The Essentials of Spirituality | Page 7

would see their beloved husband and father in

striped garb among the scum and refuse of society, and these weary
journeys would be repeated during long years until his term was over
and he returned a broken and outcast man to what was once a home.
Could not this lamentable issue at least be forestalled? But then there
came a new light into our discussion. One of the students suggested
that he must face the consequences of his wrongdoing, and that one of
the consequences is the very suffering which he inflicts upon the
innocent. He must see that day by day. That would be a part of his
expiation, the purifying fire that may consume the dross of his nature.
And, on the other hand, it would be right for the innocent to bear, not
the guilt, but the consequences of the guilt of the wrongdoer whom
they have loved, whom they still love. For this is the holy law: that the
other whom we love shall be taken into our self as a part of our very
self, that in his joy we shall rejoice as if his joy were ours, that in his
achievements we shall triumph, that in his humiliations we shall be
humbled, and that we shall work out his redemption by traveling with
him the hard road that leads out of the dark depths upward again to the
levels of peace and reconciliation.
The spiritual life depends on self-recollection and detachment from the
rush of life; it depends on facing frankly the thought of death; it is
signalized, especially, by the identification of self with others, even of
the guiltless with the guilty. Spirituality is sometimes spoken of as if it
were a kind of moral luxury, a work of supererogation, a token of
fastidiousness and over-refinement. It is nothing of the sort. Spirituality
is simply morality carried to its farthest bounds; it is not an airy bauble
of the fancy, it is of "the tough fibre of the human heart."
II. THE SPIRITUAL ATTITUDE TOWARD ONE'S NEIGHBOR.
Sunday, Nov. 27, 1904.
Those whom we call our neighbors, our fellow-men, may stand to us in
a threefold relation. Some possess gifts far greater than our own, and in
point of development are our superiors; some are on the same level;
and some are much inferior to us. The spiritual attitude toward our
neighbor--though always governed by the same principle, expresses
itself in different ways, according as our neighbor is related to us in one

or another of these three ways.
I recently read a biography of Matthew Arnold, the author of which
constantly speaks of himself as Arnold's disciple. It is not often
nowadays that we hear men proclaim themselves disciples and glory in
their discipleship. At the present day the tendency is for every one to
assert an equality with others; and most persons would resent the
imputation of subordination implied in such a word as disciple. And yet
the writer in question is a self-respecting man, he is thoroughly alive to
his dignity, and he has keen and unsparing words for certain of the
faults of the master whom he reveres. He is not blind, he is not wax in
the hands of the master, he does not look upon him with undiscerning
admiration, and yet he takes toward him the reverent attitude--what I
should call the spiritual attitude--for he recognizes that this master of
his is a casket in which nature has deposited a treasure of extraordinary
value, that he possesses a genius much superior to that of others. The
loyal disciple is concerned that this genius should appear in its full
potency and in undiminished radiance. To this end is the upward look,
the appreciation and reverence, and to this end also the misgiving and
the remonstrance when the great man deviates from the course which
he ought to follow. The same attitude of loyalty we sometimes find
among the disciples of great artists, and the followers of great religious
teachers. Loyalty is a virtue which is somewhat underrated at the
present day. Loyalty is not debasing, not unworthy of a self-respecting
man; it is but another name for the spiritual attitude toward those who
have a superior genius, to whose height we are lifted by our
appreciation of them.
Furthermore, in our spiritual relation toward those who occupy about
the same plane of development with ourselves, the same principle of
sympathy with the best possible attainment should be the rule. To
rejoice in the failure of others, to accentuate in our thinking and in our
conversation the faults of others, to triumph at their expense, is the
utterly unspiritual attitude. To desire that others may manifest the
excellence that is latent in them--be it like to or different from our own,