*[[ Philosophers are sometimes exceedingly detached from the world, strangely careless about national struggles in which it would seem they ought to be passionately interested. What about Goethe and his lack of patriotism ? He was absorbed by singers and actors, by art and literature, and hardly cast a glance at the struggles of the Fatherland. Some poets are notoriously indifferent to practical questions; they ignore contemporaneous politics, they utterly fail in monetary management. Shakespeare's writings contain few and faint reflections of the age in which he lived ; and some of the critics accuse Tennyson of insensibility to the social and material aspects of his time. Naturalists, also, like Audubon, have been noted for their aloofness; dreaming in the green wood, they missed the chances of the Stock Exchange. Are we then to draw the large conclusion that philosophy, poetry, and science are unfavourable to practical life? Are we, in the interests of civilization, to discourage this intellectual trans- cendentalism ? Surely not. These men of thought and imagina- tion are guilty of a certain unworldliness and impracticability ; but we know that they immensely enrich the world. The legend tells that Newton cut in the door a large orifice for the cat and a small one for the kitten, overlooking the obvious fact that the first aperture served for both ; and the average practical man makes merry over the blunder of the astronomer whose eye was dazzled with the infinite spaces and spiendours of the firmament. Yet
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Newton, stumbling in trivial matters, was enriching the world beyond all successful shopkeeping. And we know that whatever the other-worldliness of our metaphysicians, bards, and philosophers may be, they are precisely the men who make us masters of our environment, and who in a special measure enrich us with the forces and treasures of the world.^
3. Have a high conception of the greatness of your occupation. — It must add immeasurably to the dignity of a man's life, it must give him a sense of great security, if he seriously believes that his work has been given him by Divine appointment, that it is really his " calling," Take a conspicuous case — the case of the Apostle Paul. St. Paul knew that his work, his "calling" in the old- fashioned sense of the word, came to him from God. But no Christian man can Kve a satisfactory life without a conviction of the same kind. This would be a dreary and an ignoble world if only an apostle could say that he was doing his work " through the will of God," or if only a minister or a missionary could eay it. Mechanics, merchants, tradesmen, manufacturers, clerks, doctors, lawyers, artists — if we are to live a really Christian life, we must all be sure that, whatever work we are doing, it is God's will that we should do it.
^ It used to be common to speak of a man's trade, profession, or official employment as his "calling." But I think that the word, in this sense, has almost dropped out of use, perhaps because it seems inappropriate and unmeaning. Its Latin equivalent has been rather more fortunate, and is still occasionally used to describe the higher forms of intellectual activity. It is sometimes said, for instance, of a thoughtful, scholarly man who is not very successful as a manufacturer, that he has missed his way, and that his true "vocation" was literature. It is only when we are speaking of the most sacred or most heroic kinds of service that we have the courage to recognize a Divine " call " as giving a man authority to undertake them. That a great religious reformer should think of himself as Divinely " called " to deliver the Church from gross errors and superstitions, and lead it to a nobler righteousness, does not surprise us. It does not surprise us that a great patriot should believe himself "called" of God to redress the wrongs of his country. And among those who are impressed by the glorious and awful issues
^ "W. L. Watkinson,
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of the ministry of the Church, it is still common to insist on the necessity of a Divine " call " to the ministry .^
•jj There is nothing that man does that finds its beginning within itself, but everything, every work of every trade, of every occupation, is simply the utterance of some one of those great forces which lie behind all life, and in the various ways of the different generations and of the different men are always trying to make their mark upon the world. Behind the power that the man exercises there always lies the great power of life, the continual struggle of Nature to write herself in the life and work of man, the power of beauty struggling to manifest itself, the harmony that is always desiring to make itself known. To the merchant there are the great laws of trade, of which his works are but the immediate expression. To the mechanic there are the continual forces of Nature, gravitation uttering itself in all its majesty, made no less majestic because it simply takes its expression for the moment in some particular exercise of his art. To the ship that sails upon the sea there are the everlasting winds that come out of the treasuries of God and fulfil His purpose in carrying His children to their destination. There is no perfection of the universe until it comes to this.^