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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/19134-8.txt b/19134-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97aca4d --- /dev/null +++ b/19134-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3015 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Empire of Love, by W. J. Dawson + +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 Empire of Love + +Author: W. J. Dawson + +Release Date: August 28, 2006 [EBook #19134] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPIRE OF LOVE *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +The Empire of Love + + +By + +W. J. DAWSON + + + + + +New York Chicago Toronto + +Fleming H. Revell Company + +London and Edinburgh + + + + +Copyright, 1907, by + +FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY + + + + + New York: 158 Fifth Avenue + Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue + Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. + London: 21 Paternoster Square + Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street + + + + + To + M. M. D., + + who, during the last two years + of our residence in London, + practiced the teachings of this book + before I taught them: + + proving daily + in her compassionate toil for others + the divine efficacy of simple love + to redeem the lives, + that were most estranged from virtue, + and most lost to hope. + + + + +Love feels no burden, regards not labours, would willingly do more than +it is able, pleads not impossibility, because it feels that it can and +may do all things. + +THOMAS À KEMPIS. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED + II. WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? + III. THE JUSTICE OF JESUS + IV. LOVE IS JUSTICE + V. LOVE AND FORGIVENESS + VI. THE PRACTICE OF LOVE + VII. LOVE AND JUDGMENT + VIII. THE WISDOM OF THE SIMPLE + IX. THE REVELATIONS OF GRIEF + X. A CONFESSION + XI. A LOVER OF MEN + XII. THE LAW OF COMPASSION + XIII. THE EMPIRE OF LOVE + XIV. THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE + + + + +THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED + + + + _WHY THEY LOVED HIM_ + + _So kindly was His love to us, + (We had not heard of love before), + That all our life grew glorious + When He had halted at our door._ + + _So meekly did He love us men, + Though blind we were with shameful sin, + He touched our eyes with tears, and then + Led God's tall angels flaming in._ + + _He dwelt with us a little space, + As mothers do in childhood's years, + And still we can discern His face + Wherever Joy or Love appears._ + + _He made our virtues all His own, + And lent them grace we could not give, + And now our world seems His alone, + And while we live He seems to live._ + + _He took our sorrows and our pain, + And hid their torture in His breast, + Till we received them back again + To find on each His grief impressed._ + + _He clasped our children in His arms, + And showed us where their beauty shone, + He took from us our gray alarms, + And put Death's icy armour on._ + + _So gentle were His ways with us, + That crippled souls had ceased to sigh, + On them He laid His hands, and thus + They gloried at His passing by._ + + _Without reproof or word of blame, + As mothers do in childhood's years, + He kissed our lips in spite of shame, + And stayed the passage of our tears._ + + _So tender was His love to us, + (We had not learned to love before), + That we grew like to Him, and thus + Men sought His grace in us once more._ + + CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON. + + + +I + +THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED + +In the history of the last two thousand years there is but one Person +who has been, and is supremely loved. Many have been loved by +individuals, by groups of persons, or by communities; some have +received the pliant idolatries of nations, such as heroes and national +deliverers; but in every instance the sense of love thus excited has +been intimately associated with some triumph of intellect, or some +resounding achievement in the world of action. In this there is +nothing unusual, for man is a natural worshipper of heroes. But in +Jesus Christ we discover something very different; He possessed the +genius to be loved in so transcendent a degree that it appears His sole +genius. + +Jesus is loved not for anything that He taught, nor yet wholly for +anything that He did, although His actions culminate in the divine +fascination of the Cross, but rather for what He was in Himself. His +very name provokes in countless millions a reverent tenderness of +emotion usually associated only with the most sacred and intimate of +human relationships. He is loved with a certain purity and intensity +of passion that transcends even the most intimate expressions of human +emotion. The curious thing is that He Himself anticipated this kind of +love as His eternal heritage with men. He expected that men would love +Him more than father or mother, wife or child, and even made such a +love a condition of what He called discipleship. The greatest marvel +of all human history is that this prognostication has been strictly +verified in the event. He is the Supreme Lover, for whose love, +unrealizable as it is by touch, or glance, or spoken word, or momentary +presence, men and women are still willing to sacrifice themselves, and +surrender all things. The pregnant words of Napoleon, uttered in his +last lonely reveries in St. Helena, still express the strangest thing +in universal history: "Caesar, Charlemagne, I, have founded empires. +They were founded on force, and have perished. Jesus Christ has +founded an empire on love, and to this day there are millions ready to +die for Him." + +Napoleon felt the wonder of it all, the baffling, inexplicable marvel. +Were we able to detach ourselves enough from use and custom, to survey +the movement of human thought from some lonely height above the floods +of Time, as Napoleon in the high sea-silences of St. Helena, we also +might feel the wonder of this most wonderful thing the world has ever +known. + +That the majority of men, and even Christian men, do not perceive that +the whole meaning of the life of Christ is Love is a thing too obvious +to demand evidence or invite contradiction. I say men, and Christian +men, thus limiting my statement, because women and Christian women, +frequently do perceive it, being themselves the creatures of affection, +and finding in affection the one sufficing symbol of life and of the +universe. It is a St. Catherine who thinks of herself as the bride of +Christ, and dreams the lovely vision of the changed hearts--the heart +of Jesus placed by the hands that bled beneath her pure bosom, and her +heart hidden in the side of Him who died for her. It is a St. Theresa +who melts into ecstasy at the brooding presence of the heavenly Lover, +and can only think of the Evil One himself with commiseration as one +who cannot love. It is true that Francis of Assisi also thought and +spoke of Christ with a lover's ecstasy, but then Francis in his +exquisite tenderness of nature, was more woman than man. No such +thought visited the stern heart of Dominic, nor any of those makers of +theology who have built systems and disciplines upon the divine poetry +of the divine Life. + +Love, as the perfect symbol of life and the universe, does not content +men, simply because for most men love is not the key to life, nor an +end worth living for in itself, nor anything but a complex and often +troublesome emotion, which must needs be subordinated to other +faculties and qualities, such as greed, or pride, or the desire of +power, or the dominant demands of intellect. Among men the poets alone +have really understood Jesus: and in the category of the poets must be +included the saints, whose religion has always been interpreted to them +through the imagination. The poets have understood; the theologians +rarely or never. Thus it happens that men, being the general and +accepted interpreters of Christ, have all but wholly misinterpreted +Him. The lyric passion of that life, and the lyric love which it +excites, has been to them a disregarded music. They have rarely +achieved more than to tell us what Christ taught; they have wholly +failed to make us feel what Christ was. But Mary Magdalene knew this, +and it was what she said and felt in the Garden that has put Christ +upon the throne of the world. Was not her vision after all the true +one? Is not a Catherine a better guide to Jesus than a Dominic? When +all the strident theologies fall silent, will not the world's whole +worship still utter itself in the lyric cry, + + Jesu, Lover of my soul, + Let me to Thy bosom fly. + + +Is it then not within the competence of man to interpret Christ aright, +simply because the masculine temperament is what it is? By no means, +for such a statement would disqualify the evangelists themselves, who +are the only biographers of Jesus. But in the degree that a +temperament is only masculine, it will fail to understand Jesus. +Napoleon could not understand; he was the child of force, the son of +the sword, the very type of that hard efficiency of will and intellect +which turns the heart to flint, and scorns the witness of the softer +intuitions. Francis could understand because he was in part +feminine--not weakly so, but nobly, as all poets and dreamers and +visionaries are. Paul could understand for the same reason, and so +could John and Peter; each, in varying degrees, belonging to the same +type; but Pilate could not understand, because he had been trained in +the hard efficiency of Rome; nor Judas, because the masculine vice of +ambition had overgrown his affections, and deflowered his heart. What +is it then in Paul and John and Peter, what element or quality, which +we do not find in Pilate, Judas, or Napoleon? Clearly there is no lack +of force, for the personality of these three first apostles lifted a +world out of its groove and changed the course of history. Was it not +just this, that each had beneath his masculine strength a feminine +tenderness, a power of loving and of begetting love in others? John +lying on the bosom of Jesus in sheer abandonment of love and sorrow at +the last Supper; Peter, plunging naked into the Galilean sea, and +struggling to the shore at the mere suspicion that the strange figure +outlined there upon the morning mist is the Lord; Paul praying not only +to share the wounds of Jesus, but if there be any pang left over, any +anguish unfulfilled, that this anguish may be his--these are not alone +immortal pictures, but they are revelations of a temperament, the +temperament that understands Jesus. He who could not melt into an +abandonment of grief and love over one on whom the shadow of the last +hour rested; he who would spring headlong into no estranging sea to +reach one loved and lost and marvellously brought near again; he who +can share the festal wine of life, but has no appetite for agony, no +thirsting of the soul to bear another's pain--these can never +understand Jesus. They cannot understand Him, simply because they +cannot understand love. + + + + +WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? + + + + _TOWARDS GALILEE_ + + _The great obdurate world I know no more, + The clanging of the brazen wheels of greed, + The taloned hands that build the miser's store, + The stony streets where feeble feet must bleed. + No more I walk beneath thy ashen skies, + With pallid martyrs cruelly crucified + Upon thy predetermined Calvaries: + I, too, have suffered, yea, and I have died! + Now, at the last, another road I take + Thro' peaceful gardens, by a lilted way, + To those low eaves beside the silver lake, + Where Christ waits for me at the close of day. + Farewell, proud world! In vain thou callest me. + I go to meet my Lord in Galilee._ + + + +II + +WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? + +Christianity, as it exists to-day, is in the main a misrepresentation +and a misinterpretation of Christ; not consciously indeed--if it were +so the remedy would be easy; but unconsciously, which makes the remedy +difficult. One need not stop to define Christianity, for there is only +one sincere meaning to the word; it implies a _kind of life whose +spirit and method reproduce as accurately as possible the spirit and +the method of the life of Jesus_. It would seem that if this +interpretation of the term be correct there could be no difficulty in +adjusting even unconscious misinterpretation of Christ to the true +facts of the case: but here we are met by that perversity of vision +which springs not from ignorance, but from thoughtlessness, and is in +its nature much more obdurate than the worst perversity of ignorance. +Ignorance can be enlightened; thoughtlessness, being usually associated +with vanity, recognizes no need of enlightenment. + +The life of Jesus, freshly introduced to a mind wholly ignorant of its +existence may be trusted to convey its own impression; but the +thoughtless mind will be either too proud, or too shallow, or too +confident, to be sensitive to right impressions. Thus the trouble with +most people who call themselves Christians is not to educate them into +right conceptions of the life of Christ, but to destroy the growth of +wrong impressions. "Surely," they will say, "we know all about the +life of Christ. We have read the biographies of Jesus ever since the +days of infancy. We have heard the life of Jesus expounded through +long years by multitudes of teachers. We have a church which claims to +have extracted from the life of Jesus a whole code of laws for life and +conduct; is not this enough?" But what if the teachers themselves have +never found the true secret of Jesus? What if they have but repeated +the error of the Pharisees in elaborating a code of laws in which the +vital spirit of the truth they would impart is lost? And does not the +whole history of man's mind teach us that one simple truth known at +first-hand is worth more to us, and is of greater influence on our +conduct, than all the second-hand instruction we may receive from the +most competent of teachers? It is just this first-hand thought which +we most need. We need to see for ourselves what Jesus was, and not +through the eyes of another, whatever his authority. + +Suppose that we should read the Gospels in this spirit, with an +entirely unbiassed and receptive mind, capable of first-hand +impressions, what would be the probable character of these impressions? +The clearest and deepest of all, I think, would be that the Jesus +therein depicted lived His life on principles so novel that we are able +to discover no life entirely like His in the best lives round about us. +We should probably be struck first of all by certain outward +dissimilarities. Thus He was not only poor, but He did not resent +poverty--He beatified it. The things for which men naturally, and, as +we think, laudably strive, such as a settled position in society and +the consideration of others, He did not think worth seeking at all. He +made no use of His abilities for private ends, which has been the +common principle of social life since society began. He asked nothing +of the world, being apparently convinced that nothing which the world +could give Him was worth having. Strangest thing of all in one who +must have been conscious of His own genius, and of the value of His +teachings to mankind, He made not the least effort to perpetuate these +teachings. He wrote no book, provided no biographer, did none of those +things which the humblest man of genius does to ensure that distant +generations shall comprehend and appreciate his character and message. +He was content to speak His deepest truths to casual listeners. He +spent all His wealth of intellect upon inferior persons, fishermen and +the like, who did not comprehend one tithe of what He said. He was the +friend of all who chose to seek His friendship. He discriminated so +little that He even admitted a Judas to His intimacy, and allowed women +tainted with dishonour and impurity to offer Him public tokens of +affection. In all these things He differed absolutely from any other +man who ever lived beneath the public eye. In all these things He +still stands alone; for who, among the saintliest men we know, has not +some innocent pride in his ability, or some preference in friendship, +or some instinctive compliance with social usage, or some worldly hopes +and honourable aims which he shares in common with the mass of men? + +But these outward dissimilarities of conduct disclose a dissimilarity +of soul. Men live for something; for what did Jesus live? And the +answer that leaps upon us like a great light from every page of the +Gospels is plain; He lived for love. If He did not care for praise or +honour; if He regarded even the preservation of His teachings with a +divine carelessness, it was because He had a nobler end in view, the +love of men. He could not live without love, and His supreme aim was +to make Himself loved. And yet it was less a conscious aim, than the +natural working out of His own character. Fishermen by the sea saw Him +but once; instantly they left their boats and followed Him. A man +sitting at the receipt of custom, a hard man we should suppose, little +likely to be swayed by sudden emotions, also sees Him once, and finds +his occupation gone. A beautiful courtesan, beholding Him pass by, +breaks from her lovers, and follows Him into an alien house, where she +bathes His feet with tears and wipes them with the hairs of her head. +Mature women without a word spoken or a plea made, minister to Him of +their substance, and count their lives His. When He sleeps wearied out +upon a rude fishing-boat, there is a pillow for His head, placed there +by some unknown adorer. The men He makes apostles, all but one, count +His smile over-payment for the loss of home, of wife, of children. +Countless throngs of ordinary men and women forget their hunger, and +are content to camp in desert places only to listen to the music of His +voice. Wild and outlawed men, criminals and lepers and madmen, become +as little children at His word, and all the wrongs and bruises +inflicted on them by a cruel world are healed beneath His kindly +glance. Does it matter greatly what He taught? This is how He lived. +He lived in such a way that men saw that love was the only thing worth +living for, that life had meaning only as it had love. And this is the +imperishable tradition of Jesus: + + This is His divinity, + This His universal plea, + Here is One that loveth thee. + + +What then is a true Christianity but the accurate reproduction of this +spirit of love, the creation of loving and lovable men and women, who +attract and uplift all around them by the subtle fascination of the +love that animates them? What is a Christian Church but a +confraternity of such men and women? What is a Christian society, but +a society permeated by this spirit, and bringing all the affairs of +life to its test? And what place have social superiorities and +inferiorities; pride, scorn, or coldness; harsh theologies, breeding +harsh tempers and infinite disputes; the egoism that wounds the humble, +the strength that disregards the weak, the vanity that hurts the +simple, in any company of men and women who dare to wear the name of +such a Founder? It was as a Bridegroom Christ came, anointed with all +the perfumes of a dedicated love, and until the last bitter hour of His +rejection, He moved with such lyric joyousness across the earth, that +life became festive in His presence. It is as a Bride the church +exists on earth, and if no festive smiles are awakened by its presence, +and no gracious unsealing of the founts of love in human hearts, then +is it not Christ's Church, for He has passed elsewhere with another +company to the marriage-feast, and His Church stands without, before a +barred and darkened door. + + + + +THE JUSTICE OF JESUS + + + + _HOW HE CAME_ + + _When the golden evening gathered on the shore of Galilee, + When the fishing boats lay quiet by the sea, + Long ago the people wondered, tho' no sign was in the sky, + For the glory of the Lord was passing by._ + + _Not in robes of purple splendour, not in silken softness shod, + But in raiment worn with travel came their God, + And the people knew His presence by the heart that ceased to sigh + When the glory of the Lord was passing by._ + + _For He healed their sick at even, and He cured the leper's sore, + And sinful men and women sinned no more, + And the world grew mirthful hearted, and forgot its misery + When the glory of the Lord was passing by._ + + _Not in robes of purple splendour, but in lives that do His will, + In patient acts of kindness He comes still; + And the people cry with wonder, tho' no sign is in the sky, + That the glory of the Lord is passing by._ + + + +III + +THE JUSTICE OF JESUS + +One strong peculiarity of the teaching of Jesus--we might even call it +its outstanding feature--is that it is frequently disclosed in a series +of incidents. Unlike most teachers He philosophizes little about life. +A single chapter of the Gospels, or at most two, would contain all the +maxims about life which He thought necessary for wise and lofty +conduct. His method is rather to put Himself in relation to the +crucial occurrences of life, and to reveal the true way of regarding +them by His own attitude towards them. When He would teach the beauty +of humility it is by putting a little child in the midst of His +arrogant and vainglorious disciples, that the child may become the +living and memorable parable of His sentiments. When He would teach +humanity, He does so by His own conduct to lepers. When He would +discredit and expose the barbarism of the Mosaic Sabbatarian laws as +interpreted by scribes and Pharisees, He does so by healing the sick +and blind upon the Sabbath day. He is all for the concrete, teaching +not by theory, but by example. The method is novel, and its advantages +are obvious. The best conceived discourses on humility, mercy, or +sympathy, might be forgotten, but no one can forget the child among the +disciples, nor the raptured gaze of the blind man when his purged eyes +open to behold the face of his miraculous Physician, nor the picture of +Jesus touching without fear or disgust the leper whose unclean +contagion made him an object of aversion even to the pitiful. + +It is a wonderful method of instruction; it makes every other method +seem trite and wearisome. Its effect is to make the Gospels a series +of tableaux, which dwell in the memory as things actually seen. The +groups upon the stage perpetually shift and rearrange themselves; each +represents some phase of life, some problem, some combination of +circumstance more or less common in the experience of men, something +that is typical, for Jesus chooses only the typical and essential +things of life for these occasions. The lesser things of life He +passes over; it is the great and crucial matters which attract Him. + +But what are the great things of life? + +They all fall into one category, they all present problems in human +relationship. No problems are so difficult. They are not speculative, +but practical. A man who may be wise as the world counts wisdom, and +able to pierce with acute analysis to the depth of the abstrusest +philosophic problem, may nevertheless find himself hopelessly baffled +by some quite common fact of life, such as how to treat a wayward son, +or a sinful woman. I am not likely to lose a night's rest because I am +unable to define the Trinity but with what sore travail of heart do I +toss through midnight hours when I have to settle some course of action +towards the friend who has betrayed me, the brother who has brought me +shame, the child who scoffs at my restraint, and hears the call of the +far country in every swift pulsation of his passionate heart! And why +cannot I settle my course of action? Because my mind is confused by +something which I call justice, to which custom has given authority and +consecration. Justice prescribes one course of action, affection +another. The convention of the world insists that wrong-doing should +be punished, which is manifestly right; but when it insists that I +should be the punisher, I suspect something wrong. The more closely I +study conventional justice the more I am conscious of something in +myself that distrusts and revolts from it. The more I incline to the +voice of affection the more I fear it, lest I should be guilty of +weakness which would merit my own contempt. The struggle is one +between convention and instinct, and I know not which side to take. +But one thing I do know; it is that I have no certain clue to guide me, +no clear determining principle that divides the darkness with a sword +of light, no voice within myself that is authoritative. + +Now the wonderful thing in Jesus is that He is always sure of Himself. +Nothing takes Him by surprise, nothing produces the least hesitation in +His judgment. Therefore He must have had an unfailing clue to which He +trusted in the maze of life. Behind all consistency of judgment there +must exist consistency of principle. The principle that governed all +the thoughts of Jesus was _that love was the only real justice_. He +came not to condemn, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. +There was no problem of human relationship that could not be solved by +love; there was no other principle needed for the regulation of +society; and no other could produce that general peace and good-will +which He called the Kingdom of God. + +Thus, on one occasion Jesus tells a story which is so lifelike in every +touch that we may accept it, without doubt, as less a parable than an +incident. A father has two sons, one of whom is industrious and +dutiful, the other wayward and rebellious. The wayward son finally +casts off all pretense of filial obedience, goes into a far country, +and wastes his substance in riotous living. Here we have one of the +saddest of all problems in human relationship, for presently the +disgraced son comes home a beggar. The elder brother who represents +the average social view, has no doubt whatever as to what should be +done. He is offended that the disgraced son should come home at all; +he would have thought better of him if he had hidden his shame in the +country that had witnessed it. Probably his sense of pride and +respectability is offended more than his love of virtue, though he +characteristically gives his jealous anger the illusion of morality. +This, I say, is the average social view. There are few things more +cruel than affronted respectability. The elder brother is an eminently +respectable person, totally unacquainted with wayward passions, and his +only feeling for his brother is disdain. + +Jesus tells the story, however, in such a way as to discredit the +average social view. He begins by making us feel that whatever follies +the prodigal had committed, he had already been punished for them in +the miseries he had endured. It is not for man to punish with his whip +of scorn one who has already been flaggellated with a whip of scorpions +in the desert places of disgrace and shame. Jesus makes us feel also +that whatever sins might be laid to the charge of the disgraced son, +there is nevertheless in his heart a warmth of feeling of which the +elder brother gives no sign. The boy loves his father, otherwise he +would not have turned to him in his anguish of distress. The elder +brother's attitude to his father is arrogant and harsh; the younger +brother's is humble and tender. Lastly the father himself is revealed +as the embodiment of love. He asks no questions, utters no reproaches, +imposes no conditions; he simply takes his son back, in the rush of his +affection cutting short the boy's pitiful confession, and calling for +shoes and new robes and festal music, as though his son had returned in +dignity and triumph. In the last scene of all, implied rather than +described, the restored prodigal sits at the feast, leaning on his +father's bosom, but the respectable son stands without in a darkness of +his own creation--the darkness which a harsh spirit and an unlovely +temper never fail to create in men of his unhappy temperament. + +It is a very strange story, if we come to think of it; almost an +immoral story, as no doubt it was considered by the Pharisees, and +persons of their cold and mechanical type of virtue. But Jesus +anticipates their criticism with one of the most startling statements +that ever fell from inspired lips, "There is more joy in heaven among +the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and +nine righteous persons who need no repentance." Heaven approves the +story, if they do not. Thus God Himself would act, for God is love. +Thus love must needs act, if it be the kind of love that "suffereth +long and is kind, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, +is not provoked, taketh not account of evil, beareth all things, +believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." And if +we ask what becomes of justice, Jesus assures us that love is the only +real justice. For the main object of justice is not punishment but +reclamation. A truly enlightened justice is less concerned with the +punishment of wrong than its reparation. + +The gravest question in the case of this unhappy boy is not what he has +made of himself by sin and folly, but what can yet be made of him by +wise and tender treatment. Had the father coldly dismissed the +prodigal with some bitter verdict on his past folly, he himself would +have been unjust to the boy's possibilities, and thus would have sinned +against his son with a sin much less capable of excuse than the son's +sin against him. The worst sinner in the story is not the son who went +wrong, but the son who had never done anything but right, yet had done +it in such a way that it had begotten in him a vile, censorious, +loveless temper. No one can be just who does not love; and so, once +more removing the story into that unseen world which Christ called in +to redress the balance of this visible world, we sinful men and women +build our hopes upon the great saying that God's forgiveness is God's +justice: if we confess our sins, He is not only faithful, but JUST in +forgiving us our sins. + + + + +LOVE IS JUSTICE + + + + _THE WAY OF WOUNDS_ + + _He touched the leper tenderly, + So in His hands there came to be + Wide wounds that were not wrought with nails. + Alas, my hands are smooth and fair, + No wound is on them anywhere, + Nor any scarlet scar of nails._ + + _His lips lay on the mouth of death, + God's healing dwelt within their breath, + Wherefore his lips grew pale with pain, + And no man shall that pain divine; + Alas, my lips are red with wine, + And they have scorned His draught of pain._ + + _His feet were torn of stone and thorn, + Full slow He moved on roads forlorn, + But joyous hearts accompanied Him; + Alas, my feet are softly shod, + And on the road that leads to God, + They have not sought to move with Him._ + + _And so all wounded by the way, + He came home at the close of day, + And angels met Him at the Gate. + Alas, His way I have not known-- + The road forlorn, the wounding stone-- + And no one waits me at the Gate._ + + + +IV + +LOVE IS JUSTICE + +Love is the only real justice--never was there a more revolutionary +ethic! If Christianity is to be judged by its institutions, it must be +reluctantly confessed that twenty centuries of Christian teaching have +almost wholly failed to make this strange ethic acceptable to mankind. +The elder brother still makes broad his phylacteries in the home, in +the Church, and on the seat of justice. The elder brother's sense of +offended respectability still masquerades as virtue. Who forgives as +this father forgave, with such completeness that he who has wrought the +wrong is encouraged to forget that the wrong was ever wrought? Where +is the loving and tolerant spirit of the father less visible than in +the Church, which crucifies men for a word, and makes a difference of +opinion the ground for deadly enmity? Of what administration of law +can we say that its chief object is not the punishment of the +wrong-doer, but his reclamation? No existing society is organized on +these principles, and the only defense the apologists of a bastard +Christianity make is that it is totally impossible to apply the +principles of Jesus to the administration of society. That is, at all +events, an intelligible defense, but is it a legitimate one? Was Jesus +merely a romantic dreamer, with entirely romantic views of love and +justice? Was He a moral anarchist, whose teachings, if interpreted in +laws, would destroy the basis of society? A strange thing indeed in +human history if One who has been loved as no other was ever loved by +multitudes of men and women through the ages, should prove after all to +be an impracticable dreamer or a moral anarchist! + +But if Jesus was a dreamer, He dreamed true, and the very reason why He +is loved with such wide and deep devotion is that men do dimly, but +instinctively, perceive that His life presents the only perfect pattern +of life as it should be. Life, as it exists, is clearly not ordered on +a social system which any wise or good man can approve. Hence the wise +and good man is perpetually urged to the enquiry whether Jesus may not +after all have been right? + +Jesus certainly acts as one who is right. He acts always with the +assured air of one for whom all debate is closed and henceforth +impossible. He knows His way, and the great moral dilemmas of life +yield instantly to His touch. He penetrates to their roots and makes +us feel that He has touched the essential element in them. The dreamer +vindicates himself by making it manifest that he sees deeper into the +problem than the moralist, and that his is after all the better +morality because it is of higher social value, and makes more directly +for social reconciliation. + +Let us take, for example, the judgment of Jesus upon the woman who was +a sinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee. The social dilemma of the +fallen woman is much more difficult of solution than that of the +prodigal son. We expect a certain power of moral convalescence in +youth which has been betrayed through folly. Sooner or later the manly +nature kindles with resentment at its own weakness. Moreover, social +law allows a certain opportunity of recuperation to man which it denies +to woman. The sin of the woman seems less pardonable, not because it +is worse in itself, but because it outrages a higher convention. Hence +the strict moralist who might make some allowance for the hot blood of +youth, makes none for woman when she is betrayed through the affections. + +But this is the very point on which Jesus fixes as essential. "_The +woman loved much, therefore let her many