When Christ went about in Galilee and told men. that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, was he mistaken? Or is the fellowship which he founded not itself a part of that kingdom, the seed which is already growing and spreading throughout the whole earth? Many strange fowls, perhaps, we may think, have lodged in its branches already; but if the fellowship be strong and true they cannot do it great harm, and under its shelter may live not only these but a host of singing birds. The great thing that all have to remember is that members of the fellowship must needs hand on to others the life that has been given to them. That great title by which the Pope is known as Vicar of Christ upon earth is not an idle one: every good Christian Pope has been that to some extent, and so, too, has every Christian disciple, in so far as he lives in the Master's spirit. For language grows old so quickly, that we forget that the vicar is one who acts instead of another, in his place, just as vicarious suffering is suffering borne by one on behalf and instead of another. But we need to explain and translate the appellation "Vicar of Christ" into daily life by means of that other noble title which shines like a jewel at the head of every Papal bull and rescript "servus servorum Dei," servant of the servants of God. The Vicar of Christ will show himself such by serving his [p.109] fellow-men with his whole life, ungrudgingly and gladly, knowing that every act and thought given to their welfare is given to God, and that the Father would have men seek Him not afar from human life and labour, but amidst the toil and sorrow of that sinful humanity for whom Christ died.
When we seek to find how far this ideal is being carried out within the Christian Church, we may well be saddened by our own failure, and by the way in which organizations intended for the common service have come to be treated as an end in themselves. Yet we must remember that in the ancient liturgies, which seem sometimes hard for the democratic modern mind to under- stand, the priest does not speak or act for himself, but as a representative of the whole fellowship of the Church; the cries and prayers and strivings of long generations of human lives are joined in the words of the prayers that he uses, and the beautiful ritual of the altar is intended to be a living picture of spiritual symbols, full of meaning not only for himself, but for all who worship with him.
This view of prayer finds fitting expression in a sonnet of Hartley Coleridge on The Liturgy, which deserves to be better known.
Oft as I hear the Apostolic voice
Speaking to God, I blame my heart so cold,
That with those words, so good, so pure and old,
Cannot repent, nor hope, far less rejoice. [p.110]
Yet am I glad, that not the vagrant choice,
Chance child of impulse, timid or too bold,
The volume of my heart may dare unfold
With figured rhetoric or unmeaning noise
Praying for all in those appointed phrases,
Like a vast river, from a thousand fountains
Swoll'n with the waters of the lakes and mountains,
The pastor bears along the prayers and praises
Of many souls in channel well defined,
Yet leaves no drop of prayer or praise behind.
We cannot but sympathize with the poet: so powerful and attractive are the ancient words that have come to us down the ages fraught with the memories of man's need and spiritual striving, so unworthy often do we feel the language of extempore prayer. Yet if we have only once or twice experienced what unpremeditated prayer may be, when it is offered in the true priestly spirit, in deep sympathy with the needs and longings of those present, diverse though they be, and in close harmony with the peculiar demands of the time and place, we know how such prayer can, as nothing else, gather up our hidden desires and bring our whole souls with it into the sense of communion with the source of the strength and help that we need, towards which our arms stretch out as we listen, and are not stretched in vain.
It is easy for us to see how often priesthood in worship has come short of its ideal; still sadder surely has been our failure to make real the priest- hood of daily life. A family priesthood of the simplest kind has been for centuries characteristic of Hebrew religious life, and this household priest- [p.111] hood of the father, or of both father and mother, is a very real thing in Christendom, especially where the influence of the Reformation is strongest. But we need not only this intimate and beautiful priesthood, but one which shall extend to the wider families of the city, the nation and mankind. We have to remember that our lives are not our own, that we are each representatives, and that every act of ours must have pontifical significance for others; more than that our very thoughts and desires go out far beyond our own lives and help to weave cords which shall pull others upwards or drag them down to our level. The words of Christ's prayer in the Gospel "For their sakes I sanctify myself" are full of significance. If the Master thus consecrates his life and overcomes the evil, thrusting aside the temptation to take the lower and easier path and dedicating his whole will and nature to the Divine will, in order that his disciples may be helped to reach unity with each other and with him, then must the disciples too understand that their own efforts after a better and cleaner and more unselfish life are not made for themselves alone. There is no man that fights in the secret of his own life against evils and temptations, of which others can know nothing, but may feel cheered to remember that his is, after all, no lonely battle. He is an outpost, hidden from his fellow combatants perhaps, but his welfare concerns the whole company, his victory is not for one life, but for all. In this spirit surely [p.112] in every act and thought of life a man may be made a priest.
How beautiful an idea that was which in ancient Rome made of bridge-building a religious deed, so that the chief bridge-builder, the Pontifex Maximus, was also the chief priest. Nor was the thought that bridge-building was a sacred act wholly lost with Paganism, for in the middle ages amongst the many religious societies which existed to promote human welfare and to lessen by sharing them the burdens of life, was the Order of Pontiff Brothers or bridge-builders. Perhaps such societies as this came into being more especially to make easier the perilous pilgrims' roads along which men must pass to visit the holy places and shrines of the Saints. Sometimes a pilgrim who had made the journey would join himself with others who had realized its hardships to make the way lighter for those who should follow in their steps. Sometimes, it may be, men who had not the time or money and perhaps lacked even the courage to make the perilous voyage themselves, yet gladly gave of their labour to help to build the bridge. They could never make use of it, but they hoped that others, better men and more fortunate than they, would pass over it to behold the holy sights which they themselves might never see, and long after they were dead their work would thus stand fast. Thus the great bridge of Avignon still rests on the piers built seven hundred years ago by the Pontiff Brothers, and the feet of [p.113] the little children dance over the arches which the pilgrims used to tread.
To many of the early bridges there still cling memories which tell of some noble founder, but there is a peculiar beauty in the story of the building of the Bridge of Avignon by Saint Benezet. Of this Saint Benezet, or Little St. Benedict, for the friendly pet name can but imperfectly be rendered into English, we know only a little; but across the mists of tradition we catch a glimpse of him, a boy tending the sheep upon the distant hillside and there receiving a strange heavenly call, bidding him go build a bridge where none had yet been, across the broad river at Avignon, where hitherto men had crossed the Rhone often with peril, and always with toil. Shepherd's staff in hand, the lad came to Avignon and entered the church; there he spoke his message to bishop and people, and pleaded with them to help build the bridge. Bishop and people were incredulous, and so too was the mayor when appeal was made to him, but Benezet persisted, and little by little men began to help him. They tell of how he was in some way able to raise the big stones and to lift weights which others failed to move. The first piers began to rise; Benezet and others joined the Order of Pontiff Brothers and under his guidance the work went on. It was the labour of years, and of immense effort, and before the bridge was completed its boy builder died and they buried him in a little chapel above one of the great piers. But [p.114] the building went on, the spirit that Benezet had brought to it did not die with him, and in due time the bridge was built, where men would have toiled and struggled still with the waters, but for the faithfulness of a shepherd boy.
In the old Pagan days, at least in many lands, the priestly act of bridge-building had its darker side. Here and there a curious tradition still survives to show that once the making of a bridge was accompanied by the sacrifice of a life. The victim was offered to propitiate the jealous powers which otherwise might wreak their vengeance upon a larger number, destroying the bridge and the passengers upon it by some sudden storm or earthquake.
We have ceased to think the gloomy thoughts which made men build their bridges thus in the ancient ages. But still, if the bridge of life is to be well and truly laid, there must be sacrifice at its foundations. The thought of the architect, the beauty of the curving arch, all may crumble and fall in the time of stress when the floods are out and the river rushes in boisterous strength against the piers, if the bridge-builder has not done his priestly duty. It is good that man's life should be well ordered, clean and happy, useful to others and harmonious in itself, but deep down in it, if the life is to stand the strain of evil days and to do its full service, there must surely be the strength of willing sacrifice. The ideal of such Christian sacrifice is no sullen, grudging surrender [p.115] of desire, no mutilation of man's true nature, but the glad gift of life to life, which mingles vicarious sorrow with vicarious joy. And as this spirit spreads with the growth of that Kingdom of God which Christ proclaimed to men, the human race will realize more and more fully all that is meant by the priesthood of humanity.
[p.116]
CENTURIES ago, in a far-off Eastern land, a philosopher poet set to verse the sad music of his heart's doubts and longings, and the cry that rings again and again through his poems finds an echo in men's hearts to-day. The mystery of life and death over which Omar Khayam pondered has never ceased to attract the thoughts of men. Returning spring brings the old hopes back to our lives, sometimes with the same sadder echoes that troubled Moschus and Horace, and still thinkers and poets bow before the terror and the majesty of death which they are powerless to explain.
What use then is it to trouble ourselves with a problem which is as old as the life of man and which the greater intellects have failed to solve? Think about it we must, again and again, unless we deliberately stifle our thoughts when they turn to the things which matter most to us. And since we are social beings, born dependent on each other and made to help one another, it is natural that we should wish to share our thoughts. [p.117]
Whence? and whither? and why? is a triad of questions over which men have broken their hearts; in a sense they must always remain un answered, or at least incompletely answered; and yet as long as men have made them, one response at least has brought with it peace.
The problem of life and death was stated long ages before Omar's day by another Eastern thinker, and with a poignancy greater at times than his. Nowhere in Hebrew literature do we get a deeper sense of the gloomy mystery of life than in the book of Ecclesiastes, where again and again the writer makes lament over triumphant injustice, and the end that comes alike to good and bad. There passes before his eyes the melancholy pageant of the children of men, journeying along through the ages to the common goal of endless oblivion. "All things come alike to all," he cries; "there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil that is done under the sun, that there is one event unto all; yea, also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead." And so too, he goes on to speak of death as annihilation which puts the noblest of dead creatures below the basest of the living. Probably most men have known some [p.118] dark hour at least in which the tragedy of life comes home to them, and they have wondered whether after all the old thinker was not right. We take up as our own the refrain of Omar:
I came like water, and like wind I go,
Into this Universe and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like water willy-nilly flowing,
And out of it as wind along the waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.
Again there echo about us out of the past those ancient questions to which the mind of man is ever framing answers, ever finding unsatisfying those which others have made. How then can religion help, if even with its presence those answers still remain incomplete?
When faith comes into our hearts, the mystics may tell us, uncertainty does not go out of them. We are still facing an unknown future, and have no more knowledge of the past than have our fellows. But a new factor has come into our consciousness. We are able to go back and face the old questions, and lo, they no longer seem to cut, as once they did, at the roots of our being. We have hold of something which goes deeper than doubt can reach, or fear can fall to. And strangely enough, the very same metaphor which Omar uses to express his despair comes from the lips of faith, but with how different a meaning:
"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, and canst not tell [p.119] whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of the spirit."
Beneath the unanswered question now, there is the abiding sense of the reality that endures, a conviction that, though we do not understand its purpose, life is not purposeless, and that though we cannot lift the veil of death it is only a covering which hides from our eyes a wider and greater world than ours.
It may be that some will feel that all such talk of faith is meaningless to them. Religion and faith convey no such notions to their minds as they seem to imply to others. What they want is the clear demonstration, which a physicist might give us. If life goes on after death there must surely be some proof of it.
If we try and look at life merely from the stand-point of the physiologist, we do indeed perceive that we only observe it in connection with certain structures of organic matter, and that, as far as we are able to see, every act of human conscious ness is accompanied by certain processes and changes in the grey tissues of the brain. When those tissues are injured, the expression of this consciousness is interfered with, and when a certain condition of the brain material comes about life ceases, as far as our observation goes. So far as we can observe, indeed, every act of life is accompanied by and connected with some material condition, or at least some material concomitant. But this is as far as the physi- [p.120] ologist can take us. What life is he is still unable to say. To speak of life as energy, and to say that energy is a potential property of matter, is only to hide from ourselves with words the fact that life can only be explained to us in terms of life: the physicists cannot tell us what life is.
