7. Shams
"Some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, millions of mischiefs." - Shakespeare.
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time." - Abraham Lincoln.
To say that a sham is the most despicable thing in the world is merely to utter an obvious truism. To observe that society is cursed by shams is only to express the most general sentiment. And yet it is possible that we have not altogether realized how deplorable is the influence of the hypocritical spirit - how it poisons the moral atmosphere, hinders all good work, and casts a withering blight over everything it touches. The weakest point in any body of men is that occupied by the counterfeits, the frauds, the impostors. Any political party might attain office to-morrow if all its followers were downright in earnest. Christianity might conquer the world in a year if every man who bears the name of Christ were determined, loyal, burning with fervid zeal, and thoroughly genuine and sincere. Then every disciple would be terrible in battle, irresistible in prayer, and stalwart in faith. But the victory is postponed by the half-hearted, the hesitating, the shams, the hypocrites, the people who are never to be depended upon.
Let us glance rapidly at a few of these counterfeits. Perhaps the most terrible hindrance to the free and unrestricted progress of Christianity is the religious sham. The question that proves such a stumbling-block to thousands of intelligent and large-hearted young men to-day is this : " How is it that while professing Christians are frequently mean and selfish and proud, worldlings are so often generous and brotherly and Christ-like ?" " Look there," said a young man to Professor Drummond, "you see that elderly gentleman ? He is the founder of our infidel club. " " But, " said the Professor, " he is a leading elder of the Church. " " I know he is, " was the young man's reply, " but he founded our infidel club. Every man in the village knows what a humbug he is, and so we will have nothing to do with religion. " It is all very well to say that Christianity should notbe judged by such feeble and unworthy specimens - the fact remains that it is judged by those who profess it ; and so long as that is the case, every sham representative will be a source of weakness and a hindrance to all true progress.
The religion which is going to influence the world to-day is a religion not merely of creeds but of conduct - a religion that softens the heart, controls the passions, checks the hasty and impatient word, and purifies the life both of the home and the oflSce. " I would not give much for that man's religion, " said Rowland Hill, "whose very cat and dog are not better for it. " Every Christian should so live as to be able to say with the good old Methodist preacher, "If you don't believe I am a Christian, ask my wife!" A religion which is confined to a prayer-meeting is a counterfeit religion, and may be swept away as absolutely valueless ; true Christianity sweetens the whole life, and upHfts everything it touches. There is no better defense of Christianity than the generous character and upright life of a true man, and there is no more dangerous enemy of Christianity than the creature who steals "the livery of the Court of Heaven to serve the devil in, " whose tongue is fluent with plausible professions while his hands are busy with the works of hell.
An Athenian once delivered a long and briUiant speech, in which he made large and liberal promises. Another - who lacked eloquence but was full of sincerity - got up and said, "Men of Athens, all that he has promised I will do. " That is the spirit we need to-day. There is nothing more pitiable than to see good men wasting time and talent in little, unworthy squabbles about their pet dogmas, while their next door neighbors are going to the devil for want of a strong arm of help and a kindly word of cheer. The man who boasts that his soul is saved and never feeds a poor body or cheers a sad heart is a living contradiction - an awful sham I " Quit your meanness " is a favorite expression with a certain revival preacher, and really it is a very necessary piece of advice. The popular idea of religion is a comfortable, jog-trot, respectable kind of life - an occasional visit to a church, a prompt payment of pew rents, a few stray subscriptions to painfully importunate collectors, and then you may be as selfish and cynical as the rest of the world. This is meanness - contemptible and pitiable. We can do without these lazy sentimentalists, these dilettanti church-goers, these religious shams, who never do a day's helpful work to relieve the world's agony or minister to the world's necessities. There are thousands of young men in our homes and churches who indolently stand aloof from the great battle for good and right and truth. Is this manly, or chivalrous, or Christ-like ? Is it not cowardly and selfish and mean ? How can we be surprised if the Master should pronounce over all such shams those sad words that are full of tears,
" Inasmuch as ye did it not "
Then there is the sham in business. He is lazy, flabby, slovenly, careless. He shrinks from the monotony of routine, despises the daily drudgery, postpones every disagreeable duty, and then wonders how it is that he is such an utter failure in life. Lowell has told us that
Folks thet worked thorough was the folks that thriv,
But bad work follers ye ez long's ye live,
Ye can't get red on't just az sure az sin,
It's allers askin' to be done agin.
