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The Ideal Life
THE
IDEAL LIFE

Addresses Hitherto Unpublished

BY

HENRY DRUMMOND

With Memorial Sketches by

IAN MACLAREN
AND

W. ROBERTSON NICOLL

e

New York

Dodd, Mead and Company
1913
Copyright, 1897,
By THE NorTH AMERICAN REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY.

Copyright, 1897,
By Dopp, MEAD AND CoMPANY.
Contents

Pacz
INTRODUCTION. I. . 2 2 « 6 0 e

INTRODUCTION. II, . 6 1. 0 « © «we ee 2h

NuMBER ;
I. ILL-TEMPER., . . 2. 1 0 1 te we eo s 4

II. Why CHRIST MUST DEPART. . » ... 65
III. Gomnc ro THE FATHER ....-..- 8
IV. THe EccENnTRICITY OF RELIGION. . . - 96
V. “To ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” . . 2. . II2
VI. CLAIRVOYANCE. «- . 6 «1 6 1 we © + 132
VII. THE THREE FACTS OF SIN... . + + 149
VIII. THE THREE FAcTS oF SALVATION . « + 170
IX. “WHAT Is youR LIFE?”. . . . « . + Igo
X. MARVEL NOT .. +. 6 2 © «© © + ¢ 212
XI. THe MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART . . 227
XII. PENITENCE . . ... + - © © © © «© 244
XIII. Wat Is Gop’s Witt? . . . . + . + 261
XIV. THE RELATION OF THE WILL OF GOD TO
SANCTIFICATION . . . +. + «© «283

XV. How TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD. . . 302
Introductory Note

HE addresses which make up this volume

were written by Professor Drummond be-
tween the years 1876 and 1881, and are now pub-
lished to meet the wishes of those who heard
some of them delivered, and in the hope that
they may continue his work.

They were never prepared for publication, and
have been printed from his manuscripts with a
few obvious verbal corrections. A few paragraphs
used in later publications have been retained.

Of the memorial sketches, the first was origi-
nally published in the ‘“ Contemporary Review,”
the second in the “ North American Review.”

December, 1897.
Introduction

I

ROFESSOR DRUMMOND’S influence on

his contemporaries is not to be meas-
ured by the sale of his books, great as that has
been. It may be doubted whether any living
novelist has had so many readers, and perhaps
no living writer has been so eagerly followed
and so keenly discussed on the Continent and in
America. For some reason, which it is diffi-
cult to assign, many who exercise great influ-
ence at home are not appreciated elsewhere. It
has been said, for example, that no book of
Ruskin’s has ever been translated into a Con-
tinental language, and though such a negative
is obviously dangerous, it is true that Ruskin
has not been to Europe what he has been to
England. But Professor Drummond had the
widest vogue from Norway to Germany. There
was a time when scarcely a week passed in Ger-
many without the publication of a book or pam-
phlet in which his views were canvassed. In
Scandinavia, perhaps, no other living English-

man was so widely known. In every part of
I
2 INTRODUCTION

America his books had an extraordinary circu-
lation. This influence reached all classes. It
was strong among scientific men, whatever may.
be said to the contrary. Among such men as
Von Moltke, Mr. Arthur Balfour, and others
belonging to the governing class, it was stronger
still. It penetrated to every section of the Chris-
tian Church, and far beyond these limits. Still,
when this is said, it remains true that his
deepest influence was personal and hidden. In
the long series of addresses he delivered all over
the world he brought about what may at least
be called a crisis in the lives of innumerable
hearers. He received, I venture to say, more
of the confidences of people untouched by the
ordinary work of the Church than any other man
of his time. Men and women came to him in
their deepest and bitterest perplexities. To
such he was accessible, and both by personal
interviews and by correspondence, gave such
help as he could. He was an ideal confessor.
No story of failure daunted or surprised him.
For every one he had a message of hope; and,
while the warm friend of a chosen circle and
acutely responsive to their kindness, he did not
seem to lean upon his friends. He himself did
not ask for sympathy, and did not seem to need
it. The innermost secrets of his life were be-
tween himself and his Saviour. While frank
and at times even communicative, he had noth-
ing to say about himself or about those who had
INTRODUCTION 3

trusted him. There are multitudes who owed
to Henry Drummond all that one man can owe
to another, and who felt such a thrill pass
through them at the news of his death as they
can never experience again.

Henry Drummond was born at Stirling in
1851. He was surrounded from the first by
powerful religious influences of the evangelistic
kind. His uncle, Mr. Peter Drummond, was
the founder of what is known as the Stirling
Tract enterprise, through which many millions
of small religious publications have been cir-
culated through the world. As a child he was
remarkable for his sunny disposition and his
sweet temper, while the religiousness of his
nature made itself manifest at an early period.
I do not gather, however, that there were many
auguries of his future distinction. He was
thought to be somewhat desultory and indepen-
dent in his work. In due course he proceeded
to the University of Edinburgh, where he dis-
tinguished himself in science, but in nothing
else. He gained, I believe, the medal in the
geology class. But like many students who do
not go in for honours, he was anything but idle.
He tells us himself that he began to form a
library, his first purchase being a volume of
extracts from Ruskin’s works. Ruskin taught
him to see the world as it is, and it soon became
a new world to him, full of charm and loveli-
ness. He learned to linger beside the ploughed
4 INTRODUCTION

field, and revel in the affluence of colour and
shade which were to be seen in the newly-turned
furrows, and to gaze in wonder at the liquid
amber of the two feet of air above the brown
earth. Next to Ruskin he put Emerson, who
all his life powerfully affected both his teaching
and his style. Differing as they did in many
ways, they were alike in being optimists with
a high and noble conception of good, but with
no correspondingly definite conception of evil.
Mr. Henry James says that Emerson’s genius
had a singular thinness, an almost touching
lightness, sparseness, and transparency about it.
And the same was true, in a measure, of Drum-
mond’s. The religious writers who attracted
him were Channing and F. W. Robertson.
Channing taught him to believe in God, the
good and gracious Sovereign of all things.
From Robertson he learned that God is human,
and that we may have fellowship with Him be-
cause He sympathises with us. It is well known
that Robertson himself was a warm admirer of
Channing. The parallels between Robertson
and Channing in thought, and even in words,
have never been properly drawn out. It would
be a gross exaggeration to say that the contact
with Robertson and Channing was the begin-
ning of Drummond’s religious life. But it was
through them, and it was at that period of his
studentship that he began to take possession for
himself of Christian truth. And it was a great
INTRODUCTION 5

secret of his power that he preached nothing
except what had personally come home to him
and had entered into his heart of hearts. His
attitude to much of the theology in which he
was taught was that not of denial, but of respect-
ful distance. He might have come later on to
appropriate it and preach it, but the appropria-
tion would have been the condition of the preach-
ing. His mind was always receptive. Like
Emerson, he was an excellent listener. He
stood always in a position of hopeful expectancy,
and regarded each delivery of a personal view as
a new fact to be estimated on its merits. I may
add that he was a warm admirer of Mr. R. H.
Hutton, and thought his essay on Goethe the
best critical piece of the century. He used to
say that, like Mr. Hutton, he could sympathise
with every Church but the Hard Church.

After completing his University course he
went to the New College, Edinburgh, to be
trained for the ministry of the Free Church,
The time was critical The Free Church had
been founded in a time of intense Evangelical
faith and passion. It was a visible sign of the
reaction against Moderatism. The Moderates
had done great service to literature, but their
sermons were favourably represented by the
solemn fudge of Blair. James Macdonell, the
brilliant Z7es leader-writer, who carefully ob-
served from the position of an outsider the eccle-
siastical life of his countrymen, said that the
6 INTRODUCTION

Moderate leaders deliberately set themselves to
the task of stripping Scotch Presbyterianism
free from provincialism, and so triumphant were
they that most of their sermons might have
been preached in a heathen temple as fitly as
in St. Giles. They taught the moral law with
politeness; they made philosophy the handmaid
of Christianity with well-bred moderation, and
they so handled the grimmer tenets of Calvinism
as to hurt no susceptibilities. The storm of the
Disruption blew away the old Moderates from
their place of power, and men like Chalmers,
Cunningham, Candlish, Welsh, Guthrie, Begg,
and the other leaders of the Evangelicals, more
than filled their place. The obvious danger
was that the Free Church should become the
home of bigotry and obscurantism. This danger
was not so great at first. There was a lull in
critical and theological discussion, and men were
sure of their ground. The large and generous
spirit of Chalmers impressed itself on the Church
of which he was the main founder, and the desire
to assert the influence of religion in science and
literature in all the field of knowledge was shown
from the beginning. For example, the Worth
British Review was the organ of the Free Church,
and did not stand much behind the Edinburgh
and the Quarterly, either in the ability of its
articles or in the distinction of many of its
contributors. But especially the Free Church
showed its wisdom by founding theological sem-
INTRODUCTION 7

inaries, and filling their chairs with its best
men. <A Professorship of Divinity was held to
be a higher position than the pastorate of any
pulpit. As time went on, however, and as the
tenets of the Westminster Evangelicanism were
more and more formidably assailed, the Free
Church came in danger of surrendering its intel-
lectual life. The whisper of heresy would have
damaged a minister as effectually as a grave
moral charge. Independent thought was impa-
tiently and angrily suppressed. Macdonell said,
writing in the Spectator in 1874, that the Free
Church was being intellectually starved, and he
pointed out that the Established Church was
gaining ground under the leadership of such
men as Principal Tulloch and Dr. Wallace, who
in a sense represented the old Moderates, though
they were as different from them as this age is
from the last. The Free Church was apparently
refusing to shape the dogmas of traditional
Christianity in such a way as to meet the subtle
intellectual and moral demands of an essentially
scientificage. There was an apparent unanimity
in the Free Church, but it was much more
apparent than real. For one thing, the teach-
ing of some of the professors had been produc-
ing its influence. Dr. A. B. Davidson, the
recognised master of Old Testament learning
in this country, a man who joins to his know-
ledge imagination, subtlety, fervour, and a rare
power of style, had been quietly teaching the
8 INTRODUCTION

best men amongst his students that the old
views of revelation would have to be seriously
altered. He did not do this so much directly as
indirectly, and I think there was a period when
any Free Church minister who asserted the ex-
istence of errors in the Bible would have been
summarily deposed. The abler students had
been taking sessions at Germany, and had thus
escaped from the narrowness of the provincial
coterie. They were interested, some of them in
literature, some in science, some in philosophy.
At the New College they discussed in their theo-
logical society with daring and freedom the prob-
lems of the time. A crisis was sure to come,
and it might very well have been a crisis which
would have broken the Church in pieces. That
it did not was due largely to the influence of one
man — the American Evangelist, Mr. Moody.
In 1873 Mr. Moody commenced his campaign
in the Barclay Free Church, Edinburgh. A few
days before, Drummond had read a paper to the
Theological Society of his college on Spiritual
Diagnosis, in which he maintained that preach-
ing was not the most important thing, but that
personal dealing with those in anxiety would
yield better results. In other words, he thought
that practical religion might be treated as an
exact science. He had given himself to scien-
tific study with a view of standing for the degree
of Doctor of Science. Moody at once made a
deep impression on Edinburgh, and attracted
INTRODUCTION 9

the ablest students. He missed in this country
a sufficient religious provision for young men,
and he thought that young men could best be
moulded by young men. With his keen Amer-
ican eye he perceived that Drummond was his
best instrument, and he immediately associated
him in the work. It had almost magical results.
From the very first Drummond attracted and
deeply moved crowds, and the issue was that for
two years he gave himself to this work of evan-
gelism in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland.
During this period he came to know the life
histories of young men in all classes. He made
himself a great speaker; he knew how to seize
the critical moment, and his modesty, his refine-
ment, his gentle and generous nature, his manli-
ness, and above all, his profound conviction,
won for him disciples in every place he visited.
His companions were equally busy in their own
lines, and in this way the Free Church was
saved. A development on the lines of Tulloch
and Wallace was impossible for the Free Church.
Any change that might take place must conserve
the vigorous evangelical life of which it had
been the home. The change did take place.
Robertson Smith, who was by far the first man
of the circle, won, at the sacrifice of his own
position, toleration for Biblical criticism, and
proved that an advanced critic might be a con-
vinced and fervent evangelical. Others did
something, each in his own sphere, and it is
10 INTRODUCTION

not too much to say that the effects have been
world-wide. The recent writers of Scottish
fiction — Barrie, Crockett, and Ian Maclaren —
were all children of the Free Church, two of
them being ministers. In almost every depart-
ment of theological science, with perhaps the
exception of Church history, Free Churchmen
have made contributions which rank with the
most important of the day. It is but bare jus-
tice to say that the younger generation of Free
Churchmen have done their share in claiming
that Christianity should rule in all the fields of
culture, that the Incarnation hallows every de-
partment of human thought and activity. No
doubt the claim has excited some hostility; at
the same time the general public has rallied in
overwhelming numbers to its support, and any
book of real power written in a Christian spirit
has now an audience compared with which that
of most secular writers is small.

Even at that time Drummond’s evangelism was
not of the ordinary type. When he had com-
pleted his studies, after brief intervals of work
elsewhere, he found his professional sphere as
lecturer on Natural Science in the Free Church
College at Glasgow. There he came under the
spell of Dr. Marcus Dods, to whom, as he always
testified, he owed more than to any other man.
He worked in a mission connected with Dr. Dods’
congregation, and there preached the remarkable
series of addresses which were afterwards pub-
INTRODUCTION Ir

lished as “ Natural Law in the Spiritual World.”
The book appeared in 1883, and the author would
have been quite satisfied with a circulation of
1,000 copies. In England alone it has sold
about 120,000 copies, while the American and
foreign editions are beyond count. There is a
natural prejudice against premature reconcilia-
tions between science and religion. Many would
say with Schiller: “ Feindschaft sei zwischen
euch, noch kommt ein Bundniss zu friihe: For-
schet-beide getrennt, so wird die Wahrheit
erkannt.” In order to reconcile science and
religion finally you must be prepared to say
what is science and what is religion. Till that
is done any synthesis must be premature, and
any book containing it must in due time be
superseded. Drummond was not blind to this,
and yet he saw that something had to be done.
Evolution was becoming more than a theory — it
was an atmosphere. Through the teaching of
evolutionists a subtle change was passing over
morals, politics, and religion. Compromises had
been tried and failed. The division of territory
desired by some was found to be impossible.
Drummond did not begin with doctrine and
work downwards to nature. He ran up natural
law as far as it would go, and then the doctrine
burst into view. It was contended by the
lamented Aubrey Moore that the proper thing
is to begin with doctrine. While Moore would
have admitted that science cannot be defined,
12 INTRODUCTION

that even the problem of evolution is one of
which as yet we hardly know the outlines, he
maintained that the first step was to begin with
the theology of the Catholic Church, and that it
was impossible to defend Christianity on the basis
of anything less than the whole of the Church’s
creed. Drummond did not attempt this, He
declined, for example, to consider the relation
of evolution to the Fall and to the Pauline
doctrine of redemption. What he maintained
was that, if you begin at the natural laws, you
end in the spiritual laws; and in a series of
impressive illustrations he brought out his facts
of science, some of them characteristic doctrines
of Calvinism — brought them out sternly and un-
disguisedly. By many of the orthodox he was
welcomed as a champion, but others could not
acquiesce in his assumption of evolution, and
regarded him as more dangerous than an open
foe. The book was riddled with criticisms from
every side. Drummond himself never replied to
these, but he gave his approval to an anonymous
defence which appeared in the Expositor} and it
is worth while recalling briefly the main points.
(1) His critics rejected his main position, which
was not that the spiritual laws are analogous to
the natural laws, but that they are the same laws.
To this he replied that if he had not shown iden-
tity, he had done nothing; but he admitted that
the application of natural law to the spiritual
1 Third Series, Vol. 1.
INTRODUCTION 13

world had decided and necessary limits, the
principle not applying to those provinces of the
spiritual world most remote from human experi-
ence. He adhered to the distinction between
nature and grace, but he thought of grace also
as forming part of the divine whole of nature,
which is an emanation from the recesses of the
divine wisdom, power and love. (2) His use of
the law of biogenesis was severely attacked alike
from the scientific and the religious side. Even
Christian men of science thought he had laid
dangerous stress on the principle omne vivum
ex vivo, and declined to say that biogenesis was
as certain as gravitation. They further affirmed,
and surely with reason, that the principle is not
essential to faith. From the religious side it was
urged that he had grossly exaggerated the dis-
tinction between the spiritual man and the
natural man, and that he ignored the suscepti-
bilities or affinities of the natural man for spirit-
ual influence. The reply was that he had asserted
the capacity for God very strongly. “ The cham-
ber is not only ready to receive the new life, but
the Guest is expected, and till He comes is missed.
Till then the soul longs and yearns, wastes and
pines, waving its tentacles piteously in the empty
air, or feeling after God if so be that it may find
Him.” (3) As for the charge that he could not
reconcile his own statements as to divine efficiency
and human responsibility, it was pointed out that
this was only a phase of the larger difficulty of
14 INTRODUCTION

reconciling the exercise of the divine will with
the freedom of the human will. What he main-
tained, in common with Augustinian and Puritan
theology, was that in every case of regeneration
there is an original intervention of God. (4) The
absence of reference to the Atonement was due
to the fact that the doctrine belonged to a region
inaccessible to the new method, lying in the
depths of the Divine Mind, and only to be made
known by revelation. (5) The charge that he
taught the annihilation of the unregenerate was
repudiated. The unregenerate had not fulfilled
the conditions of eternal life; but that does not
show that they may not exist through eternity,
for they exist at present, although in Mr. Drum-
mond’s sense they do not live. There is no doubt
that many of the objections directed against his
book applied equally to every form of what may
be called evangelical Calvinism. But I think that
the main impression produced on competent
judges was that the volume, though written with
brilliant clearness of thought and imagination,
and full of the Christian spirit, did not give their
true place to personality, freedom, and conscience,
terms against which physical science may even be
said to direct its whole artillery, so far as it tries
to depersonalise man, but terms in which the very
life of morality and religion is bound up. Per-
haps Drummond himself came ultimately to take
this view. In any case, Matthew Arnold’s verdict
will stand: “ What is certain is that the author of
INTRODUCTION 15

the book has a genuine love of religion and a
genuine religious experience.”

His lectureship in Glasgow was constituted into
a professor’s chair, and he occupied it for the rest
of his life. His work gave him considerable free-
dom. During a few months of the year he lec-
tured on geology and botany, giving also scattered
discourses on biological problems and the study
of evolution. He had two examinations in the
year, the first, which he called the “stupidity”
examination, to test the men’s knowledge of com-
non things, asking such questions as, “ Why is
grass green?” ‘Why is thesea salt?” ‘Why is
the heaven blue?” ‘What is a leaf?” etc., etc.
After this Socratic inquiry he began his teaching,
and examined his students at the end. He taught
in a class-room that was also a museum, always
had specimens before him while lecturing, and
introduced his students to the use of scientific
instruments, besides taking them for geological
excursions. In his time of leisure he travelled
very widely. He paid three visits to America,
and one to Australia. He also took the journey
to Africa commemorated in his brilliant little
book, “Tropical Africa,” a work in which his’ in-
sight, his power of selection, his keen observation,
his fresh style, and his charming personality ap-
pear to the utmost advantage. It was praised on
every side, though Mr. Stanley made a criticism
to which Drummond gave an effective and good-
humoured retort. During these journeys and on
16 INTRODUCTION

other occasions at home he continued his work of
evangelism. He addressed himself mainly to
students, on whom he had a great influence, and
for years went every week to Edinburgh for the
purpose of delivering Sunday evening religious
addresses to University men. He was invariably
followed by crowds, the majority of whom were
medical students. He also, on several occasions,
delivered addresses in London to social and po-
litical leaders, the audience including many of the
most eminent men of the time. The substance
of these addresses appeared in his famous book-
lets, beginning with the “ Greatest Thing in the
World,” and it may be worth while to say some-
thing of their teaching. Mr. Drummond did not
begin in the conventional way. He seemed to do
without all that, to common Christianity, is indis-
pensable. He approached the subject so disin-
terestedly, with such an entire disregard of its one
presupposition, sin, that many could never get on
common ground with him. He entirely omitted
that theology of the Cross which had been the
substance hitherto of evangelistic addresses. No-
body could say that his gospel was “ arterial” or
“ensanguined.” In the first place, he had, like
Emerson, a profound belief in the powers of the
human will, That word of Spinoza which has
been called a text in the scriptures of humanity
might have been his motto. ‘He who desires to
assist other people . . . in common conversations
will avoid referring to the vices of men, and will
INTRODUCTION 17

take care only sparingly to speak of human im-
potence, while he will talk largely of human vir-
tue or power, and of the way by which it may be
made perfect, so that men being moved, not by
fear or aversion, but by the effect of joy, may
endeavour, as much as they can, to live under the
rule of reason.” With this sentence may be
coupled its echo in the “ Confessions of a Beauti-
ful Soul”: “It is so much the more our duty,
not like the advocate of the evil spirit, always to
keep our eyes fixed upon the nakedness and
weakness of our nature, but rather to seek out all
those perfections through which we can make
good our claims to a likeness to God.” But
along with this went a passionate devotion to
Jesus Christ. Emerson said, ‘‘ The man has never
lived who can feed us ever.” Drummond main-
tained with absolute conviction that Christ could
for ever and ever meet all the needs of the
soul. In his criticism of ‘Ecce Homo,” Mr.
Gladstone answered the question whether the
Christian preacher is ever justified in delivering
less than a full Gospel. He argued that to go
back to the very beginning of Christianity might
be a method eminently suited to the needs of the
present generation. The ship of Christianity was
overloaded, not perhaps for fair weather, but when
a gale came the mass strained over to the leeward.
Drummond asked his hearers to go straight into
the presence of Christ, not as He now presents

Himself to us, bearing in His hand the long roll
2
18 INTRODUCTION

of His conquests, but as He offered Himself to
the Jew by the Sea of Galilee, or in the syna-
gogue of Capernaum, or in the temple of Jerusa-
lem. He declined to take every detail of the
Christianity in possession as part of the whole.
He denied that the rejection of the non-essential
involved parting with the essential, and he strove
to go straight to the fountain-head itself. What-
ever criticisms may be passed it will be allowed
that few men in the century have done so much
to bring their hearers and readers to the feet of
Jesus Christ. It has been said of Carlyle that
the one living ember of the old Puritanism that
still burned vividly in his mind was the belief that
honest and true men might find power in God to
alter things for the better. Drummond believed
with his whole heart that men might find power
in Christ to change their lives.

He had seven or eight months of the year at
his disposal, and spent very little of them in his
beautiful home at Glasgow. He wandered all
over the world, and in genial human intercourse
made his way to the hearts of rich and poor.
He was as much at home in addressing a meet-
ing of working men as in speaking.at Grosvenor
House. He had fastidious tastes, was always
faultlessly dressed, and could appreciate the sur-
roundings of civilisation. But he could at a
moment's notice throw them all off and be per-
fectly happy. As a traveller in Africa he cheer-
fully endured much privation. He excelled in
INTRODUCTION 19

many sports and was a good shot. In some ways
he was like Lavengro, and I will say that some
parts of “ Lavengro” would be unintelligible to
me unless I had known Drummond. Although
he refused to quarrel, and had a thoroughly loyal
and deeply affectionate nature, he was yet in-
dependent of others. He never married. He
never undertook any work to which he did not
feel himself called. Although he had the most
tempting offers from editors, nothing would in-
duce him to write unless the subject attracted
him, and even then he was unwilling. Although
he had great facility he never presumed upon it.
He wrote brightly and swiftly, and would have
made an excellent journalist. But everything he
published was elaborated with the most scrupu-
lous care. I have never seen manuscripts so
carefully revised as his. All he did was appar-
ently done with ease, but there was immense
labour behind it. Although in orders he neither
used the title nor the dress that go with them,
but preferred to regard himself asalayman. He
had a deep sense of the value of the Church and
its work, but I think was not himself connected
with any Church, and never attended public wor-
ship unless he thought the preacher had some
message for him. He seemed to be invariably
in good spirits, and invariably disengaged. He
was always ready for any and every office of
friendship. It should be said that, though few
men were more criticised or misconceived, he
20 INTRODUCTION

himself never wrote an unkind word about any
one, never retaliated, never bore malice, and could
do full justice to the abilities and character of his
opponents. I have just heard that he exerted
himself privately to secure an important appoint-
ment for one of his most trenchant critics, and
was successful.

For years he had been working quietly at his
last and greatest book, “The Ascent of Man.”
The chapters were first delivered as the Lowell
Lectures in Boston, where they attracted great
crowds. The volume was published in 1894,
and though its sale was large, exceeding 20,000
copies, it did not command his old public. This
was due very much to the obstinacy with which
he persisted in selling it at a net price, a proceed-
ing which offended the booksellers, who had
hoped to profit much from its sale. The work
is much the most important he has left us. It
was an endeavour, as has been said, to engraft
an evolutionary sociology and ethic upon a bio-
logical basis. The fundamental doctrine of the
struggle of life leads to an individualistic sys-
tem in which the moral side of nature has no
place. Professor Drummond contended that the
currently accepted theory, being based on an ex-
clusive study of the conditions of nutrition, took
account of only half the truth. With nutrition
he associated, as a second factor, the function of
reproduction, the struggle for the life of others,
and maintained that this was of co-ordinate rank
INTRODUCTION 21

as a force in cosmic evolution. Though others
had recognised altruism as modifying the opera-
tion of egoism, Mr. Drummond did more. He
tried to indicate the place of altruism as the out-
come of those processes whereby the species is
multiplied, and its bearing on the evolution of
ethics. He desired, in other words, a unification
of concept, the filling up of great gulfs that had
seemed to be fixed. “If nature be the garment
of God, it is woven without seam throughout; if
a revelation of God, it is the same yesterday, to-
day, and for ever; if the expression of His will,
there is in it no variableness nor shadow of turn-
ing.” After sketching the stages of the process
of evolution, physical and ethical, he develops his
central idea in the chapter on the struggle for the
life of others, and then deals with the higher
stages of the development of altruism as a modi-
fying factor. The book was mercilessly criticised,
but I believe that no one has attempted to deny the
accuracy and the beauty of his scientific descrip-
tions. Further, not a few eminent scientific men,
like Professor Gairdner and Professor Macalister,
have seen in it at least the germ out of which
much may come. One of its severest critics, Dr.
Dallinger, considers that nature is non-moral, and
that religion begins with Christ. No man hath
seen God at any time —this is what nature cer-
tifies. The only begotten Son of the Father, He
hath declared Him — this is the message of Chris-
tianity. But there are many religious minds, and
22 INTRODUCTION

some scientific minds, convinced, in spite of all
the difficulties, that natural law must be moral,
and very loth to admit a hopeless dualism be-
tween the physical and the moral order of the
world. They say that the whole force of evolu-
tion directs our glance forward, and that its motto
is xpy TéXOs Opa.

With the publication of this book Drummond’s
career as a public teacher virtually ended. He
who had never known an illness, who apparently
had been exempted from care and sorrow, was
prostrated by a painful and mysterious malady.
One of his kind physicians, Dr. Freeland Barbour,
informs me that Mr. Drummond suffered from a
chronic affection of the bones. It maimed him
greatly. He was laid on his back for more than
a year, and had both arms crippled, so that
reading was not a pleasure and writing almost
impossible. For a long time he suffered acute
pain. It was then that some who had greatly
misconceived him came to a truer judgment of
the man. Those who had often found the road
rough had looked askance at Drummond as a
spoiled child of fortune, ignorant of life’s real
meaning. But when he was struck down in his
prime, at the very height of his happiness, when
there was appointed for him, to use his own
words, “a waste of storm and tumult before he
reached the shore,” it seemed as if his suffer-
ings liberated and revealed the forces of his soul.
INTRODUCTION 23

The spectacle of his long struggle with a mortal
disease was something more than impressive.
Those who saw him in his illness saw that, as the
physical life flickered low, the spiritual energy
grew. Always gentle and considerate, he became
even more careful, more tender, more thoughtful,
more unselfish. He never in any way complained.
His doctors found it very difficult to get him to
talk of his illness. It was strange and painful,
but inspiring, to see his keenness, his mental
elasticity, his universal interest. Dr. Barbour
says: “I have never seen pain or weariness, or
the being obliged to do nothing, more entirely
overcome, treated, in fact, as if they were not.
The end came suddenly from failure of the heart.
Those with him received only a few hours’ warn-
ing of his critical condition.” It was not like
death. He lay on his couch in the drawing-room,
and passed away in his sleep, with the sun shining
in and the birds singing at the open window.
There was no sadness nor farewell. It recalled
what he himself said of a friend’s death — “ put-
ting by the well-worn tools without a sigh, and
expecting elsewhere better work to do.”

W. ROBERTSON NICOLL,
If

E had been in many places over the world

and seen strange sights, and taken his

share in various works, and, being the man he
was, it came to pass of necessity that he had many
friends. Some of them were street arabs, some
were negroes, some were medicals, some were
evangelists, some were scientists, some were theo-
logians, some were nobles. Between each one
and Drummond there was some affinity, and each
could tell his own story about his friend. It will
be interesting to hear what Professor Greenfield
or Mr. Moody may have to say; but one man,
with profound respect for such eminent persons,
would prefer to have a study of Drummond by
Moolu, his African retainer. Drummond believed
in Moolu, not because he was “ pious” — which
he was not — but because “he did his duty and
never toldalie.” From the chief’s point of view,
Moolu had the final virtue of a clansman—he was
loyal and faithful: his chief, for that expedition,
had beyond most men the necessary endowment
of a leader, a magnetic personality. It is under-
stood that Drummond’s life is to be written at
large by a friend, in whose capable and wise
INTRODUCTION 25

hands it will receive full justice; but in the mean-
time it may not be unbecoming that one should
pay his tribute who has his own qualification for
this work of love. It is not that he is able to
appreciate to the full the man’s wonderful genius,
or accurately to estimate his contributions to
scientific and religious thought —this will be
done by more distinguished friends— but that
he knew Drummond constantly and intimately
from boyhood to his death. If one has known
any friend at school and college, and in the
greater affairs of life has lived with him, argued
with him, prayed with him, had his sympathy in
the supreme moments of joy and sorrow, has had
every experience of friendship except one — it
was not possible to quarrel with Drummond,
although you might be the hottest-tempered Celt
on the face of the earth— then he may not under-
stand the value of his friend’s work, but at any
rate he understands his friend. As one who knew
Henry Drummond at first hand, my desire is to
tell what manner of man he was in all honesty
and without eulogy. If any one be offended
then, let him believe that I wrote what I have
seen, and if any one be incredulous, then I can
only say that he did not know Drummond.
His body was laid to rest a few weeks ago, on
a wet and windy March day, in the most romantic
of Scottish cemeteries, and the funeral, on its way
from the home of his boyhood to the Castle Rock
of Stirling, passed the King’s Park. It was in
26 INTRODUCTION

that park more than thirty years ago that I first
saw Drummond, and on our first meeting he pro-
duced the same effect as he did all his after life.
The sun was going down behind Ben Lomond,
in the happy summer time, touching with gold
the gray old castle, deepening the green upon the
belt of trees which fringed the eastern side of
the park, and filling the park itself with soft, mel-
low light. A cricket match between two schools
had been going on all day and was coming to an
end, and I had gone out to see the result — beinga
new arrival in Stirling, and full of curiosity. The
two lads at the wickets were in striking contrast —
one heavy, stockish, and determined, who slogged
powerfully and had scored well for his side; the
other nimble, alert, graceful, who had a pretty
but uncertain play. The slogger was forcing
the running in order to make up a heavy leeway,
and compelled his partner to run once too often.
“It’s all right, and you fellows are not to cry
shame ’”’ — this was what he said as he joined his
friends —“ Buchanan is playing At, and that hit
ought to have been a four; I messed the running.”
It was good form, of course, and what any decent
lad would want to say, but there was an accent of
gaiety and a certain air which was very taking.
Against that group of clumsy, unformed, awkward
Scots lads this bright, straight, living figure stood
in relief, and as he moved about the field my eyes
followed him, and in my boyish and dull mind I
had a sense that he was a type by himself, a visitor
INTRODUCTION 27

of finer breed than those among whom he moved.
By-and-by he mounted a friend’s pony and gal-
loped along the race-course in the park till one
only saw a speck of white in the sunlight, and still
I watched in wonder and fascination — only a boy
of thirteen or so, and dull — till he came back, in
time to cheer the slogger who had pulled off the
match — with three runs to spare— and carried
his bat.

“Well played, old chap!” the pure, clear,
joyous note rang out on the evening air; “finest
thing you’ve ever done,” while the strong-armed,
heavy-faced slogger stood still and looked at him
in admiration, and made amends. “I say, Drum-
mond, it was my blame you were run out... .”
Drummond was his name, and some one said
“Henry.” So I first saw my friend.

What impressed me that pleasant evening in
the days of long ago I can now identify. It was
the lad’s distinction, an inherent quality of ap-
pearance and manner of character and soul
which marked him and made him solitary.
What happened with one strange lad that even-
ing befell all kinds of people who met Drummond
in later years. They were at once arrested, in-
terested, fascinated by the very sight of the man,
and could not take their eyes off him. Like a
picture of the first order among ordinary portraits
he unconsciously put his neighbours at a disad-
vantage. One did not realise how commonplace
and colourless other men were till they stood side
28 INTRODUCTION

by side with Drummond. Upon a platform of
evangelists, or sitting among divinity students in
a dingy classroom, or cabined in the wooden re-
spectability of an ecclesiastical court, or standing
in a crowd of passengers at a railway station, he
suggested golden embroidery upon hodden gray.
It was as if the prince of one’s imagination had
dropped in among common folk. He reduced
us all to the peasantry.

Drummond was a handsome man, such as you
could not match in ten days’ journey, with deli-
cately cut features, rich auburn hair, and a cer-
tain carriage of nobility, but the distinctive and
commanding feature of his face was his eye. No
photograph could do it justice, and very often
photographs have done it injustice, by giving the
idea of staringness. His eye was not bold or
fierce; it was tender and merciful. But it hada
power and hold which were little else than irre-
sistible and almost supernatural. When you
talked with Drummond, he did not look at you
and out of the window alternately, as is the usual
manner; he never moved his eyes, and gradually
their penetrating gaze seemed to reach and en-
compass your soul. It was as Plato imagined it
would be in the judgment; one soul was in con-
tact with another — nothing between. No man
could be double, or base, or mean, or impure be-
fore that eye. His influence, more than that of
any man IJ have ever met, was mesmeric — which
means that while other men affect their fellows
INTRODUCTION 29

by speech and example, he seized one directly
by his living personality. As a matter of fact,
he had given much attention to the occult arts,
and was at one time a very successful mesmerist.
It will still be remembered by some college com-
panions how he had one student so entirely under
his power that the man would obey him on the
street and surrender his watch without hesitation,
and it was told how Drummond laid a useful in-
junction on a boy in a house where he was staying,
and the boy obeyed it so persistently afterwards
that Drummond had to write and set him free.
Quite sensible and unromantic people grew un-
easy in his presence, and roused themselves to
resistance —as one might do who recognised a
magician and feared his spell.

One sometimes imagines life as a kind of gas
of which our bodies are the vessels, and it is evi-
dent that a few are much more richly charged
than their fellows. Most people simply exist
completing their tale of work — not a grain over;
doing their measured mile — not an inch beyond;
thinking along the beaten track — never tempted
to excursions. Here and there in the world you
come across a person in whom life is exuberant
and overflowing, a force which cannot be tamed
or quenched. Drummond was such an one, the
most vital man I ever saw, who never loitered,
never wearied, never was conventional, pedantic,
formal, who simply revelled in the fulness of life.
He was so radiant with life that ordinary people
30 INTRODUCTION

showed pallid beside him, and shrank from him
or were attracted and received virtue out of him.
Like one coming in from the light and open air
into a stuffy room where a company had been
sitting with closed windows, Drummond burst
into bloodless and unhealthy coteries, bringing
with him the very breath of heaven.

He was the Evangelist to thoughtful men —
over women he had far less power — and _ his
strength lay in his personality. Without anec-
dotes or jokes, or sensationalism or doctrine,
without eloquence or passion, he moved young
men at his will because his message was life, and
he was its illustration. His words fell one by one
with an indescribable awe and solemnity, in the
style of the Gospels, and reached the secret
place of the soul. Nothing more unlike the
ordinary evangelistic address could be imagined:
it was so sane, so persuasive, so mystical, so
final. It almost followed, therefore, that he was
not the ideal of a popular evangelist who has to
address the multitude, and produce his effect on
those who do not think. For his work, it is
necessary — besides earnestness, which is taken
for granted — to have a loud voice, a broad hu-
mour, a stout body, a flow of racy anecdote, an
easy negligence of connection, a spice of con-
tempt for culture, and pledges of identification
with the street in dress and accent. His hearers
feel that such a man is homely and is one of
themselves, and, amid laughter and tears of sim-
INTRODUCTION 31

ple human emotion, they are moved by his speech
to higher things. This kind of audience might
regard Drummond with respectful admiration, but
he was too fine a gentleman, they would con-
sider, for their homespun. Place him, as he
used to stand and speak, most perfectly dressed
both as to body and soul, before five hundred
men of good taste and fine sensibilities, or the
same number of young men not yet cultured but
full of intellectual ambitions and fresh enthu-
siasm, and no man could state the case for Christ
and the soul after a more spiritual and winsome
fashion. Religion is without doubt the better for
the popular evangelist, although there be times
when quiet folk think that he needs chastening;
religion also requires in every generation one
representative at least of the higher evangelism,
and if any one should ask what manner of man
he ought to be, the answer is to his hand —
Henry Drummond.
When one admits, without reserve, that his
friend was not made by nature to be a successful
officer of the Salvation Army, it must not be
understood that Drummond was in any sense a
superior person, or that he sniffed in his dainti-
ness at ordinary humanity —a spiritual Matthew
Arnold. It would strain my conscience to bear
witness that working people, say, however much
they loved him, were perfectly at home with him,
and it is my conviction, from observation of life,
that this is an inevitable disability of distinction.
32 INTRODUCTION

One may be so well dressed, so good looking, so
well mannered, so spiritually refined, that men
with soiled clothes and women cleaning the house
may realise their low estate, and miss that free-
masonry which at once by a hundred signs unites
them in five minutes with a plainer man. While
this may have been true, the blame was not his,
and no man lived who had a more unaffected in-
terest and keener joy in human life in the home
or on the street. No power could drag him past
a Punch-and-Judy show — the ancient, perennial,
ever-delightful theatre of the people —in which,
each time of attendance, he detected new points
of interest. He would, in early days, if you
please, gaze steadfastly into a window, in the
High Street of Edinburgh, till a little crowd of
men, women, children, and workmen, loafers,
soldiers, had collected, and join with much zest
in the excited speculations regarding the man —
unanimously and suddenly imagined to have been
carried in helpless — how he met with his acci-
dent, where he was hurt, and whether he would
recover, listening eagerly to the explanation of
the gathering given by some officious person to
the policeman, and joining heartily in the re-
proaches levelled at some unknown deceiver.
One of his chosen subjects of investigation,
which he pursued with the zeal and patience of a
naturalist, was that ever-interesting species — the
Boy, whom he studied in his various forms and
haunts: at home for the holidays, on the cricket
INTRODUCTION 33

field, playing marbles on the street with a chance
acquaintance while two families wait for their
food, or living with many resources and high en-
joyment in a barrel. There was nothing in a
boy he did not know, could not explain, did not
sympathise with, and so long as it lasts his name
will be associated with the Boys’ Brigade. While
any other would only have seen two revellers in
a man and woman singing their devious way
along the street at night, Drummond detected
that a wife, who had not been drinking, was lur-
ing her husband home by falling in with his
mood, and that before it was reached she might
need a friendly hand. His sense of humour was
unerring, swift and masterful. If he came upon
a good thing in his reading he would walk a mile
to share it with a friend, and afterwards depart in
the strength thereof, and he has been found in
his room exhausted with delight with nothing
before him but one of those Parisian plaster
caricatures of a vagabond. Lying on his back in
the pitiable helplessness and constant pain of
those last two years, he was still the same man.
“Don’t touch me, please ; I can’t shake hands,
but I’ve saved up a first-rate story for you,” and
his palate was too delicate to pass anything
second-rate. Partly this was his human joyous-
ness, to whom the absurdities of life were ever
dear; partly it was his bravery, who knew that
the sight of him brought so low might be too
much for a friend. His patience and sweetness
3
34 INTRODUCTION

continued to the end, and he died as one who
had tasted the joy of living and was satisfied.
His nature had, at the same time, a curious
aloofness and separateness from human life, which
one felt, but can hardly describe. He could be
severe in speaking about a mean act or one who
had done wickedly, but in my recollection he was
never angry, and it was impossible to imagine
him in a towering passion. He was profoundly
interested in several causes, but there was not in
him the making of a fanatical or headlong sup-
porter. None could be more loyal in the private
offices of friendship, but he would not have flung
himself into his friend’s public quarrel. In no
circumstances would he be carried off his feet by
emotion or be consumed by a white heat of en-
thusiasm. He was ever calm, cool, self-possessed
master of himself, passionless in thought, in
speech, in action, in soul. Were you in trouble
he had helped you to his last resource, and con-
cealed, if possible, his service; but of you, in his
sore straits, he would have neither asked nor
wished for aid. Many confidences he must have
received; he gave none; many people must have
been succoured by him; none succoured him till
his last illness. Towards women, who are the
test and revelation of men, he was ever chival-
rous, but he left the impression on your mind
that neither they nor their company — there may
have been exceptions — attracted or satisfied him.
He was toe courteous a gentleman to give any
INTRODUCTION 35

sign, but one guessed that a woman’s departure
from the room meant to him no loss, and was
rather a relief. One was certain that he was
loved; one was quite certain that he would never
marry. So sexless was he towards women, so
neutral towards men, so void of the elemental
passions, which go to make the colour and
tragedy of life, yet so noble and true was he,
that one regarded him at times with awe, and for
a moment thought of him as a being of another
race, mingling with our life in all kindliness, yet
maintaining and guarding his other world in-
tegrity.

This is at least perfectly certain that from his
youth he refused to have his life arranged for
him, but jealously and fearlessly directed it by
his own instincts, refusing the brown, beaten
paths wherein each man, according to his profes-
sion, was content to walk, and starting across the
moor on his own way. Nothing can be more
conventional than the career of the average Pres-
byterian minister who comes from a respectable
religious family, and has the pulpit held up be-
fore him as the ambition of a good Scots lad;
who is held in the way thereto by various tradi-
tional and prudential considerations, and better
still—as is the case with most honest lads — by
his mother’s wishes ; who works his laborious,
enduring way through the Divinity Hall, and is
yearly examined by the local Presbytery; who at
last emerges into the butterfly life of a Proba-
36 INTRODUCTION

tioner, and is freely mentioned, to his mother’s
anxious delight, in connection with “ vacancies” ;
who is at last chosen by a majority to a pastorate
—his mother being amazed at the blindness of
the minority —and settles down to the routine
of the ministry in some Scotch parish with the
hope of Glasgow before him as a land of promise.
His only variations in the harmless years might
be an outburst on the historical reality of
the Book of Jonah—ah me! Did that stout,
middle-aged gentleman ever hint that Jonah was
a drama?—which would be much talked of in the
common room, and, it was whispered, reached
the Professor’s ears; and afterwards he might
propose a revolutionary motion on the distribu-
tion of the Sustentation Fund. Adda handbook
for Bible-classes on the Prophecy of Malachi, and
you have summed up the adventures of his life.
This was the life before Drummond when he en-
tered the University of Edinburgh in 1866, and it
ought to be recorded that he died an ordained
minister and Professor of the Kirk, so that he did
not disappoint his home, not become an eccle-
siastical prodigal — but with what amazing varia-
tions did he invest the years between! What
order he took his classes in no one knew, but he
found his feet in natural philosophy and made a
name in geology. His course at the New Col-
lege he completed in three years and one year,
with two years’ evangelistic touring between; and
he once electrified the students by a paper — it
INTRODUCTION a”

seems yesterday, and I know where he stood —
which owed much to Holmes and Emerson, but
revealed his characteristic spiritual genius. His
vacations he spent sometimes in tutorships, which
yielded wonderful adventures, or at Tiibingen,
where his name was long remembered. As soon
as Moody came to Edinburgh, Drummond allied
himself with the most capable, honest, and un
selfish evangelist of our day, and saw strange
chapters in religious life through the United King-
dom. This was the infirmary in which he learned
spiritual diagnosis. For one summer he was
chaplain at Malta; in another he explored the
Rockies; he lived five months among the Tan-
ganyika forests, where he sent me a letter dated
Central Africa, and mentioning, among other de-
tails, that he had nothing on but a helmet and
three mosquitoes. He was for a time assistant in
an Edinburgh church, and readers of the illus-
trated papers used to recognise him in the vice-
regal group at Dublin Castle. His people at home
—one could trace some of his genius and much
of his goodness to his father and mother — grew
anxious and perplexed; for this was a meteoric
course for a Free Kirk minister, and stolid ac-
quaintances — the delicious absurdity of it — re-
monstrated with him as one who was allowing the
chances of life to pass him, and urged him to
settle. His friends had already concluded that
he must be left free to fulfil himself, but knew not
what to expect, when he suddenly appeared as a
38 INTRODUCTION

lecturer on Natural Science in the Free Church
College of Glasgow, and promptly annexed a
working-men’s church. Afterwards his lecture-
ship became a chair, and he held it to the end,
although threatened with charges of heresy and
such like absurdities. You might as well have
beaten a spirit with a stick as prosecuted Drum-
mond for heresy. The chair itself was a standing
absurdity, being founded in popular idea to beat
back evolution and to reconcile religion and sci-
ence; but it gave Drummond an opportunity of
widening the horizon of the future ministry and
infusing sweetness into the students’ minds. He
may have worn a white tie on Sunday duty at his
church, but memory fails to recall this spectacle,
and he consistently refused to be called Reverend
— declaring (this was his fun) that he had no rec-
ollection of being ordained, and that he would
never dare to baptise a child. The last time he
preached was about 1882, in my own church, and
the outside world did not know that he was a
clergyman. From first to last he was guided by
an inner light which never led him astray, and
in the afterglow his whole life is a simple and
perfect harmony.

