CARPENTER
THE AGE OF PROGRESS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
William Boyd Carpenter, English
divine, was born in 1841 in Liverpool,
educated at the Royal Institution and
Cambridge University, where he was appointed
Hulsean lecturer in 1878. After
holding several curacies he was appointed
vicar of Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, in
1879. He held also a canoncy of Windsor
Until 1884, when he was consecrated bishop
of Ripon. In 1887 he delivered the Bampton
lectures. He has published a large
number of works, among which may be
reckoned "Commentary on Revelation"
(1879); "Lectures on Preaching" (1895);
and a "Popular History of the Church
of England" (1900).
Lewis O. Brastow, D. D.
CARPENTER
Born in 1841
THE AGE OF PROGRESS
And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold
now, the place where we dwell with thee is too
strait for us. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan,
and take thence every man a beam, and let us make
a place there where we may dwell. And he answered,
Go ye.—2 Kings vi., 1, 2.
There are two conditions of real personal
power in the world. One is that we
should be able to look above this earth
and see some heavenly light surrounding
everything we meet. We call this, in ordinary
language, asserting the power of insight,
and it is that which redeems life from being
regarded as commonplace. Everything is
tinged with heavenliness for those who see
heaven's light above all; and the possession
of this power gives that dignity of conception
to life which is one of the secrets of power.
But there is another condition also, and that
is that there shall be the strength of personal
assertiveness. A man may be possest of
never so much insight, and yet he may lack
that robustness of personal character which
can make itself felt among his fellows; he
may, in fact, be deficient in the powers of
personal action.
Now these two gifts Elisha possest. He
possest the loftiness of insight. He had seen
when his master was taken up the glimpse
of the fiery chariot which took him into the
heavens, and from that time forward his life
was tinged with the consciousness of heaven.
Nothing could be mean or low to a man who
had beheld that first vision of God. This was,
as it were, an enduring and abiding background
of all his after-conceptions. So in the
hour when it seemed as tho beleagured by
armies and enemies, that there was no power
of release, his eyes, as it were, were still open
to behold the heavenly brightness about him.
He possest also that power of personal assertiveness.
Standing in front of the Jordan,
he smote aside every difficulty which hindered
him commencing his career.
But there is a third qualification still which
is needed, in order that these two powers may
be brought, as it were, into practical contact
with life. Great men, it has been said by
one of our own great teachers, are men who
live very largely in their own age; that is to
say, they are persons the drift and set of
whose mind does not belong to the generation
before themselves exactly, altho they may be
possest of powers of insight, nor to the
generation after their own age, but have much
power of sympathy and comprehensiveness
toward the interests and exigencies of their
own time. They are men to use the phrase,
who are in touch with their own age. And
therefore it is, tho a man may be possest of
so much insight that heavenly light breathes
upon all things, tho he may have a certain
robust assertiveness and energy of character,
yet if he have no power of adjusting his capacities,
so to speak, in language understood of
the men among whom he moves, all that
power will, for the practical purpose of life,
be thrown away.
Elisha possest the two. Does he possess
the third? Is he a man, in fact, who can
make his influence felt among the men of his
day? Is he in touch with his time? Can he
be a man capable, not only of acting for himself,
but capable, by that subtle and magical
influence, of arousing the activity of others?
For a man may, indeed, hold a position of
isolated splendor, which may produce the
admiration of the men of his day; but to be a
real prophet, I take it, is to be able to merge
largely our own individuality into the individualities
of others, and to be not so much
the cause of admiration as the cause of activity.
Now I think that the scene will explain to
us that Elisha was largely possest of that
gift. If you watch it you will see that here
is a scene which has since then often been exhibited
in the story of all great movements.
One of the great conditions of life is the capacity
to expand. Dead things may indeed
crystallize into a sort of cold uniformity, but
that which has life in it is always possest of
expansive energy. Here are these sons of the
prophets becoming conscious that the place
where they dwell is too strait for them. It
is a movement which, as it were, arises outside
the prophet's suggestion; he is not the one
who tells them that the place is too strait.
They gather themselves together and say,
"The place is too strait for us; let us go and
build a larger and ampler habitation for ourselves."
And immediately you watch him in
the midst of these men whose minds are alive
to the spirit of progress. He identifies himself
with their aspirations; he is one with
them in the movement; he does not coldly
frown upon their glorious aspirations, which
are from the extension of their own institutions,
but rather makes himself one with
them. Not only so. See how he allies himself
to their individual life. He does not even dictate
to them the whole method of the movement;
each man shall be free, he says, to
choose his beam. When they say, Let us go
and select our own beam for our own habitation,
be it so. He is not to frown down their
individual efforts, but, at the same time, by
going with them he preserves the coherence,
as it were, of their work. He allows the
freest scope of individual activity, but yet
preserves them in the great unification of their
work. And when the episode happens which
often does happen in the story of great movements—when
the hour comes when one man's
heart is smitten through with despondency,
when the work is still before him, but the
power of carrying on the work has dropt
from his hand, slipping into the stream which
is ever ready to drown our best ambitions and
endeavors—Elisha stands beside a man in
despondency, cheers his spirit, which is overwhelmed
by hopelessness, and restores to him
hope, capacity, and power. I say this is a man
who is, in a great sense, a true prophet of
his day, not simply posing for personal admiration,
not merely asserting himself and
destroying the capabilities of those about him,
but with that sweet flexibility and that wondrous
firmness combined, which is capable of
giving movement to the young life about him
and at the same time drawing them into the
one great purpose of existence.
And thus it seems to me that the scene
spreads beyond its own age. It is a type of
all great movements, and it gives us a fitting
attitude of those who would direct and control
such movements. Here is the prophet in
relation to the idea of the age of progress.
The place is too strait for us. It is not the
cry of the Jewish Church only; it is the cry
of all ages. "The place is too strait." You
and I might say that is a vision of the growth
of Christendom; the place is too strait. The
little upper chamber at Jerusalem did not
suffice for the three thousand converts. "The
place is too strait," they are forced to exclaim.
The limits of Judea are too small for the
ever-extending energy of Christianity. Every
land and every nationality must be brought
within its sway, and the workers shall be as
the workers in this scene, manifold. Here
shall be men like St. Paul, who shall go, with
a strong forensic sense of what the gospel is,
to speak it to the hearts of men who need it,
and lift them high above commonplace things.
Here shall be one like St. John, reposing upon
the bosom of his Lord, and able to unfold to
them heavenly visions and the anticipations of
the outgrowth and development of the world.
Here is one who, like Origen shall collate,
like Jerome shall translate, like Augustine
shall expound, like the men of later ages shall
preach the spirit of reformation. The place
is too strait, but given to each man his individual
freedom, the power and the expansion
of the Church goes on.
But is it not true that while, on the one side,
we might say that this is a glorious picture,
untouched and untinged by any dark lines,
the moment that we begin to look at it in its
practical form we begin to see the difficulties
of its development? Let us go unto Jordan,
and let us take each man our own beam. As
long as the expansion of the Church is in the
direction of the increase of its numbers or
accession of new territories, so long indeed
the men who have had the spirit of zeal have
been willing to sanction such extension. But
there comes a time when the consciousness of
its expansion does not move according to the
line of numbers merely, but it moves according
to the line of new institutions and of new
thoughts. How, then, will it be received by
those into whose hand is placed the responsibility
of its guidance? "The place is too
strait for us;" so they cried in the early
Church when they found that Judaic institutions
were too narrow for the spirit of
Christianity. The new wine could not be left
in old bottles. "The place is too strait for
us;" so they cried when they found within
the bosom of the medieval Church that there
was not the opportunity for the expansion of
their spiritual life and the development of
their missionary energy. But has it always
been true that the spirit of this religious zeal
which longs for new developments and new
departures has been received with the spirit
of wisdom? You and I know full well that
the history of the Church of Christ is the
history of a thousand regrets. Did the medieval
Church never regret the act by which
it drove forth the Waldenses into schism?
Has our Church never regretted the day when
it looked askance at the work of John Wesley?
You know full well, whatever might
have been the feeling of earlier times, there
is growing up among us a larger and wider
spirit, catching—shall I say?—the true directing
spirit which shone thus in the life of
Elisha; and believing that it is possible after
all that each man may have his function in
life, and each man, choosing his beam, may
in bearing that beam be building up the
temple of God. But, alas! it is hard for men
to believe it. Still, even now, the spirit of
prejudice surrounds every aspect with which
we regard life and Church movement. It is
difficult for a man bred in one communion, for
example, to believe in the types of saintship
which have become the favorites of another;
harder, perhaps, for men bred in the very
heart of Rome to believe in the spirit of saintship
which dwelt in the breast of Molinos; hard
for those dwelling in the heart of Protestantism
to understand Bonaventura or Xavier;
hard for one who has been taught in Presbyterian
lines to believe in that sanctity which
descends to us as an heritage from Cosin and
Ken; and difficult, perhaps, for Episcopalians
to recognize the sanctity which dwelt in Richard
Baxter and John Bunyan....
You may believe that there is the danger of
the Church—shall I say?—growing stereotyped
in its forms, by checking the freedom
of individual life. There is the danger, on the
other side, of the Church, as it were, spreading
itself in the aggregation of splendid individualities;
and because men believe intensely in
their own mission, because they can not but
see that the beam which they are hewing down
is one of paramount importance to take some
place in supporting the temple of God, they
are inclined to prefer the attitude of isolation.
Is this wise, and is it well? Pardon me if I
ask you to say that this spirit, if allowed to
grow, is a spirit which, from its various aspects,
is one which, by all means in our power,
we ought to set our faces against. Our own
beam is not the temple of God. Each move
and form of religious thought is not comprehensive
of the whole; but it is here where men,
choosing their own beam, begin to believe
in their own, and their own alone, and seek
to impose that little thing of their own as
tho it were an absolute necessity of every
portion of God's Church, that you get the
spirit of actual division. "The whole is
greater than its part." If we could only bring
the aphorisms of ordinary life into the bearings
of the Church of God we should be happier.
But, let me assure you, when a man has
his beam, and tells me that that beam will be
built into the temple of God, will support its
roof, and perhaps be the very thing which
will add new dignity to the splendid arch
which will spring from it, I am content to
accept it. Let him believe anything that will
beautify and extend. But when he tells me
that it is catholicity to believe in his beam
being all, he simply, as it were, sins against
the very thing he is seeking to maintain. It
is a sign of intellectual mediocrity; it is the
spirit of sectarianism; it is the spirit ultimately
of skepticism. When a man believes
that pious views, which have been found
profitable to his own soul, are to be made the
rule for the whole catholic Church; when he
tells me that special hours for special services
are essential for the well-being of all Christian
souls; when he tells me that special attitudes
in the house of God are essential to catholicity,
it is intellectual mediocrity, as the brilliant
French poet has written which can not
comprehend anything beyond itself. It is a
spirit of sectarianism; for what, I pray, do
you mean by sectarianism, if it is not this
spirit, that you exaggerate your own particular
doctrine into such proportions as to
make men feel that there is none other than
that? You are of your own little Church, and
you are doubtful of the rest of the world.
That is the spirit of sectarianism, and that,
if you understand it rightly, is the only fault
of skepticism; for to believe that God is to be
narrowed down to the conception of such a
thing as that, to believe that God's temple
is to be brought down to the measure of your
own little beam, is to believe with such a
stunted growth, such a stunted conception of
God, that it is practically denying Him altogether.
Sometimes I venture to think that we have
lost faith in Christ altogether. We believe
in a Church which can be manipulated by
human wisdom, we believe in a Church which
can be galvanized by organization, but we
can not believe in a Church whose development
is being overruled by the guiding spirit
and eternal presence of Christ Himself. If
you take a large view of Christianity the
danger becomes yours. Some, indeed, hew
down beams for the temple of God not themselves
knowing of that temple into which they
are placed; for I do believe that in the development
of God's great world the efforts of
earnest and honest men who know not indeed
in what direction their efforts are tending
will be found to have been real efforts for the
promotion of something, for the bringing out
of some truth, for the establishment of some
truth by which the Church may live, on which
the Church may build, of whom the whole
building, fitly framed together and compacted
by that which every joint supplies, shall thus
grow into the holy temple of the Lord.
But the scene is not the scene merely of
these activities uncrossed by a single reverse.
Here is the accident, here is the time in which
men begin to feel that their power has left
them. One, in hewing down his beam, animated
by a spirit of a little overeagerness,
perhaps gifted with that egotism of his work
which made him develop it more rapidly than
that of his fellows, strikes too hard a blow, and
the loose ax-head slips off the haft and falls
into the stream. Immediately he is face to
face with, and conscious of, that most painful
consciousness which can ever visit the heart
of man—the contradiction between the grandness
of the work and the ideal of the work
which he has to achieve and his own impotence.
There is the beam, and all about me
are the workers, and the house is to be built
for the sons of the prophets. But here, in my
hand I hold this simple haft, bereft of the
power of doing my share in that great work.
It is a picture which has been repeated often
and often. Does there not come a time when
we feel that the power, as it were, of things
has forsaken us? There was a time when our
creeds afforded us great delight. We believed
in God; we believed in redemption; we believed
in the Spirit which could guide human
affairs; we moved to our work full of the
exuberance of confidence in that faith. But
behold, there has come a time when we, perhaps
almost unconsciously, lose the very thing
which has given us hope.
Now whenever a new doctrine or new truth
has come up in the history of the Church, it
has been held, in the first instance, by men
who lived by it and tied their own lives to it.
No power of that ax-head slipt off into
life's stream. They knew what they were
doing. When men brought out the doctrine
of the inspiration of the Bible, they knew
what they were doing; they hewed down the
trees about them, and they really believed it.
Their lives were created by this truth. So
when they believed in the real presence of
Christ, they believed that Christ was really
present. It was no fiction. When they believed
in the doctrine of justification by faith,
they believed that God had taken them into
His own hands, that God had grasped their
lives, and God Himself was behind their lives.
