Book: Religious Reality

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(3) Children should be taught in the first instance the practice
rather than the theory of religion: devotions in which doctrine is
implicit, rather than doctrine as such. As their minds expand they
will ask the reasons for what they do and the meaning of the worship
in which they engage, and they will need to have suggested to them an
elementary, but not a stereotyped, theology. They should from the
beginning be encouraged to think and question freely on religious
subjects.

(4) They should occasionally accompany their parents to Church, and in
particular should from time to time be present when the latter receive
Holy Communion. They should have the service explained to them in a
simple fashion, and should be encouraged to look forward to the time
when they will be confirmed, and become communicants themselves.




PART III

THE MAINTENANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE


CHAPTER I

HOW TO BEGIN


The practice of Christianity depends for its possibility upon the
existence and maintenance within the soul of an inward principle of
spiritual life towards GOD. The reason why so many nominal Christians
fail conspicuously to manifest the fruits of Christianity in their
lives is simply that they have no vital personal experience of the
power and efficacy of the life in Christ. They have never been
effectually gripped by the religion which they nominally profess. They
are not transformed, or in process of being transformed, by the Holy
Spirit's power.

The plain man, confronted by the Christian ideal, if he does not at
once dismiss it as impracticable, is apt to ask, or at least to
wonder, how he is to begin. It is a question to which no cut-and-dried
answer can be given. But at least no beginning is likely to lead to
very much in the way of fulfilment which does not sooner or later
involve something like personal "conversion" of heart. Conversions may
be sudden, or they may be gradual: but religion, if it is to be a
reality, means in the end the establishment of vital personal
relations with the living Christ. It means the acceptance of His
challenge, self-surrender to His appeal, the combination of an
acknowledged desire to serve Him with acknowledged impotence and
bankruptcy before GOD.

Sooner or later the Spirit convinces men of sin. Either a man,
essaying light-heartedly to follow Christ, discovers in the very
attempt his inability to do so, and is found traitor to his Master's
cause in the first encounter: or else, it may be, at the very outset,
the consciousness of what has been wrong in conduct and character and
motive in the past stands as a damning record between his soul and
GOD, and forbids him without repentance to take service in the
campaign of Christ at all. The consciousness of sin as a "horrid
impediment" in the soul is not, of course, true penitence until a man
has been brought to realize in the light of the Cross that the
difference between what he is and what he might have been is treachery
to Him whose man (in virtue of his baptism) he was meant to be, and
that by being what he is, and acting as he has acted, he has
consciously or unconsciously contributed to the wounds wherewith
Eternal Love is wounded in the house of His friends.

The measure of a man's penitence, whether early or late developed in
him, is very apt to be the measure of his spiritual insight and of his
spiritual sincerity. The familiar words of the hymn--

"They who fain would serve Thee best
Are conscious most of wrong within,"

are profoundly true to Christian experience. But repentance--which is
sorrow for sin in the light of the Cross--is abortive and merely
results in spiritual paralysis unless it issues in confession--that
is, frank and open acknowledgment before GOD, and if need be also
before His Church--and the seeking and finding of reconciliation and
forgiveness as the unmerited gift of GOD in Christ.

There are those in whose case the inward conviction of sin and the
realization of the need for pardon are the first impulses of awakening
spiritual life. There are others with whom it is not so. They are
conscious of the attractiveness of the Man Christ Jesus. They would
desire to be on His side and to be of the number of His disciples.
They are dimly aware, or at least they more than half suspect, that in
Him is to be found the satisfaction of a need for which their soul
cries out. With S. Peter they find themselves saying to Christ, "Lord,
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life," But they
cannot as yet with any inward reality profess themselves conscience-
stricken with regard to the past. They are not aware of themselves as
conspicuous sinners, or indeed, it may be, as sinners at all. The
experience of penitence and of Divine forgiveness must come to them,
if it is to come at all, at a later stage. It is not by that postern
that they enter upon the Way of the Spirit.

