Chapter 7

And here, also, the soul is central. The clean heart, pure thoughts, controlled appetites, aspiring hopes, these make health. Evil temper, lust, worry, care, envy, these are the soul processes that disturb the life and destroy health. Happiness is health, and happiness is wholly of the heart. The soul is but the sum of all the things within, the force that moves all things in life; if within the man looks up, then he lives up; if the soul droops, he decays. What you are within determines what you are without; he who is poor in heart, in this inner life, will be poor in prosperity and weak in health, no matter how much he possesses. But he who with his soul takes in the world of beauty, of love, of joy, who reaches out to heaven and God, all these things are his and he is rich and strong indeed.

XII

Divine Service

_The Ideal Service_ _The Orthodox Service_ _The Heavenly Service_

_Kindness is the evidence of kingliness._

_The surest way to impoverish your heart is to hoard up your love._

_A really smart man will refrain from saying things that smart._

_Many a prayer for vision ought to be changed to a petition for vertebra._

_The damning doubts are those that deter us from good deeds._

_The leaders of men are not the ones who are trying to get ahead of their fellows._

_Folks who are too good for anything are good for nothing._

_It's hard to steer a straight course if your conscience is in your pants pocket._

_You do not have much faith in your Father unless you have some in His family._

_No man can have a place in the kingdom of heaven who is complacent to the ills of earth._

XII

THE IDEAL SERVICE

Never was the greatest of all greater than when He put about Him the badge of the servant. His example has made the towel, the apron, the badge of true honour. Nothing could have surprised those men who were quarrelling over their precedence more than that their great Master should stoop to perform this menial service of washing their feet. Like many who call themselves His to-day they strove over chief seats, honours, titles, and dignities. They were seeking the chief places and by their strife showing themselves fit only for the lowest. Nowhere is the sense of honour more easily slain than in the search for honours.

The only dignity that really adorns a man is that which comes without his demanding it. How often have the servants of the meek and lowly Jesus turned the world away from Him by their examples of vanity, greed, lust for power, their pomp and pride of self-glory. They who were sent to be the shepherds of men have fleeced the flock for their own adorning and then fought amongst themselves to see who should wear the choicest robes. History has shown that they were wrong and their Master was right. The greater their greedy ambition the greater their shame; the higher the place they have claimed the lower has been that which the voice of humanity has awarded them.

On the other hand there shine forth those who have followed Him in lowly service; theirs is the honour to-day. Because He took upon Him the form of a servant then now is the kingdom and the power and the glory His.

So it has always been, sovereignty comes by way of service; heaven and earth unite in honouring those who have not scorned the humble place of helpfulness. John says that it was because Jesus was conscious of His divine origin and His glorious destiny that He took the towel and did the work of the slave. Only those who realize their true greatness can ignore the littleness of man's petty dignities, can lose all sense of stooping, of condescension when they serve others, and so can be of service to mankind. A man proves that he is the son of a heavenly Father by his service for his least brother. When that dignity, heaven born, is in a man's heart there is nothing in the dirt he may touch by deeds of kindness that can defile him; contact does not contaminate.

Love never thinks of any of its services as loathsome. That from which a superficial dignity would revolt love does with rejoicing. It thinks nothing of the honour or the dishonour, but only of the helpfulness it may render. It is not asking whether men are approving or whether promotion is coming. It needs no promotion or approval; the work itself is the highest reward; the service elevates to the loftiest of all positions.

The world's sovereigns are its servants. He makes an alliance with God who helps a fellow man. Work is that by which the Creator has lifted man above the creatures of the field, and the work that sacrifices that it may serve is that by which God lifts man to Himself. The heavenly gate may be shut to robes and miters, epaulettes and crowns; but it shall be open wide to that great throng who bear the stains of toil, who have served their fellows, who wear the apron of sacrificing service; and the Son of the carpenter shall lead them in.

This is a working world; its Maker is pictured as a worker; there is no better evidence of religion than willingness to serve. Work determines a man's worth to the world. And religion must be known by the things it does, and not, as many have fondly supposed, by the dreams it has.

THE ORTHODOX SERVICE

This is a working world, with no place for the idler, whether he be high or low, rich or poor. The measure of a man is the service he renders humanity. Actions are measured by the same rule. The value of religion to life, its right to time and place, is measured by this, Does it help or inspire men to service, does it increase the quantity or improve the quality of the work that they do for their world?

