Joy and Power Part 2

Yes, but open your eyes again and you will see it in the same place, in the same form, doing the same work. A most persistent nothing, a most powerful nothing! Not the shadow cast by the good, but the cloud that hides the sun and casts the shadow. Not the "silence implying sound,"

but the discord breaking the harmony. Evil is as real as the fire that burns you, as the flood that drowns you. Evil is as real as the typhoid germ that you can put under a microscope and see it squirm and grow.

Evil is negative,--yes, but it is a real negative,--as real as darkness, as real as death.

There are two things in every human heart which bear witness to the existence and reality of evil: first, our judgments of regret, and second, our judgments of condemnation.

How often we say to ourselves, "Would that this had not come to pa.s.s!"

How often we feel in regard to our own actions, "Would that I had done differently!" This is the judgment of regret; and it is a silent witness of the heart to the conviction that some things are not inevitable. It is the confession that a battle has been lost which might have been won.

It is the acknowledgment that things which are, but are not right, need not have been, if we and our fellow-men had seen more clearly and followed more faithfully the guiding star of the good.

And then, out of the judgment of regret, springs the deeper judgment of condemnation. If the failure in duty was not inevitable, then it was base. The false word, the unjust deed, the foul action, seen as a surrender to evil, appears hateful and guilty. It deserves the indignation and the shame which attach to all treason. And the spirit which lies behind all these forms of disloyalty to the good,--the spirit which issues in selfishness and sensuality, cruelty and l.u.s.t, intemperance and covetousness,--this animating spirit of evil which works against the Divine will and mars the peace and order of the universe is the great Adversary against whom we must fight for our own lives and the life of the world.

All around us lies his dark, secret kingdom, tempting, threatening, a.s.saulting the soul. To ignore it, is to walk blindfold among snares and pitfalls. Try if you will to shut it out, by wrapping your heart in dreams of beauty and joy, living in the fair regions of art or philosophy, reading only the books which speak of evil as if it did not exist or were only another form of goodness. Soon you will be shaken out of the dream into the reality. You will come into contact with evil so close, so loathsome that you can not deny it. You will see that it has its soldiers, its servants, its emissaries, as ardent and enthusiastic in its cause as if they were serving the n.o.blest of masters. It inspires literature and supports newspapers; now intelligent and cultured, drawing the arts into its service; now coa.r.s.e and vulgar, with pictures that shock the taste as much as they debase the conscience. It wins adherents and turns them into advocates. It organizes the dealers in drunkenness and debauchery into powerful societies for mutual protection. It creates lobbies and controls legislatures. It corrupts the government of great cities and rots out the social life of small towns. Even when its outward manifestations are repressed and its grosser forms resisted, it steals its way into men's hearts, eating out the roots of human trust and brotherhood and kindness, and filling the air with gossip and spite, envy, malice and all uncharitableness.

I am glad that since we have to live in a world where evil exists, we have a religion which does not bandage our eyes. The first thing that we need to have religion do for us is to teach us to face the facts. No man can come into touch with the Divine personality of Jesus Christ, no man can listen to His teaching, without feeling that the distinction between good and evil to Him is vital and everlasting. The choice between them is to Him the great choice. The conflict between them is to Him the great conflict. Evil is the one thing that G.o.d has never willed. Good is the one thing that He wills forever. Evil is first and last a rebellion against His will. He is altogether on the side of good. Much that is, is contrary to His will. There is a mighty strife going on, a battle with eternal issues, but not an eternal battle. The evil that is against Him shall be cast out and shall perish. The good that overcomes the evil shall live forever. And those who yield their lives to G.o.d and receive His righteousness in Christ are made partakers of everlasting life.

This is the teaching of Jesus: and I thank G.o.d for the honesty and virility of His religion which makes us face the facts and calls us to take a man's part in the real battle of life.

II. But what is the plan of campaign which Christianity sets before us?

In what spirit and with what weapons are we to enter the great conflict against the evil that is in the world?

