Glass \-J 1 £ 
 Book. , \C fe^ -1 V 
 Copyright^? __ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
WITH OPEN MIND 
 
John Williams Bradshaw 
 
WITH OPEN MIND 
 
 JOHN WILLIAMS BRADSHAW 
 
 n 
 
 V 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 
 BOSTON .-: NEW YORK :: CHICAGO 
 
~~ *-) A i 4j '3 3 
 
 Copyright, 1914 
 
 by 
 
 The Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society 
 
 SEP' -2 1914 
 Joyw 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 BOSTON 
 
 ©CLA379349 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 I. Show Us the Father 1 
 
 II. The Mind of Christ 15 
 
 III. The Mind of Christ and the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures 31 
 
 IV. The Divineness of the Natural .... 49 
 V. The Divine Limitations 65 
 
 VI. The Divine Considerateness 81 
 
 VII. Light for the Righteous ...... 93 
 
 VIII. Earth Helped the Woman 109 
 
 IX. Fear Not 127 
 
 X. The Secret of Context 141 
 
 [v] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The sermons in this little book have been 
 selected from material which was left by Dr. 
 Bradshaw — with no thought of publication, or 
 even reading by anyone save himself. He was 
 so truly a prophet of God that many of his most 
 effective sermons, which quickened his hearers 
 and inspired their daily living, are not in form 
 for general use through the printed page. He 
 was no religious essayist, but a preacher of 
 truth, of convictions reached in the busy life of 
 the pastorate and the quiet, persistent, clear- 
 minded research of the study, their utterance 
 governed and shaped by his great sympathy for 
 human need. His private record of written and 
 extempore sermons gave clear evidence of the 
 wide range of his thought and his thorough- 
 going habits of study and work. The sermons 
 presented here are only suggestive of Dr. Brad- 
 shaw's frank and helpful preaching; the per- 
 manent and full record has been written in the 
 lives of those of us who called him Pastor and 
 Friend. 
 
 Dr. Bradshaw was born at Crown Point, N. 
 Y., July 7, 1849. He died of spinal sclerosis 
 at Peoria, 111., September 2, 1911. His college 
 preparation was made at Middlebury College, 
 
 [vii] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 from which he graduated in 1869, with scholar- 
 ship honors and election to Phi Beta Kappa. 
 For two years he was in the employ of the 
 United States Government at Washington, and 
 then pursued theological studies at Chicago 
 Seminary, where he received his degree in Di- 
 vinity, and later the honorary degree of Doctor 
 of Divinity. His pastorates were notable: at 
 Batavia, 111., for six years, at Rochester, Minn., 
 for six years; and then three remarkable col- 
 lege pastorates, at Galesburg, 111., for three 
 years ; at Ann Arbor, for twelve years ; and the 
 last ten years of his service, at Oberlin, Ohio, in 
 the historic First Church, as a worthy succes- 
 sor of Finney and Brand. 
 
 W. F. Bohn. 
 
 Oberlin, September, 1913, 
 
 [viii] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 John Williams Bkadshaw was a preaching 
 thinker who worked quietly at his high calling 
 for nearly forty years with a mind steadily 
 open to the Christian view of the world that is 
 slowly being shaped by the processes of scien- 
 tific investigation and reverent philosophical 
 reflection. He sought for no conspicuous rec- 
 ognition in the periodicals or organization of 
 the church. He rather went quietly on his way 
 thinking deeply and preaching simply — so 
 quietly and simply that not every one realized 
 the deep reaches of his thought. He made no 
 provision for literary recognition after he 
 should pass away; his parishioners who read 
 this volume will wonder why certain sermons 
 they have heard do not appear here. The rea- 
 son is that his greatest sermons were never 
 written out and exist only in outlines. Through 
 three of his pastorates, covering a period of 
 twenty-five years, he was subjected to the ex- 
 acting, stimulating demands of college commu- 
 nities — Galesburg, Ann Arbor, and Oberlin. 
 His native mental alertness of mind, sincerity 
 and sympathy had ample opportunity for ex- 
 ercise and development. 
 
 A strange feature of his successful career 
 
 [fat] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 was his fear that he had made a mistake in en- 
 tering the ministry. He perhaps felt that he 
 had been carried into it by the momentum of 
 his ancestry, for his father was a minister and 
 on his mother's side, in the Williams family, 
 there were eight successive generations of min- 
 isters before him. Three of these remained 
 each fifty years in his parish without change. 
 This haunting fear that he had perhaps made 
 a mistake in entering the ministry may have 
 been one element of his power because it kept 
 him from anything like ministerial profession- 
 alism in his thinking. He always came up to 
 great religious problems with the non-profes- 
 sional attitude of an outsider. One naturally 
 remembers him as a man rather than as a 
 minister. 
 
 His outstanding characteristics as a man 
 were his scientific spirit, his deep emotional 
 nature and his strong, respectful sympathy. 
 
 He was a man of scientific spirit. Happily 
 in our day this designation includes much that 
 would have once been expressed only by the 
 word ' * Christian, ' ' and because of such men as 
 Dr. Bradshaw the word Christian now connotes 
 some things that would have been once ex- 
 pressed only by the word " scientific. ' 9 The 
 first or second time I ever heard him speak he 
 was addressing several hundred college stu- 
 dents in the evening "Life Work Meeting" 
 under the oaks on the shore of Lake Geneva, 
 and was speaking to them of the trend toward 
 a recognition of the spiritual that was evident 
 
 M 
 
Introduction 
 
 in physical research. The illustrations in his 
 sermons were often drawn from the field of 
 the natural sciences and especially from the 
 department of physics. 
 
 He possessed the scientist's readiness to 
 do the incidental drudgery of his profession. 
 He was always ready to attend the necessary 
 ecclesiastical meetings of his denomination. 
 He appeared promptly at the beginning, 
 stayed to the end, and performed any com- 
 mittee work assigned to him with a thor- 
 oughness not always found in men possessing 
 in so marked a degree gifts usually thought to 
 render their possessor superior to such work. 
 
 His scientific spirit appeared in his ability 
 to recognize and carefully estimate evidence. 
 The minister, unlike the lawyer, seldom finds 
 his public utterances challenged on the spot 
 by an alert opponent, and in consequence he 
 sometimes becomes slovenly in his use of evi- 
 dence. Dr. Bradshaw was always his own in- 
 tellectual antagonist. He weighed evidence with 
 the same exact scrutiny that is demanded in a 
 physical laboratory. 
 
 His scientific spirit revealed itself still more 
 fundamentally in the activity of his outreaching 
 mind that went searching for facts in every 
 quarter. He had what Dr. Doremus Scudder 
 calls "the passion for reality. " A sense of the 
 divinity of facts constrained his whole nature. 
 Professor Huxley's often quoted statement 
 might have been made by him : l ' Science seems 
 to me to teach in the highest and strongest man- 
 
 [xi] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 ner the great truth which is embodied in the 
 Christian conception of entire surrender to the 
 will of God. Sit down before fact as a little 
 child, be prepared to give up every preconceived 
 notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever 
 abysses nature leads, or you shall learn noth- 
 ing. I have only begun to learn content and 
 peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks 
 to do this." It was because of this spirit that, 
 although his theological training ante-dated 
 the period in which many present day theolog- 
 ical problems first appeared in this country, he 
 kept steadily abreast of modern thought. His 
 mind was always on the lookout to see and rec- 
 ognize truth in whatever quarter it might make 
 its appearance. 
 
 In combination with the keen intellectualism 
 of his scientific spirit, Dr. Bradshaw possessed 
 a deep emotional nature. He reached out after 
 God with his heart as well as after truth with 
 his intellect. If he had been less exacting and 
 profound in his thinking, or had taken truth 
 less seriously to heart, he would have suffered 
 less than he did. He felt keenly at times the 
 heavy burden of the mystery of being. 
 
 He was furthermore a man of strong, quick 
 sympathy. It was always a gentleman's sym- 
 pathy, a thoroughly respectful sympathy that 
 came in abundance from the depths of a fine- 
 grained nature. Every true pastor must of 
 necessity experience a development of the ca- 
 pacity for sympathy, but a peculiar draft was 
 made upon the sympathetic nature of Dr. 
 
 [xii] 
 
Introduction 
 
 Bradshaw because of the fact that so many 
 years of his life were spent in college com- 
 munities. Those who have inner contact with 
 college life know that college students do not 
 generally find it the jolly, care-free period it 
 is sometimes supposed to be. It has its serious 
 and occasionally even its tragic side for it is 
 a period when perplexing problems are faced 
 and decisions of fundamental importance are 
 made. It is generally the period in which a 
 man settles upon his life work, transforms in- 
 herited religious opinions into personal con- 
 victions, and perhaps fights a fierce battle with 
 temptation. Dr. Bradshaw 's habits of thought 
 and own personal religious experience fitted 
 him to sympathize sincerely with those who 
 were passing through this period of storm and 
 stress. Horace Eose, who during his short 
 life gave inspiration to thousands of North 
 American college students, once told me that 
 when he was Secretary of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association in Ann Arbor and some- 
 times had occasion to climb to the attic room 
 of some student failing in his work, defeated in 
 his battle with evil habit or with poverty, he 
 more than once found Dr. Bradshaw by the 
 boy's side bringing him good cheer and bearing 
 his burden with him. His own consuming con- 
 science, combined rather strangely with a spirit 
 of buoyant good cheer, made him a saving 
 power to many a student in desperate spiritual 
 need. 
 
 The characteristics of Dr. Bradshaw 's 
 [xiii] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 preaching grew out of his characteristics as a 
 man. His preaching had the elements of great- 
 ness in it without the impressive appearance of 
 greatness at the moment. 
 
 It was great in its simplicity, in the uncon- 
 scious, matter-of-fact way in which great ideas 
 w T ere presented. They had been wrought out in 
 the struggle of his own soul and were brought 
 to others with the simple enthusiasm and 
 conviction of personal discovery. When clear 
 conviction was, in the nature of the case, 
 not possible his preaching was great in the 
 honesty with which he recognized difficulties, 
 grappled with them and welcomed a reason- 
 able probability. 
 
 His preaching was great in the reach of its 
 thought. It rested on a philosophical founda- 
 tion. His sermons were not miscellaneous but 
 had great connecting basic ideas running 
 through them. He was quick to see and dis- 
 cuss all the practical phases of social, indus- 
 trial, and political life both in the local com- 
 munity and in the nation, but he always saw 
 them in the light of great principles. He had 
 a well-thought-out philosophy of life. 
 
 His preaching was great in its constructive 
 influence. He knew how to seize upon the con- 
 structive and not the destructive aspects of 
 new ideas that were in process of displacing 
 older views. His two sermons in this volume 
 on "The Mind of Christ,' > and "The Mind of 
 Christ and the Old Testament Scriptures' ' il- 
 lustrate this. He had passed through such 
 
 [xiv] 
 
Introduction 
 
 struggles to win his own faith and had such 
 strong human sympathy that he could never 
 preach with any other purpose than to build 
 up faith — but it had to be an honest faith. 
 
 It was always his personality that gave 
 power to his preaching and at the last G-od 
 used his personality in a way that no one had 
 anticipated to strengthen the faith of those to 
 whom he ministered. He finally passed over 
 the verge of nervous prostration which had 
 more than once appeared threateningly before 
 him. He sank into settled melancholia, and 
 after two years of wasting illness death re- 
 leased his tortured spirit. 
 
 The unconscious message of his life was con- 
 structive to the end because the lesson of these 
 last two years was a most effective witness to 
 immortality. It is simply impossible to sup- 
 pose that such a life as he had lived could end 
 forever in the misapprehensions that darkened 
 his last months. If such a life could end forever 
 in black despair we should be reduced to per- 
 manent intellectual and moral confusion. It 
 must be that his clouded spirit came again to 
 its proper self in the clear, quiet glory of God. 
 He must have gone out to view the mystery of 
 being from a point of greater vantage — the 
 mystery of being with its deep undercurrents 
 of feeling that flow through the individual and 
 relate him to universal being, the mystery of 
 being with its high purposes that struggle to 
 keep a straight course in the life of the individ- 
 
 [xv] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 ual and bear him nearer to the heart at the 
 center of the universe. 
 
 He has heard in clearer tones the great 
 answer of Jesus Christ to the heart's long cry 
 for God of which he speaks in the sermon on 
 "Show Us the Father": "As each generation 
 passes from the bright cloudless morning of 
 youth to the burden and heat of the day and 
 so on to the lengthening shadows, the cry of 
 its heart, growing deeper and ever deeper, is 
 the appeal of the desponding Philip, 'Lord, 
 show us the Father.' Oh! to know the real 
 heart of that inscrutable One, from whom we 
 come, to whom we hasten. To that cry it 
 is that Jesus gives answer: 'He that hath 
 seen me hath seen the Father. From hence- 
 forth ye know him and have seen him. ' ' ' 
 
 EDWAKD I. BOSWOETH. 
 
 [xvi] 
 
CHAPTER I 
 SHOW US THE FATHER 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 Show Us the Father 
 
 John 14: 8, 9a and 7b — Philip saith unto him, Lord, show 
 us the Father and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, 
 Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not Tcnow 
 me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. 
 From henceforth ye Tcnow him and have seen him. 
 
 T> ECAUSE nineteen hundred years ago, of a 
 -*-* humble mother in an obscure village of an 
 insignificant province, a little babe was born, the 
 great modern world with its multitudinous peo- 
 ples, its vast and complicated interests, com- 
 mercial, social, political, during one week in the 
 year pauses for an instant in its whirlwind 
 rush; listens for a moment for the voice at its 
 heart; and as it surges forward again in its 
 onward sweep, it is with an added light upon 
 its face, an added tenderness in its spirit. 
 
 The question of greater importance to each 
 human heart and to the world than all others, 
 the question which gathers up into itself all 
 welfare and all hope, is the question, "What is 
 the nature of that Ultimate Eeality upon which 
 our being depends : whom for want of a better 
 name we call God?" 
 
 An illumining truth, with far-reaching im- 
 plications, which we are coming to apprehend 
 in these recent days, is that the Incarnation of 
 
 [3] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 God is not a solitary, unique event in the his- 
 tory of the ages. Bather that incarnation is 
 the order of the universe. From the deistic 
 conception of God apart from his world, view- 
 ing it from afar, controlling it by irruption 
 from without so far as he controls it at all, the 
 thought of our time is turning to the concep- 
 tion of the indwelling God; God within his 
 world; himself at the heart of the universe; 
 himself the fountain of that resident energy 
 which, finding outlet in the various forms of 
 force, effects and constitutes the ongoing of the 
 world. 
 
 From the beginning, the heavens have been 
 declaring the glory of God and the firmament 
 showing his handiwork. Day after day utters 
 speech; night after night proclaims knowledge 
 of God. To the one who has eyes to perceive, 
 the glory of each dawn, the splendor of each 
 evening sky is a fresh, new word from the Eter- 
 nal Living One who inhabits all things. Since 
 the creation of the world, the invisible things 
 of him are clearly seen, being perceived 
 through the things that are made. Incarnation 
 for revelation, indwelling in his universe for 
 the purpose of expressing himself through it, 
 this has been the procedure of the Eternal Mind 
 from the beginning. And from the beginning, 
 also, the revelation of God in attributes and 
 character has been as fast and as full as the 
 medium through which the revelation was made 
 rendered practicable. 
 
 In and through the earth, formless and void, 
 [*] 
 
Show Us the Father 
 
 chaotic, only the most limited and defective dis- 
 closure of the characteristics of personality was 
 possible. But from that time forward the story 
 of the universe has been this: the evolving of 
 higher and higher media of self -revelation 
 through the indwelling energy of God ; and the 
 more and more complete revelation of God as 
 the media available made self-disclosure pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Through matter in its primary form, res- 
 ponding only to the operation of gravity and 
 the molecular forces, the expression of the 
 Eternal Mind was of necessity limited and de- 
 fective. With the advent of crystallization 
 there appears the hint of plan and a planner. 
 In the appearance of life in its ascending 
 stages, purpose far-reaching and glorious finds 
 its voice. But it is only through, as well as to 
 persons that personality can make declaration 
 of itself. The spirit of man is the candle of 
 the Lord. 
 
 It is through man alone, made in the image 
 of his Creator, that the character of the Eter- 
 nal One may hope for anything like adequate 
 expression. In man a voice speaks, not him- 
 self. As man heeds that voice, permits it to 
 guide him, he himself becomes a revelation, a 
 reflection of him whose voice it is. 
 
 The purpose for man from the outset was 
 that he should be the incarnate expression of 
 deity. But for sin this purpose would have 
 been realized. As man is docile, obedient to the 
 heavenly voice, the revelation of the Holy One 
 
 [5] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 to him and through him becomes clearer, more 
 complete. As he rejects the voice within, be- 
 comes stubborn, intractable, the voice is si- 
 lenced, the mind is darkened, the revelation in 
 character is hindered. We speak, and rightly, 
 of the prophets as inspired; holy men, moved 
 of the Holy Spirit. Not always sufficiently 
 considered, perhaps, is the fact that it was what 
 they were, their spirit and life, which consti- 
 tuted God's chief revelation of himself to the 
 men of their day. In Hosea, and Jeremiah, and 
 Ezekiel and Daniel themselves, in the character 
 which they exhibited under the stress of life 
 it was that God made most ample disclosure of 
 himself, rather than in the words they spoke 
 or wrote. 
 
 To those who know him, no man can say 
 more than he is. It is from the man himself 
 that his word takes significance. Character, 
 not speech, is the highest form of revelation. 
 It is not even the teaching of Jesus, but Jesus 
 himself, who is the effulgence of the Father's 
 glory, the very impress of his substance. Fore- 
 runners of the Christ these great prophets 
 were ; not only as foretelling the coming of the 
 perfect revelation, but as themselves anticipat- 
 ing that disclosure, even though inadequately; 
 in their imperfect measure illustrating that in- 
 carnation — God revealing himself in a human 
 life — whose completeness was to be. 
 
 And yet it was but an imperfect, inadequate 
 expression of the divine character, which the 
 life even of these best men made possible. 
 
 [6] 
 
Show Us the Father 
 
 That they, like others, still suffered from the 
 marring, limiting effects of sin, none appre- 
 ciated more deeply than themselves. From the 
 mirror of their personality but a distorted re- 
 flection of the face of God was possible. Not 
 till the sinless should appear in human history 
 could the age-long process culminate, and the 
 incarnation of God for the revelation of him- 
 self attain its perfection. 
 
 And when the fulness of time had come, God 
 sent forth his Son, born of a woman. And this 
 it was which woke in the heart of the angels the 
 song which sounded above the hills of Bethle- 
 hem; that now at last in human history had 
 one appeared, susceptible of perfectly receiv- 
 ing the divine impress and of reflecting God to 
 the world. This it is which is signified by the 
 virgin birth. A personality in whom the Spirit 
 of the Eternal may have unrestricted habita- 
 tion. A true Son, in whom there may be per- 
 fect reproduction of the Father's character. No 
 man hath seen God at any time. The only be- 
 gotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, 
 he hath interpreted him; hath imaged him 
 forth. Men need no longer walk in darkness as 
 to the character of the Creator. In Jesus is the 
 light of life. 
 
 "I am in the Father and the Father in me," 
 so he declared. "The words that I say unto 
 you I speak not from myself: but the Father 
 abiding in me doeth his works. Believe me that 
 I am in the Father and the Father in me. He 
 that hath seen me hath seen the Father. From 
 
 [7] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 henceforth ye know him and have seen him." 
 And so lift up thy voice in song, 0! heart of 
 man. With glad, exultant soul echo back those 
 strains of heavenly gladness. The dark cloud 
 is shot through with light; the inscrutable, 
 heart-torturing mystery has so much as this, at 
 least, of solution, that back of it all is One, the 
 light of the knowledge of whose glory is re- 
 flected to us in the face of Jesus Christ. 
 
 "So, through the thunder comes a human voice 
 Saying, 'O heart I made, a heart beats here! ' 
 * # * * 
 
 ''Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, 
 
 But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 
 
 And thou must love me who have died for thee! 
 
 " O Saul! it shall be 
 
 A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me 
 Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever; a Hand like this 
 
 hand 
 Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the 
 
 Christ stand \" 
 
 This is the great truth of the Christmas-tide, 
 forever new, soul-kindling. In Jesus, God 
 shows his heart to us. 
 
 Hear a parable. To the dwellers in a dark, 
 shadowy subterranean cavern, with no access 
 to the light of day, there was sent at last a mir- 
 ror, which, stationed at the entrance to their 
 abode and reflecting the beams of the sun, 
 flooded their gloomy dwelling with radiance. 
 And when the first astonishment of these tro- 
 glodytes had passed, instead of using the light 
 for their guidance and rejoicing in its beauty, 
 they fell to discussing, and at last to wrangling 
 over the constitution of the mirror, and the 
 
 [8] 
 
Show Us the Father 
 
 question whether it was or was not of the same 
 essence as the light which it reflected. 
 
 In the thought of the Christian world con- 
 cerning the saying of Jesus, "He that hath 
 seen me hath seen the Father, ' ' there has often 
 been sad confusion of subject and predicate, 
 with melancholy consequences resulting there- 
 from. The utterance has been treated as if it 
 were an assertion concerning Jesus; when in 
 truth it is a teaching concerning God. 
 
 It was in answer to the appeal, "Lord, show 
 us the Father," that the words were spoken; 
 and what they affirm is not something about 
 Jesus but something about the Being whom we 
 call God. 
 
 The problem of the person of Jesus is indeed 
 one of profoundest import, the theme of most 
 reverent study for the greatest minds. But 
 the great first thing which men need to know 
 is not what Jesus is in his essential being ; but 
 what that tremendous energy, which holds us in 
 its grasp, which ushers us into life, which car- 
 ries us irresistibly hither and thither through 
 life, and which at length hurries us out of life, 
 is in its character. The power behind, under- 
 neath my being, what is it? is He? This is 
 what Jesus came to make known, what in his 
 life he revealed. Except as related to this, the 
 essential being of Jesus is for us of no possible 
 significance. What Jesus was in spirit, charac- 
 ter, life among men, that essentially God for- 
 ever is in his heart toward us, his children. 
 
 The deepest reality of human experience is 
 
 [9] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 the sense of need ; need great, varied, insatiable. 
 The need of that which ministers to the body : 
 food, raiment, healing. The need of that which 
 ministers to the mind : truth, illumination. The 
 need of that which ministers to the spirit : par- 
 don, victory, comfort, hope. 
 
 First of all, to this great need of his own day, 
 Jesus came, the incarnation of compassion and 
 of ministration. He was moved with compas- 
 sion toward the hungering multitudes, and fed 
 them. He was moved with compassion toward 
 the leper, diseased and outcast; and he put 
 forth his hand, touched him and made him 
 clean. He was moved with compassion toward 
 the blind men and gave them sight. He had 
 compassion on the people fainting, scattered 
 abroad as sheep without a shepherd, needing 
 and destitute of guidance, and he taught them 
 many things. He was moved with compassion 
 on the poor widow of Nain, and by his death- 
 conquering touch he restored to her her only 
 son, the sole stay of her declining years. 
 
 To the sin-stained and self -condemned Jesus 
 was the incarnation of forgiveness and saving 
 power. The sick of the palsy found new life in 
 the words, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." 
 The woman who had been a sinner, as she 
 bathed his feet with her tears and wiped them 
 with the hairs of her head, heard from his lips 
 the comforting assurance, "Daughter, thy sins 
 be forgiven. Go in peace. ' J To the woman left 
 alone by her conscience-smitten accusers, yet 
 awaiting the stern voice of judgment, there 
 
 [10] 
 
Show Us the Father 
 
 came that word so unexpected, "Neither do I 
 condemn thee. Go, sin no more. ' ' In the heart 
 of the penitent publican a new life sprang up 
 as there fell upon his ears the declaration, "To- 
 day is salvation come to this house; foras- 
 much as he also is a son of Abraham.' ' The 
 fatherly compassion and forgiveness which 
 Jesus could not illustrate ; since no son was his 
 to wander into the far country and to turn 
 again penitent to the forsaken home, he em- 
 bodied in that story of the prodigal boy, the 
 pearl of the parables. 
 
 Yet again to the grief-stricken, despairing 
 heart of the world Jesus was the incarnation of 
 consolation and sustainment. In him the weary 
 and heavy-laden found rest unto their souls, the 
 great sorrow of the world found sympathy and 
 hope. He entered the home of Jairus where the 
 little maid lay dead, and lamentation was 
 turned into rejoicing. He touched the bier at 
 the city gates, and the heart-broken mother 
 lived again. To the stricken household at Beth- 
 any he brought the sustainment of his own 
 divine sympathy, and at his word the great 
 bereavement gave place to the joy inexpressible, 
 as from the sepulcher Lazarus came forth alive 
 once more. And over all this which Jesus was 
 in those "years which breathed beneath the Sy- 
 rian blue" is written, "He that hath seen me 
 hath seen the Father. ' J 
 
 Above the measureless need of the world 
 broods the infinite compassion of the heart of 
 the Eternal. To him he bids it to look that it 
 
 [11] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 may be satisfied. As under the touch of Jesus 
 the five loaves and two fishes were sufficient to 
 satisfy the hunger of the thousands, so the 
 meager, barren commonplace of life as it seems 
 to us, under the blessing of the divine Sustainer 
 becomes transformed into the true food of our 
 being, suited to the development, adequate to 
 the satisfaction of the fathomless spirit of man. 
 In the words of Jesus it is the voice of God that 
 speaks, "He that cometh to me shall never hun- 
 ger, and he that believeth on pie shall never 
 thirst.' ' 
 
 Close to all the sinfulness, the self-condemna- 
 tion and the moral helplessness of the world 
 presses the All-merciful, with his heart of in- 
 finite pity and forgiving grace ; with the cleans- 
 ing, restoring, victory-giving aid of his all- 
 conquering Spirit. In the perpetual self-sacri- 
 fice of the ever-living, ever-loving One, the sin 
 of the world has its expiation. In the mighty 
 restoring energy of the redeeming God is help 
 for the most helpless to gain the victory over 
 evil, and to attain to the measure of the stature 
 of the fulness of Christ. 
 
 Within the embrace of fathomless love all the 
 sorrows of the world are enfolded. Under the 
 germinating life-giving warmth of that love, 
 the sharpest sorrows of those who will entrust 
 themselves to it are metamorphosed into the 
 germs of everlasting joy, and what we call 
 death becomes the gateway of endless abound- 
 ing life. Over the black night of the world's 
 bereavement there broods divine sympathy, 
 
 [12] 
 
Show Us the Father 
 
 and a love, which is both love and power, shall 
 bring that night to an end in the dawn of the 
 day which knows no sunset. 
 
 As each generation passes from the bright 
 cloudless morning of youth to the burden and 
 heat of the day and so on to the lengthening 
 shadows, the cry of its heart, growing deeper 
 and ever deeper, is the appeal of the desponding 
 Philip, "Lord, show us the Father.' ' Oh! to 
 know the real heart of that inscrutable One, 
 from whom we come, to whom we hasten. To 
 that cry it is that Jesus gives answer : "He that 
 hath seen me hath seen the Father. From 
 henceforth ye know him and have seen him. ' ' 
 
 "I say to thee, do thou repeat 
 
 To the first man thou mayest meet 
 
 In lane, highway, or open street: 
 
 That he and we and all men move 
 
 Under a canopy of love 
 
 As broad as the blue vault above : 
 
 That doubt and trouble, fear and pain 
 And anguish, all are shadows vain, 
 That death itself shall not remain: 
 
 That weary deserts we may tread 
 A dreary labyrinth may thread, 
 Through dark ways underground be led; 
 
 Yet if we will our Guide obey, 
 The dreariest path, the darkest way 
 Shall issue out in heavenly day, 
 
 And we, on divers shores now cast, 
 Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, 
 All in our Father's house at last." 
 
 [13] 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 THE MIND OF CHEIST 
 
A 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Mind of Christ 
 
 I Corinthians, 2: 16 — We have the mind of Christ. 
 
 MOST significant affirmation. Paul is 
 speaking of ability to perceive spiritual 
 things; the things which pertain to God. The 
 merely intellectual man, he declares, cannot 
 understand spiritual things; because they are 
 understood through spiritual insight. The man 
 with spiritual insight perceives spiritual things 
 and is able to judge concerning them. 
 
 Supreme among seers of things spiritual — 
 the things pertaining to God — stands Jesus. 
 4 'The mind of Christ" to which Paul refers is 
 that perception of things as they are which 
 Jesus possessed, in the exercise of which he was 
 able to apprehend for himself, and to interpret 
 to us, the things of God. 
 
 The mind of Christ, then, is the supreme dis- 
 coverer and revealer of what is actual in the 
 realm of the spirit. All other seers of things 
 spiritual have perceived obscurely, partially, 
 in the dimness of twilight. Jesus saw clearly, 
 proportionately, as in the light of noon. The 
 mind of Christ, therefore, becomes the standard 
 of reality, by reference to which the conceptions 
 
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With Open Mind 
 
 and interpretations of all other persons are to 
 be estimated, their accuracy and value deter- 
 mined. 
 
 Jesus saw things as they are. In so far as 
 the reports of other men concerning things 
 spiritual coincide with his, they are to be ac- 
 cepted. In so far as they differ from his, they 
 are to be revised so as to accord with his. In 
 the case of any question concerning things ethi- 
 cal and spiritual the inquiry to be raised is 
 1 i How did it or would it look to Jesus V 9 " How 
 would he judge of it?" If we can obtain an- 
 swer to that question, we have reached a final 
 conclusion. 
 
 This is the assumption of St. Paul; it is the 
 essentially Christian assumption : that Jesus is 
 indeed the light of the world ; that he saw things 
 spiritual as they really are ; and that his utter- 
 ance concerning them may confidently be ac- 
 cepted as the final authority. 
 
 It was the mind of Christ which gave us those 
 great fundamental conceptions which underlie 
 the Christian idea of the universe. The uni- 
 versal fatherhood of God in all its scope and 
 ^blessed meaning ; the divine worth of man, his 
 relations to God and the universe ; and the in- 
 conceivably glorious capabilities with which he 
 is endowed ; the true law of conduct, fulfilled in 
 love to God and one another; these things the 
 mind of Christ first clearly perceived, he 
 grasped them for himself, and then he gave his 
 conceptions to the world. 
 
 The claim of Jesus himself to perfect and ac- 
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The Mind of Christ 
 
 curate perception in these things of the spirit, 
 and to final authority in his utterances con- 
 cerning them — the authority of one who sees — 
 is clear and explicit. He is sure that he is right 
 in his conception of God, as no one before him 
 had been. He says, "No man knoweth the 
 Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son 
 shall reveal him." At a later day, in prayer, 
 he says, "I have manifested thy name (thy 
 character) unto the men whom thou gavest me 
 out of the world.' ' 
 
 The author of the Fourth Gospel makes 
 similar claim for the final authority of the mind 
 of Christ, when he writes, "No man hath seen 
 God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which 
 is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared 
 (hath interpreted) him." 
 
 And this claim of finality for the mind of 
 Christ the experience and insight of nineteen 
 centuries has vindicated. Nothing has come to 
 light which discredits the supremacy of Jesus 
 in the realm of spiritual insight. Widely as 
 men may differ in their opinions as to his per- 
 son, they are agreed in this, that in his concep- 
 tions of things spiritual he is the leader of the 
 ages. Higher has the human thought not yet 
 reached. 
 
 The keener the discernment, the more pro- 
 found the spiritual insight of men, the more un- 
 hesitating have they been in their assent to 
 the correctness of his perception. They are 
 the most ready to concede his leadership in the 
 realm of spiritual discernment. Through the 
 
 [19] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 mind of Christ and its disclosures, the mar- 
 vellous ethical and spiritual advance of the 
 Christian generations has been made, and after 
 nineteen centuries the world still follows him 
 from afar. 
 
 Every new apprehension of things spirit- 
 ual, each step toward a more adequate under- 
 standing of the teachings of Jesus, but serves 
 to make more manifest how far in advance of 
 all other men of spiritual insight he was and is. 
 
 In this mind of Christ, his clear perception 
 of spiritual things, is the warrant for that note 
 of assurance — of authority — with which Jesus 
 spoke. He declares, "We speak the things 
 which we do know, and testify to that which we 
 have seen." "I speak the things which I have 
 seen with my Father." 
 
 In the exercise of that authority, Jesus did 
 not hesitate to set aside the time-honored tra- 
 ditions of his people, and to reject as of no 
 warrant usages which were regarded as sacred. 
 Established Sabbath regulations, rules and cus- 
 toms concerning fasting, he ignored in practice 
 and condemned in principle. He assumed the 
 prerogative to pass judgment upon the pro- 
 visions of the older law, pronouncing some of 
 them obsolete and others unsound in root idea. 
 The whole body of Levitical regulations con- 
 cerning things clean and unclean he set aside as 
 of no binding force, and rejected the entire 
 theory of ceremonial defilement. He pro- 
 nounced the Mosaic law of divorce inconsistent 
 with the mind of God concerning the family. 
 
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The Mind of Christ 
 
 His oft-repeated form of expression was, Ye 
 have heard that it was said to them of old time, 
 so and so : but I say unto you something quite 
 different. These provisions of the past are in 
 accord with what men saw in the twilight glim- 
 merings of early dawn. But now the sun is up. 
 These crudities must give way to clearer con- 
 ceptions: to precepts and principles in closer 
 accord with reality. 
 
 No less positive and plain is the claim which 
 the Apostle Paul makes for the supremacy of 
 the mind of Christ. By reference to the con- 
 sciousness of Jesus the permanent worth of in- 
 stitutions, the validity of utterances out of the 
 past is to be determined. It is the final stand- 
 ard. Whatever is inconsistent with it is to be 
 laid aside, however venerable, however highly 
 esteemed. This principle of the supremacy of 
 the mind of Jesus, Paul himself had accepted 
 when he abandoned the whole Jewish system 
 as a thing temporary and outworn. The strug- 
 gle through which he passed, which reached its 
 decision on the Damascus road, was precisely 
 at this point. Should he accept the mind of 
 Christ as to God, his Messiah, the Jewish peo- 
 ple and law, and God's purpose with reference 
 to them, or should he stand by the faith of his 
 fathers concerning these things? In coming to 
 the discipleship of Jesus, Paul accepted for 
 himself the mind of Christ as the final author- 
 ity concerning the entire spiritual and religious 
 realm. He recognized in that mind the stand- 
 ard to which all things are to be brought for 
 
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With Open Mind 
 
 measurement: customs and institutions, hea- 
 then or Hebrew, law and literature, Jewish or 
 Gentile. With full consciousness of what he 
 was doing he fully accepted the superseding of 
 all such teachings or institutions of the older 
 faith as were inconsistent with the mind of 
 Christ. 
 
 Note now the affirmation of Paul to the Co- 
 rinthian disciples — That mind of Christ we 
 have. In the possession of it we are able to dis- 
 cern and to pass judgment upon things which 
 pertain to the spiritual life. "But he that is 
 spiritual discerneth ( judgeth) all things ; for we 
 have the mind of Christ." 
 
 First, in the teachings of Jesus we have his 
 mind disclosed. In those conceptions of God, 
 his character and purposes ; of man, his possi- 
 bilities and destiny; which came to light 
 through the words of Christ, we are in posses- 
 sion of his mind, his thought, concerning these 
 things. But furthermore, the truth which Paul 
 is emphasizing in the connection in which the 
 text occurs is that, as we become true followers 
 of Jesus, as we let him rule in our lives and 
 open ourselves to the leadings of his spirit, we 
 ourselves come to possess his mind, his power 
 of perceiving and judging of spiritual things. 
 We see as he saw. We come around to his point 
 of view. We are able to look through his eyes, 
 and so we share his ability to discern the truth, 
 and to estimate the value of conceptions offered 
 for our acceptance, of courses we are asked to 
 pursue. 
 
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The Mind of Christ 
 
 A very wonderful endowment this is that the 
 apostle claims for all true disciples of Jesus. 
 By reason of its possession we do not need to 
 refer things ethical, whether courses to be pur- 
 sued or conceptions to be entertained, to any 
 external rule or law, in order to determine their 
 moral and spiritual value. Letting the Spirit 
 of God lead us, we have within ourselves a 
 standard to which all things may be referred 
 for estimation. We have a discerning mind, 
 the mind of Christ ; and in its decisions we may 
 confidently rest. What a sense of freedom the 
 grasp of this truth gives us. The freedom Paul 
 has in mind when he says, " Where the Spirit 
 of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
 
 Now no great truth is without its implica- 
 tions. No great gift from God is without its 
 use. What is implied in the possession by us 
 of this endowment: "the mind of Christ"? 
 What is the use to which this gift is to be ap- 
 plied? For answer we are to look to the use 
 which Jesus himself made of this mind of his, 
 this perception of spiritual values which he pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 First of all in the vision of God it gave him, 
 he found life and gladness and liberty ; the in- 
 spiration to the life which he lived. Further- 
 more, in the exercise of the mind of Christ, he 
 estimated the past, the religious past of his 
 people. He passed judgment upon its concep- 
 tions, its writings, its institutions. Some he 
 confirmed ; others he superseded. Some he pro- 
 nounced partial; others he regarded as sub- 
 
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With Open Mind 
 
 stantially complete; some temporary, others 
 permanent; some crude, immature; others of 
 enduring worth. In some he saw true glimpses 
 of God, his Father; in others unworthy, un- 
 illuminated conceptions of the Father of Lights. 
 
 In the exercise of that same mind of Christ, 
 the Apostle Paul pursued precisely the same 
 course. That long struggle with Judaism in the 
 Christian church, which contributes the tragic 
 element to his career, the echoes of which may 
 be heard throughout his letters to the Galatian 
 and Corinthian Christians, was precisely at this 
 point. Shall the mind of Christ be final — its 
 deliverances accepted — with the abandonment 
 of whatever is inconsistent with this mind, in 
 the ancient institutions, writings or anywhere 
 else! To this question the life and conflicts of 
 the great apostle constituted one ringing affir- 
 mative. That is the significance of the third 
 chapter of Second Corinthians. The Old Cove- 
 nant with its appurtenances was glorious; but 
 it was primitive, partial, defective, inadequate, 
 and therefore transient — to pass away; its 
 greatest glory attained in its giving place to 
 that new life with God to which Jesus, through 
 the mind of Christ, had introduced his disciples. 
 
 Here, then, we have answer to our question 
 "to what use shall the mind of Christ which we 
 possess be applied ?" To the same use which 
 was made of it by Christ and his great apostle. 
 In the exercise of it we are to estimate what- 
 ever pertains to things ethical and spiritual, 
 whether handed down from the past, emerging 
 
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The Mind of Christ 
 
 now for the first time for judgment, or to come 
 to light in the future. 
 
 The mind of Christ is ours ; a precious treas- 
 ure, the guaranty of glorious liberty ; but also a 
 sacred trust to be faithfully, fearlessly em- 
 ployed to the glory of God and in the service of 
 man. 
 
 Looking back over the history of the church, 
 it becomes manifest that the disciples of Jesus 
 Christ have not always appreciated their high 
 privilege and responsibility. They have failed 
 fully to claim and to exercise that rich preroga- 
 tive which was purchased for them even at the 
 cost of the life of their Lord. Abstractly, theo- 
 retically, the church has asserted its possession 
 of the mind of Christ, with the authority per- 
 taining to it. But the practice of Christian peo- 
 ple has too often been inconsistent with this. 
 
 Repeatedly, one might almost say habitually, 
 the followers of Jesus have sacrificed the mind 
 of Christ to conceptions wholly inconsistent 
 with that mind, because they have chanced to 
 find these conceptions embodied in the ancient 
 writings of the Hebrew people. There are 
 lurking in the minds of Christian people all 
 over the world today dishonorable thoughts of 
 God, which are utterly foreign to the mind of 
 Christ. They persist for no other reason than 
 that some descendant of Abraham, groping in 
 the gray twilight of early day, gave utterance 
 to these conceptions, and that utterance found 
 place in the body of Hebrew literature. In- 
 stead of laying such conceptions aside as super- 
 
 [25] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 seded by Christ, the body of Christian people 
 has too often accepted the gropings of the half- 
 blind as the true measure of spiritual realities, 
 and has cramped and mutilated the glorious 
 conceptions of Jesus into conformity with these 
 notions of a far-off age of darkness. 
 
 The mind of Christ concerning God is that 
 He is holy love; measureless, inexhaustible 
 love; impartial love; making his sun to rise 
 upon the evil and upon the good and sending 
 rain upon the just and upon the unjust; the 
 gracious, loving, compassionate Father of all 
 men. 
 
 When from listening to these words of Jesus, 
 Christian people have turned back to read in 
 the Old Testament the command, "When Je- 
 hovah, thy God, delivereth a city into thy hand, 
 thou shalt smite every male thereof with the 
 edge of the sword : but the women and the little 
 ones and the cattle shalt thou take for a spoil 
 unto thyself," they have imagined that they 
 must distort Christ's conception of the loving 
 God so as to make it include the characteristics 
 of a deity who could give command that such 
 atrocities and immoralities be committed. 
 
 But God is the same always. He was the 
 same in spirit and character two thousand years 
 before Christ that he was when Jesus lived and 
 spoke, and the spirit which breathed in Jesus 
 when he said, "Suffer the little children to come 
 unto me" could never have commanded that 
 baby boys be mercilessly put to the sword. The 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not 
 
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The Mind of Christ 
 
 an infinite Herod. Either Jesus or this Old 
 Testament writer was in error. If the ancient 
 conception is correct, then Jesus was at fault. 
 There is no such God of love as he proclaimed. 
 If Jesus is correct, the earlier writer was mis- 
 taken. He attributed to God, in the dim twi- 
 light and clouded vision of the beginnings of 
 spiritual perception, characteristics which, in 
 the light of the noonday sun, are seen not to be- 
 long to God. 
 
 Again we read in these ancient writings the 
 prayer of a man concerning the person who had 
 wronged him. "Let his prayer be turned into 
 sin. Let his days be few. Let his children be 
 fatherless and his wife a widow. Let his chil- 
 dren be vagabonds and beg, and let them seek 
 their bread out of their desolate places. Let 
 the extortioner catch all that he hath. Let 
 there be none to extend kindness to him, neither 
 let there be any to have pity on his fatherless 
 children. " And from this we turn to the vision 
 of one crowned with thorns, his hands and feet 
 pierced with nails which hold him to the cross, 
 while from his lips there fall the words, 
 1 ' Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
 they do," and it becomes very evident that the 
 revengeful supplication of the psalmist was 
 not prompted by the spirit which was made 
 manifest to the world in Jesus Christ. 
 
 Instead, it was inspired by that very natural 
 human, resentment, which we have no difficulty 
 in understanding, and which that Spirit of God 
 who was doubtless movingupon the heart of this 
 
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With Open Mind 
 
 suffering man, had not yet succeeded in wholly 
 overcoming. The writer of the 109th Psalm had 
 not yet come to the mind of Christ. But we 
 have the mind of Christ. As disciples of Jesus, 
 not only are we at liberty, for our own com- 
 fort and inspiration, to use that mind as the 
 standard by which to measure conceptions past 
 or present concerning God and spiritual things, 
 — we are under obligation to do this, — for the 
 honor of God and for the enlightenment and 
 consolation of his children. In its hesitation to 
 do this faithfully, fearlessly, the church is ex- 
 posing itself to very great dangers. 
 
 First to the danger of dishonoring God, by 
 clinging to and inculcating conceptions of the 
 Eternal Goodness, which, however excusable 
 they may have been in the case of men groping 
 for light, become defamatory when fathered by 
 those who have the clear teaching of Jesus. 
 
 Again, by hesitating to commit herself with- 
 out reservation to the mind of Christ, the 
 church is in danger of doing that very thing for 
 which we condemn the Jewish people of 
 Christ's day; that is, of rejecting her Lord 
 through slavish adherence to a transcended 
 faith. 
 
 A third danger which threatens the or- 
 ganized body of Christian believers is that of 
 seeing, as the Jewish people saw, many of her 
 most promising children following the mind of 
 Christ away from the church, because of her 
 failure to make that mind her own standard of 
 belief and teaching. For the mind of Christ is 
 
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The Mind of Christ 
 
 abroad in the world. His conceptions of God 
 and His character, of man, and of what con- 
 stitutes right living are in the possession of 
 every one. The church herself has put them 
 there. Theoretically they are the accepted 
 standards of what it is right to think concerning 
 God and conduct, even in the case of those who 
 do not conform to these standards in their own 
 lives ; and no institution need hope to hold the 
 mind and heart of the future, which proposes 
 for acceptance anything less worthy and en- 
 nobling than the deliverances of the mind of 
 Christ. 
 
 The alternative which faces the church today 
 is, " Shall we revise earlier conceptions, wher- 
 ever found, to accord with the mind of Christ, 
 or shall we abandon the mind of Christ as au- 
 thoritative f" 
 
 Surely it is needless to say that this is no 
 plea for destructive radicalism. I am giving 
 no expression to the spirit which denies, but 
 to that which most positively affirms. Here is 
 denial of nothing save that which itself denies 
 the glorious affirmations of Jesus. 
 
 The word of this hour is simply the summons 
 to those who count themselves disciples, learn- 
 ers of Jesus Christ, to accept the mind of their 
 Lord as their criterion of things spiritual, and 
 to rejoice that they are permitted so to do; 
 that they no longer imagine themselves held in 
 bondage to conceptions which they are unable 
 to reconcile with the best instincts of their own 
 souls ; that they neither attempt to accept these 
 
 [29] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 in fancied obligation to the command of God, 
 nor imagine themselves called on to defend 
 them against the criticism of those illumined 
 by the mind of Christ. 
 
 The mind of Christ is ours. It is ours also 
 to affirm the mind of Christ, to rejoice in it, and 
 be free. 
 
 [30] 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MIND OF CHEIST AND THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES 
 
CHAPTER HI 
 
 The Mind of Christ and the Old Testament 
 Scriptures 
 
 Mark 9: 7 — And there came a cloud overshadowing them: 
 and there came a voice out of the cloud, "This is my be- 
 loved Son: hear ye him." 
 
 T T was the mind of Christ as the trustworthy 
 -■* authority in the realm of religion, the light 
 which sets before us in clear vision the things 
 of the spirit, which we considered in the last 
 chapter. 
 
 The subject is one upon which we cannot re- 
 flect too frequently, too earnestly or with too 
 great gladness ; and it is to some of the signifi- 
 cant implications of this great fact that I would 
 direct your attention. 
 
 In the mind of Christ we have light, clear, 
 abundant to guide us in all things which pertain 
 to the spiritual, religious life, — our relation to 
 God. When he has spoken our hearts can rest. 
 Upon Jesus ' conception of the character of 
 God, of his relations to us and his disposition 
 toward us we may confidently rely. For he 
 knew. It was as the Son who abides in the 
 bosom of the Father that he spoke. His concep- 
 tion of God's thoughts concerning us, of God's 
 purposes with reference to us, we may accept 
 
 [33] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 with full assurance. In his teaching concerning 
 the spirit, the conduct, the life which are accept- 
 able to God we may place implicit confidence. 
 
 He perceived clearly, perfectly, where the 
 best of other men saw in partial, clouded vision. 
 Their conceptions we are warranted in accept- 
 ing for our guidance and comfort in so far as 
 they are in accord with his. In so far as dif- 
 ferences exist it is to Jesus we look as the final, 
 trustworthy authority. For us, who are dis- 
 ciples of Jesus, there is, of course, no question 
 at this point. 
 
 If, however, any assurance as to the correct- 
 ness of this position were needed, we might 
 certainly find it in those words with which we 
 began, spoken on the Mount of Transfiguration 
 at that moment when the divineness of the per- 
 sonality of Jesus shone forth with clearest ef- 
 fulgence, . " This is my beloved Son. Hear ye 
 him." 
 
 Those words of authentication have been ac- 
 cepted. Jesus has been heard. His teachings 
 have been received into the thought and heart 
 of the world. His conceptions concerning the 
 character of God and his disposition toward 
 men are the conceptions universally accepted 
 by men who believe in a personal God at all. 
 And these conceptions are common property. 
 They have molded the thought of the world 
 into conformity with themselves. So largely is 
 this the case that the standards by which even 
 men avowedly non-Christian measure things 
 which pertain to religion and the spiritual life 
 
 [34] 
 
Christ and the Old Testament 
 
 are the Christian standards, the standards of 
 the mind of Christ. 
 
 Now the prevalence of this influence of the 
 mind of Christ upon the thought, both of the 
 church and of society in general, is producing 
 significant results. To one of these I would di- 
 rect your thought. 
 
 The prevalence and insistence of the mind 
 of Christ within the circle of the world's 
 thought is, at the present day, forcing a proce- 
 dure which is sometimes attributed to other 
 causes. It is compelling a revision of the con- 
 ception which we have entertained concerning 
 the nature of the Old Testament writings. 
 
 Now it is needless to say, and yet it cannot 
 be said too positively, that this collection of 
 writings, which we call the Old Testament, is of 
 inestimable value. They are the record and 
 the product of the highest spiritual experiences 
 of the race before the time of Christ. In them 
 holiest souls have portrayed those visions of 
 God which had been vouchsafed to them ; have 
 poured forth their emotions of penitence and 
 trust and love and gratitude and holy aspira- 
 tion in words and imagery which to this day 
 constitute the most perfect medium of expres- 
 sion which we can find for the deepest experi- 
 ences of our lives. Here great-visioned seers 
 have recorded those eternal truths of the spirit- 
 ual realm which, through divine illumination, 
 they have been enabled to apprehend. 
 
 In these writings may be traced the move- 
 ment of that increasing, progressive revelation 
 
 [35] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 of himself and of men's perception of that rev- 
 elation which God made to the people of Israel 
 and through Israel to the world. Here, no less 
 truly, is to be found the revelation of men ; of 
 their dullness of spiritual apprehension which 
 so limited the disclosure God was seeking to 
 make of himself to them. Here are photo- 
 graphed the crude, unworthy, calumnious con- 
 ceptions of God and his character which pos- 
 sessed the minds of men, and which with so 
 great difficulty God was able to displace with 
 something worthier of himself. And here we 
 may trace the process by which this displace- 
 ment was effected, and men progressed to 
 higher and worthier thoughts of the Eternal, 
 until they were capable of receiving that glo- 
 rious disclosure of himself which in the fullness 
 of time God made in the person of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It would be difficult to employ language too 
 strong in the attempt to express the worth to 
 the world of these writings of the Hebrew peo- 
 ple. The words of the free critic, Edmund 
 Scherer* are none too emphatic: "The Bible 
 will ever be the book of power, the marvellous 
 book, the book above all others. It will ever be 
 the light of the mind and the bread of the soul. 
 Neither the superstitions of some nor the ir- 
 religious negations of others have been able to 
 do it harm. If there is anything certain in the 
 world, it is that the destinies of the Bible are 
 linked with the destinies of holiness on earth.' ' 
 
 But while all this is true and cannot be 
 
 *(King: "Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual Life/' p. 222.) 
 
 [36] 
 
Christ and the Old Testament 
 
 affirmed too emphatically, it is also true that 
 there is a widely accepted conception of the 
 nature of these writings which, through the in- 
 fluence of the mind of Christ, is destined to be 
 largely modified. That theory is that the Old 
 Testament writings constitute a body of divine 
 oracles, shaped directly by the mind of God and 
 in every particular the expression of that mind, 
 of equal authority and of equal ethical and 
 spiritual value in all its parts, so that any ut- 
 terance contained in this collection of writings 
 is to be accepted as the infallible expression of 
 the mind of God, and all utterances and con- 
 ceptions are to be placed upon a par as equally 
 true to the thought and character of God. 
 
 Now concerning this conception it is to be 
 noted first of all that the Scriptures nowhere 
 lay claim to any such character. Furthermore, 
 it is certain beyond question that those by whom 
 this body of thirty -nine writings — extending in 
 their production over a period of from one 
 thousand to fifteen hundred years perhaps — 
 was gathered into a single volume, entertained 
 no such view with reference to them. On the 
 contrary, the difference in relative value be- 
 tween the different writings was sharply in- 
 sisted on, and they were classified accordingly ; 
 some of them being long refused admission into 
 the canon, because of their supposed inferiority. 
 
 Nor does the examination of the writings 
 themselves seem to afford warrant for such an 
 estimate of them as that we are considering. 
 On the contrary, the impression received from 
 
 [37] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 the examination of the collection as a whole is 
 that here we have what is in the truest sense 
 a nation's literature; the manifold expression 
 of a nation's life, uttered in story, in song, in 
 oratory, in fiction, in proverb. Instead of being 
 a collection of oracles, the Old Testament more 
 closely resembles a kinetograph, a moving pic- 
 ture of the life of Israel. As we look upon it 
 we see events taking place; individuals and 
 groups of people acting, and consequences fol- 
 lowing upon such action. We see men learning 
 the lesson of these consequences — the conse- 
 quences of sin and of righteousness, of faith 
 and of unbelief; of loyalty to God and of dis- 
 obedience to him — and we hear them uttering 
 the truth they have learned for the instruction 
 and guidance of others. We see these utter- 
 ances taking effect in the further shaping of 
 conduct and character. We perceive the ac- 
 tion and interaction of all these influences in a 
 nation's life, resulting in changing conceptions 
 of God, from those that are primitive, defective, 
 unethical, to those higher, more spiritual, more 
 worthy; as God succeeds by means of the ex- 
 periences through which he leads men in get- 
 ting himself better understood, and through 
 this better understanding of himself brings 
 powerful influences to bear upon men to be 
 better men. And, inextricably interwoven with 
 all this, we find the utterances in poetry, proph- 
 ecy, proverb or parable, which were the out- 
 growth of the experiences through which God 
 was leading men, and we see these utterances of 
 
 [38] 
 
Christ and the Old Testament 
 
 prophet, poet, wise man or seer again reacting 
 upon the life of the people to enlighten and 
 elevate it. 
 
 All this resembles nothing so much as a bio- 
 graph — a picture of life. Here we have events, 
 the interpretation of those events for ethical 
 purposes, the reaction both of the events and 
 their interpretation upon the mind and charac- 
 ter of the people, and the expression in literary 
 form of the effect of such reaction. 
 
 In and through all this, by means of it, we 
 perceive a gradually advancing revelation of 
 God — of his mind and character and purposes 
 — and a corresponding gradually advancing 
 spiritual perception on the part of the people, 
 an elevation of ethical and religious standards, 
 and a broadening and deepening of spiritual 
 life and spiritual influence in the life of the 
 nation. 
 
 Again let it be said all this is of value ines- 
 timable. We cannot be too grateful for the rev- 
 elation God made of himself in the life of the 
 Hebrew people, or for the record of that revela- 
 tion which we call our Bible. But this record is 
 by no means of equal value in all its parts as 
 an accurate and worthy revelation of the char- 
 acter of God or of the spirit and life which God 
 approves in men. The various parts are of dis- 
 tinctly unequal value. 
 
 The defective, unethical conceptions of God 
 which shaped the conduct and character of men 
 in the days of the Judges are not to be placed 
 on a par with those visions of the divine love 
 
 [39] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 which fill the pages of Hosea with pathos, or 
 with those conceptions of the divine majesty 
 which speak to us in the lofty strains of Isaiah. 
 The earlier and later conceptions are not 
 equally true to God; and it is not only our 
 privilege, it is our duty to discard the earlier 
 in so far as they are inconsistent with the high- 
 est conception of the greatest soul; and all, 
 highest and lowest, included in the writings of 
 the ancient Covenant, are to be brought for es- 
 timation to the mind of Christ. 
 
 There came a cloud overshadowing them, and 
 out of the cloud a voice, "This is my beloved 
 Son. Hear ye him. ' 9 
 
 As illustrating what is implied in thus sum- 
 moning these conceptions of the older time to 
 the mind of Christ for measurement, let us 
 study for a few moments an incident from the 
 Old Testament — the story of David's bringing 
 of the sacred ark from the house of Abinadab 
 to place it in Jerusalem. According to the nar- 
 rative, the ark had been placed upon a cart 
 drawn by oxen and "When they came to the 
 threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah (one of the sons 
 of Abinadab) put forth his hand to the ark of 
 God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled 
 (or, as the margin reads, i threw it down'). 
 And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against 
 Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error : 
 and there he died by the ark of God. ' ' 
 
 I think no one of us reads this narrative with- 
 out feeling something of a shock. We instinc- 
 tively ask, "Can it be that this is altogether 
 
 [40] 
 
Christ and the Old Testament 
 
 accurate?" And that which leads us to raise 
 the question is the mind of Christ. That is to 
 say, it is because of the conception of God 
 which Jesus has given us that we are impelled 
 to inquire whether there must not be some mis- 
 take. The devil worshipper of Africa, the 
 Hindu worshipper of Siva, who believes in a 
 cruel deity, would raise no question concerning 
 the occurrence. To him nothing here is incon- 
 sistent with the character of his deity. But 
 because of what we have come to believe con- 
 cerning God through the teaching of Jesus, we 
 cannot repress the feeling that there must be a 
 mistake somewhere. And under the warrant of 
 the conception of God as the loving Father of 
 all men we feel justified in scrutinizing the 
 account, to see whether possibly some quali- 
 fying light may be thrown upon it. 
 
 We discover that this incident, like the greater 
 part of Old Testament narrative, is not pure 
 history, as we understand it, — the simple re- 
 cording of events. It is history used for the 
 impression of some lesson. The narrative con- 
 tains both the record of the event and the 
 writer's interpretation of the event. Uzzah 
 reached forth his hand to steady the ark and he 
 died. That was the event. The interpretation 
 of the event by the writer was that God struck 
 him dead because he touched the ark, to touch 
 which was forbidden by the Levitical law. Now 
 the event in this case we do not feel impelled to 
 question. Such events take place. Instanta- 
 neous death is not unfamiliar. A short time 
 
 [41] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 since, a minister of the Gospel fell dead while 
 preaching. The event we do not question. It 
 is the writer's interpretation of the event that 
 gives us pause ; and the question we are driven 
 to ask, and we ask it earnestly, is this : "Is the 
 writer's conception of God and of his disposi- 
 tion towards men consistent with that which 
 Jesus has given us?" 
 
 In asking this question we recall that the 
 writer lived in an age when the almost univers- 
 ally accepted belief was that sudden and great 
 calamity was a sign of God's displeasure, and 
 was inflicted upon a person because of some sin. 
 And bearing this in mind, we can seem to fol- 
 low the thought of the narrator in his interpre- 
 tation. Uzzah's sudden death was a sign of 
 God's displeasure for some sin. What was the 
 sin? He touched the ark, and God smote him 
 for his disobedience. 
 
 But if this was the movement of his thought, 
 we have assurance from the Old Testament it- 
 self that his fundamental principle of interpre- 
 tation was mistaken. Sudden and great 
 calamity is not an indication of sin or of divine 
 displeasure. The book of Job stands in the Old 
 Testament for the explicit denying of that sup- 
 position. Job's friends attributed his calami- 
 ties to some great sin of which he had been 
 guilty. Job knew better, and God endorsed Job 
 and rebuked his friends because of their misin- 
 terpretation of his dealing with men. And the 
 most positive affirmation of Jesus in the case 
 of the man blind from birth, of those Galileans 
 
 [42] 
 
Christ and the Old Testament 
 
 whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, 
 and of the eighteen on whom the tower of Si- 
 loam fell, is that calamity is not an index of 
 divine displeasure. In his dealings with men 
 God does not work in that way. 
 
 And as we study this incident more closely 
 we seem to find reason for questioning the ac- 
 curacy of the narrator's interpretation because 
 of its seeming inconsistency with conceptions 
 of God definitely given in the Old Testament it- 
 self. 
 
 To his servant Moses, Jehovah is said to have 
 declared his name, his true character and dis- 
 position, in the words, "The Lord, the Lord 
 God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and 
 full of compassion, forgiving iniquity and 
 transgression and sin." But can we conceive it 
 to have been merciful or gracious, long-suffer- 
 ing, compassionate or forgiving in God to smite 
 with sudden death one who loved him and his 
 service, because in sudden solicitude for God's 
 ark, which the oxen seemed in danger of throw- 
 ing down, he put forth his hand to steady it ? A 
 solicitude which, however needless it may have 
 been, was yet loving? In the one hundred and 
 third Psalm we read, "The Lord is merciful 
 and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in 
 mercy." How are God's motives and action, 
 as indicated in the story of the death of Uzzah, 
 to be reconciled with this depiction of his 
 character? 
 
 And our questioning deepens as we observe 
 that the whole procedure in bringing the ark 
 
 [43] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 from the house of Abinadab was in violation of 
 the law, for infraction of which Uzzah was sup- 
 posed to have been suddenly struck dead. The 
 ark had been placed upon a cart drawn by oxen. 
 But the explicit provision of the Levitical law 
 was that it should be carried upon the shoulders 
 of the Levites. It was definitely prescribed that 
 the sons of Kohath should have neither carts 
 nor oxen because the service of the sanctuary 
 belonging to them was that they should bear 
 the ark upon their shoulders. 
 
 In this removal of the ark from the house 
 of Abinadab, therefore, the provisions of the 
 law were wholly ignored. Can we imagine 
 it to be consistent with any worthy conception 
 of God that he should leave this wholesale dis- 
 regard of the Levitical law entirely unnoticed, 
 and yet visit vengeance upon a trifling infrac- 
 tion of the law, which, however mistaken it may 
 have been, was yet committed with loving in- 
 tent? 
 
 But it is when we measure the narrator's in- 
 terpretation of Uzzah 's tragic death by the 
 mind of Christ that we are driven inevitably to 
 regard it as subject to correction. The God 
 whom Jesus reveals is the Father of all men, 
 who seeks their welfare; bears and forbears 
 with willful, deliberate sinners ; goes after them 
 in their wanderings ; pleads with them to turn 
 to a better mind ; gives his best beloved to suffer 
 and die for their sakes. 
 
 And can it be imagined that the God who al- 
 lowed his well-beloved Son to be taken by the 
 
 [44] 
 
Christ and the Old Testament 
 
 hands of wicked men, crucified and slain, and 
 instead of instantly destroying those atrocious 
 sinners, still plead with them to turn to a better 
 mind, would smite with sudden death one who 
 loved him and his service, because inadver- 
 tently, in a moment of solicitude for God's own 
 ark, he reached out his hand to steady it? God 
 is the same ; yesterday, today and forever. He 
 was present with that moving company from 
 the house of Abinadab, in the same spirit in 
 which, in silence, he witnessed the scenes of 
 Calvary, and no act proceeded from him on that 
 far-off day which did not emanate from the 
 spirit of the All-merciful. 
 
 If the revelation of the character of God 
 which Jesus has given is to be received, we are 
 surely compelled to the conclusion that the an- 
 cient writer was at fault in his conception of 
 the Eternal One, and that his interpretation of 
 the death of Uzzah must give way to one more 
 in accord with the mind of Christ. 
 
 In a similar way all the conceptions and 
 teachings of the Old Testament are to be 
 brought for measurement to the mind of Jesus. 
 They represent the early, immature but ad- 
 vancing stages of that disclosure of God and the 
 spiritual realm which came to its culmination, 
 its efflorescence, in Jesus our Lord. In him they 
 are fulfilled, and by their accord with him their 
 accuracy and worth is to be determined; and, 
 if I mistake not, we do well to take heed lest 
 in our loyalty to the writings of the ancient 
 faith we fall into the error, as in the case of the 
 
 [45] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 incident which we have been studying, of set- 
 ting the conception of some unknown scribe who 
 lived eight hundred years before Christ, in 
 contradiction of his teaching, of whom out of 
 the unseen, it was declared, "This is my be- 
 loved Son. Hear ye him." 
 
 It is worthy of our consideration that if the 
 church had always recognized the authoritative- 
 ness of the mind of Christ, and had been true to 
 it, there would have been no Robert Ingersoll, 
 or at least none whose influence as against 
 Christianity would have been at all consid- 
 erable. For the staple for his attacks upon 
 Christianity consisted of those Old Testament 
 conceptions which are least in accord with the 
 mind of Christ. 
 
 "For freedom did Christ set us free." We 
 are called unto liberty; the liberty of Jesus. 
 Stand fast therein and be not entangled again 
 in any yoke of bondage to the ancient faith. 
 Rejoicing in the priceless heritage which is 
 ours in these writings of the earlier covenant, 
 let us not imagine ourselves under constraint to 
 accept any conceptions of God which shock our 
 own moral sense, because they were entertained 
 in some far-off time. 
 
 We have the mind of Christ. To that mind 
 all things are to be brought for estimation. The 
 word from the unseen is, "Hear ye him." And 
 therefore there need be no solicitude lest the 
 view of the Bible we have been considering 
 leave nothing stable, — secure, lest we be wholly 
 at sea, with nothing ultimate ; no one to assure 
 
 [46] 
 
Christ and the Old Testament 
 
 us what are final authorities and what are not. 
 The simple and sufficient relief for all such anx- 
 iety is the affirmation of the apostle, "We 
 have the mind of Christ." His teachings, — a 
 standard widely applicable ; his mind, so far as 
 we yield ourselves up to his leading; the pro- 
 mise of his Spirit to lead us into all the truth. 
 And there came a cloud overshadowing them: 
 and a voice out of the cloud, 'This is my beloved 
 Son: hear ye him/ 
 
 [47] 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE DIVINENESS OF THE NATURAL 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Divineness of the Natukal 
 
 John 4: 48 — Except ye see signs and wonders ye will in no 
 wise believe. 
 
 THESE words of Jesus describe a state of 
 mind in the men of his day, by which he was 
 continually confronted, and which constituted 
 one of the most serious obstacles to that blessed 
 work he was seeking to do for them. Coming 
 to his people with his divinest, most gladdening 
 and inspiring messages, and his exhortations to 
 noble living, the truth and authoritativeness of 
 which ought to be self-evident to any right 
 minded man, he was continually met with the 
 demand, "We would see a sign from thee." 
 1 ' What sign showest thou?" "Show us a 
 sign." As if a man in the dazzling glare of 
 noonday should refuse to believe the sun was 
 shining without a written certificate to that ef- 
 fect, bearing the sign manual of the Almighty 
 certified to by two witnesses. 
 
 Little wonder is it that, as Mark records, "He 
 sighed deeply in his spirit and saith, i Why doth 
 this generation seek a sign? Verily I say unto 
 you there shall no sign be given unto this gener- 
 ation. ' ' ' But of this attitude of mind the men 
 of Christ's day had no monopoly. It is perhaps 
 
 [51] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 as characteristic of our own time as of his. It 
 is the mental attitude which looks for the divine 
 in the miraculous, in portents and prodigies; 
 which can see no evidence of the existence or 
 presence of God except in some ultra-natural 
 upheaval of things; some irruption of unreg- 
 ulated force into the normal order of the world. 
 This is the same posture of mind as that of the 
 men to whom Jesus said, "Except ye see signs 
 and wonders ye will in nowise believe." 
 
 Now by no words could Jesus more distinctly 
 have declared that this mental attitude and the 
 assumptions underlying it are all wrong. It 
 is not in the miraculous, in irruptive disturb- 
 ances, in the abnormal and startling that 
 evidence of God is to be seen; not in the pre- 
 ternatural, but in the natural; in the normal 
 ongoing of the universe. There, all the while, 
 spread before the eyes of those who can see, is 
 the marvellous, the inexplicable, the divine. 
 There it was the Hebrew poets saw God making 
 manifestation of himself. "The heavens de- 
 clare the glory of God and the firmament show- 
 eth his handiwork." "0 Lord, our Lord, how 
 majestic is the expression of thyself in all the 
 earth : Who hast set the splendid manifestation 
 of thyself upon the heavens." Yet living with 
 this splendid display, saturated with the pres- 
 ence of God, continually before our eyes we be- 
 come obtuse to all sense of its divineness; we 
 go hunting about for some prodigy, and are car- 
 ried completely off our feet by some bit of thau- 
 maturgy which is unworthy of an instant's 
 
 [52] 
 
The Divineness of the Natural 
 
 consideration in comparison with those majes- 
 tic manifestations of God with which nature is 
 all the while crammed. 
 
 I conceive that it would be difficult for any 
 one to do us a greater kindness than he who 
 should remove this veil from before our eyes; 
 should awaken us to the divineness of the nat- 
 ural and touch our hearts into appreciation of 
 it. 
 
 The first step toward the removal of this mis- 
 taken attitude of mind is, if possible, to dis- 
 cover the cause of it; — and some, at least, of 
 the causes of that tendency of men which Jesus 
 bewailed — the tendency to be blind to the divine 
 in the natural and to look for it in the abnormal 
 — are not far to seek. 
 
 The first is our insensibility to the marvelous- 
 ness of what has come to be familiar. That 
 which, when first observed, fills us with amaze- 
 ment, and the sense of the inexplicable, on ac- 
 quaintance becomes commonplace and ordinary, 
 and loses all power to arouse the wonder of our 
 souls. I venture the assertion that the first 
 time any one of us saw a trolley car rushing 
 along its track, propelled by nothing ap- 
 parently; the contact of the trolley with the 
 wire — the mysterious secret of it all — he was 
 filled with astonishment and awe. The wire 
 clothed with its tremendous, invisible energy 
 seemed to him nothing less than the naked hand 
 of God. But all that is long since forgotten. 
 A trolley wire is the most commonplace of af- 
 fairs; of no more significance than any other 
 
 [53] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 wire, except as by accident some unfortunate 
 individual comes in contact with it, and, by its 
 deadly stroke, we are once more reminded of 
 the tremendous power of God which hides 
 within it. And it is some such accidental oc- 
 currence as this which startles us into momen- 
 tary realization of the divine energy which is 
 right before us, far more effectually than the 
 swift, ponderous movement of the car with all 
 its load, which we are continually beholding. 
 This has come to be familiar, and so its wonder 
 has vanished. So through our acquaintance 
 with what is marvellous we become mole-eyed 
 to its inscrutable mystery, dead to its divine- 
 ness; because it is familiar assuming that we 
 have fathomed its secret, and that it no longer 
 has claim upon our reverence and awe. 
 : We are amused at the open-mouthed wonder 
 of the rustic who for the first time sees a trolley- 
 car or hears of telegraphing without wires. Its 
 newness is past for us and we complacently 
 flatter ourselves that we are sophisticated. The 
 fact is we are stupid, and the staring country 
 man is nearer to a fitting attitude of soul in 
 view of the fathomless wonder his eyes behold, 
 than we are. So the greatest of marvels re- 
 treat from our eyes behind the veil of famil- 
 iarity, and that order of nature which is 
 palpitating, bursting with divineness, comes to 
 be commonplace and without significance. 
 
 Not far removed from this tendency to be- 
 come blind to the wonder of the familiar, is the 
 other tendency to look to the disorderly and 
 
 [54] 
 
The Divineness of the Natural 
 
 chaotic for evidence of the divine. The majes- 
 tic order, the sublime harmony of the universe 
 has no particular significance for us. 
 
 With undeviating regularity day follows 
 night, and night day. Year after year, by the 
 ceaseless rush of the earth along its orbit, fifty 
 times faster than a cannon ball, the seasons 
 succeed one another in order undisturbed. 
 Without the deviation of a minute vernal and 
 autumnal equinox, summer and winter solstice 
 arrive, with all their characteristic accompani- 
 ments in the realm of life vegetable and animal. 
 Age after age, age after age, age after age, 
 Orion, Arcturus, the Pleiades continue their 
 stately march across the heavens with, "no 
 variableness nor shadow that is cast by turn- 
 ing.' ' Scores of years, centuries in advance, 
 the astronomer predicts the instant at which 
 eclipse of sun or moon shall begin; and the 
 phenomenon arrives at the very second indi- 
 cated. 
 
 Yet this majestic order has no special im- 
 pressiveness for us. We see in it no token of 
 the divine. But let what seems like the slight- 
 est interruption of this divine harmony appear, 
 like the unexpected healing of a sick man, or 
 the utterance by an individual of a few un- 
 meaning words in a language unfamiliar to 
 him, and we are ready to fall upon our knees 
 in astonishment and awe. As if only disorder 
 and confusion were the work of God and the 
 witness to his presence. 
 
 Coupled with the two causes already referred 
 [55] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 to as accounting for that demand for signs and 
 wonders which Jesus bewailed, is a false dual- 
 ism which too largely characterizes our think- 
 ing with reference to God and the universe. 
 We tacitly assume that God and the universe 
 are distinct and separate from one another, 
 even if we do not consciously so think of them. 
 We even go farther and conceive of them as 
 mutually antagonistic. In our thought the uni- 
 verse is something over against God, of which 
 he can get the better only with difficulty if at 
 all. It is a vast intractable somewhat, which 
 it is of the greatest moment that God should 
 subdue to his purposes; but the mastery of 
 which is a matter of exceeding difficulty and 
 uncertainty. 
 
 But the reality is just contrary to all this. 
 The universe is nothing other than God expres- 
 sing himself. It is his perpetual self -revelation. 
 In it, through it, he is all the while manifesting 
 himself. Nature is not something apart from 
 God. It is divine energy bringing things to 
 pass ; under the direction of divine will, for the 
 expression of divine thought, and the accom- 
 plishment of divine purpose. 
 
 Nature, the normal order of the universe, is 
 the unceasing revelation of God. So the He- 
 brew singer conceived it, so he expressed it in 
 those words already quoted, "How majestic is 
 the expression of thyself in all the earth; who 
 hast set the splendid manifestation of thyself 
 upon the heavens.' ' "Holy, holy, holy is the 
 
 [56] 
 
The Divineness of the Natural 
 
 Lord; the whole earth is full of his glory' *■ — 
 the forth-shining of his presence. 
 
 These then are some of the causes which 
 conspire to make us insensible to the divineness 
 of the natural, and which incline us like the 
 unbelieving Jews to whom Jesus spoke to be 
 continually seeking for a sign of God and his 
 presence. We grow blind to the marvellousness 
 of that with which we are familiar. We fail to 
 perceive the divineness in majestic order and 
 sublime harmony, and go hunting for it in the 
 unorderly and chaotic. We conceive of God 
 and the universe as separate, antagonistic, 
 when we should recognize that God is the living 
 soul of the universe, and the universe the living 
 expression, the visible garment of God. 
 
 By apprehending these tendencies which lead 
 us astray, and by setting ourselves to resist 
 their unwholesome influence upon us, we may 
 escape the abnormal craving for the supernat- 
 ural which more or less affects us all, and have 
 our vision unsealed to that presence of God, 
 that perpetual expression of the divine by which 
 we are continually enfolded. 
 
 Among the very few occasions which moved 
 Jesus our Lord to impatience, this clamor for 
 the miraculous was one. "A wicked and adul- 
 terous generation seeketh after a sign, and 
 there shall no sign be given them." Words 
 could not well express more definitely the rela- 
 tive insignificance which Jesus attached to the 
 supernatural — the abnormal — as witness to the 
 presence of God. They who could not perceive 
 
 [57] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 him, in that expression which he is continually 
 making of himself in the order of his universe, 
 would see him, to little profit, in signs and 
 wonders. 
 
 I trust there is no misapprehension in any 
 mind of the precise point which I am seeking 
 to emphasize. It is not the reality of the super- 
 natural that we are considering. It is its rela- 
 tive significance as an exhibition of the divine ; 
 a witness to God and his presence. As regards 
 this the position of Jesus is unmistakable, that 
 is, that, as witness to the divine, the abnormal, 
 the preternatural, the disturbance of the order 
 of nature, is wholly secondary and relatively in- 
 significant. Even as regards the life of Jesus 
 himself this is true. In his human life he, like 
 all other men, was included in this universe of 
 which we are all a part. And his divineness as 
 the forth-shining of the Father's glory and the 
 express image of his person was not through 
 his separateness from or antithesis to the uni- 
 verse of men, but in his being the culmination 
 of the universe, the point in which that revela- 
 tion, which from eternity God has been making 
 of himself through the universe, came to its 
 perfection. 
 
 It was not in the unhumanness of Jesus that 
 his divinity was disclosed; but in the perfec- 
 tion of his humanity; that humanity made to 
 bear the image of God, and at last in Jesus so 
 attaining that likeness that he could say "He 
 that hath seen me hath seen the Father. ' J 
 
 The divineness of Jesus himself, that is, is 
 [58] 
 
The Divinene s s of the Natural 
 
 not to be sought in certain abnormal or miracu- 
 lous occurrences in the physical universe, but 
 in himself ; in that personality, character, spirit 
 which made it possible for him to say "He that 
 seeth me seeth Him that sent me. ' ' 
 
 It is this fact which gives their weight of con- 
 demnation to those other words to the unbeliev- 
 ing Jews, "I say unto you that ye have seen me 
 and yet have not believed. ' ' 
 
 That which seems clearly to be implied in 
 the teaching of Jesus is that if the supernatural 
 did occur, if it were to occur again, it could not 
 possibly be more positive witness to God, more 
 true and adequate manifestation of him, than 
 he is all the while making in that ordinary, or- 
 derly on-going of the universe, which from 
 eternity he has adopted as the habitual, perpet- 
 ual revelation of himself. 
 
 "Earth's crammed with heaven, 
 And every common bush afire with God. " 
 
 Now this divinene ss of the natural is no 
 merely theoretical matter. As merely theoret- 
 ical or even as theological I should have no in- 
 terest in bringing it before you. It is intensely 
 practical, and the sole warrant for considering 
 it at all, is the wish that you and I should not 
 miss the true good; that best which our heav- 
 enly Father is all the time seeking to bestow 
 upon us. 
 
 The evil effect of our blindness to the divine- 
 ness of the natural and our craving for the 
 supernatural is manifold. First it leads us to 
 
 [59] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 dishonor the living, present God. Under its 
 influence, instead of receiving that revelation 
 of himself which he is all the while making be- 
 fore our eyes, like the Pharisees in the pres- 
 ence of Jesus we come with the demand l ' Show 
 us a sign from heaven." Instead of recogniz- 
 ing that insistent all-enveloping nearness of 
 God, in which we live, we blind our eyes to this, 
 and go looking for Him in some remote, out-of- 
 the-way, unusual manifestation. But, in the 
 words of Tennyson, 
 
 "The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the 
 
 plains, — 
 Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? 
 
 Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom, 
 Making Him broken gleams and a stifled splendor and gloom. 
 
 Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can 
 
 meet — 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. f ' 
 
 A second evil effect of this diseased craving 
 for the extra-natural is that it leads us to build 
 our Christian confidence on a false and insecure 
 foundation. The natural, the majestic order of 
 the universe is indisputable, unquestionable. 
 No man dreams of doubting it. In this we have 
 witness to God, ground for our faith, which 
 cannot be challenged. 
 
 The miraculous — the violation of nature — is 
 always open to doubt, always questionable, and 
 increasingly questioned as the mind of man en- 
 larges, and through increasing knowledge he 
 comes to better understanding and grasps ever 
 more firmly the great order of the universe. 
 
 [60] 
 
The Divineness of the Natural 
 
 Many things that once seemed miraculous, su- 
 pernatural, are now seen to be but higher mani- 
 festations of nature itself, brought about by 
 larger mastery of her laws, not by abrogation 
 of them. 
 
 The wonderful works of Jesus are established 
 beyond question; but the nature of those 
 works is by no means beyond question. 
 More and more urgently it is being asked 
 whether they were, as has so commonly 
 been assumed, definitely miraculous; vio- 
 lations of the order of nature; or whether 
 they were brought about through his greater 
 knowledge of that nature, which is itself the 
 unceasing manifestation of God his Father. So 
 whatever may be true as to the actuality of the 
 miraculous within certain limits, those limits 
 are continually narrowing, more and more oc- 
 currences once deemed supernatural are being 
 found to be entirely within the field of nature 
 itself. 
 
 A religious faith which depends on the mir- 
 aculous, the violation of nature, as its founda- 
 tion, is finding less and less on which to build. 
 The faith which sees God in nature is tremor- 
 less, secure. In the great universe of God is 
 its unchallenged guaranty, perpetually before 
 its eyes. 
 
 Another most unfortunate consequence of our 
 abnormal craving for the supernatural is that 
 it leads us to live impoverished lives in 
 the midst of inexhaustible riches. Peering al- 
 ways into the out-of-the-way in search of signs 
 
 [61] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 and wonders we remain blind to the treasures 
 of the spiritual and divine which are every- 
 where before us and about us. We anticipate 
 that, after death, in some other universe we 
 shall find the treasures of the spiritual, and re- 
 joice in them. But do we reflect that we shall 
 never be in any other universe than that we in- 
 habit today? We shall never be any nearer God 
 than we are this instant. God is in this place — 
 even though, like Jacob, in our dulness we know 
 it not. "This is none other than the house of 
 God: this is the gate of heaven.' ' We shall 
 never be any nearer heaven in locality than we 
 are this morning. Life in the realm of the 
 spiritual is not a question of locality, but of 
 vision. 
 
 When the servant of Elisha, seeing his master 
 surrounded by the chariots of the Syrians, ex- 
 claimed, "Alas, my master, how shall we do?" 
 Elisha prayed that his eyes might be opened, 
 and, behold ! the mountain was full of chariots 
 and horses of fire round about Elisha. All the 
 while you and I live submerged in the riches of 
 the spiritual realm; ours to possess and enjoy 
 if we will but see and appropriate it. "But I 
 do not see," is it answered? Neither do you 
 and I see those innumerable vibrations of light, 
 less frequent than the red, more frequent than 
 the violet rays of the spectrum, which are there, 
 notwithstanding, and none the less really so be- 
 cause we chance to be blind. The question is 
 not of light to be perceived, but of eyes capable 
 of seeing. 
 
 162] 
 
The Divineness of the Natural 
 
 In the presence of that bursting life which is 
 throbbing in all the world, in bud and tree and 
 flower and garden and harvest, who can be blind 
 to the divineness of the natural? Who can need 
 any further witness to the presence of God? 
 
 The mightiest of all rivers is that majestic 
 stream which, draining by far the greater part 
 of the South American continent, at last pours 
 its vast volume of water through its mouth, one 
 hundred and eighty miles in width, with a mo- 
 mentum so great as to bear its flood still fresh 
 nearly two hundred miles into the Atlantic. 
 It is reported that a sailing vessel in the south- 
 ern Atlantic was so long becalmed that its water 
 supply was at the point of exhaustion ; its crew 
 suffering the tortures of thirst but husbanding 
 with watchful care the little water that was left 
 lest it be utterly consumed. In their extremity 
 their sight was gladdened by the appearance of 
 a steamer above the horizon. Tokens of dis- 
 tress were displayed and as the steamer ap- 
 proached the captain of the sailing vessel 
 signalled: " Water, for God's sake, water.' ' 
 The steamer without checking her speed for an 
 instant veered again to the course she had 
 abandoned, but from her bridge there was 
 flagged back the thrilling message, "Dip, man, 
 dip. You are in the Amazon. ' ' 
 
 Is any one seeking a sign? Let him open his 
 eyes. 
 
 [63] 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE DIVINE LIMITATIONS 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Divine Limitations 
 
 John 16: 12 — I have yet many things to say unto you, but 
 ye cannot bear them now. 
 
 AND so Jesus found a limit, beyond which he 
 could not go. There was much which he 
 was willing to give, eager to give to those twelve 
 associates whom he had gathered about him; 
 but this he was unable to do. There stood the 
 barrier. Beyond it he could not pass. 
 
 That God is subject to limitation, is foreign to 
 our customary modes of thought. Yet this is, 
 beyond question, the truth. The Eternal Mind, 
 the lavish Giver of good is limited in his ability 
 to do for us. Limited not in his resources or in 
 his willingness to bestow, but by our own mea- 
 gerness, our narrow receptivity. Be it never 
 so well disposed, the ocean can impart but little 
 of itself to a teacup. In our capacity and capa- 
 bility the ability of God toward us finds its 
 measure. 
 
 1 i The fault, ... is in ourselves that we are underlings. ' ' 
 
 As regards all those gifts which one person 
 may confer upon another, this truth of God's 
 limitation holds; and it is no mere abstract 
 theoretical proposition. None is more prac- 
 tical. In its keeping is all such largeness of 
 
 [67] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 personality, such richness of life as we shall 
 ever attain. For in every department of our 
 spiritual being, intellectual, aesthetic, social, we 
 are at the outset but a great capacity, a want 
 to be supplied. We have nothing, we are noth- 
 ing which we have not received ; and according 
 to the measure and the eagerness of our receiv- 
 ing is our having, and our being. 
 
 In the bestowing of truth upon us, the impar- 
 tation of knowledge, the Eternal Mind from 
 whom all truth proceeds, works under sharply 
 defined limitations. 
 
 Against these limitations Christ had come in 
 his intercourse with Peter and James and John ; 
 and for one who has ears to catch it there is 
 genuine pathos in those words with which we 
 began: "I have yet many things to say unto 
 you, but ye cannot bear them now. ' ' However, 
 the pathos is not that of despair. In the case of 
 these men the limitation was not final. Jesus 
 foresaw the removal of it and the passage of 
 these, his friends, by and by, out into those 
 large realms of truth in which his own soul 
 found life and gladness. 
 
 And this suggests that the limitations under 
 which the Eternal Friend must work in his 
 dealing with us are of diverse nature. Some 
 are transient. It is reasonable to expect that, 
 as life goes on, they may be successively re- 
 moved, so as to afford continually enlarging op- 
 portunity for the divine benevolence to express 
 itself, even if they shall never altogether disap- 
 pear. To some other limitations, however, we 
 
 [68] 
 
The Divine Limitations 
 
 shall find that no such hope of self -correction 
 attaches. One of those temporary restrictions 
 which do not necessarily constitute any occasion 
 for solicitude, is that immaturity into which we 
 all are born. The undeveloped mind constitutes 
 a limitation. To the child it is possible to im- 
 part only the simplest, most elementary truth. 
 No teacher, however learned or skilful, can 
 overleap this barrier. The problems of calcu- 
 lus can have no meaning to one who is ignorant 
 of simple algebra. As the lad's comprehension 
 is enlarged, his penetration sharpened through 
 acquiring simpler truth, the more difficult may 
 be imparted to him. As Browning puts it : 
 
 " I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile, 
 Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself, 
 So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth: 
 When they can eat, babe's nuture is withdrawn. " 
 
 In the normal development of personality this 
 limitation may be expected to take care of itself. 
 
 Yet this is but a gradual process. For the 
 retention or removal of this immaturity we our- 
 selves are largely responsible, and to the end 
 of life we never wholly escape from it. Always 
 we are children in this particular. To the 
 wisest, most venerable who ever lived, those 
 words were still as applicable as to the Galilean 
 fisherman, "I have yet many things to say unto 
 you, but ye cannot bear them now." 
 
 The Apostle Paul is fully aware that he 
 knows only in part, and anticipates a knowing 
 so much more complete that all his present 
 
 [69] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 knowledge will be insignificant. Even in deal- 
 ing with him the divine mind is still under 
 limitation. 
 
 Associated with this immaturity of mind as 
 a hindrance to the divine impartation of knowl- 
 edge to us, is the fact that even the simpler 
 truth which we may be able to receive must be 
 given to us in a defective form. All trans- 
 ference of thought from one mind to another, 
 from teacher to learner, is by means of sym- 
 bols. The very truth itself cannot be conveyed. 
 It can at best be suggested. We communicate 
 only by signs, whatever be our mode of con- 
 veying our thoughts to one another. If two 
 who are conversing attach precisely the same 
 significance to the signs employed the thought 
 is exactly conveyed. But this is rarely the 
 case. To one the symbol means one thing. To 
 another something slightly different. It was 
 accidently discovered that the grandson of Dr. 
 William Adams, for many years pastor of Madi- 
 son Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York 
 City, had great fear of entering the church 
 when it was unoccupied. What was the occa- 
 sion of this terror it was impossible to discover, 
 until on one occasion Dr. Adams went to the 
 building on some errand taking the child with 
 him. As they walked down the aisle their steps 
 echoing through the vacant building, the little 
 lad clung closely to his grandfather's hand and 
 looked anxiously about till, reaching the pulpit 
 he inquired, "Grandpa, where is the zeal?" 
 "The zeal?" said Dr. Adams. "Yes, don't you 
 
 [70] 
 
The Divine Limitations 
 
 know? 'The zeal of thy house hath eaten me 
 up.' " You can imagine the good doctor's as- 
 tonishment as he discovered that a religious 
 emotion had been transformed, in the imagi- 
 nation of the child, into a terrible monster 
 which inhabited churches and devoured those 
 who entered. 
 
 The incident is scarcely more amusing than 
 it is pathetic ; for it simply illustrates in an ex- 
 aggerated way what is taking place in all our 
 intercourse with one another. Barely does a 
 thought pass unmodified from one mind to an- 
 other. And that not alone by reason of the 
 difference in our mental furniture, but also be- 
 cause of the defectiveness in our means of com- 
 munication. We talk in signs and symbols. 
 We convey truth by means of analogies. All 
 language is merely a collection of symbols. The 
 words we employ in speaking of the mind and 
 spirit are terms which were originally applied 
 to material objects and relations, which we 
 transfer to things of the non-material realm 
 because of analogies which seem to us to exist 
 between things physical and things spiritual. 
 But no analogy is perfect. No symbol repre- 
 sents reality with absolute exactness. To one 
 mind it means one thing ; to another somewhat 
 different. As a consequence, in order that the 
 limitation upon the teacher's ability to impart 
 truth may be removed, and reality apprehended 
 with increasing exactness by the learner, it is 
 often needful that one set of symbols be re- 
 placed by another representing reality more 
 
 [71] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 accurately, and more exactly understood by the 
 one who is taught. 
 
 It is this deep truth of our intellectual ex- 
 perience which Browning has expressed in his 
 poem "A Death in the Desert/ ' 
 
 " Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect 
 He could not, what he knows now, know at first; 
 What he considers that he knows today, 
 Come but tomorrow, he will find misknown; 
 
 * * * * 
 
 God's gift was that man should conceive of truth 
 And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake, 
 As midway help till he reach fact indeed.' ' 
 
 So it is we learn. So it is that the immature 
 mind and the sign-language which is all any 
 of us uses, set limitations to the impartation of 
 truth, before which any teacher human or di- 
 vine must pause. 
 
 And this has its bearing on the question most 
 deeply exercising the mind of the church in this 
 day, that is, the question of the nature of the 
 Bible; the revelation recorded in these Holy 
 Scriptures. 
 
 More and more clearly it is being recognized 
 that this was a progressive revelation; begin- 
 ning with the disclosure of simpler, more ele- 
 mentary truths, and proceeding to those of 
 deeper import, loftier significance. No less 
 manifest is the fact that throughout there has 
 been endeavor to convey spiritual and religious 
 truth by means of symbolism, and that as time 
 has gone on the form of symbolism adapted to 
 the immature mind, seriously defective at times, 
 
 [72] 
 
The Divine Limitations 
 
 yet easily apprehensible, has been replaced by 
 others more adequately and exactly embodying 
 the truth to be conveyed. That this has been so 
 is evident from the study of the Bible itself. 
 That it should be so was inevitable,; because of 
 the limitation which the immaturity of our 
 minds is always imposing upon the divine 
 Teacher. 
 
 And what was before the coming of Jesus has 
 been so since his day. Under the guidance of 
 that Holy Spirit, which he promised, the Chris- 
 tian centuries have come into the possession of 
 many of those treasures of divine truth which 
 the twelve disciples were not able to bear; and 
 the great verities of the world unseen have 
 found interpretation through successively 
 higher forms of symbolism. For example, how 
 greatly God, our relation to him, the life of the 
 spirit, have gained in vital significance for us 
 through our employment of the analogies of 
 life in the interpretation of these great realities, 
 in place of those analogies of law and govern- 
 ment in which our fathers clothed their thought. 
 And as the past, the future. 
 
 By the immaturity of his children, God is al- 
 ways limited in imparting knowledge to them. 
 But this is a constantly receding barrier. It 
 makes great demands on the divine patience. 
 It affords no occasion for despair. 
 
