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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/20402-h.zip b/20402-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b4abf8 --- /dev/null +++ b/20402-h.zip diff --git a/20402-h/20402-h.htm b/20402-h/20402-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6bf1e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/20402-h/20402-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,814 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beside the Still Waters, by Charles Beard. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 20%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beside the Still Waters, by Charles Beard + +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: Beside the Still Waters + A Sermon + +Author: Charles Beard + +Release Date: January 20, 2007 [EBook #20402] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BESIDE THE STILL WATERS *** + + + + +Produced by Tamise Totterdell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h1>BESIDE THE STILL WATERS:</h1> + +<h2><span class="smcap">A Sermon</span>,</h2> + +<h5>PREACHED IN</h5> + +<h2>RENSHAW STREET CHAPEL, LIVERPOOL,</h2> + +<h5>ON</h5> + +<h3>SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1871.</h3> + +<h5>BY</h5> + +<h2>CHARLES BEARD, B.A.</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h5>PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.</h5> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<h5> +LONDON:<br /> +PRINTED BY C. GREEN AND SON,<br /> +STRAND, W.C.<br /></h5> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<h3> +In Memory of<br /> +<br /> +ELIZABETH GREENE GAIR.<br /></h3> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/start.png" alt="Decorative Device" /></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<h2>BESIDE THE STILL WATERS.</h2> + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="images/dec.png" alt="Text Decoration" /></p> + +<p class="center"> +"He leadeth me beside the still waters."<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><span class="smcap">Psalm</span> xxiii. 2.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p> +<br /> + +There has been a period of geological speculation, at which all the +changes which have taken place upon the earth's surface, and have left +their unmistakable marks in countless relics of animal and vegetable +life, were attributed to the action of sudden and violent forces, of +which, to-day, earthquake and tempest and volcano are only the feeble +and transitory types. Those changes have manifestly been so great and so +universal, as to stand out in vivid contrast to the imperceptibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> slow, +the gently gradual processes, which are all that we are now able to +watch and to record: surely we can attribute them only to causes as +exceptional as themselves. We see Niagara cutting its backward way +through the ravine, so many feet in a thousand years; the lava stream +descends the mountain-side like a black and burning glacier, and +destruction too plainly marks its path; a storm bursts upon the hills, +and for long miles the valleys are choked with barren mud, the bridges +scattered in ruin through the stream, the cheerful husbandry of men laid +hopelessly waste. But we cannot watch the slow upheaval of a long line +of coast, where the fisherman hardly knows at the end of a lifetime +whether the sea has drawn back or his own landmarks have been moved; we +are all unable to note how new continents are now being formed in the +ocean's stillest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> depths, from whose hardened and uplifted strata future +ages may dig out the relics of so much that has been dear and precious +to us; we fail to notice how every running stream, from the tiniest +mountain rill to muddy Po and fertilizing Nile, is perpetually at work +to carry down the hills into the plains, and to change the world's +familiar face. But so it is, and so, we have some right to conclude, it +has been always. God's chosen ways of working in the physical world are +not wholly of the sudden and violent sort. Storm and earthquake and +flood have undoubtedly played their part; but not more than—perhaps +hardly as much as—the perpetually dropping rain, the wind that seems to +blow as it listeth, the tides that come and go and no man heeds them, +the sun that shines upon barren rock and fertile meadow with serene +impartiality of blessing. God seems to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> work, by preference, slowly and +in silence. To Him a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is +past, and the dial on which His operations are recorded takes no note of +human thoughts and expectations.