thy son, and to the disciple, behold thy
mother. The word to the sorrowing eleven, I
have overcome the world. The word for Him-
self, I am not alone, because the Father is with
2iS
THE INNER LIFE
me. The word for His work and His life, It is
finished.
These words, in their appropriateness to each
moment — giving expression, at one moment, to a
sense of power ; at another, to a sublime confidence
in the future; at another, to an assurance of victory
already secured ; at another, to a consciousness of
union with the Father ; at another, to a tender afTec-
tion for those whom He was to leave behind Him
and a thoughtfulness for their coming necessity ; at
another, to a ready submission to the will of God,
and the final summons of duty; and, at the last, to
a deep and satisfying conviction that all things per-
taining to the great mission had been accomplished
— were all governed and sent forth by the peace
within Him. They answered, each and every one
of them, to that peace. They would have been im-
possible without it. They sprang forth from it and
rose out of it, as naturally as love comes forth from
the loving soul, or truth from the truthful soul —
and after the same manner. The inspiration of them
all was in it, as it held them all in its power and
ruled them all.
The Christian believer is an imitator of Christ and
a recipient of His spirit. The peace therefore
which is given to him from the Master will become
for him, and will work within him, that which it was
and wrought in the Master's life. It will have do-
minion throughout the whole sphere of the inward
man. It will hold all things under its authority and
will send forth its guiding and impelling force into
every emotion, and every resolution, and every
219
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
action, and every consecration, which pertain to
him as a man, ever and everywhere moving him to
the noblest hving in all the heroism, whether of
suffering or of triumph, which he may know in his
career.
It is interesting to look into the Apostle's thought,
as he sets forth the development of the individual
life in the passage from which our verse is taken,
and to see how the ruling peace is related to the
whole of it from its beginning to its ending. The
ruling peace settles all questions, directs all forces,
turns the mind whither it should turn, establishing
it also in fixedness there, and brings to a gradual
realisation the completeness of the true life. In the
conflict between anger and kindness — if we study
the details which he gives — or between falsehood
and truth, or between evil desire and holy purpose,
or between the old impulses and powers, any or all
of them, and the new, it determines which should
and must prevail. In the work of putting off the
old man and putting on the new man, it at once
adjusts the soul to its task and points to it the
• right way. In the matter of the seeking of the
things that are above, it gives inspiration, by show-
ing that itself abides in, and in connection with,
those things. In the sphere of the promise of the
future, it strengthens confidence by imparting of
its own calm assurance that the promise will be
realised. The word which the Apostle uses to ex-
press the riding idea is a peculiar one, as to the
central thought of which there has been somewhat
of questioning — some holding that the arbitrating
THE INNER LIFE
or judging function of a ruling authority, as in a
conflict between opposite forces, is prominent; and
others, that the special meaning is that of the ruler's
bestowal of reward, at the end of a contest, or
perhaps that of his direction or guidance of a
course, or a struggle ; and others, again, that all
limitation of significance passes away, and that the
word is only a forceful one expressing the idea of
governing in the widest and largest sense. But the
ruling peace, as we trace its influence and power in
the life-process which he opens before us, satis-
fies all these meanings, and moves, as we may say,
in its significance through them all, as it directs and
controls the living forces.
Let us turn our thought now towards our own
personal experience, and see how interesting the
thought becomes to us there. There are times when
every Christian believer knows within himself the
presence, not only of a peaceful spirit, giving calm-
ness, but of a ruling peace, taking the life under its
authority. These times are passing seasons with
most of us, indeed, but they continue long enough to
teach us their lesson and reveal to us some measure
of the truth. How quickly, as they come, do we
realise that we are, for the hour, adjusted in our
thinking and purpose to the Divine plan, and how
soon after their coming do all thoughts and impulses
place themselves in readiness for the word of
authority which the ruling power may speak. That
authoritative word holds in restraint, or sets in
motion, according as the movement of the plan
demands. The man therefore acts with the right
221
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
forces at the right moment, and the acting and rest-
ing forces ahke, in peaceful adjustment to each
other, serve the great end to be secured. I look
within myself, the Christian says at such a season,
and behold, the old doubting and disquietude have
passed away. I listen for the inward voice, which
becomes to me as the Divine voice, and in obedience
to it I put forth the energy which the hour calls for.
I lose anxiety for distant results, and centre my
thought upon present duty and service. I strive to
be kindly when the call for kindness comes, and
self-sacrificing when it comes with the summons for
sacrifice, and heroic when the duty involves heroism.
I find my powers at each moment, and in answer
to each call, in readiness or order for their work.
They are so because peace is the reigning power,
and hence they cannot contend against each other,
or usurp each other's places, or move out of
harmony with the common purpose of good. How
beautiful life seems to be for the moment — how
right it seems ! Character takes a new starting-point
for its growth and development. Manhood becomes
larger and nobler, as in the image of Christ and of
God.
The season passes indeed, and we fall backward
into the old condition, but the lesson is not lost
altogether, nor are we altogether what we were be-
fore. The entrance way for peace in the after days
opens more easily into our souls, than it did long
ago. The experience, when it has ceased as a present
experience, lingers with us as a testimony and as a
bright vision, and, in some hour of new impulse, we
222
THE INNER LIFE
find it in its reality once more. This is the process
and progress — even as the Apostle recognised it —
and, as the years pass, we know within ourselves
what he taught and urged upon his readers. The
ruling peace becomes to our thought and our life
more and more the central force of all forces, taking
lov^e and humility and forgiveness and courage and
every virtue of the manly Christian life under its
sway, and making them, in their harmonious develop-
ment, triumphant in the character. We see in this
ruling peace the power which realises for us what it
realised for the Master, and know it joyfully as the
Master's peace given to His disciples.
We see also — through our own experience — the
truth and fitness of the statement which the Apostle
adds to his exhortation. Unto this peace, he says
to each one of his readers, you were called. For
this reason, let it ever abide within you and rule
over you. The calling of God, according to the
strictest sense of the words — as we find it repre-
sented in many passages of the New Testament
writings — is a calling to participation in the Divine
kingdom, its life and its rewards as they shall mani-
fest themselves in the future. But that life and
those rewards rest upon, and consist in, what the
soul, by means of the call and under the influences
of the kingdom, possesses in itself. To make the
soul what it should be, is the purpose of God. To
give it the characteristics of the kingdom, and make
its life to move in the atmosphere of the kingdom's
life, is that for which He is, first of all, working in
223
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
the carrying out of His plan of love. The soul that
is right will secure the blessedness. And so the
call directs itself to the end of the soul's right living
— to the impelling of the soul towards the sphere
where right living finds its natural home. That
sphere, as we have already seen, is the sphere of
peace. The right life is the life which is adjusted
properly to every duty and every privilege. The life
governed and guided by the peace of Christ is the
life which is thus adjusted. The Christian is thus
as truly called to peace, as he is called to heaven.
He is called to peace, we may fitly say, beeause he is
called to heaven ; for the heavenly life is but the
experience, in its ever-continuing fulness, of that
happy state of the soul in which Christ's peace is
the ruling force.
The exhortation after this manner answers to the
call, and finds its legitimate and fundamental reason
in it. To be called to peace, and to live outside of
its sphere, is a contradiction at the very centre of
the life. To be called to it as the ruling element
and principle in the soul's developing of itself for
the kingdom in the future, and not to give it domin-
ion over all things else, in the progress of that
development, is to deny the call at the outset, and
to lose the richness of its reward at the end.
But the exhortation takes into itself the force of
an additional reason beyond the one just mentioned.
Ye were called unto peace as individuals ; but not
only this, Ye were all of you called unto peace —
the Apostle says to the whole company of his
readers — in one body ; that is, to the end that you
224
THE INNER LIFE
may become one body, or as connected with the
fact that you are members of one body. The end
and purpose of your Christian calling is this very
thing, to which you are urged. The foundation of
unity, on which the caUing rests, is itself this very
thing. In either view or in both views, the common
call adds its emphasis to the individual call, and the
oneness of the life of all declares itself to be found
where, and only where, the personal life of each
abides. The Christian believer is one of a brother-
hood. He cannot dwell apart in himself, or grow,
after the true manner, within the soul in sepa-
ration from all others. He must ever be con-
scious, not only of a life-principle which he tries
always to strengthen, in its power within his own
soul, but of a life-principle in which he shares with
his fellow-believers. The forces within them must
be the forces within him. The calling which comes
to him — and he must know this fact, if he would
know the truth and live as he ought — the calling
which comes to him from God is one that rests
upon his unity in life with others and moves towards
a harmony in life with them. The man is not called
alone as if to a solitude, but as one in a company —
as one who has a participation in the same inward
life-powers in which others of the company partici-
pate and one who is to have a community of Hfe
with them. The brotherhood accordingly can never
be lost sight of, whether in his thought of himself
or of them — whether he is looking at the sources
and forces of his own Christian living or of theirs.
And the common principle, which at once rules in
15 225
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
him and goes forth in its influence from him to them,
must be this of which the Apostle speaks — namely,
ruhng peace — for this is the one thing which unites
the brotherhood according to the Master's desire
and prayer.
The Apostle's exhortation therefore justifies itself
in every way as we look carefully into it. It lays
hold upon that which was a central force in Christ's
life, and which manifested itself most wonderfully in
the hours and days of His history when the greatest
of all demands and all necessities came upon Him.
It appeals to that which, in every individual soul
inspired by the inspiration of Christ's history, at
once reveals itself to be the power that brings the
life most happily and perfectly into harmony with
His. It presses with all emphasis upon the indi-
vidual believer, and upon the company of believers,
the most impressive of reasons — those reasons
which are vitally connected with their calling to the
new kingdom, and their union with one another; —
and, by the energy which pertains to these reasons,
commends to thought and feeling the duty of which
it speaks. And throughout all the words which are
used, it keeps before the mind the example of
Christ and the gift of Christ — thus tenderly and
forcefully suggesting the imitation of the one and
the joyful reception of the other.
After our thought of all this, we cannot regard it
as strange that the words which the Apostle adds in
closing the verse, should be the words, Be ye thank-
226
THE INNER LIFE
ful — or, as in the strictness of their meaning they
read, Become thankful, as with a new measure of
gratitude, and an ever-increasing measure. It is as
if, in his review of what he had said, he seemed to
himself to have given his readers a beautiful vision
of the peace of Christ, after the manner in which it
enters, and may enter, into the Christian's soul;
and of the same peace as, in its becoming a ruling
power there, it may subdue all things to itself, and
may bring the life into harmony and unity in all its
development; and again of the same peace, as it
may carry this harmony outward from the one soul
to all souls, and establish the true unity among all;
— and now, at the end, he finds but one feeling that
can answer to the thought, and but one word appro-
priate for himself or for them. What could the
word or the feeling be, but thankfulness — for the
possibility and the reality of the vision.
And so the word comes down to us enriched, if
we may say it, with the experience of the genera-
tions since the Apostle's day. We too may well
move on to the realising of the vision, and to the
joyful possession of the peace, with an ever-abound-
ing gratitude to God.
227
XVI
THE LAW OF LIBERTY
If any man is a hea?'er of the ivord, and not a doer^ he is like
zinto a man beholding his 7iatu?'al face in a jnirror ; for he
beholdeth hi?nself and goeth away, and straightway forget-
teth what 7nanner of ma?i he was. But he that looketh into
the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so contimieth, being
not a hearer that forgetteth, but a doer that worketh, this
?nan shall be blessed in his doittg. — James i. 23-25.
THE word of the Divine message, or what we
often call the Gospel, is here presented to our
minds as a rule of conduct and life. The writer
takes up the thought of it, as we may say, at a
later point of development, or from a different point
of view, as compared with that which we discover
many times in the Pauline epistles. To the Pauline
mind the Gospel seems to manifest itself most readily
as a system of forgiveness and justification. It
opens the way by which the past can be set aside or
remedied and the soul can escape from the burdens
and dangers connected with it. It then bids the
soul move on in its new course unfettered by the old
sins and fears, and fills it with all hope and confi-
dence as it trusts God lovingly for the future. But
Paul himself, happily and peacefully as he turned
his mind to this conception of the word, had
another thought which dwelt upon it at a later stage
228
THE INNER LIFE
of its working. The new life was not only to begin,
but to go forward. It needed to go forward accord-
ing to a law peculiar to itself — to move to an end
under the guidance of rules and principles of its
own. A system of forgiveness and a law of living —
these two elements pertain to the word, and must
pertain to it, if it is to accomplish the Divinely-
intended result. This writer, by reason of the spe-
cial tendencies of his thinking and the natural
movement of his mind, looks most readily at the life
as developing, rather than beginning; in its growth
in the right way, rather than its moment of turning
from the wrong way. The rule of the true life, how
is it to be regarded and used — this is the question
which he would ask and answer. The special words
which he employs are impressively suggestive.