 Another limitation under which God labors 
 in his dealing with us, twin sister to undevel- 
 oped intellect, is inexperience. No acuteness or 
 vigor of intellect can qualify one to apprehend 
 
 [73] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 truth of a certain order. It is acquired through 
 no process of ratiocination; through no gift of 
 native insight. Life is the great interpreter of 
 reality ; and truth, of the order referred to, we 
 learn only by living. Only through a common 
 experience can some thoughts of one mind be 
 conveyed to another. The most brilliant dis- 
 ciplined intellect of the boy can make nothing 
 of some things, which are simple, clear as the 
 sun at midday to the unlettered man of ordi- 
 nary mind who has lived. However penetrating 
 of intellect, however earnest in intent may be 
 the speaker, there are tones of a certain depth 
 which in the exercise of the eager intellect alone 
 are never struck; because it has never entered 
 the region to which these tones pertain. It has 
 had no experience, as yet, of those great unseen 
 realities, through the touch of which these 
 deeper tones become the natural expression of 
 the spirit. 
 
 "If I were but a young man/' said the great 
 master to his pupil of brilliant voice but shal- 
 low feeling, "I would win your love, and break 
 your heart ; and then you would sing. ' ' " Yes, ' ' 
 said a friend to me on one occasion, concerning 
 a speaker who had occupied my pulpit, "he is 
 a fine young man. Some of these days when he 
 has a grave in his heart, he will preach." It 
 is through experience one comes to understand. 
 
 There is pathetic suggestion of the limitations 
 under which Jesus constantly felt himself, as 
 he attempted to impart deep truth to men in 
 those often repeated words, "He that hath ears 
 
 [74] 
 
The Divine Limitations 
 
 to hear let him hear." So many there were 
 whose ears had never been opened. 
 
 This same fact of divine limitation has other 
 outlook. It is not truth, knowledge, alone God 
 has to bestow. Treasures of beauty are in his 
 gift. The perception of the beautiful and glad- 
 ness in it he is ready to confer upon us with- 
 out stint. These, like his own spirit, "he giveth 
 not by measure. ' ' And yet how circumscribed 
 is that Soul of Beauty which informs the uni- 
 verse, in its ability to confer upon us! How 
 much of beauty God has to bestow, — how sorely 
 he is limited in his giving, by our narrowness, 
 we little realize, till by the touch of some great 
 interpreter, like Ruskin or Van Dyke our eyes 
 are opened to the unnumbered beauties, which 
 all our lives we have looked at, yet never seen. 
 
 In his giving God is limited by our dullness 
 of observation, and also by our slowness of 
 heart, our undeveloped aesthetic nature. That 
 one may enter into the treasures of music, there 
 are needed the ear trained to catch the delicacies 
 of tone-shading, and the soul cultivated to vi- 
 brate to the inexpressible majesty of harmony. 
 
 " Earth's crammed with heaven, 
 And every common bush afire with God; 
 But only they who see take off their shoes, 
 The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. ' ' 
 
 And even more significant is the limitation 
 imposed upon God, in the bestowal of his great- 
 est gift — the richness of personal relationship 
 with himself. It was this which constituted 
 the great riches of the life of Jesus. It was 
 
 [75] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 this with which he fain would have flooded the 
 lives of his chosen friends: the knowledge of 
 God; acquaintance with the Eternal Father. 
 That he might help them to this he opened up 
 to them the great depths of his own heart. He 
 spoke of the great self-sacrifice he was himself 
 to make in their behalf. He endeavored to dis- 
 close the measureless lovingness in which this 
 sacrifice was freely offered. And the noblest 
 response he succeeded in eliciting was a petty 
 contention among themselves as to which should 
 have the foremost places in the kingdom. So 
 men continually limit the Eternal Friend in 
 the giving of that greatest of all gifts, which is 
 our life, fellowship with himself. 
 
 However ready any great personality may be 
 to confer himself upon his brother men, a limit 
 is set to his giving by the caliber of those who 
 are to receive. The crowd wish to see him. 
 They stare, listen and come away, having seen 
 and heard nothing larger than themselves. The 
 great mind can give its great thoughts only to 
 the large, apprehensive intellect. The soul of 
 beauty can impart its conceptions only to the 
 perceptive, the truly aesthetic. The heart of 
 great nobleness, of deep affection, can bestow 
 itself only on the one who, in some measure, vi- 
 brates to the same key. 
 
 As already indicated, this limitation upon 
 God's giving, is in part the result of immaturity 
 and inexperience. If these were the sole cause, 
 however, they would be in the way of taking 
 care of themselves. The atrocious crime of be- 
 
 [76] 
 
The Divine Limitations 
 
 ing young, time speedily removes. Life, the 
 great school-master, withholds from none those 
 lessons of experience which open eyes, ears, 
 heart. 
 
 There are, however, other causes which limit 
 God's ability to give to us, which are not thus 
 self -corrective. For example, conceit, low con- 
 tent and indolence. 
 
 To the teachable mind, however undeveloped, 
 all possibilities of knowledge lie open. The 
 conceited spirit is hopeless. It can be taught 
 nothing. In the phrase of Lord Bacon, "The 
 kingdom of learning, like the kingdom of 
 heaven, can be entered only by the spirit of the 
 little child." The realm of beauty is locked 
 to the artist satisfied with his own achievement. 
 Upon the egotistic, the self-sufficient, the truly 
 great soul can confer but little of the riches of 
 its fellowship. 
 
 So also the mind of low content can know but 
 little, can appreciate but little of the richly 
 beautiful; can possess nothing of noble great- 
 ness. Upon the one who will not aspire, even 
 the heavenly powers can bestow nothing. 
 
 And yet again, he who would know must do. 
 He who would have his possessions increased 
 must use those he has. Expression is the meas- 
 ure of impression, the psychologists tell us. 
 Utter in act the truth you have received, if you 
 would have your store of truth increased. Use 
 the talent you have, or even it shall be forfeited. 
 Give the beautiful conception form, or it shall 
 fade away, and the very power of conceiving 
 
 [77] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 the beautiful become atrophied. It is the prin- 
 ciple involved in those words of Jesus: Take 
 heed to that ye hear; do the truth you know; 
 and to you that hear shall more be given. 
 
 Unlike immaturity and inexperience these 
 limitations upon God's power of bestowal, be it 
 repeated, are not self-corrective. The lapse of 
 time, of itself, has no tendency to remove them ; 
 but rather to establish them more firmly. The 
 lessons of experience may have some qualifying 
 effect upon the self-sufficiency of early life ; but 
 there are many whose conceit, like their follies, 
 survive their youth, and who are self-sufficient 
 as well as ignorant in spite of experience. And 
 over low content and indolence, time and life's 
 teaching have no power. If these limitations 
 upon God's giving to us are to be removed we 
 ourselves must remove them. We can cultivate 
 the spirit that is teachable. We can spur our- 
 selves to aspiration, till through our deep de- 
 light in the large and beautiful the spur shall 
 be no longer needful, and our awakened thirst 
 shall be the security of continually enlarging 
 gifts from God. We can do faithfully the things 
 we know, and so make possible our larger know- 
 ing and our larger possession of the things 
 which as yet ' ' eye hath not seen nor ear heard 
 neither have entered into the heart of man." 
 But we alone can do this ; and before the bar- 
 riers of our conceit, our low content and our in- 
 dolence, if permitted to remain, the Giver of 
 all good stands impotent to bestow. 
 
 This truth of the divine limitation is of wide 
 
 [78] 
 
The Divine Limitations 
 
 application. It pertains to all we gather up 
 under the term salvation. There are those who 
 rely on the divine goodness to give salvation 
 to men whatever their response to the call of 
 God. But this is impossible. Salvation is the 
 man come to his full self-realization, and put in 
 possession of all that might be his own. It 
 means this if it means anything. But this the 
 Infinite himself may not confer. Salvation is in 
 one aspect a gift ; as knowledge is a gift ; as the 
 enjoyment of beauty is a gift; as friendship is 
 a gift. But in another aspect, equally real, 
 salvation is distinctly an achievement. It is to 
 be had, if had at all, through the opening of 
 oneself to receive it; through the stretching of 
 one's capacity to appropriate it; through in- 
 corporating it into oneself by doing the deeds of 
 a Christly life. 
 
 Set in this universe of marvelous richness, 
 with its inexhaustible stores of truth to be 
 known, of beauty to be preceived, of divine fel- 
 lowship to be enjoyed; the word of the ancient 
 philosopher gathers up the truth for each of us, 
 "Man is the measure of all things.' 9 Though 
 we live under the limitations of immaturity, yet 
 for all who will, the limit moves. We shall 
 never reach a point at which farther expansion 
 is not possible ; nor one at which the riches of 
 the universe will be exhausted. 
 
 If any of us shall fail of the fullest possession 
 of all richest good of which our being is capa- 
 ble, the limitation will be nowhere but in our 
 own aspirations and affections. 
 
 [79] 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATENESS 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Divine Considerateness 
 
 Isaiah 42: 3 — A bruised reed shall he not break and a dimly 
 burning wick shall he not quench. 
 
 T N the life of the people to whom these words 
 ** were spoken, reeds had important uses. 
 Baskets, boats and mats were woven of reeds. 
 What we call a cane, a walking-staff, was a cane 
 indeed, a reed. A reed served the purpose of 
 a yard stick. Pipes for conveying liquids were 
 segments of reeds. A reed provided the musi- 
 cian with his flute. 
 
 It is the gatherer of reeds for these various 
 uses who comes before us in the first picture of 
 the prophet's declaration. Among the tall 
 straight stems which he gathers by the river 
 side is one which some creature has trodden 
 upon. Bent to the ground, crushed, bruised, — 
 it seems a poor worthless affair. Might it not 
 as well be entirely broken off and done with? 
 Here is one who says, "Not so. This bruised 
 thing is not hopelessly injured. There is life in 
 it still. Straighten it ; bind it up ; give it chance 
 to recover, and it may yet become strong, 
 straight and beautiful. ' ' 
 
 The dimly burning, smoking wick of an orien- 
 tal lamp — a strand of flax in a little vessel from 
 
 [83] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 which the oil is exhausted — is not an attractive 
 thing. It is, rather, altogether unpromising and 
 offensive. "Out with it as soon as possible/ 9 
 "But no," says another voice. "Do not ex- 
 tinguish it because it is disagreeble. The smoke 
 itself testifies to the presence of some fire. Pos- 
 sibly it may be made to blaze up and give light 
 again. Pour in oil that the feeble flickering 
 may be quickened into flame.' ' So, says the 
 prophet, will the coming messenger of Israel's 
 God deal with the imperfect feeble goodnesses 
 of men. 
 
 It is a beautiful interpretation of the disposi- 
 tion of God, in whom we live, toward us, the 
 children of men, and of his treatment of our 
 feeble, deformed beginnings of worthy attain- 
 ment. Continually the eternal Father is on 
 the watch for traces of the better life in us men. 
 Where he finds these, — an effort, however halt- 
 ing and vacillating, — an aspiration, however 
 fluctuating and uncertain, — a purpose, however 
 feeble and intermittent; he does not censure 
 this, harshly treat it with severity because it is 
 so little ; he does not view it in its f aultiness and 
 reject it because of its defects. He rather re- 
 joices that there is any beginning of worthiness 
 which he may cherish and encourage, and with 
 all patient tenderness he fosters this, that he 
 may bring it to its possible perfection. 
 
 Burbank, among his thousands of vegetable 
 growths, is continually on the watch for prom- 
 ising variations. The very least of these com- 
 mands instant attention and unstinted care. 
 
 [84] 
 
The Divine Consider at eness 
 
 Light, moisture, fertilization of soil ; — whatever 
 conditions are needful for this stranger's devel- 
 opment are provided without hesitation, that 
 latent possibilities may come to their realiza- 
 tion in a spineless cactus, a seedless apple, a 
 new improved fruit or vegetable. 
 
 In his story of the Ascent of Man, Henry 
 Drummond has traced the path by which the 
 nobler unselfish spirit has come to be so in- 
 fluential in the life of the world; with promise 
 of being actually the overmastering influence 
 in human society. In the earliest stages of 
 life's history in the earth, the selfish spirit had 
 the field undisputed. In the fierce struggle for 
 existence, "Look out for number one," "Each 
 for himself " was the law. Gradually another 
 impulse emerges : struggle for the life of others ; 
 risking of self for the sake of offspring. The 
 social instinct begins to have play. In the herd, 
 the swarm of bees, the colony of ants, the in- 
 dividual forgets himself and labors for the com- 
 mon good. Even among ferocious wild beasts 
 this impulse has force. Kipling has reminded 
 us that "the law of the wolf is the pack." Not 
 each for himself, but each for all. At last in 
 this slow upward movement toward the unsel- 
 fish life, has come the human mother, the deep- 
 est impulse of whose being is loving and giving. 
 
 Over all this long upward movement through 
 the countless ages, the Eternal One, our God, 
 has watched, patient, considerate ; not breaking 
 the bruised reed, nor extinguishing the dimly 
 burning wick, but cherishing, cultivating, till 
 
 [85] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 the feeble possibilities become nobly real. It 
 is that same unwearying considerateness which 
 has all our possibilities of personal worth in its 
 keeping. 
 
 Our first feeble impulse towards larger, 
 better things, is of his implanting. But for him 
 it would not be there at all. The language of 
 the prayer-book is correct. From the over- 
 watching, divine One "all holy desires, all good 
 counsels and all just works do proceed." 
 
 And tardy as may be the growth of the worth- 
 ier life, distorted as may be its development by 
 the pressure of ignoble propensity from within, 
 or of the hampering conditions from without, 
 still the bruised reed he will not break. Though 
 we may be fully aware ourselves that the lamp 
 burns dimly, uncertainly, and that in its feeble 
 flickering there is more to condemn than to com- 
 mend, he will not extinguish it in judgment, but 
 will foster it in his fatherly care ; and not until 
 we ourselves have deliberately quenched the 
 smoking flax will that patient considerateness 
 be exhausted. 
 
 How the life of Jesus testified to all this and 
 fulfilled the prophet's anticipation concerning 
 the one who should sometime come and inter- 
 pret God to the world ! 
 
 Among the outcasts of society, publicans, sin- 
 ners, those who had lost all hope for themselves, 
 he went seeking the bruised reeds and the flick- 
 ering lamps ; and these he kindled into the lights 
 which have guided the world's civilization in its 
 upward march of twenty centuries; these he 
 
 [86] 
 
The Divine Consider at ene s s 
 
 made the strong staffs — the men of character — 
 upon whom every worthy cause might lean for 
 support. 
 
 Toward our feeble understandings, our child- 
 ish conceptions we are warranted in believing 
 this divine considerateness is exercised. And 
 surely there is need of it. Lowell might well 
 say, "I think God must be greatly amused with 
 us. M How foolish the conceptions of the wisest 
 must appear to the Eternal Mind. We look 
 back to the scientific notions of the wise men of 
 the past, their conceptions of the physical uni- 
 verse and its ongoing, and smile, as we are 
 justified in doing, at their childish f ancifulness. 
 But it is probable that the present-day concep- 
 tions of the foremost scientist would appear 
 scarcely less childish if set in contrast with ab- 
 solute reality. Upon those infantile reasonings 
 of the distant past the Eternal Intelligence, we 
 may be sure, did not look with scorn, for defec- 
 tive, fanciful as they were, there was in them 
 the germ which has unfolded into the more ac- 
 curate knowledge of today. If anywhere in the 
 realm of intelligence God might have been 
 moved to break the bruised reed and quench the 
 dimly burning wick, it surely would have been 
 in connection with the thoughts men have en- 
 tertained concerning himself. To what horri- 
 ble, slanderous conceptions of the Eternal One 
 the religions of the world bear witness. How 
 men have wronged him, traduced him in their 
 thoughts. And yet the Eternal Goodness has 
 not rejected those whom we call the heathen be- 
 
 [87] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 cause of this; but into their darkness has sent 
 increasing light. That men thought of him at 
 all was something; and in this something, un- 
 worthy as it was, was a germ to be cultivated 
 in patience, rather than to be crushed in judg- 
 ment. 
 
 And fortunate for us it may be that this same 
 divine considerateness is over us all. We walk 
 in the light of the Christian day; but we may 
 little suspect how true it is of ourselves that we 
 see as in a mirror, indistinctly. How the 
 fatherly goodness of the Eternal has been ma- 
 ligned sometimes by that which imagined itself 
 to be Christian theology! The Apostle Paul 
 was confident that he saw but in part, and that 
 part so partial, that when the perfect should 
 be revealed the part would be lost to view. To- 
 ward our feeble, childish understanding of him 
 God is considerate. If we will but let him, he 
 will develop that flickering flame into something 
 far more worthy of us and of him. 
 
 Over the mixed motives by which we are in- 
 fluenced more largely than we are aware, per- 
 haps, the same considerateness is exercised. 
 We smile at the generosity of the little child 
 who presents us with its treasured possession 
 in the evident expectation that it will be given 
 back or will bring some larger gift in return. 
 A largely qualified generosity it is indeed. Yet 
 nothing could be more mistaken than to crush 
 this bruised reed. Tinged with consideration 
 of self as this impulse is, it involves a germ of 
 spontaneous self-f orgetfulness which only needs 
 
 [88] 
 
The Divine Consider at eness 
 
 to be cultivated to shed its unsightliness, and 
 blossom beautifully. 
 
 When under some flash of revealing light we 
 of older years experience how mixed and un- 
 worthy are the motives which have influenced 
 us, it is comfort to know that God is consider- 
 ate, and that his disposition is not to quench the 
 smoking flax because of its offensiveness, but 
 to cherish it because of its possibilities of flame. 
 
 Over our vacillating purposes, our seemingly 
 ineffectual struggles after the better life, the 
 same divine considerateness hovers. Again and 
 again we determine to get the better of some un- 
 worthy propensity, to break off some evil prac- 
 tice ; and again and again we allow ourselves to 
 be defeated. In our discouragement we are 
 ready to throw up our hands in surrender. But 
 when we are hopeless over our failure, God is 
 not. In that last unsuccessful attempt you 
 made to conquer the besetting sin, of the re- 
 membrance of which you would gladly be rid, 
 he sees a flickering flame. The very regret you 
 feel, the humiliation in view of defeat, is a sign 
 of life ; the revelation of unrealized possibilities. 
 A bruised reed indeed, and yet one which the 
 God in whom we live would fain bind up and 
 foster into stately strength and beauty. As 
 Browning has put it — 
 
 " All instincts immature, 
 All purposes unsure, 
 * * * * 
 
 All I could never be, 
 All, men ignored in me, 
 This, I was worth to God. " 
 
 [89] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 It is good for us to grasp this truth of the di- 
 vine considerateness in all its realness. I take 
 it there is no one of us who does not sorely need 
 it at times if hope is not utterly to fail. In 
 hours of sharp discrimination, when, through 
 some revealing experience, we see ourselves as 
 we really are, the best among us become aware 
 that a bruised reed, a dimly burning lamp, is 
 the most fitting symbol of our strength and 
 worthiness. In the patient considerateness of 
 our God is our only ground for encouragement. 
 
 And that considerate forbearance is not only 
 comfort. It surely ought to be mighty incentive 
 and warrant for great expectation. If he still 
 believes in us, shall we not be spurred to make 
 sure that his confidence is not disappointed? If 
 he will but stay with us, we surely must win in 
 the end. 
 
 And the inference from God's considerate- 
 ness toward ourselves — what is it but uncon- 
 querable hopefulness for others, even the most 
 unpromising? Who shall say of any man that 
 he is beyond hope? Among all whom we have 
 known, what one was there whose wick did not 
 give forth some feeble flame ? Which of us ever 
 knew any person who was absolutely and ut- 
 terly bad? It was the unpromising pagan cen- 
 turion of whom Jesus could say, "I have not 
 found so great faith, no, not in Israel. ' ' It was 
 the unpromising Samaritan leper who alone of 
 all the ten healed returned to give thanks to his 
 benefactor. It was the unpromising publican — 
 the despised tax gatherer of Jericho, who re- 
 
 [90] 
 
The Divine C on sider at e ne s s 
 
 sponded to the appeal to the better life with the 
 gift of half of his property to the poor and 
 fourfold restoration of all unfair exactions. It 
 was the unpromising woman of the street who 
 showed herself nearer to the heart of God than 
 the reputable, self-satisfied Pharisee. The in- 
 spiration of the Salvation Army has been its 
 invincible conviction that the very lowest and 
 worst of men is salvable ; that no one is beyond 
 hope. And through the life-giving touch of 
 that triumphant confidence, from the lowest 
 depths of degradation and sin have come saints 
 of God, to take their place among the noblest 
 spirits of this generation. 
 
 For this unwearying divine considerateness, 
 blessed be God! Comfort in our hours of dis- 
 couragement, incentive to all patient endeavor, 
 pledge of our ultimate attainment, guaranty of 
 hope and effort for the least promising of the 
 children of men. 
 
 [91] 
 
CHAPTER Vn 
 LIGHT FOR THE RIGHTEOUS 
 
CHAPTEE VII 
 
 Light foe the Righteous 
 
 Psalms 97: 11 — Light is sown for the righteous and glad- 
 ness for the upright in heart. 
 
 T> Y whom these words were written we have 
 -"-* no certain knowledge ; but of this, at least, 
 we are certain, that he had the soul of a poet as 
 well as of a seer. He was inspired not alone in 
 the vision of truth, but in the expression of 
 truth as well; he was gifted with the poet's art 
 of saying things. 
 
 And what an art it is. The ability so to em- 
 body a truth in words that these shall not only 
 affirm the proposition to be enunciated, but 
 shall also suggest confirmation or illustration 
 of the truth declared. It is said of Daniel "Web- 
 ster that he had the ability so to state a propo- 
 sition that the simple statement was an 
 argument in its support. That the author of 
 this Ninety-seventh Psalm was a master in this 
 witchery of words, needs no other attestation 
 than this declaration: " Light is sown for the 
 righteous and gladness for the upright in 
 heart." 
 
 What these words directly affirm is the cer- 
 tain issue of good which awaits the man of pure 
 heart and upright life. But by implication they 
 
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With Open Mind 
 
 teach far more than this. They indicate the 
 method by which this result is brought about. 
 They suggest the interpretation to be put upon 
 possible occurrences which, at the time, may 
 seem to be inconsistent with the principle 
 stated. The very phraseology, by virtue of the 
 analogies it suggests, is such as to encourage 
 ready and confident acceptance of the proposi- 
 tion affirmed. 
 
 Light is sown for the righteous. Seed has 
 been dropped. It is already in the soil, under 
 the operation of forces adapted to bring to ma- 
 turity the harvest indicated. 
 
 Both the direct affirmation and the side 
 thoughts which spring from it are full of pre- 
 cious meaning. 
 
 First, the declaration itself. Light is sown 
 for the righteous. Blessings of mind and heart 
 are surely in store for the upright, light and 
 gladness. Light which illumines, makes clear 
 our way; light, which cheers; gladness, the 
 heart's life. 
 
 Second, the ground of confident assurance 
 that this is so, suggested by the pregnant 
 phraseology. There can be no failure, for the 
 seed is sown. The issue, that is to say, is in 
 the very nature of things. It comes about in no 
 haphazard and uncertain way ; by no arbitrary 
 interjection of energy from without. On the 
 contrary it is yoked up with the great order of 
 the universe. The inherent constitution of 
 things is such as to bring this about normally, 
 inevitably, even as the harvest follows the sow- 
 
 [96] 
 
Light for the Righteous 
 
 ing. It takes place as automatically, if you 
 choose so to express it, as fire burns or stones 
 fall. 
 
 Or, to phrase it otherwise, in these words the 
 poet affirms the great fundamental truth, that 
 this universe we inhabit is a moral universe, in 
 which consequents follow from their antecedents 
 as inevitably as in the realm of physical force ; 
 and in which light and gladness are inseparably 
 yoked to righteous living. 
 
 Upon this assertion of the poet the undeviat- 
 ing experience of the generations has set its 
 positive confirmation. Of the light which illu- 
 mines, this is true; the light of the mind in 
 which we are enabled to see things as they are, 
 to perceive spiritual verities and to adjust our- 
 selves to them. Nothing is better established 
 than the dependence of the intellectual upon the 
 moral; the dependence of clear seeing upon 
 right living. Unerring as gravity is that law 
 of the spirit by which it comes about that, "the 
 path of the righteous is as the dawning light, 
 which shineth more and more unto the perfect 
 day." While, "the way of the wicked is as 
 darkness. They know not at what they stum- 
 ble." 
 
 It was no arbitrary, exceptional provision 
 which Jesus announced in the words — "He that 
 folio we th me shall not walk in darkness, but 
 shall have the light of life. ' ' It was instead the 
 undeviating law of spiritual perception. Over 
 and over again, and in varying form he stated 
 it. "Take heed to that ye hear, and to you that 
 
 [97] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 hear shall more be given.' ' Do the truth you 
 know, if you would hope for increasing knowl- 
 edge. "If any man is willing to do his will, he 
 shall know." The unvarying experience of 
 nineteen centuries is confirmation of this great 
 truth, which holds front rank among the prin- 
 ciples of modern psychology. The pure in 
 heart do see God. To the impure and unright- 
 eous, the vision of the spiritual and eternal is 
 impossible. It is the fact that he that doeth 
 truth is not only willing to conre to the light, but 
 that he does come to the light. For the right- 
 eous soul many perplexities are resolved. He 
 attains the point of view from which the puz- 
 zling is made plain. As the maze of cycles and 
 epicycles by which the ptolemaic astronomy at- 
 tempted to explain the movements of the heav- 
 enly bodies, is reduced to simplicity when one 
 takes the sun and not the earth as the center and 
 point of observation, so by yielding oneself to 
 the leadings of righteousness, a person comes 
 to be at one with God; he looks through God's 
 eyes. Things are seen in their consistent sim- 
 plicity. The complicated becomes — tends to 
 become — clear. 
 
 For the righteous also is sown that other 
 light which cheers, and with the same undeviat- 
 ing certainty, by virtue of the very nature of 
 things, the harvest is sure to follow. "Surely 
 the light is sweet," says the writer of Ecclesi- 
 astes, "and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to 
 behold the sun." How our emotional nature 
 responds to the glory of the light which floods 
 
 [98] 
 
Light for the Righteous 
 
 the outer world. After a period of gloom, a 
 day of sunshine sets our hearts bubbling with 
 joy. Life is indeed worth living. Hopefulness 
 lifts us as on mighty wings. No undertaking 
 seems too difficult to be grappled with. The 
 light of good fellowship is on all faces, good will 
 is in all hearts. 
 
 A far mightier, more satisfying cheer is the 
 gift of that light which irradiates the soul's in- 
 ner sky. "Many there be," says the psalmist, 
 "that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, 
 lift thou up the lights of thy countenance upon 
 us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more 
 than they have when their corn and their wine 
 are increased." There is no gloom like that 
 of estrangement from God ; no burden like that 
 of conscious unrighteousness. Nothing else has 
 such power to drive men to despair. How 
 many have sought escape from its tortures by 
 the taking of their own lives. How many others 
 have been driven to make acknowledgment of 
 unsuspected guilt, and gladly to accept the pen- 
 alty of evil deeds, in order to escape the lash of 
 that self-condemnation which pursued them and 
 would give them no peace. 
 
 On the other hand, there is no joy like his who 
 lives in the light of God's countenance, in the 
 sense of God's approval. Privation, calamity, 
 distress, the protean shapes of outward advers- 
 ity, are powerless to darken that inner sky in 
 which this light still shines. Hear the ring of 
 unconquerable optimism in the exultant words 
 of that prophet of the olden time : ' ' Though the 
 
 [99] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be 
 in the vines ; the labor of the olive shall fail and 
 the fields shall yield no food ; the flock shall be 
 cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd 
 in the stalls; yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I 
 will joy in the God of my salvation. ' ' 
 
 In this conception of light as the light which 
 cheers, it is of course identical with the gladness 
 promised in the second half of the text to the 
 upright in heart. 
 
 And this light too is "sown." Its dawning 
 is sure. It arises in the nature of the case. Not 
 through the operation of impersonal necessity ; 
 because this light pertains wholly to the realm 
 of personality. It springs out of the accord of 
 man's spirit with the spirit of God. It is radi- 
 ance born of the divine friendship. Yet its 
 coming is assured in the very constitution of 
 things. To the upright in heart it cannot fail. 
 Because the God who is at the heart of the uni- 
 verse is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, your Father and mine, who makes the 
 sun of his outer world to rise upon the evil 
 and upon the good, seeking out the dark places 
 that he may illumine them with radiance, and 
 the light of whose love goes out to find res- 
 ponsive hearts and to bring them into the joy 
 of conscious fellowship with himself. For every 
 one of upright heart that fellowship is in 
 waiting. 
 
 By the very laws of personal relationship it 
 is only for the upright in heart that this glad- 
 ness is possible. By the same laws, to the up- 
 
 [100] 
 
Light for the Righteous 
 
 right in heart it is assured. As harvests follow 
 seed sowing, by causal connection, so infalli- 
 bly, by the very constitution of the universe, 
 light and gladness are in store for the righteous. 
 
 In keeping with this analogy of the seed and 
 the harvest also, is a fact of human experience 
 which often occasions sore perplexity; which 
 has led many a heart to question whether good- 
 ness is really at the center of the universe; 
 whether this expectation of any desirable out- 
 come for the upright in heart is all a delusion. 
 It is the fact that the fruit of light and gladness 
 is often very slow in appearing; to our vision 
 does not appear at all. 
 
 But harvests are the result of growth and 
 take time. Harvests are the result of vicissitude, 
 not of unbroken sunshine. Cold and heat, wet 
 and dry, calm and storm, all have their part in 
 maturing them. Occurrences which might well 
 enough seem hostile, even fatal, are really con- 
 tributory to best results. Upon the grain sown 
 in autumn snows will fall; frosts will bite the 
 tender blade; winter will seem to be set upon 
 the nullification of the farmer's toil. But in 
 spite of all these — as the result of them, indeed, 
 — the crop will be gathered in. 
 
 True it is, that across the path of the upright 
 in heart the problem of suffering casts its dark 
 shadow. And when the heart is torn and bleed- 
 ing over the loss of one more precious than life 
 itself, whose presence seemed to be all that 
 made life worth living ; when crushing disaster 
 falls upon one and upon those far dearer than 
 
 [101] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 himself, and poverty, humiliation and privation 
 stare them in the face; when one suffers irre- 
 parable wrongs at the hands of others, the ques- 
 tion whether there is a good God who knows and 
 cares ; whether there is any righteous order of 
 things which brings blessing to the upright in 
 heart, very naturally forces itself upon one. 
 With this problem of suffering the heart of men 
 in all ages has struggled. 
 
 It is interesting and notable that in early 
 Jewish thought a mistaken attempt to solve the 
 problem resulted from the too unqualified ac- 
 ceptance of the very principle of the text. So 
 certain were these early Hebrew thinkers that 
 blessing would follow righteousness, that they 
 regarded suffering, calamity, as the conclusive 
 evidence and consequence of evil deeds. It was 
 at this point that Job fought out the battle with 
 his friends. Job must have been a great sinner 
 to have suffered so sorely, was their contention. 
 This inference he met with blank denial, and 
 God justified him in his position. 
 
 The man of Uz found no clear, comprehensive 
 and sufficient solution of the problem of suffer- 
 ing. The conclusion he reaches is that the prob- 
 lem is too vast and complicated for complete so- 
 lution in the light of present knowledge. Even 
 this present mundane life is too large, many- 
 sided, kaleidoscopic for our comprehension, and 
 this is but a part. Existence has reach beyond 
 the present, and only in the light of the whole 
 can we hope for the resolving of all perplexities. 
 But at the same time, for Job as well as for our- 
 
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Light for the Righteous 
 
 selves, certain truths do emerge, which throw 
 some light upon the dark problem, and are in 
 keeping with our analogy of the seed and its 
 harvest. 
 
 First is the fact, well-attested, that suffering 
 has often a disciplinary, an educational value. 
 Too constant temporal prosperity is not always 
 conducive to our attaining to the true light for 
 the soul. On the contrary, when external sun- 
 shine is unbroken, it is too easy for us to be 
 preoccupied with its glare and so to lose the 
 vision of the light which is spiritual and eternal. 
 
 As we walk abroad under the noonday sun 
 and gaze into the depths of the azure, we see 
 no stars there. It is for us as if there were 
 none. But as we descend into some shaft pene- 
 trating to the treasures that lie hid away in the 
 earth's secret chambers, and turn to look back 
 whence we came, the stars surprise our vision, 
 burning at midday with calm and quenchless 
 splendor. So, often, by sinking out of the beams 
 of this world's brightness we sink into the fade- 
 less radiance of the world unseen. Sorrow and 
 disapointment have their educative value. A 
 diamond is not polished with soap, oil or even 
 emery stone. Only by grinding it with its own 
 dust are its royal beauties disclosed. In no 
 way but by fierce, fiery fermentation are the im- 
 purities cast out and the wine made rich and 
 mellow. We too need the grinding, the crush- 
 ing, the fierce agitation, if our best possibilities 
 — that in us which is most worthy to endure — 
 is to be brought to light. 
 
 [103] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 The prophet sees God sitting as a refiner and 
 purifier of silver. Not heartlessly does he stir 
 the fires beneath the crucible. Carefully, ten- 
 derly he watches the molten metal, waiting for 
 the moment when he shall be able to see his own 
 image reflected in it; (the ideal he has for us 
 attained) ; and then the flames are quenched. 
 
 In this educative effect of sorrow and trouble 
 we may perhaps find clue also, in part at least, 
 to the explanation of the differences of human 
 experience. There are some who lead lives of 
 almost unruffled prosperity. Others are the 
 very children of calamity. And these differ- 
 ences are by no means to be accounted for on 
 the basis of personal worthiness. The lives 
 most nobly deserving are often lived under the 
 deepest shadows. 
 
 It is true, however, that differences in per- 
 sonality — differences both of need and of pos- 
 sibility — may open the way for differences in 
 experience. Among the multitudes of human 
 beings there are no duplicates, either in consti- 
 tutional make-up or in capability. Experiences 
 adapted, needed, to bring out the best in one 
 life might not have that effect upon another. 
 The tremendous strain which is necessary to 
 bring the racer to its perfection, would kill the 
 dray-horse. 
 
 In the discipline of life sore trial may quite 
 as well be the experience of large as of little 
 worth; not because of misdeeds which call for 
 chastisement, but because of great capabilities 
 to be realized. Because of the very possibilities 
 
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Light for the Righteous 
 
 of elect souls it may be that the discipline of 
 suffering is appointed them. The writer of the 
 epistle to the Hebrews sees Jesus himself made 
 perfect through suffering. 
 
 Very interesting is the fact that before the 
 Old Testament writings were completed Jewish 
 thought had come around to this position, which 
 is the very opposite of that of Job's friends. 
 To them calamity was evidence of sinfulness. 
 To the later writers suffering was the token of 
 divine favor. " Whom the Lord loveth he chast- 
 eneth, even as a father the son in whom he de- 
 lighteth." 
 
 So interpreted the sorrows of life cast no 
 doubt upon the outcome for the upright in 
 heart. The harvest of light and gladness stands 
 in no jeopardy. It simply waits upon the opera- 
 tion of those influences which bring it to per- 
 fection. 
 
 Essentially the same is to be said concerning 
 another form of suffering, which is the peculiar 
 experience of the upright in heart : that vicari- 
 ous suffering, in the bearing of which Jesus far 
 transcends all others, and which, "for the joy 
 that was set before him" he gladly took upon 
 himself. No man liveth to himself. Whether 
 we will or not we are inseparably bound to one 
 another. We rise or fall together. As by the 
 sin of one many are made to suffer, so through 
 the suffering of one the sorrows of the many are 
 lightened. But for the patient burden-bearing 
 of the great heart of Abraham Lincoln, from 
 which his martyr death was really a release, lib- 
 
 [105] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 erty could not have come to the black man or 
 unity to a divided nation. All through our hu- 
 man life runs this strain of the vicarious. 
 Through the suffering of the one blessing is 
 made possible for the many. Few are the wor- 
 thy lives that have not some share in this ex- 
 perience. 
 
 And suffering of this kind, however severe, 
 casts no doubt upon the affirmation of the fact 
 that light is sown for the righteous. It is the 
 very means by which the harvest of light and 
 gladness is assured. There is no joy like the 
 joy of sacrificial service. It is the joy of the 
 patriot that through the laying down of his 
 own life his country may live. It is the eternal 
 joy of our Lord. In the ultimate good of all, 
 the upright in heart finds tenfold compensation 
 for all the suffering on his part through which 
 that good was secured. 
 
 In the experience of Sir Walter Scott, as 
 Lockhart has described it, is apt illustration 
 of what I am trying to say. In the words of the 
 biographer, "The tragic sorrows that over- 
 whelmed him were not the mere reversal of 
 the wheel of fortune; but gifts from the very 
 hand of the Father, to purify a noble soul from 
 the dross that mingled with it ; to give a great 
 man the oportunity of living in a way that 
 should furnish an eternal and imperishable ex- 
 ample. ' 7 
 
 So in the disciplinary and in the vicarious as- 
 pects of the suffering of the righteous, we find 
 what is analogous to those climatic conditions 
 
 [106] 
 
Light for the Righteous 
 
 which seem to threaten the life of the growing 
 grain, while in reality they are making the har- 
 vest sure. They constitute no adequate solu- 
 tion of the whole mystery of suffering, indeed. 
 That will be impossible until human existence 
 is seen in its full reach. But they warrant the 
 confident faith that as these dark aspects of life 
 have their luminous side, so the full harvest of 
 the upright heart, when at length it is gathered, 
 shall prove to be light, and only light. 
 
 But far more stable than all such inferences 
 is the ultimate basis of our confidence that for 
 the righteous the issue is sure. Its certain 
 ground is God. In this issue his own character 
 is at stake. He has made us to believe that 
 goodness shall be vindicated; that the upright 
 in heart shall not be the object of derision. He 
 will not fail to keep his word with us. That 
 inner impulse, which constrains us to faithful- 
 ness, is begotten of him, the Father of our 
 spirits; it is the offspring of that unwavering 
 faithfulness of the Eternal, "with whom can 
 be no variation neither shadow that is cast 
 by turning." Fidelity to the righteous cause, 
 faithfulness to the upright in heart is of the 
 very essence of his being. "He cannot deny 
 himself." In this confidence, out of the im- 
 penetrable darkness Job was able to make his 
 affirmation, "Though he slay me, yet will 
 I trust in him," and ultimately to find his 
 faith vindicated. So out of a heart wrung 
 by many sorrows Whittier could write the 
 words — 
 
 [107] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 " Yet, in the maddening maze of things, 
 And tossed by storm and flood, 
 To one fixed trust my spirit clings; 
 I know that God is good ! ' ' 
 
 In God himself is the security that the har- 
 vest of light shall not fail the upright in heart, 
 — the light which illumines; the light which 
 cheers ; the light of ever clearer vision ; the light 
 of ever deeper gladness. And if at any time the 
 light delays its coming, if we wait long for it 
 and the clouds still overhang, let there be no 
 disheartenment. Let it be remembered, "the 
 light is sown. ' ' Though the snows of winter be 
 deep upon the fields where the seed has been 
 scattered; yet the grain is there, and not far 
 hence the springtime when this shall be mani- 
 fest. 
 
 The word of the Eternal is pledged. Adver- 
 sity shall not prevail. The darkness shall have 
 an end. "Then shall thy light break forth as 
 the morning and thine health shall spring forth 
 speedily; then shall thy light rise in darkness 
 and thine obscurity be as the noonday." "For 
 the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the 
 days of thy mourning shall be ended. ' ' 
 
 [108] 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 EARTH HELPED THE WOMAN 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Eaeth Helped the Woman 
 
 Rev. 12: 16 — And the earth helped the woman. 
 
 T N that vision of the seer, of whose description 
 -*■ these words are a part, there appeared a 
 woman arrayed with the sun, the moon under 
 her feet, upon her head a crown of stars, about 
 to be delivered of a son ; menacing her a great 
 red dragon, intent to seize and devour the child 
 that should be born. Away from the jaws of the 
 dragon the new-born babe was caught up to 
 God, and the woman fled away into the wilder- 
 ness. The dragon, infuriated at the loss of his 
 prey, poured out of his mouth a deluge of water 
 to submerge the woman ; but the earth, opening 
 its mouth and swallowing up the river, she es- 
 caped. 
 
 " The earth helped the woman." In these 
 words of the apocalyptic seer there is imbedded 
 a great inspiring truth. In the vision portrayed 
 before us we are transplanted to the realm of 
 symbolism. In order to the apprehension of 
 the truth embodied in the text, three symbols 
 may perhaps call for some slight elucidation; 
 the woman, the dragon, the earth. 
 
 Interpreted strictly, within the limits of the 
 seer's vision, the woman symbolizes the Jewish 
 
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With Open Mind 
 
 church, from which was born the child the Sa- 
 vior of the world. But the symbol is capable 
 of far wider application than this. From the 
 first, Christian imterpreters have seen in the 
 woman the emblem of the church of Christ, and 
 in her persecution the portrayal of the vicissi- 
 tudes through which the Kingdom of Jesus has 
 been called to pass. Are we not warranted in 
 giving even wider interpretation to the figure 
 and seeing in the woman the emblem of any or- 
 ganization, whatever it be, in which reside and 
 through which operate those forces and influ- 
 ences whereby God is redeeming his world? Se- 
 curing to the spiritual its rightful dominance 
 in the life of our race? So broadly interpreted 
 the woman becomes the symbol of the spiritual 
 forces working for the redemption of the world. 
 
 The dragon represents the forces in antago- 
 nism to these. The symbol is most fitting; it is 
 the incarnation of animalism. It typifies our 
 legacy from * ' the monsters of the elder prime ; 9 9 
 our animal inheritance. It aptly symbolizes 
 also that satanic self-will, pride, greed, hate, 
 which, rooted in our animal constitution, lift 
 themselves up to antagonize and defeat the en- 
 nobling, redeeming forces of the spiritual. In 
 that antagonism the dragon waits to devour at 
 its birth whatever is of a nature to promote the 
 sway of the higher life: the life with God. 
 Thwarted in this purpose it pours forth its 
 floods of animosity to pursue and engulf the 
 new born higher life of man. 
 
 The earth is the emblem of nature, in its wide 
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Earth Helped the Woman 
 
 scope ; the total order of the universe ; compris- 
 ing not alone the material worlds and potencies, 
 but man in the entire range of his constitution, 
 together with those forces, which, working 
 through man and society, give movement and 
 shape to history. 
 
 So interpreting this symbolism we are able 
 to translate the text. For the words ' ' The earth 
 helped the woman," we may read, "In the 
 struggle of the spiritual with its foes, the trend 
 of the universe is on the side of the spiritual. ' ' 
 
 This transient incident in the drama of the 
 Apocalypse, is the proclamation of an eternal 
 truth. Always the unchanging order of the 
 universe promotes the spiritual. This has not 
 been a commonly accepted, generally appre- 
 ciated truth. It does not accord with the con- 
 ception most prevalent in Christian circles dur- 
 ing the post-Reformation era. 
 
 In the experience of us all the declaration 
 of the apostle Paul has found verification : 
 "The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the 
 spirit against the flesh ; and these are contrary 
 the one to the other; that ye may not do the 
 things that ye would." This subjective experi- 
 ence we have translated into the affirmation of 
 an eternal, essential dualism in the constitution 
 of the universe. Under the influence of the 
 Platonic philosophy we have accepted the view 
 that the material is essentially bad; that the 
 trend of the physical universe is antagonistic 
 to the spiritual life ; that man is normally unre- 
 ligious; the spiritual life abnormal to him; — 
 
 [113] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 to be implanted and established, if at all, by the 
 irruption of some foreign power into the order 
 of nature, to overcome it and hold it in subjec- 
 tion; the spiritual life an alien, to be colonized 
 and cultivated in the mundane only by the over- 
 mastering of the normal order of the universe. 
 This has been the too generally accepted con- 
 ception. 
 
 A view somewhat less extreme which has had 
 something of currency is, that at best the order 
 of the physical universe is indifferent to the 
 spiritual; that it merely affords an avenue in 
 which the struggle between the spiritual and its 
 antagonists may be carried on. 
 
 With the deepening sense of the immanence 
 of God, this dualistic conception is passing. We 
 are awakening to the realization that the uni- 
 verse is a unity; that it has a single ultimate 
 end, to which, from the beginning and in all de- 
 partments, everything conspires. The thought 
 of our time is increasingly in mood to receive 
 the intimation of the text; that the real trend 
 of the universe, at whatever stage of its un- 
 folding, is towards the spiritual. "The earth 
 helps the woman. ' ' In the struggle of the spir- 
 itual with its antagonists, whether the animal 
 or the satanic, the trend of the universe is 
 promotive of the spiritual. 
 
 In recent years the conflict which the seer of 
 the Apocalypse depicts has been on, with em- 
 phasis. Out of the mouth of the dragon there 
 has poured forth a flood to overwhelm and ex- 
 terminate the woman. A flood of words from 
 
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Earth Helped the Woman 
 
 the lips of a materialistic philosophy; from 
 atheism, arrogating to itself the name of 
 science. A torrent of literature ; the emanation 
 from "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the 
 eye and the pride of life, ' ' gifted with all beauty 
 of expression and the fascination of dramatic 
 power, but too largely sensual, skeptical, scorn- 
 ful. And supplementing these there has poured 
 in upon our time a flood of corruption through 
 the medium of an art, whose voluptuous beauty 
 was the vehicle for bewildering, enticing appeal 
 to the lowest. Through all these media the as- 
 sault in these recent days, of the dragon upon 
 the woman has been deadly and persistent. 
 
 For those of higher vision and pure heart, 
 the days have been days of solicitude. That 
 solicitude is by no means wholly past; but to 
 all those who have the higher good of the world 
 at heart there are being uttered messages of 
 comfort and confidence. The word of the seer 
 is finding verification. "The earth helped the 
 woman. ' ' 
 
 The issue is not dubious. However fierce may 
 be the assaults of evil, they shall not be finally 
 successful. The eternal trend of the universe 
 makes the outcome sure. From various quar- 
 ters confirmation of this truth is transpiring in 
 this day: from that which is coming to light 
 concerning the constitution of the material uni- 
 verse; from the moral trend manifest in the 
 order of things; from the constitutional needs 
 and tendencies of the human spirit; from the 
 movement of history. 
 
