CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
ELISHA THE IMITATIVE
As I pause before the figure of Elisha, perhaps the thought suggested to a bystander will be, Why do you make this a representative man! Is not the most distinctive feature about him just his want of originality! Is he not almost a direct copy of the form and face of Elijah—so direct that, if there were no name inscribed below the Picture, we should deem it simply a second likeness by an inferior hand! If so, why Jinger over the second delineation! We have seen the fire in the eye of the master; why pause to describe in the disciple the same eye without the fire! Should we not be better employed if we passed to fresh woods and pastures new!
Let me admit at once that the parallel 1s striking—far too striking to be the result of accident or unconscious workmanship. Elijah and Elisha are twin figures—what the one does, the other does. Their lives are set to the [79]
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same music; the latter is the refrain of the former sung by a weaker voice and tuned to a slower measure. Does Elijah smite the waters of Jordan; Elisha does so too. Does Elijah ascend Mount Carmel; Elisha does so too.
Do the words of Elijah cause a bloody tragedy; the words of Elisha do so too. Is Elijah appealed to in times of drought; Elisha is so too. Does Elijah multiply a widow's store;
Elisha does so too.
Does Elijah raise a widow's son; Elisha raises one too. Does Elijah carry his beneficence beyond the confines of Judaism; Elisha does so too—if the one ministers to a woman of Zarephath, the other cures the captain of a Syrian band.
Finally, does Elijah in his last earthly moments hear the triumphant cry, "The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof'; Elisha in his last earthly moments listens to the same sound, and experiences at the hour of death what his master had experienced at the hour of ascension.
If, then, I admit this remarkable parallel, if I regard Elisha as a designed imitation of Elijah, why do I not pass him by as a repetition of old material? It is because this imitation of character is itself in the Old Testament
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Gallery a new and unique thing. I do not know whether it has occurred to any one that the relation of Elisha to Elijah supplies a desideratum in the Gallery. Amongst the figures of this~collection I look in vain for any evidence of that community of mind which in the New Testament is called fellowship. Up to this point we have not found in these studies two men who have been united by similarity of spirit. The one has rather been the complement of the other, has supplied what was lacking in the other. Isaac has little likeness to Abraham; Joseph moves in a different sphere from Jacob; Solomon has few points in common with David. Joshua may be called the disciple of Moses, but only in a figurative sense. He is more a servant than a son; he carries out his orders, but he does not stand with him on the Mount. The truth is, kindred sympathy is a very rare thing to get. Personal /zking—the feeling that subsisted between David and Jonathan—is very easily acquired; but the congruity of thought, the identity of experience, which made the bond between Elisha and Elijah—that is something which is never acquired at all; the germ of it must be born in each soul. To exhibit this double por- [ 81 ]
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tion of one experience is a work which may well absorb the interest of the religious artist.
This, then, is a case of intellectual friendship which is unique in the Old Testament
Gallery. I have said that in germ Elisha must have had from birth the spirit of Elijah. But the question occurs, To which of the Elijahs was he allied? We have seen that there were two—that one died in the cave of Horeb, and that the other came out of the cave full-grown.
Elisha never saw the first; his personal contact was with the second. The second Elijah, the Elijah who emerged from the cave, was of a gentler nature than the first; he had abandoned for the still, small voice the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. Elisha was by nature allied to this Jater Elijah. God had given him a tender heart, a heart of love. When first we meet with him, it is in the circle of family life; and we have evidence that his ties of home were dear. Elijah finds him at the plough and calls him to quit the world for the prophetic sanctuary. He asks to be allowed to bid his father and mother goodbye. And that goodbye is a fine revelation of character.
He makes a feast to his old friends. He wants them to understand that he has not parted
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with them in anger, has not left the world because the grapes are sour or the vintage bad.
When a man is going abroad, we often give him a parting dinner to wish him well. But if a man going abroad gives us a parting dinner, the act has a still deeper significance. It says that, however prosperous he may be in the new country, he wishes it to be understood that the old land will still be dear to his heart.
He says, in effect, I do not leave you through disgust; I do not quit you through disapproval; I do not say that it is bad for you to remain; I part from your world not in a blast of anger, but in a flood of joyous memories which, even while it bears me away, repeats the echoes from my native shore.
Elisha, then, even in the hour of his election, is no ascetic. He brings to Elijah a human heart. It was the latest and the best gift
Elijah had ever received—a pure earthly friendship. Elisha gave him his heart, his whole heart, his unrestrained heart. I cannot too strongly emphasise this point; it is something unique in the Old Gallery. Men had hitherto come to God through a crucifixion of their human nature. They had approached Mount Sinai with fear and trembling; they
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had drawn near the burning bush with uncovered feet. But Elisha comes unshorn of his humanity. He comes to the Divine Presence in the dress of a man, with the heart of a man.
He is drawn to the heavenly Father by the love of an earthly brother. He is not ashamed, from the very outset, to lean upon a human arm. This utilising of earthly help remains his characteristic through life; it colours every sphere through which he moves. I will take four of these spheres—the moral, the intellectual, the esthetic, and the practical. We shall find, I think, in each, abundant material for reflection and abundant sources of suggestion.
The first illustration of Elisha's tendency to use secular help is in his moral choice. His master, Elijah, has a premonition of his own early removal. He asks the disciple what mark of his favour he would like best to receive as a parting gift. Elisha answers, 'Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me!' By 'a double portion' I understand 'a repeated portion—a repetition of your own experience.'
It is the request for a token of human love.
He does not wish the grace of God to be for him a supernatural thing. He wants to be like some one whom he loves, and whom he loves
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on account of his goodness. Is not Christianity the selfsame prayer on a higher plane. Is it not simply the wish that in our hearts the grace of God would assume the likeness of one whom we love—the Man Christ Jesus. Like Elisha, we cannot worship an abstract grace.
We must see it embodied if we are to love it.
Our desire to be clothed in it must be the desire to be clothed in the likeness of one who was dear to us. St. John was animated by a human love of Jesus; therefore he does not say, 'When He shall appear we shall be good,' but, 'When He shall appear we shall be like
Him.'
"4 That Elisha's aspiration was the request for a token of love is confirmed by Elijah's answer, "Thou hast asked a great thing; nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it will be so unto thee; if not, it shall not be so.' He says that whether his disciple's desire be or be not granted is a question that can only be tested by Elisha's future remembrance.
Separated from the figurative envelope which contains them, his words amount to this: "The test of a kindred spirit is sight in absence. Can you sustain that test? Can you see me when I am taken up? Can you feel the power of my
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presence when that presence is no longer with you? Can you be impelled by my influence when I have withdrawn my hand? Can I bea motive to your life when I have ceased to be in touch with it? If so, then you have indeed received into your soul a duplicate of my image! You have proved your possession of a kindred nature; you have maintained your right to wear my mantle!'
Remember that the test proposed by Elijah is also the test proposed by a greater than
Elijah. What else does Christ mean by the parable of a man going into a far country and bidding his servants work till his return. It is to ascertain whether they are fit for the mantle, whether they have received his spirit.
The test of that will be their' power to think of his presence in his absence, to feel as if he were near when he is far away. The evidence of the disciple's communion with Christ is identical with Elisha's evidence for his communion with Elijah; it is the 'seeing him who is invisible,' the bending to an influence which is not manifested either to the eye or to the ear or to the hand. Elisha saw Elijah after he was taken up, the disciples worshipped Jesus after the cloud had received Him out of their
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sight; in both cases it was an evidence that the mantle had descended.
Elisha, then, was helped to the grace of God by a human love; and that human love abode with him long after its object had been hid from his outward sight. It is the first instance of the kind we have met with in the Great Gallery; but it has been the forerunner of many similar experiences. There are hundreds whose belief in God sprang at first from belief in Man. There are hundreds who have given their allegiance to the Divine by fixing their eye upon some beauty in the human.
There are hundreds who, like Elisha, have served the God whom they have not seen simply because they have loved the brother whom they have seen. This old Painting is not superannuated, not dead. It is living, breathing, vitalising. It is mirrored in myriad lives; it is reproduced in countless experiences; it is a picture which is not Jewish nor Greek nor Roman, but human. It expresses, not the bias of a nation, but an instinct of the heart; and — therefore its colours are not dimmed by time
—they are as fresh and vivid to-day as they were in the streets of ancient Israel.
"The second. illustration of Elisha's secular [ 87 ]
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attitude will be found in the intellectual sphere. He has been left alone; the master whom he loved has passed into the silent land.
Elisha has no doubt that he has been translated into heaven; he is as sure of that as he
_is of his own existence. But Elisha is a professor in a college. He. has. the Chair of Apolo- 'getics—the direction of what was then called
'The School of the Prophets.' He has a host of young men who listen to his instructions, and for whose training he is responsible.
These young men are tinged with the spirit of a new age—an age of rationalism. They are very unwilling to admit a miracle. They are eager to reduce everything to natural causes.
They propose to subject the belief in Elijah's ascension to scientific experts. They suggest that his chariot may have been one of the wild blasts of the desert. Instead of being taken to heaven, he may have been carried to the summit of some hill, where he may be lying bruised and broken. Will not Elisha allow a search to be made. Instead of cherishing a mystical exaltation, will he not let fifty strong men go forth in search of the vanished prophet. If they should find him, it would be the death of sentiment, but it might produce a [ 88 ]
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result which would prove more valuable than any sentiment—the preservation of a physical life.
At first Elisha said, No; but afterwards he said, Yes. That saying 'Yes' is to my mind one of the finest things in old literature. Why does he say 'Yes'? Is it because he has any doubt of the truth of his first impression? He has no doubt. But he has cast himself down from his own pinnacle; he has put himself in the place of his students; he has tried to live in the experience of those who have less strong faith than himself. He feels that he has Elijah for > his model. Did not Elijah hold a council for » research on Mount Carmel—FElijah who needed no investigation, no argument. Should the disciple be above his master. Might not he, Elisha, do what was virtually done by the prophet of fire. If his master could sink himself to help idolaters, might not he sink himself for the sake of his own students. Should he not go down to them who were as yet unable to come up to him.
Now, I say this was grand in Elisha. If all his prophetic powers should come to be ignored, he ought to live by this deed alone. It was the best lesson he ever gave to his students
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—this accommodation to their intellectual need. It is a lesson for professors as-well_as students. I would say to a teacher: Never force your certainty upon your pupil. Borrowed convictions are of no value. Command not assent to former testimonies—not even to the authority of your own vision. Let the pupil search for Elijah. Let him seek him on every hill; let him inquire for his steps in every valley. Lend him all facilities for the search.
Open every avenue; unlock every gate; clear every barrier that would impede his way. At the end of many days he may reach by climbing the height which you have gained by a moment on the wing.
The third of those spheres in which Elisha leans upon material help in the things of Divine grace is the esthetic region—the attempt to exhibit the beauties of holiness. Elisha has gone to meet three kings. It is a period of political emergency, and they have summoned him into their presence to ask his counsel.
Elisha is impressed with the august character of his audience. He wishes to speak well. He is not only desirous to do his duty in the sight of God, but to magnify his office in the sight of Man. He has the feeling which belongs to [ 90 ]
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every popular preacher—the wish to produce an esthetic effect upon his hearers; and it is a feeling which is quite compatible with the most earnest religious devotion. Accordingly, he wishes to rise to the occasion. In order to do so, he would like the aid of a stimulus. The stimulus he selects is music. 'Bring me a minstrel!' he says. He feels that he would speak better if he has a pleasant environment; he evokes the aid of nature to help him in the sphere of grace.
Now, this is a very starthng thing. We all admit the power of natural beauty in the region of natural work. That a poet is helped by a sunbeam, that a literary style is influenced by fair surroundings, that imagination is stimulated by a starry night or quickened by a mountain view—all this is universally accepted. But in the sphere of grace we are apt to think such helps superfluous. We are apt to believe that the Spirit of God is a solitary agent acting by its own strength and conquering by its own power. We think of the beauties of holiness as themselves sufficient to inspire. Shall the heavenly manna seek an ally in the earthly music! Shall the hand of God work in unison with the harp of man! Shall
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the soul be aided to its vision of Divine glory by listening to the strains of a purely human melody, and thrilling to the notes of an instrument with mundane strings!
Elisha says, Yes; he calls for a minstrel before prophesying. The minstrel was probably a man vastly inferior to himself, and was perhaps not a religious man at all; yet Elisha was not ashamed to use him for the service of God.
Was he here again influenced by the memory of Elijah, by the tendency to imitate his mastere Did he remember how that master was fed by ravens? Did he remember how the mightiest was supported by the ministration of the meanest? Did he remember how the mere secular forces of life had been made to serve the kingdom of God? I think it likely.
Elisha must have felt that if the tempestuous soul of his master could be content to be fed by earthly streams, the quiet river of his own life might well be thus satisfied too. At all events, he was content. He was satisfied to sun himself in a worldly beauty, to cheer himself into the work for God by a study of the work of man. In his moment of spiritual exhaustion he sought a secular stimulus, At a time when he had nothing to draw with, he let a [92]
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Samaritan bring the pitcher. In the hour when his alabaster box was broken, he allowed his costhest treasures to be carried in earthen vessels.
} And the Christian Church has followed the | example of Elisha. The voice of that Church has ever increasingly been, 'Bring me a minstrel!' She began without the ministrel—in the humble precincts of an upper room. But she found that she needed stimulus.
She was marching as an army to battle, and, like an army marching to battle, she required a blast of music. Christianity has ascended the hill to the tune of trumpets on the plain; the feet
. of the Christian soldier have moved in unison with the measure of an earthly melody. The religion of the Cross has proceeded up the Dolorous Way crowned with the flowers of the world's field. It has availed itself of every secular aid. It has beautified the places of its worship. It has imparted human graces to its heavenly services. It has cultivated by natural art the voices of its choristers. It has sent its prophets to drink at the wells of worldly wisdom. It has given a literary form to its liturgies. It has incorporated with its psalmody the sentiments of men not called inspired.
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When we see the Christian Church ascending, we cry with Elisha, 'The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!' but we feel that the chariots and the horsemen belong to different worlds—that the horsemen are of heaven, the chariots of earth.
I come now to the fourth of these spheres in which Elisha allies himself to the secular; it is the practical sphere—the sphere of the physician. The incident to which I allude is the healing of Naaman the Syrian. He is a leper, and he repairs to Elisha in the hope of a cure. Elisha tells him to bathe seven times in the waters of Jordan. Naaman is incensed; he thinks the prophet has insulted him. Why so? Myriads of sermons have been written on the subject; and the prevailing note of all has been that Naaman was offended by the simplicity of the proposed remedy. Do you think that likely! If I go to a doctor, expecting to be prescribed a drastic operation, and if I am told instead simply to bathe in cold water, am I not likely rather to congratulate myself than to feel angry! Naaman himself says in the narrative that he would have been content with something much more simple—a mere touch of the prophet's hand. The sting lay in Lr]
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the fact that the prophet himself took no part in the cure. He handed Naaman over to the powers of Nature—to the waters of Jordan.
Naaman wanted to be the subject of a supernatural influence—to be directly favoured by the emissary of the God of Israel. That emissary, instead of calling in mysterious helps, instead of engaging in prayer or indulging in incantations, sent him to a bathing establishment and told him to continue his attendance there until the cleansing process was complete.
Naaman very naturally felt that he might have found such institutions nearer home.
The entire ground of his anger lay in the knowledge that Elisha was not eager to be thought the agent in the cure, that, instead of being proud to have so august a patient, he had calmly handed him over to the care of one of his assistant physicians—to the medical skill of the waters of Jordan.
What to Naaman was a source of anger is to us a source of satisfaction; we are glad that Elisha, when he sought the help of God, sought it through the channels of Nature— that he claimed the secular forces as workers of the Divine will. But I think that here, as elsewhere, Elisha was influenced by that per- [95 ]
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sonal memory which had been his constant guide. Why does he send Naaman to the waters of Jordan? Was it not because these waters embodied the latest memory of him whom he loved—that memory which had imparted to Elisha himself a healing touch in every hour of weariness, and had inspired him with fresh strength amid the burden and heat of the day. It was on the banks of Jordan that he had gazed on Elijah almost for the last time; it was on the banks of Jordan that he had seen his very last act of power. It was love's latest image in his soul. In sending Naaman to Jordan, he felt that he was sending him to Elijah. He was putting him in hands that were mightier than his own. He was evoking the spirit of his departed friend to help his healing work, nay, to be the sole agent in that work. He says, in effect, 'I commit this man into thy hands; thou who hast smitten the waters of Jordan, smite, upon these waters, the leprosy of Naaman!' From first to last the spirit of Elijah had remained his guiding star.
It had spoken to him from the silent land.
He had dedicated everything to its memory, to its example. To that memory he dedicated the waters of Jordan too. They were, to him,
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sparkling with the sunset of yesterday, and he sent the leper Naaman to be partaker of their beams.
I THANK Thee, O Father, that in the Pictures of the Great Gallery there is a memorial to human friendship—to the love of two human souls. I thank Thee that Thou hast suffered
Elisha to be swayed by the memory of a departed friend; it is Thine own imprimatur on the sacredness of earthly love. I thank Thee that Thou hast allowed my heart to wear the mantle of the departed. Thou hast not forced me to think of the chariots and horsemen that have borne him away. Thou hast permitted me to picture my Elijah in the old scenes.
Thou hast allowed me to figure him on the heights of Carmel and on the banks of Jordan.
Thou hast suffered me to hear his footsteps on my earthly way—to be guided by his example, to be inspired by his remembrance. Why hast
Thou not bid me forget? Why hast Thou not told Elisha 'to think of his own way and let his friend rest behind the veil? Why hast
Thou counselled him to look up and see if any mantle from his vanished friend is falling?
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Is it not to tell him, to tell me, that love is eternal! Is it not to tell me that the chariot of fire cannot part human friendships! Is it not to tell me that the fire of death cannot burn up the mantle of earthly influence! Often in the vision of departing chariots I am complaining of the waste of life. I see men taken up before their work is done, and I weep for their unfinishedness. Teach me by this scene in the Great Gallery that Elijah can finish his work from beyond the grave! Teach me that the box of ointment is not wasted when it is broken! Teach me that the fragrance can fill the house when the fragments are on the floor!
Teach me that a departed life may hold in my heart an empire which no present life can claim! So shall I learn the immortality of love!
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CHAPTER VI*
JOB THE PATIENT
THE Portrait of Job has been attributed to every date between the extremes of a thousand years—from the call of Abraham to the calling back of Judah's bondage. My own opinion is that it dates from the Persian period, I think that an artist of that day delineated the facts of a real historic tradition; but I believe that he used them to express an allegory. Job is to me not merely an individual; he is that and something more. He is the personification of the Jewish race in captivity. Through the personality of Job the artist aims to show that the afflictions of his people ought not to be attributed to any special sin, and that the exile they have been doomed to bear may itself have been a part of their mission from the Highest. The fact that when the Portrait was being painted the national
1 This chapter is an abstract of my Murtle Lecture delivered in the Mitchell Hall, Aberdeen University, on December 15, 1901.
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clouds were already beginning to be parted by streaks of sunshine, may have lent inspiration to the thought. I turn, however, from the critical to the human. I will view this not as the portrait of a nation, but as the portrait of a man, and I will only consider in it those qualities which belong to the individual heart;
Judah has passed away, but Job abides.
There have been four typical notes of despair in the region of literature. The first and most intense is the voice of Omar Khayyam.
It is despair absolute, despair of life all round, despair whose only relief is to drown itself in wine. The second is the Book of Ecclesiastes.
I would call it despair of results. It does not deny that it is a pleasant thing to see the light of the sun; it does not dispute that there is a time to dance as well as a time to weep; but it asks, What is the good of it; does it not all end in vanity! The third is the cry of Pascal.
It is despair of everything finite—finite reason, finite love, finite pleasure; the only possible joy is joy in God. The fourth is that dramatic portraiture which we call the Book of Job. I would describe it as the despair of old theories. It is the Jeast despondent of the group. It does not say that the world is bad;
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it does not say that life is vanity; it does not even say that finite things cannot bring joy.
What it does say is that all the past theories to explain the evils of the universe have been utterly powerless to account for these evils, that none of them is fit to sustain the weight of human woes, and that all of them put together are inadequate to wipe the tear from a single eye. The Book of Job is not strictly a pessimistic book. It does not despair of the universe—spite of all its sorrows! What it does despair of is the adequacy of any one of man's existing theories, or of all these theories united, to furnish a solution of its sorrows. It does not deny that there may be summer somewhere beyond the sea; but it refuses to accept the doctrine that any of the previous swallows have ever touched the gilded shore.
Now, observe carefully why the Book of Job rejects old theories of the origin of pain.
It is because it has found a new theory. All the former ones had explained suffering as the result of defect in the creature. Here, the bold view is advanced that it had its origin in a need felt by the Creator—the Divine need for love. With starthng originality, and for the first time in history, this book declares that the [ 101 ]
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pains of earth were born in heaven, that they originated in the counsels beyond the veil.
Let us stand before this Picture in the Great Gallery; it is one of the most striking, not only in all Scripture, but in all literature! It reveals in the foreground a day in heaven. It is a great day—a day of presentations. All quarters of the universe are represented. Each has sent up a deputy to stand before the throne of God. Looking round the vast assembly, the eye of the Almighty lights upon a strange figure; it is that of Satan. 'Where do you come from,' says the Almighty; 'what part of the universe has made you its representativer'
Satan answers, 'I represent the earth—the length of it, the breadth of it.' 'Not in its whole extent,' says the Almighty; 'there is a man called Job down in the land of Uz who loves Me fervently." 'Oh!' cries Satan, 'nobody loves you for yourself—not even Job!
You have made it worth while to serve you.
You have given to those who obey you houses and brethren and lands. You have crowned them with glory and honour; you have promised them long life and prosperity. Take away from Job the dowry he gets for loving you— take away the rich possessions that have re- [ 102 }
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warded his fidelity, and he will curse you to your face!'
The Almighty accepts this criticism. Satan has put his hand upon a real weakness of the Hebrew race—its association of Divine love with temporal rewards. God tells Satan to go forth and create a set of new conditions— conditions unfavourable to Man's love of the Divine. He bids him put this man Job under a testing probation—a probation in which he will be denuded of every outward joy and made to experience the fact that a man may serve the Lord and get nothing in return. So Satan goes out from the presence of the Lord, and in the changing of Job's environment he constructs a unique figure in the Old Testament Gallery—a figure which has the stamp of a distinctively new conception. Job is the only man of the Old Gallery whose mission is simply to bear. All the other men of the group are men of action. Enoch had the wreath of immortality; but Enoch's life was a walk with God. Elijah had a chariot of fire; but Elijah was the prophet of fire. Noah rose above the floods of fortune; but Noah was an active shipbuilder.
Abraham was highly blessed; but Abraham was the founder of a [ 103 ]
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kingdom. Moses communed with God on the Mount as a man talks with his friend; but Moses was the maker of practical laws. All these were great by reason of their working.
But this man Job comes upon the scene to do nothing—simply to bear. To the eye of the beholder it does not appear that the bearing has any practical purpose. He is not weighted, as Isaac was, with the cares of a household.
He is weighted seemingly for the sake of nobody, but just with a view to his own pain.
What we see is a process of divestiture—and the reason is known only to the spectator. He comes to be dismantled. One by one the beautiful robes are taken off, until every thread of former majesty is gone, until the king becomes a pauper and the millionaire a beggar for bread. Let us follow the process.
First the outermost robe is removed— worldly wealth takes wings and vanishes away; the labour of the olive fails and the field supplies no meat. Job stands the test; his love for God wavers not. Then an inner robe is removed—the ties of home are broken by death. His had been a happy domestic circle
—a circle of family reunions. They met at these reunions once a year in the rotation of [ 104 ]
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each son's birthday. We all know the increasing sadness of these gatherings—the sadness
@ of hearing voices that are no longer there.
Job had to bear this. Year by year the vacant chairs increased in prominence, and the touch of vanished hands became more frequent.
Still he wavers not; no cry escapes his lips.
Then a more inward robe still is taken— health breaks; bodily strength gives way. I call that a more inward privation, because it prevented him from recuperating. When a man's heart goes down, it may rise again if his body keeps up; but if his body falls too, the heart will not rise. That is what I understand our Lord to mean when He says, 'If the salt has lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted !'—if the vital stream itself is low, what can restore joy! Still Job blanches not. No complaint falls from him. His deepest sense is that of acquiescence in the Divine will, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away: blessed be the name of the Lord!'
Then comes the removal of a fourth. garment—human sympathy. Job's friends visit him, and, in accordance with the Jewish view of suffering, they assume that he must be a special sinner. At first by gesture, and then by [ 105 ]
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words, they convey their impression that he has done something to deserve it. And now for the first time his great heart gives way. You have seen a cloud that has hovered overhead all the afternoon touched at last by a freezing vapour and burst forth in torrents. So is it with Job. He has borne up all through the day—borne poverty, bereavement, sickness; but, when the freezing vapour touches him, the fountains of the great deep are opened and the flood descends. He has endured calamity; but that his calamity should be made a sign of worthlessness is foo much! The explosion is simply terrific; it sweeps all before it. Yet it is not illogical; there is a method in its gusts of passion. Let me try to gather up the threads of argument which the blast carries on its bosom. Let me endeavour to paraphrase the spirit of these remarkable utterances in which Job expresses his indignation at the theory of his friends.
'Tell me not,' he cries, 'that I have deserved it! Do not say that in any special sense I have incurred the displeasure of the Almighty! I know I have sinned after the manner of Adam's race. How shall a man be just before God/—if called to the bar of judgment, could
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he answer for one, of a thousand, faults! But that is not what you mean. You want me to believe that I have been a special sinner, a sinner above the average. My life refutes the charge. Measured by the common standard, my record is pure. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the heart of the widow to sing for joy.
I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame.
When the poor heard, then they blessed me; when the eye saw, then it gave witness. I delivered the fatherless and the widow and him that had no helper. Mine integrity I will hold fast and never let it go; my heart will not reproach me as long as I live. But suppose it were otherwise, suppose I were the deep-dyed sinner you picture, is this pain the way to convict me! If your God wishes me to feel my sin, why does He send me a physical suffering and physical weakness which make it impossible for me to feel anything at all! Why does
He seal up my transgressions in a bag—where they cannot be seen' Why does He sew mine iniquities in sackcloth—where they cannot be
- felt! Why does He break me with a tempest if He wants me to have a vivid consciousness of anything whatever! Does the sense of sin come
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from mutilation, from curtailment, from paralysis of the nerves! Does it not come from expansion, from exaltation, from increasing nearness to God! If I am to abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes, it must be, not in the hour of depression, but in the hour of revelation—the hour when I meet with God. I cannot accept your explanation of my great and grievous pain.'
But now, in the light of this outcry, the question arises, Why do we speak of Job's patience? He has borne bravely three calamities—the three sent from God; why has he sunk before the one sent by ManpP He has accepted penury, bereavement, sickness; why has he cried out at the mere suggestion that these are penalties; and why, in spite of that vociferation, has his name been handed down as a synonym for patience! He has stood the hurricane and the tempest; but he has been made to cry out by the lashing of a single wave! Does not the fact of being fretted by so weak a foe deprive him of all right to be the representative of those who wait for God?
I answer, No; and I feel sure that the answer will be echoed by the Great Gallery.
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the patience of Job is never so conspicuous as in his outcry. Not in spite of, but by reason of, that outcry has he earned his right to a place among those who wait for God. Why did Job cry out? Was it not in the interest of patience.
Was it not patience that made him cry out.
His friends wanted to rob him of his patience —to take away his power to watt without a reason. Is not that just the definition of intellectual patience—the power to trust when there is no light, the ability to possess one's soul in the absence of all explanation of that which afflicts it. Unless we grasp this thought, the personality of Job is meaningless—he is simply an impatient child. But if his impatience springs from the fact that his friends wish to rob him of his patience, if his outcry is caused by his desire to be allowed to wait for God, then, religiously and artistically, the whole Portrait is illuminated and the claim of Job to his traditional virtue receives triumphant vindication.
Now, the friends of Job are really in this _ position. They want to alter his attitude of patience. They say: 'It is not enough for you to believe that it will be all right some day.
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You must be able to trace the cause of your calamity. You must be able to put your hand upon some dark deed of your past life, or'— as Elihu puts it—'upon some unspoken principle of evil which has not yet issued in a deed, but which God sees in the silence of your soul.' Put yourself in the place of Job under these circumstances. Imagine that you were passing through a season of bereavement. The light of your eyes has been extinguished, and you are sitting disconsolate in a silent room.
Suddenly a solemn bell rings; and, draped in black, there enter three figures—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They take you by the hand and say: 'My friend, God is dealing with you in chastisement. You have been too fond of the world. You have been living for the hour. You have been giving to earthly things the honour which is due to His name.
Therefore He has spoken to you in His anger; He has withered your gourd. Humble yourself, and confess your sin!' Would you not be disposed to answer: 'Am I bound to take such a view! In a world where so much seems arbitrary, where for a time "the tabernacles of robbers prosper," where the good are often clothed in sackcloth and the wicked wear the [ 110 ]
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purple robe, am I bound to believe that this is a chastisement to me! Will you not let me keep my patience/ Will you not let me trust my God without a theory! Will you not let me believe that in some way unknown to me things are working together for good! Why do you deny me the privilege of the men who watt for God!'
Even such is the voice of Job. He utters a protest in favour of patience. He appeals from the God of his friends to his own God. He
Says, in the spirit of a Greater: 'My Father! behold, Thou comest to me in clouds! Life has been overcast for me; the hosannahs are hushed, the palm-leaves are withered, the friends of summer days have made their flight in the winter. Men want me to trace Thee,
"Prophesy unto us, thou Christ; who is he that smote thee?" But I will not trace Thee,
"The cup which my Father has given me to drink, shall I not drink it!" I accept in the darkness the burden Thou hast laid upon me;
I take it unexplained. I come to Thee in the night—the unvindicated night. I come in the cold that has no explanation, in the snow that is not accounted for. I accept Thee in Thy mean attire, in Thine unattractive raiment, in Ft11}
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Thy repulsive dress. I do not seek to comprehend Thee; I take Thee with Thy mystery.
Though Thou slay me, yet will I trust in Thee, and believe that I keep Thy favour.'
But there is a second respect in which the patience of Job is vindicated by his outcry.
