The Fault of Our First Aspirings
“Let us build a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.” — Gen. XI. 4.
When man uttered these words, he was a child. Children are very ambitious — more ambitious than grown-up people. Grown-up people ask things that are possible; children cry for the supernatural. I think our sen-e of power increases in proportion as we are undeveloped. One would imagine that a little child, coming within the gates of this universe, would have a startled feeling, and that the startled feeling would gradually wear off as he advanced on life’s journey. In truth, it is all the reverse; we get startled as we go. Our first view of the golden gates is not appalling; it frightens neither the child nor the savage. I do not think wonder belongs to the earliest mind either of race or individual. To both alike the sky can be scaled; the motto of each is this, ‘’ Let us make a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven 1 “This world is a place where human beings are taught to climb; but it is to climb down. It is quite natural for us to go up. The writer of the Book of Job says, “Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” I think he must have meant, “Man is born to fly upward like the sparks, and therefore he is troubled.” At all events, that is true. Our early dangers come from our early daringness — not from our early feebleness. Young Adam always begins with the biggest tree and always gets a fall. God’s education of the earth is a series of lessons in “how to descend” — in the moderation of desire. Christian prayer itself is a moderation of desire. It is a refusal any longer to say of everything, “It is mine.” It is the refusal to ask that which will lift me above other people. It is the cry to have my garments parted among the multitude. It is the impulse, the determination, the instinct, lo share.
Lord, break my primitive tower! It is built with a child’s arrogance — not with a man’s humility; break my primitive tower! My feeblest moments are my most grasping moments — I am never such an egotist as in the cradle; break my primitive tower! Like the sparks, I have been born to fly upwards, and to leave my brother behind. I need a second birth — a power to fly downward. I need more weight on the wings; every weight will be to me “a weight of glory.”
The glory of the bird is its boundlessness; but the glory of the man is his boundary. Limit my desires, O Lord! Restrain the flight of my personal prayers! Put a weight on the wings of each individual wish — the remembrance of my brother! In my childhood I cried for all things; in manhood I dare not. I can still pray without ceasing, but I can no longer pray without limit. What if I ask the gold that was meant for another! What if I seek the place that was made for another! What if I claim the work that was planned for another! Methinks the pauses of prayer are more noble than its flights. In these pauses I say, “Not my will, but Thine.” Are they not to Thee the finest parts of the music, O my Father! There is no architecture so beautiful to Thee as my arrested tower — my tower arrested that another may have room. Never let me build, even in my prayers, a house with so many mansions for myself that I cannot say to my brother, *’ I have prepared a place (or you ‘* 1