Verse 8
The Safety of Christian Fellowship
What would you say to a little child who had gone forth with his mother and brothers and sisters to see some great and exciting spectacle in the streets, and had wandered away from his guardians and companions, and had become lost in the crowd? In what speech would you address him? You would say to the little vagrant, You should not have left us, you should have kept close beside us: did I not tell you not to go away from me? why did you not take hold of me, and then you would not have been lost? And your speech, not angrily but pathetically spoken, would probably leave a happy impression upon the mind of the young offender. What would you say of a man who appears in the bankruptcy court, and concerning whom it is discovered that he set aside all precedents, all the acknowledged and established canons and laws of business, and separated himself wholly from all that had ever been done in the business world? This would be your speech: Foolish fellow, what else could he expect? he never acted as any other person did; he despised all that had been tested in the commercial circle: he took the whole case into his own wild head and wild hands, and it has come to this: anybody with a head upon his shoulders could have foreseen the short gallop into this bitter ruin. Your speech would have sense in it. Few wise men would attempt to gainsay it.
What would you say of a man who never took anybody's advice upon any subject that ever occurred to him? You would say, He is a genius, or a fool. These inquiries and illustrations give us the solemn teaching of this text. Keep on familiar ground; do not stray away from the line of footsteps; be near where you can hear the pipe, or the flute, or the trumpet of the camp. Do not go away upon barren rocks and into dreary sands. Do not detach yourselves from the great company of the Church, but, wherever you are, see that your method of communication is in good working order: if you go a mile away, be sure you leave the road open that you can return to the main body in the event of danger surprising you in your loneliness, or pain befalling you in the silence and helplessness of your solitude. Of course, if it can be proved that you are a genius, then take the license of genius; but first let the case be twice proved; do not take the very first impression that may be given to you of your inspired and infallible genius; rather suspect the flatterer than flatter yourself.
If it could be proved once, twice, and again, and six times over, that you are an appointed herald of God to go away on lonely seas and up inaccessible mountains, make your calling and election sure. But to the rank and file, to the commonalty of the Church, we say: Let us go forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed our kids beside the shepherds' tents: let us not lose the benefits of community and companionship: forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is: do not attempt the genius if you have only the name and not the fire.
There is some need that this occasional word should be spoken, when every man is determined to strike out his own path in religious thinking. I repeat, I have nothing to say to some few daring prophets, who seem to be called to wildernesses far away, and to make lonely roads over towering and barren rocks; wherein they fulfil their election, strength and comfort will be given to them from heaven: but, speaking to the general company of the Church, I stand by the general exhortation of the Church. Nor is this the exhortation of fear; it is the precept of sense; it is the dictate of reason; it is the calm, strong, solemn view of history and experience.
Let us imagine that we go into a foreign land any party of six. We cannot speak the language: we go in a small band that we may keep one another in countenance, and in various ways supplement and cheer one another. But there is suddenly developed amongst us a daring genius. One of the six is absent. Where is he? No information can be obtained. An hour passes, and still he does not appear. We want to go, we cannot move comfortably without him. Another hour, and two more, and the eventide comes and it is night, and still the genius arrives not. But see, yonder he comes he went out nearly six feet high, he comes back little more than five. He went out comparatively young, he comes back all aged and worn. Where have you been? "Been? do not ask me." But what have you been doing? "Why, like a fool, I strayed away down there, and I could not ask my way back again, for I did not know a word of the language: I made signs, and pointed this way and that way, and have wandered miles and miles. Pity me, forgive me you will never lose sight of me again until we return to our native land." It is even so in the Church. There are persons who go off alone, that never tell where they are going: they know nothing of the language of the provinces into which they are moving: they are called, perhaps too harshly, heretics and religious vagrants, and other epithets not respectful are attached to their names when they are mentioned. Yet they are blameworthy: they ought not to have left the party; it was unjust to their fellows, it was perilous to themselves, and nothing but mischief can come of this self-detachment and this disloyalty to the spirit and genius of the commonwealth of Christ.
Sometimes it may be legitimate to go off a little way alone, when you are upon the mountains. It is a delight of my own: I like to escape noise and chatter: when I am in the church of the mountains I do not want little questions upon little subjects, and small remarks upon infinitesimal topics. I love the awful silence. Going down on one occasion from the Wengern Alp to Lauterbrunnen I went off alone, and the mists came on suddenly. What did I look for? For the footsteps. As the mist thickened, I bent more closely to the ground. While I could see footsteps I had no fear. Here and there they seemed to get confused, so that I could not follow the line of my journey, and at these points of confusion my fear was excited, and I dared scarcely move. I looked back; I listened; I longed to be near the tents of the shepherds. But footsteps are companions: you cannot tell what a picture of a footprint is until you are left lost among the mountains: to come suddenly upon a line of footprints is to be at home.
