Various - "Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891"

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Bertha Muzzy Bower - "The Happy Family"

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The Christian Life written by Thomas Arnold

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But go on a little farther, and what are the things which must come to
pass then? A new and most solemn interest arising to us in the entrance
of our children into active life. Hitherto they have lived under our
care, and our duty to them was simple; but now there comes the choice of
a profession, the watching and guiding them, as well as we can, at this
critical moment of their course. What cares await us here; and yet what
need of avoiding over care! What a trial for us, how we value our
children's worldly interests when compared with their eternal--whether
we prefer for them the path which may lead most readily to worldly
wealth and honour, or that in, which they may best and safest follow
Christ! This is a danger which will come to pass to us ere long: do we
watch and pray that we may be delivered from it?

The interest of life, which had, perhaps, something begun to fade for
ourselves, will revive with vigour at this period in behalf of our
children; but after this it will go on steadily ebbing. What life can
offer we have tasted for ourselves; we have seen it tasted, or in the
way to be tasted, by them. The harvest is gathered, and the symptoms of
the fall appear. Is it that some faculty becomes a little impaired, some
taste a little dulled; or is it that the friends and companions of our
life are beginning to drop away from us? Long since, those whom we loved
of the generation before us have been gathered to the grave; now those
of our own generation are falling fast also--brothers, sisters, friends
of our early youth, a wife, a husband. We are surrounded by a younger
generation, to whom the half of our lives, with all their recollections
and sympathies, are a thing unknown. Impatience, weariness, a clinging
to the past, a vain wish to prolong it in an earthly future,--these are
the things which shall befal us then: and they will befal us too surely,
and too irresistibly, unless, by earlier watchfulness and prayer, we may
have been enabled to avoid them. For vain will it be, with faculties at
once weakened by the decay of nature and perverted by long habits of
worldliness, to essay, for the first time, to force our way into the
kingdom of heaven. Old age is not the season for contest and victory;
nor shall we then be so able to escape unharmed from the temptations of
life as to stand before the Son of Man.

These are the things which will come to pass for us and for you. But for
you there is much more to come, which to us is not future now, but past
or present. With you, for a time, it will be all a course forwards and
upwards. From the preparation for life, you will come to the reality;
from a state of less importance, you will be passing on to one of
greater. Your temptations, whatever they may be now, will not certainly
become weaker. As outward restraint is more and more taken off from you,
so your need of inward restraint will be greater. Will those who are
extravagant now on a small scale, be less extravagant on a large scale?
Will those who are selfish now, become less selfish amidst a wider field
of enjoyment? Will those who know not or care not for Christ, while yet,
as it were, standing quietly on the shore, be led to think of him more
amidst the excitement of the first setting sail, amidst the interest of
the first newly-seen country?

You know not yet, nor can know, the immense importance of that period of
life on which many of you are entering, or have just entered. You are
coming, or come, to what may be called the second beginning of life: to
which, in the common course of things, there will succeed no third.
Ignorance, absence of temptation, the presence of all good impressions,
constitute much of the innocence of mere childhood,--so beautiful while
it lasts, so sure to be soon blighted! It is blighted in the first
experience of life, most commonly when a boy first goes to school. Then
his mere innocence, which indeed he may be said to have worn rather
instinctively than by choice, becomes grievously polluted. Then come the
hardness, the coarseness, the intense selfishness; sometimes, too, the
falsehood, the cruelty, the folly of the boy: then comes that period, so
trying to the faith of parents, when all their early care seems blasted;
when the vineyard, which they had fenced so tenderly, seems all
despoiled and trodden under foot. It is indeed a discouraging season,
the exact image of the ungenial springs of our natural year. But after
this there comes, as it were, a second beginning of life, when principle
takes the place of innocence. There is a time,--many of you must have
arrived at it,--when thought and inquiry awaken; when, out of the mere
chaos of boyhood, the elements of the future character of the man begin
to appear. Blessed are they for whom the confusion and disarray of their
boyish life is quickened into a true life by the moving of the Spirit of
God! Blessed are they for whom the beginnings of thought and inquiry are
the beginnings also of faith and love; when the new character receives,
as it is forming, the Christian seed, and the man is also the Christian.
And, then, this second beginning of life, resting on faith and conscious
principle, and not on mere passive innocence, stands sure for the middle
and the end: those who so watch and pray as to escape out of this
critical period, not merely unharmed, but, as it were, set clearly on
their way to heaven, will, with God's grace, escape out of the things
which shall befal them afterwards, till they shall stand before the
Son of Man.

