Stumbling-blocks

Front matter

Gail Hamilton's Writings.

COUNTEY LIVING AND COUNTBY THINKING.

GALA-DATS.

I. The Outs And The Ins

[ HE World and the Church are two opposing forces. To make everything move easily, the Church ought to be S£ entirely composed of good people and the World of bad. As matters stand, there are a great many sinners in the Church and a great many saints in the World. Moreover, the people who are good are not good all the way through, and the people who are bad have many excellent qualities, — which complicates the case still further. Also, the Church is and should be aggressive, for the avowed design of its Leader is to reign till he hath put all things under his feet. But its chief weapon should be love ; and because it will not confine itself to this weapon, it is far less aggressive than it should be. Instead of loving the sinner while hating the sin, it often falls into a way of loving itself and hating the sinner. The World, being a very observant, as well as a very wicked World, sees this, and falls to making reprisals. It gathers together the sins of Christians, and builds thereof a bulwark for itself against Christianity, behind which it pours its small shot into the Church. In all this the World is entirely wrong, though the Church is very far from right. The World, in the first place, makes the mistake of thinking that, when a man "joins the church," he steps out of the sphere of ordinary humanity, is to be measured by different standards, and is amenable to new laws, — standards and laws which have no relation to other men. His faults and foibles immediately assume a new importance. His movements are watched with careful scrutiny, and criticised with rigid severity. Failings become vices ; faults, crimes ; and an imperfect man, a hypocrite. Constitutional tendencies to particular sins, formerly unmarked or but slightly noticed, are first exaggerated, and then turned into an occasion for innuendoes and sneers, if not against the Christian religion, at least against its profession and its professors.

This is all wrong. It is founded on a wrong idea. What is it to "join the church"? "Does he profess to be a good man?" I once heard a person ask ; and many people seem to fancy that when a man joins the church he professes to be good, — better than other people ; and they accordingly set themselves to work to ascertain and prove that he is not. But is there a church in the

THR OUTS AND THE INS. 3

land that requires its members to make a profession of goodness ? I never heard of such a one. Those who enter into church covenants profess to love Christ, and promise to obey his commands, and to watch over each other; but I never heard a single individual declare himself to be good, holy, righteous. " Joining the church" is rather a profession of belief in and love of God, and of an intention to do his will. This is done, first, because Christ is supposed to have ordained some such profession ; secondly, because each man, endowing his own weakness with his brother's strength, is supposed thereby to be better able to resist temptation, and to grow in grace; and, thirdly, because the Christianization of the world is expected to be sooner effected by ranging the guns, than by letting each man fire his shot at random. I know no other profession and no other purpose. In what respect, then, does this place a man on a new plane ? He simply promises to do what it is the imperative duty of every human being to do. No possible vow can increase its imperativeness. The acknowledgment of obligation does not create obligation. The recognition of relation does not establish relation. Every human being owes allegiance to God. All that he has and all that he is belongs now and forever to God. No contract can increase, and no absence of contract can diminish, the weight of such obligation.

It follows, then, that church-members and non-church-members are to be judged by the same rule. No duties are incumbent on the one that are not incumbent on the other. I do not mean to imply that the standard by which Christians are measured should be lowered. Lowered ? Heaven forbid ! No one is in danger of failing because he sets his mark too high. The grander the attempt, the grander the achievement. It is only by following on to know the Lord, that we learn to know him at all. Let not one jot or tittle be taken from the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. But what I do say is, that a non-church-member has no right to consider an act sinful in a church-member that would not be sinful in himself; nor a sinful act to be any more so in the one than in the other. If it is wrong for a church-member to steal, to commit forgery, to drink wine, to gamble, to play cards, to mend his tools on Sunday, to stay away from church, to be crabbed, fretful, impatient, violent-tempered, it is also wrong, and equally wrong, for a non-church-member. For a man to excuse wrong-doing in himself, on the plea that he does not belong to the church, or to exaggerate it in others on the plea that they do, is absurd. He ought to belong to the church. He ought to have that state of heart and will which would justify him in doing so. If it is the duty of one, it is the duty of all. If Christ has left, and if the history of the world gives, intimations that the glory of God and the good of man can be best promoted by organization, then it is the duty, not of A and B only, but of the whole alphabet, to organize. If A and B, who have signed the compact, do not live according to it, it is not for C, who stands aloof, to complain of them, or to exult over them. His own guilt is farther back than theirs. However wrong they may be, they have taken one step towards the right, which he has not.

