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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13267-0.txt b/13267-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..193fc24 --- /dev/null +++ b/13267-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1403 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13267 *** + +THE THRESHOLD GRACE + +_MEDITATIONS IN THE PSALMS_ + +BY + +PERCY C. AINSWORTH + +AUTHOR OF 'THE PILGRIM CHURCH.' 'THE BLESSED LIFE,' ETC. + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +During his brief ministry Mr. Ainsworth published a series of meditations +in the columns of the _Methodist Times_, which are here reprinted by the +kind permission of the Editor, Dr. Scott Lidgett. The rare interest aroused +by the previous publication of Mr. Ainsworth's sermons encourages the hope +that the present volume may find a place in the devotional literature to +which many turn in the quiet hour. + +A.K.S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE THRESHOLD GRACE + II. THE HABIT OF FAITH + III. THE ONE THING DESIRABLE + IV. EYES AND FEET + V. THE SAFEGUARDED SOUL + VI. A PLEA FOR TEARS + VII. DELIVERANCE WITH HONOUR +VIII. PETITION AND COMMUNION + IX. HAUNTED HOURS + X. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE + XI. A NEW SONG + + + + +I. + +THE THRESHOLD GRACE + + + The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming + in, from this time forth and for evermore. + + Ps. cxxi, 8. + +Going out and coming in. That is a picture of life. Beneath this old Hebrew +phrase there lurks a symbolism that covers our whole experience. But let us +just now look at the most literal, and by no means the least true, +interpretation of these words. One of the great dividing-lines in human +life is the threshold-line. On one side of this line a man has his 'world +within the world,' the sanctuary of love, the sheltered place of peace, the +scene of life's most personal, sacred, and exclusive obligations. And on +the other side lies the larger life of mankind wherein also a man must take +his place and do his work. Life is spent in crossing this threshold-line, +going out to the many and coming in to the few, going out to answer the +call of labour and coming in to take the right to rest. And over us all +every hour there watches the Almighty Love. The division-lines in the life +of man have nothing that corresponds to them in the love of God. We may be +here or there, but He is everywhere. + +_The Lord shall keep thy going out._ Life has always needed that promise. +There is a pledge of help for men as they fare forth to the world's work. +It was much for the folk of an early time to say that as they went forth +the Lord went with them, but it is more for men to say and know that same +thing to-day. The _going out_ has come to mean more age after age, +generation after generation. It was a simpler thing once than it is now. +'Thy going out'--the shepherd to his flocks, the farmer to his field, the +merchant to his merchandise. There are still flocks and fields and markets, +but where are the leisure, grace, and simplicity of life for him who has +any share in the world's work? Men go out to-day to face a life shadowed by +vast industrial, commercial, and social problems. Life has grown +complicated, involved, hard to understand, difficult to deal with. Tension, +conflict, subtlety, surprise, and amid it all, or over it all, a vast +brooding weariness that ever and again turns the heart sick. Oh the pains +and the perils of the going out! There are elements of danger in modern +life that threaten all the world's toilers, whatever their work may be and +wherever they may have to do it. There is the danger that always lurks in +_things_--a warped judgement, a confused reckoning, a narrowed outlook. It +is so easily possible for a man to be at close grips with the world and yet +to be ever more and more out of touch with its realities. The danger in the +places where men toil is not that God is denied with a vociferous atheism; +it is that He is ignored by an unvoiced indifference. It is not the babel +of the market-place that men need to fear; it is its silence. If we say +that we live only as we love, that we are strong only as we are pure, that +we are successful only as we become just and good, the world into which we +go forth does not deny these things--but it ignores them. And thus the real +battle of life is not the toil for bread. It is fought by all who would +keep alive and fresh in their hearts the truth that man doth not live by +bread alone. For no man is this going out easy, for some it is at times +terrible, for all it means a need that only this promise avails to +meet--'The Lord shall keep thy going out.' He shall fence thee about with +the ministry of His Spirit, and give thee grace to know, everywhere and +always, that thou art in this world to live for His kingdom of love and +truth and to grow a soul. + +_The Lord, shall keep ... thy coming in._ It might seem to some that once a +man was safely across the threshold of his home he might stand in less need +of this promise of help. But experience says otherwise. The world has +little respect for any man's threshold. It is capable of many a bold and +shameless intrusion. The things that harass a man as he earns his tread +sometimes haunt him as he eats it. No home is safe unless faith be the +doorkeeper. 'In peace will I both lay me down and sleep, for Thou, Lord, +alone makest me to dwell in safety.' The singer of that song knew that, as +in the moil of the world, so also in the shelter of the place he named his +dwelling-place, peace and safety were not of his making, but of God's +giving. + +Sometimes there is a problem and a pain waiting for a man across his own +threshold. Many a man can more easily look upon the difficulties and perils +of the outer world than he can come in and look into the pain-lined face of +his little child. If we cannot face alone the hostilities on one side of +our threshold we cannot face alone the intimacies on the other side of it. +After all, life is whole and continuous. Whatever the changes in the +setting of life, there is no respite from living. And that means there is +no leisure from duty, no rest from the service of obedience, no cessation +in the working of all those forces by means of which, or in spite of which, +life is ever being fashioned and fulfilled. + +And now let us free our minds from the literalism of this promise and get a +glimpse of its deeper application to our lives. The threshold of the home +does not draw the truest division-line in life between the outward and the +inward. Life is made up of thought and action, of the manifest things and +the hidden things. + +'Thy going out.' That is, our life as it is manifest to others, as it has +points of contact with the world about us. We must go out. We must take up +some attitude toward all other life. We must add our word to the long human +story and our touch to the fashioning of the world. We need the pledge of +divine help in that life of ours in which, for their good or ill, others +must have a place and a part. 'And thy coming in'--into that uninvaded +sanctum of thought. Did we say uninvaded? Not so. In that inner room of +life there sits Regret with her pale face, and Shame with dust on her +forehead, and Memory with tears in her eyes. It is a pitiable thing at +times, is this our coming in. More than one man has consumed his life in a +flame of activity because he could not abide the coming in. 'The Lord shall +keep ... thy coming in.' That means help for every lonely, impotent, inward +hour of life. + +Look at the last word of this promise--'for evermore.' Going out and coming +in for evermore. I do not know how these words were interpreted when very +literal meanings were attached to the parabolic words about the streets of +gold and the endless song. But they present no difficulty to us. Indeed, +they confirm that view of the future which is ever taking firmer hold of +men's minds, and which is based on the growing sense of the continuity of +life. To offer a man an eternity of music-laden rest is to offer him a poor +thing. He would rather have his going out and his coming in. Yes, and he +shall have them. All that is purest and best in them shall remain. +Hereafter he shall still go out to find deeper joys of living and wider +visions of life; still come in to greater and ever greater thoughts of God. + + + + +II. + +THE HABIT OF FAITH + + + Trust in Him at all times, ye people. + Pour out your heart before Him. + God is a refuge for us. + + Ps. lxii. 8. + +Here the Psalmist strikes the great note of faith as it should be struck. +He sets it ringing alike through the hours and the years. _Trust in Him at +all times._ Faith is not an act, but an attitude; not an event, but a +principle; not a last resource, but the first and abiding necessity. It is +the constant factor in life's spiritual reckonings. It is the +ever-applicable and the ever-necessary. It is always in the high and +lasting fitness of things. There are words that belong to hours or even +moments, words that win their meaning from the newly created situation. But +faith is not such a word. It stands for something inclusive and imperial. +It is one of the few timeless words in earth's vocabulary. For the deep +roots of it and the wide range of it there is nothing like unto it in the +whole sweep of things spiritual. So the 'all times' trust is not for one +moment to be regarded as some supreme degree of faith unto which one here +and there may attain and which the rest can well afford to look upon as a +counsel of perfection. This exhortation to trust in God at all times +concerns first of all the _nature_ of faith and not the _measure_ of it. +All real faith has the note of the eternal in it. It can meet the present +because it is not of the present. We have grown familiar with the phrase, +'The man of the moment.' But who is this man? Sometimes he is very +literally a man of the moment--an opportunist, a gambler with the hours, a +follower of the main chance. The moment makes him, and passing away unmakes +him. But the true man of the moment is the man to whom the moment is but +one throb in the pulse of eternity. For him the moment does not stand out +in splendid isolation. It is set in its place between that which hath been +and that which shall be. And its true significance is not something abiding +in it, but something running through it. So is it in this great matter of +faith. Only the faith that can trust at all times can trust at any time. +The moment that faith heeds the dictation of circumstance it ceases to be +faith and becomes calculation. All faith is transcendent. It is independent +of the conditions in which it has to live. It is not snared in the strange +web of the tentative and the experimental. He that has for one moment felt +the power of faith has got beyond the dominion of time. + +_Trust in Him at all times._ That is the only real escape from confusion +and contradiction in the judgements we are compelled to pass upon life. +Times change so suddenly and inexplicably. The hours seem to be at strife +with each other. We live in the midst of a perpetual conflict between our +yesterdays and our to-days. There is no simple, obvious sequence in the +message of experience. The days will not dovetail into each other. Life is +compact of much that is impossible of true adjustment at the hands of any +time-born philosophy. And in all this seeming confusion there lies the +necessity for faith. Herein it wins its victory. We are to trust God not +because we cannot trace Him, but that by trusting Him we may ever be more +able to trace Him and to see that He has a way through all these winding +and crossing paths. Faith does more than hold a man's hand in the darkness; +it leads him into the light. It is the secret of coherence and harmony. It +does not make experience merely bearable, it makes it luminous and +instructive. It takes the separate or the tangled strands of human +experience and weaves them into one strong cable of help and hope. + +_Trust in Him at all times._ Then faith at its best is a habit. Indeed, +religion at its best is a habit, too! We are sometimes too ready to +discount the worth of the habitual in our religious life. We put a premium +on self-consciousness. We reduce the life of faith to a series of acts of +faith of varying difficulty and import, but each detached from the rest and +individually apprehended of the soul. Surely this is all wrong. In our +physical life we are least conscious of those functions that are most vital +and continuous, and the more perfectly they do their work the less we think +about them. The analogy is incomplete and must be drawn with care. But when +you have conceded that faith has to be acquired, that it has to be learned, +there is still this much in the analogy. If faith is a long and hard +lesson, the value of the lesson to us is not the effort with which we learn +it, but the ease with which we apply it. The measure of conscious effort in +our faith is the measure of our faith's weakness. When faith has become a +spontaneity of our character, when it turns to God instinctively, when it +does its work with the involuntariness of habit, then it has become strong. + +_Pour out your heart before Him._ How this singer understood the office and +privilege of the 'all times' trust! He knew that there is a fullness of +heart that is ill to bear. True, in more than one simple way the full heart +can find some slight relief. There is work. The full heart can go out and +do something. There is a brother's trouble in which a man may partly forget +his own. There is sympathy. Surely few are so lonely that they cannot find +any one ready to offer the gift of the listening ear, any one willing to +share with them all of pain and burden that can be shared. Ah! but what of +that which cannot be shared? What of the sorrow that has no language, and +the shame and confusion that we would not, and even dare not, trail across +a friend's mind? So often the heart holds more than ever should be poured +out into another's ear. There are in life strained silences that we could +not break if we would. And there is a law of reticence that true love and +unselfishness will always respect. If my brother hath joy, am I to cloud it +with my grief? If he hath sorrow, am I to add my sorrow unto his? When our +precious earthly fellowship has been put to its last high uses in the hour +of sorrow or shame, the heart has still a burden for which this world finds +no relief. But there is another fellowship. There is God our Father. There +is the ear of Heaven. We may be girt with silence among our fellows, but in +looking up the heart finds freedom. In His Presence the voice of confession +can break through the gag of shame, and the pent-up tide of trouble can let +itself break upon the heart of Eternal Love. + +_God is a refuge for us._ That is the great discovery of faith. That is the +merciful word that comes to be written so plainly in the life that has +formed the habit of faith. God our refuge. It may be that to some the word +'refuge' suggests the occasional rather than the constant need of life. But +the refuge some day and the faith every day are linked together. A thing is +no use to you if you cannot find it when you want it. And you cannot find +it easily if it be not at hand. The peasant built his cottage under the +shadow of his lord's castle walls. In the hour of peril it was but a step +to the strong fortress. 'Trust in Him at all times.' Build your house under +the walls of the Eternal Help. Live in the Presence. Find the attitude of +faith, and the act of faith will be simple. Trust in Him through every +hour, and when a tragic hour comes one step shall take you into the +innermost safety. + + + + +III. + +THE ONE THING DESIRABLE + + + One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will + I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of + the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the + beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. + + Ps. xxvii. 4. + +_I have desired ... I will seek._ Amid the things that are seen, desire and +quest are nearly always linked closely together. The man who desires money +seeks after money. The desire of the world is often disappointed, but it is +rarely supine. It is dynamic. It leads men. True, it leads them astray; but +that is a reflection on its wisdom and not on its effectiveness. Among what +we rightly call the lower things men do not play with their desires, they +obey them. But amid the unseen realities of life it is often quite +otherwise. In the religious life desire is sometimes strangely ineffective. +It is static, if that be not a contradiction in terms. In many a life-story +it stands written: One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I dream +of, that will I hope for, that will I wait for. Many things help to explain +this attitude, and, explaining it, they condemn it also. We allow our +surroundings to pass judgement on our longings. We bring the eternal to the +bar of the hour, and postpone the verdict. Or it may be in the worldliness +of our hearts we admit the false plea of urgency and the false claim of +authority made by our outward life. And perhaps more commonly the soul +lacks the courage of its desires. It costs little to follow a desire that +goes but a little way, and that on the level of familiar effort and within +sight of familiar things. It is another thing to hear the call of the +mountains and to feel the fascination of some far and glittering peak. That +is a call to perilous and painful effort. And yet again, high desire +sometimes leaves life where it found it because the heart attaches an +intrinsic value to vision. It is something to have _seen_ the Alpine +heights of possibility. Yes, it is something, but what is it? It is a +golden hour to the man who sets out to the climb; it is an hour of shame +and judgement, hereafter to be manifest, to the man who clings to the +comforts of the valley. + +_One thing have I desired._ When a man speaks thus unto us, we have a right +to ponder his words with care. We naturally become profoundly interested, +expectant, and, to the limit of our powers, critical. If a man has seen one +thing that he can call simply and finally the desire of his heart, it ought +to be worth looking at. We expect something large, lofty, inclusive. And we +find this: '_That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my +life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple._' Let +us examine this desire, And, first of all, we must free our minds from mere +literalism. If we do not, we shall find in this desire many things that are +not in it, and miss everything that is in it. This is not the longing for a +cloistered life, the confession of one who is weary of this heavy world, +doubtful of its promises and afraid of its powers. 'The house of the Lord' +is not a place, but a state, not an edifice, but an attitude. It is a fair +and unseen dwelling-place builded by the hands of God to be the home, here +and hereafter, of all the hearts that purely love and worship Him. We read +of one who, a day's march from his father's house, lay down and slept; and +in his sleep God spake to him, and lo, out in a wild and lonely place, +Jacob said, 'This is none other but the house of God.' For every one to +whom the voice of God has come, and who has listened to that voice and +believed in its message, the mountains and valleys of this fair world, the +breath of every morning and the hush of every evening, are instinct with a +Presence. Wordsworth dwelt in the house of the Lord all the days of his +life. And if the wonder and beauty of the earth lift up our hearts unto our +God in praise and worship, we dwell there also. + +Yes, but this world is a world of men. In city or on hillside the great +persistent fact for us, the real setting of our life, is not nature, but +humanity. Life is not a peaceful vision of earthly beauty. Our experience +is not a dreamy pastoral. There are shamed and broken lives. The world is +full of greed and hate and warfare and sorrow. Nature at its best cannot by +itself build for us a temple that humanity at its worst, or even at +something less than its worst, cannot pull down about our ears. For the +Psalmist, probably David himself, the temple was symbolic of all heavenly +realities. It stood for the holiness and the nearness and the mercy of God, +and for the sacredness and the possibility of human life. In the light and +power and perfect assurance of these things he desired to dwell all the +days of his life. For us there is the life and word of One greater than the +temple. Jesus of Nazareth dwelt in the house of the Lord. Between Him and +God the Father there was perfect union. And no one ever saw the worth of +human life as Jesus saw it. And no one ever measured the sacred values of +humanity as He measured them. And now, in the perfect mercy of God, there +is no man but may dwell in the house of God alway and feel life's +sacredness amidst a thousand desecrations, and know its preciousness amidst +all that seeks to obscure, defile, and cheapen it. + +_To behold the beauty of the Lord._ It is only in the house of the Lord, +the unseen fane of reverence, trust, and communion, that a man can learn +what beauty is, and where to look for it. Out in the world beauty is held +to be a sporadic thing. It is like a flower growing where no one expected a +blossom. It is an unrelated and unexplained surprise. It is a green oasis +in the desert of unlovely and unpromising things. But for the dweller in +the house of the Lord beauty is not on this wise. Said one such dweller, +'The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.' He looked across the +leagues of burning sand and saw the loveliness of Carmel by the sea, and of +Sharon where the lilies grow. To the artist beauty is an incident, to the +saint beauty is a law of life. It is the thing that is to be. It is the +positive purpose, throbbing and yearning and struggling in the whole +universe. When it emerges and men behold it, they behold the face of truth; +and if it emerges not, it is still there, the fundamental fact and the +vital issue of human life. To dwell in the Divine Presence by faith and +obedience; to live so near to God that you can see all about yourself and +every human soul the real means of life, and straight before you the real +end of life; to know that though so often the worst is man's dark choice, +yet ever the best is his true heritage; and to learn to interpret the whole +of life in the terms of God's saving purpose,--this is to behold the beauty +of the Lord. + +_And to inquire in His temple._ The Psalmist desired for himself an inward +attitude before God that should not only reveal unto him the eternal +fitness of all God's ways and the eternal grace of all His purposes, but +should also put him in the way of solving the various problems that arise +to try the wisdom and strength of men's lives. Sometimes the first court of +appeal in life, and always the last, is the temple court. When all the +world is dumb, a voice speaks to them that worship. Reverential love never +loses its bearings. In this world we need personal and social guidance, and +there must be many times when both shall be wanting unless we have learned +to carry the burden of our ignorance to the feet of the Eternal Wisdom. And +perhaps a man can desire no better thing for himself than that the +reverence and devotion of his life should be such as to make the appeal to +God's perfect arbitrament an easy thing. + + + + +IV. + +EYES AND FEET + + + Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord, + For He shall pluck my feet out of the net. + + Ps. xxv. 15. + +In any man's life a great deal depends upon outlook. In some ways we +recognize this fact. We do not by choice live in a house whose windows +front a blank wall. A little patch of green grass, a tree, a peep of sky, +or even the traffic of a busy street--anything rather than a blank wall. +That is a sound instinct, but it ought to go deeper than it sometimes does. +This outlook and aspect question is important when you are building a +house, but it is vastly more important when you are building a character. +The soul has eyes. The deadliest monotony is that of a dull soul. Life is a +poor affair for any man who looks out upon the blind walls of earthly +circumstance and necessity, and cannot see from his soul's dwelling-place +the pink flush of the dawn that men call hope, and who has no garden where +he may grow the blossoms of faith and sweet memory, the fair flowers of +holy human trusts and fellowships. Only the divinity of life can deliver us +from the monotony of living. 'Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.' This man +has an infinite outlook. It matters not whether he looked out through +palace windows or lived in the meanest house in Jerusalem's city. It is the +eye that makes the view. This man had a fairer prospect than ever man had +who looked seaward from Carmel or across the valleys from the steeps of +Libanus. It was his soul that claimed the prospect. From the window of the +little house of life he saw the light of God lying on the everlasting +hills. That is the real deliverance from the monotony of things. The man +who is weary of life is the man who has not seen it. The man who is tied to +his desk sometimes thinks everything would be right if only he could +travel. But many a man has done the Grand Tour and come back no better +contented. You cannot fool your soul with Mont Blanc or even the Himalayas. +So many thousand feet, did you say?--but what is that to infinity! The cure +for the fretful soul is not to go _round_ the world; it is to get _beyond_ +it. + +_Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord._ That is the view we want. We gaze +contemptuously on the little one-story lodge just inside the park gates, +and fail to get a glimpse of the magnificent mansion, with its wealth of +adornment and treasure, that lies a mile among the trees. No wonder that +men grow discontented or contemptuous when they mistake the porch for the +house. If a man would understand himself and discover his resources and put +his hand on all life's highest uses, he must look out and up unto his God. +Then he comes to know that sunrise and sunset, and the beauty of the earth, +and child-life and old age, and duty and sorrow, and all else that life +holds, are linked to the larger life of an eternal world. + +That is the true foresight. They called him a far-seeing man. How did he +get that name? Well, he made a fortune. He managed to make use of the ebb +and flow of the market, and never once got stranded. He was shrewd and did +some good guessing, and now, forsooth, they say he is 'very far-seeing.' +But he has not opened his Bible for years, and the fountains of sympathy +are dried up in his soul. He can see as far into the money column as most +men, but the financial vista is not very satisfying for those who see it +best. The Gospel of St. John is a sealed book to him, and that is in God's +handwriting and opens the gates of heaven. Far-seeing? Why, the man is in a +tiny cell, and he is going blind. 'Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.' +That is the far-sighted man. He can see an ever larger life opening out +before him. He can see the glory of the eternal righteousness beneath his +daily duties and the wonder of eternal love in the daily fellowships and +fulfilments of the brotherhood. This is measuring life by the heavenly +measurement. This is the vision we need day by day and at the end of the +days. For interest in some things must wane, and life must become less +responsive to all that lies about it, and many an earthly link is broken +and many an earthly window is darkened, and the old faces and old ways +pass, and the thing the old man cherishes is trodden under foot by the +impetuous tread of a new generation, and desire fails. Then it is well with +him whose eyes have already caught glimpses of 'the King in His beauty,' +and 'the land that is very far off.' + +But think for a moment of the present value of the divine outlook upon +life. It brings guidance and deliverance. Set side by side the two +expressions 'eyes unto the Lord,' and 'feet out of the net.' Life is more +than a vision; it is a pilgrimage. We see the far white peaks whereon rests +the glory of life, but reaching them is not a matter of eyes, but of feet. +Here, maybe, the real problem of godly living presents itself to us. Here +our Christian idealism lays a burden on us. It is possible to see distances +that would take days to traverse. Even so we can see heights of spiritual +possibility that we shall not reach while the light holds good unless we +foot it bravely. And it is not an easy journey. There are so many snares +set for the pilgrims of faith and hope. There are subtle silken nets woven +of soft-spun deceits and filmy threads of sin; and there are coarse strong +nets fashioned by the strong hands of passion and evil desire. There are +nets of doubt and pain and weakness. But think of the man whose eyes were +ever towards the Lord. He came through all right. He always does. He always +will. He looked steadily upward to his God. When we get into the net we +yield to the natural tendency to look down at our feet. We try to discover +how the net is made. We delude ourselves with the idea that if only we take +time we shall be able to extricate ourselves; but it always means getting +further entangled. It is a waste of time to study the net. Life is ever +weaving for us snares too intricate for us to unravel and too strong for us +to break. God alone understands how they are made and how they may be +broken. He does not take us round the net or over it, but He does not leave +us fast by the feet in the midst of it. He always brings a man out on the +heavenward side of the earthly difficulty. Look upward and you are bound to +go forward. + + + + +V. + +THE SAFEGUARDED SOUL + + + The Lord shall keep thee from all evil; + He shall keep thy soul. + + Ps. cxxi. 7. + +One of the great offices of religion is to help men to begin at the +beginning. If you wish to straighten out a tangle of string, you know that +it is worth your while to look patiently for one of the ends. If you make +an aimless dash at it the result is confusion worse confounded, and +by-and-by the tangle is thrown down in despair, its worst knots made by the +hands that tried in a haphazard way to simplify it. Life is that tangle; +and religion, if it does not loosen all the knots and straighten all the +twists, at least shows us where the two ends are. They are with God and the +soul. God deals with a man's soul. We cannot explain the facts of our +experience or the fashion of our circumstance save in as far as we can see +these things reflected in our character. The true spiritual philosophy of +life begins its inquiry in the soul, and works outward into all the +puzzling mass of life's details. And the foundation of such a philosophy is +not experience, but faith. It is true that experience often confirms faith, +but faith interprets experience. Experience asks more questions than it can +answer. It collects more facts than it can explain. It admits of many +different constructions being put upon it. It puts us first of all into +touch with the problem of life rather than the solution. If the gentle, +patient words of the saint are the utterance of one who has suffered, so +also are the bitter protests of the disappointed worldling. The fashion of +the experience may be the same in each case. It is faith that makes the +lesson different. It is a want of faith that makes us expect the lower in +life to explain the higher, the outward to shed light upon the inward. We +pluck with foolish, aimless fingers at this strange tangle of human life. +We judge God's way with us as far as we can see it, and we think we have +got to the end of it. We draw our shallow conclusions. Faith teaches us +that God's way with us is a longer and a deeper way, and the end of that +way is down in the depths of our spirit, hidden in the love of our +character. It is not here and now. It is in what we shall be if God have +His will with us. + +All the true definitions of things are written in the soul. It was here +that the Psalmist found his definition of evil. 'The Lord shall keep thee +from all evil; He shall keep thy soul.' Then evil is something that +threatens the soul. It is not material, but spiritual. It is not in our +circumstances themselves, but in their effect upon the inward life. The +same outward conditions of life may be good or evil according to their +influence on our character. Good and evil are not qualities of things. They +have no meaning apart from the soul. The world says that health and wealth +are good, and that sickness and poverty are evil. If that were true the +line that separates the healthy from the sick, the rich from the poor, +would also separate the happy from the miserable. But we find joy and +sorrow on both sides of that line. We are drawn to look deeper than this +for our definition of good and evil. We have to make the soul the final +arbiter amid these conflicting voices. Here we must find the true +definition of evil. The first question we ask when we hear of a house +having been burnt down is this: 'Was there any loss of life?' All else lies +on a vastly lower plane of interest and importance. So must we learn to +distinguish between the house of circumstance, or the house of the body, +and the soul that dwells in it. The only real loss is the 'loss of life,' +the loss of any of these inner things that go to make the soul's strength +and treasure. The man who has lost everything except faith and hope has, +maybe, lost nothing at all. There are some among the pilgrims of faith +to-day who would never have been found there had not God cast upon their +shoulders the ragged cloak of poverty; and if you know anything about that +band of pilgrims you will know that the man who outstrips his companions is +often a man who is lame on both his feet. + +O sceptic world, this is the final answer to your scepticism, an answer +none the less true because you cannot receive it: _The Lord keepeth the +souls of His saints._ Have you not seen men thinning out a great tree, +cutting off some of its noblest branches and marring its splendid symmetry? +And very likely you have felt it was a great shame to do so. But that work +of maiming and spoiling meant light and sunshine and air in a close and +darkened room. It meant health to the dwellers in the house over which the +tree had cast its shadow. It is much to have tall and stately trees in the +garden of life. But by-and-by that great oak of vigour begins to darken the +windows of faith, and God lops some of the branches. We call it suffering, +but it means more light. Or it may be that those firs of lordly ambition +have grown taller than the roof-tree, and God sends forth His storm-wind to +lay them low. We call it failure, but it means a better view of the stars. +Ah, yes, we are over-anxious about the trees in the garden. God cares most +of all that the light of His truth and the warmth of His love and the +breath of His Spirit shall reach and fill every room in the house of life. + +_He shall keep thy soul._ That is a promise that can fold us in divine +comfort and peace, and that can do something towards interpreting for us +every coil of difficulty, every hour of pain. But if this is to be so, we +must ourselves be true to the view of life the promise gives us. We must +think of the soul as God thinks of it. We live in a world where souls are +cheap. They are bought and sold day by day. It is strange beyond all +understanding that the only thing many a man is not afraid of losing is the +one thing that is really worth anything to him--his soul. Sometimes the +lusts of the world drag down our heart's desire, and we have to confess +with shame to moments in our experience when we have not been at all +concerned with what became of our soul so long as the desire of the hour +was fulfilled or satisfied. We need to seek day by day that the masterful +and abiding desires of our heart may be set upon undying good, and that our +aspiration may never fold its wings and rest on anything lower than the +highest. This shall not make dreamers of us. It shall stand us in good +stead in the thick of the world. The man who gets 'the best of the bargain' +is always the man who is most honest; for the most precious thing that a +man stands to win or lose in any deal is the cleanness of his soul. The man +who gets the best of the argument is always the man who is most truthful; +for a quiet conscience is better than a silenced opponent. The man who gets +the best of life is the man who keeps the honour of his soul; for Jesus +said: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his +own soul?' + +So then, amid the manifold uncertainties of human life and the +ever-changing forms and complexions of human experience, one thing is +pledged beyond all doubt to every man who seeks the will of God and the +promise for the safeguarding of his soul. He may write this at the top of +every page in the book of life. He may take it for his light in dark days, +his comfort in sad days, his treasure in empty days. He may have it on his +lips in the hour of battle and in his heart in the day of disappointment. +He may meet his temptations with it, interpret his sufferings with it, +build his ideal with it. And it shall come to pass that he shall learn to +look with untroubled eyes upon the outward things of life, nor fear the +touch of its thousand grasping hands, knowing that his soul is in the hands +of One who can keep it safe in all the world's despite, even God Himself. + + + + +VI. + +A PLEA FOR TEARS + + + They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. + He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, + Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, + Bringing his sheaves with him. + + Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6. + +It is almost impossible to recall the joys and sorrows of life without +having some thought of their compensative relation. We set our bright days +against our dark days. We weigh our successes against our failures. When +the hour through which we are living is whispering a bitter message, we +recall the kindlier messages of other hours and say that we have much for +which we ought to be thankful. And such a deliberate handling of +experience, such a quiet adjustment of memories, is not without its uses. +Any view of life that will save a man from whining is worth taking. Any +reckoning that will prevent a man from indulging in self-pity--that +subtlety of selfishness--is worth making. There is, moreover, something +very simple and obvious in this way of thinking and judging. To make one +kind of experience deal with another kind, to set the days and the hours in +battle array--or shall we say to arrange a tourney where some +gaily-caparisoned and well-mounted Yesterday is set to tilt with a +black-visored and silent To-day--is a way of dealing with life which seems +to have much to commend it. But it has at the best serious limitations, and +at the worst it may issue in a tragedy. The wrong knight may be unhorsed. +The award may go to him of the black plume. Pitting one experience against +another has gone to the making of many a cynic and not a few despairing +souls. The compensative interpretation of joy and sorrow may bring an +answer of peace to a man's soul, or it may not. But in this matter we are +dealing with things in which we cannot afford to risk an equivocal or a +despairing answer. We must win in every encounter. It is not an hour's joy, +but a life's outlook that is at stake. No hour's fight was ever worth +fighting if it was fought for the sake of the hour. The moments are ever +challenging the eternal, the swift and busy hours fling their gauntlets at +the feet of the ageless things. The real battle of life is never between +yesterday and to-day; it is always between to-day and the Forever. + +To isolate an experience is to misinterpret it. We may even completely +classify experiences, and yet completely misunderstand experience. To +understand life at all we must get beyond the incidental and the +alternating. Life is not a series of events charged with elements of +contrast, contradiction, or surprise. It is a deep, coherent, and +unfaltering process. And one feels that it was something more than the +chance of the moment that led the singer of old to weave the tears and the +rejoicings of men's lives into a figure of speech that stands for unity of +process, even the figure of the harvest. + +_They that sow in tears shall reap in joy._ The sweep of golden grain is +not some arbitrary compensation for the life of the seed cast so lavishly +into the ground, and biding the test of darkness and cold. It is the very +seed itself fulfilled of all its being. Even so it is with the sorrows of +these hearts of ours and the joy unto which God bringeth us. He does not +fling us a few glad hours to atone for the hours wherein we have suffered +adversity. There is a deep sense in which the joys of life are its ripened +sorrows. + +_They that sow in tears.... He that goeth forth and weepeth._ These are not +the few who have been haunted by apparent failure, or beset with outwardly +painful conditions of service. They are not those who have walked in the +shadow of a lost leader, or toiled in the grey loneliness of a lost comrade +or of a brother proved untrue. For apparent failure, outward difficulty and +loneliness, often as we may have to face them, are, after all, only the +accidents of Godward toil. And if the bearer of seed for God's great +harvest should go forth to find no experience of these things, still, if he +is to do any real work in the fields of the Lord, he must go forth weeping. +He must sow in tears. Let a man be utterly faithful and sincere, let him +open his heart without reserve to the two great claims of the ideal and +sympathy, and he shall come to know that he has not found the hidden +meaning of daily service, nor learned how he can best perform that service, +until he has tasted the sorrow at the heart of it. The tears that are the +pledge of harvest are not called to the eyes by ridicule or opposition. +They are not the tears of disappointment, vexation, or impotence. They are +tears that dim the eyes of them that see visions, and gather in the heart +of them that dream dreams. To see the glory of God in the face of Jesus +Christ and the blindness of the world's heart to that glory; to see +unveiled the beauty that should be, and, unveiled too, the shame that is; +to have a spiritual nature that thrills at the touch of the perfect love +and life, and responds to every note of pain borne in upon it from the +murmurous trouble of the world,--this is to have inward fitness for the +high work of the Kingdom. Yes, and it is the pledge that this work shall be +done. There is such a thing as artistic grief. There is the vain and +languorous pity of aestheticism. Its robe of sympathy is wrapped about +itself and bejewelled with its own tears. And it never goes forth. You +never meet it in 'the darkness of the terrible streets.' + +_He that goeth forth and weepeth._ It is his tears that cause him to go +forth. It is his sorrow that will not let him rest. True pity is a mighty +motive. When the real abiding pathos of life has gripped a man's heart, you +will find him afield doing the work of the Lord. You will not see his +tears. There will be a smile in his eyes and, maybe, a song on his lips. +For the sorrow and the joy of service dwell side by side in a man's life. +Indeed, they often seem to him to be but one thing. It were a mistake to +refer the whole meaning of the words about a man's coming 'again with +rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him' to some far day when the reapers +of God shall gather the last great harvest of the world. Through his tears +the sower sees the harvest. Through all his life there rings many a sweet +prophetic echo of the harvest home. + +_He that goeth forth and weepeth._ No man ever wept like that and went not +forth, but some go forth who have not wept. And they go forth to certain +failure. They mishandle life, and with good intent do harm. But that is not +the worst thing to be said about these toilers without tears. It is not +that they touch life so unskilfully, but they touch so little of it. It is +only through his tears that a man sees what his work is and where it lies. +Tearless eyes are purblind. We have yet much to learn about the real needs +of the world. So many try very earnestly to deal with situations they have +never yet really seen. For the uplifting of men and for the great social +task of this our day we need ideas, and enthusiasm, and all sorts of +resource; but most of all, and first of all, we need vision. And the man +who goes farthest, and sees most, and does most, is 'he that goeth forth +and weepeth.' + + + + +VII. + +DELIVERANCE WITH HONOUR + + + He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; + I will be with him in trouble: + I will deliver him, and honour him. + With long life will I satisfy him, + And show him My salvation. + + Ps. xci. 15, 16. + +_He shall call upon Me._ He shall need Me. He shall not be able to live +without Me. As the years pass over his head he shall learn that there is +one need woven into human life larger and deeper and more abiding than any +other need--and that need is God. Thus doth divinity prophesy concerning +humanity. Thus doth infinite foresight predict a man's need. + +We peer in our purblind fashion into the future and try to anticipate our +needs. We fence ourselves in with all sorts of fancied securities, and then +we comfort ourselves with the shrewdness and completeness of our +forecasting and provision-making. And sometimes it is just folly with a +grave face. 'He shall call upon Me.' A man has learned nothing until he has +learned that he needs God. And we take a long time over that lesson. It has +sometimes to be beaten into us--written in conscience and heart by the +finger of pain. How the little storehouse of life has to be almost stripped +of its treasures, how our faith in the things of the hour has to be played +with and mocked, ere we call upon God in heaven to fill us with abiding +treasure and fold us in eternal love. + +_He shall call upon Me, and, I will answer him._ But I have called, says +one, and He has not answered. I called upon Him when my little child was +sick unto death, and, spite my calling, the little white soul fluttered +noiselessly into the great beyond. My friend, you call that tiny green +mound in the churchyard God's silence. Some day you will call it God's +answer. Our prayers are sometimes torn out of our hearts by the pain of the +moment. God's answers come forth from the unerring quiet of eternity. 'He +shall call upon Me.' 'He shall ask Me to help him, but he does not know how +he can be helped. He is hedged about by a thousand limitations of thought. +His life is full of distortions. He cannot distinguish between a blessing +and a curse. I cannot heed the dictations of his prayers, but I will answer +him.' This is the voice of Him to whom the ravelled complexities of men's +minds are simplicity itself; who dwells beyond the brief bewilderments and +mistaken desirings and false ideals of men's hearts. + +Oh these divine answers! How they confuse us! It is their perfection that +bewilders us; it is their completeness that carries them beyond our +comprehension. + +There is the stamp of the local and the temporary on all our asking. The +answer that comes is wider than life and longer than time, and fashioned +after a completeness whereof we do not even dream. + +_I will be with him in trouble._ Trouble is that in life which becomes to +us a gospel of tears, a ministry of futility. This is because we have +grasped the humanity of the word and missed the divinity of it. We are +always doing that. Always gathering the meaning of the moments and missing +the meaning of the years. Always smarting under the sharp discipline and +missing the merciful design: 'With Him in trouble.' That helps me to +believe in my religion. Trouble is the test of the creeds. A fig for the +orthodoxy that cannot interpret tears! Write vanity upon the religion that +is of no avail in the house of sorrow. When the earthly song falls on +silence we are disposed to call it a pitiable silence. Not so. Let us say a +divinely opportune silence, for when the many voices grow dumb the One +Voice speaks: 'I will be with him in trouble,' and the man who has lost the +everything that is nothing only to find the one thing that is all knows +what that promise means. + +_I will deliver him._ What a masterful, availing, victorious presence is +this! How this promise goes out beyond our human ministries of consolation! +How often the most we can do is to walk by our brother's side whilst he +bears a burden we cannot share! How often the earthly sympathy is just a +communion of sad hearts--one weak hand holding another! 'I will deliver +him.' That is not merely sympathy, it is victory. The divine love does not +merely condole, it delivers. + +You cannot add anything to this promise. It is complete. The time of the +deliverance is there, the manner of it is there, the whole ministry of help +is there. You say you cannot find anything about time and manner. You can +only find the bare promise of deliverance. My friend, there are no bare +promises in the lips of the Heavenly Father. In the mighty, merciful +leisure of omnipotence, in the perfect fitness of things, in a way wiser +than his thinking and better than his hoping and larger than his prayer, 'I +will deliver him.' + +_And honour him._ It will be no scanty, obscure, uncertain deliverance. +There shall be light in it, glory in it. The world battles with its +troubles and seems sometimes to be successful, until we see how those +troubles have shaken its spirit and twisted its temper; and see, too, how +much of the beautiful and the strong and the sweet has been lost in the +fight. 'I will deliver him' with an abundant and an honourable +deliverance--he shall come forth from his tribulations more noble, tender, +and self-possessed. Hereafter there shall be given him the honour of one +whom the stress of life has driven into the arms of God. + +Oh how we miss this ministry of ennoblement! We reap a harvest of +insignificance from the seeds of sorrow sown in our hearts. We let our +cares dishonour us. The little cares rasp and fret and sting the manliness +and the womanliness and the godlikeness out of us. And the great cares +crush us earthward till there is scarcely a sweet word left in our lips or +a noble thought in our heart. A man cannot save his _soul_ in the day of +trouble. He cannot by himself make good the wear and tear of anxieties and +griefs. He can hold his head high and hide his secret deep, but he cannot +keep his life sweet. Only Christ can teach a man how to find the nameless +dignity of the crown of thorns. The kingship of suffering is a secret in +the keeping of faith and love. If a man accepts this deliverance of his God +folded in flashes of understanding, ministries of explanation, revivals of +faith, and gifts of endurance, he shall find the honour that is to be won +among life's hard and bitter things. + +_With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation._ We have +seen a grey-headed libertine, and we have missed from among the +clean-hearted and the faithful some brave young life that was giving itself +vigorously to the holy service. But perhaps we have had the grace not to +challenge the utter faithfulness of God. The measure of life is not written +on a registrar's certificates of birth and death. There is something here +that lies beyond dates and documents. Life here and hereafter is one, and +death is but an event in it. Who lives to God lives long, be his years many +or few. It is reasonable to expect some relationship between godliness and +longevity. But we are nearer the truth when we see how that faith and +prayer discover and secure the eternal values of fleeting days. + +_And show him My salvation._ That is the whole text summed up in one +phrase. That is the life of the godly man gathered into the compass of the +divine promise. For every one who goes the way of faith and obedience, life +in every phase of it, life here and hereafter, means but one thing and +holds but one thing, and that is _the salvation of the Lord_. + + + + +VIII. + +PETITION AND COMMUNION + + + Hear me speedily, O Lord.... + Cause me to hear ... + For I lift up my soul unto Thee. + + Ps. cxliii. 7, 8. + +You will notice that the first verse begins 'Hear me,' and the second +begins 'Cause me to hear'; and the second is greater than the first. Let us +look, then, at these two attitudes of a man in his hour of prayer. + +_Hear me._ The Psalmist began, where all men must begin, with himself. He +had something to utter in the hearing of the Almighty. He had something to +lay before his God--a story, a confession, a plea. His heart was full, and +must outpour itself into the ear of Heaven. 'Hear me speedily, O Lord.' We +have all prayed thus. We have all faced some situation that struck a note +of urgency in our life, and all your soul has come to our lips in this one +cry that went up to the Father, 'Hear me.' A sudden pain, a surprise of +sorrow, a few moments of misty uncertainty in the face of decisions that +had to be made at once, times when life has tried to rush us from our +established position and to bear us we know not where--and our soul has +reached out after God as simply and naturally as a man grasps at some fixed +thing when he is falling. + +There are times, too, when prayer is an indefinable relief. We all know +something about the relief of speech. We must speak to somebody. Our need +is not, first of all, either advice or practical help. We want a hearing. +We want some one to listen and sympathize. We want to share our pain. That +is what 'Hear me' sometimes means. Whatever Thou shalt see fit to do for +me, at least listen to my cry. Let me unburden my soul. Let me get this +weight of silence off my heart. This fashion of relief is part of the true +office of prayer. Herein lies the reasonableness of telling our story in +the ear of One who knows that story better than we do. We need not inform +the All-knowing, but we must commune with the All-pitiful. We make our life +known unto God that we may make it bearable unto ourselves. + +But let us look at the attitude of mind and heart revealed in this second +position, _Cause me to hear_. Now we are coming to the larger truth about +prayer, and the deeper spirit of it. Prayer is not merely claiming a +hearing; it is giving a hearing. It is not only speaking to God; it is +listening to God. And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are the +words we hear greater than the words we speak. Let us not forget this. Let +us not pauperize ourselves by our very importunity. Maybe we are vociferous +when God is but waiting for a silence to fall in His earthly temples that +He may have speech with His children. We talk about 'prevailing prayer,' +and there is a great truth in the phrase. All prayer does not prevail. +There is that among men which passes for prayer but has no spiritual grip, +no assurance, no masterful patience, no fine desperation. There is a place +for all these things, and a need for them, in the life of prayer. We need +the courage of a great faith and the earnestness that is born of necessity. +We need to be able to lift up our faces toward heaven in the swelling joys +and the startling perils of these mortal hours and cry, 'Hear me,' knowing +that God does hear us and that the outcrying of every praying heart rings +clear and strong in the courts of the Heavenly King. But we need something +more; we need a very great deal more than this, if we are to enter into the +true meaning of prevailing prayer. The final triumph of prayer is not ours; +it is God's. When we are upon our knees before Him, it is He, and not we, +that must prevail. This is the true victory of faith and prayer, when the +Father writes His purpose more clearly in our minds, lays His commandment +more inwardly upon our hearts. We do not get one faint glimpse into the +meaning of that mysterious conflict at Peniel until we see that the +necessity for the conflict lay in the heart of Jacob and not in the heart +of God. The man who wrestled with the Angel and prevailed passes before us +in the glow of the sunrise weary and halt, with a changed name and a +changed heart. So must it be with us; so shall it be, if ever we know what +it is to prevail in prayer. Importunity must not become a blind and +uninspired clamouring for the thing we desire. Such an attitude may easily +set us beyond the possibility of receiving that which God knows we need. We +must not forget that our poor little plea for help and blessing does not +exhaust the possibilities of prayer. Our words go upward to God's throne +twisted by our imperfect thinking, narrowed by our outlook, sterilized by +the doubts of our hearts, and we do not know what is good for us. His word +comes downward into our lives laden with the quiet certainty of the +Eternal, wide as the vision of Him who seeth all, deep as the wisdom of Him +who knoweth all. + +So, however much it may be to say 'Hear me,' it is vastly more to say +'Cause me to hear.' However much I have to tell Him, He has more to tell +me. This view of prayer will help to clear up for us some of the +difficulties that have troubled many minds. We hear people speak of +unanswered prayer; but there is no such thing, and in the nature of things +there cannot be. I do not mean by that, that to every prayer there will +come a response some day. To every prayer there is a response now. In our +confused and mechanical conception of the God to whom we pray, we separate +between His hearing and His answering. We identify the answer to prayer +with the granting of a petition. But prayer is more than petition. It is +not our many requests, it is an attitude of spirit. We grant readily that +our words are the least important part of our prayers. But very often the +petitions we frame and utter are no part of our prayers at all. They are +not prayer, yet uttering them we may pray a prayer that shall be heard and +answered, for every man who truly desires in prayer the help of God for his +life receives that help there and then, though the terms in which he +describes his need may be wholly wide of the truth as God knows it. So the +real answer to prayer is God's response to man's spiritual attitude, and +that response is as complete and continuous as the attitude will allow it +to be. The end of prayer is not to win concessions from Almighty Power, but +to have communion with Almighty Love. + +'Cause me to hear'; make a reverent, responsive, receptive silence in my +heart, take me out beyond my pleadings into the limitless visions and the +fathomless satisfactions of communion with Thyself. Speak to me. That is +true prayer. + + In the quietness of life, + When the flowers have shut their eye, + And a stainless breadth of sky + Bends above the hill of strife, + Then, my God, my chiefest Good, + Breathe upon my lonelihood: + Let the shining silence be + Filled with Thee, my God, with Thee. + + + + +IX. + +HAUNTED HOURS + + + Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, + when iniquity at my heels compasseth me about? + + Ps. xlix. 5. + +Iniquity _at my heels_. Temptation is very often indirect. It is compact of +wiles and subtleties and stratagems. It is adept at taking cover. It does +not make a frontal attack unless the obvious state of the soul's defences +justifies such a method of attempting a conquest. The stronger a man is, +the more subtle and difficult are the ways of sin, as it seeks to enter and +to master his life. There are many temptations that never face us, and +never give us a chance of facing them. They follow us. We can hear their +light footfall and their soft whisperings, but the moment we turn round +upon them they vanish. If they disappeared for good, they would be the +easiest to deal with of all the ill things that beset our lives. But they +do not. The moment we relax our bold, stern search for the face of the +enemy, there the evil thing is again--the light footfall and the soft +voice. It is terrible work fighting a suggestion. There are the thoughts +that a man will not cherish and cannot slay. They may never enter the +programme of his life, but there they are, haunting him, waiting, so to +speak, at the back of his brain, till he gets used to them. When he seeks +to grapple with these enemies his hands close on emptiness. One straight +blow, one decisive denial, one stern rebuke, one defiant confession of +faith will not suffice for these things. They compass a man's heels. He +cannot trample them down. The fashion of the evils that compass us +determines the form of the fight we wage with them. Preparations that might +amply suffice the city in the day when an army with banners comes against +it are no good at all if a plague has to be fought. So there is a way we +have to take with 'the iniquity at our heels.' It calls for much patience +and much prayer. If we cannot prevent sin from following us, we can at +least prevent ourselves from turning and following it. A man can always +choose his path if he cannot at every moment determine his company. And as +a man goes onward and upward steadfastly toward the City of Light, the evil +things fall off and drop behind, and God shall bring him where no evil +thing dare follow, and where no ravenous beast shall stalk its prey. + +The battle with sin is not an incident in the Christian life; it is the +abiding condition of it. While there are some temptations that we have to +slay, there are others we have to outgrow. They are overcome, not by any +one supreme assertion of the will, but by the patient cultivation of all +the loftiest and most wholesome and delicate and intensely spiritual modes +of feeling and of being. + +Again, let me suggest that iniquity at our heels is sometimes an old sin in +a new form. You remember the difficulty that Hiawatha had in hunting down +Pau-puk Keewis. That mischievous magician assumed the form of a beaver, +then that of a bird, then that of a serpent; and though each in turn was +slain, the magician escaped and mocked his pursuer. Surely a parable of our +strife with sin. We smite it in one form and it comes to life in another. +One day a man is angry--clenched fingers and hot words. He conquers his +anger; but the next day there is a spirit of bitterness rankling in his +heart, and maybe a tinge of regret that he did not say and do more when his +heart was hot within him and fire was on his lips. The sin he faced and +fought yesterday has become iniquity at his heels. Having failed to knock +him down, it tries to trip him up. Maybe many waste their energies trying +to deal with the _forms_ of sin, and never grapple with the _fact_ of sin. +Hence the evil things that compass men's souls about with their dread +ministries of suggestion, and flutter on unhallowed wings in the wake of +life. The sin that confronts us reveals to us our need of strength, but the +sin that dogs our steps has, maybe, a deeper lesson to teach us--even our +need of heart-deep holiness. Good resolution will do much to clear the path +ahead, but only purity of character can rid us of the persistent haunting +peril of the sin that plucks at the skirt of life. The deliverance God +offers to the struggling soul covers not only the hour of actual grappling +with the foe, but all the hours when it is the stealth and not the strength +of evil that we most have cause to fear. + +_Iniquity at my heels._ These words remind us that sin is not done with +after it is committed. God forgives sin, but He does not obliterate all its +consequences, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. A man may +have the light of the City of God flashing in his face, and a whole host of +shameful memories and bitter regrets crowding at his heels. We do not know +what sin is till we turn our backs on it. Then we find its tenacity and its +entanglement. What would we not give if only we could leave some things +behind us! What would we not do if only we could put a space between +ourselves and our past! The fetters of evil habit may be broken, but their +marks are upon us, and the feet that bore the fetters go more slowly for +them many days. The hands that have been used to grasping and holding do +not open without an effort, even though the heart has at last learned that +it is more blessed to give than to receive. + +Yes, and our sins come to life again in the lives of others. The light word +that ought to have been a grave word and that shook another's good +resolution, the cool word that ought to have been a warm word and that +chilled a pure enthusiasm--we cannot have done with these things. Parents +sometimes live to see their sins of indulgence or of neglect blighting the +lives of those to whom they owed a debt of firmness and kindness. It is +iniquity at the heels. These passages of carelessness and unfaithfulness +haunt men, be their repentance never so bitter and their amendment never so +sincere and successful. But all this is for discipline and not for despair. +It casts us back upon God's mercy. It keeps the shadow of the cross upon +all our path. It has something to do with the making of 'a humble, lowly, +penitent, and obedient heart.' The memory of the irreparable is a sorrow of +the saints. + + Saint, did I say? With your remembered faces, + Dear men and women whom I sought and slew! + Ah, when we mingle in the heavenly places, + How will I weep to Stephen and to you! + +Only let us not be afraid nor wholly cast down. Rather let us say, +'Wherefore should I fear when the iniquity at my heels compasseth me +about?' By the grace of God the hours of the soul's sad memory and of +clinging regrets shall mean unto us a ministry of humility and a passion of +prayer. And through them God shall give us glimpses of the gateway of that +life where regret and shame and sorrow fall back unable to enter. There is +a place whither the iniquity at a man's heels can no longer follow him, and +where in the perfect life the soul, at last, is able to forget. + + + + +X. + +THE WINGS OF THE DOVE + + + And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! + Then would I fly away, and be at rest.... + I would haste me to a shelter + From the stormy wind and tempest. + + Ps. lv. 6, 8. + +These words are the transcript of a mood. The writer is not unfolding to us +any of the deep persistent longings of his spirit; he is telling us of a +thought that shadowed his soul for an hour. Let us look into this mood of +his. It is not his in any unique or even peculiar sense. In moods, as in +manners, history is wont to repeat itself. The writer of this poem has +voiced one of the great common experiences of humanity. But let us be quite +clear as to what that experience really is. Let us not be misled by the +music and the seeming unworldliness of these words about winged flight from +a world of trouble and strife. The Psalmist was not looking heavenward, but +earthward, when this plea for wings broke from his heart. He was moved to +speak as he did, not by the surpassing charm of a heavenly vision, but by +the dark unrest of the earthly outlook. The emphatic note here is that of +departure, not of destination. It is necessary to remind ourselves that +this is so, for these words have become the classic of the home-sick soul. +They have been used to voice the farthest and most truly divine desires of +the human heart. And by virtue of such use they have gathered a meaning +which was not theirs at the beginning. At that meaning we will presently +look, but let us first of all look at this longing as it stands in the +psalm and as it represents an experience that is threaded through the +history of humanity. + +_Oh that I had wings ... then would I fly away._ Here the idea of fleeing +away suggests itself as a possible solution of life; and whenever it comes +to a man like this it is a source of weakness. It is not a desire to find +the joys of heaven; it is a desire to escape the pains of earth. There is +no vista, no wistful distance, no long, alluring prospect. The soul is +hemmed in by its enemies, crushed down by its burdens, beset on all sides +by the frets of the earthly lot; and there comes a vague desire to be out +of it all. It is not aspiration, it is evasion. It is not response to the +ideal, it is recoil from the actual. It is not the spell of that which +shall be that is upon the soul, but the irksomeness or the dreadfulness of +that which is. This is a mood that awaits us all. No man faces life as it +should be faced, but some can hardly be said to face it at all. Their face +is ever turned towards a seductive vision of quietness. The solution of +life for them is not in a fight, but in a retreat. Of course we know there +is no going back, and no easy deliverance from the burden and the battle, +but in the thick of any fight there is a great difference between the man +who wants victory and the man who merely wants a cessation of hostilities. + +This plea for wings does not necessarily betoken 'a desire to depart.' It +rather indicates a desire to remain under more favourable and comfortable +conditions. Such a mood is not the highest and the healthiest experience of +the soul. It is rather something against which we must fight relentlessly. +Very often the longing for wings results only in lagging footsteps. +Picturing to ourselves the luxury of laying life down will not help us to +face the duty of taking life up. The secret of enervation is found not in +the poverty of our resources, but in the cowardliness and selfishness of +our attitude towards life. The battle is half won when we have looked the +enemy in the face. The burden is the better borne as we stoop under the +full weight of it. + +_Oh that I had wings like a dove!_ That is a short-sighted and a selfish +desire. Supposing you had wings, what would you do? Fly away from the moil +of the world and find rest and shelter for yourself? Is that the best and +noblest thing to desire to do? After all, we know other and loftier moods +than this. We know that staying is better than going when there is so much +to stay for. We know that working is better than resting when there is so +much to do. We have something better to think about than a quiet lodgement +in the wilderness, we who live in a world where the strength of our hands +and the warmth of our hearts count for something. To give your tired +brother a lift is a vastly more profitable occupation than sitting at the +roadside and wishing you could fly. Man, you ought to be glad that you can +walk--in a world where there are so many cripples that want help. + +_Oh that I had wings!... then would I fly away._ That desire has never +taken any one to heaven, but it has made them less useful upon earth. The +breath of this desire is able to blight the flowers of social service. No +one would be foolish enough to indict suburbanism as a mode of life. The +day must surely come when few or none will dwell in the smoke-grimed heart +of the city. But in as far as a man seeks the fairest suburb open to him in +order that he may see little of, and think little of, 'the darkness of the +terrible streets,' then the very life that restores health to his body +shall sow seeds of disease in his soul. + +There is only one way to rest, and that lies right through the heart of the +world's work and pain. Rest is not for those who flee away from life's +difficulties, but for those who face them. 'Take my yoke ... and ye shall +find rest.' It were not well for our own sakes that we had wings. It were +not well for us to be able to avoid the burden-bearing and the tale of +tired days, for God has hidden the secret of our rest in the heart of our +toiling. They who come unto the City of God come there not by the easy +flight of a dove, but by the long, slow pilgrimage of unselfishness. + +Yet there is a beauty and a fitness in this longing. It is expressive of +more than the weariness of a world-worn spirit, or the thinly disguised +selfishness of one who fears to pay the price of life. + +When the long working-day of life is wearing away its last hours and +verging towards the great stillness, the voices of time fall but faintly on +the ear, the adorations and ideals and fashions and enthusiasms of the +world come to mean little to a man who in his day has followed them as +eagerly as any, and the heart within him asks only for rest. + + God, if there be none beside Thee + Dwelling in the light, + Take me out of the world and hide me + Somewhere behind the night. + +When, like Simeon the seer with the Christ-Child in his arms, a man feels +that for him life has said its last word and shown its last wonder and +uttered its last benediction, the desire for rest is a pure and spiritually +normal thing; it is just the soul's gaze turned upward where + + beyond these toils + God waiteth us above, + To give to hand and heart the spoils + Of labour and of love. + +And maybe this mood of which we are thinking may have a not unworthy place +in a strenuous life. As a tired woman pauses amid her tasks and looks out +of her cottage window to take into her heart the quiet beauty of the woods +where she knows the ground is fair with lilies, so do we find ourselves +looking out of life's small casement and thinking upon the fresh, free, +'outdoor' life the soul will some day live. And such a mood as this is +surely a sign of the soul's growth, a testimony of its responsiveness to +the divine touch, a sudden sense of its splendid destiny borne in upon it +among the grey and narrow circumstances of its service. + + Oh that I had a dove's swift, silver wings, + I said, so I might straightway leave behind + This strife of tongues, this tramp of feet, and find + A world that knows no struggles and no stings, + Where all about the soul soft Silence flings + Her filmy garment, and the vexèd mind + Grows quiet as there floats upon the wind + The soothing slumber-song of dreamless things. + And lo! there answered me a voice and said, + Man, thou hast hands and heart, take back thy prayer; + Covet life's weariness, go forth and share + The common suffering and the toil for bread. + Look not on Rest, although her face be fair, + And her white hands shall smooth thy narrow bed. + + + + +XI. + +A NEW SONG + + + O sing unto the Lord a new song. + + Ps. xcvi. 1. + +Time and again in the Psalter we find this appeal for a new song. First of +all, and most obviously, the appeal concerns the contents of the song. It +reminds us of the duty of making our grateful acknowledgement of God's +goodness to us expand with our growing experience of that goodness. It is, +if, one may so phrase it, a reminder to us that our praise needs bringing +up to date. A hymn considerably later in date than this psalm exhorts us to +'count' our 'blessings,' and to 'name them one by one.' This exhortation to +attempt the impossible is perhaps more worthy of being heeded than the form +in which it is presented to us might lead some to suppose. There is no +getting away from the simple fact that a man's thankfulness has a real and +proportionate relationship to the things for which he has cause to be +thankful. If in our daily life the phrase 'the goodness of God' is to have +a deepening and cumulative significance, it must be informed and vitalized +continually by an alert and responsive recognition of the forms in which +that goodness is ever freshly manifested to us. Whilst the roots of the +tree of praise lie deep beneath the surface, and wind their thousand ways +into dim places where memory itself cannot follow them, yet surely the +leaves of the tree are fresher and greener for rain that even now has left +its reviving touch upon them, and for the sunshine that is even now +stirring the life in all their veins. The figure is imperfect. We are not +trees. We do not respond automatically to all the gracious and cheering +ministries of the Eternal Goodness in our lives. We may easily overlook +many a good gift of our God. And though in our forgetfulness and +unthankfulness we profit by the sunlight and the dew and by each tender +thought of God for His creatures, yet the full and perpetual profit of all +good things is for each of us bound up with the power to see them, the +wisdom to appraise them, the mindfulness that holds them fast, and the +heart that sings out its thanksgiving for them. 'O sing unto the Lord a new +song.' Bring this day's life into the song. Bring the gift that has come to +thee this very hour into the song. Look about thee. See if there be but one +more flower springing at the path-side. See if the bud of yesterday has but +unfolded another leaf. Behold the loaf on thy table, feel the warmth of thy +hearth, yea, feel the very life within thee that woke again and stirred +itself with the morning light, and say these gifts are like unto the gifts +of yesterday, but they are not yesterday's gifts. Yesterday's bread is +broken, and yesterday's fire is dead, and yesterday's strength is spent. O +God, Thy mercies are new every morning! So shall a new song break from the +heart. + +It is quite possible, in taking what we believe to be a broad view of life, +to overlook many of the things that go to make life. Too much generalizing +makes for a barren heart. The specific has a vital place in the ministry of +praise. It is true that the highest flights of praise always carry the soul +beyond any conscious reckoning with the details of its experience. +Tabulation is not the keystone of the arch of thanksgiving. But to behold +the specific goodness of God in each day's life, to review the hours and to +say to one's own soul, Thus and thus hath my God been mindful of me, is +perhaps the surest and the simplest way to deepen and vitalize the habit of +praise in our life, and to set the new notes ringing in our psalm of +thanksgiving. + +But in this appeal for a new song of praise to God there is something more +than a recognition of new blessings. The new song is not merely the +response to new mercies and the tuneful celebration of recent good. If +there is to be ever a new note in the song, there must be ever a new note +in the singer's heart. And this cometh not by observation, but by +inspiration. You may change the words of the song and it may still be the +old song. You may sing the same words and it may yet be a new song. For as +is the singer, so is the song. + +_O sing unto the Lord a new song._ That is a plea for a deeper and a wider +life. It is a plea that sounds the depth of the heart and takes the measure +of the soul. The new song comes not of a truer enumeration of life's +blessings, but of a truer understanding of the blessedness of life itself. +The key to such understanding is character. When by the grace of the clean +heart and the enlightened and responsive spirit a man can get beneath the +events of each day's life and commune with that eternal law of love to +which each one of those events bears some relation--or had we not better +say commune with the Eternal Father by whom that law exists?--then is his +song of praise ever new. It is something to catch a glimpse of the mercy of +God, and to think and feel as one has not thought or felt before about some +part of life's daily good. But it is vastly more to learn to interpret the +whole of life in the terms of the goodness of God. The saint sings where +the worldling sighs. And if we find in that song only the apotheosis of +courage and resignation, we have neither found the source of the song nor +the message of it. The new song comes not from the thrill of peril faced +and defied, nor from the victorious acceptance of hard and bitter things. +It comes from that deep life of the soul in God, a life beyond the threat +of peril and beyond the touch of pain. It finds its deepest and freshest +notes not in contemplating the new gains and good of any day, but in a +growing sense of the timeless gain and eternal good of every day. + +And if all this be so, it surely follows that the service of praise is not +something unto which we may pass by one effort of the will or that depends +upon the stimulus of outward experience. It is conditioned rather by our +character, and by our power to see the unveiled face of life reflecting +always the light of perfect love. And it is to produce in us the right +character and the true insight that God disciplines us all our days. It is +to set a new song in our hearts. Said a professor of music at Leipzig of a +girl whom he had trained for some years and who was the pride of the +Conservatoire, 'If only some one would marry her and ill-treat her and +break her heart she would be the finest singer in Europe.' He missed +something in the song, and knew it could never come there save from the +heart of the singer. Trouble always strikes a new note in life, and often +the deepest note that is ever struck. But, be our experience joyous or +sorrowful, the true end of it must ever be to deepen our own hearts that +there may be in us ever a more catholic recognition of, and response to, +the Eternal Love. + +The human soul is not a mere repository of experiences. Memory is not the +true guardian of life's treasure. That treasure is invested in character. +In the moral world we _have_ what we _are_. So we may recall that which we +have never possessed, and may possess that which we can never recall. And +it is out of that which we have _become_ by God's grace, rather than out of +that which we have received of that grace, that the new song comes. + +So, as day by day we pray for the grace of new thanksgiving, we are seeking +something more than a new power to behold what good things each day brings +us, a readier way of reckoning the wealth of the passing hours. We are +seeking for a larger life in God, and for a spirit able, as it were, to +secrete from every experience its hidden meed of everlasting blessing. For +if the heart grow purer, the will stronger, the vision clearer, the +judgement truer--indeed, if there come to the soul each day some increase +of life--it shall surely find its way into living praise. And a living song +is always a new song. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Threshold Grace, by Percy C. Ainsworth + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13267 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47257e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13267 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13267) diff --git a/old/13267-8.txt b/old/13267-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..909b587 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13267-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1786 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Threshold Grace, by Percy C. Ainsworth + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Threshold Grace + +Author: Percy C. Ainsworth + +Release Date: August 24, 2004 [EBook #13267] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THRESHOLD GRACE *** + + + + +Produced by David Newman, Clare Boothby and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +THE THRESHOLD GRACE + +_MEDITATIONS IN THE PSALMS_ + +BY + +PERCY C. AINSWORTH + +AUTHOR OF 'THE PILGRIM CHURCH.' 'THE BLESSED LIFE,' ETC. + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +During his brief ministry Mr. Ainsworth published a series of meditations +in the columns of the _Methodist Times_, which are here reprinted by the +kind permission of the Editor, Dr. Scott Lidgett. The rare interest aroused +by the previous publication of Mr. Ainsworth's sermons encourages the hope +that the present volume may find a place in the devotional literature to +which many turn in the quiet hour. + +A.K.S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE THRESHOLD GRACE + II. THE HABIT OF FAITH + III. THE ONE THING DESIRABLE + IV. EYES AND FEET + V. THE SAFEGUARDED SOUL + VI. A PLEA FOR TEARS + VII. DELIVERANCE WITH HONOUR +VIII. PETITION AND COMMUNION + IX. HAUNTED HOURS + X. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE + XI. A NEW SONG + + + + +I. + +THE THRESHOLD GRACE + + + The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming + in, from this time forth and for evermore. + + Ps. cxxi, 8. + +Going out and coming in. That is a picture of life. Beneath this old Hebrew +phrase there lurks a symbolism that covers our whole experience. But let us +just now look at the most literal, and by no means the least true, +interpretation of these words. One of the great dividing-lines in human +life is the threshold-line. On one side of this line a man has his 'world +within the world,' the sanctuary of love, the sheltered place of peace, the +scene of life's most personal, sacred, and exclusive obligations. And on +the other side lies the larger life of mankind wherein also a man must take +his place and do his work. Life is spent in crossing this threshold-line, +going out to the many and coming in to the few, going out to answer the +call of labour and coming in to take the right to rest. And over us all +every hour there watches the Almighty Love. The division-lines in the life +of man have nothing that corresponds to them in the love of God. We may be +here or there, but He is everywhere. + +_The Lord shall keep thy going out._ Life has always needed that promise. +There is a pledge of help for men as they fare forth to the world's work. +It was much for the folk of an early time to say that as they went forth +the Lord went with them, but it is more for men to say and know that same +thing to-day. The _going out_ has come to mean more age after age, +generation after generation. It was a simpler thing once than it is now. +'Thy going out'--the shepherd to his flocks, the farmer to his field, the +merchant to his merchandise. There are still flocks and fields and markets, +but where are the leisure, grace, and simplicity of life for him who has +any share in the world's work? Men go out to-day to face a life shadowed by +vast industrial, commercial, and social problems. Life has grown +complicated, involved, hard to understand, difficult to deal with. Tension, +conflict, subtlety, surprise, and amid it all, or over it all, a vast +brooding weariness that ever and again turns the heart sick. Oh the pains +and the perils of the going out! There are elements of danger in modern +life that threaten all the world's toilers, whatever their work may be and +wherever they may have to do it. There is the danger that always lurks in +_things_--a warped judgement, a confused reckoning, a narrowed outlook. It +is so easily possible for a man to be at close grips with the world and yet +to be ever more and more out of touch with its realities. The danger in the +places where men toil is not that God is denied with a vociferous atheism; +it is that He is ignored by an unvoiced indifference. It is not the babel +of the market-place that men need to fear; it is its silence. If we say +that we live only as we love, that we are strong only as we are pure, that +we are successful only as we become just and good, the world into which we +go forth does not deny these things--but it ignores them. And thus the real +battle of life is not the toil for bread. It is fought by all who would +keep alive and fresh in their hearts the truth that man doth not live by +bread alone. For no man is this going out easy, for some it is at times +terrible, for all it means a need that only this promise avails to +meet--'The Lord shall keep thy going out.' He shall fence thee about with +the ministry of His Spirit, and give thee grace to know, everywhere and +always, that thou art in this world to live for His kingdom of love and +truth and to grow a soul. + +_The Lord, shall keep ... thy coming in._ It might seem to some that once a +man was safely across the threshold of his home he might stand in less need +of this promise of help. But experience says otherwise. The world has +little respect for any man's threshold. It is capable of many a bold and +shameless intrusion. The things that harass a man as he earns his tread +sometimes haunt him as he eats it. No home is safe unless faith be the +doorkeeper. 'In peace will I both lay me down and sleep, for Thou, Lord, +alone makest me to dwell in safety.' The singer of that song knew that, as +in the moil of the world, so also in the shelter of the place he named his +dwelling-place, peace and safety were not of his making, but of God's +giving. + +Sometimes there is a problem and a pain waiting for a man across his own +threshold. Many a man can more easily look upon the difficulties and perils +of the outer world than he can come in and look into the pain-lined face of +his little child. If we cannot face alone the hostilities on one side of +our threshold we cannot face alone the intimacies on the other side of it. +After all, life is whole and continuous. Whatever the changes in the +setting of life, there is no respite from living. And that means there is +no leisure from duty, no rest from the service of obedience, no cessation +in the working of all those forces by means of which, or in spite of which, +life is ever being fashioned and fulfilled. + +And now let us free our minds from the literalism of this promise and get a +glimpse of its deeper application to our lives. The threshold of the home +does not draw the truest division-line in life between the outward and the +inward. Life is made up of thought and action, of the manifest things and +the hidden things. + +'Thy going out.' That is, our life as it is manifest to others, as it has +points of contact with the world about us. We must go out. We must take up +some attitude toward all other life. We must add our word to the long human +story and our touch to the fashioning of the world. We need the pledge of +divine help in that life of ours in which, for their good or ill, others +must have a place and a part. 'And thy coming in'--into that uninvaded +sanctum of thought. Did we say uninvaded? Not so. In that inner room of +life there sits Regret with her pale face, and Shame with dust on her +forehead, and Memory with tears in her eyes. It is a pitiable thing at +times, is this our coming in. More than one man has consumed his life in a +flame of activity because he could not abide the coming in. 'The Lord shall +keep ... thy coming in.' That means help for every lonely, impotent, inward +hour of life. + +Look at the last word of this promise--'for evermore.' Going out and coming +in for evermore. I do not know how these words were interpreted when very +literal meanings were attached to the parabolic words about the streets of +gold and the endless song. But they present no difficulty to us. Indeed, +they confirm that view of the future which is ever taking firmer hold of +men's minds, and which is based on the growing sense of the continuity of +life. To offer a man an eternity of music-laden rest is to offer him a poor +thing. He would rather have his going out and his coming in. Yes, and he +shall have them. All that is purest and best in them shall remain. +Hereafter he shall still go out to find deeper joys of living and wider +visions of life; still come in to greater and ever greater thoughts of God. + + + + +II. + +THE HABIT OF FAITH + + + Trust in Him at all times, ye people. + Pour out your heart before Him. + God is a refuge for us. + + Ps. lxii. 8. + +Here the Psalmist strikes the great note of faith as it should be struck. +He sets it ringing alike through the hours and the years. _Trust in Him at +all times._ Faith is not an act, but an attitude; not an event, but a +principle; not a last resource, but the first and abiding necessity. It is +the constant factor in life's spiritual reckonings. It is the +ever-applicable and the ever-necessary. It is always in the high and +lasting fitness of things. There are words that belong to hours or even +moments, words that win their meaning from the newly created situation. But +faith is not such a word. It stands for something inclusive and imperial. +It is one of the few timeless words in earth's vocabulary. For the deep +roots of it and the wide range of it there is nothing like unto it in the +whole sweep of things spiritual. So the 'all times' trust is not for one +moment to be regarded as some supreme degree of faith unto which one here +and there may attain and which the rest can well afford to look upon as a +counsel of perfection. This exhortation to trust in God at all times +concerns first of all the _nature_ of faith and not the _measure_ of it. +All real faith has the note of the eternal in it. It can meet the present +because it is not of the present. We have grown familiar with the phrase, +'The man of the moment.' But who is this man? Sometimes he is very +literally a man of the moment--an opportunist, a gambler with the hours, a +follower of the main chance. The moment makes him, and passing away unmakes +him. But the true man of the moment is the man to whom the moment is but +one throb in the pulse of eternity. For him the moment does not stand out +in splendid isolation. It is set in its place between that which hath been +and that which shall be. And its true significance is not something abiding +in it, but something running through it. So is it in this great matter of +faith. Only the faith that can trust at all times can trust at any time. +The moment that faith heeds the dictation of circumstance it ceases to be +faith and becomes calculation. All faith is transcendent. It is independent +of the conditions in which it has to live. It is not snared in the strange +web of the tentative and the experimental. He that has for one moment felt +the power of faith has got beyond the dominion of time. + +_Trust in Him at all times._ That is the only real escape from confusion +and contradiction in the judgements we are compelled to pass upon life. +Times change so suddenly and inexplicably. The hours seem to be at strife +with each other. We live in the midst of a perpetual conflict between our +yesterdays and our to-days. There is no simple, obvious sequence in the +message of experience. The days will not dovetail into each other. Life is +compact of much that is impossible of true adjustment at the hands of any +time-born philosophy. And in all this seeming confusion there lies the +necessity for faith. Herein it wins its victory. We are to trust God not +because we cannot trace Him, but that by trusting Him we may ever be more +able to trace Him and to see that He has a way through all these winding +and crossing paths. Faith does more than hold a man's hand in the darkness; +it leads him into the light. It is the secret of coherence and harmony. It +does not make experience merely bearable, it makes it luminous and +instructive. It takes the separate or the tangled strands of human +experience and weaves them into one strong cable of help and hope. + +_Trust in Him at all times._ Then faith at its best is a habit. Indeed, +religion at its best is a habit, too! We are sometimes too ready to +discount the worth of the habitual in our religious life. We put a premium +on self-consciousness. We reduce the life of faith to a series of acts of +faith of varying difficulty and import, but each detached from the rest and +individually apprehended of the soul. Surely this is all wrong. In our +physical life we are least conscious of those functions that are most vital +and continuous, and the more perfectly they do their work the less we think +about them. The analogy is incomplete and must be drawn with care. But when +you have conceded that faith has to be acquired, that it has to be learned, +there is still this much in the analogy. If faith is a long and hard +lesson, the value of the lesson to us is not the effort with which we learn +it, but the ease with which we apply it. The measure of conscious effort in +our faith is the measure of our faith's weakness. When faith has become a +spontaneity of our character, when it turns to God instinctively, when it +does its work with the involuntariness of habit, then it has become strong. + +_Pour out your heart before Him._ How this singer understood the office and +privilege of the 'all times' trust! He knew that there is a fullness of +heart that is ill to bear. True, in more than one simple way the full heart +can find some slight relief. There is work. The full heart can go out and +do something. There is a brother's trouble in which a man may partly forget +his own. There is sympathy. Surely few are so lonely that they cannot find +any one ready to offer the gift of the listening ear, any one willing to +share with them all of pain and burden that can be shared. Ah! but what of +that which cannot be shared? What of the sorrow that has no language, and +the shame and confusion that we would not, and even dare not, trail across +a friend's mind? So often the heart holds more than ever should be poured +out into another's ear. There are in life strained silences that we could +not break if we would. And there is a law of reticence that true love and +unselfishness will always respect. If my brother hath joy, am I to cloud it +with my grief? If he hath sorrow, am I to add my sorrow unto his? When our +precious earthly fellowship has been put to its last high uses in the hour +of sorrow or shame, the heart has still a burden for which this world finds +no relief. But there is another fellowship. There is God our Father. There +is the ear of Heaven. We may be girt with silence among our fellows, but in +looking up the heart finds freedom. In His Presence the voice of confession +can break through the gag of shame, and the pent-up tide of trouble can let +itself break upon the heart of Eternal Love. + +_God is a refuge for us._ That is the great discovery of faith. That is the +merciful word that comes to be written so plainly in the life that has +formed the habit of faith. God our refuge. It may be that to some the word +'refuge' suggests the occasional rather than the constant need of life. But +the refuge some day and the faith every day are linked together. A thing is +no use to you if you cannot find it when you want it. And you cannot find +it easily if it be not at hand. The peasant built his cottage under the +shadow of his lord's castle walls. In the hour of peril it was but a step +to the strong fortress. 'Trust in Him at all times.' Build your house under +the walls of the Eternal Help. Live in the Presence. Find the attitude of +faith, and the act of faith will be simple. Trust in Him through every +hour, and when a tragic hour comes one step shall take you into the +innermost safety. + + + + +III. + +THE ONE THING DESIRABLE + + + One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will + I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of + the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the + beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. + + Ps. xxvii. 4. + +_I have desired ... I will seek._ Amid the things that are seen, desire and +quest are nearly always linked closely together. The man who desires money +seeks after money. The desire of the world is often disappointed, but it is +rarely supine. It is dynamic. It leads men. True, it leads them astray; but +that is a reflection on its wisdom and not on its effectiveness. Among what +we rightly call the lower things men do not play with their desires, they +obey them. But amid the unseen realities of life it is often quite +otherwise. In the religious life desire is sometimes strangely ineffective. +It is static, if that be not a contradiction in terms. In many a life-story +it stands written: One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I dream +of, that will I hope for, that will I wait for. Many things help to explain +this attitude, and, explaining it, they condemn it also. We allow our +surroundings to pass judgement on our longings. We bring the eternal to the +bar of the hour, and postpone the verdict. Or it may be in the worldliness +of our hearts we admit the false plea of urgency and the false claim of +authority made by our outward life. And perhaps more commonly the soul +lacks the courage of its desires. It costs little to follow a desire that +goes but a little way, and that on the level of familiar effort and within +sight of familiar things. It is another thing to hear the call of the +mountains and to feel the fascination of some far and glittering peak. That +is a call to perilous and painful effort. And yet again, high desire +sometimes leaves life where it found it because the heart attaches an +intrinsic value to vision. It is something to have _seen_ the Alpine +heights of possibility. Yes, it is something, but what is it? It is a +golden hour to the man who sets out to the climb; it is an hour of shame +and judgement, hereafter to be manifest, to the man who clings to the +comforts of the valley. + +_One thing have I desired._ When a man speaks thus unto us, we have a right +to ponder his words with care. We naturally become profoundly interested, +expectant, and, to the limit of our powers, critical. If a man has seen one +thing that he can call simply and finally the desire of his heart, it ought +to be worth looking at. We expect something large, lofty, inclusive. And we +find this: '_That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my +life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple._' Let +us examine this desire, And, first of all, we must free our minds from mere +literalism. If we do not, we shall find in this desire many things that are +not in it, and miss everything that is in it. This is not the longing for a +cloistered life, the confession of one who is weary of this heavy world, +doubtful of its promises and afraid of its powers. 'The house of the Lord' +is not a place, but a state, not an edifice, but an attitude. It is a fair +and unseen dwelling-place builded by the hands of God to be the home, here +and hereafter, of all the hearts that purely love and worship Him. We read +of one who, a day's march from his father's house, lay down and slept; and +in his sleep God spake to him, and lo, out in a wild and lonely place, +Jacob said, 'This is none other but the house of God.' For every one to +whom the voice of God has come, and who has listened to that voice and +believed in its message, the mountains and valleys of this fair world, the +breath of every morning and the hush of every evening, are instinct with a +Presence. Wordsworth dwelt in the house of the Lord all the days of his +life. And if the wonder and beauty of the earth lift up our hearts unto our +God in praise and worship, we dwell there also. + +Yes, but this world is a world of men. In city or on hillside the great +persistent fact for us, the real setting of our life, is not nature, but +humanity. Life is not a peaceful vision of earthly beauty. Our experience +is not a dreamy pastoral. There are shamed and broken lives. The world is +full of greed and hate and warfare and sorrow. Nature at its best cannot by +itself build for us a temple that humanity at its worst, or even at +something less than its worst, cannot pull down about our ears. For the +Psalmist, probably David himself, the temple was symbolic of all heavenly +realities. It stood for the holiness and the nearness and the mercy of God, +and for the sacredness and the possibility of human life. In the light and +power and perfect assurance of these things he desired to dwell all the +days of his life. For us there is the life and word of One greater than the +temple. Jesus of Nazareth dwelt in the house of the Lord. Between Him and +God the Father there was perfect union. And no one ever saw the worth of +human life as Jesus saw it. And no one ever measured the sacred values of +humanity as He measured them. And now, in the perfect mercy of God, there +is no man but may dwell in the house of God alway and feel life's +sacredness amidst a thousand desecrations, and know its preciousness amidst +all that seeks to obscure, defile, and cheapen it. + +_To behold the beauty of the Lord._ It is only in the house of the Lord, +the unseen fane of reverence, trust, and communion, that a man can learn +what beauty is, and where to look for it. Out in the world beauty is held +to be a sporadic thing. It is like a flower growing where no one expected a +blossom. It is an unrelated and unexplained surprise. It is a green oasis +in the desert of unlovely and unpromising things. But for the dweller in +the house of the Lord beauty is not on this wise. Said one such dweller, +'The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.' He looked across the +leagues of burning sand and saw the loveliness of Carmel by the sea, and of +Sharon where the lilies grow. To the artist beauty is an incident, to the +saint beauty is a law of life. It is the thing that is to be. It is the +positive purpose, throbbing and yearning and struggling in the whole +universe. When it emerges and men behold it, they behold the face of truth; +and if it emerges not, it is still there, the fundamental fact and the +vital issue of human life. To dwell in the Divine Presence by faith and +obedience; to live so near to God that you can see all about yourself and +every human soul the real means of life, and straight before you the real +end of life; to know that though so often the worst is man's dark choice, +yet ever the best is his true heritage; and to learn to interpret the whole +of life in the terms of God's saving purpose,--this is to behold the beauty +of the Lord. + +_And to inquire in His temple._ The Psalmist desired for himself an inward +attitude before God that should not only reveal unto him the eternal +fitness of all God's ways and the eternal grace of all His purposes, but +should also put him in the way of solving the various problems that arise +to try the wisdom and strength of men's lives. Sometimes the first court of +appeal in life, and always the last, is the temple court. When all the +world is dumb, a voice speaks to them that worship. Reverential love never +loses its bearings. In this world we need personal and social guidance, and +there must be many times when both shall be wanting unless we have learned +to carry the burden of our ignorance to the feet of the Eternal Wisdom. And +perhaps a man can desire no better thing for himself than that the +reverence and devotion of his life should be such as to make the appeal to +God's perfect arbitrament an easy thing. + + + + +IV. + +EYES AND FEET + + + Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord, + For He shall pluck my feet out of the net. + + Ps. xxv. 15. + +In any man's life a great deal depends upon outlook. In some ways we +recognize this fact. We do not by choice live in a house whose windows +front a blank wall. A little patch of green grass, a tree, a peep of sky, +or even the traffic of a busy street--anything rather than a blank wall. +That is a sound instinct, but it ought to go deeper than it sometimes does. +This outlook and aspect question is important when you are building a +house, but it is vastly more important when you are building a character. +The soul has eyes. The deadliest monotony is that of a dull soul. Life is a +poor affair for any man who looks out upon the blind walls of earthly +circumstance and necessity, and cannot see from his soul's dwelling-place +the pink flush of the dawn that men call hope, and who has no garden where +he may grow the blossoms of faith and sweet memory, the fair flowers of +holy human trusts and fellowships. Only the divinity of life can deliver us +from the monotony of living. 'Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.' This man +has an infinite outlook. It matters not whether he looked out through +palace windows or lived in the meanest house in Jerusalem's city. It is the +eye that makes the view. This man had a fairer prospect than ever man had +who looked seaward from Carmel or across the valleys from the steeps of +Libanus. It was his soul that claimed the prospect. From the window of the +little house of life he saw the light of God lying on the everlasting +hills. That is the real deliverance from the monotony of things. The man +who is weary of life is the man who has not seen it. The man who is tied to +his desk sometimes thinks everything would be right if only he could +travel. But many a man has done the Grand Tour and come back no better +contented. You cannot fool your soul with Mont Blanc or even the Himalayas. +So many thousand feet, did you say?--but what is that to infinity! The cure +for the fretful soul is not to go _round_ the world; it is to get _beyond_ +it. + +_Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord._ That is the view we want. We gaze +contemptuously on the little one-story lodge just inside the park gates, +and fail to get a glimpse of the magnificent mansion, with its wealth of +adornment and treasure, that lies a mile among the trees. No wonder that +men grow discontented or contemptuous when they mistake the porch for the +house. If a man would understand himself and discover his resources and put +his hand on all life's highest uses, he must look out and up unto his God. +Then he comes to know that sunrise and sunset, and the beauty of the earth, +and child-life and old age, and duty and sorrow, and all else that life +holds, are linked to the larger life of an eternal world. + +That is the true foresight. They called him a far-seeing man. How did he +get that name? Well, he made a fortune. He managed to make use of the ebb +and flow of the market, and never once got stranded. He was shrewd and did +some good guessing, and now, forsooth, they say he is 'very far-seeing.' +But he has not opened his Bible for years, and the fountains of sympathy +are dried up in his soul. He can see as far into the money column as most +men, but the financial vista is not very satisfying for those who see it +best. The Gospel of St. John is a sealed book to him, and that is in God's +handwriting and opens the gates of heaven. Far-seeing? Why, the man is in a +tiny cell, and he is going blind. 'Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.' +That is the far-sighted man. He can see an ever larger life opening out +before him. He can see the glory of the eternal righteousness beneath his +daily duties and the wonder of eternal love in the daily fellowships and +fulfilments of the brotherhood. This is measuring life by the heavenly +measurement. This is the vision we need day by day and at the end of the +days. For interest in some things must wane, and life must become less +responsive to all that lies about it, and many an earthly link is broken +and many an earthly window is darkened, and the old faces and old ways +pass, and the thing the old man cherishes is trodden under foot by the +impetuous tread of a new generation, and desire fails. Then it is well with +him whose eyes have already caught glimpses of 'the King in His beauty,' +and 'the land that is very far off.' + +But think for a moment of the present value of the divine outlook upon +life. It brings guidance and deliverance. Set side by side the two +expressions 'eyes unto the Lord,' and 'feet out of the net.' Life is more +than a vision; it is a pilgrimage. We see the far white peaks whereon rests +the glory of life, but reaching them is not a matter of eyes, but of feet. +Here, maybe, the real problem of godly living presents itself to us. Here +our Christian idealism lays a burden on us. It is possible to see distances +that would take days to traverse. Even so we can see heights of spiritual +possibility that we shall not reach while the light holds good unless we +foot it bravely. And it is not an easy journey. There are so many snares +set for the pilgrims of faith and hope. There are subtle silken nets woven +of soft-spun deceits and filmy threads of sin; and there are coarse strong +nets fashioned by the strong hands of passion and evil desire. There are +nets of doubt and pain and weakness. But think of the man whose eyes were +ever towards the Lord. He came through all right. He always does. He always +will. He looked steadily upward to his God. When we get into the net we +yield to the natural tendency to look down at our feet. We try to discover +how the net is made. We delude ourselves with the idea that if only we take +time we shall be able to extricate ourselves; but it always means getting +further entangled. It is a waste of time to study the net. Life is ever +weaving for us snares too intricate for us to unravel and too strong for us +to break. God alone understands how they are made and how they may be +broken. He does not take us round the net or over it, but He does not leave +us fast by the feet in the midst of it. He always brings a man out on the +heavenward side of the earthly difficulty. Look upward and you are bound to +go forward. + + + + +V. + +THE SAFEGUARDED SOUL + + + The Lord shall keep thee from all evil; + He shall keep thy soul. + + Ps. cxxi. 7. + +One of the great offices of religion is to help men to begin at the +beginning. If you wish to straighten out a tangle of string, you know that +it is worth your while to look patiently for one of the ends. If you make +an aimless dash at it the result is confusion worse confounded, and +by-and-by the tangle is thrown down in despair, its worst knots made by the +hands that tried in a haphazard way to simplify it. Life is that tangle; +and religion, if it does not loosen all the knots and straighten all the +twists, at least shows us where the two ends are. They are with God and the +soul. God deals with a man's soul. We cannot explain the facts of our +experience or the fashion of our circumstance save in as far as we can see +these things reflected in our character. The true spiritual philosophy of +life begins its inquiry in the soul, and works outward into all the +puzzling mass of life's details. And the foundation of such a philosophy is +not experience, but faith. It is true that experience often confirms faith, +but faith interprets experience. Experience asks more questions than it can +answer. It collects more facts than it can explain. It admits of many +different constructions being put upon it. It puts us first of all into +touch with the problem of life rather than the solution. If the gentle, +patient words of the saint are the utterance of one who has suffered, so +also are the bitter protests of the disappointed worldling. The fashion of +the experience may be the same in each case. It is faith that makes the +lesson different. It is a want of faith that makes us expect the lower in +life to explain the higher, the outward to shed light upon the inward. We +pluck with foolish, aimless fingers at this strange tangle of human life. +We judge God's way with us as far as we can see it, and we think we have +got to the end of it. We draw our shallow conclusions. Faith teaches us +that God's way with us is a longer and a deeper way, and the end of that +way is down in the depths of our spirit, hidden in the love of our +character. It is not here and now. It is in what we shall be if God have +His will with us. + +All the true definitions of things are written in the soul. It was here +that the Psalmist found his definition of evil. 'The Lord shall keep thee +from all evil; He shall keep thy soul.' Then evil is something that +threatens the soul. It is not material, but spiritual. It is not in our +circumstances themselves, but in their effect upon the inward life. The +same outward conditions of life may be good or evil according to their +influence on our character. Good and evil are not qualities of things. They +have no meaning apart from the soul. The world says that health and wealth +are good, and that sickness and poverty are evil. If that were true the +line that separates the healthy from the sick, the rich from the poor, +would also separate the happy from the miserable. But we find joy and +sorrow on both sides of that line. We are drawn to look deeper than this +for our definition of good and evil. We have to make the soul the final +arbiter amid these conflicting voices. Here we must find the true +definition of evil. The first question we ask when we hear of a house +having been burnt down is this: 'Was there any loss of life?' All else lies +on a vastly lower plane of interest and importance. So must we learn to +distinguish between the house of circumstance, or the house of the body, +and the soul that dwells in it. The only real loss is the 'loss of life,' +the loss of any of these inner things that go to make the soul's strength +and treasure. The man who has lost everything except faith and hope has, +maybe, lost nothing at all. There are some among the pilgrims of faith +to-day who would never have been found there had not God cast upon their +shoulders the ragged cloak of poverty; and if you know anything about that +band of pilgrims you will know that the man who outstrips his companions is +often a man who is lame on both his feet. + +O sceptic world, this is the final answer to your scepticism, an answer +none the less true because you cannot receive it: _The Lord keepeth the +souls of His saints._ Have you not seen men thinning out a great tree, +cutting off some of its noblest branches and marring its splendid symmetry? +And very likely you have felt it was a great shame to do so. But that work +of maiming and spoiling meant light and sunshine and air in a close and +darkened room. It meant health to the dwellers in the house over which the +tree had cast its shadow. It is much to have tall and stately trees in the +garden of life. But by-and-by that great oak of vigour begins to darken the +windows of faith, and God lops some of the branches. We call it suffering, +but it means more light. Or it may be that those firs of lordly ambition +have grown taller than the roof-tree, and God sends forth His storm-wind to +lay them low. We call it failure, but it means a better view of the stars. +Ah, yes, we are over-anxious about the trees in the garden. God cares most +of all that the light of His truth and the warmth of His love and the +breath of His Spirit shall reach and fill every room in the house of life. + +_He shall keep thy soul._ That is a promise that can fold us in divine +comfort and peace, and that can do something towards interpreting for us +every coil of difficulty, every hour of pain. But if this is to be so, we +must ourselves be true to the view of life the promise gives us. We must +think of the soul as God thinks of it. We live in a world where souls are +cheap. They are bought and sold day by day. It is strange beyond all +understanding that the only thing many a man is not afraid of losing is the +one thing that is really worth anything to him--his soul. Sometimes the +lusts of the world drag down our heart's desire, and we have to confess +with shame to moments in our experience when we have not been at all +concerned with what became of our soul so long as the desire of the hour +was fulfilled or satisfied. We need to seek day by day that the masterful +and abiding desires of our heart may be set upon undying good, and that our +aspiration may never fold its wings and rest on anything lower than the +highest. This shall not make dreamers of us. It shall stand us in good +stead in the thick of the world. The man who gets 'the best of the bargain' +is always the man who is most honest; for the most precious thing that a +man stands to win or lose in any deal is the cleanness of his soul. The man +who gets the best of the argument is always the man who is most truthful; +for a quiet conscience is better than a silenced opponent. The man who gets +the best of life is the man who keeps the honour of his soul; for Jesus +said: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his +own soul?' + +So then, amid the manifold uncertainties of human life and the +ever-changing forms and complexions of human experience, one thing is +pledged beyond all doubt to every man who seeks the will of God and the +promise for the safeguarding of his soul. He may write this at the top of +every page in the book of life. He may take it for his light in dark days, +his comfort in sad days, his treasure in empty days. He may have it on his +lips in the hour of battle and in his heart in the day of disappointment. +He may meet his temptations with it, interpret his sufferings with it, +build his ideal with it. And it shall come to pass that he shall learn to +look with untroubled eyes upon the outward things of life, nor fear the +touch of its thousand grasping hands, knowing that his soul is in the hands +of One who can keep it safe in all the world's despite, even God Himself. + + + + +VI. + +A PLEA FOR TEARS + + + They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. + He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, + Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, + Bringing his sheaves with him. + + Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6. + +It is almost impossible to recall the joys and sorrows of life without +having some thought of their compensative relation. We set our bright days +against our dark days. We weigh our successes against our failures. When +the hour through which we are living is whispering a bitter message, we +recall the kindlier messages of other hours and say that we have much for +which we ought to be thankful. And such a deliberate handling of +experience, such a quiet adjustment of memories, is not without its uses. +Any view of life that will save a man from whining is worth taking. Any +reckoning that will prevent a man from indulging in self-pity--that +subtlety of selfishness--is worth making. There is, moreover, something +very simple and obvious in this way of thinking and judging. To make one +kind of experience deal with another kind, to set the days and the hours in +battle array--or shall we say to arrange a tourney where some +gaily-caparisoned and well-mounted Yesterday is set to tilt with a +black-visored and silent To-day--is a way of dealing with life which seems +to have much to commend it. But it has at the best serious limitations, and +at the worst it may issue in a tragedy. The wrong knight may be unhorsed. +The award may go to him of the black plume. Pitting one experience against +another has gone to the making of many a cynic and not a few despairing +souls. The compensative interpretation of joy and sorrow may bring an +answer of peace to a man's soul, or it may not. But in this matter we are +dealing with things in which we cannot afford to risk an equivocal or a +despairing answer. We must win in every encounter. It is not an hour's joy, +but a life's outlook that is at stake. No hour's fight was ever worth +fighting if it was fought for the sake of the hour. The moments are ever +challenging the eternal, the swift and busy hours fling their gauntlets at +the feet of the ageless things. The real battle of life is never between +yesterday and to-day; it is always between to-day and the Forever. + +To isolate an experience is to misinterpret it. We may even completely +classify experiences, and yet completely misunderstand experience. To +understand life at all we must get beyond the incidental and the +alternating. Life is not a series of events charged with elements of +contrast, contradiction, or surprise. It is a deep, coherent, and +unfaltering process. And one feels that it was something more than the +chance of the moment that led the singer of old to weave the tears and the +rejoicings of men's lives into a figure of speech that stands for unity of +process, even the figure of the harvest. + +_They that sow in tears shall reap in joy._ The sweep of golden grain is +not some arbitrary compensation for the life of the seed cast so lavishly +into the ground, and biding the test of darkness and cold. It is the very +seed itself fulfilled of all its being. Even so it is with the sorrows of +these hearts of ours and the joy unto which God bringeth us. He does not +fling us a few glad hours to atone for the hours wherein we have suffered +adversity. There is a deep sense in which the joys of life are its ripened +sorrows. + +_They that sow in tears.... He that goeth forth and weepeth._ These are not +the few who have been haunted by apparent failure, or beset with outwardly +painful conditions of service. They are not those who have walked in the +shadow of a lost leader, or toiled in the grey loneliness of a lost comrade +or of a brother proved untrue. For apparent failure, outward difficulty and +loneliness, often as we may have to face them, are, after all, only the +accidents of Godward toil. And if the bearer of seed for God's great +harvest should go forth to find no experience of these things, still, if he +is to do any real work in the fields of the Lord, he must go forth weeping. +He must sow in tears. Let a man be utterly faithful and sincere, let him +open his heart without reserve to the two great claims of the ideal and +sympathy, and he shall come to know that he has not found the hidden +meaning of daily service, nor learned how he can best perform that service, +until he has tasted the sorrow at the heart of it. The tears that are the +pledge of harvest are not called to the eyes by ridicule or opposition. +They are not the tears of disappointment, vexation, or impotence. They are +tears that dim the eyes of them that see visions, and gather in the heart +of them that dream dreams. To see the glory of God in the face of Jesus +Christ and the blindness of the world's heart to that glory; to see +unveiled the beauty that should be, and, unveiled too, the shame that is; +to have a spiritual nature that thrills at the touch of the perfect love +and life, and responds to every note of pain borne in upon it from the +murmurous trouble of the world,--this is to have inward fitness for the +high work of the Kingdom. Yes, and it is the pledge that this work shall be +done. There is such a thing as artistic grief. There is the vain and +languorous pity of aestheticism. Its robe of sympathy is wrapped about +itself and bejewelled with its own tears. And it never goes forth. You +never meet it in 'the darkness of the terrible streets.' + +_He that goeth forth and weepeth._ It is his tears that cause him to go +forth. It is his sorrow that will not let him rest. True pity is a mighty +motive. When the real abiding pathos of life has gripped a man's heart, you +will find him afield doing the work of the Lord. You will not see his +tears. There will be a smile in his eyes and, maybe, a song on his lips. +For the sorrow and the joy of service dwell side by side in a man's life. +Indeed, they often seem to him to be but one thing. It were a mistake to +refer the whole meaning of the words about a man's coming 'again with +rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him' to some far day when the reapers +of God shall gather the last great harvest of the world. Through his tears +the sower sees the harvest. Through all his life there rings many a sweet +prophetic echo of the harvest home. + +_He that goeth forth and weepeth._ No man ever wept like that and went not +forth, but some go forth who have not wept. And they go forth to certain +failure. They mishandle life, and with good intent do harm. But that is not +the worst thing to be said about these toilers without tears. It is not +that they touch life so unskilfully, but they touch so little of it. It is +only through his tears that a man sees what his work is and where it lies. +Tearless eyes are purblind. We have yet much to learn about the real needs +of the world. So many try very earnestly to deal with situations they have +never yet really seen. For the uplifting of men and for the great social +task of this our day we need ideas, and enthusiasm, and all sorts of +resource; but most of all, and first of all, we need vision. And the man +who goes farthest, and sees most, and does most, is 'he that goeth forth +and weepeth.' + + + + +VII. + +DELIVERANCE WITH HONOUR + + + He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; + I will be with him in trouble: + I will deliver him, and honour him. + With long life will I satisfy him, + And show him My salvation. + + Ps. xci. 15, 16. + +_He shall call upon Me._ He shall need Me. He shall not be able to live +without Me. As the years pass over his head he shall learn that there is +one need woven into human life larger and deeper and more abiding than any +other need--and that need is God. Thus doth divinity prophesy concerning +humanity. Thus doth infinite foresight predict a man's need. + +We peer in our purblind fashion into the future and try to anticipate our +needs. We fence ourselves in with all sorts of fancied securities, and then +we comfort ourselves with the shrewdness and completeness of our +forecasting and provision-making. And sometimes it is just folly with a +grave face. 'He shall call upon Me.' A man has learned nothing until he has +learned that he needs God. And we take a long time over that lesson. It has +sometimes to be beaten into us--written in conscience and heart by the +finger of pain. How the little storehouse of life has to be almost stripped +of its treasures, how our faith in the things of the hour has to be played +with and mocked, ere we call upon God in heaven to fill us with abiding +treasure and fold us in eternal love. + +_He shall call upon Me, and, I will answer him._ But I have called, says +one, and He has not answered. I called upon Him when my little child was +sick unto death, and, spite my calling, the little white soul fluttered +noiselessly into the great beyond. My friend, you call that tiny green +mound in the churchyard God's silence. Some day you will call it God's +answer. Our prayers are sometimes torn out of our hearts by the pain of the +moment. God's answers come forth from the unerring quiet of eternity. 'He +shall call upon Me.' 'He shall ask Me to help him, but he does not know how +he can be helped. He is hedged about by a thousand limitations of thought. +His life is full of distortions. He cannot distinguish between a blessing +and a curse. I cannot heed the dictations of his prayers, but I will answer +him.' This is the voice of Him to whom the ravelled complexities of men's +minds are simplicity itself; who dwells beyond the brief bewilderments and +mistaken desirings and false ideals of men's hearts. + +Oh these divine answers! How they confuse us! It is their perfection that +bewilders us; it is their completeness that carries them beyond our +comprehension. + +There is the stamp of the local and the temporary on all our asking. The +answer that comes is wider than life and longer than time, and fashioned +after a completeness whereof we do not even dream. + +_I will be with him in trouble._ Trouble is that in life which becomes to +us a gospel of tears, a ministry of futility. This is because we have +grasped the humanity of the word and missed the divinity of it. We are +always doing that. Always gathering the meaning of the moments and missing +the meaning of the years. Always smarting under the sharp discipline and +missing the merciful design: 'With Him in trouble.' That helps me to +believe in my religion. Trouble is the test of the creeds. A fig for the +orthodoxy that cannot interpret tears! Write vanity upon the religion that +is of no avail in the house of sorrow. When the earthly song falls on +silence we are disposed to call it a pitiable silence. Not so. Let us say a +divinely opportune silence, for when the many voices grow dumb the One +Voice speaks: 'I will be with him in trouble,' and the man who has lost the +everything that is nothing only to find the one thing that is all knows +what that promise means. + +_I will deliver him._ What a masterful, availing, victorious presence is +this! How this promise goes out beyond our human ministries of consolation! +How often the most we can do is to walk by our brother's side whilst he +bears a burden we cannot share! How often the earthly sympathy is just a +communion of sad hearts--one weak hand holding another! 'I will deliver +him.' That is not merely sympathy, it is victory. The divine love does not +merely condole, it delivers. + +You cannot add anything to this promise. It is complete. The time of the +deliverance is there, the manner of it is there, the whole ministry of help +is there. You say you cannot find anything about time and manner. You can +only find the bare promise of deliverance. My friend, there are no bare +promises in the lips of the Heavenly Father. In the mighty, merciful +leisure of omnipotence, in the perfect fitness of things, in a way wiser +than his thinking and better than his hoping and larger than his prayer, 'I +will deliver him.' + +_And honour him._ It will be no scanty, obscure, uncertain deliverance. +There shall be light in it, glory in it. The world battles with its +troubles and seems sometimes to be successful, until we see how those +troubles have shaken its spirit and twisted its temper; and see, too, how +much of the beautiful and the strong and the sweet has been lost in the +fight. 'I will deliver him' with an abundant and an honourable +deliverance--he shall come forth from his tribulations more noble, tender, +and self-possessed. Hereafter there shall be given him the honour of one +whom the stress of life has driven into the arms of God. + +Oh how we miss this ministry of ennoblement! We reap a harvest of +insignificance from the seeds of sorrow sown in our hearts. We let our +cares dishonour us. The little cares rasp and fret and sting the manliness +and the womanliness and the godlikeness out of us. And the great cares +crush us earthward till there is scarcely a sweet word left in our lips or +a noble thought in our heart. A man cannot save his _soul_ in the day of +trouble. He cannot by himself make good the wear and tear of anxieties and +griefs. He can hold his head high and hide his secret deep, but he cannot +keep his life sweet. Only Christ can teach a man how to find the nameless +dignity of the crown of thorns. The kingship of suffering is a secret in +the keeping of faith and love. If a man accepts this deliverance of his God +folded in flashes of understanding, ministries of explanation, revivals of +faith, and gifts of endurance, he shall find the honour that is to be won +among life's hard and bitter things. + +_With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation._ We have +seen a grey-headed libertine, and we have missed from among the +clean-hearted and the faithful some brave young life that was giving itself +vigorously to the holy service. But perhaps we have had the grace not to +challenge the utter faithfulness of God. The measure of life is not written +on a registrar's certificates of birth and death. There is something here +that lies beyond dates and documents. Life here and hereafter is one, and +death is but an event in it. Who lives to God lives long, be his years many +or few. It is reasonable to expect some relationship between godliness and +longevity. But we are nearer the truth when we see how that faith and +prayer discover and secure the eternal values of fleeting days. + +_And show him My salvation._ That is the whole text summed up in one +phrase. That is the life of the godly man gathered into the compass of the +divine promise. For every one who goes the way of faith and obedience, life +in every phase of it, life here and hereafter, means but one thing and +holds but one thing, and that is _the salvation of the Lord_. + + + + +VIII. + +PETITION AND COMMUNION + + + Hear me speedily, O Lord.... + Cause me to hear ... + For I lift up my soul unto Thee. + + Ps. cxliii. 7, 8. + +You will notice that the first verse begins 'Hear me,' and the second +begins 'Cause me to hear'; and the second is greater than the first. Let us +look, then, at these two attitudes of a man in his hour of prayer. + +_Hear me._ The Psalmist began, where all men must begin, with himself. He +had something to utter in the hearing of the Almighty. He had something to +lay before his God--a story, a confession, a plea. His heart was full, and +must outpour itself into the ear of Heaven. 'Hear me speedily, O Lord.' We +have all prayed thus. We have all faced some situation that struck a note +of urgency in our life, and all your soul has come to our lips in this one +cry that went up to the Father, 'Hear me.' A sudden pain, a surprise of +sorrow, a few moments of misty uncertainty in the face of decisions that +had to be made at once, times when life has tried to rush us from our +established position and to bear us we know not where--and our soul has +reached out after God as simply and naturally as a man grasps at some fixed +thing when he is falling. + +There are times, too, when prayer is an indefinable relief. We all know +something about the relief of speech. We must speak to somebody. Our need +is not, first of all, either advice or practical help. We want a hearing. +We want some one to listen and sympathize. We want to share our pain. That +is what 'Hear me' sometimes means. Whatever Thou shalt see fit to do for +me, at least listen to my cry. Let me unburden my soul. Let me get this +weight of silence off my heart. This fashion of relief is part of the true +office of prayer. Herein lies the reasonableness of telling our story in +the ear of One who knows that story better than we do. We need not inform +the All-knowing, but we must commune with the All-pitiful. We make our life +known unto God that we may make it bearable unto ourselves. + +But let us look at the attitude of mind and heart revealed in this second +position, _Cause me to hear_. Now we are coming to the larger truth about +prayer, and the deeper spirit of it. Prayer is not merely claiming a +hearing; it is giving a hearing. It is not only speaking to God; it is +listening to God. And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are the +words we hear greater than the words we speak. Let us not forget this. Let +us not pauperize ourselves by our very importunity. Maybe we are vociferous +when God is but waiting for a silence to fall in His earthly temples that +He may have speech with His children. We talk about 'prevailing prayer,' +and there is a great truth in the phrase. All prayer does not prevail. +There is that among men which passes for prayer but has no spiritual grip, +no assurance, no masterful patience, no fine desperation. There is a place +for all these things, and a need for them, in the life of prayer. We need +the courage of a great faith and the earnestness that is born of necessity. +We need to be able to lift up our faces toward heaven in the swelling joys +and the startling perils of these mortal hours and cry, 'Hear me,' knowing +that God does hear us and that the outcrying of every praying heart rings +clear and strong in the courts of the Heavenly King. But we need something +more; we need a very great deal more than this, if we are to enter into the +true meaning of prevailing prayer. The final triumph of prayer is not ours; +it is God's. When we are upon our knees before Him, it is He, and not we, +that must prevail. This is the true victory of faith and prayer, when the +Father writes His purpose more clearly in our minds, lays His commandment +more inwardly upon our hearts. We do not get one faint glimpse into the +meaning of that mysterious conflict at Peniel until we see that the +necessity for the conflict lay in the heart of Jacob and not in the heart +of God. The man who wrestled with the Angel and prevailed passes before us +in the glow of the sunrise weary and halt, with a changed name and a +changed heart. So must it be with us; so shall it be, if ever we know what +it is to prevail in prayer. Importunity must not become a blind and +uninspired clamouring for the thing we desire. Such an attitude may easily +set us beyond the possibility of receiving that which God knows we need. We +must not forget that our poor little plea for help and blessing does not +exhaust the possibilities of prayer. Our words go upward to God's throne +twisted by our imperfect thinking, narrowed by our outlook, sterilized by +the doubts of our hearts, and we do not know what is good for us. His word +comes downward into our lives laden with the quiet certainty of the +Eternal, wide as the vision of Him who seeth all, deep as the wisdom of Him +who knoweth all. + +So, however much it may be to say 'Hear me,' it is vastly more to say +'Cause me to hear.' However much I have to tell Him, He has more to tell +me. This view of prayer will help to clear up for us some of the +difficulties that have troubled many minds. We hear people speak of +unanswered prayer; but there is no such thing, and in the nature of things +there cannot be. I do not mean by that, that to every prayer there will +come a response some day. To every prayer there is a response now. In our +confused and mechanical conception of the God to whom we pray, we separate +between His hearing and His answering. We identify the answer to prayer +with the granting of a petition. But prayer is more than petition. It is +not our many requests, it is an attitude of spirit. We grant readily that +our words are the least important part of our prayers. But very often the +petitions we frame and utter are no part of our prayers at all. They are +not prayer, yet uttering them we may pray a prayer that shall be heard and +answered, for every man who truly desires in prayer the help of God for his +life receives that help there and then, though the terms in which he +describes his need may be wholly wide of the truth as God knows it. So the +real answer to prayer is God's response to man's spiritual attitude, and +that response is as complete and continuous as the attitude will allow it +to be. The end of prayer is not to win concessions from Almighty Power, but +to have communion with Almighty Love. + +'Cause me to hear'; make a reverent, responsive, receptive silence in my +heart, take me out beyond my pleadings into the limitless visions and the +fathomless satisfactions of communion with Thyself. Speak to me. That is +true prayer. + + In the quietness of life, + When the flowers have shut their eye, + And a stainless breadth of sky + Bends above the hill of strife, + Then, my God, my chiefest Good, + Breathe upon my lonelihood: + Let the shining silence be + Filled with Thee, my God, with Thee. + + + + +IX. + +HAUNTED HOURS + + + Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, + when iniquity at my heels compasseth me about? + + Ps. xlix. 5. + +Iniquity _at my heels_. Temptation is very often indirect. It is compact of +wiles and subtleties and stratagems. It is adept at taking cover. It does +not make a frontal attack unless the obvious state of the soul's defences +justifies such a method of attempting a conquest. The stronger a man is, +the more subtle and difficult are the ways of sin, as it seeks to enter and +to master his life. There are many temptations that never face us, and +never give us a chance of facing them. They follow us. We can hear their +light footfall and their soft whisperings, but the moment we turn round +upon them they vanish. If they disappeared for good, they would be the +easiest to deal with of all the ill things that beset our lives. But they +do not. The moment we relax our bold, stern search for the face of the +enemy, there the evil thing is again--the light footfall and the soft +voice. It is terrible work fighting a suggestion. There are the thoughts +that a man will not cherish and cannot slay. They may never enter the +programme of his life, but there they are, haunting him, waiting, so to +speak, at the back of his brain, till he gets used to them. When he seeks +to grapple with these enemies his hands close on emptiness. One straight +blow, one decisive denial, one stern rebuke, one defiant confession of +faith will not suffice for these things. They compass a man's heels. He +cannot trample them down. The fashion of the evils that compass us +determines the form of the fight we wage with them. Preparations that might +amply suffice the city in the day when an army with banners comes against +it are no good at all if a plague has to be fought. So there is a way we +have to take with 'the iniquity at our heels.' It calls for much patience +and much prayer. If we cannot prevent sin from following us, we can at +least prevent ourselves from turning and following it. A man can always +choose his path if he cannot at every moment determine his company. And as +a man goes onward and upward steadfastly toward the City of Light, the evil +things fall off and drop behind, and God shall bring him where no evil +thing dare follow, and where no ravenous beast shall stalk its prey. + +The battle with sin is not an incident in the Christian life; it is the +abiding condition of it. While there are some temptations that we have to +slay, there are others we have to outgrow. They are overcome, not by any +one supreme assertion of the will, but by the patient cultivation of all +the loftiest and most wholesome and delicate and intensely spiritual modes +of feeling and of being. + +Again, let me suggest that iniquity at our heels is sometimes an old sin in +a new form. You remember the difficulty that Hiawatha had in hunting down +Pau-puk Keewis. That mischievous magician assumed the form of a beaver, +then that of a bird, then that of a serpent; and though each in turn was +slain, the magician escaped and mocked his pursuer. Surely a parable of our +strife with sin. We smite it in one form and it comes to life in another. +One day a man is angry--clenched fingers and hot words. He conquers his +anger; but the next day there is a spirit of bitterness rankling in his +heart, and maybe a tinge of regret that he did not say and do more when his +heart was hot within him and fire was on his lips. The sin he faced and +fought yesterday has become iniquity at his heels. Having failed to knock +him down, it tries to trip him up. Maybe many waste their energies trying +to deal with the _forms_ of sin, and never grapple with the _fact_ of sin. +Hence the evil things that compass men's souls about with their dread +ministries of suggestion, and flutter on unhallowed wings in the wake of +life. The sin that confronts us reveals to us our need of strength, but the +sin that dogs our steps has, maybe, a deeper lesson to teach us--even our +need of heart-deep holiness. Good resolution will do much to clear the path +ahead, but only purity of character can rid us of the persistent haunting +peril of the sin that plucks at the skirt of life. The deliverance God +offers to the struggling soul covers not only the hour of actual grappling +with the foe, but all the hours when it is the stealth and not the strength +of evil that we most have cause to fear. + +_Iniquity at my heels._ These words remind us that sin is not done with +after it is committed. God forgives sin, but He does not obliterate all its +consequences, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. A man may +have the light of the City of God flashing in his face, and a whole host of +shameful memories and bitter regrets crowding at his heels. We do not know +what sin is till we turn our backs on it. Then we find its tenacity and its +entanglement. What would we not give if only we could leave some things +behind us! What would we not do if only we could put a space between +ourselves and our past! The fetters of evil habit may be broken, but their +marks are upon us, and the feet that bore the fetters go more slowly for +them many days. The hands that have been used to grasping and holding do +not open without an effort, even though the heart has at last learned that +it is more blessed to give than to receive. + +Yes, and our sins come to life again in the lives of others. The light word +that ought to have been a grave word and that shook another's good +resolution, the cool word that ought to have been a warm word and that +chilled a pure enthusiasm--we cannot have done with these things. Parents +sometimes live to see their sins of indulgence or of neglect blighting the +lives of those to whom they owed a debt of firmness and kindness. It is +iniquity at the heels. These passages of carelessness and unfaithfulness +haunt men, be their repentance never so bitter and their amendment never so +sincere and successful. But all this is for discipline and not for despair. +It casts us back upon God's mercy. It keeps the shadow of the cross upon +all our path. It has something to do with the making of 'a humble, lowly, +penitent, and obedient heart.' The memory of the irreparable is a sorrow of +the saints. + + Saint, did I say? With your remembered faces, + Dear men and women whom I sought and slew! + Ah, when we mingle in the heavenly places, + How will I weep to Stephen and to you! + +Only let us not be afraid nor wholly cast down. Rather let us say, +'Wherefore should I fear when the iniquity at my heels compasseth me +about?' By the grace of God the hours of the soul's sad memory and of +clinging regrets shall mean unto us a ministry of humility and a passion of +prayer. And through them God shall give us glimpses of the gateway of that +life where regret and shame and sorrow fall back unable to enter. There is +a place whither the iniquity at a man's heels can no longer follow him, and +where in the perfect life the soul, at last, is able to forget. + + + + +X. + +THE WINGS OF THE DOVE + + + And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! + Then would I fly away, and be at rest.... + I would haste me to a shelter + From the stormy wind and tempest. + + Ps. lv. 6, 8. + +These words are the transcript of a mood. The writer is not unfolding to us +any of the deep persistent longings of his spirit; he is telling us of a +thought that shadowed his soul for an hour. Let us look into this mood of +his. It is not his in any unique or even peculiar sense. In moods, as in +manners, history is wont to repeat itself. The writer of this poem has +voiced one of the great common experiences of humanity. But let us be quite +clear as to what that experience really is. Let us not be misled by the +music and the seeming unworldliness of these words about winged flight from +a world of trouble and strife. The Psalmist was not looking heavenward, but +earthward, when this plea for wings broke from his heart. He was moved to +speak as he did, not by the surpassing charm of a heavenly vision, but by +the dark unrest of the earthly outlook. The emphatic note here is that of +departure, not of destination. It is necessary to remind ourselves that +this is so, for these words have become the classic of the home-sick soul. +They have been used to voice the farthest and most truly divine desires of +the human heart. And by virtue of such use they have gathered a meaning +which was not theirs at the beginning. At that meaning we will presently +look, but let us first of all look at this longing as it stands in the +psalm and as it represents an experience that is threaded through the +history of humanity. + +_Oh that I had wings ... then would I fly away._ Here the idea of fleeing +away suggests itself as a possible solution of life; and whenever it comes +to a man like this it is a source of weakness. It is not a desire to find +the joys of heaven; it is a desire to escape the pains of earth. There is +no vista, no wistful distance, no long, alluring prospect. The soul is +hemmed in by its enemies, crushed down by its burdens, beset on all sides +by the frets of the earthly lot; and there comes a vague desire to be out +of it all. It is not aspiration, it is evasion. It is not response to the +ideal, it is recoil from the actual. It is not the spell of that which +shall be that is upon the soul, but the irksomeness or the dreadfulness of +that which is. This is a mood that awaits us all. No man faces life as it +should be faced, but some can hardly be said to face it at all. Their face +is ever turned towards a seductive vision of quietness. The solution of +life for them is not in a fight, but in a retreat. Of course we know there +is no going back, and no easy deliverance from the burden and the battle, +but in the thick of any fight there is a great difference between the man +who wants victory and the man who merely wants a cessation of hostilities. + +This plea for wings does not necessarily betoken 'a desire to depart.' It +rather indicates a desire to remain under more favourable and comfortable +conditions. Such a mood is not the highest and the healthiest experience of +the soul. It is rather something against which we must fight relentlessly. +Very often the longing for wings results only in lagging footsteps. +Picturing to ourselves the luxury of laying life down will not help us to +face the duty of taking life up. The secret of enervation is found not in +the poverty of our resources, but in the cowardliness and selfishness of +our attitude towards life. The battle is half won when we have looked the +enemy in the face. The burden is the better borne as we stoop under the +full weight of it. + +_Oh that I had wings like a dove!_ That is a short-sighted and a selfish +desire. Supposing you had wings, what would you do? Fly away from the moil +of the world and find rest and shelter for yourself? Is that the best and +noblest thing to desire to do? After all, we know other and loftier moods +than this. We know that staying is better than going when there is so much +to stay for. We know that working is better than resting when there is so +much to do. We have something better to think about than a quiet lodgement +in the wilderness, we who live in a world where the strength of our hands +and the warmth of our hearts count for something. To give your tired +brother a lift is a vastly more profitable occupation than sitting at the +roadside and wishing you could fly. Man, you ought to be glad that you can +walk--in a world where there are so many cripples that want help. + +_Oh that I had wings!... then would I fly away._ That desire has never +taken any one to heaven, but it has made them less useful upon earth. The +breath of this desire is able to blight the flowers of social service. No +one would be foolish enough to indict suburbanism as a mode of life. The +day must surely come when few or none will dwell in the smoke-grimed heart +of the city. But in as far as a man seeks the fairest suburb open to him in +order that he may see little of, and think little of, 'the darkness of the +terrible streets,' then the very life that restores health to his body +shall sow seeds of disease in his soul. + +There is only one way to rest, and that lies right through the heart of the +world's work and pain. Rest is not for those who flee away from life's +difficulties, but for those who face them. 'Take my yoke ... and ye shall +find rest.' It were not well for our own sakes that we had wings. It were +not well for us to be able to avoid the burden-bearing and the tale of +tired days, for God has hidden the secret of our rest in the heart of our +toiling. They who come unto the City of God come there not by the easy +flight of a dove, but by the long, slow pilgrimage of unselfishness. + +Yet there is a beauty and a fitness in this longing. It is expressive of +more than the weariness of a world-worn spirit, or the thinly disguised +selfishness of one who fears to pay the price of life. + +When the long working-day of life is wearing away its last hours and +verging towards the great stillness, the voices of time fall but faintly on +the ear, the adorations and ideals and fashions and enthusiasms of the +world come to mean little to a man who in his day has followed them as +eagerly as any, and the heart within him asks only for rest. + + God, if there be none beside Thee + Dwelling in the light, + Take me out of the world and hide me + Somewhere behind the night. + +When, like Simeon the seer with the Christ-Child in his arms, a man feels +that for him life has said its last word and shown its last wonder and +uttered its last benediction, the desire for rest is a pure and spiritually +normal thing; it is just the soul's gaze turned upward where + + beyond these toils + God waiteth us above, + To give to hand and heart the spoils + Of labour and of love. + +And maybe this mood of which we are thinking may have a not unworthy place +in a strenuous life. As a tired woman pauses amid her tasks and looks out +of her cottage window to take into her heart the quiet beauty of the woods +where she knows the ground is fair with lilies, so do we find ourselves +looking out of life's small casement and thinking upon the fresh, free, +'outdoor' life the soul will some day live. And such a mood as this is +surely a sign of the soul's growth, a testimony of its responsiveness to +the divine touch, a sudden sense of its splendid destiny borne in upon it +among the grey and narrow circumstances of its service. + + Oh that I had a dove's swift, silver wings, + I said, so I might straightway leave behind + This strife of tongues, this tramp of feet, and find + A world that knows no struggles and no stings, + Where all about the soul soft Silence flings + Her filmy garment, and the vexèd mind + Grows quiet as there floats upon the wind + The soothing slumber-song of dreamless things. + And lo! there answered me a voice and said, + Man, thou hast hands and heart, take back thy prayer; + Covet life's weariness, go forth and share + The common suffering and the toil for bread. + Look not on Rest, although her face be fair, + And her white hands shall smooth thy narrow bed. + + + + +XI. + +A NEW SONG + + + O sing unto the Lord a new song. + + Ps. xcvi. 1. + +Time and again in the Psalter we find this appeal for a new song. First of +all, and most obviously, the appeal concerns the contents of the song. It +reminds us of the duty of making our grateful acknowledgement of God's +goodness to us expand with our growing experience of that goodness. It is, +if, one may so phrase it, a reminder to us that our praise needs bringing +up to date. A hymn considerably later in date than this psalm exhorts us to +'count' our 'blessings,' and to 'name them one by one.' This exhortation to +attempt the impossible is perhaps more worthy of being heeded than the form +in which it is presented to us might lead some to suppose. There is no +getting away from the simple fact that a man's thankfulness has a real and +proportionate relationship to the things for which he has cause to be +thankful. If in our daily life the phrase 'the goodness of God' is to have +a deepening and cumulative significance, it must be informed and vitalized +continually by an alert and responsive recognition of the forms in which +that goodness is ever freshly manifested to us. Whilst the roots of the +tree of praise lie deep beneath the surface, and wind their thousand ways +into dim places where memory itself cannot follow them, yet surely the +leaves of the tree are fresher and greener for rain that even now has left +its reviving touch upon them, and for the sunshine that is even now +stirring the life in all their veins. The figure is imperfect. We are not +trees. We do not respond automatically to all the gracious and cheering +ministries of the Eternal Goodness in our lives. We may easily overlook +many a good gift of our God. And though in our forgetfulness and +unthankfulness we profit by the sunlight and the dew and by each tender +thought of God for His creatures, yet the full and perpetual profit of all +good things is for each of us bound up with the power to see them, the +wisdom to appraise them, the mindfulness that holds them fast, and the +heart that sings out its thanksgiving for them. 'O sing unto the Lord a new +song.' Bring this day's life into the song. Bring the gift that has come to +thee this very hour into the song. Look about thee. See if there be but one +more flower springing at the path-side. See if the bud of yesterday has but +unfolded another leaf. Behold the loaf on thy table, feel the warmth of thy +hearth, yea, feel the very life within thee that woke again and stirred +itself with the morning light, and say these gifts are like unto the gifts +of yesterday, but they are not yesterday's gifts. Yesterday's bread is +broken, and yesterday's fire is dead, and yesterday's strength is spent. O +God, Thy mercies are new every morning! So shall a new song break from the +heart. + +It is quite possible, in taking what we believe to be a broad view of life, +to overlook many of the things that go to make life. Too much generalizing +makes for a barren heart. The specific has a vital place in the ministry of +praise. It is true that the highest flights of praise always carry the soul +beyond any conscious reckoning with the details of its experience. +Tabulation is not the keystone of the arch of thanksgiving. But to behold +the specific goodness of God in each day's life, to review the hours and to +say to one's own soul, Thus and thus hath my God been mindful of me, is +perhaps the surest and the simplest way to deepen and vitalize the habit of +praise in our life, and to set the new notes ringing in our psalm of +thanksgiving. + +But in this appeal for a new song of praise to God there is something more +than a recognition of new blessings. The new song is not merely the +response to new mercies and the tuneful celebration of recent good. If +there is to be ever a new note in the song, there must be ever a new note +in the singer's heart. And this cometh not by observation, but by +inspiration. You may change the words of the song and it may still be the +old song. You may sing the same words and it may yet be a new song. For as +is the singer, so is the song. + +_O sing unto the Lord a new song._ That is a plea for a deeper and a wider +life. It is a plea that sounds the depth of the heart and takes the measure +of the soul. The new song comes not of a truer enumeration of life's +blessings, but of a truer understanding of the blessedness of life itself. +The key to such understanding is character. When by the grace of the clean +heart and the enlightened and responsive spirit a man can get beneath the +events of each day's life and commune with that eternal law of love to +which each one of those events bears some relation--or had we not better +say commune with the Eternal Father by whom that law exists?--then is his +song of praise ever new. It is something to catch a glimpse of the mercy of +God, and to think and feel as one has not thought or felt before about some +part of life's daily good. But it is vastly more to learn to interpret the +whole of life in the terms of the goodness of God. The saint sings where +the worldling sighs. And if we find in that song only the apotheosis of +courage and resignation, we have neither found the source of the song nor +the message of it. The new song comes not from the thrill of peril faced +and defied, nor from the victorious acceptance of hard and bitter things. +It comes from that deep life of the soul in God, a life beyond the threat +of peril and beyond the touch of pain. It finds its deepest and freshest +notes not in contemplating the new gains and good of any day, but in a +growing sense of the timeless gain and eternal good of every day. + +And if all this be so, it surely follows that the service of praise is not +something unto which we may pass by one effort of the will or that depends +upon the stimulus of outward experience. It is conditioned rather by our +character, and by our power to see the unveiled face of life reflecting +always the light of perfect love. And it is to produce in us the right +character and the true insight that God disciplines us all our days. It is +to set a new song in our hearts. Said a professor of music at Leipzig of a +girl whom he had trained for some years and who was the pride of the +Conservatoire, 'If only some one would marry her and ill-treat her and +break her heart she would be the finest singer in Europe.' He missed +something in the song, and knew it could never come there save from the +heart of the singer. Trouble always strikes a new note in life, and often +the deepest note that is ever struck. But, be our experience joyous or +sorrowful, the true end of it must ever be to deepen our own hearts that +there may be in us ever a more catholic recognition of, and response to, +the Eternal Love. + +The human soul is not a mere repository of experiences. Memory is not the +true guardian of life's treasure. That treasure is invested in character. +In the moral world we _have_ what we _are_. So we may recall that which we +have never possessed, and may possess that which we can never recall. And +it is out of that which we have _become_ by God's grace, rather than out of +that which we have received of that grace, that the new song comes. + +So, as day by day we pray for the grace of new thanksgiving, we are seeking +something more than a new power to behold what good things each day brings +us, a readier way of reckoning the wealth of the passing hours. We are +seeking for a larger life in God, and for a spirit able, as it were, to +secrete from every experience its hidden meed of everlasting blessing. For +if the heart grow purer, the will stronger, the vision clearer, the +judgement truer--indeed, if there come to the soul each day some increase +of life--it shall surely find its way into living praise. And a living song +is always a new song. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Threshold Grace, by Percy C. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/13267-8.zip b/old/13267-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d0c7624 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13267-8.zip diff --git a/old/13267.txt b/old/13267.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da01118 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13267.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1786 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Threshold Grace, by Percy C. Ainsworth + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Threshold Grace + +Author: Percy C. Ainsworth + +Release Date: August 24, 2004 [EBook #13267] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THRESHOLD GRACE *** + + + + +Produced by David Newman, Clare Boothby and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +THE THRESHOLD GRACE + +_MEDITATIONS IN THE PSALMS_ + +BY + +PERCY C. AINSWORTH + +AUTHOR OF 'THE PILGRIM CHURCH.' 'THE BLESSED LIFE,' ETC. + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +During his brief ministry Mr. Ainsworth published a series of meditations +in the columns of the _Methodist Times_, which are here reprinted by the +kind permission of the Editor, Dr. Scott Lidgett. The rare interest aroused +by the previous publication of Mr. Ainsworth's sermons encourages the hope +that the present volume may find a place in the devotional literature to +which many turn in the quiet hour. + +A.K.S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE THRESHOLD GRACE + II. THE HABIT OF FAITH + III. THE ONE THING DESIRABLE + IV. EYES AND FEET + V. THE SAFEGUARDED SOUL + VI. A PLEA FOR TEARS + VII. DELIVERANCE WITH HONOUR +VIII. PETITION AND COMMUNION + IX. HAUNTED HOURS + X. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE + XI. A NEW SONG + + + + +I. + +THE THRESHOLD GRACE + + + The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming + in, from this time forth and for evermore. + + Ps. cxxi, 8. + +Going out and coming in. That is a picture of life. Beneath this old Hebrew +phrase there lurks a symbolism that covers our whole experience. But let us +just now look at the most literal, and by no means the least true, +interpretation of these words. One of the great dividing-lines in human +life is the threshold-line. On one side of this line a man has his 'world +within the world,' the sanctuary of love, the sheltered place of peace, the +scene of life's most personal, sacred, and exclusive obligations. And on +the other side lies the larger life of mankind wherein also a man must take +his place and do his work. Life is spent in crossing this threshold-line, +going out to the many and coming in to the few, going out to answer the +call of labour and coming in to take the right to rest. And over us all +every hour there watches the Almighty Love. The division-lines in the life +of man have nothing that corresponds to them in the love of God. We may be +here or there, but He is everywhere. + +_The Lord shall keep thy going out._ Life has always needed that promise. +There is a pledge of help for men as they fare forth to the world's work. +It was much for the folk of an early time to say that as they went forth +the Lord went with them, but it is more for men to say and know that same +thing to-day. The _going out_ has come to mean more age after age, +generation after generation. It was a simpler thing once than it is now. +'Thy going out'--the shepherd to his flocks, the farmer to his field, the +merchant to his merchandise. There are still flocks and fields and markets, +but where are the leisure, grace, and simplicity of life for him who has +any share in the world's work? Men go out to-day to face a life shadowed by +vast industrial, commercial, and social problems. Life has grown +complicated, involved, hard to understand, difficult to deal with. Tension, +conflict, subtlety, surprise, and amid it all, or over it all, a vast +brooding weariness that ever and again turns the heart sick. Oh the pains +and the perils of the going out! There are elements of danger in modern +life that threaten all the world's toilers, whatever their work may be and +wherever they may have to do it. There is the danger that always lurks in +_things_--a warped judgement, a confused reckoning, a narrowed outlook. It +is so easily possible for a man to be at close grips with the world and yet +to be ever more and more out of touch with its realities. The danger in the +places where men toil is not that God is denied with a vociferous atheism; +it is that He is ignored by an unvoiced indifference. It is not the babel +of the market-place that men need to fear; it is its silence. If we say +that we live only as we love, that we are strong only as we are pure, that +we are successful only as we become just and good, the world into which we +go forth does not deny these things--but it ignores them. And thus the real +battle of life is not the toil for bread. It is fought by all who would +keep alive and fresh in their hearts the truth that man doth not live by +bread alone. For no man is this going out easy, for some it is at times +terrible, for all it means a need that only this promise avails to +meet--'The Lord shall keep thy going out.' He shall fence thee about with +the ministry of His Spirit, and give thee grace to know, everywhere and +always, that thou art in this world to live for His kingdom of love and +truth and to grow a soul. + +_The Lord, shall keep ... thy coming in._ It might seem to some that once a +man was safely across the threshold of his home he might stand in less need +of this promise of help. But experience says otherwise. The world has +little respect for any man's threshold. It is capable of many a bold and +shameless intrusion. The things that harass a man as he earns his tread +sometimes haunt him as he eats it. No home is safe unless faith be the +doorkeeper. 'In peace will I both lay me down and sleep, for Thou, Lord, +alone makest me to dwell in safety.' The singer of that song knew that, as +in the moil of the world, so also in the shelter of the place he named his +dwelling-place, peace and safety were not of his making, but of God's +giving. + +Sometimes there is a problem and a pain waiting for a man across his own +threshold. Many a man can more easily look upon the difficulties and perils +of the outer world than he can come in and look into the pain-lined face of +his little child. If we cannot face alone the hostilities on one side of +our threshold we cannot face alone the intimacies on the other side of it. +After all, life is whole and continuous. Whatever the changes in the +setting of life, there is no respite from living. And that means there is +no leisure from duty, no rest from the service of obedience, no cessation +in the working of all those forces by means of which, or in spite of which, +life is ever being fashioned and fulfilled. + +And now let us free our minds from the literalism of this promise and get a +glimpse of its deeper application to our lives. The threshold of the home +does not draw the truest division-line in life between the outward and the +inward. Life is made up of thought and action, of the manifest things and +the hidden things. + +'Thy going out.' That is, our life as it is manifest to others, as it has +points of contact with the world about us. We must go out. We must take up +some attitude toward all other life. We must add our word to the long human +story and our touch to the fashioning of the world. We need the pledge of +divine help in that life of ours in which, for their good or ill, others +must have a place and a part. 'And thy coming in'--into that uninvaded +sanctum of thought. Did we say uninvaded? Not so. In that inner room of +life there sits Regret with her pale face, and Shame with dust on her +forehead, and Memory with tears in her eyes. It is a pitiable thing at +times, is this our coming in. More than one man has consumed his life in a +flame of activity because he could not abide the coming in. 'The Lord shall +keep ... thy coming in.' That means help for every lonely, impotent, inward +hour of life. + +Look at the last word of this promise--'for evermore.' Going out and coming +in for evermore. I do not know how these words were interpreted when very +literal meanings were attached to the parabolic words about the streets of +gold and the endless song. But they present no difficulty to us. Indeed, +they confirm that view of the future which is ever taking firmer hold of +men's minds, and which is based on the growing sense of the continuity of +life. To offer a man an eternity of music-laden rest is to offer him a poor +thing. He would rather have his going out and his coming in. Yes, and he +shall have them. All that is purest and best in them shall remain. +Hereafter he shall still go out to find deeper joys of living and wider +visions of life; still come in to greater and ever greater thoughts of God. + + + + +II. + +THE HABIT OF FAITH + + + Trust in Him at all times, ye people. + Pour out your heart before Him. + God is a refuge for us. + + Ps. lxii. 8. + +Here the Psalmist strikes the great note of faith as it should be struck. +He sets it ringing alike through the hours and the years. _Trust in Him at +all times._ Faith is not an act, but an attitude; not an event, but a +principle; not a last resource, but the first and abiding necessity. It is +the constant factor in life's spiritual reckonings. It is the +ever-applicable and the ever-necessary. It is always in the high and +lasting fitness of things. There are words that belong to hours or even +moments, words that win their meaning from the newly created situation. But +faith is not such a word. It stands for something inclusive and imperial. +It is one of the few timeless words in earth's vocabulary. For the deep +roots of it and the wide range of it there is nothing like unto it in the +whole sweep of things spiritual. So the 'all times' trust is not for one +moment to be regarded as some supreme degree of faith unto which one here +and there may attain and which the rest can well afford to look upon as a +counsel of perfection. This exhortation to trust in God at all times +concerns first of all the _nature_ of faith and not the _measure_ of it. +All real faith has the note of the eternal in it. It can meet the present +because it is not of the present. We have grown familiar with the phrase, +'The man of the moment.' But who is this man? Sometimes he is very +literally a man of the moment--an opportunist, a gambler with the hours, a +follower of the main chance. The moment makes him, and passing away unmakes +him. But the true man of the moment is the man to whom the moment is but +one throb in the pulse of eternity. For him the moment does not stand out +in splendid isolation. It is set in its place between that which hath been +and that which shall be. And its true significance is not something abiding +in it, but something running through it. So is it in this great matter of +faith. Only the faith that can trust at all times can trust at any time. +The moment that faith heeds the dictation of circumstance it ceases to be +faith and becomes calculation. All faith is transcendent. It is independent +of the conditions in which it has to live. It is not snared in the strange +web of the tentative and the experimental. He that has for one moment felt +the power of faith has got beyond the dominion of time. + +_Trust in Him at all times._ That is the only real escape from confusion +and contradiction in the judgements we are compelled to pass upon life. +Times change so suddenly and inexplicably. The hours seem to be at strife +with each other. We live in the midst of a perpetual conflict between our +yesterdays and our to-days. There is no simple, obvious sequence in the +message of experience. The days will not dovetail into each other. Life is +compact of much that is impossible of true adjustment at the hands of any +time-born philosophy. And in all this seeming confusion there lies the +necessity for faith. Herein it wins its victory. We are to trust God not +because we cannot trace Him, but that by trusting Him we may ever be more +able to trace Him and to see that He has a way through all these winding +and crossing paths. Faith does more than hold a man's hand in the darkness; +it leads him into the light. It is the secret of coherence and harmony. It +does not make experience merely bearable, it makes it luminous and +instructive. It takes the separate or the tangled strands of human +experience and weaves them into one strong cable of help and hope. + +_Trust in Him at all times._ Then faith at its best is a habit. Indeed, +religion at its best is a habit, too! We are sometimes too ready to +discount the worth of the habitual in our religious life. We put a premium +on self-consciousness. We reduce the life of faith to a series of acts of +faith of varying difficulty and import, but each detached from the rest and +individually apprehended of the soul. Surely this is all wrong. In our +physical life we are least conscious of those functions that are most vital +and continuous, and the more perfectly they do their work the less we think +about them. The analogy is incomplete and must be drawn with care. But when +you have conceded that faith has to be acquired, that it has to be learned, +there is still this much in the analogy. If faith is a long and hard +lesson, the value of the lesson to us is not the effort with which we learn +it, but the ease with which we apply it. The measure of conscious effort in +our faith is the measure of our faith's weakness. When faith has become a +spontaneity of our character, when it turns to God instinctively, when it +does its work with the involuntariness of habit, then it has become strong. + +_Pour out your heart before Him._ How this singer understood the office and +privilege of the 'all times' trust! He knew that there is a fullness of +heart that is ill to bear. True, in more than one simple way the full heart +can find some slight relief. There is work. The full heart can go out and +do something. There is a brother's trouble in which a man may partly forget +his own. There is sympathy. Surely few are so lonely that they cannot find +any one ready to offer the gift of the listening ear, any one willing to +share with them all of pain and burden that can be shared. Ah! but what of +that which cannot be shared? What of the sorrow that has no language, and +the shame and confusion that we would not, and even dare not, trail across +a friend's mind? So often the heart holds more than ever should be poured +out into another's ear. There are in life strained silences that we could +not break if we would. And there is a law of reticence that true love and +unselfishness will always respect. If my brother hath joy, am I to cloud it +with my grief? If he hath sorrow, am I to add my sorrow unto his? When our +precious earthly fellowship has been put to its last high uses in the hour +of sorrow or shame, the heart has still a burden for which this world finds +no relief. But there is another fellowship. There is God our Father. There +is the ear of Heaven. We may be girt with silence among our fellows, but in +looking up the heart finds freedom. In His Presence the voice of confession +can break through the gag of shame, and the pent-up tide of trouble can let +itself break upon the heart of Eternal Love. + +_God is a refuge for us._ That is the great discovery of faith. That is the +merciful word that comes to be written so plainly in the life that has +formed the habit of faith. God our refuge. It may be that to some the word +'refuge' suggests the occasional rather than the constant need of life. But +the refuge some day and the faith every day are linked together. A thing is +no use to you if you cannot find it when you want it. And you cannot find +it easily if it be not at hand. The peasant built his cottage under the +shadow of his lord's castle walls. In the hour of peril it was but a step +to the strong fortress. 'Trust in Him at all times.' Build your house under +the walls of the Eternal Help. Live in the Presence. Find the attitude of +faith, and the act of faith will be simple. Trust in Him through every +hour, and when a tragic hour comes one step shall take you into the +innermost safety. + + + + +III. + +THE ONE THING DESIRABLE + + + One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will + I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of + the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the + beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. + + Ps. xxvii. 4. + +_I have desired ... I will seek._ Amid the things that are seen, desire and +quest are nearly always linked closely together. The man who desires money +seeks after money. The desire of the world is often disappointed, but it is +rarely supine. It is dynamic. It leads men. True, it leads them astray; but +that is a reflection on its wisdom and not on its effectiveness. Among what +we rightly call the lower things men do not play with their desires, they +obey them. But amid the unseen realities of life it is often quite +otherwise. In the religious life desire is sometimes strangely ineffective. +It is static, if that be not a contradiction in terms. In many a life-story +it stands written: One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I dream +of, that will I hope for, that will I wait for. Many things help to explain +this attitude, and, explaining it, they condemn it also. We allow our +surroundings to pass judgement on our longings. We bring the eternal to the +bar of the hour, and postpone the verdict. Or it may be in the worldliness +of our hearts we admit the false plea of urgency and the false claim of +authority made by our outward life. And perhaps more commonly the soul +lacks the courage of its desires. It costs little to follow a desire that +goes but a little way, and that on the level of familiar effort and within +sight of familiar things. It is another thing to hear the call of the +mountains and to feel the fascination of some far and glittering peak. That +is a call to perilous and painful effort. And yet again, high desire +sometimes leaves life where it found it because the heart attaches an +intrinsic value to vision. It is something to have _seen_ the Alpine +heights of possibility. Yes, it is something, but what is it? It is a +golden hour to the man who sets out to the climb; it is an hour of shame +and judgement, hereafter to be manifest, to the man who clings to the +comforts of the valley. + +_One thing have I desired._ When a man speaks thus unto us, we have a right +to ponder his words with care. We naturally become profoundly interested, +expectant, and, to the limit of our powers, critical. If a man has seen one +thing that he can call simply and finally the desire of his heart, it ought +to be worth looking at. We expect something large, lofty, inclusive. And we +find this: '_That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my +life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple._' Let +us examine this desire, And, first of all, we must free our minds from mere +literalism. If we do not, we shall find in this desire many things that are +not in it, and miss everything that is in it. This is not the longing for a +cloistered life, the confession of one who is weary of this heavy world, +doubtful of its promises and afraid of its powers. 'The house of the Lord' +is not a place, but a state, not an edifice, but an attitude. It is a fair +and unseen dwelling-place builded by the hands of God to be the home, here +and hereafter, of all the hearts that purely love and worship Him. We read +of one who, a day's march from his father's house, lay down and slept; and +in his sleep God spake to him, and lo, out in a wild and lonely place, +Jacob said, 'This is none other but the house of God.' For every one to +whom the voice of God has come, and who has listened to that voice and +believed in its message, the mountains and valleys of this fair world, the +breath of every morning and the hush of every evening, are instinct with a +Presence. Wordsworth dwelt in the house of the Lord all the days of his +life. And if the wonder and beauty of the earth lift up our hearts unto our +God in praise and worship, we dwell there also. + +Yes, but this world is a world of men. In city or on hillside the great +persistent fact for us, the real setting of our life, is not nature, but +humanity. Life is not a peaceful vision of earthly beauty. Our experience +is not a dreamy pastoral. There are shamed and broken lives. The world is +full of greed and hate and warfare and sorrow. Nature at its best cannot by +itself build for us a temple that humanity at its worst, or even at +something less than its worst, cannot pull down about our ears. For the +Psalmist, probably David himself, the temple was symbolic of all heavenly +realities. It stood for the holiness and the nearness and the mercy of God, +and for the sacredness and the possibility of human life. In the light and +power and perfect assurance of these things he desired to dwell all the +days of his life. For us there is the life and word of One greater than the +temple. Jesus of Nazareth dwelt in the house of the Lord. Between Him and +God the Father there was perfect union. And no one ever saw the worth of +human life as Jesus saw it. And no one ever measured the sacred values of +humanity as He measured them. And now, in the perfect mercy of God, there +is no man but may dwell in the house of God alway and feel life's +sacredness amidst a thousand desecrations, and know its preciousness amidst +all that seeks to obscure, defile, and cheapen it. + +_To behold the beauty of the Lord._ It is only in the house of the Lord, +the unseen fane of reverence, trust, and communion, that a man can learn +what beauty is, and where to look for it. Out in the world beauty is held +to be a sporadic thing. It is like a flower growing where no one expected a +blossom. It is an unrelated and unexplained surprise. It is a green oasis +in the desert of unlovely and unpromising things. But for the dweller in +the house of the Lord beauty is not on this wise. Said one such dweller, +'The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.' He looked across the +leagues of burning sand and saw the loveliness of Carmel by the sea, and of +Sharon where the lilies grow. To the artist beauty is an incident, to the +saint beauty is a law of life. It is the thing that is to be. It is the +positive purpose, throbbing and yearning and struggling in the whole +universe. When it emerges and men behold it, they behold the face of truth; +and if it emerges not, it is still there, the fundamental fact and the +vital issue of human life. To dwell in the Divine Presence by faith and +obedience; to live so near to God that you can see all about yourself and +every human soul the real means of life, and straight before you the real +end of life; to know that though so often the worst is man's dark choice, +yet ever the best is his true heritage; and to learn to interpret the whole +of life in the terms of God's saving purpose,--this is to behold the beauty +of the Lord. + +_And to inquire in His temple._ The Psalmist desired for himself an inward +attitude before God that should not only reveal unto him the eternal +fitness of all God's ways and the eternal grace of all His purposes, but +should also put him in the way of solving the various problems that arise +to try the wisdom and strength of men's lives. Sometimes the first court of +appeal in life, and always the last, is the temple court. When all the +world is dumb, a voice speaks to them that worship. Reverential love never +loses its bearings. In this world we need personal and social guidance, and +there must be many times when both shall be wanting unless we have learned +to carry the burden of our ignorance to the feet of the Eternal Wisdom. And +perhaps a man can desire no better thing for himself than that the +reverence and devotion of his life should be such as to make the appeal to +God's perfect arbitrament an easy thing. + + + + +IV. + +EYES AND FEET + + + Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord, + For He shall pluck my feet out of the net. + + Ps. xxv. 15. + +In any man's life a great deal depends upon outlook. In some ways we +recognize this fact. We do not by choice live in a house whose windows +front a blank wall. A little patch of green grass, a tree, a peep of sky, +or even the traffic of a busy street--anything rather than a blank wall. +That is a sound instinct, but it ought to go deeper than it sometimes does. +This outlook and aspect question is important when you are building a +house, but it is vastly more important when you are building a character. +The soul has eyes. The deadliest monotony is that of a dull soul. Life is a +poor affair for any man who looks out upon the blind walls of earthly +circumstance and necessity, and cannot see from his soul's dwelling-place +the pink flush of the dawn that men call hope, and who has no garden where +he may grow the blossoms of faith and sweet memory, the fair flowers of +holy human trusts and fellowships. Only the divinity of life can deliver us +from the monotony of living. 'Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.' This man +has an infinite outlook. It matters not whether he looked out through +palace windows or lived in the meanest house in Jerusalem's city. It is the +eye that makes the view. This man had a fairer prospect than ever man had +who looked seaward from Carmel or across the valleys from the steeps of +Libanus. It was his soul that claimed the prospect. From the window of the +little house of life he saw the light of God lying on the everlasting +hills. That is the real deliverance from the monotony of things. The man +who is weary of life is the man who has not seen it. The man who is tied to +his desk sometimes thinks everything would be right if only he could +travel. But many a man has done the Grand Tour and come back no better +contented. You cannot fool your soul with Mont Blanc or even the Himalayas. +So many thousand feet, did you say?--but what is that to infinity! The cure +for the fretful soul is not to go _round_ the world; it is to get _beyond_ +it. + +_Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord._ That is the view we want. We gaze +contemptuously on the little one-story lodge just inside the park gates, +and fail to get a glimpse of the magnificent mansion, with its wealth of +adornment and treasure, that lies a mile among the trees. No wonder that +men grow discontented or contemptuous when they mistake the porch for the +house. If a man would understand himself and discover his resources and put +his hand on all life's highest uses, he must look out and up unto his God. +Then he comes to know that sunrise and sunset, and the beauty of the earth, +and child-life and old age, and duty and sorrow, and all else that life +holds, are linked to the larger life of an eternal world. + +That is the true foresight. They called him a far-seeing man. How did he +get that name? Well, he made a fortune. He managed to make use of the ebb +and flow of the market, and never once got stranded. He was shrewd and did +some good guessing, and now, forsooth, they say he is 'very far-seeing.' +But he has not opened his Bible for years, and the fountains of sympathy +are dried up in his soul. He can see as far into the money column as most +men, but the financial vista is not very satisfying for those who see it +best. The Gospel of St. John is a sealed book to him, and that is in God's +handwriting and opens the gates of heaven. Far-seeing? Why, the man is in a +tiny cell, and he is going blind. 'Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord.' +That is the far-sighted man. He can see an ever larger life opening out +before him. He can see the glory of the eternal righteousness beneath his +daily duties and the wonder of eternal love in the daily fellowships and +fulfilments of the brotherhood. This is measuring life by the heavenly +measurement. This is the vision we need day by day and at the end of the +days. For interest in some things must wane, and life must become less +responsive to all that lies about it, and many an earthly link is broken +and many an earthly window is darkened, and the old faces and old ways +pass, and the thing the old man cherishes is trodden under foot by the +impetuous tread of a new generation, and desire fails. Then it is well with +him whose eyes have already caught glimpses of 'the King in His beauty,' +and 'the land that is very far off.' + +But think for a moment of the present value of the divine outlook upon +life. It brings guidance and deliverance. Set side by side the two +expressions 'eyes unto the Lord,' and 'feet out of the net.' Life is more +than a vision; it is a pilgrimage. We see the far white peaks whereon rests +the glory of life, but reaching them is not a matter of eyes, but of feet. +Here, maybe, the real problem of godly living presents itself to us. Here +our Christian idealism lays a burden on us. It is possible to see distances +that would take days to traverse. Even so we can see heights of spiritual +possibility that we shall not reach while the light holds good unless we +foot it bravely. And it is not an easy journey. There are so many snares +set for the pilgrims of faith and hope. There are subtle silken nets woven +of soft-spun deceits and filmy threads of sin; and there are coarse strong +nets fashioned by the strong hands of passion and evil desire. There are +nets of doubt and pain and weakness. But think of the man whose eyes were +ever towards the Lord. He came through all right. He always does. He always +will. He looked steadily upward to his God. When we get into the net we +yield to the natural tendency to look down at our feet. We try to discover +how the net is made. We delude ourselves with the idea that if only we take +time we shall be able to extricate ourselves; but it always means getting +further entangled. It is a waste of time to study the net. Life is ever +weaving for us snares too intricate for us to unravel and too strong for us +to break. God alone understands how they are made and how they may be +broken. He does not take us round the net or over it, but He does not leave +us fast by the feet in the midst of it. He always brings a man out on the +heavenward side of the earthly difficulty. Look upward and you are bound to +go forward. + + + + +V. + +THE SAFEGUARDED SOUL + + + The Lord shall keep thee from all evil; + He shall keep thy soul. + + Ps. cxxi. 7. + +One of the great offices of religion is to help men to begin at the +beginning. If you wish to straighten out a tangle of string, you know that +it is worth your while to look patiently for one of the ends. If you make +an aimless dash at it the result is confusion worse confounded, and +by-and-by the tangle is thrown down in despair, its worst knots made by the +hands that tried in a haphazard way to simplify it. Life is that tangle; +and religion, if it does not loosen all the knots and straighten all the +twists, at least shows us where the two ends are. They are with God and the +soul. God deals with a man's soul. We cannot explain the facts of our +experience or the fashion of our circumstance save in as far as we can see +these things reflected in our character. The true spiritual philosophy of +life begins its inquiry in the soul, and works outward into all the +puzzling mass of life's details. And the foundation of such a philosophy is +not experience, but faith. It is true that experience often confirms faith, +but faith interprets experience. Experience asks more questions than it can +answer. It collects more facts than it can explain. It admits of many +different constructions being put upon it. It puts us first of all into +touch with the problem of life rather than the solution. If the gentle, +patient words of the saint are the utterance of one who has suffered, so +also are the bitter protests of the disappointed worldling. The fashion of +the experience may be the same in each case. It is faith that makes the +lesson different. It is a want of faith that makes us expect the lower in +life to explain the higher, the outward to shed light upon the inward. We +pluck with foolish, aimless fingers at this strange tangle of human life. +We judge God's way with us as far as we can see it, and we think we have +got to the end of it. We draw our shallow conclusions. Faith teaches us +that God's way with us is a longer and a deeper way, and the end of that +way is down in the depths of our spirit, hidden in the love of our +character. It is not here and now. It is in what we shall be if God have +His will with us. + +All the true definitions of things are written in the soul. It was here +that the Psalmist found his definition of evil. 'The Lord shall keep thee +from all evil; He shall keep thy soul.' Then evil is something that +threatens the soul. It is not material, but spiritual. It is not in our +circumstances themselves, but in their effect upon the inward life. The +same outward conditions of life may be good or evil according to their +influence on our character. Good and evil are not qualities of things. They +have no meaning apart from the soul. The world says that health and wealth +are good, and that sickness and poverty are evil. If that were true the +line that separates the healthy from the sick, the rich from the poor, +would also separate the happy from the miserable. But we find joy and +sorrow on both sides of that line. We are drawn to look deeper than this +for our definition of good and evil. We have to make the soul the final +arbiter amid these conflicting voices. Here we must find the true +definition of evil. The first question we ask when we hear of a house +having been burnt down is this: 'Was there any loss of life?' All else lies +on a vastly lower plane of interest and importance. So must we learn to +distinguish between the house of circumstance, or the house of the body, +and the soul that dwells in it. The only real loss is the 'loss of life,' +the loss of any of these inner things that go to make the soul's strength +and treasure. The man who has lost everything except faith and hope has, +maybe, lost nothing at all. There are some among the pilgrims of faith +to-day who would never have been found there had not God cast upon their +shoulders the ragged cloak of poverty; and if you know anything about that +band of pilgrims you will know that the man who outstrips his companions is +often a man who is lame on both his feet. + +O sceptic world, this is the final answer to your scepticism, an answer +none the less true because you cannot receive it: _The Lord keepeth the +souls of His saints._ Have you not seen men thinning out a great tree, +cutting off some of its noblest branches and marring its splendid symmetry? +And very likely you have felt it was a great shame to do so. But that work +of maiming and spoiling meant light and sunshine and air in a close and +darkened room. It meant health to the dwellers in the house over which the +tree had cast its shadow. It is much to have tall and stately trees in the +garden of life. But by-and-by that great oak of vigour begins to darken the +windows of faith, and God lops some of the branches. We call it suffering, +but it means more light. Or it may be that those firs of lordly ambition +have grown taller than the roof-tree, and God sends forth His storm-wind to +lay them low. We call it failure, but it means a better view of the stars. +Ah, yes, we are over-anxious about the trees in the garden. God cares most +of all that the light of His truth and the warmth of His love and the +breath of His Spirit shall reach and fill every room in the house of life. + +_He shall keep thy soul._ That is a promise that can fold us in divine +comfort and peace, and that can do something towards interpreting for us +every coil of difficulty, every hour of pain. But if this is to be so, we +must ourselves be true to the view of life the promise gives us. We must +think of the soul as God thinks of it. We live in a world where souls are +cheap. They are bought and sold day by day. It is strange beyond all +understanding that the only thing many a man is not afraid of losing is the +one thing that is really worth anything to him--his soul. Sometimes the +lusts of the world drag down our heart's desire, and we have to confess +with shame to moments in our experience when we have not been at all +concerned with what became of our soul so long as the desire of the hour +was fulfilled or satisfied. We need to seek day by day that the masterful +and abiding desires of our heart may be set upon undying good, and that our +aspiration may never fold its wings and rest on anything lower than the +highest. This shall not make dreamers of us. It shall stand us in good +stead in the thick of the world. The man who gets 'the best of the bargain' +is always the man who is most honest; for the most precious thing that a +man stands to win or lose in any deal is the cleanness of his soul. The man +who gets the best of the argument is always the man who is most truthful; +for a quiet conscience is better than a silenced opponent. The man who gets +the best of life is the man who keeps the honour of his soul; for Jesus +said: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his +own soul?' + +So then, amid the manifold uncertainties of human life and the +ever-changing forms and complexions of human experience, one thing is +pledged beyond all doubt to every man who seeks the will of God and the +promise for the safeguarding of his soul. He may write this at the top of +every page in the book of life. He may take it for his light in dark days, +his comfort in sad days, his treasure in empty days. He may have it on his +lips in the hour of battle and in his heart in the day of disappointment. +He may meet his temptations with it, interpret his sufferings with it, +build his ideal with it. And it shall come to pass that he shall learn to +look with untroubled eyes upon the outward things of life, nor fear the +touch of its thousand grasping hands, knowing that his soul is in the hands +of One who can keep it safe in all the world's despite, even God Himself. + + + + +VI. + +A PLEA FOR TEARS + + + They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. + He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, + Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, + Bringing his sheaves with him. + + Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6. + +It is almost impossible to recall the joys and sorrows of life without +having some thought of their compensative relation. We set our bright days +against our dark days. We weigh our successes against our failures. When +the hour through which we are living is whispering a bitter message, we +recall the kindlier messages of other hours and say that we have much for +which we ought to be thankful. And such a deliberate handling of +experience, such a quiet adjustment of memories, is not without its uses. +Any view of life that will save a man from whining is worth taking. Any +reckoning that will prevent a man from indulging in self-pity--that +subtlety of selfishness--is worth making. There is, moreover, something +very simple and obvious in this way of thinking and judging. To make one +kind of experience deal with another kind, to set the days and the hours in +battle array--or shall we say to arrange a tourney where some +gaily-caparisoned and well-mounted Yesterday is set to tilt with a +black-visored and silent To-day--is a way of dealing with life which seems +to have much to commend it. But it has at the best serious limitations, and +at the worst it may issue in a tragedy. The wrong knight may be unhorsed. +The award may go to him of the black plume. Pitting one experience against +another has gone to the making of many a cynic and not a few despairing +souls. The compensative interpretation of joy and sorrow may bring an +answer of peace to a man's soul, or it may not. But in this matter we are +dealing with things in which we cannot afford to risk an equivocal or a +despairing answer. We must win in every encounter. It is not an hour's joy, +but a life's outlook that is at stake. No hour's fight was ever worth +fighting if it was fought for the sake of the hour. The moments are ever +challenging the eternal, the swift and busy hours fling their gauntlets at +the feet of the ageless things. The real battle of life is never between +yesterday and to-day; it is always between to-day and the Forever. + +To isolate an experience is to misinterpret it. We may even completely +classify experiences, and yet completely misunderstand experience. To +understand life at all we must get beyond the incidental and the +alternating. Life is not a series of events charged with elements of +contrast, contradiction, or surprise. It is a deep, coherent, and +unfaltering process. And one feels that it was something more than the +chance of the moment that led the singer of old to weave the tears and the +rejoicings of men's lives into a figure of speech that stands for unity of +process, even the figure of the harvest. + +_They that sow in tears shall reap in joy._ The sweep of golden grain is +not some arbitrary compensation for the life of the seed cast so lavishly +into the ground, and biding the test of darkness and cold. It is the very +seed itself fulfilled of all its being. Even so it is with the sorrows of +these hearts of ours and the joy unto which God bringeth us. He does not +fling us a few glad hours to atone for the hours wherein we have suffered +adversity. There is a deep sense in which the joys of life are its ripened +sorrows. + +_They that sow in tears.... He that goeth forth and weepeth._ These are not +the few who have been haunted by apparent failure, or beset with outwardly +painful conditions of service. They are not those who have walked in the +shadow of a lost leader, or toiled in the grey loneliness of a lost comrade +or of a brother proved untrue. For apparent failure, outward difficulty and +loneliness, often as we may have to face them, are, after all, only the +accidents of Godward toil. And if the bearer of seed for God's great +harvest should go forth to find no experience of these things, still, if he +is to do any real work in the fields of the Lord, he must go forth weeping. +He must sow in tears. Let a man be utterly faithful and sincere, let him +open his heart without reserve to the two great claims of the ideal and +sympathy, and he shall come to know that he has not found the hidden +meaning of daily service, nor learned how he can best perform that service, +until he has tasted the sorrow at the heart of it. The tears that are the +pledge of harvest are not called to the eyes by ridicule or opposition. +They are not the tears of disappointment, vexation, or impotence. They are +tears that dim the eyes of them that see visions, and gather in the heart +of them that dream dreams. To see the glory of God in the face of Jesus +Christ and the blindness of the world's heart to that glory; to see +unveiled the beauty that should be, and, unveiled too, the shame that is; +to have a spiritual nature that thrills at the touch of the perfect love +and life, and responds to every note of pain borne in upon it from the +murmurous trouble of the world,--this is to have inward fitness for the +high work of the Kingdom. Yes, and it is the pledge that this work shall be +done. There is such a thing as artistic grief. There is the vain and +languorous pity of aestheticism. Its robe of sympathy is wrapped about +itself and bejewelled with its own tears. And it never goes forth. You +never meet it in 'the darkness of the terrible streets.' + +_He that goeth forth and weepeth._ It is his tears that cause him to go +forth. It is his sorrow that will not let him rest. True pity is a mighty +motive. When the real abiding pathos of life has gripped a man's heart, you +will find him afield doing the work of the Lord. You will not see his +tears. There will be a smile in his eyes and, maybe, a song on his lips. +For the sorrow and the joy of service dwell side by side in a man's life. +Indeed, they often seem to him to be but one thing. It were a mistake to +refer the whole meaning of the words about a man's coming 'again with +rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him' to some far day when the reapers +of God shall gather the last great harvest of the world. Through his tears +the sower sees the harvest. Through all his life there rings many a sweet +prophetic echo of the harvest home. + +_He that goeth forth and weepeth._ No man ever wept like that and went not +forth, but some go forth who have not wept. And they go forth to certain +failure. They mishandle life, and with good intent do harm. But that is not +the worst thing to be said about these toilers without tears. It is not +that they touch life so unskilfully, but they touch so little of it. It is +only through his tears that a man sees what his work is and where it lies. +Tearless eyes are purblind. We have yet much to learn about the real needs +of the world. So many try very earnestly to deal with situations they have +never yet really seen. For the uplifting of men and for the great social +task of this our day we need ideas, and enthusiasm, and all sorts of +resource; but most of all, and first of all, we need vision. And the man +who goes farthest, and sees most, and does most, is 'he that goeth forth +and weepeth.' + + + + +VII. + +DELIVERANCE WITH HONOUR + + + He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; + I will be with him in trouble: + I will deliver him, and honour him. + With long life will I satisfy him, + And show him My salvation. + + Ps. xci. 15, 16. + +_He shall call upon Me._ He shall need Me. He shall not be able to live +without Me. As the years pass over his head he shall learn that there is +one need woven into human life larger and deeper and more abiding than any +other need--and that need is God. Thus doth divinity prophesy concerning +humanity. Thus doth infinite foresight predict a man's need. + +We peer in our purblind fashion into the future and try to anticipate our +needs. We fence ourselves in with all sorts of fancied securities, and then +we comfort ourselves with the shrewdness and completeness of our +forecasting and provision-making. And sometimes it is just folly with a +grave face. 'He shall call upon Me.' A man has learned nothing until he has +learned that he needs God. And we take a long time over that lesson. It has +sometimes to be beaten into us--written in conscience and heart by the +finger of pain. How the little storehouse of life has to be almost stripped +of its treasures, how our faith in the things of the hour has to be played +with and mocked, ere we call upon God in heaven to fill us with abiding +treasure and fold us in eternal love. + +_He shall call upon Me, and, I will answer him._ But I have called, says +one, and He has not answered. I called upon Him when my little child was +sick unto death, and, spite my calling, the little white soul fluttered +noiselessly into the great beyond. My friend, you call that tiny green +mound in the churchyard God's silence. Some day you will call it God's +answer. Our prayers are sometimes torn out of our hearts by the pain of the +moment. God's answers come forth from the unerring quiet of eternity. 'He +shall call upon Me.' 'He shall ask Me to help him, but he does not know how +he can be helped. He is hedged about by a thousand limitations of thought. +His life is full of distortions. He cannot distinguish between a blessing +and a curse. I cannot heed the dictations of his prayers, but I will answer +him.' This is the voice of Him to whom the ravelled complexities of men's +minds are simplicity itself; who dwells beyond the brief bewilderments and +mistaken desirings and false ideals of men's hearts. + +Oh these divine answers! How they confuse us! It is their perfection that +bewilders us; it is their completeness that carries them beyond our +comprehension. + +There is the stamp of the local and the temporary on all our asking. The +answer that comes is wider than life and longer than time, and fashioned +after a completeness whereof we do not even dream. + +_I will be with him in trouble._ Trouble is that in life which becomes to +us a gospel of tears, a ministry of futility. This is because we have +grasped the humanity of the word and missed the divinity of it. We are +always doing that. Always gathering the meaning of the moments and missing +the meaning of the years. Always smarting under the sharp discipline and +missing the merciful design: 'With Him in trouble.' That helps me to +believe in my religion. Trouble is the test of the creeds. A fig for the +orthodoxy that cannot interpret tears! Write vanity upon the religion that +is of no avail in the house of sorrow. When the earthly song falls on +silence we are disposed to call it a pitiable silence. Not so. Let us say a +divinely opportune silence, for when the many voices grow dumb the One +Voice speaks: 'I will be with him in trouble,' and the man who has lost the +everything that is nothing only to find the one thing that is all knows +what that promise means. + +_I will deliver him._ What a masterful, availing, victorious presence is +this! How this promise goes out beyond our human ministries of consolation! +How often the most we can do is to walk by our brother's side whilst he +bears a burden we cannot share! How often the earthly sympathy is just a +communion of sad hearts--one weak hand holding another! 'I will deliver +him.' That is not merely sympathy, it is victory. The divine love does not +merely condole, it delivers. + +You cannot add anything to this promise. It is complete. The time of the +deliverance is there, the manner of it is there, the whole ministry of help +is there. You say you cannot find anything about time and manner. You can +only find the bare promise of deliverance. My friend, there are no bare +promises in the lips of the Heavenly Father. In the mighty, merciful +leisure of omnipotence, in the perfect fitness of things, in a way wiser +than his thinking and better than his hoping and larger than his prayer, 'I +will deliver him.' + +_And honour him._ It will be no scanty, obscure, uncertain deliverance. +There shall be light in it, glory in it. The world battles with its +troubles and seems sometimes to be successful, until we see how those +troubles have shaken its spirit and twisted its temper; and see, too, how +much of the beautiful and the strong and the sweet has been lost in the +fight. 'I will deliver him' with an abundant and an honourable +deliverance--he shall come forth from his tribulations more noble, tender, +and self-possessed. Hereafter there shall be given him the honour of one +whom the stress of life has driven into the arms of God. + +Oh how we miss this ministry of ennoblement! We reap a harvest of +insignificance from the seeds of sorrow sown in our hearts. We let our +cares dishonour us. The little cares rasp and fret and sting the manliness +and the womanliness and the godlikeness out of us. And the great cares +crush us earthward till there is scarcely a sweet word left in our lips or +a noble thought in our heart. A man cannot save his _soul_ in the day of +trouble. He cannot by himself make good the wear and tear of anxieties and +griefs. He can hold his head high and hide his secret deep, but he cannot +keep his life sweet. Only Christ can teach a man how to find the nameless +dignity of the crown of thorns. The kingship of suffering is a secret in +the keeping of faith and love. If a man accepts this deliverance of his God +folded in flashes of understanding, ministries of explanation, revivals of +faith, and gifts of endurance, he shall find the honour that is to be won +among life's hard and bitter things. + +_With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation._ We have +seen a grey-headed libertine, and we have missed from among the +clean-hearted and the faithful some brave young life that was giving itself +vigorously to the holy service. But perhaps we have had the grace not to +challenge the utter faithfulness of God. The measure of life is not written +on a registrar's certificates of birth and death. There is something here +that lies beyond dates and documents. Life here and hereafter is one, and +death is but an event in it. Who lives to God lives long, be his years many +or few. It is reasonable to expect some relationship between godliness and +longevity. But we are nearer the truth when we see how that faith and +prayer discover and secure the eternal values of fleeting days. + +_And show him My salvation._ That is the whole text summed up in one +phrase. That is the life of the godly man gathered into the compass of the +divine promise. For every one who goes the way of faith and obedience, life +in every phase of it, life here and hereafter, means but one thing and +holds but one thing, and that is _the salvation of the Lord_. + + + + +VIII. + +PETITION AND COMMUNION + + + Hear me speedily, O Lord.... + Cause me to hear ... + For I lift up my soul unto Thee. + + Ps. cxliii. 7, 8. + +You will notice that the first verse begins 'Hear me,' and the second +begins 'Cause me to hear'; and the second is greater than the first. Let us +look, then, at these two attitudes of a man in his hour of prayer. + +_Hear me._ The Psalmist began, where all men must begin, with himself. He +had something to utter in the hearing of the Almighty. He had something to +lay before his God--a story, a confession, a plea. His heart was full, and +must outpour itself into the ear of Heaven. 'Hear me speedily, O Lord.' We +have all prayed thus. We have all faced some situation that struck a note +of urgency in our life, and all your soul has come to our lips in this one +cry that went up to the Father, 'Hear me.' A sudden pain, a surprise of +sorrow, a few moments of misty uncertainty in the face of decisions that +had to be made at once, times when life has tried to rush us from our +established position and to bear us we know not where--and our soul has +reached out after God as simply and naturally as a man grasps at some fixed +thing when he is falling. + +There are times, too, when prayer is an indefinable relief. We all know +something about the relief of speech. We must speak to somebody. Our need +is not, first of all, either advice or practical help. We want a hearing. +We want some one to listen and sympathize. We want to share our pain. That +is what 'Hear me' sometimes means. Whatever Thou shalt see fit to do for +me, at least listen to my cry. Let me unburden my soul. Let me get this +weight of silence off my heart. This fashion of relief is part of the true +office of prayer. Herein lies the reasonableness of telling our story in +the ear of One who knows that story better than we do. We need not inform +the All-knowing, but we must commune with the All-pitiful. We make our life +known unto God that we may make it bearable unto ourselves. + +But let us look at the attitude of mind and heart revealed in this second +position, _Cause me to hear_. Now we are coming to the larger truth about +prayer, and the deeper spirit of it. Prayer is not merely claiming a +hearing; it is giving a hearing. It is not only speaking to God; it is +listening to God. And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are the +words we hear greater than the words we speak. Let us not forget this. Let +us not pauperize ourselves by our very importunity. Maybe we are vociferous +when God is but waiting for a silence to fall in His earthly temples that +He may have speech with His children. We talk about 'prevailing prayer,' +and there is a great truth in the phrase. All prayer does not prevail. +There is that among men which passes for prayer but has no spiritual grip, +no assurance, no masterful patience, no fine desperation. There is a place +for all these things, and a need for them, in the life of prayer. We need +the courage of a great faith and the earnestness that is born of necessity. +We need to be able to lift up our faces toward heaven in the swelling joys +and the startling perils of these mortal hours and cry, 'Hear me,' knowing +that God does hear us and that the outcrying of every praying heart rings +clear and strong in the courts of the Heavenly King. But we need something +more; we need a very great deal more than this, if we are to enter into the +true meaning of prevailing prayer. The final triumph of prayer is not ours; +it is God's. When we are upon our knees before Him, it is He, and not we, +that must prevail. This is the true victory of faith and prayer, when the +Father writes His purpose more clearly in our minds, lays His commandment +more inwardly upon our hearts. We do not get one faint glimpse into the +meaning of that mysterious conflict at Peniel until we see that the +necessity for the conflict lay in the heart of Jacob and not in the heart +of God. The man who wrestled with the Angel and prevailed passes before us +in the glow of the sunrise weary and halt, with a changed name and a +changed heart. So must it be with us; so shall it be, if ever we know what +it is to prevail in prayer. Importunity must not become a blind and +uninspired clamouring for the thing we desire. Such an attitude may easily +set us beyond the possibility of receiving that which God knows we need. We +must not forget that our poor little plea for help and blessing does not +exhaust the possibilities of prayer. Our words go upward to God's throne +twisted by our imperfect thinking, narrowed by our outlook, sterilized by +the doubts of our hearts, and we do not know what is good for us. His word +comes downward into our lives laden with the quiet certainty of the +Eternal, wide as the vision of Him who seeth all, deep as the wisdom of Him +who knoweth all. + +So, however much it may be to say 'Hear me,' it is vastly more to say +'Cause me to hear.' However much I have to tell Him, He has more to tell +me. This view of prayer will help to clear up for us some of the +difficulties that have troubled many minds. We hear people speak of +unanswered prayer; but there is no such thing, and in the nature of things +there cannot be. I do not mean by that, that to every prayer there will +come a response some day. To every prayer there is a response now. In our +confused and mechanical conception of the God to whom we pray, we separate +between His hearing and His answering. We identify the answer to prayer +with the granting of a petition. But prayer is more than petition. It is +not our many requests, it is an attitude of spirit. We grant readily that +our words are the least important part of our prayers. But very often the +petitions we frame and utter are no part of our prayers at all. They are +not prayer, yet uttering them we may pray a prayer that shall be heard and +answered, for every man who truly desires in prayer the help of God for his +life receives that help there and then, though the terms in which he +describes his need may be wholly wide of the truth as God knows it. So the +real answer to prayer is God's response to man's spiritual attitude, and +that response is as complete and continuous as the attitude will allow it +to be. The end of prayer is not to win concessions from Almighty Power, but +to have communion with Almighty Love. + +'Cause me to hear'; make a reverent, responsive, receptive silence in my +heart, take me out beyond my pleadings into the limitless visions and the +fathomless satisfactions of communion with Thyself. Speak to me. That is +true prayer. + + In the quietness of life, + When the flowers have shut their eye, + And a stainless breadth of sky + Bends above the hill of strife, + Then, my God, my chiefest Good, + Breathe upon my lonelihood: + Let the shining silence be + Filled with Thee, my God, with Thee. + + + + +IX. + +HAUNTED HOURS + + + Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, + when iniquity at my heels compasseth me about? + + Ps. xlix. 5. + +Iniquity _at my heels_. Temptation is very often indirect. It is compact of +wiles and subtleties and stratagems. It is adept at taking cover. It does +not make a frontal attack unless the obvious state of the soul's defences +justifies such a method of attempting a conquest. The stronger a man is, +the more subtle and difficult are the ways of sin, as it seeks to enter and +to master his life. There are many temptations that never face us, and +never give us a chance of facing them. They follow us. We can hear their +light footfall and their soft whisperings, but the moment we turn round +upon them they vanish. If they disappeared for good, they would be the +easiest to deal with of all the ill things that beset our lives. But they +do not. The moment we relax our bold, stern search for the face of the +enemy, there the evil thing is again--the light footfall and the soft +voice. It is terrible work fighting a suggestion. There are the thoughts +that a man will not cherish and cannot slay. They may never enter the +programme of his life, but there they are, haunting him, waiting, so to +speak, at the back of his brain, till he gets used to them. When he seeks +to grapple with these enemies his hands close on emptiness. One straight +blow, one decisive denial, one stern rebuke, one defiant confession of +faith will not suffice for these things. They compass a man's heels. He +cannot trample them down. The fashion of the evils that compass us +determines the form of the fight we wage with them. Preparations that might +amply suffice the city in the day when an army with banners comes against +it are no good at all if a plague has to be fought. So there is a way we +have to take with 'the iniquity at our heels.' It calls for much patience +and much prayer. If we cannot prevent sin from following us, we can at +least prevent ourselves from turning and following it. A man can always +choose his path if he cannot at every moment determine his company. And as +a man goes onward and upward steadfastly toward the City of Light, the evil +things fall off and drop behind, and God shall bring him where no evil +thing dare follow, and where no ravenous beast shall stalk its prey. + +The battle with sin is not an incident in the Christian life; it is the +abiding condition of it. While there are some temptations that we have to +slay, there are others we have to outgrow. They are overcome, not by any +one supreme assertion of the will, but by the patient cultivation of all +the loftiest and most wholesome and delicate and intensely spiritual modes +of feeling and of being. + +Again, let me suggest that iniquity at our heels is sometimes an old sin in +a new form. You remember the difficulty that Hiawatha had in hunting down +Pau-puk Keewis. That mischievous magician assumed the form of a beaver, +then that of a bird, then that of a serpent; and though each in turn was +slain, the magician escaped and mocked his pursuer. Surely a parable of our +strife with sin. We smite it in one form and it comes to life in another. +One day a man is angry--clenched fingers and hot words. He conquers his +anger; but the next day there is a spirit of bitterness rankling in his +heart, and maybe a tinge of regret that he did not say and do more when his +heart was hot within him and fire was on his lips. The sin he faced and +fought yesterday has become iniquity at his heels. Having failed to knock +him down, it tries to trip him up. Maybe many waste their energies trying +to deal with the _forms_ of sin, and never grapple with the _fact_ of sin. +Hence the evil things that compass men's souls about with their dread +ministries of suggestion, and flutter on unhallowed wings in the wake of +life. The sin that confronts us reveals to us our need of strength, but the +sin that dogs our steps has, maybe, a deeper lesson to teach us--even our +need of heart-deep holiness. Good resolution will do much to clear the path +ahead, but only purity of character can rid us of the persistent haunting +peril of the sin that plucks at the skirt of life. The deliverance God +offers to the struggling soul covers not only the hour of actual grappling +with the foe, but all the hours when it is the stealth and not the strength +of evil that we most have cause to fear. + +_Iniquity at my heels._ These words remind us that sin is not done with +after it is committed. God forgives sin, but He does not obliterate all its +consequences, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. A man may +have the light of the City of God flashing in his face, and a whole host of +shameful memories and bitter regrets crowding at his heels. We do not know +what sin is till we turn our backs on it. Then we find its tenacity and its +entanglement. What would we not give if only we could leave some things +behind us! What would we not do if only we could put a space between +ourselves and our past! The fetters of evil habit may be broken, but their +marks are upon us, and the feet that bore the fetters go more slowly for +them many days. The hands that have been used to grasping and holding do +not open without an effort, even though the heart has at last learned that +it is more blessed to give than to receive. + +Yes, and our sins come to life again in the lives of others. The light word +that ought to have been a grave word and that shook another's good +resolution, the cool word that ought to have been a warm word and that +chilled a pure enthusiasm--we cannot have done with these things. Parents +sometimes live to see their sins of indulgence or of neglect blighting the +lives of those to whom they owed a debt of firmness and kindness. It is +iniquity at the heels. These passages of carelessness and unfaithfulness +haunt men, be their repentance never so bitter and their amendment never so +sincere and successful. But all this is for discipline and not for despair. +It casts us back upon God's mercy. It keeps the shadow of the cross upon +all our path. It has something to do with the making of 'a humble, lowly, +penitent, and obedient heart.' The memory of the irreparable is a sorrow of +the saints. + + Saint, did I say? With your remembered faces, + Dear men and women whom I sought and slew! + Ah, when we mingle in the heavenly places, + How will I weep to Stephen and to you! + +Only let us not be afraid nor wholly cast down. Rather let us say, +'Wherefore should I fear when the iniquity at my heels compasseth me +about?' By the grace of God the hours of the soul's sad memory and of +clinging regrets shall mean unto us a ministry of humility and a passion of +prayer. And through them God shall give us glimpses of the gateway of that +life where regret and shame and sorrow fall back unable to enter. There is +a place whither the iniquity at a man's heels can no longer follow him, and +where in the perfect life the soul, at last, is able to forget. + + + + +X. + +THE WINGS OF THE DOVE + + + And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! + Then would I fly away, and be at rest.... + I would haste me to a shelter + From the stormy wind and tempest. + + Ps. lv. 6, 8. + +These words are the transcript of a mood. The writer is not unfolding to us +any of the deep persistent longings of his spirit; he is telling us of a +thought that shadowed his soul for an hour. Let us look into this mood of +his. It is not his in any unique or even peculiar sense. In moods, as in +manners, history is wont to repeat itself. The writer of this poem has +voiced one of the great common experiences of humanity. But let us be quite +clear as to what that experience really is. Let us not be misled by the +music and the seeming unworldliness of these words about winged flight from +a world of trouble and strife. The Psalmist was not looking heavenward, but +earthward, when this plea for wings broke from his heart. He was moved to +speak as he did, not by the surpassing charm of a heavenly vision, but by +the dark unrest of the earthly outlook. The emphatic note here is that of +departure, not of destination. It is necessary to remind ourselves that +this is so, for these words have become the classic of the home-sick soul. +They have been used to voice the farthest and most truly divine desires of +the human heart. And by virtue of such use they have gathered a meaning +which was not theirs at the beginning. At that meaning we will presently +look, but let us first of all look at this longing as it stands in the +psalm and as it represents an experience that is threaded through the +history of humanity. + +_Oh that I had wings ... then would I fly away._ Here the idea of fleeing +away suggests itself as a possible solution of life; and whenever it comes +to a man like this it is a source of weakness. It is not a desire to find +the joys of heaven; it is a desire to escape the pains of earth. There is +no vista, no wistful distance, no long, alluring prospect. The soul is +hemmed in by its enemies, crushed down by its burdens, beset on all sides +by the frets of the earthly lot; and there comes a vague desire to be out +of it all. It is not aspiration, it is evasion. It is not response to the +ideal, it is recoil from the actual. It is not the spell of that which +shall be that is upon the soul, but the irksomeness or the dreadfulness of +that which is. This is a mood that awaits us all. No man faces life as it +should be faced, but some can hardly be said to face it at all. Their face +is ever turned towards a seductive vision of quietness. The solution of +life for them is not in a fight, but in a retreat. Of course we know there +is no going back, and no easy deliverance from the burden and the battle, +but in the thick of any fight there is a great difference between the man +who wants victory and the man who merely wants a cessation of hostilities. + +This plea for wings does not necessarily betoken 'a desire to depart.' It +rather indicates a desire to remain under more favourable and comfortable +conditions. Such a mood is not the highest and the healthiest experience of +the soul. It is rather something against which we must fight relentlessly. +Very often the longing for wings results only in lagging footsteps. +Picturing to ourselves the luxury of laying life down will not help us to +face the duty of taking life up. The secret of enervation is found not in +the poverty of our resources, but in the cowardliness and selfishness of +our attitude towards life. The battle is half won when we have looked the +enemy in the face. The burden is the better borne as we stoop under the +full weight of it. + +_Oh that I had wings like a dove!_ That is a short-sighted and a selfish +desire. Supposing you had wings, what would you do? Fly away from the moil +of the world and find rest and shelter for yourself? Is that the best and +noblest thing to desire to do? After all, we know other and loftier moods +than this. We know that staying is better than going when there is so much +to stay for. We know that working is better than resting when there is so +much to do. We have something better to think about than a quiet lodgement +in the wilderness, we who live in a world where the strength of our hands +and the warmth of our hearts count for something. To give your tired +brother a lift is a vastly more profitable occupation than sitting at the +roadside and wishing you could fly. Man, you ought to be glad that you can +walk--in a world where there are so many cripples that want help. + +_Oh that I had wings!... then would I fly away._ That desire has never +taken any one to heaven, but it has made them less useful upon earth. The +breath of this desire is able to blight the flowers of social service. No +one would be foolish enough to indict suburbanism as a mode of life. The +day must surely come when few or none will dwell in the smoke-grimed heart +of the city. But in as far as a man seeks the fairest suburb open to him in +order that he may see little of, and think little of, 'the darkness of the +terrible streets,' then the very life that restores health to his body +shall sow seeds of disease in his soul. + +There is only one way to rest, and that lies right through the heart of the +world's work and pain. Rest is not for those who flee away from life's +difficulties, but for those who face them. 'Take my yoke ... and ye shall +find rest.' It were not well for our own sakes that we had wings. It were +not well for us to be able to avoid the burden-bearing and the tale of +tired days, for God has hidden the secret of our rest in the heart of our +toiling. They who come unto the City of God come there not by the easy +flight of a dove, but by the long, slow pilgrimage of unselfishness. + +Yet there is a beauty and a fitness in this longing. It is expressive of +more than the weariness of a world-worn spirit, or the thinly disguised +selfishness of one who fears to pay the price of life. + +When the long working-day of life is wearing away its last hours and +verging towards the great stillness, the voices of time fall but faintly on +the ear, the adorations and ideals and fashions and enthusiasms of the +world come to mean little to a man who in his day has followed them as +eagerly as any, and the heart within him asks only for rest. + + God, if there be none beside Thee + Dwelling in the light, + Take me out of the world and hide me + Somewhere behind the night. + +When, like Simeon the seer with the Christ-Child in his arms, a man feels +that for him life has said its last word and shown its last wonder and +uttered its last benediction, the desire for rest is a pure and spiritually +normal thing; it is just the soul's gaze turned upward where + + beyond these toils + God waiteth us above, + To give to hand and heart the spoils + Of labour and of love. + +And maybe this mood of which we are thinking may have a not unworthy place +in a strenuous life. As a tired woman pauses amid her tasks and looks out +of her cottage window to take into her heart the quiet beauty of the woods +where she knows the ground is fair with lilies, so do we find ourselves +looking out of life's small casement and thinking upon the fresh, free, +'outdoor' life the soul will some day live. And such a mood as this is +surely a sign of the soul's growth, a testimony of its responsiveness to +the divine touch, a sudden sense of its splendid destiny borne in upon it +among the grey and narrow circumstances of its service. + + Oh that I had a dove's swift, silver wings, + I said, so I might straightway leave behind + This strife of tongues, this tramp of feet, and find + A world that knows no struggles and no stings, + Where all about the soul soft Silence flings + Her filmy garment, and the vexèd mind + Grows quiet as there floats upon the wind + The soothing slumber-song of dreamless things. + And lo! there answered me a voice and said, + Man, thou hast hands and heart, take back thy prayer; + Covet life's weariness, go forth and share + The common suffering and the toil for bread. + Look not on Rest, although her face be fair, + And her white hands shall smooth thy narrow bed. + + + + +XI. + +A NEW SONG + + + O sing unto the Lord a new song. + + Ps. xcvi. 1. + +Time and again in the Psalter we find this appeal for a new song. First of +all, and most obviously, the appeal concerns the contents of the song. It +reminds us of the duty of making our grateful acknowledgement of God's +goodness to us expand with our growing experience of that goodness. It is, +if, one may so phrase it, a reminder to us that our praise needs bringing +up to date. A hymn considerably later in date than this psalm exhorts us to +'count' our 'blessings,' and to 'name them one by one.' This exhortation to +attempt the impossible is perhaps more worthy of being heeded than the form +in which it is presented to us might lead some to suppose. There is no +getting away from the simple fact that a man's thankfulness has a real and +proportionate relationship to the things for which he has cause to be +thankful. If in our daily life the phrase 'the goodness of God' is to have +a deepening and cumulative significance, it must be informed and vitalized +continually by an alert and responsive recognition of the forms in which +that goodness is ever freshly manifested to us. Whilst the roots of the +tree of praise lie deep beneath the surface, and wind their thousand ways +into dim places where memory itself cannot follow them, yet surely the +leaves of the tree are fresher and greener for rain that even now has left +its reviving touch upon them, and for the sunshine that is even now +stirring the life in all their veins. The figure is imperfect. We are not +trees. We do not respond automatically to all the gracious and cheering +ministries of the Eternal Goodness in our lives. We may easily overlook +many a good gift of our God. And though in our forgetfulness and +unthankfulness we profit by the sunlight and the dew and by each tender +thought of God for His creatures, yet the full and perpetual profit of all +good things is for each of us bound up with the power to see them, the +wisdom to appraise them, the mindfulness that holds them fast, and the +heart that sings out its thanksgiving for them. 'O sing unto the Lord a new +song.' Bring this day's life into the song. Bring the gift that has come to +thee this very hour into the song. Look about thee. See if there be but one +more flower springing at the path-side. See if the bud of yesterday has but +unfolded another leaf. Behold the loaf on thy table, feel the warmth of thy +hearth, yea, feel the very life within thee that woke again and stirred +itself with the morning light, and say these gifts are like unto the gifts +of yesterday, but they are not yesterday's gifts. Yesterday's bread is +broken, and yesterday's fire is dead, and yesterday's strength is spent. O +God, Thy mercies are new every morning! So shall a new song break from the +heart. + +It is quite possible, in taking what we believe to be a broad view of life, +to overlook many of the things that go to make life. Too much generalizing +makes for a barren heart. The specific has a vital place in the ministry of +praise. It is true that the highest flights of praise always carry the soul +beyond any conscious reckoning with the details of its experience. +Tabulation is not the keystone of the arch of thanksgiving. But to behold +the specific goodness of God in each day's life, to review the hours and to +say to one's own soul, Thus and thus hath my God been mindful of me, is +perhaps the surest and the simplest way to deepen and vitalize the habit of +praise in our life, and to set the new notes ringing in our psalm of +thanksgiving. + +But in this appeal for a new song of praise to God there is something more +than a recognition of new blessings. The new song is not merely the +response to new mercies and the tuneful celebration of recent good. If +there is to be ever a new note in the song, there must be ever a new note +in the singer's heart. And this cometh not by observation, but by +inspiration. You may change the words of the song and it may still be the +old song. You may sing the same words and it may yet be a new song. For as +is the singer, so is the song. + +_O sing unto the Lord a new song._ That is a plea for a deeper and a wider +life. It is a plea that sounds the depth of the heart and takes the measure +of the soul. The new song comes not of a truer enumeration of life's +blessings, but of a truer understanding of the blessedness of life itself. +The key to such understanding is character. When by the grace of the clean +heart and the enlightened and responsive spirit a man can get beneath the +events of each day's life and commune with that eternal law of love to +which each one of those events bears some relation--or had we not better +say commune with the Eternal Father by whom that law exists?--then is his +song of praise ever new. It is something to catch a glimpse of the mercy of +God, and to think and feel as one has not thought or felt before about some +part of life's daily good. But it is vastly more to learn to interpret the +whole of life in the terms of the goodness of God. The saint sings where +the worldling sighs. And if we find in that song only the apotheosis of +courage and resignation, we have neither found the source of the song nor +the message of it. The new song comes not from the thrill of peril faced +and defied, nor from the victorious acceptance of hard and bitter things. +It comes from that deep life of the soul in God, a life beyond the threat +of peril and beyond the touch of pain. It finds its deepest and freshest +notes not in contemplating the new gains and good of any day, but in a +growing sense of the timeless gain and eternal good of every day. + +And if all this be so, it surely follows that the service of praise is not +something unto which we may pass by one effort of the will or that depends +upon the stimulus of outward experience. It is conditioned rather by our +character, and by our power to see the unveiled face of life reflecting +always the light of perfect love. And it is to produce in us the right +character and the true insight that God disciplines us all our days. It is +to set a new song in our hearts. Said a professor of music at Leipzig of a +girl whom he had trained for some years and who was the pride of the +Conservatoire, 'If only some one would marry her and ill-treat her and +break her heart she would be the finest singer in Europe.' He missed +something in the song, and knew it could never come there save from the +heart of the singer. Trouble always strikes a new note in life, and often +the deepest note that is ever struck. But, be our experience joyous or +sorrowful, the true end of it must ever be to deepen our own hearts that +there may be in us ever a more catholic recognition of, and response to, +the Eternal Love. + +The human soul is not a mere repository of experiences. Memory is not the +true guardian of life's treasure. That treasure is invested in character. +In the moral world we _have_ what we _are_. So we may recall that which we +have never possessed, and may possess that which we can never recall. And +it is out of that which we have _become_ by God's grace, rather than out of +that which we have received of that grace, that the new song comes. + +So, as day by day we pray for the grace of new thanksgiving, we are seeking +something more than a new power to behold what good things each day brings +us, a readier way of reckoning the wealth of the passing hours. We are +seeking for a larger life in God, and for a spirit able, as it were, to +secrete from every experience its hidden meed of everlasting blessing. For +if the heart grow purer, the will stronger, the vision clearer, the +judgement truer--indeed, if there come to the soul each day some increase +of life--it shall surely find its way into living praise. And a living song +is always a new song. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Threshold Grace, by Percy C. 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