We all know men who work in this superficial way. They do everything lazily, partially, unsatisfactorily. Their work will not bear inspection - it may be showy, but it is also valueless. What thou doest, do well, is the best motto for young men to-day. The man who knows how to do one thing thoroughly, and is determined to do it better than anybody else, is the man who will succeed. Mr. Vanderbilt paid his cook a salary of $10,000 a year because he understood the art of cooking to perfection. As a well known humorist says in his funny way, "If Monsieur Sauceagravi could cook tolerably well, and shoot a little, and speak three languages tolerably well, and keep books fairly, and could telegraph a little - and so on with a dozen other things - he wouldn't get ten thousand a year for it." No, what is needed is strenuous concentration of effort. Aim definitely at one great object and bring all your powers to bear upon the work in hand, and you cannot fail to rise to fairer heights of honor and achievement.
Do you know the sham sceptic - the man who is glad of any excuse for trampHng on Christianity ? " I hate cant," he says, with great unction and self-satisfaction, forgetting that Christianity by no means possesses the monopoly in cant. There is a good deal of cant about some atheists. It is not always the "fool" who says " there is no God ; " it is very frequently the arrogant sham, who thinks it supremely clever to display his shallow and flippant atheism. He will learn one day that honest, manly Christianity is the avowed enemy of "cant," and hates and suppresses it wherever it lurks, whether in the form of superficial pietism or hypocritical infidelity.
While I sympathize from my very heart with earnest men who reject Christianity, because of the shortcomings oi its professors, I must still maintain that their position is utterly childish and illogical. It is really a most lamentable fact when men come into the region of religion they so often leave their common sense behind them. In politics they are influenced by the great party leaders, not by flabby wire-pullers. Sensible citizens do not reject the Republican party when a few weak-kneed constituents turn traitors ; nor do honest Democrats falter at the sight of a handful of feeble renegades. And yet in religion the same persons will allow their minds to be prejudiced by the apparent inconsistencies of any blatant professor, rather than go straight to the great Founder of the Christian faith, who alone can show them what Christianity really is. Surely the answer of Christ to any young man who excused himself from discipleship on account of the unlovely lives of professors, would be, " What is that to thee ? Follow thou Me." It is neither fair nor manly to point to the faiHngs of professing Christians as a reason for ignoring Jesus Christ. One man hunts up a bigot, another discovers a Pharisee, and a third glances sneeringly at some faltering and unhappy struggler who has blundered back into sin and shame ; and then in scornful chorus they cry, " Behold, this is Christianity I " The derision is utterly unjust. Christ calls men to Himself. He is the typical man - His was the perfect life - He is the supreme example.
With every desire to look on the bright side of things and magnify the redeeming features of the age, I must frankly admit that there is amongst men to-day a startling amount of shallowness and superficiality of thought. Instead of honestly thinking out great problems, and laboriously unwinding the puzzles of life, they indulge in mental gymnastics and hastily jump at conclusions. We have all around us feeble imitations of Robert Elsmere. Such men meet a free-thinking friend, listen to his tall but trumpery talk, and immediately, with scarcely a moment's heartache or an hour's mental struggle, throw overboard the little religion they possessed, and denounce the Evangel of Christ as a myth and a sham. The most uncertain of political weathercocks would refuse to budge an inch on the flimsy evidence which sends these young men into the dreary night of a Christless life. Can anything be more painful than the careless and frivolous spirit with which they leap into the cold abyss ? Self-confident youths, with more collar than culture, and more millinery than manliness, swallow two or three pages of a magizine article, and, without questioning the credentials of the writer, calmly turn their back upon their Father God, and go out to sip the latest fashionable mixed drink at the hotel bar.
Very few of us have ever thought what it is to be a Christian. When we see a man ticketed as orthodox in creed and regular in church attendance, and then discover that he is harsh and bitter and sensual, we immediately begin to throw stones at Christianity. But that man is not a Christian I He may cry, " Lord, Lord," but loud professions will never open the kingdom of heaven. " Follow thou Me " is the great command. By no other test are we at liberty to judge our brethren. If any man lives the Christ life then he is a Christian, whatever may be the opinion of the pedantic critic or the priestly ceremonialist. The duty of every young man is not to dissect disciples but to study Christ. Pure religion and undeiiled is to do the will of God on earth as angels do it in heaven.
Now turn for a moment to another kind of sham - the society sham - the miserable spirit of counterfeit respectability. It is not greatly afraid of evil, but it particularly hates the appearance of evil. " People might talk " - that is the awful bogie that frightens society, and the characterless chatter of brainless men and women is more to be dreaded than all the bitterness of wrongdoing. This hypocritical system of sham respectability is dead against those pecuHar " people " who hold out hands of welcome and friendship to ragged castaways, prodigals, and sinners, and do other strange and eccentric things. It crushes kindliness out of young hearts ; smothers the vivacity of buoyant spirits ; reckons decorum to be more than purity, good breeding to be far above honesty, and the esteem of Society (with a large "s") to be infinitely preferable to Heaven's " Well done I " You may be mean, selfish, and cowardly ; but you must not eat peas with your knife. You may be hardhearted, cynical, and cruel, if you will, but consent to wear an unhealthy and uncomfortable stove-pipe baton Sundays, and avoid speaking to any man to whom you have not been formally introduced. It has a smile for the well-dressed debauche, the polite and wealthy knave ; but it would cast into outer darkness the repentant Magdalene to whom Christ extended infinite sympathy.
Beware of this cold, critical, carping spirit. Beware of the slavery of society, the thraldom of caste, the oppressive tyranny of custom. Think for yourselves, use the intellect with which God has blessed you, and prove yourselves tne conquerers, not the creatures, of circumstances. Goodness is the truest nobility. The man who has faith in God, love for humanity, and the resolve to live a Christlike life, can afford to ignore all the threatenings of social ostracism, and wait patiently till the brotherhood of men shall be universally acknowledged.
One of the most discouraging features of Hfe amongst young men is the prevalence oi sham-cynicism. A clever writer but short-viewed critic, who is a living example of this unhealthy habit, tells us in a recent article that "the young man of to-day has no religion and no enthusiasm," that he is ready to "throw a woman on the dissecting table, " and that to him love is nothing but " a cruel enigma. " Can anything be more utterly ridiculous ? To mix with small-minded pessimists, listen to the unclean tittletattle of the club, and then rush into the awful belief that chivalry is dead, and that faith and earnestness no longer exist, is about as sane an action as that of the man who dissected a dust-heap and then denounced the world as a great conglomeration of putrid ashes. Thank God the great mass of young men are true in heart and upright in life. Melancholy cynics and blase club-men may not believe it, but there are thousands of men to-day who prefer to feed on Kingsley and Tennyson and Longfellow rather than pink sporting papers and cheap works of scandal - generous and high-minded men who can grapple with giant temptations and control the reins of passion, because they have grasped the hand of Christ and asked Him to keep them pure and strong. Let us beware of hastily judging the whole race of young men by the cheap cynicism of a few battered roues. " Continue for ever, " said Carlyle, " to take the best view of all mortals which your understanding will admit ; nay, it is often also truer than the surly one."
There are other shams, of which the merest mention is sufficient. There is the sham who is a smiling philanthropist in the church, and a frowning tyrant in his business. There is the sham who wins a woman's pure affection by his fair words, and then wrecks her young life by his foul animalism. There is the sham who eloquently advocates reform on the platform, while his own house is devoid of order or comfort. There is the sham who says there is no God, because it will be easier to lie and swindle when he has persuaded himself into that belief.
The only cure for shams is at the Cross. No counterfeit can live at Calvary. There the hypocrisy is pierced, the mask falls off, and all is revealed. But there also we find forgiveness, there all the wild and bitter past is blotted out ; there we learn to love, there we begin to live.