ing, new restoration of vigor to the abject, new gains to those who had experienced great losses, so even when it persists in taking away it nevertheless deals solicitously with the sufferer. It rarely takes everything all at once, but only little by little, thus gradually accustoming him to do without; until at length the sufferer perceives with astonishment that he needs even less than what he once regarded as the absolute minimum. He sees that his wants are now so small that he can remember how he once shrank back in terror from the thought of needing so little; though in this he did not think very clearly, since it is certainly not the smallness of the want that is the truly terrifying thing. He remembers how he once ex- cited and heated his spirit by reflecting upon the con- tradiction involved in needing so little merely in order to go on needing so little; though in this he did not fully understand himself, since the contradiction could surely not be removed merely by needing more.
How much then is the little that a man needs? Let life itself answer the question; and let this discourse do what the sorrows and tribulations of life sometimes effect, namely the stripping a man of his possessions in order to discover how little he needs. And do you also lend your aid, my hearer, in the degree to which your special cir- cumstances make you able and willing to participate. For the discourse does not wish to overwhelm you with sudden fear, seeing that it is engaged in trying to find consolation. Nor does it wish to deceive you, as "when the ice and snow of despair create the delusive mountain stream that lures the caravan from the way, and leads it into the desert to its destruction." Indeed, it cannot ter- rify you if you have made trial of the process it is about to describe, and if you have thus found the consolation.
i38 i38 And if you have not made the trial, the discourse which confronts you with it, can terrify you only if your strength lies in the view that such things happen but seldom. But who then is the more unfortunate? Is it the man who has made trial of the experience? Or is it not the soft and cowardly fool who can not perceive that his consolation is an illusion, since when misfortune really comes it helps him little that the occurrence was a rare one.
Let us then take it away from him: wealth and power and influence, and the deceitful service of false friend- ship, and the obedient subjection of his pleasures to the whim of his desires, and the triumphs of his vanity over the admiration of his worshipers, and the flattering atten- tion of the throngs, and the envied magnificence of his entire presence. Now he has lost it, and is content with less. Just as the world cannot recognize him on account of the great alteration in his circumstances, so he finds it hard to recognize himself— so changed is he: that he who once needed so much now needs so little. In truth, it is far easier to understand and much more cheerful to con- template how this latter change can make him unrec- ognizable to himself, than how that other change, the change in his circumstances, can make him unrecogniz- able to other men. For what folly there is in the no- tion that a human being should be known solely by his clothes, so that men do not recognize him when he is un- clothed; and is it not a melancholy thing that our ad- miration is reserved for the clothes and not centered up- on the man! A more godly view of life, however, readily perceives that the man is about to be clothed upon, and to be clad in festal garments; for the earthly wedding-gar- ment and the heavenly are very different.
But a little with contentment is great gain. Let us then MAN S NEED OF GOD 139 take that too away from him— not the contentment, but the little he has left. He does not suffer want, he is not compelled to go hungry to bed. But he does not know from whence his needs are to be supplied, either in the evening when he falls asleep from his anxiety, or in the morning when he wakes to live with it. Nevertheless, his wants are somehow supplied, the little that he needs in order to live. He is a poor man; and this phrase which it is so hard to hear, he must hear applied to himself. He feels the burden of his poverty doubly, since it is not self- chosen. He is not like a man who renounced his wealth in order to try an experiment, and who perhaps there- fore finds himself more easily in his self-chosen poverty, though not necessarily more excellently, if perchance he merely renounced one form of vanity in order to acquire another and a greater. "Man wants but little," says the proverb. But to know that one's wants are few, without in any moment knowing with certainty that these few wants will be supplied— whoever is able to carry this burden needs but little. He does not even need that which nevertheless is something, namely to have the satis- faction of his few wants assured to him. A man needs no more if it is true that he needs only a little— in order to live; for when the time comes he will doubtless find for himself a grave, and in the grave all men need equally little. Whether he owns the grave in which he lies, or has a leasehold for a hundred years (strange contradic- tion this!) or has had to force his way in among others, has had to struggle even in death to find for himself a little place: all have the same amount, all need equally little, and all need it only for a little while.
But the short time before, of which the saying speaks, may perhaps seem long. For even if the way that leads 140 to the grave is short, even if you never had occasion to see him wearily walk the path to the grave in order to make conquest with his eye of the little country he in- tends after death to make his own, might not the way in another sense be very long indeed? And if he sometimes lost his courage, and failed to understand at times that man wants but little here below, had you nothing else to say to him than merely to repeat in his ear this one saying? Or did you perhaps have something else to say, something that came so naturally and so easily to your lips that you found yourself perhaps not fully trusting the consolation you offered him, namely the familiar phrase, "Then you will have to be content with the grace of God."
Let us pause here a moment, lest everything be thrown into confusion: the thought, our discourse, and the hu- man language itself. Confused, namely, in that the roles are reversed though the relationship remains the same, so that it is the other who has the consolation while you lack it, the other who is rich while you are needy; though the very opposite seemed to be the case until you heard the little magic word that changed all. Perhaps the word did not even win your attention; for we often use many a word in this manner, as the child uses the significant word without becoming aware of the spear-point of the thought, which wounds unto death in order to save the life. To let the grace of God suffice us! The grace of God is surely the greatest of all good gifts, on this point we do not propose to raise a controversy; this belief is at bottom the most earnest and blessed conviction of every human being. But we so rarely evoke the thought; and if we wish to be honest with ourselves we must admit that in the last analysis, although without fully becoming MAN S NEED OF GOD I4I aware of what we do, we quietly apply to this conception the old adage that "too much and too little spoils every- thing." For if a man were really to think this thought in its eternal validity it would at once nullify all his worldly thinking, imagining and desiring, and turn everything upside down. And this is something that a man cannot long endure. Hence he falls back to the lower level of earthly things, to his customary speech and habits of thought. And the older he is in years the harder it is for him to learn a new language, especially one so markedly different. Now and then this comes to his attention, and he senses that there is something wrong about the use which he makes of the word, intermingled as it is with all sorts of worldly speech. He thus acquires a bad con- science with respect to it, and is not happy in its employ- ment. And yet, it really is the truth that the grace of God is the most precious of all good gifts.
If a man had what is less precious indeed than the grace of God, namely, the entire sum of all the treasures in the world, and you were to be so bold as to admonish him to rest content with this, he would doubtless smile at you. If, on the other hand, he were himself to say: "Now I shall try to be content with what I have," such speech would doubtless seem repugnant; for what more could he ask to possess? And how great the insolence of "trying to be content" when one has everything. Whatever we are en- gaged in trying to make suffice, must surely be something that is little; and to strive to be content with the most precious of all possessions seems indulgence in a strange mode of speech.
And further, this consolation is offered to the other by a man who does not himself appear to understand it. This is as strange as if someone were to offer a needy 142 person the gift of a coin, admonishing him to be content with the gift, although the fact was that this coin was one which made its possessor the owner of the entire world.
How strange that the giver could appraise his gift so modestly as to match it with the advice to be content! Is it not as if a man were going to a banquet, invited by some great personage, and met on his way a humble per- son who was not invited; and for the sake of consoling him after a fashion, said to him: "You will have to rest content with the privilege of sitting at table in the king- dom of heaven." Or if the humble man himself said: "Alas, I am not invited by the great man, nor could I accept the invitation even if I were; for I have a previous engagement, and must content myself with sitting at meat in the kingdom of heaven"— would it not be a strange form of speech?
The more one thinks about it, the stranger does the earthly life and the human language become. Inter- mingled with all of life's earthly and worldly differences, which are already quite sufficiently insistent upon being taken at their own evaluation, we thoughtlessly permit the distinction of the divine also to make its appearance, and in such a manner as to show that it is at bottom really excluded. When a man comes to us in the name of the king, this authorization opens every door. But it is a last desperate recourse for a man to come to us in God's name, and whoever is compelled to be content with such an authorization must be content with little. If someone came to a great man's door, and the servant failed to make out on what errand he came, and the great man himself came to the door in impatience, and saw standing there a humble man who presented himself as coming in God's MAN S NEED OF GOD j^ name— would not the door in all probability be shut in his face?
