James the Softened

All the figures we have been considering have

been men of the spring. What I mean is that

they recognised a power in Christ the moment

He was presented to them. They may have

erred as to where that power lay — Nicodemus

may have seen it too much in the physical,

Thomas too little; but a power of some kind

they all at 07tce recognised. We are coming

now, however, to a figure which reveals an

exception to the rule; it is that of James the

Lord’s brother. I would call him distinctively

the man of the autumn. It is not that in point

of time he was late in becoming a Christian — in

years he was young when he joined the cause

of Christ. But he was old in experience. He 217 had resisted the Christian influence longer than any of his apostoHc contemporaries. And the fact is more remarkable because outwardly he was more privileged than any of these. He was a member of Christ’s own family — probably an inmate of His home at Nazareth. He is called ‘the Lord’s brother.’ What that means I shall not here discuss. Whether he was a cousin of Jesus, whether he was the child of Joseph by a former marriage, or whether he was a son of Mary subsequent to the birth at Bethlehem, has been keenly disputed. Personally, I lean to the last view. But the point here is that, whichever view we take, this man had outward opportunities of contact with Jesus such as were not enjoyed by any of his comrades. In spite of that, he seems at first to have been as great an unbeliever as Saul of Tarsus. There has always been to me a deep significance in that saying of St. John that the followers of Christ were * not born of blood. ‘He must have had in his mind the fact that physical consanguinity had been proved in the case of Jesus to be no advantage to a man — that one could have family affinity with Him, live in the same house with Him, sit at the same board with Him, engage in the same work with Him, listen to His conversation on the most familiar topics of every day, and yet be further away from Him than a Matthew at the receipt of custom or a Nicodemus in the midst of the Sanhedrin.

You will remember also that this slowness to accept Christianity was not the result of religious indifference. It would not be too much to say that it was the result of religious intensity. There never was a young man more naturally devout than James the Lord’s brother. His misfortune was that devoutness was to him identical with severity. It was essential to him that religion should be a hard thing, a painful and laborious thing. That a man should be raised into the Divine life instantaneously was for him a contradiction in terms. That the soul by a single act of faith should soar into the presence of God was in his view impossible. He was opposed to revival movements because they were rapid movements; he thought Jesus was ’ beside Himself.” His idea of piety was to spend whole hours in the wrestling of prayer; tradition says that his knees had become hard by the process. God was to him a Goal whose glory consisted in not being easily won — this was the belief of his countrymen, the faith of his fathers. James had by nature a mind sternly conservative. Paul describes himself as one who had learned to be content with any circumstances he was placed in. James went further; he had learned to idolise the circumstances he was placed in. He had hardened himself against change. Even in transformed years he delighted to think of God as without ’ variableness or the least shadow of turning ‘; originally, he delighted to think of himself so. He would have no innovation, no new notions, no revolutions in opinion; religion was for him something whose form was fixed once for all.

‘So I gather from the comparison of the twenty-first and thirty-second verses of the third chapter of Mark. I regard the ‘brethren’ of the later verse as identical with the ’ friends ’ of the former.

So far as I know, this state of mind continued with James all through the earthly ministry of Jesus. His obduracy resisted the closest personal contact with the Master — a contact extending to the minutiae of the daily life. But when the visible Christ was withdrawn, when the shadows of Calvary had fallen and the personal contact had become a thing of the past, it was then that the revelation came. Paul records that revelation in a brief sentence; he says of the departed Christ, ‘He was seen of James. ‘I think this vision of the departed Christ was James’s first clear seeing. To my mind there is a strong analogy between his experience and the experience of Paul. They belonged to opposite schools; yet I think there is a greater resemblance between Paul and James than between Paul and Luke, Paul and Silas, or Paul and Timothy. Both were reared in rigidness. Both were opposed to Christianity. Both were men of the autumn — bringing in their sheaves when the day had begun to decline. Both recognised Christ’s glory only after He had passed away from earth. Both, after their vision, began a new regime and became the leaders of their respective parties. There are no two men whose lives present so many points of parallel.

But the one point of difference is in the original privilege of James. Paul was not brought up in the companionship of Jesus; in no personal sense had he ever known Christ after the flesh. But James had; his intercourse had been of the closest. And in relation to his autumn experience, this is the difficulty to be accounted for. Paul recognised Christ whenever he saw Him; James saw Him daily without recognising Him. In this latter case the question is, Why.’* Why was it expedient for this man that Christ should go away, why had the night to come ere he could see Him.-’ The man of Tarsus had no meeting on the shores of Galilee; James dwelt within the very walls which sheltered the youth of Jesus. Why is it that James was no nearer than Paul to the earthly recognition of the Son of Man.?

I think you will find that there are two rea. sons — deeply rooted in human nature and applicable to all times. The first would sound like a paradox if it were not verified by experience. We all accept it as a truism that the great distance of one being from another is unfavourable to the revelation of one being to another. But it is less frequently considered that an extreme opposite case is equally unfavourable. It is less frequently considered that a very close proximity of two beings, provided the proximity has never been interrupted, is just as prejudicial to personal knowledge as would be their existence in separate lands. We are apt to think that James had a special privilege and that Paul had not. The truth is that neither had a privilege. Each had a barrier interposed between him and his Lord; but they were opposite barriers — Paul was too far away, James was too near.

That extreme nearness retards perception is a matter of daily observation. It is just as true of our perception of things as of our perception of persons. One would suppose, for example, that the habitual dwellers in a scene of rare beauty would be peculiarly alive to the attractions of physical nature. The reverse is the case. These are of all people the least responsive to the beautiful. If a stranger comes in among them, he is transfixed, dazzled, by the splendour of the scene; but his enthusiasm rather surprises them. We should suppose, again, that the constant inhabitants of a city would know more about that city than those coming into it from other places. Yet it often happens that a traveller learns more of a town in a week than many of its population learn all through their lives. We should suppose, once more, that those living continuously in a salubrious atmosphere would be free from all illness arising from atmospheric causes. Yet this is not the case. The unvaried presence of one climate is like the unvaried application of a somnolent drug — it loses its effect. A change of air will eventually be found beneficial, even though the new air be less balmy than the old. The mind must co-operate with the body to preserve the health of man. It is not enough that an atmosphere is genial; I must feel it to be genial. It must enter into me not only as a draught but as a joy. And if this joy is to be felt, it must not be an unvaried possession. It must be interrupted to be known; it must be withdrawn to be appreciated; it must be supplanted by a shadow to be valued as a light.

Ascend from things to persons, and you will find a manifestation of the same principle. It is not the inmates of one house who are the best judges of the personality of each other. Even such an external matter as physical growth is most easily detected, not by a habitual inhabitant of the same dwelling, but by one who has returned after many days. In order to examine my brother-man it is essential that either he or I should stand back. The nearness disqualifies for observation. I knew a lady who had under her charge one who was afflicted with a brain affection. She was eager from time to time that some test should be applied as to whether the sufferer were mentally improving or declining. But she was quite unable to apply the test herself; the fact of living constantly together made it impossible

to distinguish between minute shades of men- 15 tal gradation. What did she do under the circumstances? She brought the sufferer periodically to one who knew both of them, but who was living in a totally different atmosphere. His comparative distance placed him at an advantage; it enabled him to observe those indications of mental change which were altogether indiscernible by a nearer spectator.

We arrive, then, at the conclusion that, for acquiring a rapid knowledge of Christian truth, to be the Lord’s brother was a disadvantage. The physical relationship was itself fitted to make James a man of the autumn. But I think there was a second reason why the Christian life of James was retarded rather than accelerated by his growing up under the same roof with Jesus. I allude to the fact that Christianity seems in the beginning at variance with home duties. It shares this reproach in common with all poetry. Christianity is a poetic system. It professes to lift the heart into a higher and fairer world. By the man of home duties such professions are looked upon with disfavour, and, the more true they are, they are regarded with more disfavour. To have the heart intent on a fairer world, whether in the sphere of art or poetry or Christ, is deemed by the prosaic mind a disqualification for the things of home. Martha is always under the impression that Mary is debarred from helping her by the fact that she sits at the feet of the Master and listens to the music of another land!

Now remember, James was by nature a prosaic man; even grace did not make him otherwise. Grace never changes the distinctive sound of an instrument. It does not make the flute a violin or the trumpet a harp; what it does is to improve the quality of each instrument. James remained to the last a man of prosaic duty. His role was that of a practical worker, and he played that role to the end. But at the beginning he thought that this role was incompatible with high thinkings — incompatible with poetic flights or lofty musings or enrapturing visions. He would have said that the man who takes the spade in his hand should consider only the environment of the spade and the hand — only that soil which he is required to fructify, only those sunbeams which he is able to utilise, only such attributes of the wind and of the rain as conduce to the growth of the garden.

But James lived to change his mind. How do we know that.? Because he has left us a letter — one of the most remarkable epistles in the New Testament, embodying the ripest results of his Christian experience. And the burden of that letter is a discovery which James has made — a discovery which has softened his whole nature. He has found that prosaic work, home duty, humanitarian service, so far from being at variance with thoughts above the hour, is itself the legitimate fruit of these thoughts. ‘I will show you my faith by my works, ’ he cries — ‘I will let you see how much better my practical duties have been done since I entered into the secret of Christ’s pavilion and gazed upon the vision of a brighter day.’ James has here struck upon a far-reaching principle — that the common duties of to-day are best done by the light of to-morrow. We see it even in domestic service — which is God’s simile for His own service. The domestic servant has to perform the duty of the hour; but she will do it best if she has a hope beyond the hour. Has she the chance of a holiday. Has she the prospect of promotion. Has she the promise of an increased emolument. Has she news of some dear one coming home. Then, even though she be jaded and languid and weary, whatever her province may be it will be well fulfilled — the rooms will be well swept, the silver will be well polished, the table will be well attended, the meal will be well prepared. Not one of us can, in moments of fatigue and lassitude, do our work adequately if we see nothing beyond the hour.

If you look at the letter of James in this light, I think there will flash upon it a new meaning and a new radiance. What, for example, is the import of that remarkable passage in the twenty-third verse of the first chapter — * If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass ’ y 1 paraphrase it thus: * No man can do practical work by seeing his soiled face in a glass — by looking exclusively on his naturally mean aspect and squalid surroundings. That will not help you to act; it will depress you, it will paralyse you. If you want to be aided in your work, you must gaze into an ideal mirror — must see yourself, not as you are, but as you ought to be, as you may be, as you shall be. You must behold your better self, your coming self, your Godward self. You must measure your possibilities, not by viewing the marred image in the looking-glass of the past, but by contemplating the glorious form which is foreshadowed in the mirror of the future.’

This was what James had himself found by experience. He was doing the same prosaic work which he had ever done; but he was doing it much better. The reason was not that his eye was more intently fixed on the hour, but that he had come to see something beyond the hour. He had received a promise of promotion. There had opened before his vision a prospect of green fields. There had sounded in his ear a strain of far-off music. There had been wafted to his sense a perfume of sweet flowers. The vision and the music and the perfume had passed into his soul and thence into his hand. They had given a new energy to his mmd, and that energy had streamed through his body. It had made him a better workman, a better servant, a better organiser. It had given him more speed, more concentration, more skill. He had found that the things of the spirit helped the things of the flesh.

Take another passage from this remarkable letter, and you will see again how James had changed his mind about the antagonism between prosaic work and ecstatic contemplation. The words to which I allude are these, ‘The fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful by its working. ‘The idea is that inward trust helps the outward hand. Let me illustrate what he means. He himself gives us a definition of what he understands by religion — * Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep unspotted from the world.’ Now, as a mere outward act, this is a most difficult thing to do. If our view is limited to the earthly horizon, this visiting is to us a positive pain. To come into contact with scenes of misery, of poverty, of destitution, is a soul-depressing thing if one has no comfort to bring. Outside of religion, one could only continue such visiting by systematically hardening his heart. All pessimism hardens; despair is ever benumbing. And because it is benumbing, it is unfavourable to work. It may visit afflicted widows and orphans, but it will be as one visits the tombstones — with the conviction that nothing can be done. This was what James felt in the days when his heart was unsoftened. He found that he could only preach resignation, submission, sullen silence — that he could not lift by one hair-breadth the stone from the sepulchre door. But when as a Christian he began to pray, his heart was softened with hope. When there came to him an inward trust that these children of affliction were already folded in the arms of a heavenly Father who would by no means let them go until He had blessed them, then it was that James felt the impulse to action. As the ice of despair melted, the river of life began to show its possibilities. As a gleam appeared in the sky, a new energy came to the arm. He had heart to toil for these people, spirit to work for them, nerve to plan for them; the fervent trust had inspired effectual service. He felt what every sick-nurse feels — that hope is a dynamic power, that the skill of the hand is aided by the light in the heart, and that the crushing labour of to-day is shared and alleviated by the strength received from to-morrow.