We live in a day of religious adventure, of high and daring enterprise. Man after man is going off to carve his own way through the mountains, or to navigate his ship by a course of his own devising. Be careful. If you are a genius, twice baptised, thrice anointed from heaven, with a cloven tongue upon your head, go but make very sure about these signs before starting. The lamp of genius is not often kindled in one century, and there is no fool so gigantic and so pitiful as the man who mistakes himself for a genius. Little boats, keep near the shore; little children, take hold of your mother's dress; poor scholars, wait upon your teachers; feeble and timid, never go out of sight forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. "Brethren," says Paul, "be ye followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample."
Loneliness has its perils in the religious life. We hear now and again of a man who says he is going to give up all religious associations of a public kind, and is going to remain at home. Some men are now boasting that they are Christians unattached; independent Christians. What is this religious independence as interpreted by these men? Not one little gaslight is independent; every one of them is a blink of sunlight. Here is a star independent of the universe. If we saw it coming we should get out of its road. Tell me that all the stars are caught in one great scheme, and that not a sparkle of the glory of the least of them can be lost, and I am proportionally at rest. Loneliness, I repeat, has its perils in the religious life. When the devil gets a man absolutely alone, who will win? Not the man in the vast proportion of cases. There was only one man that won in single fight, and that man was the Lord from heaven. Oh, let us shelter one another; let us be mutual protections; let us have a commonwealth of interest and sympathy; let us live in one another's prayers and sympathy and love. Union is strength; two are better far than one if the one fall, he can be lifted up gain; but if he fall alone, who will assist him to his feet? Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.
"Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents." This poor woman in the song had lost her loved one, and she was told that if she wanted him she would find him on accustomed beats and familiar paths. God leaves his footsteps on the earth, and if we follow his footprints we shall find him. He has built his churches, raised his altars, and he says, "Where my name is recorded, there will I meet thee, there will I bless thee." Be in the way of blessing: if you cannot find God himself, find his footprints; go to his altar and say, He ought to be here; he has sworn to be here; and whilst thou art yet speaking the apparently dead cold ashes will glow, and on that altar there shall rise up a living flame, and out of the fire thou shalt hear the voice of thy God.
Feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents. Then we shall have communion. We must speak to one another now and then, or the poor aching heart would die. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it. Christianity institutes a fellowship, a community of interest and purpose. We are the complement of each other. No one man is all men. You have something I want; I have something you want In these higher meanings, let no man call aught that he has his own. Let us have all our highest thoughts and sympathies in common, so that there shall be no poor man in the Church the poorest scholar having access to the richest thoughts, the dullest ear the opportunity of listening to the sweetest music.
In the tent of the shepherd there was always some instrument that could be used for the soothing of fear and the excitement of hope. It might be a poor small instrument, but it was of infinite value in the lonely places. It is related how the commander of the ship Fox, when his crew rose almost in mutiny, and his passengers accorded him nothing but the coldest looks, when he reached land, said, "Thank God, there was one relief, and one only: I had a fiddler on board." That musical instrument brought the hearts together when nothing else could. A snatch of a song a strain of some forgotten music, one touch of nature and that did far more than all the captain's orders, exhortations, and attempts to persuade his all but mutinous companions that all was right. Do not stray away from the music of the Church: do not suppose you can hum tune enough for your own soul, or whisper yourself into victory and triumph: your mouth will dry, and your tongue will cleave to the roof of your mouth. Oh, there are times when I love the dear old tunes! They redeem common metre from commonplace, and lift up ordinary words into high meanings, and send the soul a-throb and a-swaying with such a hearty, happy rhythm. This I never feel so much as when in foreign lands, where there is no Sabbath, no church that is cared for, no voice attuned to gospel messages. To get back again to the old psalm-book, to hear the old Scripture read in the familiar tones, to unite in holy prayer together this is partial heaven. Thus I again repeat the exhortation, Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together; beware of loneliness, beware of the independence which is isolation; seek for communion, for music, for protection, for security, for all that comes of organised life, household delight and trust; and thus the enemy will never find you alone and at a disadvantage, but always surrounded by those who can recall the sweetest memories to your recollection, and enrich your hearts by reminders of the infinite promises of God, and thus a commonwealth shall be the basis of victory.
