Doing Good, and Being Good

“Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is this, To
visit the fatherless and widows in
their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” — ST JAMES i. 27.

IT 7ITH a natural sagacity that has been mistaken for prophecy, some men have seen far ahead of them. It is related of John Knox, for example, that he sent a message from his deathbed to Kirkcaldy of Grange, who then held Edinburgh Castle, warning him to repent and turn from his evil ways, else he should be hanged up by the neck before the sun. He did not repent; and he was hanged, exactly as Knox predicted. This was not prophecy. The Reformer’s vision had not become clearer as he drew near eternity: for there, as on other shores, the fog lies thickest. It grows darker rather than clearer as we are leaving the world; and the change at death is perhaps as sudden as at birth — in a moment out of the profoundest darkness into a blaze of light. The prediction was due to the sagacity by which Knox was able to anticipate the probable issue of the circumstances in which Kirkcaldy had placed himself; of the dangerous game he was playing. With such sagacity, though otherwise applied, Captain Cook, the great navigator, when engaged in the survey of New Zealand, before the foot of a white man was ever planted on its shores, predicted the day when these remote islands, lying on the other side of the globe, almost beneath our feet, would become a valuable British colony. Nearly a century before the tide of emigration set that way, he saw our flag flying in its harbours, our shepherds feeding their flocks on its fern-covered hills, and perchance the unhappy wars which now rage there — to our shame, I fear — certainly to the sorrow of its stout and gallant natives. Curiously enough, his foreknowledge grew like their fruit on the New Zealand trees. Sailing along, he saw these unknown shores covered, not with low scrub or brushwood, but with gigantic timber; and — a sagacious man — he concluded that the soil must be deep, and rich, and strong, since none other could rear such forest giants.

Now, what is true of the nature of the soil is equally true of the religion of the soul. You can always judge of it by what it yields. In both cases the crop is the test of character. By their fruits, says our Lord, ye shall know them. The soil is known by its trees; and the trees are known by their fruit. True of the vineyard of the husbandman, this is true also of the Church — the vineyard of the Lord. It is not, therefore, what we profess, but practise; it is not what a man says with his tongue, or signs with his hand, but what he does with his heart, that settles his religion in the sight of God, and on the great day of judgment shall settle his fate. Heaven is allotted to well-doers — the holy, loving, kind, gentle, merciful; but ill-doers — the impious, the unholy, the greedy, the grasping, the cruel, the pitiless, shall have their portion in hell. Hear our Lord! To those on His right hand He says, Well done; not well said, or well believed, or well professed, or even well designed, but, Well done, good and faithful servants, enter ye into the joy of your Lord; to those on the left again, Depart from me, for I have never known you, ye workers of iniquity.

The great Stagyrite thus opens one of his immortal works, This book is written not for knowledge but for action. And for what other end was the Bible written — written by men, and inspired of Heaven? Not that we might know the truth, but do it; not that we might know the way to heaven, but travel it; not that we might know, but accept of an offered Saviour. Religion does not consist in doctrinal or prophetical speculations; nor lie like a corpse entombed in old dusty confessions. She lives in action, and walks abroad among mankind — calling us to leave our books, to shut our Bibles, to rise from our knees, and go forth with hearts full of love and hands full of charities. According to St James, Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Such is true religion in the judgment of” God and the Father!’

God and the Father! what a blessed conjunction! God and the Father! that might breed hope in the darkest bosom; for who, though lying in deepest dungeon, despairs of mercy that knows he is to be tried by his own father? To be tried by our Father! Is not that to be assured of pity and tenderness, of great allowance for our infirmities, and of a kinder consideration both of our difficulties and defects than angels or men would give? This goes far to divest a judgment-day of its terrors. Our Father is to try us; then may we sing —

“Such pity as a father hath
Unto his children dear;
Like pity shows the Lord to such
As worship Him in fear.”

Looking with fond and partial eyes on his children, how slow is a father to discover their faults, and how ready to cover them! He approves and applauds their feeblest efforts to please him. See, though her song may violate the rules both of time and tune, how the father smiles on the fairy form that, with laughing eye, and golden locks, and blushing cheek, warbles out an infant’s song to please him. But what father is like our Father that is in Heaven! How easily is He pleased, and how largely He rewards! Why, He promises even a crown of glory for a cup of water given to a disciple, and raises to a throne all that have learned lessons of love, and kindness, and humility — sitting at Jesus’s feet. He raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, that He may set him with princes — for Christ’s sake forgiving our greatest faults, and rewarding our smallest works.

Still, though God will not look for perfection in our works as if they were to save those that are saved only by the righteousness of Christ, the final judgment is to turn on works. Look at the picture of that last judgment, as it was drawn by Christ’s own hand! The trumpet has sounded; and at its long, loud, and solemn summons, the graves have given up their dead. Coming from their sepulchres, whether in the tombs of earth or the caves of ocean, the whole family of man is met for the first time, and met for the last — an innumerable multitude, above whose heads, in high and solitary majesty, rises the great white throne. The Son of Man, attended by all the holy angels, descends. Now the work begins. Some men of science suppose that the gold we dig out of its veins was originally diffused through the rock; and that at some remote period, and by a power unknown to us, its atoms, separated from the earthy mass, and made to pass through it, were deposited in the veins where they now lie. By a power as mighty and mysterious, that, breaking up families which had slept and rose together, sunders for ever the tenderest relationships, the mingled mass of men is separated. Even as a shepherd, says our Lord, divideth the sheep from the goats, the crowd is divided — these move to the right, those to the left. And now, amid an awful silence, and in a voice distinctly heard at the farthest bounds of the mighty crowd, the Judge pronounces sentence; and gives reasons for it. And what turns the balance in His hand?

Not the churches men belonged to; nor the creeds they signed; nor the doctrines they espoused, believed, defended, even died for. No, it turns upon works. Listen — He says, I was an hungered and ye gave me meat; or, I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat. Visitors of prisons, clothers of the naked, feeders of the hungry, advocates of the wronged, husbands of widows, fathers of orphans, bearing names unknown in courts or camps, or in the seats of learning and of science, but household words in the homes of sorrow — rising from graves you were borne to amid the griefs of the poor and needy, the crowns are for you. But for you, whether high or low, that wrapped yourselves up in narrow selfishness, the curse. No religion shall be owned then, but what now sheds blessings on misery, and lights up with rainbow hues the cloud of human sorrow.

Do not suppose because I speak thus of works, that I substitute them for Christ; or that I hold evangelical doctrine and sound views of divine truth, as is the fashion now, at a discount — as of small consequence. No — I say, Hold fast the form of sound words — Contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints — Try the spirits whether they be of God. Right views of divine truth are of the highest importance; for how can a vessel reach her harbour if her compass and charts be wrong? Doctrines are the seeds of duties; and it proves nothing to the contrary that some good men have held grave errors. They were good, and got to heaven, not in consequence of their errors, but in spite of them; for as many men are worse, some men are better than their creeds. With gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, and a vast quantity of rubbish, they rest on the Rock; and shall be saved so as by fire. Under the influences of the Spirit, endowed with the grace of God and love of Christ, the Tightness of their hearts overcomes the wrongness of their heads, and so they get to heaven: as I have seen a ship, under a power generated from water by fires that glowed within her hold, cross the roaring bar, and in the face of adverse wind and tide, plough her way safe into harbour.

It has not been worldlings that have done most for the world. Your creatures of fashion and lovers of pleasure, who has met them where misery dwells? If they repair to the haunts of crime, it is not to cure it. Nor is it those who talk lightly of doctrines, and profess to have neither taste nor time for religious questions, but men like Luther, that were strong in doctrine, and sound in faith, and ready to contend for it — men of ardent piety, men great in prayer, that have done most to mend the miseries of the world; and, leaving their footprints on the sands of time, have been most blessed while they lived, and most missed when they died. It cannot be otherwise; it is not in the nature ol things that it should be otherwise. A belief in our lost state, in the sacrifice of a divine Redeemer, in the free gifts and grace of God, is intimately connected with the whole circle of Christian charities — is the centre from which they radiate. How can he in whose eyes all out of Christ are perishing hanging over hell, dream away life in idle pleasures? In the light of redemption, the outcast, the vile thing many would not touch, shines like a diamond on a dust heap. The condescension of the Son of God teaches me to stoop — not to the great, but to the ground, to pluck the foulest from the gutter. Feeling that I am forgiven much, I am ready to forgive; and that I have gotten much, I am ready to give. God’s costly gift to me, the free gift of His dear Son, both opens my hand, and warms my heart. Melted by His love and mercy, my icy selfishness gives way; and like a lake loosened from its wintry chains, my bounty flows freely out to others. His generosity begets my own. As in His light I see light, in His love I feel love. It is the sight of Jesus stepping from His throne to lie in a manger, and to die on a cross, that most of all inclines me to forget myself — like Him, to deny myself, that I may live and labour for the good of others. Thus, as St Paul says, the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again.

True religion consists “in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and in keeping ourselves unspotted from the world”

To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, from natural pity, is beautiful; and may be called virtuous. We commend, and admire it. Still, though it cannot be true that there are people who are very religious, and yet not kind, people may be kind who are not religious. Visits and deeds of charity, to become religious, pious actions, besides springing from natural compassion, must be done in obedience to the will, and out of regard to the glory of God. The most common action, such as sweeping a floor or kindling a fire, when done because God has bidden it, and done well that He may be glorified, and religion not despised but honoured, rises into piety; and thus a humble servant cleaning shoes may be doing a thing as truly religious as a divine preaching from a pulpit, or an angel singing in the skies. Great and lofty deeds, on the other hand, that, though crowning their authors with honour, and filling the mouths of men, are done without any regard to God, have not an atom of religion. Therefore it has been said, that the virtues of an unconverted, ungodly man, are but splendid vices. They are without value in the judgment and sight of God. But to visit the fatherless and widows in their

affliction, and keep one’s garments unspotted from

H the world, under the influence of the holiest motives, and with a view to the highest ends, though here called pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father, is not the sum-total of true religion. These are but samples of the stock — the small segments of a large circle. Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, a part, or parts, is put for the whole; and these two are selected for this among other reasons, that they are characteristic and most important; not secondary but primary; not accidental, but essential features of all true religion. To make this plainer, it is as if I described a living man by saying he breathes. But he does many things else. He sees and hears; he walks and talks; he thirsts and hungers — and a hundred things besides. Still, unless he breathes, he is not alive, but dead; and dead is the religion which does not aim at these two things, personal purity and active charity; in other words, doing good and being good.

It is interesting to discover this truth enshrined within the name we apply to the Divine Being. God! where got we that word, God? It is not Hebrew; nor Greek; nor Latin. It was invented by our forefathers. Though rude and ignorant, and little acquainted with the arts and sciences, these half-savage men seem to have penetrated the mysteries of true religion, and caught its lovely spirit. Having dismissed Woden, and Thor, and Tuesco, their stern and wild and bloody gods, to embrace the Christian faith, they had to invent a name for the new object of their worship. Leaving Rome to borrow her forms and garments fro;n heathen temples, and dress up the new faith in the cast-off clothes of the old, our ancestors neither chose Jove from the heathens, nor even Jehovah from the Jews; nor, selecting the power, or knowledge, or justice, or offices of the Divine Being, called him the Almighty, or the Omniscient, or the Wise, or the Just, or the King. Regarding goodness as the most prominent, and to sinners as the most engaging and winning feature of His character, because He was good, and ever doing good, because He was in His nature perfectly holy, and to all His creatures infinitely kind, they called Him Good, abbreviating it into God. God and Good are certainly the self-same words; and nobody, therefore, can be God’s that is not good; who does not seek to do good, as well as to be good.

That any calling themselves Christians should believe or act otherwise, is shocking; is a scandal to religion, and enough to make it stink, like a dead carcass, in the nostrils of sceptics and scoffers. Yet read this passage of a letter from a lady, who, touched with divine compassion for a class of wretched outcasts, is appealing for help. “I suppose you are aware,” she writes,” that the Christianity of the (I shall not say what part of

our country) is not aggressive; they have a prejudice against working Christians as superficial ones; and if we are therefore to attempt to strike at the root of the degradation of this class, we must ask help from your quarter.” Alas for religion! thus caricatured and misrepresented; held up to the pity of good men, and the scorn of bad, as a lifeless system of effete doctrines and beliefs — deaf, dumb, and dead to the miseries of mankind! That true religion? No; and no more like it than a dry skeleton, hung by the neck from the ceiling of an anatomical theatre, and grinning grimly down on the students’ faces, is like yon man bending to the helm, and steering the life -boat ashore; or yon man, sword in hand, fighting freedom’s battle; or yon man, with fire in his eye and pathos on his tongue, pleading amid plaudits or hisses the cause of the slave; or yon good Samaritan stooping over a suffering brother, and binding up his gaping wounds; or yon gentlewoman, whom we meet on foul, dank stair, concealing bread for the hungry beneath her cloak, or find on her knees at the bed of dying penitence, wiping off the clammy death-sweat, and smoothing a thorny pillow with the consolations of religion.

Working Christians, superficial Christians! Christianity not aggressive! Hear, O heavens! and be astonished, O earth, that bore on thy dusty roads and Galilee’s sandy shores, the prints of Jesus’s feet; and saw Him going about continually doing good! From that deformity, that vile abortion, let me turn your eyes away to the religion that illumines the pages of the Bible, and walked a world which crucified it, in the blessed form of our Divine Redeemer.

Let us successively study the two features of pure and undefiled religion of St James’s picture.

It appears in acts of charity.

The widow and orphan are selected as the representatives of all human sorrow — their case needing our help most, and appealing loudest to our pity. It even touches us to see widowhood symbolised, there, where a tree, around which some beautiful creeper had wound its arms, spangling its robust form with flowers, lies on the ground, felled by the axe, its head prostrate in the dust; while that tender plant, crushed and bleeding but still alive, clings with fond embraces to the dead. More touching still, when the mother bird has been struck down by the hawk, to look into the bush of golden gorse where her orphan brood sit pining in their cold nest, with no mother now to sing to them; to feed them; to cover them with her warm wings — left to die unless they move the pity of some sweet child or tender woman.

Sin has not so utterly blotted out the beautiful lineaments of God, but that helplessness goes to our hearts; this, as well as some other lovely flowers, continue to grow on the ruins of our fallen greatness. In busiest hours, when other intrusion would be resented, let any one enter in the garb of a widow, pale and sad, her eyes consumed with grief, she commands our attention and respect; and on these streets where the hearse, parting the tide of business, comes with its nodding plumes, how touching it is to see two or three little boys following a father to the grave; only more touching, where poverty’s one room holds the dead and living, to see an infant, attracted by the glitter, break away from kind friends to rattle the handles of a mother’s coffin, and smile — pleased with the sound. I have seen that sight raise roughest hands to wipe tears from eyes unused to weep.

Widow and orphan! there is something sacred to our ears in these names. Over widows and orphans, as well as over weeping penitents, the Man of sorrows casts His shield. Their wrongs stirred His placid spirit to its deepest depths. He made no complaint of wrongs inflicted on Himself; He bore His own sufferings with divine meekness; reviled, maligned, spit upon, crowned with thorns, nailed to the tree, He was dumb, nor opened His mouth — save to pray for His enemies. But He could not stand by and see the widow and orphan wronged. See how He steps up to yonder sleek and oily Pharisee praying on the widow’s floor, that he might prey on the widow’s substance, and strikes the mask from his face, saying, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! hypocrites, for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers — ye serpents and generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Harlots can; publicans can; and thieves can; the Canaanite and Samaritan can; but robbers of the widow, how can ye? There you have a commentary, by way of contrast, on the words — “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is to visit the widow and fatherless in their affliction.” I do not believe in the Christianity that is not Christ-like: and I no more believe in a profession of piety which is not associated with His pity than in a sun that sheds no light — in a fire that gives out no heat — in a rose that breathes no perfume; they are mere painting: life-like, but dead; clever, but cold. People may talk of such and such a man being godly; but none are godly but the godlike. God is the “Judge of the widow, and the Father of the fatherless in his holy habitation;” and he only is godlike who stands to

widows in the room of the dead, and in whom

m
orphans find both a father and a friend.

True religion will express itself in personal, actual visits to widows and fatherless in their affliction.

The circumstances of some are such, that they can bequeath at death what they could not afford to part with in their lifetime; but there is no charity in leaving money, which we could now spare, to do good when we are dead. There is no self-denial — no cross-bearing in that. If we could carry the money along with us to another world, there might be virtue in leaving it behind; but since we cannot, and have to leave the world as naked as we entered it, there is none. In fact, we are giving away what is not ours, — what ceases to be ours the moment of our death, — what our right to expires with life. Men are called by the apostle to mortify the flesh with its affections and lusts; but by such mortifications, as they are called in Scotland, men do not mortify themselves, but their heirs — whom they cheat of their expectations, to purchase a worthless name. The fortunes that rear such falsely splendid chanties prove nothing in favour of the donors; but rather the reverse. They only show how hard, and cold, and grasping, and avaricious these men and women were; and that only death could compel the miser to relax his iron gripe of the widow’s and orphan’s bread. Whatsoever thy hand, therefore, findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, to be found in the grave whither thou goest.

