THE WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS

GRENVILLE KLEISER

Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty; Author of "How to Speak inPublic, " Etc. 

With Assistance from Many of the Foremost Living Preachers and OtherTheologians

INTRODUCTION BY LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D. D. 

Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology in Yale University

VOLUME VIII TALMAGE TO KNOX LITTLE

1908

CONTENTS

VOLUME VIII. 

 TALMAGE (1832-1901). A Bloody Monster

 SPURGEON (1834-1892). Songs in the Night

 POTTER (1834-1908) Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks

 ABBOTT (Born in 1835). The Divinity in Humanity

 BROOKS (1835-1893). The Pride of Life

 GLADDEST (Born in 1836). The Prince of Life

 CLIFFORD (Born in 1836). The Forgiveness of Sins

 MOODY (1837-1899). What Think Ye of Christ?

 FOWLER (1837-1908). The Spirit of Christ

 WHYTE (Born in 1837). Experience

 WATKINSON (Born in 1838). The Transfigured Sackcloth

 LORIMER (1838-1904). The Fall of Satan

 LITTLE (Born in 1839). Thirst Satisfied

TALMAGE

A BLOODY MONSTER

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Thomas De Witt Talmage was born at Bound Brook, N. J. , in 1832. Formany years he preached to large and enthusiastic congregations at theBrooklyn Tabernacle. At one time six hundred newspapers regularlyprinted his sermons. He was a man of great vitality, optimistic bynature, and particularly popular with young people. His voicewas rather high and unmusical, but his distinct enunciation andearnestness of manner gave a peculiar attraction to his pulpitoratory. His rhetoric has been criticized for floridness andsensationalism, but his word pictures held multitudes of peoplespellbound as in the presence of a master. He died in 1901. 

TALMAGE

1832--1901

A BLOODY MONSTER[1]

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch, and reprinted bypermission. ]

_It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him. _--Gen. Xxxvii. , 33. 

Joseph's brethren dipt their brother's coat in goat's blood, and thenbrought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with theidea that a ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding theirinfamous behavior. But there is no deception about that which we holdup to your observation to-day. A monster such as never ranged Africanthicket or Hindustan jungle hath tracked this land, and with bloodymaw hath strewn the continent with the mangled carcasses of wholegenerations; and there are tens of thousands of fathers and motherswho could hold up the garment of their slain boy, truthfullyexclaiming, "It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him. "There has, in all ages and climes, been a tendency to the improper useof stimulants. Noah took to strong drink. By this vice, Alexander theConqueror was conquered. The Romans at their feasts fell off theirseats with intoxication. Four hundred millions of our race areopium-eaters. India, Turkey, and China have groaned with thedesolation; and by it have been quenched such lights as Halley and DeQuincey. One hundred millions are the victims of the betelnut, whichhas specially blasted the East Indies. Three hundred millions chewhashish, and Persia, Brazil, and Africa suffer the delirium. TheTartars employ murowa; the Mexicans, the agave; the people at Guarapo, an intoxicating product taken from sugarcane; while a great multitude, that no man can number, are the votaries of alcohol. To it they bow. Under it they are trampled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastlyholocaust they burn. Could the muster-roll of this great army becalled, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endurethe reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure thegroan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar'skey? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock thehighwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has itnot sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the ministerwith his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, fromthe very top of his fame, fall a gibbering sot, into the gutter, onhis way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England, and at the very hour the bride was decking herself for the altar; anddid he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in a hospital?Tamerlane asked for one hundred and sixty thousand skulls with whichto build a pyramid to his own honor. He got the skulls, and built thepyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey todissipation could be piled up, it would make a vaster pyramid. Whowill gird himself for the journey and try with me to scale thismountain of the dead--going up miles high on human carcasses to findstill other peaks far above, mountain above mountain white with thebleached bones of drunkards?

The Sabbath has been sacrificed to the rum traffic. To many of ourpeople, the best day of the week is the worst. Bakers must keep theirshops closed on the Sabbath. It is dangerous to have loaves of breadgoing out on Sunday. The shoe store is closed: severe penalty willattack the man who sells boots on the Sabbath. But down with thewindow-shutters of the grog-shops. Our laws shall confer particularhonor upon the rum-traffickers. All other trades must stand aside forthese. Let our citizens who have disgraced themselves by trading inclothing and hosiery and hardware and lumber and coal take off theirhats to the rum-seller, elected to particular honor. It is unsafe forany other class of men to be allowed license for Sunday work. Butswing out your signs, and open your doors, O ye traffickers in thepeace of families and in the souls of immortal men. Let the corks flyand the beer foam and the rum go tearing down the half-consumed throatof the inebriate. God does not see! Does He? Judgment will never come!Will it?

It may be that God is determined to let drunkenness triumph, and thehusbands and sons of thousands of our best families be destroyed bythis vice, in order that our people, amazed and indignant, may rise upand demand the extermination of this municipal crime. There is a wayof driving down the hoops of a barrel so tight that they break. Wehave, in this country, at various times, tried to regulate this evilby a tax on whisky. You might as well try to regulate the Asiaticcholera or the smallpox by taxation. The men who distil liquors are, for the most part, unscrupulous; and the higher the tax, the moreinducement to illicit distillation. Oh! the folly of trying torestrain an evil by government tariff! If every gallon of whiskymade--if every flask of wine produced, should be taxed a thousanddollars, it would not be enough to pay for the tears it has wrung fromthe eyes of widows and orphans, nor for the blood it has dashed onthe Christian Church, nor for the catastrophe of the millions it hasdestroyed for ever. 

I sketch two houses in one street. The first is bright as home can be. The father comes at nightfall, and the children run out to meet him. Bountiful evening meal! Gratulation and sympathy and laughter! Musicin the parlor! Fine pictures on the wall! Costly books on the table!Well-clad household! Plenty of everything to make home happy!

House the second! Piano sold, yesterday by the sheriff! Wife's furs atpawnbroker's shop! Clock gone! Daughter's jewelry sold to get flour!Carpets gone off the floor! Daughters in faded and patched dresses!Wife sewing for the stores! Little child with an ugly wound on herface, struck by an angry blow! Deep shadow of wretchedness falling inevery room! Doorbell rings! Little children hide! Daughters turn pale!Wife holds her breath! Blundering step in the hall! Door opens! Fiend, brandishing his fist, cries, "Out! out! What are you doing here?" DidI call this house second? No; it is the same house. Rum transformedit. Rum embruted the man. Rum sold the shawl. Rum tore up the carpets. Rum shook his fist. Rum desolated the hearth. Rum changed thatparadise into a hell. 

I sketch two men that you know very well. The first graduated from oneof our literary institutions. His father, mother, brothers and sisterswere present to see him graduate. They heard the applauding thundersthat greeted his speech. They saw the bouquets tossed to his feet. They saw the degree conferred and the diploma given. He never lookedso well. Everybody said, "What a noble brow! What a fine eye! Whatgraceful manners! What brilliant prospects!"

Man the second: Lies in the station-house. The doctor has just beensent for to bind up the gashes received in a fight. His hair is mattedand makes him look like a wild beast. His lip is bloody and cut. Whois this battered and bruised wretch that was picked up by the policeand carried in drunk and foul and bleeding? Did I call him man thesecond? He is man the first! Rum transformed him. Rum destroyed hisprospects. Rum disappointed parental expectation. Rum withered thosegarlands of commencement day. Rum cut his lip. Rum dashed out hismanhood. Rum, accurst rum!

This foul thing gives one swing to its scythe, and our best merchantsfall; their stores are sold, and they sink into dishonored graves. Again it swings its scythe, and some of our physicians fall intosuffering that their wisest prescriptions cannot cure. Again it swingsits scythe, and ministers of the gospel fall from the heights ofZion, with long resounding crash of ruin and shame. Some of your ownhouseholds have already been shaken. Perhaps you can hardly admit it;but where was your son last night? Where was he Friday night? Wherewas he Thursday night? Wednesday night? Tuesday night? Monday night?Nay, have not some of you in your own bodies felt the power of thishabit? You think that you could stop? Are you sure you could? Go ona little further, and I am sure you cannot. I think, if some of youshould try to break away, you would find a chain on the right wrist, and one on the left; one on the right foot, and another on the left. This serpent does not begin to hurt until it has wound 'round and'round. Then it begins to tighten and strangle and crush until thebones crack and the blood trickles and the eyes start from theirsockets, and the mangled wretch cries. "O God! O God! help! help!" Butit is too late; and not even the fires of we can melt the chain whenonce it is fully fastened. 

I have shown you the evil beast. The question is, who will hunt himdown, and how shall we shoot him? I answer, first, by getting ourchildren right on this subject. Let them grow up with an utteraversion to strong drink. Take care how you administer it even asmedicine. If you must give it to them and you find that they have anatural love for it, as some have, put in a glass of it some horridstuff, and make it utterly nauseous. Teach, them, as faithfully asyou do the truths of the Bible, that rum is a fiend. Take them to thealmshouse, and show them the wreck and ruin it works. Walk with theminto the homes that have been scourged by it. If a drunkard hathfallen into a ditch, take them right up where they can see his face, bruised, savage, and swollen, and say, "Look, my son. Rum did that!"Looking out of your window at some one who, intoxicated to madness, goes through the street, brandishing his fist, blaspheming God, ahowling, defying, shouting, reeling, raving, and foaming maniac, sayto your son, "Look; that man was once a child like you. " As you go bythe grog-shop let them know that that is the place where men are slainand their wives made paupers and their children slaves. Hold out toyour children warnings, all rewards, all counsels, lest in afterdaysthey break your heart and curse your gray hairs. A man laughed at myfather for his scrupulous temperance principles, and said: "I am moreliberal than you. I always give my children the sugar in the glassafter we have been taking a drink. " Three of his sons have dieddrunkards, and the fourth is imbecile through intemperate habits. 

Again, we will grapple this evil by voting only for sober men. Howmany men are there who can rise above the feelings of partizanship, and demand that our officials shall be sober men? I maintain that thequestion of sobriety is higher than the question of availability; andthat, however eminent a man's services may be, if he have habits ofintoxication, he is unfit for any office in the gift of a Christianpeople. Our laws will be no better than the men who make them. Spend afew days at Harrisburg or Albany or Washington and you will findout why, upon these subjects, it is impossible to get righteousenactments. 

Again, we will war upon this evil by organized societies. The friendsof the rum traffic have banded together; annually issue theircirculars; raise fabulous sums of money to advance their interests;and by grips, passwords, signs, and strategems, set at defiance publicmorals. Let us confront them with organizations just as secret, and, if need be, with grips and pass-words and signs, maintain ourposition. There is no need that our beneficent societies tell alltheir plans. I am in favor of all lawful strategy in the carrying onof this conflict. I wish to God we could lay under the wine-casks atrain which, once ignited, would shake the earth with the explosion ofthis monstrous iniquity!

Again, we will try the power of the pledge. There are thousands of menwho have been saved by putting their names to such a document. I knowit is laughed at; but there are some men who, having once promised athing, do it. "Some have broken the pledge. " Yes; they were liars. Butall men are not liars. I do not say that it is the duty of all personsto make such signature; but I do say that it would be the salvationof many of you. The glorious work of Theobald Mathew can never beestimated. At this hand four millions of people took the pledge, andmultitudes in Ireland, England, Scotland, and America, have keptit till this day. The pledge signed has been to thousands theproclamation of emancipation. 

Again, we expect great things from asylums for inebriates. They havealready done a glorious work. I think that we are coming at last totreat inebriation as it ought to be treated, namely, as an awfuldisease, self-inflicted, to be sure, but nevertheless a disease. Oncefastened upon a man, sermons will not cure him, temperance lectureswill not eradicate it; religious tracts will not remove it; the Gospelof Christ will not arrest it. Once under the power of this awfulthirst, the man is bound to go on; and, if the foaming glass were onthe other side of perdition, he would wade through the fires ofhell to get it. A young man in prison had such a strong thirst forintoxicating liquors that he had cut off his hand at the wrist, calledfor a bowl of brandy in order to stop the bleeding, thrust his wristinto the bowl, and then drank the contents. Stand not, when the thirstis on him, between a man and his cups. Clear the track for him. Awaywith the children! he would tread their life out. Away with the wife!he would dash her to death. Away with the cross! he would run it down. Away with the Bible! he would tear it up for the winds. Away withheaven! he considers it worthless as a straw. "Give me the drink!Give it to me! Tho the hands of blood pass up the bowl, and the soultrembles over the pit--the drink! Give it to me! Tho it be pale withtears; tho the froth of everlasting anguish float on the foam--give itto me! I drink to my wife's wo to my children's rags; to my eternalbanishment from God and hope and heaven! Give it to me! the drink!"

Again, we will contend against these evils by trying to persuadethe respectable classes of society to the banishment of alcoholicbeverages. You who move in elegant and refined associations; youwho drink the best liquors; you who never drink until you lose yourbalance, let us look at each other in the face on this subject. Youhave, under God, in your power the redemption of this land fromdrunkenness. Empty your cellars and wine-closets of the beverage, andthen come out and give us your hand, your vote, your prayers, yoursympathies. Do that, and I will promise three things: first, that youwill find unspeakable happiness in having done your duty; secondly, you will probably save somebody--perhaps your own child; thirdly, you will not, in your last hour, have a regret that you madethe sacrifice, if sacrifice it be. As long as you make drinkingrespectable, drinking customs will prevail, and the plowshare ofdeath, drawn by terrible disasters, will go on turning up this wholecontinent, from end to end, with the long, deep, awful furrow ofdrunkards' graves. 

This rum fiend would like to go and hang up a skeleton in yourbeautiful house, so that, when you opened the front door to go in, youwould see it in the hall; and when you sat at your table you would seeit hanging from the wall; and, when you opened your bedroom you wouldfind it stretched upon your pillow; and, waking at night, you wouldfeel its cold hand passing over your face and pinching at your heart. There is no home so beautiful but it may be devastated by the awfulcurse. It throws its jargon into the sweetest harmony. What was itthat silenced Sheridan, the English orator, and shattered the goldenscepter with which he swayed parliaments and courts? What foul spriteturned the sweet rhythm of Robert Burns into a tuneless babble? Whatwas it that swamped the noble spirit of one of the heroes of the lastwar, until, in a drunken fit, he reeled from the deck of a Westernsteamer, and was drowned. There was one whose voice we all loved tohear. He was one of the most classic orators of the century. Peoplewondered why a man of so pure a heart and so excellent a life shouldhave such a sad countenance always. They knew not that his wife was asot. 

I call upon those who are guilty of these indulgences to quit the pathof death! Oh! what a change it would make in your home! Do you see howeverything there is being desolated? Would you not like to bring backjoy to your wife's heart, and have your children come out to meet youwith as much confidence as once they showed? Would you not like torekindle the home-lights that long ago were extinguished? It is nottoo late to change. It may not entirely obliterate from your soul thememory of wasted years and a ruined reputation, nor smooth out fromyour anxious brow the wrinkles which trouble has plowed. It may notcall back unkind words uttered or rough deeds done; for perhaps inthose awful moments you struck her! It may not take from your memorythe bitter thoughts connected with some little grave. But it is nottoo late to save yourself, and secure for God and your family theremainder of your fast-going life. 

But perhaps you have not utterly gone astray. I may address one whomay not have quite made up his mind. Let your better nature speak out. You take one side or other in war against drunkenness. Have you thecourage to put your foot down right, and say to your companions andfriends, "I will never drink intoxicating liquor in all my life; norwill I countenance the habit in others"? Have nothing to do withstrong drink. It has turned the earth into a place of skulls, and hasstood opening the gate to a lost world to let in its victims; untilnow the door swings no more upon its hinges, but, day and night, stands wide open to let in the agonized procession of doomed men. 

Do I address one whose regular work in life is to administer tothis appetite? For God's sake get out of that business! If a we bepronounced upon the man who gives his neighbor drink, how many woesmust be hanging over the man who does this every day and every hour ofthe day!

Do not think that because human government may license you thattherefore God licenses you. I am surprized to hear men say that theyrespect the "original package" decision by which the Supreme Courtof the United States allows rum to be taken into States like Kansas, which decided against the sale of intoxicants. I have no respect fora wrong decision, I care not who makes it; the three judges of theSupreme Court who gave minority report against that decision wereright, and the chief justice was wrong. The right of a State to defenditself against the rum traffic will yet be demonstrated, the SupremeCourt notwithstanding. Higher than the judicial bench at Washington isthe throne of the Lord God Almighty. No enactment, national, State, ormunicipal, can give you the right to carry on a business whose effectis destruction. 

God knows better than you do yourself the number of drinks you havepoured down. You keep a list; but a more accurate list has been keptthan yours. You may call it Burgundy, Bourbon, cognac, Heidsieck, sourmash, or beer. God calls it "strong-drink. " Whether you sell it in lowoyster-cellar or behind the polished counter of a first-class hotel, the divine curse is upon you. I tell you plainly that you will meetyour customers one day when there will be no counter between you. Whenyour work is done on earth, and you enter the reward of your business, all the souls of the men whom you have destroyed will crowd aroundyou, and pour their bitterness into your cup. They will show you theirwounds and say, "You made them"; and point to their unquenchablethirst and say, "You kindled it"; and rattle their chain and say, "Youforged it. " Then their united groans will smite your ear; and with thehands out of which you once picked the sixpences and the dimes theywill push you off the verge of great precipices; while rolling up frombeneath, and breaking away among the crags of death, will thunder, "Woto him that giveth his neighbor drink!"

SPURGEON

SONGS IN THE NIGHT

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon, Essex, England, in 1834. He was one of the most powerful and popular preachers of his time, and his extraordinary force of character and wonderful enthusiasmattracted vast audiences. His voice was unusually powerful, clear andmelodious, and he used it with consummate skill. In the preparation ofhis sermons he meditated much but wrote not a word, so that he wasin the truest sense a purely extemporaneous speaker. Sincerity, intensity, imagination and humor, he had in preeminent degree, andan English style that has been described as "a long bright river ofsilver speech which unwound, evenly and endlessly, like a ribbonfrom a revolving spool that could fill itself as fast as it emptieditself. " Thirty-eight volumes of his sermons were issued in hislifetime and are still in increasing demand. Dr. Robertson Nicollsays: "Our children will think more of these sermons than we do; andas I get older I read them more and more. " He died in 1892. 

SPURGEON

1834--1892

SONGS IN THE NIGHT

_But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in thenight_?--Job xxxv. , 10. 

Elihu was a wise man, exceeding wise, tho not as wise as the all-wiseJehovah, who sees light in the clouds, and finds order in confusion;hence Elihu, being much puzzled at beholding Job thus afflicted, castabout him to find the cause of it, and he very wisely hit upon one ofthe most likely reasons, altho it did not happen to be the right onein Job's case. He said within himself--"Surely, if men be tried andtroubled exceedingly, it is because, while they think about theirtroubles and distress themselves about their fears, they do not say, 'Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?'" Elihu'sreason was right in the majority of cases. The great cause of theChristian's distress, the reason of the depths of sorrow into whichmany believers are plunged, is this--that while they are lookingabout, on the right hand and on the left, to see how they may escapetheir troubles, they forget to look to the hills whence all real helpcometh; they do not say, "Where is God my maker, who giveth songs inthe night?" We shall, however, leave that inquiry, and dwell uponthose sweet words, "God my maker, who giveth songs in the night. "

The world hath its night. It seemeth necessary that it should haveone. The sun shineth by day, and men go forth to their labors; butthey grow weary, and nightfall cometh on, like a sweet boon fromheaven. The darkness draweth the curtains, and shutteth out the light, which might prevent our eyes from slumber; while the sweet, calmstillness of the night permits us to rest upon the lap of ease, andthere forget awhile our cares, until the morning sun appeareth, andan angel puts his hand upon the curtain, and undraws it once again, touches our eyelids, and bids us rise, and proceed to the labors ofthe day. Night is one of the greatest blessings men enjoy; we havemany reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is to many a gloomyseason. There is "the pestilence that walketh in darkness"; thereis "the terror by night"; there is the dread of robbers and of felldisease, with all those fears that the timorous know, when they haveno light wherewith they can discern objects. It is then they fancythat spiritual creatures walk the earth; tho, if they knew rightly, they would find it to be true, that

 "Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth, Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake, "

and that at all times they are round about us--not more by night thanby day. Night is the season of terror and alarm to most men. Yet evennight hath its songs. Have you never stood by the seaside at night, and heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God's glories? Or haveyou never risen from your couch, and thrown up the window of yourchamber, and listened there? Listened to what? Silence--save now andthen a murmuring sound, which seems sweet music then. And have you notfancied that you heard the harp of God playing in heaven? Did you notconceive, that yon stars, that those eyes of God, looking down on you, were also mouths of song--that every star was singing God's glory, singing, as it shone, its mighty Maker, and His lawful, well-deservedpraise? Night hath its songs. We need not much poetry in our spirit, to catch the song of night, and hear the spheres as they chant praiseswhich are loud to the heart, tho they be silent to the ear--thepraises of the mighty God, who bears up the unpillared arch of heaven, and moves the stars in their courses. .. . 

If we are going to sing of the things of yesterday, let us begin withwhat God did for us in past times. My beloved brethren, you will findit a sweet subject for song at times, to begin to sing of electinglove and covenanted mercies. When thou thyself art low, it is well tosing of the fountain-head of mercy; of that blest decree wherein thouwast ordained to eternal life, and of that glorious Man who undertookthy redemption; of that solemn covenant signed, and sealed, andratified, in all things ordered well; of that everlasting love which, ere the hoary mountains were begotten, or ere the aged hills werechildren, chose thee, loved thee firmly, loved thee fast, loved theewell, loved thee eternally. I tell thee, believer, if thou canst goback to the years of eternity; if thou canst in thy mind run backto that period, or ere the everlasting hills were fashioned, or thefountains of the great deep scooped out, and if thou canst see thyGod inscribing thy name in His eternal book; if thou canst see in Hisloving heart eternal thoughts of love to thee, thou wilt find this acharming means of giving thee songs in the night. No songs like thosewhich come from electing love; no sonnets like those that are dictatedby meditations on discriminating mercy. Some, indeed, cannot sing ofelection: the Lord open their mouths a little wider! Some there arethat are afraid of the very term; but we only despise men who areafraid of what they believe, afraid of what God has taught them in HisBible. No, in our darker hours it is our joy to sing:

 "Sons we are through God's election, Who in Jesus Christ believe; By eternal destination, Sovereign grace we now receive. Lord, thy favor, Shall both grace and glory give. "

Think, Christian, of the yesterday, I say, and thou wilt get a songin the night. But if thou hast not a voice tuned to so high a key asthat, let me suggest some other mercies thou mayest sing of; and theyare the mercies thou hast experienced. What! man, canst thou not singa little of that blest hour when Jesus met thee; when, a blind slave, thou wast sporting with death, and He saw thee, and said: "Come, poorslave, come with me"? Canst thou not sing of that rapturous momentwhen He snapt thy fetters, dashed thy chains to the earth, and said:"I am the Breaker; I came to break thy chains, and set thee free"?What tho thou art ever so gloomy now, canst thou forget that happymorning, when in the house of God thy voice was loud, almost as aseraph's voice, in praise? for thou couldst sing: "I am forgiven; I amforgiven":

 "A monument of grace, A sinner saved by blood. "

Go back, man; sing of that moment, and then thou wilt have a song inthe night? Or if thou hast almost forgotten that, then sure thou hastsome precious milestone along the road of life that is not quite grownover with moss, on which thou canst read some happy inspiration of Hismercy toward thee! What! didst thou never have a sickness like thatwhich thou art suffering now, and did He not raise thee up from that?Wast thou never poor before, and did He not supply thy wants? Wastthou never in straits before, and did He not deliver thee? Come, man!I beseech thee, go to the river of thine experience, and pull up a fewbulrushes, and weave them into an ark, wherein thy infant faith mayfloat safely on the stream. I bid thee not forget what God hath done. What! hast thou buried thine own diary? I beseech thee, man, turn overthe book of thy remembrance. Canst thou not see some sweet hill Mizar?Canst thou not think of some blest hour when the Lord met with thee atHermon? Hast thou never been on the Delectable Mountains? Hast thounever been fetched from the den of lions? Hast thou never escaped thejaw of the lion and the paw of the bear? Nay, O man, I know thou hast;go back, then, a little way, and take the mercies of yesterday; andtho it is dark now, light up the lamps of yesterday, and they shallglitter through the darkness, and thou shalt find that God hath giventhee a song in the night. 

But I think, beloved, there is never so dark a night, but there issomething to sing about, even concerning that night; for there is onething I am sure we can sing about, let the night be ever so dark, andthat is, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, andbecause His compassions fail not. " If we cannot sing very loud, yet wecan sing a little low tune, something like this--"He hath not dealtwith us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. "

"Oh!" says one, "I do not know where to get my dinner from to-morrow. I am a poor wretch. " So you may be, my dear friend; but you are not sopoor as you deserve to be. Do not be mightily offended about that; ifyou are, you are no child of God; for the child of God acknowledgesthat he has no right to the least of God's mercies, but that they comethrough the channel of grace alone. As long as I am out of hell, Ihave no right to grumble; and if I were in hell I should have no rightto complain, for I feel, when convinced of sin, that never creaturedeserved to go there more than I do. We have no cause to murmur;we can lift up our hands, and say, "Night! thou art dark, but thoumightst have been darker. I am poor, but, if I could not have beenpoorer, I might have been sick. I am poor and sick--well, I have somefriend left, my lot cannot be so bad, but it might have been worse. "And therefore, Christian, you will always have one thing to singabout--"Lord, I thank Thee, it is not all darkness!" Besides, Christian, however dark the night is, there is always a star or moon. There is scarce ever a night that we have, but there are just one ortwo little lamps burning up there. However dark it may be, I think youmay find some little comfort, some little joy, some little mercy left, and some little promise to cheer thy spirit. The stars are not putout, are they? Nay, if thou canst not see them, they are there; butmethinks one or two must be shining on thee; therefore give God a songin the night. If thou hast only one star, bless God for that one, perhaps He will make it two; and if thou hast only two stars, blessGod for the two stars, and perhaps He will make them four. Try, then, if thou canst not find a song in the night. 

But, beloved, there is another thing of which we can sing yet moresweetly; and that is, we can sing of the day that is to come. I ampreaching to-night for the poor weavers of Spitalfields. Perhaps thereare not to be found a class of men in London who are sufferinga darker night than they are; for while many classes have beenbefriended and defended, there are few who speak up for them, and (ifI am rightly informed) they are generally ground down within an inchof their lives. I suppose that their masters intend that their breadshall be very sweet, on the principle, that the nearer the ground, thesweeter the grass; for I should think that no people have their grassso near the ground as the weavers of Spitalfields. In an inquiry bythe House of Commons last week, it was given in evidence that theiraverage wages amount to seven or eight shillings a week; and thatthey have to furnish themselves with a room, and work at expensivearticles, which my friends and ladies are wearing now, and which theybuy as cheaply as possible; but perhaps they do not know that they aremade with the blood and bones and marrow of the Spitalfields weavers, who, many of them, work for less than man ought to have to subsistupon. Some of them waited upon me the other day; I was exceedinglypleased with one of them. He said, "Well, sir, it is very hard, but Ihope there is better times coming for us. " "Well, my friend, " I said, "I am afraid you cannot hope for much better times, unless the LordJesus Christ comes a second time. " "That is just what we hope for, "said he. "We do not see there is any chance of deliverance, unless theLord Jesus Christ comes to establish His kingdom upon the earth; andthen He will judge the opprest, and break the oppressors in pieceswith an iron rod, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. " Iwas glad my friend had got a song in the night, and was singing aboutthe morning that was coming. Often do I cheer myself with the thoughtof the coming of the Lord. We preach now, perhaps, with littlesuccess; "the kingdoms of this world" are not "become the kingdoms ofour Lord and of his Christ"; we send out missionaries; they are forthe most part unsuccessful. We are laboring, but we do not see thefruits of our labors. Well, what then? Try a little while; we shallnot always labor in vain, or spend our strength for naught. A day iscoming, and now is, when every minister of Christ shall speak withunction, when all the servants of God shall preach with power, andwhen colossal systems of heathenism shall be scattered to the winds. The shout shall be heard, "Alleluia! Alleluia! the Lord God Omnipotentreigneth. " For that day do I look; it is to the bright horizon of thatsecond coming that I turn my eyes. My anxious expectation is, that thesweet Sun of righteousness will arise with healing beneath His wings, that the opprest shall be righted, that despotisms shall be cut down, that liberty shall be established, that peace shall be made lasting, and that the glorious liberty of the gospel shall be extendedthroughout the known world. Christian! if thou art in a night, thinkof the morrow; cheer up thy heart with the thought of the coming ofthy Lord. 

