With God in the World Part 1

With G.o.d in the World.

by Charles H. Brent.

Preface

_Charles Darwin says somewhere that "the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness." Whether it is the only object, may be a question; it is certainly one object. And the poorest book that ever went to press, merits respect, provided that its writer is sincere and speaks from conviction. It is this and the sense that "thought is not our own until we impart it" to others, that has encouraged me to write these pages--originally a series of papers prepared for the_ Saint Andrew's Cross, _the organ of a Society for which I am glad to profess publicly a deep admiration and affection. Often, more frequently far than is noted, I have borrowed the thought and language of others to express my own mind. I send out this little volume with the hope that, before it meets with the fate of the ephemeral literature to which it belongs, it may help a few here and there to take up life's journey with steadier steps and cheerier mien._

_C. H. B._

Chapter I

_The Universal Art_

It is productive of much mischief to try to make people believe that the life of prayer is easy. In reality there is nothing quite so difficult as strong prayer, nothing so worthy of the attention and the exercise of all the fine parts of a great manhood. On the other hand there is no man who is not equal to the task. So splendid has this human nature of ours become through the Incarnation that it can bear any strain and meet any demand that G.o.d sees fit to put upon it. Some duties are individual and special, and there is exemption from them for the many, but there is never any absolution from a duty for which a man has a capacity. There is one universal society, the Church, for which all are eligible and with which all are bound to unite; there is one universal book, the Bible, which all can understand and which it is the duty of all to read; there is one universal art, prayer, in which all may become well skilled and to the acquirement of which all must bend their energies.

Active or dormant, the instinct of prayer abides, a faithful tenant, in every soul. The peasants who went to the Incarnate One and said "Lord, teach us to pray," were representative of a whole race, a race which feels stirring within its breast a capacity for prayer, but whose power to pray falls far short of the desire. The instinct to pray may be undeveloped, or paralyzed by violence, or it may lie bed-ridden in the soul through long neglect; but even so, no benumbed faculty is more readily roused to life and nerved to action than that of prayer. The faculty is there; no one is without it. Whether it expands, and how, is only a question of the will of the person concerned.

It is good to be quite honest and frank. Is it not so that the real thing that makes men dumb towards G.o.d is, in the first instance, at any rate, not intellectual doubt about the efficacy of prayer but the difficulty of it all--the rebellion of the flesh, the strain upon the attention, the claim upon the time? Are not the common stumbling-blocks in the way of prayer incidental rather than essential? Do men give up prayer because they are conscientiously convinced that they would do violence to their n.o.ble nature if they were to persist in its exercise?

Nothing can release a man from the duty of praying but the profound conviction that it would be a sin for him to continue to pray. And it might be safely added that any one thus momentarily caught in the toils of pure reason, any one endowed with such a delicate conscience as would lead to this, must eventually turn again with joy to the neglected task.

Even the great agnostic scientist, Tyndall, who, of course, had a very limited view of what prayer was capable of accomplishing, and was in a position to perceive only one dim ray of its beauty--its subjective refining influence upon the pet.i.tioner--even such an one declares that "prayer in its purer forms hints at disciplines which few of us can neglect without moral loss."[1]

How to perfect the talent of prayer--that is the question. Bent upon this errand many wind themselves in the folds of complicated rules or bathe themselves in the vapour of fascinating theories, all to no purpose. Or, as in the case of most things worth coveting, they cast around for some easy way of attainment, only to experience that where they "looked for crowns to fall," they "find the tug's to come,--that's all." Simplicity and courage are two virtues indispensable for those who covet to pray well. Especially must they be ready to embrace difficulty and court pain--and that through the long stretch of a life-time.

_Let no man think that sudden in a minute All is accomplished and the work is done;-- Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun._

Let it be clearly understood at the outset, then, that though the art of prayer is a universal art it is the most difficult of all. But even so this is not an excuse for discouragement or a justification of spiritual indolence, for a man's best desires are always the index and measure of his possibilities; and the most difficult duty that a man is capable of doing is the duty that above all he should do.

