Psalms 119:79 - Homilies By R. Tuck

Experience can teach.

It is said that "Experience is a dear school, but fools will learn in no other." The proverb is in a large sense true, but we want it now only to fix the point that experience is a school ; experience can teach, does teach. In a satirical spirit Froude says, "Experience is like the stern-lights of a ship, it casts its rays over a way that has been taken." But that is not in any large, or practical sense, true; the actual experience must be a thing of the past, but the lessons learned by experience are available forces for the ordering of the life that we have to live. The distinction between animal and man, instinct and intelligence, is that man can profit by experience, the animal does not.

I. THE EXPERIENCE WHICH TEACHES IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE IS EXPERIENCE RELATIVE TO DIVINE COMMANDMENTS . What the good man wants his past life for is the study of conduct in the light of what was known to be God's will. What has happened in our lives does not much matter, and of themselves events teach very little. How did what happened stand related to what we knew to be right? That is the supreme question; and that alone reveals failures and frailties. That experience alone teaches, and provides forces for the endeavor to live a better life. In measure we have "known God's testimonies;" but how has our actual life been ruled and toned by what we knew?

II. THE ONE THING THAT EXPERIENCE TEACHES IS OUR ABSOLUTE NEED OF DIVINE SUPPORT . The one thing which the past has to show every honest and earnest-minded man is, that he has always failed when he trusted to his own judgment and strength, and ventured to neglect or to go aside of God's revealed will; and that he has always succeeded when, in a spirit of true humility, he persistently endeavored to know God's will, and shape conduct and meet emergencies in its gracious leadings. Experience when consulted has always the same teaching to give. It may be summed up in this way, "You have always needed God as your Helper and Guide; you need him now as much as ever; you always will need him."—R.T.