VI

BURDEN-BEARING

Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.

For each man shall bear his own burden. - Gal. vi. 2, 5.

HIS seems almost a contradiction. Bear ye one another's burden, says one verse, and then the other adds: Let each man bear his own. If the two verses were a little further apart one might fancy that the Apostle had forgotten one saying when he uttered the other; but as it is they are evidently parts of one proposition, opposite aspects of the same teaching. How to bear the burden of life, that is the question with which the Apostle is dealing, and the two verses taken together must be regarded as a reply.

And, in the first place, the teaching of both verses is plainly this, that here is a world where somehow burdens have to be borne. This does not mean that it is a hard or bad or sad world, but simply that it is a world of responsibility; a world in which

both happiness and usefulness are to be found, not by shaking off burdens, but by learning how to bear them. That is where many people make their first mistake. They think that happiness is in being relieved from burdens, and they spend a great part of their time in trying to avoid the burdens of life; but it turns out that the very responsibilities which seemed to burden life were in reality what enlarged it, and that when persons free themselves from responsibility then life itself becomes hard to bear. The burden of the life that has nothing to do afflicts with restlessness and weariness the self-indulgent man; and, having no work to do, he has to make work out of play, until at last he comes to say, as one famous Englishman said, that life would be tolerable if it were not for its amusements.

And then, besides the burdens which one can shake off but had better bear, there are others from which no life can escape. Into the midst of irresponsibility enter the trials which have to be borne, the sicknesses and sorrows, the solitudes and regrets, of which each one has his share; and with them sometimes comes one of the hardest of hu

man experiences, - the discovery that one has been living under a false theory of life. The man thought that this was to be a soft world and it turns out to be a hard world, and the soft theory of life has taken out of him what this Apostle calls the capacity "to endure hardness." There is nothing more pathetic to see than a person who thought no trouble could touch him smitten of a sudden by a great and inevitable blow, and the burdens of life laid on shoulders which have not been used to bearing any burden at all. Life, we might as well understand, is not easy, and the person who tries to play it is easy is simply courting disaster and despair.

That is the first truth which these two texts combine to teach. This is a world where, somehow, burdens have to be borne. But then, as the texts lie before us, this world of responsibility seems to be twofold. There is first the lightening of others' burdens, and then there is the manly bearing of one's own. There is the outer sympathy, and there is the inner solitude. Now, how is either of these ways of responsibility to be followed? What makes one able to bear

another's burdens; what makes one able to bear his own?

No sooner does one ask these questions than the texts which seemed to oppose each other begin to approach each other. For each of them needs the other to interpret it. Each is the key of the other. Each announces the way in which the other is to be obeyed. Here, for instance, is a man who answers the first call of responsibility, the call of the Christian life summoning him to bear another's burden. He wants to be of use among the distresses of the time. He has come to that happy hour when he discovers the joylessness of the self-centred life and the satisfaction of beneficence. He throws himself into the philanthropies and reforms of his time with a glad and impetuous generosity. But what is this strange discovery which he soon makes? It is the discovery of a certain incompetency and limitation which at first he hardly understands. He is not able to accomplish what he wants to do. He does not come into real contact with the experiences which he desires to help. He cannot reach the poor or the sad with his own experience or interpret their

problems and needs. They turn away from him as from a theorist and student instead of finding in him a supporting friend.

What is the limitation of this well-intentioned life? It is this, that the man has not yet had his own burden to bear, and therefore cannot do much toward bearing the burden of another soul. Not every one who wants to help is capable of helping. The happiness of helpfulness is given only to those who have strongly and faithfully helped themselves. "Bear ye one another's burdens," says St. Paul. Ah, yes! But who is he that can obey that great command? The Master answers: "If any man will come after me, let him first of all take up his own cross and carry it." It is not only for your own salvation that your own cross is to be borne. It is because only the bearers of their own crosses are capable of being the saviours of other souls.

And so it is that some poor burdened life sits in the midst of its perplexity or poverty or sorrow, while a hundred voices try to be kind but speak as to the deaf, and a hundred philosophers come with their learning, and all their utterances seem like the lingering