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Music For the Soul
Devotional: April 22nd

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EXALTATION ABOVE WORLDLY GOOD

I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me. - Philippians 4:12-13

"What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?" Ah! you would have gone to a palace if you had wanted to see that, not to the reed-beds of Jordan. As we all know, in his life, in his dress, in his food, in the aims that he set before him, John rose high above all regard for the debasing and perishable sweetnesses that hold of flesh, and are ended in time. He lived conspicuously for the Unseen. His asceticism, which belonged to his age, was not the highest type of the virtue which it expressed. As the might of gentleness is greater than the might of such strength as John’s, so the asceticism of John is lower than the self-government of the Man that comes eating and drinking.

But whilst that is true, I seek to urge this old threadbare lesson, always needed, never needed more than amidst the senselessly luxurious habits of this generation, that one indispensable element of true greatness and elevation of character is that every one of us should live high above these temptations of gross and perishable joys; should :

" Scorn delights and live laborious days."

No man has a right to be called "great " if his aims are small. And the question is, not as modern idolatry of intellect, or, still worse, modern idolatry of success, often makes it out to be, has he great capacities, or, " has he won great prizes," but has he greatly used himself and his life? If your aims are small, you will never be great; and if your highest aims are but to get a good slice of this world’s pudding, no matter what powers God may have given you to use, you are essentially a small man.

I remember a vigorous and contemptuous illustration of St. Bernard’s: he likens a man that lives for these perishable delights which John spurned to a spider spinning a web out of his own substance, and catching in it nothing but a wretched prey of poor little flies. Such a one has no right to be called a great man surely! Our aims rather than our capacity determine our character, and they who greatly aspire after the greatest things within the reach of men, which are faith, hope, charity; and who, for the sake of effecting these aspirations, put their heels upon the head of the serpent, and suppress the animal in their nature - these are the men "great in the sight of the Lord."

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