The Law of Growth, and Other Sermons

IT is interesting to know, of any one whose character and ways of thought we are studying, what words are oftenest upon his tongue. And it would seem as if this proverb, which I have just quoted from Him, were a favorite utterance of Jesus. Three of the Evangelists record it, and the circumstances with which they connect it are different. St. Matthew mentions two occasions on which Christ used the words.

It would seem, then, as if the truth which these words record seemed to Christ very impressive and important. He found in it the occasion for the most earnest exhortation to faithfulness. Such a fact must deserve our best study and come very close to our life. Let us try to see what it is.

‘To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.” In one case when Jesus used the proverb the parable of the talents had come just before. The immortal picture was just fresh in the Disciples’ minds, — the careful, prudent, faithful merchant, whose five talents had attracted five others, and turned themselves to ten; the poor, timid, helpless creature who brought his one talent, all caked and useless with the earth in which it had been lying. And while the people were listening with that suspicion of injustice, that uneasy sense of something wrong, which almost always comes when prosperity and misery, success and unsuccess, stand side by side, Jesus went on frankly to declare that the truth of the parable was a truth every where; that everywhere there was a law of growth, a law of accumulation and of loss, which drew more blessing where blessing was already, and condemned to decay that which had no real vitality. It was a sort of “survival of the fittest” declared to be existing throughout the world.

And, just as soon as such a truth is announced, there are a multitude of voices which proclaim how true it is. Many of them speak in bitterness and anger. Indeed, it is the taunt of every disappointed soul. “Look,” he who has failed says, “look and see how everywhere the prosperous prosper and the unhappy attract unhappiness by a terrible affinity. Behold how, when a man is rich, riches fly to his overloaded coffers of their own accord, while the poor man by his side grows poorer every day. Yes, it is true enough; let a man be going up and all the world hurries to help him; let him begin to go down, and where is the friend that will not push him lower?” So men speak with all the exaggeration of bitterness. Now, we want to leave out all the bitterness, for that is an element that never helps men to the truth. We shall see by and by whether the truth is one that ought to make us bitter. We want to stand now calmly and look over all the broad world, and see how true it is, — this centralization of blessing, this tendency of all privilege to attract other privilege.

It appears in the distributions of business. He who is fullest of work, he to whom the multitude are resorting to buy their goods, or to secure the building of their houses, is the man whom each new customer seeks out, while his neighbor sits with his tools around him, waiting for work which flows in a full stream past his doors, and lets no drop free to trickle in. It is true in learning. The more a man knows, the more the sources of learning open to him on every side. All the mouths of the world seem to be opened to tell him everything they know. The same is true of wealth. When a man reaches a certain point of wealth, his money reduplicates itself almost without his efforts, even drawing into itself the hard-earned profits of the toil of poorer men. And it is true of public favor. The man whom all are praising is the man whom all men praise. Popularity draws the eyes and voices of the crowd, and gathers with most unneeded profusion about some one or two people in the town. And of that far more sacred thing, Friendship, see how true it is. To him who has friends, friends are given. They come crowding up to claim some little fragment of the kindness of the much-loved man, leaving the other man, who has a whole heart to give away, with no one to ask him for it.

Or think of usefulness. One man cannot walk anywhere but at his feet there start innumerable opportunities to help his fellow-men. Need flies to him, and if he had a hundred hands, and each day were a hundred hours long, he could not satisfy the opportunities for doing good which crowd themselves tumultuously upon him. And then, right in the resounding echoes of his busy work, you will find that other sight — always so sad! — of one who wants to help his brethren, and round whose life there shuts a wall of uselessness, within which he can only sit and feed upon himself.

Or think of health. The well man breathes it in from every breeze. The sick man feels every touch of the life-giving nature stealing what little life he has away. And so of healthiness of soul, — that cordial, fresh, and kindly interest in things which makes the joy of living. All the complications of life, all the touchings of life on life, are always pouring more of this red wine into the cup that is already full, while they make more morbid the soul that is filled with suspicion and discontent already. And so of enthusiasms and devotions. Your mind is full of an idea, your soul is given to a cause, and inspiration and encouragement flow in to you from every side. You find assurances that you are right and will succeed everywhere. Nature and man both become the prophets of your strong belief.

But to your friend who, working with you, has no such faith as yours, all nature and all men have only voices of discouragement. All that comes to him frightens him.

We might go on and catalogue everything that there is good and fine in human life. We make our theories of compensation and of equal distribution. We go on expecting that somehow, some time, everything will be adjusted and equality proclaimed: the conditions are to be reversed; the outs are to come in and the ins are to go out. We try to make it appear that everything is mechanically adjusted by what we call “impartial justice” every Saturday night, or at that great Saturday night of all which we call death. And all the time, underneath all our theories and expectations, breaking up through them constantly with its contradictions, there runs this vast law with its countless illustrations, — the law that the happy always tend to become happier, and the good better, and the wise wiser, and the rich richer, and the bad wickeder, and the fools more foolish, and the poor poorer. All the while to him that hath it is being given, and from him that hath not is being taken away that which he seemeth to have.

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