sins be forgiven_," He says. +And a true reading of the story would seem to show that in uttering +this sublime verdict Jesus is not thinking of the woman's sudden and +pure love for Him; He is rather reviewing the entire nature of her +life. She had loved much--that is her history in a sentence. Cruelty +and unkindness, malice and bitterness, had no part in her misdoing. +She had been undone through the very sweetness of her nature, as +multitudes of women are. That which was her noblest attribute--her +power of affection--had been the minister of her ruin through lack of +wisdom and restraint. By love she had fallen, by love also she shall +be redeemed. Her sins were indeed many, but behind all her sins there +was an essential though perverted magnanimity of nature, and for the +sake of an essential good in her, which lay like a shining pearl at the +root of her debasement, she shall be forgiven. + +Again a strange verdict, and one that must have seemed to the Pharisees +entirely immoral. "What becomes of justice?" is their whispered +comment. Jesus asserts His sense of justice by an exposition of the +character of Simon. Simon is destitute of love, of magnanimity, even +of courtesy. In his hard and formal nature there has been no room for +emotion; passion of any kind and he are strangers. Which nature is +radically the better, his or "this woman's"? Which presents the more +hopeful field to the moralist? The soil of Simon's heart is thin and +meagre; but in "this woman's" heart is a soil overgrown with weeds +indeed, but delicately tempered, rich and deep, in which the roots of +the fair tree of life may find abundant room and nourishment. +Therefore she shall be forgiven for her possibilities, and such +forgiveness is justice. To ignore these possibilities, to allow what +she has been utterly to overshadow the lovely vision of what she may +be, when once the soil is clear of weeds, and the real magnanimity of +her temperament is directed into noble uses, would be the most odious +form of injustice. + +Such is the justice of Jesus, but, alas, after two thousand years we +still stand astonished at it, more than half doubtful of its validity, +and, if truth be told, secretly dismayed at its boldness. It is +romantic justice, we say, but is it practicable justice? We might at +least remember that what we call practicable justice has never yet +attained the gracious results of Christ's romantic justice. Simon the +Pharisee knows no more how to deal with "this woman" than the elder +brother knew how to deal with the prodigal. Such sense of justice as +they possessed would have infallibly driven the penitent boy back to +the comradeship of harlots, and have refused the penitent harlot the +barest chance of reformation. Is not this enough to make the least +discerning of us all suspect that Pharisees and elder brothers, for all +their immaculate respectability of life, are by no means qualified to +pass judgment on these tragedies of life with which they have no +acquaintance, and cannot have an understanding sympathy? Does not the +entire failure of legal justice with all its apparatus of punishment +and repression, to give the sinner a vital impulse to withdraw from his +sin, drive us to the conclusion, or at least to the hope, that there +must be some better method of dealing with sinners than is sanctioned +by conventional justice? There is another method--it is Christ's +method. And the thing to be observed is that whereas conventional +justice must certainly have failed in either of these crucial +instances, the romantic justice of Jesus--if we must so call +it--completely succeeded. The woman who was a sinner sinned no more, +and the penitent son henceforth lived a new life of purity and +obedience. In each case love is justified, and proves itself the +highest justice. + + + + +LOVE AND FORGIVENESS + + + + _LOVE'S PROFIT_ + + _What profits all the hate that we have known + The bitter words, not all unmerited? + Have hearts e'er thriven beneath our angry frown? + Have roses grown from thistles we have sown? + Or lucid dawns flowered out of sunsets red? + Lo, all in vain + The violence that added pain to pain, + And drove the sinner back to sin again._ + + _We had been wiser had we walked Love's way + We had been happier had we tenderer been, + We had found sunlight in the cloudiest day + Had we but loved the souls that went astray, + And sought from shame their many faults to screen + Lo, they and we + Had thus escaped Life's worst Gethsemane, + And found the Garden where the angels be._ + + _For One there was who, angry, drew no sword, + Derided, wept for those who wrought Him wrong, + And at the last attained this great reward, + That those who injured Him acclaimed Him Lord, + And wove His story into holiest song. + So sinners wrought + For Him the Kingdom He had vainly sought, + And to His feet the world's frankincense brought._ + + + +V + +LOVE AND FORGIVENESS + +In these instances it is the singular completeness of Christ's +forgiveness which is the most startling feature. It would be a libel on +human nature to say that men do not forgive each other, but human +forgiveness usually has reservations, reticences, conditions. Jesus +taught unlimited forgiveness, and what He taught He practiced. + +"_Then came Peter, and said to Him, 'Lord, how oft shall my brother sin +against me and I forgive him? Until seven times?' Jesus said unto him, +'I say not unto thee, until seven times; but until seventy times seven.'_" + +It is a vehement reply, in which a quiet note of scorn vibrates; not +scorn of Peter, but scorn of any kind of love that is less than +limitless. But whose love is limitless? Do we not commonly speak of +love as being outworn by offense or neglect? In the compacts which we +make with one another in the name of love, do we not specifically name +certain offenses as unpardonable? Thus one man will say, "I can forgive +anything but meanness," and another says, "no friendship can survive +perfidy"; and in the relations between men and women unfaithfulness is +held to cancel all bonds, however indissoluble they may seem. Now and +again, it is true, some strange voice reaches us, keyed to a different +music. Shakespeare, for example, in his famous one hundred and sixteenth +sonnet, boldly states that + + Love is not love + Which alters when it alteration finds, + Or bends with the remover to remove. + +But who listens, who believes? Yet, if it should happen to us to be +placed in the position of the offender, we need no one to convince us +that a true love should be, in its very nature, unalterable. How +astonished and dismayed are we, when eyes that have so many times met +ours in tenderness harden at our presence, and lips which have uttered so +many pledges of affection, speak harshly! We do not deny our fault, +indeed; but we think we can discern reasons why it should be regarded +mercifully, why the very memory and sacredness of old affection should +make harsh judgment impossible; nay, more, why a deeply generous love +should even rejoice in the opportunity to forgive, and so should sanctify +our very shame with the healing touch of pity, and pour our tears into +the sacramental cup which ratifies a new fidelity. + +It is so the sinner argues, his vision of what love ought to be growing +clearer by his offense against love. It is he alone, the sinner, who can +really sympathize with Christ's conception of love, for he alone feels +that this is the kind of love he needs. The elder brother does not +understand, Simon the Pharisee does not understand, because neither has +sinned in such a way as to be flung helpless at the feet of love. Peter +did not understand when he put his question to Christ. He spoke just as +the average man would speak, who has never sounded the tragic depths in +life, has never known the misery of weakness, and therefore has no fellow +feeling for the weak. Love as such men know it is less a passion than a +compact. It is a bond of mutual advantage, guarded from abuse by swift +penalty and forfeit. It is the reward of qualities, it gives no more +than it gets, it exists by an equal equipoise of service. If this +equipoise is disturbed its obligations are dissolved. It is easily +affronted, and under affront becomes resentful, bitter, even vindictive. +How oft shall I forgive my brother? Only as oft as a sense of duty shall +demand, only up to the point which is sanctioned by social custom, so +that I may save my reputation for magnanimity, always excepting certain +sins for which no pardon can be legitimately asked. But the hour was not +far off when Peter himself was to commit the very sins for which +customary love has no pardon. He was to be guilty of those offenses +which just and good men say they cannot forgive--meanness, cowardice, +perfidy, denial. That bitter hour revealed the true nature of love to +Peter. He knew that in spite of his sin against Jesus, he still loved +Him, and since love was unalterable in him, he expected an unalterable +love in Christ. It was the seventy times seven forgiveness that he +needed then; and how sweet to recollect in that hour that Jesus had +taught a love that knew no limit. "_Lovest thou Me_?" was the one word +his Master uttered when they met in the quiet morning light beside the +sea. "_Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee_," was the +swift reply. Storms disturb the sea but the central tides run on. Peter +found with equal astonishment and gratitude that not even perfidy was +able to separate him from the love of Christ, for that love was +unalterable as the morning star which hung above the lake, and cleansing +as the soft waves that lapped its shore. + +The self-righteous man will never understand these things. Men and women +of meagre natures, with whom love is a compact, not a passion, will +vehemently disapprove them. People of smooth lives, ignorant of strong +temptations, will refuse even to discuss them. Jesus was well aware of +their implacable indifference or cold hostility, and boldly said that for +such people He had no gospel. His mission was not to the whole, but to +the sick. The Gospel of Jesus is in truth not designed for people of +comfortable lives. He has little to say to the children of compromise, +whose emasculated lives attain the semblance of virtue by the cautious +exercise of niggard passions. They can take care of one another, these +righteous ones, whose very righteousness is a negation. + +But Christ's Gospel is for a tragic world. It is for the disinherited, +the weak, and the strong who have become weak; for those who have been +wrecked by folly and passion, and too much love of living; for those +whose capacities for good and evil, being both rooted in passion, are +equally a peril and a potency--it is to these Christ chiefly speaks. To +them the Gospel of unlimited forgiveness and unalterable love is the only +vital, because the only efficacious Gospel. The man whose very virility +of nature makes him the easy prey of murderous joy; the man shut up in +prison, who hears from the lips that once spake love to him, the sentence +of inexpiable disgrace; the outcast from honour, gnawing the bitter husks +of hated sin in far lands, and tortured in his dreams by the sweetness of +recollected happiness; these, and all like these, will understand Jesus, +for it is to them He speaks. Their very sin interprets Him. To their +forlorn ears the love He teaches will sound not strange, for it is the +only kind of love that can redeem them; nor foolish, for it is the only +love that dare stoop low enough to lift them up. These will not fail to +understand what conventional righteousness finds so difficult; these, and +also all good women who have had acquaintance with either deep love or +real grief, because it is a loving woman's sweet prerogative and divine +disposition to forgive, and to draw from her grace of forgiveness a more +tender and maternal power of loving. + + + + +THE PRACTICE OF LOVE + + + + _FELLOW SUFFERERS_ + + _When men of malice wrought the crown for Thee + Didst Thou complain? + Nay; in each thorn God's finger Thou didst see, + His love thro' pain._ + + _His finger did but press the ripened Vine, + Thy fruit to prove, + That henceforth all the world might drink the wine + Of Thy great love._ + + _So when the darkness rose about Thy feet + Thy lips met His, + Amid the upper light, in Death's long sweet, + Releasing kiss._ + + _And shall I cry aloud in anger when + Men make for me + A Cross less harsh? Nay, I'll remember then + Thy constancy._ + + _And if the darkness hide me from Thy sight + At God's command, + I'll talk with Thee all thro' the prayerful night, + And touch Thy hand;_ + + _Greatly content, if I whose life has been + So long unwise, + May, wounded, on Thy wounded bosom lean + In Paradise._ + + + +VI + +THE PRACTICE OF LOVE + +So convinced was Jesus that love alone was the master law of life, that +He based His own life wholly on His conviction, cheerfully accepting +all the risks which were implied. He was perfectly aware of the +consequences to Himself and His reputation when He made Himself the +friend of publicans and sinners. These consequences He ignored, making +Himself of no reputation, that He might uplift by His love those who +needed His love the most. Under the constant contradiction of those +who mistook His spirit, and even libelled His character, He manifested +neither bitterness nor resentment. He suffered injuries without +retaliation, and went so far as to denounce all forms of retaliation as +a wasteful expenditure of spirit, wrong in themselves, and attaining no +end but the worse injury of those who employed them. He might easily +have used the miraculous power which He possessed for His own defense, +and for the confusion of His enemies. Had He been selfishly ambitious, +He might have organized a party so strong, that it would have become an +irresistible force, which would have shattered the old order whose +evils He denounced, and have made Him the dictator of a new order, +based on the ideals in which He believed. He did none of these things, +not through lassitude of spirit or failure to perceive their possible +issues, but simply because these were not the things to do. In His +judgment the only abiding kingdom belonged to the meek. He who +suffered injustice with patience would prove the ultimate conqueror. +There was an irresistible might in love and meekness against which the +people raged in vain. Love was a working and practicable law of life; +in the long issue of things it was the only law that justified itself. + +Was Jesus right in these conclusions? Can human life proceed along the +lines He indicated? Certainly it has never yet done so. The woman who +is a sinner finds no Jesus to absolve her utterly among the priests of +His religion. The resentment of injury is regarded even by good men as +entirely justified when injury to the person involves the rights of +social order. Force is regarded by persons of the highest amiability +as necessary to the defense of society, and the Church applauds the +punishments inflicted by the civil magistrate, and even hastens to +bless the banners and baptize the deadly weapons of the warrior. +Meekness, which endures injury without resentment, is regarded as the +sign of a servile and cowardly spirit, and is the subject of ridicule +and contempt. No Christian society exists in which a Peter would be +freely pardoned his offense; the best that could be hoped would be the +infliction of humiliating penance, and a reluctant reinstatement in the +apostleship after a long period of bitter ostracism. Yet who would +venture to challenge the conduct of Jesus in these respects? Who would +not find his opinion of Jesus tragically lowered, and his adoration +practically destroyed, if some new and more authentic Gospel were +discovered by which we learned that Jesus smote with leprosy the +Pharisees who resisted Him, as Elisha smote Gehazi: that He sanctioned +the stoning of the adultress taken in the act of sin; or that He +branded Simon Peter for his perfidy, and drove him out forever from the +apostleship he had disgraced, denouncing him as a son of hell and a +predestined citizen of the outer darkness? Could such acts be +attributed to Jesus, though each act in itself would precisely +represent the common temper of Christian courts and so-called Christian +men under circumstances of similar and equal provocation, the worship +of Jesus would at once cease throughout the world. + +The dilemma is truly tragic. A Jesus who should be proved to have +lived according to the conventions we respect, who did not rise above +conventional ideals of either love or justice, who approved force, and +resented injuries, who repudiated the friend who had betrayed Him, who +shunned the contact of persons whose touch dishonoured Him--such a +Jesus would cease to be our Jesus. He would no longer attract us, He +would not touch our hearts, He would barely command our respect. +Astounding fact! Those very things in the life of Jesus which we +disapprove are the things for which we love Him; and those tempers +which we ourselves disallow are in Him the sources of our adoration. + +We are bound therefore to ask, can that method of conduct be wrong +which has won this triumphant issue? It may be ironically true that we +love Him most for those very acts of His which we are least likely to +imitate; but is not this our tacit testimony to the essential rightness +of these acts? In our better, or our softer moments; or in those +moments when we are most conscious of the cruelty of life, and most in +need of love, do we not feel, as the life of Jesus grows before us, +that this is how life should be lived? Dare we question that a world +governed wholly by the ideals of Jesus would be a far happier world +than this we know? Love, as the one necessary law of life, clearly +stands justified in Jesus, since it has produced the most adorable +character in history. If we admit this, it is foolish to speak of +Christ's ideals as impracticable. What we approve in another's life we +cannot wholly repudiate in our own. Let it be added also, that a life +lived by another is always a life that others can live. We may seek to +cover our failure, and the world's failure, to reproduce the life of +Jesus, by the plea of incompetence, but against our plea Jesus records +His verdict, "_Behold I have left you an example_." + +From that verdict there is no appeal. + + + + +LOVE AND JUDGMENT + + + + _MOTHER AND SON_ + + _When, for the last time, from His Mother's home + The Son went forth, foreseeing perfectly + What doom would happen, and what things would come, + Was there upon His lips no stifled sigh + For happy hours that should return no more, + Long days among the lilies, pure delights + Of wanderings by Galilee's fair shore, + And converse with His friends on starry nights? + Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun + With this one word, "Father, Thy will be done!"_ + + _With a low voice the stooping olive-trees + Whispered to Him of His Gethsemane; + The cruel thorn-bush, clinging to His knees, + Proclaimed, "I shall be made a crown for Thee!" + And, looking back, His eyes made dim with loss, + He saw the lintel of the cottage grow + In shape against the sunset, like a cross, + And knew He had not very far to go. + Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun, + Still saying this one word, "Thy will be done!"_ + + _So, when the last time, from His Mother's home + The Son passed out, no choir of angels came, + As long before at Bethlehem they had come, + To comfort Him upon the road of shame. + Alone He went, and stopped a little space, + As one overburdened, stopped to look again + Upon His Mother's pleading form and face, + And wept for her, that she should know this pain. + Then, silently, He faced the setting sun + And said, "Oh, Father, let Thy will be done!"_ + + + +VII + +LOVE AND JUDGMENT + +Just as Jesus called in the vision of the unseen world to redress the +balance of the visible world, when He said that there was more joy in +heaven over the penitent sinner than over ninety and nine just men who +needed no repentance, so in His final addresses to His followers He +again discloses the unseen world. These final addresses deal with the +tremendous problem of a future judgment. Over no problem does the +human mind hover with such breathless interest, such unfeigned alarm. +But with characteristic perversity the elements in Christ's vision of +the judgment on which men have seized most tenaciously, are precisely +those elements which are least intelligible, and least capable of +strict definition. It is around the word "eternal" and the nature of +the punishment suggested, that the theological battles of centuries +have centred. Yet the really central point of both the vision and the +teaching, is not here at all; and it is only man's habitual love of +enigma which can explain the passion with which men have opposed one +another over the interpretation of words and phrases which must always +remain enigmatic. + +Let us turn to Christ's vision of the Judgment, as recorded by St. +Matthew, and what do we find? First that the same Son of Man, whose +whole life was an exposition of the law of love, is Himself the final +judge of men and nations. "_The Son of Man shall sit on the throne of +His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all the nations, and He +shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the +sheep from the goats_." No alien judge, observe, unacquainted with the +nature of man, but one who knows human life so thoroughly that He is +the representative man--"the Son of Man"; and although He is now the +Judge, yet He still calls Himself by the tender name of the Shepherd. +The tribunal is therefore the tribunal of love, and the court is the +court of love. He who shall judge mankind is He who judges Peter and +the woman who was a sinner, He of whose tenderness and sympathy we have +assurance in a hundred acts of mercy, pity, and magnanimity. Yet for +centuries the Church has sung its terrible _Dies Irae_, has clothed the +judgment seat with thunder, has put into the hands of Jesus bolts of +flame, and has applauded and enthroned in His sanctuaries such +pictorial blasphemies as Michael Angelo's _Last Judgment_, which +represents Jesus as an angry Hercules, and even gratifies the private +spite of the artist by overwhelming in a sea of fire one who had +offered him a personal affront. + +Blasphemy indeed, and falsehood too; for the second thing we find is +that the one principle which governs the entire vision of Jesus is that +Love judges, and that it is by Love that men are tested. The men and +women of loving disposition, who have wrought many little acts of +kindness which were to them so natural and simple that they do not so +much as recollect them, find themselves mysteriously selected for +infinite rewards. The men and women of opposite disposition, in spite +of all their outward rectitude of behaviour, find themselves numbered +with the goats. A cup of cold water given to a child, a meal bestowed +upon a beggar, a garment shared with the naked--these things purchase +heaven. One who Himself had been thirsty, hungry, and naked, judges +their worth, and He judges by His own remembered need. It is love +alone that is divine, love alone that prepares the soul for divine +felicity. With a beautiful unconsciousness of any merit, the people +who have lived lovingly plead ignorance of their own lovely acts and +tempers; but they have been witnessed by the hierarchies of heaven, the +morning stars have sung of them, they have made glad the heart of God; +and the reward of these humble servitors of love now is that having +added to the joy of God, henceforth they shall share that joy forever. + +Never was there vision at once so exquisite and so surprising. It is +like a child's dream of heaven and judgment, so untouched is it by the +conventions of the world, so innocent, so daring, so tenderly imagined, +and so impossibly probable. Alas, that most of us are too wise to +understand it, and too worldly to receive it. Yet in nothing that +Jesus uttered is there clearer evidence of deliberation. And it is of +a piece with all He taught; so much so indeed that without it, His +teaching would be incomplete. + +Truly, we may say, the Heaven of Jesus is a strangely ordered Kingdom; +for in it beggars are comforted for apparently no other reason than +that they need comfort; the doers of forgotten kindnesses are crowned +with sudden splendours of divine approval while the lords of genius and +the makers of empire are forgotten; and the very anthems of the blessed +are hushed into silent wondering and joy when solitary penitents turn +homewards from the roads of sin! But it is not stranger than that +kingdom in which Jesus lived habitually, the kingdom He created round +Him in His earthly life. In that kingdom also love was lord, and she +who anointed the tired feet of the Master against His burial was +promised everlasting remembrance, and she who out of her penury gave +her mite to the poor was praised as having done more than all the rich, +who from their abundance distributed careless and unmissed +benefactions. In all that Jesus says and does the same sequence of +thought runs clear, the same master principle rules the various result. +Life is a unity either here or hereafter, and love is, and must +evermore remain, the one temper that gives significance to life. + + + + +THE WISDOM OF THE SIMPLE + + + + _THE WELL_ + + _When Galilee took morning's flame + Thro' fields of flowers the Master came. + He stopped before a cottage door, + And took from humble hands the store + Of crumbs that from the table fell, + And water from the living well. + He smiled, and with a great content + Upon the road of flowers went._ + + _Foredoomed upon the road of shame + With bleeding feet the Master came, + And found the cottage door again. + "No wine have we to ease Thy pain, + But only water in a cup." + The Master slowly drank it up. + "Thy kindness turns it into wine," + He said, "and makes the gift divine."_ + + _Upon a day the Master trod + The road of stars that leads to God, + All tasks for men accomplished. + "They gave Me hate," He softly said, + "But Love in larger measure gave, + And therefore was I strong to save. + I had not reached the Cross that day + But for the Well beside the way."_ + + + +VIII + +THE WISDOM OF THE SIMPLE + +If these things be true, if the whole tradition of Jesus is an +exposition of love as the law of life, the deduction is entirely +simple, and as logical as it is simple. That deduction has been +already stated. It is that Christianity is a method of life by which +men and women are taught and inspired to love as Jesus loved, and to +live loving and lovable lives. It has little to do with creeds, and +still less with formal codes of conduct. For this reason such a +definition of Christianity will satisfy neither the theologian nor the +philosopher. Jesus never expected that it would. He knew that the one +would regard it as heretical, and the other as so deficient in subtlety +as to seem foolish. Therefore He made His appeal to simple and natural +people, saying that what was hidden from the wise and prudent, was +revealed to babes. + +The simple and natural people understood Jesus; they always do. The +sophisticated and artificial people did not understand Him; they never +will. With scarcely an exception the people of intelligence and +culture regarded Him with disdain, withdrew from Him, or violently +opposed Him. The reason for their conduct lay not so much in either +their culture or their intelligence, as in the kind of life that seemed +to be necessary to them as the expression of their culture. + +Thus, they were full of prejudices, prepossessions, and foregone +conclusions, all of which had the sanction of their culture. It was +enough for them to know that Jesus came from Nazareth and was +unlettered; this produced in them violent scorn and antipathy. They +were still further offended because He used none of the shibboleths +with which they were familiar. Nor could they conceive of any life as +satisfactory but the kind of life they lived, and that was a life of +social complexity, ruled by conventional usages and maxims, and +essentially artificial in ideal and practice. Jesus, therefore, turned +from them to the simple and natural people, fishermen, artisans, and +humble women, in whom the natural instincts had fuller play. His +reward was immediate; then, and ever since, the Common People heard Him +gladly. + +The reason why simple and natural people readily understand Jesus is +that in the kind of life they live the primal emotions are supreme. +The very narrowness of their social outlook intensifies those emotions. +They have little to distract them; they are not bewildered by endless +disquisitions on conduct, and religion itself is for them an emotion +rather than a systematized creed. For the poor man home, children, +fireside affection, mean more than for the rich man, because they are +his only wealth. This is the lesson which Wordsworth has so nobly +taught in his "_Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_,"-- + + How, by heaven's grace this Clifford's heart was framed, + How he, long forced in humble walks to go, + Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed. + + Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; + His daily teachers had been woods and rills, + The silence that is in the starry sky, + The sleep that is among the lonely hills. + + +People who live thus, in wise simplicity, undistracted by the numerous +illusions of an artificial life, have no difficulty in accepting +Christ's teaching that love is the supreme law of life, because love +means everything to them in the kind of life they lead. In the wisdom +of the heart they are more learned than the wisest Pharisee, who is +rarely "softened into feeling," whose whole social life indeed imposes +a restraint on feeling. What peasant father would not welcome a +returning prodigal, what peasant mother would not open her arms wide to +gather to her bosom a penitent daughter, recovered from the cruel snare +of cities? Certainly one is much more likely to find such acts of pure +feeling among peasant folk than among the rich and cultured, for the +peasant cares less for opinion, is less respectful of social etiquette, +and follows more closely in his actions the instincts of primal +affection. Who has not discovered among poor and humble folk a strange +and beautiful lenience, the lenience of a great compassion, towards +those sins which in more artificial conditions of society are held to +justify the most violent condemnation, and do indeed close the heart to +pity? In poor men's huts beside the Sea of Galilee Jesus Himself had +found love, love in all its divine daring, lenience, and magnanimity, +and He knew that among people like these He would be understood. He +also knew that the only people fitted to interpret His doctrine of +sovereign love to the world were these simple folk of the lake and +field, and therefore to them He committed His Gospel, and from them He +chose His disciples. + +It needed a peasant Christ to teach these things, for no other could +have imagined them, no other could have had the daring and simplicity +to utter them. A peasant Christ He was, living, thinking, and acting +as a peasant even in His highest moments of inspiration. It was +because He always remained a peasant that He was able to see so clearly +the defects of that more intricate social system to which His ministry +introduced Him. He brought with Him a new scale of values, which He +had learned in the school of a more primal life than could be found in +cities. Nature always spoke in Him, convention never. In His +treatment of sin it is always the voice of Nature that we hear +triumphing over the verdicts of convention. The sins which convention +regards as inexpiable are sins of passion; the sins which it excuses +are sins of temper, such as greed, malice, craft, unkindness, cruelty. +Jesus entirely reverses the scale. His pity is reserved for outcasts, +His harshest words are addressed to those whom the world calls good. +Folly He views with infinite compassion--the foolish man is as a lost +sheep whose very helplessness invokes our pity. But for the man of +hard and self-sufficient nature, whose very righteousness is a mixture +of prudence and egoism, He has only words of flame. An offense against +virtue counts for less with Him than an offense against love. No +wonder the Pharisees called Him a blasphemer! Were the true nature of +Christ's teaching understood to-day many who profess to revere Him +would join in the same accusation. What more offensive and unpalatable +truth could be presented to mankind than this on which Jesus constantly +insists, that sins of temper are much more harmful than sins of +passion, that they spring from a more incurable malignancy of nature, +that they produce far wider and more disastrous suffering? + +Yet the truth is clear enough to all broadly truthful and simple +natures, which are not bewildered by conventional views of right and +wrong. Who has occasioned more suffering, the youth who has sinned +against himself in wild folly and repented, or the man who has planned +his life with that cold craft and deliberate cruelty which sacrifices +everything to self-advantage? Can any human mind measure the various +and almost infinite wrongs committed by the man who piles up through +years of sordid avarice an unjust fortune? Who can count the broken +hearts in the pathway of that implacable ambition which "wades through +slaughter to a throne"? These things may not be apparent to the man +whose nature is subdued to the hue of that artificial society in which +he lives, a society which permits such crimes to pass unquestioned. +They are certainly not perceived by the criminals themselves. To-day, +as in the day of Christ, they "devour widows' houses, and for a +pretense make long prayers," save, perhaps, that more blind than the +ancient Pharisees, their prayers seem real, and they themselves are +unconscious of pretense. Now also, as then, they give their tithes in +conventional benevolence, forgetting, and hoping to make others forget, +the sources of their wealth in their use of it. How is it that such +men are so unconscious of offense? Simply because they have never +grasped Christ's deliberate statement that sins of temper are much +worse than sins of passion; that cruelty is a worse thing than folly; +that the wrong wrought by squandering the substance in a far country is +more quickly repaired, and more easily forgiven, than the wrong of +hoarding one's substance in the avarice which neglects the poor, or +adding to it by methods which trample the weak and humble in the dust, +as deserving neither pity nor attention. + +Yet it needs but a very brief examination of society to prove the truth +of Christ's contention; very little experience of life to discover that +the utmost corruption of the human heart lies in lovelessness. The +spiteful and rancorous temper, always seeking occasions of offense; the +jealous spirit which cannot bear the spectacle of another's joy; the +bitter nagging tongue, darting hither and thither like a serpent's fang +full of poison, and diabolically skilled in wounding; the sour and +grudging disposition, which seems most contented with itself when it +has produced the utmost misery in others; the narrow mind and heart +destitute of magnanimity; the cold and egoistic temperament, which +demands subservience of others and receives their service without +thanks, as though the acknowledgment of gratitude were weakness--these +are common and typical forms of lovelessness, and who can estimate the +sum of suffering they inflict? Their fruit is everywhere the same; +love repressed, children estranged, the home made intolerable. It does +but add to the offense of these unlovely people that in what the world +calls morality they are above reproach, for they instill a hatred of +morality itself by their appropriation of it. Before them love flies +aghast, and the tenderest emotions of the heart fall withered. Could +the annals of human misery be fairly written, it might appear that not +all the lusts and crimes which are daily blazoned to the eye have +wrought such wide-spread misery, have inflicted such general +unhappiness, as these sins of temper, so common in their operation that +they pass almost unrebuked, but so wide-spread in their effects that +their havoc is discovered in every feature of our social life. + + + + +THE REVELATIONS OF GRIEF + + + + _THE HOUSE OF PRIDE_ + + _I lived with Pride; the house was hung + With tapestries of rich design. + Of many houses, this among + Them all was richest, and 'twas mine. + But in the chambers burned no fire, + Tho' all the furniture was gold, + I sickened of fulfilled desire, + The House of Pride was very cold._ + + _I lived with Knowledge; very high + Her house rose on a mountain's side. + I watched the stars roll through the sky, + I read the scroll of Time flung wide. + But in that house, austere and bare, + No children played, no laughter clear + Was heard, no voice of mirth was there, + The House was high but very drear._ + + _I lived with Love; all she possest + Was but a tent beside a stream. + She warmed my cold hands in her breast, + She wove around my sleep a dream. + And One there was with face divine + Who softly came, when day was spent, + And turned our water into wine, + And made our life a sacrament._ + + + +IX + +THE REVELATIONS OF GRIEF + +Nevertheless there are occasions in life when these things become +evident to even the least observant of us. When we stand beside the +newly dead the most intolerable reflection of countless mourners is +that their tears fall on quiet lips to which they gave scant caresses, +in the days of health: their passionate words of love are uttered to +unhearing ears, which in life waited eagerly for such assurances as +these, and waited vainly. All the purity and beauty of the vanished +human soul is revealed to us now, when it is no longer in our power to +gladden or delight it with our kindness or our praise. All the willing +service rendered to us by those folded hands and resting feet, which we +so thanklessly accepted, is seen as a thing dear and precious to us +now, when the opportunity of thanks is past forever. What would we +give now if but for one brief hour we might recall our dead just to say +the tender things we might have said and did not say, through all those +days and years when they were with us,--presences familiar and +accustomed, moving round us with so soft a tread that we scarce +regarded them, nor laid on them detaining hands, nor lifted our +preoccupied and careless eyes to theirs! + +For most of us, alas, it is not Grief and Love alone who conduct us to +the chambers of the dead; the sad and silent Angel of Reproach also +stands beside the bed, and the shadow of his wings falls upon the +features fixed in their immutable appeal, their pathetic and unwilling +accusation. Then it is that veil after veil is lifted from the past, +till in the pitiless light we read ourselves with a new understanding +of our faults. We see that through some element of hardness in +ourselves which we allowed to grow unchecked; through vain pride, or +obstinate perversity, or mere thoughtless disregard, we repulsed love +from the dominion of our hearts, and made him the servitor of our +desires, but no longer the lord of our behaviour and the spirit of our +lives. And now as we gaze on these things across the gulf of the +irreparable, we see our sin and how it came to pass; how we were unkind +not in the things we did but in those we failed to do; how, without +being cruel, our denied response to hearts that craved our tenderness +became a more subtle cruelty than angry word or hasty blow; how with +every duty accurately measured and fulfilled, yet love evaporated in +the cold and cheerless atmosphere of repression and aloofness with +which we clothed ourselves; and then the significance of Christ's +teaching comes home to us, for we know too late, that kindness is more +than righteousness, and tenderness more than duty, and that to have +loved with all our hearts is the only fulfilling of the law which +heaven approves. None, bowed beside the newly dead, ever regretted +that they had loved too well; millions have wept the bitterest tears +known to mortals because they loved too little, and wronged by their +poverty of love the sacred human presences now withdrawn forever from +their vision. + +But there are other and more joyous ways of learning the truth of +Christ's teaching, ways that are accessible to all of us. The best and +most joyous way of all is to make experiment of it. Here is a law of +life which to the sophisticated mind seems impossible, impracticable, +and even absurd. No amount of argument will convince us that we can +find in love a sufficient rule of life, or that "to renounce joy for +our fellow's sake is joy beyond joy." How are we to be convinced? +Only by making the experiment, for we really believe only that which we +practice. "I wish I had your creed, then I would live your life," said +a seeker after truth to Pascal, the great French thinker. "Live my +life, and you will soon have my creed," was the swift reply. The +solution of all difficulties of faith lies in Pascal's answer, which is +after all but a variant of Christ's greater saying, "He that willeth to +do the will of God, shall know the doctrine." Is not the whole reason +why, for so many of us, the religion of Christ which we profess has so +little in it to content us, simply this, that we have never heartily +and honestly tried to practice it? We have accepted Christ's religion +indeed, as one which upon the whole should be accepted by virtuous men, +or as one which has sufficient superiorities to certain other forms of +religion to turn the scale of our intellectual hesitation, and win from +us reluctant acquiescence. But have we accepted it as the only +authoritative rule of practice? Have we ever tried to live one day of +our life so that it should resemble one of the days of the Son of Man? +Knowing what He thought and did, and how He felt, have we ever tried to +think and act and feel as He did--and if we have not, what wonder that +our religion, being wholly theoretical, appears to us tainted with +unreality, a thin-spun web of barren, fragile idealism which leaves us +querulous and discontented? + +Such a sense of discontent should be for us, as it really is, the +signal of some deep mistake in our conception of religion. It should +at least cause us alarm, for what can be more alarming than that we +should be haunted with a sense of unreality in religion, yet still +profess religion for reasons which leave the heart indifferent and +barely serve to satisfy the intellect? And what can produce a keener +torture in a sincere mind than this eternal suspicion of unreality in a +religion whose conventional authority is acknowledged and accepted? + +I am convinced that these feelings are general among great multitudes +of the more thoughtful and intelligent adherents of Christianity. +Religion rests with them upon a certain intellectual acquiescence, or +upon the equipoise of rational probabilities, or on the compromise of +intellectual hesitations. Their tastes are gratified by the normal +forms of worship, and their sentiments are softly stirred and +stimulated. But when the voice of the orator dies upon the porches of +the ear, and the music of the Church is silent, and the seduction of +splendid ceremonial is forgotten, there remains the uneasy sense that +between all this and the actual Carpenter-Redeemer there is a wide gulf +fixed; that Jesus scarcely lived and died to produce only such results +as these; that there must be some other method of interpreting His +life, much simpler, much truer, and much more satisfying. Is it +wonderful that among such men the current forms of Christianity excite +no enthusiasm, and that the bonds of their attachment to it are lax and +easily dissolved? And what is felt by these men within the Church is +felt with much greater strength by multitudes of sincere men outside +the Church, who do not hesitate to express their feeling and to +pronounce current Christianity a burlesque and tragic travesty upon the +real religion of the Nazarene. + +But the moment we do begin to live, however inefficiently, as Jesus +lived, the sublime reality of His religion is revealed to us. We do +actually find that in the postponement of our own desires for the sake +of others; in the abandonment of our own apparently legitimate +ambitions for the service of the poor; in the patient endurance of +affront and injury; in the forgiveness of those whose wrong seems +inexpiable; in the daily exercise of love that "seeketh not itself to +please," but hopeth all things, and believeth all things,--there is a +joy beyond joy, and an exceeding great reward. We do actually find +that to forgive our brother freely is better both for him and us than +to judge him harshly, and the wisdom of Jesus is thus justified in its +moral and social efficacy. We do actually find that in ceasing to live +by worldly maxims and by living instead according to the maxims of +Jesus, we have attained a form of happiness so incredibly sweet and +pure that the world holds nothing that resembles it, and nothing that +we would exchange for it. For this is now our great reward, that peace +attends our footsteps, and that our hearts are no longer vexed with the +perturbations of vanity and self-love, of envy and revenge. We find +human nature answering to our touch even as it answered to the touch of +Jesus, and revealing to us all its best and purest treasure. We find +the very natures we thought intractable and destitute of all affinity +with ours, brought near our own; the very men and women we thought +wholly alien to us suddenly made lovable, and full of qualities that +claim our love. And as we thus humbly follow in the steps of Jesus, +trying to live each day as He lived, we know that sublimest joy of +all--we feel Jesus acting once more through our actions, and we see in +the eyes that meet our own the same look that Jesus saw in the eyes of +those whom He had cured of misery and redeemed from sin. + + + + +A CONFESSION + + + + _THE NOBLEST GRACE_ + + _'Tis something, when the day draws to its close, + To say, "Tho' I have borne a burdened mind, + Have tasted neither pleasure nor repose, + Yet this remains--to all men, friends or foes, + I have been kind."_ + + _'Tis something, when I hear Death's awful tread + Upon the stair, that his swift eye shall find + Upon my heart old wounds that often bled + For others, but no heart I injurèd-- + I have been kind._ + + _Praise will not comfort me when I am dead; + Yet should one come, by tenderness inclined, + My heart would know if he stooped o'er my bed + And kissed my lips for memory, and said + "This man was kind."_ + + _O Lord, when from Thy throne Thou judgest me, + Remember, tho' I was perverse and blind, + My heart went out to men in misery, + I gave what little store I had to Thee, + My life was kind._ + + + +X + +A CONFESSION + +In speaking thus I do but speak of those things which have been +revealed to me in my own experience. For many years I preached the +truths of Christianity with a real sincerity, but with a fluctuating +sense of their authority and value. Sometimes their authority seemed +supreme, and then I trod on bright clouds high above the world; at +other times they appeared to crumble at my touch, and then I walked in +darkness. One thing I saw at intervals, and at last with complete and +agonized distinctness, that however I preached these truths, they had +little visible effect upon the lives of others. Those to whom I +preached lived after all much as other people lived. I did not find +them more magnanimous than the ordinary men and women of the world, nor +less liable to take offense, to utter harsh words, to indulge in +resentments, and to retaliate on those who injured them. I did not +find that they loved humanity any better than their fellows; like all +mankind they loved those who loved them, and had domestic virtues and +affections, but little more. It was impossible to say that +Christianity had produced in them any type of character wholly and +radically different from that which might be found in multitudes of men +and women who made no pretense of Christian sentiment. Christianity +had no doubt imposed upon them many valuable restraints, so that +without it they might have been worse men and women, but this was a +merely negative result. Where was the spectacle of a character +composed of new qualities, a life wholly governed by novel impulses and +principles? I could not find such a life; nor ought I to have been +surprised; for I could not find it in myself. I also lived much as +other people did, except that I had a higher theory of conduct. Put to +the test, I also showed resentment and was moved with the spirit of +retaliation towards those who wronged me. Nor, save as a matter of +theory and sentiment, did I love my fellows any better than the average +of mankind. I sought those who were congenial to me, and had no +pleasure in the company of the common and the ignorant. I liked clever +people. I gave them my best, but I had nothing to bestow upon the dull +and stupid. How many times have I borne the society of inferior people +with ungracious tolerance, and hastened from them with undisguised +relief? How often when dealing with the poor and ignorant in the +exercise of conventional philanthropy, have I been careful to preserve +the sense of a great gulf that yawned between me and them? And what +was my daily life after all but a life existing for its own purposes, +as most other men's lives were; and what credit could I take for the +fact that the nature of those purposes was a trifle more consonant with +what the world calls high ideals than theirs? + +So the years went on, and the sense of unreality in my teaching grew +steadily more intense and intolerable. I saw myself continually +expending all the forces of my mind on theories which left me and my +hearers alike unchanged in the essential characteristics of our lives. +I felt myself, like St. Augustine, but a "seller of rhetoric." I was +inculcating a method of life which I myself did not obey, or obeyed +only in those respects that caused me neither sacrifice nor +inconvenience. In order to continue such labours at all various forms +of excuse and self-deception were required. Thus I flattered myself +that I was at least maintaining the authority of morals. I did not +perceive that morals are of no value to the world until vitalized by +emotion. At other times I preached with strenuous zeal the superiority +of the Christian religion, and dilated on its early triumphs. This +pleased my hearers, for it always flatters men to find themselves upon +the winning side. What I wonder at now is that they did not perceive +that my zeal to prove Christianity true was exactly proportioned to my +fear that it was false. Men do not seek to prove that of which they +are assured. Jesus never sought to prove the existence of a God +because He was assured of it; He simply asserted and commanded. In my +heart of hearts I knew that I was not sure. But I did not easily +discover the reason of my uncertainty. I supposed the source to be the +destructive criticism of the Gospels which had reduced Jesus Himself to +a probability. In my private thoughts I argued that it was no longer +possible to feel the intense reality of Christ. Francis might feel it, +Catherine might feel it, because they lived in an atmosphere of poetry, +unchilled by criticism. I could never feel as they felt because I +could not transport myself into their atmosphere. Yet as often as I +turned to these great lives, something thrilled within me, some living +responsive fibre, so that I knew that I was not after all quite alien +to them. Could it be that there was that in me that made me, or could +make me, of their company? But how could I attain to their faith? +What could give back to a modern man, tortured by a thousand +perplexities of knowledge of which they never dreamed, the reality of +Christ which they possessed? And then the answer came--not suddenly, +but as a still small voice slowly growing louder, more positive, more +intense--_Live the Life_. Try to do some at least of the things that +Jesus did. Seek through experience what can never come through +ratiocination. _Be_ a Francis; then it may be thou shalt think like +him, and know Jesus as he knew Him. Live the life--there is no other +way. + +Simple and far from novel as the answer seems yet it came to me with +the authority of a revelation. It illumined the entire circumference +of life. I could no longer hesitate: Jesus had never spoken from the +Syrian heavens more surely to the heart of Saul of Tarsus than He had +to me. And in the moment that He spoke, I also, like Saul, found all +my feelings altered, altered incredibly, miraculously, so that I +scarcely recognized myself. I no longer stood aloof from men, and +found pleasure in intellectual superiority; I was willing to "become a +fool for Christ's sake" if by any means I might save some. I issued a +card of invitation to the services of my Church with this motto of St. +Paul's upon it, which I now felt was mine. I had had for years +feelings of resentment towards one who I thought had wronged me; those +feelings were now dead. In another case I had been harsh and +unforgiving under great provocation; but when I met after a long +interval of time, the one who had injured me, my heart had only love +and pity for him. I sought out the drunkard and the harlot, and, when +I found them, all repulsion perished in the flow of infinite compassion +which I felt. I prayed with fallen women, sought them in their +miserable abodes, fought with them for their own souls, and O exquisite +moment!--I saw the soul awake in them, I saw in their tear-filled eyes +the look that Jesus saw in the eyes of Magdalene. On my last Sabbath +in London before leaving for America, one of these rescued girls, now +as pure of look and manner as those most sweetly nurtured, called at my +house to give my daughter a little present bought with the first money +she had earned by honest toil in many years. On the day we sailed +another said a special mass for us, and held the day sacred for prayer, +in the convent where her bruised life had been nursed back to moral +beauty. Love had triumphed in them, and I had brought them that love. +I had lived the life, I had tried to do something that Jesus did, and +behold Jesus had come back to me, and I knew His presence with me even +as Francis knew it when he washed the leper's sores, and Catherine when +she gathered to her bosom the murderer's guilty head, drew from him the +confession of his sin, and whispered to him softly of the Lamb of God. + +There is no sense of unreality in religion now for me. There are no +weary uncertainties, no melancholy sense of beating the air in what I +teach. He who will try to live the life of Jesus for a single day, and +in such few particulars as may lie within his scope, will at once +realize the presence of Jesus with him. In the practice of love comes +the manifestation of the Lover, the drawing of the soul into the bosom +of that Christ who was the very love of God, and the exchange of our +poor proud carnal heart for the tender heart that yearned over +Magdalene, was moved with compassion for the people, and broke upon the +Cross. + + + + +A LOVER OF MEN + + + + _THE CRADLE CROSS_ + + _"What shall I ask for Thee, my child?" + Said Mary Mother, stooping dawn + Above the Babe all undefiled. + "O let Him wear a kingly crown."_ + + _From wise men's gifts she wrought the crown, + The robe inwove with many a gem, + Beside the Babe she laid them down. + He wept, and would have none of them._ + + _"What shall I get for Thee, my Child?" + Unto the door she slowly went, + And wove a crown of thorn-boughs wild, + He took it up, and was content._ + + _Upon the floor she gathered wood, + And made a little Cross for Him; + The Child smiled for He understood, + And Mary watched with eyes grown dim._ + + _"Since these He doth prefer to gold," + She sadly said, "Let it be so; + He sees what I cannot behold, + He knows what I can never know."_ + + _That night the eyes of Mary saw + A Cross of stars set in the sky, + Which after it the heavens did draw, + And this to her was God's reply._ + + + +XI + +A LOVER OF MEN + +When I recollect these experiences, and the almost breathless sense of +joy which accompanied them, I can only marvel that I lived so many +years without discovering the path that led to them. The path was +quite plain, and nothing concealed it from me but my own pride. I +could even see with distinctness those who trod it, not only the saints +of far-off days, but men like Father Dolling, and women whose pale +intense faces met mine from beneath the quaint ugliness of Salvation +Army bonnets. These soldiers of the League of Service moved everywhere +around me in the incessant processions of a tireless love. I knew +their works, and there was no hour when my heart did not go out to them +in sympathy. Why was it that I was only sympathizer and spectator, +never comrade? + +Partly through a kind of mischievous humility which was really pride. +They could do these things; I could not, nor were they required of me. +It needed special gifts for such a work, and I had not these gifts. +Besides, had I not my own work? Was it not as important to educate +persons of some culture and social position in a knowledge of Christian +truth as to redeem lost people from the hell of their misdoing? +Certainly it was easier and pleasanter. I found in it that most subtle +of all gratifications, the sense of ability efficiently applied, and +winning praise by its exertion. There was no one who wished me to live +in any other way than that in which I lived. Those to whom I +ministered were satisfied with me, and had I told them that I wished to +do the sort of things that Salvation Army people did among the slums, +they would have been shocked, and would certainly have dissuaded me. +And so to this mischievous humility which assured me that I had no +fitness for the kind of life which I knew was the life of the saints in +every age, there was added the dull pressure of convention. Why should +I do what no one expected me to do? Why could I not be content to +fulfill the common standard approved by the average conception of +Christianity? + +I can see now how foolish and how wrong these thoughts were. I saw it +even then at intervals. Again and again, like a torturing flash of +fire, there ran through me illumining agonized dissatisfactions with +myself, my work, my whole position. And again and again I let the +flame die down, knowing not that the Son of Man had walked amid the +fire. Nay more, I deliberately smothered the holy fire, being in part +fearful of it, and of what its consequence might be, if once it were +allowed to triumph. For I knew that if I followed these strange +impulses my whole life must be changed, and I did not want it changed. +I did not want to give up the ease of an assured position, the calm of +studious hours, the tasks which flattered my ability. I did not want +to face what I knew must happen, the estrangement of old friendships, +the rupture of accustomed forms of life. Besides, I might be wholly +wrong. I might have no real fitness for the tasks I contemplated; +saints, like poets, were born, not made. No one who knew me would have +believed me better fitted for any kind of life than that I lived. I +had no friend who did not think my present life adequate and +satisfactory, and many envied me for the good fortune that had given me +just the kind of sphere which seemed best suited to me. + +But now I see, as I look back, that at the root of all my inconsistency +there lay this one thing, I was not a lover of my kind. I did not love +men as men, humanity as humanity, as Jesus did. Of course I loved +individuals, and even groups of men and classes of men, who could +understand my thoughts, recognize my qualities, and repay my affection +with affection. But to feel love for men as men; for those whose +vulgarity distressed me, whose ignorance offended me, whose method of +life repelled me; love for the drudge, the helot, the social pariah; +love for people who had no beauty that men should desire them, nor any +grace of mind or person, nor any quality that kindled interest; love +for the dull average, with their painful limitations of mind and ideal, +the gray armies of featureless grief, whose very sorrows had nothing +picturesque in them and no tragic fascination--no, for these I had no +real love. I had a deep commiseration, but it was that kind of +romantic or aesthetic pity which begins and ends in its own expression. +I did not know them by actual contact; I could not honestly say that I +wished to know them. And then the thought came to me, and grew in me, +that Jesus did love these people with an unconquerable passion. The +multitudes to whom He preached were composed, as all multitudes are, of +quite ordinary immemorable people. He also, to the eyes of those who +saw Him in the peasant garb of Galilee, and judged only by outward +appearance, was a common man. And so it would appear that if I did not +love men after the fashion in which Jesus loved them, it was very +unlikely that I should love Jesus Christ Himself if He once more +appeared in the habit in which men saw Him long ago in Galilee. A +Jesus, footsore, weary, travel-stained, wearing the raiment of a +village carpenter, speaking with the accent of an unconsidered +province, surrounded by a rabble of rude fishermen, among whom mingled +many persons of doubtful character--how should I regard Him? Should I +discern the Light and Life of men beneath His gray disguise of +circumstance? Should I have left my books, my studious calm, my +pleasant and sufficing tasks, to listen to One who seemed so little +likely to instruct me? Would not the same spirit of disdain which made +me think lightly and even scornfully of persons whose lives had no +resemblance to my own, have made me disdainful of the Man of Nazareth? +I knew the answer and I quailed before it. I saw that the temper of my +mind was the temper of the Pharisee, and had I lived two thousand years +ago in Jerusalem or Galilee, I should have rejected Jesus even as the +scribes and Pharisees rejected Him. + +And I should have rejected Him for the same reason, because I had no +truly generous love of man as man. I should have been no better able +to perceive than they that it had pleased God to clothe Himself in the +flesh of one who united in His own person all those disabilities which +incur the scorn of those who account themselves superior and +cultivated, such as lowly and doubtful origin, poverty and the lack of +liberal education, and methods of life which outraged social use and +custom. Did not Jesus demand for the understanding of Himself +precisely that temper which enabled Him to understand others, the +temper which discerns the soul beneath all disguise of circumstance? +He discerned the splendid and divine beneath the sordid. He saw +beneath the drift of sin the buried magnificence of human nature as men +discover the hidden temple beneath the sand-drift of the desert. He +was able to love all men because all men were to Him living souls. And +His own manifestation to the world was such that only those who had +this temper could at all perceive His divine significance. The +Pharisee could not see that significance simply because he was not +accustomed to see men as men. He had no real interest in man as man. +He was not a lover of his kind. Hence, when the Son of Man came out of +Nazareth, the Pharisee was too careless or too supercilious to regard +Him with interest. The divine wonder passed him by; all he saw was a +wandering fanatic with no place to lay His head. He could not pierce +the disguise of circumstance, and bow in love and awe before the soul +of Jesus because he was not accustomed to discern the soul in common +people. And so there came home to me the awful truth that I was not a +lover of my kind. I was even as the Pharisees, and in denying my +regard and love to the lowliest of men and women I was rejecting Jesus +Christ. That which had seemed to me a strange exaggeration or an +enigmatic sentence, now became a rational principle, a saying that had +its root in the deep truth and reality of things; inasmuch as I showed +not love to the least of these, my fellows, I denied my love to Jesus +Christ Himself. + + + + +THE LAW OF COMPASSION + + + + _THE TRUE MUSIC_ + + _Not for the things we sing or say + He listens, who beside us stoops; + Too worn the feet, too hard the way, + Too sore the Cross wherewith He droops, + And much too great the need that cries + From these bruised eyelids and dim eyes._ + + _He waits the water from the spring + Of kindness in the human heart, + The touch of hands, whose touches bring + A coolness to the wounds that smart, + The warm tears falling on His feet + Than precious ointment much more sweet._ + + _O Lord, the way is hard and steep, + Help me to walk that way with Thee, + To watch with Thee, and not to sleep + Heedless of Thy Gethsemane, + Till love becomes my worshipping, + Who have no other gift to bring._ + + _It is no hour for angel-harp, + The sky is dark, the Cross is near, + The agony of Death is sharp, + The scorn of men upbraids Thine ear. + Fain would I leave all empty creeds, + And make a music of my deeds._ + + + +XII + +THE LAW OF COMPASSION + +Thus to love our fellow men is a difficult business,--there is none +harder. It is so difficult that only a few in any age succeed on so +conspicuous a scale as to attract prolonged attention. Yet the secret +of success is not obscure; it lies in that temper of compassion which +is the most beautiful of all features in the character of Jesus. When +He looked upon the multitude He was "moved with compassion"--never was +there more illuminative sentence. It reveals an attitude of mind +absolutely original. For the general attitude towards the multitude in +Christ's day was harsh and scornful. All the splendid intellectualism +of Greece existed for the favoured few; beneath that glittering edifice +of art and letters lay the dungeons of the slave. It was the same with +Rome; it was an empire of privilege, in which the multitude had no +part. Jewish society was built after the same pattern, except that +with the Pharisee the sense of religious superiority bred a kind of +arrogance much more bitter than that which is the fruit of intellectual +or social exclusiveness. With men of this temper the call to love all +men as fellows could only provoke anger and derision. What possible +relation could exist between an Athenian philosopher and a helot, a +Roman noble and a slave, a Pharisee proud of his meticulous knowledge +of the law, and the common people who were unlettered? The gulf that +yawned between such lives was as wide as that which separates the +scholar, the artist, or the aristocrat of modern Europe from the pale +toiler of a New York sweating-room, or the coal carriers of Zanzibar or +Aden. When Jesus bade the young ruler sell all that he had and give it +to the poor, He proposed an entirely unthinkable condition of +discipleship. He bade him discard all the privileges of his order. He +proposed instead real comradeship with the poor, He Himself being poor. +For two thousand years the pulpit has denounced the young ruler for not +doing what no one even now would think of doing--not even those who are +most eloquent in denunciation. + +We may waive the question of whether the advice of Jesus to the young +ruler was meant to be of particular or universal application, but we +cannot ignore the new law of life which Jesus formulated when He made +compassion the supreme social virtue. For it is only through +compassion that we learn to understand those who differ from us in +social station or temperament, and can at all come to love them. Let +me examine my own natural tendencies, and I am soon made aware of how +impossible it is to love _all_ my fellow men. I commence my life, for +instance, under conditions which permit me to see only a small section +of society, which I imagine to be the world itself. I know nothing, +and am told nothing, of those whose lives do not lie in the direct line +of my limited vision. The process of education removes me at each +stage further from the likelihood of knowing them. I acquire ideals, +habits, and manners of which they are destitute. I come to regard an +acquaintance with various forms of knowledge as essential to life, and +I am naturally disdainful of those who do not possess this knowledge. +In the same way I regard a certain code of manners as binding, and the +lack of this code of manners in others as an outrage. My very thoughts +have their own dialect, and I am totally unacquainted with the dialect +of those whose thoughts differ from my own. Thus with the growth of my +culture there is the equal growth of prejudice; with the enjoyment of +my privilege, a tacit rejection and repudiation of the unprivileged. + +How then am I ever to find myself in any relation of affection towards +these human creatures from whom I am alienated by the nature of my +education? If, by any chance, I come in contact with them, it is +certain that they will arouse in me repugnance and perhaps disgust. I +shall find them coarse, crude, and ignorant; their methods of speech +will grate upon me, their manners will repel me; they will be as