Excerpts from
"YOU
CAN WIN!"
by Norman Vincent Peale
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Book Description
The author believes he
knows of a way to make life work. He has tested it in his own
experience and
has found that it works for him when worked. He has enjoyed the
opportunity of
observing its application in the lives of a vast number of people who
have
likewise found that it works. The author firmly holds to the conviction
that
any individual who will apply the method of living and attitude of mind
outlined
in this book will have an amazing and never-failing secret by which he
can
gloriously win on that battlefield called Life.
CHAPTER 1
WHY I
KNOW YOU CAN WIN
NO man is defeated until he
thinks he is. The world may lay
waste his land and break through his outer fortifications, but as long
as the
inner citadel of his life remains untaken he can win the battle. A wise
old
Book tells us that the issues of life are out of the heart. Of a truth
they
are, and if a man's heart is sturdy,
what can the world do to him? Its only recourse in the presence of
indomitable
courage and faith is to capitulate. The world inevitably gives in to
the man
who won't give up. Adversity comes in varying form to all men, but some
men
have the ability to turn misfortune to advantage. James Russell Lowell
wisely
said, "Mishaps are like knives that either serve us or cut us as we
grasp
them by the blade or the handle." The secret of winning in life is to
get
a firm hold on the handle.
One's reaction to mishap and
difficulty is determined by
the sort of spirit one has within him. Your world, the world you live
in day by
day, is just about what you make it. It will be no better or bigger or
finer
than you are yourself.
The inner
braces of a man's heart must be equal to the outer pressure of life's
circumstances. Let the outer pressure be increased, or even
continuously
sustained, and the inner support weakened, and life falls in. Long ago
I came
across a sentence from Thomas Carlyle upon which, the more I see of
life, I have
had reason to ponder. And the sentence is this: "It was always a
serious
thing to live." It was never an easy thing, certainly not for any
extended
length of time, to meet and survive the various hazards of human
experience. To
stand up against the bullying process of nature is serious business. To
meet
and triumph over disappointment, adversity, sorrow, and failure is
not easy.
To avoid or overcome the hostility and misunderstanding of
individuals or
groups of individuals is difficult. Carlyle was right—"It was always a
serious thing to live"—and little wonder he also declared that the
chief
question life asks of each of us is—"Wilt
thou be a hero or a coward?"
Hugh Walpole, in one of his
novels, echoes the same
thought. One of his characters is made to say a great thing: "It isn't
life that matters; it's the courage you bring to it." It is a certainty
that the soft and pampered personality will not get very far with
the problem
of victorious living. If one's spirit is heroic and has a drawing
account on
the bank of inner power and resource, he will win out in the end.
You may this very day be face
to face with critical
problems, or you may be bearing heavy burdens and responsibilities, and
perhaps
you are a bit discouraged, if not quite overwhelmed. It is possible
that you
are even tempted to give up. We all know how you feel, for there isn't
one of
us who has not felt just like that a good many times. But you are not
going to
be defeated. Press deeper into your spirit and there you will find
an
indomitable, glorious conqueror nothing in this world can overcome.
There are several selves, or
personalities, in each of us,
and one of them is a timid, little self that meets life with fear and
trembling. I notice a cartoon in the paper about a man named
Milquetoast, or
The Timid Soul. That is in all of us to some extent. This timid self prevents us
sometimes
from attaining our cherished ambitions.
I read of a woman in one of
those small apartments in New
York City where the bed comes out of the wall and you pull the kitchen
sink out
of a drawer when you want to prepare a meal. This woman had a dog, a
little
snip of a thing, that as far as size was concerned was about right for
the
little apartment. The trouble was, however, that he had a bark much too
large
for so small a space, so she went to a doctor and had him operated
on, with
the result that his bark was reduced about eighty-five percent. Many of
us have
done the same thing. We have allowed the stern difficulties of life to
frighten
us so that our timid little self has had its bark reduced, Accordingly,
we make
a feeble and futile impression upon life. Remember, you are a rugged
soul, and
that you have it in you to seize fate by the throat and dictate your
own terms
to it.
