"_Thou preventest him with_ _the blessings of goodness._"

(PSALM xxi. 3.)

XVI

G.o.d IN FRONT

You know how, in a happy home, the near approach of a birthday is signalised, how parcels are mysteriously smuggled in and hidden in secret places, and, though everything seems to be going on as usual, yet the plans are being laid in train that will surprise and delight the fortunate owner of the birthday when the festal day dawns. That is our feeble, human way of trying to surprise one another with the blessings of goodness. That is how we "prevent" our beloved with tokens of our remembrance. So, says the Psalmist, does G.o.d deal with us. Not only have we--what we so much need--His forgiveness of our past, and His help and presence for the day which now is; He is working for us in the future too, sowing the days to come with blessings for us to pick up when the pa.s.sage of time brings us to the places where He has hidden them.

The idea that G.o.d has been beforehand in our history, getting ready, as it were, for our coming, though not a very usual one, is very helpful, and it finds abundant ill.u.s.tration and proof in all directions. When a child arrives on this earth, he enters into the enjoyment of bounties and blessings prepared, not merely weeks, but literally ages before his coming. Warmth he needs, and aeons ago the coal beds were formed in the bowels of the earth. Food he needs, and G.o.d "laboured for ages," as Sir Oliver Lodge puts it, to bring corn into existence. For corn needs soil, and, to make that, the Creator had to set the glaciers grinding over the granite, and to loosen the forces of rain and frost and running water over great stretches of time.

Every child born into the world becomes the heir of all the ages past.

What blessings have been prepared for most of us, in advance, in the homes into which we were born, and the gracious influences under which we have grown up! "I have to thank the G.o.ds," says Marcus Aurelius the pagan Emperor, "that my grandfathers, parents, sisters, preceptors, relations, friends and domestics were almost all of them persons of probity." "I have to thank the G.o.ds." Who else is there to thank but G.o.d who prevents us in this way with the blessings of goodness? G.o.d is working beforehand in our interest in all these things. So, when we awaken to a sense of Him, there is His Church, established of old, awaiting to take us by the hand and help us on our way. When we learn our need of a Saviour, behold Christ stands at the door and knocks.

When, in penitence of heart, we ask G.o.d's mercy, we learn that, long since, it was laid up in store for us. Before we thought of loving G.o.d, He first loved us, and gave Himself for us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Is it not gloriously true all the way along that G.o.d has been beforehand with His goodness?

And that, of course, is the explanation of all the glad surprises of life. The Lord has prepared them for us beforehand. He has sown the future with good things and watched our surprise as we picked them up.

When Mary Mardon and her father, in Mark Rutherford's "Autobiography,"

went to the seaside to look for lodgings they saw a dismal row of very plain-looking houses. Mary objected instinctively to the dull street, but her father said he could not afford to pay for a sea view, so they went in to inquire. To their delight they found that what they thought were the fronts of the houses were really the backs, for the real fronts faced the bay, had pretty gardens before the doors, and a glorious sunny prospect over the ocean. Isn't that what we often find to be the case?

Our most treasured friends are not always those whom we fall in love with at first sight. The thing we greatly fear dissolves like mist. An envied, but despaired-of, blessing is flung into our lap. A door of splendid hope opens in a dead wall. Life is full of the unexpected as if wonder were one of the things G.o.d wanted very much to keep alive in us. When, as you think, everything has been exhausted, G.o.d surprises you with a fresh gladness. And, aback of all, there is the unending surprise of G.o.d's patience with us, and of that daily mercy of His, which we so ill requite, and so often forget.

Of course, no one dreams of suggesting that all our surprises are of a happy sort. It is not so. But the point is that if it is G.o.d who has hidden the blessings for us to come upon, it is He also who has hidden the other things. G.o.d's hand does not slip so that we get the wrong parcel by accident. He prevents us also with the blessings that we do not call by that name at all. In his Lay Sermons, Huxley, describing the tadpole in its slimy cradle, says: "After watching the process hour after hour, one is almost possessed by the notion that some more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic object-gla.s.s would show the hidden artist with his plan before him, striving with skilful manipulation to perfect his work." If, in that wonderful fashion, G.o.d is working beforehand according to a plan of His own, in the life of a tadpole, is it not much more likely that He is so working in your life and mine, not in its joys only, but also in its dark hours and its sorrows? That, indeed, is the very message and comfort of the Lord Jesus Christ, that not even a sparrow falleth to the ground--calamity indeed for the sparrow--without our Father.

If it be true that G.o.d our Father is working in advance of us all the time, then surely it is wrong to speak of the monotony of life? For we are on a road which G.o.d Himself has sown with surprises for us, and the hour of our deadliest weariness may be the immediate percursor of our richest and most joyous find. Who could have supposed, at the end of the eighteenth century, when poetry in England seemed dead, that a great galaxy of stars--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats--was on the very eve of rising? The unexpected can always happen. You may come upon another of G.o.d's hidden blessings to-morrow. Let us not talk of monotony, therefore, in an age which has seen so many wonderful things happen. Rather let us hold to the faith that all the while G.o.d is going before us with the blessings of goodness.

This faith puts another complexion on all our fears and forebodings.

Before we live it, the web of our life pa.s.ses through G.o.d's hands. And the shaded parts, as well as the bright parts, are in His wise and loving design. n.o.body can promise us freedom from sorrow, but the Bible promises that G.o.d is beforehand to make the sorrow bearable. He has adjusted our temptations to our strength, and never a one has He hidden, where we come upon it, that it is impossible for us by His help to withstand. Before the mother puts her little child into his hot bath at night, she tests the water first with her fingers. And the Psalmist means us to believe that life comes to us from G.o.d, who has measured and adapted it for us, beforehand, in a like fashion.

Viewed in the light of this faith, Death itself takes on a different aspect. Oliver Wendell Holmes has suggested that the story of this life and the next can be fully written in two strokes of the pen, an interrogation-point, and, above it, a mark of exclamation--fear and question here below, and, above, adoration, wonder, surprise. "I go to prepare a place for you," said Christ to His disciples. If the preparation for us here is so wonderful, is it likely to fail yonder? If Love made ready for us here, shall it not be beforehand there too? Yea, verily. Our experience of how G.o.d prevents us here with His loving kindness ought to strengthen in us all the "faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the saint's trust in every age, that when we pa.s.s hence it will be to meet the grandest, the most blessed, and the most surprising provision of all."

PRAYER

Our Father in Heaven, we shall not be afraid of what life may hold for us when we have learned that our little web has first pa.s.sed through Thy merciful and loving hands. We have often prayed that Thou wouldest go with us; but Thou hast answered us beyond our asking, for Thou goest before us all. In the faith of that leading, make us to journey bravely and to sleep secure. Amen.

"_Fight the good fight of faith._"

(1 TIMOTHY vi. 12.)

XVII

"UNBELIEF KEPT QUIET"

We are often told that this is not an age of faith, that the day of the beautiful, old, simple acquiescence is past, whether it ever comes again or not. Some one has wittily suggested that the coat of arms of the present age is "an interrogation-point rampant, above three bishops dormant, and the motto 'Query.'" But, like a great many more witty things, that saying leaves one questioning whether, after all, it be really true. I venture, for my part, to a.s.sert that a great many more people are really interested in this matter of faith than most of us imagine. There is something that haunts men as with a sense of hidden treasure about this wonderful thing in life called Faith, that always seems to be going to disappear, and yet somehow does not. With a strange, wistful persistence men linger about this pool, though there are many to tell them that the "desired angel bathes no more."

I wish to speak a word of encouragement to-day to all who are finding faith hard. "Fight the good fight of faith," says Paul to his young friend, Timothy. Fight. I want to remind you that faith often implies effort, that there is nothing in the idea of faith which is incompatible with struggle, that the very form of Paul's advice implies an antagonism.

It is true that many think of the "faith of the saints" as a quiet, contented habit of gentle acquiescence, a sweet and beautiful state of mind very far removed from the restless, questioning, a.n.a.lytic temper of the man of to-day. Now, I do not say that faith is never seen now in that placid form, but I do say that that was not the type Paul had in mind when he wrote Timothy, it is not the figure which best described his own faith, and it is certainly not the aspect he would require to deal with, were he writing to the men of to-day.

For they are only too conscious of much inward suspense of judgment and uncertainty concerning many things in Heaven and earth. And that inward conflict seems to many of them a sign that faith is waning, if not dead.

They have forgotten that it is that very sense of inward conflict which proves that faith is not dead. Dead things do not offer any resistance.

We ought by this time to have learned that a thing "may be for us an intellectual puzzle, and yet a sheer spiritual necessity," and that the Christian faith is, for every soul who has once caught it. There are a great many earnest and honest men to whom it is the best of news that Christian faith is not incompatible with very grave perplexities. The real opposite of faith is not doubt, as so many suppose, but deliberate and satisfied denial. Faith can live in the same life along with very many doubts--as a matter of fact, in the case of not a few of the most Christ-like men of our time, it is living beside them constantly. Paul a.s.sures us that outside of him he found fightings and within him he found fears. Yet he kept the faith for all that. They start up on all sides, these spectres of the mind and reason, and they ask questions which a man cannot answer. Yet Faith may be dwelling in his life in very deed and truth, because faith is something more than the sum of all his beliefs. It is the whole conscious and deliberate set and desire of his being.

It is a well-known fact that a man may be truly courageous, acting, speaking, thinking bravely at the very moment when panic fears are gripping his heart. I like that fine old story of the soldier advancing into the fire zone with steady step, and taunted by a comrade for his pale face. "You're afraid," said the other. "I know I am afraid," said he, "and if you felt half as much afraid as I do, you would turn and flee." It is the very finest courage that dominates and controls a sensitive organisation, and holds the shrinking other-half to its purpose with firm grip. Just so is it with faith. A man keeps his course, lifts up his eyes to the hills, lives for G.o.d and His Christ, prays on, struggles on, and hopes for the home beyond the edge of life, while often enough his mind is full of questioning and the puzzle of G.o.d's deep mysteries. For faith is not what the intellect says merely.

It is what the whole man is struggling and trying to say.

"With me, faith means perpetual unbelief Kept quiet, like the snake 'neath Michael's foot, Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe."

Don't do yourself the wrong of thinking that faith has vanished because the snake is felt to be writhing. "Perpetual unbelief kept quiet." Yes, but what keeps the clamouring doubts and fears under foot? Just yourself, just your highest self, the bit of you made for G.o.d, and unable to do without Him! Faith is the vote of the whole man, of the best of the man, in the face of a protesting minority. In other words, fight is a splendid word to use in speaking about faith.

Let a man ask himself--Does he really wish that the best he has dreamed or heard about G.o.d and His love for men, His pa.s.sion to deliver them from evil, and His pity and nearness to us all in Jesus Christ His Son--does he wish all that to be true? No man is without faith who does wish that, and is living in the direction of his desire. In that man's life who, despite all the clamour and philosophy of Babylon, is keeping his window open towards where he believes Jerusalem to be, there is that vital element of faith that is linking his life to G.o.d even now, and will bring him where he would be at last.

I do not think that the prodigal was at all sure of the welcome that awaited him. Probably his mind, as he limped along in his rags, was full of misgivings and fears. But the father hailed him as his son whenever he saw afar off that the lad's face was set for home. I do not imagine our Father will concern Himself very much about the gaps in our creed if only our faces are turned homewards and towards Him. Let the man I have tried to speak to be of good courage, and fight on with a stout heart. Faith is not sight. It may not even be a.s.surance, may be only hope and longing, and a reaching towards the Highest. But I firmly believe that no man, even though he may fall on the way home, and before he knows of his welcome, I believe that no man shall be cast out at the last, whose arms, as he fell, were outstretched in desire to G.o.d.

PRAYER

O Lord our G.o.d, Author and Finisher of our faith, help us with all our strength to fight the good fight. When our defence is being broken, do Thou garrison our souls, O G.o.d, that we may be able to stand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

"_The joy of the Lord is your strength._"

(NEHEMIAH viii. 10.)

XVIII

THE EQUIPMENT OF JOY

Let us talk about joy, and especially that kind of it of which Nehemiah was thinking when he said, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." It is strange that while practically everybody would agree as to the wholesomeness and the duty of joy in the ordinary sense of the term, to add the words "of the Lord" to it, seems, to some, completely to alter its character and in fact to spoil it, to turn it into an unreal sort of joy which is not true joy at all.

I wish emphatically to protest against such a conception of religious joy as an injustice to the Father Love of G.o.d. The joy of the Lord, as I understand it, is not different in quality from wholesome human gladness, it is, in fact, just that gladness deepened and sanctified by the sense of G.o.d, and the knowledge of Him brought to us by Jesus Christ our Lord. There is not a single innocent and pure source of gladness open to men and women on this earth but is made to taste sweeter when they have opened their hearts to the love of G.o.d. It is the very crown of happy living that is reached when a man can say, "My Lord and my G.o.d." Once I have dared to accept the wonderful truth that even for me the Eternal Father has His place and His plan and His care, every simplest happiness, every common joy of living, every delight in the beauty of the world and the pleasures of home and work and friendship--every one of these takes on a keener edge. It is a pestilent heresy to declare that a Christian ought to walk through life like a man with a hidden sickness. On the contrary, there is no one who has a better right to be joyous and happy-hearted. Do you think it is for nothing that the "joy of our salvation" is a Bible phrase? And shall we believe that that salvation is ours and not be mighty glad about it all the time? What is the good of translating "Gospel" as "good news" and at the same time living as if religion were a bondage and a burden grievous to be borne? Of all the strange twists of human convention, it is surely the strangest to allow ordinary human joy to be happy and cheerful, and to insist that those whose joy is in the Lord should pull a long face, and forswear laughter, and crawl along dolefully as if to the sound of some dirge! The "morning face and the morning heart" belong of right to the truly religious, and no one ought to be gladder, come what may, than the man who has made the highest and best disposal of his little life that any one can make, namely, surrendered it in faith and obedience to his Lord.

A gloomy, ponderous, stiff religion which looks askance at innocent merriment and is afraid to pull a long breath of enjoyment has the mark of "damaged goods" on it somehow, and no one will take it off your hands. It is not catching, and certainly your children will never catch it. It is said to be a good test of a religion that it can be preached at a street corner. But I know a better test than that. Preach it to a child. Set him in the midst of those who profess it. If their religion frightens him, freezes the smiles on his lips, and destroys his happiness, depend upon it, whatever sort of religion it be, it lacks the essential winsomeness of the religion of Jesus Christ.

I need not say, of course, that I am not pleading for a more hilarious religious life. And, equally of course, empty frivolity, and the cult of the continual grin are insufferable things to endure either in the name of religion or anything else. Not by a single word would I lessen the condemnation which such aberrations deserve. But I do say, and with all my heart I believe that a deep, abiding well-spring of happiness--which our author calls the "joy of the Lord"--is of the very essence of true religion, and is indeed, what he a.s.serts it, actually our strength. Actually our strength. Let us be quite clear about that.

The man in whose heart there dwells this best of all joys is a strength to other people. We don't need any one to prove that to us, I imagine.

We have all been helped and revived many a time merely by contact with some hearty cheerful soul. Who, for example, that had his choice, would elect for his family physician a man with a doleful air? Have we not all found that a doctor's cheery manner was as potent a medicine as any drug that he called by a Latin name? Ay, and even when we are in trouble, and our hearts are sad and sore, I think we would all rather see the friend whose faith in G.o.d showed in a brave and buoyant outlook than one whose religion was of the dowie and despondent sort.

I have heard it said of an employee who had the gift of the joyous heart that the twinkle of his eyes was worth 100 a year to his firm. I could easily believe it, though the money value might well have been set at any figure, seeing that the thing itself is really priceless. Did not the most famous modern apostle of the duty of happiness--himself a signal proof that joy is something more than the mere easy overflow of health and animal spirits--did not Stevenson declare that "by being happy we sow anonymous benefits," and that "the entrance of such a person into a room is as if another candle had been lighted?" I take it the proof is ample that a joyous heart is a strength to others.

But more, it is a strength to oneself. That may not be so obvious, and yet the result here is even more certain. Ordinary experience tells us that joy is good for us, that depression and gloom work us bodily harm.

But from one province of scientific study especially there has come a wonderful array of evidence that makes it as certain as any fact can be that the happy states of mind do literally add to our strength in quite measurable directions. There is, in strict fact, no tonic in all the world like gladness.

That being so, joy, and especially the best kind of it of which Nehemiah speaks, is not a luxury, not a condition you may legitimately cherish if you are fortunate enough to possess it. It is a sheer necessity. You can't do without it. Even to meet your sorrows, even to gird you for service, even to run your race without fainting, you need the joy of the Lord, which is strength. And since the Father has stored up such an abundant supply of it in this world of His, since it is knocking at our doors every day, and only our distrust and suspicion keep it outside, we know what to do to secure this good gift of G.o.d. We have only to open our doors to let it in, and give it room.

"So take Joy home And make a place in thy great heart for her, And give her time to grow, and cherish her, Then will she come and oft will sing to thee When thou art working in the furrows--ay, Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn.