The Making of Men

He tree registers its age by annual circles of growth. The year that leaves no mark cannot be a worthy year. Pliidias put himself under still severer test. His motto was, “No day without a line.” He must be a little better artist every evening than he was in the morning. Life that is not growing is decaying. Some people do not like to admit their age — they cannot endure the thought that they are growing older. But our only concern need be to put so much true and beautiful living into every passing year that the coming of a new birthday shall never fret us. We should be truly ashamed of any birthday, however, which marks an empty year, with nothing worth while in it to show that we have lived.

The one real business of life is making men. 147

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St. Paul tells us this in a noble passage in which he is speaking of Christ’s work after his ascension. He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers. The purpose of all this giving of divinely endowed ministries was for the perfecting of saints, unto the work of ministering till we all attain unto a full-grown man. Thus the mission of the church is the making of men. Its ministrations are for our perfecting. It is for this that we are to read the Scriptures. The Bible shows us God. It keeps ever before us the life of Jesus Christ, who was the manifestation of God. It makes known to us the will of God. It keeps us familiar with the true standards and ideals of living. It is for this also that we are to pray. Prayer lifts us up into communion with God and kindles longings and aspirations in our hearts. It brings heaven down into our earthly lives and thus helps toward our growth. Perfection seems beyond our reach, but every day should bring us a little nearer to it. Life is a school and we are always to be learners. We have to [148]

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learn to be content, to be patient, to be kind. All heavenly virtues and graces are lessons set for us, and as we learn them we grow toward perfection.

Another part of the work of the church is to train us in the work of ministering. To minister is to serve. We are to learn to be always doing good. There are human needs and sorrows about us continually and part of our business in this world is to be helpers of need and comforters of sorrow. No man is growing toward full manhood who is not becoming more sympathetic toward all human conditions and more helpful toward all who are weak or in want. It is important that Christians shall be honest, true, just and upright, patnotic. But they may be all this and yet not reach up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ in loving and serving others.

“Just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs.”

Some people become discouraged because they

seem to be effecting so little in impressing or

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influencing others, but ofttimes the things which appear to us so small are really of greatest value in the end. He who gives but the faintest touch of beauty to another life does something which will last forever; and he who strives to do good, though he seem to fail, is rewarded. There is a legend of a monk, Fra Bernardo. The monastery to which he belonged had vowed to erect a carved altar at Christmastide. All the monks had finished their part save Fra Bernardo. On Christmas Eve he knelt and told his Lord that he had failed — he had tried to do something worthy, but he had no skill. Then he prayed once more that he might be given skill to carve his heart’s dream of beauty that very night, that he might not altogether fail, for he loved his Lord. In the morning the monks found Fra Bernardo in his cell,

‘’ Dead, smiling still, and prostrate as in prayer; While at his side a wondrous carving lay — A face of Christ sublimely tender, sweet. The work of Fra Bernardo was complete.*’ [150]

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So will it be with all who appear to fail but who continue to strive and do their best. At the last it will be seen that what seemed failure is full of the beauty of Christ. God finishes the work his faithful ones try to do for him.

Christ takes us, first, as children, with our life immature, undeveloped, imperfect, but his work in us will not be complete until we have become men, strong, tall, noble, full-grown men. The sculptor, before he strikes a blow upon his marble, has in mind a vision of what he means to make, and every stroke is toward the fashioning of the stone into the beauty of his thought. God likewise has a plan for every life. It is never haphazard work that he does at any point. From first to last he seeks to bring the man in us up to the grace, strength, and nobleness of full-grown manhood.

This making of men is not all done in church services, at prayer meetings, at communions, in places of devotion. Christ is making men all the while, in their homes, out in their [151] places of toil and struggle. The business of the carpenter, we should say, is to make the things carpenters usually make. But in Christ’s purpose it is the making of a man. The business of the farmer is to till his soil and gather good harvests. But God’s higher thought for the farmer in all his work is the making of a man. The merchant supposes he is conducting his business for the convenience of his patrons and for his own enriching. But if meanwhile he is not himself being built up in strength and beauty of character, not growing toward Christly manhood, he is not entirely successsful, is not quite reaching God’s thought for him, however prosperous he may be in a commercial way. The same is true of all kinds of callings and occupations. A man was not thought about in God’s plans and then made, endowed with gifts and faculties, primarily that he might be a builder, erecting so many houses in his lifetime, or a painter, ornamenting a certain number of buildings, or an artist putting on canvas noble pictures which shall win him [152]

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fame and give pleasure and ennobling of mind and heart to those who look at them. A man’s carpentering, his building, his painting, his farming, his work as an artist, as a teacher, as a merchant, as a seaman, all the things he does among men are only incidents in the real work of his life — his growing into ideal character.

