By James Stalker
"A man in Christ..." 2 Cor. 12:2
FIRST, it must be manly.
A Christian is defined by St. Paul as "a man in Christ." But, observe, "a man in Christ "; put the accent there first.
This is very peculiarly a demand of the present age. Ours is a democratic age; and this means that the minds of men are less and less influenced by merely hereditary and official distinctions, and bestow their esteem only where they recognise personal merit. Formerly it was enough if a man was a king or a noble. Now people ask, Is he a kingly man? Is he himself noble? A clergyman, writing to the clergy, has said: "Not long ago a minister was certain of honour because he belonged to the clerical order and wore the clerical garb; as the saying goes, people respected his cloth. But this is rapidly passing away. Respect for ministers who are worthy of the name is not, indeed, passing away; it was never greater than it is at present. But people no longer respect the cloth, unless there is a man inside it. If a minister is to be loved and revered, he must be able to dispense with all artificial cubits added to his stature and, coming down among men and standing side by side with them on his bare feet, allow his manhood to be compared with theirs." This is a truth which all Christians require to take to heart.
Religion of old enveloped itself in mystery and retired behind the walls of the cloister or the convent; and the ignorant multitudes looked up to it, from amidst their sins and sufferings, with traditional reverence. There are countries of Europe in whose languages to this day " a religious person " means the wearer of an ecclesiastical dress. But religion has in our day been summoned forth into the open. It has to show what it can make of men in the ordinary ways of life. Does it make servants and subordinates more trustworthy? Does it make masters and superiors more just and more generous? Does it make merchants more honourable? Does it sweeten the temper, refine the manners, and make the tongue charitable? These are the tests by which Christianity is tried to-day.
Some years ago, during a widespread revival of religion, a friend of mine, a minister in Edinburgh, was visited by a young engineer belonging to his congregation, who informed him that he had come to religious decision. My friend asked him how it had come about. Had he been attending the revival meetings? No. Had he been impressed in church? No. Had any companion been talking to him about the subject? No. How was it then? It was the way in which the foreman of the place in which he was employed did his work; he knew the foreman to be a Christian, and he wished to be a Christian of the same type.
This is thoroughly characteristic of our age. Does the student who is a Christian wish to impress others for good? Then let him be the most diligent student in the class and, if possible, occupy the first place in it. This will speak for itself, even if he has nothing else to say; and, if he gets anything else to say, it will lend weight to every word he utters. The Christian apprentice who wishes to influence others for Christ ought to be the most punctual and obliging in the whole establishment. If a master desires to have religious influence with his employes, it will not be enough to give them good advice: he must behave so as to make them say they have the kindest and best of masters. The way to adorn the gospel of God our Saviour in our day is to exhibit it in combination with a massive manhood or a sweet and gracious womanhood.
Secondly, it must be brotherly.
An ancient Roman poet brought down the applause of the entire theatre with the words, Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto----I am a man: nothing that belongs to men is uninteresting to me. He and those who applauded him acknowledged that in manhood, when it is fully developed, brotherhood is included; and I do not think we can be wrong in stating that when St. Paul called a Christian " a man in Christ," he included this too. We do so ourselves in the common phrase "a man and a brother."
Ours is, as I have said, a democratic age; and it is also a philanthropic age. Indeed, the democratic idea easily expands into the philanthropic one; for it emphasizes the dignity and the rights of man; and the rights of one man imply the duty of all other men to treat him as a man and to respect his dignity.
In past ages the majority of the inhabitants even of civilised countries were in a condition which was utterly inconsistent with their dignity as men; but the possessors of a happier lot were not moved by the spectacle of the degradation around them, because it seemed to them to be the law of nature and the ordinance of God. In our day there are portions of the population existing in conditions where a life worthy of men is almost or altogether impossible: childhood is stunted and crushed; the bloom of modesty and reverence is rudely rubbed off the mind of youth; manhood is so surrounded with temptation that it can hardly escape. But the great difference lies in this, that at present there are multitudes of those who have been born in happier circumstances to whom this spectacle is a perpetual pain. They cannot enjoy the comforts and refinements of their own lot for thinking of the sin and misery of those less fortunate than themselves. One of the most brilliant of our younger statesmen recently remarked, that the politics of the present, and still more the politics of the future, are the politics of the poor.
We even witness in our day the strange spectacle of an atheistic philanthropy-men and women who do not believe in God or in Christ or in immortality yet proclaiming the service of man to be the true vocation of man, and professing themselves to be in all the greater haste to help their suffering fellow-creatures, because they believe that they must be made happy in this world or not at all.
Whether such philanthropy has any real fuel to keep it burning, or is merely the afterglow of Christian sentiment lingering on the icy summits of unbelief, we need not at present stay to inquire; but it is a sign of the times. And is it not evident that in such a temper of the general mind the Christianity which will tell on the age must be a brotherly Christianity?
Christianity is nothing if it is not philanthropic. Christ taught the doctrine of human brotherhood and placed it on its true foundation eighteen hundred years before fraternity became the watchword of atheism and revolution. But, if brotherhood be truly the property of Christianity, then the world of to-day demands that it be proved by deeds, and not by words. It demands that those who bear the name of Christ should be seen standing back from those customs of society and those practices in trade which grind the faces of the poor and enrich the few out of the vices of the many. It demands that they be seen engaged in an uncompromising struggle with the causes of poverty and misery. A Christianity intent only upon saving its own soul in the repose of luxurious churches, whilst the river of human sin and misery sweeps unregarded past the door, will not impress the present age. The world will not be persuaded that the Church believes her own creed, if, teaching what she does about the blessing of possessing Christ and the infinite misery of being separated from Him, she does not exert herself to make Him known to every creature under heaven.
Thirdly, it must be godly.
St. Paul's definition of a Christian is "a man in Christ." We have put the accent first on the first member of the phrase-" a man "-and I have shown that this implies also that a Christian ought to be a brother of men. But now put the accent on the second member of the phrase-"in Christ" Surely the strongest accent falls here: the thing which distinguishes a Christian from other men is that he is "a man in Christ."
I have said of our age that it is democratic and that it is philanthropic: many would, I daresay, add that it is sceptical. I do not say so; but I say that it is an age which needs a sign. Its religious teachers tell it, that of old God revealed Himself, and spake in miracles and prophecy; they tell it, that many centuries ago He revealed Himself still more fully in His Son, and that in Jesus of Nazareth God dwelt among men. The arguments are strong which can be brought forward in proof of these statements. But it is long since these things happened, and this age is doubtful of the evidence. Can you not show us God at work in the world of to-day? If there be a God, does He work no miracle now?
What has Christianity to say to such a question? If it is intelligent, it seems to me it is bound to answer that God is in the world to-day, and is still a God that doeth wonders. The age of miracles is not past. We profess that supernatural changes have taken place in us, and are taking place in us, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who works, indeed, through our own will and effort, but is far more than they. For what is it to be "a man in Christ "? It is to have a life which is fed from no earthly source. It is to be in actual contact with the supernatural. To us Jesus Christ is not dead; He is not a mere historical figure; He is alive; He is with us; He is in us and we in Him.
But, if these things are so, what is there to show for them? If these forces are at work in us, what are they effecting They ought to produce a Christlike character. This is what the world is looking for. Nor does it fail to appreciate it when it sees it. There is no power in the world so subduing as genuine goodness. Holiness is a flower which the world well knows it is incapable of producing out of its own soil; and, when it sees it, it acknowledges that there must be another world to account for it. When all the arguments have failed, the doubting mind yields to the evidence of a saintly life.
We often hear calls for an aggressive Christianity, which will go forth with irresistible energy and conquer the world. But are you sure that this is the way to conquer the world? You remember, in the fable, the contest between the wind' and the sun as to which of them would compel the traveller to remove his cloak? The wind blew and blew, more and more furiously; but the traveller only wrapped his garment the more tightly about him; but he took it off at once when the sun brought to bear on him its gentle and genial force.
A competent writer, describing the improvement in the manners and morality of England at the close of last century, raises the question to what it was due. In the beginning of last century every sixth house in London was a gin-shop, and gin-drinking infected the population like an epidemic. Dr. Johnson told Boswell, that in his native town of Lichfield every householder went to bed drunk every night, and nobody thought the worse of him. Profane swearing was a mark of good breeding. On Sunday the people gathered for cock fighting and bull-baiting; and even the clergy took part in these cruel sports. Before the century closed there was a complete revolution in public opinion, and the whole tone of manners was altered. And to what was the change due? These things had not been put down by legislation; nor did the educated and cultured classes lead the fashion in the direction of better things. No; but the preaching of Whitfield and Wesley raised up all over England a sprinkling of converted men and women living the Christlike life. Each of these became a kind of mirror in which the age beheld its own hideousness; each became a little window through which people saw out beyond their own evil customs to a better time.
This is what we need-not so much an aggressive as an attractive religion. Men are not at peace; they are hungry for happiness, and they pursue it over sea and land, but they have not found it. If in every Christian they beheld a soul manifestly at peace with itself, filled with a joy unspeakable which betrayed that it had found the secret of life, we should not need to preach to them and plead with them so much: they would come flocking of their own accord like doves to their windows.
