Verse 26
Environment
Let us talk a little about what is known as environment. Men are apt to think they would be better if their circumstances, their surroundings, were of another kind and quality. They do not go in upon themselves, and say, We are to blame. They look outside and say, If the house were larger, if the circumstances were pleasanter, if the neighbourhood were other than it is, one could live and grow, and realise a large measure of happiness. There is no greater delusion. We must get rid of that delusion before we can make any real progress in life. All history shows us that whatever a man's environment may be, he can conquer it, he can rise above it; or he can respond to it in the degree in which it is Divine, beautiful, and fascinating. Where did man first fall, according to the biblical history? Was it in some narrow, ill-lighted street? Was it in some swamp, or wilderness? What was the environment in the first case? There is your answer to the foolish and often wicked sophism that there is no fault in you, but the fault lies wholly in the circumstances, and if you were only surrounded as you would like to be, there would be no better man. The Bible tells us that our first parents fell in a garden; fell in Paradise; fell where the air was clear, where the skies were blue, where the rivers fourfold threw back all the beauty of heaven. That is your answer. It was possible to fall in Eden. Therefore do not say that if you were in Eden you would be safe. Pay some respect to the monitions of history. Always allow within the scope of your reasoning a place for facts.
Men say that, if they were only in the city, at the very centre of civilisation, if they had the security of social life as it is to be found in the metropolis of any country, all would go well. The Apostle Paul answers that in our text, "In perils in the city." You thought you would be safe in the city. There is no place so unsafe. We are not aware that God ever built any city; the city-builder was a man of poor fame. Here is Paul in all kinds of cities, classical, advanced, thoughtful, immoral; and he says he was "in perils in the city." Men think that if they could be only in the city, in the metropolis, where there is an abundance of literature, where all kinds of galleries are open to the people picture-galleries, museums, art-repositories, music of every hue and range then they would have something to think about, and to engage their attention, and to divide at least the intensity of the temptations by which souls are besieged. Paul says, let us repeat again and again, "In perils in the city." The city grows its own weeds; the city opens its own fountains of poison-water. It is almost impossible to get to heaven from the city: blessed be God for that word "almost"; it is beautiful as a path lying through a wilderness, or trackless forest. We do not need much path to walk upon, if we want to get away; we do not stand and say, If this road were large, if it were sixty feet wide, if it were well macadamised, we would not mind taking it, in order to get clear of this difficulty or perplexity. The moment we see one little footprint, the moment we see what may even be little more than a sheep-track, away we fly, because we want to get rid of danger, and we want to get into security, and we do not wait until a great broad turnpike is made, or where there is a path specially made by other human feet; we enlarge the whole occasion into an opportunity of deliverance, we seize it, and realise it, and fly for our lives. Why do we not do the same in all moral difficulty, in all moral danger? The "city" may be taken as representing all cities; we are not speaking about a city, a particular or specific city, but about the city, the place where men do gather together in great crowds the centres of population. The city is eating out the best life of the nation.
We should be surprised, it a true census could be taken, how much evil is being done by men whom we do not suspect as connected with any evil at all. The public journals very often contain painful illustrations of this. A man has been found in circumstances of criminality. He has been detected; and to the surprise of the whole town he is found to be a man somewhat noted for activity in Christian service. He wore his religion as a cloak, nobody would suspect him, and he therefore could play the burglar without suspicion. When will a true census be taken? When will every man be classified in the right category? God forbid we should ever see the lists, it would shock our faith in man, it might shatter our faith in God.
"In perils in the city." Yet how many of these perils do we make ourselves, and how eagerly do we avail ourselves of many an open door that invites us to enter and go down to hell! I have seen this in the city namely, young men, certainly not five-and-twenty years of age, before ten o'clock in the morning going into public-houses. Not vagabonds, but men who were evidently going to some kind of business afterwards, well-dressed young men. What would you say about an instance of that kind, except that it means ruin? I do not care who the man is; no man can indulge in a practice of that kind, and be either a good man or a good man of business, a good citizen or a good neighbour, or a good member of any family; certainly he can never secure success. There is something vitally wrong there; the end of that course is death. I know of young men who have had their homes broken up and their families scattered, because of this same temptation and yielding to it. Men have said, under other circumstances, men who have read a good deal, and men who are not indisposed to certain kinds of Christian practice, that the evil power has got such a hold upon them that it laughs at them, and says in effect, You cannot pass this inn. And the man says, I will go by this bar to-day. Ten yards off he prays that he may get past it; five yards nearer he thinks he has received an answer to prayer; two yards, and still his will seems equal to the occasion; when suddenly, as if the whole air had become a tempter, he is arrested and turned in, and a spirit of mockery laughs in the wind, because he has once more stooped over the pit, and told the devil to reckon upon him as one of his black army. You cannot trifle with that state of affairs. You cannot begin a little reform now and a little then. You must throw your enemy now I "In perils in the city." What a temptation there is there to bet and gamble and trifle with other people's money! You do not suppose that a young man makes up his mind to be a thief. In many instances he knows that he is honest in purpose, and he says that, if he can only succeed, no man shall lose a penny by him; he will only back his own judgment against some other man's judgment. He says, "What harm can there be in my setting up my sagacity against the sagacity of some other man? He says that such and such issues will take place, I say they will not take place, we stake a hundred pounds upon the consequence: have I not a right to back my judgment against his?" No, you have not; you have no right to do anything that will burn up your brain; you have no right to give yourself a fever; you have no right so to strain your nervous system that you will lose every faculty of manhood, and subject yourself to all the humiliation of the most pitiable imbecility. The question does not lie between A and B, between this man and that man; the question touches the whole universe, and no man has any right to do anything that will infect and vitiate the air of society. You cannot be fortunate in betting and gambling. Do not say that you know instances in which men have made tens of thousands of pounds, and are in great prosperity. There are no such instances. They may have all the pounds, but they have not the prosperity. They cannot enjoy them; they are living a false life, their whole life is set in a false key, and if they had all the millions that are in the repositories of the banks of the world they would still be poor miserable, despicable creatures. There is no prosperity in wickedness. It looks like prosperity, it has all the appearance of it, but though the men you speak of be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, it all ends in "He died, he was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment," a poor ending, a miserable dénouement . Oh, to have lived to this catastrophe! tell me, is it worth your while? You say you only bet a little. That is impossible. A man cannot bet a little. It may be little merely as to the nominal amount, little in an arithmetical sense, but when a man bets his soul is the wager; the devil will take nothing less. The sixpence you bet is the earnest that your soul is coming. Do not think you can trifle with the spirit of evil, and succeed; do not imagine that you, poor lad, a boy, can go out and talk such eloquence to that old serpent the devil, that you will be able to convert him. He has no pity, he has nothing within him that can be appealed to by human reason and human need, he lives to destroy. Resist the devil, and he will flee from thee.
Then what do men say? They continue in this fashion, namely, If I could only get away from the city. I have such young men now as my clients and appellants for pastoral direction and friendly sympathy. If I could only get away from the city, if I could get into the country somewhere, if I could get into some quiet place, then all would be well. Paul says, "in perils in the wilderness." There is the contrastive word. If he ran away from the city that he might find security and peace in the wilderness, he made a mistake and he confesses it. Observe the obvious and tremendous contrast "In perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness" in the solitude, in the great emptiness; as much peril in the wilderness as there is in Cheapside, as much peril in the desert as there is in the Stock Exchange. "In perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness." How often in passing through beautiful places have we said, Surely there must be peace in. that habitation and in yonder dwelling: how lovely the situation! see the flowers creeping all over the windows, see the roses drooping over the doorway; hear the birds, how they sing, and lilt, and trill: here and there surely unrest is impossible, and sin must be unknown. Hear the Apostle Paul, "In perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness;" let the word "wilderness" stand for solitude, for peacefulness, for all that is typical of being secured from the ravages of so-called civilisation. Go where you will, you will find the devil has been there before you. There are great perils even in solitude: in fact, it is possible that solitude may be the greatest peril of all. It is the voice of history that the devil comes to men individually, and not to them in crowds only. All the great tragedies are connected with individual instances. The woman was walking alone, and the serpent said unto her but one life "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The devil entered into Cain: the devil entered into Judas: the devil finds out the individual case that will serve his interests most, through which he can do the largest amount of mischief, and there he works with characteristic, with indomitable, and often successful, energy. Solitude gives us a false standard of self-judgment. A man becomes important in the sense in which he dwells alone. If he never speaks to anybody but himself and to those who may be a little lower than he is, see how he fattens on his own conceit; what a man of judgment he is, and what a man of authority! he is monarch of all he surveys; he never goes outside his own limitation, and therefore he feeds himself with vanity, and he knows not that he is poor and weak as other men. See how soon he is offended; observe what a distaste he has for the society of mankind. All his judgments are thus judgments of mental vanity and conceit; they want largeness, massiveness; they want the education of attrition, friction, conflict. It is only by man meeting man, comparing himself with his fellow-men, seeking the judgment of higher minds than his own, that he becomes chastened, and thus ennobled; rebuked, and thus elevated.
Observe, then, that circumstances cannot give us security. You thought that, when you made ten thousand pounds, you would be perfectly secure. No man ever rested content with ten thousand pounds, or ten million pounds; there was always another sovereign which some other man had, which he wanted; there was always another field which, if he obtained, would beautifully sphere out his estate; and going after fields is like going after the horizon, there is always "another." Do not imagine that if you were rich you would be good, or even that if you were in strong, robust health you would be without vice; understand that the true environment is within, and understand that it is indwelling that Christ promises to us. He does not promise a cordon of security, as a belt of armed men; he promises that he will come and his Father will come and sup with the man, and will abide with the heart. That is the environment, the spiritual association, the noble sympathy with noble thought. Let no man be discouraged because of his environment. You say, What can a young man do in my circumstances? He can do everything through Christ strengthening him. A short time since I met the man who is the hero, and justly the hero, of the hour. I refer to the great African traveller. What has he done? He has shamed many of us. We thought we were doing much, but having read his record we feel that we have been doing nothing, compared with what he has done, by courage, by resoluteness, by self-denial, by heroic ideals. He was born under circumstances which might well have discouraged any man; the universe must look very small and poor and distressful from the workhouse window. If men begin to sit down and say, What can I do with only five shillings a week? what can I do with only a workhouse education? what can I do with people such as these round about me? they will never come to anything. A man must not look at his surroundings, but he must look at his universe and at God enthroned above its riches and forces; and he must say, It is my business by the blessing of God to take hold of circumstances and twist them and bind them, and round them into a garland or a diadem. So long as history is accessible, all your moaning and whining about your circumstances must amount to nothing. It may be difficult to find any great and grand man as to circumstances who ever did anything very great; or, if he did it, he often did it through the instrumentality of men that were of no account. I find that our hero of the hour has written it that he received a workhouse training. There he stood, physically not tall, and not imposing-looking. What have these great grand men around him done? Dined with him!
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