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Chapter X

A Preacher’s Potpourri 

 This chapter is essentially a potpourri — a kind of bubble-and-squeak or Irish stew or hotch-potch or Madras curry-call it what you will. It is one of those dishes into which you pour an extraordinary medley of heterogeneous ingredients, with, at times, a very pleasing result. I shall begin with a private letter that I received more than fifty years ago: I shall then make a brief excursion into History; I shall have something to say about Politics; I shall discuss the basic principles of Art; I shall venture upon a study of Mathematics; and I shall finish up by telling a story from my own earlier experience.

 First, then, the letter! The letter was addressed to me in the days when I was preparing to leave the dear old Homeland for my life-work in this hemisphere. During my college days, I had been student-pastor at a pretty little village in Epping Forest — a pretty little village from which I brought away a pretty little villager as a souvenir. But she was not the only souvenir that I brought with me. I brought this letter and have treasured it, with others of a similar character, ‘for more than half a century. Here it is: it bears a date in 1894: 

‘Dear Sir, I hear that you are leaving England shortly. I am truly sorry. I can only pray that God will be with you wherever you go, and work through you in pointing men to Christ, as you did me. I suppose you remember preaching on “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His  righteousness and all things shall be unto you”.  How your words sank into my heart I can scarcely tell. Wherever I went, day and night, the words are always in my mind. I had no peace. I could not sleep: indeed, I was afraid to try. I used to walk about in the night. I tried to mend my life and turn over a new leaf; but all that failed. Then you told me to come to Christ just as I was, I did. I saw the light and received salvation. I found the peace I had longed for. The burden was gone. How happy I was! By His grace I will trust Him to bring me home safe at last.
W. LUCK.’

 Soon after I left England, Mr. Luck became an officer of the Church and won the affection and esteem of all who knew him until, quite recently, he was called Home.

 Seek ye first the kingdom God and His righteousness! That brings me to my excursion into History. For I am mixing this potpourri of mine on the fourth of July. The whole world is to-day reviewing the romantic and colourful drama of American history. And on what is that brave record based? It is based, as any American citizen will tell you, on the never-to-be-forgotten adventure of the Pilgrim Fathers. And why does the world cherish the story of that handful of men and women who crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620? ‘The granite boulder on to which they stepped as they landed has become an object of veneration,’ says Professor S. R. Gardiner in his History of England. ‘Fragments of it are treasured with a reverence scarcely less than that which, in Catholic countries, is bestowed upon the relics of the saints. The Pilgrim Fathers’, Professor Gardiner continues, ‘hold a place in the annals of a mighty nation from which they can never be removed.’ And why? ‘It is not’, Gardiner declares, ‘because they were the founders of a great people. It is because, in spite of everybody and everything, they sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.’ They sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness: and, as a result, the American nation, with all that the American nation means to civilization, has been added unto them.

I

 I said that I would have something to say about Politics. My dictionary defines ‘politics’ as the science of government; but the beginning and the basis of all government is self-government. How can I govern anything or anybody until I have learned to govern myself?

 That was what Jesus meant when He said that the kingdom of God — the kingdom which you must seek first-is within you. The biographer of Henry Drummond tells how he was once the honoured guest of a lady who was greatly perturbed about her coachman. He was really a very excellent and reliable man; but, every now and again, his fondness for drink entirely enslaved him. ‘He will be driving you to the station,’ the lady said to her guest in taking farewell of him; ‘perhaps you could have a word with him!’

 It chanced that, in the course of that final drive, something startled the horses and they bolted. The carriage was thrown first this way and then that; and Professor Drummond expected every moment to be his last-but the coachman handled the situation with such consummate skill that, eventually, he drew up the horses, steaming with perspiration, and, heaving a sigh of infinite relief, wiped his own forehead and exclaimed that it had been a close shave.

 ‘It was, indeed,’ agreed Henry Drummond; ‘they are magnificent beasts, but they need a strong hand on the reins. And, by the way, George, I hear that there are times when you yourself get as badly out of control as those two horses were a moment ago. I owe my life to the way you handled those reins. Now let me tell you something. You need someone to grasp the reins of your own life, George; and, take my word for it, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who can manage it.’ Drummond jumped down and hurried into the station to catch his train; but the coachman always afterwards said that he owed his soul’s salvation to the words that Professor Drummond uttered that day.

 Politics is the science of government: the essence of government is self-government: and the only way in which a man can be sure that he himself is well and wisely governed is by crowning Christ King. The kingdom of God is within you. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

II

 I promised to mix into this potpourri a discussion of the foundation principle of Art. I notice in this morning’s paper a critique of an art exhibition now being held in this city. The critic says that the pictures reveal real genius and make up a singularly beautiful collection; but, he adds, they are marred to some extent by the uniformity with which the painter has selected dark and even black backgrounds.

 That struck me as very significant. The dark background represents the artist’s jealousy for his subject. His subject is, let us say, a bowl of roses. He is so anxious for us to see his roses — and nothing else-that he sets them against a black background. Another painter will furnish the roses with a dim background of other flowers or other vases. There is danger either way. The painter who fills the background with other flowers leaves his roses half-lost in the crowd; and if he make his supporting effects too attractive, the roses may be, not half-lost, but lost entirely. On the other hand, the black background is too severe; and, in the absence of all other objects, the roses gain nothing by a comparison that might easily but subtly have been introduced.

 Seek ye first. The kingdom of God is to have pre-eminence in my life; but it is not to be alone. That was the mistake of the monks. Monasticism is the religion of the black background. The monk says— Religion and nothing else! At the opposite extreme is the man who makes his religion one of a multitude of interests. All occupy places of equal prominence in his heart. As a consequence, religion, like the roses, is lost in the crowd.

 But Jesus says: Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Have your home and your business and your sport and all your other interests and delights: touch life at as many points as possible: but let your religion be like the roses in the perfectly-balanced picture, standing out bravely as the most alluring object on the canvas.

III

 Seek ye first the kingdom 0f God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. All these things shall be added— this presents us with our study in Mathematics.

 The New Testament conception of the Christian life is a life of constant augmentation, constant enrichment, constant addition. The tendency, of course, is the other way. We are all in danger of losing the best as life goes on. We are like the man who, on entering the kingdom of God, feels that his pockets are filled with gold, but that he has holes in them all. Have we not all lost something of the rapture that flooded our souls at the time of our conversion? Have we not lost something of the radiance of our first simple faith in Jesus? We ministers, have we not lost something of the devotion that first impelled us toward the ministry? Have we not lost something of the passion that burned in our hearts at the time of our ordination? The years are great thieves; they creep upon us with stealthy footsteps and filch away our treasure.

 Peter begins his second epistle by instructing his converts to make their experience a constant process of addition. Add to your faith virtue, and add to virtue knowledge, and so on. Add! says Peter. Do not let life be a constant subtraction, a continuous depletion, a steady draining away of spiritual vitality; but let it be an uninterrupted growth, a steady enrichment. Go from good to better, and from better to best. It is impossible to give what you yourself do not possess: you cannot lift others above your own level. Grow, therefore, in grace and in gladness. Add, day by day, to your soul’s rich store. Add; add; add! And the secret of this perennial process of addition, Jesus says, is putting first things first. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and you will find yourself adding, adding, adding all the time!

IV

 And now for the story with which I promised to complete the confused ingredients of this potpourri. When I settled at Mosgiel in New Zealand in 1895, I had in my congregation a girl of about sixteen or seventeen, who seemed particularly interested and particularly attentive. She was one of the brightest and liveliest girls about the place, and yet, at times, she exhibited extraordinary seriousness and an indefinable wistfulness.

 I often spoke to her, especially at the close of services in which the evangelistic note had been stressed: but it seemed futile. She told me that she longed to be a decided Christian: yet nothing would induce her to set out on pilgrimage.

 This state of things persisted during the entire period of my Mosgiel ministry. I saw her fall in love and become engaged: I officiated at her wedding: I watched her fondness for her husband and her little children. These profound experiences neither quenched nor intensified her secret longing for something higher still. Nobody was more faithful in attendance at the services: nobody more eager to assist in any way within her power-but that was as far as it went.

 After twelve years I accepted the call to Hobart. The farewell meeting was a heart-rending experience. When it was over, we returned to the Manse. But the Manse was a bleak wilderness of bare floors, vacant walls, and stacks of packing cases. In view of the discomfort around, and the emotional strain within, I decided to take a walk before attempting to sleep.

 I had not gone far when, to my astonishment, I heard the sound of weeping. Following the direction indicated, I found, in a gap in the hedge, my friend of so many years, crying as if her heart would break. ‘To think’, she exclaimed, ‘that I was so near to the kingdom when you came twelve years ago, and that I’m not a Christian yet!’

 I tried to comfort her; but there was only one way of doing it. I urged her to yield to the Saviour then and there. And she did. She has since set an example to all around her by her beautiful and consecrated life; but I happen to know that it is still her deep regret that, instead of seeking first the kingdom of God, she let the years of her opportunity slip away and only surrendered to her Lord when her sun was high in the sky.

Wherefore let no man waste time. Time is the stuff of Eternity. A second of time may colour a pageant of ages. It is for me to seek, and to seek first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, confident that, if I do so, everything else that is worth while shall be added unto me.

F.W.B.