It is
folly, of course, to expect to achieve such a victory on the basis
of your own
strength. No man, however resourceful or pugnacious, is a match
for so great
an adversary as a hostile world. He is at best a puny and impotent
creature
quite at the mercy of the cosmic and social forces in the midst of
which he
dwells. His only hope is to attach himself to some force superior to
and more
powerful than the world of things. Obviously the material world
provides no
force of this character, for all of its forces, such as wealth or
fame or power
over one's fellows, are themselves weak and ineffectual in the
presence of
fate and circumstance. People with great wealth and favored position,
who
exercise influential power, are quite as subject to the troubles and
woes of
life as their less fortunate neighbors. You cannot win over life
by mere
possession of money or position. Many who have attained these
objectives are
still the unhappy victims of fear and anxiety,
harassed by feelings of inadequacy and constantly
in fear of being unequal to the demands put upon them. They are haunted
by the
specter of a possible failure. Having put their faith in material
things, they
are obsessed with the possible tragedy of losing these values. Nor do
their
possessions relieve them from the fact that they have sensitive human
personalities
in which inner conflict works its havoc. In my interview work I find on
the
whole more personality disorganization among the favored class
than among the
common run of folk. It may be that greater leisure allows more time to
think
about oneself. It may be that heavier responsibility in the case of
those who
have positions of leadership breaks down nerve resistance. It may
be that
participation in the loose and pagan morality of our time is more
general in
this group. In privileged and unprivileged alike the repeated
offenses against
conscience and self-respect indulged in so freely today are
producing, on the
basis of what I see in my conference room, an abundant crop of
obsessions and
personality disarrangements.
The deeper we proceed in an
analysis of the device commonly
supposed to open a way of victory over this hard world in which we
live—devices
such as wealth, power, sensory pleasure—the more certain it is that
these are
in themselves dead ends. We must relearn a truth our generation has
forgotten
but which all wise men know—that the center of power is within the
spirit of
man. Herodotus said, "The destiny of man is in his own soul." To win
over the world a man must get hold of some power in his inward or
spiritual life
which will never let him down. Material things fail; riches tarnish;
sensory
responses become satiated and jaded; ambitions decay into
disillusionment, but
inner spiritual
power constantly renews itself from deep springs
of unlimited supply. Life never loses its flavor or fine taste. The
spirit
never grows weak or stale. One finds himself becoming more and more
imperturbable,
more conscious of power, more aware of an astounding invincibility
in his
soul. I am not overstating the matter. This confidence is based on
the actual
experience of countless people who have found there is a sure method by
which
they can win in life, come what may.
The secret of this inner power
is the practice of real Christianity. I have never
seen
anything else that will give one complete victory over life. True, some
people
find a measure of power in art or music. I know a rich man with fading
eyesight
who seems to find strength to meet his affliction in a curious way.
Late each
night he goes alone into a chapel on his estate and plays the great
pipe organ.
As one hears the plaintive music coming from that darkened church,
where a rich
man going blind is seated at the organ seeking comfort for his soul,
one is
aware of the power of music to minister to the human spirit. Of course
this
power is itself spiritual, for, as Beethoven pointed out, "Music is
more
than a concord of sweet sounds; it is something from a higher world
which we
cannot describe, much less define, but which we have the power to
invoke."
The man in this story, it must be explained, has gained this admirable
victory
over his affliction from a deeper source than music. Like Abt Vogler,
his
temple of melody has afforded him a glimpse of the higher truth, that
each of
life's broken arcs ultimately becomes a perfect round. Thus one may
tuck a
sublime peace up against his soul, for he knows all will come out right
in
God's own time.
People who
actually practice their Christian faith find that it works in every
situation.
I referred to "real Christianity." By this phrase I mean to
distinguish between that formal type of Christianity which works itself
out in
beliefs passively held, and that type where one puts his life with all
of its
concerns in the hands of God and, sincerely trying to live out Christ's
spirit
in daily life, trusts God to care for him, guiding him in his decisions
and
sustaining him by divine power and grace. The distinction has fine
shadings,
for even some faithful members of the church, living on a high moral
and
ethical standard, stop short of the Christianity I mean to define. They
have a
Christianity of beauty and character but there is beyond that a
Christianity of
spiritual power. In a mere ethical Christianity one struggles hard to
"be
good." In a Christianity of spiritual power one is given a
superior
strength whereby wrong impulses can no longer dominate him. In a formal
Christianity one bears his burdens heavily and with a certain noble
resignation. He still believes God can help to make the load lighter
but never
actually experiences that help. In a Christianity of spiritual power
one gets a
lifting power under his burdens far beyond anything his own strength
can
provide. It is as if a spiritual tide comes surging in with a vast
shoulder as
the ocean lifts a stranded vessel from mud flats.
I sat in a railroad train one
morning which was filled with
college students returning to school from their Christmas vacation. It
was an
interesting and animated scene, and a babel of conversation filled
the car.
