All this is no fancy picture, and the peril indicated is not imaginary but real. The story of Jonah is left to all time for the warning of the preacher. Seated yonder in his booth, biting his nails in vexation, he is the type of the preacher whose righteous indignation, because of its lack of that element of unselfishness, and that spirit of pity by which moral anger should always be qualified, becomes simply grim and merciless wrath. "Doest thou well to be angry?" the eternal voice asks of him and of all who follow in his prophetic line. It was not thus that Jesus looked upon the mult.i.tude. They despised Him--many of them. That He knew. They accused and slandered Him one to another and in their own secret hearts. Some of them said He was a glutton and a wine-bibber, others that He had a devil, others, again, that He was the friend of publicans and sinners. They ate His bread, accepted His healing kindness, and all the time were making ready to cry, "Not this man, but Barabbas," when opportunity should arise. All this He understood, but "when He saw the mult.i.tudes He was moved with compa.s.sion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd."
"All His words are music, Though they make me weep, Infinitely tender, Infinitely deep."
And the absence of this undertone of pity from the message of the preacher always destroys the effect of his warnings and causes the hearer to be less afraid than angry, as is always the case when men are captiously scolded and found fault with and threatened. On the other hand, its presence gives power and penetration to the terrors borne upon its breath. It is instinctively felt that the hard words of the preacher are spoken as by one who weeps before he speaks. He does but speak because he must, because it would be cruellest cruelty to be silent. "For Zion"s sake I will not hold my peace." "Zion"s sake"--here, then, is the motive of all this unfolding of the secret history of the hearer"s heart and life. From very pity this man cannot speak of health when he sees the canker in the rose which blooms upon the cheek, when he perceives that, despite the appearance of strength and vigour, "the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint." He has not told us pleasant things to-day, though we would have liked to hear them, and he would have been glad to tell them, because he is too deeply concerned for us to prophesy golden groves at the end of a journey whose every footstep is taken upon the broad road leading to destruction. With meekness can we receive the reproofs of a parent knowing that, however hard his word, his heart is tender. "Whom He loveth He chasteneth," was written of the Lord. When it can be written of the Lord"s amba.s.sador, then again it will be true that although "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous," yet will it yield "the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Let us take it, then, that pity is an essential of the preacher"s message, and must make its presence felt, if not in word, at least in accent, or tone, or atmosphere. Is it too late in the argument to ask what this pity really and truly is?
In Theodore Hunger"s volume, "The Freedom of Faith," a book which will be found in many of our libraries, there is a chapter on the pity of Jesus Christ which would probably repay us for another perusal. Very powerfully the author maintains that pity is a deeper and sublimer pa.s.sion than love. In "The Alchemist," Balzac, depicting an ideally perfect affection makes the object of it deformed, indicating that love has not attained its highest height until it has become pity. Thus the mother"s love for her child is never so n.o.ble as when expressed in ministering to its sickness. How near to the little one does she come in those painful, anxious hours when, perchance, all the reward her love seems like to bring is the blighting of her dearest hopes. She loves her child in health, but that love is rewarded with joy; she loves it as it triumphs in its little tasks of intellect, but that love is rewarded with pride; its moral achievements awaken her admiration; its spiritual victories arouse her grat.i.tude, and in admiration and grat.i.tude, love has compensation; but none of these emotions so carry over her soul into fellowship with the soul of that dear one, none bring her into a touch so close, or give such gentleness to the fingers, such softness and tenderness to the voice as does pity, "when pain and sickness wring the brow." And what of the parental feeling for that other child--the child, we mean, whose name no one speaks in her ear, who has gone out from the family circle, who is away in the far country, wasting his substance in riotous living; who, indeed, _has_ wasted it, and who is now feeding the swine of the stranger, and longing to fill his belly with the husks that the swine do eat?
Behold, now, the father standing upon the threshold shading his eyes as longingly he gazes along the road which climbs the distant hill. A world of trouble is in his eyes. "Yonder young fool who has wandered away is not worth a single sigh of this grand old man," we say. "He is reaping as he has sown," we moralise. Time was when this youth went brightly to and fro in the homestead, when innocence sat throned upon his forehead, when truth shone brightly from his eyes, when purity and modesty mantled with blushes his boyish cheek. The old man loved him _then_. But this watching from the threshold, this long, long tearful look down the road winding away to the land of profligacy and shame, these are the glories of his love. Here is _pity_. This is affection glowing in its fairest flower, its most precious fruit. Before us is a dim adumbration of the pity of G.o.d, the highest manifestation of His love for man. Similarly the pity of man for man is the highest manifestation of our love one for another. It is by pity, and by pity only, that humanity can be brought into true unity. It is by pity that the preacher comes into oneness with his congregation. There is a sense in which he comes nearer to his hearers through their sufferings and their sins than through their joys and their virtues, for suffering and sin give occasion for compa.s.sion. Only let the man in the pulpit feel this emotion toward the man in the pew; only let the tragedy of his wrong-doing, the poverty of his soul resultant from his neglect of higher things, the awful fact that he is without G.o.d and hope in the world come home to the preacher"s heart; only let the shadow of this man"s fate cast its darkness upon the preacher"s soul and oh! how precious does that man become, sinner though he be. Let the man in the pew but feel that the heart of the man in the pulpit is almost breaking for the longing it has toward him and how differently will he receive the reproof that man may bring; with what new reverence will he attend to the solemn warning he may utter. At last a _brother_ seeks his soul!
For another result of pity will be that the Gospel of reconciliation will be preached indeed. If from the compulsion of compa.s.sion the preacher declared the terrors of the law, from the same divine concern he will glory to declare the way of return, the counsel and invitation of mercy. Even as none but a pitiful man can declare the words of the law so only a pitiful man can declare the provisions and conditions of the Cross. If the words of the Law, without pity are mere scolding and fault-finding and threatening, the words of the Gospel without pity must be cold, perfunctory and lifeless. Calvary was the expression of infinite compa.s.sion. In its own spirit alone can its message be set forth. You may preach even the justice of G.o.d in such a way as to make His judgments seem full of the kindest intention to the heart. On the other hand, you may preach the sacrifice of love in such a manner as to make the story hard as judgment thunders. You may throw a pardon at a man in such a fashion as to make the forgiveness it expresses more bitter than a curse.
But how are we so to abound in pity as to be able, at all times, to fill our message with its gracious influence, for pity is not always easy, in which fact is one element of its high n.o.bility? The sins of men, their vices with their results in life and character, often make it hard to pity them. A horrible thing is sin, and so horrible its effects that it seems, at times, almost impossible to look upon those in whom these effects are evident with any emotions save those of loathing and disgust. It was no very natural thing for Jonah to look with any sort of tenderness on that great, debauched, besotted Nineveh, reeking in its vileness, foul with the acc.u.mulated moral filth of many generations. Out of a man"s own righteousness, too, his jealousy for G.o.d and his reverence for goodness, there may grow a certain hardness and, from very loyalty to G.o.d, it may not be easy to look with compa.s.sionate eyes upon the transgressor. We cannot but remember that every blessed purpose of the Kingdom is delayed by sin. By this black impediment every golden dream of devout saints, of moral and spiritual reformers is held back from happy fulfilment. It is difficult, indeed, to feel pitiful when the heart for Christ"s sake is longing to behold the glories He died to bring to pa.s.s and sees those glories thus wantonly postponed. Yes, the note of pity is often hard to strike.
The more we think of all that is involved the more emphasis we throw into the question--_how has it to be done_?
