Chapter 4

The doctrine which the Saviour left us, and the laws which He prescribed were vastly different from the teachings of men. Guiding, saving words of a Shepherd to his flock, they engendered safety, comfort, peace. Free from error or mistake, sealed with the seal of Heaven, holding out a promise of future glory, they exhaled the perfumes of the eternal city, they told of mansions not built with hands. And since this immaculate doctrine, given for the souls of men, was to last till the end of time, there was need that it should be shielded against the assaults of the world and protected from the influence of our changing human teachings. It could not be corrected, because it contained no mistakes; it could not be changed or altered, because it came from the changeless God; it could have no substitute from the part of men or creatures of any kind, because it was given by Him who alone was the way, the truth, and the life. Consequently the truths which the Saviour declared to the world as the only means by which we can be saved, were at once infallible in themselves, and so provided for that no human agency, no lapse of years or revolutions of time and place should ever be able to infringe on their eternal, changeless character. It was to preserve these truths in their integrity and freshness that He founded His unerring Church and committed to it the office of custodian and expounder, under the guidance of His Holy Spirit, of all He had revealed for the salvation of human kind. Hence to hear our Shepherd’s voice, to understand what He says to us, to know what we must do to obey His laws and save our souls, we need but listen to the voice of His Church. Before it was established He declared that He should build His Church upon a rock, and that no enemy, or group of enemies, not even the gates of hell should ever prevail against it.(27) He established the Church as His mouthpiece, and He said to the little band that constituted it in the beginning, “he that heareth you, heareth me, and he that heareth me, heareth Him that sent me;”(28) and, as if to emphasize this declaration, He added that any one who would not hear and obey the Church should be considered as a heathen and a publican—types of all that was bad.(29) The Church, therefore, is the oracle of God, it is His mouthpiece; it possesses and guards the only revelation which God has made to His rational creatures; it alone has the words of eternal life.

Thus it is that our divine Shepherd goes before us, leading us in the paths of truth and justice, preserving us from danger and error with respect to our spiritual destiny. We cannot go astray if we listen to Him speaking to us through His church. In all our perplexities and uncertainties, when confronted by any doubt, or confused and distracted by the wrangling voices and conflicting opinions of men, we can be calm and at peace, assured in our inmost souls that the voice which guides us cannot err, that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one word of His to fail.(30)

He leadeth me in ways of justice, in the ways of holiness, in the ways which the saints have walked. How exceeding great, indeed, is our privilege, and how certain and individual our election! All that remains to us is to listen to His words and to follow Him, and present peace will attend our labors, while future glory waits upon our end.

But in the midst of abundant blessings and spiritual favors which have surrounded and sheltered us from infancy, we are apt to be unmindful of our state of plenty and forgetful of the duty of gratitude. We are apt to venture out like thoughtless children, trusting in our own strength to battle with the foe; or else, on the contrary, we sluggishly presume that a bountiful Providence will provide for us regardless of our own co-operation. We have never known what it is to want for spiritual food and spiritual direction, except when indolence, careless indifference, and our own folly have led us astray. These are evils which continually assail us, and we often make friends with them, not knowing what we are doing for the most part, until the blood of life has almost ebbed away. We are not, indeed, removed from a world where sin abounds and where deceiving voices may allure us this way and that. Like the pastoral country of the Orient, the walks of life are fraught with perils: false teachers, false doctrines, false prophets, pseudo-christs;(31) “perils from our own nation, and perils from abroad, perils in the city and perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea and perils from false brethren”(32)—all trying to attract and lead us away from the paths of justice and deliver us to the enemy of our souls.

It is necessary that we should know that wolves are abroad in sheep’s clothing; “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.”(33) They come to us with winning words and easy teachings, with new creeds, new forms of belief, new ways to the promised land.

The doctrine and truths which Christ taught and which He entrusted to His Church are set aside or explained away by these modern teachers, and the novel and the strange are made to assume the role of the old, the familiar and the true. The harm done is incalculable. How many innocent and unwary sheep have been lost to the fold of Christ by following the call of these unworthy preachers and false shepherds! What multitudes of precious souls have been deceived by their polished words and led away into paths of error, into deadly ways of thinking, believing, and acting, never to return to the path that leads to life!

