Pax Vobiscum | Page 5

life is the finest of the Fine Arts, that it has to
be learned with lifelong patience, and that the years of our pilgrimage
are all too short to master it triumphantly.
Yet this is what Christianity is for--to teach men the Art of Life. And
its whole curriculum lies in one word--"Learn of me." Unlike most
education, this is almost purely personal; it is not to be had from books
or lectures or creeds or doctrines. It is a study from the life. Christ
never said much in mere words about the Christian graces. He lived
them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy Him. We learn His art
by living with Him, like the old apprentices with their masters.
Now we understand it all? Christ's invitation to the weary and
heavy-laden is a call to begin life over again upon a new
principle--upon His own principle. "Watch My way of doing things,"
He says. "Follow Me. Take life as I take it. Be meek and lowly and you
will find Rest."
I do not say, remember, that the Christian life to every man, or to any
man, can be a bed of roses. No educational process can be this. And
perhaps if some men knew how much was involved in the simple
"learn" of Christ, they would not enter His school with so irresponsible
a heart. For there is not only much to learn, but much to unlearn. Many
men never go to this school at all till their disposition is already half
ruined and character has taken on its fatal set. To learn arithmetic is
difficult at fifty--much more to learn Christianity. To learn simply what
it is to be meek and lowly, in the case of one who has had no lessons in
that in childhood, may cost him half of what he values most on earth.

Do we realize, for instance, that the way of teaching humility is
generally by _humiliation_? There is probably no other school for it.
When a man enters himself as a pupil in such a school it means a very
great thing. There is much Rest there, but there is also much Work.
I should be wrong, even though my theme is the brighter side, to ignore
the cross and minimise the cost. Only it gives to the cross a more
definite meaning, and a rarer value, to connect it thus directly and
causally with the growth of the inner life. Our platitudes on the
"benefits of affliction" are usually about as vague as our theories of
Christian Experience. "Somehow," we believe affliction does us good.
But it is not a question of "Somehow." The result is definite, calculable,
necessary. It is under the strictest law of cause and effect. The first
effect of losing one's fortune, for instance, is humiliation; and the effect
of humiliation, as we have just seen, is to make one humble; and the
effect of being humble is to produce Rest. It is a roundabout way,
apparently, of producing Rest; but Nature generally works by circular
processes; and it is not certain that there is any other way of becoming
humble, or of finding Rest. If a man could make himself humble to
order, it might simplify matters, but we do not find that this happens.
Hence we must all go through the mill. Hence death, death to the lower
self, is the nearest gate and the quickest road to life.
Yet this is only half the truth. Christ's life outwardly was one of the
most troubled lives that was ever lived: Tempest and tumult, tumult and
tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time till the worn body was
laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm
was always there. At any moment you might have gone to Him and
found Rest. And even when the bloodhounds were dogging him in the
streets of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples and offered them, as a
last legacy, "My peace." Nothing ever for a moment broke the serenity
of Christ's life on earth. Misfortune could not reach Him; He had no
fortune. Food, raiment, money--fountain-heads of half the world's
weariness--He simply did not care for; they played no part in His life;
He "took no thought" for them. It was impossible to affect Him by
lowering His reputation; He had already made Himself of no reputation.
He was dumb before insult. When He was reviled He reviled not-again.
In fact, there was nothing that the world could do to Him that could
ruffle the surface of His spirit.

Such living, as mere living, is altogether unique. It is only when we see
what it was in Him that we can know what the word Rest means.