Absent, they enrich us as those present cannot. And so the child who smiled upon us and then went away, the son and the daughter whose talents blossomed here to bear fruit above, the sweet mother"s face, the father"s gentle spirit--their going it was that set open the door of heaven and made on earth a new world. These all lived vicariously for us, and vicariously they died!
No deeply reflective nature, therefore, will be surprised that the vicarious principle is manifest in the Savior of the soul. Rejecting all commercial theories, all judicial exchanges, all imputations of characters, let us recognize the universality of this principle. G.o.d is not at warfare with himself. If he uses the vicarious principle in the realm of matter he will use it in the realm of mind and heart. It is given unto parents to bear not only the weakness of the child, but also his ignorance, his sins--perhaps, at last, his very crimes. But nature counts it unsafe to permit any wrong to go unpunished. Nature finds it dangerous to allow the youth to sin against brain or nerve or digestion without visiting sharp penalties upon the offender. Fire burns, acids eat, rocks crush, steam scalds--always, always.
Governments also find it unsafe to blot out all distinctions between the honest citizen and the vicious criminal. The taking no notice of sin keeps iniquity in good spirits, belittles the sanct.i.ty of law and blurs the conscience.
With G.o.d also penalties are warnings. His punishments are thorn hedges, safeguarding man from the thorns and thickets where serpents brood, and forcing his feet back into the ways of wisdom and peace.
For man"s integrity and happiness, therefore, conscience smites and is smiting unceasingly. Therefore, Eugene Aram dared not trust himself out under the stars at night, for these stars were eyes that blazed and blazed and would not relent. But why did not the murderer, Eugene Aram, forgive himself? When Lady Macbeth found that the water in the basin would not wash off the red spots, but would "the mult.i.tudinous seas incarnadine," why did not Macbeth and his wife forgive each other?
Strange, pa.s.sing strange, that Shakespeare thought volcanic fires within and forked lightning without were but the symbols of the storm that breaks upon the eternal orb of each man"s soul. If David cannot forgive himself, if Peter cannot forgive Judas, who can forgive sins?
"Perhaps the G.o.ds may," said Plato to Socrates. "I do not know,"
answered the philosopher. "I do not know that it would be safe for the G.o.ds to pardon." So the poet sends Macbeth out into the black night and the blinding storm to be thrown to the ground by forces that twist off trees and hiss among the wounded boughs and bleeding branches.
For poor Jean Valjean, weeping bitterly for his sins, while he watched the boy play with the b.u.t.tercups and prayed that G.o.d would give him, the red and h.o.r.n.y-handed criminal, to feel again as he felt when he pressed his dewy cheek against his mother"s knee--for Jean Valjean is there no suffering friend, no forgiving heart? Is there no bosom where poor Magdalene can sob out her bitter confession? What if G.o.d were the soul"s father! What if he too serves and suffers vicariously! What if his throne is not marble but mercy! What if nature and life do but interpret in the small this divine principle existing in the large in him who is infinite! [1] What if Calvary is G.o.d"s eternal heartache, manifest in time! What if, sore-footed and heavy-hearted, bruised with many a fall, we should come back to the old home, from which once we fled away, gay and foolish prodigals! The time was when, as small boys and girls, with blinding tears, we groped toward the mother"s bosom and sobbed out our bitter pain and sorrow with the full story of our sin.
What if the form on Calvary were like the king of eternity, toiling up the hill of time, his feet bare, his locks all wet with the dew of night, while he cries: "Oh, Absalom! my son, my son, Absalom!" What if we are Absalom, and have hurt G.o.d"s heart! Reason staggers. Groping, trusting, hoping, we fall blindly on the stairs that slope through darkness up to G.o.d. But, falling, we fall into the arms of Him who hath suffered vicariously for man from the foundation of the world.
[1] Eternal Atonement, p. 11.
GENIUS, AND THE DEBT OF STRENGTH.
"Paul says: "I am a debtor." But what had he received from the Greeks that he was bound to pay back? Was he a disciple of their philosophy?
He was not. Had he received from their bounty in the matter of art?
No. One of the most striking things in history is the fact that Paul abode in Athens and wrote about it, without having any impression made upon his imaginative mind, apparently, by its statues, its pictures or its temples. The most gorgeous period of Grecian art poured its light on his path, and he never mentioned it. The New Testament is as dead to art-beauty as though it had been written by a hermit in an Egyptian pyramid who had never seen the light of sun. Then what did he owe the Greeks? Not philosophy, not art, and certainly not religion, which was fetichism. Not a debt of literature, nor of art, nor of civil polity; not a debt of pecuniary obligation; not an ordinary debt. He had nothing from all these outside sources. The whole barbaric world was without the true knowledge of G.o.d. He had that knowledge and he owed it to every man who had it not. All the civilized world was, in these respects, without the true inspiration; and he owed it to them simply because they did not have it; and his debt to them was founded on this law of benevolence of which I have been speaking, which is to supersede selfishness, and according to which those who have are indebted to those who have not the world over."--_Henry Ward Beecher_.
