I.
The Centre of Life.
1. The heart that we carry in our body may rightly be called the centre of life. The physical heart is a large bunch of muscles, placed between the two lungs and acting as a fountain of life to the whole body. How wonderful it is in its structure — its auricles, and ventricles, its valves and blood-vessels ! " The blood is the life " ; and every moment it is being driven by the unrest- ing stroke of the heart's pump into the great arteries and all through the body. The heart is the central organ of the human frame ; and the health of the body depends upon its soundness and its proper action. Only when this action is healthy and true will the whole body be full of power, energy, and beauty. When, on the other hand, the heart is feeble or diseased, it will send languor and mischief through the whole system. This organ, in
» J. H. Ward.
PROVERBS IV. 23 243
short, is the mainspring, the determining factor in the life of the body. The other organs work well or ill according to the state of the heart.
2. But the Old Testament locates in the heart the centre of personal being. It is not merely the home of the affections, but also the seat of will, of moral purpose. As this text says, " the issues of life " flow from it in all the multitudinous variety of their forms. The stream parts into many heads, but it has one foun- tain. To the Hebrew thinkers the heart was the indivisible, central unity which manifested itself in the whole of the outward life. " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The heart is the man. And that personal centre has a moral character which comes to light in, and gives unity and character to, all his deeds.
(1) Out of the heart are the issues of life. It is not the mind, the thought-power, the judgment-forming part of our nature that holds the primacy and sits upon the throne. The mind, with its thoughts, its judgments, its ideas, is the servant of our practical needs. The mind, in fact, came into being, was organized and developed because of our practical needs. It is not the regal and aristocratic member of our being that it has sometimes been assumed to be. It is a veritable slave and lackey, serving in homespun, continually driven, and made to work overtime at the whip's end of the dominant forces of life. Because primitive man was conscious of hunger, he contrived a way to till the ground, to plant, to reap, to grind and bake. The mind did not invent bread, and then coax the appetite to eat, because bread forsooth was good. Man was hungry ; the appetite was imperious master, and it compelled the mind to find some way of satisfying that need. Because man was naked, he also invented dress, first from the skins of wild beasts, then from their woolly covering, woven into a fabric. Because he was subjected to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the frost, he drove the thinking part of him to devise a tent and a roof, a protecting shelter from the prowling lion, or a stockade against human foe. Here is the invariable order : need — invention — satisfaction. And this is actually all that the mind, with its knowledge, has ever done for man ; in the last analysis it will always reduce to this — the dis- covery of a way, continuously a better way, between these two
244 THE HEART
terms ; need, and the satisfaction of the need. Out of the heart have been the issues of life from the outset. The needs, the desires, the great passions, the urgent impulses — these have been in control. It is they who have sat on the throne.
(2) The condition of the heart determines our influence. The world over, the most potent force is not thought, but love. Argu- ment often convinces while affection sways in a contrary direction. A teacher's wisdom, with all the fascinations of the schools, moves us less than a mother's pleading and tears. Even where masses of men bow before eloquent oratory, it is the power of sincerity and earnestness in the speaker that moves even those who differ. We all instinctively feel that the secret of heroism is noble affec- tion, unselfish love, and sacrifice. There is a sort of righteousness that only awakens a cold admiration ; while goodness, which is righteousness touched with love, leads men to die for its possessor.
^ When Wilberforce, the great apostle of liberty in Europe, was turning the world upside-down, one man asked another, " What is the secret of the power of Wilberforce ? There are many men with more brains and more culture." And his friends answered, " The secret of Wilberforce is that he has a heart full of sympathy." And that is the secret of multitudes of people who are doing great good in the world. Do not keep guard over your heart with the purpose only of keeping bad things out of it, but keep watch over it to see that the fountains of sympathy and brotherly kindness are open and flowing day by day.^