Chapter 6
It may appear impossible and inexpedient for the human judge to say to the offender, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, sin no more"; but it is very clear that the opposite course does by no means lead to a cessation of sin. For what is the total result of all our punishments in the name of law but the manufacture of criminals? According to our theory of punishment a jail should be a seminary of virtue and reformation. Men submitted to its discipline should come out new creatures, cured of every tendency to crime. On the contrary, in nine cases out of ten, they come out a thousandfold worse than they went in. If this is not the case, it is because some Christian influence, not included in our legal system, has reached them. But such influences reach very few. The influences that operate in the great majority of cases are wholly demoralizing. Those who enter a jail with genuine intentions of reform speedily discover that they are not expected to reform. They are branded indelibly. They are exposed to the corruption of associates a hundredfold worse than themselves. They leave the jail with every avenue of honest industry closed to them, every man's hand against them, and no career possible to them but a life of crime. When we consider these things we have little cause to congratulate ourselves upon the results of our systems of justice. Even a general amnesty towards every form of crime could scarcely produce results more deplorable. Fantastic as it may appear, yet it seems not improbable that the abolition of the jail and of all penal law, might produce benefits for humanity such as centuries of punishment on crime have wholly failed to produce.
But no one asks this at present, though the day may come sooner than we think, when society, tired of the long failure and absolute futility of all its attempts to cleanse the world of crime by penal enactments, will make this demand. It is enough now if we press the question whether there is not good ground in all this dreary history of futility and failure, to make some attempt to govern society by the ideals of Jesus? Why should not the Church replace the jail? Why should not the offender be handed over to a company of Christian people, instead of a company of jailers, paid to be harsh, and by the very nature of their occupation trained to harsh tempers and cruel acts? Who are better fitted for the custody of the criminal than people whose lives are based on the merciful ideals of Jesus? How could such persons be better employed than in devoting themselves to the restoration of self-respect in the fallen, than in the attempt to nurture into vigour his bruised or dormant instincts of right, than in the organized effort to restore him to some place in society which should give him honest bread in return for honest labour? Few men are criminals by choice. Crime is more often the fruit of weakness than intention. Almost every criminal would prefer an honourable life if he knew how to set about it. Can we doubt that if Jesus presided in the councils of His Church to-day, this would be one of the first directions in which He would apply His energy? And who that surveys the modern Church with undeflected judgment would not say that the Church would be a thousand times dearer to the world, a thousand times more sacred, respected, and authoritative, if instead of spending its time in spiritual self-gratification, and its riches in the adornment of its worship, it became the true Hospice of the Fallen and Unfortunate, thus exemplifying in its action that love for men which was the essential spirit of its Founder?
It will no doubt be replied that the Church already, by a thousand institutions, of a philanthropic character, is attempting this very work. But this is an evasion of the point, for such institutions only begin their work of redemption when the existing social systems have accomplished their work of destruction. Moreover, no institution, however admirable, can be a substitute for the general action of the Church. It is precisely this practice of substitution that accounts for so much of the weakness of the Church. It is so much more easy and pleasant to devolve upon others duties which to us are disagreeable, to buy ourselves out of the conscription of personal duty, to persuade ourselves that we have done all that can be asked of us when we have given money for some worthy end, that it is not surprising that multitudes of excellent and kindly people adopt such views and practices. But, in doing so, they miss not only the joy of personal well-doing, but also the sense of reality in the good that is done. And the spectator and critic of the life of the Church, although he may not be ignorant of the kind of work done by these institutions, nevertheless is keenly conscious of the lack of reality in the work of the Church, when he finds that its individual members are leading lives in no way distinguishable by any active love for their fellows. For the main reason why thoughtful men manifest aversion to the Church is not found in dislike for her worship, or rejection of her creeds; it is found rather in the sense of unreality in her life. Who, such men will ask, among all this multitude of well-dressed worshippers, offering their adoration to the Deity, visits the fatherless and widow in their affliction, lays restraining hands upon the tempted, uplifts the fallen or instructs the depraved, and so fulfills the true ideal of religion pure and undefiled? What is the exact nature of their impact upon society? Are they more merciful, more compassionate, more sympathetic than average mankind? Do they not share the same social prejudices, and guide their lives by the same social traditions as the bulk of men and women? And if nothing more than this can be predicated of them, how is it possible to avoid that impression of essential unreality which is inseparable from the subscription to social ideals infinitely loftier and purer than any others in human history, united with lives which in no way rise above the average? Here is the true reason why thoughtful men think lightly, and even scornfully of the Church. It is not the truths and ideals of Jesus that offend them, but the travesty of those truths and ideals in the average life of Christians.
