Weather-Wise but Not History-Wise
“And He said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?”
luke xii. 54, 55 and 56.
“Ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; how is it that ye know not how to interpret this time?” What is the Master’s indictment? It is this — these people were weather-wise, but they were not history-wise. They could read the face of the sky; they could not read the face of the past. They could interpret the movements of winds and clouds, but they could not interpret the movements of the human race. “Ye can discern the face of the sky.” They had become familiar with certain successions in the natural world. If they saw one thing in the sky they would instinctively relate it to another. When one sort of thing came along they inevitably looked for something else. If a cloud arose in the west, they said, “There will be rain.” The cloud in the west had always been the harbinger of the shower. The two always travelled together. They were a married couple in nature, and they moved in fellowship and union. If a wind came travelling from the south, they said, “There will be heat,” and their expectation was fulfilled. The two always went together. And thus it came about that these natural successions determined their practice. If the south wind began to blow they took to lighter clothing; if the north wind was about they got out their wraps. And they did all this with perfect assurance. The sequence was certain. The north wind never came laden with fire, and the south wind was never the bearer of snow and ice. They could trust the succession.
How did they know these things? How had they come to be able to read the face of the sky? They had learnt it from experience, from common reasoning, from processes of deduction and inference. Their observation and reasoning had taught them that two things were never found together, the north wind and warmth, and that another pair of things were never found apart, the south wind and the heat. This observation had been so often repeated that at length they came to regard the association as fixed and natural. The observation was therefore translated into a principle, and the principle found expression in daily action. They had studied natural sequences, and the sequences were so constant that they had come to regard them as cause and effect. The south wind, which yesterday came laden with tropical heat, will not change its freight to-day and come laden with arctic cold. The north wind, which a week ago carried the breath of ice, will not stultify itself this week, and become the messenger of the sirocco, and scorch the face of the earth with burning heat. No, the successions abide. The readings are continuous. “Ye can discern the face of the sky and the earth.” The natural history of yesterday will rightly interpret natural happenings to-day.
But now Jesus Christ expresses Himself in great surprise. He is surprised that men’s powers of observation, which are so keen and penetrating in one direction, should be so dull in another. He is surprised that while men are so alert in interpreting one sort of phenomena they should be so blind and sluggish in interpreting another. The Lord teaches that these fixed successions in nature have their analogies in other fixed successions in the lives of men. He bids the people mark and observe how things happen in history, what things follow what things, and to note how the fixedness of the succession is never broken. He tells them to look at their yesterdays, and at the yesterdays of the race, and they will find that things appear or disappear in a very definite order, and the order is never confused. There are certain kinds of happenings which are as sure in their retinue as is the certainty that the south wind will bring heat; and there is another kind of happenings as sure of their train as that the north wind brings cold. Look at history, says our Lord. Observe it closely. You will find that some things never go together. They are mutually repellent. They never marry. They never go in pairs. If you have one of them you may be perfectly sure the other is missing, just as when the north wind blows you will be sure that the heat is away. Watch the order of things in history, says the Lord.
Study how they come and go. The order is constant and unbroken. Read the face of the past.
And so, in the light of this teaching, human happenings are more than detached events; they are prophecies and predictions. We are intended to know, when one thing happens, what will follow it. Yesterday’s happenings should shape our expectations to-day. What has been will be. There is no caprice. History presents us with certain fixed successions; these successions prevail to-day, and we do not alter or delay them by merely ignoring them, any more than if we ignore the south wind we change its torrid heat to the cold rigours of the northern blast. No, history, which is the story of human experience, records certain definite relations, and we shall inevitably find these relations are repeated and exemplified in our life to-day.
But the trouble is, according to Jesus, that we are weather-wise, and we are not history-wise. We read one face, the face of the sky, and we ignore the other face, the face of the past. And so we go muddling and bungling along, in private life or in public life, as if, by some strange chance, the south wind will bring a cool breeze from
no the ice-fields, or the north wind will bring a warm, quickening influence from the tropical home of heat and flame. We act blindly as though yesterday had no fixed lessons. We are dull to historic sequences. We ignore the findings of experience. We turn our eyes from the face of the past. And thus it happens that while we can interpret the movements of the skies we are unable to interpret the signs of the times. “When ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye can discern the face of the earth and the heaven; but how is it ye do not discern this time?”
Well, what kinds of fixed successions does experience present to us? What sort of relations are they of which we can say, “This is a fixture; it is as sure as the relation of the south wind and heat and of north wind and cold.” Are there any principles which register successions that are as fixed in their processes as the process of nature, and which are as unfailing as the holiness of God? Let me name one or two findings of human experience; they are examples of many, many more, but I think that these seem to be especially clamouring for recognition in our own day.