This poisoning of the soul and the heart by erroneous doctrines is effected in many and diverse ways; the victims of falsehood are variously captured. There are the wisdom and sagacity of men, there are the conquests of science and the learning of the philosophers, the discoveries of our day, the strides of history, the breakdown and overthrow of many things held sacred by our forefathers—and all these changes and ruptures in the order of a former generation are now used to beguile the flock of Christ and sway them from the paths of truth and righteousness. But amid all this din and uproar of conflicting voices, amid the wrangling tumult and confusion of converging opinions, those who will may hear and discern the loving voice of the true Shepherd speaking to the world through His Church with the same calm, assuring words which He uttered to living witnesses two thousand years ago. He has not changed, neither has His teaching; He has not deserted His chosen flock, but is with it all days, even to the end of the world.(34) His love for us, His watchfulness for our needs, His enduring care for our interests, in spite of our enemies, can never fail.

And while assured of this, it behooves us also, as appealing to our sense of gratitude, and as inducing to greater love of Him, to reflect that this abiding faithfulness of our Saviour in caring for our wants is not from any worthiness of ours, or because of our merits, but only for His Name’s sake, because He is Saviour. It was His love for us that prompted our creation, His love that provoked His passion and redeemed us, His love that made Him suffer for us, His love that teaches and shall guide us to life everlasting, for His love endureth forever.

VII. YEA, THOUGH I WALK IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR THOU ART WITH ME.

Besides the paths and dangerous walks in the shepherd country that would lead the sheep to destruction and death, there are other paths all encompassed with evils through which, nevertheless, they are at times obliged to make their way. Safety from all harm there cannot be for the shepherd’s flock. They must in their journeys encounter many perils, even while pursuing the proper paths. There are deep and darksome valleys, walled round on all sides by towering rocky hills, which at times the shepherd cannot easily escape. And within these shadowy valleys and somber ravines there dwell not infrequently wild and ferocious animals that will, if aroused, attack and kill the tender sheep. The utmost care and caution of the shepherd are called into service safely to conduct his dependent flock through these places of deepest peril. But in spite of all his watchfulness it sometimes happens that a wolf will get into the very midst of the sheep. The timid, terrified animals become wild with fright, and are scattered, running this way and that, until the shepherd calls and bids them collect together. No sooner do they hear his voice, than they all rush swiftly together in a solid mass, and either drive the enemy from their midst or cripple and crush him to death.

Thus in times of greatest peril the shepherd protects his sheep, and wrests them from the jaws of harm. The sheep know this, and they fear no evils; they know that their master is with them. Yea, though they walk in the shadow of perils and dwell in the midst of the valley of death, they faint not, neither do they fear, for they know that the shepherd is near.

The case of the sheep in the valley of perils is not unlike our own in the midst of the evils of the world; and the peace and safety which we enjoy should be similar also to theirs. We are assured, first of all, by an unflinching faith in God and our Redeemer that, if we trust our Master and obey Him, we shall be led aright throughout our lives, even to the kingdom of Heaven. We shall be led in the paths of justice and love, and crowned at length with the crown of glory, if we but follow the voice of our Shepherd-King, and avoid the walks of disaster and ruin. And to hear His voice and to know it we have but to listen to the teachings of His Church, which will hush to silence our troubled hearts, and direct our wayward feet into the paths of heavenly peace.

But, like the shepherd’s flock, we have to avoid in our journey through life, as perils to our safety and spiritual welfare, not only the false shepherds and teachers and doctrines that surround us on all sides; but we must also, to pass to our reward, actually encounter inevitable evils and fight many necessary battles. Many of the paths of life through which we must of necessity pass are hard and difficult, and full of deadly perils. We must remember that sin has ruined the primeval beauty of our earthly habitation and made our life here below a labor and a toil to the end.

We not only come into the world with sin on our souls, and are thereby exiles from the city of God, but even when our sin is forgiven us the remains of the malady continue as wounds in our nature as long as we live on earth. The deadly guilt is wiped away, but the effects of the evil remain. And it is chiefly these wounds of our nature, in ourselves and in others, that render life’s journey, even when pursued in accordance with the law of God, at times truly difficult and perilous. Fidelity to God and to His law is not always a safeguard against the wickedness of the world and of men; at times, in fact, it is just the contrary. Indeed, is it not a truth that many, perhaps the majority, of those who endeavor sincerely to please and to serve God must often suffer severely for their very goodness and faithfulness? Are they not misunderstood, and criticised, and censured? Are they not frequently accused of all manner of wrong, their work disparaged, and their motives impugned? Are not persecution, and even martyrdom, often their portion? Now all this is the result of sin. Those who call into question the deeds and motives of God’s saints; those who upbraid, and criticise, and impute evil to the sincere, faithful servants of God, inflicting upon them dire evils, are but showing the effects of sin in themselves, are but giving exercise to the evil that rules within them. Their particular acts and words may be without present malice, they may be inwardly persuaded that in reviling and condemning their neighbor and doing him harm, they are rendering a service to God Himself; but in so doing they but manifest the effects of earlier sin, personal, perhaps, and original, which has darkened their understanding and made perverse their moral vision, so that, having eyes, they see not, having ears, they hear not, neither do they understand.(35) Following the corruption of their own nature, bleeding from the wounds of original sin, they are prone to blaspheme whatsoever they fail to comprehend;(36) and thus it is that they often make life and the world for the servant of God a truly perilous sojourn, a veritable valley of death.