truly +foreign to me as the natives of New Guinea, and their total incapacity +to share the thoughts which compose my own inner life will be scarcely +less complete. It is a truly humiliating thing to admit that +differences of nationality separate men less effectually than disparity +of manners. If I am at all fastidious I am more likely to be repelled +by coarse language, gross habits, or vulgar behaviour in my fellow +mortal than by all his errors in creed or morals. So little parts men, +and is permitted to part them, that it is very likely that some mere +awkwardness of behaviour in my fellow man may extirpate effectually the +regard I might have had for him. How little indeed is permitted to +part friends--often nothing more than a tone of voice, a word +misinterpreted, or something equally slight, the product very possibly +of shyness, or inability for right expression on a sudden call. And +there is all that goes by the name of antipathy, the nameless and quite +irrational repulsions which we permit ourselves to cherish, for which +we have no better excuse than that they are instinctive. With all +these forces against us how can we love our neighbour as ourselves? It +is something if we do not detest him; if we tolerate him it should be +counted to us for a virtue. + +Yet the method by which we may love him is quite simple; it is to +approach him not with judgment but compassion, to put ourselves in his +place, to see his life from his point of view instead of our own. What +is his ignorance after all but lack of opportunity? What are his bad +manners but the penalty of a narrow life? What are these habits of his +which so offend me but things inevitable in that condition of servitude +which he occupies--a servitude, let me recollect, which ministers to my +ease and comfort? To-day, not less than in earlier generations, +society resembles the palaces of the Italian Renaissance,--the feast of +life in the painted hall, and the groaning of the prisoner in the +depths below. For every comfort that I have, some one has sweated. My +fire is lit not only with coal from the mine, but with the miner's +flesh and blood; my food has come through roaring seas in which men +perished by hurricane and shipwreck; the very books from which I draw +my culture are the product not alone of the scholar and the thinker, +but of rude unlettered men in forest and at forge who helped to make +them by their toil. If I were as educated as I claim to be I should +know myself debtor to the barbarian as truly as to the Greek, and as I +read my book I should see the forest falling that it might be woven +into paper, and men labouring in the heat of factories that the moulded +metal might become the organ of intelligence. Nay, I should see yet +more; for would it not appear that these nameless toilers are richer in +essential life, and in the deep knowledge of what man's existence is, +than even the scholar and the writer, whose main acquaintance with life +is with words rather than acts? They toil with tense muscles through +the summer heat and winter cold; they endure hardship and danger; and +week by week their scanty wage is shared by wives and children, who +excite in them tenderness and self-sacrifice, and repay them with +affection and devotion. For it is so decreed that the sacred +magnanimities of the human heart come to flower as fully in lives of +crude labour as in lives of ease; these roughened hands grow gentle +when they touch the heads of little children, on these strong breasts +the wife rests her weariness, and these lips that speak a language so +different from mine have nevertheless known the sacramental wine of +love. Were my life weighed with theirs might it not appear that theirs +was the richer in essential fortitude, in patience and endurance, in +all the final qualities that compose the finest manhood? + +The spirit of compassion interprets these lives to me; it lends me +vision. It enables me to see them not in their artificial disparities, +but in their deep-lying kinship with mine and all other lives. And the +same thing happens when I survey lives stained with folly, wrecked by +weakness, or made detestable by sin and crime. I also have known +folly, weakness, sin; but for me there were compulsions to a virtuous +life which these never knew. Why am I not as these? Perhaps because +my nature rests on a securer equipoise, or because there is in it a +certain power of moral recuperation which these have lacked, or because +I have the prudence that stops short of consummated folly, or because +my environment imposes and creates restraint, or because I have never +known the peculiar violence of temptation before which they succumbed. +There may be a hundred reasons, but scarce one which gives me cause for +boasting. With their life to live, had I done better? Exposed to +their temptations, deprived of all the helpful friendships that have +interposed between my life and ruin, should I have done as well? In +those wakeful hours of night when all my past life runs before me like +a frieze of flame, how clearly do I see how frequently I grazed the +snare, hung over gulfs of wild disaster, courted ruin, and escaped I +know not how? Remembering this, can I be hard towards those who fell? +Can I pride myself on an escape in which my will had little part, a +deliverance which was a kind of miracle, wrought not by virtue or +discretion, but by some outside force which thrust out a strong and +willing hand to save me? And, as these thoughts pursue me, I find +myself all at once regarding these wrecked and miserable lives not from +the outside but the inside. I penetrate their inmost coil of being, +and see with horror the crumbling of the house of life--with horror, +but also with a torturing pity. And then because compassion lives in +me, I can at last separate between the sinner and his sin. The sin +remains abhorrent, but I cannot hate the sinner. I see him as one who +has fallen in a bad cause, but his wounds cry so loud for pity that I +forget the moral treason that has brought him to a battle-field so +ignominious and so disastrous. And out of the pity grows love, for +love is the natural end of pity; and the magnanimity of love, +overleaping moral values, fixes only on the fact of suffering that +appeals for succour, misery that cries for help. This was the vital +fact that Jesus saw when He had compassion on the multitude. + +Jesus had compassion on the multitude, and He gives the reason; He saw +them as sheep having no shepherd. It was the element of misdirection +in their lives on which Jesus fixed His glance--it was for lack of +guidance and a shepherd they had gone astray. May not the same be said +of all the lives that fail, whether through ignorance or want, folly or +crime? Rightly guided they might have attained knowledge and esteem, +wisdom and virtue; and if that be so, no man of right spirit can refuse +to feel the pathos of their situation. It is to this point that Jesus +leads us. He makes us conscious of "the still sad music of humanity." +No further incentive is needed to make us love humanity than the pathos +of the human lot. A man may be a knave, a fool, a rogue; yet could we +unravel all the secrecies of his disaster we should find so much to +move our pity, so much in his life which resembles crises in our own, +that in the end the one vision that remains with us is of a wounded +brother man. When once we see that vision all our pride of virtue dies +in us, and quicker yet to die is the temper of contempt which we have +nurtured towards those whose faults offend us. A yet greater offense +is ours if we can behold suffering, however caused, without pity. +Worse than the worst crime which man can commit against society, or the +worst personal wrong he can inflict on us, is the temper in ourselves +which judges him without mercy, and refuses him the one medicine that +may reinvigorate him--the balm of pity and forgiveness. And, after +all, of what wrong is it not true that the bitterest suffering it +creates falls not upon the wronged but the wronger, so that in the end +the sinner is the real victim, and like all victims should be the +object of compassion rather than of vengeance? + + + + +THE EMPIRE OF LOVE + + + + _THE WOMAN WHO WAITED_ + + _She wrought warm garments for the poor, + From morn to eve unwearied she + Went with her gifts from door to door; + And when the night drew silently + Along the streets, and she came home, + She prayed, "O Lord, when wilt Thou come?"_ + + _She was but loving, she could please + With no rare art of speech or song. + The art she knew was how to ease + The sick man's pain, the weak man's wrong; + And every night as she came home + She said, "O Lord, when wilt Thou come?"_ + + _The truths men praised she deemed untrue, + The light they hailed to her was dim, + But that the Christ was kind she knew, + She knew that she must be like Him. + Like Mary, in her darkened home, + She sighed, "O Christ, that thou would'st come!"_ + + _Her hair grew white, her house was bare, + Yet still her step was firm and glad, + The feet of Hunger climbed the stair, + For she had given all she had. + She died within her empty home + Still seeking One who did not come._ + + _She rose from out the wave of death, + A Stranger stood beside the shore; + The robe she wrought with failing breath, + And staining tears, the Stranger wore. + He drew her tired heart with His smile, + "Lo, I was with thee all the while."_ + + + +XIII + +THE EMPIRE OF LOVE + +But if this spirit of compassion were general, would virtue itself be +secure? Would not a fatal lenience towards vice become the temper of +society? Would not the immediate effect be the declaration of a +general amnesty towards every kind of wrong-doer, and from such an act +what could be expected but a rapid dissolution of the laws and +conventions that maintain the structure of society? + +These are natural fears, and they are not altogether the fears of weak +and timid men. They will certainly be shared by all tyrants, all +persons whose tempers incline to absolutism, all believers in force as +the true dynamic of stable social government. To reason with such +persons is impossible, because their opinions are the fruit of temper, +and are therefore irrational. But even such persons are not destitute +of powers of observation, and in the long history of the world there is +a field of observation which no person of intelligence can neglect. + +Do we find, as we survey this field, that force has ever proved the +true dynamic of stable social government? We find the exact contrary +to be true. The great empires of the past were founded on force and +perished, even as Napoleon discovered in his final reveries on human +history. Whenever force has been applied to maintain what seemed a +right social system it has uniformly failed. The Church of Rome +applied force to produce a world consonant with her ideas of truth; she +was all but destroyed by the recoil of her prolonged persecutions. The +Puritans were persecuted in the name of truth and virtue; they +triumphed. The Puritans in turn persecuted, under the impulse of +ideals that an impartial judgment must pronounce among the loftiest and +noblest that ever animated human hearts, and in turn they were +overthrown. Again and again, when crime has attained monstrous and +threatening proportions, laws of barbarous severity have been applied +for its repression; in not one solitary instance have they been +successful. The more barbarous and severe the law against crime, the +more has crime flourished. When men were hanged for petty theft, when +they were whipped at the cart's tail for seditious language, when they +were disembowelled for treasonable practices; theft, sedition, and +treason flourished as they have never flourished since. The very +disproportion and hideousness of the penalty inflamed men's minds to +the commission of wrong. On the contrary, the birth of lenience and +humanity was immediately rewarded by a decline of crime. These are +lessons which we do well to recollect to-day when statesmen advocate +the death penalty for the anarchist, irrespective of his exact crime; +when city councils propose the same penalty for those guilty of +outrages on women; when indignant mobs, in spite of law, and without +trial, burn at the stake offending negroes. If history teaches +anything with an emphasis at once clear and unmistakable, it is that +crime has never yet been abridged by brutal harshness, but has thriven +on it. History also teaches with an emphasis equally clear and +positive, that the spirit of love, manifesting itself in lenience, +compassion, and magnanimity, has constantly justified itself by the +reduction of crime, and the taming of the worst kind of criminal. + +Is not this in itself a justification of the spirit of Jesus? Does it +not appear, on the review of nearly two thousand years of history, that +society has attained its greatest happiness and has reached its highest +condition of virtue, precisely in those periods when the gentle ideals +of Jesus have had most sway over human thought and action? And if this +be so, is it possible to doubt that society will only continue to +progress towards happiness and content in the degree that it obeys the +counsels of Jesus, making not force but love the great social dynamic, +which shall control all its operations and guide all its judgments? + +It may appear impossible and inexpedient for the human judge to say to +the offender, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, sin no more"; but it is +very clear that the opposite course does by no means lead to a +cessation of sin. For what is the total result of all our punishments +in the name of law but the manufacture of criminals? According to our +theory of punishment a jail should be a seminary of virtue and +reformation. Men submitted to its discipline should come out new +creatures, cured of every tendency to crime. On the contrary, in nine +cases out of ten, they come out a thousandfold worse than they went in. +If this is not the case, it is because some Christian influence, not +included in our legal system, has reached them. But such influences +reach very few. The influences that operate in the great majority of +cases are wholly demoralizing. Those who enter a jail with genuine +intentions of reform speedily discover that they are not expected to +reform. They are branded indelibly. They are exposed to the +corruption of associates a hundredfold worse than themselves. They +leave the jail with every avenue of honest industry closed to them, +every man's hand against them, and no career possible to them but a +life of crime. When we consider these things we have little cause to +congratulate ourselves upon the results of our systems of justice. +Even a general amnesty towards every form of crime could scarcely +produce results more deplorable. Fantastic as it may appear, yet it +seems not improbable that the abolition of the jail and of all penal +law, might produce benefits for humanity such as centuries of +punishment on crime have wholly failed to produce. + +But no one asks this at present, though the day may come sooner than we +think, when society, tired of the long failure and absolute futility of +all its attempts to cleanse the world of crime by penal enactments, +will make this demand. It is enough now if we press the question +whether there is not good ground in all this dreary history of futility +and failure, to make some attempt to govern society by the ideals of +Jesus? Why should not the Church replace the jail? Why should not the +offender be handed over to a company of Christian people, instead of a +company of jailers, paid to be harsh, and by the very nature of their +occupation trained to harsh tempers and cruel acts? Who are better +fitted for the custody of the criminal than people whose lives are +based on the merciful ideals of Jesus? How could such persons be +better employed than in devoting themselves to the restoration of +self-respect in the fallen, than in the attempt to nurture into vigour +his bruised or dormant instincts of right, than in the organized effort +to restore him to some place in society which should give him honest +bread in return for honest labour? Few men are criminals by choice. +Crime is more often the fruit of weakness than intention. Almost every +criminal would prefer an honourable life if he knew how to set about +it. Can we doubt that if Jesus presided in the councils of His Church +to-day, this would be one of the first directions in which He would +apply His energy? And who that surveys the modern Church with +undeflected judgment would not say that the Church would be a thousand +times dearer to the world, a thousand times more sacred, respected, and +authoritative, if instead of spending its time in spiritual +self-gratification, and its riches in the adornment of its worship, it +became the true Hospice of the Fallen and Unfortunate, thus +exemplifying in its action that love for men which was the essential +spirit of its Founder? + +It will no doubt be replied that the Church already, by a thousand +institutions, of a philanthropic character, is attempting this very +work. But this is an evasion of the point, for such institutions only +begin their work of redemption when the existing social systems have +accomplished their work of destruction. Moreover, no institution, +however admirable, can be a substitute for the general action of the +Church. It is precisely this practice of substitution that accounts +for so much of the weakness of the Church. It is so much more easy and +pleasant to devolve upon others duties which to us are disagreeable, to +buy ourselves out of the conscription of personal duty, to persuade +ourselves that we have done all that can be asked of us when we have +given money for some worthy end, that it is not surprising that +multitudes of excellent and kindly people adopt such views and +practices. But, in doing so, they miss not only the joy of personal +well-doing, but also the sense of reality in the good that is done. +And the spectator and critic of the life of the Church, although he may +not be ignorant of the kind of work done by these institutions, +nevertheless is keenly conscious of the lack of reality in the work of +the Church, when he finds that its individual members are leading lives +in no way distinguishable by any active love for their fellows. For +the main reason why thoughtful men manifest aversion to the Church is +not found in dislike for her worship, or rejection of her creeds; it is +found rather in the sense of unreality in her life. Who, such men will +ask, among all this multitude of well-dressed worshippers, offering +their adoration to the Deity, visits the fatherless and widow in their +affliction, lays restraining hands upon the tempted, uplifts the fallen +or instructs the depraved, and so fulfills the true ideal of religion +pure and undefiled? What is the exact nature of their impact upon +society? Are they more merciful, more compassionate, more sympathetic +than average mankind? Do they not share the same social prejudices, +and guide their lives by the same social traditions as the bulk of men +and women? And if nothing more than this can be predicated of them, +how is it possible to avoid that impression of essential unreality +which is inseparable from the subscription to social ideals infinitely +loftier and purer than any others in human history, united with lives +which in no way rise above the average? Here is the true reason why +thoughtful men think lightly, and even scornfully of the Church. It is +not the truths and ideals of Jesus that offend them, but the travesty +of those truths and ideals in the average life of Christians. + +But whenever any man attempts to live in the spirit of Jesus, the first +to rally to him are the sincere recusants from the church. He may be +satirised, and probably will be, as a moral anarchist, a fanatic, and a +hare-brained enthusiast; but nevertheless the best men will rally to +him. They rallied to a Father Dolling, they rally to a General Booth. +The types represented by such men lie far apart. One was so high a +ritualist as to be almost Catholic, the other is an ecclesiastic +anarchist so extreme that he dispenses with the sacraments. But these +things count for little; what the world sees in such men is the +essential reality of their life. One of the severest critics of +Dolling once went to hear him with the bitterest prejudice. He found +him with a couple of hundred thieves and prostitutes gathered round +him, to whom he was telling the love of Jesus in the simplest language. +"Dolling may be a Roman Catholic, or anything else he pleases," said +his critic; "all I know is that I never heard any one speak of Christ +like that," and from that hour he was his warmest friend. No doubt +similar conversions of sentiment have attended the ministries of all +apostolic men and women, of Francis and Catherine, of Wesley and +Whitfield, of Moody and General Booth. Men know by instinct the lover +of his kind. Men forgive a hundred defects for the sake of reality. +Perhaps the sublimest of all justifications of Christ's law of love is +that no man has truly practiced it in any age without himself rising +into a life of memorable significance, without immediate attestations +of its virtue in the transformation of society, without attracting to +himself the reverence and affection of multitudes of fellow workers who +have rendered him the same adoring discipleship that the friends of +Jesus gave to Him. + +No doubt it will also be said that were the ideals thus indicated to +triumph, there would be nothing left for the direction of society but a +mischievous and sentimental spirit of amiability. The general fibre of +virtue would disintegrate. Pity for the sinner, pushed to such +extremes, would in the end mean tolerance for sin. But to such an +objection the character of Jesus furnishes its own reply. The +character of Jesus displays love in its supreme type, but it is wholly +lacking in that weak-featured travesty of love which we call +amiability. His hatred of sin was at times a furious rage. His lips +breathed flame as well as tenderness; "Out of His mouth proceeded a +sharp two-edged sword." We may search literature in vain to discover +any words half as terrible and scathing as the words in which Jesus +described sin. The psychological explanation is that great powers of +love are twin with great powers of hatred. The passionate love of +virtue is, in its obverse, an equally passionate hatred of vice. In +the same way the passionate love of our kind has for its obverse an +equally passionate hatred for the wrongs they endure. For this reason +justice and virtue are nowhere so secure as in the hands of men who +love their kind intensely. They are most insecure in the hands of the +cynic, who despises his kind, and therefore misapprehends their +conduct. For love, in its last analysis, is understanding, and where +there is understanding of our fellows there can hardly fail to be +wisdom in our method of treating them. That was the great secret of +Jesus in these examples which we have reviewed. He understood Simon +Peter. He understood the woman who was a sinner. He therefore knew +the only wise method of treating them. One with less pity might have +sent the harlot back to her shame, one with less love might have driven +Peter into permanent apostasy. But Jesus, in His understanding of the +human heart, knew the exact limit of reproof, the exact point at which +magnanimity became efficacious in redemption. Those who follow His +spirit will attain the same rare wisdom. They will never sacrifice +virtue to compassion, nor will they put virtue in opposition to +compassion. One question may suffice. Would we be content to leave +the administration of society in the hands of Jesus? Would we +confidently submit our own case to His jurisdiction? If, in every +dispute between men and nations, in every case of wrong and crime, +Jesus were the one Arbiter, would the world be better ruled, would the +probable course of events be such as to increase the sum of human +happiness? We can scarcely hesitate in the reply--we, who daily pray +that His kingdom may come. And if to such questions we return our +inevitable affirmative, we cannot doubt that society has everything to +gain in being governed by those who live most closely in the spirit of +Jesus; that they, and they only, are the true leaders and judges of the +nations. + + + + +THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE + + + + _THE PRAYER_ + + _Lover of souls, indeed, + But Lover of bodies too, + Seeing in human flesh + The God shine through; + Hallowed be Thy name, + And, for the sake of Thee, + Hallowed be all men, + For Thine they be._ + + _Doer of deeds divine, + Thou, the Father's Son, + In all Thy children may + Thy will be done, + Till each works miracles + On poor and sick and blind, + Learning from Thee the art + Of being kind._ + + _For Thine is the glory of love, + And Thine the tender power, + Touching the barren heart + To leaf and flower, + Till not the lilies alone, + Beneath Thy gentle feet, + But human lives for Thee + Grow white and sweet._ + + _And Thine shall the Kingdom be, + Thou Lord of Love and Pain, + Conqueror over death + By being slain. + And we, with the lives like Thine + Shall cry in the great day when + Thou earnest to claim Thine own, + "All Hail! Amen."_ + + + +XIV + +THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE + +It may be long before the world recognizes this leadership of the +loving, and accepts their judgment, but nevertheless the world is +debtor to them for all that sweetens life, and makes society tolerable. +Such men and women move unrecognized, doing their kindly work without +praise, and not so much as asking praise from men; but theirs is a +securer triumph than earth can give, and on their brows rests a rarer +crown than earthly monarchs wear. I know many of these men and women, +and I never meet them without the sense that the seamless robe of +Christ has touched me. I meet them in unlikely places; I overtake them +on the road of life, oftenest in the places where the shadows lie most +thickly; but on each brow is the white stone which is the sign of +peace, and in each voice is that deep note of harmony that belongs +alone to those who walk through tribulations which they overcome, +griefs of which they know the meaning, sorrows which they have the +skill to heal. Their very footsteps move more evenly than other men's, +as though guided by the rhythm of a music others do not hear; their +very hands have a softness only known to hands that bind up wounds and +wipe men's tears away; and in all their movements and their aspect is a +stillness and a sweet composure, as of hearts at rest. Whence are +these, and why are they arrayed in white robes? And we know the +answer, though no angel-voice may speak to us; these are they on whose +bowed heads the starlight of Gethsemane has fallen, in whose hands are +the wounds of service, in whose breasts is the heart that breaks with +love for men. + +One such man I met some months ago, fresh from the forests of +Wisconsin. Through a long spring day he told me his story, or rather +let me draw it from him episode by episode, for he was much too modest +to suppose anything that he had done remarkable. After wild and +careless years of wasted youth, Christ had found him, and from the day +of his regeneration he gave himself to the redemption of his fellow +men. He became a "lumber-jack," a preacher to the rough sons of the +Wisconsin forests. He told me how he first won their respect by +sharing their toil--he, a fragile slip of a man, and they giants in +thew and muscle: how by tact and kindness he got a hearing for his +Master; how he travelled scores of miles through the winter snows to +nurse dying men, wrecked by wild excesses; how he had sat for hours +together with the heads of drunken men, on whom the terror had fallen, +resting on his knees, performing for them offices of help which no +other would attempt; how he had heard the confessions of thieves and +murderers, who had fled from justice to the refuge of the forest; how +he had stood pale, and apprehensive of violence in an angry drunken +mob, and had quelled their rage by singing to them "Anywhere with +Jesus"; how, finally, he had fallen ill, and had hoped in his extreme +weariness for the great release, but had come back from the gates of +death with a new hope for the success of his work; and as he spoke, +that light which fell upon the face of the dying Stephen rested also on +his face; for he also saw, and made me see, the heavens opened, and +Jesus standing at the right hand of the throne of God. He was only a +lumber-jack, but to these men he was a Christ. He was poor, so poor, +that I marvelled how he lived; but he had adopted into his home the +forsaken child of a drunken lumberman, whose wife was dead. His life +was full of hardship, but never have I met a happier man. For he had +found the one secret of all noble and tranquil living, the life of +service; and as I grasped his hand at parting and remembered how often +it had rested in healing sympathy upon the evil and the weary, I +thought of the words of the blessed Master, "He laid His hands upon +her, and the fever left her, and she rose and ministered unto Him." + +Another man of the same order I have talked with as these concluding +lines were written. He had begun life with brilliant prospects as a +lawyer, had been wrecked by drink, and one night while drunk had fallen +overboard into deep water, and had with difficulty been brought back to +life. From that hour his life was changed. He went to a Western city +and became a missionary to drunkards and harlots. He told me of a +youth of nineteen he had recently visited in prison. The youth was a +murderer, and the woman he had loved had committed suicide. He was +utterly impervious to reproof, did not want to live, and said that if +his mistress had gone to hell he wanted to go there too, for she was +the only human creature who had ever loved him. "God loves you," said +my friend; "yes, and I love you too. I know how you feel. You want +just to be loved. Come, my poor boy, let me love you." And at that +appeal this youth, with triple murder on his conscience, melted, and +flung his arms round the neck of his visitor, and sobbed out all the +story of his sin and shame. O exquisite moment when the heart melts at +the touch of love--could all the heaped-up gains of a life of pleasure +or ambition yield such felicity as this? For this man's face, rough +and plain as it was, glowed as he spoke with the same light that +beatified the features of my friend the lumber-jack--"the Lord God gave +them light," and the Lamb upon the throne was the light of all their +seeing. + +A little while ago to this man came the offer of restoration to the +social place which he has lost. He might have gone back to his +forfeited career, with an ample income. He put the case to his wife +and to his boys; with instant unanimity they said, "Never; this work is +the best work in the world." And so the once brilliant lawyer is happy +on a pittance, happier than he ever could be on a fortune, because he +is doing Christ's work of love among his fellow men. And these +instances are typical. In every corner of the world are those who +belong to the true Society of Jesus--the Order of Love and +Service,--and the happiest lives lived on earth are lived by these men +and women. For Jesus will not suffer any man to be the loser by Him; +He overpays those who truly follow Him with a happiness that worlds +could not buy; and "even in the present time," so enriches with the +love of others those who love, that they are unconscious of any +deprivation in their lot, knowing in all things, amid poverty, insult, +violence, hardship and pain, that their gain exceeds their loss by +measureless infinitudes of joy. + +We may be neither wise nor great, but we may be loving, and he who +loves is already "born of God, and knoweth God, for God is love." We +may have but a poor understanding of conflicting theologies and +philosophies, and may even find our minds hostile to accepted creeds; +but we can live lives of pitiful and serviceable love. He who does +these things is the true Christian and no other is. Against the man +who loves his fellows Heaven cannot close its doors, for He who reigns +in Heaven is the Lover of men, and the greatest Lover of them all. We +know now why He is loved as no other has been loved. We know now what +His religion truly is; it is the religion of Love. To accept this +religion requires in us but one quality, the heart of the little child +which retains the freshness and obeys the authority of the emotions; +but unless we become as little children we cannot enter this kingdom. +This is the condition of entrance, and the method is equally simple. +It is to follow Jesus in all our acts and thoughts, to allow no temper +that we do not find in Him, to build our lives upon His ideals of love +and justice, remembering always that He is more than the Truth,--He is +the Way in which men may confidently tread, and the Life which they may +share. + +All things in the intellectual and social life of men move, as by a +fixed law, towards simplification. May we not hope that this same +tendency may permeate the universal Church of Christ, dissolving the +accretions of mistaken and conventional piety, combining the vital +elements into a new synthesis, at once simple and convincing,--the new +which is the oldest and the earliest,--that the Church is the organ of +the Divine Love, and that love alone is the Christian equivalent of +religion? + +May we not even anticipate that the visible decay of many symbols that +once were authoritative, of many forms of creed that are now barely +tolerated rather than respected, may work towards this issue; that +gradually the test of service will supplant the test of intellectual +belief, and that a new Church will arise founded not on creed at all, +but on a real imitation of the life of Jesus? If this should happen we +need not regret the dissolution of the forms of religious life which is +so evident to-day, for though the older kingdom be shaken, we shall +arrive in God's time at the better kingdom which cannot be shaken. + +When the Church does manifestly become the organ of the Divine Love, +visibly creating a type of loving and lovable men and women found +nowhere else, whose lives are as lamps borne before the feet of the +weary and the lost, then the world, now hostile or indifferent to the +Church, will love the Church even as by instinct it loves the Christ. +Such lives have been lived, and they are, even to those who have the +least instinct for religion, the most sacred memories of history, and +the most inspiring. Such lives may still be lived by all who love the +Lord Christ Jesus in sincerity. + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Empire of Love, by W. J. 