But the discourse does not wish to startle you, my hearer, nor to shock you out of your continuity with yourself. When we speak of being content with the grace of God, the reason doubtless is that the grace of God does not express itself in our experience as a human being would like, or finds it easy to understand, but speaks instead a more difficult language. When the grace of God grants to a man what he likes and desires, he is not merely content, but happy and grateful; under such circum- stances he deems himself fully capable of understanding that God is good and gracious. That this is a misunder- standing, to the refutation of which, however, no one need leap too promptly and eagerly, is certain enough. One need not on that account omit to train oneself in the truer and more difficult interpretation while there is still time and opportunity. If it is possible for a human being to persuade himself of the grace of God without the intermediation of any temporal testimony, or with- out leaning upon that interpretation of God's providence which makes it profitable for him according to his own ideas of what is profitable, then indeed it is quite certain that for him the grace of God is the highest good. And he will then strive to rejoice in God's grace so as not merely to rest content with it; and he will give thanks for it so as not merely to find it barely sufficient. He will not grieve over what God has denied to him; he will not be overmuch concerned with the difference in mode of expression which formerly existed between God's ever- lasting faithfulness and his own childish littleness of faith. For now this difference in language no longer exists, in that "his heart is strengthened by grace and not by meat."
144 If someone suffering from some deprivation, enjoyed the friendship of a great man, but this powerful friend could do nothing to alleviate his suffering (which is com- parable to the grace of God being without external con- firmation), the mere fact of his friendship with the great man would nevertheless mean much to him. But here perhaps we touch the difficulty. The sufferer might read- ily persuade himself that the great man really was unable to do anything for him; but how could any man in any finite sense be persuaded that Almighty God could do nothing for him! Hence it results that our thoughts in their impatience steadily insist that God can surely do for us what we wish Him to do; and it is because of man's impatience that the language speaks of trying to rest con- tent with the grace of God. In the beginning, when this impatience was at its height, and cried out most loudly to be satisfied, it could scarcely be made to understand that the contentment of which we speak could be praise- worthy. But as the impatience subsided, and the sufferer found rest and peace in the serene incorruptibility of the inner man, he began to understand this more and more, until at last his heart was moved, and he came to behold a vision, even if only intermittently, of the divine glory —the divine glory which had taken upon itself so humble a form. And if this glorious vision vanishes, so that he again becomes a sufferer, as in truth he was even while he beheld the vision; if it again seems to him that it requires a contented spirit to find the grace of God sufficient for his needs; he nevertheless sometimes admits to himself with shame that the grace of God is something that one may well find worthy of one's contentment; aye, that it is of all things most worthy to be desired; aye, that it is of all things most blessed to possess.
MAN S NEED OF GOD 145 So then it happens, little by little, for the grace of God can never be seized by force, that the human heart be- comes in a very beautiful sense more and more discon- tented, more and more burning with desire, more and more filled with longing, for the assurance of the grace of God. And behold, now all things have become new, every- thing is changed. In the case of the earthly goods of life the principle obtains that man needs but little, and in proportion as he needs less and less he becomes more and more perfect. A pagan who knew only how to speak of earthly things, has said that God was happy because He needed nothing at all, and next to Him in happiness was the wise man, because he needed little. But in the rela- tion between a human being and God this principle is reversed: the more a man needs God the more perfect he is.
The word which speaks of letting the grace of God suffice us is by no means intent merely upon offering us consolation, and upon re-affirming this consolation when- ever earthly want and deprivation makes it seem neces- sary. For when a human being has fully awakened to its import it calls him aside, to a place where he no longer hears the earthly mother-tongue of the worldly mind, nor the customary speech of men, nor the alarums of the actors on the stage of life. But he stands now where the word is glorified, and confides to him the secret of per- fection, namely, that to be in need of God is no shameful embarrassment, but precisely the perfection of human life, and that it would be the saddest of all tragedies if a man passed through life without discovering that he needed God.
Let us then strive to interpret to ourselves more clearly this edifying thought: 146 man's need of god constitutes his highest perfection The truth of this principle, that standing in need of God constitutes a perfection, would seem to be attested by a familiar circumstance, one which may serve at least as a passing reminder. In the churches of the various countries it is customary, after the sermon, to pray for the ruler and the members of the ruling house. That prayers are also offered for the sick and the sorrowing cannot prove that being in need of God constitutes a perfection, since these are sufferers. But the ruler is a great man, the most powerful in the land; and yet inter- cession is made especially for him, while it is only in general terms that the sick and the sorrowing are men- tioned, though the church hopes and trusts that God in His heaven will understand the petition in a quite particular manner, so that though the church does not specify any particular person, God nevertheless thinks of each individual separately. And if God's understand- ing is of a different sort, if His cares and responsibilities for the government of the world permit him too to con- cern Himself with individuals only in a general way— aye, then may God help us! Ah, this is still the last resort of every human being in his misery. Even when he cannot endure this last thought, that God's providence for indi- viduals should be merely general in its character, even then he says: God help me endure this thought; and thus gets God, in spite of all, to concern Himself particularly with him.
But why is prayer offered especially for the ruler? Is it because he has earthly power, and holds the fate of many in his hands? Is it because his well-being determines that of countless others? Is it because every shadow of misforman's need of god 147 tune that passes over the ruler's house also darkens the homes of all the people? Is it because his illness interferes with the functions of the state, and his death disturbs its life? Wholly worldly as such a concern is, it may neverthe- less not unbecomingly enlist the thoughts of many. But such a concern will scarcely prompt anyone to pray or at any rate not prompt anyone to pray, except with the res- ervation necessary whenever we pray for earthly goods; for from this point of view a ruler constitutes just such an earthly good. When understood in this manner the prayer would become more and more earnest and personally pressing, the more closely the petitioner's own life was tied to the life of the ruler, until at last the prayer ceased to be intercession, just as the wife's prayer for her hus- band can scarcely be called intercessory. But the church cannot pray in this manner, precisely because it makes intercession; and it makes intercession for the ruler, doubtless, because it is convinced that the higher a man stands the more he needs God.
Nevertheless, even if such intercessory prayer is offered in all churches, it does not follow that the ruler on whose behalf it is offered has himself an understanding of the truth that his need of God constitutes man's highest per- fection. And even if the individual church-goer tacitly consents to the intercession, and if, alas, the many who do not go to church have no objection to this prayer being offered, it does not follow that all these understand it in a godly manner; in the sense, namely, that the higher one rises in the scale of earthly power and greatness the nearer one merely comes to the need of intercession. It is only too easy for the great to take such prayer in vain; and it lies only too near at hand for those who pray, to utter such prayer in vain. On the other hand, if a man 148 rightly and earnestly understands this thought, his life in- evitably tends to become more difficult: this we do not deny. And one who tries to produce this consciousness experimentally, on his own responsibility and initiative, not leaving it to God to teach him, does not yet under- stand it earnestly enough. It is God Himself who best knows how to utilize a man's own anxieties for the pur- pose of extirpating all his self-confidence; and when he is about to sink down into his own nothingness, it is again God Himself who can best keep him from continuing to maintain a diver's under-water connection with his earth- ly self. Let us then admit that this thought renders life more difficult, without on that account becoming dispir- ited or cowardly, wishing to receive in our sleep what oth- ers have had to earn by labor and exertion. When the be- liever says enthusiastically that his suffering is light and brief and the yoke of self-denial easy, let us not take this profession in vain. On the other hand let us not doubt that the yoke of self-denial really is profitable, or that the cross of suffering is pre-eminently ennobling. And let us hope to God that the time may come when we too may venture to speak enthusiastically. But let us not too soon demand this degree of advancement for our- selves, lest the enthusiastic words of the believer should make us downcast, when we discover that we do not at once succeed. It frequently happens that a man imprints upon his memory one or another strong word or phrase. Then when suffering comes to him he remembers the word, and thinks to conquer at once in the joy of the word. But even an apostle does not always use strong expressions; he too is sometimes weak, he too is filled with anxiety. Thus he gives us to understand that the strong expression is dearly bought, and that it can never MAN S NEED OF GOD 149 be possessed except so as to give one occasion again and again to be reminded of how dearly it was bought.
But though this understanding makes life more diffi- cult, not only for the thoughtlessness of the fortunate man and for the many who yearn to be like him, but also for the unfortunate, since the understanding in ques- tion does not by any means exercise a magic potency, or affect life in any outwardly decisive manner— should we on this account recommend it doubtingly, or desire it double-mindedly? Nevertheless it must give us pause to note that what is offered to us as a consolation, begins by making life more difficult, in order finally, aye, finally in truth, to make it easier. Each miracle of truth is like the wonder at the wedding-feast in Cana: Truth pours out the poor wine first and keeps the best to the last, while the deceitful world pours out its best wine first. Because a man became unhappy, even "infinitely unhappy," as he perhaps says of himself, it by no means follows that the understanding of life which constitutes a condition for the acceptance of the consolation, the understanding that he can do nothing of himself, has come to full growth and maturity within him. If he believes that it is only the means that are lacking to him, then he still believes in himself. If he believes that he could help himself if given