The word of the message, he says, is a law. To
his mind this expression naturally presented itself as
connected with his personal relation to the Mosaic
system. A strict observer of the duties imposed by
that system, he looked with deepest reverence upon
the law, which the Old Testament contained, as the
revelation of the Divine will respecting human living.
No new system introduced by God could have any
other end than this had had, or could be appropri-
ately designated by any other name. But it is
interesting to notice that, when he assigns this name
to it, he adds a descriptive phrase having two parts.
He calls it the perfect law, and the law of liberty.
He had not been under the influence of the teaching
of Jesus, and of his thoughts concerning Him, with-
229
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
out seeing the differences between the new system
and the old. Stern moralist of the older type as he
was, he had learned long before the time of his
writing, even as Paul had, that there was something
of imperfection, with reference to tJie working power
for the life of vieuy in the law which, as a revelation
of the Divine will, was so clear and so full. The
study of his own life and of the lives of those about
him had made this imperfection continually more
evident. The perfect thing was to be waited for in
a development or manifestation beyond that of the
imperfect thing. The latter must give way to, and
pass into the former. The Gospel was to realise,
and had realised, what the law could not do. It
was to secure life in its completeness.
If we inquire after the elements which, being
added in the new system, justified this title oi per-
fect, we may find them at two points. The word
which Jesus brought, opened on the one side, to His
disciples a wider and deeper view of the old law
than had been known before. They saw, under His
teaching, that there was no limitation in the demand
for human love, and service, and duty, to the bound-
aries of nations or of parties, but that everything
was wide-reaching as the world, and far-reaching as
the results of action could reach in the present and
the future. Life was no narrow thing. Individual
life was not confined within any limited circle of
surroundings. The law must become grander as
life became larger. The all-embracing character of
it, as it was now apprehended, changed its imper-
fection to pcrfcctness, and the word of the new
230
THE INNER LIFE
message revealed this all-embracing character. They
also saw, under His teaching, as a second thing, that
the law penetrated, in a measure which they had not
realised before, into the depths of the soul. The
outward act was revealed to be far outside of, and
distant from the source within, and that hidden
source was the place to which the demand for right
living directed itself. Life was discovered to be at
the centre of the personality. It was found in the
thoughts rather than the deeds ; and the law was
made to reach inward, as it was made to reach out-
ward — into the inmost part of the man, as unto the
widest limits of his relation to other men. The fact
that the word moved thus inward made the law per-
fect— making it deep in its reach even as life itself
is deep. The perfection was revealed when the
recesses of the life were opened. The new system
did what the old had failed to accomplish.
But these elements — or rather this one element
operating in two directions — were but secondary,
as connected with the perfectness of the new system.
The true and vital element was found in its central
working-force. The word made love known as this
force in the soul of the man, and as the source of
what was given him in Christ. There was a weakness
in the old law, which was fatal to its success, at just
this point. Love was not manifestly at its centre.
But the word of the message told the story of
Jesus. It set forth His life as related to the law,
and showed how He fulfilled its demands, as under
the guidance of the great all-controlling principle.
It declared His life also in its relation to men —
231
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
animated from Its beginning to its ending by love
to men and to all men. It made known how this
love dwelt in His deepest soul — how it ruled and
guided all things there — how it impelled all action
from its most secret sources and purified the out-
going life everywhere — how it took all demands
and commands into itself and made the fulfilment
of them beautiful service to God and to men, as
that fulfilment realised itself in the sphere of the
outward life. It did more even than this. It
brought this love, so wonderfully manifested in
Jesus* life, into the closest personal relation to
each individual man to whom it addressed itself.
It said to each one, This life, thus inspired and
guided and governed, was lived in all its move-
ment, and in the great things that it accom-
plished, for you. You are what you arc in the
possibilities of your personal living, because it was
thus lived. The future of good for you will rest
upon it.
The word is a law, but it is a law with a working-
force in it; a law, not imperfect because it cannot
bring to pass the results it desires, but having with
itself its own living power — the inspiration of love
which moves the soul of him who receives it to
do its bidding. Herein is the secret of its perfec-
tion. The other elements already mentioned unite
with this, as they deepen and widen the reach
of the force which pertains to it. But they are
second only, while it is first, because that which is
the working-force, dwells not in them, but in it
alone.
232
THE INNER LIFE
At this point we draw near to the other descrip-
tive word which the writer uses — the hiw of Hberty.
The old system was ever liable to become for men
a bondage, because it presented itself to them as a
system of rules and commands. The inspiration
of the obedience to it was not found within it. But
when the new system founded itself on the love of
God as manifested in Jesus, and made its appeal to
that love in addressing each individual man, it
made obedience a new thing. The love revealed
stirred the love of the soul in return, and this love
at once became the controlling power in the life.
The result was what it always is when such an in-
spiration moves the man. Commands seem to lose
their character as words of governmental authority.
Rules are no longer thought of as limiting or fetter-
ing the life. The law is not a letter that kills, or
a restraining force that awakens the opposition
of the soul, or a thing which merely compels, by
its threatening of penalty, a yielding to its require-
ment. Privilege takes the place of rules — the
privilege of rendering service to another, who on
his part has done everything for us. The man,
with the new revelation in his soul, finds himself
joyous in his doing of what he is asked to do, where
he had been full of unwillingness, or rebellious as
against superior power. The whole system under
which he lives puts on a new appearance to his
view. It is arranged in all its parts, and in its
every demand upon him, for the best and truest
development of his personal life. The rules are
simply the method of growth formulated in words.
233
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
Obedience to them Is the means of reaching the
end. It is that by which the soul takes to itself
the living forces and makes them eftective. It is
that which brings the imperfect, yet growing life
into union with the perfect life — the life of man
with the life of God, — and into such union that
the one can be changed, steadily and rapidly, into the
likeness of the other. The spirit which enters the
man is no longer a spirit of bondage. It is a spirit
of sonship. The whole relation is as of a son
to a father — and this, not a father beset with the
earthly weakness, who loses himself, ever and anon,
in wilful assertion of his own will or in arbitrary
exercise of authority, but a father, who realises in
himself, and in his relation to his son, all the teach-
ings of wisdom, and gentleness, and affection, which
the long years give as they pass. The spirit of
sonship is the spirit of freedom when the fatherhood
is such as this, and when the sonship answers on
its part to the fatherhood on its part. What is the
law between the two? Surely it is the law of liberty.
There is no bondage, and never has been since the
two came to know and understand each other. The
life is freedom, and the rule of the life is freedom's
rule.
It was a great thing for one who had lived under
the old system, and had been so strict an observer
of it in its requirements as a legal system, to receive
into his mind such a revelation as this. But the
teaching of Jesus had made the light clear; and
the darkness had passed away. The law meant
liberty — not liberty without law or against law,
234
THE INNER LIFE
but liberty working out the fulness of free and
perfect life, in union with the Divine Father's life,
through the law that is essential to its own develop-
ment. This was the wonder and the glory of the
Christian revelation. The rules of the Divine life in
the soul of man were the rules pertaining to the
orderly and natural movement of that life ; and the
natural movement is of necessity a free movement.
But the free movement in this true life is inspired
by love, and when this enters there is forgetfulness
of all except its promptings. These promptings are
to fulness of service, to largeness of obedience, to
the fulfilment of every demand as in devotion to
a friend and benefactor and father, to the giving
of all to one who has given all, to the giving of the
self to Him who has given Himself. The spirit of
freedom, not of bondage, is the spirit of the Chris-
tian system. Its law is the law of liberty — the
law by which the son of the Divine Father freely
guides his life and makes it like the Father's life.
The third expression which may arrest our atten-
tion in the writer's verses is this : He that looketh
hito the perfect law, and so continueth. The word
here used is a peculiar one which denotes a very
intent and careful examination. The man is con-
ceived of as looking thus intently into the Christian
rule of life and conduct; and as doing so — not
like the man who beholds his face in a mirror and
passes on his way forgetful of what he is, but with
continuous earnestness. Such looking the writer
urges as essential. The necessity of it he appre-
235
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
dated, as we may not doubt, because of the revela-
tion of the new system, which he had received, as
a perfect law of liberty. Viewing the old law as it
was viewed in the earlier days, the man who would
conform his life to it must, as it would seem, have
looked into it with no passing or careless look.
It had rules for every day and every action, and
the man must know them and know whether he
was fully conforming to them, if he would discover
peace for himself. But here was a new system,
involving the freedom of sonship. Its animating
and governing principle was love. The love was
to be inspired by a love which had gone before
and given all blessing. This love-principle, having
its root and foundation in the Divine love, was to
penetrate every rule, impel every action, control
every feeling, stir the life in every part. It was to
be the working force that was always in operation.
It was to renew the man on all sides, and in every
department of his character and his soul. In the
system and its teachings the ideal of the life was
presented, and many rules and suggestions for its
realisation were set forth. The work of securing
for himself the realisation was left to the man.
What could be more essential to the end to be
attained than the one thing to which the writer
refers? Place yourself before the ideal life, and
think of your own relation to it. You must see it
not only once for yourself, and then move on your
way. You must look at it, not as a beautiful thing
apart from yourself, and after a little forget what it
is, and what you are. It is set before you as a
236
THE INNER LIFE
thing to be studied as you study nothing else. It
is a life, with its realities and its rules. It is a life
to be passed into your life through your turning
your life into its likeness. Its rules are to be fol-
lowed, not in blind obedience, but in the freedom
of a love that is inspired by love. It is to be devel-
oped on every side, through all action and feeling,
from one day to another. It is to be brought to
its completeness through the union of your soul in
conscious fellowship with Christ who revealed the
ideal. No chance looking can give you the bless-
ing. The man who beholds his natural face in a
mirror may go his way, and straightway forget
what manner of man he was, and no loss may be
suffered or growth of manhood be prevented. But
the beholding of the life for the soul is a different
matter, wherein the forgetfulness of the manner of
man that one is in comparison of the true soul-life
is fatal to the great result that is needed. The
thought must be ever on what the man is and on
what the ideal would make him, and so the look
must be continuously and intently on the word of
the Divine message which is the perfect law.
The writer now presents to us the close relation
between the looking into the law, after this manner,
and the doing of it. His words are striking words :
He that looketh into the perfect law and so con-
tinueth, being — as if, of necessity, in the very nature
of the case — not a hearer that forgetteth, but a
doer that worketh. The doing, as contrasted with
hearing and then forgetting, is assumed in the very
237
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
form of the sentence as essentially and vitally con-
nected with the intent and continuous looking.
Christianity, in its teaching and its exhortations,
rests, and fitly may rest upon this assumption. It
knows full well that a man can hear its message of
life, or the proclamation of its demands, and can for
the moment even be impressed in his mind, and yet
can go away from the hearing with no abiding
thought of the deep significance of the word for
himself. He can forget what he has heard, and
forget what manner of man he is. The beholding
himself as in a mirror is a passing thing, and the
remembrance of it is lost.
But it knows also, and with equal assurance and
certainty, that if the man can be brought to study
the law of life — the law of liberty and love for the
free and freely developing life of loving service —
as he does who looks intcntly.into some place where
there is hidden treasure, or some mystery whose
solution is of deepest import, the result will be and
must be the doing of what the law asks for. Intent-
ness of looking indicates and proves earnestness
of purpose. When the intentness is in the sphere
of character, the earnestness naturally and even of
necessity moves into effort. The man is aroused
to action with reference to manhood. The knowl-
edge of what manhood is impels at once to working
for it. Thoughtlessness makes forgetfulness. But
when the thoughtlessness has given way to thought,
and the chance looking to the continuous, serious,
earnest looking, a new spirit takes control. The
hearer becomes a doer; and the doer, a doer that
238
THE INNER LIFE
worketh to the attainment of an end which is deemed
vital to the soul. This is the way in which genuine
character grows and develops itself. It is so in every
department of our living. Awaken the man to the
intent contemplation of the ideal in any line, and to
the laws pertaining to it, and which it imposes, and
you have begun the work of the making of the
man — a work which will surely move onward
towards completeness, if the awakening is contin-
uous. It is true, most of all, in the moral and spirit-
ual sphere, for here is the essential life of the man.
It is to the end of the impression of the power of
this ideal on the soul, as we may believe, that Chris-
tianity, in its message, dwells so largely on the per-
sonality of Jesus, and stirs men by its every appeal to
look towards Him. To the same end it represents
His life everywhere, according to the reality of it,
as moving freely and lovingly under the perfect law
of liberty. Fix your thought upon Him, it says, as
a manly man studies and thinks upon the ideal set
before him. Place your life beside His in compar-
ison with His. See there and then, with the seeing
of the inmost soul, what manner of man He was,
and what you ought to be and may be. Abide
there in the soul's thinking, as with the ever-con-
tinuing look of intentness. With this word, it al-
most leaves you to yourself for all the rest, for it
knows that, as you thus look, you will cease to be a
hearer only of the message, and will become a doer
of the law, fulfilling its requirements and carry-
ing the results of your working into character. If
it can only move the soul by its appeal ; if it can
239
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
lead it to put itself in the right place and the right
attitude, it trusts the future with confidence.
