The Test of the Spirit's Absence
“« These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.” — JUDE 19.
VAT HAT a strange use of the word “seny sual!” I commonly limit the term to bodily excess; to St. Jude that is only a symptom. The disease to him lies deeper — lies in the mind. He says that the sensual men are the men “who separate themselves” — the men who deny the claims of human brotherhood. And truly he is right. There would be no sensuality in the world if there was love of man for man. Could the drunkard impoverish his household if he had not first killed his heart? Could the voluptuary wither the flower of innocence if he had not first abjured his race? No man was ever sensual till he became selfish — separated himself from sympathy with his kind. The test of the Spirit’s absence is the prodigal’s wish to live alone. I do not begin my life of riot until I have got into the far country. It is when I ’ forget that humanity is a continent that I begin ‘my life of waste. It is when I forget that in ‘God’s sight “there is no more sea,” that I lbecome fit for the sustenance of the swine. ‘My spirit cannot live on an island and be one ‘with God’s Spirit, for the Spirit of God is ‘brotherhood, and brotherhood is the continent ‘of souls. Iam weary of my island life, O Spirit; it is absence from Thee. I am weary of the pleasures spent upon myself, weary of that dividing sea which makes me alone. I look out upon the monotonous waves that roll between me and my brother, and I begin to be in want; I long for the time when there shall be no more sea. Lift me on to the mainland, Thou Spirit of humanity, unite my heart to the brotherhood of human souls. Set my feet “in a large room” — — in a space where many congregate. Place me on the continent of human sympathy where I can find my brother by night and by day — where storms divide not, where waves intervene not, where depths of downward distance drown not love. Then shall the food of the far country be swine husks; then shall the riot and the revel be eclipsed by a new joy — the music and dancing of the city of God
When I have entered the gates of the city I shall bid farewell to the wilderness; when I have received Thy bond of brotherhood I shall separate myself no more.