CHARLES G . ALBE RTS ON 
 
THE GIFT OF 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031451176 
 
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 PRESS OF 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 1904 
 
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 Contents 
 
 Many Voices . . . 
 Whithersoever the River Cometh 
 The Everlasting God .... 
 Elijah the Reformer .... 
 A Large Place 
 If Thou Faint 
 
 rAG> 
 
 6 
 
 21 
 S7 
 53 
 67 
 85 
 
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 iStanj 'Foices 
 
 " There are, it may be, so metny kinds of voices 
 in the world, and none of them is without signifi- 
 cation." (I Corinthians xiv. 10.) 
 
 Among the phenomena that attended the 
 Apostolic Church was one known as " the 
 gift of tongues." Persons possessing this 
 gift were moved to speak in language no 
 one understood. It was a strange and 
 mystifying thing. And it was so easily 
 simulated that there is reason to believe 
 it brought confusion into more than one 
 society. Paul did not deny the genuine- 
 ness of the gift, but he did not encourage 
 it. In the chapter from which the text is 
 taken he exhorts the Corinthian Christians 
 to cultivate the more practical power of 
 
 7 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 interpreting the Scriptures. He argues 
 that there is a twofold purpose in Chris- 
 tian speech, — to glorify God and to en- 
 lighten men. He says, in substance, " It 
 is good to pray, but we must pray in words 
 that others can understand in order that 
 they may pray with us. It is good to praise 
 God, but we must praise Him in the lan- 
 guage of men that men may praise Him 
 with us. It is good to teach, but we must 
 teach in familiar terms or our teaching 
 will be of no service to others." 
 
 It would seem unnecessary to give such 
 advice to any church in any age. Yet it 
 was necessary then. And even now the 
 idea the Apostle sought to emphasize is 
 by no means as generally accepted as it 
 should be, — ^namely, that no spiritual gift 
 is of much value except it add to our ca- 
 pacity to minister to our brethren. In this 
 chapter Paul gives us his estimate of the 
 relative value of spiritual gifts of a purely 
 personal character and gifts which may be 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 employed for the edification of the Church 
 and the improvement of the world. His 
 ratio is five to ten thousand! Hear him: 
 " I would rather speak five words with my 
 understanding, that I might teach others, 
 than ten thousand words in an unknown 
 tongue." 
 
 Yet Paul concedes that every tongue, 
 every voice, every sound, however un- 
 known and mysterious, has its use, its 
 signification, its place in the economy of 
 God's government. He speaks even more 
 strongly than appears in our version. He 
 says, " Even though there be an indefinite 
 number of sounds in the world, yet none 
 is wholly meaningless." And nowhere else 
 does he reveal more unmistakably his men- 
 tal grasp and greatness than here. He prac- 
 tically anticipates by sixteen hundred years 
 the scientific method based upon the theory 
 that every separate fact has relation to law, 
 that the whole universe of forces, visible 
 and invisible, organic and inorganic, pon- 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 derable and imponderable, is but the mani- 
 fold expression of One Great Will. 
 
 It is a great step in one's mental develop- 
 ment when he comes to understand that 
 everything has a meaning, that nothing in 
 nature or life is unrelated to an intelligent 
 cause. This is the very beginning of the 
 scientific spirit. We see it in the man watch- 
 ing the swinging chandelier at Pisa ; in the 
 Swiss spectacle-maker experimenting with 
 the glasses of the first rude telescope; in 
 the boy studying the pulsating lid of the 
 tea-kettle on the fire ; in the physician ob- 
 serving that the English dairy-maids who 
 had contracted cow-pox were immune from 
 small-pox. Others had observed these same 
 facts, but had attached no significance to 
 them. The inventors of the pendulum, the 
 telescope, and the steam-engine, and the 
 discoverer of vaccination by inoculation 
 simply sought to find the meaning of fa- 
 mihar facts. The physical scientist is a 
 kind of interpreter of signs. People used 
 
 10 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 to charge him with being in league with the 
 devil. We now know he is in league with 
 God. He is thinking God's thoughts after 
 Him. He is interpreting God's speech to 
 men. 
 
 What if you discover in root or bark or 
 fruit or flower a remedy for some disease, 
 a tonic, or an anodyne? Was that not God's 
 thought first? Vou have simply found its 
 signification. So if you discover in air or 
 water or fire some element or combination 
 of elements that may be utilized to lighten 
 the burden of labor; or if you discover a 
 new continent just at a time when the old 
 world is overcrowded and the old social 
 order is decadent, is not that God's thought, 
 and have you not merely found its signifi- 
 cation? Possibly the world does not suffi- 
 ciently recognize the moral value of the 
 services of those whose mission is to ascer- 
 tain and publish to men the meaning of 
 God's thoughts in nature. They are God's 
 ir 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 servants, in a sense, — ^in a good sense, the 
 servants of the race. 
 
 But in a higher sense are they God's 
 interpreters who study the significance of 
 that vast number of voices by which God 
 speaks to the fancy and feehngs of men. 
 These are artists, poets, lovers of beauty, 
 teachers of truth in the reakn of sentiment. 
 
 This world would be a bleak and barren 
 place if God had not put beauty into it, 
 and if he had not created us with love for 
 the beautiful. What if every sky were 
 gray, and flowers the color of the soil from 
 which they spring, and all speech were 
 prose? But such is not God's world. He 
 is the Master-Artist— He paints pictures 
 on every sky. He puts music into every 
 summer breeze, and every pine-tree in the 
 forest, and every purling brook. There is 
 no beauty of arch or dome or pinnacle 
 which has not its antet3^e in cavern or sky 
 or cloud-peak. The best the sculptor can 
 do is to imitate the beauty of the form that 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 proceeded from the perfect thought of 
 God. So he who says, " I care nothing 
 for beauty," is saying, " I care nothing for 
 God's thoughts," for God thought beauty, 
 and the human artist is in no sense the 
 creator of beauty, — he only finds the sig- 
 nification of nature's lines, nature's forms, 
 nature's sounds and signs. And nature is 
 a garment from God's loom. 
 
 The artist-soul, whether he be painter, 
 architect, sculptor, poet, or musician, has 
 no power save as an interpreter. He is on 
 speaking terms with beauty. Most of us 
 are not. He makes us acquainted. He 
 cries, " Stars, flowers, earth, sky, sea! speak 
 to men that they may hear and under- 
 stand!" And they speak to him, and he 
 speaks their message to us. Has nature no 
 voice? She had for Bryant. Has the sea 
 no voice? It had for Byron. Has the 
 marsh no voice? It had for Sidney Lanier. 
 Has a landscape no language? Emerson 
 said of a certain view among the White 
 13 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 Mountains, " That always makes me 
 pray." 
 
 There was One to whom all nature 
 spoke; the lilies, of God's goodness; the 
 sparrows, of God's providence; the foun- 
 tain, of eternal life; the sun, of Him who 
 is "the Father of Lights." To Jesus 
 Christ every common thing of common 
 life had some divine significance. His was 
 a soul so sensitive that every sound broke 
 upon it — sound of river and sea, sound of 
 sorrow and sin — and instantly found in- 
 terpretation as to its true meaning in the 
 mind of God. 
 
 In the highest realm of all — ^the realm 
 of the spirit — it was Jesus Christ who first 
 taught the world the significance of a lan- 
 guage which had been but imperfectly 
 understood by others. He knew how the 
 human heart craves assurance of God's 
 Fatherhood. So, almost the first lesson 
 He taught us was to say "Our Father." 
 Neither Moses, David, nor Isaiah; neither 
 
 14 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 Homer, Socrates, nor Plato; neither Con- 
 fucius, Buddha, nor Zoroaster had ever 
 said anything quite so clear and comfort- 
 ing as that, 
 
 Jesus knew how the heart hungers for 
 immortality; how, ever since Eve looked 
 into the glazed eyes of her dead son, 
 mothers have stood on the earth-shore of 
 the river of death and strained their aching 
 eyes and empty arms for a sight and a 
 touch of some vanished form. So He said 
 what left no shade of doubt as to the 
 deathless life beyond. He knew also how 
 the soul of sinful man yearns for some 
 token of divine clemency, some availing 
 word of mercy, some open way to pardon 
 and to peace. So He spoke often of the 
 Father's reconciled face, of the changeless 
 purpose of the Eternal Heart to redeem 
 His children, of the Throne of Grace and 
 the Mercy Seat. Nay, more. He said, in 
 spirit, " As you do not know how to ap- 
 proach the Mercy Seat, take My hand — I 
 15 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 will lead you. As you do not know how 
 to pray, I will teach you. After this man- 
 ner pray ye: Our Father." So, Jesus the 
 man, knowing the significance of human 
 tongues, Christ the God knowing how to 
 interpret the divine voice, became the 
 arbiter of two worlds, — Heaven's Ambas- 
 sador and earth's High Priest. 
 
 There is an event in the life of our Lord 
 which throws great light, by way of illus- 
 tration, upon the presence in some minds 
 and the absence from others of the faculty 
 of interpreting spiritual sounds. It is 
 towards the close of His ministry. Cer- 
 tain Greeks have come to Him for in- 
 struction. His discourse ends in prayer. 
 [It is difficult to say just where the dis- 
 course ends and where the prayer begins.] 
 The prayer ends, and a voice from the 
 excellent glory is heard. It is the same 
 that spoke at the baptism. Jesus hears 
 it. John hears it, — ^it is he who gives us 
 
 i6 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 the record of the circumstance. Others 
 who are in sympathy with Christ's ideas 
 hear it, hut many hear only a noise. They 
 say, " It thundered." 
 
