H. Irving Hancock - "The Young Engineers in Mexico"

Ethel M. Dell - "Greatheart"

Allan O. Hume - "The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1"

Alexandre (fils) Dumas - "The Son of Clemenceau"

'Serena'
Moreover Technologies - Premier purveyor of real-time news and RSS feeds from across the Web

Book Review: The Haunted Observatory
Ad - Visit The Official Humana Site For Affordable Medicare Plan Options.

Book Review: The Houdini Box
Serena is Ron Rashs fourth novel. For those unfamiliar with the elegantly fine-tuned voice of this Appalachian poet and storyteller, a writer whose reputation has been largely regional despite an O. Henry Prize and other honors, it will prompt instant

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / R / S / T / U / V / W / Y / Z

The Christian Life written by Thomas Arnold

T >> Thomas Arnold >> The Christian Life




And what I have said of the world, will apply also to life and to death.
Oh, the infinite difference whether life is ours, or but stolen for an
instant; whether death is ours, our subject, ministering only to our
good; or our fearful enemy, our ever keen pursuer, from whose grasp we
have escaped for a few short years, but who is following fast after us,
and when he has once caught us will hold us fast for ever! Have we ever
seen his near approach--has he ever forced himself upon our notice
whether we would or no? But two days since he was amongst us,--we were,
as it were, forced to look upon him. Did we think that he was ours, or
that we were his? If we are his, then indeed he is fearful: fearful to
the mere consciousness of nature; a consciousness which no arguments can
overcome; fearful if it be merely the parting from life, if it be
merely the resigning that wonderful thing which we call our being. It is
fearful to go from light to darkness, from all that we have ever known
and loved, to that of which we know and love nothing. But if death, even
thus stingless, is yet full of horror, what is he with his worst sting
beside, the sting of our sins? What is he when he is taking us, not to
nothingness, but to judgment? He is indeed so fearful then, that no
words can paint him half so truly as our foreboding dread of him, and no
arguments which the wit of man can furnish can strip him of his terrors.

But what if death too, as well as life, be ours?--which he is, if we are
Christ's; for Christ has conquered him. If he be ours, our servant, our
minister, sent but to bring us into the presence of our Lord, then,
indeed, his terrors, his merely natural terrors, the outside roughness
of his aspect, are things which the merest child need not shrink from.
Then disease and decay, however painful to living friends to look upon,
have but little pain for him who is undergoing them. For it is not only
amidst the tortures of actual martyrdom that Christians have been more
than conquerors,--in common life, on the quiet or lonely sick bed, under
the grasp of fever or of consumption, the conquest has been witnessed as
often and as completely. It is not a little thing when the faintest
whisper of thought to which expiring nature can give utterance breathes
of nothing but of peace and of forgiveness. It is not a little thing
when the name of Christ possesses us wholly; not distinctly, it may be,
for reason may be too weak for this; but with an indescribable power of
support and comfort. Or even if there be a last conflict,--a season of
terror and of pain, a valley of the shadow of death, dark and
gloomy,--yet even there Christ is with his servants, and as their trial
is so is his love. Thus it is, if death be ours; and death is ours, if
we be Christ's. And are we not Christ's? We bear his name, we have his
outward seal of belonging to his people,--can we refuse to be his in
heart and true obedience? Would we rather steal our pleasures than enjoy
them as our own; steal life for an instant, rather than have it our sure
possession for ever? Would we rather be fugitives from death, fugitives
whom he will surely recover and hold fast, than be able to say and to
feel that death, as well as life is ours, things to come, as well as
things present, because we are truly Christ's?




LECTURE VIII.

* * * * *

GALATIANS V. 16, 17.

_Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. For
the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh;
and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the
things that ye would_.


"We cannot do the things that we would." These are words of familiar and
common use; this is the language in which we are all apt to excuse,
whether to ourselves or to others, the various faults of our conduct. We
should be glad to do better, so we say and think, but the power to do so
fails us. And so far it may seem that we are but echoing the apostle's
language; for he says the very same thing, "Ye cannot do the things that
ye would." Yet the words as we use them, and as the apostle used them,
have the most opposite meaning in the world. We use them as a reason why
we should be satisfied, the apostle as a reason why we should be
alarmed; we intend them to be an excuse, the apostle meant them to be a
certain sign of condemnation.

