And life find love its destiny.
O death of self! Pass like the night,
And waken us from death to light!”
IV. THE CHILDREN OF THIS
WORLD ARE WISER THAN THE
CHILDREN OF LIGHT
IV. THE CHILDREN OF THIS
WORLD ARE WISER THAN THE
CHILDREN OF LIGHT
I DO not question the truth of this text, but I cannot fail to observe in it the most familiar defence of worldly wisdom against the spirit of idealism. The objection to idealism which we most commonly hear is this, that it is well enough in theory, but that it does not work in practice; and if it be really true that worldly wisdom and idealism are irreconcilable, then most people must hold to the first. They have to live on this earth, and to deal with life as it is; they must accept the inevitable, even though it costs them a moment of deep regret to abandon their idealism. This world calls for worldly wisdom; another world may be blessed with light—on this stone of stumbling many a life which has already overcome the common temptation of selfishness is still wrecked and lost.
The first thing that strikes us, then, in this dangerous text is its high appreciation of what it calls the children of this world. Indeed, these people are never so severely handled by Christ as are the priests and the devout Pharisees of his time. Such sayings as: “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,” are not uttered against the children of this world. The children of this world know what they want and pursue the end they set before themselves with energy and persistence, putting away all that stands between them and it; and this the children of light, at least in their earlier stages of development, seldom do. Still further, the children of this world are not wholly impervious to the higher motives of life. Their hearts are not the rock where the good seed falls in vain. They are merely the soil which is choked by other growth, where the seed takes root but cannot prosper. The children of this world may at any rate claim that it is not they who have built the crosses and scaffolds for the servants of the truth.
We must not then think of the children of this world as absolutely bad or as unappreciative of the excellent. On the contrary, they are generally better than they pretend to be, and among them are many persons who are, as it were, hypocrites reversed; who conceal, that is to say, their best thoughts. What they lack is commonly the courage to be good. They do not have a sufficiently substantial confidence in the moral order of the world to guide them in the struggle for existence. And, in fact, this assurance of the moral order does not at first sight appear to be justified. On the contrary, one who deserts the wisdom of the world must anticipate, first of all, that he will be deserted by the world and that he will not improbably pass the greater part of his life in uncertainty whether he has chosen the better path. Such is the testimony of all who have practically followed this path and have not merely heard of it or preached about it. Thus, the children of this world are simply the people who prefer to travel the common and well-known road. The unfamiliar path may appear to them in theory very beautiful and sublime, but they do not find it a practicable path to follow.
It is still more difficult to say who are the children of light. It is true that the Gospels sometimes mention them, but what is the meaning of the light of which the Gospels speak? Whence comes it, and how does it shine into the life of men? Here we touch at once the greatest of human problems. Whence come we? Whither do we go? What is our destiny? All that can be said in plain words of the children of light is this: that they are seeking that which is beyond reality, and are receptive to the suggestions of the ideal world. The children of light are those who supremely desire something better than to eat and drink and to-morrow die. This is the motive which most stirs their hearts and wills, and out of this desire comes to them by degrees, first, faith, and then conviction.