02 - Character
II CHARACTER THE vows of Baptism which are renewed in Confirmation are two, a vow of character and a vow of belief. The vow of character is twofold and is as follows, Question. Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led by them?
Answer. I renounce them all; and, by God’s help, will endeavour not to follow, nor be led by them.
Question. Wilt thou then obediently keep God’s holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of thy life?
Answer. I will, by God’s help. The Church thus puts character first.
Let us analyze the archaic language of these two ancient vows concerning character. One is a vow of renunciation; the other, a vow of obedience or loyalty.
RENUNCIATION On the threshold of Christian responsibility is Renunciation. ’Deliver us from evil/ is an essential prayer, taught by the Lord Himself. The philosophy which bids a soul yield itself to every impulse, to get rid of all inhibitions, and to toss all the ’Thou shalt nots’ into the fire, is altogether impossible for anyone who would obey and follow Christ. There are certain things which a Christian must not do. i
First, we renounce the devil and all his works. Put into plain English, that means denying ourselves all the things which we know are bad. They are defined in the Ten Commandments. No sophistry, no modern code can excuse the Christian from fighting the temptation which looks out from each of these ancient laws.
Sometimes the tempting companion tries to explain to us that the deed which we have always thought wrong is not really wrong: all the world does this deed, it is natural; therefore enter into it, and do it. This reminds me of a visit I once made to a Sunday-school. The Rector was catechizing his children. ’Children/ he said, ’if you know a thing is wrong, what do you do?’ Every boy and girl shouted, * Don’t do it.’ ’If you are not sure that a thing is wrong/ pursued the Rector, ’what do you do?’ With equal force came the answer, ’Don’t do it.’ ’And what do you do then?’ asked the Rector. And the full answer followed from every throat, ’Ask my mother!’ That is sound doctrine for every Christian, old as well as young.
Don’t do anything of which you are doubtful till you have consulted someone whom you love and respect as a normal child loves and respects his mother.
I do not here give specific illustrations. The Christian is expected to use his conscience. The conscience which is not tampered with knows instinctively what is wrong. When a companion or a great bratoT or a clever newspaper tries to tamper with your conscience, take counsel with the best and noblest person you know.
Fortify your conscience,’ Keep it clean and straight. Be sure that you decline to do the things which you know are wrong.
Secondly, the vain pomp and glory of the world. Worldliness must be renounced.
There are things, perfectly innocent in themselves, which must be renounced when they stand in the way of something that is better.
Card-playing, if it is not for money, is a sound and right diversion among friends.
Tired people can lay aside their cares, and so gain refreshment for harder work the next morning. But when card-playing is made a business, when it absorbs the interest of life, when women can talk of little else than their bridge scores, and all good reading and sensible conversation are crowded to the wall, card-playing becomes a sin, and the Christian must flee from it.
I recall a summer holiday which I spent among high mountains at a great inn.
Every morning and every afternoon as well as every evening a group of people met on the porches to play bridge. I never met them on a mountain trail, I never saw them open a book, I never saw them even look at a mountain. They were in the presence of a unique opportunity in a marvellous scene, but they turned their backs upon it to play cards. Even the man of the world said that they were fools.
There have been times when the Puritan sense which is a fine strain, to be honoured has said that a Christian ought not to dance or go to the theatre. Improper dancing and improper plays are, of’ course, to be shunned. If your conscience tells you that a kind of dancing is wrong, or that a play is bad, let no one meddle with the veracity of your conscientious judgment. But is it possible that even good dancing and good plays may be wrong? I answer, Yes: whenever they become so absorbing that they drive out something better. For example, it is wrong to go to a dance on Saturday night and to be so wearied by it that you are not fresh and alert for the Sunday morning worship. I am convinced that to bring the best and clearest mind and heart to the Sunday morning at church is so far the best thing a man or woman can do for himself or his neighbour during the whole week, that I plainly put down as a sin any otherwise innocent diversion on a Saturday night which can dull the soul to its great opportunity of inspiring cooperation in worship with all the people. Theatre-going, like wise, may be so incessant and engrossing, that people may use up their emotions on a tragic scene, weep as if they had lost a near relative, and then come out into the night to meet face to face a real tragedy in a broken life which staggers by them; they do not so much as see the tragedy, much less imagine the agony which is hidden there. To the phrase the vain pomp and glory of the world, the vow adds, with all covetous desires of the same. The most worldly are often people who have no money or position but who crave them inordinately.
They covet worldliness. Think of business.
Business in its highest aspect may be counted a real vocation. The affairs of this world are important and must be administered honestly and capably. Further, it is right that a man should plan for the sup port and education of his children. But business may easily outrun its proper bounds. A man may forget everything but the joy of amassing money. He may give such unwearying thought to the fluctuations of the market, such anxiety to his possible losses and gains, that he can think of nothing else. He has no interest in literature, or science, or religion. Sometimes men plan to give up business at a certain age and devote themselves to the richer compensations of life. But they often find it too late. Poetry bores them, Macaulay or Charles Lamb puts them to sleep, and they cannot keep their attention on even a short service in church. They are thinking all the time of their offices or the Stock Exchange, of their business victories and defeats. Their minds and hearts are dried up. They have wasted their lives on what must die with them. So too a woman may covet a place in the world which she has not yet attained.