</p> + +<p>The same is true, I think, in the moral world. It is indeed difficult to +over-estimate the force of a great soul; though it is needful to remark +that not all great souls work in the full light of publicity and have +their path marked by revolution, and equally needful to remember that +not all dislocating and disturbing spirits put forth any true claim to +greatness. We are far too apt to confound the occasions with the causes +of any great change, and to forget that if fire do indeed come out of a +noble heart, it can only kindle other hearts that are already prepared +to burn. Many souls were hot with Luther's indignation, before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> he +burned the Bull in the market-place of Wittenberg; many spirits had +inwardly rebelled against the deadness of the age, before Wesley told +the Gospel tale to the colliers of Kingswood. One indeed speaks what the +many feel; to him has been given a clearer insight, a diviner ardour, a +more articulate speech; but his word is with power because of the dumb +aspirations stirring in many breasts, and an universal emotion which has +not yet found fit expression. And this is even more the case with regard +to moral operations of a quieter and less signal, though hardly less +important kind; forces which do not so much suddenly change the world, +as keep it (in some poor and imperfect way) sweet and pure, and perhaps, +in the course of ages, urge it a little nearer the throne of God. Is the +faith of Christendom sustained from generation to generation by the +suc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>cession of heroes and saints, to whose achievements all men look up +with despairing admiration, and in whose acknowledged and recorded +excellence they see the full embodiment of their own desire, or by the +thousand nameless fidelities to duty, and obscure victories of +self-devotion, and hidden glories of purity, that pass away without +celebration? If you, my brethren, have any stoutness of heart to resist +mean temptation, if you are conscious of any uplifting of desire towards +better and more stable things than form the common stuff of life, if any +quiet trust in God sustains you amid the world's chance and change, to +what do you owe them? In the last resort, doubtless, to God Himself, and +to God working through Christ; but immediately, and in a large measure, +to hidden forces, unseen influences, which you perhaps can track only in +part, but of which others know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> nothing. A father's integrity—a +mother's sweet goodness—the quiet air of a happy home—a domestic +courage and patience, at which you have looked very closely, and whose +every line and lineament you know—some ancestral saintliness, which is +a household tradition and no more, but which has never withered in the +fierce light of public estimate,—these things have inspired and +nourished your nobler part. They are the refreshing dew and the +fertilizing rain, the restful night and the kindling day, of God's moral +world. We grow up with them, and hardly know them for His activity; they +are among the necessary conditions of our existence; and when we seek +for tokens of Him, it is rather in the crises and catastrophes of +life—in the sharp wound that pricks a sleeping conscience, in the call +of duty which turns the whole current of our energy, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> sorrow +which destroys for ever our trust in the world. But He has been with us +all the while in the gentler motions of His will.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, I am inclined to think, we insist too much on our own +estimate of small and great in the moral world, forgetting that any +single fact or individual life is but one link in an endless chain of +causes and consequences, of which we ought to know the whole before we +can rightly estimate a part. And looking back where some light seems to +rest upon our own or others' history, it is easy to see how what we +should call great and signal, stands next in the line of causation to +what seems (but only seems) to be trivial, and is certainly obscure. Let +us take the most remarkable instance of all,—the Christ, whom no +scepticism can dethrone from the foremost place in human history,—who, +whatever else he was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> must be admitted even by unbelief to have set his +mark upon mankind more deeply than any other son of men. Yet how he +emerges upon the world out of secrecy and silence! Whatever bright cloud +of hope and prophecy had formerly floated about his cradle, has long +been scattered and forgotten; and he comes, from his Galilean hills, one +of the simple folk who earned their bread in the sweat of their brow, +unlearned save in the ancestral wisdom of his people, unheralded but by +the village estimate of a sweet and innocent life, to finish the work of +a long line of prophets, and to lift humanity nearer to God. And we are +often so eager to prove the singularity of his mission, and to take him +out of the category of other workers for God, as to miss the great +lesson which is to be learned of the way in which the Father always +trains and educates a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> faithful and victorious Son. Of his mother, who +knows anything, save what the few hints and statements of the +Evangelists disclose? A superstition, not without its tender and +graceful side, has taken her from her cottage home at Nazareth, and +crowned her Queen of Heaven; till all the familiar extravagances of +mythology have obliterated even from men's imagination the lines of a +sweet and strong human character. And yet what a marvellous woman must +have been this unknown mother of Christ! What depth of tenderness, what +steadiness of judgment, what a majestic and yet winning purity, what a +faculty of self-devotion (not yet too hardly tried), what a simple +intensity of devoutness, must have watched and helped the child, as he +grew and blossomed into man! What airs from heaven must have blown about +that lowly roof, filling all who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> dwelt beneath it with a noble +simplicity of content with their own lot, and one, with a nobler +discontent with the world's innumerable wrongs and sufferings! These +were God's quiet ways, and the very record of them has disappeared; they +survive only in their result. But there is no son in whom mother's blood +does not flow, and though now we know not how or where, the Mary of whom +the world is ignorant, lived and spoke and died in the Christ, to whom +the world looks up.