(3) And, after all, character is the essential reward and true ambition of a noble life. For then we pass beyond all of what
^ Phillips Brooks, New Starts in Life, 39. 2 Mrs. Brookficld and her Circle, ii. 435. * R. L. Stevenson, A Christmas Sermon.
JOB I. 9 15
are commonly meant by consequences, and our thought is fixed upon intrinsic qualities as the true result and recompense of struggle after righteousness. " If I do these brave things I shall be brave." "If I resist this temptation to impurity I shall be pure." Bravery and purity as real possessions of the soul ; as real as, indeed far more real than, houses and oxen and bags of gold — these make the new ambition.
In the lower stages of personal religious experience, as in the earlier stages of national religious development, the bargaining temper of the patriarch Jacob may be condoned ; but in the higher stages, which cannot be delayed without serious loss, the huckstering spirit has entirely passed away. "Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money. . . . But Peter said unto him, Thy silver perish with thee, because thou hast thought to obtain the gift of God with money." In our day dollars and divinity are associated without causing any special shock, but to men full of the spirit of Christ the association was sacrilegious ; the attempt to obtain spiritual power with money, or to get money out of spiritual virtue, was equally impious. The strong language of Peter shows that profit and piety are utterly irreconcilable in religious thought and motive, although they are often and naturally coincident in practical life.
^ James Smetham's painting, poetry, and study of literature did not lead to conventional success ; yet toward the end of life he wrote : " In my own secret heart I look on myself as one who has got on, and got to his goal, as one who has got something a thousand times better than a fortune, more real, more inward, less in the power of others, less variable, more immortal, more eternal ; as one whose feet are on a rock, his goings established, with a new song in his mouth, and joy on his head." Here is the exceeeding great reward of devout souls, however carnal fortune may fail.^
(4) Have we yet reached the. end ? Is there a higher motive still ? There is a motive, or perhaps we ought to say a range of motives, which yet more completely casts aside and leaves behind the taint of mercenariness while it still presents a true prize to the uplifted eye of the straggler with his sins and
^ "W. L. Watkinson, The Ashes 0/ Bases, 197.
i6 UNSELFISHNESS OF TRUE RELIGION
the seeker for goodness. This range of motives is inspired by two ideas. One of these ideas is the honour which man by his holiness may render to God. The other is the help which man by his holiness may render to his fellow-man.
You go to your Christian friend, your fellow-student, your fellow-merchant, your fellow-man. You say to him, " You are serving God." And he replies, " Yes, certainly I am, and I am always trying to serve Him more and more " ; and then you ask Satan's question, " Is it for nothing that you serve Him ? Do you serve God for nought ? " And he replies again, " Oh no, He pays me bountifully." And then you say, " Tell me what He gives you." And the answer comes, " He gives me the privilege of honouring Him and helping my fellow-men." What then? It may be that these rewards seem to be no reward to you. It may be that you look into his face as if you looked upon an idiot, and wondered what distortion of the mind could let him care for things like these. But none the less you see that he does care for them. They make for him a great enthusiasm. They are his " exceeding great reward."
^ It is not your business and mine to study whether we shall get to heaven, even to study whether we shall be good men ; it is our business to study how we shall come into the midst of the purposes of God and have the unspeakable privilege in these few years of doing something of His work. And yet so is our life all one, so is the Kingdom of God which surrounds us and enfolds us one bright and blessed unity, that when a man has devoted himself to the service of God and his fellow-man, immediately he is thrown back upon his own nature, and he sees now — it is the right place for him to see — that he must be the brave, strong, faithful man, because it is impossible for him to do his duty and to render his service, except it is rendered out of a heart that is full of faithfulness, that is brave and true.^
Jesus came And laid His own hand on the quivering heart, And made it very still, that He might write Invisible words of power — " Free to serve ! " Then through the darkness and the chill He sent A heat-ray of His love, developing The mystic writing, till it glowed and shone