^ In a letter to Bishop King, Dr. Bright wrote : " Blessed are they that hope," is not formally among the Beatitudes; but it is, as you have made us feel, a summary of very much of the New Testament teaching.^
3. This hope, being unworldly, does not appeal to mercenary instincts. — It does not centre itself on surroundings like Mo- hammed's Paradise or the Elysian fields. Lower motives inevit- ably appeal more strongly to self-interest. People are often struck by seeing the indifference of Mohammedans in the face of death ; soldiers have often testified how bravely they will go to death, and have argued that their religion must be more of a reality to them than ours. No doubt the lower, more mercenary conceptions of reward hereafter would make men more careless of their lives than the Christian one of being with Christ. The certainty that he was to pass into a sensual paradise would cause a sensual man, perhaps, even to put an end to himself. But one has yet to learn that there is really anything great in absolute indifference to death. Whatever the relative value of this life and the next, this is certain, that this life has a value, that in it man has a work to do, that it is wrong to try to shorten it, and that, therefore, indifference to its sudden close is no real sign of greatness. That is one thing ; another is that, even granting that lower conceptions do produce greater indifference and consequent carelessness in the face of death than the higher ones, at any rate with the mass of mankind, yet we can never say, with the memory of Gordon and Havelock and a host of others before us, that the Christian conception, when realized, does not help men to die quite as bravely as any other conception, when there is any real and adequate reason.
Tl The hope of reward is a powerful agent, in fact the only effective one. Our Lord said so when He was among men. But
* Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, 78.
I JOHN III. 3 301
neither Jesus nor the beloved disciple would have held out heaven as the object of men's desire without first revealing heaven to them. Jesus brought heaven down to men, in His own person. He said, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He said, " I and the Father are one," and " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." He showed to them in His daily companionship that every lovely deed and word He enforced was but an expression of His own nature. He told them He should leave them and go to the Father. He said that in that Father's house were many mansions ; that He should go to prepare a place for them, and that where He was there they should be. Was there any fear, when He had taught these lessons, and inspired this spirit, that the disciples, who looked up to Him with adoring love, would think of heaven as a place of selfish luxury ? According to their view of Him would be their view of heaven.i
I do not love thee, Lord, my part and lot.
For that bright heaven thou hast promised me; I am not moved by fear because I see
A yawning hell for those who love thee not;
'Tis thou thyself dost move me ; salt and hot
The tears flow down my cheeks to think on thee Nailed to the cross and mocked, that men might be
Freed by thy death on that accursed spot.
Thy love hath moved me; and I see it clear That, even robbed of heaven, I should love;
And freed of hell and torment, I should fear.
For, giving nothing, thou wert still as dear. And had I naught to hope one day above. No less to thee, O Lord, my soul must move.^
4. If the future is not a ho2}e it will he a fear. — If we resolve to forego the hope, we shall still be haunted by the fear that in that sleep of death there will come dreams, and that these dreams may be of darkness rather than of light. The love of God and of His righteousness is the key to the appreciation of heaven. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived it, because it is spiritually discerned. We may speculate fancifully on its nature ; we may cultivate curiosity till we bring ourselves, when on the brink of death, to say with the famous Frenchman,
^ A. Ainger, Sermons Preached in the Temi)U Church, 18. 2 Roy Temple House, in S.S. Times, Aug. 17, 1912.
302 THE POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN HOPE
" Now for the great secret " ; but we have not been raised by such speculations any nearer to the height to which God is ever calling us. For He is calling us to hope, and to hope for Him.
^ It would not, perhaps, be true to say that fearlessness is always the product of hope ; it is true to say that, where hope is, fear cannot be. Hope, in the deepest, truest sense of the word, " casteth out fear, because fear hath torment." Bunyan, in his great classic, makes this clear to us, in his delineation of the man whom he names Hopeful. In the dungeon of Giant Despair, with his companion, Christian, it is the younger pilgrim who con- soles and enheartens the older. And when the two enter together the last river, and Christian cries out, " I sink in deep waters ; the billows go over my head," Hopeful calmly replies, " Be of good cheer, my brother ; I feel the bottom, and it is good." ^