</p> + +<p>So no mistake can be greater than to suppose that all the world's best +work is done by the eloquent tongue and the busy hand. I will not +compare what may be achieved by these means, with the less conspicuous +results of a goodness which propagates itself less by word and act than +by the unconscious contagion of example; for it is not given to us to +choose the form and method<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> of our obedience. The call of conscience is +to action; God cannot be acceptably served in inglorious ease. The +command comes in many forms: "Work while it is day; the night cometh +when no man can work," cries one voice; and then another, "Whatsoever +thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might;" and again a third, +"The fields are white unto harvest, but the labourers are few." But God +Himself provides a diversity of work for His own purposes, and at the +same time a variety of example for us, when He chooses some lives, and +laying upon them, what seems to be a heavy burthen of sickness and +infirmity, or filling them with a great modesty and retiringness of +spirit, or shutting them up within very narrow and insurmountable +barriers of circumstance, says to them, in a voice which it is +impossible to misinterpret, "Serve Me in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> darkness and in silence; and +let it be enough that I accept the faithfulness which is unknown of +men." Sometimes a command like this finds a ready echo in a timid and +sensitive spirit, to which it is a deliverance not to be compelled by +conscience to go down into the throng of life; quite as often it lies, +at least for awhile, like a galling fetter upon the active mind and the +eager will. But God tempers His weapons in His own way, and all to the +best effect; and presently the busiest and most versatile intellect +finds new depths and fresh possibilities of interest in the things that +lie closest at home; the widest and the warmest heart learns that +faltering feet and feeble hands cannot restrain love's farthest and +highest flight; and as for God, with all that is involved in the soul's +upward strain towards communion, and His descent of help, He may easily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +be nearer to the silence of an enforced quietness, than to the noise and +press of men's common life. And so it often happens that, under +circumstances like these, a character is built up which, if it +necessarily shine upon but a few lives, shines for them with a +brightness all the purer and more intense. Such virtue is not the beacon +flame upon the hill-top, wakening half the land to heroic courage and +stern endurance, but the quiet lamp which giveth light to all that are +in the house, for sweet patience, and fine courtesy, and the practice of +all homely goodness.</p> + +<p>Such a life, withdrawn as it is from common temptations, is not without +trials and difficulties peculiarly its own; but of these it is not +needful now to speak. It is more to my purpose to point out that it is +susceptible of a singular symmetry and completeness. The very narrowness +which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> has been imposed upon it by God, and which we are so ready to +regard as a privation, is only in another shape the restriction upon the +indefiniteness of duty which many dutiful souls so passionately desire. +For the claims upon an energetic nature are so many, so various, often +so conflicting; it is so hard to know which of two competing duties +ought to take precedence, so impossible to adjust effort at precisely +its right intensity, and to hit the mean between base self-saving and +foolish self-squandering,—that I think it must be a common wish for +keen consciences to have the boundaries of industry a little more +plainly marked out by God, and to be relieved from the perpetual +perplexity of choice. If only one had but a fixed and limited place to +fill! If only one could always clearly distinguish between what one +ought to do, and what it would be wrong and foolish to attempt!