RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE.
PART II.
Another consideration which I shall adduce in support of the assertion that it is not impossible to blend religion with the business of common life, is this: that religion consists not so much in doing spiritual or sacred acts, as in doing secular acts from a sacred or spiritual motive.
There is a very common tendency in our minds to classify actions according to their outward form, rather than according to the spirit or motive which pervades them. Literature is sometimes arbitrarily divided into “sacred” and “profane” literature, history into “sacred” and “profane” history—in which classification the term “profane” is applied, not to what is bad or unholy, but to every thing that is not technically sacred or religious—to all literature that does not treat of religious doctrines and duties, and to all history save Church history. And we are very apt to apply the same principle to actions. Thus, in many pious minds there is a tendency to regard all the actions of common life as so much—an unfortunate necessity—lost to religion. Prayer, the reading of the Bible and devotional books, public worship—and buying, selling, digging, sowing, bartering, money-making, are separated into two distinct, and almost hostile, categories. The religious heart and sympathies are thrown entirely into the former, and the latter are barely tolerated as a bondage incident to our fallen state, but almost of necessity tending to turn aside the heart from God.
But what God hath cleansed, why should we call common or unclean? The tendency in question, though founded on right feeling, is surely a mistaken one. For it is to be remembered that moral qualities reside not in actions, but in the agent who performs them, and that it is the spirit or motive from which we do any work that constitutes it base or noble, worldly or spiritual, secular or sacred. The actions of an automaton may be outwardly the same as those of a moral agent, but who attributes to them goodness or badness? A musical instrument may discuss sacred melodies better than the holiest lips can sing them, but who thinks of commending it for its piety? It is the same with actions as with places. Just as no spot or scene on earth is in itself more or less holy than another; but the presence of a holy heart may hallow—of a base one, desecrate—any place where it dwells; so with actions. Many actions, materially great and noble, may yet, because of the spirit that prompts and pervades them, be really ignoble and mean; and, on the other hand, many actions, externally mean and lowly, may, because of the state of his heart who does them, be truly exalted and honorable. It is possible to fill the highest station on earth, and go through the actions pertaining to it in a spirit that degrades all its dignities, and renders all its high and courtly doings essentially vulgar and mean. And it is no mere sentimentality to say, that there may dwell in a lowly mechanic’s or household servant’s breast a spirit that dignifies the coarsest toils and “renders drudgery divine.” Herod of old was a slave, though he sat upon a throne; but who will say that the work of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth was not noble and kingly work indeed?
And as the mind constitutes high or low, so secular or spiritual. A life spent amid holy things may be intensely secular; a life, the most of which is passed in the thick and throng of the world, may be holy and divine. A minister, for instance, preaching, praying, ever speaking holy words and performing sacred acts, may all the while be doing actions no more holy than those of a printer who prints Bibles, or of the bookseller who sells them; for, in both cases alike, the whole affair may be nothing more than a trade. Nay, the comparison tells worse than the former, for the secular trade is innocent and commendable, but the trade which traffics and tampers with holy things is, beneath all its mock solemnity, “earthly, sensual, devilish.” So, to adduce one other example, the public worship of God is holy work: no man can be living a holy life who neglects it. But the public worship of God may be—and with multitudes who frequent our churches is—degraded into work most worldly, most unholy, most distasteful to the great Object of our homage. He “to whom all hearts be open, all desires known,” discerns how many of you have come hither to-day from the earnest desire to hold communion with the Father of spirits, to open your hearts to him, to unburden yourselves in his loving presence, of the cares and crosses that have been pressing hard upon you through the past week, and by common prayer and praise, and the hearing of his holy Word, to gain fresh incentive and energy for the prosecution of his work in the world; and how many, on the other hand, from no better motive, perhaps, than curiosity or old habit, or regard to decency and respectability, or the mere desire to get rid of yourselves and pass a vacant hour that would hang heavy on your hands. And who can doubt that, where such motives as these prevail, to the piercing, unerring inspection of him whom outwardly we seem to reverence, not the market place, the exchange, the counting-room, is a place more intensely secular—not the most reckless and riotous festivity, a scene of more unhallowed levity, than is presented by the house of prayer?
But, on the other hand, carry holy principles with you into the world, and the world will become hallowed by their presence. A Christlike spirit will Christianize everything it touches. A meek heart, in which the altar-fire of love to God is burning, will lay hold of the commonest, rudest things of life, and transmute them, like coarse fuel at the touch of fire, into a pure and holy flame. Religion in the soul will make all the work and toil of life—its gains and losses, friendships, rivalries, competitions, its manifold incidents and events—the means of religious advancement. Marble or coarse clay, it matters not much which of these the artist works, the touch of genius transforms the coarser material into beauty, and lends to the finer a value it never had before. Lofty or lowly, rude or refined as life’s work to us may be, it will become to a holy mind only the material for an infinitely nobler than all the creations of genius—the image of God in the soul. To spiritualize what is material, to Christianize what is secular—this is the noble achievement of Christian principle. If you are a sincere Christian it will be your great desire, by God’s grace, to make every gift, talent, occupation of life, every word you speak, every action you do, subservient to Christian motive.
As a last illustration of the possibility of blending religion with the business of common life, let me call your attention to what may be described as the mind’s power of acting on latent principles.
In order to live a religious life in the world, every action must be governed by religious motives. But in making this assertion, it is not, by any means, implied that in all the familiar actions of our daily life religion must form a direct and conscious object of thought. To be always thinking of God, and Christ, and eternity, amid our worldly work; and however busy, eager, interested we may be in the special business before us, to have religious ideas, doctrines, beliefs, present to the mind—this is simply impossible. The mind can no more consciously think of heaven and earth at the same moment than the body can be in heaven and earth at the same moment. Moreover, there are few kinds of work in the world that, to be well done, must not be done heartily; many that require, in order to excellence, the whole condensed force and energy of the highest mind.
But though it be true that we can not, in our worldly work, be always consciously thinking of religion, yet it is also true that, unconsciously, insensibly, we may be acting under its ever-present control. As there are laws and powers in the natural world, of which, without thinking of them, we are ever availing ourselves—as I do not think of gravitation when, by its aid, I lift my arm, or of atmospheric laws when, by means of them, I breathe, so in the routine of daily work, though comparatively seldom do I think of them, I may yet be constantly swayed by the motives, sustained by the principles, living, breathing, acting in the invisible atmosphere of true religion. There are undercurrents in the ocean which act independently of the movements of the waters on the surface; far down too in its hidden depths there is a region where, even though the storm be raging on the upper waves, perpetual calmness and stillness reign. So there may be an undercurrent beneath the surface movements of your life—there may dwell in the secret depths of your being the abiding peace of God, the repose of a holy mind, even though, all the while, the restless stir and commotion of worldly business may mark your outer history.