VIII

THE FACE IN THE WINDOW

We are living in a very wistful world. It is all very well to say that people are irreligious, callous, indifferent. That is true; but it is not the whole of the truth. When Mr. H. G. Wells’ First Men in the Moon reached their lunar destination the moon seemed to them to be lifeless, derelict, desolate; but when they probed beneath the surface they found it teeming with pulsing life, and furious thought, and industrial activity. And the more deeply they penetrated into its cavernous tunnels and mysterious subways the more populous the place became. Which is, as Mr. Wells very possibly meant it to be, an allegory. It is when we look with superficial eyes upon the world that we are pessimists. When we scratch the surface we begin to behold the truth. One of those noble and graceful Hebrew metaphors which, for sheer literary beauty, have never been surpassed, reflects most perfectly the whole position. ‘My soul doth wait for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning; I say, more than they that watch for the morning.’ The image is one of exquisite tenderness and pathos. The night is long and dreary, and the tired watchers press their faces every now and then against the window-pane, eager to discover beyond the rugged ranges some grey glimmer of the coming dawn. The soul of many a man has its eastward aspect. There are great numbers who dwell in chambers like that in which Christian was lodged in the Palace Beautiful, ‘whose window opened toward the sun-rising.’ The soul of the psalmist is in the darkness, but his face is towards the dawn. We are in grave peril, in our pessimistic moods, of forgetting the face at the window. It is the essential feature in the present situation. There are pilgrims ‘asking the way to Zion with their faces thitherward.’

Let my meaning mirror itself in a pair of illustrations. Here are two such faces peering wistfully out from the dark.

The first is that of Frank T. Bullen. In With Christ at Sea, he says, ‘Arriving in Sydney, I soon succeeded in getting a berth as lamp-trimmer in one of the coasting steamers, and for the next twelve months made a pretty complete circuit of the Australasian colonies, living on the best of everything, earning good wages, learning all manner of things harmful to me, but never by any chance coming across any one who was Christianly disposed, and feeling myself less and less anxious to seek after God. Often I would stand on deck, when anchored in Sydney Harbour on Sunday morning, and listen to the church bells playing ‘Sicilian Mariners,’ with a dull ache at my heart, a deep longing for something, I knew not what.’ Thus ends the quotation; but the tragic fact is that there were excellent people, with Bibles and hymn-books, passing along the quay on the way to church, who glanced at the grimy young lamp-trimmer and thought him irreligious, callous, and indifferent! They failed to see the wistful face at the window.

The other occurs in the memoir of Dr. H. Grattan Guinness. On one of the earliest pages we read: ‘Never shall I forget one evening, when the ship was anchored in a calm off Lowestoft, near Yarmouth, looking at the sun slowly setting in the west over the peaceful scene, the outline of a church spire rising among trees showing distinctly against the glowing sky. I was longing unutterably to be permitted to dwell in some quiet spot where, out of the reach of evil society and the voice of blasphemy, I might worship God and walk with Him in unhindered fellowship.’

‘Longing unutterably!’ ‘More than they that watch for the morning.’ That is it! The fact is that we are too superficial. We glance at a man and at once tie an imaginary label round his neck. We classify him as a Christian, or as a heretic, or as a sceptic, or as a backslider; and we think that that settles it. But our work of classification is very much more complicated than we think. We forget that a saint and a sceptic can dwell together in the same skin. Lord, I believe there you have the saint! Help Thou mine unbelief there you have the sceptic! The prophets loved to talk of a time when the wolf should lie down with the lamb; but in many a heart the wolf and the lamb dwell together even now. Great wickedness and great wistfulness often lodge in the self-same heart. The room may be very dark indeed, but the face is at the window looking towards the light. We are slow to learn the lesson that Robert Louis Stevenson tried to teach us in his allegory of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As the years go by we learn to economize our labels.

Dr. Campbell Morgan was recently asked by an interviewer for his view of the spiritual condition of London. ‘On the one hand,’ he replied, ‘I see evidence of awful indifference, but on the other I see remarkable wistfulness. I find that, when I get into touch with the most indifferent men, there is a great wist fulness that was absent a few years ago. The man who then told me that he was an agnostic still says that he is an agnostic, but he adds now that he dearly wishes he could believe as I do.’ That testimony is significant. It means that the men who sit in thick darkness are moving towards the window and longing for the dawn.

