Joy Power | Page 6

our force on the central, fundamental truths which give steadiness and courage and cheer to the heart of man. I will not admit that it makes no difference to a man of this age whether or not he believes in the personal God and the Divine Christ. If he really believes, it makes all the difference between spiritual strength and spiritual weakness, between optimism and pessimism. I will not admit that it makes no difference to a learned scholar or a simple labourer to-day whether he accepts or ignores the doctrine of the atonement, the doctrine of personal immortality. If he knows that Christ died for him, that there is a future beyond the grave, it makes all the difference between despair and hope, between misery and consolation, between the helpless frailty of a being that is puffed out like a candle, and the joyful power of an endless life.
My brethren, we must work and pray for a true revival of Christian doctrine in our age. We must deepen our own hold upon the truths which Christ has taught us. We must preach them more simply, more confidently, more reasonably, more earnestly. We must draw from them the happiness and the help, the comfort and the inspiration, that they have to give to the souls of men. But most of all, we must keep them in close and living touch with the problems of daily duty and experience. For no doctrine, however high, however true, can make men happy until it is translated into life.
ii. Here is the second if, on which the power of religion to confer happiness depends: If ye know, happy are ye if ye do these things.
Between the knowing and the doing there is a deep gulf. Into that abyss the happiness of many a man slips, and is lost. There is no peace, no real and lasting felicity for a human life until the gulf is closed, and the continent of conduct meets the continent of creed, edge to edge, lip to lip, firmly joined forever.
It is not a blessing to know the things that Christ teaches, and then go on living as if they were false or doubtful. It is a trouble, a torment, a secret misery. To know that God is our Father, and yet to withhold our love and service from Him; to know that Christ died for us, and yet to deny Him and refuse to follow Him; to know that there is an immortal life, and yet to waste and lose our souls in the pursuit of sensual pleasure and such small portion of the world as we may hope to gain,--surely that is the deepest of all unhappiness.
But the right kind of knowing carries in its heart the doing of the truth. And the right kind of doing leads to a fuller and happier knowing. "If any man will do God's will," declares Christ, "he shall know of the doctrine."
Let a man take the truth of the Divine Fatherhood and begin to conform his life to its meaning. Let him give up his anxious worryings, his murmurings, his complainings, and trust himself completely to his Father's care. Let him do his work from day to day as well as he can and leave the results to God. Let him come to his Father every day and confess his faults and ask for help and guidance. Let him try to obey and please God for love's sake. Let him take refuge from the trials and confusions and misunderstandings of the world, from the wrath of men and the strife of tongues, in the secret of his Father's presence. Surely if he learns the truth thus, by doing it, he will find happiness.
Or take the truth of immortality. Let a man live now in the light of the knowledge that he is to live forever. How it will deepen and strengthen the meaning of his existence, lift him above petty cares and ambitions, and make the things that are worth while precious to his heart! Let him really set his affections on the spiritual side of life, let him endure afflictions patiently because he knows that they are but for a moment, let him think more of the soul than of the body, let him do good to his fellow-men in order to make them sharers of his immortal hope, let him purify his love and friendship that they may be fit for the heavenly life. Surely the man who does these things will be happy. It will be with him as with Lazarus, in Robert Browning's poem, "The Epistle of Karshish." Others will look at him with wonder and say:
"Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child."
Yes, my brethren,