In answer to the first question, with regard to the struggle of the individual for existence, if you have read Professor Drummond's Ascent of Man you will have apprehended something which is a great relief to the nightmare which settles down upon the mind if one looks upon nature as a mere scene of bloodshed. I know there are men — I see men here — who have come up lately from Oxford, and I believe that at Oxford, as much as in the great centres of our population, one of the things which drive men to scepticism is believing that nature is entirely cruel. " Where," they say, " is the evidence of a good, benevolent God, in the midst of such a scene of unrelieved bloodshed ? " Eead Professor Drummond's book, and you will find that side by side with the struggle for existence there is going on perpetually in nature the struggle for the life of others — that the lioness who might crush her cub will die for it, that the parent bird wears itself out in getting food for its young, and that the creative — the marvellously creative — power of a mother's love is not confined to the human species. And when, secondly, we tm-n to the objection that intercession is unfair, and look frankly at the facts of nature, we find that the unfair- ness is the other way. No one can visit a children's hospital without seeing in the most touching form that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. Some people seem to imagine that that saying in the Bible is an arbitrary command imposing an arbitrary punishment on the human race ; but one hour spent in that children's hospital will show that it simply states a fact of human nature.^
f What can be more beautiful than the picture which his biographer gives of George Herbert and his daily prayers ? You
^ Bishop Ingram.
476 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
will remember how he describes Herbert reading the prayers in the tiny church of Bemerton, close to Salisbury, and " how the poorer people of the parish did so love and reverence Mr. Herbert that they would let the plough rest when Mr. Herbert's Saints' Bell rang to prayers, that they might also offer their devotions to God with him, and then would return back to their plough."
1[ " Go," says the saintly Bishop Ken, " go to the house of prayer, though you go alone ; and there, as you are God's remem- brancers, ' keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.' "
2. We are thus encouraged both to work and to pray, both to " take no rest," and to " give Him no rest." Activity and prayer, each unceasing — that is the irresistible combination which the prophet recommends and urges : to pray (some one says) as if God had to do everything, and to work as if everything depended upon ourselves. The certain result will be our own perfecting in the praiseful confession of others whilst the Church also becomes strong and " a praise in the earth." We know, conse- quently, what to do in experiences that frequently recur. When we discover anew our own spiritual feebleness, there is no need to waste in depression and complaint any energy that may remain ; the feebleness should be attributed at once to its right cause — that we take too much rest, or that we give God too much. On our knees, as God's remembrancers, we should remind Him of His word, " He that is feeble among you shall be as David " ; and it will not be long before greater strength than David's takes possession of us. Or when the Church seems to be shorn of its power, making no headway and winning no praise, the reason is again because we Christians do not pray enough or do not work enough. It is a magnificent prospect — ourselves established so that all men confess our consistency and acknow- ledge our influence for good ; the Church " a praise in the earth," everywhere triumphing over sin, with great crowds of men continuously streaming up to pay their homage to its Lord, Until that crowning consummation is reached, we must ourselves " take no rest and give Him no rest."
These two forms of action ought to be inseparable. Each, if genuine, will drive us to the other, for who could fling himself into the watchman's work, with all its solemn consequences,
ISAIAH 477
knowing how weak his voice was, and how deaf the ears that should hear, unless he could bring God's might to his help ? And who could honestly remind God of His promises and forget his own responsibilities ? Prayerless work will soon slacken, and never bear fruit ; idle prayer is worse than idle. You cannot part them if you would. How much of the busy occupation which is called " Christian work " is detected to be spurious by this simple test ! How much so-called prayer is reduced by it to mere noise, no better than the blaring trumpet or the hollow drum !
IT In the tabernacle of Israel stood two great emblems of the functions of God's people, which embodied these two sides of the Christian life. Day by day there ascended from the altar of incense the sweet odour, which symbolised the fragrance of prayer as it wreathes itself upwards to the heavens. Night by night, as darkness fell on the desert and the camp, there shone through the gloom the hospitable light of the great golden candle- stick with its seven lamps, whose steady rays outburned the stars that paled with the morning. Side by side they proclaimed to Israel its destiny to be the light of the world, to be a kingdom of priests.