Directly across the aisle was a group of girls who were greatly excited
because
at the next station one who was evidently very popular was expected to
board
the train. When that station was reached, the young lady for whom they
waited
came in with a rush and there was much feminine ado. But this was as
nothing
when they
discovered on her finger a sparkling engagement ring. They plied her
with
questions which she tried to answer out of a rather attractive
confusion, but
finally she sought to silence them all by the sweeping
declaration, "Oh,
you'll never know what it means to be in love until you experience it."
Little did those girls suspect that their conversation would be
overheard and
repeated in a book, but it is a perfect illustration of what I want to
say.
That young lady's statement is true about religion as well as
love—"You'll
never really know what it is until you experience it."
Broadly speaking, there are two
types of Christianity. One
is traditional or hereditary. Somebody once long ago experienced it. He
found
it for himself and handed it down to his descendants, many of whom,
unfortunately,
have treated it like an heirloom, to be preserved with honor, but from
which
the original freshness has long since departed. A couple came to our
church at
the heart of New York City one day to be married. They were accompanied
by the
parents of the groom, who proudly told me that they had been married in
our
church twenty five years before, and the further interesting fact that
the
grandparents of one of them had been likewise married there over a
half-century
previously. I asked them where they were attending church at
present and with
a surprised laugh they said they did not go to church. They reminded me
again,
however, that the grandparents had been great servants of God and
strong
Christians. At home they still had the high silk hat which the
grandfather had
worn on his wedding day. They were, you see, preserving the
grandfather's
religion as they were preserving his hat. Both were heirlooms. Their
religion
was a tradition, not a present experience.
There is
too much of this sort of religion in our country. What was vital has
now become
a relic. It is a traditional religion. Our fathers were for the most
part men
of personal religious experience. Often was it said of them, "They had
religion." That meant that God was real to them. Their hearts were warm
with the impingement of the divine power upon their lives. They had an
inner
strength, a spiritual vitality and virility which made them strong and
effective in their lives. They constituted a citizenship upon which
this nation
grew great and prospered. But they could not pass the experience on to
their
children, for obviously you cannot hand down an experience. It must be
felt by
each person anew and for himself. Religious experience cannot be
bequeathed
like stocks and bonds, and houses and lands. When you try to hand down
an experience,
the danger always is that it will lose its color and freshness and
become
ultimately a form infrequently observed, and even then without an
adequate
sense of its meaning. It is like an old and half-forgotten
daguerreotype. The
trouble today is that the spiritual life of the world is surfeited with
a
second-hand religion. It is possible and splendid that one generation
should
hand down the by-products of religion in the form of a fine culture and
noble
code of ethics, but religion will thin out, and with it culture and
ethics,
unless the spiritual impulse is freshly renewed from generation to
generation.
It is for this reason that periodically every two or three decades in
American
history a revival of pure religion has swept over the land, relighting
the
fires of personal and public devotion. Men have referred to these
movements as
periods of great awakening, and from each of them can be dated the
renewal of America's
spiritual, social, and even economic life. This is the transformation
which
takes place when hereditary and traditional religion gives way to
religion as
experience, new
and powerful, in the life of the people. It it profoundly to be
hoped that this
will happen again in America, and that right soon. It alone can save us.
Thus, the second type of
Christianity is religion at
personal experience. If a re-emergence of religion as personal
experience is
the solution for the vitiated life of the nation, so will it restore
the power
of effective living to the individual. What do we mean by the term
"religion as experience"? Briefly, it may be defined as the
realization of God in one's own soul. It is not to get a new
intellectual or
credal conception of God, but to have your heart strangely warmed by a
sense of
his spiritual presence. After such an experience one does not wistfully
listen
to others tell what God means to them—he knows for himself. Something
has
happened to him. He has been changed by a power greater than himself.
His life,
like an electric bulb that was dark because it was not attached to the
flow of
electric power, has been firmly connected to the stream of God's grace
which
now flows through him. To use another figure and returning to the
incident of
the young ladies previously referred to, religion as experience is
like
falling in love. One may define love and describe it fervently, but one
never
completely understands or appreciates it until its mystic process has
operated
in his own experience.