 [115] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 First, the study of the material world, the in- 
 vestigation of the ultimate constitution of the 
 physical universe, is affording evidence that by 
 nature, "the earth helps the woman." Through 
 the deeper understanding of the realm of mat- 
 ter and force there is emerging confirmation of 
 the reality and preeminence of the spiritual. A 
 significant change from conditions of the recent 
 past. A quarter of a century since it was 
 loudly proclaimed that in the material universe 
 there was involved the negation of the spiritual. 
 "Kraft und Staff " — force and matter were all; 
 adequate to account for all; the denial and ex- 
 clusion of any other possibility. 
 
 But, pushing their investigations further into 
 the material, the physicists have seemed to come 
 through upon another side, upon which it seems 
 to be strongly suggested that the bases of the 
 material itself must be sought in the spiritual. 
 In ultimate analysis, force, energy can be ac- 
 counted for only as of spiritual origin ; it is the 
 expression of a will. Matter finds explanation 
 as a form of force ; so that in origin it, too, is 
 spiritual. 
 
 Furthermore, in a degree wholly unprece- 
 dented, undreamed of, the forces of the physi- 
 cal universe are yielding themselves as the will- 
 ing instruments of the spiritual in man. Heat, 
 light, gravity, electricity, reveal themselves as 
 strangely adapted to do man's bidding; and in 
 the rendering of this service to promote his 
 larger, richer attainment in the life of the spirit- 
 So in origin, in use, in end, the physical uni- 
 
 [116] 
 
Earth Helped the Woman 
 
 verse is finding its interpretation in the spirit- 
 ual. Only by reference to the spiritual is it able 
 to give account of itself. 
 
 Advancing now a step, — in the story of the 
 ascent of life, we find proclamation that the 
 trend of the universe is toward the spiritual. 
 The evolution of the forms of life has been not 
 mere change, but progress; movement from 
 lower to higher. In all this upward movement, 
 moreover, there is suggested and impressed the 
 conception of prearrangement ; of operation ac- 
 cording to plan. At the beginning and through 
 all the ascending stages of development there is 
 indication of superintending intelligence. 
 
 Furthermore in this upward movement, even 
 within the ranges of what we call the animal 
 world, there is involved the ever larger and 
 larger inclusion of the spiritual. There is con- 
 stantly increasing emergence of the elements of 
 the spiritual, in the successive forms of life, the 
 ant, the bee, the bird, till in the higher orders 
 of the animal creation, like the horse and dog, 
 we find traces of an intelligence and a moral 
 sense worthy to be spoken of as akin to those of 
 man. The whole trend of evolution is to the 
 steadily increasing inclusion and expression of 
 the spiritual in the realm of life. 
 
 The efficient causes of the material universe 
 are spiritual. These alone can account for it. 
 The final cause of the material universe, the end 
 for which it exists, is spiritual : w£.,the bringing 
 into existence of spiritual beings, and the pro- 
 viding for them of an arena for their higher and 
 
 [117] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 higher development. Before the mind of one 
 who thoughtfully observes the movement of the 
 outer world there rises the vision of a great 
 cycle, in which is epitomized the story of the 
 universe. From the spiritual, God, the universe 
 has proceeded. In the successive forms of life 
 media have been provided for the ever fuller ex- 
 pression of the spiritual, until at length in the 
 spirit of man the spirit of God is truly imaged, 
 and in the aspirations of the devout soul the 
 spirit returns unto God its source. 
 
 A little since, the constitution of the material 
 universe was loudly heralded as the denial of 
 God and of all things spiritual. Today such 
 titles as ' ' Through Nature to God ; ' 9 ' i Through 
 Science to Faith,' ' are index of the real move- 
 ment. In contrast with that boast of the spirit 
 of denial hear these recent words of Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, one of England's most eminent scien- 
 tists: "We are coming to recognize that * * 
 the extensive foundation of truth now being 
 laid by scientific workers will ultimately sup- 
 port a gorgeous building of aesthetic feeling and 
 religious faith. ' ' Increasingly and with marked 
 rapidity the truth is emerging that only by ref- 
 erence to the spiritual can the physical universe 
 give account of itself, either as regards origin 
 or end. The very earth is constituted to help, 
 does help the woman. 
 
 Second, in the conspicuously moral character 
 of the order of the universe, its promotion of 
 moral ends, the earth helps the woman. The 
 trend of the nature of things is to foster and 
 
 [118] 
 
Earth Helped the Woman 
 
 conserve the moral, and to eliminate the non- 
 moral. 
 
 In the succession of the forms of life, not 
 only have higher and yet higher orders of in- 
 telligence appeared. Accompanying this evolu- 
 tion there has been the more and more positive 
 exhibition of those traits which constitute the 
 admirable in character. Altogether embryonic, 
 if you please, even in the highest orders of the 
 animal world, has been this foreshadowing of 
 what was to be noble character in man. Yet the 
 trend of nature, even among these lower orders, 
 has been to subordinate the individualistic to 
 the communal, the selfish to the altruistic — as in 
 the life of ant and bee. And at length in that 
 evolution of "the mother," which Henry Drum- 
 mond has so exquisitely sketched, the order of 
 the universe has made unambiguous affirmation 
 of what has been its intent from the first. 
 
 Even on those planes of life, which antedate 
 and are of lower level than human history, the 
 manifest trend of the universe is to promote the 
 moral and to subordinate the non-moral. 
 
 Within the range of human history, nothing 
 is more familiar, nothing more indisputable 
 than that by the very constitution of things, 
 evil is short lived; that it carries the seeds of 
 its extermination within itself. Never was it 
 more manifest than today, that "he that pur- 
 sueth evil pursueth it to his own death;" that, 
 "the face of the Lord is against them that do 
 evil, even to cut off the remembrance of them 
 from the earth." So true is it that even on 
 
 [119] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 what we may call its lower levels, in the region 
 of the impersonal, the normal trend of the uni- 
 verse is to foster that which is spiritual. 
 
 Third, we find equal assurance of this truth 
 when we turn our attention to the constitution 
 of the human spirit. For it, too, is included in 
 the order of the universe. Nothing is more 
 firmly established than that man is inveterately, 
 ineradicably religious. The deepest craving of 
 his being is his insatiable hunger for God. 
 Whether consciously or unconsciously — the 
 deepest cry of every human spirit is, " ! that 
 I knew where I might find him. ' ' Though he be 
 but "an infant crying in the night, an infant 
 crying for the light and with no language but a 
 cry;" though he know as little as the infant 
 what his real need is, the need of the infant is 
 its mother, and the need of the man is God. 
 
 Again, no fact concerning man is more in- 
 disputable than that it is in finding God, man 
 finds himself; comes to his best in intellect, in 
 his affectional nature; in purpose and charac- 
 ter; in the rounded worth and richness of his 
 life. For this he was made. In this the order of 
 the universe as it is expressed through him at- 
 tains its end. 
 
 Of the same intent are those manifold influ- 
 ences which impinge upon the spirit of man and 
 move it towards God, its end. The rising 
 before us of those ideals of beauty and worth 
 which come to us we know not whence ; the well- 
 ing up, from the unplumbed depths of our souls, 
 of those divine impulsions which set us upon the 
 
 [120] 
 
Earth Helped the Woman 
 
 pursuit of the high and noble ; the spur of our 
 moral nature as it rings through our souls its 
 imperative " ought;" all these are the most fa- 
 miliar facts of our experience. And from the 
 outer world, from 
 
 " the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, " 
 
 strange mystic voices are borne in upon our 
 souls, the call of the deep without to the deep 
 within, summoning us to find our life in God. 
 
 So most mightily through the constitution of 
 our spirits the great order of God's universe 
 helps the woman. 
 
 Fourth, yet once again in the great ground 
 swell which gives movement and direction to hu- 
 man history, "the earth helps the woman;" the 
 order of the universe promotes spiritual ends. 
 The trend of the ages has been steadily up- 
 ward. As in the early stages of the world's 
 existence, previous to man, there was steady 
 ascent among the forms of life, till the spir- 
 itual came to its birth in man, the image of 
 God; so since that time, on the plane of hu- 
 man history there has been untiring progress 
 toward the securing of the larger prevalence 
 and the supremacy of the spiritual in the life 
 of the world. That is the story of the historic 
 ages, upward. 
 
 Not without seeming recedence of the tide at 
 times, as the floods of the unillumined have 
 poured their blackness over regions where the 
 light was shining; yet in the sequel the re- 
 
 [121] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 cedence has been seen to be only seeming. 
 Through the darkness has broken the light with 
 a greater brilliancy and a wider dispersion. 
 
 The trend of history is upward to the ever 
 increasing extension and to the enthronement of 
 the spiritual in the life of the world. Contin- 
 ually the movement of the world's life is carry- 
 ing us far beyond the intent of the actors in 
 affairs. Men, nations, pursue their little, selfish 
 aims ; God uses them for the accomplishment of 
 his great ends. We polish our fragments of 
 stone. He builds them into his great mosaic. 
 
 Was it a grasping, unscrupulous imperialism, 
 as some conceived, which placed us in the Phil- 
 ippines ? or, as others believed, was it the result 
 of the unselfish desire to share with others the 
 benefits of our civilization that the United 
 States unexpectedly found itself a most potent 
 influence in the movements of the far East? 
 Whichever it was, to the amazement of us all, 
 this relation of the United States to world poli- 
 tics suddenly came into existence ; with the sig- 
 nificant result that the conspicuous humanizing 
 influence in the bitter contentions of eastern 
 Asia is American diplomacy. 
 
 Among all the signal movements of our time, 
 what is more notable than the awakening of the 
 social consciousness and the mighty trend to- 
 ward mutualism, — the subordination of the in- 
 dividual to the common good ; the incorporation 
 of the spirit of Jesus in the social and indus- 
 trial life of the world? A movement fitly char- 
 acterized as "glacial" in the resistlessness of 
 
 [122] 
 
Earth Helped the Woman 
 
 its onward push; as cosmic in consideration of 
 the forces by which it is impelled. Underneath 
 and behind it is revealed a purpose far more 
 mighty than human intent ; it moves on with an 
 energy vastly transcending the strength of men 
 individually or in the multitude. Like that 
 mighty tidal impulse which drove the deluge of 
 the barbarians over the boundaries of north- 
 eastern Asia and across the plains of Europe, 
 men conspire with it in pursuit of their own ad- 
 vantage, or attempt to resist it in defence of 
 threatened prerogative; but with the steady 
 trend of the forces which are elemental it moves 
 majestically on, till the prophecy of its absolute 
 triumph in the betterment of human conditions 
 and of its universal sway in the relations of so- 
 ciety ceases to be prediction, and becomes sim- 
 ply the reading of the future in the light of 
 forces already operative. 
 
 Very notably the trend of current events is to 
 the reaffirmation, with a positiveness hitherto 
 unknown, of the truth of Providential control 
 in human history. Not the Providence which 
 consists in the occasional irruption of powers 
 outside the order of the universe for the correc- 
 tion or emendation of the natural and the en- 
 couragement of the spiritual ; but a Providence 
 which is the persistent unflagging energizing 
 in and through the order of the universe, to the 
 attainment of ever more highly moral and spir- 
 itual results ; the establishment of the kingdom 
 of heaven. 
 
 So, not only through the conscious coopera- 
 [123] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 tion of men, but often far beyond such intended 
 action, the forces at the heart of human history 
 are helping the woman. The trend of the uni- 
 verse is to the enthronement of the spiritual. 
 
 What, now, in relation to the Gospel we pro- 
 claim, does all this signify? What but this: 
 that Christ the divine man, is the goal of his- 
 tory. It is he to whom all tends from the be- 
 ginning. Jesus is the true expression of the 
 order of the universe at its culminating point. 
 He is what it has meant from the first. 
 
 In the birth of the child for which the dragon 
 waited, it was not alone the woman who was in 
 labor. The earth also shared those travail 
 pains. Is not this the declaration of the Apos- 
 tle, "the whole creation groaneth and travail- 
 eth in pain together," * * * "waiting for the 
 manifestation of the sons of God?" Christ, 
 then, is not some heavenly interloper ; an alien 
 life injected into the normal order of the 
 world's history. He is the efflorescence of that 
 history, its essential meaning at its culmination. 
 For his production the order of the universe 
 came into being; for the incarnation of the 
 spirit of heaven in the life of the world. 
 
 And this not in a single isolated instance, in 
 the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the 
 first-born among many brethren; type of that 
 true redeemed manhood that is to be, when, 
 through the travail of the universe, there shall 
 be at last the perfect manifestation of the sons 
 of God. 
 
 In and through Jesus, our Lord, the essential 
 [124] 
 
Earth Helped the Woman 
 
 efficiency and movement of the universe, from 
 the beginning find interpretation and expres- 
 sion. In him that movement finds its ade- 
 quate, ultimate leverage for the full attainment 
 of its final aim — a humanity brought to its full 
 possibilities in the glad dedication of itself to 
 God. 
 
 But in the age-long conflict with the evil, in 
 the toil and struggle for the furtherance of the 
 good; in the backward rush of the tide, which 
 from time to time recurs, does the question 
 force itself upon us— Ah! but what of the 
 dragon? Is not he very real, and is not he too 
 within the order of the universe? So indeed. 
 But only as an incident ; a passing phase in the 
 transition from the lower to the higher ; an as- 
 pect of that vanity to which the creation has 
 been subjected by its author in hope of the de- 
 liverance into the liberty of the glory of the 
 children of God, which surely awaits : — a deliv- 
 erance to be wrought by the elimination of the 
 dragon, through the operation of those forces 
 which, from the first, have been energizing at 
 the heart of the universe ; with the end that God 
 shall be all, and in all. 
 
 Here, then, is for us the word of inspiration. 
 Ever "the earth helps the woman.' ' From the 
 day when the mountains were brought forth to 
 the hour when a child was born at Bethlehem ; 
 and on from the song of the herald angels 
 to that day when every creature which is in 
 heaven and on the earth and under the earth 
 and on the sea shall mingle their voices in that 
 
 [125] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 new song of redemption consummated, from the 
 Alpha to the Omega, from the beginning to the 
 ending, the push of the order of the universe 
 is to the promotion of spiritual ends. 
 
 In the midst of this great onmoving order we, 
 the disciples of Jesus, are set. It is our high 
 responsibility, our great glory, to be consciously 
 cooperating with him, for the promotion of the 
 ends of righteousness and love; for the con- 
 summation of a redeemed world. 
 
 To us comes the inspiring assurance. In the 
 prosecution of our high calling the universe is 
 with us, not against us. The trend of the order 
 of things is not antagonistic; it is not indif- 
 ferent. It is our positive ally. That Infinite, 
 Eternal Energy in whose presence we are, what- 
 ever the field of its operation, is on our side; 
 upbearing, promoting the spiritual ; eliminating 
 the opposite; bringing most unpromising seed 
 to abundant harvest. To us, thrilled by this 
 vision, there comes ringing that trumpet call 
 of the great apostle : 
 
 "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye 
 steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
 work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that 
 your labor is not vain, in the Lord." 
 
 [126] 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 FEAR NOT 
 
o 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Feab Not 
 
 Luke 2: 10 — And the angel said unto them, Fear not. 
 
 F all the ills that mortals know, what is 
 
 more distressing to the heart, what is more 
 deforming, degrading to life than fear, that 
 terror dread which blanches the cheek, drives 
 the blood back upon the heart, sets the limbs to 
 trembling, paralyzes effort; fills the soul with 
 gloomy foreboding? And of all ills what more 
 commonly experienced than this f Who has not 
 known it? Who needs to be told of the misery 
 of fear? 
 
 In all the past of mankind, scarcely any ex- 
 perience has been more universal and per- 
 sistent. Like a black cloud it has over-hung 
 the life of the world, casting its dark shadow 
 over all things, transforming otherwise bright- 
 est prospects into the gloom of night. 
 
 Manifold have been the objects of dread, from 
 manifold quarters assailing the spirit of man. 
 Foremost among sources of apprehension has 
 been men's thought of deity, the Unseen Power. 
 In their endeavor to conceive the nature, the 
 character of the source of our being, that tre- 
 mendous force which energizes in the ongoing 
 of the universe, expressing itself in tempest and 
 
 [129] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 thunderbolt, as well as in the gentle zephyr and 
 the mellow sunlight; shaking the earth with 
 convulsions, hurling it along its orbit, wheel- 
 ing the stars upon their courses, ushering men 
 into existence, holding them in its grasp, buffet- 
 ing them with the blows of fortune, snuffing 
 them out like candles. In their endeavor to con- 
 ceive this awful energy, dread superstitions 
 have seized upon their souls. They have pic- 
 tured to themselves the Eternal in whom we 
 live, as a being of ferocity, cruel, inhuman, in- 
 different to the troubles and sufferings of men, 
 if not vindictive, delighting in torture ; and the 
 dread of this awful Somewhat has filled their 
 lives with gloom. By all conceivable means 
 they have endeavored to placate this being, and 
 to avert his fury, — by the offering of their pos- 
 sessions, by the torturing of their bodies; by 
 the sacrificing of their children. Far and wide 
 over the world today are scattered the wit- 
 nesses of this terror of the deity, in the sacred 
 places which have been drenched in blood; 
 the altars that have smoked with human 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Added to this dread of the Supreme, has been 
 the fear of other supernatural beings, demons 
 of the unseen, devils who inhabit the dark ; the 
 foes of men, delighting in their misery, with 
 power to rob them of what is precious, and to 
 bring upon them fell disaster. 
 
 Little as we may know of this in our own ex- 
 perience, there are vast multitudes of people in 
 the world who live constantly under the black 
 
 [130] 
 
Fear Not 
 
 shadow of this fear of supernatural foes. And 
 even among those who are free from all such 
 superstitious dread, how many there are whose 
 lives are darkened by fear of the forces in the 
 midst of which we live. How many there are on 
 the Pacific coast whose minds are never free 
 from the apprehension of earthquakes. How 
 many in the middle west who can never see a 
 dark cloud in the sky without the heart's sink- 
 ing and the cheek's turning pale, through dread 
 of the cyclone or the thunderbolt. How many, 
 east, west, north and south, who are continually 
 haunted by fear of miasma and contagion. To 
 what multitudes the clear light of science has 
 brought only darkness and foreboding by its 
 revelation of the existence of microbes and their 
 possibilities. 
 
 And reference to these trembling souls sug- 
 gests the significant fact that the increase of 
 knowledge, the diffusion of intelligence, does 
 not of itself bring diminution of fear; for one 
 of its conspicuous results is to make us aware 
 of causes of apprehension before unknown. And 
 above and beyond all other occasions for fear 
 stands the spectre waiting with the key: the 
 death from which there is no escape, and that 
 after death fraught with the greatest of all 
 foreboding, the dread of the unknown and un- 
 imaginable. 
 
 Who of mortals is there who has not felt the 
 icy hand of fear, from some quarter, clutching 
 at his heart and turning the springtime of joy 
 into the winter of forebodings ? And the effects 
 
 [131] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 of fear are no less to be deplored that its sway 
 is extended. 
 
 There is not alone the inexpressible misery of 
 haunting apprehension, calamity enough in it- 
 self ; there is also the physical wretchedness of 
 paralyzed and disordered functions, and of the 
 diseases which this induces, and still further, 
 beyond all other sources of evil, fear possesses 
 the power to rob the soul of those qualities 
 which characterize independent and noble man- 
 hood. It turns the brave man into a coward, 
 the generous into a beast of prey ; it palsies the 
 soul of honor and transforms the truthful into a 
 liar. Under its baleful influence the man of in- 
 tegrity and high principle becomes the time- 
 serving sycophant. It brutalizes the tender- 
 hearted. No wild beast was ever so inhuman as 
 the kindliest of men or of women seized by the 
 panic of a shipwreck or of a burning building. 
 At the baneful touch of fear all that is noblest 
 in man shrivels and dies. Aptly has the writer 
 of the epistle to the Hebrews described the vic- 
 tims of fear as all their lifetime subject to 
 bondage. 
 
 Into this wide-spread condition of wretched- 
 ness and little-worth the voice of Christmas 
 speaks its cheering, ennobling, liberating word, 
 " Fear not. " "Fear not." 
 
 And why fear not, does anyone ask? Be- 
 cause Christmas brings to us the good news of 
 God. That is the central significance of Christ- 
 mas. God is not to be dreaded. God is to be 
 loved and trusted. In that little babe at Beth- 
 
 [132] 
 
F ear Not 
 
 lehem he speaks his word of love and of assur- 
 ance to the world. In the life of that little babe 
 now come to manhood; in his words of gentle- 
 ness and truth, his deeds of kindness, his tender 
 compassion, the heart of that Eternal One in 
 whom we live unveils itself. God is not to be 
 dreaded, but loved and trusted, and through 
 that loving trust in the Eternal Goodness which 
 men shall learn to exercise, all fear — all fear, 
 from whatever source — shall be dissipated, 
 forever blotted out. 
 
 But is it asked, Are we not to fear God? Is 
 not the fear of the Lord the beginning of wis- 
 dom? Are we not told that to fear God and 
 keep his commandments is the whole duty of 
 man? Even so we are. Such are the words of 
 the preacher in Ecclesiastes. But there is no 
 greater source of misapprehension than the am- 
 biguity of words. That fear of God which 
 psalmist and wise men exhort us to cultivate, is 
 not terror ; it is loving reverence, filial loyalty, 
 worshipful obedience, — at the farthest remove 
 from paralyzing, degrading fear, the fear of 
 dread apprehension, the fear that is afraid. The 
 deeper that fear of God of which the psalmist 
 speaks, the less there will be of terror, the more 
 of trustful peace, until it will eventuate in the 
 perfect love, in which all fear is cast out. 
 
 As terror of God gives place to trust in God, 
 all other terror passes. No fear of unseen foes, 
 physical or spiritual, remains ; for there are no 
 such foes that are not under the power of the 
 Infinite Goodness ; they can work no effect upon 
 
 [133] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 us in contravention of his permission; and if 
 God be for us who can be against us? For 
 those who in firm faith have accepted the 
 Christmas tidings of a loving God, and are 
 lovingly in accord with him, all fear of disaster, 
 of untoward circumstance has passed away. 
 
 In the glad assurance that, "neither life, nor 
 death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
 powers, nor height, nor depth,nor any other cre- 
 ated thing shall be able to separate them from 
 the love of God," they are sure that no real 
 evil can befall them; that dark things as well 
 as bright have precious significance ; that pain- 
 ful as well as pleasant experience promotes the 
 great, blessed, abiding values; that all things 
 do indeed work together for good to them that 
 love God; that all possible vicissitudes which 
 can by any means beset our pathway through 
 life shall be factors of value in the cultivation 
 of that high personal development which is the 
 purpose of divine Goodness for us. 
 
 " Be it good or ill; be it what you will, 
 It needs must help me on my road, — 
 My rugged way to heaven, please God. 
 
 The storm but hurries us where we would be ; 
 Beyond the driving winds and raging sea." 
 
 This is no figment of the imagination; no 
 superstitious fancy. It is the actual, tested by 
 experience a million times repeated. They who 
 have accepted the Christmas tidings of a loving 
 Author and Euler of the universe, and have 
 dared to live as if those tidings were true, have 
 found that the exhortation of the herald angel 
 
 [134] 
 
F ear Not 
 
 "Fear not," is fully warranted. The soul 
 courageous in God has faced the ominous emer- 
 gency thick-set with suspected enemies, to dis- 
 cover, like Christian at the approach to the 
 palace Beautiful, that the lions were chained. 
 Or if seeming calamity has befallen, it has been 
 only to reveal itself in another aspect ; and the 
 troubles, the sufferings, the losses of life have 
 proven to be among its most valuable assets. 
 The experience of life has warranted the confi- 
 dent words of Whittier — 
 
 " We have no fear of any shape 
 Which darkness may assume or fill. M 
 
 And with all other fear which the Christmas 
 tidings have banished, has gone the fear of 
 death and of anything which may lie beyond 
 death. For whatsoever direction into the undis- 
 covered country our unending pilgrimage may 
 take, it is certain we shall reach no point at 
 which we shall fail to find the encompassing love 
 of God already in advance of us. 
 
 ■ ' And so beside the Silent Sea 
 I wait the muffled oar; 
 No harm from him can come to me 
 On ocean or on shore. 
 
 I know not where his islands lift 
 Their fronded palms in air; 
 I only know I cannot drift 
 Beyond his love and care. " 
 
 And the angel said unto them, "Fear not." 
 
 If this banishment of fear from the hearts of 
 men were the one, sole gift of Christmas to the 
 world, what words could over-state its worth? 
 
 [135] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 In the tranquil mind, itself, the spirit free from 
 perturbation and dread, what a treasure one 
 possesses ; to be able in quiet confidence to take 
 upon one's lips those words of the psalmist: 
 "In peace will I both lay me down and sleep; 
 for thou Lord alone makest me dwell in safety. ' ' 
 
 And a restful heart is but the first of the 
 blessings which come to us through deliverance 
 from fear. Body and mind are intimately 
 linked. Upon peace of mind, physical well- 
 being is closely dependent. A trustful soul is 
 the best of all safe-guards against the assaults 
 of disease; and the fact which present-day 
 therapeutics is emphasizing above all others is, 
 that in many cases the first step towards the re- 
 moval of sickness from the body is the banish- 
 ment of apprehension from the mind. Hope is 
 the mother of health. 
 
 And who can estimate the possibilities in the 
 realm of character which have been set within 
 the reach of us men by the Christmas tidings 
 and the Christmas gift? As fear in the heart 
 of men has been supplanted by confident reli- 
 ance on God, cowardice has given place to 
 courage; the timid poltroon of yesterday has 
 become the intrepid champion of today. In 
 place of the Peter cowering before the charge 
 of a servant maid, has stood the Peter un- 
 daunted in the presence of chief priests and 
 rulers. 
 
 With the banishment of fear the timorous 
 opportunist becomes the man of boldly indepen- 
 dent mind. Falsehood, the refuge of the f aint- 
 
 [136] 
 
F ear Not 
 
 hearted, is abandoned for fearless fidelity to 
 truth. 
 
 With the departure of brutalizing terror, that 
 human sympathy, of which no heart is alto- 
 gether destitute, finds opportunity to express 
 itself ; the unfeeling, unreasoning ferocity of 
 the panic-stricken gives place to the generous 
 compassion, which gladly accepts suffering that 
 others need not suffer, and we have the dying 
 Sir Philip Sydney giving his last draught of 
 water to the wounded soldier at his side, with 
 the words "Thy need is greater than mine." 
 
 To banish fear from the hearts of men is to 
 open the way for all things noble. There is 
 nothing we can do more efficacious to lighten 
 the burden of troubled hearts or to elevate and 
 ennoble human intercourse than to join the 
 herald angel in his enterprise of expelling fear 
 from the life of the world. We may do this in 
 measure by uniting with present-day philan- 
 thropy in its endeavor to remove those condi- 
 tions which foster fear and to promote others 
 of opposite effect: sanitary conditions which 
 shall mitigate the fear of disease ; social, indus- 
 trial, economic conditions which shall serve to 
 dissipate the haunting fear of want ; Govern- 
 ment conditions which shall deliver from the 
 fear of injustice and oppression. 
 
 There is little doubt that much may be ac- 
 complished in this direction to relieve the de- 
 plorable aspects of society and to give larger 
 play to the nobler human sentiments and ten- 
 dencies. But at the same time, we do well not 
 
 [137] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 to be misled by the notion that any improvement 
 of conditions, however notable, will ever be able 
 to deliver the human spirit from the baleful 
 sway of fear. For in this world of ours no 
 combination of conditions, however favorable, 
 can ever provide security against disaster. Hu- 
 man life, human fortune, are, will always be 
 precarious. 
 
 The confidence which is based on conditions 
 however favorable, will always find occasion for 
 solicitude. The well-to-do as well as the poor 
 are haunted by fear of loss and want. Apicius, 
 a Eoman aristocrat, committed suicide to avoid 
 starvation, though he left a fortune of half a 
 million dollars. It is only the confidence which 
 is independent of external conditions which can 
 give undisturbed serenity to the spirit of man; 
 and that confidence is to be found nowhere save 
 in the Christmas tidings : the good news of God. 
 For the certain end of all things mundane is 
 decay and death. 
 
 If we would have any large part with the 
 herald angel in banishing fear from the world, 
 we must find the ground of cheer to which we 
 point men where he found it : in the loving care 
 of the Eternal. 
 
 And so let us take to our souls the glad 
 tidings of the Christmas time, and say to men 
 with confidence which shall carry conviction, 
 "Fear not. Fear not. For Christ has lived. 
 God is, and God is love. ' ' 
 
 But have we seen the truth on all its sides? 
 Has not a foremost educator of our time de- 
 
 [138] 
 
Fear Not 
 
 clared that the most important element in edu- 
 cation is teaching the young what to fear? Is 
 there nothing, then, of which to be afraid? 
 
 There is indeed one thing : the thing which we 
 call evil, sin; the rejection of the voice of duty; 
 the one thing which puts us beyond God's abil- 
 ity to help; the thing which is able to destroy 
 both soul and body in Gehenna. Ah yes; be 
 afraid of evil. We cannot fear it too much. 
 But of whatsoever else, let us hear once more 
 the inspiring word of the herald angel: Fear 
 not. Trust God, nor be afraid. 
 
 [139] 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE SECRET OF CONTENT 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 The Seceet op Content 
 
 Phil. 4: 11-12 — I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, 
 therein to be content. I know how to be abased and I know 
 also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I 
 learned the secret, both to be filled and to be hungry, both to 
 abound and to be in want. 
 
 TN order that these words of St. Paul may 
 *- come to us with their legitimate force, we 
 need to remember that they were written in a 
 Roman prison. We need to hear, as the apostle 
 wrote, the clank of the chain upon his wrist, 
 which bound him to his Roman guard. We need 
 to recall the privations he had suffered during 
 his imprisonment, which now had been relieved 
 by the gifts of these Christians at Philippi, and 
 also the malicious diligence of the busybodies 
 outside the prison in their endeavor to raise 
 up affliction for him in his bonds. 
 
 Having this picture of the apostle 's condition 
 in mind, we shall be able better to appreciate 
 the significance of his words, "I have learned 
 in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. ' ' 
 A lesson this, worth learning, surely: in all 
 the vicissitudes of this checkered life to be of 
 tranquil mind, cheerful, content. 
 
 It means much, too, that these are the words 
 of no mere ascetic; of one who knew nothing 
 
 [143] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 of the worth of the world's good things because 
 of never having possessed them, or of one who 
 lacked the ability to enjoy them when possessed. 
 Paul knew what it was to abound. Few have 
 larger enjoyment of the objects of the world's 
 ambition than he had known as a young man; 
 few are better qualified by nature and educa- 
 tion to appreciate them at their true worth. It 
 is one fully qualified to enjoy the comforts and 
 gladnesses of life, one keenly sensitive to its 
 sorrows, sufferings and privations, who yet af- 
 firms his discovery of the secret of great con- 
 tent, regardless of the circumstances in which 
 he may be placed. 
 
 Is it not worth our while to inquire what is 
 the key to this enviable state of mind, and to 
 ask whether it be available for ourselves? 
 
 If we note a very slight change in the trans- 
 lation of this verse as it occurs in the Revised 
 * Version, we may receive a suggestion as to the 
 direction, at least, in which the secret of St. 
 Paul's contentment is to be sought. The Com- 
 mon Version reads, ' ' I have learned in whatso- 
 ever state I am therewith to be content." The 
 Revised Version has it, "I have learned in 
 whatsoever state I am therein to be content." 
 The change from "therewith" to "therein," 
 what does it suggest? That the secret of Paul's 
 content was not the state itself in which he 
 might be ; it was not to be sought in the elements 
 of the existing situation, but in something al- 
 together apart from these. He was not con- 
 tented with the situation; he was contented in 
 
 [144] 
 
The Secret of Content 
 
 the situation because the ground of his content- 
 ment was something altogether outside of it; 
 something of so great and satisfying worth 
 that in comparison with it the discomforts 
 of a Eoman dungeon seemed unworthy of 
 consideration. 
 
 We know how human love has power to work 
 this great content and to transform privation, 
 toil and hardship into trifles. Allan Cunning- 
 ham sings, 
 
 il Tho the wee wee cot maun be my bield, 
 And my claething e'er sae mean, 
 I wad lap me up rich in the fauds o' love, 
 Heaven's armfu' ©' my Jean. " 
 
 The young bride forsakes home, friends, lux- 
 ury, to share with her lover the hardship and 
 privation of the frontier. The humble cabin 
 knows little of comfort and nothing of elegance ; 
 but love lights it. Life within it is not mere en- 
 durance, it is joy. Hard toil, pinching economy 
 are trifles. Irradiated by love they possess a 
 charm which the affluence of the palace cannot 
 rival. And if later days bring a more luxurious 
 home, it is not the luxury which constitutes its 
 gladness. Still love is the source and secret of 
 content. In default of it the most elegant sur- 
 roundings would be but glittering wretchedness. 
 So the apostle Paul had found something al- 
 together apart from the mere circumstances of 
 his lot which could fill with content any situa- 
 tion; even that in which the companionship of 
 human love itself was wanting; a secret which 
 could transform the lonely prison cell into the 
 
 [145] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 place of triumphant song. What was this 
 secret? 
 
 We shall find answer in the words of the 
 apostle in another letter to other friends : "Our 
 light affliction, which is for the moment, work- 
 eth for us more and more exceedingly an eternal 
 weight of glory ; while we look not at the things 
 which are seen, but at the things which are not 
 seen; for the things which are seen are tem- 
 poral; but the things which are not seen are 
 eternal." 
 
 Paul's eyes had been opened to a great realm 
 of the unseen, enveloping these things of the 
 tangible ; a realm of so great breadth and mean- 
 ing that these material, visible things, the com- 
 forts or discomforts of this mundane life, 
 appeared relatively insignificant. In that realm 
 of the unseen, not in this of the visible, are the 
 true values. In comparison with those, these 
 were worthy of little consideration. And such 
 significance as these things of the present do 
 possess, whether pleasing or painful, they de- 
 rive not from themselves but from their rela- 
 tion to that great unseen world-order, in which 
 they are included. Their real import is appre- 
 hended only when they are seen in their rela- 
 tion to it. 
 
 The vicissitudes of individual experience 
 have meaning because of issues which follow 
 from them in that invisible realm. In that 
 realm the inscrutable puzzles of life find their 
 solution. Hence, any transient pains, discom- 
 forts, sufferings, can be accepted with content, 
 
 [146] 
 
The Secret of Content 
 
 because of the far more important things which 
 life involves; because these themselves have 
 outcome of real value in the realm of things 
 which abide. 
 
 That cloud which gathers about the moun- 
 tain top in the beautiful mid-summer day, that 
 precipitation of moisture so that it can be seen, 
 bears witness to a condition of humidity which 
 exists all unseen in all the surrounding 
 atmosphere. 
 
 So our present life in this world, with its in- 
 cidents, pleasing or painful, is but the transient 
 and localized coming to view of that vast, all- 
 embracing unseen in which the solution of all 
 puzzles is to be sought: the real abiding satis- 
 faction is to be found. "With this great vision 
 of the real unseen, there came to the apostle : 
 
 First — rest for the intellect, the puzzling 
 mind. One great source of our discontent is 
 perplexity, intellectual confusion. We are dis- 
 contented not so much because the things them- 
 selves which we are called to endure are so 
 intolerable. Compared with what human forti- 
 tude is able to bear, with what we ourselves 
 have sometimes endured, they are not worthy of 
 mention. The real root of our discontent is 
 that these things are inexplicable. We cannot 
 understand why they should be ; what warrant 
 there is for them in the case of beings so sus- 
 ceptible to suffering; in a universe under the 
 control of divine love. If we were able to see 
 that the occasions of our discontent had mean- 
 ing, that some great end was being served by 
 
 [147] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 them, we could accept them and far more with 
 exultation : as the soldiers of Japan, in the late 
 war, under the inspiration of patriotism ac- 
 cepted with enthusiasm such suffering and sac- 
 rifice as far transcends anything we ever have 
 experienced. 
 
 Just this dissipation of intellectual confusion 
 the apostle Paul had experienced, through vis- 
 ion of the unseen. Frequently we find him 
 speaking of the revelation of the Mystery hid 
 from ages and generations which had been 
 granted to him. He had caught glimpses of the 
 great divine purpose running through the ages, 
 'including all the incidents of human experience 
 in its sweep. From this height of vision he was 
 able to perceive that nothing was meaningless. 
 Everything, the dark as well as the bright, the 
 painful as well as the pleasing, stood related 
 to the great whole ; had its contribution to make 
 to the great and glorious consummation. In 
 this satisfying of the perplexed mind was one 
 great factor of content. Henceforth the pain- 
 ful incident of experience was not something to 
 be merely bewailed. It was a summons to for- 
 titude, that through its endurance the things 
 worth being might be. 
 
 " Then .courage soul, nor hold thy strength in vain: 
 In faith o'ercome the steep God sets for thee; 
 For past the Alpine summit of great pain 
 Lieth thine Italy." 
 
 As a second factor in his great content, Paul's 
 vision of the unseen had brought him rest of 
 heart. Important as is the part which satisfac- 
 
 [148] 
 
The Secret of Content 
 
 tion of the questioning intellect contributes to 
 (quietness of soul, it is still true that we live 
 in our affections. No amount or positiveness 
 of knowledge can silence the discontent of a 
 hungry heart. To this, love and love alone is 
 adequate. 
 
 Most impressively it had been borne in upon 
 the apostle that the great unseen which envel- 
 oped him was not uninhabited. On the contrary, 
 it was more than anything else the dwelling 
 place of a great personality. Into the apostle's 
 life that personality had made way for himself 
 with a power which was irresistible, and an au- 
 thority which admitted no question. 
 
 Conspicuous above all other incidents in the 
 history of St. Paul had been that experience on 
 the way to Damascus, when an unseen person 
 had laid hold of him, mastered him, lifted him 
 up and started him on his great career. From 
 that day on, this unseen friend had been a con- 
 stant presence in his life ; revealing a heart of 
 infinite friendliness, guiding the apostle, sus- 
 taining him, giving direction and effect to all 
 his activity. In the fellowship of this divine 
 friend Paul had found comfort, the satisfaction 
 and inspiration of a hungry heart. This unseen 
 companionship had brought him quickening of 
 his intellect, strengthening of purpose, sustain- 
 ment in all great achievement. This friendship 
 of the unseen Christ had come to be more preci- 
 ous to him than all things else. For it he could 
 gladly suffer the loss of all things. In it the 
 craving of the soul for love was more than satis- 
 
 [149] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 fied. It was able to do for him all and far more 
 than dearest human love can ever do to make 
 insignificant the painful incidents of outward 
 circumstance. To it he pointed as the secret of 
 his great content. I can do all things in him 
 that strengtheneth me. For St. Paul the love 
 of this divine friend had come to be the chief 
 good of being. For him to live was Christ ; to 
 die was to depart and be with Christ, which was 
 far better. Under the inspiration of this 
 mighty love, this great divine friendship, the 
 disagreeable incidents of life, toil, privation, 
 imprisonment, became trifles unworthy of men- 
 tion ; the song in the heart was proof against all 
 the chill and darkness of the Roman dungeon. 
 
 One other element in that content which was 
 born of St. Paul's vision of the unseen was a 
 great hope : scope for the energies of his soul. 
 His contentment was not the resignation of the 
 defeated, but the composure of an intense, am- 
 bitious, forceful spirit. If there was ever an 
 electric battery in human form, it surely was 
 the apostle Paul. He had lived a life of amaz- 
 ing energy and amazing results. Out to the 
 fruits of his aostivity his thoughts were contin- 
 ually running, as the chain clanked which bound 
 him to his Roman guard. These Philippian 
 Christians to whom he was writing were a part 
 of his achievement : the first-fruits of his labors 
 on the continent of Europe. As he wrote the 
 words "I have learned in whatsoever state I 
 am, therein to be content,' ' he could feel again 
 upon his back the cut of the scourge at the cost 
 
 [150] 
 
The Secret of Content 
 
 of which he had won these Philippians to the 
 faith and purchased for them the consideration 
 of the local authorities. Once again his blood 
 was stirred with the thrill of exultation as the 
 affront to his Roman citizenship was expiated 
 by the humble apologies of the provincial offi- 
 cials. 
 
 The ambition of the apostle was still with 
 him. Nowhere do we find more emphatic ex- 
 pression of it than in this letter. These chap- 
 ters bristle with the confidence that his past 
 efficiency is of perpetual significance, and with 
 expectation of possibilities of achievement 
 which the future has in store. Paul saw his own 
 life and work as part of a great enduring en- 
 terprise, which that unseen divine friend was 
 prosecuting in human history; whose success 
 was assured, and which was laden with blessing 
 unspeakable for the children of men, here and 
 hereafter. 
 
 To the success of that great enterprise his 
 bonds and enforced idleness were tributary, no 
 less than the proclamation of the good 
 tidings and the planting of churches. In 
 view of its glorious outcome, transient inci- 
 dents of personal experience, comfortable or 
 uncomfortable, were of trifling significance. In 
 the inspiration of the great issue and of the 
 possible contribution to it of his present ex- 
 periences, he was full of tranquillity whatever 
 the experiences themselves might be. 
 
 It is needless to pursue our questioning fur- 
 ther. In these three factors we find adequate 
 
 [151] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 ground for St. Paul's content: a great vision, 
 a great divine friend, a great hope. 
 
 It is worthy of our consideration that this 
 latter was not a transient but an eternal hope, — 
 a hope stretching far on beyond the earthly so- 
 journ. 
 
 It is a tendency with some in our time to seek 
 the sole incentive for endurance and achieve- 
 ment in this present mundane life ; and to dis- 
 credit the eye and heart catching inspiration 
 from the possibilities of the hereafter. This 
 tendency, notwithstanding its assumption of 
 superiority, is shallow and unperceiving. It is 
 the mood of mind of the inexperienced and the 
 specially favored, with little sense of the trag- 
 edy of human life. For vast multitudes, aye, 
 for the majority of mankind, life from the mun- 
 dane point of view is a failure, both as regards 
 enjoyment and accomplishment. 
 
 If Paul had not had outlook beyond the jaws 
 of the lion or the sword thrust of the execu- 
 tioner which awaited him, there would have 
 been scant basis for his great content. Life in 
 this world is good to make character ; to fashion 
 by its experiences, when nobly borne, those who 
 are to be members of a blessed society in the 
 hereafter. And that is about all that life really 
 is good for. We believe that such a society is 
 increasingly to be established in this world, in- 
 deed; and that to labor for it is the obligation 
 nearest, most pressing; yet with the constant 
 recognition that this is only in anticipation of 
 an enduring existence in other realms. 
 
 [152] 
 
The Secret of Content 
 We echo the sentiment of George Eliot : 
 
 " O may I join the choir invisible 
 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 In minds made better by their presence. " 
 
 But if this is our only enduring existence ; if 
 the best, sole outcome of life is to contribute a 
 modicum to the upward movement of a world, 
 whose not distant destiny is to be snuffed out 
 in volcanic eruption or to be frozen to death in 
 the cold of the inter-stellar spaces, the possibil- 
 ity is an utterly insufficient basis for such 
 triumphant contentment, such unconquerable 
 optimism as that of Paul. 
 
 It is not impossible that, at times, there has 
 been disproportionate stress upon the hereafter, 
 whether in the way of dread or of anticipation. 
 Other-worldliness may have been cultivated to 
 the neglect of the present world. But the op- 
 posite extreme is quite as false and as faulty. 
 It is indeed the powers and possibilities of the 
 world to come which impart to the present its 
 true value. It is the possible oak which gives 
 significance to the acorn. The egg comes to its 
 true interpretation only in terms of the eagle. 
 Nothing but the vision of the eternal can save 
 the mundane from deteriorating into the sordid, 
 the sensual, the despairing. 
 
 A better and an eternal portion hereafter ; a 
 continuing city to come; a building, not made 
 with hands, eternal in the heavens; these are 
 what impart undying worth to the present and 
 clothe it with supernal value. It is the vision 
 of the outreaching future which makes human 
 
 [153] 
 
With Open Mind 
 
 existence great and warrants the noble dignity 
 of Browning's words in Rabbi Ben Ezra — 
 
 " Grow old along with me! 
 The best is yet to be, 
 The last of life for which the first was made: 
 
 Our times are in His hand 
 Who saith, ' A whole I planned, 
 Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all nor be afraid l f " 
 
 What but the glimpse of the undying could 
 kindle the great hope, could create the great 
 soul of Abt Vogler as he sings — 
 
 1 i . . . Ay, what was, shall be. 
 Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name! 
 Builder and Maker, thou, of houses not made with hands! 
 What, have fear of change from thee Who art ever the same? 
 Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power ex- 
 pands? 
 There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as 
 
 before ; 
 The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 
 What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more ; 
 On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round. 
 
 All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; 
 Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power 
 Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist 
 When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
 The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
 Are music gent up to God by the lover and the bard; 
 Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by and by. J ' 
 
 These words so true to human aspiration 
 which Browning puts into the mouth of the 
 great musician, what are they but the echo of 
 the triumphant declaration, "I have learned in 
 whatsoever state I am therein to be content"? 
 
 In its broad outlines the life of Paul is typi- 
 cal. Most of us know both aspects of his ex- 
 perience. We know, in measure at least, what 
 
 [154] 
 
The Secret of Content 
 
 it is to abound and what it is to be abased. In 
 these shifting, perplexing vicissitudes, the im- 
 penetrable darkness through which we grope, 
 the rugged steeps we painfully elimb, the 
 crosses we must bear, the stale, insipid flats of 
 life we traverse, — in all these the confident 
 bouyancy of the apostle is available for us ; at- 
 tainable by us the uplift of soul out of which it 
 is possible to say with absolute sincerity, "I 
 have learned in whatsoever state I am therein 
 to be content.' 7 
 
 Within the reach of us all are the factors 
 which lifted him superior to all vicissitude. The 
 great vision, the great friend, the great endur- 
 ing opportunity. In the apprehension of these, 
 there is for us, as for him, the great, calm, ef- 
 ficient, triumphant life. 
 
 [155] 
 
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