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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 Empire of Love + +Author: W. J. Dawson + +Release Date: August 28, 2006 [EBook #19134] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPIRE OF LOVE *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +The Empire of Love + + +By + +W. J. DAWSON + + + + + +New York Chicago Toronto + +Fleming H. Revell Company + +London and Edinburgh + + + + +Copyright, 1907, by + +FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY + + + + + New York: 158 Fifth Avenue + Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue + Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. + London: 21 Paternoster Square + Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street + + + + + To + M. M. D., + + who, during the last two years + of our residence in London, + practiced the teachings of this book + before I taught them: + + proving daily + in her compassionate toil for others + the divine efficacy of simple love + to redeem the lives, + that were most estranged from virtue, + and most lost to hope. + + + + +Love feels no burden, regards not labours, would willingly do more than +it is able, pleads not impossibility, because it feels that it can and +may do all things. + +THOMAS A KEMPIS. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED + II. WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? + III. THE JUSTICE OF JESUS + IV. LOVE IS JUSTICE + V. LOVE AND FORGIVENESS + VI. THE PRACTICE OF LOVE + VII. LOVE AND JUDGMENT + VIII. THE WISDOM OF THE SIMPLE + IX. THE REVELATIONS OF GRIEF + X. A CONFESSION + XI. A LOVER OF MEN + XII. THE LAW OF COMPASSION + XIII. THE EMPIRE OF LOVE + XIV. THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE + + + + +THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED + + + + _WHY THEY LOVED HIM_ + + _So kindly was His love to us, + (We had not heard of love before), + That all our life grew glorious + When He had halted at our door._ + + _So meekly did He love us men, + Though blind we were with shameful sin, + He touched our eyes with tears, and then + Led God's tall angels flaming in._ + + _He dwelt with us a little space, + As mothers do in childhood's years, + And still we can discern His face + Wherever Joy or Love appears._ + + _He made our virtues all His own, + And lent them grace we could not give, + And now our world seems His alone, + And while we live He seems to live._ + + _He took our sorrows and our pain, + And hid their torture in His breast, + Till we received them back again + To find on each His grief impressed._ + + _He clasped our children in His arms, + And showed us where their beauty shone, + He took from us our gray alarms, + And put Death's icy armour on._ + + _So gentle were His ways with us, + That crippled souls had ceased to sigh, + On them He laid His hands, and thus + They gloried at His passing by._ + + _Without reproof or word of blame, + As mothers do in childhood's years, + He kissed our lips in spite of shame, + And stayed the passage of our tears._ + + _So tender was His love to us, + (We had not learned to love before), + That we grew like to Him, and thus + Men sought His grace in us once more._ + + CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON. + + + +I + +THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED + +In the history of the last two thousand years there is but one Person +who has been, and is supremely loved. Many have been loved by +individuals, by groups of persons, or by communities; some have +received the pliant idolatries of nations, such as heroes and national +deliverers; but in every instance the sense of love thus excited has +been intimately associated with some triumph of intellect, or some +resounding achievement in the world of action. In this there is +nothing unusual, for man is a natural worshipper of heroes. But in +Jesus Christ we discover something very different; He possessed the +genius to be loved in so transcendent a degree that it appears His sole +genius. + +Jesus is loved not for anything that He taught, nor yet wholly for +anything that He did, although His actions culminate in the divine +fascination of the Cross, but rather for what He was in Himself. His +very name provokes in countless millions a reverent tenderness of +emotion usually associated only with the most sacred and intimate of +human relationships. He is loved with a certain purity and intensity +of passion that transcends even the most intimate expressions of human +emotion. The curious thing is that He Himself anticipated this kind of +love as His eternal heritage with men. He expected that men would love +Him more than father or mother, wife or child, and even made such a +love a condition of what He called discipleship. The greatest marvel +of all human history is that this prognostication has been strictly +verified in the event. He is the Supreme Lover, for whose love, +unrealizable as it is by touch, or glance, or spoken word, or momentary +presence, men and women are still willing to sacrifice themselves, and +surrender all things. The pregnant words of Napoleon, uttered in his +last lonely reveries in St. Helena, still express the strangest thing +in universal history: "Caesar, Charlemagne, I, have founded empires. +They were founded on force, and have perished. Jesus Christ has +founded an empire on love, and to this day there are millions ready to +die for Him." + +Napoleon felt the wonder of it all, the baffling, inexplicable marvel. +Were we able to detach ourselves enough from use and custom, to survey +the movement of human thought from some lonely height above the floods +of Time, as Napoleon in the high sea-silences of St. Helena, we also +might feel the wonder of this most wonderful thing the world has ever +known. + +That the majority of men, and even Christian men, do not perceive that +the whole meaning of the life of Christ is Love is a thing too obvious +to demand evidence or invite contradiction. I say men, and Christian +men, thus limiting my statement, because women and Christian women, +frequently do perceive it, being themselves the creatures of affection, +and finding in affection the one sufficing symbol of life and of the +universe. It is a St. Catherine who thinks of herself as the bride of +Christ, and dreams the lovely vision of the changed hearts--the heart +of Jesus placed by the hands that bled beneath her pure bosom, and her +heart hidden in the side of Him who died for her. It is a St. Theresa +who melts into ecstasy at the brooding presence of the heavenly Lover, +and can only think of the Evil One himself with commiseration as one +who cannot love. It is true that Francis of Assisi also thought and +spoke of Christ with a lover's ecstasy, but then Francis in his +exquisite tenderness of nature, was more woman than man. No such +thought visited the stern heart of Dominic, nor any of those makers of +theology who have built systems and disciplines upon the divine poetry +of the divine Life. + +Love, as the perfect symbol of life and the universe, does not content +men, simply because for most men love is not the key to life, nor an +end worth living for in itself, nor anything but a complex and often +troublesome emotion, which must needs be subordinated to other +faculties and qualities, such as greed, or pride, or the desire of +power, or the dominant demands of intellect. Among men the poets alone +have really understood Jesus: and in the category of the poets must be +included the saints, whose religion has always been interpreted to them +through the imagination. The poets have understood; the theologians +rarely or never. Thus it happens that men, being the general and +accepted interpreters of Christ, have all but wholly misinterpreted +Him. The lyric passion of that life, and the lyric love which it +excites, has been to them a disregarded music. They have rarely +achieved more than to tell us what Christ taught; they have wholly +failed to make us feel what Christ was. But Mary Magdalene knew this, +and it was what she said and felt in the Garden that has put Christ +upon the throne of the world. Was not her vision after all the true +one? Is not a Catherine a better guide to Jesus than a Dominic? When +all the strident theologies fall silent, will not the world's whole +worship still utter itself in the lyric cry, + + Jesu, Lover of my soul, + Let me to Thy bosom fly. + + +Is it then not within the competence of man to interpret Christ aright, +simply because the masculine temperament is what it is? By no means, +for such a statement would disqualify the evangelists themselves, who +are the only biographers of Jesus. But in the degree that a +temperament is only masculine, it will fail to understand Jesus. +Napoleon could not understand; he was the child of force, the son of +the sword, the very type of that hard efficiency of will and intellect +which turns the heart to flint, and scorns the witness of the softer +intuitions. Francis could understand because he was in part +feminine--not weakly so, but nobly, as all poets and dreamers and +visionaries are. Paul could understand for the same reason, and so +could John and Peter; each, in varying degrees, belonging to the same +type; but Pilate could not understand, because he had been trained in +the hard efficiency of Rome; nor Judas, because the masculine vice of +ambition had overgrown his affections, and deflowered his heart. What +is it then in Paul and John and Peter, what element or quality, which +we do not find in Pilate, Judas, or Napoleon? Clearly there is no lack +of force, for the personality of these three first apostles lifted a +world out of its groove and changed the course of history. Was it not +just this, that each had beneath his masculine strength a feminine +tenderness, a power of loving and of begetting love in others? John +lying on the bosom of Jesus in sheer abandonment of love and sorrow at +the last Supper; Peter, plunging naked into the Galilean sea, and +struggling to the shore at the mere suspicion that the strange figure +outlined there upon the morning mist is the Lord; Paul praying not only +to share the wounds of Jesus, but if there be any pang left over, any +anguish unfulfilled, that this anguish may be his--these are not alone +immortal pictures, but they are revelations of a temperament, the +temperament that understands Jesus. He who could not melt into an +abandonment of grief and love over one on whom the shadow of the last +hour rested; he who would spring headlong into no estranging sea to +reach one loved and lost and marvellously brought near again; he who +can share the festal wine of life, but has no appetite for agony, no +thirsting of the soul to bear another's pain--these can never +understand Jesus. They cannot understand Him, simply because they +cannot understand love. + + + + +WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? + + + + _TOWARDS GALILEE_ + + _The great obdurate world I know no more, + The clanging of the brazen wheels of greed, + The taloned hands that build the miser's store, + The stony streets where feeble feet must bleed. + No more I walk beneath thy ashen skies, + With pallid martyrs cruelly crucified + Upon thy predetermined Calvaries: + I, too, have suffered, yea, and I have died! + Now, at the last, another road I take + Thro' peaceful gardens, by a lilted way, + To those low eaves beside the silver lake, + Where Christ waits for me at the close of day. + Farewell, proud world! In vain thou callest me. + I go to meet my Lord in Galilee._ + + + +II + +WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? + +Christianity, as it exists to-day, is in the main a misrepresentation +and a misinterpretation of Christ; not consciously indeed--if it were +so the remedy would be easy; but unconsciously, which makes the remedy +difficult. One need not stop to define Christianity, for there is only +one sincere meaning to the word; it implies a _kind of life whose +spirit and method reproduce as accurately as possible the spirit and +the method of the life of Jesus_. It would seem that if this +interpretation of the term be correct there could be no difficulty in +adjusting even unconscious misinterpretation of Christ to the true +facts of the case: but here we are met by that perversity of vision +which springs not from ignorance, but from thoughtlessness, and is in +its nature much more obdurate than the worst perversity of ignorance. +Ignorance can be enlightened; thoughtlessness, being usually associated +with vanity, recognizes no need of enlightenment. + +The life of Jesus, freshly introduced to a mind wholly ignorant of its +existence may be trusted to convey its own impression; but the +thoughtless mind will be either too proud, or too shallow, or too +confident, to be sensitive to right impressions. Thus the trouble with +most people who call themselves Christians is not to educate them into +right conceptions of the life of Christ, but to destroy the growth of +wrong impressions. "Surely," they will say, "we know all about the +life of Christ. We have read the biographies of Jesus ever since the +days of infancy. We have heard the life of Jesus expounded through +long years by multitudes of teachers. We have a church which claims to +have extracted from the life of Jesus a whole code of laws for life and +conduct; is not this enough?" But what if the teachers themselves have +never found the true secret of Jesus? What if they have but repeated +the error of the Pharisees in elaborating a code of laws in which the +vital spirit of the truth they would impart is lost? And does not the +whole history of man's mind teach us that one simple truth known at +first-hand is worth more to us, and is of greater influence on our +conduct, than all the second-hand instruction we may receive from the +most competent of teachers? It is just this first-hand thought which +we most need. We need to see for ourselves what Jesus was, and not +through the eyes of another, whatever his authority. + +Suppose that we should read the Gospels in this spirit, with an +entirely unbiassed and receptive mind, capable of first-hand +impressions, what would be the probable character of these impressions? +The clearest and deepest of all, I think, would be that the Jesus +therein depicted lived His life on principles so novel that we are able +to discover no life entirely like His in the best lives round about us. +We should probably be struck first of all by certain outward +dissimilarities. Thus He was not only poor, but He did not resent +poverty--He beatified it. The things for which men naturally, and, as +we think, laudably strive, such as a settled position in society and +the consideration of others, He did not think worth seeking at all. He +made no use of His abilities for private ends, which has been the +common principle of social life since society began. He asked nothing +of the world, being apparently convinced that nothing which the world +could give Him was worth having. Strangest thing of all in one who +must have been conscious of His own genius, and of the value of His +teachings to mankind, He made not the least effort to perpetuate these +teachings. He wrote no book, provided no biographer, did none of those +things which the humblest man of genius does to ensure that distant +generations shall comprehend and appreciate his character and message. +He was content to speak His deepest truths to casual listeners. He +spent all His wealth of intellect upon inferior persons, fishermen and +the like, who did not comprehend one tithe of what He said. He was the +friend of all who chose to seek His friendship. He discriminated so +little that He even admitted a Judas to His intimacy, and allowed women +tainted with dishonour and impurity to offer Him public tokens of +affection. In all these things He differed absolutely from any other +man who ever lived beneath the public eye. In all these things He +still stands alone; for who, among the saintliest men we know, has not +some innocent pride in his ability, or some preference in friendship, +or some instinctive compliance with social usage, or some worldly hopes +and honourable aims which he shares in common with the mass of men? + +But these outward dissimilarities of conduct disclose a dissimilarity +of soul. Men live for something; for what did Jesus live? And the +answer that leaps upon us like a great light from every page of the +Gospels is plain; He lived for love. If He did not care for praise or +honour; if He regarded even the preservation of His teachings with a +divine carelessness, it was because He had a nobler end in view, the +love of men. He could not live without love, and His supreme aim was +to make Himself loved. And yet it was less a conscious aim, than the +natural working out of His own character. Fishermen by the sea saw Him +but once; instantly they left their boats and followed Him. A man +sitting at the receipt of custom, a hard man we should suppose, little +likely to be swayed by sudden emotions, also sees Him once, and finds +his occupation gone. A beautiful courtesan, beholding Him pass by, +breaks from her lovers, and follows Him into an alien house, where she +bathes His feet with tears and wipes them with the hairs of her head. +Mature women without a word spoken or a plea made, minister to Him of +their substance, and count their lives His. When He sleeps wearied out +upon a rude fishing-boat, there is a pillow for His head, placed there +by some unknown adorer. The men He makes apostles, all but one, count +His smile over-payment for the loss of home, of wife, of children. +Countless throngs of ordinary men and women forget their hunger, and +are content to camp in desert places only to listen to the music of His +voice. Wild and outlawed men, criminals and lepers and madmen, become +as little children at His word, and all the wrongs and bruises +inflicted on them by a cruel world are healed beneath His kindly +glance. Does it matter greatly what He taught? This is how He lived. +He lived in such a way that men saw that love was the only thing worth +living for, that life had meaning only as it had love. And this is the +imperishable tradition of Jesus: + + This is His divinity, + This His universal plea, + Here is One that loveth thee. + + +What then is a true Christianity but the accurate reproduction of this +spirit of love, the creation of loving and lovable men and women, who +attract and uplift all around them by the subtle fascination of the +love that animates them? What is a Christian Church but a +confraternity of such men and women? What is a Christian society, but +a society permeated by this spirit, and bringing all the affairs of +life to its test? And what place have social superiorities and +inferiorities; pride, scorn, or coldness; harsh theologies, breeding +harsh tempers and infinite disputes; the egoism that wounds the humble, +the strength that disregards the weak, the vanity that hurts the +simple, in any company of men and women who dare to wear the name of +such a Founder? It was as a Bridegroom Christ came, anointed with all +the perfumes of a dedicated love, and until the last bitter hour of His +rejection, He moved with such lyric joyousness across the earth, that +life became festive in His presence. It is as a Bride the church +exists on earth, and if no festive smiles are awakened by its presence, +and no gracious unsealing of the founts of love in human hearts, then +is it not Christ's Church, for He has passed elsewhere with another +company to the marriage-feast, and His Church stands without, before a +barred and darkened door. + + + + +THE JUSTICE OF JESUS + + + + _HOW HE CAME_ + + _When the golden evening gathered on the shore of Galilee, + When the fishing boats lay quiet by the sea, + Long ago the people wondered, tho' no sign was in the sky, + For the glory of the Lord was passing by._ + + _Not in robes of purple splendour, not in silken softness shod, + But in raiment worn with travel came their God, + And the people knew His presence by the heart that ceased to sigh + When the glory of the Lord was passing by._ + + _For He healed their sick at even, and He cured the leper's sore, + And sinful men and women sinned no more, + And the world grew mirthful hearted, and forgot its misery + When the glory of the Lord was passing by._ + + _Not in robes of purple splendour, but in lives that do His will, + In patient acts of kindness He comes still; + And the people cry with wonder, tho' no sign is in the sky, + That the glory of the Lord is passing by._ + + + +III + +THE JUSTICE OF JESUS + +One strong peculiarity of the teaching of Jesus--we might even call it +its outstanding feature--is that it is frequently disclosed in a series +of incidents. Unlike most teachers He philosophizes little about life. +A single chapter of the Gospels, or at most two, would contain all the +maxims about life which He thought necessary for wise and lofty +conduct. His method is rather to put Himself in relation to the +crucial occurrences of life, and to reveal the true way of regarding +them by His own attitude towards them. When He would teach the beauty +of humility it is by putting a little child in the midst of His +arrogant and vainglorious disciples, that the child may become the +living and memorable parable of His sentiments. When He would teach +humanity, He does so by His own conduct to lepers. When He would +discredit and expose the barbarism of the Mosaic Sabbatarian laws as +interpreted by scribes and Pharisees, He does so by healing the sick +and blind upon the Sabbath day. He is all for the concrete, teaching +not by theory, but by example. The method is novel, and its advantages +are obvious. The best conceived discourses on humility, mercy, or +sympathy, might be forgotten, but no one can forget the child among the +disciples, nor the raptured gaze of the blind man when his purged eyes +open to behold the face of his miraculous Physician, nor the picture of +Jesus touching without fear or disgust the leper whose unclean +contagion made him an object of aversion even to the pitiful. + +It is a wonderful method of instruction; it makes every other method +seem trite and wearisome. Its effect is to make the Gospels a series +of tableaux, which dwell in the memory as things actually seen. The +groups upon the stage perpetually shift and rearrange themselves; each +represents some phase of life, some problem, some combination of +circumstance more or less common in the experience of men, something +that is typical, for Jesus chooses only the typical and essential +things of life for these occasions. The lesser things of life He +passes over; it is the great and crucial matters which attract Him. + +But what are the great things of life? + +They all fall into one category, they all present problems in human +relationship. No problems are so difficult. They are not speculative, +but practical. A man who may be wise as the world counts wisdom, and +able to pierce with acute analysis to the depth of the abstrusest +philosophic problem, may nevertheless find himself hopelessly baffled +by some quite common fact of life, such as how to treat a wayward son, +or a sinful woman. I am not likely to lose a night's rest because I am +unable to define the Trinity but with what sore travail of heart do I +toss through midnight hours when I have to settle some course of action +towards the friend who has betrayed me, the brother who has brought me +shame, the child who scoffs at my restraint, and hears the call of the +far country in every swift pulsation of his passionate heart! And why +cannot I settle my course of action? Because my mind is confused by +something which I call justice, to which custom has given authority and +consecration. Justice prescribes one course of action, affection +another. The convention of the world insists that wrong-doing should +be punished, which is manifestly right; but when it insists that I +should be the punisher, I suspect something wrong. The more closely I +study conventional justice the more I am conscious of something in +myself that distrusts and revolts from it. The more I incline to the +voice of affection the more I fear it, lest I should be guilty of +weakness which would merit my own contempt. The struggle is one +between convention and instinct, and I know not which side to take. +But one thing I do know; it is that I have no certain clue to guide me, +no clear determining principle that divides the darkness with a sword +of light, no voice within myself that is authoritative. + +Now the wonderful thing in Jesus is that He is always sure of Himself. +Nothing takes Him by surprise, nothing produces the least hesitation in +His judgment. Therefore He must have had an unfailing clue to which He +trusted in the maze of life. Behind all consistency of judgment there +must exist consistency of principle. The principle that governed all +the thoughts of Jesus was _that love was the only real justice_. He +came not to condemn, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. +There was no problem of human relationship that could not be solved by +love; there was no other principle needed for the regulation of +society; and no other could produce that general peace and good-will +which He called the Kingdom of God. + +Thus, on one occasion Jesus tells a story which is so lifelike in every +touch that we may accept it, without doubt, as less a parable than an +incident. A father has two sons, one of whom is industrious and +dutiful, the other wayward and rebellious. The wayward son finally +casts off all pretense of filial obedience, goes into a far country, +and wastes his substance in riotous living. Here we have one of the +saddest of all problems in human relationship, for presently the +disgraced son comes home a beggar. The elder brother who represents +the average social view, has no doubt whatever as to what should be +done. He is offended that the disgraced son should come home at all; +he would have thought better of him if he had hidden his shame in the +country that had witnessed it. Probably his sense of pride and +respectability is offended more than his love of virtue, though he +characteristically gives his jealous anger the illusion of morality. +This, I say, is the average social view. There are few things more +cruel than affronted respectability. The elder brother is an eminently +respectable person, totally unacquainted with wayward passions, and his +only feeling for his brother is disdain. + +Jesus tells the story, however, in such a way as to discredit the +average social view. He begins by making us feel that whatever follies +the prodigal had committed, he had already been punished for them in +the miseries he had endured. It is not for man to punish with his whip +of scorn one who has already been flaggellated with a whip of scorpions +in the desert places of disgrace and shame. Jesus makes us feel also +that whatever sins might be laid to the charge of the disgraced son, +there is nevertheless in his heart a warmth of feeling of which the +elder brother gives no sign. The boy loves his father, otherwise he +would not have turned to him in his anguish of distress. The elder +brother's attitude to his father is arrogant and harsh; the younger +brother's is humble and tender. Lastly the father himself is revealed +as the embodiment of love. He asks no questions, utters no reproaches, +imposes no conditions; he simply takes his son back, in the rush of his +affection cutting short the boy's pitiful confession, and calling for +shoes and new robes and festal music, as though his son had returned in +dignity and triumph. In the last scene of all, implied rather than +described, the restored prodigal sits at the feast, leaning on his +father's bosom, but the respectable son stands without in a darkness of +his own creation--the darkness which a harsh spirit and an unlovely +temper never fail to create in men of his unhappy temperament. + +It is a very strange story, if we come to think of it; almost an +immoral story, as no doubt it was considered by the Pharisees, and +persons of their cold and mechanical type of virtue. But Jesus +anticipates their criticism with one of the most startling statements +that ever fell from inspired lips, "There is more joy in heaven among +the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and +nine righteous persons who need no repentance." Heaven approves the +story, if they do not. Thus God Himself would act, for God is love. +Thus love must needs act, if it be the kind of love that "suffereth +long and is kind, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, +is not provoked, taketh not account of evil, beareth all things, +believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." And if +we ask what becomes of justice, Jesus assures us that love is the only +real justice. For the main object of justice is not punishment but +reclamation. A truly enlightened justice is less concerned with the +punishment of wrong than its reparation. + +The gravest question in the case of this unhappy boy is not what he has +made of himself by sin and folly, but what can yet be made of him by +wise and tender treatment. Had the father coldly dismissed the +prodigal with some bitter verdict on his past folly, he himself would +have been unjust to the boy's possibilities, and thus would have sinned +against his son with a sin much less capable of excuse than the son's +sin against him. The worst sinner in the story is not the son who went +wrong, but the son who had never done anything but right, yet had done +it in such a way that it had begotten in him a vile, censorious, +loveless temper. No one can be just who does not love; and so, once +more removing the story into that unseen world which Christ called in +to redress the balance of this visible world, we sinful men and women +build our hopes upon the great saying that God's forgiveness is God's +justice: if we confess our sins, He is not only faithful, but JUST in +forgiving us our sins. + + + + +LOVE IS JUSTICE + + + + _THE WAY OF WOUNDS_ + + _He touched the leper tenderly, + So in His hands there came to be + Wide wounds that were not wrought with nails. + Alas, my hands are smooth and fair, + No wound is on them anywhere, + Nor any scarlet scar of nails._ + + _His lips lay on the mouth of death, + God's healing dwelt within their breath, + Wherefore his lips grew pale with pain, + And no man shall that pain divine; + Alas, my lips are red with wine, + And they have scorned His draught of pain._ + + _His feet were torn of stone and thorn, + Full slow He moved on roads forlorn, + But joyous hearts accompanied Him; + Alas, my feet are softly shod, + And on the road that leads to God, + They have not sought to move with Him._ + + _And so all wounded by the way, + He came home at the close of day, + And angels met Him at the Gate. + Alas, His way I have not known-- + The road forlorn, the wounding stone-- + And no one waits me at the Gate._ + + + +IV + +LOVE IS JUSTICE + +Love is the only real justice--never was there a more revolutionary +ethic! If Christianity is to be judged by its institutions, it must be +reluctantly confessed that twenty centuries of Christian teaching have +almost wholly failed to make this strange ethic acceptable to mankind. +The elder brother still makes broad his phylacteries in the home, in +the Church, and on the seat of justice. The elder brother's sense of +offended respectability still masquerades as virtue. Who forgives as +this father forgave, with such completeness that he who has wrought the +wrong is encouraged to forget that the wrong was ever wrought? Where +is the loving and tolerant spirit of the father less visible than in +the Church, which crucifies men for a word, and makes a difference of +opinion the ground for deadly enmity? Of what administration of law +can we say that its chief object is not the punishment of the +wrong-doer, but his reclamation? No existing society is organized on +these principles, and the only defense the apologists of a bastard +Christianity make is that it is totally impossible to apply the +principles of Jesus to the administration of society. That is, at all +events, an intelligible defense, but is it a legitimate one? Was Jesus +merely a romantic dreamer, with entirely romantic views of love and +justice? Was He a moral anarchist, whose teachings, if interpreted in +laws, would destroy the basis of society? A strange thing indeed in +human history if One who has been loved as no other was ever loved by +multitudes of men and women through the ages, should prove after all to +be an impracticable dreamer or a moral anarchist! + +But if Jesus was a dreamer, He dreamed true, and the very reason why He +is loved with such wide and deep devotion is that men do dimly, but +instinctively, perceive that His life presents the only perfect pattern +of life as it should be. Life, as it exists, is clearly not ordered on +a social system which any wise or good man can approve. Hence the wise +and good man is perpetually urged to the enquiry whether Jesus may not +after all have been right? + +Jesus certainly acts as one who is right. He acts always with the +assured air of one for whom all debate is closed and henceforth +impossible. He knows His way, and the great moral dilemmas of life +yield instantly to His touch. He penetrates to their roots and makes +us feel that He has touched the essential element in them. The dreamer +vindicates himself by making it manifest that he sees deeper into the +problem than the moralist, and that his is after all the better +morality because it is of higher social value, and makes more directly +for social reconciliation. + +Let us take, for example, the judgment of Jesus upon the woman who was +a sinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee. The social dilemma of the +fallen woman is much more difficult of solution than that of the +prodigal son. We expect a certain power of moral convalescence in +youth which has been betrayed through folly. Sooner or later the manly +nature kindles with resentment at its own weakness. Moreover, social +law allows a certain opportunity of recuperation to man which it denies +to woman. The sin of the woman seems less pardonable, not because it +is worse in itself, but because it outrages a higher convention. Hence +the strict moralist who might make some allowance for the hot blood of +youth, makes none for woman when she is betrayed through the affections. + +But this is the very point on which Jesus fixes as essential. "_The +woman loved much, therefore let her many sins be forgiven_," He says. +And a true reading of the story would seem to show that in uttering +this sublime verdict Jesus is not thinking of the woman's sudden and +pure love