^ Sin is often described by active and aggressive metaphors —
it is a deceiver, a destroyer, an enemy, etc. This passive one is
more dreadful, for it tells simply of the dead weight of fact.
Facts are " chieis that winna ding." Sin is, to Paul, " this dead
> Edith H. Divall, A Believer's Rest, 78.
2 COR, & GAL. — 27
4i8 BURDENS
body " ; and the flaccid mass of inelastic flesh, at once soft and heavy, is horrible enough without the implied hint of decay. The worst thing about sin is just that it is there — an irrevocable fact which the sinner has put there. When he realizes this he feels it as a biirden : he cannot sleep, or eat, or work, or play as once he did. Yet that is a precious pain. The far deeper danger is that one should grow accustomed to it, as the Swiss peasant to the growing load of hay or Milo to his ox, until he is able complacently to " draw iniquity with a cart rope." The unblushed-for past— the dead weight of sinful facts faced deliberately and carried lightly — that is a doom far deeper than the most oppressive load.i
3. Now St. Paul does not say that the burden shall be lifted from off our shoulders, or that it shall be borne for us, but that we shall be sustained in carrying it. If it is God's gift, it is His will that we should keep it, at least for the time. There is some blessing in it for us, and it would not be kindness to us for God to take it away, even at our earnest pleading. It is part of our life, and is essential to our best growth. This is true of duty ; however hard it is, to relieve us of it would be to rob us of the opportunity for reaching larger usefulness. It is true of struggle ; all noble- ness and strength of character come out of conflict. It is true of suffering ; it is God's cleansing fire, and to miss it would be a sore loss to us. Hence, while God never fails us in need. He loves us too well to relieve us of weights which are essential to our best growth and to the largest fruitfulness of our life. He does not take the load from our shoulder, but instead He puts strength in us to enable us to carry the burden, and thus grow strong. This is the secret of the peace of many a sick-room. It is the secret of the deep, quiet joy we see oft-times in the home of sorrow.
^ The seal of one of those Scottish Covenanters whom Claverhouse imprisoned on the lonely Bass Kock reads "Sub pondere cresco " — " I grow beneath the load." ^
Thy burden is God's gift, And it will make the bearer calm and strong; Yet, lest it press too heavily and long,
He says, " Cast it on Me,
And it shall easy be."
1 John Kelman, The Jioad, L 3. 'A. Smellie, In the How qf Silenee,
GAL. VI. 2, 5 419
And those who heed His voice, And seek to give it back in trustful prayer, Have quiet hearts that never can despair,
And hope lights up the way
Upon the darkest day.
It is the lonely road That crushes out the light and life of heaven; But borne with Him, the soul restored, forgiven, Sings out through all the days Her joy and God's high praise.^
n.
The Mutual Burden. "Bear ye one another's burdens."
1. The Greek word for burden in this verse might be better rendered by "load," for the idea is that of an adventitious and heavy burden. A man's family is, in a certain sense, a burden — a burden that arises from his being a husband and a father — but it is not a burden of which he can rid himself. To him it is a light burden, as to the Christian Christ's burden is light. But to this burden there may be added the burden of ill-health, or misfortune, or poverty. It is not in any one's power to say to him, "I am to take up your burden. You shall no longer be weighted down with your family. You shall no longer be a husband. You shall no longer be a father. Your duties as husband and father shall no longer oppress you." We cannot say that. We might, indeed, remove his children from him, but that would not in any degree lessen his duty to care for them and train them and teach them and act a father's part towards them. If we wish to help him it is his load, not his burden, we must bear — the crushing weight of poverty, or misfortune, or sorrow.
2. This burden-bearing means a different thing in each life. It is not a pretty sentiment, a mere figure of speech. It is the great and manifold service of love, which needs all the wisdom and strength and patience that we can bring to it, and which can be wrought in a thousand ways. Occasionally this burden-bearing
1 J. R. MUler.
420 BURDENS
can be done very literally when we can take on to our own shoulders for the bearing, and into our own hands for the doing, that which for another was too heavy and too hard. But more frequently it must take the form of the indirect and mediate service of sympathy. In the great league of pity and help to which we are all called, and in which, if only we are unselfish enough, we can all find a place, we ever find that the best thing we have to give to the world is our influence. No man liveth to himself. Every man is ever adding to or diminishing the burden of other lives. There is an infinitude of interaction — much of it beyond our tracing; and in so far as we carry through life a cheerful, patient, responsive, and unselfish spirit we shall be doing something every day to make the burden of others easier to be borne.