Can there be any patience without a certain amount of inward outcry! If Job has ceased to 'pray for his friends—in other words, if he has ceased to care what his friends think of him—where is there room for patience! Is it not just this presence of the inner outcry which distinguishes the patience of Christ from what St. John's Gospel calls 'the peace which the world gives'—Stoicism. The Stoic says: 'If you will only keep down your feelings, if you will only practise the restraining of the bird when it is about to fly, you will come in course of time to have no emotions; you will be able to walk in the funeral cortége, fearless, tearless, passionless.'
Yes, and I would add, 'patienceless.' For, what you have lost in this case is really patience. You have ceased to wait for anything; you have given up the game. You see a man undergoing one of those little operations which flesh is heir to.
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He never winces. 'What admirable nerve!' you say. And yet, in reality, the calmness comes from exactly the opposite cause. The nerve, so far from being admirable, is dead; the man has lost the necessity for patience.
There is a question which must often have occurred to an inquiring mind. Why is it that we Christians, to whom the patience of Christ is a watchword and the surrender of his will a glory, are yet eager to select that part of His life in which the outcry is most loud and the struggle most apparent? Why do we make our pilgrimage in crowds to the Garden of Gethsemane? Why is to us the dearest spot, the most sacrificial spot, precisely that place where he poured forth His soul with strong crying and tears? We could understand why men who admire patience should repair to the scene of the death of Socrates; but it seems a strange thing that they should always take their journey to a place of human outcry like the Garden of Gethsemane!
But the answer, I think, is clear. We go to _ Gethsemane in the interest of patience. We feel that the outcry is the proof of the sacrifice.
Socrates has become deadened in the nerve that gives pain; therefore he has no outcry. tts}
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But the outcry of Jesus proves that He has not lost His nerve, not lost His youth, not lost
His love of human things. It is easy to be crucified by the world if you have ceased to love the world. It is easy to be crucified by your friends if your friends are looked upon by you as simply so many flies to be brushed aside and forgotten. But the glory of Gethsemane is that life is still beautiful to Jesus—that, with all its sins and sorrows, it still keeps to Him its pristine glow—that the colour has mot gone out of the flower, nor the song of the bird become silent, nor the freshness vanished from the breezes. The world is yet worth living in —bright and beautiful with possibilities, fair with promise, radiant with hope. That is what makes it so hard to be crucified by the sons of men; that is what gives value to the sacrifice.
We measure the patience by the strength of the cry.
Job also had the spirit of youth. However dark his sky, he had not lost his sense of life's possibilities. Deep down in his heart there was the conviction that the world in which he suffered was an unnatural world. He felt that things ought not so to be, and that therefore
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they would not always so be. Clear through the night his voice kept ringing: 'I know that my Vindicator liveth, and that He shall stand at the last upon the earth; and, though the process of destruction penetrate even beneath the skin, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom
I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another!' These are the words of hope, not despair. They show that the nerve is not dead, that the love of life is not extinguished, that the spirit of youth remains. If patience implies an outcry, it is because it implies an outlook. It refrains from tracing the way, but none the less does it believe in the goal. So long as a man keeps his love, he will keep his capacity for pain; but he will also keep his freedom from despair. Where love is, there is no despair. The wind may be raging fierce and cold around us, there may be no star in our night and no present rest in our journey
—but if Jove be not quenched, the ground for hope is still abiding. The gate of egress may be unseen, the avenue of outlook may be undetected, but already beyond the tombstone there will gleam the Garden, and above the blood-stained heights of Calvary there will glitter the sunlit peaks of Olivet.
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LorD, help me to keep my Jove/ Whatever else I lose, may I never lose that/ 'Though all the lights go out from my life, let not this torch be extinguished! There is a peace which comes by the death of patience—by ceasing any longer to wait or to expect. There is a peace which is not patience, because it /ooks for nothing, longs for nothing, prays for nothing—a peace which is painless because it is numb, and is free from struggle because it is dead. I would not have that gift, O my Father! I have passed through the autumn woods and heard no waving of the leaves, not because there was no wind to blow, but because there was no sap to nourish. I would not have that gift, O my Father! That is the peace of the grave. But Thy peace is the peace of the ocean. It is the calm that holds depths beneath it. It is not the rest of lifelessness, but the rest of balance. Thy patience is the patience not of spentness, but of expectancy; it rests 'in hope.' Bring me that peace of Thine,
O God! Bring me the peace of pulsation, the calm of courage, the endurance that springs from energy! Bring me the fortitude of fervour, the repose through inner radiance, the [116]
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tenacity that is born of trust! Bring me the silence that comes from serenity, the gentleness that is bred of joy, the quiet that has sprung from quickened faith! When I hear
Thee in the whirlwind, there will be a great calm!
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