for Him; He is rather reviewing the entire nature of her +life. She had loved much--that is her history in a sentence. Cruelty +and unkindness, malice and bitterness, had no part in her misdoing. +She had been undone through the very sweetness of her nature, as +multitudes of women are. That which was her noblest attribute--her +power of affection--had been the minister of her ruin through lack of +wisdom and restraint. By love she had fallen, by love also she shall +be redeemed. Her sins were indeed many, but behind all her sins there +was an essential though perverted magnanimity of nature, and for the +sake of an essential good in her, which lay like a shining pearl at the +root of her debasement, she shall be forgiven. + +Again a strange verdict, and one that must have seemed to the Pharisees +entirely immoral. "What becomes of justice?" is their whispered +comment. Jesus asserts His sense of justice by an exposition of the +character of Simon. Simon is destitute of love, of magnanimity, even +of courtesy. In his hard and formal nature there has been no room for +emotion; passion of any kind and he are strangers. Which nature is +radically the better, his or "this woman's"? Which presents the more +hopeful field to the moralist? The soil of Simon's heart is thin and +meagre; but in "this woman's" heart is a soil overgrown with weeds +indeed, but delicately tempered, rich and deep, in which the roots of +the fair tree of life may find abundant room and nourishment. +Therefore she shall be forgiven for her possibilities, and such +forgiveness is justice. To ignore these possibilities, to allow what +she has been utterly to overshadow the lovely vision of what she may +be, when once the soil is clear of weeds, and the real magnanimity of +her temperament is directed into noble uses, would be the most odious +form of injustice. + +Such is the justice of Jesus, but, alas, after two thousand years we +still stand astonished at it, more than half doubtful of its validity, +and, if truth be told, secretly dismayed at its boldness. It is +romantic justice, we say, but is it practicable justice? We might at +least remember that what we call practicable justice has never yet +attained the gracious results of Christ's romantic justice. Simon the +Pharisee knows no more how to deal with "this woman" than the elder +brother knew how to deal with the prodigal. Such sense of justice as +they possessed would have infallibly driven the penitent boy back to +the comradeship of harlots, and have refused the penitent harlot the +barest chance of reformation. Is not this enough to make the least +discerning of us all suspect that Pharisees and elder brothers, for all +their immaculate respectability of life, are by no means qualified to +pass judgment on these tragedies of life with which they have no +acquaintance, and cannot have an understanding sympathy? Does not the +entire failure of legal justice with all its apparatus of punishment +and repression, to give the sinner a vital impulse to withdraw from his +sin, drive us to the conclusion, or at least to the hope, that there +must be some better method of dealing with sinners than is sanctioned +by conventional justice? There is another method--it is Christ's +method. And the thing to be observed is that whereas conventional +justice must certainly have failed in either of these crucial +instances, the romantic justice of Jesus--if we must so call +it--completely succeeded. The woman who was a sinner sinned no more, +and the penitent son henceforth lived a new life of purity and +obedience. In each case love is justified, and proves itself the +highest justice. + + + + +LOVE AND FORGIVENESS + + + + _LOVE'S PROFIT_ + + _What profits all the hate that we have known + The bitter words, not all unmerited? + Have hearts e'er thriven beneath our angry frown? + Have roses grown from thistles we have sown? + Or lucid dawns flowered out of sunsets red? + Lo, all in vain + The violence that added pain to pain, + And drove the sinner back to sin again._ + + _We had been wiser had we walked Love's way + We had been happier had we tenderer been, + We had found sunlight in the cloudiest day + Had we but loved the souls that went astray, + And sought from shame their many faults to screen + Lo, they and we + Had thus escaped Life's worst Gethsemane, + And found the Garden where the angels be._ + + _For One there was who, angry, drew no sword, + Derided, wept for those who wrought Him wrong, + And at the last attained this great reward, + That those who injured Him acclaimed Him Lord, + And wove His story into holiest song. + So sinners wrought + For Him the Kingdom He had vainly sought, + And to His feet the world's frankincense brought._ + + + +V + +LOVE AND FORGIVENESS + +In these instances it is the singular completeness of Christ's +forgiveness which is the most startling feature. It would be a libel on +human nature to say that men do not forgive each other, but human +forgiveness usually has reservations, reticences, conditions. Jesus +taught unlimited forgiveness, and what He taught He practiced. + +"_Then came Peter, and said to Him, 'Lord, how oft shall my brother sin +against me and I forgive him? Until seven times?' Jesus said unto him, +'I say not unto thee, until seven times; but until seventy times seven.'_" + +It is a vehement reply, in which a quiet note of scorn vibrates; not +scorn of Peter, but scorn of any kind of love that is less than +limitless. But whose love is limitless? Do we not commonly speak of +love as being outworn by offense or neglect? In the compacts which we +make with one another in the name of love, do we not specifically name +certain offenses as unpardonable? Thus one man will say, "I can forgive +anything but meanness," and another says, "no friendship can survive +perfidy"; and in the relations between men and women unfaithfulness is +held to cancel all bonds, however indissoluble they may seem. Now and +again, it is true, some strange voice reaches us, keyed to a different +music. Shakespeare, for example, in his famous one hundred and sixteenth +sonnet, boldly states that + + Love is not love + Which alters when it alteration finds, + Or bends with the remover to remove. + +But who listens, who believes? Yet, if it should happen to us to be +placed in the position of the offender, we need no one to convince us +that a true love should be, in its very nature, unalterable. How +astonished and dismayed are we, when eyes that have so many times met +ours in tenderness harden at our presence, and lips which have uttered so +many pledges of affection, speak harshly! We do not deny our fault, +indeed; but we think we can discern reasons why it should be regarded +mercifully, why the very memory and sacredness of old affection should +make harsh judgment impossible; nay, more, why a deeply generous love +should even rejoice in the opportunity to forgive, and so should sanctify +our very shame with the healing touch of pity, and pour our tears into +the sacramental cup which ratifies a new fidelity. + +It is so the sinner argues, his vision of what love ought to be growing +clearer by his offense against love. It is he alone, the sinner, who can +really sympathize with Christ's conception of love, for he alone feels +that this is the kind of love he needs. The elder brother does not +understand, Simon the Pharisee does not understand, because neither has +sinned in such a way as to be flung helpless at the feet of love. Peter +did not understand when he put his question to Christ. He spoke just as +the average man would speak, who has never sounded the tragic depths in +life, has never known the misery of weakness, and therefore has no fellow +feeling for the weak. Love as such men know it is less a passion than a +compact. It is a bond of mutual advantage, guarded from abuse by swift +penalty and forfeit. It is the reward of qualities, it gives no more +than it gets, it exists by an equal equipoise of service. If this +equipoise is disturbed its obligations are dissolved. It is easily +affronted, and under affront becomes resentful, bitter, even vindictive. +How oft shall I forgive my brother? Only as oft as a sense of duty shall +demand, only up to the point which is sanctioned by social custom, so +that I may save my reputation for magnanimity, always excepting certain +sins for which no pardon can be legitimately asked. But the hour was not +far off when Peter himself was to commit the very sins for which +customary love has no pardon. He was to be guilty of those offenses +which just and good men say they cannot forgive--meanness, cowardice, +perfidy, denial. That bitter hour revealed the true nature of love to +Peter. He knew that in spite of his sin against Jesus, he still loved +Him, and since love was unalterable in him, he expected an unalterable +love in Christ. It was the seventy times seven forgiveness that he +needed then; and how sweet to recollect in that hour that Jesus had +taught a love that knew no limit. "_Lovest thou Me_?" was the one word +his Master uttered when they met in the quiet morning light beside the +sea. "_Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee_," was the +swift reply. Storms disturb the sea but the central tides run on. Peter +found with equal astonishment and gratitude that not even perfidy was +able to separate him from the love of Christ, for that love was +unalterable as the morning star which hung above the lake, and cleansing +as the soft waves that lapped its shore. + +The self-righteous man will never understand these things. Men and women +of meagre natures, with whom love is a compact, not a passion, will +vehemently disapprove them. People of smooth lives, ignorant of strong +temptations, will refuse even to discuss them. Jesus was well aware of +their implacable indifference or cold hostility, and boldly said that for +such people He had no gospel. His mission was not to the whole, but to +the sick. The Gospel of Jesus is in truth not designed for people of +comfortable lives. He has little to say to the children of compromise, +whose emasculated lives attain the semblance of virtue by the cautious +exercise of niggard passions. They can take care of one another, these +righteous ones, whose very righteousness is a negation. + +But Christ's Gospel is for a tragic world. It is for the disinherited, +the weak, and the strong who have become weak; for those who have been +wrecked by folly and passion, and too much love of living; for those +whose capacities for good and evil, being both rooted in passion, are +equally a peril and a potency--it is to these Christ chiefly speaks. To +them the Gospel of unlimited forgiveness and unalterable love is the only +vital, because the only efficacious Gospel. The man whose very virility +of nature makes him the easy prey of murderous joy; the man shut up in +prison, who hears from the lips that once spake love to him, the sentence +of inexpiable disgrace; the outcast from honour, gnawing the bitter husks +of hated sin in far lands, and tortured in his dreams by the sweetness of +recollected happiness; these, and all like these, will understand Jesus, +for it is to them He speaks. Their very sin interprets Him. To their +forlorn ears the love He teaches will sound not strange, for it is the +only kind of love that can redeem them; nor foolish, for it is the only +love that dare stoop low enough to lift them up. These will not fail to +understand what conventional righteousness finds so difficult; these, and +also all good women who have had acquaintance with either deep love or +real grief, because it is a loving woman's sweet prerogative and divine +disposition to forgive, and to draw from her grace of forgiveness a more +tender and maternal power of loving. + + + + +THE PRACTICE OF LOVE + + + + _FELLOW SUFFERERS_ + + _When men of malice wrought the crown for Thee + Didst Thou complain? + Nay; in each thorn God's finger Thou didst see, + His love thro' pain._ + + _His finger did but press the ripened Vine, + Thy fruit to prove, + That henceforth all the world might drink the wine + Of Thy great love._ + + _So when the darkness rose about Thy feet + Thy lips met His, + Amid the upper light, in Death's long sweet, + Releasing kiss._ + + _And shall I cry aloud in anger when + Men make for me + A Cross less harsh? Nay, I'll remember then + Thy constancy._ + + _And if the darkness hide me from Thy sight + At God's command, + I'll talk with Thee all thro' the prayerful night, + And touch Thy hand;_ + + _Greatly content, if I whose life has been + So long unwise, + May, wounded, on Thy wounded bosom lean + In Paradise._ + + + +VI + +THE PRACTICE OF LOVE + +So convinced was Jesus that love alone was the master law of life, that +He based His own life wholly on His conviction, cheerfully accepting +all the risks which were implied. He was perfectly aware of the +consequences to Himself and His reputation when He made Himself the +friend of publicans and sinners. These consequences He ignored, making +Himself of no reputation, that He might uplift by His love those who +needed His love the most. Under the constant contradiction of those +who mistook His spirit, and even libelled His character, He manifested +neither bitterness nor resentment. He suffered injuries without +retaliation, and went so far as to denounce all forms of retaliation as +a wasteful expenditure of spirit, wrong in themselves, and attaining no +end but the worse injury of those who employed them. He might easily +have used the miraculous power which He possessed for His own defense, +and for the confusion of His enemies. Had He been selfishly ambitious, +He might have organized a party so strong, that it would have become an +irresistible force, which would have shattered the old order whose +evils He denounced, and have made Him the dictator of a new order, +based on the ideals in which He believed. He did none of these things, +not through lassitude of spirit or failure to perceive their possible +issues, but simply because these were not the things to do. In His +judgment the only abiding kingdom belonged to the meek. He who +suffered injustice with patience would prove the ultimate conqueror. +There was an irresistible might in love and meekness against which the +people raged in vain. Love was a working and practicable law of life; +in the long issue of things it was the only law that justified itself. + +Was Jesus right in these conclusions? Can human life proceed along the +lines He indicated? Certainly it has never yet done so. The woman who +is a sinner finds no Jesus to absolve her utterly among the priests of +His religion. The resentment of injury is regarded even by good men as +entirely justified when injury to the person involves the rights of +social order. Force is regarded by persons of the highest amiability +as necessary to the defense of society, and the Church applauds the +punishments inflicted by the civil magistrate, and even hastens to +bless the banners and baptize the deadly weapons of the warrior. +Meekness, which endures injury without resentment, is regarded as the +sign of a servile and cowardly spirit, and is the subject of ridicule +and contempt. No Christian society exists in which a Peter would be +freely pardoned his offense; the best that could be hoped would be the +infliction of humiliating penance, and a reluctant reinstatement in the +apostleship after a long period of bitter ostracism. Yet who would +venture to challenge the conduct of Jesus in these respects? Who would +not find his opinion of Jesus tragically lowered, and his adoration +practically destroyed, if some new and more authentic Gospel were +discovered by which we learned that Jesus smote with leprosy the +Pharisees who resisted Him, as Elisha smote Gehazi: that He sanctioned +the stoning of the adultress taken in the act of sin; or that He +branded Simon Peter for his perfidy, and drove him out forever from the +apostleship he had disgraced, denouncing him as a son of hell and a +predestined citizen of the outer darkness? Could such acts be +attributed to Jesus, though each act in itself would precisely +represent the common temper of Christian courts and so-called Christian +men under circumstances of similar and equal provocation, the worship +of Jesus would at once cease throughout the world. + +The dilemma is truly tragic. A Jesus who should be proved to have +lived according to the conventions we respect, who did not rise above +conventional ideals of either love or justice, who approved force, and +resented injuries, who repudiated the friend who had betrayed Him, who +shunned the contact of persons whose touch dishonoured Him--such a +Jesus would cease to be our Jesus. He would no longer attract us, He +would not touch our hearts, He would barely command our respect. +Astounding fact! Those very things in the life of Jesus which we +disapprove are the things for which we love Him; and those tempers +which we ourselves disallow are in Him the sources of our adoration. + +We are bound therefore to ask, can that method of conduct be wrong +which has won this triumphant issue? It may be ironically true that we +love Him most for those very acts of His which we are least likely to +imitate; but is not this our tacit testimony to the essential rightness +of these acts? In our better, or our softer moments; or in those +moments when we are most conscious of the cruelty of life, and most in +need of love, do we not feel, as the life of Jesus grows before us, +that this is how life should be lived? Dare we question that a world +governed wholly by the ideals of Jesus would be a far happier world +than this we know? Love, as the one necessary law of life, clearly +stands justified in Jesus, since it has produced the most adorable +character in history. If we admit this, it is foolish to speak of +Christ's ideals as impracticable. What we approve in another's life we +cannot wholly repudiate in our own. Let it be added also, that a life +lived by another is always a life that others can live. We may seek to +cover our failure, and the world's failure, to reproduce the life of +Jesus, by the plea of incompetence, but against our plea Jesus records +His verdict, "_Behold I have left you an example_." + +From that verdict there is no appeal. + + + + +LOVE AND JUDGMENT + + + + _MOTHER AND SON_ + + _When, for the last time, from His Mother's home + The Son went forth, foreseeing perfectly + What doom would happen, and what things would come, + Was there upon His lips no stifled sigh + For happy hours that should return no more, + Long days among the lilies, pure delights + Of wanderings by Galilee's fair shore, + And converse with His friends on starry nights? + Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun + With this one word, "Father, Thy will be done!"_ + + _With a low voice the stooping olive-trees + Whispered to Him of His Gethsemane; + The cruel thorn-bush, clinging to His knees, + Proclaimed, "I shall be made a crown for Thee!" + And, looking back, His eyes made dim with loss, + He saw the lintel of the cottage grow + In shape against the sunset, like a cross, + And knew He had not very far to go. + Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun, + Still saying this one word, "Thy will be done!"_ + + _So, when the last time, from His Mother's home + The Son passed out, no choir of angels came, + As long before at Bethlehem they had come, + To comfort Him upon the road of shame. + Alone He went, and stopped a little space, + As one overburdened, stopped to look again + Upon His Mother's pleading form and face, + And wept for her, that she should know this pain. + Then, silently, He faced the setting sun + And said, "Oh, Father, let Thy will be done!"_ + + + +VII + +LOVE AND JUDGMENT + +Just as Jesus called in the vision of the unseen world to redress the +balance of the visible world, when He said that there was more joy in +heaven over the penitent sinner than over ninety and nine just men who +needed no repentance, so in His final addresses to His followers He +again discloses the unseen world. These final addresses deal with the +tremendous problem of a future judgment. Over no problem does the +human mind hover with such breathless interest, such unfeigned alarm. +But with characteristic perversity the elements in Christ's vision of +the judgment on which men have seized most tenaciously, are precisely +those elements which are least intelligible, and least capable of +strict definition. It is around the word "eternal" and the nature of +the punishment suggested, that the theological battles of centuries +have centred. Yet the really central point of both the vision and the +teaching, is not here at all; and it is only man's habitual love of +enigma which can explain the passion with which men have opposed one +another over the interpretation of words and phrases which must always +remain enigmatic. + +Let us turn to Christ's vision of the Judgment, as recorded by St. +Matthew, and what do we find? First that the same Son of Man, whose +whole life was an exposition of the law of love, is Himself the final +judge of men and nations. "_The Son of Man shall sit on the throne of +His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all the nations, and He +shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the +sheep from the goats_." No alien judge, observe, unacquainted with the +nature of man, but one who knows human life so thoroughly that He is +the representative man--"the Son of Man"; and although He is now the +Judge, yet He still calls Himself by the tender name of the Shepherd. +The tribunal is therefore the tribunal of love, and the court is the +court of love. He who shall judge mankind is He who judges Peter and +the woman who was a sinner, He of whose tenderness and sympathy we have +assurance in a hundred acts of mercy, pity, and magnanimity. Yet for +centuries the Church has sung its terrible _Dies Irae_, has clothed the +judgment seat with thunder, has put into the hands of Jesus bolts of +flame, and has applauded and enthroned in His sanctuaries such +pictorial blasphemies as Michael Angelo's _Last Judgment_, which +represents Jesus as an angry Hercules, and even gratifies the private +spite of the artist by overwhelming in a sea of fire one who had +offered him a personal affront. + +Blasphemy indeed, and falsehood too; for the second thing we find is +that the one principle which governs the entire vision of Jesus is that +Love judges, and that it is by Love that men are tested. The men and +women of loving disposition, who have wrought many little acts of +kindness which were to them so natural and simple that they do not so +much as recollect them, find themselves mysteriously selected for +infinite rewards. The men and women of opposite disposition, in spite +of all their outward rectitude of behaviour, find themselves numbered +with the goats. A cup of cold water given to a child, a meal bestowed +upon a beggar, a garment shared with the naked--these things purchase +heaven. One who Himself had been thirsty, hungry, and naked, judges +their worth, and He judges by His own remembered need. It is love +alone that is divine, love alone that prepares the soul for divine +felicity. With a beautiful unconsciousness of any merit, the people +who have lived lovingly plead ignorance of their own lovely acts and +tempers; but they have been witnessed by the hierarchies of heaven, the +morning stars have sung of them, they have made glad the heart of God; +and the reward of these humble servitors of love now is that having +added to the joy of God, henceforth they shall share that joy forever. + +Never was there vision at once so exquisite and so surprising. It is +like a child's dream of heaven and judgment, so untouched is it by the +conventions of the world, so innocent, so daring, so tenderly imagined, +and so impossibly probable. Alas, that most of us are too wise to +understand it, and too worldly to receive it. Yet in nothing that +Jesus uttered is there clearer evidence of deliberation. And it is of +a piece with all He taught; so much so indeed that without it, His +teaching would be incomplete. + +Truly, we may say, the Heaven of Jesus is a strangely ordered Kingdom; +for in it beggars are comforted for apparently no other reason than +that they need comfort; the doers of forgotten kindnesses are crowned +with sudden splendours of divine approval while the lords of genius and +the makers of empire are forgotten; and the very anthems of the blessed +are hushed into silent wondering and joy when solitary penitents turn +homewards from the roads of sin! But it is not stranger than that +kingdom in which Jesus lived habitually, the kingdom He created round +Him in His earthly life. In that kingdom also love was lord, and she +who anointed the tired feet of the Master against His burial was +promised everlasting remembrance, and she who out of her penury gave +her mite to the poor was praised as having done more than all the rich, +who from their abundance distributed careless and unmissed +benefactions. In all that Jesus says and does the same sequence of +thought runs clear, the same master principle rules the various result. +Life is a unity either here or hereafter, and love is, and must +evermore remain, the one temper that gives significance to life. + + + + +THE WISDOM OF THE SIMPLE + + + + _THE WELL_ + + _When Galilee took morning's flame + Thro' fields of flowers the Master came. + He stopped before a cottage door, + And took from humble hands the store + Of crumbs that from the table fell, + And water from the living well. + He smiled, and with a great content + Upon the road of flowers went._ + + _Foredoomed upon the road of shame + With bleeding feet the Master came, + And found the cottage door again. + "No wine have we to ease Thy pain, + But only water in a cup." + The Master slowly drank it up. + "Thy kindness turns it into wine," + He said, "and makes the gift divine."_ + + _Upon a day the Master trod + The road of stars that leads to God, + All tasks for men accomplished. + "They gave Me hate," He softly said, + "But Love in larger measure gave, + And therefore was I strong to save. + I had not reached the Cross that day + But for the Well beside the way."_ + + + +VIII + +THE WISDOM OF THE SIMPLE + +If these things be true, if the whole tradition of Jesus is an +exposition of love as the law of life, the deduction is entirely +simple, and as logical as it is simple. That deduction has been +already stated. It is that Christianity is a method of life by which +men and women are taught and inspired to love as Jesus loved, and to +live loving and lovable lives. It has little to do with creeds, and +still less with formal codes of conduct. For this reason such a +definition of Christianity will satisfy neither the theologian nor the +philosopher. Jesus never expected that it would. He knew that the one +would regard it as heretical, and the other as so deficient in subtlety +as to seem foolish. Therefore He made His appeal to simple and natural +people, saying that what was hidden from the wise and prudent, was +revealed to babes. + +The simple and natural people understood Jesus; they always do. The +sophisticated and artificial people did not understand Him; they never +will. With scarcely an exception the people of intelligence and +culture regarded Him with disdain, withdrew from Him, or violently +opposed Him. The reason for their conduct lay not so much in either +their culture or their intelligence, as in the kind of life that seemed +to be necessary to them as the expression of their culture. + +Thus, they were full of prejudices, prepossessions, and foregone +conclusions, all of which had the sanction of their culture. It was +enough for them to know that Jesus came from Nazareth and was +unlettered; this produced in them violent scorn and antipathy. They +were still further offended because He used none of the shibboleths +with which they were familiar. Nor could they conceive of any life as +satisfactory but the kind of life they lived, and that was a life of +social complexity, ruled by conventional usages and maxims, and +essentially artificial in ideal and practice. Jesus, therefore, turned +from them to the simple and natural people, fishermen, artisans, and +humble women, in whom the natural instincts had fuller play. His +reward was immediate; then, and ever since, the Common People heard Him +gladly. + +The reason why simple and natural people readily understand Jesus is +that in the kind of life they live the primal emotions are supreme. +The very narrowness of their social outlook intensifies those emotions. +They have little to distract them; they are not bewildered by endless +disquisitions on conduct, and religion itself is for them an emotion +rather than a systematized creed. For the poor man home, children, +fireside affection, mean more than for the rich man, because they are +his only wealth. This is the lesson which Wordsworth has so nobly +taught in his "_Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_,"-- + + How, by heaven's grace this Clifford's heart was framed, + How he, long forced in humble walks to go, + Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed. + + Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; + His daily teachers had been woods and rills, + The silence that is in the starry sky, + The sleep that is among the lonely hills. + + +People who live thus, in wise simplicity, undistracted by the numerous +illusions of an artificial life, have no difficulty in accepting +Christ's teaching that love is the supreme law of life, because love +means everything to them in the kind of life they lead. In the wisdom +of the heart they are more learned than the wisest Pharisee, who is +rarely "softened into feeling," whose whole social life indeed imposes +a restraint on feeling. What peasant father would not welcome a +returning prodigal, what peasant mother would not open her arms wide to +gather to her bosom a penitent daughter, recovered from the cruel snare +of cities? Certainly one is much more likely to find such acts of pure +feeling among peasant folk than among the rich and cultured, for the +peasant cares less for opinion, is less respectful of social etiquette, +and follows more closely in his actions the instincts of primal +affection. Who has not discovered among poor and humble folk a strange +and beautiful lenience, the lenience of a great compassion, towards +those sins which in more artificial conditions of society are held to +justify the most violent condemnation, and do indeed close the heart to +pity? In poor men's huts beside the Sea of Galilee Jesus Himself had +found love, love in all its divine daring, lenience, and magnanimity, +and He knew that among people like these He would be understood. He +also knew that the only people fitted to interpret His doctrine of +sovereign love to the world were these simple folk of the lake and +field, and therefore to them He committed His Gospel, and from them He +chose His disciples. + +It needed a peasant Christ to teach these things, for no other could +have imagined them, no other could have had the daring and simplicity +to utter them. A peasant Christ He was, living, thinking, and acting +as a peasant even in His highest moments of inspiration. It was +because He always remained a peasant that He was able to see so clearly +the defects of that more intricate social system to which His ministry +introduced Him. He brought with Him a new scale of values, which He +had learned in the school of a more primal life than could be found in +cities. Nature always spoke in Him, convention never. In His +treatment of sin it is always the voice of Nature that we hear +triumphing over the verdicts of convention. The sins which convention +regards as inexpiable are sins of passion; the sins which it excuses +are sins of temper, such as greed, malice, craft, unkindness, cruelty. +Jesus entirely reverses the scale. His pity is reserved for outcasts, +His harshest words are addressed to those whom the world calls good. +Folly He views with infinite compassion--the foolish man is as a lost +sheep whose very helplessness invokes our pity. But for the man of +hard and self-sufficient nature, whose very righteousness is a mixture +of prudence and egoism, He has only words of flame. An offense against +virtue counts for less with Him than an offense against love. No +wonder the Pharisees called Him a blasphemer! Were the true nature of +Christ's teaching understood to-day many who profess to revere Him +would join in the same accusation. What more offensive and unpalatable +truth could be presented to mankind than this on which Jesus constantly +insists, that sins of temper are much more harmful than sins of +passion, that they spring from a more incurable malignancy of nature, +that they produce far wider and more disastrous suffering? + +Yet the truth is clear enough to all broadly truthful and simple +natures, which are not bewildered by conventional views of right and +wrong. Who has occasioned more suffering, the youth who has sinned +against himself in wild folly and repented, or the man who has planned +his life with that cold craft and deliberate cruelty which sacrifices +everything to self-advantage? Can any human mind measure the various +and almost infinite wrongs committed by the man who piles up through +years of sordid avarice an unjust fortune? Who can count the broken +hearts in the pathway of that implacable ambition which "wades through +slaughter to a throne"? These things may not be apparent to the man +whose nature is subdued to the hue of that artificial society in which +he lives, a society which permits such crimes to pass unquestioned. +They are certainly not perceived by the criminals themselves. To-day, +as in the day of Christ, they "devour widows' houses, and for a +pretense make long prayers," save, perhaps, that more blind than the +ancient Pharisees, their prayers seem real, and they themselves are +unconscious of pretense. Now also, as then, they give their tithes in +conventional benevolence, forgetting, and hoping to make others forget, +the sources of their wealth in their use of it. How is it that such +men are so unconscious of offense? Simply because they have never +grasped Christ's deliberate statement that sins of temper are much +worse than sins of passion; that cruelty is a worse thing than folly; +that the wrong wrought by squandering the substance in a far country is +more quickly repaired, and more easily forgiven, than the wrong of +hoarding one's substance in the avarice which neglects the poor, or +adding to it by methods which trample the weak and humble in the dust, +as deserving neither pity nor attention. + +Yet it needs but a very brief examination of society to prove the truth +of Christ's contention; very little experience of life to discover that +the utmost corruption of the human heart lies in