Religion and Life

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23719, 27 July 1940, Page 5 (Supplement)

Religion and Life

THE Sermon on the Mount concludes with the Parable of the Two Housebuilders, the inimitable pictures of which remain vivid to this hour. A man, says our Lord, set out to build his house and would make it lasting and secure. He sought an advantageous site and, digging down upon the solid rock, set it upon immovable foundations. Another, heedless and irresponsible, would also build, and, foiecasting only fair weather, set his house "without a foundation" adjacent to the bed of a mountain torrent. The hour of testing came. The long, rainless months passed and the heavy storms of the Palestinian October i came on.

One such Jesus describes with a commanding use of words. A cloud-burst broke over the land in torrential rain, the angry spate came down from its upper reaches in gathering fury, the winds broke loose in wild and shrieking revelry. And there the houses stood, to outward seeming equally secure amid the passion of the elements. But tliej and those who built them were brought to judgment that day. The one, safe upon its solid foundations, withstood the most violent assault; the other was swept awav with the loose; gravel on which it stood. The Hidden Foundations So then it is a question of foundations. The external appearance of the house, its elegance and adornment, what others will say of it, are not the first questions for builders. They must look beyond the passing hours and consider far deeper things. Beneath the spacious walls, the climbing spires and noble proportions of our great churches and public buildings lie hidden foundations. No man thinks of them as he admires the visible structure,Jaut they have been laid in accordance with the strictest specifications and subjected to the most thorough inspection. Though buried in darkness they are of the first importance, for the topmost cross adorning the loftiest spire is supported bv • these things unseen

' The parable expounds itself. Our Lord would have us remember the hidden foundations in human life. They lie silent and concealed, open to no eye save that of God, and yet our whole security, in evil days, depends upon them. Nothing is safe if the foundation is wanting. This is indeed the whole point of the Master's warning. The second builder did not commit an error of judgment and select a faulty foundation. He had none. "He is like a man that built a house upon the earth, without a foundation." Loose sand and gravel were good enough for him! Perhaps the story seems to forsake reality at this point. No man, we think, would commit such folly. But the verv improbabilitv of the thing emphasises the admonition of .Tesu«. He means to say that men will do in the realm of the spirit what they would never dream of doing in their material pursuits. A man who would not cive a £lO note for a cottage precariously situated and without a foundation, will build his house of life on shifting principles and without a thought of coming storms. TF it be fair to look upon and filled with plentv, and if song and dance abound, it is enough. He forgets that it stands upon nothing. House Built Upon Rock When, then, is the sure foundation on which our Lord would have men build? We have His own explicit word —"Every one therefore which heareth these words of Mine, and doetli them, shall be likened, unto a wise man that built his house'upon the rock." Those who hear the truth and proceed upon what they hear, are laying secure foundations. But let us be clear as to what is meant. Jesus is not demanding assent to systems of theology or to the elaborations of the creeds. He speaks rather of the few inarguable, enduring truths that lie at the basis of Hie religious life, and which He has set forth in the Sermon just

By PHILEMON

without reserve, and build upon deeply laid spiritual loyalties, no flood shall cast his dwelling down. But if, in the thoughts and imaginations, the ambitions and decisions, of his inner life he be false to his own true self and make probity wait upon his convenience, then the storms will, find him out. On Christ's word there is no escape.

There are proud facades to-day rising upon sand and gravel, which arc doomed to collapse "like a bowing wall, like a tottering fence." They are based upon nothing that can endure. "If the thing is unjust," said Carlvle, "thou hast not succeeded; no, not though bonfires blazed from north to south, and bells rang, and the just thing lay trampled out of sight, to all mortal eyes an abolished and. annihilated thing." There is the upholding faith that Britain demands of her sons and daughters in these days of storm and flood—that things which have no foundation in rectitude and justice cannot endure, though for a time they may masquor-

ade under the appearance of strength. And every member of the State who holds that faith and proceeds upon it adds something real to the tenacity and moral stability of the nation. In ihe last issue of the British Weekly to hand, the editor makes a personal application of this fact. He writes: "1 cannot rid myself of the belief that my personal behaviour during these days has a direct influence upon the conflict of principles out in the world. I feel that I also ain engaged in that conflict, though with ghostly arms. If to-day I were to_ fall morally, were to do something which I knew to he wrong, and were I to read to-morrow that this day our arms had suffered, I should feel invincibly that it was I, my personal moral failure, which turned the fortune of battle. I should feel that I had gone asleep at my post, that I had given ground, iust as truly and decisively as though I had turned my back as a soldier in the actual field." Depend upon it. there is here a service of no mean order which every one of us can render our imperilled nation to-day. The London Times, writing on the occasion of the Day of National Prayer, refers to Browning's "Instans Tyrannus." The tyrant of the poem pursues the object of his hatred through every device of guile and brutality, till he seems to have him at his mercy. The fire circles the man in his "creephole." above the thunder crashes, beneath the mine is laid. But. just at the very moment of destruction:

The man sprang to his feet, Stood erect; caught at God's skirts. And prayed. Let us lay our foundations deep on the primordial rocks, on faith in God and in the power of prayer, and we shall weather the storm that furiously assails us.