Men rightly ignore the piety that satisfies itself with platitudes on the duties of others, or with philosophical speculations on problems which, if they were accurately solved, would contribute nothing either to our peace, our possessions, or our personal characters. Yet, how many imagine that they are profoundly pious because they cherish properly indorsed opinions, duly certified as to their antiquity.

They who profess to follow the Man of Nazareth cannot do it by sitting in their pews or kneeling at their altars; they cannot do it by dreaming of a place of bliss or picturing one of torment. One of the first lessons He gives His disciples is that it is not he that speaketh the word, but he that doeth the will, who is pleasing to God.

Nor do men do His will in any important or complete sense by going to church or serving in its meetings or on its committees. When a man is ordained to divine orders, that is, to give himself wholly to do the will and work of the Most High, it is said that he becomes a minister. If "minister" means anything at all it means servant, one who works for others, who ministers to them. The Master spoke of Himself as being among men as one who served them. The only orthodox service is the service of humanity.

This is religion, such a consciousness of the reality of the Infinite Spirit that you will steadily do the things that that spirit of love is doing in this world, ministering to men, binding up the broken in heart, lifting the lame, and leading the wandering, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, bringing light and love and cheer to those that sit in darkness, you will become feet and fingers to God.

One does not need to wait for a special garb to do this religious work; one does not need to wait for formal ordination; whoever loves men already is divinely ordained to serve them. One does not need to wait for a church or a special organization; the sufficient motive is deep, sacrificing love; the method will be just what the Master's was, to go where men are and help them.

After all, what this world needs is not so much that men shall go to their fellows with money, with clothes, or even with employment; it needs that they shall just go to them. The good mixer, who mingles with men, who knows how they live, and what they think, how they suffer, and what they feel, if, going amongst them, he carries a clean heart, a love for his fellows, a firm faith in heaven, and hope for men, is doing them more good by his presence than he who may send carloads of goods.

Men did not need that Jesus should wear a label saying that the Most High was with Him; the more He mingled with men, the more clearly they saw He belonged to God. What He was willing to do for them showed that they, too, were the children of the Most High. If any man would have that infinite presence with him, if he desires the deep sense of the spiritual, let him seek it not in closet or convent, but in the touch of hand and in the sight of the face of friend and fellow being.

Many of us are worried at times because our lives seem wasted in doing little things; we would become immortal by saving our powers for some great deed. We need to remember Him whom the world most easily remembers and most highly honours, the Man of Nazareth, whose life was spent in trivial services, doing the next thing that came to hand, helping ordinary people in every-day needs. Yet God was with Him, as He ever is with those who love their fellows in sincere service.

THE HEAVENLY SERVICE

It seems easy to see something peculiarly holy, something deeply religious in the occupations and acts of the priesthood or the ministry. But thinking of these as religious and of such service as divine we fall into the habit of thinking that they alone, in all the world of action, are divine. We set on one side of life the religious service limited to these formal acts and on the other side what we call the secular life and service.

We have sacred days, sacred deeds, sacred callings, religious services; all separate from the rest of life, belonging in a department, a pigeon-hole, by themselves. Whatever is not of these is of the world, worldly, secular, lacking in the peculiar aroma of sanctity that attaches to the church or the profession of religion.

There are many who desire to do some religious work; who fain would engage in divine service. There is in almost every breast a desire to do something high and holy, something that is not necessary, utilitarian, with some other motive than bread-winning. But there seems to be no opportunity; such deeds are supposed to belong to special callings; one must be ordained to do divine service.

The truth is, divine service is the duty and high privilege of every human being; we all are divinely called to the ministry; the service of God and humanity belongs to us all. We must not wait for ordaining hands nor ecclesiastical robes nor for the environment of official sanctity. Every impulse to do good, to show human love, and do loving service is a commission from high heaven.

The good Master invites men and women to His kind of service, the highest and holiest known to all the ages. He never was separated to a clerical calling; He did not wait for an ordaining council nor did He confine His divine service to prayer and praise or to the activities of the church ritual. His divine service was the service of the sons of men, the going about doing good.

Heavenly work is not work for some far off heaven; it is the work of making this present earth like heaven. The work of God is not working for an absent deity; it is doing the work that the God of all love would do in this world; it is being feet and fingers, voice and lips to the great Spirit who is over and in us all. It is making that spirit of love real, actual, concrete to our fellows.

The holiest work in this world may be done in the humblest places; the most divine service may not be in the cathedral but in the cottage; the angels may pass by the intoning choir to listen to a mother's crooning cradle song or to watch the patient service, the loving kindness shown in washing the faces or wiping away the tears of dirty and destitute children.

The holy service which will fill your heart with joy and give you the unfading crown of eternity, never will be done if you are waiting for some ecclesiastical uniform to do it in. Whatever is done in the spirit of the infinite love, in the spirit of the great Master, that truly is divine and glorious.

It is the good work that is glorious. It is a thing more truly divine to do well your daily duty, to put out good, honest work, than it is to wear a clerical garb or perform professional religious duties. The honour, the worthiness, the glory of your work may be measured by the spirit in which it is done and by its helpfulness and worth to the world.

All life becomes glorious as we see that even in the least of our daily tasks we may be doing the will of God, that it may be just as necessary a part of the divine service that I should serve at a desk, a counter, or a machine, should sweep a room or tend a child as that another should preach or pray. For the great Master of all who knows all our work, measures it all, not as we do; He sees the glory of the cup of cold water and the divinity of the commonplace.

XIII

Our Father and Our Fellows

_The Primary Reconciliation_ _Faith in Our Fellows_ _The Law of Forgiveness_

_Sorrow is sympathy's school._

_Love makes the heaviest load seem light._

_To be willing to be saved alone is to be lost._

_The truly godly see something divine in all._

_Your appreciation may be another's inspiration._

_Kindness is the sign of divine kinship._

_You cannot knit the souls of men with soft sawder._

_You cannot be a leader and lose sight of those who are to be led._

_The shortness of the day excuses no man from greatness of endeavour._

_When a man thinks of nothing but his sins and failures he will have nothing else to think of._

_Lots of people who talk of their lives as blue are only colour blind, they either are green or yellow._

_He is only shortsighted who pronounces the world bad after looking in his own heart._

_Many a man is waiting for an inspiration who would find success at once if he was not so afraid of a little perspiration._

XIII

THE PRIMARY RECONCILIATION

Men in the days of the great Teacher were as we are to-day, prone to compound for the neglect of duties near at hand by the adoration of spiritual delights far off. They talked about getting right with God while they continued to do wrong to men. The problem of the hypocrite who is so thrilled with the delights of heaven that he scorns earthly duties and decencies is not a new one.

How easy it is to substitute syllogisms for service, to think that we do our duty by describing it, so to exhaust oneself in pleasant and seductive dreams of a distant heaven that we have no power left to apply to the problems of a needy present-day world.

The mockery of religion to-day is that men and women are going to the churches, singing themselves into ecstatic complacency and imaginary harmony with their God while their greed is crushing the hearts of the helpless and they are blinding themselves to the world's gloom and pain that unhindered they may enjoy spiritual delights.

Things cannot be right in our relations to the Father of spirits until they are made right in our relations with our brothers in the flesh. In Christianity social righteousness is basic to spiritual blessing. The ideal kingdom waits for ideal conditions and relations amongst its subjects.

The way to the Father lies through the brother. If you would learn to love God--and how indefinite and idealistic that seems to most of us--the lesson is simple, first learn to love His other children, especially the helpless, needy, and wronged. Delights high and spiritual always will be remote until duties near at hand are done.

The revival we most of all need to-day is a revival of the social conscience, the recognition of the fact that we can offer no gift acceptable, in the temple of worship or the place of prayer, until we have washed our hands from the blood of our fellows, that we can pay nothing to God until we have in earnest set about paying our debts to men.

Anxious, perhaps, to claim our rights as children of the Father in heaven, we have forgotten that that title is promised to the peacemakers. What avail is it to pray, Thy kingdom come, if we block its advent by cherishing enmity in our hearts? What use is it to carry hearts torn with malice, souls sunken in selfishness, and spirits torn with pride and covetousness to the place that belongs to the meek and lowly?

Many a man is going to church and coming away empty in heart; perhaps he has given up any hope of finding solace in religion, who would find, as it were, the windows of heaven opened up if he should give himself for an hour to making some other helpless lives happy, to righting some wrong or bringing some joy to lives embittered and oppressed.

The pathway to God is a plain one, strikingly lacking in romance, with no attendant visible angelic choir. It is the doing of whatever duty or kindness I owe to those near me, the breaking down of walls of prejudice--spite fences built in ignorance and hatred--the learning to love and help, the seeking of peace, good feeling, and harmony with all men.

This does not mean that all must become professors of sociology; the study of social theories often is a substitute for the practice of social duties; but that we must seek out the good in men, we must set ourselves right with them, we must discharge all our responsibilities towards men before we can realize God. The kingdom comes as we recognize the kingliness in all the sons of the kingdom, as we express our faith in God by friendship for our fellows.

FAITH IN OUR FELLOWS

Poor Peter has never been much of a favourite with the preachers; he was so thoroughly unstable, unideal. But the people have always had a tender feeling for him, partly because he was a fisherman, partly because he was so much like the rest of us. Nothing is more striking in the life of Jesus than His affection for ordinary men. The cultured Pharisees, the philosophical Sadducees seem to have much less attraction to Him than the rude fisherman and the toiler. These men were often weak, sometimes cowardly, obstinate, dull, mediocre; yet He committed His kingdom to them; He believed in them. Before they had faith in Him He had faith in them; and that ultimately made them men.

It sounded much like cruel sarcasm when He told that weak, vacillating Simon that he was a rock. Those who knew Peter best must have smiled; he was more like a jellyfish. But Jesus could see the best that was in a man. He detected the hidden good even in Peter. He proves His own goodness by His faith in the good in every man.

Somewhere in every man there is some good. Overlaid it may be by passion, by habits, by prejudice grown out of wrong and suffering perchance; but still it is there. Faith in this and sympathy, these are the golden keys that unlock the doors to where the good lies buried.

The saviours of society have always been those who looked for the best in it. If you go through life seeking the beast in man, you will find it, and the chances are it will devour you; if you look for the beauty that is from above you will find it, and it will bless you. It is just as necessary to have faith in man as it is to have faith in God. If men cannot become good, then there is no God in the sense of a power that makes for goodness. The optimist not only believes in the best, he creates the better.

Some there are who reluctantly admit that God is a little better than they are, though that may be due to His circumstances, but they have never imagined for an instant that any one else is at all good. Believe that men are wholly bad and they will not disappoint you. Every man somehow responds to the expectations of others. You had better damn a man than despair of him. Neither a church nor an individual can help this world when they have more confidence in the power of evil to become all pervasive than in the power of the Most High to make His purposes felt in every heart as truly as He makes His sun to shine on the just and the unjust. The church first consigns men to perdition and then wonders why they are reluctant to walk with it the other way. So long as you have faith in total depravity you will find some facts to substantiate it.

But there is a better way. Sympathy with men will do more for them than sermons on their sins. Look for the best in them and you will find things better than you expected. There are flower beds as well as garbage heaps in every heart; at least, there are spots where seeds of the fairest flowers of heaven may be sown.

You do not have to be a fool to have faith in your fellows. You do not need to take the padlocks off your house; but you do need to take them off your heart. There may be those whom it would be wrong to trust with your cash box; but it is a greater wrong to withhold from them your kindness. You can show them that you believe the best instead of the worst of them.

The great Teacher told men that He came not to condemn but to give life. His followers have too often occupied themselves wholly with condemnation and then wondered that their sentences saved none. Every soul knows its own sentence; what it needs to feel is that God and all good men are with it, helping it to shake off that sentence, to arise and return to the Father, that, instead of all things conspiring to keep a man down, there is a cloud of witnesses cheering him on, a mighty choir invisible inspiring his heart. And there is nothing any man can do of greater worth to the world than to cheer on another by his faith in him, his high expectation of him, his wise blindness to some little faults, and his propagating approval of the least beginnings of any good. Men are the saviours of men by their faith in men.

THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS

A silly interpretation often leads to the utter rejection of a law. Sentimentalists have caused men of sense to pronounce Christ's law of forgiveness an impractical one. Yet we indorse it every time we utter the Lord's prayer, and still we hope to be forgiven whether we find it possible to forgive or not. If this law means the mental flabbiness that sends bouquets to bloody criminals and petitions the pardon of murderers and the release of the foes of humanity, we must reject it as the utterance of one unacquainted with the rugged facts of life.

But forgiveness and pardon are two different things; forgiveness is between man and man; pardon is a matter of executive power. You can forgive a child and still punish him. The forgiveness that does away with consequences would make this an immoral world. No greater wrong can be done to a man than to protect him from the deserts of his evil deeds. This is as unjust as to withhold the rewards of the right.

The difference between the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and the law of the great Teacher lies largely in the spirit of dealing with the offenses. The old spirit was that of getting even with the wrongdoer. His act was largely regarded from the personal standpoint; a crime was individual and not social. Revenge followed wrongdoing.

But Jesus says it is better to lift a man up than to get even with him. It is better to help men to the right than to satisfy your desire for revenge. Forgiveness is more than saying, "Go without punishment"; rather it says, "Come learn a better way; live without sin." Forgiveness takes malice from the mind of the offended; it substitutes for it the motive of friendship for the offender.