But the word is, "Watch and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy
to escape." We see the time with many of you come, or immediately
coming; out of your present state _a_ character will certainly be
formed; as surely as the innocence of childhood has perished, so surely
will the carelessness of boyhood perish too. _A_ character will be
formed, whether you watch and pray, or whether you do neither; but the
great point is what this character may be. If you do not watch the
process, it will surely be the character of death eternal. Thought and
inquiry will satisfy themselves very readily with an answer as far as
regards spiritual things: their whole vigour will be devoted to the
things of this world, to science or to business, or to public matters,
all alike hardening rather than softening to the mind, if its thoughts
do not go to something higher and deeper still. And as years pass on, we
may think on these our favourite or professional subjects more and more
earnestly; our views on them may be clearer and sounder, but there comes
again nothing like the first free burst of thought in youth; the
intellect in later life, if its tone was not rightly taken earlier,
becomes narrowed in proportion to its greater vigour; one thing it sees
clearly, but it is blind to all beside. It is in youth that the after
tone of the mind is happily formed, when that natural burst of thought
is sanctified and quickened by God's Spirit, and we set up within us to
love and adore, all our days, the one image of the truth of God, our
Saviour Jesus. Then, whatever else may befal us afterwards, it rarely
happens that our faith will fail; his image, implanted in us, preserves
us amid every change; we are counted worthy to escape all the things
which may come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.




LECTURE XII

* * * * *

PROVERBS i. 28.

_Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me
early, but they shall not find me_.


Christ's gospel gives out the forgiveness of sins; and as this is its
very essence, so also in what we read connected with Christ's gospel,
the tone of encouragement, of mercy, of loving-kindness to sinners, is
ever predominant. What was needed at the beginning of the gospel is no
less needed now; we cannot spare one jot or one tittle of this gracious
language; now, as ever, the free grace, that most seems to be without
the law, does most surely establish the law. But yet there is another
language, which is to be found alike in the Old Testament and in the
New; a language not indeed so common as the language of mercy, but yet
repeated many times; a language which we also need as fully as it was
ever needed, and of whose severity we can no more spare one tittle than
we can spare anything of the comfort of the other. And yet this language
has not, I think, been enforced so often as it should have been. Men
have rather shrunk from it, and seemed afraid of it; they have connected
it sometimes with certain foolish and presumptuous questions, which we,
indeed, do well to turn from; but they have not seen, that with such it
has no natural connexion, but belongs to a certain fact in the
constitution of our nature, and is most highly moral and practical.

The language to which. I allude is expressed, amongst other passages,
by the words of the text. They speak of men's calling upon God, and of
his refusing to hear them; of men's seeking God, and not finding him.
Remember, at the same time, our Lord's words, "Ask, and ye shall
receive; seek, and ye shall find." I purposely put together these
opposite passages, because the full character of God's Revelation is
thus seen more clearly. Do we doubt that our Lord's words are true, and
do we not prize them as some of the most precious which he has left us?
We do well to do so; but shall we doubt any more the truth of the words
of the text; and shall we not consider them as a warning no less needful
than the comfort in the other case? Indeed, as true as it is, that, if
we seek God, we shall find him; so true is it that we may seek him, and
yet not find him.

Now, then, how to explain this seeming contradiction? We can see at
once, that these things are not said of the same persons, or rather of
the same characters at the same time. They are said of the same persons:
that is, there is no one here assembled who is not concerned with both,
and to whom both may not be applicable. Only they are not and cannot be
both applicable to the same person at the very same time. If God will be
found by us, at any given moment, on our seeking him, it is impossible
that, at that same moment, he should also not be found. Thus far is
plain to every one.

And now, is it true of us, at this present time, that God will be found
by us if we seek him, or that he will not be found? If we say that he
will be found, then the words of the text are not applicable to us at
present, although at some future time they may be; and then we have that
well-known difficulty to encounter, to attempt to draw the mind's
attention to a future and only contingent evil. If we say that he will
not be found, then of what avail can it be to say any word more? Why sit
we in this place, to preach, or to listen to preaching, if God, after
all, will not be found? Or, again, should we say that there are some by
whom he will not be found, then who are they that are thus horribly
marked out from among their brethren? Can we dare to conceive of any one
amongst us that he is such an one; that there are some, nay, that there
is any one amongst us, to whom it is the same thing whether he will
hear, or whether he will forbear; who may close his ears as safely as
open them, because God has turned his face from him for ever? It were
indeed horrible to suppose that any one of us were in such a state; and
happily it is a thought of horror which the truth may allow us to repel.

But what, if I were to say, that now, at this very moment, the words of
the text are both applicable to us, and not applicable? Is this a
contradiction, and therefore impossible? Or is it but a seeming
contradiction only, and not only possible, but true? Let us see how the
case appears to be.

We should allow, I suppose, that the words of the text were at no time
in any man's earthly life so true as they will be at the day of
judgment. The hardest heart, the most obdurate in sin, the most closed
against all repentance, is yet more within the reach of grace, we should
imagine, whilst he is alive and in health, than he will be at the day of
the resurrection. We can admit, then, that the words of the text may be
true, in a greater or less degree; that they will be more entirely true
at the last day, than at any earlier period, but yet that they may be
substantially true, true almost beyond exception, in the life that now
is. Now carry this same principle a little farther, and we come to our
very own case. The words of the text will be more true at the day of
judgment, than they ever are on earth; and yet on earth they are often
true substantially and practically. And even so, they may be more true
to each of us a few years hence, than they are at this moment; and yet,
in a certain degree, they may be true at this moment; true, not
absolutely and entirely, but partially; so true as to give a most solemn
earnest, if we are not warned in time, of their more entire truth
hereafter,--first, in this earthly life; then most perfectly of all,
when we shall arise at the last day.

It may be, then, that the words of the text, although not applicable to
us in their full and most fatal sense, may yet be applicable to us in a
certain degree: the evil which they speak of may be, not wholly future
and contingent, and a thing to be feared, but present in part, actual,
and a matter of experience. This is not contradiction: it is not
impossible; it _may be_ our case. Let us see whether it really is so,
that is, whether it is in any degree true of us, that when we call upon
God he will not answer; that when we seek him, we shall in any manner be
unable to find him.

It is manifest that, in proportion as Christ's words "Seek, and ye shall
find," are true to any man, so are the words of the text less true to
him; and in proportion as Christ's words are less true to any one, so
are the words of the text more true to him. Now, is Christ's promise,
"Seek, and ye shall find," equally true to all of us? Conceive of
one--the thing is rare, but not impossible,--of one who had been so kept
from evil, and so happily led forward in good, that when arrived at
boyhood, his soul had scarcely more stain upon it than when it was first
fully cleansed, and forgiven, in baptism! Conceive him speaking truth,
without any effort, on all occasions; not greedy, not proud, not
violent, not selfish, not feeling conscious that he was living a life
of sin, and therefore glad to come to God, rather than shrinking away
from him! Conceive how completely to such an one would Christ's words be
fulfilled, "Seek, and ye shall find!" When would his prayers be
unblessed or unfruitful? When would he turn his thoughts to God without
feeling pleasure in doing so; without a lively consciousness of God's
love to him; without an assured sense of the reality of things not seen,
of redemption and grace and glory? Would not the communion with God,
enjoyed by one so untainted, come up to the full measure of those high
promises, "It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer,
and while they are yet speaking, I will hear?" Would it not be plain,
that God was as truly found, by such a person, as he was sought in
sincerity and earnestness?