The reasons of this difference may be understood very easily. We, in the
common course of justice, should think it hard to punish a man for not
doing what he cannot do. We think, therefore, that if we say that we
cannot do well, we establish also our own claim to escape from
punishment. But God declares that a state of sin is and must be a state
of misery; and that if we cannot escape the sin, we cannot escape the
misery. According to God's meaning, then, the words, "Ye cannot do the
things which ye would," mean no other than this: "Ye cannot escape from
hell; ye cannot be redeemed from the power of death and of Satan; the
power is wanting in you, however much you may wish it: death has got
you, and it will keep you for ever." So that, in this way, sickness or
weakness of the soul is very like sickness or weakness of the body. We
cannot help being ill or weak in many cases: is that any reason why,
according to the laws of God's providence, we should not suffer the pain
of illness? Or is it not, rather, clear that we suffer it just because
we have not the power to get rid of it; if we had the power to be well,
we should be well. A man's evils are not gone because he wishes them
away; it is not he who would fain see his chains broken, that escapes
from his bondage; but he who has the strength to rend them asunder.

Thus, then, in St. Paul's language, "Ye cannot do the things that ye
would," means exactly, "Ye are not redeemed, but in bondage; ye are not
saved, but lost." But he goes on to the reason why we cannot do the
things which we would, which is, "because the flesh and the Spirit are
contrary to one another," and pull us, as it were, different ways. Just
as we might say of a man in illness, that the reason why he is not well,
as he wishes to be, is because his healthy nature and his disease are
contrary to one another, and are striving within him for the mastery.
His blood, according to its healthy nature, would flow calmly and
steadily; his food, according to his healthy nature, would be received
with appetite, and would give him nourishment and strength; but, behold,
there is in him now another nature, contrary to his healthy nature: and
this other nature makes his blood flow with feverish quickness, and
makes food distasteful to him, and makes the food which he has eaten
before to become, as it were, poison; it does not nourish him or
strengthen, but is a burden, a weakness, and a pain. As long as these
two natures thus struggle within him, the man is sick; as soon as the
diseased nature prevails, the man sinks and dies. He does not wish to
die,--not at all,--most earnestly, it may be, does he wish to live; but
his diseased nature has overcome his healthy nature, and so he must die.
If he would live, in any sense that deserves to be called life, the
diseased nature must not overcome, must not struggle equally; it must be
overcome, it must be kept down, it must be rendered powerless; and then,
when the healthy nature has prevailed, its victory is health
and strength.

So far all is alike; but what follows afterwards? As "ye cannot do the
things which ye would, because the flesh and the Spirit are contrary to
one another,"--what then? "Therefore," says the apostle, "walk in the
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." Surely there is
some thing marvellous in this. For, let us speak the same language to
the sick man: tell him, "Follow thy healthy nature, and them shalt not
be sick," what would the words be but a bitter mockery? "How can you bid
me," he would say, "to follow my healthy nature, when ye know that my
diseased nature has bound me? Have ye no better comfort than this to
offer me? Tell me rather how I may become able to follow my healthy
nature; show me the strength which may help my weakness; or else your
words are vain, and I never can recover." Most true would be this
answer; and therefore disease and death do make havoc of us all, and the
healthy nature is in the end borne down by the diseased nature, and
sooner or later the great enemy triumphs over us, and, in spite of all
our wishes and fond desires for life, we go down, death's conquered
subjects, to the common grave of all living.

This happens to the bodies of us all; to the souls of only too many. But
why does it not happen also to the souls of all? How is it that some do
fulfil the apostle's bidding? that they do walk in the Spirit, and
therefore do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; and therefore having
conquered their diseased nature, they do walk according to their
healthful nature, and are verily able to do, and do continually, the
very things that they would? Surely this so striking difference, between
the universal conquest of our diseased nature in the body, and the
occasional victory of the healthy nature in the soul, shows us clearly
that for the soul there has appeared a Redeemer already, while for the
body the redemption is delayed till death shall be swallowed up
in victory.

