Lessons of faith and life. Discourses

Preface

This volume hardly requires a preface. It consists of a few discourses selected from many that I have preached in this city during my ministry here of almost thirty 3'ears. They have been copied for the press from manuscripts in which some of the passages were fully written out, while in other instances I have endeavored to recover the substance of my remarks from fragmentary notes. These discourses have been arranged without regard to the relation of subjects. I need not add that they probably contain nothing new ; but I hope the}' may be found to express needed although familiar truth. They are simply what they profess to be,- — " Lessons of Faith and Life." They are now committed to those, who, having heard them, may desire to receive them again in this form, and to any who may think fit to read them ; and I pray that God will make them useful.

E. H. Chapin.

New York, Dec. S, 1876.

IS

Contents

PAGE

Ruth 58

DISCOUESES,

I. The Transfiguring Look

11 And as he prayed the fashion of his countenance was altered." — Luke ix. 29.

HATEVER view we may adopt concerning the

T I nature of Jesus, and however distinctly we may recognize the supernatural elements involved with his earthly life, it is hardly necessary to affirm that the incidents of his personal history, as recorded in the Evangelists, had a human side. They indicate some possibility of human experience. It is thus with the incident described in the text. It was, in a special sense, a transfiguration. We may say that it involved a condition never expressed in any merely human life. But as in Jesus we behold the highest ideal of humanity, so in this act of transfiguration — though in a more glorious and exalted way — he represents and illustrates something which takes place in man, — in every man, whenever he assumes

THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK.

the highest posture of his nature, and gives expression to the deepest convictions of the human soul. As Jesus prayed there on the mount, 44 the fashion of his countenance was altered." And so we may say that, as man prays, — or, in other words, as in any posture man comes in contact with the great realities of religion and of the soul, and expresses his relation to these, — the fashion of his countenance alters, the look of humanity is transfigured. And this is the thought that I propose to illustrate in the present discourse.

Perhaps there is no test so ready and so sure of what is in a man, either of fixed character or transient sentiment, as his own face. It is curious to see how hidden and fleeting thoughts will cast reflections of themselves upon this wondrous mirror. To some extent this tendency may be controlled by art. as it is said to have been in the case of Xapoleon. But it is likely that there will be some aspect or motion — some uncontrollable flicker of the eye — which will open a chink into the secret cabinet of the heart. So you may trace the under-current of passion rippling in the cheek of courtesy, and detect the lewd nature peering through unsuspected masks. How plainly will a mean motive skulk in the front of affected carelessness, while an instinctive counsel within us challenges a man's words by his looks. On the other hand, consider how marvellously people are transfigured by high and holy sentiments. You

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hardly recognize the homely features, or the clumsy shape, when an eloquent thought, or a great truth, shoots like an aurora into the countenance, and sets its star-light in the eyes. The puny form dilates with a heroic purpose, and the plain and even coarse face, lit up with benevolence as it bends over the bed of sickness and pain, becomes beautiful as an angel's.

But if the fashion of a- man's countenance is thus flexible to the transient currents of his inner life, it receives a more permanent stamp from his substantial character. The faces of men may be read like books, and present symbolic title-pages of their essential life. That in which a man lives, and for which he hankers, — the plane and standard of his being, — appears in unmistakable lineaments. As his image maybe transferred to clay or marble, so his countenance is only a flesh-and-blood cast of his spirit. Who cannot discern the sensualist's ideal in that expression of exuberant desire ? Avarice, miserliness, hard, grinding requisition, are they not all projected in that countenance, as it were not of skin and bone, but of parchment and bullion ? And then how the heart of love swims to the surface, and the overflow of a sweet generosity glorifies the aspect ! You may be able to suspect from many a professor's face when he has more creed than religion, as you can also see whose soul walks higher than condemning dogmas, among great charities and holy thoughts.

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And now, if men are thus moulded, or transfigured, by their inmost ideals, it is a matter of interest for - us to consider the expression of humanity at large under the inspiration of sincere religious faith. I say at once, then, that it is the highest expression of humanity. I affirm that there is no mode of action, no posture of being, so grand, so hopeful, so pregnant with suggestion, as that of man praying, — one in whom culminates the fullest expression of Christian belief and service. It is a transfiguring look, which lifts him above all sin and frailty and dust and shadow, and exhibits him as a child of God and an heir of immortality. Higher than any mere intellectual achievement is this uplifting and surrender of the soul. Newton grasping the firmament in his thought is not so sublime a spectacle as Newton when he kneels and adores. And as to the most insignificant or miserable man, — the beggar, and the penitent thief, and the little child, and the soldier trampled in the bloody mire of the battlefield, and the unconsidered unit clinging like a barnacle to the hull of civilization, and the daughter of shame withering in the street, — as to each and all, I say that when they pray the fashion of their countenance is altered, the husk of their mortality cleaves open, and they assume an expression of indescribable dignity.

