^ There are some who quite sincerely advertise their limita- tions as the majority advertise their skill, who cannot suppose themselves — and dread lest others should suppose them — capable of any achievement away from the commonplace line, and who almost placard themselves with an announcement that they are less than nothing and vanity. In fact, it sometimes appears as if people found in their low self-estimates an actual source of pride. " Extremes meet," said Emerson, " and there is no better example than the haughtiness of humility." And the mood of self-depre- ciation is, moreover, one into which men and women of sensitive consciences and clear vision of spiritual ideals are perhaps particularly likely to fall, and a mood which they are particularly likely to carry too far. Precisely because of its near kinship with the virtue of real humility do we require to be on our guard against it. If self-depreciation be a less prevalent disease with us than conceit and egotism, it is at least prevalent enough to
^ F. G. Peabody.
48 AN EXPECTANT CREATION
call for remembrance and mention when we are drawing up any catalogue of moral ills to which our human nature may be heir. One of the lessons very needful to be learnt is this — that, as Mr. Spurgeon put it, " it is no hurjility for a man to think less of himself than he ought." ^
* H. W. Clark, Studies in Character, 120.
The Saving Grace of Hope.
ROMANS 4
Literature.
Campbell (J. M'Leod), Sermons and Lectures, i. 138. Capen (E. H.), The College and the Higher Life, 1. Coates (G.), The Morning Watch for Soldiers of the King, 281. Ealand (F.), Sermons from Browning, 31. Gairdner (W. T.), The Three Things that Abide, 34. *" How (W. W.), in The Anglican Pulpit of To-day, 179. Ingram (A. F. W.), Banners of the Christian Faith, 18. Jackson (G.), Memoranda Paulina, 186. Maclagan (P. J.), The Gospel View of Things, 203. Manning (J. E.), in Essex Hall Pulpit, 44. Mozley (J. B.), University Sermons, 46. Murray (W. H.), The Fruits of the Spirit, 323. Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, vii. 49.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvii. (1881), 486. Thomas (J.), Myrtle Street Pulpit, ii. 325. Cambridge Review, vi. No. 145. Christian World Pulpit, xii. 177 (Johnson).
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., v. 321 (Paget) ; 2nd Ser., iii. 344 (Pulsford).
90
The Saving Grace of Hope.
For by hope were we saved : but hope that is seen is not hope : for who hopeth for that which he seeth ? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. — Rom. viii. 24, 25.
As compared with the importance and urgency claimed for faith on the one hand, and for love on the other, in the New Testament, it might almost seem as if hope is scarcely regarded as a duty, or as one of the distinguishing marks of the Christian character. Indeed, it would be difl&cult to show from the Gospels alone that our Lord Himself attached any importance to hope as a frame of mind to be cultivated ; or that He ever enjoined or required it of His disciples, as He so very obviously and even urgently demanded of them an almost unbounded faith. It would not be too much to affirm that, according to the record, we have no positive knowledge that the word "hope" ever proceeded from the Saviour's lips, or had any place among those many parables and Divine precepts which we associate directly with His earthly life. " 0 woman, great is thy faith " ; "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel " ; " Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace" — these are among the gracious and encouraging words which we are accustomed to consider as among the most vital and characteristic sayings of Jesus. We have to come to St. Paul to learn, for the first time, that " we are saved by hope."
And yet the whole life on earth of Jesus, the very temper and disposition of our Lord, as we read of Him in the Gospels ; His absolute reliance upon and confidence in His Father ; the habitual sunny outlook, as it were, the glad and gracious confidence of the Son of~Man amid the despairing and the sinful, and even when, as we know. He Himself had not where to lay His head ; the entire absence of all fretfulness and complaining, of all bitterness.
52 THE SAVING GRACE OF HOPE
of all that in these modern days we call pessimism or cynicism, and in ordinary life down-heartedness or discouragement ; the habitual cheerfulness, in short, of the Son of Man, even under what seem the most distressing conditions, till, at the last, He gives Himself up to God, fainting and tortured on the cross, with " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit " — surely never before, and never since then, has such a lesson of hopefulness been read to the world ; such a truly Divine example of a human being, as St. Paul says, " saved by hope." And it is the very same lesson in life and in death — often too, as in the supreme case of our Lord, acted but unspoken, a lifelong " song without words "— the lesson of hope arising out of faith, that has been taught us ever since, by every one of those apostles, prophets, and martyrs, who have followed in the steps of the Divine Lord and Master, who came not to enjoy but to suffer, not to be ministered unto but to minister, not to rule but to serve, and so to " give his life a ransom for many."