There is another sweet to-morrow of which we hope to sing in thenight. Soon, beloved, you and I shall lie on our dying bed, and weshall want a song in the night then; and I do not know where we shallget it, if we do not get it from the to-morrow. Kneeling by the bed ofan apparently dying saint, last night, I said, "Well, sister, He hasbeen precious to you; you can rejoice in His covenant mercies, and Hispast loving-kindnesses. " She put out her hand, and said, "Ah! sir, donot talk about them now; I want the sinner's Savior as much now asever; it is not a saint's I want; it is still a sinner's Savior thatI am in need of, for I am a sinner still. " I found that I could notcomfort her with the past; so I reminded her of the golden streets, ofthe gates of pearl, of the walls of jasper, of the harps of gold, ofthe songs of bliss; and then her eyes glistened; she said, "Yes, Ishall be there soon; I shall meet them by-and-by;" and then sheseemed so glad! Ah! believer, you may always cheer yourself with thatthought. Thy head may be crowned with thorny troubles now, but itshall wear a starry crown directly; thy hand may be filled withcares--it shall grasp a harp soon, a harp full of music. Thy garmentsmay be soiled with dust now; they shall be white by-and-by. Wait alittle longer. Ah! beloved, how despicable our troubles and trialswill seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in theprospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven, we shall then, "With transporting joys recount The labors of our feet. "

Our trials will seem to us nothing at all. We shall talk to oneanother about them in heaven, and find all the more to converseabout, according as we have suffered more here below. Let us go on, therefore; and if the night be ever so dark, remember there is not anight that shall not have a morning; and that morning is to come byand by. 

And now I want to tell you, very briefly, what are the excellences ofsongs in the night above all other songs. 

In the first place, when you hear a man singing a song in the night--Imean in the night of trouble--you may be quite sure it is a heartyone. Many of you sang very prettily just now, didn't you? I wonderwhether you would sing very prettily, if there was a stake or two inSmithfield for all of you who dared to do it? If you sang under painand penalty, that would show your heart to be in your song. We can allsing very nicely indeed when everybody else sings. It is the easiestthing in the world to open your mouth, and let the words come out; butwhen the devil puts his hand over your mouth, can you sing then? Canyou say, "Tho he slay me, yet will I trust in him"? That is heartysinging; that is real song that springs up in the night. Thenightingale singeth most sweetly because she singeth in the night. Weknow a poet has said that, if she sang by day, she might be thought tosing no more sweetly than the wren. It is the stillness of the nightthat makes her song sweet. And so doth a Christian's song become sweetand hearty, because it is in the night. 

Again: the songs we sing in the night will be lasting. Many songs wehear our fellow-creatures singing in the streets will not do to singby-and-by; I guess they will sing a different kind of tune soon. Theycan sing nowadays any rollicking, drinking songs; but they will notsing them when they come to die; they are not exactly the songs withwhich to cross Jordan's billows. It will not do to sing one of thoselight songs when death and you are having the last tug. It will not doto enter heaven singing one of those unchaste, unholy sonnets. No; butthe Christian who can sing in the night will not have to leave offhis song; he may keep on singing it forever. He may put his foot inJordan's stream, and continue his melody; he may wade through it, andkeep on singing still, and land himself safe in heaven; and when he isthere, there need not be a gap in his strain, but in a nobler, sweeterstrain he may still continue singing His power to save. There are agreat many of you that think Christian people are a very miserableset, don't you? You say, "Let me sing my song. " Ay, but, my dearfriends, we like to sing a song that will last; we don't like yoursongs; they are all froth, like bubbles on the beaker, and they willsoon die away and be lost. Give me a song that will last; give me onethat will not melt. Oh, give me not the dreamster's gold! he hoards itup, and says, "I'm rich"; and when he waketh, his gold is gone. Butgive me songs in the night, for they are songs I sing forever. 

Again: the songs we warble in the night are those that show we havereal faith in. God. Many men have just enough faith to trust God asfar as they can see Him, and they always sing as far as they can seeprovidence go right; but true faith can sing when its possessorscannot see. It can take hold of God when they cannot discern Him. 

Songs in the night, too, prove that we have true courage. Many sing byday who are silent by night; they are afraid of thieves and robbers;but the Christian who sings in the night proves himself to be acourageous character. It is the bold Christian who can sing God'ssonnets in the darkness. 

He who can sing songs in the night, too, proves that he has true loveto Christ. It is not love to Christ to praise Him while everybody elsepraises Him; to walk arm in arm with Him when He has the crown onHis head is no great deed, I wot; to walk with Christ in rags issomething. To believe in Christ when He is shrouded in darkness, tostick hard and fast by the Savior when all men speak ill of Him andforsake Him--that is true faith. He who singeth a song to Christ inthe night, singeth the best song in all the world; for He singeth fromthe heart. 

I am afraid of wearying you; therefore I shall not dwell on theexcellences of night songs, but just, in the last place, show youtheir use. 

It is very useful to sing in the night of our troubles, first, becauseit will cheer ourselves. When you were boys living in the country, andhad some distance to go alone at night, don't you remember how youwhistled and sang to keep your courage up? Well, what we do in thenatural world we ought to do in the spiritual. There is nothing likesinging to keep your spirits alive. When we have been in trouble, we have often thought ourselves to be well-nigh overwhelmed withdifficulty; and we have said, "Let us have a song. " We have begun tosing; and Martin Luther says, "The devil cannot bear singing. " That isabout the truth; he does not like music. It was so in Saul's days: anevil spirit rested on Saul; but when David played on his harp, theevil spirit went away from him. This is usually the case: if we canbegin to sing we shall remove our fears. I like to hear servantssometimes humming a tune at their work; I love to hear a plowman inthe country singing as he goes along with his horses. Why not? You sayhe has no time to praise God; but he can sing a song--surely he cansing a Psalm, it will take no more time. Singing is the best thing topurge ourselves of evil thoughts. Keep your mouth full of songs, andyou will often keep your heart full of praises; keep on singing aslong as you can; you will find it a good method of driving away yourfears. 

Sing, again, for another reason: because it will cheer yourcompanions. If any of them are in the valley and in the darkness withyou, it will be a great help to comfort them. John Bunyan tells us, that as Christian was going through the valley he found it a dreadfuldark place, and terrible demons and goblins were all about him, andpoor Christian thought he must perish for certain; but just when hisdoubts were the strongest, he heard a sweet voice; he listened to it, and he heard a man in front of him saying, "Yea, when I pass throughthe valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. " Now, that mandid not know who was near him, but he was unwittingly singing to cheera man behind. Christian, when you are in trouble, sing; you do notknow who is near you. Sing, perhaps you will get a companion by it. Sing! perhaps there will be many a heart cheered by your song. Thereis some broken spirit, it may be, that will be bound up by yoursonnets. Sing! there is some poor distrest brother, perhaps, shut upin the Castle of Despair, who, like King Richard, will hear your songinside the walls, and sing to you again, and you may be the means ofgetting him a ransom. Sing, Christian, wherever you go; try, if youcan, to wash your face every morning in a bath of praise. When you godown from your chamber, never go to look on man till you have firstlooked on your God; and when you have looked on Him, seek to come downwith a face beaming with joy; carry a smile, for you will cheer upmany a poor way-worn pilgrim by it. 

One more reason; and I know it will be a good one for you. Try andsing in the night, Christian, for that is one of the best arguments inall the world in favor of your religion. Our divines nowadays spend agreat deal of time in trying to prove Christianity against those whodisbelieve it. I should like to have seen Paul trying that! Elymas thesorcerer withstood him: how did our friend Paul treat him? He said, "Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of the righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert theright ways of the Lord?" That is about the politeness such men oughtto have who deny God's truth. "We start with this assumption: we willprove that the Bible is God's word, but we are not going to proveGod's word. If you do not like to believe it, we will shake hands, andbid you good-by; we will not argue with you. The gospel has gainedlittle by discussion. The greatest piece of folly on earth has beento send a man round the country, to follow another up who has beenlecturing on infidelity just to make himself notorious. 

Why, let them lecture on; this is a free country; why should wefollow them about? The truth will win the day. Christianity need notwish for controversy; it is strong enough for it, if it wishes it; butthat is not God's way. 

God's direction is, "Preach, teach, dogmatize. " Do not standdisputing; claim a divine mission; tell men that God says it, andthere leave it. Say to them, "He that believeth shall be saved, and hethat believeth not shall be damned"; and when you have done that, you have done enough. For what reason should our missionaries standdisputing with Brahmins? Why should they be wasting their timeby attempting to refute first this dogma, and then another, ofheathenism? Why not just go and say, "The God whom ye ignorantlyworship, I declare unto you; believe me, and you will be saved;believe me not, and the Bible says you are lost. " And then, havingthus asserted God's word, say, "I leave it, I declare it unto you; itis a thing for you to believe, not a thing for you to reason about. "

Religion is not a thing merely for your intellect; a thing to proveyour own talent upon, by making a syllogism on it; it is a thing thatdemands your faith. As a messenger of heaven, I demand that faith; ifyou do not choose to give it, on your own head be the doom, if therebe such, if there be not, you are prepared to risk it. But I have donemy duty; I have told you the truth; that is enough, and there I leaveit. Oh, Christian, instead of disputing, let me tell thee how to proveyour religion. Live it out!

Live it out! Give the external as well as the internal evidence; givethe external evidence of your own life. You are sick; there is yourneighbor who laughs at religion; let him come into your house. Whenhe was sick, he said, "Oh, send for the doctor"; and there he wasfretting, and fuming, and whining, and making all manner of noises. When you are sick, send for him, tell him that you are resigned to theLord's will; that you will kiss the chastening rod; that you will takethe cup, and drink it, because your Father gives it. 

You do not need to make a boast of this, or it will lose all itspower; but do it because you cannot help doing it. Your neighbor willsay, "There is something in that. " And when you come to the borders ofthe grave--he was there once, and you heard how he shrieked, and howfrightened he was--give him your hand, and say to him, "Ah! I have aChrist that will do to die by; I have a religion that will make mesing in the night. " Let me hear how you can sing, "Victory, victory, victory!" through Him that loved you. I tell you, we may preach fiftythousand sermons to prove the gospel, but we shall not prove it halfso well as you will through singing in the night. Keep a cheerfulframe; keep a happy heart; keep a contented spirit; keep your eye up, and your heart aloft, and you prove Christianity better than all theButlers, and all the wise men that ever lived. Give them the analogyof a holy life, and then you will prove religion to them; give them, the evidence of internal piety, developed externally, and you willgive the best possible proof of Christianity. 

POTTER

MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Henry Codman Potter was born at Schenectady, New York, in 1834, andwas graduated from the Theological Seminary of Virginia in 1857. Hewas appointed rector of Grace Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, in 1868, and was coadjutor to his uncle, Horatio Potter, from 1883to 1887, when he was made Bishop of the Diocese of New York. He wonconsiderable distinction as a clear-cut and eloquent speaker. Hedealt in pulpit and on platform, with many public questions, such astemperance, capital and labor, civic righteousness, and the purifyingof East Side slum life. He advocated personal freedom, and invariablyspoke with authority. He was particularly happy as an after-dinnerspeaker. He died in 1908. 

POTTER

1834--1908

MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Bishop Henry C. Potter and TheCentury Company, publishers of "The Scholar and the State. "]

_It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: thewords I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life_. --Johnvi. , 63. 

He who stops over-long in the mere mechanism of religion is verilymissing that for which religion stands. Here, indeed, it must be ownedis, if not our greatest danger, one of the greatest. All life is fullof that strange want of intellectual and moral perspective which failsto see how secondary, after all, are means to ends; and how he onlyhas truly apprehended the office of religion who has learned, whenundertaking in any wise to present it or represent it, to hold fastto that which is the one central thought and fact of all: "It is thespirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that Ispeak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. "

And this brings me--in how real and vivid a way I am sure you mustfeel as keenly as I--face to face with him of whom I am set to speakto-day. 

Never before in the history, not only of our communion, but of any orall communions, has the departure of a religious teacher been morewidely noted and deplored than in the case of him of whom thisCommonwealth and this diocese have been bereaved. Never before, surely, in case of any man whom we can recall, has the sense of lossand bereavement been more distinctly a personal one, --extending tomultitudes in two hemispheres who did not know him, who had never seenor heard him, and yet to whom he had revealed himself in such real andhelpful ways. 

It has followed, inevitably, from this, that that strong tide ofprofound feeling has found expression in many and most unusualforms, and it will be among the most interesting tasks of the futurebiographer of the late Bishop of Massachusetts to take note of thesevarious memorials and to trace in them the secret of his unique powerand influence. 

But just because they have, so many of them, in such remarkablevariety and from sources so diverse, been written or spoken, and noless because a memoir of Phillips Brooks is already undertaken byhands preeminently designated for that purpose, I may wisely hereconfine myself to another and very different task. I shall notattempt, therefore, even the merest outline of a biographical review. I shall not undertake to analyze, nor, save incidentally, even torefer to, the influences and inheritances that wrought in the mindand upon the life of your late friend and teacher. I shall still lessattempt to discover the open secret of his rare and unique charm andattractiveness as a man; and I shall least of all endeavor to forecastthe place which history will give to him among the leaders andbuilders of our age. Brief as was his ministry in his higher office, and to our view all too soon ended, I shall be content to speak of himas a bishop, --of his divine right, as I profoundly believe, to a placein the episcopate, and of the preeminent value of his distinctive andincomparable witness to the highest aim and purpose of that office. 

And first of all let me say a word in regard to the way in which hecame to it. When chosen to the episcopate of this diocese, your latebishop had already, at least once, as we all know, declined theoffice. It was well known to those who knew him best that, as he hadviewed it for a large part of his ministry, it was a work for whichhe had no especial sympathy either as to its tasks, or, as he hadunderstood them, its opportunities. 

But the time undoubtedly came when, as to this, he modified hisearlier opinions; and the time came too, as I am most glad to think, when he was led to feel that if he were called to such an office hemight find in it an opportunity for widening his own sympathies andfor estimating more justly those with whom previously he had believedhimself to have little in common. 

It was the inevitable condition of his strong and deep convictionsthat he should not always or easily understand or make due allowancefor men of different opinions. It was--God and you will bear mewitness that this is true!--one of the noblest characteristics of hisfifteen months' episcopate that, as a bishop, men's rightful libertyof opinion found in him not only a large and generous tolerance, buta most beautiful and gracious acceptance. He seized, instantly andeasily, that which will be forever the highest conception of theepiscopate in its relations whether to the clergy or the laity, itspaternal and fraternal character; and his "sweet reasonableness, " bothas a father and as a brother, shone through all that he was and did. 

For one, I greatly love to remember this, --that when the time came hehimself, with the simple naturalness which marked all that he did, was brought to reconsider his earlier attitude toward the episcopaloffice, and to express with characteristic candor his readiness totake up its work if he should be chosen to it; he turned to his new, and to him most strange, task with a supreme desire to do it in aloving and whole-hearted way, and to make it helpful to every man, woman, and child with whom he came in contact. What could have beenmore like him than that, in that last address which he delivered tothe choir-boys at Newton, he should have said to them, "When you meetme let me know that you know me. " Another might easily have beenmisunderstood in asking those whom he might by chance encounter tosalute him; but he knew, and the boys knew, what he had in mind, --howhe and they were all striving to serve one Master, and how each--hemost surely as much as they--was to gain strength and cheer frommutual recognition in the spirit of a common brotherhood. 

And thus it was always; and this it was that allied itself sonaturally to that which was his never-ceasing endeavor--to lift allmen everywhere to that which was, with him, the highest conception ofhis office, whether as a preacher or as a bishop, --the conception ofGod as a Father, and of the brotherhood of all men as mutually relatedin Him. 

In an address which he delivered during the last General Conventionin Baltimore to the students of Johns Hopkins University, he spokesubstantially these words:

 "In trying to win a man to a better life, show him not the evil but the nobleness of his nature. Lead him to enthusiastic contemplations of humanity;"

in its perfection, and when he asks, 'Why, if this is so, do not Ihave this life?'--then project on the background of his enthusiasm hisown life; say to him, 'Because you are a liar, because you blind yoursoul with licentiousness, shame is born, --but not a shame of despair. It is soon changed to joy. Christianity becomes an opportunity, a highprivilege, the means of attaining to the most exalted ideal--and theonly means. '

"Herein must lie all real power; herein lay Christ's power, that heappreciated the beauty and richness of humanity, that it is very nearthe Infinite, very near to God. These two facts--we are the childrenof God, and God is our Father--make us look very differently atourselves, very differently at our neighbors, very differently at God. We should be surprized, not at our good deeds, but at our bad ones. We should expect good as more likely to occur than evil; we shouldbelieve that our best moments are our truest. I was once talking withan acquaintance about whose religious position I knew nothing, and heexprest a very hopeful opinion in regard to a matter about which I wasmyself very doubtful. 

"'Why, I said to him, 'You are an optimist. '

"'Of course I am an optimist, ' he replied, because I am a Christian. '

"I felt that as a reproof. The Christian must be an optimist. "

Men and brethren, I set these words over against those of his Masterwith which I began, and the two in essence are one. "The words that Ispeak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. " There is a lifenobler and diviner than any that we have dreamed of. To the poorestand meanest of us, as to the best and most richly-dowered, it is alikeopen. To turn toward it, to reach up after it, to believe in itsever-recurring nearness, and to glorify God in attaining to it, thisis the calling of a human soul. 

Now then, what, I ask you, is all the rest of religion worth incomparison with this?--not what is it worth in itself, but what is itsplace relatively to this? This, I maintain, is the supreme questionfor the episcopate, as it ought to be the supreme question with theministry of any and every order. And therefore it is, I affirm, that, in bringing into the episcopate with such unique vividness and powerthis conception of his office, your bishop rendered to his order andto the Church of God everywhere a service so transcendent. A mostgifted and sympathetic observer of our departed brother's characterand influence has said of him, contrasting him with the power ofinstitution, "His life will always suggest the importance of theinfluence of the individual man as compared with institutionalChristianity. "

In one sense, undoubtedly, this is true; but I should prefer to saythat his life-work will always show the large and helpful influence ofa great soul upon institutional Christianity. It is a superficialand unphilosophical temperament that disparages institutions; forinstitutions are only another name for that organized force and lifeby which God rules the world. But it is undoubtedly and profoundlytrue that you no sooner have an institution, whether in society, inpolitics, or in religion, than you are threatened with the dangerthat the institution may first exaggerate itself and then hardenand stiffen into a machine; and that in the realm of religion, preeminently, those whose office it should be to quicken and infuse itwith new life should themselves come at last to "worship the net andthe drag. " And just here you find in the history of religion in allages the place of the prophet and the seer. He is to pierce throughthe fabric of the visible structure to that soul of things for whichit stands. When, in Isaiah, the Holy Ghost commands the prophet, "Liftup thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto thecities of Judah, Behold your God!" it is not alone, you see, his voicethat lie is to lift up. No, no! It is the vision of the unseen anddivine. "Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!"

Over and over again that voice breaks in upon the slumbrous torpor ofIsrael and smites the dead souls of priests and people alike. Nowit is a Balaam, now it is an Elijah, a David, an Isaiah, a John theBaptist, a Paul the Apostle, a Peter the Hermit, a Savonarola, a Huss, a Whitefield, a Wesley, a Frederick Maurice, a Frederick Robertson, aPhillips Brooks. 

Do not mistake me. I do not say that there were not many others. Butthese names are typical, and that for which they stand cannot easilybe mistaken. I affirm without qualification that, in that gift ofvision and of exaltation for which they stand, they stand for thehighest and the best, --that one thing for which the Church of God mostof all stands, and of which so long as it is the Church Militantit will most of all stand in need: to know that the end of all itsmechanisms and ministries is to impart life, and that nothing whichobscures or loses sight of the eternal source of life can regenerateor quicken;--to teach men to cry out, with St. Augustine, "_Fecistinos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat inte_": Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is unquietuntil its rests in Thee, --this however, as any one may be tempted tofence and juggle with the fact, is the truth on which all the restdepends. 

Unfortunately it is a truth which there is much in the tasks andengagements of the episcopate to obscure. A bishop is preeminently, at any rate in the popular conception of him, an administrator; andhowsoever wide of the mark this popular conception may be from theessential idea of the office, it must be owned that there is much ina bishop's work in our day to limit his activities, and therefore hisinfluence, within such a sphere. 

To recognize his prophetic office as giving expression to that missionof the Holy Ghost of which he is preeminently the representative, toillustrate it upon a wider instead of a narrower field, to recognizeand seize the greater opportunities for its exercise, to be indeed"a leader and commander" to the people, not by means of the pettymechanisms of officialism, but by the strong, strenuous, and unweariedproclamation of the truth; under all conditions to make the occasionsomehow a stepping-stone to that mount of vision from which men maysee God and righteousness and become sensible of the nearness of bothto themselves, --this, I think you will agree with me, is no unworthyuse of the loftiest calling and the loftiest gifts. 

And such a use was his. A bishop-elect, walking with him one day inthe country, was speaking, with not unnatural shrinking and hesitancy, of the new work toward which he was soon to turn his face, and saidamong other things, "I have a great dread, in the Episcopate, ofperfunctoriness. In the administration, especially, of confirmation, it seems almost impossible, in connection with its constantrepetition, to avoid it. "

He was silent a moment, and then said, "I do not think that it need beso. The office indeed is the same. But every class is different; andthen--think what it is to them! It seems to me that that thought cannever cease to move one. "

What a clear insight the answer gave to his own ministry. One turnsback to his first sermon, that evening when, with his fellow-studentin Virginia, he walked across the fields to the log-cabin where, notyet in holy orders, he preached it, and where afterward he ministeredwith such swiftly increasing power to a handful of negro servants. "It was an utter failure, " he said afterward. Yes, perhaps; but allthrough the failure he struggled to give expression to that of whichhis soul was full; and I do not doubt that even then they who heardhim somehow understood him. We pass from those first words to thelast, --those of which I spoke a moment ago, --the address to thechoir-boys at Newton, --was there ever such, an address to choir-boysbefore? He knew little or nothing about the science of music, and withcharacteristic candor he at once said so. But he passed quickly fromthe music to those incomparable words of which the music was the merevehicle and vesture. He bade the lads to whom he spoke think ofthose who, long ago and all the ages down, had sung that matchlessPsalter, --of the boys and men of other times, and what it had meant tothem. And then, as he looked into their fresh young faces and saw thelong vista of life stretching out before them, he bade them think ofthat larger and fuller meaning which was to come into those Psalms ofDavid, when he, --was there some prophetic sense of how soon with himthe end would be?--when he and such as he had passed away, --what newdoors were to open, what deeper meanings were to be discerned, whatnobler opportunities were to dawn, as the years hastened swiftly ontoward their august and glorious consummation! How it all lifts usup as we read it, and how like it was to that "one sermon" which heforever preached!

And in saying so I do not forget what that was which some men said wasmissing in it. His, they tell us--who hold some dry and formalizedstatement of the truth so close to the eye that it obscures all largervision of it, --his, they tell us, was an "invertebrate theology. " Ofwhat he was and spoke, such a criticism is as if one said of the wind, that divinely appointed symbol of the Holy Ghost, "it has no spine norribs. "

A spine and ribs are very necessary things; but we bury them as somuch chalk and lime when once the breath has gone out of them! In thebeginning we read, "And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils thebreath of life, and man became a living soul. "

And all along since then there have been messengers of God into whomthe same divine breath has been, as it were, without measure breathed, and who have been the quickeners and inspirers of their fellows. Nothing less than this can explain that wholly exceptional and yetconsistent influence which he whom we mourn gave forth. It was notconfined or limited by merely personal or physical conditions, butbreathed with equal and quickening power through all that he taughtand wrote. There were multitudes who never saw or heard him, but bywhom nevertheless he was as intimately known and understood as if hehad been their daily companion. 

Never was there an instance which more truly fulfilled the saying, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. "They reached down to the inmost need of empty and aching hearts andanswered it. They spoke to that in the most sin-stained and waywardsoul which is, after all, the image of the invisible God, --spoketo it, touched it, constrained it. "What has this fine-bred Bostonscholar, " plain men asked, when he bade him come to us and preach inour Trinity--"what has such an one to say to the business men of WallStreet?" But when he came, straightway every man found out that he hadindeed something to say to him, --a word of power, a word of hope, aword of enduring joy and strength!

A kindred thinker of large vision and rare insight, New England bornand nurtured like himself, speaking of him not long after his death, said:

 "There are three forms pertaining to the Christian truths: they are true as facts, they are true as doctrines intellectually apprehended, they are true as spiritual experiences to be realized. Bishop Brooks struck directly for the last. In the spirit he found the truth; and only as he could get it into a spiritual form did he conceive it to have power. 

 "It was because he assumed the facts as true in the main, refusing to insist on petty accuracy, and passed by doctrinal forms concerning which there might be great divergence of opinion, and carried his thought on into the world of spirit, that he won so great a hearing and such conviction of belief. For it is the spirit that gives common standing-ground; it says substantially the same thing in all men. Speak as a spirit to the spiritual nature of men, and they will respond, because in the spirit they draw near to their common source and to the world to which all belong. 

 "It was because he dealt with this common factor of the human and the divine nature that he was too positive and practical. In the spirit it is all yea and amen; there is no negative; in the New Jerusalem there is no night. We can describe this feature of his ministry by words from, one of his own sermons: 'It has always been through men of belief, not unbelief, that power from God has poured into man. It is not the discriminating critic, but he whose beating, throbbing life offers itself a channel for the divine force, --he is the man through, whom the world grows rich, and whom it remembers, remembers with perpetual thanksgiving. '"

And shall not you who are here to-day thank God that such a man was, tho for so brief a space, your bishop? Some there were, you remember, who thought that those greater spiritual gifts of his would unfit himfor the business of practical affairs. "A bishop's daily round, " theysaid, "his endless correspondence, his hurried journeyings, his weightof anxious cares, the misadventures of other men, ever returning toplague him, --how can he bring himself to stoop and deal with these?"

But as in so much else that was transcendent in him, how little here, too, his critics understood him! No more pathetic proof of this hascome to light than in that testimony of one among you who, as hisprivate secretary, stood in closest and most intimate relationsto him. What a story that is which he has given to us of a greatsoul--faithful always in the greatest? Yes, but no less faithful inthe least. There seems a strange, almost grotesque impossibility inthe thought that such an one should ever have come to be regarded as"a stickler for the canons. "

But we look a little deeper than the surface, and all that isincongruous straightway disappears. His was the realm of a divineorder, --his was the office of his Lord's servant. God had called him. He had put him where he was. He had set his Church to be His witnessin the world, and in it, all His children, the greatest with theleast, to walk in ways of reverent appointment. Those ways might irkand cramp him sometimes. They did: he might speak of them with sharpimpatience and seeming disesteem sometimes. He did that too, now andthen, --for he was human like the rest of us! But mark you this, mybrothers, for, in an age which, under one figment or another, whether of more ancient or more modern license, is an age of muchself-will, --we shall do well to remember it, --his was a life oforderly and consistent obedience to rule. He kept to the Church'splain and stately ways: kept to them and prized them too. 

But all the while he held his soul wide open to the vision of hisLord! Up out of a routine that seemed to others that did not know orcould not understand him, and who vouchsafed to him much condescendingcompassion for a bondage which he never felt, and of which in vainthey strove to persuade him to complain, --up out of the narrower roundin which so faithfully he walked, from time to time he climbed, andcame back bathed in a heavenly light, with lips aglow with heavenlyfire. The Spirit had spoken to him, and so he spoke to us. "The fleshprofiteth nothing: it is the spirit that quickeneth. The words that Ispeak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. "

And so we thank God not alone for his message, but that it was givento him to speak it as a bishop in the Church of God. We thank God thatin a generation that so greatly needs to cry, as our _Te Deum_ teachesus, "Govern us and lift us up!" he was given to the Church not aloneto rule but to uplift. 