Perhaps I may best illustrate
my meaning by the incident
of a young minister whom I know. He is a splendid fellow,
cultured, able, and
attractive in personality. His character is good in the finest and
strongest
sense of the word. He preached a religion of beautiful ethics and had a
warm
compassion for the poor and needy from an economic point of view. One
day, however,
he came under the influence of a great soul in whom he noticed a deeper
experience. There was about this man a strange inner power, so that
when he
spoke, people's hearts became warm and wistful, and profound yearnings
resulted
in men and women made over. The young man became acutely aware of a
lack in his
life. He saw that he had been preaching only words and he said, "I will
get this power or give up the ministry." He was in dead earnest, and
with
absolute sincerity he asked God to give him a new life. He surrendered
himself
wholly to God and, as always happens when a man honestly puts his life
in God's
hands, a new contact was established and the man's life became
illumined by a
mystic and ineffable light. The next Sunday the people filed into the
church
and leaned indolently back to hear the same old words. But the sermon
had not
proceeded for many minutes before they came forward on their seats,
aware that
something had happened. It was the same man outwardly there in the
pulpit, but
it became apparent they had a new minister. The word—the word made
flesh—moved
like fire in his speech, and as springtime passes with magic touch over
a dead
world so did the transforming power of God stir a congregation into new
life
and experience.
There is nothing like it. It is
the one and only medicine
that will cure a stale, sinful, or defeated life. This experience of
religion
will give a deep inner joy and gaiety of spirit. Life no longer will be
satiated or without interest. It will be everlastingly fresh. Saint
Paul told
us about the unsearchable riches in Christ. That is how one will feel
about
life after the experience—he will have a new sense of peace and a deep
quietness in the center of the soul. By means of it one will learn the
secret
of poise in the midst of the outer confusion of our time. His
inner conflicts,
being healed, the outer world will no longer overwhelm him. He will
know that
the outer world goes to pieces largely because one has gone to pieces
on the
inside. For the first time in his life one will know how to rest. Hitherto
he has
assumed that rest meant to give a change to the body and mind, but the
new
experience will teach him that the center of rest is in a soul at
peace. He
will see that true rest is expressed in the phrase, "O rest in the
Lord." The inner restlessness at the center of his personality, the
vague
sense of guilt deep in the subconscious mind having been settled
and solved,
he can now find peace and rest that is beneficial and lasting. It is
amazing
what Christianity offers—power, peace, victory, deep, infectious
happiness.
What a pity that anyone should miss these blessings so freely offered!
But no
one need miss them. Put yourself completely in God's hands, and with
Saint Paul
you will be able to say, "The grace of our Lord flooded my life."
Thus your religion, which may
now consist largely of the
framework of belief, tradition and ceremonial, and from which you
derive not a
little comfort and help, can be—and this is the greatest truth you will
ever
encounter—a force and power to completely revolutionize your life.
From it you
can draw a power beyond anything you have ever experienced, a power
sufficient
to overcome any weakness, carry any burden, conquer any sin. Through a
surrendered faith in Christ and a daily intimate living in spirit with
him you
can win over adversaries which formerly seemed too great for the human
spirit
to bear.
Call the
roll of all those things which can defeat a man—suffering and pain,
sorrow,
disappointment, hardship, frustration, sin. There they stand,
challenging,
menacing, all but invincible. Who can hope to overcome them? But if one
is
armed with a strange and wonderful secret, these giants are at his
mercy. This
secret is not some cure-all, nicely wrapped in cellophane, which you
can
purchase in a store. It is not an achievement for which you may
valiantly struggle.
It cannot be purchased, nor can it be won by effort. It is a gift
freely
offered to you. All you need do is to take it by an act of
faith and
begin to live on it. Why go on being a victim of fear, anxiety,
trouble, and
weakness, with vigor of mind and spirit and body being steadily drained
off?
Great new power and strength can be yours.
Turn to the Bible. In the Bible
you read a statement by a
man who long ago discovered the truth. He said, "I can do all things
through Christ who giveth me the strength." You can learn to say the
same
thing. That secret can be yours if you want it. You can win. I mean
that
because I know it is true. It is immaterial what your difficulty is. If
it is
the worst difficulty in the world, it does not invalidate the fact that
you can
win if you will adopt this plan of living. There is nothing magical
about the
Bible, but the secret I am talking about is to be found within its
pages. Why
sit there defeated when you have at your very elbow a book that can
make a new
person of you? When you open it, the most human people come walking out
of its
pages and sit down with you or me and say: "Listen, I have a secret and
I
want to share it with you. If you take Christ into your life and put
your life
in his hands, you too can win over anything." "I can do all things
through
Christ," says the Bible.