The truth is that pity for such a service needs to be earnestly and constantly cultivated. It only follows as the result of spiritual processes in the preacher"s own soul. It is not the mere outflowing of a natural kindliness of disposition, of inborn good nature. It is more than mere sloppy sentimentality. _That_ kind of pity, if you may call it by such a name, never tells the truth excepting when it is pleasant, never preaches a sermon of rebuke, never reasons concerning "judgment to come." There is no such word as h.e.l.l in its vocabulary; there is no accusation in its programme. The pity we mean blazes up into moral anger, smites and wounds, and compa.s.sionates the while. This pity requires cultivation. Quoting an old phrase, "it never grew in Nature"s garden." An understanding of men is absolutely essential to attainment herein. Some one has said that "if we knew all we would pity all." G.o.d _does_ know all and _does_ pity all. The compa.s.sion of Jesus was aided by His knowledge of the mult.i.tude; so must ours be. It is a terrible story--this story of transgression--but those who know it best water it with tears. Nothing is served by closing our eyes to facts, though the temptation is great to exercise the mistaken charity of declining to know. Is there no danger of a cowardly refusal of vision, of making the fellowship of saints a hiding place whither we can escape from the sights and shames of the world? Are we quite guiltless of seeking in the Christian Society a forgetfulness of the things that wither and blast human souls without? Do none of us make of the Church "a little garden walled around," where the sound of crying and of cursing breaks not upon our peace as we dream our happy dreams? We are sent to look steadfastly upon the sore, to behold and a.n.a.lyse the very truth, for it is in the measure in which our souls are pierced that we compa.s.sionate.
But the greatest school for the learning of pitifulness is yonder at the feet of Jesus. In His company hearts grow hard to sin and tender to sinners. "Is there any sorrow like unto My sorrow?" He cries, and we know that His sorrow was not for Himself, but for those who spurned Him. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," He prays, and, lo! the cry is for His very murderers, and the music of it melts our spirit toward the transgressor while the transgression becomes more hateful in our eyes. Where do you abhor sin as you abhor it upon the slopes of Calvary? Where do you pity sinners as you pity them there?
There is the fountain of judgment. There is the fountain of forgiveness.
Yes, the greatest school of pitifulness is in the presence of Christ.
From Him, in Temple court and city street, on mountain brow and sea-sh.o.r.e, in the wilderness and in the domestic circle of Bethany, the preacher catches that new tone which shall give his accusation commendation and power. But there is another teacher, still, who will greatly help to fix the lesson in his heart if only he be heard. That teacher is Memory. Memory is always waiting to whisper in the preacher"s ear. "And such were some of you," writes St. Paul to the Corinthians, "but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our G.o.d."
Ah! the preacher, himself is but a sinner saved by grace. There was a time when _he_, also, was in the far country, when he, also, was a rebel against law and love, when even he was "lost already." Can he forget those days of darkness and of shame? Can he forget how the warning amba.s.sador of his. .h.i.therto despised Redeemer came to _him_?
Can he forget the mire and the clay and the horrible pit from which a strong hand brought him forth? Let him "think on these things" as he looks upon his congregation, as he rebukes their contumacy. Let him remember that he has come into the pulpit only by the steps of mercy, by the long-suffering grace of a sin-pardoning G.o.d.
Here, then, is an essential part of the preacher"s training--the training of his own heart to tenderness. If he fail in giving attention to this, all other education will be worse than fruitless.
The age needs the pitiful Church. The age and the Church need the pitiful ministry. This is not to say that men look to the pulpit for nothing but softly spoken indulgences. Conscience has taught them that the message should hurt where hurt is salutary. They will not recognise as kindness the withholding, or the dilution of any truth.
On the other hand they give to the motive of the preacher who does these things a less flattering name. They will say--have we not heard the criticism?--that the preacher is afraid to be faithful, afraid to offend for reasons that are selfish and cowardly. The offence of unwelcome truth is covered when that truth is watered by a preacher"s tears.
So let us preach--declaring "the _whole counsel_" concerning sin for pity"s sake, preaching the whole truth concerning salvation too.
Something is in our mind to ask concerning our presentation of this last-named portion of our message:--Are we always quite faithful as to what we call the conditions of salvation? In the presentation of these conditions great skill and great care are required. It is so easy to under--or over--emphasise, so easy, out of jealousy for G.o.d, to make the way too hard or, out of a desire to win men, to make it too easy.
Perhaps in the latter possibility lies, in our time, the greater danger. Do we always ask for _penitence_ as unmistakably as we ought?
There should be repentance "_toward_ G.o.d" as well as "faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." We may at least suggest the question:--Whether we do not sometimes call for the latter, saying too little of the former.
