The Quiet Hour

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 12332, 22 April 1938, Page 7 (Supplement)

The Quiet Hour

BECOMING OURSELVES By Rev. James Reid, D.D. “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless 1 live.”—-Gal ii. 20. None of the modern versions of this text contains the clause, “Nevertheless I live.” It is not found in the original Greek. Yet those who gave ue our first translation must have had some reason for putting it in. It is the expression of exultant life. It safeguards a very important fact. Though St. Paul had been, as he says, "crucified with Christ,” he declares that he now lives more fully than before. In fact, it has released his personality. It has made him more completely himself.

This suggests a very interesting question. How many of us can say that we are ourselves? Each of us has within him what we may call our true self. It is that which makes us different from each other. This alone makes us the person who is called by our name. But how often are we our true selves? We act sometimes on a sudden impulse of which we are later ashamed. We say that then we were not ourselves. Some influence or passion got hold of us for the moment, and prevented our true self from coming to the surface. Stevenson’s parable of Jekyll and Hyde describes what happens in many a life, though in a less dramatic way. This man had a double personality. At one time he was the respected and kindly Dr. Jekyll. At another time he relapsed into the profligate Mr Hyde. Most of us have within us both devil and saint. Sometimes the true self is on .top; sometimes it falls into the background. Often we act or think with the crowd, We all know how the spirit of a crowd can get hold of individuals, forcing them to think and feel things that in quiet moments they would abhor. We take our opinions from those around us. We let our conduct be shaped by our set. We do what others expect of us, playing up to their mood. But all the while we are conscious that we are not ourselves. The real man is not active. Our own true personality has never got free. The word "I” has no definite meaning. Behind the patchwork of our lives it peeps out now and again, but never for long and never fully in control. We can never say like St. Paul, “I live.”

It was different with him. His true self had come into full control. He could say “I” with a very definite meaning. His personality made one impression on the world— clear-cut and permanent. When we think of Paul, the name calls up to all our minds one distinct person, alive with a radiant and victorious spirit. The world did its best to crush him. It tried to make him think its thoughts. It sought to make him follow its customs. But nothing could keep him from being himself, holding his own convictions, and following the light in his own breast. “JMevertheless,” he said, “I live.” There are various things that can bring this release of - personality. Work which we love can do it. A man may appear to have little to distinguish him from others. But see him busy in his work shop or his garden, and you are conscious of something different. A new spirit has appeared in him. Love also can set free our true self. A woman may make little impression on us as she appears among others. But mentjon her children, and at once there is a new look on'her face. The real woman begins to appear. Ambition of any true kind can awaken this hidden self. Patriotism often releases a buried hero. William Wllberforce was a very Insignificant man w r ith weak health. As he mounted the platform to speak, Boswell said that he appeared to be a shrimp. But when he began to speak of freeing the slaves, “the shrimp became a whale.” ' • The only full release of our true self comes, through the, call of Christ and devotion to first time we meet St. Paul he is not a very attractive person. He is presiding over a murder. Stephen lay on the

ground, and Saul, as he was then known, was the leader of the crowd who were stoning him. But later on we find Saul also lying on the ground. He had been struck down by a new and dreadful truth. It was the knowledge that Christ was alive, and that his old plans and ambitions were thwarting God’s love. His pride and hate were broken there. His old ambition was smashed. These were the forces that had kept his true self in bondage. Now their enslavement was broken, and he was free. That was what he meant by being “crucified with Christ.” The old life died. But out of this dying, his true self rose into freedom and power. For the first time he became himself. The longer he lived in the mastery of Christ, the more he became his true self.

This is the only way to become ourselves. When pride or hate or the desire to be popular is in control, we are not ourselves. When any selfish or loveless mood possesses us, we are not ourselves. All kinds of forces may have the effect of stifling and thwarting our true selves. On the other hand, when we are in the company of certain people qur real self appears, and thoughts and feelings and desires rise up within us to give us a glimpse of a finer life. What a wonderful place the world would be if we could all be ourselves!

That is the miracle which Christ can work. What marvellous people the disciples became in His company! When we first meet them they are very ordinary, childish, timid, selfish. The true self in each of them was imprisoned. The six weeks after Calvary made new men of them. 'Phe Cross took away all the blindness that had bound them. The Spirit of Christ came into possession. So it may be with us. Are we afraid that Christ’s mastership may make us unnatural? Some people have that idea. They think of Christ’s teaching as a strange, unreal way of life. In reality it is sublime commonsense. His way of love compared with our lovelessness and pride is the essence of sanity. Sin and passion are forms of fever. When His spirit comes in, we become ourselves. We can only say “I live” when we can go on to say, ‘‘Yet not I but Christ liveth in me.”