And then it adds for the soul its final word, of
assurance and promise: This man shall be blessed
in his doing. The writer had learned, as he wrote
these words, the deep thought of the Christian
teaching. It is only when we stand apart with our
souls unmoved by the contemplation of the ideal, —
only when we are forgetful hearers, like the one who
beholds his natural face in a mirror and loses all
thought or care as to what he is, that the law of
Christian living seems a law of bondage. It mani-
fests itself thus to our vision simply because our
souls are not stirred to activity for the soul's true
well-being. But when we look into the law, and by
looking intently see in it the law of liberty and of
perfectness for the soul's life, and when our looking
changes, as it were by a wonderful transformation,
into doing and working, a new experience comes to
us. It is tJie experience of the Christian's career.
What is it? It is the experience not of hope merely,
but of realisation. The blessing is not only a thing
which we work for through the earthly course,
patiently waiting for it, while we are ever attracted
by the lovely vision of it as a future good. It is a
present reality, known day by day, and in all the
years, which abides in the doing, and pertains to it.
The law of free service always has such blessing.
Its demands come to us as calls upon our love for a
loving friend. We answer them by our doing and
working, as the sweet privilege of life. We grow in
240
THE INNER LIFE
love, in beautiful character, in happy consciousness
of right and blessed life, in assurance that the ideal
is forming itself in our souls, in all that is most
precious and delightful within ourselves, as we thus
answer them. The inner life of the man becomes
more and more a blessing to himself, and he moves
on toward and into the future, knowing that greater
and better things are awaiting him as he himself
becomes better and greater.
The Christian teaching — the word of its mes-
sage — the law of its free, happy, grand life, is a
wonderful teaching and word and law. In the
words of this writer the summons comes to you —
and how reasonably and fitly — to look into it, and
to make your lives conform to the ideal which it
sets before you.
i6
241
XVII
THE PASSING OF LIFE
For what is your life ? It is even a vapour that appeareth for
a little time, and then vanisheth away. — James iv. 14.
I PLACE this question of the sacred writer at the
beginning of what I would say at this time —
having it in my thought to address my words to a
company of educated young men in a university —
not for the purpose of unfolding directly the answer
which he gives to it, but rather because, in connec-
tion with that answer, it appears more indirectly, to
offer the opportunity of gathering together a few
thoughts upon the general subject of our passing
life. The answer of the sacred writer, indeed, when
regarded in itself, is one which almost from the
necessity of the case loses its force in great measure
to the thought of such a company. The shortness
of the time appointed for us in this world is a sub-
ject which can scarcely make a very deep impression
upon our minds when, in the fulness of youthful and
manly vigour, we are just preparing for or commenc-
ing our work for ourselves. The way looks long
before us, as we view it from the starting-point.
How can we believe that we shall soon reach the
end? We shall not reach the end soon. There are
thirty or forty or fifty years before us, — and that
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THE INNER LIFE
is not soon.- The man who lias passed through
those fifty years may fitly say, if lie will, that life
vanishes, for everything vanishes at last. But we
have not passed through them. We are at the
beginning, when all things are beautiful and hopeful.
God did not mean, surely, that we should call life a
vapour, and we cannot do so, at least till the realisa-
tion of the future has taught us the lesson which, as
yet, we do not more than half believe it has to
teach us.
Such, in substance, is what every young man says
to himself, and what the members of every company
of youthful friends say to each other, when their
thoughts are arrested for the moment by this ques-
tion of life. The ending and the beginning do
not easily meet together. There are, however, some
things so closely connected with that constant pass-
ing away of the years which is to every reflecting
mind an appreciated fact, that we may urge them
upon those who look forward, as well as upon those
who look backward. If not all within the realm of
experience to-day, they are, at least, pressing upon
us from the immediate future, and must be allowed
their influence upon our minds even now, if we are
to guide our course by great principles or by the
great truths of our being.
Let me ask you, then, to call to your thought the
fact, that life is always passing out of the present into
the future. In one sense, life is wholly within the
present, for the future is uncertain, and the past is
gone from us. It is what we have and enjoy and
243
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
are, at this hour, tliat makes up our existence. We
may have been anything in the time gone by, and it
matters not, except as the results of that former time
have worked out our present character and con-
dition, or as memory has brought into the present
the joy or sorrow which it then gathered into itself;
while, as for to-morrow, it is an unknown season,
which can never be ours until it is no longer to-mor-
row, but to-day. This is the view of life which lin-
gers with us, in general, through all the earlier period
of our career ; and it is for us all one of the kindnesses
of the Providential ordering, that the preparatory
season does thus seem to limit itself to itself, so that
no anxiety or fear mingles with the gladness of life's
morning.
But this is not the truest view, nor is it the one
which can abide the progress of time and the changes
of the world. You come, my friend, to the hour
when all the preparation is completed, — when the
implements of your service have been given you,
and you are bidden to go forth and do your
appointed work; — and then, the present begins to
seem to you almost as nothing. It is but a moment.
It vanishes away into the future. You think of it
only as it helps you onward towards that future, to
which all your labours and hopes are pointing; in
which your life centres and has its being.
And thus it will be, more and more, just accord-
ing to the nobleness of your aims or the largeness of
your desires and plans. While you see the days
running by you with so little done, and yet the work
opening more widely before you with so much to
244
THE' lATNER LIFE
do — the attainments and progress already made
appearing to your thought the smaller, just in pro-
portion, perchance, as they appear to others, or
even are in reality, the greater — you will be always
pressing on, laying hold upon the things before, and
finding yourself, in your dissatisfaction with the pres-
ent, waiting most impatiently for that coming period
which, in its turn, must lengthen and enlarge itself
continually in order to fill the deep wants of your soul.
The mind, in this way, alters its judgment of things
completely as it comes to its mature reflection, and
it is compelled to do so, because it sees that each
to-day is only the time of fitting itself for each
to-morrow, — the season of toil or warfare, while life
passes out of this into the season of rest or victory.
But if all this is true, there is nothing necessarily
of the brevity of life in it, nor is there anything
which it is unnatural for us to think of when all is
hopeful. There is, however, a suggestion that may
have an all-important bearing upon our course of
action in the world. Life is vanishing out of the
present into the future now, and it always will be.
What is the lesson? Is it not, that the future is the
most certain and real part of our existence? Is it
not, that the work of the soul for itself within the
present is never accomplished, except as it takes
hold upon the future and prepares for it? Surely,
it would seem that this cannot be denied, for it is
the very principle on which men are working every-
where around us — only that they limit their vision.
You, my friend, for example, use all your energy
willingly in your chosen life's work, with no thought
245
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
of a full reward until perhaps the last ten years of
the forty or fifty, to which you look forward, shall
have begun ; and if some one tells you that those
years may never come, you give no heed to what he
says — you do not even half believe in the possibility
of its truth — because you know that your highest and
best life is not here, but there. You are preparing
for something in the distance before you, and you
will not, for a moment, hinder your labours by ad-
mitting the thought that you may die before you
reach it.
And as it seems to me, you arc in one sense,
perhaps in the highest sense, right in this. Your
mistake is not so much in thinking that you have so
many years awaiting you, as it is in thinking that
you have so few. It is not so much in forgetting
your liability to fall in death before the way is half-
accomplished, as it is in suffering yourself to imagine
that death, whenever it comes, is anything more than
a point in your history — an event which changes,
indeed, the sphere, but not the fact, nor the greatest
wants, of your existence.
We grant you, then, the longest life — the whole
of the half-century, even, that lies between you and
the appointed boundary. We grant you that it is a
long period, even as it seems to yourself. But that
is not all the future, nor all your future. There are
years beyond that. You are just as sure of sixty
years or of a hundred, as you are of fifty ; and you
are absolutely certain of both. At some time within
the hundred years, your sphere of activity will
change. But that will not make the time that
246
THE lA'NEk LIFE
follows of less value to you — far from it. Rather,
as to-morrow is more real and valuable than to-day,
so the later period must ever rise to the rightly-
thinking mind, into an importance which vastly out-
weighs the possibilities of the earlier one. This is
the law of our being; a law which no reasonable
man arriong us ever thinks of disregarding in his
plan of living for this world, and a law which it is no
more reasonable to disregard for any part of the
future, so long as, whatever may be its dwelling-
place, the soul remains itself.
I am speaking now, especially, of what you are
doing for yourself, my friend. Why direct every-
thing with so much care — why, as you are just
passing forth into life, lay every plan, as you are
doing, with so much thoughtfulness and so bright
visions of hope, with reference to the ten or twenty
years which shall close the next half-century of your
existence, and then give not a moment's reflection,
or the smallest part of your wisdom, to the ten or
twenty years that begin the following half-century ?
And this is all the difference between the two
periods, when we consider the subject as we ought.
Life is not going to contradict itself, when you are
sixty years of age. It is not going to bring in the
fulness of success then, and so remain a harvest-
time of joy for you until it suddenly ceases at
seventy. No : — it will be passing out of the
present into the future then, as truly and as con-
stantly as it does now. Otherwise, it is nothing but
a mockery. Otherwise, our largest desires and hopes
and aspirations are to meet disappointment, and
247
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
disappointment only. God cannot thus deceive the
nature that He has Himself made.
The Gospel comes to us at this hour, then, and
here Is its first message : — Be ready, at every mo-
ment, for the future, and think of the remoter future,
as well as the nearer one. It tells us also, that, in
view of our present thought, death is nothing ; —
and as the man who labours with no care reaching
beyond the night that closes these daylight hours
is degrading his humanity to the level of the beasts
that perish, so every one who limits his preparation
for the future by the bounds of threescore years and
ten, because, forsooth, the darkness of death Is full
of doubt or mystery, is forgetful of his soul's high-
est welfare and of the glorious birthright of his
immortality.
Let me ask you to call to your thought, again,
the fact that life is always passing out of the seen
into the unseen. To the young child there is noth-
ing, as It were, beyond what is seen. He lives
among outward things, and fulfils the divine ap-
pointment In that he does do. But there is another
destiny for those who have already begun the labours
of their career In the world. They also are In the
midst of outward things, but these are growing —
gradually. It may be, but yet constantly — less and
less to be their life. I do not mean that multitudes
of persons may not go on from the commencement
of their course to its close almost like children in
this regard, or that multitudes more may not fail
ever to look so earnestly at those things which in
248
THE INNER LIFE
the Scriptures are called unseen, as to lay hold upon
the eternal blessings. But I speak of the tendency
— of the great fact alone, which is realised, in
greater or less degree, in the experience of all
thoughtful persons as they move onward in their
course. The opening of mature years brings with
it the necessity of working and the burden of re-
sponsibility. A man is obliged to force his way
into the great company who are carrying forward
the world's affairs, and to achieve for himself success
in his chosen line. The carelessness of the past is
over now, while the reality of the present and the
future breaks in more and more impressively upon
the soul. Now there is something in this very work
of life which drives one in upon himself, to com-
mune there with all that he knows of the spiritual
world. Your work, my brother, does not merely go
from yourself outward and thus terminate upon it-
self; but it returns from without inward also, so that
you are growing up in your own inner life con-
tinually by means of all that you are doing. And
to your serious thought, this will ever be the truest,
greatest result of your working, so far as you are
concerned in yourself alone. Yes, you may enter
on your career with whatever plans you please —
with all your efforts directed towards the attainment
of reputation, or wealth, or any of the thousand ob-
jects of human desire that are at all worthy of an in-
telligent man, — and in the earnest pursuit of these,
you may throw yourself purposely into the midst of
external things, into the hurry and business of the
world around you ; but you cannot escape the ef-
249
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
feet of which I am speaking. There will be hours
— now and then at least, if not always — when you
will realise it. Life — whether we will it or not —
becomes sober. Life becomes thoughtful. Life, if
I may so say, becomes self-contemplative, very
rapidly, as we go on in it ; and if you have any life
that is deserving of the name at all — so that you
are not a mere pleasure-hunter, or liver for the day
only — you will see that your work is most unreal
in itself, and most real in its influence within you.
But the time will only suffer me thus to hint at
this thought. It will impress itself more deeply
upon us when we think of the responsibility and
anxiety of life's work. The continual demand that
is made upon the soul for fortitude and energy — no
matter what may be the dangers, or disappointments,
or defeats, which are met with in the struggle of the
world — will force every man, even the strongest
hearted, to retire often and look after the sources of
new power. As such a man first becomes per-
suaded of his own weakness, indeed, he may begin
to search for these sources without himself, among
the fellow-workers around him. But the search will
soon cease ; or, if it be resumed from time to time,
as the delusion of our life lingers with him, it will
show itself to be fruitless where the deepest wants
of the soul need to be supplied. No one human
mind can ever fully enter into the experience of
another, and the truth, that it cannot, men learn
more thoroughly as the years move forward. What
remains for the man then, but to go within himself?
