"...the high soul climbs the high way,
And the low soul gropes the low.
And in between, on the misty flats,
the rest drift to and fro...."
—John Oxenham
Chapter
1 - On to the Misty Flats
OF
COURSE no one in this enlightened age believes any more in the myths of
Genesis and—” But here Dr. Sedgewick paused in his lecture as if a second
thought had occurred. With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “Well, maybe I had
better test it out, before being so dogmatic.” Facing the large freshman
class, who were hanging on his words, and pulling his face into gravity, he
asked:
“Is
there anyone here who believes there is a Heaven and a Hell? Who
believes that the story of Genesis is true? Please raise your hand.”
He
waited for a response. Up went my hand as bravely as I could muster courage.
I also looked around to see if I had a comrade in my stand. Only one other
hand was up, in all that big group of perhaps a hundred students. Dr.
Sedgewick smiled, then, as if sympathetic with our embarrassment, he
conceded:
“Oh,
you just believe that because your papa and mama told you so.”
He then
proceeded with his lecture, assuming once and for all that no thinking human
being believed the Bible any more. -
Brought
up in an earnest Presbyterian home (my grandfather was a Presbyterian
minister and my father an ardent lay preacher) I had been carefully coached
in the refutations of modernism before my parents had allowed me to enter
the university. If it had been a case of arguing the claims of modernism
versus fundamentalism; I do not think I would have been shattered in my
faith. But there was no argument. There was just the pitying sneer, “Oh,
you just believe that because your papa and your mama told you so,” and then
the confident assumption that no persons nowadays who thought for
themselves, who were scientific in their approach to life, believed that old
story any more.
On the
way home from class I faced the charge honestly. Why did I believe the
Bible? The Genesis explanation of life’s origin? Why did I believe in
Heaven and Hell?
It was
because I had been taught it by my parents and church from the hour I could
understand anything. Was that reason enough for accepting it? No, I agreed
with Dr. Sedgewick that it was not a sufficient basis to build my life upon.
We had experienced remarkable answers to prayer in our family life—didn’t
that prove the existence of God? But my psychology course taught that mind
had a powerful effect over matter. If I had not been so gullible, maybe I
could have seen a natural explanation. ...
At the
end of my walk home, I came to the conclusion that I would henceforth accept no
theories of which I had not proved personally. And, quite ignorant of where
that attitude would lead me, I had unconsciously stepped off the High Way
where man walks with his face lifted God-ward and the pure, piney scents
of the Heights call him upward -- down to The Misty Flats. [Its
characteristics follow;]
-
The
in-between level place of easygoing — nothing very good attempted, yet
nothing bad either
-
where men walk in the mist, telling each other that no one can see
these things clearly...
-
where the in-betweeners drift to and fro — life has no end but
amusement ...
-
where the herd drift with the strongest pull and there is no
reason for opposing anything.
-
Therefore they had a kind of peace and a mutual link which they call
tolerance.
I did
not know that I had stepped down to The Misty Flats. I was just conscious of
a sudden pleasant freedom from old duties. If there was no God, why bother
to go to church on Sunday, for instance? Why not use Sunday to catch up on
sleep, so that one could dance half the night away several times during the
week?
Again,
if the Bible was but a record of myths and old-fashioned ideas, why read it
every morning? That took time and it was much easier to sleep until the very
last moment, getting up just in time for the first class at college. ...
It was a
popular thing to be on The Misty Flats: you had plenty of company.
And one was respected as being modern and intelligent to question the old
faiths. Life drifted along so pleasantly—for a while.
My home
training still had an effect upon me. Jesus Christ, now seen blurred in the
mists which denied His Godhead, is an acknowledged historical character....
His name was the sweetest melody I knew and it never failed to stir my
heart, even though I had ceased to seek Him. His purity and holiness made me
hate besmirching things. And all this because my father and my mother had
taught me so.... [pp 5-8]
Chapter 2 - Slippery ways in darkness
"Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the
darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will
bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the
Lord." Jer. 23:12
AFTER
THE STRETCHED MUSCLES of climbing, to find oneself on the level is very
relaxing and pleasant. Therefore The Misty Flats are attractive to foot,
eye, and palate at the beginning. There is no hint that the pretty
mist will gradually close in and bring darkness. There is no suggestion amid
the gay chatter of the populous throng that there are slippery places, which
are going to bring hurt. In the boasted freedom of drifting whither you
will, there is certainly no sign that one is being driven on, as
Jeremiah so shrewdly perceived was the reality. And above all, there is
never a hint that the end of The Flats is the visitation of the Lord and the
judgment of sin. Yet all that is the real truth.
[Later... after a time of heartbreaking
disappointments]
The post
office clock on Main Street had just struck two, and I was still tense and
tossing. I was desperate. I knew I’d be ill in the morning if I did not get
to sleep. Then came the Tempter. “Of what use is life?” he whispered....
My hand
was on the door knob when a deep groan, twice repeated, broke the silence of
the dark. It was my father, moaning in his sleep in the next room. I was not
afraid, for I recognized Father’s tones, but I was startled into remembrance
of him. I stood with my hand on the knob debating. If I committed suicide,
Daddy would think I had gone to Hell. Of course, that would not make a place
called Hell, but how terrible for Daddy to think so. He had been such a
dear, kind father to me all my life. Dare I make him such a dastardly
return? No, I couldn’t be so mean and selfish. In agony I turned and sat
down on the edge of my bed and faced the darkest moment of my life. I didn’t
want to live and I couldn’t die!
Oh the
black despair of The Misty Flats! How little did I know of the golden
sunshine pouring on the High Way above them! What a lot of heartache I might
have been saved if I had only...
But it
was necessary that first I drink to the dregs the emptiness of the promises
held out by The Misty Flats: only then could I be freed from their lure and
subtle call.
And now
a strange thing happened. That day I had been studying Matthew Arnold’s
essay on The Study of Poetry. (You remember, it was Sedgewick, a disciple of
Arnold, who had first pushed me off the High Way?) In that essay he gives
various quotations from the classics.... one such [stated], "In His will is
our peace." Now that sentence wrote itself across the dark of my bedroom....
What if there were a God, after all? If so, I certainly had not been in His
will. Maybe that was why I had no peace?
An idea
struck me. No one was watching to see if I were a fool or not. Sitting there
on my bed’s edge, I raised both hands heavenward. “God, if there be a God,”
I whispered, for I was not going to believe in what did not exist just to
get a mental opiate, “if You will prove to me that You are, and if You will
give me peace, I will give You my whole life. I’ll do anything You ask me to
do, go where You send me, obey You all my days.” Then I climbed into bed and
pulled the blankets over me.
Chapter 3 - What you
should not imitate
THE NEXT THING I KNEW, it was morning and the golden sunshine of a December
day in Vancouver was pouring into my bedroom. I lay there drowsily enjoying
it when suddenly a thought startled me into full consciousness. I had been
sleeping like a baby — how did it happen? Such deep relaxed slumber had not
touched my pillow for many a long day.... Thought traced itself back to the
experience of the night before. I had made a bargain with God. I had asked
Him for peace and — peace had come.
Oh yes,
answered Reason; but that was easily explainable apart from God. That was no
proof that God existed. It was just the effect of mind over matter. I had
committed my troubles to an imaginary being and that was why body and mind
quieted down.
Restlessly I threw off the bedclothes and sat on the edge of my bed. I was
not going to use religion as an opiate. I was going to be realistic or
nothing.... But as I pondered, the thought persisted: “You made a bargain
last night. The Other Side kept His part. There was no stipulation as to how
peace should come, and it came. Nobody knows about it and nobody will know,
if this should prove to be foolishness. Why not continue your part of the
agreement and see?”
But what
was my part? To yield my whole life if He proved Himself. And in the
meantime, why not try to seek Him?
Seek
God? Where?
Can a man by searching find out God? Zophar had questioned Job, obviously
not believing it possible. Job had tried to answer by pointing to God in His
creative works. But the twentieth century had another theory for the origin
of the earth.
Where
does one go to search for God? Even as I asked myself that question, a
picture from memory floated before me. It was at the Guelph conference of
1921 when the Student Christian Movement was formed. A young man was on his
feet giving his testimony. “While I was interned in Germany as a prisoner of
war,” he said, “I got hold of a Bible and started to read it. I found
God through reading His Word.”
I had
been a university delegate for the YWCA to that convention, but had
apparently been unaffected by it. I knew there was a conflict between the
modernist students and the fundamentalists — this young ex-soldier was
earnest for the old beliefs. I was still an agnostic and weary of religious
arguments. I let them talk and did not let it enter my heart.
But this
young fellow was aglow with something real: he was the outstanding memory of
that conference to me, yet I did not even know his name. Now in my own hour
of need I could see him standing there, radiant, affirming he had found
God. And he had found Him through the Christ of the New Testament.
Well, I
had a Bible. There it was on my bookshelf, unused, a bit dusty, but
beautiful and new—a gift from my father when I graduated from high school. I
pulled it down and looked at it. Modernists said the Pentateuch was
not written by Moses; this was questioned, that was questioned. Was there
anything that wasn’t questioned?
Yes—the
historicity of Jesus Christ is beyond doubt. And the four Gospels are
accepted as a more or less authentic record of His teachings, as
authoritative as Plato’s were of Socrates, at least. So I decided to search
for God through Jesus Christ, to read the Gospels only, to underline
everything and anything that Jesus said to do and try honestly to do them.
Jesus prayed, so I would begin to try praying again—cautiously, of course...
And now began a life at two levels
[still on the misty flats]: an outer level
of study, worldly
gaiety and pride, and an inner level of watching, seeking after
God...
See
Seeking God
This wonderful book is available from
www.omfbooks.com