A moment's reflection must convince us that man cannot teach man to pray, because of what prayer is. Prayer is man's side of converse with G.o.d; it is speech G.o.dward. How pa.s.sing absurd it would be for a third person to presume to instruct either one of two companions how to hold converse with his friend! Were he to venture the impertinence he would develop in his pupil the curse of self-consciousness--that is all. We can learn to converse with men only by conversing; we can learn to pray to G.o.d only by praying. Prayer is a universal art, but there is only one Teacher for all, and He never teaches two persons in exactly the same way. G.o.d's friendships are as diverse as the souls with whom He interchanges confidences. These confidences must come from Himself; none else can impart them. There are certain great truths about prayer which may be formulated to good purpose--fundamental laws governing all fellowship with G.o.d, laws to which all in common must give heed; but beyond this one may not venture. In the matter of prayer as in all else G.o.d reserves to Himself the exclusive right of imparting His most intimate secrets directly to each separate soul, having a separate confidence for each according to its capacity, temperament, and all those qualities which distinguish every man from every other man.

Though we may have learned the fundamental principles of prayer from devout friends and teachers, whatever we really know of prayer we have learned by praying. Even the mother, at whose knee the earliest phrases of prayer were lisped out, at the best only led us gently into the presence of G.o.d. It is not too much to say that the Church herself cannot do more than put the soul very near G.o.d and leave it there, trusting that something will come of it. The rest must proceed in direct course from the lips of the Most High Himself. So delicate and subtle is the correspondence between the soul and G.o.d, so "intensely personal" a thing is prayer[2] that we are often seriously hindered rather than helped by the blundering but well-intended efforts of those who would guide us to better devotion. Even to put a manual of private prayers into the hands of some persons who have not been accustomed to reach G.o.d through a book might be sufficient to mar the spontaneity of their approach to Him and check the intimate relations with Him which have hitherto always obtained. Because it suits one person's temperament to call in the aid of a manual it by no means follows that every one else should be presented with a copy of the book. Indeed happy are those souls who have always been able to speak with a reverent yet free familiarity with G.o.d, having nothing to aid save the vision of His face; and the final aim of every good manual is to emanc.i.p.ate the soul into the joyousness of a spontaneity which is wholly devoid of blighting self-consciousness.

It ought to be further added that every one who regularly uses set forms of prayer should habitually incorporate into his devotions at least some words of his own which, however poor and few, yet are fresh and new from his heart. Of course what has been said about forms of prayer applies exclusively to private devotions. When the great corporate life of the Church speaks in worship it must be with one clear voice unmixed with the idiosyncrasies of the individual and summing up the aspirations of the best. But of this later.

The world just now is sadly in need of better service, but before this can be rendered there must be better prayer. A low standard of prayer means a low standard of character and a low standard of service. Those alone labour effectively among men who impetuously fling themselves upward towards G.o.d. In view of this it is a comfort to feel that no earnest man, whatever be the stage of his spiritual development, can be satisfied with his present attainments in his life of prayer.

Fortunately for us, here as well as in other departments of life the ideal is always pressing itself upon our notice and making the actual blush with shame for what it is. And it is just because this is so that there is hope of better things. The ideal beckons as well as condemns.

What if long steeps of toil, strewn with the stones of difficulty, lie in between! G.o.d's home is far up on the hills, and nowhere is He so easily found as in a difficulty. As has been said, prayer is quite the most difficult task a man can undertake; but it has this gracious compensation that in no other duty does G.o.d lend such direct, face-to-face help. Man may speak wise words about prayer; the Church may bid to prayer; but G.o.d alone can unfold to souls the delicate secrets of prayer. The best help is for the hardest duty--the help that comes straight from the Lord.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _On Prayer as a form of Physical Energy._

[2] _Maturin._

Chapter II

_Friendship with G.o.d--Looking_

Yes, prayer is speech G.o.dward, and worship is man's whole life of friendship with G.o.d, flowing out, as it were, of all that tide of emotion and service which is love's best speech. It is by thinking, then, of the nature of fellowship between man and man, which is the most beautiful thing in the world excepting only fellowship with G.o.d, that we can get substantial help in developing the life of prayer. Consider the Christian fellowship of two n.o.ble characters. It is "the greatest love and the greatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the n.o.blest sufferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, and the severest truth and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds,"--Jeremy Taylor stops here only because he has exhausted his stock of sublime phrases--"of which brave men and women are capable."[3]

Friendship is a full, steady stream, not intermittent or spasmodic. It is not something which lasts only when each looks into the other's eyes; for "distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it."

It moves and expands the life even when the mind is busied with matters prosaic and vexatious, even when there is no inward contemplation of the features or character of the absent friend. And yet, although friendship does not consist in face-to-face communication one with another, it is in this that it takes its rise, it is by this that it is fed. Fellowship is not the same as friendship, but there can be no friendship without fellowship. That is to say, there must be certain definite, formal acts, acts not made once for all, but repeated as often as opportunity is given; such form the cradle and nursery of friendship. In themselves they are not much--a grasp of the hand, a smile, a simple gift, a conventional salutation, a familiar talk about familiar things--but they introduce soul to soul, and through them each gives to the other his deepest self.

Friendship between man and man is no vague, intangible thing whose only reality is its name. Much less can one think thus of friendship with G.o.d. Friendship with G.o.d is the friendship of friendships. While it lives on strong and true even when we are not in conscious fellowship with Him, moments of conscious realization and contemplation of His person, character and presence are as essential to friendship with Him as food is necessary for the sustenance of life. There must be times of prayer and occasions of definite, formal approach to Him, the more the better, provided they be healthy and free. It is not an arbitrary enactment that declares morning, noonday and evening to be the moments of time when the soul of man should with peculiar intensity lift up its gaze unto the hills.[4] One recognizes immediately the inherent fitness of having conscious fellowship with G.o.d at the opening, in the middle and at the close of day. In the morning,--because man's powers are then replete with life, his will nerved to act, his eye clear to see; never is he so well able to gain a vision of G.o.d, whether in the solitude of his room or in the quiet of the Church at an early Eucharist, as in the first hours of a new day. At noon,--because the soul like the body needs a mid-day rest; the dust of activity and the distractions of business will have dimmed the morning vision before the day is full gone, and it is good to refresh the nature by again, if it be only for a brief moment, looking straight up into the face of the Most High. At night,--for the evening shadows find G.o.d's servant with soiled soul and drooping aspirations in sore need of that cleansing and cheer which the sight of G.o.d imparts.

And the life of prayer works in a circle. The devotions of the morning give tone to those which come at noon and night, while the night prayers in turn determine the quality of the morrow's. Men usually wake in the temper of mind in which they went to sleep. It is all-important to gain a clear vision of G.o.d as the last conscious act before going to rest.

The founder of French socialism was awakened every morning by a valet who said: "Remember, Monsieur le Comte, that you have great things to do." But it is not men who aspire only or chiefly in the morning that achieve great things, but rather those who aspire at night. What is of nature in the morning is of grace at night. The vision that comes easily at the beginning of the unused stretch of a new day is harder to see when disappointment and failure have clouded the eye of hope; but it means more. The men who attain the highlands of the spiritual life never "sleep with the wings of aspiration furled."

Of course G.o.d is always with us, always looking at us with searching yet loving scrutiny. It would be impossible for us to be more completely in His presence than we are; for in Him "we live, and move, and have our being." But for the most part our lives are spent without much conscious recognition of the fact. He will be no more present at the last day when we stand before His throne than He is now. The only difference will be that then we shall see Him as He sees us; we shall be so wholly absorbed by that consciousness that there will be room for no other consideration as, G.o.d grant, there will be no other desire. But before that moment comes men must practise looking into His face by faith so that it will not be unfamiliar as the face of a stranger when the last veil is swept aside.

Among men contemplation of another's personality is the requisite preliminary of fellowship with him. Fellowship can begin only when there is a mutual recognition each of his fellow's presence. Personality is the most powerful magnet the world knows; and the finer the personality the more readily will all one's best impulses be set in motion and attracted to it. How vain then is it to attempt to speak to G.o.d before the consciousness of His living, loving presence has caught the attention and absorbed the mind--or at any rate until we have done our best to see Him, attentive, sympathetic, with His gaze fixed upon us.

Power to pray is proportionate to the vividness of our consciousness of His presence and personality. When a man is talking to a companion his mind is occupied with the sense of the presence of an attentive, sympathetic personality rather than with the thought of the precise words he is going to use. His fellow acts as a magnet to extract his thoughts. An orator makes his finest appeal when he is least conscious of himself and most conscious of his audience. Just so then is it with speech G.o.dward. The moment a man is a.s.sured that G.o.d's personality is present and that His ear is opened earthward, speech heavenward is a power and a joy, and only then. Many make prayer a fine intellectual exercise or a training school for the attention--this and nothing more.

They strain their utmost, and doubtless they succeed well, to understand each sentence uttered and to speak it intelligently. Their minds are on what they are saying rather than on the Person to Whom they are saying it. They reap about the same benefit as they would if they recited attentively a scene from Shakespeare.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills." The vision of G.o.d unseals the lips of man. Herein lies strength for conflict with the common enemy of the praying world known as wandering thoughts. Personality will enchain attention when the most interesting intellectual, moral and spiritual concerns will fail to attract. If the eye is fixed on G.o.d thought may roam where it will without irreverence, for every thought is then converted into a prayer. Some have found it a useful thing when their minds have wandered off from devotion and been snared by some good but irrelevant consideration, not to cast away the offending thought as the eyes are again lifted to the Divine Face, but to take it captive, carry it into the presence of G.o.d and weave it into a prayer before putting it aside and resuming the original topic. This is to lead captivity captive.

It is hard for those to see G.o.d's face who confine their contemplation of spiritual things to moments of formal devotion, who, while occupied with material things, do not explore what is beneath and beyond the visible, who do not strive to discern the moral and religious aspect of every phase of life. On the other hand the vision of G.o.d becomes increasingly clear to such as look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen. These may be exceedingly practical people, people ever active in the commonplace duties of life, but their wont is to cast everything into the upward sweep of the Ascension of Jesus and everything is seen by them with the glow of heaven upon it. Of course they pray well.

After all "the sin of inattention" does not begin at the time of formal approach to G.o.d. It only makes itself peculiarly manifest then. If a person lives listlessly and does not put his full force into the ordinary duties of his life where the aids to attention are plenty, how can he expect to command his mind at those times when it is called upon to make a supreme act of attentiveness and see Him Who is invisible? A good man of our day[5] said of himself: "My greatest help in life has been the blessed habit of intensity. I go at what I am about as if there was nothing else in the world for the time being."

Here then are two obvious, simple and rational principles upon obedience to which hinges the ability to make one's own the growing vision of G.o.d--the habit of spiritualizing the commonplace and the habit of attention in work. Whoever equips himself with them has made the best possible preparation for approach to G.o.d. It is an indirect way of getting at things, it is true; but often the method that is most indirect is the most direct. It is certainly so in this case.

Of course in considering the subject of G.o.d's Being one cannot wholly avoid the difficult question of personality. It would be aside from our purpose, however, to discuss the matter philosophically. For all practical purposes there is ample and secure footing near at hand. When by faith we look toward G.o.d, it is not toward an immovable but beautiful statue we turn, not to an abstract quality or a tendency that makes for righteousness, but to One Who looks with responsive gaze, Who notes our desires, Who heeds our words, Who lives, Who loves, Who acts. It is a horrible and deadening travesty of the truth to conceive of G.o.d as a great, impa.s.sive Being, seated on a throne of majesty, drinking in all the life and worship that flow from the service of His myriad creatures, Himself receiving all and giving none. Though probably no one believes this as a matter of theory, when men look for G.o.d in the practice of prayer too often it is such a G.o.d they find. And many can say with Augustine as they review moments of fruitless devotional effort in the past: "My error was my G.o.d."[6] The truth is that though a great tide of energy moves ceaselessly toward G.o.d, it is but the shadow of what comes from Him. Indeed He is the Source of the life which flows inward toward Him as much as of that which flows outward from Him. He is undying energy, with unerring purpose, moving swiftly and noiselessly among men, striving to burn eternal life into their lame, stained, meagre souls. He is the Father that goes out to meet the returning profligate, the Shepherd that follows the track of the wandering sheep.

Man has never yet had to wait for Him. He has always been as close to man as man would let Him come. His hands have never ceased to beat upon the bars of man's self-will to force an entrance into starved human nature. All this must be in man's conception of G.o.d as he approaches Him.

What above all gives to G.o.d that which enables man to see Him is the Incarnation. In the G.o.dhead is a familiar figure--the figure of Man. It was this that absorbed the attention of the dying Stephen. The Son of Man standing on G.o.d's right hand, was the vision that enthralled him as the stones battered out his life. And it is this same vision that makes the unseen world a reality to men now. Humanity is there at its centre, the pledge of sympathy, the promise of victory. Not by a flight of imagination but by the exercise of insight we can look and see the sympathetic face of the Son of Man, who is also the Son of G.o.d; and with the sight fellowship with G.o.d becomes possible, the string of the tongue is loosed and we are ready to pray.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] _Works: Vol. i. 72._

[4] _Ps. lv_: 17.

[5] _Charles Kingsley._

[6] _For thou wert not thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my G.o.d. Confessions, Bk. iv. 7._