Part 9

Another of his problems is that of his social contacts. If he does not appear in public he is branded as a recluse. If he appears too much he becomes known as a loafer. He must find the golden mean. To know how much to appear, how to appear, when to appear, and the secret of mingling and dealing with people of all kinds without compromising one’s self with any is a fine art, and happy is the one who masters it.

Still another of his problems is how to keep growing. Too many ministers become unacceptable in middle life, not because they have aged, but because they have ceased to grow. The most pitiful thing about these men is that none of them seems to know quite what is wrong. Such a time need not come. It does not come to those who read, and think, and keep interested in and sympathetic toward the life of a growing world.

The Ambassador (1929)

A minister is an ambassador of the Kingdom of God to the kingdom of this world’s life. If he will remember that, and act accordingly, it will both save him from many mistakes and help him to many successes.

An ambassador has just one business. It is to represent, without wavering, change, or compromise, the interests of his country at a foreign court.

If he allows himself to become more loyal to the people to whom he goes than to the Ruler who sends him, he is worse than a poor ambassador; he is a traitor. The pitiful message of the story of The Golden Calf is that a spiritual leader forgot that his business was to serve God, and surrendered to the idea that it was to please the public.

The ambassador must remember that he is at a foreign court. That means that he cannot engage indiscriminately in what others do, that he must not become too deeply rooted in the alien life. He must keep his affections and loyalties fixed where they belong. At the same time, since he is among strangers, and since he is his own country incarnated in flesh and blood before them, he must be courteous and seek to make his every word and act worthy of their respect.

An ambassador is often called a diplomat. Indeed, a poor diplomat could not be a good ambassador. Frequently he has exacting and sometimes he has strained situations to handle. He must do so in the least offensive way and, at the same time, in the way best calculated to carry the point for his King.

For, above all, an ambassador must be faithful to his own country. He must not involve it, nor compromise it, nor surrender its interests in any way. While he must properly respect the country and people to which he is accredited, his business is to cooperate in establishing and maintaining the supremacy of his own government.

It is a wonderful thing to be a minister, because a minister is an ambassador of the Kingdom of God.

Let the Minister Know Life (1929)

The young ministers used to have to learn Hebrew, Greek, and all kinds of ponderous tomes of Theology. Now they must learn, instead, the technique of the various practical enterprises in which the church is engaged.

Probably a young minister needs to know something of both. But he needs to know another thing. He needs to know life.

No man is prepared to engage in the cure of souls until he has seen the world as it is; until he knows what saints and sinners alike are doing, saying, and thinking; and until he has seen, understood, and felt for human life at its best and at its worst.

Unless he has seen and known these things, he is like a man trying to practice medicine without having observed how the body is built and without having looked not only on the beauty of its health but also upon the horror and loathsomeness of its diseases. To look upon these things may not be pleasant, but to be helpless against them is less so.

A minister is not a near-angel to be perfumed and laid away in tissue paper for fear of some contamination. He is a physician to the spiritual lives of men. He has a real battle to fight. He has conditions to face that are ugly, and fierce, and perilous. What can he do with them unless he knows about them? What can he know about them if his experience is limited to leading the devotions for society meetings and wearing correct dress at afternoon teas?

A minister needs to go about, less as a minister and more as a man. He needs to see, and hear, and know enough to understand the mind and heart of the world.

After a young minister graduates from the seminary and before he begins his public work, he may need to go to the solitudes for meditation, but he needs also to do another thing. He needs to go down where men live their lives and, keeping his own heart clean, learn at first hand what are the problems that he must help them to solve.

The Yielding of Aaron (1929)

The story of the golden calf is a familiar one. Moses was holding a meeting with God—a habit that began with the burning bush. His absence was prolonged. The people grew restless. They felt that the cure lay in worship, but why not worship with a little novelty in it? Why not get out of the rut?

So they brought their jewelry to Aaron and besought him to make them a golden god. The idea of an unseen God was too difficult for them. Too, a golden god would be much easier to get on with. It would lay down no laws and make no ethical requirements. Too, golden gods were the style among their neighbors. They asked him to make them such a god.

