That leaves him, careless ’mid his dead,
The scandal of the elder earth.”
Doubtless we do not like this picture. We call it a libel or a caricature. Let it be so. Draw your own picture. If there is any truth or faithfulness in it, if it is not blind with national vanity and self-deceit, it will still be a revelation of national need of discipline and of self-empire.
And how can such discipline and self-empire be won? Well, it will not be won on any ground of prudential expediency or practical self-interest. It is well for men and nations to discern their moral shortcomings and to realize their need of a new character. But there are no automatic processes of community salvation. The disciplined nation comes in only one way—by the answers of individuals to the austere call of the one Person who can remake character and mould the stuff of manhood and nationality. The austere call! This is the nation’s need and it is the fundamental summons and the central note of Christianity. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
The appeal of Christ was always addressed to the sacrificial and the heroic. In every call which He issued to men there is this unmistakable note of austerity. He never smooths things over for the sake of pleasing people or of winning followers. There were times when He seemed almost needlessly to draw in these repelling aspects of discipleship, and to make the conditions of following Him unnecessarily hard. It is related that it came to pass that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto Him, “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” And Jesus said unto him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” And He said unto another, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.” Jesus said unto him, “Let the dead bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” And another also said, “Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell which are at home at my house.” And Jesus said unto him, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Christ never concealed His own judgments and convictions as to life’s values in these matters, and spoke with the greatest scorn of all indulgence and softness of life. “What went ye out for to see?” He asked the people, regarding John. “A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in king’s houses.” He was looking after men of iron and of austerity. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.”
The beautiful thing is that this appeal of Christ’s was not futile. Instead of repelling men it drew them. He actually obtained the men whom He was hunting for, not by offering them worldly inducements, not by making such appeals as anybody but Christ would have made, but by addressing the sacrificial spirit in them, and making an appeal to their latent capacity for heroism. There is a wonderful tribute in Jesus’ method to those characteristics in human nature which have never been destroyed, which can answer to the highest motives, which do not need to be bought by any low compensations, but which spring into full life when appealed to on the most heroic and unselfish plane. We know how, in consequence, this exultation in difficulties, this love of hardship, this scorn of ease became the characteristic note of early Christianity. In the best summary description which Saint Paul gives of Christian character and manhood, in the twelfth chapter of Romans we find him speaking of “rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation.” And when he comes to write his conception of the character of the happy warrior, we find him setting this in the foreground, “Endure hardship, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” The praise of the New Testament is never given to those who have lived in luxurious, indulgent ease. It is for that little company of men and women who have loved the difficult tasks, and who with joy trod the rough ways that transcend the stars. Every one of the great New Testament leaders is a man who exalts for us this same love of moral hardship, this same scorn of indulgence and smooth ease, and this same virtue of steadfastness, “And not only so,” says Paul, “but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh stedfastness; and stedfastness, experience; and experience, hope.” And Peter writes, “Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge self-control; and in your self-control stedfastness; and in your stedfastness godliness.” James joins in, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.” And you remember the description which John gives of himself in Revelation as “your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and stedfastness which are in Jesus.”
Now, we ask ourselves the question why our Lord poured out all this scorn on what the world counts the desirable condition and atmosphere of life, why the New Testament has no patience with self-seeking, indulgence, contentment, or ease as the standard of a human life, why it speaks contemptuously of smooth ease of every kind, and exalts, instead, the austere life, the life of strength, and of self-discipline, why our Lord said to men when He came to call them into the best thing there was in the world, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow after me.”
Well, one reason why the whole New Testament pours out such contempt upon the smooth life and exalts hardness, is because only hardness can make a great soul, and the end of the Gospel, the end of life, was the growing of souls. The words of Socrates, understood in the social sense which he intended and not selfishly, contain the central end. “For I do nothing,” said he, “but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.” It is true, in a sense, that we are here for the work we can do, but it is also true, in a yet deeper sense, that we are here to become the best workmen that we can become, and that the work we do has a large measure of its value in its reflex power of making us capable of doing better work. Evidently this is not the real workshop where God needs His best men and women. When He has perfected His workmen and workwomen and recognizes that they are prepared to do their best work, does He make use of them here? Never. He takes them elsewhere, where evidently the real work is to be done. Everything we see in this world would seem to indicate that it is only the preparatory school, a place where men and women are equipped for the real thing, that the career that is to abide lies elsewhere than here. The purpose of these days is to make us ready for the work God has for us to do in a larger sphere than this, where we pass on, as Chinese Gordon told Mr. Huxley, to have a larger government given to us to administer. God pours out His contempt on smoothness of life because it cannot make greatness of soul, and greatness of soul is one object of our being here.
The Christian ideal despised, also, this smoothness which seems to many of us the most desirable thing that life has for us, because there is such little knowledge given with it. At best it can only play on the very surface of life. We know no more than springs out of the deep experience through which we pass. You remember the lines of Father Tabb: