The Christian life is the simple life. Charles Wagner sounded a note that echoed around the world when, some two decades ago, he issued his eloquent protest against the burdensome complexities of modern life. He made a plea for the natural life in which each individual will be his own master instead of being the servant of his possessions. Wagner's book, though first published in Paris, had a larger circulation in the United States than in any other nation—not because our people have wandered farther than others into artificial social forms, but because they are sensitive to high ideals and free to reject harmful customs.
Social intercourse should be an expression of friendship, and friendship is both embarrassed and obscured by vulgar display. The home should be a place of rest, where congenial spirits can gather for communion. There is nothing edifying or satisfying in the mere comparing of apparel. The aim of entertainment should be to refresh the guest and stimulate friendship; the end is defeated by a rivalry in extravagance that awakens concern as to one's ability to return courtesies extended. The increasing costliness of social functions not only robs entertainment of the enjoyment that it is intended to bring, but it leads many young couples to ruin themselves financially in an effort to keep up appearances and pay their social debts. It is impossible to calculate the benefit which would be brought to the social world if Christ's spirit could pervade it and infuse into it a wholesome sincerity and frankness. Christ put the accent on the things that are worthy and banished the shallow pretenses upon which so much time is wasted and so much money squandered.
Christ gave the world a balm for that worry that is more wearing than work. He condemned the petty vanities and irritating anxieties. He taught a perfect trust that leads one to do his best and then leave the result with the Heavenly Father who is ever near and always ready to give good gifts to His children.
In Matthew 6, we find this soothing rebuke:
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Reasoning unanswerable. He argues from the less to the greater and with incomparable beauty woos man away from the distracting thoughts that dissipate his strength without yielding him any advantage. The Creator who cares for the birds will not forget man made in His image; He who clothes the fields in the beauty of the flower and gives to the trembling blade of grass the nourishment that it needs for its fleeting day, will not desert man, His supreme handiwork.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," is a rebuke aimed at those who borrow trouble. Let not the past distress you—it has gone beyond recall; let not the morrow intrude upon you—it will bring its cargo of cares when it comes. Man lives in the present and can claim only the moment as it passes, but Christ teaches him how to so use each hour as to make the days that are gone an echoing delight and the days that are yet to come a radiant hope.
Christ has been called a sentimentalist. Let it be admitted; it is no reproach. He is the inexhaustible source of sentiment, and sentiment rules the world. "The dreamer lives forever; the toiler dies in a day."
A striking illustration of the emphasis that Christ placed upon sentiment is found in Matthew 26:7-13:
There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.