And when he has gone within, what remains for him
250
THE INNER LIFE
there? Nothing, but either to striv^e to gather up
his own energies anew, which have already failed
him once, or many times, or to turn toward the
powers of the spiritual realm. Let him, now, take
whichever of these two courses he will, life has com-
pelled him, in the hour of his greatest emergency,
to abandon the external altogether. Life has passed,
for that hour at least, from the seen to the unseen.
But with the earnest and thoughtful soul, which is
faithful to itself, the effort will not alwa}'s be — no,
it will be less and less — to waken up its own un-
aided strength, as its only resource. It will realise
that its need is of a new power, higher than its own,
and therefore it will try to hold communion with
that which rules in the unseen world, and to search
more deeply into the knowledge of that world, until
it comes to feel and know that its own real existence
is there. I do not say, let me repeat again, that all
this is true, in its fulness, in the case of every mind.
The blindness and sluggishness and passions of our
humanity keep many from the truth forever. But I
do say that such is the tendency — such is the les-
son of the years — and you and I will be learning
the lesson as we go forward towards the end, even
though we may die, perchance, long before we have
learned it thoroughly or received the richness of its
Divine gift to the soul.
It is a universal fact, also, that we do not move far
beyond the opening of mature life, before we are
called to endure the separations and sorrows of
this world. The joyousness with which even the
lightest-hearted among you, my young friends, may
251
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
enter on the ten years immediately before you —
strong as you are in the confidence of warm friend-
ships, and filled as you are with the bright vision of
the future — will find itself, surely it will, over-
clouded somewhat, before the ten years are ended.
It is better, no doubt, not to think about it much, as
yet. It will be time enough for that, when it comes.
But, even now, I ask you to bear it in mind that, when
it does come, you will know the fact within yourself.
If you arc called, for example, a few years hence to
separate from one of your tried friends, as he is
summoned into the eternal world, you will find that
a part of your life is gone with him ; and, if you are
to each other what you think you are to-day, that
part of your life will never return from that world,
any more than he will. It will have passed, once for
all, from the seen to the unseen. Or if, in your per-
sonal experience, you find the struggle of the world,
even in its beginnings, harder for you than you had
pictured it in your happy dreamings, or bearing
with itself a suggestion, or perchance a threatening,
of possible failure as to your largest hopes, a similar
lesson will come to you — only it will be a lesson,
not from the region of the unseen into which an-
other has entered, but from that unseen region
where the deepest thoughts and the central life of
your own manhood have their abiding-place.
But not only with sorrows or trials like these ; so
it is with every separation, with every disappoint-
ment, with everything that brings on darkness
instead of light. There is a sort of distinct and
independent life in these things, which runs on
252
THE INNER LIEE
parallel with our outward work. The world knows
nothing of it. It is wholly of and within our souls,
and it makes us leave the outward behind us,
because it leaves the outward behind itself.
The very advancing years, also, tell the same
story for themselves, because they are bearing us
continually nearer to the unseen world. Life may
not be brief to you now, because you have fifty
years before you ; but it will begin to grow briefer
to your view after a little while, and just in propor-
tion as it does so, will be the imprcssiveness of the
thought that the unseen life is the real one. I do
not ask you to realise this fully now — but the
Gospel message to you, as you form your plans of
living and go forth into the world, is: Do not
deceive yourself with regard to the future : it no
more constantly brings the unseen into the seen,
than it bears the seen into the unseen.
In presenting the subject thus far, I have been
led to allude to our active work in its bear-
ing upon ourselves. Let me now ask you once
more — my final thought — to call to your remem-
brance that, so far as our work in other respects is
concerned, life is always passing out of self into the
world. There is a deception which we all practise
upon ourselves, in this regard. Not only at the
outset of our career, but long afterward, we per-
suade our souls that the work which we have under-
taken has a completeness in itself; and we press on
with all earnestness, as if the whole of it centred in
the few years of our sojourning on earth. But if
253
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
our life is good for anything, — not given to mere
personal enjoyment, — this is very far from being
the fact. When we think of it rightly, you and I
have not commenced anything, nor shall we finish
anything. No, we simply take up an unfinished
work, which some one else who went before us left
for us to do and, after a season, we shall leave it,
still unfinished, for some one else to take up anew,
who shall follow after us. That is all.
I may draw an illustration from the place in
which we are educated. The person who finds his
appointed sphere for a life-work in a University
may be said to have two great things — at least,
among others — assigned to him to do : — namely,
to maintain, in common with those around him, the
life of the institution, and to make all possible pro-
gress in the department of learning to which he
devotes himself. Now, in the former of these two
things, he may find every day requiring new efforts
or bringing new cares; he may become absorbed in
devotion to his work, and may go on with ever-
increasing energy and enthusiasm to the latest hour.
But, as he passes away from his individual earthly
life, the life of the University moves steadily on
beyond him. His work enters into its future, and
mingles there with what went before and what fol-
lows after, until its relation to him may be alto-
gether lost sight of, and forgotten. Thus it is, also,
with the other portion of his duty, — even more
clearly still, if that be possible. What has he done
there, but advance his own science beyond the point
where he received it, so that he opens to the future
254
THE INNER LIFE
generation a wider vision and a larger field? So far
from a completeness within his lifetime, it had its
beginning centuries ago, perchance, and may endure
for centuries upon centuries to come.
We, however, are but an example of mankind
around us. The truth about our living is the truth
about all living. The life of each individual may, in
some sense, have a completeness; but surely it is
not in its work. The work has no completeness.
It has, in the light in which we view it at this
moment, no meaning, except as it finds its way out
of self into the world, and not only this, but into
the world of the future.
The great law of self-sacrifice is dependent, in large
measure, upon this fact. You cannot think rightly of
the heroic sacrifices made in a great struggle for
freedom, or in the work of a missionary to the
heathen, or in any of the grander movements of the
world in which those who have the most of life
before them are called upon to give up that life
most readily, except as you think of them thus.
But when you thus think of them, the mystery is
solved. The soldier may fall in his first battle, or
the missionary in his first year of service, and yet
not have thrown himself away for nothing. His
life's work has ended just where it must have ended,
had he been permitted to see the final success of
his efforts. It has passed out of himself into the
world.
And so everywhere, whether there be a voluntary
offering like this or not. The friend beside you,
whom you have known and loved with the ardour of
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THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
a youthful affection, may pass away just as he sees
the world opening before him and with the dis-
appointment of every cherished hope, while you
may linger on until the farthest limit of age is
reached, realising all the visions that are now so
beautiful to your soul. But your life — so widely
different, as it seems, from his — is like his, in
reality. You have gained nothing by your length-
ened course, as we may almost say; for the ques-
tion of sooner or later becomes an idle one, as
you remember that the work of both takes hold
upon the future, and abides there — as you re-
member that his work and yours may even unite
together again, as they both move on beyond you
into the coming age and form together, in some
mysterious way, a portion of the world's inheritance.
The Gospel takes this closing thought, my friend,
and says to you : Be as earnest and hopeful as
you can be in all your work; but remember that it
passes on in this world while you go to another, and
that, when your earthly life has thus vanished away,
you will remain.
But if this is so, here is one of the most vital and
infinitely momentous truths of existence to all, and
especially to those who are just forming their plans
for the future. This thought may work backward
in its influence, also, upon the two which have pre-
ceded it; for if your life is so passing away from
yourself that what you are doing now finds its perfec-
tion only in later times, then the varied influences
of your work in the unseen region of your soul are
the only thing of importance connected with it, so far
256
THE INNER LIFE
as you alone are concerned — and the growth of
your character and interior being rises, of necessity,
into the highest consequence. And again, if your
work is leaving your hands as it were continually,
and is to leave them altogether at death, to belong
thereafter to the world only, not to you — then the
years that follow the termination of your earthly
course are worthy of your thought beyond all meas-
ure more than any of those which precede it, for then
you are entering on a new stage of your existence,
when all things may depend on what you are.
17 257
XVIII
THE THINGS THAT REMAIN
The things that 7'eniain. — Revelation iii. 2.
THESE four words were written by the author
of the book from wliich they are taken
with a special reference to thoughts or visions
which were given to him. I venture to use them
simply for what they are in themselves. We
who belong to this peculiar community have
reached within these now passing days the last
brief section of our academic year. A large com-
pany included in our number have come not only
to the ending of this single year, but to the closing
period of all the years in which they can know this
place as the home of their united life. The final
hour lingers a little while, yet it so manifestly draws
near that it bears witness impressively of itself. It
comes, as it were, out of the distance and darkness
in which it has been so long hiding, and sends
forth, just before itself, its word of seriousness for
every one. While it lingers, the days have new
meaning and new thought in them. They are quiet
days, in the brightest and happiest part of the year.
But they are, because of their nearness to the end,
full of tenderness and suggestiveness, full of remem-
brance and of hope, full of earnest movement of the
258
THE INNER LIFE
soul, both inward and outward. They set the mind
upon thinking in a way in which it has not thought
before. They ask the man where he is, and what
he is, in his inmo.st self; and, as they wait for his
answer, they point forward.
It is to those especially, who are nearest to-day
to the final ending of the pleasant life here, that
I would say a few words appropriate to the hour
and the season — words which will also have their
application, though in less measure it may be, to
all. The days, upon which these are now enter-
ing and which will so soon be past, may well
suggest to them, I am sure, the thought of the
things that remain. You stand to-day, my friends,
at the last dividing-point of the course. Questions
of your personal life must arise in your minds, at
such a time. The questions above all others in
which your manliest interest centres must be. What
has passed away for us? — for each one of you,
What has passed away for me, — and WJiat re-
mains f and the second of these two questions can-
not but appear to your deepest thought the most
vital one for yourselves.
• The first thing that remains for you is the time
before the end ; which is indeed, very full of signifi-
cance. In this matter there is found one of the
marvellous kindnesses of God to us in this world
— one of the proofs that He is a loving Father.
There seems to be so much time when we begin
life, or when we begin anything that is of what we
call long continuance, that we waste it as if it were
259
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
valueless, or even misuse it to unworthy ends. The
days and years pass on rapidly — flying by us, and
beyond us, as if with wings; — but they come, as
they go, and we think of the coming, not of the
going. To-morrow will answer the purpose of to-
day, and we may wait for it. Or it will, at least,
give us the hours wherein the half-work of to-day
may be made complete. We may, therefore, leave
to-day's work half-accomplished. So we live on.
We live as children, thoughtless of the present and
trustful of the future. Or, with more heroic and
manly spirit, we resolve, at the beginning, with
a great resolve. The years shall realise wonder-
fully rich results for us in whatever we undertake.
We will be more, and do more, than the idle multi-
tude around us. We will be and do what is worthy
of ourselves. But the resolution meets with w^eak-
ness and hindrance as the time moves forward.
The man's power is not what he thought it was.
The end does not answer to the beginning. The
hope changes to disappointment, and the years are
gone. From whatever cause, when we come to a
turning-point and look backward, we find that
partial failure has befallen us. The past has not
been what it might have been, or what we our-
selves once hoped it would be when it came to its
ending.
This is our side of the matter, and it is a hard
thing for us all when we think of it soberly. Look
at the subject for yourselves, my friends. You who
are drawing near the end here at this time, cannot
help thinking in these passing days. You who are
260
THE INNER LIFE
closing the first year here, or the last, must find
the impulse to reflection moving you because
of this fact. Do you not discover for yourselves
the common experience? The college life has not
brought you all the results that you hoped for,
or all that it might have brought. There is a loss
out of t\iQ platis and purpose when the achievement
is measured. The time has failed of its fruits — not
all of them, indeed — life is not all waste or disap-
pointment ; but much of good is for every one, to-
day, among, and only among, the things that might
have been. It is not a pleasant thought to you or
to me — this one of the failures ; it is full of sadness.
But it comes to us all in the quiet meditative days
before the ending of the old years and the be-
ginning of the new ones. This is our side of the
matter.
But it is not the Divine Father's side. His
thought, with which He comes to us as with inspira-
tion and impulse, is, The quiet days are of the
things that yet remain. They centre life in them-
selves. They have within them the time that is all-
sufiftcient. Not all-sufificient indeed to do the work
which might have filled the long years that are
gone. They have not hours enough for this ; and
the work, if ever done, must wait for some new stage
of life for its accomplishment. But all-sufhcient for
the making of the man with reference to the present
and the future. The making of the man did not
pass away, in its possibility, with the failure of the
work. It did not require the years for its beginning
and its security, though it did for its early perfectness.
261
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
Its beginning may come now; and as it comes, the
truest life of the man will be secure. The work also
will follow the manJwod — not as easily, not as
rapidly, not as perfectly as it might have done, had
all been right from the outset; but it will follow
beautifully notwithstanding. This is the Divine side
of the matter. The thought is of present possibility,
and thus of encouragement. The thought is of the
days that remain, not of the days that are past.
The thought is of promise and hope, not of hope-
less loss; — and the summons which comes with the
thought, is the summons to duty and manhood, in
the time that remains, as inspired by the promise,
and cheered by the hope. Let the deep sense of the
past failure turn itself into a quickening power for
the coming time, and let the man hear the twofold
voice of the past and future as a single call to man-
hood.
The thought which has just been presented sug-
gests easily, as a second thing that remains, the
power of new resolve. This, in the movement of
the soul, is the starting-point of manhood. The
power lingers for all ivith the time, and gathers
itself up in its full energy witJiin the time. In the
case of some men in every community, the newness
of the resolve must be entire, if truest manhood is
to follow. The old purpose has been wholly wrong ;
or the life thus far has been aimless, drifting along
and away with the chances of the passing days.
In a company such as that to which we belong, the
latter experience is more often realised. There are
262
THE INNER LIFE
persons here perchance, from time to time, who
come hither, or abide in this place, with their will-
power definitely and consciously set towards evil —
the determination being, that the life shall be given
to it. But if they ever appear among us, the bless-
ing of the place is, that they appear as aliens to the
commonwealth. Their soul-movement is not the
soul-movement of the community. They belong
elsewhere, and are not recognised as of the citizen-
ship. Our oftentimes occurring experience, rather,
is that we treat life as we treat the days. We enjoy
it, as we enjoy them ; but, as for the great purpose
which is to govern it and truly create it, we defer
this until the future, or form it only in some part of
its force. This fault is not like the other. It is not
the man' s devotion of himself to wrong-doing with
the energy of a hardened nature ; but the weakness
oi y 021th ^ which fails to think of what is not within its
immediate vision, and contents itself with what is
thus near and around it. The weakness of youth, it
is called. It is one, however, in which human ex-
perience shows that the youth is father of the man,
for it tarries with the man — and with every man,
in greater or less degree — long after the youthful
years have passed. But it is one that tends to
failure, and involves it.
The critical moment, however, comes by the
Divine appointment. The day arrives, which is not
the end itself, but which is near the end and testi-
fies of it — the day which begins the brief closing
season, and calls for and awakens thoughtfulness.
What does it say to the thoughtful man, who now
263
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
hears its voice? It tells him that there remains
within the brief season one of the greatest of
gifts — the gift which may bear with it a remedy
for all weakness, and even for all wrong purpose,
in the past — the power of a new resolve. The man
may take the gift as it is offered to him, and, in the
yet lingering days, may make out of it a strong and
vigorous and glorified life; or, if it need be so, a
wholly renewed and transformed life, full of good
as the former one was of evil.
This is one of the ways in which we are educated
in this world. Something is always ending for us.
Something, as the ending time draws near, is ever
reminding us, as if by a friendly forewarning, of
that which is so soon to come. Something is whis-
pering in our ear, with the tenderness as of interest
in our well-being, that in the days between the fore-
warning and the ending, there is opportunity, and
more than this — a great force. Rise to the use
and exercise of the force, according to its true mean-
ing. The power of new resolve stands ready to
change the character, or to strengthen it, if already
changed. Let it have its perfect work. So the
teaching comes, again and again, as we move on
from one period to another, — out of an old experi-
ence into a new one, — away from past thoughtless-
ness, or failure, toward the opening possibility of
the larger and better future. It comes with a pecu-
Har impressiveness, when the premonition of the
end is given at the beginning of that brief closing
time after which youth in its fulness is to pass into
manhood, and the regrets for the old days mingle
264
THE INNER LIFE
with the hopes and fears for the new ones. The
educating influence of such a time must tell upon
the hfe which receives it, and the power of the new
resolve must gain the mastery over the regrets and
the fears alike, and must turn the hopes into assured
confidence.
Closely connected with the matter of new resolve,
though having an independence of it, is another
thing which remains — the power of forming a new
ideal. This is one of the best things which still
linger with us in the closing days. And this, again,
is a blessing for all. For the man who has had a
low ideal, unworthy of himself, the possibility is of
a wholly changed one, which shall elevate and
ennoble him, lifting him by its grand force above
his old self and bringing him into the realisation of
what it reveals. But for men who have known
something better than this — whose ideal has been,
to their own thought, high perchance, and yet has
not reached the loftiest limits — there is a great
possibility. The ideal of life or manhood, in one
sense, may never be higher for the true man than it
is at the beginning. He may enter on his course
with the thought of the perfection of himself as
that at which he is to aim — and there can be noth-
ing beyond this. We believe that there are many
who have this thought in the early years, and who
hold it fast in their minds and hearts. There are
many such in our own number, as we would not
doubt.
But what is the perfection of ourselves? It is a
265
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
happy thing that, as the years ^o on, this question
receives for us, and in us, a larger answer — more
full of meaning and richness. We do not stay, in
our thought, as we were in the earliest time. Our
thought widens and deepens. You do not wish, my
friend, — if you are in the right line of growth — to
be where you were a year ago, or ten years ago, in
the mind's life and the soul's life. You are more
than you were then, and you rejoice in the fact.
It will be so hereafter. You will be more ten years
hence, and thirty years hence, than you are now.
Youth in its fulness, just opening into manhood, is
a grand thing and a good thing — as beautiful as it
is hopeful, — but it is not everything, or the best
thing. The best thing is beyond it, in the distance.
And as for the progress of time which realises
what is better, and at last, away off beyond the
present vision, what is best — how much of its
rich gift is found in the enlarging and ennobling
of the ideal, which seemed to us, at the beginning,
as grand as it could be. The ideal has become
new to our thought — we discover in the after
days — because of the new meaning which it has
gathered into itself, and we dwell upon it with
ever increasing interest, as its influence within us
glorifies our souls. This is life as it was intended to
be of God, and as we know it for ourselves, in our
imperfect measure, in the growing years.
But here, as everywhere, life moves especially in
the critical seasons, and new revelations are made
to it as it turns from one stage of its progress
toward another. We gain, at the turning-points,
266
THE INNER LIFE
more than we do along the even pathway. UpHft-
ing thoughts and larger views come to our minds
when the ending of one age arrives for us and
points onward to the beginning of another. The
thoughts then are suggestive and quickening for all
the future. The vision widens, and takes in, ever
afterward, more than it did before. We know, with
a deeper knowledge, by reason of these suggestive
thoughts and this wider vision, what is the meaning
and what is the reality of that ideal which we but
partially understood in the earlier time; and the
ideal of life seems, and in a certain real sense
is, a new one for us. Such is the gift which, as
the ending of one period of life waits a little for
the opening of the next one, remains within the
last days — waiting for us, each and every one,
to take it. It is one of the precious things that
remain.
And, in a peculiar sense and measure, does it
belong in the season just before the termination of
the youthful work for the educated man, for then the
taking into one's self the best thoughts for the future
is the most natural of all things. The season lingers
a little, we may almost say, for this purpose ; and the
power of forming the new ideal is among its great-
est blessings, — for, as this is filled out to greater
fulness at the starting-point of the manly years, the
life has its best and largest opportunity for develop-
ment under its influence.
Allied to the influence of the new ideal is still
another of the things that remain. The power of
267
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
putting the life in the right path Hngers with the
final days which turn the thought forward to the
future. And here we may speak of the matter
in two ways.
The life, what is it? 'It is first, the life in itself —
the great, deep, central life of the soul, in which
the man is to live always. This may be put in the
right pathway in the season before the ending, if it
has never been set on that way before. The mean-
ing and purpose of the season indeed, with all its
admonition of the future and tender suggestiveness
as to the present and the past, are found in its influ-
ence to this great end. There is no more earnest
call, in all the years, to any man in this company,
and no more loving one, than that which comes to
him who has thus far failed to be deeply thoughtful
of right living. He is called, in these passing weeks
before the ending of the days here, to do what has
not been done — to make the life what it ought to
be, by giving it a new beginning. And with the sum-
mons, comes the promise which rests upon the power
of forming new ideals and the power of new resolve
on the man's part, and upon the wonderful love of
the heavenly Father who sends the call and bids
the time yet linger. The blessing of all blessings,
in its possibility, is in the passing days.
But the life, we may ask again, what is it? It is
what pertains to its special work and duty. Here
also it may be put upon the right pathway. The
question of the particular line of life and service, is
a question which the young man just passing out
of the preparatory period most naturally presents
268
THE INNER LIFE
to himself. It is not essential, however, that he
should answer it, at the moment. It may be that
the time when the Divine wisdom would open the
course clearly has not yet arrived. We may wait
for the light until it is given us. But the great
principles which should determine the answer and
decision are needed now. Through them the life
is to be set right, and when they have their abiding-
place within the man, the answer in its more special
bearing will be possible in its own season. The
closing days wait for many with the gift of tJiis
power remaining within them. The man may es-
tablish in himself, with a strength unknown before
and with a firmness such that it cannot be shaken,
the principle that shall govern his choice — the
principle which bears with it the resolve to do
what the love of God and the love of man re-
quire of him. We do not go wrong, when this
has dominion over our souls. Love shows the
pathway, when the Divine moment comes for the
particular decision. The days that wait may not
be long enough for this decision, but they will be
long enough for the entrance of the Divinely-given
principle — and the life will be on the right path-
way, so soon as this finds its legitimate place and
force in the soul.
And now — with this power of new resolve, and
of forming the new ideal, and of putting life on the
right path, which is offered to all alike, and with
this gift of the time yet lingering, in which each
may take to himself the power — there is one
269
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
more thing that remains. It must be so, because
of the close relations of the company to one another.
The days that wait for us a little while before the
end carry in them tJie power of gaining and of giv-
ing the best influence. One of the marked peculiari-
ties of the life which young men lead in a place
like this — in near and intimate companionship for
a term of years, having common pursuits, and
hopes, and impulses, and tastes, in large measure —
is this : that they may do much for the making of
one another, all along the course. Force for char-
acter, and for thought, and for feeling, passes and
repasses continually throughout the little commun-
ity so thoroughly bound together. Consciously at
times, and far more often unconsciously, each one
gives to his fellow what is helpful in many ways —
and each receives as richly as he gives. When the
result is counted by the individual man, he finds
himself to be far different from what he was at the
bcijinnincf. New elements have come into him
which were unknown in the earlier time. New
force is manifested in his manhood. As he studies
himself carefully, and traces back to its sources
what he has gained, he discovers that he is partly
made, in the richest development of mind and soul,
out of the inward life of those whom he has known
so intimately, and with whom he has moved onward
in the journey of the passing years. He sees also,
as he studies the lives of those about him, that they
have, in like manner, received from himself. The
life of the united company has become quite another
thing than that which it was. The individuality of
270
THE INNER LIFE
each, indeed, has been preserved, but it has been
enlarged, and manifolded in its powers and re-
sources, and made more beautiful for the man him-
self and sweeter in its influence for other men,
because it has taken into itself the best of that
which came to it from every side. So it is always,
when the individual life has suffered itself to grow,
here, in the right way, and to become what the
ideal of the place would make it. The man at the
end, in this aspect of the matter, is created out of
many men, and, in his turn, he has done his part in
creating many men. It is a wonderful process and
a wonderful result, but it is one of the interesting
things of this our peculiar life, that we see the
process ever going forward and the result ever com-
ing nearer to its realisation.
But our thought now turns towards the closing
days, just before the end and yet waiting for the
end. In a singular measure and degree is the
power of which we are speaking manifest in these
days. There is something in the tenderness, and
even sadness, of the ending time, which opens both
mind and heart. No one has failed to know this,
who has passed through the experience of this
season in any of the years that reach far back
to the beginning of the college history. Men get
closer to each other as they draw near to the hour
of separation, and the deeper manhood shows itself
more easily. It opens itself both for the giving
and receiving.
I have seen many times in life, as has every man
who has moved along the years for a considerable
271
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
distance, In which the opportunity for getting and
for bestowing good seemed to gather itself up as it
were, in a remarkable way, into a brief season. But
I have never known a time when for manly influence
on men a larger possibility offered itself, than in such
days as these, through which those of you, my friends,
for whom the past and the future are so near their
dividing point, are now passing. A man among you
need not even put himself to earnest effort to exert or
receive the influence. He may simply open his soul
and mind for its incoming and outgoing, and the result
will be secured. Everything is helpful now toward
good, if one only does not shut the door of his inmost
self against it. But if with the serious life-purpose
of a man who is just entering upon the needs, and
the experiences, and the largeness of his manly
years, he puts himself to the earnest effort, and de-
termines to make for himself and take for himself
what is in the closing time, he may find within
it the richest gift of all the past to all the future.
The thing that remains is the best thing, and it
stands ready for each and every man, that he may
receive it, in the brief season which is now beginning
and is so soon to end, as a source of inspiration and
impulse and life-giving force — a force and impulse
and inspiration, which shall make the man ever
larger in his manhood and happier also.
I think of human life — when it is lived after the
right method and when the powers of mind and soul
abide till the end — as always growing in the rich-
ness of its experiences and blessings, as it grows in
272
THE INNER LIFE
the forces and acquisitions, the knowledge and ex-
perience, that pertain to it. How can it seem
otherwise to us, when we view it as we ought?
But if so, may we not think of it, and must we not,
as finding in its closing season — after the admoni-
tion of the end has been given, but before the end
itself has come — a gift which will have a singular
blessing for us because, as it enters the life, it may
be taken onward into the greater world beyond?
And is not this gift, the power, realised in ex-
perience, of gathering up into the life all the elevat-
ing and enriching influence of the past years, and
the past associations, as it offers itself anew to the
mind and the heart? The evening time of the true
life will be light, by reason of the light of the by-
gone years thus shining out upon the coming and
eternal years.
So, in its measure, is it with the life of youth in a
place like this and surroundings like ours. The last
happy days are not happy only because of the
bright season of the year, or because the work is
mainly ended, or because there is promise in the
future. They are happy, far more truly and in far
higher degree, because in them is this thing still
remaining — that we gather up, as it were, in this
brief season all the possibilities of giving and of
getting, for the inmost soul of each and all, the in-
fluence for good of every individual Hfe and of the
common Hfe. The good which is thus off"ered, and
is thus made one's own, abides for the lifetime, and
beyond the lifetime in this world. It glorifies the
man, and makes the memory of the past years, and
i8 273
THE INNER LIFE
the hopes and experiences of the future years,
blessed as with a Divine blessing.
The days that are now passing by you, my young
friends, who are drawing near the end of your
course here, are full of meaning, of possibility, of
gifts, whose value cannot be measured. Let me,
as an older friend who passed through similar days
a long time ago, ask you with all the emphasis of
the subsequent years, to realise for yourselves their
meaning, and take to yourselves the full measure
of their gifts and their possibilities.
274
XIX
THE POWER OF PERSONAL LIFE
Sorrowing most of all for the word which he had spoken^
that they should see his face tio more. — Acts xx. 38.
THESE words are very human and very sug-
gestive. We can easily picture to ourselves
the scene which the historian presents before us, as
he tells of the farewell which was given by the
Apostle to his friends. He had lived with them,
and among them, for the three preceding years.
During this period he had declared to them a new
doctrine, which had become life to their souls. He
had spoken the truth, as he believed it, with all
faithfulness and tenderness. He had warned them
of dangers, and assured them of consolation, and
borne witness to them of the purpose and plan of
God, and pointed them in all their needs to His
grace. He had given all to them and done all for
them freely, imposing himself in no way as a burden
upon them, but ever labouring for his own support,
that he might make all things that he did in their
behalf a gift. When the three years were drawing
near their end, he had been constrained to leave
their city, as violent excitement had been roused
against him and his teaching, and for a few months
he had returned to Corinth to renew his work and
275
THOUGHTS OF AXD FOR
Strengthen the disciples there. The time for one
of the great annual feasts at Jerusalem was now
approaching, and he turned his course thitherward.
On the way, the vessel in which he was making his
voyage touched at a place in the neighbourhood of
the city where he had thus lived so long. The
opportunity was now afforded him of meeting once
more, for a brief hour, the chief members of the
church brotherhood which he had gathered together
by his preaching. He calls them to him and
addresses them in words of affection and retro-
spect; and as he thus speaks, he takes his final
leave of them, telling them of his belief that they
will never meet him again.
What a human scene it was — answering to the
experience of all ages, and bearing in itself the
evidence of the most natural sentiment, as we read
the words in which it is described. But of all the
words the most natural and most human are the
closing ones : They sorrowed most of all, because
they knew that they should see his face no more.
The picture, as we call it before our minds, is an
interesting one indeed, for it represents a thousand
other scenes in human experience as truly as that
which it offers to our view. But we would not
dwell upon it simply or mainly because of this fact.
The words, as we have said, are as suggestive
as they are human, and the teaching comes from
them — as it comes often from words and thoughts
— by reason of their suggestiveness.
Why was it that these Christian believers sorrowed
276
THE INNER LIFE
thus by reason of the thought that they should not
see Paul's face again? It was because they realised
at that moment, with an emphasis of reality, that the
sight of the face was the sight of the man. If they
could see him, they knew that there would rise
before them the vivid representation of all that he
had been and done, and of what he might do and
be. They knew that the blessing of the past would
have a new manifestation of itself, and the richness
of the future would give a foreshadowing and fore-
taste of its promise. It is always so, when we meet
an old friend after a season of separation. His face
bears testimony to us of all that is behind the pres-
ent, and of all that is before it. The face, at such a
moment, is the man. The loss of the face is, in a
certain sense, the loss of the man. Everything
passes into the sphere of memory, and the clearness
and distinctness of the vision fade in some measure,
and gradually, away.
But if the face is the man, it is what the man was
that makes the renewed seeing of the face a matter
of such strong desire. We do not care to meet
again those who have left nothing of themselves
within us, or for our lives, from the time of our last
meeting. We bid them farewell without any stir-
ring of sorrowful feeling. Let us look at the
Apostle and his friends again. He had been for
them a teacher. The message which he had
brought to them was an announcement of something
that they had not known or thought of before. As
they received it and gave it its full power over their
minds, it ennobled and glorified life for them. As
277
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
a teacher, he had carefully explained to them what
they were slow to learn. He had repeated and
impressed his lessons. He had led them on from
step to step, giving them new light when they were
moving towards darkness. He had testified of what
he believed, and had admonished and encouraged
and inspired them, according to the necessity of
their development in discipleship. He had been
more even than their teacher ; he had been, as he
said to the members of another Christian brother-
hood, their spiritual father. Their life had come
from him, and had been watched over and cared for
by him. Surely they might well, in view of all this,
have grief of a peculiar sort in the thought that they
were not to see his face again. How much would
such a sight mean, if it could only be granted even
for an hour ! It would mean the fresh remembrance,
with all its quickening and wonderful power for the
soul, of the first beginning and the joyous progress
in the early days, and the rich growth in the later
time, of that new life for which they were thankful
to God, and in which they were ever rejoicing as
they looked onward and upward.
But there was something besides this, as the face
represented the man. It was the personality of the
teacher, and not only his teaching, which they
called to mind as they thought of the separation.
The teacher had, as we may say, lived the teaching,
which he commended to their reception. He had
given them deep thoughts, and sweet thoughts, and
inspiring thoughts, respecting the great truth, as he
had manifested before them its controlling power
278
THE INNER LIFE
within himself. He had displayed to them in many
ways, and on many sides, the greatness and grand-
ness of human character as it is brought under the
influence of the Gospel of God. How impressive
must have been to their minds, at this hour of their
last meeting, the words which he spoke in such
simplicity and sincerity : After what manner I was
with you all the time ; how I shrank not from de-
claring unto you anything that was profitable ; by
the space of three years, I ceased not to admonish
every one night and day with tears; in all things
I gave you an example, that ye ought to help the
weak : I hold not my life of any account, as dear
unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course
and the ministry which I received from the Lord
Jesus. How the man must have risen before them
in the magnificence of his Christian manhood, as
these expressions came upon their hearing. And
what a wonderful emphasis must have been added
to them, as from the depths of a heroic soul, when,
with the consciousness of what his life among them
had been, he said : I coveted no man's silver, or
gold, or apparel; ye yourselves know that these
hands ministered to my necessities and to them
that were with me ; remember the words of the
Lord Jesus, which I have remembered and followed,
how he himself said. It is more blessed to give than
to receive.
They must have taken knowledge of him — as
they thus saw what was in his inmost soul — that
he had indeed been with Jesus, and had learned of
Him — learned of Him, not with the mind only,
279
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
but ill the life. All these words also, as they called
up in review the years of their happy fellowship
with him, must have brought to their recollection
many others which he had spoken, and which had
become life-developing for their own souls. Such
words as he wrote afterwards have moved the life-
powers for multitudes of the most intelligent and
thoughtful men in all generations. They must have
contained within themselves, in some peculiar sense
and degree, the seed-principle of the true life for
those who first heard, or first read them. To see
again a man full of such thoughts would be a privi-
lege indeed ; to see him no more would be, as we
may easily believe, a matter of sorrowful feeling,
with which no other would seem worthy to be
compared.
Let us now, as we think of the scene and its sug-
gestions, ask, What are the thoughts which may fitly
come to our minds respecting ourselves, and respect-
ing life? The first, as it seems to me, is a thought
bearing upon the matter of reward, and is this:
— that the true and best reward of life, as it moves
on its way, or as it ends, is not to be found in its
success or its fame, but in that which Paul had here.
Paul had done a remarkable work in this promi-
nent city, and also elsewhere. He had become one
of the great lights in the Christian Church, as it
extended itself widely from its earliest home over
the Gentile world. He had had wonderful success,
as estimated by the possibilities of the sphere within
which he put forth his efforts and to which he con-
280
THE INNER LIFE
secrated his powers. But what would his fame, or
success, or prominence, or wide influence have
been, if he had not been in Jiiuiself what he was, —
if the men who saw and heard him had not per-
ceived within him the reahty of that which he
taught, — if, in a word, the man had not been more
than the success or the fame, and had not been in
the highest measure worthy to be seen again?
Men look forward with intensity of interest and
desire to success in the attainment of reputation or
power or position as an inestimable good in itself.
They make the possession of this good the dream
of their early ambition, the aim of their manly effort,
the end of their living. When they strive or
struggle for the prize, which they thus covet, in a
selfish spirit, and with no thought or care for any
service on behalf of the world, they persuade them-
selves that life has no nobler meaning in it, and is
only intended to realise its gains. When they rise
above this lower level, where they are unworthy of
their manhood, and take into their thought and
action what may be helpful to others, they think
that the prize is glorified, indeed, by this motive
which attends the effort for it, but that it is still in
itself the same thing. In every way they press on
after it, as if it were what makes life worth the
living.
But a touching and beautiful scene like this, upon
which we are dwelling in our thought for a few
moments, has in itself another lesson and a widely
different one. The grief, which was so manifestly
and sincerely in the hearts of those about him, was
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
more to the man who witnessed it than any success,
in the outward measure of success, which he had had
could ever be. It was so, because it bore testimony
of the hfe which was in them, and of that which
was in him. And so it is ahvays. The earnest
desire to see the face again — so that the knowledge
that it cannot be is the most regretful of all things in
the parting — shows that the associate of the years
has much in himself, and has given forth much for
us. A uniting force binds us together, and the life,
which is now common to us both, owes its origin and
its growth for ourselves, in greater or less degree,
to what was, and is, in him.
I ask you to think of it, my friends — you who are
soon to go forth from the pleasant associations of
the four years in this place. What is the word which
you desire most of all to hear from your intimate
friends, and most of all to speak to them at the end ?
Is it not the word that carries in itself the hope of
another meeting — the sight of the face, at some
future time? Is not the hearing of this word, as it
comes from the depths of the soul of the man whom
you have known and loved, the reward of these years,
beyond any other reward? And why is it thus? Is
it not — when you have the thought resting upon the
true foundation — because the word as it is spoken
tells, with the emphasis of the soul's life, of what he
knows that you have done for him by reason of
what you have been in yourself? It is a testimony
to what is more fundamental than success, and far
nearer to the centre of life than fame. It speaks of
what the man really is; and surely the manhood
282
THE INNER LIFE
of the man is the highest reward of the years. It
will be so, equally, in the coming time. Life is not
going to turn around for you and become quite
another thing, when the youthful season is past, from
what it is now. There is a larger sphere before you,
indeed ; and there are greater prizes, as the world
calls them, which are to be offered. But the human
soul is the same, and the reward, which meets and
satisfies the human soul in its inmost and noblest
feeling, will be the same at the ending that it is at
the opening of the manly career. This reward will
be the testimony which comes from the living forces
of other souls, as they have received the best of
influence and inspiration from the man in whose
behalf they testify.
The second thought, that comes to us from the
scene to which we have turned our minds and its sug-
gestions, as it seems to me, is this : — that the true
standard for the measurement of value, as related to
our personal lives, is not to be discovered in our
teaching, or our working, but in our living. Paul's
teaching was a marvellous teaching, surely; full of
life-giving power, if any teaching could be. His
working, in its constancy and its energy, and its
wisdom in adapting itself to its purpose, was as
remarkable as was the doctrine which he taught.
But what a change there would have been in the
manifestation before the world of both, if the man
had not been what he was in his living. It was the
man as formed under the influence of the doctrine,
and putting forth the reality of himself into his work,
283
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
that made the glory of his career. It was the man
within him that made his friends grieve because they
were to see him no more. So it is with us, each and
every one.