 Let a man with no musical taste, no 
 musical training, hear a great orchestral 
 composition. However perfectly it may 
 be rendered, he hears only the noise of 
 the instruments. Let another hear it, 
 and he goes away with noble thoughts 
 awakened and deep emotions stirred. The 
 music merely thunders to one. It speaks 
 to the other. It is a matter of preparation, 
 sympathy, sensitiveness. 
 
 To the unspiritual mind the Bible is a 
 confused chorus of discordant voices, dis- 
 sonant tones, unmusical sounds, lacking 
 unity, lacking consistency, lacking mean- 
 ing. But to the reverent reader the Bible 
 speaks. Its tones are manifold, but they 
 never lack signification. Sometimes it 
 speaks warningly, sometimes it entreats, 
 sometimes it wooes with sweetness of con- 
 17 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 solation. It is the old story of the Pillar, 
 — whether of fire or cloud depends upon 
 our view-point. 
 
 To worldly eyes the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper appears a sentimental cere- 
 mony of merely human origin. To the 
 humble, penitent, confessing disciple it 
 appears what it is, — a Communion, a 
 tryst with Jesus the Lord, a contact with 
 the heart of the Eternal, and such a com- 
 municant rises from the altar as one rises 
 from his bed, refreshed; as one rises from 
 a banquet, nourished; as one rises from a 
 fountain, cleansed. This line of cleavage 
 separates the natural from the spiritual 
 man at every point where the Kingdom 
 of God touches human life. 
 
 There are innumerable facts of experi- 
 ence to which the thoughtless attach no 
 meaning but which Christians are taught 
 to interpret spiritually. Conscience, Duty, 
 Inward Unrest, " Immortal Hunger," 
 
 Prayer, — what signification do you give 
 i8 
 
MANY VOICES 
 
 to these? This yearning for a fellowship 
 not of time, this heart-homesickness, does 
 it not point to God? Is not God the 
 eternal answer to the spirit of man? Is 
 not Christ the answer to sin? Is not im- 
 mortality the answer to death, and heaven 
 the answer to earth? If so, then 
 
 " Life's not blot to us, nor blank ; 
 It means intensely and means good: 
 To find its meaning is our meat and drink." 
 
 19 
 
Cometi^ 
 
" And everything shall live whithersoever the 
 river cometh." (Ezekiel xlvii. 9.) 
 
 EzEKiEL was a seer, hence a prophet. 
 No man can teach who has not clear vision 
 of truth. This prophet had both insight 
 and farsight. He forth-told and fore- 
 told. He had the divine perspective. 
 
 There is no Future with God. He fills 
 all time. Now and then are one with Him. 
 Time present and time to come are an 
 eternal now. All that shall be is, in God's 
 sight, and in their sight whose eyes God's 
 fingers touch to prophecy. 
 
 Here is the vision of Ezekiel, the 
 " Vision of the Waters," as it is known. 
 A stately picture it is, a perfect work of 
 
 23 
 
WHITHERSOEVER 
 
 poet's art. No vision of Dante or Milton 
 or Bunyan or Tennyson approaches it in 
 unadorned simplicity. He sees a river 
 flowing by the altars of the House of 
 God; a stream that grows wider and 
 deeper as it nears the sea; a river fringed 
 with green; and where it flows it brings 
 beauty and bounty. It fructifies the bar- 
 ren land and freshens the salt sea, and 
 fails not forever. 
 
 Doubtless the figure means more to the 
 Eastern world than to us. Where deserts 
 abound, where the sun shines with tropic 
 heat, where even the breezes are hke blasts 
 from a furnace, hving water is a luxury 
 the worth of which we do not understand. 
 So, as the Holy Scriptures came to us out 
 of the East, as God chose to reveal His 
 truth to us in Oriental tongues. Biblical 
 symbohsm is fuU of references to springs, 
 fountains, weUs, and rivers. " As cold 
 waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news 
 from a far country." " With joy shall ye 
 
 34 
 
THE RIVER COMETH 
 
 draw water out of the wells of salvation." 
 " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to 
 the waters." " He shall come down like 
 rain upon the mown grass." This figure 
 was in Jesus' mind when He said to the 
 Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, " Who- 
 so drinkethof the water that I shall give 
 him shall never thirst." And it was in 
 his mind who closed the canon on Patmos, 
 " Let him that is athirst come." Who shall 
 say that this very vision of Ezekiel was not 
 in his mind when he saw the " river of the 
 water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding 
 out of the throne of God and of the 
 Lamb"? The river Ezekiel saw and the 
 river John saw are the same. The 
 prophet saw it from the earthward side, 
 the apostle from the heavenly. 
 
 From the shore of earth let us survey 
 the river that flows out from " the threshold 
 of the house" of God. It is the river of 
 grace and truth. It had its source at 
 
 Bethlehem. It was only a brooklet then, 
 ss 
 
WHITHERSOEVER 
 
 so small that the ruthless footstep of a 
 Roman governor might have changed its 
 course — and would have changed its course 
 but for the fact that it was dear to God. 
 It seemed to end on Calvary, like the 
 " Lost River" of Ai'izona, which flows a 
 few miles and disappears from sight. But 
 from the empty sepulchre in Joseph's gar- 
 den it burst again, as burst the stream from 
 smitten rock at Kadesh. It grew to great 
 proportions at Pentecost. It widened im- 
 measurably as it reached the Gentile world. 
 It touched Europe at Philippi and Rome. 
 Henceforth it was to be the broadest, deep- 
 est stream of history. There is no conti- 
 nent in which it does not flow, hardly a 
 nation it does not bless. And it has been 
 true from its beginning until now, — every- 
 thing lives whithersoever it cometh. The 
 wilderness and the solitary place are made 
 glad. The desert rejoices and blossoms as 
 the rose. The parched ground has become 
 a pool, and the thirsty land springs of 
 
 water. 
 
 sa 
 
THE RIVER COMETH 
 
 Dropping figurative speech, let us recall 
 some of the historic and practical results 
 of Christianity, a few of the manifold 
 blessings that accompany the Gospel. 
 There are some things which live only 
 where Christianity lives, — some institu- 
 tions which flourish, some ideas which 
 prevail, some virtues which are practised, 
 only where Christian truth is hid in human 
 hearts. 
 
 In the broadest possible view of the 
 moral influence of Christianity we see 
 that philanthropy — the love of man for 
 man, the disinterested, benevolent love of 
 man for his kind — is one of the peculiar 
 fruits of the Gospel. There are other re- 
 ligions which teach respect for the lower 
 orders of life. In the estimation of many 
 Hindus, the cow is a sacred animal. Cats 
 and crocodiles were objects of veneration 
 in Egypt. But neither in India nor in 
 Egypt was himian life a sacred thing 
 until the .Light of the World dawned 
 
 27 
 
WHITHERSOEVER 
 
 upon the darkness of Asia and the Gospel 
 of the Son of Man supplanted the worship 
 of Isis and Osiris. 
 
 The doctrine of the unity of the race 
 may have been dimly perceived, but it was 
 never plainly discerned and forcefully 
 taught until the Man of Galilee made 
 it one of the very fundamental postulates 
 of his new social and moral system. The 
 missionary idea is founded upon the as- 
 sumption that all men are brothers. Ju- 
 daism was for the Hebrew, Hinduism 
 for the Oriental, Confucianism for the 
 Chinese, but Christianity for Man. Jesus 
 Christ was the first cosmopolitan, the con- 
 temporary of every age, the comrade of 
 every soul. To Christian philanthropy we 
 owe the inspiration of all the great world- 
 movements of our age, by which bars of 
 iron and gates of brass are beaten down, 
 and nations begin to see the essential one- 
 ness of the race. Of none other than Jesus 
 
THE RIVER COMETH 
 
 of Nazareth could she have learned the 
 lesson of her noble poem who wrote : 
 
 " I was born as free as the silver light 
 
 That laughs in a Southern fountain ; 
 Free as the sea-fed bird that nests 
 
 On a Scandinavian mountain; 
 Free as the wind that mocks at the sway 
 
 And pinioning clasp of another, 
 Yet in the slave they scourged to-day 
 
 I saw and knew my brother ! 
 
 " Vested in purple, I sat apart, 
 
 But the cord that smote him bruised me; 
 I closed my ears, but the sobs that broke 
 
 From his savage breast accused me; 
 No phrase of reasoning judgment just 
 
 The plaint of my soul could smother, — 
 A creature vile, abased to the dust, 
 
 I knew him still — -my brother ! 
 
 " And the autumn day that had smiled so fair 
 Seemed suddenly overclouded; 
 A gloom more dreadful than nature owns 
 My human mind enshrouded. 
 
WHITHERSOEVER 
 
 I thought of the power benign that made 
 And bound men one to the other, 
 
 And I felt in my brother's fear afraid, 
 And ashamed in the shame of my brother." 
 
