LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Presented by 
 
 TUeJVVic^ovv of Greor(^e.T}wdc7\n5'*3<^ . 
 Aked, Charles F. 1864-1926 
 The courage of the coward 
 
THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 AND OTHER SERMONS 
 
I'^-T 10 1923 
 
 THE COURAGE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COWARD 
 
 AND OTHER SERMONS 
 
 BY , 
 
 CHARLES F. *AKED, D.D. 
 
 Minister of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, 
 New York City 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1907, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York : 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago : 80 Wabash Avenue 
 Toronto : 25 Richmond St.,W. 
 London : 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh : 100 Princes Street 
 
To 
 
 My Heroic Wife 
 
 To whom 
 
 I owe infinite things 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Courage of the Coward 
 
 II. The Meaning of Life's Vicissitudes 
 
 III. The Half Greater than the Whole 
 
 IV. The Ethics of Holidays 
 
 V. The Noble Living and the Noble 
 
 Dead ..... 
 
 VL The Judgment Days of God 
 
 VII. Mary at the Cross 
 
 VIII. The Survival of the Unfittest . 
 
 IX. The Most Popular Sin in the World 
 
 X. The Hands of the Living God 
 
 XI. Thunder and the Angel 
 
 XII. The Three Johns in John, the Three 
 
 Thomases in Thomas 
 
 XIII. The Serpent and the Rod 
 
 XIV. The Acceptance of the Universe 
 
 page 
 9 
 
 27 
 45 
 65 
 
 81 
 
 99 
 
 115 
 
 133 
 
 149 
 
 167 
 183 
 
 200 
 
 219 
 
 235 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The sermons contained in this volume are all 
 " morning sermons " — the preacher will understand 
 what the phrase is intended to cover. They are 
 evangelical, but scarcely evangelistic. They are 
 in the main addressed to those who are already 
 more or less closely attached to the Church. They 
 represent, with two exceptions, the preaching of a 
 few months, for they followed each other in almost 
 orderly succession. Hence, amid variety of sub- 
 ject and treatment, there is similarity of mood. 
 For a preacher has his moods like other men, and, if 
 he is wise, he preaches out of the mood of the day 
 and the hour. If he is living a full, well-rounded 
 life there is little danger of monotony, even though 
 the mood holds him through a year of preaching; 
 while, in the course of his life's ministry, he will 
 speak as a living man to living men and women, to 
 their every varying circumstances and needs. 
 
 It will happen that at one time some great 
 fundamental truth of the Christian faith holds the 
 preacher in its grip; and although he has known 
 it and loved it and preached it all his life, yet, 
 while its domination lasts, it dwarfs to his vision 
 truths of equal consequence, and the proclamation 
 of it, for a season, excludes phases of ministry not 
 
PREFACE 
 
 less desirable. Then it will happen that the great 
 outstanding doctrines loom less large for a while, 
 and the preacher longs to speak simple, direct, 
 comforting, affectionate words to his friends, and 
 is satisfied if he feels that he has come close, heart 
 to heart, to the humblest amongst them. This is 
 so much to the good. The great truths have to be 
 proclaimed, one by one, over and over again. The 
 kind and intimate words have to be spoken — and 
 happy the man who can speak them fittingly ! 
 
 These sermons, whatever other defects they may 
 have, are free from pretence and affectation. 
 They are born of their "mood." They were 
 preached in the months that followed restoration 
 to work after an interruption, through illness, 
 which lasted more than a year. These were days 
 when, after looking death in the face, the preacher 
 had drawn very near to God. And, without wear- 
 ing liis heart upon his sleeve, from Sunday to Sun- 
 day he allowed the experience through which he 
 had passed to colour his preaching. He did not 
 pretend that a revelation from heaven had been 
 granted to him which entitled him to pose as the 
 author of a new pocket-gospel for mankind. He 
 only felt a little more sure about the old Gospel 
 which it was his business in the world to preach. 
 He did not dream that no man had ever been ill 
 before him, or that he was the first to discover that 
 there was comfort in Christ! But certain experi- 
 ences had been his which had led him through dazed 
 wonder to settled peace. So he spoke to his 
 friends, spoke simply, about some of the deepest 
 things in life. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 There is, therefore, no screaming in this book, 
 no attitudinising — even though to the superior 
 person there may seem much platitudinising — no 
 straining after effect, and no preaching merely be- 
 cause Sunday has come round again and a preach- 
 ment of some sort has to be produced. It is quiet 
 speech from a man who has suffered as millions of 
 better men have suffered before him, and has found, 
 as millions have found and may still find, that — 
 absurd as it sounds — one who is no sentimentalist 
 may " take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in 
 necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for 
 Christ's sake ", and that for the reason Paul gives : 
 " when I am weak, then am I strong". 
 
 New York City; July 1, 1907. 
 
I 
 
 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
O, friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port 
 greatly, or sail with God the seas. — Emeeson. 
 
il 
 
 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 " He that doeth the truth cometh to the light." 
 
 — JOHK III. 21. 
 
 The worst thing about good people is that they 
 are such cowards. We have all assisted, and 
 more than once, at a meeting which has been a 
 parable of human life. It has been, let us say, 
 a church meeting, a vestry meeting, the busi- 
 ness meeting of some committee or political or- 
 ganisation. There is sharp difference of opinion, 
 and, perhaps, some question of principle involved. 
 The discussion becomes unpleasant ; bitter things 
 are said; the air is electric. What happens? 
 One by one the best men and women get up and 
 leave the room. The wrong-headed, the selfish, 
 the cantankerous, remain — and carry everything 
 before them! Interrogated as to why they left 
 the meeting in possession of the awkward and 
 stupid people, the really nice people, who ought 
 to have stayed and supported the right, always 
 answer, " Oh, I don't like that sort of meeting. 
 It distresses me too much. I can't bear it." 
 And so the good cause is lost. When we saw 
 this first our souls sickened within us. It seemed 
 to us then, in the days of our strong young man- 
 hood, that " a shameful and horrible thing had 
 
 11 
 
12 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 come to pass in the land," and we wondered 
 " what we should do in the end thereof " ! 
 Since those days we have learned to contemplate 
 it in less turbulent mood. The years that bring 
 the philosophic mind have at least enabled us 
 to think of it as of other limitations of our good- 
 ness — ^limitations which we shall all outgrow, 
 and which, in this life or in the life to come, 
 will all be done away in Christ. For, as I say, 
 it is human life In miniature which you see. 
 You are looking at it through the large end of 
 the telescope; the figures are very tiny, but they 
 are real. So many of the best people shrink 
 from the rough work which at times has to be 
 done for the Master. Christians have yet to be 
 pathfinders, pioneers, iconoclasts, destroyers of 
 the old, stern builders of the new, grim fighters 
 for the truth. With trowel in hand, but with 
 sword on thigh, we build again the walls of our 
 Jerusalem. For the day of the Lord is ever upon 
 us. And " the meekest of saints can find stern 
 work to do in the day of the Lord at hand." 
 Yet it is the meek saints, those who are truly meek 
 and destined to inherit the earth, those who are 
 really saints, thrust forth to exercise sanctifying 
 influences upon their fellows, who naturally and 
 almost irresistibly shrink from this stern work. 
 For the senseless misunderstandings, the cruel 
 misrepresentations, the petty vindictiveness — 
 what we call the dust of controversy, the din of 
 conflict — tliey have no taste. They find it easier 
 to let the wrong thing be done than brace 
 
THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 13 
 
 themselves for hand-to-hand conflict for the 
 right. 
 
 We call these people cowards. Yet it seems 
 to me that the courage of the coward Is a mar- 
 vellous thing. There are words which to many 
 of us are only words, and they scarcely convey 
 a meaning at all. To these more timorous spirits 
 they represent the most awful facts of life and 
 death. " Convention," " opinion," " society," 
 " the world," " precedent," " custom," and the 
 like — for you, a scarecrow which the farmer has 
 set up in his field, which you see as you dash 
 past in the express, would have as much terror. 
 And you can no more understand any grown 
 man giving a second thought to such trumpery 
 considerations than you could understand his 
 huddling into a corner and covering his eyes 
 with horror lest the scarecrow should shoot him 
 with the bent stick which its maker has stuck 
 under its arm. Yet these terrors of public opinion 
 and public condemnation are real to your neigh- 
 bour, to the person who sits next to you in the 
 same pew. To assert an unpopular view, to 
 champion an unpopular cause, to avow themselves 
 the disciples and friends of an unpopular teacher 
 amid the contemptuous smiles of a fashionable 
 and ignorant mob, demands from them as much 
 real courage as many a martyr has taken to the 
 stake. 
 
 We have been told that if you trace on the floor 
 a chalk circle, and put a goose inside it, no induce- 
 ment in the world can prevail on the goose to 
 
14 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 cross the appalling line. He will starve inside 
 the magic circle, starve to death within sight of 
 food, but he will not move! There are men and 
 women who are more goose than the geese. 
 These chalk marks of custom and convention 
 have been traced for them in circles of flame by 
 the fiery swords of seraphs. And they could 
 more cheerfully face the real fires of martyrdom 
 than brave the milk-and-water persecutions of 
 their day and their set. 
 
 But when at last the shrinking spirit nerves 
 itself for resistance, for assertion, for public 
 declaration of faith and principle and loyalty, 
 how grand it all is! What joy in heaven there 
 must be over one delicate, sensitive soul which 
 has put on strength and stood forth bravely for 
 the right! How the bells of heaven must ring, 
 pealing forth a grander music to the stars, over 
 the new-born courage of the fearful, than over 
 ninety and nine brave persons who need no 
 transformation ! 
 
 The hero of my text is a grand, pathetic figure. 
 He died nearly nineteen hundred years ago, but 
 he is alive now, and I know him well. I admire 
 him and pity him and reverence him and con- 
 demn him at the same time. He was not quite 
 a saint. He was all but a hero. When there 
 came to him the prompting, which never comes 
 to any but sweet and candid souls, to go out 
 and find for himself what there was of good in 
 Him who was despised and rejected of men, he 
 obeyed the prompting, but so secretly, so furtively, 
 
THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 15 
 
 with such infinite precaution against discovery, 
 that men not one-hundredth part as good as he 
 have called him coward ever since. When the 
 impulse came to him, seated in honour in the 
 high council of the State, to assert the everlasting 
 obligations of the moral law, and either swing 
 his nation and the world to the side of right for 
 ever or die as a brave man dies for God, he acted 
 on the impulse, but so weakly, with so poor a 
 heart, that on him as on his fellows rests to this 
 day the real guilt of the crucifixion. And yet 
 this man, this craven hero, when the disciples 
 had forsaken their Lord and fled, dares all, defies 
 all, risks all, takes his life in his hands, and plays 
 a part in the final scene of the tragedy of Calvary 
 for which all who love the Lord Jesus Christ must 
 for ever praise him ! 
 
 Let us look a little more closely at this gallant 
 coward. His name was Nicodemus. He was a 
 ruler of the Jews. He was a member of the great 
 and proud ecclesiastical court which for so many 
 centuries represented all that was haughtiest and 
 strongest in the religion of Israel. This man came 
 to Jesus by night. He made his way from 
 Jerusalem to Bethany, found the house of John, 
 the beloved disciple, where Jesus was lodged. 
 He glanced to the right and left up and down the 
 narrow street, then drew his cloak more closely 
 round him, and ascended the stairs outside the 
 house to the guest chamber on the roof where 
 Jesus was. Their conversation that night was 
 one of the most momentous which history records ; 
 
16 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 and when it was ended, and Jesus bade His guest 
 farewell, with His hand upon the old man's 
 shoulder, His voice stern, but His eyes speaking 
 an infinite tenderness, He said, " But he that doeth 
 the truth cometh to the light." Nicodemus left 
 Him. And it was night. 
 
 Later, the council of which Nicodemus was a 
 member sent their military police to arrest Jesus. 
 The police returned, reporting that they had 
 failed to execute their warrant. They had listened 
 to the preaching of this wondrous preacher, 
 and had been paralysed by — they knew not what. 
 *' Never man spake like this man," they said. 
 And then, as the members of the council 
 burst into abuse and threats, Nicodemus tim- 
 idly suggested, " Doth our law condemn any man 
 without first giving him the opportunity to meet 
 the charge and state his defence ? " only to be 
 remorselessly swept aside in the midst of his 
 trembling plea for right. 
 
 Yet this is not all. Let us stand for a moment 
 beside the Cross. Priestly hate and popular 
 fury have done their work. Black darkness 
 has settled down upon the hearts of all. The 
 soldier's spear-thrust has been dealt. The Lord 
 of Life is dead. Outside the walls of Jerusalem 
 was a hideous ravine call^ Ge Hinnom or 
 Geherma, which the Authorised Version used to 
 translate Hell. It was a place where offal was 
 cast, and the carcasses of animals, and the 
 bodies of criminals who had been put to death 
 and adjudged unworthy of decent burial. It was 
 
THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 17 
 
 the common cesspool of the city. He was 
 numbered with transgressors in His death, and 
 His body would have been flung into this foul 
 Gehenna but for Nicodemus and another one. 
 Joseph of Arimathaea, also a night-disciple for 
 fear of the Jews, begged from Pilate the body of 
 Jesus that he might take it away. With him 
 came also Nicodemus, bringing with him myrrh 
 and aloes, the linen cloths and spices which Jewish 
 burials demand. And the last oflSces of love 
 and tenderness which men can pay to our frail 
 mortality were discharged by Joseph and by 
 Nicodemus — who had come to Him by night ! 
 
 There is not a stage of the evolution of courage 
 in the heart of Nicodemus which we do not recog- 
 nise. Step by step how well we know it all! 
 One of our great preachers has suggested that 
 the night scene related in the third chapter of 
 John is not really the first in Gospel history in 
 which Nicodemus has appeared. When the Temple 
 embassy came to John the Baptist, demanding 
 the nature and authority of his mission, and went 
 away with their adverse report, this ruler of 
 Israel may have been amongst them.* And 
 perhaps there were inclinations toward the right 
 even then. But his less tolerant colleagues bore 
 him down with the violence of their own opinions, 
 and his report was theirs. You are at school, 
 at college, at the university. Materialism is 
 dominant. Scepticism, more or less defined, is 
 in the air. And though you have not named 
 the name of Christ, still there are instincts and 
 *Dr. Whyte: " Bible Characters." 
 
18 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 feelings toward Him which stir your nature to 
 gentle protest against the life which is being lived 
 all round you. But the pressure of your sur- 
 roundings is too much. You do as the others do. 
 You speak as they do, or, at most, refrain from 
 speaking in a contrary sense. If you do not 
 altogether feel as they feel — what matters .-^ 
 You are overborne and swept along by the 
 current too strong. You sign the report to 
 your Temple — at most you let judgment go by 
 default. Or, perhaps, the talk in your circle 
 is about some bill before Congress, some pro- 
 posal of the Government, some action of the 
 City Fathers. It is not a question which you 
 have studied deeply, in which you have arrived 
 at some definite and firm conclusion. But again 
 you have an instinct that this is wrong, and that 
 it should be condemned. But once more you 
 are swayed by the people round you. You are 
 one in a crowd of polite and foolish persons ; 
 you cannot make yourself roughly objectionable 
 by the obtrusion of unusual opinions about which, 
 after all, you are not really confident. Thus bad 
 begins and worse remains behind. 
 
 Nicodemus went to investigate. Perhaps you 
 have gone so far. You have heard the preaching 
 or read the books. You have opened your New 
 Testament again. You have prayed for strength 
 to see the light and follow the right. But 
 when you have seen and understood, the 
 decided and deciding step would cost you too 
 much! Some loss might be involved; som.e 
 
THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 19 
 
 inconvenience would be. You feel a kind of 
 shame, a bashfulness about openly taking the 
 side of right, which constrains you and makes 
 you feel awkward, and you blush to think of 
 yourself facing the ordeal of public confession of 
 faith in the meek and lowly Jesus. There is still 
 some possibility of ridicule. The day of humilia- 
 tion has not passed. And so you turn away 
 while the touch of Christ is yet upon your heart 
 and His voice is in your ears, He that doeth the 
 truth cometh to the light. 
 
 The third scene is for ever re-enacted in our 
 lives. The impulse has grown. The conviction 
 that right is here, that right must be done, 
 that right must be defended and wrong defied, 
 has grown within you. The conviction is 
 struggling toward utterance. And now it finds 
 expression, and for your life you cannot but 
 speak the thing which is in your soul ! Yes ; 
 and how do you speak it? Why, with bated 
 breath and whispering humbleness and in a 
 bondman's key ! And having spoken, you stand 
 like the statue of Fear in the famous ode, 
 " Frightened at the sound yourself has made." 
 What is the use of such a poor little paltry 
 protest against current iniquity, against vested 
 interests in unrighteousness.'' Do you think 
 that this mad world will hear or heed when you 
 venture so humbly to insinuate your feeble 
 objection to the course which things are taking.? 
 And what becomes of you.'* You and your 
 opposition are soon swept away ! High-handed 
 
20 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 sin makes short work of apologetic interferences. 
 And this is the reproach against us. This is 
 our sin. And this is our great and exceeding 
 loss and the world's loss, too. There are times 
 when you have no right to think or speak or 
 feel moderately. You shall not give a moderate 
 warning to your neighbour that his house is on 
 fire, nor moderately rescue your child from 
 drowning, nor moderately snatch your wife 
 from the hands of ruffians. You shall be as 
 harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. 
 You shall not equivocate. You shall not excuse. 
 You shall not draw back. And you shall be 
 heard.* My brother, stand up boldly for the 
 right which you know to be right, for the truth 
 which you know to be true. Follow light, 
 though the faintest beam falls upon your path; 
 follow light, until it broadens into the perfect 
 day. Do the right in scorn of consequence, 
 for God is God. And when a man does the right 
 so strongly that he counts his life as of no impor- 
 tance, his example becomes omnipotent. It is 
 the blood of the martyrs which is the seed of 
 the Church. Are you waiting, and hesitating 
 in your soul, and standing by, with the good 
 impulse stirring within you, yet letting " I 
 dare not" wait upon "I would"? Nay, do 
 nothing of this, for while you wait, they are 
 crucifying Christ. He that doeth the truth 
 cometh to the light. 
 
 And at the last comes conquest. Nicodemus 
 triumphed over his coward fears. When Joseph 
 * Lloyd Garrison J first copy of The Liberator. 
 
THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 21 
 
 of Arimathaga came to beg the body of Jesus, 
 he came, too, to bury Him. Why did he not 
 assert himself sooner? Why did he wait until 
 his Lord was dead? Why was he not at the 
 Cross? Why was he not by His side when the 
 crowd cried "Crucify Him"? Alas, why do 
 we all wait until, were it not for God's mercy, 
 we should be doomed to a coward's fate, should 
 live and move and have our being in the hell 
 of a coward's remorse and a coward's despair? 
 But Nicodemus rose to these grand heights at 
 last. From them he looks down through the 
 ages and beckons us in utter kindness. The day 
 is°not ended nor the story finished. There are new 
 chapters to be added to the Acts of Apostles; 
 and when men write them, your acts must be 
 there. I plead with you for the exercise of your 
 will, for the expression of the faith that is in 
 you, for the courage wliich shall do the truth 
 and come to the light. 
 
 "I do not wonder at what men suffer. I 
 wonder at what men lose." Let us reckon up 
 the losses of your fearfuhiess, in the light of 
 Ruskin's famous phrase. 
 
 The -first loss is to yourself. And it is the loss 
 of precisely those things which you thought to 
 gain by refusing to embroil yourself in contro- 
 versies and conflicts. You keep out of this 
 stormy struggle for the right in order to find 
 rest and peace. Rest and peace you will never 
 find in servile acquiescence as you will find it in 
 whole-souled enthusiasm for the right. I speak 
 
22 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 what I know. I testify the deepest conviction 
 of my life. While the storms rage ; while you 
 fight with wild beasts ; while the thunders of 
 popular hatred crash over your head and its 
 lightnings dart through your sky ; while it 
 seems to you in very truth that Christ has come 
 to fling fire on the earth, His deepest promise is 
 fulfilled, " Peace I leave with you. My peace 
 I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give 
 I unto you." Do you beheve that.'' I know that 
 it Is true. 
 
 When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean, 
 And billows wild contend with angry roar, 
 
 'Tis said, far down beneath the wild commotion, 
 That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. 
 
 Far, far beneath, the noise of tempests dieth. 
 And silver waves glide ever peacefully. 
 
 And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth. 
 Disturbs the sabbath of that deeper sea. 
 
 So to the heart that knows Thy love, O Purest I 
 
 There is a temple, sacred evermore. 
 And all the babble of life's angry voices. 
 
 Dies in hushed stillness at its peaceful door. 
 
 Do you believe it? If not, try it! For you 
 will catch your shadow and grasp it and walk 
 arm in arm with it sooner than you will find 
 the deepest peace and highest joy of which your 
 nature is capable by timorous avoidance of duty. 
 I do not wonder at what you suffer. I wonder 
 at what you lose. 
 
 The next loss is to the men and women like you. 
 There are millions like you. Each one of these 
 
THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 23 
 
 uncounted millions can be helped and encouraged 
 and inspired by the example of other units like 
 themselves. " It is certain," says Novalis, 
 quoted by Carlyle, " my conviction gains infi- 
 nitely, the moment another soul will believe 
 in it." Infinitely/, says Novalis, and Carlyle 
 adds, " it is a boundless favour." This infinite 
 gain, this boundless favour, is in your hands. 
 Your example will be potent with another. 
 You are not the man you meant to be. You 
 have been saved from the gross sins and shameful 
 disorders of life. And you can carry your head 
 high. But you are not the man you would have 
 liked to be. You are not as good a man as you 
 meant to be. You would like your boy to be 
 a better man than you. And would it not be 
 a help to him if you were plainly to declare 
 yourself for God and for His Christ? If you 
 could break through the hampering restraints 
 of your own timidity and through those which 
 Society and Convention have fastened upon you, 
 and stand forth for the spiritual and the eternal, 
 would it be worse with your boy and his future, 
 or would it be better.? Is there nobody in your 
 office and nobody in your home whose life would 
 feel the touch of yours, if yours became heroic? 
 The disciple who serves Him in secret is a disciple 
 still, thank God! But it is loss to mankind 
 that he will not serve Him openly in the gaze 
 of all. 
 
 Do you remember Ruskin's last message to the 
 world? It is exquisitely lovely: 
 
24 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 " Looking back upon my efforts for the last 
 twenty years, I believe that their failure has 
 been in very great part owing to my compromise 
 with the infidelity of this outer world, and my 
 endeavour to base my pleading upon motives of 
 ordinary prudence and kindness, instead of 
 upon the primary duty of loving God — founda- 
 tion other than which no man can lay. I thought 
 myself speaking to a crowd which could only be 
 influenced by visible utility; nor was I in the 
 least aware how many entirely good and holy 
 persons were living in the faith and love of God 
 as vividly and practically now as ever in the 
 early enthusiasm of Christendom, until, chiefly 
 in consequence of a great illness, I was brought 
 into closer personal relations with the friends in 
 America, Scotland, Ireland, and Italy, to whom, 
 if I am spared to write any record of my life, it 
 will be seen that I owe the best hopes and highest 
 thoughts which have supported and guided the 
 force of my natural mind. These have shown 
 me, with lovely initiation, in how many secret 
 places the prayer is made which I had foolishly 
 listened for at the corners of the streets ; and on 
 how many hills which I had thought left desolate, 
 the hosts of Heaven still moved in chariots of 
 fire. But surely the time has come when all 
 these faithful armies should lift up the standard 
 of their Lord — not by might nor by power, 
 but by His spirit, bringing forth judgment unto 
 victory; that they should no more be hidden, 
 nor overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. 
 
THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 25 
 
 If the enemy cometh in like a flood, how much 
 more may the rivers of Paradise." 
 
 Yes ; that is the call to us : the enemy has 
 come in like a flood; we wait for the rivers of 
 Paradise. 
 
 We must take account of still another loss, 
 the loss to the great men who are leading and teach- 
 ing the nations. They need us, they need every 
 one of us. Though we do but stand up to be 
 counted as their followers, though we should 
 be only as names and numbers on the muster- 
 roll of their legions, yet is the gain to them un- 
 speakable. You can see their craving for the 
 love and loyalty of men and women who will 
 believe in them and avow their faith in every 
 leader's life, in men so different as Mohammed 
 and Mazzini, William the Silent and Washington. 
 It is a debt of honour that we owe to them. 
 
 May we not reverently add, it is the loss of 
 Christ? Suppose that on the dark betrayal 
 night, when members of the Sanhedrim gathered 
 in haste at the house of the High Priest, when 
 perjured witnesses swore the Saviour's life away, 
 and amongst the crowd of murderers in sacerdotal 
 robes no man was found to venture all in glorious 
 defence of righteousness, suppose that then 
 Nicodemus had leaped forward to take the 
 patient Prisoner's side! Though the chivalry 
 had been unavailing, though the brave man had 
 been trampled underfoot, and Christ had been 
 crucified, amid the agony of Calvary, it seems to 
 
26 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 me, there would have been in the Redeemer's tor- 
 tured soul the grateful memory of one who had 
 dared and died for Him. Not less joy, surely, 
 fills the heart of the Son of God when you start 
 forward to take His side, and count the world 
 well lost for Him. Jesus of Nazareth, whom 
 Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus buried, we 
 shall see on earth no more. But the Christ of 
 God I see in every crowded street. He appeals to 
 me from every bed of pain. He cries to me from 
 every broken heart. He is Incarnate, Tangible, 
 Visible, in every moral movement. He stretches 
 forth warm hands that cling and yearn for help 
 in every great redemptive effort which glorifies 
 our time, in the Peace movement, in the Temper- 
 ance crusade, in the endeavour to realise in com- 
 mon life the Brotherhood of Man. For the joy 
 that was set before Him, He endured the Cross. 
 That joy let us complete, filling up what remains 
 of the suffering of Christ, and carrying the Cross 
 with Him ! Live for yourself : you have denied 
 your Lord! But do the truth and come to the 
 light, and, even while the old tremors shake your 
 limbs and whiten your lips and chill your heart, 
 speak the brave word, do the brave deed, live the 
 brave life, confess Him openly before men, and 
 then listen for His mighty word, " Him will I 
 confess before My Father, Who is in Heaven ! " 
 
n 
 
 THE DEEP MEANING OF LIFE'S 
 VICISSITUDES 
 
We pray against the tempest and the strife, 
 The storm, the wliirlwind, and the troublous hour 
 
 Which vex the fretful element of life. 
 
 Me rather save, O dread dispensing Power, 
 
 From those dead calms, that flat and hopeless lull. 
 In which the dull sea rots around the helpless bark, 
 And nothing moves save the sure-creeping dark 
 
 That slowl/ settles o'er an idle hull. 
 
 -—Owen Meredith. 
 
n 
 
 THE DEEP MEANING OF LIFE'S 
 VICISSITUDES 
 
 " In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of 
 adversity consider; God hath even made the one side by 
 side with the other, to the end that man should not find out 
 anything that shall be after him." — Ecclesiastes vii. 14. 
 
 " This is the state of man : to-day he puts 
 forth the tender leaves of hope; to-morrow 
 blossoms and bears his blushing honours thick 
 upon him; the third day comes a frost, a killing 
 frost; and — when he thinks, good easy man, 
 fully surely his greatness is ripening — nips his 
 root: and then he falls!" These lines are 
 amongst the best known in English speech, and 
 the fact of which they treat is perhaps the most 
 commonplace in all our commonplace lives. 
 There is no preacher nor moralist, no poet nor 
 dramatist, who has not exhausted the resources 
 of his art in the effort to bring out the deep 
 meaning of life's vicissitudes. What preacher 
 would not fear to provoke a smile if he set him- 
 self to discuss once more the chances and changes 
 of human life.'' 
 
 And yet, the smile notwithstanding, it is to 
 the consideration of this commonplace that our 
 text invites us. 
 
30 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 The Bible loves these dramatic situations. 
 And as children we have delighted in them. We 
 have revelled in the stories of the shepherd boy 
 who killed a giant, became king, and laid the 
 foundations of a famous monarchy ; of a great 
 king who was driven from his palace into the 
 wilderness where he ate grass like an ox; of the 
 lonely prisoner who was carried from his cell to 
 become the lord of Egypt; of the noble who 
 was hanged on the gallows he meant for his 
 foe; and of intriguing priests who were flung 
 into the flames they had kindled for the servants 
 of God. In our later years we have been charmed 
 by the swift transitions of Bible story from loveli- 
 ness to terror and from tragedy to peace. We 
 open the first page of the Book of Life, and we 
 are in a garden, with fruits and flowers and 
 sunshine, with man and woman living in pristine 
 innocence with companionable beasts and talking 
 serpents. But very quickly the sunshine blackens 
 and we find ourselves in the presence of re- 
 proaches, recriminations, remorse, tears, curses, 
 and flaming swords. We turn to the closing 
 chapters of this same Book of Life, and our 
 nerves tingle with the pain of them. Before 
 us spreads scene on scene of ghastly horror — 
 misery, martyrdom, massacre; the earth is 
 moved, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon 
 are darkened, and the stars withdraw their 
 shining. It is 
 
 With hue like that when some great painter dips 
 His pencil in tlie gloom of earthquake and eclipse. 
 
MEANING OF LIFE'S VICISSITUDES 31 
 
 Yet before the Revelation closes we walk amid 
 the white robes, the palms, the crowns, and 
 hear the promise of a day when there shall be 
 no more sorrow nor sighing nor pain nor death, 
 when God shall wipe the tear from every eye. 
 And in still deeper mood we have turned from 
 the rapt contemplation of the Son of Man, making 
 His triumphal entry into His royal city, while the 
 happy crowds cried their glad Hosannas, to see, 
 yet veil our eyes that we might not see, those 
 other crowds with frightful faces and murder in 
 their hearts, as they yelled " Crucify Him ! 
 Crucify Him ! " And the Lord of Life and Glory 
 dies upon a Cross. 
 
 In the history of men and nations we seem to 
 see the sportive fates playing such fantastic 
 tricks with the great and small of earth, that 
 the centuries do but lead on a procession of 
 masqueraders from the throne to the scaffold 
 and from the scaffold to the throne. The 
 vicissitudes which we experience ourselves, and 
 which we observe in the lives of men and women 
 round us, are neither less complete, less pictur- 
 esque, nor less momentous. 
 
 In the morning you go forth to your life, like 
 one of Ruskin's " queens " to her garden, " to 
 play Avith the fringes of its guarded flowers and 
 lift up their heads when they are drooping"; 
 and at night you wander amid the wreck of 
 worlds. Prosperity smiles upon you; friendship 
 is beautiful; and the sunshine is in your heart; 
 and lo, in the twinkling of an eye, the stroke 
 
32 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 of affliction has fallen upon you, and the waves 
 of desolation have gone over your soul ! One 
 day you are rejoicing in health, happiness, and the 
 pride of life; and on the morrow you are crying 
 out for pity to leaden skies which are deaf to 
 your appealing. Or, on the other hand, in the 
 blackest night of the year, when the stars have 
 all gone out, the promise is fulfilled to you in 
 God's own way that " at eventide there shall 
 be light." It is a midnight sun which shines 
 upon you; in the east is the dawning of the 
 morning, and your horizon reddens with a glow- 
 ing hope. In your path the flowers spring; 
 men and women with open hands are as the 
 legions of ministering Spirits to whom God has 
 given charge concerning you ; and the voices of 
 those who love you are as the voices of the many- 
 sounding sea. 
 
 Truly, we know not what a day nor an hour 
 may bring forth, of joy or of sorrow, of trial or 
 triumph. We feel that to-day is ours ; we 
 remember that yesterday was ; to-morrow only 
 may be. We remember what yesterday was 
 like ; we know what to-day is ; all that we know 
 about to-morrow is that it will not be like either. 
 And the one thing that is certain about the future 
 is, that nothing is certain about it! 
 
 Our text deals with all this, deals with it very 
 curiously. And it begins with what seems a fine 
 piece of irrelevance: 
 
 "In the day of prosperity be joyful." Well, 
 
MEANING OF LIFE'S VICISSITUDES 33 
 
 that, you say, we can very easily do ! It will be 
 no great hardship to be joyful when we walk 
 in silver slippers in the front rank of Fortune's 
 favourites! In the day of prosperity be joyful! 
 By all means, we will be. Our difficulty up to 
 the present time has not been to be joyful when 
 prosperity has smiled upon us, but to find the 
 prosperity which should bring us joy! If the 
 Preacher would tell us how to behave ourselves 
 wisely in a perfect way when Prosperity flies 
 from us, how to bear the whips and scorns of 
 time, when " we grunt and sweat under a weary 
 life,'* we might thank him for his counsel. But 
 we are able, without assistance, to be sufficiently 
 joyful in the day of our Prosperity. 
 
 Is that true? Or is it not rather true, as 
 Bishop Butler has told us in his solemn way, 
 that " Prosperity itself, while anything supposed 
 desirable is not ours, begets extravagant and 
 unbounded thoughts," and that Prosperity itself 
 is a real and lasting source of danger? Is it 
 not a matter of common observation that the 
 danger which Prosperity sets up is precisely this, 
 the danger of discontent? Do you not see 
 very often that a man who has all that heart 
 could wish — except the heart to enjoy it! — is 
 infinitely less "joyful," less content, less happy 
 in his lot, than some poor, labouring, honest 
 fellow who scarcely knows to-day where to- 
 morrow's meal will come from, or yon poor 
 body with her crowd of little children who knows 
 
34 THE COURAGE OF THE COWAED 
 
 not how to make the two ends meet and tie? 
 Yes, there is reason in the exhortation, In the day 
 of Prosperity be joyful. 
 
 But literally this advice is, In the day of good 
 he in good! And perhaps that brings out the 
 meaning to us better than a better reading 
 would. In the day of good be in good! Take 
 the good the gods provide you ; take the good 
 your Father gives. Take it, use it, enjoy it, 
 be happy in it. Don't be afraid of your happi- 
 ness. Don't think of it as a fearful and a won- 
 drous thing which will escape you as soon as you 
 seek to grasp it. If God gives you happiness, 
 be happy in it; if light, walk in the light; if 
 joy, enjoy it! We are sharers of the glorious 
 gospel of the happy God. 
 
 People are too often afraid of happiness. And 
 they are afraid of admitting that they have 
 reason to be happy. One of the most famous 
 of living Scotsmen tried the other day to explain 
 to my dull Saxon comprehension the meaning 
 of that mystic phrase " my frail ordinary." 
 He assured me that each word was an English 
 word, and that I ought to understand it, and 
 then proceeded to expound the use of it. In 
 answer to the common salutation, " How do 
 you do? " a big, robust son of toil who has never 
 known a day's illness in his life will make answer, 
 " Weel, I'm just in my frail ordinary ! " He is 
 afraid of admitting that he is in splendid health, 
 afraid that if he did such boasting might cost 
 him dear. A hundred times within the last 
 
MEANING OF LIFE'S VICISSITUDES 35 
 
 twelve months I have heard the French equiva- 
 lent for it. " Pas si Trial" your French friend 
 says to you, and would not for his life admit that 
 " not so bad " means superlatively well. While 
 if you ask your most intimate friend, whom 
 you have not seen lately, " And how's busi- 
 ness ? " the very best you will ever get out of 
 liim, if he is working night and day and making 
 money so fast that he does not know what to 
 do with it, is " Well, I mustn't complain." 
 
 It would be nice to think that all this only 
 pointed to a modesty which was unable to boast 
 of anything, even of God's good gifts. But it 
 points to nothing of the kind. If we could trace 
 it back we should find that it points away to the 
 old notion about jealous gods, and to the super- 
 stition that they were always waiting to pounce 
 do\\Ti upon you if things were going too well. 
 When the ancients felt themselves " too happy," 
 when all the world conspired to bring them joy, 
 they dreaded the jealousy of these watching 
 gods, and threw away some precious thing to 
 turn the spite of deities. And I am quite sure 
 you have heard your grandmother say, when 
 you were young, " Yes, you are laughing this 
 morning, but you will cry before night ! " While 
 the old blasphemy is not yet dead, that if you 
 love your child too well, " make an idol of him," 
 God, " who is a jealous God," will take your 
 child from you, that " you may have no gods 
 before Him " — the God of Love, whom Jesus 
 taught us to call Father, jealous of the deepest, 
 
36 THE COURAGE OF THE COWAED 
 
 highest virtue of our souls which makes us likest 
 Him! 
 
 In the day of Prosperity, be joyful! In the 
 day of good, be in good! Love the good, enjoy 
 the good, and give God thanks. Fill your heart 
 with happiness, and walk in the power of it. 
 Eat the flesh, and drink the sweet, and send por- 
 tions to him for whom nothing is prepared; 
 and make every day a holy day unto your God, 
 for humour is His gift as truly as pathos is, and 
 smiles are from Him as well as tears. 
 
 But read on : " In the day of adversity con- 
 sider." 
 
 And then the Preacher tells you what to con- 
 sider, according to our Version. But it is just 
 possible that really the exhortation stops there: 
 In the day of adversity, consider it well; ponder 
 the facts ; look carefully ; find out the meaning 
 of this adversity, and make the best of it. 
 
 Certainly, if the phrasing of the text will bear 
 that meaning, it is sound and sensible advice 
 for us all. There is no position in life so bad 
 but that we ought to make the best of it. And 
 the difference between a strong soul and a weak 
 one is here : that the weak one submits to what 
 he calls the " inevitable," accepts with the 
 faintest show of a struggle, and bows his head 
 beneath the blow. But the strong man declares 
 that nothing is " inevitable," says that the word 
 only connotes a moral imbecility, plucks safety 
 from the nettle danger, and snatches victory 
 from the jaws of death. If the day of adversity 
 
MEANING OF LIFE'S VICISSITUDES 37 
 
 is upon him, the more reason for him to keep his 
 eyes wider open, his wits more alert, and to seek 
 a closer walk with God. ^^ 
 
 " The sin I impute to each frustrate ghost,' 
 says Browning, "is the unlit lamp and the 
 ungirt loin." And be very sure that amongst 
 our sins, yours and mine, will have to be imputed 
 our criminal readiness to make the worst of a bad 
 position, when, if we did but lay hold on God, 
 we might so easily make the best. " Benaiah 
 the son of Jeholada, the son of a valiant man, 
 who had done mighty deeds," and knew that 
 what had been done once could be done again, 
 and knew that if the worst came to the worst 
 it was better to die fighting than die flying— 
 " slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow." 
 Slew a Hon, without a Winchester repeating 
 rifle, bilf e to throat and hands to claws ; in the 
 midst of a pit, where there was no place of 
 vantage to be had for the valiant man; in time 
 of snow when the very elements fought against 
 him. A hard fight, in a bad position, at a cruel 
 time; but the Benalahs of hfe, the valiant 
 men, sons of valiant men, who themselves have 
 done mighty deeds, will make the best of it all. 
 
 Do you remember how Emerson found this 
 to be amongst the high virtues of Englishmen? 
 He was In England some fifty or sixty years ago, 
 in a time of national depression. He brought 
 to the study of Enghsh manners and morals as 
 acute an intellect as was to be found on the earth 
 at that time. And he said that while in prosperity 
 
38 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 the English were " moody and dumpish," yet in 
 adversity they were " grand ! " He found in them 
 a kind of instinct that they could see better in 
 a cloudy day. In storm of battle and calamity 
 he found in them " a secret vigour and a pulse 
 like a cannon." This virtue of strong English- 
 men is worthy to be sought. In the day of ad- 
 versity — Consider! 
 
 But, according to our text, there is one great 
 and special thing to consider. In this great and 
 special thing the Preacher finds the deep meaning 
 of life's vicissitudes. 
 
 He says that God has made the one side by 
 side with the other ; and then he alleges a reason 
 for God's plan. Wait one moment for the rea- 
 son. Ask, first, if the fact, as he alleges it, is 
 a fact at all. For he means to say that God 
 has balanced prosperity and adversity pretty 
 fairly in human life. That joys and sorrows are, 
 on the whole, distributed to all people in a fair 
 proportion. That in each individual life, sorrow 
 is reasonably proportioned to happiness ; and that 
 when life is compared with life, the average of 
 happiness and misery in one life runs about level 
 with the average of happiness and misery in an- 
 other. 
 
 Is that true? 
 
 It does not look true. With the first superficial 
 glance you would want to sweep away such a doc- 
 trine. But look more deeply into life. It seems 
 too foolish to say that the healthy and the sick, 
 
MEANING OF LIFE'S VICISSITUDES 39 
 
 the rich and the poor, the honoured and the 
 humble, all find one average of sorrow and joy. 
 But I believe that it is true. There are such 
 compensations in human life, and happiness and 
 unhappiness are such relative and temperamental 
 things, that perhaps final justice is done to all. 
 If you are capable of exquisite pleasure, you are 
 susceptible to exquisite pain. If your ardent 
 nature is such that you mount with wings of 
 eagles to the mountain peaks of rapture, again 
 and yet again you are plunged into the Slough 
 of Despond. And if, by the very structure and 
 fibre of your being, you find yourself unable to 
 soar to these heights of joy, by the same structure 
 and fibre of your being you are saved from the 
 unspeakable wretchedness in which another's soul 
 is overwhelmed. 
 
 There is a fine passage in Emerson about this 
 subtle compensation which Nature pays. I must 
 quote him to you again, for he has been my com- 
 panion in many a lonely hour : 
 
 " Dualism underlies the nature and condition 
 of man. Every excess causes a defect ; every 
 defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour ; 
 every evil its good. Every faculty which is a 
 receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on 
 its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation 
 with its life. For every grain of wit there is a 
 grain of folly. For everything you have missed 
 you have gained something else ; and for every- 
 thing you gain you lose something. If riches in- 
 
40 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 crease, they are increased that use them. If the 
 gatherer gathers too much, Nature takes out of 
 the man what she puts into his chest; swells the 
 estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates mo- 
 nopolies and exceptions. The waves of the sea 
 do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest 
 tossings than the varieties of condition tend to 
 equalise themselves. . . . The farmer imagines 
 power and place are fine things ; but the President 
 has paid dear for his White House. It has com- 
 monly cost him all his peace and the best of his 
 manly attributes. To preserve for a short time 
 so conspicuous a place before the world, he is 
 content to eat dust before the real masters who 
 stand erect behind the throne. Or do men desire 
 the more substantial and permanent grandeur of 
 genius.'' Neither has this an immunity. He who 
 by force of will or of thought is great, and over- 
 looks thousands, has the charges of that eminence. 
 With every influx of light comes new danger. 
 Has he light.? — he must bear witness to the light, 
 and always outrun the sympathy which gives 
 him such keen satisfaction by his fidelity to 
 new revelations of the incessant soul. He must 
 hate father and mother, wife and child. Has he 
 all that the world loves and admires and covets.'' 
 — he must cast behind him their admiration, and 
 afflict them by faithfulness to his truth, and be- 
 come a by-word and a hissing." 
 
 In homelier phrase an English poet has 
 voiced his agreement with the American seer 
 and the Hebrew preacher: 
 
MEANING OF LIFE'S VICISSITUDES 41 
 
 Great is the doctrine of equivalents; 
 Mighty and universal is the law 
 Of compensation — If we lose we gain, 
 And if we gain we lose. So rolls the world. 
 The hand of Justice holds the eternal scale. 
 If we are happy in the world's esteem, 
 Perchance we have a secret sore within. 
 If great, we may behold a skeleton 
 Taking its place behind us at our board. 
 To give us warning what the end shall be; 
 If we are mean, we have a comforter 
 In the conviction that we cannot fall 
 Beneath the lowest depth at which we lie. 
 If we are sane, we feel our sanity 
 In care, and sorrow, and perennial toil. 
 If we are mad, just Heaven looks pitying down, 
 And sends us dreams that shame realities. 
 
 This, in effect, is the fact which our text seeks 
 to bring out. God has balanced adversity 
 against prosperity in the world at large and in 
 each human life. But when we come to what 
 is stated to be the reason of this balancing of 
 the one against the other, we move amongst 
 hard sayings. It is " to the end that man should 
 not find out anything that shall be after him." 
 In despair of bringing the obscure meaning to 
 the light, we attempt various interpretations. 
 God has balanced adversity against prosperity 
 in this way so that, hiding the future from you, 
 you shall not be able to find out anything that 
 shall be after you have left this earth. It is 
 foolish to scratch and save and starve your soul 
 in the endeavour to pile up wealth for those that 
 will come after you. You cannot plan the future 
 of your children. Life is played upon by a 
 
42 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 thousand currents and cross-currents ; and 
 though you plan for nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 of the possibilities of life, it is the thousandth 
 eventuality, on which you did not calculate, 
 which comes to throw all your plans into confu- 
 sion. Nor can you bind the thoughts and pur- 
 poses of the generation which will follow. Aban- 
 don your attempt to chain the lusty limbs of the 
 future's strong ones in the dead fetters of bygone 
 days. These, and a score of good reflections, are 
 covered by the wording of the text. Take all in 
 a word: 
 
 You cannot know what the future will be; 
 better leave it in the hands of God. Your 
 dreams are idle. Your speculations are idle. 
 You must take short views of life. It is better 
 to trust in the Lord than to wear your heart 
 out in fret and care and brooding desire to plan 
 a future which mocks your planning. In the 
 day of prosperity, enjoy your prosperity and 
 give God thanks. In the day of adversity, make 
 the best of it, and still give God thanks. It is 
 by the special mercy of our God that we only live 
 one day at a time ! Never was more precious 
 boon included in the course and constitution of 
 this universe of ours ! To-day you only have 
 to live to-day. Do not live to-morrow before 
 it comes. No man has ever broken down under 
 the burdens of to-day. In one day he will not 
 be afflicted beyond his strength to do and to 
 endure. You break down only when in your 
 un-faith you add to-morrow's burdens to those 
 
MEANING OF LIFE'S VICISSITUDES 43 
 
 you bear to-day. Then your strength gives way 
 and you are lost. Do nothing of all this. Your 
 times are in God's hands. Be satisfied to leave 
 them there. 
 
 But this I ought to say. You cannot trust; 
 you have no right to trust — if you could force 
 yourself to trust, your confidence would be mis- 
 placed — unless your life is right with God. The 
 confidence which Jesus taught is a simple and 
 a lovely thing. It is not manly resignation, 
 which is a virtue in default of a better. It is 
 not Stoic heroism and endurance, which the 
 brave may attain and which the bravest will not 
 despise. It is something higher, sweeter, more 
 precious, and, thank God, more common than 
 these. It is Communion. It is Fellowship. It 
 is not prayer for deliverance from trouble, nor 
 prayer for material gifts. It is the secret and 
 intimate relation of a happy child who is content 
 so long as he is sure that his father is by his side. 
 This is the unbroken Fellowship with the Father 
 in which Jesus lived. This is the trust in God 
 to which He invites us, and the promise of peace 
 which He makes to the untroubled heart. Draw 
 near to God in Christ, and the promises of an 
 elder day will assume for you fresh meaning and 
 power in all the vicissitudes of your life. Friends 
 may fail us when the hour of adversity comes, 
 but 
 
 When my father and my mother forsake me. 
 Then the Lord will take me up. 
 
 Storms may break upon us, but 
 
4^ THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 The Lord sat enthroned as King at the Flood; 
 The Lord sitteth enthroned as King for ever; 
 The Lord will bless His people with peace. 
 
 Distance may part us from our loved ones, and 
 in the deep darkness we may fear to lose them ; yet 
 
 Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? 
 
 Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? 
 
 If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: 
 
 If I make my bed in Sheol, behold Thou art there. 
 
 If I take the wings of the morning, 
 
 And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. 
 
 Even there shall Thy hand lead me, 
 
 And Thy right hand shall hold me. 
 
 If I say. Surely the darkness shall overwhelm me, 
 
 And the light about me shall be night; 
 
 Even the darkness hideth not from Thee, 
 
 But the night shineth as the day: 
 
 The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee! 
 
 This is the infinite joy of living — to know that 
 we are safe in the Father's hands because we 
 are dear to the Father's heart. Fear no future, 
 since your hands are clasped in His. You cannot 
 know the future. Your wisdom is not to seek to 
 know, but to rest in that great word of Christ's: 
 " Your Father knoweth." O ye of little faith, 
 your Father knoweth all. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE HALF GREATER THAN THE 
 WHOLE 
 
No heart is pure that is not passionate; no virtue is safe 
 that is not enthusiastic. — " Ecce Homo." 
 
Ill 
 
 THE HALF GREATER THAN THE 
 WHOLE 
 
 "When I am weak, then am I strong." 
 
 — II. CORINTHIAXS XII. 10. 
 
 In the Book of Judges there is preserved a curious 
 story about a warrior chief who prepared for 
 victory by reducing his forces. First, by pro- 
 claiming a free discharge to every officer and man 
 who would avail himself of it, he reduced his 
 effective strength from thirty thousand to ten 
 thousand. Afterwards, by a singular device, the 
 meaning of which is past finding out, he further 
 reduced this ten thousand to three hundred. 
 With so small a company of braves he won a 
 notable victory. Ever afterwards Gideon believed 
 that a part is greater than the whole. 
 
 In the reign of Charles 11. the Act of Uniformity 
 deprived of their livings all ministers of the 
 Gospel who would not conform to everything 
 contained in the Prayer-book. Two thousand 
 noble souls, driven from their Churches, their 
 homes, their people, stripped of honours, titles, 
 prospects of advancement, beggared of worldly 
 resources, went forth to preach a free Gospel, 
 trusting in the power of prayer and the love of 
 God. They were the Fathers of Nonconformity, 
 
 47 
 
48 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 our spiritual ancestors of whose blood we are, 
 and the record of two centuries has shown that the 
 half was greater than the whole. 
 
 The life-story of Hellen Keller is one of the 
 strangest, most pathetic, most inspiring in any 
 tongue. She is deaf, she is dumb, she is blind. 
 Her mind, it would seem, is hermetically sealed. 
 Knowledge, light, pleasure, one would say, 
 are forbidden access to her soul by any avenue 
 known to man. But she has acquired a knowl- 
 edge of art, science, literature, a knowledge of 
 men and things and of the universe, which 
 would put many of us to shame. And the attend- 
 ant physician who has written the story of her life 
 says, " It is pleasant to think that she will ever 
 only see the noblest side of every human being. 
 While near her, the roughest man is all gentle- 
 ness and pity. She knows absolutely nothing 
 of the unkindness, hostility, narrow-mindedness, 
 hatefulness, and wickedness of the world around 
 her." We are almost ready to wish ourselves 
 blind, and deaf, and dumb ! Truly, the half is 
 greater than the whole ! 
 
 Many a man has been stronger for his weakness, 
 richer for his poverty, happier and more honoured 
 by reason of some shock or sorrow which seemed 
 to shatter his life. The sermons of Frederick 
 William Robertson, which soothed, comforted, 
 braced, and inspired the most thoughtful minds 
 of his generation, and which, repeated by 
 other voices from ten thousand pulpits, still go 
 on soothing and comforting, bracing and in- 
 
HALF GREATER THAN WHOLE 49 
 
 spiring, were produced amid physical pain 
 which amounted to torture. Some of the most 
 superb flights of oratory compxissed by the daring 
 genius of Robert Hal] were achieved in moments 
 when, unseen, he twisted and writhed in pain, 
 and gripped the front of the pulpit in his agony. 
 Goun'od, the great composer, it is said, was always 
 attacked by a mysterious illness when about to 
 bring out one of his geat works. Schiller's 
 finest work, according to Carlyle's judgment, 
 was produced during the last fifteen years of 
 his life. During that time there was not a day 
 which did not bring its burden of pain. As for 
 Carlyle himself, while there are times when his 
 cowardly groanings and complainings, blending 
 with the preaching of a silent, divine courage, 
 almost make you despise him, it is still true that 
 in his most splendid triumphs he suffered unto 
 blood. Calvin's immense labours were carried 
 through amid pain and weariness. Luther suf- 
 fered so cruelly from great pains in the head 
 that when he tried to work he was in danerer of 
 fainting. One need not add that Luther, as a 
 matter of course, attributed it all to the devil. 
 But from the quality of the life which remains 
 when the quantity has been abstracted by 
 misfortunes, sickness, or sorrow, it would seem 
 that the mysterious visitant is a " spirit of health," 
 no " goblin damned," that he brings with him 
 "airs from heaven," not "blasts from hell." 
 " I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, 
 in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, 
 
50 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 for Christ's sake," affirms the gallant heart of 
 this heroic Paul ; " for when I am weak, then am 
 I strong." 
 
 Now, would It surprise you to hear it said 
 that in this exultant mood of his, our great 
 Apostle had anticipated one of the most bril- 
 liant generalisations of the mental science of 
 our own day, and that he was asserting in his 
 downright fashion the living and luminous 
 truth which psychology unfolds and illustrates, 
 that the half is often greater than the 
 whole? 
 
 When we speak of a Bible writer " anticipat- 
 ing " some great results of modern science, nothing 
 mechanical is meant. It is necessary to guard 
 ourselves against the devices of a cast-iron 
 literalism, or we shall find ourselves saying, 
 as Mr. Gladstone was tempted to do, that the 
 Genesis story of Creation " anticipated " the 
 deliverances of nineteenth century geology; 
 or finding, as simple folks have done, a de- 
 scription of the electric car in the prophecies 
 of Ezekiel. The " anticipation " of which I 
 speak is a marvellous intuition which leaps to a 
 great truth, which cannot all express that truth, 
 nor account for it and label it, but which seizes 
 upon its essential realness, and grasps its just 
 conclusions. In this way, Paul's declaration is 
 abreast with modern thinking, and the psycholo- 
 gist will explain what the Apostle felt. 
 
 It seems probable that the researches of the 
 Alienist — the Specialist in mental disease — have 
 
HALF GREATER THAN WHOLE 51 
 
 set men on the track of this generalisation. 
 Let me try to explain. It is very interesting. 
 
 Men have always felt that if genius was not a 
 little bit mad, it was, at least, not far removed 
 from madness. One of the best-known couplets in 
 the language is that of Dryden : 
 
 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
 And thin partitions do their bounds divide. 
 
 And Shakespeare's line is like it: 
 
 The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all 
 compact. 
 
 And these well-thumbed quotations from our own 
 authors do but reproduce such sayings as this 
 from Aristotle: 
 
 Many persons become poets, prophets, and sybils, and 
 are pretty good poets while they are maniacs, but when 
 cured can no longer write verse. 
 
 And this from Plato: 
 
 Delirium is by no means an evil, but, on the contrary, 
 when it comes by the gift of God, a very great benefit. It 
 often happened that when God afflicted men with a fatal 
 epidemic, a sacred delirium took possession of some mortal 
 and inspired him with a remedy for these misfortunes. 
 
 And nearer to our owti times, Diderot, one of 
 the great writers who prepared the way for the 
 French Revolution, said: 
 
 I conjecture that these men of sombre and melancholy 
 temperament only owed the extraordinary and almost divine 
 penetration Avhich they possessed at intervals, and which 
 
52 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 led them to ideas, sometimes so mad and sometimes so sub- 
 lime, to a periodical derangement of tlie organism. They then 
 believed themselves inspired, and were insane. . . . Oh, 
 how near are genius and madness ! Those whom heaven 
 has branded, for evil or for good, are more or less subject to 
 these symptoms; they reveal them more or less frequently, 
 more or less violently. Men imprison them and chain them, 
 or raise statues to them. 
 
 And Lombroso, in one of the most pathetic, er- 
 ratic, ludicrous books which " science," itself gone 
 crazy, has given to our world, opens his argument 
 with these comforting words: 
 
 It is a sad mission to cut through and destroy with the 
 scissors of analysis the delicate and iridescent veils with 
 which our proud mediocrity clothes itself. Very terrible is 
 the religion of truth. The physiologist is not afraid to 
 reduce love to a play of stamens and pistils, and thought to 
 a molecular movement. Even genius, the one human power 
 before which we may bow the knee without shame, has been 
 classed by not a few alienists as on the confines of crimi- 
 nality, one of the teratologic forms of the human mind, a 
 variety of insanity.* 
 
 The physiologist may not be afraid to make 
 his wonderful attempt to reduce love to a play 
 of stamens and pistils, nor are we afraid that he 
 will succeed in doing it ! Neither has poor 
 Lombroso convinced us that genius is a variety 
 of criminal insanity. But these men have set 
 us thinking. And with their passion for massing 
 facts, they have supplied us with material on 
 which to base certain conclusions. They have 
 brought before us a thousand cases of what they 
 have taught us to call the neuropathic tempera- 
 * " The Man of Genius," Contemporary Science Series. 
 
HALF GREATER THAN WHOLE 53 
 
 ment, cases of persons suffering more or less 
 acutely from an overexcited, morbid, or deranged 
 nervous system. They have shown us how a 
 nervous temperament may combine with a 
 superior intellect. And they have proved that 
 this superior intellect, excited, goaded, inflamed 
 to ardour, and driven at highest pressure, is 
 more likely to effect momentous and permanent 
 things than If the man had been blessed with the 
 placid nerves of a healthy cow. The Apostle 
 Paul had not these facts before him. He made 
 no effort to reason these things out. But — 
 himself epileptic, according to this strange 
 Lombroso — he was quite sure that in some way 
 the power of which he was conscious was related 
 to the feebleness of which he was equally con- 
 scious. He besought the Lord that the phys- 
 ical Infirmity might be taken from him. And 
 God said, " Nay ; but My grace is sufficient for 
 thee." " Power," said Paul, " is made per- 
 fect In weakness ; wherefore I will glory in my 
 weakness, that the power of Christ may rest 
 upon me. For when I am weak, then am I 
 strong." 
 
 Pressing these considerations into the most 
 secret sphere of personal religion. Professor 
 James, of Harvard, In a book which has been read 
 and talked about by all religious teachers during 
 the last year or two, presents the argument 
 in these striking words : 
 
 In the psycopathic temperament we have the emotionality 
 which is the essential condition of moral perception; we 
 
54 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 have the intensity and tendency to emphasis which are the 
 essence of practical moral vigour; and we have the love 
 of metaphysics and mysticism which carry one's interest 
 beyond the surface of the sensible world. What, then, is 
 more natural than that this temperament should introduce 
 one to regions of religious truth, to corners of the universe, 
 which your robust Philistine type of nervous system, for 
 ever offering its biceps to be felt, thumping its breast and 
 thanking Heaven that it hasn't a single morbid fibre in its 
 composition, would be sure to hide for ever from its self- 
 satisfied possessors? * 
 
 Let us look more closely at these three charac- 
 teristics, " Emotionahty," " Intensity," " Mysti- 
 cism," readily admitting that they may be 
 symptoms of the weakness we have agreed to 
 call neuropathic. 
 
 If " Emotionality " is weakness, then is such 
 weakness strength indeed! For it is not less 
 emotion we need in this cold world of ours, 
 but more. What is the greatest difficulty which 
 the preaching of the Gospel encounters? Drink 
 — the habit and the traffic, which damn ten 
 souls for every one that all the Churches save.? 
 Love of money — a root of all kinds of evil, the 
 lust of gold viler and more shameful than all 
 other.? The incitements of pleasure — pitiful, 
 belittling, maldng hf e ridiculous ? No ; we 
 must find a narrower and yet wider answer. 
 The greatest difficulty which the preaching of 
 the Gospel encounters is your unresponsiveness. 
 You are afraid of yourselves. You dare not let 
 yourselves go. You dare not trust the impulses 
 
 * " The Varieties of Religious Experience," The Gifford 
 Lectures, 1901-2; chapter I., "Religion and Neurology." 
 
HALF GREATER THAN WHOLE 55 
 
 of your own heart. You dare not obey the 
 instincts of your soul. Even when you rise to 
 the courage of your convictions, you lack that 
 deeper, higher courage, the courage of your 
 intuitions. You are not so " weak " as to yield 
 to your emotions; but you would all be stronger 
 if you were ! 
 
 It is the condition, says Dr. James, of " moral 
 perception." Of course it is ! The language 
 of the Boston psychologist is new. The truth 
 is as old as the Gospel of Christ. Men have 
 thought that the way to right thinking was 
 through a cool brain. Jesus Christ knew that 
 the way was through a warm heart. The 
 decorous person, who weighs and measures and 
 calculates, and finds that in human life it is 
 always " six on one side and five on the other," 
 and says that it is a delicate and difficult task 
 to decide which has the six, makes up his mind 
 at last — and makes it up all wrong. Impulse is 
 not infallible. Infallibility is not known amongst 
 men. But impulse makes fewer mistakes than 
 calculation. The man who has given his heart 
 to the Purifier of hearts and his will to the Will 
 that governs the universe, is oftener right than 
 the man who calculates chances. The mistakes 
 of " canny " people are contemptible. The heart 
 is the organ' of vision. 
 
 You remember Dr. Stockmann ? * " In a house 
 
 that is not aired and swept every day, within 
 
 two or three years people lose the power of 
 
 thinking or acting morally. Lack of oxygen 
 
 * Ibsen: " An Enemy of the People." 
 
56 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 enervates the conscience." But there are times 
 when the conscience has been mightily oxygenated 
 by the hfe-giving breezes which blow from the 
 shoreless seas of God. Then we glow with moral 
 fervour. We are exalted above the low level of 
 our lives. These are the occasions when we see 
 without the effort of looking and know without 
 the drudgery of learning. These are the great 
 moods, in which we ourselves are potentially 
 great. These are the hours in which we ought 
 to take decisions, make resolutions, offer vows. 
 For these are the hours of insight. 
 
 You are in a great meeting. The leaders 
 of a great cause make their appeal to you. The 
 impact of the orator's spirit upon your own 
 starts you from your cold self-mastery. You 
 are touched to the deepest depths of all your 
 being by the appeal to your dormant, yet death- 
 less, sense of human liberty. In that moment 
 you are ready to join with all noble souls in 
 fighting the battle of civil and religious liberty. 
 Or you are possessed, dominated, enthralled, by 
 the spirit of the man who pleads with you for 
 consecration to the work of national deliverance 
 from the evils and horrors of the drink curse. 
 Your heart leaps within you to meet the glorious 
 impulses which stream from his, and, for a 
 moment, you are ready to join hands with those 
 who have banded to destroy the pirate's trade. 
 Or you listen to the impassioned words of the 
 preacher of the Cross. And there is something 
 in the service which uplifts, solemnises, awes ; 
 
HALF GREATER THAN WHOLE 57 
 
 the singing of the hymns, the voice of prayer, 
 the strange, subtle ministry of God's Spirit upon 
 your own. Then you are ready to rise, in your 
 soul of souls, and prostrate yourself before the 
 Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the 
 world. But — but — there blows a chilling breath 
 of common sense! Your fervour is less fervent 
 and your ardour less ardent. And you tell your- 
 self that it is not wise to act on impulse ; you will 
 go home and " think about it." Man, that is 
 precisely what you ought not to do ! That is 
 the mistake you have been making all your 
 life. 
 
 Thus the native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; 
 And enterprises of great pith and moment, 
 With this regard, their currents turn awry, 
 And lose the name of action. 
 
 You say that you will be in a " calmer " mood 
 to-morrow. So you will be. But you will not 
 be better able to see into the heart of moral 
 principle. It is always now that is the accepted 
 time, the heroic time, the chlvalric time. For 
 all high resolve and brave life, to-day is the day 
 of salvation. 
 
 We cannot command these hours of Vision. 
 The mood is granted to us. It Is only ours to 
 act. But what actions are possible to us, after 
 these visions ! You have not forgotten Matthew 
 Arnold's Inspired and inspiring words.? He 
 calls the poem " Morality," but upon his own 
 definition that " religion is morality touched 
 
58 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 with emotion," this is Religion, for it is suffused 
 with noble emotion: 
 
 We cannot kindle when we will 
 
 The fire which in the heart resides; 
 
 The spirit bloweth and is still, 
 
 In mystery our soul abides. 
 
 But tasks in hours of insight willed 
 Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd. 
 
 And do not think that the hours of gloom are 
 
 all that remain, that the high mood in which 
 
 you see visions and dream dreams will never come 
 
 back: 
 
 With aching hands and bleeding feet 
 We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; 
 We bear the burden and the heat 
 Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. 
 
 Not till the hours of light return, 
 
 All we have built do we discern. 
 
 Oh, grant that this is weakness, that the very 
 words employed indicate that it is weakness, 
 that to be " possessed, dominated, enthralled " 
 is to surrender one's freedom and confess one's 
 impotence — grant that " passion " is something 
 which we have to suffer, as Archbishop Trench 
 tried to prove to us, that the man of passion is 
 the weak man, not the strong one — grant it all, 
 and call it neuropathic, neurotic, what you will, 
 and then, O our God, who art a Consuming Fire, 
 make us weak with such a weakness! For when 
 I am weak, then am I strong! 
 
 " Intensity and tendency to emphasis '* is the 
 next characteristic recognised as the correlative 
 of this " weakness." 
 
HALF GREATER THAN WHOLE 59 
 
 And there is danger of vain repetition. For, 
 once again, if this be weakness, God forbid that 
 we should ever be strong again ! 
 
 This is the capacity of moral indignation, a 
 weakness which is at once the power and the 
 glory of strong men. There are times when it is 
 a crime to keep cool; when an unruffled pulse is a 
 disgrace; when measured speech is infamous. 
 During the long agony of Armenia there was a 
 man who suffered in his own soul the tortures 
 inflicted by Turk and Kurd. Upon his brain 
 and heart seemed to have accumulated the 
 frightful woes of an outraged and slaughtered 
 people. And it seemed to those who loved him 
 that he would go mad under the pain and the 
 shame. It would have been more creditable if 
 we had all gone mad! I knew a woman who 
 had left her home and sacrificed much to plead 
 the cause of her race, of the coloured people in 
 the Southern States of America. I have seen 
 her, when the news of some fresh lynching 
 horror reached us, shaken by storms of passion 
 and of suffering. Then words, hot, hissing, 
 terrible, fell from her, until pain passed into 
 the blessed relief of tears. The other day, one 
 of the greatly loved and hated advocates of 
 international peace spent some hours with me. 
 And as we talked of our sufferings during the 
 shame of the war in South Africa, he told me 
 that to him it was a crucifixion, and day and 
 night he saw the little children, murdered in the 
 Concentration Camps. And this generous man, 
 
60 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 large In heart and brain, admitted to me, in the 
 sweet intimacies of those who have shared a 
 great grief together, that often he broke down, 
 and alone, for hours, like a child, he sobbed 
 and cried and prayed. Do you remember Mr. 
 John G. Woolley, the fine-spirited advocate of 
 Prohibition? Do you call to mind his dignified 
 appearance and cultured speech — the man himself 
 representing the best type of American gentle- 
 man ? 
 
 And as you saw him, faultlessly attired and 
 with his beautiful manners, did you picture him a 
 degraded drunkard reeling through the gutters of 
 Chicago.'^ Imagine that you hear him now, as he 
 answers the objection that the Drink question is 
 just another question of political economy and 
 must be so debated : " The drink traffic is not 
 economics, but treason, overt, insolent, bloody as 
 the shambles, black as the lees of midnight. I 
 have eaten hell-ashes until my mind is alkaline and 
 cuts up the unctuous lubricants of debate and 
 spoils the play of thought. I hate it, and when I 
 think, all the voices of memory, all the impulses 
 of my soul, become an unleashed mob, crying, 
 'Kill, Kill!'" 
 
 All very reprehensible, I do not doubt; such 
 passion is most improper ; these displays of 
 feeling are weakness, not strength ! Oh, to be 
 sure ! Our madness condemns us. It is worse than 
 wicked, it is vulgar ! Well, let every discreet person 
 stalk on solemnly, with imperturbable equanimity, 
 to the Paradise of respectable mediocrity ; but let 
 
HALF GREATER THAN WHOLE 61 
 
 me burn and consume with the passion of the 
 Woolleys, Garrisons, Luthers, Pauls of all the 
 ages, for when I am weak, then am I strong! 
 
 " Love of metaphysics and mysticism " is the 
 third characteristic — a " weakness " for this 
 work-a-day world, who can doubt it? His Royal 
 Highness the Duke of Cumberland, seventy 
 years ago, spoke very strongly to Mr. Gladstone * 
 about the bishops abandoning the use of wigs. 
 He said that nothing had done the Church so 
 much harm ! Now that we can understand. 
 There is something solid and substantial about 
 a wig. You can lay hold of it and grasp it and 
 see that it is genuine and all good alike. Nothing 
 has done the Church so much harm as the loss 
 of the bishops' wigs. Foolish poets, akin, you 
 remember, to lunatics, have sung that 
 
 The Church's one foundation 
 
 Is Jesus Christ her Lord; 
 She is His own creation, 
 
 By water and the word; 
 
 foolish divines have pondered the eternal mys- 
 teries of Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection ; 
 what time foolish souls with a weakness for 
 metaphysics and a love of mysticism, carrying 
 their interest beyond the surface of the sensible 
 world, have longed to wash their robes and make 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb ! But for 
 good, healthy Philistinism, which sweeps the 
 board and leaves nothing more to say, preach to 
 me the everlasting reality of the bishops' wig, 
 *John Morley's "Gladstone," Vol. I., p. 127. 
 
62 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 predestined from before the salvation of the 
 world to be the banner of our contradictions and 
 the symbol of our faith ! 
 
 It is a weakness, then, this interest which 
 travels beneath the surface of material things, 
 and seeks after the unseen and eternal. But a 
 lady once said to Turner, the great painter, 
 *' Mr. Turner, I never see any sunsets like yours." 
 And the artist answered, grimly, " No, Madam, 
 don't you wish you could.'' " And that question 
 is our answer to the strong people who have 
 known nothing of our weakness, who have never 
 seen what we have seen of God's presence, nor 
 experienced what we have realised of the present 
 life become immortality, nor tasted, as we have 
 done, how gracious the Lord is. That is our 
 answer: We are weak: but what would you give 
 to be as weak as we are.? For when I am weak, 
 then am I strong. 
 
 And this — though there is only time for a 
 bare word about it, and it is capable of a thousand 
 illustrations and enforcements — is our answer 
 to the pseudo-scientific materialists who would 
 laugh religious experiences out of court because 
 religious persons are hysterical, and all the rest 
 of it. The author whom I have already quoted 
 shows us how these objectors prove too much. 
 For, on their own showing, genius, also, is in- 
 sanity, on the confines of criminality, one of the 
 monstrous aberrations of the human mind, a 
 form of madness ! Yet who ever thought of 
 pouring contempt on " Hamlet," " Paradise 
 
HALF GREATER THAN WHOLE 63 
 
 Lost," or the " Inferno," laughing at the " Descent 
 from the Cross " or the " Last Judgment," 
 flinging scorn on the " Perseus " of Benvenuto 
 Celhni or the " Hercules " of Canova, and making 
 mock of " Tannhauser " or the " Moonlight 
 Sonata " because genius is epilepsy, and epilepsy 
 is localised irritation of the cerebral cortex? 
 
 And there is a world of wisdom in Dr. James' 
 dictum that if there be such a thing as Inspiration 
 from a higher realm, it well might be that the 
 neuropathic temperament would furnish the chief 
 condition of receptivity. Again we are brought 
 back to this living truth, that the half is greater 
 than the whole. 
 
 And now, if the great, simple, helpful lesson 
 of all this needs to be accentuated, the sermon 
 has failed. We all have our infirmities, burdens, 
 crosses, fears. " But God has not waited till this 
 late, lonely hour to love us." Before the dawn 
 of created life upon this earth we were present 
 in His mind and heart. He has so planned this 
 universe that we are remade by the things which 
 would unmake us, renewed by that which would 
 destroy us, and saved unto life eternal by that 
 which we call death. Our sorrow is exceeding 
 sorrowful; pain is always painful; and weakness 
 hard to be endured. But sorrow, pain, and 
 weakness have their mighty compensation. They 
 rob us of half that life holds dear — but the half 
 that remains is richer. They strip our life of 
 half its joy — but the joy which abides gleams 
 with a radiance brighter far. One half of our 
 
64 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 life has been taken from us at a stroke — but the 
 half that remams is greater than the whole! 
 
 Tho' rapture of love is linked with the pain and fear of loss, 
 And the hand that takes the crown must ache with many a 
 
 cross ; 
 Yet he who hath never a conflict hath never a victor's palm, 
 And only the toilers know the sweetness of rest and calm. 
 
 The easy path in the lowland hath little of grand or new, 
 But a toilsome ascent leads on to a wide and glorious view; 
 Peopled and warm is the valley, lonely and chill the height, 
 But the peak that is nearer the storm cloud is nearer the 
 stars of light. 
 
 Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my 
 weaknesses, that the strength of Christ may rest 
 upon me. Wherefore, I take pleasure in weak- 
 nesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, 
 in distresses, for Christ's sake; for when I am 
 weak, then am I strong. 
 
IV 
 
 THE ETHICS OF HOLIDAYS: A SUMMER 
 SERMON 
 
I learned it in the meadow path, 
 I learned it on the mountain stairs, 
 
 The best things any mortal hath 
 
 Are those which every mortal shares. 
 
 The air we breathe, the sky, the breeze. 
 The light without us and within. 
 
 Life with its unlocked treasuries, 
 God's riches — are for all to win. 
 
 The grass is softer to my tread, 
 For rest it yields unnumbered feet; 
 
 Sweeter to me the wild rose red. 
 Because she makes the whole world sweet. 
 
