The Giant with the Wounded Heel

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel” — GENESIS iii. 15.

THE scene in the story of which these words are written is fixed deep in the imagination of man kind. We read it in our childhood, and it is never afterwards forgotten. As we go on, seeing more and more of life, life and this story of the Book of Genesis become mutually commentaries on each other. Life throws light on the story and the story throws light on life.

Let us take one passage from the story now, and try to hold it in the light of life and see its meaning brighten and deepen. God is represented as talking to the serpent who has been the tempter of man kind. The serpent, the spirit of Evil, has forced his way into the human drama. He has compelled the man and woman to admit him to their company. He cannot now be cast out by one summary act. He has come, and he remains. All that tajies place in human history takes place in his presence. Upon everything he tries to exercise his infliir-noo. is everywhere ami always, and always and everywln-n; the same.

To this serpent, this spirit of evil in the world, God is speaking. What is it that he says? Ho might tell the monster that the world belonged to him. “Since man has let you in, he must abide the issue. He is yours. There is no help for it, and you must do with him as you will.” On the other hand he might with one sweep of his omnipotence bid the hateful reptile depart. “Begone; for man belongs to me; and even if he has given himself to you, you can have no power over him at all, for he is mine.” The words which are written in our text are diftvi -nt from both of these. What does God say? Tin -re shall be a long, terrible fight between man and the power of evil. The power of evil shall haunt and persecute man, cripple him and vex him, hinder him and make him suffer. It shall bruise his heel. But man shall ultimately be stronger than the power of evil, and shall overcome it and go forth victorious, though bruised and hurt, and needing recovery and rest. He shall bruise its head.

Is there not in these words which the awful voice of God is heard speaking at the beginning of human history, a most clear and intelligible prophecy of human life? It separates itself at once from the crude theories which men have made on either side. It is not reckless pessimism nor reck It ss optimism. It is God’s broad, wise, long-sighted prophecy of man, harassed, distressed and wounded on the way, but yet in spite of wounds and hindrances finally getting the better of his enemy and coming to success. With that promise of God — promise and warning together — sounding in his ears, man started on the long journey of existence, and has come thus far upon his way.

We want to ask ourselves how far that prophecy has been fulfilled, how far it has justified itself in history. We grow all out of patience with men’s crude and sweeping and unqualified epitomes of life. One man says “It is all good,” and will see none of the evil and sin and misery which are everywhere. Another man says “It is all bad;” and for him all the brightness and graciousness and perpetual progress go for nothing. One man calls humanity a hopeless brute. Another man calls humanity a triumphant angel. God in these words of Genesis says,” Neither! but a wounded, bruised, strong creature, not running and leaping and shouting, often crawling and creeping in its pain, but yet brave, with an inextinguishable certainty of ultimate success, fighting a battle which is full of pain but is not desperate, sure ultimately to set his heel upon his adversary’s head.” Certainly there is a picture of man there which, in its most general statement, corresponds largely with the picture which history draws, and with that which our own experience presents. Let us look a little while first at the truthfulness of the picture; then at the way in which it comes to be true, and then at the sort of life which it will make in men who recognize its truth. The fact, the reason, and the g6 The Giant icith tJic // oundcd 1/ccL

11 <.•«•. Those an- tin- natural divisions of any sulijr-ct. Let them !><• the divisions of ours.

I look first at the institutions which mankind has formed for doing his work in tin.- world. Institutions are nothing but colossal men. They are the aggregations of humanity for doing those universal works which it is the interest not merely of this man, or of that man, but of all men to have done. Church institutions, state institutions, present the workings of human nature on a large scale, and so give excellent opportunity to study the fundamental facts of human life. And when we look at the great institutions of the world, what do we see? Everywhere, whet her it be in Church or state, essentially the same thing. Noble principles, vast, beneficent agencies, gradually conquering barbarism and misery, making men better, making men happier, but always miserably hampered by wretched little sins of administration; stung in the heel by the serpents of selfishness, and sordidness, and insincerity and narrowness. Civilization, which is simply the sum of all the institutions which are shaped out of the best aspirations of mankind — it is simply amazing when we tell over to ourselves what the powers are which keep civilization to-day from putting its heel square and fair upon the head of barbarism, and finishing it forever. Popular government perverted by demagogues; Commerce degraded by the intrusion of fraud; the Church always weakened by hypocrisy; Charity perplexed by the fear of imposture and the dread of pauperism. Why, is not the image of institutionalism, embody-The Giant with the Wounded JFieel. 97

great principles, full of the consciousness of great ideas, and yet hindered and halting everywhere through the blunders and weaknesses of its administration — is it not just the picture of the giant with the bruised heel, the great strong creature, limping dubiously along the road over which he ought to be moving majestically to assured results?

Look again at society — that great mother and mistress of the thoughts and lives of so many of our old and younger people. It has its devotees and its denouncers. How few of us have ever seriously set our selves to ask what is the real value and meaning of that social life which occupies so large a portion of the activity of civilized humanity? In its idea it is beautiful. Eagerness to take pleasure in the company of fellow-men — eagerness to give pleasure, by whatever contribution we can make — a wish to share with others all their gifts and ours — these are most true and healthy impulses. The society which is instinct with these impulses is the enemy of solitude; it puts its foot on selfishness; it makes men brothers; it kills out morbidness and self-conceit. Society is doing this — “What! our society?” you say, “this false, and foolish, and corrupt, and selfish, and frivolous uproar which takes possession of our city every winter, and runs its round of excitement, and jealousy, and dissipation, until Lent sets in?” Yes, even that! Sorely bruised in the heel it is, wounded and crippled in a melancholy fashion; a poor enough image of that divine communion of the children of God, which is the real society of men and women —

98 The Giant with the Wounded I fed.

but yet a thing- to be cured and cleansed, not to be cast away, not a thing for any man to turn his hark upon and be a misanthrope, but for all men and wo men to do what they can to rescue and to fill with the spirit of a nobler life.

Then, think again of learning. We have a per feet right to indulge our enthusiasm over man as a studying and learning creature. Man seeking after knowledge is felt at once to be man using very noble powers. It is man doing the work for which a very noble part of him was made. We think of the ready and cheerful self-sacrifice of the scholars, great and little, not merely of those who have been rewarded for the surrenders which they made by the applause of a delighted world, but of the scholars whose self-sacrifice has lain in obscurity, who have eaten their crusts in silence, and not even recompensed them selves with groans. We think of all that man’s untiring pursuit of knowledge has attained; of the great conquests which have been rescued out of the kingdom of ignorance. We let our imagination run forward and picture in delighted bewilderment the future triumphs of the same divine audacity, man’s brave determination to know all that is knowable. And then, while we are glowing with this large enthusiasm, what is this which comes to interrupt and chill it? What are these petty jealousies ami hates of learned men? What is this pedantry? What is this narrowness which neglects and despi-s. and even tries to hinder other learning than its own? Close on the large ambition comes the miserable discontent, the carping criticism, the discouragement, the love of darkness. The worm is in the wood of the brave ship that sails so proudly out to sea. The rust is on the arrow which is sent flying through the air. What is the Poet’s complaint, that “knowledge comes but wisdom lingers,” except a declaration that here too the full completeness of a great process is prevented, the serpent is stinging at the heel which ultimately must be set upon the serpent’s head and crush it.

And what shall we say about religion? The future of mankind is a religious future. It is man as religious, that is to rule the world. What changes of form religious thought may undergo, who can pretend to say? But that religion shall perish, none of us believes. And if religion continues, she must reign. We cannot imagine for her a merely subordinate or passive life. She must reign, reign till she has put all enemies under her feet. Indeed I do not know how any man can really believe in religion to day, who does not believe in the destiny of religion to be the mistress of the world. I cannot believe in God without believing that he is the rightful Lord of every thing; for that is what “God” means. A God who is not rightful Lord and Master, is not God. We say this with entire certainty, and then, we look up to see religion conquering the world. We do see what we look lor. But we see something else besides. How the great conqueror is harassed and tormented. What petty annoyances and trouble, she is beset with. Look at the crudeness, and the mercenariness,

IOO The Giant with the Wounded HccL

and mcchanicalni’ss with which men, even her own friends, inisconcciv her most spiritual truths. Look how her theories break down in human action. Behold the hypocrisy, the selfishness, the bigotry the fanaticism, the untruthfulness, the formality, the cowardice, the “meanness of religions people! Wounded in the house of her friends, is this great majestic Being who is some day to rule and save the world. And outside of her friends, among her enemies, men insult her and oppose her as if she were their worst foe, and not, what she really is, their only hope. The work which she is bound to do will none the less be done, but it will be done under perpetual opposition and persecution, done with torn and bleeding hands and feet.

Thus hurriedly I think over the great powers which are helping the world, and everywhere the case concerning all of them seems to be the same. All of them are doing good work. All of them are destined to ultimate success. Of none of them do we despair. But every one of them is working against hindrance and enmity and opposition. Not one of them goes freely and fearlessly to its victory. It is the combination of these two facts that gives the color and the tone to human history. From every century comes forth the same report. Great powers, sure to succeed, yet ever hindered at their work; never abandoning hope, yet moving timidly because they know, that sure as their final victory may be, their immediate lot is wounds and insult. Is it not exactly the old prophecy. The serpent whos,e head is ultimately to be crushed, uow ever wounding the heel which’is finally to be its destruction. Could any image picture human history so well?

Turn now away from this large look across the fields of history, and think how true the picture of the Book of Genesis is to our personal life. I might open the closed and sacred pages of any man’s ex perience. Here is a man who for his thirty, forty, fifty years has been seeking after goodness, trying to conquer his passions and vices, and be a really good man. What will he say of his struggle as he looks back upon it? Let him stand upon this Sunday hillock, a little nearer to the sky perhaps than on the week-days; let him stand here and say how life looks to him as his eye runs back. You know the hindrances you have met. Paul’s story has been your story. When you would do good evil was present with you. You never sprang most bravely from the low ordinary level of your living, that a hand did not seem to catch you and draw you back. You never felt a new power start up within you that a new weakness did not start up by its side. Terrible has been this quickness of the evil power, giving you the awful sense of being watched and dogged. Awful has grown this certainty that no good impulse ever could go straight and uninterrupted to its victorious result, and yet, is it not wonderful how you have kept the assurance that good and not evil is the true master-power of your life! The resolution has been broken. It has been wounded.

IO2 The Giant with tJic M’onndcd /fed.

It has limped and halted. It has stood for months, perhaps for years, in the saint- place and mad’ progress, but it has never died. There is no man here who has not failed; but is there any man li< r.> in all this multitude who has given up? Nut Every man here, when he looks forward, means some day to enter into the gates of salvation, to leave his sins behind him and live the life of God. In such a hope, in the light of such a resolution only, is life tolerable. Everything that hinders and delays that resolution is an accident and an intruder. The resolution itself is the utterance of God’s purpose for the life.

I think the same is true about our faith. To -be lieve is the true glory of existence. To disbelieve is to give ourselves into the power of death, and, just so far, to cease from living. And you are living and not dead. You do believe. You are quite sure of spiritual verities. God is a truth to you. Your soul is your true self. Christ, the spiritual perfectness of manhood, the true Son of God, is really King of the world. This spiritual faith you would not part with for your life. It is your only hope. You look for ward to the day when it shall have conquered and cast out every doubt in you, and reign supreme. But now, how doubt besets you! Now, how a d< -nial comes like its shadow on the heels of every faith! Who is this man whom in your loftier and more hopeful moments you discern, far off, on some lu-iht distant day, entering into the open portals of a per feet faith, and leaving doubt dead outside the door forever? Is lie the victor of au easy fight? Does ho come springing up the shining steps with muscles only just tried enough to feel themselves elastic from the long struggle? Indeed, not so! The man — yourself — whom you see finally victorious, comes crawling to the temple of entire faith, dragging after him the wounded heel which Doubt, for long years before at last he died, stung, and stung, and stung again. Wonderful is that faith in faith, a thing to be thankful for to all eternity; wonderful is that faith in faith by which the soul dares to be sure, even in the very thick of doubt, that in belief, and not in unbelief, is its eternal rest and home.

I have spoken of the prophecy of Genesis as if it referred to that total seed of the woman which is all humanity. I have no doubt that it does so refer. But it has also always been considered to have reference to that special representative humanity which was in Jesus Christ To him it certainly applies. What is the story of that wondrous life which, centuries afterward, Christ lived in Palestine? It is the story of a life wounded again and again by an antagonist whom at the last it overthrew. Christ’s victory was perfect on the cross. There, finally, he conquered the world, he conquered sin. There he went up upon his throne, and Sin and Death were under his feet But how did he come to that throne? Behold him staggering, wounded, bruised, beaten, all the way from Pilate’s brutal judgment hall to Calvary. Remember what the years before had been. AIL the time he had been conquering the world and sin, and 11 the time sin and the world had ln-i-n apparently conquering him. At dp door of 1>< th

an y. he stands and groans and weeps. Death has cut deep into his affections. His friend is dead. We may well 1>» -li< -v<> that he hesitates and almost doubts. Then he lifts up his head and cries, “Lazarus, come forth!” and as the dead man comes to life, is it not true in that moment that the lpniis.-d heel of the woman is set upon the head of the serpent which has bruised it? Is not the old prophecy of Genesis, in that moment, perfectly fulfilled?

May I not then rest hero my statement and assertion of the fact? Is it not true that everywhere the good is hampered and beset and wounded by the evil which it is ultimately to slay; true also that the good will ultimately slay the evil by which it was wounded and beset? These two facts, in their combination, make a philosophy of life which, when one has accepted it, colors each thought he thinks, cadi act he does. The two facts subtly blend their influence in every experience. They make impossible either crude pessimism or crude optimism. NO man can curse that world in which the best of men, and the best of manhood, is steadily moving onward to the victory over the serpent. No man can unqualifiedly praise the world where that onward movement of the best is always being wounded and r<- tarded by the serpent, over which it is to triumph at the last. But surely it gives certainty to our own observation of the history of man; surely it gives dignity to what has seemed to be the mere accident

The Giant with the Wounded HeeL 105

of confusion in our own lives, when we find them both prophesied on the first page of the world’s Book. Yes, that which puzzles you or me, that which so often seems to make life meaningless and cruel, at least it is no chance and thoughtlessness by which it comes, for it is written in the very prospectus and prophecy of human life.

It would be possible, 1 think, also to show that it is written, or at least the possibility of it is written in the very necessity of things. On that I must not linger. I have dwelt so long upon the fact, that I must say but a few words of the cause and the consequence.

Of the cause I may say only this, that there is one conceivable state of things which in its operation must produce just that phenomenon which we have been studying at such length this morning. That state of things is a vast general purpose for the best good of mankind, submitted for its execution to the wills of men. Granted a God who means all good for his creatures, and who, as a part of his benevolent Designs for them, calls their free agency to help in bringing about his purposes, and what shall we behold? Indubitable evidences that the good is stronger than the evil; a great, slow, steady progress of the good, forever gaining on the evil; and all the time reactions and detractions, rebellions of the evil against its conquest by the good. A stream with grand majestic onward flow, whose broad strong bosom is not smooth, but flecked all over with eddies, little twists and turns, in which the io6 The Giant with the Wounded

Hum time is running tin- wnmway. A stall ly figure of humanity, slowly pr down its

upon tin- serpent’s head, yet with its face lull of disturbance and of pain, because the serpent on whose head the heel is set is always stinging with the very venom of despair the heel that crushes it,

Tell me, my friends, if this is what would come if there were a great divine purpose in the world DOcessarily submitted for its execution to the will of man: then, since this has come, since this is the very picture which our eyes behold, shall we not let our selves believe that the cause which I have described does indeed lie behind this wonderfully interesting, pathetic, fearful, hopeful life we live? A great divine purpose, dependent for its detailed execution on the will of men! Let me believe that, and then I know what means this ineradicable hope and this perpetual discouragement. Let me know that, and then I understand both why the good does not conquer now, and why the good must conquer at the last.

Our last question still remains. What sort of human life will this world tend to make in the mean time, or what will be the truest and most fitting life to live in a world such as this which we have seen our world to be. For man is capable of many lives, and is able to answer to the world in which he lives with its appropriate response.

Two qualities, I think, must certainly appear in the man who has thoroughly caught the spirit and is susceptible to the best influences of this world.

One quality I call watchful hope, and the other I call anxious charity. We need our adjectives as well as our nouns when we describe the true temper in which a man must live. The nouns describe the fundamental confidence which must arise from the conviction of a divine purpose for the life of man. The adjectives depict the sense of danger which comes from the knowledge that this divine purpose is committed for its execution to the unstable wills of men. Hope and charity, these must both spring up from the soul of faith. If God has truly a pur pose for our lives, who dare be hopeless? If God has really a purpose for our brother’s life, who dare despair of him? Ah, we do only half believe it. Therefore our hope is such a colorless and feeble thing; therefore our charity so doubts and hesitates. But they are in us still. They must be in us just in proportion to our faith in God.

And yet the hope must be a watchful hope, the charity must be an anxious charity. Neither can fling itself out broadcast and without reserve. Hope is aware of danger; charity is full of fear; in this world where God has done all God can, a ad yet leaves the last decision of his own destiny in the hands of man.

A watchful hope! An anxious charity! Are not these very clear and recognizable qualities? Do they not make a very clear and recognizable character? They make a character which has stamped the life of humanity wherever it has really known and felt the conditions of its life.

One sometimes thinks how it would be if to each star which floats in space the life which its inhabitants are living should impart a color, which other stars might see as they pass by it in the never resting chorus of the planets. Can we not picture to ourselves with what a special hue the long spiritual experience of the men who live upon it must have clothed this earth of ours? A sober glory, a radiance of indescribable depth and richness; and yet a certain tremulousness as of a perpetual fear; no outburst of unquestioning, unhesitating splendor, but a restrained effulgence, hoping for more than it dare yet to claim, pathetic with a constant, age-long discontent.

Whether our sister stars discover it or not, we know it well; we who live here and see the highest typical life of man upon the earth. Do we not know how all the best and holiest men live in a hope so great that its own greatness clothes it in a mystery which is almost doubt, as the sun clothes itself in sunlight which is almost a hiding of the splendor it displays. We cannot describe it to ourselves or one another, but how well we know it; that watchful hope and anxious charity; that sober, earnest, cheerful, and careful richness which have filled the lives and shone out of the faces of the best men the world has seen, and given its profoundest meaning to the name of Man!

When we look up to Christ and catch the color of His wondrous life, is there not there the confirmation and supreme exemplification of all this? In him are watchful hope and anxious charity complete. This story of his life is no wild shout, flung forth out of the cloudless sky, but a rich, solemn, deep, beautiful music, wherein the sense of danger always trembles and sways beneath the constancy of an unalterable certainty of God.

If we are saved by Christ, it will be into the life of Christ that we are saved, into the inextinguishable hope and into the watchful fear together. Not intoxicated by the hope and not discouraged by the fear, we shall go on our way expecting both parts of the old prophecy to be fulfilled in us, as they were both fulfilled in Him. Expecting to be stung and bruised by the serpent, but sure ultimately, if we let God give us all His strength, to set the bruised and stung heel on the serpent’s head. That life may we all have the grace to live.