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Page 33
It is everywhere recognized that the great outcome of a man's life is
not the title to a thousand acres. He is soon dispossessed. It is not
all the bonds and money he can hold. A dead man's hands are empty. It
is not reputation that the winds blow away. But it is character that
he acquires and carries with him. He has a fidelity to principle that
is like Abdiel's. He is faithful among the faithless. He has
allegiance to right that the lure of all the kingdoms of the earth
cannot swerve for a moment. He counts soul so much above the body that
no fiery furnaces, heated seven times hotter than they are wont, sway
him for a moment from adherence to the interests of soul as against
even the existence of the body.
Now, how has such an eminence of character been attained? Not
altogether by individual evolution. Ancestral tendencies, parental
example, the great force of strong, eternal principles, the moral
muscle acquired in the gymnasium of temptation, and confessedly and
especially a spiritual force vouchsafed from without, have wrought out
this greatest result of heaven and earth. Of some men you expect
nothing but goodness and greatness. They would belie all the
tendencies of their blood to be otherwise than good. Some are
constantly trained under the mighty influences of great principles that
sway men as much as gravitation sways the worlds. What could be
expected of the men of '76 when the air was electric with patriotism?
What could be expected of men whose childhood was filled with the
sacrifices of men who made themselves pilgrims and strangers over the
earth, from England to Holland and thence over the drear and
inhospitable sea to America, for the sake of liberty? What could be
expected of men whose whole ancestry was cut off by the slaughter
following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and they themselves
exiled for liberty to worship God? What can be expected of men who
have been tried in the furnace of temptation till they are pure gold?
Nay, more, what can be expected of men who have in these temptations
been strengthened out of God? Besides the strength of development by
the resistance of evil, they have found that God made a way of escape,
that he strengthened, them and that they were thus by supernal power
able to bear it. Nay, rather, what may not be expected of such men?
But we will not forget that this great outcome is precisely the plan of
God for every man's life, and that when man works he finds that there
are forces outside of him thoroughly cooperative with him. He starts a
rock down the mountain side, but gravitation reaches out ready fingers
and hurls it a thousand times faster and faster. He launches his ship
on the sea and the wind and steam carry it thousands of miles. He
speaks his quiet breath into the ear of the phone and electricity
carries it in every tone and inflection of personal quality a thousand
miles. He vows, and works for purity and greatness of personal
character, and a thousand gravitations of love, a thousand great winds
of Pentecost, a thousand vital principles on which all greatness hangs,
a thousand influences of other men, and especially a thousand personal
aids of a present God, cooperate with his plans and works.
Of course every man who believes in a new type so high that good birth,
wealth, culture, education, and broad opportunity cannot attain it
believes in the divine co-operation to that end. It must be born of
the Spirit. God sends forth his Spirit into our hearts crying, Abba,
Father! It pleases the Father himself to reveal his Son in us.
Not only is this cooperation true in regard to the beginning of this
higher life, but especially so in regard to the development and
perfection of that life into the stature of perfect manhood in Christ
Jesus. By continuous effort to lead into all truth, by intensity of
endeavor that can only be represented by groanings that cannot be
worded in human speech, the perfection of saints is sought.
And in the final glorification of those saints every man will say
nothing of his own efforts, but all the praise will be unto him who
hath redeemed us unto God, and washed us in his blood.
To what extent, then, may we expect God will lend his forces to work
out our plans? First, in so far as those forces have to do with the
maturing and perfecting of our character they become his plans. No
energy will be withheld. All our plans should be such. The end in
character may often be attained as well by failure of our plans as by
success. God has to choose the poor in this world's things, rich in
faith, to do his great work. And he has to make "the best laid schemes
o' mice and men gang aft a-gley" to get the desired outcome of
character. He is then working with, not against, us. He would rather
have any star for his crown of glory than tons of perishable gold.
But outside of our plans and work for ourselves what cooperation may we
expect in our plans and work for others?
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