Welsh Nationality, and How Alone It is to Be Saved: A Sermon

by William Gabriel Davies

II.

“The world is moving on; the nation which stands still must be left behind. No people can now live upon its remembrances. Like the runners in the ancient games, the nation which surrenders its torch to another, not only loses the race, but loses the light. The whole distinction of English intellect has arisen from its continually looking forward, forgetting the past, and continually anticipating a new day of toils and of triumphs, of severer straggles, but of loftier splendours.” The distinction here pointed out by Dr. Croly, in an essay entitled, “The Cultivation of the Intellect, a Divine Duty of Man,” does not exist to any extent among the great body of the Welsh people, many of whom attach but slight importance to the acquisition of knowledge; because, possessing but little of it themselves, they are naturally disposed to regard it as a matter of mere temporary concern. Even the majority of their religious teachers having, till of late years, no knowledge of any books but the Welsh and the English versions of the Bible, Matthew Henry’s Commentary, and not many more, tacitly, if not openly, encouraged this tendency. For uninformed minds are prone to disparage intellectual attainments, and to interpret the Holy Scriptures, so as to find therein abundant confirmation of their primitive conceptions. Yes, even in our own Church, which did make some pretensions to learning, was to be found, not fifty years ago, too many a parish priest without a library, too many a Trulliber forgetful of the high responsibility of his sacred calling.

But is familiarity with aught but the Bible—with philosophy, science, history, and æsthetics—even remotely comprised in the good part which shall not be taken away from us when we go hence for ever? Yea, is not such knowledge “the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness with God?” and is it not written that “not many wise after the flesh are called?” These questions, I am strongly impressed, indicate the tone of too much of the preaching in Wales. But we need not hesitate to reply that, though the knowledge of evil and of science falsely so called is to be avoided as most pernicious to the soul, the knowledge of good, in all its bearings, cannot be too diligently sought. He who knows nothing but the Bible, as Matthew Arnold reminds us, knows but little of the Bible. Indeed the knowledge of good, yea, and taken in the widest sense, cannot be thought of slight value and of transient importance, without irreverence towards Him of whose existence, intelligence, power, and goodness, it is the great exponent.

That the passion of acquiring a knowledge of God’s works and ways in general was strong in Solomon, we cannot doubt. He, indeed, tells us that in the exclusive pursuit of intellectual truth there is no real satisfaction to be gained, “that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun . . . yea, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.” All passionate seekers after undiscovered truth know that much mental toil, and probably years of wearisome watching, are demanded before any one can hope to snatch a new secret from the close keeping of the unknown. This must be humiliating to the man of sanguine temperament, but profitably so, because it cultivates within him a longing for the happy time when “we shall know as also we are known.”

Then intellectual attainments, though calculated to satisfy the wants of the perceptive and reasoning faculties, cannot still the cravings of the conscience, cannot meet the demands of the moral and religious emotions. These can find in such food only a stone when hungering for bread, the apple fair to the eye, but ashes under the teeth. When Solomon, therefore, sought for full satisfaction of soul in the exercise of his intellect, and the acquisition of its related knowledge, meanwhile starving his moral and religious nature, it was only to be expected that such a course should be found to lead to “vanity and vexation of spirit.”

But while admitting to the full the humiliating limitations of the mind which Solomon deplores, and that the soul cannot live by intellectual food only, even though it be contained in God’s own Word, yet we fully believe that it is man’s duty, as well as his privilege, to seek for truth wherever to be found; and that he can so cultivate his intellect, and store his memory, as to ensure thereby a greater nearness of soul to his Father in heaven.

The operations of the giant-intellect, we know, are not acceptable to God, except they are imbued with that glow of soul which constitutes the babe-like spirit. But how can the giant-intellect, when thus wedded to the love of holiness, better serve God than by ever realizing more and more of His divine fulness as displayed in all his works and ways?

Although we must allow that no one is so low in the scale of intellectual culture as to be out of the reach of that redemption which is not conceded to learning and talent, but to newness of heart, still we must not forget that the apostle says, “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children; but in understanding be men.” Let the mental horizon of genius, joined to deepest piety, stretch ever so far away, it encircles but an insignificant portion of that which is open to the glance of Omniscience. Under the most favourable circumstances, the human mind, while in this present tabernacle, must meet with many problems which it “cannot know now, but shall know hereafter.” And now what we would with much stress insist upon is, in opposition to an opinion too prevalent in this part of the kingdom, that the believer who has a mind of little grasp, scantily stored with information, has not the same command of spiritual blessings, does not live so fully the Christian life, does not mount in heart and mind so near to the Redeemer’s throne in heaven, as the believer whose mind has attained a high degree of culture, and amassed large stores of knowledge. It must be so, for the region of divine truth being boundless, he who is ever pushing further into it, and ever striving to embody its purity into his life and practice, must be further advanced than the man who simply loiters near some one spot in this region, as soon as he has gained admittance into it. And now is it competent for the loiterer, say for the man of one talent and little energy, to say to the more gifted and diligent inquirer, “Your labour is in vain; but one thing is needful; and that is simply to pass over the border”?

Is this view, so disheartening to the Christian scholar, in accordance with the teaching of the Word of God? What does the most learned of the apostles tell us in regard to his own experience? “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.” Now this is exactly true to the experience, not only of the Christian yearning for perfect freedom from sin, and a feeling of complete incorporation with Christ, but of every one who longs to surpass his past achievements, from Alexander pining for more worlds to conquer, down to the miser who the richer he becomes the poorer he feels. Thus the great poet, artist, or musician, is never quite satisfied with his accomplished works, but always feels how much better they might be, his ever growing fastidiousness urging him to cry out, Excelsior, excelsior! Highly cultivated minds, more especially if of an imaginative turn, are never satisfied with the real. “The ideal, the ideal,” is their cry. They push on to lay hold of it, but it ever recedes before them. The ideal will always shine far in advance of the real.

This longing for the unattained, when sanctified by the Spirit of God, will never permit the on-pressing Christian to feel that he has finally, and without occasion for further effort, laid hold of the one thing needful. Yea, in the life to come the same feeling will exist, for after ages of looking into the wonders of God’s love, wisdom, and power, the language of the heart still will be, “I count not myself to have laid hold of the divine ideal.”