sings William Ernest Henley, and he closes with the ringing lines,--
"I am the Captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul."
And Emerson and Henley are right--so far as they go. And the man who has been industrious, and economical, and has acc.u.mulated a fortune, has, at all times, some elements that are right; and rigid economy is far better than selfish indulgence. But whether a rigid economy is always a virtue--depends. "There is that scattereth, yet increaseth." Whether it is n.o.bler to increase one"s bank account at the expense of all the personal expansion of life, through study, social life, travel,--all that makes up a choice and fine culture, and at the expense of depriving one"s self of the untold luxury of service, as needs come in view,--is certainly an open question, and one in which there is a good deal to say for other uses of money than that of establis.h.i.+ng an impressive bank account; but leaving this aspect of the problem, one returns to that phase of it represented by self-reliance. It is a great hindrance to the infinite development of man to conceive of courage and self-reliance as capacities or powers of his own rather than as fed from the divine energy. A stream might as well cut itself off from its source, and from its tributaries, and expect to flow on, in undiminished current to the sea, as for man to regard courage and force of will as generated in himself. Thus he dwarfs and hinders all his spiritual powers that are found to lay hold upon G.o.d. Thus he stifles himself, rather than open his windows into the pure air. "All the conditions of life are raised by the meaning Jesus has shown to be in them."
Certainly, it was not for nothing that Christ came into the conditions of the human life. His experience on earth comprehended every privation, every limitation, known to the physical life. Not only these,--but He experienced every phase of sorrow, of trial, of mental pain, of spiritual anguish. He was misunderstood, He was misrepresented, He was a.s.sailed and crucified. He understood the needs of the body as well as of the spirit. He had no contempt nor condemnation for comfort, prosperity, or wealth, in and of themselves. He simply regarded them as means to an end, and if n.o.bly used to n.o.ble ends, life was the better for whatever phases and factors of power it possessed. But He taught the truth that here we have no continuing city; that this temporary sojourn on earth is designed as a period in which to develop qualities rather than to heap up acc.u.mulations. "What shall it profit a man," He well said, "if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
So here was a man, living the earthly and physical life; comprehending all the earthly and physical problems involved in relation with the physical world; not ignoring or denying them like a mere fanatic, but estimating them in the true scale of values,--here was a man who by his experience and example proved that personal holiness of life is not incompatible with personal attention to every detail of human affairs.
Jesus did not isolate Himself in a monastic cell in order to live the life of the spirit. He practically taught that the very supreme test of the life of the spirit is to live it in the heart of human activities.
It is in the resistless tide of daily affairs,--in the office of the lawyer, the journalist, the physician, the architect; in the studio of the artist, in the counting-room, the bank, the salesroom, and the market-place, that the life of personal holiness is possible, and it is possible to man because Jesus, taking upon Himself the human life, so lived it in these very circ.u.mstances and under these conditions. Christ and His all-quickening life remain in the world. They did not leave it with His physical death. They remain as the incorruptible, the glorious, the priceless possession of every man and woman to-day. To this divine example of a perfect character revealed in the guise of the human life, each individual in the world to-day can turn, as the most practical ideal by which to shape his own life and to ultimately realize the command, "Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." If this transcendent ideal were not a possibility for the soul, surely G.o.d would not have given it as an idle command; but man, as a spiritual being, is designed to live the spiritual life, and this life is that of perpetual spiritual progress and ideal achievement; of entering into that golden atmosphere in which he shall not only
"--dream of summers and dream of flowers That last alway,"
but find, in an ever-increasing degree, that the dream is merged into the profoundest reality of experience.
"Present suffering is not enjoyable," said the late Rev. Doctor Maltbie Davenport Babc.o.c.k, "but life would be worth little without it. The difference between iron and steel is fire, but steel is worth all it costs. Iron ore may think itself senselessly tortured in the furnace, but when the watch-spring looks back it knows better. David enjoyed pain and trouble no more than we do, but the time came when he admitted that they had been good for him. Though the aspect of suffering is hard, the prospect is hopeful.... The tests of life are to make, not break us. The blow at the outward man may be the greatest blessing to the inner man.
If G.o.d, then, puts, or permits, anything hard in our lives, be sure that the real peril, the real trouble, is what we shall lose if we flinch or rebel."
