Chapter VIII
Friendship in God (continued)
The official temper of mind is by no means the only bar to wide fellowship. Exclusiveness and temperamental dislike are responsible for a great many sins against brotherly love, and must be fought down by every true follower of our Lord. When men are left to themselves, they gravitate into mutually exclusive groups composed of congenial classes or of congenial types. But Christianity steps in and breaks up these little sets, in order to blend them into one varied and splendid whole. The vision which S. John had revealed to him, was humanity in all its variety—"out of every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and tongues"—but at perfect unity with itself, a complete and harmonious family.
§ 1. Probably there is no temper of mind more difficult to master than that of exclusiveness. In the evolution of society class differentiations have come into being, differentiations which, at the time of their appearance, may have been a necessary phase of progress, but which, in the development of Christian thought, should pass away. It would not be right or wise to contend for the immediate obliteration of all artificial distinctions in life, for conventionalities are often social safeguards and have their place in civilization. But surely the earnest disciple of Jesus must array all the forces at his command against the continuance of customs that have been separated from their usefulness, and are perpetuated only to be stumbling blocks to human fellowship.
The worth of conventionalism has for its supreme test the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. When He quieted the strife of the disciples, who were filled with the ignoble lust of domination, He inaugurated a new social order. "He that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve." The old order made kings the recipients of much service, the new calls them to give much service; the old order led men to strive for honour, the new inspires them to avoid honour unless bound up with an enlarged opportunity to serve; the old order prized whatever privileges set men above and apart from their fellows, the new seeks everything that will bring them nearer to their fellows. So merit and reward, privilege and responsibility, greatness and service must never be separated. Where they have been separated in the past, as well as where they are in the present, the result is exclusiveness. Men cling to prerogatives which in common justice they have no real claim upon, beyond the flimsy plea of hereditary right and the permission of society. Out of this have grown those groups of persons who, though possessing nothing but a very common humanity indeed, would, from a sense of superiority derived from a name, or from the false prestige given by wealth and social position, withhold their fellowship from all but a select few. If men could but realize the cramping influence on character of exclusiveness, how quickly would they hasten to divest themselves of every trace of the vice of snobbishness! Dives lived in exclusive society after death because he did so before death. He was no farther from Lazarus in the other world than he was in this; the gulf created here was "fixed" there, that is all. And among the "losses of the saved" will be lack of capacity for wide fellowship.
The dignity of humanity is so great that nothing can add to its greatness, excepting what ennobles human nature itself. Wealth, social position, mere intellectual attainment, no more deserve deference or homage, than do the tatters of a pauper or the ignorance of a dolt. No man insults human nature or demeans his personality so much as he who bows down to these accidents, excepting only the man who receives homage on the ground not of what he is but of what he has. We may neither pay homage to, nor receive it for, any of those things which belong merely to time and of which death will strip us bare; though piety, spiritual wisdom, and all forms of moral power, always and everywhere, demand homage and reverence.
The true basis on which Christian fellowship is begun and maintained, is our common humanity—that which is essential and not that which is accidental. Our Lord drew men to Himself and had human fellowship with them, by virtue of the completeness and attractiveness of His splendid manhood. He had none of the accidents of life to use, and He was not weak without them. He was the most refined among men, and yet He found companionship among the peasant folk. Social differentiations did not enter into our Lord's reckoning. He ignored them, reaching through them and past them. It is touching to remember that one of the earliest companionships in Paradise of the human soul of Jesus, was the resumption of almost His last intercourse on earth. As the soul of the penitent outlaw and robber, "pale from the passion of death," went into the society of Paradise, it was received and welcomed by the Man, Christ Jesus.
It is a myth that the wise and cultured must confine their fellowship to the wise and cultured.[15] By means of literature men and women of high privilege, have joined hands with those whose lives were bare of everything but character—with Adam Bede and with Uncle Tom. If this is possible with the creations of fiction, it is capable of being widely true in actual life. The richest human nature is often found in the most obscure places, as the experience of every social worker from Edward Denison to the resident in the newest "settlement," will testify. True refinement is not the result of paltry conventionalism, the flimsy creation of an artificial society; true refinement is the inalienable possession of that character in which the Spirit of God rules, in which the material is made the handmaid of the spiritual. At first men went out into the highways of the city, armed with their privileges, thinking that they had everything to give. But they soon learned that this spirit could only end in condescension, which is fatal to fellowship, for fellowship means give and take, and that the poor and unprivileged had much to give. Unless representatives from the different classes of society are contributing their special gifts to our lives, life is poor indeed. Wealth of fellowship consists not in numbers, but in variety.
When men reach out for wider fellowship, they must not forget that no man ever yet won his fellows through his own interests. He must, by the subtle power of sympathy, dive beneath the surface of other lives and court their interests. Even God failed to win men, until He made man's concerns wholly His own by becoming Man. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might become rich."
§ 2. Temperamental dislike is another obstacle to Christian fellowship to be conquered. It is something found wherever human nature is. And men commonly excuse quarrelsomeness, rudeness and other unchristian conduct on this score, though the excuse is by no means valid. Probably all of us are afflicted with a natural antipathy to certain kinds of temperament, but at least we need not humour it. It was part of God's design, that human society should be enriched by variety of disposition. That is a poor garden which contains but one kind of flower, beautiful as its blossom may be. True beauty consists in variety; and monotony is the height of ugliness. It is a reason for thankfulness that human nature is so wonderfully diversified that no two human beings are exactly alike, and that there is a whole gamut of temperamental difference in the race.
Now it is a part of the work of Christianity, to reconcile dispositions that are naturally antipathetic and jarring. And the process by which this is brought to pass, is probably one of the most beneficial disciplines to which men are subjected. The Church is a great mixing bowl, in which all this vast variety is brought into close touch and blended together into a harmonious whole. "The very purpose of the one Church for all the men of faith in Jesus is that the necessity for belonging to one body—a necessity grounded on divine appointment—shall force together into a unity men of all sorts and different kinds; and the forces of the new life which they share in common are to overcome their natural repugnance and antipathies, and to make the forbearance and love and mutual helpfulness which corporate life requires, if not easy, at least possible for them."[16]
That society is at once the most beautiful and the most powerful which is composed of the largest variety of temperaments, exercising their various faculties in unity and mutual helpfulness. Some persons imagine that the most desirable parochial life is where all the parishioners are of one stripe, instead of that in which there is a finely disciplined diversity. A parish of dead uniformity would be comfortable but not educative, quiet but colourless and insipid.
Unquestionably certain natures are so constituted as to irritate us every time we come near them. And unless we are very carefully on our guard we will not treat such persons justly or courteously, much less will we be ready to render them delicate service. Quite unconsciously we exhibit our temper of mind. There may be the determination not to allow our feelings to rise to the surface, but nevertheless before we know it we have done the mischief; and somehow the bitterness we entertain has been let loose, not by a word or a look, perhaps, but by some subtle telepathic or psychic influence which opens the secret of our soul to our companion. There is nothing more infectious than a temper of mind. It seems to leap out of one soul and impart itself to another without heeding the ordinary laws of transmission. Anger, lust, suspicion, dislike, jealousy smirch not only the souls in which they lie restrained though not conquered, but others that come within the radius of their wide-reaching influence.
Fortunately this power of infection is not confined to evil passions, but belongs even in a larger degree to those which are good. And herein lies the remedy for temperamental dislike. If we stop short at choking it down, we can never make a friend of one whose disposition is naturally repugnant to us. Sooner or later our dislike will crop out and a gulf be made. If, on the other hand, the dislike is displaced by generous, full love—love that is a force and not a mere emotion—fellowship, and eventually friendship, will become possible. There may be grounds often for our antipathies. Some people have the misfortune to be graceless, awkward and repellant; others are unattractive if not positively disagreeable to every one—bad-tempered, perhaps, or mischief-makers. To educate these in Christian fellowship is probably as large a public service as could be readily rendered. "It is no great matter," says Jeremy Taylor,[17] "to live lovingly with good-natured, with humble and meek persons; but he that can do so with the froward, with the wilful, and the ignorant, with the peevish and perverse, he only hath true charity."
§ 3. A third bar to Christian fellowship is what, for want of a better phrase, may be termed a weakness for interesting people. That is to say, the humanity that is within easy reach seems commonplace and uninteresting, so that men of our intimate acquaintance often appear to be hardly worth while labouring for. Hence it is a common habit to reserve our best thought, our best manners and our best service for strangers, making little positive effort to love and serve those with whom we are thrown into daily contact. Nowhere is human perversity more glaring than in the sad truth lurking behind the proverb: "A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and house." The value of those who stand nearest to us is lowered by means of their very nearness. On the other hand the persons who are outside our immediate circle, however comprehensive it may be, seem to be more interesting than the very average folk who are our ordinary companions. We long for companionship with men of this finer type.
Of course this is all a delusion. Human nature is full of interest wherever we find it, that which is nearest as well as that which is farthest removed. The men we would like to know and serve, are no more worthy of attention than the men who stand shoulder to shoulder with us. But those who have the largest claim upon our attention and service, are our immediate friends and neighbours. Indeed the only way to arm ourselves against disappointment, as the boundaries of our fellowship are enlarged, is so to attach ourselves to the people near at hand as to learn the true dignity of all human nature and the almost unfathomable depths of every personality. Otherwise an acquisition in acquaintanceship will, after the first glow of novelty has worn off, only reveal one more uninteresting person.
§ 4. There is one other duty that ought to be at least touched upon in this connection, though it has been referred to in a former chapter—the duty of praying for others. There is no more delicate service in the whole round of human action than that of intercessory prayer. It is so hidden as to have a special beauty on that account. While men are all unconscious that we are thinking of them, we fold our arms about them and bring them up before God for blessing and guidance. Intercessory prayer might be defined as loving our neighbour on our knees. The common objection, "What good can it do? Will not God bless men just as much without our prayers as with them?" seems to have a certain amount of weight. But a very little reflection shows that it does not amount to much. Even though intercessory prayer did nothing more than put us who pray in a desirable frame of mind toward those for whom we pray, it would be an exercise of great value. However, as a matter of fact, it accomplishes much more than this. Besides making our feeling of fellowship stronger, it really brings something to those for whom we offer our petitions. Human life is as closely bound up on the spiritual as on any other side of our being. It is quite certain that if we withhold the duties of service in other ways God does not supply our lack, so far as we can see, but human life suffers through our neglect. If all else in our experience is governed by law, why should we believe that the spiritual part of life stands alone and is not affected by spiritual service? There is from analogy every reason to suppose, that those who are not prayed for suffer spiritual loss on that account.
But the immediate point to be made is that the height of Christian friendship cannot be reached without intercession. It has been pointed out by a spiritual teacher[18] that it makes a great difference in our feelings towards others if their needs and their joys are on our lips in prayer; as also it makes a vast difference in their feelings towards us if they know that we are in the habit of praying for them. There is no chasm in society that cannot be firmly and permanently bridged by intercession; there is no feud or dislike that cannot be healed by the same exercise of love.
Here, then, as in all else, if we are to come anywhere near the ideal we must lift our eyes to God. Friendship in God is possible only for those who bring society before God in prayer.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Cf. Browning's verses in Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, where the result of false culture, or the abuse of culture, is referred to:—
Man is made in sympathy with man
At outset of existence, so to speak;
But in dissociation, more and more,
Man from his fellow, as their lives advance
In culture; still humanity, that's born
A mass, keeps flying off, fining away
Ever into a multitude of points,
And ends in isolation, each from each.
[16] Gore on Ephesians, p. 189.
[17] Works: Vol. vii. 624.
[18] Canon Gore.