lovelessness. The +spiteful and rancorous temper, always seeking occasions of offense; the +jealous spirit which cannot bear the spectacle of another's joy; the +bitter nagging tongue, darting hither and thither like a serpent's fang +full of poison, and diabolically skilled in wounding; the sour and +grudging disposition, which seems most contented with itself when it +has produced the utmost misery in others; the narrow mind and heart +destitute of magnanimity; the cold and egoistic temperament, which +demands subservience of others and receives their service without +thanks, as though the acknowledgment of gratitude were weakness--these +are common and typical forms of lovelessness, and who can estimate the +sum of suffering they inflict? Their fruit is everywhere the same; +love repressed, children estranged, the home made intolerable. It does +but add to the offense of these unlovely people that in what the world +calls morality they are above reproach, for they instill a hatred of +morality itself by their appropriation of it. Before them love flies +aghast, and the tenderest emotions of the heart fall withered. Could +the annals of human misery be fairly written, it might appear that not +all the lusts and crimes which are daily blazoned to the eye have +wrought such wide-spread misery, have inflicted such general +unhappiness, as these sins of temper, so common in their operation that +they pass almost unrebuked, but so wide-spread in their effects that +their havoc is discovered in every feature of our social life. + + + + +THE REVELATIONS OF GRIEF + + + + _THE HOUSE OF PRIDE_ + + _I lived with Pride; the house was hung + With tapestries of rich design. + Of many houses, this among + Them all was richest, and 'twas mine. + But in the chambers burned no fire, + Tho' all the furniture was gold, + I sickened of fulfilled desire, + The House of Pride was very cold._ + + _I lived with Knowledge; very high + Her house rose on a mountain's side. + I watched the stars roll through the sky, + I read the scroll of Time flung wide. + But in that house, austere and bare, + No children played, no laughter clear + Was heard, no voice of mirth was there, + The House was high but very drear._ + + _I lived with Love; all she possest + Was but a tent beside a stream. + She warmed my cold hands in her breast, + She wove around my sleep a dream. + And One there was with face divine + Who softly came, when day was spent, + And turned our water into wine, + And made our life a sacrament._ + + + +IX + +THE REVELATIONS OF GRIEF + +Nevertheless there are occasions in life when these things become +evident to even the least observant of us. When we stand beside the +newly dead the most intolerable reflection of countless mourners is +that their tears fall on quiet lips to which they gave scant caresses, +in the days of health: their passionate words of love are uttered to +unhearing ears, which in life waited eagerly for such assurances as +these, and waited vainly. All the purity and beauty of the vanished +human soul is revealed to us now, when it is no longer in our power to +gladden or delight it with our kindness or our praise. All the willing +service rendered to us by those folded hands and resting feet, which we +so thanklessly accepted, is seen as a thing dear and precious to us +now, when the opportunity of thanks is past forever. What would we +give now if but for one brief hour we might recall our dead just to say +the tender things we might have said and did not say, through all those +days and years when they were with us,--presences familiar and +accustomed, moving round us with so soft a tread that we scarce +regarded them, nor laid on them detaining hands, nor lifted our +preoccupied and careless eyes to theirs! + +For most of us, alas, it is not Grief and Love alone who conduct us to +the chambers of the dead; the sad and silent Angel of Reproach also +stands beside the bed, and the shadow of his wings falls upon the +features fixed in their immutable appeal, their pathetic and unwilling +accusation. Then it is that veil after veil is lifted from the past, +till in the pitiless light we read ourselves with a new understanding +of our faults. We see that through some element of hardness in +ourselves which we allowed to grow unchecked; through vain pride, or +obstinate perversity, or mere thoughtless disregard, we repulsed love +from the dominion of our hearts, and made him the servitor of our +desires, but no longer the lord of our behaviour and the spirit of our +lives. And now as we gaze on these things across the gulf of the +irreparable, we see our sin and how it came to pass; how we were unkind +not in the things we did but in those we failed to do; how, without +being cruel, our denied response to hearts that craved our tenderness +became a more subtle cruelty than angry word or hasty blow; how with +every duty accurately measured and fulfilled, yet love evaporated in +the cold and cheerless atmosphere of repression and aloofness with +which we clothed ourselves; and then the significance of Christ's +teaching comes home to us, for we know too late, that kindness is more +than righteousness, and tenderness more than duty, and that to have +loved with all our hearts is the only fulfilling of the law which +heaven approves. None, bowed beside the newly dead, ever regretted +that they had loved too well; millions have wept the bitterest tears +known to mortals because they loved too little, and wronged by their +poverty of love the sacred human presences now withdrawn forever from +their vision. + +But there are other and more joyous ways of learning the truth of +Christ's teaching, ways that are accessible to all of us. The best and +most joyous way of all is to make experiment of it. Here is a law of +life which to the sophisticated mind seems impossible, impracticable, +and even absurd. No amount of argument will convince us that we can +find in love a sufficient rule of life, or that "to renounce joy for +our fellow's sake is joy beyond joy." How are we to be convinced? +Only by making the experiment, for we really believe only that which we +practice. "I wish I had your creed, then I would live your life," said +a seeker after truth to Pascal, the great French thinker. "Live my +life, and you will soon have my creed," was the swift reply. The +solution of all difficulties of faith lies in Pascal's answer, which is +after all but a variant of Christ's greater saying, "He that willeth to +do the will of God, shall know the doctrine." Is not the whole reason +why, for so many of us, the religion of Christ which we profess has so +little in it to content us, simply this, that we have never heartily +and honestly tried to practice it? We have accepted Christ's religion +indeed, as one which upon the whole should be accepted by virtuous men, +or as one which has sufficient superiorities to certain other forms of +religion to turn the scale of our intellectual hesitation, and win from +us reluctant acquiescence. But have we accepted it as the only +authoritative rule of practice? Have we ever tried to live one day of +our life so that it should resemble one of the days of the Son of Man? +Knowing what He thought and did, and how He felt, have we ever tried to +think and act and feel as He did--and if we have not, what wonder that +our religion, being wholly theoretical, appears to us tainted with +unreality, a thin-spun web of barren, fragile idealism which leaves us +querulous and discontented? + +Such a sense of discontent should be for us, as it really is, the +signal of some deep mistake in our conception of religion. It should +at least cause us alarm, for what can be more alarming than that we +should be haunted with a sense of unreality in religion, yet still +profess religion for reasons which leave the heart indifferent and +barely serve to satisfy the intellect? And what can produce a keener +torture in a sincere mind than this eternal suspicion of unreality in a +religion whose conventional authority is acknowledged and accepted? + +I am convinced that these feelings are general among great multitudes +of the more thoughtful and intelligent adherents of Christianity. +Religion rests with them upon a certain intellectual acquiescence, or +upon the equipoise of rational probabilities, or on the compromise of +intellectual hesitations. Their tastes are gratified by the normal +forms of worship, and their sentiments are softly stirred and +stimulated. But when the voice of the orator dies upon the porches of +the ear, and the music of the Church is silent, and the seduction of +splendid ceremonial is forgotten, there remains the uneasy sense that +between all this and the actual Carpenter-Redeemer there is a wide gulf +fixed; that Jesus scarcely lived and died to produce only such results +as these; that there must be some other method of interpreting His +life, much simpler, much truer, and much more satisfying. Is it +wonderful that among such men the current forms of Christianity excite +no enthusiasm, and that the bonds of their attachment to it are lax and +easily dissolved? And what is felt by these men within the Church is +felt with much greater strength by multitudes of sincere men outside +the Church, who do not hesitate to express their feeling and to +pronounce current Christianity a burlesque and tragic travesty upon the +real religion of the Nazarene. + +But the moment we do begin to live, however inefficiently, as Jesus +lived, the sublime reality of His religion is revealed to us. We do +actually find that in the postponement of our own desires for the sake +of others; in the abandonment of our own apparently legitimate +ambitions for the service of the poor; in the patient endurance of +affront and injury; in the forgiveness of those whose wrong seems +inexpiable; in the daily exercise of love that "seeketh not itself to +please," but hopeth all things, and believeth all things,--there is a +joy beyond joy, and an exceeding great reward. We do actually find +that to forgive our brother freely is better both for him and us than +to judge him harshly, and the wisdom of Jesus is thus justified in its +moral and social efficacy. We do actually find that in ceasing to live +by worldly maxims and by living instead according to the maxims of +Jesus, we have attained a form of happiness so incredibly sweet and +pure that the world holds nothing that resembles it, and nothing that +we would exchange for it. For this is now our great reward, that peace +attends our footsteps, and that our hearts are no longer vexed with the +perturbations of vanity and self-love, of envy and revenge. We find +human nature answering to our touch even as it answered to the touch of +Jesus, and revealing to us all its best and purest treasure. We find +the very natures we thought intractable and destitute of all affinity +with ours, brought near our own; the very men and women we thought +wholly alien to us suddenly made lovable, and full of qualities that +claim our love. And as we thus humbly follow in the steps of Jesus, +trying to live each day as He lived, we know that sublimest joy of +all--we feel Jesus acting once more through our actions, and we see in +the eyes that meet our own the same look that Jesus saw in the eyes of +those whom He had cured of misery and redeemed from sin. + + + + +A CONFESSION + + + + _THE NOBLEST GRACE_ + + _'Tis something, when the day draws to its close, + To say, "Tho' I have borne a burdened mind, + Have tasted neither pleasure nor repose, + Yet this remains--to all men, friends or foes, + I have been kind."_ + + _'Tis something, when I hear Death's awful tread + Upon the stair, that his swift eye shall find + Upon my heart old wounds that often bled + For others, but no heart I injured-- + I have been kind._ + + _Praise will not comfort me when I am dead; + Yet should one come, by tenderness inclined, + My heart would know if he stooped o'er my bed + And kissed my lips for memory, and said + "This man was kind."_ + + _O Lord, when from Thy throne Thou judgest me, + Remember, tho' I was perverse and blind, + My heart went out to men in misery, + I gave what little store I had to Thee, + My life was kind._ + + + +X + +A CONFESSION + +In speaking thus I do but speak of those things which have been +revealed to me in my own experience. For many years I preached the +truths of Christianity with a real sincerity, but with a fluctuating +sense of their authority and value. Sometimes their authority seemed +supreme, and then I trod on bright clouds high above the world; at +other times they appeared to crumble at my touch, and then I walked in +darkness. One thing I saw at intervals, and at last with complete and +agonized distinctness, that however I preached these truths, they had +little visible effect upon the lives of others. Those to whom I +preached lived after all much as other people lived. I did not find +them more magnanimous than the ordinary men and women of the world, nor +less liable to take offense, to utter harsh words, to indulge in +resentments, and to retaliate on those who injured them. I did not +find that they loved humanity any better than their fellows; like all +mankind they loved those who loved them, and had domestic virtues and +affections, but little more. It was impossible to say that +Christianity had produced in them any type of character wholly and +radically different from that which might be found in multitudes of men +and women who made no pretense of Christian sentiment. Christianity +had no doubt imposed upon them many valuable restraints, so that +without it they might have been worse men and women, but this was a +merely negative result. Where was the spectacle of a character +composed of new qualities, a life wholly governed by novel impulses and +principles? I could not find such a life; nor ought I to have been +surprised; for I could not find it in myself. I also lived much as +other people did, except that I had a higher theory of conduct. Put to +the test, I also showed resentment and was moved with the spirit of +retaliation towards those who wronged me. Nor, save as a matter of +theory and sentiment, did I love my fellows any better than the average +of mankind. I sought those who were congenial to me, and had no +pleasure in the company of the common and the ignorant. I liked clever +people. I gave them my best, but I had nothing to bestow upon the dull +and stupid. How many times have I borne the society of inferior people +with ungracious tolerance, and hastened from them with undisguised +relief? How often when dealing with the poor and ignorant in the +exercise of conventional philanthropy, have I been careful to preserve +the sense of a great gulf that yawned between me and them? And what +was my daily life after all but a life existing for its own purposes, +as most other men's lives were; and what credit could I take for the +fact that the nature of those purposes was a trifle more consonant with +what the world calls high ideals than theirs? + +So the years went on, and the sense of unreality in my teaching grew +steadily more intense and intolerable. I saw myself continually +expending all the forces of my mind on theories which left me and my +hearers alike unchanged in the essential characteristics of our lives. +I felt myself, like St. Augustine, but a "seller of rhetoric." I was +inculcating a method of life which I myself did not obey, or obeyed +only in those respects that caused me neither sacrifice nor +inconvenience. In order to continue such labours at all various forms +of excuse and self-deception were required. Thus I flattered myself +that I was at least maintaining the authority of morals. I did not +perceive that morals are of no value to the world until vitalized by +emotion. At other times I preached with strenuous zeal the superiority +of the Christian religion, and dilated on its early triumphs. This +pleased my hearers, for it always flatters men to find themselves upon +the winning side. What I wonder at now is that they did not perceive +that my zeal to prove Christianity true was exactly proportioned to my +fear that it was false. Men do not seek to prove that of which they +are assured. Jesus never sought to prove the existence of a God +because He was assured of it; He simply asserted and commanded. In my +heart of hearts I knew that I was not sure. But I did not easily +discover the reason of my uncertainty. I supposed the source to be the +destructive criticism of the Gospels which had reduced Jesus Himself to +a probability. In my private thoughts I argued that it was no longer +possible to feel the intense reality of Christ. Francis might feel it, +Catherine might feel it, because they lived in an atmosphere of poetry, +unchilled by criticism. I could never feel as they felt because I +could not transport myself into their atmosphere. Yet as often as I +turned to these great lives, something thrilled within me, some living +responsive fibre, so that I knew that I was not after all quite alien +to them. Could it be that there was that in me that made me, or could +make me, of their company? But how could I attain to their faith? +What could give back to a modern man, tortured by a thousand +perplexities of knowledge of which they never dreamed, the reality of +Christ which they possessed? And then the answer came--not suddenly, +but as a still small voice slowly growing louder, more positive, more +intense--_Live the Life_. Try to do some at least of the things that +Jesus did. Seek through experience what can never come through +ratiocination. _Be_ a Francis; then it may be thou shalt think like +him, and know Jesus as he knew Him. Live the life--there is no other +way. + +Simple and far from novel as the answer seems yet it came to me with +the authority of a revelation. It illumined the entire circumference +of life. I could no longer hesitate: Jesus had never spoken from the +Syrian heavens more surely to the heart of Saul of Tarsus than He had +to me. And in the moment that He spoke, I also, like Saul, found all +my feelings altered, altered incredibly, miraculously, so that I +scarcely recognized myself. I no longer stood aloof from men, and +found pleasure in intellectual superiority; I was willing to "become a +fool for Christ's sake" if by any means I might save some. I issued a +card of invitation to the services of my Church with this motto of St. +Paul's upon it, which I now felt was mine. I had had for years +feelings of resentment towards one who I thought had wronged me; those +feelings were now dead. In another case I had been harsh and +unforgiving under great provocation; but when I met after a long +interval of time, the one who had injured me, my heart had only love +and pity for him. I sought out the drunkard and the harlot, and, when +I found them, all repulsion perished in the flow of infinite compassion +which I felt. I prayed with fallen women, sought them in their +miserable abodes, fought with them for their own souls, and O exquisite +moment!--I saw the soul awake in them, I saw in their tear-filled eyes +the look that Jesus saw in the eyes of Magdalene. On my last Sabbath +in London before leaving for America, one of these rescued girls, now +as pure of look and manner as those most sweetly nurtured, called at my +house to give my daughter a little present bought with the first money +she had earned by honest toil in many years. On the day we sailed +another said a special mass for us, and held the day sacred for prayer, +in the convent where her bruised life had been nursed back to moral +beauty. Love had triumphed in them, and I had brought them that love. +I had lived the life, I had tried to do something that Jesus did, and +behold Jesus had come back to me, and I knew His presence with me even +as Francis knew it when he washed the leper's sores, and Catherine when +she gathered to her bosom the murderer's guilty head, drew from him the +confession of his sin, and whispered to him softly of the Lamb of God. + +There is no sense of unreality in religion now for me. There are no +weary uncertainties, no melancholy sense of beating the air in what I +teach. He who will try to live the life of Jesus for a single day, and +in such few particulars as may lie within his scope, will at once +realize the presence of Jesus with him. In the practice of love comes +the manifestation of the Lover, the drawing of the soul into the bosom +of that Christ who was the very love of God, and the exchange of our +poor proud carnal heart for the tender heart that yearned over +Magdalene, was moved with compassion for the people, and broke upon the +Cross. + + + + +A LOVER OF MEN + + + + _THE CRADLE CROSS_ + + _"What shall I ask for Thee, my child?" + Said Mary Mother, stooping dawn + Above the Babe all undefiled. + "O let Him wear a kingly crown."_ + + _From wise men's gifts she wrought the crown, + The robe inwove with many a gem, + Beside the Babe she laid them down. + He wept, and would have none of them._ + + _"What shall I get for Thee, my Child?" + Unto the door she slowly went, + And wove a crown of thorn-boughs wild, + He took it up, and was content._ + + _Upon the floor she gathered wood, + And made a little Cross for Him; + The Child smiled for He understood, + And Mary watched with eyes grown dim._ + + _"Since these He doth prefer to gold," + She sadly said, "Let it be so; + He sees what I cannot behold, + He knows what I can never know."_ + + _That night the eyes of Mary saw + A Cross of stars set in the sky, + Which after it the heavens did draw, + And this to her was God's reply._ + + + +XI + +A LOVER OF MEN + +When I recollect these experiences, and the almost breathless sense of +joy which accompanied them, I can only marvel that I lived so many +years without discovering the path that led to them. The path was +quite plain, and nothing concealed it from me but my own pride. I +could even see with distinctness those who trod it, not only the saints +of far-off days, but men like Father Dolling, and women whose pale +intense faces met mine from beneath the quaint ugliness of Salvation +Army bonnets. These soldiers of the League of Service moved everywhere +around me in the incessant processions of a tireless love. I knew +their works, and there was no hour when my heart did not go out to them +in sympathy. Why was it that I was only sympathizer and spectator, +never comrade? + +Partly through a kind of mischievous humility which was really pride. +They could do these things; I could not, nor were they required of me. +It needed special gifts for such a work, and I had not these gifts. +Besides, had I not my own work? Was it not as important to educate +persons of some culture and social position in a knowledge of Christian +truth as to redeem lost people from the hell of their misdoing? +Certainly it was easier and pleasanter. I found in it that most subtle +of all gratifications, the sense of ability efficiently applied, and +winning praise by its exertion. There was no one who wished me to live +in any other way than that in which I lived. Those to whom I +ministered were satisfied with me, and had I told them that I wished to +do the sort of things that Salvation Army people did among the slums, +they would have been shocked, and would certainly have dissuaded me. +And so to this mischievous humility which assured me that I had no +fitness for the kind of life which I knew was the life of the saints in +every age, there was added the dull pressure of convention. Why should +I do what no one expected me to do? Why could I not be content to +fulfill the common standard approved by the average conception of +Christianity? + +I can see now how foolish and how wrong these thoughts were. I saw it +even then at intervals. Again and again, like a torturing flash of +fire, there ran through me illumining agonized dissatisfactions with +myself, my work, my whole position. And again and again I let the +flame die down, knowing not that the Son of Man had walked amid the +fire. Nay more, I deliberately smothered the holy fire, being in part +fearful of it, and of what its consequence might be, if once it were +allowed to triumph. For I knew that if I followed these strange +impulses my whole life must be changed, and I did not want it changed. +I did not want to give up the ease of an assured position, the calm of +studious hours, the tasks which flattered my ability. I did not want +to face what I knew must happen, the estrangement of old friendships, +the rupture of accustomed forms of life. Besides, I might be wholly +wrong. I might have no real fitness for the tasks I contemplated; +saints, like poets, were born, not made. No one who knew me would have +believed me better fitted for any kind of life than that I lived. I +had no friend who did not think my present life adequate and +satisfactory, and many envied me for the good fortune that had given me +just the kind of sphere which seemed best suited to me. + +But now I see, as I look back, that at the root of all my inconsistency +there lay this one thing, I was not a lover of my kind. I did not love +men as men, humanity as humanity, as Jesus did. Of course I loved +individuals, and even groups of men and classes of men, who could +understand my thoughts, recognize my qualities, and repay my affection +with affection. But to feel love for men as men; for those whose +vulgarity distressed me, whose ignorance offended me, whose method of +life repelled me; love for the drudge, the helot, the social pariah; +love for people who had no beauty that men should desire them, nor any +grace of mind or person, nor any quality that kindled interest; love +for the dull average, with their painful limitations of mind and ideal, +the gray armies of featureless grief, whose very sorrows had nothing +picturesque in them and no tragic fascination--no, for these I had no +real love. I had a deep commiseration, but it was that kind of +romantic or aesthetic pity which begins and ends in its own expression. +I did not know them by actual contact; I could not honestly say that I +wished to know them. And then the thought came to me, and grew in me, +that Jesus did love these people with an unconquerable passion. The +multitudes to whom He preached were composed, as all multitudes are, of +quite ordinary immemorable people. He also, to the eyes of those who +saw Him in the peasant garb of Galilee, and judged only by outward +appearance, was a common man. And so it would appear that if I did not +love men after the fashion in which Jesus loved them, it was very +unlikely that I should love Jesus Christ Himself if He once more +appeared in the habit in which men saw Him long ago in Galilee. A +Jesus, footsore, weary, travel-stained, wearing the raiment of a +village carpenter, speaking with the accent of an unconsidered +province, surrounded by a rabble of rude fishermen, among whom mingled +many persons of doubtful character--how should I regard Him? Should I +discern the Light and Life of men beneath His gray disguise of +circumstance? Should I have left my books, my studious calm, my +pleasant and sufficing tasks, to listen to One who seemed so little +likely to instruct me? Would not the same spirit of disdain which made +me think lightly and even scornfully of persons whose lives had no +resemblance to my own, have made me disdainful of the Man of Nazareth? +I knew the answer and I quailed before it. I saw that the temper of my +mind was the temper of the Pharisee, and had I lived two thousand years +ago in Jerusalem or Galilee, I should have rejected Jesus even as the +scribes and Pharisees rejected Him. + +And I should have rejected Him for the same reason, because I had no +truly generous love of man as man. I should have been no better able +to perceive than they that it had pleased God to clothe Himself in the +flesh of one who united in His own person all those disabilities which +incur the scorn of those who account themselves superior and +cultivated, such as lowly and doubtful origin, poverty and the lack of +liberal education, and methods of life which outraged social use and +custom. Did not Jesus demand for the understanding of Himself +precisely that temper which enabled Him to understand others, the +temper which discerns the soul beneath all disguise of circumstance? +He discerned the splendid and divine beneath the sordid. He saw +beneath the drift of sin the buried magnificence of human nature as men +discover the hidden temple beneath the sand-drift of the desert. He +was able to love all men because all men were to Him living souls. And +His own manifestation to the world was such that only those who had +this temper could at all perceive His divine significance. The +Pharisee could not see that significance simply because he was not +accustomed to see men as men. He had no real interest in man as man. +He was not a lover of his kind. Hence, when the Son of Man came out of +Nazareth, the Pharisee was too careless or too supercilious to regard +Him with interest. The divine wonder passed him by; all he saw was a +wandering fanatic with no place to lay His head. He could not pierce +the disguise of circumstance, and bow in love and awe before the soul +of Jesus because he was not accustomed to discern the soul in common +people. And so there came home to me the awful truth that I was not a +lover of my kind. I was even as the Pharisees, and in denying my +regard and love to the lowliest of men and women I was rejecting Jesus +Christ. That which had seemed to me a strange exaggeration or an +enigmatic sentence, now became a rational principle, a saying that had +its root in the deep truth and reality of things; inasmuch as I showed +not love to the least of these, my fellows, I denied my love to Jesus +Christ Himself. + + + + +THE LAW OF COMPASSION + + + + _THE TRUE MUSIC_ + + _Not for the things we sing or say + He listens, who beside us stoops; + Too worn the feet, too hard the way, + Too sore the Cross wherewith He droops, + And much too great the need that cries + From these bruised eyelids and dim eyes._ + + _He waits the water from the spring + Of kindness in the human heart, + The touch of hands, whose touches bring + A coolness to the wounds that smart, + The warm tears falling on His feet + Than precious ointment much more sweet._ + + _O Lord, the way is hard and steep, + Help me to walk that way with Thee, + To watch with Thee, and not to sleep + Heedless of Thy Gethsemane, + Till love becomes my worshipping, + Who have no other gift to bring._ + + _It is no hour for angel-harp, + The sky is dark, the Cross is near, + The agony of Death is sharp, + The scorn of men upbraids Thine ear. + Fain would I leave all empty creeds, + And make a music of my deeds._ + + + +XII + +THE LAW OF COMPASSION + +Thus to love our fellow men is a difficult business,--there is none +harder. It is so difficult that only a few in any age succeed on so +conspicuous a scale as to attract prolonged attention. Yet the secret +of success is not obscure; it lies in that temper of compassion which +is the most beautiful of all features in the character of Jesus. When +He looked upon the multitude He was "moved with compassion"--never was +there more illuminative sentence. It reveals an attitude of mind +absolutely original. For the general attitude towards the multitude in +Christ's day was harsh and scornful. All the splendid intellectualism +of Greece existed for the favoured few; beneath that glittering edifice +of art and letters lay the dungeons of the slave. It was the same with +Rome; it was an empire of privilege, in which the multitude had no +part. Jewish society was built after the same pattern, except that +with the Pharisee the sense of religious superiority bred a kind of +arrogance much more bitter than that which is the fruit of intellectual +or social exclusiveness. With men of this temper the call to love all +men as fellows could only provoke anger and derision. What possible +relation could exist between an Athenian philosopher and a helot, a +Roman noble and a slave, a Pharisee proud of his meticulous knowledge +of the law, and the common people who were unlettered? The gulf that +yawned between such lives was as wide as that which separates the +scholar, the artist, or the aristocrat of modern Europe from the pale +toiler of a New York sweating-room, or the coal carriers of Zanzibar or +Aden. When Jesus bade the young ruler sell all that he had and give it +to the poor, He proposed an entirely unthinkable condition of +discipleship. He bade him discard all the privileges of his order. He +proposed instead real comradeship with the poor, He Himself being poor. +For two thousand years the pulpit has denounced the young ruler for not +doing what no one even now would think of doing--not even those who are +most eloquent in denunciation. + +We may waive the question of whether the advice of Jesus to the young +ruler was meant to be of particular or universal application, but we +cannot ignore the new law of life which Jesus formulated when He made +compassion the supreme social virtue. For it is only through +compassion that we learn to understand those who differ from us in +social station or temperament, and can at all come to love them. Let +me examine my own natural tendencies, and I am soon made aware of how +impossible it is to love _all_ my fellow men. I commence my life, for +instance, under conditions which permit me to see only a small section +of society, which I imagine to be the world itself. I know nothing, +and am told nothing, of those whose lives do not lie in the direct line +of my limited vision. The process of education removes me at each +stage further from the likelihood of knowing them. I acquire ideals, +habits, and manners of which they are destitute. I come to regard an +acquaintance with various forms of knowledge as essential to life, and +I am naturally disdainful of those who do not possess this knowledge. +In the same way I regard a certain code of manners as binding, and the +lack of this code of manners in others as an outrage. My very thoughts +have their own dialect, and I am totally unacquainted with the dialect +of those whose thoughts differ from my own. Thus with the growth of my +culture there is the equal growth of prejudice; with the enjoyment of +my privilege, a tacit rejection and repudiation of the unprivileged. + +How then am I ever to find myself in any relation of affection towards +these human creatures from whom I am alienated by the nature of my +education? If, by any chance, I come in contact with them, it is +certain that they will arouse in me repugnance and perhaps disgust. I +shall find them coarse, crude, and ignorant; their methods of speech +will grate upon me, their manners will repel me; they will be as truly +foreign to me as the natives of New Guinea, and their total incapacity +to share the thoughts which compose my own inner life will be scarcely +less complete. It is a truly humiliating thing to admit that +differences of nationality separate men less effectually than disparity +of manners. If I am at all fastidious I am more likely to be repelled +by coarse language, gross habits, or vulgar behaviour in my fellow +mortal than by all his errors in creed or morals. So little parts men, +and is permitted to part them, that it is very likely that some mere +awkwardness of behaviour in my fellow man may extirpate effectually the +regard I might have had for him. How little indeed is permitted to +part friends--often nothing more than a tone of voice, a word +misinterpreted, or something equally slight, the product very possibly +of shyness, or inability for right expression on a sudden call. And +there is all that goes by the name of antipathy, the nameless and quite +irrational repulsions which we permit ourselves to cherish, for which +we have no better excuse than that they are instinctive. With all +these forces against us how can we love our neighbour as ourselves? It +is something if we do not detest him; if we tolerate him it should be +counted to us for a virtue. + +Yet the method by which we may love him is quite simple; it is to +approach him not with judgment but compassion, to put ourselves in his +place, to see his life from his point of view instead of our own. What +is his ignorance after all but lack of opportunity? What are his bad +manners but the penalty of a narrow life? What are these habits of his +which so offend me but things inevitable in that condition of servitude +which he occupies--a servitude, let me recollect, which ministers to my +ease and comfort? To-day, not less than in earlier generations, +society resembles the palaces of the Italian Renaissance,--the feast of +life in the painted hall, and the groaning of the prisoner in the +depths below. For every comfort that I have, some one has sweated. My +fire is lit not only with coal from the mine, but with the miner's +flesh and blood; my food has come through roaring seas in which men +perished by hurricane and shipwreck; the very books from which I draw +my culture are the product not alone of the scholar and the thinker, +but of rude unlettered men in forest and at forge who helped to make +them by their toil. If I were as educated as I claim to be I should +know myself debtor to the barbarian as truly as to the Greek, and as I +read my book I should see the forest falling that it might be woven +into paper, and men labouring in the heat of factories that the moulded +metal might become the organ of intelligence. Nay, I should see yet +more; for would it not appear that these nameless toilers are richer in +essential life, and in the deep knowledge of what man's existence is, +than even the scholar and the writer, whose main acquaintance with life +is with words rather than acts? They toil with tense muscles through +the summer heat and winter cold; they endure hardship and danger; and +week by week their scanty wage is shared by wives and children, who +excite in them tenderness and self-sacrifice, and repay them with +affection and devotion. For it is so decreed that the sacred +magnanimities of the human heart come to flower as fully in lives of +crude labour as in lives of ease; these roughened hands grow gentle +when they touch the heads of little children, on these strong breasts +the wife rests her weariness, and these lips that speak a language so +different from mine have nevertheless known the sacramental wine of +love. Were my life weighed with theirs might it not appear that theirs +was the richer in essential fortitude, in patience and endurance, in +all the final qualities that compose the finest manhood? + +The spirit of compassion interprets these lives to me; it lends me +vision. It enables me to see them not in their artificial disparities, +but in their deep-lying kinship with mine and all other lives. And the +same thing happens when I survey lives stained with folly, wrecked by +weakness, or made detestable by sin and crime. I also have known +folly, weakness, sin; but for me there were compulsions to a virtuous +life which these never knew. Why am I not as these? Perhaps because +my nature rests on a securer equipoise, or because there is in it a +certain power of moral recuperation which these have lacked, or because +I have the prudence that stops short of consummated folly, or because +my environment imposes and creates restraint, or because I have never +known the peculiar violence of temptation before which they succumbed. +There may be a hundred reasons, but scarce one which gives me cause for +boasting. With their life to live, had I done better? Exposed to +their temptations, deprived of all the helpful friendships that have +interposed between my life and ruin, should I have done as well? In +those wakeful hours of night when all my past life runs before me like +a frieze of flame, how clearly do I see how frequently I grazed the +snare, hung over gulfs of wild disaster, courted ruin, and escaped I +know not how? Remembering this, can I be hard towards those who fell? +Can I pride myself on an escape in which my will had little part, a +deliverance which was a kind of miracle, wrought not by virtue or +discretion, but by some outside force which thrust out a strong and +willing hand to save me? And, as these thoughts pursue me, I find +myself all at once regarding these wrecked and miserable lives not from +the outside but the inside. I penetrate their inmost coil of being, +and see with horror the crumbling of the house of life--with horror, +but also with a torturing pity. And then because compassion lives in +me, I can at last separate between the sinner and his sin. The sin +remains abhorrent, but I cannot hate the sinner. I see him as one who +has fallen in a bad cause, but his wounds cry so loud for pity that I +forget the moral treason that has brought him to a battle-field so +ignominious and so disastrous. And out of the pity grows love, for +love is the natural end of pity; and the magnanimity of love, +overleaping moral values, fixes only on the fact of suffering that +appeals for succour, misery that cries for help. This was the vital +fact that Jesus saw when He had compassion on the multitude. + +Jesus had compassion on the multitude, and He gives the reason; He saw +them as sheep having no shepherd. It was the element of misdirection +in their lives on which Jesus fixed His glance--it was for lack of +guidance and a shepherd they had gone astray. May not the same be said +of all the lives that fail, whether through ignorance or want, folly or +crime? Rightly guided they might have attained knowledge and esteem, +wisdom and virtue; and if that be so, no man of right spirit can refuse +to feel the pathos of their situation. It is to this point that Jesus +leads us. He makes us conscious of "the still sad music of humanity." +No further incentive is needed to make us love humanity than the pathos +of the human lot. A man may be a knave, a fool, a rogue; yet could we +unravel all the secrecies of his disaster we should find so much to +move our pity, so much in his life which resembles crises in our own, +that in the end the one vision that remains with us is of a wounded +brother man. When once we see that vision all our pride of virtue dies +in us, and quicker yet to die is the temper of contempt which we have +nurtured towards those whose faults offend us. A yet greater offense +is ours if we can behold suffering, however caused, without pity. +Worse than the worst crime which man can commit against society, or the +worst personal wrong he can inflict on us, is the temper in ourselves +which judges him without mercy, and refuses him the one medicine that +may reinvigorate him--the balm of pity and forgiveness. And, after +all, of what wrong is it not true that the bitterest suffering it +creates falls not upon the wronged but the wronger, so that in the end +the sinner is the real victim, and like all victims should be the +object of compassion rather than of vengeance? + + + + +THE EMPIRE OF LOVE + + + + _THE WOMAN WHO WAITED_ + + _She wrought warm garments for the poor, + From morn to eve unwearied she + Went with her gifts from door to door; + And when the night drew silently + Along the streets, and she came home, + She prayed, "O Lord, when wilt Thou come?"_ + + _She was but loving, she could please + With no rare art of speech or song. + The art she knew was how to ease + The sick man's pain, the weak man's wrong; + And every night as she came home + She said, "O Lord, when wilt Thou come?"_ + + _The truths men praised she deemed untrue, + The light they hailed to her was dim, + But that the Christ was kind she knew, + She knew that she must be like Him. + Like Mary, in her darkened home, + She sighed, "O Christ, that thou would'st come!"_ + + _Her hair grew white, her house was bare, + Yet still her step was firm and glad, + The feet of Hunger climbed the stair, + For she had given all she had. + She died within her empty home + Still seeking One who did not come._ + + _She rose from out the wave of death, + A Stranger stood beside the shore; + The robe she wrought with failing breath, + And staining tears, the Stranger wore. + He drew her tired heart with His smile, + "Lo, I was with thee all the while."_ + + + +XIII + +THE EMPIRE OF LOVE + +But if this spirit of compassion were general, would virtue itself be +secure? Would not a fatal lenience towards vice become the temper of +society? Would not the immediate effect be the declaration of a +general amnesty towards every kind of wrong-doer, and from such an act +what could be expected but a rapid dissolution of the laws and +conventions that maintain the structure of society? + +These are natural fears, and they are not altogether the fears of weak +and timid men. They will certainly be shared by all tyrants, all +persons whose tempers incline to absolutism, all believers in force as +the true dynamic of stable social government. To reason with such +persons is impossible, because their opinions are the fruit of temper, +and are therefore irrational. But even such persons are not destitute +of powers of observation, and in the long history of the world there is +a field of observation which no person of intelligence can neglect. + +Do we find, as we survey this field, that force has ever proved the +true dynamic of stable social government? We find the exact contrary +to be true. The great empires of the past were founded on force and +perished, even as Napoleon discovered in his final reveries on human +history. Whenever force has been applied to maintain what seemed a +right social system it has uniformly failed. The Church of Rome +applied force to produce a world consonant with her ideas of truth; she +was all but destroyed by the recoil of her prolonged persecutions. The +Puritans were persecuted in the name of truth and virtue; they +triumphed. The Puritans in turn persecuted, under the impulse of +ideals that an impartial judgment must pronounce among the loftiest and +noblest that ever animated human hearts, and in turn they were +overthrown. Again and again, when crime has attained monstrous and +threatening proportions, laws of barbarous severity have been applied +for its repression; in not one solitary instance have they been +successful. The more barbarous and severe the law against crime, the +more has crime flourished. When men were hanged for petty theft, when +they were whipped at the cart's tail for seditious language, when they +were disembowelled for treasonable practices; theft, sedition, and +treason flourished as they have never flourished since. The very +disproportion and hideousness of the penalty inflamed men's minds to +the commission of wrong. On the contrary, the birth of lenience and +humanity was immediately rewarded by a decline of crime. These are +lessons which we do well to recollect to-day when statesmen advocate +the death penalty for the anarchist, irrespective of his exact crime; +when city councils propose the same penalty for those guilty of +outrages on women; when indignant mobs, in spite of law, and without +trial, burn at the stake offending negroes. If history teaches +anything with an emphasis at once clear and unmistakable, it is that +crime has never yet been abridged by brutal harshness, but has thriven +on it. History also teaches with an emphasis equally clear and +positive, that the spirit of love, manifesting itself in lenience, +compassion, and magnanimity, has constantly justified itself by the +reduction of crime, and the taming of the worst kind of criminal. + +Is not this in itself a justification of the spirit of Jesus? Does it +not appear, on the review of nearly two thousand years of history, that +society has attained its greatest happiness and has reached its highest +condition of virtue, precisely in those periods when the gentle ideals +of Jesus have had most sway over human thought and action? And if this +be so, is it possible to doubt that society will only continue to +progress towards happiness and content in the degree that it obeys the +counsels of Jesus, making not force but love the great social dynamic, +which shall control all its operations and guide all its judgments? + +It may appear impossible and inexpedient for the human judge to say to +the offender, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, sin no more"; but it is +very clear that the opposite course does by no means lead to a +cessation of sin. For what is the total result of all our punishments +in the name of law but the manufacture of criminals? According to our +theory of punishment a jail should be a seminary of virtue and +reformation. Men submitted to its discipline should come out new +creatures, cured of every tendency to crime. On the contrary, in nine +cases out of ten, they come out a thousandfold worse than they went in. +If this is not the case, it is because some Christian influence, not +included in our legal system, has reached them. But such influences +reach very few. The influences that operate in the great majority of +cases are wholly demoralizing. Those who enter a jail with genuine +intentions of reform speedily discover that they are not expected to +reform. They are branded indelibly. They are exposed to the +corruption of associates a hundredfold worse than themselves. They +leave the jail with every avenue of honest industry closed to them, +every man's hand against them, and no career possible to them but a +life of crime. When we consider these things we have little cause to +congratulate ourselves upon the results of our systems of justice. +Even a general amnesty towards every form of crime could scarcely +produce results more deplorable. Fantastic as it may appear, yet it +seems not improbable that the abolition of the jail and of all penal +law, might produce benefits for humanity such as centuries of +punishment on crime have wholly failed to produce. + +But no one asks this at present, though the day may come sooner than we +think, when society, tired of the long failure and absolute futility of +all its attempts to cleanse the world of crime by penal enactments, +will make this demand. It is enough now if we press the question +whether there is not good ground in all this dreary history of futility +and failure, to make some attempt to govern society by the ideals of +Jesus? Why should not the Church replace the jail? Why should not the +offender be handed over to a company of Christian people, instead of a +company of jailers, paid to be harsh, and by the very nature of their +occupation trained to harsh tempers and cruel acts? Who are better +fitted for the custody of the criminal than people whose lives are +based on the merciful ideals of Jesus? How could such persons be +better employed than in devoting themselves to the restoration of +self-respect in the fallen, than in the attempt to nurture into vigour +his bruised or dormant instincts of right, than in the organized effort +to restore him to some place in society which should give him honest +bread in return for honest labour? Few men are criminals by choice. +Crime is more often the fruit of weakness than intention. Almost every +criminal would prefer an honourable life if he knew how to set about +it. Can we doubt that if Jesus presided in the councils of His Church +to-day, this would be one of the first directions in which He would +apply His energy? And who that surveys the modern Church with +undeflected judgment would not say that the Church would be a thousand +times dearer to the world, a thousand times more sacred, respected, and +authoritative, if instead of spending its time in spiritual +self-gratification, and its riches in the adornment of its worship, it +became the true Hospice of the Fallen and Unfortunate, thus +exemplifying in its action that love for men which was the essential +spirit of its Founder? + +It will no doubt be replied that the Church already, by a thousand +institutions, of a philanthropic character, is attempting this very +work. But this is an evasion of the point, for such institutions only +begin their work of redemption when the existing social systems have +accomplished their work of destruction. Moreover, no institution, +however admirable, can be a substitute for the general action of the +Church. It is precisely this practice of substitution that accounts +for so much of the weakness of the Church. It is so much more easy and +pleasant to devolve upon others duties which to us are disagreeable, to +buy ourselves out of the conscription of personal duty, to persuade +ourselves that we have done all that can be asked of us when we have +given money for some worthy end, that it is not surprising that +multitudes of excellent and kindly people adopt such views and +practices. But, in doing so, they miss not only the joy of personal +well-doing, but also the sense of reality in the good that is done. +And the spectator and critic of the life of the Church, although he may +not be ignorant of the kind of work done by these institutions, +nevertheless is keenly conscious of the lack of reality in the work of +the Church, when he finds that its individual members are leading lives +in no way distinguishable by any active love for their fellows. For +the main reason why thoughtful men manifest aversion to the Church is +not found in dislike for her worship, or rejection of her creeds; it is +found rather in the sense of unreality in her life. Who, such men will +ask, among all this multitude of well-dressed worshippers, offering +their adoration to the Deity, visits the fatherless and widow in their +affliction, lays restraining hands upon the tempted, uplifts the fallen +or instructs the depraved, and so fulfills the true ideal of religion +pure and undefiled? What is the exact nature of their impact upon +society? Are they more merciful, more compassionate, more sympathetic +than average mankind? Do they not share the same social prejudices, +and guide their lives by the same social traditions as the bulk of men +and women? And if nothing more than this can be predicated of them, +how is it possible to avoid that impression of essential unreality +which is inseparable from the subscription to social ideals infinitely +loftier and purer than any others in human history, united with lives +which in no way rise above the average? Here is the true reason why +thoughtful men think lightly, and even scornfully of the Church. It is +not the truths and ideals of Jesus that offend them, but the travesty +of those truths and ideals in the average life of Christians. + +But whenever any man attempts to live in the spirit of Jesus, the first +to rally to him are the sincere recusants from the church. He may be +satirised, and probably will be, as a moral anarchist, a fanatic, and a +hare-brained enthusiast; but nevertheless the best men will rally to +him. They rallied to a Father Dolling, they rally to a General Booth. +The types represented by such men lie far apart. One was so high a +ritualist as to be almost Catholic, the other is an ecclesiastic +anarchist so extreme that he dispenses with the sacraments. But these +things count for little; what the world sees in such men is the +essential reality of their life. One of the severest critics of +Dolling once went to hear him with the bitterest prejudice. He found +him with a couple of hundred thieves and prostitutes gathered round +him, to whom he was telling the love of Jesus in the simplest language. +"Dolling may be a Roman Catholic, or anything else he pleases," said +his critic; "all I know is that I never heard any one speak of Christ +like that," and from that hour he was his warmest friend. No doubt +similar conversions of sentiment have attended the ministries of all +apostolic men and women, of Francis and Catherine, of Wesley and +Whitfield, of Moody and General Booth. Men know by instinct the lover +of his kind. Men forgive a hundred defects for the sake of reality. +Perhaps the sublimest of all justifications of Christ's law of love is +that no man has truly practiced it in any age without himself rising +into a life of memorable significance, without immediate attestations +of its virtue in the transformation of society, without attracting to +himself the reverence and affection of multitudes of fellow workers who +have rendered him the same adoring discipleship that the friends of +Jesus gave to Him. + +No doubt it will also be said that were the ideals thus indicated to +triumph, there would be nothing left for the direction of society but a +mischievous and sentimental spirit of amiability. The general fibre of +virtue would disintegrate. Pity for the sinner, pushed to such +extremes, would in the end mean tolerance for sin. But to such an +objection the character of Jesus furnishes its own reply. The +character of Jesus displays love in its supreme type, but it is wholly +lacking in that weak-featured travesty of love which we call +amiability. His hatred of sin was at times a furious rage. His lips +breathed flame as well as tenderness; "Out of His mouth proceeded a +sharp two-edged sword." We may search literature in vain to discover +any words half as terrible and scathing as the words in which Jesus +described sin. The psychological explanation is that great powers of +love are twin with great powers of hatred. The passionate love of +virtue is, in its obverse, an equally passionate hatred of vice. In +the same way the passionate love of our kind has for its obverse an +equally passionate hatred for the wrongs they endure. For this reason +justice and virtue are nowhere so secure as in the hands of men who +love their kind intensely. They are most insecure in the hands of the +cynic, who despises his kind, and therefore misapprehends their +conduct. For love, in its last analysis, is understanding, and where +there is understanding of our fellows there can hardly fail to be +wisdom in our method of treating them. That was the great secret of +Jesus in these examples which we have reviewed. He understood Simon +Peter. He understood the woman who was a sinner. He therefore knew +the only wise method of treating them. One with less pity might have +sent the harlot back to her shame, one with less love might have driven +Peter into permanent apostasy. But Jesus, in His understanding of the +human heart, knew the exact limit of reproof, the exact point at which +magnanimity became efficacious in redemption. Those who follow His +spirit will attain the same rare wisdom. They will never sacrifice +virtue to compassion, nor will they put virtue in opposition to +compassion. One question may suffice. Would we be content to leave +the administration of society in the hands of Jesus? Would we +confidently submit our own case to His jurisdiction? If, in every +dispute between men and nations, in every case of wrong and crime, +Jesus were the one Arbiter, would the world be better ruled, would the +probable course of events be such as to increase the sum of human +happiness? We can scarcely hesitate in the reply--we, who daily pray +that His kingdom may come. And if to such questions we return our +inevitable affirmative, we cannot doubt that society has everything to +gain in being governed by those who live most closely in the spirit of +Jesus; that they, and they only, are the true leaders and judges of the +nations. + + + + +THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE + + + + _THE PRAYER_ + + _Lover of souls, indeed, + But Lover of bodies too, + Seeing in human flesh + The God shine through; + Hallowed be Thy name, + And, for the sake of Thee, + Hallowed be all men, + For Thine they be._ + + _Doer of deeds divine, + Thou, the Father's Son, + In all Thy children may + Thy will be done, + Till each works miracles + On poor and sick and blind, + Learning from Thee the art + Of being kind._ + + _For Thine is the glory of love, + And Thine the tender power, + Touching the barren heart + To leaf and flower, + Till not the lilies alone, + Beneath Thy gentle feet, + But human lives for Thee + Grow white and sweet._ + + _And Thine shall the Kingdom be, + Thou Lord of Love and Pain, + Conqueror over death + By being slain. + And we, with the lives like Thine + Shall cry in the great day when + Thou earnest to claim Thine own, + "All Hail! Amen."_ + + + +XIV + +THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE + +It may be long before the world recognizes this leadership of the +loving, and accepts their judgment, but nevertheless the world is +debtor to them for all that sweetens life, and makes society tolerable. +Such men and women move unrecognized, doing their kindly work without +praise, and not so much as asking praise from men; but theirs is a +securer triumph than earth can give, and on their brows rests a rarer +crown than earthly monarchs wear. I know many of these men and women, +and I never meet them without the sense that the seamless robe of +Christ has touched me. I meet them in unlikely places; I overtake them +on the road of life, oftenest in the places where the shadows lie most +thickly; but on each brow is the white stone which is the sign of +peace, and in each voice is that deep note of harmony that belongs +alone to those who walk through tribulations which they overcome, +griefs of which they know the meaning, sorrows which they have the +skill to heal. Their very footsteps move more evenly than other men's, +as though guided by the rhythm of a music others do not hear; their +very hands have a softness only known to hands that bind up wounds and +wipe men's tears away; and in all their movements and their aspect is a +stillness and a sweet composure, as of hearts at rest. Whence are +these, and why are they arrayed in white robes? And we know the +answer, though no angel-voice may speak to us; these are they on whose +bowed heads the starlight of Gethsemane has fallen, in whose hands are +the wounds of service, in whose breasts is the heart that breaks with +love for men. + +One such man I met some months ago, fresh from the forests of +Wisconsin. Through a long spring day he told me his story, or rather +let me draw it from him episode by episode, for he was much too modest +to suppose anything that he had done remarkable. After wild and +careless years of wasted youth, Christ had found him, and from the day +of his regeneration he gave himself to the redemption of his fellow +men. He became a "lumber-jack," a preacher to the rough sons of the +Wisconsin forests. He told me how he first won their respect by +sharing their toil--he, a fragile slip of a man, and they giants in +thew and muscle: how by tact and kindness he got a hearing for his +Master; how he travelled scores of miles through the winter snows to +nurse dying men, wrecked by wild excesses; how he had sat for hours +together with the heads of drunken men, on whom the terror had fallen, +resting on his knees, performing for them offices of help which no +other would attempt; how he had heard the confessions of thieves and +murderers, who had fled from justice to the refuge of the forest; how +he had stood pale, and apprehensive of violence in an angry drunken +mob, and had quelled their rage by singing to them "Anywhere with +Jesus"; how, finally, he had fallen ill, and had hoped in his extreme +weariness for the great release, but had come back from the gates of +death with a new hope for the success of his work; and as he spoke, +that light which fell upon the face of the dying Stephen rested also on +his face; for he also saw, and made me see, the heavens opened, and +Jesus standing at the right hand of the throne of God. He was only a +lumber-jack, but to these men he was a Christ. He was poor, so poor, +that I marvelled how he lived; but he had adopted into his home the +forsaken child of a drunken lumberman, whose wife was dead. His life +was full of hardship, but never have I met a happier man. For he had +found the one secret of all noble and tranquil living, the life of +service; and as I grasped his hand at parting and remembered how often +it had rested in healing sympathy upon the evil and the weary, I +thought of the words of the blessed Master, "He laid His hands upon +her, and the fever left her, and she rose and ministered unto Him." + +Another man of the same order I have talked with as these concluding +lines were written. He had begun life with brilliant prospects as a +lawyer, had been wrecked by drink, and one night while drunk had fallen +overboard into deep water, and had with difficulty been brought back to +life. From that hour his life was changed. He went to a Western city +and became a missionary to drunkards and harlots. He told me of a +youth of nineteen he had recently visited in prison. The youth was a +murderer, and the woman he had loved had committed suicide. He was +utterly impervious to reproof, did not want to live, and said that if +his mistress had gone to hell he wanted to go there too, for she was +the only human creature who had ever loved him. "God loves you," said +my friend; "yes, and I love you too. I know how you feel. You want +just to be loved. Come, my poor boy, let me love you." And at that +appeal this youth, with triple murder on his conscience, melted, and +flung his arms round the neck of his visitor, and sobbed out all the +story of his sin and shame. O exquisite moment when the heart melts at +the touch of love--could all the heaped-up gains of a life of pleasure +or ambition yield such felicity as this? For this man's face, rough +and plain as it was, glowed as he spoke with the same light that +beatified the features of my friend the lumber-jack--"the Lord God gave +them light," and the Lamb upon the throne was the light of all their +seeing. + +A little while ago to this man came the offer of restoration to the +social place which he has lost. He might have gone back to his +forfeited career, with an ample income. He put the case to his wife +and to his boys; with instant unanimity they said, "Never; this work is +the best work in the world." And so the once brilliant lawyer is happy +on a pittance, happier than he ever could be on a fortune, because he +is doing Christ's work of love among his fellow men. And these +instances are typical. In every corner of the world are those who +belong to the true Society of Jesus--the Order of Love and +Service,--and the happiest lives lived on earth are lived by these men +and women. For Jesus will not suffer any man to be the loser by Him; +He overpays those who truly follow Him with a happiness that worlds +could not buy; and "even in the present time," so enriches with the +love of others those who love, that they are unconscious of any +deprivation in their lot, knowing in all things, amid poverty, insult, +violence, hardship and pain, that their gain exceeds their loss by +measureless infinitudes of joy. + +We may be neither wise nor great, but we may be loving, and he who +loves is already "born of God, and knoweth God, for God is love." We +may have but a poor understanding of conflicting theologies and +philosophies, and may even find our minds hostile to accepted creeds; +but we can live lives of pitiful and serviceable love. He who does +these things is the true Christian and no other is. Against the man +who loves his fellows Heaven cannot close its doors, for He who reigns +in Heaven is the Lover of men, and the greatest Lover of them all. We +know now why He is loved as no other has been loved. We know now what +His religion truly is; it is the religion of Love. To accept this +religion requires in us but one quality, the heart of the little child +which retains the freshness and obeys the authority of the emotions; +but unless we become as little children we cannot enter this kingdom. +This is the condition of entrance, and the method is equally simple. +It is to follow Jesus in all our acts and thoughts, to allow no temper +that we do not find in Him, to build our lives upon His ideals of love +and justice, remembering always that He is more than the Truth,--He is +the Way in which men may confidently tread, and the Life which they may +share. + +All things in the intellectual and social life of men move, as by a +fixed law, towards simplification. May we not hope that this same +tendency may permeate the universal Church of Christ, dissolving the +accretions of mistaken and conventional piety, combining the vital +elements into a new synthesis, at once simple and convincing,--the new +which is the oldest and the earliest,--that the Church is the organ of +the Divine Love, and that love alone is the Christian equivalent of +religion? + +May we not even anticipate that the visible decay of many symbols that +once were authoritative, of many forms of creed that are now barely +tolerated rather than respected, may work towards this issue; that +gradually the test of service will supplant the test of intellectual +belief, and that a new Church will arise founded not on creed at all, +but on a real imitation of the life of Jesus? If this should happen we +need not regret the dissolution of the forms of religious life which is +so evident to-day, for though the older kingdom be shaken, we shall +arrive in God's time at the better kingdom which cannot be shaken. + +When the Church does manifestly become the organ of the Divine Love, +visibly creating a type of loving and lovable men and women found +nowhere else, whose lives are as lamps borne before the feet of the +weary and the lost, then the world, now hostile or indifferent to the +Church, will love the Church even as by instinct it loves the Christ. +Such lives have been lived, and they are, even to those who have the +least instinct for religion, the most sacred memories of history, and +the most inspiring. Such lives may still be lived by all who love the +Lord Christ Jesus in sincerity. + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Empire of Love, by W. J. 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