But now, take the most of us: suppose us not to have been kept carefully
from evil, nor led on steadily in good; suppose us to have reached
boyhood with bad dispositions, ready for the first temptation, with
habits of good uncultivated; suppose us to have no great horror of a
lie, when it can serve our turn; with much love of pleasure, and little
love of our duty; with much, selfishness, and little or no thought of
God: suppose such an one, so sadly altered from a state of baptismal
purity, to be saying his prayers as he had been taught to say them, and
saying them sometimes with a thought of their meaning and a wish that
God would hear them. But does God hear them? I ask of your own
consciences, whether you have had any sense that he has heard you?
whether death and judgment, Christ and Christ's service, have become
more real to you after such prayers? If not, then is it not manifest,
that you have sought God, and have not found him; that you have called
upon him and he has not heard? You know by experience, that you are not
as those true children who are ever with him, who listen to catch the
lightest whisper of his Spirit, for whom, he, too, vouchsafes to bless
the faintest breathing of their prayer.

Or, again, in trying to turn from evil to good, have you ever found your
resolutions give way, the ground which you had gained slide from under
your feet, till you fell back again to what you were at the beginning?
Has this ever happened to us? If it has, then in that case, also, we
sought God, but failed to find him; the victory was not yours, but the
enemy's; the Spirit of Christ did not help you so as to conquer.

Take another case yet again. Has it ever happened to any of you, to have
done a mischief to yourselves which you could not undo? It need not be
one of the very highest kind; but has it ever happened, that, by
neglect, you have lost ground in the society in which you are placed,
which you cannot recover; that your contemporaries have gained an
advance upon you, while you have not time left to overtake them? Does it
ever happen that, from neglecting some particular element of learning in
its proper season, and other things claiming your attention afterwards,
you go on with a disadvantage, which you would fain remove, but cannot?
Does it, in short, ever happen to any, that his complete success here is
become impossible; that whatever prospects of another kind may be open
to him elsewhere, yet that he cannot now be numbered amongst those who
have turned the particular advantages here afforded them to that end
which they might and ought to have done?

To whomsoever this has happened, the truth of the words of the text is
matter of experience, not in their full and most dreadful extent, but
yet quite enough to prove that they are true; and that just as he now
feels them in part, so, if he continues to be what he is, he will one
day feel them wholly. He feels that it is possible to seek God, and not
to find him; he has learnt by experience that neglected good, or
committed evil, may be beyond the power of after-regret to undo. It is
true, that as yet, to him, other prospects may be open: prospects which,
probably, he may deem no less fair than those which he has forfeited.
This may be so; but the point to observe is, that one prospect was lost
so irretrievably by his own fault, that afterwards, when he wished to
regain it, he could not. Now God gives him other prospects, which he may
realize: but as he forfeited his first prospect beyond recovery, so he
may do also with his last: and though ill-success at school may be made
up by success in another sphere, yet what is to make up for ill-success
in the great business of life, when that, too, has been forfeited as
irrecoverably; when his last chance is gone as hopelessly as his first?

Now, surely there is in all this an intelligible lesson. I am not at all
exaggerating the importance of the particular prospect forfeited here:
but I am pressing upon you, that this prospect may be, and often is,
forfeited irrecoverably; that when you wish to regain it, it is too
late, and you cannot. And I press this, because it is a true type of the
whole of human life; because it is just as possible to forfeit salvation
irrecoverably, as to forfeit that earthly good which is the prize of
well-doing here, with this infinite difference, that the last forfeit is
not only irretrievable, but fatal; it can no more be made up for, than
it can be regained. Here, then, your present condition is a type of the
complete truth of the text: but there are other points, to which I
alluded before, in which it is more than a type; it is the very truth
itself, although, happily, only in an imperfect measure. That unanswered
prayer, of which I spoke, those broken resolutions,--are they not
actually a calling on God, without his hearing us; a seeking him,
without finding him? We remember who it was that could say with truth to
his Father, "I know that thou nearest me always." We know what it is
that hinders God from hearing us always; because we are not thoroughly
one in his Son Christ Jesus. But this unanswered prayer is not properly
the State of Christ's redeemed: it is an enemy that hath brought us to
this; the same enemy who will, in time, make all our prayers to be
unanswered, as some are now; who will cause God, not only to be slow to
listen, but to refuse to listen for ever. Now we are not heard at once,
we must repeat our prayers, with more and more earnestness, that God, at
last, may hear, and may bless us. But if, instead of repeating them the
more, we do the very contrary, and repeat them the less; if, because we
have no comfort, and no seeming good from them, we give them up
altogether; then the time will surely come when all prayer will be but
the hopeless prayer of Esau, because it will be only the prayer of fear;
because it will be only the dread of destruction that will, or can, move
us:--the love of good will have gone beyond recall. Such prayer does but
ask for pardon without repentance; and this never is, or can
be, granted.

