Men, Women, and God Part 4

But it is quite a different thing to bring laughter to bear on love itself, or on marriage, or on the sacramental intimacies that express love. I believe it is a profane thing to do. Our best instincts call on us to treat these things as sacred. And sacred things are easily spoiled by careless speech. No vulgarities are quite so vulgar as those which, in printed rags and ragged talk, are cl.u.s.tered round marriage.

In the name of all that is beautiful and holy let us be done with them.

Further still, a great many broad stories have in them a minimum of humor and a maximum of dirt. By a strange perversity men who are scrupulously clean in body and who have both intellectual and artistic capacities will stoop to defile their tongues with such things. There are few colleges or offices where public opinion entirely forbids them.

But they do a deadly work none the less. They cling about the mind with fatal tenacity. They surround the subject of s.e.x with unclean a.s.sociations. They defile the inner house of life. And it is in that inner house of thought and imagination that the real battle of purity is fought.

Our real task in this part of life is to see s.e.x as a clean and beautiful thing, to be treated with reverence. Thousands of people never achieve this, even though they live respectable and decent lives.

And the reason lies in the fact that in their early days vile stories and jokes defiled the whole subject for them.

A similar thing is true of pictures. Some day we shall as a race recover the sense that the form of a woman is one of the most beautiful things in all G.o.d's earth. We shall look at the great statues and pictures which do justice to that beauty with no other feelings than thankfulness and joy. But there are very few men who can do that today.

What has made it impossible is the existence of pictures of a suggestive kind, which are handed round in furtive ways, and are literally drenched with unclean a.s.sociations. For which reason it is a real point in connection with a man's struggle that he should have nothing to do with suggestive pictures. Many years ago I had a friend with great intellectual power. He held a position of great responsibility and was widely respected. He also had conspicuous literary gifts, and knew how to work hard and well. But he brought to me the greatest shock I have ever had in my life. When he was well on in the forties he suddenly fell with a crash, and had to fly the country. He was never able to show his face in England again, and died a diseased exile in a foreign land. And all because he had been overtaken by s.e.xual sin of an indescribably shameful kind. The shock he gave me was one of sorrow, for he had been a friend. But it was still more one of amazement that such a thing could have happened to such a man. Later I came to understand. When his effects were being sold there was found in his study cupboard a great pile of indecent French plays and novels. That was what did it. In secret he had for years debauched his mind, and inevitably in the end his thoughts brought forth fruit. That experience taught me once for all how certain it is that the inner world of thoughts is the real place where a man attains or misses purity.

There is something grim and stern about this business. I confess to a certain wholesome fear in connection with it which I hope never to lose; though fear will never do as our predominating emotion in this respect. But I keep a place for fear--enough of it to drive me to my knees. I have seen boys go wrong at fifteen, and I have seen old men go wrong at sixty. I believe that no man is safe until he is dead. He was no coward, nor had he a licentious past behind him, who confessed that late on in life he had to beat his body and bring it into subjection lest having preached to others he should be a castaway. He knew; and was honest and wise enough to keep up precautions to the end.

There is simply no way through this part of life for the man with slack habits and a self-indulgent att.i.tude of spirit. The man who will not stand up and brace himself, who is not game for a fight, and will not endure hardness is never going to make anything fine out of the splendid but difficult enterprise we call human life. And all the time he will need to have his sentinels out. All the time he will need to make sure that he is master in his own house of life, and allows no interloping thoughts or imaginations to run riot there.

But what about religion! The conventional way in which to end a plain talk about any sort of temptation is to say that G.o.d can and will help a man in those straits where his own will is too weak, and that through prayer there is a way of escape for us all. I believe all that absolutely. With great grat.i.tude I may say that I know it. Indeed I cannot understand how any man who has been saved from overthrow can fail to see as he looks back on his life that it was just the goodness of G.o.d that upheld him. But I have learnt to beware how I tell men and women that by prayer they can get through, though all other means fail.

Men who were having to face a severe strain of temptation have come back to me and told me that they had tried the way of prayer and that it had not availed them. The fact is that something far greater than a mere attempt to use prayer as a special device for this special need is required.

We are so made that religion is a divine possibility for all of us.

Indeed it is more than a possibility: it is a necessity if life is ever to seem complete. Without it all other things fail in the end to hold off attacks of disappointment and ennui. Because we were made with the capacity for it, we cannot be content without it. It may take many years for a man to discover that without religion life is going to be a failure; and it is that discovery that const.i.tutes for many the tragedy of middle life. In early days the varied interests of life carry many through in some sort of satisfaction. And yet even with the young the life that is without religion is of necessity an unbalanced life.

Parts of the man or woman concerned are inactive, and the other parts occupy too much of the stage. Till an interest in G.o.d--that greatest of all interests--has entered a man's life attention is too much concerned with other things. Till the spirit is awake the body obtrudes itself too much on consciousness. And thus a man fights the battle of purity on wrong terms. There is no interest so cleansing as an interest in G.o.d. Nothing so takes a man out of himself as the attempt to face His demands. Nothing is so certain to counterbalance all unruly thoughts as to know and wors.h.i.+p Him. No discipline is so bracing and purifying as the discipline of seeking Him.

But this seeking of G.o.d means something much greater than the mere attempt to use prayer for a special purpose. It means getting our whole life rightly related to Him. It means subordinating our desires to His will, and seeing our whole life as something to be used for His glory.

Religion cannot be made a mere appendage to life. It cannot be kept in an outhouse like a motor bike, to be used when occasion calls. When G.o.d comes into a life He comes to rule--and to rule everything. No doubt we are all tempted to resent the surrender of self which is thus asked of us. Instinctively we cry out for our own way. We want to manage our own lives and to plan out our futures in such ways as will please us.

Because religion involves discipline and obedience, we are all apt to turn away from it. We may have liked some of the emotions which are a.s.sociated with wors.h.i.+p, and inspired by religious thoughts. But we want to call no one Master--not even G.o.d. So long as that state lasts no one will find religion a help in the battle with temptation. If we faced the truth about ourselves many of us would find that what we really want is to be allowed to live rather worldly and selfish lives and then to be able to bring G.o.d in on occasion to save us from certain particular sins which we loathe. But that cannot be.

In other words, the way of escape is to get one's whole life and one's whole nature rightly related to G.o.d. That means the profoundest of all possible readjustments, because it means that instead of putting himself in the center of every picture, a man puts G.o.d there. And when that readjustment has been completed the power of temptation is gone. I would not now say to a man merely that if he will pray he will get the help he needs. I would say that if he is willing for a real spiritual experience he may pa.s.s into a new state of being, in which he will fight with success where he used to fail. Religion _will_ do all things for you if you give your whole self to it, but it will not fit into life as an occasional resource.

Let no one suppose, however, that consciousness of G.o.d has no relation to the s.e.xual side of life. Far from it. What the man who submits to G.o.d will find is, firstly, that he is helped to clean and reverent living, and to mastery over his body. But he will also find that when at last real love calls him up into complete companions.h.i.+p of body and soul with a woman he loves, G.o.d Himself will enter into that life and become a.s.sociated with all the emotions and activities which spring from the s.e.x element in our beings. Such men will come to thank G.o.d that He made them with s.e.xual powers in their natures. They will thank Him that pa.s.sion is a fact. They will say with utter conviction that love with all it means both for the bodily and the spiritual life is the greatest of all G.o.d's gifts to man.

Only to have experience of that quality a man _must_ come to marriage undefiled. That is the fact that makes the struggle worth while. That is what Browning meant when he said it was

"worth That a man should strive and agonize And taste a veriest h.e.l.l on earth For the hope of such a prize."

G.o.d does not call us men to a meaningless struggle. The fierceness of temptation is _not_ mere cruelty. The prizes in this part of life are great beyond all telling. If any man who reads these pages will but brace himself for the struggle and put forth all his manhood in order to win through, the day will come when he and a woman who is dear to him will thank G.o.d that he did fight, and will understand that it was abundantly worth while. She is waiting for you out there in the future.

She hopes and prays that when you do find her, you will be such a man as can be honored and truly loved. She probably keeps herself for you, even though you have not yet met her, with some delicate and shy reserve. You will never really be worthy of all that she will give you, but you may at least prepare for her and yourself a great and holy experience. To know the full beauty of the thing that married life may be is nearly if not quite the greatest of human attainments. To spoil it beforehand is the most pitiful of all pities.

Wherefore get up and fight!

ADDENDUM,

ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG MEN STRUGGLING WITH SELF-ABUSE

It is in this form that s.e.xual temptation comes into the lives of a very great many men, including many able, high-minded men. All the general things already said in this chapter are relevant to your case, but I wish to add some direct words to you because I have acute sympathy with you in your trial.