The natural feeling of the heart in the presence of evil is wrath, and the natural weapon of wrath is force. To punish crime, to avenge wrong, to put down wickedness with a strong hand,--that is the first impulse of every one who has the instincts of manhood.

And as this is natural, so it is, also, within a certain sphere needful, and to a certain extent useful. Armies and navies exist, at least in theory, to prevent injustice among nations. Laws are made to punish wrong-doers. Courts, police-forces, and prisons are maintained to suppress evil with power.

But while we recognize this method of dealing with evil as useful to a certain extent and necessary within a certain sphere, we must remember that it has its strict limitations.

First, it belongs to the state and not to the individual. When the private man a.s.sumes to punish evil with force he sanctions lynch-law, which is a terror to the innocent as well as to the guilty. Then we have the blood-feud and the vendetta, mob-rule and anarchy.

Second, the suppression of evil by force is only a temporary relief, a protection for the moment. It does not touch the root of the matter. You send the murderer out of the world by a regulated flash of lightning.

But you do not send murder out of the world. To do that you must reach and change the heart of Cain. You put the thief in prison, but when he comes out he will be ready to steal again, unless you can purify his conscience and control his will. You a.s.sault and overthrow some system of misgovernment, and "turn the rascals out." But unless you have something better to subst.i.tute, all you have done is to make room for a new set of rascals,--a new swarm of mosquitoes with fresh appet.i.tes and larger capacities.

Third, the method of fighting evil with force on its own ground often has a bad effect on those who follow it. Wrestle with a chimney-sweep and you will need a bath. Throw back the mud that is thrown at you, and you will have dirty hands. Answer s.h.i.+mei when he curses you and you will echo his profanity. Many a man has entered a crusade against intemperance and proved himself as intemperate in his language as other men are in their potations. Many a man has attacked a bad cause with righteous indignation and ended in a personal squabble with most unrighteous anger.

No, my brother-men, the best way to fight against evil is not to meet it on its own ground with its own weapons. There is a n.o.bler method of warfare, a divine plan of campaign given to us in the religion of Christ. Overcome evil with good. This is the secret of the battle of life.

Evil is potent not so much because it has command of money and the "big battalions," but because it has control of the hearts of men. It spreads because human hearts are lying fallow and ready to welcome the seeds of all kinds of weeds. It persists because too much of what we call virtue is negative, and selfish, and frost-bound,--cold storage virtue,--the poor piety which terminates in a trembling anxiety to save our own souls.

The way to counteract and conquer evil in the world is to give our own hearts to the dominion of good, and work the works of G.o.d while it is day. The strongest of all obstacles to the advance of evil is a clean and generous man, doing his duty from day to day, and winning others, by his cheerful fidelity, to serve the same Master. Diseases are not the only things that are contagious. Courage is contagious. Kindness is contagious. Manly integrity is contagious. All the positive virtues, with red blood in their veins, are contagious. The heaviest blow that you can strike at the kingdom of evil is just to follow the advice which the dying Sir Walter Scott gave to his son-in-law, Lockhart: "Be a good man." And if you want to know how, there is but one perfect and supreme example,--the life of Him who not only did no evil but went about doing good.

Now take that thought of fighting evil with good and apply it to our world and to ourselves.

Here are monstrous evils and vices in society. Let intemperance be the type of them all, because so many of the others are its children.

Drunkenness ruins more homes and wrecks more lives than war. How shall we oppose it? I do not say that we shall not pa.s.s resolutions and make laws against it. But I do say that we can never really conquer the evil in this way. I hold with Phillips Brooks that "all prohibitory measures are negative. That they have their uses no one can doubt. That they have their limits is just as clear."

The stronghold of intemperance lies in the vacancy and despair of men's minds. The way to attack it is to make the sober life beautiful and happy and full of interest. Teach your boys how to work, how to read, how to play, you fathers, before you send them to college, if you want to guard them against the temptations of strong drink and the many shames and sorrows that go with it. Make the life of your community cheerful and pleasant and interesting, you reformers, provide men with recreation which will not harm them, if you want to take away the power of the gilded saloon and the grimy boozing-ken. Parks and play-grounds, libraries and music-rooms, clean homes and cheerful churches,--these are the efficient foes of intemperance. And the same thing is true of gambling and lubricity and all the other vices which drag men down by the lower side of their nature because the higher side has nothing to cling to, nothing to sustain it and hold it up.

What are you going to do, my brother-men, for this higher side of human life? What contribution are you going to make of your strength, your time, your influence, your money, your self, to make a cleaner, fuller, happier, larger, n.o.bler life possible for some of your fellow-men? I do not ask how you are going to do it. You may do it in business, in the law, in medicine, in the ministry, in teaching, in literature. But this is the question: What are you going to give personally to make the human life of the place where you do your work, purer, stronger, brighter, better, and more worth living? That will be your best part in the warfare against vice and crime.

The positive method is the only efficient way to combat intellectual error and spiritual evil. False doctrines are never argued out of the world. They are pushed back by the incoming of the truth as the darkness is pushed back by the dawn. Phillips Brooks was right. It is not worth while to cross the street to break a man's idol. It is worth while to cross the ocean to tell him about G.o.d. The skilful fencer who attacks your doubts and drives you from corner to corner of unbelief and leaves you at last in doubt whether you doubt or not, does you a certain service. He gives you exercise, takes the conceit out of you. But the man who lays hold of the real faith that is hidden underneath your doubt,--the silent longing for G.o.d and goodness, the secret attraction that draws your heart toward Jesus Christ as the only one who has the words of everlasting life,--the man who takes hold of this buried faith and quickens it and makes you dare to try to live by it,--ah, that is the man who helps you indeed. My brothers, if any of you are going to be preachers remember this. What we men need is not so much an answer to our doubts, as more nourishment for our faith.

The positive method is the only way of victory in our struggle with the evil that dwells in our own nature and besets our own hearts. The reason why many men fail, is because they thrust the vice out and then forget to lay hold on the virtue. They evict the unclean spirit and leave a vacant house. To cease to do evil is important, but to learn to do good is far more important. Reformation never saved a man. Transformation is the only way. And to be transformed, a man must welcome the Spirit of Good, the Holy Spirit, into his heart, and work with Him every day, doing the will of G.o.d.

There are two ways of fighting fever. One is to dose the sick people with quinine and keep the fever down. The other is to drain the marshes, and purify the water, and cleanse the houses, and drive the fever out.

Try negative, repressive religion, and you may live, but you will be an invalid. Try positive, vital religion, and you will be well.

There is an absorption of good that guards the soul against the infection of evil. There is a life of fellows.h.i.+p with Christ that can pa.s.s through the furnace of the world without the smell of fire on its garments,--a life that is full of interest as His was, being ever about His Father's business; a life that is free and generous and blessed, as His was, being spent in doing good, and refreshed by the sense of G.o.d's presence and approval.

Last summer, I saw two streams emptying into the sea. One was a sluggish, n.i.g.g.ardly rivulet, in a wide, fat, muddy bed; and every day the tide came in and drowned out that poor little stream, and filled it with bitter brine. The other was a vigorous, joyful, br.i.m.m.i.n.g mountain-river, fed from unfailing springs among the hills; and all the time it swept the salt water back before it and kept itself pure and sweet; and when the tide came in, it only made the fresh water rise higher and gather new strength by the delay; and ever the living stream poured forth into the ocean its tribute of living water,--the symbol of that influence which keeps the ocean of life from turning into a Dead Sea of wickedness.

My brother-men, will you take that living stream as a type of your life in the world? The question for you is not what you are going to get out of the world, but what you are going to give to the world. The only way to meet and overcome the inflowing tide of evil is to roll against it the outflowing river of good.

My prayer for you is that you may receive from Christ not only the watchword of this n.o.bler life, but also the power to fulfil it.

