p. 144I am afraid you will think me an incorrigible. When I talk with you, I feel that faith must be the proper and the natural thing: but when I get away among people of another way of thinking, I seem to go back. And I go back so easily; almost like a weight that has been slowly lifted by a string, and suddenly the string snaps, I go straight to the earth.—Well, my good friend, we are unhappily situated in the present evil world in many ways: and one of the unhappy circumstances is that the world is full of heedless and unbelieving people by whom we can scarcely avoid being influenced. You must keep out of their way as much as possible. You know what Solomon says: “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but the companion of fools shall fall.”
Ah, but we cannot go out of the world like that.—I do not mean that we are to go out of the world absolutely. We are obliged to mix more or less with the unbelieving people who form the world’s p. 145 population. We live among them, and we live by them, and our mission as the servants of God is among them as Christ’s was: but there are various ways of mixing with them. There is a way that is hurtful and a way that is harmless. There is a way that is forbidden and a way that is permitted. A wise man will seek the harmless and permitted way.
That is easily said. It may be difficult to carry out.—Granted the difficulty: the impossibility not granted.
I wish I knew just how to hit the medium.—Earnest endeavour and experience will help you. There are some natural distinctions which ought to yield guidance in the matter. There is a difference between doing business with people and keeping company with them. There is a difference between friendship and kindness. There is a difference between fellowship and acquaintance. There is a difference between courtesy and communion. We are forbidden to cultivate friendship with the world or to hold communion with them; but we are not forbidden, on the contrary, we are commanded to do them good, according to opportunity, and to be kind to the evil, and to be courteous to all men in word and deed.
Very well, suppose I try to keep up these distinctions, I still find myself powerfully influenced by what I see and hear.—Well, that is inevitable. We are bound to be impressed because we are impressible. This is inseparable from the conflict. It is part of the battle. There would be no battle without it. It is “blessed is the man that endureth temptation,” not “blessed is the man that feels no temptation.” What we have to do is to see to the re-inforcements, as in all war. Bring to bear the counterforce of truth and reason, p. 146 which will neutralize the effect of the falsehood and folly by which the world is influenced.
It sounds plausible, but it does not work out so easily as it sounds. The falsehood and the folly, as you call them, are wonderfully interesting.—Oh, my friend!
Well, I must speak the truth.
Truth? I grant it is truth in a certain relation, but not the supreme relation. It is true that “stolen waters are sweet.” What then? Are we to drink and find ourselves among the fools?—I do not advocate that. I only say that the world—this foolish, this evil world—(I grant it is all that)—is curiously attractive in the midst of its folly, and that I find it hard work to resist its fascination.
Well, well, the fascination granted, but it is only skin deep. It is not wrong to feel the fascination, but it is the part of wisdom to see through it and to resist it. This is part of the very “overcoming” of which Jesus speaks in every one of his seven “messages to the churches.” It would be no overcoming if the fascination were not felt.
It troubles me sometimes to think why there should be all this conflict in the attainment of the Divine ends with man. Why should not the process of righteousness be as easy and delightful and natural, say, as the impulse that makes the babe find its mother’s breast? Why this agonizing stress between opposing forces?—With that we need not trouble ourselves. It is facts we have to do with. We cannot enter into the Divine philosophy of things.
We seem to want to. It would be satisfactory if we could.—In a measure, we may, but the subject is too vast and subtle for our limited powers. We can only get an occasional glimpse. p. 147 I wish I could get glimpses.—It is easy to get glimpses.
I don’t find it so.—See: life is a balance of forces: the whole universe is a balance of forces.
What am I to understand by a balance of forces?—Well, a combination of antagonistic forces so adjusted one to the other as to give the result in the case.
I don’t know that I am quite clear.—Well, take a steam engine, for illustration: steam unconfined tends to instantaneous expansion in all directions. You confine it in tubes and chambers, which brings a counterforce into play, and this counterforce is so distributed and diversified by escapes and movements in the confining mechanism as to give you the motion aimed at by the mechanism as a whole. Various parts work in opposite directions. On a superficial view it might seem as if these oppositions were inconsistent with the object aimed at. On the contrary they are essential to it. The engine is a balance of forces: so is the whole universe: so is life physiologically; so is life mentally, which is at the apex of all phenomena.
How do you apply that to moral conflict?—Well, the excellence of moral victory, whether in its relation to a man’s own happiness or the pleasure God finds in him, lies in the open-eyed and preferential choice of a right line of action, and the refusal of the wrong. Before this choice can be exercised as a mental habit and condition, there must be the counterforce or attraction which you spoke of as fascination in a wrong direction; and there must be opportunity for the play of this fascination before it can do its part. This opportunity requires the circumstances which we call temptation, and these circumstances involve all p. 148 the painful aspects of present experience to which you referred. There must be conflict before there can be victory, and there must be victory before there can be the high result—the ineffable result in which the whole process will end, when God will give eternal life to those who by a patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honour, and immortality.
I think I see your drift.
These problems continually descend on the path of man like the clouds of mist that come down on a foggy day. The best way is not to give them too much attention, but to accept our actual situation in a practical way, and overcome the evil with the good rather than speculate why evil is allowed so large a place.—I grant that would be the wise way, but there are many difficulties.