/ can the evil growths in humanity be stayed and the good ones be fostered.
V ^ I was talking some time ago to a City Missionary, an earnest-hearted woman working in the worst parts of one of our great cities ; and she told me, how, at first, her work made her utterly despairing. There seemed to be nothing she could do ; and she was among a whole population who seemed just sinking down, down to hell — nothing else for it, according to all her old creed. She told me how she used to go home and be haunted with the horror of it ; and then she went out again, praying, and longing, and trying, but still reaching only one here and there. But one day it came to her — ^just the thought of the Heavenly Father's love shadowed forth in Christ's, and compared to which her love could be nothing ; and like a great flood of light it all broke upon her, that she could trust Him. Why should she be racking her soul with anxiety almost to madness as if she alone in
ST. JOHN VIII. 12 359
this great universe cared for them ? And ever after that, she told me, she had laboured on, not less earnestly than before, but with an easier, freer heart, feeling the mystery losing itself not in darkness, but in light. That light was Christ's. That anxiety of love for sinners, and that trustful thought of God, are both from Him. There were kind loving hearts before Christ, sad for human suffering ; but nowhere, before, do you find that peculiar sadness for sin, and for the poor, lost sinners of the world. That is like a new light upon the great dark mystery, the light of a new love, which has ever since been working in the world ; and, the light of a greater love still than ours, a love in the infinite Heart of things, a love to which our hearts go out in that strong trustful plea Whittier has shaped for us —
Father of all, — Thy erring child may be Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee ! ^
11.
He Guides Men.
The second thought is that Christ, like the pillar of cloud and fire to the Israelites, is a guiding light to us in our march through the wilderness of this world.
But if Christ is to lead we must follow. " He that followeth me shall not walk In darkness.""' The first demand is for obedience. How emphatically the Book of Numbers (chap, ix.) dwells upon the absolute control of all the marches and halts by the movements of the cloud. When it was taken up, they journeyed ; when it settled down, they encamped. As long as it lay spread above the Tabernacle, there they stayed. Impatient eyes might look, and impatient spirits chafe — no matter. The camp might be pitched in a desolate place, away from wells and palm trees, away from shade, among fiery serpents, and open to fierce foes — no matter. As long as the pillar was motionless, no man stirred. Weary, slow days might pass in this compulsory inactivity ; but " whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, abiding thereon, the children of Israel journeyed not." And whenever it lighted itself up, — no matter how short had been the halt, how weary and foot- sore the people, how pleasant the resting-place — up with the tent-
* B. Herford, Courage and Cheer, 144.
36o THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
pegs immediately, and away. Whether the signal was given at midnight, when all but the watchers slept, or at mid-day, it was all the same.
All true following of Christ begins with faith, or we might almost say that following is faith, for we find our Lord substituting the latter expression for the former in another passage of this Gospel parallel with the present. " I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believe th on me should not abide in dark- ness." The two ideas are not equivalent, but faith is the condition of following ; and following is the outcome and test, because it is the operation, of faith. None but they who trust Him will follow Him. He who does not follow does not trust. To follow Christ means to long and strive after His companionship ; as the Psalmist says, "My soul followeth hard after thee." It means the sub- mission of the will, the effort of the whole nature, the daily conflict to reproduce His example, the resolute adoption of His command as our law, His providence as our will, His fellowship as our joy.
Between teaching and leading there may be all the difference that there is between theory and practice. A teacher may con- tent himself with the thought, the attention, the contemplation, of his pupils, but a leader calls for action. That is precisely the note which is struck in these words: "he that followeth me." Like the host in the wilderness following the pillar of fire, like the pilgrims to Mecca following the fire-cages slung high upon the poles, so must men follow this Christ, that they may not walk in darkness, but may have the light of life.