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> And +therefore, in this sense, God's prison may be the soul's liberty, and no +round of duty so cheerfully and completely trodden as one which we, who +are burthened with too large a capacity of flight, think sadly and +hopelessly circumscribed. Then, so God has willed it, Quietness and Pain +are sister angels, that have a singular privilege of access to Him; and +the soul to which they minister, through the weary hours of the day and +in the long watches of the night, may frequently mount upon their +friendly wings into the sanctuary of His Presence, bringing with it, +upon its return earthward, one knows not what glow caught from the +infinite and eternal Brightness. The difficulties of a busy life are apt +to throw mind and heart back upon themselves; the necessities of a quiet +life have in them this fine quality, that they directly lead mind and +heart to God. So<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> ripen, slowly as the seasons pass and the years come +and go, that sweetness and roundness of character which we call +saintliness; and as we come in from our worldly work and struggle, with +its soil still clinging to us, and the joy of achievement always dashed +with the recollection of failure, we wonder at a goodness in which we +can hardly detect a flaw, and upon which already rests a foregleam of +the presence of God.</p> + +<p>For one secret source of the influence which such a life may exercise, +undoubtedly lies in its contrast to men's common and more active +existence. I have just indicated one element of that contrast; the +completeness with which a comparatively narrow place may be filled, over +against the want of balance, and symmetry, and thoroughness, of which +all day-workers in the world must be conscious. But this is not all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +There is a great charm in the difference between the heated air in which +we fight our battles even for goodness, and the still atmosphere which +environs these quiet lives: we come back to them from the struggle, and +find that while they too are full of all fine aspiration for right, and +thrill with a divine indignation against wrong, their aspiration is +without restlessness, their indignation has no root of bitterness in it; +they are not unduly elated by successes which have turned our heads, nor +daunted by failures which have utterly cast us down; their faith is, as +ours should be, far more in God than in any of His human instruments. +Their characteristic excellences answer in many respects to our +weaknesses, and we admire and love them all the more: we cannot wait, +and their existence is one long patience: the noise and the light of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +publicity are our life, and God has hidden them in His pavilion from the +strife of tongues: we argue, and wrangle, and fight, while they but love +and pray: health and energy are the very conditions of our activity, and +their life is rooted in weakness and in pain: we converse continually +with men, and it is a familiar thing with them to be alone with God. And +so it often happens that the chamber of long and disabling sickness, or +the sofa from which the invalid rarely moves, is the fountain of the +finest influence, and the centre of the noblest activities. For there +the charities of life may be all astir, and the quick affections thence +make their far journeys of sympathy; thither may come the workers, now +for the refreshment of peace, now for the balm of consolation, now, +again, for the inspiration of a purer dutifulness; while over all +constantly broods<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> the presence of God, who gives and who denies the +power of active service; who bids this child toil and struggle, while +from that He asks only that she should "stand and wait." So in the +weakness of one many are made strong; and the activities of earth are +bathed and freshened in the airs of heaven.</p> + +<p>Such lives are rarely counted happy; the world pities, while it admires +them; and there is often a note of commiseration even upon the lips of +those who know them best. I cannot think that it ought to be so; that it +is so, arises from the fact, that when we speak of happiness, we use the +word in some shallow and conventional sense which does not answer to our +best and deepest knowledge. For although one who lives so narrowed a +life as I have described, and, like a caged lark, praises God in clear +strains and out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> of a full heart, might well desire, were such a thing +yet possible, a restored activity and an enlarged power of service, it +would almost always be for others' sake rather than her own; not that +she might multiply occasions of pleasure, but that she might extend the +ministry of love. The truth is, that such an one has penetrated far more +deeply than most into the true secret of human happiness; learning that, +so far as external things go, it stands much more in the limitation than +in the satisfaction of desire; and that for the things within, to lie +close to God, and to be able to do and bear all His will with a complete +and ready assent, is the single sufficient source of a Peace which the +world can neither give nor take away. And then there is a grace of +character which is one of the rarest gifts of healthy, active life; but +which, wherever it shews itself, is almost always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> a plant of God's own +rearing and tending,—I mean a willingness to live or die, as He +pleases; and a genuine conviction, that whatever He pleases in this +respect is wisest, kindest, best. How little do we feel this, my +brethren, we who come here for an hour's repose from the world's +turmoil! Our life's work, we think, is half undone; our best hopes have +not yet reached fruition; our vital capacity is still unexhausted; a +thousand interests claim us. If God called us now, we should obey the +call with sorrowful reluctance, and innumerable backward glances to the +work and love in which our hearts are centred. Not so with those who +have long dwelt in the silence and the seclusion which lie between life +and death. It is the counterpoise of their suffering and the reward of +their patience, that to them there is no terror, but a great +de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>liverance, in God's last message. It opens the door of the +prison-house, and sets the captive free. It is the summons to exchange +pain for peace, and enforced quietness for the vigour and the joy of +service. The God who has straitened them so long is He who now sets +their lives in a large place; and from the twilight of faith they pass +into the noon of sight. Amen.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="images/end.png" alt="End Decoration" /></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Beside the Still Waters, by Charles Beard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BESIDE THE STILL WATERS *** + +***** This file should be named 20402-h.htm or 20402-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/4/0/20402/ + +Produced by Tamise Totterdell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Beside the Still Waters + A Sermon + +Author: Charles Beard + +Release Date: January 20, 2007 [EBook #20402] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BESIDE THE STILL WATERS *** + + + + +Produced by Tamise Totterdell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +BESIDE THE STILL WATERS: + +A SERMON, + +PREACHED IN + +RENSHAW STREET CHAPEL, LIVERPOOL, + +ON + +SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1871. + +BY + +CHARLES BEARD, B.A. + +PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. + + + + +LONDON: +PRINTED BY C. GREEN AND SON, +STRAND, W.C. + + + + +In Memory of + +ELIZABETH GREENE GAIR. + + + + +BESIDE THE STILL WATERS. + + "He leadeth me beside the still waters." + PSALM xxiii. 2. + + +There has been a period of geological speculation, at which all the +changes which have taken place upon the earth's surface, and have left +their unmistakable marks in countless relics of animal and vegetable +life, were attributed to the action of sudden and violent forces, of +which, to-day, earthquake and tempest and volcano are only the feeble +and transitory types. Those changes have manifestly been so great and so +universal, as to stand out in vivid contrast to the imperceptibly slow, +the gently gradual processes, which are all that we are now able to +watch and to record: surely we can attribute them only to causes as +exceptional as themselves. We see Niagara cutting its backward way +through the ravine, so many feet in a thousand years; the lava stream +descends the mountain-side like a black and burning glacier, and +destruction too plainly marks its path; a storm bursts upon the hills, +and for long miles the valleys are choked with barren mud, the bridges +scattered in ruin through the stream, the cheerful husbandry of men laid +hopelessly waste. But we cannot watch the slow upheaval of a long line +of coast, where the fisherman hardly knows at the end of a lifetime +whether the sea has drawn back or his own landmarks have been moved; we +are all unable to note how new continents are now being formed in the +ocean's stillest depths, from whose hardened and uplifted strata future +ages may dig out the relics of so much that has been dear and precious +to us; we fail to notice how every running stream, from the tiniest +mountain rill to muddy Po and fertilizing Nile, is perpetually at work +to carry down the hills into the plains, and to change the world's +familiar face. But so it is, and so, we have some right to conclude, it +has been always. God's chosen ways of working in the physical world are +not wholly of the sudden and violent sort. Storm and earthquake and +flood have undoubtedly played their part; but not more than--perhaps +hardly as much as--the perpetually dropping rain, the wind that seems to +blow as it listeth, the tides that come and go and no man heeds them, +the sun that shines upon barren rock and fertile meadow with serene +impartiality of blessing. God seems to work, by preference, slowly and +in silence. To Him a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is +past, and the dial on which His operations are recorded takes no note of +human thoughts and expectations. + +The same is true, I think, in the moral world. It is indeed difficult to +over-estimate the force of a great soul; though it is needful to remark +that not all great souls work in the full light of publicity and have +their path marked by revolution, and equally needful to remember that +not all dislocating and disturbing spirits put forth any true claim to +greatness. We are far too apt to confound the occasions with the causes +of any great change, and to forget that if fire do indeed come out of a +noble heart, it can only kindle other hearts that are already prepared +to burn. Many souls were hot with Luther's indignation, before he +burned the Bull in the market-place of Wittenberg; many spirits had +inwardly rebelled against the deadness of the age, before Wesley told +the Gospel tale to the colliers of Kingswood. One indeed speaks