What bishop is there who may not wisely seek to be like him by drawingforever on those fires of the Holy Ghost that set his lips aflame?Nay, what soul among us all is there that may not wisely seek toascend up into that upper realm in which he walked, and by whosemighty airs his soul was filled? Unto the almighty and ever-living Godwe yield most high praise and hearty thanks for the wonderful graceand virtue declared in all His saints who have been the chosen vesselsof His grace and the lights of the world in their several generations;but here and to-day especially for his servant, Phillips Brooks, sometime of this Commonwealth and this diocese, true prophet, true priest, true bishop, to the glory of God the Father. 

ABBOTT

THE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Lyman Abbott was born at Roxbury, Mass. , in 1835. As successor toHenry Ward Beecher, at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, he ministered withgreat spiritual power until 1898, when he resigned his pastorate todevote his entire time to _The Outlook_, of which he was, and stillis, the editor. Dr. Abbott's conception of the minister's work isbriefly summed up in his own words:

"Whenever a minister forgets the splendid message of pardon, peace andpower based on faith in Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh, whenever for this message he substitutes literary lectures, criticalessays, sociological disquisitions, theological controversies, or evenethical interpretations of the universal conscience, whenever, inother words, he ceases to be a Christian preacher and becomes a lyceumor seminary lecturer, he divests himself of that which in all ages ofthe world has been the power of the Christian ministry, and will beits power so long as men have sins to be forgiven, temptations toconquer, and sorrows to be assuaged. "

ABBOTT

BORN IN 1835

THE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY

_Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye aregods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, andthe scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hathsanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God_?--John X. , 34-36. 

The context and argument is this: Jesus Christ has declared that Hewill give unto His sheep eternal life; and that no one can pluck themout of His hand, because He and His Father are one; and the Fatherwho gives these sheep to His care and keeping is greater than all theforces that are leagued against them. Thereat the Jews took up stonesagainst Him, saying: "Being a man thou makest thyself equal with God. "And Christ answers with our text. He refers them back to the OldTestament, which, He says, declares of the judges of Israel, of themen to whom the inspiration of God came, that they are divine. "Why, then, " He says, "do you accuse Me of blasphemy because I claimdivinity?" It is impossible to consider this a mere play upon theword; that Christ uses the word God in one sense in one paragraphand in another sense in the paragraph immediately following. It isimpossible to conceive that this is a kind of sacred pun. No, no; theargument is clear and unmistakable. According to your Old Testamentscripture, He says, the men in whom and to whom and through whom thepower and grace of God are manifested are themselves the partakersof the divine nature. If that is so, if the men of the oldentimes, patriarchs and prophets, through whom the divine nature wasmanifested--if they are divine, do not accuse me of blasphemy becauseI claim for Myself divinity. If in this message, on the one hand, Christ claims kinship with God, on the other He lifts the whole ofhumanity up with Him and makes the claim for them. The religion of theOld Testament and the New Testament, the religion of Christianity andof Judaism, is a religion of faith in God. But it is not less truly areligion of faith in man, and of faith in man because man is a childof God. And the one faith would be utterly useless without the other. For faith in God is effective because it is accompanied with faith inman as the child of God. 

And in this faith in man is the inspiration of all human progress. _Faith_ in man, I say. Faith sees something which the eye does notsee. Faith sees something which the reason does not perceive. Faithis not irrational, but it perceives a transcendent truth, over beyondthat which the sense perceives. Faith is always intermixed with hopeand with a great expectation, either with a hope because it seessomething which is not yet but will be, or else with a hope because itsees something which is not yet seen but will be seen. Faith in a manis not a belief that man is to-day a great, noble character, but it isa perception in man of dormant possibilities of greatness and nobilitywhich time and God will develop. It is only the man who has faith inman who can really interpret man. It is faith in man that gives us alltrue human insight. The difference between a photograph and a portraitis this: the photograph gives the outward feature, and stops there;and most of us, when we stand in a photograph saloon to have ourpicture taken, hide our soul away. The artist sees the soul behind theman, knows him, understands something of his nature, and paints thesoul that looks out through the eyes. He sees in the man somethingwhich the sun does not exhibit, and makes that something shine onthe canvas. The artist in literature sees an ideal humanity, andinterprets it. Realism in literature does not portray the real man. Anthony Trollope pictures the Englishman as he is to-day, and societyas any man may take it with a kodak; but Dickens gives Toby Veck andTiny Tim; George Eliot, Adam Bede and Dinah Morris. Men say that nosuch boy ever lived as MacDonald has portrayed in Sir Gibbie. In everystreet Arab is a possible Sir Gibbie; and MacDonald has seen thepossible and shown us what Christianity may make out of a streetArab. In this perception of a possible in man lies the spirit of allprogress in science. The man of practical science laughs at the notionof an iron railway on which steam cars shall travel faster thanEnglish coaches. But the man of faith in men, who believes that it isin the power of men to dominate the powers of nature, builds the road. The man of practical science laughs at the notion that we can reach upour hands into the clouds and draw down the lightning. But Franklindoes it. The man of faith is sometimes mistaken, but he is alwaysexperimenting, because he always believes that man to-morrow willbe more than man is to-day or was yesterday. And all progress incivilization has its secret in this great faith in man as a beingthat has a mastery, not yet interpreted, not yet understood, not yetcomprehended in its fulness, over all the powers of nature. 

Now, is there any ground or basis for this faith in man? Have we aright to believe that man is more than he seems to be, as we can seehim in the street to-day? Have we a right to build our institutionsand fabrics on this belief? Have we a right to think that man cangovern himself, or must we go back and say with Carlyle and Ruskinand Voltaire that the great body of men are incompetent to governthemselves, and a few wise rulers must govern them? Have we a right tobelieve that all the progress that has thus far been made inscience is but an augury of progress far greater, reaching into theillimitable? Have we a right to say that these portraits of a possiblehumanity, this Portia, this Toby Veck, this Tiny Tim, this ideal manand woman, are real men and real women in possibility, if not inthe actualities of life? Or are we to think of them as simplyphantasmagoria hung up for the delectation of a passing moment? TheBible makes answer to that question, --the Bible preeminently, butthe great poets and the great prophets of all religions; the Bible, because the poets and the prophets of the Bible transcend the poetsand the prophets of all other religions. And that declaration is thatman is made in the image of God, and that God dwells in man andis coming to the manifestation of Himself in growing, developing, redeemed humanity. Our Bible starts out with the declaration that Godmade man in His own image. The poets take the idea up. MacDonald tellsus in that beautiful poem of his, that the babe came through the bluesky and got the blue of his eyes as he came; Wordsworth, that thechild's imaginings are the recollected glory of a heavenly home; andthe author of the first chapter of Genesis, that God breathed his ownbreath into the nostrils of man and made him in the image of God. Allfancy, all imaginings? But, my dear friends, there is a truth in fancyas well as in science. We need not believe that this aspiration thatshows itself in the pure mind of a little child is a trailing glorythat he has brought with him from some pre-existent state. We need notthink that it is physiological fact that the sky colored the eyes ofthe babe as the babe came through. Nor need we suppose that man wasa clay image into which God breathed a physical breath, so animatinghim. But beyond all this imagery is the vision of the poet. God inman; a divine life throbbing in humanity; man the offspring of God;man coming forth from the eternal and going forth into the eternal. 

This is the starting-point of the Bible. Starting with this, it goeson with declaration after declaration based on this fundamentaldoctrine that man and God in their essential moral attributes have thesame nature. It is human experience which is used to interpret divineexperience. According to pagan thought, God speaks to men throughmovements of the stars, through all external phenomena, through evenentrails of animals. Seldom so in the Bible, save as when the wise menfollowed the star, and then that they might come to a divine humanity. In the Old Testament God speaks in human experience, through humanexperience, about human experience, to typify and interpret andexplain Himself. God is like a shepherd that shepherds his flock. God is like a king that rules in justice. He is like the father thatprovides for his children. He is like the mother that comforts theweeping child. All the experiences of humanity are taken in turn andattributed to God. The hopes, the fears, the sorrows, the joys, thevery things which we call faults in men--so strong and courageous arethe old prophets in this fundamental faith of theirs that man and Godare alike--the very things we call faults in men are attributed to theAlmighty. He is declared to hate, to be wrathful, to be angry, to bejealous; because, at the root, every fault is a virtue set amiss; andthe very faults of men have in them something that interprets thepower and will of God, as the very faults of a boy interpret thevirtues of his father. All through the Old Testament God manifestsHimself through human experience. He speaks in the hearts of men; Hedwells in the experience of men; He interprets Himself through thelife of men; and, finally, when this one selected nation which has agenius for spiritual truth has been so far educated that there is nodanger that it will go back and worship man, that it will become amere hero-worshiper, when it has been so far educated that there is nodanger of that, then Jesus Christ comes into the world--God manifestsHimself in human life. 

Who, then, is Jesus Christ? Let John tell us. The Oriental world waspuzzled about the question of the origin of evil. They said, in brief, a good God cannot make a bad world. Out of a good God, therefore, there have emanated other gods, and out of these gods other gods, until at last there came to be imperfect gods or bad gods. And theworld was made, some of them said, partly by a good god and partly bya bad one; and others by an imperfect god who was an emanation of theperfect one. Of these emanations one was Life, another was Light, another was the Word. And John, writing in the age of Orientalphilosophy, uses the phraseology of Oriental philosophy in order thathe might tell mankind who and what Jesus Christ is. "In the beginningwas the Word, and the Word was God. " God never was an abstraction;from the very beginning He was a speaking God, a living God, amanifesting God, a forth-putting God. "The same was in the beginningwith God. All things were made by him; and without him was notanything made that was made. And this Word became flesh and dweltamong us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begottenof the Father), full of grace and truth. " Let me put this intomodern language. What is it but this? From eternity God has been amanifesting God. When the fulness of time came, God, that He mightmanifest Himself to His children, came into a human life and dweltin a human life. He that had spoken here through one prophet, therethrough another prophet; He that had sent one message in thisdirection and another in that; He that had spoken through signs andtokens, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, in diversmanners and in fragmentary utterances--when the fulness of time hadcome, He spoke in one perfect human life, taking entire possession ofit and making it His own, that He might manifest Himself in terms ofhuman experience to humanity. Or turn to Paul and let me read you thisdeclaration; "Let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus Christ;who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal withGod, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form ofa servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found infashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. " What is this, again, but the samedeclaration? God desiring to show Himself to humanity, entered intoone human life, became subject to human conditions, shared theweakness, the wants, the ignorance of humanity, entered into and wasidentified with one human life. 

Do I say, then, that Jesus Christ was a man like other men? No. But Ido say that in their essential qualities God and man are identical, and God entered into humanity that He might show to humanity what Heis. I do say, not that Jesus Christ was a man like other men, but thatother men may become like Jesus Christ. I hold a bulb in my one handand a tulip in my other. Will any man say to me, this beautiful flowerwith all its rich coloring is like this bulb? Oh, no! But let thesun of God shine long enough on this bulb, put it where it belongs, subject it to the conditions of life, and this bulb will become likethis flower. Man is made in the image of God. All that is in manthat is not in God's image does not belong to man's nature. Naturaldepravity? There is no natural depravity. Depravity is unnatural. Depravity is contra-natural. It is against the whole law of man'sbeing. It is never wrong for any creature God has made to act out thenature which God endowed him with. It is not wicked for a tiger to beravening. It is not wicked for a snake to be sinuous. It is wicked forman to be ravening or sinuous, because it is against the divine naturethat God has put in man. He made man for better things. 

God made man in His own image, God coming through successive stages, manifesting Himself in successive relations of Himself in humanexperience, God at last disclosing Himself in one pure, sinless, typical man in order that man through that humanity might know who andwhat God is--and is that the end? Oh, no! That is the beginning, only the beginning. For what did God come in Christ? Simply to showHimself? Here is a hospital--all manner of sick; the paralytic, thefever-stricken, the consumptive. Is it good news to these hospitalbedridden ones if an athlete come in and show them his life, hismuscles, the purity of his lungs, the health of his constitution, andthen goes out? But if he comes in and says, "My friends, if you willfollow my directions I will put into you consumptive ones some of thestrength of my lungs, into you fever-stricken ones some of the purityof my blood; into you paralytic ones some of the sinew and muscleI possess--you can become like me, " then there is good news in themessage. If God came into the world simply to tell us what God is andwhat the ideal of humanity is, the gospel would be the saddest messagethat could be conceived, as delivered to the human race. It would addgloom to the gloom, darkness to the darkness, chains to the chains, despair to despair. He comes not merely to show divinity to us, but toimpart divinity to us; rather, to evolve the latent divinity which Hefirst implanted in us. As God has entered into Christ, He will enterinto me. Christ says to me: As I am patient, you can become patient;as I am strong, you can become strong; as I am pure, you can becomepure; as I am the Son of God, you can become the Son of God. ThereforeHis message is the gospel that it is. 

Christ is not a man like other men. I can find in the biography ofJesus no trace of sin. In every other biography, oh, how many traces!There is no trace of repentance. The Hebrew Psalmist laments hisiniquity. Paul confesses himself to be the chief of sinners. Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Edwards--go where I will, in the biography ofall the saints there are signs of sin and iniquity. Never a trace ofrepentance or confession in Christ. In all others we see a struggleafter God. "My heart panteth after thee, as the hart panteth afterwater-brooks. " "I count not myself to have attained, but, forgettingthose things that are behind, I press forward toward the mark. " Neverin the written biography of Christ a trace of that aspiration aftersomething not yet reached. On the contrary, a great peace and a greatpossession. He says: I have come full of life. I have come to givelife. This sinless Christ comes that He may give to us that whichHe Himself possesses; that He may take the sin out of our lives andsorrow out of our hearts, and for the yearning desire give a great, great peace. I have come, He says, that you might have life. How much, Lord and Master? Life more abundantly. What kind of life, Lord andMaster? Eternal life. Has He come with that great life of His to givea little and then stop? Nay, to give all to every one that every onewill take. 

I marvel to find Christian men denying that Christ is the type andmanifestation and revelation of the possible divinity in universalhumanity. It is written all over the Bible. What says Christ Himself?I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it moreabundantly. As the Father has sent Me into the world, even so I sendyou into the world. You shall be My disciples. You shall learn of Me. You shall be My followers, and tread where I have trod. You shall takeup My cross, and suffer as I have suffered. The secret of My lifeshall be the secret of your life. Ye shall be in Me. I will abide withyou. Ye shall be as a branch grafted on the vine, drawing the samelife as I have, as out of My very veins. As the Father was in Me, soI and My Father will come and abide in you. He breathes upon thedisciples and tells them to receive the Spirit that was in Him; and inHis last prayer He prays that they may share His glory, that they maybe one with the Father, as He is one with the Father. Paul takes upthe same refrain and repeats it over and over again. Righteousness inman is the righteousness of God, God's own righteousness coming outof God's heart into human hearts. Ye shall be partakers of the divinenature. Ye shall be joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, inheritingall that Christ inherited from His Father. Ye shall have the samespirit that was in Christ. Metaphor and trope and figure are exhaustedin the endeavor of the apostle to set forth this sublime truth. Christis the servant of God. We are the servants of God. He is the Son ofGod. We are the sons of God. He is the light of the world. We arethe lights of the world. He is a priest forever. We are priestsperpetually serving in His temple. He is the one eternal sacrifice. Weare to present our bodies a living sacrifice before God. He is dead. We are to die with Him. He has risen. We are to rise with Him. Alreadywe sit in the heavenly place with Christ Jesus. We are changed fromglory to glory into His image. We are predestined to be conformed tothat image. We are bid to pray that we may be rooted and grounded inChrist, and that with Him, we may be filled with all the fulness ofGod. 

Do I say, then, that I am equal to Christ? Or that I shall ever becomeequal to Christ? No! Let me try to make this plain to the child, andthen the rest will perhaps understand it. Here is a great man. He isa great statesman. He is a great poet. He is a great orator. He is agreat philosopher. He is a great general. He is Bismarck and Gladstoneand Dante and Napoleon and Raphael and Plato all combined in one. And he has children, and this boy is a statesman, and this boy is ageneral, and this boy is an orator, and this boy is a poet, and thisboy is an artist. No one of them comprizes all the genius that was inhis father, but each one has one quality of that father, and all theboys together reflect their father's nature. No, I shall never beequal to Christ. But according to the measure of my own capacity, I may reflect even here and now something of Christ and be reallyChrist-like. 

Christ is my Master. I acknowledge no other Master than Him. I wish tofollow where He leads. I gladly believe whatever He says. And I haveno other ambition--oh, I wish it were true that I never had any otherambition!--than to be like Him. But He is my Master because He bids mefollow where He leads, because He gives what I can take, because Hepromised what He will yet fulfil. I believe in the divinity of ourLord Jesus Christ. It is the center of my faith, as He is the centerand source of my life. But I do not believe in the medieval formulathat Jesus Christ is God and man mysteriously joined together, becauseto believe that would be to leave me both without an ideal of manwhich I might follow, and without a manifestation of God to which Imight cling. In my country home two Christians quarreled. An atheistwent to them and said to one of them, "Your Christ said, 'Forgiveall your enemies and love one another. '" "Yes, " he said, "Christ wasdivine. He could. I cannot. " But there was nothing of moral virtuethat God wrought in Christ that He cannot work in you and me if wegive Him time enough. And, on the other hand, this separation of "God"and "man" in Christ denies the real manifestation of God to man. Jesus called His disciples to watch while He wrestled with agony inGethsemane, and Dean Alford, speaking on Gethsemane, says this was themanifestation in Christ of human weakness. No! no! A thousand times, No! It is the glorious manifestation of that sympathy in God whichwants the sympathy of the feeblest of His followers, as the motherwants the sympathy and love of the babe on her lap. "Beloved, now arewe the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Onlywe shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. " There are twothings we do not know. Genius is always a mystery, spiritual geniusthe greatest mystery of genius, and Christ the greatest mystery ofall. We do not know what we shall be, any more than one who never hadseen a garden could guess what the mold would be when the spring hadfinished its work. Those are two things we do not know. But there aretwo things we do know. We shall be like Him, and when we are like Him, we shall see Him as He is. We shall be like no imagination of Him, nodeteriorated or imperfect conception of Him; but when we come to seeHim in all the regal splendor of His character, with all the love, allthe justice, all the purity, all the divine glory which is adumbratedand shadowed here because our eyes could not look upon it and stilllive--when we come to see Him in all the glory of that divinecharacter, we shall be like Him--_we shall be like Him_. 

BROOKS

THE PRIDE OF LIFE

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Phillips Brooks was born at Boston, Mass. , in 1835, graduated atHarvard in 1855 and studied theology at the P. E. Seminary, Alexandria, Va. He was elected rector of the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia, in 1859, and three years later to that of Holy Trinity in the samecity. In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and wasconsecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891. He died in 1893. He wasin every sense a large man, large in simplicity and sympathy, large inspiritual culture. In his lectures to the students at Yale he spoke ofthe preparation for the ministry as being nothing less than the makingof a man. Said he:

"It cannot be the mere training to certain tricks. It cannot be eventhe furnishing with abundant knowledge. It must be nothing less thanthe kneading and tempering of a man's whole nature till it becomes ofsuch a consistency and quality as to be capable of transmission. Thisis the largeness of the preacher's culture. " Doctor Brastow describeshim thus: "The physical equipment was symbol of his soul; and therush of his speech was typical of those mental, moral, and spiritualenergies that were fused into unity and came forth in a stream offiery intensity. "

BROOKS

1835--1893

THE PRIDE OF LIFE[1]

[Footnote 1: Published for the first time by the kind permission ofWilliam G. Brooks. ]

_The pride of life_. --1 John ii. , 16. 

John is giving his disciples the old warning not to love the world, that world which then and always is pressing on men's eyes and earsand hearts with all its loveliness and claiming to be loved. "Love notthe world, neither the things that are in the world. .. . For all thatis in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, andthe pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. "

What is the pride of life? Pride is one of those words which hover inthe middle region between virtue and vice. The materials which underone set of circumstances and in one kind of character make up anhonorable self-respect, seem so often to be precisely the same asthose which under another set of circumstances and in another kind ofcharacter make up arrogance and self-conceit. This last is the toneevidently in which John speaks. So it is with most moral minglings. All character is personal, determined by some force that blends thequalities into a special personality. The same apparent qualitiesunite into the most various results. It is like the delicatemanufacture of mosaics. The skilful workers of Rome or Venice put inthe same ingredients in nature and amount, and the composition comesout at one time dull and muddy and at another time perfectly clear andlustrous. Some subtle difference in the mixture of the constituentsor in the condition of the atmosphere or in the heat of the furnacealters the whole result. So out of life we may say in its variousminglings there come various products in character, either humility orthankfulness or contentment or self-respect, from some failure of thequalities to meet in perfect union, from some fault in the shape ormisregulation of the temperature of the human furnace in which theyare fused, this degenerate and confused result of pride which yetis often so near to, that we can see how it was only some slightestcause, some stray and unguarded draft across the surface that hinderedit from being, one of the clear and lustrous combinations of the samematerial. But that fact makes it no better. The muddy glass is no moreuseful because it is made of the same components as the clear glass. There is nothing still to be done with it but to throw it away. 

What then is the pride of life which is bad, which "is not of theFather, but is of the world"? Life itself we know is of the Father. Inwhatever sense we take that much-meaning word, life is God's gift. Themere physical being, if that be life, is the creation of His mightyword. The continuance, the prolongation of the vital function, ifthat be life, that too is the result of His never-sleeping care. Thesurrounding circumstances, the scenery of our experience, if that belife, is also of His arranging. The spiritual vitality, all the higherpowers as we call them, of thought and feeling and conscience, if theybe life, no hand but His strung and tuned their manifold and subtlecords. Everywhere there is no life but what He gives. It is not of theworld. In no sense does any creative power of being issue either fromthe material earth, or from the social system, or from the mass ofconventional laws and standards, each of which is sometimes, indifferent uses of the word, characterized as "the world. " They may allinfluence and change and give character to life, but none of them cancreate it. 

And perhaps this brings us to what we want. The world may give acertain character or shape to life, even altho it cannot create it. Now pride is a certain character or shape of life. It is a term ofdescription not of the material of life but of a particular result ofthat material fused into a particular furnace. In general the shape oflife which pride describes may be otherwise characterized asarrogant self-reliance or self-sufficiency. We may reach more minutedefinitions of it before we are done, but this seems to make themeaning plain when it is said that the pride of life is not of theFather, but of the world. Life comes from God. It is the world'sinfluence that shapes that life, which has no moral character initself, into arrogance and self-sufficiency, makes it up into prideinstead of into humility, and so leaves as the result the pride oflife. The pride of life, then, is God's gift which means dependencechanged and distorted into independence, revolt and disobedience. 

Most necessary is it that in all we say we should keep clear in mindthat the first gift is God's. The substance of life is His. All evilis misuse, otherwise repentance must be cursed with misanthropy andhopelessness instead of being as it always ought to be, the verybirthplace of hope, the spring of a new life from the worn-out failureof an old, back into the possibility of life that is older still, asold as man's first creation. 

Let us see where the pride of life shows itself. First of alldoubtless in the mere exuberance of animal strength. To be well andstrong, full of spirit and physical vitality, this is beyond all doubtone of the most precious gifts of God. We never can forget the largestrong physical strain with which our Bible opens, the torrent ofhealth and full life that seems to pour down to us out of those earlydays when the world was young, when the giants made the earth shakeunder their mighty tread and the patriarchs outlived the forests withtheir green old years. The fulness of physical vitality is of God, tobe accepted as His benefaction, to be cultivated and cared for withthe reverence that His gifts demand. And round the mere physical lifegroup a whole circle of tastes and enjoyments and exercises whichbelong with the sensuous more than with the intellectual or moral partof us, and whose full life seems to be dependent upon the fulness ofphysical being, the mere perception of beauty, the love of comfort, the delight in enterprise and adventure and prowess. The sum of allthese is what we call full physical life. It is what gives youth itsmost generous charm and makes it always poetic with its suggestedpowers and unaccomplished possibilities. 

But yet this mere fulness of life as we all know has its dangers. Merehealth is overbearing by its very nature. There is a lack of sympathyin it. Not knowing suffering itself, it is not respectful of sufferingin others. It is not careful of inflicting suffering. The full bloodsings of nothing but itself. It is careless of others. It is carelessof God, not malignantly cruel, nor deliberately atheistic, but selfishwith a sort of self-absorption which is often, very gracious in itsforms and infidel with a mere forgetfulness of God. Who of us does notknow, and who of us, wavering between his standards and his feelings, has not very often found it hard to tell just how he ought to valuethe enthusiastic and arrogant self-sufficiency of healthy youth?

It is this, I take it, that is described here as "the pride of life. "Wherever there is eager and full-blooded youth there it appears. Itbreaks out in the wild and purposeless mob of lower city life, in theimpatience and insubordination of the country boy who longs to be freefrom his father's farm, in the crude skepticism of college students'first discussions of religion. It is jealous of slight, of insult, of the least suspicion of restraint or leading. It belongs to strongyoung nations as well as to strong young men. By it they flauntdefiance in the face of the world and are afraid of the imputation ofprudence. It is what you can see in the faces of any group of eageryoung men as you pass them on the street. Sometimes it makes themattractive and sometimes it makes them detestable. It turns the nobleyouth into a hero and the mean youth into a bully. A fine nature itleads into the most exquisite tastes and encircles it with art andmusic. A coarse nature it plunges into the vilest debauchery and vice. In good fortune it makes the temper carelessly benignant. In badfortune it makes the temper recklessly defiant. It works these verydifferent effects but is always the one same spirit still, --the prideof life. The gift of life which came from God, taken possession of bythe world and tamed into self-sufficiency, a thing not of the Father, but of the world, who does not know in himself, or see in somebodyhe watches, something of this pure pride in life? Just to live is soattractive that the higher ends and responsibilities of living driftaway out of sight. This instinctive almost physical selfishness is thephilosophy of more than we think both of the good and of the bad thatis in young people. 

I have seen too much of it to undervalue the sweet and sober piety ofold age. There is a beauty in it that is all its own. A softness andtenderness and patience and repose in the western sky that the bolderglories of the east where the morning breaks never can attain. Manyand many of the best men we have known have been old men, but no onelooks at men's progress without feeling that a great deal of whatpasses for growth in goodness as men grow old is in reality only thedeadening of the pride of life from the dying-down of the life itself. Many and many a man who passes for a sober, conscientious, religioussort of man at fifty, if you put back into his cooled blood the hotlife he had at twenty-five would be the same reckless, profligate, arrogant sinner that he was then. It is the life, not the pride, thathe has lost. Many and many a man thinks that he has saved his housefrom conflagration because he, sees no flame, when really the flameis hidden only because the house is burnt down and the fire is stilllurking among the ashes, hunting out any little prey that is left andhungrily waiting for more fuel to light up the darkness again. Onething at least is true, that the goodness of old age in what we maycall its passive forms, humility, submission, patience, faith, isnecessarily far more hard to recognize and be sure of than the samegoodness in a younger man. What you call piety may be only deadness. 

And young men are often pointed just to this old age as the goldentime when they will be religious as they cannot be now. They look toit themselves. "You are full of the pride of life, " men say to them;"Ah, wait! By and by the life will flag. The senses will grow dull, the tastes will stupefy, the enterprise will flicker out, and the dayscome in which your soul will say 'I have no pleasure in them. ' Justwait for that! Then your pride will go too, and then you will need andseek your God. " It is a poor taunt and a poorer warning. If you havenothing better to say to make men use their powers rightly than totell them that they will lose their powers some day, the answer willalways be, "Well, I will wait until that losing day comes beforeI worry. " If you tell a young man that his life is short, the oldbacchanalian answer is the first one, "Live while we live. " You mustsomehow get hold of that, you must persuade him that the true life nowis the holy life, that life, this same life that he prizes, ought tobreed humility and faith, not arrogance and pride, or else youmust expect to talk to the winds. It surely is important that theconversion of the pride of life must come not by the putting-out oflife but by making it a source of humility instead of pride. The humbleness of life. How can it come? By clearer and deepertruthfulness to let us see what the real facts of the case are, thatis all; but that is very hard, so hard that it can be brought about byno other than the Almighty Holy Ghost. Let me see that this physicallife of mine, having no true character of its own, is made to be agreat machinery for simply conducting the knowledge and the love ofGod into my life; let all my study of the exquisite adaptations ofthe physical organs for their work be sanctified with this idea, thisever-pervading consciousness that eye and ear and hand are doors forthe knowledge and the love of Him to enter by, and that all theirmarvelous mechanism is only the perfecting of hinges and bolt that Hemay enter more impressively and lovingly and entirely; let me learnthat every bright taste or fine instinct or noble appetite is a ray ofsunlight, not the sun, is the projection into my life of some forceabove, outside of me, which I can find only by climbing back along theray that is projected, up to it; let me see all animal life astudy and preparation for this final life of man, sensations andperceptions, growing clearer and clearer as we rise in the scale untilin man they are fit to convey this knowledge which man alone can have, the knowledge of God; let me see this, and I must be ashamed to makethat life a thing of pride which might be the seat of such an exaltedand exalting dependence and humility. I am unwilling that thosewell-built cisterns which ought to be so full of God should holdnothing but myself, as if one crept into his aqueduct and closed it upwhere the water came into it from the fountain and lived in it for ahouse and found it very dry. 

