Sermons at Rugby Part 4

Every individual acts upon the life of the community around him as a power or influence in it. This seems so obvious when mentioned as hardly to deserve the mentioning, and yet in practice we are very apt to overlook it.

You and I, all of us, without any exception, are endowed with some share of this power.

In this respect, as in other ways, there is, of course, every possible difference in degree between one and another, between the strong and the weak, between those who are conspicuous and those who are obscure; but there is no other difference.

Every one of you possesses some share of this mysterious, and undefined, and immeasurable gift of influencing his neighbour's life. Every sin that may have a root in your heart is acting, though you may not think of it or intend it, as a pestilent influence outside your own life; every virtue you exercise may be causing similar virtues to take root and grow in some one near to you.

The tone of the society or life around you is, in fact, just the sum and expression of such individual influences as these.

We may not be able to trace all the various and mult.i.tudinous germs or seeds of such influence as they flow out from us in our daily round of common life; but we are conscious that each and every single soul, all through its earthly course, in the family and in the outer world, from youth to age, is, in fact, a sower scattering these germs of good or evil unceasingly. We know, also, that when they are once scattered they cannot be gathered up again. They are yours to scatter--these seeds that you are adding to the common life--and you are responsible for the fruit they bear; but having sown them, you are powerless afterwards to prevent them from bearing fruit after their kind in other lives. Once launched in the air around you, they spread their contagion of evil or their stimulus to good, their savour of life or death.

The mere suspicion of this undefined power over other lives which is inherent in our own life should surely make us very careful about it.

It gives a new sense of personal responsibility; it lays its hand upon us to check us in any vice, or folly, or sin; and it is a stimulus to every virtue and to all good purposes.

But the thing which of all others it is perhaps of most importance for us to remember about it is that this stream of our personal influence which flows out of our life is a double stream. It is of two kinds. One part of it flows unconsciously, whether we think of it or not; it streams out from our personality as sunlight from the sun.

The other is that which we exercise by some conscious effort of the will, and with some deliberate purpose or intention.

Now, in the case of most of us, this tide of unconscious influence flowing from us without any deliberate or set purpose on our part, our involuntary contribution to the common life, is far more powerful for good or for evil than anything which we ever do by way of active purpose to influence another's life, and this because our unconscious influence is the reflex on the outer world of what we are in ourselves; it is the projection, or shall we say the radiation, of our own life, its tastes, tempers, habits, and character, upon the lives around us.

What we do or intend to do, what influence we endeavour to exercise, is very likely to be at the best intermittent, but this door of involuntary communication between every man's life and his neighbour's life is always standing open; and so it comes about that your life, whether public or private, is of more importance to others than anything else about you.

At a time when so many things contribute to fix men's thoughts on externals, and we are all tempted to think more about our work than about our life, more about what we are doing or intending to do, than of what we are in ourselves, these considerations a.s.sume an unusual importance.

Moreover, in a society like this, where you live so close to one another, and so much in public, there is a special reason for giving to such considerations some special attention; and the thought suggested by this world-old inquiry--Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?--becomes a very direct warning to look well to our separate life, and take care what sort of unconscious influences it is spreading around it.

A moment's reflection will remind you how quick and strong such influences may easily prove, independent of all intention or desire on our part, or even in spite of our deliberate wishes or hopes. One man is careless or irreligious, and his weaker neighbours catch the infection of his example; another indulges in some bad habits of language or conduct, or he is addicted to some low taste, or he lives by some low standard, and this or that companion is drawn down to his level; and so the evil of his life takes fresh root in another life, and it gets into the air, and it is impossible to predict the limit of its influence.

Or, on the other hand, one man is intellectual or refined in his tastes, and by merely living in a society he creates an atmosphere of intellect or of refinement around him; or, it may be, he is earnest and courageous, and others are drawn to admire and imitate, and so he proves a centre of courage and earnestness. Such is the solidarity of your life, as men call it, and there is no escape from it, or from the responsibilities which it lays upon you.

As the tree is known by its fruits, as men do not gather grapes of thorns, as the same fountain does not send forth sweet water and bitter, so we have to remember, when we think of the tides of unconscious influence that are continually streaming out from us, that they are wholesome, or the reverse, according to the character of our secret and separate life.

Through them any one of us may become to his neighbour or his friend a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.

There are sure to be many in such a congregation as this who have visions of the good they hope to do; and there is a spirit of native generosity in almost all which makes them shrink from the thought of doing harm to another soul.

Well, then, in this thought of your influence, conscious and unconscious, your first and constant prayer will surely be: "Create in me a clean heart, O G.o.d, and renew a right spirit within me."

The effective servant of G.o.d is always the man who has been prepared and purified by the vision of G.o.d in his own soul.

If, then, we desire to contribute some good to our society and no evil, we must take care to keep our hearts open to the cleansing influences of the spirit of holiness, so that no habit of sin shall cast its dark shadow around us, or vitiate that atmosphere which is inseparable from our personal life.

IX. SOWING BESIDE ALL WATERS.

"Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters."--ISAIAH x.x.xii. 20.

These words form part of a great prophetic vision. The prophet is standing among his countrymen like a watchman on the walls of Jerusalem.

And far away, as he looks, the distant horizon of his stormy sky is bright with Messianic hopes, but around him the shadows lie dark and heavy.

It was his destiny to speak to a people whose ears were dull of hearing and their hearts without understanding; but he never lost the conviction that the holy seed of G.o.d's spirit was alive in them. Amidst all present discouragement he lived in the hope of a brighter and better day, when the eyes of those around him would be opened, and their hearts changed, and a new spirit would take hold of them, and righteousness, peace, prosperity, and gladness would prevail. And no man's life is worth much which is not inspired by some such hope.

What Isaiah saw immediately around him was sin and moral blindness. What he saw immediately in front of him was the consequence of these in woe and desolation. "Year upon year," he cries, "shall ye be troubled, ye careless ones: thorns and briers shall come upon the land of my people: until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness shall become a planted field." But in the day of that outpouring, the heart of the people would turn and be uplifted, renewed, and purified, the wilderness would become a planted field. And this thought brings him to the final outburst of the text I have just read to you, which is a blessing on those true Israelites who realised the high calling of G.o.d's people, and were inspired to fulfil it, sowing everywhere and always the seeds of Divine influence. The whole vision is highly instructive, for it is the vision of what occurs again and again in all human history; but it is of this blessing with which it closes that I desire to say a word or two to-day.

Amidst all the threatening and discouraging symptoms of the national life, Isaiah turned to the bright vision of those servants of G.o.d whose faith should never fail, and in whom there should be no variableness, and no wavering. "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters." Sow your seed of good influence, he seems to say to them, in good times, in bad times; sow it in this place, and in every place, sow it in the wastes of the moral wilderness, sow it in the face of every enemy, sow it in faith and hope and without fear. It is on them he depends to prepare for that happier season when the wilderness of the spiritual life around him should become as a planted field; and with prophetic insight he perceives that it is on such as these that the Divine blessing always rests.

"Blessed are they that sow beside all waters." It is a text to be taken with us whenever any change comes over the circ.u.mstances of our life. If we are changing from a life of rule or discipline to a life of free choice, from school to home, from boyhood to manhood, this blessing declares that there should be no change in the att.i.tude and purpose and aim of life.

It is another way of saying that the laws which should guide our conduct, and the principles which should inspire and direct us, are of universal application; that they know no difference of time or place, and that if they bind you here they should bind you everywhere. And simple and obvious as this may seem, it is not altogether an easy truth to carry into practice. "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters." Your seed field is not here or there only; it lies on every side of you, and in all places; it spreads into the future farther than your eye can travel, and it will extend itself before you as you go; and the reality and vigour of good purpose in you will be determined by your recognition of this truth.

Let us consider it with reference to our own case at such a time as this.

There are always growing up here in every generation those who feel a pride in their school, and in the spirit of it, who strive honestly and earnestly to sow in their society the seeds of manliness, and truthfulness, and good tone, and purity. It would soon go very ill with this or any other society if it were not so. And those who grow up in this way are continually leaving us in their turn, and they will remember with affection the place of their high purposes and earnest and manly efforts. They go out into a new world, and travel along other streams; and blessed are they, if they continue faithful, sowing still beside all waters.

But every change brings with it some element of risk. There is nearly always something of surprise to us in the new forces that confront us in any society which we enter as strangers; and the first feeling that rises is sometimes a feeling of our own weakness or insignificance.

In such a case it is well if we have realised beforehand that our laws of conduct should not vary, and that the call of G.o.d, which we have recognised once, is a call which never ceases, and which no circ.u.mstances should make inaudible.

When we approach any change we all need this kind of warning; because there are so many things in our life which we are apt to allow our circ.u.mstances to regulate for us. Experience tells us only too plainly how much we depend upon the influences that are around us, and how often we fail to carry with us the strength we have gained in one field when we pa.s.s over to the next. With the holy we learn in some degree to be ourselves holy; with a perfect man we too are able to walk perfectly; but on the other hand, in our imitative way, as the scene changes, we sometimes find ourselves learning frowardness with the froward, practising indifference with the indifferent, if not actually slipping with the vicious into some vicious way. There is always some risk of such changes; and it is always well for us to be taking care that our better life has its root in our own heart and spirit, and that we do not wear it as a garment suited to the society in which we happen to be, and change it for the worse, if there comes any corresponding change in outward influences.

Hence it is that at these times, when we are about to separate, these words of Isaiah come to us with a very appropriate reminder: "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters."

To those who are leaving our society to begin a new life elsewhere, as to those of us who go in the hope of returning by-and-by, they are charged with the same lesson. They bid us all alike take care and see that what is good in our present life has become our own personal and permanent possession, independent of surroundings; that it has sunk in some degree into the fibre of our character; that it is settled in us by conviction and principle, to guide and direct us everywhere, and is not merely a circ.u.mstantial garment, a sort of livery of this or that particular place, which will slip off us as we leave it.

Many of you have learnt, I feel sure of it, to feel during these your school days, the satisfaction of living here a true and worthy life; you have tasted of that pleasure which the careless, the indifferent, and the sinful hardly taste at all, the pleasure that dwells with the consciousness of earnest effort and sincere striving after the best things within us. The love of Christ may have taken hold upon you; the a.s.sociations of your school and its inheritance of great and good examples, or the sense of honour may have stirred you; the feeling of your closeness in life to those around you, and of the strong currents of mutual influence, may have opened your eyes to what you owe to your neighbour and to the claims of social duty. Some one of these causes, or it may be some other cause, may have given you strength and power to walk amongst us in the narrow way of good habit and good influence. And wherever this is so, we thank G.o.d. But the question to-day is, What a.s.surance do you feel that this will continue? When we go elsewhere, what habits, what tendencies, what fixed bent of spirit and character shall we exhibit? Knowing as we do how strongly the forces of the outer world will act upon us, it is never a useless warning which bids us take care that in new spheres we do not forget our old principles, or lay aside any good habits. "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters."

We have learnt to look upon certain laws of conduct and feeling, certain duties, certain standards of life, as beyond dispute, and fundamental. If so, they are also of universal application; and we should hold them as things which are altogether independent of the customs, traditions, or tone of any society into which we may go.

It is probable that some of you may find this doctrine not altogether free from difficulties before many weeks are over. You may find yourselves young and apparently uninfluential members of some society in which the standards of life are low, and you may be tempted to think, under the pressure of surrounding opinion, that you are not called upon to set up or display any standard of your own; and there is always a chorus of voices ready enough to echo any such tempting suggestions.

But if ever you are tempted thus to let slip the things you have learnt and accepted, the voice of Isaiah should prove a help and a safeguard.

And its exhortation is supported by the respect and admiration you feel for any one who has the courage to stand alone in such a case, true to his rooted convictions.

Another word may be added. We met, a great many of us, this morning at that table to which men do not come unless they entertain the purpose of treading in the footsteps of Christ, and of nursing His Holy Spirit in their hearts. As we lifted up our hearts there, as we ate of that bread and drank of that cup, as we prayed to be kept safe from the sins that most easily beset us, as we sealed in each other's presence the resolutions which are to direct our steps in safe paths, it was not of circ.u.mstances or places that we were thinking--it was the vision of Christ our Saviour that was before our eyes, and we pray that this vision may remain with us. When we think of all our diverging paths as we separate just now, and of the uncertainty how many of us may meet again in that far horizon, and how many may have wandered out of the way in the wilderness, we do not doubt that we shall often need the strengthening influence of this vision of Christ, if we, too, hope to inherit the blessing which is reserved for those who are faithful under all circ.u.mstances, and who sow beside all waters.

X. THE PRESENCE OF G.o.d.

"And Jacob awakened out of his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not."--GENESIS xxviii. 16.

These words indicate the beginning of a new life in the patriarch Jacob.

They tell us of the moment when, as it would appear, his soul awoke in him. And they surprise us in some degree, as such awakenings of spiritual capacity often do; for Jacob's recorded antecedents were not exactly such as to lead us to expect the dream and the vision, and the awakening which are described in this pa.s.sage.