For most true is it that in ourselves we could not deliver ourselves
either soul or body. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the
lusts of the flesh," might have been as cruel a mockery to us, as the
similar words addressed to the man bodily sick,--"Walk according to thy
healthy nature, and thou shalt not suffer from disease." They might have
been a mockery, but blessed be God, they are not. They are not, because
God has given us a Redeemer; they are not, because Christ has died, yea
rather has risen again; and because the Spirit of Christ helpeth our
infirmities, and gives us that power which by ourselves we had not.

Not by wishing then to be redeemed, but by being redeemed, shall we
escape the power of death. Not by saying, "Alas! we cannot do the things
that we would!" but by becoming able to do them. Walk in the Spirit, and
ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; but if ye do fulfil them,
ye must die.

The power to walk in the Spirit is given by the Spirit; but either all
have not this power, or all do not use it. I think rather it is that all
have it not, for if they had it, a power so mighty and so beneficent,
they surely could not help using it. All have it not; but I do not say
that they all might not have it; on the contrary, all might have it, but
in point of fact they have it not. They have it not because they seek it
not: for an idle wish is one thing; a steady persevering pursuit is
another. They seek not the Spirit by the appointed means, the means of
prayer and attending to God's holy word, and thinking of life and death
and judgment.

Do those seek the spirit of God who never pray to God? Clearly they do
not. For they who never pray to God never think of Him; they who never
think of Him, by the very force of the terms it follows that they cannot
seek his help. And yet they say, "Oh, I wish to be good, but I cannot!"
But this, in the language of the Scripture, is a lie. If they did wish
to be good they would seek the help that could make them so. There is no
boy so young as not to know that, when temptation is on him to evil,
prayer to God will strengthen him for good. As sure as we live, if he
wished really to overcome the temptation, he would seek the strength.

Consider what prayer is, and see how it cannot but strengthen us. He who
stands in a sheltered place, where the wind cannot reach him, and with
no branches over his head to cause a damp shade, and then holds up his
face or his hands to the sun, in his strength, can he help feeling the
sun's warmth? Now, thus it is in prayer: we turn to God, we bring our
souls, with all their thoughts and feelings, fully before Him; and by
the very act of so doing, we shelter ourselves from every chill of
worldly care, we clear away every intercepting screen of worldly thought
and pleasure. It is an awful thing so to submit ourselves wholly to the
influence of God. But do it; and as surely as the sun will warm us if we
stand in the sun, so will the Giver of light and life to the soul pour
his Spirit of life into us; even as we pray, we become changed into
his image.

This is not spoken extravagantly. I ask of any one who has ever prayed
in earnest, whether for that time, and while he was so praying, he did
not feel, as it were, another man; a man able to do the things which he
would; a man redeemed and free. But most true is it that this feeling
passes away but too soon, when the prayer is done. Still for the time,
there is the effect; we know what it is to put ourselves, in a manner,
beneath the rays of God's grace; but we do not abide there long, and
then we feel the damp and the cold of earth again.

Therefore says the Apostle, "Pray without ceasing." If we could
literally pray always, it is clear that we should sin never: it may be
thus that Christ's redeemed, at his coming, as they will be for ever
with him and with the Father, can therefore sin no more. For where God
is, there is no place left for sin. But we cannot pray always: we cannot
pray the greatest portion of our time; nay, we can pray, in the common
sense of the term, only a very small portion of it. Yet, at least, we
can take heed that we do pray sometimes, and that our prayer be truly in
earnest. We can pray then for God's help to abide with us when we are
not praying: we can commit to his care, not only our hours of sleep, but
our hours of worldly waking. "I have work to do, I have a busy world
around me; eye, ear, and thought will be all needed for that work, done
in and amidst that busy world; now, ere I enter upon it, I would commit
eye, ear, thought and wish to Thee. Do thou bless them, and keep their
work thine; that as, through thy natural laws, my heart beats and my
blood flows without my thought for them, so my spiritual life may hold
on its course, through, thy help, at those times when my mind cannot
consciously turn to Thee to commit each particular thought to
thy service."

But I dare not say that by any the most urgent prayers, uttered only at
night and morning, God's blessing can thus be gained for the whole
intervening day. For, in truth, if we did nothing more, the prayers
would soon cease to be urgent; they would become formal, that is, they
would be no prayers at all. For prayer lives in the heart, and not in
the mouth; it consists not of words, but wishes. And no man can set
himself heartily to wish twice a day for things, of which he never
thinks at other times in the day. So that prayer requires in a manner to
be fed, and its food is to be found in reading and thinking; in reading
God's word, and in thinking about him, and about the world as being
his work.

Young men and boys are generally, we know, not fond of reading for its
own sake; and when they do read for their own pleasure, they naturally
read something that interests them. Now, what are called serious books,
including certainly the Bible, do not interest them, and therefore they
are not commonly read. What shall we say, then? Are they not interested
in becoming good, in learning to do the things which, they would? If
they are not, if they care not for the bondage of sin and death, there
is, of course, nothing to be said; then they are condemned already; they
are not the children of God. But one says, "I wish I could find interest
in a serious book, but I cannot." Observe again, "Ye cannot do the
things that ye would," because the flesh and the Spirit are contrary to
one another. However, to return to him who says this, the answer to him
is this,--"The interest cannot come without the reading; it may and
will come with it." For interest in a subject depends very much on our
knowledge of it; and so it is with, the things of Christ. As long as the
life and death of Christ are strange to us, how can we be interested
about them? but read them, thinking of what they were, and what were
their ends, and who can help being interested about them? Read them
carefully, and read them often, and they will bring before our minds the
very thoughts which we need, and which the world keeps continually from
us, the thoughts which naturally feed our prayers; thoughts not of self,
nor selfishness, nor pleasure, nor passion, nor folly, but of such
things as are truly God's--love, and self-denial, and purity, and
wisdom. These thoughts come by reading the Scriptures; and strangely do
they mingle at first with the common evil thoughts of our evil nature.
But they soon find a home within us, and more good thoughts gather round
them, and there comes a time when daily life with its various business,
which, once seemed to shut them out altogether, now ministers to their
nourishment.

Wherefore, in conclusion, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil
the lusts of the flesh; but do even the things which ye would. And ye
can walk in the Spirit, if ye seek for the Spirit; if ye seek him by
prayer, and by reading of Christ, and the things of Christ. If we will
do neither, then most assuredly we are not seeking him; if we seek him
not, we shall never find him. If we find him not, we shall never be able
to do the things that we would; we shall never be redeemed, never made
free, but our souls shall be overcome by their evil nature, as surely as
our bodies by their diseased nature; till one death shall possess us
wholly, a death of body and of soul, the death of eternal misery.




LECTURE IX.

* * * * *

LUKE xiv. 33.

_Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot
be my disciple_.


In order to show that these words were not spoken to the apostles alone,
but to all Christians, we have only to turn to the 25th and 26th verses,
which run thus:--"And there went great multitudes with him, and he
turned and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his
father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." The words were not,
then, spoken to the twelve apostles only, as if they contained merely
some rule of extraordinary piety, which was not to be required of common
Christians; they were spoken to a great multitude; they were spoken to
warn all persons in that multitude that not one of them could become a
Christian, unless he gave himself up to Christ body and soul. Thus
declaring that there is but one rule for all; a rule which the highest
Christian can never go beyond; and which the lowest, if he would be a
Christian at all, must make the foundation of his whole life.

Now take the words, either of the text or of the 26th verse, and is it
possible to avoid seeing that, on the very lowest interpretation, they
do insist upon a very high standard; that they do require a very entire
and devoted obedience? Is it possible for any one who believes what
Christ has said, to rest contented, either for himself or for others,
with that very low and very unchristian standard which he sees and knows
to prevail generally in the world? Is it possible for him not to wish,
for himself and for all in whose welfare he is interested, that they may
belong to the small minority in matters of principle and practice,
rather than to the large majority?

