The Crown of Thorns
E >>
E. H. Chapin >> The Crown of Thorns
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 The Crown of Thorns
A token for the sorrowing
by E. H. Chapin
PREFACE.
One of the discourses in this volume-"The Mission of Little
Children"--was written just after the death of a dear son,
and was published in pamphlet form. The edition having
become exhausted sooner than the demand, it was deemed
advisable to reprint it; and accordingly it is now presented
to the reader, accompanied by others of a similar cast, most
of them growing out of the same experience. This fact will
account for any repetition of sentiment which may appear in
these discourses, especially as they were written without any
reference to one another.
To the sorrowing, then, this little volume is tendered, with
the author's sympathy and affection. Upon its pages he has
poured out some of the sentiments of his own heartfelt
experience, knowing that they will find a response in theirs,
and hoping that the book may do a work of consolation and of
healing. If it impresses upon any the general sentiment
which it contains, --the sentiment of religious resignation
and triumph in affliction; if it shall cause any tearful
vision to take the Christian view of sorrow; if it shall
teach any troubled soul to endure and hope; if it shall lead
any weary spirit to the Fountain of consolation; in one word,
if it shall help any, by Christ's strength, to weave the
thorns that wound them into a crown, I shall be richly
rewarded, and, I trust, grateful to that God to whose service
I dedicate this book, invoking his blessing upon it.
E. H. C.
May, 1860
CONTENTS.
THE THREE TABERNACLES 11
THE SHADOW OF DISAPPOINTMENT 41
LIFE A TALE 67
THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SORROW 99
CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION IN LONELINESS 121
RESIGNATION 143
THE MISSION OF LITTLE CHILDREN 167
OUR RELATIONS TO THE DEPARTED 191
THE VOICES OF THE DEAD 223
MYSTERY AND FAITH 243
THE THREE TABERNACLES
And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for
us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles , one for
thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. MARK ix. 5.
Caught up in glory and in rapture, the Apostle seems to have
forgotten the world from which he had ascended, and to which
he still belonged, and to have craved permanent shelter and
extatic communion within the mystic splendors that brightened
the Mount of Transfiguration. But it was true, not only as
to the confusion of his faculties, but the purport of his
desire, that "he knew not what he said." For even "while he
yet spake," the cloud overshadowed them, the heavenly forms
vanished, they found themselves with Jesus alone, and an
awful Voice summoned them from contemplation to duty, --from
vision to work.
Peter knew not what he said. He would have converted the
means into an end. He and his fellow-disciples had been
called to follow Christ not that they might see visions, but
had been permitted to see visions that they might follow
Christ. Just previous to that celestial interview, Jesus had
announced to them his own painful doom, and had swept away
their conceit of Messianic glories involved with earthly pomp
and dominion, by his declaration of the self-denial, the
shame, and the suffering, which lay in the path of those who
really espoused his cause and entered into his kingdom. They
needed such a revelation as this, then, upon the Mount of
Transfiguration, to support them under the stroke which had
shaken their earthly delusion, and let in glimpses of the
sadder truth. It was well that they should behold the
leaders of the old dispensation confirming and ministering to
the greatness of the new, and the religion which was to go
down into the dark places of the earth made manifest in its
authority and its source from Heaven. It was well that they
should see their Master glorified, that they might be
strengthened to see him crucified. It was well that Moses
and Elias stood at the font, when they were about to be.
baptized into their apostleship of suffering, and labor, and
helping finish the work which these glorious elders helped
begin. But that great work still lay before them, and to
rest here would be to stop upon the threshold;--to have kept
the vision would have thwarted the purpose. Upon a far
higher summit, and at a far distant time--with fields of toil
and tracts of blood between--would that which was meant as an
inspiration for their souls become fixed for their sight, and
tabernacles that should never perish enclose a glory that
should never pass away.
You may have anticipated the lessons for ourselves which I
propose to draw from this unconsidered request of Peter. At
least, you will readily perceive that it does contain
suggestions applicable to our daily life. For I proceed, at
once, to ask you if it is not a fact that often we would like
to remain where, and to have what, is not best for us? Do
not illustrations of this simple thought occur easily to your
minds? Does not man often desire, as it were, to build his
tabernacles here or there, when due consideration, and after-
experience will convince him that it was not the place to
abide; that it was better that the good be craved, or the
class of relations to which he clung, should not be
permanent? In order to give effect to this train of
reflection, let me direct you to some specific instances in
which this desire is manifested.
Perhaps I may say, without any over-refinement upon my topic,
that there are three things in life to which the desires of
men especially cling, --three tabernacles which upon the
slope of this world they would like to build. I speak now,
it is to be remembered, of desires of impulse, not of
deliberation, --of desires often felt, if not expressed. And
I say, in the first place, that there are certain conditions
in life itself that it sometimes appears desirable to retain.
Sometimes, from the heart of a man, there breaks forth a sigh
for perpetual youth. In the perplexities of mature years, --
in the experience of selfishness, and hollowness, and bitter
disappointment; in the surfeit of pleasure; in utter
weariness of the world, --he exclaims, "O! give me back that
sweet morning of my days, when all my feelings were fresh,
and the heart was wet with a perpetual dew. Give me the
untried strength; the undeceived trust; the credulous
imagination, that bathed all things in molten glory, and
filled the unknown world with infinite possibilities." Sad
with skepticism, and tired with speculation, he cries out for
that faith that needed no other confirmation than the tones
of a mother's voice, and found God everywhere in the soft
pressure of her love; and when his steps begin to hesitate,
and he finds himself among the long shadows, and the frailty
and fear of the body overcome the prophecies of the soul, and
no religious assurance lights and lifts up his mind, how he
wishes for some fountain of restoration that shall bring back
his bloom and his strength, and make him always young! "Why
have such experiences as decline, and decay, and death ?" he
asks. "Is it not good for us to be ever young,? Why should
not the body be a tabernacle of constant youth, and life be
always thus fresh, and buoyant, and innocent, and confiding ?
Or, if we must, at last, die, why all this sad experience, --
this incoming of weakness, --this slipping away of life and
power?"
But this is a feeling which no wise or good man ever
cherishes long,. For he knows that the richest experiences,
and the best achievements of life, come after the period of
youth; spring out of this very sadness, and suffering, and
rough struggle in the world, which an unthinking
sentimentality deplores. Ah, my friends, in spite of our
trials, our weariness, our sad knowledge of men and things;
in spite of the declining years among which so many of us are
standing, and the tokens of decay that are coming upon us;
nay, in spite even of our very sins; who would go back to the
hours of his youthful experience, and have the shadow stand
still at that point upon the dial of his life? Who, for the
sake of its innocence and its freshness, would empty the
treasury of his broader knowledge, and surrender the strength
that he has gathered in effort and endurance? Who, for its
careless joy, would exchange the heart-warm friendships that
have been annealed in the vicissitudes of years, --the love
that sheds a richer light upon our path, as its vista
lengthens, or has drawn our thoughts into the glory that is
beyond the veil? Nay, even if his being, has been most
frivolous and aimless, or vile, --in the penitent throb with
which this is felt to be so, there is a. spring of active
power which exists not in the dreams of the youth; and the
sense of guilt and of misery is the stirring, of a life
infinitely deeper than that early flow of vitality and -
consciousness which sparkles as it runs. Build a tabernacle
for perpetual youth, and say, "It is good to be here"? It
cannot be so; and it is well that it cannot. Our post is not
the Mount of Vision, but the Field of Labor; and we can find
no rest in Eden until we have passed through, Gethsemane.
Equally vain is the desire for some condition in life which
shall be free from care, and want, and the burden of toil. I
suppose most people do, at times, wish for such a lot, and
secretly or openly repine at the terms upon which they are
compelled to live. The deepest fancy in the heart of the most
busy men is repose - retirement-command of time and means,
untrammeled by any imperative claim. And yet who is there
that, thrown into such a position, would find it for his real
welfare, and would be truly happy? Perhaps the most restless
being in the world is the man who need do nothing, but keep
still. The old soldier fights all his battles over again,
and the retired merchant spreads the sails of his thought
upon new ventures, or comes uneasily down to snuff the air of
traffic, and feel the jar of wheels. I suppose there is
nobody whose condition is so deplorable, so ghastly, as his
whose lot many may be disposed to envy,--a man at the top of
this world's ease, crammed to repletion with what is called
"enjoyment;" ministered to by every luxury, --the entire
surface of his life so smooth with completeness that there is
not a jut to hang, a hope on, --so obsequiously gratified in
every specific want that he feels miserable from the very
lack of wanting. As in such a case there, can be no
religious life--which never permits us to rest in a feeling
of completeness; which seldom abides with fulness(sic) of
possession, and never stops with self, but always inspires to
some great work of love and sacrifice --as in such a case
there can be no religious life, he fully realizes the poet's
description of the splendor and the wretchedness of him who
" * * built his soul a costly pleasure-house
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;"
and who said
" * * O soul, make merry and carouse
Dear soul, for all is well.
* * * * * * *
Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,
Joying to feel herself alive,
Lord over nature, lord of the visible earth,
Lord of the 'senses five
"Communing with herself: , 'All these are mine,
And let the world have peace or wars,
'T is one to me,' * * * * *
* * * * * So three years
She throve, but on the fourth she fell,
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears,
Struck through with pangs of hell."
The truth is, there is no one place, however we may envy it,
which would be indisputably good for us to occupy; much less
for us to remain in. The zest of life, like the pleasure
which we receive from a work of art, or from nature, comes
from undulations --from inequalities; not from any monotony,
even though it be the monotony of seeming perfection. The
beauty of the landscape depends upon contrasts, and would be
lost in one common surface of splendor. The grandeur of the
waves is in the deep hollows, as well as the culminating
crests; and the bars of the sunset glow on the background of
the twilight. The very condition of a great thing is that it
must be comparatively a rare thing. We speak of summer
glories, and yet who would wish it to be always summer? --
who does not see how admirably the varied seasons are fitted
to our appetite for change? It may seem as if it would be
pleasant to have it always sunshine; and yet when fruit and
plant are dying from lack of moisture, and the earth sleeps
exhausted in the torrid air, who ever saw a summer morning
more beautiful than that when the clouds muster their legions
to the sound of the thunder, and pour upon us the blessing of
the rain? We repine at toil, and yet how gladly do we turn
in from the lapse of recreation to the harness of effort! We
sigh for the freedom and glory of the country; but, in due
time, just as fresh and beautiful seem to us the brick walls
and the busy streets where our lot is cast, and our interests
run. There is no condition in life of which we can say
exclusively "It is good for us to be here." Our course is
appointed through vicissitude,--our discipline is in
alternations; and we can build no abiding tabernacles along
the way.
But, I observe, in the second place, that there are those who
may discard the notion of retaining any particular condition
of life and yet they would preserve unbroken some of its
relations. They may not keep the freshness of youth, or
prevent the intrusion of trouble, or shut out the claims of
responsibility, or the demands for effort; --they may not
achieve anything of this kind; and they do not wish to
achieve it; but they would build a tabernacle to LOVE, and
keep the objects of dear affection safe within its enclosure.
"Joy, sorrow, poverty, riches, youth, decay, let these come
as they must," say they, "in the flow of Providence; but let
the heart's sanctuaries remain unbroken, and let us in all
this chance find the presence and the ministration of those
we love." And, common as the sight is, we must always
contemplate with a fresh sadness this sundering of family
bonds; this cancelling(sic) of the dear realities of home; this
stealing in of the inevitable gloom; this vacating of the
chair, the table, and the bed; this vanishing of the familiar
face into darkness; this passage from communion to memory;
this diminishing of love's orb into narrower phases, --into a
crescent, --into a shadow. Surely, however broad the view we
take of the universe, a real woe, a veritable experience of
suffering, amidst this boundless benificence, reaching as
deep as the heart's core, is this old and common sorrow; --
the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man for his
helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the
mother that bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that
once beat in sympathy, and of the eyes that hide vacancies
with tears. When these old stakes are wrenched from their
sockets, and these intimate cords are snapped, one begins to
feel his own tent shake and flap in the wind that comes from
eternity, and to realize that there is no abiding tabernacle
here.
But ought we really to wish that these relations might remain
unbroken, and to murmur because it is not so? We shall be
able to answer this question in the negative, I think, --
however hard it may be to do so, -- when we consider, in the
first place, that this breaking up and separation are
inevitable. For we may be assured that whatever in the
system of things is inevitable is beneficent. The
dissolution of these bonds comes by the same law as that
which ordains them; and we may be sure that the one --though
it plays out of sight, and is swallowed up in mystery --is as
wise and tender in its purpose as the other. It is very
consoling to recognize the Hand that gave in the Hand that
takes a friend, and to know that he is borne away in the
bosom of Infinite Gentleness, as he was brought here. It is
the privilege of angels, and of a faith that brings us near
the angels, to always behold the face of our Father in
Heaven; and so we shall not desire the abrogation of this law
of dissolution and separation. We shall strengthen ourselves
to contemplate the fact that the countenances we love must
change, and the ties that are closest to our hearts will
break; and we shall feel that it ought to be, because it
must be, -- because it is an inevitability in that grand and
bounteous scheme in which stars rise and set, and life and
death play into each other.
But, even within the circle of our own knowledge, there is
that which may reconcile us to these separations,. and
prevent the vain wish of building perpetual tabernacles for
our human love. For who is prepared, at any time, to say
that it was not better for the dear friend, and better for
ourselves, that he should go, rather than stay; --better for
the infant to die with flowers upon its breast, than to live
and have thorns in its heart; --better to kiss the innocent
lips that are still and cold, than to see the living lips
that are scorched with guilty passion; --better to take our
last look of a face while it is pleasant to remember--serene
with thought, and faith, and many charities --than to see it
toss in prolonged agony, and grow hideous with the wreck of
intellect? And, as spiritual beings, placed here not to be
gratified, but to be trained, surely we know that often it is
the drawing up of these earthly ties that draws up our souls;
that a great bereavement breaks the crust of our mere animal
consciousness, and inaugurates a spiritual faith; and we are
baptized into eternal life through the cloud and the shadow
of death.
But, once more, I remark, that there are those who may say,
"We do not ask for any permanence in the conditions of life;
we do not ask that even its dearest relationships should be
retained; but give, 0! give us ever those highest brightest
moods of faith and of truth, which constitute the glory of
religion, and lift us above the conflict and the sin of the
world! No truly religious mind can fail to perceive the
gravitation of its thoughts and desires, and the contrast
between its usual level and its best moments of contemplation
and prayer. And it . may indeed seem well to desire the
prolongation of these experiences; to desire to live ever in
that unworldly radiance, close to the canopy of God, --in
company with the great and the holy, --in company with the
apostles and with Jesus, --on some Mount of Transfiguration,
in garments whiter than snow, and with faces bright as the
sun; and the hard, bad, trying world far distant and far
below. Does not the man of spiritual sensitiveness envy
those sainted ones who have grown apart, in pure clusters,
away above the sinful world, blossoming and breathing
fragrance on the very slopes of heaven?
And yet, is this the complete ideal of life? and is this the
way in which we are to accomplish its true end? I think we
may safely say that even the brightest realizations of
religion should be comparatively rare, otherwise we forget
the work and lose the discipline of our mortal lot. The
great saints--the men whose names stand highest in the
calendar of the church universal--are not the ascetics, not
the contemplators, not the men who walked apart in cloisters;
but those who came down from the Mount of Communion and
Glory, to take a part in the world; who have carried its
burdens in their souls, and its scars upon their breasts; who
have wrought for its deepest. interests, and died for its
highest good; whose garments have swept its common ways, and
whose voices have thrilled in its low places of suffering and
of need; -men who have leaned lovingly against the world,
until the motion of their great hearts jars in its pulses
forever; men who have gone up from dust, and blood, and
crackling fire; men with faces of serene endurance and lofty
denial, yet of broad, genial, human sympathies; --these are
the men who wear starry crowns, and walk in white robes,
yonder.
We need our visions for inspiration, but we must work in
comparative shadow; otherwise, the very highest revelations
would become monotonous, and we should long for still higher.
And yet, are there not some whose desire is for constant
revelation? Who would see supernatural sights, and hear
supernatural sounds, and know all the realities towards which
they are drifting, as well as those in which they must work?
They would make this world a mount of perpetual vision;
overlooking the fact that it has its own purposes, to be
wrought out by its own light, and within its own limits. For
my part, I must confess that I do not share in this desire to
know all about the next world, and to see beforehand
everything that is going to be. I have no solicitude about
the mere scenery and modes of the future state. But this
desire to be in the midst of perpetual revelations argues
that there is not enough to fill our minds and excite our
wonder here; when all things around us are pregnant with
suggestion, and invite us, and offer unfathomed depths for
our curious seeking. There is so much here, too, for our
love and our discipline; so much for us to do, that we hardly
need more revelations just now; -they might overwhelm and
disturb us in the pursuit of these appointed ends. Moreover,
the gratification of this desire would foreclose that
glorious anticipation, that trembling expectancy, which is so
fraught with inspiration and delight, --the joy of the
unknown, the bliss of the thought that there is a great deal
yet to be revealed.
We do need some revelation; just such as has been given; --a
glimpse of the immortal splendors; an articulate Voice from
heaven --a view of the glorified Jesus; a revelation in a
point of time, just as that on the mount was in point of
space. We need some; but not too much, --not all revelation;
not revelation as a customary fact. If so, I repeat, we
should neglect this ordained field of thought and action. We
should live in a sphere of supernaturalism, --in an
atmosphere of wonder, --amid a planetary roll of miracles;
still unsatisfied; still needing the suggestion of higher
points to break the stupendous monotony.
And I insist that work, not vision, is to be the ordinary
method of our being here, against the position of those who
shut themselves in to a contemplative and extatic piety.
They would escape from the age, and its anxieties; they would
recall past conditions; they would get into the shadow of
cloisters, and build cathedrals for an exclusive sanctity.
And, indeed, we would do well to consider those tendencies of
our time which lead us away from the inner life of faith and
prayer. But this we should cherish, not by withdrawing all
sanctity from life, but by pouring sanctity into life. We
should not quit the world, to build tabernacles in the Mount
of Transfiguration, but come from out the celestial
brightness, to shed light into the world, --to make the whole
earth a cathedral; to overarch it with Christian ideals, to
transfigure its gross and guilty features, and fill it with
redeeming truth and love.
Surely, the lesson of the incident connected with the text is
clear, so far as the apostles were concerned, who beheld that
dazzling, brightness, and that heavenly companionship, apart
on the mount. They were not permitted to remain apart; but
were dismissed to their appointed work. Peter went to denial
and repentance, --to toil and martyrdom; James to utter his
practical truth; John to send the fervor of his spirit among
the splendors of the Apocalypse, and, in its calmer flow
through his Gospel, to give us the clearest mirror of the
Saviour's face.
Nay, even for the Redeemer that was not to be an abiding
vision; and he illustrates the purport of life as he descends
from his transfiguration to toil, and goes forward to
exchange that robe of heavenly, brightness for the crown of
thorns.
What if Jesus had remained there, upon that Mount of Vision,
and himself stood before us as only a transfigured form of
glory? Where then would be the peculiarity of his work, and
its effect upon the world?
On the wall of the Vatican, untarnished by the passage of
three hundred years, hangs the masterpiece of Raphael, --his
picture of the Transfiguration. In the centre, with the
glistening raiment and the altered countenance, stands Jesus,
the Redeemer. On the right hand and on the left are his
glorified visitants; while, underneath the bright cloud, lie
the forms of Peter, and James, and John, gazing at the
transfigured Jesus, shading their faces as they look.
Something of the rapture and the awe that attracted the
apostles to that shining spot seems to have seized the soul
of the great artist, and filled him with his greatest
inspiration. But he saw what the apostles, at that moment,
did not see, and, in another portion of his picture, has
represented the scene at the foot of the hill, - the group
that awaited the descent of Jesus. . The poor possessed boy,
writhing, and foaming, and gnashing his teeth, -- his eyes,
as some say, in their wild rolling agony, already catching a
glimpse of the glorified Christ above; the baffled disciples,
the caviling scribes, the impotent physicians, the grief-worn
father, seeking in vain for help. Suppose Jesus had stayed
upon the mount, what would have become of that group of want,
and helplessness, and agony? Suppose Christ had remained in
the brightness of that vision forever, -- himself only a
vision of glory, and not an example of toil, and sorrow, and
suffering, and death, --alas! For the great world at large,
waiting at the foot of the hill -the groups of humanity in
all ages; -- the sin-possessed sufferers -- the caviling
skeptics; the philosophers, with their books and instruments;
the bereaved and frantic mourners in their need!
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9