1.03.05. Book 3: 5. Surely there is no Harm in Raisins?

5 SURELY THERE IS NO HARM IN RAISINS?

"SURELY there is no harm in recreation?" This is a question we have heard asked in tones of reproach, surprise, or disgust, accord­ing to the frame of mind of the questioner. To this question we answer, "No, if by recreation is meant re-equipment for future work with no leakage of spiritual power." We must have a fresh influx of life for soul and body too, or we shall dry up, and become deserts in a desert. But where are our fresh springs to be? That is the main question. "All my fresh springs are in Thee." Can we say so truthfully? Or, is it not a fact that, with some of us at least, certain forms of recreation have, perhaps quite insensibly to us, got out of their place, and hinder, rather than help, all-round robustness of life? And here we must remind ourselves again that we are writing to ourselves, we are not dealing with the question of the rightness or wrongness of this and that for others, but whether we, as God’s missionaries, have not something to learn from the Nazarite’s special vow, and how it bore upon harmless in­dulgence in harmless things. The essence of that vow was abstention from things which were lawful in themselves, but not expedient for him. Even raisins were contraband. Surely there is no harm in raisins? In the Student Movement of March I900 there is an article on "Prayer and Fasting." We quote from the last paragraph. The speaker has just referred to the discovery of the papyrus in Egypt, upon which were inscribed a few of the supposed "Sayings of Jesus," one of which was this: "Unless ye fast from the world ye shall not find the Kingdom of Heaven."

"It is not a difficult idea to follow, and it takes you to the very heart of the thought of Jesus. It is for you as missionaries, and it is just as much for us who are trying to serve our Lord at home, to treat the world not only in its corruptions, but in its legiti­mate joys, in all its privileges and blessings, as a subject that we should touch at a dis­tance, and with strict reserve and abstinence, feeling that if we are caught by its spirit, or fed upon its meat, we shall not feel the breath of the Highest nor receive the manna that falleth from Heaven. Therefore we are bound to look upon the world, with all its delights and all its attractions, with suspicion and with reserve. It is not for us, not for us. We are called into a higher Kingdom, we are touched with a Diviner Spirit. It is not that He forbids us this or that indulgence or comfort of our life; it is not that He is stern, making upon us the call of the ascetic: but it is that we who love our Lord, and we whose affections are set on the things that are in Heaven, voluntarily and gladly lay aside the things that charm and ravish the world, that, for our part, our hearts may be ravished with the things of Heaven, and that our whole being may be poured forth in constant and unreserved devotion in the service of the Lord Who died to save us." "A pure heart," says Tauler, "is one to which all that is not of God is strange and jarring."

If the first question a missionary asks about a hill-station concerns the amusements there; if more important things are crowded out by a tournament of some sort, or a whirl of picnics, or a game of bridge; if private theatricals are the order of the day "because they are better than gossip" (but why gossip at all?); if a word spoken upon the subject of excessive devotion to recreation is bitterly resented; if this booklet, not only because of the way it touches the subject, but be­cause it touches it at all, calls down a storm of criticism-if these things be so, we say, "Comrades in the war of God, has not some­thing got out of its place? Is it not time we called a halt, and searched ourselves in the searchlight of the Cross?"