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The Friend on the Road and Other Studies in the Gospels: Chapter 6 - Education by Contagion

By John Henry Jowett


      "The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven."--Matt. xiii. 33.

      THAT is a very vital education, perhaps the most vital of all, which is effected by contagion. It is given by touch rather than by teaching. The most profound education is not that which has been most deliberately given. There are professors in colleges and universities whose words no more affect the deep springs of the soul than the dripping of the broken spout outside their lecture-room. And even when they are not so entirely inefficient they may only inculcate certain doctrines while they do not educate the soul. It is the vital touch which tells upon character, and most frequently this touch is not conveyed through the medium of the spoken word. The touch may be given in a very temporary contact. A passing incident may convey the vital force. Or the experience may be more prolonged. We may brush against somebody for days and weeks together, and although never a moral precept or a spiritual counsel pass between us, we come under the power of an extraordinary contagion, and our character appropriates the virtue or the virus of our fellowship. It is education by contagion.

      When we look back upon our early life from the high vantage-ground of later years, and we trace its turnings, and mark the great diversions which meant momentous destinies, we can see how often the change was made, not by a professional instructor, but by some influence which at that time was anonymous and untraced. I can look back upon my own early days, and I can see silent forces, which were then invisible, pouring their influences like tributaries into the main stream of my life. And I could now write some names in this paragraph, the bearers of which would be amazed to see them in print. There was T-- F--, the ingenious playmate who gave me a hobby which has served me in all succeeding years. There was no deliberate leading; it was just education by contagion. There was P-- G--. His love for politics made me a politician, and a very burning one, too! And then there was O-- D--, who supplied our little circle with a standard of conduct. He never uttered an oracular word. He was a very shy and silent member of the boyish fellowship, but his very presence acted like a royal measure in the shaping and expression of our moral judgments and decisions. All these, and many others, knew nothing about what they were doing. I did not know it. But their fine contagion had a ceaseless ministry. The contact issued in forceful emanations and the vital currency was always flowing.

      And so it is in higher interests still. Our contagions are usually far more educative and influential than our speech. Everybody is inclined to admit this on the bad side, but everybody is not so ready to admit it on the good side. They acknowledge that vice is contagious, but not virtue. They acknowledge that disease is contagious, but not health. It is more than likely that one is just as influential as the other. A truly strong and nobly consecrated life moves in human fellowship with tremendous power of contagion. The weight of human impressiveness is measured by the reality of its divine communion. It is touching and influencing everybody with whom it deals, and the touch is always holy and wholesome. "He that believeth in Me, out of him shall flow rivers of water," and, "Everything shall live whither the river cometh."

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See Also:
   Chapter 1 - Critics and Surgeons
   Chapter 2 - The Challenge of the Closed Door
   Chapter 3 - How the Best Things Become Ours
   Chapter 4 - Sixpennyworth of Miracle
   Chapter 5 - The Peace of the Larger Life
   Chapter 6 - Education by Contagion
   Chapter 7 - The Tares Among the Wheat
   Chapter 8 - Things New and Old
   Chapter 9 - The Buoyancy of Faith
   Chapter 10 - Sound the Great Recall
   Chapter 11 - The Bright Cloud
   Chapter 12 - Mercy and Obligation
   Chapter 13 - The Simplification of Life
   Chapter 14 - Life's Perilous Heats
   Chapter 15 - Feverishness
   Chapter 16 - The Truly Sensational Life
   Chapter 17 - The Dominant Passion
   Chapter 18 - Doing the Impossible
   Chapter 19 - The Life I Should Live
   Chapter 20 - The Blessing and Discipline of Retirement
   Chapter 21 - Endless Possibilities
   Chapter 22 - The Price of Liberty
   Chapter 23 - The Dynamics of Expulsion
   Chapter 24 - Evils That Never Arrive
   Chapter 25 - Returning in Power
   Chapter 26 - The Old Tackle and the New Presence
   Chapter 27 - The Noble Dissatisfaction
   Chapter 28 - The Malady of Not Wanting
   Chapter 29 - Sentimentaltsm
   Chapter 30 - The Pedantic Conscience
   Chapter 31 - A Receiver of Wrecks
   Chapter 32 - The Supreme Test
   Chapter 33 - Fainting
   Chapter 34 - Doing the Impossible
   Chapter 35 - Divine Visitations
   Chapter 36 - Self-Possession
   Chapter 37 - The Treacherous Kiss
   Chapter 38 - The Friend on the Road
   Chapter 39 - Dull Scholars
   Chapter 40 - The Unknown Christ
   Chapter 41 - The Worst and the Best
   Chapter 42 - Increase and Decrease
   Chapter 43 - Hating the Light
   Chapter 44 - Heroic Goodness
   Chapter 45 - Living Words
   Chapter 46 - The Last Bridge
   Chapter 47 - The Ministry of Infusion
   Chapter 48 - Breaking the Awful Silence
   Chapter 49 - Preparing for the Miracle
   Chapter 50 - The Inner Door
   Chapter 51 - The Revelation in the After Days
   Chapter 52 - The Troubled Heart
   Chapter 53 - The Gift of Peace
   Chapter 54 - Settling Down in Christ
   Chapter 55 - The Joy of the Lord
   Chapter 56 - The Joy of Christian Life
   Chapter 57 - The Sense of Mission
   Chapter 58 - Living at Second Hand
   Chapter 59 - The Great Act of Receiving

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