Not half the story of those few full, crowded hours of His glorious life has been collected and cast into history. It is a brief narrative of a brief career; so little of His life comes in view. Just a few detached incidents and a few disjointed conversations jotted down from the mellowed memory of three or four old men years after the events occurred furnish us an incomplete memoir of His earthly ministry--that is all we have. There was no adoring pen of a ready writer like Boswell to fix on the spot His sayings and doings. We possess only stray fragments of the life-story gathered up from memory and hearsay, and on these gathered fragments we found all our spiritual faith and base our eternal hope of blessedness. The structure seems to have been casually and hastily put together, but its design is the work of the Supreme Architect, and the house was well built and the foundation securely placed, for it has sheltered many millions of people through many generations of time. The roof is still rainproof, and the walls stand firm in their pillared strength. It is the living words of Christ that form the stronghold of the ages. His words are seed-thoughts dropped into the hearts of men which bring forth fruit manifold. Again they drop into other hearts, and springing up yield fruit abundantly unto life everlasting; and so generation after generation men fall under His gracious spell, and turn to His words for guidance, for inspiration, for joy. You never reach the end of Christ's words. They are growing words. There is always something new springing out of them unexpectedly: new thoughts, new laws, new problems, new solutions, new enemies, new friends, new hopes, new consolations. The words of Christ are spending and being spent, but they are never exhausted. They pass into new meanings, into new currency, but they never pass away. They are the hope of all the ages.
The early Christians lived in a state of spiritual elation; they daily, hourly, expected the Second Coming of Christ. It was the one article of their religious creed. The end of the world was to be the next important festival in the Church calendar, so they held in full near view their heavenly home, which was already feathered for their reception. At the sound of the Archangel's trumpet the heavens would open, the dead rise from their graves, and they would be caught up in the air to meet the Lord, and float off triumphantly into mansions of eternal rest furnished for their home coming. They saw it all vividly as a drama soon to be enacted, in which they each would play their ordered parts. The present was a dream-life to them, a mirage quickly to melt away. This hope of immortality was the first bright ray of light the gospel of Jesus Christ shed upon mankind. Having minds heavily charged with celestial visions, the common round of daily duties became unreal to them. They had a short creed and no theology. They sat on the brink of eternity, and the radiance streaming from its shining heights bedazzled their minds with bewildering raptures.
After long and patient waiting the heavens did not open, no clarion voice trumpeted the dead from their graves or welcomed saints into paradise; the sordid, sin-stained earth remained their polluted dwelling-place. The illusion of the millennium faded away and disappointment frosted their early hopes, yet bravely they held on and died in the faith. The Saviour's promise did not fulfil on the comfortable lines they planned, but it would make good another way equally great. The Church learnt to take long views of the promises, and turned its thoughts to things terrestrial. The affairs of the present grew interesting to them; they commenced setting their earthly house in order, and when the Church settled down into the slow, steady stride characteristic of every long march it became clear that she was destined to rank amongst the permanent institutions of the world. She formed new rules of life for her children's guidance, and thus faith in Christ gradually lost the fragrant aroma of otherworldliness which first perfumed it, and in lapse of time the plan of salvation became more thought of than salvation itself. A vast ecclesiastical system was organized, having endless intricate ramifications, and God was appointed head of one department of it; and to-day heavy accretions of theology accumulate and fasten deadly tight on the old Church like barnacles crusting the bottom of a long floated ship, hindering its speed to port.
Verily the time has now come that the good ship of the Church be careened, and the foul accretions of mediæval theology stripped off and the solid copper bottom of truth flash clean and bright in the sunlight, and the truth as it is in Jesus recover its splendour and power as in days of the early Church. His teachings shall yet win men to righteousness, and the fruits of His lips bring peace and joy to those who believe on His name.
The words of Christ have a future before them in moulding the growing goodness of the world and in solving the hard problems of social reform which vex humanity. He is the wise Reconciliator who can adjust society and bring into harmony the classes of men now gnashing their teeth at one another on opposing fronts. Jesus Christ is the true Political Economist, but He taught far in advance of His times--truth always marches a bit ahead of us. At present in social science we are only just touching the hem of His garment, and healing virtue flows from it; presently we shall approach nearer to Him, and, feeling the full throb of His loving heart, we shall understand Him better, and His life-blood will pour into our veins and complete the healing of the nations.
XIII
THE LURE OF THE LIVING WORD
The English State Church suffers from excess of theology and paucity of gospel. Our narrow Church creeds, in which the gospel of Jesus Christ is kept under cork by ecclesiastical cellar-men, must be broken that the good wine of the kingdom may flow freely. The gospel of Jesus Christ in the unwholesome captivity of rigid creeds is a feeble, mean, contemptible gospel, quite unable to save mankind, which business it undertook to achieve when coming into the world. If the teaching of Jesus Christ is no larger or kindlier than these old crumbling creeds show, it deserves to be scrapped, for there is no room in them for Christ to have fair play. Christianity is not a formula, it is a passion; it is not theology, it is truth. These dismal dogmas have not enough spiritual nourishment in them to keep men's souls alive; men starve on such unleavened food.
What are these antiquated creeds of the Church which strangle religion? They are ancient dismantled strongholds where the fighting forefathers of the faith housed themselves tightly and fought their foes tenaciously. The modern fathers of the Church still inhabit these tottering towers of refuge, although their day of usefulness is spent. Loyal Churchmen still breathe lovingly the chilly, stifling atmosphere of these spiritual dungeons of traditional Christianity.
We are living in a new age since August, 1914, and a new spirit possesses the people. With this terrific war raging new standards of values in religion, as in politics, have come into operation, shattering old ideals evermore. To encourage and strengthen them in this era of strain and conflict men need the larger, cleaner, diviner truth which fell from the lips of the living Christ. We want these truths to win through--the spoken words of Christ, with the free airs of heaven blowing across them, bringing healthiness of life, sanity of faith, and manifold charities, to all men who dwell on earth. The lure of the Living Word alone can hold men firm in this age of upheaval, when the old world has caved in and the plans of the new world are not yet manifest. There is finer, simpler, fuller spiritual teaching in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, touching our present need than in all books of theology ever written and all Sunday sermons weekly preached. It is these half-forgotten things that matter on which new emphasis must be thrown.