Lame Hands of Faith
“That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us.” — Acts xvii, 27.
It is remarkable to notice the statement which the Apostle makes in these far-reaching words. He tells us precisely that God has appointed and determined the seasons or times at which the nations appear on the face of the earth, the duration of their existence and the precise bounds of their dominion. It was not by accident that the great empires of the Euphrates preceded all later civilisation. The rise, glory and fall of Egypt were matters of Divine prescience and arrangement. Greece and Home, Spain and Germany, Great Britain and the United States, have coloured the map of the world in the order and after the fashion which the Almighty prearranged, just as successive orders of annuals and flowering plants succeed each other in the gardens and on the wolds. Nothing left to haphazard, nothing trusted to chance, nothing the result of the wit or vehemence of man.
The Apostle says that all these arrangements as to season and location were determined in order “that men should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him.,, Thus every race of man has had an opportunity of knowing God which was best suited to its special peculiarities. The Egyptians, for instance, who built the Pyramids and reared the Sphinx upon the sands, had a better chance of being religious and knowing God within those sedate and slow-moving ages, when the scream of the locomotive and the rush of the motor-car were unknown. It will be seen at last that every man and household, every family and nation, was situated in the best possible position to promote the discovery of God.
But after all there are great limitations to the discoveries of natural religion. Only a few comparatively find their way through the strait gate into the narrow path. For the few that feel after God and find Him, there are uncounted myriads who sink back into the swiftflowing waters of self-indulgence and sensual passion. And even of the elect souls of natural religion it must be admitted that there is a bewildering uncertainty, a sickening sense of fear, and often profound moral lapse, which have left indelible stains on their record. God spoke to men at sundry times and in divers manners, but the sayings upon the harps of human consciousness have been dark. Men have had no idea of God’s love and goodness as they have been revealed in Christ. Augustine spoke wisely when he said that in Plato and Cicero he had met with many utterances which were beautiful and wise, but amongst them all he had never found “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” Bishop Butler’s words come back to our memory, when he said that the great doctrines of a future state and the dangers of a course of wickedness, and of the efficacy of repentance, are taught in the Gospel with a degree of light to which that of nature is darkness.
We cannot forget that Marcus Aurelius, the loftiest of pagan moralists, cruelly persecuted the Christians of the empire. Contrast the noble witness given by the founder of the Moslem faith to the Unity and Spirituality of God with the gross sensuality of his later life* Bear in mind that the tit-bits we have selected from the sacred books are in many cases as jewels flashing on continents of mud; that the philosophy of Confucius leaves the great Chinese people with the superstitious worship of ancestors and with no knowledge of God; that the nature-worship of the East has always descended into unknown depths of vice; that the teeming multitudes of India are tormented by the fear of Nats, ghosts, departed spirits; that their temples and priests promote the gratification of the basest passions under the guise of religion; and that far and wide throughout the world infanticide is practised, woman is debased, abominable cruelty is practised in war and peace, religion is reduced to prayer-wheels, fortune-telling, medicine-doctors, and the senseless repetition of meaningless rites. Let it not be forgotten also that the first chapter of the Romans, in which the Apostle describes the world of his time, cannot be read through in a Christian congregation, but, as missionaries will tell you in private and confidential talks, may be taken as an unexaggerated account of the condition of the major portion of the heathen world. Men may say what they will about Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus, but at least they must acknowledge that their abominations are done at night, are veiled as far as possible by stealth, are condemned by the laws of our statute-book, and cause a blush not only to Christians, but to the average intelligence and morality of our time — very different this to the immorality which flaunts itself in heathen lands under the eye of day, and assumes the garb of religious rites. The faiths of paganism, it has been truly said, lack the dynamic power which is indispensable for the deliverance of men from the mastery of sin, for the creation of the purest manhood and womanhood, or for effecting social and communal regeneration.
Perhaps the worst symptom of all is the apathy with which the non-Christian peoples view their moral condition, as individuals, or in their institutions. The missionary’s chief difficulty is to pierce the crust of proud and supercilious satisfaction with things as they are, to break up the moral torpor, to create the sense of sin, and to excite those yearnings after a better life which are the pre-requisite of salvation.
