It is as though it thought these would take care of
themselves! In the place of grace it puts pride; pride of caste, of
family, of character, of intellect. But high self-discipline and
pride in the human spirit are not the deepest or the highest notes man
strikes. The cry, not of pride in self, but for fellowship with the
Infinite, is the superlative expression of man. Augustine sounded the
highest note of feeling when he wrote, "O God, Thou hast made us for
Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." The
words of the Lord Jesus gave the clearest insight of the human mind
when He said, "And when he came to himself, he said, I will arise and
go to my Father."
CHAPTER FIVE
GRACE, KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE
I hope the concluding paragraphs of the last chapter brought us back
into the atmosphere of religion, into that sort of mood in which the
reality of the struggle for character, the craving of the human spirit
to give and to receive compassion, the cry of the lonely soul for the
love of God, were made manifest. These are the real goods of life to
religious natures; they need this meat which the world knoweth not of;
there is a continuing resolve in them to say, "Good-by, proud world,
I'm going home!" The genuinely religious man must, and should indeed,
live in this world, but he cannot live of it.
Merely to create such an atmosphere then, to induce this sort of mood,
to shift for men their perspectives, until these needs and values rise
once more compelling before their eyes, is a chief end of preaching.
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