VII
THE SENSE OF THE UNSEEN
When the practically-minded man Paul writes of looking at the things which are not seen his words sound like either fantasy or folly. Yet it is plain fact, practical, and certainly essential to any success. He is blind who can see only with his eyes, and he only is sensible who knows there are many things beyond his senses. Practical men consider all the factors to every problem, and things are not less real to them because they may chance to be intangible.
The unseen things are imminent to us always. There are many things not yet pigeonholed by our science nor catalogued by our philosophies. You can dissect a daisy and enumerate its parts; but you never know a daisy until you have seen the unseen things thereof, until you have felt the subtle appeal of its beauty. Bobbie Burns saw more of the daisy than the greatest botanist without his spiritual eyes.
The danger is that in our hard workaday we shall forget the reality of the unseen, we shall get to think that gold and steel and land are the only real things, and we shall shape ourselves by the blind and base creed of gold, and steel, and land. How easy it is to measure every man by his possessions in tangible things. How easy to make these our chief end in life, to slight the real prizes, the unseen wealth that lies so close at hand or already possessed, while we rush and strive for the rainbow of riches.
Deep within us we know that he is rich, and he alone, who has wisdom, love, patience, who possesses friends, who creates kindly thoughts, whose life with simple joy abounds. Once again and often do we need to see Bunyan's picture of the man bending over his refuse, gathered with the muck rake, and heedless of the angel holding the crown that only waits his taking.
A man is wealthy according to what is within him. His greatness is of the things that are unseen. There are limits to the possession and the use of the things that are seen; but who shall set a limit to a man's possible wealth in love and honour, in wisdom and integrity, in all the things that make up the soul of man? Few are the things that a man may hold for his own all the days of his life, and fewer still are those he may grasp with pleasure when the hands are falling helpless by his side. But many are the riches he may have to hold forever in the things of the unseen. Many a man walks through the fields penniless and yet richer far than their owner; to him the birds sing, for him the flowers bloom, to his eyes there are beauties in the blue beyond all words, and all the loveliness of the fair land lifts his heart within him. The other man who holds the title deeds sees nothing beside them. Possession is wholly a matter of appreciation. The earth is the Lord's and He gives it to those who have eyes to see.
It is the eye to see the unseen that gives wealth to the seen. Values depend on vision. Appreciation does not prevent possession; it makes the possession actual. And the vision of the realities behind things keeps a man from the sense of destitution when all things are taken from him. He cannot be destitute. He may lose all his fellows, but he cannot be friendless; the Father of Spirits cannot lose him, nor can he be cut off from fellowship with those who die no more.
The seeing eye is the stimulus to the worth while endeavour. The inventors who have enriched the world endured derision seeing the things invisible to others. The truth is that it is the unspiritual world that makes the least progress in things material. The men of faith and vision are back of all advance. They have endurance, patience, and strength. The sense of another world where motives are rightly measured, the sense of a great cloud of worthy witnesses to other eyes invisible, the sense of reward in the very service itself, rewards intangible yet most real, the joy of sacrifice and service; these all enable one to push on, to toil, to endure. Then, long afterwards, the dull, weary world sees and understands.