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I shall ask if our eyes are blind to their gestures, and if our ears are deaf to their appeal.
Let this, then, be the first example. History teaches that in all human conflict and controversy no victory is finally effective which does not capture the ramparts and citadel of the soul. Is that a teaching of experience? What is the teaching again? The teaching is this — we never win a man until his heart is won. The energies of any personality follow in the train of the surrendered heart. If the heart be missed the man escapes. Capture the heart, and you capture the life. I say that this is a succession taught on every page of history. It is a line graven deep on the recording plate of human experience. Have we learnt the lesson? Have we traced that lineament on the face of the past? Or are we ignoring the teaching, and seeking to win folk by some other method than the established one of winning the heart?
Suppose we lasso a man or a people by means of a law, and rope them into legislative compounds, what does history say about it? History says we shall never win them. There is no known succession of that order. The secret of personality can never be seized and held in the leash of a statute. No, we can never by bare lawwin the heart of anybody, or of any people, whether the people be British, or Irish, or Negro, or the dwellers in the Cameroons. Law leaves the spiritual citadel of man untaken and unpossessed. That is the unfailing teaching of experience.
Well, then, suppose we try another sort of constraint. Let us try the finer cords of reason. Very well, then, let us seek to capture the life of man in finely woven nets of reasoning. Let us capture him in the meshes of logic. Let us argue him into silent fellowship and obedience. Is the man now won? Has experience any record upon it? Is there any suggestion in the face of the past to throw a light upon the problem of the present? Yes, the teaching is perfectly clear. Logic no more reaches and holds the central secret of man than the north wind brings heat. Arguments do not storm the central keep of the soul. Argument may capture the mind while the life escapes. That is the teaching of experience. The personality is not led in that succession. Why, my brethren, so far as the religion of Christ Jesus is concerned, if argument could make us captive the vast majority of people
113 would have been enthusiastic disciples long ago. But a convinced mind does not imply a surrendered life. The reason may surrender while the heart withdraws. “These people draw nigh unto Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”
Try another sort of constraint. Law may coerce a man’s will. Argument may capture his mind. The deeper thing has not yet been reached. Let us, then, attempt a deeper possession by seeking to wake his admiration. If we can rouse a man’s admiration we are dealing with much finer and much more vital energies. Law may imprison us in its restraints and yet leave us cold. Reason may convince us and yet leave us cold. But admiration has warmth in it, and the warmth springs from deeper fires. Therefore rouse the admiration and you are dealing with more essential things.
But what does experience tell us about this? It tells us quite clearly that we do not win a life when we only win its admiration. It tells us that the soul does not surrender in the line of its admiration. We can admire where we do not love. Appreciation may wander forth while affection lingers behind. We may admire Jesus and yet not give Him our heart. An admirer need not be a lover. That is the teaching of experience. Nay, I think the teaching is even more definite than that. I think we are taught that the full personality of a man never really marches with bare admirations. You need something more if the really vital thing is not to be left behind.
“We live,” says Wordsworth, “by admiration.” Yes, but Wordsworth does not stop there. Let us finish the sentence. “We live by admiration, hope and love,” and there we touch the secret. It is when the admirer becomes a lover that the entire personality begins to move; all its powers become like the members of a glorious band of music in co-operative strength, and grace, and harmony. Win the love, and every current in the life begins to flow towards you. Win the heart and you capture the life. It is so in friendship. It is so in marriage. It is so in the life of a people or a race. Capture the heart and the castle surrenders. And so this is our call as this is our crusade; we are to win the hearts of mankind. We have to think, and speak, and act, so as to capture the hearts of men. We have to capture the Irish heart, the Negro heart, the Hindoo heart, the German heart. Nothing else will suffice. Anything else will leave us in tragical arrears. Experience shouts this warning from a thousand different roads. History records this lesson in every chapter, and on every page. If you would win a life go for the heart. That is the unfailing witness of the past. “Ye can discern the face of the sky and the earth; how is it ye do not know how to interpret our time?”
