536. Contentment

Contentment

Heb_13:5 : ’93Be content with such things as ye have.’94

If I should ask some one, ’93Where is Brooklyn today?’94 he would say, ’93At Brighton Beach, or East Hampton, or Shelter Island.’94 ’93Where is New York, today?’94 ’93At Long Branch.’94 ’93Where is Philadelphia?’94 ’93Cape May.’94 ’93Where is Boston?’94 ’93At Martha’92s Vineyard.’94 ’93Where is Virginia?’94 ’93At the Sulphur Springs.’94 ’93Where the great multitude from all parts of the land?’94 ’93At Saratoga.’94 But the largest multitude are at home, detained by business or circumstances. Among them all newspaper men, the hardest worked and the least compensated; city railroad employees, and ferry masters, and the police, and the tens of thousands of clerks and merchants waiting for their turn of absence, and households with an invalid who cannot be moved, and others hindered by stringent circumstances, and the great multitude of well-to-do people who stay at home because they like home better than any other place, refusing to obey the dictum that they must follow the fashion and simply go because it is the fashion to go away. When the express wagon, with its mountain of trunks, directed to the Catskills or Niagara, goes through the streets, we stand at our window envious and impatient, and wonder why we cannot go as well as others. Fools that we are, as though one could not be as happy at home as anywhere else! Our grandfathers and grandmothers had as good a time as we have, long before the first spring was bored at Saratoga, or the first deer shot in the Adirondacks. They made their wedding-tour to the next farmhouse, or, living in New York, they celebrated the event by an extra walk on the Battery.

Now, the genuine American is not happy until he is going somewhere, and the passion is so great that there are Christian people, with their families, detained in the city, who come not to the house of God, trying to give people the idea that they are out of town, leaving the door-plate unscoured for the same reason, and for two months keeping the front shutters closed while they sit in the back part of the house, the thermometer at ninety! If it is best for us to go, let us go and be happy. If it is best for us to stay at home, let us stay at home and be happy. There is a great deal of good common sense in this scriptural advice to the Hebrews: ’93Be content with such things as ye have.’94 To be content is to be in good humor with our circumstances, not picking a quarrel with our obscurity, or our poverty, or our social position. There are four or five grand reasons why we should be content with such things as we have.

The first reason that I mention as leading to this spirit, advised in the text, is the consideration that the poorest of us have all that is indispensable in life. We make great ado about our hardships, but how little we talk of our blessings. Health of body, which is given in largest quantity to those who have never been petted and fondled, and spoiled by fortune, we take as a matter of course. Rather have this luxury, and have it alone, than, without it, look out of a palace window upon parks of deer feeding between fountains and statuary. These people sleep sounder on a straw mattress than fashionable invalids on a couch of ivory and eagles’92 down. The dinner of herbs tastes better to the appetite sharpened on a woodman’92s axe or a reaper’92s scythe, than wealthy indigestion experiences seated at a table covered with partridge and venison and pineapple. The grandest luxury God ever gave a man is health. He who trades that off for all the palaces of the earth is infinitely cheated. We look back at the glory of the last Napoleon, but who would have taken his Versailles, and his Tuilleries, if with them we had to take his gout?

’93Oh,’94 says some one, ’93it is not the grosser pleasures I covet, but it is the gratification of an artistic and intellectual taste.’94 Why, you have the original from which these pictures are copied. What is a sunset on a wall compared with a sunset hung in loops of fire on the heavens? What is a cascade, silent on a canvas, compared to a cascade that makes the mountain tremble, its spray ascending like the departed spirit of the water slain on the rocks? Oh, there is a great deal of hollow affectation about a fondness for pictures on the part of those who never appreciate the original from which the pictures are taken. As though a parent should have no regard for his child, but go into ecstacies over its photograph. Bless the Lord today, O man! O woman! that though you may be shut out from the works of a Church, a Bierstadt, a Rubens, and a Raphael, you still have free access to a gallery grander than the Louvre, or the Luxembourg, or the Vatican’97the royal gallery of the noonday heavens, the King’92s gallery of the midnight sky.

Another consideration leading us to a spirit of contentment, is the fact that our happiness is not dependent upon outward circumstances. You see people happy and miserable amid all circumstances. In a family where the last loaf is on the table, and the last stick of wood on the fire, you sometimes find a cheerful confidence in God; while in a very fine place you will hear discord sounding her war-whoop, and see hospitality freezing to death in a cheerless parlor.

