When a man is getting fat out of the fall of others he is sure to be a warm advocate of their right to be free to fall.
Many a man will be surprised when he gets to heaven to find how large a place his little kindly deeds occupy in its history.
XX
THE ONE AT THE HELM
Danger tears away our disguises. In hours of peril the true man appears, and at such times, if ever, the man speaks the truth. Fearing the boat was sinking, the disciples had little thought of the dignity or the divinity of the one who lay asleep in the helmsman's place. Rudely they awaken Him with their indignant cries, wondering why one who had spoken such wondrous words before seems indifferent now to their danger. "Carest Thou not that we perish?" they cry.
Every man who has been accustomed to take God for granted has used almost the same words at some time in his life. The hour of tempest, when the uncontrollable waves of trouble and winds of adversity seemed ready to overwhelm him, when he had done all that mortal might do, then it seemed as though this God to whom he had prayed so often, of whom he had learned to think as part of his life, was absent or indifferent.
It is the question of every soul in sorrow or testing, "Does God care anything about me?" It is more than a speculative inquiry then. Theologians may have drawn up their specifications of the Most High, and, in the peaceful ways of their lives, they may be satisfied with their handiwork. But when, even into their cloistered walks, some great sorrow or grim death has come stalking, then, with dry lips and moist brow they cry, "Master, are you asleep? Do you not care?"
What is there at the helm of this great ship of life? Is there any one or is it steered automatically, blindly holding its way and heeding neither waves nor rocks nor other craft? Has this universe a heart or only an engine at its centre? The inquiry becomes pressing and pertinent, indeed, when inexplicable distress and anguish that seem all unnecessary break down all the man's strength and courage.
A man can no more content himself with a far off being, sitting in the heavens in royal state, winning reverence by remoteness, than his own children would be satisfied to know him only as a sovereign. He craves the friendship of that one; he longs for compassion, sympathy, assistance such as friend gives to friend; in a word, he looks for love. You cannot love an absentee God any more than you can love an abstraction or a theory.
But the need of one who will come close into our lives, who aids in the hour of extremity, does not meet itself. The fact remains that often we seem to be left to the mercy of the tempest; the elements do their worst and no hand is lifted and no voice is heard that still the waves. Full often the storm seems to finish its work and only clinging to the wreckage or swept on the waves do we come into port.