During one of the intense persecutions by which an early Roman emperor harried the Christians of the first century, some unknown writer (Harnack thinks It was a woman) wrote an extraordinary little book to hearten those who were undergoing the trial of their faith. I mean, of course, the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is marked by rare genius and by undoubted inspiration. It is full of vital messages and it contains passages of great power. Just before the most loved section of the little book—the account of the faith-heroes—the author, in a passage open to a variety of translations, refers to the fact that those to whom he is writing have suffered, and have suffered joyfully, the spoiling of their possessions, “knowing,” he says, “that you have your own selves for a better possession”—you yourselves are a better possession than any of those goods which you have lost for your faith.
I wonder if the readers fully realized the truth, or if we should to-day realize it had we suffered a similar stripping. We are very slow to take account of that type of stock. We are very keen about our own assets, but we often fail to prize this supreme ownership, the possession of ourselves. There is a story, both sad and amusing, of an insane man who was seen wildly rushing about the house, from room to room, looking in cupboards and clothes-presses, crawling under beds, obviously searching for something. When questioned as to what he was so frantically looking for, he replied, “I am trying to find my self!” It is not as mad as it seems. I am not sure but that we who are not trying to find ourselves are after all more crazy still.
Old Burton, who wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy, well said:
“Men look to their tools; a painter will wash his pencils; a smith will look to his hammer, anvil, and forge; a husbandman will mend his plow-irons and grind his hatchet, if it be dull; a musician will string and unstring his lute; only scholars neglect that instrument, their brains and spirits I mean, which they daily use.”
Not scholars only, but all classes and conditions of men are guilty of this strange insanity. If the Duke of Westminster should offer to transfer to us his estates, we would rush with all conceivable speed to acquire our new potential possessions. We would go as with wings of an aeroplane to get the transaction accomplished before anything could occur to keep us from entering into our fortune. But here we are already within reach of a vastly better possession, of which we are strangely negligent. If it came to a choice between himself and his outward possessions, this duke who owns so much would not hesitate a minute which to prefer. If in a crisis of illness he could save himself by surrender of his goods, they would instantly go. “Give me health and a day,” Emerson said, “and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.”
What we would do in a crisis we often fail to do when no crisis confronts us, and it is a fact that too often we miss and even squander that better possession, ourselves. The best way to win it and enjoy it is to cultivate those inner experiences and endowments which make us independent of external fortune. All Christ’s beatitudes attach to some inherent quality of life itself. The meek, the merciful, the pure, are “happy,” not because the external world conforms to their wishes, but because they have resources of life within themselves and have entered upon a way of life which continually opens out into more life and richer life. They have found a kind of Canaan that “comes” in continuous instalments.
One of the simplest ways to heighten the total value of life is to form a habit of appreciating the world we have here and now. It presents occasional inconveniences, no doubt, but think of the amazing donations which come to us: the tilting of the earth’s axis twenty-three and a half degrees to the ecliptic by which contrivance we have our seasons; the fact that the proportion of earth and water is just right to give us a fine balance of rain and sunshine; the extraordinary way in which the entire universe submits to our mathematics so that every movement of matter and every vibration of ether conforms to laws which we formulate; the accumulation and storage of fuel and motor power, with the prospect of even greater resources of energy to be had from the unoccupied space surrounding the earth. Then, again, it cannot be a matter of unconcern that there is such a wealth of beauty lavished upon us everywhere, waiting for us to enjoy it. There is here a strange fit between the outer and the inner. The more one draws upon the beauty of the world and enjoys it, so much the more does he increase his capacity to discover and enjoy beauty. Coal and oil may become exhausted, but beauty is inexhaustible. The only trouble is that we are so limited in our range of appreciation of it. We turn to cheaper values and miss so much of this free gift of loveliness.
Greater still should be our resources of love and friendship. Nothing could be stranger or more wonderful than that in a world where struggle for existence is the law this other trait should have emerged. It is easy to explain selfishness; love is the mystery. Love forgets itself; it scorns double-entry bookkeeping; it gives, it bestows, it shares, it sacrifices without asking whether anything is coming back. And it turns out to be a fact that nothing else so enhances and increases the value of this “better possession which is ourselves.”
Even more wonderful, if that is possible, is the way we are formed and contrived to have intercourse with the Eternal. With all our material furnishings we strangely open out into the infinite and partake of a spiritual nature. God has set eternity in our hearts. We cannot win this better possession nor hold it permanently unless we exercise these spiritual capacities, which expand our being and add the richest qualities of life. “Thou hast made us for thyself,” Augustine acknowledged in his great prayer at the opening of the Confessions and “we are restless until we find thee as our true rest.” It is as true now as in the fourth century. Barns and houses, lands and stocks, mortgages and bonds, do not constitute life unless one learns how to win and possess his soul and to keep that best of all possessions—himself.