But the Way is in either case the way of fellowship, and the Spirit is
the spirit of discipline. The newly found spiritual life, however
awakened, needs to be maintained and fostered by fellowship in the
Church, by regular habits of Christian devotion, by faithful communion
in the Sacrament of Life. Plainly, if a man is not already confirmed,
his first step must be to be prepared for confirmation: if he has been
confirmed, but has lapsed from communion, he must resume the
communicant life. He needs to claim the status and privilege of
effective membership in the Body of Christ, and to form for himself a
rule of inward life and discipline. Rules of devotional life must
necessarily vary in accordance with a man's surroundings and
opportunities, and perhaps in some of their details in accordance with
a man's temperament. But at least there ought to be a rule of regular
private prayer, a rule of regular communion, a rule of Bible-reading
or "meditation," and a rule of self-denial and orderliness in daily
personal life.




CHAPTER II

PRAYER


Prayer is a difficult matter, both in theory and in practice. But it
is essential to learn to pray.

It is important to recognize that the scope of Christian prayer is
much wider than mere intercession or petition. It is the communion of
the soul with GOD, and its purpose is union with the life of GOD in
identity of purpose with His will. The beginning of prayer is a
_sursum corda_, a lifting up of the heart to GOD. It is well to
remember that true prayer is never a solitary act, even when a man
prays in solitude. We pray not as individuals but as members of a
Family, and our prayer is spiritually united and knit together with
the common prayer-life of the universal Church, of which it forms a
part. We pray, moreover, not to wrest to our private ends the purposes
of GOD, not to induce Him, so to speak, to do our wills instead of
His, but to unite our wills with His will, as children who have
confidence in their Father. True prayer is offered in the Name of
Christ--that is, it is prayed in His Spirit, according to His mind and
will. It can never, therefore, be selfish or self-centred. The Lord's
Prayer is its model and its type. A few words may be said in
explanation of this prayer.

It begins with a recognition of the common Fatherhood of GOD. It is
only as members of His Family that we can approach Him: He is in no
sense our personal or private GOD, but the common Father of us all.

And our Father is "in heaven"--that is, supreme, eternal, the Lord and
Ruler of all things. His Name is holy, and to be hallowed: it is in
reverence and deepest worship that we bow before Him. He is King, and
we pray that His Kingship may be realized, in earth as it is in
heaven: and that His will may be done--that is the supreme desire of
our hearts, and the highest object of our petitions.

And therefore we are vowed to His service: and because we are sure
that He will supply whatever we really need to that end, we pray in
confidence for daily needs both spiritual and bodily--"Give us this
day our daily bread." And remembering that we are unprofitable and
faithless and disloyal servants we ask forgiveness for our sins, well
knowing that we can only be forgiven as we ourselves are ready to
forgive. And so looking to the future and mindful of our frailty we
pray that GOD will not lead us into "temptation" or trial, without at
the same time providing a way of deliverance from the assaults of
evil. The prayer customarily ends with an ascription of praise and
glory to GOD.

That is the type and model of Christian prayer: and prayer is truly
Christian just in so far as the spirit and temper of the Lord's Prayer
inspires it. We can only pray rightly in the Holy Spirit. "We know not
what to pray for as we ought: but the Spirit helpeth our infirmities."

As for the technique of prayer, a man, on kneeling or standing to
pray, will do well to spend a short time first in silence and
recollection, waiting in stillness upon GOD, remembering His presence,
His holiness, His love, and His responsiveness to His children's cry.
Let him next make an act of adoration, spoken or unspoken, and invoke
GOD the Holy Spirit to enable him to pray aright. Then let him pour
out before GOD all that is in his heart, his troubles, his anxieties,
his perplexities, his sins: let him ask for forgiveness: let him give
thanks: let him pray for the coming of GOD'S Kingdom, in its various
aspects: commending to GOD'S guidance and protection all right causes
and aspirations in the world, in things both social and political and
international, in things ecclesiastical, in things moral and religious
and missionary: let him add personal and private intercessions for
those near and dear to him and for those whom he meets in the daily
intercourse of life: and let him end as he began, in a few moments of
quiet waiting upon GOD.

That is the general scheme of a Christian's private prayers. They
should include in due proportion the several elements of adoration,
thanksgiving, penitence, petition, and intercession. They need not be
lengthy. "Use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think
that they shall be heard for their much speaking." It is quality and
not quantity of prayer that counts. And the prayers of a busy man must
necessarily be short.

But it is worth while taking time and trouble over the ordering of
one's prayers. A man's intercessions, in particular, are not likely in
practice to have the width, the range, and the variety which are
desirable, unless they are planned and ordered in accordance with a
coherent scheme which is thought out in advance. It is the part of
wisdom to keep a note-book, in which names and subjects for
intercessory prayer may be jotted down and distributed over the days
of the week for use in due rotation. Such schemes, however, if drawn
up and used, should be revised from time to time, and not suffered to
become a mechanical burden or a legal bondage. There should be freedom
and spontaneity in a Christian's prayers. It is well to have rules,
and to try not to be prevented by mere slackness from keeping them.
But it is important to see to it that the self-imposed rule is so
framed as to prove genuinely conducive to reality in prayer, and
suitably adapted to opportunity and circumstance: and it is very often
a good thing from time to time, in the interests of freedom, quite
deliberately to break one's rules.

With regard to forms and methods of prayer, it is desirable that men
should learn to pray freely in their own words, or even in no words at
all. Provided a man remembers reverence, he need not stand on ceremony
with GOD. But it is advisable also to use books and manuals of prayer
--at any rate in the first instance: to use them, but not to be tied to
them. Many such manuals have been compiled and published within recent
years: the majority of them are unsatisfactory in varying degrees. A
few, however, can confidently be recommended: especially _Prayers
for the City of God_, compiled by G. C. Binyon (Longmans); _Prayers
for Common Use_ (Universities Mission to Central Africa, Dartmouth
St., Westminster); and _Sursum Corda, a Handbook of Intercession and
Thanksgiving _, arranged by W. H. Frere and A. L. Illingworth (A. E.
Mowbray and Co., Ltd.).

Prayer need not be confined to stated hours and times. Interpreting
prayer at its widest, the ideal should be to "pray without ceasing."
It was said of an early Christian writer that his life was "one
continuous prayer": and it is well to form the habit of inwardly
lifting up the heart to GOD from time to time in the midst of daily
cares and business. Where Churches are kept open it is often possible
in passing to spare time to enter and kneel for two or three minutes
in quiet and recollection before GOD: but it is perfectly possible to
pray inwardly at any time and in any environment. Fixed times of
prayer, nevertheless, there must also be: and a man should at least
pray in the morning upon rising and in the evening before going to
bed. If a time can also be secured for midday prayer, so much the
better: but this is more difficult. To have formed a really fixed and
stable habit of daily prayer is an enormous step forwards in Christian
life. Much depends upon learning to rise regularly at a fixed hour
before breakfast: and this in turn depends upon a regularity in going
to bed, which under modern conditions of life it is not always easy to
achieve. If a man is obliged to be up so late at night that it is
morally certain that he will be too tired to pray with much reality
before turning in, he should endeavour, if it is at all possible, to
secure some time for prayer at an earlier stage in the evening.

Difficulties in the life of prayer beset everybody. Thoughts have a
way of wandering, the "saying" of prayers tends to become mechanical,
moods vary, and there are times in most men's lives when they feel it
almost impossible to pray with any sense of reality. A man should not
lightly be discouraged. He may be recommended to remind himself that
GOD knows all about it, and that the resolute offering of his will to
GOD at such times, in defiance of distraction and difficulty, has
special value. It is well to take God into one's confidence. "If GOD
bores you, tell Him that He does." He is no exacting tyrant, but a
Father caring for His sons. Those who care to do so may find _Prayer
and some of its Difficulties_, by the Rev. W. J. Carey (Mowbray &
Co.), a helpful book to read in this connexion.

A final word may be said with regard to a theoretical difficulty which
many people feel in connexion with the intercessory and petitionary
sides of prayer. Since GOD'S will, it may be argued, is presumably
going to be done in any case, and since He knows the real needs both
of ourselves and of our friends better than we do, what is the point
of praying for them? To many people it may be a sufficient practical
answer to refer to the example and precept of Christ, who both taught
and practised intercessory prayer. But it is possible to go a little
further, and to point out that it appears to be GOD'S will, not merely
that such and such a thing should be done, but that it should be done
in response to our human prayers. True it is that "your Father knoweth
what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him": but our Lord
emphasized this truth, not as a round for regarding prayer as futile
or unnecessary, but as a reason for praying. For prayer is an
expression of the filial spirit towards our Father, and the more
simply and naturally we approach GOD as children, making our petitions
before Him with childlike hearts, the more truly will our prayers be
in accordance with that spirit of sonship which is the mind of Christ.
At the same time, the knowledge that our Father is wiser as well as
greater than we will forbid us to clamour for what in wisdom is denied
us, and will in general govern the spirit and scope of our petitions.
Just as our Lord points out that an earthly father, if asked for
bread, will not give his child a stone, so conversely in the
experience of every Christian it often happens that in his blindness
he asks a stone, and is given bread. But no Christian will ask
deliberately and knowingly for stones.




CHAPTER III

SELF-EXAMINATION AND REPENTANCE


"The unexamined life," said Plato, "is not worth living." Similar
advice was given by Marcus Aurelius. The practice of self-examination,
therefore, is not distinctive of Christianity: it is an obvious
dictate of wisdom, wherever life and conduct are regarded seriously,
that a man should from time to time take stock of himself in the light
of his ideals and learn to know and recognize in detail where and how
he has fallen short, and what are the besetting sins and weaknesses
against which he must contend.

The Christian man will judge and try his life by the standards of
Christ, with growing sensitiveness of conscience as spiritual
experience deepens: not shrinking from the confession of sin and
failure, desiring not to be self-deceived, but to know and to
acknowledge the truth. There is nothing in this of priggishness or
unreality. It is a necessary discipline. The Christian life is meant
to bear the fruit of a character developing in growing likeness to the
character of Christ: but none is suddenly made perfect: the old Adam
dies hard: and the Christian by confession of repeated failure may at
least learn the lesson of humility and self-distrust.

The rightful complement of self-distrust is trust in GOD: the rightful
issue of self-examination and confession is the realization of divine
forgiveness, fresh courage, and a new start. The very core of the
Gospel is here. He who has bidden men forgive those who trespass
against them "unto seventy times seven" is not to be outdone in
generosity by man. But in order that sin may be forgiven it must be
acknowledged as sin against GOD and treachery to Christ, and repented
of with true sorrow of heart. Repentance is not mere self-contempt,
self-pity, or remorse. It is sorrow for sin, which has for its motive
the love of GOD and the realization that human sin meant and means in
the experience of GOD the Cross.

Nothing so deepens the religious life as true repentance, nor is there
anything so fatal to true religion as self-righteousness. "If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us." "To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." But the
first prerequisite of repentance is self-knowledge--a difficult
matter. Gross carnal offences, strong and flagrant sins, if such there
be, are obvious and upon the surface. The subtler sins of the spirit--
thoughtlessness, for example, or snobbishness or priggishness and
pride--though we are quick to remark upon them in others, are apt in
our own case to pass undetected. It is the Spirit who convinces men of
sin. Only as we are resolute to enter into "the mind of the Spirit"
can we hope to know ourselves as in the sight of GOD we really are.

The matter is complicated by the fact that those who, as things are,
most systematically practise self-examination and confession of sin
too often view the matter in a somewhat narrowly ecclesiastical
spirit, and make use of forms of self-examination which mix up real
and serious moral offences with "sins" which are merely ceremonial,
trivial, or imaginary, as though the two stood precisely upon the same
level. "One must abstain from sexual sin _and_ not go to dissenting
places of worship; one must not steal _and_ must be sure to abstain
from meat on Fridays." A man's own sense of reality should enable him
to guard against this sort of thing, and if fixed forms of self-
examination are used, to use them with discretion.

The forms most commonly suggested in manuals of devotion are based
upon the Ten Commandments. This is in accordance with the teaching of
the compilers of the English Prayer-book, who, after bidding intending
communicants to "search and examine" their "own consciences (and that
not lightly, and after the manner of dissemblers with GOD)," proceed
to lay down that "the way and means thereto is: First, to examine your
lives and conversations by the rule of God's commandments: and
whereinsoever ye shall perceive yourselves to have offended, either by
will, word or deed, there to bewail your own sinfulness, and to
confess yourselves to Almighty GOD, with full purpose of amendment of
life."

The Commandments are, however, as they stand, both negative in form
and Judaistic in character, and if used in this way as a "rule" of
Christian conduct must be spiritualized and reinterpreted in the light
of the Gospel. The second and fourth Commandments, in particular, are
in their literal significance obsolete for Christians: it is a false
Puritanism which would forbid sculpture and religious symbolism in the
adornment of a Christian church, nor is any one in the modern world
likely to confuse the symbol with the thing symbolized: while the
observance of the Sabbath is part of that older ceremonial "law" from
which S. Paul insisted that Christian converts should be free (Coloss.
ii. 16). There is, however, a spiritual idolatry which consists in
allowing any other object than the glory of GOD and the doing of His
will to have the primary place in the determination of conduct--there
are men who worship money, or comfort, or ambition, or their own
domestic happiness, or even themselves. And the Commandment about the
Sabbath, though it has no literal value to-day (and certainly no
direct bearing upon the sanction or significance of Sunday) may serve
to suggest the important principle that a man is responsible before
GOD for the use he makes of his time, and that it is a religious duty
(not confined to any particular day of the week) to distribute it in
due proportion, according to circumstance and opportunity, with proper
regard to the rightful claims of work, of worship, and of recreation
and rest. The remaining Commandments are capable of being similarly
interpreted as suggesting broad positive principles rather than as
merely prohibiting wrong actions of a particular and definite kind:
and so treated they form as convenient a framework as any other for a
scheme of questions for self-examination.

It is possible, however, that some men may prefer to use as their
basis some standard more distinctively Christian than the ancient law
of Judaism--for example, the Beatitudes (Matt. v. 1-12) or the "fruits
of the Spirit" (Gal. v. 22). A man will in any case do well either to
frame or to adapt his own scheme for self-examination, with special
regard paid to whatever he may discover by experience to be a
besetting sin or weakness, or a temptation to which he is particularly
exposed. It should be remembered that the measure of what is wrong in
a man's life is the measure of the contrast between his character and
that of Christ, and that the chief flaws in Christian character and
achievement (which are also those most likely to pass undetected) are
not uncommonly such as fall under the head of "sins of omission"
rather than of commission--the leaving undone of what ought to have
been done, the failure to exhibit positively in relation to GOD and
man the qualities of faith and hope and love. A man should ask himself
wherein he has chiefly failed, and come short of the glory of GOD:
whether he is loyally observing any self-imposed rule of life and
discipline, and fulfilling any resolutions which may have been made,
or any obligations which have been undertaken. Having made in this
manner an honest attempt to discover his own shortcomings and failures
before GOD, let him with equal honesty confess them, seek forgiveness,
and in the spirit of repentance and restored sonship start again.

The late Lieutenant Donald Hankey, better known as "A Student in
Arms," criticizes Churchmen of a certain type as being unwholesomely
preoccupied with the thought of their sins, and allowing their
consciences to become a burden to them. They should, he says, 'think
less of themselves, and trust the Holy Spirit more. The advice is
excellent: but morbid scrupulosity is not a common fault of English
laymen. The habit, as Mr. Chesterton expresses it, of "chopping up
life into small sins with a hatchet" is, of course, to be avoided: but
the purpose of self-examination and self-knowledge is not to encourage
morbid introspection, but by frank acknowledgment and repentance to
get rid of the past and with recovered hope and serenity to reach
forward towards the future. A man cannot "walk in the Spirit" unless
he is inwardly "right with GOD."

With regard to sacramental confession, the rule of the Church of
England is sane and clear. It may be expressed by saying that "none
_must_, but all _may_, and some _should_" make use of it. In the case
of a conscience seriously burdened in such a way that a man hesitates
to present himself for Holy Communion unabsolved, to go to confession
is obviously the right remedy. There are other cases in which men find
by experience that it helps them to be more honest and candid with
themselves, with GOD, and with the Church, if they go to confession
from time to time as a piece of self-discipline and a needed spiritual
tonic. Yet others discover that they flounder less in spiritual
things, and that their religious life is deepened and made stronger,
if they place themselves for a time under wise direction. Systematic
direction, of course, has obvious dangers. It may tend to destroy
independence of character. It may cause a man to become "priest-
ridden." But the dangers are not inevitable, and there are without
doubt cases in which it is of value. Much obviously depends upon the
wisdom and common sense of the director. The Prayer-book refers
penitents to a "discreet and learned" minister of GOD'S Word. If a man
proposes to practise habitual confession he will do well to assure
himself of the discretion and learning of the priest whose help he
seeks.

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