Religious teachers speak of certain exercises — ;g£ajer, Bible reading, acts of devotion, the sacraments, as “means of grace,” acts of worship in which we receive divine blessing and are helped in spiritual growth. We may add to this list of means of grace all life’s affairs and occupations. It is in these that we have the opportunity of applying the truths and principles we learn in the Holy Scriptures, and of putting in practice the lessons we are taught by the great Teacher. All of what we call our secular life is really a sort of scaffolding on which we work day after day, while we are rearing, beautifying, and at last finishing within, the temple of our own life and character.

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Thus the making of men is the ultimate end of all life, and the test of all that we do is not the material results achieved, the things people see and note in footing up what we have done, but the results we have wrought in ourselves, in our own life. St. Paul has this truth in mind when he says that the things which are seen are temporal, while the things which are not seen are eternal. The personal experiences of life are also to be thought of as all belonging to the processes in which God is at work on us, training and disciplining us into full-grown men. ]Iany have sorrows, sufferings, losses and distresses in their common days. Some find life very hard. It may be sickness, with its pain and depression. It may be bereavement which brings loneliness and sorrow. It may be loss of money which sweeps away the earnings of years and leaves want. It may be the failure of friendships which have not proved true, making the heart sore and empty. Some people are heard asking why it is that they must suffer so if God really loves them. We may not [154]

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try to answer the question, for we may not attempt to speak for God. But we may always say, “God is making us.” Michael Angelo, as he hewed away at his marble, would watch the cHppings fly under the heavy strokes of his mallet, and would say, “As the marble wastes, the image grows.” In the making of men there is much to be cut away before the hidden beauty will appear. The marble must waste while the image grows. We never need be afraid of the hard days and the painful things. If the marble had a heart and could think and speak, it might complain as the sculptor’s cutting and hewing go on so unfeelingly, but when at last the magnificent statue is finished, the mystery of the hammer and chisel is made plain. This is what the artist was doing all the while. God’s ways with us in his providences are incomprehensible. But when the life stands at last before God, complete, there will no longer be any amazement, any asking why. In all the strange and hard experiences God has been making men of us.

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Knowing this, we should be able to submit our lives to the divine will and discipline, cheerfully and implicitly, however painful it may be for us. Many people seem never to think of themselves as being thus in the process of making. They live aimlessly, without a purpose. We should be done forever with indolence or haphazardness in our living. We should learn to work with God in his purpose for us in every day’s work and experience, seeking to become ever somewhat better men, to come a little nearer to the full-grown manhood which is Christ’s final vision for us. If we grasp the truth that the purpose of God for us in all our experiences is the making of us, it will greatly simplify our life. It will make plain to us the meaning of many things which now trouble and perplex us. It will give us an inspiring thought concerning the meaning of our common work, our business, our occupation and calling. It will give a unity to the meaning of all our experiences. None of them are accidental. They are not derelicts drifting into our lives and harming [156]

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or destroying us, as the derelicts on the sea harm or wreck vessels in their course. Whatever may be the source of the hard things, they are taken into the hands of Christ and do their part in the making of us. Nothing can harai us if we believe on Christ and are faithful to him.

“The wind that blows can never kill

The tree God plants;
It bloweth east, it bloweth west;
The tender leaves have little rest,
But any wind that blows is best.

The tree God plants Strikes deeper root, grows higher still, Spreads wider boughs, for God’s good wUl

Meets all its wants.’’

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‘’Give us men!

Strong and stalwart ones;
Men whom highest hope inspires,
Men whom purest honor fires,
Men who trample self beneath them,
Men who make their country wreathe them

As her iwhle sons

Worthy of their sires!
Men who never shame their mothers,
Men who never fail their brothers,
True, however false are others;

Give us men — / say again,
Give us men /”