Were one asked to select Drummond’s finest
achievement, he might safely mention the cleans-
ing of student life at Edinburgh University.
When he was an arts student, life in all the facul-
ties, but especially the medical, was reckless,
coarse, boisterous, and no one was doing anything
INTRODUCTION 39

to raise its tone. The only visible sign of religion
in my remembrance was a prayer meeting at-
tended by a dozen men— one of whom was a
canting rascal — and countenance from a profes-
sor would have given a shock to the university.
Twenty years afterwards six hundred men, largely
medicals, met every Sunday evening for worship
and conference under Drummond’s presidency,
and every evening the meeting was addressed by
tutors and fellows and other dignitaries. There
was a new breath in academic life — men were
now reverent, earnest, clean living and clean think-
ing, and the reformer who wrought this change
was Drummond. This land, and for that matter
the United States, has hardly a town where men
are not doing good work for God and man to-day
who have owed their lives to the Evangel and
influence of Henry Drummond.

When one saw the unique and priceless work
which he did, it was inexplicable and very pro-
voking that the religious world should have cast
this man, of all others, out, and have lifted up its
voice against him. Had religion so many men
of beautiful and winning life, so many thinkers
of wide range and genuine culture, so many
speakers who can move young men by hundreds
towards the Kingdom of God, that she could
afford or have the heart to withdraw her con-
fidence from Drummond? Was there ever such
madness and irony before Heaven as good peo-
ple lifting up their testimony and writing articles
40 INTRODUCTION

against this most gracious disciple of the Master,
because they did not agree with him about cer-
tain things he said, or some theory he did not
teach, while the world lay round them in unbelief
and selfishness, and sorrow and pain? “ What
can be done,” an eminent evangelist once did me
the honour to ask, “to heal the breach between
the religious world and Drummond?” And I
dared to reply that in my poor judgment the first
step ought to be for the religious world to repent
of its sins, and make amends to Drummond for
its bitterness. The evangelist indicated that, so
far as he knew his world, it was very unlikely to do
any such becoming deed, and I did not myself
remember any instance of repentance on the part
of the Pharisees. Then, growing bold, I ven-
tured to ask why the good man had not sum-
moned Drummond to his side, as he was working
in a university town, and knew better than any
other person that he could not find anywhere an
assistant so acceptable or skilful. He agreed in
that, but declared at once that if Drummond came
his present staff would leave, and that two men
could not do all the work, which seemed reason-
able, and, besides, every man knows his own
business best, and that evangelist knew his re-
markably well. Nothing more remained to be
said, and I rose to leave. At the far end of the
room some of the staff were talking tagether.
“T gave them a ‘straight talk’ at the men’s meet-
ing last night, and then we had such a sweet little
INTRODUCTION 4!

‘sing,’ and thirty souls dropped in.” A young
man of the better class was speaking, and I looked
at the weak, self-satisfied face, but it is not neces-
sary to write down my reflections as I left the
place. Never did my friend say one unkind word
of the world which condemned him, but it may be
allowed to another to say that if any one wiskes
to indict the professional religionists of our time
for bigotry and stupidity, painful and unanswer-
able proof lies ready to his hand in the fact that
the finest evangelist of the day was treated as a
Samaritan.

One, of course, remembers that Drummond’s
critics had their reasons, and those reasons cast
interesting light on his theological standpoint.
For one thing, unlike most evangelists, it was
perfectly alien to this man to insist on repent-
ance, simply because he had not the painful and
overmastering sense of sin which afflicts most
religious minds, and gives a strenuous turn to all
their thinking. Each thinker conceives religion
according to his cast of mind and trend of expe-
rience, and Christianity to Drummond was not so
much a way of escape from the grip of sin, with
its burden of guilt and loathsome contact, as a
way of ethical and spiritual attainment. The
question he was ever answering in his writing
and speaking was not how can a man save his
soul, but how can a man save his life. His idea
of salvation was rising to the stature of Christ
and sharing His simple, lowly, peaceful life, This
42 INTRODUCTION

was the text of his brochures on religion, which
charmed the world from “ The Greatest Thing in
the World” to “The City Without a Church.”
It is said even they gave offence to some ultra
theological minds — although one would fain have
believed that such persuasive pleas have won all
hearts—and I have some faint remembrance,
perhaps a nightmare, that people published re-
plies to the eulogy of Love. It was quite beside
the mark to find fault with the theology in the
little books, because there was none and could
be none, since there was none in the author. Just
as there are periods in the development of Chris-
tianity, there are men in every age corresponding
to each of the periods — modern, Reformation,
and Medizeval minds — and what charmed many in
Drummond was this, that he belonged by nature
to the pre-theological age. He was in his habit
and thought a Christian of the Gospels, rather
than of the Epistles, and preferred to walk with
Jesus in Galilee rather than argue with Judaisers
and Gnostics. It would be a gross injustice to
say that he was anti-theological: it would be
correct to say that he was non-theological. Jesus
was not to him an official Redeemer discharging
certain obligations: He was his unseen Friend
with whom he walked in life, by Whose fellow-
ship he was changed, to Whom he prayed. The
effort of life should be to do the Will of God, the
strength of life was Peace, the reward of life was
to be like Jesus, Perfect Christianity was to be
INTRODUCTION 43

as St. John was with Jesus. It was the Idyll of
Religion.

Perhaps his two famous books, “ Natural Law
in the Spiritual World,” and “The Ascent of
Man,” ought to be judged as larger Idylls. A
writer often fails when he has counted himself
strong, and succeeds in that which he has him-
self belittled. It was at one time Drummond’s
opinion that he had made a discovery in that
fascinating debatable land between nature and
religion, and that he was able to prove that the
laws which govern the growth of a plant are
the same in essence as those which regulate
the culture of a soul. It appeared to some of
us that the same laws could not and did not
run through both provinces, but that on the
frontier of the spiritual world other laws came
into operation, and that “ Natural Law” set forth
with much grace and ingenuity a number of
instructive analogies, and sometimes only sug-
gestive illustrations. Had Drummond believed
this was its furthest scope, he would never have
published the book, and it was an open secret
that in later years he lost all interest in ‘‘ Natural
Law.” My own idea is that he had abandoned
its main contention and much of its teaching,
and would have been quite willing to see it with-
drawn from the public. While that book was an
attempt to identify the laws of two worlds which,
under one suzerain, are really each autonomous,
the “Ascent of Man” was a most successful
44 INTRODUCTION

effort to prove that the spirit of Religion, which
is altruism, pervades the processes of nature.
It is the Poem of Evolution, and is from begin-
ning to end a fascinating combination of scien-
tific detail and spiritual imagination. Both
books, but especially the Ascent, were severely
criticised from opposite quarters, by theologians
because the theology was not sound, by men
of science because the science was loose, and
Drummond had the misfortune of being a heretic
in two provinces. But he had his reward in the
gratitude of thousands neither dogmatic nor par-
tisan, to whom he has given a new vision of the
beauty of life and the graciousness of law.

His books will do good for years, as they have
done in the past, and his tract on Charity will
long be read, but the man was greater than all
his writings. While he was competent in science,
in religion he was a master, and if in this sphere
he failed anywhere in his thinking, it was in his
treatment of sin. This was the defect of his
qualities, for of him, more than of any man
known to me, it could be affirmed he did not
know sin. ‘As Fra Angelico could paint the
Holy Angels because he had seen them, but
made poor work of the devils because to him
they were strange creatures, so this man could
make holiness so lovely that all men wished to be
Christians; but his hand lost its cunning at the
mention of sin, for he had never played the fool.
From his youth up he had kept the command-
INTRODUCTION 48

ments, and was such a man as the Master would
have loved. One takes for granted that each
man has his besetting sin, and we could name
that of our friends, but Drummond was an ex-
ception to this rule. After a lifetime’s intimacy
I do not remember my friend’s failing. Without
pride, without envy, without selfishness, without
vanity, moved only by goodwill and spiritual
ambitions, responsive ever to the touch of God
and every noble impulse, faithful, fearless, mag-
nanimous, Henry Drummond was the most
perfect Christian I have known or expect to see
this side the grave.
JOHN WATSON.
(Jan Maciaren.)
The Ideal Life

NUMBER I

Ill-Temper

THE ELDER
BROTHER

“ He was angry, and would not go in.”” — LUKE xv 28.

HOSE who have studied the paintings of
Sir Noel Paton must have observed that
part of their peculiar beauty lies, by a trick of
Art, in their partial ugliness. There are flowers
and birds, knights and ladies, gossamer-winged
fairies and children of seraphic beauty; but in the
corner of the canvas, or just at their feet, some un-
couth and loathsome form —a toad, a lizard, a
slimy snail —to lend, by contrast with its repulsive-
ness, a lovelier beauty to the rest. So in ancient
sculpture the griffin and the dragon grin among
the angel faces on the cathedral front, heighten-
ing the surrounding beauty by their deformity.
Many of the literary situations of the New
Testament powerfully exhibit this species of
contrast. The twelve disciples — one of them
is a devil. Jesus upon the Cross, pure and regal
—on either side a thief. And here, as conspicu-
48 ILL-TEMPER

ously, in this fifteenth chapter of Luke, the most
exquisite painting in the Bible is touched off at
the foot with the black thundercloud of the elder
brother — perfect, as a mere dramatic situation.

But this conjunction, of course, is more than
artistic. Apart from its reference to the Phari-
sees, the association of these two characters —
the prodigal and his brother — side by side has
a deep moral significance.

When we look.into Sin, not in its theological
aspects, but in its everyday clothes, we find that
it divides itself into two kinds. We find that
there are sins of the body and sins of the dispo-
sition. Or more narrowly, sins of the passions,
including all forms of lust and selfishness, and
sins of the temper. The prodigal is che instance
in the New Testament of sins of passion; the
elder brother, of sins of temper.

One would say, at a first glance, that it was the
younger brother in this picture who was the
thundercloud. It was he who had dimmed all
the virtues, and covered himself and his home
with shame. And men have always pointed to
the runaway son in contrast with his domestic
brother, as the type of all that is worst in human
character. Possibly the estimate is wrong. Pos-
sibly the elder brother is the worse. We judge of
sins, as we judge of most things, by their out-
ward form, We arrange the vices of our neigh-
bours according to a scale which society has
tacitly adopted, placing the more gross and
ILL-TEMPER 49

public at the foot, the slightly less gross higher
up, and then by some strange process the scale
becomes obliterated. Finally it vanishes into
space, leaving lengths of itself unexplored, its
sins unnamed, unheeded, and unshunned. But
we have no balance to weigh sins. Coarser and
finer are but words of our own, The chances
are, if anything, that the finer are the lower.
The very fact that the world sees the coarser
sins so well is against the belief that they are the
worst. The subtle and unseen sin, that sin in
the part of the nature most near to the spiritual,
ought to be more degrading than any other.
Yet for many of the finer forms of sin society
has yet no brand. This sin of the elder brother
is a mere trifle, only a little bit of temper, and
scarcely worthy the recording.

Now what was this little bit of temper? For
Christ saw fit to record it. The elder’ brother,
hard-working, patient, dutiful — let him get full
credit for his virtues — comes in from his long
day’s work in the fields. Every night for years
he has plodded home like this, heavy-limbed but
light-hearted, for he has done his duty and honest
sweat is on his brow. But a man’s sense of re-
sponsibility for his character ends too often with
the day’s work. And we always meet the temp-
tation which is to expose us when we least
expect it. To-night, as he nears the old home-
stead, he hears the noise of mirth and music.

He makes out the strain of a dancing measure
a
50 ILL-TEMPER

—a novel sound, surely, for the dull farm.
“Thy brother is come,” the servant says, “ and
they have killed the fatted calf.” His brother!
Happy hour! how long they mourned for him!
How glad the old man would be! How the
family prayer has found him out at last and
brought the erring boy to his parents’ roof! But
no —there is no joy on that.face; itis the thun-
dercloud. “ Brother, indeed,’ he mutters; “the
scapegrace! Killed the fatted calf, have they?
More than they ever did for me. I can teach
them what / think of their merry-making. And
talk of the reward of virtue! Here have I been
all these years unhonoured and ignored, and this
young voué from the swine-troughs assembles the
whole country-side to do him homage.” “And
he was angry, and would not go in.”

“ Oh, the baby!” one inclines to say at first;
but it is more than this. It is the thundercloud,
a thundercloud which has been brewing under
all his virtues all his life. It is the thundercloud.
The subtle fluids from a dozen sins have come
together for once, and now they are scorching
his soul. Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity,
cruelty, self-righteousness, sulkiness, touchiness,
doggedness, all mixed up together into one — Ill
Temper. This is a fair analysis. Jealousy,
anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteous-
ness, sulkiness, touchiness, doggedness, — these
are the staple ingredients of Ill Temper. And
yet, men laugh over it. “Only temper,” they
ILL-TEMPER SI

call it: a little hot-headedness, a momentary
ruffling of the surface, a mere passing cloud.
But the passing cloud is composed of drops, and
the drops here betoken an ocean, foul and ran-
corous, seething somewhere within the life — an
ocean made up of jealousy, anger, pride, un-
charity, cruelty, self-righteousness, sulkiness,
touchiness, doggedness, lashed into a raging
storm.

This is why temper is significant. It is not in
what it is that its significance lies, but in what it
reveals. But for this it were not worth notice.
It is the intermittent fever which tells of uninter-
mittent disease; the occasional bubble éscaping
to the surface, betraying the rottenness under-
neath; a hastily prepared specimen of the hid-
den products of the soul, dropped involuntarily
when you are off your guard. In one word, it is
the lightning-form of a dozen hideous and un-
christian sins.

One of the first things to startle us — leaving
now mere definition— about sins of temper, is
their strange compatibility with high moral char-
actey. The elder brother, without doubt, was a
man of high principle. Years ago, when his
father divided unto them his living, he had the
chance to sow his wild oats if he liked. As the
elder brother, there fell to him the larger portion.
Now was his time to see the world, to enjoy life,
and break with the monotony of home. Like a
dutiful son, he chose his career. The old home
52 ILL-TEMPER

should be his world, the old people his society.
He would be his father’s right hand, and cheer
and comfort his declining years. So to the ser-
vants he became a pattern of industry; to the
neighbours an example of thrift and faithfulness ;
a model young man to all the country, and the
more so by contrast with his vagabond brother.
For association with lofty character is a painful
circumstance of this deformity. And it suggests
strange doubts as to the real virtue of much that
is reckoned virtue and gets credit for the name.
In reality we have no criterion for estimating at
their true worth men who figure as models of all
the virtues. Everything depends on motive.
The virtues may be real or only apparent, even
as the vices may be real though not apparent.
Some men, for instance, are kept from going
astray by mere cowardice. They have not char-
acter enough to lose their character. For it
often requires a strong character to go wrong.
It demands a certain originality and courage, a
pocketing of pride of which all are not capable,
before a man can make up his mind to fall out of
step with Society and scatter his reputation to the
winds. So it comesto pass that many very mean
men retain their outward virtue. Conversely,
among the prodigal sons of the world are often
found characters of singular beauty. The prodi-
gal, no doubt, was a better man to meet and spend
an hour with than his immaculate brother. A
wealth of tenderness and generosity, truly sweet
ILL-TEMPER 53

and noble dispositions, constantly surprise us in
characters hopelessly under the ban of men. But
it is an instance of misconception as to the nature
of sin that with most men this counts for nothing;
although in those whose defalcation is in the lower
region it counts, and counts almost for everything.
Many of those who sow to the flesh regard their
form of sin as trifling compared with the inconsis-
tent and unchristian graces of those who profess to
sow to the spirit. Many a man, for example, who
thinks nothing of getting drunk would scorn to do
an ungenerous deed or speak a withering word.
And, as already said, it is really a question whether
he is notright. One man sins high up in his nature,
the other low down; and the vinous spendthrift,
on the whole, may be a better man than the
acid Christian. ‘Verily, I say unto you,” said
Jesus to the priests, “the publicans and the har-
lots go into the kingdom of God before you.”
The fact, then, that there are these two distinct
sets of sins, and that few of us indulge both, but
most of us indulge the one or the other, explains
compatibility of virtuous conduct with much un-
loveliness of disposition. Now it is this very
association which makes sins of temper appear
so harmless. There cannot be much wrong, we
fancy, where there is so much general good.
How often it is urged as an apology for garrulous
people, that they are the soul of kindness if we
only knew them better. And how often it is
maintained, as a set-off against crossness and
54 ILL-TEMPER

pitiable explosions of small distempers, that those
who exhibit them are, in their normal mood,
above the average in demonstrative tenderness.
And it is this which makes it so hard to cure.
We excuse the partial failure of our characters
on the ground of their general success. We can
afford to be a little bad who are so good. A true
logic would say we can only afford to be a little
better. Ifthe fly in the ointment is a very small
fly, why have a very small fly? Temper is the
vice of the virtuous. Christ's sermon on the
“ Elder brother” is evidently a sermon pointedly
to the virtuous — not to make bad people good
but to make good people perfect.

Passing now from the nature and relations of
sins of this peculiar class, we come briefly to look
at their effects. And these are of two kinds—
the influence of temper on the intellect, and on
the moral and religious nature.

With reference to the first, it has sometimes
been taken for granted that a bad temper is a
positive acquisition to the intellect. Its fieriness
is supposed to communicate combustion to sur-
rounding faculties, and to kindle the system into
intense and vigorous life. “A man, when ex-
cessively jaded,” says Darwin, “ will sometimes
invent imaginary offences, and put himself into
a passion unconsciously, for the sake of re-invig-
orating himself.” Now, of course, passion has
its legitimate place in human nature, and when
ILL-TEMPER 55

really controlled, instead of controlling, becomes
the most powerful stimulus to the intellectual
faculties. Thus it is this to which Luther refers
when he says, “I never work better than when I
am inspired by anger. When I am angry, I
can write, pray, and preach well; for then my
whole temperament is quickened, my understand-
ing sharpened, and all mundane vexations and
temptations depart.”

The point, however, at which temper inter-
feres with the intellect is in all matters of judg-
ment. A quick temper really incapacitates for
sound judgment. Decisions are struck off at a
white heat, without time to collect grounds or
hear explanations. Then it takes a humbler
spirit than most of us possess to reverse them
when once they are made. We ourselves are
prejudiced in their favour simply because we
have made them, and subsequent courses must
generally do homage to our first precipitancy.
No doubt the elder brother secretly confessed
himself a fool the moment after his back was
turned on the door. But he had taken his stand;
he had said, “I will not go in,” and neither his
father’s entreaties nor his own sense of the grow-
ing absurdity of the situation — think of the man
standing outside his own door — were able to
shake him. Temptation betraying a man into
an immature judgment, that quickly followed by
an irrelevant action, and the whole having to be
defended by subsequent conduct, after making
56 ILL-TEMPER

such a fuss about it — such is the natural history
on the side of intellect of a sin of temper.

Amongst the scum left behind by such an
action, apart from the consequences to the indi-
vidual are results always disastrous to others.
For this is another peculiarity of sins of temper,
that their worst influence is upon others. It is
generally, too, the weak who are the sufferers;
for temper is the prerogative of superiors, and
inferiors, down to the bottom of the scale, have
not only to bear the brunt of the storm, but to
sink their own judgment and spend their lives
in ministering to what they know to be caprice.
So their whole training is systematically false,
and their own mental habits become disorganised
and ruined. When the young, again, are dis-
ciplined by the iron instead of on the golden
rule, the consequences are still morefatal. They
feel that they do not get a fair hearing. Their
case is summarily dismissed untried; and that
sort of nursery lynch law to which they are con-
stantly subjected carries with it no explanation
of moral principles, muzzles legitimate feelings,
and really inflicts a punishment infinitely more
serious than is intended, in crushing out all
sense of justice.

But it is in their moral and social effects that
the chief evil lies. It is astonishing how large
a part of Christ’s precepts is devoted solely to
the inculcation of happiness. How much of His
life, too, was spent simply in making people
ILL-TEMPER “v4

happy! There was no word more often on His
lips than “blessed,” and it is recognised by Him
as a distinct end in life, Ze end for this life, to
secure the happiness of others. This simple
grace, too, needs little equipment. Christ had
little. One need scarcely even be happy one’s
self. Holiness, of course, is a greater word,
but we cannot produce that in others. That
is reserved for God Himself, but what is put
in our power is happiness, and for that each
man is his brother’s keeper. Now society is an
arrangement for producing and sustaining human
happiness, and temper is an agent for thwart-
ing and destroying it. Look at the parable for
a moment, and see how the elder brother’s
wretched pettishness, explosion of temper, churl-
ishness, spoiled the happiness of a whole
circle. First, it certainly spoiled hisown. How
ashamed of himself he must have been when
the fit was over, one can well guess. Yet these
things are never so quickly over as they seem.
Self-disgust and humiliation may come at once,
but a good deal else within has to wait till the
spirit is tuned again. For instance, prayer must
wait. A man cannot pray till the sourness is
out of his soul. He must first forgive his brother
who trespassed against him before he can go ta
God to have his own trespasses forgiven.

Then look at the effect on the father, or on
the guests, or even on the servants — that scene
outside had cast its miserable gloom on the entire
58 ILL-TEMPER

company. But there was one other who felt it
with a tenfold keenness—the prodigalson. We
can imagine the effect on him. This was home,
was it? Well, it was a pity he ever came. If
this was to be the sort of thing, he had better
_go. Happier a thousand times among the swine
than to endure the boorishness of his self-con-
tained, self-righteous brother. Yes, we drive
men from Christ’s door many a time by our sorry
entertainment. The Church is not spiritualised
enough yet to entertain the world. We have no
spiritual courtesies. We cultivate our faith and
proclaim our hope, but forget that a greater than
these ischarity. Till men can say of us, “ They
suffer long and are kind, they are not easily pro-
voked, do not behave themselves unseemly, bear
all things, think no evil,” we have no chance
against the world. One repulsive Christian will
drive away a score of prodigals. God’s love
for poor sinners is very wonderful, but God’s
patience with ill-natured saints is a deeper
mystery.

The worst of the misery caused by ill-temper
is that it does no good. Some misery is bene-
ficial, but this is gratuitous woe. Nothing in
the world causes such rankling, abiding, unneces-
sary and unblessed pain. And Christ’s words,
therefore, when He refers to the breach of the
law of love are most severe. “If any man offend
one of these little ones,” He says, “ it were better
for him that a millstone were hanged about his
ILL-TEMPER 59

neck, and that he were cast into the depth of the
sea.” That is to say, it is Christ’s deliberate
verdict that it is better not to live than not to
love.

In its ultimate nature Distemper is a sin
against love. And however impossible it may
be to realize that now, however we may condone
it as a pardonable weakness or small infirmity,
there zs no greater sin. A sin against love is a
sin against God, for God is love. He that sin-
neth against love, sinneth against God.

This tracing of the sin to its root now suggests
this further topic —its cure. Christianity pro-
fesses to cure anything. The process may be
slow, the discipline may be severe, but it can be
done. But is not temper a constitutional thing ?
Is it not hereditary, a family failing, a matter of
temperament, and can ¢hat be cured? Yes, if
there is anything in Christianity. If there is no
provision for that, then Christianity stands con-
victed of being unequal to human need. What
course then did the father take, in the case before
us, to pacify the angry passions of his ill-natured
son ? Mark that he made no attempt in the first
instance to reason with him. To do so is a
common mistake, and utterly useless both with
ourselves and others. Weare perfectly convinced
of the puerility of it all, but that does not help us
in the least to mend it. The malady has its seat
in the affections, and therefore the father went
there at once. Reason came in its place, and the
60 ILL-TEMPER

son was supplied with valid arguments — stated in
the last verse of the chapter — against his con-
duct, but he was first plied with Love.

“Son,” said the father, “ thou art ever with me,
_ and all that I have is thine.” Analyse these
words, and underneath them you will find the
rallying cries of all great communities. There
lie Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity — the happy
symbols with which men have sought to maintain
governments and establish kingdoms. “Son” —
there is Liberty. “Thou art ever with me” —
there is Unity, Fraternity. “All that I have is
thine ” — there is Equality. If any appeal could
rouse a man to give up himself, to abandon selfish
ends, under the strong throb of a common sym-
pathy, it is this formula of the Christian Republic.
Take the last, Equality, alone — “ All that I have
is thine.” It is absurd to talk of your rights here
and your rights there. You haveall rights. “ All
that I have is thine.” There is no room for self-
ishness if there is nothing more that one can
possess. And God has made the Equality. God
has given us all, and if the memory of His great
kindness, His particular kindness to us, be once
moved within, the heart must melt to Him, and
flow out to all mankind as brothers.

It is quite idle, by force of will, to seek to
empty the angry passions out of our life. Who
has not made a thousand resolutions in this direc-
tion, only and with unutterable mortification to
behold them dashed to pieces with the first temp-
ILL-TEMPER 61

tation ? The soul is to be made sweet not by
taking the acidulous fluids out, but by putting
something in—a great love, God’s great love.
This is to work a chemical change upon them, to
renovate and regenerate them, to dissolve them
in its own rich fragrant substance. If a man let
this into his life, his cure is complete; if not, it is
hopeless.

The character most hard to comprehend in the
New Testament is the unmerciful servant. For
his base extravagance his wife and children were
to be sold, and himself imprisoned. He cries for
mercy on his knees, and the 10,000 talents, hope-
less and enormous debt, is freely cancelled. He
goes straight from the kind presence of his lord,
and, meeting some poor wretch who owes hima
hundred pence, seizes him by the throat and hales
him to the prison-cell, from which he himself had
just escaped. How a man can rise from his
knees, where, forgiven much already, he has just
been forgiven more, and go straight from the
audience chamber of his God to speak hard words
and do hard things, is all but incredible. This
servant truly in wasting his master’s money must
have wasted away his own soul. But grant a man
any soul at all, love must follow forgiveness.

Being forgiven much, he must love much, not
as a duty, but as a necessary consequence; he
must become a humbler, tenderer man, generous
and brotherly. Rooted and grounded in love, his
love will grow till it embraces the earth. Then
62 ILL-TEMPER

only he dimly begins to understand his father’s
gift —“ All that I have is thine.” The world is
his: he cannot injure his own. The ground of
benevolence is proprietorship. And all who love
God are the proprietors of the world. The meek
inherit the earth — all that He has is theirs. All
that God has—what is that? Mountain and
field, tree and sky, castle and cottage, white man,
black man, genius and dullard, prisoner and pau-
per, sick and aged— all these are mine. If noble
and happy, I must enjoy them; if great and
beautiful, I must delight in them; if poor and
hungry, I must clothe them; if sick and in
prison, I must visit them. For they are all mine,
all these, and all that God has beside, and I must
love all and give myself for all.

Here the theme widens. From Plato to Her-
bert Spencer reformers have toiled to frame new
schemes of Sociology. There is none so grand
as the Sociology of Jesus. But we have not
found out the New Testament Sociology yet;
we have spent the centuries over its theology.
Surely man’s relation to God may be held as
settled now. It is time to take up the other prob-
lem, man’s relation to man. With a former the-
ology, man as man, as a human being, was of no
account. He was a mere theological unit, the
x of doctrine, an unknown quantity. He was
taught to believe, therefore, not to love. Now
we are learning slowly that to believe is to love;
that the first commandment is to love God, and
ILL-TEMPER 63

the second /ike unto it — another version of it —
is to love man. Not only the happiness but the
efficiency of the passive virtues, love as a power,
as a practical success in the world, is coming to
be recognised. The fact that Christ led no army,
that He wrote no book, built no church, spent no
money, but that He loved, and so conquered, this
is beginning to strike men. And Paul’s argu-
ment is gaining adherents, that when all prophe-
cies are fulfilled, and all our knowledge becomes
obsolete, and all tongues grow unintelligible, this
thing, Love, will abide and see them all out one
by one into the oblivious past. This is the hope
for the world that we shall learn to love, and in
learning that, unlearn all anger and wrath and
evil-speaking and malice and bitterness.

And this will indeed de the world’s future.
This is heaven. The curtain drops on the story
of the prodigal, leaving him zz, but the elder
brother out. And why is obvious. It is impos-
sible for such a man to be in heaven. He would
spoil heaven for all who were there. Except
such a man be born again he cannot enter the
kingdom of God. To get to heaven we must take
it in with us.

There are many heavens in the world even
now from which we all shut ourselves out by our
own exclusiveness — heavens of friendship, of
family life, of Christian work, of benevolent min-
istrations to the poor and ignorant and distressed.
Because of some personal pique, some disap-
64 ILL-TEMPER

proval of methods, because the lines of work of
some of the workers are not exactly to our taste,
we play the elder brother, we are angry and will
not goin. This is the naked truth of it, we are
simply angry and will not go in. And this bears,
if we could see it, its own worst penalty; for
there is no severer punishment than just to be left
outside, perhaps, to grow old alone, unripe, love-
less and unloved. We are angry and will not go
in. All sins mar God’s image, but sins of temper
mar God’s image and God’s work and man’s
happiness.
NUMBER If

Why Christ must
Depart

A SERMON BEFORE
COMMUNION

“Tt ts expedient for you that I go away.” —JOuN xvi. 7.

T was on a communion night like this that the
words were spoken. They fell upon the
disciples like a thunderbolt startling a summer
sky. Three and thirty years He had lived among
them. They had lately learned to love Him.
Day after day they had shared together the sun-
shine and the storm, and their hearts clung to
Him with a strange tenderness. And just when
everything was at its height, when their friendship
was now pledged indissolubly in the first most
solemn sacrament, the unexpected words come,
“T must say good-bye; it is expedient for you
that I go away.” It was a crushing blow to the
little band. They had staked their all upon that
love. They had given up home, business, friends,
and promised to follow Him. And now He says,
“T must go!”
Let us see what He means by it. The words
may help us to understand more fully our own

relations with Him now that He is gone.
5
66 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

I. The first thing to strike one is the way Jesus
took to break the news. It was characteristic.
His sayings and doings always came about in the
most natural way. Even His profoundest state-
ments of doctrine were invariably apropos of some
often trivial circumstance happening in the day’s
round. So now He did not suddenly deliver
Himself of the doctrine of the Ascension. It
leaked out as it were in the ordinary course of
things.

The supper was over; but the friends had
much to say to one another that night, and they
lingered long around the table. They did not
know it was the last supper, never dreamed of it;
but there had been an unusual sweetness in their
intercourse, and they talked on and on. The
hour grew late, but John still leaned on his
Master's breast, and the others, grouped round
in the twilight, drank in the solemn gladness of
the communion evening. Suddenly a shadow
falls over this scene. A sinister figure rises
stealthily, takes the bag, and makes for the door
unobserved. Jesus calls him: hands him the sop.
The spell is broken. A terrible revulsion of
feeling comes over Him—as if a stab in the
dark had struck into His heart. He cannot go
on now. It is useless to try. He cannot keep
up the perhaps forced spirits.

“Little children,” He says very solemnly, His
voice choking, “ yet a little while Iam with you.”
And “ Whither I go ye cannot come.”
WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 67.

The hour is late. They think He is getting
tired. He means to retire to rest. But Peter
asks straight out, “Lord, whither goest Thou?”
Into the garden? Back to Galilee? It never
occurred to one of them that He meant the
Unknown Land.

“Whither I go,” He replies a second time,
“ye cannot follow Me now, but ye shall follow
Me afterward.” Afterward! The blow slowly
falls. In a dim, bewildering way it begins to
dawn upon them. It is separation.

We can judge of the effect from the next sen.
tence, “Let not your heart be troubled,” He
says. He sees their panic and consternation,
and doctrine has to stand aside till experimental
religion has ministered. And then it is only
at intervals that He gets back to it; every sen-
tence almost is interrupted. Questionings and
misgivings are started, explanations are insisted
on, but the terrible truth will not hide. He
always comes back to that — He will not temper
its meaning, He still insists that it is absolute,
literal; and finally He states it in its most bare
and naked form, “It is expedient for you that I
go away.”

II. Notice His reasons for going away. Why
did Jesus go away? Weall remember a time
when we could not answer that question. We
wished He had stayed, and had been here now.
The children’s hymn expresses a real human
feeling, and our hearts burn still as we read it:
68 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

“I think, when I read that sweet story of old,
How Jesus was here among men,
He called little children like lambs to His fold,
I should like to have been with Him then.

“T wish that His hands had been placed on my head,
That His arms had been thrown around me,
And that I might have seen His kind look as He said,
‘ Let the little ones come unto Me.’”

Jesus must have had reasons for disappointing
a human feeling so deep, so universal, and so
sacred. We may be sure, too, that these reasons
intimately concern us. He did not go away be-
cause He was tired. It was quite true that He
was despised and rejected of men; it was quite
true that the pitiless world hated and spurned
and trod on Him. But that did not drive Him
away. It was quite true that He longed for His
Father’s house and pined and yearned for His
love. But that did not draw Him away. No.
He never thought of Himself. It is expedient
for you, He says, not for Me, that I go.

1. The first reason is one of His own stating.
“TI go away to prepare a place for you.” And the
very naming of this is a proof of Christ’s con-
siderateness. The burning question with every
man who thought about his life in those days
was, Whither is this life leading? The present,
alas! was dim and inscrutable enough, but the
future was a fearful and unsolved mystery. So
Christ put that right before He went away. He
gave this unknown future form and colour. He
WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 69

told us—and it is only because we are so accus-
tomed to it that we do not wonder more at the
magnificence of the conception —that when our
place in this world should know us no more there
would be another place ready for us. We do not
know much about that place, but the best thing
we do know, that /e prepares it. Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the
heart of man what the Lord went away to pre-
pare for them that love Him. It is better to
think of this, to let our thoughts rest on this,
that He prepares it, than to fancy details of our
own.

But that does not exhaust the matter. Con-
sider the alternative. If Christ had not gone
away, what then? We should not either. The
circumstances of our future life depended upon
Christ’s going away to prepare them; but the
fact of our going away at all depended on His
going away. We could not follow Him here-
after, as He said we should, unless He led first.
He had to be the Resurrection and the Life.

And this was part of the preparing a place for
us —the preparing a way for us. He prepared
a place for us by the way He took to preparea
place. It was a very wonderful way.

In a lonely valley in Switzerland a small band
of patriots once marched against an invading
force ten times their strength. They found
themselves one day at the head of a narrow pass,
confronted by a solid wall of spears. They
jo WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

made assault after assault, but that bristling line
remained unbroken. Time after time they were
driven back decimated with hopeless slaughter.
The forlorn hope rallied for the last time. As
they charged, their leader suddenly advanced
before them with outstretched arms, and every
spear for three or four yards of the line was
buried in his body. He fell dead. But he pre-
pared a place for his followers. Through the
open breach, over his dead body, they rushed to
victory and won the freedom of their country.

So the Lord Jesus went before His people, the
Captain of our salvation, sheathing the weapons
of death and judgment in Himself, and prepar-
ing a place for us with His dead body. Well
for us not only that He went away, but that He
went by way of the Cross.

2. Another reason why He went away was to
be very near. It seems a paradox, but He went
away really in order to benear. Suppose, again,
He had not gone away; suppose He were here
now. Suppose He were still in the Holy Land,
at Jerusalem. Every ship that started for the
East would be crowded with Christian pilgrims.
Every train flying through Europe would be
thronged with people going to see Jesus. Every
mail-bag would be full of letters from those in
difficulty and trial, and gifts of homage to mani-
fest men’s gratitude and love. You yourself,
let us say, are in one of those ships. The port,
when you arrive after the long voyage, is blocked
WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 71

with vessels of every flag. With much difficulty
you land, and join one of the long trains start-
ing for Jerusalem. Far as the eye can reach,
the caravans move over the desert in an endless
stream. You do not mind the scorching sun,
the choking dust, the elbowing crowds, the burn-
ing sands. You are in the Holy Land, and you
will see Jesus! Yonder, at last, in the far dis-
tance, are the glittering spires of the Holy Hill,
above all the burnished temple dome beneath
which He sits. But what is that dark seething
mass stretching for leagues and leagues between
you and the Holy City? They have come from
the north and from the south, and from the east
and from the west, as you have, to look upon
their Lord. They wish

“That His hands might be placed on their head ;
That His arms might be thrown around them.”

But it cannot be. You have come to see Jesus,
but you will not see Him. They have been there
weeks, months, years, and have not seen Him.
They are a yard or two nearer, and that is all.
The thing is impossible. It is an anti-climax,
an absurdity. It would be a social outrage; it
would be a physical impossibility.

Now Christ foresaw all this when He said it was
expedient that He should go away. Observe He
did not say it was necessary —it was expedtent.
The objection to the opposite plan was simply
that it would not have worked. So He says to
72, WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

you, “It is very kind and earnest of you to come
so far, but you mistake. Go away back from the
walls of the Holy City, over the sea, and you will
find Me in your own home. You will find Me
where the shepherds found Me, doing their ordi-
nary work; where the woman of Samaria found
Me, drawing the water for the forenoon meal;
where the disciples found Me, mending nets in
their working clothes; where Mary found Me,
among the commonplace household duties of a
country village.” What would religion be, indeed,
if the soul-sick had to take their turn like the out-
patients waiting at the poor-hour outside the in-
firmary? How would it be with the old who were
too frail to travel to Him, or the poor who could
not afford it? How would it be with the blind,
who could not see Him; or the deaf, who could
not hear Him? It would be physically impos-
sible for millions to obey the Lord’s command,
“Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.”

For their sakes it was expedient that He should
go away. It was a great blessing for the world
that He went. Access to Him is universally com-
plete from every corner of every home in every
part of the world. For the poor can have Him
always with them. The soul-sick cannot be out
of reach of the Physician. The blind can see His
beauty now that He has gone away. The deaf
hear His voice when all others are silent, and the
dumb can pray when they cannot speak.

Yes, the visible Incarnation must of necessity
WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 73

be brief. Only a small circle could enjoy His
actual presence, but a kingdom like Christianity
needed a risen Lord. It was expedient for the
whole body of its subjects that He went away.
He would be nearer man by being apparently
further. The limitations of sense subjected Him
while He stayed. He was subject to geography,
locality, space, and time. But by going away He
was in a spaceless land, in a timeless eternity,
able to be with all men always even unto the end
of the world.

3. Another reason why He went away — al-
though this is also a paradox — was “hat we might
see Him better. ‘When a friend is with us we do
not really see him so well as when he is away.
We only see points, details. It is like looking at
a great mountain: you see it best a little way off.
Clamber up the flanks of Mont Blanc, you see
very little, — a few rocks, a pine or two, a blind-
ing waste of snow; but come down into the Val-
ley of Chamounix and there the monarch dawns
upon you in all his majesty.

Christ is the most gigantic figure of history.
To take in His full proportions one must be
both near and away. The same is true of all
greatness. Of all great poets, philosophers, poli-
ticians, men of science, it is said that their gen-
eration never knew them. They dawn upon us
as time rolls past. Then their life comes out in
its true perspective, and the symmetry of their
work is revealed. We never know our friends,
74 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

likewise, till we lose them. We often never know
the beauty of a life which is lived very near our
own till the hand of death has taken it away. It
was expedient for us, therefore, that He should
go — that we might see the colossal greatness of
His stature, appreciate the loftiness and massive-
ness of His whole character, and feel the perfect
beauty and oneness of His life and work.

4. Still another reason. He went away that
we might walk dy faith. After all, if He had
stayed, with all its inconveniences, we should
have been walking by sight. And this is the
very thing religion is continually trying to undo.
The strongest temptation to every man is to
guide himself by what he can see, and feel, and
handle. This is the core of Ritualism, the foun-
dation of Roman Catholicism, the essence of
idolatry. Men want to see God, therefore they
make images of Him. We do not laugh at Ritu-
alism; it is intensely human. It is not so much
asin of presumption; it is a sin of mistake. It
is a trying to undo the going away of Christ. It
is a trying to make believe that He is still here.
And the fatal fallacy of it is that it defeats its
own end. He who seeks God in tangible form
misses the very thing he is seeking, for God is a
Spirit. The desire burns within him to see God;
the desire is given him to make him spiritual, by
giving him a spiritual exercise to do; and he
cheats himself by exercising the flesh instead of
the spirit. Hunger and thirst after God are an
WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 75

endowment to raise us out of the seen and tem-
poral. But instead of letting the spiritual appe-
tite elevate us into the spirit, we are apt to
degrade the very instrument of our spiritualisa-
tion and make it minister to the flesh.

It was expedient in order that the disciples
should be spiritualised that Jesus should become
a Spirit. Life in the body to all men is short.
The mortal dies and puts on immortality. So
Christ’s great aim is to strengthen the after-life.
Therefore He gave exercises in faith to be the
education for immortality. Therefore Jesus went
away to strengthen the spirit for eternity.

It is not because there is any deep, mysterious
value in faith itself that it plays so great a part in
religion. Itis not because God arbitrarily chooses
that we should walk by faith rather than by sight.
It is because it is essential to our future; it is be-
cause this is the faculty which of all others is
absolutely necessary to life in the spirit.

For our true life will be lived in the spirit. In
the hereafter there will be nothing carnal. Christ
is therefore solicitous to educate our faith, for
sight will be useless. There will be no eye, no
pupil, no retina, no optic nerve in the hereafter,
so faith is the spiritual substitute for them which
Christ would develop in us by going away.

5. But the great reason has yet to be mentioned.
He went away that the Comforter might come.

We have seen how His going away was a pro-
vision for the future life. The absent Lord pre-
76 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

pares a place there; the absent object of faith
educates the souls of the faithful to possess and
enjoy it. But He provides for the life that now
is. And His going away has to do with the
present as much as with the life to come. One
day when Jesus was in Perea, a message came to
Him that a very dear friend was sick. He lived in
a distant village with his two sisters. They were
greatly concerned about their brother’s illness,
and had sent in haste for Jesus. Now Jesus loved
Mary and Martha and Lazarus their brother; but
He was so situated at the time that He could not
go. Perhaps He was too busy, perhaps He had
other similar cases on hand; at all events, He
could not go. When He went ultimately, it was
too late. Hour after hour the sisters waited for
Him. They could not believe He would not
come; but the slow hours dragged themselves
along by the dying man’s couch, and he was
dead and laid in the grave before Jesus arrived.
You can imagine one of His thoughts, at least, as
He stands and weeps by that grave with the in-
consolable sisters: “ It is expedient that I go away.
I should have been present at his death-bed scene
if I had been away. I will depart and send the
Comforter. There will be no summons of sorrow
which He will not be able to answer. He will
abide with men for ever. Everywhere He will
come and go. He will be like the noiseless, in-
visible wind blowing all over the world where-
soever He listeth,”
WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 77

The doctrine of the Holy Ghost is very simple.
Men stumble over it because they imagine it to
be something very mysterious and unintelligible.
But the whole matter lies here. Our text is the
key to it. The Holy Spirit is just what Christ
would have been had He been here. He minis-
ters comfort just as Christ would have done—
only without the inconveniences of circumstance,
without the restriction of space, without the limi-
tations of time. More: we need a personal
Christ, but we cannot get it, at least we cannot
each get it. So the only alternative is a spiritual
Christ, z.¢. a Holy Spirit, and then we can all get
Him. He reproves the world of sin, of righteous-
ness, and of judgment. Christ had to go away to
make room for a person of the Trinity who could
deal with the world. He himself could only re-
prove the individual of sin, of righteousness, and
of judgment. But work on a larger scale is done
now that He is gone. This is what He refers to
when He said, “ Greater works than these shall
ye do.”

And yet Christ did not go away that the Spirit
might take His place. Christ is with us Himself.
He is with us and yet He is not with us; that is,
He is with us by His spirit. The Spirit does not
reveal the Spirit. He speaks not of Himself, He
reveals Christ. He is the nexus, the connection
between the absent Christ and the world—a
spiritual presence which can penetrate where the
present Christ could not go. It was expedient
78 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

for the present Christ to go away that the uni-
versal Christ might come to all.

Finally, if all this was expedient for us, this
strange relation of Jesus to His people ought to
have a startling influence upon our life. Expedi-
ency is a practical thing. It was a terrible risk
going away. Has the expedient which Christ
adopted been worth while to you and me?
These three great practical effects at least are
obvious.

(1) Christ ought to be as near to us as if He
were still here. Nothing so simplifies the whole
religious life asthis thought. A present, personal
Christ solves every difficulty, and meets every
requirement of Christian experience. There is a
historical Christ, a national Christ, a theological
Christ — we each want Christ. So we have Him.
For purposes of expediency, for a little while,
He has become invisible, It is our part to have
Him.

“ More present to Faith’s vision keen
Than any other vision seen ;

More near, more intimately nigh
Than any other earthly tie.”

(2) Then consider what an incentive to honest
faithfulness this is. The kingdom of Heaven is
like a man travelling into a far country. And
before he went he called his servants and gave to
every man his work.

Are we doing it faithfully ? Are we doing it
at all? The visible eye of the Master is off us
WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 79

No one zuspects our work. Wood, hay, stubble,
no man knows. It is the test of the absent
Christ. He is training us to a kind of faithful-
ness whose high quality is unattained by any
other earthly means. It was after the Lord was
gone that the disciples worked. They grew fast
after this — in vigour, in usefulness, in reliance, in
strength of character. Hitherto they had rested
in His love. Did you ever think what a risk it
was for Him to go away ? It was a terrible risk
— to leave us here all by ourselves. And yet this
was one of His ways of elevating us. There is
nothing exalts a man like confidence put in him.
So He went away and let them try themselves.
We cannot always sit at the communion table.
We partake of the feast not so much asa luxury,
though it is that, but to give us strength to work.
We think our Sabbath services, our prayers, our
Bible reading, are our religion. It isnot so. We
do these things to help us to be religious in other
things. These are the mere meals, and a work-
man gets no wages for his meals. It is for the
work he does. The value of this communion is
not estimated yet. It will take the coming week
to put the value upon it. In itself it counts little ;
we shall see what it is, by what we shall be.
Every communicant is left by Christ with a
solemn responsibility. Christ’s confidence in us
is unspeakably touching. Christ was sure of us ;
He felt the world was safe in our hands. He
was away, but we would be Christs to it; the
80 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

Light of the World was gone, but he would light
a thousand lights, and leave each of us as one
to illuminate one corner of its gloom.

(3) Lastly, He has only gone for a little
while: “ Behold, I come quickly.” The proba-
tion will soon be past. ‘Be good children till I
come back,” He has said, like a mother leaving
her little ones, “and I will come again, and
receive you unto Myself, that where I am, ye
may be also.” So we wait till He come again —
we wait till it is expedient for Him to come back.

“So I am waiting quietly every day,
Whenever the sun shines brightly, I rise and say, ‘ Surely
itis the shining of His face;’
And when a shadow falls across the window of the room
Where I am working my appointed task,
T lift my head and ask if He is come.”
NUMBER III

Going to the
Father

WRITTEN AFTER THE
DEATH OF A FRIEND

“Igo to my Father.” — JOuN xiv. 12.

OU can unlock a man’s whole life if you

watch what words he uses most. We have
each a small set of words, which, though we are
scarce aware of it, we always work with, and
which really express all that we mean by life, or
have found out of it. For such words embalm
the past for us. They have become ours by a
natural selection throughout our career of all
that is richest and deepest in our experience.
So our vocabulary is our history, and our favour-
ite words are ourselves.

Did you ever notice Christ’s favourite words?
If you have, you must have been struck by two
things — their simplicity and their fewness. Some
half-dozen words embalm all His theology, and
these are, without exception, humble, elementary,
simple monosyllables. They are such words as
these: world, life, trust, love.

But none of these was the greatest word of

Christ. His great word was new to religion.
6
82 GOING TO THE FATHER

There was no word there, when He came, rich
enough to carry the new truth He was bringing
to men. So He imported into religion one of the
grandest words of human language, and trans-
figured it, and gave it back to the world illumi-
nated and transformed, as the watchword of the
new religion. That word was Father.

The world’s obligation to the Lord Jesus is
that He gave us that word. We should never
have thought of it; if we had, we should never
have dared to say it. It is a pure revelation.
Surely it is the most touching sight of the world’s
past to see God’s only begotten Son coming down
from heaven to try to teach the stammering dumb
inhabitants of this poor planet to say, “ Our
Father.”

It is that word which has gathered the great
family of God together; and when we come face
to face with the real, the solid, and the moving in
our religion, it is to find all its complexity resolv-
able into this simplicity, that God, whom others
call King Eternal, Infinite Jehovah, is, after all,
our Father, and we are His children.

This, after all, is religion. And to live daily in
this simplicity, is to live like Christ.

It takes a great deal to succeed as a Christian
—such a great deal, that not many do succeed.
And the great reason for want of success is the
want of a central word. Men will copy anything
rather than a principle. A relationship is always
harder to follow than a fact. We study the de-
GOING TO THE FATHER 83

tails of Christ’s actions, the point of this miracle
and of that, the circumferential truth of this
parable and of that, but to copy details is not to
copy Christ. To live greatly like Christ is not to
agonise daily over details, to make anxious com-
parisons with what we do and what /e did, but a
much more simple thing. It is to re-echo Christ’s
word, It is to have that calm, patient, assured
spirit, which reduces life simply to this — a going
to the Father.

Not one man in a hundred, probably, has a
central word in his Christian life; and the con-
sequence is this, that there is probably nothing
in the world so disorderly and slipshod as per-
sonal spiritual experience. With most of us it
is a thing without stability or permanence, it is
changed by every trifle we meet, by each new
mood or thought. It is a series of disconnected
approaches to God, a disorderly succession of
religious impulses, an irregulation of conduct,
now on this principle, now on that, one day
because we read something in a book, the next
because it was contradicted in another. And
when circumstances lead us really to examine
ourselves, everything is indefinite, hazy, unsat-
isfactory, and all that we have for the Christian
life are the shreds perhaps of the last few Sab-
baths’ sermons and a few borrowed patches from
other people’s experience. So we live in per-
petual spiritual oscillation and confusion,
and we are almost glad to let any friend or any
84 GOING TO THE FATHER

book upset the most cherished thought we
have.

‘Now the thing which steadied Christ’s life
was the thought that He was going to His
Father. This one thing gave it unity, and har-
mony, and success. During His whole life He
never forgot His Word for a moment. There is
no sermon of His where it does not occur; there
is no prayer, however brief, where it is missed.
In that first memorable sentence of His, which
breaks the solemn spell of history and makes
one word resound through thirty silent years,
the one word is this; and all through the after
years of toil and travail “the Great Name” was
always hovering on His lips, or bursting out of
His heart. In its beginning and in its end,
from the early time when He spoke of His
Father’s business till He finished the work that
was given Him to do, His life, disrobed of all
circumstance, was simply this, “I go to My
Father.”’

If we take this principle into our own lives,
we shall find its influence tell upon us in three
ways:

I. It explains Life.

II. It sustains Life.

III. It completes Life.

I. It explains Life. Few men, I suppose, do
not feel that life needs explaining. We think
we see through some things in it — partially;
but most of it, even to the wisest mind, is enig-
GOING TO THE FATHER 85

matic. Those who know it best are the most
bewildered by it, and they who stand upon the
mere rim of the vortex confess that even for
them it is overspread with cloud and shadow.
What is my life? whither do I go? whence do
I come? these are the questions which are not
worn down yet, although the whole world has
handled them.

To these questions there are but three answers
—one by the poet, the other by the atheist, the
third by the Christian.

(a) The poet tells us, and philosophy says the
same only less intelligibly, that life is a sleep, a
dream, a shadow. It is a vapour that appeareth
for a little and vanisheth away; a meteor hover-
ing for a moment between two unknown eter-
nities; bubbles, which form and burst upon the
river of time. This philosophy explains nothing.
It is a taking refuge in mystery. Whither am
I going? Virtually the poet answers, “I am
going to the Unknown.”

(4) The atheist’s answer is just the opposite.
He knows no unknown. He understands all,
for there is nothing more than we can see or
feel. Life is what matter is; the soul is phos-
phorus. Whither amI going? “TI go to dust,”
he says; “death ends all.” And this explains
nothing. It is worse than mystery. It is con-
tradiction. It is utter darkness.

(c) But the Christian’s answer explains some-

thing. Where is he going? “I go to my
86 GOING TO THE FATHER

Father.” This is not a definition of his death
—there is no death in Christianity; it is a
definition of the Christian life. All the time it
isa going to the Father. Some travel swiftly,
some are long upon the road, some meet many
pleasant adventures by the way, others pass
through fire and peril; but though the path be
short or winding, and. though the pace be quick
or slow, it is a going to the Father.

Now this explains life. It explains the two
things in life which are most inexplicable. For
one thing, it explains why there is more pain in
the world than pleasure. God knows, although
we scarce do, there is something better than
pleasure — progress. Pleasure, mere pleasure,
is animal. He gives that to the butterfly. But
progress is the law of life to the immortal. So
God has arranged our life as progress, and its
working principle is evolution. Not that there
is no pleasure init. The Father is too good to
His children for that. But the shadows are all
shot through it, for He fears lest we should for-
get there is anything more. Yes, God is too
good to Jeave His children without indulgences,
without far more than we deserve; but He is
too good to let them spoil us. Our pleasures
therefore are mere entertainments. Weare enter-
tained like passing guests at the inns on the
roadside. Yet after even the choicest meals we
dare not linger. We must take the pilgrim’s
staff again and go on our way to the Father.
GOING TO THE FATHER 87

Sooner or later we find out that life is not a
holiday, but a discipline. Earlier or later we
all discover that the world is not a playground.
It is quite clear God means it fora school. The
moment we forget that, the puzzle of life begins.
We try to play in school; the Master does not
mind that so much for its own sake, for He likes
to see His children happy, but in our playing
we neglect our lessons. We do not see how
much there is to learn, and we do not care. But
our Master cares. He has a perfectly over-
powering and inexplicable solicitude for our
education; and because He loves us, He comes
into the school sometimes and speaks to us.
He may speak very softly and gently, or very
loudly. Sometimes a look is enough, and we
understand it, like Peter, and go out at once and
weep bitterly. Sometimes the voice is like a
thunder-clap startling a summer night. But one
thing we may be sure of: the task He sets us
to is never measured by our delinquency. The
discipline may seem far less than our desert, or
even to our eye ten times more. But it is not
measured by these—#it is measured by God’s
solicitude for our progress; measured solely by
God’s love; measured solely that the scholar
may be better educated when he arrives at his
Father. The discipline of life is a preparation
for meeting the Father. When we arrive there
to behold His beauty, we must have the educated
eye; and that must be trained here, We must
88 GOING TO THE FATHER

become so pure in heart— and it needs much
practice —that we shallsee God. That explains
life— why God puts man in the crucible and
makes him pure by fire.

When we see Him, we must speak to Him.
We have that language to learn. And that is
perhaps why God makes us pray so much. Then
we are to walk with Him in white. Our sancti-
fication is a putting on this white. But there
has to be much disrobing first; much putting
off of filthyrags. This is why God makes man’s
beauty to consume away like the moth. He
takes away the moth’s wings, and gives the
angel’s, and man goes the quicker and the
lovelier to the Father.

It is quite true, indeed, besides all this, that
sometimes shadow falls more directly from
definite sin. But even then its explanation is
the same. We lose our way, perhaps, on the
way to the Father. The road is rough, and we
choose the way with the flowers beside it, instead
of the path of thorns. Often and often thus,
purposely or carelessly, we lose the way. So
the Lord Jesus has to come and look for us.
And He may have to lead us through desert and
danger, before we regain the road — before we
ave as we weve —and the voice says to us sadly
once more, “ This is the way to the Father.”

The other thing which this truth explains is,
why there is so much that isunexplained. After
we have explained all, there is much left. All
GOING TO THE FATHER 89

our knowledge, it is said, is but different degrees
of darkness. But we know why we do not know
why. It is because we are going to our Father.
We are only going: we are not there yet.
Therefore patience. “What I do thou knowest
not now, but thou shalt know. Hereafter, thou
shalt know.” Hereafter, because the chief joy
of life is to have something to look forward to.
But, hereafter, for a deeper reason. Knowledge
is only given for action. Knowing only exists
for doing: and already nearly all men know to
do more than they do do. So, till we do all that
we know, God retains the balance till we can
use it. In the larger life of the hereafter, more
shall be given, proportionate to the vaster sphere
and the more ardent energies.

Necessarily, therefore, much of life is still twi-
light. But our perfect refuge is to anticipate a
little, and go in thought to our Father, and, like
children tired out with efforts to put together
the disturbed pieces of a puzzle, wait to take the
fragments to our Father.

And yet, even that fails sometimes. He seems
to hide from us and the way is lost indeed. The
footsteps which went before us up till then cease,
and we are left in the chill, dark night alone. If
we could only see the road, we should know it
went to the Father. But we cannot say we are
going to the Father; we can only say we would
like to go. “ Lord,” we cry, “ we know not whither
Thou goest, arid how can we know the way?”
90 GOING TO THE FATHER

‘‘Whither I go,” is the inexplicable answer, “ye
know not now.” Well is it for those who at such
times are near enough to catch the rest: “ But
ye shall know hereafter.”

II. Secondly, and in a few words, this sustains
Life.

A year or two ago some of the greatest and
choicest minds of this country laboured, in the
pages of one of our magazines, to answer the
question, “Is Life worth living?” It was a
triumph for religion, some thought, that the
keenest intellects of the nineteenth century should
be stirred with themes like this. It was not so;
it was the surest proof of the utter heathenism of
our age. Is Life worth living ? As well ask, Is
air worth breathing ? The real question is this
—taking the definition of life here suggested —
Is it worth while going to the Father?

Yet we can understand the question. On any
other definition we can understand it. On any
other definition life is very far from being worth
living. Without that, life is worse than an
enigma; it is an inquisition. Life is either a
discipline, or a most horrid cruelty. Man’s best
aims here are persistently thwarted, his purest
aspirations degraded, his intellect systematically
insulted, his spirit of inquiry is crushed, his love
mocked, and his hope stultified. There is no
solution whatever to life without this; there is
nothing to sustain either mind or soul amid its
terrible mystery but this; there is nothing even
GOING TO THE FATHER __ i.

to account for mind and soul. And it will always
be a standing miracle that men of powerful in-
tellect who survey life, who feel its pathos and
bitterness, and are shut up all the time by their
beliefs to impenetrable darkness —I say it will
always be a standing miracle how such men, with
the terrible unsolved problems all around them,
can keep reason from reeling and tottering from
its throne. If life is not a going to the Father, it
is not only not worth living, it is an insult to the
living; and it is one of the strangest mysteries
how men who are large enough in one direction
to ask that question, and too limited in another to
answer it, should voluntarily continue to live at all.
There is nothing to sustain life but this thought.
And it does sustain life. Take even an extreme
case, and you will see how. Take the darkest,
saddest, most pathetic life of the world’s history.
That was Jesus Christ’s. See what this truth
practically was to Him. It gave Him a life of
absolute composure in a career of most tragic trials.
You have noticed often, and it is inexpressibly
touching, how as His life narrows, and troubles
thicken around Him, He leans more and more
upon this. And when the last days draw near —
as the memorable chapters in John reveal them
to us — with what clinging tenderness He alludes
in almost every second sentence to ‘‘ My Father.”
There is a wistful eagerness in these closing words
which is strangely melting — like one ending a
letter at sea when land is coming into sight.
(92 GOING TO THE FATHER

This is the Christian’s only stay in life. It
provides rest for his soul, work for his character,
an object, an inconceivably sublime object, for
his ambition. It does not stagger him to bea
stranger here, to feel the world passing away.
The Christian is like the pearl-diver, who is out
of the sunshine for a little, spending his short
day amid rocks and weeds and dangers at the
bottom of the ocean. Does he desire to spend
his life there? No, but his master does. Is his
life there? No, his life is up above. A com-
munication is open to the surface, and the fresh
pure life comes down to him from God. Is he
not wasting time there? He is gathering pearls
for his Master’s crown. Will he always stay
there? When the last pearl is gathered, the
“Come up higher” will beckon him away, and
the weights which kept him down will become an
exceeding weight of glory, and he will go, he and
these he brings with him, to his Father.

He feels, to change the metaphor, like a man
in training for a race. It is months off still, but
it is nearer him than to-morrow, nearer than any-
thing else. Great things are always near things.
So he lives in his future. Ask him why this
deliberate abstinence from luxury in eating and
drinking. ‘He is keeping his life,’ he says.
Why this self-denial, this separation from worldli-
ness, this change to a quiet life from revelries far
into the night? “He is keeping his life.” He
cannot have both the future and the present; and
GOING TO THE FATHER 93

he knows that every regulated hour, and every
temptation scorned and set aside, is adding a
nobler tissue to his frame and keeping his life for
the prize that is to come.

Trial to the Christian is training for eternity,
and he is perfectly contented; for he knows that
“he who loveth his life in this world shall lose
it; but he that hateth his life in this world shall
keep it unto life eternal.” He is keeping his life
till he gets to the Father.

III. Lastly, in a word, this, completes life.

Life has been defined as a going to the Father.
It is quite clear that there must come a time in
the history of all those who live this life when
they reach the Father. This is the most glorious
moment of life. Angels attend at it. Those on
the other side must hail the completing of another
soul with ineffable rapture. When they are yeta
great way off, the Father runs and falls on their
neck and kisses them.

On this side we call that Death. It means
reaching the Father. It is not departure, it is
arrival; not sleep, but waking. For life to
those who live like Christ is not a funeral pro-
cession. It is a triumphal march to the Father.
And the entry at the last in God’s own chariot
in the last hour of all. No, as we watch a life
which is going to the Father, we cannot think
of night, of gloom, of dusk and sunset. It is
life which is the night, and Death is sunrise.

“ Pray moderately,” says an old saint, “ for the
94 GOING TO THE FATHER

lives of Christ’s people.” Pvay moderately. We
may want them on our side, he means, but
Christ may need them on His. He has seen
them a great way off, and set His heart upon
them, and asked the Father to make them come
quickly. ‘I will,’ He says, ‘that such an one
should be with Me where I am.” So it is better
that they should go to the Father.

These words have a different emphasis to differ-
ent persons. There are three classes to whom
they come home with a peculiar emphasis: —

1. They speak to those who are staying away
from God. “I do not wonder at what men
suffer,” says Ruskin, “ I wonder often at what
they lose.” My fellow pilgrim, you do not know
what you are losing by not going to the Father.
You live in an appalling mystery. You have
nothing to explain your life nor to sustain it;
no boundary line on the dim horizon to complete
it. When life is done you are going to leap into
the dark. You will cross the dark river and land
on the further shore alone. No one will greet
you. You and the Inhabitant of Eternity will
be strangers. Will you not to-day arise and go
to your Father?

2. They speak, next, to all God’s people.
Let ws remember that we are going to the
Father. Even now are we the sons of God.
Oh let us live like it— more simple, uncomplain-
ing, useful, separate, joyful as those who march
with music, yet sober as those who are to com-
GOING TO THE FATHER 95

pany with Christ. The road is heavy, high road
and low road, but we shall soon be home. God
grant us a sure arrival in our Father’s house.

3. And this voice whispers yet one more
message to the mourning. Did Death end all ?
Is it well with the child? It is well. The last
inn by the roadside has been passed — that is
all, and a voice called to us, ‘Good-bye! I go
to my Father.”
NUMBER IV

The Eccentricity
of Religion

“ They said, He is beside Himself.” — MARK iii, 21.

HE most pathetic life in the history of the

world is the life of the Lord Jesus. Those

who study it find out, every day, a fresh sorrow.

Before He came it was already foretold that He

would be acquainted with grief, but no imagination
had ever conceived the darkness of the reality.

It began with one of the bitterest kinds of sor-
row —the sorrow of an enforced silence. For
thirty years He saw, but dared not act. The
wrongs He came to redress were there. The
hollowest religion ever known —a mere piece of
acting —was being palmed off around Him on
every side as the religion of the living God.
He saw the poor trodden upon, the sick un-
tended, the widow unavenged, His Father’s peo-
ple scattered, His truth misrepresented, and the
whole earth filled with hypocrisy and violence.
He saw this, grew up amongst it, knew how to
cure it. Yet He was dumb, He opened not His
mouth, How He held in His breaking spirit, till
THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION 97

the slow years dragged themselves out, it is im-
possible to comprehend.

Then came the public life, the necessity to
breathe its atmosphere: the temptation, the con-
tradiction of sinners, the insults of the Pharisees,
the attempts on His life, the dulness of His disci-
ples, the Jews’ rejection of Him, the apparent fail-
ure of His cause, Gethsemane, Calvary. Yet these
were but the more marked shades in the darkness
which blackened the whole path of the Man of
Sorrows.

But we are confronted here with an episode in
His life which is not included in any of these;
an episode which had a bitterness all its own,
and such as has fallen to the lot of few to know.
It was not the way the world treated Him; it was
not the Pharisees; it was not something which
came from His enemies; it was something His
friends did. When He left the carpenter’s shop
and went out into the wider life, His friends were
watching Him. For some time back they had
remarked a certain strangeness in His manner.
He had always been strange among His brothers,
but now this was growing upon Him. He has
said much stranger things of late, made many
strange plans, gone away on curious errands to
strange places. What did it mean? Where was
it toend? Were the family to be responsible for
all this eccentricity? One sad day it culminated.
It was quite clear to them now. He was not respon-
sible for what He was doing. It was His mind,

7
98 THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

alas! that had become affected. He was beside
Himself. In plain English, He was mad!

An awful thing to say when it is true, a more
awful thing when it is not; a more awful thing
still when the accusation comes from those we
love, from those who know us best. It was the
voice of no enemy, it came from His own home.
It was His own mother, perhaps, and His brethren,
who pointed this terrible finger at Him; apolo-
gising for Him, entreating the people never to
mind Him, He was beside Himself — He was
mad.

There should have been one spot surely upon
God’s earth for the Son of Man to lay His head
—one roof, at least, in Nazareth, with mother’s
ministering hand and sister’s love for the weary
Worker. But His very home is closed to Him.
He has to endure the furtive glances of eyes
which once loved Him, the household watching
Him and whispering one to another, the cruel
suspicion, the laying hands upon Him, hands
which were once kind to Him, and finally, the
overwhelming announcement of the verdict of
His family, “He is beside Himself.” Truly He
came to His own, and His own received Him
not.

What makes it seemly to dig up this harrow-
ing memory to-day, and emphasise a thought
which we cannot but feel lies on the borderland
of blasphemy? Because the significance of that
scene is still intense. It has a peculiar lesson
THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION g9

for us who are to profess ourselves followers of
Christ — a lesson in the counting of the cost.
Christ’s life, from first to last, was a dramatised
parable — too short and too significant to allow
even a scene which well might rest in solemn
shadow to pass by unimproved.

I. Observe, from the world’s standpoint, che
charge is true. It is useless to denounce this
as a libel, a bitter, blasphemous calumny. It is
not so—it is true. There was no alternative.
Either He was the Christ, the Son of the living
God, or He was beside Himself. <A holy life is
always a phenomenon. The world knoweth it
not. It is either supernatural or morbid.

For what is being beside oneself ? What is
madness? It is eccentricity — ec-centr-icity —
having a different centre from other people.
Here is a man, for instance, who devotes his
life to collecting objects of antiquarian interest,
old coins perhaps, or old editions of books.
His centre is odd, his life revolves in an orbit
of his own. Therefore, his friends say, he is
eccentric.

Or here is an engine with many moving wheels,
large and small, cogged and plain, but each
revolving upon a central axis, and describing a
perfect circle. But at one side there is one
small wheel which does not turn in a circle.
Its motion is different from all the rest, and the
changing curve it describes is unlike any ordi-
nary line of the mathematician. The engineer
100 THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

tells you that this is che eccentric, because it has
a peculiar centre.

Now when Jesus Christ came among men He
found them nearly all revolving in one circle.
There was but one centre to human life — self.
Man’s chief end was to glorify himself and en-
joy himself for ever. Then, as now, by the all
but unanimous consensus of the people, this
present world was sanctioned as the legitimate
object of all human interest and enterprise.
By the whole gravitation of society, Jesus — as
a man-— must have been drawn to the very
verge of this vast vortex of self-indulgence,
personal ease and pleasure, which had sucked
in the populations of the world since time be-
gan. But he stepped back. He refused abso-
lutely to be attracted. He put everything out
of His life that had even a temptation in it to
the world’s centre. He humbled Himself —
there is no place in the world’s vortex for hum-
bleness. He became of no reputation — nor for
namelessness. He emptied Himself — gravitation
cannot act on emptiness. So the prince of this
world came, but found nothing in Him. He
found nothing, because the true centre of that
life was not to be seen. It was with God. The
unseen and the eternal moved Him. He did not
seek His own happiness, but that of others. He
went about doing good. His object in going
about was not gain, but to do good.

Now all this was very eccentric. It was living
THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION tor

on new lines altogether. He did God’s will. He
pleased not Himself. His centre was to one
side of self. He was beside Himself. From the
world’s view-point it was simply madness.

Think of this idea of His, for instance, of start-
ing out into life with so quixotic an idea as that
of doing good; the simplicity of the expectation
that the world ever would become good; this
irrational talk about meat to eat that they knew
not of, about living water; these extraordinary
beatitudes, predicating sources of happiness
which had never been heard of; these paradoxi-
cal utterances of which He was so fond, such as
that the way to find life was to lose it, and to lose
life in this world was to keep it to life eternal.
What could these be but mere hallucination and
dreaming! It was inevitable that men should
laugh and sneer at Him. He was unusual. He
would not go with the multitude. And men
were expected to go with the multitude. What
the multitude thought, said, and did, were the
right things to have thought, said, and done.
And if any one thought, said, or did differently,
his folly be on his own head, he was beside him-
self, he was mad.

Il. Every man who lives like Christ produces
the same reaction upon the world. This is an in-
evitable consequence. What men said of Him,
if we are true to Him, they will say of you and
me.- The servant is not above his master. If
they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute
102 THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

you. A Christian must be different from other
people. Time has not changed the essential dif-
ference between the spirit of the world and the
spirit of Christ. They are radically and eternally
different. And from the world’s standpoint still
Christianity is eccentricity. For what, again, is
Christianity? It is the projection into the world
of these lines along which Christ lived. It is
a duplicating in modern life of the spirit, the
method, and the aims of Jesus, a following through
the world the very footprints He left behind.
And if these footprints were at right angles to
the broad beaten track the world went along in
His day, they will be so still. It is useless to say
the distinction has broken down. These two
roads are still at right angles. The day may be,
when the path of righteousness shall be the glo-
rious highway for all the earth. But it is not now.
Christ did not expect it would be so. He made
provision for the very opposite. He prepared
His Church beforehand for the reception it would
get in the world. He gave no hope that it would
be an agreeable one. Light must conflict with
darkness, truth with error. There is no sanc-
tioned place in the world as yet for a life with
God as its goal, and self-denial as its principle.
Meekness must be victimised; spirituality must
be misunderstood; true religion must be bur-
lesqued. Holiness must make a strong ferment
and reaction, in family or community, office or
workshop, wherever it is introduced. “ Think
THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION 103

not that I am come to send peace on earth, I
came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am
come to set a man at variance against his father,
and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a
man’s foes [He might well say it] shall be they
of his own household.”

True religion is no milk-and-water experience.
It is a fire. It isasword. It is a burning, con-
suming heat, which must radiate upon everything
around. The change to the Christlike Life is so
remarkable that when one really undergoes it, he
cannot find words in common use by which he
can describe its revolutionary character. He has
to recall the very striking phrases of the New Tes-
tament, which once seemed such exaggerations:
“A new man, a new creatures; a new heart, a new
birth.” His very life has been taken down and
re-crystallised round the new centre. He has
been born again.

The impression his friends receive from him
now is the impression of eccentricity. The change
is bound to strike them, for it is radical, central.
They will call in unworthy motives to account for
the difference; they will say it is a mere tempo-
rary fit, and will pass away. They will say he
has shown a weakness which they did not expect
from him, and try to banter him out of his novel
views and stricter life. This, in its mildest form,
is the modern equivalent of “ He is beside him-
self.” And it cannot be helped. It is the legiti-
104 THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

mate reproach of the Cross, The words are hard,
but not new. Has it not come down that long
line of whom the world was not worthy? Its
history, alas! is well known. It fell on the first
Christians in a painful and even vulgar form.

The little Church had just begun to live. The
disciples stood after the great day of Pentecost
contemplating that first triumph of Christ’s cause
with unbounded joy. At last an impression had
been made upon the world. The enterprise was
going to succeed, and the whole earth would fill
with God’s glory. They little calculated the im-
pression they made on the world was the impres-
sion of their own ridiculousness. “ What meaneth
this?” the people asked. ‘It meant,” the dis-
ciples would have said, ‘“‘ that the Holy Ghost,
who was to come in His name, was here, that
God’s grace was stirring the hearts of men and
moving them to repent.” The people had a dif
ferent answer. ‘ These men,” was the coarse
reply, “are full of new wine.” Not mad this
time — they are intoxicated!

Time passed, and Paul tells us the charge was
laid at his door. Hehad made that great speech
in the hall of the Caesarean palace before Agrippa
and Festus. He told them of the grace of God
in his conversion, and closed with an eloquent
confession of his Lord. What i impression had he
made upon his audience? The impression of a
madman. “As he thus spake for himself, Festus
said with a loud voice, ‘ Paul! thou art beside
THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION 105

thyself; much learning hath made thee mad.’”
Poor Paul! How you feel for him when the cruel
blow was struck, But there was no answer to it.
From their view-point it was perfectly true. And
so it has been with all saints to the present hour.
It matters not if they speak like Paul, the words
of soberness. It matters not if they are men of
burning zeal like Xavier and Whitfield, men of
calm spirit like Tersteegen and 4 Kempis, men
of learning like Augustine, or of ordinary gifts
like Wesley, —the effect of all saintly lives upon
the world is the same. They are to the Jews a
stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness.

It is not simply working Christianity that is an
offence. The whole spiritual life, to the natural
man, is an eccentric thing. Take such a mani-
festation, for instance, as Prayer. The scientific
men of the day have examined it and pronounced
it hallucination. Or take Public Prayer. A con-
gregation of people with bowed heads, shut eyes,
hushed voices, invoking, confessing, pleading, en-
treating One who, though not seen, is said to see,
who, speaking not, is said to answer. There is no
other name for this incantation from the world’s
standpoint than eccentricity, delusion, madness.
We are not ashamed of the terms. They are the
guarantee of quality. And all high quality in the
world is subject to the same reproach. For we
are discussing a universal principle. It applies
to inventors, to discoverers, to philosophers, to
poets, to all men who have been better or higher
106 THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

than their time. These men are never understood
by their contemporaries. And if there are mar-
tyrs of science, the centres of science being in
this world, seen, demonstrated, known, how much
more must there be martyrs for religion whose
centre is beyond the reach of earthly eye?

III. It follows from this, that the more active
religion is, the more unpopular it must be.

Christ’s religion did not trouble His friends at
first. For thirty years, at all events, they were
content to put up with it. But as it grew in
intensity they lost patience. When He called
the twelve disciples, they gave Him up. His
work went on, the world said nothing for some
time. But as His career became aberrant more
and more, the family fecling spread, gained
universal ground. Even the most beautiful and
tender words He uttered were quoted in evidence
of His state. For John tells us that after that
exquisite discourse in the tenth chapter about
the Good Shepherd, there was a division among
the Jews for these sayings: “And many of them
said, He hath a devil and is mad. Why hear ye
Him?” It seemed utter raving.

Have you ever noticed — and there is nothing
more touching in history—how Christ’s path
narrowed?

The first great active period is called in books
The year of public favour. On the whole it was
ayear of triumph. The world received Him fora
time. Vast crowds followed Him. The Baptist’s
THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION 107

audience left him and gathered round the new
voice. Palestine rang with the name of Jesus.
Noblemen, rulers, rabbis, vied with one another
in entertaining Him. But the excitement died
down suddenly and soon.

The next year is called The year of opposition.
The applause was over. The crowds thinned.
On every hand He was obstructed. The Sad-
ducees left Him. The Pharisees left Him. The
political party were roused into opposition. The
Jews, the great mass of the people, gave Him up.
His path was narrowing.

With the third period came the end. The path
was very narrow now. There were but twelve left
to Him when the last act of the drama opens.
They are gathered on the stage together for the
last time. But it must rarrow still. One of the
disciples, after receiving the sop, goes out. Eleven
are left Him. Peter soon follows. There are but
ten. One by one they leave the stage, till all for-
sook Him and fled, and He is left to die alone.
Well might He cry, as He hung there in this awful
solitude — as if even God had forgotten Him, “ My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

But this is not peculiar to Jesus. It is typical
of the life of every Christian. His path, too, must
narrow. As he grows in grace, he grows in isola-
tion. He feels that God is detaching his life from
all around it and drawing him to Himself for a
more intimate fellowship. But as the communion
is nearer, the chasm which separates him from his
108 THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

fellow-man must widen. The degree of a man’s
religion, indeed, is to be gauged by the degree ot
his rejection by the world. With the early Chris-
tians was not this the commonest axiom, “We
told you before,” did not Paul warn them, “ that
we should suffer”? ‘Unto some it was given in
the behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him,
but also to suffer for His sake.” It was the posi-
tion of honour, as it were, in the family of God
to be counted worthy of being persecuted for the
sake of Christ.

It is a sad reflection that, as in the case of
Christ, the keenest suffering may come sometimes
still from one’s own family circle. Among our
friends there may be one on whom we all look
askance — one who is growing up in the beauty
of holiness, and we not knowing what it is that
makes him strange. It often needs Death to
teach us the beauty of a life which has been lived
beside our own; and we only know the worth of
it when God proves it by taking it to Himself.

Finally, it may. be objected to all this that if
eccentricity is a virtue, it is easily purchased.
Any one can set up for an eccentric character.
And if that is the desideratum of religion we
shall have candidates enough for the office. But
it remains to define the terms on which a Chris-
tian shall be eccentric — Christ’s own terms. And
let them be guides to us in our eccentricity, for
without them we shall be not Christians, but
fanatics.
THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION 109

The qualities which distinguish the eccentricity
of godliness from all other eccentricities are three ;
and we gather them all from the Life of Christ.

1. Notice, His eccentricity was not destructive.
Christ took the world as He found it, He left it
as it was. He had no quarrel with existing insti-
tutions. He did not overthrow the church — He
went to church. He said nothing against politics
— He supported the government of the country.
He did not denounce Society — His first public
action was to goto a marriage. His great aim, in
fact, outwardly, and all along, was to be as nor-
mal, as little eccentric as possible. The true
fanatic always tries the opposite. The Spirit
alone was singular in Jesus; a fanatic always
spoils his cause by extending it to the letter.
Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfil, A
fanatic comes not to fulfil, but to destroy. If we
would follow the eccentricity of our Master, let
it not be in asceticism, in denunciation, in punc-
tiliousness, and scruples about trifles, but in large-
ness of heart, singleness of eye, true breadth of
character, true love to men, and heroism for
Christ.

2. Lt was perfectly composed. We think of ec-
centricity as associated with frenzy, nervousness,
excitableness, ungovernable enthusiasm. But the
life of Jesus was acalm. It was a life of marvel-
lous composure. The storms were all about it,
tumult and tempest, tempest and tumult, waves
breaking over Him all the time till the worn body
110 THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

was laid in the grave. But the inner life was as
a sea of glass. It was a life of perfect compos-
ure. To come near it even now is to be calmed
and soothed. Go to it at any moment, the great
calm is there. The request to “come” at any
moment was a standing invitation all through His
life. Come unto Me at My darkest hour, in My
heaviest trial, on My busiest day, and I will give
you Rest. And when the very bloodhounds were
gathering in the streets of Jerusalem to hunt Him
down, did He not turn to the quaking group
around Him and bequeath to them —a last legacy
— ‘My Peace”?

There was no frenzy about His life, no excite-
ment. In quietness and confidence the most ter-
rible days sped past. In patience and composure
the most thrilling miracles were wrought. Men
came unto Him, and they found not restlessness,
but Rest. Composure is to be had for faith, We
shall be worse than fanatics if we attempt to go
along the lonely path with Christ without this
spirit. We shall do harm, not good. We shall
leave half-done work. We shall wear out before
our time. Do not say, “ Life is short.” Christ’s
life was short; yet He finished the work that was
given Him to do. He was never in a hurry.
And if God has given us anything to do for
Him, He will give time enough to finish it with
a repose like Christ’s.

3. This life was consistent.

From the Christian standpoint a consistent life
THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION 111

is the only sane life. It is not worth while being
religious without being thorough. An inconsist-
ent Christian is the true eccentric. He is the
true phenomenon in the religious world; to his
brother Christian the only madman. For mad-
ness, in a sense, is inconsistency; madness is
incoherency, irrelevancy, disconnectedness; and
surely there is nothing more disconnected than a
belief in God and Eternity and no corresponding
life. And that man is surely beside himself who
assumes the name of Christ, pledges perhaps in
sacramental wine, to be faithful to His name and
cause, and who from one year to another never
lifts a finger to help it. The man who is really
under a delusion, is he who bears Christ’s name,
who has no uneasiness about the quality of his
life, nor any fear for the future, and whose true
creed is that

He lives for himself, he thinks for himself,
For himself, and none beside;
Just as if Jesus had never lived,
As if He had never died.

Yes, a consistent eccentricity is the only sane life.
“An enthusiastic religion is the perfection of
common sense.” And to be beside oneself for
Christ’s sake is to be beside Christ, which is
man’s chief end for time and eternity.
NUMBER V

“To Me to Live
is Christ”

(In connection with Acts ix. 1-18)

PHILIPPIANS i. 21

HERE is no more significant sign of the
days in which we live than the interest
society seems to be taking in the biographies
of great men. Almost ali the more popular
recent books, for instance — the books which
every one is reading and has to read— come
under the catalogue of biography; and, to meet
the demand, two or three times in each season
the market has to be supplied with the lives, in
minute detail, of men who but for this would per-
haps have lain in unnoticed graves.

This thirst for memoirs and lives and letters is
not at all to be put down in every case to the
hero worship which is natural to every heart. It
means, perhaps, a higher thing than this. It
means, in the first place, that great living is being
appreciated for its own sake; and, in the second,
that great living is being imitated. If it is true
that any of us are beginning to appreciate great-
ness for its own sake — greatness, that is to say,
“TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” 113

in the sense of great and true living — it is one
of the most hopeful symptoms of our history.
And if we are, further, going on from the mere
admiration of great men to try and live like
them, we are obeying one of the happiest im-
pulses of our being. There is indeed no finer
influence abroad than the influence of great men
in great books, and all that literature can do in
supplying the deformed world with worthy and
shapely models is entitled to gratitude and
respect.

But a shadow sometimes comes over this
thought of the magnetic attraction which great-
ness is having upon our age—the thought how
hard it is to get our greatness pure. The well is:
deep, it may be, and the fountain sparkles to
the eye; but we ask perhaps for a guarantee of
quality in vain. Each new ideal we adjust our
life to copy turns out to have its adulteration of
selfishness or pride, like the one we studied last,
till the pattern we sought to follow surprises us
by becoming a beacon for us to shun.

There are a few biographies, however, where
men may find their greatness pure; and amongst
them is one familiar writing which, though seldom
looked at as biographical in this sense, really
contains the life and letters of the greatest man
probably of human history. That man was Paul.
The life of Paul the man, apart from the theology
of Paul the Apostle, is a legitimate and fruitful

study from the mere standpoint of the biography
8
114 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

of a great and successful life. Judged by his in-
fluence on human history, no single life is entitled
to more admiration for what it has done, or in-
deed more worthy of imitation for what it was.
And in our quest after a true life, a worthy and
satisfying life, there may be some light for us in
this old biography which we have missed per-
haps in the lives of later men.

If we were to begin by seeking an appropriate
motto for Paul’s life, we should not need to go
further than the quotation which forms our text.
This fragment from one of his own letters lets us
in at once to the whole secret of his life. The
true discovery of a character is the discovery of
its ideals. Paul spares us any speculation in his
case. ‘‘To me to live,” he says, “is Christ.”
This is the motto of his life, the ruling passion of
it, which at once explains the nature of his suc-
cess and accounts for it. He lives for Christ.
“To me to live is Christ.”

Now here at the outset is a valuable practical
point settled in this biography. When we turn
to the biographies of most great men, we find
either no key or a very complex one; and we
rise from the perusal with nothing more than a
vague desire to do better, but with no discovery
how. We gain stimulus, indeed, but no knowl-
edge, which is simply injurious. We are braced
up enthusiastically for a little, and then do noth-
ing. At the end of it all we are not better, we
are only exhausted. This is the reason why
“TO ME TO LIVE IS. CHRIST” «1

biography-hunters often, after long dogging the
footsteps of greatness, find that they are perhaps
no further on the road to it themselves, but
rather more inclined than before to lie down
where they were.

But Paul explicitly announces to us the work-
ing principle of his life. If the lines are great
lines, there is nothing mysterious about them.
If we want to live like Paul, we have simply to
live for Christ; Christ our life on one side, our
life for Christ on the other, and both summed up
together in Paul’s epitome: “To me to live is
Christ.”

This being the clue to Paul’s life, the instructive
question next arises, What exactly did Paul mean
by this principle, and how did he come to find it
out? But the question, ‘ What is this object of
life?” is so closely bound up with how Paul came
to have this object of life, that the answer to the
last question will form at once an explanation
and an illustration of the first.

Therefore let us go at once for the answer to
the life itself. Great principles are always best
and freshest when studied from the life, and it so
happens that a circumstance in Paul’s life makes
it peculiarly easy to act on this rule here.

That circumstance was that Paul had ¢wo lives.
Many men besides Paul have had two lives, but
the line is cleaner cut in Paul’s case than in al-
most any biography we have.

Both lives were somewhere about the same
116 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

length, so far as we know, but so distinct in their
general features and details that Paul had not
only two lives, but, as if to mark the distinction
more strikingly, two ames. Let us look for a
moment at the first of these lives—the reason
will appear presently.

Paul’s first life, as we all know, was spent under
the most auspicious circumstances, and for cer-
tain reasons it will be worth while running over
it. Born of a family which belonged to the most
select theological school of that day, the son was
early looked upon as at once the promise of his
parents and the hope of their religion. They
sent him when a mere lad to Jerusalem, and en-
rolled him as a student in the most distinguished
college of the time. After running a brilliant
college career, and sitting for many years at the
feet of the greatest learning the Jewish capital
could boast, we find him bursting upon the world
with his splendid talents, and taking a place at
once in the troubled political movements of the
day. It was impossible for such a character with
his youth’s enthusiasm and a Pharisee’s pride to
submit to the tame life of a temple Rabbi, and he
sees his opportunity in the rise of the Christian
sect. Here, at last, he would match his abilities
in a contest which would gain him at once a field
of exercise and a name. So far, doubtless, he
thought his first life great.

Into his work of persecution he seems to have
next entered with all an inquisitor’s zest. His
“TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” 117

conspicuous place among the murderers of the
first martyr stamped him at once as a leader,
and gave him the first taste of a popularity
which, but for the interruption of the hand of God,
had ended perhaps disastrously to the struggling
Christian Church. His success as an inquisitor
is recognised in the highest quarters of the land;
and the young man’s fortune is made. No young
man of that time perhaps had such prospects now
as Saul. ‘“ He was a man raised up for the emer-
gency,” said all Jerusalem, and henceforth the
Jewish world was at his feet. Courted as the
rising man of his day and flushed with success,
he leaves no stone unturned to find fresh oppor-
tunities of adding to his influence and power.
And as he climbed each rung of the ladder of
fame, we can imagine, as a great student of Paul
has said, how his heart swelled within him as he
read these words at night from the Book of Wis-
dom: “I shall have estimation among the multi-
tude, and honour with the elders, though I be
young. I shall be found of a quick conceit in
judgment, and shall be admired in the sight of
great men. When I hold my tongue they shall
abide my leisure, and when I speak they shall
give good ear unto me.” Such was the man who
said, “To me to live is Christ.”

Upon the little Church at Jerusalem he has
already wreaked his vengeance to the full. The
town and neighbourhood at last are well nigh
ridded of the pest, and, an unlooked-for calam-
118 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

ity, in the height of his triumph Saul finds his
occupation gone. Dispersed in all directions,
members of the little band have found their way
in secret through Judzea and Samaria, through
Syria and Pheenicia, even into strange cities.
And Paul finds round about Jerusalem no fuel to
feed the martyrs’ fire or add more lustre to his
name.

But there is no pause in the pursuit of human
fame. The young lawyer’s reputation can never
end in an anti-climax like this. And with the am-
bition which knows not how to rest, and in the
pride of his Pharisee’s heart, he strikes out the
idea to reverse the maxim of the crucified Leader
of the hated sect, and go into all the world and
suppress the gospel in every creature. He
applies to the high-priest for commission and
authority, and, breathing out threatenings and
slaughter, the man who is going to live for Christ
starts out on his Christless mission to make
havoc of the Church.

