6

TEST OF KNOWING MEN.

71

every day; you work with him; you talk with him. But 'do you know that you know him? Have you got any real ' insight into his character? Have you any confidence that 'you are not thinking of him better or worse than he 'deserves?' These are questions which we often ask, and to which we get various answers. Sometimes the answer is quite confident. I am certain that he is, or that he is not, an honest, or a kind, or a wise man.' And yet it may not inspire us with confidence. We may say, or we may think, 'You are deceived in that man.

You have been

You have

'flattered or in some way taken in by him. In due time 'the mask will fall off, and you will find out your mistake.' Or we may say, 'You are not just to that man. ' distorted his acts. You have misinterpreted his purposes. There is a far truer mind in him than you give him credit 'for.' But now and then one has a strong conviction that a friend does understand the man we are asking him about, does appreciate him. I cannot tell you how we arrive at the belief; I think it is generally because he helps us to understand and to appreciate that person. He throws light upon our own experiences of him; he corrects some wrong impressions we had formed. And when it is so, his report, especially if it is a favourable one, never satisfies us. We are determined to verify it. We must try to know him whom he praises for ourselves. We must be able to say, 'We know that we know him.'

I have supposed the case of two men who are equals, and who associate on equal terms. But let us suppose the case of a youth and an old man; and to be more exact, let us suppose the one to be the son of the other. How does a child come to know his father? It has been my misfortune,

I dare to say it has been yours, to meet with many sons who did not know their fathers, who did not the least understand what they were aiming at, either in the general work of their lives, or in the particular discipline of their families. I have also heard sons say, and sometimes I fear they spoke truly, that their fathers did not know them. They did not always mean that their fathers crossed them, or contradicted them, or laid heavy burdens upon them. That may be the complaint of many; but very indulgent fathers, who take little notice of the offences of their children, who easily pass them by, may exhibit what strikes them as want of comprehension. They do not perceive what their sons need, or what is leading them wrong. Their commands are seldom severe, but they appear as if they were arbitrary. They are not enforced with any consistency; a punishment sometimes follows the breach of them, sometimes not; the offender has a good chance of begging himself off; when he does suffer, he is apt to think that it was by accident, and not by law.

On the other hand, I have met, and I doubt not you have met, persons who could say honestly, The rules 'which our father laid down for us often cut very disagreeably against our inclinations; but we had always

a feeling that he was just, and that he cared for us as 'much when he punished us as when he commended us. 'And then, by degrees, we found that he was wise as 'well as just in his management of us. At last we are beginning to see what the principles of his conduct are; 'what he is in himself. We know that we know him.'

Now St. John assumes that the knowledge of God is as possible, is as real for human beings, as any know

TEST OF KNOWING GOD.

73

ledge they can have of each other. Nay, he goes farther than this. There are impediments to our knowledge of each other, which he says do not exist with reference to that higher knowledge. There is an uncertainty, a capriciousness, a mixture of darkness with light, in every human being, which make us hesitate a little, even when we think he has given us the clearest evidence of what he is. We dismiss the suspicion; we say we are sure that he is substantially right-right in intention-though he has done some things which puzzle us, and which appear wrong. But still there is something that bewilders us, in him as well as in our own perceptions. And sometimes we are utterly at fault: we say such and such a person has entirely disappointed us. I think that on the whole this happens most rarely with those that have been under the government of a person, as their commanding officer, their schoolmaster-above all, their father. When you hear a person say, 'I can speak to the temper and character of that man, 'for I have been a long time under him,' you rely more upon his word than if his acquaintance had been of another kind; because you reflect that the superior had continual opportunities for exhibiting tyranny, vacillation, incapacity for guidance; and that if he did exhibit those qualities, the inferior was sure to take notice of them, and to smart under them. The testimony that he did not-the assurance of his subaltern that the service was a free and honourable service, one in which there was no favouritism, one which acted upon his own life, and made him wiser and better— is the highest testimony and assurance that we can demand or receive.

And it is just this test which St. John says we may

have in its highest perfection in our relations with Him whom we cannot see. We may know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. I sometimes suspect that we give too loose a sense to that word 'keep.' No doubt it means to 'obey;' it does not mean more than that; for obedience is very comprehensive, a little too comprehensive for slow and narrow creatures such as we are. The word 'keep,' if we consider it, may help us to know what obedience is, and what it is not. A friend gives me a token to keep for him; he wishes that it should remind me of him, that it should recal days which we have spent together. Perhaps it may be only a flower or a weed that was gathered in a certain place where we were walking or botanizing; perhaps it is something precious in itself. If instead of giving me anything, he enjoins me to do a certain act, or not to do a certain act, I may be said as truly to keep that injunction as to keep the flower. To fulfil it is to remember him; it is a token of my fellowship to him, of my relation with him. The injunction may be one which is in itself indifferent. We are told by the prophet Jeremiah that Jonadab, the son of Rechab, had desired his sons to drink no wine. His descendants kept the tradition; it was a homage to their ancestor's memory. The prophet set before them flagons of wine. He did not count it a criminal act to taste the liquor; but when they refused, he commended and admired them, for they were keeping their father's commandment; it was a holy pledge and token of their reverence for one whom they could not see; it kept them as a family together. But the knowledge you obtain of the person who gives the commandment depends upon the nature of the commandment. Jonadab's descendants might

THE DELIVERER: VISIBLE THINGS.

75

get a certain knowledge of their ancestor from this precept about wine. They might fairly conclude that he was a self-restraining man, who had preserved himself, and wished to preserve them, from temptations. Those commandments of which St. John speaks, are not of this limited or arbitrary kind; they are not mere signs or tokens. Still if they are kept, if they are watched over and thought about, and cherished as the commandments of a friend; if they are done as His commandments, they will give us an acquaintance with Him which we can obtain in no other way.

Let us consider this point a little more. Let us take the Ten Commandments; for St. John was an Israelite, a hearty Israelite, and of course would think first about the commands which were given to his nation, whatever else he connected with them. Some of you may have gone over this ground with me before; but I am less afraid of repeating myself than of passing lightly over a topic which is connected with the most practical part of Christian ethics.

The commandments open with the words, 'I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods but me.' How could a Jew keep this commandment? He must break it he must acknowledge another lord than the one who was speaking to him-if he did not think within himself, My God is a Deliverer, a deliverer of slaves from 'the hand of a tyrant. That is the name by which He 'wishes me to remember Him; that must denote what His 'character is.'

Next he is told, Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven