Religion and life; a year book of short sermons on some phase of the Christian life for every week in the year

Preface

The term "Religion' ' is found associated with many things, which, while having their own special field of activity and interest, are not proof against the incoming of a spirit, distinctly different, indeed, but radiating an influence and having a power of interpretation which make its entrance not an intrusion but a visitation worthy of welcome. Men shut themselves up with their own concerns in some of the close rooms of this world's life; oftentimes they push the bolts lest they should be disturbed by forces and interests from without, when, lo, without any visible movement in space, no breach made in the walls, they become aware of a Presence, which, as on that first Easter night, has quietly passed in, "the doors being shut."

In the belief that the religion of the Lord Jesus is as pervasive, as friendly, and as illuminating as He proved Himself to be on that memorable evening, it is not strange that efforts should be made to bring the truths of His Gospel into rela-

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tion with special human interests, and that treatises should be written on Religion and Philosophy, Religion and Science, Religion and Art, Religion and Business, Religion and Medicine, and so on. I venture to send forth this volume under the title Religion and Life based on the simple proposition formulated years ago by an illumined scribe :

"All Religion has relation to the Life: And the life of Religion is to do good."

The aim of the book is as simple as its title : it is to bring from the great Book of Life lessons and interpretations which may be helpful to its readers in the effort to bring religion into the affairs of every-day living. The sermons are condensations of discourses which I have preached; and in order to emphasize the need of applying spiritual truth from the beginning of the year right through to its end, they have been arranged one for each week.

New York City, November, 191 1.

J. K. S.

Contents

Jan. page

1st Week How the Great Love Came i

2d Week Why the Manna Could not Be Kept 9

I

"And He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." — Gen. iii 124.

God has given the cherubim the appearance of reality because they express so much that is vital. For the moment let us think, let us speak of them as if they were veritable beings. One thing we can surely understand about them: they personify a holy power that would guard our spiritual life, that would protect our eternal interests. That idea of guardianship is emphasized every time they appear. When, in the parable of the garden of Eden, Adam is represented as having disobeyed and made it impossible for him to continue in the life of simple, childlike innocence in which God first created him; when, to apply the parable to our own conditions, a man has deliberately chosen to live, not from a sense of dependence upon the love and wisdom of God, but from a principle of self -intelligence and selfrighteousness (represented by eating of the forbidden fruit of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil") ; and when, as the result of this wilful assertion of self-life he imagines himself to "be ii4 RELIGION AND LIFE

as God knowing good and evil/' insisting that he knows what is best for him and that he will have his own way — when that befalls, and the veil of innocence is brushed aside with his own hand, and he is ready to do and dare all to assert what he calls his own proper life ; then, when all human or heavenly counsel will not avail, and the man in the pride and folly of his self-life would not hesitate to violate the deepest things of his nature, then these mysterious beings called the "cherubim" are ranged in front of the tree of life. They are there as guards, indeed; but the strangely pathetic part of it is that they are there to protect the man against himself. With this pride in his mind, with this spirit of self-assertiveness and bravado in his heart, determined to live out his life in his own way, God sets a limit to his folly. If possible he shall be prevented from desecrating the deeper ranges of his nature. Better that he should be a man without faith, if, having it, he would in the end desecrate it and turn it into a lie. Better that he should not enter into the experiences of the spiritual life, if that were to result in a prostitution of its ideals and its emotions to his self-will. Better that he should be consciously kept from that inmost part of his being in which the life of God gives itself to him so immediately and unreservedly, if a fact so holy were to be swallowed up in pride. Is it not against perversions and violations of this kind, so fatal in their consequences, that the Lord

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said it is sometimes better that men should not perceive with their eyes, nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts, nor be converted ?

When a man sins in outward ways it is always bad for him. If he is carried away by any of the lusts of the flesh, if his tastes are low, the man is as one who walks or wallows in mire; and we cry "Shame!" If, with a better show of respectability, he yet pursues a selfish, worldly course, bent on pleasure, gain, power, with no thought, no wish for anything that is above his own immediate interests and pleasures, we might say, if our conscience did not smite us, "What folly!" But the deepest harm of all would be for a man to have the doors of his spiritual nature thrown open — in other words, to be "born from above" — before he is ready for so great a change, to think as angels think, to feel as angels feel, only to turn against these very things and mock them in the end. This is to break down the very structure of the soul, and leave it a violated, mangled thing.

Against such mortal injury the Divine Providence, we are assured, does everything — within the limits of our freedom — to protect us. That protection is represented by the cherubim keeping the way of the tree of life. For the tree of life, in the midst of the garden, clearly stands for the life of God communicating itself to us in the deepest and holiest part of our nature; and this is n6 RELIGION AND LIFE

something which must be preserved as a possibility in all.

These titanic figures, then, stand for this great, this unwearying purpose of the Divine Providence to protect and to promote our spiritual well-being. The eternal element in our lives, we are assured, is never lost sight of in the multiplicity of temporal concerns which to us seem so absorbing and so essential. This is as true of the man who is well-favored as the man who seems to have everything against him. Here is a child who is mentally deficient. He was born so. He will never be able to think or work like some of his companions. Here is a man whose faculties have in some way been stunted in their development. Physically, mentally, morally, he is inferior to his fellows. Instances of this kind — and they seem all too many — tax our resourcefulness, our patience, our belief. Remember the sign : the cherubim are keeping the way of the tree of life. There is an inmost part of that child or that man that is spiritual. The life of God is given to it as freely as to the well-born child or the normally developed man. What can be done is done for the other parts of their nature. Yet if the impediments are such as to make a proper development impossible; if incompetency, and a low condition of life both mentally and morally are the result, the Divine Providence, we are assured, holds such in a state of blamelessness. They are not condemned for their shiftlessness or their

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evils. They must pass through life as best they can; and the judgment passed is not upon them so much, as upon those who are mean enough to abuse and take advantage of their hard condition, or who fail to show them consideration. Their spiritual nature is closely guarded. It is like the tree of life in the midst of the garden before which stand the cherubim. They themselves cannot approach it; and we are told that when they enter the other world they enter it in a state of blamelessness. The soul of that deficient child or of that ill-born man is undeveloped and unregenerated ; but the cherubim have kept the way of the tree of life; and now that the hindering conditions are removed, the Lord and His angels will cause it to unfold and grow.

And for him who has tried manfully to do his best, the watch of the cherubim will also bring a joy. We may none of us get very far in the regenerate life; but if we have made a fair beginning, we are assured that the work begun will be carried to its completion. That means that after further instruction, experience, and heavenly encouragement the way to the tree of life will be open, and the condition will be realized of which it is written :

"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God."

20.— THE HELP OF THE CHERUBIM.