 Into your heavenly loneliness 
 Ye welcome me, O solemn peaks! 
 
 And me in every guest ye bless 
 Who reverently your mystery seeks. 
 
 And up the radiant peopled way 
 That opens into worlds unknown. 
 
 It will be life's delight to say, 
 " Heaven is not heaven for me alone." 
 
 — Lucy Lahcom. 
 
IV 
 
 THE ETHICS OF HOLIDAYS : A SUMMER 
 SERMON 
 
 " Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest 
 awhile." — Mark vi. 31. 
 
 There were many coming and going and they 
 had not leisure so much as to eat. The Apostles 
 had returned from the missionary journey on 
 which their Lord had sent them. They were 
 flushed and excited by their success. The fame 
 of the great Preacher and of His friends had 
 spread through the land. Multitudes from all 
 the cities thronged to see and hear. Then it 
 was that Jesus said to His disciples, " Come ye 
 yourselves apart and rest awhile." 
 
 There has been no day in the history of the 
 world when such counsel was more needed than 
 to-day. There are no people on the face of the 
 whole earth who have more cause to heed It and 
 profit by it than ourselves. Our cities are too vast 
 and too crowded. Man, like other animals, was 
 meant for the fresh air and the open fields, for the 
 storms, the snows, and the sunshine. But he claps 
 a stone box down over his head, sets it in the midst 
 of a hundred thousand other stone boxes as 
 ugly as his own, stretching away in bewildering 
 squares and parallelograms, shutting out God's 
 
 67 
 
68 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 air and light, until he Is ready to faint on a 
 wanii day and freeze on a cold one, and die of 
 pneumonia — or of terror — if the east wind blows 
 upon him. This crowded, rushing, pushing, 
 crushing city life gets on our nerves. We live 
 too fast. We live faster than men ever lived 
 before. We live more than twenty-four hours 
 in the day and more than seven days in the 
 week. We burn the candle at both ends; and 
 then, for fear our neighbour should get ahead 
 of us, we light it in the middle, too. We are 
 consumed hy the fever of living. We exhaust our 
 vital energies in unending stress and strain. 
 
 We have no time to think. It is as much as 
 we can be expected to do if we earn bread and 
 cheese and lay by a dollar or two against a rainy 
 day. The great majority of us are just as 
 capable of flying as we are of thinking. Leisure 
 for quiet contemplation of the world in which 
 we live is denied us. There is no grass beneath 
 our feet, no blue sky above our head. The 
 world of trees and flowers and singing birds is 
 not for us. Art and poetry and gentle culture 
 exist only in a world of dreams. While if we 
 once gave ourselves pause to meditate upon the 
 deep things of God and the soul, on Time and 
 its meaning, Life and its mysteries. Heaven and 
 the glories which we thrust away, why — we 
 might miss the next car. The injunction which 
 insults me every time I travel by a certain 
 railway is " Please hurry on for the lift." The 
 " please " is in diamond type, and you need 
 
ETHICS OF HOLIDAYS 69 
 
 a microscope to see it. The " hurry " you can 
 read a mile away. Hurry, then, by all means, for 
 we could not live if we did not kill ourselves to get 
 somewhere else! 
 
 And yet, if we are determined to do it, even 
 in the frenzied rush of our city life we can hear 
 and heed the Saviour's call, " Come ye your- 
 selves apart and rest awhile." One fine and 
 gracious opportunity is offered to us by our 
 summer holidays. The happiness which they 
 bring us is of the first importance in a healthy, 
 holy, Christian life. 
 
 We pray God to forgive us our sins: we ought 
 to pray to be forgiven our sadness. There is 
 no virtue in misery. The melancholy person 
 is not necessarily a superior person ; and if he 
 were, the superior person is generally detestable. 
 A face as long as a fiddle and a voice like that 
 of an Alpine crow will not be imputed to us for 
 righteousness. We shall not go to Heaven for 
 our tears nor to Hell for our smiles. Humour 
 is a gift of God as well as Pathos. In His presence 
 is fulness of Joy. We are all sinners, and some- 
 times we deserve to be miserable. But it has 
 not yet been shown why on Sundays, Wednes- 
 days, and Fridays we should call on God the 
 Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, 
 and then on the holy, blessed and glorious 
 Trinity, three Persons in one God, to have mercy 
 upon us miserable sinners ! One day Paxton 
 Hood had to preach in a Yorkshire church 
 where it was the custom for an official to announce 
 
70 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 the hymn. It was a glorious summer morning, 
 when God's mercies fell on waiting hearts like 
 the gentle rain from heaven and the earth smiled 
 in the light of His countenance. And the good 
 brother gave out 
 
 " My thoughts on awful subjects roll, 
 Damnation and the dead " — 
 
 when Paxton Hood leaped up and said, " Oh 
 no, they don't ! My thoughts do not roll on any- 
 thing so dreadful. Let us sing, 
 
 " Come let us join our cheerful songs 
 With angels round the throne I " 
 
 Let us have done with these solemn hypocrisies 
 of conventional worship. Let us frankly claim 
 our heritage of happiness in a world whose 
 builder and maker is God. When the Lord 
 turned again the captivity of Zion, they were 
 like unto them that dream. Then was their 
 mouth filled with laughter, and their tongue, 
 with singing. And once, when these laughing, 
 singing ones, whose captivity the Lord had 
 " turned," saw their work approaching com- 
 pletion, and Jerusalem promising to stand once 
 again as a city that is compact together, the 
 assembled thousands, as one man, lifted up 
 their voice and wept. But Nehemiah, the 
 governor, and Ezra, the priest, reproved their 
 moanings and stopped their tears : " This day 
 is holy unto the Lord your God: mourn not, 
 nor weep. Go your way ; eat the fat, drink 
 
ETHICS OF HOLIDAYS 71 
 
 the sweet, send portions unto him for whom 
 nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto 
 our Lord; neither be ye grieved, for the joy 
 of the Lord is your strength." It is not for 
 nothing, surely, that the Apostle Paul speaks 
 to us of the glorious gospel of the " blissful " 
 God; nor that our Saviour gives us the repeated 
 assurance, " These things have I said unto you 
 that your joy may he full! " 
 
 In all ages religion has claimed certain days 
 and freed them from labour for the happiness of 
 men. A " festival " is, historically, a day set 
 apart for religious observance. The history of 
 feasts and festivals is the history of religion and 
 of civilisation. The religion of Israel was rich 
 in such " feasts." Every seventh day was a 
 Sabbath. Every seventh month was a sacred 
 month. Every seventh year was a Sabbath 
 year. And let us never forget that, although 
 Exodus dates back the Sabbath to the imagined 
 rest which the Creator took on the seventh day 
 after working on six, yet those deeper, truer 
 interpreters of God whom we call the prophets, 
 allege a vastly different ground. Why do you 
 always read the Ten Commandments from 
 Exodus.'^ Deuteronomy is a better book. It is 
 the book which Jesus loved. Listen : 
 
 Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord 
 thy God commanded Thee. Six days shalt thou labour 
 and do all thy work: but the seventh day is a sabbath unto 
 the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, 
 nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy 
 maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy 
 
72 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy 
 manservant and thy maidservant m,ay rest as well as thou. 
 And thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the 
 land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee out 
 thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; 
 therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the 
 sabbath day. 
 
 This is divine because it is so human. And 
 the Sabbath was only one of innumerable Fes- 
 tivals, in all of which we trace the direct and 
 conscious effort of religion to give men a breath- 
 ing time, time to feel and meditate, a time to escape 
 the toil and drudgery of life, an anticipation 
 of the Saviour's invitation, " Come ye yourselves 
 apart and rest awhile." 
 
 One fact is too colossal and ubiquitous to be 
 ignored. Religious festivals, the wide world 
 over, have degenerated into licence and sin. 
 Every schoolboy reads this of the festivals of 
 Greece and Rome. The Old Testament pages 
 are crowded with warnings, entreaties, and 
 threats as the prophets see the Festivals of the 
 Church become an occasion of vice. The Carnival 
 scenes of a thousand Roman Catholic towns 
 witness to the same insensate law. Let us learn 
 the lesson and heed the warning. How foolish 
 many of our holidays are! And how harmful! 
 We come back, worn out in body and mind, 
 jaded, restless, disappointed. We have tried 
 to see too much and do too much. We are not 
 greatly wiser, after all, than Mrs. Poyser : 
 
 " I'd sooner ha' brewin' day and washin' day 
 together than one o' these pleasurin' days. There's 
 
ETHICS OF HOLIDAYS 73 
 
 no work so tlrin' as danglln' about an' starin', and 
 not rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do 
 next; and keepin' your face in smilin' order 
 like a grocer o' market day for fear people 
 shouldna think you civil enough. An' you've 
 nothin' to show for it when it's done, if it isn't a 
 yallow face wi' eatin' things as disagree," 
 
 And other excesses there are, which indicate 
 that the holiday has served as an excuse for 
 throwing off restraint, for the repudiation of 
 the moral law, for an indulgence in mere brutish 
 pleasures from which, in our sober hours, we 
 should have disdainfully turned away. Let us 
 listen again to the gracious invitation, " Come 
 ye yourselves apart and rest awhile," for if it 
 is in His company that we rest, every holiday will 
 be a holy day. 
 
 I have spoken briefly, but I have said enough 
 to show that from the point of view of any 
 rational conception of religion the holiday is 
 good in itself, that happiness may be accepted 
 as God's good gift. And happiness may well be 
 a minister of holiness. The genius of our lan- 
 guage links together Health and Holiness. Heal 
 and Hale, Whole and Holy, are one in structure 
 and in spirit. 
 
 Yet there is more than this. For in our holi- 
 days we may come quite wondrously within 
 the deepest ministries of God to human hearts. 
 
 In our holidays, as in all else, we must pre- 
 serve a certain catholicity of temper, nor attempt 
 to prescribe in what form another man shall keep 
 
74 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 holiday. But for the most part we find our happi- 
 ness in escape from the city to the country, to the 
 mountains or the sea. 
 
 There we meet with God. 
 
 In the most impressionable years of my life 
 I came under the influence of a teacher who was 
 philosopher, historian, and poet. Nature he 
 loved with a deep and tender and passionate 
 love, and Nature never did betray the heart 
 that loved her. She filled his life with blessings, 
 but her richest was the love he bore her. Words- 
 worth was his Master; but the great classical 
 passages of Nature-adoration from Byron and 
 Matthew Arnold were also day by day upon 
 his lips. The " Presence . . . whose dwell- 
 ing is the light of setting suns," the " Heaven " 
 which " lies about us in our infancy," " the 
 light which never was on sea or land," with all 
 those magical lines from " Immortality," " Tin- 
 tern Abbey," " The Excursion," " Childe Harold," 
 and " Obermann " which once heard make 
 melody in our hearts for ever, grew more real, 
 more full of meaning and power, when they were 
 half-spoken, half-chanted by his deep organ- 
 voice. Ajid one summer Sunday night, when 
 our work was done, and we were walking home, 
 after quoting, as he used to, not caring whether 
 anyone listened or not, some of these glorious 
 lines, he said to me, " I am all my life trying to 
 get at the Reality which lies behind the illusion 
 of God's richer, nearer presence, the illusion 
 which made Wordsworth what he was, and 
 which turns all our thoughts, yours and mine, 
 
ETHICS OF HOLIDAYS 75 
 
 to poetry to-night." As he spoke, I had no 
 word to say. But I know now. I can hear him 
 say, " There must be some Reahty. I wish I 
 could tell what it is." And I know what it is! 
 It is all Reality. There is no illusion. It is 
 God Himself who draws near to us, and lays His 
 hand upon our hearts, and speaks to us, and 
 makes us know Him and feel Him near. The 
 revelation of God in Beauty is as real as any 
 revelation of Himself which God has made and 
 man received. I believe that the sense of Beauty 
 in Art as well as in Nature has laid hold on 
 mortals and brought them to the realisation of 
 immortality. I have been told, and I believe, 
 that God has come out of His eternal invisibility 
 and touched men's lives to finer issues when the 
 Hallelujah Chorus has smitten with its passion 
 on their hearts ; when a Madonna of Raphael 
 or Murillo has smiled her sadness or her sweetness 
 into their souls; when the majesty of the great 
 cathedral, Ely, or Milan, or Cologne, has hushed 
 every sense and sublimed every faculty to 
 worship. But I speak of that of which I am 
 more confident when I say that God Himself is 
 near me — I know that He is near — when the 
 fields blaze with scarlet and gold at my feet and 
 the mountains tower grim and grand above me, 
 when the river laughs and sings in the sun- 
 shine, or the moonbeams chase each silver wave 
 over the bosom of the unresting sea. 
 
 If we try to analyse this ministry of God, we 
 fihd it to be first Peace and then Power. 
 
 It is Peace with oneself. Under the calmly 
 
76 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 conscious stars, on the wide moor, amongst 
 the eternal hills, or lulled by the multitudinous 
 sea, passion dies ; f retfulness, repining, foolish 
 ambitions, petulant disappointments, take unto 
 themselves wings and fly away. We wonder 
 how earth can be unhappy while Heaven leaves 
 us — not merely " youth and love " — but Nature, 
 ourselves, and God. 
 
 It is Peace with our fellow-men. We have 
 not analysed Man more carefully. We have 
 not argued ourselves into a finer appreciation 
 of the mind that looks before and after. We 
 have not schooled ourselves to think no evil of 
 our fellow-mortals. No ; but sweet and subtle 
 influences have stolen into our souls, and sus- 
 picion, anger, contempt, combativeness, droop and 
 die. We are one with our kind. 
 
 And it is Peace with God. It must be peace 
 with Him, for we are one with Him. We are 
 immortal, here and now. We are mind of His 
 mind; we have yielded our will to His pure 
 and perfect will. In Him we live and move and 
 have our being. 
 
 And it is Power. Our first feelings are of our 
 insignificance. Later, we know that we are in- 
 finite. When we consider the heavens, the work 
 of His fingers, the moon and the stars, which 
 He has ordained, we cower before the revelation 
 of our littleness. But as we consider them and 
 yet again consider them, we find ourselves 
 of ten thousand times more consequence than they 
 and all the spheres of light. Then we rise 
 
ETHICS OF HOLIDAYS 77 
 
 to the knowledge of our majesty, for Thou, 
 O Lord, hast crowned man with glory and 
 honour, Thou hast made him but little lower 
 than God! To us the prayer has been fulfilled, 
 the prayer of him, surely the most religious of 
 unbelievers ! 
 
 "Ah, once more," I cried, " ye stars, ye waters, 
 On my heart your mighty charm renew; 
 
 Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you. 
 Feel my soul becoming vast like you ! " 
 
 And we, too, have turned from the glories 
 without to the glories within, have made our own 
 the fine experience of Lewis Morris in his " Even- 
 song," and have blessed God for the manifesta- 
 tion of Himself which has possessed us wholly : — 
 
 And through all the clear spaces above— oh wonder! oh 
 
 glory of light! — 
 Came forth myriads on myraids of worlds, the shining host 
 
 of the night, — 
 
 The vast forces and fires that know the same sun and centre 
 
 as we; 
 The faint planets which roll in vast orbits round suns we 
 
 shall never see; 
 
 The rays which had sped from the first, with the awful 
 
 swiftness of light, 
 To reach only then, it might be, the confines of mortal 
 
 sight; 
 
 Oh, wonder of Cosmical Order! oh Maker and Ruler of all. 
 Before whose Infinite greatness in silence we worship and 
 fall! 
 
 Could I doubt that the Will which keeps this great Universe 
 steadfast and sure 
 
78 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 Might be less than His creatures thought, full of goodness, 
 pitiful, pure? 
 
 Could I dream that the Power which keeps these great suns 
 
 circling around, 
 Took no thought for the humblest life which flutters and 
 
 falls to the ground? 
 
 "Oh, Faith! thou art higher than all," Then I turned 
 
 from the glories above 
 And from every casement new-lit there shone a soft radiance 
 
 of love: 
 
 Young mothers were teaching their children to fold little 
 
 hands in prayer; 
 Strong fathers were resting from toil, 'mid the hush of the 
 
 Sabbath air; 
 
 Peasant lovers strolled through the lanes, shy and difBdent 
 
 each with each. 
 Yet knit by some subtle union too fine for their halting 
 
 speech: 
 
 Humble lives, to low thought, and low; but linked, to the 
 
 thinker's eye, 
 By a bond that is stronger than death, with the lights of the 
 
 ultimate sky: 
 
 Here as there, the great drama of life rolled on, and a 
 
 jubilant voice 
 Thrilled through me, ineffable, vast, and bade me exult and 
 
 rejoice! 
 
 There is one consideration which we cannot 
 escape. What of the myriads of our brethren, 
 pent up in mean streets, prisoners of the counting- 
 house and the shop, slaves of the mill and the 
 mine, the poor and heavy laden of every name- 
 less class to whom these words are bitter mockery, 
 for whom no changing seasons bring cessation 
 
ETHICS OF HOLIDAYS 79 
 
 from toil and weariness ? What of them — in these 
 days of summer suns and joy? 
 
 There should be none such — except the vicious. 
 And Christianity cannot rest while such mortals 
 live, disfranchised of their right to rest and 
 happiness. The unaccomplished mission of our 
 faith is the redress of every economic inequality. 
 There is no Gospel which is not a Gospel of 
 social service. We live to bring all mankind 
 into the family of God, joint-heirs with the most 
 favoured life on earth of the unspeakable riches 
 of Christ. But, meantime, while such poverty 
 remains, while such evil conditions sadden and 
 appal us, what right have we to our holidays, 
 to our happiness? Can we sit at our feast blind- 
 fold, or dare we open our eyes? What right 
 have we to any feast while our brothers starve 
 in sight of plenty? What right? None — if 
 our Hves are wrong. If we are living for our- 
 selves, thinking, planning, toiling, accumulating, 
 enjoying, for ourselves — none. But if all life is 
 to us a sacred trust; if happiness is only so 
 much stored-up energy to be expended in divine, 
 redemptive toil, then go, keep the feast and share 
 the festival, charge your blood and brain with 
 health and flood your soul with joy. And come 
 back to our world of suffering and wrong, to spend 
 your new-found strength again in the blessing of 
 mankind. 
 
 But for the present, go away and forget! 
 It is a counsel of perfection, and you would not 
 follow it, else I would say to you: Go where you 
 
so THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 can have no letters, no newspapers, no tele- 
 grams, where the ring of the telephone bell 
 is never heard, and where even Marconi cannot 
 come ! But at least, do your best to forget ! 
 Forget your business ! Forget your debts ! 
 And forget your debtors ! Forget that in this 
 world is suffering, sickness, or sin. Only remem- 
 ber that the sun shines for you ; the moonlight 
 and the starbeams are for you; the tides ebb and 
 flow for you ; the gorse upon the hillside, the 
 purple heather, and the fields which stand dressed 
 in living green, are all for you. The earth, and 
 the air, and the sky are yours, and Christ is yours, 
 and God is yours, and all this God is all your own, 
 your Father and your Friend ! 
 
THE NOBLE LIVING AND THE NOBLE 
 DEAD 
 
There is 
 One great society alone on earth. 
 The noble living and the noble dead, 
 
 — WOEDSWORTH. 
 
THE NOBLE LIVING AND THE NOBLE 
 DEAD 
 
 " Into thine hand I commend my spirit." — Psalm xxxi. 5. 
 
 These were the last words spoken by our Lord 
 before His death. He was mighty in the Scrip- 
 tures. He loved the Psalms. The rich devo- 
 tional spirit of the great poets of His race was 
 kindred with His own. Alike in controversy 
 and in prayer, their words were ever upon His 
 lips. Living, they were to Him an inspiration ; 
 dying, His last utterance was quoted from a 
 Psalm. For millions of men, the Book of 
 Psalms has been hallowed by the fondness of Jesus 
 for it. 
 
 Our Lord quoted from the thirty-first Psalm. 
 But as the ancient poet spoke it, the prayer had 
 reference not to death, but to life. He does not 
 ask that God will care for him in death, but pro- 
 tect him now in the midst of distress, pain, and 
 fear. Troubles compass him around. Anxiety, 
 danger, conflict, have wrecked his health. His 
 eye is wasted by grief; soul and body are en- 
 feebled; sorrow seems to have gnawed into 
 his bones ; his life is in peril. It is impossible not 
 to think of Jeremiah; of the imprisonment, the 
 stocks, the scourging. Perhaps our poet thought 
 
 83 
 
84 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 of him, too. He describes his loneliness, the 
 desertion of those who knew him, the cowardice 
 of those who should have stood by him. There 
 are three groups of feeble souls whose weakness 
 has done him wrong. He is a " reproach " 
 to his neighbours — because of the multitude and 
 the power of his adversaries his " neighbours " 
 reproach him. He is a " fear " to his " acquaint- 
 ance " — how should they dare befriend him, 
 champion his cause, even show sympathy with 
 him, in the face of threats and hatred.'' And as 
 for the larger, wider world, " they that did see 
 me without," they fly from him as if he were a 
 leper. And his prayer is the familiar prayer 
 of weakness to Almightiness. He prays for 
 deliverance from immediate and pressing dangers ; 
 for the sunshine of God's presence ; and for per- 
 manent good issue from his fears. Then his 
 faith pierces the future ; he looks for a time when 
 wisdom shall be justified upon the earth ; when 
 the voices of hate shall be silenced and lying 
 lips be dumb. As for himself, he can rest in the 
 assurance that God rules over all ; " my times are 
 in Thy hand " — the monuments, chances, changes, 
 kaleidoscopic, unimaginable, God controls, and he 
 is content. Into God's hands he commends his 
 spirit. 
 
 Times of trouble will come to us all. The 
 hour of darkness, loss, and trial waits for every 
 one of us. In the form In which sorrow struck this 
 man It will not strike us. The form is a thing 
 indifferent. The fact Is real. One day, sorrow 
 
NOBLE LIVING AND NOBLE DEAD 85 
 
 will break over our soul in storm, its thunders 
 will crash around us, and we shall feel ourselves 
 alone. The experience of the race, as humanity 
 has trodden its path of sorrow, will not make 
 our own grief lighter. Each one of us will say, 
 " there is no sorrow like my sorrow," and the 
 suffering which strikes us, though the same 
 suffering has fallen upon men since man's life 
 began upon this planet, will seem to us an iso- 
 lated and abnormal wonder. " Never morning 
 wore to evening, but some heart did break." 
 Yet to dream that because " such loss is common 
 to the race " it is less charged with elements of 
 despair, is to proclaim oneself ignorant of the 
 human heart. 
 
 Common is the commonplace, 
 
 And vacant chaflf well meant for grain. 
 
 We must not darken the present by anticipa- 
 tions of the clouds which will one day gather. 
 But we can prepare for ourselves a shelter against 
 the impending storm; we can find in God a sure 
 refuge and defence. 
 
 Where will you find relief from sorrow, rest in 
 weariness, comfort in bereavement, inspiration 
 when your own strength is utter feebleness, if 
 not in God? I have no answer to such a question. 
 I have found no answer in the lives of men I 
 know. I have found none in my own. I under- 
 stand the man who finds God to be his " fortress " 
 and his " high tower." I understand him who 
 jfinds that God " is a very present help in time 
 
86 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 of trouble." As perfectly as I am able to under- 
 stand anything or anybody, I understand him 
 who finds that " The eternal God is our dwelling- 
 place, and underneath are the everlasting arms." 
 But I do not understand what relief from the 
 sorrows of life is to be found outside God. As 
 to that, my mind is a blank. 
 
 The nearest approach to the consolations of 
 God, of which I can think, is the fellowship of 
 noble and inspiring minds. I know a man who 
 carries about with him a pocket edition of Epic- 
 tetus, as others carry their New Testament. 
 How many devout souls have found consolation 
 and strength in the author of Thomas a Kempis, 
 in Pascal, in George Herbert? And amongst 
 moderns, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, have 
 been as ministering spirits to hundreds of us 
 who have gathered here this morning. Matthew 
 Arnold said of Wordsworth : 
 
 Time may restore us in her course 
 Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force. 
 But where will Europe's latter hour 
 Again find Wordsworth's healing power? 
 
 John Morley endorses that. And many of uS, 
 for many years, have opened our souls to the 
 inflow of Wordsworth's healing power. There 
 are men and women here to whom the great 
 thoughts and words of Alfred Tennyson have 
 been as the very breath of life. Lines from " In 
 Memoriam " have become part of our essential 
 being. While the magnificence, the virility, the 
 
NOBLE LIVING AND NOBLE DEAD 87 
 
 uplifting and ennobling strength of Robert 
 Browning have, for others of us, become a part 
 of Nature's wealth, and in that glad opulence 
 we are rich. These approach, and sometimes 
 approach nearly, the consolations of God. Why? 
 Because these men themselves have drawn man to 
 'God. Because they repeat what they have heard 
 from Him. Because they reflect the glory which 
 has shone from Him. Because they have thought 
 His thoughts after Him, and repeated them in 
 glad, good words to us. They have seen His 
 face, and it is the after-shine of His presence 
 which gleams on our path. It is His presence 
 — adumbrated; His essence — diluted; His words, 
 as best understood — repeated; His voice — echoed 
 by their great tuneful voices, which bring us 
 strength. " They are but broken lights of Thee, 
 and Thou, O Lord, art more than they." There 
 is a Mount of Transfiguration for every one of us. 
 From its heights, each beholds the heavenly vision. 
 There is a beautiful, pathetic story told by 
 Dr. Stalker in his " Trial and Death of Jesus 
 Christ." I wish he had been able to give the 
 names of those concerned, or at least, one name. 
 But Dr. Stalker guarantees the story as true. 
 This is the story, as he quotes it from a private 
 diary : 
 
 " I remember, when I was a student, visiting 
 a dying man. He had been in the University 
 with me, but a few years ahead ; and at the close 
 of a brilliant career in College, he was appointed 
 
88 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 to a Professorship of Philosophy in a Colonial 
 University. But, after a very few years, he fell 
 into bad health; and he came home to Scotland 
 to die. It was a summer Sunday afternoon 
 when I called to see him, and it happened that 
 I was able to offer him a drive. His great frame 
 was with difficulty got into the open carriage ; 
 but then he lay back comfortably and was able 
 to enjoy the fresh air. Two other friends were 
 with him that day — college companions, who 
 had come out from the city to visit him. On the 
 way back they dropped into the rear, and I was 
 alone beside him, when he began to talk with 
 appreciation of their friendship and kindness. 
 ' But,' he said, ' do you know what they have 
 been doing all day? ' I could not guess. ' Well, 
 they have been reading to me " Sartor Resartus " ; 
 and, oh ! I am awfully tired of it.' Then, turning 
 on me his large eyes, he began to repeat, ' This is 
 a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
 that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, 
 of whom I am chief ' ; and then he added, with 
 great earnestness, * There is nothing else of any 
 use to me now.' " 
 
 There is nothing else of use to us, when our 
 eyes are opened to the eternal world, the real 
 world, the abiding world, when sorrow dims the 
 lustre of visible things and grief rends the veil of 
 the invisible; there is nothing else for us but 
 God. And there is no answer to my question, 
 Where will you find the help which you need for 
 
NOBLE LIVING AND NOBLE DEAD 89 
 
 life's conflicts and crosses, if you find it not in 
 God? For lack of such a refuge, life is often 
 darkened into tragedy. Dissipation ; evil courses ; 
 abandonment; — these are too frequently the ref- 
 uge of the breaking heart. And even when the 
 more gross and shameful sins are missing, what a 
 miserable spectacle is that carping, petulant, 
 wrecked old age, on which we look with pity, dis- 
 gust, and fear, " the last scene of all that ends 
 this strange eventful history, second childishness, 
 and then oblivion " ! Contrast that " seventh 
 age " of man with Paul's great invocation, — ■ 
 " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of 
 all comfort ; who comf orteth us in all our afflic- 
 tion that we may be able to comfort them that are 
 in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith 
 we ourselves are comforted of God ! " Divine 
 tautology of faith and love ! 
 
 But now I want you to observe how men have 
 used these great and simple words when they 
 have stood In the presence of death. It must 
 be safe to say that millions have died with them 
 upon their Hps. At least, some of the most 
 notable and fruitful deaths of which history has 
 taken note are signalised by the repetition of these 
 words when life was well-nigh ended. 
 
 When the murderers of Thomas a Becket 
 broke in upon his devotions in Canterbury 
 Cathedral, the Archbishop faced them boldly. 
 They struck at him and drew blood. Becket had 
 strength to wipe the stain from his face, spoke 
 
90 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 these deathless words, " Lord, into thine hand I 
 commend my spirit," received the fatal thrusts, 
 and died. 
 
 Christopher Columbus, deserted, broken, sorrow- 
 ful, disgraced, beside his bed the chains in which 
 ingratitude and treachery had dared to fetter 
 the Admiral of the Sea, in a wretched lodging, 
 breathed out his life with these words upon his 
 lips, " Lord, into thine hand I commend my 
 spirit." 
 
 I have stood in Constance where John Huss 
 stood when they clothed him with the sacerdotal 
 robes, only to strip them from him and degrade 
 him. They thrust into his hand the chalice, 
 gave him the last opportunity to abjure his 
 heresies, and when he refused, said, " O accursed 
 Judas, we take from thee this cup filled with the 
 blood of Jesus Christ ! " And he replied, " But 
 I hope, by the mercy of God, that this very 
 day I shall drink of His cup in His own kingdom." 
 They placed on his head a paper cap, in shape 
 like a mitre, on which were painted hideous 
 pictures of demons and flames. " Most joyfully," 
 said Huss, " will I wear this cap of shame for thy 
 sake, O Jesus, who for me didst wear a crown 
 of thorns." Then the priests said, " Now we 
 devote thy soul to the devil." And Huss, lifting 
 up his eyes to heaven, said, " But I do commend 
 my spirit into thy hands, O Lord Jesus, for Thou 
 hast redeemed me." They led him outside the 
 city to a green and peaceful meadow. They 
 bound him to the stake. As he lifted his eyes 
 
NOBLE LIVING AND NOBLE DEAD 91 
 
 to the sweet sky above him, the paper mitre fell 
 from his head. One of the soldiers rushed for- 
 ward and replaced it, saying that Huss must 
 be burned with the devils whom he served. 
 They kindled the flames round him. I have 
 stood by the stone which marks the spot of his 
 agony and his triumph, and have thought that I 
 could hear again the words which once more 
 he spoke before his Hps were still in death, 
 "Into thine hand I commend my spirit." Ten 
 months later, his brilliant friend, Jerome of 
 Prague, was burned on the same spot, on his 
 dying lips the same words, " Into thine hand I 
 commend my spirit." 
 
 Thirteen times tortured with the frightful 
 torture instruments of that day, Robert South- 
 well, priest, Jesuit, poet, after spending three 
 years in a filthy prison cell, was carted from 
 Newgate to Tyburn with a rope round his neck. 
 He stood up, with pinioned hands, and as the cart 
 was being drawn from under him that he might 
 hang, still repeated, "Into thine hand I com- 
 mend my spirit." 
 
 Luther and Melanchthon both died in their 
 beds, both passing into the nearer presence of 
 God with these faintly spoken words as prayer, 
 " Into thine hand I commend my spirit." 
 
 George Wishart was roasted at the foot of 
 the sea-tower of St. Andrews. He kissed the 
 executioner upon the cheek, as a sign that he 
 forgave him, and died as he murmured, " Into 
 thine hand I commend my spirit." Twenty- 
 
92 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 five years later, his disciple, the man who came 
 after him, who was greater than he, whose iron 
 will, stormy eloquence, and noble life had saved 
 Scotland from Rome for ever, John Knox, died 
 triumphant and in peace in his own house at 
 Edinburgh, but his dying words were the same, 
 " Into thine hand I commend my spirit." 
 
 Egmont and Horn, in whose deaths began 
 the unquenchable revolts of the Netherlands, 
 before whose monument in Brussels so many 
 of us have stood, and wondered and admired, 
 knelt to receive the headsman's stroke, each 
 repeating these self-same words, " Into thine hand 
 I commend my spirit." 
 
 An old, old man, John Fisher, Bishop of 
 Rochester, Cardinal of the Roman Church, doomed 
 to death by Henry VIII., neither his great learn- 
 ing, his pure and simple life, nor his public services 
 availing to save him, in his decrepit old age, so 
 weak that he could scarcely stand, carried to the 
 scaffold, "with the joyful mien of a man who 
 receives the boon for which he craves," prepared to 
 receive the stroke of the axe, still murmuring these 
 immortal words, " Into thine hand I commend my 
 spirit." 
 
 A fair, young girl. Lady Jane Grey, when she 
 saw the block on which she was to die, said, 
 " I pray you despatch me quickly." She tied 
 the handkerchief about her eyes, then, feeling 
 for the block, said, "What shall I do.? Where 
 is it.? " One of the bystanders, guiding her 
 thereto, she laid her head upon it and said. 
 
NOBLE LIVING AND NOBLE DEAD 93 
 
 " Lord, into thine hand I commend my spirit." 
 And so she ended.* 
 
 All these died in faith. And of how many 
 of the obscure, the silent, and the dead, of whom 
 history makes no mention, of whom the world 
 was not worthy, might not the same record be 
 made.f* Their names are not written in the 
 Book of Heralds ; they are in the Lamb's Book 
 of Life. Catholics and Protestants, Fighters and 
 Preachers, Men of Thought and Men of Action, 
 old and young, world-weary old men and gentle 
 girls in the beauty of dawning womanhood — 
 they lived and died and live again in God. 
 
 There are one or two question which I fain 
 would have you answer to yourselves, If you will. 
 And the first is this: Has anything happened 
 of late years to make this God, in whom the one 
 great Society of the noble Hving and the noble 
 dead has believed, less real, less sure, for us.-* 
 
 There are times when scepticism seems to be 
 approaching a world-wide triumph, when men 
 fear that if the Son of Man were to return He 
 would scarce find faith upon the earth. In the 
 first half of the eighteenth century, Bishop 
 Butler complained that it had come to be taken 
 for granted by many persons that Christianity 
 was not even so much as a proper subject of 
 inquiry, but that it was at length discovered 
 to be fictitious. That period was followed by 
 
 * All these cases, and many more, are recorded in various 
 chapters of " The Psalms in Human Life," by R. E. 
 Prothero. 
 
94 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 the Methodist revival wliich saved England from 
 hell. We who have reached middle-age re- 
 member that when we were boys Bradlaugh- 
 materialism stormed at the doors of the Churches ; 
 while, a little later, perhaps, a cultivated Agnosti- 
 cism sneered politely at our old-fashioned faith. 
 We have lived to see Bradlaugh-materialism 
 abandoned, repudiated, forgotten — until whipped 
 into spasmodic pretence of life for a year or 
 two years by an erratic journalist — and the deep 
 thought and high culture of our time turning 
 again to God. No atheistic movement has the 
 slightest evil influence upon the general progress 
 of religion in the world. Individuals are affected. 
 Individuals lose their heads. They lose their 
 faith. They are lost to name and fame and use. 
 For them it is great, sad loss. But the human 
 heart cries out its need of God; the weary soul 
 comes back to Christ. Has anything happened, 
 for the need is greater, to make the hope less sure? 
 In two conspicuous particulars is our world 
 different from that old world in which our fathers 
 lived. We have seen born, grow, flourish, a 
 literary criticism of the Bible. What has that 
 done for us? It has made the Bible more real, 
 more precious, in the deepest sense, more true, 
 its men and women realer flesh and blood, 
 human brain and immortal spirit, than ever 
 before. It is more emphatically a true Book, 
 it is more vitally the Book of God. For our 
 teachers, who are experts, and for us who are 
 only students, literary criticism of the Bible has 
 
NOBLE LIVING AND NOBLE DEAD 95 
 
 made us understand our Bible better and love it 
 more. 
 
 We have seen born, grow, flourish, a new. 
 philosophy of the universe. We have adopted, 
 on evidence and authority which seem acceptable 
 to our reason, the evolutionary account of the 
 "becoming" of things. And with what result .!* 
 Why, that instead of looking for a lonely, solitary 
 God, who sits outside the universe, watching 
 it go, we have found a God immanent in all things, 
 in all life, a God around us, within us, who is 
 the life of all things, in whom we live and move 
 and have our being. This God has Jesus taught 
 us to call Father, and he who seeks Him finds. 
 
 Nothing has happened to make this God less 
 real, less sure. 
 
 Then, that which has been the inspiration of 
 heroic lives, their strength, their hope, their 
 comfort, their joy: is this not worth having now? 
 Trouble will come. Sorrow will strike. Strength 
 will ebb. The hour of loneliness and darkness 
 waits. These men whom I have named, and 
 millions more, have indisputably found some- 
 where, somehow, strength and comfort, inspira- 
 tion and hope. Is it no longer worth possessing? 
 