Then Aaron made the mistake of his life. As a spiritual leader, he should have been listening to see what God would say. But he turned his ear toward the congregation instead, and listened to see what the leading members would say. His business was to lead the congregation up to the foot of God’s throne. But he allowed himself to be persuaded to attempt to reduce God to the level of human weakness and ignorance.

One of the supreme temptations of every religious leader is to seek public approval by the adaptation of the principles and standards of religion to public tastes, ideals, and desires. A thousand voices are raised on every side to urge him on in his error.

The path of salvation is still a straight and narrow way. All that we can do or say will not change that fact. When we widen it, plant primroses in it, and take the stones out of it, we no longer have a path of salvation. Then real followers of God no longer care to walk in it. They like the challenge of the harder road.

We cannot adapt God to the world. Whoever tries it fails, just as Aaron did. We cannot change truth, nor make over religion, nor revise the divine law. The God Isaiah saw in the temple was high and lifted up. The fact that Isaiah did not wait for the Lord to come down to his level, but began the long climb up to God’s level, is what made the prophet great.

The Necessary Asset—Friends (1917)

You cannot get on in the world without friends. You tread the golden bridge of friendship over many a chasm which could not otherwise be crossed. Friendless people must always languish on the side of hopelessness.

Friendships do not come by chance, and neither do they force themselves upon you. Friendship, like everything else worth while, is the reward of proper effort.

Friends must be made in the spirit of unselfishness. They are an advantage, it is true, but they must not be sought merely for purposes of advantage. Nothing wins friends so well nor keeps them so long as the unselfish disposition to be helpful. The most valuable friend is the friend who is one for friendship’s sake alone.

A strong friendship is seldom effervescent. The cordiality which is always foaming over is apt to have about the consistency and permanence of the foam which it resembles. The best type of friendship is poised, constant, steady, and true to the end. Dependability is worth more in friendship than is mere demonstration. You can expect this quality in others only when it characterizes your own attitude toward others.

When you speak of an absent friend, it would be well to imagine him present and listening to what is being said. Speak as gently of those who do not hear as of those who do. Speak frankly to the friend beside you, for insincerity never yet aided a friendship. Speak kindly of the friend who is away from you, for unkind speech has yet to win its first victory for the speaker.

Speak of your enemies as though they were your friends, and some day they may become your friends. A kindly tongue and a helping hand for all would soon garland the earth with sunshine and happiness.

Building a World Brotherhood (1918)

Among the most valuable results of a thing are often those which are classed as bi-products. This is true of a certain inevitable social effect of Christianity. That effect is brotherhood.

The natural tendency of the Christian religion is to make men understand the fact that from the beginning they were created brothers. As far it fails to accomplish this task, it will have failed of its social purpose. As far it succeeds, it will have wrought the foundations of the better day.

Such is the tendency of the Christian faith, because Jesus recognized no artificial and arbitrary barriers. The lines across which nations and social classes scorned to step he threw out of his consideration, and crossed them regardlessly. In his estimation of things, a man was a man. He could be no more and there was no disposition to ever rate him as less.

The world has arrived at this viewpoint slowly, but as surely as it does arrive at this viewpoint, its strifes will cease. Wars and troubles come from clannish exclusiveness and class hatred and distrust.

When those who belong to such classes as capital and labor forget their social differences and emphasize their fraternal relations, they will forget that they were ever pitted against one another. The only way the problem can ever be solved is by the elimination of the caste lines which separate the contending elements. The employer must remember that the workman is a capitalist in time and muscle, and the employe must remember that his employer is also a workingman.

The Laughing Man (1919)

Shakespeare was a prophet of many ages beside his own; Dickens was a champion of the lowly and oppressed; Scott was a delicate weaver of the fairy fabric of romance; but Victor Hugo was an analyst of human life and experience. Without adornment or polish, his books are cross-sections of the feelings and doings of men. His knife cuts deep enough to reveal the workings of the inner laws.

In Jean Valjean, the criminal, we have the story of a man who taught the world how low a man can fall and how well a fallen man can rise. In Gwynplaine, the laughing man, we have the story of one who taught the world how close may be the relation between the laughing countenance and the serious spirit.

In the story of Gwynplaine two things stand out supremely. The first is the power and significance of a smile that could not come off. The second is the supreme importance and sacredness of humanity.

The smile that could not come off was written upon his countenance with a knife. Gwynplaine was the son of an English nobleman. Stolen when a baby by a band of wandering showmen, he was trained for exhibition. They operated upon his helpless baby features and shaped them into a perpetual grin. From that day forth, no matter what were the feelings within him or the outlook in the path ahead of him, he carried a laughing face. He had been fashioned into a curiosity, but in some ways a very wholesome kind of curiosity.

Had the story of Gwynplaine never done more than to remind the world of the value of laughter, it would have served its time and purpose well. No generation can well get on without those who make it their business to keep the smiles alive on the faces of the people. The world may laugh at them and pass them by as clowns, but the ages will have to honor them for having kept weary hearts hopeful when everything seemed to be crumbling away beneath them.

The place of the humorist in literature is sometimes placed at a discount, but not properly so. The maker of fun whose humor was clean and genuine is a benefactor of his age, not to say a minister of righteousness. The hand of Justice lays an unfading wreath of honor upon the grave of the man who has helped to keep the world glad. He has planted roses where otherwise there would have been only thorns. He has scattered beauty and light where otherwise the shadows would have been left to reign supreme.

One of the chief points in the story of Gwynplaine, however, was the fact that his smile was permanent and unfading. It was written indelibly upon his features and could be affected by no tempest either of joy or pain. His soul might be weary and his courage dead, but the world could never find it out by looking at his face. However often he may have been a troubled man, through it all he was a laughing man.

It is all well enough to smile when one is gay, but the real hero is the one who keeps on smiling after the world has turned blue before his gaze. Anyone can look happy when he _is_ happy, but only the unusual man can keep a merry countenance when hopes die, ties are sundered, dreams crash in shattered fragments, and the rich promises of life prove to have been empty mirages of vain expectation. The smile “that cannot come off” is the smile worth while.

The happiest-faced woman I ever knew was one whose life story would cast a tremor of dread upon any company. She had faced her floods of sorrow, had shed her tears, and then had come off with the victory of an undying cheerfulness which never inflicted upon another the troubles which had been hers.

One day it was discovered that Gwynplaine, the wandering showman, was a man of noble blood. As such, he was entitled to a seat in the House of Lords. On the night when he went to take his seat among the peers of England, many curious eyes were fastened upon his grinning features. He sat and listened to the speeches. Eloquent things were being said, but they did not bear the note of thoughtfulness of the needs and rights of the lowly. These were men who had never tasted the lot of the poor. He could never forget the need and the neglect which he had seen and known.

Then a dramatic thing happened. Gwynplaine rose in his place as though to speak. A suppressed titter swept over the great chamber. He opened his lips and began to speak. At the sound of his words the wave of merriment subsided. They carried a burden of heartbreak, though they fell from grinning lips. “My lords,” he said, “I bring you news—news of the existence of mankind.”

This was the message the assembly needed to hear. Executive chambers and halls of legislation had been all too slow in welcoming it. When it came, it fell from the lips of a noble showman with a perpetual grin upon his face.

Gwynplaine had a full heart, and it was full of the needs and the burdens of men. One word was ringing back and forth through the chambers of his thought. That word was Humanity. In it was represented the outstanding fact in human thinking—the fact of the existence of humanity. It suggested the highest aim of all government—the good of humanity. It pointed out the path of all proper human endeavor—the advancement of humanity.

Humanity has been the one great concern of the Almighty Himself. He measures the good or the evil of a thing by the question of its helpfulness or its hurtfulness of people. He brooded over the race until it grew to manhood. When it sinned He suffered for it. He has never hesitated to go to any length for the sake of people. Such is also the spirit of those who enter into the secrets of His plans.

The word humanity is not limited to a fortunate few, but it includes those of every station; it does not refer to a single race or color, but it has a place for all mankind; it does not mean a given economic or industrial class, but it covers the cases of employer and employe alike; it does not stop at a given social caste, but in its plan one is as good as another. Humanity includes all men, and the person who has never yet taken it into his heart has not yet developed as great a heart as the man of the future will find it necessary to have.

