By J.R. Miller
Some people go to a great deal of trouble--in protecting 'their rights'. They are continually on the alert, guarding 'their rights' against unwarranted encroachments. It is natural and human to wish to have one's rights respected. In one sense we cannot blame the man who insists that he shall always have his place according to his rank, and that others shall accord to him the respect and honor which are his due. Yet we all admit that such a spirit--is not a winning or beautiful one. We do not in our heart admire the person who is always clamoring for his rights, and who is offended by every word or act which seems to ignore his dignity.
At least, there is a "more excellent way"--the way of Christian love. "The grandest thing in having rights," said George MacDonald, "is that, being your rights--you can give them up!" That is the Christian way. "Love does not seek its own." It is ready always to yield--even that which it might justly claim.
The law of love abates nothing of the duty which we owe to each other. It requires us to show to everyone, all proper honor and regard. We are exhorted to render to all their dues. A noble spirit is always exceedingly careful to respect all personal rights, even in the lowliest. We may not interpret the law of Christian love, therefore, as giving us liberty to withhold from any other person: the attention, service, or courtesy which it is our duty to render. We should hold ourselves responsible for the payment in full, to the very last farthing, of all our debt of love or honor to others.
But in the exaction of our own rights, we are to be lenient to the last degree. The teaching of our Master on this subject is very clear and emphatic. "Blessed are the meek," he said. The meek are those who do not contend for their own rights--but submit to be ignored or wronged, taking it quietly, patiently, and sweetly--when men fail to do them justice--not fuming and fretting under a sense of wrong.
Meekness is not weakness. There are those who do not assert their rights nor try to enforce them, only because they have no power to contend with the tyrannical oppression which crushes them. There may be no meekness in their quiet submission; perhaps they submit--only because they cannot successfully resist.
On the other hand, the Master tells us that he himself is meek and lowly in heart. We know, too, that through all his life he never resisted wrong treatment of himself. He never complained, even when he was suffering most unjustly and most cruelly. He never demanded his 'rights'--but cheerfully surrendered them. Yet we know that it was not in the powerlessness of weakness, that he thus suffered. He had all power and could have crushed his enemies, escaping from their hand. Or he could have summoned legions of angels to his help any moment, and have been liberated. But he gave up his rights--rather than lift a finger to enforce them.
Like those flowers which give out their sweetest perfume only when they are crushed; the precious life of Jesus gave out its most holy sweetness, when it was suffering most unjustly. His answer to the terrible wrong of crucifixion, was a prayer for those who were driving the nails into his flesh. His response to the cross--was redemption through the blood that flowed.
This same spirit, the Master's followers are bidden to nourish, turning the other cheek--when smitten on one; going two miles--when compelled to go one; praying for those who despitefully use them and persecute them; all of which means, that they are to give up their rights--rather than contend for them; to be silent and sweet--when they have a just right to cry out against injustice or wrong.
It is not easy to quietly allow others to do injustice to us, in advancing their own interests. Yet God knows what is ours in the work of the world, even though another has put his trademark on it.
A delightful story is told of the boyhood of Agassiz. The family lived on the edge of a lake in Switzerland. One winter day the father was on the other side of the lake and Agassiz and his younger brother wished to cross over to him. The lake was frozen over. The mother watched the boys from her window as they set out. They got along well enough till they came to a crack in the ice, when they stopped, as if unable to advance. Then the mother became very anxious. "Louis will get over safely," she said to herself, "but the little fellow will fall in and be drowned!" But the boys were too far away for the mother to do anything but fear. Presently, however, as she looked, she saw the older boy lie down on the ice, his hands on one side of the crack and his feet on the other, making a bridge with his body--and the little fellow crept over him to the other side.
We say that was a beautiful thing for the older brother to do. It is always a beautiful thing to do--to be a bridge on which another may cross over to something better. Stories are told of battles in which chasms have been filled up with bodies of the dead over which finally other brave men have passed to victory. That was what Jesus Christ did with his life--he made himself of no reputation that through his self-humiliation, uncounted multitudes might cross the gulf, otherwise forever impassable, into the heavenly kingdom. This is the story, too, of all civil and religious liberty and of all advances of truth and Christian civilization. Men give their lives to holy service and to sacred causes and seem to fail and sink down into obscurity; but they have only made their work and their lives bridges over which others, coming after them, move to success and honor.
Every day we have opportunities to make of our own life a bridge on which another may pass over to something that he could not of himself have attained. By forgetting SELF, we can prefer in honor our brother and promote his advancement.
Sometimes, too, men insist on using our life or our work as a footpath to some goal or ambition of their own. Naturally we resent such injustice. But after all, need we vex ourselves overmuch about such treatment? If only we keep sweet, not allowing the wrong or the injustice to embitter us, nourishing ever the spirit of cheerful, patient love--we are the gainers. The man who does the mean or oppressive thing--is the man who loses. He gathers a curse in his hands with the seeming gain he selfishly snatches. We need only to watch that no bitterness enter our heart, enduring the wrong as our Master endured, patiently, committing ourselves to him who judges righteously.
No doubt the world, even in these closing days of this nineteenth century, calls this manner of life unmanly. Yet it is marvelous how the spirit of meekness has grown and diffused itself, how it has gone on permeating the lives of men and of nations. More and more, are men recognizing the truth of Christ's teachings, that love always win even though it seems to perish--like the dew which loses itself in giving its blessing.
It is a wonderful promise that is given to the meek, "They shall inherit the earth." To the natural thought, this seems just the reverse of the truth. Meekness is giving up the earth, not claiming even that portion of it which one has a just right to claim. How, then, can one inherit the thing--one voluntarily surrenders? Yet a little thought shows us how, in the very yielding of one's rights, one becomes the possessor of a far better portion than he relinquishes. The bird that unresistingly accepts the injustice of its captivity, and sings in its cage--becomes the inheritor of all things in a far truer sense--than the bird which tries to claim its rights, and flies frantically against the walls of its prison in unavailing efforts to be free.
Then we know well that it is not he who demands recognition among men, who really receives it. He may get the husk of it--the place in the procession, the seat at the table, the place in the official list--but it is only empty glory which he wins. Self-assertion never plucks real honor. It gets no place in the respect or affection of men. The man only loses in the esteem of his fellows, when he gets a place by demanding it. One never gains influence--by scheming for it and by doing things for the purpose of becoming influential. There are men who spend money freely with the object of making themselves popular--but they utterly fail. People take their money or their gifts, eat their lavish suppers, and then despise those who pay such a price to buy that which never can be bought!
But let a man forget himself, pay no heed to his rights, give them up rather than contend for them; and let him live a life of unselfish goodness, with no self-seeking, no purpose of glorifying his own name--and he will inherit a recognition and an influence which will shine like a halo about his head. He had never wrought for this. He loved his fellow men and was ready at every call of need to do any of them a kindly service, without regard to its cost. He never spared himself--he was lavish of his life, in living for others. He never thought of fame or recognition, and was surprised to find men wreathing chaplets for his brow.
That is, the way to get one's rights--is not to care for them--but to give them up! The way to win honor among men--is not to demand honor nor even to think of it; the way to achieve influence is never to plan or strive to have influence--but to think only of fulfilling love's whole duty, regardless of cost, giving out the best of one's life in self-forgetful service, in Christ's name, for others.
All life confirms the truth of our Lord's word: "Whosoever exalts himself--shall be abased; and he that humbles himself--shall be exalted." God loves to give us power when we do not desire or seek it for ourselves; but what we strive after for our own glory he does not wish us to have. There is always a crown for humility--but there is none for pride or self-conceit.
It is ever thus--the meek inherit the earth; those who forget themselves and serve without striving for place--in the end receive the truest honor before both God and man.