We see clearly enough what the change is that is needed. It isto substitute for self-consciousness as the result of life theever-abiding consciousness of God. Do you ask how it shall be done?Ah, my dear friends, that is the very miracle of the gospel. I cantell you only this about it, which the Lord has told us all before:"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. " Thekingdom of God, that region of life in which God is the life's King. And again: "If any man love me he will keep my words and my Fatherwill love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. ""We will come to him!" That is what we want, for that is the source ofall humility, the coming of God into us, and the condition is love andobedience, the spiritual and the active forms of faith. That is all wecan say. And that is enough, for in that this at least is clear, thatsuch a conversion is a work that God has undertaken to do for us, thatHe asks of us nothing but submission to His willing helpfulness, andthat being a transformation of life, it may, nay it must, be donewhile life is in possession, it can be done best when life is in itsfullest. We have not to wait till movement is slow and color is dull. We are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man'slife is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness andpride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God andennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose firstcondition is the presence of God in the soul that He built for His owninhabiting. 

There is a condition possible where the life shall flow with God asfully and freely as it ordinarily flows with self, where the greatervolume it acquires, it only bears the more of Him; where every joydelights in Him, and every power depends on Him, and the whole manlives in Him and knows it. It is not a constant effort. It is thespontaneous direction of the whole nature. It is the new conditionof the Christian who has been exalted from the human pride into thedivine humility of life, out of self to God. 

But I suggested at the outset that the word life was used in variousmeanings, and in connection with one or two of them I should like todevelop a little what is meant by this phrase the "pride oflife. " Life sometimes familiarly signifies what we otherwise callcircumstances. A man is said to "get on in life, " not with referenceto his growing older or growing healthier, but as he grows more rich, more prosperous. The pride of life in this sense would be the prideof success, which we see wherever men are struggling in this world ofcompetition. Look at the young merchant who is making a living. Thingsgo well with him. He rises from stratum to stratum of that commercialsystem whose geology is the ever-eluding study of the toilers of thestreet. He grows rich. His store begins to spread with the pressure ofnew enterprises. His house begins to blossom into the rich bloomof luxury. He is greeted with a new respect. He is courted with aneagerness he never knew before. Friends gather about him. His word hasweight. His name means money. He is successful. What is the result?Those facts in themselves signify nothing, let us remember, butmaterial capable of being made into one thing or another wholly itsopposite. These are the gift of the Father, every one of them, allthat profusion of life. But there is a possible effect of them all incharacter, a pride, which is not of the Father, but of the world. Witha morbid sympathy the man assimilates all that is poor and mean andworldly out of his prosperity, and rejects, because he has no affinityfor it, all that is good and sweet and heavenly. He is chilled andnarrowed and embittered. All the old sweetness and humility fade outof his nature. Need I tell you of it? Our streets are full of thepride of life. Its types only, its outer types flash in the splendidcarriages and blaze in the fronts of gaudy houses and sweep the floorsof drawing-rooms and the aisles of churches. Those types, the mereoutward trappings of success, are not wherein the badness lies. Thereality is in the hard hearts and selfish tempers and undocile mindswhich, in the splendor or the squalidness of wealth, show the sad ruinof self-sufficient success, the pride of life. 

The pride of life kills out the life itself. Is there a sadder picturethan you have in the life of a man, old or young, to whom God hassent prosperity, who by his own act then turns that prosperity into afailure by being proud of it? Christ Himself has told us how it is. The life is more than meat. He has no tolerance for this littlemeaning of a word that He made so large. The life is more than meat. Yes, life is meat and man, and to lose the best manhood to get themeat, to lose the soul to save the body, to fail of heaven above youand before you that you may own the ground under your feet, that isnot success but failure. "In all time of our prosperity, Good Lorddeliver us!" May God help you who are prosperous. 

I would speak again of what is called intellectual life, the life ofthought. It is "of the Father, " indeed. We picture to ourselvesthe pure joy of God in thought. Free from so many of our cumbrousprocesses, free from the limitations of slow-moving time, free fromall imperfection, with an instantaneous thought as is His being, theintellect that is the center of all reason revolves in its unfathomedmajesty. And man thinks too. God makes him think. God gives him powersto think with, and then, as when you pour for your child a stream ofwater out of your cisterns upon the wheels of the machinery that youhave first built for him, God gives man thoughts to exercise his powerof thinking upon. Can anything be more humble? The power was from God, the thoughts by which the power moves were God's thoughts first. "Oh, God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee, " cried John Kepler, when hecaught sight of the great law of planetary motion. But mere thought, self-satisfied, seeking no unity in God, owning no dependence, boasting of itself, counting it hardship that it cannot know all whereit knows so much, this is the pride of thought, and this is not of theFather, but is of the world. How arrogant it is! How it is jealous ofdictation, how it chafes under a hand that presses it down and a voicethat says to it, "Wait! what thou knowest not now thou shall; knowhereafter. " How carefully it limits its kind of evidence, shutting outeverything that sounds like personal communication, revelation, in itsimpatient independence; how studiously it orphans itself. And thenhow, in some moods, orphaned by its arrogance, it suddenly becomesintensely cognizant of its orphanage, and the child's hunger for aFather takes possession of its heart and it is dreary and miserable!

I always know, when I speak thus of types of men, that you will thinkthat I am talking of those types in their extreme specimens. I amnot speaking to-day of the miracles of physical vitality, nor of theover-successful men with their colossal fortunes, nor of the mightythinkers only. We all have our certain share in these various kinds oflife, and each of us may make his little share a seed of pride. Weare strangely ingenious here. We have an easy faculty of persuadingourselves that ours is best of everything and growing arrogant, unfilial and worldly over it. I speak to the men confident in theiryouth and health, to the merchants strong in their business credit, to the thoughtful brains at work over their problems of settling theuniverse for themselves. I warn them all against the pride of life. Iwould try to show them all that the same material which is capable ofbeing made into pride is capable also of being made into humility. Iwould tell them therefore that they have not to be made old or sick orpoor or stupid before they can be made humble, that the best humility, as well as the hardest, is that which can come to them here, right inthe midst of their strength and wealth and study!

Do you ask how that can be? It is time that I tried to tell you, triedto tell how one may be full of life and yet be free from the pride oflife. That question must somehow be answered, or else the world willbe condemned to choose forever between an arrogant prosperity and asalvation by misery, distress and disaster, by death. What do we needfor the salvation of a prosperous life? The answer in one word isconsecration. Consecration, that is what we need. There have been menin whom life seemed complete who have yet walked very humbly. They hadno pride of life. And why? Because always before them and above themthere stood some great principle, some idea, some duty to whichtheir life belonged, not to themselves. All work is modest, all idleself-contemplation is vain. And what the young man needs with hisvague aspirations and conceits is to make himself the servant of someworthy purpose. And what the merchant needs with his growing businessis to count himself the steward of some worthy Master. And what thestudent needs with his active mind is to trace the footsteps of theGod of wisdom in the path he walks and to count the reaching nearer toHim, the true prize and object of all thinking. Consecration! We areproud of life because we do so little with it. It is as if the bearerof dispatches sat down calmly and boasted of the well-made box inwhich they had been given to him, and never bore them to theirdestination. Life is force, to be transmitted and delivered to apurpose and an end. It loses its true nature and sweetness, itcorrupts into pride, when it is robbed of its true purpose andcherished only for itself. 

We can find our example of the consecrated man wherever we see truelives lived in history or about us now, in the Bible or in commonlife. Moses, David, Paul! But why look at the poor, imperfect copieswhen in our Lord Himself we have the consummate human life clothed inthe wondrous humility of His appointed work. The life of lives! andyet was ever any life so utterly free from the tawdry pride that makesour poor achievements so wretched and unsatisfying. You say He cutHimself off from all that men are proud of. Not so. He gave up houseand home, but he carried about with Him always the devotion of thepeople, the mystery of unknown power and the consciousness of greatwork and influence, the very things that have always seduced the bestmen most and in their highest labors made them proud. You say He wasdivine and so could not be humble. Yes, but He was profoundly humanalso, and humility is not subserviency or meanness. It is a grace notunworthy of, nay, necessary to, even the perfect humanity. But onething stands out always: His was the consecrated life. It was allgiven to its purpose. "He was called Jesus because he should save hispeople from their sins. " "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father'sbusiness?" "Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man shall bebetrayed. " "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into theworld, that I should bear witness unto the truth. " Everywhere theconsecration, a life appointed to an end, the face set to Jerusalem, the hands and feet waiting for the cross! Meanwhile it was the fullestlife, but lived so high that the "pride of life" lay all below underHis feet and out of sight. 

And our life must be consecrated even as His was. What shall theconsecration be? Far be it from me to undervalue the exaltation intohumility that comes to a man when he consecrates himself to any greatand noble cause. I believe that it helps to save any man from pridewhen he gives himself to his family or his country or his fellow men, to truth, to liberty, to purity, to anything outside of and abovehimself, but there is a consecration higher and fuller and more savingthan any such can be. We go back to the Cross. Jesus is dying therefor us. He dies and we are saved. What then? When a soul "knows itsfull salvation" and sees it all bought by, all wrapt up in, thatRedeemer, then in the outburst of a grateful love, he gives himselfto the Redeemer Christ. There is no hesitation, no keeping back ofanything. He is all offered up to Christ; and then to serve thatChrist, to follow Him, to do His will, to enter into Him, that isthe one great object of the whole consecrated life, and in thatconsecration, the straining of the life toward that One Object, the"pride of life" is swept down and drowned. Not merely the life then, but the use of the life, comes from the Father. It is not of theworld. The soul is saved!

The salvation of the Cross! Its center is the forgiveness of sinswhich the cross alone made possible; but is not its issue here, in thelifting of the soul above the pride of life and consecrating it in theprofoundest gratitude to "Him who redeemed us and washed us fromsins in His own blood"? What humility! What self-forgetfulness! Whatunworldliness! What utter childhood to the Father!

My friends, my people, would you be saved, saved from your sins, savedfrom yourselves, saved from the pride of life? You must be His thatyou may not be your own! He died for you that you might not henceforthlive to yourself but unto Him. You must be consecrated to your Savior. If there is one soul in my church to-day who is weary and dissatisfiedwith his self-slavery, I offer him Jesus for Savior, for Master! Ifany man thirst let him come unto Him and drink. Turn unto Him and beye saved! You can, you must! His service is life, life in its fullestbecause life in humility. Outside of His gospel and His service thereis the pride of life, and the pride of life is death. 

GLADDEN

THE PRINCE OF LIFE

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Washington Gladden, Congregational divine, was born at Pottsgrove, Pa. , in 1836. After graduating at Williams College he was ordainedpastor, and occupied pulpits in Brooklyn, Morrisania, N. Y. , andSpringfield, Mass. , until 1882, when he assumed charge of the FirstCongregational Church of Columbus, Ohio. He has also occupiededitorial positions, and has published many books on social and civilreform and the practical application of Christian truth to popular andcommon life. His style, whether he is writing or speaking, combinesvigor with grace. 

GLADDEN

BORN IN 1836

THE PRINCE OF LIFE[1]

[Footnote 1: From Mr. Gladden's "The New Idolatry. " By permission ofThe McClure Co. Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co. ]

_And killed the prince of life, whom God hath raised from thedead. _--Acts iii. , 15. 

This is the phrase with which Peter, in his great speech in the templeporch, describes the Master whose disciple he had been for three years, whose death he had witnessed on Calvary, and to whose resurrection fromthe dead he is now bearing witness. "The prince of life!" It is one ofthe many great titles conferred upon the Lord by those who loved Him. Reverence and devotion fell from their lips in lyrical cadences wheneverthey spoke of Him, and they wreathed for Him garlands of words withwhich they loved to deck His memory. He was "the Prophet of theHighest"; He was "the Great High Priest"; He was "the Shepherd of theSheep"; He was "the Captain of Salvation"; He was "the First Born ofMany Brethren"; He was "Redeemer, " "Reconciler, " "Savior. " Gratitude andaffection shaped many a tender phrase in which to describe Him, butthere is none, perhaps, more luminous or more comprehensive than thiswith which the impulsive Peter, facing the men who had put Him to death, gave utterance to his loyalty. Its pertinence is confirmed by the wordof Jesus Himself, in one of the sayings in which He described Hismission: "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have itabundantly. " Author and Giver of life He was, and what He gave He gavewith princely munificence--freely, unstintedly. 

The phrase seems to be one on which we may fitly dwell to-day, sincethe day of the year which commemorates His birth occurs on the day ofthe week which celebrates His resurrection. Both events proclaim Himthe Prince of Life. In the one He is the Bringer of new life, inthe other He is the Victor over death; and thus He becomes, in theimpassioned confessions of the apostle, the Alpha and the Omega, theAuthor and the Finisher of Faith, the First and the Last and theLiving One. 

Those who are familiar with the New Testament narration do not need tohave their attention called to the constant ministry of this Son ofMan to the vital needs of men. The impartation of life seems tohave been His main business. Somehow it came to be believed by themultitude, at the very beginning of His public ministry, that Hepossest some power of communicating life. The wonderful works ascribedto Him are nearly all of this character. The healing of the sick, thecleansing of the lepers, all resulted from the reenforcement of thevital energies of the sufferers. When He laid His hand upon men, newlife seemed to speed through their veins. We have known some whoseemed to have, in some imperfect way, this quickening touch. It isa physiological fact that warm blood from the veins of a thoroughlyhealthy person, transfused through the veins of one who is emaciatedor exhausted, quickens the wavering pulse and brings life to thedying. It may be that through the nerve tissues, as well as throughthe veins, the same vitalizing force may be communicated, and thatthose who are in perfect health, both of body and of mind, may havethe power of imparting life to those who are in need of it. Themiracles of healing ascribed to Jesus must have been miracles in theliteral sense; they were wonders, marvels--for that is what the wordmiracle means; that they were interruptions or violations of naturallaw is never intimated in the New Testament; they may have been purelynatural occurrences, taking place under the operation of naturallaws with which we are not familiar. We are far from knowing all thesecrets of this wonderful universe; the time may come when these wordsof Jesus will have larger meaning than we have ever given them: "If yeabide in me, the works that I do shall ye do also, and greater worksthan these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father. "

The fact to be noted is, however, that the people with whom Jesus wasbrought into contact were made aware in many ways of the impartationof His Life to them. "Of His fulness, " said John, "we all received, and grace for grace. " There seemed to be in Him a plenitude ofvitality, from which health and vigor flowed into the lives of thosewho came near to Him. Nor does this seem to have been any merephysical magnetism; there is no intimation that His physicalendowments were exceptional; the restoring and invigorating influenceoftener flowed from a deeper source. The physical renewal came as theresult of a spiritual quickening. He reached the body through thesoul. The order was, first, "Thy sins be forgiven thee"; then, "Ariseand walk. " If the spirit is thoroughly alive, the body more quicklyrecovers its lost vigor. And it was mainly in giving peace to troubledconsciences and rest to weary souls that He conferred upon those whoreceived Him the great boon of life. 

Thus Jesus proved Himself "the Prince of Life. " In the early ages ofthe Church the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, came to be described as"the Lord and Giver of Life"; but that was because He was believed tobe the Continuator of the work of Jesus--the spiritual Christ. 

There seems to be in this conception a great and beautiful revelationof the essential nature of Christianity. There are many ways ofconceiving of this, but I am not sure that any one of them is moresignificant than that which we are now considering. Those words ofJesus to which I have before referred are wonderful words when we cometo think upon them. They occur in that discourse in which He describesHimself first as the Good Shepherd, and contrasts Himself with thethieves and robbers who have been ravaging the flock. "The thiefcometh not, " He says, "but that he may steal and kill and destroy; Icame that they may have life, and may have it abundantly, " Have wenot here the great fundamental distinction between men--the line thatseparates the evil from the good, the just from the unjust, the sheepfrom the goats--that distinction which Jesus marks so clearly in Hisparable of judgment, and which must never, in our interpretations orphilosophizings, be blotted or blurred? Some are life-givers; some arelife-destroyers. "The thief cometh not but that he may steal andkill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and may have itabundantly. "

I do not suppose that Jesus meant in this to declare that there is alarge class of persons whose entire purpose it is to steal and killand destroy; probably there are none so malevolent that they do notcherish some kindly impulses and perform some generous deeds. It is adistinction between acts, or perhaps between tendencies of character, that He is making. He speaks in the concrete, as He always does; butHe expects us to make the proper application of His words. The fact towhich He guides our thought is this--that there are ways of living, forms of conduct, which are predatory and destructive of life, andother ways that tend to make life increase and abound. When Jesuscontrasts His own conduct, as one who gives life and gives itabundantly, with the thieves and robbers who kill and destroy, we mustinterpret the conduct of those whom He describes as destructive oflife--as tending to the diminution of life. Indeed, it is a very deepand awful truth that all our social action tends in one or other ofthese directions. Life, in its proper relation, is the one supreme andcentral good; the life of the body is the supreme good of the body;the life of the spirit is the supreme good of the spirit. And you canrightly estimate any act or habit or tendency of human conduct only bydetermining whether it increases and invigorates the life of men, bodyand spirit, or whether it reduces or diminishes their life. Good menare adding to the life of those with whom they have to do; evil menare debilitating and depleting the life of those with whom they haveto do. 

Even in our economic relations the final effect of all our conductupon those with whom we deal is to replenish or diminish their life. The wage question is at bottom a question of more or less life for thewage-worker. Starvation wages are wages by which the hold upon lifeof the wage-earner and his wife and children is weakened. Systems ofindustry are good in proportion as they enlarge and invigorate thelife of the whole population; evil in proportion as they lessen andweaken its life. So all industrial and national policies are to bejudged by the amount of life which they produce and maintain--life ofthe body and of the spirit. Those strong words of John Ruskin are theeverlasting truth:

"There is no wealth but life--life including all its powers of love, of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishesthe greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man isrichest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to theutmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and bymeans of his possessions, over the lives of others, "

We have here, as you see, the Christian conception--the very word ofthe Prince of Life, of Him who came that we might have life, and thatwe might have it abundantly. And when His kingdom has come, this willbe the end for which wealth is sought and used in every nation. 

It is possible to use wealth so that it shall be productive of life;so that the entire administration of it shall tend to the enlargementand enrichment of the life of men; so that the labor which it employsshall obtain an increasing share of the goods which it produces; sothat all the conditions under which that labor is performed shall befavorable to health and life and happiness; so that the spirituallife, also, of all who are employed shall be nourished by inspiringthem with good-will and kindness, with the confidence in man whichhelps us to have faith in God. Such an administration of wealth isperhaps the very best testimony to the reality of the truth of theChristian religion which it is possible to bear in this day andgeneration. One who handles capital with this clear purpose can domore to establish in the earth the kingdom of heaven than any ministeror missionary can do. 

But it is possible to use wealth in the opposite way, so that it shallbe destructive rather than productive of life. A man may manage hisindustry in such a way that the last possible penny shall be takenfrom wages and added to profit; in such a way that the health of hisemployees shall be impaired and their happiness blighted and theirhope taken, away. He may do this while maintaining an outwardlyreligious behavior and giving large sums to philanthropy. But sucha handling of wealth does more to make infidels than any hereticalteacher or lecturer ever did or can do. 

The fact needs to be noted that all the predatory schemes by whichcapital is successfully inflated and nefariously manipulated, and thecommunity is thus burdened, are deadly attacks upon the life of thepeople. They filch away the earnings of the laboring classes. Theyincrease the cost of rent and transportation and all the necessariesof life. They extort from the people contributions for which noequivalent has been given, of commodity or service. Thus the burden oftoil is increased and the reward of industry is lessened for all whowork; the surplus out of which life would be replenished is consumed, and the amount of life in the nation at large is lessened. Every oneof those schemes of frenzied finance about which we are readingin these days is a gigantic bloodsucker, with ten million minutetentacles which it stealthily fastens upon the people who do theworld's work, and each one of the victims must give up a little of hislife for the aggrandizement of our financial Titans. When such schemesflourish, by which men's gains are suddenly swollen to enormousproportions, somebody must be paying for it, and life is always thefinal payment. It all comes out of the life of the people who areproducing the world's wealth. The plethora of the few is the depletionof the millions. In every great aggregation of workers, the faces ofthe underfed are a little paler and the pulses of the children beat alittle less joyously, and the feet are hastened on that journey tothe tomb--all because of those who come to steal and to kill and todestroy. 

Such is the contrast between beneficent business and maleficentbusiness. The good business employs men, feeds them, clothes them, shelters them, generously distributes among them the goods thatnourish life; the bad business contrives to levy tribute on theresources out of which they are fed and clad and nourished, and thusenriches itself by impoverishing the life of the multitude. 

And I suppose that we should all find, whether we are engaged in whatis called business or not, that the work which we are doing, the wayin which we are spending our time and gaining our income, is tendingeither to the enlargement and increase of the life of those with whomwe have to do or to the impoverishment and destruction of their life;and that this is the final test by which we must be judged--are weproducers of life or destroyers of life? Is there more of life in theworld--more of physical and spiritual life--because of what we are andwhat we do, or is the physical and spiritual vitality of men lessenedby what we are and what we do? Are we helping men to be stronger andsounder in body and mind and soul for the work of life, or are wemaking them feebler in muscle and will and moral stamina?

When Jesus Christ came into the world the civilization prevailing--ifsuch it could be called--was under the dominion of those who cameto steal and to kill and to destroy. Rome was the world, and thecivilization of Rome, with all its splendor, was at bottom a predatorycivilization. It overran all its neighbors that it might subjugate anddespoil them; its whole social system was based on a slavery in whichthe enslaved were merely chattels; the life of its ruling class wasfed by the literal devouring of the lives of subject classes. Ofcourse, this civilization was decadent. That terrible decline and fallwhich Gibbon has pictured was in full progress. It was in the midst ofthis awful scene that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. Can anyonedoubt that His heart was full of divine compassion for those who weretrampled on and preyed upon by the cruel and the strong, for thosewhose lives were consumed by the avarice and greed of their fellows?What did He mean when, at the beginning of His ministry in the synagogwhere He had always worshiped, He took in his hand the roll of theprophet Isaiah and read therefrom: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; hehath sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sightto the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim theacceptable year of the Lord"--adding as He sat down, under the gaze ofthe congregation, "To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in yourears"? What could He have meant but this, that it was His mission tochange the entire current and tendency of human life; to put an end tothe plunderers and devourers; to chain the wolfish passion in humanhearts which prompts men to steal and to kill and to destroy; toinspire them with His own divine compassion; to give life and to giveit abundantly? And is it not true that so far as men do receive of Hisfulness, so far as they are brought under the control of His spirit, they do cease to be destroyers and devourers of the bodies and soulsof their fellows, and become helpers, saviors, life-bringers? And isnot this included in His meaning when He says: "I am come that theymay have life, and that they may have it abundantly"?

To-day, then, we hail Him as Prince of Life, the glorious Giver to menof the one supreme and crowning good. And the manner of the giving isnot hard to understand. He gives life by kindling in our hearts theflame of sacred love. Love is life. Love to God and man brings thesoul into unity with itself; it is obeying its own organic law, andobedience to its law brings to any organism life and health andpeace. If the spirit of Christ has become the ruling principle of ourconduct, then we have entered into life, and it is a life that knowsno term; it is the immortal life. If the spirit of Christ has enteredinto our lives, then in all our relations with others life isincreased; we are by nature givers of good; out of our lives areforever flowing healing, restoring, saving, vitalizing influences; andwhen all the members of the society in which we move have receivedthis spirit and manifest it, there are none to bite and devour, tohurt and destroy; the predatory creatures have ceased their ravages, and the world rejoices in the plenitude of life which He came tobring. 

We hail Him, then, to-day, as the Lord and Giver of life. We desire toshare with Him the unspeakable gift, and to share it, as best we may, with all our fellow men. What we freely receive from Him, we wouldfreely give. What the whole world needs to-day is life, more life, fuller life, larger life. We spend all our energies in heaping up themeans of life, and never really begin to live; our strength is wasted, our health is broken, our intellects are impoverished, our affectionsare withered, our peace is destroyed in our mad devotion to thatwhich is only an adjunct or appendage of life. Oh, if we could onlyunderstand how good a thing it is to live, just to live, truly andfreely and largely and nobly, to live the life that is life indeed!

Shall we not draw to this Prince of Life and take from Him the giftthat He came to bring? Is not this the one thing needful? We arereading and hearing much in these days of the simple life. What is itbut the life into which they are led who take the yoke of this Masterupon them and learn of Him? It is a most cheering omen that thislittle book of Pastor Wagner's is falling into so many hands andlittering its ingenuous and persuasive plea before so many mindsand in so many homes. If we heed it, it must bring us back to thesimplicity of Christ. Pastor Wagner is only preaching over again theSermon on the Mount; it is nothing but the teaching of Jesus broughtdown to this day and applied to the conditions of our complexcivilization. It is the true teaching; none of us can doubt it. And Iwish that we could all begin the new year with the earnest purpose toput ourselves under the leadership of the Prince of Life. I know thatwe should find His yoke easy and His burden light, and that therewould be rest for our souls in the paths into which He would lead us. We should know, if we shared His life, that we were really living; andwe should know also that we wore helping others to live; that we weredoing what we could to put an end to the ravages of the destroyers andthe devourers, and to fill the earth with the abundance of peace. 

Is not this, fellow men, the right way to live? Does not all that isdeepest and divinest in you consent to this way of life into whichJesus Christ is calling us, as the right way, the royal way, theblessed way? Choose it, then, with all the energy of your volition, and walk in it with a glad heart and a hope that maketh not ashamed. 

CLIFFORD

THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

John Clifford, Baptist divine, was born at Lawley, Derbyshire, in 1836. He was educated at the Baptist College, Nottingham, andUniversity College, London. He has had much editorial as well asministerial experience and has published a number of works uponreligious, educational and social questions. The Rev. William Durban, the editor, writing from London of John Clifford in the _HomileticReview_, styles him "the renowned Baptist preacher, undoubtedly themost conspicuous figure in his own denomination. " He speaks of "theprofundity of thought, " "simplicity and beauty of diction, " the"compactness of argument" and "instructive expository character" ofthis preacher's discourses. 

CLIFFORD

BORN IN 1836

THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

_I believe in the forgiveness of sins_. --Apostles' Creed. 

This is the first note of personal experience in the Apostles' Creed. We here come into the society of men like John Bunyan and go withthem through the wicket-gate of repentance, through the Slough ofDespond, getting out on the right side of it, reaching at length thecross, to find the burden fall from our backs as we look upon Him whodied for us; and then we travel on our way until we come to the Riverof Death and cross it, discovering that it is not so deep after all, and that on the other side is the fulness of the life everlasting. 

It is a new note, and it is a little surprizing--is it not?--to moststudents of this creed that we should have to travel through so manyclauses before we reach it. It scarcely seems to be in keeping withthe spirit and temper of the early Christian Church that we shouldhave all this analysis of thought, this statement of the facts ofChristian revelation, this testimony as to the power of the HolySpirit, before we get any utterance as to that individual faith bywhich the Christian Church has been created, and owing to which therehas been the helpful and inspiring fellowship of the saints. 

I say it is a new note, but it is fundamental. When the Creed doestouch the inward life, it goes straight to that which is central--tothat which is preeminently evangelical. Without the doctrine of theforgiveness of sins you could have no good news for a sinful world;but with the assertion of this faith as the actual faith of the man, you have possibilities of service, the upspringing of altruism, theconquest of self, the enthronement of Christ, the advancement ofhumanity after the likeness of Jesus Christ. 

A note it is which is not only fundamental but most musical, harmonious and gladdening. In the ancient Psalms we hear itoft--"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless hisholy name, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thydiseases. " It recurs in the prophets: "I, the Lord, am he thatblotteth out thy sins; yea, tho they be as a thick cloud, I will blotthem out. " It is the highest note reached by the singers of the OldTestament; but it comes to us with greater resonance and sweetnessfrom the lips of the men who have stood in the presence of JesusChrist, and who are able to say, as they look into the faces of theirfellows: "Be it known unto you that through this man is preached untoyou the forgiveness of sins from which you could not have been freedby the law of Moses. " With emphasis, with, strength, with fulness ofconviction, with gladdening rapture, these men proclaimed their faithin the forgiveness of sins, and tho the Creed of the churches travelsslowly after the faith of the early Church, its last note sounds outa note of triumph: "I believe in the forgiveness of sins, theresurrection of the body, and life everlasting. "

It is the crown of the whole Creed. It is the flowering of the truthsthat are contained in the Creed. Let a man understand God, and let himhave such a vision of the Eternal as Job had, and he is constrained tosay, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. " He desires firstand chiefly to know that the true relation between the human spiritand God which has been broken by sin has at length been rearranged, and that sin is no longer an obstacle to the soul's converse with aholy God, but that the ideal relation of the human spirit with thedivine spirit is reestablished by the proclamation of forgiveness. For, as you know, pardon is not the extinguishing of a man's past;that cannot be done. What has been done by us of good or evil abides, it endures; not God Himself can extinguish the deeds of the past. Whatforgiveness does is this: it rearranges the relations between thespirit of man and our Father, so that the sins of the past are nolonger an obstacle to us in our speech with Him, our trust in Him--ourusing the energies of God for the accomplishment of His purposes. Itis the restoration of the human spirit to right relations with God. Forgiveness of sins conies, therefore, at the very start of a rightlife. It is the beginning. All else in the spiritual life succeedsupon this. 

I know there is a theory among us, and I am prepared to endorse it, that, if we are trained by godly parents in godly homes, we may growinto the spiritual life, pass into it, as it were, by stages which itis impossible for us to register. We are largely unconscious ofthese spiritual ascents; they are being made by the gracious useof influences that are in our environment, that reach us throughsanctified folk, and we travel on from strength to strength, and, then, perchance, in our young manhood or womanhood, there comes acrisis of revelation, and we discover that we are in such relationswith God our Father, Redeemer, and Renewer as fill us with peace, create hope and conscious strength. But I assure you that in additionto this experience there will come, it may be early, it may be late, some moment in the life when there is discovered to the individualspirit making that ascent a sense of the awful heinousness of sin; andtho we may not have such a unique experience of evil as the ApostlePaul had, and become so conscious of it as to feel, as it were, thatit is a dead body that we have to carry about with us as we go throughlife, interfering with the very motions of our spirit; yet we doapproximate to it, and it is through these approximations tothe Apostle Paul that we are lifted to the heights of spiritualachievement, and are qualified for sympathy with a sin-stricken world, and inspired by and nourished in a passionate enthusiasm to serve thatworld by bringing it into right relations with God. 

When, therefore, a man says, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, " he is asserting that which, being turnedto its full and true use, carries him to this goal, "I believe in theforgiveness of sins. " For a full and true doctrine of God can onlybe heartily welcomed when it is associated with the message of theforgiveness of sins. Otherwise the visions of the eternal Power maystart in us the cry of Peter: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord, " When a man asserts his faith in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was crucified, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, whodied on the cross; he is himself asserting his faith in the greatpurpose for which God sent His Son; even to take away the sin ofthe world, to make an end of iniquity, to bring in an everlastingrighteousness; and so out of that faith he prepared for the responsewhich the soul makes to the workings of the Spirit, the Holy Ghostwithin him, and he is able to say from his own knowledge of what Godhas been to him, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins. "

Friends, you have said this again and again, some of you hundreds oftimes. You have asserted it week by week. What did you mean by it?What exactly was the thought in your heart as the words passed overyour lips, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins"? Was it simply therecognition of a universal amnesty for a world of rebels? Was itmerely the assertion of your confidence in the goodness of Godirrespective of His holiness? Or when you uttered that faith of yours, did it mean that you were able to say, "My sins, which were many, are all forgiven. My sins are forgiven, not may be--that pardon is aglorious possibility only--but are forgiven, not will be forgiven atsome future time. I am now at peace with God through faith, in ourLord Jesus Christ"? Could you say that? Was that what it meant; or wasit simply the repetition of a phrase which has been handed down toyou by your predecessors, and which you took up as part of an orderedservice, without putting the slightest fiber of your soul into it?

Depend upon it, the mere recitation of a creed will not bring youGod's peace, it will not open your heart to the access of His infinitecalm. It will not secure you that emancipation from evil which willmean immediate dedication of yourself to work for the emancipationof the world. You must know of yourself, of your own heart andconsciousness, that God has forgiven you. And if you do get thatconsciousness, that moment of your life will be marked indelibly uponthe tablet of your memory. The dint will go so deeply into your naturethat it will be impossible for you to forget it. Speaking for myself, I can at this moment see the whole surroundings of the place and timewhen to me there came the glad tidings, "God has forgiven you. " "Godwas in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning untomen their trespasses. "

Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then preach it. Tell itto other people. Let your neighbors know about it. I do not meanby preaching at the street corners, but by getting into such closeaffectionate touch, with your friends as that you shall be able topersuade them to disinter the thoughts of their own hearts, and showthe sorrows that are there--sorrows produced by sin. For, believe me, behind all the bright seeming of human countenances there is a subtlebitterness gnawing constantly at the heart, consequent upon theconsciousness of failure--the sense of having broken the law of God. Iknow that hundreds of people go into the church and tell God that theyare miserable sinners. They do that in a crowd; it is saying nothing. They no more think of saying it in such a way as to place themselvesapart from their fellows than they would of saying: "I am a thief!"

Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? What, then, are you goingto do with your faith?

Prove your faith by your works. Every time you ask God for forgivenessyou should feel yourself pledged to a most strenuous and resolutefight with the sin you ask God to forgive. The acceptance of pardonpledges you to the pursuit of holiness, and yet we have to keep onwith this doctrine, because it is not only the very beginning of theChristian life, but also the continuous need of that life. 

We have to say night by night, "Forgive the ill that I this day havedone. " And if we say it as we ought, as really believing that Godforgives us, so that we may not lose heart, may never encouragedespair of final victory, we shall get up next morning resolved tomake a fiercer fight than ever with the evil that sent us on our kneeslast night. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Let the joy ofit come to you, and as your own heart overflows with the fulness ofthat joy, declare unto others God's salvation, and teach transgressorsHis way. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then find in thatfaith an impact to obedience to the law of Jesus: "Be ye perfect evenas your Father in heaven is perfect"; and do not forget that He whobegins the good work in you with His pardon will carry it on to theday of Jesus Christ; so that you may add the last words of theCreed: "I believe in the resurrection from the dead and in the lifeeverlasting. "

It is not altogether a good sign that we have pushed eternity out ofour modern thought. Confronted as man is every moment by a sense ofthe fragility and the brevity of human life, it is not surprizingthat we should welcome everybody who comes with a message concerningeternity. 

Is there not, in truth, beauty in the old Anglo-Saxon story of thebird that shot in at one open window of the large assembly hall andout at another, where were gathered together a great company of thanesand vassals; and when the missionary was asked to speak to themconcerning God and His salvation, the thane who was presiding roseand said, recalling the bird's speedy flight from side to side ofthe hall, "Such is our life, and if this man can tell us anythingconcerning the place to which we are going, let him stand up and beheard. " Brothers, a few days may carry us into eternity. "Boast notthyself of to-morrow, thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. "Strong, hopeful, rich in promise of service is to-day; to-morrowfriends may be weeping, kith and kin full of sorrow for ourdeparture. This life does not end all; we are going to an eternity ofblessedness, to progress without limit, to an assimilation with Godthat shall know no sudden break or failure, but shall be perfect, evenas He is perfect. 

MOODY

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dwight Lyman Moody, the evangelist, was born at Northfield, Massachusetts, in 1837, and died in 1899. As a business man he broughtto his evangelistic work exceptional tact, initiative, and executiveability, but the main source of his power lay in his knowledge of theBible, his constant companion. In preaching he largely disregardedform, and thought little of the sermon as such. His one overwhelmingand undeviating purpose was to lead men to Christ. His speaking was ina kind of monotone, but his straightforward plainness never failed tobe effective. He usually held the Bible in his hand while speaking, so that there was little of gesture. His great sympathetic nature isspoken of by Henry Drummond in these words:

"If eloquence is measured by its effect upon an audience, and not byits balanced sentences and cumulative periods, then this is eloquenceof the highest sort. In sheer persuasiveness Mr. Moody has few equals, and rugged as his preaching may seem to some, there is in it a pathosof a quality which few orators have ever reached, and an appealingtenderness which not only wholly redeems it, but raises it, notunseldom, almost to sublimity. "

MOODY

1837--1899

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?[1]

[Footnote 1: By permission of the Fleming H. Revell Company, owners ofcopyright. ]

_What think ye of Christ_?--Matt, xxii. , 42. 

I suppose there is no one here who has not thought more or less aboutChrist. You have heard about Him, and read about Him, and heard menpreach about Him. For eighteen hundred years men have been talkingabout Him and thinking about Him; and some have their minds made upabout who He is, and doubtless some have not. And altho all theseyears have rolled away, this question comes up, addresst to each ofus, to-day, "What think ye of Christ?"

I do not know why it should not be thought a proper question for oneman to put to another. If I were to ask you what you think of any ofyour prominent men, you would already have your mind made up abouthim. If I were to ask you what you thought of your noble queen, youwould speak right out and tell me your opinion in a minute. 

If I were to ask about your prime minister, you would tell me freelywhat you had for or against him. And why should not people make uptheir minds about the Lord Jesus Christ, and take their stand for oragainst Him? If you think well of Him, why not speak well of Him andrange yourselves on His side? And if you think ill of Him, and believeHim to be an impostor, and that He did not die to save the world, whynot lift up your voice and say you are against Him? It would be ahappy day for Christianity if men would just take sides--if we couldknow positively who is really for Him and who is against Him. 

It is of very little importance what the world thinks of any one else. The queen and the statesman, the peers and the princes, must soon begone. Yes; it matters little, comparatively, what we think of them. Their lives can only interest a few; but every living soul on the faceof the earth is concerned with this Man. The question for the worldis, "What think ye of Christ?"

I do not ask you what you think of the Established Church, or of thePresbyterians, or the Baptists, or the Roman Catholics; I do not askyou what you think of this minister or that, of this doctrine or that;but I want to ask you what you think of the living person of Christ?

I should like to ask, Was He really the Son of God--the great God-Man?Did He leave heaven and come down to this world for a purpose? Was itreally to seek and to save? I should like to begin with the manger, and to follow Him up through the thirty-three years He was here uponearth. I should ask you what you think of His coming into this worldand being born in a manger when it might have been a palace; why Heleft the grandeur and the glory of heaven, and the royal retinue ofangels; why He passed by palaces and crowns and dominion and came downhere alone. 

I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a teacher. He spakeas never man spake. I should like to take Him up as a preacher. Ishould like to bring you to that mountain-side, that we might listento the words as they fall from His gentle lips. Talk about thepreachers of the present day! I would rather a thousand times be fiveminutes at the feet of Christ than listen a lifetime to all the wisemen in the world. He used just to hang truth upon anything. Yonder isa sower, a fox, a bird, and He just gathers the truth around them, sothat you cannot see a fox, a sower, or a bird, without thinking whatJesus said. Yonder is a lily of the valley; you cannot see it withoutthinking of His words, "They toil not, neither do they spin. "

He makes the little sparrow chirping in the air preach to us. Howfresh those wonderful sermons are, how they live to-day! How we loveto tell them to our children, how the children love to hear! "Tell mea story about Jesus, " how often we hear it; how the little ones loveHis sermons! No story-book in the world will ever interest them likethe stories that He told. And yet how profound He was; how He puzzledthe wise men; how the scribes and the Pharisees would never fathomHim! Oh, do you not think He was a wonderful preacher?

I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a physician. A manwould soon have a reputation as a doctor if he could cure as Christdid. No case was ever brought to Him but what He was a match for. Hehad but to speak the word, and disease fled before Him. Here comes aman covered with leprosy. 

"Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean, " he cried. 

"I will, " says the Great Physician, and in an instant the leprosy isgone. The world has hospitals for incurable diseases; but there wereno incurable diseases with Him. 

Now, see Him in the little home at Bethany, binding up the woundedhearts of Martha and Mary, and tell me what you think of Him asa comforter. He is a husband to the widow and a father to thefatherless. The weary may find a resting-place upon that breast, andthe friendless may reckon Him their friend. He never varies. He neverfails, He never dies. His sympathy is ever fresh, His love is everfree. Oh, widow and orphans, oh, sorrowing and mourning, will you notthank God for Christ the comforter?

But these are not the points I wish to take up. Let us go to those whoknew Christ, and ask what they thought of Him. If you want to find outwhat a man is nowadays, you inquire about him from those who know himbest. I do not wish to be partial; we will go to His enemies, and toHis friends. We will ask them, What think ye of Christ? We will askHis friends and His enemies. If we only went to those who liked Him, you would say:

"Oh, he is so blind; he thinks so much of the man that he can't seeHis faults. You can't get anything out of him unless it be in Hisfavor; it is a one-sided affair altogether. "

So we shall go in the first place to His enemies, to those who hatedHim, persecuted Him, curst and slew Him. I shall put you in thejury-box, and call upon them to tell us what they think of Him. 

First, among the witnesses, let us call upon the Pharisees. Weknow how they hated Him. Let us put a few questions to them. "Come, Pharisees, tell us what you have against the Son of God, What do youthink of Christ?" Hear what they say! "This man receiveth sinners. "What an argument to bring against Him! Why, it is the very thing thatmakes us love Him. It is the glory of the gospel. He receives sinners. If He had not, what would have become of us? Have you nothing moreto bring against Him than this? Why, it is one of the greatestcompliments that was ever paid Him. Once more: when He was hanging onthe tree, you had this to say to Him, "He saved others, but He couldnot save Himself and save us too. " So He laid down His own life foryours and mine. Yes, Pharisees, you have told the truth for once inyour lives! He saved others. He died for others. He was a ransom formany; so it is quite true what you think of Him--He saved others, Himself He cannot save. 

Now, let us call upon Caiaphas. Let him stand up here in his flowingrobes; let us ask him for his evidence. "Caiaphas, you were chiefpriest when Christ was tried; you were president of the Sanhedrin; youwere in the council-chamber when they found Him guilty; you yourselfcondemned Him. Tell us; what did the witnesses say? On what groundsdid you judge Him? What testimony was brought against Him?" "He hathspoken blasphemy, " says Caiaphas. "He said, 'Hereafter you shall seethe Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in theclouds of heaven. ' When I heard that, I found Him guilty of blasphemy;I rent my mantle and condemned Him to death. " Yes, all that they hadagainst Him was that He was the Son of God; and they slew Him for thepromise of His coming for His bride!

Now let us summon Pilate. Let him enter the witness-box. 

"Pilate, this man was brought before you; you examined Him; you talkedwith Him face to face; what think you of Christ?"

"I find no fault in him, " says Pilate. "He said he was the King ofthe Jews [just as He wrote it over the cross]; but I find no fault inhim. " Such is the testimony of the man who examined Him! And, as Hestands there, the center of a Jewish mob, there comes along a manelbowing his way in haste. He rushes up to Pilate, and, thrusting outhis hand, gives him a message. He tears it open; his face turns paleas he reads--"Have thou nothing to do with this just man, for I havesuffered many things this day in a dream because of him. " It is fromPilate's wife--her testimony to Christ. You want to know what Hisenemies thought of Him? You want to know what a heathen, thought?Well, here it is, "no fault in him"; and the wife of a heathen, "thisjust man. "

And now, look--in comes Judas. He ought to make a good witness. Let usaddress him. "Come, tell us, Judas, what think ye of Christ? Youknew the Master well; you sold Him for thirty pieces of silver; youbetrayed Him with a kiss; you saw Him perform those miracles; you werewith Him in Jerusalem. In Bethany, when He summoned up Lazarus, youwere there. What think you of Him?" I can see him as he comes into thepresence of the chief priests; I can hear the money ring as he dashesit upon the table, "I have betrayed innocent blood!" Here is the manwho betrayed Him, and this is what he thinks of Him! Yes, those whowere guilty of His death put their testimony on record that He was aninnocent man. 

Let us take the centurion who was present at the execution. He hadcharge of the Roman soldiers. He told them to make Him carry Hiscross; he had given orders for the nails to be driven into His feetand hands, for the spear to be thrust in His side. Let the centurioncome forward. "Centurion, you had charge of the executioners; you sawthat the order for His death was carried out; you saw Him die; youheard Him speak upon the cross. Tell us, what think you of Christ?"Hark! Look at him; he is smiting his breast as he cries, "Truly, thiswas the son of God!"

I might go to the thief upon the cross, and ask what he thought ofHim. At first he railed upon Him and reviled Him. But then he thoughtbetter of it: "This man hath done nothing amiss, " he says. 

I might go further. I might summon the very devils themselves and askthem for their testimony. Have they anything to say of Him? Why, thevery devils called Him the Son of God! In Mark we have the uncleanspirit crying, "Jesus, thou Son of the most high God. " Men say, "Oh, I believe Christ to be the Son of God, and because I believe itintellectually I shall be saved. " I tell you the devils did that. Andthey did more than that, they trembled. 

Let us bring in His friends. We want you to hear their evidence. Letus call that prince of preachers. Let us hear the forerunner; noneever preached like this man--this man who drew all Jerusalem and allJudea into the wilderness to hear him; this man who burst upon thenations like the flash of a meteor. Let John the Baptist come with hisleathern girdle and his hairy coat, and let him tell us what he thinksof Christ. His words, tho they were echoed in the wilderness ofPalestine, are written in the Book forever, "Behold the Lamb of Godwhich taketh away the sin of the world!" This is what John the Baptistthought of him. "I bear record that He is the Son of God. " No wonderhe drew all Jerusalem and Judea to him, because he preached Christ. And whenever men preach Christ, they are sure to have plenty offollowers. 

Let us bring in Peter, who was with Him on the mount oftransfiguration, who was with Him the night He was betrayed. Come, Peter, tell us what you think of Christ. Stand in this witness-box andtestify of Him. You denied Him once. You said, with a curse, you didnot know Him. Was it true, Peter? Don't you know Him? "Know Him!" Ican imagine Peter saying: "It was a lie I told then. I did knowHim. " Afterward I can hear him charging home their guilt upon theseJerusalem sinners. He calls Him "both Lord and Christ. " Such was thetestimony on the day of Pentecost. "God had made that same Jesusboth Lord and Christ. " And tradition tells us that when they came toexecute Peter he felt he was not worthy to die in the way his Masterdied, and he requested to be crucified with the head downward. So muchdid Peter think of Him!

Now let us hear from the beloved disciple John. He knew more aboutChrist than any other man. He had laid his head on his Savior's bosom. He had heard the throbbing of that loving heart. Look into his Gospelif you wish to know what he thought of Him. 

Matthew writes of Him as the royal king come from His throne. Markwrites of Him as the servant, and Luke of the Son of Man. John takesup his pen, and, with one stroke, forever settles the question ofUnitarianism. He goes right back before the time of Adam. "In thebeginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word wasGod. " Look into Revelation. He calls him "the bright and the morningstar. " So John thought well of Him--because he knew Him well. 

We might bring in Thomas, the doubting disciple. You doubted Him, Thomas? You would not believe He had risen, and you put your fingersinto the wound in His side. What do you think of Him?

"My Lord and my God!" says Thomas. 

Then go over to Decapolis and you will find Christ has been therecasting out devils. Let us call the men of that country and ask whatthey think of Him. "He hath done all things well, " they say. 

But we have other witnesses to bring in. Take the persecuting Saul, once one of the worst of his enemies. Breathing out threatenings hemeets Him. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" says Christ. Hemight have added, "What have I done to you? Have I injured you in anyway? Did I not come to bless you? Why do you treat Me thus, Saul?" Andthen Saul asks, "Who art thou, Lord?"

"I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. " You see, He was notashamed of His name, altho He had been in heaven; "I am Jesus ofNazareth. " What a change did that one interview make to Saul! A fewyears afterward we hear him say, "I have suffered the loss of allthings, and do count them but dross that I may win Christ. " Such atestimony to the Savior!

But I shall go still further. I shall go away from earth into theother world. I shall summon the angels and ask what they think ofChrist. They saw Him in the bosom of the Father before the world was. Before the dawn of creation, before the morning stars sang together, He was there. They saw Him leave the throne and come down to themanger. What a scene for them to witness! Ask these heavenly beingswhat they thought of Him then. For once they are permitted to speak;for once the silence of heaven is broken. Listen to their song on theplains of Bethlehem, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in thecity of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. " He leaves thethrone to save the world. Is it a wonder the angels thought well ofHim?

Then there are the redeemed saints--they that see Him face toface. Here on earth He was never known, no one seemed really to beacquainted with Him; but He was known in that world where He had beenfrom the foundation. What do they think of Him there? If we could hearfrom heaven we should hear a shout which would glorify and magnify Hisname. We are told that when John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and being caught up, he heard a shout around him, ten thousand timesten thousand, and thousands and thousands of voices, "Worthy is theLamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, andstrength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!" Yes, He is worthy ofall this. Heaven cannot speak too well of Him. Oh, that earth wouldtake up the echo and join with heaven in singing, "Worthy to receivepower, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, andblessing!"

But there is still another witness, a higher still. Some think thatthe God of the Old Testament is the Christ of the New. But when Jesuscame out to Jordan, baptized by John, there came a voice from heaven. God the Father spoke. It was His testimony to Christ: "This is mybeloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. " Ah, yes! God the Fatherthinks well of the Son. And if God is well pleased with Him, so oughtwe to be. If the sinner and God are well pleased with Christ, then thesinner and God can meet. The moment you say, as the Father said, "I amwell pleased with Him, " and accept Him, you are wedded to God. Willyou not believe the testimony? Will you not believe this witness, thislast of all, the Lord of hosts, the King of kings himself? Once morehe repeats it, so that all may know it. With Peter and James and John, on the mount of transfiguration, He cries again, "This is my belovedSon; hear him. " And that voice went echoing and reechoing throughPalestine, through all the earth from sea to sea; yes, that voice isechoing still, Hear Him! Hear Him!

My friend will you hear Him to-day? Hark! what is He saying to you?"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will giveyou rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek andlowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yokeis easy, and my burden is light. " Will you not think well of such aSavior? Will you not believe in Him? Will you not trust in Him withall your heart and mind? Will you not live for Him? If He laid downHis life for us, is it not the least we can do to lay down ours forHim? If He bore the cross and died on it for me, ought I not to bewilling to take it up for Him? Oh, have we not reason to think well ofHim? Do you think it is right and noble to lift up your voice againstsuch a Savior? Do you think it is just to cry, "Crucify Him! crucifyHim!" Oh, may God help all of us to glorify the Father, by thinkingwell of His only-begotten Son. 

FOWLER

THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Charles H. Fowler, Methodist Episcopal divine, was born 1837 inBurford, Ontario, Canada, was educated at Syracuse University and theGarrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill. He was ordained in 1861and after filling pastorates in many places was made president ofthe Northwestern University in 1872, but vacated this post to becomeeditor of the _Christian Advocate_; four years later he was appointedmissionary secretary and in 1884 was elected bishop. He was well-knownas an able preacher and administrator. He died in 1908. 

FOWLER

1837--1908

THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST

_Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none ofhis_. --Rom. Viii. , 9. 

I read that with the conviction that it is one of the most searchingpassages that can be found in the Book of God. It takes hold of thequestion of our salvation as a very substantial and thorough question. It removes indefinitely, almost infinitely, from this problem of ourdestiny, all shadow of uncertainty or of doubt. It brings us squarelyto the facts in our character. On the force of this Scripture we areborne up on to a platform where we stand with our hearts uncovered andnaked before the eye of God. 

This means that the saint must be great in the arduous greatness ofthings achieved; that there is no chance for sainthood by any fixt, imputed plan, but that our real selves shall test and make our realfuture. 

I never read this Scripture in the presence of a Christiancongregation without feeling that I have in some way chopped downthrough every heart with a great broadaxe. There is no whitewashingthis passage: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is noneof his. " Not, "He will do tolerably well, but not quite as well as hemight do"; not that he will get on after a fashion, and have quite arespectable entrance into the city of the great King, tho he may notpush quite as far toward the front as he might have done if he had hadthe Spirit of the Lord Jesus. Not that at all; but, if any man havenot the Spirit of Christ, there is not the remotest shadow of a chancefor him: "he is none of his. "

And so I put this at you, asking you, on account of the great factthat you are going hence, to so apply this critical test to yourhearts and lives that you may see and feel your need, and that you maytake hold on the great supply, and have that actual transformation ofcharacter that will justify you in believing that you have the Spiritof Christ. 

The success of the missionary cause turns upon exactly the spirit ofthis text. I have no faith in the final triumph, of the missionarycause based upon any other ground than that of the honest, deep-downconviction of the people of God that the Lord God of Heaven wants thiswork done. I am here as a believer in a supernatural gospel--not withphilosophy that may be framed out of the human life of Jesus, but witha religion that is based upon the supernatural life of the divineChrist. And I appeal to you on this subject of missions as to acompany of men who believe in the divine authority of the Book of God;who believe in a blood atonement; who believe in salvation by faithonly; who believe in the pardon of sin and in the regeneration of yournatures; who believe in the power of the Holy Ghost; who believe, inshort, in the sum and substance of an old-fashioned orthodoxy. And Iput this cause upon you as such believers, knowing that, if suchis your position, you have at least the large part of the argumentwrought into the very fiber of your being, by which you cannot stopshort of the conviction that what you have need of for your salvationother people will need for their salvation. You know that you need adivine Redeemer; you know that you need the divine pardoning of yoursins; you know that you need the supernatural and divine cleansing ofyour hearts; you know that you need the divine, unbreakable promises;you know that you need this Word, and the way to salvation set forthin this Book of God, by which you know that there is none other namegiven under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved. And so Icome to you as to those who have had some experience in supernaturalmatters, with the cause based upon this Book of God, asking that yourexperience may be made possible for the multitudes beyond, who havenot yet had this opportunity. 

Let us take some of the simpler and plainer things in this question, that we may come up to it without any hesitation. Now, I do not needto go into the question as to what God will do with the heathen. Idon't know what He will do with them. I know as much about it as youdo, or anybody else, because I know what the Book says about it. Godknows better about this than I do, and will find a way that I cannotdream of. But, because the words are not uttered by divine authority, I dare not stand here and utter any word of hope for any man beyondthe gospel committed to me to preach. This I know: That if the heathenhave the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, whether they ever saw the LordJesus or not, they are of His. And this I know: That if thiscongregation have not the spirit of the Lord Jesus, tho it may haveseen Him, they are not of His. And this I know: That He will save aJew and a Gentile on the same terms; that He will do no better for theGentile than He will for the Jew, and no better for the Jew than forthe Gentile. And if there was no other name given under heaven amongmen by which an ancient Jew or an ancient Gentile might be saved, thatis true to-day. The Lord Jesus thought that these people needed thegospel, and that they needed it so much that He actually came andsubmitted Himself unto death that they might have the gospel. AndGod seems so thoroughly to believe that they need the gospel that Heactually gives His only-begotten Son to die, that they may have thegospel. He treats the case just exactly as if He thought, at least, that they do really need this divine Redeemer. He has done, in everystep and process of this great work of world-saving, just exactly asHe would have done had He absolutely thought and believed that theyneeded a divine Redeemer. 

