LEADING THOUGHTS ON SERMONS

By Jesse B. Thomas

 

          “Peace in believing” (Rom. 15:13).

            Let no man fancy that he believes nothing. What we are offered in Christianity is not the beginning of belief---it is the end of it. It offers us balm for the wound that already makes us suffer, rest from the strife that all have to undergo. There are beliefs that give us pain rather than comfort. There are many things that we cannot help believing. We cannot help believing that there is something of space stretching out beyond us, and that time reaches out to an infinity. We cannot conceive of the cessation of time.  We cannot think of a day and then nothing, and then a day again. These are things that we cannot help believing without chaos in the mind. We must, unless we let go of everything, believe in this immensity of time and space. These we cannot escape---time reaching out into the immeasurable, space reaching out into the infinite.

            Then there are things in which we believe instinctively, we know not how. A sick man lying on his couch looks at the pattern of the paper on the wall and sees at first only a maze of disconnected lines. But, looking closer, by constantly watching, he finds that they are arranged in regular figures. So they that look upon this universe see the stars first as sand heaps upon the shore. But when Kepler aids them to reach a knowledge of their laws, they appear arranged in order. And when we find that what appear mysterious substances are only combinations in regular and simple proportions of simpler substances, we see again the same order of nature. And when we can even measure the movements of the stars in their courses, the order becomes more apparent. There are many things that the child believes. It knows that the place where it once fell must be guarded against if it would not fall again. It knows that certain things that in one case accomplish certain ends will in another case do the same. The child sees a man with a broken leg, or a bird attempting with a broken wing a feeble flight, and it knows that something has happened, that this is not in accordance with the order of nature. And we must believe that there is One who directs this order.

            Our heart beats, and while we are awake we perhaps can watch it, but who watches over our heart in the night-time when we can feel nothing? We look out of the train in motion and we see the valleys spread out wide below us; we see fields over which we are going and we cannot see what keeps us safe from falling. But we do not fear. We know that there is a track under us and an engineer guiding us, and though we can see neither, yet we believe that both are in their place and we have peace. And how could you have peace if you did not believe? If you did not today believe that as this would goes whirling in fantastic curves through space, among the countless bodies of the universe, there is a hand that guides and an eye that watches, you could not sleep quietly in your beds tonight. We see the law and other of nature made continuous. Not even the child can help believing that brokenness or suffering comes from a violation of this order. When the child sees the man with the broken leg or the bird with the injured wing, it feels that there has been something done by some one in violation of the law of order.

            Whenever death comes I shrink from it, I cannot help it. I see my friend lying dead. Why is it I shrink from him? He does not move or recognize me, but that would be the case if he were in a sleep or in a trance. I cannot communicate with him, but that would be so if he were alive and in the next room. Why am I afraid? It is not the thought of infinity, for I see that all the while. I look out into space and I think of it as infinite, stretching out with weary wings to find the end it cannot reach, and I am not afraid. I look down and I am afraid. I shrink from death because I believe it to be in some measure unnatural.

            There is a life beyond, and death is the cutting off of life. The inferior animals replace sometimes a lost limb or covering. Oh, if we could only feel that such a replacing of life would come to us after death! How it would help us if we could find some promise of this good! We look to nature for it and we do not find it. We see no peace there. The universe cannot help us; it is only anxious to fasten our own guilt upon us. Where shall we get this peace? There is a something called agnosticism, or in plainer English, “know nothingism,” that answers simply, “We do not know.” As the proverb says, “They make a solitude and call it peace.” If you by agnosticism mean simply that it is impossible to know anything really in this world, that is a childish idea. If a father were about to punish his child, the child might say, “Hold on, father, I am an agnostic. No one really knows what is the difference between right and wrong and as you cannot know that how can you punish me for doing anything?” Would that stop the father form inflicting the punishment? You do not look for the analysis of your mother’s heart before you believe that she loves you.

            You remember the unbelieving disciple who exclaimed, “Unless I put my hands in His side and my finger in the print of the nails, I will not believe.” Yet when the loving Saviour came to him and invited him to prove that it was He, the disciple simply said: “Lord, I believe.” He did not need to touch the wounds; the spirit of love showed that it was the Master. There came a man to me since my father’s death, who said: “I have a communication from the spirit of your father,” and he sat down and wrote on a paper. But I knew well that, though he might imitate my father’s writing, he could never imitate my father’s heart as it found expression in the words.

            But there are others who do not say all this. They say that there is nothing to do in this world but to fight it out as well as possible; that all the world is at war with us and we must keep up the battle as best we may. The petition that would bring them to their knees they will not listen to, but set themselves against it. Woe to the man who sets himself against his Maker! The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The young soldier goes forth to the battle with joy, not thinking that the dreadful artillery cares nothing for his mother’s love or the pride of his young strength, but goes on sweeping him down with the rest. The soul that fights against its God will be overwhelmed at the last.

            Others say: “We solve the enigma by ignoring it. Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. We take no responsibility for this life. We are here in this life, and we will not stop to think what comes next.” And so they go on with their toys and sports. You remember the story of the baron who was told that his tower would not stand secure unless a child was built up in its walls. He brought the child and placed it in a recess and gave it toys to play with, and it sat there playing while the masons built up the wall imprisoning it in its hopeless dungeon. So the architects of time are building up the walls about you as you sit with your worldly toys about you, and you do not know it till it is too late. All thoughts of the future will leave you restless, unless there comes a message of peace from without. And that message is brought by Christianity.

            (The Pulpit Treasury, Feb. 1887).