This failure to be understood, this misjudgment of actions, motives, deeds, are doubtless common evils from which, in a measure, we all must suffer. But it is also true that the more elevated the life, the higher its aims, the loftier the spiritual level on which it proceeds, the greater the difficulty of its being understood and appreciated by the majority, who always tread the common paths of mediocrity. A saint is nearly always a disturbance to his immediate surroundings, he is frequently an annoyance and an irritation to the little circle in which his external life is cast, simply because he really lives and moves in a sphere which the ordinary life cannot grasp. Like a brilliant, dazzling light that obscures the lesser luminaries, and is therefore odious to them, the man of God is frequently a disturber to the worldly peace of common men, his life and works are a living reproach to their life and works; and hence, without willing it, he becomes a menace to their society and is not welcome in their company. Worldly, plotting minds cannot understand the spiritual and the holy; sinful souls are out of harmony with the virtuous; the children of darkness cannot find peace with the children of light. And not only is there a lack of sympathy in the worldly-minded for the men and women who are led of God, but there is often positive hatred for them—a hatred which spends itself in actual, persistent persecution. To be devout, to refrain from sinful words and sinful deeds, to shun the vain and dangerous amusements of worldlings, to attend much to prayer and recollection, to love the house and worship of God, to be seen often approaching the sacraments and partaking of the bread of life at the communion rail—even these holy acts are sufficient frequently to draw down on the servants of God the curse and persecution of a world which knows not what it does.

And that which happens individually to the faithful children of God takes place on a larger scale with respect to God’s Church. The children of this world, those who have set their heart on temporal things, or who, through wilful error have deviated from the right path to things eternal, never cease from pursuing and persecuting the Church of God. They hate the Church and attack it unceasingly. Like the perverse and blinded Jews of old who reviled the Saviour and His words and deeds, who pursued Him and put Him to death, these ever-living and ever-active enemies of light and truth never abate in their fury against the chosen friends of Christ, and against His holy Church. But need we be surprised at this? Was it not foretold? Did not our blessed Shepherd, speaking in the beginning to His little flock, warn them that men would deliver them up in councils and scourge them? Did He not say to them plainly, “And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake; but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they persecute you in this city, flee into another.... The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the good man of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household.”(37)

It happens, therefore, that fidelity to God, and careful adherence to the paths of justice and holiness, can frequently be the occasion of perils and sufferings for us individually, as they also are the excuse for a vaster persecution of the Church in general. All holy persons and holy things are signs of contradiction. They are not of the world, they do not fit in with it; and between them and the world there will be strife and contention until the renovation comes.

But the enemies that lie along the ways of life, that beset and threaten even the most righteous paths of our pilgrimage, are not all from without—the most numerous and menacing are perhaps from within. “The enemies of a man,” says the inspired writer, “are those of his own household.”(38) That is to say, the most potent evils which we suffer, the chiefest foes to our present and future welfare are from ourselves—our own waywardness, our tendencies to evil, our wilfulness, our self-love and self-seeking, our own sins. It is from these and like causes that we suffer most. Hard and trying it surely is to bear persecutions and contradictions from others; severe is the strain to nature when, in the face of our noblest efforts, proceeding from noblest motives, we meet with misunderstanding and even condemnation; but to the upright, religious heart that is sincerely and truly seeking God amid the shadows and pitfalls of life, the sorest of all trials and the fiercest of all enemies are one’s own temptations and passions and inclinations to evil. Easier it were to conquer the whole external world of foes, than to reign supreme over the little world within. Of Alexander the Great it is said, that while he actually subdued the whole known world of his time, he nevertheless yielded in defeat before his own passions. He could overcome his external enemies, but surrendered miserably in the battle with self.