Doctor Babc.o.c.k"s words suggest that there is perhaps nothing in all the divine teachings that is less understood and less accepted than the a.s.sertion of Saint Paul, "We glory in tribulation also." The general reader of the gospels and epistles--even the prayerful and reverent reader--relegates this expression to some abstract conditions, as something that might do very well for Saint Paul and a rudimentary civilization; as something that might be a very appropriate and decorous sentiment for Saint Sebastian on his gridiron, or Saint Catherine keeping her vigils in the vast and gloomy old church in Siena, but which certainly can bear no relation and hold no message for the modern reader. For the electric life of the hour,--full of color and vitality; throbbing with achievement; the life that craves prosperity as its truest expression, and finds adversity a poor and mean failure quite unsuitable to a man of brilliant gifts and energy; the life that believes in its own right of way and mistakes possessions for power,--what has _it_ to do with "tribulation" except to refuse it? If it comes it is met with indignant protest rather than as a phase of experience in which to "glory;" it is evaded, if possible; and if it cannot be evaded it is received with rebellion, with gloom, with despondency, and perhaps, at last, an enforced and hopeless endurance, which is not, by the way, to be mistaken for resignation. Endurance is a pa.s.sive condition that cannot, and does not even try, to help itself.
Resignation, in its true reading, is wholly another matter; it is active, it is alive, it is conscious and intelligent and in joyful co-operation with the will of G.o.d. It is no poor and negative mental state; it is rich in vitality and in hope, as well, for in its absolute identification of itself, this human will with the divine will, it enters into a kingdom of untold glory, whose paths lead by the river of life to the n.o.blest and most exalted heights of achievement and of undreamed-of joy.
If this be true of resignation, what shall be said of tribulation,--of glorying in tribulation? A man awakens to find himself in poverty instead of in wealth; his possessions suddenly swept away; or from health, he, or some one whose life is still dearer to him than his own, prostrated with illness; or to find himself unjustly accused or maligned, or misunderstood, or to encounter some other of the myriad phases of what he calls misfortune and tribulation. How is he to endure it? How is he to go on, living his life, in all this pain, perplexity, trial, or annoyance, much less to "glory" in this atmosphere of tribulation? One is engaged, it may be, in a work for which it would seem that peace of mind and joy and radiance were his only working capital; his essential resources; and suddenly these vanish, and his world is in ruins. Clouds of misapprehension envelop him round about, and he can neither understand, himself, what has produced them, nor can he, by any entreaty or appeal, be permitted the vantage ground of full and clear explanation. And his energies are paralyzed; the golden glory that enfolded his days investing them with a magical enchantment, has gone, and a leaden sky shuts him into a gloomy and leaden atmosphere. It is not only himself, but his work; not only what he may feel, but what, also, he may not accomplish. And his work is of a nature that is not only his own expression, his contribution to the sum of living, but one which involves responsibility to others, and some way,--well or ill, as may be,--it must be done. Shall he, _can_ he, "glory" in this paralyzing pain and torture that so mysteriously has fallen upon him,--whose causes do not, so far as he can discern, lie in his own conduct, but in some impenetrable mystery of misapprehensions and misunderstandings; a tangled labyrinth to which he is denied the clue?
Can he, indeed, facing all this torture and tragedy, with all that made the joy and light of life withdrawn,--can he encounter this form of tribulation with serene poise, with unfaltering purpose, with an intense and exalted faith? It is "not enjoyable," indeed, as Doctor Babc.o.c.k, in the quotation above, at once concedes; but that the experience has a meaning,--a very profound meaning, one must believe; and believing this, he must feel that the responsibility rests on himself to accept this new significance that has, in an undreamed-of way, fallen into his life; to read its hidden lesson; to trans.m.u.te it, by the miracle of divine grace, into something fairer and sweeter; to let its scorching fire make steel of that which was only iron. To accept, to believe, to _feel_ this, in every fibre of his nature, is to "glory" in the tribulation. It is to extract its best meaning, and to go on in life better equipped than before. "The tests of life are to _make_ and not _break_ us." Here is the truer view, and one that reveals the divine significance in all mysteries of human experience. Beyond all these views, also, is that inflorescence of joy that springs from this more complete identification of one"s own will with that of the divine. One comes into the full glow and beauty of that wonderful a.s.surance of Jesus: "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."
This fulness of joy is a condition freely offered for perfect acceptance. The varied experiences are, as Browning has said, "just a stuff to try the soul"s strength on." The kingdom of heaven lies open to all; it is _at hand_, not waiting afar in some vague futurity. Shall we not enter to-day into this kingdom of heaven which is at hand? Shall we not enter to-day into the very joy of the Lord? Pain and sorrow may invest the conditions of the moment, but they are forces which are trans.m.u.ting the inconsequential into the significant; the common and trivial into the exalted and the sublime. The discord is merged into sublime harmonies that thrill the air; the glory of the Lord s.h.i.+nes round about, and we enter into its illumination; we are ascending the Mount of Vision and the soul looketh steadily onward, discerning the beauty of holiness, in whose transfiguration gleams the fairest ideal revealed to humanity,--even the Life Radiant.