Greatest
Thing in the
World
The
First
Experiment
By:
Henry Drummond
Then
you reduce religion to a common
Friendship?
A common
Friendship—Who talks of a
common Friendship? There is no
such thing in the world. On earth
no word is more sublime.
Friendship is the nearest thing
we know to what religion is. God
is love. And to make religion
akin to Friendship is simply to
give it the highest expression
conceivable by man.
But if by
demurring to “a common
friendship” is meant a
protest against the greatest and
the holiest in religion being
spoken of in intelligible terms,
then I am afraid the objection is
all too real.
Men always
look for a mystery when one talks
of sanctification; some mystery
apart from that which must ever
be mysterious wherever Spirit
works. It is thought some
peculiar secret lies behind it,
some occult experience which only
the initiated know. Thousands of
persons go to church every Sunday
hoping to solve this mystery.
At
meetings, at conferences, many a
time they have reached what they
thought was the very brink of it,
but somehow no further revelation
came.
Poring over
religious books, how often were
they not within a paragraph of
it; the next page, the next
sentence, would discover all, and
they would be borne on a flowing
tide for ever.
But nothing
happened. The next sentence and
the next page were read, and
still it eluded them; and though
the promise of its coming kept
faithfully up to the end, the
last chapter found them still
pursuing. Why did nothing happen?
Because
there was nothing to
happen—nothing of the kind
they were looking for. Why did it
elude them? Because there was no
“it” When shall we
learn that the pursuit of
holiness is simply the pursuit of
Christ?
When shall
we substitute for the
“it” of a fictitious
aspiration, the approach to a
Living Friend? Sanctity is in
character and not in moods;
Divinity in our own plain calm
humanity, and in no mystic
rapture of the soul.
And yet
there are others who, for exactly
a contrary reason, will find
scant satisfaction here. Their
complaint is not that a religion
expressed in terms of Friendship
is too homely, but that it is
still too mystical. To
“abide” in Christ, to
“make Christ our most
constant companion” is to
them the purest mysticism.
They want
something absolutely tangible and
absolutely direct. These are not
the poetical souls who seek a
sign, a mysticism in excess; but
the prosaic natures whose want is
mathematical definition in
details.
Yet it is
perhaps not possible to reduce
this problem to much more rigid
elements. The beauty of
Friendship is its infinity, One
can never evacuate life of
mysticism. Home is full of it,
love is full of it, religion is
full of it. Why stumble at that
in the relation of man to Christ
which is natural in the relation
of man to man?
If any one
cannot conceive or realize a
mystical relation with Christ,
perhaps all that can be done is
to help him to step on to it by
still plainer analogies from
common life.
How do I
know Shakespeare or Dante? By
communing with their words and
thoughts. Many men know Dante
better than their own fathers. He
influences them more. As a
spiritual presence he is more
near to them, as a spiritual
force more real. Is there any
reason why a greater than
Shakespeare or Dante, who also
walked this earth, who left great
words behind Him, who has great
works everywhere in the world
now, should not also instruct,
inspire, and mould the characters
of men?
I do not
limit Christ’s influence to
this. It is this, and it is more.
But Christ, so far from resenting
or discouraging this relation of
Friendship, Himself proposed it.
“Abide in Me” was
almost His last word to the
world. And He partly met the
difficulty of those who feel its
intangibleness by adding the
practical clause, “If ye
abide in Me and My words abide in
you.”
Begin with
His words. Words can scarcely
ever be long impersonal.
Christ
Himself was a Word, a word made
Flesh. Make His words flesh; do
them, live them, and you must
live Christ. “He that
keepeth My commandments, he it is
that loveth Me.” Obey Him
and you must love Him. Abide in
Him and you must obey Him.
Cultivate His Friendship. Live
after Christ, in His Spirit, as
in His Presence, and it is
difficult to think what more you
can do.
Take this
at least as a first lesson, as
introduction. If you cannot at
once and always feel the play of
His life upon yours, watch for it
also indirectly. “The whole
earth is full of the character of
the Lord.”
Christ is
the Light of the world, and much
of His Light is reflected from
things in the world—even
from clouds. Sunlight is stored
in every leaf, from leaf through
coal, and it comforts us thence
when days are dark and we cannot
see the sun.
Christ
shines through men, through
books, through history, through
nature, music, art. Look for Him
there. “Every day one should
either look at a beautiful
picture, or hear beautiful music,
or read a beautiful poem.”
The real danger of mysticism is
not making it broad
enough.
Do not
think that nothing is happening
because you do not see yourself
grow, or hear the whir of the
machinery.
All great
things grow noiselessly. You can
see a mushroom grow, but never a
child. Mr. Darwin tells us that
Evolution proceeds by
“numerous, successive, and
slight modifications.”
Paul knew
that, and put it, only in more
beautiful words, into the heart
of his formula. He said for the
comforting of all slowly
perfecting souls that they grew
‘“from character to
character.” “The inward
man” he says elsewhere,
“is renewed from day to
day.” All thorough work is
slow; all true development by
minute slight and insensible
metamorphoses.
The higher
the structure, moreover, the
slower the progress. As the
biologist runs his eye over the
long Ascent of Life he sees the
lowest forms of animals develop
in an hour; the next above these
reach maturity in a day; those
higher still take weeks or months
to perfect; but the few at the
top demand the long experiment of
years.
If a child
and an ape are born on the same
day the last will be in full
possession of its faculties and
doing the active work of life
before the child has left its
cradle. Life is the cradle of
eternity. As the man is to the
animal in the slowness of his
evolution, so is the spiritual
man to the natural man.