If we admit that we cannot explain what it is in its ultimate nature, we are yet all of us conscious enough of what we mean ourselves by life. The word has a real significance to us, although we cannot define it or explain it in any way.
Can we then find any answer from physical science as to whether or no our life continues when the bodily change which we call death happens? Since life is always connected, as far as we are able to observe it, with certain physical conditions of the body, can it continue when those conditions are no longer present?
There have been many thinkers impressed by the sense of a universe governed by necessary and unchanging laws, who have felt that they could only answer that since life is in our experience always accompanied by certain material conditions, it must cease to exist when those conditions have been removed.
There is one great assumption, however, which consciously or unconsciously underlies this position, that the only universe which exists is one that is intelligible to our thought, and that something [p.121] which we cannot possibly understand, necessarily cannot possibly exist.
But there is yet another thought which seems to have escaped such a thinker: the possibility of the co-existence of more than one world and of life passing from one world to another. Mathematicians have already shown the possibility of this by discussing the existence of a fourth dimension, and even working out problems involving the assumption of the existence of this fourth dimension. The suggestion has been made especially easy to grasp in the remarkable anonymous romance "Flatland," published some thirty years ago, which pictures the world of two dimensions, wherein one person gets the notion of the existence of a third dimension, and the extraordinary results that follow his heresy, or madness, as it seems to his less enlightened fellows.
If the theory of the existence of another, or other dimensions be a tenable one, we can conceive of the existence of a number of worlds around us, co-existing with our own and including it, of which we are either wholly unconscious or only very dimly conscious, and that not by the faculties by means of which we have knowledge of our own world.
Now if we suppose that somewhere within us, at the centre of our lives, is some meeting-point, some door through which we may have contact with these other worlds and pass out into them, [p.122] we can also conceive of a development growing out from this point of contact into that larger life of which we should necessarily remain unconscious here, or even if our whole nature were suddenly to be filled by a consciousness of how its life extended beyond this universe into those other worlds, we should yet be unable to express in terms of our own world this wider life, or could only express it by symbols. The incapacity of our friends to understand our experience would be no proof that it was not true, nor would our own inability to express it in any way lessen the reality of that experience to us. If such a hypothesis be correct, what may happen at death may be that we pass out of the narrower world of three dimensions into the wider world, which includes this and much more.
Another way of looking at the problem has been to conceive of our various senses as channels through which we have entered into communication with the world without us. At present we most of us are only conscious of five such channels. We may conceive of the possibility of many other channels of which we have no experience (and indeed observation of certain living creatures has already led to the hypothesis of a sixth sense, different from any of our own), and we can also think of the channels as being one by one closed. So that at death we may conceive of all our existing lines of communication with the outer world being removed, and wholly new channels, with [p.123] what may seem like an entirely different world, being opened up.[29]
Such an explanation of the working of our universe is but a hypothesis. Yet after all, it may to some extent help us to understand phenomena otherwise very difficult to explain. Are not the mystics and seers, the inspired poets and prophets, just those whose lives are more in touch than ours with a world we cannot see, often able only imperfectly to express themselves, but yet conscious of vast realities beyond our ken? And may we not to some extent look upon faith as such a faculty, or sixth sense, taking hold of the unseen and translating it into our own life?
But all have not this faith, it may be urged; it is strongest often when the intellectual powers are weak enough, and men of the greatest genius tell us they are wholly without it. Yet cannot we conceive of a community of people almost wholly devoid of one of our own five senses, say that of hearing? How difficult it would be for one of them whose ears were suddenly opened to explain to his friends the new world about him. Imagine these people watching a skylark, and looking on with astonishment at the joy of the one man who heard it singing. A dull brown bird flying aimlessly up into the air: why should he look on it [p.124] with such wonder? They see all that he sees, and if he should try to explain his feelings as he listens to its song, will they not one and all be convinced that he is mad, or that he is at best only recounting some subjective illusion? If he would convince them, let him translate into terms of sight these curious sensations. He cannot do it, and they can only pity his condition.
This may help us to realize how narrow a view that is of life which conceives of this world of our consciousness as the only one which exists. It may even help us to frame a physical hypothesis of another life; but this is not enough for our need. If we are to go to the centre of the problem we must turn not to physical difficulties, but to the moral and spiritual ones. It is above all in its failure to solve the problems of our inward life that the materialistic explanation of the world breaks down.
All the explanations thus suggested have been too much akin to the physical one to touch the heart of the problem. It is when we realize the meaning of faith in our own lives here and now, that we cease to trouble about the future. In the realization of the supreme value of goodness, and the infinite meaning of it, we begin to understand that it must endure, in a sense far deeper than mere extension in time or space.
Faith is the organ of spiritual apprehension, and comes into play whenever we recognise in practice the claim of the ethical ideal as opposed [p.125] to the materialistic, when the will to do the good triumphs over the desire to get the good for our selves. In every act of the inward life by which being is set above having, and by which our own visible happiness is subordinated to that of our fellows, there comes into play this activity of the soul which we call faith, by which we come into contact with that which underlies our hopes, and put to test the things we do not see. [30]
As this faith comes to dominate and control our lives we are able to reach a point at which the old doubts cease to pain us. We may still repeat to ourselves the riddle of life, and seek for an answer; but though we may continue to puzzle to find an explanation, we are conscious that we have known something in the presence of which the ancient questionings cease to trouble. We feel that somehow we have come into touch with a presence which brings with it the solution of the greatest of all problems. In the depths of our lives we listen to the answer of faith.
Thus it is that the very words which ring with such a sense of awful despair in the poem of Omar may express nothing but peace to one who has gone through this experience: "He knows about it all, He knows, He knows." The difference lies in this, that to Omar there is as he writes no sense of contact with the Unseen, the Omniscient, in whose power he lies; but to him who [p.126] has heard the answer of Faith that sense of contact has come. He knows that in this deepest experience God has come into touch with him, and henceforth life to him both came and goes, out of God's hand into God's hand.