And as with individual instances, so with the collective humanity. Its supreme expression is in the

THE TBAXS FIGURING LOOK.

act of faith and worship. Upon this earth there is no sight so suggestive and inspiring as the spectacle of a congregation gathered, as we have gathered here to-day, in acknowledgment of an Infinite Power, of a Goodness that is over all, in the expression of dependence upon a Supreme Helper, in a sense of unseen and eternal realities. Wherever men this day assume the posture of religious trust and reverence, looking upward to the Invisible, — in the simple meeting-house, where the silver hairs of village saints, and the toil-worn hands of husbandmen, and the patient look of matrons, and the faces of little children blend in a sweet and solemn service, and groups, passing homeward through ranks of tombstones, read their lines of immortal hope gleaming through the grass, and look calmly on the places where they shall sleep in " the country churchyard;' 5 and in cities, where congregations sit without utterance, waiting the summons of the Spirit, or where with much ceremony litanies are chanted and censers swung, and the organ's divine thunder rolls through a thousand hearts, — wherever to-day humanity heaves with the great ground-swell of religion, and all outward distinctions dissolve in the light of spiritual relations, — I say that there this humanity is transfigured : it is lifted above its sins and miseries and frailty, and ail that gives occasion for sceptical distrust. For as man prays — as his nature assumes its highest expression — the shadows

THE TRANSFIGURING LOOK.

of his mortality disappear, and the fashion of his

countenance is altered.

But we may go farther than this. Even in heathen lands, even in shapes of terror and of folly, we recognize the working of an element in man that exalts him far above the beast of the field, and suggests his relationship .to things that can never die. For what is this perverted sentiment, grossly perverted, working out in such deplorable results? what is this sentiment that has such perpetuity and power ? What is it, if not an instinct of our nature that has groaned and writhed under a sense of the Invisible, — that has built rock temples, and carved hideous gods, and impelled men to cut the tenderest chords of nature, to lacerate themselves, to mutilate themselves, to cast themselves into the flood and the fire, and that has darkened the earth and the sky and the heart of man with drifting shapes of superstition? Why. I say that this power, from the lowest point of its scale to the highest, from the African grovelling before his shapeless idol, up to Luther discerning through ranks of priests and kings the presence of his God, up to Paul counting all things as loss for the sake of Christ, — I say that this power transfigures man. and forbids those low conclusions to which sometimes theoretically, and much more often practically, we consent.

Yes, for this religious sentiment, thus fearfully perverted, I claim a legitimate function. It must

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have a normal office, or it could not be a perverted sentiment. It cannot be a factitious element : it has not been superinduced upon our nature. I claim that it is an authentic instinct and function of the soul.

But if this sentiment of religion, this sense of the Invisible, is legitimate, then it must have reference to real objects; else it is exceptional among all other functions of our nature. As we have no faculties without a purpose, without corresponding objects, as for the eye and the hand there are external things to be seen and touched, so for this religious organ, just as veritable as the hand or the eye, there exist external realities to which it refers. For one thing, there is a God to be sought and loved and adored : and so this familiar act of a man praying transfigures him from a material puppet into an immortal soul ; from mere kinship with the brute, into a child of the infinite Father. I ask, then, in all our speculations, have we duly considered what this act of prayer, or any other posture of religious faith, really means? Have we considered what it demonstrates, and also what it contradicts ?

Even at the risk of some repetition, let me specify that which has now been generally suggested.

I. I observe, then, in the first place, that the very attitude of religious faith contradicts sceptical theories of human nature. In trying to estimate the worth and the purpose of any being, it seems reasonable

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that we should adopt for our standard the highest manifestations of that being. As an illustration of my meaning, I remark that we estimate any individual man, not by what he may be doing at any specified time, not by the weakness or failure of some particular occasion, but by what he has done in his highest moods, what he is capable of doing at his best We do not expect that Demosthenes will always give us an " Oration for the Crown," that Shakspeare will always write a " Hamlet," or Tennyson an " In Memoriam." But surely it is by these productions, and not their poorest, that we rate such men. We measure their calibre by their broadest circle of achievement, and stamp the recognition of genius upon that which they have done, and can do, in the full swell of their powers. Now apply this illustration to classes of being. Concerning the brute we commonly say, that, in his highest manifestations, he shows no capacity for any state beyond this earth. In his career there is no progress, at least his achievement betrays no illimitable faculty, his eyes drink in no great depths of space, and kindle with no speculation. With all his sagacity and tractability he is, nevertheless, brutal. But it is not so with man. Strike out of the question, so far as the present discussion is concerned, all the splendid achievements of the human intellect, admit that the mind of Plato or La Place is of the same sort as the mind of the mastiff or the elephant, and that, therefore, they are

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involved in a common destiny, still, in man there is something that is not in the animal, something that does not run on the same plane with his instinct, or, if you will call it so, his intellect; and that something is this religious sentiment, this transfiguring element, which flows upward towards God, and breaks forth in the clear-shining of faith, and mounts in prayer. Even if it be found that this distinction between man and the brute does not exist, and that in the animal also there are germs of religious sentiment, this would not balk the inference. It would only enlarge the possibilities of the brute.

I maintain that we should estimate the significance of man by that in him which is highest. Is this being, then, who aspires to eternal things, a mere clod of earth ? Is he who conceives and feels after God only a form of matter? We are not to illustrate his capacity by the grossest and meanest aspects of humanity. It may be difficult to argue the spiritual dignity and the immortal destiny of mankind, if we select our tests anywhere and everywhere. It is hard, indeed, to kindle high hopes for the race, if you turn the light upon the face of the degraded savage, or the more degraded drunkard. We may rake the kennels of society, and rip up the swarms of filth and ferocity that go by the name of " men." We may take the idiot, the debauchee, the fop, the accomplished scoundrel, — all head and no principle, nothing but cold brain-light, down to the empty

THE TEANSFIGURING LOOK.

socket of his heart; we may take a libertine, a tempter of his brother's soul, a corrupt politician, a thousand disheartening forms of humanity that pass by us every day ; nay, we may take the weakness and the sins even of good men, and upon all this we may erect a formidable superstructure of scepticism, and scoff at the notion of man's religious nature and his immortal destiny. But this is not the standard. Your scepticism does not comprehend all the tests. As in the case of the individual, so in regard to mankind at large, we must judge not by the lowest, but by the highest. There are all these disheartening phases of humanity ; but here, also, are these glorious instances. There are fools and knaves and tyrants and sensualists ; there are such as Caligula and Benedict Arnold and George IV. : but here, also, are Pauls and Fenelons and Florence Nightingales ; here are men and women writing a Christian martyrology in letters of blood and fire on the walls of amphitheatres; here are Latimers and Ridleys holding unblenching hands in the flame ; here are Pilgrims clasping Bibles to their breasts as they sail over stormy seas. Nay, let us get away from these scenic instances of history, here, right around you, are poor widows in bare garrets, kneeling, with God-seeing eyes ; here are oppressed and suffering men clinging to their simple belief in an infinite Helper, and feeling the consolation of Jesus breathing upon their sorrow ; here are poor brethren

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of ours, pressed by grievous temptations, lifting up their souls to Him who can make them strong in their moral conflict, and with swift strokes of supplication cleaving down help from the Almighty, Here is a man called to lie down and die, leaving a sick wife, leaving little helpless children ; feeling the mortal terror creeping inward to his heart, as the mortal agony creeps over his flesh ; but still looking up to the Father, laying hold of immortality, and in that one touch of faith making the coarse sheet that soon is to be his shroud more glorious with heaven's light than the hearse of Napoleon, rumbling through the streets of Paris and blossoming with a hundred victories. In such, in a thousand ways, here is the spectacle of man praying, — man summoning faith and devotion, and taking hold of unconquerable strength, lifted into unfading light; and, I ask, what do you make of this ? I maintain that thus estimating humanity by its highest, not by its lowest attitudes, this weak, sinning, dying creature refutes all sceptical conclusions, and the fashion of its countenance is altered.

II. I proceed to observe, in the next place, that in this expression of our nature we find a refutation of any extreme claim of action as opposed to worship, and also of science as setting itself in the place of religion. I touch the point of suggestion here, by asking why we have come together in this place to-day? Is it not in a persuasion that man must

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pray as well as work, — that he cannot depend merely upon his own resources, but must look up for Infinite help ? But are there not those who say that all forms of worship are obsolete ; that prayer is a superstition fit only for the ignorant and weak, and that, after all, the only true prayer is work ; that true manliness depends upon itself, and does not look away for help ? Now, in this assumption doubtless there is some truth. It hits some points of positifte error. It shows the impracticability of absolute fatalism, which leaves no room for human effort. It justly rebukes reliance upon mere forms of devotion without corresponding action. But, on the other hand, it overlooks the irrepressible instinct of prayer. It does not allow for the fact that man needs inspiration for his work, and that the individual advances and the race advances by ideals as well as by endeavors. The area of human vision is a condition of its power, and the strongest men the world has ever known are men who have risen from their knees to their feet. Indeed, if we shut out those realities which come into the horizon of prayer, the aspect of man's work upon the earth, of his efforts and struggles, is sad and doubtful. But by that revelation which he discerns in communion with God and unseen things, his hopes are confirmed, his trials are interpreted, his aspirations and his labors become significant, and the fashion of his countenance is altered. I have sometimes looked out upon the sea, stretching in one sweep of mystery

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far around, and without a boundary save the horizon, But, in all its aspects of grandeur and of beauty, to me nothing appears so suggestive as the sight of the vessels moving upon it, and, as they go, catching the glory of sunlight upon their sails. For so, I think, is the world itself, — a great deep of beauty and fearfulness and mystery, shut in by an irresolvable horizon. And we should have far less hope for the moving hulks of our endeavor, — for this great ship of human interests, — were it not for the glory reflected from beyond and above, were it not for that open vista through which streams sunlight upon the sails.

Action, then, cannot occupy the place of prayer. As the very motive power of our action, we need the inspiration and the vision which are revealed to faith.

Nor can science be substituted for religion. The soul of man requires a light that we cannot find through the telescope, or at the end of the galvanic wire. It cannot rest or be satisfied with the mere discernment of natural laws. It cannot steer through the mystery of life with no other chart than the physical constitution of man. It needs a heavenly Father and a redeeming Christ. For religion is not a mere fancy or tradition. We may declare it obsolete, but it cannot be uprooted from human nature. In short, man needs the gospel. Here stands Jesus, occupying a place which no other has filled or can

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fill. Christ the revealer, Christ the glorified, Christ the transfigured, represents something without ourselves and above ourselves. He presents a point of reconciliation between the human and the divine, that no one else — no Plato, no Socrates, no oracle of scientific truth, no modern type of philanthropy — can give. In the light which streams upon us from the personality of Jesus the fashion of man's countenance is altered.

III. In closing, let me say that the fact which we have been considering, not only refutes false theoretical, but unworthy practical, conclusions. The realities which are assumed in this posture of faith and worship — the realities to which the spirit of man ascends, and with which it holds communion — rebuke all low and selfish and indifferent ways of living. And, after all, this is the most imminent danger, not that we shall deliberately form atheistic opinions, but that we shall abide in atheistic conclusions. Opinions are the result of reasoning, and are amenable to the force of reason ; but the fascinations of sense, the pressure of visible and tangible things, more than intellectual disbelief, confirm men in an apathetic worldliness that can be broken only by touching the springs of spiritual consciousness, and rousing the forces of the will. At least, it is desirable that we should spring a bridge from our thoughts to our actions. Thinking as many, perhaps as most of us do, giving at least a passive assent to

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the reality of spiritual things, do we still live as though these things were not ? On the other hand, living as many do, I urge them to think back to the premises that justify such living. Construct, in theory, a universe that will justify profaneness or licentiousness, meanness and fraud, lack of principle and lack of love. How awful the system of things in which such lives would be logical conclusions! A universe in which there are no foundations of "eternal and immutable morality," no source for divine light like that which shone upon Jesus and from Jesus on the mount of transfiguration ! And we only phantoms of a day, groping among the tombstones of elder generations, re-animating their forsaken vanities, and with our measure of lifebreath blowing out their collapsed and withered sins ! Living as many do, I repeat, think back to such a system as this, and thus live logically.

But if we are children of God and heirs of immortality, what then should be the scope and standard of our lives ? Oh, my brethren ! if there is a world from which a supernatural splendor fell upon the face of the praying Jesus, — if there was such a Jesus, revealing such things to men, — - if these things are real, — it is not merely the fashion of man's countenance that alters, but the entire fashion of human life ! Then, not those things concerning which men think and act as though they really made up the substance of our being, but those we seek for

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and cling to in solemn moments, in our best hours and in our last, — these are the supreme, the eternal fashion, all else being uncertain and perishable.

Moreover, these consecrate all good and true things, even in our common lot and work. The light from above, the light from within, by which the fashion of man's countenance is altered, shines in both directions. It guides us downward from the mountainheight of meditation and prayer, even as Jesus went down to work and duty. And this light also shines upward, disclosing those spiritual realities with which our essential being is implicated. I ask again, If that light be real, what is the logical, the simple, the practical conclusion ? Why, that we awake, and live in that transfiguring revelation.

II. The Visible And The Invisible

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." — 2 Cor. iv. 18.

THESE words form a part of that grand passage of consolation which the Apostle Paul mingles with a recital of his sufferings for the gospel's sake. In doing the work to which he was called, he had pursued a career of peril and persecution. But the dangers which dashed around him only exposed the rocky solidity of his faith; the sacrifices which lay in his way proved the integrity of his purpose. He tells us that he was "troubled on every side, yet not distressed;" " perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." He was able to call his heaviest trial a " light affliction," and saw how the transient event of the hour was working out for him "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,"

In the words before us the apostle makes known the source of all this strength. He was able thus to do and endure, because he recognized those eternal realities upon which all present conditions are based, or into which all present conditions subside. Why should he not be confident ? Why should he not be victorious ? Why should he fear stripes and imprisonment, and principalities and powers ? Why should he despair, or feel forsaken, when he was so sure that " the things which are seen are temporal, but the tilings which are not seen are eternal " ?

The Second Epistle of Paul to the church of Corinth is the most personal, the most pregnant with his own peculiar thoughts and feelings, of all those remarkable letters that bear his name. In the course of this epistle he tells us of his joys and sorrows, his anxieties and consolations. In his relations to this particular church there had been much to excite these solicitudes, much to awaken his thankfulness and trust. But from these personal and temporary conditions emerges the truth which is permanent and universal. By the very intensity of his own private emotions the apostle mounts up into the realm of everlasting light and peace, where all earthly troubles melt away, and all the measurements of time dwindle to nothing. And thus Paul's experience of trial and suffering, which in one form or another come to all the children of men, leads to that margin of help and rest which is accessible to all.

" For the things which are seen are temporal ; but the things which are not seen are eternal." This was the truth which inspired and consoled the apostle Paul, and it may inspire you and me and every man. This truth, therefore, I now propose to consider : —

I. As a standard of power.

II. Of knowledge.

III. Of life.

I. I remark, then, that the truth proclaimed in the passage before us indicates the standard of true power. And, first of ail, I say that it is an immeasurably practical truth. It might be supposed that this steadfast regard to things invisible would disturb the conditions and depreciate the claims of our ordinary life. But it is not so. On the contrary, this spiritual discernment, throwing all things into true relations, gives to each thing its real value. For instance, the man who habitually contemplates these permanent realities is delivered from any sceptical mood. The importance of all life, the inherent greatness of being, is to him made apparent. He cannot say concerning this thing, or that thing, that it is " all vanity ; " for however slight it may be in itself, however transient in its operation, in one form or another it is the instrument or occasion of spiritual action. It expresses spiritual laws. He whose vision is limited to that which is seen, may easily fall into doubt and disparagement. To him, things may seem to have no purpose. He sees them

THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE.

growing and decaying, appearing and vanishing, in a wearisome monotony of change. Let a man, for the time being, suppose himself to be utterly deprived of the vision of faith. In other words, let him suppose himself to be living only in the light of that which he sees. Take the great procession of human life ; take that fitting representation of it which every day passes through yonder street, perpetually flowing, and, as it flows, bearing every mortal aspect from youth to age, from the mystery of birth to the mystery of death. Each particle in that mighty stream cherishes some purpose, aims at some end. Nevertheless, estimating all by the limits of time and sense, that purpose is brief, and that end is vain. And to what purpose, to what end, the great whole which composes this ceaseless river of humanity? To what purpose the successive generations that have rolled over the globe from the beginning until now, each characterized, perhaps, by some special form of achievement, each rising or sinking in the scale of civilization, each bequeathing something to the generations following? But why talk of generations? It is the individual only that is conscious of life, not any corporate humanity abstracted from individuals ; and to each who has thus lived, and achieved, and suffered, to what purpose is it all ?