Foundations
which have to bear the weight of
an eternal life must be surely
laid. Character is to wear for
ever; who will wonder or grudge
that it cannot be developed in a
day?
To await
the growing of a soul,
nevertheless, is an almost Divine
act of faith. How pardonable,
surely, the impatience of
deformity with itself, of a
consciously despicable character
standing before Christ,
wondering, yearning, hungering to
be like that?
Yet must
one trust the process fearlessly,
and without misgiving. “The
Lord the Spirit” will do His
part. The tempting expedient is,
in haste for abrupt or visible
progress, to try some method less
spiritual, or to defeat the end
by watching for effects instead
of keeping the eye on the Cause.
A
photograph prints from the
negative only while exposed to
the sun. While the artist is
looking to see how it is getting
on he simply stops the getting
on. Whatever of wise supervision
the soul may need, it is certain
it can never be overexposed, or,
that, being exposed, anything
else in the world can improve the
result or quicken it.
The
creation of a new heart, the
renewing of a right spirit is an
omnipotent work of God. Leave it
to the Creator. “He which
hath begun a good work in you
will perfect it unto that
day.”
No man,
nevertheless, who feels the worth
and solemnity of what is at stake
will be careless as to his
progress.
To become
like Christ is the only thing in
the world worth caring for, the
thing before which every ambition
of man is folly, and all lower
achievement vain.
Those only
who make this quest the supreme
desire and passion of their lives
can even begin to hope to reach
it.
If,
therefore, it has seemed up to
this point as if all depended on
passivity, let me now assert,
with conviction more intense,
that all depends on activity.
A religion
of effortless adoration may be a
religion for an angel but never
for a man. Not in the
contemplative, but in the active
lies true hope; not in rapture,
but in reality lies true life;
not in the realm of ideals but
among tangible things is
man’s sanctification
wrought. Resolution, effort,
pain, self-crucifixion,
agony—all the things already
dismissed as futile in themselves
must now be restored to office,
and a tenfold responsibility laid
upon them. For what is their
office? Nothing less than to move
the vast inertia of the soul, and
place it, and keep it where the
spiritual forces will act upon
it. It is to rally the forces of
the will, and keep the surface of
the mirror bright, and ever in
position. It is to uncover the
face which is to look at Christ,
and draw down the veil when
unhallowed sights are near.
You have,
perhaps, gone with an astronomer
to watch him photograph the
spectrum of a star. As you
entered the dark vault of the
Observatory you saw him begin by
lighting a candle. To see the
star with? No; but to see to
adjust the instrument to see the
star with. It was the star that
was going to take the photograph;
it was, also, the astronomer.
For a long
time he worked in the dimness,
screwing tubes and polishing
lenses and adjusting reflectors,
and only after much labour the
finely focussed instrument was
brought to bear.
Then he
blew out the light, and left the
star to do its work upon the
plate alone. The day’s task
for the Christian is to bring his
instrument to bear. Having done
that he may blow out his candle.
All the
evidences of Christianity which
have brought him there, all aids
to Faith, all acts of Worship,
all the leverages of the Church,
all Prayer and Meditation, all
girding of the Will—these
lesser processes, these
candlelight activities for that
supreme hour may be set aside.
But,
remember, it is but for an hour.
The wise man will be he who
quickest lights his candle; the
wisest he who never let it out.
Tomorrow, the next moment, he, a
poor, darkened, slurred soul, may
need it again to focus the Image
better, to take a mote off the
ens, to clear the mirror from a
breath with which the world has
dulled it.
No
readjustment is ever required on
behalf of the Star. That is one
great fixed point in this
shifting universe. But the world
moves. And each day, each
hour,demands a further motion and
readjustment for the soul.
A telescope
in an observatory follows a star
by clockwork, but the clockwork
of the soul is called the Will.
Hence, while the soul in
passivity reflects the Image of
the Lord, the Will in intense
activity holds the mirror in
position lest the drifting motion
of the world bear it beyond the
line of vision.
To
“follow Christ” is
largely to keep the soul in such
position as will allow for the
motion of the earth. And this
calculated counteracting of the
movements of a world, this
holding of the mirror exactly
opposite to the Mirrored, this
steadying of the faculties
unerringly, through cloud and
earthquake, fire and sword, is
the stupendous cooperating labour
of the Will. It is all man’s
work. It is all Christ’s
work. In practice, it is both; in
theory it is both.
But the
wise man will say in practice,
“It depends upon
myself.”
In the
Galerie des Beaux Arts in Paris
there stands a famous statue. It
was the last work of a great
genius, who, like many a genius,
was very poor and lived in a
garret which served as studio and
sleeping-room alike.
When the
statue was all but finished, one
midnight a sudden frost fell upon
Paris. The sculptor lay awake in
the fireless room and thought of
the still moist clay, thought how
the water would freeze in the
pores and destroy in an hour the
dream of his life.
So the old
man rose from his couch and
heaped the bedclothes reverently
round his work. In the morning
when the neighbors entered the
room the sculptor was dead. But
the statue lived.
The Image
of Christ that is forming within
us—that is life’s one
charge. Let every project stand
aside for that “Till Christ
be formed” no man’s
work is finished, no religion
crowned, no life has fulfilled
its end.
Is the
infinite task begun? When, how,
are we to be different?
Time cannot
change men. Death cannot change
men. Christ can. Wherefore, put
on Christ.
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