And now let me present a second collateral lesson from the teachings of history. And the lesson is this — Material forces can never win moral and spiritual victories. Is that perfectly sure? Yes, it is just as sure as that a wind from the arctic regions never carries the heat of fire, or that a tropical wind is not freighted with the frost. Have we learned the lesson? Or are we deaf and blind to this particular teaching of the past? Do we indifferently ignore it, or do we believe it? What is the lesson? Material forces can never win moral and spiritual victories. Are we assuming that they can? And does our belief regulate our ways and our manners, our behaviour in private, and our management of the state? For instance, in the administration of our prisons are we assuming that material forces can win moral and spiritual victories? Are we assuming that an over-aweing carnal power can remake and reshape the characters of men? I freely confess that some of the most miserable experiences I have had in my public life have been associated with visits to prisons, when it has fallen to my lot to go and see men who were confined for crime, whether it were in this country or in the United States. Believe me, everything is frightfully oppressive. You feel the crushing weight of material tyranny, and it holds you like a chain. Everything suggests a brutal sovereignty from which you cannot escape. Everything wears the face of mastery, every door, every wall, every window, every passage, every bar, every lock — everything wears the face of mastery, and it is a very grim and tyrannical face. It stares at you everywhere, and it stares you down.
Well, what are we after? Are we assuming that material forces will win moral and spiritual victories? Then we are flying straight in the face of the teachings of history. There is no such succession known to experience, and we cannot create it, any more than we can make a hard, glaring, pitiless sky yield genial showers of rain. If prison-life is to be remedial as well as punitive, if it is to be the scene of human transformation, other elements must enter into the servitude. And I have seen these other elements at work, effecting the blessed ministry of moral and spiritual renewal. I have seen them at work in that fearfully dismal bastille called Sing Sing, that dark spot on the fair banks of the Hudson, about thirty miles out of New York. When Governor Osborne took charge of that penal settlement, he determined to introduce more human constraints into the captivity. He would soften the hard material forces with forces of a superior order. A little chivalry in the government should touch the wretched victims. And so he set to work. The spirit of confidence supplanted the spirit of mistrust. A little kindness tipped the harsh command. A more genial air breathed over the bleak compound. Wings were added to leaden feet, and discipline was charged with aspiration. Material forces were pervaded with humanity, and the entire life had windows opened upon new possibilities, upon glimpses of better and larger days. I remember one incident as I walked round the prison with the
Governor. He put his hand on the shoulder of one of the convicts and said with genuine geniality, “Well, John, and how are you getting on?” The man addressed was “in” for fourteen years. He was a little man, but I think I saw him add a cubit to his stature. And were there any moral and spiritual victories? Was that the succession? Does the south wind bring heat? Does the cloud from the west bring the shower? The moral renewal came with the action of the finer powers. Material forces cannot produce them. A chain can never redeem. A padlock can never convert. An army can never renew. The material bond can never establish moral convictions. Have we learned that lesson? Or down a thousand roads are we ignoring the teachings of history and experience? “When ye see a cloud rise out of the west straightway ye say, There cometh a shower, and so it is. Ye can discern the face of the sky; how is it that ye know not how to interpret the time?”
What other succession does experience present to us? Let me mention this as I close — We release the best in ourselves when we release the best in others. In all your observations have you observed that staring sequence? One follows the other as surely as the south wind brings the treasures of the heat. It is an inviolable succession. When we do the one thing we accomplish the other. It is a law of life. And what is it? That when we busy ourselves in liberating the best in others our own best begins to emerge. We ourselves are more fully emancipated as we seek another’s freedom. We ourselves are warmed at the fire which we kindle for another. But do we believe it? Have we learned that lesson until the knowledge has become an instinct and a bias in our lives? Are we absolutely certain that when we are enticing some buried faculty out of its grave in another man we are cultivating the self-same faculty in ourselves?
For if this be true, let us note the inferences. Here are some of the inferences. Healthiness comes from helpfulness. We find ourselves through our brother. Open out a spring of joy in somebody else and a similar spring begins to flow in you. Help your brother to find his wings, and wings at your shoulders begin to play. Nourish his faith and you gain in spiritual apprehension. Make a truth more vivid to him and it shines in your sky like a star. These are some of the inferences. We dig ourselves out of our own graves by devoting ourselves to the resurrection of others. Tell somebody else the good news of our Father’s love; tell it them till the music fascinates and entrances them, and the blessed harmonies will ring like wedding bells through your own soul.
Have we learned these sequences? They are the bequests of history and experience. Do we believe them as surely as we believe that the south wind brings heat? Have we really and vitally observed the successions, and have the observations become applications in our daily life? What a law of life is here, a law confirmed by a million of yesterdays! “Ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; how is it that ye do not know how to interpret this time?”
What, then, is my counsel to young folk who have the spirit of enquiry? It is this. Diligently and prayerfully watch the historic sequences. Watch them with most searching observation. Two and two always make four; see what history has to say about that truth in its moral applications. Let me urge you to heed these vital successions, to heed and revere them. Be experts in reading the face of yesterday, and bring your reading to interpret the duty and problem of to-day, and then, by the Grace of God, live out the best you have seen, and be more than conqueror in the general life of mankind.