CHAPTER V.
GENIUS, AND THE DEBT OF STRENGTH.
Booksellers rank "Quo Vadis" as one of the most popular books of the day. In that early era persecution was rife and cruelty relentless.
It was the time of Caligula, who mourned that the Roman people had not one neck, so that he could cut it off at a single blow; of Nero, whose evening garden parties were lighted by the forms of blazing Christians; of Vespasian, who sewed good men in skins of wild beasts to be worried to death by dogs. In that day faith and death walked together.
Fulfilling such dangers, the disciples came together secretly at midnight. But the spy was abroad, and despite all precautions, from time to time brutal soldiers discovered the place of meeting, and, bursting in, dragged the worshipers off to prison. Then a cruel stratagem was adopted that looked to the discovery of those who secretly cherished faith. A decree went forth forbidding the jailer to furnish food, making the prisoners "dependent" upon friends without.
To come forward as a friend of these endungeoned was to incur the risk of arrest and death, while to remain in hiding was to leave friends to die of starvation. Then men counted life not dear unto themselves.
Heroism became a contagion. Even children dared death. An old painting shows the guard awakened at midnight and gazing with wonder upon a little child thrusting food between the iron bars to its father.
In the darkness the soldiers sleeping in the corridors heard the rustling garments of some maiden or mother who loved life itself less than husband or friend. These tides of sympathy made men strong against torture; old men lifted joyful eyes toward those above them.
Loving and beloved, the disciples shared their burdens, and those in the prison and those out of it together went to fruitful martyrdom.
When the flames of persecution had swept by and, for a time, good men had respite, Apollos recalled with joy the heroism of those without the prison who remembered the bonds of those within. With leaping heart he called before his mind the vast mult.i.tudes in all ages who so fettered through life--men bound by poverty and hedged in by ignorance; men baffled and beaten in life"s fierce battle, bearing burdens of want and wretchedness, and by the heroism of the past he urged all men everywhere to fulfill that law of sympathy that makes hard tasks easy and heavy burdens light. Let the broad shoulders stoop to lift the load with weakness; let the wise and refined share the sorrows of the ignorant; let those whose health and gifts make them the children of freedom be abroad daily on missions of mercy to those whose feet are fettered; so shall life be redeemed out of its woe and want and sin through the Christian sympathy of those who "remember men in the bonds as bound with them."
Rejoicing in all of life"s good things, let us confess that in our world-school the divine teachers are not alone happiness and prosperity, but also uncertainty and suffering, defeat and death.
Inventors with steel plates may make warships proof against bombs, but no man hath invented an armor against troubles. The arrows of calamity are numberless, falling from above and also shot up from beneath. Like Achilles, each man hath one vulnerable spot. No palace door is proof against phantoms. Each prince"s palace and peasant"s cottage holds at least one bond-slave. Byron, with his club-foot, counted himself a prisoner pacing between the walls of his narrow dungeon. Keats, struggling against his consumption, thought his career that of the galley-slave. The mother, fastened for years to the couch of her crippled child, is bound by cords invisible, indeed, but none the less powerful. Nor is the bondage always physical. Here is the man who made his way out of poverty and loneliness toward wealth and position, yet maintained his integrity through all the fight, and stood in life"s evening time possessed of wealth, but in a moment saw it crash into nothing and fell under bondage to poverty. And, here is some Henry Grady, a prince among men, the leader of the new South, his thoughts like roots drinking in the riches of the North; his speech like branches dropping bounty over all the tropic states, seeming to be the one indispensable man of his section, but who in the midst of his career is smitten and, dying, left his pilgrim band in bondage.
Here is Sir William Napier writing, "I am now old and feeble and miserable; my eyes are dim, very dim, with weeping for my lost child,"
and went on bound midst the thick shadows. Or here are the man and woman, set each to each like perfect music unto n.o.ble words, and one is taken--but Robert Browning was left to dwell in such sorrow that for a time he could not see his pen for the thick darkness. Here is the youth who by one sin fell out of man"s regard, and struggling upward, found it was a far cry back to the lost heights, and wrote the story of his broken life in the song of "the bird with the broken pinion, that never flew as high again." Sooner or later each life pa.s.ses under bondage. For all strength will vanish as the morning dew our joys take wings and flit away; the eye dim, the ear dull, the thought decay, our dearest die. Oft life"s waves and billows chill us to the very marrow, while we gasp and shiver midst the surging tide. Then it is a blessed thing to look out through blinding tears upon a friendly face, to feel the touch of a friendly hand and to know there are some who "remember those in bonds, as bound with them."
Now this principle of social sympathy and liability gives us the secret of all the epoch-making men of our time. Carlyle once called Ruskin "the seer that guides his generation." More recently a prominent philanthropist said: "All our social reform movements are largely the influence of John Ruskin." How earned this man such meed of praise?
Upon John Ruskin fortune poured forth all her gifts. He was born the child of supreme genius. He was heir to nearly a million dollars, and by his pen earned a fortune in addition. At the age of 21, when most young men were beginning their reading, he completed a book that put his name and fame in every man"s mouth. "For a thousand who can speak, there is but one who can think; for a thousand who can think, there is but one who can see," and to this youth was given the open vision. In the hour of fame the rich and great vied to do him honor, and every door opened at his touch. But he turned aside to become the knight-errant of the poor. Walking along Whitechapel road he saw mult.i.tudes of shopmen and shopwomen whose stint was eighty hours a week, who toiled mid poisoned air until the brain reeled, the limbs trembled, and worn out physically and mentally they succ.u.mbed to spinal disease or premature age, leaving behind only enfeebled progeny, until the city"s streets became graves of the human physique. In that hour London seemed to him like a prison or hospital; nor was it given to him to play upon its floor as some rich men do, knitting its straw into crowns that please; clutching at its dust in the cracks of the floor, to die counting the motes by millions. The youth "remembered men in bonds as bound with them." He t.i.thed himself a tenth, then a third, then a half, and at length used up his fortune in n.o.ble service. He founded clubs for workingmen and taught them industry, honor and self-reliance. He bought spinning-wheels and raw flax, and made pauper women self-supporting. He founded the Sheffield Museum, and placed there his paintings and marbles, that workers in iron and steel might have the finest models and bring all their handiwork up toward beauty.
He asked his art-students in Oxford to give one hour each day to pounding stones and filling holes in the street. When his health gave way Arnold Toynbee, foreman of his student gang, went forth to carry his lectures on the industrial revolution up and down the land.
Falling on hard days and evil tongues and lying customs, he wore himself out in knightly service. So he gained his place among "the immortals." But the secret of his genius and influence is this: He fulfilled the debt of strength and the law of social sympathy and service.
This spirit of sympathetic helpfulness has also given us what is called "the new womanhood." To-day our civilization is rising to higher levels. Woman has brought love into law, justice into inst.i.tutions, ethics into politics, refinement into the common life. Reforms have become possible that were hitherto impracticable. King Arthur"s Knights of the Round Table marching forth for freeing some fair lady were never more soldierly than these who have become the friends and protectors of the poor. The movement began with Mary Ware, who after long absence journeyed homeward. While the coach stopped at Durham she heard of the villages near by where fever was emptying all the homes; and leaving the coach turned aside to nurse these fever-stridden creatures and light them through the dark valley. Then came Florence Nightingale and Mary Stanley, braving rough seas, deadly fever and bitter cold to nurse sick soldiers in Crimea, and returned to find themselves broken in health and slaves to pain, like those whom they remembered. Then rose up a great group of n.o.ble women like Mary Lyon and Sarah Judson, who journeyed forth upon errands of mercy into the swamps of Africa and the mountains of Asia, making their ways into garrets and tenements, missionaries of mercy and healing, Knights of the Red Cross and veritable "King"s Daughters." No cottage so remote as not to feel this new influence.
Fascinating, also, the life-story of that fair, sweet girl who married Audubon. Yearning for her own home, yet finding that her husband would journey a thousand miles and give months to studying the home and haunts of a bird, she gave up her heart-dreams and went with him into the forest, dwelling now in tents, and now in some rude cabin, being a wanderer upon the face of the earth--until, when children came, she remained behind and dwelt apart. At last the naturalist came home after long absence to fulfill the long-cherished dream of years of quiet study with wife and children, but found that the mice had eaten his drawings and destroyed the sketches he had left behind. Then was he dumb with grief and dazed with pain, but it was his brave wife who led him to the gate and thrust him forth into the forest and sent him out upon his mission, saying that there was no valley so deep nor no wilderness so distant but that his thought, turning homeward, would see the light burning brightly for him. And in those dark days when our land trembled, and a million men from the north tramped southward and a million men from the south tramped northward, and the columns met with a concussion that threatened to rend the land asunder, there, in the battle, midst the din and confusion and blood, women walked, angels of light and mercy, not merely holding the cup of cold water to famished lips, or stanching the life-blood until surgeons came, but teaching soldier boys in the dying hour the way through the valley and beyond it up the heavenly hills. These all fulfilled their mission and "remembered those in bonds as bound with them."
This principle also has been and is the spring of all progress in humanity and civilization. Our journalists and orators pour forth unstinted praise upon the achievements of the nineteenth century. But in what realm lies our supremacy? Not in education, for our schools produce no such thinkers or universal scholars as Plato and his teacher; not in eloquence, for our orators still ponder the periods of the oration "On the Crown;" not in sculpture or architecture, for the broken fragments of Phidias are still models for our youth. The nature of our superiority is suggested when we speak of the doing away with the exposure of children, the building of homes, hospitals and asylums for the poor and weak; the caring for the sick instead of turning them adrift; the support of the aged instead of burying them alive; the diminished frequency of wars; the disappearance of torture in obtaining testimony; humanity toward the shipwrecked, where once luring ships upon the rocks was a trade; the settlement of disputes by umpires and of national differences by arbitration.
Humanity and social sympathy are the glory of our age. Society has come to remember that those in bonds are bound by them. Indeed, the application of this principle to the various departments of human life furnishes the historian with the milestones of human progress. The age of Sophocles was not shocked when the poet wrote the story of the child exposed by the wayside to be adopted by some pa.s.ser-by, or torn in pieces by wild dogs, or chilled to death in the cold. When the wise men brought their gold and frankincense to the babe in the manger, men felt the sacredness of infancy. As the light from the babe in Correggio"s "Holy Night" illumined all the surrounding figures, so the child resting in the Lord"s arms for shelter and sacred benediction began to shed l.u.s.ter upon the home and to lead the state. To-day the nurture and culture in the schools are society"s attempt to remember the little ones in bonds. Fulfilling the same law Xavier, with his wealth and splendid talents, remembered bound ones and journeyed through India, penetrating all the Eastern lands, being physician for the sick, nurse for the dying, minister for the ignorant; his face benignant; his eloquence, love; his atmosphere, sympathy; carrying his message of peace to the farther-most sh.o.r.es of the Chinese Sea, through his zeal for "those who were in bonds." And thus John Howard visited the prisons of Europe for cleansing these foul dens and wiped from the sword of justice its most polluting stain. Fulfilling the debt of strength, Wilberforce and Garrison, Sumner and Brown, fronted furious slave-holders, enduring every form of abuse and vituperation and personal violence, and destroyed the infamous traffic in human flesh.
This new spirit of sympathy and service it is that offers us help in solving the problems of social unrest and disquietude. Events will not let us forget that ours is an age of industrial discontent. Society is full of warfare. Prophets of evil tidings foretell social revolution.
The professional agitators are abroad, sowing discord and nourishing hatred and strife, and even the optimists sorrowfully confess the antagonism between cla.s.ses. There is an industrial cla.s.s strong and happy, both rich and poor; and there is an idle cla.s.s weak and wicked and miserable, among both rich and poor. Unfortunately, as has been said, the wise of one cla.s.s contemplate only the foolish of the other.
The industrious man of means is offended by the idle beggar, and identifies all the poor with him, and the hard-working but poor workman despises the licentious luxury of one rich man, and identifies all the rich with him. But there are idle poor and idle rich and busy poor and busy rich. "If the busy rich people watched and rebuked the idle rich people, all would be well; and if the busy poor people watched and rebuked the idle poor people all would be right. Many a beggar is as lazy as if he had $10,000 a year, and many a man of large fortune is busier than his errand boy."
Forgetting this, some poor look upon the rich as enemies and desire to pillage their property, and some rich have only epithets for the poor.
Now, wise men know that there is no separation of rich industrious cla.s.ses and the poor industrious cla.s.ses, for they differ only as do two branches of one tree. This year one bough is full of bloom, and the other bears only scantily, but next year the conditions will be reversed. Wealth and poverty are like waves; what is now crest will soon be trough. Such conditions demand forbearance and mutual sympathy. Some men are born with little and some with large skill for acquiring wealth, the two differing as the scythe that gathers a handful of wheat differs from the reaper built for vast harvests and carrying the sickle of success. For generations the ancestors back of one man"s father were thrifty and the ancestors back of his mother were far-sighted, and the two columns met in him, and like two armies joined forces for a vast campaign for wealth. Beside him is a brother, whose thoughts and dreams go everywhither with the freedom of an eagle, but who walks midst practical things with the eagle"s halting gait. The strong one was born, not for spoiling his weaker brother, but to guard and guide and plan for him.
This is the lesson of nature--the strong must bear the burdens of the weak. To this end were great men born. Nature constantly exhibits this principle. The sh.e.l.l of the peach shelters the inner seed; the outer petals of the bud the tender germ; the breast of the mother-bird protects the helpless birdlets; the eagle flies under her young and gently eases them to the ground; above the babe"s helplessness rise the parents" shield and armor. G.o.d appoints strong men, the industrial giants, to protect the weak and poor. The laws of helpfulness ask them to forswear a part of their industrial rights; and they fulfill their destiny only by fulfilling the debt of strength to weakness.
To identify one"s self with those in bonds is the very core of the Christian life. Not an intellectual belief within, not a form of worship without, but sympathetic helpfulness betokens the true Christian. G.o.d, who hath endowed the soul with capacity to endure all labors and pains for wealth, to consume away the very springs of life for knowledge, hath also given it power for pouring itself out in great resistless tides of love and sympathy. For beauty and royal majesty nothing else is comparable to the love of some royal nature. A loving heart exhales sweet odors like an alabaster box; it pours forth joy like a sweet harp; it flashes beauty like a casket of gems; it cheers like a winter"s fire; it carries sweet stimulus like returning sunshine. We have all known a few great-hearted men and women who have through years distributed their love-treasures among the little children of the community and scattered affection among the poor and the weak, until the entire community comes to feel that it lives in them and without them will die. Happy the man who hath stored up such treasures of mind and heart as that he stands forth among his fellows like a lighthouse on some ledge, sending guiding rays far out o"er dark and troubled seas. Happy the woman whose ripened affection and inspiration have permeated the common life until to her come the poor and weak and heart-broken, standing forth like some beauteous bower offering shade and filling all the air with sweet perfume.
In crisis hours the patriot and martyr, the hero and the philanthropist, die for the public good, but not less do they serve their fellows who live and through years employ their gifts and heart-treasures, not for themselves, but for the happiness and highest welfare of others. Richter, the German artist, painted a series of paintings ill.u.s.trating the ministry of angels. He showed us the child-angels who sit talking with mortal children among the flowers, now holding them by their coats lest they fall upon the stairs, now with apples enticing them back when they draw too near the precipice; when the boy grows tall and is tempted, ringing in the chambers of memory the sweet mother"s name; in the hour of death coming in the garb of pilgrim, made ready for convoy and guidance to the heavenly land.
Oh beautiful pictures! setting forth the sacred ministry of each true Christian heart.
History tells of the servant whose master was sold into Algeria, and who sold himself and wandered years in the great desert in the mere hope of at last finding and freeing his lord; of the obscure man in the Eastern city who, misunderstood and unpopular, left a will stating that he had been poor and suffered for lack of water, and so had starved and slaved through life to build an aqueduct for his native town, that the poor might not suffer as he had; of the soldier in the battle, wounded in cheek and mouth and dying of thirst, but who would not drink lest he should spoil the water for others, and so yielded up his life. But this capacity of sacrifice and sympathy is but the little in man answering to what is large in G.o.d. Here deep answers unto deep. The definition of the Divine One is, he remembers those in bonds, and it is more blessed to give than to receive; more blessed to feed the hungry than starving to be fed; more blessed to pour light on darkened misunderstanding than ignorant to be taught; more blessed to open the path through the wilderness of doubt than wandering to be guided; more blessed to bring in the bewildered pilgrim than to be lost and rescued; more blessed to forgive than to be forgiven; to save than to be saved.
THE TIME ELEMENT IN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL GROWTH.
"All that we possess has come to us by way of a long path. There is no instantaneous liberty or wisdom or language or beauty or religion. Old philosophies, old agriculture, old domestic arts, old sciences, medicine, chemistry, astronomy, old modes of travel and commerce, old forms of government and religion have all come in gracefully or ungracefully and have said: "Progress is king, and long live the king!"
Year after year the mind perceives education to expand, art sweeps along from one to ten, music adds to its early richness, love pa.s.ses outwardly from self towards the race, friendships become laden with more pleasure, truths change into sentiments, sentiments blossom into deeds, nature paints its flowers and leaves with richer tints, literature becomes the more perfect picture of a more perfect intellect, the doctrines of religion become broader and sweeter in their philosophy."--_David Swing_.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TIME ELEMENT IN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL GROWTH.