Victory Out Of Ruin Part 6

III

No wonder Christmas sends a glow of warmth round the heart, and causes joy bells to ring in the souls of even the drooping. It is to-day as it was of old, when the disciples--poor, dull, purblind men--were disputing even near the end as to which of them would have the greater position and the greater wealth and honour. And Jesus placed a little child in the midst and said, 'Except ye be converted, and become as a little child, ye cannot enter the kingdom.' And in a world weary of disputing, sated with strife as to who is to have the higher place and the greater portion, Christmas places the Child in the midst and says, 'Except ye be converted...' What men need is not the sharing of a booty, but the regenerating of a Spirit. The faith, the trust, the purity, the love of the childlike spirit--that's what we need. What we do or what we get matters nought, if only that spirit be in the heart.

One man may whirl past in a Rolls-Royce, befurred, bejewelled, and may be the most pauperised soul on earth; while the stone-breaker at the roadside may be the inheritor of all things and rich beyond all dreams.

Christmas is the surety of that. That was the wisdom of 'Stonecracker John,' who sang:--

'The good Lord made the earth and sky, The river and the sea--and me!

He made no roads, but here am I As happy as can be; For it is just as if he said-- "John, that's the job for thee."

And so in my appointed place, By G.o.d's good grace, I work, according to his plan, And would not change with any man.'

To-day, as it has done for the centuries and the years that are so many that one wearies in counting them, Christmas throws the halo of beauty over all shepherds abiding in the fields calling on their dogs; over all toilers in mines and workshops; over all stonebreakers and street-sweepers; over all mothers and all babes. It proclaims to-day with a voice whose certainty changes not that the man who serves Mammon and gains the world while he loses his soul makes a grievous and a profitless barter.

CHAPTER XII

THE FULNESS OF THE TIME

If there be no will guiding the affairs of men towards a predestined end, what a meaningless welter it all is! What a record of wars and feuds, of rising and of perishing empires, of civilisations born and civilisations overwhelmed: in very truth

'A tale Told by an idiot: full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.'

There is unity and a new dignity in the tale when one gets up on a hill and sees it in far perspective. Things did not happen by chance.

There was through it all a purpose at work, welding humanity together with the cement of blood, throwing down the barriers of race and language, silencing the sound of tumult and war until at last the song is heard on the plain of Bethlehem that has sung itself into the hearts of men, ushering in the dawn of peace and goodwill. In the fulness of the time the Child was laid in the manger.

I

Every advance of humanity in its upward struggle has sprung from some divine dissatisfaction. It was the fulness of the time in that the world, disillusioned and dissatisfied, realised its need. The Greek found no answer for their moral needs in the pantheon of G.o.ds that filled the heart with the pa.s.sion for beauty alone. Socrates before drinking the hemlock advised his disciples to search for another teacher; but that other could not be found. The only remedy for the ills of man that they discovered was that he should cut himself loose from the world--a gospel of suicide. The Roman made a G.o.d of power.

But when he had conquered the world, invested it with roads and bridges and by force had imposed peace on it, then he confronted the awful mystery of his own personality, and his questioning was baffled by a silence in which there was no voice nor any that answered. His G.o.ds became objects of derision. In the gratification of his bodily cravings he sought to lull the hunger of his soul. At last Rome presented the dread spectacle of a Nero who was at once 'a priest, an atheist, and a G.o.d.' There is preserved a record which visualises the awful depths to which that pagan world descended. Nero had murdered his mother, and he comes back to Rome nervous as to how the people will receive him. But the citizens poured out to meet him in their thousands, and rent the welkin with their shouts of welcome--'Hail, Nero, the G.o.d!' If that world was to be saved, it had to be saved then. If G.o.d was ever to intervene in the affairs of men, He had to intervene then. The extremity of man was G.o.d's opportunity. The Unseen Ruler must either come and deliver a world such as that or abdicate. The coming of the Child was a necessity.

II

It is very hard to understand how things do happen; and our only comfort is that we really understand nothing. We have in these last years been mesmerised into thinking that we understand a great deal when in reality we understand nothing at all. We camouflage our ignorance by speaking of law--but what is it? Why do like causes produce a like result always? No answer. We used to explain the heavens by gravitation. What is it? No answer. We ushered in the new age of electricity. What is it! Silence! There is no reason, then, for rebelling against the fact that we cannot understand the greatest of all mysteries--the coming of G.o.d more fully into the lives of men.

