Straight from the wonderful pages that burn
Still with the light that sometime on the Mystery fell,
When He revealed His Son,
Chosen to manifest God, in unspeakable love
Linking our lives with His own life above,
Making them one, as Himself and the Father are One —
Spirit and flesh in Him —
God, the Creator, and man, whom He formed from the dust,
Meeting in Christ whom, receiving, I trust,
Seeing the Life that to wisdom and reason is dim.
Give me the Word, I say !
Let me go into its depths for the treasure I seek;
Let me be still, that the Spirit may speak,
Filling the gloom of my soul with His marvellous ray.
Give me the Word — the Word !
Leave me, I pray, with the Word and the Spirit to be :
Let the one Life flow unhindered through me;
Let the glad song of His joy in the silence be heard.^
2. Let us look at some of the chief characteristics of the word.
(1) Its simjjlicity and wisdom. — Who that has ever really studied the words of Christ can help being struck by these char- acteristic features ? The truths He teaches are wise and deep ; they provide food for thought for men in all ages. And yet the words which convey them are so simple that he who runs may read. In a word, the teaching of Jesus is like the sea that has shallows in which a little child can wade safely, and unfathomable depths whose bottom no lead can ever touch.
Simplicity and wisdom — that is a combination which is not always, or even generally, found in teachers. Wise men are very often hard to understand when they try to teach others, and deep
1 E. n. Divall, A Believer's Songs, 97.
526 THE INDWELLING WORD
truths seem to be almost inseparable from difficult words and intricate sentences. Now and again, but very rarely, we come across a teacher who is head and shoulders above his fellows. And if we investigate we shall invariably find that the secret of his superiority is that he has the gift of simplicity as well as of wisdom, and so is enabled to impart to others the knowledge he has acquired and the truths he has grasped.
^ The excellence of Holy Scripture does not arise from a laboured and far-fetched elocution, but from a surprising mixture of simplicity and majesty, which is a double character, so difficult to be united that it is seldom to be met with in compositions merely human.^
^ The teaching of Christ is simple, but it is the simple which is always the hardest to understand ; for complexity like mechan- ism may be puzzling, but it is never profound — patience can always unravel it ; it is a compound and can readily be reduced to its elements ; but simplicity is, as it were, an element in itself, and is profound with the profundity of deep clear water. The complex may be a riddle, but the simple is a mystery. The ap- prehension of Christ's profound simplicity is the reward only of long and complex spiritual struggle — except, of course, in the case of those happy ones who come into it at birth as into an inherit- ance. It is the simplicity which can only come of experience — or genius.^
^ If we compare the talk of great men and women " who will cause this age to be remembered," one element is to be found in them all — a certain directness, simplicity, and vivid reality; a gift for reaching their hearers at once, giving straight from them- selves, and not in reflections from other minds ; sunshine, in short, not moonshine. Perhaps something of this may be due to the habit of self-respect and self-reliance which success and strength of purpose naturally create. Many uncelebrated people have the grace of convincing simplicity, but I have never met a really great man without it. As one thinks of it one recognizes that a great man is greater than we are, because his aim (consciously or un- consciously) is juster, his strength stronger and less strained ; his right is more right than ours, his certainty more certain ; he shows us the best of that which concerns him, and the best of ourselves too in that which concerns us in his work or his teaching.^
^ Newman.
^ Richard Le Gallienne, The Religion of a Literary Man, 68.
' Lady Thackeray Ritchie, Tennyson, Buskin, and Browning, 73.
COLOSSIANS III. i6 527
Lord, with the children's wisdom make us wise ; For to simplicity Thou dost reveal The way unto Thyself, and dost unseal
The mysteries that baffle learning's eyes.
We crave the knowledge that for ever lies Deeper than words. It is enough to feel Thy presence ever bringing hopes that heal,
Light that can lead, and love that satisfies.
Thy silence hath more meaning than our speech; And so, beyond our wordy strife and vain, By sorrowing and gladness, loss and gain,
Bring us into Thy quietness, and teach
Those deep simplicities that mock the brain,
Yet lie within the heart's most easy reach.^
(2) Its preciousness and power. — Some words are dead logs and others are living truths ; some words are like living creatures that have hands and feet ; there are some words which, as you listen to them, make the blood move fast and the pulse beat rapidly, and you want to go forth then and there to do something worth doing; they are words that have life about them. Such words are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, for they are spirit and they are life. That means that if they dwell in us they minister to our life. Man does not live by bread alone, although he is perpetually trying to persuade himself that he does. What is it that we live by in the life of the spirit ? Some of us have in our reading experienced the keen joy of coming across a new lifegiving thought; it is like the joy of an astronomer who, watching the skies, finds new planets come within his ken. We are like a discoverer looking out on the great Pacific ocean of truth, and in a moment there opens before us a world of truth, as by a single flash of insight. But there are no words that will do this for us like the living Word of Christ.