This is the last act of Paul’s first life. Let us
note it carefully. We are on the bridge which
separates Paul’s two lives. What marks the tran-
sition is this: up to this time his life has been
spent in public. It has been one prolonged whirl
of excitement and applause. But no sooner have
the gates of Jerusalem closed upon him than Paul
begins to think. The echoes of the people’s
praises have died away one by one. He has
gone out into the great desert. It is strangely
“TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” 119

silent and soothing, and the lull has come at last
upon his soul. It is a long time, perhaps, since
he has had time to ¢hin&,; but Saul was far too
great a man to live long an unthinking life. His
time for reflection has come. And as he wanders
with his small escort along the banks of the Jor-
dan or through the solitary hills of Samaria, his
thoughts are busy with the past. And if Saul
was far too great a man to live an unthinking
life, he'was also too great a man to think well of
his life when he did think. Each new day as he
journeyed away from the scene of his triumph,
and looked back upon it all from that distance —
which always gives the true perspective to man’s
life— his mind must have filled with many a sad
reproach. And as he lay down at night in the
quiet wilderness his thoughts must often have
turned on the true quality of the life to which he
was sacrificing his talents and his youth. With
his quick perception, with his keen trained intel-
lect, with his penetration, he must have seen that
after all this life was a mistake. Minds of lesser
calibre in the applauding world which he had left
had told him he was great. Now, in his calmer
moments, he knew he was not great. The eter-
nal heavens stretching above him pointed to an
infinity which lay behind it all; and the stars and
the silence spoke to him of God. And he felt that
his life was miserably small. Saul’s thoughts
were greater than Saul’s life. How he had been
living beneath himself— how he had wasted the
120 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

precious years of his youth — how he had sold
his life for honour and reputation, and bartered
the talents God had given him for a name, he
must have seen. He had been dazzled, and that
was all. He had nothing really to show for his
life, nothing that would stand the test of solid
thought. It was all done for himself. He, Saul
of Tarsus, the rising man of his time, was the
centre of it all. ‘“ After all,” perhaps he cried in
agony, “To me to live is Saul,” “ To me to live
is Saul.”

Paul’s first great discovery, as we have seen —
and it is the discovery which precedes every true
reformation of life — was the discovery of him-
self. When Paul said, “To me to live is my-
se/f,” his conversion was begun. There was no
retreat then for a man like him. He was too
great to have such a little centre to his life; or,
rather, he felt life too great to be absorbed with
even such a personality as his.

But the next element in the case was not so
easily discovered, and it is of much more impor-
tance than the first. His first achievement was
only to discover himself. His second was to
discover some one better than himself. He
wanted a new centre to his life — where was he
to find it? The unseen hand which painted his
own portrait in its true colours on the dark back-
ground of his mind had painted every other life
the same. The high priests at Jerusalem, the
members of the Sanhedrim, his own father at
“TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” 12x

Tarsus — all the men he knew were living lives
like himself. They were no better — most of
them worse. Must the old centre of Paul’s life
remain there still? Is there nothing better in
all the world than himself?

It may be conjecture, or it may be nearer
truth, that while such questionings passed
through the mind of Paul, there came into his
thoughts as he journeyed some influences from
a life—a life like that for which his thoughts
had longed. Paul’s best known journeys are his
missionary tours, and we generally associate him
in our thoughts with the countries of Asia and
Italy and Greece. But this time his way leads
through the holy land. He has entered the land
of Christ. He is crossing the very footsteps of
Jesus. The villages along his route are fragrant
still with what Jesus said and did. They are
not the bitter things that Saul had heard before.
Kind words are repeated to him, and tender acts
which Jesus did aretold. The peasants by the
wayside and the shepherds on the hills are full
of stories of a self-denying life which used to
pass that way a year or two ago, but now will
come no more. And the mothers at the cottage
doors remember the stranger who suffered their
little children to come unto Him, and got them
to repeat to Saul, perhaps, the children’s bless-
ing which He left behind. Perhaps, in passing
through Samaria, the traveller met a woman at
a well, who tells her strange tale for the thou-
122 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

sandth time, of a weary man who had sat there
once and said He was the Christ. And Galilee
and Capernaum, and Bethsaida, and the lake
shore at Gennesaret, are full of memories of the
one true life which surely even then had begun
to cast a sacred influence over Paul. At all
events, there seemed a strange preparedness in
his mind for the meeting on the Damascus road,
as if the interview with Jesus then was not so
much the first of his friendship as the natural
outcome of something that had gone before,
And no doubt the Spirit’s silent working had
been telling on his mind during all these quiet
days, leading up his thoughts to the revelation
that was to come, and preparing a pathos for the
memorable question, with its otherwise unac-
countable emphasis, “Why persecutest thou
Me?”

What went on between Paul’s heart and God
we do not know. We do not know how deep
repentance ran, nor where, nor how, the justify-
ing grace came down from heaven to his soul.
Whether just then he went through our formula
of conversion the process which we like to
watch and describe in technical words — we do
not know. But we know this— there came a
difference into his life. His life was changed.
It was changed at its most radical part. He had
changed centres. During the process, whatever
it was, this great transfer was effected. Paul
deliberately removed the old centre from his
“TO ME TO LIVE 1S CHRIST ” 123

life, and put a new one in its place. Instead of
“to me to live is Paul,” it was now, “to meto
live is Christ.”

Of course, when the centre of Paul’s life was
changed, he had to take his whole life to pieces
and build it up again on a totally different plan.
This change, therefore, is not a mere incident
inaman’s life. It is a revolution, a revolution
of the most sweeping sort. There never was a
life so filled up with anti-Christian thoughts and
impulses brought socompletely toa halt. There
never was such a total eclipse of the most bril-
liant worldly prospects, nor such an abrupt tran-
sition from a career of dazzling greatness to
humble and obscure ignominy.

Let those who define conversion as a certain
colourless experience supposed to go on in the
feelings, blind themselves to the real transition
in this life if they will. Let them ask them-
selves if there ever was a more sweeping revolu-
tion in any life, for any cause, than in Paul’s,
when he abandoned himself, literally abandoned
himself, and subordinated everything, and ever-
more, to this one supreme passion — “to live for
Christ.”

The stages by which this transcendent stand-
point is to be reached are plainly now before us.
They are, the discovery of self and the discovery
of Christ. These two discoveries between them
exhaust the whole of life. TZ7// these discov-
eries are made, no man truly lives till doh are
124 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

made — for many discover themselves who have
not yet discovered Christ. But he that hath
not the Son hath not “fe. Whatever he has,
existence, continuity, he has not 4fe. The condi-
tion of living at all is to live for Christ. “He
that hath the Son,” and he alone, and no one
else, “hath life.”

Paul takes special care indeed that we should
fully understand the altogether different quality
of the two lives which a man may live. In his
view, the first life, the ordinary life of men, was
altogether a mistake. “What things were gain
to me,” then, he tells us, “I count loss for
Christ.” That brilliant career of his was loss;
that mission, noble and absorbing once, was
mere waste energy and misspent time. And
he goes further still. His life was death. It
was selfishness pure and simple; it was the car-
nal mind pure and simple; and to be carnally
minded is death. We shall understand the the-
ology of these letters better if we think of the
writer as a man escaping death. And with this
horrible background to his life we can see the
fuller significance of his words, that for him to
live was Christ.

Another thing is also made plain to us.

The ceaseless demand of the New Testament
for regeneration is also plain to us when we study
the doctrine in such a life as this. It was not
Saul who wrote the letters; it was a different
man altogether — Paul. It was one who was in
“TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” 125

a totally different world from the other. If it
was Saul, he must have been born again before
he could have done it. Nothing Zess could ac-
count for it. His interests were new, his stand-
point, his resources, his friendships. Adé/ old
things, in fact, had passed away. AM things
had become new. In a word, he was a mew
creature. The pool, polluted and stagnant, had
found its way at last into the wide, pure sea; the
spirit, tired of its narrow prison, disgusted with
ambition which ended with itself, reaches out to
the eternal freedom, and finds a worthy field of
exercise in the great enterprise of Christ.

There is one class, finally, to whom this biog-
raphy of Paul has aspecial message. The people
who need Paul’s change most are not those,
always, who are most thought to need it. The
really difficult cases — to others, but especially
to themselves — are the people who cannot see
really that their life could be much better.
There are thousands who do not see exactly
what conversion could do to them. And their
great difficulty in changing their life has just
been this: “What, after all, should we really
have to change? Our lives at present can
scarcely be distinguished from the real Chris-
tians around us. Had we been irreligious, or
profane, or undutiful, or immoral, conversion
might do something for us; but we belong to
the class who feel how well we have been brought
126 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

up, how much our interests are gathered round
religion, and, generally, how circumspect and
proper our entire outward life has been. We
do not really see, indeed, what change conver-
sion could make.” Now this is a class who
seldom get any sympathy, and none deserve it
more. Religious people and religious books are
always saying hard things of the “ religiously
brought up” — bitterly hard and undeserved
things — until they almost come to feel as if
their goodness were a crime. But there are
secret rendings of the heart within these ranks
— longings after God perhaps purer than any-
where else outside God’s true family. And
there are those who feel the difficulty of chang-
ing in surroundings so Christian-like as theirs;
who feel it so keenly that their despair some-
times leads them to the dark thought of almost
envying the prodigal and the open sinner, who
seem to have more chance of finding the king-
dom than they.

Now the change in Paul’s life is exactly the
case in point for them. Paul himself was one of
these characters who wonder what use conversion
could ever be to them. He was one of the “ re-
ligiously brought up.” Touching the law he was
blameless. There was no stricter man with his
religion in all Jerusalem than Saul; no man took
his place more regularly in the temple, or kept
the Sabbath with more scrupulous care. Touch-
ing the law he was blameless — just the man you
“TO ME TO LIVE JS CHRIST” 129

would have said who never wozld be changed,
who was far too good to be susceptible of a change.
But this is the man — not far from the kingdom
of God, as every one thought him to be — who
found room in his most religious heart for the
most sweeping reform that ever occurred in a
life.

Let those who really do not know very well
what religion could do for them take a little quiet
thought like Paul. Let them look once more,
not at the circumference, but at the centre of
their life. Let them ask one question about it:
“Is it Christ?” There is no middle way in
religion — self or Christ. The quality of the
selfishness — intellectual, literary, artistic-—the
fact that our self’s centre may be of a superior
order of self, does nothing to destroy this grave
distinction. It is between a@// self and Christ.
For the matter of that no centre could have been
more disciplined or cultured than Paul’s. In its
place it was truly great and worthy, but its place
was anywhere else than where Paul had it for
the full half of his life. This question, then,
of centres is. the vital question. “To me to
live is” — what? “To me to live is myself!”
Suppose that it is so. What kind of an end
to a life is this? How much nobler a centre
our life is worthy of —our one life— which is
to live for evermore; which is to live with a
great centre or a mean one — meanly or greatly
for evermore! Think of living with oneself for
128 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

ever and for ever. Think of having lived, living
now, and evermore, living only for this. Con-
sider Him who endured such contradiction of
sinners for our sake, who made Himself of no
reputation, who gave up form and comeliness;
who humbled Himself and emptied Himself for
us. Then look with complacency on such a life
if we can —
“T lived for myself, I thought for myself,
For myself, and none beside,

Just as if Jesus had never lived,
As if he had never died.”

2. This leads naturally to the other point —
the discovery of Christ. And here once more
we draw abundant encouragement from our
biography of Paul. And it brings us not only to
a hopeful thought, but to a very solemn thought.
We have all in some way made the discovery of
Christ — we know more about Christ than Paul
did when he became a Christian. When he made
Him the centre of his life, he knew less of Him
perhaps than most of us. It is a startling truth,
at all events, that we are as near the centre of life
——the centre of the universe —as Paul. We
have heard of Him from our infancy; the features
of His life are as familiar as our own; we have
no hatred to Him as Paul had once. And if the
few days’ quietness in the Holy Land, which
Paul had on the threshold of his change, were in
any way a preparation for the crisis of his life,
how much more has our past life been a prepara-
“TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” 129

tion for a change in ours! We call Paul’s change
a sudden conversion — we do not know how sud-
den it was. But if our life was changed to-day, it
would be no sudden conversion. Our whole past
has been leading up to these two discoveries of life.
Our preparation, so far as knowledge of the new
centre goes, is complete. The change, so far as
that is concerned, might happen zow. We have
the responsibility of being so near eternal life as
that.

The question comes to be then, finally, simply
a question of transfer. To me to live is myself,
or to me to live is Christ. To live for Christ is
not simply the sublime doctrine which it includes
of Christ our life. It is not so much Christ our
life, but rather our life for Christ.

Shall it be, then, our life for Christ? ‘“ To me
to live is Christ.” Contrast it with all the other
objects of life; take all the centres out of all the
great lives, and compare them one by one. Can
you match the life-creed of Paul — “to me to live
is Christ’?

“To me to live is — business,” “to me to live
is — pleasure,” “to me to live is — myself.” We
can all tell in a moment what our religion is really
worth. ‘To me to live is” — what? What are
we living for? What rises naturally to our heart
when we press it with a test like this: “To me to
live is’— what? First thoughts, it is said, are
best in matters of conscience. What was the
first thought that came into our hearts just then?

- 9
130 “TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

What word trembled first on our lip just now —
“to me to live is’ — was it business, was it
money, was it ourself, was it Christ?

“To me to live is — business,” “to me to live
is pleasure,” “to me to live is myself.” What
kind of an end to an immortal life is this? How
much nobler a centre our life is worthy of — our
life, our one precious life, which is to live for
evermore; which is to live with a great centre or
a mean one — meanly or greatly for evermore.

The time will come when we shall ask ourselves
why we ever crushed this infinite substance of our
life within these narrow bounds, and centred that
which lasts for ever on what must pass away. In
the perspective of eternity all lives will seem poor,
and small, and lost, and self-condemned beside a
life for Christ. There will be plenty then to
gather round the Cross. But who will do it now?
Who will do it now? There are plenty men to
die for Him, there are plenty to spend eternity
with Christ; but where is the man who will /ve for
Christ? Death and Eternity in their place. Christ
wants dives. No fear about death being gain if
we have lived for Christ. So let it be. ‘“ To me
to live is Christ.” There is but one alternative —
the putting on of Christ; Paul’s alternative, the
discovery of Christ. We have all in some sense,
indeed, already made the discovery of Christ. We
may be as near it now as Paul when he left Jeru-
salem. There was no notice given that he was to
change masters. The new Master simply crossed
“TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” 131

his path one day, and the great change was come.
How often has He crossed our path? We know
what to do the next time: we know how our life
can be made worthy and great — how only; we
know how death can become gain— how only.
Many, indeed, tell us death will be gain. Many
long for life to be done that they may rest, as they
say, in the quiet grave. Let no cheap senti-
mentalism deceive us. Death can only be gain
when to have lived was Christ.
NUMBER VI

Clairvoyance

“We look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen: for the things which are
seen are temporal; but the things which are not
seen are eternal,” —2 Cor. iv. 18.

“ Everything that ts is double.”
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS.

oe OOK not at the things which are seen.”

How can we look not at the things which
are seen? If they are seen, how can we help
looking at them? “Look at the things which
are not seen.” How can we look at things which
are not seen? Has religion some magic wishing-
cap, making the solid world invisible, or does it
supply some strange clairvoyance power, seeing
that which is unseen?

This is one of these alluring paradoxes which
all great books delight in, which baffle thought
while courting it, but which disclose to whomever
picks the lock the rarest and profoundest truth.

The surface meaning of a paradox is either
nonsense, or it is false. In this case it is false.
One would gather, at first sight, that we had here
another of these attacks upon the world, of
which the Bible is supposed to be so fond. It
CLAIRVOYANCE 133

reads as a withering contrast between the things
of time and the things of eternity —as an un-
qualified disparagement of this present world.
The things which are seen are temporal — no-
where, not worth a moment’s thought, not even
to be looked at.

In reality this is neither the judgment of the
Bible nor of reason.

There are four reasons why we should look at
the things which are seen: —

1. First, because God made them. Anything
that God makes is worth looking at. We live in
no chance world. It has been all thought out.
Everywhere work has been spent on it lavishly —
thought and work — loving thought and exquisite
work. All its parts together, and every part
separately, are stamped with skill, beauty, and
purpose. As the mere work of a Great Master
we are driven to look — deliberately and long —
at the things which are seen.

2. But, second, God made me to look at them.
He who made light made the eye. It is a gift of
the Creator on purpose that we may look at the
things which are seen. The whole mechanism
of man is made with reference to the temporal
world — the eye for seeing it, the ear for hearing
it, the nerve for feeling it, the muscle for moving
about on it and getting more of it. He acts con-
trary to his own nature who harbours even a sus-
picion of the things that are seen.

3. But again, thirdly, God has not merely made
134 CLAIRVOYANCE

the world, but He has made it conspicuous. So
far from lying in the shade, so far from being
constituted to escape observation, the whole tem-
poral world clamours for it. Nature is never and
nowhere silent. If you are apathetic, if you will
not look at the things which are seen, they will
summon you. The bird will call to you from the
tree-top, the sea will change her mood for you,
the flower looks up appealingly from the way-
side, and the sun, before he sets with irresistible
colouring, will startle you into attention. The
Creator has determined that, whether He be
seen or no, no living soul shall tread His earth
without being spoken to by these works of His
hands. God has secured that. And even those
things which have no speech nor language, whose
voice is not heard, have their appeal going out
to all the world, and their word to the end of the
earth. Had God feared that the visible world
had been a mere temptation to us, He would
have made it less conspicuous. Certainly He
has warned us not to love it, but nowhere not to
look at it.

4- The last reason, fourthly, is the greatest of
all. Hitherto we have been simply dealing with
facts. Now we come to a principle. Look at
the things that are seen, because it is only by
looking at the things that are seen that we can
have any tdea of the things that are unseen. Our
whole conception of the eternal is derived from
the temporal.
CLAIRVOYANCE 135

Take any unseen truth, or fact, or law. The
proposition is that it can only be apprehended
by us by means of the seen and temporal. Take
the word ezernal itself. What do we know of
eternity? Nothing that we have not learned from
the temporal. When we try to realise that word
there rises up before us the spaceless sea. We
glide swiftly over it day after day, but the illim-
itable waste recedes before us, knowing no end.
On and on, week and month, and there stretches
the same horizon vague and infinite, the far-off
circle we can never reach. We stop. We are
far enough. This is eternity!

In reality this is not eternity; it is mere water,
the temporal, liquid and tangible. But by look-
ing at this thing which is seen we have beheld
the unseen. Here is a river. It is also water.
But its different shape mirrors a different truth.
As we look, the opposite of eternity rises up
before us. There is Time, swift and silent; or
Life, fleeting and irrevocable. So one might run
over all the material of his thoughts, all the
groundwork of his ideas, and trace them back to
things that are temporal. They are really maze-
rial, made up of matter, and in order to chink at
all, one must first of all see.

Nothing could illustrate this better, perhaps,
than the literary form of our English Bible.
Leaving out for the present the language of
symbol and illustration which Christ spoke, there
is no great eternal truth that is not borne to us
136 CLAIRVOYANCE

upon some material image. Look, for instance,
at its teaching about human life. To describe
that it does not even use the words derived from
the temporal world. It brings us face to face
with the temporal world, and lets us abstract them
for ourselves. It never uses the word “ fleeting”
or “transitory.” It says life is a vapour that
appeareth for a little and vanisheth away. It
likens it to a swift post, a swift ship, a tale that is'
told.

It never uses the word “ irrevocable.’ It
speaks of water spilt on the ground that cannot
be gathered up again—a thread cut by the
weaver. Nor does it tell us that life is “ evanes-
cent.” It suggests evanescent things —a dream,
a sleep, a shadow, a shepherd’s tent removed.
And even to convey the simpler truth that life is
short, we find only references to short things that
are seen —a handbreadth, a pilgrimage, a flower,
a weaver’s shuttle. The Bible in these instances
is not trying to be poetical: it is simply trying to
be true. And it distinctly, unconsciously recog-
nises the fact that truth can only be borne into
the soul through the medium of things. We
must refuse to believe, therefore, that we are not
to look at the things which are seen. It is a
necessity; for the temporal is the husk and
framework of the eternal. And the things which
are not seen are made of the things which do
appear. ‘All visible things,” said Carlyle, “are
emblems. What thou seest is not there on its
CLAIRVOYANCE 137

own account; strictly speaking, is not there at
all. Matter exists only spiritually, and to repre-
sent some idea and body it forth” (Sartor
Resartus, p. 49). And so John Ruskin: —“The
more I think of it I find this conclusion more
impressed upon me—that the greatest thing a
human soul ever does in this world is to see
something, and tell what it sew ina plain way.
Hundreds of people can talk for one who can
think; but thousands can think for one who can
see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and
religion —all in one.”

II. From this point we can now go on from
the negative of the paradox to the second and
positive term — ‘Look at the things which are
not seen.” We now understand how to do this.
Where is the eternal? Where are the unseen
things, that we may look at them? And the
answer is— 2 the temporal. Look then at the
temporal, but do not pause there. You must
penetrate it. Go through it, and see its shadow,
its spiritual shadow, on the further side. Look
upon this shadow long and earnestly, till that
which you look through becomes the shadow,
and the shadow merges into the reality. Look
through till the thing you look through becomes
dim, then transparent, and then invisible, and
the unseen beyond grows into form and strength.
For, truly, the first thing seen is the shadow,
the thing on the other side the reality. The
thing you see is only a solid, and men mistake
138 CLAIRVOYANCE

solidity for reality. But that alone is the reality
—the eternal which lies behind. Look, then,
not at the things which are seen, but look through
them to the things that are unseen.

The great lesson which emerges from all this is
as to the religious use of the temporal world.
Heaven lies behind earth. We see that this earth
is not merely a place to live in, but to see in.
We are to pass through it as clairvoyants, hold-
ing the whole temporal world as a vast trans-
parency, through which the eternal shines.

Let us now apply this principle briefly to daily
life. To most of us, the most practical division
of life is threefold: the Working life, the Home
life, and the Religious life. What do these
yield us of the eternal, and how?

1. The Working Life. To most men, work is
just work—manual work, professional work,
office work, household work, public work, intel-
lectual work. A yellow primrose is just a
yellow primrose; a ledger is a ledger; a lexicon
is a lexicon. To a worker, Christian business
man, with this mind, so far as spiritual uses are
concerned, therefore, work is vanity—an un-
accountable squandering of precious time. He
must earn his success by the sweat of his brow;
that is all he knows about it. It is a curse, lying
from the beginning upon man as man. So, six
days of it each week, he bends his neck to it
doggedly; the seventh God allows him to think
about the unseen and eternal.
CLAIRVOVYANCE 139

Now God would never unspiritualise three-
fourths of man’s active life by work, if work were
work, and nothing more.

A second workman sees a little further. His
work is not a curse exactly; it is his appointed
life, his destiny. It is God’s will for him, and he
must go through with it. No doubt its trials
are good for him; at all events, God has ap-
pointed him this sphere, and he must accept
it with Christian resignation.

It is a poor compliment to the Divine arrange-
ments if they are simply to be acquiesced in.
The all-wise God surely intends some higher
outcome from three-fourths of life than ailment
and resignation.

To the spiritual man, next, there lies behind
this temporal a something which explains all.
He sees more to come out of it than the year’s
income, or the employment of his allotted time,
or the benefiting of his species. If violins were
to be the only product, there is no reason why
Stradivarius should spend his life in making
them. But work is an incarnation of the un-
seen. In this loom man’s soul is made. There
is a subtle machinery behind it all, working
while he is working, making or unmaking the
unseen in him. Integrity, thoroughness, hon-
esty, accuracy, conscientiousness, faithfulness,
patience — these unseen things which complete
a soul are woven into it in work. Apart from
work, these things are not. As the conductor
140 CLAIRVOYANCE

leads into our nerves the invisible electric force,
so work conducts into our spirit all high forces of
character, all essential qualities of life, truth in
the inward parts. Ledgers and lexicons, business
letters, domestic duties, striking of bargains,
writing of examinations, handling of tools— these
are the conductors of the eternal. So much the
conductors of the eternal, that without them there
isnoeternal. No man dreams integrity, accuracy,
and so on. He cannot learn them by reading
about them. These things require their wire as
much as electricity. The spiritual fluids and
the electric fluids are under the same law; and
messages of grace come along the lines of honest
work to the soul like the invisible message along
the telegraph wires. Patience, spiritually, will
travel alonga wire as really as electricity.

A workshop, therefore, or an office, or a school
of learning, is a gigantic conductor. An office
is not a place for making money — it is a place
for making character. A workshop is not a
place for making machinery — it is a place for
making men: not for turning wood, for fitting
engines, for founding cylinders. To God’s eye,
it is a place for founding character; it is a place
for fitting in the virtues to one’s life, for turn-
ing out honest, modest-tempered God-fearing
men. A school of learning is not so much a
place for making scholars, as a place for making
souls, and he who would ripen and perfect the
eternal element in his being will do so by at-
CLAIRVOYANCE 141

tending to the religious uses of his daily task,
recognising the unseen in its seen, so turning
three-fourths of each day's life into an ever-
acting means of grace.

We say some kinds of work are immoral. A
man who is turning out careless, imperfect work,
is turning out a careless, imperfect character for
himself. He is touching deceit every moment;
and this unseen thing rises up from his work
like a subtle essence, and enters and poisons his
soul. We say piece-work is immoral — it makes
a man only a piece of a man, shuts him out from
variety, and originality, and adaptation, narrow-
ing and belittling his soul. But we forget the
counter-truth, that honest and good work make
honesty and goodness, integrity and thorough-
ness — nay, that these alone make them. And
that he who would ripen and perfect his soul
must attend to the religious uses of his daily
work, — seeing the unseen in its seen, — heeding
it, not with a dry punctiliousness, but lovingly,
so turning the active life of each working day
into means of grace, recognising its dignity, not
as a mere making of money, but as an elaborate
means of grace, occupying three-fourths of life.

2. The Family Life. Next, life is so ordered
that another large part of it is spent in the
family. This also, therefore, has its part to
play in the completing of the soul. The work-
ing life could never teach a man all the lessons
of the unseen. A whole set of additional mes-
142 CLAIRVOYANCE

sages from the eternal have to be conducted into
his soul at home. This is why it is not good
for a man to be alone. A lonely man is insu-
lated from the eternal — inaccessible to the
subtle currents which ought to be flowing hourly
into his soul.

This, too, is a higher source of spirituality
than work. It is here that life dawns, and the
first mould is given to the plastic substance —
Home is the cradle of Eternity.

It has been secured, therefore, that the first
laws stamped there, the first lines laid down, the
permanent way for the future soul, should be at
once the lines of the eternal. Why do all men
say that the family is a divine institution? Be-
cause God instituted it? But what guided Him
in constituting it as it is? Eternity. Home
is a preliminary heaven. Its arrangements are
purely the arrangements of Heaven. Heaven
is a father with his children. The parts we
shall play in that great home are just the parts
we have learned in the family here. We shall
go through the same life there — only without the
matter. This matter is a mere temporary quality
to practise the eternal on — as wooden balls are
hung up ina schoolroom to teach the children
numbers till they can think them for themselves.

When a parent wishes to teach his child form
and harmony, the properties of matter, beauty,
and symmetry — all these unseen things — what
does he do but give his child things that are
CLAIRVOYANCE 143

seen, through which he can seethem? He gives
him a box of matter, bricks of wood, as play-
things, and the child, in forming and transform-
ing these, in building with them lines and
squares, arches and pillars, has borne into his
soul regularity and stability, form and symmetry.
So God with us. The material universe is a
mere box of bricks. We exercise our growing
minds upon it for a space, till in the hereafter
we become men, and childish things are put
away. The temporal is but the scaffolding of
the eternal; and when the last immaterial souls
have climbed through this material to God, the
scaffolding shall be taken down, and the earth
dissolved with fervent heat — not because it is
wrong, but because its work is done.

The mind of Christ is to be learned in the
family. Strength of character may be acquired
at work, but beauty of character is learned at
home. There the affections are trained— that
love especially which is to abide when tongues
have ceased and knowledge fails. There the
gentle life reaches us, the true heaven life. In one
word, the family circle is the supreme conductor
of Christianity. Tenderness, humbleness, cour-
tesy; self-forgetfulness, faith, sympathy — these
ornaments of a meek and quiet spirit are learned
at the fireside, round the table, in commonplace
houses, in city streets. We are each of us daily
embodying these principles in our soul, or tram-
pling them out of it, in the ordinary intercourse
144 CLAIRVOYANCE

of life. As actors in a charade, each member of
the house each day, consciously or unconsciously,
acts a word. The character is the seen, the word
the unseen, and whether he thinks of the word at
night or not, the souls of all around have guessed
it silently; and when the material mask and cos-
tume is put away, and the circumstance of that
day’s life long years forgotten, that word of eter-
nity lives on to make or mar the player, and all
the players with him, in that day’s game of life.

To waken a man to all that is involved in each
day’s life, in even its insignificant circumstance
and casual word and look, surely you have but
to tell him all this— that in these temporals lie
eternals; that in life, not in church, lies religion;
that all that is done or undone, said or unsaid,
of right or wrong, have their part, by an unalter-
able law, in the eternal life of all.

3. We now come to Religion. And we shall
see further how God has put even that for us into
the temporal. Reflect for a moment upon the
teaching of Christ. All that He had to say of the
eternal He put up in images of the temporal world.
What are all His parables, His allusions to nature,
His illustrations from real life, His metaphors and
similes, but disclosures to our blind eyes of the
unseen in the seen? In reality, the eternal is
never nearer us than ina material image. Reason
cannot bring religion near us, only things can. So
Christ never demonsirated anything. He did not
appeal to the reasoning power in man, but to the
CLAIRVOYANCE 145

seeing power — that power of imagination which
deals with images of things.

That is the key to all Christ’s teaching —that
He spoke not to the reason but to the imagina-
tion. Incessantly He held up ¢izngs before our
eyes — things which in a few days or years would
moulder into dust — and told us to look there at
the eternal. He held up bread. “Iam bread,”
He said. And if you think over that for a lifetime,
you will never get nearer to the truth than through
that thing bread. That temporal is so perfect an
image of the eternal, that no reading, or thinking,
or sermonising, can get us closer to Christ.

Hence the triumphant way in which He ran-
sacked the temporal world, and marked off for us
—what we, with our false views of spirituality,
had never dared — marked off for us all its com-
mon and familiar things as mirrors of the eternal.
So light, life; vine, wine; bread, water, physi-
cian, shepherd, and a hundred others, have all
become transformed with a light from the other
world, Observe, Christ does not say He is
like these things, He zs these things. Look
through these things, right through, and you will
see Him. We disappoint our souls continually
in trying, by some other way than through these
homely temporals, to learn the spiritual life.

It is the danger of those who pursue the intel-
lectual life as a specialty to miss this tender and
gracious influence. The student of the family,
by a generous though perilous homage paid to

mn
146 CLAIRVOYANCE

learning, is allowed to be an exception in the
family life. He dwells apart, goes his own way,
lives his own life; and unconsciously, and to his
pain, he finds himself, perhaps, gradually look-
ing down on its homelier tasks and less transcen-
dent interests. In society, it is for the scholar
we make allowances; but the eccentricities we
condone on account of their high compensations
often mark an arrested development of what is
really higher. And there is nothing so much to
fear in oneself, and to check with more resolute
will, than the unconscious tendency in all who
pursue culture to get out of step with humanity,
and be not at home at home.

A very remarkable instance of Christ’s use of
this principle is the Sacraments. His design
there was to perpetuate, in the most luminous
and arresting way, the two grandest facts of the
spiritual world. How did He proceed? He
made them visible. He associated these facts
with the two commonest things in the world —
water and bread and wine—the every-day diet
at every peasant’s board. By these sacraments,
the souls of men are tied down at the most sacred
moments of life to the homeliest temporal things;
so that the highest spirituality, by Christ’s own
showing, comes to God's children through lowly
forms of the material world. Transcendentalism
in religion is a real mistake. True spirituality is
to see the divinity in common things.

But, yet again, there is a more wonderful ex-
CLAIRVOYANCE 147

hibition of this law than the Sacraments. God
furnished the world with a temporal thing for
every eternal thing save one. Every eternal
truth had its material image in the world — every
eternal law had its working-model among the
laws of nature. But there was one thing want-
ing. There was no temporal for the eternal God
Himself. And man missed it. He wished to see
even this unseen in something seen. In the sea,
he saw eternity; in space, infinity; in the hills,
sublimity; in the family, love; in the state, law.
But there was no image of God. One speaks of
what follows with bated breath. God gave it!
God actually gave it! God made a seen image
of Himself — not a vision, not a metaphor — an
express image of His person. He laid aside His
invisibility, He clothed Azmself with the temporal,
Ffe took flesh and dwelt among us. The incarna-
tion was the eternal become temporal for a little
time, that we might look at it.

It was our only way of beholding it, for we
can only see the unseen in the seen. The word
“God” conveyed no meaning; there was no
seen thing to correspond to that word, and no
word is intelligible till there is an image for it.
So God gave religion its new word in the intelli-
gible form — a word in flesh — that, henceforth,
all men might behold God’s glory, not in itself,
for that is impossible, but in the face of Jesus.
This is the crowning proof of the religious use of
the temporal world.
148 CLAIRVOYANCE

Such, then, are some of the eternal uses of the
temporal world.

Three classes of men, finally, have taken up
their position with reference to this principle
within recent years.

One will not look at the unseen at all— the
materialist. He is utterly blind to the eternal.
The second is utterly blind to the temporal —
the mystic. He does not look for the unseen in
the seen, but apart from the seen. He works,
or tries to work, by direct vision. The third is
neither blind to the unseen or the seen, but short-
sighted to both. The Ritualist selects some half-
dozen things from the temporal world, and tries
to see the unseen in them. As if there were only
some half-dozen things — crosses and vestments,
music and stained glass —through which the
eternal shone! The whole world is a ritual —
that is the answer. If a man means to evade
God, let him look for Him in some half-dozen
forms; he wz// evade Him, he will not see Him
anywhere else. But let him who wishes to get
near God, and be with God always, move in a
religious atmosphere always; let him take up his
position beside this truth. Worldliness has been
defined as a looking at the things that are seen,
but only closely enough to see their market value.
Spirituality is that further look which sees their
eternal value, which realises that

“ The earth is full of heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.”
NUMBER VII

The Three
Facts of Sin

“Who forgiveth all thine iniguities s
Who healeth all thy diseases ;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction.”
Ps. ciii. 3, 4.

HERE is one theological word which has
found its way lately into nearly all the
newer and finer literature of our country. It is
not only one of the words of the literary world at
present, it is perhaps ¢e word. Its reality, its
- certain influence, its universality, have at last
been recognised, and in spite of its theological
name have forced it into a place which nothing
but its felt relation to the wider theology of hu-
man life could ever have earned for a religious
word. That word, it need scarcely be said, is Szz.
Even in the lighter literature of our country,
and this is altogether remarkable, the ruling word
just now is s¢z. Years ago it was the gay term
Chivalry which held the foreground in poem and
ballad and song. Later still, the word which held
court, in novel and romance, was Love. But now
a deeper word heads the chapters and begins the
cantos. A more exciting thing than chivalry is
descried in the arena, and love itself fades in
130 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

interest before this small word, which has wan-
dered out of theology, and changed the face of
literature, and made many a new book preach.

It is not for religion to complain that her vocabu-
lary is being borrowed by the world. There may
be pulpits where there are not churches; and_it
is a valuable discovery for religion that the world
has not only a mind to be amused but a -con-
science to be satisfied.

But religion has one duty in the matter —
when her words are borrowed, to see that they
are borrowed whole. Truth which is to pass into
such common circulation must not be mutilated
truth; it must be strong, wringing, decided,.
whole; it must be standard truth; in a word, it
must be Bible truth.

Now the Bible truth about this word is in itself.
interesting and very striking. In David espe-
cially, where the delineations are most perfect
and masterful, the reiteration and classification
of the great facts and varieties of sin form one of
the most instructive and impressive features of
the sacred writings. The Psalms will ever be the
standard work on Sin—the most ample analysis
of its nature, its effects, its shades of difference,
and its cure.

And yet, though it is such a common thing, I
daresay many of us, perhaps, do not know any-
thing about it. Somehow, it is just the common
things we are apt not to think about. Take the
commonest of all things—air. What do we
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN ss is1

know about it? What do we know about water?
— that great mysterious sea, on which some of
you spend your lives, which moans all the long
winter at your very doors. Sin is a commoner
thing than them all; deeper than the sea, more
subtle than the air; mysterious indeed, moaning
in all our lives, through all the winter and sum-
mer of our past; that shall last, in the undying
soul of man, when there shall be no more sea.
To say the least of it, it is most unreasonable
that a man should live in sin all his life without
knowing in some measure what he is about.

And as regards the higher bearings of the
case, it is clear that without the fullest informa-
tion about sin no man can ever have the fullest
information about himself, which he ought to
have; and what is of more importance, without
understanding sin no man can ever understand
God. Even the Christian who has only the
ordinary notions of sin 7x the general, can neither
be making very much of himself or of his the-
ology, for as a general rule, a man’s experience
of religion and of grace is in pretty exact pro-
portion to his experience of sin.

No doubt, the intimate knowledge of them-
selves which the Old Testament writers had, had
everything to do with their intimate knowledge
of God. David, for instance, who had the deepest
knowledge of God, had also the deepest knowl-
edge of his own heart; and if there is one thing
in the writings he has left us more conspicuous
152 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

than another, it is the ceaseless reiteration of
the outstanding facts of Sin— the cause, the
effects, the shades of difference, and the cure of
Sin.

In the clause which forms our text to-day,
David has given us in a nutshell the whole of
the main facts of Sin. And for any one who
wishes to become acquainted with the great
pivots on which all human life turns, and on
which his own life turns; for any one who
wishes to understand the working of God’s grace;
for any one who wishes to examine himself on the
other great fact of human sin; there is no more
admirable summary than these words:

“Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who
healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy
life from destruction.”

These facts of sin, which it is necessary for us
to know, may be said to be ¢#vee in number:

1. The Guilt of Sin.
2. The Stain of Sin.
3. The Power of Sin.

And these three correspond roughly with the
natural division of the text:

1. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities = the
Guilt of Sin.

2. Who healeth all thy diseases = the Stain
of Sin.

3. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction =
the Power of Sin.

The best fact to start with will perhaps be
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 183

the /as¢ of these; and for this reason the word
Life is in it. “Who redeemeth thy Zzfe from
destruction.”

We have all a personal interest in anything
that concerns /fe. We can understand things
—even things in theology —if they will only
bear upon our life. And to anything which in
any way comes home to life, in influencing it,
or bettering it, or telling upon it in any way
whatever, we are always ready, for our life’s
sake, to give a patient hearing.

1. We feel prepared to take kindly to almost
any doctrine if it will only bear upon our life.
And surely in the whole range of truth none
have more points of contact with the heart of
man than the doctrine of the Power of Sin. In
the first place, then, let us notice that Sin isa
Power, and a power which concerns Life.

There is an old poem which bears the curious
title of “ Strife in Heaven,” the idea of which is
something like this: The poet supposes himself
to be walking in the streets of the New Jerusa-
lem, when he comes to a crowd of saints engaged
in a very earnest discussion. He draws near,
and listens. The question they are discussing
is, Which of them is the greatest monument of
God’s saving grace. After a long debate, in
which each states his case separately, and each
claims to have been by far the most wonderful
trophy of God’s love in all the multitude of the
redeemed, it is finally agreed to settle the matter
154 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

by avote. Vote after vote is taken, and the list
of competition is gradually reduced until only
two remain. These are allowed to state their
case again, and the company stand ready to join
in the final vote. The first to speak is a very
old man. He begins by saying that it is a mere
waste of time to go any further; it is absolutely
impossible that God’s grace could have done
more for any man in heaven than for him. He
tells again how he had led a most wicked and
vicious life—a life filled up with every conceiv-
able indulgence, and marred with every crime.
He has been a thief, a liar, a blasphemer, a
drunkard, and a murderer. On his deathbed,
at the eleventh hour, Christ came to him and
he was forgiven.

The other is also an old man who says, ina
few words, that he was brought to Christ when
he was a boy. He had led a quiet and unevent-
ful life, and had looked forward to heaven as
early as he could remember.

The vote is taken; and, of course, you would
say it results in favour of the first. But no, the
votes are all given to the /ast. We might have
thought, perhaps, that the one who led the reck-
less, godless life-——he who had lied, thieved,
blasphemed, murdered; he who was saved by
the skin of his teeth, just a moment before it
might have been too late — had the most to thank
Godfor. But the old poet knew the deeper truth.
It required great grace verily to pluck that old
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 155

brand from the burning. It required depths,
absolutely fathomless, depths of mercy to for-
give that veteran in sin at the close of all these
guilty years. But it required more grace to
keep that other life from guilt through all these
tempted years. It required more grace to save
him from -the sins of his youth, and keep his
Christian boyhood pure, to steer him scathless
through the tempted years of riper manhood, to
crown his days with usefulness, and his old age
with patience and hope. Both started in life
together; to one grace came at the end, to the
other at the beginning. The first was saved
from the guilt of sin, the second from the power
of sinas well. The first was saved from dying
in sin. But he who became a Christian in his
boyhood was saved from “ving in sin. The one
required just one great act of love at the close
of life, the other had a life full of love, —it was
a greater salvation far. His soul was forgiven
like the other, but his life was redeemed from
destruction.

The lesson to be gathered from the old poet’s
parable is that sin is aquestion of power as much
as a question of guilt, —that salvation is a ques-
tion of Life perhaps far more than a question of
Death. There is something in every man’s life
which needs saving from, something which would
spoil his life and run off with it into destruction
if let alone. This principle of destruction is
the first great fact of Sin—its Power.
156 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

Now any man who watches his life from day
to day, and especially if he is trying to steer it
towards a certain moral mark which he has made
in his mind, has abundant and humiliating evi-
dence that this Power is busily working in zs
life. He finds that this Power is working agazust
him in his life, defeating him at every turn, and
persistently opposing all the good he tries to
do. He finds that his natural bias is to break
away from God and good. Then he is clearly
conscious that there is an acting ingredient in
his soul which not only neutralises the inclina-
tion to follow the path which he knows to be
straightest and best, but works continually and
consistently against his better self, and urges
his life onwards towards a broader path which
leads to destruction.

Now it was this road which David had in his
mind when he thanked God that zs life had
been redeemed, or kept back from destruction.
It was a beaten track we may be sure in those
times, as it is to-day, and David knew perfectly
well when he penned these words that God’s
hand had veritably saved him from ending his
life along that road. It was not enough in sum-
ming up his life in his old age, and calling upon
his soul to bless the Lord for all His benefits,
to thank Him simply for the forgiveness of his
sins. God has done far more for him than for-
give him his sin. He has redeemed his life
from destruction. He has saved him from the
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 157

all but omnipotent power of Sin. What that
power was, what that power might have become,
how it might have broken up and wrecked his
life a thousand times, let those who remember
the times when it did break loose in David's life
recall. How little might we have guessed that
there was anything in the Psalmist’s life to make
him thank God at its close for keeping it back
from destruction. Brought up in the secluded
plains of Bethlehem, and reared in the pure
atmosphere of country innocence, where could
the shepherd lad get any taint of sin which could
develop in after years to a great destroying
power? And yet he got it— somehow, he got
it. And even in his innocent boyhood, the fatal
power lurked there, able enough, willing enough,
vicious enough, to burst through the early bound-
aries of his life and wreck it ere it reached its
prime. All the time he was walking with God;
all the time he was planning God’s temple; all
the time he was writing his holy Psalms —
which make all men wonder at the Psalmist’s
grace; while he was playing their grave sweet
melody upon his harp in the ear of God, the
power of sin was seething and raging in his
breast, ready to quench the very inspiration God
was giving him, and ruin his religion and his
soul for evermore. God kept His hand, we may
be sure, through David’s life on the springs of
David’s sin; and there was nothing so much to
thank God for, in taking the retrospect of his
138 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

eventful course, than that his /zfe had been re-
deemed from this first great fact of sin.

David’s salvation, to round off the point with
an analogy from the old poet, was a much more
wonderful thing than, say, the dying thief’s sal-
vation. David cost grace far more than the
dying thief. The dying thief only needed dying
grace. David needed living grace. The thief
only needed forgiving grace; David needed for-
giving grace and restraining grace. He needed
grace to keep in his life, to keep it from run-
ning away. But the thief needed no restraining
grace. The time for that was past. His life
had run away. His wild oats were sown, and
the harvest was heavy and bitter Destruction
had come upon him already in a hundred forms.
He had had no antidote to the power of sin,
which runs so fiercely in every vein of every
man, and he. had destroyed himself. His char-
acter was ruined, his soul was honey-combed
through and through with sin. He could not
have joined in David’s psalm that his /zfe was
saved from destruction. His death was, and the
wreck of his soul was, but his /zfe was lost to
God, to the world, and to himself. His fe had
never been redeemed as David’s was; so David
was the greater debtor to God’s grace, and few
men have had greater reason than he to praise
God in old age for redeeming their life from
destruction.

Yes, there is more in salvation than forgive-
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 159

ness. And why? Because there is more in sin
than guilt. “If I were to be forgiven to-day,”
men who do not know this say, “I would be as
bad as ever to-morrow.” It is based on the fal-
lacy, it is based on the heresy, that there is no
more for a man in religion than forgiveness of
sins. If there were not it would be little use
to us. It would have been little use to a man
like David. And David’s life would have been
incomplete, and David’s psalm would have been
impossible, had he not been able to add to the
record of God’s pardon the record of God’s power
in redeeming his life from destruction. “If I
were to be forgiven to-day, I would be as bad as
ever to-morrow.” No, that’s founded on the
notion that there’s nothing more in religion
than forgiveness. If there were not, I say it
with all solemnity, it would be very little use
to me. We have all thanked God for the dying
thief — have we ever thanked God for redeeming
our life from destruction? Destruction is the
natural destination of every human soul. It is
as natural for our soul to go downward as tor a
stone to fall to the ground. Do we ever thank
God for redeeming our soul from that? And
when we thank God we are saved, do we mean
we are saved from hell, or do we think some-
times how He has rescued our life from the
destroying power of sin?

2. The Stain of Sin.

The power of sin could never run through a
160 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

man’s life without leaving its mark behind. Noth.
ing in the world ever works without friction. A
mountain torrent digs a glen in the mountain
side; the sea cuts a beach along the shore; the
hurricane leaves a thousand fallen witnesses be-
hind to mark its track. And the great river of
sin, as it rolls through a human life, leaves a pile
of ruins here and there as melancholy monuments
to show where it has been. Nature, with all its
strength, is a wonderfully delicate machine, and
everything has its reaction somewhere and some
time. Nothing is allowed to pass, and nothing
has so appalling a reaction upon every one and
everything as sin.

History is an undying monument of human sin.
The most prominent thing on its pages are the
stains —the stains of sin which time has not
rubbed out. The history of the world, for the
most part, has been written in the world’s blood;
and all the reigns of all its emperors and kings
will one day be lost in one absorbing record of
one great reign — the one long reign of sin. As
it has been with history so it is in the world to-
day. The surface of society is white with leprosy.
Take away the power of sin to-morrow, the stain
of sin remains. Whatever the world may suffer
from want of conviction of the guilt of sin it will
never be without conviction of its stain. We
see it in one another’s lives. We see it in one
another’s faces. It is the stain of the world’s
sin that troubles the world’s conscience. It is
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 161

the stain of the world’s sin that troubles philan-
thropy; that troubles the Parliament of the coun-
try; that troubles the Press of the country. It is
the stain of the world’s sin especially that is mak-
ing a place in literature for this word sin. It is
this side of sin that is absorbing the finest writing
of the day; that is filling our modern poetry;
that is making a thousand modern books preach
the doctrine of Retribution, which simply means
the doctrine of the stain of sin. Society cares
nothing for thee, is not wise enough to see the
power of sin, or religious enough to see the guilt
of sin; but it cannot fail to see the stain of sin.
It does not care for the power or the guilt of sin;
it cares for the stain of sin, because it must. That
troubles society. That lies down at its doors, and
is an eyesore to it. It is a loathsome thing to be
lying there, and society must do something. So
this is what it does with it: in one corner it builds
a prison —this will rid the world of its annoy-
ance. In another corner it plants a mad-house —
the sore may fester there unseen. In another it
raises an hospital; in a fourth it lays out a grave-
yard. Prisons, mad-houses, hospitals — these are
just so much roofing which society has put on to
hide the stain of sin. It is a good thing in some
ways that sin has always its stain. Just as pain
is a good thing to tell that something is wrong,
so the stain of sin may be a good thing to tell
that the power has broken loose. Society might

never trouble itself if it were not for the stain.
Il
162 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

And in dealing with the stain of sin it sometimes
may do a very little to maim its power. But it is
a poor, poor remedy. If it could only see the
power and try to deal with that — try to get God’s
grace to act on that, the world might be redeemed
from destruction after all. But it only sees the
stain when it is too late —the stain which has
dropped from the wound after the throat of virtue
has been cut. Surely, when the deed is done, it
is the least it could do to remove the traces of
the crime.

But one need not go to society or history to
see the stains of sin. We see it in one another’s
lives and in our own lives. Our conscience, for
instance, is not so quick as it might have been —
the stains of sin are there, between us and the
light. We have ignored conscience many a time
when it spoke, and its voice has grown husky
and indistinct. Our intellectual life is not so true
as it might have beén — our intellectual sins
have stained it and spoilt our memory, and taken
the edge of our sympathy, and filled us with sus-
picion and one-sided truths, and destroyed the
delicate power of faith.

There are few more touching sights than to seea
man in mature life trying to recover himself from
the stains of a neglected past. The past itself is
gone; but it remains in dark accumulated stains
upon his life, and he tries to take them off in vain.
There was a time once, when his robe was white
and clean. ‘“ Keep your garment unspotted from
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 163

the world,” they said to him, the kind home-
voices, as he went out into life. He remembers
well the first spot on that robe. Even the laden
years that lie between have no day so dark—
no spot now lies so lurid red upon his soul as
that first sin. Then the companion stain came,
for sins are mostly twins. Then another, and an-
other, and many more, till count was lost, and
the whole robe was patterned over with sin stains.
The power of God has come to make a new man
of him, but the stains are sunk so deeply in his
soul that they are living parts of him still. It is
hard for him to give up the world. It is hard for
him to be pure. It is hard for him to forget the
pictures which have been hanging in the galleries
of his imagination all his life—to forget them
when he comes to think of God; to forget them
when he kneels down to pray; to forget them
even when he comes to sit in church. The past
of his life has been all against him; and even if his
future is religious, it can never be altogether un-
affected by the stain of what has been. It is the
stain of sin which makes repentance so hard in
adult life, which yields the most impressive argu-
ment to the young to remember their Creator in
their youth. For even “the angels,” says Ruskin,
“who rejoice over repentance, cannot but feel an
uncomprehended pain as they ¢vy and try again
zm vain whether they may not warm hard hearts
with the brooding of their kind wings.”

But if the stain of sin is invisible in moral and
164. THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

intellectual life, no one can possibly be blind to it
in bodily life. We see it in one another’s lives,
but more than that, we see it in one another’s
faces. Vice writes in plain characters, and all
the world is its copybook. We can read it
everywhere and on everything around, from pole
to pole. The drunkard, to take the conspicuous
example, so stains his bodily life with his sin that
the seeds of disease are sown which, long after he
has reformed, will germinate in his death. If all
the drunkards in the world were to be changed
to-morrow, the stains of sin in their bodies even
would doubtless bring a large majority — in a few
years, less or more — to what was after all really
a drunkard’s grave.

There is a pliysical demonstration of sin as well
as a religious; and no sin can come in among
the delicate faculties of the mind, or among the
coarser fibres of the body, without leaving a
stain, either as a positive injury to the life, or,
what is equally fatal, as a predisposition to com-
mit the same sin again. This predisposition is
always one of the most real and appalling accom-
paniments of the stain of sin. There is scarcely
such a thing as an isolated sin in a man’s life.
Most sins can be accounted for by what has
gone before. Every sin, so to speak, has its
own pedigree, and is the result of the accu-
mulated force, which means the accumulated
stain of many a preparatory sin.

Thus when Peter began to swear in the High
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 16s

Priest’s palace it was probably not the first time
Peter swore. A man does not suddenly acquire
the habit of uttering oaths; and when it is said of
Peter, “Then degan he to curse and to swear,” it
does not at all mean by “then” and “ began ” that
he had not begun it long ago. The legitimate in-
ference is, that in the rough days of his fisherman’s
life, when the nets got entangled perhaps, or the
right wind would not blow, Peter had come out
many a time with an oath to keep his passion
cool. And now, after years of devoted fellowship
with Christ, the stain is still so black upon his
soul that he curses in the very presence of his
Lord. An outbreak which meets the public eye
is generally the climax of a series of sins, which
discretion has been able, till then, to keep out of
sight. The doctrine of the stain of sin has no
exceptions; and few men, we may be sure, can do
a suddenly notorious wrong without knowing some-
thing in private of the series to which it belongs.
But the most solemn fact about this stain of sin
is that so little can be done for it. It is almost
indelible. There is a very solemn fact about this
stain of sin —it can never be altogether blotted
out. The guilt of sin may be forgiven, the power
of sin may be broken, but the stains of sin abide.
When it is said, ‘He healeth our diseases,” it
means indeed that we may be healed; but the
ravages which sin has left must still remain.
Small-pox may be healed, but it leaves its mark
behind. A cut limb may be cured, but the scar
166 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

remains for ever. An earthquake is over in three
minutes, but centuries after the ground is still
rent into gulfs and chasms which ages will never
close. So the scars of sin,on body and mind and
soul, live with us in silent retribution on our past,
and go with us to our graves.

And the stain does not stop with our lives.
Every action of every man has an ancestry and a
posterity in other lives. The stains of life have
power to spread. The stains of other lives have
crossed over into our lives, stains from our lives
into theirs. “I am a part,” says the Laureate,
“of all that Ihave met.” A hundred years hence
we all must live again —in thoughts, in tenden-
cies, in influences, perhaps in sins and stains in
other lives. The sins of the father shall be
visited on the children. The blight on the
vicious parent shall be visited on the insane off-
spring. The stain on the intemperate mother
shall reappear in the blasted lives of her drunken
family. Finer forms of sin in the same way —
of companion on companion, of brother or sister,
of teacher and pupil. For God Himself has
made the law, that the curse must follow the
breach; and even He who healeth our diseases
may never interfere with the necessary stain of
a sinful life.

“Take my influence,” cried a sinful man, who
was dying; “ take my influence, and bury it with
me.” He was going to be with Christ, his influ-
ence had been against Him; he was leaving it
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN _ 167

behind. Asa conspirator called by some act of
grace to his sovereign’s table remembers with
unspeakable remorse the assassin whom he left
in ambuscade at his king’s palace gate, so he
recalls the traitorous years and the ‘influences
which will plot against his Lord when he is in
eternity. Oh, it were worth being washed from
sin, were it only to escape the possibility of a
treachery like that. It were worth living a holy
and self-denying life, were it only to join the
choir invisible of those almighty dead who live
again in lives made better by our presence.

3. But now, lastly, we come to the third great
fact of sin, z¢s guz/t. And we find ourselves face
to face with the greatest question of all, ‘“ What
has God to say to all this mass of sin? ”

Probably every one will acknowledge that his
life bears witness to the two first facts of sin.
Starting with this admission, a moment’s thought
lands us ina greater admission. Weall acknowl-
edge sin, therefore we must all acknowledge our-
selves to be guilty. Whether we feel it or no,
guilt is inseparable from sin. Physical evil may
make a man sorry, but moral evil makes him
guilty. It may not make him feel guilty — we
are speaking of facts —he zs guilty. So we are
guilty for our past lives. We may be sorry for
the past. But it is not enough that we are sorry,
we are guilty for the past. We are more than
sinners, we are criminals. This is where the
literary conception of sin is altogether defective
168 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

and must be supplemented. It knows nothing,
and can teach nothing, of the guilt of a sinner’s
soul. It is when we come to God that we learn
this. God is our Father, but God is our Judge.
And when we know that, our sin takes on a
darker colouring. It grows larger than our life,
and suddenly seems to be infinite. The whole
world, the whole universe, is concerned in it.
Sin only made us recoil from ourselves before;
now it makes God recoil from us. We are out of
harmony with God. Our iniquities have sepa-
rated us from God, and in some mysterious way
we have come to be answerable to Him. We
feel that the Lord has turned and looked upon us
as He looked at Peter, and we can only go out
and weep bitterly.

If these experiences are foreign to our souls,
we must feel our sense of guilt when we come to
look at Christ. Christ could not move through
the world without the mere spectacle of His life
stirring to their very depths the hearts of every
one whose path He crossed. And Christ cannot
move through the chambers of our thoughts with-
out the dazzling contrast to ourselves startling
into motion the sense of burning shame and sin.
But, above all, Christ could not die upon the cross
without witnessing to all eternity of the appalling
greatness of human guilt. And it is the true
climax of conviction which the prophet speaks
of: “They shall look on Me whom they have
pierced, and they shall sourn.”
THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 169

This conviction of sin, in this the deepest sense,
is not a thing to talk about, but to feel; and when
it is felt, it cannct be talked about; it is too deep
for words. It comes as an unutterable woe upon
the life, and rests there, in dark sorrow and heavi-
ness, till Christ speaks Peace.

Such, in outline, are the three facts of sin.
They are useful in two ways: they teach us our-
selves, and they teach us God. It is along these
three lines that you will find salvation. Run your
eye along the first —the power of sin—and you
will understand Jesus. Thou shalt call His name
Jesus, because He saves His people from their
sins. Look at the second —the stain of sin—
and you will understand the righteousness of
Christ; you will see the need of the one pure
life ; you will be glad that there has been one who
has kept His garment unspotted from the world.

Look at the third, and you will see the Lamb
of God taking away the sin of the world. You
will understand the atonement; you will pray, —

“Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”
NUMBER VIIl

The Three Facts

of Salvation

- SUPPLEMENT TO
“THE THREE FACTS OF SIN”

“ Who forgiveth all thine iniquities s
Who healeth all thy diseases ;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction.”
Ps. ciii. 3, 4.

AST Sabbath we were engaged with the
three facts of Sin. To-day we come to
the three facts of salvation.

The three facts of sin were: —

1. The Guilt of Sin—‘ Who forgiveth all
thine iniquities.”

2. The Stain of Sin— “Who healeth all thy
diseases.”

3. The Power of Sin — “ Who redeemeth thy
life from destruction.”

And now we come to the three facts of salva-
tion— the emphasis on the first words of each
clause instead of the last.

1. Who forgiveth. 2. Who healeth. 3. Who
redeemeth.

Every one who comes into the world experi-
ences less or more of the three facts of sin; and
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 171

every one is allowed to live on in the world
mainly that he may also experience the three
great facts of salvation. God keeps the most
of us alive from day to day with this one object.
Sin has got hold of us, and He is giving us time
—time for grace to get the upper hand of it,
time to work out the three facts of salvation in
our lives with fear and trembling against the
three facts of sin. Our being, therefore, lies
between these two great sets of facts, the dark
set and the bright, and life is just the battlefield
on which they fight it out. If the bright side
win, it is a bright life— saved. If the dark side,
it is a dark life — lost.

We have seen how the three dark facts have
already begun to work upon our life; and that
they are not only working at our life, but sapping
it, and preying upon it every hour of the day.
And now we stand face to face with the question
which is wrung out from our life by the very sin
which is destroying it, ‘“‘ What must I do to be
saved?”

The first fact about which we would ask this
question — to begin once more with the fact
which most conspicuously concerns life —is the
fact of the Power of Sin. What must I do to be
saved from the power of sin? What most of us
feel we really want religion to do for us, though
it is not the deepest experience, is to save us
from something which we feel in our life—a
very terrible something which is slowly dragging
172 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

our life downward to destruction. This some-
thing has gained an unaccountable hold upon us;
it seems to make us go wrong whether we will or
no, and instead of exhausting itself with all the
attempts it has made upon our life in the past, it
seems to get stronger and stronger every day.
Even the Christian knows that this strange wild
force is just at his very door, and if he does not
pray to-morrow morning, for instance, before the
day is out it will have wrought some mischief in
his life. If he does not pray, in the most natural
way in the world, without any effort of his own,
without even thinking about it, it will necessarily
come to the front and make his life go wrong.
Now, wherever this comes from, or whatever it
is, it is a great fact, and the first practical ques-
tion in religion that rises to many a mind is this,
“What must I do to be saved from this inevi-
table, and universal, and terrible fact of Sin?”

We have probably all made certain experi-
ments upon this fact already, and we could all
give some explanation, at least, of what we are
doing to be saved.

If some of us were asked, for instance, what
was our favourite fact of salvation for resisting
the power of sin, we might say the fact that we
were doing our best. Well, it is a great thing
for any man to be doing his best. But two ques-
tions will test the value of this method of resist-
ing the power of sin. In the first place, How is
your best doing? In the second place, Do you
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 173

think you could not do better? As to how your
best is doing, you would probably admit that, on
the whole, it was not doing very well. Your
best, in fact, if you were to be candid, has not
been much to boast of after all. And as regards
your not doing better you might also admit that
in some ways, perhaps, you could. The fact of
salvation then is evidently a poor one, as far as
results are concerned, and may be judiciously
laid aside.

Then another experiment people try to break
the power of sin is to get thoroughly absorbed in
something else — business, or literature, or some
favourite pursuit. It is in one’s spare hours sin
comes to us and we try to have no sin by having
no spare hours. But our very preoccupation
may then be one continuous sin. And, besides,
if a man have no spare hours, he will have spare
minutes, and sin comes on generally in a minute.
Most sins, indeed, are done in minutes. They
take hours to execute, it may be; but in a mo-
ment the plot is hatched, the will consents, and
the deed is done. Preoccupation then is clearly
no saviour. j

Then there are others who withdraw from the
world altogether, to break with sin, and live the
solitary life of the recluse. But they forget that
sin is not in the sinful world without, but in the
sinful heart within, and that it enters the hermit’s
solitary cell as persistently as the wicked world
around. So solitude comes to be no saviour.
174 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

And there are others still who take refuge in
religiousness. In going to church, for instance,
and in religious society and books, But there is
not necessarily any more power to resist sin
within the four walls of a church or the pages
of a religious book, than between the walls of a
theatre or the boards of a novel. There may be
less temptation there, not necessarily more power.
For there is no strength in mere religious cere-
monies to cancel the power of sin, and many a
man proves this, after years and years of church,
by wakening to find the power of sin in his breast
unchanged, and breaking out, perhaps, in every
form of vice. Neither is religiousness, therefore,
any escape from the dominion of sin.

And lastly, some of us have resort to doc-
trines. We have got the leading points of cer-
tain doctrines worn into our minds, and because
these have a religious name we are apt to think
they have also a religious power. In reality,
while dealing with the theory of grace and sin,
we may leave the power to resist it untouched,
And many a pen has been busy with a book on
the doctrine of sin while the life which employed
it was going to destruction for want of salvation
from its power.

There is one doctrine especially with which
the word salvation is most often connected and
to which many look for their deliverance from
the power of indwelling sin. And it may seem a
startling statement to make, but it will emphasise
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 175

a distinction which cannot be too clearly drawn,
that even the atonement itself is not the answer
to the question, “What must I do to be saved
from the power of sin?” The answer entirely
depends on the atonement, but it is not the
atonement. The atonement is oz the fact of
salvation which saves the sinner from the power
of sin. If you believed in the atonement to-day,
if you were absolutely assured that your past
sins were all forgiven, that would be no criterion
that you would not be as bad as ever again to-
morrow. The atonement, therefore, is not the
fact which deals with the power of sin. The
atonement deals with a point. We are coming
to that. Just now we are talking of a life. We
are looking out for something which will deal
with something in our life — something which
will redeem our life from destruction. And a
man may believe the atonement whose life is ot
redeemed from destruction.

You have gone out into the country on a sum-
mer morning, and as you passed some little rustic
mill, you saw the miller come out to set his sim-
ple machinery agoing for the day. He turned
on the sluice, but the water-wheel would not
move. Then, with his strong arm, he turned it
once or twice, then left it to itself to turn busily
all the day. It is a sorry illustration in detail,
but its principle means this, that the atonement
is the first great turn as it were which God gives
in the morning of conversion to the wheel of the
176 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

Christian’s life. Without it nothing more would
be possible: alone it would not be enough. The
water of life must flow in a living stream all
through the working day and keep pouring its
power into it ceaselessly till the life and the work
are done.

Now, practically everything depends in salva-
tion upon the clearness with which this great
truth is recognised. Sin is a power in our life; let
us fairly understand that it can only be met by
another power. The fact of sin works all through
our life. The death of Christ, which is the atone-
ment, reconciles us to God, makes our religion
possible, puts us in the way of the power which
is to come against our sin and deliver our life
from destruction. But the Water of Life, which
flows from the /zfe of Christ, is the power itself.
ffe redeemeth my life, by His life, from destruc-
tion. This is the power, Paul says, which re-
deemed his life from destruction. Christ’s life,
not His death, “ving in his life, absorbing it,
impregnating it, transforming it. “ Christ,’ as he
confessed, “zz Me.” And this, therefore, is the
meaning of a profound sentence in which Paul
states the true answer to the question, What must
I do to be saved ? records this first great fact of
salvation and pointedly distinguishes it from the
other. “If when we were enemies we were recon~
ciled to God by the death of His Son, much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life”
(Rom. v. 10).
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 177

“We shall be saved by His i,” says Paul.
Paul meant no disrespect to the atonement when
he said, ‘““We shall be saved by his life.” He
was bringing out in relief one of the great facts of
salvation. If God gives atoning power with one
hand, and power to save the life from destruction
with the other, there is no jealousy between.
Both are from God. If you call the one justifica-
tion and the other sanctification, God is the
author of them both. If Paul seems to take
something from the one doctrine and add it to
the other, he takes nothing from God. Atone-
ment is from God. Power to resist sin is from
God. When we say we shall be saved by the
death of Christ, itis true. When Paul says, ‘““We
shall be saved by His life,” it is true. Christ is
all and in all, the beginning and the end. Only
when we are speaking of one fact of sin, let us
speak of the corresponding fact of grace. When

the thing we want is power to redeem our life
“from destruction, let us apply the gift which God
has given us for our life, and for guilt the gift of
guilt. When an Israelite was bitten in the wilder-
ness, he never thought of applying manna to the
wound. The manna was for his fe. But he
did think of applying the brazen serpent. The
manna would never have cured his sin; nor
would the brazen serpent have kept him from
starving. Suppose he had said, ‘Now I am
healed by this serpent, I feel cured, and I need

not eat this manna any more. The serpent has
12
178 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

done it all, and I am well.” The result would
have been, of course, that he would have ded.
The man, to be sure, was cured, but he has to “ve,
and if he eats no manna his life must languish, go
to destruction, die. Without taking any trouble
about it, simply by the inevitable processes of
nature, he would have died. The manna was
God’s provision to redeem his life from destruc-
tion, after the serpent had redeemed it from
death. And if he did nothing to stop the natural
progress of destruction, in the natural course of
things, he must die. Now there is no jealousy
between these two things—the manna is from
God and the serpent is from God. But they are
different gifts for different things. The serpent
gave life, but could not keep life; the manna
kept life, but could not give life. Therefore,
the Israelites were saved by the serpent, but they
did not try to eat the serpent.

To apply this to the case in hand. The atone-
ment of Christ is the brazen serpent. Christ’s
life is the manna — the bread of life. Our sins
are not forgiven by bread, nor are our lives sup-
ported by death. Our life is not redeemed from
destruction by the atonement, nor kept from day
to day from the power of sin by the atonement.
Our life is not redeemed from destruction by the
death of Christ, nor kept from day to day by the
death of Christ. But we are saved, as Paul says,
by his “ /zfe.”” We cannot live upon death. Mors
Janua vite — death is the gate of life. And after
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 179

we have entered the gateway by the death of
Christ, we shall be saved by His life.

To sum up, therefore. It is one thing, there-
fore, to be saved by the death of Christ, and
another to be saved by His life; and while both
expressions are correct, to talk of being saved by
the death of Christ is not so scriptural as to talk
of being saved by the /ife of Christ; and Paul,
with his invariable conciseness on important
points, has brought out the facts of salvation
with profound insight in the pregnant antithesis
already quoted, “ When we were enemies we were
reconciled by the death of Christ, zow we shall be
saved by His life.”

What first fact of salvation, therefore, is to be
brought to bear upon the first great fact of sin,
is not our own efforts, our own religiousness, our
own doctrine, the atonement, or the death of
Christ, but the power of the life of Christ,
He redeemeth my life from destruction. How?
By His life. This is the fact of salvation. It
takes life to redeem life — power to resist power.
Sin is a ceaseless, undying power in our life. A
ceaseless, undying power must come against it.
And there is only one such power in the universe
— only one, which has a chance against sin: the
power of the living Christ. God knew the power
of sin in a human soul when He made so great
provision. He knew how great it was; He cal-
culated it. Then He sent the living Christ
against it. It is the careful and awful estimate
180 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

of the power of sin. God saw that nothing else
would do. It would not do to start our religion,
then leave us to ourselves. It would not do with
hearts like ours, yearning to sin, to leave us with
religiousness or moral philosophy or doctrine.
Christ must come Himself, and live with us. He
must come and make His abode with us. He can-
not trust us from His sight; so that when we live
it shall be not we that live, but Christ living in us,
and the life which we are now living in the flesh
must be lived by the power of the Son of God.

What, then, must I do to be saved? Receive
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
Slave of a thousand sins, receive the Lord Jesus
Christ into thy life, and thy life, thy far-spent
life, shall yet be redeemed from destruction.
Receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou who
hast lived in the far famine land shalt return and
live once more by thy Father’s side. Thou seek-
est not a welcome to thy Father’s house — of thy
welcome thou hast never been afraid. But thou
seekest a livelihood; thou seekest Power. Thou
seekest power to be pure, to be true, to be free
from the power of sin. ‘“ What must I do to be
saved from that? What power will free me from
that?” The power of the living Christ! ‘As
many as received Him, to them gave He power
to become the sons of God.” “ Power to become
the sons of God” —the great fact of salvation.
Receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved. (Luther Santa Scala.)
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 181

Christ, therefore, is the power of God unto sal-
vation — the counter-fact to the power of siz unto
destruction. Christ is the way—He is also the
Truth and the Zz/. This power, this life, is
within our reach each moment of our life; as
near, as free, as abundant as the air we breathe.
A breath of prayer in the morning, and the
morning life is sure. A breath of prayer in the
evening, and the evening blessing comes. So
our life is redeemed from destruction. Breath by
breath our life comes into us. Inch by inch it is
redeemed from destruction. So much prayer to-
day — so many inches redeemed to-day. So
much water of life to-day —so many turns of the
great wheel of life to-day. Therefore, if we want
to be saved — whosoever will, let him take of the
water of life freely. If you want to be saved,
breathe the breath of life. And if you cannot
breathe, let the groans which cannot be uttered
go up to God, and the power will come. To all
of us alike, if we but ask we shall receive. For
God makes surpassing allowances, and He will
do unto the least of us exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think.

Secondly, and more briefly, the second fact of
sin is the stain of sin, the second fact of salvation.
“He healeth all thy diseases.” The stain of sin
is a very much more complicated thing even than
the power of sin; and that for this reason — that
most of it lies outside our own life. If it only
182 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

lay in dark blotches upon our own life, we might
set to work to rub it out. But it is a blind vision
of sin which confines has crossed over into other
lives all through the years that have gone, and
left its awful mark — our mark, on every soul we
touched since the most distant past.

A young man once lay upon his deathbed.
He was a Christian, but for many days a black
cloud had gathered upon his brow. Just before
his last breath, he beckoned to the friends around
his bed. ‘Take my influence,” he said, “and
bury it with me.” He stood on the very thresh-
old of glory. But the stain of sin was burning
hot upon his past. Bury his influence with him!
No, his influence will remain. His life has gone
to be with God, who gave it; but his influence —
he has left no influence for Christ. His future
will be for ever with the Lord. The unburied
past remains behind, perhaps, for ever to be
against him. The black cloud which hangs over
many a dying brow means the stain of an influ-
ence lost for Christ — means with many a man
who dies a Christian, that though his guilt has
been removed and his life redeemed from destruc-
tion, the infection of his past lurks in the world
still, and his diseases fester in open sores among
all the companions of his life.

What must I do to be saved from the stain of
sin? Gather up your influence, and see how
much has been for Christ. Then undo all that
has been against Him. It will never be healed
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 183

till then. This is the darkest stain upon your
life. The stain of sin concerns your own soul,
but that is asmaller matter. That can be undone
—in part. There are open sores enough in our
past life to make even heaven tremble. But God
is healing them. He is blotting them from His
own memory and from ours. If the stains that
were there had lingered, life would have been a
long sigh of agony. But salvation has come to
our soul. God is helping you to use the means
for repairing a broken life. He restoreth thy
soul, He healeth all thy diseases. But thy
brother's soul, and thy brother’s diseases? The
worst of thy stains have spread far and wide
without thyself; and God will only heal them,
perhaps, by giving you grace to deal with them.
You must retrace your steps over that unburied
past, and undo what you have done. You must
go to the other lives which are stained with your
blood-red stains and rubthem out. Perhaps you
did not lead them into their sin; but you did not
lead them out of it. You did not show them you
were a Christian. You left a worse memory with
them than your real one. You pretended you
were just like them —that your sources of hap-
piness were just the same. You did not tell them
you had a power which kept your life from sin.
You did not take them to the closet you had at
home, and let them see you on your knees, nor
tell them of your Bible which was open twice a
day. And all these negatives were stains and
184 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

sins. It isa great injustice to do to any one we
know —the worst turn we could do a friend, to
keep the best secret back, and let him go as
calmly to hell as we are going to heaven.

If we cannot bury our influence, thank God if
here and there we can undo it still. The other
servant in the kitchen, the clerk on the next stool,
the lady who once lived in the next house, we
must go to them, by the grace of God, and take
the stain away. And let the thought that much
that we have done can never be undone, that
many whose lives have suffered from our sins
have gone away into eternity with the stains still
unremoved, that when we all stand round the
throne together, even from the right hand of
the judgment seat of Christ, we may behold on
the left among the lost the stains of our own sin,
still livid on some soul—let this quicken our
steps as we go to obliterate the influence of our
past, and turn our fear into a safeguard as we try
to keep our future life for Christ.

The second fact of salvation, therefore, is to be
effected by God in part and by ourselves in part
— by God as regards ourselves; by God and our-
selves as regards others. He is to heal our dis-
eases, and we are to spread the balm He gives us
wherever we have spread our sin.

Lasély, the third great fact of sin is guilt — the
third fact of salvation is forgiveness. “He forgiveth
all thine iniquities.” The first question we asked”
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 185

came out of our life; the second mostly from our
memory; but the third rises up out of conscience.

Our first cry, as we looked at our future, was,
“Where can I get power?” Now we are looking
at our past, and the question is, “‘Where can I
get pardon?” The questions which conscience
sends up to us are always the deepest questions.
And the man who has never sent up the ques-
tion, “ Where can I get pardon?” has never been
into his conscience to find out the deepest want
he has. It is not enough for him to look life-
ward; he must also look Godward. And it is
not enough to discover the stain of his past, and
cry out, “I have sinned.” But he must see the
guilt of his life and cry, “I have sinned against
God.” The fact of salvation which God has pro-
vided to meet the fact of guilt, although it is the
most stupendous fact of all, only comes home to
man when he feels a criminal and stands like a
guilty sinner, for pardon at God’s bar.

It is not enough for him then to invoke God’s
strength against the power of sin. Just as the
fact which meets the guilt of sin, as we have
seen, can never meet the power of sin, so the
fact which meets the power of sin can never meet
the fact of guilt. Manna was what was required
for a man’s life; but it is no use against his guilt.
It is nothing that he makes a good resolution not
to do wrong any more, that he asked Christ to
come and live with him and break the power of
sin, and redeem his life from destruction. God
186 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

has something to say to him before that. Some-
thing must happen to him before that. He must
come and give an account of himself before that.
The good resolution is all very laudable for the
days to come, but what about the past? God
wants to know about the past. It may be conven-
ient for us to forget the past, but God cannot forget
it. We have done wrong, and wrong-doing must
be punished. Wrong-doing must be punished —
must; this is involved in one of the facts of sin.
Therefore the punishment of wrong-doing must
be involved in one of the facts of salvation. It is
notinthe first two. It must be somewhere in this.
Now the punishment of sin is death. In the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Therefore death is the punishment which must be
in one of the facts of salvation. It was not in the
other two. It must be somewhere in this. It
will not meet the case if the sinner professes his
penitence and promises humbly never to do the
like again. It will not meet the case if he comes
on his knees to apologise to God, and ask Him
simply to forget that he has sinned, or beg Him
to have pity on the misfortunes of his past. God
did not say, “In the day thou eatest thereof I
will pity thy misfortunes, in the day thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely apologise, or thou shalt
surely repent,” but “in the day thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.” So death, and nothing
less than death, must be in the fact of salvation
from the guilt of sin, if such salvation is to be.
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 187

This fact, this most solemn necessity under-
stood and felt, the rest is plain. We all know
Some one died. We all know Who deserved to
die. We all know Who did die. We know we
were not wounded for our transgressions, we were
not bruised for our iniquities. Butwe know Who
was. The Lord hath not dealt with us according
to our iniquities; but we know with Whom He
has. We know Who bare our sins in His own
body on the tree,— One who had none of His
own. We know who was lifted up like the ser-
pent in the wilderness —— Him who died the just
for the unjust. If we know this, we know the
great fact of salvation, for it is this.

It only remains to answer one question more.
How is a poor sinner to make this great fact his?
And the answer is, By trusting Christ. He has
nothing else wherewith to make it his. The
atonement is a fact. Forgiveness is a fact. Let
him believe it. He does not understand it. He
is not asked to understand it. The proper way
to accept a fact is to believe it; and whosoever
believeth in Him shall not perish, but have ever-
lasting life. Itis well to understand it, and you
may try to understand it if you can, but till then
you must believe it. For it is a fact, and your
understanding it will not make it less or more a
fact. The death of Christ will always be a fact.
Forgiveness of sins will always be a fact. Son,
accept the facts of sin: accept the facts of grace.
The atonement, you say, confuses you. You do
188 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

not understand its bearings; the more you think
and hear and read, the more mysterious it be-
comes. And well it may, well it may!

A student went to a professor of theology not
long ago, and asked him how long it took him to
understand the atonement. He answered, all his
life. Thinking perhaps there might be some mis-
take, the young man went to another professor,
who taught the very doctrine in his class. ‘“ How
long did it take you, sir,” he asked, “to under-
stand the atonement?” The professor thought a
moment, then looked him in the face. “ Evernity,”
he said, “Eternity; and I won't understand it then.”

We have been dealing to-day with facts; we
need not be distressed if we do not understand
them. God’s love—how could we? God’s for-
giveness—how could we? “He forgiveth all
mine iniquities.” It is a fact. What proof could
commend itself if God’s fact will not do? Verify
the fact as you may, find out as much about it as
you may; only accept it— accept it first. You
are keeping your life waiting while you are find.
ing out about it. You are keeping your salvation
waiting. And itis better to spend a year in igno-
rance than live a day unpardoned. You are
staining other lives while you are waiting: your
influence is against Christ while you are waiting,
and it is better to spend your life in ignorance
than let your influence be against Christ. Most
things in religion are matters of simple faith. But
when we come to the atonement, somehow we all
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 189

become rationalists. We want to see through it
and understand it—as if it were finite like our-
selves, as if it could ever be compassed by our
narrow minds — as if God did not know that we
never could fathom it when He said, “‘ Believe it,”
instead of “Understand it.” We are not ration-
alists when we come to the love of God, or to
faith, or prayer. We do not ask for a theory of
love before we begin to love, or a theory of prayer
before we begin to pray. We just begin. Well,
just begin to believe in forgiveness. When they
brought the sick man once to Jesus, He just said,
“Man, thy sins are forgiven thee,” and the man
just believed it. He did not ask, “ But why should
you forgive me, and how do you mean to forgive
me? and I don’t see any connection between your
forgiveness and my sin.” No; he took the fact.
“Immediately he rose up, and departed to his own
house, glorifying God.” The fact is, if we would
come to Christ just now, we should never ask any
questions. Our minds would be full of Him.
We should be in the region of eternal facts, and
we should just believe them. At least, we should
believe Him, and He is the Saviour, the sum of
all the facts of salvation —the one Saviour from
all the facts of sin. If you will not receive salva-
tion as a fact, receive the Lord Jesus Christ as a
gift — we ask no questions about a gift. Receive
the Lord Jesus Christ as a gift, and thou shalt be
saved from the power and the stain and the guilt
of sin, for His is the power and the glory. Amen.
NUMBER IX

«What Is
Your Life?”

JAMES iv. 14.

O-MORROW, the first day of a new year,
is a day of wishes. To-day, the last day
of an old year, is a day of questions. To-morrow
is a time of anticipation; to-day a time of reflec-
tion. To-morrow our thoughts will go away out
to the coming opportunities, and the larger vistas
which the future is opening up to even the most
commonplace of us. To-day our minds wander
among buried memories, and our hearts are full
of self-questioning thoughts of what our past has
been.

But if to-morrow is to be a day of hope, to-
day must be a day of thought. If to-morrow is
to be a time of resolution, to-day must be a day
of investigation. And if we were to search the :
Bible through for a basis for this investigation,
we should nowhere find a better than this ques-
tion, “ What ts your life?”

We must notice, however, that life is used
here in a peculiar sense — a narrow sense, some
would say. The question does not mean, “ What
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 19t

quality is your life?” “What are you making
of life?” “How are you getting on with it?”
“How much higher is the tone of it this year
than last?” It has a more limited reference
than this. It does not refer so much to quality
of life as to quantity of life. It means, “How
much life have you got?” “ What value do you
set upon your lifer?” “ How long do you think
your life will last?” ‘‘ How does it compare
with eternity?”

And there are reasons which make this form
of the question particularly appropriate, not only
to this last day of the year, but, apart altogether
from that, to the state of much religious thought
upon the subject at the present moment.

These reasons are mainly these two:

I. There is a large school just now who
utterly ignore this question.

2. There is a large school who utterly spoil it.

There may be said to be two ways of looking
at life, each of which finds favour just now with
a wide circle of people:

1. The theory that life is everything.

2. The theory that life is nothing.

Or, adding the converse to these:

I. The theory that life is everything and eter-
nity nothing.

2. The theory that life is nothing and eternity
everything.

Now, those who hold the first of these, object
to the time-view of life altogether. Now there
192 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

can be no doubt that this is the favourite of the
two. For one thing, it is decidedly the fashion-
able view. - It is the view culture takes, and
many thinking men, and many thoughtful and
modern books. Life, these say, life is the great
thing. We know something about life. We are
in it—it is pulsating all around us. We feel its
greatness and reality. But the other does not
press upon us in the same way. It is far off and
mystical. It takes a kind of effort even to be-
lieve it. Therefore let us keep to what we know,
what we are in, what we are sure of.

The strength of this school is in their great
view of life; their weakness and great error, in
their little view of time. Their enthusiasm for
the quality of life makes them rush to the oppo-
site extreme and ignore its quantity. The thought
that life is short has little influence with them.
They simply refuse to let it weigh with them,
and when pressed with thoughts of immortality,
or time-views of human life, they affirm, with a
kind of superiority, that they have too much to
do with the present to trouble themselves with
sentimentalisms about the future.

The second view is the more antiquated, per-
haps the more illiterate. Life, with it, is nothing
at all. It is a bubble, a vapour, a shadow.
Eternity is the great thing. Eternity is the signi-
ficant thing. Eternity is the only thing. Life is
a kind of unfortunate preliminary—a sort of
dismal antechamber, where man must wait, and be
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 193

content for a little with the view of eternity from
the windows. His turn to go is coming; mean-
time let him fret through the unpleasant interval
as resignedly as he can, and pray God to speed
its close.

The strength of this school is that it recognises
time and eternity for itself. Its weakness, and its
great error, that it refuses to think of life and
spoils the thought of eternity for those who do.
The first school requires to be told that life is
short; this, so far from having to be told that it
is short, have to be told that life is long — for
life to it is nothing.

It is clear, of course, that each of these views
is the natural recoil from the other. The mis-
take is that each has recoiled too far. The life-
something theory cannot help recoiling from the
life-nothing theory; but it need not recoil into
life-everything. So the eternity-something theory
cannot help recoiling from the eternity-nothing
theory; but it need not recoil into eternity-every-
thing.

It is plain, then, that both these theories are
wrong, and yet not altogether wrong. There isa
great deal of truth in each—so much, indeed,
that if the parts of truth which each contains
were joined into one, they would form a whole—
the truth. And if the sides were nearly equal, —
as many who think life nothing as think life every-
thing, — there could be nothing more useful than

to attempt to strike the harmony between. But -
13
194 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

the sides are not equal, and hence the better ex-
ercise will be to deal with the side which has the
truth the furthest in arrear.

This, undoubtedly, is the life-school — the life-
everything school. The other is, comparatively,
a minority. At least, those who hold the ex-
treme form of it are a minority. It is a more
obvious and striking truth that life is something.
And it is not difficult to convince the man who
makes eternity everything to allow something
to life; but to get the man who makes life
everything to grant a little to eternity is a harder
thing to attempt; for the power of the world
to come may be yet unfelt and unproved, and
the race of life so swift that the rival flight
of time may still remain unseen.

Besides, there are mainly two great classes
who swell the ranks of the majority, who refuse
to think of time.

1. The great busy working and thinking class,
who are ¢oo careful of time ever to think of eter-
nity as its successor. These have too little time
to think of time.

2. The great lazy worldly class, who are foo
careless of time ever to think that it will cease.
These have too much time to think of time —so
much of it that they think there will be always
much of it.

Now it is to these two classes that this old
year’s question comes home with special power,
“What is your lifer?” And it is no reason why
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 195

the majority should decline to face the question
that a fanatical minority have nauseated the
subject by the exaggeration of eternity. For
if these men suffer in their lives by treating life
as a thing of no importance, the other classes
certainly suffer more by exaggerating life at the
tremendous expense of eternity.

The great objection to thinking about eternity,
or, to take the other side, the brevity of life,
is that it is not practical. The life-school pro-
fesses to be eminently utilitarian. It will have
nothing to do with abstractions, nothing that
does not directly concern life. Anything that
is outside the sphere of action is of little conse-
quence to practical men. The members of this
school feel themselves in the rush of the world’s
work, and it is something to think (to think)
of that. It is something to live in the thick
of it, to yield to the necessities of it, to share its
hopes, and calmly endure its discipline of care.
But when you leave life, they protest, you are
away from the present and the real. You are
off into poetry and sentiment, and the medita-
tions you produce may be interesting for philoso-
phers and dreamers, but they are not for men
who take their stand on the greatness of life
and crave to be allowed to leave the mystical
alone.

Now the answer to that — and it may be thor-
oughly answered— may be given in a word.
First of all, who told you eternity was nothing?
196 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

Who told you it was an unpractical, unprofitable
dream? Who told you to go on with your work
and let time and other abstractions alone? It
was certainly not God. God takes exactly the
opposite view. He is never done insisting on the
importance of the question. ‘“O that they were
wise ... that they would consider their latter
end” — that is what God says. ‘“ Make me to
know mine end, and the measure of my days
what it is” —that is what David, the man after
God’s own heart, says. ‘Teach me to number
my days” —that is what Moses, the friend of
God, says.

And you will notice the reason God gives for
thinking about these things. It was enough,
indeed, fer Him to say it, without any reason;
but He has chosen to give us one. Why are we
to number our days? That we may apply our
hearts unto wisdom. Tat is the reason for think-
ing about time. It is to make us wise. Perhaps
you have thought this is merely a piece of senti-
ment, a flower of rhetoric for the poet’s lyric, a
harmless, popular imagination for ignorant people
who cannot discourse upon life, a dramatic truth
to impress the weak to prepare their narrow minds
for death. But no; it is not that. God never
uses sentiment. And if you think a moment,
you will see that it is not the narrow mind which
needs this truth, but 42s who discourses on life.
The man who discourses most on life should dis-
course the most on time. When you discourse
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 197

on life, you plead that it is.in the interests of life.
You despise the time view as unpractical in the
interests of life —in the interests of the new life
school who care too much for life to spend their
strength upon the sentiment of time. Ah! but
if you really cared for life, this sentiment would
make you love it but the more. For time is the
measurement of life. And all in life must be
profoundly affected by its poor, scant quantity.
Your life on earth zs a great thing, a rich and
precious possession. It is zrue that it is full of
meaning and issues no man can reckon. But it
is ten thousand times greater for the thought that
it must cease. One of the chief reasons why life
is so great is just that life is so short. If we had
a thousand years of it, it would not be so great
as if we had only a thousand hours. It is great
because it is little. A man is to be executed,
and the judge has given him a month to prepare
for death. One short month. How rich every
hour of it becomes, how precious the very
moments are! But suppose he has only jive
minutes. Then how unspeakably solemn! How
much greater is the jive minutes life than the
month life! Make eternity a month and life five
minutes — if such a tremendous exaggeration of
life could be conceived. How much greater does
it become for being so very small!

How precious time is to a short-lived man! I
am to die at ¢iirty, you at szxty,, a minute is twice
as dear to me, for each minute is twice as short.
198 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

So a day to me is more than a day to Methu-
selah, for he had many days, andI but few. Oh!
if we really felt the dignity of life, we would won-
der no less at its brevity than at its dignity. If
we felt the greatness of life at this moment, how
much keenness would this further thought add to
it—that we might be dead before this sermon
was done! How many things we permit our-
selves on the theory that life is great would be
most emphatically wrong on the theory that time
was also great! How many frivolous things —
yes, how many great things, even— should we
have to turn out this moment from our lives for
just this thought, if we believed it, that time is
short! For there is no room among the crowded
moments of our life for things which will not live
when life and time are past. Sono one who does
not feel the keen sense of time flying away at
every moment with the work he has done and the
opportunities he has lost, can know the true great-
ness of life and the inexpressible value of the self-
selected things with which he fills its brief and
narrow span. The thought of death must change
at every point the values of the significant things
of earth not less than the thought of life, and we
must ever feel the solemn relations given to our
life and work from the overwhelming thought
that the working-life is brief.

A modern poet has described, in strangely sug-
gestive words, the time when first the idea of
time and death began to dawn upon this earth.
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 199

The scene is laid in some Eastern land, where a
great colony had risen from the offspring of Cain,
the murderer of his brother. Cain knew what
death was. He had seen it. But he alone, of
all his scattered family, for he kept his burning
secret to himself. Cain’s family grew and spread
throughout the land, but no thought of death
came in to check the joyous wastry and exuber-
ance of life; till one day, in boyish pastime, a
hurled stone strikes Lamech’s son, and the lad
falls to the earth. Friends gather round him as
he lies, and bring him toys and playthings to
wake him from his sleep. But no sleep like this
had ever come to Lamech’s son before, and soft
entreating words bring no responsive sound to
the cold lips, or light to the closed eyes. Then
Cain comes forward, whispering, “ The boy is
dead,” and tells the awe-struck family of this
mystery of death. And then the poet describes
the magic of this word, how “a new spirit, from
that hour, came o’er the house of Cain.” How
time, once vague as air, began to stir strange
terrors in the soul, and lend to life a moment
which it had not known before. How even the
sunshine had a different look. How “ work
grew eager, and device was born.” How

“It seemed the light was never loved before,
Now each man said, ‘’T will go, and come no more.’
No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,
No form, no shadow, but new dearness took
From the one thought that Life must have an end.”
200 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

So the thought that life will be no more, that
each day lived is hastening on the day when life
itself must stop, makes every priceless hour of
ours a million times more great, and tinges every
thought, and word, and act with the shadow of
what must be.

From all this, it must now be clear that the
man who is really concerned to live well must
possess himself continually of the thought that he
is not to live long. And that it is in the highest
interests of great living to stimulate life, not to
paralyse it, that God asks us all to-day, “‘ What is
your life?”

But the Bible has done more than ask this
question. It has answered it. And when the
Bible answers a question, it gives always the best
answer. We could do no better, therefore, than
consult it a little further now, for it so happens
that there are few subjects which the Bible goes
into so thoroughly as this one — few thoughts
which rise more often or more urgently to the
surface of the great Bible lives than ‘ What is
your life?”

And, besides, there is a peculiarity in the Bible
answers which makes them particularly valuable,
and which has tended, more than anything else,
to impress them profoundly upon the deeper
spirit of every age. And that peculiarity is this,
that the answer is never given in hard, bare words,
but is presented, wrapped up, as it were, in some
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 201

figure of such exquisite beauty, that no mind
could refuse to give it a place, were it only for the
fineness of its metaphor. Take, as an example,
the answer which follows the question in the
text, “What is your life?” “It iseven a vapour,
that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth
away.” Who could afford to forget a thought
like that, when once its beauty had struck root
within the mind? And if God did not rather
choose a few hard solid sentences of truth to per-
petuate an answer to one of the most solid
thoughts of life, is it not just because He wanted
it to be remembered evermore— because He
wanted the tfught of the shortness and uncer-
tainty of life to live in every living soul, and haunt
the heart in times when other thoughts were
passionless and dull? In childhood, before
deeper thoughts had come, he would paint this
truth, in delicate tints, on every opening soul;
and in riper years, when trouble and sickness came
and weaned the broken mind from sterner
thoughts, he would have the soul still furnished
with these ever-preaching pictures of the frailty
of its life.

Why is it that there is such strange attractive-
ness to many hearts in the Bible thoughts of time,
and why the peculiar charm with which the least
religious minds will linger over the texts which
speak of human life? It is because God has
thrown an intensely living interest around these
truths, by carrying His images of the thoughts
202 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

He most wanted remembered into the great
galleries of the imagination, where the soul can
never tire. Had such thoughts been left to
reason, it would have stifled them with its cold
touch; had they been sunk in the heart, it would
have consumed itself and them in hot and burn-
ing passion; but in the broad region of the im-
agination there is expansiveness enough for even
such vast truths to wander at their will, and power
and mystery enough to draw both heart and
reason after them in wondering, trembling hom-
age. And if no day almost passes over our heads
without some silent visitation to remind us what
we are, it is because the Bible has utilised all the
most common things of life to bring home these
lessons to the soul, so that not a shadow on the
wall, or blade of withered grass, is not full of
meanings which every open heart can read.

Now, it is a remarkable fact, in this connection,
that the Bible has used up almost every physical
image that is, in any way, appropriate to the case.
And if we were to go over the conceptions of life
which have been held by great men in succeed-
ing ages of the world, we should find scarce
anything new, scarce anything the Bible had not
used before.

There lie scattered throughout this Book no
fewer than ezghteen of these answers, and all in
metaphor, to the question, ‘“ What is your life?”
And any one who has not before gathered them
together, cannot but be surprised at the singular
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 203

beauty and appropriateness of the collection. To
begin with, let us run over their names. “ What
zs your life? It is

A tale that is told. A sleep.

A pilgrimage. A vapour.

A swift post. A shadow.

A swift ship. A flower.

A handbreadth. A weaver’s shuttle.

A shepherd’s tent re- Water spilt on the
moved. ground.

A thread cut by the Grass.
weaver. Wind.

A dream. Nothing.

Generally speaking, the first thing to strike one
about these images is that they are all guzck things
— there is a suggestion of brevity and evanescence
about them, and this feeling is so strong that we
might fancy there was only one answer to the
question, What is your life? namely, Your life is
short. But if we look closer at them for a mo-
ment, shades of difference will begin to appear,
and we shall find the hints of other meanings as
great and striking, and quite as necessary to
complete the conception of “ your life.”

First of all, then, and most in detail, Aree of
these metaphors give this answer: — (1) Your
life is a very LITTLE thing. We have admitted
that life is a very great thing. It is also a very
little thing. Measure it by its bearing on eternity ;
there is no image in God’s universe to compare
204 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

with it for majesty and dignity. It is a sublime
thing — Life. But measure it by its bearings
upon time, by its results on the world, on other
lives; there is no image too small to speak of its
meanness and narrowness, for it is a little thing,
“Your life.” It is “a SHADOW,” it is “ a SHEP-
HERD’S tent removed,” it is “a TALE THAT IS
TOLD.”

A Shadow. It is unreal; it is illusory. It falls
across the world without affecting it; perhaps it
only darkens it. Then it rises suddenly, and is
gone. It leaves few impressions; and if it could,
shadow cannot act much on other shadows. So
life at the best is a poor, resultless, shadowy thing.

A Shepherd’s Tent Removed. Just before sun-
set the slopes of the Eastern hills would be
dotted with Arab tents. And when night fell,
the traveller in these lands, as he lay down to
rest, would see the glimmering of their fires and
hear the noisy bleating of their flocks. . But in
the morning, when he looked out, both herds and
herdsmen would be gone. Hours ago, perhaps,
the tents had been struck, and the hills would be
silent and lonely as if no foot had ever stirred
the dew on their slopes before. So man, the
Bible says, traces out his trackless path through
life. He is here to-day, in the noise of the
world’s labour; to-morrow, when you look for
him, he is gone. Through the night sometime
his frail tent has been struck, and his place is
empty and still. His life has left no track to tell
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 205

that it was there — except a burnt-out fire to show
that there a skepherd’s tent had been removed.

But the best of these images is the third —
A tale that is told. Some think this means a
thought or meditation. “ Your life is a medita-
tion,” as the margin has it. But as the psalm in
which the words occur was written by Moses, it
is probable that the obvious meaning of the words
is the correct one. - In their journeyings the chil-
dren of Israel would have many weary, unoccu-
pied hours. There would be no books to relieve
the monotony, and no doubt the people would
attempt to beguile the tedious marches, and the
long hours by the camp fires at night, with the
familiar Oriental custom of narrating personal
adventures in the form of stories or tales. Night
after night, as this went on, the different tales of
the story-tellers would begin to get mixed, then
to confuse their audience, perhaps then even to
weary them. The first tale, which made a great
impression once, would lose its power, and the
second, which was thought more wonderful still,
would be distanced by the third. Then the third
would be forgotten, and the fourth and the fifth;
till a/Z would be forgotten, and /ast nigh?’s tale
would be the vivid picture in every mind to-day.
But the story-teller could know that to-night an-
other would have his turn, and sit in the place of
honour, and tell a more vivid tale than he told
the night before, and his would be forgotten and
ignored.
206 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

So we do spend our years as a tale that is told.
The dead have told their tales; they have said
their say. They thought we would remember
what they did and said. But, no; they are for-
gotten. They have become old stories now.
' And our turn will come— our turn to stop;
our turn for the Angel of Death to close the
chapter of our life, whether it be a novel or a
psalm, and write the universal ‘‘Finis” at the
end. What though a sentence here and there
may linger for a few brief years to find a place
—without quotation marks — in some tale better
told, the tale itself must close and be forgotten,
like the rest, an ill-told, ill-heard, and ill-remem-
bered tale.

There is, next, and briefly, another set of meta-
phors which bring out the more common answer
(which, therefore, it will only be necessary to
name), that (2) Life zis a short thing. Short-
ness, of course, is different from littleness. A
lightning flash is short, but not little. But life is
both short and little. And there are two ways in
which life is short: (1) Measured by growth.
(2) Measured by minutes. Those who are grow-
ing must feel time shortest. They have started
with the wrecks of being to fashion themselves
into men, and life is all too short to do it in.
Therefore they work out their salvation with fear
and trembling — fearful lest death should come,
trembling lest life should stop before it was
worked out. But they who measure life by its
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 207

minutes have nothing to say of its brevity; for
their purpose it is long enough. It is not more
time they want, but “the more capacious soul,”
as some one says, “to flow through every pore
of the little that they have.” But there is no dis-
tinction in the Bible treatment of the two. Time
is the same to all. Itis a handbreadth,; a weav-
er's shuttle; nothing ; “an eagle hasting to the
prey”, a swift post; a swift ship. David used
to pray to God to give him a measure for his
days. Well, he got it. It was the breadth of his
hand. We carry about with us continually the
measure of our days. ‘My days are as an
handbreadth.”

The others are familiar symbols enough. The
weaver’s shuttle — is it the monotony, the same-
ness, the constant repetition of life? Rather
the quickness, the rapid flight through the thin
web of time; the shuttle being then, perhaps,
the quickest image men had.

Then those in the country in early times could
know nothing more rapid or sudden than the
swoop of an eagle on its prey; then, by the sea-
side, nothing more fleet than the swift sailing
away of a ship driven by the unseen wind, or the
hasty arrival of the “swift post” or messenger
with tidings from afar. And it was not for want
of opportunity if they did not learn their lessons
well in these more simple days, when the few
changes life had were each thus stamped with
the thought of the great change into eternity.
208 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

The next thought is so closely allied to this
that one can scarcely separate it but for conven-
ience. It suggests the idea of transztoriness.
Your life is a transitory thing. It is a thing of
change. There is no endurance in it, no set-
tling down in it, noreal hometo it here. There-
fore God calls it a pilerimage —-a passing on to
a something that is to be. Still closely allied
to this, too, is the simile of the text — that life
is avapour. It means there is no real substance
in it. It is a going and coming for a moment,
then a passing away for ever. And then there
are two or three metaphors which advance this
idea still further. In their hands life passes
from transitoriness into mystery. This life of
ours, they show us, is a mysterious thing. And
it is true life is a mysterious thing. We do not
understand life—why it should begin, why it
should end. There is some meaning in it some-
where that has baffled every search; some mean-
ing beyond, some more real state than itself.
So the Bible calls it a sleep, a dream, the wind.
No book but the Bible could have called our life
asleep. The great book of the Greeks has called
death a sleep: —

“ Death’s twin-brother, Sleep.”

But the Bible has the profounder thought.
Life is the sleep. Death is but the waking.
And the great poets and philosophers of the
world since have found no deeper thought of
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 209

life than this; and the greatest of them all has
used the very word our little life is “rounded
with a sleep.” It seems to have been a sooth-
ing thought to them, and it may be a sanctifying
thought to us that this life is not the end; and
therefore it is a wise thing to turn round some-
times in our sleep, and think how there is more
beyond than dreams.

There are but two thoughts more to bring our
questions to aclose, and they will add a practical
interest to what has gone before.

What is your life?

1. Life is an irrevocable thing. We have just
finished an irrevocable year. As we look back
upon it, every thought and word and act of it is
there in its place just as we left it. There are
all the Sabbaths in their places, and all the well-
spent days or ill-spent days between. There is
every sin and every wish and every look still in
its own exact surroundings, each under its own
day of the month, at the precise moment of the
day it happened. Weare leaving it all at twelve
o'clock to-night; but, remember, we leave it
exactly as it stands. No single hour of it can
be changed now, no smallest wish can be re-
called, no angry word taken back. It is fixed,
steadfast, irrevocable — stereotyped for ever on
the past plates of eternity. Our book has a
wonderful metaphor for this — “water spilt upon
the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.”
No, we cannot gather up these days and put

14 _
210 “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?”

them back into Time’s breaking urn, and live
them over again. They are spilt upon the
ground, and the great stream of Time has sucked
them up, and cast them already on the eternal
shores among all bygone years, and there they
bide till God’s time comes, and they come back,
one by one, in order as they went, to meet us
again and Him before the Judgment Bar. To-
morrow is to be a time of resolution, is it?
Well, let this resolution take the foremost place
of all, that, when this day of next year comes,
and we look once more at the irrevocable past,
there shall be fewer things to wish undone, or
words to wish unsaid, and more spots where
memory shall love to linger still, more steps
which, when retraced in thought, will fill the
heart with praise.

Lastly, life is more than an irrevocable thing.
It is an wacertain thing — so certainly uncertain,
that it is certain we shall not all be here to see
this next year close. What means the grim
image in the Bible of the weaver’s thread sus-
pended in the air, and the blade of the lifted
knife just touching it with its edge? It means
that you must die. The thread of your life is to
be cut. The knife may be lifted now, the keen
blade just touching it; one pressure of the hand,
and it is done. One half, left unfinished, still
hanging to the past — the other, dropped noise-
lessly into eternity. Oh, life is an abruptly clos-
ing thing! Is it not as grass? In the morning,
“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?” 211

it groweth up and flourisheth; in the evening,
it is cut down and withereth. Is your life ready
for the swiftly falling knife, for the Reaper who
stands at your door? Have you heard that there
is another life —a life which cannot die, a life
which, linked to your life, will make the past
still bright with pardon and the future rich with
hope? This life ts in His Son.
NUMBER X

Marvel Not

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ve must be born
again.” — JOHN iii. 7.

VERY man comes into the world wrapped

in an atmosphere of wonder — an atmos-

phere from which his whole after-life is a pro-

longed effort to escape. The moment he opens

his eyes this sense of wonder is upon him, and

it never leaves him till he closes them on the

greatest wonder— Death. Between these won-

ders —the first awaking and the last sleep —

his life is spent — itself a long-drawn breath of
mystery.

This sense of wonder is not an evil thing,
although it is a thing to escape from. It is one
of God’s earliest gifts, and one of God’s best
gifts; but its usefulness to childhood or to man-
hood depends on the mind escaping from wonder
into something else—on its passing out from
wonder into knowledge. Hence God has made
the desire to escape as natural to us as the desire
to wonder.

Every one has been struck with the wonder-
ment of a little child; but its desire to escape
MARVEL NOT 213

out of wonderment is a more marvellous thing.
Its wonder becomes to it a constant and secret
craving for an entrance into the rest of informa-
tion and fact. Its eager questionings, its impa-
tience of its own ignorance, its insatiable requests
for knowledge, these are alike the symptoms of
its wonder and the evidences of its efforts to
escape. And although, in adult life, the devel-
oped man is too cautious or too proud to display
his wonder like the child, it is there in its thin
disguise as inquiry, or investigation, or doubt.
And there is no more exuberant moment in a
man’s life than when this wonder works until it
passes into truth, when reason flashes a sudden
light into a groping mind, and knowledge whis-
pers, “ Marvel not !”

Of all the subjects which men have found it
convenient to banish into these regions of the
unknowable, none suffer so frequently as this of
the being born again. The elements of mys-
tery which are supposed to cluster about it are
reckoned an ample excuse for even the most
intelligent minds zot trying to understand it, and
more than a justification of any one who makes
the attempt and fails.

The famous Rabbi, indeed, who was honoured
with all this immortal discourse on regeneration
is a case in point. He was just on the verge
of losing himself in this most treasonable de-
spair. Never was man more puzzled than Nico-
demus at the initial statement of this truth,
214 MARVEL NOT

Never was man’s sense of wonder more pro-
foundly excited, never more in danger of losing
itself in the mazes of mystery, never nearer
taking the easy escape by drowning itself in
ignorance than when Jesus rallied the escaping
faculties of the Jewish ruler by the message,
“ Marvel not.” The background working of that
mind during its strange night interview with
Christ is full of interest and lesson, and what
we do know is full of suggestion and meaning.
Twice already during the conversation had the
great Teacher said in substance, ‘Ye must be
born again.” And one of the strongest intellects
of its time stood literally petrified before the
words. Nicodemus first tries to summon cour-
age and frame a wondering question in reply:
“ How can a man be born when he is old?”
and less a question, perhaps, than a soliloquy
of his own. He has heard the great Teacher's
statement, and he thinks upon it aloud, turning
it over in his calm Hebrew mind till his very
question returns upon himself and plunges him
in deeper wonderment than before: “ How can
a man be born again when he is old ?”

Next time he will venture no remark, and the
Teacher’s words fall uninterrupted on the puzzled
scholar’s ear: ‘Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He has
given him the key to it. But Nicodemus sees
it not. He seems to have plunged into a
dream. His reverie has deepened till he stands
MARVEL NOT 215

absorbed in thought, with down-turned eyes,
before his Master. Jesus stands by in silence
and reads the wonder and perplexity in the
gathering blackness of his brow. Nicodemus is
despairing, perhaps. He is going to give it
up. He is utterly baffled with the strange turn
the conversation has taken. There is no satis-
faction to be got from this clandestine meeting
after all, and puzzled, and beaten, and crest-
fallen, he prepares to take his leave. But Jesus
will not let the Divine sense of wonder be aroused
to end like this. It must end in knowledge, not
in ignominy. It must escape into spiritual truth,
not into intellectual mystery. So He says,
“Wonder not; Marvel not. There is nothing
so very mysterious that I cannot make you
know. You will understand it all if you come
and think of it. Ye need not marvel that I said
unto thee, ‘Ye must be born again.’ ”

Thus Jesus saved Nicodemus from relapsing
into ignorance of the greatest truth the world had
known till then, or lulling his wonder to sleep for
ever in mystery or despair.

Now for the sake of those of us who have
been tempted to pause — where Nicodemus so
nearly lost himself — on the threshold of this
truth: for the sake of those of us who have almost
felt drawn into the intellectual sin of drowning
our wonder at this truth in despair of it, let us ask
ourselves very shortly why Christ said, ‘“‘ Marvel
not.” And it may be convenient in following up
216 - MARVEL NOT

the subject from this side in a few words to di-
vide the answer into three short heads.

I. “ Marvel not” — as if it were unintelligible.

II. “ Marvel not” —as if it were impossible.

III. “Marvel not” —as if it were unnecessary.

To begin with the first of these: —

I. “ Marvel not ” — as if it were unintelligible.
There is nothing more unintelligible in the world
than the Zow a soul is born again. There is
nothing more intelligible than that it zs. We
can understand the fact, however, without neces-
sarily understanding the act. The act of being
born again is as mysterious as God. All the
complaints which have been showered upon this
doctrine have referred to the act— the act with
which we have really nothing to do, which is a
process of God, the agency, the unseen wind of
the Spirit, and which Jesus Himself has expressly
warned us not to expect to understand. “ Thou
canst zo¢ tell,” He said, ‘‘ whence it cometh or
whither it goeth.”

But there is nothing to frighten search in this.
For precisely the same kind of mystery hangs
over every process of nature and life. We do
not understand the influence of sunshine on the
leaves of a flower at this spring-time any more
than we do the mysterious budding of spiritual
life within the soul. Botany is a science for all
that.

We do not give up the study of chemistry
as hopeless because we fail to comprehend the
MARVEL NOT 217

unseen laws which guide the delicate actions and
reactions of matter. Nor do we disbelieve in the
influence of food on the vital frame because no
man has found the point exactly at which it
passes from dead nourishment into life. We do
not avoid the subject of electricity because elec-
tricity is a mystery, or heat because we cannot
see heat, or meteorology because we cannot see
the wind. Marvel not then, from the analogy of
physical nature, if, concerning this spirit of re-
generation, we cannot tell whence it cometh and
whither it goeth. It is not on that account unin-
telligible that a man should be born again.

If we care again to take the analogy from the
moral and intellectual nature, the same may be
said with even greater emphasis.

The essence of regeneration is a change from
one state to another — from an old life to a new
one. Spiritually, its manifestation is in hating
things once loved, or loving things once hated.
God is no longer avoided, but worshipped; Christ
no longer despised, but trusted.

Now, intellectually, changes at least in some
way similar are happening every day. You rose
up yesterday, bitterly opposed, let us say, to such
and such ascheme. You were so strong in your
opinion that nothing would ever shake you. You
would zever change, you said — could not. But
you met a friend, who began to talk with you
about it. You listened, then wavered, then capitu-
lated. You allowed yourself to be talked round,
218 MARVEL NOT

as you expressed it. You were converted to the
other side. And in the evening your change of
mind was so complete that you were literally born
~ again — you were literally another man; you were
in a new world of ideas, of interests, of hopes, with
all the old dislikes in that special connection re-
versed, and the old loves turned into hates.
Something like this goes on, only with a higher
agency, in the regeneration of the soul. Hence it
is called by similar names a change of heart, or a
turning round or a conversion to the other side.
And just as talking round will change a man’s
opinion or convert him zutellectually, so turning
round by the Spirit of God will change his heart
or convert him sfzr7tually, When you are told,
therefore, that your heart may be changed by the
Spirit, even as your mind was changed by your
friend, marvel not, as if it were unintelligible, that
ye may be born again. What a few hours’ con-
versation could do in making you love the side
you hated, and hate the side you loved. Marvel
not at what more the power of God could do in
turning round your being from the old love to the
new. And one might even press the analogy a
little further, and add, if a few minutes’ conversa-
tion with a fellow-man overturned the stubborn
mountain of your mind, how much more should
a few minutes’ conversation with Christ, such as
Nicodemus had, and which overthrew his strong-
est Messianic views, and changed the current of
his life for ever from that hour, how much more
MARVEL NOT 219

should it change yours the moment it touched
His? But more than that. To Nicodemus, in-
deed, even the conception itself of being born
again should have seemed no mystery. It was
already a familiar thought in another sense to
every Jewish heart — nothing more nor less, in-
deed, than one of the common political phrases
of the day. The custom with a foreigner who
came to reside in a Jewish town in these times
was to regard him as wnzclean. He was held at
arms’ length; he was a man of different caste,
the Jew had no dealings with the Samaritan. But
if he wished to leave his gods and share the re-
ligious hopes and civil privileges of the Jews,
there was one way out of the old state into the
new — just one way—he must be born again.
He was baptised with water, and passed through
certain other rights, till finally reckoned clean,
when he became as truly one of the chosen peo-
ple as if he had been the lineal son of Abraham.
And the process of initiation from the Gentile
world into the kingdom of the Jew was called a
regeneration, or a being born again. There was
nothing, therefore, in the thoughtful considera-
tion of the new birth — in the higher sense — for
the Jew to marvel at. “Art thou a master in
Israel,” Jesus might well ask, “and understandest
not these things?” A Master in Israel stum-
bling at an every-day illustration, marvelling as if
it were unintelligible! ‘ Marvel not that I said
unto thee, Ye must be born again.” What the
220 MARVEL NOT

Jews did to a stranger in admitting him to their
kingdom corresponds exactly with what we do in
our process of naturalisation.

Naturalisation — spiritualisation if we would
be exactly accurate — is the idea, then, expressed
in the “Born again” of Christ: and when we
trace the expression back to its setting in Jewish
politics, it yields the beautiful conception that
God calls man—the foreigner, the stranger, the
wanderer — to forsake the far country, and hav-
ing been purified by initiatory rites from all un-
cleanness, to be translated into the kingdom of
His dear Son. And though there may be, in-
deed, reasons why we should be so slow to under-
stand it, and regions of rightful wonder in the
deeper workings of the thought which we have
not yet explored, there is at least this much clear,
that we need of marvel as if it were unintelligible.

II. In a word or two, marvel not, as if it were
impossible. There is a name for God which men,
in these days, have many temptations to forget
— God the Creator of heaven and earth. It was
the name, perhaps, by which we first knew God
— God had made our earth, our house; God
had made us. He was our Creator—God. We
thought God could make anything then, or do
anything, or do everything. But we lost our
happy, early childhood’s faith; and now we won-
der what things God can do, as if there were
‘many things He could not.

But there is one thing we have little difficulty
MARVEL NOT 221

in always referring to the creating hand of God —
life. No one has ever made life but God. We
call Him the author of life, and the author of life
is a wondrously fertile author. He makes much
life — life in vast abundance. There is nothing so
striking in nature as the prodigality — the almost
reckless prodigality — of life. It seems as if God
delighted Himself in life. So the world is filled
with it. In the woods, in the air, in the ocean-
bed, everywhere teeming life, superabundance of
life, which God has made.

Well, if God can give life, He can surely add
life. Regeneration is nothing in principle but
the adding of more life. It is God adding life zo
life — more life to a man who has some life.
The man has life which God gave him once; but
part of him — the best part of him — is dead.
His soul is dead in trespasses and sins. God
touches this, and it lives. Even as the body was
dead and God breathed upon it till zt lived, so
God will breathe upon the soul, and more life,
and better life, will come.

So there is nothing impossible in being born
again, any more than there is the impossible in
being born at all. What did Jesus Christ come
into the world for? To give life, He said; even
more abundant life. And Christ giving life, that
is regeneration. It was not more knowledge
Nicodemus wanted, though he thought so, but
more /ife; and the best proof that life was pos-
sible was that life was granted. So the best
222 MARVEL NOT

proof of Christianity is a Christian; the best
proof of regeneration is a man who has been
regenerated. Can a man be born again when
he is old? Certainly. For it has been done.
Think of Bunyan the sinner and Bunyan the
saint; think of Newton the miscreant and
Newton the missionary; think of Paul the per-
secutor and Paul the apostle; and marvel not, as
if it were impossible that a man should be born
again.

III. Marvel not —as if it were unnecessary.
Regeneration is more than intelligible and pos-
sible — it is ecessary to enter the kingdom of
God. “Except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God.” He says it zs neces-
sary. A man cannot see the kingdom of God
except he be born again. He cannot only not
enter it; Jesus says he cannot see it. It is
actually invisible to him. This is why the world
says of religion, “ We do not understand it; we
do not make it out; we do not see zt.” No, of
course they do not see it; they caunot see it;
first, it is necessary to be born again.

When men come into the world, they are born
outside of the kingdom of God, and they cannot
see into it. They may go round and round it,
and examine it from the outside, and pass an
opinion on it. But they are no judges. They
are not seeing what they are speaking about.
For that which is born of spirit is spirit, that
which is born of flesh is /Zesh , and they can only
MARVEL NOT 223

give a criticism which is material on a thing
which is spiritual. Therefore the critical value
of a worldly man’s opinion on religious matters
is nothing. He is open to an objection which
makes his opinion simply ludicrous — he is talk-
ing about a thing which he has never seen. So
far as one’s experience of religion goes, regen-
eration makes all the difference. It is as if some
one had been standing outside some great ca-
thedral. He has heard that its windows are
of stained glass and exceeding beautiful. He
walks all round it and sees nothing but dull,
unmeaning spaces — an iron grating over each,
to intensify the gloom that seems to reign within.
There is nothing worth seeing there, but every-
thing to repel. But let him go zz. Let him see
things from the zzszde. And his eye is dazzled
with the gorgeous play of colours; and the mir-
acles and the parables are glowing upon the
glass; and the figure of Jesus is there, and the
story of His love is told on every pane: and
there are choirs of angels, and cherubim and
seraphim, and an altar where, in light which is
inaccessible, is God.

So let a man enter into the kingdom of heaven
—Jlet a man be born again and enter — and he
will SEE the kingdom of God. He will see the
miracles and the parables which were meaning-
less, colourless once; he will see the story of the
Cross, which was a weariness and an offence; he
will see the person of Christ and the King in His
224 ' MARVEL NOT

beauty, and beholding as in a glass the glory of
the only begotten, shall be changed into the same
image from glory to glory. Marvel not if it is
necessary, to see all this, that he must be born
again.

Within this great world there are a number of
little worlds, to which entrance is only attainable
by dzrth. There is the intellectual world, for in-
stance, which requires the birth of brains; and
the artistic world, which requires the birth of
taste; and the dramatic world, which requires the
birth of talent; and the musical world, which
requires the gift of harmony and ear. A man
cannot enter the intellectual world except he have
brains, or the artistic world except he have taste.
And he cannot make or find brains or taste.
They must be Zorz in him. A man cannot make
a poetical mind for himself. It must be created
in him. Hence “the poet is dorm — not made,”
we say. So the Christian is born, not made.

There remains one other and imperative pro-
test against regeneration being unnecessary.
Human nature demands regeneration as if it
were necessary.

No man who knows the human heart or human
history will marvel as if it were unnecessary that
the world must be born again. Every other con-
ceivable measure has been tried to reform it.
Government has tried it, Philosophy has tried it,
Philanthropy has tried it, and failed. The heart
—the national heart or the individual heart —
MARVEL NOT 225

remains deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. Reformation has been of little use to it;
for every reformation is but a fresh and unguar-
anteed attempt to do what never has been done.
Reconstruction has been of little use to it; for re-
construction is an ill-advised endeavour to rebuild
a house which has fallen a thousand times already
with the same old bricks and beams. Man has had
every chance from the creation to the present
moment to prove that regeneration was not the
one necessity of the world — and, again, utterly
failed.

We are still told, indeed, that all the world
needs is just to get astart. Once set a man on
his feet, or a universe, with a few good guiding
principles. Give human nature fair play, and it
must win in the end. But no. The experiment
has been tried. God tried it Himself. It was
fairly done, and it failed. The wickedness of
man had waxed great throughout the land. So
God said He would destroy all living flesh, and
select a picked few of the best inhabitants to
start the world afresh. A fair experiment. So
all the world was drowned except a little nucleus
in an ark—the picked few who were to found
Utopia, who were to reconstruct the universe, who
were to begin human life again, and make every-
thing so much better than it was before. But
the experiment failed. The picked few failed.
Their children failed. Their children’s children

failed. Things got no better; only worse, per-
we ee
226 MARVEL NOT

haps, and worse; and no man ever really knew
the cause till Jesus told the world that it must —
that it was essentially necessary — that it must,
absolutely and imperatively must, be born again.

If human nature makes it nec.ssary, much
more does the Divine nature. When Christ shall
present His Church to God, it must be as a Spot-
less Bride. In that eternal kingdom saints are
more than subjects: they are the companions of
the King. They must be a very select number.
They must be a very high-born company. Mar-
vel not if you and I are to be there — as if it were
unnecessary that we must be born again. ‘ Lord,
who shall abide in Thy tabernacle — who shall
dwell in Thy holy hill? He that hath clean
hands and a pure heart.” There shall in no wise
enter into it anything that defileth. Marvel not
as if it were unnecessary that our robes should be
washed in white.

Marvel not as if it were unintelligible.

Marvel not as if it were impossible.

Marvel not as if it were unnecessary that ye
must be born again. Marvelif youare. Marvel
of you are.
NUMBER XI

The Man after God’s
Own Heart

A BIBLE STUDY ON THE
IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE

“A man after mine own heart, who shall fulfil all My
will,” — Acts xiii. 22.

O man can be making much of his life who
has not a very definite conception of what
he is living for. And if you ask, at random, a
dozen men what is the end of their life, you will be
surprised to find how few have formed to them-
selves more than the most dim idea. The ques-
tion of the.szzzimum bonum has ever been the most
difficult for the human mind to grasp. What
shall a man do with his life? What is life for?
and Why is it given? This has been the one
great puzzle for human books and human
thoughts; and ancient philosophy and medizval
learning and modern culture alike have failed to
tell us what these mean.

No man, no book save one, has ever told the
world what it wants, so each has had to face the
problem in his own uncertain light, and carry out,
each for himself, the life that he thinks best.
228 MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

Here is one who says literature is the great
thing — he will be a literary man. He lays down
for himself his ideal of a literary life. He sur-
rounds himself with the best ideals of style; and
with his great ambition working towards great
ends, after great models, he cuts out for himself
what he thinks is his great life-work. Another
says the world is the great thing — he will be a
man of the world. A third will be a business
man; a fourth, a man of science.

And the Christian must have a definite aim and
model for his life. These aims are great aims,
but not great enough for him. His one book has
taught him a nobler life than all the libraries of
the rich and immortal past. He may wish to be
aman of business, or a man of science, and indeed
he may be both. But he covets a nobler name
than that. He will be the man after God’s own
heart. He has found out the secret philosophy
never knew, that the ideal life is this —“ A man
after mine own heart, who shall fulfil all My
will.” And just as the man of the world, or the
literary man, lays down a programme for the
brief span of his working life, which he feels
must vanish shortly in the unknown of the
grave, much more will the Christian for the great
span of his life before it arches over the valley
into eternity.

He is a great man who has a great plan to his
lite —the greatest who has the greatest plan and
keeps it. And the Christian should have the
MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART 229

greatest plan as his life is the greatest, as his
work is the greatest, as his life and his work will
follow him when all this world’s is done.

Now we are going to ask to-day, What is the
true plan of the ideal Christian life? We shall
need a definition that we may know it, a descrip-
tion that we may follow it. And if you look,
you will see that both, in a sense, lie on the sur-
face of our text. “A man after mine own heart,”
— here is the definition of what we are to be.
“Who shall fulfil all My will,” —here is the
description of how we are to be it. These words
are the definition and the description of the
model human life. They describe the man after
God's own heart. They give us the key to the
Ideal Life.

The general truth of these words is simply
‘this: that the end of life is to do God’s will.
Now that is a great and surprising revelation.
No man ever found that out. It has been before
the world these eighteen hundred years, yet few
have even found it out to-day. One man will
tell you the end of life is to be true. Another
will tell you it is to deny self. Another will
say it is to keep the Ten Commandments. A
fourth will point you to the Beatitudes. One
will tell you it is to do good, another that it is
to get good, another that it is to de good. But
the end of life is in none of these things. It is
more than all, and it includes them all. The
end of life is not to deny self, nor to be true,
230 MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

nor to keep the Ten Commandments — simply
to do God’s will. It is not to get good nor be
good, nor even to do good — just what God wills,
whether that be working or waiting, or winning
or losing, or suffering or recovering, or living or
dying.

But this conception is too great for us. It is
not practical enough. It is the greatest con-
ception of man that has ever been given to the
world. The great philosophers, from Socrates
and Plato to Immanuel Kant and Mill, have
given us their conception of an ideal human
life. But none of them is at all so great as
this. Each of them has constructed an ideal
human life, a universal life they call it, a life
for all other lives, a life for all men and all
time to copy. None of them is half so deep, so
wonderful, so far-reaching, as this: “A man
after mine own heart, who shall fulfil all My
will.”

But exactly for this very reason it is at first
sight impracticable. We feel helpless beside a
truth so great and eternal. God must teach us
these things. Like little children, we must sit
at His feet and learn. And as we come to Him
with our difficulty, we find He has prepared two
practical helps for us, that He may humanise
it and bring it near to us, so that by studying
these helps, and following them with willing
and humble hearts, we shall learn to copy into
our lives the great ideal of God.
MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART 231

The two helps which God has given us are
these:

I. The Model Life realised in Christ, the
living Word.

Il. The Model Life analysed in the Bible,
the written Word.

The usual method is to deal almost exclu-
sively with the first of these. To-day, for cer-
tain reasons, we mean to consider the second.
As regards the first, of course, if a man could
follow Christ he would lead the model life. But
what is meant by telling a man to follow Christ?
How is it to bedone? It is like putting a young
artist before a Murillo or a Raphael, and telling
him to copy it. But even as the artist in fol-
lowing his ideal has colours put into his hand,
and brush and canvas, and a hint here from this
master, and a touch there from another, so with
the pupil in the school of Christ. The great
Master Himself is thereto helphim. The Holy
Spirit is there to help him. But the model life

‘is not to be mystically attained. There is spir-

ituality about it, but no unreality. So God has
provided another great help, our second help:
The Model Life analysed in the Word of God.
Without the one the ideal life would be incred-
ible; without the other it would be unintel-
ligible. Hence God has given us two sides
of this model life: (1) Realised in the Living
Word; (2) Analysed in the written Word.

Let us search our Bibles then to find this ideal
232 MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

life, so that copying it in our lives, reproducing
it day by day and point by point, we may learn
to make the most of our little life, and have it
said of us, as it was of David, “A man after
mine own heart, who shall fulfil all My will.”

(1) The first thing our ideal man wants is a
reason for his being alive at’ all. He must ac-
count for his existence. What is he here for?
And the Bible answer is this: “I come to do
Thy will, O God” (Heb. x. 7).

That is what we are here for—to do God’s
will. “I come to do Thy will, O God.” That
is the object of your life and mine — to do God’s
will. It is not to be happy or to be successful,
or famous, or to do the best we can, and get
on honestly in the world. It is something far
higher than this — to do God’s will. There, at
the very outset, is the great key to life. Any
one of us can tell in a moment whether our lives
are right or not. Are we doing God’s will?
We do not mean, Are we doing God’s work? —
preaching or teaching, or collecting money —
but God’s wz. A man may think he is doing
God’s work, when he is not even doing God’s
will. Andaman may be doing God’s work and
God’s will quite as much by hewing stones, or
sweeping streets, as by preaching or praying.
So the question just means this— Are we work-
ing out our common every-day life on the great
lines of God’s will? This is different from the
world’s model life. “I come to push my way.”
MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART 233

This is the world’s idea of it. Not my way —
not my will, but Thine be done. This is the
Christian’s. This is what the man after God’s
own heart says: “I seek not mine own will, but
the will of Him that sent Me.”

(2) The second thing the ideal man needs is
Sustenance. After he has got life, you must
give him food. Now, what food shall you give
him? Shall you feed him with knowledge, or
with riches, or with honour, or with beauty, or
with power, or truth? No; there is a rarer
luxury than these—so rare, that few have ever
more than tasted it; so rich, that they who have
will never live on other fare again. It is this:
“My meat is to do the will of Him that sent
Me” QVohn iv. 34).

Again, to do God’s will. That is what a man
lives for: it is also what he lives on. Meat.
Meat is strength, support, nourishment. The
strength of the model life is drawn from the
Divine will. Man hasastrong will. But God’s
will is everlasting strength — Almighty strength.
Such strength the ideal man gets. He grows by
it, he assimilates it—it is his life. ‘Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that
cometh out of God.” Nothing can satisfy his
appetite but this — he hungers to do God’s will.
Nothing else will fill him. Every one knows
that the world is hungry. But the hungry world
is starving. It has many meats and many drinks,
but there is no nourishment in them. It has
234 MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

pleasures, and gaiety, and excitement; but there
is no food there for the immortal craving of the
soul. It has the theatre and worldly society,
and worldly books, and worldly lusts. But
these things merely intoxicate. There is no
sustenance in them. So our ideal life turns its
eye from them all with unutterable loathing.
“ My meat is to do God’s will.’”” To do God’s
will! No possibility of starving on such won-
derful fare as this. God’s will is eternal. It
is eternal food the Christian lives upon. In
spring-time it is not sown, and in summer
drought it cannot fail. In harvest it is not
reaped, yet the storehouse is ever full. Oh,
what possibilities of life it opens up! What
possibilities of growth! What possibilities of
work! How a soul develops on God’s will!
(3) The next thing the ideal man needs is
Society. Man is not made to be alone. He
needs friendships. Without society, the ideal
man would be a monster, a contradiction. You
must give him friendship. Now, whom will you
give him? Will you compliment him by call-
ing upon the great men of the earth to come and
minister to him? No. The ideal man does not
want compliments. He has better food. Will
you invite the ministers and the elders of the
Church to meet him? Will you offer him the
companionship of saint or angel, or seraphim or
cherubim, as he treads his path through the
wilderness of life? No; for none of these will]
MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART 235

satisfy him. He has a better friendship than
saint or angel, or seraphim or cherubim. The
answer trembles on the lip of every one who is
trying to follow the ideal life: “ Whosoever shall
do the will of My Father which ts in Heaven,
the same is My brother, and sister, and mother”
(Matt. xii. 50; Mark iii. 35).

Yes. My brother, and Jy sister and mothe.
Mother! The path of life is dark and cheerless
to you. There is a smoother path just by the
side of it—a forbidden path. You have been
tempted many a time to take it. But you knew
it was wrong, and you paused. Then, with a
sigh, you struck along the old weary path again.
It was the will of God, you said. Brave mother!
Oh, if you knew it, there was a voice at your ear
just then, as Jesus saw the brave thing you had
done, “ JZy mother!” “ He that doeth the will
of My Father, the same is My mother.” Yes;
this is the consolation of Christ — “My mother.”
What society to be in! What about the dark-
ness of the path, if we have the brightness of
His smile? Oh! it is better, as the hymnist says,

“It is better to walk in the dark with God,
Than walk alone in the light ;
It is better to walk with Him by faith,
Than walk alone by sight.”

Some young man here is suffering fierce temp-
tation. To-day he feels strong; but to-morrow
his Sabbath resolutions will desert him. What
236 MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

will his companions say, if he does not join them?
He cannot face them if he is to play the Chris-
tian. Companions! What are all the compan-
ions in the world to this? What are all the
friendships, the truest and the best, to this dear
and sacred brotherhood of Christ? ‘He that
doeth the will of My Father, the same is My
brother.”

My mother, my brother, and my sister. He
has a sister—some sister here. Sister! Your
life is a quiet and even round of common and
homely things. You dream, perhaps, of a wider
sphere, and sigh for a great and useful life, like
some women whose names you know. You ques-
tion whether it is right that life should be such
a little bundle of very little things. But nothing
is little that is done for God, and it must be right
if it be His will. And if this common life, with
its homely things, is God’s discipline for you, be
assured that in your small corner, your unob-
served, your unambitious, your simple woman’s
lot is very near and very dear to Him Who said,
“Whosoever doeth the will of My Father, the
same is My sister.”

Now we have found the ideal man a Friend.
But he wants something more.

(4) He wants Language. He must speak to
his Friend. He cannot be silent in such com-
pany. And speaking to such a Friend is not
mere conversation. It has a higher name. It
is communion. Itis prayer. Well, we listen to
MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART 237

hear the ideal man’s prayer. Something about
God’s will it must be; for that is what he is sure
to talk about. That is the object of his life.
That is his meat. In that he finds his society.
So he will be sure to talk about it. Every one
knows what his prayer will be. Every one re-
members the words of the ideal prayer: “ Thy
well be Done” (Matt. vi. 10).

Now mark his emphasis on dove. He prays
that God’s will may be done. It is not that God’s
will may be borne, endured, put up with. There
is activity in his prayer. It is not mere resigna-
tion. How often is this prayer toned off with
mere endurance, sufferance, passivity. “Thy will
be done,” people say resignedly. ‘“ There is no
help for it. We had just as well submit. God
evidently means to have His way. Better to
give in at once and make the most of it.” This
is far from the ideal prayer. Well, it is a great
thing to say this, but not in this spirit. It may
be nobler to suffer God’s will than to do it;
perhaps it is. But there is nothing noble in
resignation of this sort —this resignation under
protest as it were. And it disguises the meaning
of the prayer, “Thy will be done.” It is in-
tensely active. It is not an acquiescence simply
in God’s dealing. It is a cry for more of God’s
dealing. God’s dealing with me, with every-
thing, with everybody, with the whole world.
It is an appeal to the mightiest energy in heaven
or earth to work, to make more room for itself,
238 MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

to energise. It is a prayer that the Almighty
energies of the Divine will may be universally
known, and felt, and worshipped.

The ideal man has no deeper prayer than
this. It is the truest language of his heart.
He does not want a bed of roses, or his pathway
strewn with flowers. He wants to do God’s will.
He does not want health or wealth, nor does he
covet sickness or poverty — just what God sends.
He does not want success —even success in
winning souls — or want of success. What God
wills for him, that is all. He does not want to
prosper in business, or to keep barely struggling
on. God knows what is best. He does not
want his friends to live, himself to live or die.
God’s will be done. The currents of his life
are deeper than the circumstance of things.
There is a deeper principle in it than to live
to gratify himself’ And so he simply asks,
that in the ordinary round of his daily life there
may be no desire of his heart more deep, more
vivid, more absorbingly present than this, ‘“ Thy
will be done.” He who makes this the prayer
of his life will know that of all prayer it is
the most truly blessed, the most nearly in the
spirit of Him who sought not His own will,
but the will of Him that sent Him.

“ Lord Jesus, as Thou wilt! if among thorns I go
Still sometimes here and there let a few roses blow.
No! Thou on earth along the zhorny path hath gone,

Then lead me after Thee, my Lord; Thy will be done.”
Schmolk.
MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART 239

(5) But the ideal man does not always pray.
There is such perfect blessedness in praying the
ideal prayer that language fails him sometimes.
The peace of God passes all understanding, much
less all expression. It comes down upon the
soul, and makes it ring with unutterable joy. And
language stops. The ideal man can no longer
pray to his Friend. So his prayer changes into
Praise. He is too full to speak, so his heart
bursts into song. Therefore we must find in the
Bible the praise of his lips. And who does not
remember in the Psalms the song of the ideal
man? The huntsmen would gather at night to
sing of their prowess in the chase, the shepherd
would chant the story of the lion or the bear
which he killed as he watched his flocks. But
David takes down his harp and sings a sweeter
psalm than all: “ Zhy Statutes have been my Songs
in the House of my pilgrimage” (Ps. cxix. 54).
He knows no sweeter strain. How different from
those who think God’s law is a stern, cold thing!
God’s law is His written will. It has no terrors
to the ideal man. He is not afraid to think of
its sternness and majesty. “I will meditate on
Thy laws day and night,” he says. He tells us
the subject of his thoughts. Ask him what he is
thinking about at any time. “Thy laws,” he says.
How he can please his Master. What more he
can bear for Him. What next he can do for
Him. He has no other pleasure in life than this.
You need not speak to him of the delights of life.
240 MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

“T will delight myself in Thy statutes,” he says,
You see what amusements the ideal man has,
You see where the sources of his enjoyment are.
Praise is the overflow of a full heart. When it is
full of enjoyment it overflows; and you can tell
the kind of enjoyment from the kind of praise
that runs over. The ideal man’s praise is of the
will of God. He has no other sources of enjoy-
ment. The cup of the world’s pleasure has no
attraction for him. The delights of life are bitter.
Here is his only joy, his only delight (Ps. xl. 8).
“T delight to do Thy will, O my God.”

