XIII

CHARACTER THE SPRING OF LIFE

"A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things."—St. Matthew xii. 35.

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HIS is the compact statement of a truth upon which Jesus laid the last emphasis—that everything depends on character. The word has two meanings. And according to its original sense character is the mark made upon a stone by engraving. It is therefore the stamp of the soul and the expression of a man's being. It is equivalent to nature, it is the very man himself. Character has also come to acquire a secondary meaning which has much less value in the moral currency. It is not now what the man is, and will continue to be, but what he says he is or appears to be. It is the impression he has produced in certain circumstances, the effect of certain public actions, the attitude which he assumes to the world. It is the outer show of the man it is his reputation.

One profound difference between our Master and the Pharisees turned upon the reading of this word. With the Pharisees, character was reputation, and their whole strength was given to performing a religious play. With Jesus character was nature, and He was ever insisting that a man must be judged not by appearance but by the heart; not by what he says, or even by what he does, but by what he is. They made religion a thing of the outer life; He declared it a thing of the inner life and He was hotly indignant with their blatant unreality. Jesus despaired of the Pharisees while He hoped great things from the sinners, for this simple reason-that the sinners at least were honest, while the Pharisees were thoroughly dishonest. When they gave alms it was to the sound of trumpets, not because they loved the poor; and when they prayed it was in a public place, not because they loved God. They were irreligious from Christ's standpoint, not because they were doing irreligious things, but because they had irreligious hearts. They were hypocrites, not because they were living a double life, but because they were playing a calculated part. They were moral actors, and therefore

the white flame of Jesus' anger was ever glancing round the Pharisees.

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Common speech betrays our implicit conviction, and every day we ourselves acknowledge the supremacy of character. One man may use the most persuasive words, but no one gives heed because they are not the outcome of a true soul; another may speak with rough simplicity, and his neighbours respond because every word bears the stamp of a brave heart. When a good man loses his temper or is easily offended or grasps at some advantage, or fails in courage, we say that he was not himself." This act was foreign to the man, a caricature of his spiritual likeness. When a good man carries himself right knightly we say that was "like him," as if we had a portrait before our eyes, and this act was its replica. We charge our friend in time of temptation to be loyal to his highest self, to be himself, and to play the man. We speak after this fashion, not in the pulpit only, but on the street; so we bear unconscious witness that Jesus was right, and that the man's heart is himself.

If character be the spring of life then two things follow, and the first is that every man's work is

the expression of himself. Just as the Almighty is ever creating under a divine necessity, because He must express Himself,and just as His character can be discovered by those who have eyes to see in the parable of creation, so every man works under the same compulsion, and reveals himself by the fruit of his hands. Every man is doing something, whether it be good or evil. You cannot stamp out a spring, and from his secret self a man's life is ever flowing, and carrying with it the colour of its origin. Why does a poet write his verse, or an artist paint his picture, or a minister preach his sermon, or an artisan do his carving? Because the idea was in him, and he must be delivered of it. His self is in the work, and it is the unconscious exposure of his innermost being.

The largest and most convincing illustration of this principle is architecture, where the theology of the builders is written in masterful letters before the eyes of the world. A mosque with its wide space, high roof, bare walls, freedom from all imagery, declares by its purity and dignity that God is a spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. A Gothic cathedral with its

long aisles, shadowy recesses, secluded chancel, and high altar, witnesses to the mystery of the Holy Incarnation, the awfulness of Christ's sacrifice, the solemnity of the sacraments and the authority of the priesthood. Upon a typical Nonconformist church, without altar or prayer desk, with its platform for the speaker and its audience chamber for the people might be inscribed, "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Each building is a creed wrought in stone, and proclaims to the whole world the deepest conviction of the builder. "I believe in the unity of God," says the Mohammedan; "I believe in the sacrifice of the mass," says the Catholic; "I believe in the Gospel," says the Puritan.

Within the history of the same faith one can see how the architecture corresponds with the religion, either in its days of austere purity or of luxurious decay. If you wish to study Christianity at its best, visit one of the old Gothic churches, and there you find not above the altar only, but in every line of the building the sign of the Cross. The builders were simple, fearless, pure, devout. If you wish to study Christianity

I.F.

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