The tendency of the world is to teaching and
working. We become restless, with the thought that
we are not fulfilling our mission among men, if we
are not in action always, or ever declaring a mes-
sage. But it is well for us to remember that, in the
Divine ordering, a message of life is but half of it-
self, without life in the messenger, and that action,
even when it moves in the right line, is a force-
less thing, unless there is a vital energy behind
it. Herein lies the effective power of enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm means life in the man. He works, out
of an inspiration which has become a part of his
being, and so he moves victoriously towards results
in other men. But in the moral sphere, especially,
there is no true enthusiasm without life.
I ask you to look at your own experience, my
friend, whether it be narrower or wider. Who is the
man from whom the greatest power has come upon
your personal manhood? Is it not the one whose
inner life has been most rich and deep and true? Is
it not the one from whom, whenever you have seen
him — not only in the intercourse of every day, but
even as he was passing along these paths and under-
neath these elms — you have felt that a lesson of
genuine manliness has come to your soul? Such a
man, if a teacher, has carried his moral and spiritual
teaching for you in himself It needed no word
from his lips for your hearing, for you have seen it
284
THE INNER LIFE
in your seeing him. If he was a worker, even in the
best Hnes of effort — even for the purifying and
elevating of the souls of those around him — his
real energy and force have been manifest to you
as behind and beneath the work, and in the life. If
he was a friend, you have known the influence, not
simply when you have talked with him and have
Hstened to the expression of his thoughts, but be-
cause you have beheld, in his whole exhibition of
himself, what his thoughts have been to his own
mind and for the development of character within
himself. But if this be so, the very atmosphere of the
place in which we are passing these years is full of
testimony to the truth. No serious man, I am sure,
can take his farewell of the place, and its associations,
without giving to himself at least, if not to others, his
witness, that the manhood in those whom he has
esteemed and loved here as the worthiest men lies
deeper than their doing, or their speaking, and that,
in his desire to see them again, the chief impulse
comes to him from what he knows them to be.
It must have been a delightful thing to the mind
of Paul, that the men with whom he had lived for
three years of intimate acquaintance wished so
earnestly that they might have another meeting with
him because he was what he was. But as he thought
of their feeling with pleasure, he may well have said
to himself, This wish of theirs is an evidence of the
true estimate for myself, and for every other man.
What we are is more than what we do. And so
with us all. If we may have within ourselves the
thought that the first of all things for the true life is
285
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
what we are, and that from this, as if its outgoing
and its fruit, is to go forth all that we do or teach,
we shall ever abide near the Divine ideal, and ever
be under its glorifying influence.
The third thought that comes to us from the
scene, which has been presented to our minds, and
its suggestions — and the last one to which I will
refer — is closely related to those which we have
been considering. It is this : — The true impulse of
the true man is, to develop rich thoughts within
himself, and to give them to others. A man does
not fulfil the ideal of his life any more truly than he
fulfils its obligations, if he simply performs the tasks
assigned him, or does his outward work, whatever it
may be. The mind and soul w^ithin him need to be
cultivated, and to be fruitful. He needs to have,
according to the possibilities which life opens to
him, elevating thoughts on the subjects which relate
to the highest interests of his manhood. It is such
thoughts, that enlarge and glorify his personality.
He needs them, also, for their helpful and upbuilding
influence as bearing upon those about him. If a
man lives for three years, as Paul did, in intimate
relations with a little community of men, or with a
few individual men, he fails of his highest duty, as
well as of his best influence, in case they are able
to gain nothing from the movement and working of
his inmost life. We were intended to do good to
one another in this way, as truly as in other ways,
and, if wc have the vital power of the life in our-
selves, we shall do so; for life always works from
286
THE INNER LIFE
the centre outwards and beyond itself. No man can
take into himself the all-powerful, transforming Chris-
tian doctrine, and live with it as a vivifying force in
his heart, without having much of its influence in
the miind's thinking ; — and if he has this influence
in his thinking, it will go forth, often without an
effort and almost before he is aware, to those with
whom he is associated in the fellowships of the
world.
The Christian man always has thoughts. He can-
not be near to Christ, and dwell upon His love,
without them. But the educated Christian has an
especial duty and privilege in this regard. It is a
part of his calling — as it is indeed, after his measure,
in the case of every educated man — to be thought-
ful. Education is not mere learning or the acquisi-
tion of knowledge — the accumulation of a treasure
to be laid up in the mind, and to remain there without
living energy. Education is the cultivation and de-
velopment of thinking power, and a man who has not
secured for himself this has, so far, wasted the years
of his education. The knowledge and learning find
their real end in this. But the highest moral and
spiritual education is open to the Christian ; and in
this sphere, especially, is there no richest develop-
ment without the stirring of the thinking power. A
man must turn his mind in upon itself, and must
study his soul, if he would set forward the true
growth of his character.
What would Paul's life have been without his
thoughts — where would have been the greatness of
his character, which we now see so clearly, if there
287
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
had been within him nothing of that inspiring Chris-
tian thinking which filled his letters with the ex-
pression of itself, and came with impelling power to
the minds of those to whom he spoke ? We need not
look back to Paul, however. We may look again at
ourselves. If we find, as we all do in the review of
the years, that the growth of our individual lives in
the mental and spiritual part is largely the result
of what is given to us by the stimulating thought of
others, the question is answered for us at once, and
with emphasis. We miss half of the opportunity of
life, we fail of half of its power for good, if we do
not become thoughtful men — men who make the
having and the giving forth of the most helpful, and
the most inspiring, and the best thoughts the object
of their constant mental effort. And how may this
be accomplished better than in the way in which the
Apostle realised it for himself — by putting the
mind in daily communion with the highest truths of
the soul's life, and bringing it to the continual,
joyful study of the thought and inner life of Christ,
the great teacher and the perfect man ?
I have thus called your attention, my friends, to
a verse from the sacred writings which tells of a
parting between friends in the earliest days of the
church. It has a fitness in its lesson for all of
us in the closing of our academic year, and an
especial fitness for some of us in the ending of all
the academic years. The old scene in its great
central feature, may seem to repeat itself, as the
days pass on and the question of future meetings
288
THE INNER LIFE
comes to those who must think of them with so
much of interest. It is well for you to bear in
mind the true standard of living, and the best re-
ward of life, as you look back over the past and
forward to the future. And it is fitting for you to
remember that the thoughts for the inner life and
the true life, which you gain and which you give,
are the upbuilding forces for the souls of all alike.
That you may, every one of you, realise the
blessing of giving and receiving, in all that makes
life what it ought to be, is my best wish for you ; and
that you may know, by a constant experience, that
it is more blessed to give than it is to receive, even
as the Lord Jesus Himself said, is my largest hope ;
— the same wish and hope which I would have for
myself.
19 289
XX
THE GIFTS AND LESSONS OF THE YEARS
With long life will I satisfy him, and show hi^n my salva-
tion. — Psalm xci. i6.
I PROPOSE to suggest for consideration, at this
time, a few thoughts upon a somewhat uncom-
mon subject of discourse — the blessing of growing
older, or the increasing happiness of hfe as it ad-
vances. We hear much, in the ordinary conversa-
tion of mankind, of the brightness and joy of early
years. Almost every man looks back upon his
childhood with a sense of peculiar charm, and feels
that its half-remembered days were cloudless like a
summer morning, while the later years have been
clouded and darkened. The fond wishes of the soul,
therefore, return to that which is behind us, in the
nearer or remoter distance. We carry with us a
regret, which sometimes, indeed, hides itself away
from notice in the multitude of our employments, but
ever and anon breaks forth in its strength, that the
past cannot come back even for an hour, and that
we can never experience again what we once en-
joyed. We listen also to much in the public dis-
coursing of the Church concerning the peculiar
privileges of the young and those who are just enter-
ing upon their career. They are believed to have,
290
THE INNER LIFE
not only the hope and promise of the world in them-
selves, but to be in a more desirable position than
older persons in what relates to their own individual
and interior Hfe. How seldom, on the other hand,
are men of forty or sixty addressed, except to re-
mind them of increasing responsibilities, or, per-
chance, of wasted opportunities, or of the rapidity
with which life is passing, or the nearness of its end-
ing. That a man is becoming happier as he is
getting older — that life is richer, and deeper, and
better for every right-minded person now, than it
was twenty years ago — seems to be a thought
which scarcely enters the ordinary mind, or, at least,
which scarcely ever so impresses itself as to demand
and find an utterance.
I believe that the truth is on the other side of this
matter, and I ask the kindly reader to follow me as
we consider the question whether it be not so.
In the first place, let us look at the happiness of
childhood or early youth, and inquire what it is.
It is the sense of life, in its beauty and joy, as a new
thing. It is freedom from anxieties, doubts and
fears. It is the calm confidence that there will be
provision for its wants. It is the affection of the
home circle, as yet unbroken by separation. It is
the awakening consciousness of the mind's own
powers and capacities, and the hope that, by means
of them, the man will in due time accomplish great
things in the world. We move onward a little way
beyond our first maturity, and we find all this
changed, in greater or less degree. The world seems
291
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
a different place from what it used to be, and we are
roughly shaken out of our pleasant dreams and pict-
urings. No wonder, that we begin at once to be dis-
heartened, and to feel that the early years, as they ran
away from us, bore with them beyond our sight the
brightness and unalloyed happiness of life. Trials,
and anxieties, and labours, and separations, and
many failures In plans and purposes enter soon into
the place of all that was so peaceful and beautiful.
It is a world of hard work, instead of play. It is a
world of sorrow, even, and constant disappointment.
The golden period is behind us, not before us.
But stay a moment in your thought, my friend.
Happiness is not freedom from care. We are
reasoning and working beings — designed for ma-
turity, and not for the mere beginnings. Thirty
or forty years ago, perchance, you had not a thought
going out beyond the enjoyment of the day, or the
morrow, and therefore were free from care. But
you were doing nothing; you were only, at the
most, preparing to do. You had no true sense of
your own capacities. You knew nothing of the sat-
isfaction which comes from the full exercise of your
powers, and from the accomplishment of real results.
You were restless, even — just in proportion to the
nobleness of your nature — to reach the hour when
you might begin your portion of the world's work.
If you are not in a morbid and diseased state of
feeling for the time, you would not give up your
present sense of manly force in action, and go back
to the old condition, if you had the possibility, to-day,
of choosing to do so once for all ; — and you would
292
THE INNER LIFE
not, because you are assured in your deepest soul
that it is not only better, but happier, to be what
you now are, than what you then were. There is
no truth more certainly learned in a man's own
experience, than that, to the highest happiness of
our life in this world some element of conflict and
victory is essential. We must meet something of
opposition to try our powers, and must feel that we
have grown strong in overcoming it, or we do not
know one half of the glory of our manhood. And
this is the Divine appointment for mature and later
years. The child is a lovely object in his own place ;
but he is only the beginning, the imperfect develop-
ment, of that which is to grow to its perfection
afterwards. If the beginning were never to pass
into something higher, life would be a most unat-
tractive, because a most unfinished thing. The
work must be better than the preparation.
Look at your home life — where the happiness
of childhood seems to us often the only unalloyed
one, — and you will find, I am sure, that you are
mistaken here also. Love goes downward, rather
than upward. Your children do not, and cannot
love you as tenderly and beautifully as you love
them. The law of nature and the possibilities of
nature are only in the other way. You may turn
your thoughts backward to the home of your earliest
life and recall your affection for your father and
mother, and — pure as it may have been — it is not
what your affection now is for your own children.
You have entered upon a new stage of your being,
in this regard, and the feeling of to-day gives you
293
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
a deeper joy than the old one ever did, or ever
could.
The delightful peace, that fills the home life and
makes it such an emblem of heaven — my friend,
in your childhood you participated iji it only, but
now, if it is in your home, you make it; you are the
author of it, and give it its being. And it is more
blessed to give than only to receive. I can think
of nothing better, as related to this world alone,
than to be the centre of happiness and affection for
the inmost circle in which God has placed our lives
and given us our sphere of highest duty — always
bestowing upon others that for which their life is a
continual, though it may be a silent, thanksgiving.
But this the child cannot be, because of his position
and his years. It is a blessing reserved for after
life, and it makes the later years happier even than
the best part of the earlier ones.
You were receptive, and wholly so once, in that
former time, and therefore, again, you were free
from many disturbing and harassing thoughts.
Others cared for you, and you rested upon them.
But now you are a giver in all things, and others
rest upon you. You were made, however, to be a
giver, and you have now only reached the fulness
of your Hfe. The labour, or fear of failure, or sense
of uncertainty, which attends upon you as a condi-
tion of your giving, is all lost sight of when it is
over, and the result is reached. It even passes into,
and forms an element of the joy of the result — so
that we enjoy the more what we do for those depend-
ent on our care, the more of effort, and self-sacrifice
294
THE INNER LIFE
even, our gift to them has made necessary. You
did not leave your happiness behind you, and bid it
a final farewell, when you first ceased to feel that
your wants would be supplied by those on whom
you used to rest. Far from it. You entered, rather,
upon a new stage and measure of it at that very
hour ; and, if you will examine your own experience
carefully, you will surely find that the new condition
has been better than the old. Each of the two
stages has been good in its own appropriate season ;
but the former one was only a mere preparation for
the latter as that which is more perfect and more
desirable.
But is not the hope of great results, which belongs
to youth, you say, a more joyful thing than the
remembrance of half-results ? This latter, however,
is the accompaniment of most lives in their middle
and later portions. Life is all new and hopeful at
the beginning; while, as we go onward, it becomes
an old, familiar thing, known mainly by its imper-
fections. No doubt, I answer, we all lose much of
the confidence of hope, after we begin to be actors
in the world. We learn that we are accomplishing
less — or in a different way, at least — than we used
to think we should ; and the work of reformation
and good goes forward more slowly than it might.
We are tempered, thus, and moderated in our
expectations.
But if we are doing less than we anticipated once,
we are doing, and not hoping only ; — and, in so far
as anything is daily done for the good cause in the
world, the manly soul has a satisfaction in it which
295
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
is deeper than it can have in its early hopes. It must
be remembered, also, that, along with the moderat-
ing of our expectations as life advances, and keep-
ing pace with it, there comes in the soul the growth
of two feelings, which are all-important to its happi-
ness in a world like ours : — the one, that the good
cause, the cause of all good things, may go forward
most successfully in a way other than that which we
had thought of; and the other, the feeling of con-
fidence in a wiser and higher power that is ever-
ruling and overruling for its own best ends. The
youth is confident, indeed, in his anticipations, and
therefore he is happy. But he is strong in his own
ideas and plans, and believes that all things must
move after his own manner and through his own
efforts. He opens the door, therefore, for disap-
pointment so soon as he begins to turn his hopes
into action. But the man, who has been working
for a score or two of years, and has been a docile
disciple in the world's school, has learned other
lessons, which rob disappointment and even failure
of much of their disheartening eff"ect upon the mind.
If life has wrought for him its legitimate result; if
he has grown older in the way in which God would
have him grow, he has become trustful in God's
wisdom, and hopeful, in a less ardent way indeed,
but in a more peaceful one.
And so, as I believe, the true effect of the pro-
gressing years is to bring us — even when we look
at that which is brightest in the early part of life —
to a happier, as well as a better state. But as we
may fitly turn our thoughts, in our Christian medi-
296
THE INNER LIFE
tation, rather towards what pertains to the soul and
its relations to the future, I would more especially
consider some other points in which life, as it would
seem, must bring greater happiness to right-minded
persons as they go forward in it.
Moving in this sphere of thought, I would say
that as life, in any true view of it, is a plan of God,
it must of necessity grow richer as it draws nearer
to the end. I do not mean, of course, that it must
be so in every man's actual experience. Some men,
by their own choice and determination, put them-
selves in direct opposition to the Divine plan and
working. They prevent the development of any
good design in their existence, and we can expect
nothing but perversion in their case. There are
others, also, who, though they may have the hopes
of the Gospel within them, become querulous, or
dry, or hardened in their feeling, and thus lose out
of their souls what is offered them so freely by the
Divine favour. We can only speak on such a subject,
however, of those who put themselves in the right
line of living, and affirm what will be true of them,
in so far as they do this.
But place yourself in the right position, and open
yourself to the right influences — and you will not
only know it must be so, but will realise for yourself
that your life is a plan of God, and that He is carry-
ing forward a work in you from its beginning to its
consummation. How strange it would be, if there
were no growth as the years advance, or if the
growth were downward ! Is it possible that, in His
training of a soul for its immortal existence, what is
297
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
best is placed at the very commencement, or that
the progress of the plan towards its final issue can
leave the soul less happy in the later, than in the
earlier years? No — even those things of which we
have already spoken are not, in this view of the
subject, mere outward things or of the earthly life.
In their influence, they belong to the character;
and these things and all others, as they work in
upon character, strengthen and purify and elevate
it. They are designed to carry the soul for^vard
in its own growth. They must make the soul hap-
pier than it was before it had known their power,
and before it had grown wiser and stronger and
better.
You may say that the carelessness, and the hope-
fulness, and the joyous outlook upon life in child-
hood, in themselves alone, are happier than what
follows them and takes their place in maturer life
— though, as I have already tried to show, I believe
you are mistaken even in this view of them. But,
when you look at your character, and at the plan of
God in your own life, you cannot feel thus. This
change indicates, and is, the progress of that plan.
It was then near its beginning, but it is now, it may
be, near its ending. What if, in this progress in
your case, or in some cases, the outward man may,
as the Apostle says, have been decaying — the in-
ward man has been renewed more and more. Anx-
ieties, cares, struggles, labours — the assumption of
great responsibilities and the endurance of many
hardships — have brought strength to you. They
have awakened new earnestness, new confidence,
298
THE INNER LIFE
new devotion, new lov^e to men and to God ; — and
the work is drawing nearer to its completion.
The Christian man, and even, in his measure, the
man who Hmits his view to this world and yet places
himself in the line of life's best influences, cannot
loae happiness as he goes forward. If he does, he
is contradicting the Divine order and, therefore, is
not in the true line of thought. As well might the
victorious general rejoice at the beginning of the
conflict, or at the first gathering of his forces,
and lose heart and happiness in the moment of
his approaching triumph. As well might we call
the dimmest hopes joyful, and the full fruition
sorrowful.
In every one of us who have been living in ac-
cordance with God's plan for these years past, and
who do not shut our eyes to the consciousness of it,
there is, and must be, a growing happiness as the
plan works onward through the years towards its
final result in a better life. If we do not daily enter
into the experience of it, it is because we have
become distrustful, or have clothed the past with an
unreal beauty, or have allowed the fruits of evil
habits to spread over our lives so widely that we
cannot see the Divine working alone and in its own
loveHness.
But there are some things wherein we grow
naturally as the years advance, which tend directly
to make us happier, as well as better men ; and to
two or three of these I would call your attention.
The man on whom the progress of life exerts its true
299
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
and legitimate influence comes into a kindlier and
more truly just judgment of those about him. The
tendency in early life — particularly, as we first begin
to associate with men — is to overestimate ourselves,
and underestimate them. We have grown up thus
far, as it were, within ourselves alone, and every-
thing we therefore feel must be measured according
to our standard. The good that is in others, unless
indeed it may be those who are in full sympathy
with ourselves, we are often slow to appreciate, and
our judgments become severe. It is said that youth
is generous — and so it is, in some respects, far more
than the harder side of later life. But I cannot
doubt that the man who has gained anything of the
true spirit of Christ learns, under the natural in-
fluence of progressing years, to believe good of
others — that the familiar association with men, as
time passes on, brings us to see, in spite of all their
weaknesses or sins, the elements of good within them
and the possibilities of building up the nobler life.
If you, my friend, are becoming constantly more
distrustful of those around you ; if your associates
and neighbours are judged more harshly than they
once were ; you are, I am sure, not learning the true
lessons of the years, and are, so far at least, not
under the Divine guidance. But, on the other hand,
those who follow this guidance, and look through
their own weak souls upon the souls of those around
them, must continually grow more appreciative of
their better nature and more generously hopeful re-
specting them. And the kindlier you come to be in
your judgment of other men, the happier you will
300
THE INNER LIFE
be emd must be ; — and this is the true and un-
perverted influence of advancing hfe.
The natural effect of the years in a really manly
soul is, also, to make it softer and gentler in itself
I know that this may contradict the experience or
observation of many persons. Habits strengthen, it
is said, as life goes on, and we become harder and
less open to impression. Not so, I believe, with
those who are living nearest to the Divine method
and are taking into themselves the proper influences
of life. As I look back upon those of the genera-
tion before me with whom I used to be most familiar,
and who have finished their earthly course — strong
and rigid and severe, as the men of that generation
were, — I remember how the character softened into
beauty, more and more, in the later years. If you
also, on your part, will look upon those around you
who are living rightly, you will see, I am sure,
the gentler influences moving in upon their souls
gradually and constantly as they move onward.
Life must bring us nearer to the Divine tender-
ness and gentleness as we live longer under their
wonderful power. But the years themselves have
the same effect, in that they naturally wear away
the rougher and harsher parts of the nature, and
show how much mightier a power in the world gen-
tleness is, than severity. As the gentler influences,
however, bear sway more and more completely, the
happiness of the soul becomes, of necessity, deeper
and deeper — even as the beloved Disciple, passing
out of that vehemence and energy which gave him,
301
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
in his early manhood, the name of the Son of Thun-
der, came in the after period of his hfe into the
quietness of the loving spirit which, as the old
legends pictured it, faded away, without his dying,
into the happiness of heaven.
My friends, I hope that you and I are growing
gentler and kindlier as the years bear us onward.
If we are not, we are losing one of the best, as well
as one of the most natural influences of life, and
are certainly not, in this regard, under the leading
of the Divine Master. But, if we are thus growing,
we know for ourselves, and in ourselves, that life is
becoming happier as we arc becoming older, far
better than any one can tell us.
The right-thinking man, also, is naturally brought,
as the years pass, to estimate more truly the com-
parative value of the things offered to him in this
world. You know, my friend, with a deeper knowl-
edge than you had five and twenty years ago, that
the things relating to the inward life are better than
those belonging to the outward ; and if you are
living in view of what you know, you are happier
for knowing it. The experience of life has taught
you that your success, or your wealth, or your
fame, is not the highest of earth's gifts, — that these
things are nothing in comparison with those which
take hold upon the well-being of your inmost souls.
In early years, we do not appreciate this, except as
it is taught us by the testimony of others. Life is
new to us in those years, and the outward things
fill our field of vision. But the progress of time
302
THE INNER LIFE
opens to us the truth, and experience impresses it
more deeply upon the soul. Who can doubt that,'
as we learn this trjith, we become happier? I do
not believe that any man knows what rich and deep
happiness is, until he has taken into the depths of
his mind that which the lesson of the years teaches,
and has made for himself the one great discovery, that
it is what is internal, and not what is external to the
soul, which fills the wants of our nature. We were
created for the internal — for the development of
ourselves to perfection ; and it is here alone, that
the highest joy can come.
We are thus led onward to our final thought:
that, as the years advance, we are brought nearer
to the heavenly life. There is a certain point in
the history of all men who think at all — some time
after early youth has passed away — when a great
change comes over them. Every thoughtful man
who is in middle life, or beyond that period, will
recall it, I am sure, in his own review of past expe-
rience. I scarcely know how to describe it better
than by saying, that we then began to feel, as we
had never felt before, the significance of the fact
that we are immortal beings. We had known this
truth ever since we knew anything, perhaps, but
we had not realised it in any impressive way for our
thought. But now it becomes a vital thing to us,
and we are never again what we had been. The
idea of the eternal future, and of our life as passing
into it — at any moment, it may be — cannot after-
ward be shaken off altogether from our minds. It
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR
presents itself, whenever it will in our every under-
taking, and may colour by its presence our entire
view of life.
A man may, indeed, resist the influence of this
thought so far that it will not regulate his subse-
quent course of action. In that case, it will only
disturb his quietness, from time to time, with its
suggestion of possibilities or dangers. But if he
gives it its proper force, and makes life to be what
it would dictate, it opens continually before him
the prospect of heaven, — not of heaven as a place
merely, or an outward reward, but of a beautiful
growth of the soul in all that is most desired and
desirable. The most elevating thoughts ; the deep-
est emotions of love and kindliness; the nearest
communion with God which we ever have : — these
are the foretastes of the heaven which it opens to
us; a future life and time in which these shall be-
come the permanent experience of the soul in a
place where all outward surroundings and all
friendly associations shall be adapted to the pure
inward and spiritual condition.
I cannot believe that life was intended by its
Divine author to grow less happy, as it should grow
older, with such a prospect before it ; or that it ever
does become so, except as we forget what we are
gaining from year to year — what we are passing
out of, and what we are passing into, as we draw
steadily nearer to the end.
It was not, then, without reason, that the Psalmist
sang of long life as a blessing, when it was lived in
304
THE INNER LIFE
the line of the Divine ordering. We may not for-
get indeed that, as the years go on, there are many
things which try the soul to the very foundations of
its being — toils, and burdens, and separations, and
deaths of those we love. But in the wonderful
working of all influences under the guidance of Him
within whose plan are all our lives, even these
things are made mysteriously to purify the soul,
and thus, as it grows better, to make it grow hap-
pier also. So too, when the life reaches its end,
and the deepening and increasing happiness of
earth is exchanged for the greater blessedness be-
yond, the salvation which comes to the soul in its
fulness is only that which had been shown or un-
folded to it, in ever enlarging measures and clearer
visions, while the years here were bearing it onward.
20 305
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