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Page 15
This, then, is the first great practical lesson that we learn from the
study of the laws of our human nature, taken in their widest aspect,
under the teaching of the Divine Master, the "open secret" of overcoming
in man and woman alike, that which restores to us our whole nature, and
vindicates it, even in the depths of disorder into which it has
practically fallen, as originally bearing the Divine stamp. The more
unconscious we are in the pursuit of physical good, the better for the
ends of life; the more conscious we are in the pursuit of moral and
spiritual good, the nearer we are to that kingdom of righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost which we seek. Get out of the narrow
individualism or atomism--for let us never forget that individual and
atom are the same word--which threatens to dwarf and pulverize us, which
keeps within our view only the narrow range of our own interests and
defeats their true pursuit by the very intensity of attention it
concentrates upon them; and live, as Goethe says, "in the beautiful, the
good, and the whole," the kingdom of the Eternal. Have the higher
passion that casts out the lower. The physician whose conscious aim is
the relief of human suffering and the enforcement of the laws of health,
even though a large professional income may be added to him; the lawyer
who regards himself as the minister of the Just One to uphold the law of
right and equity, whose reputation does not rest on his skill in getting
off a fraudulent company without costs, and who makes his money not by
his "practices," but by his honest practice; the man of science who
reverently devotes himself, as the servant of the truth, to "think God's
thoughts after Him," in the words of Kepler's prayer, and establish the
kingdom of law and order, in the humbleness of conscious limitation
which forbids dogmatizing; the artist who is true to his art and does
not subordinate the laws of the eternal Loveliness to the shifting laws
of the temporary market; the capitalist who looks upon himself as the
steward of the public good, and to whom material gain is the means and
not the end; the workman who does good work for the kingdom of God's
sake, knowing that every stroke of good work is a brick in the palace
of the great King, and who scorns to scamp because it pays; and,
generally speaking, every man who is so intent on helping and serving
others that his thoughts are taken off himself and centred on
another--these are the men who are seeking first a kingdom of God,
wherein dwelleth righteousness; these are the men who, living in the
higher life can rule the lower--the men whose feet are in the lilies,
and to whom the floods of earthly passion, even when they beat hardest,
end in the flight of a dove and in a triumphal arch of light.
Now, you will see at once the intensely practical bearing of this
teaching on the training of your boys. You are not called to hit down
directly on the evil, to give warnings against vice, or to speak on
things which your womanhood unspeakably shrinks from mentioning. What
you are called to do is to secure, so far as you can, that the mind and
soul moves on its own proper plane. It is more an attitude you have to
form than a warning you have to give. And here it is that the imperative
need of high positive teaching comes in. Till parents, and especially
mothers, recognize their God-given functions as the moral teachers of
their own children, till they cease to shunt off their responsibilities
on the professional shoulders of the schoolmaster, we had better frankly
give up the whole question in despair. Strange and sad it seems to me
that at the end of the nineteenth century after the coming of our Lord
I should have to plead that the moral law is possible under every
condition to any man, and that parents are _ipso facto_ the moral
teachers of their own children. And yet it is the denial, tacit or
explicit, of these two primary truths that has been the greatest
obstacle to the progress of my work.
But I appeal to you: Who but a mother can bring such a constant and
potent influence to bear as to secure the mind and character moving on
its own higher plane in relation to the whole of this side of our
nature? Who so well as a mother can teach the sacredness of the body as
the temple of the Eternal? Who else can implant in her son that habitual
reverence for womanhood which to a man is "as fountains of sweet water
in the bitter sea" of life? Who like a mother, as he grows to years of
sense and observation, and the curiosity is kindled, which is only a cry
for light and teaching, can so answer the cry and so teach as to make
the mysteries of life and truth to be for ever associated for him with
all the sacred associations of home and his own mother, and not with the
talk of the groom or the dirty-minded schoolboy? Who so well as a
mother, as he passes into dawning manhood, can plead faithfulness to the
future wife before marriage as well as after? Nay, as I hold by the old
Spanish proverb "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy," who
like a mother, by her prayers and ever-present example and influence,
can lead him to the Highest, and impress upon him that his life is
given him for no lower end than, in the words of the Westminster
Confession, "to know God and to glorify Him for ever"; and that
therefore he is made on a very high plan--as Browning puts it, "Heaven's
consummate cup," whose end is to slake "the Master's thirst"; and that
the cup from which He drinks must be clean inside as well as out, and
studded within and without with the pearl of purity?
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