All we can hope to do is to realise how natural it is that G.o.d should so come to men. As the years pa.s.s that thought becomes more and more natural. In other days G.o.d was thought of as dwelling far removed from the world. That is not now the great thought regarding G.o.d. 'Whatever sort of being G.o.d may be,' writes William James, 'He is nevermore that mere external inventor of contrivances intended to manifest His glory in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction.' (The conception of our great-grandfathers may have been limited; but it is more important that we should try to be as good men as they were.) This conception of 'an absentee G.o.d outside the world watching it go,'

has given place to another. The world is now realised as spiritual through and through; the shrine of an indwelling life. G.o.d is in the world, has always been in the world, and man's reasoning and loving is but a reflection of his Maker's reason and love. Through all the weary centuries G.o.d has been with men, in men, striving with their spirits, never absent from them, the source of all their aspirations, visions, and dreams. If that be so, it is the most natural thing in all history that in the fulness of the time, when the need was greatest, G.o.d should come in fuller measure into the lives that He had made. Surely natural that the glows and flashes preceding the dawn should at last break forth into the glory of the sunrise. G.o.d, who has been with man from the dawn, guiding and leading, at last in the noontide speaks with the articulate Word, making His purpose clear. If once we realise that there has never been an impa.s.sable chasm between G.o.d and man, then the incredible becomes credible. For this is not an isolated event; it is rather the beginning of another great stage in man's spiritual evolution by which G.o.d comes and dwells more and more in the hearts of men, becoming incarnate in lives risen from the dead; in souls renewed after His image.

III

With us, too, it is the fulness of the time. If G.o.d intervenes when the need is sorest, and when man realises the need--then we can well cherish the expectation that another manifestation of G.o.d is at hand.

Nineteen centuries ago He came to a world whose religion was dead.

With us it is not dead; it is sore stricken. The glow has vanished, and those who bow down in the house of G.o.d in our day do so largely from force of habit, and not because they believe. Religion to-day curbs few evils, and is powerless against the selfishness that sacrifices the well-being of nations on the altars of self-interest.

And, just as in Rome the unrest of soul made the degenerate a prey to every charlatan and soothsayer that came out of the East, so the spiritual hunger of our day brings men and women to crystal-gazers and table-rappers, bowing down before every superst.i.tion, however gross.

And if the Rome of the Caesars sought to allay its soul hunger at the banquets of pleasure, so also with us. Low forms of pleasure have led the mult.i.tudes captive. The London of Charles II. could not hold a candle to the London or Glasgow of to-day in the way of refinements of material sensation. The old cry of 'bread and circuses' has given place to the cry of dancing-halls and doles! In that old world at last there was no room for the cradle in the family life--the babe was shut out. And so to-day. There is every sign that G.o.d must again intervene and save, or the civilisation we know will be buried with the civilisations of all the past. The fountain of inspiration, of cleansing, of righteousness must be opened afresh, and its reviving waters sent flowing over all the land. Unless G.o.d does so come there is no hope. But all history is the proof that He will so come. We can hear the rumble of His chariot wheels as He comes. Here and there the Spirit is moving on the face of the waters. Of old it was shepherds and fishermen who first received the glad tidings. That fishermen should be the first to feel the coming outrush of spiritual power in our day is wholly natural. The glad tidings of Christmas is that G.o.d is ever coming to His own. The duty laid upon us is that we prepare His way, and make room for Him. It will be a new Edinburgh and a new Glasgow when the renewing Spirit shall have swept through them. It is the one hope. In Melrose Abbey there is an old inscription, 'When Jesus comes the shadows depart.' Some monk who felt the shadows gathering round him realised Christ as a living presence--and the shadows were wafted away. And he carved the words. And our shadows will vanish when He who lay in the manger will come again, in the fulness of His reviving and quickening Spirit. Then G.o.d will again work marvels in transfigured lives and in nations reborn.

IV

There are some good people to whom the word Revival is anathema. There have always been such people. 'Their doctrines are most repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect to their superiors,' wrote the d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham to Lady Huntingdon, regarding the early Methodists. 'It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth.

This is highly insulting, and I wonder that your Ladyship should relish any sentiment so much at variance with high rank and good breeding.'

Yet it was that same Revival of religion in the days of Wesley and Whitefield that saved England when the evil days befell in the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. There is no n.o.bler figure in all history than that of John Wesley riding over the whole country, reading as he rode, contesting all England for G.o.d, everywhere wakening the dead. To d.u.c.h.esses and highly refined folk that Revival seemed to be 'repulsive' and 'monstrous.' Religion was good enough in its own place, but it must not interfere with their amus.e.m.e.nts. They wanted their religion well iced. To-day when only another such outrush of spiritual energy can save a poor sick world, there is no need to trouble about the mocker. There is only reason to rejoice that there are manifest stirrings in the depths of human life which no earthly theory can explain. Often and often on wearied men there comes the breath of a new life, and armies, long worn out, arise and s.n.a.t.c.h redemption out of ruin. The prelude to these triumphs of the Spirit has always been a sense of expectation springing up mysteriously out of the depths. That expectation is wholly natural.

We have come through the most awful carnival of blood and tears in the world's history, and so far there has been no result commensurate with the sacrifice. The old world is dead and the new tarries while men are left

'Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born,'

If man's extremity be G.o.d's opportunity, then, once more, it is the fulness of the time.

CHAPTER XIII

VICTORY OUT OF RUIN

The world has always been a hard place for minorities. Majorities are capable of crimes which, as individuals, they would shrink from in horror. And no crimes that stain the pages of history can equal in ghastly cruelty those which have been perpetrated under the influence of religious pa.s.sions. The Founder of Christianity was crucified at the frenzied call of those who were the most devout and religious of their day. The Pharisees prayed nine hours a day! Their cry, 'Crucify! Crucify!' still rings in the ear.

I

Human nature has not changed very much in these nineteen centuries.

And the majority of mankind are still pretty much as they were. There is not much good in getting suffused with sentiment over a minority of one crucified so long ago. It is more important to realise that the grim tragedy is for ever and for ever being repeated. It is a grim thought to think that the very pa.s.sions of self-righteousness and self-interest which crucified the Galilean are now operating in His name. In a little village in the Hebrides well known to me, four Presbyterian churches celebrate the Communion in August. Here they are--the Parish Church; the United Free Church; the Free Church; the Free Presbyterian Church! If you attended a service in any of these you would not know any difference between them. On all vital matters they are at one. But there they are in the very name of Christ negating His purpose and breaking His law. For His purpose is to unite men together; bring them into the fellowship and unity of love. And they break up that small community into four fragments--and they do it from the highest motives and under the sanctions of the name of the Highest. They act exactly as the Pharisees acted nineteen centuries ago. They too were moved by the highest motives; they too had a pa.s.sion for the Sabbath. The Christians to-day, like the Pharisee of old, make the gospel vain by their traditions. If He came Himself and said to them, 'You are wrong: my law is that ye love one another: the sign of my faithful followers is the love their lives evince,' ... He wouldn't be listened to. They would not cry 'Crucify.' ... No! They would only give Him a nickname and declare that He had no right principles! ... But it isn't in remote villages one beholds that. It can be seen anywhere. Moderators and bishops and dignitaries have met for a quarter of a century in Edinburgh to knock at the door of heaven with pet.i.tions asking G.o.d to unite them! And they will meet anywhere--in licensed premises even--except in a church; they will do anything except have the Communion together.... And they go on praying! To-day the very bigotry that sent the Lord stumbling to Calvary under a Cross is glorified by the name of Christ. That to-day is His crucifixion.

II

That, however, is but half a truth. When we take long views we can realise that there is no day in the year when we have more right to cherish the spirit of hope than on this day when the world waits for the Easter joy bells: Rejoice, Rejoice. The message of a day such as this is that no cause that has in it the seed of righteousness, however feeble it may be and however overwhelming its opponents, need give way to despair. There never was a minority so feeble on the face of the earth as these Galileans whose Master had been crucified. The cause was lost. They had not even understood what He had tried to teach them. While He spoke of a kingdom not of this world they could think of nothing but pitiful thrones such as Herod's! They left Him in a minority of one--and that minority was crucified. n.o.body in all the wide world knew or understood why He hung there.... He who was to smash the Gentiles, as the Jew believed, was there crucified by Gentiles; He who was innocent was stamped for ever with the criminal's brand--done to death with two thieves. If ever there was an end made of any cause there was an end made of that personified by the Carpenter of Nazareth. The majority trampled the minority into extinction.

The body can be crucified and can be sealed up in a tomb, but majorities are powerless against the spirit. When his disciples asked Socrates where they would bury him he replied: 'You can bury me anywhere if you can catch me!' The soul can never be caught; can never be sealed up in a tomb. The wind bloweth where it listeth; and no walls, however high, can imprison it; no tomb hold it. Out of the dust the new life arose--the life of the spirit. And suddenly men realised that a kingdom not of this world--an empire without legions--was not only thinkable and possible, but was actually established. So has it always been since: the perishing of the body has been but the triumphing of the spirit.

III

One of the miracles of history is the way in which that crucified ideal arose and conquered; in which peasants and fishermen went forth to sow the seed of an invisible kingdom beneath the feet of militarists and tyrants, who though they rooted it up could never destroy it, until at last the minority was transformed into a majority. And that same miracle is for ever being repeated. What happened then happens now.

And there are two reasons for that. The first is that man is much n.o.bler than he is himself aware of. Beneath the subliminal consciousness there are untold riches--golden ore waiting to be mined.

Under the influence of the herd-instinct and of crowd-psychology a man can on Friday yell, Crucify! Crucify! but on Sat.u.r.day he may enter the valley of repentance and be made anew. Memory awakes in him when he is alone. He recalls the face and the words of the Crucified; doubts arise as to whether it was right--that cry of Crucify. No malefactor could have borne himself like that.... Long-forgotten feelings are let loose. Truly that Man had a regal spirit. However much a man may sink, he never sinks below the capacity of feeling the contagion of a triumphant spirit. Where is the man who cannot thrill as he hears Livingstone say, 'I'll go anywhere, provided it is forward'? It is in that hidden depth the hope of humanity lies. The cause that seems lost rallies to its side the mult.i.tudes that no sooner do the wrong than they are smitten with shame therefor and repent thereof. From the ranks of its enemies the cause of righteousness ever recruits its most valiant fighters. The Sauls are transformed into Pauls, and powerless minorities into triumphing majorities.

Not only are the laws of the spirit on the side of the righteous minority, but also the laws of the universe. The cause of reform cannot ultimately be defeated because the unchanging laws of nature are arrayed against evil. The great ally of every righteous minority is death. That was how Christianity conquered at the first. The Christians lived righteous lives, and by the very laws of life outlived the Pagans. So is it now. The life of self-indulgence and self-interest has no vitality to resist. Death removes it. The ranks of the devotees of pleasure are being swiftly depleted. Death is the great ally of righteousness. The mult.i.tude, who wanted to turn back to Egypt, 'died by the plague before the Lord' in the wilderness. Some virulent influenza came--and they hadn't the stamina to resist! ...

That's how majorities vanish and room is made for the vigorous and healthy minority to possess the land.

IV

The Calvaries of Christ are to-day everywhere. Wherever a child hungers or perishes, wherever men and women decay and die, there He, who identifies Himself with men, is again crucified. Where little babies die, 200 out of every thousand; where in proportion to the number of licensed premises is the death-rate among the babes--there He is crucified. Here, in this capital city, an hour in the evening has been added to the hours on which the monopolists in alcohol prey on the people, that more homes may be ruined and more children perish. It seems utterly hopeless. What is the use of trying to arouse people so dead to the decencies of life as this? But, to-morrow, the city will begin to be ashamed. The Church will begin to rouse itself. When Lord Shaftesbury was toiling to free 35,000 children from five to thirteen years in Lancashire alone from the Moloch of the factory he wrote--'The sinners are with me and the saints against me.' That is indeed weird: how often has the Church looked on, indifferent, while wrong triumphed.

There is nothing more pathetic than to see the Church mustering up courage to condemn what the world has already judged and set aside! ...

But to-day the message that comes across all the centuries to the heart of all minorities struggling for the right is this--'Be of good cheer: victory is on the way: though it tarry, wait for it!' The darkness of Calvary is but the prelude to the triumph of Easter morning.