You ought, of course, to have been warned when you were very young, and then you might have escaped the danger. Possibly you slipped into the habit without at first realizing that it was wrong; and probably now you hate the habit, and even sometimes hate yourselves because of it.

It is quite likely, too, that false and exaggerated things have been said to you about it and made you miserably afraid.

Now it _is_ a bad habit. It is bad because you feel it to be unworthy and rather unclean, and it creates unhappy a.s.sociations in your mind in connection with s.e.x, which is a very unfortunate thing for you. And it is a perversion. It is an unnatural way of satisfying s.e.xual craving, and, as you know, it leaves psychic disturbance behind it. The one perfect way of satisfying s.e.xual desire is complete union with a woman you truly and honorably love. That leaves behind it a feeling of complete satisfaction and rest. All other ways leave psychic disturbance. Further, this habit often leads to active h.o.m.os.e.xuality.

I hear of men who talk as if h.o.m.os.e.xuality was quite a normal and right thing with men of a certain type. It is, in fact, _always_ a regression (see quotation from Dr. Crichton Miller in chapter for girls, p. 107).

Do get that fixed in your mind. It is an abnormal, unnatural thing which has definite and evil nervous results.

But let me get back to the problem of self-abuse.

The Student Christian Movement lately collected from a number of doctors, psychologists, and other experienced people, a body of valuable truths and suggestions about this matter, and I cannot do better than pa.s.s them on to you.

_Firstly_, what are the facts about its consequences? These have been exaggerated. Its effects are chiefly psychical. It does not affect the intelligence or weaken mental power. It takes long to weaken the body, and it is rarely, if ever, a cause of insanity.

On the other hand, it does destroy self-respect; it does leave men psychically disturbed, and for that reason it affects consciousness of the presence of G.o.d disproportionately quickly as compared with other sins, and produces the feeling of loss of spiritual power. There are, in fact, abundant reasons for desiring deliverance, though there is no reason for panic.

As has been said again and again in this book, our s.e.xual nature is a gift from G.o.d, with glorious possibilities in it of enriching experience. That is why it is so very important not to misuse it.

Now if you really want deliverance, you have first to realize that the seat of the trouble and of the cure is in the mind. (Occasionally there is a slight abnormality that requires surgical treatment, but that is exceptional.)

The content of the mind in ordinary times is even more important than at the crisis. It may be too late then.

You must prepare the ground by resting on G.o.d even when you do not feel the need of Him. Fill your mind with clean, healthy things, and expel l.u.s.tful thoughts, even though they may seem to have no special physical effects.

Give full play to your affections--love of family, of friends, of men and women, and children.

Devote your bodily strength, and the life force that is in you, to great positive ends--the service of G.o.d and man.

Keep healthy. Here are wise practical details. Take plenty of exercise, but not too much. Men often fail when tired out. Avoid heavy meals-- especially late at night. Take cold baths daily. Do not lie in bed after waking. Avoid quacks like the plague. Beware of the reactions that follow emotional excitement. Work off your emotions in positive ways. Emotionalism has danger in it.

Learn to pray for the right thing, not for deliverance, but for strength for victory. Learn to trust G.o.d in all things--in this among others.

If you want to prevent the thing from obsessing you, you must not let your failures obsess you. Turn your back on them. The only way to drive out one thought is to put another in. An attempt merely to shut down is doomed to failure. Concentrate on active life and service. The truth is, you cannot have the help of Christ just for the cure of this evil.

Give yourself wholly to Him, and you will find He has set you free. You cannot bring religion in just for a part of life. If your whole life is in G.o.d's hands this trouble will disappear.

_Lastly_, a word to the man who is down and out.

G.o.d is strong enough and near enough for this never to happen again if you will let Him have the whole of you--not body only, but mind and heart and life. But if you do fail again, do not despair, do not blame G.o.d, and do not say or think that He has finished with you.

G.o.d's love is such that He will never turn from you if you turn to Him.

G.o.d is no farther from the failures than from the successful. He cares as much for those who fail.

The real and ultimate danger of this thing is not danger to your mind and body, but the danger that it may come between you and G.o.d.

Wherefore come back to G.o.d every time.

Remember, whatever the past has held, there are still great possibilities of happiness and victory before you through the power of G.o.d.

Others are in as great difficulties, and others who were in them have won through to victory. There is reason for hope.

We are not meant always to stand alone. Two are more than twice as strong as one. Perhaps you should share your difficulty. Only do not make it an excuse for getting mawkish sympathy.