what the +many feel; to him has been given a clearer insight, a diviner ardour, a +more articulate speech; but his word is with power because of the dumb +aspirations stirring in many breasts, and an universal emotion which has +not yet found fit expression. And this is even more the case with regard +to moral operations of a quieter and less signal, though hardly less +important kind; forces which do not so much suddenly change the world, +as keep it (in some poor and imperfect way) sweet and pure, and perhaps, +in the course of ages, urge it a little nearer the throne of God. Is the +faith of Christendom sustained from generation to generation by the +succession of heroes and saints, to whose achievements all men look up +with despairing admiration, and in whose acknowledged and recorded +excellence they see the full embodiment of their own desire, or by the +thousand nameless fidelities to duty, and obscure victories of +self-devotion, and hidden glories of purity, that pass away without +celebration? If you, my brethren, have any stoutness of heart to resist +mean temptation, if you are conscious of any uplifting of desire towards +better and more stable things than form the common stuff of life, if any +quiet trust in God sustains you amid the world's chance and change, to +what do you owe them? In the last resort, doubtless, to God Himself, and +to God working through Christ; but immediately, and in a large measure, +to hidden forces, unseen influences, which you perhaps can track only in +part, but of which others know nothing. A father's integrity--a +mother's sweet goodness--the quiet air of a happy home--a domestic +courage and patience, at which you have looked very closely, and whose +every line and lineament you know--some ancestral saintliness, which is +a household tradition and no more, but which has never withered in the +fierce light of public estimate,--these things have inspired and +nourished your nobler part. They are the refreshing dew and the +fertilizing rain, the restful night and the kindling day, of God's moral +world. We grow up with them, and hardly know them for His activity; they +are among the necessary conditions of our existence; and when we seek +for tokens of Him, it is rather in the crises and catastrophes of +life--in the sharp wound that pricks a sleeping conscience, in the call +of duty which turns the whole current of our energy, in the sorrow +which destroys for ever our trust in the world. But He has been with us +all the while in the gentler motions of His will. + +Sometimes, I am inclined to think, we insist too much on our own +estimate of small and great in the moral world, forgetting that any +single fact or individual life is but one link in an endless chain of +causes and consequences, of which we ought to know the whole before we +can rightly estimate a part. And looking back where some light seems to +rest upon our own or others' history, it is easy to see how what we +should call great and signal, stands next in the line of causation to +what seems (but only seems) to be trivial, and is certainly obscure. Let +us take the most remarkable instance of all,--the Christ, whom no +scepticism can dethrone from the foremost place in human history,--who, +whatever else he was, must be admitted even by unbelief to have set his +mark upon mankind more deeply than any other son of men. Yet how he +emerges upon the world out of secrecy and silence! Whatever bright cloud +of hope and prophecy had formerly floated about his cradle, has long +been scattered and forgotten; and he comes, from his Galilean hills, one +of the simple folk who earned their bread in the sweat of their brow, +unlearned save in the ancestral wisdom of his people, unheralded but by +the village estimate of a sweet and innocent life, to finish the work of +a long line of prophets, and to lift humanity nearer to God. And we are +often so eager to prove the singularity of his mission, and to take him +out of the category of other workers for God, as to miss the great +lesson which is to be learned of the way in which the Father always +trains and educates a faithful and victorious Son. Of his mother, who +knows anything, save what the few hints and statements of the +Evangelists disclose? A superstition, not without its tender and +graceful side, has taken her from her cottage home at Nazareth, and +crowned her Queen of Heaven; till all the familiar extravagances of +mythology have obliterated even from men's imagination the lines of a +sweet and strong human character. And yet what a marvellous woman must +have been this unknown mother of Christ! What depth of tenderness, what +steadiness of judgment, what a majestic and yet winning purity, what a +faculty of self-devotion (not yet too hardly tried), what a simple +intensity of devoutness, must have watched and helped the child, as he +grew and blossomed into man! What airs from heaven must have blown about +that lowly roof, filling all who dwelt beneath it with a noble +simplicity of content with their own lot, and one, with a nobler +discontent with the world's innumerable wrongs and sufferings! These +were God's quiet ways, and the very record of them has disappeared; they +survive only in their result. But there is no son in whom mother's blood +does not flow, and though now we know not how or where, the Mary of whom +the world is ignorant, lived and