James, then, through the softening contact of Christianity, is conscious of an increased power of work. But according to this singular letter, there is another thing he is conscious of — an increased power of toleration. He says, * The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be intreated. ‘There was a time when he would have reasoned in an opposite way. He would have said, * The wisdom from above is pure, and, because it is pure, it is uncompromising to all other systems.’ What has effected the change .-• That the change is effected, is manifest. It is not only breathed in his letter; it is evinced in his life. This man whose spring was so sombre, so cold, so forbidding, is in his autumn the harbinger of peace. It is to him that we are indebted for the first oil thrown on the waters in the great controversy between the Gentile and the Jew. It is to him that we owe the decision of that peaceful Council at Jerusalem where a kindly hand was laid upon the contending parties and a conciliatory message to each healed their mutual wounds. Nay, it is to him, along with Peter, that in the last result we attribute the recognition by the narrow Church in Judea of the broad apostle Paul.’ All this indicates a softening of the first austerity, an advance in the spirit of toleration. But whence came this advance.? Whence proceeded this increased power of toleration.** From the same source as his increased power of work — from the spirit of Christian hope.

For, I have no hesitation in saying that toleration as well as work is facilitated by hope. I know that the opposite is the common view. The popular opinion is that intolerance is pro- ‘Gal. i. 18 and 19.

portionate to assurance. There are not wanting those who say that tolerance has advanced side by side with doubt and that we have become less rigid as we have become more unbelieving. I cannot accept this doctrine. I believe intolerance to be always the fruit of fear, and its opposite to be always the fruit of confidence. Indifference may spring from unbelief; but indifference has no more to do with toleration than with bigotry — it is the absence of all feeling. Toleration, on the other hand, implies a very profound feeling — a sense that all will be right. The tolerant man is the man who stands amid the storm and refuses by violence to suppress the winds and the waves. He is not afraid of the winds and the waves. The writer of the Apocalypse says of the Heavenly City, ‘The gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there.’ It is so with every confident human heart; night - lessness produces liberality. The heart which sees no shadow throws open its gates to all opinions. It fears not to give an entrance to sentiments not its own. Its breadth comes from its clearness, not from its cloud. Abiding faith makes abiding charity. Not from doubt, not from uncertainty, does toleration flow. It comes from a sight of the crystal river proceeding from the throne of God. The man who has entered by the door into the sheepfold has liberty to come out at pleasure and to bring pasture from other folds. The words of the Master remain valid for all time, and cogent for all experience, * The truth shall make you free. ’

LORD, in these latter days ours is the lot of James; we are all children of the autumn. We have not seen the springtime. We were not among those who gazed upon Thy visible glory. I have often regretted this. I have often been sad that I was ’ born out of due time.’ I have lamented that I have not looked upon Thy face or heard Thy voice or felt the clasp of Thy hand — that Thou hasl walked in my garden only when the leaves were falling. And to me in such mood the story of Thy disciple James brings the sweetest of messages. He also was too late for the spring

—too late by his own fault. Yet, spite of his lateness and spite of his blame, his autumn was bright and glorious. Thou wert at his fireside, and he saw Thee not; but he felt Thy presence when the cloud had received Thee out of his sight. I thank Thee for that picture in the Gallery, O Lord; it speaks to me. It gives me hope, courage, expectation. It tells me that Thy gifts are not limited to the morning. I too may have an autumn glory. Though inland far I be, though I have never seen the ocean wave, though I hear not the water of life breaking on the shore, though the breath of the brine has passed me by and the sparkle of the spray has ignored me, I too may find Thee in the silent field. Come to my autumn, O Christ; come to my inland life! Come to the leaves that are falling; come to the woods that are thinning; come to the flowers that are fading! Bring Thine Eden to my evening, Thy Nazareth to my night! Kindle my western sky with the light of the eastern star! Speak hope to my waning years! Sing songs to my faltering feet! Plant promises in my autumn soil!

Make chariots of the clouds that hide Thee! Deliver Thy beatitudes standing on the Nebo of my declining days! Then to me, as to Thy disciple, there shall be light at evening time.