^ As a teacher wandered in Qualheim, he came into a moun- tainous region, and saw a castle which was of dream-like beauty. " Who is the enviable man who lives in such a palace ? " he asked. His guide answered : " He is an unhappy, helpless hermit, without peace, and without a home. He was born with great artistic gifts, but employed them on rubbish. He drew nonsensical and trifling caricatures, distorted all that was beautiful into ugliness, and all that was great into pettiness."
" How does he occupy himself now ? "
** Shall I say it ? He sits from morning till evening, making balls out of dung."
"You mean to say, he continues as he began. Is that his punishment ? "
" Yes ! Isn't it logical ? He obtained the castle, but cannot use it." Then they went further and came into a garden, where they found a man grafting peaches on turnips. " What has he done ? " asked the teacher. " In life he was specially fond of turnips, and now he wishes to inoculate peaches, which he finds insipid, with the fine flavour of turnips. He was, moreover, an author, and wished to rejuvenate poetry with bawdy peasant songs." " Why, that is symbolism ! " " Yes, and logic most of all." 2
4. The true life, coming from God, is satisfying and is not bounded by this world. According to Christ's teaching " a man's
^ Theodore Cuyler, Recollections of a Long Life, 274. * A. Strindberg, Zones of the Spirit, 103.
268 A MAN'S TRUE LIFE
life " consists in the cultivation of the possibilities, of the highest elements of his being, in the annihilation within it of all low desires, in the full set of its determination on the highest ideals, in the cultivation of that power of vision and of feeling by which a man comes to apprehend God and has a sense of the spiritual world, in the maturing of the faculty for drawing enjoyment from those sources which the world cannot dry up. To do that is to know what " a man's life " means, and to do less than that is to live the life of an animal and not " a man's life " at all ; and, unless the world's best men and women have been its greatest liars, to live a life like that is unspeakably magnificent and satisfying.
^ A man may pay too dearly for his livelihood, by giving, in Thoreau's terms, his whole life for it, or, in mine, bartering for it the whole of his available liberty, and becoming a slave till death. There are two questions to be considered — the quality of what we buy, and the price we have to pay for it. Do you want a thousand a year, a two thousand a year, or a ten thousand a year livelihood ? and can you afford the one you want ? It is a matter of taste ; it is not in the least degree a question of duty, though commonly supposed so. But there is no authority for that view anywhere. It is nowhere in the Bible. It is true that we might do a vast amount of good if we were wealthy, but it is also highly improb- able ; not many do ; and the art of growing rich is not only quite distinct from that of doing good, but the practice of the one does not at all train a man for practising the other.^
Is not the body more than meat? The soul Is something greater than the food it needs. Prayers, sacraments, and charitable deeds, They realize the hours that onward roll Their endless way " to kindle or control." Our acts and words are but the pregnant needs Of future being, when the flowers and weeds, Local and temporal, in the vast whole Shall live eternal. Nothing ever dies ! The shortest smile that flits across a face, Which lovely grief hath made her dwelling-place, Lasts longer than the earth or visible skies I It is an act of God, whose acts are truth, And vernal still in everlasting youth,*
* R. L. Stevenson, Familiar Studies of Men and Books, ' Hartley Coleridge.
ST. LUKE XII. 15 269
IIL
The Way to True Life.
1. Our Lord would have nothiug to do with the paltry dispute between the two brothers. And yet, in the great truth which He proceeded to enunciate with regard to what constitutes life, there was the solution — the Divine solution — of the particular problem raised on the occasion and of all similar problems. " What about my inheritance ? " was the question of him who viewed life from the worldly standpoint. " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth," was the answer of Him who viewed life from above. This, in effect, was what Christ said, "Man, I am not a judge or a divider over you in things temporal and material. But listen to what I have to say as to the things which constitute real and true life, and you will not trouble yourself any longer about this inheritance."
It was as if Christ had said, as He read the story of that angered and greedy spirit, " Man, my word is not to your brother : it is to you. Beware of covetousness. You are afraid of losing some property : but the thing you really stand to lose this day with your hate and your greed is your own soul. You are giving all the thought of your life to something that cannot satisfy you if you get it. Moreover, look into your own heart and confess yourself full of greed. Confess that if you could get the whole inheritance to-morrow and oust your brother, you would do it. It will take vastly more than getting that field to put your life right." Thus to a narrow and twisted and unhallowed passion that was distorting this man's life Jesus applied a calm, eternal principle. He let in upon the lurid thought of this man's mind the calm and perfect light of truth and love.