spoke and died in the Christ, to whom +the world looks up. + +So no mistake can be greater than to suppose that all the world's best +work is done by the eloquent tongue and the busy hand. I will not +compare what may be achieved by these means, with the less conspicuous +results of a goodness which propagates itself less by word and act than +by the unconscious contagion of example; for it is not given to us to +choose the form and method of our obedience. The call of conscience is +to action; God cannot be acceptably served in inglorious ease. The +command comes in many forms: "Work while it is day; the night cometh +when no man can work," cries one voice; and then another, "Whatsoever +thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might;" and again a third, +"The fields are white unto harvest, but the labourers are few." But God +Himself provides a diversity of work for His own purposes, and at the +same time a variety of example for us, when He chooses some lives, and +laying upon them, what seems to be a heavy burthen of sickness and +infirmity, or filling them with a great modesty and retiringness of +spirit, or shutting them up within very narrow and insurmountable +barriers of circumstance, says to them, in a voice which it is +impossible to misinterpret, "Serve Me in darkness and in silence; and +let it be enough that I accept the faithfulness which is unknown of +men." Sometimes a command like this finds a ready echo in a timid and +sensitive spirit, to which it is a deliverance not to be compelled by +conscience to go down into the throng of life; quite as often it lies, +at least for awhile, like a galling fetter upon the active mind and the +eager will. But God tempers His weapons in His own way, and all to the +best effect; and presently the busiest and most versatile intellect +finds new depths and fresh possibilities of interest in the things that +lie closest at home; the widest and the warmest heart learns that +faltering feet and feeble hands cannot restrain love's farthest and +highest flight; and as for God, with all that is involved in the soul's +upward strain towards communion, and His descent of help, He may easily +be nearer to the silence of an enforced quietness, than to the noise and +press of men's common life. And so it often happens that, under +circumstances like these, a character is built up which, if it +necessarily shine upon but a few lives, shines for them with a +brightness all the purer and more intense. Such virtue is not the beacon +flame upon the hill-top, wakening half the land to heroic courage and +stern endurance, but the quiet lamp which giveth light to all that are +in the house, for sweet patience, and fine courtesy, and the practice of +all homely goodness. + +Such a life, withdrawn as it is from common temptations, is not without +trials and difficulties peculiarly its own; but of these it is not +needful now to speak. It is more to my purpose to point out that it is +susceptible of a singular symmetry and completeness. The very narrowness +which has been imposed upon it by God, and which we are so ready to +regard as a privation, is only in another shape the restriction upon the +indefiniteness of duty which many dutiful souls so passionately desire. +For the claims upon an energetic nature are so many, so various, often +so conflicting; it is so hard to know which of two competing duties +ought to take precedence, so impossible to adjust effort at precisely +its right intensity, and to hit the mean between base self-saving and +foolish self-squandering,--that I think it must be a common wish for +keen consciences to have the boundaries of industry a little more +plainly marked out by God, and to be relieved from the perpetual +perplexity of choice. If only one had but a fixed and limited place to +fill! If only one could always clearly distinguish between what one +ought to do, and what it would be wrong and foolish to attempt! And +therefore, in this sense, God's prison may be the soul's liberty, and no +round of duty so cheerfully and completely trodden as one which we, who +are burthened with too large a capacity of flight, think sadly and +hopelessly circumscribed. Then, so God has willed it, Quietness and Pain +are sister angels, that have a singular privilege of access to Him; and +the soul to which they minister, through the weary hours of the day and +in the long watches of the night, may frequently mount upon their +friendly wings into the sanctuary of His Presence, bringing with it, +upon its return earthward, one knows not what glow caught from the +infinite and eternal Brightness. The difficulties of a busy life are apt +to throw mind and heart back upon themselves; the necessities of a quiet +life have in them this fine quality, that they directly lead mind and +heart to God. So ripen, slowly as the seasons pass and the years come +and go, that sweetness and roundness of character which we call +saintliness; and as we come in from our worldly work and struggle, with +its soil still clinging to us, and the joy of achievement always dashed +with the recollection of failure, we wonder at a goodness in which we +can hardly detect a flaw, and upon which already rests a foregleam of +the presence of God. + +For one secret source of the influence which such a life may exercise, +undoubtedly lies in its contrast to men's common and more active +existence. I have just indicated one element of that contrast; the +completeness with which a comparatively narrow place may be filled, over +against the want of balance, and symmetry, and thoroughness, of which +all day-workers in the world must be conscious. But this is not all. +There is a great charm in the difference between the heated air in which +we fight our battles even for goodness, and the still atmosphere which +environs these quiet lives: we come back to them from the struggle, and +find that while they too are full of all fine aspiration for right, and +thrill with a divine indignation against wrong, their aspiration is +without restlessness, their indignation has no root of bitterness in it; +they are not unduly elated by successes which have turned our heads, nor +daunted by failures which have utterly cast us down; their faith is, as +ours should be, far more in God than in any of His human instruments. +Their characteristic excellences answer in many respects to our +weaknesses, and we admire and love them all the more: we cannot wait, +and their existence is one long patience: the noise and the light of +publicity are our life, and God has hidden them in His pavilion from the +strife of tongues: we argue, and wrangle, and fight, while they but love +and pray: health and energy are the very conditions of our activity, and +their life is rooted in weakness and in pain: we converse continually +with men, and it is a familiar thing with them to be alone with God. And +so it often happens that the chamber of long and disabling sickness, or +the sofa from which the invalid rarely moves, is the fountain of the +finest influence, and the centre of the noblest activities. For there +the charities of life may be all astir, and the quick affections thence +make their far journeys of sympathy; thither may come the workers, now +for the refreshment of peace, now for the balm of consolation, now, +again, for the inspiration of a purer dutifulness; while over all +constantly broods the presence of God, who gives and who denies the +power of active service; who bids this child toil and struggle, while +from that He asks only that she should "stand and wait." So in the +weakness of one many are made strong; and the activities of earth are +bathed and freshened in the airs of heaven. + +Such lives are rarely counted happy; the world pities, while it admires +them; and there is often a note of commiseration even upon the lips of +those who know them best. I cannot think that it ought to be so; that it +is so, arises from the fact, that when we speak of happiness, we use the +word in some shallow and conventional sense which does not answer to our +best and deepest knowledge. For although one who lives so narrowed a +life as I have described, and, like a caged lark, praises God in clear +strains and out of a full heart, might well desire, were such a thing +yet possible, a restored activity and an enlarged power of service, it +would almost always be for others' sake rather than her own; not that +she might multiply occasions of pleasure, but that she might extend the +ministry of love. The truth is, that such an one has penetrated far more +deeply than most into the true secret of human happiness; learning that, +so far as external things go, it stands much more in the limitation than +in the satisfaction of desire; and that for the things within, to lie +close to God, and to be able to do and bear all His will with a complete +and ready assent, is the single sufficient source of a Peace which the +world can neither give nor take away. And then there is a grace of +character which is one of the rarest gifts of healthy, active life; but +which, wherever it shews itself, is almost always a plant of God's own +rearing and tending,--I mean a willingness to live or die, as He +pleases; and a genuine conviction, that whatever He pleases in this +respect is wisest, kindest, best. How little do we feel this, my +brethren, we who come here for an hour's repose from the world's +turmoil! Our life's work, we think, is half undone; our best hopes have +not yet reached fruition; our vital capacity is still unexhausted; a +thousand interests claim us. If God called us now, we should obey the +call with sorrowful reluctance, and innumerable backward glances to the +work and love in which our hearts are centred. Not so with those who +have long dwelt in the silence and the seclusion which lie between life +and death. It is the counterpoise of their suffering and the reward of +their patience, that to them there is no terror, but a great +deliverance, in God's last message. It opens the door of the +prison-house, and sets the captive free. It is the summons to exchange +pain for peace, and enforced quietness for the vigour and the joy of +service. The God who has straitened them so long is He who now sets +their lives in a large place; and from the twilight of faith they pass +into the noon of sight. Amen. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Beside the Still Waters, by Charles Beard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BESIDE THE STILL WATERS *** + +***** This file should be named 20402.txt or 20402.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/4/0/20402/ + +Produced by Tamise Totterdell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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