When Christ was confronted by the sceptical Sadducees with the problem of human life enduring beyond the grave, he pointed to their faith that the heroes of old time, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, had had knowledge of God, and told them that this knowledge of God meant life. A being that has come to have communion with the Eternal cannot be conceived of as passing away with the changing husk of things, the accidents of the body and the outer world. Eternal life does not consist in the duration for ever of an accidental process. If we could conceive of a jelly-fish continuing thus an indefinite existence, which should involve neither inward development nor the possession of higher powers than such a creature is commonly believed to be capable of, we should still surely be unable to speak of such existence as eternal life. For what we mean by this is not the mere continuity of existence from a present of transient accidents into a like future, but something which goes beyond death because it goes beyond life too, as life is ordinarily pictured.
But can we hope to tread ourselves this way of the Divine life? There are times when, the spiritual end which is ever present in our lives makes itself evident to us, and now and again [p.127] across the centuries come periods when the latent desires of men seem to come to the surface. Such was that epoch of spiritual unrest and stirring which came to England in the seventeenth century, in which the Quaker and Quietest movements had their birth, and it may be that we are not far away from the dawn of such another age to-day. Now, as then, men turn from orthodoxy in search of something deeper and wider than its mere creeds can give. The works of the old mystics are reissued from the press, and in the by-ways of literature men are seeking for paths that may lead them to inward peace. It is still twilight time. No prophet's voice is clearly heard calling us towards the full light of the day, but our eyes turn towards the horizon and watch for the signs of dawn.
We share a common life, and our need to-day is the same, though we may express it in different ways. We are conscious of something lacking in our lives, sensible at least at times of the evil there. We feel the darkness about us, and long for light and for a power that shall take us out of our lower natures, upward and onward. At such moments we may earnestly desire to come ourselves into communion with God, that his life may flow into ours and transform it. But how, after all, are we to attain to some dim realization of this knowledge of God which illumines the lives of the great mystics and brings peace to-day to many a life which otherwise would be full of painful failure? [p.128] Perhaps another saying from the book of Ecclesiastes may put us upon the path to find the answer. It is one of those words which come sometimes to poet and thinker, bearing within them fuller depth of meaning than was clear to the writer who first framed them, groping as he may have been at the edge of some great truth which he has never consciously apprehended. "Also He hath set Eternity in their heart." [31] The words were written in sadness, but there is within them the promise of hope. There lies at once the key to the mystery of human unrest and the hope for some deeper peace than the world without can give. Somewhere in the depths of his own life every man is in touch with the Eternal. Sometimes we are conscious of this higher reality surrounding us, as pervading all about us; on some glorious day alone with Nature the wonder of the world flashes upon us, and all things become radiant with a new light which fills both us and them. Or silently in the quiet of the night, before the mystery of the starry sky, a great peace comes over us in which our own tiny life seems to take its place amidst the ordered harmony of all the spheres.
But we come, too, to a vision of the Infinite in other ways; whenever we see a good deed done, and behold its goodness, we are touching the hem of the robe of the Eternal. In the inward recognition of the supreme beauty of unselfish love we are directly conscious of a flash of intuition [p.129] which illumines not the intellect alone, but our whole nature. We are brought into touch with God at the very centre of our lives. Nature is indeed the priest of the Eternal, and every high place has still its altar, where we may worship in spirit and in truth. But in an even deeper sense is the priesthood given to man. There is no man but is called to that true temple service wherein every good act is filled with meaning, not for himself only, but for his fellows. Every pure and unselfish deed is sacramental, bringing the soul of him who beholds it into touch with the God who inspired the act. And this contact with the Divine through goodness in another may come to us in spite of all intellectual barriers. If with our whole heart we honour a good deed done our nature does obeisance to the God who is working within it, who makes the deed of worth. Unknown to ourselves, we are drawn nearer to Him, and His life touches our lives, and transforms them a little nearer to His likeness. For every pure and lovely act that men do is not only a revelation but an inspiration and an influence drawing others upward. We have never had trust enough in the infectious power of a good deed.
Thus as we are faithful to the highest it has been given us to see, our sight will be strengthened to see further: at the moment of vision we are conscious that in the presence of the good thought, the good personality, we are in contact with the source of strength that we need. We must keep [p.130] close to the same source when the darkness is about us.
It is surely this truth that has helped to make the worship of the Saints the power for good which it has been in the lives of devout souls within the Catholic Church of Rome and of the East. They have done reverence to that in the Saints which was of God, and in drawing near to them they have been drawn near to Him also. The worship of the Saints has done harm, not only in the case of the false reverence of the market place, but whenever it has led men to turn from the source of the saint's power to the accidentals of his life and character, and to imitate the man, rather than to get into touch with his spirit. But the words of the old Creed, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," express a great reality. We can get the greatest help from this belief in the dark hours of the soul, and in all times of transition to fuller knowledge of the truth, if by belief in the Church we mean belief in the whole body of those who have come into touch with God through Christ, and through his spirit, and who can be recognised as his disciples because they bear in their lives his likeness. As we believe in the Church in this sense, we shall strive to feel the inner bond of union that connects together the good and holy of all creeds and nations, and to bring our lives into harmony with the same spirit of unity.
Men who have shown singular devotion to some [p.131] hero saint whom they love may have erred in the past in trying to reproduce his life under altered conditions; and such imitation has sometimes led them all too far from the spirit of the one whom they have sought to follow. St. Francis of Assisi, and in later days John Wycliffe, and George Fox, have each had followers such as these. But there is at least one to whom we may look for this guidance without any of the narrowing influence that other hero worship so often brings. We cannot read about our heroes, look up to them and think of them, without coming under the influence of their personality and without our character growing unconsciously to bear in it some faint trace at least of theirs. Let us then turn thus in the dark hour to Jesus Christ. No matter if for the moment we cannot regard him as we have been taught the Church does. Let us put aside all theories as to his birth; the miracles which puzzle us, even the fact of the Resurrection, and the speculations of theology as to his Divine nature. Not because these are not important matters, and not because we may not have to go on thinking about them, and seeking more light about them; but because for the guidance which most of all we need we can go deeper than all these doubts and speculations. Let us make Christ our teacher as his earliest disciples did, who knew nothing about his birth, and only followed him at first just because they felt he was far better than they and they had need of him and loved him. [p.132] As we do this, and simply endeavour to keep near to his thoughts, to think over the meaning of his words and to act as men who are seeking to follow him, we shall begin to realize that there is in Christ himself a greater miracle than anything recorded of him in the Gospels, and that whatever the correct theory of the Resurrection may be, He is still a living influence working upon our hearts and inspiring us onward to good. When we doubt of God because of the world's evil, we can hear his voice speak of the love which watches even over the fall of the sparrow, and some sense of that love comes to us too, in the midst of our darkness. And when the sense of our own wrong-doing is heavy upon us, we may feel cheered to think that our Teacher never turned from the men of the world and the profligate when they sought his help in honest sorrow, but rather sought them first, and for the disciple who denied him had nothing but a look of love. He knew what it was himself to be discouraged, to spend long hours in prayer, to be misunderstood and to fail. And sometimes there may come to us a glimpse of even deeper depths into which he went for his fellow- men. As we feel all this we may not be able to explain it, but we know ourselves the stronger for it, the better able to face misfortune and temptation and suffering, and to hold manfully to the best that we know, in the midst of doubt. And thus, little by little, we come to feel we have found one who not only makes us realize what failures [p.133] we have been, but is ever calling out the best that is in us, drawing us on to a higher ground and clearer air, where our vision carries further, until at length there may come to us some glimpse of the Divine Love at work in the world and within us, and some sense that Christ has brought to us God's expression of Himself in the terms of humanity, so that we begin to understand a little of the meaning of the words: "This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."
And meanwhile, let us have faith too for those who cannot yet feel this attractive power as we, perhaps, have known it. In the Fourth Gospel the Master tells his disciples that he has other sheep who are not of this fold; we may picture his thought as going out to far-off lands where men were striving to do their duty or to find the truth without any knowledge of him, without any intellectual knowledge of God perhaps; some legionary guarding the peace of the empire at the gates of the North, some Roman government official upholding the dignity and justice of the law amongst jealous robber tribes and unscrupulous traders, some Greek philosopher seeking to know a yet higher law, and simple men and women practising it unknown to themselves; or, further away in the far-off East, the Buddhist missionary teaching the worth of gentleness and mercy, or the disciple of Confucius learning to reverence the great moral truths he knew, and to apply them [p.134] in all life's relations. Some day all these should hear his voice; already they were his sheep. And so to-day, wherever the lonely thinker spends his hours in seeking, and the servant of science unselfishly gives up all thought of personal advancement and delight in the pursuit of truth, wherever in the politics of towns or peoples men seek to work out a higher form of public life, or in business as in leisure to be faithful not merely to their own interests, but to a wider ideal, we must see the seekers and servants of good, who are God's servants too. Sooner or later for these too will be fulfilled the words: "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."
THE sense of ancient peace, the quiet beauty of the ruined abbeys which Turner and many a lesser artist loved to paint, must often have come home to many who visit them, who have no knowledge of architecture and little thought for history. But, even with these passers by, something of their interest in the old ruin is perhaps due to the thought of the life which was lived there in the days gone by. Less worthy traditions have marred the glory of the earlier days, and dimmed the recollection of the long struggle with nature, the hardships of a simple, self-denying life, the toil of the scholar and the conflicts of the saint, but as we look at the broken pillars and the silent aisles and arches where once the music of men's chanting rose and fell, we feel that it is not only the thought of the vanished greatness that moves us, but the sense that this was a place where prayer was wont to be made. We try to picture to our selves sometimes the life of mediaeval England, and how these ruins were once places living and vibrating with thought and spiritual effort, centres [p.136] from which pulsed out many a good influence to uplift the lives of men.
It is true that the monastic ideal was in some respects narrow and one-sided, that its social and religious life was marred and maimed by an artificial celibacy being put in the place of the natural family life; but granting all this, had not the monastery at its best a noble place in the nation, which is too often lacking to-day, or but imperfectly supplied by other things?
The rule of St. Benedict prescribed that seven hours daily should be given by each disciple to manual labour; it was a far-seeing provision, in which there seems to have been realized the thought that study and prayer alone without active work could not provide a complete and healthy life. The Benedictine and Cistercian Abbeys were, at their best, never self-centred institutions whose members pursued their own spiritual welfare without regard to the needs of the world outside. Their scholars copied manuscripts and wrote books for the instruction of men, they were schoolmasters to rich and poor; their lay brothers laboured in the fields, making waste places smooth. Their intercessions went up for others than themselves. Every now and then guests from the great world came to stay within the abbey walls for rest and refreshment of soul, and now and then to end their days in an atmosphere of prayer and peace. In some ways, as we know, the coming of the Friars marked a stage of higher development, in that they [p.137] shared more fully the life of the people, at least in the simplicity and poverty of the early days of the Franciscan movement. Yet another development again is seen in the communities of Brethren of the common life, and in the béguinages of the Low Countries, which combined something of the possibility of individual home life with a common union for prayer.
It is interesting to be able to see at Ghent and Bruges to-day these quaint communities, where each inmate has her own house, with perfect liberty to come and go, to mix with the outer world, or even to return to it altogether; but with a common chapel, and a common religious bond visibly uniting the whole sisterhood. Is it not possible, if the Reformation of Henry VIII. had not been so largely political in its origin, that the monastic system might have been in some measure adapted to the needs of the world of to-day without those acts of spoliation which gave the new Tudor aristocracy its wealth and left us these piles of ruined buildings?
A famous French novelist who had lived and written as a materialist, turned in his closing years back to the ancient Catholic Church, finding peace and refreshment as a lay guest within the walls of a monastery. Much of his later work may seem exaggerated, and even morbid, in its mysticism, but it was sincere because based upon his own inward experience. In one of these later religious novels he speaks of cloistered convents [p.138] as being "the spiritual lightning conductors of Europe." To him the lives of these poor women, shut off in perpetuity from their fellows, were not wasted, but provided a sacrifice of spiritual struggle on behalf of the erring world outside.
Perhaps Huysmans was not right in thinking that the self-inflicted loneliness of the Poor Clares and Benedictine nuns stood in so high a relation of service to humanity as he pictures; certainly the life of practical prayer lived out by a faithful sister of St. Vincent de Paul amongst the sick poor whom she tends, seems far higher and more Christlike than that of the cloistered ascetic; but still the fact remains that if we are not materialists, but have faith in the effectual working of all true prayer we must hold that the intercessions of the cloister, in so far as they spring from true hearts of faith, are not wasted, but, in some way we cannot understand, flow out for the uplifting of the world.
As we look out at the life of to-day must we not feel that in its rush and hurry, with the thoughtless materialism of its outlook, there is more than ever need for the essential message of the monastery, fellowship in self-surrender and self-control, comradeship in study, work and above all in prayer? Is it not possible for us even now to have in our midst here and there little colonies which will do for our age the work which the best monasteries did for the Middle Ages, and perhaps [p.139] something more even than this, in that we need no longer have their limitations?
What would such a monastery be, if we can picture it in its main features?
The first monks were always anxious to have their cells built in some out of the way spot, and sometimes moved the site of their abbeys to avoid the dangers to their inward life which seemed to them to come with the invasions of sounds and sights, which the approach of "the world" brought with it. We do not now believe in the separation of the life of the Church from that of men outside it, and there was at times, perhaps, some thing selfish in the monkish love of quiet isolation, but for certain high purposes of the monastery there was a sound instinct in it too. If the community remains in living touch with those without, sending its members out from it and receiving guests on visits long or short, it will, in many cases, do its work best if its situation provides it with a natural atmosphere and background of peace and quiet, corresponding to that inward atmosphere which is to play around the life of its members.
Our monastery then will be placed in some little frequented spot, if possible close to one of those natural bridges over which we may most easily pass into communion with the life of nature unmarred by man's civilization; at the edge of some rolling heather moorland, where for miles you may walk and see no sign of house or road, under a ridge [p.140] of the limestone fells, or beneath the shadow of a great chalk down, where the sheep wander freely, or if mountain and moor be too far away, within reach of some solitary beach where the sea and wind sing to each other; or with an outlook over some wide plain, with broad horizons giving some sense of openness and freedom.
Thus the companions of the House of Peace will have constantly near them the opportunity of silent intercourse with nature; they can go out, wet or fine, sometimes alone and sometimes in company, to let the fresh winds and the sunlight and the spirit of the great open spaces play about them, making them stronger and fitter for joy and labour, for study, work and prayer.
For the House of Peace will be a dwelling place where work is done. It will have its garden, with flowers and fruit trees to be tended, kitchen herbs to be raised; there will be beehives and poultry, and it may be the cares of a small farm; but beast and bird will be treated as friendly companions, objects of the Divine care and therefore, too, of the good will and reverence of the dwellers in the House.
There will be books: especially such as will help most the inner life of man, the Acta sanctorum, and all stories of the saints of God; the records of other religions than ours, the works of philosophers, poets and thinkers; and such a general library as would befit a home whose windows look out on to many sides of life.
[p.141]
But it will not be enough for the House to be supplied with opportunity for fruitful study, quiet cells for work and meditation, and with manual labour in garden, field and orchard for all who are fitted for it. Side by side with all this, lest the life of the place grow self-centred, there must be some redemptive work going on, for those who would not themselves have been helped by all this storehouse of good things, apart from the mediation and ministry of its inmates.
This might be found in the education of back ward or delicate children from poor homes, physically or mentally in need of special care and protection, or in the care of convalescents; it might be found in the training upon the adjoining farm or in the carpenter's workshop, as well as in special classes held within the House itself, of a small group of lads from some reformatory, or juvenile offenders to whom our present prison system offers only imperfect means of succour. In helping in their training, in joining in their games the companions of the House of Peace would find a noble part of their own work and joy; they would hope too to share with these younger brothers not a little of the deeper inspiration of common worship.
There might be as a part of the House rooms for married companions, while single men and single women could be lodged in separate wings or in hostels of their own. Grouped near there might be cottages with homes linked to the House [p.142] by ties more or less close, whose inmates would share in much of the work of the community and in the privilege of common worship. The centre of all would be the place of prayer, the hearth where each companion would come to rekindle his own torch of love and aspiration; a place always open, used in common at certain times and by all companions who were able to come there, used also frequently throughout the day for silent prayer and meditation, whether by the companions and their guests, or the passing stranger who might care to enter in.
At least at one meal during the day the ancient practice would be maintained of one companion reading aloud from some helpful book while the rest kept silence. During certain hours of the day silence would also be observed, though with no slavish bond.
The Buddhist monasteries of Burmah fulfil in the life of that people a place which might, to some small extent, be taken for us by a group of such Houses of Rest. It is the duty of every Burmese Buddhist who desires to fulfil the whole ideal of manhood to pass some portion of his life, it may be months or years, it may even be only weeks or days, as a monk in a Buddhist monastery, learning its lessons and drinking in its peace. So, too, into our House of Rest might come, at different stages of their lives, the eager seeker after truth, the strong man in the midst of the battle of his work, the weary, [p.143] tired and disheartened by their failure; all would find a welcome, a home of refreshment, where in the atmosphere of prayer, with the daily round of simple work, of study, of open air life and common worship, they might find guidance and renewal of strength. Some might only stay for a short while, others for longer periods; yet others might find in the House of Rest their central home, returning there at intervals after periods of labour as social ministers in the crowded towns, in which, perhaps, a number of different branches of work might be affiliated in some way to the central House of Rest, which would be a storehouse to supply help to these branches far away.