 Two things may be answered in objection. 
 One is that " we have had to give up many 
 beliefs which our fathers held; and it is no 
 warrant of the truth of a proposition to say that 
 some of the great characters of history believed in 
 it. Every man living, who thinks at all, has 
 abandoned some things which our fathers 
 
96 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 thought." Yes ; if that objection had not been 
 actually put to me in so many words I should 
 have suspected myself of inventing it for the 
 sake of answering it, so entirely does it lead 
 back to my plea. Why have we abandoned 
 ideas, behefs, opinions, which for ages have been 
 current amongst men? They have been displaced 
 hy something richer, more fruitful, grander. 
 What is to displace the faith in God which has 
 made and kept men great.? What is the richer, 
 more fruitful, grander inspiration than that of 
 trust in Him.'' What message, better than 
 that of Christ, shall I take to the dying soul.? 
 Whose words, richer than His, shall I speak to a 
 breaking heart.? I will abandon this old-world 
 belief with no regret when I have a truer to put 
 in its place. But until then, to whom shall I 
 go but unto Christ.? He has the words of eternal 
 life. 
 
 And the other thing is this. It may be said, 
 " But still we cannot believe. And while we 
 do not believe it true, we cannot profess that we 
 do." Then is it not a loss, a real loss, to you.? 
 And should you not so regard it.? I would 
 not boast of it if I were you. I would not pose 
 as a- gainer, when I was a loser of that which 
 to better men than myself had been the one 
 possession which made life worth living. I 
 would not glory ; I would mourn. And I pray 
 you, consider whether it would not be well to 
 seek again this precious treasure of a faith that 
 braces, nerves, comforts, inspires, brings heaven 
 
NOBLE LIVING AND NOBLE DEAD 97 
 
 down to earth. That is wisdom. And he who 
 willeth to do His will shall know of the teaching, 
 whether it be of God. The promise stands. 
 " If ye abide in Mj word ... ye shall 
 knoy^ the truth, and the truth shall make you 
 free." 
 
 Strength is not to be discovered in a flash 
 in the moment when trouble comes. It has to 
 be accumulated beforehand. When the storm 
 comes you cannot build your refuge. You 
 must build it in the daylight, when the sun 
 shines. When friends turn away from you, 
 and you are very sad and weak and lonely, 
 when a mysterious illness paralyses the activities 
 of which you were so proud, and you, who, 
 when you were young, moved as you would, 
 now must be bound and carried where men will, 
 or must go softly all the days that remain, 
 waiting for death as release, you cannot conceive 
 and create and produce out of nothing the 
 radiant faith from which is bom an inexhaustible 
 hope and an unfailing strength! It is our 
 yesterdays which empty themselves into our 
 to-day. In youth, young manhood, robust 
 maturity, we have laid hold on God. In the 
 hour of our need He keeps His loving hold on us. 
 Learn the lesson, dear ones ! To-day, ask, and 
 it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; 
 knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 
 
 Of this splendid faith, the ordinance of Baptism 
 which we are about to observe is the symbol 
 and the pledge. To see this rite as Jesus saw 
 
98 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 it, no act of human life could be more solemn, 
 none greater, none fraught with mightier mean- 
 ing for the soul. With these words upon our 
 lips we go down into the Baptismal waters, 
 " Lord, into thine hand I commend my spirit," 
 with these upon our heart we rise to walk in 
 newness of life. It is not for death but for life 
 we speak them, not from the depths of despair 
 but from the heights of vision, rapture, con- 
 secration. With the glorious company of the 
 Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, 
 the noble army of Martyrs, we commend our 
 spirits to God. Yet our steps do not lead to 
 torture, the scaffold, or the stake, nor are our 
 eyes closing in death. No ; but in strength and 
 hope and joy, in the power and pride of life, with 
 work to do for men and praise to win from God, 
 with free minds to serve Him and warm hearts to 
 love Him, we speak the old, heroic vow, " Lord, 
 into thine hand I commend my spirit." 
 
VI 
 
 THE JUDGMENT DAYS OF GOD 
 
The grand question still remains, Was the judgment just? 
 If unjust, it will not and cannot get harbour for itself, or 
 continue to have footing in this Universe, which was made 
 by other than One Unjust. From all souls of men, from all 
 ends of Nature, from the throne of God above, there are 
 voices bidding it. Away, away! Does it take no warning; 
 does it stand, strong in its three readings, in its gibbets and 
 artillery-parks? The more woe is to it, the frightfuUer woe. 
 It will continue standing for its day, for its year, for its 
 century, doing evil all the while; but it has one Enemy who 
 is Almighty: dissolution, explosion, and the everlasting laws 
 of Nature incessantly advance towards it; and the deeper 
 its rooting, more obstinate its continuing, the deeper also 
 and huger will its ruin and overturn be, 
 
 — Thomas Carlyle. 
 
VI 
 THE JUDGMENT DAYS OF GOD 
 
 " Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince 
 of this world be cast out." — John xii. 31. 
 
 This men do not believe. Judgment has been 
 thrust back to some time and place beyond the 
 grave. We think judgment belongs to the end 
 of the world. But Christ taught another view. 
 Now is the judgment — here and now. And 
 because judgment is already at work, the casting 
 out of the prince of this world — which has 
 already begun — is sure. Judgment is: the cast- 
 ing out shall he. All the methods of God are 
 gradual. Evolution is always His plan. In the 
 building of the petals of a flower, as in the forma- 
 tion of beds of coal ; in the redemption of a single 
 soul, as in the wide-spread triumph of His truth, 
 He moves by slow and ordered steps. The Great 
 White Throne is already set ; swiftly, though seem- 
 ing slow to our impatient gaze, His angels are 
 bringing before Him all things that cause stum- 
 bling ; the nations are gathering from the East and 
 from the West; we are all standing before the 
 Judgment Seat of God, and very surely the prince 
 of this world shall be cast out. 
 
 But it is a different kind of judgment which 
 has appealed to the imagination of Christendom. 
 
 101 
 
102 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 And although men do not to-day beheve that any 
 such judgment as that which has been pictured 
 to them in past ages will ever really take place, 
 they still believe that they believe what has 
 become incredible to them. Between that which 
 men believe with a realising earnestness, in such a 
 way that it becomes a part of their intelLectual 
 and spiritual make-up and profoundly influences 
 their actions and their character, and that which 
 they merely hold as a doctrine put before them 
 by creeds or by society, which they have never 
 analysed, never absorbed, never made their own, 
 we need always to distinguish. And in this loose, 
 unrealised way men still suppose that they believe 
 in a future judgment. It has, however, grown 
 unthinkable to them ; and when once they begin to 
 think they repudiate it. But the true view of 
 judgment, the Scriptural view, the view held and 
 taught by our Lord, still needs elucidation and 
 enforcement. 
 
 The old conception of the Judgment is best 
 seen in the great paintings of the Middle Ages, 
 those paintings which constitute, really, the 
 literature of an age which had no literature as 
 we understand it. In Munich there is a hateful 
 picture by Rubens of Christ threatening a 
 ruined world. He is hurling the lightnings 
 down upon the globe, with its crowds of shivering, 
 shuddering wretches cowering before Him. St. 
 Francis is there, seeking to restrain His fury. 
 Mary is there, baring her breast and appealing 
 to the fact of her motherhood that she may win 
 
THE JUDGMENT DAYS OF GOD 103 
 
 Him to mercy! But the two pictures which 
 have most greatly impressed the mind of Europe 
 are Orcagna's, in the Campo Santo of Pisa, and 
 the terrible production of Michael Angelo's 
 genius at Rome. The first dates from the 
 fourteenth century; Angelo's comes two hundred 
 years after. Michael Angelo's picture has 
 numerous features of Orcagna's, and it has 
 many added atrocities which are all its own. 
 An angry Christ stands pointing with His left 
 hand towards the wound which the spear had 
 made in His side; His right arm is lifted to 
 strike and sweep away the crushed and agonised 
 figures at His feet. Angels bring in the cross 
 on which He suffered, the scourge, the crown 
 of thorns, to fire His hate and vengeance! 
 The martyrs produce the evidence of their 
 sufferings with the same purpose of assuring 
 the condemnation of their persecutors. The 
 lost are driven backwards by fighting angels, 
 who force them into the pit; demons drag them 
 into the abyss. Orcagna paints " the monstrous 
 hell of mediaeval fancy. It is represented in all 
 its cruel and brutal realism, a slaughter-house of 
 everlasting vivisection, a reeking hotbed of 
 abhorrent atrocities, in every sense of the word 
 revolting and abominable." Angelo's is " a hor- 
 rible nightmare in colour." * 
 
 Modified, necessarily, by the nobler spirit of 
 
 our day, such a conception is the one that starts 
 
 before us when we use the words, " the Last 
 
 Judgment." We do not think of the bestial 
 
 * Farrar's " Christ in Art." 
 
104 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 horrors which appealed to the fancy of these 
 old painters; but we do think of a spectacular 
 assize, a great glorified Old Bailey, Jesus Christ 
 the presiding Judge. And against that tradi- 
 tional view needs to be set the real teaching of the 
 Scriptures and of Christ concerning the judg- 
 ment of the world. 
 
 Misconceptions of the nature of the judgment 
 of the world are bound up with misunderstandings 
 of the Second Coming of Christ. The Scriptural 
 teaching concerning the judgment can best be 
 studied in connection with its utterances upon the 
 Second Coming. 
 
 The early Church, as we know, believed that 
 the coming of the Lord was near. The disciples 
 looked for an immediate appearing. Home and 
 business were neglected; minds ran riot in the 
 expectation of the immediate end of the world. 
 The Apostle Paul needed to tell the members 
 of the Thessalonian community that they had 
 better study to be quiet, and mind their own 
 business. The extravagances into which their 
 belief led them were many and gross. But the 
 gain was doubtless great as well, and a tremen- 
 dous earnestness of faith was represented by 
 their fervent belief in the early coming of the 
 King. The Apostles looked for His coming. 
 It is the mere disingenuous trick of the con- 
 troversialist with an untenable position to 
 maintain which leads to a denial of this. The 
 Apostles unquestionably thought that the end of 
 the world, the beginning of the reign of Christ, 
 
THE JUDGMENT DAYS OF GOD 105 
 
 was near. In the lifetime of that generation 
 they looked for the appearing of their Lord. 
 And Christ had repeatedly spoken of His return 
 as near. You cannot read His many utterances 
 without feeling that He spoke as though He 
 must come again while the generation that 
 had known Him in the flesh still lived upon the 
 earth. And what shall we say of this belief and 
 of this teaching? That Christ was in error? 
 Never; but that we have misunderstood; that 
 He meant what He said; that He knew that 
 He would come again ; that He has come, 
 has fulfilled, is fulfilling, His word; that He is 
 with us, ruling in our hearts, reigning in His 
 Church, ordering the hosts of God, inspiring the 
 soldiers of the cross, winning victory after victory 
 for righteousness, and truth, and love. Ever 
 more and more fully as He perceives the wisdom 
 and the need He puts forth His power ; every 
 outpouring of beneficent and reforming zeal is 
 the manifestation of His presence and the asser- 
 tion of His will. The Son of Man is already 
 seated on the throne of His glory. Now is the 
 judgment: now shall the prince of this world be 
 cast out. 
 
 What do we mean when we speak of judgment? 
 Or rather, what do the Scriptures mean when they 
 speak of judgment, and especially what does 
 Christ mean? 
 
 The first idea is that of a Righteous Sentence, 
 The Old Testament idea, the dream of the 
 prophet and the seer, lives in this conception. 
 
106 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 When the Hebrew poet saw wrong triumphant 
 and right overthrown, he yet looked for a time 
 when a righteous sentence, rewarding and punish- 
 ing, should be pronounced upon this earth. " But 
 the Lord," he declared, 
 
 But the Lord sitteth as Judge for ever: 
 
 He hath prepared His throne for judgment. 
 
 He shall judge the world in righteousness. 
 
 He shall minister judgment to the nations in truth. 
 
 Free from the impurity of human tribunals, their 
 partiality, their limited vision, their failures from 
 incompetency and incompleteness, the judgments 
 of the Lord should be righteous altogether. When 
 the King reigns in righteousness and the eyes of 
 them that have oversight are no longer closed, 
 then the vile person shall no more be called noble, 
 nor the churl be said to be bountiful. Men may 
 judge by outward appearance; but the Lord 
 looketh upon the heart. 
 
 Those of you who have seen " Hamlet " per- 
 formed, especially if you have seen it in the hands 
 of men of ability and character, have been, I am 
 sure, strangely impressed by the prayer which the 
 guilty king essays to make as he kneels alone 
 on the darkened stage. With all his soul crying 
 out for mercy, he seeks to assure himself that all 
 may yet be well. 
 
 What if this cursed hand 
 Were thicker than itself with brother's blood — 
 Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens 
 To wash it white as snow? 
 
THE JUDGMENT DAYS OF GOD 107 
 
 And yet he knows that there is no prayer that 
 he can offer hkely to be heard in those " sweet 
 heavens " since 
 
 I am still possess'd 
 Of those effects for which I did the murder — 
 My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. 
 
 And then, with an insight into the laws of God 
 which is hke the deep spiritual vision of some 
 Old Testament saint, the conscience-stricken king 
 is made to say: 
 
 In the corrupted currents of this world, 
 Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; 
 And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 
 Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above; 
 There is no shuffling — there the action lies 
 In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd. 
 Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults. 
 To give in evidence. 
 
 That is a lesson we shall do well to learn. You 
 may deceive those who know you best; you 
 may conceal from those that are nearest the lie 
 that you are living; you may cloak your shame- 
 ful intrigue, your self-gratification, your double 
 dealing, with hypocritical cunning, but you will 
 not deceive that Just Judge. There is no 
 shuffling! There the action lies in its true 
 nature! To-day you stand before the judg- 
 ment seat of God. He knows from what vice, 
 from what cleverly contrived dishonesty, you 
 have risen, what sin you contemplate for to- 
 morrow's sun I 
 
108 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 The second idea included in the conception 
 of judgment is that of Retribution and Reward — 
 the righteous execution of the righteous sentence 
 which the Just Judge has pronounced. This is of 
 the very essence of judgment; this is a deep- 
 rooted fact in the experience of mankind. " God 
 does not always pay wages on a Saturday," 
 says the homely proverb. No ; but He does 
 pay wages, and the wages of sin still are death. 
 God needs no great assize, asks for no public 
 prosecutor, waits for no dramatic judgment-day. 
 Every act of sin is self-destructive. It carries 
 with it the force for its own revenge. Not every 
 violation of the law is followed by a visible stroke 
 of retribution; but in the inmost being of the 
 wrong-doer is stored the potency of future 
 judgment. And these potencies, accumulating 
 with the years, gaining in intensity and in vio- 
 lence, prepare the inevitable disaster. It may be 
 long in coming, but it comes. You may sin 
 with a high hand and with determined purpose. 
 You may live as though conduct were nothing, 
 you may live as though there were no God. 
 But you will find that the universe is controlled 
 by a great and righteous law; nay, that it 
 incarnates that law and executes its own decrees, 
 that fire and sword and pestilence and famine 
 are not the only instruments of Divine admin- 
 istration, that within yourself is the fountain 
 of suffering, that 
 
 The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices 
 Make instruments to scourge us. 
 
THE JUDGMENT DAYS OF GOD 109 
 
 With men and nations this law holds. Some 
 of you have read Zola's " Downfall "—a book 
 which ought to be read by every thoughtful 
 man and woman — and you have seen how God 
 deals even yet with a nation that forgets Him. 
 " The Downfall " is a work of superb genius, 
 of genius directed at last to a useful end. Sedan 
 is the logical outcome of the vice and crime of 
 the nation. The overthrow of the Second 
 Empire, the loss of provinces, the expenditure 
 of hundreds of milHons of treasure, the sacrifice 
 of human life, the outburst of revolutionary 
 hysteria when Paris demonstrated the truth 
 that nations, like individuals, can quite go 
 mad, the orgies of cruelty wherein wallowed alike 
 both order and anarchy, the flaming city, the 
 humiliated people, follow In the way of inevitable 
 sequence upon the frivohty and passion, the 
 greed of gold and lust of the flesh, in which Paris 
 had dehghted. And these, also, followed upon the 
 callousness and cynicism of other generations. 
 Sedan and Paris are but the "punctuation 
 marks," as Dr. Whiton would say,* pointing off 
 spiritual periods in which judgment against 
 sin has been recorded, and through which it has 
 been approaching its outward consummation. 
 This, too, is the experience of the man who 
 forgets God. He has been storing up the ex- 
 plosives which shall bring about the great 
 
 * See that most thoughtful and suggestive study of the 
 Resurrection and the Judgment, "Beyond the Shadow," 
 by James M. Whiton, Ph.D. 
 
110 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 catastrophe. He is mined. Deceit, treachery, 
 cruelty; a career of gambling, of dishonesty; 
 reckless trading which has become unjustifiable 
 speculation, speculation which has become brig- 
 andage ; base slavery to passion ; betrayal of the 
 Ignorant ; the " sowing of the wild oats " ; the 
 service of Satan — these are judged in the judg- 
 ment which now is, the execution of the sentence 
 is proceeding in secret ; then comes ruin — crash- 
 ing, complete, overwhelming! 
 
 First, the sentence, then the execution of the 
 sentence, third, the revelation to the conscience 
 of this Divine order under which we live — this 
 is the Scriptural view of judgment. It Is not 
 enough that the sentence should be righteous, 
 and that it should be executed upon us. We 
 must perceive that this is the judgment of the 
 Most High against iniquity, that we have 
 reached the " day of wrath for which we 
 have been treasuring up wrath, the day of 
 the revelation of the righteous judgment of 
 God." 
 
 The objection which will occur to many minds 
 is this : " All this may be true, but It in no way 
 touches the question of that future pictorial 
 judgment which the painters have tried to 
 depict, and in which we have been taught to 
 believe. This present judgment is doubtless 
 a fact; but that is no reason why the future 
 judgment should not also be a fact." No; 
 none whatever. Future judgment is a fact, 
 but future judgment is present judgment carried 
 
THE JUDGMENT DAYS OF GOD 111 
 
 on, a development, a sequence, not a violent 
 break and the establishment of a new tribunal. 
 Will you examine one or two of those crucial 
 texts which have been thought to point to some- 
 thing revolutionary in the methods of heaven, 
 and to direct one's thoughts to a spectacular judg- 
 ment at the end of the world? 
 
 And this fact will be, perhaps, the first to 
 emerge, that Christ never once spoke of the end 
 of the world — never ! Dozens of texts will occur 
 to you immediately in which He seems to speak 
 of it; but it is only in seeming. Turn to the 
 explanation which the Saviour gives to His 
 disciples of the parable of the sower (Matt. xiii.). 
 In the margin of the Revised Version is found 
 the information that the Saviour spoke, not 
 of the end of the world, but of the consummation 
 of the age, or of the ages. The truth is that 
 there are two Greek words which we translate 
 " world," but only one which can mean the 
 physical world. That word — kosmos — Christ 
 never used. The other word — oson — which may 
 be translated " age," though that does not cover 
 the idea, is the one the Saviour employs. And 
 while He often spoke of the end or the con- 
 summation of the age, He said no word about 
 the end of the world. And the phrase used by 
 Matthew is the phrase used by the author of 
 the letter to the Hebrews, where clearly it 
 cannot be twisted into meaning the end of the 
 world, " But now once, in the consummation 
 of the ages, hath He appeared to put away sin 
 
112 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 by the sacrifice of Himself." Moreover, those 
 who have been accustomed to think that Christ 
 spoke of the end of the world should observe 
 the definiteness, the emphasis, of His great 
 saying in Matthew xvi. 27, 28, " For the Son 
 of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with 
 His angels ; and then shall He render unto every 
 man according to his deeds. Verily I say unto 
 you, there be some of them that stand here which 
 shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the 
 Son of Man coming in His kingdom." Before 
 the generation that had known Him in the flesh 
 had passed away some were to see Him on the 
 throne of His glory. His angels with Him ! And, 
 turning to another famous passage (Matt. xxv. 
 31-46), we see Him setting forth with Divine 
 impressiveness a scene of judgment which we 
 must not try to relegate to a spectacular " last 
 day." Now is the judgment of this world. Now 
 is the Son of Man seated on the throne of His 
 glory, now are His angels — all agencies, animate 
 and inanimate, that make for righteousness, 
 that take up the causes of stumbling, that make 
 straight through the dreary desert of sin and 
 suffering a highway for the march of an emanci- 
 pated people — now are His angels separating 
 the beneficent from the self-indulgent: 
 
 Some great cause, God's new Messiah, oflfering each the 
 
 bloora or blight. 
 Parts the goats upon the left hand and the sheep upon 
 
 the right. 
 
 Now is sounding, deep down In each man's 
 
THE JUDGMENT DAYS OF GOD 113 
 
 consciousness, though he hears it not, the appalhng 
 " Depart, ye cursed," the glorious " Come, ye 
 blessed." And the fateful law that character 
 tends to permanence declares once again that those 
 are going away into eternal punishment, but these 
 into life eternal. 
 
 And it is this on which we need to insist, which 
 you and I must remember. Judgment begins here, 
 goes reaching on, travels with us, abides for ever. 
 It is true of life here ; it lives through death ; it is 
 true of this same life continued beyond the grave. 
 Though I would not work upon your fears nor win 
 you through your lowest feelings, yet a man who 
 loves you and who loves truth can still, with deep 
 and solemn earnestness, urge you to flee from 
 the wrath to come. Be not deceived. Though the 
 brutal hell of the theologian is no more, and the 
 ghastly horrors of an Augustinian slaughter- 
 house are remembered only with a sigh of thank- 
 fulness for escape from a notion which dishonours 
 God, yet He is not mocked ; whatsoever a man 
 sows, that shall he also reap. And now is the 
 judgment of this world! 
 
 But more ; I would help you to rob death of 
 his terrors. Death is no accident, no dislocation 
 of sovereign purpose, no interruption of the 
 eternal order. It is an episode of universal ex- 
 perience, such as birth, and, like birth, the en- 
 trance into another sphere of activities, but with 
 this gain, that all that has been learnt and all that 
 has been won which is worth preserving shall live 
 on still, with enlarged opportunities, with ex- 
 
114 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 panding powers, with an ever-Increasing fulness 
 of that Hfe of which here our nerves are scant. 
 When men speak of heaven and hell they too often 
 forget that these are states, not places, which be- 
 gin now, and are only facts of the future because 
 they are truths of the present time. A good man 
 carries heaven about with him. The strength of 
 brave men sustaining him; the love of good 
 women that ennobles him ; the smiles of happy 
 children, God's refuge for man's weariness ; the 
 joy of work well done; the felt presence of the 
 Christ; the realised ministry of the Spirit; the 
 approval of the living God completing and crown- 
 ing his strenuous endeavour — these constitute a 
 heaven amid the gloom and shadow of the present 
 evil age, a heaven which brightens more and more 
 unto the eternal day of God. 
 
VII 
 MARY AT THE CROSS 
 
Stabat Mater dolorosa 
 Juxta crucem lacrimosa, 
 
 Dura pendebat Filius, 
 Cujus animam gementem, 
 Contristatam, et dolentem, 
 
 Pertransivit gladius. 
 
 Eia! Mater, fons amoris 
 Me sentire vim doloris 
 
 Fac, ut tecum lugeam: 
 Fac, ut ardeat cor meum 
 In amando Christum Deum, 
 
 Ut sibi complaceam. 
 
 — Hymn of the Flagellants. 
 
vn 
 
 MARY AT THE CROSS 
 
 " Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother." 
 
 — John xix. 25. 
 
 That "the quietude of grief is sacred," Dr. 
 Martineau once said, no man would think of 
 trying to prove to another any more than he 
 would dream of attempting to demonstrate that 
 " the blush of morning is fair or the heroism 
 of conscience noble." So truly do we all feel 
 the sacredness of a great sorrow that when we 
 see it we turn our eyes away in native delicacy 
 of soul. We cannot separate the sorrows of 
 Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as she stood beside 
 the cross to see her Son die, from the sorrows of 
 mothers and of motherhood throughout all time. 
 And it seems to us that there is danger of pro- 
 faning a holy thing when we permit ourselves 
 to gaze, even through blinding tears, upon a 
 mother's bleeding heart. Love, tender, sympa- 
 thetic, understanding, love which shares the 
 sorrows and longs to heal, love alone may sanctify 
 what else were deep irreverence. And if this 
 text and sermon pierce, in some tender breast, 
 the wounds which in this world will never heal 
 and which open at a touch, try to believe, dear, 
 
 117 
 
118 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 suffering soul, that it is good for us at times to 
 give sorrow words. The grief that does not 
 speak whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it 
 break. 
 
 For, indeed, there is a sublimity in our greatest 
 griefs which uplifts and hallows life. And, 
 good Protestants as we are, we need not hesitate 
 to admit that century by century the world's 
 long study of the sorrows of the Mother of Jesus 
 has been charged with blessing for mankind. 
 Women have been sheltered and protected and 
 honoured and loved, and Woman has been 
 enthroned ; men have been softened and chastened 
 and subdued to gentleness, and Man has been 
 ennobled, by the world's worship of Mary. Her 
 real womanhood has come into the imagination 
 of the poet and the churl, the theologian and the 
 village child, and has preserved for Christianity 
 and for the race some elements without which 
 Christianity would be a cruel and a hateful 
 thing, and the race would be poor indeed. Per- 
 haps, as her Son hung upon the cross and His 
 life-blood dripped to the ground before the 
 mother's eyes, if some strange power of prescience 
 had enabled her to rend in twain the veil that 
 hides the future from all human sight, and she had 
 seen her own sorrows, like that redeeming blood, 
 flowing in streams of mercy over half a world, 
 while yet the sword pierced her own heart, also, 
 her lips would have framed again the words 
 of her adorable Magnificat, " My soul doth 
 magnify the Lord." And such a thought may 
 
MARY AT THE CROSS 119 
 
 enable us to touch with reverent hand these sacred 
 griefs. 
 
 It is terrible for a mother to see her son die. 
 The lot is common, and no common hand can 
 wipe away a mother's tears. But this death 
 united in itself all forms of known atrocity. It 
 seems as though death by crucifixion had been 
 devised and adapted to inflict the maximum of 
 pain, shame, horror, and fear which human 
 nature can endure. Such descriptions as I have 
 read fill my soul with anguish, and I will not 
 torture you with their recital. But this frightful 
 death was but the climax of a long series of 
 outrages, from the sight of which one turns 
 away in pain unspeakable. I think of the mock 
 tribunals, the perjured witnesses, the savage 
 blow, the cruel scourging, the crown of thorns; 
 I think of the raging hatred that burst forth 
 against Him, the gentlest and most lovable that 
 earth has seen — and Mary stood beside the 
 cross ! 
 
 What an end to all the mother's dreams, the 
 mother's joy and pride! The angel that whispers 
 to young mothers bright hopes for their first- 
 born had bidden her believe that her Child 
 should be great, and should be called the Son 
 of the Highest. For Him a throne was waiting, 
 the throne of the house of David. But His 
 kingdom should be like no other that mortal eye 
 had seen — of His kingdom there should be no 
 end. In lowliness her Child was born; the 
 manger bare received Him. But still sang on 
 
120 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 the angel's song, " Glory to God in the highest,'* 
 and the story of this wondrous birth was tidings 
 of great joy. Just men and devout, of a type 
 that every formative age produces, lonely 
 watchers for the morning through a night of fear, 
 waiting for the consolation of Israel, had blessed 
 her for the blessing that she bore. And one, whose 
 dying eyes read clearest, uttered his glad thanks- 
 giving, " Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant 
 depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy 
 salvation." The fulfilment of these radiant 
 dreams was slow in coming. Yet the long years 
 are short when a mother sees her boy grow in 
 wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God 
 and men. He was but the village carpenter ; 
 yet there was childish prattle and boyish talk 
 for her to ponder in her heart. Then came the 
 glorious manhood in its serenity, its matchless 
 sweetness, its mighty charm. It was coming 
 true at last, the angel's whisper in her girl- 
 ish dreams, the song that broke in waves of glory 
 from the star-lit heavens, the prediction of the 
 ancient sage — kingdom, throne, and Sonship with 
 the Highest — it was coming true, it was all coming 
 true! And then her world had gone out after 
 Him. Galilee and all the south down to its ut- 
 most edge were loud in talk of Him, and the rapt 
 Hosannas of the crowd proclaimed the coming 
 of the King! 
 
 And there He hangs upon the cross ! 
 
 The nails have pierced His hands and feet. 
 The crown of thorns is pressed upon His sacred 
 
MARY AT THE CROSS 121 
 
 brow. The insults of men, like the burning hate 
 of devils, have lacerated His spirit as the spiked 
 and twisted leathern thongs His flesh — and 
 Mary stood to see Him die! Oh, mighty 
 power of a mother's heart, that breaks and yet 
 endures ! 
 
 This is the deep sorrow of mothers. In a 
 world where thorns lie in every path, is there 
 sorrow like unto this? Naturally, the eyes of 
 the mother have turned from present care to 
 future pride. When the boy is a man, what a 
 strong arm there will be to lean upon ! When 
 her heart and flesh fail her, how his strong soul 
 will sustain her! When her eye is dim with age, 
 with what pride it will light up and gleam again 
 as she sees her dear one's great achievements ! 
 What interest in his career: what joy in his 
 successes : what glory in the triumphs he must 
 win ! And then, when Death dashes all these 
 hopes away — but, no ! Only a mother knows. 
 And only God can comfort. The Lord gave, and 
 the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name 
 of the Lord! 
 
 Let me turn to a consideration that is bearable. 
 This tragedy is too deep for words. 
 
 These thoughts are an essential and integral 
 part of our Gospel of Liternational Peace. There * 
 are few of us so callous as not to have thought, 
 in the sober moments that the beating of the 
 war-drum leaves us, of the anguish with which 
 our Imperialism and our conquests rend the 
 hearts of mothers. One of the outstanding 
 
122 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 phenomena of European life is the growth of the 
 sentiment of Peace, a desire for Peace, a realisa- 
 tion of its possibility, and a willingness to seek 
 the path that leads to brotherhood. Twelve or 
 thirteen years ago, amongst a group of people who 
 knew the Continental nations better than I did, I 
 heard this definitely predicted. And one who 
 spoke, the best informed amongst us, answering 
 the question of a lady present as to why he was 
 so much more hopeful of the growth of the Peace 
 sentiment there than here, made answer, " The 
 women there know what war is. You are not 
 afraid that if our country was at war to-day, 
 to-morrow your boy would be forced against 
 his will to shoulder his rifle and go to the front, 
 and that the next you heard of him would be that 
 a bayonet had been thrust through his lungs or a 
 gun-carriage driven across his head. The mothers 
 of those countries know that such a fate is hanging 
 over any one of theirs. The women know what 
 the blood tax of conscription means." That 
 testimony is true. The prediction has been 
 fulfilled. And one element in the development 
 of this feeling after Peace is the ever-intensify- 
 ing realisation — self-realisation and realisation 
 of power — of the womanhood of the nations. 
 The heaviest burden falls on the tenderest 
 hearts. 
 
 Perhaps the sufferings of mothers through the 
 wickedness of war, like the suff^erings of the 
 mother of our Lord, may yet make for the re- 
 demption of the world. An English statesman 
 
MARY AT THE CROSS 123 
 
 has asked us to cherish the dream which the 
 poets and prophets have dreamed, to live by the 
 light of the vision which they have seen from afar, 
 to hold to the hope of a blissful day when war 
 shall be no more. Nothing, he bids us believe, 
 will In the long run prove more fruitful of the 
 blessings of peace than our determination to 
 believe in its possible attainment, and to shape 
 our life by our glowing faith. 
 
 Such visions are of morning, 
 
 Theirs is no vague forewarning, 
 
 The dreams which nations dream come true, 
 
 And shape the world anew. 
 
 And when these dreams are no longer dreams, 
 when the visions are glorious, accomplished 
 facts, then the mothers who have suffered most 
 may yet find that God Himself wipes the tears 
 away, as the thought starts unbidden to the 
 heart bereaved but comforted, " We are they who 
 pay the kings their cruel price for peace." 
 
 One anguish the mother of our text was spared. 
 And mothers who hear me have suffered with a 
 suffering which Mary never knew. She was 
 spared the poisoned sorrow which comes from 
 guilt. Her Son was numbered with the trans- 
 gressors, but she knew Him innocent. Physical 
 pain Increased to torture, blood shed In rivers, 
 and emotional anguish such as Mary felt when she 
 stood beside the cross, are less in degree and less 
 bitter in kind than the grief which has torn 
 some mother's heart who has watched the soul 
 of her dearest rot In sin and perish in corruption. 
 
124 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 Oh, but we lack imagination ! If we could but 
 see what griefs our sins accumulate upon the 
 head of one who loves us well and would die for 
 us, we should pause even while the sin was hot 
 upon our lips. My boy, my boy, do you think 
 what your vice, your defilement, your dishonesty, 
 your ruin, your disgrace, will mean to the mother 
 who bore you? She would face death for you 
 a thousand times. Will you not he a man for 
 her? 
 
 And this is a view of the Atonement which, as 
 we repudiate the figments and fancies which 
 theologies have twined round it, we ought not 
 to ignore. That was Sin — that which had ac- 
 cumulated upon Him, the gentle, pure, and holy 
 One, the anguish and the hate — that was Sin ! 
 And as I feel it, I understand what they mean 
 when they tell me, " My sins nailed Jesus to the 
 cross." I feel it true. God be merciful to me, 
 a sinner! 
 
 But let us return to the stricken mother by the 
 cross. It is not surprising that her sufferings 
 should have appealed to the sympathies of the 
 world. But what does call for explanation is the 
 fact that in the course of the ages she has been 
 singled out for divine honours, has had prayers 
 offered to her — not merely offered in her name, 
 but directly to her — has received a worship at 
 times more loving and passionate than that which 
 has been paid to Christ, and in the art of the 
 Middle Ages has been accorded a glory above that 
 of her Son. 
 
MARY AT THE CROSS 125 
 
 As early as the day of Augustine, the theolo- 
 gians were busy with speculations as to the 
 sinlessness of Mary, as to the fact of it, and as 
 to the method by which it was accomplished. 
 Soon it was gravely affirmed that she had come 
 into life under some divine, miraculous plan, 
 which obliterated from her nature the taint of 
 "Original Sin." Grave "Fathers" of the 
 Church debated this weighty matter, though 
 graciously the Church permitted some doubt 
 about the process, until, in the year 1854;, Pope 
 Pius IX. set the matter at rest for ever — for all 
 good Catholics — by a Bull which declared that the 
 notion of the Immaculate Conception of Mary 
 was a truth which the Church was bound to believe. 
 On my study wall I have a photograph, bought 
 in a Catholic city, of the scene in Heaven when 
 God the Father and God the Son, with Mary 
 throned between them, received the news of the 
 Church's rich devotion. Adam and Eve have come 
 from Hades to hear the joyful tidings, and angels 
 with their whips of many cords scourge the here- 
 tics who once denied it. 
 
 The process of the worship which has been 
 offered to her can be traced with surprising ease 
 in Christian art. During the first five centuries 
 Mary takes her place with other saints, in no way 
 raised above them. As late as the close of the 
 fifth century the heads of Christ and the angels 
 have the nimbus, but not that of Mary. One 
 hundred years later our Lord, Mary, and the 
 angels have the nimbus, while the apostles, 
 
126 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 amongst whom she stands, have not. In the 
 ninth century she Is enthroned as Queen of 
 Heaven. In the twelfth she is seated with Christ 
 in equal honour. In pictures of terror, with 
 which the Dark Ages abounded, she is frequently 
 shown winning the world from the fierce anger 
 of her Son by the appeal she makes to her 
 maternity. And in the thought of many genera- 
 tions she was enshrined as the ideal of tender 
 love and goodness, the real Saviour of mankind. 
 Surely there is some explanation of all this.'' 
 The world was familiar with female deities. 
 As goddesses and as brides of the gods mythology 
 is crowded with them. Their worship has not 
 infrequently been corrupt to the last degree. 
 The religion of the Hebrews held these female 
 cults in scorn. The God of the Hebrews is a God 
 of Power, Justice, Righteousness, Law. Gentler 
 thoughts came to some of the prophets and poets 
 of the Hebrew race, thoughts that at times leaped 
 to the ascription to Jehovah of characteristics 
 almost fatherlike, and some, even, which boldly 
 claimed for him the tenderness of a mother's 
 heart. But these great thoughts were not com- 
 mon in the Jewish faith. Christ came, and early 
 in the history of His Church theology magnified 
 every element of sternness, pushed back and out 
 of sight His great, redeeming love. What, at 
 its worst, the Hebrew had seen in God, that, ex- 
 aggerated, intensified, made awful and wrathful 
 and bitter, the theologians saw in Christ, until at 
 last the world's Redeemer had become the world's 
 
MARY AT THE CROSS 127 
 
 fierce judge, and He who had died to save now 
 lived to damn. Yet " the heart has its reasons," 
 says Pascal; and the heart, thank God, has its 
 theologies ! And Mariolatry is the effort of man- 
 kind, guided by a sure instinct of the human 
 heart, to bring back those sweeter, softer, more 
 lovely and more loving aspects of Deity which 
 Christ revealed in His own Person, which the 
 Church so soon forgot, has been so slow to learn 
 again. Mariolatry is the assertion that Power is 
 not all ; that Pity is more. That Strength is not 
 all; that Submission may be greater. That Wis- 
 dom, Force, Energy are not all of life; that 
 Meekness, Obedience, Gentleness are as divine. 
 Mariolatry is, in a word, in Christ's own words, 
 the assertion that the poor in spirit are the blessed 
 ones, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. They 
 that mourn are blessed ; God's comfort is for them. 
 The meek are blessed, for they shall inherit the 
 earth ; the merciful, for mercy is reserved for 
 them ; the pure in heart, for they see God ; and 
 the peacemakers, yes, the peacemakers, too, for 
 the world shall yet see in them the children of 
 God! 
 
 This is Virgin-worship at its best and highest. 
 And the world had need of it. 
 
 But is it not a reflection upon Christianity that 
 such an idolatry was needed to reinforce its own 
 essential attributes of love and purity and gentle- 
 ness.'' Do we not derogate from the true greatness 
 of our faith when we admit this. Certainly, this 
 would be the condemnation of Christianity — if it 
 
128 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 was Christianity at all! But, let me repeat, it 
 is the effort of the human heart to get back to 
 that which was deepest, highest, worthiest, most 
 essential and characteristic, in Christianity, which 
 theology had thrust out of sight, but which con- 
 stituted the true glory of Christ. We need no 
 Virgin-worship. Mariolatry is not for us. We 
 do not need to " make much of Mary." All that 
 human nature has yearned for and thought to 
 find in her is truly found, found in its fulness, in 
 Jesus Christ. He is Man of the woman-heart, as 
 well as Man of the virile brain. In the exquisite 
 sensibility of His soul, the clinging to human com- 
 panionship, the worldless craving for sympathy 
 which in the darkness of the night stretched out 
 hands of love only to touch the hands that pulsed 
 with love again, in the considerateness which saw 
 another's thought, and read the wish, and smiled 
 the answer to the unspoken prayer, in the over- 
 flowing tenderness which won from the unfriendly 
 crowd the note of wonder, " Behold how He loved," 
 and changed the apostle's greeting, " The grace of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ be with you " to a per- 
 petual benediction — in all this we see the woman- 
 nature exalted to sublimity, and set in perfect 
 poise with the mighty manhood of this " Strong 
 Son of God, immortal love." 
 
 Of the blessings which have come to mankind 
 from the recognition in Mary of these most Christ- 
 like qualities of the Christ, I have not time to 
 speak at any length. Let me quote to you the 
 brief catalogue of gifts and graces which Lecky 
 
MARY AT THE CROSS 129 
 
 says the world has won from Virgin-worship — 
 Lecky, the " rationahst," not by any means a man 
 to be suspected of the errors of Mariolatry : 
 
 " The world Is governed by its ideals, and sel- 
 dom or never has there been one which has exer- 
 cised a more profound and, on the whole, a more 
 salutary influence than the mcdijeval conception 
 of the Virgin. For the first time woman was ele- 
 vated to her rightful position, and the sanctity of 
 weakness was recognised as well as the sanctity 
 of sorrow. No longer the slave or toy of man, no 
 longer associated only with ideas of degradation 
 and sensuality, woman rose, in the person of the 
 Virgin Mother, into a new sphere, and became the 
 object of a reverential homage of which antiquity 
 had no conception. Love was idealised. The 
 moral charm and beauty of female excellence were 
 fully felt. A new type of character was called 
 into being; a new kind of admiration was fostered. 
 Into a harsh and ignorant and benighted age this 
 ideal type infused a conception of gentleness and 
 purity unknown to the proudest civilisations of 
 the past. In the pages of living tenderness which 
 many a monkish writer has left in honour of his 
 celestial patron, in the millions who, in many lands 
 and in many ages, have sought with no barren 
 desire to mould their characters into her image. 
 . in the new sense of honour, in the chival- 
 rous respect, in the softening of manners, in the 
 refinement of tastes displayed in all the walks of 
 society: in these and in many other ways we de- 
 
130 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 tect Its influence. All that was best in Europe 
 clustered around it, and it is the origin of many 
 of the purest elements of our civilisation." 
 
 And so, as we turn for this last glimpse to 
 Mary, weeping by the cross, I suggest to you 
 again that if she had read her future story, seen 
 the blessings which her name and the love of her 
 would fling broadcast over a troubled world, she 
 might have counted the hour of mortal anguish 
 not too dreadful to be borne. And I ask you to 
 believe that something of all this is true and must 
 be true of the sorrows of your life. We cannot 
 philosophise about it. We cannot reduce it to 
 a system. We cannot give a theory, line upon 
 line, and precept upon precept, a theory of human 
 suffering and human redemption which will satisfy 
 the demands of an inexorable logic. But dimly 
 we see it. Distantly we feel after it. And in de- 
 fault of any better reading of life's mysteries, it 
 will be good for you to hold to this. In some 
 way, the suffering, the tragedy, the pain, the loss, 
 the wreck of life, the blight of hope, all are work- 
 ing out the highest, holiest good. In a deeper, 
 truer way than we can understand, no sparrow 
 falls unheeded of the love of God. He hears our 
 sighs. He counts our tears. His hand is on the 
 breaking heart. Love made the world. Love 
 guides it still. Love will triumph in the end. 
 Your afflictions, crushing, overwhelming as they 
 are, in the balances of eternity are light, and for 
 a moment. For yourself and for your dear ones 
 
MARY AT THE CROSS 131 
 
 and for the race they work out a far more exceed- 
 ing weight of glory. And this shall be your com- 
 fort as you stand, each one of you, beside the 
 cross of Christ, as, in denial of yourself and 
 service of your fellows, you share the redeeming 
 love of Christ. 
 
 Foes were wrought to cruel madness; 
 Friends had fled in fear and sadness; 
 Mary stood the cross beside. 
 
 At its foot her foot she planted, 
 By the dreadful scene undaunted. 
 Till the gentle Sufferer died. 
 
 Poets oft have sung her story, 
 Painters decked her brow with glory. 
 Priests her name have deified. 
 
 But no worship, song, or glory. 
 
 Touches like that simple story — 
 
 Mary stood the cross beside. 
 
 And when, under fierce oppression. 
 Goodness suffers like transgression, 
 Christ again is crucified; 
 
 But if love be there, true-hearted. 
 By no grief or terror parted, 
 Mary stands the cross beside. 
 
vin 
 
 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST 
 
Don't compete — competition is always injurious to the 
 species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it! 
 That is the tendency of Nature, not always realised in full, 
 but always present. That is the watchword which comes 
 to us from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean. There- 
 fore combine — practise mutual aid. That is the surest 
 means for giving to each and aU the greatest safety, the 
 best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual 
 and moral. That is what Nature teaches us; and that is 
 what all those animals which have attained the highest 
 position in their respective classes have done. That is 
 also what man — the most primitive man — has been doing; 
 and that is why man has reached the position upon which 
 we stand now. — Keopotkin. 
 
VIII 
 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST 
 
 " Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, 
 which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. 
 In these lay a multitude of them that were sick, blind, 
 halt, withered. And a certain man was there, who had been 
 thirty and eight years in his infirmity. When Jesus saw 
 him lying, and knew that he had been now a long time in 
 that case. He saith unto him, Wouldest thou be made whole? 
 The sick man answered Him, Sir, I have no man, when the 
 water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am 
 coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith 
 unto him. Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. And straight- 
 way the man was made whole, and took up his bed and 
 walked." — John v. 2-9. 
 
 The Revised Version has dismissed from the 
 narrative the Angel who troubled the waters, 
 and who troubled, it may be added, many in- 
 quiring minds. There is nothing in the story 
 now to suggest that the famous Pool of Bethesda 
 was other than a natural place of healing, waters 
 possessed of those curative properties for the 
 sake of which tens of thousands of people every 
 year visit well-known places in our own country 
 and in Europe. The " moving of the water " re- 
 ferred to by the sick man does not necessarily 
 point to anything but a very ordinary phenome- 
 non. The spring, from which the waters of this 
 pool were collected, appears not to have been con- 
 tinuous, but one which gushed forth at certain 
 
 135 
 
136 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 seasons. Then the water flowed into the natural 
 or artificial basin, and the older legend said that 
 an *' Angel " had " troubled the water." 
 
 The story has for us interest in this, that it 
 affords in a striking incident a crucial illustra- 
 tion of Christ's ministry to the infirm, of His 
 deliberate and determined effort to assure the 
 survival of the unfittest. 
 
 The healing ministry of Jesus Christ has en- 
 deared Him to human hearts. Our hymns, our 
 prayers, the recollections of our childhood, the 
 adoration of our manhood, the history of civilisa- 
 tion, all unite to swell the chorus of love and 
 praise unto Him whom we delight to call " The 
 Good Physician," and of whom we say with high- 
 est worship in simplest words, " He went about 
 doing good." The most critical mind amongst us, 
 finding insuperable difficulties in many of the 
 " miracle " stories, yet gains ground of reasonable 
 faith in the " miracles of healing." The coldest 
 heart warms and thrills at the reading of that 
 simple phrase, " He had compassion upon them." 
 
 " A crucial illustration," I have called this 
 incident of the healing of the impotent man at 
 the Pool of Bethesda; and you will probably 
 agree with me. The man was infirm amongst 
 the infirm. He was incapable amongst the in- 
 capable. He was far more helpless and hopeless 
 than the most helpless and hopeless there. Thirty- 
 eight years had he lain there, waiting for his 
 chance. Yet when his chance came, others of the 
 sick, less helpless than he, pushed before him in 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST 137 
 
 the wretched race of the cripples for life and 
 health. He had no friends to help him, had 
 neither hands of his own to use nor hands of his 
 neighbour to borrow. He was the very worst 
 specimen that could be found of a man unfit to 
 carry on the feeblest form of the struggle for 
 existence. Even amongst that crowd of the para- 
 lysed and the miserable he was the unfittest to 
 survive. 
 
 And Christ healed him. He sent him on his 
 way rejoicing. 
 
 Christianity, the religion of Christ the Healer, 
 has set itself, as its Master did, to heal the sick, 
 to cleanse the leper, to cast out devils, to take 
 the deformed and straighten their withered limbs, 
 the blind and give them sight, the worn-out, ex- 
 hausted, and degenerate amongst earth's children 
 and give them fresh lease of life. Through all 
 its generations Christianity has been doing this. 
 Such work is the high distinction of its greatest 
 days. It is the crowning glory of the age we 
 live in. And when a sceptic of our own times 
 searches continents from sea to sea and history 
 from century to century for proof of some healing 
 ministry before the time of Christ and independent 
 of His reign, and finds one, just one, example, to 
 set against the long and splendid line of minister- 
 ing spirits who have named the name of Jesus, 
 he calls all the world to witness his wonderful 
 discovery ! 
 
 But now: When Christ in this way sets Him- 
 self to keep alive the weakest and physically the 
 
138 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 worst, the most worthless specimens of humanity, 
 has He not set up a process for the deterioration 
 of the Race? 
 
 When we build and maintain hospitals, sana- 
 toria, almshouses, asylums for the imbecile and 
 insane, when we apply ourselves to keep alive 
 the consumptive, the anaemic, the weak-minded, 
 the dwarfed and deformed, are we not " going 
 dead against Evolution " — I think that is the 
 phrase — and putting back the hope of a time 
 when we shall see a race of clean-bodied, strong- 
 limbed giants and giantesses, multiplying after 
 their kind and replenishing the earth? 
 
 Certainly it would seem that the answer ought 
 to be " Yes " to such a question as this. It 
 Bounds savage, but are we not opposing our- 
 selves to Nature's plan? Nature kills off the 
 weak; lets the strong survive. The lopping off 
 of the weak strengthens the stock, for only the 
 strong go on to increase and multiply. And so 
 tuberculosis and typhoid, starvation and plague, 
 are Mother Nature's most beneficent instruments 
 for preserving and strengthening and blessing 
 the human race! Our Christian civilisation, in 
 so far as it is Christian, is a repudiation of 
 Nature's own designs, and a weak attempt to 
 turn her from her course. As such, it is foolish, 
 and futile, and doomed to failure. Yes ; and our 
 philanthropy is immoral, too; for we not only 
 arrange for the survival of the unfit, but we 
 allow them to continue the stock, preserving in 
 the body of the community these elements of 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST 139 
 
 weakness, disease, and death. If we are too 
 superficially humane to take the old folks out and 
 shoot them — if we hesitate to shoot — if we have 
 some squeamish objection to take the rickety 
 and scrofulous and ill-formed babies and throw 
 them into the sea, at least we might cease from 
 our efforts to keep them alive, and leave these 
 benign operations of Nature to do their worst 
 and their best! 
 
 Well, let man think so, and act upon his re- 
 morseless logic, and then — 
 
 Dragons of the prime. 
 That tare each other in their slime, 
 Were mellow music matched with him! 
 
 Yet, where is the fallacy? For it is not 
 pleasant for us to believe that the revelation 
 which God gives of Himself in what we call 
 " Nature," and the revelation which He gives 
 of Himself in His Son, contradict each other so 
 flatly. Where is the fallacy? Wisdom is always 
 justified of her children. Christ is her first-born 
 and her noblest. And in His care for the unfit 
 He is even now seen to be justified by the re- 
 searches of the naturalist and the conclusions of 
 the philosopher. His compassion, going " dead 
 against Evolution," is justified b" the exDonents 
 of Evolutionary Science. 
 
 For we are now told that there has been in 
 Evolution a factor as important as that of the 
 struggle for existence, perhaps even more im- 
 portant. The nature of the struggle, we are as- 
 
140 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 sured, has been misconceived; the extent of it has 
 been grossly exaggerated ; and this other factor 
 has been ignored. Yet this other law of being 
 has done as much for the preservation and de- 
 velopment and improvement of life upon our 
 planet as the one which we have come to regard 
 as supreme, the law of the struggle for existence. 
 
 Nearly a quarter of a century ago, a Russian 
 naturalist christened this other factor, " The Law 
 of Mutual Aid." * As a zoologist. Professor 
 Kessler protested against the abuse of the term 
 " the struggle for existence," which was borrowed 
 from zoology. He said that zoology and those 
 sciences which deal with man were continually 
 insisting upon what they call the " pitiless " law 
 of the struggle for existence. But they forget 
 the working of another law, which may be de- 
 scribed as the law of mutual aid, which law, at 
 least for animals, is far more essential than that 
 of the struggle for existence. All classes of ani- 
 mals, he said, and especially the higher ones, 
 practise mutual aid. And he went on : "^ I do 
 not deny the struggle for existence; but I main- 
 tain that the progressive development of the ani- 
 mal kingdom is favoured much more by mutual 
 support than by mutual struggle." 
 
 Neither this law of mutual aid nor the im- 
 portance of it escaped the notice of Darwin. 
 
 * Memoirs of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, 
 Vol. XI., 1880, quoted by P. Kropotkin, "Mutual Aid," 
 Chapter I., from whom this and the two following quota- 
 tions are taken. For Darwin reference see the same chap- 
 ter in Kropotkin, and for the Goethe story the Introduction. 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST 141 
 
 At the beginning of his work he took care to ask 
 that the term " struggle for life " should be 
 understood in a very large sense which would 
 include dependence of one being upon another. In 
 the " Descent of Man " are some pages written to 
 illustrate this proper wide sense in which Darwin 
 wished the phrase to be taken. He pointed out 
 how, in numberless animal societies, the struggle 
 between separate individuals for the means of 
 existence disappears ; how struggle is replaced 
 by co-operation, and how the substitution results 
 in the development of intellectual and moral 
 faculties which secure to the species the best con- 
 ditions for survival. Holding to the idea of the 
 " survival of the fittest," Darwin showed that in 
 those cases the " fittest " were not the strongest 
 nor the cunningest, but those who had learned to 
 combine so as to mutually support each other, 
 strong and weak together, for the benefit of the 
 community. And he added these striking words: 
 " Those communities which included the greatest 
 number of the most sympathetic members would 
 ■flourish best and rear the greatest number of 
 offspring." * 
 
 An earlier observer than Darwin had caught a 
 glimpse of the truth, and had brought a poet's 
 rich imagination to bear upon the facts. When 
 Eckermann once told Goethe that two little wren 
 fledglings, which had run away from him, were 
 found by him next day in the nest of robin-red- 
 breasts, who fed the little ones together with their 
 own youngsters, Goethe grew quite excited about 
 * " Descent of Man," 2nd edition, p. 163. 
 
142 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 it. He said, " If it be true that this feeding of a 
 stranger goes through all Nature as something 
 having the character of a general law, then many 
 an enigma will be solved." He returned to the 
 matter on the next day, and earnestly entreated 
 Eckermann, who was a zoologist, to make a special 
 study of the subject, saying that he would come 
 to " quite invaluable treasuries of results." 
 
 With the best will in the world, some of us 
 were never able to join unreservedly in the 
 praises which greeted the appearance of Henry 
 Drummond's " Ascent of Man " ten years ago. It 
 is a charming book, crowded with beautiful illus- 
 trations, written with incomparable skill, every 
 page delightful reading, and supremely useful as 
 a demonstration of the fact that one of the most 
 spiritual of the followers of Jesus in our genera- 
 tion could hold and teach the fullest doctrines of 
 Evolution. But the argument seemed to be vitiated 
 at the very outset by the form into which it was 
 arbitrarily forced; and the contention that pity, 
 sacrifice, and love were an evolution of a certain 
 instinct, functional in protoplasm, only weakened 
 the force of Drummond's plea for the " struggle 
 for the life of others." Yet we felt that he had 
 more than established his case for the part played 
 in Evolution in its later stages by what he called 
 " Otherism," the struggle for the life of others, 
 however badly his argument had started. And 
 we saw that he had done the Church a great 
 service in popularising a view which Herbert 
 Spencer, in his own way, had developed before 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST 143 
 
 him. And now a worker on similar yet different 
 lines, approaching the subject from a very dif- 
 ferent point of view and with different motives, 
 Kropotkin, has given us in his volume, " Mutual 
 Aid," a calmer, less exaggerated, and more satis- 
 fying account of this second factor in evolution. 
 It is from his pages that I have taken the refer- 
 ences to Darwin and the quotation from Goethe. 
 And you would be delighted and upHfted if, under 
 Kropotkin's guidance, you were to trace the work- 
 ings of this great law of mutual help through 
 birds and beasts, through savagery and barbar- 
 ism, in the mediaeval city and in the modern State. 
 But without attempting anything of that am- 
 bitious character in the course of a single sermon, 
 and without following our author at all closely, 
 let me remind you of those beautiful everyday 
 facts which never pass from the observation 
 of any one of you. I refer to the help which the 
 poor give to the poor. If you think about this, 
 if you let your imagination play about the facts 
 which you yourselves know to be facts, this 
 is really one of the outstanding phenomena of 
 human life. The poor could not live if it were not 
 for the poor! From the coming into the world 
 of the child for whose coming no preparation 
 has been made, to the last offices of pity for the 
 dying and the dead, this law of mutual help- 
 fulness operates like gravitation! Consider the 
 good-natured, easy-going carelessness of added 
 burdens with which a poor family will take 
 another mouth to feed, another body to clothe. 
 
144. THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 another life to care for, when death has left a 
 neighbouring home desolate. I doubt whether the 
 beneficence, the charity, the kindness of the rich, 
 can compare with this. It is not wonderful that 
 Samuel Plimsoll, who went to live amongst the 
 poor, said that his feelings were transformed as 
 he came to know the people better ; he went with 
 kindly feelings ; he came away with hearty respect 
 and admiration. In quantity, this fact is colossal. 
 To-day, there will be a million acts of unnoticed 
 kindness done in our land. Newspapers exist to 
 tell us the unusual, not the usual. And so, al- 
 though a million deeds of pity will to-day adorn 
 and consecrate the relations of the poor with the 
 poor, no newspaper to-morrow will print a line 
 about it. But if in some gin-soaked slum Bill 
 Sykes should beat Nancy so that she dies, every 
 newspaper to-morrow will tell the story. I re- 
 peat that in point of quantity this fact of mutual 
 aid is a fact quite colossal. In quality it is 
 divine. 
 
 It might be well to go on to show how the 
 preservation and development of these elements 
 of pity have strengthened, not weakened, the 
 Race. But I put it in the form of a question 
 only: What sort of a race would have been de- 
 veloped without this " struggle for the life of 
 others "? Consider the race of brawny, burly, 
 brutal giants that we might have had ! Would 
 the healthier, stronger bodies — supposing we had 
 been able to secure them — have been worth 
 having, among such soulless ruffians as this de- 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST 145 
 
 nial of love supposes? But, as a matter of fact, 
 what has been lost by the preservation of the 
 physically weak has been more than a thousand 
 times made up by the conservation of these 
 purifying instincts of compassion. In Darwin's 
 phrase again, " those communities which have 
 the greatest nurabeT of the most sympathetic 
 members, flourish best " ; and in more memorable 
 words, " whoso loseth his life " — individual, com- 
 munity, or race — " shall save it unto life eternal." 
 And so through the whole world of living things, 
 in all creation, as far as we know it, from Goethe's 
 benevolent robins to the poor in our city slums, 
 from Kessler's "law of mutual aid" to Drum- 
 mond's " struggle for the life of others " ; from 
 the weasel, in a story told by J. C. Wood, which 
 came back to pick up and carry away an injured 
 mate, to the latest medical missionary who has 
 died of malarial fever in the swamps of Africa, 
 life has spread and branched from more to more, 
 and reached to higher levels, by reason of Nature's 
 determination, not merely to secure the survival 
 of the fit, but even the survival of the unfittest. 
 
 There are some observations which naturally 
 occur to one, as he sees in these conclusions 
 of the biologist fresh reason to justify the ways 
 of God to man. 
 
 One is that the terrible notion of the absolutely 
 pitiless struggle which is for ever raging amongst 
 all living things, must be greatly modified if it 
 is not abandoned. It is hardly too much to say 
 that the thought of this immeasurable pain in 
 
146 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 the animal world has been to many sensitive souls 
 a nightmare. We have accepted all the state- 
 ments about Nature's ruthless methods, and have 
 repeated Tennyson's phrase: 
 
 Nature, red in tooth and claw, with ravine. 
 
 Alfred Russell Wallace, in his " Darwinism," * 
 declared that such a notion was entirely un- 
 founded. He said that the " torments " and 
 *' miseries " of animals have little real existence ; 
 that the popular idea is the very reverse of the 
 truth ; and that the struggle for life really brings 
 about the maximum of life and the enjoyment of 
 life with the minimum of suffering and pain. And 
 now these other reflections bring us within sight 
 of another world — a world of co-operation, of 
 solidarity, of sympathy, of mutual help in the 
 lower orders of life — an animal world on which 
 its Maker can look, of which He can say that it 
 is '* good." 
 
 And In these conclusions, too, we find that 
 which may justify the programme of Christianity. 
 We are told every day that conflict is absolutely 
 necessary to the very existence of the individual 
 and of the race. Man Is born for conflict. He 
 grows by it. He cannot live without It. Con- 
 flict with our Mother Nature herself. In which 
 she loves to be worsted, and herself In gladness 
 crowns the victor; conflict with the stormy seas, 
 the inhospitable earth, the air, and the powers of 
 the air; conflict which ennobles the individual. 
 * " Darwinism," pp. 37-40. 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST 147' 
 
 and glorifies the race — Yes ! But conflict between 
 man and man, the prize to the strong arm, 
 cunning brain, and reckless heart — No! In the 
 name of Reason, not less than Love, a thousand 
 times. No ! Co-operate ! Combine ! Unite ! That 
 is the word of Nature to us. Come together. 
 Work together. Live together. It is not good 
 for man to live alone. 
 
 And this is true for nations — do not doubt it. 
 " But man is a fighting animal," we are told ; 
 " and nothing is more foolish than to suppose 
 that there can come a time when the nations 
 will make war no more." We are gravely 
 assured that the first act of a human being upon 
 his entrance into this world Is to double his fist. 
 Those of us who have never been threatened by 
 the awful menace of a baby, do not know whether 
 the " fact " is fact or fancy. But we understand 
 the argument so gravely deduced, that from 
 baby's dimpled, doubled fingers to the " mailed 
 fist " of Imperial bullies, every hand must be 
 uplifted against every hand, as It was in the 
 beginning. Is now, and ever shall be, while the 
 ages sink In blood ! But War is no necessity of 
 hfe. Conflict between man and man is not 
 Nature's last word to us. Nay, but it is Nature 
 herself who takes up the AngeVs song of Peace on 
 Earth amongst men of good xvill. 
 
 In the long run, then, how Wisdom is justified of 
 her children ! How right Christ Is, however we 
 doubt Him, when we take time enough to find 
 the answer to the puzzling contradiction between 
 
148 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 what we have taken to be the facts of life and His 
 great words ! You can do no better than read 
 the facts of hfe through His eyes. If you are 
 strong enough, sit at His feet and learn of Him. 
 If you are not, kneel before Him and accept His 
 word. Your wisdom is there. 
 
 And one thing we can learn from Him, we 
 must learn — His gentle pity of the helpless and 
 the weak. What tender thoughts come to us 
 when we sing: 
 
 When the Lord of Love was here 
 Happj hearts to Him were dear. 
 Though His own was sad 
 Worn and lonely for our sake, 
 Yet He turned aside to make 
 All the weary glad. 
 
 What tender thoughts come to us as we stand 
 with Him by Bethesda's pool and look upon the 
 crowd of the afflicted! How did He feel when 
 the wretched man told his wretched story .^ 
 When He heard that as often as the divine hope 
 dawned upon him, the stronger pushed him by 
 and thrust him down and rushed on to the prize? 
 So must we feel, so we do feel, when we look 
 upon a perverted and depraved competition in 
 the presence of mankind's great throbbing need. 
 " Each man for himself and the devil take the 
 hindmost," is the world's base cry. By the 
 splendour of God, we will change all that ! Each 
 man for his brother, and Christ for us all! 
 
IX 
 
 THE MOST POPULAR SIN IN 
 THE WORLD 
 
Indifferent people can only wound you in heterogeneous 
 parts, maim you in your arm or leg, but the friend can 
 make no pass but at the heart itself. — Steele. 
 
IX 
 
 THE MOST POPULAR SIN IN 
 THE WORLD 
 
 "But where are the nine?" — Luke xvii. 17. 
 
 Ten were healed. Nine went on their way, with 
 never a word of thankfulness. One returned, 
 to kneel at the feet of his benefactor, and give 
 thanks to Him and to God. And he was a 
 foreigner ! One decent man out of ten. Where 
 were the nine? 
 
 There are times when one is tempted to say 
 that this is about the usual proportion. The 
 Psalmist said in his haste that all men were liars. 
 Carlyle said at his leisure that the population of 
 England was so many millions, mostly fools. 
 When the nation rallied to make David king, and 
 the hosts were numbered, there gathered 340,000 
 men of brawn and muscle, and 200 with brains. 
 It was not so bad, as things go. The rats desert 
 a sinking ship — because they are rats. When the 
 Greek found a serpent's egg, and in his own 
 bosom nursed it till the young one was " hatched," 
 the first thing the young serpent did was to sting 
 him, because it was its nature to ! Our popular 
 proverb tells us that if we lend to a friend we shall 
 lose him, following worldly-wise old Polonius, 
 
 151 
 
152 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 " Loan oft loseth both itself and friend." Our 
 popular superstition says that if you save a 
 man's life he will live to do you an injury. When 
 our Lord was betrayed, His nearest and dearest 
 forsook Him and fled. 
 
 Certainly, Ingratitude seems to be the most 
 popular sin in the world. Perhaps, because it 
 is so easy. Usually, it only consists in doing 
 nothing. Anybody can accomplish so much. A 
 child can let the fire go out. But the offence 
 of doing nothing is one of the deadliest of the 
 seven deadly sins. It is one of the worst crimes 
 in the big black catalogue of wrong-doing. 
 And the sin of Ingratitude is the broad highway 
 to envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, 
 to the cowardly denials of Peter and the bloody 
 treachery of Judas. 
 
 One came back to own his gladness and 
 thanksgiving. Where were the nine.'* 
 
 Shall we agree that ninety per cent, of the 
 human race is ingrate, ninety per cent, careless 
 of the ordinary courtesies and decencies of life, 
 ninety per cent, callously indifferent to the pain 
 which their ingratitude inflicts upon the tender 
 hearts of those who have loved and served them? 
 
 We must avoid any such conclusion. Care- 
 lessness, neglect, denial, treachery, sin — are all 
 bad enough. Do not let us exaggerate their 
 frequency, or their scope, or their intensity. 
 Our Lord Himself seems to feel some surprise. 
 And that in itself is surprising. For He knew 
 the human heart. He knew what was in man. 
 
MOST POPULAR SIN IN WORLD 153 
 
 It is only twice recorded that He was astonished, 
 once at the Faith, and once at the Unfaith, of 
 men. But here He seems to express Himself 
 with a pained wonder : " Were not the ten 
 cleansed? But where are the nine? Were 
 there none found to give glory to God, save this 
 alien ? " Perhaps there was really more grati- 
 tude than was uttered. The emotions of their 
 hearts may have been more gracious than their 
 actions showed. 
 
 It is the stupid thoughtlessness of life which 
 brings such pain. Why do we hurt one another 
 as we do? Not because we want to hurt. Not 
 because we hate one another. Cases of deliberate 
 cruelty are, after all, rare. There are perversions 
 of our nature in which the perpetration of cruelty 
 brings actual pleasure. There are no depths to 
 which humanity, once given over to the service 
 of the flesh, may not sink. But in those cases 
 the pain is inflicted for the sake of the pleasure 
 which it brings, not for the sake of the pain 
 which it causes to another. Jealousy and revenge, 
 to be sure, stir men to deeds of violence, in which 
 they inflict pain, and long to inflict it, and love 
 to do it. I am not denying that anybody ever 
 hurts anybody else because he wishes to hurt him. 
 That would be absurd. I am affirming that these 
 cases are relatively infrequent, are few and far 
 between as compared with the ten thousand 
 times ten thousand instances in which we cause 
 each other pain out of sheer carelessness, folly, 
 and stupidity. 
 
154 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 'Tis not by guilt the onward sweep 
 Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 
 
 'Tis by our follies that so long 
 We hold the earth from heaven away. 
 
 These clumsy feet, still in the mire, 
 Go crushing blossoms without end; 
 
 These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 
 Among the heart-strings of a friend. 
 
 It is tlius with our Ingratitude. We have no 
 desire to be brutal. As a matter of fact, we tell 
 ourselves, we really did appreciate the kindness, 
 and we only did not think to say how much we 
 felt! That is all. "I never thought of it!" 
 That is our excuse. That is the fact. And that 
 is our condemnation. We never thought about 
 it! And then we try to comfort ourselves by the 
 reflection that " Anyway, he knew I was pleased 
 and that I really was grateful." It is a large 
 assumption. It is lacking in courtesy. It is 
 dangerous. Why should you assume that some- 
 one else will assume this and that.f^ Why should 
 you assume that he — or generally she — is com- 
 petent to divine what you were incompetent to 
 express? Why credit the other person with 
 penetration so much greater than your own? You 
 are not always so modest. And why leave it to 
 be assumed at all? In such a world as this, 
 with its real sorrows, with its heads that ache 
 and its hearts that break, with its humiliating 
 sickness, crushing poverty, shame, pain, and death, 
 why leave unexpressed the kindly thought, unsaid 
 the gracious word, which had been as a ray of 
 
MOST POPULAR SIN IN WORLD 155 
 
 sunlight in a world of sin? When these kindly, 
 gracious feelings possess you, tell your gratitude 
 and tell your love. Where are the nine? For 
 one, lo, Here am I ! 
 
 I have said that I do not want to deny that 
 base ingratitude is often seen. I have only sought 
 to keep it within the bounds of fact, not to add 
 to its terrors by imagining that it is worse than 
 it is. Our Lord was called upon to taste its 
 bitterness in a thousand ways. Between the care- 
 lessness of the lepers and the vileness of Iscariot, 
 He suffered to the fullest from man's ingratitude. 
 In every phase, we see the same ingratitude re- 
 peated before our eyes. 
 
 We see it in the Jiome. 
 
 On this theme Shakespeare brought his mightiest 
 powers to bear. Where else, in all our English 
 tongue, will you find the piteous cry of wounded 
 love which you find in " King Lear " ? Where else 
 will you encounter the wild storms which there 
 break over the outraged father's soul? I re- 
 member a great critic describing the " Lear " which 
 he had just witnessed, its darkness, its splen- 
 dours, its rage, tears, pity. And he ended his 
 notice with some such words as these : " And so 
 I stepped forth out of the world of the theatre 
 into the real world of the streets. Real? But 
 •what is real, if 'King Lear' is not?" 
 
 We men sin daily, in our " real " world, not 
 meaning to sin. An English literary man once 
 wrote me a strange, pathetic letter. " Do you 
 not often fall into a rage," he asked, " when you 
 
156 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 have had some paltry, popular success, and the 
 people are applauding you; and you know full 
 well that this success is not yours at all, but the 
 success of the woman who sits at home, and on 
 whose strength you lean? I do. I love the 
 applause, and I hate it. I prize the success, and 
 I detest it. I am humbled and maddened when 
 I think that this success is not mine but hers. 
 And I long to see her honoured in her own city 
 and amongst the people who have never known 
 her for the Great Soul that she is ! " As if, O 
 my knight-errant of unpraised wives, there is 
 one woman in a million who would care for all 
 the paragraphing and all the praising, compared 
 with enthronement in an enduring, grateful 
 love! 
 
 But there is no sex in sin — as Shakespeare saw 
 and showed, and the Hebrew prophet before him. 
 The man who, first in the history of the human 
 race, taught the all-comprehending, indestructible, 
 seeking and saving love of God, learned His 
 deathless truth in the desolation of his own 
 domestic life. Betrayed and deserted by the 
 unwifely wife whom he loved, into whose sense- 
 less, unresponsive soul he poured the wealth 
 of his rich affection, buying her back from the 
 slave-market to which her vices brought her, 
 loving her through all, Hosea won his way to 
 place with the Immortals. Change the scene; 
 re-clothe the characters in modern garb ; call 
 the slave-market by another name; and the 
 tragedy of Hosea is the tragedy which walks 
 
MOST POPULAR SIN IN WORLD 157 
 
 by your side or — God pity you ! — waits for you 
 at home. But when the thorn-crowns of all the 
 crucified of earth are one day exchanged for the 
 diadems of conquerors, the man who has been 
 faithful to a faithless heart and loving in an 
 unloving home, shall receive the homage of great 
 ones amongst the redeemed, and the " Well done ! " 
 of his Lord. 
 
 You have seen all this, and felt all this, more 
 or less distinctly. And you have seen it, too, 
 in the strange, awful cruelty of which children's 
 hearts are capable. It is very wonderful. Were 
 the unrealised and unreahsable tortures of the 
 Inquisition more terrible to flesh and blood than 
 the sufferings with which your sons and daughters 
 have wounded your soul.'* I do not need to 
 quote to you historic instances: my mind is 
 charged with sadness. For as I speak, the 
 memories of the years crowd on me, and I see 
 again what I have had to see in the homes of 
 dear ones, and in the lives of men and women 
 whose sorrows I have been allowed to share. 
 What blows has a boy struck at his mother's 
 tender breast ! What dagger-thrusts has a father 
 received from those to whom he had given life! 
 Have you seen a mother tremble at the sound 
 of the footsteps of her eldest-born? Have you 
 seen the strong head which was carried so proudly 
 in the day bend with shame at night, and the 
 big man whiten to the lips and quiver as an 
 aspen leaf, as the news was broken to him of a 
 son's or daughter's fall? O God, who art the 
 
158 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 Father-God, who made the mother's heart and 
 made it hke Thine own, take care of these men 
 and women who suffer through their children's 
 sin ! O God, who dost love us all, keep our boys 
 and girls from the sin and shame which bruise 
 the souls of those who love them best ! 
 
 I have wondered sometimes whether when we 
 were young we were capable of the cold-blooded 
 inhumanity which I have seen in the treatment 
 of parents by their own flesh and blood. If we 
 were capable of it, were we only safeguarded from 
 the actual commission of it by favouring circum- 
 stance? Or were there truly in our lives exhibi- 
 tions of this deadly temper towards those who 
 loved us? Perhaps this cruel ingratitude is not 
 at heart so cruel as we think. Perhaps, that is 
 to say, it is not conscious, deliberate, under- 
 stood cruelty at all. It is lack of imagination; 
 it is the sin of stupidity ; it is sheer thought- 
 lessness, not sheer wickedness. Let us hope that 
 this is true. It is bad enough then. Where are 
 the nine? 
 
 We see this ingratitude in common service, the 
 service which, in the ordinary course of life, man 
 renders to man in the community. 
 
 A strong man says in the pride of achievement, 
 " Never since I was a boy have I been under 
 obligation to any human being." Nonsense — 
 arrant nonsense! You are under obligation to a 
 hundred unknown, lowly workers, and under 
 obligation, too, to the greatest of mankind. 
 You are debtor to the policeman on his round, 
 
MOST POPULAR SIN IN WORLD 159 
 
 the deep-sea fishermen off the banks, the stoker 
 in the furnace-room of the ocean liner, the driver 
 on the swift express or electric car, and the man 
 who drops the fenders between the ferry boat 
 and the stage! Many years ago Rudyard 
 Kipling administered a rebuke to the swash- 
 bucklers of Empire who. In time of disturbance, 
 fawn upon the private soldier as though he were 
 one of the Immortal gods descended from Olym- 
 pus, and then, when the war-drum has ceased for 
 a time Its feverish throbbing, treat the same man 
 as though he were the offscouring of humanity. 
 You remember; 
 
 Makin' mock at uniforms that guard you while you sleep 
 Is cheaper than them uniforms, and they're starvation 
 cheap ! 
 
 And we, who hate the soldier's trade, lift up our 
 voices In demand for just and grateful considera- 
 tion of every man to whom Society Is debtor, 
 for human hearts that beat beneath every uni- 
 form, soldier-red and sailor-blue, greasy jacket 
 of the artisan, and nondescript rags and dirt of 
 the man who sweeps the streets. You think that 
 all obligations can be discharged by a cash pay- 
 ment? That 3^ou owe no man anything because 
 the toller is paid a wage which keeps him one- 
 sixteenth of an Inch on this side starvation, 
 and because he has before his eyes the assured 
 prospect of a bed In a workhouse ward? That 
 you owe no man anything because you have 
 bought your railway ticket or paid your car-fare 
 
160 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 or satisfied the tax-collector when he called the 
 fourth time? Have done with such paltry con- 
 ceptions of human obligation. We live hy each 
 other, for each other, upon each other! Yes, 
 ** upon " each other — not as brigands and still 
 less as cannibals might ; but each lives upon the 
 sweat of the brow, or sweat of the brain, or great 
 heart-agony, of his fellows. 
 
 We are debtor to the Greek and to the bar- 
 barian, to men of thought as well as men of 
 action, to the highly placed as to the lowly born. 
 We are debtor to Guardians and Councillors, to 
 Magistrates and Judges, to Statesmen and Im- 
 perial Administrators. There is wisdom as well 
 as wit, spirituality as well as sarcasm, In Lyman 
 Beecher's prayer, " O God, help us not to despise 
 our rulers ! And, Lord, help them not to act 
 so that we can't help It ! " It hurts us to con- 
 temn our rulers. They do us an Injury when 
 they live so that we can't help it. We are debtor 
 to novelists, poets, dramatists, painters, com- 
 posers, historians, men of science, men of the 
 microscope and telescope ; we are debtor to the 
 pioneer of free thought, the martyr of liberty, 
 the prophet of brotherhood! 
 
 Commonplace illustrations of our strange ca- 
 pacity for ingratitude are numerous as the sands 
 of the sea. Where a crowd Is assembled, there 
 are just as many Illustrations walking about as 
 there are people there. 
 
 I have no words to tell the amazement and 
 pain with which a preacher so often puts the 
 question : " Where are the nine ? " The light 
 
MOST POPULAR SIN IN WORLD l6l 
 
 and easy way In which people hold by their 
 Church obligations passes all belief. The last 
 thing which you think about, when you are taking 
 a new house, is how it will affect your attendance 
 at your Church. You think about its nearness 
 to the tram ; its convenience for the shops ; its 
 distance from your work. But its convenience 
 or inconvenience for Church — that comes last! 
 How often does a preacher seek out some wan- 
 dering member of his flock, to be told, " Oh, 
 don't you know, we have gone to live too far 
 away." Well, that is an admirable reason for 
 leaving your new house. It is no reason at all 
 for leaving your old Church. And at other times, 
 for a something, a nothing, a breath, a look, a 
 rumour too silly to be contradicted, a supposi- 
 tion which has never had the shadow of reality, 
 you are prepared to throw overboard every shred 
 of conviction and fidelity. It Is good for none 
 of us, not for the weakest nor the strongest, not 
 for the richest nor the poorest, to bind ourselves 
 to the life of a great Church with ropes of sand, 
 and repudiate responsibility for it at the first 
 prompting of caprice. And if God has opened 
 His hand and showered blessings upon our path, 
 let us pay our inextinguishable debt of gratitude 
 to City, Church, and Home. 
 
 There Is another side to this consideration of 
 ingratitude. That we must not Ignore. It Is as 
 wide, it Is as important, as the one which we have 
 discussed. It Is : The spirit in •which ingratitude 
 must he endured. 
 
 It is not necessary to minimise the pain with 
 
162 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 which experience of ingratitude, developing 
 treachery and hate, wrings our suffering hearts. 
 I know the chill, as of approaching death, which 
 freezes the genial emotions of the soul, and almost 
 stops the beating of the heart. I am not going 
 to pretend that you have not been wounded 
 well-nigh to death by some such deep, tragic 
 sorrow. 
 
 But the ills of life must be borne. And without 
 delivering ourselves into the custody of a silly 
 optimism, it is good gospel and good sense to 
 inquire where we may find the right spirit in 
 which to face them all. And I suggest to you, 
 first, that sometimes the one who suffers from 
 ingratitude has not been altogether free from 
 blame. 
 
 There is a way of doing a kindness which is 
 detestable. You can do a friend a favour in a 
 way to make him hate you. It is a safe rule, and 
 full of profit, if you are going to do a nice thing, 
 to do it nicely. If it is worth while to do a 
 gracious deed, it is worth while to be gracious 
 over it. In a tiny booklet called " Great Truths," 
 the writer, a certain William George Jordan, has 
 a chapter on " The Courage to Face Ingrati- 
 tude." And upon this very point he picturesquely 
 remarks, " The man who makes another feel 
 like an insect reclining on a red-hot stove while 
 he is receiving a favour, has no right to expect 
 gratitude; he should feel satisfied if he receives 
 forgiveness ! " 
 
 But now, without assuming that you have in 
 
MOST POPULAR SIN IN WORLD 163 
 
 any way contributed to your own discomfiture, 
 nay, assuming that you have not, assuming that 
 your kindness has been perfect with the per- 
 fection of the God who prompted it, let me urge 
 this upon you: Do not condemn the •whole world 
 for the sms of a few. Do not say, " This is 
 human life, and I am sick of such treachery!" 
 How far removed are you from the other man's 
 injustice, when you condemn the human race for 
 the offences of the two or three people who have 
 treated you badly ? You must let me quote Jordan 
 again : " If a man receives a counterfeit coin he 
 does not straightway lose his faith in all money 
 — at least, there are no such instances on record 
 in this country. . . . If a man's breakfast 
 is rendered an unpleasant memory by some item 
 of food which has outlived its usefulness, he does 
 not forswear eating. . . . If a man finds 
 under a tree an apple with a suspicious-looking 
 hole on one side, he does not condemn the whole 
 orchard; he simply confines his criticism to that 
 apple. . . . There is too much vicarious 
 suffering already in this earth of ours without 
 this Lilliputian attempt to extend it by syndicat- 
 ing one man's ingratitude." 
 
 Again! Why should you expect gratitude? 
 Nay; I put it to you in aU seriousness. You do 
 not want to serv^e God on what Jordan would call 
 " a salary basis." You do not want to be good 
 " for a bonus." If gratitude comes, that is 
 something thrown in as a makeweight. Your 
 reward is in the good that you have done. That, 
 
164 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 no man can take from you. A good and great 
 man was sore at heart because of the thankless- 
 ness of the people whom he tried to help. And 
 I said to him, " Cheer up, old friend ! I have been 
 where you are. You have to go on mending 
 people's broken bodies, I have to do my little 
 best in mending their broken lives, and the 
 cabinet-maker mends the broken chairs and tables ; 
 and why should our cripples thank us any more 
 than his thank him? " " Just so," said my friend, 
 " but if I mended chairs and tables I should have 
 some reasonable hope that some day they would 
 be of use to somebody. But these men and women 
 will never be of any value to anybody in this 
 world." We say those things ; but we don't 
 mean them. We only say them from the teeth 
 outward. Five minutes afterward we remember 
 that the acid juices of the unripe fruit become 
 sweet in the sunshine. Of the worthlessness of 
 any human being it is not ours to judge. Jesus 
 thought men worth living and worth dying for. 
 Contempt of human nature is blasphemy against 
 the Cross. 
 
 There is one other word to say. If you feel 
 as though your heart was broken by the thank- 
 lessness of those whom you have helped, con- 
 sider. When you live on, in service, in sacrifice, 
 pouring your rich, conquering life into the spirit- 
 ually anaemic, into the weak, the helpless, and 
 the lost, when you do this amid failure, mortifi- 
 cation, bafflement, you link yourself with the 
 truest, bravest, noblest heroes of all time. There 
 
MOST POPULAR SIN IN WORLD 165 
 
 is no courage like this. It is the supreme chivalry 
 of earth. To die is facile: to live so difficult. 
 Oh, how hard it is to be a Christian ! To die 
 to make men free is the anguish of an hour: 
 to live to make them holy, the consecration of 
 a life. The essence of heroism is its persistence. 
 Anybody can be good at a sprint. But to keep 
 on being good — that is what troubles us. To 
 be good to bad people, kind to the cruel, gra- 
 cious to the unthankful and evil, to keep a smil- 
 ing, radiant face and a warm, loving heart, to 
 hold one's faith in Man undimmed and trust in 
 God unquenched — this is to join hands with the 
 Christs of all the ages, to die with the Lord Christ 
 on Calvary, and by His open grave to live again. 
 The Son of God goes forth to war — against 
 ugliness, stupidity, disease, selfishness, and sin: 
 Who follows in His train.? 
 
X 
 
 THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD 
 
A Cardinal Legate, sent from Rome to discuss matters 
 privately with Luther at Augsburg: " What do you think 
 the Pope cares for the opinion of a German boor? The 
 Pope's little finger is stronger than all Germany. Do you 
 expect your princes to take up arms to defend you — you, a 
 wretched worm like you? I tell you, No! and where will 
 you be then — where will you be then ? " 
 
 Luther: " Where I am now: in the hands of Almighty 
 God." 
 
THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD 
 
 " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living 
 God." — Hebrews x, 31. 
 
 The world's hatred of the renegade and the 
 traitor breathe through these terrible words. 
 Storms of human emotion, of human resentment, 
 such as have swept over our own souls when a 
 friend has betrayed us, or a comrade fallen 
 from the ranks, have moved the heart of the 
 unnamed writer of the letter to the Hebrews. 
 That which with the Pagan becomes a frantic 
 invocation — 
 
 Oh, for a tongue to curse the slave. 
 Whose treason, like a deadly blight. 
 
 Comes o'er the councils of the brave, 
 And blasts them in their hour of might! — 
 
 with its frightful prayer — 
 
 And when from earth his spirit flies. 
 Just Prophet, let the damned one dwell, 
 
 Full in the sight of Paradise, 
 
 Beholding heaven and feeling hell! — 
 
 that which with the Christian poet becomes an 
 infinite pity for 
 
 One lost soul more. 
 
 One task more dechned, one more footpath untrod. 
 
 One more devil's triumph, and sorrow for angels — 
 
 One wrong more to man, one more insult to God, 
 
 169 
 
170 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 becomes with the New Testament writer a 
 *' certain fearful expectation of judgment, a 
 fierceness of fire." To him there seems, for 
 one who has so deserted the Lord who bought 
 him with His blood, no more sacrifice for sin. 
 The death which he would have merited had he 
 set at naught the law of Moses is too mild a 
 punishment for a dastard such as he. He has 
 trodden under foot the Son of God! He has 
 counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he 
 was sanctified a thing profane! He has rejected 
 with insolence the ministry of the Spirit of Grace ! 
 Vengeance now belongeth unto God. He will 
 recompense! And it is a fearful thing to fall 
 into the hands of the living God! 
 
 Not for the traitor only, but for all who sin 
 against Law and Light and Love, is It a fearful 
 thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 
 And it is not less fearful, but more fearful, as 
 Henry Drummond suggests, to us who see in 
 " the hands of the living God the laws of Nature." 
 Neither by the individual nor by the commu- 
 nity is God mocked. There is no workhouse, no 
 prison, no asylum, no hospital, where the seeing 
 eye cannot perceive how fearful a thing it is. 
 There is no man who has loved hatred and 
 hated love, no selfish soul sinning with a high 
 hand and a determined purpose, no vicious man 
 sowing the wind of ungodly appetite to reap the 
 whirlwind of Divine retribution, who does not 
 demonstrate to us before the grave closes over 
 his unhonoured dust the fearfulness of such a 
 
THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD 171 
 
 fall. The laws which God has written upon the 
 body and brain of man, which He has written 
 with His own finger upon our physical organism 
 more plainly than any He wrote upon the tables 
 of stone amid Sinai thunders in days gone by, 
 are broken by no man with impunity. Every 
 act of sin is self-destructive. Every act of sin 
 is suicidal. It avenges itself. No public prose- 
 cutor is needed in such a court, no open assize. 
 But the forces of vengeance are loosed by the 
 act which violates the law. " In this God's 
 world, with its wild whirling eddies and mad 
 foam-oceans, where men and nations perish as if 
 without law, and judgment for an unjust thing 
 is sternly delayed, dost thou think that there is 
 therefore no justice? It is what the fool hath 
 said in his heart. It is what the wise, in all times, 
 were wise because they denied and knew for ever 
 not to be. I tell thee again, there is nothing else 
 but justice. One strong thing I find here below: 
 the just thing, the true thing! " * 
 
 But why should we think exclusively of punish- 
 ment and terror when we think of the hands of 
 the living God? Why, but for the reason that 
 we systematically harden texts and misread facts 
 and interpret the laws of the universe with eyes 
 closed to its gladness and beauty? Some of our 
 most frequently quoted texts are misquoted, and 
 invariably with the result that we narrow God's 
 love and embitter His justice. Why is it, for 
 instance, that when we bring ourselves to say, 
 " Thy will be done," it is in the hour of bereave- 
 * Carlyle: " Past and Present." 
 
172 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 ment, of anguish, and loss? That God's will is 
 to us synonymous with the infliction of sorrow, 
 and our acceptance of it the endurance of pain? 
 Does it never occur to us to pray this prayer 
 amid the splendour of life, in the vigour of youth, 
 in the pride of health, when the sky is bright 
 overhead and all the kingdoms of the world and 
 the glories of them seem ours for the grasping? 
 Amid the whirl and din of life's complex ma- 
 chinery, in its commercial strifes and political 
 contests, when civic patriotism glows fervently 
 and national aspirations are at once tender and 
 strong, and we long to plant the good seed in 
 the broad fields of European democracy, why 
 should we not then pray the mighty prayer, " Thy 
 will be done " ? 
 
 Do you call to mind the way in which we use 
 — or misuse — the old saying, " Faint, yet pur- 
 suing " ? When we have been selfish and idle 
 at the worst, or unfortunate and depressed at 
 the best, when the work has seemed to fail in 
 our hands, and we are almost reduced to despair, 
 then we add to our confession of defeat, " Faint, 
 yet pursuing " ! But turn to the story of those 
 barbarous fighters, faint, yet pursuing. They 
 were flushed with victory. They were weary 
 of up piling triumph on triumph, of adding 
 glory unto glory — the glory of battle and blood. 
 They had driven their enemies before them re- 
 morselessly. Nothing now could block their on- 
 ward march. And still they pressed on to greater 
 
THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD 173 
 
 achievements. They were faint with the strenuous 
 exertion of success, but pursuing still a success 
 which was greater. 
 
 Foolish beyond words has been our way of 
 quoting, " Thou, God, seest me." We have 
 told an absurd story about some prisoner or 
 other in a cell somewhere, upon whom, through 
 a chink of the wall, glared everlastingly a human 
 eye. Day and night this eye was fixed upon him, 
 until the man went mad under the unendurable 
 torture. And when we have told this wretched 
 story we have added as a fitting moral, " Thou, 
 God, seest me " ! But, once again, turn to the 
 story, and you find that a slave girl, who has 
 been ill-treated by her owners, by the jealous 
 wife of a complaisant man to whom a slave's 
 sufferings were nothing compared with his own 
 peace of mind, has escaped from the house of 
 oppression, and is breathing the free air of the 
 desert. And here in the wilderness the angel 
 of the Lord appears to her, and to this betrayed, 
 deserted creature, a fugitive from the house 
 which should have been a haven to her, brings a 
 message of hope and gladness, a promise of the 
 sacred gift of motherhood, and a prediction of a 
 splendid future for her child, whose prowess shall 
 make him and his descendants world-great for 
 ages. And in her new trust and new life the 
 girl feels what, thank God, many of us have 
 felt and known, that God is mindful of us when 
 we forget Him, and careful of us when we are 
 
174 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 careless of ourselves ; and she voices her thanks- 
 giving in this happy phrase, " Thou art a God 
 that seest me," 
 
 In the same way we see the possible harshness, 
 we see the threat and the terror, in the working 
 out of these eternal laws, and we feel, as the 
 writer of this epistle felt, that it is a fearful 
 thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 
 But David, human, erring David, had a better 
 idea than this. His offence is rank, it smells to 
 heaven, and a choice is given him by the man of 
 God, a choice of three evils — famine, pestilence, 
 and sword. Which shall he choose? Seven years 
 of famine? Three days of plague? Three 
 months of hazardous and disgraceful war? And 
 David's answer shows him at his noblest : " Let 
 us fall now into the hands of the Lord; for His 
 mercies are great; and let me not fall into the 
 hands of man." 
 
 Jesus, the son of Sirach, had entered more 
 completely into the mind of the Lord than we 
 who only read one-half His gracious purposes. 
 " They that fear the Lord," he declares, " will 
 prepare their hearts and humble their souls in 
 His sight, saying, We will fall into the hands of 
 the Lord, and not into the hands of men ; for 
 as His majesty is, so is His mercy." As His 
 majesty is, so is His mercy — recalling Micah's 
 noble utterance that " He delighteth in mercy " — 
 delighteth in it as a man delights in a loving 
 service; recalling the poet's image of Weeping, 
 which may come, but comes only as a traveller 
 
THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD 175 
 
 to lodge at night, while Joy comes to dwell In 
 the morning; recalling the prophet's sublime an- 
 nouncement on the part of Jehovah, that " though 
 in a moment of wrath I hid My face from thee, 
 yet with everlasting kindness will I have mercy 
 upon thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer ; though 
 the mountains depart and the hills be removed, 
 yet My kindness shall not depart nor My peace 
 be removed from thee, saith the Lord who hath 
 mercy upon thee " ; recalling the Sinaitic reve- 
 lation we persistently ignore, that if God visits 
 the sins of the parents upon the children to 
 the third and fourth generation, yet He shows 
 mercy unto the tJiousandth generation (and not 
 to thousands) of them that love Him and keep 
 His commandments ; recalling Faber's inspired 
 and inspiring verse: 
 
 His love looks mighty. 
 But is mightier than it seems; 
 'Tis our Father, and His fondness 
 Goes far out beyond our dreams. 
 
 There's a wideness in God's mercy. 
 
 Like the wideness of the sea ; 
 There's a kindness in His justice. 
 
 Which is more than liberty! 
 
 And so, when we are told that it is a fearful 
 thing to fall into the hands of the living God, 
 we cannot but assent ; but we hasten to add that 
 it would be a far more fearful thing to fall out of 
 them! It would be a fearful thing if there were 
 no such laws of judgment and terror as are repre- 
 sented to us by the phrase we are discussing. 
 
176 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 If a man could persist in wrong-doing, and no 
 catastrophe befall; if a nation could defy justice 
 and humanity and virtue, and no thunders roll 
 nor lightnings flash, then that would be an evil 
 thing for us, and not good. " If it had not 
 been for the French Revolution," said Carlyle, 
 in often-quoted words, " I should not have known 
 what to make of this world at all." And Mr. 
 George Kennan has added, concerning the shame- 
 ful administration of Russia, the shocking mal- 
 treatment of the noblest of the Russian people: 
 " If I thought this could permanently endure, it 
 would not be possible for me to believe in any 
 intelligent Power, at least, in any intelligent 
 Moral Power, behind the visible phenomena of 
 the universe." It is good for us that we should 
 know the terrors of the law, if we will not learn 
 by the tenderness of love. If we will not suffer 
 ourselves to be drawn by the silken cords of 
 affection, it is well that we should be driven at 
 the point of the sword. If we will not draw 
 back from the danger before us when He breathes 
 His peace upon us, then it is good of Him, and 
 good to us, to light up the abysmal depths to- 
 wards which our steps are tending by the lightning 
 flashes of His wrath. We are glad that we do 
 fall into the hands of the living God. 
 
 But on quite other grounds than those of 
 punishment and terror try to think what it 
 would be if it were possible for us to fall out of 
 the hands of the living God. In the Wiertz 
 Museum at Brussels may be seen some of the 
 
THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD 177 
 
 most horrible pictures which man has succeeded 
 in painting yet. That strange genius, a worse 
 than Zola upon canvas, whose mind revelled in 
 the ghastly and the tragic, has shown us, with a 
 positively hideous and yet fascinating realism, 
 a maniac mother who has killed, and who is 
 preparing for food, her own babe in a time of 
 famine and siege. I have talked with more 
 than one man to whom the face of that mother 
 has been an abiding impression for years after 
 the visit to the Wiertz pictures, so horrible is 
 it, so revolting. It is the face of one who has 
 fallen out of the hands of the living God ! What 
 shall we say of shameful and nameless outrages 
 committed by dehumanised men from time to 
 time, of crimes of ferocity and blood and wick- 
 edness unnamable.'' What shall we say of men 
 so mutilated, their higher instincts apparently 
 torn up by the roots, their godlike faculties, 
 their human faculties even, destroyed, and all 
 that remains bestial — what shall we say of them 
 but that they give us a view of what man would 
 be if that fearful thing had happened, if he had 
 fallen out of the hands of the living God.'' Con- 
 ceive the wretchedness of that soul which believes 
 in its distrustful madness that it has fallen out 
 of His hands ! Hear him — it is poor Cowper who 
 is speaking, writhing under the horror of the 
 curse which has fallen: 
 
 Damn'd below Judas; more abhorr'd than he was. 
 Who for a few pence sold his holy Master! 
 Twice betray'd, Jesus me, the last delinquent. 
 Deems the profanest. 
 
178 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 Man disavows, and Deity disowns me, 
 Hell might afford my miseries a shelter; 
 Therefore, hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all 
 Bolted against me. 
 
 Conceive of this man going down to the docks 
 to drown himself, convinced that this was his 
 state for ever, prevented by the presence of some 
 unusual crowd, then the light of reason returning, 
 and the assurance given that he was still in the 
 hands of the living God, and writing: 
 
 God moves in a mysterious way, 
 
 His wonders to perform: 
 He plants His footsteps in the sea, 
 
 And rides upon the storm! 
 
 And dare we enter into the very Holy of Holies, 
 look with sobered gaze upon the " Strong Son 
 of God, immortal Love," prostrate upon the cold 
 ground at the foot of those gnarled old olive 
 trees, the interrupted moonlight through the 
 foliage glancing upon Him as He sweats, as it 
 were, in His agony, great drops of blood? Can 
 we follow Him along the path of sorrows to 
 Gethsemane, and enter, by reverent and tenderest 
 sympathy, into something of the horror of great 
 darkness which fell, not only upon the sacred 
 city, but upon the soul of Christ, and feel in 
 part what must have been the anguish of our 
 Lord when it seemed to Him that He had fallen 
 out of the hands of the living God, and He cried 
 with a loud voice, " My God, My God, why 
 hast Thou forsaken Me?" Yet this was for 
 a moment. And His last words have been spoken 
 
THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD 179 
 
 by the dying lips of myriads of His follow- 
 ers : " Father, into Thine hands I commend My 
 spirit." 
 
 We are in the hands of the living God. We 
 cannot fall out of them ; in that assurance is 
 our strength for ever. The strongest of us have 
 known, or will know, hours of weakness in which 
 our power is utter feebleness, when we need, must 
 have, cannot live without, a greater than our- 
 selves to lean upon. The most deeply spir- 
 itual have known times when all our lower self 
 was in arms against our nobler impulses, when 
 the flesh made hateful war upon the spirit, 
 when the good that we would we could not do, 
 and the evil that we would not we were compelled 
 to do, and our highest self seemed swept away in 
 a flood of evil passions. The most trustful have 
 known times when we have felt that there was 
 no humanity to pity and no Deity to care; that 
 man stood but as " the cunningest of Nature's 
 clocks," and God a " hypothesis " for which 
 there was no need. The most beneficent and 
 philanthropic have felt wearied by their fellow- 
 men, have been ready to confess the futility of 
 eff^ort, the folly of that bad dream called faith, 
 and the worthlessness of the human race. We 
 have needed, or we shall need at times like these, 
 to pray in spirit and in truth the earnest prayer: 
 
 Be near me when my light is low, 
 When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick 
 And tingle; and the heart is sick, 
 
 And all the wheels of Being slow. 
 
180 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 Be near me when the sensuous frame 
 Is racked with pangs that conquer trust; 
 And Time, a maniac scattering dust, 
 
 And Life, a Fury slinging flame. 
 
 Be near me when my faith is dry. 
 And when the flies of latter spring, 
 That lay their eggs, and sting and sing, 
 
 And weave their petty cells and die. 
 
 Be near me when I fade away. 
 
 To point the term of human strife, 
 
 And on the low, dark verge of life 
 The twilight of eternal day. 
 
 And then we have been, and we still shall be, 
 devoutly thankful for the certainty that the 
 Eternal God is our dwelling-place, and that we 
 cannot fall out of the everlasting arms that are 
 underneath. It is in the inspiration of this 
 deathless truth that all strength and virtue lies. 
 We are in the hands of the living God — cannot 
 fall out of them ! What vividness of insight, 
 what earnestness of effort, what force of will Is 
 in the promise ! " Man never mounts so high," 
 as Cromwell felt, " as when he knows not whither 
 he Is going " — ^but trusts himself to God. He 
 mounts, he knows not how ; but the clouds turn 
 to solid rock beneath his feet, and his hand is 
 grasped by the strong hand of his Father, God. 
 His life has been so ordered, is so planned. For 
 this purpose came he into this world — to do his 
 Father's will. The vastness of the evils to be 
 attacked does not appal him — God Is not dead! 
 The weaknesses of those who have fought by 
 his side and fallen In the fight — nay, his own 
 
THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD 181 
 
 exceeding frailty at the moment of keenest trial, 
 do not destroy his faith; out of the depths of 
 despair he is lifted up by the hands of God. Evil, 
 he sees, through all the ages reincarnates itself, 
 is routed and overthrown and driven out of 
 national life and human character in one mani- 
 festation, to appear again in other forms and in 
 successive generations. But each fresh incarna- 
 tion, he sees by the eye of faith which alone 
 sees right, is weaker than the last; and he is 
 very sure that Christ will reign till He has put 
 all evil forces and tendencies under His feet and 
 is truly All in All. Death threatens, and his 
 dearest pass through the valley and the shadow; 
 but the promise of a time when he shall clasp the 
 hand that has failed him here, and look into 
 eyes that shall no more grow dim, sounds above 
 his sorrow, and he knows that, living or dead, his 
 loved ones are in the hands of the living God. 
 And for himself, he scorns to live under a threat 
 or a fear ; death does but mean for him a broaden- 
 ing vision of the life Divine. In a universe of 
 change one thing is fixed — the love of God for 
 him ; and in all this universe of starry splendours 
 and unfathomable depths and unthinkable im- 
 mensities he cannot fall out of the hands of the 
 living God! 
 
XI 
 
 THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 
 
Every matter hath two handles — by the one it may be 
 carried; by the other, not. If thy brother do thee wrong, 
 take not this thing by the handle, He wrongs me; for that 
 is the handle whereby it may not be carried. But take it 
 rather by the handle. He is my brother, nourished with me; 
 and thou wilt take it by a handle whereby it may be carried. 
 
 — Epictetus. 
 
XI 
 
 THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 
 
 " The multitude therefore, that stood by, and heard it, 
 said that it had thundered: others said, An angel hath 
 spoken to Him."— John xi. 29, 
 
 Some said that it thundered. Others said an 
 angel spoke. But suppose it did thunder: is that 
 any reason why we should not also say that an 
 angel spoke? 
 
 Herbert Spencer once wrote that "Evolution 
 is a change from an indefinite coherent heteroge- 
 neity to a definite coherent heterogeneity through 
 continuous differentiations and integrations." 
 And a writer in The Contemporary Review ob- 
 served that " the universe may well have heaved 
 a sigh of relief when, through the cerebration 
 of an eminent thinker, It had been delivered of 
 this account of itself." The Bible says, "In 
 the beginning God created the heaven and the 
 earth. And the earth was waste and void; and 
 darkness was upon the face of the deep: and 
 the spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
 waters." Well, now, let us assume that evolu- 
 tion is the change from an indefinite coherent 
 — and all the rest of it: what is there in that 
 to prevent us saying, " In the beginning, God"? 
 Herbert Spencer has tried to define life for us. 
 185 
 
186 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 He says that life is "the continuous adjustment 
 of internal relations to external relations." Let 
 us admit it ; but where is the reason in that defini- 
 tion for our refusing to say, " And this is life 
 eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent " ? Time 
 was when man saw arbitrary interferences of 
 deities in every wind that stirred the forest 
 trees, in every fleecy cloud that dimmed the 
 azure blue, in morning's radiant flush, and in the 
 stars that break up the night and make it beau- 
 tiful. We can account to you precisely for the 
 wind. The clouds are no difficulty to us. As 
 for the stars, we weigh them and measure them, 
 tell their places and their relations to each other, 
 point out in advance where they must be at any 
 moment of time a hundred years hence, and man's 
 intellectual lordship we plant above the Milky 
 Way. This is all clear gain — or it may be. 
 But it is not gain, it is exceeding great and 
 perilous loss, if because we know that it thunders 
 we cannot also hear that an angel speaks, if be- 
 yond and behind and above all visible phenomena 
 we cannot find an eternal Mind and an everlasting 
 Love. In this day of an aggressive atheism we, 
 who believe in God and in the Incarnation of 
 His Son, in the resurrection and immortality, 
 cannot too often remind you that science, by the 
 mouthpiece of her chosen prophets, has proclaimed 
 that she is and must be silent as to the cause and 
 origin of the phenomena which she catalogues and 
 describes. In his day, Darwin drew back from 
 
THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 187 
 
 the very contemplation of the problems presented 
 by the existence of mind. " I have nothing to 
 do with the origin of the mental powers, any 
 more than I have to do with the origin of life 
 itself." " I know nothing, and I never hope to 
 Know anything," says Huxley, " of the steps by 
 which the passage from molecular movement to 
 states of consciousness is effected " — in other 
 words, as to how life comes to man or brute. 
 The cause of all remains uncatalogued, un- 
 accounted for. Let science push her investiga- 
 tions to the very uttermost; let her wisest serv- 
 ants tell us all they have learned of her secrets ; 
 we will listen, will praise them and be grateful 
 to them, and bid them still further search the 
 universe; and when their thoughts have pierced 
 to what is for them creation's farthest bounds, 
 we shall hear them confess that there is room for 
 this First Great Cause whom we call God, whom 
 Jesus has bidden us call Father, to whom ascends 
 the feeblest prayer of dawning faith and the 
 mighty cry of the hero's heart. 
 
 To be sure, it thundered. Be far more sure 
 that an angel spoke! 
 
 These considerations go very deep into the 
 speech of God to human hearts. There are men 
 and women to whom the old Nature-adoration 
 of ages and races that have passed, and the 
 modem realisation of God through the ministries 
 of Nature, are as meaningless as a speech de- 
 livered in Choctaw or Chinese. They can no more 
 understand my feelings, as I roam over the miles 
 
188 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 of golden sands that stretch from my door, 
 with all the winds of heaven playing upon my 
 soul, and the Atlantic rollers, which have swept 
 on resistlessly over three times a thousand 
 miles, breaking in tiny trivial wavelets at my 
 feet, than they could express the terms of the 
 differential calculus in the language of Homer or 
 of Isaiah. I have often tried to describe to 
 you — though never with any satisfaction to 
 myself — the view which day by day for twelve 
 months spread before our eyes as we " made the 
 cure " at the Schatzalp sanatorium in Switzer- 
 land. One day, a certain person came to my 
 room, bubbling over with laughter. Walking on 
 the mountain-slopes, two ladies had asked her if 
 she could speak English, and when she confessed 
 that she could, said to her, " Will you please tell 
 us where is the view.^ " Naturally, in her sur- 
 prise, she demanded, "What view?" It was a 
 glorious day late in summer, and a touch of 
 frost was in. the air, while the summer sun flooded 
 the world with splendour. Autumn's hand was 
 ,early on the hills and forests. A thousand feet 
 below us the valley smiled in its yet living green; 
 higher, the yellows and the browns chased each 
 other through the pine forests ; higher still, 
 the mountain sides burst into a blaze of red and 
 a purple glory. In the vast distance the solemn 
 snow-peaks of the Tinzenhorn and the Piz Aela 
 towered into immensity. And these ladies wanted 
 someone to point out to them the " view." They 
 
THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 189 
 
 said that they had been told that if they came 
 up to our Sanatorium by the Funicular they 
 would see it ! I wished I had been so fortunate 
 as to meet the people who had come to see without 
 bringing eyes with them. I should have said, 
 " There is no view here. There never has been 
 any view here. There never will be any view here 
 — for you ! There is a view in Bold Street, and 
 in Regent Street, and in Broadway, and in the 
 Rue de la Paix ; but there is no view here. The 
 eye only sees what it brings with it the power of 
 seeing." 
 
 One of the happiest evenings I have spent in 
 my life was passed in company with Stanley, the 
 explorer. There were only six of us that night, 
 and three are now dead. And as we talked, or, 
 rather, listened to Stanley talk, one of us quoted 
 a flippant comment on the greatest of his journeys 
 which had appeared in Mr. Labouchere's Truth. 
 " Mr. Stanley has found a mountain and a lake. 
 A mountain is an elevation and a lake is a 
 depression. So the one cancels the other out." 
 And that was the result of Stanley's journey — 
 according to this stupid paragrapher. And 
 Stanley was silent for a minute or two ; and a 
 shadow crossed his face; and, before his eyes 
 half-closed in reverie, it seemed to me that I 
 could see Africa there, and he saw himself once 
 more plunging out of the light into the darkness, 
 not knowing whether he would find his way to 
 the light beyond, or whether his name and his 
 
190 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 fame and his life would be lost in the ever- 
 during dark. He saw, or I thought he saw, that 
 marvellous journey when they all faced a thou- 
 sand deaths every hour, and — he had found an 
 elevation and a depression, and one had cancelled 
 the other out, and that was all! 
 
 To men and women like these, sand is sand, 
 hills are hills — or elevations ; lakes are lakes — 
 or depressions ; rivers are drainage ; mountains 
 are heaps of land piled up rather awkwardly ; 
 snow looks horribly cold; a yellow primrose is a 
 yellow primrose, and you didn't expect it to be 
 blue! What is there so wonderful in all that? 
 Nothing, my dear sir, just nothing at all — if 
 you have starved your soul. But poetry and 
 philosophy and music, the history of man and 
 the life of God — if you are ready to hear the angel 
 speak. 
 
 This is the Hebrew sense of God, or, at least, 
 it is the sense of God which the finest minds of 
 the Hebrew race have had. This is the sense of 
 the Real presence which the most spiritual of the 
 sons of men are for ever seeking to express in 
 deathless song. Listen to one of the ancient day: 
 
 The heavens declare the glory of God; 
 
 And the firmament showeth His handywork. 
 
 Day unto day uttereth speech. 
 
 And night unto night showeth knowledge. 
 
 There is no speech nor language; 
 
 Their voice cannot be heard. 
 
 Their line is gone out through all the earth, 
 
 And their words to the end of the world. 
 
THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 191 
 
 Listen to one of our own race: 
 
 ... I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 And the blue sky and in the mind of man. 
 
 And if you say that this is still quite beyond 
 you, that you really do not know what it all 
 amounts to, try to understand it. Give your 
 soul a chance. " I know that father will not 
 go to heaven," a little girl said ; " he will 
 never be able to leave the shop." Leave the 
 shop sometimes, and the office and the factory 
 and the dock and the exchange, and the drudgery 
 of household duties and the rush of the crowded 
 city. " Come ye out into the plain, and I will 
 talk with you there," saith the Lord of Hosts. 
 " Come ye by yourselves apart, and rest awhile," 
 says the Good Physician to our souls. Come, and 
 hear the angel speak. 
 
 Now, if I have made plain to you what this 
 text means to me, you will see that we can allow 
 our thoughts to wander over an almost infinitely 
 wide tract of human experience, and everywhere 
 find some who say that it thunders while others 
 say an angel speaks. 
 
 One man opens his eyes to the wonderful story 
 of the past. Myth, rite, and creed pass before 
 his vision as the ages are led captive before him. 
 
192 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 Myth, wild and fanciful, crude ritual, savage 
 creed, speak to him only of the aberrations of 
 the ignorant, the undeveloped, the superstitious, 
 and the cruel mind. And in them all he sees 
 the denial of God. Primitive man saw the sun 
 set, and it rose again ; and so he came to the idea 
 of a resurrection after death. He was lonely and 
 frightened in the dark, and saw ghosts, and so 
 conceived the idea of immortality, et cetera. 
 And this rules God out of His own universe, we 
 are told. Let me give you an illustration. Mr. 
 Blatchford tells us that no man should consider 
 the question of religion decided for him until he 
 has read Dr. Fraser's " Golden Bough." Yet 
 there is nothing in that book which remotely 
 touches the religion of Jesus Christ! It does 
 not touch the thing, the matter, of Christianity 
 at all. Such a remark in its absurd irrelevance, 
 its utter absence of reasonable connection with 
 the point in view, reminds one of nothing in the 
 world so much as of the exercises in the old 
 French lesson-books : " Has the gardener's little 
 boy any bread.'' No; but his sister is very tall." 
 For the " Golden Bough " in its crowded volumes, 
 often fascinating and sometimes bewildering, 
 brings before you thousands of illustrations, 
 simple, foolish, tremendous, horrible; illustra- 
 tions of every conceivable and inconceivable 
 character, of the quaint and amazing customs 
 which have grown up round primitive man's 
 conception of " worship." And Dr. Moulton, 
 who has probably given to the study of rehgion 
 
THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 193 
 
 and of liistory more years than Mr. Blatchford 
 has given days, puts the matter with sufficient 
 clearness. " Let every one of Dr. Eraser's facts 
 and every one of his conclusions be admitted," he 
 says, in effect, " and the religion of Christ is 
 absolutely untouched." 
 
 To us it seems that, when the most that is 
 claimed is proved — the most, not the least — we 
 have only been supplied with fresh illustrations 
 of man's earliest searches after God, of the reach- 
 ing out of the human soul toward the Infinite, of 
 the indestructible craving for a Higher than our- 
 selves. And we have found fresh reason to de- 
 clare with Whittier: 
 
 All souls that struggle and aspire, 
 All hearts of prayer, by Thee are lit; 
 
 And, dim or clear. Thy tongues of fire 
 On dusky tribes and centuries sit. 
 
 It is the same with Bible story and with the 
 story of the Church. One hears it thunder. 
 Another says that an angel speaks. There is a 
 passage in Newman Smyth's " Old Faiths in 
 New Light," a book written twenty years ago, 
 so complete and so completely applicable to 
 Bome present controversies that it might have 
 appeared yesterday : " Popular Infidelity, too, 
 has its arrant demagogues — lecturers who carry 
 on a notorious business of atheism on a small 
 capital of philosophic thought, and usually bor- 
 rowed capital besides. Thus a man of fluent wit 
 will go up and down through the Bible, or ec- 
 
194 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 clesiastlcal history, very much as a political stump- 
 speaker will look through the Parliamentary 
 records, or our national history, for the points 
 of his partisan speech. He will begin with Genesis 
 and find ' mistakes of Moses ' in abundance. He 
 will expatiate upon the absurdities of the story of 
 the Ark. He will pause in dramatic horror before 
 the cruel wars of the Jews. He will single out an 
 imprecatory Psalm or two ; and when he comes 
 to the New Testament he will find in it discrepan- 
 cies and misstatements enough to prove that all 
 the apostles were little better than literary thieves 
 and robbers. Then he will run up and down 
 through the Christian ages, beholding every rack 
 and thumbscrew, but regardless of the many mar- 
 tyrs; putting his finger on the dark stains, but 
 not noticing the illuminated pages of ecclesiastical 
 history ; complaining of the gloom of the scho- 
 lastic theology, but blind to the growing light. 
 He will have at his tongue's end second-hand 
 and unverified quotations from the Calvinists 
 . . . and so on to the end of the chapter." Yes ; 
 but to one who has opened his ear and his heart 
 to hear the angel speak, the Bible is the Book of 
 Righteousness, the Book of Love, the Book of 
 Life, the Book of God. He, a grown man, has 
 not gone to it to grin at its " absurdities " and 
 chuckle over its " indecencies." And he has found 
 in it strength for his weakness, consolation in 
 sorrow, and inspiration in despair. The literature 
 of the world is as open to his search as to the 
 " demagogue " of Newman Smyth's illustration, 
 
THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 195 
 
 and he listens for the angel's voice in every truth- 
 ful speech of man. Yet in the deepest hours of 
 his life it is his Bible that he opens, and the sim- 
 plest of human phrases most adequately expresses 
 the conviction of his soul : 
 
 Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts, 
 Thou fount of life, Thou light of men, 
 
 From the best bliss that earth imparts 
 We turn unfilled to Thee again. 
 
 I repeat that we might wander over the very 
 widest fields of human experience, and we should 
 find all this true. You may simply say that it 
 thunders, or you may hear the angel speak. For, 
 indeed, it is the whole tone and temper and spirit 
 of the life which are in question. How shall we 
 take life, on its material or on its spiritual side.'' 
 Shall we walk by the flesh or by the spirit? Is it 
 thunder or an angel that speaks to you day by 
 day? 
 
 You can look on the sordid side of your own 
 work, on the labour of men, on the commerce of 
 the nations. You can see in work only drudgery, 
 drudgery most undivine; in labour, only oppres- 
 sion ; in commerce, organised plunder. Or you 
 can see a real dignity, not a sham one, in your 
 work, and find a sustaining joy in it. All work 
 well done brings happiness to somebody. A man 
 who makes a pair of boots which are comfortable 
 to wear has done a piece of work which has 
 added to the pleasure of living. A man who 
 makes a chair easy to sit in has made somebody 
 
196 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD " 
 
 happy. A man who papers a wall so that it Is 
 restful to the eye and soothing to the mind has 
 left a blessing behind him. A man who builds a 
 house which a woman can turn into a home and 
 love into a heaven is a benefactor of the race. A 
 woman cannot cook a dinner well or order her 
 house aright without joining herself to all the 
 world's sources of well-being; while, I am gravely 
 assured, the girl who has made a hat which is 
 *' becoming " or a gown which " fits " properly 
 has conferred upon some happy woman a sense of 
 satisfaction which is only less than the assurance 
 of immortality. And so with the great and wide 
 enterprises of commerce. I would have you think 
 of commerce as a great and sacred thing, bring- 
 ing the nations into fellowship, uniting man to 
 man, and deepening in every clime the idea of 
 the solidarity of mankind. 
 
 Life, with all its vicissitudes and trials, with its 
 adversity and prosperity, you may take " high " 
 or " low." You may take it so as merely to hear 
 thunder. You may listen and hear the angel 
 speak. Does adversity ennoble or embitter.-' Does 
 prosperity make cruel or kind.'' I was brought 
 up to believe that adversity was the school of 
 saints and heroes, that prosperity brought pride, 
 insolence, and selfishness. I have lived to be told 
 that prosperity is good for people; that we grow 
 nicer and kinder and really more sweet-natured 
 as things go well with us ; and that it is the pres- 
 sure of poverty, sorrow, and loss which crushes the 
 kindlier feelings of our souls. Which is true-f* 
 
THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 197 
 
 Both! Prosperity may ennoble; prosperity 
 may degrade. Adversity may sweeten ; adversity 
 may poison. There is no rule except this ; all 
 depends upon the spirit of which you are. So 
 we come back to that. We are spirit: will you take 
 life on its spiritual side, live as a spiritual being, 
 expect spiritual results from all the events and 
 facts and forces which you work up into the won- 
 derful thing we call experience? Prosperity finds 
 you ; and you may wrap yourself round in pride, 
 in disdain of the world's need of help and pity. 
 Prosperity may come to you, and you may long 
 with great longing to shed abroad the happiness 
 which has found you. Adversity may strike you, 
 and though you reel under the blow you may rise 
 to a height of sympathy and tenderness and help- 
 fulness to which you never rose before. Or — God 
 help us all! — we may snap and snarl and bite, like 
 a trapped and wounded beast, while the sorrow 
 spreads like some deadly virus through our veins. 
 How is it with you, brother.'' What spirit are you 
 of.'' Do you hear thunder or the angel now.'' 
 
 I shall be told that there is no way of laying 
 violent hands upon ourselves and forcing ear and 
 heart open to the angel voices while the world goes 
 thundering past. No; but it is, at least, some- 
 thing to recognise that there are such possibilities 
 of higher and lower in every event and in every 
 hour. We are not forced to grovel. If we have 
 not wings and cannot soar, at least we can climb 
 out of the horrible pit and the miry clay. That is 
 something. But there is more. We may, at the 
 
198 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 very least, give a thought to the certain issues of 
 our present life in the years that are to come. 
 Nature never stands still, nor souls either. They 
 either go up or go down. And watch the man 
 who is " going down." He develops cynicism, he 
 is contemptuous of " fine-spun sentimentalities," 
 he is bitter toward the visions of high minds. Or 
 he grows cold, hard, selfish. His soul shrinks and 
 shrivels within him. What sort of an old age are 
 we preparing for ourselves, if we live within our- 
 selves and for ourselves alone? You are not get- 
 ting any younger. Old age will come. We may 
 grow twenty years older in twelve months. Ma- 
 terialism needs httle encouragement in our day. 
 It quickly seizes us. It grips us hard. It holds 
 us tight. The selfishness of our youth and the 
 coldness and meanness of middle age will be damn- 
 ing and damnable when age has stiffened every 
 instinct into permanence. 
 
 There walks Judas, he who sold 
 Yesterday his Lord for gold. 
 Sold God's presence in his heart 
 For a proud step in the mart; 
 He hath dealt in flesh and blood; 
 At the bank his name is good; 
 At the bank, and only there, 
 'Tis a marketable ware. 
 In his eyes that stealthy gleam 
 Was not learned of sky or stream. 
 But it has the cold, hard glint 
 Of new dollars from the mint. 
 Open now your spirit's eyes, 
 Look through that poor clay disguise 
 Which has thickened day by day. 
 Till it keeps all light at bay, 
 
THUNDER AND THE ANGEL 199 
 
 And his soul in pitchy gloom 
 Gropes about its narrow tomb, 
 From whose dark and slimy walls 
 Drop by drop the horror falls. 
 
 And yet I would not say one word which should 
 lead anyone, though white his hair with the snows 
 of many winters, and heavy his soul with the 
 weight of many years, to dream that for him it is 
 too late to turn and follow the High God in his 
 heart. In the exquisite message which the Spirit 
 spoke to the Church of Ephesus, they who were 
 so warmly praised for splendid toil and service, 
 yet who stood reproved because in the conflict 
 they had lost something of their first love, were 
 warned to turn again and do the old things once 
 more. Remember ! Repent ! Return ! Remember 
 from whence thou art fallen — the heights and the 
 raptures, the devotion and passion, of the years 
 that are fled. Repent — of the coldness which has 
 crept over your soul, of the man you are compared 
 with, the man you were and the man you meant to 
 be. Return — to the old deeds, the old service, the 
 old thoughts and feelings ; to your Bible and your 
 secret prayer and your daily communion with the 
 Highest; to God, whose arm is not shortened, 
 whose ear is not stopped; to Christ, who is the 
 same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. " Bring 
 ye now the whole tithe into the storehouse, that 
 there may be meat in mine house, and prove me 
 now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will 
 not open you the windows of heaven and pour you 
 out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough 
 to receive it." 
 
XII 
 
 THE THREE JOHNS IN JOHN: 
 THE THREE THOMASES IN THOMAS 
 
God be thanked, the meanest of His creatures 
 Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
 One to show a woman when he loves her! 
 
 ROBEET BeOWNIKO. 
 
XII 
 
 THE THREE JOHNS IN JOHN: 
 THE THREE THOMASES IN THOMAS 
 
 " For now we see through a mirror, darkly; but then face 
 
 to face." — I. COEINTHIANS XIII. 12. 
 
 " It is not easy, at the best, for two persons talk- 
 ing together to make the most of each other's 
 thoughts, there are so many of them." 
 
 This was a remark made by the Autocrat of the 
 Breakfast Table to the assembled guests. And 
 the company looked as if they wanted an explana- 
 tion. So the Autocrat went on : 
 
 " When John and Thomas, for instance, are 
 talking together, it is natural that among the six 
 there should be more or less confusion and mis- 
 apprehension." 
 
 The people thought that the Autocrat had sud- 
 denly gone mad. The landlady turned pale. 
 The old gentleman opposite thought that the 
 Autocrat might seize the carving knife. But he 
 proceeded to explain that at the fewest six per- 
 sonalities are distinctly to be recognised as taking 
 part in the dialogue between John and Thomas. 
 There is (1) the real John, known only to his 
 Maker; (2) John's ideal John, never the real one, 
 and often very unlike him; (3) Thomas's ideal 
 John, never the real John, nor John's John; but 
 
 203 
 
204 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 often very unlike either. In precisely the same 
 way there are three Thomases. There is Thomas 
 as he really is, as God sees him ; Thomas as he 
 thinks he is ; and Thomas as John thinks he is. In 
 all, there are six people. No wonder two dis- 
 putants often get angry when there are six of 
 them talking and listening at the same time! 
 
 This is expressed with the inimitable playful- 
 ness of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but it is charged 
 with deep wisdom and true religion. I understand 
 it as a commentary on my text, " Now we see 
 through a mirror, darkly." 
 
 This text has been thought to point a contrast 
 between our ignorance here and our knowledge 
 hereafter. In this life we see spiritual realities 
 dimly ; in the life to come we shall see them clearly. 
 We have said that " the Gospel is a mirror show- 
 ing us as in a camera obscura, but imperfectly, 
 the things of eternity " ; yet, " we shall stand be- 
 fore God, and look upon His face; and, seeing 
 Him, we shall see all things." * And, again, " the 
 face to which ours will be turned is God's. "f All 
 true enough and helpful, without a doubt; but is 
 it not a little strange that the apostle should 
 make such a wonderful transition from his theme, 
 Charity, to this clear vision of eternity? Why, 
 the strange thing is that it has not seemed strange 
 to us. Consider what Paul has been saying. 
 
 This chapter is the glorious hymn of love. The 
 religious fervour, the intellectual conquests, the 
 
 *Beet: "Corinthians." 
 
 t Findlay: Expositor's Greek Testament; "Corinthians." 
 
THREE JOHNS— THREE THOMASES 205 
 
 accumulated philosophy of succeeding centuries, 
 have produced nothing nobler than this. You can- 
 not " praise " this perfect utterance. You might 
 as well " approve " the perpetual rainbow over 
 the Fluela Fall or the after-glow in an Alpine sky. 
 The apostle exhausts the resources of inspired 
 eloquence in exposition of Charity. And he looks 
 for the maturing, the completion, the perfection, 
 of this Christian grace. When such full-blos- 
 somed Charity has come, we shall see with perfect 
 clearness. In proportion as it comes, we shall see 
 better. When Charity has her perfect work, we 
 shall see so distinctly that the vision may be said 
 to be " face to face." Yes ; that we have always 
 understood. But what is it that we shall sec? 
 What but the object of our charity — our fellow- 
 man ? Towards whom have you exercised charity ? 
 Your brother-man, your neighbour, your friend, 
 your rival, your foe. Then, as your Charity 
 deepens, your vision of him will clear. As you 
 think more charitably of him you will understand 
 him better. When Charity towards him is per- 
 fected, you will see him face to face. 
 
 The phrase, " through a glass, darkly," of the 
 Authorized Version has given place to " through 
 a mirror, darkly " in the Revised. The art of 
 silvering glass was not known for twelve hundred 
 years after the apostle's time. The mirrors for 
 which Corinth was famous — you remember ]\Ia- 
 caulay's line about the great Roman ladies, " who 
 in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles be- 
 hold " — round plates of burnished metal, were 
 
206 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 poor reflectors. We see our brother-man darkly, 
 as though reflected in a Corinthian mirror. 
 " Enigmatically " we see him. The word trans- 
 lated " darkly " is our word for enigma. As near 
 as possible, we have taken over the Greek word, 
 Greek spelling, Greek pronunciation, into our own 
 tongue. The margin of the Revised Version sug- 
 gests, " in a riddle." Our neighbour is a riddle 
 to us. Each one of us is an enigma to all others. 
 And since there are at the fewest three Johns in 
 John and three Thomases in Thomas, no wonder 
 that there should be more or less confusion and 
 misapprehension ! When two people are together, 
 there are six talking. John sees himself reflected 
 in the mirror of his own egotism, and Thomas sees 
 John in the mirror of his distrust ; Thomas sees 
 himself reflected in the mirror of his ideals, and 
 John sees Thomas in the mirror of his disdain. 
 But when that which is perfect is come, these four 
 shall be done away. And the real John, as God 
 sees him, and the real Thomas, as God sees him, 
 shall see each other face to face, and each shall 
 know as each is known. 
 
 This thought of the secret life in man is very 
 impressive. Let us linger a little while and talk 
 about it, before we hurry on to the lesson which 
 it teaches. How it redeems our life from com- 
 monplace ! * A writer from whom we expected 
 much delighted us some years ago by a brilliant 
 essay on " Life in Inverted Commas." f He repre- 
 
 * Cf. "The Veiled Life in Man" in Dr. Brook Her- 
 ford's "Small End of Great Problems." 
 t Richard Le Gallienne: "Prose Fancies." 
 
THREE JOHNS— THREE THOMASES 207 
 
 sented himself as watching from the top of an 
 omnibus in Fleet Street the capture of a notorious 
 plagiarist by detectives in the employ of the In- 
 corporated Society of Authors, who led him away 
 secured between strong inverted commas. This 
 set him thinking. And he looked round at his 
 companions in the 'bus. " There was the young 
 dandy just let loose from his band-box, wearing 
 exactly the same face, the same smile, the same 
 necktie, holding his stick in exactly the same 
 fashion, talking exactly the same words, with pre- 
 cisely the same accent, as his neighbour, another 
 dandy, and as all the other dandies between the 
 Bank and Hyde Park Corner. Looking at these 
 examples of Nature's love of repeating herself," 
 he goes on, " I said to myself : Somewhere in 
 heaven stands a great stencil, and at each sweep 
 of the cosmic brush a million dandies are born, 
 each one alike as a box of collars. Indeed, I felt 
 that this stencil process had been employed in the 
 manufacture of every single person in the omni- 
 bus : two middle-aged matrons, each of whom 
 seemed to think that having given birth to six 
 children was an indisputable claim to originality; 
 two elderly business men to correspond; a young 
 miss, carrying music and wearing eye-glasses ; 
 and a clergyman discussing stocks with one of the 
 business men ; I alone in my corner being, of 
 course, the one occupant for whom Nature had 
 been at the expense of casting a special mould, 
 and at the extravagance of breaking it ! " To be 
 sure! " /, myself" am the original one. And 
 
208 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 each one of us is an " 7, myself! " Each is a 
 microcosm — a world in himself. Our surround- 
 ings are unpicturesque. Our appearance is col- 
 ourless. We shroud our individuality in the greys 
 and drabs of the uninteresting and unconvincing. 
 We are mere quotations of one another, and we 
 ought to feel ashamed to be seen without our in- 
 verted commas — until the eye of genius pierces 
 the thin veil of drab or grey, and the true life is 
 seen, where the heart pours the hot blood into the 
 brain, and the grey and white matter there red- 
 dens with the lava-tides and flings back this life 
 in emotion, anguish, passion, prayer, love, hate, 
 sin, tragedy — all the unloosed tempests of a shore- 
 less sea. The " elderly business man," with his 
 frock-coat and his watch chain — do you see him, 
 the man, or only the clothes of flesh and blood he 
 wears? All the hate of all the hells that raged in 
 Othello's breast are chained and curbed beneath 
 that frock-coat. The clergyman who is " discuss- 
 ing stocks," amiable and devout when need be 
 and decorously worldly when occasion demands, 
 do you really see him? Scorching his very soul 
 is the scarlet letter which burned into Arthur 
 Dimmesdale's flesh. That young dandy, with his 
 smile and his necktie and his stick — is that all 
 you see of him ? But " the puppies fight well," 
 said Wellington of the grandfather of this very 
 dandy when in white gloves and dancing shoes he 
 rushed to his death at Waterloo ; and the brother 
 of this dandy died on Spion Kop ; and by the 
 grace of God this one, in spite of his necktie, his 
 
THREE JOHNS— THREE THOMASES 209 
 
 stick, and his smile, shall yet give his life to a 
 righteous cause, and make us think Lloyd Garri- 
 son or Henry Drummond has come to life again! 
 Those two matrons have been as the " miss " car- 
 rying her music, and the " miss," with her music 
 and her eye-glasses, pray God she be as they, for 
 with Juliet's trusting soul she has only Ophelia's 
 flighty brain, while God's world is richer to-day 
 because these two middle-aged matrons have been 
 the mothers of fair women and brave men. 
 
 This hidden life, I must keep on repeating, is 
 the real life. In our human nature, too. It is the 
 unseen which is the real. That which is seen is 
 temporal, but that which is not seen Is eternal. It 
 Is not the true John who thinks he talks with 
 Thomas, nor the true John whom Thomas thinks 
 he hears. The true John Is John as neither John 
 nor Thomas sees him — as God alone can see him. 
 
 Deliberately we hide ourselves from our fellows. 
 And for one man Avho hides himself for a base 
 reason, a hundred hide from motives just and 
 honourable. There are decent and modest reti- 
 cences of the soul which have become part and 
 parcel of our highest life. So true Is this, that a 
 departure from them may almost be regarded as 
 pathological — calling for the good offices of one 
 who can minister to a soul diseased. It is a shallow 
 stream Indeed in which one can see to the bottom 
 at the first glance. In the normal person, in the 
 sane person, more and more marvellously in robust 
 personalities, are depths deeper than ever plummet 
 sounded. We should not like to make friends with 
 
210 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 a man who struck twelve the first time. We should 
 turn away with contempt from a man who was 
 more like plate-glass than a Corinthian mirror — 
 if there was such a man, for I have never seen him. 
 Disease is ugly, and except in the most unmanly 
 of us there is manliness enough to make us seek to 
 hide it. Pain, fear, defeat, are humiliating, and 
 we keep them to ourselves. I have always known 
 this ; and always reckoned these things amongst 
 the adorable simplicities and commonplaces of 
 our human nature. But I never saw so much of 
 it as during the year which I spent in a sana- 
 torium. How we all hid our pain, our defeat, our 
 humiliation, our heart-break, the bitterness of 
 hope deferred, and the ever-gnawing misery which 
 grows with the realisation of a wrecked career, a 
 cramped and limited life! How we joked about 
 our illness, made fun of all our losses, chaffed 
 each other about our own defeats, made puns in 
 every European language, and shook the moun- 
 tain heights with our absurdities ! And at last, 
 when the comedy could be no longer played, and 
 the shadows lengthened toward the night, we rang 
 down the curtain on the tragedy, and when we 
 raised it again it was for broad farce. God and 
 Myself: between these two the true man owned his 
 weakness ; for all the world besides there was at 
 least the decent show of strength. " Uniforms," 
 said the Duke of Wellington, " are often masks." 
 We are timorous about our hopes and young 
 ambitions. We cannot talk about them, not If 
 they are genuine and born of a genuinely aspiring 
 
THREE JOHNS— THREE THOMASES 211 
 
 soul. Do you think that we are going to wear 
 our heart upon our sleeve for daws to peck at? 
 Shall we bring out our hopes before the gaze of a 
 world in too big a hurry to be sympathetic? We 
 have borne them in pain. We nurse them in 
 delightful anguish. We shall not expose them to 
 the chilling sneer of men who have forgotten that 
 ever they were young. And our hopes yet deeper, 
 and still solemner ambitions, our yearning spirit- 
 uality, our unspoken prayers, the quivering faith 
 that in the silence and loneliness looks up to God 
 — we cannot speak of these. They are too sacred 
 for much speech. 
 
 And what of our sins? Better keep them to 
 yourself as well. They, too, are between you and 
 God. Let your confession be made unto Him. 
 Jesus Christ is the one Priest who can never fail 
 you. We lose sometimes, but not greatly, in re- 
 pudiating the confessional. And Protestantism 
 has been wise in rejecting It. Quite apart from 
 its abuses, if we could have whatever good there 
 is in it without its mischief, we are better off with- 
 out it. Protestantism develops the manhood and 
 womanhood within us, breeds strong, sane natures 
 who need no intermediary between themselves and 
 Christ, whose strong, deep life is hidden with 
 Christ in God. 
 
 So, in a word, in one way or another, every 
 brave man, every brave woman, must some time 
 play a part. The smiles we put on just to cover 
 our tears are the blessed hypocrisies of life Avhich 
 God approves; while the tears which never flow, 
 
212 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 which we forbid to flow, are precious in His sight 
 for ever. 
 
 And if this is true, if only part of this is true, 
 how enigmatic, at any time, under any circum- 
 stance, must be the life of one man to another! 
 Yet we should lose the apostle's view if we did not 
 go on to say that for lack of charity we under- 
 stand each other even less than we might, even less 
 than we ought, and that needless confusion and 
 pain result. The concealments of which we have 
 spoken are dictated by love. The misunderstand- 
 ings, misrepresentations, all the exasperation and 
 bitterness of which we have yet to speak, which 
 poison life and make men seem odious to one an- 
 other, are all caused by want of love. When 
 charity has her perfect work these shall be done 
 away. 
 
 The elementary antagonisms of life are very 
 curious. You are making a call on a friend, and 
 some other person calls, and you wonder what he 
 has come for ! In the world of thought you de- 
 cidedly object to some other person pretending 
 to know anything about that which is really your 
 own subject, while I have known men who would 
 gladly have lain down their lives to advance a 
 good cause who have nevertheless felt quite hurt 
 because someone else has come into the work. In 
 the world of business — ^but I am not competent 
 to speak of that! I understand that if a man 
 starts business in the same line as yourself, in the 
 same street — ^but there ought to be a law against 
 it ! When these elementary antagonisms are 
 
THREE JOHNS— THREE THOMASES 213 
 
 sharpened by personal feeling, when rivalries and 
 jealousies and selfishness and fear lend bitterness 
 to them, when dislike deepens into hate, then we 
 see nothing, absolutely nothing, that is good in 
 each other. We cannot be fair. We cannot be 
 truthful. We misquote, misrepresent, distort, 
 malign — and tell the most frightful lies, of which 
 we ourselves all the while devoutly believe every 
 word. This is why Paul says that charity seeketh 
 not her own, is not so set upon selfish ends as to 
 be bhnd to the virtues and graces which are in- 
 disputably to be found in the heart of every one 
 of us. 
 
 And this is only one suggestion. Our want of 
 charity still further obscures the mirror — which 
 never was a good reflector, and we make it worse. 
 We find rudeness where there is nothing but 
 awkwardness, shyness, want of experience. We 
 do not really hurt each other because we want to. 
 It is awkwardness, stupidity, not deliberate rude- 
 ness. The worst that you can say of the " insuf- 
 ferable " person is that his manners have not that 
 repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. 
 Yet his impulsive, generous heart may be more 
 than a compensation, and — ^maybe you have 
 breathed on the mirror. 
 
 We find offence, insult, where there is nothing 
 but tremendous earnestness. If you want an illus- 
 tration, you may find it in the recollections which 
 General Booth's motor-tour evokes. Carry your 
 minds back to the time when mayors and corpora- 
 tions did not turn out to bid him welcome to their 
 
214 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 towns, when train-oil and bags of soot were his 
 portion. The week after his " Darkest England " 
 was published I attended a meeting of preachers 
 and philanthropists called to discuss it. Speaker 
 after speaker raged furiously against General 
 Booth because he had ignored every worker except 
 himself, had " posed " as the only man in Eng- 
 land who cared about these people or had thought 
 of helping them. But now, looking back over 
 nearly fourteen years, do you really think that 
 General Booth deliberately left all other noble- 
 hearted workers out of account, meaning to ignore 
 and insult them? Does anybody believe it.'' Do 
 the men who raged in their soreness that after- 
 noon? You know that they do not. You know, 
 and they know, that General Booth was too much 
 " in haste for the kingdom of heaven," too anx- 
 ious about the tremendous hopes that were surg- 
 ing up in his generous soul, to give a thought to 
 the need for compiling a tabulated statement of 
 the good work done by all the sweet-natured men 
 and women of Great Britain. " It would have 
 been more charitable if he had done so ! " To be 
 sure! And more charitable of us all, if when we 
 found that he had not, we had assumed that he 
 would have done if he had thought about it. Now 
 we see in a mirror, darkly ; when our charitable 
 thoughts run clearer, we shall see face to face. 
 
 And worse than all this, it is our cruel want of 
 charity which makes it possible for us to ascribe 
 vile motives for acts which are passably good, to 
 endorse the thievish suggestion that the philan- 
 
THREE JOHNS— THREE THOMASES 215 
 
 thropist has " an axe to grind," and the Satanic 
 sneer that Job doth not " serve God for naught." 
 How httle does John see of Thomas and Thomas 
 of John when each bends his eyes to the ground, 
 digging in the dirt for the motive of his brother's 
 act! 
 
 Let us try to imagine the real man whom the 
 mirror so badly reflects. We want to see the real 
 John, as God sees him. It is an exercise of 
 charity to try to picture what he is like. You 
 see the sin which he has committed. My brother, 
 I will tell you something you have not seen — I 
 will tell you of a hundred things you have not 
 begun to see : the sins which he did not commit ! 
 Anger, passion, hate, lust, gripped him, swayed 
 him, shook him, but a hundred times he struggled, 
 a hundred times he flung his foes, a hundred times 
 he trampled base desire beneath his feet. Oh, 
 but it was grand, the struggle and the conquest! 
 You saw him mastered once; you did not see him 
 breathless but triumphant, white and bloodless 
 and shaken in every nerve, but victorious over 
 baffling foes a hundred times. No ; but God saw 
 him; and it is God who bids him say, "Rejoice 
 not against me, O mine enemy ; when I fall I shall 
 arise, when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a 
 light to me." It is God who hears his cry, 
 
 Lord, for the erring thought 
 Not into evil wrought; 
 Lord, for the wicked will 
 Betraj'ed and baffled still; 
 For the heart from itself kept. 
 Our thanksgiving accept! 
 
216 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 We do not see the virtues, the patient goodness, 
 the uncomplaining courage, the heroic achieve- 
 ments. Shall I repeat again, the hidden man is 
 the real man ; the best part of the man is the 
 man you do not see? Goethe is reported to have 
 said, " There is something in every man's heart 
 which if you only knew it would make you hate 
 him." It may be true, but this I know is true, 
 that in many a secret life there is something 
 which if you only knew it would make you want 
 to fall down on your knees and worship ! Hateful 
 or worshipful in the sight of man, God sees us 
 as we are! Is that heaven or hell? God knows 
 you as you do not know yourself ; sees you in 
 your naked soul. Must not that be hell? Un- 
 repentant, selfish, sowing to the flesh, loving hate 
 and hating love, and with God's keen, searching 
 gaze looking on every secret deed and every 
 hidden thought — yes, that is, and that ought 
 to be a veritable hell! Loathing the sins that 
 once we cherished, seeking the purest and loving 
 the highest, lifting our hearts to Him and pray- 
 ing His mercy — not hell, but heaven, the heaven 
 of heavens of a Father's great compassion ! To 
 this conclusion come at last the most spiritual of 
 seers and sages : 
 
 Like as a father pitieth his children, 
 So the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. 
 For He knoweth our frame, 
 He remembereth that we are dust. 
 
 To this conclusion comes at last our trembling 
 faith, and, coming, finds the shifting sand beneath 
 
THREE JOHNS— THREE THOMASES 217 
 
 our feet as stable as the Rock of Ages. Did we 
 think that we should dread His justice, and with 
 burning tears appeal from it unto His love? Nay, 
 but His justice is the gladdest thing Creation 
 can behold. He who made us, 'tis He shall judge 
 us. He who hath loved us. He loves us to the 
 end. 
 
XIII 
 THE SERPENT AND THE ROD 
 
They say, 
 The solid earth whereon we tread 
 
 In tracts of fluent heat began 
 And grew to seeming-random forms. 
 The seeming prey of cyclic storms. 
 
 Till at the last arose the man; 
 
 Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, 
 
 The herald of a higher race, 
 
 And of himself in higher place. 
 If so he type this work of time. 
 
 Within himself, from more to more; 
 Or, crown'd with attributes of woe. 
 Like glories, move Jhis course and show 
 
 That life is not as idle ore. 
 
 But iron dug from central gloom. 
 And heated hot with burning fears. 
 And dipt in baths of hissing tears. 
 
 And batter'd with the shocks of doom 
 
 To shape and use. Arise and fly 
 
 The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; 
 Move upward, working out the beast. 
 
 And let the ape and tiger die. 
 
 — Tennttsow. 
 
xni 
 
 THE SERPENT AND THE ROD 
 
 " And Moses put forth his hand, and laid hold of the 
 serpent, and it became a rod in his hand." — Exodus iv. 5. 
 
 He put forth his hand, and the serpent, dan- 
 gerous, destructive, deadly, became a rod, a stay, 
 a support, a defence. In the hand of a strong 
 man the pernicious thing became beneficent. 
 
 We need not stay to consider what fact, if 
 any, Hes behind this incident. Oriental magic 
 has little interest. I find in the text the illustra- 
 tion of an eternal truth, that a man may put 
 forth his hand, grasp the deadly thing, and find 
 it stiffen into a good, useful instrument of prog- 
 ress. Touched by the alchemy of heaven, the 
 poisonous things of earth discharge a ministry 
 of healing, as, in the hands of modern chemists, 
 the refuse of coal-tar gives off a world of colour. 
 This is God's way in Nature. It is God's way in 
 history. It is the way of commanding spirits 
 amongst men in the face of adversity, sorrow, 
 and pain. It may be the way of a man who has 
 sinned. The output of human energy gathers 
 to itself an energy Divine ; man links himself 
 with God, and binds his feebleness to Almighty 
 power. 
 
 This is God's way in Nature. The supremely 
 
 221 
 
222 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 destructive forces of the universe are amongst 
 the supremely great and supremely blessed of the 
 educative agencies of life. Man has entered into 
 conflict with them, and contending with them 
 has grown strong and wise. Henry Drummond, 
 in his own delightful, unapproachable way, in- 
 troduces us to an unevolved savage on an un- 
 developed earth, sprawling in the sun and with 
 no desire to do anything but sprawl and be happy. 
 Nature around him is silent, inert, invisible — so 
 you might think. But in reality he is the vic- 
 tim of a conspiracy. Nature has designs upon 
 him. She means to make him move on. She 
 wishes to make him move because movement is 
 work, work is exercise, and exercise may be evo- 
 lution. First of all, Nature sets about moving 
 him by moving herself. The earth moves, and 
 the sun is far away in the west, and he must 
 either get up or freeze. Twilight falls, and wild 
 animals come from their lair, and he must either 
 move or be eaten. The food he ate in the morn- 
 ing has dissolved and moved away to nourish 
 the cells of the body, and more food must be 
 moved into him to replenish the waste of tissue 
 or he must starve. So he starts up, works, 
 seeks food, shelter, safety. These movements 
 make marks in the body, brace muscles, stimu- 
 late nerves, quicken intelligence, create habits, 
 and he becomes more able and more willing to 
 repeat them, and so becomes a higher, stronger 
 man. Multiply these movements and you multi- 
 ply him. Make him do things he never did be- 
 
THE SERPENT AND THE ROD 223 
 
 fore, and he will become what he never was before. 
 The earth moves till the sun is far away, and 
 winter snows begin. He again must either move, 
 and move very fast, to find the sun, or he must 
 chase, and also very fast, some thick-furred ani- 
 mal, kill it, and clothe himself with its skin. So 
 he becomes a hunter. As a hunter he needs 
 weapons. To throw a stone at an animal was 
 good; to make a cunning instrument which would 
 throw the stone twice as far in half the time 
 was better. To strike or thrust with the torn 
 branch of a tree was good, to sharpen the end 
 of it and throw it as an assegai, or make an 
 instrument that would throw it, as an arrow, was 
 still more to his purpose. So you have tools and 
 the man ! So you have arms and the man ! * In 
 precisely this way you may trace man's progress 
 in mechanical arts, in construction, in all the 
 great arts, up to the day when he rears ca- 
 thedrals, builds ocean liners, invents wireless te- 
 legraphy. Where Nature is prodigal of her 
 bounty, where a suit of clothes grows on every 
 tree and a dinner is found under every bush, the 
 animal man slumbers and sleeps. Where Nature 
 enters into conflict with man, bids him try con- 
 clusions with this old earth, its storms and seas, 
 surrounds him with hardship and hazard, he finds 
 himself. He puts forth his hand and the serpent 
 becomes a rod. 
 
 But these forces of Nature have their terrors. 
 They crush, maim, blind, burn, destroy, over- 
 whelm, appal. And so man becomes not only a 
 * " The Ascent of Man," chapter vi. 
 
224 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 stronger and a cunninger man, but a better man. 
 He is educated by adversity ; and his heart is 
 educated not less than his head. He learns pity. 
 He enters into compassion. He develops phi- 
 lanthropy. The shipwreck launches the lifeboat. 
 The physician is bred of the pestilence. Liv- 
 ing men in our port hasten to die, that dying 
 men, across the Bar, may live. The plague is 
 stopped, because the bacteriologist has lived and 
 loved and died. 
 
 And Death itself, which has seemed to men 
 the greatest Terror of all, which has flung a 
 shadow over every path, has touched all lives 
 with light. Consciously or unconsciously, work- 
 ing through the thought of the individual or 
 through the mind of the race, the sense of death 
 has brought meaning, solicitude, yearning, into 
 our deepest and purest affections. Whether we 
 know it or not, it is the reality of death which 
 has brought into our lives grandeur and im- 
 mensity. Through death has God set eternity in 
 our hearts.* He puts forth His hand, and the 
 serpent becomes a rod. 
 
 And this is God's way in history. Though 
 clouds and darkness are round about Him, 
 righteousness and judgment are the foundation 
 of His throne. Light is sown for the righteous 
 and gladness for the upright in heart. The 
 
 * See the splendid chapter in Fairbairn's " Philosophy of 
 the Christian Religion," " The question as affected by the 
 problem of evil," sections, " Man in the hands of Nature," 
 and " Evils peculiar to man." 
 
THE SERPENT AND THE ROD 225 
 
 fashionable madness of the Middle Ages, what 
 we call the Crusades, brought the nations to- 
 gether, woke Europe from its sleep, opened the 
 way for arts, commerce, and learning. The tri- 
 umph of the Turks, the fall of Constantinople 
 into their hands, drove the Greeks of the east 
 westward. The love of learning revived, as Greek 
 language and literature were studied ; men turned 
 to the New Testament in its original tongue: 
 it was the Renaissance — ^the new birth of the 
 nations, the intellectual side of that movement 
 whose moral side was the Protestant Reformation. 
 Tyrannies and persecutions in England and Scot- 
 land drove their victims to Frankfort, Geneva, 
 Leyden, the free cities of the Continent. There 
 they breathed the air of liberty, came back to 
 break the bands of oppression here and let the 
 oppressed go free, crossed the broad Atlantic to 
 lay the foundations of the great Republic of 
 the West. Can you think of anything more alien 
 from the mind of the Master than the malignity 
 of persecuting orthodoxy.'^ The spirit that hates 
 for the love of God and " from the tombs of 
 the old prophets steals the funeral lamps away, 
 to light up the martyr fagots round the prophets 
 of to-day ".f* You cannot. But consider again: 
 Do you know anything which has better served 
 the proclamation of the Gospel throughout the 
 world than this same persecuting orthodoxy? 
 Persecution scattered believers throughout the 
 nations, sent them to preach the Gospel where 
 they would never have gone. It cut them off 
 
226 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 from dependence upon material things, robbed 
 them of the comforts and luxuries of life whose 
 possession makes us timorous of change, fearful 
 of violence and loss. Living, the persecuted were 
 braced for determined conflict. We love that 
 for which we have suifered. Easy come, easy go 
 — in morals as in material things. There is some- 
 thing in our human nature which urges us to 
 speak the truth which we are forbidden to speak 
 on pain of chains or death. And dying, the per- 
 secuted were visibly placarded before all men's 
 eyes as men with a message, men with a purpose, 
 men with a spirit, men who had, beyond all dis- 
 pute, found somewhere strength which brought 
 heaven down to earth and changed agony to im- 
 mortal joy. 
 
 So true is this, as a principle and as illustrated 
 in every century, that when the not-wise young 
 man went to Talleyrand and asked for his advice 
 as to the propagation of a new religion which he 
 had just Invented, asking the world-weary man 
 what he must do to get his new religion accepted 
 amongst men, Talleyrand looked at him and said, 
 *' I should advise you to arrange to have your- 
 self crucified ! " To be sure ! He could not have 
 done better. It is the Cross which makes Calvary 
 the highest mountain on the globe. God pours 
 Himself as redemptive energy into the hearts of 
 men. He puts forth His hand, and the serpent 
 becomes a rod. 
 
 God's way In Nature, God's way in history. Is 
 God's way for each one of us in our own life. 
 
THE SERPENT AND THE ROD 227 
 
 Let us grasp the serpent that it may become a 
 rod. 
 
 This is the story of all glorious conquest of 
 adverse circumstance. Strolling along the bank 
 of my native Trent, I have seen a parable — with 
 rod and line in its hands ! Some townsman, 
 magnificently equipped, with outfit which must 
 have cost a little fortune, which would have made 
 Isaak Walton turn green with envy, flung his line 
 in vain. The shadows of evening fell and his 
 face lengthened, and there was never a fish in 
 his creel. And beside him a ragged rascal of 
 a village schoolboy, playing truant, with his bare 
 feet and unwashed hands, with his home-made 
 rod, and two-penny line, and penny float, and 
 halfpenny tackle — swinging out the roach and 
 dace or greedy perch at almost every swim. 
 " These things are written allegorically ! " It 
 is not the costliest out-fit which takes the biggest 
 psh. Cardinal Wolsey, Daniel De Foe, and 
 Henry Kirke White — it would be impossible to 
 name in a breath three men more utterlj'^ unlike 
 each other — were all the sons of butchers. 
 Jeremy Taylor, one of the greatest of English 
 preachers, Richard Arkwright, the real founder 
 of our cotton industries, and Turner, the painter, 
 were all barbers. John Bunyan was a tinker. 
 Robert Burns a ploughman. Ben Jonson a brick- 
 layer. Livingstone was a weaver. Stanley a 
 workhouse boy. Carey a cobbler. Copernicus 
 was the son of a baker. Kepler came from a 
 German inn. Whitefield was a barman at the 
 
228 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 " Bell Tavern " in Gloucester. Haydn was a 
 wheelwright. Hildebrand a village carpenter. 
 George Stephenson was an engine-fireman, and 
 taught himself arithmetic on the side of colliery 
 waggons. Wilkie learned art Avith a piece of chalk 
 and a barn door. West made his first brushes 
 out of the cat's tail. Watt constructed his first 
 model out of an old syringe. Humphry Davy 
 extemporised his scientific appliances from kitchen 
 pots and pans ; and Faraday his from glass 
 bottles. Elihu Burritt mastered eighteen ancient 
 and modern languages while earning his living as 
 a blacksmith! 
 
 Why, you would really think that it was an 
 advantage to have no advantages at all ! As 
 you contemplate the victories of initiative, of 
 enterprise, of industry over " those twin gaolers 
 of the daring heart, low birth and iron fortune," 
 you begin to think that you have found the royal 
 road to prosperity, that it consists in being poor, 
 handicapped, Avithout money, friends, or influence, 
 with willing hands, strong brain, and determined 
 will to seize the serpent and turn it into a rod! 
 These adverse circumstances, what are they but 
 a call to perseverance, concentration, devotion, 
 courage, self-mastery — all the plain, heroic virtues 
 out of which are fashioned the " great lever 
 souls, who lift the world, and roll it in another 
 course".'' 
 
 And this is the Gospel of Sorrow, which I pass 
 over this morning with this bare word, to come 
 back to it another day, for I know how good it 
 
THE SERPENT AND THE ROD 229 
 
 is, and show once more how we may distil the 
 honey-sweetness of sympathy, goodness, and 
 gladness in God from the serpent-poison of a 
 bitter grief. 
 
 I turn to what seems to me a very fruitful 
 and helpful suggestion, growing out of this text. 
 Modem science speaks of the persistence of en- 
 ergy with the conversion of force. The August 
 evening is charged with storm; the sky is 
 threatening and yellow. From the impact of 
 great cloud masses leaps a force as light ; it runs 
 down the hghtning conductor as electricity; 
 it melts it as heat; it crashes through the solid 
 masonry as motion. The original energy persists ; 
 the force has been more than once converted. 
 The apostle says that we are "the children of 
 wrath." By that he does not mean that we are 
 born the inheritors of the anger of an implacable 
 deity. He means that we are wrathful children, 
 creatures of wild impulse, savage desires, turbu- 
 lent passions. There are forces and fires within 
 us, ready to leap forth in wliite heat of anger, 
 kindling hate, or fiery lusts of the flesh. Amongst 
 these volcanic natures, with their burning pas- 
 sions, the children of genius have been often 
 found, so often, indeed, that men have taught 
 as a doctrine the behef that you cannot have 
 genius without the fierce fires of passion by which 
 it is fed, and that to ask the man of genius to 
 conform to the conventions of morality by which 
 our common clay is bound is to commit the 
 worst of intellectual blunders, is to be guilty 
 
230 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 of a contradiction in terras. The saintly lives of 
 a hundred men of genius, who have at once 
 obeyed and glorified the laws of Christian life, 
 challenge this assertion. And the truth is that 
 these forces and fires, of which I have spoken, by 
 which hatreds, passions, lusts are too often 
 nourished, may really feed the high impulses 
 of the soul which give us prophets, apostles, 
 saints, missionaries, martyrs, the aristocracy of 
 the heart, the hierarchy of redemption. It is the 
 persistence of energy with the conversion of force, 
 the energy of passion converted into a force that 
 makes for righteousness and salvation. 
 
 If my body come from brutes, tho' somewhat finer than 
 their own, 
 I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice be 
 mute? 
 No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the 
 throne. 
 Hold the sceptre, human soul, and rule thy province of 
 the brute. 
 
 Yet what if we have failed? If the brute has 
 broken leash, and raged in his brutal way.? If 
 the human soul has not held the sceptre, has 
 been subject to the vassal instincts which have 
 dragged it from the throne? If we have sinned, 
 and our sin is triumphant over us? If the ser- 
 pent has uncoiled, has poised, has stung, and the 
 deadly virus of accomplished iniquity is coursing 
 through our veins: does this Gospel still hold 
 good? It does hold good. It is here that its 
 most glorious victories have been won. The 
 
THE SERPENT AND THE ROD 231 
 
 destructive energy of completed sin is converted 
 by forgiveness into the force of a gracious and 
 fruitful life. 
 
 What is forgiveness? It is not miraculous 
 dehverance from the consequence of sin, not 
 remission of penalty. This is what people look 
 for. Perhaps it is what we have taught them to 
 expect. The Gospel does not offer it. The 
 Bible does not promise it. It is the sin which 
 must be blotted out, not the penalty. God could 
 not take the penalty out of life while the sin 
 remained. A liar may repent of his untruthful- 
 ness ; but the penalty remains in a reputation 
 which no man can trust. The drunken debauch, 
 repented the next morning, brings a headache, 
 and a life of drunken debauch, repented at last, 
 leaves the wrecked body and poisoned brain. 
 A man may repent his dishonesty, but the prison 
 waits for him. Sin, which no man knows but the 
 sinner, entails its consequences, and the conse- 
 quences must be met. What is forgiveness, and 
 what can the Gospel do? 
 
 Divine forgiveness is God's touch upon these 
 old destructive energies of guilt, converting them 
 into a force which builds up and purifies and re- 
 news. This force sets up new recuperative proc- 
 esses, accumulates moral assets which outpay the 
 deficits of guilt, and in time enrich the life as it 
 was never rich before. We are more than con- 
 querors through Him that loved us. 
 
 A man falls into evil courses. It is the old 
 story, drink and dissipation. Little by little 
 
232 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 his business dwindles away ; friends fall from 
 him; his home is broken up. He is a wreck. 
 One day, when the devil enters into him with the 
 poisoned drink, he strikes his wife and does her 
 a lasting injury. And then he sees himself as he 
 is, repents his self-indulgence, his vice, his cruelty. 
 He calls upon his soul and all that is within him; 
 he rises ; he is free ! Yes, but he cannot walk 
 down to his office to-morrow morning and find a 
 flourishing business as though nothing had hap- 
 pened during all these years. He is repentant, 
 and he has found forgiveness. True; but the 
 home that has been broken up will not be brought 
 through the air and opened for his reception like 
 Aladdin's palace. And the injury which he has 
 done his wife, that abides. What is forgiveness? 
 The touch of God's hand upon these energies of 
 his nature, converting them to deep resolve, grow- 
 ing self-control, industry, sacrifice, affection, de- 
 votion. In time these shall accumulate their moral 
 assets. He cannot bring back the years that 
 are fled. But in time he shall acquire a greater 
 business. He shall build a happier home. And 
 his wife, though the scar is in her flesh and will 
 never pass away, in the infinite goodness of a 
 woman's love, which saves, and shelters, and re- 
 deems us men, and is like the infinite mercy of 
 God — his wife, for the conquest of his evil pas- 
 sions and his rise to moral grandeur, shall love 
 him more tenderly than before, and the last 
 years of their life shall be their best years, 
 opening still better in the land where the years 
 shall cease. 
 
THE SERPENT AND THE ROD 233 
 
 This is the gospel for us. men who have 
 sinned, and come short of the promise of your 
 manhood; women, who have come short of the 
 beauty of your girlhood ; my fellow-sinners, who 
 have sinned and come short of the glory of God 
 — ^put forth your hand, and the serpent shall 
 become a rod ! It is easy to think ourselves 
 into a fatalistic fog, to believe that we are so 
 conditioned and bound by past weaknesses, by 
 irrecoverable yieldings, or by cruel circumstances, 
 that there is nothing for us but to drift. The 
 answer to it is in fact. Assert yourself! You 
 can. We can think ourselves into incompetence, 
 dream ourselves into helplessness, go " mooning," 
 into moral imbecility, until we give ourselves a 
 great mental and moral shake, and fling these 
 flimsy fetters from our emancipated soul. We 
 have never exploited all the resources of human 
 nature. We have never called up the reserves of 
 strength, hope, courage, purpose which wait our 
 call. Neither feeble health, nor cramping poverty, 
 nor crushing sorrow, nor accomplished sin, nor 
 evil habits, shall paralyse the aspirations of 
 your essential manhood, nor quench its im- 
 mortality. 
 
 All the Powers that soon or late 
 
 Gain for man some sacred goal. 
 Are co-partners in thy fate, 
 
 Are companions of thy soul; 
 Unto thee all earth shall bow; 
 These are Heaven and these are thou. 
 
 Put forth your hand, my brother, and the serpent 
 shall become a rod! 
 
XIV 
 THE ACCEPTANCE OE THE UNIVERSE 
 
The world's no blot for us. 
 Nor blank; it means intensely and means good: 
 To find its meaning is my meat and drink, 
 
 — Robert Beowniko. 
 
XIV 
 THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE 
 
 " For my yoke is easy, and ray burden is light." 
 
 — Matthew xi. 30. 
 
 " Lined with love," is the quaint phrase with 
 which Matthew Henry describes the " easy " 
 yoke of Christ. The yoke is that which binds us 
 to service and compels our labour. In this 
 work-a-day world of ours the yoke too often 
 galls us. We strain. We toil. We wince. But 
 the yoke which binds us to the service of Christ 
 is easy to bear ; as the Greek word suggests, " the 
 part on which it presses takes kindly to it." Let 
 organised strength, against our will and in spite 
 of our protests, rivet a yoke upon us, and flesh 
 and spirit cry out against it. But the yoke 
 which we assume with willing hands, and fasten 
 upon ourselves with glad, brave heart, may be- 
 come a living glory. Does any man choose bonds 
 when he might be free? But all men would so 
 choose, if they knew the pure and perfect joy of 
 surrender to a Master infallibly wise and incor- 
 ruptibly pure. Slaves of Christ, we are the 
 world's free men. His service is perfect liberty. 
 
 Christ calls to Himself all those who labour, 
 who are weary of doing. He calls to Himself all 
 who are heavy laden, who are exhausted by 
 S37 
 
238 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 suffering. He calls us, the labouring souls, 
 who bear the burden and the heat, and groan 
 beneath our task. He calls us to Himself. He 
 calls us, the heavy laden, who sink beneath a load 
 of sorrow and yet daily fear some fresh disaster. 
 He calls us to His side. He bids us take fresh 
 yoke of service, bind ourselves to tasks of endless 
 labour, and bear with Him the burden of the 
 sins and sorrows of the race! He makes no 
 offer to relieve us of our burden. No; but He 
 asserts that He will increase it ! Yet He promises 
 that if we come to Him, we shall find rest " unto 
 our souls " — a peace, and calm, and rest of spirit, 
 in whose strength we may carry the burden of our 
 world. 
 
 The gracious promise of our Lord ends with 
 the assertion of my text. The experience of 
 men and women of every race, of every condition, 
 of every type and temperament, of all ages, 
 under all known and conceivable conditions, 
 rich and poor, refined and illiterate, wise and 
 simple, affirms the reality of this fact sublime. 
 The proof of Christianity is in itself. If men 
 would know whether Christianity is true, let 
 them try it. Let them taste and see how gracious 
 the Lord is. His yoke is easy, and His burden is 
 light. 
 
 It is said that Margaret Fuller was in the 
 habit of exclaiming, in her exaggerated, ridicu- 
 lous way, " I accept the universe." When this 
 was told to Thomas Carlyle, the old man said 
 sardonically, " Gad ! she'd better ! " Professor 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE 239 
 
 James, of Harvard, who tells this story,* adds 
 that " at bottom the whole concern of morality 
 and religion is with the manner of our acceptance 
 of the universe." And he goes no. " Do we 
 accept it only in part and grudgingly, or heartily 
 and altogether? Shall our protests against cer- 
 tain things in it be radical and unforgiving, or 
 shall we think that, even with evil, there are ways 
 of living which must lead to good? If we accept 
 the whole, shall we do so as if stunned into sub- 
 mission — as Carlyle would have us — ' Gad ! we'd 
 better ' — or shall we do so with enthusiastic as- 
 sent?" 
 
 But before we plunge deeper into the discussion 
 of the manner of our acceptance of the universe, 
 let me remind you that, absurd as it sounds to 
 put it in this way, innumerable lives are lived 
 all about us in daily and hourly refusal to " ac- 
 cept the universe." 
 
 How many of you remember Byron's " Lucifer " 
 — the atheist lecturer whom the poet dressed up 
 as his Satanic hero? His words are striking, when 
 he talks about 
 
 Souls who dare use their immortality — 
 Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in 
 His everlasting face, and tell Him that 
 His evil is not good ! 
 
 We all pass through a Byron phase — even those 
 of us who have not read a line of Byron, to our 
 knowledge, in all our life. When the Byron mood 
 through which we pass synchronises with our first 
 * " The Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 41. 
 
240 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 knowledge of the poet, we think that Byron has 
 said some of the truest, strongest, realest things 
 ever said by mortal! The Byron mood is the 
 mood of revolt — revolt against everything, man 
 and God, ourselves and the course and consti- 
 tution of nature, the past, the present, and the 
 future. And in essence Carlyle's advice. " Close 
 your Byron, open your Goethe," is an exhorta- 
 tion to cease from this attitude of revolt and to 
 *' accept the universe." 
 
 There are times when we rage against the 
 inevitability of things. It seems to us cruel 
 beyond words. Our rage against it transcends 
 all bounds. Our rebellion is speechless. So 
 small a thing affects the current of all our life. 
 One false note jars the music of the spheres. It 
 was such a beggarly, such a miserable trifle, a 
 something, a breath, a nothing. It was a word, 
 so idly spoken, a trivial act so carelessly flung 
 into the deathless, never-ending whirl of human 
 life. And this trifle, this something, this nothing, 
 has produced results, which have become causes, 
 which have set in motion other causes, which go 
 working on, producing, creating, destroying — 
 why, the very contemplation of it is maddening; 
 to think that we cannot take back that paltry 
 word, undo that miserable act, and silence the in- 
 fernal discord which we have started with our one 
 false note ! 
 
 We fling ourselves with impotent passion 
 against the injustice of life. There are senseless 
 cruelties in Nature which arouse our horror. 
 This old earth of ours makes mock of us. We are 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE 241 
 
 the sport of the high gods who laugh at us. And 
 down below, infinite strength is armed against 
 unspeakable weakness ; the puny child is in a 
 giant's grip, and for the spoiling of the poor, 
 for the sighing of the needy, God does not 
 arise! 
 
 We are impatient of the intolerable patience of 
 God! Age by age, shrouded in His eternal in- 
 visibility. He watches the martyrdom of man. He 
 looks down upon the sighs, the sorrows, and the 
 tears of our sad world. So, in these dark moods, 
 it seems to us ; and, like William Watson, break- 
 ing his heart over the age-long torture of Ar- 
 menia, we find God's patience to be a terrible test 
 of our faith in Him: 
 
 What wonder if yon torn and naked throng 
 Should doubt a Heaven that seems to wink and nod. 
 And having moaned at noontide, " Lord, how long? " 
 Should cry, "Where hidest Thou?" at even- fall. 
 At midnight, " Is He deaf and blind, our God? " 
 And ere day dawn, " Is He indeed at all? " 
 
 Happy is the man who has closed his Byron 
 and opened his Goethe,'' Happy is the man who, 
 in calmer mood, with wider vision, has come to 
 see in the inevitability of things against which 
 he formerly raged, God's guarantee of stability, 
 man's assurance of safety, in an ordered world. 
 If there were no such " inevitability," if no 
 man could be sure that vice to-day would not be 
 virtue to-morrow, that in the moral world two 
 and two would always make four ; if no man 
 could be certain that the retribution which waits 
 on treachery, baseness, and dishonour would not 
 
242 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 be adjudged the due recompense and reward of 
 self-sacrifice, loyalty, and goodness — this world 
 would be a Bedlam and all the men and women 
 worse than mad. The mind reels at the thought 
 of caprice enthroned above the world. And happy 
 is that man, too, who has come to see how these 
 slow processes of God, which once threatened to 
 make shipwreck of his faith, are most God-like 
 and beneficent ; who sees that God is working 
 everywhere, in the darkness, beyond the shadow, 
 keeping watch above His own. Yes, happy the 
 man who has closed his Byron and opened his 
 Goethe ! Happier he who has opened his John 
 and his Paul ; who feels that the kingdoms of this 
 world are become the kingdoms of our God and 
 of His Christ; and that the creation itself shall 
 be delivered from the bondage of corruption into 
 the liberty of the glory of the children of God! 
 And happiest of all, the man in whose heart abides 
 the Comforter whom God promised by His Son 
 Jesus to send, the man who still hears his Saviour 
 whisper, "" Come unto Me, all ye that labour and 
 are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " ! 
 
 So, then, the absurdity of the phrase notwith- 
 standing, a preacher may yet exhort you, for 
 your strength and comfort, " Accept the Uni- 
 verse! " 
 
 But now let us go back to the question, In 
 what manner shall we accept the universe.? 
 There are two ways. There is the way of strong, 
 stern, resigned submission. And there is the way 
 of radiant gladness, love, and rapture. 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE 243 
 
 Of the Stoic way, the way of proud submis- 
 sion, I am not likely to say one disrespectful 
 word. Nay, I admire it intensely. Professor 
 James has quoted some passages from Marcus 
 Aurelius, which everybody must feel are admir- 
 able. And he has set against them, in fine con- 
 trast, rapt utterances from " The Imitation of 
 Christ." But let me quote to you a favourite 
 passage of my own from another Pagan saint, 
 from Epictetus: 
 
 " My friends, wait upon God. When He Him- 
 self shall give you the signal and release you from 
 this service, then are ye released unto Him. But 
 for the present, bear to dwell in this place, wherein 
 He has set you. Short, indeed, is this time of 
 your sojourn, and easy to bear for those that 
 are so minded. For what tyrant or what thief 
 is there any longer, or what court of law is 
 terrible to one who thus makes nothing of the 
 body and the possessions of it? Remain, then, 
 and depart not without a reason. 
 
 " But for how long are such injunctions to be 
 obeyed.'' So long as it is profitable — that is to 
 say, so long as I can do what becomes and befits 
 me. . . . Doth it smoke in the chamber.? 
 if it is not very much I will stay, if too much I 
 will go out ; for remember this always, and hold 
 fast to it ; that the door is open. ' Thou shalt 
 not live in Nicopolls.' Good ; I will not. ' Nor 
 in Athens.' I will not live in Athens. ' Nor in 
 Rome.' Neither will I live in Rome. * Live in 
 Gyara.' But living in Gyara seemeth to me like 
 
244 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 a great smoke. I will depart, whither no man 
 shall hinder me to dwell — for that dwelling stands 
 ever open to all. 
 
 " Only do it not unreasonably, nor in cowardly 
 fashion, nor make every common chance an ex- 
 cuse. For again, it is not God's will, for He 
 hath need of such an order of things, and of 
 such a race upon the earth. But if He give the 
 signal for retreat, as He did to Socrates, we must 
 obey Him as our commander." 
 
 And one other, shorter passage from this Pagan 
 saint : 
 
 " Remember that thou art an actor in a play 
 of such a part as it may please the director to 
 assign thee ; of a short part if he choose a short 
 part; of a long one if he choose a long. And 
 if he will have thee take the part of a poor man, 
 or a cripple, or a governor, or a private person, 
 mayest thou act that part with grace ! For thine 
 it is to act well the allotted part, but to choose 
 it is another's." 
 
 Let us add to these quotations one from a 
 modern man who may not have been a Pagan, but 
 who certainly was not a saint: 
 
 Out of the night that covers me, 
 Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
 
 I thank whatever gods may be, 
 For my unconquerable soul. 
 
 In the fell clutch of circumstance 
 I have not winced nor cried aloud. 
 
 Under the bludgeoning of chance 
 My head is bloody, but unbowed. 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE 245 
 
 Beyond this place of wrath and tears 
 Looms but the Horror of the shade. 
 
 And yet the menace of the years 
 Finds and shall find me unafraid. 
 
 It matters not how strait the gate, 
 
 How charged with punishments the scroll, 
 
 I am the master of my fate: 
 I am the captain of my soul.* 
 
 Let me repeat that these utterances of Stoic 
 resignation are not to be contemned. They are 
 admirable — in default of something stronger still 
 and sweeter, diviner and still human. Compare 
 this beautiful utterance of a poor Methodist 
 woman in the eighteenth century: 
 
 " I do not know when I have had happier 
 times in my soul, than when I have been sitting 
 at work with nothing before me but a candle 
 and a white cloth, and hearing no sound but that 
 of my own breath, with God in my soul and 
 heaven in my eye. I rejoice in being exactly 
 what I am, — a creature capable of loving God, 
 and who, as long as God lives, must be very happy. 
 I get up and look for a while out of the window, 
 and gaze at the moon and stars, the work of an 
 Almighty hand. I think of the grandeur of the 
 universe, and then sit down and think myself one 
 of the happiest beings in it." 
 
 And this from a writer f whom few of you 
 know : 
 
 " What inexpressible joy for me, to look up 
 through the apple blossoms and the fluttering 
 leaves and to see God's love there; to listen to 
 * W. E. Henley. f Elizabeth Charles. 
 
246 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 the thrush that has built his nest among them, 
 and to feel God's love, who cares for the birds, 
 in every note that swells his little throat; to 
 look beyond to the bright, blue depths of the 
 sky, and feel they are a canopy of blessing — the 
 roof of the house of my Father; that if clouds 
 pass over it, it is the unchangeable light they 
 veil; that, even when the day itself passes, I shall 
 see that the night only unveils new worlds of 
 light, and to know that if I could unwrap fold 
 after fold of God's universe, I should only unfold 
 more and more blessing and see deeper and deeper 
 into the love which is at the heart of all." 
 
 And I need do no more than remind you of 
 some of the best known hymns in our language, 
 Frances Ridley Havergal's " Take my Life," let 
 us say, or Adelaide Ann Proctor's " Our God, 
 we thank Thee, who hast made the earth so 
 bright," with its verse which so few of us are able 
 to sing : 
 
 We thank Thee more that all our joy 
 
 Is touched with pain; 
 That shadows fall on brightest hours. 
 
 That thorns remain; 
 So that earth's bliss may be our guide, 
 • And not our chain. 
 
 In my college days these verses used to provoke 
 beyond measure the great man who presided over 
 our studies. He was never weary of flinging 
 scorn on them and of ridiculing the people who 
 " professed to be fond of them." In an expres- 
 sion which it is certain he would have denounced 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE 247 
 
 in the logic class as " a prejudice-raising phrase," 
 he used to warn us against the " exaggerated 
 sentimentality which a lot of silly women write." 
 These were limitations of his greatness ; and it 
 has needed deeper experience of life and actual 
 acquaintance with living saints to make plain to 
 me, at least, that this is real with the deepest 
 reality which our human nature can know, that 
 the bliss is real, the rapture real, that these are 
 not passing moods, but the settled, abiding joy 
 of exalted natures who have come to Him and 
 learned of Him, and found His yoke easy and 
 His burden light. 
 
 Let me ask you: Have we gained anything by 
 our coldly critical outlook upon the religion of 
 Jesus.'* It is ours to accept the universe, not 
 with the Stoic strength of Epictetus nor the half- 
 heroic, half brutal defiance of Henley, but with 
 the pure joy of the follower of Jesus. And if in 
 His Name and His Spirit we accept all, shall we 
 not accept it with whole-hearted, glad welcome, 
 that our joy may be full.? 
 
 Perhaps we can bring this consideration nearer 
 to the limits of the practical and unsentimental, 
 if we consider the acceptance of something a little 
 less than the universe. Let us consider each in- 
 dividual life, not In relation to the universe, but in 
 relation to the social organism. 
 
 There are four possible attitudes: Self-asser- 
 tion ; Submission ; Expediency ; Self-sacrifice. 
 
 We may maintain an attitude of Self-assertion. 
 This is conflict without glory. It is the brigand 
 
248 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 spirit of any age. Whether amongst the moun- 
 tain passes in the Middle Ages or on the Exchange 
 to-day, unmitigated self-assertion is brigandage. 
 Ruskin compares the Baron of the Crags with 
 the Baron of the Bags, very greatly to the dis- 
 advantage of our friend the Bag-baron. In the 
 
 old day 
 
 They carved at the meal 
 With gloves of steel, 
 And they drank the red wine thro' the helmet barred. 
 
 In our day 
 
 The good old rule 
 Sufficeth them, the simple plan. 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 
 And they should keep who can. 
 
 There seems no mete nor bound which can be set 
 to this incarnate egoism. And the end is always 
 the same : " For love of self, his very self he slew." 
 And the divine comment always is " Thou Fool ! " 
 At the antipodes of Self-assertion is Submis- 
 sion. And this is slavery. This is the account of 
 wrecked and broken lives which strew our path. 
 Here are the men who have " gone under." They 
 are objects of our pity, more than of our condem- 
 nation. They have submitted to circumstance, 
 birth, environment, defects of will and taints of 
 blood. They have submitted to the evil which first 
 woos, then threatens, then kills. And submitting, 
 when they should and could have conquered, they 
 have passed to a deeper slavery, of vice, of lust, 
 of sin, which seems to them in their degradation all 
 that remains. It is sorrow drowned to bring new 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE 249 
 
 sorrow. And the man who pities, loves, and fears, 
 yet refuses to despair, looks, longs, and prays 
 for the cleansing, saving fires of hell. 
 
 Between the extremes of Self-assertion and 
 Submission is another possibility. It is Expedi- 
 ency. And this is death. Never yet was ex- 
 pediency the rule of life for man or nation. 
 You cannot always know what is right. But 
 you can oftener discover what is right than you 
 can decide what is expedient. Life is played 
 upon by so many currents and cross-currents, that 
 it is impossible to calculate exactly the effect of 
 any line of policy. But while God is God it is 
 always right to do right. And there can be no 
 world, no star, no universe, where it is not best 
 to do right and leave the issue with God. Do 
 that which is not expedient, and " it will be all 
 the same a hundred years hence ! " But do that 
 which is not right, and eternity itself will be 
 needed to make the balance level. 
 
 The one possibility which remains is Self- 
 sacrifice. And this is life eternal. Life is con- 
 ceived of as a sacred trust, to be employed as 
 the great Giver directs. Such a conception 
 completes and sublimes all the noble thoughts 
 of the Pagan Saints. We are saved from self- 
 assertion, for there is no self left. All is God's. 
 Ambition, desire, will, we have offered to Him. 
 Brain that plans and ponders, heart that yearns 
 and aspires, time and all that we can crowd into 
 our days, wealth and all that we possess — they 
 are ours only on trust, to use them for His glory, 
 
250 THE COURAGE OF THE COWARD 
 
 and we worship God by serving man. We are 
 saved from submission to the lower impulses of 
 our own life and the lower temptings of fallen 
 men ; for life is too high, too holy, too great, and 
 solemn, and splendid to be spent on anything but 
 the things of God. And from the satanic sug- 
 gestions of expediency we turn with profound 
 disdain : 
 
 'Tis man's perdition to be safe. 
 When for the truth he ought to die! 
 
 Brother, take the yoke of Jesus! It is a 
 yoke, and you feel it so — at first. But it will 
 fit kindly to the part on which it presses — soon; 
 and His burden will be light. I think I know 
 what lies behind the invitation of the street- 
 preacher, " Come to Jesus ! Come to Him now ! " 
 You are not invited to the acceptance of state- 
 ments about Christ. You are not asked to give 
 an intellectual assent to certain propositions con- 
 cerning His nature. His work, or His kingdom. 
 The condition of modern saintship is that you shall 
 refer all the concerns of your life, the smallest, 
 the grandest, to the Lord Christ. As though He 
 were by your side, as though you could talk 
 with Him, as though you could see the smile 
 of His approval and hear the whisper of His 
 " Well done," as though you felt the touch of 
 His kind hand upon you when you shook with 
 pain or trembled with fear or sank beneath your 
 heavy load — felt His hand upon you and took 
 heart of hope again — so refer your life to Him, 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNIVERSE 251 
 
 talk to Him — with words or without — of your 
 troubles, your hopes, and your fears. Take His 
 yoke upon you and learn of Him, for He is meek 
 and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto 
 your souls. He is our Peace. And with Him 
 we overcome the world. It is a world of tumult 
 and tempest, of temptation and trial, of fightings 
 without and fears within, of conflict which no 
 mortal can escape. It is a world in which strong 
 men are beaten down and proud ones humbled, 
 where human hearts are crushed and love lies 
 bleeding, where Rachael mourns for her children 
 and will not be comforted, because they are not. 
 It is a world where God seems deaf to our crying 
 and blind to our needs ! Nay ; but it is a world 
 which God Himself has prepared for His children, 
 a world into which we are cast, as into an alembic, 
 to be cleansed, purified, saved by strife and suffer- 
 ing, by service and sacrifice; where God reigns in 
 love, controls, guides, brings order out of chaos, 
 light out of darkness, peace out of pain, and doeth 
 all things well. It is a world which fits us for 
 larger service with ampler powers in a grander 
 universe, and for diviner joys which our enfran- 
 chised souls shall share with those who walk with 
 God. Accept the universe ! Accept it as God's, 
 your Father's, and your own! Yours to enjoy 
 
 With a propriety which none can feel. 
 But who, with filial confidence inspired. 
 Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, 
 And smiling say, " My Father made it all I " 
 
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 New Revised Edition of 1907, Cloth, soc net. 
 
 "The late Prof. Max Muller pronounced Esperanto the 
 best of all attempts to create an international langxiage. It 
 has already gained considerable vogue, and is attracting 
 public attention in England as well as on the continent. 
 There are at least ten periodicals published — chiefly in France 
 — for the propagation of the new language."— C/tkraM Record- 
 Werald, 
 

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■"I'mi'Mf iM*"i°'°''"' Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 II 
 
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