If two children in a family sign a paper, signifying that they will love, respect, and obey their parents, do they owe love, honor, and obedience any more than the other children, who have not signed it ? If, notwithstanding their written agreement, they fall into disobedience, does it indicate that they are more blameworthy than the other children who also fall into disobedience ? Not at all. It only shows that the contract, in their case, has failed of its intended effect.

Just so, it may be said, violation of church covenant shows the invalidity of such covenants. It does in that one case ; that is all. It indicates that in that individual the principle of evil has overleaped the restraints ; that he was wrong in supposing that he loved Christ, and willed to serve him; or that, loving him, it was with a faint and flickering emotion, and not with that perfect love against which the waves of temptation surge and dash and break in vain.

I do not propose to enter into a discussion of the effectiveness of church organization. I wish only to say that the dereliction of one, two, or a dozen, or a hundred individuals, does not show it to be worthless. So long as men have the power to deceive themselves and to deceive others, so long will there be many in the church who are not of the church. In order to demonstrate that church organization is useless, it will be necessary to divide our country, or any nominally Christian country, into two classes, — those who belong to a church, and those who do not; and then to show that morality and religion, purity of heart and life and practical benevolence, are equally distributed between these two classes. It may not be that this will solve the problem, but nothing short of this will. Even should we be able to find no good in such organizations, indications of Christ's will still remaining, there would be no choice as to our duty. I do not think, however, that the result of such an investigation would throw the question back upon the teachings of Christ.

Again, the fact that a man commits sin after joining the church does not necessarily prove him to be a hypocrite or a self-deceiver. Sin — a sin — is too widely spread, and too deeply rooted in the human heart, to be extirpated in a moment. The axe has, indeed, been laid at the root of the tree. Its gnarled trunk, unseemly branches, and poisonous leaves have disappeared, and the man fondly believes that his sin will trouble him no more ; but anon green shoots sprout up round about, showing him that the roots are there, drinking in sustenance from the springs of his life. Then he digs about them, diving deep into the soil, undermining, plucking up, trampling under foot, and burning ; but it may be the work of a lifetime, and never, never in this world shall the garden of his soul go back to the velvet verdure of Eden, but remain a rugged, upheaved patch, — fertile, it may be, but irregular; productive, but uncouth ; a vineyard of the Lord, but not the land of Beulah.

For it is the baleful nature of all sin, that, though never so bitterly repented of, it leaves a scar.

If a man has lived in selfishness, if he has rioted in wine and wantonness, if he has found his pleasure in heaping up wealth, if he has never restrained his tongue or his temper, it is not improbable that, after his conversion, even though it be real, he will sometimes lapse into his former wrong habits. He will see Christ, but it will be through a glass, darkly, and the glass will be colored by the peculiarities of his own character. The avaricious man will have many a hard fight against avarice, and will perhaps sometimes succumb. The untruthful man will keep out many a lie that comes battering at his barred gate, though a sly little falsehood may elude his vigilance, nay, even take advantage of it, and worm itself in through a crevice. The World will not see the many contests, the frequent victories, but only the one defeat ; and seeing this, will be ready to exclaim, " If this is what comes of your Christianity, I am very well content without it."

World, you are in the wrong. This is not what comes of Christianity : it is what comes in spite of it. The errors that you see result, not from Christianity, but from a deficiency of it. The man has it, but not enough. It is not sufficient to say that he is a sinner after he professes to have become a Christian. You must show that, without it, he would have sinned no more. Until you know what religion has done for him, as well as what it has left undone, you are not a competent judge. And may it not be suspected that the extreme alacrity with which you discover and exhibit his errors is not owing solely to your hatred of shams and your love of sincerity and truth, but in great measure to a strong, though perhaps unconscious, desire to justify the position which you yourself have adopted, and which your conscience continually warns you is an unsafe and untenable one#

II. The Fitness Of Things

, UT however wrong the World may be in the positions which it assumes, the Church is verily guilty concerning" her brother. By her folly and her wickedness she places stumbling-blocks in the way of the World. By setting great value on incidentals, and small value on essentials} she confounds moral distinctions, and offends Christ's little ones. She too often exalts forms and neglects principles. She adheres to the letter, and disregards the spirit.

