Were rest my subject, there are other things I should wish to say about
it, and other kinds of Rest of which I should like to speak. But that is
not my subject. My theme is that the Christian experiences are not the
work of magic, but come under the law of Cause and Effect. And I have
chosen Rest only as a single illustration of the working of that
principle. If there were time I might next run over all the Christian
experiences in turn, and show how the same wide law applies to each. But
I think it may serve the better purpose if I leave this further exercise
to yourselves. I know no Bible study that you will find more full of
fruit, or which will take you nearer to the ways of God, or make the
Christian life itself more solid or more sure. I shall add only a single
other illustration of what I mean, before I close.
Where does Joy come from? I knew a Sunday scholar whose conception of
Joy was that it was a thing made in lumps and kept somewhere in Heaven,
and that when people prayed for it, pieces were somehow let down and
fitted into their souls. I am not sure that views as gross and material
are not often held by people who ought to be wiser. In reality, Joy is
as much a matter of Cause and Effect as pain. No one can get Joy by
merely asking for it. It is one of the ripest fruits of the Christian
life, and, like all fruits, must be grown. There is a very clever trick
in India called the mango-trick. A seed is put in the ground and covered
up, and after divers incantations a full-blown mango-bush appears within
five minutes. I never met any one who knew how the thing was done, but
I never met any one who believed it to be anything else than a
conjuring-trick. The world is pretty unanimous now in its belief in the
orderliness of Nature. Men may not know how fruits grow, but they do
know that they cannot grow in five minutes. Some lives have not even a
stalk on which fruits could hang, even if they did grow in five minutes.
Some have never planted one sound seed of Joy in all their lives; and
others who may have planted a germ or two have lived so little in
sunshine that they never could come to maturity.
Whence, then, is joy? Christ put His teaching upon this subject into one
of the most exquisite of His parables. I should in any instance have
appealed to His teaching here, as in the case of Rest, for I do not wish
you to think I am speaking words of my own. But it so happens that He
has dealt with it in words of unusual fulness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account