Now, in regard to the works of charity which religion requires, it is a pity that some, willing and anxious to do them, should miss the way of doing them well. They overlook the importance of giving a literal obedience to the words of St James. They help, but they do not visit, personally visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction. Such direct intercourse is of as great advantage to those that give as to those that get; softening, if not sanctifying, the hearts of both. Many do not seem to know how much charity resembles a delicate perfume that, by being poured from one vessel into another, loses the finest part of its aroma: and that to awaken gratitude, it is not sufficient that the giver dole out his bounty through a middle party — by the hands of a hired, and it may be a hard, official. Let thirsty lips drink, not at the pipe, but where the grateful spring bubbles up fresh and cold from its native fountain. Wherever possible, therefore, distribute your charities with your own hand; for there is much the same difference between sending your servant, or the agent of a society, and carrying the gifts yourselves, that there was between Gehazi with his master’s staff, and the living prophet — the first may fill the hand, but, as when Elisha took the dead boy in his arms, it is the last that sets the heart a-beating. The kindly visit, the look, the tone, the starting tear of sympathy, the patient attention to the tale of suffering, these make our gold or silver shine with double brightness, and impart a double sweetness to the bread we give. By this, without lowering yourself, you will lift up the poor; and win them, perhaps, to God and goodness. A hand laid kindly on a child’s head has been laid on a mother’s heart; and with hold of that, God helping you, you may save the perishing, and steer a whole household right to heaven. See, whether you eat or drink, or give meat and drink, you do all to the glory of God.

Some think that they have no leisure or means to undertake such missions. Roman Catholics leave them to Sisters of Charity; and we, in these Protestant lands, too much to hired agents, benevolent societies, and kind Christian women. Now, though not able personally to do all that we wish, we should do all that we can; for I am sure that to be brought into personal contact with the poor is good both for us and them. How much is in our power “the day will reveal,” when, called by name, some of once straitened circumstances and humble life shall step out from the crowd to hear the Judge say, “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me; for inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me.” Woe that day to them who find time to visit the great, and rich, and noble, but the poor never; time to spend on luxurious banquets, and at theatres and balls, where delicate feet thread the gay dance, that never stood on the bare floors of poverty; who regale with music ears that never listened to the wail of widows, or the moaning child that cried for bread and its mother has none to give it; who stoop to worship wealth and rank, but never to raise the fallen, or bend, with words of comfort, over the bed of some poor, trembling, dying sinner!. “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you; your gold and silver is cankered, the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.”

None are without time and means for such missions of mercy. To convince you, let me guide you to a scene where pure and undefiled religion stands before us in those who had little time to spare, and less money to spend. Enter this foul close with me; bend your head to this low-browed door; climb one dark stair, another, and still another. Now, you are in a cold, empty garret; and there, beneath a patched and dusky skylight, lies a dying woman, a stranger in a strange land; beside whose lowly pallet stands a pale, gentle, weeping child. Called to many a dying bed, I have seen death in all shapes and forms — some despairing; some rejoicing; many afraid to let go, and clinging to the earth; others eager to be gone; but that garret, where I knelt on the bare floor, seemed nearer than any to heaven. It seemed as if the angels that carried the beggar to Abraham’s bosom were there — waiting the last sinking breath to bear that saintly spirit to the skies. I saw not them; but in the room where the orphan stood by her mother’s corpse, seemingly without a friend in all the world, I met two God-sent angel-women. They took the child to their own home. Bereft of one mother, in them she found two. They shared their scanty meals with her; and when the world was sleeping, plied their needles to earn her bread, to send her to school, to rear her in comely virtues, and shield her young head and heart in an evil world. What inspired this noble generosity? They had come from the country, and were themselves poor; but touched with the sight of much poverty greater than their own, they resolved that though they could not do much, they would do what they could. If many around them must perish, they could, at least, save one; and so, each taking this sinking child by the hand, with the other free, these sisters buffeted the billows of adverse fortune, and, unknown to the world, but amid the applause of Jesus, and of angels that watched their progress from the skies, they brought the orphan in safety to the shore. There was pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father.

May the Spirit of God inspire you to go and do likewise. Better walk in the steps of these lowly women than in the dazzling train of queens. Better have our names written on the hearts of widows and the fatherless, than on the pages of immortal history. Let crawling worms creep upwards, and leave behind them the slime of their meanness, and base methods of reaching heights, from which death’s rude hand shall cast them down into the grave. Be it ours rather, like God’s heavenly creatures — the sun, the rain, the dew — to descend in blessings on those beneath us. How many fruits that sun ripens, how many cold things he warms, how many flowers he paints and opens, how many birds he sets a-singing before he sinks in night! I would be the rain-drop that, ere it returns to its parent sea, leaves a blessing at some lowly root. Nay, I would be the tiny dew-drop that, glistening in the morning sunbeams, refreshes the lips of some thirsty flower ere, exhaled by the sun, it ascends to heaven! Do, at least, some, and try to do much good ere you die. Seek to live loved, and to die lamented; to be blessed in life, and to be missed at death. Live so that over your grave, however lowly, they may raise a tombstone, inscribed with the words, “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.”