Cornelius the Transplanted

It may seem strange that I should place the name of Cornelius after those of Barnabas and Mark. Cornelius only figures at the dawn of the apostolic age, Barnabas and Mark survive into its midday; why fall back from a later to an earlier life? It is because in these pages I have followed a definite principle of chronology. I have placed first in order of time those figures of the Gallery which came into clear and undoubted contact with the earthly life of the Master — Peter, John, Thomas, and the like. Next in order of time I have placed the two men whose contact with the earthly Christ is doubtful — Barnabas and Mark. The former is said to have been one of the seventy to whom Christ personally intrusted a mission;

the latter, as I have already stated, has been 28s traditionally identified with the young man who followed Jesus from the Garden. These, however, are matters of conjecture, and so I have given to the subjects of them a later place. After these I have put those who neither in history nor in tradition have been enrolled amid the band which in His human form beheld the Lord. Foremost among these in point of time is the man Cornelius. He is not a Jewish figure; he is not even an Eastern figure. He is a man of the West, a European, a Roman. He is not only separated from outward contact W.h. Jesus; he is separated from outward contact with the environment of Jesus. His life has been spent m war — in the service of an empire whose aims were not Messianic. He had breathed the atmosphere of the camp rather than the air of Calvary, had heard, not sermons on the mount, but ribald jests on the highway. Cornelius was the child of an empire which had passed its meridian glory — the empire of Tiberius, the empire of Caligula, the empire which had lost the form of sound words and the semblance of good deeds.

CORNELroS THE TRANSPLANTED 287

He had not been born within the compass of church bells.

By and by this man, as the captain of a regiment, was ordered to Caesarea. He was sent there to represent the fact of Roman conquest, to exercise a military surveillance over the district. But, all the time that he was keeping military watch over Judea, Judea kept moral watch over him. He came to represent Rome’s conquest of Israel; he ended by representing Israel’s conquest of Rome. He was converted by his own dependents — converted to the faith of Judaism. His nature became transformed. The dissolute man grew devout. The proud man became prayerful. The grasping man began to lavish gratuities. The undomesticated man took up the duties of a household, and specially the care of its religious life. Cornelius was conquered by the moral power of Judaism. There are souls that in their ascent to Christianity pass first through the faith of their ancestors. Cornelius was one of these. He began as a Pagan, the worshipper of many gods. Then he rose to be a Jew, the worshipper of one God of righteousness. Another step re mained to make him perfect; he had to become a Christian, the worshipper of a God of grace. We are disposed, indeed, to wonder what was lacking to Cornelius. His Jewish faith is described in such glowing colours that we are tempted to ask what more could be desired. A man of devoutness, a man of prayer, a man of domestic virtue, a man of public charity — has he not already done everything which a Christian can do! Perhaps. A boy who has been through the school methods of arithmetic can do everything in matters of calculation that an office -clerk can do. But he will not do it in the same manner, nor with the same quickness, and therefore he could not be an officeclerk. Before he can become that, he must get rid of his school method, and learn a short road to the goal. The most perfect penmanship will not fit a man to be a reporter. In process of time he could by ordinary penmanship do all that the reporter does; but the process of time is just what is denied to him; there is required a shorthand process. That is what Cornelius needed. He could calculate splendidly, he could write beautifully; but he could do both only by school methods. He wanted a means of coming to the goal with more ease and with more rapidity — of reaching the summit of the hill, not by an act of laborious climbing, but by the movement of an eagle’s wing. This was the new stage that was coming to Cornelius. The strange thing is that in teaching Cornelius His own new evangel, God is represented in this picture as following the old - school method. The man is to be taught a quick way of reaching heaven; but he is taught it in a most cumbrous, lengthy, and laborious manner. Have you ever considered the singular character of that picture in the tenth chapter of Acts. The man Cornelius is about to receive the Holy Spirit — the most unfettered gift which the Divine can bestow upon the human. Why does it not come unfettered to Cornelius.-’ We should expect that it would have rushed into bis soul like a flash of sunshine, like a breath of morning. Does it.? Listen to the lengthened

process! There comes to him a shining angel 19 ago THE REPRESENTATIVE MEN

and tells him that he is under the favour of heaven. He bids Cornelius send men to Joppa to summon Simon Peter, and gives directions for finding his lodging. Three men are sent on a day’s journey to invite the apostle to Joppa — two domestics of Cornelius and a soldier who waited on him. One would think the Divine would have quicker modes of telegraphy! In the meantime, Peter also is prepared by a vision for the receiving of a Gentile convert, is told to count nothing common or unclean. One asks. What need of this preparation — ought he not to have known that in the seed of Abraham all nations were to be blessed! Then Peter is wakened from his dream by a knocking at the door, and the three messengers of Cornelius enter. They tell their story, and abide the whole day. Next morning they set out for Caesarea, accompanied by Peter and a retinue of his fellow-Christians; and it is the following day before they arrive. Cornelius, too, has gathered to meet Peter a company of his kinsmen. He falls down before the apostle in an attitude of worship — showing that the Paganism was not quite dead in his nature. Peter raises him up and bids him transfer his homage to Jesus. Then follows a sermon on the life and work of Jesus; and, as the words strike the ear, the gift of God at last descends, and Cornelius and his whole company are filled with the Holy Ghost.

Now, to what purpose is this waste! Why extend over three days an act that might have been momentary! Why use so much machinery for a deed that might have been spontaneous! The Divine Spirit required no human message to Joppa — much less three messengers. Simon Peter could not bring Cornelius one step nearer to God Almighty; he was already as near as he could be without touching Him. Why revert to the stage-coach when we have the railway-train! The Spirit’s province is to blow where it listeth — as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west There must be some cause for this choice of a long way. If an object is within reach of your hand and you ring a bell to call from the other end of the house some one who will give it to you, it is clear you must have a motive beyond the acquiring of the object. Can we discover any motive for the use of so many hands in the conversion of one man?

I think we can. Remember who this one man is. He is a soldier. The design of this picture is to delineate the transplanting of a soldier. I say, ’ the transplanting.’ Cornelius is not to be annihilated and created a new man. His soldierly qualities are to be transferred to a Christian soil. But if you want to do that, you must approach Cornelius as a soldier. You must allow Christianity to come to him in a military form. If you look at the narrative in this light you will see how singularly appropriate the experience was to the man. Consider for one thing that the entire constitution of an army rests on mutual dependence. No one can be a successful soldier as an individual; he requires the co - operation of his fellows. Imagine that what Cornelius wanted had been, not the spirit of Christ, but the spirit of Mars, the god of war. On what condition could Mars have promised his spirit to Cornelius.^ Only on the condition that the same spirit should be shared by many others, and that the common inspiration should make itself felt in the ranks. One soldier can no more make a victory than one swallow can make a summer. If there is a divided interest, there is a divided allegiance. If one part of the ranks has the notion that another part is animated by a different spirit, the former will not only distrust the latter — they will distrust their own strength, will be paralysed in their own energy. If the god of war had appeared to Cornelius he must have told him that the state of things in Caesarea would be affected by the state of things at Joppa.

Now, to this phase of the soldier-life Christianity made appeal when it spoke to Cornelius. He had asked the spirit of Jesus in room of the spirit of Mars; yet the new spirit addressed him in the garb of the old. God revealed Himself as the leader of an army, and Cornelius was made to feel that he was being treated as a soldier. The voice said to him: * Get as many as you can to take an interest in the cause in which you are interested. Enlist your two servants and the soldier who waits upon you. Enlist your kinsmen and friends. Enlist the sympathies of Simon Peter and those who are in his train. Let the representatives of all classes give a subscription to your cause — the domestic, the soldier, the church-dignitary, the church -worker, the companions of the social hour. Let them each have a stone in the temple, a window in the building. Bring me not your own heart alone, but the sense that other hearts are in union with yours.’

This, then, I take to be the first reason for the protracted process in the conversion of Cornelius. The design is to transplant a soldier, and therefore he is approached as a military man — as one who has always associated victory with the co-operation of the many. But I come to a second reason for the protraction of the process, and one which also lies in the appeal to a soldier. For, an army is characterised, not only by the mutual dependence of its members, but by their common life of sacrifice. In time of war the essence of military life is its sacrificial character. I say, in time of war. There may be license in time of peace — the Roman soldier was then no paragon. But in war there is no life so full of sacrifice. Nor do I think that the main stress of military sacrifice lies in the hour of battle. There have been men in the heat of battle who have for a time been unconscious of their wounds. It seems to me that the sorest part of a soldier’s military life is in the things which defer the battle, in the objects which impose delay. It is in the long and weary marches, in the treading of arduous ground, in the exposure to thirst and hunger, in the fatigue and lassitude which accompany a burning sun, in the demand to keep up the spirit when there is no excitement, no call to action, no enemy in view — it is there that the sacrifice of the soldier appears. I believe that the deepest sacrifices in the soul of man are not in life’s actual battlefield, but in its moments of silent endurance. Many a man can resist the winecup in company who cannot resist it in solitude; for the idea of a thing is ever more powerful than itself, and its image in the heart outweighs its image in the hand. The life of the soldier has embodied a truth of humanity.

Now, it is to this life of the soldier that in the case of Cornelius Christianity appeals. Cornelius is in hot haste to reach his goal — the Advent of the Divine Spirit. That will be to him the beginning of the real battle with sin; the day of the Spirit’s coming will be to Cornelius the day of conquest — and with all his might he longs for it. But he must be treated as a soldier; he must be made to pass through a soldier’s sacrifice. The conquest might come at once; but that would not be the revelation to a soldier. God must speak to Cornelius in his own language — and that language is military sacrifice. Instead cf reaching his goal in a moment, let him wait for it anxious days, march for it long miles, weave for it arduous plans. Let him for the sake of it submit to the temporary loss of two of his servants. Let him for a time dispense with the services of his favourite attendant — a soldier who knows his special wants and when to meet them. Let him, above all, sink his pride. Proud Roman as he was, representative of Roman conquest as he was, let him bow the knee to one who had been a fisherman of Galilee and acknowledge that in matters spiritual the peasant was his liege lord. I think there is something grandly appropriate in the delay imposed on the soldier Cornelius.

But there is, I think, a third element in military life which constitutes a ground for the appropriateness of the delay. The life of the soldier, whether he means it or not, is a vicarious one; it is lived for the sake of others, A man may live sacrificially and yet may live purely for himself. The artist may scorn delights and spend laborious days, yet he may be animated by a motive essentially selfish — the achieving of some work that will perfect his fame. But the average soldier can have no such motive. To a man of the ranks, even to a man, like Cornelius, a little above the ranks, the chance of winning distinction is infinitesimally small; and the pay is not worth striving for. There is an elimination of all personal feeling — even the feeling of enmity. The man is at war with something he does not hate. He is fighting the battle of another — his country. Voluntarily or involuntarily, it is for her he makes long marches, it is for her he bears the drought and the famine, it is for her he endures privation and weariness, it is for her he dares the path of death and braves the mutilation of life and limb. The soldier, whether he knows it or not, whether he accedes to it or not, is working for another’s joy.

So, when Christianity comes to Cornelius it appeals to this fact of the military experience. It bids him connect his conversion, not with his own glory, but with the glory of others. It tells him to calculate, not how happy he will be, but how many people he will make happy. And think for a moment how beautifully this purpose is achieved. Cornelius submitted to a process which robbed him of all glory. He took a back seat. He subsided into the place of a passive recipient. He gave the post of action to his servants, to his private attendant, to the Christians at Joppa, above all to Simon Peter. It was to enlarge Peter, not to enlarge himself, that Cornelius was directed to the Christian apostle. Cornelius might have reached the kingdom at a bound; but Peter would have felt sore that a man should mount to heaven without circumcision. The Divine Voice said: ‘There must be no soreness on this birthday. I must first liberalise Peter — must stoop to win his approval. I must send him up to the roof of the tanner’s house at Joppa. I must tell him to look forth upon the sea — that sea on which rested the eyes of my prophet Jonah. And when he remembers Jonah he will remember Nineveh. He will remember how even on the heathen city my compassion failed not to fall — though circumcision was not there, though temple was not there, though rite of Jewish worship was not there. He will remember and he will say, “What God has cleansed let me not call unclean!” And then I shall cry to Peter, “Come thyself, and cure Cornelius!” Cornelius needs him not; but Jie sadly needs Cornelius. He wants to be broadened, deepened, heightened; I shall make him put his hand upon the Gentile and speak peace. For the sake of another’s joy Cornelius may wdl consent to take a lower room. ’

Let me now revert to the statement that the design of this picture is to exhibit the transplanting of a soldier — in other words, that it is intended to represent the grafting of military qualities into the Church of Christ. At first sight this is the last kind of transference which could have been thought an object of desire. We can understand very well how the qualities of the domestic servant should be carried over into the many mansions of the Father’s house, for the qualities of the domestic servant are, even in the houses of men, Divine virtues — gifts of the grace of God. Obedience to duty, fidelity, honesty, integrity, truthfulness, justice, the absence of self-interest and of eye-service — these are the qualities which mark the good servant in the secular home, and these are the qualities which stamp the good servant in the household of faith. Christianity, as much as life, is a state of dependence; and the form of a servant is required for both. But war — where does tJiat find place in the precepts of Christ! Is

He not the Prince of Peace! Was not ‘Peace ’ the song over His cradle and the sigh of His last farewell! Were not the makers of peace to be called in a special sense the children of His Father! Where is there room for Cornelius here — for the soldier Cornelius! There is room for the man; but must he not lay aside his sword and his helmet when he enters the kingdom of Christ! Surely the red flowers of man’s garden will not be transplanted into the Garden of the Lord 1

Yes, they must and they shall. The demand for such transplanting has been loud through all the Christian ages. Why did the Medieval Church initiate orders of sacred knighthood — knights of the temple, knights of St. Mary, knights of St. John? It was because the Medieval Church wanted a section of her sons to be soldiers in spirit and to transfer the qualities of war into the paths of peace. Why has our modern Christianity instituted a Salvation Army.? It is because Cornelius is still needed among the Christians — because in peace as well as in war there are wrongs that await redressing. Why does our twentieth century inaugurate in every town a Boys’ Brigade? It is because we want Cornelius in the midst of us. It is because we desire that from an early age our youthful generation should learn to associate religion with manliness, to connect the cross of Christ with all that is brave and heroic and noble, and to plant in civil life those very seeds which in the sphere of the warrior made for military glory.

The truth is, what Christian civilisation needs in a time of peace is pre-eminently the presence of Cornelius — the infusion of a military element. We are apt to be ashamed in peace of that which we laud in war. In men on the road to battle we admire abstinence, temperance, caution, care of bodily health, the avoidance of any temptation to any form of physical excess. We count this manly; and why? Because the men are under military orders. But when we see these qualities in time of peace we are apt to call them womanish; and why? Because then the men are not supposed to be under military orders, but to be simply timorous, nervous, frightened. Yet, from the Christian point of view, this is a mistake. The man is as truly on the march in peace as in war, and as truly under orders. We want him to feel that. We want him to realise that in the common things of life he is on soldier’s duty — bound by a tie of honour, pledged by an oath of fealty, dedicated to the service of a government whose rule is over all nations. ‘They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks ’ are the words in which is proclaimed the advent of the Prince of Peace. But even in that proclamation there is a tribute paid to the soldier. The old warlike material is not to be thrown away; it is the sword that is to become the ploughshare, it is the spear that is to be made the pruning-hook. Cornelius the soldier is not to be annihilated in the resurrection of Cornelius the man. As he ascends in his fiery chariot the military mantle is not to drop from him. It is to be carried into the new kingdom, to be worn in the new world, to be illustrated in the new life. The sacrificial spirit which animates the deeds of war is to be displayed again in the fields of peace.

As he enters the portals of the Christian life Cornelius fades from our view; his form is lost in the crowd, and we see him no more. But though in visible presence he appears not, he reappears in metaphor. Cornelius represents and foreshadows the conquest of Rome by Christ. Viewed in this typical aspect, we do meet him again. Nearly three centuries after, we see his conversion repeated in the conversion by Christianity of the empire itself. There stands Cornelius once more — calling on Peter to help him! There he stands — wielding the military sceptre, but surrendering the sceptre of the heart! There he stands — embodying in converted Rome a union of his own three experiences! His original Paganism is there — heathen rites are baptised into Christian worship. His subsequent Judaism is there — a God is recognised who is holy but hard to be entreated, flawless but far away. His final Christianity is there — the cross has become the watchword of all life and the symbol of all power. And the retention of his soldier-heart is there — with the garment of Christ Rome has put on a fresh military robe. She has increased her fearlessness; she has augmented her fortitude; she has strengthened her power of endurance; she has deepened her determination; she has quickened her loyalty; she has fanned her enthusiasm; she has sharpened her sense of duty; she has almost created her spirit of chivalry. The sword has survived in the ploughshare, the spear in the pruning-hook.

LORD, fit me for the ranks of Thine army! Put Thy best robe upon me — the soldier’s robe! Give me Thy truly military spirit — the spirit that casteth out fear — love! Fit me for the times of waiting! I am more afraid of the silence than the conflict. Often have I said in the old time, ‘If I could get away from the world, I could put off my armour. ‘Often have I thought, ‘If I could leave the scenes of temptation and could rest in some quiet, secluded spot, I might lay aside the soldier’s garb.’ And lo! when I tried it, I found that I must add to my armour. I found that the scene of temptation is not outside of me but within me, that the battlefield is the silent field. I need Thee niost, my Father, when I am meeting with myself. I could perform a sacrifice amid the crowd because I feel that the crowd would applaud me for it. But when Thou hast sent the multitude away, when there are no spectators of my struggle, when the flags wave not, the banners stream not, the trumpets blow not, when I am alone in the field with my own will, it is then I need Thine armour, O my God. It is comparatively easy to wrestle after daybreak, for the daybreak distracts me from myself. But before the day breaks, I am alone — alone with myself, alone with my erring soul. Arm me, O Lord, arm me for the great battle where there fights but one! Give me a sword for the solitude, a spear for the silence, a helmet for the hermitage, a breastplate for the breathless air! Quicken me for the quiet, fortify me for the fireside, nerve me for the night, strengthen me for the study, warm me for the woodland ramble, inspire me for the inland calm I Let me wear my armour iA life’s placid hour!