BOOK NOTICES RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE The Duty of Imperial Thinking. By W. L. WATKINSON, D.D. Crown 8vo, pp. 270. New Fifty-three brief Bible studies, or essays on Scripture texts, marked by Dr. Watkinson's well-known genius for illustration and fertile suggestiveness. Part of the essay which gives title to the book is as follows: "It is only as we realize our relation to the ages, to all who came before us, to all who succeed us, striving to do our duty to the whole, that we are conscious of dignity, strength, and satisfaction. Thinking imperially, recognizing ourselves in mankind, and becoming its helper, we taste a pure, vast joy impossible to a life centered in mean egotism and the narrow sphere of personal interests. An essential way to redeem life from insignificance and satiety is to identify ourselves with a great cause. Mr. Sanborn writes thus of Thoreau: "The atmosphere of earnest purpose which pervaded the great movement for the emancipation of the slaves gave to the Thoreau family an elevation of character which was ever after perceptible, and imparted an air of dignity to the trivial details of life.' Identification with a great cause imparts elevation to the humblest sincere and intelligent coworker. One of the best things arising out of political partisanship is that it gives a touch of largeness to lives otherwise paltry and squalid. Identification with the temperance crusade, the cause of purity or mercy, or any other similar movement, lifts men into a larger sphere, and creates a satisfying sense of the value and glory of life. A great enthusiasm tends to make small men great, or, at least to evoke the greatness that otherwise would have remained latent. Best of all, let us recognize in its fullness the government of God bringing in the kingdom of Christ; here we have the sum of all great causes. To plan and pray for the establishment of Christ's reign in the whole earth is indeed to think imperially. Nothing small or mean can dwell in a soul dominated by this great thought and fired by this sublime passion. What many of us need, to forget our sorrows, to banish our weariness, to overcome our indifference and disgust with life, to fill our days with poetry and romance, is to enlist in a great cause, to serve our nation and race, to become workers in that kingdom that ruleth all, and that ruleth all to the end of filling the world with righteousness and peace. 'For Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through Thy work: I will triumph in the works of Thy hands.' Naturalists affirm that the size of the fish found in Central Africa is subtly influenced by the dimensions of the lake in which they live, the same species being larger or smaller in proportion to the scale of their habitat. Living in a small world, we men dwindle and wither; but as knowledge and imagination, faith and hope, make us citizens of a vaster universe, corresponding characters of glory are imprinted on our soul." In a chapter on the possibility of the soul's restoration from sin is this passage: "There is within the soul itself an instinct of hope which the greatest disaster can hardly extinguish. The doctrines of metempsychosis and of purgatory, in the opinion of some, show the natural unwillingness of men to believe in final defeat and failure. Hope springs eternal in the human breast. Picturing the conduct of men during an awful storm at sea, Victor Hugo observes: 'By degrees, however, they began to hope again. Such are the unsubmergible mirages of the soul! There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths.' The text is an appeal to this very instinct. 'Shall they fall, and not arise? shall he turn away, and not return?' Is it not a natural instinct that, if one stumbles, he attempts to rise again? if one wanders, he seeks to return to the point whence he departed? God appeals to that instinct of recovery, that temper of hope, which he has established deep in the heart. However abjectly we sink, that bit of blue, that gilt of a star, that fainting halo of the sunset which yet lingers in the guiltiest soul, assures us that God has not forgotten to be gracious, and prompts us to penitence and faith, to hope and effort." An essay on the words "The Mountains shall bring Peace" contains this on the connection between elevation and peace: "The consciousness of God, the knowledge of his everlasting righteousness, the experience of the truth, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ, the sense of eternity-these high truths can deeply move us, restrain us, inspire us, guarantee our utmost salvation, and nothing else can. Peace amid the frictions and wounds of outward life is only possible whilst the soul is uplifted and invigorated by heavenly virtue. Only as we transcend our troubles can we master them. The greatness and loftiness of the mountain must pass into our mind, the wideness and depth of the sea into our heart, if we are to live untroubled by the vicissitudes of human fortune. A thousand pretentious maxims and manœuvres designed to keep trouble at a distance are little less than absurd; vexation and pain must be swallowed up in thoughts and consolations not of this world. The psalmist bemoans himself: 'O that I had wings like a dove! Then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness. I would haste me to a shelter from the stormy wind and tempest.' There is a truer way than this out of a painful situation. Mr. Hudson tells us that in Patagonia he was much surprised by the behavior of a couple of sweet songsters during a thunderstorm. On a still, sultry day in summer he was standing watching masses of black cloud coming rapidly over the sky, while a hundred yards from him stood the two birds also apparently watching the approaching storm with interest. Presently the edge of the cloud touched the sun, and a twilight gloom fell on the earth. The very moment the sun disappeared the birds rose up and began singing their long resounding notes, though it was loudly thundering at the time, while vivid flashes of lightning lit the black cloud overhead. He watched their flight and listened to their notes, till suddenly as they made a wide sweep upwards they disappeared in the cloud, and their voices seemed to come from an immense distance. The cloud continued emitting sharp flashes of light ning, but the birds never reappeared, and after six or seven minutes once more their notes sounded loud and clear above the muttering thunder. They had passed through the cloud into the clear atmosphere above it, and the naturalist expresses his surprise at their fearlessness. But really did not these sweet singers, passing through the thunder-cloud and singing above it, show us the true policy for dark days? We must not attempt to evade our troubles, not to resist them, not to fly before them, but simply to transcend them. Soaring into the clear atmosphere above, the thunder will not terrify nor the lightning smite. We become oblivious of a score of things which irritate and wound others to madness. Just as those wise, brave birds mounted beyond the tempest into the blue heavens and golden sunshine, so the devout soul in faith and prayer, in hallowed thought and feeling, wings its way into the calm azure of the heaven of heavens until the storms are overpast and gone. Even whilst yet in the flesh we are with the angels, and with glorified spirits who dwell in the stillness where beyond these voices there is peace. In those serene heights Christ dwells and ever exhorts his people, Lift up your eyes to the heavens where I sit; in faith and hope and love claim your place by my side; and your heart shall not be troubled, neither shall it be afraid." On Satan's question "Doth Job fear God for nought?" Dr. Watkinson comments thus: "Human nature is capable of far more disinterestedness than it usually gets credit for. Selfish instincts are indeed strong, and sadly overlay the higher instincts, yet we are often reminded of the latent poetry of the human heart. Miss Anna Swanwick, the translator of the dramas of Eschylus, formed a class of shopgirls and servants. Once, when she was trying to interest them in Milton's poetry, someone suggested that instruction in arithmetic would be more suitable and useful, considering their work and their future. Miss Swanwick thought not, but resolved to leave it to themselves to decide. So at their next meeting she put the question to them, 'Which do you preferinstruction in the poets or in bookkeeping?' and, not to hasten their decision, left them to discuss it among themselves, telling them that she would come back for their answer. When she returned she found that only two of the girls were in favor of what bore upon their ordinary work; all the rest wished what would take them away from it or lift them above it. We get splendid glimpses of the higher susceptibilities and possibilities of human nature when and where we least expect them; a noble idealism triumphs over gross secularism, flashing out like a diamond in the dark. By the glorious energy of divine light and grace this faculty of disinterestedness is stimulated until the love of truth, right, and beauty fills the soul, and the whole man is mastered by the highest impulses and forces, unconscious of meaner interests and hopes. The raiser of the celebrated Shirley poppy tells how he noticed in a waste corner of his garden a patch of common wild field-poppies, one solitary flower having a very narrow edge of white; preserving its seed, and by careful and diligent culture year by year, the successive flowers got a larger infusion of white to tone down the red, whilst the black central portion was gradually changed, until the flower throughout became absolutely a pure white. Just as the skill of man, taking advantage of a slight tendency in the flower, transforms the black heart and fiery leaves of a poisonous weed into a sort of eucharistic lily; so divine grace seizes upon the gracious susceptibilities of degenerate nature, and converts the selfish soul into the rarest beauty of purity and disinterestedness. We have seen too many delightful changes worked in humanity to doubt this crowning transformation." A sermon-essay on Vicarious Faith, from Mark 2. 3, has the following: "What we can do for our friends circumstantially is even exceeded by what we can do for them touching character. A German writer justly observes: 'Esteem your brother to be good, and he is so. Confide in the half-virtuous man, and he becomes wholly virtuous. Encourage your pupil by the assumption that he possesses certain faculties, and they will be developed in him.' In moral attainment and efficiency vicarious faith, working by love, avails much. We must remember this in dealing with children. Let your child know that you believe in him, that you are satisfied as to his capacity and ability for goodness, without prophesying smooth things anticipate good things, and you have gone a long way toward making him all you could wish him to be. Your faith makes it easy for the child to believe. In the treatment of young persons generally this canon of education must be followed. Esteem them to be good, confide in them, assume that they are genuine and sincere, and your faith on their behalf stimulates and saves them. In dealing with the lapsed never forget this secret. The morally impotent and palsied, the blind and crippled, the leprous and dying, are saved by hope, and our hope may kindle that of the most forlorn and despairing. Seeing our faith the shipwrecked brother, perchance, takes heart again, and struggles into that higher life our charity painted for him. In our intercourse with one another let us always proceed on these grounds of mutual faith, love, and hope. And there is nothing quixotic in this belief in and for one another, in and for the worst. All men have a great capacity for salvation; and faith, sympathy, and sacrifice work wonders. The very best way in which we can serve our fellows is to get them to Christ; believing in him, and in his power to save those who come to him, let us despair of no one. Let us imitate the courage of these bearers of the sick of the palsy. They dared much, and their boldness and aggressiveness carried the day. Let us imitate the sympathy of this ambulance corps. Without a real love to men we shall never undertake anything desperate on their behalf. Let us emulate the sacrificial spirit of these helpers of the helpless. After Christ has borne the cross for us we ought not to shrink from any burden that implies the salvation of the lost. Finally, let us be instructed by the combination of these heroic friends in the interest of the palsied. 'Borne of four.' Coöperation goes far in the salvation of men. Parent, teacher, preacher, and friend must unite if salvation is to come to the house. Iron chests holding great treasure are sometimes secured by three or four locks, and it is only by the concurrence of those who hold the several keys that the chest can be opened. Thus again and again the treasures of grace are reached only as two or three agree in prayer and effort. When Epworth parsonage was burnt, the child John Wesley was saved through an upper window by neighbors who stood on each other's shoulders. Thus the soul itself is often a brand plucked from the burning by the combined sympathies, supplications, and sacrifices of those who have caught the spirit of the Master." The Forgotten Secret. By W. J. DAWSON. 16mo, pp. 64. New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company. Price, cloth, 50 cents, net. If one wishes to read a spiritualizing book on prayer, or if a minister intends preaching on that vital theme and wants to have mind and heart filled for such a sermon, this slim little book may be recommended as a quickening and illuminating volume. Its title is taken from the eminent scientist, Sir Oliver Lodge, who recently declared prayer to be the Forgotten Secret of the Church. Concerning the meaning of the human instinct to pray, felt and seen the world over and the centuries through, it is justly said that if prayer has no significance, no use, and no real relation to the economy of life, it is clearly the most extraordinary delusion that ever possessed the human mind. "It is as though a man should stand at a telephone whose wire is cut, speaking thousands of messages to an unhearing ear, and inventing replies which have their only origin in his own imagination. The incoherent brain of madness could invent no crazier occupation. Either he who scoffs at prayer or they who practice it are mad-there is no escape from the dilemma. But it is scarcely possible that immemorial custom has no sanction in experience. Reason itself affirms some intelligent Presence at the other end of the telephone. It is incredible that vast generations of men, and among them the wisest and the best, should have spent their lives talking to their own Echo." The reaching out of the soul in prayer is thus illustrated: "We have all seen in the clear green water of the sea-pools those delicate creatures which children speak of by the common term, 'jelly-fish.' Inactive, they have little beauty, but as we watch them a sudden prompting seizes them, and they push out a score of exquisite tentacles and filaments, which find a response in elements unseen by us. So when a man truly prays the delicate tentacles of the soul push themselves out, and explore the infinite in search of God. The human soul seeks the Soul of the universe, until it grips, and is gripped by, the living force of God. We apprehend that by which we are apprehended. The Soul of the universe enfolds our soul, and for an instant the life of God flows into our being, enriching and invigorating it. When we use these latter terms of enrichment and invigoration, we admit the reflex influence of prayer; but we claim the positive act also of a real contact with God. And as the questing tentacles in the green sea-water find elements of nutriment invisible to us, so our souls feed on God, and draw into the secret fountains of our life the force of His divine being. This is prayer as Christ conceived it. He and the Father were one-one in the mystery of contact, communion, sipirtual absorption. Prayer is thus the commingling of two personalities: thou and thy Father: a conscious contact of my consciousness and God's consciousness; and these two in the act of prayer become for me the only two abiding realities in the universe." |