Doing and Dreaming; Houses on the Rock and the Sand.
I. In the course of my travels I have met with three distinct dreamers. (1) There is the rationalistic dreamer. He beholds his face in a glass, and stands before it, admiring it. His religion is just a looking-glass for himself; but as the looking-glass is made by himself, it is worth little. To him religion is a system of ideas, and no idea represents reality. (2) There is the sentimental dreamer. He will talk to you for hours of the presence of God in nature. But religion is not that; it is more than that. Sentiment is eminently "a face in a glass," and just reflects what we are ourselves. A house of sentiment is the last place I should fly to, to shelter me from the storm. (3) There is the pietistic dreamer. Contemplation without action is disease. Idle self-contemplation is the paralysis of the soul.
II. The religion of the dreamer is a religion of theory. The religion of the doer is one of experience. It has been too much the method in religion to put knowing beyond doing. Knowing has been regarded as the highest faculty; in reality, it is the lowest. Knowing should result in doing, which is the intellect resolved into the will; and doing should merge into being, which is the intellect and will in unconscious unity man's highest state. Short of this, religion is a mere reverie.
III. The religion of the dreamer will always be one of doubt. The religion of the doer will always be a religion of evidence. This follows the last remark, because doing leads to knowing.
IV. The dreamer confines his religion to solitude; the doer finds a vent for his in society. Religion comforts solitude and consoles it; it does not encourage the spirit of it. If we are to enter the solitude, it is that we may collect the moral forces of our nature, and come forth, inspired by the Divine Spirit, to cry aloud, "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord!"
V. The religion of the dreamer is a religion without love. But the life of the doer is love. Our love, in fact, is proportioned to our labours our labour proportions our love. Love is the fountain of all true knowledge. Every man understands more by his affections than by his reason.
VI. There is no salvation for the dreamer. Ten virgins went forth to meet the bridegroom; and five were wise, and five foolish.Work while it is today. Shadows fall; life is closing round you. All things settle into seriousness. Opportunities are flying. Work alone is imperishable.
E. Paxton Hood, Sermons,p. 413.
References: Matthew 7:24-27. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvi., No. 918; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 55; A. B. Bruce, Expositor,1st series, vol. ix., p. 90; J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King,p. 637; E. R. Conder, Drops and Rocks,p. 76. Matthew 7:24-29. Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. i., p. 273.