And then I understand another thing out of the Book: That the verylast and supreme utterance of the Master on earth grew out of Hisconviction that we should do exactly this thing. And see how He comesup to it, little by little! He does not rush suddenly upon it--He doesnot, upon any truth. It is not in the divine plan to flash upon usin anything. Truths grow; moral ideas grow. They come into the racelittle, and hardly able to stand at all; we can barely find thembeneath us in the lower strata of our being. But they struggle intopower and strength until they fill the field of vision. Nearly everygreat truth of Old and New Testament Scripture is to be found inthe Book of Genesis. In Genesis you will find the principle of theatonement; you will find the division of animals into clean andunclean, foreshadowing sacrifice; you will find the principle of theacceptance of offerings that came out of the flock, and the rejectionof the offerings out of the field; you will find the pardon of sin andthe giving of covenants--all the essential parts of the New Testamentgrowing with their roots away back in Genesis. There is the firstdeclaration of the coming of this wondrous Redeemer. It was so dim anduncertain that it was hard to tell what it meant; somehow, somewhere, some time, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. " Itwas so dim that our first great mother, when she had gotten her firstson, cried out in her joy, "I have gotten a man from the Lord!" Shethought she had the Redeemer, but she had only a murderer. It wasmany a century before the Redeemer would come. The truth was unfoldedlittle by little; a little brighter it shone on the altars of thepatriarchs; it was unfolded a little more in the visions of theprophets; was exemplified in the ceremonials of the temple; and in thefullness of time it came with the Master and His disciples and theoutpouring of the Holy Ghost. 

And then see, when the Master comes, how He takes hold of us, knowingthat we are but little, and that we have to be lifted up and enlargedbefore we can take in these great truths! He says: "I have more totell you: you cannot bear it to-day; I will tell you to-morrow. " Andso He gives lesson and instruction, and parable and illustration, allthrough. His life, teaching these disciples, chosen on account oftheir particular adaptation for the reception of His truth; walkingwith them day by day, trying to lift their thought toward thespiritual and the eternal; teaching them that it is not His plan toput them on His right hand and His left, and trying to lift them uptoward a spiritual and eternal kingdom. So He keeps on all the time, lifting them out of their littleness, saying to them later: "You shallbe my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and in theuttermost parts of the earth. " They did not know what to make of that. He was lifting them out of their narrowness. And so He pushes on stillfurther with them, lifting them up, until, in the supreme hour of Hisearthly history--after His agony, after the cross, after He had brokenasunder the bars of the sepulcher, after He had risen, and beendeclared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead--Hehovers over the Church, coming down to speak to them by the sea-sideand mountain-side; appearing to them suddenly, vanishing as quickly;offering His hands to their touch, showing His body to their vision, yet all the time lifting them up, until He brought them to the thoughtand gave to the Church the idea of His ubiquity, saying: "Lo! I amwith you alway, even unto the end of the world"; and they appreciatedthe feeling that He was within hand-reach, and that this was aspiritual kingdom, and that they could take hold upon the greatspiritual forces. And thus He lifted them up and prepared them forHis great truth, until at last, in the supreme moment of His earthlyhistory, we see Him yonder on the summit of the mount--the earthbeneath Him, the angels gathered above Him--with His hands spread outover His followers, with the summit of Olivet receding beneath Hisfeet. He cries out to them: "All power is given unto me in heaven andin earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them inthe name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teachingthem to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo!I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. " And theunspeakable glory took Him out of their sight. 

That is the supreme utterance of the Master after many a century ofpreparation, opening our hearts, bringing us to this great truth, andthat this one thing He wants done is His final charge to believers: Goeverywhere; teach, preach, baptize, agonize, give, sacrifice--out tothe very ends of the earth. And lo! I am with you alway, and you shalllack no good thing. Surely, there can be no doubt that the Master, atleast, thinks that these people have a great need for this gospel. 

There are some who have an idea that salvation is to be the sum andsubstance of what we are. Well, I think that way myself: that, if youfind heaven on the other side of death, you will take it over withyou; if there is any condition of peace, you will take that conditionof peace with you. Death will be no more than going over a seam inthis carpet. The moment after death will differ from the moment beforedeath in your essential character no more than any two consecutivemoments in your life. If you are a mean, narrow, selfish, ugly, crossman the moment before death, you will be a mean, narrow, selfish, ugly, cross man the moment after death. If you find a good characterover yonder, you will take it over with you. If you have a goodcharacter to take over with you, you will have it in the Lord JesusChrist here. If you live on that basis, I think this is pretty safethat those millions out yonder in the darkness, plunged in ignoranceand superstition, knowing nothing about morality and nothing aboutheaven--those millions want a chance, that the same law that governsour lives will govern theirs. I surround my boy with the best possibleopportunities; I watch every book that comes in his hands; I watchevery playmate that I possibly can that comes in his path; I see toit, as my highest business on this footstool--higher than my call tothis pulpit--that that boy has a fair chance for heaven. If I push himout into the alley to herd with criminals, and be dandled in the lapof vice, and be familiar with all corruption, I have no moral right toexpect to meet him in heaven. But if I multiply advantages about him, give him the best possible books and surroundings, make him at homewith the Lord Jesus, so that he talks about his salvation and lifeeternal as he does about matters in the home, I have a good right toexpect that the King will give me His eternal peace. 

Now, I think that the law that holds over my boy holds over all boysin China and Japan and Hindustan; that, just in proportion as wemultiply the light and the favorable circumstances about them, then inthat proportion we increase their fair chance for heaven. I think itis sound in philosophy. I believe that, just in proportion as we actby it, we will be safe. 

Now, they are plunged in darkness. They know nothing about our wayof salvation, nothing about the pardon of sin, nothing about purity, nothing about righteousness, nothing about heaven. We want to multiplytheir chances to rid themselves of sin, and to take hold upon life, and make their way in the path of peace. And the Master seems to sothink it that He says: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations. " Andif they will believe it, as I read, they will be saved. "But how canthey believe if they have not heard? And how can they hear without apreacher? And how can they preach except they be sent?" So the Mastersays, Go, send quick, everywhere. That I take to be the teaching ofthe Book concerning their needs. 

But there is another side of it, and that is the side that swings inunder the passage I have read this morning, and that is our side ofit, our relation to the cause: "If any man have not the Spirit of theLord Jesus, he is none of his. "

Now, what is the spirit of Christ? I will tell you: He came not to beministered unto. Please remember that. Not to see how much He couldgather into His own bosom out of the lives of others. Not to beministered unto; not to be petted, and dandled, and lifted along andfed all the way, with no burden and no care and no work--not that. Hecame, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; to pour out of Hislife into the lives of others; to see what He could do to make othersblest; and "to give his life a ransom for many. " Not merely to givethe little pittance that He could spare and not know it any more thanone would miss the farthing with which he would buy his ride on thestreet car, but to give His life a ransom for many. And if any manhave not that spirit, he is none of His. 

Now I preach you a doctrine of salvation by faith only, and I put theemphasis on the word only. That is exactly what I need as a sinner: Iwant some sort of release from my past transgressions that will giveme a new start. I have gotten behind; I am borrowing money topay interest with, and I see no way out. I must have a spiritualbankruptcy law. Somebody must come in to my relief, or I ameverlastingly undone. And so I preach this blest doctrine of theBook of God: "By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not ofyourselves: it (the salvation) is the gift of God. " I take salvationas a divine gift, and take it with a glad heart. It gives me a newchance; it unhinges my present struggle for heaven from the pasttransgressions of my life, and gives me an open door to heaven that Icould not reach on any other platform. And so I preach this doctrineto sinners, knowing that it is exactly what they need. 

There is another part of it that covers the question of our pardon;that takes all my past sins and wipes them out; that gives me a newchance for righteousness. Now mind: That pardon, that new life, thatnew chance works out all the time necessarily from my finger-ends; itshows itself in my life, absolutely, as certainly as it is there; andif I cannot find the fruit of it in the fruits of the Spirit, in theinterest in God's cause, in patience and teachableness, in gentlenessand love, I have the absolute demonstration that I have not the thingitself. Saved by faith, kept alive, kept saved by work, in work, bygrace in work. Let me touch that theology just a little. If youare pardoned, you are pardoned by the Lord in a second, throughfaith--when you believe, that is. Pardon is an operation in God's mindconcerning myself; you cannot pardon yourself. God pardons. If we arepardoned He can do it in a second, when we believe. 

The next step in the case is, that there is not anything in the Bookof God that gives us any ground to believe that in that same faith, orbelieving, or pardon, we will be instantly lifted up into the statureof a man in Christ Jesus. What I mean to say is this: That there isnot one word in this Book that will justify any man in believing thathe may be brought by any process to the stature of a man in ChristJesus in a minute. But some good brother will say: "Oh! now I am justa little afraid that you are striking against that blest old Methodistdoctrine of sanctification. " No, I am not. I haven't said anythingabout sanctification. But I will. If you are sanctified, or cleansed, that is God's work, through faith, and He can do it in a second. Now, understand me definitely, you cannot cleanse yourself. God cleansesyou through faith in the cleansing blood of His Son. It is His work. You cannot grow into it. You can grow in it, but if you don't grow init you may know you are not in it--you are in something else. But youcan grow in it, because it is God's work, and He will do it when youbelieve. But what of that? What are you after you are cleansed? I willtell you. You are a clean baby: that is all. You are not a man inChrist Jesus; you are only a babe--cleansed, indeed, and greatlyimproved by the process, too, but you are not matured. Do not miss, now, the broad distinction between purity and maturity. You arepurified, through faith, in a second; you are matured through many astruggle and many a year. God cannot make a twenty-one-year-old saintin one second less than twenty-one years. There is no platform markedover with faith upon which a man may step and be lifted up into theperfect stature of a man in Christ Jesus in a minute. It is not theteaching of the Book. But all the year, loving, and giving, andfighting, and praying, and walking in righteousness, you will maturecharacters, and by and by you will grow into the manhood in ChristJesus that is set before us in the gospel. Now, if you come in hereand tell me that there is a baby over yonder in the next square, thatis three weeks old, and can talk Greek and Latin, and Spanish andItalian, and solve all the problems in mathematics, I will tell youthat that is a monstrosity, and you don't want that kind of babies inyour house: they will turn you out in a few days. So, if you comein here and tell me that you have, down in your prayer-meeting, aspiritual baby three or four weeks old, that can teach all the oldsaints, and can tell them all about God, and heaven, and faith, andtheology, and all about everything in the Church, I will tell youthat that is a monstrosity. And you don't want that kind in yourprayer-meeting; they will turn you out before a great while. St. Paulsays: "Ye are born babes, and ye are fed on milk"; and the troublewith too many of us is that we keep on that diet when we ought to beeating meat. The Master says: "First the blade, then the ear; afterthat, the full corn in the ear. " So I am free to say that God's planof making saints is to give them the divine germ--if you please, thesupernatural principle; or, as our scientists would say, with properenvironments, "That have the divine initial impulse, " but as ourfathers would have said, "They got through at the altar"; born of God, and then cleansed of God in the true process of education and faith, they matured at the harvest. God gives us the start and the cleansing, and we have to do all the rest of it. He will give us opportunity forgrowth by loading and goading us, by setting on our track every sortof force to test us--to "polish us, " as the old Hebrew word means. When Abraham was tested he was "polished. " He will put us on suchlines that, if we stand true to our convictions and walk according tothe light we have, He will bring us on to manhood. 

See how wonderfully the Word of God fits down upon this? Take thatremarkable passage that, to me, is as beautiful as anything can be, where He says: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor"--I know whatthat means in the struggle under sin--"all ye that labor and areheavy-laden, and I will give"--I will give: it is mine. You cannotearn it: you cannot buy it; you cannot find it; you cannot dig it out. It is mine--"I will give you rest"--the blest pardon that only God cangive. Then, in the very next second and breath, He says: "Take my yokeupon you"--that means work--"and learn of me"--that is more work--and, "For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find"--that is yours;I do not give that to you; that is not mine to give; that is yours. "Ye shall find rest to your souls. " That is the rest that comes fromthe crystallization of the character in righteousness; that comes fromthe habit of believing, and the habit of obeying, and the habit ofpraying; from the habit of righteousness, until the old saint is readyfor any struggle, and never expects to be turned aside. That, I takeit, is God's plan of building up saints, and for fitting them for therest that is in God, that abides. 

WHYTE

EXPERIENCE

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Alexander Whyte, senior minister of St. George's Free Church, Edinburgh, was born at Kirriemuir (Thrums), Scotland, in 1837. He waseducated at Aberdeen University (M. A. , 1862), and at New College, Edinburgh (1862-66), and after being assistant minister of FreeSt. John's, Glasgow, from 1866 to 1870, became at first assistantminister, and later (1873) minister, of Free St. George's, Edinburgh, a position which be still retains, having had there an uninterruptedsuccess. He is the author of a number of biographies, his most recentwork being "An Appreciation of Newman. "

WHYTE

BORN IN 1837

EXPERIENCE

_And patience; experience; and experience, hope_. --Romans v. , 4. 

The deeper we search into the Holy Scriptures the more experimentalmatter do we discover in that divine Book. Both in the Old Testamentand in the New Testament the spiritual experiences of godly men form alarge part of the sacred record. And it gives a very fresh and a veryimpressive interest to many parts of the heavenly Book when we see howmuch of its contents are made up of God's ways with His people as wellas of their ways with Him. In other words, when we see how much ofpurely experimental matter is gathered up into the Word of God. In abrilliant treatise published the other year, entitled, "The Gospel inthe Gospels, " the author applies this experimental test even to ourLord's teaching and preaching. Writing of the beatitudes in our Lord'sSermon on the Mount that fresh and penetrating writer says: "When ourSavior speaks to us concerning what constitutes our true blessednessHe is simply describing His own experience. The beatitudes are not theimmediate revelation of His Godhead, they are much more the impressivetestimony of His manhood. He knew the truth of what He was sayingbecause He had verified it all in Himself for thirty experimentalyears. " Now if that is so demonstrably true of so many of our Lord'scontributions to Holy Scripture, in the nature of things, how muchmore must it be true of the experimental contributions that David andPaul have made to the same sacred record. And we ourselves are butimitating them in their great experimental methods when we give ourvery closest attention to personal and spiritual religion, bothin ourselves and in all our predecessors and in all our owncontemporaries in the life of grace in all lands and in all languages. 

Now by far the deepest and by far the most personal experience ofevery spiritually minded man is his experience of his own inwardsinfulness. The sinfulness of his sin; the malignity of his sin; theungodliness and the inhumanity of his sin; the dominion that his sinstill has over him; the simply indescribable evil of his sin in everyway: all that is a matter, not of any man's doctrine and authority;all that is the personal experience and the scientific certainty, aswe say, of every spiritually minded man; every man, that is, who takesany true observation of what goes on in his own heart. The simplyunspeakable sinfulness of our own hearts is not the doctrine of David, and of Christ, and of Paul, and of Luther, and of Calvin, and ofBunyan, and of Edwards, and of Shepard only. It is their universaldoctrine, indeed, it could not be otherwise; but it is also theevery-day experience and the every-day agony of every man amongourselves whose eyes are open upon his own heart. 

And then, if you are that spiritually enlightened man, from the daywhen you begin to have that heart-sore experience of yourself youwill begin to search for and to discover those great passages of HolyScripture that contain the recorded experiences of men like yourself. "I am but dust and ashes, " said the first father of all penitent andbelieving and praying men. "I am vile, " sobs Job. "Behold, I am vile, and I will lay my hand upon my mouth. I have heard of thee by thehearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhormyself and repent in dust and ashes. " And David has scarcely heart ora pen for anything else. "There is no soundness in my flesh because ofthine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin. My loins are filled with a loathsome disease. For, behold, I wasshapen in iniquity. " And Daniel, the most blameless of men and a mangreatly beloved in heaven and on earth: "I was left alone andthere remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned tocorruption, and I retained no strength. " And every truly spirituallyminded man has Paul's great experimental passage by heart; that greatexperimental and autobiographic passage which has kept so many ofGod's most experienced saints from absolute despair, as so many ofthem have testified. Yes! There were experimental minds long beforeBacon and there was a great experimental literature long before theEssays and the "Advancement" and the "_Instauratio Magna_. "

And then among many other alterations of intellectual insight andspiritual taste that will come to you with your open eyes, there willbe your new taste, not only for your Bible, but also for spiritualand experimental preaching. The spiritual preachers of our day areconstantly being blamed for not tuning their pulpits to the new themesof our so progressive day. Scientific themes are prest upon themand critical themes and social themes and such like. But your newexperience of your own sinfulness and of God's salvation: your newneed and your new taste for spiritual and experimental truth will notlead you to join in that stupid demand. As intelligent men you willknow where to find all the new themes of your new day and you will bediligent students of them all, so far as your duty lies that way, andso far as your ability and your opportunity go; but not on the Lord'sDay and not in His house of prayer and praise. The more inward, andthe more spiritual, and the more experimental, your own religionbecomes, the more will you value inward, and spiritual, andexperimental preaching. And the more will you resent the intrusioninto the evangelical pulpit of those secular matters that so muchabsorb unspiritual men. There is another equally impertinent advicethat our preachers are continually having thrust upon them from thesame secular quarter. And that is that they ought entirely to dropthe old language of the Scriptures, and the creeds, and the classicalpreachers, and ought to substitute for it the scientific and thejournalistic jargon of the passing day. But with your ever-deepeningknowledge of yourselves and with the disciplined and refined tastethat will accompany such knowledge you will rather demand of yourpreachers more and more depth of spiritual preaching and more and morepurity of spiritual style. And then more and more your estimates ofpreaching and your appreciations of preachers will have real insightand real value and real weight with us. "The natural man receivethnot the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him:neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. " Buthe that is spiritual discerneth spiritual things and spiritual personsand he has the true authority to speak and to write about them. 

And then, for all doubting and skeptically disposed persons amongyou, your own experience of your evil heart, if you will receive thatexperience and will seriously attend to it, that will prove to youthe true apologetic for the theism of the Holy Scriptures and for thesoul-saving faith of Jesus Christ. What is it about which you arein such debate and doubt? Is it about the most fundamental ofall facts--the existence, and the nature, and the grace, and thegovernment of Almighty God? Well, if you are really in earnest to knowthe truth, take this way of it: this way that has brought light andpeace of mind to so many men. Turn away at once and forever from allyour unbecoming debates about your Maker and Preserver and turn towhat is beyond all debate, your own experience of yourselves. There isnothing else of which you can be so sure and certain as of the sin andthe misery of your own evil hearts, your own evil hearts so fullof self-seeking, and envy, and malice, and pride, and hatred, andrevenge, and lust. And on the other hand, there is nothing of whichyou can be so convinced as that love, and humility, and meekness, and purity, and benevolence, and brotherly kindness, are your truehappiness, or would be, if you could only attain to all thesebeatitudes. Well, Jesus Christ has attained to them all. And JesusChrist came into this world at first, and He still comes into it byHis Word and by His Spirit in order that you may attain to all Hisgoodness and all His truth and may thus escape forever from all yourown ignorance and evil. As William Law, the prince of apologists, has it: "Atheism is not the denial of a first omnipotent cause. Realatheism is not that at all. Real atheism is purely and solely nothingelse but the disowning, and the forsaking, and the renouncing of thegoodness, and the virtue, and the benevolence and the meekness, ofthe divine nature: that divine nature which has made itself soexperimental and so self-evident in us all. And as this experimentaland self-evident knowledge is the only sure knowledge you can have ofGod; even so, it is such a knowledge that cannot be doubted ordebated away. For it is as sure and as self-evident as is your ownexperience. " And so is it through all the succeeding doctrines ofgrace and truth: The incarnation of the divine Son: His life, Hisdeath, His resurrection, and His intercession: and then your own lifeof faith, and prayer, and holy obedience: and then your death, "dearin God's sight. " Beginning with this continually experienced need ofGod, all these things will follow, with an intellectual, and a moral, and a spiritual demonstration, that will soon place them beyond alldebate or doubt to you. Only know thyself and admit the knowledge:and all else will follow as sure as the morning sun follows the darkmidnight. 

And then in all these ways, you will attain to a religious experienceof your own, that will be wholly and exclusively your own. It will notbe David's experience, nor Paul's, nor Luther's, nor Bunyan's; much asyou will study their experiences, comparing them all with your own. Asyou go deeper and ever deeper, into your own spiritual experience, you will gradually gather a select and an invaluable library of suchexperiences, and you will less and less read anything else with verymuch interest or delight. But your own unwritten experience will, allthe time, be your own, and in your own spiritual experience you willhave no exact fellow. For your tribulations, which work in you yourexperience, --as the text has it, --your tribulations are such that inall your experimental reading in the Bible, in spiritual biography, inspiritual autobiography, you have never met the like of them. Eitherthe writers have been afraid to speak out the whole truth about theirtribulations; or, what is far more likely, they had no tribulationsfor a moment to match with yours. There has not been another so weakand so evil heart as yours since weak and evil hearts began to be;nor an evil life quite like yours; nor surrounding circumstancesso cross-bearing as yours; nor a sinner, beset with all manner oftemptations and trials, behind and before, like you. So much are youalone that, if your fifty-first Psalm, or your seventh of the Romans, or your "Confessions, " or your "Private Devotions, " or your "GraceAbounding, " could ever venture to be all honestly and wholly writtenand published, your name would, far and away, eclipse them all. You donot know what a singular and what an original and what an unheard-ofexperience your experience is destined to be; if only you do not breakdown under it; as you must not and will not do. 

Begin, then, to make some new experiments upon a new life of faith, and of the obedience of faith. And begin to-day. If in anything youhave been following a false and an unphilosophical and an unscripturalway of life, leave that wrong and evil way at once. Be true Baconians, at once, as all the true men of science will tell you to be. "If wewere religious men like you, " they will all say to you, "we would do, and at once, what you are now being told to do. We would not debate, or doubt, but we would make experiment, and would follow out theexperience": so all the scientifically minded men will say to you. Come away then, and make some new experiments from this morning. Forone thing, make a new experiment on secret prayer. And then come forthfrom your place of secret prayer and make immediate experiment on morelove, and more patience, and more consideration for other men, and, especially, for the men of your own household. Be moregenerous-minded, and more open-handed, as God has been sogenerous-minded, and so open-handed toward you: if that has indeedbeen so. Make experiment upon the poor and the needy and help themaccording to your ability and opportunity and watch the result of theexperiment upon yourself; and so on, as your awakened conscience, andas the regenerate part of your own heart, will prompt you and willencourage you to do. 

Make such experiments as these and see if a new peace of conscienceand a new happiness of heart does not begin to come to you, accordingto that great experimental psalm, --"Oh, that my people had hearkenedunto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subduedtheir enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. He shouldhave fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out ofthe rock should I have satisfied thee. "

WATKINSON

THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

William L. Watkinson, Wesleyan minister, was born at Hull, 1838, waseducated privately and rose to eminence as a preacher and writer. The Rev. William Durban calls him "The classic preacher of BritishMethodism. " "He ranks, " says Dr. Durban, "with Dr. Dallinger and theRev. Thomas Gunn Selby as the three most learned and refined of livingpreachers in the English Methodist pulpit. Dr. Watkinson is famous forthe glittering illustrations which adorn his style. These are for themost part gathered from biography, the classics, and science, andof late years Dr. Watkinson has become more and more addicted tospiritualizing the aspects of modern scientific discovery. Dr. Watkinson never reads his utterances from a manuscript. Nor doeshe preach memoriter, as far as the language of his addresses isconcerned. They are always carefully thought out and are nevercharacterized by florid diction. His simple, strong Anglo-Saxonendears him to the people, for he is never guilty of an obscuresentence. He is in the habit of saying, 'I have always been aware thatI have no power of voice for declamation, and therefore I can onlyhope for success in the pulpit by originality of thought. '" He waspresident of the Wesleyan Conference, 1897-1898, and editor of the_Wesleyan Church_, 1893-1890. He has published several volumes ofsermons. 

WATKINSON

BORN IN 1838

THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH[1]

[Footnote: Printed by permission of B. P. Button & Company from "TheTransfigured Sackcloth and Other Sermons, " by W. L. Watkinson. ]

_For none might enter into the king's gate clothed withsackcloth_. --Esther iv. , 2. 

The sign of affliction was thus excluded from the Persian court inorder that royalty might not be discomposed. The monarch was to seebright raiment, flowers, pageantry, smiling faces only; to hearonly the voices of singing men and singing women; no smatch of theabounding wormwood of life was to touch his lip, no glimpse of its weto disturb his serenity. The master of an empire spreading from Indiato Ethiopia was not to be annoyed by a passing shadow of mortality. Now, this disposition to place an interdict on disagreeable andpainful things still survives. Men of all ranks and conditionsingeniously hide from themselves the dark facts of life--putting theseaside, ignoring, disguising, forgetting, denying them. Revelation, however, lends no sanction to this habit of passing by the tragedyof life with averted face; and in this discourse we wish to show theentire reasonableness of revelation in its frank recognition of thedark aspects of existence. Christianity is sometimes scouted as "thereligion of sorrow, " and many amongst us are ready to avow that thePersian forbidding the sackcloth is more to their taste than theEgyptian or the Christian dragging the corpse through the banquet; butwe confidently contend that the recognition by Christ of the morbidphases of human life is altogether wise and gracious. 

I. We consider, first, the recognition by revelation of sin. Sackclothis the outward and visible sign of sin, guilt, and misery. How menshut their eyes to this most terrible reality--coolly ignoring, skilfully veiling, emphatically denying it! "The heart from the momentof its first beat instinctively longs for the beautiful. .. . " We strivefor the right and the true: it is circumstance that thrusts wrongupon us. What is popularly called sin these philosophers call error, accident, inexperience, indecision, misdirection, imperfection, disharmony; but they will not allow the presence in the human heart ofa malign force which asserts itself against God, and against theorder of His universe. That principle which is darkness in the mind, perverseness in the will, idolatry in the affections, "every passion'swild excess, anger, lust, and pride, "--the existence of any suchprinciple they absolutely and scornfully deny. There is no evil in theuniverse, all is good, and where everything is good human nature isstill the best. A single substance comprises all that is, and no placeis left for that profoundly decisive and destructive element calledsin; all that we have to do is to descant on the marvelous lovelinessof the world, the serene harmony of the universe, man's love of thetrue, the beautiful, and the good. Intellectual masters like Emersonand Renan. Ignore conscience; they refuse to acknowledge theselfishness, the baseness, the cruelty of society; they are deaf tothe groans of creation; they smile, and expect us to smile, whilstthey clap a purple patch of rhetoric on the running sores of humanity. No sackcloth must pass their gate, and no craftsman of Ind ever wovegossamer half so delicate and delightful as the verbal veil with whichthese literary artists attempt to conceal the leprosy of our nature. 

And men generally are willing to dupe themselves touching the factand power of sin; they are strongly disinclined to look directly andhonestly at that inner confusion of which we are all more or lessconscious. We willingly acknowledge our transgression of the higherlaw, that we do the things we ought not to do, and leave undone thethings that we ought to do; we have an unpleasant feeling that all isnot right, nay, indeed, that something is seriously wrong; but we donot unshrinkingly acquaint ourselves with the malady of the spirit aswe should at once acquaint ourselves with any malady hinting itself inthe flesh. The sackcloth must not mar our shallow happiness. Great isthe power of self-deception, but in no other direction do we permitourselves to be more profoundly cheated than we do in this. In thevision of beautiful things we forget the troubles of conscience, as the first sinners hid themselves amid the leaves and flowers ofParadise; in fashion and splendor we forget our guilty sorrow, asmedieval mourners sometimes concealed their cerements with raiment ofpurple and gold; in the noises of the world we become oblivious of theinterior discords, as soldiers forget their wounds amid the stir andtrumpets of the battle. With a busy life, a gay life, we manage toforget the skeleton of the heart, rarely permitting ourselves to lookupon the ominous specter which some way or other has entrenched itselfwithin us, and which is the bane of our existence. 

Nevertheless, sin thrusts itself upon our attention. The greatestthinkers in all ages have been constrained to recognize its presenceand power. The creeds of all nations declare the fact that meneverywhere feel the bitter working and intolerable burden ofconscience. And, however we may strive to forget our personalsinfulness, the cry is ever being wrung from us in the deepest momentsof life, "O wretched man that I am! who can deliver me from the bodyof this death?" The sense of sin has persisted through changinggenerations; it is the burden of experience and philosophy, andthe genius of the race has exhausted itself in devising schemes ofsalvation. 

Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, knew of truth, justice, purity, andlove, of the supreme and eternal law of righteousness; they knew thatman alone of all this lower creation is subject to this transcendentalrule; they knew also that the violation of this highest law lay at theroot of the world's mysterious and complex suffering--in other words, that sin was the secret of the tragedy of life. The beasts are happybecause they are beasts; they do not lie awake in the dark weepingover their sins, because they have no sins to weep over; they do notdiscuss their duty to God, they do it; whilst, on the contrary, menare unhappy because being subject to the highest law of all, andcompetent to fulfil that law in its utmost requirements, they haveconsciously fallen short of it, wilfully contradicted it. We cannotaccept the coat of many colors, whatever the flatterers may say; thesackcloth is ours, and it eats our spirit like fire. 

Most fully does Christ recognize the great catastrophe. Some moderntheologians may dismiss sin as "a mysterious incident" in thedevelopment of humanity, as a grain of sand that has unluckily blowninto the eye, as a thorn that has accidentally pierced our heel, but the greatest of ethical teachers regarded sin as a profoundcontradiction of that eternal will which is altogether wise and good. More than any other teacher Jesus Christ emphasized the actuality andawfulness of sin; more than any other has He intensified the world'sconsciousness of sin. He never attempted to relieve us of thesackcloth by asserting our comparative innocence; He never attemptedto work into that melancholy robe one thread of color, to relieve itwith one solitary spangle of rhetoric. Sin was the burden of the lifeof Christ because it is the burden of our life. Christ has done morethan insisted on the reality, the odiousness, the ominousness, ofsin--He has laid bare its principle and essence. The New Testamentdiscovers to us the mystery of iniquity as ungodliness; its inmostessence being unbelief in God's truth, the denial of His justice, the rejection of His love, the violation of His law. The South Seaislanders have a singular tradition to account for the existence ofthe dew. The legend relates that in the beginning the earth touchedthe sky, that being the golden age when all was beautiful and glad;then some dreadful tragedy occurred, the primal unity was broken up, the earth and the sky were torn asunder as we see them now, and thedewdrops of the morning are the tears that nature sheds over the saddivorce. This wild fable is a metaphor of the truth; the beginning ofall evil lies in the alienation of the spirit of man from God, in thedivorce of earth from heaven; here is the final reason why the faceof humanity is wet with tears. How vividly Christ taught that all ourfear and we arise out of this false relation of our spirit to theliving God! Above and beyond all, Christ recognizes the sackcloth thatHe may take it away. In the anguish of his soul Job cried, "Ihave sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou Preserver of men?"Christianity is God's full and final answer to that appeal. In Christwe have the revelation of God's ceaseless, immeasurable, eternal love. In Him we have the satisfaction of God's sovereign justice. Our ownawakened conscience feels the difficulty of absolution; it demandsthat sin shall not be lightly passed over; it wearies itself to findan availing sacrifice and atonement. "Behold the Lamb of God, thattaketh away the sin of the world!" In Him, too, we have that gracewhich brings us into accord with the mind and government of God. Christ reveals to us the divine ideal life; He awakens in us a passionfor that life; He leads us into the power and privilege, the libertyand gladness, of that life. He fills our imagination with the visionof His own divine loveliness; He refreshes our will from founts ofunfathomable power; He fills us with courage and hope; He crowns uswith victory. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. " Sin is ungodliness; Christmakes us to see light in God's light, fills us with His love, attunesour spirit to the infinite music of His perfection. Instead ofshutting out the signs of wo, Christ followed an infinitely deeperphilosophy; He arrayed Himself in the sackcloth, becoming sin for uswho knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We have redemption in His blood, even the forgiveness of sins; heestablished us in a true relation to the holy God; He restores inus the image of God; He fills us with the peace of God that passethunderstanding. 

Not in the spirit of a barren cynicism does Christ lay bare theghastly wound of our nature, but as a noble physician who can purgethe mortal virus which destroys us. He has done this for thousands; Heis doing it now; in these very moments He can give sweet release toall who are burdened and beaten by the dire confusion of nature. Sin is a reality; absolution, sanctification, peace, are not lessrealities. Christ's gate is not shut to the penitent, neither doesHe send him empty away. We go to Him in sackcloth, but we leave Hispresence in purity's robe of snow, in honor's stainless purple, in theheavenly blue of the holiness of truth. The Spirit of the Lord God isupon Him, that He may give to the mourners in Zion beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit ofheaviness. 

II. We consider the recognition by revelation of sorrow. Sackcloth isthe raiment of sorrow, and as such it was interdicted by the Persianmonarch. We still follow the insane course, minimizing, despising, masking, denying suffering. Society sometimes attempts this. Theaffluent entrench themselves within belts of beauty and fashion, excluding the sights and sounds of a suffering world. "Ye that put faraway the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; thatlie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, andeat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of thestall, that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselvesinstruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anointthemselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for theaffliction of Joseph. " So do opulent and selfish men still seek "tohide their heart in a nest of roses. " Literature sometimes followsthe same cue. Goethe made it one of the rules of his life to avoideverything that could suggest painful ideas, and the taint of hisegotism is on a considerable class of current literature whichserenely ignores the morbid aspects of life. Art has yielded to thesame temptation. The artist has felt that he was concerned only withstrength, beauty, and grace; that he had nothing to do with weakness, agony, wretchedness, and death. Why should sorrow find perpetualremembrance in art? Pain will tear our bodies, but we will have nowrinkles on our statues; suffering will rend our heart, but we willhave no shadows on our pictures. None clothed in sackcloth might enterthe gate that is called Beautiful. 

Most of us are inclined to the sorry trick of gilding over painfulthings. We resolutely put from us sober signs, serious thoughts, andsometimes are really angry with those who exhibit life as it is, and who urge us to seek reconciliation with it. When the physicianprescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptivetendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote, "I will put on as manyblisters as thee like. I shall be able to hide the mark by bodicesbrimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and a thousand otherdelightful things that are worn, without being required; it may evenlook pretty. Ah! I am comforted. " Yes, by a thousand artifices do wedissemble our ugly scars, sometimes even pressing our deep misfortunesinto the service of our pride. Many of the fashions and the diversionsof the world much sought after have little positive attractiveness, but the real secret of their power is found in the fact that theyhide disagreeable things, and render men for a while oblivious of themystery and weight of an unintelligible world. 

Nevertheless suffering is a stern fact that will not long permit us tosleep. Some have taught the unreality of pain, but the logic of lifehas spoiled their plausible philosophizing. A man may carry manyhallucinations with him to the grave, but a belief in the unreality ofpain is hardly likely to be one of them. The laughing philosopher isquite invincible on his midsummer's day, but ere long fatality makeshim sad. There is no screen to shut off permanently the spectacle ofsuffering. When Marie Antoinette passed to her bridal in Paris, thehalt, the lame, and the blind were sedulously kept out of her way, lest their appearance should mar the joyousness of her reception; but, ere long, the poor queen had a very close view of misery's children, and she drank to the dregs the cup of life's bitterness. Reason as wemay, suppress the disagreeable truths of life as we may, sufferingwill find us out, and pierce us to the heart. Indeed, despite ourdissimulations, we know that life is not a matter of lutes, doves, andsunflowers, and at last we have little patience with those who thusseek to represent it. We will not have the philosophy which ignoressuffering; witness the popularity of Schopenhauer. We resent the artwhich ignores sorrow. True art has no pleasure in sin and suffering, in torture, horror, and death; but on its palette must lie the sobercolorings of human life, and so to-day the most popular picture of theworld is the "Angelus" of Millet. We will not have the literature thatignores suffering. "Humanity will look upon nothing else but its oldsufferings. It loves to see and touch its wounds, even at the risk ofreopening them. We are not satisfied with poetry unless we find tearsin it. " We will not have the theology which ignores sin and suffering. The preacher who confines his discourses to pleasant themes has ameager following; the people swiftly and logically conclude that iflife is as flowery as the discourse, the preacher is superfluous. Foolish we may often be, yet we cannot accept this Gethsemane for agarden of the gods; the most wilful lotus-eater must perforce see thestreaming tears, the stain of blood, the shadow of death. Nature inthe full swing of her pageantry soon forgets the wild shriek of thebird in the red talons of the hawk, and all other sad and tragicthings, but humanity is compelled to note the blood and tears whichflow everywhere, and to lay these things to heart. 

Christ giveth us the noblest example of suffering. So far fromshutting His gate on the sackcloth, once more He adopted it, and showed how it might become a robe of glory. He Himself waspreeminently a Man of sorrows; He exhausted all forms of suffering;touching life at every point, at every point He bled; and in Him welearn how to sustain our burden and to triumph throughout all thetragedy. In His absolute rectitude, in His confidence in His Father, in His hours of prayer, in His self-sacrificing regard for Hisfellow-sufferers, in His charity, and patience, we see how theheaviest cross may be borne in the spirit of victory. We learn fromHim how divine grace can mysteriously make the sufferer equal to thebitterest martyrdom; not putting to our lips some anodyne cup toparalyze life, but giving us conquest through the strength andbravery of reason in its noblest mood, through faith in its sublimestexercise, through a love that many waters cannot quench nor thefloods drown. Poison is said to be extracted from the rattlesnake formedicinal purposes; but infinitely more wonderful is the fact that thesuffering which comes out of sin counterworks sin, and brings to passthe transfiguration of the sufferer. 

Christ teaches us how, under the redemptive government of God, suffering has become a subtle and magnificent process for the fulland final perfecting of human character. Science tells us how thebird-music, which is one of nature's foremost charms, has risen out ofthe bird's cry of distress in the morning of time; how originally themusic of field and forest was nothing more than an exclamation causedby the bird's bodily pain and fear, and how through the ages theprimal note of anguish has been evolved and differentiated until ithas risen into the ecstasy of the lark, melted into the silver note ofthe dove, swelled into the rapture of the nightingale, unfolded intothe vast and varied music of the sky and the summer. So Christ showsus that out of the personal sorrow which now rends the believer'sheart he shall arise in moral and infinite perfection; that out of thecry of anguish wrung from us by the present distress shall spring thesupreme music of the future. 

The Persian monarch forbidding sackcloth had forgotten thatconsolation is a royal prerogative; but the King of kings has notforgotten this, and very sweet and availing is His sovereign sympathy. Scherer recommends "amusement as a comfortable deceit by which weavoid a permanent _tête-à-tête_ with realities that are too heavy forus. " Is there not a more excellent way than this? Let us carry oursorrows to Christ, and we shall find that in Him they have lost theirsting. It is a clumsy mistake to call Christianity a religion ofsorrow--it is a religion _for_ sorrow. Christ finds us stricken andafflicted, and His words go down to the depths of our sorrowful heart, healing, strengthening, rejoicing with joy unspeakable. He finds usin sackcloth; He clothes us with singing-robes, and crowns us witheverlasting joy. 

III. We consider the recognition by revelation of death. We have, again, adroit ways of shutting the gate upon that sackcloth which isthe sign of death. A recent writer allows that Shakespeare, Raleigh, Bacon, and all the Elizabethans shuddered at the horror and mysteryof death; the sunniest spirits of the English Renaissance quailed tothink of it. He then goes on to observe that there was something inthis fear of the child's vast and unreasoned dread of darkness andmystery, and such a way of viewing death has become obsolete throughthe scientific and philosophic developments of the later centuries. Walt Whitman also tells us "that nothing can happen more beautifulthan death, " and he has exprest the humanist view of mortality ina hymn which his admirers regard as the high-water mark of modernpoetry. But will this rhapsody bear thinking about? Is death"delicate, lovely and soothing, " "delicious, " coming to us with"serenades"? Does death "lave us in a flood of bliss"? Does "the bodygratefully nestle close to death"? Do we go forth to meet death "withdances and chants of fullest welcome"? It is vain to attempt to hidethe direst fact of all under plausible metaphors and rhetoricalartifice. It is in defiance of all history that man so write. It is incontradiction of the universal instinct. It is mockery to the dying. It is an outrage upon the mourners. The Elizabethan masters were fartruer to the fact; so is the modern skeptic who shrinks at "the blackand horrible grave. " Men never speak of delicious blindness, ofdelicious dumbness, of delicious deafness, of delicious paralysis; anddeath is all these disasters in one, all these disasters without hope. No, no, the morgue is the last place that lends itself to decoration. Death is the crowning evil, the absolute bankruptcy, the final defeat, the endless exile. Let us not shut our eyes to this. The skepticoften tells us that he will have no "make-believe. " Let us have no"make-believe" about death. Let us candidly apprehend death for allthat it is of mystery and bitterness, and reconcile ourselves to it, if reconciliation be possible. If we are foolish enough to shut thegate on the thought of death, by no stratagem can we shut the gateupon death itself. 

Without evasion or euphony Christ recognizes the somber mystery. Thefact, the power, the terror of death are displayed by Him withoutreserve or softening. And He goes to the root of the dire and dismalmatter. He shows us that death as we know it is an unnatural thing, that it is the fruit of disobedience, and by giving us purity andpeace He gives us eternal life. The words of Luther, so full of power, were called "half-battles"; but the words of Christ in their depth andmajesty are complete battles, in which sin, suffering, and deathare finally routed. He attempts no logical proof of immortality; Hesupplies no chemical formula for the resurrection; He demonstratesimmortality by raising us from the death of sin to the life ofrighteousness, by filling our soul with infinite aspirations anddelights. Here is the proof supreme of immortality. "Verily, verily, Isay unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he doalso; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go untomy Father. " The moral works are the greater works. Wonderful is thestilling of the sea, the healing of the blind, the raising of thedead, but the moral miracles of our Lord express a still diviner powerand carry with them a more absolute demonstration. If, therefore, wehave known the power of Christ delivering our soul from the blindness, the paralysis, the death of sin, lifting it above the dust and causingit to exult in the liberties and delights of the heavenlies, whyshould we think it a thing incredible that God should raise thedead? If He has wrought the greater, He will not fail with the less. Christianity opens our eyes to splendid visions, makes us heirs ofmighty hopes, and for all its prospects and promises it demands ourconfidence on the ground of its present magnificent and undeniablemoral achievements. Its predictions are credible in the light of itsspiritual efficacy. "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead becauseof sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if theSpirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he thatraised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodiesby his Spirit that dwelleth in you, " Being one with Christ in thepower of purity, we are one with Him in the power of an endlesslife. Death has its temporary conquest, but grace reigning throughrighteousness shall finally purge the last taint of mortality. Notthrough the scientific and philosophic developments of later centurieshas the somber way of viewing death become obsolete; Christ bringinglife and immortality to life has brought about the great change in thepoint of view from which we regard death, the point of view whichis full of consolation and hope. In Christ alone the crowning evilbecomes a coronation of glory; the absolute bankruptcy, the conditionof an incorruptible inheritance; the final defeat, an everlastingvictory; the endless exile, home, home at last. Once more, by boldlyadopting the sackcloth Christ has changed it into a robe of light. "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil"

We cannot escape the evils of life; they are inevitable andinexorable. We may hide from our eyes the signs and sights ofmourning; but in royal splendor our hearts will still bleed; wearingwreaths of roses, our heads will still ache. A preacher who complainsthat Christianity is "the religion of sorrow" goes on to predictthat the woes of the world are fast coming to an end, and then thesorrowful religion of Jesus Christ will give place to some purerfaith. "Through the chinks we can see the light. The condition of manbecomes more comfortable, more easy; the hope of man is more visible;the endeavor of man is more often crowned with success; the attemptto solve the darkest life-problems is not desperate as it was. Thereformer meets with fewer rebuffs; the philanthropist does not despairas he did. The light is dawning. The great teachers of knowledgemultiply, bear their burdens more and more steadily; the traditionsof truth and knowledge are becoming established in the intellectualworld. It is so; and those of us who have caught a vision of thebetter times coming through reason, through knowledge, through manlyand womanly endeavor, have caught a sight of a Christendom passingaway, of a religion of sorrow declining, of a gospel preached for thepoor no longer useful to a world that is mastering its own problems ofpoverty and lifting itself out of disabling misery into wealth withoutangelic assistance. This is our consolation; and while we admit, clearly and frankly, the real power of the popular faith, we also seethe pillars on which a new faith rests, which shall be a faith, notof sorrow, but of joy. " Now, the deepest sorrow of the race is notphysical, neither is it bound up with material and social conditions. As the Scotch say, "The king sighs as often as the peasant"; and thisproverb anticipates the fact that those who participate in the richestcivilization that will ever flower will sigh as men sigh now. When theproblem of poverty is mastered, when disease is extirpated, when aperiod is put to all disorganization of industry and misgovernment, social and political, it will be found by the emancipated and enrichedcommunity what is now found by opulent individuals and privilegedclasses, that the secret of our discontent is internal and mysterious, that it springs from the ungodliness, the egotism, the sensuality, which theology calls sin. But whatever the future may reveal, all thesorrows of life are upon us here and now; we cannot deny them, wehave constantly to struggle with them, we are often overwhelmed byirreparable misfortune. Esther "sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, andto take his sackcloth from him; but he received it not. " In vain domen offer us robes of beauty, chiding us for wearing the color of thenight; we cannot be deceived by flattering words; we must give placeto all the sad thoughts of our mortality until haply we find asalvation that goes to the root of our suffering, that dries up thefount of our tears. 

In a very different spirit and for very different ends do mencontemplate the dark side of human life. The cynic expatiates onpainful things--the blot on life's beauty, the shadow on its glory, the pitiful ending of its brave shows--only to gibe and mock. Therealist lingers in the dissecting chamber for very delight inrevolting themes. The pessimist enlarges on the power of melancholythat lie may justify despair. The poet touches the pathetic stringthat he may flutter the heart. Fiction dramatizes the tragic sentimentfor the sake of literary effect. Cultured wickedness drinks wineout of a skull, that by sharp contrast it may heighten its sensuousdelight; whilst estheticism dallies with the sad experiences of lifeto the end of intellectual pleasure, as in ornamental gardening, deadleaves are left on ferns and palms in the service of the picturesque. But Christianity gives such large recognition to the pathetic elementof life, not that it may mock with the cynic, or trifle with theartist; not because with the realist it has a ghoulish delight inhorror, or because with the refined sensualist it cunningly aims togive poignancy to pleasure by the memory of pain; but because itdivines the secret of our mighty misfortune, and brings with it thesovereign antidote. The critics declare that Rubens had an absolutedelight in representing pain, and they refer us to that artist'spicture of the "Brazen Serpent" in the National Gallery. The canvas isfull of the pain, the fever, the contortions of the wounded and dying;the writhing, gasping crowd is everything, and the supreme instrumentof cure, the brazen serpent itself, is small and obscure, noconspicuous feature whatever of the picture. The manner of the greatartist is so far out of keeping with the spirit of the gospel. Revelation brings out broadly and impressively the darkness of theworld, the malady of life, the terror of death, only that it mayevermore make conspicuous the uplifted Cross, which, once seen, isdeath to ever vice, a consolation in every sorrow, a victory overevery fear. 

LORIMER

THE FALL OF SATAN

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

George C. Lorimer was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1838. He wasbrought up by his stepfather who was associated with the theater, and in this relation he received a dramatic education and had someexperience on the stage. In 1855 he came to the United States, wherehe joined the Baptist Church and abandoned the theatrical profession. Later he studied for the Baptist ministry, being ordained in 1859. Hedied in 1904. His direct and dramatic, pulpit style brought him intogreat popularity in Boston, Chicago, and New York. At Tremont Temple, Boston, he frequently spoke to overflowing congregations. He is theauthor of several well-known books, from one of which the sermon heregiven is taken as indicating his familiarity with and liking fordramatic literature. His pulpit manner always retained a flavor ofdramatic style that contributed to his popularity. 

LORIMER

1838--1904

THE FALL OF SATAN[1]

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1882, by "The Homiletic Monthly, " New York. ]

_I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven_. --Luke x. , 18. 

Whether the "glorious darkness" denoted by the name Satan is an actualpersonage or a maleficent influence, is of secondary moment as faras the aim and moral of this discourse are concerned. If the ominoustitle applies to an abstraction, and if the event so vividlyintroduced is but a dramatical representation of some phase in themystery of iniquity, the spiritual inferences are just what they wouldbe were the words respectively descriptive of an angel of sin, and ofhis utter and terrible overthrow. I shall not, therefore, tax yourpatience with discussions on these points, but shall assume as truethat literal reading of the text which has commended itself to theripest among our evangelical scholars. 

The Scriptures obscurely hint at a catastrophe in heaven amongimmortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down fromtheir radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subjectare not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape thesuspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as muchto veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude, where he says: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, butleft their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day"; and Peter, inlike manner, speaks of God sparing not the angels that sinned, "butcast them down to hell"; and yet these comparatively lucid passagessuggest a world of mist and shadow, which becomes filled with strangeimages when we confront the picture, presented by John, of war inheaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, "thatold serpent called the devil. " Back of them there doubtless lies ahistory whose tragic significance is not easily measured. The sad, imperishable annals of our race prove that sin is a contingencyof freedom. Wherever creatures are endowed with moral liberty, transgression is impliedly possible. It is, consequently, inherentlyprobable that celestial beings, as well as man, may have revolted fromthe law of their Maker; and a fall accomplished among the inhabitantsof heaven should no more surprize us than the fall of mortals onearth. Perhaps, after all, there is as much truth as poetry inMilton's conception of the rebellion, and of the fearful defeat thatovertook its leader:--

 "Him the almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition: there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. "

An apostle, admonishing a novice, bids him beware of pride, "lest hefall into the condemnation of the devil. " Here presumptuous arroganceand haughtiness of spirit are specified as the root and source of thegreat transgression. Shakespeare takes up this thought:--

 "Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?"

And Milton repeats it in the magnificent lines:--

 "What time his pride Had cast him out of heaven, with all his host Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equalled the Most High, If He opposed; and, with ambitious aim, Against the throne and monarchy of God Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud, With vain attempt. "

Our Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining Hisdisciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elatedand exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, thatdevils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them attheir pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due tothe influence of His name, they evidently thought more ofthemselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying andself-satisfaction, and were met by the Master's words--half warning, half rebuke--"I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven. " He thusidentifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelicruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: "Rejoice not that thedemons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your namesare written in heaven. " Rejoice not on account of privilege andpower, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promotehumility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy. 

We have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society--alesson continually enforced by Scripture, and illustrated by history. It deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness ofegotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations toself-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. "Yeshall be as gods, " was the smiling, sarcastic allurement whichbeguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that beforethem rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had nevertrodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rivalDeity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elatedand dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to itsattainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purerparadise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in thegratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountaininto a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and ofsorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughtyking walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calmsplendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling whichdulled his sense of dependence upon God--as the perfumes of the Eastlull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran hisself-glorifying soliloquy: "Is not this great Babylon that I havebuilt for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and forthe honor of my majesty?" Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist!In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chasteningjudgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he wascompelled to learn that "those who walk in pride the King of heavenis able to abase. " Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrowof Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of histhrone, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vesselswhich his father had plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. I saytaught us, for the foolhardy braggart was past learning anythinghimself. Like the yet more silly Herod, who drank in the adulation ofthe mob as he sat shimmering in his silver robe and slimed his speechfrom his serpent-tongue, he was too inflated and bloated with vanityto be corrected by wholesome discipline. Both of these rulers were tooself-satisfied to be reproved, and God's exterminating indignationovertook them. Like empty bubbles, nothing could be done with them, and hence the breath of the Almighty burst and dispersed theirglittering worthlessness. Pope John XXI. , according to Dean Milman, isanother conspicuous monument of this folly. "Contemplating, " writesthe historian, "with too much pride the work of his own hands"--thesplendid palace of Viterbo--"at that instant the avenging roof camedown, on his head. " And Shakespeare has immortalized the pathetic doomwhich awaits the proud man, who, confident in his own importance andin the magnitude of his destiny, is swallowed up in schemes and plansfor his personal aggrandizement and power. Wolsey goes too far in hisself-seeking, is betrayed by his excess of statecraft, and, beingpublicly disgraced, laments, when too late, his selfish folly:--

 "I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers on a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. "

It is not difficult to discern the fatal effects of this spirit inthe lives of the great and mighty; but we are frequently blind to itspernicious influence on the lowly and weak. We do not realize, as weought, that the differences between men lie mainly in their position, not in their experiences and dangers. The leaders of society aremerely actors, exhibiting on the public stage of history what iscommon to mankind at large. However insignificant we may be, andhowever obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed fromthat of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention ofthe world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and hisreverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, andthe second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and thelast as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudesof a Richelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant's daughter, in her narrowcircle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns asintensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of herday-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine ofEngland or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely aswe do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace andthe hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and whatpasses beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roofof the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities. And so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to thestate of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister orruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic. 

Indeed, it will generally be found that the failures of life, and theworse than failures, are mainly due to the same cause which emptiedheavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask, that comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy[1] isbeing investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbedthis country of its ruler, committed "most sacrilegious murder, " and"broke ope"

 "The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o' the building. "

[Footnote 1: The assassination of President Garfield. ]

Like bloody Macbeth, who greedily drank in the prognostications of theweird sisters, tho he feared that the "supernatural soliciting" couldnot be good, because they pandered to his monstrous self-infatuation, Guiteau, having wrought himself up through many years ofself-complacency, claims to have believed that the divine Being hadchosen him to do a deed which has filled the earth with horror. Thusthe growth of self-conceit into mammoth proportions tends to obscurethe rights of others, and to darken with its gigantic shadow thelight of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner's story, as theexpression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we lookon one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that hewould "spurn the sea, if it could roar at him, " and hesitate not toperform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous. Others, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have, from similar weakness, wrought indescribable mischief to themselves. The man, for instance, who frets against providence because hisstanding is not higher and his influence greater, has evidentlya better opinion of his deservings than is wholesome for him. Heimagines he is being wronged by the Creator--that his merits are notrecognized as they should be--never, for a moment, remembering that, as a sinner, he has no claims on the extraordinary bounty of hisheavenly Father. From murmuring he easily glides into open rebellion, and from whispered reproaches to loud denunciations. There are peoplein every community whose pride leads them into shameful transactions. They would not condescend to mingle with their social inferiors, butthey will subsist on the earnings of their friends, and consider it nodisgrace to borrow money which they have no intention of returning. Their vanity, at times, commits them to extravagances which they haveno means of supporting. They ought to have carriages and horses, mansions and pictures, with all the luxuries of affluence--at leastso they think--and, being destitute of the resources requisite tomaintain such state, they become adepts in those arts which qualifyfor the penitentiary. Others have such confidence in the strength oftheir virtue, such commanding arrogance of integrity, that, like acaptain who underestimates the force of an enemy and overrates hisown, they neglect to place a picket-guard on the outskirts of theirmoral camp, and in such an hour as they think not they are surprizedand lost. Even possessors of religion are not always clear of thisfolly, or safe from its perils. They "think more highly of themselvesthan they ought to think"; they come to regard themselves as speciallyfavored of heaven; they talk of the Almighty in a free and easymanner, and of Jesus Christ as tho He were not the Judge at all. Whenthey pray, it is with a familiarity bordering on irreverence, andwhen they deal with sacred themes it is with a lightness that breedscontempt. When they recount the marvels which they have wrought inthe name of Christ, it is hardly-possible for them to hide theirself-complacency; for, while they profess to give Him the glory, themanner of their speech shows that they are taking it to themselves. They are like the disciples, who were as proud of their prowess incasting out devils as children are with their beautiful toys, andthey are as much in need of the Savior's warning: "I beheld Satan, aslightning, fall from heaven. " And because they have failed to giveheed unto it, they have oftentimes followed the Evil One in hisdownward course, and in a moment have made shipwreck of their faith. 

 "As sails, full spread, and bellying with the wind, Drop, suddenly collapsed, if the mast split; So to the ground down dropped the cruel fiend";

and earthward have the unsaintly saints of God as swiftly sped, whenthey have fostered the pride which changed angels into demons. 

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" Whatmore pitiable spectacle than the ruin of an angel! We have seen theforsaken halls of time-worn and dilapidated castles, have stood inthe unroofed palaces of ancient princes, and have gazed on themoss-covered and ivy-decked towers of perishing churches, and thesight of them has tilled our hearts with melancholy, as we thoughtof what had been, and of the changes that had swept over the fair, valiant and pious throngs whose laughter, bravery and prayers oncemade these scenes so gay and vocal. All is hushed now, and the silenceis broken only by the hoot and screech of the owl, or by the rustle ofthe nightbat's leathern wing. But how much sadder is the form of themighty spirit, who once sat regnant among the sons of light, emptiedof his innocence, filled with foul, creeping, venomous thoughts andfeelings, uncrowned, dethroned only with malignity and throned inevil! The Bible calls him the prince and the god of this world; andeverywhere we are surrounded with evidences of his despotic sway. Unlike earthly rulers, whose exhausted natures exact repose, heis ever sleepless, and his plotting never ends. Enter his somberpresence-chamber, and commotion, bustle, activity will confront andamaze you. He is continually sending his emissaries forth in everydirection. The perpetual wranglings, ceaseless distractions, irreconcilable contradictions, disquieting doubts, discouragingoutlooks, inharmonious and jangling opinions, unaccountable delusions, clashing and crashing dissonances, cruel hatreds, bitter enmities andstormful convulsions, which so largely enter and deface the course ofhuman history, proceed mainly from his influence. We know that "theheart of a lost angel is in the earth, " and as we know its throbbingscarry misery and despair to millions of our fellow-beings, we cansurmise the intensity of we wherewith it afflicts himself. Mrs. Browning's Adam thus addresses Lucifer:--

 "The prodigy Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes, Which comprehend the heights of some great fall. I think that thou hast one day worn a crown Under the eyes of God. "

But now the vast brow must wear a heavier gloom, and the eyes betray adeeper sorrow, as in his ruin he has sought to bury the hopes and joysof a weaker race. How different his dealings with the race from thosewhich mark the ministry of Christ! Immortal hate on the one side ofhumanity; immortal love on the other; both struggling for supremacy. One sweeping across the soul with pinions of dark doubts and fears;the other, with the strong wing of hope and fair anticipations. Oneseeking to plunge the earth-spirit into the abysmal depths of eternaldarkness; the other seeking to bear it to the apex of light, wherereigns eternal day. And of the two, Christ alone is called "theblest. " In the agony and anguish of His sufferings He yet can exclaim, "My joy I leave with thee"; and in the lowest vale of His shame cancalmly discourse on peace. The reason? Do you ask the question? Itis found in His goodness. He is good, and seeks the good of all; andgoodness crowns His lacerated brow with joy. This Satan sacrificedin his fall; this he antagonizes with, in his dreary career, and soremains in the eyes of all ages the monument of melancholy gloom. Thus, also, is it with man, whose haughtiness thrusts him into evil. He is morose and wretched, crusht beneath a burden of we, which weighsthe eyelids down with weariness and the heart with care, andwhich constrains him to curse the hour of his birth. Next to thegrief-crowned angel, there is no more pitiable object in all God'sfair creation than a human soul tumbled by its own besotted pride intosin and shame. "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine goldchanged!" aye, changed to dross, which the foot spurns, and which thewhirlwind scatters to the midnight region of eternity. 

In view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by theinspired writers on the grace of humility. We are exhorted to be likeJesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteemothers better than ourselves. These admonitions are not designed tocultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesomesense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence. They wouldfoster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will leanon the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all. Justas the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of itscalyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes itsperfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its ownignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in truegreatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness. Crossing theprairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that thetrees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast. As ourstrongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire whythey were not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, thatthe south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supplewith life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yieldbefore them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigidand stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not. Thusis it with human souls. When humility fills the heart, when itsgentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feelings, the softestbreath of God's Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, anddownward to supplicate and welcome heaven's grace. But when it isfrozen through and through with pride, it coldly resists the overturesof mercy, and in its deadness is apathetic even, to the storm ofwrath. Nothing remains but for the wild hurricane to uproot it andlevel it to the ground. Such is the moral of my brief discourse. Godgrant we may have the wisdom of humility to receive it!

KNOX LITTLE

THIRST SATISFIED

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

William John Knox Little, English preacher, was born 1839 and educatedat Cambridge University. He has filled many parochial cures, and in1881 was appointed canon of Worcester, and sub-dean in 1902. He alsoholds the vicarage of Hoar Cross (1885). He is of high repute as apreacher and is in much request all over England. He belongs to theHigh Church school and has printed, besides his sermons, many works ofeducational character, such as the "Treasury of Meditation, " "Manualof Devotion for Lent, " and "Confirmation and Holy Communion. "

KNOX LITTLE

BORN IN 1839

THIRST SATISFIED[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, London. ]

_My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come andappear before the presence of God?_--Psalm xlii. , 2. 

The verse, dear friends, which I have read to you for a text is oneof those verses which justify in the highest degree the action of theChristian Church in selecting the Hebrew Psalter as, in fact, herprayer-book. There are many passages, as you will feel with me, in theHebrew psalter that express in a very high degree the wants of thehuman soul; but perhaps there is no passage more telling, moretouching, more searching, more expressive than that solemn and thatexalted sentiment which is spoken in the text, "My soul is athirstfor God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before thepresence of God?" The passage is a justification, then, of the actionof the Christian Church. People sometimes ask why in the dailyservice, why on Sundays, you rehearse the Psalms, which have aboutthem so much that is incomprehensible, so much that requiresexplanation; why there are those tremendous denunciations of enemies, why there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touchwants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a realjustification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the generaltexture of the psalter as exprest by such solemn words as those of thetext. If you would find any document, any volume that will speak yourthoughts best about and towards eternity, you cannot select a betterthan the Hebrew psalter, for the general tone and temper of itsteaching is the cry of the soul for God. 

And then there is another thought upon the threshold of such a subjectthat demands our attention. This verse of the text, being a sort ofexample or representative verse of the psalter, expresses to us--doesit not?--the attitude and the mission of the Christian Church. Theattitude. For what is the position, dear friends, of the ChristianChurch? What are the struggles of Christian souls except, in the midstof a world that is quite complicated with difficulties, in the midstof a world that is overwhelmed with sorrow, in the midst of a time ofsevere temptation, to constantly rise and gaze high above the thoughtof evil, and gaze towards the sun of brightness, and cry for God? Andwhat is the mission of the Christian Church? Is it not to help men andwomen in their struggle and their sorrow to forget at least at timestheir pettinesses and degradation to rise to better standards andloftier ideals, and cry for God? And if that be the mission of theChristian Church, then I hold--and that is my point this morning--thatthat is the justification of such noble efforts as have been made inyour church to enable so great, so sinful a city as London to have atleast moments of relaxation from its world-wide weariness, moments ofpause in the pursuit of its sin, and to call it back from thatwhich is overpowering tho transient--to ask it to pass them in theministrations of religion. What is the object of such a church asthis? Why, buried among your buildings, in the midst of this great, powerful, sinful city, --why has it a mission for eternity? Why isit good that you should do your best? Why is it praiseworthy andbeautiful that your rector and churchwardens should have exertedthemselves to the utmost to make this church what it ought to be?Why? Because there is not a man or woman in London, not one in thisbustling crowd, not one in this confusion of commerce, not one in thissink of sin, but might say "Yes"--ought to say, and must ultimatelyfeel, and should now be taught to realize that the soul has onesatisfaction, one only--"My soul is athirst for God, for the livingGod. " Well, if that be so, can we be wrong, dear friends, can we wasteour time, if we ask ourselves this morning something quite practicalabout this thirst of the soul?

And, first of all, I submit that in such a verse as this, and in sucha work as this, we are face to face with one of those great governedcontrasts that are found throughout Scripture and throughout humanlife. I may say, _par parenthèse_, that that is one of the greatproofs of sacred Scripture. When your shallow thinker, when your wildand profound philosopher, kicks the sacred Book with the toe of hisboot, and denounces it because he does not like the measure of Noah'sArk or the exact activity of Jonah's whale, the moment you beginto think beneath those mere sharpnesses of speech and those merequicknesses of the thought, you say this: "There may be this or thatabout the surface of Scripture which I do not and cannot explain, andcannot entirely understand; but at least there is no book--no, notexcepting Milton; no, not even excepting Dante; no, for us Englishpeople, making no reserve for Shakespeare--there is no book that, after all, expresses that deep, inner, serious fact of my being, ofmy soul, of myself; the fact that lives when our facts are dying; thefact that persists in asserting itself when the noise of the world isstill; the fact that does not care about daylight only, but comes upin the dark; the fact that whispers low when I am in the crowd, butspeaks loud in the darkest night, when the clock is ticking on thestairs, and conscience has stalked out and stood before me, assertingfacts that I cannot contradict--there is no look that can speak thatfact of facts, that thirst, that longing, that desolation, thatdesire, that hope, that activity, that possibility of supremecontention and final victory, there is nothing like the Bible thatdoes that. " And so wise men, while they admit difficulties, thoughtfulmen, while they do not controvert the fact that that which is divineneeds larger explanation, fall back upon such great governed truths asthat text to support the Bible. The Bible says, asserts, determines, and insists upon the truth which the Church is insisting upon, whichyou and I, in our better moments, emphasize and say "Amen" to--thesoul is athirst for God. The Bible brings home the great contrast thatis present to us all. 

Let us dwell, that we may realize this thirst of the soul, upon thecontrast. There are, at least, four forms of attraction which arepresented, as I suppose, to your soul, certainly to mine. First ofall, there is the attraction of natural beauty. If you stand on a fairAugust afternoon on the terrace, for instance, at Berne, or on theheights of Chaumont; if you gaze at the distant Alps, crowned withsnow which was generated in winter, but which takes the brightness andglory of diamonds in the summer sun; if, coming from the noise andheat of England, you first gaze at that line of strange pointedmountains crowned with that whiteness, struck with the sunlight, youare moved by natural beauty. If you stand in America on the upperreaches of the St. Lawrence, and watch the river as it hurries to itsdestiny at Niagara; if you see the tossing water writhing almost likeliving creatures anticipating a dreadful destiny and passing over thefall; or if, rising out of what is tragic in nature, you come to whatis homely--if, for instance, you see the chestnut woods of spring withan inspiration of quiet joy, or if you see the elms at Worcester orHereford in our common England in the autumn time with an inspirationof sorrow; wherever you turn with eye or head, with a feeling in yourheart, a thought in your mind, nature demands her recognition; and youLondon men, in the toil of your struggle, in the noise of your work, in the dust of your confusion of life, when you get your holiday inspring or autumn, --unless, indeed, you have passed into the merecondition of brutes, --while you still keep the hearts of men, you feelthere is something in the apostles of culture, in the teachers ofesthetics, in persons who say that beauty is everything to satisfy thesoul. Nature, you say--and you say it justly--says, "Beauty. " Youfind a delight as you gaze upon nature. Yes, dear friends, you arestimulated, you are delighted, you are consoled; there is one thingwhich you are not--you are not satisfied. 

Or, quite possibly, you turn to that which seems to English naturesmore practical and less poetical--you turn to the attraction ofactivity. You say the poets, or the preachers, or the dreamers maygaze upon nature; but Englishmen have something else to do--we have towork. You look at the result of activity, and it is splendid. Imagine, picture for a moment, political achievement; picture to yourselves thepower not only of a mind, but of a personality, of a characterwhich can attract vast millions who have never gazed upon the humanexpression in the human face--can attract them to great love or togreat hatred, can mold the destinies of an empire, can change thecurrent of the time--think of such men as Richelieu or Cavour, or moremodern instances, and you understand what is the greatness and thepower of the attraction of political activity. Or, to come nearerhome, go into your London city, and watch the working of your Londonmart. What have you before you there? The activity of the hearts andminds of Englishmen, sending out the force of the life that is in themfrom the heart that is beating in those tremendous centers to thedistances that are only stopt by the most distant frontiers of theworld. Your sayings and thoughts are quoted throughout the markets ofEurope--yes, throughout the markets of other continents; your actionsand decisions make the difference between the decisions and theactions of men that you have never seen, that you shall never see. TheMedici were a power in Florence, first as bankers, then as governors. There are men in London who have power throughout the world, not onlyin Florence, not as profest governors, but as practical governorsthrough the activity of commercial instinct. Certainly, it seems to mequite possible that there may be minds carried away by such a greatactivity; but that great activity I submit to your deeper, quieterEnglish Sunday thought--that activity will stimulate, will delight, will attract, will intoxicate; one thing it will not do--I am bold tosay it will never satisfy. 

And if I may take another instance for a moment, there is this pureintellect, bidding good-by to the political arena, to the commercialstrife, saying farewell to the dreams of beauty, and falling backupon the cells of the brain, traversing the corridors of thought, andentering first here and there into that labyrinth of instinct, orassociation, or accumulative learning. Certainly, there is a power ofa delight that the world can never realize outside the region of thebrain. If that needs proof you have only, dear friends, to meditateupon such lives as Newton, or Shakespeare, or Kepler, or if you turnto the region of meditative thought, to such lives as our own GeorgeEliot--yes, there is that in the mere exercise of intellect whichis intoxicating, which is consoling even to the highest degree. Butintellect, after all, finds its frontier. I may say of it what Ihave said of the esthetic sentiment, what I have said of the activesentiment in man: it attracts, it delights--what is more, I thinkit even consoles; but the one thing I find about it that to me isperfectly appalling is that it does not satisfy. 

There are many of you perhaps to-day who will demand that I shouldtake my fourth instance, and will ask that that at least may do itsduty. Will it? There is the region of the affections--that regionwherein we stray in early spring days as pickers of the spring-flowersof our opening life, where suns are always glorious and sunsets onlyspeak of brighter dawn, where poetry is in all ordinary conversationand hope springs to higher heights from hour to hour, where Maysare always Mays and Junes are always Junes, where flowers are everbursting, and there seems no end to our nosegays, no limit to ourimaginations, no fetter to our fancies, no restraint to our desires. There is the world, the vast, powerful world, of the passions, purified by exhaustive cultivation into what we call the affectionsof a higher life. By them we deal with our fellow-creatures; by them, when we are young, we form great friendships; by them, as we growolder, we form around us certain associations that we intend tosupport us as life goes off. We have all known it. There is thefriend, there is the sweetheart, there is the wife, there is thechild, there are the dear expressions of the strong heart that afterall beats in Englishmen. But as life goes on, first in one object andthen by anticipation and terror perhaps in others, we watch those whohave been dear to us pass in dim procession to the grave, and we find, after all, that in the world of affections that old strange law thatpervades one branch of the contrast prevails; it can stimulate, it cansupport, it can console, it can delight, it can lead to deliriumat moments, but it does not satisfy. And, my brothers and sisters, because you and I are born not for a moment, but for infinite moments;not for the struggle of time, but for the great platform and career ofeternity--because that is so, never, never, never, if we are true toourselves, shall we pause in the midst of our mortal pilgrimage untilwe find, and grasp, and embrace, and love that which satisfies. Whenyou awaken up a young heart to that truth, then that heart, as I holdit, is on the path of conversion. When amidst the struggle of sin youhave determined the soul to strive after that truth, then that soul isin progress of solid conversion and final perfectibility. But, at anyrate, all human nature joins that cry of the Christian, and the Biblespeaks of it as it always does--its ultimate truth expressing what weneed. No; there are many things given, there are many attractions todraw; they will stimulate, they will help, they will console, theywill give pleasure; there is one thing that satisfies the immortal, there is one life that meets your need: "My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come to appear before the presence ofGod?"

Why, dear friends, why is it that these things do not satisfy? Therelies a city in the Volscian Hills, fair and beautiful, climbing in itspeaks and pinnacles up little ledges of the rocks, and down into thedepths of the valleys. And if you wander some two days from Rome, andgaze upon those mountains, historic in their memories and splendid intheir beauty, you are struck by the tenderness and the attraction ofthat city. It is a city of flowers. The flowers stream up its streetsin grave procession; they climb up the pillars of churches, embracingthem and holding on with arms of deep affection; they laugh in thesunshine, they weep in the shadow, they are shrouded in the clouds ofnight, but they blaze again in the blaze of the morning. There isthe dim funereal ivy, there is the brightness and glow of the purpleconvolvulus, there is the wild-rose clustering round the windows. Theyare lying asleep on the doorsteps, they gather themselves intoknots as if to gossip and to talk in the language of flowers by thedoorways--utterly beautiful! You look at the city with wonder andastonishment--with desire. How wonderful, you say, that church towercovered with its flowers; that altar covered with flowers not gatheredand placed in vases, but with Nature's own hand arranging an offeringto the living God. These streets that sound no footfall of an angrymultitude, but that listen to the footfall of a quiet nature--yes, it is beautiful in the early morning. But stay there until the laterafternoon, when the fog begins to gather; stay there until night-time, when the miasma begins to rise; stay there until morning, and youare in danger of destruction from poison. It is a land of floweryexpression; but it is not a land of real life. 

My friends, the activity of man, the poetic faculty of man, all thegifts and all the capacities of man--they are beautiful, they aretouching, they are attractive; but if they are all, if they expressall that you have to offer, and all that is in you to feel, then theyare hollow, or they-are poisonous, and like that city of flowers. Why?Because there is in you and me a soul that lies behind our thought, altho there is more than feeling there--a soul that supports our will, and is more than our volition. It thinks, but is not thought; itfeels, but is not feeling; it wills, but is not volition. Thereis something deeper in man than his esthetic desire or his activepractise, something deeper beneath us all than anything that findsexpression, certainly than anything that finds satisfaction. There isthe self; there is myself, yourself; there is that strange, mysteriouslife of loneliness which stands, and thinks, and judges, andappraises. When, by divine grace, we escape from the voice of thecrowd, and from the cry of custom, from the delirium of desire, thatpoor lonely self within us pleads to us in a cry like the call ofthe starveling crying to the rich man that passes by, "Oh, will yougratify desire? Oh, will you gratify pleasure? Oh, will you stimulateactivity, and will you leave me alone? I, yourself, your very self, the foundation of your life, the permanent expression of yourimmortality--I must be satisfied, and being infinite and immortal, Iknow but one satisfaction: 'My soul is athirst for God, for the livingGod; when shall I come, and appear before the presence of God?'"

If that be true, or if it be approximately true, dear friends, let usask ourselves this morning these questions. Let us be quite practical. What do you mean, you may say for a moment, by the thirst for God? Iremember long ago in Paris, in conversation with one whom I deemone of the greatest modern statesmen, tho not one of the mostsuccessful--I remember, when a mere boy, talking to that thoughtfulman just at the moment when he was standing amidst the ruins of hisactivity, and gazing with the placid spirit with which a good mangazes when he feels that he has done his duty, tho the world can seethat he has failed--I remember talking to him on such questions asthese, and what he said, among other things, was this: "In dealingwith mankind and in dealing with yourself you must rise by degrees, you must advance from point to point; there is a point of achievement, but you cannot reach the point of achievement unless you have goneup the ladder of progress. " I follow his advice. What do we mean bythirsting for God? My friends, on the lower round of that ladder, Imean thirsting for and desiring moral truth. I mean that the soulwithin you is thirsting and imploring for the satisfaction of itsmoral instincts. Turn for an instant to the ten commandments; they aretrite, they are ordinary, they are placed before you in the east endof your church, after the old custom of your practical, unaesthetic, and undreaming England. Ask what they mean. Turn to the second table. You are to reverence your father and mother. Why? Because they arethe instruments of life that God gives. You are to reverence life inothers in the sixth commandment. Why? Because life is the deepestmystery that God can possibly exhibit to you. In the seventhcommandment--I scarcely like to say, but yet it is wise to repeat, itis necessary to assert it--we are to remember, you and I, when weare young, when we are active, when we are passionate, the greatresponsibility of man; you are not to trifle with that awful mystery, the transmission of life, life which unites itself with eternal love. You are to remember respect for property, for that which divineprovidence has placed by wise laws in the hands of others. You are toremember that the best of properties is a good character. Finally, inthe tenth commandment, you are not to forget that divine providenceguides you, and you are not to murmur and be angry when He guides youwho knows the best for you, and when you have done your best. Andrising from the second table and coming to the first, you are not toforget that there is one object for every soul, as the text asserts. You are not to forget that a jealousy may be created, ought to becreated, if you put anything before God. You are not to grudge God therestraint of speech, and--thank God, still it is possible to appeal tothe wise instincts of England--you are not to grudge on your Sundaythe gift of your time. These are the outlines of the grave moral lawthat runs deep into the heart of the Christian; and I answer, thethirst for God means the thirst within me to fulfil that grave morallaw. 

But, my friends, pause for a moment. After all, that would only be askeleton. After all, simply to draw out the outlines of a picture isnot the work of an artist. Suppose you ask a master in music, "How amI to produce the real result of stately sound?" He will tell you aboutthe common cord; he will tell you about the result of its changes andits affinities, and will speak of those results as harmony; or he willtell you about the gamut of sounds--sounds found in the wind upon themountains, found in the surging sea, found in the voice of childhood, found in the whisper of your dreams--sound that is everywhere, soundthat wanders up and down this wild, wild universe. He will tell youall that, and explain how in proper steps, in wise modulations, thatis melody, as the union of sounds is harmony. Is that enough? Wouldthat produce "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, that made you dissolve intears? Would that produce the chorus of Handel that made you almostrise and march in majesty? Would that fill you with deep thoughts inBeethoven, or fire you into joy in Mendelssohn? Oh, no! You have yourskeleton, but you have not one thing, the deepest; genius has to touchwith its fire the fact that is before you; you want the mystery oflife. And then suppose you turn to an artist and ask him to guide youin painting, and he talks to you about light and shadow, about thelaying of the color, about the drawing of lines, about the exactexpression of the distant and the present, of the foreground and thebackground, and having learned it all, you produce what seems anabortion; you ask yourself, "What is the meaning of this?" Is thisenough to make you quiver, in Dresden, before the San Sisto, carriedaway by those divine eyes of the "Mother of Eternity, " or rent withsorrow before the solemn eyes of the Child? Is this enough to fill youwith tears of delight when you enter the Sistine Chapel and see St. John as he kneels with his unshed tears about the dead Christ? What isthere wanting in the touch of your artist? There is wanting genius;there is wanting life. Or to take one instance more. You ask somebodyto teach you sculpture, to tell you how to make yourself master in thetreatment of stone. He will tell you wise things about the plasticmaterial that you have to mold with thumb and finger, and then aboutthe use of the chisel and the hammer to produce the result in thestone, following the treatment of that plastic material. But when youhave learned it all, can you really believe that you will produce theeffect of that majestic manhood that you see in the David of Angeloin the Piazza of Florence, or that wise, determined progress that isexprest in Donatello's St. George? What is the difference between yourfailure and the results of those men? Genius--life. And when you turnto the moral law, and when you ask yourself, "How can I learn tobe athirst for God?" the preachers say, "Accept the moral law; actexactly in distinct duty to your parents; say, 'Corban, it is a giftby whatsoever thou mayest be profited thereby'; do your duty strictlyto the letter and nothing more; be conservative about your property;restrain yourself from desire of change; do not stimulate and do notsatisfy your passions beyond what is exactly exprest in the morallaw. " But then, if you speak the truth, you say, "And in the end whatam I? Why, after all, most commonplace, and, in truth, most sinful. "What is the difference? This difference: there wants here the touch ofgenius; there wants the touch of life divine, grace that illuminatesthe moral law; there wants, my friends, the enthusiasm for goodness, the science of sciences, the art of arts, the delight and the desireof doing right because it is right, the great and splendid spirit thatbelongs to all of us; and yet it is the highest when the thirst ofyour soul is real. Certainly it is to know God's guidance in law; butwhat is law? It is to grasp that atmosphere of life and reality whichcomes out of the moral law to those who seek it in a living personfirst--the desire of goodness, the desire, the love, the enthusiasm, the ambition, cost what it may, of doing right because it isright. Oh, my friends, I submit--and I submit it without fear ofcontradiction--that is an ambition worthy of Englishmen. Certainlywe are not dreamers; certainly God has given us practical activity;certainly, whatever we misunderstand, this we can understand, thethirst of the soul for God is the thirst to love goodness because itis right. 

And then hastily to conclude, I would say that that thirst is exprest, that that thirst is satisfied, not only in moral law and in itsatmosphere, but in one thing more that I think we can all understand. When we read the New Testament, so simple, so straightforward, sotrue, so beautiful, with some difficulties, but no difficulties that atrue heart can find insuperable--when we read the New Testament we arebrought face to face with the teachings of Christ. And there is this, my friends, more about these teachings, that if you are to follow themout you have not time enough in time; the teachings of our Masterdemand eternity--there is something about them infinite, so simple, sobeautiful, and yet we feel that we are insufficient to fulfil them inthis sphere of time. If my soul is athirst for God, it is athirst forthe fulfilment of those great, splendid, practical teachings whichremind me that I am to begin to learn my lesson in this narrow school, but that I shall fulfil my achievement in that great land beyond thegrave. Is that enough? No; no, when the heart is lonely; no, when thesun is setting; no, when the clouds are gathering round us; no, whenthe storm is coming up. It is useless for the preacher, if he tries tobe real, to talk about law, or the result of law, or the splendor ofteaching; if we know the human heart in its width and its activity, ifit is to find satisfaction it must find it in a personal life. Youmay say you cannot know God. That is the ordinary answer of the humansinning heart, which in modern times calls itself agnostic. Know God!Well, of course it is truly said that it is by mere license of speechwhen you talk of knowledge about human perceptions--it is wisely said. You perceive a fact, my friend; you must perceive it in itself, and asit is, and by an intellect that can infallibly state that it is soand in that manner. Knowledge like that is impossible, I grant; butbetween that scientific knowledge and utter unbelief there are shades, first of all of assent that shuts out doubt, and at last, at the otherpole, of a doubt that almost shuts out assent. Between the two thereare activities of life, and if you are to say, "I cannot know thepersonal God with scientific knowledge, " I grant it; but you cannotknow anything, not only in theology, but in politics, or social life, or moral conduct, or conduct that is not moral--you can know nothing, you can never act at all, because all our action is not on knowledge, but on belief, and therefore when we turn to a personal life that isnot perceived by the activity of the senses we only demand that youare to accept that which it is possible to accept in any sphere ofactivity, and which you do accept. It is possible for you, accordingto the laws of your being, to accept a personal Christ. "But, " yousay--and I must remind you of it as I close--"a personal Christ, but still clothed in human lineaments, a personal Christ who ismysterious--how can you accept that?" How can you not? My friends, thehuman intellect is so framed that it acts habitually upon ideas thatare true yet indistinct. You act on space, you act on time, you haveinfinity, you have in your mouth the word "cause. " What do you knowexactly about infinity, or space, or time, or cause? The humanintellect, it is truly said, first by the greatest of the fathers, then repeated by modern thinkers--the human intellect is so great, first, that it can take exact ideas, and then, because it is infinite, that it can act instantly upon ideas that are real but indistinct. Christ--yes, first He is indistinct yet most real--real because Heentered into history, real because He exprest the idea that is in thebrain and heart of us all; indistinct because these little twentycenturies have separated us from His actual historic life; but a factto those who seek Him, because His power is to make Himself an inwardgift to the human soul, because His activity is such that He meets uson the altar of His sacred sacrament, that He meets us in the divineWord to express His thoughts, that He meets us in consolation, that Hemeets us in absolution, in moments of sorrow and of prayer. Oh, youare not driven to a distant infinity! Oh, you are not asked to restupon a shadow I Oh, you are not besought to play the dreamer orthe sentimentalist, when you think about God! Oh, you are asked toremember that fair, sweet vision--the vision of a Man so devoid ofvulgarity, that whilst He loved the people He did not despise thegreat--the vision of a Man so strong that He could face a multitude, so tender that He could raise the lost woman, so gentle that thelittle children gathered their arms about His neck; the vision ofa Man at home with fishermen, and at home with the high-born, withthoughts so deep that they permeate modern Christendom, with thoughtsso simple that they taught truth to ancient Galilee; the vision of aMan who encouraged youth, the One on whom we rest, by whom we hang, inwhom we hope, who sympathizes with all our best desires, who does notdenounce us, but only intercedes and pities; the Man who never placesHimself upon a Pharisaic pedestal, but feels with the child, with theboy, with the man, with the woman, --the Man of men, the crown of ourhumanity, the God in Man, the Man in God, the power of the sacraments, the force of prayer, the sweet, dear Friend who never misunderstandsus, never forsakes us, never is hard upon us. My friends, it is yourprivilege, it is mine, beyond the privilege of the psalmist, to knowin the gospel, to know in the Church, Christ, God exprest in humanity. Is your soul athirst for the highest? You may find it if you couldcome in repentance, if you come in desire, if you come in quietdetermination to do your duty; you may find it satisfied--yes, nowsatisfied--in Christ.