I realize that many people do
not understand religion in
this vital way. They think of religion as something that has to do
with what
they regard as stale and musty churches and dull services of worship.
But that
isn't religion at all. Religion deals with an electric power or
force which is
all about us, just as sound waves are in the air. When you come into
your
living room, for instance, your radio is silent and lifeless. You turn a
dial. You tune
your radio to the sound waves that are filling the air and immediately
these
sounds are brought into your room and you take into your consciousness
that
with which the air is filled but which the moment before were
meaningless to
you because you had not tuned in. All about us in the
universe is this value
called the power of God, but we are impervious to it. It means nothing
to us.
We are closed to it. We go on day by day living in our own feeble human
strength, which is drawn from inside ourselves and which soon runs dry.
Accordingly, we are worried; we are nervous; we are defeated time and
time
again; we have no sense of conquest at all.
Religion means that you get
tired of living like that. You
become aware of a power in the world that you do not possess. What,
then, do
you do? You tune in. You bring your spirit into harmony with the Spirit
of God.
That's very simply done too. You say with the faith of a little child,
"Lord, I bring my human spirit to you and I ask you to fill me with
your
power." Then the miracle happens. As the strains of an orchestra fill
the
room when a radio is tuned in, so the marvelous melody of God comes
into your
life. Then as you look at these things which formerly over-whelmed you,
you can
say with Saint Paul, "I too can do all thing through Christ." Why am
I so positive about all this? First, because I had the same experience
myself.
Anybody who wants to dispute the reality of this can do so to his
heart's
content but I know this is true because it happened to me, and the
greatest
argument in the world is to be able to say, "I have experienced it."
The second reason I know it is true is because I have seen it happen
frequently
to other people.
But will this secret of real
Christianity work in the
actual life of a realistic world? The answer that many people
with problems identical to your
own have discovered it will. Let us look at one or two area of human
experience
to which the principle has been applied.
There, for example, is sorrow,
a universal experience. In
every home comes the day when a vacant chair speaks mutely of a dear
one gone.
Everywhere are people who long for "the touch of a vanished hand, and
the
sound of a voice that is still." Every man ultimately must face the
problem of sorrow and the poignant longing for one he has loved long
since and
lost awhile. In my work as a clergyman I have been in countless homes
of
sorrow. I have stood by many a grave with bereaved families, beholding
the sad
obsequy wherein one dearly loved is lowered to a last resting place.
Always the
thought of the suffering of it profoundly impresses me. It is a cruel
and
terrific wrench of nature to take from a family circle one whose form
and
figure, whose smile and touch, the sound of whose voice is
inexpressibly
precious and to lay that one in the earth and go back to a cheerless
place.
Looking upon people in these circumstances I have often wondered how
they bear
it. It is surely one of the supreme crises of life and calls for
resources more
than human. If I believed in Christianity for no other reason, I should
prize
it for what I have seen it do for people in sorrow. If some mighty
vandal
should destroy our literature, two passages I would seek to save
from the
catastrophe would be these—"I am the resurrection and the life," and
the other, "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe
also in me—in my Father's house are many mansions." I would save them
for
the reason that I do not see how men and women could go on without
them. From
them I have seen the bereaved draw a mystic power that has sent them
back from
the place
of
heartbreak to the world of affairs with a strange light shining in
their eyes.
It is thrilling to see how a real Christian meets sorrow and to observe
the
working of the inner power under these most pathetic
circumstances.
I had two funerals in one day.
One in the morning of that
day was in a very humble home, a place, clean and neat, but a home of
poverty.
Previously I had conducted funeral services there for two sons,
and now the
father was dead. Her family now all gone, the heartbroken wife and
mother sat
alone in her grief. She was clad in a simple, well-worn dress, long out
of
style. Her hands, lying clasped in her lap, were rough and red, the
hands of a
woman who had known only toil. Her head was bowed as I repeated to her
the dear
old words of comfort. She rocked slowly to and fro in her chair as I
reminded
her that in her faith she would find comfort and that God was
near. Suddenly
she looked up and her eyes were filled with tears, but there was a
radiant
light on her face like sunshine through summer rain. "Yes," she
said
softly, "I know—all that you say is true. I feel him; I feel him now.
Christ has been here today. He is here now by my side."
