It it" 
 

 6 5 6i 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BV4900 .B62 
 
 Comfort, by Hugh Black. 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 349 622 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31924029349622 
 
By THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Friendship &_ &_ &. 
 Work &. fe. <&. 
 
 Culture &nd Restraint 
 Listening to God &. 
 Christ's Service of Love 
 CKe Gift of Influence 
 
A-V7H3S 
 
 Copyright, igto, by 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 5 
 
 Designed by Griselda McClure 
 
 Printed by The Caxton Press 
 
 New York 
 
To 
 
 W. B. MACLEOD 
 
 who has learned to comfort others 
 
 by the comfort 
 
 wherewith he himself has been 
 
 comforted of God 
 
And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow. 
 
 — Milton. 
 
 \ 
 
Hath he a cup of affliction in one hand? Lift 
 up your eyes and you will see a cup of consola- 
 tion in another. And if all the stars withdraw 
 their light whilst you are in the way of God, as- 
 sure yourselves that the sun is ready to rise. 
 
 -John Owen. 
 
 i 
 
THE world is full of men and women 
 who are carrying burdens of work 
 or care or sorrow, and the burden 
 often seems too heavy for the bearer. The 
 sorest part of the trouble is that it appears 
 meaningless, with no evident relation to 
 life. The result is that there is only a 
 dull bending of the neck for the load, or a 
 listless doing of the duty. Should the 
 burden seem inevitable, it would be some- 
 thing if we could see some useful purpose 
 in it. The apparent aimlessness of pain is 
 more disabling than the pain itself. Life 
 loses its spring and the world turns to drab, 
 when the eye has no larger vision. 
 
 The greatest need of men is a message 
 of good cheer, of heartening for the daily 
 task. But this cannot come by mere well- 
 wishing and the usual surface consolations, 
 
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 Ghe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 azzEssssss zgaaszasm s! 
 
 "patching grief with proverbs." It can 
 only be by seeing that the whole of life is 
 reasonable and can be made to show some 
 meaning. For great living, we need to 
 believe in the worth of life. In the face 
 of the almost appalling difficulties that con- 
 front faith, we are nevertheless driven to 
 meet them to keep life sane. At the same 
 time we can hold this central faith of the 
 worth of life, without having a rounded 
 theory to explain the universe. It is 
 enough that we see cause to take heart of 
 grace and to be strong and of good courage. 
 So, the purpose of this book is not to 
 give a speculative solution of the deep 
 problem of pain, but to show the practical 
 ways by which a brave soul can gather 
 courage and strength and comfort. It is 
 to note the fruits which the tree of life 
 can be made to bear. There is a way to 
 peace of heart and comfort of mind and 
 composure of soul. This is the Gospel of 
 Comfort, needed not merely for the sorrow- 
 12 
 
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 Cbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 * 7jT;i VOjavV iJftlMA Mitt 
 
 ing, but for all who bend to the yoke of 
 human life. Charles Reade begins his 
 great novel The Cloister and the Hearth 
 with the remark that not a day passes over 
 the earth but men and women of no note 
 do great deeds, speak great words, and 
 suffer noble sorrows. Fortunately for the 
 world this is true, though most are moved 
 by a deep instinct rather than by a rational 
 purpose. When the instinct fails, it needs 
 to be reinforced by a purpose, and the one 
 effective dynamic must come from the 
 region of faith. Our present purpose is 
 the practical one of relating that faith to 
 the needs of life. 
 
 We are all of course affected by our time 
 and by the prevalent mood of our age. 
 There have been periods when it was easy 
 to be an extreme optimist, when indeed it 
 was difficult to be anything else. In our 
 own age pessimism is more than an affec- 
 tation. A sombre view of the world is 
 natural to-day when men have been flooded 
 13 
 
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 pnzsasss r^//mvmifaf 
 
 S^m^s 
 
 with more knowledge than they have been 
 able to absorb, and when they are confused 
 about moral issues, and when much of the 
 traditional faith has been questioned. 
 Sometimes this sombre view appears as a 
 cynical depreciation of man, who has puffed 
 up his little heart with vain imaginings as 
 to his place in the universe. Sometimes 
 it appears as a blind rage at the inequalities 
 and wrongs of society, at the cruelties of 
 history, at the dark mystery of human life. 
 " Truly God is good," said the Psalmist, 
 but men are not so sure of it to-day. 
 
 Before we can make up our mind about 
 the worth of life we must decide what our 
 standard of judgment should be. Are we 
 going to make our values by counting up 
 the pleasures and subtracting the pains ? 
 Or are we to decide by ethical standards ? 
 Might it not be possible that moral interests 
 may justify much that otherwise would be 
 inexplicable ? If it were entirely a ques- 
 tion of happiness and pleasurable sensation 
 14 
 
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 Cbc Gospel of Comfort 
 
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 it would be a matter of arithmetic, but 
 even then nothing would be settled about 
 the worth of life, since man is more than a 
 bundle of sensations. There is a point of 
 view from which the existence of evil is 
 justified, even if it is not explained. It 
 may be that what we call evil is a condition 
 necessary to the fulfillment of human life. 
 A cosmic process is not to be judged by 
 man's wishes but by the end, and if we 
 decide that growth is worth while, and if 
 we see that obstruction and much that we 
 call evil are conditions of growth, we will 
 at least learn patience and be content to 
 exercise faith. 
 
 Of all the problems associated with the 
 existence of evil, the problem of pain has 
 become the most poignant. The modern 
 world is perhaps not so sensitive to sin as 
 men used to be, but it is much more sensi- 
 tive to pain. There is a revolt against the 
 conditions of human life. Sometimes it 
 appears as a stony despair, or a wild de- 
 
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 Cbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
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 fiance. To speak of God as good or as 
 loving creates rage in hearts that see no 
 meaning in the tragic round of events. 
 Sometimes it appears in the mood of a 
 jaunty indifference, or in the selfishness 
 of one who tries not to care. Again, it is 
 seen in the despair which gives up hope of 
 any light on the dark subject. 
 
 In many cases there is a willful shutting 
 of the eyes to facts, and the preaching of 
 a shallow optimism. If we wink hard 
 enough and fast enough, we can make be- 
 lieve that there is no ugly side to life and 
 no abyss at the world's end. It is as- 
 sumed in some pretentious faiths that if 
 we assert loudly that there is no pain there 
 will be none ; if we deny with sufficient 
 assurance that sin and sorrow exist they 
 cease to be. It is all so futile and such a 
 petty shift ; for even if by that means we 
 could save ourselves from any personal 
 experience of the mystery of evil, we need 
 only look back over history to be con- 
 16 
 
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 Cbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 vinced that the whole creation has groaned 
 and travailed together in pain until now. 
 We see blood-stains on the flinty track of 
 the steep ascent where human feet have 
 trod. And we need only look around us 
 to see lives that seem made to dishonour, 
 and to see many modern illustrations of 
 the ancient problem that often the good 
 suffer, with a suffering from which the 
 wicked are exempt. Our little human life 
 is enisled amidst a trackless ocean of un- 
 rest. There is moaning at the bar as the 
 sea beats and breaks upon the shores of 
 life. 
 
 The world is a place of need, and of all 
 the needs of the needy world the greatest 
 is that human hearts should find comfort. 
 The word to comfort means more than to 
 soothe and console. It means originally 
 to strengthen, to fortify, to bring support 
 and courage ; and naturally enough it has 
 been narrowed down to the special mean- 
 i7 
 
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 Gbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 eazzss^ MWAWVUE aai 
 
 ing to bring solace and good cheer, to 
 soothe some one in grief and trouble. 
 We see the wide range of meaning in the 
 word when we think that comfort is often 
 used for the satisfaction of bodily needs, 
 freedom from care and trouble, a state of 
 physical well-being, as in our common 
 phrase "creature comforts." The true 
 significance of the word is to get some- 
 thing which will give strength to endure 
 under trial and to enable men to carry on 
 the work of life with faith and courage. 
 It is in this large and virile sense of the 
 word that it is used as the title of this 
 book, and not merely as consolation for 
 those who mourn. 
 
 At the same time the profoundest needs 
 of life are focussed for us in some such 
 dire strait as bereavement suggests, and a 
 man may be said not to know life, if he 
 has never faced death for himself or for 
 one he loves. But our needs are not 
 limited to these times of grand crisis, but 
 18 
 
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 &>e Gospel of Comfort 
 
 j n a sasa z a 22a ns sfcfa 
 
 meet us at every turn. It is impossible to 
 classify all the cares and troubles and 
 necessities. They are past counting, and 
 even the same sorrow creates different 
 problems to different hearts. What is to 
 enable us to meet the terrible uncertainties 
 of life and its more terrible certainties, to 
 master doubt and disarm fear, to carry 
 burdens patiently and face death calmly ? 
 By what can we reach and maintain the 
 equilibrium of life ? What can give the 
 victory over sorrow and pain, and is any 
 victory possible ? The one unfailing 
 source of comfort in the Bible is God 
 Himself, faith in His love and grace. 
 Only He can comfort hearts and stablish 
 them. Indeed, the ultimate religious 
 meaning of all trial is that through it 
 men may be led or drawn to God, and 
 may learn His statutes and find peace 
 under His shadow. 
 
 We cannot read the New Testament 
 intelligently, without being impressed that 
 19 
 
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 Cbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 »//^w zazgcass^ 
 
 a new sense of power and a new source of 
 comfort came to men who had learned to 
 know God through Jesus Christ. The 
 contrast is most marked when we know 
 the world into which the new message 
 came, and this we can do to-day as never 
 before. The epitaphs and papyri, which 
 are being discovered in such numbers in 
 Egypt and elsewhere, tell us of the customs 
 of the common people, and show us the 
 common point of view in the time of 
 early Christianity before it had laid hold 
 of the world. We see the mass of the 
 people hungering for religion, and with 
 nothing substantial to satisfy the hunger, 
 and on that account open to all manner of 
 superstition. We see them in their help- 
 lessness before the inevitable distress of 
 death and before the great problem of life, 
 usually either with a hopeless resignation, 
 or with a forced gaiety that is more pathetic 
 still. 
 
 One of these witnesses to a past life is 
 
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 Cbe 6osp«l of Comfort 
 
 suggestive as indicating the comfortless 
 state of the world. In Yale University 
 Library there has been deposited a Greek 
 Papyrus of the second century, which is 
 a letter of comfort sent over a bereavement. 
 It reads thus, " Eirene to Taonnophris and 
 Philon good cheer ! I was as much grieved 
 and shed as many tears over Eumoiros as 
 I shed for Didymus, and I did everything 
 that was fitting, and so did my whole 
 family. But still there is nothing one can 
 do in the face of such trouble. So I leave 
 you to comfort yourselves. Good-bye." 
 It is quite evidently not meant to be heart- 
 less, but there was not anything more to 
 be said before the final passion of life. 
 Paul's word is thrown into bold relief when 
 he wrote to his converts " that ye sorrow 
 not, even as the rest, which have no hope." 
 
 When we say that the religious mean- 
 ing of trial is that men should find peace 
 in God, we cannot forget, however, that 
 21 
 
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 Gbe Gospel of Comfw 
 
 ZZZSggg ZZBZZEEES 
 
 the very existence of human misery often 
 leads men to the denial of God altogether. 
 To them it seems like reasoning in a circle 
 to justify pain by the existence of God, 
 and then to justify God by rinding mean- 
 ing in pain. The great tragedy of the 
 world has often brought to men the ship- 
 wreck of faith, and this is the greatest 
 tragedy of all. How can God be possible 
 and permit in His world the horrors we 
 know, the deadly pestilence, the fierce 
 tornado, the solid earth rent by earth- 
 quakes, the peaceful town buried by the 
 volcano's molten lava, the desolation of 
 war ? This tragedy on the large scale has 
 destroyed faith which could withstand even 
 personal sorrow. Others again only realize 
 that the problem exists when it strikes 
 home to their own hearts. Only their 
 own sore experience, their own anguish 
 and pain, bring them to despair of God. 
 With others, faith can survive both the 
 thought of the world's tragedy in the mass 
 
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 and even personal misfortune, but it breaks 
 down when they have to stand helpless 
 before the suffering of those bound to them 
 by all the ties of love. 
 
 Sooner or later we have all to make the 
 great essay. Sooner or later it comes to 
 all of us in one or other of its forms — the 
 weight of the mystery of pain. Into each 
 life the scarlet thread is woven. We have 
 to be very dull of heart indeed and blind 
 of eye, if we are never touched by the 
 infinite pathos of human life. To be con- 
 vinced of it we do not need to wait for 
 lurid pictures of the devastation of cities 
 and countries. Life is steeped in sorrow. 
 All must be impressed some time with a 
 sense of the weakness of human power 
 and the pettiness of human life, as in the 
 old prayer of the Breton fisherfolk, " O 
 God, protect us ; for our boat is little and 
 the sea is great." Pain and failure and 
 grief and loss are all around us, if not 
 within us, and the sorest plight on earth 
 
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 Gbe Gospel of Comfort 
 tin, K\\\\\ Y/jw/A Hssg 
 
 is to know the bitter problem without 
 knowing the source of any real comfort, 
 to know the burden and know nothing 
 of a burden-bearer. We cannot walk the 
 streets without seeing the stricken look on 
 many a face and read a story in many 
 eyes, the telltale windows of the soul. 
 
 Mr. Joseph Hatton recalled recently a 
 pathetic incident that occurred to himself 
 and William Black, the novelist. As they 
 were about to sail for Liverpool from 
 New York, a man rushed hurriedlv on 
 board with a basket of flowers in his hand 
 and came up to William Black and said, 
 " On my last voyage here I lost a little 
 girl, and she was buried at sea in such 
 and such a latitude. Now, sir, will you 
 scatter these flowers upon the waves when 
 you pass over that latitude ? " Of course 
 he willingly promised to do this. Very 
 early, when it was still dark, long before 
 any one had risen, the two stole up on 
 deck, and there, beneath the morning 
 24 
 
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•^fc*wvsa«g^jF^ 
 
 Gbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 stars, they cast the father's flowers upon 
 the daughter's vast and wandering grave. 
 To all must come some time the breaking 
 of the strongest ties, and all sometimes 
 must be moved with pity for the pathos 
 of life and with a sense of the vanity of 
 all earthly pursuits. The world is made 
 barer and poorer when we feel that all 
 loving interest in us and our doings and 
 fortunes has gone out of life. " What 
 shadows we are and what' shadows we 
 
 pursue 
 
 In such a mood we can ask if it is worth 
 while being renewed in courage for the 
 tasks of each day, and if any comfort could 
 bring back again the old zest for life. 
 What can brace us again for the conflict 
 and make us calmly accept duty and 
 destiny ? What can dignify life and make 
 it appear inherently great ? For, often the 
 trial is simply the smallness and monotony 
 of our daily interests, the disheartening 
 uniformity, the petty pace at which life 
 
 25 
 
 &illl^ ^fe^iM 
 
Gbe Gospel of Comfor 
 
 creeps from day to day. Sometimes small 
 disappointments are harder even than a 
 great sorrow ; the pin-pricks of circum- 
 stances can goad some to madness who 
 could bear with fortitude and dignity a 
 great wound. Petty annoyances and little 
 discomforts are often harder to bear than a 
 heavy affliction. It is a common experi- 
 ence to find that, to some, small vexations 
 are more trying than great ones. A great 
 sorrow will often be accepted in a great 
 mood, whereas patience is exhausted and 
 the nerves worn bare by exasperating 
 trials and little disappointments. The 
 quarrel that many have with life is that it 
 does not offer enough scope, and does not 
 measure up to reasonable expectations. 
 Many people suffer the pain of maladjust- 
 ment rather than any severe agony. They 
 feel they have not the right environment. 
 It is not so much a revolt against life as a 
 revolt against their lot. 
 
 Every sympathetic observer must be 
 
 26 
 
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 Che 6osp«l of Comfort 
 
 struck with the patience of the multitude, 
 the silent endurance of the mass of men, 
 but underneath is often a sense of wrong. 
 Many wonder if it is worth going through 
 with the prosaic duties, petty self-denials, 
 obscure privations, and constant drudgery. 
 It is not the fact of struggle, but that the 
 struggle should be on such a slight field 
 and for such slight things — merely for 
 daily bread or in a work which is uncon- 
 genial. There is often something squalid 
 even in the kind of trial. It is not that 
 there should be a demand for self-denial, 
 but that it should be so petty. A great 
 sacrifice could be made with a glorious joy, 
 but ' life has never offered even that satis- 
 faction. There is never other than the 
 same fretting cares, and the same grinding 
 routine, and the same colourless lot. The 
 years bring to most a perpetual disappoint- 
 ment of hope. 
 
 Life has little to teach us if we are not 
 
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 Cbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 zrazsssss sBzaganBgcg 
 
 willing to learn the meaning of our limita- 
 tions. If our standard of values is a moral 
 one, we must revise our judgment of what 
 is great and what small. We will see that 
 these petty trials and tantalizing privations 
 may be made occasions for growth in grace 
 and in gracious life. They become part 
 of the divine appointment of our life. 
 These experiences may be to us not only 
 means of God's education for us, but even 
 sacraments of His love. That is at least 
 the religious answer, that there may be a 
 blessing even in the dreary day, and 
 some fruit to be gathered from the most 
 untoward experience. When we believe 
 that we are in the will of God, a thing 
 ceases to be merely hard luck and becomes 
 a heroic occasion. A disappointment 
 changes from a grief into a glory, when it 
 is seen to be an appointment of God. It 
 is a school of discipline and an altar of 
 sacrifice. Everything depends on our 
 essential view of life, and that in turn 
 28 
 
i^^^N^^Zg^ 
 
 Cbe 6ospel of Comfort 
 
 depends on our view of God. The Chris- 
 tian life is not a matter of great and small. 
 It becomes consistent and all of a piece, 
 when it is seen in the light of faith. And 
 the Christian answer to all need or trial of 
 whatever sort is simply this : " Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, 
 which loved us and gave us eternal comfort 
 and good hope through grace, comfort your 
 hearts and stablish them in every good 
 work and word." 
 
 The only dignified alternative to faith 
 in God as the source of comfort is the 
 stoical attitude. The world can sometimes 
 meet suffering with defiance or resignation, 
 can refuse to bend even though it must 
 break, can speak of the unconquerable soul 
 even in the keenest pain or the deepest 
 grief. Of a piece with this is the com- 
 mon advice to bury sorrow in the presence 
 of duty, and to brace oneself up for the 
 stern realities of life. There is a great and 
 blessed truth in this, that some comfort 
 
 29 
 
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 Gbe Gospel of Comfort 
 i iffi rVAW raj&X wa ft 
 
 comes to the man who turns from the 
 thought of grief to daily duty. It is used 
 wrongly when it is done bitterly or faith- 
 lessly, as an opiate to deaden pain and for- 
 get thought, as 
 
 The sad mechanic exercise 
 like dull narcotics numbing pain. 
 
 It is a true word when duty is the fruit of 
 faith, when men are established in every 
 good work and word through the comfort 
 of heart which comes from the sense of 
 God's presence. 
 
 It might be thought, then, that here we 
 have the true nepenthe, the cup of com- 
 fort to drown all sorrow. It might be 
 thought that we can do without the com- 
 fort of heart of religion, the eternal com- 
 fort and good hope through grace, if we 
 can only by some means stablish ourselves 
 in every good work. We might do with- 
 out religion, and turn with defiance or res- 
 3° 
 
 gka MsM 
 
■■^SKO^JE 
 
 Gbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 ignation according to our temperament to 
 what we know to be daily duty. The 
 writer of Ecclesiastes came to this in one 
 of his moods. Somewhat cynically he had 
 been pursuing a train of thought suggested 
 by death. He saw that without religious 
 faith in a future life death levels man with 
 the animal, however higher in faculty and 
 intellect he may stand above the animal in 
 life. Here at least, when they alike turn 
 to dust, " a man has no preeminence over 
 a beast." It is an argument of despair 
 pointing to the futility of the high thoughts 
 and high hopes of men, yet it is the only 
 possible conclusion from such materialism 
 as for the moment is contemplated by the 
 writer. " That which befalleth the sons 
 of men befalleth beasts ; as the one dieth, 
 so dieth the other." The lesson to be 
 drawn by a wise man is the lesson drawn 
 ever from similar philosophy, that of a 
 careful and prudent epicureanism with a 
 stoic touch in it : " Wherefore I perceive 
 3 1 
 
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 Che Gospel of Comfort 
 fiu'i ivXv>V raWA lYs ssi 
 
 that there is nothing better than that a man 
 should rejoice in his own works, for that 
 is his portion." He does not recommend 
 a wild and reckless grasp at what sources 
 of enjoyment are afforded by our short life. 
 That defeats itself, only shortens the time, 
 and fills it with ennui and disgust. The 
 best way is to seek the calmer happiness 
 got from the simpler sources of human life, 
 and among them the enjoyment of healthy 
 labour, not worrying too much with the 
 malady of thought, but accepting the good 
 of the common lot of man, finding some 
 content and joy in his own works. 
 
 We do not need to examine the poverty 
 of such a scheme of life, and the weakness 
 of such a foundation, to show that ma- 
 terialism of creed in the long run means 
 materialism of life, and that there is noth- 
 ing to keep it from being of the grossest 
 form. But accepting the undoubted truth 
 that serious occupation is a source of hap- 
 piness and of comfort, we may well ask if 
 
 32 
 
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 MM 
 
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 Cbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 work itself can insure happiness and as- 
 suage grief. If so, it is strange that such 
 a simple secret should be so often missed, 
 and strange that even the workers them- 
 selves should seek to escape from it to 
 what they imagine the better lot of idle- 
 ness. The fact is that work itself does 
 not bring happiness. Without it happiness 
 is impossible, but alone it brings weariness 
 and a sense of futility. The writer of Ec- 
 clesiastes himself again and again speaks 
 of its vanity. " What profit hath he that 
 worketh in that wherein he laboureth ? " 
 As a matter of fact no wise man can be 
 satisfied with his own work, to say nothing 
 of its satisfying his life. The man who 
 looks complacently on what he does has a 
 very meagre standard of excellence. Even 
 if it satisfied his needs of outward activity, 
 there remains the whole region of his in- 
 ward life. If that be left, it is only a coun- 
 sel of despair to recommend ceaseless in- 
 dustry to fill up the void. There will 
 33 
 
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^^^y^y. -^^ 
 
 Cbe Gospel of Comfort 
 
 zazz^SBSs zazagc asi 
 
 creep in the haunting doubt as to whether 
 it is worth while going on merely as a 
 machine. We need to feel that our work 
 is worth doing, that it is accomplishing 
 something, and that in following the line 
 of duty we are also in line with something 
 bigger. We need to have our activities 
 related to the larger life of the world, and 
 faith alone does this. It turns work into 
 duty, giving it a secure motive. It relates 
 our life to God, and makes us sure in sim- 
 ple trust that neither He nor the laws of 
 our nature will play us false. The twin 
 secrets of the source of happiness and 
 peace are faith and duty — simple faith in 
 God, in His love and justice, and simple 
 duty whose motive is in that loving faith. 
 
 The weakness of thinking that we can 
 find surcease of sorrow without finding 
 any inward comfort is seen when we think 
 of those who cannot work, or whose work 
 is distasteful by temperament. What, for 
 34 
 
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 Xshz Gospel of Comfort 
 
 mggasg zzzzzznsss 
 
 example, of the man struck down by 
 weakness, as must happen some time to 
 all ? What about the bitterness of being laid 
 aside, and no longer able to work, when 
 the loom must stop though the web be 
 but half finished ? It is all very well to 
 speak of the relief which work brings to 
 sorrow, how a man can forget grief in his 
 labour, and it is true that it staunches the 
 wound for the time at least. To the man 
 who faces duty bravely, and will not give 
 in to self- repining, the doing of duty does 
 bring some repose of soul. But what 
 when a man is cut off" from his interests 
 and occupations, and loses the happiness 
 which he found in activity ? The sick 
 man is held in a chain which he cannot 
 break, and if there was nothing else in 
 his life but the surface happiness brought 
 by his ways of employing himself, then 
 he is indeed to be pitied. If we say that 
 whatever befalls there will always remain 
 the joy of performing natural duty, the 
 35 
 
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^■^ywvg!^ 
 
 Gbt Gospel of Comfort 
 
 angg^ss rfVAw>m 
 
 peace and content of doing something, 
 and that should suffice, even that refuge 
 will be taken from us. Somewhere on 
 the road of life we will be met by some 
 calamity or weakness, when we, too, will 
 be stricken like the strongest. It may be 
 early or late — early, as with Romanes, cut 
 off in the midst of his busy scientific 
 work, to review again the whole founda- 
 tions of faith and life ; or like Amiel, to 
 whom the terror of the invalid life was 
 that it meant an end of everything but 
 waiting, and whose pitiful cry on his 
 death-bed was, " I cannot work " — or it 
 may be late, as with Carlyle, the last years 
 of whose life were darkened by the loss 
 of the power of writing, and to whom 
 idleness was misery. Come it must and 
 will, in some form or other, and we dis- 
 cover that our scheme of life has only 
 been a makeshift, and that it turns to dust 
 and ashes like other less worthy ends. 
 We are driven relentlessly back on God 
 36 
 
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 Cbe 6o*o«i of Comfort 
 
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 As years go on, and the sadness of life 
 comes home to us, we feel that we get 
 comfort and strength nowhere else but in 
 the reality of God and in a simple trust 
 in Christ's " Hereafter." It is like a strong 
 hand in the dark to believe that God our 
 Father loved us and gave us eternal com- 
 fort and good hope through grace. That 
 is the infallible way of finding comfort 
 for our hearts and stablishing them in 
 every good work and word. The only 
 way to make peace secure, and to save our 
 work from futility and our lives from van- 
 ity, is the way of faith. Without faith in 
 God and God's love and God's future for 
 us, there cannot be for us any true and 
 permanent comfort. Without it, we are 
 open at every turn to any shock of chance 
 and to every alarm of fate. But with 
 such faith we can lift up our burden with 
 serenity, and perform our tasks with peace, 
 and find joy in our work, looking upon it 
 simply and sweetly as service. And if, 
 37 
 
 i\imiiiU*iMm^MijJ^ 
 
and when, the very worst comes when all 
 our activities are taken from us, we are 
 not robbed of everything ; nay, we are 
 robbed of nothing ; for our life is hid with 
 Christ in God. True faith expands for 
 every fresh need, and when the need comes 
 the comfort comes also, and out of weak- 
 ness men are made strong. When we are 
 oppressed by the burden and overwhelmed 
 by the spectacle of human misery, we 
 must learn that there is a deeper thing than 
 happiness, and that is peace ; and eternal 
 peace is only to be had in communion 
 with the eternal God. 
 
THE first duty of man is not to 
 find reasons but to find facts. 
 If we ever find a reason, it is an 
 after-thought, the result of the after-look 
 over the field of ascertained facts. The 
 great thing is to learn, and submit to, the 
 laws of life and the actual conditions un- 
 der which we exist. Often there is a sat- 
 isfaction of the heart, when there is no 
 satisfaction of the reason. We live all 
 the time in the presence of mystery — and 
 yet we contrive to live. We are not al- 
 ways dealing with ultimate issues, but 
 mostly are content to find a practical way 
 out of our present difficulty, and to clear 
 enough space in which to walk. Still, it 
 is the part of candour and also of courage 
 to acknowledge the actual situation, even 
 when it involves mystery. 
 4i 
 
 ragaaaa 
 
^^^^•^ss ^ ^^^ 
 
 Zhz flfter-Look 
 
 The fact of the world's evil is one that 
 has always oppressed the human mind. 
 It sometimes presses sorer on youth than 
 on age, on youth with its warm eager 
 sympathies, its keen sensibilities, its un- 
 regulated enthusiasm on behalf of the 
 world. It certainly presses sorer on faith 
 than on unfaith; for unbelief can give it 
 up in despair or swallow its difficulty with 
 some flippant theory, but faith has to rec- 
 oncile its certain convictions of God with 
 the facts of life. 
 