This, then, is our greatest warfare, the struggle with ourselves; and this our greatest victory, a triumph over self. “If each year,” says the Imitation, “we could uproot but one evil inclination, how soon we should be perfect men!”(39) But it is not for us to be free from enemies and perils, both from without and from within, during our earthly sojourn. They are a part of our lot here below, they are necessarily bound up with the darkened regions through which the Shepherd must lead his flock; and hence, entire safety there shall never be before the journey’s end, until we say farewell to present woes, and hail “the happy fields, where joy forever dwells.”

In our present state, therefore, it is important for us to realize our dangers and to be prepared for conflict. There is no way of escape from crosses, and perils, and dreadful battles for all those who wish to win the crown of victory. They must follow the Shepherd as he leads the way, and hence our Lord has said, “if any man will come after me, let him take up his cross daily and follow me.”(40) Yes, it is the following of the Shepherd, it is his leadership, his constant presence, that give comfort to the sheep, and dispel the dread and fear of perils. And though we pass through the valley and shadow of death, we need fear no evil, for He is with us. At times, frequently perhaps, as we sail the sea of life, the waves roll over and deluge us so completely that we are all but smothered. The clouds gather, thick and black, and overcast the sky of our souls; the sorrows of death surround us, and the pains of the pit encompass us;(41) we are overwhelmed with sadness and plunged in darkness. We think of God, we remember Him, but He seems afar off. The evil which weighs us down—the pain of body, the agony of soul, the sadness and dejection of heart and mind, “the madness that worketh in the brain,” muffle the voice and all but still the trembling pulse, and we are not able so much as to lift our drooping heads and tear-dimmed eyes to see the gentle Shepherd standing faithfully at our side. It is our failure to discern and apprehend Him that causes extreme agony. If at these times of utter desolation, when the soul is swept by the winds of sorrow, we could only raise our eyes and thoughts to Him, with faith and hope and child-like trust, the spell would be broken; and we should see the clouds lift and part and float away on the wind, only to let in God’s cheerful sun to raise the drooping spirit, and warm and soothe the troubled soul.

But it is difficult, when oppressed by sorrow and affliction, to lift the heart and mind to things above. Nature of itself tends downward, and unless it has learned to discipline itself and to engage with the enemy in sturdy battle, it is not yet prepared for life. For the world is a battlefield and life a warfare, even from a natural point of view, and only they can hope to win in life’s hard contest who have learned to brave the battle, who have prepared themselves for conflict. But who is ready for the struggle, and how shall we be able to encounter our foes? Left to ourselves and to our own resources, we shall surely go down in defeat. The opposing forces are too gigantic, too numerous. They throng from near and from afar. They swarm from within and from without; from our own nature and from others, from the world around, and from our own household; from those at home, and from them that are abroad. Frequently during life we are, of a certainty, encompassed round with perils; we hardly know where to turn or what to do, we are breathless with fright; but even then, if we have proper faith, we shall grow calm, like the shepherd’s flock in the midst of devouring animals and beasts of prey, for our Saviour and Shepherd is with us, and no evil can befall us. Even when we think Him farthest, He is often nearest; when we think Him sleeping, His heart is watching. He loves us, His weak and timid sheep; we are the objects of His heart’s affection and ever active solicitude; He will not let perish, if we trust Him, the price of His precious Blood.

And the training we are to receive, and the preparation we are to make, in order worthily and victoriously to engage in the battle of life are nothing, therefore, but lessons of love and trust in the constant goodness and faithfulness of our divine Saviour. Unless we viciously drive Him away by deliberate, grievous sin, He is really never absent from us, and least of all when we need Him most. It is our fault, if we do not by faith discern Him, if we do not feel His ever-gracious presence. We need to discipline ourselves in acts and deeds of faith and love, and then we shall realize that He is always near us, even in the darkness of the shadow of death.

We must try to know our Shepherd, first of all; we must endeavor intimately to understand Him. For to have faith in Him, to trust Him, to believe in His power and goodness, in His overruling care for us and our interests, presuppose a knowledge of Him, just as faith and confidence in an earthly friend follow upon an intimate acquaintance with that friend. But this close knowledge of our Master, so necessary to our present peace and future happiness, will never be ours unless we make Him our confidant, unless we accustom ourselves to live in His presence, to look to Him, to speak to Him often, to listen to His gracious direction. And this intimate relationship with our Saviour, this habitual communion with Him, will enkindle in our souls the fire of love. Once we know Him, we will trust Him, and having faith and confidence in Him, we will link our poor lives to His divine life by the strong cords of heavenly charity. Fear and uncertainty will then be impossible, even in the darkest hours.