THE GOOD OLD WAY

Jeremiah vi. 16. Stand ye in the ways and see; and ask for the old paths, where is the good way; and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

This advice was given to people who were in peril and perplexity. The kingdom of Judah was threatened with destruction, which could be averted only by wise and prompt action. But the trouble was to decide in which direction that action should be taken. The nation was divided into loud parties, and these parties into noisy wings. Every man had a theory of his own, or a variation of some other man's theory.

Some favoured an alliance with the East; some preferred the friends.h.i.+p of the West; others, a course of diplomatic dalliance; a few stood out for honest independence. Some said that what the country needed was an increase of wealth; some held that a splendid and luxurious court like that of Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar would bring prosperity; others maintained that the troubles of the land could be healed only by a return to "simpler manners, purer laws." Among the n.o.bility and their followers all kinds of novelties in the wors.h.i.+p of idols were in fas.h.i.+on and new G.o.ds were imported every season. The philosophers cultivated a discreet indifference to all religious questions. The prophets taught that the only salvation for the nation lay in the putting away of idolatry and the revival of faith in the living and true G.o.d.

Judah was like a man standing at the cross-roads, on a stormy night, with all the guide-posts blown down. Meantime the Babylonian foe was closing in around Jerusalem, and it was necessary to do something, or die.

The liberty of choice was an embarra.s.sment. The minds of men alternated between that rash haste which is ready to follow any leader who makes noise enough, and that skeptical spirit which doubts whether any line of action can be right because so many lines are open. Into this atmosphere of fever and fog came the word of the prophet. Let us consider what it means.

Stand ye in the ways and see: that means deliberation. When you are at a junction it is no time to shut your eyes and run at full speed. Where there are so many ways some of them are likely to be wrong. A turning-point is the place for prudence and forethought.

Ask for the old paths, what is the good way: that means guidance. No man is forced to face the problems of life alone. Other men have tried the different ways. Peace, prosperity, victory have been won by the nation in former times. Inquire of the past how these blessings were secured.

Look for the path which has already led to safety and happiness. Let history teach you which among all these crossing ways is the best to follow.

And walk therein: that means action. When you have deliberated, when you have seen the guiding light upon the way of security and peace, then go ahead. Prudence is worthless unless you put it into practice. When in doubt do nothing; but as long as you do nothing you will be in doubt.

Never man or nation was saved by inaction. The only way out of danger is the way into work. Gird up your loins, trembling Judah, and push along your chosen path, steadily, bravely, strenuously, until you come to your promised rest.

Now I am sure this was good counsel that the prophet gave to his people in the days of perplexity. It would have been well for them if they had followed it I am sure it is also good counsel for us, a word of G.o.d to steady us and stimulate us amid life's confusions. Let me make it a personal message to you.

Stand in the ways: Ask for the good way: Walk therein:--Deliberation, Guidance, Action,--Will you take these words with you, and try to make them a vital influence in your life?

I. First, I ask you to stand in the ways and see. I do not mean to say that you have not already been doing this to a certain extent. The great world is crossed by human footsteps which make paths leading in all directions. Men travel through on different ways; and I suppose some of you have noticed the fact, and thought a little about it.

There is the way of sensuality. Those who walk in it take appet.i.te as their guide. Their main object in life is to gratify their physical desires. Some of them are delicate, and some of them are coa.r.s.e. That is a matter of temperament. But all of them are hungry. That is a matter of principle. Whether they grub in the mire for their food like swine, or browse daintily upon the tree-tops like the giraffe, the question of life for those who follow this way is the same. "How much can we hold?

How can we obtain the most pleasure for these five senses of ours before they wear out?" And the watchword of their journey is, "Let us eat and drink and be merry, for we do not expect to die to-morrow."

There is the way of avarice. Those who follow it make haste to be rich.

The almighty dollar rolls before them along the road, and they chase it.

Some of them plod patiently along the highway of toil. Others are always leaping fences and trying to find short cuts to wealth. But they are alike in this: whatever they do by way of avocation, the real vocation of their life is to make money. If they fail, they are hard and bitter; if they succeed they are hard and proud. But they all bow down to the golden calf, and their motto is, "Lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth."