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Page 33
Closely allied to warnings against moral danger, which are so vivid as
sometimes to be almost audible, are the evidences of what may be called
spiritual protection. The idea of guardian angels and tutelary deities
arose naturally and inevitably. Many who have been astonishingly
delivered from spiritual peril have been able to find no other
explanation of their escape. Those who receive the confidences of their
fellow-men have little difficulty in believing such a story as was once
confided to me. An able and prominent man who had, resolutely as he
thought, turned from a course of conduct which threatened disaster,
found himself drawn toward the evil from which he supposed that he had
been forever delivered. The attraction seemed to be resistless. Again
and again he was on the verge of falling when the fall would have been
ruin. Then something made it morally impossible for him to enter upon
the path which he had determined to follow. The means used to dissuade
him were various. Sometimes a friend would call, then a duty would
intervene, then some obligation would press until, to use his own way of
phrasing it,--"it seemed as if some unseen person who could read my
thoughts and desires was walking by my side and, as fast as I was in
danger of yielding to evil, ordering events so as to prevent me from
doing what I wanted to do."
Few men who are trying to live on spiritual levels would hesitate to
acknowledge that they have been the subjects of similar protection. The
peculiar feature about it all is that the agents used are so often
entirely unconscious of the influence which they are exerting. An
unseen hand seems to be guiding our moves on the chess-board of life, so
as to check us every time that we are inclined to play falsely. I do not
mean that all are persuaded toward virtue, but I do mean that enough are
protected from moral evil and spiritual peril to justify the belief that
such ministries are around all; and that those who choose to do wrong do
so in the face of spiritual appeals which, if they would but give them
heed, would make resistance of evil easy and successful. If any one who
reads these words doubts my conclusions, let him study his own life,
with a little care, and learn for himself whether there are not many
hours in which he is almost persuaded to accept the ancient doctrine of
guardian angels.
This phase of the spiritual experience is rendered still more vivid when
we remember that the souls of men are perpetually dissatisfied with
present attainments, and ever eager in their efforts to explore the
unseen. The history of human thought, if it could be written, would show
that the mind has never been satisfied with what it has possessed, and
that each new glimpse of truth has stimulated still more ardent inquiry.
The more it is pondered the more impressive this fact becomes. The soul
seems to have had just before it, in all the stages of its development,
a spiritual forerunner opening a way into larger and fairer realms. This
consciousness is not akin to a passion for wealth. A man with enormous
riches often ceases to acquire, and devotes himself to the enjoyment of
what he possesses; but who ever heard of a thoughtful man who felt that
he might cease investigating and devote himself to the pleasures of
knowledge? Such instances there may have been, but they are not numerous
and have never been recorded.
Of course there are many, who in no true sense can be called seekers
after truth, who do not trouble themselves with questions about the
Unseen. They chew the cud of custom with all the placidity of
good-natured oxen. They do not live,--they simply exist. It is possible
for any man to shut his eyes to the light, but that does not banish the
light. It envelops him, and pours its splendors around him, regardless
of his wilful blindness. Millions are so engrossed with selfishness, or
animalism, that they catch the accents of no spiritual message, but
those appeals are never hushed. The deafness of the multitudes who will
not hear does not prove that no voices are calling.
In some way men have been kept dissatisfied with their ignorance and
persistent in their search for truth. I make no distinction between
sacred and secular here because all truth is sacred. Scientist and
theologian alike have to do with reality. Whether we examine the tracks
of an extinct animal on ancient rocks, or bow our heads in prayer, we
are facing a real world which is steadily enlarging. For centuries men
have sought the causes of things; they have been made to feel that they
ought to do right, and then have been inspired with a passion to
discover the right. This is very wonderful. The being who has almost
limitless powers of physical enjoyment, whose senses are exquisitely
fitted for pleasure, is not satisfied with pleasure, but, in obedience
to unseen attractions, ever seeks for higher things. Whence does this
eagerness come? Is it from man himself? Then our problem is great
indeed, for, at one and the same time, something within himself impels
him upward, and another something drags him downward. But the point for
special consideration now is that the soul is never satisfied with
anything but truth, that the history of thought is the record of the
search for truth, that every new discovery has acted as a stimulus to
still more ardent exploration, and that the search is always for
elemental realities, the causes of phenomena, for "things as they are."
The promise of Jesus was fulfilled long before it was spoken. Some one,
in all the ages, has been leading into truth and showing things to come;
and the process was never more evident than after all these years of
intellectual and spiritual progress. I say some one has led. By that I
mean a personal spirit, unseen, but ever present; for how could he whose
home is in the mire be supposed, steadily and unwaveringly, to reach
toward the skies unless there was some attraction in the skies? The only
attraction for one spirit is another spirit. This age-long, unwavering
passion for truth and progress, the wisest of men have believed to have
been inspired by Providence or God or by guardian angels--which after
all are only other ways of stating the doctrine of Jesus concerning the
Holy Spirit.
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