Another most harmful result of deficient faith and confidence in God is that it leads us to trust in creatures. It causes us to reverse the proper order of things. We are dependent beings, and we instinctively feel our deficiencies and the need of some one, or something on which to lean, at times, and to which we can look for assistance. We may not be entirely and always conscious of this tendency in us, we may be too proud or too blind to admit it, or we may wish we could overcome it and rid our lives [pg 184] of so constant a need; but whether we see it and acknowledge it or not, whether we encourage it or try to repress it, the need is always there, deeply engraved in our nature as creatures, and we cannot but seek to satisfy it. There is none of us, frail beings that we are, who is entirely sufficient unto himself. Sometimes, of course, the voice of our needs is silent, and we feel that we shall never want; “I said in my abundance,” observes the Psalmist, “I shall not be moved forever;”[86] but when the tide begins to ebb and prosperity subsides, how soon do we remember that we are dust! How frequently in times of trouble, in times of illness and poverty and suffering, when face to face with our foes, or when death steps in and slaughters, are we made aware of our insufficiency, and of our utter helplessness to live our lives alone and meet single-handed the burdens and misfortunes of earth! It takes [pg 185] but a little frost to nip the root of all our greatness, and then when our high-blown pride breaks under us we quickly realize how fragile and insecure are the personal foundations of our lives. Naturally and reasonably, therefore, did the pagan philosophers conclude that friendship and friends were necessary to man.
Profoundly aware of this fundamental need of help and support which is a result of our nature, we habitually stretch out our hands to others, not only during the years of infancy and childhood, but to a greater or less extent throughout the whole period of our earthly existence. At first, of course, it is to creatures that we necessarily look—to parents, relatives, guardians, teachers, and later on, to friends and acquaintances. Our needs in the beginning and in early years, though many and imperative, are comparatively simple; they can be satisfied by those around us. But as we advance to maturity and take in more completely the [pg 186] meaning of our lives, and consider not so much the needs of the body as the demands of the soul, we find that the multiple requirements of infancy and youth, which were able to be supplied by those that were near, have given way to the fewer, but vast and unlimited, claims of age, which express the wants of the spirit. It is when we appeal to creatures for the complete and permanent satisfaction of these latter necessities of our being, that we seriously err, and open the way to disappointment and sorrow. Not that we are to have no cherished and chosen friends, or that we should despise the needs and gifts, the privileges and blessings of friendship, which in truth our nature requires; nor again that we are to regard with skeptical, disdainful eyes the world and human nature; but we must not deceive ourselves by trying to find in any created being that which it does not possess. We must not endeavor to get from any creature that perfect satisfaction which we need, [pg 187] and which the Creator alone can give. Neither must we seek to fill the unlimited capacity of our souls with those gifts only, poor and defective at best, which frail mortals like ourselves are able to supply. It is folly in the highest degree to expect from anyone less than God that which only God can afford.
The mistake, therefore, is made when creatures of any kind are allowed to take the place of God; when they are sought and reposed in as an end in themselves, and as sufficient satisfaction for the needs of the human spirit. Unwise, indeed, is this mode of action, and bitter are the sorrows of soul to which it inevitably leads! One man trusts in riches, another in glory, another in the esteem of men; one leans upon his friends and companions, another upon his relatives—all forgetful of the frail and unsubstantial nature of every earthly prop. Frequently they never awaken to the peril of their state until they find themselves face [pg 188] to face with their doom and the awful disillusionment. The crash may be delayed, but the day must come sooner or later for all of us, who have advanced but a little beyond maturity, when all the natural lights of life go out, when every human prop is removed, and we find ourselves out alone and in the dark, so far as depends on the world and creatures. How miserable then shall we be if we have put our trust in men! if we have tried to make creatures play the part in our lives which only God can play! When we need them most they fail us, when we fain would find beneath their protection a shield against the fiery darts of life, behold they wither like the ivy of Jonas and leave us alone in our want![87] How vain, therefore, and groundless is that confidence which is put in men, and how wretched that poor man that hangs on princes' favors! “Thou trustest in money,” says St. Augustine, “thou [pg 189] holdest to vanity; thou trustest in honor, and in some eminence of human power, thou holdest to vanity; thou trustest in some principal friend, thou holdest to vanity. When thou trustest in all these things, either thou diest and leavest them here, or in thy lifetime they all perish, and thou failest in thy trust.”[88]
It is no despisal, then, of the needs and helps of earthly friends and of our fellow-creatures to say that we should not put entire trust in them for all the wants and demands of our being. They are good, they were made by God, they are oftentimes able to assist us—nay, we need them to a certain extent; but they are utterly unable to satisfy us completely, they cannot if they would, simply because of the extent of our wants. And even if creatures could give us a partial contentment, as at times they seem to do, we know that it cannot last, and in the midst [pg 190] of our joy and pleasure we are haunted by the thought that some day, soon at latest, it all must pass away. We are seeking for rest, for peace, for happiness, and that unending; we want something to steady our lives and satisfy the yearnings of our souls forever: but we must not look for these things in the world, for the world at best is passing away. There is no stability to human things; the cloud and the storm swiftly follow the sunshine; we have not here below a lasting habitation. Today we are sitting at the banquet of pleasure, tomorrow we are draining the cup of sorrow; today we receive the applause of men, tomorrow we may be the objects of their scorn; today we put forth the tender leaves of hope, tomorrow there comes a killing frost that ruins all our prospects.
