The Contentment That Is Unspiritual
‘¢ Men of the world have their portion in this life; as for me, I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.” — Psa. xvii. 14, 15.
HE idea evidently is that the difference
between the man of the world and the man of God lies in the amount of their ambition. The popular notion is that the worldly man is more ambitious than the unworldly. The psalmist says it is exactly the reverse. He says, “Worldly men have their portion in this life — are quite satisfied with what they can get here; as for me, who am supposed to represent the other side, I shall never be content with anything here — I shall only be satisfied when I awake in the likeness of the Almighty.” I suppose it is equivalent to saying that the mark of a child of God is his eternal thirst —
his perpetual reaching toward a goal which, because it is infinite, can never be attained below. This comparison of worldliness and unworldliness, though so very ancient, is exceedingly novel. It is in apparent contradiction to the phrase, “the pride of life.” If, as St. John says, worldliness is pride, how can the psalmist say that it is the absence of ambition? Is it not a state of soaring, of looking up, of unsatisfiedness? No, my brother; its danger is just that it is not. Every proud man is a satisfied man; in so far as he is ambitious there is an element of humility left within him. Pride, as such, never soars. It is the consciousness of being already on the mountain-top and looking down. We speak familiarly of “treading the mountains of vanity.” Yes, but it is of “treading,” not “climbing.” Vanity is always on the summit. Its eye ever rests on something beneath it. It sees no height, no eminence, no pinnacle beyond it. It enjoys the downward gaze. It cannot exist with an upward gaze. To see a region above it, would be its death; it can only live so long as it can say, “I have much goods laid up for many days.” Those who tread the mountains of vanity are not the men who aspire to high things. They are those who, like Alexander, see no more worlds to conquer, who have reached the uttermost peak of expectation and scaled the farthest limit of desire. Their flight is over; their climbing is ended; their goal of ambition is won; and they have now only to feel their superiority by the privilege of looking down.
Be not mine this life, O Lord! There is too little ambition in it for me, too little aspiration, too little sight of the high places. I want to have something to look forward to. I want to have the child’s sense of to-morrow, and the joy of it. I would not have the peace of autumn, whose very fulness precludes the promise of more, whose very satisfaction prevents the hope of to-morrow. Be mine, rather, the primrose which is all promise and nothing fulfilled! Be mine, rather, the child-life, which sees the kingdom all to come and stretches empty hands to receive its gifts! Be mine, rather, the view from the valley where everything is seen by looking up and the landscape appeals to my lowliness! Though I walk through the valley I shall fear no evil, though I pass through the shadow I shall fear no dismay; for the valley is the voice of my aspiring, and the shadow is the promise of my shining. Thou hast given to everything its own form of rest. Not all things can rest in quietude. The rest of the brook is its babbling and the rest of the river is its running and the rest of the sea is its swelling. So also hast
Thou made quietude not the rest of my soul. Its rest comes only when it is on the wing. Its peace is its upward pinion; it flowers by its flight. The world prizes the sense of fulness; the soul asks of Thee the sense of emptiness and the sight of the coming goal. Ever show me a height beyond; ever point me to a world to come! Wing me by my wants! Stimulate me by my shortcomings! Inspire me by my insufficiency! Propel me by my conscious poverty! Call me by my clouds! Guide me by the grey that dims the gold! My hope of future mansions is my house unfinished here; I shall learn my destiny by the unsatisfiedness of my soul.