VIII
THE HIGHEST FORM OF REWARD
The Scriptures show their good sense by frankly facing and accepting the hope of reward as a legitimate source of motive. There are fine people who almost go into spasms over the idea of working for a reward. “Do right,” they say, “because it is right, not because you will gain something by it.” “Live nobly, because it is the highest duty there is, with no thought of what may come to you in consequence.” “Do your work well for the sheer joy of it, not because you will be paid well for good work.” All this is very pretty and does credit to the lovely dispositions of those who utter these sentiments, but it is just a little too good for this common earth.
It was just a little too good for the men who wrote the Bible. Jesus himself did not hesitate to say, “Do this, and great shall be your reward in heaven.” He said, “If any man shall give a cup of cold water in my name,” that is to say, in the right spirit, “he shall in no wise lose his reward.” He built squarely upon the foundation laid by that singer of old, “The statutes of the Lord are right; the commandments of the Lord are pure; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, and in keeping of them there is great reward.” The hope of reward according to the Scriptures is a legitimate source of motive.
But what form should the reward take? What is the highest form of reward? One finds all manner of answers to this question strung along in an ascending series. We find those who always think of reward in terms of material success. “It pays to be good,” these men say—to be good, at any rate, up to a certain point. “Honesty is the best policy”—in the long run as a method of business procedure it can show more dividends than dishonesty can. “The way of the transgressor is hard,” now in one way, now in another, but always hard at the end. Transgression does not pay when the returns are all in. The main theme of the book of Deuteronomy is that obedience to Jehovah will bring blessings wrought out in terms of material prosperity. “If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, blessed shalt thou be in basket and in store; blessed shalt thou be in the city and in the field; blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out and when thou comest in.” Reckoned up in terms of visible success, righteousness would be the best asset a nation could possess.
We have here a great truth; it is not the whole truth, but it is a fragment of truth not to be despised. The young man in New York, whose main interest is material success, setting out to achieve his ambition by dishonesty is trying to make the Hudson River turn round and flow back to Albany. It cannot be done. He will get wet and muddy and be drowned, perhaps, for his pains and, when he is all through with his experiment, the Hudson will be flowing right along just the same.
In like manner, the big, strong, moral order which enfolds us whether we like it or not, whether we think about it or believe in it or not, the big, strong, moral order cannot be defied nor ignored. Here and there some young fellow thinks he has found a way of turning it round in what he supposes to be his own interest. He, too, simply gets wet and muddy, and drowned, perhaps, in his foolish efforts while the great, eternal verities of right and wrong are still there as they were before he pitted his puny strength against them. The fact stands that righteousness exalts a nation or an individual as nothing else can.
But this fragment of truth is only a fragment. A man who is righteous to a certain extent because it pays is not a high type. The one who is honest because honesty is the best policy is not very honest—put him in a situation where honesty involves personal sacrifice and one could not bank on his honesty. The man who is intent upon furnishing the world so much uprightness in exchange for a certain amount of advancement which he hopes to gain can scarcely be said to be in the moral field at all. He is merely doing a little business with the Lord,—so much character for so much success. It may all be as purely a commercial transaction, when analyzed down to its roots, as the buying of a suit of clothes. His gifts to benevolence when scrutinized are seen to be only shrewd “investments.” Increased material prosperity is a form of reward, but it is not the highest form, and it does not furnish a praiseworthy source of motive.
We find those who look for their reward in the appreciation of others. We all like to have the esteem of our fellows and we ought to like it. That queer stick who is always flinging out sneers about popularity, who insists that he does not care a straw what people think about him, cares more than any of us. He has an idea that by this strange course he will be talked about more and be regarded more highly for his oddity than he would be if he shaped up his life in a more rational way.
Reputation is not character; it may be only the uncertain shadow cast by character, but it can be, for all that, a pleasant and a healing shadow. One of the wisest of men said, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.” A good name is simply what people say about a man. The appreciation and the esteem which right living wins is a legitimate form of reward.
But this also is liable to be distorted. Jesus saw certain people making this form of reward the object of supreme desire. He warned his disciples against that course. “Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. When thou doest thine alms sound not a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.” These men rendered their generous service with showy ostentation, blowing their horns as they went. They did it that they might have glory of men and they had glory of men—they got the dividends they desired.