Again, in calling for faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, is it not easy to appear to demand a mere belief in historic facts when what is required is the trustful surrender of the soul to the Redeemer? We have seen fifty people hold up their hands, at the request of a preacher, to signify their turning to G.o.d, and we have noted that no outward sign of deep emotion accompanied the act. We have watched a mult.i.tude pa.s.s through an inquiry room where, though inquirers were many, tears were few. That "there are diversities of operations" we know. "Old times are changed, old manners gone." All this we admit, and, perhaps, we should not demand to see again such things as Time has cast behind him.
But, oh! those were great days when the returning rebel smote upon his breast and would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, as with sobs and groans, he cried, "G.o.d be merciful to me, a sinner." Those were glorious scenes when, in one and the same hour, he broke for ever with old habits, old companionships, old loves and, with eyes still streaming went forth exclaiming, ""Tis done, the great transaction"s done!"
CHAPTER III.
The Note of Idealism.
The Christian preacher is not only the accuser of men and the amba.s.sador of reconciliation; he is also the Prophet of a new order.
"Go, preach, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," so runs his commission.
His message must convey more than the promise of a deliverance from the _consequences_ of sin. It must proclaim new possibilities for the individual. It must point to higher alt.i.tudes for the race. The preacher announces a New Jerusalem descending out of heaven. His ministry is not to lead to the better only, but to the best.
For such preaching as this there is, deep down in the heart of man, a great hunger and thirst. Sordid and materialistic as is the life of the age, engrossed as the mult.i.tudes appear to be in the pursuit of mammon, of vain glory and of pleasure, there still lingers in the human breast a suspicion that men were fashioned for something higher than the things that, so often, first engross and then exhaust their powers.
The millionaire is not satisfied with his millions and, of late, has told us so. The man of pleasure is not satisfied with his pleasures, and, when he unburdens his secret mind, confesses his disappointment and disgust. Corn, wine and oil, houses, lands and station are all the objects of loathing as well as of pursuit, to those who, having won them, have found out their real quality. It is a primal instinct of the race that "the life is more than meat and the body than raiment."
To the student of our times there is nothing more pathetic than to observe the struggles of those upon whom materialism casts its spell to escape from their bondage. To aid them in this endeavour they call the painter, the sculptor, the dramatist, the man of letters, the player skilled in the language of music, and to one and all they say, "Idealise! Idealise!" Periods of realism in art never last long, though, in a sense, realism is easier to the artist than idealism. The explanation is that it is not realism that is really in demand. The artist must give us not man as he is, but as he _ought_ to be; not life as we know it, but life as we _would_ know it and live it, too; not the human face scarred and seamed by vices inherited from a thousand tainted years, but fresh, and sweet, and beautiful as it came from the hands of G.o.d, new washed in the dews of His infinite affection. Even nature must be idealised, and the painter struggles to produce the perfect landscape, the sculptor to represent the perfect form. The artist who mixes no imagination with his colours never holds for long the public honour. The heart of man asks for the ideal; the actual is not enough.
And to the preacher, also, these unsatisfied spirits bring the same request. If it is not upon their lips, you may read it in the deep longing of their unquiet eyes. The age is not a happy age, and its lack of happiness does not arise, alone, from its sicknesses, its bereavements, its shattered hopes, the cruelties of "offence"s gilded hand." Some one has said that men would be happy if it were not for their pleasures, and the saying contains a profound truth. In this unhappiness they turn to see if, peradventure, the preacher can show them higher and clearer heights of joy. Sometimes, thank G.o.d! the vision splendid is spread before them. It is a vision no poet or painter, save such as have been to the springs of the Eternal, can depict, and if the glory of it find its way into the seeker"s soul life for him is never the same again. But sometimes, alas! he is disappointed. The voice in the pulpit is little more than a sanctimonious echo of the voices of the street. Then goes the sorrowing seeker hence, and lo, the tiny glimmer of hope with which he came has all but been put out!
For it is a criticism one all too often hears, that the modern preacher, instead of asking too much, asks too little, and that, when he _does_ ask for much, his asking is more for great faith than for great living from both the individual and the age. It has been remarked that almost the whole of the difference between the Christian preacher and the heathen moralist is expressed in the statement that the preacher adds to his teaching a flavour of Jewish history and sweetens with the promise of a future life. Otherwise the heathen moralist points as far up the mountain side as he. There is such a possibility as that of preaching along too low a level. It is an ill thing when the preacher becomes content with the straw and forgets the crown.