To sum up: (1) The heathen are never certain about God. They go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but they cannot perceive Him. If the Pleiades tell them of His smile, what of Orion? If summer with her horn of plenty encourages them to count on His love, what of winter with its iron soil and dark skies? (2) They think that
they must propitiate Him with gifts. But the question is how much will He demand. Shall they give their first-born for their transgression, the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul? and can they even then count surely on His forgiveness? (3) They are not sure
about the Future. They go to the land of darkness, and of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as darkness. The pagan chieftain, who arose in the council assembled to hear Paulinus, uttered the spirit of all thoughtful non-Christian religions when he compared human life to the swift flight of a sparrow through the royal supper-room in winter. It flies in at one door and out at another. After a short space in the brilliantly lit apartment, it vanishes out of sight into the storms of snow and rain. “So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before and of what is to follow we are utterly ignorant.” (4) Natural Religion cannot supply power unto salvation. It is a mistake to suppose that the state of the world, as it is to-day, is due to the determined choice of man to be evil; it is rather due to inability to be and do the things which reason and conscience alike demand-The story of Heathenism is the long bitter record of bright hopes dimmed, of the desert-mirage dying on the sands, of the mockery of the most resolute vows, the most strenuous endeavours. Men have seen and approved the better, but for lack of power seem doomed to do the worse. “Brought into captivity,” “sold under sin,” these are the expressions which best describe man’s moral condition, while his better self cries out from the dungeon it has built around itself, “0 miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” That marvellous piece of sculpture, “The Dying Gladiator,” seems struck out of stone to crystallise for ever the spirit of the age in which it was produced — an age of blank despair, unrelieved by a single ray of hope. In the wisdom of God mankind knew not God; and the hopelessness that fell like a spell on some of the wisest and strongest spirits of the age in which Christ was born was a midnight darkness, which it has left appalling records in words that call across the centuries from the pages of the classic authors.
But all through this dense and hopeless darkness the heart of man never ceased to feel after God, if haply it might find Him. As the shell drawn from the ocean depths and borne far inland when placed to the ear continues to sigh for the roaring seas, its native home, so the soul of man has ever cried out for God, for the Living God. Often it was only a sense of vacancy, of an empty void, or an unsatisfied instinct. Men knew not what they wanted, but knew they wanted something. As the prodigal could not rest in the far country, so man could not rest apart from the home of the Eternal Father.
In the Exhibition of 1862 there was a beautiful statue of a girl in a listening attitude, which commemorates an incident connected with the slow occupation of territory in the Far West. In those days, when there was almost ceaseless strife between the Indians and the settlers, a baby girl was stolen from a white settlement, and adopted by an Indian tribe, where she grew up to beautiful girlhood. The mother never ceased her search for her child. She believed instinctively that she was living somewhere. For weary years she visited every Indian tribe with the same inquiry, and at last was told that in the midst of a fierce and distant community a beautiful white girl had been seen by the traders. Thither the mother wended her way. As soon as she caught sight of the girl’s face, her maternal heart recognised her child, but so many years had passed that there was no recognition on the part of the maiden until the mother began to croon over the songs with which she had been accustomed to soothe her baby to slumber, and when the tremulous voice sang again those cradle-songs of far-away years they awakened memories in the girl’s heart. She stood wistfully listening, and then, with a rush of tears, cried “Mother,’ the one word which she remembered of the old English tongue. It was thus that God sought man, and man needed God, and as the voice of the unseen Father sounded through creation and rang down into the depths of the heart, man wistfully stood listening. On the one hand, there was the blackness of darkness, an almost desperate hopelessness, and on the other there was the unfailing search. So it befell that, instinctively, the race turned away from lower forms of religion, from the stone-circle with its human sacrifice, from the licentious rites of the Phoenician groves, from the abominations of Moloch, Chemosh, and Baal. In the face of the trend and current to which the gratification of the lower passions inclined them, men cherished the consciousness that there must be something better for them than these, and sighed with unutterable and insatiable desire for light and life and love.
One of the most striking scenes it was ever my lot to witness, which illustrates the rejection on the part of man of the lower conceptions of God for the higher, was that furnished by my visit to Benares. On our arrival there, as we drove slowly through the streets, we were arrested first by the infinite number of temples that met the eye at every turn. There are more than 1,900 of them, and the multitude of chapels is beyond all counting. Indeed, the idol population is nearly twice as numerous as the human, amounting to something like 500,000. The tortuous streets were swarming with half-naked men. It was impossible to enter the sacred places because of the density of the crowds. Here the Brahmins walked majestically; there the Fakirs sat. at the street corners, naked and covered with ashes, their
glassy eyes fixed as though they saw nothing. Eight and left the streets were lined with stalls covered with religious objects, necklaces, rosaries, and strange emblems. Situated in niches in the walls, monstrous gods with elephantine heads and serpent-encircled bodies greeted us. Wells, supposed to be inhabited by gods, from which foetid odours arose, were encircled by dense masses of struggling people. Presently a procession would come along for which everybody must make way, or the sacred cattle would receive universal homage. Along the roofs monkeys gambolled and chattered. It seemed as though the millions of the past who had thronged those streets were still pervading them with their presence, and the atmosphere was heavy with the pressure of the power of darkness.
On the following morning we visited the sacred river Ganges, which spread its brown choppy current between the desert stretch of sand on the right bank and the long line of temples, palaces, and mosques with marble walls on the left. All along the shore immense stairs descended to the water’s edge, on which the morning sunshine was glittering. These steps were crowded with pilgrims, worshippers, and priests, who had come to adore the rising sun, and perform their ablutions in the river. It is impossible to forget the scene when once it has been witnessed — that broad stream, those flights of steps, the vast throngs of people, men and women, Brahmins and Sudras, pilgrims from all parts of India, lifting the water to their heads, flinging themselves into the water, standing in the attitude of prayer, or drinking long, deep draughts. Amidst all this moving scene are the funeral piles on which the dead are burnt, the ashes from which will presently be thrown into the water. Thousands of pigeons fly about in the pure air, crows and vultures wait for their food, smoke arises from the cremation of the dead bodies.
This is Hindooism, with its adoration of 830 million gods; with its worship of animals, trees, plants, and stones; with its pantheism, polytheism, and dreams of incarnation; which worships life as it comes and goes, and finds expression in all sorts of objects. It was a never-tobe-forgotten spectacle, and to realise that this had gone on for uncounted centuries, and to remember that it is going on every day still, and that, in spite of everything that Christianity can do, it is still vigorous, gives a new commentary to the text that men feel after God if haply they may find Him.
But in the midst of all this, looking upward, our gaze was suddenly arrested by the vision of a lovely mosque whose white exterior gleamed against the blue of the sky. Its twin minarets sprang straight upwards, as though protesting against the hideous corruptions of
Hindooism, and appealing for a higher and loftier conception of the Deity. Whilst the murmur and rustle of multitudinous life arises from the river bank, there high up above it all in its serene calm stands this white mosque, from the pinnacle of which the muezzin daily calls for prayer and cries, “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet.” It was there that for the first time I understood the true significance of Mohammed’s protest against the degradation of the conception of God which was prevalent in his time. It seemed as though the Christian Church had become paralysed, as though there was no hope of arresting the downward progress of the world, as though the mind of man were destined to be for ever drenched and steeped in the grossest immorality and materialism. Then Mohammed was raised up, and as the ploughshare breaks up the clods, so his conquests and those of his generals were used to break up the tt religions of the world, and especially to be the scourge of the recreant Christian Church. And here in India, the marvellous exhibitions of genius which characterised the Mohammedan invasion under Akbar Khan — the Taj, the Pearl Mosque, the palaces and treasures of Agra and other cities, all reveal the accomplished emancipation of the human mind from the maze and misunderstanding with which it had been so long enchained, and its protests on behalf of a sublimer, purer faith.
What was true in that one instance has no doubt been true of the rise of every great religion which the world has ever seen. What was Confucianism, or Buddhism, the religion of Zoroaster, or Moslemism, but the feeling after God, the expression of a passionate desire to find God, the revolt against the lower forms and conceptions of the Divine Being, and the insistence that the Creator must be greater than the creature, that somewhere there must be a great Spirit who could satisfy the aspirations and yearnings of the spirit of man.
The Infinite Father, whose offspring men are, as the Apostle tells us, must have regarded all these efforts with infinite tenderness. His Spirit was even then striving with the false notions of men, and by His sure guidance He was leading the race slowly towards the fulness of the time when He should speak to all men through His Son, “Who is the effulgence of His glory, and the express image of His person.” The satisfaction of the race could not be indefinitely delayed, and so we come to the magnificent assertion of the Apostle that when the fulness of the time was come, “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem, and that men might receive the adoption of sons.” Through this long process, as we have seen, there were innumerable multitudes who, like it Cornelius, feared God and wrought righteousness, and of whom Peter said, “God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him.”
A number of natives once asked me what, in my judgment, had become of their ancestors. I replied that it depended entirely upon whether they had exercised faith in such light as they possessed, for if they had done so it seemed to me reasonable to suppose that God, Who searches the heart, and knows all things, would give them credit for a faith which, if Christ had been proclaimed to them, would certainly have embraced Him because it so eagerly received that amount of truth which lay within its reach. I said that God would impute righteousness to faith, though knowledge were very slender and immature, just as He imputed righteousness to the faith of Abraham, “which he had being yet uncircumcised.” It is not the amount of truth that faith embraces, but it is the attitude of faith towards such truth as is revealed that determines the condition of the soul both here and hereafter. “But,” I said, “as soon as your forefathers entered the other life, they would discover that they were accepted in the virtue of what Jesus Christ did for every man when He tasted death on the Cross, and became a Propitiation for the sins of the whole world. The first thing, as it appears to me, which will happen upon the other side, is that God will explain to the souls of men who are accepted and crowned that it is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy that He has saved us, through the grace of the One Man, Jesus Christ.”