I stopped one day on Broadway, New York, at the head of Wall Street, at the foot of Trinity Church, to see who seemed the happiest people passing. I judged, from their looks, the happiest people were not those who went down into Wall Street, for they had on their brow the anxiety of the dollars they expected to make; nor the people who came out of Wall Street, for they had on their brow the anxiety of the dollars they had lost; nor the people who swept by in splendid equipage, for they met a carriage that was finer than theirs. The happiest person in all that crowd, judging from the countenance, was the woman who sat at the apple-stand, knitting. I believe real happiness oftener looks out of the window of an humble home, than through the opera-glass of the gilded box of a theatre.

I find Nero growling on a throne. I find Paul singing in a dungeon. I find King Ahab going to bed at noon, through melancholy, while near by is Naboth contented in the possession of a vineyard. Haman, prime minister of Persia, frets himself almost to death because a poor Jew will not tip his hat; and Ahithophel, one of the greatest lawyers of Bible times, through fear of dying, hangs himself. The wealthiest man, forty years ago, in New York, when congratulated over his large estate, replied, ’93Ah, you don’92t know how much trouble I have in taking care of it!’94 Byron declared, in his last hours, that he had never seen more than twelve happy days in all his life. I do not believe that he had seen twelve minutes of thorough satisfaction. Napoleon I said, ’93I turn with disgust from the cowardice and selfishness of man. I hold life a horror; death is repose. What I have suffered the last twenty days is beyond human comprehension.’94 While, on the other hand, to show how one may be happy amid the most disadvantageous circumstances, just after the Ocean Monarch had been wrecked in the English Channel, a steamer was cruising along in the darkness, when the captain heard a song, a sweet song, coming over the water, and he bore down toward that voice, and found it was a Christian woman on a plank of the wrecked steamer, singing to the tune of Martyn:

Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to thy bosom fly,

While the billows near me roll,

While the tempest still is high.

The heart right toward God and man, we are happy. The heart wrong toward God and man, we are unhappy.

Another reason why we should come to this spirit inculcated in the text, is the fact that all the differences of earthly condition are transitory. The houses you build, the land you cultivate, the places in which you barter, are soon to go into other hands. However hard you may have it now, if you are a Christian the scene will soon end. Pain, trial, persecution, never knock at the door of the grave. A coffin made out of pine boards is just as good a resting-place as one made out of silver-mounted mahogany or rosewood. Go down among the resting-places of the dead, and you will find that though people there had a great difference of worldly circumstances, now their bodies are all alike unconscious. The hand that greeted the senator, and the president, and the king, is still as the hand that hardened on the mechanic’92s hammer, or the manufacturer’92s wheel. It does not make any difference now, whether there is a plain stone above them, from which the traveller pulls aside the weeds to read the name, or a tall shaft springing into the heavens as though to tell their virtues to the skies. In that silent land there are no titles for great men, and there are no rumblings of chariot-wheels, and there is never heard the foot of the dance. The Egyptian guano which is thrown on the fields in the East for the enrichment of the soil, is the dust raked out from the sepulchres of kings and lords and mighty men. O the chagrin of those men if they had ever known that in the after ages of the world they would have been called Egyptian guano!

Of how much worth now is the crown of C’e6sar? Who bids for it? Who cares now anything about the Amphitryronic Council or the laws of Lycurgus? Who trembles now because Xerxes crossed the Hellespont on a bridge of boats? Who fears because Nebuchadnezzar thunders at the gates of Jerusalem? Who cares now whether or not Cleopatra marries Antony? Who crouches before Ferdinand, or Boniface, or Alaric? Can Cromwell dissolve the English Parliament now? Is William Prince of Orange, king of the Netherlands? No; no! However much Elizabeth may love the Russian crown, she must pass it to Peter, and Peter to Catherine, and Catherine to Paul, and Paul to Alexander, and Alexander to Nicholas. Leopold puts the German sceptre into the hand of Joseph, and Philip comes down off the Spanish throne to let Ferdinand go on. House of Aragon, house of Hapsburg, house of Stuart, house of Bourbon, quarreling about everything else, but agreeing in this: ’93The fashion of this world passeth away.’94 But have all these dignitaries gone? Can they not be called back? I have been to assemblages where I have heard the roll called, and many distinguished men have answered. If I should call the roll today of some of those mighty ones who have gone, I wonder if they would not answer. I will call the roll. I will call the roll of the kings first: Alfred the Great! William the Conqueror! Frederick II! Louis XVI! No answer. I will call the roll of the poets: Robert Southey! Thomas Campbell! John Keats! George Crabbe! Robert Burns! No answer. I will call the roll of artists: Michael Angelo! Paul Veronese! William Turner! Christopher Wren! No answer. Eyes closed. Ears deaf. Lips silent. Hands palsied. Sceptre, pencil, pen, sword, put down forever. Why should we struggle for such baubles?

Another reason why we should cultivate this spirit of cheerfulness is the fact that God knows what is best for his creatures. You know what is best for your child. He thinks you are not as liberal with him as you ought to be. He criticises your discipline, but you look over the whole field, and you, loving that child, do what in your deliberate judgment is best for him. Now, God is the best of fathers. Sometimes his children think that he is hard on them, and that he is not as liberal with them as he might be. But children do not know as much as a father. I can tell you why you are not affluent, and why you have not been successful.

It is because you cannot stand the temptation. If your path had been smooth, you would have depended upon your own surefootedness; but God roughened that path, so you have to take hold of his hand. If the weather had been mild, you would have loitered along the water-courses; but at the first howl of the storm you quickened your pace heavenward, and wrapped around you the robe of a Saviour’92s righteousness.

Who are those before the throne? The answer came: ’93These are they who, out of great tribulation, had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.’94 Would God that we could understand that our trials are the very best thing for us. If we had an appreciation of that truth, then we should know why it was that John Noyra, the martyr, in the very midst of the flame, reached down and picked up one of the fagots that was consuming him, and kissed it, and said, ’93Blessed be God for the time when I was born for this preferment!’94 They who suffer with him on earth, shall be glorified with him in heaven. Be content, then, with such things as you have.

Another consideration leading us to the spirit of the text, is the assurance that the Lord will provide somehow. Will he who holds the water in the hollow of his hand allow his children to die of thirst? Will he who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and all the earth’92s luxuriance of grain and fruit, allow his children to starve? Go out to-morrow morning at five o’92clock, into the woods, and hear the birds chant. They have had no breakfast, they know not where they will dine, they have no idea where they will sup; but hear the birds chant at five o’92clock in the morning. ’93Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?’94

Five thousand people, in Christ’92s time, went into the desert. They were the most improvident people I ever heard of. They deserved to starve. They might have taken food enough to last them until they got back. Nothing did they take. A lad, who had more wit than all of them put together, asked his mother that morning for some loaves of bread and some fishes. They were put into his satchel. He went out into the desert. From this provision the five thousand were fed, and the more they ate the larger the loaves grew, until the provision that the boy brought in one satchel was multiplied so he could not have carried the fragments home in six satchels. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93times have changed, and the day of miracles has gone.’94 I reply that, what God did then by miracle, he does now in some other way, and by natural laws. ’93I have been young,’94 said King David, ’93and now am old; yet have I never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.’94 It is high time that you people who are fretting about worldly circumstances, and who are fearing that you are coming to want, understood that the oath of the Eternal God is involved in the fact that you are to have enough to eat and to wear.

Again: I remark that the religion of Jesus is the grandest influence to make a man contented. Indemnity against all financial and spiritual harm! It calms the spirit, dwindles the earth into insignificance, and swallows up the soul with the thought of heaven. O ye who have been going about from place to place, expecting to find in change of circumstances something to give solace to the spirit, I commend you to the warm-hearted, earnest, practical, common-sense religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. ’93There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked,’94 and as long as you continue in your sin, you will be miserable. Come to Christ. Make him your portion and start for heaven, and you will be a happy man’97you will be a happy woman.

Yet, notwithstanding all these inducements to a spirit of contentment, I have to tell you that the human race is divided into two classes’97those who scold, and those who get scolded. The carpenter wants to be anything but a carpenter, and the mason anything but a mason, and the banker anything but a banker, and the lawyer anything but a lawyer, and the minister anything but a minister, and everybody would be truly happy if he were only somebody else. Ah, you never make any advance through such a spirit as that. You cannot fret yourself up; you may fret yourself down. Amid all this grating of tones I strike this string of the Gospel harp: ’93Godliness with contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into the world, and it is very certain we can carry nothing out; having food and raiment, let us therewith be content.’94

Let us all remember, if we are Christians, that we are going after a while, whatever be our circumstances now, to have a glorious vacation. As in summer we put off our garments, and go down into the cool sea to bathe, so we will put off these garments of flesh, and step into the cool Jordan. We will look around for some place to lay down our weariness, and the trees will say: ’93Come and rest under our shadow;’94 and the earth will say: ’93Come and sleep in my bosom;’94 and the winds will say: ’93Hush! while I sing thee a cradle hymn;’94 and while six strong men carry us out to our last resting-place, and ashes come to ashes, and dust to dust, we will see two scarred feet standing amid the broken soil, and a lacerated brow bending over the open grave, while a voice, tender with all affection, and mighty with all omnipotence, will declare: ’93I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’94 Comfort one another with these words.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage