WHEN one thinks of peace in religion, one's mind
naturally turns first of all to the so-called heads of religion, -- the clergymen.
There may be many clergymen who distinguish between spurious peace and real peace,
and who have at least the germs of real peace within themselves. There are -- I am
sure -- many whose peace is spurious and who never really wake up to the fact. Indeed,
one might say that they have not even spurious peace -- for that does sometimes deceive
its possessor into thinking it real, they have a thin appearance of peace on the
outside to deceive the majority of their "flock," and within they are boiling
and seething.
For instance, I knew of a clergyman -- and I fear that he is only
a type of many -- who actually turned his wife against religion. He would preach
on Sunday beautiful, eloquent sermons, ringing with appeals for a higher life. He
would draw out from most of his congregation enthuasiasm and admiration with emotional
resolutions to do as the minister said. And then he would go home and during the
week be so rude and self-indulgent, so literally bad-tempered, as to make his house
a place of great unhappiness for his wife and his children.
His wife was too loyal to do or say anything that could expose
the truth, -- too personally loyal, I might better say. For loyalty to the truth
should come first, and to one's friend second. Indeed, we are more really loyal to
our friends and can be of more real service to them if we are always unswervingly
loyal to a principle first.
This wife need not have aired her husband's imperfections or ever
voluntarily called attention to them, and when his beautiful sermons were referred
to, and his people inferred from the sermons that he Must be a wonderful character,
she need not have answered "Yes, -- yes," and when they assured her of
their envy of her privilege of making her home with such a man, she need not have
smiled an apparently happy acquiescence.
Of course, if she knew that her husband had severe and painful
temptations, and was praying and working every day to get free from them, then she
should stand by him loyally in his efforts, and protect him entirely from misconception
when his temper got the better of him. But suppose she did not know he was trying
to conquer himself, or see any slightest sign of it. Is it loyalty to the real man
in him to work carefully to protect his hypocrisy.
This wife of whom I speak smiled and assented in public, and raved
and resented in private. In her ravings, too, there was much sound common sense.
"Hypocrisy," she said; "'it is all hypocrisy. What does religion amount
to? My husband is an actor who does his part admirably, -- so admirably that he deceives
all his parishioners into thinking that he is the real thing. As for me, I see nothing
in religion whatever. His sermons fill me with contempt. There is no religion."
And she would call her husband "the leading man in the ecclesiastical stock
company."
If this woman had had common sense on even a little higher plane,
she would have read the Gospel herself quite independently of her husband's profanation
of it, and would have seen, if she studied diligently, that it was not the religion
that was at fault in any slightest way, -- it was her husband. We can imagine her
seeing this and working steadily herself to obey the principles that she learned
in the New Testament. If she ceased entirely to resist or to resent her husband,
and went to work with all diligence to put away her own selfishness, and to live
sincerely herself, it might, eventually, have opened her husband's eyes to the horror
of his own hypocrisy. Certainly, if anything could open his eyes, his wife's practical
upright obedience, silently lived, would have done so.
No evil can hold its appearance of life for long in the presence
of practical, daily, intelligent good living. Words in one's private . life have
little or no good effect unless they are backed by a conviction which comes from
the real vigor of good living. Indeed, words with nothing real back of them rouse
anger; they often rouse anger when something real is back of them. But when empty
words rouse anger, the one who has spoken reacts with more anger. So is the truth
of principle often dragged by men and women into their human bog.
There is no profession where "do it in yourself" should
be more essential than in the ministry. What are ministers supposed to do? Are they
not supposed to show their congregation how to obey the Christian commandments? How
can they show men the way to obey if they do not obey themselves? Was there ever
a man I who could teach another man mathematics when he could not himself do the
simplest example in fractions without mistakes? Was there ever a man who could teach
another man how to be a good electrician, when he had never made electricity work
in anything himself? Is there anything that anyone can think, of which can be truly
taught by one who has had no practical experience whatever? Then how can obedience
to God be taught by one who has never obeyed? How can trust in God be taught by one
who has never trusted?
At best a true clergyman can be a little, perhaps only a very little,
ahead. He must know that the laws he is working to obey are the laws for everyone
else as much as for him -- the laws for him as much as for anyone else. It is really
only our all learning to obey together -- but so seen these laws work in longer than
others, and know that when things go wrong in ourselves, it is because we do not
obey. Those of us who have proved them out a little more than others are more ready
to show others the way. A clergyman's business is to show others how to obey, and
how to trust.
Doctrine does not amount to anything if it does not teach us how
to obey the commandments more truly. Worship does not amount to anything if it does
not lift us to the ability of better obedience.
It sounds almost absurd to hear a young man say that he is going
to "study for the Church." Does that mean that he is going to be unselfishly
thoughtful of others? That he is going to shun all anger and resentment as sin against
the Lord? That he is going to study to do all the duties of his life promptly and
whole-heartedly?
The best preacher I can imagine is a man who, through finding himself
out and recognizing the selfishness in himself, is in the earnest daily effort of
acknowledging and repenting of his selfishness in detail, and through such experience
has found humility. Such a man can tell other men and women how to obey. And what
theological school is there that makes an examination into the inner life of a man
essential to his ordination?
It is good even to imagine what use ministers could be in the world
if they were true pilots because of their own experience in practical obedience to
Divine Law, and if no one of them pretended to be doing anything else but to be learning
to obey along with his fellow men. Such clergymen would indeed be the Father of their
people, for the peace within them would be the peace of God.
"All religion has relation to life and the life of religion
is to do good." A great philosopher has said that, and if it were truly realized
and attended to, there would be life in religion, whereas very much so-called religion
now is dead, and only galvanized into the appearance of life by superficial emotions.
But a greater has said, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is
in heaven." What that One says he means; it is living truth.
And yet, -- let me tell you the story of a man who was engaged
in a large and useful work. He attended, to the details of the work in such a slovenly
way that it made endless dissatisfaction among his associates and interfered materially
with the use of the work. He was open neither to give nor to receive. If anyone went
against this man's preconceived ideas, or innocently hit his personal prejudices,
that one was shut out of his confidence and made to feel as far as it was possible
that he was not liked.
This man of whom I write was prominent in his church, and those
who did not have immediately to come against his narrow mind and slovenly habits
thought him an unusually good man. Finally, after the interference in this
good work had gone on for some time, one of his associates spoke of it to another
and suggested, with all sincerity, that it seemed very strange that his religion
did not help him to do his work better.
"What would he say if I asked him?" said the enquirer,
and he was answered promptly by the friend to whom be spoke: "Why, any of these
men here who call themselves Christians, if you should suggest to them that the laws
of their belief when obeyed make one do very much better work, would be roused and
angry at once. Their Church has nothing to do with their lives. The every-day life
is to them one thing and the Church entirely another. They think they are good 'church
men' if they attend the Sacraments and divine service at the proper times: if they
give to the support and various charities of the Church and talk good religious talk
in the fitting times and seasons. The fact in all its details that 'all religion
has relation to life' is absolutely unknown to them."
When one thinks of it deeply and observes carefully, this state
of things among "Christians" seems like insanity. It certainly is not spiritual
common sense.
Spurious peace is the emotion of peace -- it has nothing whatever
to do with peace itself. And there is no place where this emotional peace is so constantly
cultivated as in the various forms of so-called religion. The emotional peace sometimes
gets such hold of people that even those who would most dislike it are deceived,
-- for a time.
I remember visiting in a family where the atmosphere was so thick
with this "religious" peace that it seemed genuine to me for some time,
and I felt the pleasantness of the quiet, which I thought came from genuine living.
The first thing that began to undeceive me was irreverence. The very forms of religious
devotion which these people were so assiduous in following were spoken lightly of,
and at times almost with contempt. When I courteously mentioned my surprise, they
laughed and answered, "Oh! We do not mean anything by that." I said to
myself, "I see you do not mean anything by your religion either."
Later, selfish indulgence and selfish dislike of one another became
evident. I cannot see that there was one principle given in the Sermon on the Mount
that that "peaceful" family did not disobey. Yet the "peace"
went on and on. All that was said and done that was mean and disagreeable came filtered
through the spurious peace, and sometimes dressed in monstrous flattery. Having lived
in this family and found them out was an experience to make one work all the more
heartily to be only what is genuine.
I remember once sleeping in the room of a young woman who was devoted
to her Church. I had noticed the placid expression of this young woman's face and
had also noticed her exceedingly snobbish ways and words, -- snobbish and hard-hearted
they were toward her fellow men. This room of hers was filled with religious pictures,
with good books, and beside her bed was a Prie Dieu. When I woke in the morning
and looked about, I thought: " This is her amusement, her recreation, -- her
hobby." It seems positively sacrilegious to say it, but I must say it because
it was so.
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as
the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
be afraid."
The One who said that knew that there was no peace but religious
peace, and religious peace only comes by trying every day to live as He lived and
allowing ourselves to be guided by His spirit within us. There is no difficult circumstance
of life that any one can be in that he cannot find that same temptation in itself
in the life of Christ and be enlightened by the way Christ met it. The practical
beauty of that Divine character seems to be so little understood.
It is evident that the only way in which we can be guided by the
spirit of Christ within us is by recognizing the selfish obstructions and refusing
to act or speak or think from them, -- then we make room for the Life within to enlighten
and move us, -- we learn to obey and trust.
If the bad-tempered clergyman had acknowledged his bad temper and
all his other forms of selfishness and become wholesomely penitent, he would have
ceased to be a hypocrite. If the family who gormandized religious emotion had found
themselves out individually and collectively and seen the hideousness of their pose
and refused to continue it, their Church would have become real to them and they
would have been in the way of finding peace. Or, I might better say, they would be
removing the obstructions so that peace could find them.
It is so with all of us, -- religious peace and peace of life are
all one, and when we get knocked out of our religious peace by a person or a happening
going against our will, we may be very sure that it was no peace at all. Happy is
the man who goes to work with a will to acknowledge and to shun the obstructions.
Active, loving, creative peace is sure to find him.