Few men know how to live. We grow up at random carrying into mature
life the merely animal methods and motives which we had as little
children. And it does not occur to us that all this must be changed
that much of it must be reversed; that life is the finest of the
Fine Arts; that it has to be learned with life-long patience, and
that the years of our pilgrimage are all too short to master it
triumphantly.
Yet this is what Christianity is for--to teach men
The art of life.
And its whole curriculum lies in one word--"Learn of me." Unlike
most education, this is almost purely personal; it is not to be had
from books, or lectures or creeds or doctrines. It is a study from
the life. Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian
graces. He lived them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy
Him. We learn His art by living with Him, like the old apprentices
with their masters.
Now we understand it all? Christ's invitation to the weary
and heavy-laden is a call to begin life over again upon a new
principle--upon His own principle. "Watch my way of doing things,"
He says; "Follow me. Take life as I take it. Be meek and lowly,
and you will find Rest."
I do not say, remember, that the Christian life to every man, or
to any man, can be a bed of roses. No educational process can be
this. And perhaps if some men knew how much was involved in the
simple "learn" of Christ, they would not enter His school with so
irresponsible a heart. For there is not only much to learn, but
Much to unlearn.
Many men never go to this school at all till their disposition is
already half ruined and character has taken on its fatal set. To
learn arithmetic is difficult at fifty--much more to learn
Christianity. To learn simply what it is to be meek and lowly, in
the case of one who has had no lessons in that in childhood, may
cost him half of what he values most on earth. Do we realize,
for instance, that the way of teaching humility is generally by
HUMILIATION? There is probably no other school for it. When a man
enters himself as a pupil in such a school it means a very great
thing. There is much Rest there, but there is also much Work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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