The Meaning of Faith Part 6

"An eddy of purposeless dust, Effort unmeaning and vain."

_But it is obvious that if G.o.d is not in control of creation, with personal purpose of good will, directing its course, there is no solid basis for hope._ If the universe is in the hands of physical forces, then a long look ahead reveals a world collapsing about a cold sun, and humanity annihilated in the wreck. Some such finale is the inevitable end of a G.o.dless world. As another pictures it, mankind, like a polar bear on an ice floe that is drifting into warmer zones, will watch in growling impotence the steady dwindling of his home, until he sinks in the abyss. All optimistic philosophies of life have been founded on faith in a personal G.o.d, who purposes good to his children, and without such faith no hope, with large horizons, is reasonable. Paul is fair to the facts when he says, "Having no hope and without G.o.d in the world" (Eph. 2:12). When one asks why men have believed in a personal G.o.d, this clearly is part of the answer: only a personal G.o.d can be "the G.o.d of hope."

_O G.o.d of heaven above and earth beneath! Thou art the constant hope of every age--the reliance of them that seek Thee with thoughtfulness and love. We own Thee as the guardian of our pilgrimage; and when our steps are weary we turn to Thee, the mystic companion of our way, whose mercy will uphold us lest we fall. Thou layest on us the burden of labor throughout our days; but in this sacred hour Thou dost lift off our load, and make us partakers of Thy rest. Thou ever faithful G.o.d, our guide by cloud and fire! without this blest repose our life were but a desert path; here we abide by the refreshing spring, and pitch our tents with joy around Thy holy hill. Yet when we seek to draw nigh to Thee, Thou art still above us, like the heavens. O Thou that remainest in the height, and coverest Thyself with the cloud thereof! behold, we stand around the mountain where Thou art; and if Thou wilt commune with us, the thunder from Thy voice of love shall not make us afraid. Call up a spirit from our midst to serve Thy will; and take away the veil from all our hearts, that with the eye of purity we may look on the bright and holy countenance of life. And when we go hence to resume our way, may it be with n.o.bler spirits, with more faithful courage, and more generous will. For life and death we trust ourselves to Thee as disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen._--James Martineau.

Third Week, Fifth Day

=Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: Thou maintainest my lot.

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; Yea, I have a goodly heritage.

I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons.

I have set Jehovah always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall dwell in safety.

For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption.

Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.=

=--Psalm 16:5-11.=

Many things in human life bring joy. From the sense of a healthy body and the exhilaration of a sunshiny day to the deep satisfactions of home and friends--there are numberless sources of happiness. But man has always been athirst to find joy in thinking about the total meaning of life. Lacking that, the details of life lose radiance, for, in spite of himself, man

"Hath among least things An undersense of greatest; sees the parts As parts, but with a feeling of the whole."

If when he thinks about G.o.d, he can, like this psalmist, rejoice in the love behind life, the good purpose through it, the glorious future ahead of it, then all his other blessings are illumined. Not only are there happy things _in life_, but _life itself_ is fundamentally blessed. But if when he raises his thought to the Eternal, he has no joyful thoughts about it, sees no love or purpose there, then a pall falls on even his ordinary happiness. Alas for that man who does not like to think about life's origin and destiny and meaning, because he has no joyful faith about G.o.d! Some men have what Epictetus called "paralysis of the soul" every time they think of creation, for to them it is a huge physical machine crashing on without reason or good will.

But some men have such a joyful faith in the divine that their gladness about the whole of life redeems their sorrow about its details. So Samuel Rutherford in prison said, "Jesus Christ came into my room last night and every stone flashed like a ruby." For the thought of G.o.d in terms of friendly personality is the most joyful idea of him that man has ever had. Man's thirst for joy is one of the sources of his faith in a personal G.o.d. He has wanted what Paul called "joy and peace in believing" (Rom. 15:13).

_We rejoice, O Lord our G.o.d, not in ourselves nor in the firm earth on which we tread, nor in the household, nor in the church, nor in all the procession of things where mankind moves with power and glory. We rejoice in the Lord. We rejoice in Thy strength. A strange joy it is. Day by day we find ourselves breaking out into gladness through the ministration of the senses, and by the play of inward thought; but Thou art never beheld by us.... Thou never speakest to us, nor do we feel Thy hand, nor do we discern Thy face of love and glory and power. We break away from all other experiences, and look up into the emptiness, as it seems to us, which yet is full of life; into that which seems cold and void, but wherein moves eternal power; into the voiceless and inscrutable realm where Thou dwellest, G.o.d over all, blessed forever.... O Lord our G.o.d, how near Thou art to us! and we do not know it. How near is the other life! and we do not feel it. It clothes us as with a garment. It feeds us. It shines down upon us. It rejoices over us.... Thither, out of narrow and anguishful ways, out of sorrows, out of regrets, out of bereavements, we look; and already we are rested before we reach it._

_Grant unto us, today, we beseech Thee, this beatific vision.

Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher.

Third Week, Sixth Day

=For when one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men? What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye believed; and each as the Lord gave to him. I planted, Apollos watered; but G.o.d gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but G.o.d that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are G.o.d's fellow-workers: ye are G.o.d's husbandry, G.o.d's building.--I Cor. 3:4-9.=

One of the profoundest motives that can grip man's heart is the conviction that he is a fellow-worker with the Divine. To feel that there is a great Cause, on behalf of which G.o.d himself is concerned, and in the furtherance of which we can be G.o.d's instruments and confederates, is the most exhilarating outlook on life conceivable.

Even people who deny G.o.d try to get this motive for themselves. One such man hopes for the success of his favorite causes in "the tendency of the universe"; another talks about "the nature of things taking sides." _But nothing save personality has moral tendencies, and only persons take sides in moral issues._ If the guidance of the world is personal, then, and then only, can we rejoice with confidence in a great Ally, who has moral purposes and who has committed to us part of his work. This was the Master's motive when he said, "My Father worketh even until now, and I work" (John 5:17). But one clearly sees that such an inspiring consciousness of cooperation with the Eternal depended on the certainty with which the Master called the Eternal by a personal name--Father. When men like Livingstone have gone out in sacrificial adventure for the saving of men they have not banked on the "tendency of the universe," nor trusted in any abstract "nature of things taking sides"; they have been servants of a personal G.o.d, under orders from him, and they have counted on personal guidance in the service of a cause whose issue was safe in G.o.d's hands.

_O G.o.d, we pray Thee for those who come after us, for our children, and the children of our friends, and for all the young lives that are marching up from the gates of birth, pure and eager, with the morning sunshine on their faces. We remember with a pang that these will live in the world we are making for them. We are wasting the resources of the earth in our headlong greed, and they will suffer want. We are building sunless houses and joyless cities for our profit, and they must dwell therein. We are making the burden heavy and the pace of work pitiless, and they will fall wan and sobbing by the wayside. We are poisoning the air of our land by our lies and our uncleanness, and they will breathe it._

_O G.o.d, Thou knowest how we have cried out in agony when the sins of our fathers have been visited upon us, and how we have struggled vainly against the inexorable fate that coursed in our blood or bound us in a prison-house of life. Save us from maiming the innocent ones who come after us by the added cruelty of our sins. Help us to break the ancient force of evil by a holy and steadfast will and to endow our children with purer blood and n.o.bler thoughts. Grant us grace to leave the earth fairer than we found it; to build upon it cities of G.o.d in which the cry of needless pain shall cease; and to put the yoke of Christ upon our business life that it may serve and not destroy. Lift the veil of the future and show us the generation to come as it will be if blighted by our guilt, that our l.u.s.t may be cooled and we may walk in the fear of the Eternal. Grant us a vision of the far-off years as they may be if redeemed by the sons of G.o.d, that we may take heart and do battle for Thy children and ours.

Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch.

Third Week, Seventh Day

=I will extol thee, my G.o.d, O King; And I will bless thy name for ever and ever.

Every day will I bless thee; And I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised; And his greatness is unsearchable.

One generation shall laud thy works to another, And shall declare thy mighty acts.

Of the glorious majesty of thine honor, And of thy wondrous works, will I meditate.

And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts; And I will declare thy greatness.

They shall utter the memory of thy great goodness, And shall sing of thy righteousness.

Jehovah is gracious, and merciful; Slow to anger, and of great lovingkindness.

Jehovah is good to all; And his tender mercies are over all his works.

All thy works shall give thanks unto thee, O Jehovah; And thy saints shall bless thee.=

=--Psalm 145:1-10.=

Adoration springs from the deeps of man's spirit. We never can be content with looking down on things beneath us, nor with looking out on things that find our level. We always must look up to things above us. As a mediaeval saint said, "_The soul can never rest in things that are beneath itself._" Worship, therefore, is an undeniable impulse in man's heart. Poets worship Beauty; scientists worship Truth; every man of honor worships Right. That is, the good, true, and beautiful stand above us calling out our adoration, and all the best in us springs from our worshipful response to their appeal. But this impulse to adore is never fulfilled until we gather up all life into spiritual unity and bow down in awe and joy before G.o.d. That is adoration glorified, worship crowned and consummated. And the only G.o.d whom man can adore with awe and joy is personal. No impersonal thing is worshipful; however great a _thing_ may be it still lies beneath our soul. No abstract Idea is worshipful; we still are greater than any _idea_ that we can hold. Only G.o.d, thought of in personal terms but known to be greater than any terms which human life can use, is adorable. _Men have believed in Him because worship is man's holiest impulse._

Such are the experiences of man, with which faith in a personal G.o.d is inseparably interwoven. Our demand for a friendly creation, our deepest impulses to thanksgiving, penitence, hope, joy, cooperation with the Eternal, and adoration of the highest--all require personality in G.o.d. As Professor William James said, "The universe is no longer a mere _It_ to us, but a _Thou_ if we are religious."

_O Lord our G.o.d, Thy greatness is unsearchable, and the glory of Thy presence has overwhelmed us. Thou art hidden in excess of light; and if we were to behold Thee in the great sphere in which Thou art living, none of us would dare to draw near to Thee. Our imperfections, our transgressions, our secret thoughts, our wild impulses, that at times come surging in upon us, are such that we should be ashamed to stand before the All-searching Eye. Our lives are before Thee, open as a book, and Thou readest every word and every letter thereof. Blessed be Thy name, Thou hast taught us to come to Thee through the Lord Jesus Christ as through a friend, and thou hast taught us to draw near to Thee in person through the familiar way of Fatherhood; from our childhood we have said, Our Father, and in this way we are not afraid; in this way we come familiarly and boldly: not irreverently, but with the familiarity which love gives. Thou hast poured the light of Thy love upon the path which we tread, and Thou hast taught us to come rejoicing before Thee.... Open Thy hand and Thy heart, and say to every one of us, Peace be unto you! Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher.

COMMENT FOR THE WEEK

I

We have been using freely the most momentous word in human speech as though we clearly understood its meaning. We have been speaking of G.o.d as though the import of the term were plain. But most of us, asked to state precisely what we mean by "G.o.d," would welcome such a refuge from our confusion as Joubert sought. "It is not hard to know G.o.d,"

said he, "provided one will not force oneself to define him." Many people who stoutly claim to believe in G.o.d live in perpetual vacillation as to what they mean by him. Writes one: "G.o.d to my mind is an impersonal being, but whether for convenience or through sheer impotence I pray to him as a personal being.... I know I talk on both sides of the fence, but that is just where I am."

At times, indeed, some question whether there is any need to think or say what "G.o.d" may signify. They call him by vague names--the All, the Infinite. In moods of exalted feeling, impatient of definition, they wish to be left alone with their experience of the Eternal; they resent the intrusion of theology, as a poet, lost in wonder at a landscape, might resent the coming of surveyors with their clanking chains. So Walt Whitman wanted to see the stars rather than hear the astronomer, and after listening to the learned lecture, with its charts and diagrams, he says,

"I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself, In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time Looked up in perfect silence at the stars."

But, for all that, we well may be thankful for astronomers. At times the "mystical, moist night air" is absent; we do not wish to "look up in perfect silence at the stars"; and, even though we know in advance that they are bound to be inadequate, we do want as clear and worthy ideas as possible about the universe. Moreover, when such ideas are ours, looking up in perfect silence at the stars is more impressive than it ever was before. No more can men content themselves with a vague consciousness of G.o.d. Spirits like Wordsworth have raptures of which they sing,

"In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living G.o.d, Thought was not--in enjoyment it expired."

In communion with nature, in love for family, in fellowship with G.o.d, such hours may come, but nature, family, and G.o.d must also be the objects of understanding thought. Days of vital need, if not of mental doubt, inevitably come when it is impossible any longer to use a term like "G.o.d" without knowing what we mean.

The special urgency of this is felt by most of us because as children we were taught to picture the Divine in terms of personality. The G.o.d of the Bible is personal. Little that persons do, save sinning, is omitted from the catalogue of G.o.d's activities as he is pictured for us in the Scripture. He knows, loves, purposes, warns, rebukes, allures, rewards, and punishes, as only persons can. And all our relationships with him are clearly personal. When we pray we say "Our Father"; when we seek our duty we ask, "What wilt thou have me to do?"

G.o.d is _He_ and _Thou_, not _It_, and friendship is the ideal relation of all souls with him.

Moreover, in our maturity we are not likely to be interested in a G.o.d who is not personal. Whoever curiously asks why he believes in G.o.d, will find not simply _reasons_ but _causes_ for his faith, and will perceive that the causes of faith lie back of the reasons for it. Vital need always precedes the arguments by which we justify its satisfaction. A man eats one thing and shuns another on principles of dietetics that can be defended before his intelligence; but behind all such sophisticated reasons stands the vital cause of eating--hunger.

So back of intellectual arguments for belief in G.o.d lies the initial cause of faith: _men are hungry_. Men believe in G.o.d because they hunger for a world that is not chance and chaos, but that is guided by a Purpose. They believe in G.o.d, because in their struggles after righteousness they hunger for a Divine Ally in whom righteousness has its origin, its ground and destiny. They believe in G.o.d because they hunger for confidence that Someone cares about our race in its conflicts and defeats and because in their individual experience they want a friend. Without such faith man feels himself to be, in Goethe's phrase, "a troubled wanderer upon a darkened earth." Plainly this elemental human hunger for purpose, righteousness, and friendship calls for something akin to personality in G.o.d. _Only persons have purpose, character, and friendliness._ The vital motives which lead men to seek G.o.d's comfort, forgiveness, guidance, and cooperation plainly imply his personality. Things do not forgive us, love us, nor purpose good concerning us, nor can any thing be imagined so subtle and so powerful as to satisfy the needs on account of which men come to G.o.d. If G.o.d is not personal, he can feel no concern for human life and a G.o.d of no concern is of no consequence.

The philosophers of India, with a well-reasoned pantheistic system and centuries to make their philosophy effective, have failed to quell this deathless thirst for a G.o.d who counts. Every wayside shrine of Hinduism incarnates the old faith in G.o.ds conceived as friends, not things; and Buddha, who taught impersonal deity, is now himself adored as the Personal Lord of Love and Blessedness. Wherever one finds vital religion one finds that G.o.d is no dry impersonal abstraction, but man's friend. Boscamen, speaking of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and of the Chaldean Tablets, says: "Six thousand years ago in Egypt and Chaldea--it is not dread, but the grateful love of a child to his father, of friend to friend, that meets us in the oldest books of the world." And when one turns from the oldest to the newest books this inner demand of man's religious life has not ceased; it has been refined and confirmed. "The All would not be the All unless it contained a Personality," said Victor Hugo. "That Personality is G.o.d."

Biography is lavish in ill.u.s.trations of this need in man's religious life. The biographer of Theodore Parker, the freelance preacher of Boston, remarks: "In his _theology_ G.o.d was neither personal nor impersonal, but a reality transcending these distinctions. In his _devotions_ G.o.d was as personal as his own father or mother, and he prayed to him as such, daringly indifferent to the anthropomorphisms of his unfettered speech." When one pa.s.ses from speculation to religion, he always comes into a realm where only a personal G.o.d will do. On this point even confessed unbelievers furnish confirmation. One who calls himself an agnostic writes: "At times in the silence of the night and in rare lonely moments, I experience a sort of communion of myself with Something Great that is not myself. Then the Universal Scheme of things has on me the effect of a sympathetic Person, and my communion therewith takes on a quality of fearless worship. These moments happen, and they are to me the supreme fact in my religious life." Always for the purposes of vital religion, G.o.d must have on us the "effect of a sympathetic Person."

II

When one, however, subjects this need of his religious life to searching thought, what difficulty he encounters! Mult.i.tudes, if they were candid, would confess what a college senior wrote: "When I am just thinking about G.o.d in a speculative or philosophical way, I generally think of him as impersonal, but for practical purposes I think of him as personal." Many folks feel thus distraught; at the heart of their religious life is the paralyzing doubt, that in a universe like this to think of G.o.d as personal is absurd. If a train moving a mile a minute should leave the earth, it must travel 40,000,000 years before it would reach the nearest star. The Creator of such a world is not readily reduced to the similitude of human life. Once men lived on a flat earth, small in compa.s.s and cosily tucked beneath the sky's coverlet, but now the world's vastness beggars imagination. As an astronomer remarked, coming from a session with his telescope, "This does away with a six-foot G.o.d; you cannot shake hands with the Creator of _this_." Men used to suppose that Arcturus was a single star, but now new telescopes reveal Arcturus as a galaxy of stars, thousands in number, with interstellar s.p.a.ces so immense that thought breaks down in spanning them and imagination even cannot make the leap. Is the G.o.d of such a universe to be conceived in terms of a magnified man?