 It presses sorer in relation to the out- 
 ward society, the world around us, than it 
 does even in the individual life. If mine 
 were the only sorrow, if mine were the 
 only pain, the problem would not hang 
 with such a dread weight. I can some- 
 times see glimmerings of a light through 
 the darkness : I can sometimes understand 
 some reason and mayhap unbare even a 
 cause : I can sometimes feel the touch of 
 a leading hand : and when I cannot see I 
 
 42 
 
ZU After-Look 
 
 ZZZZESSSS522 
 
 nvrra 
 
 can trust, and where I can do neither I 
 can bear. But to see a world in agony ; 
 to look back and trace the groaning and 
 travailing through the years; to look 
 around and mark sorrow in the droop of a 
 head and hear pain in the tones of a voice ; 
 to know that our case is the world's case 
 — that is the hugeness of the problem. 
 
 What is the meaning and is there any 
 meaning ? Is it that sin must not go un- 
 punished, as the hard dogmatist explains 
 it ? If so, the avenger is surely blind that 
 his unblunted darts should strike and 
 shiver in such unexpected marks. Ig- 
 norance finds no mercy, and innocence no 
 reprieve. History records countless ex- 
 amples where the sin of one man was paid 
 for by the blood of multitudes. We see 
 the innocent suffer with and for the guilty : 
 we see one man drag down many others in 
 his ruin : we see blameless lives helping to 
 pay out the price paid for the folly and sin 
 of others : we see a nation brought to 
 
 im^^i^^ni 
 
^^^S^^ ^^^J^ ^ 
 
 Zht After-Lock 
 
 shame by the ambition and selfishness of 
 its rulers. There are inherited defects and 
 miseries that cannot be justified by such a 
 cut-and-dry explanation. Little children 
 begin life with dreadful disability, infected 
 by evil example if not with an evil taint of 
 blood, and hampered by an evil environ- 
 ment. 
 
 Is it all a game of chance, a blind whirl 
 of atoms, as the hard materialist some- 
 times explains it ? That is to make life 
 like a Parisian barricade in the days of the 
 Revolution, with bombs shot in the air 
 over the seething crowd, letting them 
 strike whom and where they may. The 
 normal civic life would cease in a per- 
 petual state of siege, and the normal hu- 
 man life could hardly be expected to per- 
 form its functions in such a beleaguered 
 condition. The world has never found 
 comfort in this explanation, never even 
 found forgetfulness there. There lies de- 
 spair, and the heart of man rejects the 
 
 44 
 
 mmm* 
 
 Mmmjt 
 
Zh* After-Look 
 
 gospel of despair. Better a dread avenger 
 than a dead force : better the creed of the 
 religious dogmatist than that of the scien- 
 tific dogmatist : better a blind faith than a 
 callous fatalism : better a reign of terror 
 than no reign at all ! 
 
 The problem may be insoluble from the 
 speculative point of view, yet it is one 
 that a theistic explanation of the universe 
 must meet fairly. If God be all that is 
 claimed for Him, what about the almost 
 intolerable suffering of the world ? They 
 are the old alternatives — from a surface 
 view of the physical evil and the moral evil 
 either God is not all-powerful, or He is 
 not all-loving. To force this antithesis to 
 a logical conclusion men have painted the 
 evils in darkest colours, have shown na- 
 ture " red in tooth and claw," have en- 
 larged on the misery of mankind, have 
 described a world void of meaning and of 
 purpose, seeing nothing in history but a 
 track of blood, hearing nothing but a 
 45 
 
*thz Jfftcr-Look 
 
 nnzss^a *j>jjj*\\\k\l 
 
 shriek of pain. They tell us that they 
 would not make a dog suffer what God 
 makes man suffer. The argument is to 
 drive us to blank infidelity. 
 
 Well, we are justified in carrying the war 
 into the enemies' territory and asking what 
 they propose for the desperate situation they 
 depict. If it be all true and if there be to a 
 candid mind nothing but suffering in the 
 world, what do they suggest except a wild 
 protest against life and a fierce denial of 
 God ? If I know pain, there is little miti- 
 gation of pain in merely hearing another 
 curse. What aid can this negation of hope 
 give us, what strength can this doctrine of 
 despair bring us to help us carry our load ? 
 It is as true as ever that to be without God 
 is to be without hope in the world. If 
 there be nothing that we can call purpose 
 in the universe and if that purpose be not 
 loving, if there be no soul of good work- 
 ing in and through things evil, there can be 
 no real comfort even possible. The only 
 46 
 
 kiiiia^yfe^^j 
 
Zhe After-Look 
 7;rj aTCCcv -»stusa iTiu 
 
 chance for us lies in something that will 
 help us to believe in a reasonable universe, 
 and that will help us to fall into line with 
 it. We can at least welcome whatever 
 gives us hope and courage in the desperate 
 plight. Of course if a man is willing to 
 go the length of acting on the complete 
 conclusion of pessimism, which makes the 
 extinction of mankind the solution, we at 
 least escape the added problem of his 
 prating. 
 
 There are some important things to say 
 concerning this doleful picture of the world 
 which pessimism paints. The first is that 
 the picture is out of perspective. The im- 
 pression of unmitigated evil and accumu- 
 lated pain is produced by a selective process. 
 It is not the ordinary world as we each 
 know it, even at its worst. Nature is not 
 all and only cruel and implacable, and 
 grinding out results from causes, heedless 
 of what is broken and torn. Nor is she 
 47 
 
all and only red in tooth and claw. There 
 is a wonderfully healing ministry in nature, 
 a magic by which she covers scars and 
 medicates wounds. Even in the matter 
 of human pleasures and pains, the picture 
 is unfair and untrue. Most men trust 
 their instinct which convinces them that 
 life for them is good. In their sanest and 
 healthiest moods they feel sure that it was 
 worth living. Most men will admit, even 
 in the question of the relative amount of 
 pleasure and pain, that pleasure has far out- 
 weighed the other. Pain is a constant fac- 
 tor in life, but it is not the predominant 
 factor. We cannot hold the balance with 
 steady and unbiassed hand when we try to 
 settle this question about our own lives. 
 At the time a little evil of the day will 
 make all the good of all the years kick the 
 beam, so heavily does it weigh down the 
 scales in its own interest. 
 
 The lack of the true perspective in the 
 picture which pessimism paints is due to a 
 48 
 
^^v^safey^gg 
 
 Zhz HfUr-Look 
 
 Eoazsssg r//<wA\\v s 
 
 sentimentalism which does not take ac- 
 count of all the facts. It is due to gen- 
 eralizing in the mass from a single experi- 
 ence, or even without experience. Robert 
 Louis Stevenson, who suffered much from 
 sickness and weakness, writes in one of his 
 letters, " That which we suffer ourselves 
 has no longer the same air of monstrous 
 injustice and wanton cruelty that suffering ' 
 wears when we see it in the case of others. 
 So we begin gradually to see that things are 
 not black but have their strange compensa- 
 tions j and when they draw towards their 
 worst the idea of death is like a bed to lie 
 on. I should bear false witness if I did 
 not declare life happy." To speak of 
 suffering being wantonly inflicted is to fail 
 to understand the kind of world we live in, 
 as if it were the sport of caprice or of 
 partiality. 
 
 The second answer to be made to this 
 indictment of the world and this denial of 
 God is the further fact that the worst evils 
 49 
 
 ESS 
 
 gs==* 
 
 ^ 
 
Zhe After-Look 
 
 zrazsssss: ^aamss 
 
 of life are man-made. The troubles hard- 
 est to bear are those produced by the cruelty 
 or selfishness or shame of men. There can 
 be no blinking the fact of sin as the fertile 
 mother of misery. Of course this is only 
 to introduce a darker problem still, but the 
 acknowledgment of this fact at least points 
 the way to duty, and relieves the pressure 
 of the impeachment of God. Out of the 
 corrupt heart of man proceed the evils 
 which make so much human life a hell. 
 Malice and hatred and greed and lust and 
 selfishness bring sorrow on countless thou- 
 sands. Men defile the innocent, oppress 
 the weak, torture the sensitive. 
 
 This can at least be said with emphasis 
 that such facts are a trumpet-call to duty, 
 and point the way to a high task. If much 
 of the pain of the world is due to man's 
 inhumanity to man, there is open to every 
 feeling heart and to every willing soul a 
 sphere of service to alleviate evil condi- 
 tions and to chain the beast in man. What 
 5° 
 
if^xvy^^f 
 
 Zhz flfter-Lock 
 
 Eg2zsaag8a sazzangg 
 
 can be nobler than to bring solace to the 
 world's woes and relieve the pressure 
 somewhere ? This very ideal only comes 
 to us through religion, and religion alone 
 can supply the adequate motive, and so 
 only in religion can we ever approach an 
 explanation. To reject the religious hope, 
 on the score that the fact of evil makes 
 belief in God impossible, is not to alleviate 
 the evil in the slightest, but to refuse the 
 one chance of relief. 
 
 A third fact to take account of is that 
 while suffering has always been a great 
 difficulty in accepting a benevolent and 
 moral government of the world, it seems 
 to be a condition of sentient life. Life in 
 the only form in which we know it could 
 not be, were this element left out. The 
 possibility of pain is inherent in the animal 
 organism, if only in the shape of the re- 
 current wants. The pains of want are 
 explained by the part they play. As 
 Martineau puts it, " Hunger, thirst, fa- 
 5i 
 
 M^JMM 
 
^wym^^i 
 
 ^hc After-Look 
 
 y^vw 1 Aawysmuit 
 
 tigue serve not only as heralds punctually 
 to announce a need, but as guides and in- 
 centives to supply it. This class of pain 
 is strictly self-corrective, and reacts into 
 the corresponding pleasures. The tired 
 animal sleeps, the thirsty drinks, the shiver- 
 ing creeps into shelter, the threatened flies 
 or stands on its guard." Thus, some of 
 the pain of life is necessary to keep life 
 going. Its effect on the whole is seen to 
 be beneficent, if life is worth while. 
 
 Further, when we come to the region 
 of human life something follows from the 
 fact that man's place is exalted. It is 
 perilous in proportion that it is exalted. 
 He possesses the glorious and dangerous 
 gift of freedom, the power of choice with 
 the chance of mistake and the inevitable 
 responsibility. Freedom of will seems 
 necessary for moral life, and so danger is 
 bound up in the very nature of man. 
 Huxley in one of his addresses said that if 
 any being offered to wind him up like a 
 52 
 
g^SryfrffflggS: 
 
 Zht flfter-Look 
 
 clock so that he should always do the right 
 and think the true, he would close with 
 the offer and make no mourning for the 
 loss of his moral freedom. This is typical 
 of his fine spirit with his passionate love 
 of all right and truth, but the idea presents 
 a contradiction in terms. In a mechanical 
 world where we were all wound up like 
 clocks, and unlike the clocks we know 
 could not go wrong, there could not be 
 morals at all, and the passionate longing 
 for righteousness and truth would be im- 
 possible, and Huxley's own brave and true 
 life could never have been lived. 
 
 This also has to be said that it seems 
 to be true that " the mark of rank in na- 
 ture is capacity for pain." From man 
 downward in a descending scale this ca- 
 pacity lessens, till it evidently reaches a 
 vanishing point when we come to the cold- 
 blooded types of life. If man is the great 
 pain-bearer of the world, it is because of his 
 higher organism, and because his higher type 
 S3 
 
 n^±m 
 
^^**5^Ng« gre^ 
 
 Zhe flfter-Look 
 
 jjjj^waj*, fjMVAWmf 
 
 of life presupposes it. It is the very con- 
 dition which makes his higher pleasures pos- 
 sible. There is needed a background, and 
 contrasts seem necessary for the full enjoy- 
 ment of life as well as for the artistic repre- 
 sentation of life. A diet all honey soon 
 cloys : a garden all roses loses distinction. 
 Even the rose has a thorn at her throat. 
 A world all laid out in Dutch gardening, 
 without the grandeur of the hills and the 
 waste of the seas, would pall. A life all 
 sunshine would not content us for long. 
 We need the shadows, and the clouds, and 
 the twilight, and the dark, even to appre- 
 ciate the light. 
 
 When our greatest artists reconstruct 
 human life for us in drama or romance, 
 they are forced to make use of the darker 
 side, the crisis and the tragedy, the ob- 
 structions and privations and pains that 
 we think only maim life. They could not 
 make even a readable book or a tolerable 
 play without them. It may be stated as a 
 
 54. 
 
^^SSS5^^ 
 
 Zhe flfter~Lo©k 
 
 z^gssasss «f^j»mB fla 
 
 » — * — ■» >>, 
 
 canon of art that a predetermined end is 
 fatal to the living interest of a book, which 
 is one of the reasons why a novel written 
 for a purpose is seldom great. The char- 
 acters must be more than puppets, and 
 must produce in the reader a sense of free- 
 dom, which means struggle and the chance 
 of failure. There never was a work of art 
 produced by man in which pain and sorrow 
 were kept out. The authors not only 
 accept the ordinary disabilities of life, but 
 artificially make loads of other trouble and 
 pain for their creatures. What straits the 
 heroes and heroines have to meet, and what 
 deep waters they must pass through ! If 
 pain be an unmitigated evil, it is remarkable 
 that when man gets a chance to create an 
 ideal life and an ideal world, he should 
 persist in inserting such huge chunks of it. 
 Why should our highest art feel com- 
 pelled to put in the shadows with such a 
 lavish hand ? It is not merely that art 
 copies nature, and seeks to give a tran- 
 
 55 
 
 imaa^ s 
 
 Msmm 
 
^^^^^g^^^ 
 
 Zbc After-Look 
 tiff, rsvwft" 'faWA mLa 
 
 script from life. The authors do it because 
 they must, if only to make their book in- 
 teresting, and to give a sphere for the de- 
 velopment of character and for the play of 
 human faculties. The inevitable conse- 
 quence from the gift of freedom is the 
 very evil, which is the puzzle that has at- 
 tracted and baffled the human mind for ages. 
 
 When we have said all, the puzzle re- 
 mains. The after-look enables us to see 
 light at this point and at that, but we find 
 no single formula that explains the prob- 
 lem. It is easy to quote comforting 
 texts, and generally cover the sore. It 
 is easy to hide the difficulty in sound- 
 ing language about the philosophy of 
 sorrow. There is no philosophy of sor- 
 row. Our little plummet cannot sound 
 the unfathomable depths of the mystery. 
 In the presence of a great grief, our prov- 
 erbs and our logic-chopping seem poor 
 work. Try as we like, we cannot squeeze 
 
 relpiSiiiljglll 
 
Hf^K^-^ ^^^ l M 
 
 Zht flfter-Look 
 
 all the facts into any statement. We can 
 only reach out through the darkness, and 
 lay hold on the faith that alone makes life 
 rational. We often begin at the wrong 
 end, and think we need to explain things 
 before comfort is possible. That is not 
 the method of religion. It makes for the 
 mountain top, and looking back into the 
 valley can see some of the way trav- 
 ersed and some of the reason for it, and 
 enters into peace. 
 
 But we can often get a solution for our 
 personal and particular problem. Though 
 we cannot explain the mystery of the 
 world, we can often see light into the 
 mystery of our own life. This personal 
 explanation comes from the after-look into 
 our own experience. Oscar Wilde in his 
 prosperity, when he was a dandy and a 
 mere phrase-monger, had said that there 
 is enough suffering in one narrow London 
 lane to show that God did not love man. 
 Then, when he had suffered his dreadful 
 
 .57 
 
 ^^^m 
 
 mm&M 
 
i^^zr^s 
 
 ^^^s^ 
 
 Zhe flftcr-Look 
 
 shame and punishment, branded with the 
 world's infamy, he wrote in De Profundi!, 
 " It seems to me that love of some kind is 
 the only possible explanation of the extra- 
 ordinary amount of suffering that there is 
 in the world. I cannot conceive of any 
 other explanation. I am convinced that 
 there is no other, and that if the world has 
 indeed as I have said been built of sorrow 
 it has been built by the hands of love, be- 
 cause in no other way could the soul of 
 man, for whom the world was made, reach 
 the full stature of its perfection. Pleasure 
 for the beautiful body, but pain for the 
 beautiful soul." 
 
 It is never the Christian view that pain 
 and sorrow are good in themselves, or that 
 pain can expiate sin, or please God. But it 
 is the Christian view that everything that 
 happens in life to a believing man can be 
 used for the highest spiritual purposes, so 
 that even pain can be glorified, and sorrow 
 
 <smmig£ 
 
 £& 
 
 58 
 
 mmm 
 
^^53^^^S2 
 
 Zhe After-Look 
 
 sanctified. If we believe that God's provi- 
 dence is over all our lives, that God's grace 
 never leaves us, that God's love walks with 
 us through this great wilderness, we cannot 
 cut off a section of our life, as if it were 
 out of His ken and had no lesson for us. 
 The root principle of the Christian view 
 is that life is a discipline, by which the di- 
 vine love moulds human life, and through 
 which men are trained to be sons of God. 
 We may never get a complete explanation 
 of the mystery of pain, but better than find- 
 ing a speculative solution, it is to learn the 
 right spirit in which all discipline should 
 be met. That is the spirit of faith, not 
 blind faith in that of which we have no 
 experience, but faith which is built on the 
 experience we already possess of the love 
 and the justice of God. The after-look 
 suggests and gives ground for the fore- 
 look. 
 
 Take tribulation by itself, and it is a 
 hideous discord, a thing against which hu- 
 59 
 
Zbe After-Look 
 
 /i m^ A S Ja Ji /VWWMtlWft 
 
 man nature revolts. Yet when it has 
 come and gone, we look back and some- 
 times see a track of light. " No chasten- 
 ing for the present seemeth to be joyous, 
 but grievous ; nevertheless afterwards it 
 yieldeth the peaceful fruit of righteousness 
 unto them that are exercised thereby." 
 To judge it at the time is to misjudge it. 
 It cannot be understood by itself. Look- 
 ing back we see that the sore sorrow of the 
 past which blinded us at the time did not 
 go for nothing, that the loss which left us 
 so poor carried another sort of riches in 
 its bosom ; that the tears which darkened 
 the world for us washed away some stain 
 from brain and heart; that the clouds 
 which obscured the noonday of life 
 grouped themselves at even for a golden 
 sunset ; that the pruner's cruel knife that 
 left branches torn and bleeding made fruit 
 possible in the autumn ; that the disap- 
 pointment which killed hope and seemed 
 to stop the pulse of life made life after- 
 60 
 
 ™ ^wMsa^gr^ 
 
i^^^VS^<! k^^lM 
 
 Zh* After-Look 
 
 wards a sweet and solemn sacrament ; that 
 the open grave which seemed to us the 
 end of all things really opened to us the 
 gates of a larger life. The pathos and 
 soft beauty of that after-look ! We do 
 not altogether understand even then, but 
 we see enough to make us willing to be 
 patient and to wait. 
 
 Looking into the great darkness of the 
 problem we can see now one side and now 
 another of the answer which comes out of 
 the depths. At least we see how the 
 great mystery can be made to play a part 
 in the training of character. It may be 
 that we learned the meaning of sin, which 
 before was disregarded or lightly regarded, 
 till the chastening opened our eyes ; so 
 that now we know what the Psalmist 
 meant when he said, "Before I was 
 afflicted, I went astray, but now have I 
 kept Thy word," or at least tried to keep 
 it. Or it may be that we learned the les- 
 son of faith, when through the chastening 
 61 
 
Zhe After-Look 
 
 K2Z2Z3SS5SS AflWrVMI\E B 
 
 we gave up our self-conceit and self-trust- 
 ing and saw into the deeper meaning of 
 life. Or it may be that we learned the 
 lesson of sympathy, when our proud will 
 was broken and our selfish ambition was 
 curbed, and ever since we have touched 
 all life with a gentler hand and looked at 
 it with softer eyes. It may be that pain 
 was as the dogs that drove us like sheep 
 to the fold when the wilderness threatened 
 to devour us ; that the law of God which 
 is the only law of life became our law, and 
 our stubborn feet were driven into the way 
 of peace ; so -that at least after many a 
 wandering we make the Psalmist's word 
 ours, and confess, " It is good for me that 
 I have been afflicted, that I might learn 
 Thy statutes." Welcome the chastening 
 which at last can take that after-look. 
 
 There is thus no one formula to explain 
 tribulation. It comes with its separate 
 colour to each, and with its individual les- 
 son. The present look is never joyous 
 62 
 
Zhz flfter-Look 
 
 / a a sasas azaza mus 
 
 but grievous to all ; but what the after-look 
 will be depends on each heart and how it 
 has accepted the discipline. How it will 
 seem afterwards is determined by how the 
 present is received. The fruit that will 
 afterwards be yielded depends on the pres- 
 ent operations. We have our proverbs 
 about the uses of adversity, but every- 
 thing depends on how it is used. Adver- 
 sity in itself is not good, any more than it 
 is joyous, and may lead to a more grievous 
 state than itself. The bitterness of the 
 chastening may pass into peace, or may 
 leave a cancered wound on the mind. 
 The shock of the storm may end in a 
 deeper calm where the ship of life rides 
 securely, or in a battered wreck strewing 
 the shores. Sorrow may bring the lesson 
 of sympathy, or only bring a more hid- 
 eous selfishness. Affliction may make the 
 heart tender, or shut it up in cold despair 
 or proud disdain. The fire may melt and 
 purify, or it may harden. Chastisement 
 63 
 
 effl^ 
 
 mmm 
 
may bring a loathing of sin, or drive to a 
 more eager and reckless abandonment in 
 sin. The pain of life, its pathos and its 
 mystery, may lead us to God, or it may 
 stiffen the haughty neck and harden the 
 proud heart. Mere suffering, unsanctified 
 to the soul that suffers is a curse, and not 
 a blessing. The furnace that does not 
 purify only consumes the heart. Only 
 the man who has come through the hard 
 experience can say what it has meant to 
 him afterwards. If he has used his expe- 
 rience in a noble fashion, it will have left 
 its beautiful mark on his character ; but if 
 not, there is no failure like the failure of 
 this " afterwards." To have tasted the 
 pain without the love that underlay it ; to 
 have been only hardened by every stroke 
 on the anvil, to have the chastening with- 
 out the lesson, the sorrow without the 
 softening, the cross without the Christ, 
 what failure can be like that failure ? 
 When we open our heart to the lesson 
 64 
 
 ^z^a 
 
that life has a meaning and a meaning for 
 good, that the moral world is governed by 
 purpose and a purpose of love, we are 
 willing to learn obedience by the things 
 we suffer. When we bend to God's will, 
 it becomes beautiful and even easy. 
 Everything we experience speaks to us of 
 a Father's heart. In this mood of faith 
 we will come through the strife into peace. 
 In this mood of faith discipline will yield 
 to us the fruit of righteousness. We will 
 not completely solve the mystery of pain, 
 and will perhaps have no better philosophy 
 of sorrow than before ; but we will have 
 reached for our own life a personal solu- 
 tion, and will see it to be the solution of 
 faith, saving us from the sordidness of the 
 present, and from the despair of the fu- 
 ture. We will look forward with hope 
 and confidence, because our life is placed 
 in the hands of God, sure that though our 
 present experience is not joyous but griev- 
 ous, yet afterwards we will see it to be 
 6 5 
 
^sazz^s^ ^ 
 
 Zhz Bftcr-Look 
 
 ncEmigg zaag i\\\ sab 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 good, and see it to be the fruit of love. 
 Afterwards, when the mists clear away, 
 and we see back over the way by which 
 we have come, the glory dies not, and the 
 grief is past. 
 
 " Now, there are certain great angels 
 which meet us in the way of life : — Pain 
 is one ; Failure is one ; Shame is one. 
 Pain looks us full in the eyes, and we must 
 wrestle with him before he bless us. Fail- 
 ure brings in his stern hand the peace of 
 renunciation. Shame bears to us the sense 
 of sin, which is the knowledge of God ; 
 His hidden face shines with the mercy of 
 heaven — and well for us if we may look 
 into it." 
 
 66 
 
 ig^^^ ^teiama 
 
These are the minds that glory in the battle, 
 And leap and dance to hear the trumpet sound. 
 — William Blake. 
 
 i 
 
IF there be a moral end in human 
 life, one purpose served by trial is to 
 produce and strengthen and purify 
 character. Robert Browning declared that 
 there was nothing worth study but the 
 incidents in the development of a soul. 
 Perhaps that is why he, for one, found it 
 easy to provide a place in his view of the 
 world for pain and evil. The struggle 
 was necessary for the high end of charac- 
 ter, and was justified by the end. What- 
 ever will further development and growth 
 is sufficiently explained by its practical 
 value. Growth is seen to be a much 
 bigger thing than merely getting rid of 
 weaknesses and lopping off excrescences. 
 It is a process by which the tissue and 
 fibre of character are built up and hardened 
 and strengthened. If the world is to man 
 69 
 

 Crial as Discipline 
 
 an arena of moral training, and if life is a 
 great opportunity for becoming, then we 
 have already one simple need for some of 
 the evils of life as mere discipline. It is 
 not a complete explanation of tribulation 
 of all sorts, but it is a partial explanation, 
 and so far as it goes we should understand 
 it and accept it. It is not sufficient in 
 itself to explain the function of suffering 
 in human life, but it is undoubtedly a place 
 where we do see some light. 
 
 First of all, men do need to be tested and 
 tried. In ordinary experience we accept 
 this point of view and realize the value of 
 a test. Professions of friendship are not 
 accepted by us as of much account, if they 
 are never able to bear any sort of test. 
 Literature is full of stories of fair-weather 
 friends who profess unlimited affection 
 when no demand is made upon it, and who 
 turn the cold shoulder when the sun ceases 
 to shine. As a bridge is tested before it is 
 accepted for use, so moral qualities need to 
 
 70 
 
 mgmm® 
 
 Sg^iO 
 
sssszz^ ^^ 
 
 ?>rial as Discipline 
 fifti ftisv w" >*ifiW miiis 
 
 be able to bear the strain. Now, apart from 
 anything deeper, the world itself seems ar- 
 ranged for discipline. All that we call 
 tribulation, pain and sorrow, and trouble, 
 and care, certainly play this part, whatever 
 other design may be in them. There is 
 what the proverb calls " the reproof of 
 life " designed to test life, of what stuff it 
 is made. The test of the shallow ground 
 with no depth of earth comes when it is 
 seen that the plants are all scorched and 
 wither away. The same test comes to 
 the good ground, and the seed in it only 
 grows to greater richness and fruit. It is 
 well to remember then that trial of some 
 kind is necessary, and is designed not to 
 make us break under it, but to prove that 
 we do not break. 
 
