But there is something that does not forget nor gild the past with false romance, and that is history. Turn back its pages a hundred years or more; read such a book as H. G. Graham’s Social Life in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century; and you will soon discover what a fine word “nowadays” really is.
As far as humanity and civilisation, brotherly charity, and true religion are concerned, the man who in pessimistic mood contrasts nowadays with the good old times a hundred years ago, simply does not know what he is talking about. Changes there have been, many and radical, but change is not necessarily a sign either of declension or decay.
I can partly understand a man without faith in God giving his vote for a general falling off in human progress, but I cannot understand a man who believes in God, and in the presence in the world of a living spirit of Christ, being a pessimist. No one affirms, of course, that we are progressing everywhere, and all the time. Setbacks here and there, there are in human history just as in a successful campaign. But that, on the whole, the world grows better, the Kingdom comes, and earth draws nearer to Heaven, seems to me to be simply a corollary from the fact that God reigns, and has blessed us with knowledge of Himself.
I grant you that the war is a disappointing revelation of how far mankind still has to travel. But, as far as we are concerned, I am not disposed to counsel undue humiliation and self-condemnation on account of it. A people that for the sake of unseen eternal realities like honour and righteousness will make the sacrifices which we are making, can hardly be said to be degenerating, especially when we remember some of the causes for which we have drawn the sword in years and generations gone by. But even though the clock of progress be set back awhile—and that does not seem so likely now as when the war began—it is simply not possible that, in this world of God’s, evil should ultimately vanquish good, that the Spirit of Christ should finally be crushed by the forces that oppose it. That can never be. As soon might the germs of disease which the sun destroys turn round upon it and quench its blessed light.
The third query opposite Nabal’s “Nowadays” is—Does he truly discern the present time? Does he know “nowadays” even as well as he knows the past? As a matter of fact, David was not just a servant who had broken away from his master, and if Nabal had only lived a little longer he would have seen how completely he had misread the signs of the times.
That is worth remembering when you are tempted to say, Nowadays things are out of joint. Maybe you don’t clearly see these very days you are disparaging. When Jesus preached in Nazareth, the village where He had been brought up, the people said, Is not this the Carpenter? and in their anger at His presumption, as they thought it, they wanted to make away with Him. If they had only known!
It is not enough to recognise that we cannot see the future. We cannot even see the present. Think what it would be like if we could see the great men, the prophets, poets, reformers, leaders, who are at this present moment in our nurseries and schools, or if we were able to recognise in the—at present—small shoot of a cause, the great tree into which in God’s providence it is destined to grow!
Nowadays; nowadays! What a delusion it is for anybody to think he knows “nowadays” well enough to call it names! It is not with observation that the Kingdom comes. God rings no bell when He has a new and gracious purpose afoot in the world. And the thing for you and me to do is to rest confidently in the faith that, in His own good way and time, God is redeeming the world to Himself, and to do all that we can to help Him, and to make our little corner of it a brighter and a better place. But do not let us imagine that we can see all that is going on about us. There is far, far more of God and of goodness in the world than we suspect. The woods and hedges look very bleak and bare today.1 It is a dead and barren aspect that Nature wears nowadays. Yet even now the sap is mounting quickly in every living stem, and Spring is getting ready while we sleep.
So, let us have the courage to believe—so is it with every worthy cause of God and man.
Prayer
Almighty God, Ruler and Disposer of all events, we would remember that this world of ours is, first of all, Thine. We believe that, though Thy Kingdom comes not with observation yet it does come more and more. We believe that, with Thee, the best is yet to be. And we pray that, with that faith in our hearts, we may leave the large campaign with quietness and confidence to Thee, and seek rather to discharge the duties of that post Thou hast assigned to us, with loyalty and good hope. Amen.
XXIV
Roundabout Roads
“And a certain man drew a bow at a venture.”
2 Chronicles 18:33
It sounds improbable that though a whole army was trying to kill Ahab,
