^ No one should think that sensitivenese to fear debars him from the grace and helpfulness of courage, or that a sanguine readiness to take things easily is any safeguard against cowardice. For this ittXia, or cowardice, like faith, its great antagonist, is not ultimately evinced in feeling one way or another, but in action. It is evinced whenever a man declines a task which he believes, or even suspects uncomfortably, that he was meant to face; whenever he looks along the way of faith, and thinks it will ask much of him, and takes the way of comfort and security — the way where he can be sure of continuous company and indisputable common sense. It may appear either in action or in refusing to act, according as the demand of faith is for patient waiting or for prompt advance ; but the central wrong of it is the withholding of the service, the self-sacrifice, a man was bom and bred and trained to render ; it is the sin of " the children of Ephraim," who, " being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle." We can see sometimes in history or in fiction how a man seems prepared for and led up to the great opportunity of his life ; something is asked of him, some effort, some renunciation, some endurance, which is not asked of others. He may say that if he refuses he is not making his own life easier than the lives of thousands round him seem quite naturally and undisturbedly to be ; but he sinks thenceforward far below them if he does refuse.'
It was not in the open fight
We threw away the sword, But in the lonely watching
In the darkness by the ford. The waters lapped, the night-wind blew, Full armed the Fear was bom and grew, And we were flying ere we knew
From panic in the night'
^ C. S. Hornc, Th* Koch of Ages, 77. ' Francis Paget, Stitdies in the ChriMioM Gharaettr. * Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tolas /rem tht HilU, 232, 2 COR. k GAL. — 29
450 WEARINESS IN WELL-DOING
I.
A Caution.
** Let us not be weary in well-doing."
1. We understand by weariness in well-doing weariness under all those duties and claims and responsibilities which a religious (in our case, a Christian) life lays upon us. To the Christian, life brings one long demand — upon his substance, or his time, or his patience, or his love, or his faith. He recognizes this demand in his home, in his church, in his fellow-creatures, not to speak of the peremptory demands which his own soul makes upon him.
It stares at us out of history and experience as one of life's greater ironies that warnings against intermittent work, faint- hearted work, have to be uttered principally against the highest form of work done from the purest and least selfish of motives. You might reasonably think that the lower drudgery would be the first to pall, the drudgery that is merely selfish in its scheme and 3Cope. You might say, Let light and air, space and beauty, into your manner of life, and it is good-bye to all apathy and listless- ness. But worldliness is everlastingly shaming us. Is there any labour so assiduous, any toil so unintermittent, as that which is inspired by the very meanest and earthliest of motives, dross of self-interest unmixed with any higher metal of beneficence and disinterested desire ? It seems as if life's common prose were a subject of more commanding and abiding interest than life's loftiest poetry. It seems that, if you narrow a man's outlook to four walls, you will get more out of him of constant, unbroken work than if you give him the full horizon and the unlimited firmament and the sunlight and beauty of the world. The world being what it is, it is harder to live above it than to live down at its level. Sporadic goodness is common enough ; men rather like than otherwise to find some relief or recreation in an act of benevolence. But it is like going to the sea-side, or having a day in the country. It is an occasional luxury, the too frequent repetition of which would destroy its charm. To make this higher service a life instead of an experiment, normal and natural instead of accidental and occasional — this was the purpose and mission of Jesus.
GAL. VI. 9 451
^ Some one has compared our undertakings and purposes to that great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. The head was of fine gold — so are the beginnings of most men's plans. Nothing is too costly, no labour too great. The breast and the arms are of silver. Interest begins to slacken ; their views of possible success are modified; they have less exalted notions of what they are going to do. Lower still the silver has become brass — bright as the golden head, but not real, not genuine. They go on with the work, and it looks the same, but it is brass, not gold. The feet are part iron and part clay. Dreary ending to a work so nobly begun — what a picture of imperfection, a gradual deterioration, gold first, clay last ! Such is the spiritual life of many who did run well. Such is the well-doing of many who started with high purposes to work for God. And now their life is jaded, cold, half-hearted. "Weary in well-doing" sums up their interior as well as their exterior life.^