 This idea of brotherhood lives " whither- 
 soever the river cometh;" and because it 
 hves certain other ideas grow out of it, 
 among them, Democracy. There has never 
 been a true democracy that was not Chris- 
 tian in conception and inspiration. The 
 nearest approach to it in pre-Christian 
 times was the theocratic commonwealth 
 of Israel. There were elements of democ- 
 racy under Moses, Joshua, and the judges, 
 but the commonwealth gave way to a mon- 
 archy because the people were not pre- 
 pared for it; it disintegrated, lacking the 
 principle of unity, and this it lacked be- 
 cause the world was yet to learn the lesson 
 of brotherhood. 
 
 There was a so-called democracy in 
 Athens, but it was only a privileged 
 
 30 
 
THE RIVER COMETH 
 
 oligarchy, for two-thirds of its people 
 were the property of the other third. 
 Democracy is a comparatively modern 
 development, and its great victories have 
 been achieved among people who derived 
 their inspiration from Christian sources. 
 Thrilling is the story of the struggle for 
 liberty in Germany and Holland, in Eng- 
 land and America — Christian nations and 
 Protestant. The anarchism of Italy, the 
 nihilism of Russia, and the communism of 
 France are simply suppressed democracy. 
 Suppress steam and superheat it and de- 
 struction follows. Govern it and give it 
 vent, and you have motion, progress, 
 wealth. Democracy is the political des- 
 tiny of the world. There is but one 
 absolute monarchy left in Europe (Tur- 
 key considered an Asiatic power), and not 
 one in all the Western hemisphere. Japan 
 is a constitutional monarchy. India is in 
 the hands of England. China will not 
 remain a despotism after her dismember- 
 
 31 
 
WHITHERSOEVER 
 
 ment. South Africa is free. Democracy 
 is in the air. The river flows through all 
 the earth, and liberty lives " whithersoever 
 the river cometh." 
 
 It is needless to do more than just sug- 
 gest that charity — systematic charity as 
 distinguished from mere impulsive gener- 
 osity; organized charity, which is the only 
 effective charity, being at once prophy- 
 lactic and curative — is among the fruits 
 of Christianity. It is said there was but 
 one hospital in all the world at the begin- 
 ning of the Christian era, and that was 
 for wounded gladiators, where they might 
 be nursed back to strength to fight again. 
 Whose are the hospitals on every modern 
 city street? They bear a great variety 
 of names, — Methodist, Presbyterian, Good 
 Samaritan, St. Joseph's, but they are all 
 Christ's hospitals. He taught the world 
 a new pity for pain, a new sympathy for 
 suffering, a new care for the distressed. 
 And so it is of Orphans' Homes and 
 
THE RIVER COMETH 
 
 Midnight Missions and Juvenile Reform- 
 atories. So it is of all the " charities that 
 soothe and heal and bless." They are the 
 trees of fruit and shade that rim the river 
 which issues from the House of God. 
 
 See also how the humanities, education 
 and art, " the hberal offices of life," the 
 agencies that broaden and adorn the mind 
 of man, are among the things that accom- 
 pany the Gospel in its flow among the 
 nations. The great universities of the 
 world have had their founders in men of 
 faith. When the president of one of 
 America's greatest colleges was asked to 
 select the sentiments to be inscribed upon 
 the peristyle at the Columbian Exposition, 
 he chose the words of Jesus Christ for 
 one, — " Ye shall know the truth and the 
 truth shall make you free." Go to the 
 new Congressional Library at Washing- 
 ton and you will find that saying inscribed 
 upon one of its walls. Does it not sug- 
 gest the intimate relation between the 
 
 33 
 
WHITHERSOEVER 
 
 truth-seeking or truth-loving spirit of 
 our religion and the passion for truth 
 characteristic of the age? 
 
 The immortal masters of painting have 
 exalted Christ and Christian themes. 
 Poetry and music flourish best when 
 they deal with inspiration's greatest 
 thoughts, the doctrines of revelation, the 
 sacred mysteries that elevate the mind 
 whithersoever the river of God's Word 
 floweth. 
 
 But art is not life. Men may live with- 
 out art, but they cannot live and be men 
 without love and conscience and character. 
 These make Uf e. They are Uf e. Friend- 
 ship, domestic fidelity, social righteous- 
 ness, integrity of conscience, purity of 
 personal character, — these are the very 
 essence of practical Christianity. The 
 Christian family exists as a little repub- 
 lic, in which each member governs him- 
 self with reference to the rights of the 
 others: the husband loving the wife as 
 
 84 
 
THE RIVER COMETH 
 
 his own body; the wife honoring the 
 husband; children obeying their parents 
 in the Lord; parents provoking not their 
 children to wrath. He who setteth the 
 solitary in families ordains that even 
 humble homes may be hallowed by the 
 perpetual presence of the spirit of His 
 Son. Have you not read much in the 
 New Testament of the church that is in 
 the household? Picture to yourselves the 
 ideal home, blessed with aU peace, and 
 sympathy, and chivalry, and mutual con- 
 fidence. Cstn it be otherwise in the home 
 of which Christ is the acknowledged Head, 
 — where He sits at every table, guides 
 every conversation, sanctifies every sor- 
 row, spiritualizes every joy? It makes a 
 vast difference in a home whether Christ 
 is there. Everything gentle and noble and 
 sweet lives whithersoever He cometh. 
 
 But the basis of all Christian virtue, 
 manifesting itself in every field of thought 
 and conduct, affecting life in its largest 
 
 35 
 
WHITHERSOEVER 
 
 or in its more limited relations, is the 
 work of God's grace in the soul of the 
 individual. The Spirit-filled believer is 
 the imit of power, static and active. The 
 world is moved only as I am moved. The 
 re-creation of the race begins when I take 
 my first step toward God. All things 
 begin to be made new when I open my 
 heart to the inflow of His love. Is it not 
 wonderful that the river of God's saving 
 power flows so close to every soul that one 
 act of the human wUl may open every plain 
 of life to its incoming? One prayer, one 
 sigh, one act of self -surrender, and the 
 vital and vitalizing current sweeps in and 
 lifts us up to the level of eternal life. 
 
 With the entrance of God's grace into 
 our hearts some things begin to die and 
 other things to live. The things that die 
 are the things that ought to die. The 
 things that hve are the things that must 
 live and grow in us if we would know 
 how well worth living life may be if hid 
 with Christ in God. 
 
 36 
 
Ci^e Cljerlajitinfi (5on 
 
'Mf ^M" >M< 4"^ <Mf 4"^ 4<^ Wi ^'i' ^^ 
 
 " From everlasting to everlasting, thou art 
 God." (Psalm xc. 2.) 
 
 Moses wrote this psalm. And so, chron- 
 ologically, it belongs to the earliest litera- 
 ture of the Bible. It would not be out 
 of place in the book of Genesis; it might 
 properly have been made the first chapter 
 of the Bible, — a kind of foreword. But 
 as it was a hymn, set to music, and sung 
 in the Temple service at Jerusalem, it is 
 included in the Hebrew Hymnal. Our 
 book of Psalms was the Jewish hymn- 
 book. 
 
 When Moses wrote this psalm we do not 
 know. It would be interesting to know, 
 — whether amidst the luxuries of Pharaoh's 
 palace, in sight of the temples of Egypt's 
 
 39 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 gods, or among the meadows of Midian as 
 he watched the flocks of Jethro; whether 
 in the wilderness of wandering, having 
 passed Sinai and Marah, or while they 
 ahode at Kadesh, the turning-point of the 
 nation's history, or whether in the valley, 
 before he was led up to Nebo to look across 
 to Canaan, and to die with the kiss of God 
 upon his hps. 
 
 We have only internal evidence as to the 
 date of this composition. From the char- 
 acter of the psalm it is not likely Moses 
 wrote it while he was in Egypt. No man 
 whose life lay in the lap of luxury ever 
 wrote a poem like this. Neither was it 
 written in Midian. It is not a pastoral 
 poem; a shepherd's life is too serene to 
 inspire such a song. Neither is it a young 
 man's song. It is an old man's prayer, a 
 pilgrim's hymn. Miriam is dead. Aaron 
 is dead. The pilgrim is left alone, bereft. 
 He knows he is nearing the end of his 
 journey; he thinks of all the way he has 
 
 40 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 been led. Israel's history, like a panorama, 
 passes before him. He thinks of other 
 nations and their history. The glory of 
 Egypt is fading. Babylon is changing 
 masters. Empires are rising and falling; 
 kings are being crowned and being buried. 
 The world is like a kaleidoscope, — at every 
 turn new combinations are formed and new 
 pictures presented. The psalmist asks him- 
 self, " Is there nothing permanent, nothing 
 that does not change with time?" He 
 thinks of God. He thinks, " Amidst all 
 that is transient there is the Eternal. 
 Amidst the fluctuating there is the fixed. 
 There is something the mind can rest on, 
 the heart can trust in, the life can build 
 on." Then he writes, " Lord, Thou hast 
 been our dwelhng-place in aU genera- 
 tions." 
 
 Wherever this psalm was written, when- 
 ever, and by whomsoever, it is the song of 
 a swimmer in the sea who has found land. 
 It looked like an island at first, but he 
 
 41 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 discovers it is a continent. It is the song 
 of a builder who has penetrated soil and 
 sub-soil and clay and has come to the 
 granite. Doubt not he had been digging 
 deeply before he found this rock. How 
 far back into the past he must have looked 
 when he spoke of " all generations !" Back 
 of his own personal history, the weary 
 march, the sea, the plagues, the burning- 
 bush, the slavery in Egypt, was Joseph; 
 God had been his refuge. Back of Joseph, 
 the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; 
 God had been their refuge. Back of Abra- 
 ham, Noah; God was his refuge. Back 
 of Noah, Enoch, who had his dwelling- 
 place in God. Back of the first man to 
 breathe the breath of life, creation, and 
 back of creation, the Eternal Mind, which 
 foresaw the whole world-drama from 
 time's beginning to time's end. Out of 
 some such spiritual vision came the in- 
 spiration of this psalm and this text. 
 This psalm! Grand and simple; deep 
 
 43 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 in feeling and high in conception, true 
 in its portraiture of human life, and 
 lofty in its representation of the Infinite; 
 serious yet hopeful; mournful yet trust- 
 ful, without imitation or quotation, older 
 than Greek ode or Persian epigram, it is 
 the message of a man of God; it is a 
 message from God. 
 
 There is a tiuTe in our lives when novelty 
 and variety attract us. We weary of the 
 old and court the new. Youth is that time. 
 Restless, roving, in quest of happiness or 
 power, we forsake old paths and exult in 
 our new freedom. But as the years go 
 by and age comes on, we travel back to 
 the old scenes and kiss the very sod our 
 youthful feet pressed, and walk along the 
 streams where we once gathered flowers 
 with something of the gladness with which 
 the ransomed walk beside the river of life. 
 It is the same sod, yet not the same, — it is 
 furrowed with graves ; it is the same brook, 
 yet not the same, — it images not the same 
 
 43 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 faces as of yore. Nothing is much more 
 pathetic than the return of a man to his 
 early home at sixty or seventy years of 
 age. It is the tragedy of the mountain 
 sleeper over again when he cries out, " Is 
 there nobody that remembers me?" 
 
 Mountains are the most nearly im- 
 changeable things on earth. This ex- 
 plains much of the imagery of the Bible. 
 " As the mountains are round about Jeru- 
 salem, so the Lord is round about His 
 people." And yet even mountains wear 
 away. The elements are at war with the 
 mountains, and in time their conformation 
 is altered and their altitude diminished. 
 Volcanic forces are at work in Martinique 
 building up a new cone for Mont Pelee. 
 Great glaciers move down the slopes of 
 Alpine and Alaskan mountains, remind- 
 ing us that even mountains are not per- 
 petual. Are the stars more durable? Job 
 sang of Orion and Arcturus and the 
 Pleiades. Stirely they have not changed? 
 
 41 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 Have they not? Have you not heard of 
 the worn-out worlds of space, of extin- 
 guished suns? The celestial bodies are so 
 shifting that there was a time when Thu- 
 ban in Draco was our pole-star, and there 
 will be a time when Alpha Lyra will be 
 our pole-star. In 1876 a new star blazed 
 out in Cygnus, rose to the third magni- 
 tude, and then disappeared. Another such 
 phenomenon occurred in the constellation 
 of the Northern Crown in 1866. Prob- 
 ably those stars were suns, with planets 
 depending upon them for heat and light. 
 Something happened, some eruption or 
 collision, which caused them to shine with 
 a thousand times their ordinary brilliance. 
 What would happen to our planet if our 
 sun should suddenly increase its heat a 
 thousand-fold? Not a sign of life would 
 survive a minute! Is that to be the his- 
 tory of this planet, this solar system? It 
 is enough to know that whether we look 
 at mountain or star, at earth or sky, noth- 
 
 45 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 ing our eyes rest upon is " from everlast- 
 ing to everlasting." " Change and decay 
 in all around I see." 
 
 But little would it comfort us to know 
 that motmtains or stars are imimutable since 
 human life lacks so much of permanence. 
 " The days of our years are threescore 
 years and ten." What if they be four- 
 score? " Are they not all labor and sor- 
 row? We are soon cut off, and fly away." 
 Where are the friends of yesterday? Not 
 many are left to us. Some are sleeping 
 under the fallen leaves, and some have 
 ceased to be friends. The bitterest tragedy 
 is in the fact that friendship pales and 
 fades. We say, " Let mountains wear 
 away, let stars grow dim, if only our 
 friends remain our friends." But they 
 do not. We change, they change, and 
 when next we meet, the hand-clasp is less 
 warm, the greeting less cordial. We often 
 outgrow our friendships. We change our 
 point of view, our angle of vision, or they 
 
 46 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 do, and then follow avoidance, estrange- 
 ment. When we survey all this, — that 
 nothing our eyes see or our hands touch 
 is secure from mutability, — ^it gives us a 
 heart-famine for the abiding. Moses felt 
 this hunger, and found its appeasement in 
 God. For us there is a table spread in the 
 wilderness; for us there is an overflowing 
 cup, and it is here, " From everlasting to 
 everlasting, Thou art God." Is this not 
 cold water to thirsty souls? Is this not the 
 very bread of Life? 
 
 It was a new note in the music of the 
 world, three and a half millenniums ago 
 when Moses smote this chord and sang 
 this song. The world was full of fear 
 of heathen gods and goddesses. Bel, 
 Istar, Moloch, creatures of mere caprice, 
 subject to fits of wrath, to sudden and 
 violent passions. Greek and Roman 
 divinities were pictured as making war 
 on each other and on men, as having 
 favorites among themselves and among 
 
 47 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 mortals. Jupiter was only a monstrous 
 Caesar, Jove an omnipotent tyrant. Over 
 against these conceptions of the gods is 
 the revelation of one God, pure and 
 holy, good and kind, sovereign but not 
 arbitrary, " slow to anger and plenteous 
 in mercy," everywhere and always the 
 same, changeless from eternity to eter- 
 nity. If this be God, our God, what 
 follows? If ever God loved man, He 
 loves man now. If ever He loved us. 
 He loves us now. So, if sorrow comes 
 into our lives, it is not because God has 
 ceased to love us. If losses come, it is 
 not because He has forgotten us. If all 
 the world seems Uke a house unroofed, 
 and the torrents beat upon our unpro- 
 tected heads, it is not because God has 
 turned His face from us. His is a 
 friendship we cannot outgrow. His is 
 a providence time cannot alter. His is 
 a care death cannot defeat. That man 
 was right who wrote upon his weather- 
 
 48 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 vane, " God is Love," and explained that 
 he put the motto there not because God's 
 love is fickle as the weather, but because, 
 whichever way the wind blows. He is Love. 
 A right conception of the changeless 
 character of God will teach us patience 
 in the midst of trial. It wiU teach us 
 to imitate Him by striving for that con- 
 stant heart for which the Psalmist prayed, 
 that steadfastness and immovability to 
 which an apostle exhorts us, " Holding 
 fast the profession of our faith without 
 wavering." We wiU not be driven from 
 discipleship by ill-usage, nor allured from 
 it by the subtle flattery of the world. 
 Faith in the changeless will of God wUl 
 give us perfect confidence in His govern- 
 ment. The fitful changes of the world 
 are controlled by Him. It will teach us 
 to realize the consolation of His promises. 
 We who trust in Him cannot be disap- 
 pointed. We who confide in Hitn cannot 
 be endangered; we who fight for Him 
 
 49 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 cannot be defeated. It were well for us 
 in the light of this text to read anew the 
 words, " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, 
 to-day, and forever." 
 
 What was Jesus Christ yesterday? The 
 Friend of sinners, the Comforter of sor- 
 row, the Saviour of the penitent, the Con- 
 queror of death. What was He to Mary 
 Magdalene? He opened the gates of new 
 hfe to her. What was He to John on 
 Patmos? Companion in exile, and Com- 
 pensation for all pain. What was He to 
 John Bunyan in Bedford Jail? To Wil- 
 liam Penn in London Tower? To Mad- 
 ame Guyon in prison? Freedom, bound- 
 less horizon, unfettered thought, and hope. 
 Hear the prisoner sing: 
 
 " A little bird I am. 
 
 Shut from the fields of air. 
 And in my cage I sit and siug 
 
 To Him Who placed me there. 
 Well pleased a prisoner to be, 
 Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee." 
 50 
 
THE EVERLASTING GOD 
 
 What was Jesus Christ to John Wesley 
 in persecution? Peace, perfect peace. 
 What was He to William Carey and 
 Melville Cox? Heaven on earth even in 
 the heart of heathen darkness. What was 
 He to Alfred Cookman, dying? Opened 
 gates of glory, victory by the blood of 
 the Lamb. All this was yesterday. We 
 are of to-day. He is still the same. Nor 
 shall time deflect His purpose or decrease 
 His power. He is from " everlasting to 
 everlasting" God. " The Eternal God is 
 our Refuge, and underneath are the ever- 
 lasting arms." 
 
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 IBlijaJ tje Meformer 
 
 " And Elijah said unto Ahab, As the Lord God 
 of Israel liveth, before whom I stand." (I Kings 
 xvii. 1.) 
 
 The character of Elijah is rugged, 
 majestic, colossal. He is the reformer 
 of his age. The brightest pages of 
 human history tell of lives like his: Jo- 
 seph in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon, Nehe- 
 miah in Jerusalem, John the Baptist in 
 Judea, Chrysostom in Constantinople, Sa- 
 vonarola in Florence, Luther in Germany, 
 Knox in Scotland, Wesley in England. 
 All of these began their work, as Elijah 
 began his, by establishing in the minds of 
 men just conceptions of the character of 
 God. Hear him before Ahab — Ahab, idol- 
 ater and polytheist, — " As the Lord God 
 
 55 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 of Israel liveth." Israel's God, the living 
 God, is not in Ahab's pantheon of gods, 
 but Elijah wiU put Him there, will set 
 up His name, and if Ahab can only be 
 made to see what God this is, he will re- 
 nounce all other gods and cast them out. 
 