A hush
settled upon the room. The truth of her words could not be denied. I
too felt a
Presence. It seemed at any minute a third but unseen person would
speak. Never
in any cathedral has he been nearer than in that humble room. The
simple little
woman seemed to radiate spiritual power. Her face shone like a
transfiguration
and the conviction in her voice was electric, unworldly, as if she were
face to
face with God, as indeed she was. I saw in her, as in a flash, the
ancient
grandeur of the Christian faith. This simple woman marched up the steep
ascent
of heaven through peril, toil, and pain. Nothing could defeat her. In
her I saw
the indomitable, victorious spirit of a real Christian. She had
something deep
and true, a secret priceless beyond words. This was no time for
histrionic
display or pretty theories. Here was a woman up against about as stiff
a
proposition as one could imagine and I saw her win her battle. And the
secret—Christ
was with her. She had put her life in his hands and he did not fail
her. Into
her spirit he poured that ineffable value we call the grace of God, by
which
she became more than a conqueror. You see, it works in real life.
On the afternoon of the same
day I sat with a leading
business man of that city in his beautiful home. His wife was dead and
he too
sat in his grief. What a contrast with the other home of the morning,
Here was
all that wealth could provide of beauty and loveliness. Costly rugs
were on the
floor; exquisite pictures and hangings were on the walls. But what
did it all
matter?—a beloved wife was gone and a man whom I knew to be a strong
leader in the
business world was broken with grief.
Again I spoke the great old
words, and he listened as a man
thirsty for the water of life. I shall never forget what he told me in
the
tender friendship of that hour of sorrow. He was a man of somewhat
austere mien,
with no outward evidence of sentiment in his nature. He was a typical
aggressive and efficient business man of the sort that compels respect
and
gains dominance. Within his home, however, he was dependent, leaning
upon his
wife, who was almost a mother to him. He was shy about social contacts
and much
preferred to remain at night quietly in his home reading, his wife
knitting or
reading on the opposite side of the table. As many men of similar type,
he was
a boy never quite grown up but putting on a strong front before the
world.
"You know," he said, "I've found something in religion that I
never felt before. Last night I knelt by my bed as usual to pray. I've
done
this every night since I was a boy. When I was married forty years
ago," he
continued, "my wife and I agreed to pray together every night. We would
kneel by the side of the bed and she would pray out loud. I couldn't do
that," he explained. "And anyway she was so much better at it and I
always felt God would listen to her." Rather shyly he said that he
would
take his wife's hand as she prayed and like two simple-hearted children
she
would lead this strong husband of hers up to a kindly God who must have
looked
with delight upon them, judging from the way he blessed them. "Well,"
he went on, "we did that all these years and then—then he took her away
and last night I knelt down alone. Out of long habit I put my hand out
for hers
but her hand was not there. It all came over me then how I missed her
and loved
her and I wanted her so badly I could hardly bear it. I felt as I did
long ago
when I was a boy and scared and wanted my mother. I put my head down on
the
bedside and I guess for the first time in my life really prayed. I
said: 'O
God, I've heard about people really finding you, and I believe you do
help
people. You know how much I need you. I put my life in your hands. Help
me,
dear Lord.'" He turned from his story and looked me full in the face
and
his eyes were filled with wonder as he said: "Do you know what
happened?
Suddenly I felt a touch on my hand, the hand she always held. It was a
strong,
kindly touch and I felt a great hand take my own. I looked up but could
see no
one, but all the pain seemed to go out of my mind and a great peace
came into
my heart. I knew that God was with me and would never leave me." And as
I
listened I knew it too. Again I saw the wonderful miracle of faith
whereby a
man, a good man but one to whom religion had always been a formality,
under a
great sorrow break through into the area of spiritual power and win
over a
crushing adversity.
Real Christianity is very
wonderful and there is no power
equal to it when it has full control of a personality. By it any
problem can
be solved. The question might be raised, "Can it deal in similar
effective
fashion with the affairs of the world?" The answer is, it can do so if
enough of us will have genuine faith in it and utilize it in our social
problems. We need no other social program nor method, for none that we
might
devise would have the qualifications or force possessed by
Christianity. All we
need is more real faith in the Christian method. We hear a great deal
today
about world peace and social justice and the preservation of Democracy,
and
these problems are critical and vital. We flounder about from one idea
to another,
and many voices are raised, calling attention to themselves as
possessed of
some wisdom especially designed to solve these problems. Thinking and
discussion are of great value and should be encouraged, but I am sure
that
after the last word is said and the last panacea has been analyzed we
will have
to return to the New Testament for a way to a better world. Only one
Man by his
wisdom and resources has the authority to say, "I am the way,"
There
is one verse in the New Testament which holds the secret. Think of the
trouble
we would save ourselves and the number of conferences and speeches and
election
campaigns we could be spared if we would simply take this secret and
put it to
work. We have laid great stress on certain ethical teachings of the
Master, and
rightly so. We have felt that if we could persuade people to adopt
these
ethical principles, peace and justice would inevitably result. Perhaps
so; and the effort should be
persistently maintained, but why do we neglect another aspect and
quality of
religion which has been demonstrated in practice as having
unmeasured power
beyond any strategy man's poor brain may
devise?
In the New Testament we read
these electric words, "If
ye have faith" (not a vast amount of faith but real faith) "as a
grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain (what a
disparity—a
grain of mustard seed pitted against a mountain!), Remove hence to
yonder
place, and it shall remove." That is not all of this amazing
verse—"And nothing," (yes, that is what it says) "and nothing
shall be impossible unto you." That is about as inclusive and
unqualified
a proposition as it would be possible to imagine. One may seek to
explain it
or interpret it, but there it stands in nowise watered down. It is a
man-sized,
straightforward, take-it-or-leave-it promise. Why do we shy off from
it? The
reason is, it requires more faith than we possess. More's the pity, for
the few
times that such faith has been exercised it has astounded the
world with its
results. If we could get even a few people to embrace and live on this
mustard-seed faith, we could utterly revolutionize the world in the
name of
Christ, putting all actual and would-be dictators to flight, and
establish
peace, prosperity, and democracy so firmly it would take years of
political
bungling and religious compromising to undo. Our hope today is in no
political
or social program. The next election, whoever wins, will not save us.
Our hope,
our future, our destiny lie in getting a few real people to stake their
all on
the workability of the faith that moves mountains. Remember what eleven
Galilean
peasants once did. Remember what three men, Charles and John Wesley and
George
Whitefield, once did. Remember what one business man once did. He lived
in New
York City in 1857, the year of a great panic. He
listened to speeches and read articles and voted
for men who were supposed to know how to save the nation. Finally, he
decided
that God ought to have a chance. He announced that on a certain day in
a certain
place in Fulton Street he would pray about the country. He "met"
first alone. Then a few joined him. Soon the room was crowded. Other
meetings,
crowded by business men, sprang up in other parts of the city. "The
movement spread like wildfire to other cities. The noon hour in
business districts
from coast to coast saw the streets deserted as business men prayed
together
in faith that God's power was available to the nation. The
result—the great
spiritual awakening of 1857, which brought in its wake one of the most
thorough
religious and business revivals in American history.
We have been unable through our
own efforts, despite all
our cleverness, to get the nation out of the doldrums. Meanwhile
religion of
the mountain-moving variety has decayed very largely into
formalism or ethical
programism. The people who ought to lead give little attention or
serious
thought to spiritual values. They do not even go to church, but argue
aimlessly
on country-club porches. Meanwhile God patiently waits in the
shadows for a
few real people to believe in him and consecrate themselves to him so
they can
become channels through which he may pour his vast power to transform a
nation
from defeat and near chaos to victory and new life.
We have power in our hands to
save our generation and we do
not use it. This is the supreme tragedy of our time. When I say that
the
apparently insoluble problems of today can be solved by religious
faith, my
conviction is based on no idle fancy or wishful hope, but upon the
scientific
fact that what has happened once can happen again. It has been done and
therefore can
be done. Consider an historical parallel.
In 1805 a man named William
Lloyd Garrison was born. He
grew to young manhood, and taking a straight look at human slavery said
he did
not like it. He said it was wrong and announced that he meant to
destroy it.
People laughed at such bumptiousness, and when they
tired of laughing, they sneered and said
Garrison was a fool. They pointed out that slavery was a great mountain in human history, an ancient,
firmly planted
institution. It had existed from the dawn of civilization. The great
empires of
Egypt, Greece, and Rome had been built on slave labor. Single
individuals owned
as many as ten thousand slaves. The English uptaking world had long
recognized
slavery as a basic institution, blessed by religion. When the Peace of
Utrecht
was signed in 1713, which gave England a monopoly on the West African
slave
trade, the treaty was celebrated in Saint Paul's by the singing of a Te
Deum written by the Christian composer Handel especially for
the occasion. In
America slavery was likewise firmly established. In 1835 the governor
of South
Carolina declared: "Slavery is the cornerstone of our
Republican
edifice. Destroy slavery and you put a stop to all progress." The same
principles
were held in the North. A professor in Yale University said, "If Jesus
Christ were now on earth, he would, under certain circumstances,
be a slave
holder." In 1855 the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church declared,
"God has permitted slavery for wise reasons." At the time of the Dred
Scott decision most of the members of the Supreme Court were
slaveholders. The
law honored it, the Church blessed it, business profited by it, and the
nation
recognized and practiced it. It was a mountain, as granite is a
mountain, and
who could destroy it?
