2. The discovery of our own particular path is found in the revelation of His will which God makes to us. " If I will that he tarry." To follow Christ is, like Him, to obey whenever God's will is clear ; to be patient like Him when it is dark. And this is a rule which applies to all circumstances, and one which can be obeyed in defiance of all results. There are circumstances to which no other law applies ; under which no experiences of other men can help us. The only course at such times is to act at once under such light as we may possess. Do the duty that is nearest
^ D. Merson, Words of Life, 223.
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to you. Follow Christ in His perfect, unmurmuring obedience, and as you follow, a fuller light will come. It may be that your duty is not to act, but to be patient : if so, forget not that " they also serve who only stand and wait." And to follow Christ is to do God's will and challenge results. When that will is clear, we have no right to look at consequences. The command to Peter was a command to challenge all issues, although " another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not, follow thou me."
There is one way for thee; but one; inform Thyself of it ; pursue it ; one way each Soul hath by which the Infinite in reach Lieth before him; seek and ye shall find: To each the way is plain ; that way the wind Points all the trees along; that way run down Loud singing streams ; that way pour on and on A thousand headlands with their cataracts Of toppling flowers; that way the sun enacts His travel, and the moon and all the stars Soar ; and the tides move towards it ; nothing bars A man who goes the way that he should go; That which comes soonest is the thing to do. Thousand light-shadows in the rippling sand Joy the true soul; the waves along the strand Whiten beyond his eyes; the trees tossed back Show him the sky; or, heaped upon his track In a black wave, wind heaped, point onward still His way, one way. 0 joy, joy, joy, to fill The day with leagues! Go thy way, all things say, Thou hast thy way to go, thou hast thy day To live ; thou hast thy need of thee to make In the hearts of others; do thy thing; yes, slake The world's great thirst for yet another man! And be thou sure of this : no other can Do for thee that appointed thee of God; Not any light shall shine upon thy road Por other eyes; • ••...»
Thee the angel calls. As he call others ; and thy life to thee Is precious as the greatest's life can be To him; so live thy life and go thy way.*
^ Richard Watson DLxoiu
448 THE INDIVIDUALITY OF DUTY
III.
Be Not Too Curious or Anxious,
"What is that to thee?"
In these words there seems to be conveyed to us a warning against unnecessary curiosity or anxiety about the lot of others, and in general about the providence of God. Peter's anxiety typifies the impertinence of curiosity, the impatience of ignorance, in things sacred, which has been the temptation of Christians in every age. The rebuke is the Master's protest against indulgence in this spirit. Energetic work in the present, not idle speculation about the future, is the parting charge which He gives to His chief disciple, and through Him to His whole Church so long as time shall be.
There are several occasions in the Gospel narrative on which a temper near akin to this was checked and corrected by our blessed Lord. Two of them are recorded in the thirteenth chapter of St. Luke. " Tell me not " (He would there say) " of those Galileans whom the cruel Pilate ordered to be massacred while they were engaged in sacrifice ; or of those eighteen inhabitants of Jerusalem, upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell, and slew them ; tell me not of these, as though you would seek to pry into the judicial dealings of God's providence towards them ; but look rather to yourselves, and be assured of this, that except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." And again, " Ask me not, in a spirit of unprofitable curiosity, or of self-righteous estimate of your own condition, whether there be few, or many, who are to be saved ; but ask this rather of your own consciences — are ye striving to enter in at the strait gate ? for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall not be able."
1. Our Lord did not mean to arrest the spirit of legitimate inquiry. — Curiosity is the parent of knowledge. Peter's question concerning the future reserved for his friend seems to have been prompted partly by affection, but partly also by curiosity. Both instincts belong to our essential human nature. When God created man, He breathed into him an inquiring spirit, and made
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him eager to explore the mysterious world which spreads round about him, and to search out whatever things are hidden and unknown. Urged by this great impulse, the captains of adventure forced their way through forest and wilderness, and steered by the stars across an uncharted sea. And every lad who is worth his salt still tingles at times with the ancient longing to wander in strange lands, that he may discover for himself what treasures they conceal. It is the same imperious desire that has gathered the facts of science and framed the systems of philosophy. As Cudworth quaintly puts it : " The sons of Adam are now as busy as ever himself was, about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, shaking the boughs of it and scrambling for the fruit " : and people who pride themselves on being neither philosophical nor scientific betray this elemental instinct of curiosity in double measure in regard to everything which is human or which deals with humanity.