INNER AND OUTER JOY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 19, 6 February 1937, Page 10

INNER AND OUTER JOY

JAMEs

BLACK.

Whether w© accept the actual text or not, Proverbs xiv, 14 states a great principle for all time, which has been pro^fed in every experienoe. Taken literally, the Hebrew verse reads thus: "From his wa.ys the bad man is sated, and from himself the good man." Even though it occurs in such a prudential hook, I always regarded this as one of the flashes of insight that show how man's soul is beyond any tape or plummet But in line with their own arbitrary vlews some highfalutin commentators would like to reject the phrase "from himself," because (as one of them remarks) "to take the Hebrew expression as meaning that the good man finds sufficient reward in his inward experience would be against the manner of thought of Proverbs, which everywhere contemplates outward recompence." How amusing — and how banall Outside Criticsm, This kind of criticism, fortunately, is outdafed: it sets up its own artificial standards, and then deliberately knocks down anything that contradicts them. To me ij; seems as naive as it is comical. j)o oiir prosaic commentators imagine that man is never at any time bigger than himself, and cannot, at least in some blink of insight, see a peak he may never reach? If you applied this style of criticism to Shakespeare and Wordsworth, you would be forced to reject some of the inevitable lines that are bigger than even they ever intended to be. You cannot take an "average" of a man, and then chop off everything that sticks above it. Taking this verse, then, as it stands in the Hebrew, and as our version correctly translates jt, it states one of the absolute things in the world' s experience — that the evil man is always more than sated from the results of his own ways, and that ihe good man,** with or without "outward recompense," has an inner, complete satisfaction from himself. As our own proverb puts it, virtue is its own reward. The good man, just because goodness is its own final justification, is abundantly satisfied 'from .himself'. Martyrs and saints have proved it in every age. Not Self-Satisfaction, 'Needless to say, this is not "selfsatisfaction" nor anything like it. No good man can ever be guilty of selfcomplacency — and the better he is, the truer it is. He fs increasingly conscious of failures and mistakes: for he knows that at the best, at least in the eyes of the God he loves, all his righteousness is as filthy rags. No, to be satisfied "from" himself has no suggestion of being satisfied "with" him- . self l But it does suggest that his sources of final peace and attainment are within, Life in God's providence may well bring him all sorts of joys and blessings— but what if it doesn't? I am sure that the author of this verse spolce out of some bitter experience in a rather difficult. age. But h© liad proved, as . all good men and women have proved, thafc there are sources of joy and peace independent of the chances oi' fortuno. He could always turn in ou himself to meeb God. in his own heart, and. had inner satisfactions that were every wliib as real as tlie things tliat are material. Tliis is for ever true. (Jnfortunately, Christians are learning to depend more and more on outside things for their comfort and peace. A man would be a fool to despise these things — your Father knoweth you have need of them. But it is a mark of our age how much we are learning to find our sources oi joy outside ourselves. I know young people to-day who, if you cut off their outside sources of amusement, would be bored stiff with their own company, They must be up at this, and out at that, and here and there and everywhere. Put some of them for a week on a deserb island, and they would fiud 1 no bore so desolating ss their own

minds. Are we not paying a great pric© for our material civilisation ? It will certainly be an evil day when a good man ceases to be satisfied "from himself. 75 As the Greek version of the Hebrew says "from his thoughts."

By Dli.