Dr. Douglas Adam has told us a striking story of Professor Huxley. ‘A friend of mine,’ says Dr. Adam, ‘was acting on a Royal Commission of which Professor Huxley was a member. One Sunday he and the great scientist were staying in a little country town. “I suppose you are going to church,” said Huxley. “Yes,” replied the friend. “What if, instead, you stayed at home and talked to me of your religion ?” “No,” was the reply, “for I am not clever enough to refute your arguments.” “But what if you simply told me of your own experience what religion has done for you?” My friend did not go to church that morning. He stayed at home and told Huxley the story of all that Christ had been to him. And presently there were tears in the eyes of the great agnostic as he said, “I would give my right hand if I could believe that!” Huxley’s face was at the window, in spite of everything.

But, of course, the peerless illustration of our point is the infinitely pathetic case of Professor Sidgwick. Has any minister ever read that life-story with dry eyes? If so, we are sorry for his congregation. To enter into the cheerless realm of Sidgwick’s scepticism is a more chilling experience than to penetrate polar solitudes. And yet no one can read that throbbing story without seeing a tear-stained face at the window. Long and wistfully the brilliant doctor strained his eyes, looking eastward, but saw not the roseate flush of the dawn. He felt, through it all, that his doubt was his shame; and his soul ached for faith. He literally longed for the light ‘more than they that watch for the morning; I say, more than they that watch for the morning.’ There was unbelief in his brain, but a wonderful wistfulness shone in his yearning eyes. Beneath his intellectual uncertainties he carried a pitifully hungry heart. Others such as Mill and Tyndall, Professor Clifford and Viscount Amberley might, of course, easily be cited to swell this cloud of witnesses; but there is no need.

Let us, however, before laying aside the pen, cross the ocean in order to inquire whether this strange and wistful craving is confined to grimy lamp-trimmers like Frank Bullen, and to brilliant University professors like Henry Sidgwick; or is it to be discovered also in the regions beyond? And so soon as we step ashore it becomes manifest that, without an exception, the peoples who sit in darkness have, nevertheless, their faces to the window. In every land ‘there be many that say, Who will show us any good?’ On continents and. on islands blind souls are everywhere groping after the light. It must be so. If, as Principal Iverach argues in his Christian Message, the Founder of Christianity be in very deed the Son of God, it is inconceivable that the human heart can find its home in Mohammedanism or Buddhism. Only recently a great All-India Convention of Religions was held at Allahabad. Hinduism, Islamism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Theosophy were all strongly represented. But it was agreed, by general consent, that the only message that ‘struck warm’ was the witness of the Indian Christians to the love and power of Christ. To that testimony a sympathetic chord of response vibrated in all hearts. And, at the close of the Convention, the Hindu secretary exclaimed, ‘The one thing we could not have dispensed with was the Christian contribution!’ It was like a streak of dawn streaming in upon the tired watchers of the night. ‘The Lady of the Decoration’ tells us that she saw in Japan ‘a wistfulness that I have never seen anywhere else, except in the eyes of a dog.’ The letters of our missionaries on every field often remind us of that unforgettable cartoon which appeared in Punch in the dark days of 1885. It represented General Gordon on the roof of his palace at Khartoum, shading his eager eyes with his hand and gazing with a look of unutterable wistfulness towards the sandy horizon, watching for that relieving column that ultimately came too late. He waited for their coming more than they that watch for the morning. So do the nations.

Sudden, before my inward open vision,

   Millions of faces crowded up to view,

Sad eyes that said: ‘For us is no provision,

   Give us your Saviour, too!

‘Give us,’ they cry, ‘your cup of consolation;

   Never to our outreaching hands ’tis passed;

We long for the Desire of every nation,

   And, oh, we die so fast!’

These are the faces at the window. When little Bilney made his historic confession to Hugh Latimer, which lit that candle in England that has never been put out, an image akin to this haunted his imagination. ‘Oh, Father Latimer,’ he said, ‘prithee, hear me: when I read in the Latin Testament of the great Erasmus these strange words “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” it was with me as though in the midst of a dark night, day suddenly broke!’ That is the daybreak for which the faces watch at the windows of the world ‘more than they that watch for the morning; I say, more than they that watch for the morning.’ The exquisite winsomeness of the Christian evangel and the wondrous wist fulness of a waiting world are the two strong pillars on which we build our serene confidence in the day after tomorrow.

F. W. Boreham