To await the growing of a soul, nevertheless, is an almost Divine
act of faith. How pardonable, surely, the impatience of deformity
with itself, of a consciously despicable character standing before
Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that! Yet must
one trust the process fearlessly and without misgiving. "The Lord
the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste
for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less spiritual,
or to defeat the end by watching for effects instead of keeping
the eye on the Cause. A photograph prints from the negative only
while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see
how it is getting on he simply stops the getting on. Whatever of
wise supervision the soul may need, it is certain it can never be
over-exposed, or that, being exposed, anything else in the world
can improve the result or quicken it. The creation of a new heart,
the renewing of a right spirit, is an omnipotent work of God.
Leave it to the Creator. "He which hath begun a good work in you
will perfect it unto that day."
No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and solemnity of what is
at stake will be careless as to his progress. To become
Like Christ
is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing before
which every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement
vain.
Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of
their lives can ever begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it
has seemed up to this point as if all depended on passivity, let
me now assert, with conviction more intense, that all depends on
activity. A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion
for an angel, but never for a man. No in the contemplative, but
in the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, but in reality, lies
true life; not in the realm of ideals, but among tangible things,
is man's sanctification wrought. Resolution, effort, pain,
self-crucifixion, agony--all the things already dismissed as
futile in themselves, must now be restored to office, and a tenfold
responsibility laid upon them. For what is their office? Nothing
less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, and place it, and
keep it where the spiritual forces will act upon it. It is to rally
the forces of the will, and keep the surface of the mirror bright
and ever in position. It is to uncover the face which is to look
at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights are near.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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