And because he so wishes, one who endeavours to follow Christ sincerely
can never be satisfied with the excuse that he acts and thinks quite as
well as the mass of persons about him; it can never give him comfort,
with regard to any judgment or practice, to be told, in common language,
"Everybody thinks so; everybody does so." If, indeed, this expression
"everybody" might be taken literally; if it were quite true, without any
exception, that "everybody thought or did so;" then I grant that it
would have a very great authority; so great that it would be almost a
mark of madness to run counter to it. For what all men, all without a
single exception, were to agree in, must be some truth which the human
mind could not reject without insanity,--like the axioms of science, or
some action which if we did not we could not live, as sleeping and
eating; or if there be any moral point so universally agreed upon, then
it must be something exceedingly general: as, for instance, that truth
is in itself to be preferred to falsehood; which to dispute would be
monstrous. But, once admit a single exception, and the infallible virtue
of the rule ceases. I can conceive one single good and wise man's
judgment and practice, requiring, at any rate, to be carefully attended
to, and his reasons examined, although millions upon millions stood
against him. But go on with the number of exceptions, and bring the
expression "everybody," to its real meaning, which is only "most
persons," "the great majority of the world;" then the rule becomes of
no virtue at all, but very often the contrary. If in matters of morals
many are on one side and some on the other, it is impossible to
pronounce at once which are most likely to be right: it depends on the
sort of case on which the difference exists; for the victories of truth
and of good are but partial. It is not all truth that triumphs in the
world, nor all good; but only truth and good up to a certain point. Let
them once pass this point, and their progress pauses. Their followers,
in the mass, cannot keep up with them thus far: fewer and fewer are
those who still press on in their company, till at last even these fail;
and there is a perfection at which they are deserted by all men, and are
in the presence of God and of Christ alone.

Thus it is that, up to a certain point, in moral matters the majority
are right; and thus Christ's gospel, in a great many respects, goes
along with public opinion, and the voice of society is the voice of
truth. But this, to use the expression of our Lord's parable, this is
but half the height of that tower whose top should reach unto heaven.
Christianity ascends a great deal higher; and therefore so many who
begin to build are never able to finish. Christ's disciples and the
world's disciples work for a certain way together; and thus far the
world's disciples call themselves Christ's, and so Christ's followers
seem to be a great majority. But Christ warns us expressly that we are
not his disciples merely by going a certain way on the same road with
them. They only are His, who follow Him to the end. They only are His,
who follow him in spite of everything, who leave all rather than leave
him. For the rest, He does not own them. What the world can give they
may enjoy; but Christ's kingdom is shut against them.

Speaking, then, according to Christ's judgment, and we must hold those
to be of the world, and not of Him,--and therefore in God's judgment, to
be the evil and not the good,--who do not make up their minds to live in
His service, and to refer their actions, words, and thoughts to His
will. Who these are it is very true that we many times cannot know: only
we may always fear that they are the majority of society; and therefore
we are rather anxious in any individual's case to get a proof that he is
not one of them, because, as they are very many, there is always a sort
of presumption that any given person is of this number, unless there is
some evidence, or some presumption at any rate, for thinking
the contrary.

When we speak, then, of the good and of the evil side in human life, in
any society, whether smaller or larger,--this is what we mean, or should
mean. The evil side contains much that is, up to a certain point, good:
the good side,--for does it not consist of human beings?--contains,
unhappily, much in it that is evil. Not all in the one is to be
avoided,--far from it; nor is all in the other by any means to be
followed. But still those are called evil in God's judgment who live
according to their own impulses, or according to the law of the society
around them; and those are to be called good, who, in their principles,
whatever may be the imperfections of their practice, endeavour in all
things to live according to the will of Christ.

And in this view the characters of Jacob and Esau are, as it seems to
me, full of instruction; and above all to us here. For I have often
observed that the early age of an individual bears a great resemblance
to the early age of the human race, or of any particular nation; so that
the characters of the Old Testament are often more suited, in a
Christian country, for the instruction of the young than for those of
more advanced years. To Christian men, looking at Jacob's life, with the
faults recorded of it, it is sometimes strange that he should be spoken
of as good. But it seems that in a rude state of society, where
knowledge is very low, and passion very strong, the great virtue is to
be freed from the dominion of the prevailing low principle, to see and
resolve that we ought and will live according to knowledge, and not
according to passion or impulse. The knowledge may be very imperfect,
and probably is so: the practice may in many respects offend against
knowledge, and probably will do so: yet is a great step taken; it is
_the_ virtue of man, in such a state of society, to follow, though
imperfectly, principle, where others follow instinct, or the opinion of
their fellows. It is the great distinguishing mark, in such a state of
things, between the good and the evil; for this reason, amongst many
others, that it is the virtue, under such, circumstances, of the hardest
attainment.