A Christian's Habits: Chapter Eleven
The Habit of High-Minded Lowliness.
“His deed sprang from his mindedness. His deed was lowly because his mindedness was high.”
Randy’s Introduction
I once had a seminary professor who was so pompous in his language and mannerisms that it was difficult to take him seriously. He was very intelligent. He had written some well-received books in his rather narrow field and was recognized as an expert. He had so much knowledge, but he lacked wisdom. I wasn’t the only one who had difficulty learning from him.
There was another teacher, however, who made me want to learn. I took every opportunity to learn from him, even when I had to fly across the country. He was a rather small, self-effacing Scotsman who lectured in an old-school style; reading from his notes for an hour or more. Often getting lost in one sentence and stuttering until he found his place again. Yet I couldn’t get enough of him. Part of his attraction was the wonderfully surprising way he saw the world. Another was that he was, if you had the patience for it, a wonderful storyteller. But the most appealing thing about Andrew F. Walls was his character. He was a wonderfully humble and caring man who was truly interested in others. He did not receive the credit he should have for his unusual insights. Many other scholars ran with his ideas and made names for themselves. But instead of book-writing and name-making, Professor Walls was known as a role model for his students of what it looked like to be a follower of Jesus. He had both knowledge and wisdom, what Speer calls “High-Minded Lowliness.” I hung on his every word.
I wish I could introduce you personally to Andrew Walls so you could learn from him as I have. But he passed away recently. I will be sharing notes from his lectures in future posts. But what I can do now is to share Robert Speer’s writing about developing that wonderful combination of knowledge and wisdom that was so powerful in Professor Walls’ life.
This is a companion chapter to the previous habit, “High-Mindedness.” I would recommend reading the other one first if you haven’t already. Once you have read that, you have to read this chapter patiently. Some have even found that it took two readings to begin to take in all that he is saying. As with so many things in life, if you persevere you will find the treasure that is here for you.
So without further ado, chapter eleven of A Christian’s Habits, “The Habit of High-Minded Lowliness.
I. Low is High
Who is someone in your live who embodies both knowledge and wisdom?
High-Mindedness never shows itself more unmistakably than in the humility of true unselfishness. The noblest illustration of this is found in the incident of the Saviour’s washing the disciples’ feet on the evening of the night of his betrayal. “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands,” says John, “and that he came forth from God, and goeth unto God, riseth from supper, and layeth aside his garments; and he took a towel, and girded himself. Then he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.” As a simple statement of fact this is beautiful and wonderful, but it is more than a statement of fact. It is a spiritual interpretation. Jesus rose and stooped “knowing that he came forth from God, and goeth unto God.” This is the deep spiritual interpretation.
II. Theory over Action
What is the theory that directs your action? What has happened, positive or negative, as a result?
We see here first of all the relation of belief to conduct, of thought to action. His deed sprang from his mindedness. His deed was lowly because his mindedness was high. What we hold theoretically is bound to determine what we do practically. It is so in the sciences and the arts. The results flow from theory, and the theory determines the results. At a Yale alumni dinner some years ago, Mr. Julian Kennedy, a famous oarsman in his day and now one of the leading blast furnace engineers, took issue with the modern demand for practical technical training as against the old-fashioned theoretical type. He defended the Sheffield Scientific School for preserving old-time traditions instead of making its courses manual, workshop courses. “It is the man who knows the theory who does the thing,” said he. “It is the true theory that counts. The man who designed the guns used on the American ships in the Spanish War never had any experience with a hammer and bench, and he did not see the guns cast. It was all purely theoretical.” And so in all great modern buildings. The engineers sit in their offices and figure and draw on paper. In mills which they do not visit, the girders are made. On ground which they have never seen the material is assembled and the bridge or the sky-scraper is reared, each piece fitting each other piece, and the whole great structure falling practically together from mere theoretical drawings. The result flows from the mindedness of the engineer. And what is true in these arts is true in the art of life. There as truly as in the physical sciences results depend upon our theories, what we do upon what we think. Professor James begins his lectures on “Pragmatism” with a quotation from Mr. Chesteron’s“Heretics,” in which he sets forth his conviction: “There are some people,” says Mr. Chesterton, “and I am one of them, who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger it is important to know his income but still more important to know his philosophy…We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run anything else affects them.” And Professor James adds: “I think with Mr. Chesterton in this matter. I know that you ladies and gentlemen have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.”
III. Jesus’ Habit of High-Minded Self-Forgetfulness
What power do you have and how are you using it?
What kind of mind we have will determine what kind of deeds we do, and it is primarily upon these questions on which Jesus had a certain mind that all depends. He knew his origin and his destiny. In a note in one of his books, Ruskin says there are three great questions which confront every soul: “Where did I come from? What can I know? Where am I going?” What we do depends on what our mind is with regard to these. We shall serve men in the spirit of God if we have a mind high enough to realize its heavenly origin and heavenly destiny.
We see also in this incident in Jesus’ life power conscious of itself but used in service. That is the end of power. The supreme virtue of machinery is docility. The history of civilization is only the story of the taming of force, the bending of the power of nature to obedience. Just so Jesus regarded living power. It was a thing to be used. “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” It was this possession of limitless power all subjugated to unselfishness which made Jesus so calm and steadfast. He had the habit of lofty-minded self-forgetfulness.
Such self-forgetfulness and unselfishness are a sign of confidence in one’s own position, an evidence of easy noble-mindedness. It is the noble who dare to be lowly. Jesus with his full knowledge of his origin and destiny in God would stoop to any lowliness. He was high-minded enough to dare. It is told of one of the childhood friends of the late Walter Lowrie, who was drowned at Newport in 1901, just at the threshold of his career, that “one summer several young people some guests of the family, and the Lowrie boys were waiting outside the Tyrone station for a train. A wretched-looking woman with a little baby in her arms, carrying a traveling bag, came past, with another little child hardly able to walk clinging to her skirts and following as best it could. One of the boys, half in earnest, probably, yet thinking it was like Walter, said, ‘There’s your chance,’ and without hesitation Walter spoke to the woman, picked up the child and carried it over to the branch train and onto a car. It was always rather crowded round the station in the afternoon, and Walter came back looking a little foolish, not because he minded being seen by so many, but rather, I think, because we could not help showing that we thought it fine of him, and he had a horror of showing off.”
He was sure enough of his social position to dare to stoop. A high mind bred a lowly love.
IV. The Opposite of High-Minded Lowliness
Reflect on the phrase “haughty deeds reveal low minds and lowly deeds reveal lofty minds.” How have you seen this truth in your life?
And is there not a self-revelation in haughtiness and pride? Where there is no lowly love we know there is no true high-mindedness. The people who are priggish and snobbish, who act discourteously, betray an origin and a destiny very different from the Saviour’s, who rose and stooped.
And deeds not only reveal our minds, haughty deeds low minds and lowly deeds lofty minds, but deeds also help to make minds. Humble and loving acts will help to make us high-minded.
Would thou the holy hill ascend
And see the Father’s face,
To all his children humbly bend
And seek the lowest place.
Thus humbly doing on the earth
What things the lofty scorn
Thou shalt assert the noble birth
of all the lowly born.
On the other hand, unlowly conduct is a source of deterioration of mind and character. That was why the best sentiment of the South disapproved of slavery. It might or might not be bad for the slave. It was unmistakably bad for the slaveholder. No man was fit to own another man. The sense of ownership of a man could not be good for the man who owned him. And so hazing, often good for the hazed, is invariably bad for the hazer. All use of power that is not humble and unselfish is bad for high-mindedness. The possession of it is presumption not for its willful exercise, but for its restraint. We have it only as a trust.
Naught that I have my own I call,
I hold it for the Giver.
My heart, my life, my strength, my all.
Are his and his forever.
- “I’ve Found a Friend,” James G. Small, 1866.
He who feels this and acts upon it is the truly high-minded man.
This is simply beautiful and touched my heart. Thank you. 🩵