She may basely humble herself to the dust before some social leader for the chance of an invitation. She may even sacrifice her daughter to an unhappy marriage with some conspicuous man who has everything but character and love. The tragedies which follow worldly, ambitious mothers are heart-breaking. The Christian Church grew in power while it was dangerous to be a Christian. But when the Emperor Constantine brought his court into the Church, and made Christianity fashionable, the Church almost died of worldliness. It is r*o accident therefore that the Church puts upon the lips of its children this vow to renounce worldliness. The world and Christianity cannot keep company. Christ said, ’Be of good cheer: I have overcome the world. We must overcome it too. It matters not whether we have great place or little place in the world. To exult in that place or to repine is equally vicious. Our only rejoicing must be that we are members of that Lord Jesus who, with no earthly symbols of grandeur or power, was King of kings.
It is still possible to gain the whole world and to lose our own souls. It is still possible to say, ’Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years/ and then instantly to hear the Voice, ’This night is thy soul required of thee’ and we wake to find that we have no souls: they have been frittered away in worldliness.
Whether a man be rich or poor, learned or ignorant, eminent or insignificant, he cannot speak, or even think, of social classes. There are no social distinctions in Christianity. One is our Master, even Christ; and all we are brethren. Being his brothers we have the highest rank in earth or heaven, and any other rank is not only worldly but is the merest tinsel. In the long eternity before us all, we shall find the unknown saints in the high places and the outwardly prominent of this world who have nothing but an exterior pomp will be in the little places for which their poverty of soul has fitted them. We may each go about his tasks in this world; enjoying the innocent pleasures which the worldprovides, but not depending on the world, not coveting its glory, remembering only the great and absorbing reality of being the honoured disciples of the King of kings. A Christian then must definitely and absolutely renounce the world, just as Christ the Master renounced it.
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Thirdly, the Christian must renounce the sinful desires of the flesh. The Duty towards my Neighbour defines this vow, *To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity/ Saint Paul defines it, ’To keep under my body.
There are great physical desires hidden away in our lives. Every one of them, in due time, has its legitimate opportunity, which in the sight of God is sacred. The sin comes in gratifying our desires at the wrong time, or in excess.
Temperance we ordinarily associate with drink. It applies equally to food, and above all to what we call temper or anger. To be always eating candy is intemperance. To be greedy at the table is in temperance. To let fly the biting, sarcastic remark on every provocation is intemperance. To be always smoking, so that one’s clothes reek offensively with the smell of stale tobacco is intemperance. To grow hot with rage, and so blur the vision, when calmness would win justice, is intemperance.
Still in the sin of intemperance the danger of overdrinking is paramount. The problem for us in America is complicated by the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Loyalty to law and order is involved as well as loyalty to a man’s individual sense of right. The Nation has recognized the grave peril of intoxicating drink: it sees peril to travellers by motor or by railway; it sees peril to industry in all its highest forms; it sees peril to the family of the wage-earner, by which little children shall not have enough to eat; most of all it sees peril to the genius, to the talented, by which their skill shall be lost to the world. Whether the Nation has taken the right way to meet this peril is beside the question. Every man with an open mind and the wit of a bird knows that there is peril. That a nation tries to meet it in any way whatever deserves both sympathy and cooperation.
Quite apart from the Eighteenth Amendment, I have this counsel for any boy or girl, for any young man or young woman. The disaster is so overwhelming, that were I you I should determine to be a total abstainer. It is easy to say No if you say that you never touch strong drink; and you will always be respected. When I see a boy, whose father, uncle, or grandfather has made a wreck of life through hard drinking, and when I see that boy, in college, in the bonds of what he calls good-fellowship, drinking recklessly, not often but some times to drunkenness, I tremble for the future. Here is a boy, with education, with warm friends, with spirit, perhaps even with genius, who is walking on the edge of a precipice. He may walk safely on, and come out on the heights; or, just as easily, he may, in a moment of unconsciousness or stupor, fall over the edge, and be one more ruin in the ranks of privileged humanity. The way surely to be temperate in drink, is to be a frank and avowed total abstainer. A total abstainer may help others than himself. Bishop Henry Potter once told a brilliant young man that through in temperance, he was in danger of ruining his career. The young man replied, c But I see you take your glass of wine at dinner. Instantly the Bishop replied, c lf that is what troubles you, I shall gladly sign a pledge with you to be a total abstainer the rest of my life/ The young man saw how much the Bishop cared, and thus was saved for a beneficent future. It is pathetic to see fathers who care more for what they call their personal liberty than for their sons’ happiness and success, setting these sons bad examples of caring more for a personal indulgence than for the certainty of self-control and self-mastery. When we turn to the delicate subject of purity, we shall find the best counsel from the mother, the father, the rector, or the beloved family physician. Every boy and girl has a right to the sacred facts of life from one who feels full responsibility and has a real love and reverence for the growing lad or lass. I can, therefore, give here only a few general principles.
Let everyone remember that his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. If any companion or older person tempts to any deed or word that would stain that body, let the No of the conscience be instantly obeyed.
If the tempter persists, share your perplexity with your mother or your father, or with one who stands in their place the headmaster of your school, for example. The surest guide is God’s Voice speaking directly to the conscience. Let no one tell you that the Do or the Don’t which He speaks to you can be shaded down. When the time comes for marriage, be sure that you know thoroughly the person whom you intend to marry. Take counsel with older and wiser people. Be sure that when you say, ’Till death us do part/ you mean it. Remember that marriage is not self-indulgence, but love in all its aspects, including mutual consideration, self-sacrifice, infinite patience. There will be no question for you of separation or divorce, if you hold before you this white ideal of the sacredness of marriage. And if you have not this ideal, you have no right to the privilege and happiness of marriage.
Like all greatest things in life, marriage makes great demands, and these demands must be met by every Christian with full loyalty and lifelong devotion.
Only God can give you strength to be victorious in the temptations of life, and you will fail again and again. You there foresay that by God’s help you will endeavour not to follow, nor be led by your temptations. You have the will to avoid all that is wrong; and it is your will for which God asks in Confirmation. God is patient about all the rest. ii
OBEDIENCE Renunciation alone is not enough. Renunciation is only negative goodness.
Therefore the Church asks of us positive virtues. We are not given a list of virtues, but are asked if we will keep God’s holy will and commandments, and will walk in them all the days of our life. God’s will and commandments are known best through Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is the most authoritative divine statement of the virtues which belong to a Christian.
Therefore the most important command and the most inclusive, is the command of Christ, ’Follow me/ How then shall we follow our Saviour?
First, we may follow Christ by knowing about Him. That means reading over and over again the Four Gospels, We may never assume that we know them, for each time we read a page of the Gospels we discover that since the last time we read that particular page, our own experience has thrown new light on its words and its deeds. It is important if we are to follow the example of Christ that we live day by day with Him as we discover Him in the simple Gospel record. There we shall kindle our love; there we shall learn what will please Him; there we shall begin to enter His friendship.
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Secondly, we may follow Christ as we see Him enshrined in the noble people who live about us. There are some people who are so good that the only way we can explain them is to say that Christ lives in them. In Milan is Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. Soon after it was painted, the walls being damp, the picture began to fade away. Artists tried to restore it, but only indifferently succeeded. It is hard to know the picture Da Vinci painted as one stands before the original in the old monastery in Milan. But before Da Vinci died his pupils began to copy the great picture; and to-day copies and copies of those copies are scattered over Europe. So when we in America wish a copy of this painting, we send the artist to see, first of all, the dim original, and then to see the excellent copies. One copy will have one trait of the original; another, another. So the artist builds up his new copy, and at length brings home what, we may be confident, is a just idea of the original picture as Da Vinci painted it. In much the same way we may think of the first disciples who saw our Lord face to face. They so loved and adored Him that He came to live with and in them. When He had vanished, I think men said as they saw Peter and John going through their villages, ’It seems as if the Lord Jesus had been here to-day!* and of course He had been there, in the lives of His true and earnest followers. Before this first generation of disciples passed, the youth of the next generation caught up the life of Jesus as they knew Him in their masters and friends. And so all down the ages Christ has been passing from man to man, in a living succession, and we see Him to-day in the good and true around us. One has one great trait; another, another. And as we study this life or that which embodies His transcendent Spirit we learn as we can learn in no other way the goodness and truth and beauty of the Lord Christ.
Follow Him as you see Him in the noble people of your own time. Learn virtues which you never could learn from any book. Catch the glory of His life, and admit Him to your own everyday living.
Bid Him enter and abide with you.
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Finally, we may follow Christ by knowing Him directly. Our Master is not a dead Christ. He is not simply an historic character. He is alive with power as no other on this earth is alive. We may learn from Him face to face what He would have us do.
We sometimes read of men who confine their obedience to Christ to the conditions of the first century. They try to fit the expanded and varied difficulties of our day into one of our Lord’s days in Galilee. And if they are honest, they find the task impossible. Christ gave men great principles, and the definite applications of those principles will necessarily differ from age to age. We know this by studying the lives of men who are obviously filled with the life of Christ, men who knew Him not only as He lived in Palestine, but as He lived with them in their own century. So we must become intimate with the Christ of our 7 own day, just as Saint Paul became aware of the Christ of the Damascus Road, just as this same Saint Paul could say, * It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me. If you would have the positive virtues and joys of a Christian, you must follow the living Christ. Pray that you may enter that living discipleship.
Once more, the pledge to the positive goodness of Christianity is not a pledge of attainment, or an infallible promise of perfection. It is but the will to be like our Master, and it is pledged by God’s help. It is by what we wish to be that God judges us.