For the preacher like the rest of men may become enslaved to things and powers material. "Where there is no vision the people perish," and of vision, in the larger sense, the preacher may share the general poverty. After all, even he belongs to the age into which he was born, and it needs qualities that are none too common to resist the influences of the times and of environment. Beside all this, are there not personal experiences in the lives of all of us which make it hard to keep our eyes upon the stars? We think of the local preacher spending his week in the market or behind the counter, in office or mine or factory or in the field wrestling with Nature for the bread that perisheth. We think of the minister often worried, almost distracted, by "the care of the churches," by the crabbed foolishness and miserable jealousies of contentious men and women. We must remember that for many a preacher life is not a May Day festival, but a question and a struggle. Surely the wonder is _not_ that sometimes the man in the pulpit speaks in a minor key, but that, under all the conditions of his life, we hear from him so much of the higher music as we do. The memory comes to us as we write of a man who preached the Gospel for years with the cruel disease of cancer gnawing at his vitals. We can recall others who came to proclaim the golden year from domestic circles blighted by the debauchery and vice of children but too well beloved. Did these men sometimes speak falteringly, and with hesitation, the message in which they asked and promised glorious things? Did they, from the very darkness of the clouds lowering above them, see only the lower slopes of the Mountains of the Lord? Who could wonder? The preacher is but a man!
Yes, the preacher is but a man, and as a man finds out something else:--That, after all, it is not out of his experiences of life, nor from the influences of his time, nor from both together that the greatest hindrance to alt.i.tude of tone in his preaching arises. As a man _is in heart and life_ so in some degree he preaches. The call of the Gospel is to perfection, and the perfect man is not yet, though many there are, even in these days, whose lives are a constant and n.o.ble struggle to reach this far-off mark. Is it strange that sometimes a preacher"s own failure to gain the wished for heights should cause him to put before others possibilities, not, indeed, according to his own low level of attainment, but still far below those he is sent to declare? Living on low levels means inevitably preaching on low levels, though, as a man"s preaching is derived from higher sources than are found in his own soul, his call to others ought always to be of higher things than he has, himself, attained.
Here, then, are some of the reasons why it often happens that our preaching lacks the elevation of high idealism. This idealism is none the less needed that there are reasons for its absence. Along these lines lies one of the great struggles of the preacher"s life, which is so triumphantly to resist the influences of his day and the depression of his personal experiences, so to live his own life that he shall always be able to act as a joyful guide to the Alps of G.o.d.
And what are these higher heights to which he has to point his fellows?
We ask the question first as concerning the individual and then as concerning the nations. We shall surely find it easy to obtain an answer to the inquiry in both its forms.
"_Easy!_" Yes; for the heights designed for us to reach are so clearly mapped out in the teaching, and especially in the life of Him whose word the preacher comes forward to declare, and whose example it is his glorious employment to put before the world. "The prize of the mark of our high calling" is the utter conquest of sin in the heart, its eradication not only in branch but in very root. Our goal is the utterly blameless life. It is more glorious, even, than this. It is the realisation in their perfection, not of negative virtues alone, but of virtues positive, active, aggressive. It is in brief the "perfect man in Christ Jesus."
And of what use is any lower understanding or interpretation of the purpose of Christ? Indeed, is any lower interpretation possible on the face of things? We cannot bring ourselves to believe that He would of set purpose come to secure a _partial_ triumph in the subjects of His grace. We speak of the difficulties of this our doctrine, but, after all, greater difficulties would have to be overcome in consenting to any lower conception of the divine intent. Try to imagine the Master effecting the saving of a soul with the design that it shall still hold to some remains of former vices, to some of its old l.u.s.ts, of its ancient enmities. Imagine Him, again, agreeing that a man shall continue to be the prey of evil tempers, of covetousness, of jealousy, of pride and falseness. Imagine Him entering into a tacit compromise with the forces of evil, that He will take _so much_ and expect no more in the worship and ownership and conquest of those for whom He died.
The idea is unthinkable! Jesus Christ came, suffered, bled, died, rose again, and ascended up on high that once more the eyes of G.o.d might look upon _a perfect man_.
Now, all this sounds very old-fashioned and very much like the teaching that we have heard, and perhaps in varying degrees disparaged, from the lips of those whom we call, sometimes with a slight, but none the less real, touch of sarcasm, "holiness men." How afraid we are that any one should ask us to be too good! But the teaching of Scriptural holiness was once one of the glories of Methodism and clear in the forefront of her preaching. To-day, perhaps, we hear less concerning that gospel than once we did. Is it absolutely certain that this fact always works out to the advantage of the preacher and his people? To-day, also, we hear less concerning the joy of the Christian life than formerly; less concerning new triumphs in the conversion of sinners than in days it is glorious to remember. To-day men complain, as we have already heard, that the preachers ask too little and do not bid them look so high as something in their bosoms tells them they ought to look. The preaching of Scriptural holiness has been discredited, it must be confessed, by the language into which it has often been thrown; by a disposition to censoriousness in those who have given it a large place in their ministry; by a disposition, too, on the part of its preachers to label as sins many things which were capable of innocent use and enjoyment, to cut out of life more than they sought to put in, dealing rather in prohibitions than in inspirations. This doctrine has suffered, again, more than most, from the inconsistencies of its apostles, as was indeed inevitable and should have been expected, for the higher a man"s preaching the more clearly his personal imperfections are brought out by force of contrast, which may be rather to the glory of the preaching than to its discredit. Say, however, all that can be said in this direction concerning the doctrine of Christian Perfection; the ideals of the Gospel for human living are no lower than the highest word the Perfectionist has ever uttered. These ideals, as put before us and required of us, are part of the message of the Cross, and the preaching which does not include and enforce them is incomplete and cannot become, in the highest sense, effective in the accomplishment of its divine purpose. When a man"s preaching presents ideals higher than those of the Sermon on the Mount; when he asks for a whiter purity, a more embracing charity, a n.o.bler style of living than are required by Jesus Christ, _then_ will have come the time to call a halt. Up to this point he has behind him not only divine permission but divine command. By his ears, if he but listen, may be heard, also, the voices of men who are weary of the valleys and the swamps, and who long to climb the heights and pierce the clouds that hold their vision from the skies. We need a new Puritanism, and it must not be a Puritanism princ.i.p.ally of prohibitions, as was the old. It must be a Puritanism in which all the glories possible to heart and mind and soul are set forth in charm and beauty.
But the preacher has a message for society, as well as for the individual, and it is essential to the highest uses of that message that sublimer notes should be struck than are commonly heard. Jesus Christ showed an interest in trade, and the sellers of doves and changers of money heard from Him, one day, words of such a sort as made their ears to tingle. The preacher must not be afraid to insist on perfect integrity, perfect honesty, and even perfect brotherhood in commerce. We have heard somewhere the story of a business man in Brighton to whom, one day, a customer chanced to speak concerning F. W.
Robertson--perhaps, taking one thing with another the most influential preacher of the Victorian era. Leading his client into a little room behind the shop he pointed, with these words, to a portrait upon the wall: "That is F. W. Robertson, and when, standing behind the counter, I feel a temptation to do a dishonest thing in trade, I come in here and look up at that face." What a tribute this to a great ministry which had its message for the office and the shop and turned commerce and handicraft into great religious acts. To the world of industry the messenger of Christ must also bring the new ideals he has learned. Why should the relationships of master and servant, of capital and labour, be poisoned by suspicion and marred by covetousness, oppression, evasion of mutual obligations? The problem to be solved in this twentieth century is probably this of the relations between the man with money to spend and the man with work to sell. Ah, if only Jesus Christ were President of the Board of Trade! Paul was not afraid to lift up his voice on these extremely practical subjects, and even now, the sixth chapter of Ephesians is far from out of date: "Servants," he says, turning to the one cla.s.s, "be obedient to them that are your masters .... not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of G.o.d from the heart." To the masters also, he has something to say: "And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with Him." St. James, that great practical homilist, could not be silent here. Of all who ever addressed the capitalist upon his responsibilities surely never one spoke more strongly than did he. "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you..... Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." Here is denunciation hot and stirring, and the preacher may at times have to denounce, and when the time comes, must face that duty manfully for the sake of G.o.d and men. On this page, however, we plead not for denunciation but for idealism,--idealism supported by the truths of the Fatherhood of G.o.d and the Brotherhood of Man, and enforced by all the tender meanings of the Cross.
For the world of statesmanship, again, the preacher has a teaching of idealism, which is a very different thing from the preaching of party politics, which has done more harm a thousand times than any good it has ever effected. In the nation as Christ would have it there should be no jealousy between cla.s.s and cla.s.s; no oppression of the poor by the rich; no reproach for either honest poverty or honest wealth. In such a state there would be a chance for every man. Government would not mean tyranny; liberty would not mean licence. There would be purity of administration. There would be consecration of national resources to the good of all. War, by such a state, would be as impossible as it is now imminent. In such a state, again, sermons on the text, "Our country right or wrong," would neither find preachers to deliver them nor audiences to listen to them. When the New Jerusalem is built in England, the slum, the gin palace, the workhouse, and the gaol will be things of the past. "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; there shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." Oh, the dream is overpowering in its glory; and it is not a dream, but a prophecy from Calvary to the sorrowing nations of a sinful world!
So the errand of the preacher is to declare the Golden Age for which men have longed with, oh, such longing! amid the sins, and crimes, and miseries which have made up so much of human history. Of this so greatly desired time have they dreamed. To bring it in they have schemed and laboured, bled and died. They have thought to hasten its dawn by the founding of "Utopias," of "Merrie Englands," by many a promising, but disappointing device. There is but one man who can tell them how it must come--how indeed it will come--and he is the man who has sat at the feet of Jesus Christ; who has seen His arms extended wide upon the Cross and learned those politics in which eternity is set. The Golden Age will come when the world shall listen to him, and give itself to the practice of that old doctrine which is to be the creation not only of a new Heaven, but, also, of a new Earth.
But the preacher must do more than formulate the divine command; more than paint glowing pictures of glorious possibilities. It is required that his idealism shall be shown to be practicable. It is of no use to tell a drunkard that Christ wants sobriety, or a liar that the Lord wants truth in the inward parts; it is of no use preaching about the conquest of temper and of pa.s.sion; about the crucifixion of covetousness and envy and jealousy; about patience, gentleness, kindness, love, unless, along with the demands of this new scheme of living, the great evangelical watchwords and promises ring strong and true. The glory of the preacher is that he, alone of those who bring forth programmes for the lives of men, can tell us how his programme may be carried out. He has a wonderful authority given unto him in his dealings with the weak and erring. He can make to every man who gives himself to Christ, and to the living of the life He asks, the promise that Christ will give to him nothing less than His own very self. To any man who tremblingly, tearfully "makes up his mind to try," the preacher may pledge his Lord in guarantees which will be honoured to the very uttermost. _Power_! There is G.o.d"s for his promising.
_Grace_! There is Christ"s for his disposal. He is the almoner of an infinite bounty. Then to the preacher there comes from his own vision a courage which he can communicate to others. No other man sees such possibilities in human nature as he, for he looks on man in Jesus Christ, and discerns better things in him than man had hoped for in himself. He beholds, also, the Spirit of G.o.d at work in the world; hears His footsteps as He goes to and fro in the land. Hence he can cry to the nations to lift up their head, knowing that "the Lord Omnipotent reigneth." He is the idealist whose ideals--more "impossible" than all the dreams of moralists and poets--are the true practical politics of individual and national life. The time is ripe for a new preaching of the possibilities of humanity, for a new setting forth of what life and character, personal and national, may be, and _must_ be, to please Him and realise the blessing the Creator had it in His heart to give to man when first He sent him forth in the glory of His image. For such preaching, we have already said, men are waiting, listening, longing. They wait, too, for a new declaration of the high provisions of help available for human endeavour. Men instinctively antic.i.p.ate that the ideals of G.o.d concerning them will be high, but they antic.i.p.ate, also instinctively, that the provision for the realisation of these ideals will be sufficient. They do not ask that, for the sake of human weakness, G.o.d shall make honesty less than honest; truth less than true; purity less than pure, but they do ask that for all these things He shall give grace and guidance. Does our preaching answer these instinctive expectations, these deep longings, these inborn hopes in those to whom we are sent? Do we truly put before them that high life their spirits yearn to live? Do we show them the path "o"er moor and fen, o"er crag and torrent," to the heights that kiss the stars?
If we do, well; but if not:--Then, perhaps, we should not wonder, nor be astonished, if pews are empty, if church membership declines, if men say that there is little profit in coming to hear thoughts no higher than their own. They look for the preacher to ask for better, higher, harder things than all their other leaders. If he fail in this his church has but little to draw them within its doors. Practical idealism is essential to effective and successful preaching.
CHAPTER IV.
The Note of Edification.
The preacher is appointed for the upbuilding of the Church and of the individual believer upon "the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone." Upon this foundation, with almost infinite care, with untiring labour and solicitude and prayerfulness, has he to rear "a temple fitly framed together" of "gold, silver and precious stones;" upon this foundation he has to build the fabric of saintly character in men. Only that preacher is truly successful who, in the end, is able humbly to claim to have been in this sense a "wise master-builder;" who can point to the results of his labours in the beauty and strength of the churches in which he has toiled, in the saintliness of the men and women to whom he has spoken the re-creating, re-edifying word.
Now, in our day, it is, perhaps, specially needful that this part of the preacher"s duty should be particularly emphasised. Of the Church it has to be said that she has fallen on somewhat evil times, for there is evidence of the growth of a tendency toward a Churchless Christianity. Many there are who take the view that union with the Church is of small importance to the development of Christian faith and character. There are more who regard such union as something which, while it may have certain advantages, is nevertheless entirely optional with the Christian believer. Again and again have we been told that Christianity consists of belief in Jesus Christ resulting in an attempt to imitate Him, and that, as this belief and this attempt can be achieved outside of any organised religious community, a man may be essentially a Christian without being a member of the Church. The reasons for this att.i.tude are not far to seek. Among them are a selfishness which fears the sacrifice that membership of the Church might involve; a slothfulness antic.i.p.ating with apprehension the possible demands for Christian service which the Fellowship might make, and a lack of real intensity and enthusiasm in conviction, which hesitates to make an out-and-out stand for Christ and truth.
From the same causes, in all ages, men have kept outside the organised flock of G.o.d and, therefore, such reasons as these need not greatly alarm us. But there is another objection to joining the Church which, alas! is often heard, which peculiarly concerns the preacher and ought to lead him to much careful inquiry. It is that objection which quotes against the Church her own condition. It is alleged that, nowadays, the faith of the Church is in a state of flux; that her enthusiasm has cooled to the point of chill; that her members are in such small degree better than the men and women outside their society that their company does not promise any moral and spiritual help to a man in search of saving and enn.o.bling companionships. It is said, moreover, that the Church is so divided, sub-divided and sub-_sub_-divided that it is impossible to be sure as to where the true Church may be found.
Finally, we are told that in all probability if Jesus Christ came to earth in the flesh, He would in these times be found outside the sanctuaries in which His name is supposed to be honoured.
Now, many of these a.s.sertions may surely be shown to be the result of misunderstanding, of delusion, even of prejudice, and so should not be taken too much to heart. They may serve, however, to remind us of two truths which ought to be often in mind. The first is that Christianity needs the Church; the second, that the Church needs Christianity. As to the former proposition:--The Church is the Christian organism. It is princ.i.p.ally through her agencies and activities that the purposes of Christianity are to be realised. This is true not only of those universal purposes which include the ideals of world-wide sovereignty, but, let men say what they will, it is true of those which relate to the realisation of Christ"s will in the individual soul. It is not the fact that men find it as easy to live the Christian life outside the Church as within. This is sufficiently demonstrated by experience.
Personal religion grows in the fellowship and the sacrifice, in the labours, the strength and inspiration consequent upon membership in a great and imperial family.