(6) The next thing the ideal man wants is
Education. He needs teaching. He must take
his place with the other disciples at his Mas-
ter’s feet. What does he want from the great
Teacher? Teach me Wisdom? No. Wisdom is
not enough. Teach me what is Truth? No,
not even that. Teach me how to do good, how
to love, howto trust? No, there is a deeper want
than all. “ Teach me to do Thy Will” (Ps. cxliii.
10). This is the true education. Teach me to
do Thy Will. This was the education of Christ.
Wisdom is a great study, and truth, and good
works, and love, and trust, but there is an earlier
lesson — obedience. So the ideal pupil prays,
“Teach me to do Thy Will.”

And now we have almost gone far enough.
These are really all the things the ideal man can
need. But in case he should want anything else,
God has given the man after his own heart a
MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART 241

promise. God never leaves anything unprovided
for. An emergency might arise in the ideal
man’s life; or he might make a mistake or lose
heart, or be afraid to ask his friend for some very
great thing he needed, thinking it was too much,
or for some very little thing, thinking it unworthy
of notice. So God has given.

(7) The ideal Promise, “If we ask anything ac-
cording to His will, He heareth us . . . and we
know that we have the petitions that we desired
from Him” (1 John v. 14). If ye ask anything
—no exception—no limit to God’s confidence
in him. He trusts him to ask right things. He is
guiding him, even in what he asks, if he is the
man after God’s own heart; so God sets no limit
to his power. If any one is doing God’s will, let
him ask anything. It is God’s will that he ask
anything. Let him put His promise to the test.

Notice here what the true basis of prayer is.
The prayer that is answered is the prayer after
God’s will. And the reason for this is plain.
What is God’s will is God’s wish. And when a
man does what God wills, he does what God
wishes done. Therefore God will have that done
at any cost, at any sacrifice. Thousands of
prayers are never answered, simply because God
does not wish them. If we pray for any one
thing, or any number of things we are sure God
wishes, we may be sure our wishes will be grati-
fied. For our wishes are only the reflection of

God’s. And the wish ius is almost equivalent
10.
242 MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

to the answer. It is the answer casting its
shadow backwards. Already the thing is done
in the mind of God. It casts two shadows — one
backward, one forward. The backward shadow
— that is the wish before the thing is done, which
sheds itself in prayer. The forward shadow —
that is the joy after the thing is done, which
sheds itself in praise. Oh, what a rich and won-
derful life this ideal life must be! Asking any-
thing, getting everything, willing with God, pray-
ing with God, praising with God. Surely it is
too much, this last promise. How can God trust
us with a power so deep and terrible? Ah, He
can trust the ideal life with anything. “If he ask
anything.” Well, if he do, he will ask nothing
amiss. t will be God’s will if it is asked. It
will be God’s will if it is not asked. For he is
come, this man, # do God’s will.

There is only one thing more which the model
man may ever wish to have. We can imagine
him wondering, as he thinks of the unspeakable
beauty of this life—of its angelic purity, of its
divine glory, of its Christ-like unselfishness, of
its heavenly peace — how long this life shall last.
It may seem too bright and beautiful, for all
things fair have soon to come to anend. And if
any cloud could cross the true Christian’s sky, it
would be when he thought that this ideal life
might cease. But God, in the riches of His fore-
thought, has rounded off this corner of his life
with a great far-reaching text, which looks above
MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART 243

the circumstance of him, and projects his life into
the vast Eternity beyond. “ He that doeth the
wll of God abideth for ever” (1 John ii. 17).

May God grant that you and I may learn to
live this great and holy life, remembering the
solemn words of Him who lived it first, who only
lived it all: ‘Not every one that saith unto me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father
which is in Heaven.”
NUMBER XII

Penitence

“And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter...
and Peter went out and wept bitterly.” — LUKE xxii, 61, 62.

VERY man at some time in his life has
fallen. Many have fallen many times ;
few, few times. And the more a man knows his
life, and watches its critical flow from day to day,
the larger seems to grow the number of these
falls, and the oftener reaches out to God his
penitential prayer, “ Turn yet again, O Lord!”
We have all shuddered before this as we read
the tale of Peter’s guilt. Many a time we have
watched the plot as it thickens round him, and
felt the almost unconscious sympathy which
betrayed itself. How like the story was to one

that had sometimes happened with ourselves. |

And we knew, as we followed the dreary stages
of his fall, that the same well-worn steps had
been traced since then by every human foot.
How Peter could have slept in the garden, when
he should have watched and prayed, all men
who have an inner history can understand. The
faithlessness that made him follow Christ far off,
PENITENCE 248

instead of keeping at his Master’s side, not the
best of us will challenge. For we too know what
it is sometimes to get out of step with Christ.
We will be the last to stop and ask his business
in that worldly company who warmed themselves
by the fire. And none who know that the heart
is deceitful above all things will wonder that this
man who had lived so long in the inner circle of
fellowship with Christ, whose eyes were familiar
with miracles, who was one of that most select
audience who witnessed the glory of the trans-
figuration — that this man, when his ears were
yet full of the most solemn words the world had
ever heard, when his heart was warm still with
Communion-table thoughts, should have turned
his back upon his Lord, and, almost ere the
sacramental wine was dry upon his lips, have
cursed Him to His face. Such things, alas! are
not strange to those who know the parts in the
appalling tragedy of sin.

But there is a greater fact in Peter’s life than
Peter’s sin— a much less known fact — Peter’s
penitence. All the world are at one with Peter
in his sin; but not all the world are with him in
his penitence. Sinful Peter is one man, and
Repentant Peter is another; and many who have
kept his company along these worn steps to sin
have left him to trace the tear-washed path of
penitence alone. But the real lesson in Peter’s
life is the lesson in repentance. His fall is a
lesson in sin which requires no teacher, but his
246 PENITENCE

repentance is a great lesson in salvation. And
Peter’s penitence is full of the deepest spiritual
meaning to all who have ever made Peter’s
discovery — that they have sinned.

The few words which form the pathetic sequel
to the tale of Peter’s sin may be defined as the
“ideal progress of Christian penitence.” They
contain materials for the analysis of the most rare
and difficult grace in spiritual experience. And
lying underneath these two simple sentences are
the secrets of some of the most valuable spiritual
laws. We find here four outstanding characteris-
tics of the state of penitence:

(1) It is a divine thing. It began with God.
Peter did not turn. But “The Lord turned and
looked upon Peter.”

(2) It is a very sensitive thing. A look did it.
The Lord . . . looked upon Peter.

(3) It is a very intense thing. Peter went out
and wept bitterly.

(4) It is a very lonely thing. Peter went out —
out into the quiet night, to be alone with his sin
and God.

These are characteristic not only of the peni-
tential state, but of all God’s operations on the
soul.

(1) To take the first of these, we find that the
beginning of this strange experience came from
God. It was not Peter who turned. The Lord
turned and looked upon Peter. When the cock
crew, that might have recalled him to himself; he
PENITENCE 247

was just in the very act of sin. And when a man
is in the thick of his sin his last thought is to
throw down his arms and repent. So Peter never
thought of turning, but the Lord turned; and
when Peter would rather have looked anywhere
else than at the Lord, the Lord looked at Peter.
And this scarce-noticed fact is a great sermon to
every one who sins —that the Lord turns first.
Now the result of this distinction is this: that
there are two kinds of sorrow for sin. And these
are different in their origin, in their religious value,
and in their influence on our life. The com-
moner kind is when a man does wrong, and, in
the ordinary sense of the word, is sorry that he
has done it. We are always easier in such a case
when sorrow comes. It seems to provide a sort
of guarantee that we are not disposed to do the
same again, and that our better self is still alive
enough to enter its protest against the sin the
lower self has done. And we count this feeling
of reproach which treads so closely on the act
as a sort of compensation or atonement for the
wrong. This is a kind of sorrow which is well
known to all who examine themselves, and in any
way struggle with sin. It is a kind of sorrow
which is coveted by all who examine themselves ;
which gives relief to what is called a penitential
heart, and lends a fervour to many a penitential
prayer. But it is a startling truth that there is no
religion in such a state. There is no real peni-
tenee there. It may not contain even one ingre-
248 PENITENCE

dient of true repentance. It is all many know of
repentance, and all many have for repentance.
But it is no true sorrow for sin. It is wounded
self-love. It is sorrow that we were weak enough
to sin. We thought we had been stronger men
and women, and when we were put.to the test we
found to our chagrin that we had failed. And this
chagrin is what we are apt to mistake for peni-
tence. But it is no Divine gift or grace, this peni-
tence — it is merely wounded pride — sorrow
that we did not do better, that we were not so good
as ourselves and our neighbours thought. It is
just as if Peter turned and looked upon Peter.
And when Peter turns and looks upon Peter he
sees what a poor, weak creature Peter is. And if
God had not looked upon Peter he might have
wept well-nigh as bitterly, not because he had
sinned against his God, but because he, the great
apostle, had done a weak thing — he was weak as
other men.

The fit of low spirits which comes to us when
we find ourselves overtaken in a fault, though we
flatter ourselves to reckon it a certain sign of
penitence, and a set-off to the sin itself which God
will surely take into account, is often nothing
more than vexation and annoyance with our-
selves, that, after all our good resolutions and
attempts at reformation, we have broken down
again.

Contrast for a moment with such a penitence
the publican’s prayer of penitence in the temple.
PENITENCE 249

It was no chagrin nor wounded pride with him.
And we feel as we read the story that the Lord
must have turned and looked upon the publican,
when he cried “ God” — as if God were looking
right down into the man’s eyes— ‘God be
merciful to me, a sinner!” Stricken before his
God, this publican had little thought of the self-
respect he had lost, and felt it no indignity to
take the culprit’s place and be taught the true
divinity of a culprit’s penitence.

Now it will be seen at once that the difference
between the publican’s penitence and the first-
named sorrow is just the difference between the
human and the Divine. The one is God turning
and looking upon man, the other is man turning
and looking upon himself. There is no wrong in
aman turning and looking upon himself — only
there is danger. There is the danger of misin-
terpreting what he sees and what he feels. What
he feels is the mortification, the self-reproach of
the sculptor who has made an unlucky stroke of
the chisel; the chagrin of the artist who has spoilt
the work of weeks by a clumsy touch. Apart
altogether from religion we must feel mortified
when we do wrong. Life, surely, is a work of
art; character-building, soul-culture, is the highest
kind of art; and it would be strange indeed if
failure passed unresented by the mind.

But what is complained of is not that it passes
unresented by the mind, but that it passes unre-
sented by the soul. Penitence of some sort there
250 PENITENCE

must be, but in the one case it is spiritual, in the
other purely artistic. And the danger is the more
subtle because the higher the character is, the
more there must necessarily be of the purely
artistic penitence.

The effect is, that self gets in to what ought to
be the most genuine experience of life, makes
the most perfect imitation of it, and transforms
the greatest opportunities for recovery into the
basest ministry to pride. The true experience,
on the other hand, is a touching lesson in human
helplessness; teaching him God has to come to
man’s relief at every turn of his life, and how the
same hand which provides his pardon has actually
to draw him to the place of penitence.

It is God looking into the sinner’s face that
has introduced a Christian element into human
sorrow. And Paul, in making the Christian
vocabulary, had to coin a word which was strange
to all the philosophies of the world then, and is
so still, when he joined the conceptions of God
and Sorrow into one, and told us of the Godly-
sorrow which had the marvellous virtue of work-
ing repentance not to be repented of. And it is
this new and sacred sorrow which comes to sinful
men as often as the Lord turns and looks upon
their life; it is this which adds the penitential
incense of true penitence to the sacrifice of a
broken and contrite heart. That was a great dis-
tinction which Luke brings out, in the prodigal’s
life, between coming to himself and coming to his
PENITENCE 251

father. ‘He came to himself,” and then, says
Luke, “ he came to his father.” So we are always
coming to ourselves. We are always finding
out, like the prodigal, the miserable bargains we
have made. But it is only when we come to our
Father that we can get them undone and the real
debt discharged.

(2) But now, secondly, we come to the sensi-
tiveness of penitence. Or rather, perhaps, we
should talk of the sensitiveness of the penitent
human soul. The Lord turned and looked upon
Peter. There is nothing more sensitive in all the
world than a human soul which has once been
quickened into its delicate life by the touch ofthe
divine. Men seldom estimate aright the exquisite
beauty and tenderness of a sinner’s heart. We
apply coarse words to move it, and coarse, harsh
stimulants to beat it into life. And if no answer
comes we make the bludgeon heavier and the
language coarser still, as if the soul were not too
fine to respond to weapons so blunt as these.
There is coarseness in the fibres of the body, and
these may be moved by blows; and there is
coarseness in human nature, and that may be
roused with threats; but the soul is fine as a
breath, and will preserve, through misery and
cruelty and sin, the marvellous delicacy which
tells how near it lies to the spirit of God who
gave it birth. Peter was naturally, perhaps, the
coarsest of all the disciples. Our picture of him
is of a strong-built, sun-tanned fisherman, robust
252 PENITENCE

and fearless in disposition, quick-tempered and
rash, a man who would bluster and swear — as
we know he did—a wild man who had the
making of a memorable sinner had not God made
him a memorable saint. But inside this wild
breast there lay a most lovely and delicate plant
—the most tender plant, perhaps, but one which
God had growing on the earth. With His own
hand He had placed it there. With His own
breath He nourished it from day to day; and
already the storms in the wild breast were calmed
and tempered for the holy flower which had
begun to send a perfume through even coarse
Peter’s life. It always purifies a man to have a
soul, and there is no such beauty of character as
that which comes out in unconscious ways from
a life made fine by Christ.

So God did not thunder and lighten to make
Peter hear His voice. God knew that though
Peter was blustering and swearing with his lips,
there was dead silence in his soul. A whisper
at that moment — that moment of high-strung
feeling —a whisper, even at that moment, was
not fine enough in its touch for this exquisitely
sensitive spirit; so the Lord turned and Jooked.
A look, and that was all. But it rent his heart as
lightning could not, and melted into his soul.

There is a text in the Psalms which uses the
strange expression of “the gentleness” of God.
We wonder sometimes when God is so great, so
terrible in majesty, that He uses so little violence
PENITENCE 253

with us, who are so small. But it is not His way.
His way is to be gentle. He seldom drives; but
draws. He seldom compels; but leads. He
remembers we are dust. We think it might be
quicker work if God threatened and compelled us
to do right. But God does not want quick work,
but good work. God does not want slave work,
but free work. So God is gentle with us all —
moulding us and winning us many a time with no
more than a silent look. Coarse treatment never
wins souls. So God did not drive the chariot of
His omnipotence up to Peter and command him
to repent. God did not threaten him with the
thunderbolts of punishment. God did not even
speak to him. That one look laid a spell upon
his soul which was more than voice or language
through all his after life.

Here, then, are two great lessons — the gentle-
ness of God, and the gentleness of the soul — the
one as divine a marvel as the other. God may be
dealing with us in some quiet way just now, and
we not knowing it. So mysteriously has all our
life been shaped, and so unobtrusive the fingers
which mould our will, that we scarce believe it
has been the hand of God at all. But it is God’s
gentleness. And the reason why God made Peter’s
heart sensitive, and yours and mine, was to meet
this gentleness of His.

Yes; we misunderstand God altogether, and
religion, if we think God deals coarsely with
our souls. If we ask ourselves what things have
254 PENITENCE

mainly influenced our life, we find the answer ina
few silent voices which have preached to us, and
winds which passed across our soul so gently that
we scarce could tell when they were come or gone.
The great physical forces of the world are all silent
and unseen. The most ponderous of all — gravita-
tion — came down the ages with step so noiseless
that centuries of wise men had passed. away be-
fore an ear was quick enough to detect its footfall.
And the great spiritual forces which startle men
into thoughts of God and right, which make men
remember, in the rush of the world’s life, that they
have souls, which bring eternity near to us, when
time is yet sweet and young, are not the warnings
from the dead who drop at our side so much, nor
the threats of judgment to come, nor the retribu-
tions of the life that is; but still small voices, which
penetrate like Peter’s look from Christ, and turn
man’s sensitive heart to God. The likeness of a
long-dead mother’s face, the echo of a children’s
hymn laden with pure memories, coming over
the guilty years which lie between, the fragments
of an old, forgotten text. These are the messen-
gers which Heaven sends to call the world to God.
Let those who are waiting for Christ to thunder
at their door before they will let Him in, remem-
ber that the quiet service of the Sabbath Day,
and the soft whisper of text and Psalm, and the
plaint of conscience, and the deep, deep heart-
wish to be whole, are Christ’s ways of looking for
them, Let workers for Christ remember this.

e
PENITENCE 255

In our soul, let us think how God may be turning
and looking upon us, and searching our hearts,
like Peter’s, for signs of penitence.

Let those who try to keep their influence for
Christ, ponder Christ’s methods of influence.
Let those who live in the shade, whose lives are
naturally bounded by timidity and reserve, be
glad that, in the genius of Christianity, there is a
place for even the Gospel of the Face. And let
those who live in the battle, when coarser weapons
fail, discern the lesson of Elijah: —“A great and
strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in
pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord
was notin the wind: and after the wind, an earth-
quake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake :
and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was
not tn the fire: and after the fire a still small
voice” (1 Kings xix. 11).

(3) Thirdly and briefly, for the truth is obvious,
we learn from Peter’s recovery that spiritual expe-
rience is zzdense. Peter wept bitterly. And this
short sentence for ever settles the question of
emotion in religion. When the Lord turned and
looked upon Peter, and memory crushed into
one vivid moment the guilt of those never-to-be-
forgotten hours, what else could Peter do than
weep bitterly? Let memory so work on any of
our lives to-day, and let the eye of the Eternal
bring the naked truth from out our past, and let
us ask if “ bitterly” is a word too strong to express
the agony of God’s discovery of our sin. Much
256 PENITENCE

need, indeed, had Peter to weep bitterly; and if
there are no bitter tears betimes in our religious
life, it is not because we have less of Peter’s sin,
but little of Peter’s grace.

It is vain to console ourselves by measuring, as
we try to do, the small size of the slips we make
as compared with his. There is such a thing in
the world.as a great sin, but there is no such thing
as asmallsin. The smallest sin isa fall, anda
fall is a fall from God, and to fall from God is te
fall the greatest height in the universe. The pub-
licity of a sin has nothing to do with its size.
Our fall last week, or yesterday, or to-day, was
just as great, perhaps, as Peter’s fall, or David's,
or Noah’s, or Jacob’s, or the many private sins
which history has made public examples, or the
Bible placed as beacons to all the race.

Every sin that was ever done demands a bitter
penitence. And if there is little emotion in a
man’s religion, it is because there is little intro-
spection. Religion without emotion is religion
without reflection. Religion without emotion ts
religion without reflection. Let a man sit calmly
down to think about his life. Let him think how
God has dealt with him since ever he lisped
God’s name. Let him add to that how he has
dealt with God since ever he could sin. And as
he turns over the secrets of the past, and forgot-
ten sins come crowding one by one into his
thoughts, can he help a strong emotion rising in
his heart, and shedding itself in tears? Yes;
PENITENCE 257

religion without emotion is religion without re-
flection. And, conversely, the man who gives
himself to earnest thought upon his ways will
always have enough emotion to generate religious
fervour in his soul.

Only let religious emotion run in the right
channel, let it work itself out in action and not in
excited feeling, let it be something more than
nervous agitation or a mere fear, and there is no
experience more purifying to the soul. No
doubt it was a great thing for Peter that he wept
bitterly, and no doubt from the bitterness of that
night of penitence came much of the sweetness
that hallowed his after life.

(4) Fourthly, and lastly, penitence is a lonely
thing. Peter went out. When the Lord turned
He looked upon Peter. No one else noticed the
quiet glance that was exchanged. But it did its
work. It singled out one man in a moment, and
cut him off from all the rest of the world. “ And
Peter went out.’ And there was no man beneath
the firmament of God that night so much alone
as Peter with his sin.

Men know two kinds of loneliness it has been
said — a loneliness of space and a loneliness of
spirit. The fisherman in his boat on the wide
sea knows loneliness of space. But it is no true
loneliness. For his thoughts have peopled his
boat with forms of those he loves. But Peter’s
was loneliness of spirit. A distance wider than
the wide sea cut off the denier from all fellowship

7
258 PENITENCE

of man, and left him to mourn alone. All this
is spiritual truth.

When God speaks He likes no other voice to
break the stillness but His own. And hence
the place that has always been given to solitude
in all true religious life. It can be overdone,
but it can be grossly underdone. And there is
no lesson more worth insisting on in days like
ours than this, that when God wants to speak
with a man He wants that man to be alone.
And God develops the germ of the recluse
enough in all true Christian hearts to see that
it is done. “Talent forms itself in solitude,”
says the German poet; “character amidst the
storms of life.” And if religious character is
developed and strengthened in the battle of the
world, it is no less true that religious talents
are cultivated in quiet contemplation and com-
munion alone with God. Than the worshippers
who do all their religion in public there are
none more profoundly to be pitied; and he who
knows not what it is to go out from the crowd
sometimes and be alone with God is a stranger
to the most Divine experience that comes to
sanctify a Christian’s heart.

But what gave the beauty to Peter’s loneliness
was this—that he took God’s time to be alone.
Peter’s penitence was not only an intense thing
and a lonely thing, it was an immediate thing.
Peter need not have gone out that time. He
might have stood where he was, and braved it
PENITENCE 259

out. God has looked at us when we were sin-
ning; and we did not doas Peter did. He lost
no time between his penitence and his sin. But
we spoil the grace of our penitence many a time
by waiting till the sin grows old. We do it on
purpose. Time seems to smooth the roughness
off our sin and take its bitterness away. And
we postpone our penitence till we think the edge
is off the sharpness of the wrong. As if time,
as if eternity could ever make a sinner’s sin less
black. Sin is always at its maximum. And no
man ever gets off with penitence at its minimum.
The time for penitence is just the time when we
have sinned. And that perhapsisnow. Peter’s
penitence came sharp upon his sin. It was not
on his death-bed or in his after life. But just
when he had sinned. Many a man who post-
pones his penitence till he cannot help it, post-
pones his penitence till it cannot help him, and.
will not see the Lord turning till He turns and
looks upon him in judgment. Then, indeed, he
goes out to weep. But it is out into that night
which knows no dawn.

Such are the lessons from Peter’s penitence.
Just one word more.

When God speaks He speaks so loud that all
the voices of the world seem dumb. And yet
when God speaks He speaks so softly that no
one hears the whisper but yourself. To-day,
perhaps, as the service has gone on, the Lord
has turned and looked on some one here. And
260 PENITENCE

the soul of some one has gone out to weep. No
one noticed where the Lord’s glance fell, and
no one knows in the church that it was — you.
You sit there in your wonted place. But your
spirit is far away just now, dealing with some
old sin, and God is giving you a lesson Himself
—the bitterest, yet the sweetest lesson of your
life, in heartfelt penitence. Come not back into
the crowd till the Lord has turned and looked
on you again, as He looked at the thief upon the
cross, and you have beheld the “ glory of the love
of God in the face of Jesus.”
NUMBER XIII

What is God’s Will?

“The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou
shouldest know His will” — AcTS xxii. 14.

| ae Sunday evening I was trying to show

you that the end of religion was to do the
will of God. Some time ago I showed you like-
wise that the exd of life was to do the will of
God, and that the end of Christ’s life lay in this
too. “Icome,” He said, “to do the will of Him
that sent Me.”

We resume to-day a subject, the thread of
which has been broken by the interval of afew
Sabbaths —the subject of the Will of God.

Already we have tried to learn two lessons: —~

1. That the end of our life is to do the will of
God.

2. That this was the end of Chiist’s life.

It will help to recall what has yone before if we
compare this with another defin‘tion of the end of
life with which we are all familiar.

Of course this is not the must complete state-
ment of the end of our life; jsut it is the most
262 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

practical, and it will recall the previous conclu-
sions if we refer to this for a moment.

Our Shorter Catechism, for instance, puts the
end of life quite in different words. ‘ Man’s chief
end,” it says, “is to glorify God and enjoy Him
for ever.” But this answer is just too great for
us. There is too much in it. It is really the
same answer, but turned towards God. It is too
great to understand. It is as true, but too pro-
foundly true. It is wonderfully conceived and put
together, but it goes past us. It expresses the
end of life God-ward — determines the quality of
all the things we do by the extent to which they
make way in the world for the everywhere coming
glory of God. But this is too wonderful for us.
We want a principle /ife-ward as well as God-
ward. We want something to tell us what to
do with the things beneath us and around us
and within us, as well as the things above us.
Therefore there is a human side to the Shorter
Catechism’s answer.

What is the chief end of man?

Man’s chief end is to do the will of God.

In one sense this is not such a Divine answer.
But we are not divine. We understand God's
will —God’s glory only faintly. We are only
human yet, and “ glory” is a word for heaven.

Ask a schoolboy, learning the first question in
the Catechism, to do a certain thing for the glory
of God. The opportunity of doing the thing
may be gone before the idea can be driven into
WHAT IS GOD’S WILL? 263

the boy’s head of what the glory of God means.
But tell him to do the thing because it is God’s
will that he should do it—he understands that.
He knows that God’s will is just what God likes,
and what he himself probably does zo¢ like.
And the conception of it from this side is so
clear that no schoolboy even need miss the end
of life — for that is simply doing what God likes.
If our souls are not great enough, then, to think
of God’s glory as the practical rule of life, let them
not be too small to think of God’s will. And if
we look after the end of life from this side, God
will from the other. Do we the will of God, God
will see that it glorifies God,

Let us suppose, then, that after casting about
for an object in life, we have at last stopped at
this — the end of my life is to do the will of God.
Let us suppose also that we have got over the
disappointment of finding that there is nothing
higher for us to do in the world. Or, perhaps,
taking the other side, suppose we are beginning
to feel the splendid conviction that, after all, our
obscure life is not to be wasted: that having this
ideal principle within it, it may yet be as great in
its homely surroundings as the greatest human
life — seeing that no man can do more with his
life than the will of God—that though we may
never be famous or powerful or called to heroic
suffering or acts of self-denial which will vibrate
through history: that though we are neither
intended to be apostles nor missionaries nor
264 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

martyrs, but to be common people living in
common houses, spending the day in common
offices or common kitchens, yet doing the will of
God ‘there, we shall do as much as apostle or
missionary or martyr—seeing that they can do
no more than do God’s will where they are, even
as we can do as much where we are — and answer
the end of our life as trily, faithfully, and trium-
phantly as they.

Suppose we feel all this, and desire, as we stand
on the threshold of the truly ideal life, that, God
helping us, we shall live it if we may, we are met at
once with the question, How are we ever to know
what the will of God can be? The chief end of
life is to do the will of God. Question: How
am I to know the will of God — to know it clearly
and definitely? Is it possible? and if so, how?

Now, to begin with, we have probably an
opinion on the matter already. And if you were
to express it, it would be this: that it is zot pos-
sible. You have thought about the will of God,
and read and thought, and thought and read, and
you have come to this conclusion, that the will
of God is a very mysterious thing —a very mys-
terious thing, which some people may have re-
vealed to them, but does not seem in any way
possible to you. —

Your nature is different from other people’s;
and though you have strained your eyes in prayer
and thought, you have never seen the will of God
vet. And if you ever have been in the same line
WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 265

with it, it has only been by chance, for you can
see no principle in it, nor any certainty of ever
being in the same line again. One or two special
occasions, indeed, you can recall when you think
you were near the will of God, but they must have
been special interpositions on God’s part. He
does not show His will every day like that: once
or twice only in a lifetime, that is enough of this
high experience one ever dare expect.

Now, of course, if this is true, it is clearly no
use going on to find out what God’s will is if the
thing is impossible. If this experience is correct
— and we cannot know God’s will for the mystery
of it— we may as well give up the ideal life at
once. But if you examined this experience, even
cursorily, you would find at once how far away
from the point it was.

1. In the first place, it is merely an experience ,
it is exclusively based on your own experience, not
on God’s thoughts regarding it, but on your own
thoughts. The true name for this is presumption.

2. It assumes that, the end of life being to do
God’s will, and you not being able to know God’s
will, are therefore not responsible for fulfilling the
end of life. This is self-deception.

3. It suggests the idea that God could teach
you His will if He liked, seeing that He had done
so once or twice by your own admission, And
yet, though He wants you to do His will, and you
want it too, He deliberately refuses to tell you
what it is. This is an accusation against God.
x

266 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

It is something worse than unreasonable, there-
fore, to say that we think it hopeless for us ever
to know God’s will. On the contrary, indeed,
there is a strong presumption that we should find
it out. For if it is so important a thing that the
very end of life is involved in it, it would be
absurd to imagine that God should keep us even
the least in the dark as to what His will may
mean,

And this presumption is changed into a cer-
tainty when we balance our minds for a moment
on the terms of this text. “ The God of our fa-
thers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know
His will.” It is not simply a matter of presump-
tion, it is a matter of election. Have you ever
thought of this strange, deep calling of God?
We are called to salvation, we have thought of
that; we are called to holiness, we have thought
of that; but as great as either is this, we are
called to know God’s will. We are answering
our call in other ways; are we answering it in
this: Whatis God’s will? Ave we knowing God’s
will? How much have we learned of that to which
we have been called? And is it our prayer con-
tinually, as it was his to whom these words were
said, that we may be “filled with the knowledge
of His will”?

It is a reasonable object of search, then, to find
out what God’s will for us may be. And it isa
reasonable expectation that we may find it out so
fully as to know at any moment whether we be
WHAT IS GOD’S WILL? 267

in the line of it or no; and when difficulty arises
about the next step of our life, we may have
absolute certainty which way God’s will inclines.
There are many kinds of assurance in religion;
and it is as important to have assurance of God’s
will as to have assurance of God’s salvation. For
just as the loss of assurance of salvation means
absence of peace and faith, and usefulness, so
absence of assurance of God’s will means miser-
able Christian life, imperfect Christian character,
and impaired Christian usefulness.

We start our investigation, therefore, in the be-
lief that God must have light for all of us on the
subject of His will, and with the desire to have
assurance in the guidance of our life by God as
clear and strong as of its redemption and salva-
tion by Christ.

In one sense, of course, no man can know the
will of God, even as in one sense no man can
know God Himself. God’s will is a great and in-
finite mystery —a thing of mighty mass and
volume, which can no more be measured out to
hungry souls in human sentences than the eternal
knowledge of God or the boundless love of Christ.
But even as there is a sense in which one poor
human soul can hold enough of the eternal
knowledge of God and the boundless love of
Christ, so is there a sense in which God can put
as much of His will into human words as human
hearts can bear—as much as human wills can
will or human lives perform,
268 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

When we come to put this will into human
words we find that it divides itself into two great
parts.

I. There is a part of God’s will which every
one may know —a universal part.

II. A part of God’s will which no one knows
but you — a particular part.

(1) A universal part —for every one. (2) A
particular part — for the individual.

I. To begin with the first. There is a part of
God’s will which every one may know. It is
written in Divine characters in two sacred books,
which every man may read. The one of them
is the Bible, the other is Nature. The Bible is
God’s will in words, in formal thoughts, in grace.
Nature is God’s will in matter and tissue and force.
Nature is not often considered a part of God’s
will, But it is a part, and a great part, and the
first part. And perhaps one reason why some
never know the second is because they yield no
full obedience to the first. God's law of progress
is from the lower to the higher; and scant obedi-
ence at the beginning of His will means disobedi-
ence with the rest. The laws of nature are the
will of God for our bodies. As there is a will of
God for our higher nature—the moral laws —
as emphatically is there a will of God for the
lower —the natural laws. If you would know
God’s will in the higher, therefore, you must be-
gin with God’s will in the lower: which simply
means this—that if you want to live the ideal
WHAT IS GOD’S WILL? 269

life, you must begin with the ideal body. The
law of moderation, the law of sleep, the law of
regularity, the law of exercise, the law of cleanli-
ness—this is the law or will of God for you.
This is the first law, the beginning of will for you.
And if we are ambitious to get on to do God’s
will in the higher reaches, let us respect it as
much in the lower; for there may be as much of
God’s will in minor things, as much of God’s will
in taking good bread and -pure water, as in keep-
ing a good conscience or living a pure life.
Who ever heard of gluttony doing God’s will, or
laziness, or uncleanness, or the man who was
careless and wanton of natural life? Let a man
disobey God in these, and you have no certainty
that he has any true principle for obeying God
in anything else: for God’s will does not only run
in to the church and the prayer-meeting and the
higher chambers of the soul, but into the com-
mon rooms at home down to wardrobe and larder
and cellar, and into the bodily frame down to
blood and muscle and brain.

This, then, is the first contribution to the con-
tents of the will of God. And, for distinction,
they may be called the physzcal contents.

Next in order we come to the moral contents,
both of these coming under the same head as
parts of God’s will which every one may
know.

These moral contents, as we have seen, are con-
tained in the word of God; and the Bible hasa
270 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

variety of names for them, such as testimonies,
laws, precepts, statutes, commandments.

Now this is a much more formidable array
than the physical contents. It is one thing to
be in physical condition —a prize-fighter may
be that, though not in a religious way — but it
is quite another to be in moral condition. And
it is a difficult matter to explain exactly what
God’s will in this great sense is; for, on the one
hand, there is the danger of elevating it so high
as to frighten the timid soul from ever attempt-
ing to reach it, and on the other the insensible
tendency to lower it to human standards and
aims.

It must be understood, however, to the full
that, as far as its formidableness is concerned,
that is absolutely unchangeable. God’s moral
law cannot be toned down into anything less
binding, less absolutely moral, less infinitely
significant. Whatever it means, is meant for
every man in its rigid truth as the definite and
formal expression of God’s will for him.

From the moral side there are three differ-
ent departments of God’s will. Foremost, and
apparently most rigid of all, are the Ten Com-
mandments. Now the Ten Commandments
contain, in a few sentences, one of the largest-
known portions of God’s will. They form the
most strict code of morality in the world: the
basis of all others, the most venerable and uni-
versal expression of the will of God for man.
WHAT IS GOD’S WILL? 271

Following upon this (2) there come the Beati-
tudes of Christ. This is another large portion
of God’s will. This forms the most unique code
of morality in the world, the most complete
and lovely additional expression of the will of
God for Christians. Passing through the human
heart of Christ, the older commandment of the
Creator becomes the soft and mellow beatitude
of the Saviour — passes from the colder domain
of law with a penalty on failure, to the warm
region of love with a benediction on success.
These are the two chief elements in the moral
part of the will of God for man. But there isa
third set of laws and rules, which are not to be
found exactly expressed in either of these. The
Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes take up
most of the room in God’s will, but there are
shades of precept still unexpressed which also
have their place. Hence we must add to all
this mass of law and beatitude many more laws
and many more beatitudes which lie enclosed
in other texts, and other words of Christ, which
have their place like the rest as portions of God’s
will.

Here, then, we already know a great part of
what God’s will is; although, perhaps, we have
not often called it by this name. And it may
be worth while, before going on to find out any
more, to pause for a moment and find out how
to practise this.

For, perhaps, when we see how great a thing
272 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

it is, this will of God, our impulse for the
moment is to wish we had not known. We
were building ourselves up with the idea that
we were going to try this life, and that it was
easy and smooth compared with the life we left.
There was a better future opening to us, with
visions of happiness and holiness and even of
usefulness to God. But our hopes are dashed
now. Howcaz we do God’s will? —this compli-
cated mass of rules and statutes, each bristling
with the certainty of a thousand breakages.
How can we keep these ten grave laws, with
their unflinching scorn of compromise and exact-
ing obligation, to the uttermost jot and tittle?
How can our coarse spirits breathe the exquisite
air of these beatitudes, or fit our wayward wills
to the narrow mould of all these binding texts?
Can God know how weak we are, and blind
and biassed towards the breakages, ere ever we
thought of Him? Can He think how impos-
sible it is to keep these laws, even for one close-
watched, experimental hour? Did Christ really
mean it—not some lesser thing than this —
when He taught in the ideal prayer that God’s
will was to be done on earth even as it is done
in heaven?

There can be but one answer. “God hath
chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will.”
And God expects from each of us neither less
nor more than this. He knows the frailty of
our frame; He remembers we are dust. And
WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 273

yet such dust that He has given each of us the
divinest call to the vastest thing in heaven.
There, by the side of our frailty, He lays down
His holy will — lays it down confidingly, as if a
child could take it in its grasp, and, as if He
mean the child to fondle it and bear it in its
breast, He says, “If a man love Me, he will
keep My words.”

There must be something, therefore, to ease
the apparent hopelessness of doing this will of
God — something to give us heart to go on with
it, to give strength to obey God’s call. We
were not prepared to find it running in to the
roots of things like this; but there must be
something brighter somewhere than the dark
side we have seen. Well, then, let us think for
a moment on these points.

1. In the first place, there must be such laws.
God is a King — His kingdom the kingdom of
heaven. His people are His subjects. Sub-
jects must have laws. Therefore we start with
a necessity. Laws must be. But

2. Who are afraid of law? Good subjects?
Never. Criminals are afraid of laws. Who
dread the laws of this country, who cry out
against them, would abolish them if they could?
Drunkards, thieves, murderers. Who love the
laws of this country? The honest, the wise and
good. Then who are afraid of God’s laws—
would abolish them if they could? The wicked,

the profligate, the licentious. But yow would
18
274 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

not. The just and holy, the pure in heart and
life love them, respect them. More still, they
demand them. It would be no kingdom with-
out them —no kingdom worth belonging to. If
it were not for its laws of truth and purity, and
its promise of protection from unrighteousness
and sin, it would have no charm forthem. It is
the inaccessible might and purity of will in the
kingdom of God that draws all other wills as
subjects to its sway. It is not only not hard,
therefore, that there should be such elements in
God’s will as law; it isa privilege. And it is
more than a privilege to have them. For

3. It is a privilege todo them. And it isa
peculiar privilege this. It consists partly in
forgetting that they are laws—jin changing
their names, commandment, precept, testimony,
statute, into this—the will of God. No stern-
ness then can enter with the thought, for God’s
name is in the name and the help of God, and
the power of God, and the constraining love of
Christ. This takes away the hopelessness of
trying to keep God’s will. It makes it a per-
sonal thing, a relation to a living will, not to
didactic law.

And there is, further, a wonderful provision
near it. When God puts down His great will
beside me, telling me to do it, He puts down
just beside it as great a thing, His Love. And
as my soul trembles at the fearfulness of will,
Love comes with its calm omnipotence, and
WHAT IS GOD’S WILL? 275

draws it to itself; then takes my timid will and
twines it around His, till mine is fierce with pas-
sion to serve, and strong to do His will. Just
as if some mighty task was laid to an infant's
hand, and the engine-grasp of a giant strength-
ened it with his own. Where God’s law is, is
God’s love. Look at Law — it withers your very
soul with its stern, inexorable face. But look at
Love, or look at God’s will, which means look
at Love’s will, and you are re-assured, and your
heart grows strong. No martyr dies for abstract
truth. For a person, for God, he will die a
triple death. Sono man will die for God’s law.
But for God he will do it. Where God’s will,
then, seems strong to command, God’s love is
strong to obey. Hence the profound text, “ Love
is the fulfilling of the law. And this is the love
of God that we keep His commandments, and
His commandments are not grievous.”

God’s will, then, is as great as God, as high as
heaven, yet as easy as love. For love knows no
hardness, and feels no yoke. It desires no yield-
ing to its poverty in anything it loves. Let God
be greater, and His will sterner, love will be
stronger and obedience but mofe true. Let not
God come down to me, slacken truth for me,
make His will weaker for me: my interests, as
subject, are safer with my King, are greater with
the greatness of my King— only give me love,
pure, burning love and loyalty to Him, and I
shall climb from law to law through grace and
276 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

glory to the place beside the throne where the
angels do His will.

There are two ways, therefore, of looking at
God’s will— one looking at the love side of it,
the other at the law; the one ending in triumph,
the other in despair; the one a liberty, the other
a slavery. And you might illustrate this in a
simple way, to make it finally clear — for this is
the hardest point to hold-——in some such way as
this : —

Suppose you go into a workshop occasionally,
and watch the workmen at their task. The ma-
jority do their work in an uninterested, mechan-
ical sort of way. Everything is done with the
most proper exactness and precision — almost
with slavish precision, a narrower watch would
say. They come eractly at the hour in the morn-
ing, and throw down their work to a second ex-
actly when the closing bell has rung. There isa
certain punctiliousness about them, and a scrupu-
losity about their work, and as part cause of it,
perhaps, you observe an uncomfortable turning
of the head occasionally as if some eye was upon
them, then a dogged going on of their work again,
as if it were always done under some restraint.

But among the workmen you will notice one
who seems to work on different principles.
There is a buoyancy and cheerfulness about him
as he goes about his work, which is foreign to all
the rest. You will see him at his place some-
times even defore the bell has rung, and if unfin-
WHAT IS GOD’S WILL? 277

ished work be in his hands when closing time
has come, he does not mind an extra five minutes
when all the others are gone. What strikes you
about him is the absence of that punctiliousness
which marked the other's work. It does not
seem at all a tyranny to him, but even a freedom
and a pleasure; and though he is apparently not
so mechanical in his movements as his mates,
his work seems better done and greater, despite
the ease and light-heartedness which mark him
through its course. Now the difference between
them is this. The first set of men are hired work-
men. The man by himself is che master’s son.
Not that he is outwardly different; he is acommon
workman in a fustian jacket like the rest. But he
is the master's son. The first set work for wages,
come in at regulation hours, lest aught be kept
off their wages, keep the workshop laws, in terror
of losing their place. But the son keeps them,
and keeps them better, not for wages, but for ove.

So the Christian keeps the will or the laws of
God because of the love of God. Not because
they are workshop regulations framed and hung
up before him at every moment of his life, but
because they are his Master’s will. They are as
natural to him as air. He would never thirk of
not keeping them. His meat is to do the will of
his Father which is in heaven. There is no room
for punctiliousness in this the true way of doing
God's will. A scrupulous Christian is a hired
servant and not the Master’s son.
278 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

II. But now, very briefly, in the second and
last place, there is an unknown part of God’s
will_— at least, a part which is only known to you.
There is God’s will for the world, and God’s will
for the individual. There is God’s will written on
tables of stones for all the world to read. There
is God’s will carved in sacred hieroglyphic which
no one reads but you. There is God’s will rolling
in thunder over the life of universal man. There
is God’s will dropped softly on the believer’s ear
in angel whispers or the still small voice of God.
This, the final element in God's will, to distinguish
it from the moral and physical contents which go
before, one might call the more strictly spzrztual
content.

This is a distinct addition to the other parts —
an addition, too, which many men ignore, and
other men deny. But there zs such a region in
God’s will — a region unmapped in human charts,
unknown to human books, a region for the pure
in heart, for the upright, for the true. It is a
land of mystery to those who know it not, a land
of foolishness, and weaknesses, and delusive sights
and sounds, But there zs a land where the Spirit
moves, a luminous land, a walking in God’s light.
There zs where God’s own people have their
breathing from above, where each saint’s steps
are ordered of the Lord.

Now this region may be distinguished from the
other regions. For one thing, by its secrecy. It
is a private thing; between God and you. You
WHAT IS GOD’S WILL? 279

want to know what to do next — your calling in
life, for instance. You want to know what action
to take in a certain matter. You want to know
what to do with your money. You want to know
whether to go into acertain scheme or not. Then
you enter into this private chamber of God’s will,
and ask the private question, “‘ Lord, what wouldest
thou have me to do?”

Then it is distinguished by its action. It con-
cerns a different department of our life. The first
part of God’s will, all that has gone before, affects
our character. But this affects something more.
It affects our career. And this is an important
distinction. A man’s career in life is almost as
important as his character in life; that is to say,
it is almost as important to God, which is the real
question. If character is the end of life, then the
ideal career is just where character can best be
established and developed, which means that a
man is to live for his character. Butif God’s will
is the end of life, God may have a will for my
career as well as for my character, which does not
mean that a man is to live for his career, but for
God’s will zz his character through his career.

I may want to put all my work upon my charac-
ter. But God may want my work for something
else. He may want to use me, for instance; I
may not know why, or when, or how, or to whom.
But it is possible He may need me, for some-
thing or other at some time or other. It may
be all through my life, or at some particular part
280 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

of my life which may be past now, or may be
still to come. At all events, I must hold myself
in readiness and let Him trace my path; for
though it does not look now as if He had any-
thing for me to do, the next turn of the road may
bring it; so I must watch the turnings of the
road for God. Even for the chance of God need-
ing me it is worth while doing this —the chance
of Him needing me even onxce. There is a man
in Scripture whom God perhaps used but oxce.
He may have done many other things for God;
still, there was one thing God gave him to do so
far overshadowing all other things that he seems
to have done but this. He seems, indeed, to
have been born, to have lived and died for this.
It is the only one thing we know about him.
But it is a great thing. His name was Ananias.,
He was the instrument in the conversion of Paul.
What was he doing in Damascus that day, when
Paul arrived under conviction of sin? Why was
he living in Damascus at all? Because he was
born there, and his father before him, perhaps
you will say. Let it be so. <A few will be glad
to cherish a higher thought. He was a good
man, and his steps were ordered — by ordinary
means, if you like— by the Lord. Could Ana-
nias not have been as good a man in Jericho,
or Antioch, or Ephesus? Quite as good. His
character might almost have been the same. But
his career would have been different. And, Zos-
sibly, his character might have been different
WHAT IS GOD’S WILL? 281

from the touch of God upon his career. For
when God comes into a man’s career, it some-
times makes a mighty difference on his charac-
ter —teaches him to live less for character and
for himself, and more for his career and for God,
rather more for both—more for his character
by living more for his career. Gold is gold wher-
ever it is; but it is some difference to the world
whether it make a communion cup or gild the
proscenium of a theatre.

There is a difference, then, between God in char-
acter and God in career. You may have God in
your character without having God in your career,
Perhaps you should have been in London to-day,
perhapsin China. Perhaps you should: have been
a missionary; perhaps you should be one yet.
Perhaps you should have been in poorer circum-
stances, or in a different business altogether. Per-
hans you have chosen a broader path than God
would have willed for you. Your character may
not seem to have suffered; but your career has,
You may be doing God’s will with one hand con-
secrated to Christ, and making your own auto-
biography with the other consecrated to self.

Would you know the will of God, then? Con-
sult God about your career. It does not follow
because He has done nothing with you last week
or last year, He may have nothing for you now.
God’s will in career is mostly an unexpected thing
— it comes as a surprise. God’s servants work
on short notices. Paul used to have to go off to
282 WHAT IS GOD’S WILL?

what was the end of the world in those days, ona
few hours’ warning. And so may you and I. It
is not a thing to startle us, to make us alarmed at,
to make us say, “If this might be the upshot we
would let God’s will alone.” It would be a wonder-
ful privilege to come to you or me; yes, a won-
derful privilege that He should count us worthy
to suffer this or anything more for Him.

But you are old, you say. Ananias was old.
Or steeped in a profession. Paul was steeped in
a profession. Or you are inexperienced and
young. A /ad came to Jesus once with five
loaves and two small fishes; but they fed five
thousand men. So bring your lad’s experience,
your young offer of service, and God may use
you to twice five thousand souls. That does not
mean that you are to do it. But be in God’s
counsels, and He will teach you whether or no.

How are you to know this secret will of God?
It is a great question. We cannot touch it now.
Let this suffice. It can be known. It can be
known to you. The steps of a good man are
ordered by the Lord. “I will guide thee with
Mine eye.’ Unto the upright in heart He shall
cause light to arise in darkness. This is not
mysticism, no visionary’s dream. It is not to
drown the reason with enthusiasm’s airy hope or
supersede the word of God with fanaticism’s blind
caprice. No, it is not there. It is what Christ
said, “The sheep hear his voice, and he calleth
his own sheep by name, and leadeth them,”
NUMBER XIV

The Relation of the Will
of God to Sanctification

“This ts the will of God, even your sanctification.”
I THESS. iv. 3.
“As He which hath called you ts holy, so be ye holy in
all manner of conversation, because tt ts written,‘ Be
ye holy, for I am holy.” —1 PET. i. 15, 16.
“Zo, [ come to do Thy will, O God... . By the which
will we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Fesus Christ once for all.” — HER. x. 9, 10.

UR discussion of the will of God landed us

two Sabbaths ago — perhaps in rather an
unforeseen way — in the great subject of sancti-
fication. You may remember that we then made
this discovery, that the end of sanctification, in
the sense of consecration, is to do the will of God,
and that the proof was based on these words:
“Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, and be not conformed to
this world.” Why? ‘That ye may prove what
is that good and acceptable and perfect will of
God.” We are to present ourselves te God, not
because it is a pleasant and luxurious thing to
live in the state of consecration, but te da the
284 THE WILL OF GOD

will of God. Or, to sum this up in a single
sentence, it might read: “ This is sanctification,
even to prove the will of God.”

But our text to-day is apparently the very
opposite of this. ‘This is the will of God, even
your sanctification.” Last day it looked as if
sanctification was zz order to the will of God;
now it looks as if the will of God was in order
to sanctification.

It is evident, therefore, that there is still some-
thing in this part of the subject which demands
aclearance. And in order to gain this it will be
necessary to present the other side of the same
question, and complete the view of the subject of
holiness itself.

There are in the Bible two great meanings to the
word “ sanctification.” The first may be roughly
called the Old Testament word. The second is
identified, but not exclusively, with the New.
The Old Testament meaning had this peculiarity,
that it did not necessarily imply any inward
change in the heart sanctified. In fact, it was
not even necessarily applied to Aearts at all, but
to things. A fieid could be sanctified, a house
could be sanctified, an altar, a tabernacle, gold
and silver vessels, the garments of the priest, the
cities of refuge. Anything, in short, that was set
apart for sacred use was said to be sanctified.
But the New Testament word had a deeper mean-
ing. It meant not only outward consecration,
but inward holiness. It meant an internal puri-
THE WILL OF GOD 285

fication of the heart from all uncleanness, and an
enduing it with the holy mind of Christ. It was
not a mere separation like the first, but a viszéa-
tion — a separation from the lower world, and a
visitation from the higher, the coming in of God’s
Spirit from above with a principle of holiness
that was to workan inward likeness to the char-
acter of God.

The practical object of the first process is
mainly to put the thing in position where God
can use it. A golden candlestick was sanctified,
so that it might be of some use to God. A house
was sanctified, so that it might be exclusively His
—to do what He liked with. In like manner a
man is consecrated — that God may use him. It
is the process by which he is got into position
for God. And all that sanctification does for him,
in the first sense of the word, is so to put him in
position that he shall always be within reach of
God —that he shall do what God likes, do, that
is to say, what God wills.

But there is something more in sanctification
than man’s merely being a tool in the hands
of God. If there were not, automatons could
do the work far better than men. They would
never oppose God’s will, and they would always
be in position. But God’s will has a reaction
upon the instruments whom He employs. God’s
will does not stop with His will, as it were.
It recoils back upon the person using it, and
benefits him. If the instrument is a sanctified
286 THE WILL OF GOD

cup, or asanctified house, it does not recoil back,
and make an internal change in them; but if
it is a person who does God’s will, God’s will is
not only done, but the person or doer is affected.
God never keeps anything all to Himself. He
who so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, does He nct with Him also freely
give ws all things? His Son is for us, His love
is for us, His wz/7 is for us. How do we know
that it is for us? Because this is the will of God,
even your sanctification. Whatever else may be
involved in it, this is in it; whatever else He
may get from it, this is something which you
get, your sanctification. ‘“ By the which will,”
as Hebrews says, “we are sanctified.” ‘This
is My will, not My gain, but yours; not My
eternal advantage, but yours; not My holiness,
but ‘your sanctification.” Do you think God
wants your body when He asks you to present
itto Him? Do you think it is for Azs sake that
He asks it, that He might be enriched by it?
God could make a thousand better with a breath.
It is for your sake He asks it. He wants your
gift to give you His gift — your gift which was
just 22 the way of His gift. He wants your will
out of the way, to make room for His will. You
give everything to God. God gives it all back
again, and more. You present your body a liv-
ing sacrifice that you may prove God’s will.
You shall prove it by getting back your body
—a glorified body. You lose the world that
THE WILL OF GOD 287

you may prove God’s will. God’s will is that
you shall gain heaven. This is the will of God,
therefore, that you should gain heaven. Or this
is the will of God that you should gain holiness,
for holiness is heaven. Or this is the will of
God, even your sanctification.

To sum up these facts, then, we find that they
shape themselves into these two propositions:

1. That our sanctification, or, more strictly,
our. consecration, is in order to the will of God,
“to prove what is that good and great and
acceptable will of God.”

2. That this reacts upon ourselves, a conspicu-
ous part of God’s will being that we should be
personally holy. “This is the will of God, even
your sanctification.”

The first of these has already been discussed,
and now the question comes to be how we can best
fulfil this conspicuous part of the will of God and
become holy ourselves. It is God’s will for all of
us that we should become holy. How are we to
become holy ?

We have probably asked this question many
times already in our life. We have thought, and
read, and prayed about it, and perhaps have
never yet reached the conclusion “ow indeed we
are to become holy. Perhaps the question has
long ago assumed another and evasive form with
us. ‘“ When are we going to become holy ?” or
perhaps a hopeless form, “ How ever are we to
become holy ?”
288 THE WILL OF GOD

Now the real way out of the difficulty is to ask
a deeper question still: “ Why do T want to be
holy ?” Allthe great difficulties of religion are
centred round our motives. Impurities in a
spiritual stream generally mean impurities at the
spiritual source. And all fertility or barrenness
of soul depend upon which source supplies the
streams of the desires. Our difficulties about
becoming holy, therefore, most likely lie in our
reasons for wanting to become holy. For if you
grant the true motive to holiness, you need no
definition of holiness. True holiness lies touch-
ing the true motive. We shall get nearer the
true roots of holiness, therefore, if we spend a
little time over the root-question: “Why do I
want to be holy ?”

1. The first thing which started some of us to
search for a better life, perhaps, was Jizfection.
We caught an izfection for a better life from
some one we knew. We were idling our own
way through life, when some one crossed our
path — some one with high aims and great en-
thusiasms. We were taken with the principles
on which that life was lived. Its noble purpose
charmed us: its disregard of the petty troubles
and cares of life astonished us. We felt unac-
countably interested in it. There was a romance
in its earnestness and self-denial that captivated
us, and we thought we should like to take down
our own life, and put it together again on this new
plan. So we got our first motive to holiness,
THE WILL OF GOD 289

Now this was not a wrong motive —it was
only an imperfect one. It answered its purpose
—so far. For God takes strange ways to start
a man’s religion. There is nothing more remark-
able in the history of conversion, for instance,
than the infinite diversity of answers to this
question: ‘What made you first think about
your soul?” God does take strange ways to
start a man for heaven. The way home is some-
times shown him by an unexpected finger-post;
and from a motive so unworthy that he dare
not tell it in after-life, there comes to many
a man his first impulses toward God. And long

after he has begun to run the Christian race,

God may try to hasten his lagging steps by the
spur of a motive as far beneath an heir of heaven
as his spiritual life is beneath what it ought
to be.

But the principle to be noted through it all
is this,— that the motives which God allows us
to start on are not the ones we are to live on.
It may be adversity in business that gives us a
fresh start. It may be affliction, or ambition,
or church-pride, or a thousand things. But the
impulse cannot last, and it cannot carry us far.
And there must come a time of exchange for
a higher one if we would grow in grace, or move
onward into a holier life. A man’s motive must
grow, if grace would grow. And many a man
has to live on old grace, because he lives on an
old motive. God let us begin with a lower one,

19
290 THE WILL OF GOD

and then when He gave us more grace, it was
that we might get a higher one; but we spent
the grace on something else, and our motive is
no higher than before. So, although we got a
start in religion, we were little the better of it,
and our whole life has stood still for want of a
strong enough motive to go on.

2. But it was not necessary that we should
have caught our infection from a frzend. There
is another great source of infection, and some
of us are breathing its atmosphere every day —
books, We may have got our motives to be good
from a book.

We found in works on ethics, and in all great
poets, and even perhaps in some novels, that the
highest aim of life was to be true and pure and
good. We found modern literature ringing with
the praises of virtue. By-and-by we began to
respect it, then to admire it, then to wish for it.
Thus we caught the enthusiasm for purity which
has changed our whole lives, zz a way, and given
us a chief motive to religion.

Well, we must thank God for having given us
a start, azyhow. It is something to have begun.
It is a great thing to have an enthusiasm to be
true and pure and good. Nor will the Bible ever
be jealous of afy lesser book which God may
use to stir men up to a better life. But all lesser
books sin and come short. And the greatest
motives of the greatest of the lesser books fall as
far short of the glory of God as those who live
THE WILL OF GOD 201

only on the enthusiasms which are kindled on
the altar of modern literature fall short of the life
and mind of Christ. God may give these mo-
tives to a man to start with. If he will not look
into God’s book for them, God may see fit to put
something remotely like them into men’s books.
Jesus Christ used to come to men just where
they were. There is no place on earth so dark
that the light of heaven will not come to it; and
there is no spot of earth where God may not
choose to raise a monument of His love. There
is always room anywhere in the world for a holy
thought. It may come to a man on the road-
side, as to Paul; or in the fork of a sycamore
tree, as to Zaccheus. It may come to him at
his boats, as to Peter; or at his Bible, as to the
Eunuch, But, whether it come at the boats, or
whether it come at the Bible, whatever is good is
God’s; and men may be thankful that the Giver
of all good has peopled the whole earth and air
and sky with thoughts of His glory, and filled
the world with voices which call men near to
Him. At the same time, it must be understood
again that the initial motives are never meant to
continue us far on the road to God. As a matter
of fact, they never can continue us; and if a man
does not get higher ones, his religion must, and
his morality may, come to a bitter end. The
melancholy proof occurs to every one in a mo-
ment, that those who inspire us with these almost
Divine enthusiasms are, and have been, many
292 THE WILL OF GOD

of them, degraded men and women themselves. ,
For if a man’s motives to goodness are not higher
than the enthusiasms of his own higher nature,
the chances are that the appeals of his lower
nature, in time, will either curb or degrade
them.

The true motive to holiness, then, is zot to be
caught from books,

3. In the next place, some of us, perhaps, were
induced to aim at a better life from prudential
motives, or from fear.

We had read in the Bible a very startling sen-
tence — “ Without holiness no man shall see the
Lord.” Now we wished to see God. And we
found the Bible full of commands to keep God’s
law. So, with fear and trembling, we began to
try to keep it. Its strictness was a continual
stimulus to us. We were kept watching and
praying. We lived in an atmosphere of fear, lest
we should break it. No doubt this has done
good — great good. Like the others, it was not
a bad motive — only an imperfect one. But, like
the others, it will have to be exchanged for a
higher one, if true progress in holy living is to
be made.

4. Then some of us found another motive in
gratitude. The great love of God in Christ had
come home to us with a peculiar power. We felt
the greatness of His sacrifice for us, of His for-
giveness of us. And we would try to return His
love. So we set our hearts with a gracious pur-
THE WILL OF GOD 293

pose towards God. Our life and conversation
would be becoming the Gospel of Christ. We
would do for His sake what we would never do for
our own sake, But even a noble impulse like this
has failed to fulfil our heart’s desire, and even
our generosity has left us little nearer God.

5. And, lastly, there is this other thought which
has sometimes helped us onward for a time —a
feeling which comes over us at Communion times,
at revival times, which Christian workers feel at all
times: “ Here are we surrounded by great privi-
leges — singled out from the world for God’s
peculiar charge. God comes very close to us;
the very ground is holy oftentimes. What man-
ner of persons ought we to be in all holy conver-
sation and godliness? How different we ought
to be from all the people around! How much
more separate from every appearance of evil!
How softly we should walk, who bear the vessels
of the Lord!

Now some of these motives are very beautiful.
They are the gifts of God. Doubtless many have
attained to a certain measure of holiness by em-
ploying them. And they have at least awakened
in us some longings after God. But they are all
deficient, and hopelessly inadequate to carry on
what sometimes they so hopefully begin.

And they are deficient in these three ways: —

1. They are unscriptural — rather, they do not
convey the full scriptural truth.
204. THE WILL OF GOD

2. They are inadequate to produce more than
a small degree of holiness.

3. They never produce the true quality of
holiness.

If we have not yet had higher motives than
these, then, it follows that our spiritual life is
being laid down upon principles which can never
in the nature of things yield the results we had
hoped and waited for.

We have been wondering why our growth in
grace has been so small —so small, indeed, that
sometimes it has almost seemed to cease. And
without looking at books or doctrines, as we look
into our hearts, we find one reason, at least,
— perhaps the great one—that our motive is
incomplete.

Now, the weakness of the old motive, apart
from the error of it, consisted in this: in the first
place it wanted authority; in the second, it pro-
posed no standard. As regards the first, there
was no reason why one should strive to be better.
It was left to one’s own discretion. Our friend
said it, or our favourite author, and the obliga-
tion rose and fell with the nearness or remote-
ness of their influence. And as regards the
standard, our friend or our favourite author’s
favourite hero was but a poor model at the best,
for only a most imperfect spiritual beauty can
ever be copied from anything made of clay.

Well, then, what is the right motive to holiness
of life? We have been dealing with ordinary
THE WILL OF GOD 295

motives hitherto; now we must come to extra-
ordinary ones. Holiness is one of the most
extraordinary things in life, and it demands the
noblest motives, the noblest impulses, or none.
Now we shall see how God has satisfied this
demand of our nature for an extraordinary mo-
tive to this extraordinary thing, holiness — satis-
fied it so completely, that the soul, when it finds
it out, need never feel unsatisfied again. God’s
motive to holiness is, “Be ye holy, for [ am holy.”
It is a startling thing when the voice of God
comes close to us and whispers, “ Be ye holy;”
but when the question returns from our lips,
“Why should we be holy ?” it is a more solemn
thing to get this answer, “‘ For I am holy.” This
is God’s motive to holiness — “ ForI am holy.” Be
ye holy: here is its authority — its Divine obliga-
tion. For lam holy: here is its Divine motive.
Be ye holy. Think of the greatness of the ob-
ligation. Long ago, when we began the Chris-
tian life, we heard a voice, “Be ye holy.” Per-
haps, as we have seen, it was an infectious voice,
the voice of a friend. Perhaps it was an inspiring
voice, the voice of poetry and literature. Perhaps
it was a warning voice, the voice of the law. But
it was not a commanding voice — the voice of
God. And the reason was, perhaps, that we
were not thinking of the voice: we were thinking
of the foly. We had caught sight of a new and
beautiful object — something which seemed full
of promise, which was to consecrate even the
296 THE WILL OF GOD

common hours of our life. The religious world
seemed bright to us then, and the books and the
men were dear that would help us to reach out
our hands to this. It was something new that
had come into our life — this fascination of holi-
ness. Had we been asked about the voice which
said, “ Be ye holy,” we should indeed have said it
was God’s. But, in truth, it was only our own
voice, which had caught some far-off echoes from
our reading, or our thinking, or our friends.
There was no authority in the voice, therefore,
and it rested with our own poor wills whether we
should grow in holiness or not. Sometimes our
will was strong and true, and we were better men
and women then than ever in our lives before;
but there were intervals when we lost all we had
gained, when we listened to another voice, “Be
ye prosperous,” or “Be ye happy,” and then we
lost all we had gained.

But with the Divine obligation before us, it is
no longer optional that we should be holy. We
must be holy. . . . And then see how the motive
to holiness is attached to the obligation to holiness
— the motive for holiness: “ Forl am holy.” The
motive accounts for the obligation. God’s one de-
sire for the whole earth is that it should be holy —
just because He is holy. And the best He can
do with men is to make them like Himself. The
whole earth is His, and he would have it all in
harmony with Him. God has a right to demand
that we should be holy — that every one should
THE WILL OF GOD 297

be holy, and everything just, because He is holy
Himself. Tr take even the lowest ground, we
allow no ornaments in our house that are not
lovely and pleasant to the eye. We have no
business to cumber God’s earth with ourselves if
we are not holy — no business to live in the same
world with Him. We are an offence to God —
discordant notes in the music of the universe.

But God lays this high obligation upon us for
our own sake. For this we were made. For
this we were born in a Christian land. For this
Strange things have happened in our lives—
strange pieces of discipline have disturbed its
quiet flow, strange troubles, strange providences,
strange chastenings. There is no other explana-
tion of the mystery of our life than this, — that
God would have us holy. At any cost God will
have us holy. Whatever else we may be, this one
thing we must be. This is the will of God, even
your sanctification. It is not necessary that we
should be prosperous or famous, or happy. But
it is necessary that we should ‘be holy; and the
deepest moments of our life give us glimpses
sometimes of a more tender reason still why God
says, “Be ye holy” — for our own sakes » because
it would be hell to be unholy.

There is now only one thing wanting in our
new motive to holiness. We have discovered the
sources of its obligation far up in the counsels of
God, and deep down in the weakness of our own
nature. We have found holiness to be an abso-
298 THE WILL OF GOD

lutely necessary virtue —to live without which is
to contradict our Maker. But we have not yet
looked at its guality. The thing we are to pursue
so ardently — what is it? How are we to shape
it to ourselves when we think of it? Is there any
plain definition of it— any form which could be
easily stated and easily followed? It may be very
easily stated. It is for those who have tried it to
say whether it be easily followed. Be ye holy,
as He is holy. As He is holy, as He who
hath called you is holy, so be ye holy. This is
the form of holiness we are askedtoaim at. This
is the standard. God’s commentary on the mo-
tive “As He... so ye.” Think for a moment
the difference between these pronouns. AHe— Ye,
He who hath called you — Jesus Christ. Ae who
did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.
ffe who when He was reviled, reviled not again,
when He suffered, He threatened not. MWe who
was without spot or blemish, in whom even His
enemies found no fault.

Ye, the fallen children of a fallen race. Ye, with
hearts deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked. Ye are to become as He. The two pro-
nouns are to approach one another. The cruci-
fiers are to work their way up to the crucified,
Ye are to become as He. There is a motive as
high as the holiness of God. It makes us feel as
if we had our life-work before us still. It seems
all to begin as yet. We have scarcely begun even
to be like God — for we began perhaps with no
THE WILL OF GOD 299

higher motive than to be like some one else — not
like God at all. But the little betterness that we
get from books; the chance impulses that come
from their other lives have never fulfilled in us
the will of God — have never sanctified their
hearts as ours — could never sanctify such hearts
— make ye become as He.

No doubt a great deal of human good is pos-
sible to man before he touch the character of
Christ. High human motives and human aims
may make a noble human life. But they never
make a oly life. A holy life is a life like Christ’s.
And, whatever may be got from the lower motives
to a better life, one thing must necessarily be ab-
sent from them all—the life like Christ’s, or
rather, the spirit like Christ’s. For the life like
Christ’s can only come from Christ; and the spirit
of Christ can only be caught from Christ.

Hence, therefore (in closing), we come at last
to the profound meaning of another text which
stands alone in the Word of God and forms the
only true climax to such a subject as this.

“Lo I come to do Thy will, O God,” the author
of the Hebrews quotes from David, and goes on
to add, “ By the which will we are sanctified.”
Christ came to do God’s will, by the which will we
are sanctified. This is the will of God, even your
sanctification. But the writer of the Hebrews
adds another lesson: “ By the which will we are
sanctified.” How? “ Through the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Our sanctifi-
300 THE WILL OF GOD

cation is not in books, or in noble enthusiasm, or
in personal struggles after a better life. It is in
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for
all. Justification is through the d/ood of Jesus
Christ once for all. Sanctification is through the
body of Jesus Christ once for all. It is not a
thing to be generated, but to be received. It is
not to be generated in fragments of experience
at one time and another — it is already complete
in Christ. We have only to put on Christ. And
though it may take a lifetime of experience to
make it ours, the sanctification, whenever it come,
can ozly come from Christ, and if we ever have
sanctification it will only be because, and inas-
much as we have Christ. Our sanctification is
not what morality gives, not even what the Bible
gives, not even what Christ gives, — it is what
Christ Zves. It is Christ Himself.

The reason why we resort so much to lower
impulses to a Christian life is imperfect union to
Christ. We take our doctrines from the Bible
and our assurance from Christ. But for want of
the living bright reality of His presence in our
hearts we search the world all round for im-
pulses. We search religious books for impulses,
and tracts and sermons, but in vain. They are
not there. I am Alpha and Omega, the begin-
ning and the end. Christ is all and in all. The
beginning of all things is in the will of God —
“by the which will.” The end of all things is in
sanctification through faith in Jesus Christ. “By
THE WILL OF GOD 301

the which will ye are sanctified.” Between these
two poles all spiritual life and Christian experience
run. And no motive outside Christ can lead a
man Zo Christ. If your motive to holiness is not
as high as Christ it cannot make you rise to
Christ. For water cannot rise above its level.
“ Beware, therefore, lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit, after the
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the
world, and not after Christ. For zx Him dwell-
eth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And
ye are complete zz Him, which is the head of ad/
principality and power” (2 Col. viii. 10). “Who
of God is made unto us wisdom and righteous-
ness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor.
i.30). (“As ye have therefore received the Lord
Jesus, so walk ye zx Him.”)
NUMBER XV

How to Know the
Will of God

“Tfany man will do His will, he shall know of the doc
trine, whether it be of God.” —JOuN vii. 17.

HERE is an experience which becomes more

and more familiar to every one who is try-

ing to follow Christ —a feeling of the growing
loneliness of his Christian life. It comes from
a sense of the peculiarly personal interest which
Christ takes in him, which sometimes seems
so strong as almost to make him feel that his
life is being detached from all the other lives
around him, that it is being drawn out of the
crowd of humanity as if an unseen arm linked in
his were taking him aside for a nearer intimacy
and a deeper and more private fellowship. It is
not, indeed, that the great family of God are to
be left in the shade for him, or that he is in any
way the favourite of heaven; but the sanctifying
and, in the truest sense, humbling realization that
God makes Himself as real to each poor unit as if
he were the whole; so that even as in coming to
Christ at first he felt himself the only lost, so now
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 303

in staying with Christ he feels himself the only
found. And it is, perhaps, true that without any
loss in the feeling of saintly communion with
all those throughout the world who say “ Our
Father” with him in their prayers, the more he
feels that Christ has all of him to Himself the
more he feels that he has Christ all to himself.
Christ has died for other men, but in a peculiar
sense for him. God has a love for all the world,
but a peculiar love for him. God has an interest
in all the world, but a peculiar interest in him.
This is always the instinct of a near fellowship,
and it is true of the universal fellowship of God
with His own people.

But if there is one thing more than another
which is more personal to the Christian — more
singularly his than God’s love or God’s interest
—one thing which is a finer symbol of God’s
love and interest, it is the knowledge of God’s
will—the private knowledge of God’s will.
And it is more personal, just inasmuch as it is
more private. My private portion of God’s love
is only a private share in God’s love — only a
part — the same in quality and kind as all the
rest of God’s love, as all the others get from
God. But God’s will is a thing for myself.
There is a will of God for me which is willed
for no one else besides. It is not a share in the
universal will, in the same sense as I have a
share in the universal love. It is a particular
will for me, different from the will He has for
304 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

any one else —a private will—a will which no
one else knows about, which no one can know
about, but me.

To be sure, as we have seen before, God had
likewise a universal will for me and every man.
But this is more than that. In the Ten Com-
mandments, in conscience, in the beatitudes of
Christ, God tells all the world His will. There
is no secret about this part, it is as universal as
His love. It is the will on which the character
of every man is to be formed and conformed to
God's.

But there is a will for career as well as for
character. There is a will for where —in what
place, viz., in this town or another town —I am
to become like God as well as zhat I am to be-
come like God. There is a will for where I am
to be, and what I am to be, and what I am to do
to-morrow. There is a will for what scheme I
am to take up, and what work I am to do for
Christ, and what business arrangements to make,
and what money to give away. This is God’s
private will for me, for every step I take, for
the path of life along which He points my way,
— God’s wil! for my career.

If I have God’s will in my character, my life
may become great and good. It may be useful
and honourable, and even a monument of the
sanctifying power of God. But it will only be
a life. However great and pure it be, it can
be no more than a life. And it ought to be a
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 305

mission. There should be no such thing as a
Christian life, each life should be a mzsszon.

God has.a life-plan for every human life. In
the eternal counsels of His will, when He arranged
the destiny of every star, and every sand-grain
and grass-blade, and each of those tiny insects
which live but for an hour, the Creator had a
thought for you and me. Our life was to be the
slow unfolding of this thought, as the corn-stalk
from the corn, or the flower from the gradually
opening bud. It was a thought of what we were
to be, of what we might become, of what He
would have us do with our days and years, or
influence with our lives. But we all had the ter-
rible power to evade this thought, and shape our
lives from another thought, from another will, if
we chose. The bud could only become a flower,
and the star revolve in the orbit God had fixed.
But it was man’s prerogative to choose his path,
his duty to choose it in God. But the Divine
right to choose at all has always seemed more to
him than his duty to choose in God, so, for the
most part, he has taken his life from God, and cut
his career from himself.

It comes to pass, therefore, that there are two
great classes of people in the Christian world
to-day. (1) Those who have God’s will in their
character; (2) Those who have God’s will like-
wise in their career. The first are in the world
to live. They have a “fe. The second are in

the world to minister. They have a mission.
zo oe
306 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

Now those who belong to the first class, those
who are simply living in the world and growing
character, however finely they may be develop-
ing their character, cannot understand too plainly
that they are not fulfilling God’s will. They are
really outside a great part of God’s will alto-
gether. They understand the universal part, they
are moulded by it, and their lives as //ves are in
some sense noble and true. But they miss the
private part, the secret whispering of God in the
ear, the constant message from earth to heaven.
“Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” They
never have the secret joy of asking a question
like this, the wonderful sense in asking it, of be-
ing in the counsels of God, the overpowering
thought that God has taken notice of you, and
your question— that He will let you do some-
thing, something peculiar, personal, private, which
no one else has been given to do—this which
gives life for God its true sublimity, and makes a
perpetual sacrament of all its common things.
Life to them is at the best a bare and selfish
thing, for the truest springs of action are never
moved at all, and the strangest thing in human
history, the bounding of the career from step to
step, from circumstance to circumstance, from
tragedy to tragedy, is unexplained and unrelated,
and hangs, a perpetual mystery, over life.

The great reason possibly why so few have
thought of taking God into their career is that
so few have really taken God into their fe. No
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 307

one ever thinks of having God in his career, or
need think, until his life is fully moulded into
God’s. And no one will succeed in knowing even
what God in his career can mean till he know
what it is to have God in the secret chambers of
his heart. It requires a well-kept life to know the
will of God, and none but the Christlike in char-
acter can know the Christlike in career.

It has happened, therefore, that the very fact
of God’s guidance in the individual life has been
denied. It is said to give life an importance quite
foreign to the Divine intention in making man.
One life, it is argued, is of no more importance
than any other life, and to talk of special provi-
dences happening every hour of every day is to
detract from the majesty and dignity of God, that,
in fact, it reduces a religious life to a mere reli-
gious caprice, and the thought that God’s will is
being done to a hallucination of the mind.

And there is another side to the objection,
which though less pronounced and definite, subtly
dangerous still — that there does indeed seem to
be some warrant in Scripture for getting to know
the will of God; but that, in the first place, t/a?
probably means only on great occasions which
come once or twice in a lifetime; and, in the
second, that the whole subject is so obscure that,
all things considered, a man had better walk by
his own common sense, and leave such mysteries
alone.

But the Christian cannot allow the question to
308 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

be put off with poor evasions like these. Every
day, indeed, and many times a day, the question
rises in a hundred practical forms. ‘“ What is
the will of God for me?” What is the will of
God for me to-day, just now, for the next step,
for this arrangement and for that, and this amuse-
ment, and this projected work for Christ? For
all these he feels he must consult the will of God,
and that God has a will for him in all such things,
and that it must be possible somehow to know
what that will is, is not only a matter of hope,
but a point in his doctrine and creed.

But in order to vindicate the reasonableness of
such expectations as these, it may simply be
affirmed as a matter of fact that there ave a num-
ber of instruments for finding out the will of God.
One of them is a very great instrument, so far
surpassing all the rest in accuracy that there may _
be said to be but one which has never been
known to fail. The others are smaller and clum-
sier, much less delicate, indeed, and often fail.
They often fail to come within sight of the will of
God at all, and are so far astray at other times as
to mistake some other thing for it. Still they
are instruments, and notwithstanding their defects,
have a value by themselves, and when the greater
instrument employs their humbler powers to sec-
ond its attempts, immediately become as keen
and as unerring as itself.

The most important of these minor instruments
is Reason, and although it is a minor instrument,
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 309

it is great enough in many a case to reveal the
secret will of God. God is taking your life and
character through a certain process, for example.
He is running your career along acertain chain of
events. And sometimes the light which He is
showing you stops, and you have to pick your
way for a few steps by the dimmer light of
thought. But it is God’s will for you then to use
this thought, and to elevate it through regions of
consecration, into faith, and to walk by this light
till the clearer beam from His will comes back
again.

Another of these instruments is experience.
There are many paths in life which we all tread
more than once. God’s light was by us when we
walked them first, and lit a beacon here and there
along the way. But the next time He sent
our lines along that path He knew the side-
lights should be burning still, and let us walk
alone. é

And then there is circumstance. God closes
things in around us till our alternatives are all
reduced to one. That one, if we must act, is
probably the will of God just then.

And then there is the advice of others—an
important element at least —and the welfare of
others, and the example to others, and the many
other facts and principles which make up the
moral man, which, if not strong enough always
to discover what God’s will is, are not too feeble
oftentimes to determine what it is o¢.
310 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

Even the best of these instruments, however,
has but little power in its own hands. The ulti-
mate appeal is always to the one great Instrument,
which uses them in turn as it requires, and which
supplements their discoveries, or even supplants
them if it choose by its own superior light, and
might, and right. Itis like some great glass that
can sweep the skies in the darkest night, and trace
the motions of the furthest stars, while all the rest
can but see a faint uncertain light piercing for
a moment here and there the clouds which lie
between.

And this great instrument for finding out God’s
will, this instrument which can penetrate where
reason cannot go, where observation has not been
before, and memory is helpless, and the guiding
hand of circumstance has failed, has a name
which is seldom associated with any end so great,
a name which every child may understand, even
as the stupendous instrument itself with all its
mighty powers is sometimes moved by infant
hands when others have tried in vain.

The name of the instrument is obedience. Obe-
dience, as it is sometimes expressed, is the organ
of spiritual knowledge. As the eye is the organ
of physical sight; the mind, of intellectual sight;
so the organ of spiritual vision is this strange
power, obedience.

This is one of the great discoveries the Bible
has made to the world. It is purely a Bible
thought. Philosophy never conceived a truth so
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 311

simple and yet so sublime. And, although it
was known in Old Testament times, and ex-
pressed in Old Testament books, it was reserved
for Jesus Christ to make the full discovery to
the world, and add to His teaching another of
the profoundest truths which have come from
heaven to earth—that the mysteries of the
Father’s will are hid in this word “ obey.”

The circumstances in which Christ made tha
great discovery to the world are known to every
one.

The Feast of Tabernacles was in progress in
Jerusalem when Jesus entered the temple to
teach. A circle of Jews were gathered round
Him who seem to have been spell-bound with the
extraordinary wisdom of His words. He made
no pretension to be a scholar. He was no grad-
uate of the Rabbinical schools. Ne had no ac-
cess to the sacred literature of the people. Yet
here was this stranger from Nazareth confound-
ing the wisest heads in Jerusalem, and unfolding
with calm and effortless skill such truths as even
these temple walls had never heard before.
Then “the Jews marvelled, saying, ‘How know-
eth this man letters, never having learned ?’”
- What organ of spiritual knowledge can He have,
never having learned ? Mever having learned —
they did not know that Christ 4ad learned.
They did not know the school at Nazareth whose
teacher was in heaven — whose schoolroom was a
carpenter’s shop — the lesson, the Father's will,
312 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

They knew not that hidden truths could come
from God, or wisdom from above.

What came to them was gathered from human
books, or caught from human lips. They knew
no organ save the mind; no instrument of know-
ing the things of heaven but that by which they
learned in the schools. But Jesus pointed to a
spiritual world which lay still far beyond, and
tells them of the spiritual eye which reads its
profounder secrets and reveals the mysteries of
God. ‘My doctrine is not Mine,” He says, “ but
His that sent Me”; and “My judgment is just,”
as He taught before, “ because I seek not Mine
own will, but the will of the Father which hath
sent Me.” And then, lest men should think this
great experience was never meant for them, He
applies His principles to every human mind
which seeks to know God’s will. “If any man
will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God.”

The word doctrine here is not to be taken in
our sense of the word doctrine. It is not the
doctrine of theology. ‘“ Any man” is to know if
he will do His will. But it is God’s teaching —
God’s mind. If any man will do His will, he
shall know God’s mind; he shall know God’s
teaching and God’s will.

In this sense, or indeed in the literal sense,
from the first look at these words it appears
almost as if a contradiction were involved. To
know God's will, it is as much as to say, Do God’s
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 313

will, But how are we to do God’s will wxtil we
know it? To vow it; that is the very dilemma
we are in. And it seems no way out of it to say,
Do it and you shall zzow it. We want to know
it, in order to do it; and now we are told to do
it, in order to know it! If any man da, he shall
know.

But that is not the meaning of the words.
That is not even the words themselves. It is not,
If any man do, he shall know; but if any man
will do. And the whole sense of the passage
turns upon that word w7//. It means, “If any
man zs wzlling to do, he shall know.” He does
not need to do His will in order to know, he only
need be willing to do it. For “will” is not at
all the sign of the future tense as it looks. It is
not connected with the word do at all, but a sep-
arate verb altogether, meaning “is willing,” or
“wills.” If any man wills, or if any man is will-
ing, to do, he shall know.

Now notice the difference this makes in the
problem. Before, it looked as if the doing were
to come first and then the knowing His will; but
now another element is thrown in at the very be-
ginning. The being willing comes first and then
the knowing; and thereafter the doing may fol-
low —the doing, that is to say, if the will has
been sufficiently clear to proceed.

The whole stress of the passage therefore turns
on this word will. And Christ’s answer to the
question, How to know the will of God? may be
314 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

simply stated thus: “If any man is willing to de
God’s will he shall know,” or, in plainer language
still, “ If any man is sincerely ¢rying to do God’s
will, he shall know.”

The connection of all this with obedience is
just that being willing is the highest form of
obedience. It is the spirit and essence of obedi-
ence. There is an obedience in the world which
is no obedience, because the act of obedience is
there, but the spirit of submission is not.

“A certain man,” we read in the Bible, “ had
two sons; and he came to the first, and said,
‘Son, go work to-day in my vineyard.’ He an-
swered, ‘J wz/ not’: but afterward he repented and
went. And he came to the second, and said like-
wise. And he answered, ‘I go, sir’: and went not.
Whether of them twain did the will of his father?”
Obedience here comes out in its true colours as a
thing in the will. And ifany man have an obey-
ing will, a truly single and submissive will, he
shall know of the teaching, or of the leading,
whether it be of God.

If we were to carry out this principle into a
practical case, it might be found to work in some
such way as this. To-morrow, let us say, there is
some difficulty before us in our path. It lies
across the very threshold of our life, and we can-
not begin the working week without, at least,
some notice that it is there. It may be some
trifling item of business life, over which unac-
countable suspicions have begun to gather of
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 315

fate, and force themselves in spite of everything
into thought and conscience, and even into prayer.
Or, it may be, some change of circumstance is
opening up, and alternatives appearing, and de-
manding choice of one. Perhaps it is some prac-
tice in our life, which the clearing of the spiritual
atmosphere and increasing light from God is
hinting to be wrong, while reason cannot coin-
cide exactly and condemn. At all events there
is something on the mind—something to do,
to suffer, to renounce — and these are alterna-
tive on the mind to distinguish, to choose from,
to reject. Suppose, indeed, we made this case a
personal as well as an illustrative thing, and in
view of the solemn ordinance to which we are
shortly called, we ran the lines of our self-exam-
ination along it as we proceed—the question
rises, How are we to separate God’s light on the
point from our own, disentangle our thoughts on
the point from His, and be sure we are following
His will, not the reflected image of ours?

The first process towards this discovery natur-
ally would be one of outlook. Maturally we would
set to work by collecting all the possible materials
for decision from every point of the compass,
balancing the one consequence against the other,
then summing up the points in favour of each by
itself, until we chose the one which emerged at
last with most of reason on its side. But this
would only be the natural man’s way out of the
dilemma, The spiritual man would go about it
316 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

in another way. This way, he would argue, has
no religion in it at all, except perhaps the ac-
knowledgment that reason is divine; and though
it might be quite possible and even probable that
the light should come to him through the medium
of reason, yet he would reach his conclusion, and
likely enough a different conclusion, quite from
another side.

And his conclusion would likewise be a better
and sounder conclusion, for the insight of the
non-religious method would be impaired, and the
real organ of knowing God’s will so out of order
from disuse, that even reason would be biassed in
its choice. A heart not quite subdued to God is
an imperfect element, in which His will can never
live; and the intellect which belongs to such a
heart is an imperfect instrument and cannot find
God’s will unerringly — for God’s will is found in
regions which obedience only can explore.

Accordingly, he would go to work from the
opposite side from the first. He would begin not
in out-look, but in in-look. He would not give
his mind to observation. He would devote his
soul to self-examination, to self-examination of the
most solemn and searching kind. For this prin-
ciple of Christ is no concession to an easy life, or
a careless method of rounding a difficult point.
It is asummons rather to learn the highest and
most sacred thing in Heaven, by bracing the heart
to the loftiest and severest sacrifice on earth —
the bending of an unwilling human will till it
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 317

breaks in the will of God. It means that the heart
must be watched with a jealous care, and most
solemnly kept for God. It means that the hidden
desires must be taken out one by one and regen-
erated by Christ — that the faintest inclination of
the soul when touched by the spirit of God, be
prepared to assume the strength of will and act
at any cost. It means that nothing in life should
be dreaded so much as that the soul should ever
lose its sensitiveness to God; that God should
ever speak and find the ear just dull enough to
miss what He has said; that God should have
some active will for some human will to do, and
our heart not the first in the world to be ready to
obey.

When we have attained to this by meditation,
by self-examination, by commemoration, and by
the Holy Spirit’s power, we may be ready to make
it our daily prayer, that we may know God’s will;
and when the heart is prepared like this, and the
wayward will is drilled in sacrifice and patience to
surrender all to God, God’s will may come out
in our career at every turning of our life, and be
ours not only in sacramental aspiration but in act.

To search for God’s will with swch an instru-

“ment is scarce to search at all. God’s will lies
transparently in view at every winding of the
path; and if perplexity sometimes comes, in such
way as has been supposed the mind will gather
the phenomena into the field of vision, as care-
fully, as fully, as laboriously, as if no light would
318 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

come at all, and then stand still and wait till the
wonderful discerning faculty of the soul, that eye
which beams in the undivided heart and looks
right out to God from every willing mind fixes
its gaze on one far distant spot, one spot perhaps
which is dark to all the world besides, where all
the lights are focussed in God’s will.

HHow this finite and this infinite are brought to
touch, Zow this invisible will of God is brought
to the temporal heart must even remain unknown.
The mysterious meeting-place in the prepared and
willing heart between the human and divine —
where, precisely, the will is finally moved into
line with God’s — of these things knoweth no man
save only the Spirit of God.

The wind bloweth where it listeth. “We hear
the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh
or whither it goeth.” When every passion is
annihilated, and no thought moves in the mind,
and all the faculties are still and waiting for God,
the spiritual eye may trace, perhaps, some delicate
motion in the soul, some thought which stirs like
a leaf in the unseen air and tells that God is there.
It is not the stillness, nor the unseen breath, nor
the thought that only stirred, but these three
mysteries in one which reveal God’s will to me.
God’s light it is true does not supersede, but
illuminate our thoughts. Only when God sends
an angel to trouble the pool let us have faith for
the angel's hand, and believe that some power of
Heaven has stirred the waters in our soul.
TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD 3:9

Let us but get our hearts in position for know-
ing the will of God—only, let us be willing to
know God’s will in our hearts that we may do
God’s will in our lives, and we shall raise no
questions as to how this will may come and feel
no fears in case the heavenly light should go.

But let it be remembered, as already said, that
it requires a well-kept life to will to do this will.
It requires a well-kept life to do the will of God,
and even a Jeter kept life to wid7 to do His will.
To be welling is a rarer grace than to be doing
the will of God. For he who is wé/d/ing may some-
times have nothing to do, and must only be zw//-
ing to wazt: and it is easier far to be doing God’s
will than to be w¢/ling to have nothing to do— it
is easier far to be working for Christ than it is to be
willing to cease. No, there is nothing rarer in the
world to-day than the truly willing soul, and there
is nothing more worth coveting than the will to
will God’s will. There is no grander possession
for any Christian life than the transparently simple
mechanism of a sincerely obeying heart. And if
we could keep the machinery clear, there would
be lives in thousands doing God’s will on earth
even as it is done in Heaven. There would be
God in many a man’s career whose soul is allowed
to drift —a useless thing to God and the world —
with every changing wind of life, and many a
noble Christian character rescued from wasting
all its virtues on itself and saved for work for

Christ.
320 TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

And when the time of trial would come, and
all in earth and heaven was dark and even God’s
love seemed dim: what is there ever left to cling
to but this will of the willing heart, a God-given,
God-ward bending will, which says amidst the
most solemn and perplexing vicissitudes of life,

“ Father, I know that all my life,
Is portioned out by Thee,
And the changes that are sure to come
I do not fear to see:
But I ask Thee for a present mind,
Intent on pleasing Thee.”