With God in the World: A Series of PapersBrent, Charles Henry
Religion
With God in the World: A Series of Papers
Brent, Charles Henry
Christianity
Clothed with the conviction that true inspiration lies in
responsibility, what better words of inspiration can this closing
chapter bear than what will come from a final insistence upon the
vastness of the ordinary man's spiritual responsibility and the grandeur
of his opportunity? In these days a true man rises instinctively to a
broad outlook. He does not labour for his own self-fulfillment and
nothing more. Of course, every act of self-sacrifice for the Kingdom of
Heaven's sake helps toward that end, for self-sacrifice for the
promotion of whatever cause is always the negative aspect of
self-fulfillment. But Christians strive toward the best not from selfish
motives, not merely because what God commands must be done, but because
He has opened up to our gaze a vision of His world-purposes and shown us
that obedience means coöperation with Him in their fulfillment. Thus
small actions become big with import. Personal purity means a
contribution toward the solution of the divorce question which exceeds
in its constructive influence the most wisely worded canon of marriage.
The commercial honour of the individual is the forging of a ward in the
key that will some day unlock the closed door of the industrial problem.
Faithfulness in spiritual duties in the most circumscribed life is a
voice that reaches the uttermost part of the earth and gives its undying
witness to all who have ears to hear. Loyalty and charity working hand
in hand in the Christian soul will do as much as the most carefully
framed and comprehensive formula of agreement, to bring about that
Christian unity for which our Lord prayed[41] when His time was short
and His thoughts only upon that which was the objective point of the
Incarnation.
Whether or not men recognize the extent of their influence, that
influence tells. But what a source of inspiration and strength is lost
when these things are hidden and one sees only the natural side of life,
the prison-house of environment and the task without its incentive! The
Architect of life would have His least workman know the full plan and
not merely that of the small bit of it which is his special care. Once
to discern our personal relation to God's world-purposes is to be for
ever purged of dilettantism; is to be for ever emancipated from a
certain religious littleness that shackles so many Christian feet, and
to move out into a breadth which involves no loss of depth; is to shake
non-essentials into the background, and bring fundamental truths to the
fore, where they can burn themselves into our very being; is to receive
a new motive for living and doing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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