“And when thou prayest thou shalt not be as the hypocrites: they love to pray standing on the street corners that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.” They prayed on the street corners that they might be seen of men and they were seen of men—they got what they prayed for.
The desire for esteem is not a satisfactory source of motive. The boy who cannot do his duty unless he is praised and petted for it afterward is a poor specimen—he is likely to become a vain, self-conscious little prig. The man who cannot perform unless he is in the lime-light, hearing the plaudits of the many, is made of poor stuff—he is lath and plaster, where there should be sound material. All such speedily lose the finer qualities out of whatever measure of righteousness they seem to possess. When a man goes straight along about his business, intent upon doing his own piece of work well and succeeds in such a way that the gratitude, esteem, and appreciation of his fellows come, he scarcely knows how, he finds this a beautiful and enduring source of satisfaction. But here as everywhere the law of indirection operates—he that saves his popularity by aiming for it loses it; he that loses all thought of it by investing his life in useful service finds it.
There are men who think of the highest form of reward as standing in the approval of one’s own conscience and in the sense of having the favor of God. The throne of judgment where I must stand and give account is not away yonder among the clouds—it is in here where I am. It is within my own heart where God is—where my God is. It is here that I meet him now and must meet and face him ever.
And no quantity of outward success, no full, warm tide of popular esteem will supply the lack of moral self-respect within. If any man knows that his heart is not right before God, that his purposes are not true, that his aspirations are low, then no amount of material success or popular applause will give him tranquillity of spirit. And, conversely, where there is honesty of purpose, where a man may look himself in the face with unsparing candor and know that he is entitled to respect, this fact of itself brings a peace which passeth all understanding. This inner sense of worth and peace is from on high and it becomes a fine form of reward.
There are ugly distortions of it. The Pharisee who went into the temple to pray felt very comfortable in his own mind. We saw it in his strut as he walked down the aisle. We noticed it in the way he stood, when he prayed thus with himself, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers.” He named the lowest, meanest men he could think of. It would not be hard to outrun such men morally, but such a race as it was the Pharisee had won it. “I thank thee that I am not as other men are, or even as this publican.” It was fortunate that the publican chanced to be there; it added a cubit of self-complacency to the Pharisee to have the publican present. “I fast twice in the week; I give a tenth of all that I possess,” the Pharisee continued. He had been doing right for the sake of the self-satisfaction which would result—and he had his reward. I do not know of a man in history who seemed to have more of it. He was comfortable to “the thirty-third and last degree” in that feeling of self-approval which clothed him as with a garment.
But what a narrow, self-centered life it produces where this becomes the chief form of reward for which a man strives! “I will speak this kind word and do this generous deed and stand firm in the path of duty, because of the warm feelings of self-approval which will steal upon my heart,” such a man cries. It is better to have the approval of one’s conscience than not to have it; it is better to strive for inner peace and satisfaction than to have one’s eye constantly on material success or popular applause. But where this becomes the object of supreme interest it is a disappointing and a narrowing form of reward.
What shall we say, then, is the highest form, if neither material success nor popular esteem nor the approval of one’s own conscience is worthy to stand in that holy place? I find the highest form of reward named by the Master in the parable of the Good Samaritan, “This do and thou shalt live.” The reward for right living, for loving God and loving one’s neighbor after the manner indicated in the parable, lies in the increased power we gain to live. This do and thou shalt live—live more abundantly, more effectively, more serviceably. The reward of right life is a larger life.
The man in the parable who had been faithful and diligent with the one pound entrusted to him received this reward: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things! Have thou authority over ten cities.” The reward for good conduct was enlarged capacity and enlarged opportunity for more good conduct. The man’s powers were increased by what he had been doing and his chance for the exercise of them was greater; now, in place of the single pound to be used in trading, he had authority over ten cities. In this sense of increased capacity to meet the increasing obligations of life lies the highest form of reward.
In one of his little books, Henry van Dyke speaks of three ideals of education. The man with “the decorative ideal” thinks it is a fine thing to go through college. It gives one an air of distinction. It enables him to belong to the University Club in the city where he lives. It enables him to refer to “my class,” and to the “good old days” at Harvard or Yale, at Cornell or Princeton, at Stanford or California. He may even be prompted to become a “dig” in the hope that a Phi Beta Kappa key will unlock doors closed to other men. And because he is a university man he feels that he possesses a rare and cultivated taste in poetry and in philosophy, in music and in art. He thinks of his education as a highly decorative appendage to his personal life.
The second man has no use for all this; he has “the marketable ideal” of education. He is one of those “no-nonsense-about-me” fellows. In selecting his courses he has a thoroughly practical eye to the main chance. He is very contemptuous in his attitude toward the study of dead languages or of metaphysics. “What good would all that do me, when I got out into the world?” he says. He thinks of himself as a tool to be ground and sharpened so that in the world of business it will cut where other tools fail. He is intent upon gaining an education not for the purpose of living but for the purpose of making a living, which is a very different thing.
The true ideal of education is “the creative ideal.” The work of the school is not to enable the shoemaker to stick to his last and make more money out of it than uneducated men are making out of their lasts. “Education is to lift the shoemaker above his last, and to carry the merchant beyond his store, the lawyer beyond his brief, the minister beyond his sermon.” The supreme reward for being educated lies in the enlarged capacity one gains for life. The reward for physical exercise, for mental drill, for hard study, for the steady effort to do one’s duty, is to be found in that increased power to live. This do and thou shalt live a larger, freer, finer life. This do and thou shalt be alive at more points, on higher levels, and in more efficient and serviceable ways.
We cannot possibly stop short of that. If a man thinks of his education as only making him more marketable, he has his mind fixed upon material success as the highest form of reward. If he thinks of it mainly as a thing that will win the admiration of his less cultured associates, he is still in the clutches of that decorative idea. If he thinks of it mainly as having value in giving him the consciousness of intelligence and culture, he is still on an unsatisfactory level of thought and purpose.
“Come on up to the head of the stairs,” the great educational processes of the world call to us! “Come on up where you can see and breathe and grow.” This do and thou shalt live; this alone indicates the great end in view. Enlarged capacity for real life is the goal of all serious endeavor. We may or may not gain material success; we may or may not secure a large measure of popular applause; we will beyond a peradventure have a deep, sweet feeling of peace within as we face that way, but the main result will be that, by doing all these things well, we shall gain increased power and capacity for living the life. Here we reach that which is ultimate. “This do and thou shalt live” is the final word on the subject of reward.
The highest return for doing anything lies in the power one gains to do it better and to do more of it. The reward for reading is not in the information gained or in the ideas acquired so much as in the mental stimulus which comes, enabling one to read more books and better ones and in time to produce ideas of his own. The artist goes out into the world to see the beauty of it in tree and flower, in landscape and mountain, in the quiet lake, and in the restless sea. His reward comes in increased power to see more beauty there than other people see and to transfer what he sees to canvas. “I never saw anything like that in nature,” a woman once said to Turner as she looked at one of his pictures. “Very likely,” replied the artist; “how much would you give, madam, if you could?” Turn your face any way you choose and the great statement of the Master about reward holds true,—this do and thou shalt live.
Carry it up to the moral level. The reward for doing your duty lies in the increased power you gain to keep on doing it and to do it better. The reward for loving lies in the increased power to love and to love more worthily. The reward for meeting and mastering some hard situation in life, temptation, disappointment, struggle, sorrow, lies in the added strength you gain to master still harder situations which may arise. In your spiritual pilgrimage you go “from strength to strength,” from one form of strength to another and a higher form, from one measure of strength to another and a fuller measure, until at last you reach the fulness of the stature of Christ.
You may recall that great promise made in the last book of the Bible! “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee”—what? What form will the ultimate reward take? “I will give thee a crown,” not of gold with diamonds in it larger than the Kohinoor, not the crown of material success. “I will give thee a crown,” not of laurel such as the Greeks placed upon the brow of the victors in the games, the crown of popular applause. “I will give thee a crown,” not of personal satisfaction such as men of honest purpose may be entitled to wear. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life!” The ultimate reward for living right lies in the increased power and the increased opportunity which will be ours to live on and to live more abundantly.