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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Not slothful in business.—Rom_12:11 (AV).
I. What is Business?
II. What hinders one from being a Christian in Business?
III. What helps one to be a Christian in Business?
What is Business?
Thus the old English word “business” has come to have a definite and noble meaning. It stands for a mighty commonwealth wherein men and nations are intimately related to each other. It has its own laws, enacted by the Supreme Law-giver, which senates and parliaments do not need to enact and cannot set aside. It enforces these laws by the swift and unerring awards of success or failure. It builds its own capitals in many lands on spots designated by God Himself, and in them it erects stately palaces which far outstrip the pride and magnificence of former ages. It has its own leaders, and it sets one up and pulls another down according as each obeys or disobeys its behests. Kings and cabinets are obedient to its commands. Armies are now little more than its auxiliaries, the hired mercenaries with which it protects its interests. A monarch surrounded by Oriental pomp in his Eastern capital dares to interfere with the interests of a lumber company in Burma. An English expeditionary army sets out from Calcutta, marches to Mandalay, dethrones that mad and foolish king, and sees to it that the injured lumber company shall cut their logs of teak on the mountains of Burma in security and peace. When Muscovite or Austrian ambition marshals its legions, or Moslem fanaticism musters its Asiatic hordes, the business interests of Europe and the world call a halt to the fierce armies and insist that peace shall not be broken or war declared except as they shall dictate. The success or failure of campaigns, of diplomacy, of statesmanship is registered instantly, in all the world’s markets, in the rise or fall of prices, in the establishment or impairment of business confidence. And so it has come to pass that almost all the practical concerns of the world have fallen under the influence of its potent mastery, and yield to the demands and movements of business.
When we go behind these general considerations, however, we find that this great commonwealth rests on God’s enactment. When He commanded man to replenish the earth and subdue it, He issued His royal charter to business. Business means the appropriation and subjection of the world by man to himself. Beginning with agriculture, which is its simplest form, and rising through all grades of industrial and commercial activity, whatsoever subdues the external world to man’s will, and appropriates its power, its beauty, its usefulness, is business; and whoso worthily engages in it is helping to carry out God’s design, and is so far engaged in His service. To conquer the earth, and force the wild fen or stony field to bring forth bread to gladden the heart of man; to level useless hills, and say to obstructive mountains, Be ye removed from the path of progress; to summon the lightnings to be his messengers, and cause the viewless winds to be his servants; to bring all the earth into subjection to human will and human intelligence—this is man’s earthly calling, and history is but the progressive accomplishment of it. Therefore it is that, rightly regarded, business is a department of Christian activity. Therefore it is to be said and insisted on that the worthy business of everyday life is a department of genuine Christian culture that ought to be pursued with high aims and lofty motives, not only for what it enables man to do, but chiefly for what it enables man to be in the exercise of his kingly function and in the development of his kingly character.
Now there are three aspects in which business may be considered by the follower of Christ.
1. It is a means of earning a livelihood.—In other words, it is a way of making money. Now if we consider it, we shall see that money, honestly earned, represents so much good done in the world. You produce what the world wants, and you get paid for it by those who want it. And, in that, you have done a positive good, and your profit has a moral value in it, as representing a want supplied and a fellow-man advantaged. Thus, the farmer who does his best with his fields is doing a duty not only to himself, but to his fellow-men and his God; for his fellow-men need his corn, and God desires his services in feeding His children. The manufacturer in his mill, the merchant on the Exchange, the trader in his shop may all feel the same—that the Great Master needs them because the Master’s world needs them, and that diligence in their several callings is not only necessary in order to earn their daily bread, but that honour and religion call upon them to lose no time, and dissipate no faculty, and squander no power.
I once had a clerk who, being a very dazzling genius, led me into many postal difficulties. The quantities of paper that boy went through are not to be stated without long and serious thought. That was, however, comparatively a trifle. The gifted youth put the letters in the wrong envelopes, and used foreign stamps for inland correspondence with a prodigal hand. This was genius. This was the noble-mindedness which soars above the mean region of details. When I sent him away, his mother complained of my being “severe,” and, looking at me with large and reproachful eyes, said, in an annihilating tone, “And you a minister!”1 [Note: Joseph Parker, Well Begun, 69.]
2. It is a debt to society.—It is an equivalent which we have to pay to society for our share of its advantages. Every man gets his share of the privileges of society. He gets his food three times a day; he gets his clothes; and he gets some kind of lodging to defend him from the wind and weather. These society has to fetch for him from afar. His tea is brought from China; his rice from India; the cotton he wears from America; the timber of the roof above his head from Norway. Now, for these advantages which society confers on the individual she demands in return his day’s work. If she is well satisfied with it she may give him finer clothes, finer food, finer lodging, and even add delightful extras—like a good house, wife and children, desirable friends, books, pictures, travel, and the like. But the principle is the same all through—that you must give your day’s work for your share of society’s advantages. Some speculators in our day hold that man has a natural right to these things. When a child is born, they maintain, it has a right to be fed, to be clothed, to be housed. Well, perhaps a child has; but an able-bodied man has not, unless he is ready to work for them. It is the law of the Bible and the law of common sense that if any man do not work neither shall he eat.
It is necessary that we should be fed and clothed. Or we may put it in another way and say, God wants us to be fed and clothed. He, therefore, who helps to feed and clothe us by his skill, his labour, or his enterprise, is not only a public benefactor, but a doer of God’s will. The merchant who sends his ships to bring here the produce of other lands, and to take to other lands the productions of our own, is really discharging one of the great duties of natural religion, at the same time that he is earning honourable wealth; and, if he is successful, his profit is not only an honourable profit, well earned and richly deserved, but it is, in a sense, God’s blessing on him as a faithful servant. He may never have thought of God from beginning to end; but what he has done is in full accord with the Divine mind and plan. Nay! the man who spends his working day in merely baking bread, or in laying one brick upon another, or in paving streets, is doing part of the world’s needed work, and is offering daily Divine service; for God wants men fed, and houses built, and streets made; and thus the humblest toiler—at forge or loom, in the shop or in the street—may lift up his head and say, “I also am a servant of the Great Master—a subject of the Universal Lord and King.”1 [Note: J. P. Hopps.]
I do not see how it consists with the temper of Christianity that any Christian should busy himself and spend his days for what is undisguisedly and exclusively a selfish result. The business of every Christian in this world is really not to serve himself only, but to serve his generation and his God. In every other calling he is bound to do that, and, in proportion as his Christian motives animate him, he actually does it. Why not in trade and commerce? Work is dignified to all of us workers only when we can feel that what we are doing has some worth or value to society besides the pay it brings to the workers. Is business any fair exception to that rule? Does the merchant serve no public advantage? Is his not a ministry by which the world benefits? Most assuredly it is. The banker, the trader, the commission merchant, the stockbroker are useful because they either facilitate production itself or else they assist those great carrying agencies by which earth’s productions become available to all the earth’s scattered populations. You cannot justify the existence of any human industry except on the broad ground of its utility. Then I ask you this: Is it not a nobler and more Christian spirit which keeps the utility of one’s work in view and feels itself to be the minister of the needs of society than is the sordid temper which is perpetually thinking of nothing but its pay? For, of course, from this point of view, the profits of business are simply pay, simply that which accrues to every honest and useful occupation, whatever form it may take, of salary, or interest on capital, or profit drawn from extended labour and increased value of commodity. A trader’s gain is his wage, and his moral right to it rests ultimately on the fact that he is a useful member of society, that he ministers in a way of his own to the common weal.2 [Note: J. Oswald Dykes.]
3. It is a discipline of character.—If rightly and wisely conducted there is no better discipline for the formation of character than business. It teaches in its own way the peculiar value of regard for others’ interests, of spotless integrity, of unimpeachable righteousness; and the busy activities of life, considered in themselves, are good and not evil. They are a part of God’s great work, and are as much His appointment as the services of praise and prayer. I think we all need to be reminded of the dignity and sacredness of a worthy everyday life. God’s Kingdom includes more than the services of the sanctuary. The court-house is His temple too, and so is the chamber of commerce. It is just as holy a thing to work as it is to pray; and the distribution of commerce, the helpfulness of trade, the feeding and sheltering of those belonging to us, and all the honourable ministries in which a high-minded business man engages are just as truly a part of God’s service, if men could see and feel them to be so, as is the function of the preacher. But then, as St. Paul never failed to teach, these things are means, not an end. Their value lies not in themselves, but in the discipline, the character, the power which they give to do higher things.
Alexander T. Stewart, of New York, was probably the greatest merchant of his time. He built up his vast fortune by concentration of purpose, and by exercising the qualities of the born “man.” He began life as a school-assistant, but soon saw greater possibilities in storekeeping. Without hesitation he made the change which some might have thought a step down the ladder. For years his working hours were from fourteen to eighteen per day. He carried out on his own shoulders the goods he sold, and thus saved the wages of a porter. The store speedily expanded. In course of time his industry, zeal, and capable perseverance made him a millionaire. Integrity of morals is very often a chief factor in preparing any prosperity that deserves the name. Stewart had in his establishment the fixed trading principle, “Honesty between buyer and seller.” He was materially helped by the popular knowledge of the fact.1 [Note: W. J. Lacey, Masters of To-morrow, 16.]
(1) God intended business life to be a school of energy. He has started us in the world, giving us a certain amount of raw material out of which we are to hew our own character. Every faculty needs to be reset, sharpened. And when a man for ten, or fifteen, or twenty, or thirty years has been going through business activities, his energy can scale any height, can sound any depth. Now, God has not spent all this education on us for the purpose of making us more successful worldlings. He has put us in this school to develop our energy for His cause and Kingdom. There is enough unemployed talent in the churches and the world to-day to reform all empires and all kingdoms and people in three weeks.
(2) Again, God intended business life to be to us a school of knowledge. Merchants do not read many books, or study many lexicons, yet through the force of circumstances they become intelligent on questions of politics, and finance, and geography, and jurisprudence, and ethics. Business is a hard schoolmistress. If her pupils will not learn in any other way, with unmerciful hand she smites them on the head and on the heart with inexorable loss. Expensive schooling; but it is worth it. Traders in grain must know about foreign harvests. Traders in fruit must know about the prospects of tropical production. Owners of ships come to understand winds, and shoals, and navigation. And so every bale of cotton, and every raisin cask, and every tea box, and every cluster of bananas becomes literature to our business men. Now, what is the use of all this intelligence unless they give it to Christ? Does God give us these opportunities of brightening the intellect and of increasing our knowledge merely to get larger treasures and greater business? Can it be that we have been learning about foreign lands and people that dwell under other skies, and yet have no missionary spirit?
(3) God intended business life to be to us a school of patience. How many little things there are in one day’s engagements to disquiet us! Men will break their engagements. Collecting agents will come back empty-handed. Tricksters in business will play upon what they call the “hard times,” when in any times they never pay. Goods are placed on the wrong shelf. Cash books and money drawer are in a quarrel. Goods ordered for a special emergency fail to come, or they are damaged on the way. People who intend no harm go about shopping, unrolling goods they do not mean to buy, and try to break the dozen. Men are obliged to take other people’s notes. More counterfeit bills are in the drawer. There are more bad debts. There comes another ridiculous panic. How many have gone down under the pressure, and have become choleric and sour. But other men have found in all this a school of patience. They were like rocks, more serviceable for the blasting. There was a time when they had to choke down their wrath. There was a time when they had to bite their lip. There was a time when they thought of a stinging retort they would like to utter. But now they have conquered their impatience. They have kind words for sarcastic flings. They have a polite behaviour for discourteous customers. They have forbearance for unfortunate debtors. How are we going to get that grace of patience? Let us pray to God that through all the exasperation of our everyday life we may hear a voice saying to us, “Let patience have her perfect work.”
(4) God also intended business life to be a school of integrity. It may be rare to find a man who can from his heart say, “I never cheated in trade. I never overestimated the value of goods when I was selling them. I never covered up a defect in a fabric. I never played upon the ignorance of a customer, and in all my estate there is not one dishonest farthing!” But there are some who can say it. They never let their integrity bow or cringe to present advantage. They are as pure and Christian to-day as on the day when they sold their first tierce of rice or their first firkin of butter. There were times when they could have robbed a partner, when they could have absconded with the funds of a bank, when they could have sprung a snap judgment, when they could have borrowed illimitably, when they could have made a false assignment, when they could have ruined a neighbour for the purpose of picking up some of the fragments; but they never took one step on that pathway.
Judaism in its highest and ripest expression was still haunted by the feeling that between the service of the Lord and the practices of business there was some irreconcilable contradiction. In that beautiful Book of Ecclesiasticus, where the old faith most nearly approaches the new, we read—
A merchant shall hardly keep himself from wrong-doing,
And a huckster shall not be acquitted of sin.
Many have sinned for a thing indifferent;
And he that seeketh to multiply gain will turn his eye away.
A nail will stick between the joinings of stones;
And sin will thrust itself between buying and selling.
It is a new note that is struck in the New Testament, where business, the buying and selling, the work by which the daily bread is earned, is enjoined as the means of realizing the Kingdom of heaven. No New Testament writer would think of saying that the ordinary operations of life are a hindrance to religion. The point of view is entirely changed. The Christian is to go into the world and engage in its duties for the express purpose of bringing all its activities under the dominion of Christ, or, rather, of letting the will of Christ operate freely in the shaping and conduct of the world’s affairs.1 [Note: R. F. Horton.]
A business man, not being well, came to his doctor. The doctor told him he had a bad heart. He said, “At any time you may die suddenly, or you may live for years.” The man was at first greatly shocked, and said, “Shall I give up business?” The doctor said, “No, you will die the sooner probably for that. Go on, but don’t hurry and don’t worry.” This man went to his place of business and called together the heads of the departments and told them what the doctor had said to him. “Now,” he said, “I shall come to business, but I can’t be everywhere, and I want you to understand that this business is to be conducted with the understanding and the expectation that Jesus Christ may come to the master at any minute, and when He comes I don’t want Him to find anything in this firm we would not like Him to see.”
What are the Hindrances?
1. Selfishness.—A business man is peculiarly liable to a special form of selfishness. It is not the selfishness of ease or self-indulgence; it is the selfishness of gain, of profit, of personal advantage. Profit, of course, is the very essence of success in business. It is the measure of success, and there could not long continue to be business without it. But with the eager business man the making of profit is apt to become an absorbing passion for its own sake. His ordinary relations with men are apt to be more or less controlled by it. He is in danger of carrying it into his social life, of valuing men and politics and principles according to the advantage that may accrue to him from his connexion with them. Such a man soon begins to wish to make his association pay, and his friendships, and his politics, and everything that he is and has and does. And if he is successful, a certain selfish pride establishes itself in his heart. We all know this ignoble type of character. And then, dogging the heels of this selfish pride, comes avarice—that amazing and monstrous passion of the soul which loves money for its own sake, which grows on what it feeds on, which can never be appeased, which never has enough.
One day a keen business man in one of the chief cities of the world said to another, “I can take a certain bit of business away from you.” It was a profitable series of transactions, which the man addressed had been carefully nursing and building up for years. In the throat-cut competition so familiar in business the other man could bring powerful influences to bear that would result in this business matter being transferred with all its profits to his own concern. The threatened man realized the power of his business rival, and, desiring to make the best of the situation, proposed that they should divide the business equally between them. And so it was arranged. The second man still conducts the business matters involved, and at the regular periods of settlement hands one-half of the profits over to his rival. The other man does nothing, and receives one-half of the other man’s profits accruing from this particular bit of business. It looks amazingly like the old highway “stand and deliver” sort of robbery, but conducted in a modern and much more gentlemanly fashion. The law that governs both is the same, the law of force. The Master’s follower is to be controlled in all his life by his Master’s law of love. The law of love treats the other man as you would want him to treat you.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, The Crowded Inn, 41.]
The Diamond Match Company, of which the President is Mr. Edward Stettinius, has just won golden opinions in the United States by its heroic action. What it has done is this: It has given up its patent for making matches with a non-dangerous material—“sesquisulfid”—so that its competitors may use it instead of the deadly white phosphorous. “My great anxiety,” said its President, “is to see American labour protected from the ravages of a wholly unnecessary and loathsome disease.2 [Note: Public Opinion (10th March 1911), 236.]
2. Worldliness.—Let us thankfully confess that mere selfish avarice is not so rife as it once was. Our modern life is so full of demands on the profit of business that there are not so many miserly men as there once were. But there is another danger, which was never so prevalent as it is now. This may be called the worldliness of business. Men are simply absorbed and engrossed and satisfied with their business pursuits and business interests, and so neglect and forget their religious and eternal interests. If this world were the only world and this life the only life, then it might be wise and worthy in man to devote himself without reserve to the things that belong only to this world and this life. But man is more than a denizen of this world. He is more than an animal to eat and drink and be clothed. He is more than a calculating machine to puzzle over life’s problems. He is more than a mercenary recruit drafted into the world’s great army to fight its battles of progress. His own spirit bears witness to its immortal dignity and destiny. His heart, which cannot be satisfied here; his reason, which soars above the things of time and sense; his conscience, which bids him look for an eternal retribution on wrong-doing—his whole nature pleads trumpet-tongued against the shame and indignity of mere worldliness. And yet with strange inconsistency multitudes of business men make light of the wants of their immortal souls, and go their ways engrossed by utter worldliness.
Never exceed thy income. Youth may make
Ev’n with the yeare; but Age, if it will hit,
Shoots a bow short, and lessens still his stake,
As the day lessens, and his life with it.
Thy children, kindred, friends upon thee call;
Before thy journey fairly part with all.
Yet in thy thriving still misdoubt some evil,
Lest gaining gain on thee, and make thee dimme
To all things els. Wealth is the conjurer’s devil,
Whom when he thinks he hath, the devil hath him.
Gold thou mayst safely touch; but if it stick
Unto thy hands, it woundeth to the quick.
What skills it, if a bag of stones or gold
About thy neck do drown thee? Raise thy head,
Take starres for money,—starres not to be told
By any art, yet to be purchased.1 [Note: George Herbert, The Temple.]
3. Custom.—Here two sides have to be considered.
(1) On the one hand it is true that there are businesses which are not conducted with the least pretence of Christianity or even much pretence of common honesty.
One hears too often of assistants in places of business being tempted by their employers to do things against their conscience. No longer ago than last week I read in a reputable paper an article on this subject, giving instances known to the writer; and recently a business man who had written a book sent me a copy, in which he gave instances which had come under his own cognizance. For instance, a young ship captain, in a storm, sustained damage to his vessel, and he was called upon to make out for the under-writers an inventory of the loss sustained; but his employers hinted to him that, the ship being old and out of repair, at any rate he might include in the estimate all the repairs that she was in need of. Another instance was that of a salesman at the head of a department in a large dry-goods store. Some of the buyers came from rural places, and many of these would not even commence to do business until they were treated with champagne. There were other cases given of even meaner dishonesty.2 [Note: J. Stalker.]
(2) On the other hand it is probable that deliberate meanness and dishonesty in business is not so common as it is supposed to be. A paper was read on the subject by a business man at a recent Church Congress. He said: “There is in business much immorality of a gross kind, but it is not widespread. There is a great deal more of what may be called white-lying immorality. The characteristic of the English is to desire honesty and fair dealing, but under the strain of great competition the desire is not yet strong enough to keep men in the even way. Morality in the second degree, which means taking any possible advantage of your neighbour without deception or untruth, is very general. To live and let live, to rejoice in aiding others, to divide, as it were, the benefits of supply and demand, instead of seeking solely one’s own interest—this is the morality in commerce of which there is to-day the greatest need.”
It is very common to hear it said that all business is a kind of cheating; that in nature the law is “eat or be eaten,” and in business “cheat or be cheated”; that one must do as others do or close one’s shop; that it is impossible to apply the principles of Christian truth and justice in business, and so on. But the repetition of these sayings is in this case, as in others, always of the nature of finding an excuse for one’s self by saying that “everybody does it.” It is always said from a desire to transfer the blame which we feel that our action deserves, and put it on the broad shoulders of “everybody,” or of Providence itself. But I believe there is much exaggeration in the charge of general or universal dishonesty. The whole international trade of this country rests on the basis of mutual confidence and credit, and if this were unsound, that trade could not go on. It is our reputation for integrity and fairness, as well as for the excellence of our goods, that gives the English an advantage. The honesty and word of an Englishman count for much, and can generally be relied on. So I am inclined to believe that morality in business in England is not below the English morality in other respects, and can rise only by the general rise of the standard of character in all respects.1 [Note: J. M. Wilson.]
What are the Helps?
(1) To all, then, who really wish to lead such a life, let it be said that the first thing to be done—that without which all other efforts are worse than vain—is to devote themselves heartily to God through Christ Jesus. Much as has been said of the infusion of religious principle and motive into our worldly work, there is a preliminary advice of greater importance still—that we be religious. Life comes before growth. The soldier must enlist before he can serve. In vain are directions how to keep the fire always burning on the altar, if it is not first kindled. No religion can be genuine, no goodness can be constant or lasting, that springs not from faith in Jesus Christ as its primary source. To know Christ as my Saviour; to come with all my guilt and weakness to Him in whom trembling penitence never fails to find a friend; to cast myself at His feet in whom all that is sublime in Divine holiness is softened, though not obscured, by all that is beautiful in human tenderness; and, believing in that love stronger than death which, for me and such as me, drained the cup of untold sorrows, and bore without a murmur the bitter curse of sin, to trust my soul for time and eternity into His hands—this is the beginning of true religion. And it is the reverential love with which the believer must ever look to Him to whom he owes so much, that constitutes the mainspring of the religion of daily life. Selfishness may prompt to a formal religion, natural susceptibility may give rise to a fitful one, but for a life of constant fervent piety, amidst the world’s cares and toils, no motive is sufficient save one—self-devoted love to Christ.
There is a passage in a Greek drama in which one of the personages shrinks irresolutely from a proposed crime which is to turn out to his own and his companion’s great profit; and the other says to him, “Dare—, and afterwards we shall show ourselves just.” It is to be feared that this is the way in which many a man has spoken to his own faltering conscience, when it shrank from an unscrupulous act which promised a great worldly advancement. Dare, he has said to himself, dare to take this one step; this step will be the beginning of advancement, and when I am elevated in the world, then I shall show myself a good man, and have the reputation of one. Thus it is that people persuade themselves that religion is not made for the hurry and the struggle of life. Now, they say or they think, now, in the very thick of the struggle, they must be allowed some little liberty, afterwards it will be different; but now one cannot be impeded; now there must not be this check, this shackle; now it is inopportune, unsuitable to the crisis; religion must wait a little.1 [Note: J. B. Mozley.]
(2) But again, if we would lead a Christian life in the world, that life must be continued as well as begun with Christ. We must learn to look to Him not merely as our Saviour from guilt, but as the Friend of our secret life, the chosen Companion of our solitary hours, the Depositary of all the deeper thoughts and feelings of our soul. We cannot live for Him in the world unless we live much with Him, apart from the world. In spiritual as in secular things the deepest and strongest characters need much solitude to form them. Even earthly greatness, still more moral and spiritual greatness, is never attained but as the result of much that is concealed from the world, of many a lonely and meditative hour. Thoughtfulness, self-knowledge, self-control, a chastened wisdom, and piety are the fruit of habitual meditation and prayer. In these exercises Heaven is brought near, and our exaggerated estimate of earthly things is corrected. By these our spiritual energies, shattered and worn by the friction of worldly work, are repaired. In the recurring seasons of devotion the cares and anxieties of worldly business cease to vex us; exhausted with its toils, we have, in daily communion with God, meat to eat which the world knows not of; and even when its calamities and losses fall upon us, and our portion of worldly good is perhaps withdrawn, we may be able to show, like those holy ones of old at the heathen court, by the fair serene countenance of the spirit, that we have something better than the world’s pulse to feed upon.
I say to my friend: “Be a Christian.” That means to be a full man. And he says to me: “I have not time to be a Christian. I have not room. If my life were not so full. You don’t know how hard I work from morning to night. What time is there for me to be a Christian? What time is there, what room is there for Christianity in such a life as mine?” But does it not come to seem to us so strange, so absurd, if it were not so melancholy, that a man should say such a thing as that? It is as if the engine had said it had no room for the steam. It is as if the tree had said it had no room for the sap. It is as if the ocean had said it had no room for the tide. It is as if the man had said that he had no room for his soul. It is as if life said that it had no time to live, when it is life. It is not something that is added to life. It is life. A man is not living without it. And when a man says, “I am so full in life that I have no room for life,” you see immediately to what absurdity it reduces itself. And how a man knows what he is called upon by God’s voice, speaking to him every hour, speaking to him every moment, speaking to him out of everything, that which the man is called upon to do because it is the man’s only life! Therefore time, room, that is what time, that is what room is for—life. Life is the thing we seek, and man finds it in the fulfilment of his life by Jesus Christ.1 [Note: P. Brooks, Addresses, 61.]
2. Carry religion into every part of life.—If we carry the principles of Christ with us into the world, the world will become hallowed by their presence. A Christ like spirit will Christianize everything it touches. A meek heart, in which the altar-fire of love to God is burning, will lay hold of the commonest, rudest things in life, and transmute them, like coarse fuel at the touch of fire, into a pure and holy flame. Religion in the soul will make all the work and toil of life—its gains and losses, friendships, rivalries, competitions, its manifold incidents and events—the means of religious advancement. Marble or coarse clay, it matters not much with which of these the artist works, the touch of genius transforms the coarser material into beauty, and lends to the finer a value it never had before. Lofty or lowly, rude or refined, as our earthly work may be, it will become to a holy mind only the material for an infinitely nobler work than all the creations of genius—a pure and godlike life. To spiritualize what is material, to Christianize what is secular—this is the noble achievement of Christian principle.
“There is one proposition,” says Mr. Gladstone, “which the experience of life burns into my soul; it is this, that a man should beware of letting his religion spoil his morality. In a thousand ways, some great, some small, but all subtle, we are daily tempted to that great sin.” What did Gladstone mean by that? He immediately adds, for he was an intensely religious man himself: “To speak of such a thing seems dishonouring to God; but it is not religion as it comes from Him, it is religion with the strange and evil mixtures which it gathers from dwelling in us.”2 [Note: Morley, Life of Gladstone, ii. 185.] And that is the heart of the trouble. A religion which concerns itself chiefly with ritual or creed or form, which separates itself from life by insisting on exclusive privileges for itself and its votaries, which is formal and official instead of being real and vital, imperils the foundations of common morality. As long as we are content to treat our religion in that way, its place in the practical concerns of life will inevitably be that of an interloper, intruding and interfering where it does not belong. There was, indeed, much truth and homely wisdom in the advice which young David Livingstone received from his grandfather when he left Blantyre for the old College at Glasgow: “Dauvit, Dauvit, make your religion an everyday business of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts.”1 [Note: D. S, Mackay.]
Out of the pulpit I would be the same man I was in it, seeing and feeling the realities of the unseen; and in the pulpit I would be the same man I was out of it, taking facts as they are, and dealing with things as they show themselves in the world.2 [Note: George Macdonald.]
(1) It is convenient, no doubt, to distinguish what is commonly described as “secular” from what is commonly described as “religious.” We all know what the distinction means. But the distinction must not be understood to imply that in religious work we are doing God’s will, and that in secular work we are not doing it. God Himself has done, and is always doing, a great deal of work that we must call secular; and this throws considerable light on the laws which should govern our own secular calling. He is the Creator of all things. He made the earth, and He made it broad enough for us to grow corn and grass on it, to build cities on it, with town-halls, courts of justice, houses of parliament, schools, universities, literary institutes, and galleries of art. It is impossible to use it all for churches and chapels, or for any other “consecrated” purpose. God made a great part of the world for common uses; but since the world, every acre, every square yard of it, belongs to Him, since He is the only Freeholder, we have no right to build anything on it that He does not want to have built. He kindled the fires of the sun, and the sun gives us light, not only on Sundays when we go to church, but on common days, and we have no right to use the sunlight for any purpose for which God does not give it. God made the trees; but He made too many for the timber to be used only for buildings intended for religious worship. What did He make the rest for? It is His timber. He never parts with His property in it. When we buy it we do not buy it from God; we pay Him no money for it. All that we do is to pay money to our fellow-men that we may have the right to use it in God’s service.
It is as secular a work to create a walnut-tree, and to provide soil and rain and warmth for its growth, as it is to make a walnut-wood table for a drawing-room out of it. It is as secular a work to create a cotton plant as to spin the cotton and to weave it. It is as secular a work to create iron as to make the iron into railway girders, into plates for steamships, into ploughs and harrows, nails, screws, and bedsteads. It is as secular a work to create the sun to give light in the daytime as to make a lamp, or to build gasworks, or to manufacture gas, to give light at night.1 [Note: R. W. Dale.]
Religion consists, not so much in doing spiritual or sacred acts, as in doing secular acts from a sacred or spiritual motive.2 [Note: John Caird.]
The mite of the widow was more than the gold of the scribe. And why? Because motive is more to God than matter, though it be gold. The broken cry of the publican was a truer prayer than the self-satisfied cadence of the Pharisee. And why? Because motive, not method, however beautiful, is what the great Father sees. Let, then, any man, I care not who he may be, bring himself into an intellectual condition in which he feels that religion is essentially a round of outward service only, and whether that man perform his service in a Quaker meetinghouse, in a Methodist chapel, or in a majestic minster, he is simply reducing religion into a meanness that is less than human, and abstracting from it every element that makes it Divine and uplifting. But, on the other hand, any action done nobly and in Christ’s spirit, whether in the smithy, or in the steamboat, or in the market-place, may be sacred.3 [Note: W. H. Dallinger.]
(2) The spiritual life is perfected through the worldly life, and the worldly life is perfected through the spiritual life.
So far from teaching that the spiritual life is antagonistic to life of secular action, the New Testament teaches that the spiritual is directly related to the worldly life, and that the former is perfected by the latter. The cares of domesticity, the duties of citizenship, the exercises of trade, the implications of industry and toil are all influentially soliciting, training, invigorating, unfolding, and in a thousand ways perfecting the faculties of the soul and disciplining them in righteousness. If we observe the intellectual life we see at once that men can never, except with extreme disadvantage, divorce themselves from tangible things. If from any motive intellectual men isolate themselves from the commonplace world of facts, if they deny their sense, if they attempt to pursue their studies in a purely metaphysical manner, they immediately and manifestly suffer. It is almost universally recognized that artists cannot with impunity exclude the actual world and resign themselves to reverie and metaphysics. And the same thing is most true in relation to our spiritual life—that life can grow only as it is elicited, exercised, conditioned by our worldly life. The world is a magnificent apparatus of discipline with which no spiritual man can affect to dispense. We cannot work out our highest life in isolation, abstraction, asceticism, in independence of daily, trivial, vulgar life. It is not by isolating ourselves from earthly things that we shall lay hold of the Divine life; it is by the true use and sanctification of the earthly life that we attain the Divine and the eternal. If intellectual monasticism would issue in monstrous masterpieces, in fantastic symphonies, in bizarre poesy, so any shrinking from natural worldly life and its relations produces deformed and morbid character utterly without attractiveness. Be not afraid of secular life and all that it involves.
The painter who refuses to go to nature soon paints badly. He cannot persist in evolving faces and landscapes from his consciousness and continue to produce work of veracity and power. To neglect the colours of summer, the features of the landscape, the lustres of dawn, the aspects of sea and sky, to neglect the facts of anatomy, the lines of physiognomy, the living face, the reality of things, is to sacrifice the truth, the splendour, the magic of art. The painter must live with the visible world, follow her subtle changes, know her as only genius and love can know; he can lay hold of ideal beauty only through close daily contact with corporeal things.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]
Again, the worldly life is perfected through the spiritual life. It is often urged that the spiritual life is injurious to the worldly life. Secularists profess that the two lives are mutually exclusive. They conclude that just as we are occupied with a higher world we become incapable of making the best of this. We boldly affirm that the whole material life of society here and now is secured and perpetuated by spirituality. It is the habit of the secularist to represent the love of God as so much precious feeling dissipated in the abyss; to consider the worship of God as vital energy scattered in the air; to teach that the thought of the future is thought withdrawn from a present which demands our concentrated strength; but, in fact, a living confidence in God, a living hope of everlasting life, a living faith in the higher law is the golden bond which holds society together, the dynamic which keeps the world moving to the glorious goal. The secularist mocks the spiritualist, and reproaches him as “a child crying for the moon.” Well, let the child cry for the moon; it will be a sorry day for the world when the child ceases to cry for it. The child’s crying for the moon is the mainspring of civilization. Isaac Newton in infancy cried for the moon, and when he became a man, in a very true and glorious sense, he got it, together with the sun and all the stars. Never crush the aspirations of men, especially their highest aspirations and hopes. Stretching out the hands to that which is beyond urges all things onward to a large and final perfection. Looking to the things which are unseen and eternal we inherit in their fulness the things seen and temporal.
Philosophers are sometimes exceedingly detached from the world, strangely careless about national struggles in which it would seem they ought to be passionately interested. What about Goethe and his lack of patriotism? He was absorbed by singers and actors, by art and literature, and hardly cast a glance at the struggles of the Fatherland. Some poets are notoriously indifferent to practical questions; they ignore contemporaneous politics, they utterly fail in monetary management. Shakespeare’s writings contain few and faint reflections of the age in which he lived; and some of the critics accuse Tennyson of insensibility to the social and material aspects of his time. Naturalists, also, like Audubon, have been noted for their aloofness; dreaming in the green wood, they missed the chances of the Stock Exchange. Are we then to draw the large conclusion that philosophy, poetry, and science are unfavourable to practical life? Are we, in the interests of civilization, to discourage this intellectual transcendentalism? Surely not. These men of thought and imagination are guilty of a certain unworldliness and impracticability; but we know that they immensely enrich the world. The legend tells that Newton cut in the door a large orifice for the cat and a small one for the kitten, overlooking the obvious fact that the first aperture served for both; and the average practical man makes merry over the blunder of the astronomer whose eye was dazzled with the infinite spaces and splendours of the firmament. Yet Newton, stumbling in trivial matters, was enriching the world beyond all successful shopkeeping. And we know that whatever the other-worldliness of our metaphysicians, bards, and philosophers may be, they are precisely the men who make us masters of our environment, and who in a special measure enrich us with the forces and treasures of the world.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]
3. Have a high conception of the greatness of your occupation.—It must add immeasurably to the dignity of a man’s life, it must give him a sense of great security, if he seriously believes that his work has been given him by Divine appointment, that it is really his “calling.” Take a conspicuous case—the case of the Apostle Paul. St. Paul knew that his work, his “calling” in the old-fashioned sense of the word, came to him from God. But no Christian man can live a satisfactory life without a conviction of the same kind. This would be a dreary and an ignoble world if only an apostle could say that he was doing his work “through the will of God,” or if only a minister or a missionary could say it. Mechanics, merchants, tradesmen, manufacturers, clerks, doctors, lawyers, artists—if we are to live a really Christian life, we must all be sure that, whatever work we are doing, it is God’s will that we should do it.
It used to be common to speak of a man’s trade, profession, or official employment as his “calling.” But I think that the word, in this sense, has almost dropped out of use, perhaps because it seems inappropriate and unmeaning. Its Latin equivalent has been rather more fortunate, and is still occasionally used to describe the higher forms of intellectual activity. It is sometimes said, for instance, of a thoughtful, scholarly man who is not very successful as a manufacturer, that he has missed his way, and that his true “vocation” was literature. It is only when we are speaking of the most sacred or most heroic kinds of service that we have the courage to recognize a Divine “call” as giving a man authority to undertake them. That a great religious reformer should think of himself as Divinely “called” to deliver the Church from gross errors and superstitions, and lead it to a nobler righteousness, does not surprise us. It does not surprise us that a great patriot should believe himself “called” of God to redress the wrongs of his country. And among those who are impressed by the glorious and awful issues of the ministry of the Church, it is still common to insist on the necessity of a Divine “call” to the ministry.1 [Note: R. W. Dale.]
There is nothing that man does that finds its beginning within itself, but everything, every work of every trade, of every occupation, is simply the utterance of some one of those great forces which lie behind all life, and in the various ways of the different generations and of the different men are always trying to make their mark upon the world. Behind the power that the man exercises there always lies the great power of life, the continual struggle of Nature to write herself in the life and work of man, the power of beauty struggling to manifest itself, the harmony that is always desiring to make itself known. To the merchant there are the great laws of trade, of which his works are but the immediate expression. To the mechanic there are the continual forces of Nature, gravitation uttering itself in all its majesty, made no less majestic because it simply takes its expression for the moment in some particular exercise of his art. To the ship that sails upon the sea there are the everlasting winds that come out of the treasuries of God and fulfil His purpose in carrying His children to their destination. There is no perfection of the universe until it comes to this.2 [Note: P. Brooks, Addresses, 53.]
I confess to you that though, like St. Paul, I desire to magnify my own office, I am often filled with deep admiration for the life and calling of a Christian man of business. His special trials and temptations are not mine; and, though a minister has his own temptations and trials, he sometimes feels, as he stands before his congregation and looks round upon them and thinks of all the struggles and defeats and victories of their daily life, like one who is standing quietly on the safe shore, while others are desperately battling with the stormy sea. I remember a morning, some years ago, when I happened to be staying with a friend in a great fishing station in the north of Scotland. A gale had sprung up suddenly, and we went down to the breakwater to watch the fleet of fishing-boats as they came running back for shelter. What admiration one felt at the way in which they breasted and buffeted the waves, and at the nerve and skill displayed by each crew in turn, as they drew near to the narrow entrance which was their one chance of escape, and shot safely at last through the harbour mouth into the quiet haven. Even such is the admiration with which one often looks upon Christian courage and consistency and victory in the life of a business Man_1:3 [Note: J. C. Lambert.]
4. Be prepared for sacrifice.—We need not believe all that the pessimists say about the conditions of success in business. We must not think that the business world is entirely organized in the interests of the devil. We must not think that honest men are sure to fail, and unscrupulous men bound to succeed. That is simply not true. At the same time, if we determine to carry Christ’s law with us into all the transactions of a business career, we must be prepared for sacrifice.
If we have in the least degree entered into the spirit of that sacred life, that Divine Life, the life of Jesus Christ on earth, we shall not need to be taught that the law of sacrifice is the fundamental law of the Christian life. His whole life was a sacrifice. To come to this earth of ours, to pass through infancy and boyhood, to lead the life of a peasant, and then to be a wandering teacher and prophet, without a place where He might lay His head, and finally to go through the mockings and scourgings, and to die on the Cross for us—this was the consummation, as it is the perfect example, of self-sacrifice. And it is for this that men love and worship and serve Him; by this He has put a new spirit into the world and not only has given us an example that we should follow His steps, but has proved that thus, and thus only, is the world healed and purified and taught. The law of sacrifice is supreme and binding on all Christians. It is the salvation of the world.
If any one says that in business one cannot be a Christian because it would involve loss to be so, I ask what right has he to expect that any special department of life, such as business, shall be exempt from the operation of a law which governs the whole. Of course it will involve at times a sacrifice and a loss to do the right thing, and I do not see how any Christian can expect anything else. The sacrifice must be made, the loss borne, as cheerfully and courageously as we should expect an officer to hear the summons to a post of danger or of death. This is the necessary correlative and consequence of regarding business as a vocation, and as an honourable service of men.1 [Note: J. M. Wilson.]
If a magistrate or a policeman could carry out justice only at much personal risk and loss, we expect him to do it. If an officer or a clergyman is called to harder work and smaller pay, we expect him to undertake it. It may not be compulsory, it may not always be done; but we expect it. We recognize such conduct as right, and the refusal as wrong. Now, we ought to regard all forms of business not only as a vocation, but also as a public service, and transfer to it something of the same feeling of honour and obligation that we associate with other public services.1 [Note: J. M. Wilson.]
Literature
Brown (J. B.), The Christian Policy of Life, 109.
Caird (J.), Aspects of Life, 273.
Dale (R. W.), Laws of Christ for Common Life, 1.
Harris (S. S.), The Dignity of Man, 189.
Hopps (J. P.), Sermons of Life and Love, 53.
Horton (R. F.), Brief Sermons for Busy Men, 1.
Lambert (J. C.), The Omnipotent Cross, 167.
Mackay (D. S.), The Religion of the Threshold, 92.
Rowland (A.), The Exchanged Crowns, 123.
Watkinson (W. L.), The Blind Spot, 201.
Wilson (J. M.), Truths New and Old, 306, 316, 325.
Christian World Pulpit, iv. 250 (Beecher); xxiv. 323 (Dallinger); li. 108 (Lorimer); lv. 72 (Stalker).
Church Pulpit Year Book (1910), 13.
In diligence not slothful; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.—Rom_12:11.
In the first eleven chapters of the Epistle he seeks to justify the ways of God to man. It is a vindication of the righteousness of God seen through man’s failures; and so he traces the fall of man from his original righteousness, the corruption of the world, the debasement of its idolatries, the seeming failure of God’s purpose, even of the law that was given by Moses, and in the election of God’s people Israel. He does not flinch from facing any one of the great problems of God’s government of the world—its anomalies, its disappointments, its frustrations of the grace of God; the creature made subject to vanity, man losing the image of God in which he was created; Israel outcast and rejected—but he shows through all these ruins the increasing purpose of the Divine mercy as well as of the Divine righteousness. The ways of God are inscrutable and past finding out, but they are the ways of a boundless compassion and of a perfect justice. So it will be seen at last (that is the conclusion to which he comes) that the purpose of God shall not fail; that evil shall not triumph over good; that love and not hatred is the law of God’s universe; that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
Then the Apostle passes from that high mystery of doctrine to the practical aspect of the Christian life. Good is to prevail in man’s life, in the life of each individual Christian whom God has called; and in spite of the problems which beset the intellect, it is to be a life of holiness and peace and purity. Justification by faith is not to lead to an Antinomian carelessness about obedience, and righteousness, and truth, and purity, and honesty; it does not set aside the law, yea it establishes the law.
The text is a short summary of the Christian life. That life has three relationships: to the world around us, to our own heart within us, to Christ above us; and here there is a word for each. “In diligence not slothful”—that is the duty we owe to the world; “fervent in spirit”—that is the duty we owe to ourselves; “serving the Lord”—that is what we owe to Christ. We might paraphrase the text: “Do good diligently; be good enthusiastically; and let all service, outward and inward, be for the Lord.”
Outward
“In diligence not slothful.”
The Authorized Version receives much credit for the melody of its words, but perhaps less than it deserves for their accuracy. Here the word “business” is taken in the modern sense of trade, and when it is found that that is not the meaning of the Greek, the Authorized Version is credited with a mistranslation. But in the sixteenth century “business” was used in the sense of “busyness,” that is, activity or diligence in whatever one is engaged in—just the meaning of the Greek word.
The word translated “business” in the Authorized Version is the same in the original as the word “diligence” in the eighth verse of the chapter: “He that ruleth, with diligence.” So here: “Not slothful as regards diligence.” The term indicates, not the kind of work to be done, but simply the manner of doing it. It does not point to men’s ordinary worldly callings and occupations, as distinguished from their spiritual exercises or spiritual frames. It is not the Apostle’s present object to harmonize, and reconcile, and blend the two in one. The expression “business” characterizes, not the work but the worker, not the action but the agent. The real meaning is, that in respect of diligence, or activity, in the matter to which this whole passage refers, you are to be not slothful. It is very much the wise man’s maxim: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might” (Ecc_9:10).
Looking to the whole context of the verse, looking to the whole tenor and life of the Apostle, we may be sure that he meant those to whom he wrote to think chiefly of the spheres of Christian activity which were open to them, to each of them according to the gift that he had received—the gift of prophecy, ministration, helps and governments, diversities of tongues, gifts of healing, and the like. Spiritual activity, rather than secular activity, was what was in the Apostle’s thoughts. Primarily, at least, the words are addressed to those who are engaged in the sphere of Christian activity. But it will be serviceable to give the words a wider range and let them refer to our work in the world, and describe the manner in which our duty should be done: “As for our diligence in doing our duty, let us not be slothful—let us really do it diligently.”
1. We all know what this means in any worldly calling; and we know also that in every worldly calling it is an indispensable condition of eminence and success. There must be industry; strenuous, unremitting, untiring industry; willingness to forgo the luxury of ease, “to scorn delights, and live laborious days.” For the most part, this is a faculty to be acquired; a habit to be cultivated. It is a faculty which cannot be acquired too early; a habit which cannot be cultivated too assiduously. It is good advice, and advice which cannot be too often or too emphatically repeated, especially to the young: Learn this lesson soon, and learn it well. Accustom yourself, train yourself to this “diligence in business.” Do this systematically in whatever you undertake. Act upon the principle that whatever it is worth while to acquire, it is worth while to acquire thoroughly; whatever it is worth while to do at all, it is worth while to do well.
This text is in perfect harmony with other parts of Scripture. St. Paul in writing his second letter to the Thessalonians (Rom_3:10) says, “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” The evil complained of here began to show itself even while the Apostle was with the Church. Some were idlers, and they needed the earnest words of St. Paul to rebuke them and incite them to labour. He was himself a remarkable example of industry. Often did he spend the day in preaching and teaching, and then labour far into the night at his “craft” for support, rather than be dependent on the bounty of others. He becomes righteously indignant at the Thessalonian idlers, and he declares that neither should they eat. They were not to be supported by the charity of others, unless they had done all they could for their own support. This was a common maxim among the Jews; and the same sentiment is often found in the writings of Greek poets, orators, and philosophers. The maxim is in harmony with strict justice. At the very dawn of human history we are taught that man was to earn his bread in the sweat of his face. A man who will not work ought to starve. You ought not to help him. Aid given to a lazy man is a premium on vice.
“Africa is the land of the unemployed,” Henry Drummond says in his Tropical Africa. This saying is true only regarding the men. “What is the first commandment?” a Lovedale boy was asked. “Thou shalt do no work,” was the reply.1 [Note: Stewart of Lovedale, 207.]
Not often did Watts take subjects for his paintings from the stern realities of everyday life. But there is a small group of pictures in which the sorrows and privations of those who have been worsted in the battle of life, or have been less fortunate than their fellows, are portrayed with unusual power, and show how wide is the range of his sympathies. Nothing human is alien to him. The pencil that could give a glow of vivid colour to the mystic visions of fancy could paint in sombre hues the painful experiences of the poor. He has combined, as it were, the two capacities in the humorous picture entitled, “When Poverty comes in at the door, Love flies out at the window.” To this popular proverb he has given a realistic and yet an imaginative charm. The picture at once impresses the mind and makes its meaning plain. One side of it is illumined with a bright light emblematical of the happiness that has been but is now passing away. The room is poorly furnished, and yet exhibits traces of former abundance that redeem its squalidness. The secret of the change of circumstances in the household is revealed in the laziness and slovenliness of the mistress. Instead of diligently attending to her domestic affairs, she is absorbed in caressing a pet dove, and lounging on a bed, whose disordered clothes exhibit the careless housekeeping of many days. Her work-basket is overturned on the floor, and its contents are scattered. Doves make their nests in pigeon-holes above the bed, with all their litter of confusion, and from the open window the untended sprays of roses, returning to their wild condition through neglect, creep in. The housewife is young and beautiful; but whatever pleasing impression she produces is at once removed by the contradictory character of her slovenly habits. She cannot make a happy home; and therefore the door of the room on one side is represented as opening, admitting the sordid figure of Poverty, dressed in rags, and accompanied by the gaunt wolf of Hunger, and letting in at the same time the cold inclement wind outside, which blows before it a drift of withered autumn leaves that strew the floor, and speak eloquently of the hostile forces of nature which inevitably work havoc where there is no principle of order and industry to keep them in check; while through the wide-open window the winged Cupid, no longer a boy but a grown-up mature youth, is in the act of taking flight over the sill. Every detail of the picture tells, and enhances the effect of the whole; and no one can gaze upon the startling contrast between the dark forbidding figure of Poverty, and the bright affrighted look of Love, without reading the moral which it so forcibly teaches. Watts could not possibly have taught a more impressive lesson to all who are inclined to act the part of the young woman whose own improvident ways have made her the subject of experiment by two such antagonistic powers, Poverty approaching to overwhelm her, and Love abandoning her to its horrors.1 [Note: Hugh Macmillan, G. F. Watts, 214.]
Life without industry is guilt; and industry without art is brutality.2 [Note: Ruskin.]
There is no cure for the despair and the nervous misery from which so many among us are suffering like a long and steady piece of hard work. Work reacts on the worker. If it is slovenly it makes him slovenly, even in his outward appearance. If he does it, not with any love, but merely as drudgery, it gives him the careless look of drudgery. “To scamp your work will make you a scamp.” On the contrary, when work is well done it yields its reward long before pay-day comes round, because it communicates solidity and dignity to the character. I do not know any man who is more to be envied than the man who has an eye
That winces at false work, and loves the true;
With hand and arm that play upon the toil
As willingly as any singing-bird
Sets him to sing his morning roundelay,
Because he likes to sing, and likes the Song of Solomon 3 [Note: J. Stalker.]
2. It is this real work, this earnest life, that the Apostle desires to see exemplified in the Church of Christ, and among its members. It is thus that He would have them to undertake and prosecute the work of their Christian calling, to perform the functions of whatever they may find to be their office in the Church, the body of Christ, of which they are members. No doubt there is here a peculiar difficulty, arising out of the nature of that work and these functions. They are essentially spiritual. They make a demand upon the spiritual tendencies and tastes. In any circumstances, the faculty or habit which is required is difficult of acquisition. Still, there are certain qualities which are essential to worldly success, and if we carry them over into the life of the spirit we shall find that they are there also the secrets of progress in Christian usefulness.
(1) Here is a quality which is greatly esteemed in the ways of the world—the quality of alertness. It is characteristic of every successful merchant. If we listen to the ordinary speech of the man of the world, we find how great is the value which he places upon this gift. “A man must have all his wits about him.” “It is the early bird that catches the worm.” These are recognized maxims in the way of success, and they point to the commanding necessity of an alert spirit. A merchant must be alert for the detection of hidden perils. He must be alert for the perception of equally hidden opportunity. He must be alert for the recognition of failing methods. His eyes must clearly see where old roads are played out, and where new ground may be broken. Let us carry the suggestion over into the affairs of the Kingdom. The Scriptures abound in counsel to alertness. “Awake, awake!” “Watch ye!” “Let us watch and be sober!” “Watching unto prayer.” It is an all-essential ingredient in the life of the progressive saint.
The watchfulness which Jesus Christ commands is a faithful care to love always and to fulfil the will of God at the present moment, according to the indications we have of it; it does not consist in worrying ourselves, in putting ourselves to torture, and in being ceaselessly occupied with ourselves, but rather in lifting our eyes to God, from whence comes our only help against ourselves.1 [Note: Fénelon.]
“Buy up the opportunity.” We are especially to look at things that appear to be useless, lest they turn out to be the raw material of the garments of heaven. Sir Titus Salt, walking along the quay of Liverpool, saw a pile of unclean waste. He saw it with very original eyes, and had the vision of a perfected and beautified product. He saw the possibilities in discarded refuse, and he bought the opportunity. That is perhaps the main business of the successful citizen of the Kingdom—the conversion of waste. This disappointment which I have had to-day, what can I make out of it? What an eye it wants to see the ultimate gain in checked and chilled ambition—
To stretch a hand through time, and catch
The far-off interest of tears.
This grief of mine, what can I make of it? Must I leave it as waste in the track of the years, or can it be turned into treasure? This pain of mine, is it only a lumbering burden, or does the ungainly vehicle carry heavenly gold? It is in conditions of this kind that the spiritual expert reveals himself. He is all “alive unto God,” and seeing the opportunity he seizes it like a successful merchant.2 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]
(2) Again, we hear one man say of another who has risen to fortune: “Everything about him goes like clockwork.” Of another man whose days witness a gradual degeneracy quite another word is spoken: “He has no system, no method; everything goes by the rule of chance.” So the quality of method appears to be one of the essentials of a successful man of affairs. Is this equally true in the things of the Kingdom? How many there are of us who, in our religious life, are loose, slipshod, unmethodical! How unsystematic we are in our worship and our prayers! Our worldly business would speedily drop into ruin if we applied to it the inconsiderate ways with which we discharge the duties of our religion.
William Law, in A Serious Call, has instructed us in methodical devotion. He systematically divides the day, devoting to certain hours and certain seasons special kinds of praises and prayers. This was the early glory of the Methodist denomination. Their distinctiveness consisted in the systematic ordering of the Christian life. I know that too much method may become a bondage, but too little may become a rout. Too much red tape is creative of servitude, but to have no red tape at all is to be the victim of disorder.
Without method memory is useless. Detached facts are practically valueless. All public speakers know the value of method. Persons not accustomed to it imagine that a speech is learnt by heart. Knowing a little about the matter, I will venture to say that if any one attempted that plan, either he must have a marvellous memory, or else he would break down three times out of five. It simply depends upon correct arrangement. The words and sentences are left to the moment; the thoughts are methodized beforehand; and the words, if the thoughts are rightly arranged, will place themselves.1 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 389.]
In order to do the most we are capable of, the first rule is that every day should see its own work done. Let the task for each day be resolved and arranged for deliberately the night before, and let nothing interfere with its performance. It is a secret which we learn slowly—the secret of living by days. I am convinced that there are very few so precious. What confuses work, what mars life and makes it feverish, is the postponing of the task which ought to be done now. The word which John Ruskin had on his seal was “To-day.”2 [Note: Claudius Clear, Letters on Life, 163.]
(3) Go once more into the realm of business. Here is a sentence that encounters us from one who knows the road: “The habit of firm decision is indispensable to a man of business.” The real business man waits till the hour is come, and then acts decisively. He strikes while the iron is hot. An undecisive business man lives in perpetual insecurity. He meanders along in wavering uncertainty until his business house has to be closed. Is not this element of decision needful in the light of the Spirit? Religious life is too apt to be full of “ifs” and “buts” and “perhapses” and “peradventures.” Am I experiencing at this moment a fervent holy spiritual impulse? In what consists my salvation? To strike while the iron is hot! “Suffer me first to go to bid them farewell.” No, the iron will speedily grow cold. While the holy thing glows before you, strongly decide and concentrate your energies in supporting your decision. “I am resolved what to do.” That was said by a man of the world. Let it be the speech of the man of the Kingdom of God.
“We must think again,” says Hazlitt, “before we determine, and thus the opportunity for action is lost. While we are considering the very best possible mode of gaining an object, we find that it has slipped through our fingers, or that others have laid rude, fearless hands upon it.”
A man can learn but what he can:
Who hits the moment is the man.
Lord Bacon has noticed, says the author of Friends in Council, that the men whom powerful persons love to have about them are ready men—men of resource. The reason is obvious. A man in power has perhaps thirty or forty decisions to make in a day. This is very fatiguing and perplexing to the mind. Any one, therefore, who can assist him with ready resource and prompt means of execution, even in the trifling matters of the day, soon becomes an invaluable subordinate, worthy of all favour.1 [Note: A. Helps, Friends in Council.]
(4) And once more we find that in business life it is essential that a man must run risks and make ventures. He must be daring, and he must have the element of courage. What says the man of the world? “Nothing venture, nothing win.” “Faint heart never won fair lady.” Faint heart never wins anything. John Bunyan’s Faintheart had repeatedly to be carried. Has the citizen of the Kingdom to risk anything? Indeed he has. He must risk the truth. A lie might appear to offer him a bargain, but he must risk the truth. Let him sow the truth, even though the threatened harvest may be tears. Let him venture the truth, even though great and staggering loss seems to be drawn to his door. “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” A man has again and again to make his choice between Christ and thirty pieces of silver. Let him make the venture, let the silver go; risk the loss! If it means putting up the shutters he will go out with Christ! “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
The Christian belief that all is in God’s hands, and all things work together for good, throws a new light on all the trivialities of life. All our petty occupations may be affected by the ultimate hope which we are taught to cherish. “Labour,” says Bishop Andrewes (Sermons, ii. 206), “of itself is a harsh, unpleasant thing unless it be seasoned with hope.… ‘He that plows must plow in hope,’ his plough shall not go deep else, his furrows will be but shallow. Sever hope from labour and you must look for labour and labourers accordingly, slight and shallow, God knoweth.”1 [Note: W. Cunningham, The Gospel of Work, 71.]
Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell’d here long enough eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!2 [Note: Walt Whitman, The Sea of Faith.]
Inward
“Fervent in spirit”
“Fervent in spirit”—What is it but to be glowing, boiling, we might almost say boiling over, with a strong purpose, with a perfect love, with a twofold love—the love of God who has made, redeemed, and sanctified us, and the love of men, our brothers, because they are children of the same Father in Heaven? It is hardly more than a paraphrase of St. Paul’s words to say that what he bids us do is, in homely phrase, to keep the steam up; that steam of the Divine love which moves the whole machine of our spiritual life, without which it may be in perfect outward order, but will not go, will not work, will not do that for which the great Work-master designed the machine. Here, then, is another golden rule of life, that outward activity must be sustained by the inward fervour, by the glow of emotion, by the life of prayer.
What man can live denying his own soul?
Hast thou not learned that noble uncontrol
Is virtue’s right, the breath by which she lives?
O sure, if any angel ever grieves,
’Tis when the living soul hath learnt to chide
Its passionate indignations, and to hide
The sudden flows of rapture, the quick birth
Of overwhelming loves, that balance the worth
Of the wide world against one loving act,
As less than a sped dream; shall the cataract
Stop, pause, and palter, ere it plunge towards
The vale unseen? Our fate hath its own lords,
Which if we follow truly, there can come
No harm unto us.1 [Note: Langdon Elwyn Mitchell.]
1. There are two forms which this Divine enthusiasm has assumed in religious souls—the enthusiasm for humanity, and the enthusiasm for individual salvation. The latter, which is the narrower and more selfish, which indeed is often “selfishness expanded to infinitude,” has led to many errors. Men, ready to sacrifice everything to secure their own personal deliverance from what they had dreamed of hell, have lived as hermits in deserts or on mountains, or have shut themselves up in monastic cells, or have subjected their bodies to cruel torments. The beliefs that have led to such lives are natural to men. They are found in every age and in every country and in all religions; and deeply as they are intermingled with error, yet so sovereign are the virtues of self-denial that without doubt they shall have their reward. And sometimes, on the other hand, the enthusiasm for humanity has been dissevered from deep personal religion. We may be sure that God will still bless the sincere lovers of their brethren, and that Christ will never be hard on any man who has lived and died for men. But when the two have been combined, when the sense of devotion has been united with the exaltation of charity, then such men have ever been the most glorious and the most blessed of the benefactors of mankind. What was Christianity itself but such an enthusiasm learnt from the example, caught from the Spirit, of Christ our Lord? The same love, even for the guilty and wretched, which brought the Lord Jesus step by step from that celestial glory to the lowest depth of the infinite descent, has been kindled by His Spirit in the hearts of His noblest sons. Forgiven, they have longed that others should share the same forgiveness.
Jesus of Nazareth is constantly kindling and keeping alive an enthusiastic personal devotion in the hearts of countless men, women, and children who have never seen Him—an enthusiasm which burns on steadily, century after century, with ever-increasing splendour. Let those who deny that He is still alive explain that marvellous Fact—if they can! It is unique in the history of our race. Could a man, dead for nearly two thousand years, rule so royally over the souls and bodies of the noblest and most unselfish of every age? NO! JESUS LIVES! and is ever pressing close to His Heart the heart of each individual disciple, pouring in the strengthening oil of the Holy Spirit and the new wine of a high enthusiasm which must find room for service.