Garrison said he could.
Garrison believed in God with the
faith of a child. "I trust in God," he said, "that I may be his
humble instrument of breaking at least one chain." He became the most
hated man of his time. He was ostracized and burned in effigy, but he
went up
against the mountain. He was a man aflame. His biographer declares:
"The
continuousness of Garrison is appalling and fatigues even the
retrospective
imagination of posterity. He is like something let loose. I dread the
din of
him. I cover my head and fix my mind on other things; but there is
Garrison,
hammering away till he catches my eye and forces me to attend to him.
If
Garrison can do this to me, who am protected from dread of him by many
years of
intervening time, think how his lash must have fallen upon the thin
skins of
our ancestors. The source of Garrison's power," declares his
biographer,
"was the Bible. He read it constantly. It was with this fire that he
started his conflagration."
So, armed with faith that
nothing could daunt, Garrison
rolled up his sleeves, took his little hammer of mustard-seed faith,
and
approached the great mountain of human slavery. He brought down
his little
hammer and a faint tingle was heard. The people laughed and booed and
sneered.
But Garrison brought it down again and again. Blow after blow fell
until his
little hammer became a great sledge, the reverberations of which could
be heard
throughout the land. As he beat with his faith upon the mountain, a
crack began
to show. It widened until the people shouted with a mighty voice,
"Look,
the mountain is breaking!"
The glorious, thrilling fact is
that just fifty-eight years
after Garrison was born, human slavery was outlawed forever in the
United
States of America. It is an illustration of the shining truth that any
mountain can be broken down by faith
when men are completely surrendered
to God. We
can end war, depression, moral
decadence,
social injustice, and restore declining democracy
if enough of us, like Garrison, will
take seriously these words, "If ye
have
faith as a grain of mustard seed .
. . nothing
shall be impossible unto you."
There is still another area
where Christianity must give
power to win in life if it is to measure up to the place we have
assigned to
it. It must help you and me as individuals to overcome ourselves. We
have been
discussing the method for solving the intensely perplexing
problems of
society. It would perhaps be easier to accomplish that feat than to
solve the
intricate and complex personality of one man's own self. If you
are like most
of us, you are yourself the most difficult person with whom you will
ever be
forced to deal. Every man somehow must come to terms with himself. That
is not
easy of accomplishment. There is a perverse element in each of us, and
in some
it constitutes a real problem. Every right-thinking and normal person
wishes
his better nature to prevail. No man consciously wants to live life on
a low or
inferior spiritual level, but there is something in us that
prevents us from
being what we want to be. It is the fact that our whole nature has not
been
brought under God's control. There are still pagan areas within us.
These
unspiritualized elements of our lives get us into trouble.
Miss
Muriel Lester, the distinguished social worker of England, tells of an
old
woman who was frequently in her cups. Miss Lester labored with her in
an effort
to help her gain control over herself. It was discouraging
business, the futility
of which seemed to impress the old lady herself. One night after a
spree,
hearing Miss Lester's kindly admonitions, she cried out in
bewilderment,
"Miss Lester, God never made a better woman than I am, but I can't live
up
to it." So may it be said of many of us. Saint Paul stated the same
dilemma
in more classical phrase, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me
from the body of this death? The good that I would I do not; but the
evil that
I would not that I do."
Here is a man who found the
answer. He was a successful
executive and enjoyed a plentiful supply of money. He was what might be
called
an "up and out" in contrast to the common phrase, "down and
out." Without money, he would have been the latter, for he was the
victim
of his own sins. He was, it seemed, in an almost continual state of
partial or
complete intoxication and there was no restraint to his habits. He
came into
contact with some people who had themselves experienced the
restorative powers
inherent in Christianity and the ancient and astonishing miracle of new
birth
took place in this man to the end that there was a complete change in
him. Now,
Sunday after Sunday I see his radiant face in the congregation and
behold a man
who knows the meaning of triumphant living. I heard him say one
day, "I
would not give one day out of this new life for all of my past
experience." And I knew that a man who could look as transparently
happy
as he did at that moment meant what he said.
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