Our best moods, soliloquies and other discourses

Front matter

SOLILOQUIES AND OTHER DISCOURSES

BY

DAVID GREGG, D. D.

Contents

PAGE

I. Our Best Moods: their Origin and Use i

II. Soliloquy in Human Life : its Place and

I. Our Best Moods: Their Origin And Use

I.

OUR BEST MOODS: THEIR ORIGIN AND USE.

"And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures? " — Luke 24: 32.

The story of the text is a story which shows the play of moods in human life. This is the reason we come to it now. We covet for ourselves the best mental frames, the best states of heart, that by means of these we may reach a perfect versus a partial self. We believe that we are made by our moods ; so we take up the story of the text that we may analyze the moods which were the hidden forces in the substructure of the nature of these two men, Cleopas and his friend.

Who were Cleopas and his friend? No one knows. No one ever heard of them before. They were inconspicuous and unhistoric. Outside of this story they have no existence. Christ had only forty days to spend between His resurrection and His ascension, and yet He gave a full half day of

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this valuable time to the purifying and the changing and the reconstruction of the moods of these humble and unknown men. This certainly reveals Christ's estimate of man's moods. He seeks to make these right in order that He make the man right. He found Cleopas and his friend in one of the lower moods, and when He left them He left them in one of the higher moods. He found them facing the wrong way, He left them facing the right way.

The story of Cleopas and his friend is an exceedingly interesting story. It is climacteric both in substance and in form. It is more like an acted drama than a story. We are interested in the two sad-faced men as they quit Jerusalem, and we enter with them into their heart-sorrow ; but when the unknown stranger joins them, and throws his life into their life, our interest rises to a white-heat. The center of their thoughts and of their conversation and of their deep feeling is Jesus. Jesus and their moods are locked and interlocked. According as they see Christ, so they feel ; and according as they feel, so they act. Thus it has been for three years. The disciples of the Master have been bounding and rebounding from mood to mood. They have been full of hope, then full of discouragement. They have been enthusiastic, then spiritless. They have had a grand perspective, then they have been hemmed in on every side as with iron clamps. At one time they could see

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everything, and then at another time they could see absolutely nothing. At one time they thought that every grand thing which they saw in Him was about to be realized, and they rose up to proclaim Him king ; but in a few days afterward these very same things scarcely had a tentative shape. Much had seemed about to happen ; but nothing did happen, and it looked as though nothing could happen.

The sadness of these two friends, as they walked, slow of foot and heavy of heart, typified the mood of all the disciples of Jesus. They had a dream of a regenerated country ; of an established kingdom with its capital at Jerusalem ; of a general transfiguration ; and of honors and emoluments which would soon be theirs. They had enlarged views of Christ. They loved the Master fervently. They were fascinated by His teachings. They were awed by His miracles. They were ravished by His tender affections. They had given up their all, and had devoted themselves for all they were worth to Him and to the future which they thought they saw opening upon the world through Him. Now, instead of realizing these fond anticipations which made new men of them, what had come? What? Inglorious collapse! A cause smitten to the dust by the strong arm of the hated Roman Empire ; shattered hopes ; a complete disappointment ; a cruel deception ; and, above all, the catas- > trophe of the Cross. These were sad things to

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talk about, but these were the only things they had to talk about. The only thing not sad before them was a certain rumor which some hysterical women had set afloat, that His tomb was empty and He had been seen alive. But even that was sad also, because it was such an utter impossibility.

Talking only made matters worse, so that when the unknown stranger joined them they were completely swayed by sadness. Their sad faces framed Christ's salutation : " What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? "

The happenings amid which they had lived were so much a part of their lives, that they wondered that any man in all Jerusalem could be ignorant of them, and they expressed their wonder. "Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the tilings which are come to pass there in these days ? " They did not know that this sympathetic friend was Jesus. "Their eyes were /widen." They were holden by what? Holden by unpreparedness for His coming ; by wrong views ; by non- expectation ; by man-manufactured theories; by ignorance of the Scriptures. No one knew better what had taken place in the community than Jesus. Who could know more of the crucifixion than He ? or more of the tomb, full or empty, than He? or more of His reputed resurrection from the dead than He? But mark the answer which

THEIR ORIGIN AND USE.

He returned to the question of Cleopas. His answer was this : " What things f " This set both of the men talking, and they recounted everything ; and more than this, they put their interpretation upon the sad events. They gathered up the fragments of their broken hopes, and put these together again, that He might see just what they had been cherishing in their heart. What a drama this is! We are let into the seciet. As we read and listen, how impatient we grow, and how anxious we become that Cleopas and his friend may know all. We anticipate the thrill of their coming discovery. I call this magnificent story-writing.

Their reply to the question, " What things ? " — the question of the Master — is really part of the exposition which Jesus gives of His Messiahship. He lets them say that they had trusted that Jesus was He who should have redeemed Israel, and then intimate that instead of redeeming Israel He had abandoned the cause of Israel at the critical moment. He lets them say that things are worse now than they ever have been. He lets them say all this that He may show them that Jesus was never truer to the cause of Israel than when He died, and was never so near His triumph as when his enemies nailed Him to the cross. It was just then that He nonplussed the powers of darkness. He lets them tell of the shipwreck of their faith, and enunciate the things that disappoint them most ; for He meant to make evidences out of their

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objections, and to show them from the Scriptures that the very things which perplexed them and broke them up were the precise things which the Scriptures predicated of the true Messiah. "Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

It was the Scriptures, the Holy Bible, which Jesus used, in order to lift these men from the lower mood into the higher mood. It was by unfolding the Scriptures, and by filling their whole being with the truths of the Bible, that He changed their views, repleted them with rapturous joy, and made new men out of them. Mark this : Jesus Christ the perfect man honored the Bible. He recognized it as the repository of truth. He indorsed it as a divine power. He exalted it as the touchstone by which ideas and doctrines and sentiments and duties are to be tested. He used it as evidence. What is evidence? It is that which satisfies a man from top to bottom — his intellect, his conscience, his affections, his tastes, his emotions, every part of him. In the case of Cleopas and his friend, the Bible, as used by the Master, did all this. The Scriptures opened produced faith ; and faith quickened resulted in hearts that burned ; and hearts that burned with every faculty on fire, scintillating and corruscating, saw the true Christ. A heart on fire is the symbol of intense life. Now, intensity of life is what we should

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possess when we deal with Jesus. It enlarges fellowship, makes us more receptive, and gives us keen perceptions.

With what did the hearts of these two burn? They burned with joy. They burned with a new admiration of Jesus. They burned with a new sense of His mastery over affairs. They burned with a sense of shame, too, that they should have done Him the injustice of supposing that He had deserted them and the cause which He introduced into the world. They burned with the glow of rekindled hopes. They burned with a fresh confidence in the Christ. They burned with bright anticipations of a glorious future. No wonder their hearts burned. They had gotten back their Christ, and He had charmed away their griefs, and had filled them with unspeakable comfort.

To me there is a perfect charm in the way the story tells us how Cleopas and his friend got back their Christ. They say to their hearts, " This stranger is a friend of the Master ; he understands the Master; he completely trusts the Master; he thoroughly knows what the Master should be, and what the Master is." Because of this they feel it good and uplifting to be in the presence of this stranger. When they reach the white houses and the lemon groves of Emmaus, as the red sun sinks in the western sky over the hills of Ephraim, their hearts cling to the new-made friend. When He would go on alone, they plead with Him, "Abide i6

OUR BEST MOODS.

with us." When He accepts of their pressing invitation and sits down with them to enjoy the evening meal, He reverently lifts His voice in prayer and asks a blessing, just as Jesus was wont to do in the happy days of old. Then their hearts instinctively say, " How like the Master Himself this new-found friend of Jesus is!" With this state of feeling reached, they are ready for the last, the revealing act of this wonderful but captivating stranger, viz., the breaking of the bread which has just been blessed. It was in the performance of this act that they knew Him. As he lifted the bread and handed it to them they saw the print of the nail in His hand, and at once knew that it was the crucified hand of the Crucified One that ministered to them. God be praised ! The Scriptures are fulfilled ! The resurrection story of the morning is true! Christ is alive again! They can stand nothing more than that; hence the most merciful thing Jesus can do is to do what he does, vanish for the time oitt of their sight. He has lifted them into the highest possible mood, and all that is necessary is to allow that mood full play. It will do all the rest. It will take Cleopas and his friend back to Jerusalem, and will make them forever witnesses of the resurrection and heralds of the glorious gospel. "And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem; . . . and they told what things were done in the way, and how He was known of them in breaking of bread"

THEIR ORIGIN AND USE.

What did Jesus do in order to lift these disciples to that high mood which changed their whole life ? He did this : by the use of the Bible He put hope into the hearts of Cleopas and his friend. By hope they were saved. When hope is gone, life and impulse are gone. There are no songs in the night. There is no effort. There is no progress. Bunyan shows us this in that marvelous parable of life, " The Pilgrim's Progress." Cleopas and his friend were like Pilgrim in one of his dark experiences. Pilgrim on one occasion fell into the hands of Giant Despair, and the giant shut him up in a black dungeon in Doubting Castle. And how did Pilgrim act and talk then? What was his mood? How did he feel ? He said to himself, "All things are at an end. No more sunny roadway. No more pleasant conversation with friends. No more songs in the night. No more the reaching out of a helping hand to some fallen brother. No more gleams and glimpses of the Eternal City. Nothing in the future but darkness, helplessness, and despair." Suddenly he remembered a key formerly given him, and which he had put for safe-keeping in his bosom. He began at once searching for that key, for as he fumbled around the door of the dungeon the question came to him : " What if this hidden key of mine should fit this lock, and turn this bolt, and give me freedom? It may be that this key was given me for such an hour as this." The thought was an intuitive thought, and the

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intuition proved as true as the God who sent it. Pilgrim found that the lock and key matched ; and with the key of hope the bolt of despair was turned back with perfect ease. When once this bolt was turned the door of the dungeon sprung wide open of its own accord, and Pilgrim was out again in the sunlight, a free man. Looking up to the heights of the Mount of Glory, he saw there full in view the Celestial City with its streets of gold and its shining walls of precious stones. Methinks, too, that his vision during his first moments of freedom were so keen, so microscopic, and so telescopic, that, looking through the open door of the palace up there,' as an angel turned the pages of the Lamb's Book of Life, he actually caught a glimpse of his own name upon one of the crystal pages. Of one thing we are absolutely certain, and that is, from that moment on Pilgrim went forward on his pilgrimage with a fresh zeal and an unflagging step. Christ fired Cleopas and his friend with hope. With the key of hope He unlocked the dungeon of the lower mood in which they were imprisoned, and opened for them the door into the sunshine of a higher mood.

There are three points which I wish to evolve from this story, and these I shall now set in order.

I . We are all creatures of moods, and our moods determine our living.

For the most part we act as we feel. Emotion is life. Stagnation is death. What is water in a

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stagnant pool worth? It has nothing of the music of the brook in it. It turns no mill. It gladdens no meadow. It is water in motion that is life, and that is valuable. Water in motion : sailing through the heavens in clouds; pattering in the April shower; leaping in the cataract; throbbing in the mighty tides of the ocean — that is the life of nature. So it is in the human world. It is not the men who stagnate, but the men who circulate, who pulsate, that are life and power. It is the emotive men, the men who have large capacity for feeling. " Modern science has brought out this truth most wonderfully in its great discovery that all forces are only 'modes of motion.' So it is ' motion ' with the letter ' e ' prefixed — ' emotion 1 — that lies at the heart of all the transformations and all the progress of human life." As men are under the influence of the emotions — love, hate; trust, fear ; hope, despair ; admiration, repulsion — so will they act. These emotions create moods, and moods create life.

We all know how our moods govern us, and how quickly we pass from mood to mood. One * morning I heard a mother ask her little child, who had wakened in good spirits, " Whom does baby love?" The little thing answered gleefully, "Baby loves everybody" Five minutes after the child became dispirited ; the same voice asked the same question, "Whom does baby love?" and the answer this time was, "Baby loves nonebody"

OUR BEST MOODS.

