The Inner and Outer Life
‘^OldP Well, the heavens are old; this earth is, too; Old wine is best, maturest fruit most sweet; Much have we lost, more gained, although His true We tread lifers way with most uncertain feet, WeWe growing old!
i^We move along, and scatter as we pace Soft graces, tender hopes on every hand; At last with gray-streaked hair and hollow face, We step across the boundary of the land Where none are old, Cie 9Inner anu tle life
E are not merely bodies. There is a life within our body which goes on when the body has ceased to exist. The inner man does not wear out as the body wastes. It does not grow old, nor become feeble with the years. The inner life is not dependent on the outer. One may be physically broken and decrepit, and yet spiritually strong. St. Paul states this truth when he says, “Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.” The outer may be destroyed and the man still live on. “I will kill you,” said the emperor in his rage to an undismayed follower of Christ, standing before him. “That you cannot do,” said the Christian, “for my life is hid with Christ in God.”
The lesson of the undecaying life has a spe- [75]
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cial application to those who suffer from sickness or from any bodily affliction. It will help us to endure physical sufferings quietly and unmurmuringly, if we will remember that it is only the outward man that can be touched and affected by these experiences, and that the inward man may not only be kept unharmed but may be growing all the while in beauty and strength, being spiritually renewed through pain and suffering. A poor shoemaker in his dreary little shop in a great city, one day found by accident that there was one little place in his dark room from which he could get a view, through a window, of green fields, blue skies and far-away hills. He wisely set his bench at that point, so that at any moment he could lift his eyes from his dull work and have a glimpse of the great, beautiful world outside. From the darkest sick-room and from the midst of the keenest sufferings there is always a point from which we can see the face of Christ and have a glimpse of the glory of heaven. If only we will find this place and get this vision, it [76]
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will make it easy to endure even the greatest suffering.
Sickness is discouraging and is hard to bear. But we should remember that the doing of the will of God is always the noblest, holiest thing we can do any hour, however hard it may be for us. If we are called to suffer, let us suffer patiently and sweetly. Under all our sharp trials let us keep in our hearts the peace of God. Under the snows of suffering, let us cherish the fairest, gentlest growths of spiritual life. The outward man may indeed decay, but the inward man will be renewed day by day.
The teaching has an application also to those who are growing old. St. Paul was an old man when he wrote these triumphant words. As a missionary he had travelled over many lands to carry the gospel to lost men. He had been exposed to storms, fevers and persecutions. He had suffered all manner of hardships and was a broken man. The old house he had lived in so long was battered and shattered. But while his body was thus worn out — the out- [77] ward man decaying — his inward man was strong, undecaying, triumphant. The problem of Christian old age is to keep the heart young and full of hope and of all youth’s gladness, however feeble and broken the body may become. We need to be most watchful, however, lest we allow our life to lose its zest and deteriorate in its quality when old age begins to come on. The best, then, seems behind us and there is less to draw us on. Hopes of achievement appear to be ended for us — our work is almost done, we think. Sometimes people, as they grow old, become less sweet and less beautiful in spirit. Troubles, disasters and misfortunes have made the days hard and painful for them. Perhaps health is broken and suffering is added to the other elements that make the old age unhappy.
Renan, in one of his books, recalls an old French legend of a buried city on the coast of Brittany. With its homes, public buildings, churches, and thronged streets, it sank instantly into the sea. The legend says that the [78]
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city’s life goes on as before, down beneath the waves. The fishermen, when in calm weather they row over the place, think they sometimes can see the gleaming tips of the church spires deep in the water, and fancy they can hear the chiming of the bells in the old belfries, and even the murmur of the city’s noises.
There are men who in their old age seem to have an experience like this. Their life of youthful hopes, dreams, successes, loves and joys, has been sunk out of sight, submerged in misfortunes and adversities, and has vanished altogether. Nothing remains of it all but a memory. In their discouragement they often think sadly of their lost past and seem to hear the echoes of the old songs of hope and gladness, and to catch visions of the old beauty and splendor. But that is all. Nothing real is left. Their spirits have grown hopeless and bitter.
But this is not worthy living for those who
are immortal, who were born to be children
of God. The hard things are not meant to
mt ^(Der life
mar our life — they are meant to make us all the braver, the worthier, the nobler.
“Confide ye aye in Providence,
For Providence is kind.
And bear ye a lifers changes
Wi’ a calm and tranquil mind. Tho pressed and hemmed on every side,
Hae faith and yell win through,
For ilka blae o’ grass keps
Its ain drap o’ dew.’’
It is not meant that the infirmities of old age shall break through into our inner life; that should grow all the more beautiful the more the outer life is broken. The shattering of the old mortal tent should reveal more and more of the glory of the divine life that dwells within.
Do you ever think, you who are growing old, that old age ought really to be the very best of life? We are too apt to settle down to the feeling that in our infirmities we cannot any longer live beautifully, worthily, usefully or actively. But this is not the true way to think [80]
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of old age. We should reach our best then in every way. That is what Browning declares in “Rabbi Ben Ezra “:
“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be. The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hands Who saith, A whole I planned: Youth shows but half; trust God; see all nor be afraid,^ ‘’
Is it not true that old age should be the best, the very best, of all life.? It should be the most beautiful, with the flaws mended, the faults cured, the mistakes corrected, the lessons all well learned. Youth is full of immaturity, mid-life is full of toil and care, strife and ambition. Old age should be as the autumn, with its golden fruit. We ought to be better Christians than ever we have been before, more submissive to God’s will, more content, more patient and gentle, kindlier and more loving, when we grow old. We are drawing nearer to heaven every day, and [81]
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our visions of the Father’s house should be clearer and brighter. Old age should always be the best of life in its harvest, not marked by emptiness and decay, but by richer fruitfulness and more gracious beauty. It may be lonely, with so many gone of those who used to cluster about the life, but the loneliness will not be for long, for it is drawing nearer continually to all the great company of waiting ones in heaven.
Old age may be feeble, but the marks of feebleness are really foretokens of glory. Dr. Guthrie, as his life grew feeble, spoke of his thin locks, his trembling steps, his dulness of hearing, his dimness of eye and the crow’sfeet, as like the land birds lighting on the shrouds, telling the weary mariner that he was nearing the haven. The old people have no reason for sadness; they are really in their best days. Let them be sure to live now at their best. St. Paul was growing old when he wrote of his enthusiastic vision of beauty yet to be attained, but we hear no note of age or weariness from him. He did not think of his [82]
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life as done. He showed no consciousness that he had passed the highest reach of living. He was still forgetting the past and reaching forth, because he knew that his best was yet before him. His outward man was feeble, his health shattered, his physical vigor decaying, but the life of the man within was undecayed and undecaying. He was never before so Christlike as he was now, never so full of hope, never so enthusiastic in his service of his Master.
Those who are growing old should rise to holiest joy, to most triumphant faith, to sweetest love, to most rapturous praise, and should attain the ripest spiritual fruitfulness. They should do their best work for Christ in the days that remain for them. They should live their gentlest, sweetest, kindliest, most helpful life in* the time they have yet to stay in this world. They should make their years of old age years of quietness, of peace, a glad, holy eventide. In trust and peace they should nestle like a little child in the everlasting arms that are underneath them, and give [83] (Mt to all who are about them the sweetest love, the holiest joy, the most blessed hope. But this can be the story of their experience only if their life be hid with Christ in God. Apart from Christ, no life can keep its zest or its radiance.
“I heard the. sparrow’s note from heaven, Singing at dawn on an alder bough; I brought him horne: in his nest at even He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and the sky: He sang to my ear — they sang to my eye.^’
Those who are younger may do much to add to the zest and gladness of old people. They are lonely. Nearly all of the friends who used to brighten their lives with their companionship are gone. Yet the hunger for love remains. Blessed are the old who are surrounded by happy young people who are loving and willing enough to show them attention, to be affectionate to them, to give time and thought to them. Old people never get beyond the need of gentle kindness, nor reach a time [84]
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when they do not care any more for love’s expressions.
“Put your arm around me — There — like that:
I want a little petting
At Lifers setting,
“For it is harder to be brave
When feeble age comes creeping,
And finds me weeping,
Dear ones gone.
■’Jut a little petting
At Lifers setting;
For I am old, alone and tired,
And my long lifers work is done,”
This lesson has its comforts also for the believer in death. Some good people dread death. It seems extinction, the end of all. Oh, no: it is the end of nothing but sin and mortality. Do you remember Thomas Hook’s epitaph? “Here endeth the first lesson.” The second lesson comes after.” Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is [85]
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renewed.” When the body dies, the spirit, the immortal part, escapes out of its dissolved dwelling-place to live forever with Christ. Dying hurts no believer. It is emancipation — “absent from the body, at home with the Lord.”
Fear nothing if your life is hid with Christ in God. The things that can decay only make the undecaying things more manifest. When the earth perishes heaven will be seen as our final, imperishable home.
“Ye dainty mosses lichens gray,
Pressed each to each in tender fold,
And peacefully thus, day by day,
Returning to their mould;
If we, God’s conscious creatures, knew
But half your faith in our decay,
We should not tremble as we do
When summoned clay to clay,
“Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow,
Ye mosses green and lichens fair,
Go to your graves, as I will go,
For God is also there,’ *
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