LESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS
STUDENTS are recommended to invest in certain
books; I am going to take the liberty to suggest to you the buying of a certain
picture which you can get for a very few cents; it is Millais' Angelus.
God speaks to men's souls through music, and He
also speaks through art. This famous picture is an illuminated text, and upon
it I want to hang what I have to say to-night.
There are three things in this picture--a potato
field, a country lad and a country girl standing in the middle of it, and upon
the far horizon the spire of a village church. That is all--no great scenery,
and no picturesque people.
In Roman Catholic countries at the evening hour
the church bell rings out to remind the people to pray. Some go into the church
to pray, while those that are in the fields, when the Angelus rings, bow their
heads for a few moments in silent prayer.
That picture is a perfect portraiture of the
Christian life; and what is interesting about it apart from the fact that it
singles out the three great pedestals upon which a symmetrical life is lived,
is the completeness of the truth that it contains. I recall how often Mr. Moody
has told us that it is not enough to have the roots of religion in us, but that
we must be whole and entire, lacking nothing.
The Angelus, as we look upon it, will reveal to
us the elements which constitute the complete life.
The first of these is work. Three-fourths
of our life is probably spent in work. Is that religious or is it not? What is
the meaning of it? Of course the meaning of it is that our work should be just
as religious as our worship, and that unless we can make our work religious,
three-fourths of life remains unsanctified.
The proof that work is religious is that the most
of Christ's life was spent in work. During those first thirty years of his
life, the Scriptures were not in His hands so much as the hammer and the plane;
He was making chairs and tables and ploughs and yokes; which is to say that the
highest conceivable life was mainly spent in doing common work. Christ's public
ministry occupied only about two and a half years; the great bulk of His time
He was simply at work, and ever since then work has had a new meaning.
When Christ came into the world, He came to men
at their work. He appeared to the shepherds, the working classes of those days;
He appeared also to the wise men, the students of those days. Three deputations
went out to meet Him. First came the shepherds, second the wise men, and third
the two old people, Simeon and Anna--that is to say, Christ comes to men at
their work, He comes to men at their books, and He comes to men at their
worship. But you will notice that it was the old people who found Christ at
their worship, and as we grow older we will spend more time in worship, and
will repair to the prayer meeting and the house of God to meet Christ and to
worship Him as Simeon and Anna did. But until the age comes when much of our
time will be given to direct vision, we must try to find Christ at our books
and in our common work.
Now why should God have arranged it that so many
hours of every day should be occupied with work? It is because work makes men.
A University is not merely a place for making scholars, it is a place for
making Christians. A farm is not a place for growing corn, it is a place for
growing character, and a man has no character except what is built up through
the medium of the things that he does from day to day. God's Spirit does the
building through the acts which a man performs during his life work. If a
student cons out every word in his latin instead of consulting a translation,
the result is that honesty is translated into his character; if he works out
his mathematical problems thoroughly, he not only becomes a mathematician, but
a thorough man; if he attends to the instructions that are given him in the
class-room intelligently and conscientiously, he becomes a conscientious man.
It is just by such means that thoroughness and conscientiousness and
honorableness are imbedded in our being. We cannot dream perfect character; we
do not get it in our sleep; it comes to us as muscle comes, through doing
things. Character is the muscle of the soul, and it is developed by the
practice of the muscles, and by exercising it upon actual things; hence our
work is the making of us, and it is by and through our work that the great
Christian graces are communicated to our soul. That is the means which God
employs for the growing of the Christian graces, and apart from that we cannot
have a Christian character. Hence the religion of a student consists first of
all in his being true to his work, and in letting his Christianity be shown to
his fellow students and to his professors by the integrity and the thoroughness
of his academic work. If he is not faithful in that which is least, it will be
impossible for him to be faithful in that which is great. I have known men who
struggled unsuccessfully for years to pass their examinations, who when they
became Christians, found a new motive for work, and thus were able to succeed
where previously they had failed.
There are men here who have much intellectual
energy; if they can but see that a man's Christianity comes out as much in his
work as in his worship, they will find a new motive and stimulus to do their
work thoroughly. Our work is not only to be done thoroughly, it is to be done
honestly. By this I mean not so much that a man must be honorable in his
academic relations, as that he must be fair to his own mind, and to the
principles of the truth. We are not entitled to dodge difficulties, when they
arise it is our duty to go to the bottom of them. Perhaps the truths which are
dear to us are deeper even than we think, and we can get more out of them if we
dig down for the nuggets. Others may perhaps be found to have false bases; if
so, we ought to know it.
Christianity is the most important thing in the
world, and the student ought to sound it in every direction to see if there is
deep water and a safe place in which to launch his life; if there are shoals he
ought to know it. Therefore, when we come to difficulties, let us not be guilty
of jumping lightly over them, but let us be honest as seekers after
truth,--which is the definition of a student. It may not be necessary for
people in general to sift the doctrines of Christianity for themselves, but it
is required of a student, whose business it is to think, to exercise the
intellect which God has given him in living out the truth. Faith is never
opposed to reason, though it is often supposed that the Bible teaches that it
is, but you will find that it is not. Faith is opposed to sight but not to
reason. It is only by reason that we can sift and examine and criticise and be
sure of the forms of truth which are given us as Christians. Hence the great
field of work that is open to a student is in seeking for truth, and let him be
sure that in seeking for truth he is drawing very near to Christ who said: "I
am the way, and the truth, and the life." We talk a great deal about Christ as
the Way and Christ as the Life, but there is a side of Christ especially for
the student, "I am the Truth;" and every student ought to be a truth lover and
a truth seeker for Christ's sake.
Another element in life which of course is first
in importance, is God. The Angelus is perhaps the most religious picture
painted during this century. You cannot look at it and see that young man
standing in the field with his hat off and the girl opposite him with her hands
clasped and her head bowed upon her breast without feeling a sense of God. Do
we carry about with us a sense of God? Do we carry the thought of Him with us
wherever we go? If not, we have missed the greatest part of life. Do we have
that feeling and a conviction of God's abiding presence wherever we are? There
is nothing more needed in this generation than a larger and more scriptural
idea of God. A great American writer has told us that when he was a boy the
conception of God which he got from books and sermons was that of a wise and
very strict lawyer. I remember well the awful conception of God which I got
when I was a boy. I was given an illustrated edition of Watts' hymns, and
amongst others there was one hymn which represented God as a great piercing eye
in the midst of a great black thunder cloud. The idea of God which that picture
gave to my young imagination was of a great detective playing the spy upon my
actions; as the hymn says:
"Writing now the
story of what little children do."
Such
lines as this gave me a bad idea which it has taken me years to obliterate. We
think of God as "up there"; there is no such place as "up there." Do not think
that God is "up there." You say, God made the world six thousand years ago, and
then retired; that is the last that was seen of Him; He made the world and then
went to look on, and keep things going. Geology has been away back there, and
God has gone farther and farther back; this six thousand years has extended out
into ages and ages, and long, long periods. Where is God if He is not "up
there" or "back there?," "up there" in space, or "back there" in time--where is
He? "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth." "The Kingdom of God is within
you," and God Himself is among men. When are we to exchange the terrible far
away, absentee God of our childhood for the everywhere present God of the
Bible? The God of theology has been largely taken from the old Roman Christian
writers, who, great as they were, had nothing better to form their conception
of God upon than the greatest man. The greatest man to them was the Roman
emperor, and therefore God to them became a kind of divine emperor. The Greeks
had a far grander conception which is again finding expression in modern
theology. The Greek God is the God of this Book; the Spirit which moved upon
the waters; the God in whom we live, and move, and have our being; the God of
whom Jesus spoke to the women at the well, the God who is a spirit. Let us
gather the conception of an imminent God; that is the theological word for it,
and it is a splendid word, Immanuel--God with us--an inside God, an imminent
God.
Long, long ago, God made matter, then He made the
flowers and trees and animals, then He made man. Did He stop? Is God dead? If
He lives and acts what is He doing? He is making men better. He is carrying on
the development of men. It is God which "worketh in you." The buds of our
nature are not all out yet; the sap to make them bloom comes from the God who
made us, from the indwelling Christ. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy
Ghost, and we must bear this in mind because the sense of God is kept up not by
logic, but by experience,--we must try to keep alive this sense of God.
You have heard of Helen Keller, the Boston girl,
who was born deaf, and dumb, and blind; until she was seven years of age her
life was an absolute blank; nothing could go into that mind because the ears
and eyes were closed to the outer world. Then by that great process which has
been discovered, by which the blind see, the deaf hear, and the mute speak, the
girl's soul became opened, and they began to put in little bits of knowledge,
and bit by bit to educate her. But they reserved the religious instruction for
Phillips Brooks. When she was twelve years old they took her to him and he
talked to her through the medium of the young lady who had been the means of
opening her senses, and who could communicate with her by the exceedingly
delicate process of touch. He began to tell her about God, and what He had
done, and how He loves men and what He is to us. The child listened very
intelligently, and finally said, "Mr. Brooks, I knew all of that before, but I
did not know His name." Have you not often felt something within you that was
not you, some mysterious pressure, some impulse, some guidance, something
lifting you and impelling you to do that which you would not yourself ever have
conceived of? Perhaps you did not know His name--"It is God that worketh in
you." If we can really found our life upon that great simple fact, the first
principle of religion, which we are so apt to forget, that God is with us and
in us, we will have no difficulty or fear about our future life.
Two Americans who were crossing the Atlantic, met
in the cabin on Sunday night to sing hymns. As they sang the last hymn, "Jesus
lover of my soul," one of them heard an exceedingly rich and beautiful voice
behind him. He looked around and although he did not know the face, he thought
that he knew the voice, so when the music ceased, he turned around and asked
the man if he had not been in the civil war. The man replied that he had been a
confederate soldier. "Were you at such a place on such a night?" asked the
first. "Yes," he replied, "and a curious thing happened that night which this
hymn has recalled to my mind. I was posted on sentry duty in the edge of a
wood. It was a dark night and very cold and I was a little frightened because
the enemy were supposed to be very near. About midnight when everything was
very still and I was feeling homesick and miserable and weary, I thought that I
would comfort myself by praying and singing a hymn. I remember singing this
hymn,
" `All my trust on
Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring
Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.'
After singing that a strange peace came down upon
me, and through the long night I remember having felt no more fear."
"Now," said the other, "Listen to my story. I was
a Union soldier and was in the wood that night with a party of scouts. I saw
you standing, although I did not see your face. My men had their rifles focused
upon you, waiting the word to fire, but when you sang out,
" `Cover my
defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing,'
I said, `Boys, lower your rifles, we will go
home.'"
God was working in each of them. By just such
means, by His every where acting mysterious Spirit, God keeps His people and
guides them, and hence that second great element in life, God; without Him life
is but a living death.
The third element in life about which I wish to
speak is Love. The first is Work, the second is God, and
the third is Love. In this picture you notice the delicate sense of
companionship brought out by the young man and the young woman. It matters not
whether they are brother and sister, or lover and loved, there you have the
idea of friendship, the final ingredient in our life, after the two I have
named. If the man or the woman had been standing in that field alone it would
have been incomplete. Love is the divine element in life, because "God is
love," and because "he that loveth is born of God"; therefore, as one has said,
let us "keep our friendships in repair." They are worth while spending time
over, because they constitute so large a part of our life. Let us cultivate
this spirit of friendship that it may grow into a great love, not only for our
friends but for all humanity. Those of you who are going to the mission field
must remember that your mission will be a failure unless you cultivate this
element.
So these three things complete life. Some of us
may not have these ingredients in their right proportion, but if our life is
not comfortable, if we are incomplete, let us ascertain if we are not lacking
in one or the other of these three things, and then let us pray for it and work
for it.