Such, then, is the lot of man when considered in his relations to creatures and to the world. It is a lot full of uncertainty, of instability, of vicissitude; but this should [pg 191] not make us skeptical or cynical; it affords no justification for pessimism. It is a condition arising, on the one hand, from the very nature of limited beings, and on the other, from the vast potentialities of our souls, which, while they are limited in giving to others, cannot be appeased except by the God who made them. There is a craving in the heart of man for something which the world cannot give. He clutches for the things that are passing, he toils, he labors, he struggles; he strives for money, for power, for place, for honor, not that any of these things are in themselves what he desires, but only because he conceives them as means and helps to the satisfaction, to the stillness of mind, and peace of heart, and rest of soul and body for which his nature longs. Peace and happiness and contentment of life are the objects of all our dreams, of our persistent efforts, of our ambitions and aims; but until we give up the hope of finding these things in the world, in [pg 192] our fellow-mortals, in anything short of God, we shall never know the blessedness for which we yearn. If we would ever attain to the state which we covet, we must learn the lesson, even though it be through tears and sorrow, that God alone, who made our souls with all their vast desires, is able to comfort us and steady our lives amid the storms and distresses of earth.
It is futile to trust in men, or “in the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.”[89] The peace and blessedness which we seek are “not as the world giveth;”[90] and unless we turn away from the world and cease to torture our lives with its vanities, our portion can never be other than heartaches, secret loathing, consuming thirst. “For many friends cannot profit,” says Thomas a'Kempis, “nor strong helpers assist, nor prudent counsellors give a profitable [pg 193] answer, nor the books of the learned afford comfort, nor any precious substance deliver, nor any place, however retired and lovely, give shelter, unless thou thyself dost assist, help, strengthen, console, instruct, and guard us.”[91] Such has been the history of the race, and such is the experience of every individual in the race that has placed his hope and trust in anything created.
We are confronted, therefore, on the one side by the inherent weakness of our own nature and the constant needs that arise therefrom; and on the other side, we are assured by the history of the race, if not by our own experience, that so long as we strive to satisfy our wants by an appeal to anything but God we are doomed to disappointment and sorrow. It is unfortunate that most people must first be crushed by the world and creatures which they serve before they grasp the fundamental truth that creatures [pg 194] are not their God. Comparatively few of those who enjoy the world are ever brought to realize the dignity and divine purpose of their souls until the world and its allurements, like a false pageant on a false stage, give way beneath them, and they fall helpless and alone. It is commonly only after repeated awful experiences, when worn out and exhausted by years of fruitless quest for peace and happiness and contentment, that men wake up to the simple fact that the treasures which they seek are not in the world, nor as the world giveth.
But it is one thing to turn away from the world disappointed, disgusted and betrayed; and it is quite another thing to turn to God and to recognize Him as our good Father and Shepherd, patiently waiting to receive us, ever able and ready to satisfy our wants. There are many people who find the world a disappointment and a deception, and who turn from it with loathing and hate, but who fail ever to lift their weary [pg 195] eyes to the proper object of their trust. Like the Israelites of old, they succeed at length in escaping from the hands of oppression and tyranny, but only to wander in a desert land throughout the length of their days. This is the region where dwell the pessimist, the skeptic and the cynic—miserable mortals that have wasted on creatures the talents they should have given to their Creator, or that have otherwise failed in their conception of life, and have left unmultiplied the money of the Master.[92] There is plainly no middle course for us, if we would not encounter disaster; we are not negative as to the necessities of our nature; it is not enough for us to turn from positive harm, from the objects that deceive and disappoint us; we must further turn to positive good, and to Him who alone can quiet and appease our yearning spirits.
One of the most evident and convincing [pg 196] reasons, then, why we should put our trust in God above all else is that He alone can satisfy and give us rest. Only God is able adequately to respond to all the needs of our being. The simplest process of reasoning should assure us of this, when once we perceive the vastness of our wants and the impossibility of their satisfaction through the medium of created things. We know our nature, which has come from the source and essence of truth, cannot be false. Neither can our unlimited capacities for knowledge, for joy, for happiness be a deceiving mockery. There is a way to peace for us, and a source of supreme contentment; there is a fountain of living waters from which, if we drink, we shall never thirst again. Hence our Saviour said: “Come to me all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you;”[93] and again, “he that shall drink of the water [pg 197] that I will give him shall not thirst forever: but the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.”[94]
But we shall never be able to come to God, we shall never succeed even in getting near the secret of interior peace and contentment until we are able to grasp more or less comprehensively the great basic truths of our existence: that God loves each one of us with the love of an infinite Father, and that His Providence is so universal and omnipotent as to extend to all things, even to the numbering of the hairs of our head. We talk much about chance and fortune and accident, we speak every day of things happening, as if by the sheerest contingence, without warning or previous knowledge; and so it is with reference to ourselves, and to all the world perhaps: but with reference to divine Providence it is not so; there is nothing accidental, nothing unforeseen with [pg 198] respect to God. “Without Thy counsel and Providence, and without cause, nothing cometh to pass in the earth,”[95] says the Imitation. But what does this mean, “God provides?” It means that the will of the omnipotent Father directs and governs everything. “Providence,” says St. John Damscene, “is the will of God, by which all things are fitly and harmoniously governed,”[96] and such is its power that nothing can elude or deceive it, neither can it be hindered or baffled in any way. “For God will not except any man's person, neither will He stand in awe of any man's greatness; for He made the little and the great, and He hath equally care of all.”[97]