THE MATERIAL AND THE MORAL
Isaiah 2:6-9. They be replenished from the east, &c.
We have here the indictment which the prophet brings against Israel. It consists of three counts:
1. That the people had adopted the superstitions of the surrounding nations.
2. That the government had accumulated treasure and organised a cavalry force, in direct disobedience to well-known Divine injunctions (Deuteronomy 17:16-17).
3. That rich and poor alike had abandoned themselves to idolatry. But these verses may be taken also as Isaiah’s description of Judæa in his day; and so regarding them, we find in them an instructive combination of the material and the moral. According to modern ideas, so far as the description concerns the material, it is exceedingly bright. An observer who regarded only the material—such a man as we can conceive of as being sent out as a “Special Commissioner” by the Daily Telegraph or the New York Herald—would have given a glowing account of Judæa at that period: an overflowing exchequer, a powerful army, evidences of wealth and prosperity on every hand, &c. But the prophet, looking only at what is moral, gives an account that is lurid and dark in the extreme: he sees only cause for lamentation and foreboding, So we reach the first of the lessons on which I intend to insist to-day, viz.,
I. That the most diverse reports may be made truly concerning the same community. St. Paul visited Athens, and we have a touching account of the effect of that city upon him (Acts 17:16); to him it presented a pitiable spectacle; but what a different effect would have been produced upon a mere man of culture, and what a different account he would have given of that metropolis of art! What very different accounts might be given of our own country from these two standpoints, the material and the moral!
II. When two reports of a community are given—one materially bright and the other morally dark—it is the latter only that a wise man will regard as important. For
1. It is on the moral condition of a nation, and not on its material prosperity, that its happiness depends. Increase of wealth does not necessarily mean increase of happiness. Frequently it means destruction of happiness; it always does so, when wealth increases faster than intellectual culture and moral restraint. In the absence of this moral restraint wealth is not a blessing, but a curse.
2. The material disassociated from the moral is transient. Vicious prosperity is short-lived. By the luxury born of prosperity the virtues of industry, foresight, and self-denial, on which prosperity depends, are sapped. The health of the nation is lowered. Commerce becomes a gigantic system of gambling. Ruin is soon reached. Hence,
III. Our chief concern as patriots should be to promote the moral well-being of our nation. Those who uplift it in virtue are its true benefactors. All who minister to its material, intellectual, and artistic progress are worthy of gratitude; but most deserving of gratitude are those who inspire it with the fear of God, and with love for His laws. Hence,
IV. Our chief concern as individuals should be for the moral and not for the material. It is a very small matter to add house to house, and field to field: it is a very great thing to add virtue to virtue until we have succeeded in building up a symmetrical and noble moral character. A man’s life—his true well-being depends not upon what he has, but upon what he is [529] And upon this, too, depends his eternal destiny. How childish, therefore, is the almost universal concern for mere material improvement! And how little have those to complain of who find themselves unable to accumulate wealth! The millionaire has soon to leave all his stores, and he speedily reaches a point at which all his bonds and notes become wastepaper. What a contrast between his experience, and that of the man who, having employed his life in a humble and diligent cultivation of virtue, finds that all unconsciously he has been laying all up for himself treasures in heaven! These two courses are open to us—to live for the material, or to live for the moral: which will you choose?
[529] A wise man looks upon men as he does upon horses; and considers their comparisons of title, wealth, and place, but as harness.—Newton, 1725–1807.
In the library of the world, men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, the size, and the binding. The time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.—E. Cook.
A man may be outwardly successful all his life long, and die hollow and worthless as a puff-ball; and a man may be externally defeated all his life long, and die in the royalty of a kingdom established within him. That man is a pauper who has only outward success; and that man may be a prince who dies in rags, untended, and unknown in his physical relations to this world. And we ought to take the ideal in the beginning that a man’s true estate of power and riches is to be in himself: not in his dwelling; not in his position; not in his external relations, but in his own essential character. That is the realm in which a man must live, if he is to live as a Christian man.—Beecher.