 This value of trial as a test is accepted 
 in the whole history of religion. St. Paul 
 could write to the Philippians, " Unto you 
 it is given in the behalf of Christ not only 
 to believe on Him, but also to suffer for 
 7i 
 
 g^^ ^^M, 
 
His sake." It was a time when it meant 
 something to believe in Christ. The time 
 of the great systematic persecutions had 
 not yet come, because Christianity was not 
 a big enough thing to attract the attention 
 of government. When it grew strong 
 enough in numbers and influence to be a 
 factor in the social and political life of the 
 people, it became time for the state to strike 
 at it officially. There was as yet no or- 
 ganized and concerted scheme to stamp it 
 out. But though there were no wholesale 
 official persecutions the Church was never 
 without its trials and hardships. The 
 early literature shows very simply some of 
 these. It had to contend against the 
 ignorance and brutal injustice of the mob, 
 and against the cynical opposition and 
 sneering insolence of the ruling class and 
 the learned class. It had to make its way 
 against established customs and ingrained 
 prejudices. There were vested rights and 
 privileged monopolies in trades and pro- 
 72 
 
Ws^VE^^a^N^ 
 
 Crial as Discipline 
 r;rjj aroaiy j amu raw* 
 
 fessions. All that malice and envy and 
 hatred could do was done. Often persecu- 
 tion was none the less bitter because it was 
 unofficial and local, rather than over the 
 whole Empire. 
 
 Besides physical violence which often 
 was their portion, we can understand some 
 of the hardships involved in making the 
 Christian profession. It meant the loss of 
 all social position, and often the breaking of 
 family ties. Ambition, political and pro- 
 fessional, had to die in the soul of a 
 would-be Christian. We surely have 
 enough insight and historical perspective 
 to realize, however vaguely, some of the 
 inevitable sufferings which converts had to 
 face. The learning of the schools was of 
 course against this new faith ; the wisdom 
 of ages denounced it ; philosophers sneered 
 and priests raged. It was an innovation 
 if nothing else, and the world has always 
 some stones to throw at innovators. The 
 world can always find some tender place in 
 
^^^yxsgj^^^g^ 
 
 Criat &s Discipline 
 
 a man's heart where it can strike and hurt 
 unto death. 
 
 Every man who has tried to be true 
 knows something of the need for endur- 
 ance and has experienced the testing proc- 
 ess. It is always easier to go with the 
 crowd, easier to give up the agony of con- 
 flict with a sin of self and the necessity of 
 protest against the sin of the world. We 
 all know some of the hundred and one 
 temptations to conform with all estab- 
 lished ways and thoughts, and have felt 
 some of the hundred and one influences 
 which militate against high principle. In 
 a profounder sense than outside enmity a 
 man has always to suffer for his faith. He 
 cannot believe truly and intensely without 
 pain. Faith is not a surface emotion, but 
 goes to the very roots of existence and 
 brings the upheaval of a life. It is not an 
 opinion received ready-made. It touches 
 the centre of the heart and works out in 
 strenuous life. Virtue has to go out of a 
 74 
 

 Crial as Discipline 
 
 man who lives the life of faith above the 
 level of his environment. He is quite 
 prepared to accept the need and the value 
 of a test. 
 
 Even in our surface worldly-wise opin- 
 ions, which float lightly on the stream of 
 thought, we admit much of this. We ad- 
 mit that the test of faith in anything is 
 willingness to suffer. The test of courage 
 is when a real occasion calls for it. The 
 test of patriotism is readiness to make sac- 
 rifice for country. Lukewarm adherence 
 to a party or a cause is a source of weak- 
 ness. All the fighting has to be done by 
 men of other mould. When victory in 
 anything is assured, there are plenty brazen 
 throats to scream hallelujah and brazen 
 brows seeking to be crowned by the 
 laurels of triumph. The faith which costs 
 nothing is worth nothing. It does not go 
 deep enough. Some men, as the Scottish 
 proverb goes, will put their hand twice to 
 their bonnet for once to their pouch. It 
 
 &MXa^& 
 
does not cost much to salute a man or a 
 scheme. The test of all manner of devo- 
 tion must be practical. The lady in the 
 age of chivalry set her knight-errant to do 
 some difficult task which he accomplished 
 for love of her or died in the attempt. 
 The principle is right, though the applica- 
 tions were often absurd. 
 
 This testing process, approved even by 
 worldly wisdom to measure the value of 
 any man's adhesion to a cause, is one to 
 which life itself must submit. The higher 
 our conception is of the inherent worth of 
 life, the more are we willing to admit the 
 place of this element. If we are per- 
 suaded that nothing can compare with the 
 incidents in the development of a soul, we 
 can see a meaning in much that is called 
 tribulation. What the tribulation is that 
 comes to test every soul, only that soul 
 knows, but that some trial of it comes is 
 certain. Somewhere and somehow the 
 gold is tried in the furnace. Somewhere 
 76 
 
 jks^M^am 
 
^ssse^^^ 
 
 £rial as Discipline 
 
 and somehow faith is tried by life. Where 
 the soil is good, the hot sun quickens the 
 seed and stings the plant into growth. 
 Where there is no deepness of earth the 
 hot sun scorches the plant and withers it 
 away. 
 
 Though this element does not explain 
 all tribulation, we must at least see its use 
 and its necessity. Even pain, which is 
 such a terror to a soft and luxurious age, 
 has some meaning from this point of view. 
 If there is any moral purpose of discipline 
 in the world, then we must accept this 
 value of tribulation. Life is at least, 
 whatever else, an arena of moral struggle 
 where we are called on to play the man, 
 and the opportunities of trial that come 
 have at least this meaning in them. Sol- 
 diers are meant not merely for parade but 
 for battle. " Endure hardness as a good 
 soldier of Jesus Christ " is an appeal to 
 which the high heart responds, and sees in 
 it some meaning. Indeed this is ever the 
 77 
 
Crial &s Discipline ] I Q 
 
 ggg ^V^v V-vT^yyyrnV^ 
 
 method of the faith. Jesus always ap- 
 pealed to something of the heroic. He 
 made no disciples by guile, and allured no 
 man to Himself by soft promises. The 
 shadow of a cross lies athwart all His 
 teaching. He points to effort, and con- 
 flict, and suffering. He called men to fol- 
 low Him, though He had no place to lay 
 His head, daring them to believe on Him, 
 daring them to suffer for His sake. That 
 is how He catches men. Suffering may 
 be said to be the badge of the tribe. 
 Ananias was sent to Saul in Damascus 
 with this promise to the blinded and 
 stricken man, " I will show him how 
 great things he must suffer for my name's 
 sake." If Paul had been of the type that 
 stumbles when tribulation or persecution 
 ariseth, he could never have been used for 
 the church or the world. A staff that bends 
 and breaks, when weight is put on it, is 
 useless for support. 
 
 There is more to be said about the na- 
 78 
 
 rw 
 
ssszs^ss 
 
 Crial &s Discipline 
 
 ture of trial than that it is a test. The 
 strain is not put merely to see who will 
 stand and who will fail. We see this 
 further use in it, that it is not merely to 
 try good but to increase good. Strength 
 comes through the strain. " The bruising 
 flails of God's corrections " are meant to 
 thresh out the useless chafF, and give value 
 to the wheat. Tribulation is not trial merely 
 but discipline, an occasion for growth, to 
 deepen faith and enrich life. The first 
 fresh rapture has to be transmuted into 
 the crowning quality of endurance. Dis- 
 cipline is not exhausted either by the 
 thought of punishment or by the thought 
 of testing, but is itself a means of giving 
 power. There comes the new strength of 
 a surrendered life, gaining in power and in 
 beauty. 
 
 In fact we see that this is the process by 
 
 which religion itself became more spiritual 
 
 — through tribulation. We see it in the 
 
 history of Israel from the discipline of the 
 
 79 
 
fek^xnr^ssF&stfffi, 
 
 Crial &s Discipline 
 
 desert to the discipline of the exile. 
 Many Psalms are an expression of a faith 
 disciplined into patience, the faith of a 
 race who have seen their hopes and 
 earthly loves go down to the grave, but 
 who have seen the dawning of a larger 
 hope and a purer love. We see again and 
 again faith rising from the tomb, purified 
 by adversity, barren of human hope, but 
 luminous with the light of God's presence. 
 It is not without meaning that there came 
 a great outburst of sacred song after the 
 exile, when faith saw deeper into itself and 
 learned from tribulation to cling all the 
 closer to God. It is something for us to 
 lay firm hold of this fact that what we 
 look upon as tribulation hardly to be 
 borne has meaning and purpose, and is 
 designed not that we should fail in the test 
 and stumble because of the darkness, but 
 that we should stand, and indeed gather new 
 strength from the strain, and step into fuller 
 light after the passage through the cloud. 
 80 
 
£rial As Discipline 
 
 This is the right point of view from 
 which to consider the whole question of 
 temptation. It is not all a hideous evil, 
 or the Apostle's word would be astounding 
 irony when he called on his readers to 
 count it all joy when they fall into di- 
 verse temptations. Few of us, it may be, 
 are built in such heroic mould that we can 
 give a joyous welcome to the trials of our 
 life, and most of us have sad cause to 
 dread being tempted much. Our souls 
 carry scars of ugly wounds, and there are 
 gaping strains which show where the lines 
 of weakness ran. But many of us have 
 been taught enough to know now that 
 temptation is not all evil, and though our 
 joy is chastened and almost silent for very 
 shame, yet we can humbly add our testi- 
 mony to the value of trial. Tempta- 
 tion to begin with is really a colourless 
 word, and can be used of an experience 
 that may end either well or ill. This is 
 because there is an element of mere trial 
 81 
 
 &mm^ M$>bMmimi 
 
£rial as Discipline 
 
 in it, being put to the proof and tested. 
 When a piece of work is tested it is not 
 done with an evil purpose. It is not done 
 in the hope that it may fail, still less is it 
 done in order to make it fail, but to prove that 
 it does not fail. It means something, when 
 it comes out with the stamp of approval. 
 
 If this were all, if it were merely a 
 sort of experiment or for the satisfaction 
 of finding out who stood and who failed, 
 temptation could not be morally justified. 
 It is a cruel experiment to cause needless 
 pain and danger and run foolish risks. 
 So, temptation is not a barren experiment 
 but a source of good. It is not only test- 
 ing, it is also training. It is more than a 
 proving of faith, it is a discipline of char- 
 acter. Trial means the opportunity for 
 rising, and carries with it the danger of 
 falling. The power to resist is got through 
 resisting, as an oak cannot be grown in a 
 hothouse but out on the hillside where it 
 must meet the blasts and gather strength 
 82 
 

 ?»rial as Discipline 
 
 through the strain. The fighting fibre is 
 developed in the fight. The blade is 
 tempered in the fire. The capacity to rise 
 comes from the effort to rise. Discipline 
 is more than an examination to test the 
 stuff of which we are made, but also pro- 
 vides the occasion for straining and 
 strengthening the moral thews and sinews. 
 Strength comes through the strain. Only 
 when the fibre is hard and close can a really 
 strong, enduring character be cut. Temp- 
 tation is the pressure of the lower on the 
 higher, the constant desire to take the 
 easy way, to give in to the clamant de- 
 mand for low satisfaction. That is the 
 environment for developing moral life, 
 and until the evil is admitted and the low 
 demands conceded there is no sin. The real 
 evil is not to be traced to untoward circum- 
 stances, but to our own appetite and sinful 
 desire. If we were menaced by no danger 
 and tried by no temptation, there could be 
 no growth, as our own hearts inform us. 
 83 
 
 gn^rty^mfi 
 
^^^■<Ng « ^5Fg^ 
 
 Criat &s Discipline 
 
 To take this whole point of view, how- 
 ever, we must have learned to look below 
 the surface of things, and must have a 
 conception of life which sees its end to be 
 not happiness but character. The world 
 is a refining pot to produce pure ore, and 
 life is a school of discipline to make true 
 men. Life is emptied of any moral sig- 
 nificance if this element of discipline be 
 denied. A great London doctor received 
 a visit from a professional man who com- 
 plained of depression and asserted that he 
 could not do his work without the con- 
 stant use of stimulants. The doctor who 
 saw the danger forbade the resort to stimu- 
 lants at any cost and when the patient de- 
 clared that he must surely sink, he replied, 
 "Then sink like a man." Many a time 
 in the straits what we need is bracing and 
 not pampering, and our common servile 
 creed that we must give way in the line 
 of least resistance needs to be branded as 
 the unworthy thing it is. There is always 
 84 
 
 Mmmgi 
 
 SgSMS 
 
W^x^ySS^v^^^ 
 
 Criat as Discipline 
 
 azzazzsaaa a^^mns 
 
 another way than the craven way of escape, 
 and in the dark hour faith assures a man 
 that he can win out, or at least can put up 
 a manly fight. 
 
 Very often another name for faith is 
 courage. In its heart of hearts all the 
 world loves courage, as it loves a lover, 
 the courage to face life which is often far 
 greater than the courage to face death. It 
 is much when a man has learned to keep a 
 stiff upper lip, and has seen that one pur- 
 pose of his life's discipline is to teach en- 
 durance. Our hearts leap to the trumpet- 
 sound, and we will always grant value to 
 the soldier's ideal, to fight the fight man- 
 fully and go on with the task and duty of 
 life bravely. There is an old English 
 ballad in which a wounded captain rallies 
 his soldiers to further struggle, 
 
 Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew said, 
 A little I'm hurt but not yet slain, 
 I'll just lie down and bleed a while, 
 And then I'll rise and fight again ! 
 
 85 
 
^^aBASR S SggSS^jg 
 
 £rial as Discipline 
 
 nzzzaasa mwa\\\wj™ s ?t 
 
 Often to others than soldiers this ideal of 
 life has in it a touch of nobility. Dumas 
 puts into the mouth of his favourite char- 
 acter, D'Artagnan, when age seems creep- 
 ing on him, that the recollection of what 
 he has done as a soldier prevents him from 
 bowing his old head too soon. " I shall 
 remain until the very end a good trooper ; 
 and when my turn comes I shall fall per- 
 fectly straight, all in a heap." The man 
 to whom he is represented saying this had 
 been the greatest man in France next the 
 King, and was now facing disgrace, and 
 poverty, and prison, if not death. "An 
 excellent homily," he said after a moment's 
 pause. " A soldier's homily," replied 
 D'Artagnan. 
 
 This stoical philosophy has produced 
 some real heroism in practical life. To 
 see a thing out to the end however hard it 
 may be, to die in harness, to run the course 
 pluckily to a finish even though the prize 
 is lost, to stick at the task manfully and 
 86 
 
 %^^^ ^^mmm& 
 
^S^S^^^^J 
 
 £rial &s Discipline 
 
 go through with it, that temper will always 
 command admiration. Courage is a great 
 moral quality, not the common courage of 
 dash and excitement, but the courage of a 
 long-sustained effort. In the matter of 
 living and carrying on its duties through 
 sunshine or storm, through success or fail- 
 ure, courage is only another name for 
 faithfulness. 
 
 The Christian virtue of faithfulness is 
 the Stoic virtue of courage with deeper 
 roots to it and finer flower. In the great 
 review it is not the kind of work that 
 counts, but the spirit of the worker, not 
 the number of the gifts, but the use of 
 them. Life is judged according to the 
 quality of faithfulness contained in it. 
 The servant with the two gifts had the 
 same welcoming word as the servant with 
 five or ten. The Christian virtue of faith- 
 fulness has a deeper root than the Stoic 
 virtue of courage ; for its motive is much 
 nobler than to " die game," its motive is 
 87 
 
zzzrz&ir^ fz^ 
 
 Criat as Discipline 
 r;rj; Vi:Cv\v -jiraaa uutcoL-A 
 
 to live as becometh a child of God v 
 set to his task by his heavenly Father, 
 and so called to walk worthy of his 
 great vocation. Because of this deeper 
 root the Christian virtue has a finer 
 flower. It shows itself not only in un- 
 bending endurance against ill-doing, but 
 also in unwearied perseverance in well- 
 doing. 
 
 We should respond a little more eagerly 
 to the appeal life makes to the heroic in 
 us. It is only proof of the shallowness of 
 our nature that we are so easily dispirited 
 and make such a moan about our hard lot. 
 If the plough make deep furrows, it will 
 make it possible for the seed to have root, 
 and grow till it bears fruit. We have too 
 surface a view of life, if we shrink from 
 discipline and are so soon tempted to give 
 up. We are too ready to judge life by 
 what we can get from it and not by what 
 we can give it. We say that the enemy 
 is too hard to dislodge, a besetting sin in 
 88 
 
 ra^t^& 
 

 Crial as Discipline 
 
 J nil aSa&SC > i>iy>i iVil sg 
 
 our own lives is too stubborn, a rampant 
 evil in our community is too deeply rooted, 
 the beautiful kingdom of heaven of our 
 dream is quite beyond us, something in 
 the clouds. We need some iron in our 
 blood, and need to face the strain to gather 
 strength. We need to be braced to the 
 conflict again and to endure not for a 
 while merely but so long as the conflict 
 lasts. When the tired prophet sought to 
 give up his hard task and thought it too 
 much that he should be pitted against the 
 persecution which he knew, he was told 
 for answer that he would have more to 
 bear. He was only braced for harder 
 tasks. The answer to his complaint 
 against the hardness of his lot is an asser- 
 tion that it shall be harder yet, " If thou 
 hast run with the footmen and they have 
 wearied thee, then how canst thou con- 
 tend with horses ? " God appeals to his 
 strength and not to his weakness. He is 
 taught the need of endurance, and sent 
 89 
 
 ¥MmM®gM ktmmm 
 
*!*MS*a<gxzG*iA 
 
 "Crlal as Discipline 
 
 m//fssy>v'i aazzzdm naa 
 
 out to his harder task with a new resolu- 
 tion. It is ever so. Lacordaire said that 
 the Church was born crucified, and cer- 
 tainly the word to the suffering Church 
 was, " He that endureth to the end shall 
 be saved." When we have caught sight 
 of God's presence with us and believe 
 that He has a purpose for us, we be- 
 come sure that we can endure to the 
 end. Never a soul is tried above what it 
 can bear. 
 
 The prophetic interpretation of national 
 history finds a value in adversity and dis- 
 tress, to save the soul from being smoth- 
 ered by sense, and to give stiffening for the 
 large needs of life. Nations simple in 
 manners and sweet in morals grip the 
 world by inherent right. Pure at the 
 heart and clean in the blood, they come 
 from their particular desert with the stamp 
 of superiority on them. Success is thei» 
 danger. New ropes cannot shackle Sam 
 90 
 
 mm2&t aM >i®&mmM 
 
^22Z2S^^ 
 
 £rial &s Discipline 
 
 V/rswv. aggggg 
 
 son, but he can be bound by Delilah's 
 silken tresses. The great oriental empires, 
 Assyria and Babylon and Persia, European 
 empires like Rome and Spain, took their 
 rightful place of ascendancy through toil 
 and struggle ; then rotted at the heart, 
 smothered by success, and shrivelled at a 
 touch of God's east wind. Plutarch in 
 his life of Alexander the Great describes 
 how he and his Macedonian troops be- 
 came lax and flaccid amid the wealth and 
 riot made possible by their wonderful vic- 
 tories. Alexander himself from the ex- 
 treme temperance and control of his youth 
 became self-indulgent, was sometimes al- 
 most mad with wine, and died of a 
 carousal. The once hardy soldiers be- 
 came dissolute and riotous, and the huge 
 fabric of his empire crumbled down into 
 dust. 
 
 It is not needful to pile up illustration 
 of what is the plain reading of history 
 writ on its open face of 
 
XSStfflfc 
 
 £rial as Discipline 
 
 What makes a nation great and keeps it so, 
 What ruins kingdoms and lays cities flat. 
 
 The lesson is for the reading of the na- 
 tions. The prophetic picture of Jeshurun 
 waxing fat and sleek and then forsaking 
 God is one for warning of all peoples. 
 When we have a glut of wealth in our 
 midst and our fleets are in every sea, when 
 we are rich and increased in goods, when 
 we lift our head in the pride of possession, 
 when we are made to ride on the high 
 places of the earth and eat the world's in- 
 crease, then is the very time to beware. 
 These things are not our guarantee for 
 continued existence. What strength 
 abroad can make up for weakness at 
 home ? When it becomes increasingly 
 difficult for men to live true, honest, and 
 pure lives, when the heart of the people 
 turns feverishly after the love of money 
 or the love of enjoyment, when the simple 
 pleasures are despised and the simple vir- 
 tues are dethroned and the simple duties 
 
 92 
 
 a^^oim^m^^M^ 
 

 ^rial as Discipline 
 
 are neglected, when we leave God out of 
 account in all our calculations and politics 
 and business and diplomacy, then it is 
 time to beware lest we are weighed in the 
 balance and found wanting. Only right- 
 eousness exalteth a nation, justice at home 
 and mercy abroad. That is the unchang- 
 ing law of God. 
 
 In the individual life the same truth is 
 seen that the temptation is greatest where 
 the danger seems least. There is a place 
 for the desert in all our lives. It is hard 
 doctrine, but it is true. It is because it is 
 hard that our eyes can be so easily blinded. 
 The keenest test of a man comes when 
 he has attained. The struggle to attain 
 keeps him strong, but the line of least 
 resistance soon shows itself in success. 
 Pride, self-sufficiency, sloth, discontent, 
 and a score of possibilities emerge, kissed 
 into being by the sunshine of fortune. 
 Bacon in his succinct fashion says, " The 
 virtue of prosperity is temperance, the 
 93 
 
■^^^^s^s^^^^z^^ 
 
 £rial &s Discipline 1 M^ 
 
 virtue of adversity is fortitude. Prosperity 
 doth best discover vice, but adversity doth 
 best discover virtue." We know that 
 there is a success which is failure. This 
 thought of the danger of prosperity in 
 either corrupting a man's heart or making 
 him lose his head is common enough to 
 have inspired proverbs. Put a beggar on 
 horseback, and if he does not ride to the 
 devil he deserves the horse. We even 
 believe, with Shakespeare, that there are 
 some sweet uses in adversity. We all 
 know men who have been spoiled by suc- 
 cess, and men who have been made great 
 by failure. God's dearest saints we have 
 sometimes found among His sufferers, sweet 
 souls whose bruising emits fragrance. 
 We know the moral as well as the story 
 of the lotus eaters. We perhaps see that 
 there is temptation in both extremes, in 
 adversity to curse God and die, in pros- 
 perity to forget God and live. 
 
 In spite of all this knowledge, is not 
 94 
 

 Crial aus Discipline 
 jjTij volca - iZtjsA ui nsa 
 
 our ideal of life coloured by the lotus 
 eaters' dream ? Ease, and comfort, and 
 security of tenure, absence of anxiety and 
 care, these things we look forward to as 
 the end. If we are honest with ourselves, 
 we will confess that we have needed all 
 the shocks and lessons, all the experiences 
 that we see to have been providences, 
 everything that brings us up and opens 
 our eyes to fact. The sleek life, which 
 we prize so much, may contain for us the 
 greatest danger. To be compassed about, 
 and cared for, and sheltered from every 
 wind, and with every material blessing 
 poured upon us, may be the very undoing 
 of our true selves. Better God's east 
 wind which kills or cures, which brings 
 us in touch with realities however tragic, 
 which reminds us that this world has only 
 meaning as somehow a school of discipline 
 and not as an isle of the lotus. Better 
 God's east wind with its lessons of life 
 and death than the sickly sweetness 
 95 
 
 jte^ & M aaj^™ 
 
^^^V^Sg ^S^i^ 
 
 Grial as Discipline 
 
 az^ssBSsa «vtf*wiiivg Hb 
 
 which deprives life of its outlook into 
 
 eternity. 
 
 We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws 
 To which the triumph of all good is given 
 High sacrifice, and labour without pause 
 Even to the death. 
 
No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace 
 As I have seen in one autumnal face. 
 
 — Donne. 
 
TRIAL has not done its perfect 
 work in merely building up a 
 virile and strong character. 
 There is a further effect in producing 
 fineness of quality, as the potter puts his 
 finest work on the delicate chasing of the 
 vessel after the actual making of it is 
 completed. The stone from the quarry 
 needs to be hewn and chiselled and shaped, 
 its surface smoothed, its rough edges re- 
 moved. The marks of the chisel are on 
 it as it finds its destined place in the 
 building. If men are to be used as liv- 
 ing stones in the great temple of human 
 lives, the great Master-builder must shape 
 them to fit His world-purpose. Character 
 can bear shaping and refining as well as 
 strengthening ; and this is one of the uses 
 to which affliction has often been put. 
 99 
 
 '^±±m 
 
 mmMM 
 
^rial Pw Purity I IP) 
 
 »a**a\\f. >awA\\\w& 
 
 Some of the words to express the pain of 
 life indicate this purifying quality. One 
 of them is the word tribulation, from 
 the Latin tribulum, which was an in- 
 strument made of a block with iron teeth 
 stuck in it and used for threshing grain. 
 Naturally, the process of separating the 
 chaff from the wheat was made a vivid 
 metaphor for a state of suffering or trial 
 to thresh human life. It has been a com- 
 mon experience that affliction can be used 
 to purify life, cleansing motives, and ele- 
 vating ambitions, separating the unworthy 
 from the worthy as grain is winnowed 
 from its impurities. 
 
 Another common figure likens judg- 
 ment to the smelting of impure ore. In 
 smelting, the ore is treated in a furnace 
 to separate the metals. The last process 
 through which it passes is refining, getting 
 rid of the last traces of the materials asso- 
 ciated with the particular metal which it 
 is desired to have pure. This figure is 
 
SS2S^^2^ 
 
 &i&l Por Purity 
 
 used as one of the common explanations, 
 which the Old Testament gives for the 
 whole problem of suffering. In a dirge 
 over the moral and spiritual decay of 
 Jerusalem, Isaiah speaks of the need of 
 judgment to restore it to a pure state 
 again, " I will turn my hand upon thee, 
 and throughly purge away thy dross, and 
 will take away all thy alloy." Part of the 
 moral power of the Old Testament lies 
 in the fact that it always seeks to connect 
 punishment with sin. It is not in itself 
 a sufficient explanation, as the writers 
 themselves are forced to admit, since there 
 are in the world so many instances which 
 seem to prove that justice is blind of an 
 eye and lame of a foot. All the ground is 
 by no means covered when we say that it 
 is well with the righteous, and that the 
 unrighteous must learn through pain that 
 God hates sin. It does not explain a 
 tithe of the mystery ; for one of the most 
 evident facts is that suffering comes very 
 
 gMm^M^ggm 
 
^rial For Purity 
 
 ZZQZSSSSS JVfdWUU gBSfal 
 
 often to those who do not seem to need it, 
 and that the wicked are seen to prosper. 
 This is the great problem of the book of 
 Job and some of the finest Psalms; and 
 it has been a problem ever since. 
 
 It is an instinct with us that we live in 
 a moral universe, and if so, some suffer- 
 ing can be explained as one of the whole- 
 some sanctions of law. The fact that 
 suffering is related to sin is a safeguard, as 
 physical pain is often a warning against 
 disease, a danger signal of which a wise 
 man will take note. Nature makes a 
 fairly plain path, and hedges it with pen- 
 alties. The first view of life takes it as 
 natural that favour should be shown to good 
 and enmity to evil. It may be too surface 
 a view of the way in which the world is 
 governed, and by itself it would certainly 
 be an unspiritual conception of life ; for if 
 goodness is to be judged by outward pros- 
 perity it would often be as a flower which 
 grows in a night and which the first breeze 
 
 &M^^ 
 
 ^a^o 
 
^rial for Purity 
 
 of adversity would wither. It would not 
 be the highest motive to be good if we could 
 only say about it that it brings prosperity. 
 Still, so far as it goes the argument is co- 
 gent enough, that men should see that it 
 does not pay to do evil. It is an instinct 
 of our heart to believe this, and if the 
 world is governed in a moral way, essen- 
 tially we are right in looking for happy re- 
 sults to the good man. 
 
 Our whole human society is regu- 
 lated by ourselves on this basis. We 
 make it at least one function of punish- 
 ment to deter from breaking law. There 
 may be an element of retribution in our 
 legal punishments, to assert the offended 
 majesty of the law, but as a social function 
 perhaps the chief idea in our punishments 
 is preventive. We remember the judge's 
 dictum when he passed the sentence of capi- 
 tal punishment on a horse stealer, " You 
 are to be hanged by the neck, not for stealing 
 horses, but that horses may not be stolen." 
 103 
 
 Ennm 
 
 mzmm 
 
* J55S 
 
 ZriaX F*r Purity 
 
 i iff. ATCCCyV ViJlfrli iVtfrct! 
 
 If punishment were looked upon merely 
 as a device to protect society, to frighten 
 other people from committing the same 
 faults, it would be a purely selfish scheme 
 which would deserve failure. The failure 
 of our laws here only suggests that we need 
 deeper sanctions for morality than such ex- 
 ternal ones as that honesty is the best pol- 
 icy. Even if facts did prove that it does 
 not pay to do evil, it would not be a suffi- 
 cient ground for true morality. It would 
 only be a kind of prudence. 
 
 A man cannot be called a good man in 
 any real sense unless his life is regulated 
 by principles within. He is not really 
 righteous, until he would not put forth his 
 hand to iniquity whatever the consequen- 
 ces. Even although the moral world 
 seemed topsyturvy, he has that within 
 him which refuses to let him be moved. 
 Hope of reward and fear of punishment 
 are motives on a low plane. They are 
 probably necessary in the education of the 
 104 
 
 mmm sMkiMmm 
 
^f^V^^ ^^JH^ 
 
 &*ial For Purity 
 
 race and of the individual, but they are at 
 best only rudimentary morality. They 
 are like leading strings to teach a child to 
 walk, or like stakes to support a young 
 tree, to be taken away when the tree be- 
 comes self-sufficient. The child has not 
 learned to walk, till he can do without the 
 leading strings. The tree may be the 
 better of the stakes at first, but they are not 
 part of its life, and it would be a sickly 
 plant if it could not do without them. 
 Our laws may have to appeal to some ex- 
 tent to the motive of prudence, but a man 
 cannot be called good if he merely refrains 
 from evil from fear of the policeman. Be- 
 fore what he does, or abstains from doing, 
 can be called moral it must correspond to 
 an inward judgment of right. It must be 
 more than blind obedience to a rule, and 
 more than a decision on the ground of 
 what is likely to pay best. If we ruled 
 our conduct only so as to keep out of 
 prison, it would be a misuse of language to 
 i°5 
 
 'cimm i ^ ^mmM^. 
 
^ial fiwPurity 
 
 call it goodness. The true root of duty is 
 inward conformity to conscience, conform- 
 ity to a standard set up in a man's own 
 soul. 
 
 All history and all experience seem de- 
 signed to drive us to this deeper level. 
 Israel learned through exile and tribulation 
 that goodness is not to be judged by ex- 
 ternal prosperity. Religion itself was 
 spiritualized by the hard process, until 
 faith came as pure gold twice refined out 
 of the furnace. The deepening of faith 
 went on, until in Christ the very cross it- 
 self was made the sign of the highest 
 triumph. With that object-lesson before 
 us we can never again base morality on 
 mere prudence. In the light of the cross 
 an apostle could see that men might suffer 
 according to the will of God, and he 
 could call upon all such to commit the 
 keeping of their souls to Him in well-do- 
 ing. In the light of the cross also we see 
 how chastening itself may be the fruit of 
 1 06 
 
£rial for Parity 
 
 nzzzzssaaa zazzamss 
 
 the deepest love. God's purpose in sancti- 
 fication is seen to be so high and so great 
 that it justifies any means. "Those He 
 means to make the most resplendent, He 
 hath oftenest His tools upon." 
 
 The element of correction and chastise- 
 ment contains meaning and value for us. 
 All that we need for humble acceptance of 
 it, and for comfort in it, is to be sure that 
 it is directed by both justice and love. 
 The matter of justice is usually fairly clear 
 to us, since we can easily see where we 
 needed the curb or the spur, but only faith 
 can convince us that chastening is also the 
 fruit of love. The author of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, like all the New Testa- 
 ment writers, makes much of endurance 
 and the need for patience under trial. The 
 early Christians had all the ordinary sor- 
 row which is the lot of man, with some 
 extra heart-aches and some acuter pain 
 due to their historical position. They 
 107 
 
'^^^^^ ^^^zM 
 
 £rial P*r Purity 
 
 would often ask why, if God loved them, 
 they should be called on to suffer. They 
 must have asked, as all men are some time 
 driven to ask, what is the meaning of the 
 chastenings, the strokes that seem struck 
 by blind fate, the shocks on the heart, the 
 disillusionment and failure and pain of life. 
 They would feel, as every brave man has 
 felt, the force of the appeal to be true and 
 steadfast, whether the reason for the suffer- 
 ing is ever explained or not. 
 
 In that Epistle the first appeal is to the 
 stubborn heroism of which man is capable, 
 and we never can escape the force of that. 
 When we read the sublime chapter on the 
 heroes of faith who subdued kingdoms, 
 wrought righteousness, escaped the edge 
 of the sword, out of weakness were made 
 strong, and of those who had trial of cruel 
 mockings and scourgings, of bonds and 
 imprisonments, who were stoned, sawn 
 asunder, being destitute, afflicted, tor- 
 mented, of whom the world was not 
 1 08 
 
TotriaX for Purity 
 
 Z2S5^^^^ 
 
 worthy, the generous blood rushes to the 
 head with the proud thought that men 
 had shown such strength of soul, and with 
 the eager emulous hope that we might not 
 prove unworthy of such a lineage. The 
 author points to these as a great cloud of 
 witnesses, the noble dead who look for sim- 
 ilar triumphs in the noble living. As the 
 climax of that argument he points them to 
 Jesus their Lord, who endured the cross 
 and despised the shame. Lest they should 
 be weary and faint in their minds he asks 
 them to consider how patiently their Mas- 
 ter endured such contradiction of sinners 
 against Himself. 
 
 Then he comes closer to the heart of 
 the mystery when he gives what is in 
 some form or other the Christian expla- 
 nation, that even when it seems like 
 chastisement it is the chastisement of 
 perfect love. The form the explanation 
 takes here is perhaps more applicable to 
 the elder patriarchal rule of families than 
 109 
 
the ordinary rule of to-day, " We have 
 had fathers of our flesh which corrected 
 us and we gave them reverence." Per- 
 haps the correction and the reverence 
 about balance each other with us. But in 
 this figure the author is careful to contrast, as 
 well as compare, God's dealings with those 
 of an earthly parent. In the latter case it 
 too often is the result of caprice or temper, 
 or at least with insufficient knowledge even 
 when there is true love at the bottom of 
 the correction. In God's case to be in 
 subjection to the Father of our spirits is 
 truly to live. It is the very sign of their 
 sonship that God should take them in 
 hand, and they can be perfectly sure that 
 nothing can happen capriciously, but out 
 of love and for their true profit. 
 
 Correction, even chastisement, may be 
 accepted as an element of the problem to 
 us ; for while it is true that we cannot al- 
 ways trace sin as the occasion of suffering, 
 yet we know that there is such a connec- 
 
 no 
 
^^^^^^^<iM 
 
 £rial Pop Purity 
 
 tion. We know this, not merely because 
 there are many surface facts which con- 
 vince us that we are in a moral world of 
 cause and effect, but also because expe- 
 rience teaches us the moral value of tribu- 
 lation. We learn that rightly viewed it 
 has some power in our own case of puri- 
 fying life. Suffering has been a cleansing 
 discipline. If the one object of life were 
 to get through the world smoothly and the 
 highest ideal were happiness, then there 
 could be nothing but evil in suffering. 
 But if the soul has wakened within us, we 
 know there is a spiritual end which may 
 justify any means however hard and pain- 
 ful. The spectacle of the wicked prosper- 
 ing and living at ease, while the righteous 
 are compassed about with sorrows, does 
 not trouble us much, when we put life 
 into spiritual perspective. The answer 
 of St. Ambrose to the question why the 
 wicked do not suffer and toil with the 
 righteous is from this point of view a good 
 
^^^^^s-^^^sM 
 
 ^ria,l pop Parity 
 
 rmi iww" 2 tfiW JTuLL 
 
 one. He illustrates this by the figure 
 common in the ancient world of the ath- 
 letic ring. They who have not put down 
 their names to strive for the crown are 
 not bound to undergo the labours of the 
 contest. They who have not gone down 
 into the arena do not anoint themselves 
 with oil nor get covered with dust. The 
 perfumed spectators merely look on, and 
 do not join in the struggle nor endure the 
 sun, the heat, the dust, and the showers. 
 If the athletes ask them to join in the 
 strife the spectators can answer that they 
 are not in for the prize and forego the 
 chance of glory. After all, it depends on 
 what a man really aims at and strives to 
 achieve. If he is only looking for an easy 
 time, he can usually avoid some of the 
 hardships of a strenuous life. There will 
 be some things concerning which he is a 
 spectator rather than a combatant. 
 
 We know from experience that there is 
 
 ggggpittimfi 
 
^^22^^^ 
 
 ^rial for Purity 
 
 truth in the partial answer that all forms 
 of distress and trouble can be used to 
 purify, and to serve noble spiritual ends. 
 It has made life more solemn and sacred 
 to many. Even as a mere correction many 
 a soul has found the value of some afflic- 
 tion in turning the heart from evil. We 
 did not know the evil, did not recognize it 
 as such, until the cleansing discipline. 
 " Before I was afflicted I went astray," 
 said the Psalmist. " It is good for me that 
 I have been afflicted that I might learn 
 Thy statutes." This is a common expe- 
 rience and is a recognized result of chasten- 
 ing. Few of us perhaps would ever have 
 known penitence, if we had not been 
 brought to humility of heart through some 
 slight, or disappointment, or trouble. We 
 have gone on in thoughtlessness or willful- 
 ness, until we have been pulled up to re- 
 view our past, and to consider our ways. 
 
 Sickness, for instance, has been to many 
 an occasion to think, a time for recollec- 
 ts 
 
 ®mS^M^mMk 
 
^^s»s^ge^T^ 
 
 <Sria1 p©r Purity 
 
 nnzzssasa sazzzrms&fa 
 
 tion, which is so much a lost art to-day in 
 the strain and hurry of modern life. Amid 
 the exacting nature of business and pleas- 
 ure, in the pressure of our social conditions 
 and the pace at which life goes, it is easy 
 to forget the things of the soul. Many a 
 man has had cause to bless the stroke that 
 snatched him from the fret and fever of the 
 world and drove him to a place of repair. 
 We live our life on the surface amid distrac- 
 tions, engrossed with outside affairs, and 
 few would take refuge under the shadow 
 of the Almighty but for the discipline that 
 compels. It is difficult, says the proverb, 
 to carry a full cup without spilling. In 
 the sunshine of constant prosperity men 
 are easily entangled in the snare of wealth ; 
 they grow arrogant and hard and self-cen- 
 tred, and the dullest eye can see how 
 much they lose. In the higher reaches 
 of the spiritual life the sweetest souls are 
 those who know and admit the value or 
 the furnace of affliction. There has been 
 114 
 
 mmg g^Mfemmmi 
 

 ^rtal pw Purity 
 
 assess zaszamsg 
 
 many a fine character which, if you took 
 out the qualities created by sorrow, would 
 lose all its beauty. 
 
 If the world be at all a sphere of moral 
 discipline and a place of training for spirit- 
 ual men, then some light is cast upon the 
 dark problem that men should be tried as 
 gold is tried. It adds to the dignity of 
 human life, and convinces us that we are 
 worth something that the Lord should turn 
 His hand upon us, and thoroughly purge 
 away our dross, and take away all the 
 alloy. This has been one of the answers 
 which religious men have always made to 
 the whole mystery of pain. Augustine 
 says, " The fire is kindled in the furnace, 
 and the refiner's furnace is a thing of high 
 mysterious meaning. There is gold there ; 
 there is chaff; there is fire working in a 
 confined space. This fire is not diverse, 
 yet its effects are diverse ; it turns chaff 
 into ashes ; from gold it takes away the 
 dross. Now those in whom God dwells 
 "5 
 
 2HSl^^^Bl!p 
 
Zria\ For Purity | ^ 
 
 are assurably made better in tribulation, 
 being proved as gold." Even hearts that 
 have suffered the most desolating sorrows 
 have been able to read some meaning in 
 their hard experience. There are blows 
 of bereavement or betrayal, from which 
 men never recover to the outward eye, and 
 yet which have been the means of their 
 learning the eternal secret. There are 
 some wounds that cannot be staunched ex- 
 cept by God. 
 
 It has always to be remembered, how- 
 ever, that trials do not in themselves 
 sanctify, but they are only the occasion 
 of sanctification. Affliction by itself can- 
 not make a man better. God works by 
 joy as well as by sorrow, and many of the 
 world's best virtues are the result of hap- 
 piness, as many of its worst sins are the 
 result of suffering. There is a kind of 
 suffering that impoverishes, and there is a 
 kind that enriches. Everything depends 
 on the way it is met, and received, and 
 116 
 
 Si^^ M^M 
 
fctty^ay^ 
 
 *Cria\ For Parity 
 
 used. It works in some men weak repin- 
 ing, or morose selfishness, or bitter envy, 
 or even wild malice. Instead of making 
 a man more gentle and tender, suffering 
 may make him desire only to see others 
 suffer also and take revenge on others for 
 his own pain. It often only brutalizes. 
 Thus we see some who have come 
 through many trials hard and relentless in 
 dealing with their unfortunate fellows. 
 Affliction may stiffen a man to sternness 
 and cruelty. If sorrow is not turned into 
 humility of heart and into a stream of ten- 
 derness to others, it will only stagnate in 
 the soul and breed bitterness against God 
 and man. 
 
 We know that lives often reach the 
 highest and best in pain, but we must 
 never harbour the idea that pain is good in 
 itself. That opens the way to nameless 
 evils, the dreadful excesses of asceticism, 
 or the callous cruelty of selfishness. 
 Mere pain, unsanctiHed to the soul that 
 117 
 

 ZriaX frr Purity 
 
 eazzcssaggg ^Mwsntrawfe i 
 
 suffers, has no value. The furnace with- 
 out this result only burns away the life 
 into a charred nothingness. We have to 
 learn obedience, and to see that God is 
 perfecting His work in us, and to accept 
 the King's highway of the Holy Cross as 
 His will for us. We need to use our 
 painful experience to leave its mark on 
 character, and accept the particular disci- 
 pline, seeking to learn its inward meaning. 
 It is nothing more than opportunity, 
 which may be seized or lost. " It may 
 be," says Jeremy Taylor, " that this may 
 be the last instance and the last opportu- 
 nity that ever God will give thee to exer- 
 cise any virtue, to do Him any service or 
 thyself any advantage. Be careful that 
 thou losest not this; for to eternal ages 
 this never shall return again." If this 
 world be a place of discipline and if God 
 have a purpose of cleansing, if He con- 
 descend to turn His hand upon us to 
 purge away the dross and take away the 
 118 
 
 R,M^ 
 
^^zzs^™s5^ 
 
 ZrisA frr Purity 
 
 alloy, then the greatest failure in all the 
 •world is that we should miss the disci- 
 pline. Or rather, worse than missing it, 
 is it to have had it and to have lost its 
 benefits, to have gone through the fire un- 
 purified, to have been made only more 
 hard and more rebellious by every stroke, 
 to have tasted the chastisement without the 
 love that directed it, to have the pain 
 without the lesson, the death of self with- 
 out the life in God. Better, however lit- 
 tle we understand, to submit humbly to 
 the rod, and to open the heart to the les- 
 son. 
 
 We can at least see that there are cer- 
 tain virtues which are produced through 
 all this painful experience of human life, 
 and that somewhere there is a meaning 
 which explains the mystery. We may 
 think that the pruning knife which cuts so 
 deep into the plant will kill it, or at least 
 maim it, and keep it from the full luxuri- 
 ance of life ; and yet every gardener knows 
 119 
 
GriaX For Purity ' WA 
 
 that the fruit is the result of the pruning, 
 and that without the knife the plant might 
 run all to leaves. The fruits of the proc- 
 ess are seen in such virtues as gentleness, 
 a new humility, patience, steadfastness of 
 soul, detachment from the world, all 
 which would have little chance of making 
 appearance apart from trial. That some 
 lessons are needed by all we readily ad- 
 mit ; for the best qualities of our nature 
 can only come to maturity by exercise. 
 A virtue or a grace cannot be given us as 
 alms are given to a beggar. If we pray 
 for humility, we must be willing to endure 
 that which produces humility — and that 
 may be humiliation. If we desire pa- 
 tience, we must consent to the means 
 which alone can create it. " Though God 
 take the sun out of heaven we must have 
 patience," said George Herbert, but the 
 very way in which this patience is pro- 
 duced is by God seeming to take the sun 
 out of heaven. It is only by repeated 
 
 ^m&m 
 
larial For Purity 
 
 -. -w - — ^ jit. 
 
 ggg <s v^ss,*- s^zza ^s ss 
 
 trial that this sweet grace is developed. 
 If we put down our name for this crown, 
 we must be willing to accept the neces- 
 sary conditions. 
 
 No virtue comes to us ready-made. 
 Montaigne begins his essay on Cruelty 
 with a sentence that brings out this truth, 
 " I fancy virtue to be something else, and 
 something more noble, than good nature 
 and the mere propensity to goodness with 
 which we are born into the world." So it 
 is with the other virtues which indeed we 
 look upon as the specific Christian virtues, 
 like gentleness and humility. They only 
 come through this very cleansing discipline 
 which is so hard to bear. If it could be 
 said of our Lord Himself that He learned 
 obedience by the things which He suf- 
 fered, we can see, though unable to un- 
 ravel the mysteries of Providence, that 
 there are things for us to learn in every 
 experience. We see that the world has 
 been too much with us, and that there is a 
 121 
 
 K^g^p 
 

 ^rial P©r Parity 
 
 higher life to which we are called, a life 
 of faith and communion, of submission to 
 God and obedience to His will. 
 
 When we take God into our life and 
 believe that His design for us is dictated 
 by love we can simply and humbly accept 
 many things as chastisement, the turning of 
 His hand upon us to purge away the dross 
 and take away all the alloy. Everything 
 depends on the spirit with which we ac- 
 cept our experience and let it speak to us 
 of God and His love. When we are sure 
 that God is turning His hand upon us, it 
 can even change a sorrow into joy. The 
 touch of the fire which we have felt is the 
 very seal of purity which He has purposed 
 for us. The weight of the blow is the 
 brand of possession, His possession of us, 
 with our life thus claimed for God, with 
 His mark on the very flesh. The sorrow 
 is changed into a sign of love. The 
 marks of struggle against sin are marks of 
 the Lord Jesus. 
 
This suggests the method of achieving 
 the high results of life's training. It is 
 the method of faith. We gain the highest 
 life not by struggling but by submitting, 
 not by contest but by obedience. It is a 
 common experience that a man does his 
 best work when he ceases to care, when 
 he gives up worrying about reputation, or 
 success, or even the quality of the work. 
 When we make submission to the disci- 
 pline, and are willing to accept the condi- 
 tions of our life, we discover that for the 
 first time we have surmounted them. It 
 does not mean retiral from the field, but 
 the acceptance of all our lot. Faith brings 
 us into line with the limitless resources of 
 the soul. We enter into peace when we 
 believe that as the earthly lights go out, it 
 is God who fills the dark. When every 
 support has gone, we make trial of the up- 
 bearing might of the eternal love, as the 
 swimmer knows, because he tests, the 
 buoyancy of the sea. We need this re- 
 123 
 
^rial For Purity 
 
 zzzesssbs gazagsasss 
 
 inforcement of power, if we are to con- 
 tinue. Our activities can look after them- 
 selves, if our life has been deepened and 
 enriched. Mere duty by itself grows irk- 
 some and vexatious and we chafe against 
 it as a restraint on liberty ; but love of 
 duty comes by the way of patient obedience. 
 
 I»4 
 
 &M^^ 
 
Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths. 
 
 — Bailey. 
 
^;^;&5 p 
 
 Sorrow and Insist 
 
 STILL another thing we learn, which 
 helps our partial explanation of the 
 great mystery, is that through it 
 there can come to the soul a new insight 
 into life. Often it has only been through 
 some sad experience that men have been 
 shown much that previously was unre- 
 garded. They learned that there is a 
 strength which is perfected in weakness, 
 and a great gain which is secured by a 
 great loss, and a joy even which is found 
 in the heart of pain. The bitter water of 
 sorrow has been a fountain of revelation to 
 many, who otherwise would have been 
 content to live on the surface of things. 
 This is true even of the possibilities of our 
 own nature. It is often when we have 
 been brought very low that we see for 
 the first time how high we can rise. Most 
 127 
 
Sorrow &nd Insigh 
 tiffi iswffcV rJu&A ftss 
 
 of us need some instrument of self-knowl- 
 edge, and when we think of the work it 
 has to do, we do not wonder that often 
 the instrument has to be a sharp one. 
 The way of tears is often the way of in- 
 sight. 
 
 In the ordinary course of prosperous life 
 the sensibilities are blunted, and the per- 
 ceptions are dimmed. Faults grow like 
 rank weeds in unfilled soil. We become 
 blind to the real persons we are, and hide 
 our true nature from ourselves. Think 
 what special pleaders we become to prove 
 how much in the right we always are. 
 We seldom face up to an honest and com- 
 plete self-investigation. We are always 
 ready with apologies for our conduct and 
 our position. Our eyes are holden that we 
 cannot see what manner of persons we are. 
 Nothing is possible to us, until we are 
 willing to recognize ourselves, and until 
 we cease deceiving ourselves. The esti- 
 mates that men obviously put on them- 
 128 
 
 im^^Mfe^mm 
 
5gM»x»S^S» a*gfr 
 
 Sorrow attd Insight 
 
 selves are laughable sometimes to the can- 
 did observer, and nothing can open their 
 eyes to the facts except a shock. 
 
 Whether we think it worth the cost or 
 not, it is a fact that sorrow rightly used 
 does give insight into one's self, as well as 
 into the larger life of the world. The 
 chastened soul gets some truer views, and 
 often emerges a truer and nobler self. 
 George Eliot says of one of her great 
 characters, " Adam Bede had not outlived 
 his sorrow — had not felt it slip from him 
 as a temporary burthen, and leave him the 
 same man again. Do any of us ? God 
 forbid. It would be a poor result of all 
 our anguish and our wrestling, if we won 
 nothing but our old selves at the end of it 
 — if we could return to the same blind 
 loves, the same self-confident blame, the 
 same light thoughts of human suffering, 
 the same feeble sense of that Unknown 
 towards which we have sent forth irre- 
 pressible cries in our loneliness. Let us 
 129 
 
Ws^^^^^W?^ 
 
 arrow &tid Insigh 
 r;r#: aTOCCa' ~> aieag raw 
 
 rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in 
 us as an indestructible force, only chang- 
 ing its form, as forces do, and passing 
 from pain into sympathy — the one poor 
 word which includes all our best insight 
 and our best love." 
 
 It is this new insight also which gives us 
 a gracious touch with other life, saving us 
 from hardness and self-absorption. In a 
 picture in Milan there is a cherub, trying 
 to feel one of the points of the crown of 
 thorns with his forefinger. There is a 
 look of childish wonder, and a lack of com- 
 prehension on the face, and yet a desire to 
 comprehend. It is a fine conception of 
 the artist. It was all a mystery to the 
 cherub, who could not be supposed to un- 
 derstand anything of the great passion of 
 the Lord. Pain is a mere word to the be- 
 ing that never felt pain. " Have you ever 
 been laid up yourself, sir ? " a young man 
 on his death-bed asked another young man 
 who visited him by way of comfort. It re- 
 130 
 
-,^^^^*^5Fg^tE 
 
 orrow and Insight 
 
 vealed a longing for exact appreciation of 
 the situation, and an instinct that true sym- 
 pathy could only come from actual knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Such hours of insight not only give in- 
 spiration to make life more worthy, but 
 also give illumination into the things of 
 real value in a human life. Through it 
 we reach clearer judgments of the past of 
 the world, as well as the present. We 
 learn that the real history of a period does 
 not consist of the great deeds and memo- 
 rable dates which historians love to chroni- 
 cle. How history has erred in its view of 
 the importance of things ! Emperors and 
 rulers and battles and the things that make 
 a splash took precedence then, but are now 
 seen to be nothing compared with things 
 weak and despised and unknown. One is 
 continually being struck by the vulgarity 
 of recorded history, the vulgarity which is 
 attracted by show and tinsel, which is 
 hide-bound by the outward, which for- 
 !3i 
 
 Mmms& 
 
 t^mmx 
 
^^^s^s ^^^zM 
 
 Sorrow and Insiglr 
 
 sakes the movements of the soul of man 
 for the movements of camps and courts. 
 Years afterwards the true history of the 
 period is discovered in some unthought-of 
 corner of life and literature. It is not 
 the contemporary historians' fault alto- 
 gether that they often fail to reflect the 
 spirit of their age. It is so easy to think 
 Ahab the king greater than Elijah the 
 prophet, so easy to consider the founding 
 of a dynasty more important than the 
 genesis of a thought. Who could be ex- 
 pected to neglect the Empire of Rome to 
 look at the kingdom of heaven which 
 cometh not with observation ? If we were 
 asked to give a list of the features of our 
 age, in most cases the lists would be of as 
 materialistic a character, even if railways 
 and electricity and turbines took the place 
 of battles and kings and nobles. When 
 the real history of our time comes to be 
 known, who can tell what silent forces and 
 unseen movements and unknown men will 
 132 
 
 Mmmek 
 
 ia^am 
 
^^S^SE^^ 
 
 Sorrow Mid Insight 
 
 nnzsssag gggsaggg 
 
 fill the pages ? All the world trembled at 
 a nod from Caesar — and the man Jesus 
 went to His cross, while a few Galileans 
 trembled at His anguish and death. All 
 Jerusalem was pricked into curiosity and 
 speculation if Pilate had but a short confer- 
 ence with Herod — and a little group of 
 humble men met in the deep dismay of 
 their Master's death, and no one was in- 
 terested but He who has confuted history 
 by bringing to nought the things which are 
 by the things which are not. When we 
 accustom ourselves to consider the things 
 that alone count, we see that history is 
 that which will illustrate or explain the 
 thoughts and feelings of the time, the 
 movements of mind and heart and soul, the 
 progress individual and social, the spiritual 
 life of the age. 
 
 It is part of this insight into the true his- 
 tory of man, that we grow in understanding 
 of the great experiences of the " cloud of 
 *33 
 
fe^^xr^s^^W^ 
 
 Sorrow and Insigb 
 
 witnesses," and grow in appreciation of 
 the great literature that comes down to us. 
 Much of the Bible is a dead letter to the 
 surface optimist. The Bible is full of sor- 
 row — the bitter cry of Rachel weeping for 
 her children and refusing to be comforted, 
 the cry of anguish over the injustice of the 
 earth, the cry of dismay as the nation of 
 promise staggered to her doom, the cry of 
 the stricken heart at the loss of faith and 
 love, the cry of penitence as the soul is con- 
 vinced of sin and righteousness and judg- 
 ment. These prophecies and psalms seem 
 too tragic, and the language sounds exag- 
 gerated. We perhaps find an aesthetic 
 pleasure in the pathetic cadence of a psalm 
 or the solemn tragedy of a prophecy. We 
 have had no experience that enables us to 
 understand that it is more than literature. 
 Until one day we know ourselves admitted 
 into the ancient fellowship of sorrow, and 
 the strong words are no longer outside of 
 our experience and no longer above our 
 J 34 
 
 '^m^i z S Mm^^^ 
 
gBggggg^ggsreggg 
 
 orrow &nd Insight 
 
 needs. We learn how the ancient word is 
 a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
 the heart. The Bible becomes the book 
 of comfort. 
 
 Luther said that he could not under- 
 stand many of the Psalms till he had been 
 afflicted. Intellectual appreciation came 
 with spiritual insight, and spiritual insight 
 was partly the fruit of sorrow born of a 
 similar experience. Rutherford declared 
 that he had found a new Bible through 
 the furnace. He had had the Bible before 
 but it became precious to him in a new 
 way. The experience is a common one. 
 When we read some of the straits through 
 which psalmists and prophets and saints 
 of old came, when we feel the throb of 
 anguish in the record left us, or even 
 when we remember times in the history of 
 the Church when the most pathetic and 
 terrible of psalms could be applied to the 
 actual situation, we are ashamed of our 
 petty troubles and sorrows. We feel 
 135 
 
 m&mm 
 
sometimes as if these psalms did not quite 
 fit our case. They are too clamant, with 
 too strident a note, and their pictures are 
 too lurid. We can hardly apply the exact 
 situation to ourselves. It is true that many 
 a time we have reason to call for help in 
 trouble. It is true that sooner or later 
 grief comes to us, and seldom can a life 
 pass without somewhere the sting of pain ; 
 in times of conviction and repentance and 
 awakening of soul we know a little of the 
 loathing of sin ; but we can hardly make 
 the whole picture our own. It may be 
 that our lot has been cast in pleasanter 
 places, as we certainly spend our days in 
 more peaceful scenes, so that the music is 
 too constantly in a minor key. Then, in 
 some hour of need we are given to know, 
 and the whole story is unsealed to us. 
 
 The fact is unquestioned that in pain 
 countless lives have reached their highest, 
 and that pain has driven a path of light 
 136 
 
 PfflM 
 
W^&a*Xga*gfrtf4% 
 
 orrow A-tid Insight, 
 iit ft fflfitV raWA mis S 
 
 into the soul. The death of a father has 
 often been a revelation to many a son, as 
 he realized that now he can no longer 
 stand behind others, but must take his 
 place in the front rank, in the firing line 
 of life. He learns something of the burden 
 the dear dead bore, and why there were fur- 
 rows channelled on the face. The death or 
 a child has sometimes been a revelation 
 to a mother, enriching and enlarging the 
 heart and giving a new tenderness because 
 a new insight. The whole nature has ex- 
 panded, and life has grown in gracious 
 beauty. Often this transformation is evi- 
 dent even to the observer, but the heart 
 itself knows more of what has been learnt 
 in God's great school. 
 
 In the personal life a disappointment or 
 privation is recognized as bringing with it 
 a new force, and the way of pain is a way 
 of insight. It comes in the very tone of 
 the voice, and the whole way of looking 
 at the world. In one of his letters, speak- 
 137 
 
*g^Myss& afr»fr<^ 
 
 Sorrow &nd 
 
 ing of what pain has taught him, R. L. 
 Stevenson says, " The rich fox-hunting 
 squire speaks with one voice, the sick man 
 of letters with another." The fox-hunt- 
 ing squire has no doubt his uses, but he 
 has his limitations. He has nothing to 
 tell us of the soul's secret and the vision 
 of the unseen. There is a simple easy 
 optimism of the untroubled life, which 
 sounds hollow to the man who knows, and 
 which is sometimes intensely irritating. 
 Till we have been driven beneath the sur- 
 face we do not know of what we are capa- 
 ble both of good and of evil, and we have 
 false views of the world and of life. There 
 are many things a man is shown, when 
 the surface calm is ruffled. The song of 
 the old harper in Wilhelm Meister moved 
 the listening Wilhelm powerfully, 
 
 Who never ate his bread in sorrow, 
 Who never spent the darksome hours 
 
 Weeping and watching for the morrow, 
 He knows ye not, ye gloomy Powers. 
 
 138 
 
^^uw>^c^ ^^B0 
 
 orrow &.nd Insight 
 
 The heart-sick plaintive sound of the 
 lament pierced deep into the soul of the 
 hearer. The avenues of his heart were 
 opened, so that old feelings were awakened 
 in him, and new claims of sympathy 
 roused. There are depths which are dis- 
 closed only to those who have paid the 
 price. All others are mere outsiders, till 
 they have been initiated into that region 
 of deeper knowledge and deeper feeling. 
 
 It is the way to ultimate peace ; for 
 there is no permanent satisfaction in the 
 mere surface life. There are men and 
 women seemingly with everything the 
 heart can wish, and yet the salt is out of 
 their life. Life is full of interests and 
 amusements : they are always doing some- 
 thing and going somewhere, but never do 
 they find rest, and never can they use their 
 rich and varied experience of happiness to 
 deepen the world's life. They have never 
 been awed by the thought that life is a 
 sacred and solemn mystery. The voice of 
 
 It x 39 * 
 
S^^^v^k^&uM 
 
 Sorrow- &nd Insight 
 
 the rich fox-hunting squire may be very 
 bright and pleasant, and it is sometimes 
 good to hear the cheerful sound of that type, 
 but it never touches chords of deep feeling 
 like such words as those of the old harper. 
 After all, the great difference among 
 men is a difference in insight and in the 
 quality of appreciation. It is a common- 
 place to say that no two men really see 
 the same scene alike. We are continually 
 receiving instances of the fact that men's 
 eyes are holden that they cannot see things 
 in their fullness. As a matter of fact we 
 do not see altogether with the eye, but 
 with the heart. So that it is futile to set 
 up faith and sight as opposites ; for faith 
 gives sight since it gives insight. Instead 
 of saying that seeing is believing, it would 
 be a deeper truth to say that believing is 
 seeing. Sight is much more than the 
 record of a self-recording optical instru- 
 ment, and the fatal mistakes are more 
 than mere errors in the instrument, errors 
 140 
 
 ^J^M^BM 
 
i^^SSZSSSSS 
 
 orrow a.nd Insight 
 
 of refraction of the light. It is not the 
 eye that sees, but we that see by means of 
 the eye, and if the mistake be in us, will 
 it not vitiate everything we see ? We only 
 see what the heart gives us the power to see. 
 
 This is so in the world of nature. If 
 some men can see in the colour and form 
 of natural objects things which are holden 
 from our eyes, we are not justified in 
 sneering and denying that they see them. 
 A naturalist uttered a great truth in the 
 remark that you must have the bird in 
 your heart before you can see it in the 
 bush. We can go through the world 
 without having cultivated the sense of 
 beauty, and even lose the gift of simple 
 enjoyment. If all our thought of the 
 earth is that objects have certain external 
 qualities, and if we have never penetrated 
 to any meaning, we are surely blind of 
 eye and need some new vision. 
 
 Some whose eyes are open to Nature, 
 to her beauty and truth, can see nothing 
 
 K| I41 
 
 Ejjgpii^lili 
 
 mgg&M 
 
orrow and Insight 
 ?',rn aXwjc t zTMtA rt two 
 
 of God in human life, in the pathos and 
 tragedy of it, the disaster which treads on 
 the heels of peace, the acts of devotion 
 which rescue humanity from the grasp of 
 selfishness, the nobility of soul which 
 overcomes the craven and the mean, the 
 possibilities which reach up to heaven and 
 reach down to hell, and the divine love 
 which works through all, giving to all 
 meaning and purpose. Or again, we 
 know how a disease of soul will corrupt 
 every sense and mar every power. There 
 is a moral obliquity of vision which can 
 even go the length of calling evil good, 
 and good evil — a terrible colour-blindness 
 of the soul, where moral distinctions are 
 obliterated and the eyes are holden that 
 they cannot see the truth. If the pain of 
 life can unseal the closed heart, it is worth 
 while being learners in the hard school. 
 
 The insight that comes through pain 
 and disappointment may be insight into 
 142 
 
^^SS2S2^^ 
 
 Sorrow and Insigh 
 
 the value of what we have. We learn to 
 see not merely the many compensations, 
 but also to see the great good in present 
 blessings. It is often the happy and pros- 
 perous man, who talks loudly and largely 
 over the misery of others, and makes large 
 judgments on the injustice of the world 
 and on the mystery of suffering. The 
 man who has tasted for himself the bitter 
 cup has often been shown something, 
 which he thinks even worth the price. 
 The outsider's partial observation leads to 
 many a shallow judgment, whereas the man 
 who has himself been through the expe- 
 rience can see something which makes him 
 even thankful that he now knows. 
 
 There is much truth in the law of com- 
 pensation, if it be a law. At any rate we 
 can grasp the opportunity which lies in 
 every seeming narrowing of opportunity, 
 and turn a loss into a gain elsewhere. There 
 is ever a way to make the most of an experi- 
 ence, like Wordsworth's Happy Warrior 
 143 
 
^^vv^y^^F 
 
 Sorrow &nd Insigb 
 
 Who doomed to go in company with pain 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain. 
 
 Men have looked their hard fate in the 
 face and determined not to be mastered by 
 it, and have found compensations of which 
 they did not dream. They were driven 
 to deeper sources for the satisfaction of 
 their needs. A young man rejoicing in 
 his strength has suddenly been crippled, 
 and in the first dismay has felt himself at 
 the end of all things, but has learned that 
 he need not be the helpless victim of his 
 calamity. It may be he has developed 
 some gifts of his nature lying dormant, 
 and has found some lasting joy in the 
 things of the mind. Perhaps the man, 
 who would have little else to show for his 
 life than a little cleverness in baseball, 
 has made himself a scholar. At any rate 
 some new appreciations and new judgments 
 of worth have become possible. 
 
 There may be a new joy in what is left, 
 144 
 
gs^gsr^gssss 
 
 Sorrow Mid Insigb 
 
 nzassagg gzzzzgs ss 
 
 learning how precious some unregarded 
 things really are. We often do not value 
 things until we have tasted the dread of 
 losing them. " Ye never ken the worth o' 
 water till the well runs dry." We accept 
 health and peace and love and service as a 
 matter of course, and for the first time we 
 learn how precious are these gifts when 
 they seem taken from us. What revela- 
 tions have come to men at sick-beds and 
 death-beds ! They never really saw what 
 the best things in life are until then. In a 
 flash of recognition they were shown some 
 of the depths of life, the pathos and mys- 
 tery and tragedy ; and if love has been 
 given back to them from the brink of the 
 grave, they know ever after how good it 
 was that they should have looked into the 
 pit. Some answers are received to many 
 a question, when suffering has been the 
 schoolmaster. The world has been richer 
 to a man ever since. The sick king, to 
 whom came the peremptory command to 
 "45 
 
 E^^m 
 
 mmaM 
 
3gg^«SAsai * Kag g * 
 
 Sorrow Mid Insight] ^yj 
 
 set his house in order and who then had a re- 
 prieve, declared that he would go softly all 
 his years and confessed his need of the 
 lesson ; for he had seen something worth 
 facing death to see, " O Lord, by these 
 things men live." 
 
 This may seem merely that we become 
 content with less, that because the sun has 
 ceased to shine we are grateful that the 
 gloom of night should be enlightened by 
 any star. Even that is worth something — 
 to learn true contentment. But there is 
 more in it than this, more than just cutting 
 our coat according to our cloth and becom- 
 ing more easily satisfied. There is a new 
 and real value given to things which before 
 were unregarded ; for a new standard has 
 come. This illuminating power of sorrow 
 has chiefly to do with the fundamental 
 basis of life, getting deeper to the true 
 sources of life, and all who have gone 
 through this school can add their own illus- 
 tration to the fact. An inscription on a 
 146 
 
 Mmi£& 
 
 mmim 
 

 Sorrow &tid Insigh 
 
 sun-dial at Santa Barbara in California 
 reads, " The light of God showeth the way 
 of life, but the shadow telleth both the 
 hour and teacheth the faith." It is the 
 shadow which marks the passage of the 
 hours, and gives distinction to the shining 
 of the sun. 
 
 The profoundest lesson is that which 
 gives insight into the ultimate needs of 
 life, and into the spiritual world which is 
 our home. Often in days of peace and 
 plenty, with the joy of work and the 
 strength of friendship, with the pleasures 
 of nature and art, we are content and 
 happy in the present. The soul sleeps in 
 its drowsy conditions, and accepts the 
 transient for the permanent. We know in 
 theory the truth of the great word that the> 
 world passeth away and the lusts thereof, 
 but it has no effect on conduct. We do 
 not live with any sense of detachment 
 from things. When we are rudely shaken 
 from our composure and we learn the un- 
 147 
 
 ^ga^y^BHP 
 

 Sorrow a.nd Instgh 
 1/ r\ wyryawW 1T1 3SS 
 
 stable equilibrium of life, and on what 
 slight tenure we hold our dearest joys, we 
 get the chance to learn the relative impor- 
 tance of things. A new insight becomes 
 possible into the place of the spiritual, the 
 value of character, and the beauty of good- 
 ness. 
 
 " What shall we do, Enobarbus ? " 
 Shakespeare makes Cleopatra ask in fear, 
 when Csesar is thundering at the gates, and 
 the voluptuous queen is face to face with 
 tragedy. Enobarbus replies solemnly, 
 " Think and die." There are times when 
 men must think who never thought before, 
 think of the past as it has been and now 
 must be, its fatal doing which is the soul's 
 undoing now, think of the present bereft of 
 all that life had, of the future which opens 
 out its unknown path before trembling 
 eyes. They must think of the meaning of 
 life, its lost opportunities, its unfulfilled 
 purpose. A clearer light dawns upon the 
 eyes, and things are seen from another 
 
 148 
 
 mamma 
 
 ^szmji 
 
 ^iSsr^ja 
 
w^yfr»-re^^^ 
 
 Sorrow a.nd Insight 
 
 standpoint. Once and again we see from 
 the standpoint of eternity, when no cross- 
 lights of time come in to confuse. It may 
 be an illness, when we are carried down to 
 the end of the land, to the shore of life, 
 and are set for a moment to look out over 
 the strange water, where some time we 
 must make our farewells and put out to 
 sea. It may be a bereavement, when 
 lives we loved drift out over that bar with 
 the resistless tide, leaving us on the beach 
 lifting impotent hands to the calm sky. 
 
 At such times we have confessed the 
 value of the lesson, and have promised a 
 different future if only we get another 
 chance. We have at least been brought 
 back from the careless security of our life 
 to acknowledge dependence on God. This 
 is surely the final end of all hard experience, 
 that we should get insight into God's love 
 and will. Charles Lamb wrote of a great 
 sufferer, " She gave her heart to the Puri- 
 fier, and her will to the Will that governs 
 149 
 
 mmm 
 
 ifeamo 
 
i&*M!&»**&*i*&vfi 
 
 Sorrow and Insight 
 
 the universe." To have made such a sub- 
 mission is to have found the secret. We 
 can well be grateful to have tasted of sor- 
 row, if it has been the occasion of tasting 
 of love. Too often we hold things as 
 commonplace until our eyes are sharpened 
 to see. We take the greatest gifts as a 
 matter of course — even the gift of God's 
 love. Sometimes we need to be " blinded 
 with seeing tears until we see." We find 
 that the men of insight are always the men, 
 who have themselves graduated in this 
 school. The fruitful lives are the lives 
 into which the ploughshare has cut deep. 
 Rutherford said, " I never knew by my 
 nine years' preaching so much of Christ's 
 love as He hath taught me in Aberdeen by 
 six months' imprisonment." He had put 
 it to the proof and had found new insight 
 through his own pain. 
 
 In our dull eyes and shallow hearts 
 there seems nothing marvellous in God's 
 love ; for the wonder has not kindled in 
 
 wmm zMimgmm 
 
^^ZZZSB ^^ 
 
 Sorrow a«d Insigb 
 
 our soul, but when we know our sense of 
 need and are driven to it in weakness and 
 helplessness we get a new vision and are 
 moved to make surrender. When we do, it 
 is worth everything we have suffered, worth 
 any price to learn that — even the price of 
 all earthly joy. For, the tragedy is that a 
 man should go to the grave untouched by 
 the pathos of life, unmoved by its mys- 
 teries, never once awakened to the great 
 facts in words we use so lightly, sin, re- 
 pentance, sacrifice, forgiveness, love, hav- 
 ing never once been broken by the sor- 
 row of the world. 
 
 We must let the new insight become an 
 inspiration to life. It should teach us to 
 wear our possessions lightly. It is a ter- 
 rible loss when men give their hearts to 
 possessions, when living men are satisfied 
 with things. As life gets narrower, it is 
 only a call to make it deeper. As the out- 
 goings of life seem cut off, we must en- 
 rich the sources from within. If the 
 
 K-MSS^ai i fe ^^&J 
 
isx^^v^ii&^^vM 
 
 Sorrow and Insight 
 
 enmity of men be our portion, we must 
 love God only the more passionately and 
 devotedly. If weakness comes, we must 
 only be stronger in faith and let our heart 
 gather courage. As sorrow or sickness or 
 age brings detachment from earthly things, 
 we must only cling more tenaciously to 
 spiritual things, and pray for the insight 
 into the will of God which sees it to be 
 love, however high the price to be paid 
 for the prayer's answer. 
 
 «5» 
 
 mmmL 
 
 za 
 
For life, with all it yields of joy and woe. 
 And hope and fear, 
 
 Is just our chance o J the prize of learning love, 
 How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is. 
 
 — Browning. 
 
Sorrow a*iA Sympathy 
 
 AS we have turned our subject 
 round to the light, we have seen 
 beauty and colour flash from 
 every facet like a fine jewel, and perhaps 
 the rarest beauty is this further suggestion 
 that a great part of the function of suffer- 
 ing is the way it makes the whole world 
 kin. One mission of pain undoubtedly is 
 to move hearts, that otherwise would be 
 hard and selfish, to the noble fellowship of 
 consolation. Compassion and sympathy 
 will unite men whom no argument would 
 bring together, and these sweet graces are 
 called forth by this very suffering which is 
 our problem. Some will see a meaning 
 here who are not attracted by the other 
 uses we have considered, and to all of us 
 it is one of the answers to the dark prob- 
 lem of human pain and sorrow. There is 
 155 
 
Sorrow and Sympathy I kLK 
 
 a true priestly function open to every son 
 of man, and the training for it is by the sym- 
 pathy which comes from knowledge. He 
 must know what it is to be compassed 
 about with infirmity, that he may have 
 compassion on his fellows and bear gently 
 with them. A beneficent end of suffering 
 is to produce this gracious comprehension 
 requisite for the highest social service. 
 
 In this, as in previous chapters, we are 
 not seeking a simple formula which will 
 give a complete solution of the mystery 
 of grief. The lessons of life are as wide 
 as life itself. A painful experience comes 
 to each with its own meaning, and its own 
 personal lesson, hushing one soul into 
 patience, enlightening another with the 
 knowledge of sin, pointing another to in- 
 creased faith, softening still another to 
 sympathy ; and in all disciplining us to a 
 larger reach of God. In this chapter we 
 would consider 'one of these answers, 
 which may find a response in some hearts, 
 
 «m 
 
^^Zg^ ^S ^^ 
 
 Sorrow amd Sympathy 
 ' Ifri K\\ w" *AHW wb s& 
 
 as they look back and see what God has 
 done for them by the sore chastening of 
 their lives. 
 
 We can begin with this accepted truth 
 that experience alone completely teaches, 
 that participation in a particular situation 
 brings true comprehension of it, and so 
 gives the divine capacity of sympathy. 
 The priestly function can alone be exer- 
 cised by a man from among men, who 
 therefore knows men and can bear gently 
 with them. There is a universal priest- 
 hood of man apart from anything official, 
 a divine feeling for human infirmity, the 
 glow of a heart that sorrows and joys be- 
 cause it loves. Nothing will teach this so 
 powerfully as experience. The unerring 
 appreciation of an event comes to the man, 
 who himself has felt the force of it. Ex- 
 perimental knowledge is of the lasting 
 sort, and the sort which brings compre- 
 hension. The world is made kin by a 
 touch of nature, and nature teaches with 
 
Sorrow and. Sympathy 
 
 irresistible force by facts. Actual com- 
 munity of sorrow or of joy will dissolve all 
 conventionalities, when nothing else could. 
 The recognition of nature's bond will 
 then come in a flash, a gleam of intuition. 
 It brings sympathy ; and sympathy will 
 unite men as no written bond could do, 
 though it were attested and secured by 
 every legal means. It is stronger than 
 any deed of contract ; for it is a com- 
 pact written in flesh, and signed with 
 blood. 
 
 A man must know himself before he 
 can know men, and he must know them 
 in this intimate sense before he can help 
 them. One of the maxims of La Rouche- 
 foucald is that we pardon in the degree 
 that we love, but it is also true that we 
 would love more if we knew more. A 
 great deal of the hardness and cruelty of 
 men is due to want of knowledge, lack of 
 sensitiveness, want of experience of the 
 same slights to which they subject others. 
 158 
 
W^*re*^^^E^ 
 
 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 So the typical oppressor, not only of the 
 Bible but also of history, is the man whose 
 heart is fat, who has lived a soft and pros- 
 perous life, the careless sensualist who is 
 not in trouble like other men, nor plagued 
 like other men, whose eyes stand out with 
 fatness, and who has more than heart can 
 wish — he it is who is compassed with 
 pride as a chain, and covered with violence 
 as a garment. The man who tastes of the 
 bitter cup, who is broken and chastened 
 and accepts it for his learning, loses his 
 native pride and violence : pity and gentle- 
 ness take their place. 
 
 Similarity of experience should breed 
 sympathy. " He jests at scars who never 
 felt a wound." Whatever else may be 
 taught, this lesson of sympathy ought to 
 be learned from every experience of sor- 
 row. Few of us can say that we do not 
 need the lesson, if we know our own 
 hearts, and know how easily they become 
 selfish and shut up to all outside interests. 
 *59 
 
 g aiig i ^ y^ig!^ 
 
"^^p^jt^^ ^ 
 
 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 ffiWrVAVfci" rS/7//A ius S 
 
 So long as fortune smiles, so long as life 
 (lows smoothly on, so long as success and 
 easy prosperity are our portion, we take a 
 roseate view of the world. The consid- 
 erate, compassionate temper does not come 
 naturally with most. We soon become 
 self-centred, careful of self, heedless of 
 others. Sir Walter Scott, who had eyes 
 for the great common facts of life, makes 
 Jeanie Deans say in her sore trouble, 
 " Alack ! It is not when we sleep soft, 
 and wake merrily, that we think on other 
 people's sufferings, but when the hour of 
 trouble comes." To how many of us 
 sympathy was born of sorrow ! If we had 
 not known something of pain, our hearts 
 would have been harder and more loveless 
 than they are. We are dense and crass 
 enough, with dull enough sensibility, but 
 if it had not been for some discipline 
 which perhaps only our own hearts know, 
 we would have stood off from others with 
 a colder, prouder isolation. The memory 
 1 60 
 
Sorrow and Sympatljy 
 
 of a similar experience ought to make men 
 considerate and pitiful. 
 
 It does not always do so, it is true. In- 
 deed so many exceptions are there, that we 
 are tempted sometimes to imagine that the 
 opposite is the truth. A persecuted race 
 or sect, who have tasted the bitterness of 
 insolence and wrong, into whose heart the 
 iron has entered, might have learned the 
 beauty of tolerance from their own griev- 
 ous lot. Yet how often rather when they 
 have gained power, revenge has been the 
 one thought. History is full of instances 
 in which the persecuted have become per- 
 secutors in their turn. The lesson of tol- 
 erance has been learned by the noblest of 
 them, but to the majority the memory of 
 their wrongs has not made them gentle. 
 Working men sometimes say that the 
 hardest taskmasters are men promoted 
 from their own class, and it is a proverb of 
 Newgate that the reformed jailbird makes 
 the severest jailor. 
 
 161 
 
z&wswr^^^^L 
 
 Sorrow and Symp&tby 
 
 The real truth is that sorrow in itself 
 does not bring sympathy, and the hard 
 blows of life do not naturally soften, and 
 painful providence does not in itself lead 
 to grace. Everything depends on how the 
 pain and sorrow are met, just as every 
 high priest, though all were taken from 
 among men, did not show the true priestly 
 quality of gentleness, but were sometimes 
 proud and hard and haughty. At the 
 same time the point is that community of 
 experience can be used to learn a lesson, 
 which could not otherwise be so com- 
 pletely learned. Pain can bring a softer 
 look into the eyes that are schooled for 
 the discipline. Sorrow can bring a deeper 
 sympathy than was possible in the easy 
 prosperous life. We feel the force of the 
 beautiful appeal of Deuteronomy, "Love ye 
 therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers 
 in the land of Egypt " — ye know the heart 
 of a stranger; ye have felt the bitterness 
 and the anguish and the loneliness of it. 
 
 162 
 
 K^aaaajs 
 
 mmmji 
 

 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 All life is a great spiritual opportunity, 
 and everything that emerges for us should 
 be seized and the good of it appropriated ; 
 so the sorrow, as well as the joy of life, 
 has its own meaning. Of all the lessons 
 of sorrow none lies so on the surface as 
 this one of sympathy. Through it we 
 get down to the common basis of life, the 
 pit from which we are digged, the naked 
 simple humanity which unites us. Often 
 nothing else will teach the lesson to our 
 stubborn hearts, and melt and move us to 
 the way of love which is the way of 
 God. 
 
 Pity and need 
 Make all flesh kin. There is no caste in blood 
 Which runneth of one hue, nor caste in tears 
 Which trickle salt with all. 
 
 But, as we have said, everything depends 
 on the spirit in which grief is met. It 
 must be used to enrich the life and enlarge 
 the heart. An effort is needed ; for it is 
 163 
 
 mw&t 
 
 mmm 
 

 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 only an opportunity, and here as elsewhere 
 opportunities may be missed. 
 
 To the Christian soul many a time a 
 personal sorrow, or disappointment, or loss 
 has been a turning-point of life, an occa- 
 sion for deeper consecration and wider serv- 
 ice. In Morley's Life of Cobden there 
 is a quotation from one of John Bright's 
 speeches, which explains how he was led 
 to devote his life first of all to the corn- 
 law agitation and so to many noble causes. 
 " At that time I was at Leamington, and I 
 was, on the day when Mr. Cobden called 
 on me, in the depths of grief, I might al- 
 most say of despair ; for the light and sun- 
 shine of my house had been extinguished. 
 All that was left on earth of my young 
 wife, except the memory of a sainted life 
 and of a too brief happiness, was lying 
 still and cold in the chamber above us. 
 Mr. Cobden called upon me as his friend, 
 and addressed me, as you might suppose, 
 with words of condolence. After a time 
 
 imm^ 
 
^^^^^^s^^mM 
 
 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 Tin: 0lk.k.vjc jjjjjss. iqng 
 
 he looked up and said, ' There are thou- 
 sands of houses in England at this moment 
 where wives, mothers, and children are 
 dying of hunger. Now,' he said, ' when 
 the first paroxysm of your grief is past, I 
 would advise you to come with me, and 
 we will never rest till the Corn Law is 
 repealed.' " That was chastening yielding 
 its noble fruit, sympathy born of sorrow. 
 John Bright's rich useful life might have 
 been lost to England, if he had only brooded 
 over his grief and hardened his heart, and 
 refused to listen to the evident call which 
 came to him. It is not in error therefore 
 that we look forthe ripest Christian character 
 and the true priestly service from those who 
 have lived most, felt most, even suffered 
 most. There is no way to the higher reaches 
 of life but the way of the cross. 
 
 We need not pretend to ourselves or 
 
 to others that there is any solution in 
 
 words to utterly explain the riddle of pain. 
 
 It is poor work to try to patch grief with 
 
 165 
 
^^^aix^ ^^^^ 
 
 Sorrow and Sympathy | $ty 
 
 proverbs, to " charm ache with air and 
 agony with words." We need not pretend 
 that there is any philosophy of sorrow, 
 which will make everything plain. But it 
 can be said that we can use our pain or 
 loss or grief or disappointment in a Chris- 
 tian spirit, and if we do, from the very 
 heart of anguish joy is born, and on the 
 withered stem a sweet white flower grows 
 and in due time bears its peaceful fruit. 
 When the garish light and crimson colour 
 of summer have passed, the earth some- 
 times takes on a solemn sacred beauty. 
 When the joy of life is buried, one day 
 the grief also dies, and the heart under- 
 stands ; for it has been brought nearer God 
 and nearer men. This is the priesthood 
 of love and sympathy, where the follower 
 of Jesus serves at the altar, himself sor- 
 row-stricken, himself also a sin-bearer, 
 offering the sacrifice of love. He shares 
 in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, — 
 and His people's. 
 
 1 66 
 
 mMmm 
 
 iilrr-iiMlr ■niiiinimrtr _o« 
 
 limp 
 
&z?&^v ^ s^vfi 
 
 Sorrow And Symjxitby 
 
 This too is the quality of the Master's 
 priesthood, of which the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews is full. The Man of sorrow is 
 the Man of sympathy. Though He were 
 a son, yet learned He obedience by the 
 things He suffered. The Captain of our 
 salvation was made perfect through suffer- 
 ing. He drank of the cup of human life, 
 and tasted what it is for a man to die. So, 
 in the beautiful translation of our English 
 Bible, He is touched with the feeling of 
 our infirmities. He is Christies Consolatory 
 the pitiful, compassionate Saviour, because 
 in all things it behooved Him to be made 
 like unto His brethren, that He might be 
 a merciful and faithful High Priest in 
 things pertaining to God ; for in that 
 He Himself hath suffered being tempted, 
 He is able to succour them that are 
 tempted. This is the secret of His 
 power too; lifted up He draws all men 
 to Him. We move to the passion of His 
 Cross. 
 
 167 
 
iSciTow and Sympathy/ U/J 
 
 ?7 if>i aXjwA" 'J-IJMfA. iViM«U 
 
 The trouble with us is that we do not 
 put this quality of sympathy in its rightful 
 place of preeminence. Our whole stand- 
 ards of life are wrong, and we need to 
 convince ourselves that this quality is first 
 in importance before we see that it almost 
 justifies any means that can produce it. 
 Compassion or pity is sometimes looked 
 on as almost a sort of weakness. We 
 perhaps do feel that this element is needed 
 to make a completely rounded character, 
 but the world admires other qualities most, 
 independence, energy, ambition, the qual- 
 ities that make for success, the things that 
 suggest strength. Compassion is looked 
 upon as rather an additional thing, which 
 can be graciously thrown in. With some 
 it is even a mark of effeminacy, showing 
 a strain of weakness. It is magnificent, 
 but it is not war. It gives a touch of 
 beauty to a character, but at the same time 
 keeps it from reaching the topmost pin- 
 nacle of success. To be too much ex- 
 168 
 
 wmmgj, 
 

 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 zmsssss gazzzmss j 
 
 cited by the sufferings or misfortunes of 
 others, to be swayed by feelings of sorrow 
 or pity, to show tenderness and sympathy 
 for men's infirmities and troubles is to 
 weaken oneself in the battle. The way 
 to success is to be self-reliant and self- 
 centred, even to be aggressive when oc- 
 casion offers, and if there is a foot in the 
 way to tramp on it. 
 
 Well, it all depends on what we mean 
 by success. If by it we mean becoming 
 the highest possible in character and life, 
 we will see how important this quality is. 
 It is this gentle strain which alone can 
 save strength from brutality. The world's 
 point of view is expressed in the false 
 saying that pity is akin to contempt. The 
 other saying is far truer that pity is akin 
 to love, and without that there is no real 
 success in human life. So important is 
 this that there have been men who have 
 seen the place of this quality to be so 
 high that they have made it first, as Ruskin 
 169 
 
 IKMsa^ 
 
 za 
 
who makes it the one mark of a gentle- 
 man. Fine feeling, sensitiveness, insight 
 into what others are experiencing repre- 
 sent the highest culture. It means sym- 
 pathy, which is the imaginative understand- 
 ing of other conditions. 
 
 Whether it be the mark of a gentleman 
 or no, it is at least the mark of a Christian. 
 The teaching of Jesus makes this a divid- 
 ing line as in His parable of the Judgment. 
 " Inasmuch as ye have done it to one 
 of the least of these." His whole life 
 also could be summed up in the one 
 phrase that He went about doing good. 
 His sympathy and compassion were never 
 failing. To heal the broken-hearted was 
 His mission, and He called His followers 
 to walk in His footsteps. The central 
 fact of our faith is that God is love. The 
 All-powerful is the All-loving too, so that 
 if we look upon compassion as in some 
 way a weakness we never were so alien 
 to the very spirit of Jesus. He spoke of 
 170 
 
W^^y^^s^^^^^ 
 
 trow and Sympathy 
 lira ATOKiy ? j> j« « iTwt* 
 
 having compassion for the commonest 
 wants of men. He was sorry on one oc-' 
 casion that they should be hungry, anxious 
 that they should not go away fasting lest 
 they faint in the way. He had compas- 
 sion on the multitude, the common man 
 and his common needs. From His point 
 of view this quality of pity is not a 
 gracious and pleasing adornment to char- 
 acter, but goes deep down and is the test 
 of character. 
 
 We can see how this should be so, and 
 must be so. There are many virtues we 
 ask men to strive after and attain to, but 
 by themselves they would be almost vices. 
 Compassion is the crown of the virtues, 
 because without it they all degenerate into 
 more or less selfish possessions. The 
 social value of all qualities and attainments 
 comes from compassion, and the real value 
 of any human gift is its social value. We 
 may have a high ideal of strength of char- 
 acter, and may strive to add the great vir- 
 171 
 
 &^C£^% 
 
^^h^i/^sk ^^^M 
 
 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 Tin: aXCk\\~ **MfA ic ng 
 
 tues of self-control and courage and truth 
 and patience and honour, but when we 
 have made the most of ourself in isolation 
 if that were possible, nothing is perma- 
 nently gained if what we are is not used in 
 some way as a contribution to the world. 
 Even spirituality by itself would simply 
 live and die with a man, and make no im- 
 pact on the life of the world without a 
 point of contact such as is afforded by 
 compassion. 
 
 There is no sense in this world as a 
 whole, no rational meaning, if it is not 
 meant in some way to be a place of disci- 
 pline by which men are trained in moral 
 life. To deny this is to put a fool's cap 
 on the universe. And there is no sense in 
 it, if the discipline is not meant to lead to 
 and develop this very quality of sympathy. 
 There are so many troubles and sorrows 
 and cares, so many grievous things, so 
 many straits and distresses, that if there be 
 any moral meaning in life these things 
 172 
 
 mmm&i^mmmM 
 
kQ^ }5orow and Sympathy 
 ; jjrii'MXivAr urn*** 
 
 must be designed as opportunities for the 
 cultivation of this crown of all the virtues. 
 We need not look long, or far, for oppor- 
 tunities ; they are scattered at our feet and 
 meet us at every turn. Surely one of the 
 lessons of all discipline for ourselves is that 
 we should learn real sympathy. It broad- 
 ens our appreciation and enlarges the heart. 
 That is why we expect understanding 
 from those who have been in the same sit- 
 uation and gone through the same expe- 
 rience. The considerate compassionate 
 temper is expected from one who knows 
 by experience. In King John, Shake- 
 speare makes Pandulph complain to Con- 
 stance, the mother of Arthur, " You hold 
 too heinous a respect for grief," and she 
 replies, " He talks to me who never had a 
 son. 
 
 But this quality is not meant to stop at 
 sympathy with mere similarity of expe- 
 rience. It is a spirit which grows in deli- 
 cate appreciation, in thoughtful consid- 
 
 173 
 
 kmmmji 
 
Z&ZV&Z^&SSZ*^ 
 
 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 ggggg^ MWAWiS EEbi 
 
 erateness, widening out in circles till it is 
 like the Master's own pity, taking on 
 something of the colour of the divine com- 
 passion. It should become a quality of 
 the complete character, so that if you make 
 a cross-section anywhere you would find 
 this a component part. We do not know 
 life, until we see the lacrymee rerum, the 
 tragedy in daily life, the great pitiful maze 
 of the world. We do not know the mind 
 of Christ until we see why He said, and 
 until we in some form can say with Him, 
 " I have compassion on the multitude." 
 It is the root of all true endeavour, the in- 
 spiration of all great service, the impulse 
 to foreign missions, the spirit of all the 
 Church's work. To look at the multitude 
 in the streets of a city like the multitudinous 
 waves of the sea, men and women and 
 children with their pressing necessities and 
 clamant needs, to look into their eyes and 
 see where trouble lurks and care lies, to 
 think of the pathos of it all is to load the 
 
 174 
 
 Mlil^Mg^ii&i 
 
Sorrow and Symp&tl 
 
 heart with an intolerable burden. Yet, 
 this is the source of the best service, social 
 and religious. It is this that spurs the re- 
 former, it is this that makes the preacher — 
 to enter with imagination and sympathy 
 into human need. The kingdom of 
 heaven finds its best workers among the 
 men who know a little of this compassion 
 on the multitude. 
 
 The very real danger lies here however 
 of leaving all this in the clouds, of making 
 it a sort of sentimentalism, a fine feeling, a 
 poetic passion, or even a pleasant luxury 
 of pity. Compassion, if it is true, evi- 
 dences itself in practical life. Sympathy is 
 useless unless it leads to action. It must 
 work itself into some sphere of service, if 
 it is to preserve its freshness. It is good 
 to be thoughtful over the vast problems of 
 human needs, but to be of any value 
 thoughtfulness must become helpfulness. 
 If compassion be the mark of a Christian, 
 i7S 
 
 mmm®£^ ^^^> 
 
% if* - * 
 
 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 it is not the sort that expends itself in 
 empty feeling. " Inasmuch as ye have 
 done it," or " Inasmuch as ye have done it 
 not." We can look on the multitude as a 
 mere multitude and brood with pitiful sad- 
 ness over vague needs and sorrows, and 
 the tender feeling we may pride ourselves 
 on may become only morbidness. Vague 
 sympathy with the masses does not exon- 
 erate us from our duty, where the units 
 touch our own lives. The sentimentalist 
 in the streets of the city may have no true 
 feeling left for the individuals he knows 
 best and meets most, at home, or at work, 
 or in the other social relations of his life. 
 
 To be Christian, this wide compassion 
 has to be individualized. If the love of 
 God has so taken possession of our hearts 
 that some of the quality of that love has 
 become part of our character, it will find 
 its natural outlet — for instance at home, 
 which is often the hardest place to display 
 heroism. It is a poor thing to have com- 
 176 
 
 Mmszm 
 

 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 passion on the nameless multitude, and to 
 have none left for those whose names we 
 know. Some people make life miserable 
 to themselves and turn the world into a 
 second-rate hell for others, because they 
 will overlook nothing and forget nothing. 
 It is much even to have enough under- 
 standing and sympathy as to be able some- 
 times to shut our eyes, and shut our 
 mouths. A petition in one of Robert 
 Louis Stevenson's prayers written at Va- 
 lima is, " Blind us to the offenses of our 
 beloved, cleanse them from our memories, 
 take them out of our mouths forever." 
 It seems sometimes possible to have a 
 general good-will to all with a particular 
 kindness to none. If compassion is to 
 prove itself, it can only be by actual kind- 
 ness. If sympathy is sincere it must show 
 itself somewhere in loving service. It is 
 quite true that there are many difficulties 
 and that often men cannot be helped in 
 the only real way because they will not be 
 177 
 
 ^SmmMz^zm 
 

 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 helped, and even that many of the things 
 designed for help may be only a hindrance, 
 just as charity may be almost a curse. 
 But that is because it is misdirected and is 
 given without thought, often to save 
 trouble. 
 
 What we need is consecration of what 
 we have and what we are, looking upon 
 life as given us for service. If we would 
 fulfill the law of Christ, we must stretch 
 out our hands and bend our necks for the 
 burdens. It is this we need most of all 
 to-day, if we are to have true social prog- 
 ress, and there can be no permanent 
 progress which is not social, which does 
 not register itself in the common life. It 
 is this we need most if the work of the 
 church is to be done, if the kingdom of 
 heaven is to come — extensively in widen- 
 ing its bounds and in increasing its grip on 
 modern life, and intensively in deepening 
 faith and feeling. It is a sign of the un- 
 faith of our time that this passion for men 
 178 
 
Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 is not so conspicuous as it has sometimes 
 been, and this passion for souls has died 
 out of the Church's heart. It is when a 
 man gives himself to save the world that 
 he saves himself. 
 
 Above all, we must know that the way 
 to true success is not the world's way. 
 The highest place is due to those who 
 show something of the kindness of God, 
 something of the compassion which the 
 Master displayed. " The servant of the 
 Lord must not strive but be gentle unto 
 all." Alas for our earthly ideals and self- 
 ish ambitions ! We honour and applaud 
 the conqueror who rides to victory over 
 strewn battle-fields, and the ashes of 
 homesteads, and broken hearts. But not 
 thus is the way to true success. By the 
 revenge of time the secure place in the 
 heart of the world is given not to the war- 
 riors, but to the saints whom the gentle- 
 ness of God has made great. The Em- 
 pire over souls is given not to the clever 
 i 79 
 
j^?vr^i^&i<tM 
 
 Sorrow and Sympathy 
 
 and the strong, but to the loving, to those 
 who move us by their unselfishness and 
 their service. Men have climbed to 
 power by many devious ways — Christ 
 climbed to His power by the Cross. Is 
 there any ideal like this priestly ideal — of a 
 man from among men, gentle in his strength, 
 strong in his gentleness, with compassion 
 on the ignorant and on them that are out 
 of the way, lifting men by the love of his 
 life nearer God ? If we are to do the 
 Master's work we must do it in the same 
 way and in the same spirit. We must let 
 His love kill in us all proud and insolent 
 and exclusive thoughts. 
 
 Life has brought us nothing if it has 
 not been seized by us as one vast opportu- 
 nity for loving. If the world is in any 
 way a place of discipline, then life must 
 be an opportunity for service. This is to 
 have caught God's secret, when we too 
 have learned to love. 
 
 1S0 
 
 %mmm£Mhmmm4 
 
.-; -;f^jj-^ — ^^^tAi^i 
 
Better by far you should forget and smile 
 Than that you should remember and be sad. 
 
 — Christina Rossettl 
 
TO many people the burden of the 
 past is the heaviest burden of 
 their lives. This is true even of 
 many religious people, strange as it seems. 
 No difficulties and trials of the present can 
 match it for bitterness. They can see 
 through faith some of the purpose of their 
 heavenly Father in their present trials. 
 They see something of the meaning of 
 discipline, and can school their heart to 
 learn. They know that His grace is suf- 
 ficient for them, and in the strength of 
 that they find it easy to bear even a heavy 
 load. Their faith also is potent enough to 
 lighten the burden of the future. They 
 look forward calmly and hopefully to 
 whatever the years may bring. Faith 
 panoplies them against fate. They have 
 no unworthy fears, no nervous anxiety 
 183 
 
 rama^ 
 
 ^^^3 
 
^^^s^x^^^g^ 
 
 Site Burden «f Urn Past 
 Tiff, jvavA" sJitf/A iVasS 
 
 about to-morrow. Even the valley of the 
 shadow has little terror for them, believing 
 that they will be shepherded through that 
 to the eternal fold. Yet they, to whom 
 the burden of the present and the burden 
 of the future are so little, are often 
 weighted by a sore burden of the past. 
 They are hag-ridden by shadows of dead 
 days. 
 
 Sometimes it is the very greatness and 
 success and joy of the past which induce 
 this constant recollection. To men of a 
 certain temperament there is a temptation 
 to live too much in the past, and so to 
 weaken life for the duties of to-day. In 
 reviewing times that are gone, memory 
 has a hallowing power, setting things in a 
 soft and tender light. Thus, it is a com- 
 mon infirmity of old age, though it is not 
 confined to old age, to glorify the past, 
 and to think that the former times were 
 better than these. It is often a harmless 
 sentiment, but it carries with it a very real 
 
 mzw^&Mkto s&x^ 
 
^sssss^^^E 
 
 Che Burden, of the Pas 
 
 temptation which robs life of its full 
 power. 
 
 The sore burden of the past, however, 
 which weighs upon the heart is not the 
 recollection of some joy or success of the 
 past, but of some failure, some sorrow, 
 some loss, some sin, or some shame. To 
 many, who live ever under the shadow of 
 this memory, it would mean new life, if 
 the promise came to them with the mean- 
 ing it had in the prophet's lips, " Thou 
 shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and 
 shalt not remember thy reproach any 
 more." 
 
 Of course, there is a sense in which we 
 cannot forget, and we are not meant to 
 forget. Experience has its lessons to 
 teach ; and everything that happens to us 
 leaves its mark, which it is folly for us to 
 cover up till at least we understand the 
 markings. There is a levity of mind, a 
 childish thoughtlessness, which takes no 
 account of what happens, and which finds 
 i85 
 
 K^g^ s 
 
 MS 
 
^gyy\v v;-y» 
 
 SWBurdentf tlwPa&t 
 Jii ft rviMA* fS/7S/A n as£ 
 
 It easy to forget ; for there is not depth in 
 the mind for events to leave any mark. It 
 is not any such levity, a light-headed shal- 
 low enjoyment in the present, which can 
 be set forth as an ideal. 
 
 The appeal to the past is very powerful, 
 and rightly so. Nothing will so move a 
 man like it. When all else seems to fail, 
 memory will drive a man to his knees. 
 Somewhere in the hardest heart there is a 
 soft spot where the arrow of conviction 
 can strike and quiver. Some men are 
 saved by the hope of a Paradise in front of 
 them : others are saved by the memory of 
 a Paradise lying behind them. The soul 
 that has such a lost Eden of the past can 
 never escape the appeal of it, pleading, ac- 
 cusing, entreating, condemning. There 
 are no waters of Lethe, which by drinking 
 will bring complete forgetfulness of the 
 past. Memory sleeps, can be lulled and 
 soothed till oblivion comes, but it does 
 186 
 
^SS2ZS^^^ 
 
 S he Burden. of the Past 
 
 jm sags: 'raW/A bSbS 
 
 not die. In a moment it can awaken. 
 An incident, a word, a gesture, an idle 
 thought can bring back a forgotten scene 
 as by a wizard's wand. It recreates itself 
 before us : the solemn pageant passes in 
 front of our eyes. We may forget what 
 are called facts, the pieces of information 
 which we dignify by the name of knowl- 
 edge, but that which we passed through and 
 experienced, our vital thoughts, our affec- 
 tions, the things that made their mark upon 
 our life and have become part of our- 
 selves — these we can never forget. 
 
 There is no defense against memory. 
 No man is safe from a possible resurrec- 
 tion of the past. Thackeray, moralizing 
 about some of the relics excavated from 
 Pompeii at present in the Naples Museum, 
 with the preacher's instinct which never 
 really left him, turns the subject to search 
 the very heart of man, " Which of us 
 that is thirty years old has not had his 
 Pompeii ? Deep under ashes lies the Life 
 187 
 
hiy^^K^^^^^^M 
 
 &W Burden of the Past 
 
 of Youth, — the careless Sport, the Pleasure 
 and Passion, the darling Joy. You open 
 an old letter-box and look at your own 
 childish scrawls, or your mother's letters 
 to you when you were at school ; and ex- 
 cavate your heart. Oh me, for the day 
 when the whole city shall be bare, and the 
 chambers unroofed, and every cranny vis- 
 ible to the light above ! " It is because 
 we are spiritual entities, with a life all our 
 own, with a past all our own, that this is 
 possible. Remorse is only remembrance : 
 awakened conscience is only awakened 
 memory : repentance is only recollection : 
 self-reproach is only self-knowledge. We 
 can never get away from ourselves, and that 
 is why we can never get away from the past. 
 All religion begins with repentance, and 
 the appeal to repentance is an appeal to 
 memory. To remember is the ethical 
 method of all ages, probing men to the 
 roots of life, laying bare the springs of 
 motive, revealing the secret things to a 
 188 
 
 RMXJM 
 
 mmm 
 
h^^zz^^^&M 
 
 She Burden of tU Pa&t 
 
 man's own astonished soul, tearing his 
 very heart with the despair of memory. 
 Not by any easy facile optimism can true 
 peace and true forgetfulness be achieved. 
 The gate of repentance stands at the en- 
 trance of the way of life, and repentance 
 implies the very terror of remembrance, 
 godly sorrow for the past, an enlightened 
 conscience reviewing ail that has gone, 
 till the heart is sick, and would give the 
 world for a nepenthe that could bring 
 oblivion. This burden of the past, which 
 is the burden of moral existence, cannot 
 be relieved by merely turning the back on 
 what is uncomfortable to think about, and 
 concerning oneself with the details of 
 present life. 
 
 The sins and faults of youth have a 
 trick of reappearing, pale ghosts of the past 
 that will not be laid. Forgotten things 
 start up to recollection without warning. 
 It is one of the ways in which conscience 
 works, reminding us that we are each one 
 189 
 
 missmm 
 
 SB33 
 

 Che Burden cf the Past 
 
 individual, with personal responsibility, 
 with unbroken continuity, with a life that 
 is seamless, woven at one loom. Every- 
 thing that we have done, and been, has 
 had something to do with the making of 
 us. It has entered into the fibre of our 
 being, and we only need to excavate deep 
 enough to find traces of it. As in a geo- 
 logical formation, new strata of thought 
 and feeling and experience have been 
 accumulated upon it and have hidden it 
 from view, but it is there with its story to 
 tell like the old red sandstone. Acts or- 
 ganize themselves into habits ; habits 
 organize themselves into character ; and 
 character is destiny written in brief. The 
 dust of time only covers, but does not 
 obliterate, the deep marks on the heart 
 which every life receives. 
 
 At the same time, men often carry need- 
 less burdens which are a heritage of their 
 past. These burdens are of all sorts, and 
 190 
 
^ggggg^Kagyg;^- 
 
 £ta Burden of the Past 
 
 what would be a light weight to one man 
 is to another an almost intolerable load. 
 This is why general consoling counsels, 
 and the scraps of proverbial philosophy so 
 commonly dished out for comfort, are 
 so useless and sometimes so irritating. 
 Shakespeare's ironic remark is true to 
 experience, " Every one can master a 
 grief but he that has it." Tempera- 
 ment plays such a large place even in 
 deciding what our burdens shall be and 
 how hardly they shall press on us. A 
 disaster or disappointment will cast on 
 some lives a shadow that remains to the 
 end. The ingratitude of a friend, the loss 
 of property, the disappointment of an am- 
 bition, the memory of a mistake, even of 
 a foolish speech, will rankle in some minds 
 and reappear in sleepless nights. A sense 
 of shame or disgrace has broken many a 
 heart, when a coarser grained nature would 
 have easily recovered. 
 
 It is a lack of insight into the real 
 
 jj g gg s i^ife^sjg 
 
W.^^^^x^v^g^ 
 
 %>\k Burden. of the Past 
 
 griefs of men to despise such sorrows, and 
 to look upon the bearers as unmanly. 
 There is often something incomprehen- 
 sible to outsiders about some lives that are 
 sad for no evident reason. The underly- 
 ing sadness, for example, of the life of 
 Robertson of Brighton is difficult for a 
 reader to understand. He had great gifts 
 and used them greatly, achieved a great ca- 
 reer with ever-widening influence, seemed 
 to have everything to make him happy in 
 his home and his work, and yet the im- 
 pression of melancholy pervades the record 
 of his life. The sin and sorrow of the 
 world lay heavily on his soul, and the fine 
 sensitiveness of his nature partly explains 
 the pathetic tone, but his letters are full of 
 the feeling of loneliness and of half-sup- 
 pressed complaints against his lot. It has 
 sometimes been suggested that he never got 
 over the disappointment of his first ambi- 
 tion to be a soldier, and that he judged 
 everything in his successful career by the 
 192 
 
^f^vji^ggy^^ 
 
 SpJ i SHeBuwtencf it* Pa&t 
 
 WUtMJ^S&A SS/WA 
 
 imaginary happiness he would have had in 
 the profession of his own choice. Whether 
 this is any explanation in Robertson's case 
 or not, undoubtedly many men let some sim- 
 ilar disappointment darken much of their 
 life. Certain doors once open to them are 
 closed, and imagination pictures to them 
 all that they have lost, till the good of the 
 present is contemned. 
 
 The path of wisdom is surely to ac- 
 knowledge limitations, and to recognize 
 that there are some losses that cannot be 
 repaired and some chances that can never 
 be regained. The loom of life weaves 
 out the web, and after a time there is no 
 going back to gather up dropped stitches. 
 The web must remain with its flaws. 
 When Goethe wrote the Second Part of 
 Faust he remarked that the man who had 
 written Part I was dead. There are some 
 mistakes that cannot be retrieved and some 
 steps that cannot be retraced, and it is 
 good to accept the fact. There comes a 
 193 
 
Site Burden <Jt the Past 
 
 7i> /JttXSA" 'iAMfA. ittUiS 
 
 time when a wise man realizes that a new 
 career is denied him, and that he must be 
 content with the work and position he has 
 attained. The young man facing life has 
 before him many alternatives even in the 
 matter of the kind of work he will do, but 
 it does not take long before he realizes 
 that the alternatives have begun to dwindle, 
 till after some years of work he must go 
 on with his choice if he is to make any- 
 thing of his life at all. The Unjust 
 Steward, when the prospect of losing his 
 situation was before him was only stating 
 a fact of experience when he said, " Dig I 
 cannot ; to beg I am ashamed." The 
 more special a man's work is, the more 
 doors have been shut against him if he 
 would seek other work. 
 
 There are even sterner limitations still. 
 There are things that bring before us in 
 even more drastic manner our lost occa- 
 sions and the irreparable past. Think of 
 the doors that death shuts, for example. 
 194 
 
 W» 
 
 mmmM 
 
■^ywss^^ 
 
 Burden of the Past 
 
 / il U<\\\\\\ &ZZZZ m\ ss 
 
 " It is the bitterest element," says John 
 Morley, " in the vast irony of human life 
 that the time-worn eyes to which a son's 
 success would have brought the purest 
 gladness are so often closed forever before 
 success has come." We may, however, 
 have bitterer thoughts in the presence or 
 death than even that. We may know 
 something of the remorse of lost oppor- 
 tunities, which can never come to us 
 though we seek with tears. Death closes 
 doors not only for the dead, but for some 
 of the living. It may be that we would 
 fain show some of the love we felt but 
 never expressed, lavish tenderness on the 
 dear head, or sob repentance to the gentle 
 soul, but the door is shut which no man 
 can open. 
 
 This burden of remorse is one of the 
 heaviest of all to carry, and many a life is 
 darkened by unavailing regrets. It has 
 been expressed again and again by the 
 masters of literature ; for it could hardly be 
 195 
 
 IK^m^ s 
 
She Burden of tta Bast 
 
 missed in the observation of life. George 
 Eliot expresses it in a sentence : " Oh, the 
 anguish of that thought that we can never 
 atone to our dead for the stinted affection 
 we gave them, for the light answers we 
 returned to their plaints or their pleadings, 
 for the little reverence we showed to that 
 sacred human soul that lived so close to us 
 and was the divinest thing God had given 
 us to know." One of the saddest of the pas- 
 sages in the sad book of Carlyle's Reminis- 
 cences is where he describes the pain and 
 worry of lecturing, which was so hateful 
 to him, and where he recalls how his wife 
 was his angel and unwearied helper and 
 comforter in it all. " God reward thee, dear 
 one ! " he exclaims, " now when I cannot 
 even own my debt. Oh, why do we delay 
 so much, till death makes it impossible ? 
 And don't I continue it still with others ? 
 Fools, fools ! we forget that it has to end •, 
 so this has ended." The lesson of it all 
 to us is not how we may most gracefully 
 196 
 

 CKe Bwdca of the Pa&t 
 
 Egg JAWW "> MU*A l«**3 
 
 mourn our lost opportunities, but how we 
 may buy up our new ones with the avidity 
 of a merchant keen on a gainful purchase. 
 There are worse griefs even than the 
 absence which death creates, when love 
 misses the object of affection. At the 
 death of a little boy dearly loved and 
 missed by his parents, a friend of the 
 family uttered in that even tone of voice, 
 more affecting than tears, a sentence which 
 has remained with me as the saddest I 
 have ever heard from mortal lips. " I had 
 two boys," he said, " and I wish I had seen 
 them carried out in their coffin as this little 
 lad is carried." What could be said be- 
 fore grief like that, when the empty seats 
 in a house meant dishonour worse than 
 death ? Before death there are some things 
 that may fitly be said, sometimes wondrous 
 consolations in happy memory if nothing 
 else. But when the seat is empty and 
 every thought of it brings shame as well 
 as sorrow, the iron surely enters the heart 
 197 
 
^95?gg^?^^ 
 
 £lt* Burden of tW Pas 
 
 deeper than any other blow of fate could 
 drive it. 
 
 All problems pale before the problem of 
 sin ; all burdens are light compared to it. 
 The power of Christianity lies in the fact 
 that it is the gospel of forgiveness. There 
 could be no real comfort in the face of the 
 most desolating evil of life if this were not 
 so. Only the revelation of God can 
 suffice to staunch the inward wound, that 
 otherwise would not cease to bleed till 
 death. There are sorrows that have no 
 cure, if it be not found there. The world 
 is renewed by the renewal of the soul, and 
 nothing else can do it. Men and women 
 whose lives have been wrecked by betrayal 
 or made forlorn by bereavement, or whose 
 hearts have been stained by sin and shat- 
 tered by remorse, have no place of refuge 
 and of repair if not in the Eternal Love. 
 It is to be feared that many think of the 
 divine forgiveness as a smaller and poorer 
 198 
 
Site Burden of tta Past 
 
 /m/<vsw. gznszaggma 
 
 thing than human forgiveness. They 
 never seem to think that God's forgiveness 
 can be as full and free and gracious as their 
 own. They do not seem willing to open 
 their hearts to the good news. Some at 
 least, who believe in the forgiveness of sin 
 and accept the Father's love, are yet ever 
 oppressed by some shadow of the past. 
 They are still weakened by the old sorrow, 
 or haunted by the old shame, or burdened 
 by the old sin ; and have never realized 
 the completeness and the power of the 
 Love they claim as theirs. 
 
 It is true that something has departed 
 utterly and forever. There is no magic 
 to turn back the irrevocable years, no 
 miracle to restore what the canker-worm 
 has eaten. It is true that the past cannot 
 be altogether undone, cannot be just as 
 though it had never been. Many men 
 who have emerged out of the struggle into 
 peace, and who are not tormented any 
 more by despairing remorse, have still the 
 199 
 
 ™ga^M»&^Ma 
 
sad feeling that they are not what they 
 might have been, that they are not the fine, 
 true, perfect instrument for God's purpose 
 they would have been but for the evil past. 
 Even when good now reigns supreme in 
 the heart, to many a man the past has 
 ruined the instrument for good their lives 
 might have been ; and the sting has not 
 quite been taken out of the past so long as 
 they feel they must 
 
 stand as mute 
 As one with full strong music in his heart 
 Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute. 
 
 It must not be stated in terms of an un- 
 moral fatalism, breeding a cureless despair 
 both of the past and of the future. But 
 while it is true that a new life is open to 
 all, and that new hope can flood with joy 
 the heart that before was broken with de- 
 spair, still the old life is not given back to 
 be lived over. Repentance can bring for- 
 giveness of sin. The past can be buried, 
 200 
 
^aazzs^^^^ 
 
 Cta Burden cf tU Past 
 
 its sorrow forgotten, and its shame covered 
 up, but sin forgiven can never be the same 
 as sin unsinned. Many a man knows to 
 his cost that he is weak where he might 
 have been strong, that qualities in him are 
 languid which should have been vigorous, 
 that his character is poor in places where it 
 might have been rich. 
 
 The Christian faith is a tacit condem- 
 nation of the sentimental brooding on the 
 past, whatever that past may be, which 
 weakens the present life, which keeps a 
 man from gathering up the fragments of 
 his life that remain, from doing his duty 
 calmly, and giving himself to whatsoever 
 things are true and pure and lovely and of 
 good report. In the Christian life, St. 
 Paul tells us that progress towards per- 
 fection is attained by forgetfulness of the 
 past. " Forgetting the things which are 
 behind, and reaching forward to the things 
 which are before, I press towards the 
 goal." It does not mean, as we have seen, 
 zoi 
 
 wmmgt 
 
 vm 
 
^- ^^^gg^B^^J 
 
 SW Burden «F tk Parti 
 
 that we should forget everything, the 
 blessed hallowed memories which are our 
 best angels still, the events and passages of 
 our pilgrimage. Some of the sorrow of 
 the past we cannot rid ourselves of, and 
 some of its joy clings about us like sweet 
 perfume. We are expected to remember 
 the lessons of the past, both of failure and 
 success, of sorrow and joy, of moral de- 
 feat and victory. 
 
 The principle is a simple one. All that 
 would hinder us from running the Chris- 
 tian race, all that would impede, must be 
 put behind us as we bend to our present 
 tasks and face our future. The past must 
 not be a burden which clogs and weights 
 us at every step. Indulgence in the retro- 
 spective, self-complaining, self-accusing 
 temper must be seen to be a temptation. 
 If we believe in the eternal love of God, 
 we must not let any spectral figures of the 
 night chill our blood and keep us from our 
 pilgrimage. 
 
 202 
 
 mmmM 
 
ft > ■! 
 
 Che Burden cf tU Pas 
 
 There are other temptations which may 
 be the heritage of our past. One is when 
 sorrow becomes exacting and selfish, heed- 
 less of present duty in a sort of luxury of 
 grief. The depressed life can make itself 
 very depressing to others. Sometimes a 
 mourner has sacrificed the living to the 
 dead. To give way to morbid memories 
 and sentimental sorrows is to lose the 
 great opportunity. In the first shock of 
 an acute sorrow or a sharp awakening it 
 often comes as a blinding influence, dark- 
 ening all the world and embittering all life. 
 It looks as if the sorrow will never recede 
 into the past and the wound will never 
 heal. With some it turns into a bitter 
 silence expressed in Byron's lines, 
 
 All that the proud can feel of pain 
 
 Which speaks but in its loneliness, 
 And then is jealous lest the sky 
 Should have a listener, nor will sigh 
 Until its voice is echoless. 
 203 
 
art^Wfrffrggg 
 
 She Burden of tin Past 
 iifi ajjKsV raw A i [g as 
 
 If sorrow does not illumine, it darkens ; 
 if it does not humble, it stiffens into pride. 
 Tears can wash the eyes and the heart, 
 and let the soul see clearly through the 
 cleansed windows of sense. But there 
 are some who cannot see God for tears, 
 who are blinded and stunned by hot grief, 
 and who only ask to be let alone in their 
 misery. 
 
 The needs of life remain, no matter 
 what the past contains, and while there is 
 life there is need. Fortunately all cannot 
 afford to indulge in much luxury of woe, 
 and life drives men to duty, which itself 
 teaches a lesson of faith. In The Anti- 
 quary Scott enforces this truth of common 
 life in the scene where Oldbuck goes 
 down to express sympathy with the fisher 
 family who had lost a son. It was imme- 
 diately after the funeral, and he was sur- 
 prised to see the fisherman mending his 
 boat on the beach. " And what would ye 
 have me to do," answered the fisher 
 204 
 
 Mm&^gt , 
 
 a^S^MJ 
 
SW Burden of tk Past 
 
 lUU rSSV^L mwa n\\vt 
 
 gruffly, " unless I wanted to see four chil- 
 dren starve, because ane is drowned ? It's 
 weel wi' you gentles, that can sit in the 
 house wi' handkerchers at your een when 
 you lose a friend ; but the like o' us maun 
 to our wark again, if our hearts were beat- 
 ing as hard as my hammer." 
 
 If sorrow weakens us, if it is not mak- 
 ing us truer and stronger, we must forget 
 it. We need not forget the love which 
 was ours and which we have lost, but we 
 must forget what of self is in the sorrow, 
 which hinders us from present duty. If 
 we believe in God, the memory of our 
 love should inspire us, and teach us not to 
 look backward for it but forward. All 
 true love is there, to be found again in 
 God. If even sin, the shame of youth, 
 the reproach of the past, weakens us, if it 
 is not bracing us to redeem the time, we 
 must forget it. This is the good news, 
 the gospel of forgiveness, without re- 
 serve ; freeing the soul from the past, 
 205 
 
 wmm 
 
?ZZ^?2%?«^2S?Z^ 
 
 W Burden «F the Past 
 
 znzagsass saagnsggS a 
 
 from the thralldom of the things that are 
 behind. It is pagan teaching that sin is in- 
 expiable, and must hang on us till the 
 end, and shroud life with its blackness. 
 
 We need not fear that this Christian 
 doctrine of the forgiveness of sin will 
 make sin easy : it is the only thing that 
 can make sin impossible, the light that 
 drives out the darkness, the love of God 
 that fills the heart and leaves no room for 
 evil. We must forget what God has for- 
 given. We must forget all that hinders, 
 as we press towards the goal unto the 
 prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
 206 
 
Seek not to penetrate into the future, neither en- 
 courage a habit of anticipating good or evil. Our 
 trials do not always come from those occasions which 
 we may have foreseen. God often takes us by sur- 
 prise. — F£n£lon. 
 
TO many the burden of to-morrow 
 is harder to bear than the burden 
 of to-day, however heavy it may 
 be : life is darkened by the shadow of the 
 future. Even many religious people live 
 perpetually under this leaden sky, never 
 completely and whole-heartedly rejoicing 
 in the sunshine which is theirs. Their 
 peace is destroyed by vague fears of the fu- 
 ture, and their lives are poisoned by petty 
 cares and anxieties. Many, to whom the 
 burden of the past and the burden of the 
 present are little, are oppressed by this 
 burden of the future. They accept the 
 love of God for their past, believing in His 
 gracious pardon of sin ; and so the past has 
 lost for them its keenest sting. They be- 
 lieve in the Father's sustaining help for the 
 present : under trial they know themselves 
 209 
 
 Mmmsis 
 
Z?Z?i?2?r*5^?s7*!i 
 
 £Iie Burden of tkFut 
 
 zzzzsssss z^gz^^m 
 
 to be upheld by their faith in God's loving 
 providence. But they are dogged by a 
 vague, overshadowing fear of the future, 
 all the more terrible because it is vague. 
 It does not shape itself into definite form, 
 but looms large and undefined, a black 
 storm-cloud that may burst at any moment. 
 It may be an accumulation of little fears 
 and cares about our future and the future 
 of those we love, a depressed state of nerv- 
 ous anxiety. It may be a mistaken pru- 
 dence, which wants to provide for every 
 possible eventuality, and which yet feels 
 that there are always loopholes where 
 chance can creep in and spoil the best laid 
 plans. It may be an undue estimate of the 
 value of the material in human life, laying 
 too much stress on the means of living. 
 Or even this fearfulness may appear to 
 have a religious source, and be caused by a 
 keen desire that the kingdom of heaven 
 should come quickly. Whatever be the 
 particular cause, many hearts are crushed 
 
 &mm£i&$^ mgmm 
 
Che Burden of tke Future 
 
 zznassssg gzazansg 
 
 by this burden of the future ; and life would 
 be a new thing to them if only they could 
 believe that as their days, so shall their 
 strength be. 
 
 Often, this lack-lustre mood is only a 
 thing of the nerves, the result of lowered 
 vitality, when the imagination is unbal- 
 anced and things are seen out of propor- 
 tion. Even the strongest mind may be 
 sometimes unstrung, and may make a 
 man falter where usually he would walk 
 calmly and confidently. But the mood of 
 anxious fearfulness has not its deepest 
 source in any physical state. It is too 
 continuous for that ; and on the other hand 
 some, who would be said to have all the 
 symptoms of the disease, never display the 
 nervous dread of to-morrow which afflicts 
 others. Still, it is well to bear in mind the 
 close connection between the different 
 parts of our nature. The state of health 
 will give its colour to the view of life. 
 Often the way to cure the sick soul is to 
 211 
 
 mMS^M^BMm 
 
he Burden of &~FtttweT70j 
 
 Wfi agggggggggg iu\s^ 
 
 find the secret of the sick body, and con- 
 versely mental states react on bodily con- 
 ditions. 
 
 The mere habit of living ahead, and 
 nursing a sort of melancholy, brooding 
 over the possibilities of fate, is a habit as 
 vicious as any other bad habit. Presenti- 
 ments of evil often come true, because 
 they lay open to the evil. We only need 
 to think a moment, to see how foolish and 
 futile it is to exist in a constant anticipa- 
 tion of evil. To imagine evil and cower 
 before some unknown future blow is fool- 
 ish ; for even if it is to come we do not 
 know where the blow will fall. Our 
 worst difficulties do not meet us at the ex- 
 pected places or at the foreseen times. It 
 is almost a proverb that it is the unexpected 
 that happens, and the future when it 
 comes often takes us by surprise as we 
 discover that the rough places are smooth. 
 Many a dreaded day vanishes when we 
 come up to it in courage. The object of 
 
 212 
 
Burden oft haFut 
 
 life is to live ; and we are diverting much 
 of the force of life by projecting ourselves 
 out of our sphere. A little healthy laughter 
 at our own foolishness is good ; and there 
 is a ring of it in Emerson's half comic but 
 wholly serious verse : 
 
 Some of your ills you have cured, 
 And the sharpest you still have survived ; 
 But what torments of pain you endured, 
 From the evils that never arrived ! 
 
 The cares and trials of the future are mer- 
 cifully veiled from our sight ; and even if 
 we could forecast them it would still be a 
 mistake to live through them twice, once 
 in anticipation, and again in reality. 
 
 There is a true sense in which it is 
 right to live for to-day and let to-morrow 
 look after itself; and there is a sense of 
 course in which it is evil. The spirit and 
 motive distinguish the two kinds of life, 
 and so make their character different. 
 The selfish life is the life for to-day, with 
 213 
 
plte Burden of tke Future) K V/ 
 
 irfiz/rssivw r/y^/^na sa 
 
 no larger outlook than the present interest 
 and pleasure. It would snatch the day, 
 and can never escape the snare of the pres- 
 ent world. The life of faith is also in 
 one of its aspects a life for to-day, unbur- 
 dened by fears. But how different the two 
 are ! The one lives for to-day because it has 
 faith in to-morrow ; the other lives for to- 
 day because it has no faith in to-morrow. 
 The one lives in the power of an endless 
 life ; the other has no horizon broader 
 than that of sight. The one opposes care 
 with faith ; the other opposes care with 
 carelessness. 
 
 The man who believes in God and in 
 His loving providence need not darken his 
 days by fretful cares and dread of evil to 
 come. Believing in God's purpose of 
 love with him, he knows that the future 
 cannot bring anything contrary to that. If 
 there are any trials and sorrows in that 
 time to come, he knows that the Father's 
 grace is sufficient for him through them 
 214 
 
 '^Cmm^F/^Bi^^mMM 
 
he Btrrden of tke Future 
 
 urn Kvfty '* j>im* hsss&* 
 
 all. If there are temptations, he knows 
 he will not be tempted above what he can 
 bear. His times are in God's hands. If 
 his days are to be long, the more time to 
 worship and to witness. If they are to be 
 few, the greater need to redeem the time 
 now. If they are to be lived through 
 much tribulation with darkness and storm, 
 with a long stretch through the valley of 
 the shadow, the Shepherd of his soul is 
 ever with him. He will ask to see the 
 heart of good in every evil that touches his 
 life, the joy that slumbers in every pain, 
 and in the hour of the final passion will 
 commit his soul to God. He must be- 
 lieve that as his days, according to the 
 measure of them, according to the charac- 
 ter of them, according to what in them he 
 is called to endure, so shall his strength be. 
 Pascal sums up what may be said about 
 the true religious way of taking short 
 views of life, " Here, therefore, our 
 thoughts and studies should principally be 
 
 215 
 
 n(Mm£& 
 
 sdzmm 
 
^^^Z^a^^^^ 
 
 Cfte Burden of tkeFut 
 
 engaged : yet the world is generally of so 
 restless a disposition, that men scarcely 
 ever fix upon the present, nor think of the 
 minutes which they are now living, but of 
 those which they are to live. Thus we 
 are always in the disposition of life, but 
 never in the act." 
 
 There is, however, a real practical diffi- 
 culty due to the fact that we are compelled 
 to consider the future. The world is a 
 place in which foresight and vigilance are 
 necessary. Life is so organized that it is 
 a duty for us to exercise prudence and fore- 
 thought. The weakest sort of character 
 is that which never considers the future, 
 never takes results into account. The 
 lack of ordinary prudence is responsible 
 for many of the evils, which have assumed 
 gigantic proportions and have become even 
 a social menace. One of the elements of 
 despair in our modern society is the man 
 who will take no care for the future, who 
 zi6 
 
£he Burden of tkFi 
 
 drifts with the tide and lives in a happy-go- 
 lucky fashion from hand to mouth, with- 
 out forethought, seemingly without any 
 anxiety for himself or for those dependent 
 on him. It means that he has no serious- 
 ness of purpose and that he has shuffled 
 off any responsibility for the future. 
 
 On the other hand the man of prudence 
 with wise judgment is one of our great 
 social assets. He becomes a leader in in- 
 dustry, in politics, and in all regions of 
 social activity. The business man, who 
 does not consider possibilities and weigh 
 probabilities and anticipate events and cal- 
 culate future results, it is safe to prophesy, 
 will not be long in business. The true 
 statesman also has to be quick to read the 
 signs of the times, to read beforehand what 
 is likely to happen, to see the shadow of 
 coming events, and to form his plans ac- 
 cordingly. In ordinary life also, in the 
 wise conduct of our own affairs, we need 
 to exercise forethought and to consider the 
 217 
 
M^^^v^swf^^W^ 
 
 £Ke Burden of Ik 
 
 7 U II rVASSI*. raWA m gSdfca 
 
 morrow. Indeed, this is part of the moral 
 training of life, and true prudence means 
 discipline, self-denial to-day in the interests 
 of the future. It is obvious that there 
 is a living for the present which is only 
 selfishness. 
 
 Yet there is a sin of anxiety and fear, 
 of overcarefulness, which is due to a lack of 
 real faith. Nothing brings so much misery 
 to a man as this state of fear. No burden 
 is so heavy as this burden of the morrow. 
 The man who is always calculating, al- 
 ways estimating future chances, lives in a 
 state of disquiet. It is not only that so 
 much of it is unprofitable, and that so 
 many of his inferences and calculations 
 are useless, but that it is often positively 
 evil. Life itself is lost in anxiety over 
 the means of living. If we think of 
 all the possible evils that may happen 
 to-morrow, if we give way to all the mis- 
 givings about the future, if we are full of 
 nervous anxiety about ourselves and others, 
 218 
 
SlieBtmlen oftke 
 'if// rsyifr-V" > AJMag iwiwcfe^ 
 
 of a surety we are in for a great deal of 
 unhappiness. Care is a very uneasy pil- 
 low on which to rest the head. We need 
 only look into men's eyes and read the 
 open book of their brow to know how 
 much need there is for our Lord's calm 
 counsel, " Be not anxious for the morrow. 
 Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." 
 The habit of nursing presentiments and 
 harbouring apprehensions is for one thing 
 most futile. Supposing the very worst 
 happens, supposing the thing we most fear 
 has to meet us in the face, the fact that 
 we have feared it beforehand does not pre- 
 vent its coming ; it will only sap from us 
 our strength and prevent us from meeting 
 it with courage. We discover also from 
 our experience of life that in most cases 
 the features of the thing dreaded are 
 grossly exaggerated, when we view it in 
 anticipation. Many of the things we fear 
 are imaginary, or at least the imagination 
 has distorted them out of all proportion. 
 219 
 
 Miim^ &i^^ ^cmh 
 
^^a^^^s 
 
 ?w?^ 
 
 die Burden of the Fi 
 
 We spend in nervous anxiety the strength 
 which would be sufficient to meet the 
 dreaded reality confidently. The man of 
 oversanguine temperament may sometimes 
 be disappointed and it may be a great blow 
 to lose what was hoped for, but he has at 
 least had some of the pleasure of antici- 
 pation. The man of nervous overanx- 
 ious temperament is also sometimes disap- 
 pointed of his fear, and even if there be 
 some joy in the relief, he has already suf- 
 fered all the agony of the dread, and his 
 new joy is soon lost as he conjures up 
 new spectres. " If hopes are dupes, fears 
 may be liars." In any case hope is a 
 better companion than fear. By living 
 ahead we are afflicting ourselves need- 
 lessly. The old proverb tells us not to 
 cross our bridges till we get to them, and 
 it is wise ; for we may not have to cross 
 the bridge at all. We only multiply evil 
 by living in constant anxiety and seeing 
 something ominous in every event and 
 
 gilgl^^raHgggga 
 
lie Burden of the Future 
 
 forecasting trouble for every to-morrow. 
 The day is not due, and the evil thereof 
 is not due until the day. 
 
 There is a sin of fear. It would only 
 be a folly if life could be viewed without 
 religion, but in that light it is more than 
 folly — it is sin. Our Lord condemns this 
 fearful state of mind not as foolishness 
 merely, but as want of faith. His whole 
 argument is based on the fact that God 
 exercises a wise and loving providence. 
 It is because God cares for us that we can 
 cast off our cares. The only cure for care 
 is faith. The only true defense against 
 fear is the knowledge of a loving heavenly 
 Father. To fear God truly is to lose all 
 other fear. Tacitus passes his judgment 
 on a man that he feared everything except 
 God — and we feel this to be a natural con- 
 clusion. It is true that there seem to be 
 men, who live their life without fear and 
 yet without God. In Old Mortality Sir 
 221 
 

 i&» Burden of the Fui 
 
 f n ii saases 2 zzaas jggga 
 
 Walter Scott describes the combat at 
 Drumclog between Bothwell and Balfour 
 of Burleigh. " Die, wretch, die," said 
 Balfour setting his foot on BothwelPs body 
 and transfixing him with his sword, " die, 
 bloodthirsty dog, die as thou hast lived, die 
 as the beasts that perish, hoping nothing, 
 believing nothing," " And fearing noth- 
 ing," said Bothwell, expiring as he spoke 
 these desperate words. It is not quite 
 consistent even with the picture of Both- 
 well which Scott gives, as he has his «iO 
 ments of remorse and regret, and there 
 was some bravado in Bothwell's dying 
 boast ; but it is quite possible that a man 
 of sufficiently coarse grain, who had 
 killed all his highest instincts, might be 
 described as without God and without fear 
 in the world as he is without hope. 
 
 Thus, when we speak about the sin of 
 fear, we do not forget that there may be a 
 sin of fearlessness. It is possible to 
 live with little care and few misgivings, 
 
 ^^^s^Mb^^^m 
 
i^^^ ^ ^U ^ 
 
 £k Burden of tkeFi 
 
 JltirSWyV BBBBSS3SS S 
 
 thoughtless of the future, never anxious 
 for the morrow, and yet to be living a 
 godless life. There is a self-confidence, 
 which has plenty of courage and no mor- 
 bidness, but which has no kinship with 
 this spirit of faith inculcated by Jesus. 
 That is not the calm serenity and peace- 
 ful grace to which He points as the typical 
 tone of the Christian life. The only 
 adequate and permanent cure for care is 
 faith, the faith which knows oneself in the 
 hands of love. Wherefore should we fear 
 in the day of evil, if we are led through by 
 the Good Shepherd ? Even in the dark 
 valley of the shadow we need fear no evil. 
 Wherefore fear for the future and be over- 
 anxious for the morrow ? " Sufficient unto 
 the day is the evil thereof." The next day 
 like this day is with Him who can make it 
 true of us, " as thy days, so shall thy 
 strength be." 
 
 Another reason why this habit of fear- 
 fulness is evil is not only that it displays 
 223 
 
lie Burden of tke Future J \Q / 
 
 want of trust in God, but it destroys our 
 capacity for service. Fear paralyzes, and 
 prevents from true activity. It takes the 
 heart out of work. It is of a piece that 
 the servant in the parable who did nothing 
 with his talent should say that he was 
 afraid and hid the talent in the earth. The 
 only fear a brave man harbours is fear lest 
 he be prevented from doing his work, and 
 even then he need not fear ; for when his 
 part is done the rest is in the hands of God. 
 This is why the fear of God kills all other 
 fears. It gives courage, strength for the 
 day and faith for the morrow. It does not 
 mean that we give up work, but that we 
 give up the worry which ruins work. It 
 does not mean that we give up considera- 
 tion for the future, but we see that the 
 best preparation for the future is to per- 
 form duty in faith. Our Lord's words are 
 not a rebuke to industry, but a rebuke to 
 fretful anxiety. There is a true sense in 
 which we must live for the present, for 
 224 
 
 fM^i^ g 
 
present duty and the tasks that lie to our 
 hand, not anxious about the morrow. It 
 is the spirit of the apostle's injunction, 
 " Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, 
 serving the Lord." When we have given 
 heart and soul and life to God, we need 
 liot worry about all the possible evil things 
 that may happen to-morrow. We can 
 tmow ourselves with energy and power 
 into the life of to-day. The man of faith, 
 iust because in the larger sense he lives for 
 the future and because he has not given 
 his heart to the present, can make the 
 mcst of the present, content now and ever 
 that his times are in God's hand. 
 
 Nct love thy life nor hate ; but what thou liv'st 
 Livj well, how long or short permit to heaven. 
 
