REMNANTS.

Evening Star, Issue 16351, 17 February 1917, Page 2

REMNANTS.

Walking along the street recently, we saw in a shop window this notice: “This is-Remnant Day.” It started a train of thought in our mind that carried us very far. Remnants—we know what they are. They arc that which Terrains. The ribbon, the cloth, the dress pieces have all been cut away. They are sold out. They are here and there; perhaps used up, soiled, worn threadbare, or destroyed. It is impossible now to recover them. This remnant is all that remains of the original. And because it is all, it is the more valuable to those who need it. It may never be reproduced vagain. And so we have here a parable of life. Life is made up of Remnants. With it not this day, but every day, is a day of Remnants. We are ever coming within sight of the end of something. “ Every day,” as Emerson tells ns, “is Doomsday.” And it is Doomsday because it is Remnant Day—because what we are. and have are over thinning away. Take, our time, for instance ; it is constantly verging towards a, Remnant. So of our health, so of our body: we. are moving on towards the period when we shall be only a fragment of our former selves. The athlete, the actor, the preacher, the politician, tho artisan are all under this law of Remnants. If very day is in a very real sense a day of Remnants. -X* ■?(' tc 4r -tv-

It is tlie same in the larger world of men and things. The study of history shows ns everywhere, the working of this law of Remnants. It is in obedience to this law that progress moves forward, lake the history of that wonderful people, tho Jews. They discovered and set in clear light this doctrine of tho Remnant. It pervades their literature, as embodied in tho Old Testament. The early Jew dreamed of a universal dominion for his nation. And ho dreamed of it as realisable in time and upon this present earth. He. had only dim visions of any other life beyond this one. But he accepted death, in the hope that, if not for him, yet some nay lor his children, his dreams should bo realised. He might die, but tho nation was immortal. Thus-were sown the seeds of the modern substitute for personal immortality—the immortality of the. race. In the Rumanian folk song the soldier hears men and maidens walking over his grave. He asks: “Are not these the. “ voices of those that love and remember “me?' “Not so, my hero," the lovers reply ; “ wo are those who remember not, “ for the spring has come, and the earth “ has smiled, and the dead must be for-

“gotten.’ Then the soldier speaks from Ids deep, dark grave: “I am content.” So the Jew was for a time content to die and he forgotten, in the assurance that the Golden Age would come to his children or children’s children.

But that stage passed. The terrible tacts of sin and suffering started doubts in the mind regarding the universal lordship of Israel. This is tho problem that the greatest prophets puzzle over. Isakiir looks out upon his nation, after his eyes were opened, and sees it given over to wickedness and idolalry. "From tlie solo ” of the, foot unto the crown of the heed ‘‘there is no soiuidness in it,” The high, brignt oestmy of which earlier patriots had dreamed seems to him no longer possible- for the nation as ,1 whole. His hope now is, net of the mass, but of a handful in the mass—a. Remnant . “ Except the “Lord of Hosts had left is a very small “remnant, wc should have, been as Sodom “and Gomorrah.” The prophet's hone clings to this minority—this niinovitv who are not infected with die r-tidom and Gomorrah vices ; who have, that is to sav. the. spiritual sensibility, the, cciv..nonial honesty, and the moral [unity the absence of which were the ruin of that, ancient world. At last- come the nation’s overthrow- and exile, When it returned from captivity its prophets brought with it new ideals. The Remnant has dwindled down to .a t.;ngle individual—tlie groat “ Suffering -Servant” of Jehovah that appears in the foco.id part of Isaiah’s prophecy. We know how’ Clnistian writers identity this ‘‘Suffering Servant ” with the sublime Figure that creates Christianity. But the point we axe seeking to make, is that in Jewish history it is the doctrine of the Remnant that predominates. The final hope of its seers and singers takes its origin there, and is kept alive by that conviction. •**** *- * * When the national history of Israel finally ended, this doctrine of tho Remnant was firmly lodged in the higher minds of the. world. They suv that God was rarely on the side of tho heaviest battalions—never at all unless they were on His side. They saw weak tilings confounding the mighty. They saw minorities winning the day. They saw the downfall and scattering of empires, but a Remnant preserved to be the se-sd of a future and a greater development. Take, 0.g., that heroic statesman—one of the makers of modern Italy—Mnzzini. He, like :ke Jewish seers, caught a vision of a redeemed and emancipated nation. It stirred his heart as it did that of Israel’s prophets and poets. His early proclamation of it roused his countrymen, and they seemed to rally to hi.s trumpet calls of Libertv. But- by and by enthusiasm waned. The crowds melted away. v Disillusionment came t-o Mazzini. He tells how they turned from him, upbraided him :

There darkened round me such a hurricane of sorrow, disillusion, and deception as to bring before my eyes, in Ml its ghastly nakedness, a foreshadowing of the old age of the soul. . . . When I fell T was alone in the world, I drew

back in terror at Ihe void that was before me. There, in that moral desert, doubt mine upon me. Perhaps I was wrong and the world right. Perhaps my idea, was indeed a dream. Put the doubt passed, and there came to him that consciousness of the d-vinity of bis mission, of the conviction that/ is wrought into all victorious minorities, that their cause is the cause of God, and must conquer*. It would seem as if it were a law of life that all great reforms and reformers have to pass through experiences of this kind before they win their way in the world. Have we .not been witnessing something similar in these war-stressed days? The Empire has at last turned to one man—the. man of hope, tho man of destiny. Lloyd George waited long, had to break with many old-time friends—a sundering that must have wrung his heart, as it called forth tho apprehension and scorn of not a few. But he stood up at last out of the mass, and the nation drew to him as the tides follow the moon round tho globe. So it has always been. What, indeed, is the history of progress but the story of the growth and development of the Remnant. A firm grip of this, with its implications, would greatly help to hearten us "amid tho wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.’’ ******* And so wo come back again to the narrower and more individual application of tins doctrine of Remnants. Think of it, first, in reference to others. How prone we are to overlook or despise Remnants

in character. We are all conscious that m men and women about us there aro gifts and talents and virtues that might be utilised, that might bo drawn out, developed. saved from decay and death bv us. But for duo reason or another we let the day of Remnants pass, and the opportunities are lost. This war, if it has taught us one thing more than another, ■[ is surely this: the possibilities latent in the common man. These grand fellows who are facing disease and death in the trenches, these girls rnd women who have taken hold of Britain and showed what they were capable of—how they have astonished us with tlicit- heroism. Before tlie war we had only a dim conception of the grandeur hidden away beneath then’ unlikely exteriors. Many of them were mere fag-ends of life—Remnants of characters—at which wo shook our heads in hopelessness. Shall we- learn thereby tho. t aluo of tho average woman and tho man in the street? Shall wc be taught how, even in the dunk-sodden, shiftless creature there is a chord, if we could but touen it. that would wake once more; how even th© prisoners in our gaols, and the waifs and strays of children that are spilt like blots about our streets, are fragments of humanity that might, be. built into a noble temple could we bring to it the sympathy, the sacrifice, which it demands. But wc aro careless of Remnants. Maimed and broken lives do not appeal to ns. \’ c t it is just with suck lives that civilisation has been made possible and carried forward on its way. * * * * * -X- *

Aviul then we may bring this doctrine 01 Remnants right home to ourself. Wc are all conscious that our life is made up largely of Remnants. We look inly ft anywhere, and we see so much cone, so little left; and just because of that wc are liable to be betrayed into recklessness. \\ e know how easily it is, comparatively, to keep large sums of monev intact. When we have a good bank bub ance we don’t like to disturb it. But when a five pound note melts into similes, and thou again into shillings, we lose our economic sense. We say “let it go.” and it does. So it is with our mental and spiritual wealth. In proportion us it lessens wc are tempted to bo indifferent to what remains. For instance, one lias little time for reading, so it is not thought ■worth while to bother about it. Another has few opportunities for business development, so lie grows careless about those he has. A third is in a position where ethical growth, is difficult, so he makes 110 effort to make the best of his environment, and becomes morally limp and indolent. Or, take the Remnants of time. How we miss tho significance of these! We postpone doing this or that till we have more leisure. And meanwhile the hour or day is frittered away, Tlie groat things of this world have been accomplished by men and women who used up the fragments of time. .Miss Havergal learnt the irregular French verb whilst, waiting for the children to get dressed before going out for a walk. “You can utilise almost any kind of v.asto. said a great chemist. " except “waste of time.” Of Darwin we are to hi how great was his respect for time. “He “ never, never wasted a few spare minutes

from I (linking that it was not worth “ while to set to work.” His Golden Rule was “ taking care of the minutes.” And then finally there comes the day when there is nothing left of health hut a Remnant. Tire bodily powers, one bv one, lose their strength and mobility. The giant shrinks to a dwarf. “Ah!” we pay, “ he is but a shadow of his former self.” But much may bo done even then. It often happens that this wearisome period of decaying powers becomes I lie most fruitful for ourself and for others. Not a few have accomplished in their fragment of life what they failed to acnieve in its great and strong years. And at length there comes the day when tho last remnant ox existence is exhausted, and the honr-p falls in ruins. Well, what thon? Then,

If looming out of history wo see everywhere the dor-trine of the I-em-naiil.; if nations ami systems riving down leave even behind" a something precious that survives; if physical wasting means so constantly an inner and

spiritual accretion, why should wg not

carry the doctrine to its legitimate conclusion. and hold, as religion's nivstic voice affirms, that the break-up of our physical form means attain a survival—that the last catastrophe is for a new and greater beginning?