So then, in conclusion, that very feeling of coldness, and unwillingness
to pray, because we have often prayed in vain, is surely working in us
that perfect death, which is the full truth of the words of the text. Of
all of us, those who the least like to pray, who have prayed with the
least benefit, have the most need to pray again. If they have sought
God, without finding him, let them take heed that this be not their case
for ever; that the truth, of which the seed is even now in them, may not
be ripened to their everlasting destruction, when all their seeking, and
all their prayer, will be as rejected by God, as, in part, it has
been already.




LECTURE XIII.

* * * * *

MARK xii. 34.

_Thou art not far from the kingdom of God_.


Whoever has gone up any hill of more than common height, may remember
the very different impression which the self-same point, whether bush,
or stone, or cliff, has made upon him as he viewed it from below and
from above. In going up it seemed so high, that we fancied, if we were
once arrived at it, we should be at the summit of our ascent; while,
when we had got beyond it, and looked down upon it, it seemed almost
sunk to the level of the common plain; and we wondered that it could
ever have appeared high to us.

What happens with any natural object according to the different points
from which we view it, happens also to any particular stage of
advancement in our moral characters. There is a goodness which appears
very exalted or very ordinary, according as it is much above or much
below our own level. And this is the case with the expression of our
Lord in the text, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." Does this
seem a great thing or a little thing to be said to us? Does it give us a
notion of a height which we should think it happiness to have readied;
or of a state so little advanced, that it would be misery to be forced
to go back to it? For, according as it seems to us the one or the other,
so we may judge of the greater or less progress which we have made in
ascending the holy mountain of our God.

But while I say this, it is necessary to distinguish between two several
senses, in which we may be said to be near to the kingdom of God, or
actually in it. These two are in respect of knowledge, and in respect of
feeling and practice. And our Lord's words seem to refer particularly to
knowledge. The scribe to whom he used them, had expressed so just a
sense of the true way of pleasing God, had so risen above the common
false notions of his age and country, that his understanding seemed to
be ripe for the truths of that kingdom of God, which was to make the
worship of God to consist in spirit and in truth. Now as far as the
knowledge of the kingdom of God is concerned, although, undoubtedly,
there are many amongst us who are deficient in it, yet it is true also,
that a great many of us are in possession of it; we are familiar enough
with the truths of the kingdom of God, and our understandings fully
approve them. But we may be near to or far from the kingdom of God, in
respect also of feeling and practice; and this is the great matter that
concerns us. It is here, then, that we should ask ourselves what we
think of our Lord's words in the text; and whether he to whom they were
spoken appears to us an object of envy or of compassion; one whom we
envy for having advanced so far, or pity for not being advanced further.

"Not far from the kingdom of God." Again, if we take the words Kingdom
of God in their highest sense, then the expression contains all that we
could desire to have said of us in this life; hope itself on this side
of the grave can go no higher. For as, in this sense, the kingdom of God
cannot be actually entered before our death; so the best thing that can
be said of us here, is, that we are not far from it; but we are in the
land of Beulah, so happily imagined in the Pilgrim's Progress; all of
our pilgrimage completed, save the last act of crossing the river; with
the city of God full in sight, and with hearts ready to enter into it.
In this sense, even St. Paul himself, when he wrote his last epistle
from Rome, could say no more, could hope for, could desire no more, than
to be not far from the kingdom of God.