Christian Mesmerism
When I am weak, then am I strong.” — 2 Cor. xii. 10
What does Paul mean? Does he mean that a man is stronger in proportion to his infirmities? No; the weakness Paul speaks of is not infirmity; it is self-surrender. What he says is that nothing helps a man to bear a burden so much as the captivity of the heart to a separate influence. We see a practical illustration of this in the modern process called hypnotism — now accepted as scientific. The subject of it is deemed a weakling because he gives up his will to another; yet he can often do in his weakness what he could not do in his strength — he generally surpasses his normal self. Paul says, “My greatest strength has come from moments of Divine hypnotism; I have never been so able to bear my burden as when my will has been absolutely enthralled by the beauty of another — that peerless Other — Christ.” And who does not feel with Paul that the best cure for a burden is not the conscious struggle with it, but my surrender to something else. It makes a great
Thoughts for Life’s
difference to the length of a journey whether you are walking for your health or walking for converse with me. The length of the j-^urney is in the former case a burden; and it is an exact type of all the burdens of life. The burdens of two men may be physically equal; their amount may be the same, their weight the same. Yet the sense of heaviness may be very different. He who lifts in love will lift easily. He will have a power coming from his weakness — from the captivity of his will. His weight will be his wing, his fetter will be his force, his prison will be his power; like the phoenix bird, he will rise from his own ashes; his strength will be perfected in weakness.
Make me Thy captive, O Christ, and I shall be free. Bind me with Thy chain, and I shall be slave to none beside. There are no moments in which I am so weak as when my love is low. When my heart has no master, my life is mastered by all things. I have heard men ask how much water would be deep enough to drown them. I have found that a pool would be deep enough for me without Thee. I have found that any calamity would be overwhelming if I had nothing to think of but itself — but wself. It is not the weight of my affliction that kills me; it is its monopoly — its entire possession of my soul. Break that monopoly,
O Lord! Withdraw my heart from the sole companionship with its grief! I shall never be emancipated from any sorrow except by a new fetter. I shall never conquer my pain till Thou hast conquered my heart. Bring me Thy golden bonds — love’s bonds! Bring me Thy silken cord — the cord of devotion! Bring me Thy sparkling chain — the chain of sympathy! There is no mesmerist like my love. In Thee I can forget my pain. In Thee I can taste the bitter as sweet. In Thee I can see new visions on the old spot. In Thee I can become impervious to cold, to hunger, to weariness. In Thee I can lose my natural fears. In Thee I can speak with tongues — I who was once too timid to speak at all. If only I shall steadfastly gaze into Thy lace, if only I shall perfectly give up my will to Thine, I shall be changed into the same image from glory to glory/* Mesmerise my will, O Lord I