But whenever any man attempts to live in the spirit of Jesus, the first to rally to him are the sincere recusants from the church. He may be satirised, and probably will be, as a moral anarchist, a fanatic, and a hare-brained enthusiast; but nevertheless the best men will rally to him. They rallied to a Father Dolling, they rally to a General Booth. The types represented by such men lie far apart. One was so high a ritualist as to be almost Catholic, the other is an ecclesiastic anarchist so extreme that he dispenses with the sacraments. But these things count for little; what the world sees in such men is the essential reality of their life. One of the severest critics of Dolling once went to hear him with the bitterest prejudice. He found him with a couple of hundred thieves and prostitutes gathered round him, to whom he was telling the love of Jesus in the simplest language. "Dolling may be a Roman Catholic, or anything else he pleases," said his critic; "all I know is that I never heard any one speak of Christ like that," and from that hour he was his warmest friend. No doubt similar conversions of sentiment have attended the ministries of all apostolic men and women, of Francis and Catherine, of Wesley and Whitfield, of Moody and General Booth. Men know by instinct the lover of his kind. Men forgive a hundred defects for the sake of reality. Perhaps the sublimest of all justifications of Christ's law of love is that no man has truly practiced it in any age without himself rising into a life of memorable significance, without immediate attestations of its virtue in the transformation of society, without attracting to himself the reverence and affection of multitudes of fellow workers who have rendered him the same adoring discipleship that the friends of Jesus gave to Him.
No doubt it will also be said that were the ideals thus indicated to triumph, there would be nothing left for the direction of society but a mischievous and sentimental spirit of amiability. The general fibre of virtue would disintegrate. Pity for the sinner, pushed to such extremes, would in the end mean tolerance for sin. But to such an objection the character of Jesus furnishes its own reply. The character of Jesus displays love in its supreme type, but it is wholly lacking in that weak-featured travesty of love which we call amiability. His hatred of sin was at times a furious rage. His lips breathed flame as well as tenderness; "Out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword." We may search literature in vain to discover any words half as terrible and scathing as the words in which Jesus described sin. The psychological explanation is that great powers of love are twin with great powers of hatred. The passionate love of virtue is, in its obverse, an equally passionate hatred of vice. In the same way the passionate love of our kind has for its obverse an equally passionate hatred for the wrongs they endure. For this reason justice and virtue are nowhere so secure as in the hands of men who love their kind intensely. They are most insecure in the hands of the cynic, who despises his kind, and therefore misapprehends their conduct. For love, in its last analysis, is understanding, and where there is understanding of our fellows there can hardly fail to be wisdom in our method of treating them. That was the great secret of Jesus in these examples which we have reviewed. He understood Simon Peter. He understood the woman who was a sinner. He therefore knew the only wise method of treating them. One with less pity might have sent the harlot back to her shame, one with less love might have driven Peter into permanent apostasy. But Jesus, in His understanding of the human heart, knew the exact limit of reproof, the exact point at which magnanimity became efficacious in redemption. Those who follow His spirit will attain the same rare wisdom. They will never sacrifice virtue to compassion, nor will they put virtue in opposition to compassion. One question may suffice. Would we be content to leave the administration of society in the hands of Jesus? Would we confidently submit our own case to His jurisdiction? If, in every dispute between men and nations, in every case of wrong and crime, Jesus were the one Arbiter, would the world be better ruled, would the probable course of events be such as to increase the sum of human happiness? We can scarcely hesitate in the reply--we, who daily pray that His kingdom may come. And if to such questions we return our inevitable affirmative, we cannot doubt that society has everything to gain in being governed by those who live most closely in the spirit of Jesus; that they, and they only, are the true leaders and judges of the nations.
THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE
_THE PRAYER_
_Lover of souls, indeed, But Lover of bodies too, Seeing in human flesh The God shine through; Hallowed be Thy name, And, for the sake of Thee, Hallowed be all men, For Thine they be._
_Doer of deeds divine, Thou, the Father's Son, In all Thy children may Thy will be done, Till each works miracles On poor and sick and blind, Learning from Thee the art Of being kind._
_For Thine is the glory of love, And Thine the tender power, Touching the barren heart To leaf and flower, Till not the lilies alone, Beneath Thy gentle feet, But human lives for Thee Grow white and sweet._
_And Thine shall the Kingdom be, Thou Lord of Love and Pain, Conqueror over death By being slain. And we, with the lives like Thine Shall cry in the great day when Thou earnest to claim Thine own, "All Hail! Amen."_
XIV
THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE
It may be long before the world recognizes this leadership of the loving, and accepts their judgment, but nevertheless the world is debtor to them for all that sweetens life, and makes society tolerable. Such men and women move unrecognized, doing their kindly work without praise, and not so much as asking praise from men; but theirs is a securer triumph than earth can give, and on their brows rests a rarer crown than earthly monarchs wear. I know many of these men and women, and I never meet them without the sense that the seamless robe of Christ has touched me. I meet them in unlikely places; I overtake them on the road of life, oftenest in the places where the shadows lie most thickly; but on each brow is the white stone which is the sign of peace, and in each voice is that deep note of harmony that belongs alone to those who walk through tribulations which they overcome, griefs of which they know the meaning, sorrows which they have the skill to heal. Their very footsteps move more evenly than other men's, as though guided by the rhythm of a music others do not hear; their very hands have a softness only known to hands that bind up wounds and wipe men's tears away; and in all their movements and their aspect is a stillness and a sweet composure, as of hearts at rest. Whence are these, and why are they arrayed in white robes? And we know the answer, though no angel-voice may speak to us; these are they on whose bowed heads the starlight of Gethsemane has fallen, in whose hands are the wounds of service, in whose breasts is the heart that breaks with love for men.
One such man I met some months ago, fresh from the forests of Wisconsin. Through a long spring day he told me his story, or rather let me draw it from him episode by episode, for he was much too modest to suppose anything that he had done remarkable. After wild and careless years of wasted youth, Christ had found him, and from the day of his regeneration he gave himself to the redemption of his fellow men. He became a "lumber-jack," a preacher to the rough sons of the Wisconsin forests. He told me how he first won their respect by sharing their toil--he, a fragile slip of a man, and they giants in thew and muscle: how by tact and kindness he got a hearing for his Master; how he travelled scores of miles through the winter snows to nurse dying men, wrecked by wild excesses; how he had sat for hours together with the heads of drunken men, on whom the terror had fallen, resting on his knees, performing for them offices of help which no other would attempt; how he had heard the confessions of thieves and murderers, who had fled from justice to the refuge of the forest; how he had stood pale, and apprehensive of violence in an angry drunken mob, and had quelled their rage by singing to them "Anywhere with Jesus"; how, finally, he had fallen ill, and had hoped in his extreme weariness for the great release, but had come back from the gates of death with a new hope for the success of his work; and as he spoke, that light which fell upon the face of the dying Stephen rested also on his face; for he also saw, and made me see, the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of the throne of God. He was only a lumber-jack, but to these men he was a Christ. He was poor, so poor, that I marvelled how he lived; but he had adopted into his home the forsaken child of a drunken lumberman, whose wife was dead. His life was full of hardship, but never have I met a happier man. For he had found the one secret of all noble and tranquil living, the life of service; and as I grasped his hand at parting and remembered how often it had rested in healing sympathy upon the evil and the weary, I thought of the words of the blessed Master, "He laid His hands upon her, and the fever left her, and she rose and ministered unto Him."
Another man of the same order I have talked with as these concluding lines were written. He had begun life with brilliant prospects as a lawyer, had been wrecked by drink, and one night while drunk had fallen overboard into deep water, and had with difficulty been brought back to life. From that hour his life was changed. He went to a Western city and became a missionary to drunkards and harlots. He told me of a youth of nineteen he had recently visited in prison. The youth was a murderer, and the woman he had loved had committed suicide. He was utterly impervious to reproof, did not want to live, and said that if his mistress had gone to hell he wanted to go there too, for she was the only human creature who had ever loved him. "God loves you," said my friend; "yes, and I love you too. I know how you feel. You want just to be loved. Come, my poor boy, let me love you." And at that appeal this youth, with triple murder on his conscience, melted, and flung his arms round the neck of his visitor, and sobbed out all the story of his sin and shame. O exquisite moment when the heart melts at the touch of love--could all the heaped-up gains of a life of pleasure or ambition yield such felicity as this? For this man's face, rough and plain as it was, glowed as he spoke with the same light that beatified the features of my friend the lumber-jack--"the Lord God gave them light," and the Lamb upon the throne was the light of all their seeing.
A little while ago to this man came the offer of restoration to the social place which he has lost. He might have gone back to his forfeited career, with an ample income. He put the case to his wife and to his boys; with instant unanimity they said, "Never; this work is the best work in the world." And so the once brilliant lawyer is happy on a pittance, happier than he ever could be on a fortune, because he is doing Christ's work of love among his fellow men. And these instances are typical. In every corner of the world are those who belong to the true Society of Jesus--the Order of Love and Service,--and the happiest lives lived on earth are lived by these men and women. For Jesus will not suffer any man to be the loser by Him; He overpays those who truly follow Him with a happiness that worlds could not buy; and "even in the present time," so enriches with the love of others those who love, that they are unconscious of any deprivation in their lot, knowing in all things, amid poverty, insult, violence, hardship and pain, that their gain exceeds their loss by measureless infinitudes of joy.
We may be neither wise nor great, but we may be loving, and he who loves is already "born of God, and knoweth God, for God is love." We may have but a poor understanding of conflicting theologies and philosophies, and may even find our minds hostile to accepted creeds; but we can live lives of pitiful and serviceable love. He who does these things is the true Christian and no other is. Against the man who loves his fellows Heaven cannot close its doors, for He who reigns in Heaven is the Lover of men, and the greatest Lover of them all. We know now why He is loved as no other has been loved. We know now what His religion truly is; it is the religion of Love. To accept this religion requires in us but one quality, the heart of the little child which retains the freshness and obeys the authority of the emotions; but unless we become as little children we cannot enter this kingdom. This is the condition of entrance, and the method is equally simple. It is to follow Jesus in all our acts and thoughts, to allow no temper that we do not find in Him, to build our lives upon His ideals of love and justice, remembering always that He is more than the Truth,--He is the Way in which men may confidently tread, and the Life which they may share.
All things in the intellectual and social life of men move, as by a fixed law, towards simplification. May we not hope that this same tendency may permeate the universal Church of Christ, dissolving the accretions of mistaken and conventional piety, combining the vital elements into a new synthesis, at once simple and convincing,--the new which is the oldest and the earliest,--that the Church is the organ of the Divine Love, and that love alone is the Christian equivalent of religion?
May we not even anticipate that the visible decay of many symbols that once were authoritative, of many forms of creed that are now barely tolerated rather than respected, may work towards this issue; that gradually the test of service will supplant the test of intellectual belief, and that a new Church will arise founded not on creed at all, but on a real imitation of the life of Jesus? If this should happen we need not regret the dissolution of the forms of religious life which is so evident to-day, for though the older kingdom be shaken, we shall arrive in God's time at the better kingdom which cannot be shaken.
When the Church does manifestly become the organ of the Divine Love, visibly creating a type of loving and lovable men and women found nowhere else, whose lives are as lamps borne before the feet of the weary and the lost, then the world, now hostile or indifferent to the Church, will love the Church even as by instinct it loves the Christ. Such lives have been lived, and they are, even to those who have the least instinct for religion, the most sacred memories of history, and the most inspiring. Such lives may still be lived by all who love the Lord Christ Jesus in sincerity.