Come, my beloved! we will haste and go
To those pale faces of our fellow-men!
Our loving hearts, burning with summer fire,
Will cast a glow upon their pallidness;
Our hands will help them, far as servants may;
Hands are apostles still to saviour-hearts.
2. Enthusiasm is indispensable; there is nothing which the devil dreads so much, there is nothing which the world denounces so continuously. To call a man an enthusiast has often been regarded as the sneer most likely to thwart his plans. Like the words “Utopian,” “Quixotic,” “unpractical,” it is one of the mud-banks reared by the world to oppose the swelling tide of moral convictions. The famous saying of Prince Talleyrand, “Above all, no enthusiasm!” concentrates the expression of the dislike felt by cold, calculating, selfish natures for those who are swept away by the force of mighty and ennobling aspirations.
For what is enthusiasm? It is a Greek word which means the fulness of Divine inspiration. It implies absorbing and passionate devotion for some good cause. It means the state of those whom St. Paul has described as “fervent (literally, ‘boiling’) in spirit.” It describes the soul of man no longer mean and earthy, but transfigured, uplifted, dilated by the Spirit of God. When a man is an enthusiast for good, he is so because a Spirit greater than his own has swept over him, as the breeze wanders over the dead strings of some Æolian harp, and sweeps the music, which slumbers upon them, now into Divine murmurings, and now into stormy sobs. A man becomes an enthusiast when God has flashed into his conscience the conviction of right and truth; has made him magnetic to multitudes; has made him as a flame of fire which leaps out of dying embers; as a wind of God which breathes over the slain that they may live. Without enthusiasm of some noble kind a man is dead; without enthusiasts a nation perishes. Of each man it is true that in proportion to the fire of his enthusiasm is the grandeur of his life; of each nation it is true that without enthusiasm it never has the will, much less the power, to undo the heavy burden or to atone for the intolerable wrong.
Let us think sometimes of the great invisible ship that carries our human destinies upon eternity. Like the vessels of our confined oceans, she has her sails and her ballast. The fear that she may pitch or roll on leaving the roadstead is no reason for increasing the weight of the ballast by stowing the fair, white sails in the depths of the hold. They were not woven to moulder side by side with cobble-stones in the dark. Ballast exists everywhere: all the pebbles of the harbour, all the sand on the beach will serve for it. But sails are rare and precious things: their place is not in the murk of the well, but amid the light of the tall masts, where they will collect the winds of space.1 [Note: Maurice Maeterlinck, Life and Flowers, 76.]
(1) Think what enthusiasm has done even in spheres not immediately religious. The enthusiasm of the student, of the artist, of the discoverer, of the man of science—what else could have inspired their infinite patience, their unlimited self-sacrifice? Men cannot without effort render great services to mankind. “The progress of mankind,” it has been truly said, “has been from scaffold to scaffold and from stake to stake”; but men animated by a fine enthusiasm have braved the penalty. It plunged Roger Bacon into torture and imprisonment. It made Columbus face the sickly cruelty of ignorant priesthoods and the stormy hurricanes of unknown seas. It caused years of poverty, of suffering, of persecution, of calumnious denunciation to Galileo, to Kepler, to Newton, to the early geologists, to Charles Darwin. They gave to mankind a toil intense and infinite. And if in these days man has been enabled to
put forth
His pomp, his power, his skill,
And arts that make fire, flood, and air,
The vassals of his will,
it is only because his more gifted brethren have toiled for his good.
(2) Again, there is the enthusiasm of the reformer. Think how low the nations might have sunk if their decadence had not been again and again arrested, and their criminalities again and again rebuked. Think what Italy was fast becoming when Savonarola—until they choked his voice in blood—thundered in the Duomo of Florence against her corruptions and her apostasy! Think how the cramp of an intolerable tyranny might still have been torturing the souls of men had not Wyclif braved death to give the Bible to the English people! Think once more what truths would have been drowned in the deep seas of oblivion if John Hus had not calmly gone to the stake to which he was condemned by the bishops who surrounded the perjured Sigismund! Imagine what a sink of loathly abominations the nominal Church of God might now have been if the voice of Luther had never shaken the world.
(3) Again, there is the enthusiasm of the missionary. In the first centuries the world was full of missionaries. In those days every Christian felt that he was not a Christian if he were not in some form or other God’s missionary. And for centuries the Church produced many a noble missionary; men like Ulfilas, men like Boniface, men like Columba. Then began the ages of neglect, and darkness, and superstition, and for whole centuries there was found only here and there a man like St. Louis of France, or St. Francis of Assisi, with a mission spirit strong within him. In modern days it is to Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, to William Carey and the Baptists that we owe the revival of missionary zeal. In the last century missions were regarded as foolish, rash—one knows not what; for the devil has a large vocabulary of words to quench the spirit which is so dangerous to his domain. Yet men despised and defied the devil, and the world which is his minion. Think of John Eliot, the lion-hearted apostle of the Indians, and his motto, “Prayer and painstaking can accomplish anything.” Think of the young and sickly David Brainerd, going alone into the silent forests of America, and among their yet wilder denizens, with the words, “Not from necessity, but from choice; for it seemed to me God’s dealings towards me had fitted me for a life of solitariness and hardness.” Think of Adoniram Judson and the tortures he bore so cheerfully in his Burmese prison.
(4) Then, once more, think of the glowing and beautiful enthusiasm of our social philanthropists. What man has done more for a multitude of souls than John Pounds, the poor Portsmouth cobbler, who, in the simple enthusiasm of ignorant love for the poor ragged children of the streets, became the ultimate founder of Ragged Schools! What a light from heaven was shed upon countless wanderers by the Gloucestershire printer, Robert Raikes, who saw the children wasting their Sundays idly in the streets. On the Embankment in London you see his statue and read the inscription: “As I asked, ‘Can nothing be done?’ a voice answered ‘Try’; I did try, and lo! what God hath wrought.” Who can judge the amount of misery rolled off the despairing heart of the world by the reformers of prisons, John Howard and Elizabeth Fry—Elizabeth Fry entering the foul wards for women in Newgate Prison, protected only by the beauty of her holiness; and John Howard traversing Europe, as Edmund Burke said, “to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infections of hospitals, to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt”?
All I am anxious for is that sympathy should be felt, or rather candour extended, towards the exaggerations of generous and unselfish men like Kingsley, whose warmth, even when wrong, is a higher thing than the correctness of cold hearts. It is so rare to find a clergyman who can forget the drill and pipeclay of the profession, and speak with a living heart for the suffering classes, not as a policeman established to lecture them into proprieties, but as one of the same flesh and blood vindicating a common humanity.1 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 292.]
3. The idea suggested by the word “fervent” is that of water heated to the boiling point. The figure is common in poetry and rhetoric. We speak of a man boiling with resentment; boiling over with rage. And the more generous and gentle affections, as well as the fiercer passions, are represented as working in this way. A patriot’s soul boils over with indignation at his country’s wrongs. A kind heart boils over with compassion when it sees a brother’s woe. Warmth, enthusiasm, zeal; amounting even, if there be occasion, to passionate grief, or pity, or anger—such is the frame or temperament here commended. The fervency, however, is to be spiritual. It is not animal excitement. It is not the natural fire of fervency of a hot and heady temper; or of keen, nervous sensibility and susceptibility; or of vehement personal feeling, unaccustomed to self-control.
(1) The meaning may be, that we are to be fervent in our spirit; fervent in the spiritual part of our nature; fervent in that new spiritual life and being of ours into which, as members of Christ and of His body, we enter. We are spiritual men. It is as spiritual men, and not merely as business men, that we are called to undertake offices and functions in the Church—to work in, and with, and for Christ. Let ours be not a cold or lukewarm spirituality, but a spirituality that is hot and boiling.
(2) On the other hand, it may be maintained that it is the Holy Spirit, as personally dwelling in us, that is meant. “Fervent in the Spirit” is an exact rendering of the original. But in fact the two renderings are at one: fervent in spirit; fervent in the Spirit. The fervency is, in every view of it, spiritual. It is so, inasmuch as it is fervency, not in the natural, but in the spiritual part of us; fervency working in us, not as carnal, but as spiritual. And it is so also because it is fervency wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.
4. The fervency, then, is to be spiritual. It is to have its seat in the heart’s core of our spiritual life; it is to be the direct fruit of the Spirit there.
(1) To be fervent in spirit is something more than mere earnestness. Doing the work simply as a matter of business, we may do it very earnestly, taking a real interest in it, throwing our whole soul into it. But the interest which we take in it may be such as we might take in any employment that stimulated our activity and gave scope for the exercise of our natural sensibility. We may throw our soul into it, as into some heroic enterprise or sentimental scheme that has power to charm by its novelty or fascinate by its romance. But the essential element of real spirituality may be wanting; and with much bustling stir and much boiling enthusiasm in what we take to be religious work and duty, we may still need to be affectionately warned that “to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
It is not by becoming like Him that men will approach towards incorporation with Him; but by result of incorporation with Him, received in faith as a gift, and in faith adored, and used, that they will become like Him. It is by the imparted gift, itself far more than natural, of literal membership in Him; by the indwelling presence, the gradually disciplining and dominating influence, of His Spirit, which is His very Self within us, the inmost breath of our most secret being; that the power of His atoning life and death, which is the power of divinely victorious holiness, can grow to be the very deepest reality of ourselves.1 [Note: R. C. Moberly.]
A distinction must be drawn between the gifts of God and the gift of God. The gifts are natural endowments, energy, strength, sagacity, powers of body, mind, and character, all of them bestowed upon man without his asking. The gift is the Divine fire, the Spirit of God Himself, the gift of life, which is bestowed only on such as ask for it. Without the gift, the gifts may be put to the very worst uses. They may be a curse to him who has them and to his fellows. But if the gift be added to the gifts, then the gifts, as St. Paul would say, become the arms of righteousness wielded in God’s cause. The more abundant the gifts, the richer the gift. The gift cannot create the gifts, it can only sanctify them. St. Peter had always been confident, vigorous, intrepid, fervid, and clear-sighted; St. Paul always logical, original, fiery, indomitable. They were both in nature leaders of men. When to these gifts the gift was added, St. Peter could not become a zealot, St. Paul could no longer remain a persecutor. They must work for God; they could not work against God.1 [Note: W. G. Rutherford.]
The man of the last generation who of all men did most to reinvigorate the life of the English Church, although he died outside her communion, lets out the secret of his fertile and lasting influence when he relates how the thought grew upon him and possessed him, “that deliverance is wrought, not by the many, but by the few, not by bodies, but by persons,” and how from his schooldays onwards he loved and prized more every day the motto he had chosen as his own—“Exoriare aliquis.”
(2) The very first condition of this spiritual fervency is that clear insight into the Divine method of peace, or that belief of the truth as it is in Jesus, which casts out self-righteousness, self-seeking, and self-esteem. Then those old natural fires, which, when fanned by winds from the spiritual region, make the heart and bosom burn, are extinguished and die out. There is no room now for the feelings of keen self-torture, or hot and heady self-elation, which once by turns inflamed the unsteadfast soul. New fires are kindled; feelings of an entirely new kind come in to occupy the place of the expelled. Far more gentle are they, far more calm! and yet how warm, how steadily and uniformly warm! For the source of them continues always the same. That source is Christ; Christ living in us—“Christ in us, the hope of glory.”
I took this cutting from a newspaper the other day. “A vicar tried last winter, in his attempt to win the man in the street, twelve concerts, twenty dances, six lectures, three Christmas-trees, and several other things, and all in vain.” I think that parish might try a real novelty—the Gospel. I am persuaded of this, that the energy the Lord is going to use is the energy of the Spirit.1 [Note: Harrington Lees.]
Christward
“Serving the Lord.”
1. But what is meant by “serving the Lord”? It means in the first place that our work for Christ is not work that is voluntarily undertaken by us, but work that is imposed on us by a Master.
It is true that, as in Isaiah’s case, the Lord may seem to put it to ourselves to come forward for His service of our own accord. In great kindness and condescension He allows us the satisfaction of offering ourselves as volunteers. Our engagement with Him is to have the grace, or graceful aspect, of being not so much a stern command on His part, leaving us no alternative but to enlist, but, rather, in the first instance, a spontaneous act on our part, hastening to place ourselves and our services at His disposal. But let us notice two things.
(1) To one dealt with as Isaiah was dealt with, the very hearing, or as it were the overhearing by accident, of that voice of the Lord, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” has all the force of a command. He must feel that the very idea of that Holy One, by whom he has first been so wonderfully humbled, and then lifted up, having work to be done, errands to be executed, lays him under an obligation to say, “Here am I.” He has absolutely no alternative here, any more than if the most peremptory order had been issued. He is very thankful for the generous consideration which allows him to have the pleasure of volunteering; but he cannot on that account imagine for a moment that he has really any discretion in the matter, or any right to hesitate or hang back.
The right Christians are those who fear God, and work with a light joyful heart; because they recognize God’s command and will. A good Christian peasant sees inscribed on his waggon and plough—a shoemaker on his leather and awl, a smith and carpenter on his wood and iron—this verse, “Happy art thou. It is well with thee.” The world reverses this, and says, “Wretched art thou, it is evil with thee, for thou must ever bear and carry; but happy are those who live in idleness, and have what they want, without labour.”1 [Note: Luther.]
What can God do for a lazy Christian, who is disloyal to His purposes and the needs of the perishing? While thus treating God and men there can be no deep personal spiritual life or growth in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Such people often say to me, “Each time you come to us you seem to be mightily enjoying the religion you preach to us.” “Yes,” I reply, “I do enjoy my religion, twenty-four hours per day and three hundred and sixty-five days per year.” “Well,” they say, “I am often so cold and dead that I hardly know whether or not I have any religion at all.” When I ask them if they do any work for Christ and the saving and blessing of men, they usually answer me with a long-drawn-out “Well no.” “Then,” I always say, “you deserve to starve.”1 [Note: T. Waugh, Twenty-Three years a Missioner, 194.]
Come weary-eyed from seeking in the night
Thy wanderers strayed upon the pathless wold,
Who wounded, dying, cry to Thee for light,
And cannot find their fold.
And deign, O Watcher with the sleepless brow,
Pathetic in its yearning—deign reply:
Is there, O is there aught that such as Thou
Wouldst take from such as I?
Are there no briars across Thy pathway thrust?
Are there no thorns that compass it about?
Nor any stones that Thou wilt deign to trust
My hands to gather out?
O, if Thou wilt, and if such bliss might be,
It were a cure for doubt, regret, delay—
Let my lost pathway go—what aileth me?—
There is a better way.2 [Note: Jean Ingelow.]
(2) And then, secondly, when his offer is accepted, and he is taken at his word, he is clearly now a servant under the yoke. He is not at liberty to decline any work that may be assigned to him, however difficult and laborious, however perilous and painful to flesh and blood. It may be different from what he anticipated; not so pleasant, not so honourable. But what of that? When he offered himself, he asked no questions; he had no right to ask any. He stipulated for no conditions; it would have been unbelief to do so. Unreservedly he said, “Whatsoever be the errand, here am I; send me.” And he cannot qualify his offer, or attempt to make terms, now. Nor is this all. Not only must he undertake, as a servant, whatever work the Lord appoints; he must go through with it as a servant. He must feel himself to be a servant, bound to do the work, be it what it may. He must feel himself to be a servant, from first to last, in the doing of it.
I asked Thee for a larger life:
Thou gavedst me
A larger measure of the strife
Men wage for Thee;
And willed that where grey cares are rife
My place should be.
I asked Thee for the things that are
More excellent;
And prayed that nought on earth might mar
My heart’s content:
And lo! a toilsome way and far
My feet were sent.
I asked Thee for a clearer view
To make me wise:
Thou saidst, “It is enough for you
To recognize
My voice”—and then the darkness grew
Before my eyes.
I asked that I might understand
The way of pain:
Thine answer was to take my hand
In Thine again;
Nor aught of all Thy love had planned
Didst Thou explain.
I asked Thee once that I might fill
A higher place:
Thine answer was, “O heart, be still,
And I will grace
Thy patience with some gift of skill
To serve the race.”
And now I thank Thee for the prayer
Thou didst not hear;
And for the ministry of care,
The hour of fear,
For skies o’ercast, and places where
The way was drear.
For now I know that life is great
Not by the things
That make for peace, and all that Fate
Or Fortune flings
Down at my feet—for soon or late
These all take wings.
I do not ask what joys or woes
Time holds for me:
I simply seek a love that goes
Out unto Thee,
As surely as the river flows
To meet the sea.1 [Note: Percy C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 53.]
2. Is not this a lowering of the whole tone and style of our intercourse with the Lord, and our engagement for His work? After all seemed to be placed on the footing of a large and free commerce of love and confidence; when the adjustment of the whole question of our standing with God, and our relation to Him, had been taken out of the hands of law, and out of the category of legal bargaining, and transferred to a higher region, in which grace and honour reign; are we again to come down to the level of servants? Yes, and hired servants too. And why should this offend us? It did not offend Christ when He was doing His Father’s work on earth. He did it as a servant, even as a hired servant, when He “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.”
Our Master all the work hath done
He asks of us to-day;
Sharing his service, every one
Share too his sonship may.
Lord, I would serve and be a son;
Dismiss me not, I pray.2 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 4.]
3. Finally, obligation and responsibility are not badges of degradation. On the contrary, for intelligent creatures, on a right footing with their Creator, they are elements and conditions of highest glory and purest joy. Angels in heaven now work as servants; nay, as hired servants; for He whom they serve will never accept service unrequited. They work as servants, under obligation; upon their responsibility. It is in that character and capacity that they are summoned to join in the universal song of praise: “Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure” (Psa_103:20-21). Saints in heaven hereafter will work in like manner; in fact, one chief element of heaven’s blessedness and glory is this, that there “his servants shall serve him” (Rev_22:3). And all our work here on earth, we will do the better if we do it, not as at our own hand, but as “serving the Lord.”
If I knew it now, how strange it would seem,
To think, to know, ere another day
I should have passed over the silent way,
And my present life become as a dream;
But what if that step should usher me
Right into the sinless company
Of the saints in heaven.
I’ll carefully watch the door of my lips
As I talk with my comrades to-day,
And think a little before I say,
To see that no careless expression slips,
Which I should find would so ill compare
With the holy converse uttered there,
By the saints in heaven.
If they let me in—Oh, how sweet, how strange,
The thought that before a new day dawn,
I may put the incorruptible on,—
That beautiful garment, the robe of change!
And walk and talk with that happy throng,
Perhaps join my voice in the “new, new song,”
With the saints in heaven.
But I fear I should be poorly meet
To mingle much with the saints at all;
My earthly service would seem so small—
Just going of errands on tired feet;
But, oh! how blest, if it were my share
To be the trusted messenger there,
For the saints in heaven!
With holy missives to take and bring,
Sometime, perhaps, it would come to be
That some pure saint would commission me
To carry his message straight to the King
And the King His answer would defer,
To turn and smile on the messenger
Of His saints in heaven!1 [Note: Anna Jane Granniss.]
Literature
Burrell (D. J.), A Quiver of Arrows, 158.
Candlish (R. S.), The Two Great Commandments, 151.
Farrar (F. W.), Sin and its Conquerors, 38.
Jerdan (C.), Messages to the Children, 187.
Jowett (J. H.), Thirsting for the Springs, 152.
MacArthur (R. S.), The Calvary Pulpit, 43.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Romans, 267.
Maclaren (A.), Leaves from the Tree of Life, 63.
Percival (J.), Some Helps for School Life, 11.
Rutherford (W. G.), The Key of Knowledge, 218.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xv. (1869), No. 885.
Vaughan (C. J.), Doncaster Sermons, 186.
Vaughan (D. J.), Questions of the Day, 144.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xi. No. 870.
Christian World Pulpit, xix. 5 (Beecher); xxx. 185 (Horder); lv. 72 (Stalker).
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., vii. 129.
Keswick Week (1908), 190 (Lees).