UPLIFTERS

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 2

UPLIFTERS

In the ‘ Life of Sir Robertson Nicoll ’ a letter is quoted from Sir J. M. Barrie. It was occasioned by tho death of Dr Whyte, of Edinburgh. Barrio says that when he was in Edinburgh tho two great names to him were Dr Whyte and Professor Masson. Describing tho former, ho tells among other things that his greatest genius lay in “ uplift.” “Ho uplifted more men and women than any other Scotsman of his time.” A similar thought in another connection occurs in Barrio’s sketch of his mother in ‘ Margaret Ogilvio.’ He says ho could not for a long time find a publisher for ‘ Anld Licht Idylls.’ They appeared first as sketches in tho ‘British Weekly.’ But that did not satisfy his mother’s ambitions. “Ay, but though we’re doin’ weel, it’s no tho same as if they were a book with your name on it.” So ho tried to gratify her wishes, but publishers wore adamant. “At last I offered it ” (along with certain other stories in his drawer) “to certain firms as a gift,but they would not hare it even at that. In due time, however, ‘ publishers more daring and more than sufficiently generous were found for mo by a dear friend, who made one woman very uplifted.” So wo get our subject, ‘ Uplifters. ’ * * * * First, tho need of them. It is hardly necessary to labor that point. Those requiring to be adjusted to life and its duties throng us every day. .We sing:— Oh. the world is full of sighs, Full of sad and weeping eyes. Many of us do not hear or see much of that sort of thing. But there are- “ other gnefs within and tears that at their fountain freeze.” Tho preacher looks out over his well-dressed, happilycircumstanced congregation, and 'he may think these people want nothing. They are all comfortable and well-to-do. And yet nine out of every ten are there just because they are unsatisfied —just because they want to bo uplifted in mind or heart. That is the secret that keeps the church alive, and fills it with people age after age. And what again is at tho back of this craze for pleasure, for picture shows and theatres, for concerts and circuses ? It is just the craving to he uplifted, to escape from tho dull, drab, commonplace, or the deeper ache and hidden heart-break of life. It is said that those who are drowning rarely make any sound or cry aloud for help. They just throw up an arm and go under silently. Whether that is true or not we do not know. But wo do know that on the sea of life multitudes sink and make no sign. Smiling faces and gay dresses are often the mask behind which hide sore hearts, even as behind tho gay drop curtain of the theatre, with its merry groups, Ophelia’s reason is tottering and Hamlet is revolving the tragic alternatives of to bo or not to be. The stress and strain of living and tho decay of faith and tho darkening of the heavenly lights make the need for nplifters more clamant to-day than in any past age.

* *

How can the need bo met? There are many ways. We may keep to what Barrio suggests about Whyte, the man who “uplifted more men and women than any other man of his time.” How did ho do it? Barrio says to know him was to know “ what the Covenanters were like in their most splendid hours, , . . ELe could bo stern, and if yon wore its object you felt a gale of wind blowing that you were not likely to forget. But it was a face far more often lit up by delight in something fine that ho had discovered, ... He came to announce his discoveries with greater joy on his face than I think 'l have ever seen on tho face of any other man. The fervor of his face, tho beneficence, of it, they will shine on like a lamp.” In this sketch of the groat nplii'ter there is first tho face. There is no other part of the human anatomy so significant for good or evil. There are faces that awo us, win us, arrest us, draw us, repel us. There are faces of tho morn and the night, of tho sun and the shadow; faces that once seen wo hope never to see again, or that we can never rest till we do seo again—they so live for ever after in our memory, with their haunting beauty. Both kinds of faces may be needful for tho uplift of others. There is indeed a sort of Covenantor face that acts in the opposite way. When Will Crooks, M.P., was lying ill in a London hospital a gloomy kind of visitor used to come to talk religion to him. He could not understand Crooks’s cheerfulness in the presence of the gravity of his illness. “After all,” ho said one day, “you are only a miserable sinner.” “ I may be a sinner,” replied Crooks, “but thank God I ain’t miserable.” We know that sort of Covenanter face, and it casts down instead of uplifting. But there is another sort of Covenantor face, the true sort, that can show itself indignant against wrong and injustice. That is the genuine Puritan face, and can never become needless as long as evils exist. * * * * But tho stem face, while essential at times, is not the mast effective uplifter. A storm is useful occasionally, but it is tho sun that draws and drives the world. There are faces that uplift us not by their gloom but their glow. Spurgeon said of a certain man that to look at his face was as good as a fortnight’s holiday. There are faces that have a kind of continuous sunshine in them. Addison distinguishes thus between Mirth and Cheerfulness; “Mirth is like a flash of Lightning that breaks through a gloom of.clouds and glitters for a moment. Cheerfulness keeps np a kind of daylight in the mind and fills it with a steady and permanent serenity.” It is not the mirthful, but tho cheerful, man that is the best uplifter. What a tonic it is to be in the presence of a man like Stevenson, for instance, or to come in contact with him through his books. Wo will do well to unite with him in his prayer, that we may awake with morning faces, beams from happy eyes, and seek to

Sow gladness' on the peopled land, And still with laughter, song, and shout

Spin the great wheel of earth about. When such people come to visit or wo go to visit thorn, what an uplift it is. Even though they say little, we feel better for being in their presence. They act on us like Millet’s ‘ Man With the Hoe.’ It is a simple picture —no posturing or preaching in it. Just au everyday peasant resting for a moment from his toil. But “ lie is a moral challenge, and we foeJ. inclined

to take off our hats, as wo stand and look at him—Happy, serene, glad, reverent.” And so there are people like that, often ju-sb obscure, hard-working people, but their buoyant, indomitable cheerfulness radiates uplift wherever they go. * * * * But sometimes wo have .to ask what is the secret of their good cheer. In Dr Whyte’s case it was the joy of discovering something good or great, and of communicating this discovery to others. “Ho came to announce his discoveries with .greater joy on his face, tlian I think I have ever seen on the face of any other man.” There is the secret that inspires the upliftors and makes them successful in their work. Wo are all diverse. Each has something which others have not. The world is divided up between the haves and the have-nots. All its miseries and misfortunes arise from the former holding on to what they have acquired and selfishly enjoying • it. All its gladness and glory come from those who seek to share what they possess with the nonpossessors. The possession may ho material, as money, 0.g.; or it may bo mental, as ideas, thought, aesthetics; or it, may bo moral and spiritual, as truth and vitality, human or divine. And tho sharing must be done, not stingily, or as of compulsion, hut willingly, gladly, as if the duty were a joy. For it is only what wo give thus that makes our uplift effective and inspiring. And sometimes to do this we must go down law —to tho level of those wo would raise. A drunk man, seeing a comrade lying in the gutter channel of the street, tried to lift him up. 'He could not. After various ineffectual efforts ho gave it up, and said: “Well, as I can’t lift you up, I’ll just lie down beside you.” At bottom tho action, though comical, was to bo commended. “ I sat where they sat,” says the old Hebrew.prophet, as ho studied the condition of his exiled countrymen in Babylon. That is the way to uplift. The assumption of Olympian airs, the reaching down hands from superior heights will never accomplish much. Tho principle rules everywhere that wo must go down to the level of those' wo would lift up. Tho reformer, the teacher, tho preadier, tho mother—that is the secret of their success. It is that, too, which constitutes tho differentia of tho Christian religion. Its theologians tell us it is tho story of tho Creator Himself, not happy in his isolation. Ho has to share His joys with others. So came the Creation. And when it went wrong He came and “ sat whore they sat,” down even into tho mysterious depths of the Cross, in order to make His uplift effective. Is it worth while ? asks someone. Tho question may bo answered by another. Is it worth while not to do it? What has been the result of not doing? Look at'tho world to-day—a pocket copy ,of HolL That is wholly tho result of not doing it. Tho whole social problem can be put in a nutshell: a man lying helpless by the wayside, two out of three leaving him there to be robbed and rot. There you have the whole secret of tho world’s woes. Is it worth while? Yonder in the London Strand, as a recent writer has been telling us, is a young fellow, a “ down-and-outer,” holding a horse’s head for a possible sixpence. He his homeless, sleeps on the Thames Embankment by night. A poor Magdalene girl was touched by his desperate condition. Thinking she saw in his eye that light which if not relieved loads a man to leap out of life by the forbidden door, she takes him to her homo, cares for him till ho comes to himself and others; then she disappears. Ho searches for her up and down, but never finds her again. There is a part of yon I wound, Even in my caress; There is a part, of you withheld 1 may not possess. . . When you come fo-night To onr small room. You will look and listen— I shall not bo there. But-she saved Francis Thompson for ns, and in saving him she saved for the supremo enrichment of English literature tho author of the immortal ‘ Hound of Heaven ’ and the most winsome child songs in onr language. But all in need of uplift aro not Francis Thompsons. Who can tell?