What footprints are we leaving behind us? Where have we been? Should we really like the young to put their feet in our footsteps? Some of us dare not tell where we have been. Are our footprints on the threshold of the house of evil? If they could be tracked one by one, to what destinations would they conduct? Do they lead to the house of God? Have we but one track in life, and is its goal the altar? Blessed be God; once we went with a multitude to do evil, once we had gone astray; but now we have returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. All we, like sheep, had gone astray; we had turned every one to his own way, an independence in evil, self-illumined, self-destroyed. We must leave footprints somewhere. No man can come into life, and live thirty, forty, fifty, or seventy years, and go out without leaving the mark of his feet somewhere. Let us put our feet into the footprints of Jesus Christ. Whither do those footprints lead? To Gethsemane, to Golgotha, to Bethany, and after Bethany Heaven. We can have no difficulty in finding the footprints of Christ if we really want to discover them. His were feet not to be mistaken for any other. They all pointed to the Cross, they moved evermore towards the Cross; they never turned towards selfish delight, never to the palaces of luxury, always to the lightning-struck, the thunder-cursed tree, the Cross.
Let us see that our footprints are all shaping towards home, that the foot is always set in that direction. Do not let us deceive and mislead anybody who may put their feet into our footprints under the impression that they are going home, when they are really going to their ruin. Let every step be heavenward
There are desolations in which a footprint is a friend, there are solitudes in which the mark of a human foot is as the signature and pledge of God.
Wanderer, return! You have been out a long way on the high barren mountains, and you have got nothing. Come in again, and be commonplace. You started a genius, you come back with your true name on your forehead. You went forth to reform and conquer the world, and you are all bespattered with mud, you are hunger-bitten and thirst-fevered, and your cheeks are shrunken in; come back and be wise. Come back; there is room for thee, and bread enough in thy Father's house, and to spare yea, when all the angels have done, and all the men have partaken, there is more bread at the end than there was at the beginning.
I wish to be found at last where the good old fathers of the Church were found. If I have made a small detour, who has not done the same? I never remember to have gone off from any point of departure without wishing myself safely back again. There is no wine like the old wine, there is no house like the old house, there is no bread like the old bread; no man, having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new, for he saith, The old is better. What say you to a general, unanimous, loving, loyal, immediate return? There would be joy in the presence of the angels of God over repentant thinkers, errant geniuses, self-mistaken self-idolaters.
Am I asked the question, "Where is Christ? Where is God? I am like the woman in the Canticles I have lost him; I would I could find him?" My answer is, Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents. Keep in the accustomed familiar paths and ways, and, if he is not there to-day, he will be more than there to-morrow. Be thou in the right place. He may have gone after some wanderer, but he will return, and if he has abandoned thee for a small moment, it is that he may gather thee with everlasting kindness.
Note
Design of the Book. "The design of this charming poem is to teach us a lesson of practical righteousness by the record of an extraordinary example of virtue in a young maiden in humble life, who encountered and conquered the greatest temptations from the most exalted personage in the land. The simple story, divested of its poetic form, is as follows: A village girl, the daughter of a widowed mother of Shulam, is betrothed to a young shepherd, whom she met whilst tending the flock. Fearing lest the frequent meetings of these lovers should be the occasion of scandal, the brothers of the Shulamite employ her in the vineyard on their farm. Whilst on the way to this vineyard she one day falls in with the cortege of King Solomon, who is on a spring visit to the country. Struck with her great beauty the king captures her, conveys her to his royal pavilion, then conducts her to Jerusalem in great pomp, in the hope of dazzling and overcoming her with his splendour, and eventually lodges her in his harem. But all is in vain. True to her virtuous love, she resists all the allurements of the exalted sovereign, spurns all his promises to elevate her to the highest rank, and in the midst of the gay scenes assures her humble shepherd, who followed her to the capital, that her affections are sacredly and inviolably pledged to him. Solomon, convinced at last that all his advances are in vain, allows her to quit the royal residence. Hand in hand the two faithful lovers return to her native place, and on their way home' visit the tree under which their love-spark was first kindled, and there renew their vows of constancy and fidelity. On their arrival they are welcomed by their companion shepherds, and she is rewarded by her brothers for her exemplary virtue." Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature.
Prayer
Almighty God, thou art great and we are small, and we are the work of thine hands, and thou hast numbered the very hairs of our head, and set a watch about every step of our life, and thy love hath made us precious unto thee. Behold, we cannot tell what we read in thy word because of its great mystery of light: we hear mighty thunderings and see flamings of ineffable glory, and we hear the sound of a going which we cannot follow, and yet again dost thou come to us in gentle speeches and in visions which the heart can seize, and thou dost drop upon our life thy word, which is sweeter than honey, yea, than the honeycomb. We would see somewhat of thy majesty and thy glory, that we may be ennobled thereby, and lifted up, as it were, with the ascension of the angels. But specially would we pray evermore to have access to thy power, grace, wisdom, and love, for the supply of daily necessity, for the direction of continual perplexity, and for the satisfaction of every hunger of the soul. We bless thee for the revelation of thyself in Christ Jesus, who was found in fashion as a man; we thank thee for all his words of truth and beauty; we bless thee for his discourses, for his miracles, and above all for his sacrificial death and for his resurrection and ascension to glory, where he now is, praying for every one of us, and covering our weakness with his infinite strength. Enable us to follow him as we may be able; according to the littleness of our power and opportunity may we study his life, put our feet in his footprints, undertake to do his will, and may we be found at last as his commended servants. We bless thee for a life we cannot understand; its joys are keen, its pains are often intolerable. Thou hast given to our life day and night, beautiful light, sweet spring times and summer hours, occasions of rapture and of heavenly vision and divine absorption; then hast thou sent a great darkness upon us like a judgment, and there have been sounds of thunder in it as of great wrath, and the stars have been withdrawn, and thou hast caused us to feel the gloom and the burden of night. Do with us what thou wilt: not our will, but thine, be done, but take not thy Holy Spirit from us; in our deepest distresses may we be able to say, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. May there be no extremity in our life which shall be as the victory of the enemy, but in our greatest exigencies may we find thy grace more than sufficient, in our keenest pains may we know how all-healing and all-comforting is the balm of thy pity. We give ourselves to thee again in the name of Jesus Christ, our Mediator. We yield ourselves to thee, body, soul, and spirit, our flesh and our will, our imagination and our supreme desire, all the energy of our souls, and all the helplessness of our life; we would lay these at thy feet; they are thine, thou knowest their highest uses: purify us as vessels are made pure for the use of the sanctuary. Whether our days be many or few, may they all be thine, and may we so spend our little time as to have created within us a burning desire to know what is to be revealed beyond. Regard thy servants who have come to this resting-place from business, from occupation of divers kinds, from many tumults, vexations, and trials of the world. Give them rest awhile, a little breathing time, and may there be rents amid the clouds of their life through which the light of the heavens shall shine. Regard those who are given to the study of thy Word, and who are preparing themselves under the dispensation of thy Spirit for the unfoldment of heavenly riches; be the Lamp shining upon their book, the Spirit inspiring their understanding and their heart. Be with those who live lives of weary monotony, the night as the day and the day as the night, the whole year one pain of weariness; draw such forth into the light of thy sanctuary, and inspire such with a desire to do the work of thy vineyard. Look upon all little children, and grant unto them blessing according to their necessity, salvation from sin, protection from every temptation and snare; may they live to a good old age and be better than were their forefathers. The Lord be with our sick ones, with great comforting, developing in them all sweetness of patience and completeness of resignation, so that the strong may learn from the weak, and the sick chamber may be the church of the house. Be with our friends who are far away, and yet in sympathy and love near at hand; unite us in the fellowship of common trusts and common anticipations; may we know the unity of the spirit and the sweetness of the bond of peace. Let the land receive of the rain of thy blessing. Spare not the cloud, but pour it forth in refreshing showers upon the whole country. God save the Queen; multiply the days of her life, and establish her throne in righteousness, equity, and all honourableness. Direct our leaders; inspire those who create and foster the national sentiment; save us from all tyranny, oppression, and from all unholy and disastrous weapons and instrumentalities, and send upon the land the spirit of patriotic contentment. May the blessing of the Lord be turned into blessings for all mankind. The earth is thine; we pray for every corner of it, for its broad continents and its little islands, its centres of light and its places of gloom; for the shepherd upon the hills, for the sailor upon the waves, for the prisoner in his cell, for the wanderer in the jungle and the wilderness, for all mankind; we are all thine. Make the earth thine house, light it with thy glory, and may it be the centre of thine approbation, having fixed upon it the love of its Creator-Father. Amen.
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