More and more there grew on him a deepening sense of the good- ness of God. No one had ever suffered more from the Eclipse of Faith, no one had ever been more honest in dealing with himself and with his difficulties. The change that came over his mental attitude may seem almost incredible to those who knew him only as a scientific man ; it does not seem so to the few who knew anything of his inner life. To them the impression given is, not of an enemy changed into a friend, antagonism altered into sub- mission ; rather is it of one who for long has been bearing a heavy burden on his shoulders bravely and patiently, and who at last has had it lifted from him, and lifted so gradually that he could not tell the exact moment when he found it gone, and himself standing, like the Pilgrim of the never-to-be-forgotten story, at the foot of the Cross, and Three Shining Ones coming to greet him.*
III. The Law that Lightens the Burden.
"And so fulfil the law of Christ."
Here the Apostle directs his readers from the law given on stone to the law which should be written on the heart, from the
' Life and Letters of Otorge John Romanes, 351.
GAL. VI. 2, 5 423
Mount of Sinai to the Mount of Beatitudes, from the law of the letter which killeth to the law of the Spirit which giveth life. There can be little doubt that the Apostle's words here were suggested by the controversy which had been raging in the Galatian Church.
The Galatians who were the object of St. Paul's attention had been showing much more interest in the outward marks of religion than in its inward power. They had come under the spell of that view which made religion a matter of rite and ritual, and here the Apostle would have them learn that such a view was alto- gether a mistake. Like his fellow-Apostle, he could enforce the truth that pure religion before God and the Father was not a matter of circumcision or of outward ordinances. It did not consist of attendances at synagogue at the proper hour or of keeping the feasts in all their strictness. Pure religion was something more than these. It was to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
1, This law is founded on the necessities of our human nature. It is not necessary to obey it because it is commanded ; it is com- manded because it is necessary. It fits into the wants of man. For we are all dependent on one another. As in our body each organ lives for itself only in living for the rest, as each part, even each atom, of our frame supplements the wants of the others, gives and receives, bears and forbears, dies and lives alternately for the life of the whole — so is it in the ever living body of humanity. The life of each nation, each society, each man, depends on the mutual giving and receiving, dying and living, bearing and forbearing of all the rest. So the moment we, through selfishness of life, divide ourselves from this living and dying for others, the moment we isolate ourselves, we pronounce our own sentence of death. The absolute loss of love is eternal death, as its absolute gain is eternal life. It was that Christ Jesus saw ; it was that He proclaimed on Calvary. And it is the law of the life of the universe. Therefore, " bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."
To bear the burdens of others might well have seemed to St. Paul a dictate of the intuitive moral consciousness, and might
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well have been commanded by him on the ground of that inward intuition. But this is not the ground on which St. Paul commands it; he appeals to a positive historical authority, which he calls " the law of Christ " ; and he asks men to bear the burdens of others, not because that precept was written in their hearts, but because it had been given by Him who was the object of their worship. In writing to these Galatians, wavering as they were between Christianity and Judaism, he evidently speaks of the law of Christ in contradistinction to the law of Moses. It is as if he had said, " Do not think that, in coming from Judaism to Christi- anity, you are passing from a region of positive certainty into a world of mystic obscurity ; we too have a historic Lawgiver, who has uttered His voice from the mount of God, and who speaks with an authority which Moses never wielded. You have received from Moses only the negative precept — the command not to hurt your brother ; we offer you a law of Christ which commands you to identify your brother's interests with your own — ' Bear ye one another's burdens.' "
^ When Dr. Temple resigned the headmastership of Rugby to become Bishop of Exeter, his farewell sermon to the boys was from the text, " Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." " This new commandment of Christ," said the preacher, " this law of love which Paul is here referring to, our Lord and the Apostles place above all other commandments. How is this? The older dispensation had placed the fear and love of God first, then the love of neighbours. Surely the highest rule must be to love first God, then truth, holiness, justice, and after these one another. Has the Gospel sunk below the law? No, for under the Gospel, by the incarnation of the Son of God, the two loves are united, can no longer be kept apart. There can be no love of God apart from love of man. Christ Himself has pointed out this love of each other as the special mode by which He would have us acknowledge Him. Let us help one another, then, at our Lord's call, by courage, by patience, by cordial and tender sympathy in joy and sorrow, by faithful warning, by resignation. There are no bounds to the help which spirit can give to spirit in the intercourse of a noble life. When parted, we can still bear one another's burdens by hearty, mutual trust. There is nothing which gives more firmness and constancy to the life of a man than loyal trust in absent friends." ^