Humanity knows no dividing line, and whoever lays them down will simply sow the seeds of sorrow and trouble. Class consciousness is an evil thing, no matter by what class it is possessed. Wars come from national lines of division in sympathy and fraternity. Strifes come from industrial and social dividing lines. There is no place in the creative plan for jealousy and enmity.

The world can never come to its golden year until it has made manhood the one basis for the estimate of a man. It must recognize good as good, and evil as evil, regardless of where they are found; it must hold light to be light and darkness to be darkness, whosoever they may be; and men must be recognized as the most important element in the scheme of things.

When the day of settled peace comes again, and the world once more sits clothed and in its right mind, our business will be the protection, nurture, and uplift of humanity. Meanwhile, may there come some teacher who can lead the peoples to think of one another in terms of fraternity, and teach each man to think of each other man as a neighbor and to trust him as a friend.

The Safe Foundations for a League of Nations (1919)

The thinking majority of people in America and among other nations know very well what they want. A designing minority may be willing to continue the bloodthirsty ways of the past for reasons of either personal gain or private preference. The thoughtful majority, however, desire some reasonable assurance that the peace of the world will not again be broken.

An intelligible plan for world peace has for a long while been taking shape in the minds of unselfish national leaders. The war and the new world conditions occasioned by it have crystallized that plan into a purpose. We call it the League of Nations. It will be, so to speak, a kind of United States of the World.

The plan is a promising one. Many far-seeing thinkers wished for it years before the outstanding national leaders were influenced by a world emergency to become champions of it. It simply means the extension of our organization for common protection, welfare, and progress into international proportions.

Between individuals we have succeeded in reducing brawling to a minimum. The same means, internationally applied, will reduce it to a minimum between nations. We have declared that individuals shall not carry weapons to the menace of others. We can tell nations that they too must lay aside their guns for the good of the public peace. We have established means whereby offenders can be brought to justice and disputes settled between individual litigants. We can establish the same means for preventing lawbreaking and for the settlement of disputes in the case of nations. We have established police power to enforce the decrees of our local, state, and national courts. International law can be given the same authority in the same way.

We will not be wise to conclude, however, that all we need is a League of Nations. No mere material organization can constitute complete assurance that men will henceforth live at peace with one another. Such an organization would be a great force. As in the case with local, state, and federal laws, its mandates would keep some people at peace through their good will and others through their fear of the consequences of disobedience. It will take more than a League of Nations, however, to make the peace of the world certain and permanent.

This is true because the issues of life are spiritual. The strongest forces are not physical. The force of opinion is greater than the power of guns, and the union of spiritual attitudes and standards is stronger than any bond of mere organization.

The value of whatever solution for our problem we may adopt will be determined not so much by the plan itself as by the spiritual basis of the plan. If the hearts of men are not right toward one another, the vision of peace will be as idle a dream as it was in the past years. If the relations of men, one with another, are right, then we may feel that the peace of the world is already assured.

We may have an organized super-state. The true super-state will exist, however, not in the outward form of any organization but in the spiritual attitude of the hearts of men. In other words, if it is to exist at all, it must exist in the fact of brotherhood and in the conditions generated by the fraternal spirit. The true super-state might as well be called the kingdom of love. It can be nothing else and fulfil its mission.

The wreck of the German Empire is the ruin of an attempt to found a super-state upon the wrong basis. Germany smothered the fraternal spirit, prostituted genius, reduced her schools to media for her propaganda, and killed the idea of unselfishness in the minds of her people. She bent everything to the making of an empire which was to be the wonder of the world in power, wealth, and efficiency. Like the presumptuous Babel of an older day, this audacious plan fell in scattered ruins, after having been the means of drenching the world in blood.

Whoever allows his mind to harbor a dream of power, wealth, efficiency, or commercial supremacy on any other basis than that of brotherhood should remember the name of Germany and take due warning. A new world is now in process of building. Whatever we may have in it, we should permit the presence of nothing which does not rest upon a fraternal foundation. If we have to choose between being a people of tender hearts and possessing the glory and dominion of the world, we can best afford to choose to be people of tender hearts.