VI.] The Outcome of Spiritual Life. 283 sympathy from man to man, making clear as never before the duty of man to man, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Here we have an epitome of all true morality, its root and its branches. False the morality which consists in a code of formal exacting observances. True and mighty the morality which dwells in a holy spiritual life, whose outgoings are guided by few and simple rules. Christian morality is impossible without a Christian heart behind it, but with the Christlike heart 'tis joy to live as Christ lived-to approach man's highest ideal. That which Mr. Spencer scarcely dared to breathe as a sort of philosophical prophecy, an expectation of some future age when men will act the noblest morality without pain, spontaneously, is the glad experience of tens of thousands of living Christians to-day. But not simply does Christianity point to the will of God as path of duty, and Christ as ideal life, but also provides a cure for the sin-sick, ruined heart of man. Vain the teachings of the loftiest morality, vain the power of an ideal, if the sin of the heart is uncured, the guilt of conscience not removed. But Christianity tells the way of forgiveness and cure, provides a fountain where the sin-stained may wash and be clean. Thus new characters are formed and new deeds of purity become possible. Love to God brings on man the conscious benediction of Him who rules the universe and the eternities. Love to man awakens love from man, and brings forth human sympathy which goldens social life; or if unrequited, is its own abundant benediction, in the enlargement of one's own heart, the uplifting of one's own humanity. Thus Christianity gives a reason for the moral law, justifies it to our intelligence. But its perfect justification is to be found only in the light of eternal hope. Wrong is often now crowned with success and apparent joy; holiness is branded with opprobrium and often tinged with sorrow. These things can be righted only in another life. And more than this the highest 284 Justified by Eternal Hope. [LECT. realizations of a Christian's joy partake largely of hope and would be meaningless without the prospect beyond; the full purpose and magnificence of creation become manifest only in eternity. Now our communion with God is like that of corresponding with loved ones in the home lands, we hope to meet them again and so-"It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." These are data of ethics, elements absent from human philosophy, whose absence renders human ethics useless to man. These elements, clear, consistent, full, in Biblical teaching, show that teaching to be no mere human device; elements whose presence evince the hand of God, and lead men to humanity's highest goal. The repository of these truths and kindred ones, for I have indicated only a part, is the Bible; the battered and tested and criticized, and torn and burned and cursed, and reviled old Bible, which still lives on in perpetually growing power in the hearts of the best millions of earth's children; crowned is the old book with brighter laurels than the mightiest of earth's potentates, enthroned in prouder place than aught else beneath the sun. From Genesis to Revelation you see the human hand and are conscious of human thoughts and struggles; but through it all you hear the voice of God. Its beginnings reach back into the twilight of history's morning, and farther still; it peers into the nebulous mists of uncreated worlds, and with a few master strokes links the present with the almost infinite past of the beginning, sketching in outline the picture which science is now laboriously trying, and with much success, to complete. The story grows; while Chaldea rises in splendour and falls, while Egypt is strong and boasts her unrivalled past, while Greece gives birth to intellectual giants, while arts and commerce flourish in other lands,-all these things are unheard, in the VI.] Made Plain in the Bible. 285 Bible thrones and sceptres are regarded as trifles of time. The Bible is not a book of science, or art, or commerce, or politics, or human intellect, or human ethics; but ever and anon out of some lowly human medium there flashes forth the light of God, and every step on, on to the God-man is marked by human weakness revealing the onward march of omnipotent God, educating, disciplining man for humanity's good. "A Book which contains within the outer body, a soul or inner life, which, while agreeing with the imperfection of our nature, raises us above it, and, in answer to the inarticulate cries of conscience, pours the wisdom of God into our heart and mind." To-day the Bible stands as the mightiest moral power over man; not as the ancient classics of China, pointing men back to the sages dead, and chaining men to the tombs of a buried past; but pointing men up to a God above us, on to the God-man our exemplar, far ahead of us still. 1 They tell us that men are finding faults in the Bible. The learned have been finding them for thousands of years, but they usually turn out to be faults of the critic and not of the book. And what if there should be spots of imperfection in the outer shell, if the divine soul still lives on? Men have found spots. in the sun, but that has not dimmed his light or rendered him less powerful in his place as centre of a system of worlds. And so these spots, if spots there be, in the outer shell of the book matter little, while its light shines on, a lamp to the feet of nations, a guide and impulse on the path of advancing humanity. They tell us that the teachers of the Bible are so diverse, the various churches preach different doctrine and clamorous voices raise a jargon which bewilders seeking men. Nay, those non-essential differences are exaggerated by men who know them but from afar, and are needy for excuse for neglect. Yes, 1 Reynolds, "Supernatural in Nature." 286 Human Jarring and Divine Symphony. [LECT men's minds differ; men are free, and cursed be the power that would cramp them into a single form. Men gather round the Bible and take of its everflowing fountain of living waters to set before a parched world. And they carry those waters in earthly vessels," Ho! every one that thirsteth, drink of these waters and live." You may criticize the vessels if you will. Men gather round the Bible; their scientific formulas differ, their philosophies of it differ, and their understanding of it differs, showing with all their different voices, that human salvation could never spring from human thought, and the data of man's hope must reach beyond man's powers. Men gather round the Bible, and go beyond their scientific formulating, and their philosophical systematizing; penetrating to its soulmeaning they meet on one high plain where heaven's light is seen; there all without a jar of discord, clasp hands around the cross where Jesus died, and proclaim him to the world as the healer of earth's woes, the secret of man's highest destiny. And thus these many voices, elsewhere jarring, uniting in face of God's best gift to man, rising and swelling to remotest shore in one grand symphony of love, of "glory to God in the highest, peace on earth and good will to men," make one harmony which proclaims the message not human but divine. I have asked you to look at this message scientifically, in view of man's highest powers and longings, to test it in the light of history, and side by side with other lights which men have had to lead them through a world of darkness up to a better. And now I ask you to test the matter practically, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" is still the question. And the reply still is "Come and see.' You can't see it from afar. Come nearer. Go to any little Christian community, in Japan, where the Bible is laid in the hands of the people, and see if you do not find in its actual workings a new moral power, elevating, blessing, saving, preserving all good and impelling VI.] The Leaven Working in Japan. 287 the people to higher, better aims. You will find a power which works here as elsewhere, when free to work, making individual man strive with every faculty undimmed after a loftier type of manhood, making home and relationships more sacred, adding a new charm to the names of mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, friend; giving a new impulse to social life, to mutual sympathy and faith between man and man,—giving loftier ideas of patriotism, merging the clan into the country and making men true to the powers that be; a power which intensifying all these into stronger life enlarges the heart so as to overstep the narrow bounds of land and sea, and makes men's hearts beat responsive in love and sympathy with every other human heart beneath the sun. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light, And ancient form of party strife; With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; |