 And this is the first fact in the conscious- 
 ness of the reformer, personal accounta- 
 bility to God. "As the Lord God of 
 Israel liveth, before Whom I stand." A 
 great American statesman, the greatest 
 orator since Demosthenes, once said, " The 
 greatest thought of which I have any con- 
 ception is that of my personal responsi- 
 bility to the Almighty." There can be 
 no greater thought than this in its bear- 
 ing upon himian conduct. Those who 
 have accomplished most for the race have 
 lived in the atmosphere created by that 
 sense of inalienable accountability. The 
 reflection, " I stand before God," lays 
 bare the primary impulse of the reformer, 
 his intense motive and purpose. It ex- 
 
 56 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 plains his courage. Elijah stands before 
 Ahab, but he sees God more plainly than 
 he sees Ahab. Because of this fact it is 
 Ahab standing before Elijah, just as nine 
 centuries later it was not Christ standing 
 before Pilate but Pilate standing before 
 Christ. Pilate was on trial, not Christ. 
 Ahab was on trial, not Elijah. If it seem 
 a small thing to you for Elijah to con- 
 front Ahab thus, remember who Ahab 
 was, — " proudest and fiercest spirit of that 
 old age of tyranny," cruel, conscienceless, 
 absolute, with a woman at his side as much 
 more ambitious than he, as Lady Macbeth 
 was more ambitious than Macbeth. Few 
 men rise to heights of heroism or holiness 
 without the help of some good woman; 
 few men sell their souls to sin for any 
 price, unprompted by some bad woman. 
 So here are Ahab and Jezebel. Consider 
 them as to their power, their prestige. 
 Then consider who it is that rebukes them, 
 thwarts their designs, defeats their pur- 
 
 67 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 poses, predicts their downfall: an abso- 
 lutely unknown man. 
 
 Elijah appears upon the scene without 
 introduction. No one vouches for him. 
 His lineage is unknown. His parentage 
 is unheralded, and that among a people 
 and in an age that made more of gene- 
 alogy than modern Philadelphians do. 
 What race is so careful to keep ancestral 
 records as were the Jews? His province 
 and his town are known, but they are not 
 favorable to him. Gilead was a wild and 
 lawless country, much like the feud coun- 
 ties of Kentucky in our day. Unlikely 
 place to produce a prophet. Yet God is 
 fond of such anomalies*. Out of the wil- 
 derness came the herald of the Christ, and 
 out of Galilee came He whom the love and 
 faith of ages have crowned the King of 
 Saints. Joan of Arc was a peasant girl, 
 yet she drove the English out of France. 
 Martin Luther was a miner's son, yet he 
 hghted a fire in Germany which yet blazes 
 
 58 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 throughout Christendom. Abraham Lin- 
 coln was a child of bitter poverty, yet he 
 was the man of destiny to the Union. 
 Many a precious pearl is hidden in an 
 unlovely shell, and many a white flower 
 springs from the blackest soil. When God 
 has a great work to do, a work which only 
 a great man can do, it is His way to take 
 a man out of obscurity and solitude. He 
 vouches for His man. He assumes that 
 man's paternity. The supernatural is that 
 man's credential. 
 
 When Charles Stuart asked the officer 
 who came to arrest him, " Where is your 
 warrant?" the officer pointed through the 
 window to the street, in which stood regi- 
 ments of soldiers. " There is my warrant, 
 sir." Charles looked and saw, and said, 
 " It is writ large." Ahab did not chal- 
 lenge Elijah; he saw the warrant " writ 
 large." Some men need no badge of their 
 authority, Jesus needed none. When he 
 drove the mercenaries from the temple no 
 
 £9 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 man dared ask Him for His warrant. 
 Sidney Smith said of a certain member 
 of Parliament, " The Ten Commandments 
 are written on his face." He was the very 
 embodiment of righteousness. Elijah was 
 such a man, — shaggy, uncouth, clad in 
 coarse raiment, about his shoulders a 
 mantle of camel's skin, yet was his face 
 radiant from fellowship with God, yet 
 were his eyes bright with unveiled vision 
 of the truth. Is he not what some his- 
 torian called Napoleon, — " grand, gloomy, 
 and pecuUar" ? .Grand, always grand, 
 absolutely dignified. No mountebank. 
 More kingly than the king himself. 
 Gloomy, once plunged into abysmal 
 melancholy by temporary eclipse of 
 faith, once despondent, to prove that 
 he was a man of like passions with us. 
 PecuUar in that good sense in which the 
 apostle speaks of Christians as " a royal 
 priesthood, a peculiar people." 
 
 If ever a man should rise to call him- 
 
 60 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 self Elijah, to claim to be a reincarnation 
 of Elijah the Reformer, it is not neces- 
 sary to dispute his claim. Mere argument 
 is thrown away. Just institute a compari- 
 son. Look at the original, and then at 
 the copy. See if the mantle fits. Here 
 is the portrait of Elijah, clear as an Italian 
 cameo. Observe his features. Notice his 
 intense spirituality. God is the circumfer- 
 ence of his circle, at once the circumference 
 and the centre. God is his surest fact. 
 Ahab and Jezebel are but small motes 
 dancing in the sunshine. The royal court 
 is a shadow. The palace is a cobweb. Be- 
 yond the palace are the mountains of 
 Gilead. They have spoken to Elijah of 
 God. Above the mountains are the stars. 
 They have declared to Elijah the glory 
 of God. God has become the most inti- 
 mate and the most extensive reality in his 
 consciousness. And in conscious co-opera- 
 tion with God the world becomes a httle 
 thing. 
 
 61 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 If we lack anything to make us spiritual 
 it is this, — ^the clear apprehension of God 
 as the most indubitable reality. We need 
 not so much the sense of sin as the sense 
 of God. All the other facts of life wUl 
 take their proper places when we grasp 
 this in its relations. Amiel had hold of 
 this fact — Amiel, that quiet, lonely, lovely 
 Swiss professor at Geneva, whose journal 
 Mrs. Humphrey Ward has translated for 
 us — when he said, " What I desire is the 
 sum of all desires, and what I seek to know 
 is the sum of all knowledge. Always the 
 Complete, the Absolute, the Infinite, teres 
 atque rotundum. . . . There is no repose 
 for the mind except in the Absolute; for 
 feeling except in the Infinite ; for the soul 
 except in the Divine ; nothing finite is true, 
 is interesting, is worthy to fix my atten- 
 tion. . . . Religion for me is to live and 
 die in God, in complete abandonment to 
 the holy Will, which is at the root of na- 
 ture and destiny." Lanier had this fact 
 when he wrote: 
 
 69 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 As the marsh-hen secretly builds her a nest in the 
 
 watery sod, 
 Behold, I will build me a nest in the greatness of 
 
 God. 
 I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen 
 
 flies 
 In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the 
 
 earth and the skies." 
 
 Notice also Elijah's sweet humility. He 
 claims no power of his own, arrogates no 
 credit to himself. He organizes no tri- 
 umphal procession. He covets neither 
 garland nor crown. He is simply God's 
 servant, God's messenger, and in the hour 
 of his greatest victory, on Mount Carmel, 
 he retires into the shadow, that it may be 
 all the more apparent that the excellency 
 of the power is of God and not of man. 
 He asks no recognition for himself. He 
 builds no palace, makes provision for no 
 perpetuation of his office. If he looks for 
 a successor, it is not to Gilead among his 
 kinsmen, but to the school of the prophets, 
 
 63 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 to Elisha, who seems most fit to be the 
 people's leader and God's mouth-piece. 
 
 Beautiful is the reformer's tenderness. 
 Beneath that rough exterior is a heart of 
 melting sympathy. He ministers to the 
 distress of a poor widow. He restores to 
 the arms of his mother a dead son. He 
 cleaves with fatherly solicitude to Elisha. 
 Standing upon the rim of Jordan, wait- 
 ing for the chariot that is to take him 
 home, he says to Elisha, " Ask what I shall 
 do for thee before I am taken away." It 
 is not strange Elisha thought of him as his 
 father. Elijah was the father of the best 
 part of Ehsha. And now the prophet 
 ascends to God. He yields to the gravi- 
 tation of that world with which, by con- 
 templation, he is familiar, that world where 
 are his treasures, and time and sense are 
 for him no more. 
 
 Nine hundred years pass. Christ has 
 come. It is on Tabor or Hermon. Christ 
 is transfigured. There are with Him two 
 
 64 
 
ELIJAH THE REFORMER 
 
 men once of earth, Moses and Elijah. 
 They have a part in the fulfilknent of 
 redemption's plan. They are there to 
 witness that the testimony of prophecy is 
 the Spirit of Jesus. They were Christians 
 before Christ. We are Christians after 
 Christ. But in Christ we who are saved 
 under grace, and they who were saved 
 under the law, meet in the fellowship of 
 saints, in the love of " the Lord's appear- 
 ing." 
 
 65 
 
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 ^ ILarge iJIace 
 
 " He brought me forth into a large place." 
 (Psalm xviii. 19.) 
 
 Some one asked the chaplain of George 
 IV. if he felt no fear when preaching to 
 royalty, and the good man replied, " I for- 
 get that there are princes before me and 
 remember only that there are souls to in- 
 struct in godliness." The author of this 
 psalm forgot that he was a king when he 
 wrote these verses, and remembered only 
 that he was a soul, that he had been helped, 
 and by Whom he had been helped. 
 
 There are three singular facts about this 
 psalm. It occurs twice in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, once in II Samuel and once in the 
 Psalter. It contains two verses quoted in 
 the New Testament, one in Romans and 
 
 69 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 the other in Hebrews. These verses are 
 ascribed to Christ, as they appear in the 
 "New Testament, so we may believe that 
 it is something more than a psahn of David, 
 — ^that King David's Lord speaks through 
 it. 
 
 But here, at the nineteenth verse, it is a 
 human soul speaking. He is rehearsing 
 the many mercies of the Lord. He has 
 just said, " He delivered me from my 
 strong enemy. He drew me out of many 
 waters. He was my stay." You know 
 what a stay is in building. It is a prop. 
 As applied to persons, a stay is a stand-by, 
 and the Greek for stand-by is " Paraclete," 
 and we translate it " Comforter" or " Ad- 
 vocate." " If any man sin, we have an 
 Advocate with the Father." So the 
 Psalmist says, " The Lord was my Ad- 
 vocate." Now foUows the text, — " He 
 brought me forth into a large place." 
 And this is not the least precious fact here 
 adverted to, by any means. 
 
 70 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 David was bom in a small place, moved 
 in a small circle until the Lord led him 
 out. Not at once was he led into a large 
 place. He mounted to the throne. by way 
 of many a hardship and many a battle. 
 It was so with Joseph. He reached the 
 palace by way of the prison. But he came 
 to the large place in time, as did Abraham 
 before him. Ur of the Chaldees was a 
 small place. Abraham had no outlook 
 there, but he found a large place in 
 Canaan, a large place on earth, and a 
 large place in history. Even so Moses 
 was led. Egypt was a small place, — not 
 small in extent of dominion, nor in its 
 power among the nations of the world, — 
 but its horizon was small. The palace is 
 a poor place for a prophet. Better the 
 desert. Better the meadows of Midian. 
 Better the mountains of Moab. Better 
 the wandering through the wilderness. 
 Better the Sinai of law, the Nebo of 
 glory. 
 
 71 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 This has been the song of all God's ser- 
 vants in every age, — " He brought me 
 forth into a large place." Obedience to 
 God never contracts our powers. Christ 
 does not lead men backward, but onward, 
 outward, upward. Matthew was led into 
 a large place when he left the toll-booth 
 to follow Jesus. Peter had never seen 
 anything larger than the Sea of Galilee 
 imtil Jesus made him a fisher of men. 
 Paul at his best was only a theological 
 hair-sphtter, a heresy-hunter, untU Christ 
 appeared to him and filled his heart with 
 a passion for the preaching of the Gospel 
 and the glory of the cross. If the voice 
 of Patriarch and Prophet and Apostle 
 could be heard to-day it would cry, 
 "Never say "No' to God. If He caU 
 thee, go. He wUl lead thee into a large 
 place." 
 
 No experience is more common to the 
 most of us than a certain contempt for 
 the littleness of the things by which we 
 
 73 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 are compelled to live. We are crowded 
 and hemmed in by our circumstances. 
 We are painfully limited. The farm boy 
 who leaves the country goes to the city to 
 seek a more abundant hf e. He dreams the 
 city calls him to large enterprises. He does 
 not know how cramped are the lodgings of 
 most dwellers in the city, how small a part 
 of it he will occupy, how easily the sohtary 
 individual is lost in the crowd. James A. 
 Garfield heard the call of the sea when he 
 was a lad, and only the love of a widowed 
 mother kept him from following a sea- 
 faring life. Why is the sea so attractive 
 to many? Because of its bounty, its un- 
 measured space. It is a touching fact that 
 at the end of his life at Elberon, the eyes 
 of the dying President rested lovingly, 
 longingly, on the sea. Mr. Blaine sug- 
 gests, in his Eulogy, that then his friend 
 " heard the great waves breaking on the 
 farther shore and felt upon his wasted 
 brow the breath of the eternal morning." 
 
 73 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 Thomas Marshall, of Kentucky, a man of 
 genius and power, expressed his desire to 
 be buried in an open field and not in a 
 crowded cemetery. " I have been crowded 
 all my life," he said, " give me room for 
 my grave." If one who has led a life of 
 intense activity and great prominence feels 
 this sense of limitation, is it strange that 
 others are dissatisfied, whose ordinary lives 
 are best symbolized by " one raindrop fall- 
 ing on moor, or meadow, or mountain, one 
 flake of snow melting into the immeas- 
 urable deep." 
 
 I have heard a young lawyer say, 
 " When I was in college I had great 
 ambitions. I planned to make myself an 
 authority on international law, but now 
 that I am out I am compelled to try 
 mean little cases before mean little 
 juries." He had not found the large 
 place he sought. The youth who would 
 be a painter must be a clerk, and the 
 man vdth an artist's soul is selling tea 
 
 74 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 and coffee. Longfellow teUs us of one 
 " whom nature made a poet but whom 
 Destiny made a schoolmaster." We can- 
 not map out our orbit as we would. We 
 crave largeness. Our faculties seem fitted 
 for a greater sphere than that in which we 
 move. Literature is full of the expression 
 of this fact. " Songs of Unrest" would 
 fill volumes. Who of us busy daily with 
 little vexatious problems would not prefer 
 to deal with great ones? Who of us fight- 
 ing battles daily which only God can see 
 would not prefer to fight an epoch-making 
 battle? It is the insignificance of our lives 
 that frets us. So, whatever enlarges life in 
 any right direction is a benefaction. 
 
 Blessed is imagination, which expands 
 the walls and lifts the low roof of life, 
 and fills it with dreams of what might 
 have been and of what may be. Blessed 
 is travel, for it enlarges the horizon of 
 the traveller if he be a close observer. It 
 is a distinct step in one's mental develop- 
 
 75 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 ment when he first acquaints himself with 
 the language and customs of another coim- 
 try than his own. It is an old saying, " A 
 man is as many men as he can speak 
 languages." I know a German shoemaker 
 who speaks nine languages, and he has ac- 
 quired them by travelling through foreign 
 lands. He goes abroad every year or two, 
 tramps through the country he visits, lives 
 the life of the people, and then comes back 
 to his little shop to cobble and to live over 
 in memory the scenes of his now numer- 
 ous pilgrimages. Blessed is literature, for 
 it broadeias life. To most of us time to 
 travel is denied. But books are not denied 
 us, — books of travel, of history, of sci- 
 ence, of fiction. A late writer advises us 
 to read that fiction which portrays life as 
 different as possible from our own. We 
 hardly need that counsel. A certain in- 
 stinct guides us in that direction. Dis- 
 satisfaction with the limitations of our 
 lives impels us to read stories of soldiers 
 
 76 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 and knights and heroes and heroic deeds. 
 Far-off ages and far-off civilizations at- 
 tract us. We broaden our lives by- 
 changing our view-point. Blessed is 
 everything that tends to widen our sym- 
 pathies and give us the consciousness of 
 new relations. Blessed is the religion 
 that takes us out of ourselves, makes us 
 superior to our limitations, creates a new 
 world for us. Supremely blessed is the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ, for of all rehgions 
 that the world has seen it offers its dis- 
 ciples the most abundant life. 
 
 The distinctive glory of Christianity is 
 its expansive spirit. The key-note of it is 
 the greatest possible development of the 
 individual. It aims to make every man a 
 king, every heart the throne of the Eter- 
 nal, every hfe a consecrated temple. " The 
 humblest life that lives may be divine." It 
 is a great undertaking, and it is unique in 
 Christianity. Confucius never taught it. 
 There is nothing in Confucianism to lead 
 
 T7 
 
A LAKGE PLACE 
 
 the individual soul to greatness. Pru- 
 dential maxims and conventional morality 
 may make a man a better machine, but 
 they do not increase his spiritual resources. 
 Buddha taught the extinguishment of the 
 individual. Epictetus taught the suppres- 
 sion of emotion, the denial of desire. 
 Christ's doctrine is. Diminish nothing that 
 is right; repress nothing that may be 
 turned to good; do not diminish your 
 interests, but multiply them; live the 
 largest possible life; conquer your sor- 
 rows by making the sorrows of others 
 your care; master your desires by giving 
 them a new direction; extend life on every 
 side. Is not this the Master's teaching? 
 Is it not the uniform testimony of experi- 
 ence that Christian discipleship leads every 
 faithful soul into a large place? It is sin 
 that narrows life, clips the wings with 
 which the spirit would soar to lofty heights. 
 Hence the conquest of sin by grace is like 
 the liberation of a slave. Fetters fall off. 
 
 78 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 Iron doors and brazen gates are torn 
 asunder, and the captive moves out into 
 God's universe to learn how life enlarges 
 with each new step in grace. 
 There is a song which says, — 
 
 " Could we but stand where Moses stood 
 And view the landscape o'er." 
 
 Why, we can stand there; we do stand 
 there! Our view-point is from the side 
 of Jesus Christ. We have His perspec- 
 tive. We see things as He sees them. So 
 things are not what they seem. Life and 
 death, time and duty, sorrow and pain are 
 transfigured, and history sweeps on to- 
 wards that " far-off divine event" when 
 " aU things shall be made new." Christ 
 wants us to see, to hear, to think, to feel, 
 to act, in view of infinite relations. He 
 wants us to know that selfishness turns life 
 into a squirrel-cage ; that envy, greed, false- 
 hood, cruelty, base appetites imprison men, 
 make life small, and that the spirit of holi- 
 
 79 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 ness extends all the boundaries of the inner 
 man. Remember this; for the idea pre- 
 vails among some that Christianity limits 
 life, except in the direction of the future. 
 The fact is there is nothing else that so 
 expands it. Not imagination, not travel, 
 not literature, not all other things com- 
 bined. God never calls us to impoverish- 
 ment or isolation, but always to enrich- 
 ment and fellowship with the spirits of 
 just men made perfect. 
 
 Christ was always calling men, — Philip, 
 Nathanael, the rich young ruler, Zacchaeus, 
 Bartimeus, Lazarus, Nicodemus. Did any 
 one of them follow Him and fail to find 
 the meaning of abundant Ufe? Did any 
 one of them turn back who did not turn 
 away from glory and honor and immor- 
 tality? Years ago I knew a life that was 
 transformed and led into a large place and 
 made fruitful in abundant measure, and 
 the memory of it lingers in my mind like 
 a benediction. A common plough-boy 
 
 80 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 heard somewhere of the Great Teacher, 
 who made peasants and fishermen His 
 disciples and let them share His kingly 
 thoughts. As he walked behind the 
 plough, he said to himself, " I would like 
 to live a larger Ufe; I would hke to feel 
 the uplift of great ideas. If the Teacher 
 will take me I will learn of Him." From 
 that hour he was a scholar in the school of 
 Christ. He found the Master meek and 
 lowly of heart, and not at aU like some 
 teachers who have no time to spend with 
 beginners. Almost before he knew it the 
 boy began to think differently of nature, 
 of people, of all God's creatures. He 
 found himself growing more patient and 
 humane, more studious and reverent, richer 
 in affection and keener in his interest in 
 everything that concerned the welfare of 
 the world. There was no sudden spasm 
 of emotion, but a gradual breaking away 
 from old conditions, a gradual ascension 
 Godward. He thought of that Young 
 
 8X 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 Man who suffered Himself to be baptized 
 that He might leave nothing of righteous- 
 ness unfulfilled, and he was baptized. He 
 thought of another, who said, " I am debtor 
 both to the Jew and Greek," and he said, 
 " I, too, am a debtor to the world." So 
 he began to converse with people about the 
 sweet reasonableness of Christianity. He 
 had a word for other plough-boys, and a 
 whole community began to feel the impulse 
 of his words and work. He never entered 
 the ministry, but his life was a continual 
 ministry. From the farm he went into 
 the haUs of the Legislature of his State, 
 and from there to the governorship, and 
 from there the God Who spoke to him as 
 he followed the plough called him to pass 
 " through the gates into the City." Such 
 a life was that of the late Governor Mount, 
 of Indiana, upon whose tomb may well be 
 written, — " He led me forth into a large 
 place." 
 
 This is what God wants to do for all 
 
A LARGE PLACE 
 
 of us. Young man, you cannot be so 
 ambitious for yourself as He is for you. 
 Not that He makes all His servants leaders 
 in the State, but He makes us princes of 
 a royal line, companions of apostles, com- 
 rades of the saints, followers in the kingly 
 train of the conquering Christ. 
 
 93 
 
%i Ci^ou !lfa(nt 
 
mmiMMM:miiii^MmM^^iMMMM^kMM^^iSiMMm4 
 
 i^mmwwmwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwmm^trm 
 
 M Ef^on JPaittt 
 
 " If thou faint in the day of adversity thy 
 strength is small." (Prov. xxiv. 10.) 
 
 This proverb assumes adversity to be a 
 part of the common experience of life. 
 The author of Ecclesiastes may have been 
 a pessimist, but he told an universal truth 
 when he said, " If a man live many years 
 and rejoice in them all, yet let him remem- 
 ber the days of darkness, for they shall be 
 many." Not to Christians alone do the 
 words of Jesus apply, — " In the world ye 
 shall have tribulation." It is well to know 
 this in the beginning; it will prevent many 
 painful surprises and innumerable disap- 
 pointments. 
 
 It is no kindness to a child never to let 
 him see the harder lines of life, to keep him 
 
 87 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 ignorant of the seamy side of things. 
 There is nothing much more pitiable than 
 the sight of a youth who has been so deli- 
 cately and daintily reared that it has not 
 occurred to him that he can see a dark day 
 untU the experience comes to him. It 
 bursts upon him. He has thought of the 
 world as a great playground. Suddenly 
 he sees it as a battlefield, his battlefield. 
 He has thought of life as a comedy. Now 
 it breaks upon him as a tragedy, with pain 
 in the air he breathes and death's black 
 cloud over it all. He is incapable of heroic 
 action because of his astonishment. He 
 has gone out to war with a dress suit and a 
 rattan cane. He faints at the sight of 
 blood. While the man who was nerved and 
 armed for this hour sustains the shock, he 
 Ues prostrate, wondering how it happened. 
 It did not happen. It was planned. This 
 is what war is for, what life is for. 
 
 So it is weU for a child to know what is 
 before him. TeU him as he stands at the 
 
 88 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 opening gates of life, " Before you are 
 pain, loss, trial, toil, hardship. Days wiU 
 come when the sun shall be hid, and nights 
 when no stars shall shine. Reverses wUl 
 come, but be brave, acquit yourself like a 
 man, so that whether vanquished or victor 
 you may prove yourself a good soldier." 
 
 There is another figure by which life is 
 represented, as a voyage. It has smooth 
 seas and breakers, favorable breezes and 
 head-winds, clear skies and black clouds. 
 Some are inchned to say that breakers and 
 head-winds and frowning skies prevail. It 
 is not so ; but there are times that try men's 
 souls, hours that test the seaworthiness of 
 the craft and the seamanship of the cap- 
 tain. The part of wisdom is to sing when 
 the skies are clear and the wind is fair, and 
 keep a brave heart and a steady hand when 
 the storm breaks, and outride it. Joaquin 
 MUler gives us a noble picture of Colmnbus 
 on his first voyage of discovery: 
 
 69 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 " Behind him lay the gray Azores, 
 
 Behind the gates of Hercules; 
 Before him not the ghost of shores, 
 
 Before him only shoreless seas ; 
 The good mate said, ' Now must we pray. 
 
 For lo! the very stars are gone, 
 Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?' 
 
 ' Why, say, Sail on and on !' 
 
 " Then pale and worn he kept the deck. 
 
 And peered through darkness. Ah, that 
 night. 
 Of all dark nights ! And then a speck — 
 
 A light ! a light ! a light ! a light ! 
 It grew, a starlit flag unfurled ! 
 
 It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. 
 
 He gained a world. He gave that world 
 
 Its grandest lesson : * On ! sail on !' " 
 
 Well, that is the lesson of the text. Sail 
 on, in spite of adversity; faint not when 
 adversity cometh; be strong in the day of 
 trial, for it wiU come, tribulation will come. 
 " But it comes not to some," you say; " it 
 comes not to the favorites of fate, the dar- 
 
 90 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 lings of Providence." And who are they? 
 Where do they live? A man was walking 
 with a friend, along what is regarded by 
 some as the handsomest residence street of 
 the world, and he said, " You may think the 
 inhabitants of these palaces are exempt 
 from misfortune, but I know more or less 
 of the history of aU these families, and I 
 know of none into which sorrow and trou- 
 ble have not come." To the rich as well as 
 to the poor, patrician as well as plebeian, the 
 Word speaks, "Ye shall have tribulation." 
 Have you examined this word " tribula- 
 tion"? It comes to us from the name of 
 that old threshing instrimient, the Roman 
 flail, a lash of leather, tipped with iron 
 spikes. That is the word which describes 
 some of those experiences that scourge the 
 bare soul, that thresh the heart until it pal- 
 pitates with pain. The word of the text, 
 " adversity," may not be so strong, but it is 
 more inclusive; it embraces all that is or 
 seems to be opposed to our welfare or suc- 
 
 Bl 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 cess. It comprehends a thousand things 
 which, coming into our lives, cause us to 
 lose courage, to relax eif ort, to faint by the 
 way. 
 
 Our day of adversity may be a day of 
 material reverses. There is always a possi- 
 bHity that even a prosperous man may fail, 
 and there is a probability that about every 
 ten years the commerce of the country 
 will stagnate, and that about every 
 twenty years there will be an alarming 
 shrinkage of values. This ten-year expe- 
 rience we call hard times. The twenty-year 
 experience we call a panic. Mr. WiUiam 
 Walter Phelps said, just after the panic of 
 1873, " What causes panics is the tendency 
 in the human heart suddenly to lose its nor- 
 mal trust and confidence in men." Strange, 
 is it not, that it requires faith to keep the 
 world of commerce on its feet? Commerce 
 laughs at the word faith, yet the business 
 interests of men rest on faith. If a hun- 
 dred thousand people in Philadelphia 
 
 93 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 should suddenly lose faith in the security 
 of our banks it would create a panic here 
 that would paralyze trade and bring ruin 
 to many a substantial institution. 
 
 Whatever may be the explanation of 
 these periods of contracted credit and di- 
 minished circulation of money, they come, 
 and with them come wide-spread suffering 
 and loss. Fortunes collapse in an hour. 
 Banks break under the strain; unable to 
 recall immediately their loans, their doors 
 close, and innumerable depositors, manu- 
 facturers, and merchants are forced to the 
 wall. When a manufacturer sees the work 
 of a lifetime come to naught; when a shop- 
 keeper is compelled to suspend business; 
 when a man's income is so lessened that 
 he finds money going out at the spout 
 faster than it comes in at the hopper, that 
 is his day of adversity. Have you ever 
 known what that day means? Has a fire 
 consumed your factory in a night? Has 
 a strike so crippled you that you were com- 
 
 83 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 pelled to cancel orders and let your looms 
 lie idle for a season? Has an unfounded 
 rumor shut the door of discount in your 
 face? Has some unforeseen accident de- 
 stroyed your prospects, some incident of 
 shifting fashion left you stranded? Has 
 the dishonesty of a partner or of a clerk 
 robbed you of the fruit of your wisdom 
 and labor? Then you know. You know 
 how the mind is dazed, how the wUl is 
 palsied, how sometimes even faith in God 
 grows faint and wicked thoughts rise in 
 the burdened brain. Suicide after fail- 
 ure — suicide following bankruptcy — sui- 
 cide to escape poverty? Foolish! But when 
 a man faints he is likely to think foolish 
 and wicked thoughts, and likely not to see 
 how foolish and wicked they are until God 
 brings him to his senses. Many a man has 
 confessed that there have been times when 
 he thought of taking his own Ufe. One 
 such says, " The moment I caught myself 
 meditating self-desti-uction I rebuked my- 
 
 94, 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 self, ' Stop, coward 1 You are a failure, 
 but do not publish yourself a fool.' " 
 And in the spirit of this self -administered 
 rebuke he sought and effected an honor- 
 able settlement with his creditors, began 
 again to build his fortune, and before long 
 had proved that — 
 
 " Noble souls, through dust and heat 
 Rise from disaster and defeat 
 
 The stronger, 
 And conscious still of the Divine 
 Within them, lie on earth supine 
 
 No longer." 
 
 He fainted not in the day of his adversity, 
 and he had the help of a spirit as strong 
 as his own, who said when reverses came, 
 " SeU this home. It is mudi too large for 
 us and it never quite suited me. After 
 awhile we will build a house much more 
 convenient and much more desirable than 
 this." So, hke a knight of old, whose 
 armor had been rightly buckled on, he 
 
 95 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 won all he had lost and more, and laid it 
 at her feet. 
 
 Our day of adversity may be a time of 
 personal or domestic affliction. It is easy 
 enough to bear the misfortunes of other 
 people. It is wonderful how philosophi- 
 cally we can take our neighbors' calamities. 
 But if sickness, accident, helplessness, in- 
 validism should be our lot, it is a different 
 thing. It requires no courage to say to a 
 man who is laid on the shelf at forty or 
 fifty, " Be brave; be patient." But put 
 yourself in his place. Would you be brave 
 and patient, submissive and serene? Would 
 you lift your face to those about you and 
 say, " It is God's way; His will be done" ? 
 Or would you fret and chafe and murmur 
 and break your heart about it? I think I 
 know some whose strength would not fail 
 them then. There would be a struggle, 
 it may be a wrestling, as Jacob's with the 
 angel, then a white face wet with tears, 
 then a prayer, then victory in that prayer 
 
 90 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 which encompasses all other prayers, " Thy 
 Will be done." 
 
 It requires strength quite as rare and as 
 divine to keep from fainting when the blow 
 f aUs upon another, if that other be one of 
 our own household. Years ago there was 
 a family within the parish of a friend of 
 mine in New York. The mother became 
 insane and was sent to an asylum, where 
 she remained several years. The father 
 brooded over the sad circumstance, over 
 the possibUity that their lovely daughters 
 might have inherited the infirmity of their 
 mother, and in a moment of profomid de- 
 spondency he sought death by jumping 
 from a Fall River steamer into the sea. It 
 was at night, and the black waters swal- 
 lowed him up. The very day the papers 
 announced his suicide the physicians pro- 
 nounced his wife cured, and she went back 
 to her children. He fainted at the very close 
 of his day of adversity. Oh, if he had only 
 been brave a little longer! Over against 
 
 97 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 such a case, think of Charles Lamb. His 
 sister, Mary, worn to extreme nervous mis- 
 ery by attention to needle-work and de- 
 votion to her sick mother, was stricken with 
 an acute mania, in which she killed her 
 mother. She was committed to an asylum, 
 and there she might have remained all her 
 Uf e had Charles not pledged himself for 
 her safe-keeping. Giving up his dreams 
 of a home of his own, he devoted himself 
 to his sister, became her companion, kept 
 her in his humble apartments in her sane 
 intervals, and when the sjonptoms of her 
 malady reappeared, took her to her tem- 
 porary retreat. This he did through aU 
 the years until death stiUed his patient 
 heart. Is there anything finer in aU the 
 history of men of letters? They say 
 Charles Lamb stammered a httle in his 
 speech. One thing is certain, his spirit 
 never faltered, his constancy never wa- 
 vered, he was strong in the day of his ad- 
 versity. 
 
 98 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 Every life, every common life, affords 
 abundant opportunity for the display of 
 com-age. Was ever a man's life abso- 
 lutely free from annoyance? Was ever 
 a woman's life exempt from perplexity? 
 Was ever a family free from emergent 
 circimistances, demanding superior wis- 
 dom, courage, grace, magnanimity? If 
 thou faint, then what? Then the chain 
 parts at the moment when most depends 
 upon it. The bridge breaks when it bears 
 the most precious load. Our day of 
 adversity is the day when all the future 
 may depend upon the strength of a single 
 hour. This is the best part of the whole 
 lesson, — it requires a day of adversity to 
 reveal our strength. In Browning's " Par- 
 acelsus," he writes, "I go to prove my soul." 
 So go we aU through life, to prove our 
 souls, and to prove the efficacy of that upon 
 which our souls have fed. We Hve our 
 common lives, our uneventful lives for 
 years, growing strong by ordinary acts 
 
 99 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 of courage, by the exercise of little hero- 
 isms, until some day we face a crisis, and 
 then all the stored-up potential energy of 
 our souls asserts itself, and " time is con- 
 quered and our crown is won." 
 
 Our civil war, a generation ago, made 
 heroes of many who otherwise would never 
 have risen to anything like moral gran- 
 deur. Colonel Shaw, who fell in the attack 
 on Fort Wagner, young Gushing, who 
 blew up the Confederate ram Albemarle, 
 and some of the great commanders them- 
 selves grew great in the nation's day of 
 adversity. George WiUiam Curtis, Wen- 
 dell PhiUips, and men of that type, who 
 fought on their chosen fields as bravely as 
 any Sheridan or Meade, grew strong in the 
 strenuous strife that preceded the Civil 
 War, when the trumpet caU of duty and 
 danger simimoned them to " scorn deUghts 
 and live laborious days." Blessed is the 
 voice that awakens us to the purpose of 
 life — ^the only purpose that justifies life, 
 
 100 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 to love something more than life, to count 
 all things hut loss for the excellency" of the 
 knowledge of something superior to life. 
 
 There used to be a young man in Provi- 
 dence vs^ho seemed utterly indisposed to do 
 anything to prove himself more than a 
 mere dandy, a sort of walking fashion- 
 plate. Because his father was rich he 
 drifted, as so many rich men's sons do, 
 into uselessness, apathy, atrophy of men- 
 tal and moral muscle. One day his father 
 called him into the oflSce and said, " My 
 son, I have lost everything. I am a poor 
 man. You are poor. You must help your- 
 self now. I can do nothing more for you." 
 Then the young man went to work as any 
 other poor man's son might have done. He 
 had been half asleep. It took a rude shock 
 to arouse him, but he was thoroughly 
 awake. He developed strength and ca- 
 pacity. There came a time within ten 
 years when he handed his father a check, 
 and said, " This is what you spent on me 
 
 101 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 before I tried to do anything. The extra 
 thousand is the interest on your invest- 
 ment." He Uved a serious and successful 
 life. It required a day of adversity to 
 prove his soul. 
 
 All I have said may seem to relate only 
 to things material. The spiritual element 
 in strong character, however, is larger than 
 appears. The Christian, of aU men, is 
 strong in the day of his adversity. He has 
 meat to eat that the world knows nothing 
 of. He feeds on hidden manna. He has 
 access to a secret source of strength. 
 Voices speak to him through the silence. 
 Visions appear to him through the dark- 
 ness. Poverty cannot make him poor, since 
 all things are his. Misfortune cannot 
 daunt him, for all things are working to- 
 gether for his good. Floods cannot sweep 
 him from his feet, for invisible hands bear 
 him up. Death cannot harm him, for death 
 itself is slain. Not aU the gloom of all black 
 nights can blot out his stars. He walks in 
 
 103 
 
IF THOU FAINT 
 
 light. He has fellowship with all other 
 saints in hght, and the Bloodj the Blood, 
 THE BLOOD, cleanseth him from all 
 sin. 
 
 103