What was the cause of this change of conduct? A change of mood. That was all. But that was everything. It meant a change in the spirit and conduct and life of the child. We have an illustration of the same kind in the experience of the Hebrews on the border of the Promised Land. Look into the faces of the Hebrews when Joshua and Caleb return as spies from Canaan and tell of the wonders of the land. The multitude go into raptures over the land when they hear of the milk and the honey which are there, and when they see samples of the grain and of the luscious clusters. The leaders can scarce restrain the army from taking up the march at once. But mark you how in a moment everything changes ! The spies utter one sentence which drives hope out of their lives. It is this: "There are giants in the land" This changes their mood, and they talk differently : " We do not care much for Canaan — never did. We do not drink milk — never did. We do not like honey — never did ; it is so sweet that it sickens us. The Promised Land, after all, is only hills. Egypt is good enough for us. Let us go back to Egypt.''

Life is full of moods. That is our point. There are in it moods of unfaith, moods of scorn, moods of indifference, and Sadducean moods. There are in it low- moods, which may come from ill- health and physical feebleness, or from fatigue of mind, or from oppressive rivalries, or from disappointment.

THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 2 I

We need rest; we need sleep. In these moods our moral discrimination is blunted, our reason is warped. We have the testimony only of our weariness; we are full of apprehension, fear, foreboding.

Life is full of moods. That is our point. There are in it moods of hope, moods of love, moods of consecration, moods of faith, moods of expectancy, moods of joy, and sacramental moods. These are the better moods, and are full of inspiration and light. They are full of heart-life with its intensities and raptures. In them all the faculties of man are awake and in exercise. Man is clear-thoughted and large-hearted. Reason and conscience and the faculty of vision are all clarified. These are the moods which we should choose and seek; for out of them may be constructed a beautiful and Christlike life.

Just here comes in my second point, and it comes in here for our encouragement. It is this :

2. There is a way of reaching the high moods.

Cleopas and his friend reached an apocalyptic mood. The Bible introduces us to a troop of men living in the best mood. Jesus had His moods. It was not all a Gethsemane mood with Him; He had His transfiguration night and His hosanna day. The shepherds had their uplift ; it was the holy night. The world was never the same after that night. Something had happened. The old had passed away and the new had come. God had

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wrought by His quiet power a great revolution. Run down the names that tower in history, and notice the high place which the best moods have : Bethel was a high mood in Jacob's life ; Pisgah in Moses' life ; Horeb in Elijah's life ; the house-top vision at Joppa in Peter's life ; Patmos in John's life ; and the third-heaven translation in Paul's life.

I urge upon those young in years who are just entering the Christian life to seek the best moods, and to store their natures brimful with hope, that element which is the largest constituent of a best mood. I preach hope for everybody, even for those who are in the midst of reverses. There is nothing better that we can have. No one should distrust hope. It is not a cheat foisted upon human life. It is not a mirage making beautiful pictures on the air of something that does not exist. It is not a will-o'-the-wisp flitting before us and leading us into a bog. It is a vital force putting power into the roots of our being. Let me illustrate. Let me take an ultra case. You are a business man, and a man disappointed in business. The most hated thing in the world is your ledger. You hate it because it tells the tale of the wreck of your hopes. Is there any harm in your resting your head on your hand over that ledger, in which 'the balance comes out on the wrong side, and dreaming that you will have something better by and by ? No. Not a bit of

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harm. It will refresh you. It will give a new spring and vigor to your future attacks on the problems of your life.

Do our young friends ask me, How can we reach the best moods in life? I answer their question by asking, How did Cleopas and his friend reach their best mood? They are our guides.

(a) They reached their best mood by living with the open Bible.

Do likewise, and you, too, shall reach your best mood. Here is where you get hope. Here is where the bells of promise ring. Is there any grander hope in the universe than the hope of the resurrection, or the hope of likeness to God, or the hope of perfection? These are all in the Book. We want something to implant in our natures the hopes and feelings and sympathies and loves and joys that center in the nature of Christ. The Bible does that. Moods are results. Emotions are always the subjects of conditions. They do not come and go at call. Feelings follow causations. Ideas produce feelings. Elemental truths produce feelings. What mood do you want ? The faith mood? The ideas and elemental truths to produce faith are in the Book. So are the ideas and elemental truths requisite to produce the joy mood, the love mood, the hope mood, the sacramental mood. The way into the best mood is through the diligent and prayerful use of God's Word, the Bible.

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(b) They reached their best mood through association with Jesus Christ.

Usually our best moods come to us from our best associations. Christ raised their minds into contact with His, and this was the secret of their leap from the lower mood to the higher mood. Between them and the Master there was the mingling of soul with soul, heart with heart, spirit with spirit, and life with life. The Christ mood is the highest mood. The result was they reached that. They thought as Christ thought, and they felt as Christ felt.

But I must hasten to my last point. It is the practical application of the sermon. It is this :

3. There is a profitable way of using our best moods.

We should convert them into inspiring memories.

We should gather them as men gather and store electricity. We should turn them into perpetual fountains of joy. They can ever remain in our experience as reminders of our possibilities. They can create renewed expectations of a second benefit. Cleopas and his friend drew fresh joy out of their best mood after Jesus had vanished out of their sight. "And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures f " They relived the scenes of their best mood. They treasured their mood as an ideal. They set it up in their life as a standard.

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We should make our best moods the court of decision in life.

Too many things are settled in the lower court of our nature, where pride and vanity and avarice are on the bench, and where carnal policy pleads at the bar. Too many things are settled in our lower moods when single faculties of our souls only are active and brought into play. In our higher moods, all the faculties of our souls are awake and are at work. Then the mind perceives things intuitively, and the conscience is exceedingly sensitive to right and wrong. Reason is calm, the moral feelings are aroused, and everything fine in our nature is in the ascendency. The feelings are heroic, and the vision is luminous. The soul sweeps along the lines of its purest ideals. The man feels that he is a son of God. The chiefjustice in the spirit of man is above and beyond a bribe. This is the court in which to adjudicate the claims of God and of mankind, and in which to decide as to what is right and wrong, and what is duty. This is the court into which to bring our doubts and cases of casuistry. This is the court whose decisions upon all matters of principle and sentiment and conduct may be counted upon as almost infallible.

We should translate our best moods into actual life.

That is what Cleopas and his friend did ; their best mood became a journey to Jerusalem and a

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testimony to the risen Christ. We should give our moods a practical turn. This is what Jesus did with His highest earthly mood, His transfiguration mood. He compelled it to get Him ready for Calvary. He occupied its precious and uplifting moments in talking with Moses and Elijah about the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. Our best moods, in which the pulse is quickened, and the love fired, and the brain made large-thoughted, are only the initial condition of a life more permanent and better. These must result in purposes, and in volitions, and in intellectual states, and in character, and in conduct. There must be, as an outcome from them, a journey to Jerusalem, and a testimony for Christ. Our best moods should be productive ; they should give the world something grand and permanent. David's best mood gave the world the twenty-third Psalm ; Paul's, the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans; John's, the Apocalypse. These magnificent writings are all embodied moods. When we go into the midst of the affairs of the world we should take our visions with us, and we should aim to materialize them in actualities. The moods of an interesting and uplifting Sabbath in the temple of God should fruit in a truer life in the home, and in the social circle, and in the realm of business. Our best moods should lay hold on the commonplace things of life and turn them into sacramental things for the service of God, as Moses

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laid hold of and turned the cedar wood and the canvas and the fine-twined linen and the gold and silver into a Holy Tabernacle. Every grand thing that has come from the hand of man is simply a higher mood, with its holy feelings and uplifting visions, translated by the patience and toil of man into some serviceable and permanent form. Look at the " Sistine Madonna " ! You are lost in wonder at its ideal beauty. But what is it? And what is it made of? It is a common piece of canvas ; common pigments ; earths ; extracts ; things which would soil the hands if you should touch them. The maker was an intense soul, and an infinite patience ; the whole work is just the best mood of the artist, captured and wrought out, and materialized and made serviceable, and immortalized. Every high mood which God gives us should produce the equivalent of a " Sistine Madonna," or should give the world an Apocalypse, or should fruit in a journey to Jerusalem, and in a public testimony to the risen Christ.

Lord grant us the beatific vision to-day. We need it to ennoble this life. We need it as a solace. So set before us the self we should reach that it cannot be rubbed out in forgetfulness. Help us to realize our high calling in Christ Jesus. Let our whole life be a life of ascending. Make our souls as sensitive to the touch of Jesus as the harp is to the touch of the skillful harper. Walk with us as we journey to the Emmaus of the skies, and

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