 This true courage of faith is the attitude 
 of mind which brings peace ; for it means 
 a heart at leisure from itself. It takes the 
 sting out of trouble. No turn of affairs 
 225 
 
 mm^afMkm^mmt 
 
£he Burden of the Fi 
 
 j/i^i <ss\!w" zzzzs iu g 
 
 can come amiss to him, who fears nothing 
 that the future can bring because he tastes 
 the sweetness of the Father's love. 
 
 Herein is the secret, the true alleviation 
 of the burden of to-morrow ; not the false 
 and feeble attempt to oppose care by care- 
 lessness, to turn from the anxieties and 
 troubles of life to a wild recklessness, as- 
 suming only a painful jauntiness which 
 conceals the pain. The true remedy is 
 not forgetfulness, but faith. This is the 
 peace of God which passeth all under- 
 standing, which guards the heart and calms 
 the fevered life. To the soul, which has 
 this noble courage born of faith, no turn 
 of affairs can come amiss. He is not open 
 to the blows of chance. It is not mere 
 resignation : it is glad confidence that all 
 things work together for good to them 
 that love the Lord. " If I should intend 
 Liverpool and land in heaven," said John 
 Howe about a passage from Ireland. If, 
 226 
 
 M^ M^M 
 

 he Burden of the Future 
 
 what then ? To John Howe, who knew 
 that the eternal God was his refuge, and 
 underneath were the everlasting arms, what 
 shadow could the future have ? Why 
 should he be bowed down by the burden 
 of to-morrow ? As his days, right on till 
 the last sand had run, right on till the last 
 gasp of breath, so would be his strength. 
 
 It is at least a beautiful faith. Whether 
 justified by the facts or not, it is a grand 
 answer to the doubts and fears and ques- 
 tionings of the heart of flesh. Well, it is 
 the faith of the Bible, the inspiring confi- 
 dence of every godly man who overcame 
 the world. It is also the distinct teaching 
 of Jesus, comforting us by the strength 
 and assurance of His words : " Be not 
 anxious for the morrow." He speaks of 
 the life of fretful anxiety, the cares which 
 fetter the soul to earth. It is also His 
 marvellous example to us, as calmly He 
 filled His hours with doing the Father's 
 will, and with secure tread walked in the 
 227 
 
 gggmm 
 
tt&Sr*W&l^&& 
 
 £> he Burden of tKeFut 
 
 rfrfrWftTTrrr^ '^- &aa 
 
 light of day. Part of the way for Him 
 was the via dolorosa. The future, which 
 He took so graciously, had in it the cross 
 and the passion. 
 
 We are not promised days of perpetual 
 prosperity, and a path smooth to the feet, 
 fringed with flowers, and stretching out in 
 changeless sunshine. But we are prom- 
 ised to be kept in perfect peace, if our 
 hearts are fixed on God. It is not likely 
 that the future will be what we expect ; it 
 is not likely that the way we shall traverse 
 will be all our fancy paints, but if it is His 
 way for us it is well. This is not the 
 preaching of fatalism, ending in mere pas- 
 sive endurance and sluggish inaction, but 
 faith, bringing an inspiring motive to life, 
 clearing the feet from entanglements, and 
 setting all powers free to perform the duty 
 of the day. " Why wilt thou be con- 
 cerned beyond to-day," asks Luther, " and 
 take upon thyself the misfortunes of two 
 days ? " Put thus, with Luther's sancti- 
 228 
 
^g^^i^^g^^g^ 
 
 CheBurten of tkeFi 
 
 fied common sense, it is foolish from any 
 point of view, but it is more than foolish 
 from the point of view of faith. 
 
 The whole argument is really an appeal 
 to accept the consequences of our faith. 
 Faith in God being what it is through 
 Christ, it should follow as an inevitable 
 conclusion that we must not take upon 
 our weak shoulders the burden of to-mor- 
 row and weaken our lives with faithless 
 fears. Christ transmutes fear into faith. 
 In Him we see that the Father's love is 
 the very heart of the universe and the 
 centre of life. Why then should we 
 fear ? To be brought into the filial rela- 
 tionship with God in which Jesus lived is 
 to be emancipated from the bondage of 
 fear. If we are living ahead in fretful 
 anxiety, supping sorrow with a long spoon, 
 in fear about what to-morrow may bring, 
 calculating all the chances and the mis- 
 chances, is it not because we are weak in 
 
 229 
 
 mmmm 
 

 zzzzzsses zazzajs sg 
 
 faith somewhere ? When despondency 
 comes and doubt and darkness hover 
 round, when heart and flesh begin to faint 
 and fail, there is ever the same refuge in 
 God. When the evils of the day arise, 
 there is ever the same resource. " I even 
 I am He that comforteth you. Who art 
 thou who art afraid of man that shall die 
 and of the son of man which shall be 
 made as grass, and hast forgotten the Lord 
 thy maker ? " 
 
 Further, we can afford to take short 
 views of the present because we take a 
 long view of the future. The belief in 
 immortality is part of the belief in God. 
 There is no line of proof which can 
 demonstrate it by syllogisms. It must be 
 part of our faith in the nature and purpose 
 of God. We reach this ultimate peace 
 of faith in a future life not by a process of 
 reasoning but by accepting the Christian 
 teaching of the relation in which man 
 stands to God. Without this larger faith 
 230 
 
 BH55SEQ 
 

 He Burden of tWFut 
 
 naesgaa sazzamss 
 
 in the future we would be without defense 
 and without comfort in the face of the 
 worst desolations of the heart. No 
 earthly consolation can reach the root of 
 the deepest sorrows of life. Without 
 eternity there would be some wounds that 
 could never be staunched, and some griefs 
 that must be incurable. There can be no 
 healing of the grave's most poignant sting 
 without immortal faith. Our heart need 
 not be troubled or afraid if we believe in 
 the God whom Jesus revealed. We can 
 leave ourselves and all our future and all 
 our love to Him. In the power of end- 
 less life, all burdens are lightened. The 
 sunshine of eternity illumines the man- 
 sions of time. 
 
 mmm 
 
03 
 
 Yes / in the sea of life enisled, 
 With echoing straits between us thrown, 
 Dotting the shoreless watery wild, 
 We mortal millions live alone. 
 
 — Matthew Arnold. 
 
 i 
 
THE ultimate meaning to us of the 
 whole problem of pain lies in 
 the region of the moral life. 
 That is why there is no single solution to 
 explain all the mystery, and why each sep- 
 arate soul has to face the problem anew. 
 There is a Scottish proverb which says 
 that the king sighs as often as the peasant, 
 which is not merely a truth of popular ob- 
 servation, but is also the recognition that 
 the problem of life is more than one of 
 outward adjustment and is rather one of in- 
 ward relations. However fortunate the 
 environment and whatever be the satisfac- 
 tion the heart receives for all its human 
 cravings, there is a region apart, untrod 
 by other feet. There is a fundamental 
 isolation of life, in which the individual 
 stands alone, with a life below every form 
 235 
 
 tw^g^ 
 
 gtti&J 
 
^2S5S2^ ^^ 
 
 Takt Lon*Jy Life 
 
 / u u rv»\ w rs/wA muas 
 
 of the social life, the depths of which can- 
 not be reached by mortal man. Indeed 
 the keenest pain is often created by a sense 
 of loneliness, by the experience that no 
 human fellowship can dissolve the solitude 
 in which each soul lives. 
 
 At first this seems contrary to facts; for 
 the thought of our age all runs in the di- 
 rection of establishing the lines of connec- 
 tion between men, stating the points of 
 contact, declaring our common humanity. 
 Social science is laying hold of the oneness 
 of the race, and sets forth the mutual rela- 
 tionships which exist between men. Hu- 
 man life, we are ever reminded, is not iso- 
 lated. We are joined together with the 
 subtlest and with the strongest bonds. 
 There is no getting away from the situa- 
 tion, no cutting of the tie which connects 
 us. The Christian truth, that we are 
 members one of another, finds many illus- 
 trations in other levels of life. The well- 
 being of one is a matter of congratulation 
 236 
 
^^S2Z^^^ 
 
 "Cite Lonely Life 
 
 - ,j4«W 
 
 HllXv&K'Mifc 
 
 for the whole; the ill-doing of one does dam- 
 age to the condition of all. The truth of 
 the apostle's words is being brought home 
 to us, " No man liveth unto himself and no 
 man dieth unto himself." 
 
 In our ordinary every-day relations with 
 our fellows we soon learn that we must 
 consider others whether we will or no. 
 We live in families, in townships, in na- 
 tions. There is always a larger life of 
 which we are a part. We have little pa- 
 tience with hermits, and no room for them. 
 As a result, possibly, of the ever-increasing 
 complexity of society, in our thinking to- 
 day we do not consider men merely as in- 
 dividuals. Political economy views men's 
 relationships and not men themselves. 
 Politicians speak of classes and masses, and 
 no longer of individuals. Even industry is 
 organized into companies and combina- 
 tions and trusts, with limited liability. 
 This sinking of the single member in the 
 society is undoubtedly the tendency of our 
 237 
 
 &s 
 
 mmM& 
 
?&ZV7&?*&Zg*^ 
 
 Tahe Lonely Life 
 
 day, and in some respects is a tendency 
 which carries much hope of better things 
 for the whole social condition. 
 
 Every such tendency, however, has its 
 corresponding danger, and here the danger 
 is that we are inclined to forget that the 
 society, however complex, is composed of 
 individuals. In our glowing hopes of what 
 may be done by social rules and laws affect- 
 ing environment, we may forget that we 
 are all moral beings, with heart and con- 
 science and life of our own. We speak of 
 the masses in a dim sort of way as a unity, 
 but if we investigate their lives, if we fol- 
 low them into their homes, we find that 
 the masses consist of units, each, it may 
 be, with his own heart's bitterness, and 
 perchance sometimes with his own joys. 
 The community of human life, which is 
 being emphasized so much, is a lesson 
 which bears repetition — our common ties 
 and common duties and common responsi- 
 bilities — but at the same time we dare not 
 238 
 
 Mm^i 
 
 •Mmzmi 
 
7*h* Lonely Life 
 
 18 8 / liu ssssss zaasa Bangs 
 
 lose sight of the essential singleness of hu- 
 man life. Otherwise we have no moral 
 appeal to make, and if men are not viewed 
 as single individuals, with personal powers 
 of intellect and heart, with a moral life and 
 conscience, how can you even speak to 
 them of ties and duties and responsibili- 
 ties at all ? 
 
 The solitude of human life remains a 
 solemn fact. Every man has a hermit life. 
 There are crannies of his being into which 
 no spying eye can peer, corners of his heart 
 where the dust can gather undisturbed by 
 stranger hands, passages of his soul sacred 
 to his own memories of the past and his 
 own experiences of the present, a holy of 
 holies within, guarded from trespass. We 
 are more than we ever express. We 
 never fully explain ourselves. Even when 
 we think we are opening up our nature to 
 our fellows, in spite of ourselves something 
 is kept back. We cannot express com- 
 239 
 
TSht Lonely Life 
 
 pletely even a single phase of our nature or 
 a single stage of our life. The words which 
 we use to reveal ourselves tend, in a large 
 degree, to conceal ourselves also. The 
 complete reason for every smile or sigh is 
 never stated by one of us. 
 
 This fact then remains, whether we are 
 conscious of it or not, of the solitude of 
 human life, for weal or woe. We each 
 have this life, we and none other. We 
 can do much for each other; there are 
 burdens we can share ; we have powers of 
 sympathy and love, which enable us to get 
 out of self; we can rejoice with those who 
 do rejoice and weep with those who weep ; 
 we can even love our neighbour as ourself 
 — and yet there is a region in the depth of 
 our nature shut to intruders, a limit at 
 which we stop and say, " Thus far and no 
 farther " ; nay, there is a personality which, 
 with the best will in the world, we cannot 
 unveil to human eyes ; there is a burden 
 which every man must bear and only can 
 240 
 
 mmM 
 
Taht Lonely Life 
 
 agsaaz saaaggggs 
 
 bear; there is a heart's bitterness which 
 the heart alone can fully know, and a joy 
 with which a stranger may not inter- 
 meddle. 
 
 This is a simple statement of a very 
 familiar fact in every-day experience. We 
 can see it, for example, in our helplessness 
 in the presence of grief. There is no place 
 where we feel our own littleness and 
 realize how empty words are, as in the 
 presence of a great sorrow. We can only 
 .stand with bowed head silent, and not at- 
 tempt to utter our usual proverbs. How- 
 ever blessed sympathy is, we sometimes 
 learn that there are wounds that go too 
 deep for human help. Perhaps this inher- 
 ent solitude of human life is seen more in 
 sorrow than in joy. Joy tends to bring 
 out our oneness in many respects. In joy 
 we are in sympathy with all the bright side 
 of nature, the birds, and the flowers, and 
 the little children. We are in harmony 
 with the pleasant ripple of the murmuring 
 241 
 
 •kmmg g^^mmm. 
 
Take Lonely Life 
 Bin: iXCvAT 'mAmoa rti ga 
 
 brook and the joyous rustle of the trees 
 clapping their hands. Even a simple jest 
 may be like the touch of nature, which 
 makes the whole world kin. But sorrow 
 makes the sorrowing quiver at the sound 
 of outside rejoicings as at the lash of a 
 whip. The contrast seems too painful. 
 Why should the sun shine so blithely 
 when all is dark within ? " Is it nothing to 
 you, all ye that pass by ? Behold, and see 
 if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow." 
 Perhaps this is the reason why sorrow 
 will bring many a man to God whom joy 
 would never bring. Pleasure while it lasts 
 tends to breed self-sufficiency, but bitter- 
 ness is a great destroyer of conceit. 
 
 Eyes which the preacher could not school 
 
 By wayside graves are raised, 
 And lips say, " God be pitiful," 
 
 Who ne'er said, " God be praised." 
 
 Dumas, in his Memoirs, gives a pathetic 
 instance of the contrast there may be be- 
 
 242 
 
 gggp&fiqngjg 
 
Z>he Lonetv Life 
 
 mmssaass zzzagnss g 
 
 tween a man's outer and inner life. His 
 first great triumph happened when his play, 
 Henry III, was received in Paris with a 
 sensational ovation. His mother was dan- 
 gerously ill, and at the end of each act he 
 rushed home to see how she was. The 
 night before he was obscure; the next 
 morning he was the talk of all Paris. 
 " How many people envied me my triumph 
 that evening, who little knew that I passed 
 the night on a mattress on the ground at 
 the bedside of a dying mother." 
 
 It usually takes some severe experience 
 to convince us of this isolation of life; for 
 at first there seems no limit to what man 
 can do for man. It might seem even 
 that if our different social organizations 
 were only more perfect there would be no 
 troubles which go too deep for human aid, 
 no trials, sorrows, or griefs which are al- 
 together beyond the help of man. In pain 
 of body we turn to the skill and knowl- 
 243 
 
 ggmmM 
 
^^^vv-^g^^W^ 
 
 Tjht Lonely Life 
 
 edge and loving care of our fellows. We 
 find at least some help of a real and def- 
 inite kind from physician and nurse and 
 friends. If the disease cannot be cured, it 
 can be alleviated. In troubles of the mind 
 we turn, and not in vain, to those we trust. 
 There is no mental anguish, which cannot 
 be shared and thus eased by being shared. 
 Men have been enabled to smile at misfor- 
 tune, and through the sweet help of human 
 kind, adversity has been turned into joy. 
 In cases of bereavement when the heart is 
 dulled by its fierce shock we might think 
 that we had at last reached the point where 
 vain is the help of man, yet many a 
 mourner has been soothed by a touch, a 
 look, a word, a prayer, which have had 
 their source in a pitiful human heart. 
 
 It is true that perfect and complete help 
 is not to be had from man for any of 
 these troubles, physical or mental, and the 
 vanity of it is felt when the iron enters the 
 soul. Yet God has made it possible for 
 244 
 
 &mmx 
 
us to find and to give comfort and help. 
 It is part of the training of life and the 
 blessing of life. Indeed it is part, and a 
 great part, of the purpose of trouble itself. 
 Even when we speak of time as a healer 
 of sorrow, we only illustrate the truth of 
 this statement. Time in itself is no 
 healer of sorrow, nay rather the longer a 
 grief is brooded over and the deeper in the 
 soul it is buried, the more hopeless it be- 
 comes, but healing and comfort and 
 strength are obtained in time by getting out 
 from the region of the sorrow into health- 
 ful touch with our fellows. Few men are 
 without some stock in the great posses- 
 sions of human society — the love of friends, 
 the sympathy of well-wishers, the benevo- 
 lence of the good, more or less reliable in 
 times of need. 
 
 Still, with all this we feel that in the 
 final issues of life we are alone, even be- 
 yond the aid of man. It is part of the 
 price we pay for moral life, and part of 
 245 
 
 iM^m 
 
 mmm& 
 

 Take Lonely Life 
 
 the burden we are to carry. We can see 
 this even in many of these common 
 troubles to which we have referred, when 
 the trouble has patently a moral root, when 
 for instance the bereavement is touched 
 by remorse or haunted by fear. If there 
 were nothing in the world that we can call 
 sin, and nothing that makes us feel our 
 isolation as separate entities, or if help 
 were completely defined as physical com- 
 fort, we might never feel this sense of 
 utter helplessness either to give or to get. 
 When, however, we are face to face with 
 the moral problems of life, we feel instinc- 
 tively that we must look above man. 
 The other troubles were not like this. 
 There is a frost in winter, which lives in 
 sunshine and which though cold is brac- 
 ing ; and there is a frost with which even 
 a gleam of sunshine is impossible, which 
 strikes to the bones and the heart. In 
 man some consolation and external help 
 are to be found, but not in man nor in the 
 246 
 
 'hms^gz^kaMmim 
 
^^Z2Z^^^ 
 
 T»he Lonely Life 
 
 son of man is there a principle of life for 
 moral death. Sin isolates, and only as a 
 surface fact is there comradeship in evil. 
 Men can bear other burdens for us and 
 help to carry other loads, but in this we 
 are awfully alone. It is solemnly true 
 that no man can bear his brother's sin 
 nor save his brother's soul. We live 
 each in a world of our own, a world of 
 desperate desolation, and vain is the help 
 of man. It is the poisoned barb of the 
 shaft which makes the arrow deadly. It 
 is the moral sting which is somewhere in 
 our troubles that makes man's help vain. 
 Others as well as Macbeth have gone to 
 man to find a physician for a sin-sick soul, 
 and have asked despairingly and mock- 
 ingly for some one to minister to a mind 
 diseased, and to " cleanse the stuffed 
 bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs 
 upon the heart." 
 
 This fact of the solitude of life which 
 247 
 
 ^mmM 
 
we have been emphasizing and illustrating, 
 carries with it some temptations and dan- 
 gers. One is the mistake of supposing 
 that we should cultivate universal distrust 
 of man. To doubt human nature is to 
 doubt goodness, and that ultimately is to 
 doubt God. Perhaps the most dangerous 
 type of man is the cynic, who denies the 
 existence of honour and unselfishness and 
 purity and truth. It is the falsest of 
 creeds, and he is false that holds it. 
 " Cynicism," says Meredith in The Egoist, 
 is " intellectual dandyism without the cox- 
 comb's feathers, and cynics are only happy 
 in making the world as barren to others as 
 they have made it for themselves." When 
 we trust our own instincts and experience, 
 we know that goodness and integrity exist. 
 Unselfishness is no unknown virtue, nor 
 is truth a stranger in our midst. 
 
 When we speak of the vanity of hu- 
 man help we are merely stating the fact 
 that we cannot count invariably on men. 
 248 
 
 v£mmMsM&$mmdM 
 
TShz Lonely Life 
 
 It is not the depravity of human nature 
 we have to fear, but its frailty. We dare 
 not risk all upon it. It is good to remem- 
 ber this ; for it may keep sour cynicism 
 from the heart when the day of trial 
 comes. The closest friend may fail and 
 give way at the pinch. The bruised reed 
 we lean on may break and pierce the all 
 too trustful hand. It is not the wicked- 
 ness of men which makes them unreliable ; 
 it is their weakness. " Cease ye from 
 man whose breath is in his nostrils." He 
 is such another as thyself. He too is 
 borne down by the same weight. We 
 know his frame ; we remember that he is 
 dust. It was Christ's experience, and 
 part of the cross He had to bear. " Can 
 ye not watch with me one hour ? " He said 
 in His hour of agony to the three He 
 trusted most of all humankind. His 
 earthly ministry was mostly taken up with 
 the training of twelve men to be faithful 
 and true; and at the crucial moment 
 249 
 
 mmMJL 
 
^sszs^^^ 
 
 Xs\tc Lonely Life 
 
 one betrayed Him, another denied Him, 
 and all forsook Him and fled. It was 
 not depravity of heart in these men — in 
 some the spirit was willing but the flesh 
 was weak. It is the lesson of life that 
 there is no stay, no safety in the arm of 
 flesh, that human love may fail, and hu- 
 man strength may break. 
 
 Another temptation, which springs from 
 the facts of the solitary life, is the temptation 
 to become self-centred, to brood over our 
 own bitterness and exult in our own joy. 
 The horizon of our emotions is limited at 
 the best, and we are sometimes shocked at 
 our own callousness. As a rule, we are in- 
 terested in other people, only in so far as 
 they touch our lives. Selfishness is the 
 sin of sins, and is possible because of the 
 very dignity and power of concentration 
 which gives us a separate existence. Yet 
 we feel that, before the highest qualities of 
 human nature are possible to us, that foe 
 must be slain. We must get out of our- 
 250 
 
 mgm&, 
 
 imMM 
 
Tahe Lonely Life 
 r iff j ay c&y ~t ztm&a rag 
 
 selves somehow, and must get into touch 
 with other life. We must be drawn from 
 our greatest sorrow, and be led to share 
 our highest joy. The lonely life must be 
 broken into somehow. In the face of all 
 the dangers and sorrows and fears that 
 menace life, we need some source of com- 
 fort for ourselves and some source of 
 strength for the service of others. 
 
 For a moment a man may be consoled 
 by nature with Byron — 
 
 There is society where none intrudes, 
 By the deep sea, and music in its roar. 
 
 Not for long is comfort found there. 
 The poet who raved so much in his own 
 great way about the sea and the moun- 
 tains, who spoke of mingling with the 
 universe and trusting the billows, who 
 called the mountains friends and the ocean 
 a home, and found companionship in the 
 *5 r 
 
Z>1te Lonely Life 
 
 nncssgss zsaazaasna 
 
 desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam — he 
 came back from nature with ever the same 
 sense of insufficiency gnawing at his heart. 
 He came back to his fellow men, with his 
 poor weak fretting unrelieved and his pas- 
 sion unstilled. To the end a bitterness, 
 unsoftened by his wild proud life, clung 
 round his heart. In no mere nature wor- 
 ship, poetic reverie or artistic ecstasy, is 
 there to be found heart's ease and the fill- 
 ing up of the aching void. Nature will 
 only deepen the desolation, unless we can 
 get beyond it to the Presence which fills 
 it, beyond nature to nature's God. 
 
 The same ultimate failure waits all 
 who substitute humanity for nature, who 
 even throw themselves practically into all 
 sorts of social service, who seek to deny 
 the lonely life by cultivating many ex- 
 ternal relationships. It is the same sort 
 of need which drives the lighter kind into 
 endless social gaieties and frivolous dissipa- 
 tions. There is no real and lasting escape 
 252 
 
^^VSASgl^S^ 
 
 T»he Lonely Life 
 
 nnassssss sazagsn 
 
 from the lonely life by any such external 
 means. If they achieved all they prom- 
 ised, there would still remain that region 
 in the depth of our nature, of which we 
 have spoken, which is shut to all in- 
 truders. Human feet cannot stand there 
 on the very threshold of the soul's abode. 
 Into that holy of holies none can enter, 
 even if he would. Flesh would perish 
 there before that dread apocalypse of soul. 
 
 This continual craving of man for com- 
 panionship in the lonely life, even in the 
 valley of the shadow, is surely not disre- 
 garded. It is there that God meets him, 
 there in that holy of holies of the heart, 
 shut to every other visitant. Life in its 
 ultimate issue is lonely, because we were 
 made for a higher companionship. Our 
 Lord felt this solitude of human life, and 
 looked forward at the last calmly to the 
 time when He should be left alone, and 
 could add, " And yet I am not alone, be- 
 253 
 
 gijll^^^jllp 
 
7>he Lonely Life 
 Tin'i ArCvCwV,' y ^MM tug 
 
 cause the Father is with me." This, too, 
 is the solution for us, and in the loneliest 
 places of life we may find the heart's bit- 
 terness and joy, which brought the pain of 
 solitude, turned into holy and blessed 
 sacraments. There is divine comfort for 
 human sorrow, divine healing for human 
 wounds, divine forgiveness for human sin, 
 divine help for human loneliness. 
 
 This is the message of religion. This 
 is Christ's offer, to satisfy the ultimate 
 needs of our nature. In His love, bitter- 
 ness is lost and joy is shared. In His 
 service the life is stripped of its selfishness. 
 He may have to lead us out of ourselves 
 through sorrow, and if we follow He will 
 lead us out of our sorrow through sym- 
 pathy. In Him we reach out into a truer 
 and fuller life. Through Christ we reach 
 Christ's brethren. He Himself graduated 
 in the school of pain, and trained Himself 
 for His office, and can be touched with 
 the feeling of our infirmities. Com- 
 254 
 
 Mwm^^&^^mjm 
 
^2ZZZ^^^ 
 
 T»ke Lonely Life 
 r;rf ; ArccckV -MXufiA iVi gSfai 
 
 munion with Him satisfies our deepest 
 needs and prepares us for the highest 
 service. The lonely life is lost in the 
 Christ life. The hour comes to all when 
 we must know that vain is the help of 
 man, when we shall be scattered every 
 man to his own, when we too must be 
 solitary in the lonely life. Surely our house 
 is left to us desolate, if we have no knowl- 
 edge of a gracious Companion — if we can- 
 not say, " Not alone, for the Father is 
 with me." 
 
 One conclusion we have reached is that 
 it is not a speculative solution of this 
 whole problem which we need most. No 
 formula will gather up all the mystery, 
 and make plain to the mind the difficulties 
 and torturing doubts of which this subject 
 is full. What we need most is certainty 
 of God, that we might hold fast our faith 
 in Him. We will still be beset by mys- 
 tery, and the world's sorrows and our own 
 pain will still remain a terrible problem, 
 255 
 
 mm&& 
 
 mmm 
 
^^^<y>Sg ^?!^ 
 
 7S\t€ Lonely Life 
 
 but we will see enough to make us willing 
 to believe and wait. We will let every 
 experience of trial and sorrow bring some 
 lessons to withdraw our hearts from the 
 love of the material. We will learn to 
 look upon the whole discipline of life as a 
 means of sanctification, and in our highest 
 moments we will see it to be a terror to 
 be left of God, and will pray that the 
 beautiful promise may be true for us, " As 
 one whom his mother comforteth, so will 
 I comfort you." When we do, the last 
 word to us is not tribulation, but joy. 
 Even suffering only sets a seal on faith, 
 like the kiss of God upon the brow. 
 Faith sees far enough into the meaning of 
 tribulation to see in it the sign of love; 
 for it sees in it the Father's hand. 
 
 I know Thee who hast kept my path, and 
 
 made 
 Light for me in the darkness, tempering 
 
 sorrow, 
 So that it reached me like a solemn joy. 
 256 
 
 RW*£feg 
 
 mmmm 
 
11