For instance, going to church and to churchmeetings, maintaining family worship, leading in social prayer, reading the Bible, committing it to memory, warning the impenitent, and endeavoring to lead them to the truth, are undoubtedly right things to do ; but they are not proofs of Christianity in the soul, — only indications. They are the incidents, not the essentials of religion. We

know that there are conceivable circumstances in i# which a man can be an eminent Christian without going to church; but no circumstances can arise which shall render Christianity consistent with dishonesty. A cripple may be a saint, but a thief never.

The incidental is not objectionable. It is good for just what it is. Tithes of mint, anise, and cumin are due, and should be paid promptly, fully, and cheerfully ; but these being done, there are other things which ought not to be left undone, — nay, there may be other things which should have been done first.

The letter is excellent where it belongs. It is a guide through a wilderness, the director, but not the source of strength. It is a watchword in battle, convenient, generally the sign of a friend, but not infallible. It is a body for the soul, a fit residence for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit ; but when, instead of acting in the capacity of servant to the spirit, it gets the upper hand, — when, instead of being informed with the spirit's glow, it strikes in, till letter and spirit congeal together in one frozen mass, — then, indeed, the letter killeth.

Not long ago I read an anecdote, in which a certain faulty Mr. A. was rebuked. He was granted to be upright, benevolent, charitable, patient, — in fact, he seemed to be endowed with nearly all the Christian virtues, while the sole per contra was, that he never talked to people about personal religion, never conversed with them upon their own salvation. If this were an isolated case, it would not be worth while to animadvert upon it ; but the same disposition is so often manifested, the same tendency to regard a constitutional quality as a fatal sin or a cardinal virtue, that it is worthy of a moment's attention.

First, the man who has professed Christ before men, and who subsequently leads an upright, pure, and blameless life, is daily and hourly and momently preaching Christ and him crucified with a silent power, with a persistent working force, which there is no agency in earth or hell strong enough to withstand. And, furthermore, if all Christians would lead such lives, it would almost seem that not one word would need to be spoken for Christ, — that the glory of God would be so revealed in his Church, that men would flock to it as clouds, and as doves to their window, — that this city set on a hill would be seen to be a city of refuge, whereunto the weary and the heavy-laden would flee, and find eternal rest.

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Can anything be more explicit? And if one professing to be Christ's disciple fulfils these conditions, who shall dare preach any other Gospel or set up any other standard ?

Secondly, religion develops, but does not create faculties. If a sinner is a confirmed tailor, he will not turn poet when he becomes a saint. He may become a better tailor, but he will be a tailor still. If he is a shoemaker by nature, he will not be a sculptor by grace. If he has been witty, he will not suddenly discover a capacity for dulness ; and if he has been stupid, he will not immediately astonish you with his brilliancy. If he was a sociable man before his conversion, he will be sociable after it ; and if he was reserved before, reserved he will continue. There may be exceptions, but this is the rule. It follows, then, that the man who is most fluent and ready in exhortation and prayer is not necessarily the man who lives nearest to God. He may be, but we cannot from such facts alone infer that he is. I once heard of a woman whose Lares and Penates were disorder and uncleanliness ; whose husband and children were squalid and repulsive from sheer neglect; but who descanted with unptuous fervor on religious topics, and when asked by a modest and admiring matron how it was that she could do this, " It 's grace," she replied, complacently, — " it 's grace that enables me to do it." One can but think that, if it were grace, it was a great pity that grace had not taken another turn, and set her to mending her family's clothes, and making their home decent. In my opinion, however, it was not grace, but something quite different. Of course I do not mean to say that a clean floor in your own house is of more importance than a soul saved in your neighbor's ; but Christ, whether his favor is sought for yourself or others, is always to be sought in the way of duty, never out of it ; and as it is a wife's unquestionable duty to attend to the affairs of her household, she cannot systematically neglect that duty without incurring grave suspicions as to her Christian character.

This is not said in any captious spirit towards those whcr have the gift of tongues. They may be the very best Christians in the Church. Their power may have received an additional impulse from religion. Its owner may have cultivated it all the more assiduously for Christ's sake ; and if so, he has done well, and he shall not lose his reward. I only wish that effects shall be attributed to their proper causes, that the gifts of nature and the gifts of grace shall not be confounded. Nor will this involve any derogation from the latter. Nature is just as truly from God as grace. , Grace and nature work harmoniously together, if we can but* ward off prurient fingers. Nature furnishes the foundation, and grace rears the superstructure. This is the point I aim particularly to impress, — .that when religion permeates the soul, it elevates, refines, strengthens, and sharpens the powers we possess, and not the powers we do not possess ; that some are naturally orators, and that others are not ; that while some can preach the truth with their lips, others can preach it only with their lives ; that this distinction is not superficial, but has its basis deep down in the human heart ; that a recognition of it will facilitate the working of the Divine economy, and that a nonrecognition of it occasions great friction, waste, and trouble.

I have heard

" Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent Would have been held in high esteem with Paul,"

and women whose whole prayerful, loving, beautiful lives were a constant gospel, lament their own inefficiency, and gaze with self-reproachful admiration upon those who had this gift of tongues. Dear friend, there are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. The fair temple that crowns the summit of Mount Moriah went up without sound of hammer or axe, but the glory of the Lord dwelt therein.

In a great machine there are many wheels and pulleys and weights and frames and bands. Some move swiftly, some slowly ; some with a ceaseless click, some with a heavy thud, some in unbroken silence : but all are parts of the same machine ; all combine harmoniously to the same end.

Undue self-reproach on the part of silent toilers is not the only or the chief evil resulting from a want of discrimination. By it, the strength of the Church is diminished, her working power wasted, and the coming of Christ's kingdom delayed.

For example: there is a deficiency of teachers in the Sabbath school. An appeal is at once made to the Church. The low state of Zion is lamented. The activity and zeal of Christians in their worldly calling are contrasted with their backwardness in the Lord's service. Men and women are urged to press forward, to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, to stand in the breach, to work in the vineyard, — all of which for the time means to come into the Sunday school. No stress is laid upon qualification. On "the contrary, disqualification does not seem to be taken into the account. In fact, nothing but impiety seems to be recognized as a disqualification. If a man has the love of God in his soul, it is presupposed that he can assume and successfully maintain one of the most difficult positions in the world ; and if he should be reluctant to assume it, it is more than hinted that his faith needs inspection. The consequence is, that some good man, of tender conscience, but no great breadth of views, — desirous above all things that the world should be reformed and renewed, but with a rather vague idea of the modus operandi, — ignorant of the science and inexperienced in the art of teaching, but fearful of grieving the Holy Spirit and discouraging his minister, — mistakes the voice of God in his soul for the temptings of "the Devil, and takes upon himself the charge of eight or nine bright-eyed, wideawake, fun-loving boys. He enters upon his duties with painstaking devotion.

He prepares his lessons carefully. He prays over them. He is punctual and constant in his attendance ; but, in spite of all his efforts, his boys harass his very soul. Sometimes the spirit of unrest enters into them, and they are full of " quips and cranks and wanton wiles." Again, they seem to undergo a transformation the moment they enter the class, and, from intelligent, lively lads, become mute, heavy, stolid lumps. It is a pitiable sight. Both sides are to be pitied, neither blamed. Human nature is particularly strong in boys, and they cannot be interested unless there is something to interest them ; but human nature is also strong in teachers, and they cannot interest if they have not the power. The boys and the man were not meant for class and teacher. The two parts do not tally. The wheels move in opposite directions, and the works are at a standstill. This is not the way to do things. The Jesuits knew better than to squander power thus. They recognized the eternal fitness of things. They selected the man for the place, and the place for the man. Let us do the same. There is no good, there is infinite harm, in attempting to put all upon a dead level. It is a fact that a man needs certain qualifications to be a teacher, just as much as lie does to be a doctor or a lawyer. The teacher is born, and not made. All the learning of the colleges, all the training of the normal schools, I might add, all the piety of the churches, will not supply the place of —knack. Without this, one may command the respect of men, but he cannot secure the attention of boys ; and to be a good teacher, a man must not only secure the attention of his scholars, he must possess himself of them body and soul.

True, the* greatest genius is often obscured by over-sensitiveness, and belief in one's own inability is not infallible. Those who have been most successful in a great work have often shrunk from entering upon it. That, however, only makes vigilance the more necessary on the part of those who select workers in any department. It does not countenance an indiscriminate demand upon all for all departments, or for any department.

True, also, that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God perfects praise, but that is no manner of reason why we should set up babes and sucklings for our preachers and teachers. They perfect praise where God has placed them, in the nursery ; and many a woman will perfect praise in her household, and many a man in his counting-room, when, if you wrest them from their appropriate spheres, and plant them in a lectureroom before fifty or five hundred people, or in a Sunday school in front of a dozen children, they will perfect only platitudes.

I know that God chooses the weak things of this world to confound the things that are mighty, but that is no reason why we should. He knows what he is doing. He has a broader horizon than we. He sees farther and clearer. Strong and weak are earthly terms. In the apparently feeblest engine there are hidden forces, — hidden from us, but palpable to the eye of Omniscience, and only waiting his command to leap into mightiest action. This one thing is certain. He never fails. He never chooses agents too weak to accomplish his purposes. His causes are always proportioned to his designed effects. His means are always exactly adapted to his ends. That is all one desires the Church to do, — as nearly as may be to adapt means to ends. But so long as we are human, and therefore forced to judge from appearances, let us strive to balance weight with power. Let us elect the brawniest arm to strike down the stubbornest foe, and the softest hand to bind up the sorest wound.

" God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform."

Mysterious to us, but doubtless perfectly logical to him. Let us be logical too, and see that our premises are correct before we confidently anticipate a conclusion. Trust in God is a nullity, if the powder is not dry.

I know that men and women whose bodily presence is weak, and whose speech contemptible, have consecrated alike their weakness and their strength to God, have taken up the cross in Sabbath school and conference-room, and have brought down blessings on themselves and their neighbors. So your little girl comes to you, " Papa, Mamy has made you a purse to put your cents in " ; and she holds up to your eyes an astonishing specimen of needlework, a bit of brown cambric with sprawling, zigzag white stitches of variable lengths and independent directions, twisted into an indescribable shape, but with a palpable hole in the corner where the cents are to go in. You take the little sewingmachine in your arms, smother her with caresses, and say : " Yes, it is a beautiful purse. Papa must kiss every one of the little fingers that made it. Just see the cents go in. There now, papa will put it in this drawer, and when he wants any cents he will find them in the little purse that Mamy made " ; — and Mamy jumps down and runs away, her little heart just as brimful of happiness as if she had' indeed bestowed upon you the purse of Fortunatus.

Just so, I think God, our Father, in his infinite love to us, in his boundless, sympathizing tenderness, receives the work of our hands, according to the love which prompted, and not according to the skill that wrought. Blessed be his name for ever and ever that he does so ; otherwise where should we appear ? And if the sole result desired were the beneficent effect produced upon specific individuals, perhaps this kind of cross would sometimes be as effectual as any. But there is a work to be done. Growth in grace is not the only object of life. A soul's salvation is the salvation of but one soul, and there are millions. Let us economize our forces, — economize, I say, not squander or hoard, not cast before swine nor hide under a bushel. There are mountains to be levelled, ravines to be bridged, valleys to be filled up, rivers to be spanned, causeways to be built, before the way is prepared for Christ's coming, — and we are to do it. Surely it can best be done by giving to each man what he can do best. Let one have the commissariat, one disburse the funds, one collect the revenue, one arrange the work, one instruct the ignorant, one wield the spade, one smite the anvil ; and when each one thus does with his might the real work which his hand has found to do, then shall the cry go up consistently, heartily, effectually, " Gome, Lord Jesus, come quickly."

Personal conversation on religious topics, or, to be more specific, personal appeals to those who do not profess to be Christians, is a matter of so much importance and so much difficulty, that I may be pardoned for following it a little further. s I have been already asked, whether I do not think professing Christians are greatly deficient in the matter of making "personal appeals," and whether I should not regret giving comfort to the Christian who goes on from week to week, and from month to month, and from year to year, without once speaking of his own love to Christ, or commending his religion by word, as well as by example, to those around him.

If common sense were brought to bear on this matter, I should answer both questions in the affirmative far more unhesitatingly than I am now able to do ; but, so far as I have observed, common sense is very largely dispensed with. What I mean is, that we do not talk about religion as we talk about politics, literature, or art. Religious conversation, as a great many of us conduct it, is formidable, and the wonder to me is, not that so many shrink from it, but that so many can be found who dare to grasp so unwieldy a weapon. Observe a party of us, — sound- orthodox people, in a bright, cheerful parlor. We are merry, gay, social, piquant, lively; till a "revival" is broached, or the state of the Church, or something else of the kind, when immediately a change ensues. We look steadfastly solemn ; our faces elongate ; our voices assume an indescribable tone, — something between a sigh and a moan. All vivacity, sprightliness, originality, die out. A stranger would take Christianity to be a very doleful affair.