Truth was to them truth, and it was a consecrated
thing; but remember that truth,
which is a flower, has its roots there, and it
is only as you grasp it by its roots it becomes
true to you. Truth is not a thing of the intellect
only; it descends into our moral nature,
it grafts upon our affections and conscience;
the moment I cut it away from it it
ceases to be truth; it becomes dogma—for the
sake of distinction. That is to say, the men
of our age who do not live by that truth wish,
as it were, to attach that truth to them; they
wish to make it actually the cry of party.
They stole the wand of the enchanter, but they
had not the power of the enchanter. They
knew that they had the flower, but the flower
cut away from its moral root had no force and
no vitality, and therefore it crystallizes it.
Hence, the natural history of a doctrine is
this: when men are taking it rightly, using it
as for God, rightly handling it, it is a power
in their hands. Taken up for their own purposes,
for the purpose of satisfying an indolent
understanding, for the purpose of evading
the claims of God which other truths may
be making upon their minds, it then becomes
evacuated of its power; it is impotent, it is
buried underneath the stream of constantly
changing time.
And, then, how shall it be restored? By
again, I say, being taken up out of the stream
by the true handle. If you wish to restore
the power of truth, you must see that it is
the truth which has a claim upon your moral
being. For just as we are told that the sun
may pour down its beams eternally upon the
face of the moon, burning and blistering with
its rays its surface, and that there everything
remains cold and frozen underneath those
beams, because no sweet atmosphere can hold
the sunbeams in its fold, so it is true that when
you take truth and use it from its false side,
it shall pour its brightest rays into your intellect,
not the dry light which Bacon meant,
but the false light which some substitute for
it. You receive a true light upon your understanding,
and there is no moral atmosphere
upon your nature to embrace those sunbeams,
to keep them and make them your own, and
make them your life blood by their presence.
If thus we take truth it becomes false to us,
a buried and useless thing. But if you take
truth from its moral side, and approach it
from its moral and spiritual side, it shall
again become a power in your nature.
When men believed in the inspiration of
God and the Bible it was a power to them;
but when this dropt down into a belief that
every jot and tittle was part and parcel of
God's inspiration, then they merely crystallized
into a dogma what was a great and living
truth. When men ask us, Are the doctrines
of Christianity dead; are they played
out? my answer is, They are dead to those
who use them wrongly, as all truth is dead to
those who have no moral love of truth—dead
to those who will use them as charms and incantations,
sewing them, as the Pharisees
sewed some texts, into the border of their
robes; dead, indeed, they are to those who are
not making them part of their own life, but
not dead to those who, tho they may not be
able to formulate their view into any way that
will satisfy a partizan section of Christianity,
yet feel that to them the old inspiration is
life. God's living voice will speak to them
godlike in every line, to them because they
believe in a Christ behind all these truths, and
that these are but the endeavors of men to express
the power of the living thought and voice
of God. Then to them ordinances will live; a
real presence will be about their path. Sacraments
and ordinances will live because something
lives behind them. They are not using
them falsely but reverently, and truly God
has spoken to their souls; He has put back
the truths into their hearts by the handle of
some new-found life.
It is the same with our own lives; often and
often it happens that you feel life has lost
its power and charm; its vigor was once great.
I came up, for instance, into the midst of my
fellows here, with all the enthusiasms of university
life, and I rejoiced in them; but now,
somehow or other, the novelty has gone away,
and the interest has palled, and I do not care.
Life has lost its meaning to me, and I do not
feel that life is worth living at all. Yes, it is
a contradiction in your own mind between the
conception of life as in your nobler moments
you form it and your own impotence. Has
the ax-head gone? Has it slipt into the
water? How can it be restored? The first
thing a man discovers in his own impotence, is
that the power which was in his hands was not
his own.
It is only when you and I see this that we
can take it up again. Take life, and make
it the reason for indulgence; take amusements,
and make them the instruments for mere enjoyment;
take study, and make it the reason
for mere pride; and you will find the ax-head
will slip off. All the knowledge you possess
will be like blinded knowledge, capable of being
applied to nothing. But believe it to be
your own, given you of God—these hands, this
brain, this heart, God's, not your own; these
ordinances of religion God's, not your own;
these teachings of the Church in all ages God's
varied voice, which, if heard aright, shall
blend into one mold in your ears. Take it
up as His, and not your own; lift up your
life right reverently; bend as you receive it
from His hand, who can alone give you the
restored fulness of His powers. You are surrounded
by workers; your mind is often disturbed
among the many cries and many
sounds; but believe it, each of you has your
own beam, and God can put into your hand
the weapon which you are to use in hewing it
down. Go forward, and be not afraid. |