One of the rocks upon which the old monastic system made shipwreck was the corporate selfishness which came to the monks through their possessions. They had renounced individual wealth, but they were too zealous to secure for their abbeys the property which might enhance their usefulness and assure their future growth. Believing as we do that institutions like men must die to give place to new life, we must not try to secure an earthly immortality for a good institution, any more than for a good individual. It would probably be best then that our House of Rest should not be a legal corporation, able to own and receive property. Its companions should be tenants on God's earth; their House should be lent them in trust, but not be owned by them. It might still, however, be possible for those who [p.144] desired for a longer period to have the privilege of holy poverty, to renounce for the time being their own income, without taking any vow or handing over to the community possessions which they might rightly resume at a later date, in trust for the world they would serve.
Paul Sabatier has finely said that one of the great claims which distinguishes still the ancient Catholic Church is the unlimited opportunity for self-sacrifice which she holds forth to her children. We cannot get the utmost except for the highest. Our house of prayer and of work, where self-denial might be found to the full united with the joy of service, would give this opportunity of self-surrender, of self-discipline untainted by false asceticism, of comradeship in sacrifice and in the purest joys and highest aspirations of the heart, which in the depths of our soul we need and long for. May it not even yet be built, this House of Peace and Prayer?
A GREAT patristic scholar who, though a lover of theology, is also a lover of his fellow-men, has related how, journeying across the lonely desert of Arabia the Rocky towards the holy monastery of Sinai, he came upon a band of peasant pilgrims; he did not know their language nor they his, but each made the sign of the Cross as they drew near one another, and as they did so they seemed at once to be friends. He was greeted with welcoming smiles, and the way through the wilderness was lightened by the sense of Christian fellowship. It cheered him to feel how that ancient sacred symbol had surmounted the barriers of race and speech, making these strangers feel that they were comrades and fellow pilgrims travelling to a common goal. And yet he could not but recall with a sense of sorrowful irony the thought that, had he made the sign of the Cross not in the Greek, but in the Latin way, he would have been met with sullen indifference and distrust, if not with anger. These simple Russian peasants were the spiritual descendants of the [p.146] brave men who centuries ago went to death at the stake rather than place their fingers and thumb in the new-fangled way, which, to their mind, symbolised some error in the conception of the doctrine of the Trinity, a departure from the one orthodox fashion by which the Church should be guided in making the holy sign.
It is difficult for us to realise that so small a change should make so great a difference to the welcome given to a stranger; and, yet, perhaps some of the differences which separate Western Christians to-day may be almost as foolish in the sight of the angels.
An English parson once sadly told how, when travelling in France in his cassock, he had been delighted by a number of ecclesiastics coming to call upon their foreign confrere, and how, to his dismay, they all incontinently fled, as from contagion of plague, when they realised that he was only an Anglican; he doubtless felt acutely the blindness of the worthy Romans who failed to recognise the apostolic nature of his orders. As acutely, perhaps, some Nonconformist minister at home may have regretted a similar attitude on the part of the good parson to the unhallowed ministrations of the dissenter.
When we look back over the long centuries that separate us from the early Apostolic Church, there are few things which make us sadder than this spirit of distrust and hostility, showing itself between men who alike believe themselves to be Christians. [p.147] It is no new thing; what is new to-day as a wide spread spirit is the desire to transcend our differences, not by despising or ignoring the things which separate us, nor yet by the victory of one church or sect over another, or the absorption of the lesser by the greater community, but by the better understanding of each other and of ourselves, the closer co-operation where co-operation is possible, and, it may be, the gradual realisation of a unity deeper than all that keeps us apart.
We remember how the mocking scorn of Celsus made sport of the divisions between Catholic and heretic Christians of his day, while both alike were a persecuted minority struggling against the edicts of pagan Rome. Montanists and orthodox suffered sometimes side by side, and yet, while awaiting death in the same prisons, they would hold no communion with each other.
This tragic mutual intolerance between Arian and Athanasian, Iconodule and Iconoclast, goes on down the ages; was it not, in part at least, one wonders, due to the fact that each party considered that they alone had the monopoly of truth; that their own doctrine contained the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Free trade in thought, if it be right to use the metaphor of commerce for the life-giving intercourse of mind with mind, is late in coming in the world's history, but it has surely come to stay. As we look back over the great divisions of the past, we feel now that there was some right at least on both sides: in some [p.148] cases we find it hard to understand how men could have fought so bitterly over what seems now so small. The shape of the tonsure of the clergy, the date of the celebration of Easter, and such grounds of difference, caused almost as much bitterness in their day as did profound dissensions on the nature of the Godhead or the meaning of the Incarnation. Even when no theological difference separated men, within the Church itself and within a single religious order, there has been the bitterest disagreement and separation of spirit over things we now hold trifling; such a matter, for instance, as the shape of the hood to be worn by Observant Franciscans, at the time of the rise of the Capuchin Friars.
We have come at length to understand that the human spirit expresses itself in various ways in its upward striving, that the language of worship may vary for different races, for different men within the same race, for the individual himself with his changing needs, and that in differing we need not always condemn each other. So, too, it seems that men are ceasing to feel that uniformity in Church government is possible or even desirable. The work of the Free Church Council with all its limitations has enabled the members of the larger Nonconformist bodies to co-operate together and understand each other better, to feel a common unity of membership while retaining their loyalty to their own denomination. This drawing together has been realised, not by discussion of [p.149] denominational differences, but by common work and common worship, by sharing in the same efforts, listening to the same messages of guidance, following as co-disciples along the same road.
Still more remarkable as an expression of the vital forces at work in English society is the growth of inter-denominational fellowship shown in the Student Christian movement, and the conferences which it has promoted, characterised by joint study of social and missionary problems, and by union in worship, in which denominational barriers have not indeed disappeared, but have sunk on to a lower level, for many at least of those who have been thus drawn together to behold the vision of the vast work still unaccomplished at home and abroad, with the knowledge that all alike are coming for strength to one source, striving to serve one Master.
While a friendlier understanding has been helping men to cross by sympathy the ancient chasms which have separated church from church for so long, there has been visible too in recent years a marked tendency towards greater organic unity between religious communities closely allied to each other. Locally this has occasionally found expression in the springing up of "union churches," whose members originally belonged to different Nonconformist denominations, but such union sometimes has come about for convenience rather than from conviction, and has not always been permanent in character. It is different with the [p.150] union of the three Methodist Societies now combined in the United Methodist Church, or with the great movement which brought about the United Free Church of Scotland. We may look forward in the near future to still further developments of this spirit, and already a leader of Free Church thought, Dr. J. H. Shakespeare, the Secretary of the Baptist Union, has outlined proposals for the incorporation of the great Nonconformist denominations in one national communion, a Free Church of England, which would retain within its compass the different rites and systems of Church government of its various constituent churches. This would still leave unsolved the greater problem of the separation between the Free Churches and the Church of England, but it would be in itself an immense step forward as a practical recognition of common discipleship, and as such would be welcomed warmly by many of us who, almost certainly, would be left outside the ecclesiastical membership of this great Free Church. The Free Church Council has already done something to make such a union possible; and even if no formal connection between various churches whose members are associated with its work should be achieved, yet, in point of fact, a common member ship is being realised by them. The great leaders of Free Church thought and action are recognised not merely as belonging to one denomination, but as prophets and teachers for all. The worth of their ministry is felt even by those who cannot [p.151] recognise the validity of their orders, because of its non-episcopal origin.[32]
And yet all such plans for the promotion of visible ecclesiastical reunion do not touch the heart of things. In earlier ages men have sought reunion through ecclesiastical organisation and through fuller realisation of doctrinal unity, and [p.152] have failed repeatedly in the attempt. Can we hope to achieve union now by some ingenious scheme of comprehensive Church Government or by the formulation of a new creed where all the old creeds have failed to unite men?
Would not even the widest Church leave outside its membership multitudes now drawing together in Adult Schools and Brotherhoods and kindred Societies, under the inspiration of Christian influence, but without any formal connection with the Church, and beyond them an unknown number of men and women whose lives turn for their inspiration to the Master whose name they reverence, but do not venture to take?
Yet such men, whose life-creed is better than their thought-creed, are a proof that discipleship is a vital relationship, involving more than a mere emotional surrender or intellectual submission. It will surely be in the more faithful working out of this conception of discipleship, that Christian folk will be able to achieve that spirit of unity which is of more value than external Reunion.
Wherever wrong ideals of life exist, we are coming to feel there is a loss, not merely to the individuals immediately concerned, but to an ever widening circle about them. We cannot acquiesce in moral failure or divest ourselves of responsibility for it, because we ourselves adopt a different standpoint. Much less can we consent to make a truce with what we see is wrong in the Church to which we belong. [p.153]
A sixteenth century Cardinal who was engaged in controversy with his Protestant colleague, Odet de Coligny, found a curious consolation for the practical failure of the Church of his day by his exposition of a text in the Song of Solomon: "I am black but comely," was, he held, a prophetic saying applied to the Church, black in point of morals, comely in point of doctrine.
To-day, however much we may differ in doctrine, we are coming to feel that in every failure to realise the Christian ideal of character, the loss of each religious community is the loss of all; wherever a Church rises to higher levels of sacrifice, or raises the standard of its members' lives, the benefit is felt far beyond its own borders.
The saints, whether canonised or uncanonised by authority, are the common heritage of all who are striving to find their lives dominated by the same purpose; they are a constant unifying influence throughout the world, even though their messages differ as greatly as they often have done in the past.
As the different Christian communities frankly face the unconquered evils in the world about them, as their individual members set themselves to wrestle against the selfish instincts in their own lives, and to become more effective agents of peace and goodwill amongst their neighbours and worthier citizens of the state, they will find themselves working side by side with allies they had not hitherto known; in extending the bounds of [p.154] knowledge and the rule of a kindlier law, sharing the same spirit of sacrifice, facing the same difficulties, they will be united by more than a common hope, they will feel within them the inspiration of the same spirit.
If then the new spirit making for co-operation and truer understanding of each other which is already at work amongst the different churches is to have fuller influence, do we not need to set out with a new enthusiasm upon the common task which awaits us at home and abroad, and to work out together new applications of the social teaching of the Christian Church? For many, this will come along the lines of political and municipal action, in using what powers and duties the law already gives us, as well as in making better laws or claiming extended facilities for communal action.
But however much the powers and functions of the state may be altered and extended, there are vast regions which must for ever lie outside its domain: evils which laws and bye-laws cannot control, where the mysterious forces of personality have play, and the healing spiritual influences may work, which come with the direct contact of goodness and unselfishness, upon the broken and bruised failures of humanity. The state may punish wrong-doing, it may prevent particular acts of crime, it may confine its hardened criminals within the walls of a prison. It cannot convert them from themselves, it cannot redeem them. The state may give pensions to old age, and make [p.155] provision for the sick, the blind and the maimed, the epileptic, the lunatic, the idiot and the feeble-minded. It cannot bring to these darkened lives what most they need, the sunlight of human love and comradeship, the healing influence of an atmosphere of prayer and of unselfish service in which they may come themselves into touch with the Centre and Source of this pure and cleansing stream of good.
This must be once again the task of the Church, as it was in the best days of the monasteries, the guilds and confraternities of the middle ages. We need to have a fresh Crusade, not to conquer any far-off enemy, but against our apathy towards the social evils in our midst. Can we not hope to see a network of new guilds and brotherhoods, settlements, houses of peace and healing, covering the length and breadth of the land, where men and women will sacrifice some portion at least of their lives, giving of their work and leisure to this task? Some will afford a shelter to the outcasts of society, who are driven now from prison to casual ward, and from workhouse to jail, for whom the commercial world has no use, to whom the law offers nothing but threats and penalties: others will provide training for boys or girls who have been committed to industrial schools, or will offer a fresh start to those who have fallen into serious crime: there will be some which will try to provide a home and work for the weaklings, or those who are prevented by mental or physical defect from [p.156] holding their own in the ordinary streams of life. Others again will offer an asylum to sickness, helplessness and old age. Centres of prayer, as well as centres of work, they will be the schools of saints, where men in serving the needy in many different ways, will all the while be brought nearer to the ultimate reunion of Christendom and of humanity.