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EVOLUTldN 
 
 and RELIGION. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 EIGHTEEN SERMONS. 
 
 Discussing the Application of the Evolutionary Prin- 
 • ciPLES AND Theories to the PracticIal 
 Aspects of Religious Life. 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT. 
 
 I88S. 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory : The Background of Mystery 
 
 (Eph. i : 9, lo). Dec. i6, 1877, . . 151 
 
 I. The Manifold Christ (John xv : 14, 15), . . 172 
 
 Lesson : John iv : 1-26. April 20, 1884. 
 
 II. The Conversion of Force (i. Thess. v : 14), . 188 
 
 Lesson : John xiii : 1-17. June 15, 1884. 
 
 III. The Drift of the Ages (Isaiah xi : 1-9), . . 204 
 
 Le^^son : I John iv : 1-21. April 8, 1883. 
 
 IV. The HiTidf.n Man (i Peter iii : 3, 4), . . . 219 
 
 Lesson : Matthew xxiii. May 20, 1883. 
 
 V. The Rest of God (Psalm cvxi : 37), . , . . 232 
 
 Lesson: Psalm cvxi : 27-31. May 6, 1883. 
 
 VI. God's Loving Providence (2 Cor. iv : 14-18), . 244 
 
 Lr^^^|)^'; Romans viii : 16-39. October 21, 1883. 
 
 y 
 
 VII. The New Testament Theory Of Evolution 
 
 (i John iii : 2, .3), ...... 261 
 
 Lesson : Col. i : 1-22. October 5, 1873. 
 
 VIII. God's Goodness Man's Salvation (Rom. ii : 
 
 4-1 1)- 278 
 
 Lesson ; i John iv. June lo, 1883. 
 
'5° CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "^IX. Poverty and the Gospel (Matt, xi : 2-6), . 294 
 
 Lesson : Luke xv. June 17, 1883. 
 
 X. God in the World (Matt, vi : lo), . . . 313 
 
 Lesson : 2 Peter i. June 3, 1883. 
 
 XI. Jesus the True Ideal (Heb. xii : 1-3), . . 328 
 
 Lesson; Heb. xi. March 2, 1884. 
 
 ~-iXII. The Growth of Creation (Phil, ii : 9-1 1), . 339 
 
 Lesson : Luke iv ; 1-30. December 14, 1884. 
 
 XIII. The Battle of Life (Eph. vi : 11-18), . 350 
 
 Lesson ; Eph. vi : 10-20, January g, 1881. 
 
 XIV. The Liberty of Christ (Gal. v : 1-13), . . 366 
 
 Lesson.- i Cor. xiii : 27-31. April 29, 1883. 
 
 XV. Concord, not Unison (i Cor. xii : 4-7), . . 383 
 
 Lesson : i Cor. xii : 4-31. June 22, 1884. 
 
 XVI. Liberty and Duty of the Pulpit (Matt, iv: 19), 404 
 
 Lesson : Matt, xxiii ; 1-39. January 27, 1884. 
 
 XVII. The Vitality of God's Truth (Isa. Iv : 8-n), . 423 
 
 Lesson : Psa. Ixxiii : 1-28. Jnnuary so, 1884. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. 
 
 " Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to 
 his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself ; that in the dispen- 
 sation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things 
 in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth ; even in 
 him." — Eph. i, 9, lo. 
 
 One great difficulty in understanding Paul's impassioned 
 writings lies in the fact that when his nature kindled it 
 moved so high into the very precincts of the spiritual and 
 the invisible that in his own mind figures were obscure, 
 and could not but be. It was one of the evidences of ele- 
 vation. It brought him nearer to the preaching of Christ 
 than any other apostle except John. It is difficult to in- 
 terpret, because there are so few of us who ever rise into 
 that region so far as to be familiar with its phenomena. 
 
 In this passage Paul speaks of mystery ; but what the 
 mystery was to which he referred is only very dimly hinted 
 at in the tenth verse — namely, the purpose of God, in the 
 future, "To gather in one all things in Christ." You will 
 observe how extremely vague the statement is. There are 
 no limitations, no definitions, no specializations, no ideals, 
 except a faint flash of foreseeing that the time was coming 
 in which this distracted and dislocated world was to come 
 into a perfect harmony in Jesus Christ. How that time 
 should come, or what it should mean, he does not under- 
 take to say. This mystery he speaks of not only here, but 
 in many other places. 
 
 Now, mystery means hidden things ; and it therefore 
 
 Plymouth Church, Sunday, Dec. i6, 1877. 
 
152 PLYMOUl'H PULPIT. 
 
 means unknown things. Technically, as interpreted, for 
 instance, by the primitive Greeks, it signifies a certain form 
 of association with things purposely hidden from the great 
 crowd outside, though the initiated were permitted to 
 know them ; but to us generally, in our usage, mystery 
 means things unknown. 
 
 Not that we are necessarily incapable of comprehending 
 elements that belong to the great unknown ; but we have 
 not yet traveled far enough to comprehend them. Whether 
 we fail to comprehend them because we are not sufficiently 
 advanced, or because they are beyond the reach of finite 
 intelligence, makes no difference. The background of all 
 theology, as treating of the nature of God and of the divine 
 moral government, is mystery. The abyss that lies back of 
 human knowledge is simply infinite — an abyss of mystery. 
 
 And yet, this is the region where not only men's fancy 
 has been the most discursive, but where men have been 
 the most despotic. About things in regard to which we 
 have definite knowledge men are careless ; but when they 
 have gone into a realm that is infinitely remote from their 
 positive knowledge, and where the rarest intellects are 
 mere explorers in the night, as it were, there they have 
 made faith in abstract doctrines to be the most cogent and 
 determinative of moral character, and the condition of re- 
 ligious organization. On the nature of G-od, the methods 
 of divine moral government, the great destinies of the fu- 
 ture — subjects about which men know the least, the slight- 
 J est aberration is counted damnatory. In one period of the 
 world it was punished with physical pains and penalties ; 
 in our time it is punished only with moral pains and pen- 
 alties — the transgressors being marked in order that they 
 may be disesteemed by the faithful. 
 
 Men learn, and must learn, of God, of the divine govern- 
 ment, and of the future, through- their own experience. 
 There is a species of anthropomorphism which is the in- 
 dispensable door or avenue to knowledge on these subjects. 
 It implies that men's essential faculties are, not in scope or 
 p'effectness but in quality, the saime as the divine attributes. 
 If you deny this you deny all possible knowledge of the 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTEliY. 153 
 
 invisible realm. They wlio embrace materialism in its 
 various forms do deny it. Tliey say that God is unknow- 
 able. But'if God is unknowable, then to all practical' i'n- 
 lenrshe does not exist. That view is practical Atheism. 
 Not to poetic natures ; but we are not all poetic natures. 
 A poetic nature, though he may not know about God, may 
 have a consciousness of the great "over-soul ;" but most 
 folks are not poets. 
 
 And as to loving a God that is inconceivable, unthink- 
 able, unknowable — it is preposterous. A^_morning-glory 
 wants something that is solid to run up on. It wants to 
 twine ; but it will not twine on a shadow. It must have 
 something that is substantial to twine on. Human nature, 
 too, must have something substantial to twine on. And 
 ii you proclaim an immanent divinity, a kind of Soul-of- 
 the-World, that has reason, though not anything that we 
 understand by reason, that has justice, though not any- 
 thing that we understand by justice, and that has goodness, 
 tliough not anything that we understand by goodness, you 
 "will surely throw men into hopeless confusion ! If when I 
 say, "I love the truth," there is no correspondence between 
 my sense of truth and truth as it exists in God, then the 
 term "truth" is perpetually binding and enslaving me. 
 
 What if men should employ terms of description in this 
 way ? Suppose we should say to a child, " I am going to 
 take you to your grandfather's, and you are going to see a 
 most magnificent horse, only that it is not like any horse 
 that you ever saw. It has no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no 
 legs, no mane, no tail, and no skin and bones ; yet it is a 
 horse. And a saddle will be put on him ; but it is not a 
 leather saddle, and it has no stirrups, and its frapiework is 
 not like that of any saddle that you ever saw ; yet it is a 
 saddle !" What sort of a horse would that be that had 
 neither legs, nor eyes, nor mouth, nor ears, nor mane, nor 
 tail? and what sort of a saddle would that be that had no 
 stirrups, that was not made of leather, and that differed in 
 Its framework from all other saddles ? It would simply be 
 cheating the child to tell him of such a horse and such a 
 saddle. » 
 
154 PLYMOUTH PULPJT. 
 
 And to say that justice in the divine nature does not 
 answer to our conception of justice, and that truth in its 
 quality and essential nature is one thing in God and another 
 thing in men, is to falsify the whole sphere of human ex- 
 perience. It is true that the wisdom of God, in so far as 
 purity and extent are concerned, is very different from our 
 wisdom, just as the experience of a wise father is vastly 
 greater than the intellectual operations of his little child : 
 nevertheless, the little boy of four years old, on his father's 
 knee, has the same quality of thinking that the father has, 
 although in the father it has grown and ripened to a de- 
 gree that the child cannot comprehend. Notwithstanding 
 the difference which exists as to development, there is 
 identity of substantial radical quality. 
 
 Therefore, in_ order that men may have a conception of 
 a personal God it must be assumed that their essential 
 moral faculties and intellectual structure constitute a just 
 foundation for a comparison with the ideas which they form 
 orGod. Our conception of what is true may not be so 
 laige as the whole truth, and not so fine as the highest 
 truth, but it differs from conception of truth in its fullest 
 and most perfect form only as the taper differs from the 
 sun. The difference is not in quality, but in degree or 
 extent. No man would hold a candle out of the window 
 and say that it was sunrise ; nevertheless, the fire in the 
 candle and the fire in the sun are the same in their essen- 
 tial nature, though they are not the same in magnitude, 
 nor the same in power of heat or illumination. 
 
 The same is true in regard to the divine nature, the 
 foundation, and the only foundation, for understanding 
 which lies in a species of regulated anthropomorphism — 
 the teaching of God in man, or human life, which is the 
 signification of the term. But this, of course, is subject, as 
 I have already intimated, to the perpetual correction which 
 lies in the thought that while we have elementary faculties 
 and feelings which define for us the divine nature, those 
 same feelings and faculties exist in God in such variety, in 
 such scope, in such combinations, and they act after 
 methods that so transcend their action when limited to an 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. 155 
 
 organization of the flesh, that there is always a vast back- 
 ground of mystery beyond them. We know, as it were, 
 the alphabet of the divine nature : but the library, the 
 learning, the literature of the divine nature we do not 
 know. That lies back of all our possible thought when 
 we are thinking toward God. We strike the elemental 
 forms of the nature of God, and gain some definite concep- 
 tion of what is mercy, of what is gentleness, of what is love. 
 When we have gained this conception we have only gained 
 so large a conception as is possible to the limited operation 
 of those elements in human conditions ; but God is free 
 from such conditions ; he stands above them and beyond 
 them ; and in him those qualities take on forms so large 
 and so intense that, after all, the background of every one 
 of our thoughts in respect to the nature of God and the 
 divine moral government is simply untraceable by human 
 imagination or thought. The mystery of which the Bible 
 so often speaks_— the mystery of holiness ; the mystery of 
 the mercy of God, through which he is going to include all 
 Gentiles as well as Jews in his Church ; the mystery which 
 is spoken of in our text, of "gathering together in one all 
 things in Christ" — all things in the heaven above, on the 
 earth beneath, under the earth, and throughout the uni- 
 verse — this mystery coheres with that philosophical prin- 
 ciplejwhicE I have stated to you. 
 
 Consider, for a moment, what there is in the teachings 
 of the Word of God which transcends human experience. 
 Spirit-life must be incomprehensibly different from life in 
 the body; and yet you will take notice that whenever 
 spirit-life is interpreted to us by spiritual teachers it is 
 done by bringing back to us human forms, human thought 
 and human action. The whole literature and lore of what 
 is called " Spiritualism," in our day, is a confession that 
 men cannot understand spirit. It frees man from bodily 
 conditions, and throws him into a higher sphere by imagi- 
 nation ; but then he is just the same that he was, only he 
 seems to be made up of cloud instead of good honest flesh 
 and bones ; and he thinks, and hears, and feels, and talks 
 and walks, just as he did before. 
 
156 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 Swedenborg has a whole world in which men are divided 
 into classes, tribes, groups, in the other spheres, and all 
 goes on there as it does here, except that they have a sort 
 of effluent bodies — bodies that you can see through, as it 
 were. Diaphanous, translucent creatures, they are, with 
 material bodies of a little finer stuff than those which they 
 inhabited on earth, though substantially the same. So 
 nearly identical are they with their former selves that their 
 very mistakes and errors have gone with them. Now and 
 then Swedenborg hits the truth exactly. He relates that 
 in one of his visions he saw, in heaven, or rather in the 
 other life, a man who had been dead twenty years, and did 
 not yet know it ! I ought not to doubt that such a thing 
 may be, since I see such men even among us in our day. 
 They are dead, and have been for years, and do not know 
 it ; though everybody else knows it ! According to Swe- 
 denborg, the other life is a reproduction of this life, with 
 merely a poetic fringe about it. 
 I Of everything that we can comprehend there is the germ, 
 the possibility, the potential cause, in ourselves ; and be- 
 yond that we cannot go in this state of being. You can 
 think of a spirit as you can think of a dream, or as you 
 think of a cloud which is rarefied and made so tenuous that 
 it but just appears, melts to a transparent film and disap- 
 pears. The moment that, in your conception of spirit- 
 existence, you come to that which your senses cannot in- 
 terpret by some earthly form, that moment it vanishes 
 from your sight. The whole philosophy and art of spiritu- 
 alizing consists in selecting such forms of matter as are 
 the least opaque and cumbersome, and that have the most 
 of levity, of lightness, and of transparency in them ; but 
 they are all radicated in matter; they all come from matter 
 ,and go back to it ; and to conceive of absolute, pure spirit- 
 ual existence, even in saint or angel or divinity, transcends 
 the power of any human intellect. 
 
 The conditions of spiritual life are relative to those of 
 time by reason of the limitations of matter. Divisions of 
 time were invented to express the succession of events. 
 Abstractly, time has no existence. It exists only as we can 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. 157 
 
 measure it, by seconds, and minutes, and hours, and days, 
 and months, and years. Time is nothing but interspaces 
 which separate events or phenomena. Men live under tlie 
 operations of time because they live in the realm of mat- 
 ter, where things are measured by intervals between fact 
 and fact. Time is calculated according to the motion of 
 the earth upon its axis, and of tlie earth around the sun. 
 To us time is real, because we are in the realm of matter; 
 but if we were in the spirit-life it would not necessarily 
 follow that we should be cognizant of time. The sublime 
 angel of the Apocalypse cried "Time shall be no more," 
 with something more, it may be, than poetic figure. To 
 God a thousand years are as one day, and one day is as a 
 thousand years. 
 
 According to the very terms by which spirit is defined, 
 it is something antithetical to matter. Men that are in a 
 state of limitation by reason of the flesh, and that are 
 under the dominion of ideas caused by the mutations of 
 matter, are limited by necessities that presumptively do 
 not exist in the other life. So when we judge of things 
 which belong to the upper realm by our lower and crude 
 measures ; when we bring to the infinite superiorities of 
 the other life measures that belong only to the elements 
 of time, to the transient and to the visible, we do that 
 which is not warranted by the existing condition of 
 things. The point of view on the part of men and the 
 point of view on the part of God, as revealed in the truth 
 of Scripture, are such that we are liable to fall into contm- 
 ual mistakes. If you suppose that when God, who knows 
 all things in their infinite relations rather than in then- 
 limited time relations, who sees the end from the begm- 
 ningj who lives in a largeness of which we have no concep- 
 tion, who IS in a sphere removed infinitely further from 
 us than we are from the beetle that burrows under the 
 leaves, or that comes out at night from under the bark — if 
 you suppose that when He attempts to teach men, who 
 are shut up to matter, inclosed in the flesh, he will address 
 them from his own standpoint, you have no true conception 
 of the divine procedure. His standpoint of truth is one, 
 
158 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 and ours is another ; and we must judge by that which is 
 taught us in our circumscribed sphere, in the realm of our 
 limited knowledge, while he judges by his boundless 
 knowledge in a sphere which is no less in extent than the 
 universe itself. Though it may be compatible for us to 
 have the beginnings of an understanding of the divine 
 nature, it is impossible for us to have such a conception of 
 it as God himself has. The difference between a pure 
 spirit in the spiritual realm and a soul in the body, sur- 
 rounded by immutable physical laws, is one which leads 
 to endless mistakes, unless we are willing to accept rudi- 
 mentary, alphabetic ideas with humilit}'. And yet, it is on 
 these very points that men insist on the perfection of their 
 knowledge with the most ferocious confidence. 
 
 If you undertake to deny the Trinity — in which I be- 
 lieve ; if you undertake to deny the Father, the Son and 
 the Holy Spirit, three persons in one Godhead — what an 
 uproar you make in the church ! Men say, " If you do not 
 believe in that fundamental doctrine, you must go out, and 
 go out at once !" As if any human being, whether St 
 Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, or the farthest-reaching 
 mind that ever lived, when he came to a measurement of 
 the Divine Being, was competent to understand anything 
 about it ! 
 
 You may say, "How do you believe it, then ?" I believe 
 It in this way : I find it easier to accept the intimations or 
 words of the New Testament, that there is an invisible, a 
 mysterious union of three persons in one Godhead, than 
 to adopt any other view. But if you ask me a step beyond 
 that I cannot answer you. When I strain my thought to 
 look into this subject, I can see analogies which point 
 toward trinity in unity. I see that organized life begins 
 at absolute simplicity, develops new organs, increases in 
 complexity. Thus a unity is reached, made up of many 
 organs; later a unity of groups of organs, and when 
 you rise to human beings there is not simply one faculty, 
 and there are not merely single faculties, but there are 
 groups of faculties superinduced one over, another; there 
 ire animal passions, and social afiections, and moral sen- 
 's 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. 159 
 
 timents, and over them all imagination and reason ; and 
 as the last of these stages is a vast reach from the begin- 
 ning, so I can conceive that the same tendency may go 
 on beyond this world, units and groups being combined to 
 form personalities, and at last several personalities com- 
 bined in One Being. I can understand that this mode of 
 development has not exhausted itself inmen, and that it 
 may be found in the higher life, and that there may be not 
 only groups of faculties, but groups of personalities. The 
 thing is distinctly " thinkable," according to the German 
 phrase. Therefore I am not turned back from believing in 
 the Trinity because I cannot comprehend it. When you 
 ask me as to the quo modo, the method, of the Trinity, I am 
 obliged to confess that I do not understand it. But should 
 this be a bar to my going into the church ? A certain phase 
 of orthodoxy says, "You must subscribe to the Trinity, or 
 not come into the church." What is the law on which it 
 proceeds, and by which it judges a man ? Is it simplicity t 
 Is it transparency ? Is it lovableness ? Is it that on which 
 the fifth chapter of Matthew is founded? No. Men go 
 into the most unfathomable realms of human thought, take 
 the most difficult of all conceivable speculations, and make 
 them the condition of church-membership ; and if a man 
 believes in them he may be in the church, but if he does 
 not believe in them he shall not be in the church. 
 
 Take, again, the element of Time. When God speaks of 
 the duration of his own nature, are we to suppose that our 
 limited notions of time are fit instruments for the interpre- 
 tation of it ? Is it to be presumed that a man understands 
 exactly what time means in heaven because he understands 
 what time means on earth? Is it to be taken for granted 
 that he knows what the measurements are in the spiritual 
 realm because he knows what they are in this material 
 world ? And yet how positively men claim to understand 
 the facts of the Eternal and the Infinite ! 
 
 But there is no accounting for the folly of men when they 
 have undertaken to regulate other men's consciences and 
 belief. When a man thinks that he is a celestial hound set 
 on the track of heresy, with his nose for a conscience, and 
 
i6o PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 scents his prey afar off, and starts off with tail up and ears 
 set, farewell sense, farewell honor, farewell humanity, fare- 
 well everything ! 
 
 This exceeding difference which exists between the truth 
 as it is seen from the spirit side, or the side of perfection, 
 and as it is seen from the human side, that is relative and 
 imperfect, throws light on many dark problems of life and 
 thought. 
 
 First. One of the corroborative testimonies of the divin- 
 ity of Christ is afforded by a consideration of this differ- 
 ence. The teaching of Christ, especially as it is represented 
 in John (not exclusively, for there are traces of the same 
 thing in all the Evangelists, but in John it is more marked 
 than anywhere else), is mystical. It is mystical, at any 
 rate, in the sense that it is a teaching which brings into 
 view both the elements that belong to the upper sphere and 
 those that belong to the lower sphere. It is the teaching of 
 one who has the knowledge that is of the heavenly sphere, 
 but who is surrounded by the conditions of men on earth. 
 He finds difficulty in expressing his thoughts inhuman lan- 
 guage, and still more difficulty in making it palpable to 
 those to whom he speaks. 
 
 Therefore, you find in the teaching of Christ paradoxes 
 and forms of statement that, so far as exact truth is con- 
 cerned, are extravagances going beyond the point of our 
 thought and experience. Especially you will find in his 
 teaching fictions ; for it is a truth that, in the lower sphere 
 of human life, not unfrequently falsity addressed to the 
 imagination is more true than truth itself. The evolution 
 of truth in the human family on earth has been through fic- 
 tions. Frequently, to state the truth exactly is to lie, and 
 to state it without a particle of coherence to real facts is to 
 tell the truth. 
 
 For instance, you wish to produce in your child's mind a 
 conception of justice, and you make animals talk. You 
 say, " There was a lion — one of those good lions, my dear — 
 and he was walking one day in the woods ; and what did 
 he see ? He saw a poor little innocent lamb by a stream; 
 and there was a wolf — a bad wolf — and the wolf was saying 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. i6i 
 
 to the little lamb, ' What are you drinking out of this stream 
 for?' and the little lamb said, 'I did not know as I was 
 doing any harm.' ' Yes,' said the wolf, 'you did know that 
 you were doing harm, and I will tear you to pieces.' And 
 the lion walked up and said to the wolf, 'Stop ! you shall 
 not hurt that lamb ; he has rights as well as you ;' and the 
 lamb was saved." 
 
 Thus you show the child how a just monarch protects 
 innocence on the one side from craft and violence on the 
 other. Yet there was never a lion that did so, and never a 
 wolf that stopped to argue with a lamb before eating it up. 
 But tliat fiction conveys to the child's mind a vivid concep- 
 tion, such as you could never give him by any abstract 
 statement, of equity between man and man, between the 
 strong and the weak, between the high and the low. 
 
 Christ employed that mode of teaching. He taught by 
 fiction. His parables are pictures addressed to the imagi- 
 agination ; and they produce in the minds of men more cor- 
 rect impressions of the truth than any mere statement of 
 fact could produce. There is a constant play in Christ's 
 teaching between light and dark, between knowingand not 
 knowing, between the infinite and the limited. 
 
 Now, if Christ was only a great man, we should not ex- 
 pect that there would be this play in his teaching. You do 
 not see it in the writings of Goethe or of Shakespeare 
 except when they are describing it in others as the fruit 
 and product of inspiration. If the Lord Jesus Christ had 
 squared and jointed everything by rule and law it might 
 have been said, There is one who works like a man in 
 the limitations of the earthly sphere. But he does not : 
 he acts as one who is subject to limitation, and recognizes 
 it ; he has mystery above him, and speaks truths that are 
 out of our reach ; he gives evidence in his appearance, in 
 his conversation and in his discourses, of one who is famil- 
 iar with the upper, spiritual, and invisible sphere, and who 
 is attempting, by his life and teaching, to interpret it in the 
 lower, physical, and visible sphere. So there is in the life 
 of Christ a manifestation of divinity; a double conscious- 
 ness ; a sense of things in this world, and a sense of things 
 
i62 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 infinitely beyond this world, with thoughts and feelings 
 playing back and forth between heaven and earth, like a 
 shuttle in a loom carrying a golden thread, the upper part 
 of the fabric being invisible, and only the lower part, where 
 it touches him, being visible. 
 
 Second. This difference between the spiritual and the 
 earthly point of view affords a partial solution of many of 
 those questions which trouble men, and which have troubled 
 me exceedingly. 
 
 Do you think because I preach so positively that I have 
 no doubts ? Oh ! what nights I have gone through ! What 
 uncertainties ! What jeopardies ! I understand what Paul 
 meant when he said, "If in this life only we have hope we 
 are of all men the most miserable." My head has reeled, 
 And yet I am put here of God not to blench. Wherever 
 men think there am I bound to think. Wherever men 
 forge weapons to destroy the faith of man in God and virtue 
 I am bound to know of what material those weapons are 
 made, and whether they have celestial or infernal temper. 
 
 To part with many cherished associations of youth ; to 
 see the trutli as the blind man saw men, " as trees walking ;" 
 to perceive a thing to be true and not to know, if you teach 
 it, what will become of the morality of the generation ; to 
 feel the responsibility that lies on a man who loves his kind 
 and his God — this is a preparation which perhaps no man 
 would covet, but it is a preparation which few who are 
 going to teach the way of God to men can avoid. 
 
 The law of the universe is suffering. There is no mother 
 that does not suffer for her child. There is no child who 
 has a good send-off in this world without being made to 
 suffer. No man can accomplish that which benefits the 
 ages and not suffer. Discoverers do not reap the fruit of 
 what they discover. Reformers are pelted and beaten. 
 Men who think in advance of their time are persecuted. 
 They who would lead the flock must fight the wolf. 
 
 It is not an easy thing, then, for a man to preach the 
 gospel in regard to uncertainties. There is great joy in 
 preaching, to be sure ; but it has its difficulties. It is a 
 hard matter to take out rotten timbers and replace them 
 
THE BACKGROUA'D OF MYSTERY. 163 
 
 with sound ones, and not stop the onward course of the 
 ship. One is often sorely perplexed as to what he ought to 
 preach and what he ought not to preach. Some men make 
 easy work of it by saying, " Whatever is in you to-day give 
 it out to-day, and what is in you to-morrow give out to- 
 morrow, and let Providence take care of 'the result." It is 
 as if a doctor should say to a mother, " Let the children 
 take medicines just as it happens. If the first thing you get 
 hold of is quinine let them take that ; or if it is corrosive 
 sublimate let them take that, and you will find out whether 
 it is good for them or not, and so will they." 
 
 There are a great many slumbering ministers who do not 
 have any trouble ; but their people are full of trouble. 
 There come to laymen questions which they cannot solve, 
 and they are like persons groping in dark passages. For 
 the most part they go with their mouths shut. If now and 
 then one ventures to come to his minister he is told, "You 
 are straying into bye and forbidden paths. Let such mat- 
 ters alone and attend to your duties." That is all very 
 well, provided one can do it. If a man has no wings he 
 can keep upon his feet ; but if a man has wings he will fly. 
 You cannot make an eagle run round and round a barnyard 
 like a hen. Men who have minds of their own will think ; 
 and when theythink is there to be nobody to interpret their 
 thoughts to them 1 
 
 Do you say that this is unsettling? So it is ; but expe- 
 rience unsettles more than teaching does. Life beating on 
 human nature unsettles men. Oftentimes the foundations 
 are undermined and the tower falls before it is known that 
 the mischief is being wrought. Do you say that it leaves 
 all religious truth nebulous, mystical, uncertain, dependent 
 on feeling, and mood, and mental and spiritual tempera- 
 ment and development .'' In the sphere of the eternities, 
 religious truth is nebulous and mystical; it has a deep back- 
 ground of mystery; although it may not be so in the sphere 
 of time and earth. 
 
 The New Testament Scriptures are indefinite when they 
 are teaching of things invisible and ineffable, but yet when 
 they teach of things visible and tangible, things within the 
 
i54 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 bounds of time, they are not indefinite. Collect the teach- 
 ings of the New Testament on the subject of personal mo- 
 rality, and you will find that there is not a link missing; 
 every stone of the arch is there; the structure is perfect. 
 The duties of patience, of forbearance, of honor, of justice, 
 of purity, of courage, of self-denial, meekness, humility, joy, 
 sorrow, of love, of truth between man and man; the duty of 
 submitting one to another; the duty of the strong to put 
 themselves under the weak, that the weak may rest on them; 
 the duties of philanthropical benevolence; the whole round 
 of duties such as these are as clear and sharp in the word 
 of God as the angles of a crystal. There is not, after two 
 thousand years of study and experience, a book of ethics 
 that can for one moment equal the New Testament in the 
 lucidity with which it teaches personal and social duties. 
 
 Now compare the teachings of the New Testament on 
 things in the spiritual realm with its teachings on things 
 in the physical realm. They differ from each other as much 
 as clouds differ from corn, or wheat, or granite rock, or 
 stone walls. The teaching of the Bible in regard to civic 
 duties is perfectly clear and understandable. The cohe- 
 rence of its ethics on the subject of personal duties is with- 
 out a flaw, is perfect. But, on the other hand, the presen- 
 tation in the Scriptures of the spirituality of the Christian 
 faith is like the cope of heaven above the solid earth, which 
 is real, but which is separated from us by vast spaces and 
 is removed far beyond any power of ordinary comprehen- 
 sion. The one we are to understand. In the other, we are 
 to recognize the background of mystery. 
 
 Thii-d. Consider more in detail a single phase of religious 
 doubt and difficulty in the light of this essential difference 
 between the spiritual and the earthly sides. 
 
 It seems to many men very strange that the world was 
 created as it was. To many it seems strange that the hu- 
 man race were created on a scale so vast, and with so little 
 provision for their development. It is said in the cate- 
 chism that our first parents were created righteous; that 
 they fell from their original state, and that their posterity 
 fell with them. Science teaches us that the human race 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. 165 
 
 sprang from, I will not say how far back, but certainly as 
 far back as the savage condition. This is the modern tes- 
 timony of science. 
 
 Now, that the race should be put in this world at so low 
 a point would not be strange, any more than it is strange 
 that a man cuts a little twig off from a rose-bush, and puts 
 it in a thumb-pot one inch across, and sets it on a table in 
 a propagating house, with bottom heat, if the moral prob- 
 lem were the same as the physical one — where there is the 
 instrumentality for germinating the twig, where there is a 
 gardener to take care of it, to shift it, to develop it, to give 
 it room and opportunity for growth and maturity. But 
 that has not been the history of the human race. Man- 
 kind are thrown abroad on the continents in myriads, and 
 we know that not only their happiness but their morality 
 largely depends on their knowledge of how to use their 
 bodies, and how to control the natural laws that surround 
 them ; yet on these subjects not a word nor a syllable was 
 originally told them. It is said that there is a revelation 
 from God ; and we should expect, if God has made a reve- 
 lation to the nascent race, that he would have told them 
 how they are made, what connection there is between their 
 faculties, and what relation they sustain to the world out- 
 side of them ; but they went on propagating one thousand 
 years, two thousand years, thousands of years, without re- 
 ceiving any such information. The sweep of the populations 
 that have swarmed on the globe is simply inconceivable. 
 Not all the waves of the ocean that have beaten on its 
 shores during all the centuries of time contained drops 
 enough to equal the number of human beings that have 
 come into this world, and gone through life throbbing, 
 striving, blundering, and died, and passed out of sight. 
 So many have there been that all the sands of the sea- 
 shore, all the stars of heaven, and all the figures of arith- 
 metic would not be enough to measure the preface, even, 
 of the book of the history of the creation of the race. And 
 during three fourths of its history the race was without an 
 altar, or a church, or an authorized priest, a revelation, or 
 anything but the light of nature. 
 
i66 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 If, now, you tell me that this great mass of men, because 
 they had not the knowledge of God, went to heaven, I say 
 that the inroad of such a vast amount of mud swept into 
 heaven would be destructive of its purity ; and I cannot 
 accept that view. If, on the other hand, you say that they 
 went to hell, then you make an infidel of me ; for I do 
 swear, by the Lord Jesus Christ, by his groans, by his 
 tears, and by the wounds in his hands and in his side, that 
 I will never let go of the truth that tlie nature of God is to 
 suffer for others rather than to make them suffer. If I 
 lose everything else, I will stand on the sovereign idea that 
 God so loved the world that he gave his own Son to die 
 for it rather than it should die. To tell me that back of 
 Christ there is a God who for unnumbered centuries has 
 gone on creating men and sweeping them like dead flies — 
 nay, like living ones — into hell, is to ask me to worship a 
 being as much worse than the conception of any mediaeval 
 devil as can be imagined ; but I will not worship the devil, 
 though he should come dressed in royal robes and sit on 
 the throne of Jehovah. I will «<?/ worship cruelty. I will 
 worship Love — that sacrifices itself for the good of those 
 that err, and that is as patient with them as a mother is 
 with a sick child. With every power of my being will I 
 worship as God such a being as that. 
 
 But has not God justice also ? And is he not of purer 
 eyes than to behold iniquity? Yes. And the distinctions 
 between right and wrong are as eternal as God himself. 
 The relation between sin and retribution belongs not to 
 the mere temporal condition of things ; it inheres in the 
 divine constitution, and is for all eternity. The prospect 
 for any man who goes out of this life resolute in sin may 
 well make him tremble for himself, and may well make us 
 tremble for him. But it is not true — the Scripture does 
 not teach it, and the whole sense of human justice revolts 
 at it — that for the myriads who have teen swept out of 
 this life without the light and knowledge of the Divine 
 love there is reserved an eternity of suffering. In that 
 mystery of the divine will and work of which the apostle 
 speaks, in the far-off dispensation of the fullness of times, 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. 167 
 
 there is some other solution than this nightmare of a medi- 
 aeval theology. 
 
 "Well, then," it is asked, "how do you get rid of the 
 difficulty that there is this population on the globe, and 
 that they have been living in such a deplorable state so 
 long?" How is it that a world so full of suffering should 
 be continued under the administration of a parental God 
 of infinite wisdom and infinite power, who could, if he 
 would, change it all ? The history of the evolution of the 
 human race upon the earth, as described by the apostle, has 
 been, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
 until now." When the acute moral and benevolent sym- 
 pathies of the soul are laid bare to the vast proportions of 
 the race, and to the rain of sorrows that pour down like a 
 tropical deluge, and to the Gulf Streams of misery that flow 
 through time; when one considers, not what is the con- 
 dition of things about him in Christian families, but what 
 is the condition of the human race; when one does that 
 by the human race which Christ did — joins himself to it, 
 and comes into sympathy with its whole throbbing and 
 groaning life, then the question of reconciliation with the 
 Divine love is one that must be answered. Either God does 
 not exist ; or he has not the power, as Mill says he has not, 
 to do what he pleases; or else Infinite benevolence has a 
 wider, larger, grander scope than we are accustomed to im- 
 agine. If we look at the phenomena of suffering from the 
 earthly point of view, and with the limitation of our facul- 
 ties, and from our limited knowledge of moral uses and 
 ways, darkness and doubt are not only extremely natural, 
 but inevitable. But if it is true that all this vast multitude 
 of human creatures are in the garden of the Lord, and that 
 they are being treated according to their various condi- 
 tions, and that they are to have some chances besides those 
 which they have on earth, that they are to go up through 
 other schools than those of time, then the whole aspect of 
 the case is changed. That which makes the dealing_ to 
 which the race are subjected so hard tb bear is not that 
 s'o~me men are ignorant (we are all ignorant), or that they 
 are limited (we are all limited), but that they are seemingly 
 
I68 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 neglected, and are denied such opportunities as we enjoy. 
 It is this that makes the phenomenon of the world such as 
 staggers strong men, and makes impossible, to many, 
 faith in the loving, self-sacrificing nature of God. Take 
 away the doctrine of the finality of things at death, con- 
 ceive a final aim to be accomplished by all this misery in 
 the universe, and that it will be so transcendent that when 
 you shall see the outcome of it all the foregoing suffer- 
 ing will be seen to have been insignificant, not worthy to 
 be compared with the eternal weight of glory produced by 
 it — and the trouble ceases. 
 
 Once, when a boy, I stood on Mount Pleasant, at Am- 
 herst, and saw a summer thunder-storm enter the valley of 
 the Connecticut from the north. Before it all was bright; 
 centerwise it was black as midnight, and I could see the 
 fiery streaks of lightning striking down through it ; but 
 behind the cloud — for I could see the rear — it was bright 
 again. In front of me was that mighty storm hurtling 
 through the sky; and before it I saw the sunlight, and be- 
 hind it I saw the sunlight; but to those that were under 
 the center of it there was no brightness before or behind 
 it. They saw the thunder-gust, and felt the pelting rain, 
 and were enveloped in darkness, and heard the rush of 
 mighty winds ; but I, that stood afar off, could see that 
 God was watering the earth, and wasiiing the leaves, and 
 preparing the birds for a new outcome of jubilee, and 
 giving to men refreshment and health. So I conceive that 
 our human life here, with its sorrows and tears, as com- 
 pared with the eternity that we are going into, is no more 
 than the breath of a summer thunder-storm; and if God 
 sees that our experience in this world is to work out an 
 exceeding great reward in the world to come, there is no 
 mystery in it — to Him. 
 
 Then next will come the question. Why were there such 
 long delays on the part of God in making known the way 
 of salvation to the world ? And here may be propounded 
 with great fitness and power, the inquiry. What do you mean 
 by delay ? 
 
 The child is fevered, and hardly knowing what it does it 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. 169 
 
 says, "Mother, give me some water;'' and the mother rises 
 to get the water ; and it says, " Quick ! quick !" and 
 thinks she delays, though she does not ; and tliis thought 
 in the mind of the child is relative to the soreness of its 
 nerves. Nay, even when the mother does delay, it is be- 
 cause she thinks delay is best for the child. It seems hard 
 to the child, but the mother knows it is wise. 
 
 Now whajLLS^, time to- men is not time to God. As we 
 have but threescore and ten or fourscore of years to live, 
 and as we have much to do, and as what we accomplish 
 must be crowded into those years, we are in a hurry ; but 
 God dwells in Eternity ! He has time enough, he never 
 needs to hurry; and that which, because we are in physical 
 conditions, seems to us delay, is not delay to the Divine 
 mind. In the vast scheme according to which he works, a 
 million years, or ten million years, do not seem long to 
 him ; nor will they seem long to us when we are on the 
 other side. The trouble with us is that we are bringing 
 time-measures and flesh-measures to bear on themes to 
 which only spirit-measures are adapted. It matters not 
 if the race have been here twenty or thirty thousand years, 
 provided they are going forward on a system which will 
 in the end bring all things in heaven and on earth into 
 one in Christ Jesus. This thought takes out of human 
 life that bitter element which otherwise carries poison 
 through it from end to end. The sense of divine universal 
 justice, confidence in God, the feeling which enables one to 
 say, "Wait, Lord, as long as thou wilt : if a thousand years 
 in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a 
 watch in the night, then let a thousand years measure the 
 period of human ascendancy; only, in the far future, when 
 the world that has groaned and travailed in pain so long 
 shall have forgotten the cries of sorrow and sighing, and 
 learned the notes of gladness and joy, and at last the ran- 
 somed of the Lord shall have returned and come to Zion 
 with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, then let 
 every sentient creature, in heaven, on earth and under the 
 earth, join the shining crowd, and lift up his voice, and 
 help to swell the triumphant chorus that shall fill the infi- 
 
I70 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 nite space of heaven!" That confidence illuminates, for me, 
 the mystery of the slow and long-delayed operations of this 
 mortal life. 
 
 A child at the foot of a mountain and the father at the 
 top cannot see alike. The child is embosomed in shrubs 
 and trees, and is enveloped in darkness ; the sun comes to 
 the valley where he is, long after it strikes the mountain- 
 top; it passes from the child's sight far earlier than it does 
 from the father's ; and the view of the surrounding country 
 which the child gets below is not to interpret that which 
 the father gets above. So our conception of finite love is 
 not to interpret God's conception of infinite love. How 
 little do we understand perfect love, infinite love, out of 
 which all the universe is born, by which it is governed, 
 which converts pain and sorrow to helpful uses ! Earthly 
 love is most beautiful, to be sure ; it is as yet uncrowned. 
 But what is the love of the Infinite? What is love to a 
 heart that can take in ages and the race ? What is that 
 love which is unfathomable, and which includes infinite 
 tenderness and infinite compassion .' 
 
 Said Christ, as he bent to wash the disciples' feet, "What 
 I do thou knowest notnow, but thou shall know hereafter." 
 When he stoops and lifts out of the cradle my beloved 
 child, and disappears from the door, I hear the whisper in 
 the hush of the air, "What I am doing you know not now, 
 but you shall know hereafter.'' When his hand separates 
 between husband and wife, and one stands like Niobe in 
 utter woe, from overhead comes down a Voice saying, 
 " What I do you know not now, but you shall know here- 
 after." 
 
 We are told, " All things work together for good to them 
 that love God;" and, "No affliction for the present seemeth 
 to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it 
 yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that 
 are exercised thereby." These assurances take away the 
 pain of the mystery of life. The mystery of the life to come 
 cures the mystery of this life. The unknowable and inex- 
 plicable there sends explanation and definition back here. 
 And we can say with the apostle, " We walk by faith, not 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF MYSTERY. 171 
 
 by sight." We live not by sense, nor by sensuous reason. 
 We are children of the Ineffable and the Invisible. And 
 Christ says to us, " In my Father's house are many man- 
 sions [apartments] ; I go to prepare a place for you ; and 
 if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and 
 receive you unto myself ; that where I am, there ye may 
 be also." And then there is that other love-token : " Having 
 loved his own, he loved them unto the end." 
 
 Even so, Jesus, Lord of love ; we are patient, we are con- 
 tented with weariness, and we count all things blessings 
 which shall bring us finally to thy presence and to the joy 
 of the heavenly land. 
 
I. 
 THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. 
 
 " Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I 
 call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth : 
 but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father 
 I have made known unto you." — John xv : 14, 15. 
 
 There is an exterior relation in human life, and an in- 
 terior. There is an external relation of men to God; and 
 there is another, that is higher, more spiritual. This is de- 
 clared here, perhaps first, when Christ raises his disciples 
 from the rank of duty to the rank of love. They were his 
 servants before; they did whatsoever he commanded them; 
 they knew something of him; but he says : " Hereafter I 
 shall call you friends. I tell you everything, cleanheart- 
 edly, as I have known it from my Father." 
 
 The ordinary experience of Christian men by no means 
 expresses the experience that is shadowed forth in Christ's 
 teaching. The difference between an average experience 
 in a Christian congregation and a possible one is as great 
 as the difference between the ground on which we tread 
 and the airy atmosphere above our heads, full of light and 
 warmth and life. 
 
 A tree is a tree to everybody, but it is not alike to 
 everybody. It is one thing to a lumberman, who looks 
 upon it and tninks how much it will cut, and of its value 
 in the market, quite irrespective of everything else. 
 
 It is another thing to a poet, who sees it lift itself up on 
 some mountain ridge, clean against the sky, black in the 
 evening, and radiant all day long. To him it is like a 
 hymn or a vision. As he sees it, it is anything but a tree 
 
 SuNDAv MoppfjNp, April 20, 1884. Lesson: John iv: i-a6. 
 
THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. 173 
 
 as the lumberman sees it; and he curses the lumberman 
 for cutting it down; and the lumberman calls him a fool 
 for wanting it preserved. Yet it is the same tree. 
 
 To another, a weary traveler, hot and hungry, a tree is 
 an arbor, a hostelry of entertainment; and he sits down 
 under its boughs with great delight. It is not, however, 
 the tree, but himself, that he felicitates. 
 
 Another is an orchardist, and the tree that he looks up- 
 on is fruit-bearing. Everything else, in his view, is sub- 
 sidiary to that; and he has thoughts of the tree that are 
 utterly unlike those of either of the preceding. 
 
 Another man is a landscape gardener; and to him a tree 
 is simply one element in the composition of that noblest 
 sphere of pictorial art where the earth is the canvas and 
 trees and vines are pigments, and the landscape is the pic- 
 ture. 
 
 But there comes a botanist, who may or may not have 
 sympathy with all these. He studies the inward structure 
 of the root, and its functions; the bark, and its functions. 
 The wood, the earth, and all the parts that go to make the 
 tree are to him a living organism, complex, co-opera- 
 tive. 
 
 All these, and many others, looking upon the tree, see a 
 different thing. To each of them it is something, ac- 
 cording to that in the man and in the manner which sees 
 it. 
 
 Now, if a tree reveals itself with so many manifesta- 
 tions, how much more a man, in bodily structure, in social 
 relations, in civic relations, in commercial or constructive 
 relations, or still more from the psychological standpoint! 
 Man is made up of the infinite co-operations and crossings 
 of the thread of thought and feeling manifold in the loom 
 of the head. 
 
 When we rise from man, higher, to divinity, how much 
 more varied must the inspection be! for now our senses no 
 longer help us. Now, it is the intellect that must needs 
 work; and it is the intellect, working not from beneath, 
 upon practical matters, but from above; and through the 
 wings of the imagination it stirs and develops in the 
 
174 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 thought an ideal. It is God, to him, in each. Whatever 
 imperfection there may be, to every man the only revela- 
 tion of God that can be made is through his own indi- 
 viduality and personality; and it is through that extended 
 personality of the human race that, gradually accumulat- 
 ing, has come down to us, at length, a God of moral 
 quality, luminous, over and above a God of physical power 
 and wisdom ; the idea of God has been in the ascend- 
 ant ; and steadily, through the ages, it has become more 
 and more pure, majestic, moral, and less and less vulgar, 
 brutal, with mere power — and satanic power, largely, at 
 that. 
 
 But you ask, Can we understand the spirit? Can we 
 understand that which is invisible and removed from our 
 sensuous observation? Can a man undertake to love that 
 which he knows nothing about, except by the weaving of 
 the web of his own imagination? Ten thousand thousand 
 witnesses testify that it is possible. Indeed, I think that 
 all higher natures, at any rate, at all lifted above the mid- 
 dle meridian line, as it were, are conscious, when they are 
 away from their friends, that it is not the friends' per- 
 sons, their bones or bodies, that they carry with them, but 
 the invisible and essential elements. Our friends, far from 
 us, are all ghosts: not miserable midnight squeaking 
 ghosts, but invisible spirits, made up of that in them which 
 is most subtle, and by us cherished, because least allied to 
 and adulterated with fleshly qualities; and there can be 
 no more question that the vision of our God can become 
 tangible, not to our hands, but to our thoughts, than that 
 we can carry our friends in the spirit embrace. 
 
 Much of that which is called knowledge, however, in 
 this framing to ourselves a conception of God, of Christ, 
 is mere bark. It is not a living Christ. There are a great 
 many Christs; indeed, I preach this morning on The 
 Manifold Christ. Christ is revealed to a great many, in so 
 far as they know anything about it, simpl)' as a record. 
 He is to them the historic Christ. The imagination un- 
 dertakes to reconstruct a picture from the materials of 
 history. We go back to Jerusalem. We picture the tem- 
 
THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. I7S 
 
 pie! We see Christ walking there. We hear him dis- 
 coursing. We behold the objecting Pharisee, and the 
 wrathful Scribe. We go with him to the Mount of Olives. 
 We picture the mountain, and the umbrageous trees bend- 
 ing down above him. We imagine the whispering twi- 
 light. We listen to the conversation of the Saviour, after 
 the labor and heat of the day, with those that are so near 
 and so dear to him. We go with him to Bethany; we be- 
 hold the scenes with the sisters and the beloved brother. 
 
 This history is very important, if out of it grows some- 
 thing that is your history besides; it furnishes those ma- 
 terials out of which you are to frame a personal Christ — 
 that is, one for yourself; but they are no more the real 
 Christ to you than the holy Child and mother were really 
 the Virgin and the Son of God to the old artists. They 
 framed beautiful pictures; their mistresses sat for like- 
 nesses; and they called them the Madonnas. And what 
 did they care — if the color was harmonious and right, if all 
 the accessories were beautiful, and if they flamed in the 
 galleries of art? There was their little Christ; and they 
 were very proud of it. What was he to them but simply 
 an imagined thing, framed in history for artistic purposes, 
 with no reference whatever to their personal interest in it 
 except as artists? 
 
 Besides, this Christ of the past, that may be celebrated 
 without impropriety but without much benefit, we may 
 follow through all the days of the Lent, and make him 
 most profitable to us; or we may follow him all the days 
 through to the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the very as- 
 cension, and we will have seen nothing in the world but a 
 kind of dramatic picture reproduced from the materials of 
 history. It is no more to us than the Hamlet of the stage 
 or any creature in history. Thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands do it. It is empty and void of its peculiar possibility. 
 It may not harm a person, unless it leads him to suppose 
 that this is all, and that no more can be obtained. * 
 
 Then, next, comes the Christ of the intellect, the product 
 of the thought- power, pure and simple, analyzed, all the 
 parts of his life, being dissected and separated, one by one. 
 
176 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 His incarnation, with all the questions springing out of nat- 
 ural law; his childhood and growth, with all the questions 
 psychologic that relate to them : his inspiration whence, of 
 what kind ? his miracles, real, possible, or merely imagin- 
 ary ? the nature of the controversy between him and his 
 adversaries; his trial by the rules of justice and equity; his 
 death, whether by natural phenomena or in some way in- 
 volved in a mysterious spirituality; his resurrection; his as- 
 cension; his relations to his Father; whether he was a man 
 or a pure God, or a God incarnate. These questions 
 open the widest realm, perhaps, of speculation, in the 
 whole human experience. They take in the nature of the 
 great Creator, and the nature of Christ as a manifestation 
 of God. They take in all the realm of moral government; 
 all the scientific facts connected with the human structure; 
 and all the relation of man to natural laws. There is no 
 end to them. There is a peculiar sphere of theology; and 
 a man may be a drilled and perfected theologian, so that 
 his thoughts and the results of thinking shall have as 
 many tomes as now lie, thank God, musting in the librar- 
 ies, and yet he may have no Christ. The Christ of the 
 intellect may accompany, and may wonderfully help and 
 invigorate the Christ of faith and of love, the personal 
 Christ; but in and of itself it is no more the real Christ 
 than the anatomy of a human being is your father, your 
 brother or your husband. Its life is all gone out of it, and 
 it is a structural Christ, artificial. And yet, very largely 
 that is the prevailing Christ of men. It is the Christ, cer- 
 tainly, that men have fought for and died for. It is the 
 Christ of every sect that calls itself orthodox. 
 
 Then there is the symbolic Christ, addressed to lovely 
 sympathies, but most to the sympathies that cluster round 
 about a most aesthetic nature, a beauty-loving, art-appre- 
 ciative nature. The Christ of the churches has very 
 largely been such. The pictures, the symbols of it, its 
 crosses, ceremonies, processions, etc., have all been pro- 
 fusely painted. 
 
 It was only last Friday, a week, that I sat in the Cath- 
 olic church, in the West, of what is called " The Adoration 
 
THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. I77 
 
 of the Cross." From out of some precious scrip was 
 drawn what appeared to be an ebony cross with a golden 
 Christ upon it; and after it had been dusted the assembly 
 gathered around in successive rings and circles, and it was 
 presented by the priest with as much reverence as could be 
 expected, where he had to do it five hundred times; and 
 each recipient kissed the feet of Jesus. I stood in a 
 clouded hour, and I needed something very much, and I 
 wished I could go up. I should have liked to have adored 
 even the image of Christ. As it was, I looked upon the 
 poor, ignorant, and, as it seemed to me, over-worked 
 throng that were there, and saw their reverence, with in- 
 tense human sympathy. I should have been glad to have 
 mixed with them, and to have taken the holy water, and to 
 have crossed myself with it, and to have gone to the altar 
 and kissed the emblem of my Saviour, that I might be 
 joined with this great mass of palpitating, longing, need- 
 ful, human creatures. But as I went out, and lifted up my 
 eyes in almost the only clear spring day that I had found, the 
 whole heavens seemed to me to open, and my Christ rose 
 from behind the clouds, and from the sunlight, and filled 
 the whole air; and I knew that it was my lower human 
 sympathy with mankind that had led me to desire formal 
 symbolization; but there came instead of it (possibly you 
 may say by the ministration of it: be that as it may) this 
 other experience; and the whole heaven was not enough to 
 declare the glory of Him whom I had made mine because 
 he had made me his. 
 
 So, while the symbolic representations of Christ, of vari- 
 ous Christs, in pictures, crosses, altars, services and cere- 
 monials may be of use — if they minister to nothing else, I 
 will not say that they are useless — but they come short, 
 utterly, of the glorious reality that is offered to every 
 human being. 
 
 At last we come to the Christ described in the New 
 Testament — Christ in you. A man is privileged to have a 
 Christ that seems to him to have been born out of the 
 elements of necessity in him; that adapts itself to the 
 peculiar structure of his nature; that fits into all the events 
 
 12 
 
178 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 and various evolutions and experiences of his life — so 
 much his that nobody else can have it. Put into anybody 
 else it would not express itself as in him. It is " Christ in 
 you, the hope of glory," formed out of your necessities, out 
 of your yearnings, out of your aspirations, out of your 
 sorrows, out of your joys, out of your temptations. It is 
 the Christ that has been around about you through the 
 series of your days and years, over against every facet of 
 the diamond soul; so that your individuality is inseparably 
 wrapped up with your conception of the Jesus that is yours. 
 It may be less glorious than another's, or it may be more 
 glorious than another's; but it is yours. It is Christ as 
 seen through your soul's inspection, and as revealed to 
 you by all the spiritual and temporal necessities of your 
 history and your life. It is born in you an infant, growing 
 up in you as it were, through its youth, that is, your youth 
 of knowledge, becoming regent, and at last triumphant in 
 you so that you can say, " Whom have I in heaven but 
 thee .? There is none on earth that I desire beside thee." 
 You are the richer because you think that he is throned .in 
 your soul as he is in that of nobody else ; but you im- 
 poverish nobody because he is individual and personal to 
 you. The truth remains the same, that every man's 
 efficient Christ must have had such a relation to his per- 
 sonality and his history that in the most literal and 
 intense sense of that term he can say " Christ in me; 
 my Christ." It cheats nobody. It takes Christ away from 
 nobody. He belongs to me in many special respects; for 
 nobody has had my struggles, nobody has had my tempta- 
 tions, nobody has had my deliverances, nobody has borne 
 my griefs, but he and I together. Nobody has probed the 
 darkness as I have; but he was my morning Star. Nobody 
 has felt the cross, the yoke and the burden that I have felt, 
 or that you have felt each of you separately, individually, 
 and personally; and no one else can feel them except in 
 my place, or in your place; and it is all these ministrations 
 to you — the coming in mercy, the coming in judgment, the 
 coming in reproof, the coming in encouragement and hope, 
 or the coming in inexpressible love — that constitute him to 
 you something that he cannot be to anybody else. 
 
THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. I79 
 
 I do not suppose there are two persons in this congrega- 
 tion who, when they think of Jesus, think just alike. If it 
 were possible to have spiritual photographs, as you might 
 imagine projected from your thought and feeling about 
 Christ, I suppose there would be at least three thousand of 
 them here. Some of them would be shadowy, almost 
 without features; some would be less obscure than others; 
 some would be more stern than others; some would be 
 more glorious than others; some would be more full of 
 picturesque imagination than others; and some would be 
 more full of the deep experiences of a life much tried than 
 others; but they would all have a relation to the personal 
 experiences of the person whose thought of Christ thus 
 projected itself into a visible form. 
 
 In this way it is that Christ reveals himself, or seeks to, 
 among men. 
 
 ' ' Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man open unto me, I will 
 come in unto him, and will sup with him, and he with me. I am the vine; ye 
 are the branches. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in 
 the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me." 
 
 It is the Christ into whom you have been grafted, and 
 from whom you have derived the very life-blood of your 
 existence. 
 
 The Christ of faith is the revelation made through the 
 imagination of the truth to you, and it is high above the 
 sensuous reason. The judgment of a man's philosophical 
 faculty may have somewhat collaterally helped him if he 
 knows how to apply it; but, after all, the vision of Christ 
 that comes to you through your personal experience is 
 higher than the judgment of any philosophy; higher than 
 any result that you can make by analysis or by recomposi- 
 tion — by synthesis. When out of your soul-needs, and the 
 revelation of your soul-experiences, you find before you 
 the constant picture of this thought, and the joy of your 
 soul, do not undertake to repaint it by the reason. Let it 
 float before you in all its beautiful hues, and in all its 
 pristine forms. Let your Christ be the disembodied Christ 
 of the imagination, bearing to your various necessities 
 patience, or gentleness, or courage, or joy, or hope, which 
 you shall see reflected from his benign face. 
 
1 80 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 Do not, then, let philosophy take your Christ away from 
 you. Make him more and more your own. Though all 
 the world think my child homely, it is handsome to me, 
 and no painter's brush shall rub that out. What though 
 all the world think my companion unsuited or unfit for me? 
 To the meagerest poor man his care-taking, sick and suf- 
 fering wife is an angel of mercy, that has trod all the 
 rough way of life by his side; and no painter's skill could 
 put on the canvas of his thought any other that should be 
 like unto her. 
 
 Theology may take its hat and walk out of the sanctuary 
 when the soul is praising and rejoicing in its Christ. It 
 has no business to interfere. It is like a justice of the 
 peace undertaking to overrule the Chief Justice of the 
 United States. 
 
 There is much that is wasted. There is much that goes 
 into the composition of our thought that is not particularly 
 essential. There is much that comes and goes, and never 
 comes again, which tempts many men to say that it is all 
 fitful and fanciful. Fancifulness, applied to the lower 
 forms of imagination, has a just meaning of stricture in it; 
 but as applied to the soul and the higher formative power 
 which is given to the imagination, it is utterly incongru- 
 ous with the real genius that God meant should inhere in 
 imagination; for imagination is as much to the human race 
 as the reason is. It is the primitive energy. It is that 
 which belongs to the child first; and mainly we are chil- 
 dren to the end in regard to a multitude of things. The 
 conceptions that we form through the imagination are 
 more fruitful, a thousandfold, taking the race consecu- 
 tively and comprehensively, than those that are deduced 
 from sound knowledge. Afterwards, knowledge comes to 
 correct our imagination in this and in that ; and grounds 
 it in good, solid, substantial reasons, here, there and else- 
 where ; but the perfect interpreter, the great schoolmaster 
 of the soul, is the imagination, which the New Testament 
 calls, as applied to religious things, invisible qualities and 
 beings, "faitli." 
 
 No man lays up the chips, I suppose, of the timbers that 
 
THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. i8i 
 
 have been hewn and adapted by the architect to the various 
 finishings and furnishings of the house. No sculptor lays 
 up the fragments thrown off by his chisel as he develops 
 from the solid rock the beautiful statue. Yet they are 
 quite necessary to the process of forming. 
 
 There are a thousand things that may be called fancies, 
 like bubbles that come up for a moment and burst. 
 Though they had a picture in them that no art could 
 copy, they have burst and are gone. Men in musings and 
 religious feelings in life may have ten thousand things 
 that will not abide, and may seem to the uncritical or 
 over-critical judgment (which is just the same) mere fool- 
 ishness; but they are necessary parts of that gradual proc- 
 ess by which you come to your thought of the substantial 
 Christ. 
 
 In the earlier period of Christian experience most men 
 have a Christ that is extremely variable, not in the best 
 sense of that term. It is a Christ of cloudy days, differing 
 from the Christ of sunshiny days. It is the Christ of vic- 
 torious hours, and a very different one from the Christ of 
 Gethsemane. But little by little as we go on in life, we be- 
 gin to find a unity in ourselves, so that at last the experi- 
 ences that seem widely separate and scattered — all the 
 elements of the dye-house, all the elements of the wool or 
 the silk, all the elements of the loom, begin to come to- 
 gether, and are woven into one fabric, with a certain unity 
 of design, in the loom of faith. And as we go on in life by 
 faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, his brow grows broader, 
 and the eye more benign, and the lips more sweet of love; 
 and there comes to be that which does not change much, 
 and the soul says, " I know in whom I have trusted." 
 Although there may be evanescent changes here and 
 there, we come to have a Christ that abides with us in all 
 substantial elements. Then the soul rests, and says, " The 
 Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." He leads us by 
 the still waters and in green pastures. When we walk 
 through the valley of the shadow of death, he is with 
 us. 
 
 In the formation of this ideal Christ that becomes our 
 
l82 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 personal Saviour, we build both on everything that we 
 know in ourselves, and on everything that we know among 
 men. We never see a noble experience that strikes us as 
 something grand or fine that we do not instantly transfer 
 it, giving it the retouch of the Infinite; and so it opens our 
 view of something good in him that we never thought of 
 before. Every noble specimen of life, above all its glory 
 and purity, becomes a means by which we construct or 
 reconstruct our ideas of Christ. Every piece of generosity 
 — how beautiful it was! and the soul quivers as a harp 
 under the touch of the harper. Everything that is rare 
 and beautiful — all simplicity, all purity, all goodness in its 
 widest range, sets the soul ajar. Or, these are so many pig- 
 ments, if I may so say, by which we are finishing the lus- 
 trous head of our Saviour. 
 
 With this general outline of the process of formation in 
 us through experience, guided and accompanied, of course, 
 by reason, let me ask you, first, have you any Christ? No 
 two conceptions of Christ are alike. It is in vain for you 
 to look over to this one and that one. Have yqu any Christ 
 that carries your characteristics in it.? Have you a biog- 
 raphy that he expresses to your memory or thought? Has 
 he been to you a Revealer, a Sustainer and a Helper in 
 time of need? Has he comforted you? Have you ever laid 
 your head, as John did, upon the bosom of your Saviour? 
 Perhaps you have striven after Madame Guyon's Christ, 
 or after the Christ of Augustine, or after the Christ that 
 Wesley found, or after the Christ of some minister who has 
 helped you, or after the Christ of some mother, sister, wife 
 orfriend; but every man's Christ must come out of his own 
 soul. There may be collateral suggestions or helps; but 
 you must have a Christ that is yours, and no one's else. 
 Have you such an one? Is such an one forming in you, the 
 hope of glory? He must be seen by you as over against 
 every face that expresses the sensibility of the soul. He 
 must be Christ to you in a sense that he is not to any other, 
 so that you can say, ''My Lord and my God;" so that you 
 could say, in rapture, with Mary, when her eyes were 
 cleansed of tears, " Rabboni,my Master — mine!" so that you 
 
THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. 183 
 
 can say, as one says it who has gauged the deepest love, 
 and has twined it with the most precious experiences, and 
 clasped the ideal in thought. Our Christ. 
 
 This interior and subjective Christ, I remark, secondly, 
 must be wrought out by life-experiences. Our thoughts 
 must live with him in all moods and experiences. As the 
 vine, clasping the living tree, creeps along its branches, 
 and roots itself in the crevices of the bark, and forms itself 
 upon its shape, so in all the various relations of life our 
 thought of Christ, following our experiences, shall fashion 
 and form itself. 
 
 Look, for one single moment, at that remarkable passage 
 of the apostle Paul, " I am crucified with Christ; neverthe- 
 less I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life 
 which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son 
 of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." There 
 is an experience and a picture! Does it find even the 
 faintest shadow of reproduction in you ? Is your Christ a 
 historic idea merely ? Is it a church presentation ? Is it 
 a doctrine, or a dogma ? Have you been willing to lay 
 down your life for the Trinity, which never thanks you ? 
 Or, is it something on the other hand wrought in you by the 
 providence of God, and the Spirit of God ? and does it 
 come, not from books, nor from churches, nor from sym- 
 bols, but out of your own necessity ? Is Christ in us — in 
 every one of us ? Something of his cradle and his poverty; 
 something of the youth and the toil of the young Jesus; 
 something of the conflicts and the beggary of his life; 
 something of his bitter trial; something of his Gethsemane 
 and something of his death — out of these has your Christ 
 sprung ? 
 
 See if the Christ of John is yours. See if all those things 
 which are spoken of by him have any reproduction or 
 exemplification in you. O, the meagerness and the barren- 
 ness of literature — although it is richer in that direction 
 than any other ! Even the seraphic and elevating hymns 
 that give to the world the richest and ripest embodiment 
 of Jesus Christ — how poor they are, when compared with 
 the living experience of one that has truly found him and 
 embraced him ! 
 
i84 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 The question comes up : May all attain to such a 
 Saviour — to such a conception of Christ? Yes; all. All 
 may not find it. I hope Christ is to be more revealed after 
 death than during life. I cannot be one of those who 
 think that this world is all there is of the manifestation of 
 the glory of God. I would sooner think that all the 
 majestic pines that frown from the ridges of California are 
 contained in a seed no bigger than a pea. That seed has 
 to be planted, and it must develop. This world, with its 
 poverty, with its ignorance, with its grinding customs — is 
 that all there is ? Much as there is of God made manifest 
 in this world— is it all ? God forbid that I should 
 impoverish the conception of his great providence by limit- 
 ing it to the possibilities of this life. I believe no such 
 thing. 
 
 All may attain to some conception of a Christ for them — 
 not for the whole world generically. For every individual 
 in the world there is a vision of Christ that comes, or should 
 come, to his needs and necessities; but it comes to each 
 according to his own nature. As the outer world reveals 
 to a poet what it does not to the practical man; as love 
 reveals affections to some that others, of a shallower 
 well of love, never know ; so the measure of a man's own 
 nature will determine very much the magnitude, the rich- 
 ness and the power of the vision of Christ, which he carries 
 out. Every man may have, according to the limit of his 
 nature, a personal -savior, and know it, anii rejoice in it, 
 and live by it. 
 
 Is this, then, to be prayed for? No, it is to be lived ior. 
 Every man would like to pray himself into Christ, just 
 as the woman would have liked to have had the water to 
 save her from running to the well. She was not willing to 
 work for what she got. There are a great many who 
 would like a Christ if he could only be flashed into them; 
 but Christ is always born to every one a baby, an alpha- 
 betical Christ. It may seem to you inexpressible; but we 
 are to bear in mind that the work of Christ in us goes on 
 long before we come into a personal relation to him. We 
 are to bear in mind that our father and mother are ex- 
 
THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. 185 
 
 pressing Christ, and reflecting him. There are many of 
 the institutions and customs of society that are benign 
 and beautiful. Much that is glorious in the whole realm 
 of nature is incidentally and collaterally working upon 
 the soul, and acting as an education by which it is pre- 
 pared for a higher disclosure later on. 
 
 Thus, a man comes to find that certain things, beautiful 
 in themselves, represent successive developments of father 
 and mother, and their ancestors; and in that way he may 
 come to a vision of the final Christ, that seems to spring 
 not perfect at the beginning; but it is the product of cen- 
 turies, it may be, and of the indirect teaching of Christ 
 through years and years of life. The revelation of it is 
 simply like the drawing back of a curtain that has hid the 
 Christ upon your frescoed wall. You see it first in large 
 measure and beauty; but it has been a gradual work to 
 put it there. 
 
 By searching the Scripture, by living in the spirit of 
 Scripture, by Christ-likeness as far as it is interpreted to 
 you, you grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ. Are you, then, willing to ac- 
 cept Christ as he is accustomed to reveal himself, not 
 miraculously, not suddenly so as to relieve you from all 
 work? Are you willing to put that as the object before 
 your Christian life, and to so live and feel that gradually 
 he should be forming in you as your own, your insepar- 
 able thought, your daily companion, your life and your 
 joy? This is a question that ought to come home to pro- 
 fessors of religion, because there are those whose Christ is 
 not like the Sun of Righteousness — men whose only Christ 
 they have shut up in a little dark lantern of orthodoxy, 
 that they carry around, and once in a while open, to read 
 something, and shut up again. They have no great lumi- 
 nous Christ that fills the whole horizon of all time. 
 
 Whosoever would desire thus to come to this knowledge 
 of the Saviour let him accept the conditions of the New 
 Testament. If you have a dramatic conversion, well and 
 good — do not despise it; but if you have not, come to it by 
 education. And here is the interpretation of the Saviour's 
 
i86 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 declaration, that except ye become as little children ye shall 
 not enter into the sanctities and revelations of the great 
 invisible spirit-world. Are you willing to begin as a little 
 child begins in the school? First he divests himself of all 
 those things that obstruct— companions, and various 
 amusements that are lawful out of doors. He goes into 
 the school, having thrown away all those things that 
 hinder. He goes into the school disposed to obey the 
 demands of the teacher. 
 
 He gains his knowledge slowly, step by step, but goes 
 onward and upward. Are you willing to learn of Christ in 
 the scholar-like way — for that is the term that he applied. 
 Disciple is only discipulus Anglicized. We are not invited 
 to a full banquet, nor to a full portraiture, nor to a full 
 knowledge and experience of Christ. Are you willing to 
 begin in the school of Christ, to learn that which he inspires 
 in the spiritual soul? Are you willing to accept him at the 
 lowest, and then, day by day, live for him and in him, that 
 by the power of the soul at last you may be translated 
 above the rule of the flesh, and into the kingdom of 
 glory? Whoever desires a savior, for such he is re- 
 vealed . 
 
 In the early day, at Indianapolis, an old resident told 
 me that when the site for the capitol was selected in that 
 place, it was dense forest. Two or three lanes were cut 
 out in it. They are streets now; but the White River, 
 which bounds the southern side, was the only place where, 
 this old gentleman told me, he used to resort every 
 Sunday, because, by selecting a favorable position, he could 
 see the whole heavens, all the rest was clouded with trees 
 and branches. 
 
 This whole life is, more or less, lanes cut through dense 
 thickets. We see as through a glass, darkly. At tim=s 
 there shines out through some more largely cleared expanse 
 an ampler heaven. We bear the faith of it and the memory 
 of it with us when we most need it; then our Christ is 
 nearest to us and the best revealed; but there is coming 
 a day when there shall be no more clouds and no more 
 thickets, and no man shall siy to another, "Know the 
 
THE MANIFOLD CHRIST. 187 
 
 Lord!" nor say, " Lo here!" nor " Lo there!" but he shall 
 be displayed in this hour of victory to every one that has 
 loved him and been faithful to him on earth. 
 
 There be those here that walk in humble ways, for whom 
 God's great triumph is prepared. When the iron door from 
 life opens, and the golden hinges of the gate of the heavenly 
 city are turned, there shall go forth to meet them those 
 who have been blessed by them and sent on before — in- 
 numerable ranks and bands, many of them little children 
 of glorified faces, that shall move without feet, and fly 
 without wings; for such are not the adjuncts of spirit life. 
 They shall come round about us who have by faith and 
 patience achieved victory. We shall behold the great con- 
 gregation of the noble gathered and garnered from all 
 ages of the world, and from all nations. But we shall also 
 behold him who has redeemed our souls, and presided 
 over all the days of our life; and who, having loved us, 
 loves us to the end. 
 
11. 
 THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. 
 
 " Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the 
 feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men." — I Thes. 
 v.; 14. 
 
 The law of force in matter is universal, and in regard to 
 inorganic matter imperative. In regard to organic matter 
 in the lower forms, as in the vegetable kingdom, and in 
 regard to the lower forms of animal life, the law of force is 
 supreme. The grand law, to which nature witnesses, is 
 that the strong prevail everywhere. In all the under- 
 kingdom of organic life, vegetable or animal, the weak go 
 to the wall. And there has been pointed out a certain 
 benevolence in that, inasmuch as the tendency is in all 
 the lower forms of life to extinguish the weak and leave 
 only the strong, the full developed, the vigorous, the 
 healthy, to propagate their species. And yet if that law 
 were carried straight on through, as partially as it has been 
 in society since man has been developed, it would be to the 
 end, as it has been, a law of cruelty against which it would 
 seem to be almost impossible to develop Christian experi- 
 ence and faith. 
 
 But, then, there is beginning, low down, yet another 
 tendency, namely, one not to extinguish the law of force, 
 but to convert it to beneficence and to make it the guar- 
 dian law, and not the destroying. The dawn of the modi- 
 .fication is found in the parental instinct. The tendency to 
 , protect helplessness, weakness, springs from the instincts 
 of the inferior orders, and the instincts are but the prom- 
 ises of the affections in the higher orders of creation. The 
 great world of force goes on everywhere, always, crowding 
 
 Sunday Morning, Juno is, 1884. Lesson, John xiii : 1-17. 
 188 
 
THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. 189 
 
 men, crushing men, destroying men, as it has also done in- 
 ferior animals, and as it has done the inferior vegetation. 
 Nevertheless, there has sprung up in the midst of this 
 great empire of force a new tendency. With the exception 
 of one or two, the lower animal life takes no care of its 
 offspring, knows nothing of it. There has never been de- 
 veloped in the fish, apparently, the slightest concern for 
 its offspring. They are neither brooded nor watched over 
 nor inquired about, and so it is with regard to multitudes 
 of the inferior tribes. The ant and the bee are exceptions, 
 but when we come to the mammal family, on the whole, 
 there is developed a sense of affection out of which comes 
 protection, and weakness is permitted to have some sort 
 of chance. There is guidance, guardianship, the imputa- 
 tion of the parent's wisdom, experience, power; the love- 
 power comes in. And here, first, we see in this instinct of 
 affection the beginning of a long career by which the great 
 energies of creation are turned away from merely destroy- 
 ing, to conservation and to protection. 
 
 Man is the consummation of nature, and when man ap- 
 pears and begins to develop his characteristic agency the 
 law of force is no longer wanton and universal. It is con- 
 strained and restrained and made to walk in cerebral 
 paths. Brainless nature follows power exclusively, and 
 power despises weakness universally. But so soon as men 
 appear, there comes in, feebly at first, but increasingly, a 
 restraint upon force. The conversion of destructive force 
 to protection begins to develop itself. Before the advent 
 of man the world was a mighty engine of force merely; 
 the world went on grinding and clashing and destroy- 
 ing. Winds waxed mighty; the light blazed everywhere, 
 but in vain; gravitation pulled down whatever lost its 
 hold; heat and cold, all electric forces filled the earth with 
 aimless energy, and the great law was, The weak must 
 go to the wall, and the strong must surpass and survive. 
 Slowly, steadily, continuously, man subdued the elements 
 of force. He studied the laws of the world. He could 
 not destroy the winds, but he could harness them. Chem- 
 istry brought into its laboratory the subtle elements of 
 
igo PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 nature and compelled them to declare their secrets to 
 mankind. The telescope, on the one side, and the micro- 
 scope on the other, have revealed the infinite depths and 
 distances. The human brain began to match itself with 
 the wild and ungovernable and material forces of nature. 
 As man pursues upon the pampas of the South the wild 
 steeds, and thus also brings one and another and subdues 
 them with bit and saddle, mounts and rides them, giving 
 all their strength and speed to his own loins, so man is 
 pursuing the forces and the laws of nature; and all nature, 
 as represented by this terraqueous globe, is now following 
 the weakness of the human thought. Against the mighty 
 energies that seem omnipotent, the silent forces of the 
 brain are acting. Thought, noiselessly, gently — gentle as 
 the light, as the falling dew, walks forth, revealing and 
 subduing the mighty forces of nature that, at first, terri- 
 fied, crushed and annihilated man. 
 
 And so has come to pass a mighty conversion of mere 
 energy or power, that held a ruthless sway and still does 
 in regard to organic matter, a conversion of power to the 
 human will, to do with it as it seemed best. 
 
 In human society the law of strength in the family very 
 sopn centered around about the helpless weakness of in- 
 fancy; and the cradle, defended by the father and the 
 mother, was as a fortress defended with walls and bulwarks; 
 and strength made itself as weakness for the sake of the 
 weak. Nature had never done any such things for its 
 tribes, nor for its vast treasures. Only merciless, endless, 
 crushing power. Then from the family this protection of 
 weakness spread to the tribe; not only that each tribe cared 
 for its own infancy, but, related to each ocher, there grew 
 up a brotherhood, a common following, as of those that 
 were nearly connected and related or intermarried : thi 
 was the spirit of that affection out of which came a defen- 
 sory spirit, a protecting spirit. Strength— or experience, 
 which is strength — taking care of the inexperienced, which 
 is weakness. This, by and by, became an element of 
 national life; diluted, however, at every step, strongest 
 around the cradle, weaker in the tribal relations, weakest 
 
THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. 191 
 
 in national relations, yet developing the same general ten- 
 dency all the way through in the unfolding of the human ' 
 series. 
 
 The stages of development thus are the subjugation of 
 force to the work of protection and ministration. At-every 
 step below instinct the law of force prevails more and 
 more. 
 
 Now, in all combinations in society by which mankind 
 conduct their business, there is a mixture of these two ten- 
 dencies. We find, still, that the weak go to the wall in all 
 the affairs of mankind, or, on the whole, are tending to; 
 we find an antagonistic influence coming up, by which the 
 strong protect the weak and by which the inferior have for 
 their guardians the superior. And this is the great conflict 
 that is going on now in all civilized lands. This is the 
 meaning of much that seems mysterious in the mixture of 
 affairs and in the various drifts of great currents. 
 
 In all theories of organized society the mainspring is 
 wanting. There is no want of desire, no want of emotion, 
 no want of philosophy. All thinking men of our age are 
 agog on this subject. Everybody wants to have the world 
 happier than it is ; all the world wants to have more jus- 
 tice ; all the world wants more prosperity. But men have 
 not yet been taught, either by nature or by revelation, what 
 is the secret of prosperity ; that power is the servant of 
 weakness ; that the ends, as indicated by the providence of 
 God, the great ends of power in the development of the 
 human race, are to assist those that are uppermost to draw 
 up those that are below them ; to assist those that are 
 feeble, by giving them the aegis and protection of those 
 that are mighty. The mainspring, therefore, of reform is 
 wanting, the old word: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God, and thy neighbor as thyself;" there you have it. As 
 the subjugation of rude force springs more from the in- 
 stincts of life than from the sentiments of love, so all final 
 great reforms in the organization of human society at large 
 must spring from that same central element : " Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor." The world don't believe in that yet ; 
 has not come within sight of it. 
 
192- PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 In all the great leagues that are formed ; in the social 
 Unions, in the guilds, association is based upon the will of 
 the strong ; selfishness is the general scope of all these new 
 combinations ; benevolence is only in a few then. 
 
 When the Welshmen came to the mines of Pennsylvania 
 — carpet-baggers, for this whole continent has been popu- 
 lated by carpet-baggers — they formed unions, and as soon 
 as the Hungarians came alongside of them the Welsh 
 turned to exclude them and kick them out. If they had 
 been treated so they would never have been permitted to 
 land. 
 
 When the Mongol came to our Western coast the Irish 
 there combined, and their war cry was: "The Chinese 
 must go." 
 
 It is so that men make combinations to take care of 
 themselves. Generally the printers' leagues and the labor 
 leagues, all the leagues that are formed in each one of 
 the mechanical professions, are all of them conservative of 
 their own selfish selves; they are all of them, more or less, 
 applying the law of force to all that are outside of them- 
 selves. They combine to determine that every man shall 
 not have a chance to be a mechanic : only so many appren- 
 tices to each calling. Every man shall not have a chance 
 to be a bricklayer: only so many apprentices to every 
 master workman. No liberty at all, but an organized 
 union, formed, it is said, for their defence. Yes, for their 
 defence and for assault upon those that are weaker than 
 they and are outside the walls of their profession. The 
 radical sin of the organization of society to-day is its 
 selfishness. The law of love, "Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bor as thyself," is unknown. Who is my neighbor? The 
 deeds of the Samaritan taught that: whoever needs it, who- 
 ever is weak, whoever has been assaulted, whoever has 
 fallen, — he is thy neighbor the world over. 
 
 All the great theories of social reformation hatched in 
 that cockatrice's den, France; all the theories that have 
 been brought to bear on the reorganization of society from 
 England, the land of the grumbler; all these combinations 
 engrafted upon us and inoculated into us on these Ameri- 
 
THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. 193 
 
 can shores, are almost invariably little sets and circles and 
 unions for the sake of taking care of themselves,while they 
 profess to be for the purpose of maintaining human liberty 
 and human rights — a handful of rights to a whole bushel 
 of injustice! 
 
 Now, the royal law is, Take care of the weak. " Ye that 
 are strong bear with the weak. Even Christ pleased not 
 himself." That gives us the hint by which we now go back 
 to the Old Testament history. The Bible is the most emi- 
 nent record of the development of this element of benevo- 
 lence through the law of force; that is the history of this 
 unfolding tendency, which is just as much a part of God's 
 law and design of the world as material force itself is. We 
 have there the dawn of the conversion of the law of force 
 from a crushing, a cruel, and a despotic fate, to a law of 
 protection and of mercy. 
 
 The evolution of the moral force of the world is to my 
 mind the most difficult point in the whole theory of evolu- 
 tion. It took place so far back. It anteceded any vary great 
 amount of human experience. I do not see how it could 
 have sprung or grown out of any antecedent experience. 
 When I read the disclosures, as contained in the revela- 
 tion which God made to Moses, of the Divine Nature, and 
 therefore of the genius of creation and its administration, 
 I confess that it is a point of continuous perplexity to my 
 mind in so far as the philosophy of evolution is concerned. 
 "The Lord God passed by before Moses and proclaimed: 
 The Lord God, merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abund- 
 ant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, 
 forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will 
 by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the 
 fathers upon the children and upon the children's children 
 unto the third and fourth generation." I am a god whose 
 purpose is a moral purpose, that is, to establish among men 
 the sense of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, of supe- 
 rior and inferior; to bring them up to the highest standard 
 of excellence; and yet in that slow progress by which I am, 
 through the administration of grace, to bring men up to 
 this higher estate, I am slow to anger, abundant in mercy, 
 13 
 
194 PL YMO UTH P ULPl T. 
 
 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgres- 
 sion and sin. In other words, the declaration that God is 
 adapted to the whole process of evolution, as the vsrorld 
 moves on from little to more, higher and higher, from 
 weakness to strength, from morality to virtue, and from 
 virtue to piety, is: "In that long scale and career I am a 
 god who has just the qualities to wait on creation as I 
 have made it" — patient, forgiving mistakes, transgressions, 
 sins, all the weak experiences of human nature. God de- 
 clares in view of man's nature : " I am a God adapted to 
 the very wants of just such creatures as I have made, and 
 to the system in which I have infixed them." 
 
 This is the disclosure of the royalty of all power. Here, 
 as it were, the arcana are opened. The heavens are rent 
 .asunder and the voice is from the throne. It is a voice 
 behind the thunder and lightning, behind the earthquake, 
 behind all forms of rude violence, behind the shock of 
 nature, behind everything, controlling all things; the 
 Regent of the universe is full of parental feeling, love, 
 care, gentleness. It is the secret that is not yet under- 
 stood; voiced, but not comprehended. But far back in the 
 twilight, on the boundary that separates men and animals, 
 is this declaration of the Supreme Power of the universe, 
 that it IS a power for mercy and for protection, a power 
 full of gentleness, unmatched and unmatchable. 
 
 This revelation of moral purpose in universal force is 
 astounding when compared with the mythologies that were 
 then in existence and taught. If you will read what re- 
 mains to us of heathen times you will find a great many 
 virtues among them, natural virtues; but look at their 
 divinities. They are the embodiments of lust, of cruelty, 
 of unregulated selfish power, with liere and there a speck 
 of some excellence ; gross animals, animalism etherealized 
 and made divine. In what transcendent contrast stands 
 the revelation of God, Jehovah, made through the old 
 Hebrew race as a God of unspeakable justice, and good- 
 ness, and mercy, and patience, and long-suffering kindness! 
 
 The whole Jewish Mosaic economy, more or less influ- 
 enced by this revelation of the Divine Nature, was wonder- 
 
THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. ir. 
 
 fully adapted for this very thing, the care of weakness. 
 There are a great many men that go through the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures and pick up the shucks; they find nothing 
 between Genesis and Malachi except something to make 
 fun of. There is a great deal that is out-worn, there is a 
 great deal that belongs to the waste of the human family. 
 But I should like to see the man who would bring down 
 the cradle in which his children had been rocked and split 
 it up for firewood and laugh to see it burn. What sort of 
 a man would he be ? When the child is gone, and in some 
 moment the mother finds put away in the drawer a little 
 shoe that the child wore, she is bathed in tears though the 
 child has been dead for years and years. Natural affection 
 leads us to repeat the children's little broken language. 
 The prattle becomes dear to us, and the little garments that 
 would be absurd to put upon the grown man's back — we 
 hang them up and look at them as our children's heritage, 
 as belonging to them. How they touch the heart ! 
 
 Here is the Old Testament, the record of the slow prog- 
 ress of the human race through ignorance and barbarism, 
 and idolatry, and passions, and lusts and everything of that 
 kind, all the way down, and here are men that go walking 
 about and ridiculing this and ridiculing that superstition. 
 However, the fact is that they are really all the time firing at 
 the construction that is put upon these things by the theo- 
 logians of the old scholastic church. If you say these things 
 are not believed in any longer, what is the reason they get 
 angry when I attack them? I do not attack because I am 
 fond of firing into the dust heap of old theology, but because 
 the influences of it still hang in the heavens as a cloud to 
 hide the glory of God. It is for Christ's sake, and for 
 humanity's sake that I would contend against the fictions 
 and burn all the dreams of the old medieval theologians. 
 
 And among the worst consequences is a sort of attempt 
 to justify every historic event and fact that is contained in 
 the record of the Old Testament Scriptures, as if it were 
 something created of God and spoken out of the divine 
 mouth. It is this perversion of Scripture that gives the 
 power to the scoffers of making certain things seem ridic- 
 ulous. 
 
igb PLYMOUTH PULPTT. 
 
 But alas, while in many respects I sympathize with the 
 vigor with which they hit off the absurdities of theology, I 
 cannot sympathize with the absolute want of any feeling 
 for the human race or any feeling for all the precious ele- 
 ments that are contained in this Old Testament. Nowhere 
 else is there in the world legislation more amiable, more 
 careful, than that which is to be found in the Mosaic institu- 
 tions, for the preservation of and humanity toward all ani- 
 mals. It is imbedded in their constitution. I would like tO" 
 see a sentence in our constitution that took care of animals 
 or came anywhere near it. They are a wonder of legislation, 
 the Mosaic institutions, for the care of children, for the ten- 
 derness towai'd them, for their instruction. And the secret 
 of the perpetuity and moral power of the Jews in this world 
 is simply the secret of family life. Where else in Greece, 
 where in Rome, where in Babylon, in Persia, in Media, 
 anywhere, can you find in their records any such provision 
 for the care of the children as is contained in the books of 
 Moses, where the parents are enjoined to rise up early and 
 instruct them in the ways of God toward that nation, rising 
 up and sitting down, coming out and going in; write them 
 upon the door-post, inscribe them over the door, every- 
 where, take care of the children ? " Educate, educate, edu- 
 cate," runs through the whole book. 
 
 To be sure it is an education that would be comparatively 
 poor now, because we are the blossom of which they were 
 the seed. But the system was formed and adapted to the 
 early state of the human race, the care that strength and 
 wisdom was to give to unstrength and inexperience. 
 
 Look at the care that was ministered to servants — for that 
 matter, to slaves. They were not to buy their own people 
 for slaves, but foreign cnptives. And they were not to allow 
 these to be treated as cattle. They were obliged to in- 
 struct them and to treat them with a humanity which 
 made them so expensive that slavery perished of its own 
 burdensomeness. That is, for the main part, the reason why 
 Jewish slavery was abandoned. For, the moment you begin 
 to treat a slave as a man, that very moment he becomes so 
 expensive you can't afford it; you can't afford to let a man 
 
THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. 197 
 
 develop his natural and just imaginations, ideas, moral 
 sense, and all his economic nature, and then make a slave 
 of him. You make him rebellious in a moment. The only 
 way was to keep the man on the level of the ass, good for 
 draft; nothing beyond that. And therefore the laws of our 
 slave States made teaching the slave to read and write a 
 State prison offence. This was the Christianity of America 
 in this Nineteenth century, in the so-much lauded age. 
 The Roman law was our law of slavery, and it was the most 
 careless law for humanity on the face of the earth, whereas 
 the old Hebrew law was one that carried emancipation in 
 its mouth everywhere, simply because the master in his 
 strength must take care of the weakness of the slave, and 
 treat him as a man. He was to attend at the festival, at 
 the worship. He was to be instructed in the knowledge of 
 the law of Moses. And that made so much of a man of him 
 that he broke the harness from off him. Theway to eman- 
 cipate a man is to make him so large that you can't afford 
 to furnish iron enough to make a fetter. So, much mercy 
 was shown to the slave not only, but to all servants of their 
 own kind; and debtors went free after a given number of 
 years. In the year of jubilee, all alienations of property 
 ended and everything went back again to its tribal rela- 
 tions. Foreigners were treated with a great deal more re- 
 spect than they are in America. " You shan't oppress 
 them, they come to dwell with you," Moses said. "Re- 
 member that thou wast a stranger in a strange land." 
 
 The humanity in these statutes was something wonder- 
 ful. The care for life, both in town and wilderness, the 
 hygienic regulations, were something that might instruct us 
 even to-day. 
 
 They had no free school houses, nor foul air in them. 
 They had no sewers; they did not need any. They taught 
 men such sanitary regulations as kept the air and the camp 
 pure, and all the way down you shall find that the institu- 
 tions of Moses were especially adapted to take care of those 
 that could not take care of themselves. While nature 
 went growling and thundering along saying, "Stand out 
 of my way, you that are weak," and crushing everything 
 
19S PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 that was weak, here we find the voice of the Mosaic insti- 
 tutions saying : " Take care of the children, take care of 
 the stranger, the poor, the laborer, the slave, every animal ; 
 care for them." So that the law of force, subdued, was 
 made to work beneficence instead of destruction. And let 
 me say that from beginning to end of the Bible there is 
 not one single instance, as I believe, in which you can find 
 any preference shown to the law of power. From end to 
 end it is against oppression, against tyranny. From end 
 to end it is against the avarice of the upper classes. It is 
 that law which made the peculiar commandments in re- 
 spect to usury, that would not allow commerce to gird the 
 distressed and weakened poor. All the way through hu- 
 manity prevailed, and care of those that were not able to 
 take care of themselves. Until humanity ceases to be a 
 necessity, you must not expunge from the confidence and 
 the love of mankind the venerable scriptures of the Old 
 Testament, even still less of the New, of which we shall 
 speak. 
 
 The growth of ages, amidst the clangor of war and the 
 upsetting of men and the waste of dynasties, has been in 
 the direction of limiting power. The history of institu- 
 tions is simply that. Institutions are the bulwarks within 
 which the rights of man and facilities for the development 
 of intelligence and power are concentered. They are, it 
 might be said, fortifications against wanton caprice and 
 lawless selfishness. 
 
 Now coming down to the New Testament, the general 
 development of this principle, and the rendering it into 
 a command in the passage of our text and in the chapter 
 beyond, gives us a larger horizon. 
 
 All the way -through the gospels, all the way through 
 the writings of the apostles, there exists almost a mother's 
 tenderness in regard to all the ostracised classes. They 
 take the side of mankind in misfortune, in sorrow, in 
 sin and in trouble. It is the very wine of the New Tes- 
 tament that knowledge, experience, influence, high force 
 must all serve the wants of the inferior and not please 
 the possessor. And this leads me finally to the sub- 
 
THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. igq 
 
 lime interior philosophy of the incarnation and the atone- 
 ment of Christ himself. It is the revelation of God in 
 Jesus Christ that we have, namely, eternal power in love. 
 Be not deceived by the clash of disputers and exterior his- 
 tories. The real secret and center of the universe is " God 
 is love;" and that love overmasters anarchy of force; and 
 that the genius of divine government in all time, as it 
 shall be seen at the close of time, is care for the weak. 
 
 We learn that all things start in weakness. By evolution 
 we have learned this. By revelation we learn that all 
 things tend to the care of weakness, and that God is the 
 sublime care-taker of the universe. 
 
 I read in your hearing one of the most striking, pro- 
 found and least understood passages of the New Testa- 
 ment, namely, the washing of the feet (John 13th). 
 
 Why that was never made into an ordinance I never 
 could understand. It sinks deeper than the ordinance of 
 the Lord's Supper. It has a profounder grip upon man's 
 nature, duty and destiny. Christ was subject to luminous 
 hours as men are, and this was an hour in which he knew 
 and felt in all its reality, " I came from God, I am about 
 to return to God." Then he took his basin and washed 
 his disciples' feet, and said to them, " If I, your Lord and 
 Master, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one 
 another's feet. I am of God, and I return ere long to God, 
 and I set you this example. The nature of God is to take 
 care of the bottommost things in creation, the weak, the 
 needy, the poor, the sinful, the inexpert. It is the eternal 
 burden of the divine government, as it were, to wash the 
 feet of the universe, to do the lowest offices, to take care of 
 those that most need his care. This it is to be God.'' 
 
 And then, when coming forward from sublime confer- 
 ence, so little understood by the disciples or their follow- 
 ers, since he offered himself to manifest the intensity of 
 the love of God for mankind, dying for men that were in 
 their sins; dying for men that were yet enemies to all that 
 constituted the reality of God; dying for men that hov- 
 ered just across the line of animalism, only toward the 
 human species; he was a spectacle to men and angels of 
 
200 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 the intensity of the divine nature in love. No man can 
 do any more than to die for love, and that he did : sent of 
 God, ascending to be God — what a revelation that was of 
 the eternal forces that are centralized in heaven, and of 
 the eternity yet to open its doors, and yet to unfold the 
 outcome, the harvest home of this world! 
 
 This view of what Christ was and what his atonement 
 was, is the one that I would by all means enforce upon 
 you, — namely, not that mechanical and miserable artificial 
 contrivance that came from the puerile mind of men in a 
 state of infancy — of machinery by which God attempted to 
 patch up a broken law, or to repair a leaking plan of the 
 universe, but a revelation of the design of God, so far as 
 infinity could be compassed by finity, the design of the 
 spirit of God and the nature of God in the person of Jesus 
 Christ to teach and set example of perfect charity and per- 
 fect kindness, and especially to the poor and the needy; and 
 then in the sublime termination of this crowned drama, to 
 offer up that which concentrates in the human imagination 
 every element that constitutes love, standing before the 
 whole of coming time and the generations of men, to teach 
 by His suffering and death the eternal center of power. 
 God is such an one; love and love alone; and the nature 
 of love is to suffer for those who need protection, for their 
 enrichment, for their upbuilding, for their education and 
 their final salvation. 
 
 The disclosure of the divine nature such as this, hindered 
 as it has been by monarchical leanings and imperial govern- 
 ments, hindered as it has been by theology that has taken 
 the side of kings, hindered as it has been by churches that 
 allied themselves to states, and so became in partnership 
 with the organs of oppression, treading down the weak and 
 the poor and taking the part of regal pride; this simple 
 spectacle of Christ descending to make known to mankind 
 the nature of God and the hidden power and genius of the 
 universe, is sublime beyond all expression. And when it 
 shall be known and believed, and read out unto us, it shall 
 carry with it the emancipation of the globe. It changes all 
 the elements of organization and public sentiment, and the 
 
THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. 201 
 
 globe will be transformed by a better understanding of 
 what the incarnation, the example, the sufferings and the 
 death of Jesus Christ meant. 
 
 In view of this exposition I remark that human nature 
 must be worked upon before the realization of social and 
 industrial reform. I alluded to the selfishness of all this 
 little hotbed experience, by which men attempt to defend 
 themselves against injustice and power of every kind. The 
 leaven is at work, slowly but surely, and the Bible is on the 
 side of those that are conscious of their weakness and 
 struggling against the elements of strength. Selfishness is 
 the one universal foe. Nowhere is it nourished more infiu- 
 entially than in organizations of sociology, and nowhere 
 can the hope of the world be realized so surely as by bring- 
 ing into the faith and use of every community that out- 
 come of the spirit of God — the Bible. It has been the 
 fountain from which our liberties have flowed, it is to be the 
 fountain from which that liberty shall grow larger and in- 
 clude in it every rank atid gradation of human existence. 
 
 And this is the reason why the Bible, forgotten often, 
 hidden often, has been more abominably dissected than any 
 book ever was, or any dead body on a dissecting table; so at- 
 tacked and pursued and rent asunder. The outward forms 
 in which the Bible truth has been disclosed are subject to 
 criticism; and much that is contained within the Bible, 
 being the vehicle simply which conveyed . the fruit, or 
 medicine, or truth, is undoubtedly susceptible of change, 
 remeasurement and reconstruction; but the blood of 
 the Bible and what it meant at the beginning and meant 
 at every age since and means to-day, all its doctrine and 
 its example and all its manifestations of the eternal God, 
 — they are in behalf of weakness, of poverty, of ignorance. 
 They take hold of human life not by the crown but by the 
 shoe-latchets. "lam the way," said Christ, as if he had 
 laid himself down along the rocky, flint-cutting road, and 
 said to men: "Walk on me, I am your road." And the 
 whole spirit and temper of the Scriptures is on behalf of 
 those that are low down, to lift them up. 
 The mountains shall be abased and the valleys shall be 
 
202 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 exalted in that great and glorious day of the coming of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And you need not be 
 afraid for your Bibles. They are going to stand as long 
 as humanity needs some sense of sympathy as the medicine 
 of sorrow, as long as weakness implores vainly against 
 human strength and appeals to the divine. 
 
 The Bible is on the side of the workingmen. It is on the 
 side of the slave. It is on the side of men that are under 
 hard governments. It is on the side of men that are sick 
 and that have failed under the harness of life. It is on the 
 side of men whose consciences roar out at them like en- 
 raged lions; on the side of sinful, suffering humanity; and 
 a book like that is not going to be kicked over by ridicule, 
 nor disposed of by angry scholarship, nor by the impudent 
 superiority of men. It is the people's book; a book of life, 
 that carries in its heart the very element of life for the 
 human race. 
 
 While I never could bow down before a crystal God 
 seated on a marble throne, white and cold as the marble 
 itself, that suns himself and bids the revolving stars sweep 
 on, every one of their censers casting out incense for his 
 supreme and royal delectation ; while I cannot worship 
 universal selfishness, nor crystalline conceit, nor power, 
 when I look up and behold the throne blazing with that 
 whose sparks made mother love in the world, and when I 
 behold that throne, sitting thereon One who cares and loves 
 and longs, and through infinite ages with infinite patience, 
 waits for the unfolding of the low, bringing them up in 
 sections and ages higher and higher until the world blos- 
 soms and the consummation of the millenial day is at hand, 
 I cannot withhold adoration, and I join with those that cry 
 out "Thou art worthy to reign." Love, always; love, uni- 
 versal; love that suffers for those whom it loves, and having 
 loved, loves them unto the end; to that I can and I do bow 
 my understanding, my heart and my conscience. 
 
 And now for us comes the lesson: Love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself. And in the 
 proportion in which you find in yourself that humanizing 
 and divine tendency, care for those that need care, the 
 
THE CONVERSION OF FORCE. 203 
 
 distribution of yourself, your treasures of knowledge, your 
 refinements of beauty and of civilization, the power of your 
 hand, the power of your treasure, the power of your heart 
 — in proportion as these go out to men just in the ratio of 
 their need, in that proportion you will reproduce Christ, in 
 that proportion you will reproduce God in the imagina- 
 tion and in the heart of men. 
 
III. 
 THE DRIFT OF THE AGES. 
 
 "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a 
 branch shall grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest 
 upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel 
 and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall 
 make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord; and he shall 
 not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of 
 his ears, but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove 
 with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with 
 the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the 
 wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithful- 
 ness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, 
 and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young 
 lion and the falling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the 
 cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and 
 the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on 
 the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cock- 
 atrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; 
 for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters 
 cover the sea." — Isaiah xi: i-g. 
 
 This is the prediction of the great coming final age. It 
 first delineates tlie governing tendency which is guiding 
 the universe, represented b}^ Jesus Clirist, here distinctly 
 foretold with strilcing delineation. It may be said, in some 
 respects, to be a portraiture of Christ. His administration 
 shall be characterized by sympathy with the poor and the 
 helpless, reversing the history of the world ; it sliall over- 
 come all evil proceeding from the passions of men; and the 
 result shall be that the world and the race of men shall 
 attain to a glorious perfection, toward which, slowly but 
 surely, things are evolving. 
 
 guNDAY Morning, April 8, 1883. Lesson : i John iv. i-ai. 
 
 ao4 
 
THE DRIFT OF THE AGES. 205 
 
 A great thing to believe, that ! There seems to have 
 been in this great turbulent world no more order, law, pro- 
 cedure, than there is when two whirlwinds meet upon the 
 ocean, and the heavens are black and vociferous with thun- 
 der, and the ocean is torn and scattered every whither; yet 
 even in the most rending storms there are laws as clear 
 and as determinate as those that are found in crystallogra- 
 phy or in growth. There are laws under disorder just as 
 much as under order; and to those who look out upon the 
 world as it is and has been, and have seen the universal 
 Strife and disorder, and have almost fallen into the unbe- 
 lief of a providence, or of any channel and tendency in hu- 
 man affairs, it is a great comfort if they can believe that, 
 slowly as it is unfolding, there is a great tendency, and 
 that the termination of it, like the termination of vegetable 
 growth, shall be the blossom and the fruit. 
 
 Then, after this (as it were) historical statement, the 
 ground is gone over again dramatically; with a few mas- 
 terful strokes, the picture of rude violence and cruelty is 
 drawn over against innocence, simplicity and beauty. The 
 animal kingdom is divided. On one side are those animals 
 that represent destroying tendencies — the lion, the bear, 
 the wolf, the leopard, the asp, the cockatrice; and over 
 against them are the creatures that represent innocence 
 and usefulness— the calf, the kid, the little child; these are 
 to mingle; the)' are to come to terms. 
 
 There is to be a day, in other words, in which those 
 things that are now separated are to be brought together. 
 On one side violence, cruelty, destruction, is to be so 
 changed that it shall mingle harmoniously with the very 
 opposite side, representing simplicity, innocence, beauty, 
 love. The spaces between them are so wide that the jour- 
 ney will be long, but it will be made. God has time enough. 
 We have seventy or eighty years; but God dwells in eter- 
 nity, and keeps no account of time — nor would you nor I, 
 if we were such as he, in whose presence a thousand years 
 are as a day. God does not squander time because he uses 
 it so largely. 
 
 The question is not, therefore, of "the coming man," 
 
206 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 wliich is agitated sometimes, and talked about with more 
 or less profundity. Tiie more interesting question for us 
 is the coming age. Is there to be one ? Is it anything more 
 than a poetic vision ? Is it fancy, or fact ? 
 
 The coming age is one in which the law of force will give 
 way to the law of influence; in which tlie injustice of men's 
 passion will give way to the justice of men's moral senti- 
 ment; in short, in which the law of hatred will be sup- 
 planted by the law of love. But, Is love primary in the 
 divine scheme and justice alternative; or is justice primary 
 and love alternative? From the beginning, now, and to 
 the end, I affirm that the central ruling power of the uni- 
 verse is love: not love for loveliness, not love for beauty, 
 not love for that which is complete, symmetrical and strong; 
 but the other way^for littleness, for weakness, for poverty, 
 for want, for suffering, for sin and sinfulness. That is the 
 center of government; that is the power of the ages; and 
 the current on which we are slowly moving is the current 
 that sets forth from out of the heart of God's love — strange 
 as the commentary of time and the world is upon any such 
 declaration as that. 
 
 I remark, first, that the whole world is in a continuous 
 and vast struggle, and has been since we have had any his- 
 tory of man, or knowledge of things below men. The 
 history of that struggle is written or embalmed in the 
 rocks; and it is slowly unfolding. When History spread 
 her sheet to write, even from the very earliest period this 
 struggle of extrication was to be discerned; and every 
 step of the way up through the ages there has been no 
 peace, no settlement that would stand; there has been one 
 perpetual labor-pain; and we hear the apostle himself de- 
 claring, " The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in 
 pain until now" — avast struggle for extrication and ascent. 
 It is impeded growth, ignorant growth; but with all reac- 
 tions there has been one continuous tendency; and as the 
 plant grows slowly under ground, dark, imperceptible, but 
 faster when its stem reaches the light, and rapidly wlien it 
 comes to the blossom and the fruit, so the earlier develop- 
 ments were slowest. The more the world advanced, the 
 
THE DRIFT OF THE AGES. 207 
 
 more rapidly it could advance; and the glory of the blos- 
 som and the fruit lies before us yet, and will come, not 
 according to the speed of the ages gone by, but according 
 to the acceleration which belongs, in the nature of things, 
 to the advanced stages of growth. 
 
 The tendency of this great struggle of extrication is in 
 one direction. Not, however, that there are not rebounds, 
 back-sets; not that the tendency has not often been met 
 and blighted. There is no fact more' extraordinary that 
 the human mind can contemplate than the prodigal waste : 
 of creation, the ends being attained finally after a bewilder- 
 ing expenditure of forces; but the tendency is away from 
 violence and cruelty, and it is toward sympathy and love. 
 
 Take the worst form of violence — war. Even war itself, 
 bloody and grimy, began in mere wanton excitement of 
 cruelly. It was pastime. Men hunted men as now they 
 hunt animals. Exhilaration, coarse and brutal excitement, 
 was the reason of war, at first; and for ages, extermination. 
 But war was obliged to move on and up. Yet bloody of 
 hand and face, it was waged for slavery, in which the life was 
 saved' for the sake of the service. Little by little it became 
 war for power, dominion. It then became war for wealth, 
 for commerce. By and by it became war for liberty, for 
 ideas, for great principles. The public sentiment of the 
 world to-day has come, on the whole, to condemn any war 
 that does not represent a principle that substantially in- 
 cludes in itself justice to all classes in the world. 
 
 In the early day, when the buccaneer represented Eng- 
 land, and went wherever he would, there was no public 
 sentiment to rebuke him. Though he ravaged islands, 
 though he desolated all maritime fields, he came back 
 loaded with riches, to receive honors from the highest 
 hands. But refined France cannot set her signet on the 
 northern shores of Africa, nor sail through the Isthmus to 
 lay her hand upon Madagascar, nor go any whither to in- 
 terfere with national life and independence, and not bring 
 down the criticism and, more or less, the condemnation, of 
 the public spirit of the civilized world. 
 
 Great Britain once could overrun India, could bombard 
 
2o8 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 China, but she cannot do it to-day. She may be able to 
 hold what she got unlawfully, but she dare not make one 
 single step in advance. Zululand is abandoned. Great 
 Britain hesitates about going to war for the mountains of 
 Afghanistan. She stands rebuked by the Christian public 
 sentiment within her own land, as well as in other lands — 
 for there is this to be remarked, that nations which allow 
 themselves to be unjust have goffar enough along to refuse 
 to let any other nations be unjust without rebuke and 
 reprimand. 
 
 If this has been the progress of the lowest form of cruel 
 force, what ma)^ we not expect to find to have been the ten- 
 dency of other things ? Sympathy with the under classes 
 has developed itself as a substitute for sympathy with the 
 ideal classes. One of the elements of violence is admi- 
 ration of strength. In the earlier periods of the human 
 race, men who were strong, Hercules, Goliath, and such 
 men, were the heroes, the demi-gods, because they were 
 demi-devils ; but that has changed and is changing. Then 
 the classes that associated themselves togetlier by virtue of 
 privilege or of a common wealth, dominated the others ; 
 and the sympathy of the world ran with them. Later on, 
 the classes that had the gift of- education, unfolding and 
 refinement, had the sympathy of mankind ; but the great 
 dark vulgar crowd that populated the globe had no record, 
 no standing. As late as the day of Cowper, English litera- 
 ture, from its day-dawn down through Dryden and Pope, 
 and all that class of poets, was one tiiat stung the under 
 classes with a perpetual contempt. Nothing was moi^e de- 
 spicable than this paganism of English literature, to the 
 days of its deliverance at the hands of such poets as 
 Cowper and Wordsworth, and the whole modern school. 
 The deliverance of English literature is within our own 
 memory. But a great revolution has taken place. Even 
 the literature of France, not alone in its higher branches, 
 but even in its infamous depths, has received this touch of 
 human sympathy ; and now it works for the poor, for the 
 unfriended, for the neglected classes. It must be said that 
 the reigning ideas in philosophy and in literature to-day 
 
THE DRIFT OF THE AGES. 209 
 
 are in behalf of the despised classes, which a century ago 
 had no recognition and no standing before the judgment of 
 mankind. The bottom is coming up and the top is going 
 down to meet it, not for the salce of losing its power, but 
 because the valleys shall be exalted and the mountains 
 brought down in the day when the Lord's highway shall 
 be cast up. 
 
 Labor also is undergoing great struggle and agitation. 
 It is the struggle of extrication. The rich and the poor are , 
 coming into affinities that scarcely were recognized hither- 
 to. To-day the rich are about to learn, if they have not yet 
 learned it, that they cannot separate themselves from the 
 welfare of the whole great laboring multitude. The spirit 
 of the ancient day still holds men to that endeavor, but the 
 spirit of the new coming days is very soon to dissipate that 
 condition of things. No man will stand long in any secur- 
 ity in his riches, or with any great comfort in his luxuries, 
 who does not make his riches serve the wants of common 
 humanity. Men are not to be heroic, even in the court of 
 Mammon, by tlie magnitude of their riches, but by the uses 
 of them. Men are not to be laureled and crowned by their 
 profligate expenditure, by their wanton exhibition of what 
 their wealth will enable them to do, by their attempting to 
 gild and garnish and glorify all the lower, all the more 
 sensuous elements in liuman life, because they have the 
 money. Men who are to have large properties are coming 
 rapidly under the responsibility of using them for the pub- 
 lic welfare, and not alone for their own selfishness. The 
 man that stands to-day upon a pedestal simply because he 
 is rich, will in another fifty years stand in the pillory if he 
 does not make his riches serve mankind. 
 
 There has gone, at last, through the gate of the grave, 
 the spirit of a man, honest, industrious, simple of habit and 
 taste, gathering wealth that like the sower he might sow it 
 again to bring up harvests in other fields than his own ; 
 and all the city bows down to him. He has never been king, 
 prince or president. He has never shown great philosophical 
 acumen, nor has he been a discover straying through 
 strange fields of science. He has been a manly man, who 
 14 
 
210 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 lived for his fellow-men ; and the whole population of the 
 city pours out, and asks as a privilege permission to look 
 upon the dead face of Peter Cooper. Uncovering, they 
 reverence the man who was honest, whose whole heart was 
 in sympathy with his kind, and who devoted the energy of 
 his life to the service of his fellow-men. May God increase 
 the procession of such men ! He will increase it. It is a 
 tendency. Now, to-day, only here and there you shall see a 
 crocus peeping out, or the buds on the willow giving token 
 of the coming spring ; but by this promise you know that 
 ere long the whole air will be perfumed with bloom. So 
 when, in increasing numbers, men are using their wealth 
 for the benefit of their fellow-men, you may know that sum- 
 mer is advancing and is not far away. 
 
 The age is beginning to see and to know that power and 
 knowledge and refinement are not meant to separate man 
 from man. It is beginning to recognize the fact that power 
 and intelligence are meant to bring man nearer to man ; 
 that position, influence, culture, and riches, like generous 
 trees, should drop down fruit to all under them. The roots 
 of sympathy should spread where the great mass of men 
 have lived, do live, and, for generations, must live. 
 
 This is real Christianity. To ninety-nine men in every 
 hundred Christianity is yet lying in the tomb. I do not 
 know of anybody — certainly he does not live in my house — 
 that is fully a Christian according to the ideal of Christ. I 
 am not. I do not know how to take my life and lay it 
 down absolutely for those furthest from me, from my tastes, 
 and from my love. I do a great many Christian things, you 
 do a great many ; but we have not as yet imitated our 
 Lord, who, though rich, for our sakes became poor, that 
 we through His poverty might be rich. That ideal Christ 
 yet slumbers. 
 
 Listen: " Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all 
 things into his hands, and that he was come from God and 
 went to God ; riseth from supper. . . and began to wash 
 the disciples' feet.'' When he had washed his disciples' 
 
 feet, he gave the practical application of a parable it 
 
 was a parable acted, — " Ye call me master and lord : and ye 
 
THE DRIFT OF THE AGES. 2H 
 
 say well, for so I am." In that moment he felt the whole 
 influx and grandeur of his true nature, and he said, " If I, 
 then, your lord and master, have washed your feet, ye also 
 ought to wash one another's feet ; for I have given you an 
 example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his 
 lord : neither is he that is sent greater than he that sent 
 him." While grateful penitents are breaking their alabas- 
 ter vases and giving precious ointment to the head of the 
 Saviour, that same Saviour and his Father are washing the 
 feet of creation, caring for the inferior things, the poor, 
 the helpless, the sinful, the needy ; such is the nature of 
 God. That is the nature that yet must needs be developed 
 not in the individual alone, but in all classes of society. Men 
 who have risen from the bottom toward power have carried 
 themselves away from sympathy with those from whom they 
 sprang. 
 
 I cast into the ground the seed of the magnolia ; the 
 plant spreads and sends down its root, going deeper and 
 deeper, the root ministering to the gradually rising stem. 
 But when it has grown to be a great tree, and spreads its 
 broad, green leaves to the air, and is covered with its mag- 
 nificent vases full of perfume, the topmost bloom will never 
 forget for one single instant that humble root which, 
 plunged down out of sight, is giving all its nourishment. 
 Cut the connection between the top and the root, the top 
 perishes, and the root likewise. The world is as a great 
 tree in which the leaves that wave nearest to the heavens 
 and drink in the sunshine, are after all the servants of the 
 lowest roots that penetrate the earth. The hidden and the 
 revealed are one ; the power that the sun gives to the 
 leaves goes down through the descending sap, and minis- 
 ters to the utmost part of the roots, just as the roots, 
 spread out, bring up also their offerings to minister to the 
 top. So it is to be among men. We are but just learning it. 
 The struggles go on in society, in its organizations of gov- 
 ernment, in its industries, all working in the same direc- 
 tion, all working toward the common welfare of men ; im- 
 peded, checked, thrown back, but reasserting themselves, 
 
212 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 because they are the fruit and result of a divine attraction 
 wliich is universal, and which runs on through the ages in 
 all time to the final consummation. 
 
 There is also in every direction a struggle incidental to this 
 tendency to unfold and to grow. Nowhere is it more strongly 
 seen just now than in theology. You who have read religious 
 newspapers have by this time become familiar, I suppose, 
 with the terms, " Men of advanced thought," and " Men of 
 conservative thought.'' There is a separation taking place. 
 There is something both of conservatism and of progress in 
 every one ; nevertheless, men cohere by the predominance 
 of their generic tendency. There are some men holding to 
 theology who are looking back to see what it was ; and 
 there are some men who in formulating their theology are 
 looking forward with an ideal of what it is and must be. I 
 think it must be said that the difference between the school 
 of advanced thinkers in theology, and the school of con- 
 servative orthodox thinkers in theology, lies in the struggle 
 between the spirit of universal love and the spirit of unsym- 
 pathetic justice. The old orthodoxy, with all its admir- 
 able qualities, with its close organization and affiliation, and 
 with the great work which it has done (for it has been, in 
 the hands of God, an instrument of vast good), nevertlie- 
 less received its notions of justice as a punitive power, as it 
 was inspired, substantially, by the coarser basilar feelings 
 of the human race. It was an animal-sprung justice, and 
 organized itself into a system. 
 
 Now, while the warmth of thought and sympathy in the 
 world is more or less dissatisfying men with such a system 
 of theology as that which centers on violent justice, cruel 
 justice, punitive justice, destroying justice, there is another 
 section of men that see and feel that Love is God, that it is 
 the marrow of every great religious system vi^hich is to pre- 
 vail finally; and thus they are seeking to construct a sys- 
 tem, not necessarily rejecting this, or that, or the other 
 thing, but attempting to reconcile their theology to a sys- 
 tem in which the spirit of Divine Love reigns centrally — 
 not a restricted one, not a conditional one, not one in 
 which love is the result of any arrangement. Their belief is 
 
THE DRIFT OF THE AGES. 213 
 
 that God is love, and that he loves, not because this man 
 deserves it, and that man a little more; not because this 
 man has attained to it, and that man a little more; but be- 
 cause he is God. 
 
 Do you suppose that the sun, as it comes up shining, 
 takes measure first of how much everything wants on earth ? 
 Do you suppose that a statistical sun asked yesterday, " How 
 much does the grass need, how much do the flowers need, 
 and how much do the trees need ?" The sun pours, day 
 by day, out of its infinite fullness, more than the whole of 
 ten thousand earths would need if they were here to take 
 it, simply because the warmth is in it and must come out. 
 
 Nor is the Divine love measured according to this desert 
 and that desert, this capacity and that capacity. It over- 
 sliines creation, and has a breadth, a fullness and a continu- 
 ity that are infinite because they are God's. God is love. 
 No man knows God except he knows love, and that is really 
 the spinal marrow, the brain and root of what is called " ad- 
 vanced theology." It is not to get rid of the doctrine of 
 total depravity, though it may modify the statement of that. 
 It is not to get rid of this thing and that, thing. It is an 
 attempt to form a philosophy that shall make all facts and 
 all experiences naturally crystallize around that one central 
 element, God is love. 
 
 It may be lieretical, and it may not be, but I take it to 
 be Scriptural. It is that spirit which is struggling to ex- 
 tricate itself from the other notions, coarse, imperious, 
 fashioned in the loom of absolutism, largely void of univer- 
 sal sympathy except upon specified conditions; from a sys- 
 tem which is fabricated on falsehood, and attempts in mul- 
 titudes of instances to supply the place of truth by fic- 
 tions. The whole civilized Christianity of the world hither- 
 to has been based upon the doctrine of the fall of the whole 
 human family in Adam. Man never did fall; men never 
 could fall because all men were born at the bottom; and if 
 there has been any turn at all, it has been upward and 
 onward. There is not a word in the whole Bible about a 
 fallen world. There is not a word in the whole Bible about 
 a lost world. Christ came to seek and to save the lo-i. 
 
214 PLYMOUTH PULFIT. 
 
 Multitudes of men have been lost; but that is never spoken 
 of the human race, nor of the whole viforld: and yet it is 
 the absolute foundation on which the current theologies, 
 and the theologies of the past have been based. The con- 
 sequences I shall not comment upon. It follows that, the 
 text being false, the whole discourse has been vitiated. 
 
 Now what we call " advanced thought," in theology, is 
 not purely and truly an intellectual process. It is the feel- 
 ing revealed in the hearts of men, of the true tendency of 
 the ages, and of the real thought and heart of God himself. 
 It is an attempt to give this shape, and adapt it so that it can 
 be formed into a philosophy. You may bafHe it, and exclude 
 it, you may do what you please, but if God is good it will 
 prevail, although not necessarily in the way in which we 
 put it in this age, nor as it may be put in any other age. 
 The unfolding of human ideas of God and government is 
 still going on. When the race have learned love, the hard- 
 est lesson of time, it will be prepared for a nobler theology 
 than can be framed while the aristocratic passions rule. 
 
 I have labored all my life in that direction. No man is 
 more conscious than I am of the imperfections of my work. 
 But the soil at Peekskill, that results from the destruction of 
 numberless things that Jiitherto had existence, is still grind- 
 ing them up, and all my plants live on the death of something 
 else. My little services will be ground up to make soil for 
 somebody else who will see better things and better thoughts 
 than I have seen. But since I am a pilgrim of the heavenly 
 host, what matters it ? I would be willing to try and break 
 away from old errors, and give birth to larger and nobler 
 views; I would be willing that all my whole life's work should 
 be ground to powder to enable somebody to come after me 
 and do better than I have done— provided only that I am 
 permitted to see this from out of the midst of the heavenly 
 host. I will ! I shall ! 
 
 The distinctions of high and low, of truth and untruth, 
 of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, are less than the ephemerides 
 of summer, that flit before your eye; and ere ever you can 
 trace them again they are dead and gone. But this work 
 is yet far from victory. Do not let us deceive ourselves. 
 
THE DRIFT OF THE AGES. 215 
 
 Do not let us suppose that when the last missionary needed 
 has gone from our shores to preach to the distant islands, 
 when the. last twilight land has built its church and gilded 
 its cross upon the top of the spire, when there is not another 
 nation on the face of the globe that does not recognize the 
 historic Christ, and has not instituted the worship of Christ 
 • — do not let us suppose that then the work is done. The 
 world will not have come near to its ripeness. This is one 
 great influence and element, but there must be vaster 
 changes than merely this superficial Christianization. 
 
 In the first place, the final age, the perfect age, must be 
 an age made up of men that come into life better than the 
 generations do to-day. Men do not have a fair chance. A 
 man who is born with robust health has a better chance 
 than the man who is born an invalid for his father's sins. 
 The man who is born of temperate parents, and bears health 
 in every throb of his veins, has a better chance than the 
 man who is the offspring of a miserable drunkai'd or de- 
 bauchee. The man who has a large and healthy brain, has 
 a better chance in this life than the man who has a shrunk- 
 en brain, and most of it at the bottom. These are the in- 
 equalities of condition in this world to-day; but do you 
 suppose that we are going forever to undertake to lift 
 monkeys up to saints, that we shall forever be obliged to 
 bombard animals that have just intelligence enough to di- 
 rect their passions and appetites ? Do you not believe that 
 in the coming time there is to be such knowledge of hered- 
 ity as shall lead men to wiser selections, and that the world 
 which has learned how to breed sheep for better wool, horses 
 for better speed, and oxen for better beef, will not by and 
 by have it dawn on their minds that it is worth while to 
 breed better men too, and to give them the chance that comes 
 from virtuous parentage on both sides ? As goods well 
 bought are half sold, so men well born are half converted. 
 There must be a vast change on this subject. We have not 
 come to it yet, or only here and there in mere scintillations 
 of knowledge, but before the great ripeness comes the race 
 will be regenerated in physical birth. Generation will in 
 the ripe age supersede Regeneration. 
 
2l6 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 This future work, the completion of which is predicted 
 as coming, will also require that there shall be a regenera- 
 tion of heart and mind in the race; that there shall be a kind 
 of disposition, a condition of intelligence, that does not exist 
 now in the major part of the human family. Not only are 
 the bodies of men to be lifted up by the operation of wide- 
 ly extended natural causes, divinely directed, but the in- 
 ward man, tlie man of the spirit and of the heart, is also to 
 come into life a larger and a nobler man. We shall purge 
 out vast amounts of the stock from which comes sin, and 
 children will begin higher, and be quicker to appreciate 
 what is the genius of the gospel of Christ, and to carry it 
 out in all the ways of life. But these are slow processes. 
 
 There must be, also, a regeneration of society, for man. 
 is so made that he is largely dependent for his education, 
 shape, and final tendencies upon influences that act upon 
 him when he is a child, and that meet him when he goes 
 out from the family. Men under certain forms <Si govern- 
 ment, compressed, misled, are not competent for the things 
 that they would have done if they had been under a purer, 
 nobler, wiser government. There must needs be a genera- 
 tion of government; and there needs to be, also, a regene- 
 ration of business. All institutions, governments, laws, are 
 but organized human nature. Governments and business, 
 notwithstanding all their benefits, are varied with selfish- 
 ness, full of cruelty, largely void of love. They may re- 
 strain the worst elements of mankind, but cannot develop 
 the best. 
 
 Thus, the human body must be born better; the human 
 mind and dispositions must come into life better; men 
 must come into life through better families; families must 
 stand under better institutions and better governments — 
 under divine laws and institutions; and we can only come 
 to the higher through the imitation of these. But that is 
 a slow work, a gradual work. There are very few pulpits 
 that teach it, or that are competent to teach it; but it must 
 come. It is a great work, it is a glorious work, the fulfill- 
 ment of which will be the new heaven and the new earth. 
 
 It is glorious to be in such a campaign as this. Of course, 
 
THE DRIFT OF TffE AGES. 217 
 
 in brooding hours of darkness one takes a desponding 
 view, when one sees what liuman nature is, what Christian 
 human nature is, when one sees in the great conflict of 
 temptation, in the collisions and strife of the outward world 
 how little moral stamina there is, and how few men can 
 stand up against temptation. One is almost discouraged. 
 One feels as though men were whitewashed with Chris- 
 tianity and not transformed — changed essentially by it. 
 But when I take a larger view of it, I see that this is a part 
 of that gradual struggle which has been running on through 
 thousands of years, and very likely will run on through 
 thousands of years yet to come. It is a struggle which has 
 an inevitable termination — namely, in such an exaltation 
 of tlie race that all these animal elements will be finally 
 purged out of it, and a larger intelligence, and a better, 
 more transparent moral element shall reign, to the glory of 
 God and the joy of the universe. 
 
 I am glad to be in the conflict. A man that stood in the 
 outermost ranks of the closing battles of the war was in the 
 fight; helped to establish the liberty and the unity of his 
 national government: and though he may not have been 
 on the very fore-front, it was an honor to be anywhere, ex- 
 cept with back to the army, running away. Often the 
 men that are opposed to these sanguine views and to the 
 theology out of which they spring, are nevertheless uncon- 
 sciously working for God. There are some men who go 
 to heaven with their faces thitherward. There are some 
 men who will back into heaven. They fight all the way 
 against that very influence which is to be their salvation, 
 and the salvation of the world. 
 
 Bear in mind, then, that the ruling influence in time and 
 for eternity is God's love. Bear in mind that whatever 
 may be the long delays, the equity that springs from love 
 and the intellectual developments that spring from genial 
 love, are to rule. We have struck the grand highway. 
 We know which way God is sailing, and we are to trim our 
 sails and make the same general direction as the sailing- 
 master, our God. Whatever may be our sphere, we can do 
 something in this great work. The coarse, the hard, and 
 
2l8 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 the cruel shall yet go under; and the bright, the sweet, the 
 pure, the aspiring, the loving, shall come to the top. Let 
 each one of us begin that work in himself, and re-fashion 
 his own heart upon the great doctrine of God's love. 
 Let every one reconstruct his household on it. Let love 
 administer correction, censure, and criticism. Let every 
 one of us in his business throw aside the law of selfishness, 
 and the law of repulsion and collision. Let every one of 
 us undertake to develop the true spirit of love in his busi- 
 ness. Thus we shall have our hand upon the wheel, and in 
 every place where it turns slowly we can give it impulse. 
 If he that gives a cup of cold water to a little child in the 
 name of Christ shall not fail of his reward, how much less 
 he that opens springs in the desert, that strikes the rocks 
 in the mountains so that they gush forth, that digs wells 
 from which men through generations can drink. Do the 
 little that you can; do more if you can; and when at last 
 you return with joy upon your head to enter in at the gate, 
 there shall throng forth from it so many that you cannot 
 count them, of those who were refreshed in the hours of 
 sorrow and weariness of the way by your labor, and they 
 shall come with rosy hand and joyful lip to greet you and 
 to bring you before the throne of the Saviour. And when 
 once you shall have beheld that loving, adorable face, though 
 you had suffered on the cross, though you had wilted in 
 the dungeon, though you had been broken on the rack, 
 though you had reached him through the fires of martyr- 
 dom — one look will be more, a thousand times more, than 
 all the suffering. And to hear him say, "Well done," — not 
 all the music that time has known, not all the coronets that 
 power has worn, not all the treasures of the earth, nor all 
 the bounties of the summer with all its sun, can compare 
 for one single moment with the rapture that will thrill 
 through the heart of one who is saved, — safe, welcomed, 
 forever and ever accepted. 
 
IV. 
 THE HIDDEN MAN. 
 
 " Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the 
 hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be 
 the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the 
 ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of 
 great price." — i Peter iii : 3, 4. 
 
 There are two passages, and this is one of them, from 
 which there has been derived by the Puritan and by- 
 ascetic " Christian" teachers, the doctrine that it is wiclced 
 for women to wear jeweh-y and precious stones. They 
 have not been so particular about plaiting the hair, that I 
 know of, although that comes in under condemnation in 
 the same way. But the whole point is lost where it is fixed 
 on these things. The point is, that one should not expend 
 the whole of life on making the outside beautiful, but that 
 one should see to it that the inside is adorned also. You 
 are not to cheat the soul of all its gems and virtues for the 
 sake of making yourself attractive exteriorly by adorn- 
 ments of that kind. That is the point, but it has been 
 commuted into a general declaration against ornaments of 
 beauty — whether of the hair, or of the apparel, or of pre- 
 cious stones. 
 
 Nothing could be further from the spirit of the text than 
 that. This, we are to bear in mind, is addressed in its 
 original form to Oriental women. They were in the con- 
 dition mainly that multitudes of men think they ought to 
 be in now. They were stayers at home; they were manag- 
 
 SuNDAY Morning, May 20, 1883. Lesson : Matthew xxiii. 
 
220 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 ers of the household; they received no gifts of education 
 whatever. It was not necessary that a woman should be 
 expensively educated for the salie of making bread or 
 mending stockings, and so they were but little better than 
 slaves of the harem. Even in the very highest point of its 
 splendor there was not in all Athens a single woman who 
 was permitted to be educated, if she wished to have the 
 reputation of virtue. Knowledge with women in Grecian 
 days was a token of impudicity. If a woman meant to live 
 as a courtesan, no pains were spared to educate her in taste, 
 in knowledge, in philosophy, even in statesmanship. Here 
 is the root of the explanation in regard to those dissuasions 
 in the writings of the New Testament, that women should 
 not speak in public. In the corrupt and degraded senti- 
 ment of those Oriental ages, for a woman to be able to 
 speak in public and to rise to do it, would have fixed upon 
 her the stigma of being common and corrupt. Therefore 
 it was a wise decree of the apostle that in such an age, 
 and under such public ideas of what was feminine and 
 pure and what was unfeminine and impure, women must 
 be silent. They must conform in the churches to the pub- 
 lic sentiment of their time, until Christianity should have 
 changed the times and rendered possible a larger liberty, 
 felicitous and beneficial. 
 
 Now in such a case as that of women, whose desire to 
 please and love of pleasing is strong — not perhaps stronger 
 than in men, but under circumstances in which there were 
 fewer ways of pleasing than men possessed — what could 
 they do but make their persons attractive ? They were for- 
 bidden to make themselves beautiful within, and so tiiey 
 made themselves as beautiful as tliey could without, with 
 braided hair, with all manner of pearls and precious stones, 
 with all fancifulness and beauty of dress. But Peter and 
 Paul in effect said: "Do not spend yourself on external 
 garnishing ; look inward, and cultivate the spiritual life," 
 or as Peter here calls it, " the hidden man of the soul." In 
 short, Peter and Paul were both in favor of higher education 
 for women. They did not believe that the line of her life 
 should not rise above the bread-trough, or the handling of 
 
THE HIDDEN MAN. 221 
 
 the instruments by which she was to obtain victory in the 
 industries of life. They believed that a woman should 
 have a higher life, a higher inward development; and 
 should not therefore turn to frivolous pleasures and ex- 
 ternal beauty. 
 
 It is not for that general subject, however, that I have se- 
 lected the passage, but for this phrase, " the hidden man." 
 You will have been struck, in reading, with how much this 
 dual life is insisted upon in the New Testament, especially 
 how much use the Apostle Paul makes of it. There are two 
 elements running side by side in his philosophy; one the 
 outward, another the inward. The outward man perishes 
 day by day, the inward man is renewed day by day, says 
 the Apostle; and he dwells in various phrase on that duality, 
 the inward life, and the outward or physical life. There is 
 nothing more striking, I think, in the aspect of human life 
 than the double quality of acting and being acted upon. 
 No other such thing is known in the whole round of nature, 
 as the susceptibility of the human mind to impressions 
 produced by all the variations in nature. Everything plays 
 through the eye or the ear or the sense of touch, upon that 
 hidden man who lives in the heart. The clouds and the 
 storms that ride upon them, the winds, the waves, the whole 
 terraqueous globe — all things that are, that move, that act, 
 have a certain power of transfusing impressions through 
 the various senses into the consciousness of men, that is, 
 the hidden-man consciousness. When it is so aroused, 
 these accumulated impressions become knowledge, and 
 knowledge becomes powerful, seating itself as it were 
 under the control of the will. By speech, by attitude and 
 by executive force, variously diversified and educated, man 
 becomes a source of power himself, and throws out again 
 upon nature, and upon mankind as part of nature, an ex- 
 citing force. He is a great recipient; and then, in turn, he 
 is agreat actor upon others. He has a sensibility that opens 
 to him all the great elements of the natural world; then he 
 turns round and fructifies the natural world by the force of 
 his own nature, for of all things that are sterile, and narrow, 
 and fruitless, great physical natural laws are most so, until 
 
222 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 the will and knowledge of men ride them and direct them 
 to beneficent results, making them fruitful. 
 
 Everywhere, then, there is this reciprocal action, the 
 world on the mind, and the mind on the world. The sense, 
 the physical body, is the instrument by which the world 
 acts upon our hidden man, and by which the hidden man 
 acts back again upon the world. It is as with an organ. 
 What is there in the pressure that is given by the hand, 
 and what is there in the wild winds that are confined in 
 the bellows, that should be converted into aerial music, 
 stirring up every passion, every admiration, every joy and 
 pleasure in the human soul ? The man gives impulse by 
 touch and by mechanical aids, and the moment the organ 
 receives that, it responds and rolls out those grand anthems 
 that have filled the arches of cathedrals and the arch of 
 Time itself. That which the instrument is, man is; more 
 wonderfully, more variously, more beautifully, receiving 
 touch from all nature and the diffused God in it; and then 
 as a son of God, giving back in different forms and in 
 different melodies and harmonies, the impulse and the re- 
 sults. 
 
 Through the exterior world the soul is thus the recipient 
 of treasures. When you think of the operation that has no 
 sound in it and no visibility, it is not only worthy of ad- 
 miration, but full of a certain kind of poetry. The soul 
 sits in the human body as great commercial cities sit upon 
 the sides of the sea; and as every climate and every land 
 on the earth send forth their various productions to them, 
 and as all things report themselves in these great commer- 
 cial citadels, so the soul, an open harbor, receives from all 
 the universe its stores and its tributes. The soul is like 
 a prince who receives embassies from all the provinces 
 round about; presents and tribute come to him from the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. The air, the storms, all 
 human occupations, all governments, individual men and 
 combinations of men, pleasures — all bring influence to this 
 potentate, the hidden man of the soul. Then in turn, the 
 soul sends forth energy, speech, will; and as the tide that 
 swells and fills the harbor, then reflows and seeks again the 
 
THE HIDDEN MAN. 223 
 
 great ocean, so the flux and reflux of force between mind 
 and the physical world is a greater though an invisible and 
 a silent tide. 
 
 The laws of the physical world are almost sterile until 
 they are touched by the human will. The laws of nature 
 are scattered like wild rice, but wild rice never formed a 
 plantation. In its lowest forms scarcely worthy of the 
 name, maize was produced; but when did nature unhelped 
 by man ever feed the globe by the harvest of a continent 
 like ours ? Natural laws could give us metals in their 
 foaming, bubbling states, or cooled in veins, but never a 
 knife or a sword. Nature made trees, but never a house. 
 Nature has made germs, man has made the harvest. All 
 the great laws that make summer and winter and the in- 
 termediate seasons, all the laws that are called natural, all 
 the laws that spring from political economy, all those civil 
 laws which are said, in one respect, to be natural laws, are 
 not fruitful until some human spirit sits astride of them 
 and directs them. As wild horses never would wage the 
 battle, yet broken and trained they become cavalry, to 
 sweep with desolation over the plains or to rescue with an 
 unexpected salvation, so the vast apparatus of physical 
 laws, as men are accustomed to style them, is sterile and , 
 wild, except in the rudest element of things, until human 
 knowledge and human will break them in and compel them 
 to service and productiveness. 
 
 Now the relative proportion between this receiving and 
 the outgoing power determines character. It is the critical 
 line, both as respects quantity and quality. Those who live 
 by their senses, controlled by objects to be seen or heard 
 or felt from without, live animal lives. They are savages. 
 Civilized society always has a specimen within it of every 
 stage which mankind has gone through. We have semi- 
 civilized circles yet, we have barbarians yet, we have sav- 
 ages ygt, both near at hand and far away. Society goes, as 
 does the individual germ, through every stage, and shows us 
 each through which in the process of history it has hither- 
 to had to pass. Therefore they who receive impressions 
 through their lower senses, and give out only the lower 
 
224 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 forms of excitement, we call barbarians, savages. Then 
 come those who, receiving much, only give forth the energy 
 of their passions — not intellectual energ}', not moral, not 
 aesthetic. They give forth simply the energy of selfish- 
 ness, of pride, of vanity, of ambition, of avarice, comba- 
 tiveness, or destructiveness. It is the lower tier of the hu- 
 man, and the upper tier of the animal that is affected in 
 them, and that gives forth some voice or fruit. Then come 
 those who give impetus, the men who have industries, that 
 dig, that hew, that build, converting impressions and the 
 result of knowledge from without into energies by which 
 they give the fruit of physical combinations and construc- 
 tions,. This includes the vast mass of the respectable people 
 of the globe to-day. They work for a living. They give 
 forth simply that constructive physical energy which is 
 necessary for their own welfare and that of their immedi- 
 diate neighborhood. They do not give forth higher 
 thoughts nor a higher sense of justice, nor refinements, nor 
 aught except what can be done by physical knowledge and 
 strong hands. They are constructors and workers. Then 
 there are those who are over and above all this activity, for 
 the upper always owns the lower. He who gives thoughts 
 can also give construction, though he who gives onl}' con- 
 struction cannot give thought. The upper always carries 
 within it the privileges and the fruit of the inferior, or of 
 all that is below it. So that the next rank are those who 
 give forth thouglit and emotion, who have it in their power 
 to thrill their time, or to augment it, to build it up, to de- 
 fend it; men who live in the higher range of their faculties, 
 and give fruit reaped from these higher fields. Then come 
 those who over and above all activities, in physics and even 
 in intellect, have a reserved life which has never had ex- 
 pression except through hymns and psalms, the voice of 
 the teacher and the inspirations of the poet, — the utterances 
 of those who have given to knowledge a higher character 
 and a winged form. Writers of great poems have given 
 to the world creatures strong-winged as the cherubim, that 
 lift themselves above the battle, above revolutions, above 
 the commotions of centuries; and their songs in the air 
 
THE HIDDEN MAN. 225 
 
 carry light and knowledge and inspiration from one age to 
 another and from one land to another. There be those 
 whose hidden man does not work with the hand greatly, 
 nor add much to the economic results and the treasures of 
 any age, but they give forth the inspirations of God. They 
 are sensitive, open to tlie subtle inspirations that move in 
 the higher realms, and are men who live by faith or by the 
 higher forms of imagination, not by sight nor by the 
 physical fruitfulness of the human body. 
 
 In regard to this relative activity of different classes, what 
 they receive and what they give forth, it may be said that 
 it determines not simply individual rank or life, but it de- 
 termines also the philosophy or the character of different 
 religions. Take, for instance, the contrast between Juda- 
 ism and Cliristianity. Judaism was a recipient religion; 
 Christianity is a projecting religion. The Oriental mind, 
 generally, receives ; the Occidental mind gives forth. 
 There never was any proselyting period in the history of 
 the Jewish religion; other than political proselytes, there 
 were none, not even when proselytes came in and were made 
 Jews. Our Master referred to their compassing sea and 
 land to make one proselyte, and making him more a child 
 of hell, if that were possible, than they themselves were 
 who made him a proselyte; but that was in the degradation 
 of a politically corrupt Sanhedrim. As a religious move- 
 ment, Judaism in its best ages never sought to propagate 
 itself. It received prosel5rtes, but its great teachers said 
 that no proselyte was to be trusted as a Jew until twenty- 
 four generations iiad passed. By that time his blood was 
 cleansed and might be considered as Jewish. "Abide in 
 your own land. Have no commerce with Egypt. Cursed 
 be they that go down for horses there. Do not build cities 
 on the lip of the sea and become commercial." Industries 
 of the field were favored everywhere, and the nation was 
 inclosed. It was a stay-at-home nation, thorough-bred in 
 the things in which it did excel. But when the Saviour 
 came, he said, " Let your light so shine that men shall see 
 your good works. Let out! No man having a candle 
 alight puts it under a bushel, but bn a candlestick that it 
 
226 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 may give light to all in the house. Freely ye have received, 
 freely give. Go ye out. Stay not at home any longer. Go 
 out into all the world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
 ture." Judaism dies when the command is to "go forth;" 
 it would change the fundamental genius of the people. 
 That is true in a certain degree yet, not only in Judaism, 
 but I might draw the line through other religions. It is 
 sufficient for illustration to take those which, within the 
 bounds of Christianity, have developed in the same way. 
 There are the Ouietists ; men who are satisfied to be ; who 
 would leave other people to their own way. Take the two 
 great. communions, the Roman Church and the Protestant 
 Church, and the discriminating differences between the one 
 and the other are largely of this character, Though Rome 
 educates its priesthood to the highest degree, and makes it 
 cognizant of all principles of government, the great mass 
 of her people are educated to receive; and so it is a Greek 
 and modern hierarchy subtended under a Jewish tendency. 
 The genius of the people is to take, and of the priesthood 
 to give. 
 
 This runs not only along great denominational lines, but 
 through separate churches. We still have churches all 
 round about us that gather in the material that they like. 
 They consort together, they shut out the outer world; you 
 might just as well as not write over their portals, " Nothing 
 goes forth from here, everything comes in here." They are 
 select, they are an assorted people, they constitute them- 
 selves a religious mutual insurance company against future 
 fire. Whereas the true Christian principle is, " Freely ye 
 have received, freely give. There are no distinctions be- 
 tween you. Dress does not make the distinction, relative 
 property makes no distinction. You are to seek the wel- 
 fare, one of the other; you are to go outside, and you are 
 to give in the measure in which you have received." This 
 is the very spirit of missions, the characteristic of the great 
 missionary movements that have taken place on the globe 
 ■ — that the spirit that goes out shall bear some relation to 
 the stream that is constantly pouring in. 
 
 A word as to the relative productiveness of these two ele- 
 
THE HIDDEN MAN. 227 
 
 ments. The productiveness of the mind is generally in in- 
 creasing ratio from the lowest to the highest; the effective- 
 ness of its outgo is generally in the inverse relation or ratio. 
 Man can more easily turn that which is inspired in his 
 animal range and nature into an external influence and 
 substance', than he can that which belongs to his highest 
 nature. How much of thought there is in cultivated men ! 
 How much of thought that goes for thin language ! But 
 how much more thought that never rides in the chariot of 
 language ! How much men think day by day that is only 
 thinking ! 
 
 In my orchards to-day there are, I think, on single cherry- 
 trees thousands of blossoms; and probably all' but about 
 a hundred or two of those will drop without a cherry hav- 
 ing formed under them. Men are like such trees. They 
 breed thoughts by the millions, that result in action only 
 in the scores and the hundreds. How much of thought 
 and feeling is there, and what an incessant work is going 
 on within the sensorium of the body, among men ! How 
 many angers, how many griefs, how many hopes, how 
 many wishes, how many purposes; what ranges of specu- 
 lation, what building of plans, some on the ground, and 
 some in the air ! What wonderful goods are being woven, 
 more wonderful than by the Jacquard loom, in the manu- 
 factory of the head; and yet how little ever comes forth into 
 the merchant's salesroom, how little is ever visible ! We 
 think, I suppose, a hundred times more than we ever put 
 into action, or put into language, into visible exponential 
 form. The fruitfulness of the mind is something immense, 
 immeasurable. Waves of feeling rise, roll through the mind, 
 and leave no more effect behind them than the waves of 
 unknown seas that have rolled solitary for centuries by day 
 and by night. How much there is of purpose that is 
 blighted and barren ! How much there is of goodness, 
 how much of sweetness, how much of love that runs the 
 circuits and touches all the shores of human possibility, 
 but never comes out nor shows itself. How many there 
 are doomed by necessity, like fragrant trees in the great 
 tropical wildernesses — fragrant for ages, but neither brute, 
 
228 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 beast, nor man ever smells their sweetness. How many 
 there are that live in society who are capable of issuing 
 sweetness that should be of influence and that should 
 make a very summer round about them, but there is no 
 channel; and they die without opportunity. The great 
 hidden soul had no tongue, nor possibility of using it if it 
 liad one. Prolific fancies glitter and fill the world in the 
 mind of many, and yet never have any more substantial 
 existence than that, never have outward exposition. Feel- 
 ings are like drops of water. They form rivers and roll 
 slowly on, with only here and there a sounding fall, 
 and empty themselves into the eternities. Tlie loom 
 works on, but the fabric is invisible. I think that one 
 day's thought of an active, sensitive mind, possessed of 
 emotion and imagination, would, if written down, fill an 
 encyclopaedic volume; realizing the Oriental exaggeration 
 of John, that if all that Christ had said and done were writ- 
 ten — everything, even the world itself, could not contain 
 the books that would be written. If we should, by imagi- 
 nation, conceive that our life somewhere takes form and 
 record as in a book, and that we shall some time rise to the 
 visibility of the invisible, and behold our outward and 
 inward life biographically recorded — we should stand 
 appalled at the fruitfulness of the man within, the hidden 
 man. We are to bear in mind that there is very much of 
 thought which goes on and is of value and sometimes very 
 precious, that absolutely fails for want of any expression. 
 Men cannot organize all the matter that they can think 
 about. Men cannot send forth all the affections that they 
 can breed within themselves; and it seems to be one of the 
 laws of evolution that the copious part of the human 
 vocabulary is that which expresses material ideas and ma- 
 terial existences; but that as evolution develops the higher 
 man, the vocabulary cannot follow it. Our language is 
 thinnest and poorest when the human soul in its hidden 
 resources is the highest and the noblest. Men can express 
 physical acts and physical life, but when the social element 
 comes in and demands higher language, we are obliged to 
 double the words, to give them two meanings; and when 
 
THE HIDDEN MAN. 229 
 
 higher forms of refinement come we are obliged to give a 
 third meaning to certain combinations of language; but 
 when we come to ineffable things there is no language 
 adequate, and we are obliged to resort again to picture 
 language, to symbols and signs, which are revelations to 
 those who are wise enough to understand them. 
 
 This hidden man, then, maybe called in respect to those 
 things that are the highest and the best in this life, the 
 silent man; for we can say least of the things most worthy 
 to be expressed; and this great silence may be said to de- 
 termine character and condition very largely. Tliey that 
 know how to repress the lower and the evil that is gene- 
 rated within, are on the platform of morality ascending 
 towards spirituality; and those that ascend to the liighest 
 forms can express but little. Yet they have, as it were, a 
 palace within themselves, out of which in days of trouble 
 or trial come forth inexhaustible stores of strength and of 
 consolation. Consider a moment the moral character of 
 this hidden activity, of this hidden existence of man. In 
 the New Testament it is declared that a man is not what 
 he does, but what that is which inspires him to do. With 
 many men cowardice goes for conscience. Multitudes of 
 men forbear crimes or vice through base fear; otherwise 
 they would ramp and riot almost with the beasts of the 
 field. Multitudes of men there are who, if they were to act 
 out all the tiioughts in them, would be scourgers and de- 
 stroyers of the human race, plagues, animate and organized 
 pests. There are multitudes now that are almost that, 
 cowardly, keeping just within the bounds and restraints of 
 public sentiment, behind which they are as ugly as they 
 dare to be, keeping in calculated safety just within the 
 lines of civil law, just within the lines of commercial law, 
 or neighborhood law; yet the whole force of their silent 
 life within is base, an over-productive element of evil that 
 hisses as the steam in an overcharged boiler, seeking to 
 empty itself and to get out somehow, though it dare not 
 carry the great train of evil deeds by practical working. 
 Christianity has pronounced upon this matter. Not he 
 that transgresses the law of puritv, but he that wishes he 
 16 
 
230 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 could. A man is what he thinks, a man is what he feels, a 
 man is what he desires. In other words, the hidden man 
 is the real man that goes to judgment: not what we work 
 out, but what we desire to work out; not merely the moral 
 character of the act that is completed, but the moral charac- 
 ter of the intention and design within. This, upon the 
 plan of Christianity, determines the moral character of 
 every man. And when you apply the great law of divine 
 charity in equity, what infamous criminals we are ! If I 
 should take a neighbor at advantage and by cunning mis- 
 direction bankrupt him and send him forth into life, 
 stripped; if I should take his children, and with maltreat- 
 ment send them down the currents of life demoralized and 
 ruined, what language would be too harsh to characterize 
 my conduct, what form of justice too severe? Yet I sit a 
 silent man, and hate them and traduce them in my 
 thoughts, and oppress them in my wishes, and even imagine 
 and brood their murder, which yet I dare not execute. If 
 a man should be without purity, and indulge in absolute 
 and unwashed license, who would look upon him with 
 tolerance ? He would be vomited out of society. Yet how 
 many men, seducers, culprits, have passion in the silence 
 of their souls; commit every foul crime and every vice. It 
 is the hidden man which is at once the glory and the shame 
 of mankind: — the rich of thought and pure of purpose 
 whose life perhaps can bring forth but little outward fruit, 
 but who store up for the eternities grand knowledges, im- 
 pulses and actions; and, on the other side, the men who 
 maintain an external decorum, but are full of all unclean- 
 liness. How society teaches us to wash the outside of the 
 cup, or the platter, or the dish ! How much there is in- 
 famous before God and stenchful before men, if it were 
 only brought out and made known to us. This hidden 
 man is more beautiful than any of you think, and more 
 horrible. The saint dwells in many a bosom, not far re- 
 moved from the very angels of the throne itself. Devils in- 
 habit the heart of many and many a " respectable" man. O, 
 bring out your silent man; make him speak, unroll what is 
 written in his thought. Bring from the loom of his inward 
 
THE HIDDEN MAN. 231 
 
 activity the fabric, and let men see what lie has wrought, 
 and what figures are worlced into the pattern. How many 
 men could hold up their faces then ? And' how many men 
 who have produced notliing for the marlcet, not much for 
 tlie neighborhood, little for the uses that are common on 
 earth; that have neither the pen of the ready writer, nor 
 the tongue of the orator, nor the wings of the poet, are rich 
 unto God ! They dwelt in their meditations, and their im- 
 aginations remain untranslated into human language or 
 into human conditions, but they are rich towards God. 
 
 This is a subject that is full of practical meaning; we 
 ought so to coordinate the receiving to the giving — the in- 
 come to the outgo — that we shall strengthen and make better 
 both of them. So ought men to organize their lives that 
 they shall be fertile without, and fruitful, and rich, — and 
 abundant also within. Men ought always to be better than 
 their doings. Too often, alas ! men act better than they 
 are ; and by the way they put themselves forth in society 
 they are judged more favorably than they deserve to be. 
 When we rise to give an account before God, the body will 
 never go to judgment. It will lie where it is, and return, 
 "dust unto dust." The spirit goes to God, and the life 
 that the inward spirit has lived will stand before him 
 flaming in beauty and glory, or be darkened into twilight 
 or into midnight gloom. 
 
 Take care of the outward man. That is necessary for 
 time, for individual and national existence, for all our 
 physical relations in this world. But above all, take care 
 of the hidden man of the soul. Beware that the hidden 
 man of the soul be not starved; be not vitiated; be not 
 a criminal violating every canon of spiritual morality; be 
 not blind and deaf to that which is to be the reality of your 
 eternal state before God. If you will wear ornaments out- 
 wardly, God bless you in that; but see to it that for every 
 outward pearl there is a pearl within; that for every diamond 
 outside there are caves of diamonds inside; that for every- 
 thing that is beautiful either in hair, or dress, or ornament 
 there is something richer for the grander life, the hidden 
 life of the soul. 
 
V. 
 THE REST OF GOD. 
 
 " Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully 
 with thee." —Psalm cxvi : 37. 
 
 This is a lyrical outburst, that is, it is thought fused by 
 intense feeling. The figure is evidently that of a bird. 
 Some storm has rocked the tree, and by its violence scared 
 the bird away; or some stealthy animal, squirrel, cat or 
 owl, has sought the brooding bird's life, and driven it forth; 
 or some wandering, wanton boy, prowling, has sought the 
 nest, plundered it, and gone on. The bird hides in the 
 thick leaves; it watches from afar off. In silence it glides 
 from bough to bough, keenly watching. Again and again 
 it circuits about until it is sure of safety. Then, with joy- 
 ful assurance, it settles back in its nest, and when the sun 
 rises, it pours out its joyful song. 
 
 It is this joyful song that the Psalmist here interprets: 
 "Return unto thy rest, for God has dealt bountifully with 
 thee." , 
 
 It is not simply the cry of gladness, though it is glad, 
 but of gratitude. A great joy should never be selfish, and 
 happiness should always lead to piety. Whatever may be 
 the intermediate instruments — natural law, friends, our 
 own expertness and wisdom, — wliatever may be the visible 
 agencies of relief or joy, yet above all the eartlily machinery 
 by which we are succored and helped, is the Lord's will, 
 which is the very beginning, the source from which flows 
 the energy that moves the world through all its laws or 
 influences. 
 
 Communion Sunday Morning, May 6, 1883 Lesson : Psa. cxvi : 27-31. 
 
 232 
 
THE REST OF GOD. 233 
 
 There are very few to whom this passage will not, at one 
 time or another, come home with personal significance. 
 Pain aftd sorrow are universal. They are God's ministers, 
 God's schoolmasters, God's police. Tlieir function in the 
 scheme of life is vital. Pressure and attrition are indis- 
 pensable in the evolving of the race according to tlie terms 
 and conditions of their creation. From childhood and its 
 earliest days men need to be drawn and to be thrust up- 
 ward. Pain and sorrow are the thrustings, the pushes, as 
 it were. Joys, acting upon desire, draw men upward. 
 Pain, from behind, pushes them up. As a whole tlie lower 
 animals suffer very little, because they are low; because 
 there is such a low tone of nerve. So low is their nerve- 
 tone, and so exactly are suffering and joy graded to the 
 sensibility of nerve, that it is very doubtful when you get 
 to the lowest forms of life whether there is any sensibility 
 at all. I do not suppose that insects for the most part 
 feel; or, if so, it is so remote from anything that we expe- 
 rience that it must be said to be rather dullness than pain 
 and pang. The ephemerides that fill the summer air, the 
 myriad flies of every form and kind flitting hither and 
 thither in the sunlight, come into life without pain and 
 pang, and go out of it with as little, so far as we can by 
 any means discern, following the great law that botii pleas- 
 ure and pain are dependent upon the nerve system, that 
 according to its quality and fineness is its susceptibility, 
 and the double law that in proportion as the susceptibility 
 is intense in tlie direction of pleasure, so far is it likely 
 to be intense in the direction of pain. It is a two-edged 
 sword. 
 
 Besides all that, animals have but little and they need 
 but little development. A calf needs no instruction in 
 finding its way to be an ox or a bull of Bashan. It knows 
 everything to begin with; but a child does not. The calf 
 has very little temptation of any kind; very slight except 
 occasionally to wander over metes and bounds that it un- 
 derstands nothing of. All the animals of the forest require 
 but very little training; and therefore they are not in 
 straits as men are. The human composition is so large, it 
 
234 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 requires so much teaching, so much training and so much 
 experience to bring a man up to the fullness of his own 
 self, that the sphere both of joy and of sorrow is immensely, 
 immeasurably increased round about every intelligent man. 
 We think of bringing up our children simply by the peda- 
 gogy of the household. That is necessary, that is very 
 noble; but it is only a part, and oftentimes the smallest 
 part of that great education by which men at last are de- 
 veloped into a useful and noble manhood. The faculties 
 of the soul are so many, so subtle and so complex, before 
 they are brought into harmony with themselves, with the 
 life around them, with occupations, into harmony with all 
 those great endeavors by which the citizen stands con- 
 nected with his time and with his people, that the process 
 of education, begun in infancy, does not end until old age; 
 and the great ministers to it are pleasure on the one side 
 and pain on the other. 
 
 Pain is not therefore an evil; it is a great good; and a 
 human being created without qny more susceptibility to 
 pain than the lower and duller animals have would be tor- 
 pid, relatively worthless. Gravity, moral gravity, pulls 
 down perpetually, and the development of our faculties is 
 with light and shadow in all their phases. I suppose that 
 no persons suffer so acutely as those who enjoy the most 
 intensely. It is a great thing to have the power of dis- 
 crimination; but no person has the power of intellectual 
 discrimination who does not see a great many things which 
 bring pain. It may be, however, that it is an unfortunate 
 thing to be a dullard, so that all things seem alike, — very 
 little variation of character — all people about one thing, 
 like machine-made toys. We should pity a man who was 
 so dull as that. Some would; and some would think he 
 had escaped so much pain. He would escape pain, because 
 while interpretation, discernment, and the power of criti- 
 cism minister a great deal of pleasure, they minister also 
 a great deal of unpleasantness. To have an acute sensi- 
 bility to all the shades of affection is to render one's self 
 open to all the afflictions which come through the affections 
 when they are mortified or when tliey are bereaved. To 
 
THE REST OF GOD. 235 
 
 have a keen sense of things which are pure, noble and 
 beautiful, is to have a corresponding sense of the discord 
 of things which are impure, and which are out of harmony 
 with human life. If a great soul enjoys much, it is on con- 
 ditions which also render it liable to suffer much, on ac- 
 count of the very providence, or the very creative idea, 
 involved in human life, on account of its relationship to 
 fellow-beings, and of its social liability. 
 
 The higher men rise, therefore, the less do they find of 
 absolute peace in human conditions. Our home is not in 
 this world. We are like the Israelites, wandering in the 
 wilderness, without abiding city or house which had foun- 
 dations, dwellers in tents, nomads, wandering day by day 
 and month by month, developed in a thousand ways, ren- 
 dered liable to all manner of inconveniences, annoyances, 
 acute pains and anguishes. 
 
 The very pursuits of life increase this liability of men to 
 suffer. The attempt to carry one's self upward in personal 
 life, dignity and knowledge, involves struggles and disap- 
 pointments which are full of pain, which disturb men and 
 drive then* away from peace. All our social connections 
 are such that we must needs take a dividend of everything 
 which happens in the circle around us. As it is said in 
 regard to the fellowship of the church, if hx\& of the mem- 
 bers suffer, all do; if the foot suffers, the whole body suffers, 
 the eye grows dim, the ear dull, everything suffers through 
 out the whole body. Men cannot live in a community 
 without taking a dividend of its prosperity and of its ad- 
 versity. All the struggles which men have in honest, law- 
 ful and noble affairs are of a nature to destroy their peace. 
 It is very easy for us of the pulpit to declare that men 
 should live so high as not to be disturbed; and there is 
 such a thing as living in this world so that the ordinary 
 affairs of life shall not greatly dfsturb us; but the real and 
 the ideal are wide apart. Men teach us how to go to sea 
 without being sea-sick, and the remedy is absolute — as long 
 as you are on land; and men teach us how to go through 
 this world maintaining equilibrium and tranquillity; but no 
 man can do it until he has learned the business of doing it, 
 
236 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 and a great many never learn that. They are apprentices 
 to the very end of their days. 
 
 Of all sorrow and suffering, that which pertains to the 
 heart is the most obvious, as it is the greatest. Who would 
 have a house without a cradle ? Who has a cradle in wliich 
 sorrow does not follow joy as surely as the light creates 
 sliadow wherever it shines ? There is both the beam of 
 light and the shadow of darkness resting on every cradle 
 To-day the treasury is a source of power; to-morrow it is 
 emptied and becomes mortgaged. Every good thing is 
 perpetually inverting itself, rendering us liable, so that the 
 richer we are the more assailable we are. He who builds 
 his marble palace, he who surrounds himself within with 
 all the munificence of art and refinement, he who may defy 
 the sheriff and the constable, he who so far as the legal 
 forms of society are concerned is master of himself and ab- 
 solutely independent — he has not gone out of the realm of 
 liabilities. He has no insurance against sickness, against 
 betrayal of false friends, or against the loss of love, the 
 most precious jewel of human life, and the most dangerous 
 to carry about — love, after which there are more robbers 
 that seek to snatch it from us than after any other thing. 
 The husband and the wife are in perpetual danger. The 
 father and the mother and the children are in perpetual 
 danger. The children, the most blessed brotherhood on 
 earth, are in perpetual danger of mishap, sickness, maiming, 
 death. Thus, where the temple is nearest to the threshold 
 of the heavenly life lurk more destroying elements than 
 anywhere else; so that many men, looking upon this say, 
 "It is better not to be born; or, being born, it is better to 
 trudge on stupefying our senses than to render ourselves 
 liable to so many sufferings." 
 
 Would a man think it better to put out his eyes because 
 ihere were so many things he did not care to see ? Would 
 a man desire to destroy his hearing because there are so 
 many sounds that are discordant ? We must take life with 
 all its liabilities, but with the understanding that disap- 
 pointments, bereavements, sufferings of every kind, all 
 things whicl) rjjake life a burden to some and a trial to all. 
 
THE REST OF GOD. 437 
 
 are parts of a great system of education by which men are 
 to be drawn up higher and liigher, made stronger and 
 stronger, finer, nobler, better. 
 
 Now, when many men suffer suddenly they are apt to 
 cry out, "What great sin have I committed, that the Lord 
 should punish me so?" It is not punishment, it is educa- 
 tion; and the answer to every such wail is given to us in 
 sacred language: "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, 
 and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." If ye are 
 not chastised ye are not sons. The law of sorrow is the 
 same from age to age. 
 
 So, in the midst of all this perplexity, doubt, distress, 
 care, fear, guilt, remorse, in the midst of all forms of disturb- 
 ance which destroy peace there comes a voice crying to us, 
 "Come unto me all 5'e that labor and are heavy laden, and 
 I will give you rest." Jesus Christ's heart is the nest of the 
 soul. Scared by any trouble, "by any disappointment, by 
 any sorrow, pursued as birds by hawks, there is a refuge. 
 There he will give you rest. "Take my yoke upon you, 
 and my burden, and you shall find rest unto your souls. 
 My yoke is easy, my burden is light." Whoever puts him- 
 self in agreement with the heart, thought and feeling of 
 God as manifested in Jesus Christ, has, in all his sorrow 
 and trouble, a refuge in the Saviour, which never fails. 
 The greater the darkness the clearer the light; the greater 
 the assault the surer the defense; the greater the sorrow 
 the greater the rest. The heart which knows how to put 
 itself into the trust and love of the Lord Jesus Christ is not 
 released from suffering; but it nevertheless can say, with 
 the Psalmist, " God hath dealt bountifully with me; return 
 unto thy rest, O my soul !" 
 
 It is not always that we are taken into the rest of God 
 through Jesus Christ by the removal of the things that 
 trouble us. The apostle Paul records the fact — and it is 
 one of the most striking of experiences — that lest he should 
 be lifted up by the abundance of the revelations given to 
 him there was sent unto him a thorn in the flesh. I sup- 
 pose there have been ten thousand men who wanted to 
 know what that thorn was, but who did not care a farthing 
 
238 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 as to what the other part was, how he was strengthened. 
 To puzzle out some little thing like that is the silly enchant- 
 ment which bewitches a great many people. No matter 
 what it was, it was a trouble, a great sorrow to him. He 
 besought the Lord thrice that it might be removed, but the 
 Lord said, "My grace shall be sufficient for thee." He 
 lifted him so high that at length Paul declared that he re- 
 joiced in infirmities and in trials. They became a subject 
 and source of actual joy to him. 
 
 It is not by having trials removed from us, but by having 
 our souls strengthened and lifted up, that they cease to be 
 such trials as they were. When your child, being sick, is 
 apparently going to be blind all through life, and you pray 
 with all your soul that the child may be rescued frum it, 
 saying to the Lord, " I will praise thy name forevermore, 
 only give me this blessing," God gives the blessing of pa- 
 tience and resignation in such a degree that when the child 
 goes blind, and is to be helpless on your hands all its life, 
 you are lifted above sorrow in the resignation, and in the 
 trust, and in the consciousness that God has done well by 
 the child and by yourself. That is a lafger manhood than 
 it is to rejoice because the sorrow has gone away. 
 
 In battle it would be a good thing if, when the onset 
 comes, the enemy would run away; but it is a great deal 
 better if they stand and fight, and you beat them by more 
 skill, and more strength, and more courage. In a thousand 
 things that annoy, our first idea almost invariably is to get 
 rid of them. It is natural, not specially wicked; but there 
 is a nobler way. If the thing is not removed, if under 
 prayer and solicitation God's providence does not intervene 
 to take away the burden, we should take it up, we should 
 understand that we are to bear this burden, that we are to 
 carry this sorrow, that we are to seek our peace, not by 
 riddance of it but by rest in the Lord. There is such an 
 exaltation of spirit, it is true, in many natures, that they 
 can rise over all these things that distress ordinary life, or 
 ordinary men all their life. How many things are quite 
 subdued by the energy, and by the excitement of business 
 Itself ! Men sit at home with nothing to do. How their 
 
THE REST OF GOD. 239 
 
 cares magnify! How their troubles swell before them! 
 How impossible are many of the ways that their imagina- 
 tion conjures up ! But if they go into the active wear and 
 tear of business, and are excited .therein, they forget all 
 their sorrow, and almost before they think of it it is gone. 
 
 That which you experience every day in business is part 
 and parcel of the great scheme by which God gives relief 
 from sorrow, by which sorrows fall away. So strong is the 
 power of the spirit to overcome pain, that I have no doubt 
 whatever that physical pain of the most acute character 
 may be overcome simply by exaltation of the spirit. We 
 know it is so. When we suffer, are weak and full of pain, 
 and there comes some cry of alarm, or some tidings of ex- 
 traordinary prosperity, or some flood of joy, how, for the 
 hour, we forget the pain and suffering ! If there is any- 
 thing in this world that is hard for a child to bear it is 
 toothache. Yet, when unable to sleep, and crying down 
 the dark stairs where pain and fear strove with each other, 
 I went into my father's room, and he put his hand upon 
 my head, and with tones of great kindness and love said, 
 "You have got tht toothache, my dear boy ! Come get in 
 with me and cuddle down by my side," — how that filled me 
 with affection, and such gladness that I forgot I had the 
 toothache ! It was quite lost and gone. I slept. 
 
 I do not suppose that men who are martyrs, whose cour- 
 age and faith make the flame nothing, have a very painful 
 death. The probability is, in my judgment, that amongst 
 the deaths to be met in this world there are few more pain- 
 less than that which martyrs suffer at the stake, although 
 our senses are shocked at the idea of such a death. They 
 sing, they pray ; and often the testimony of the crowd 
 about them is that they have such irradiations of joy, such 
 expressions of triumph on their faces, that people imagine 
 that angels are become visible. It illustrates the power 
 of the soul to redeem even the physical sufferings of the 
 body. How much more, if this elevation of the soul, this 
 Christ-likeness, this triumphant moral ascension, be trained, 
 can it dominate exterior troubles, troubles of the mind, 
 fears, anxieties, cares, bereavements, sorrows ! The power 
 
24° PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 is in us ; and if we do not exert it, then we do not do well 
 by ourselves. Day by day and hour by hour men may 
 meet their difficulties, and even if they do not overcome 
 them, so rise above them that they cease to be annoyances; 
 and hour by hour every day one may sing the psalm: 
 "Return unto tliy rest, O my soul! for God hath dealt 
 bountifully with thee." 
 
 You go forth in the morning, and all the world, on some 
 days, seems to be made up of fog and darkness. You come 
 back at night, and things have not gone with you as you 
 thought they would. It has not been on the whole a day of 
 brightness and success. Do you say in your soul, " Return 
 unto thy rest, O my soul! for God hath this day dealt 
 bountifully with me"? Through days of weakness and 
 anguished solicitude you watch the dying bed, thinking in 
 yourself, "I cannot live ; I cannot endure this loss." It 
 comes. Under tlie shadow of the wings of God's angels 
 you find darkness. But when it is all past, and the sense 
 of God's greatness and goodness descends upon the soul 
 you say, with infinite gratitude, "The Lord has sustained 
 me. I did not believe I could have borne my trouble; but 
 I have been sustained to do it. Return unto thy rest, O 
 my soul ! God hath dealt bountifully with thee." 
 
 The sorrows that we see at every step, the sorrows that 
 we see in the eyes of those whom we meet upon the passage- 
 ways, the various sorrows in the houses that we pass day 
 by day, are none of them greater than the sorrow of those 
 who have lost opportunities which have come and gone 
 and have never been improved — lost forever. How many 
 instances of overwhelming shame and sorrow men have 
 had in their own lives ! The history of the world is not 
 that which we see every day. How many men say, " Oh, if 
 I could now have the opportunity that came to me when I 
 was young ! but I scorned it; it has gone past, and I shall 
 never prosper." How many persons there are who see 
 now where they should have taken hold of knowledge; but 
 the period of sowing is gone and it will never come back ! 
 How many persons there are who have put forth unlawful 
 hands to pluck things not their own ! They are thieves; 
 
THE REST OF GOD. 241 
 
 and they cannot rub it off; they cannot forget it. They 
 can, perhaps, hide it, but it is on them. How many are 
 there of those who have any such trust in God that in look- 
 ing back upon these sorrows they can say: "Return unto 
 thy rest, O my soul ! for God hath dealt bountifully with 
 thee?" How many anguished hours there are when men 
 look upon their sins; when men have fallen into great 
 temptations and into great sins ! All men are liable to 
 stumb?e; but all men are not expert in getting up. How 
 many persons there are whose later life is embittered by 
 the specters that rise up from their past life ! How many 
 of them know the way of peace ? How many of them can 
 assuage their sorrows in God? But the revelation of the 
 mercy of God in Christ Jesus is designed to be, not the 
 promise of a final reward after this world is past, but to be 
 that staff, that guidance, that medicine, that friendship, 
 which should sustain a man in all the emergencies of this 
 .life. Did Christ expect that his scholars would go without 
 stumbling through this life? He knew that they would 
 fall; but he was the one to lift them up. He was the one 
 who went forth to seek and save those that were lost. He 
 was the one who rejoiced at the wandering sheep brought 
 back, more than for the whole flock of those that had not 
 wandered. I would not say that God turns the brightest 
 side of his nature to those who have stumbled and fallen, 
 but in all those ways in which men are harassed by con- 
 demning conscience, by a sense of mistake that might have 
 been avoided; in all their struggles under great sorrows and 
 bereavements; in all those trials which tug at life like 
 the racking teeth of a double saw; in those troubles which 
 come in a rain of distress; in all the alarms of life, in all 
 the seductions of business, in all the burdens that come 
 upon men — over against them stands a Saviour adapted to 
 the special sorrow that each one carries. He is all in all; 
 that is, in every part of a man's life, and in every special 
 trouble, there is an aspect of God in Jesus Christ that miti- 
 gates the special trouble, that is adapted to the special 
 want; and the revelation of God's love in Jesus Christ is 
 a revelation that should enable every man who puts trust 
 16 
 
242 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 in him, and accepts him as the Guide and Captain of his 
 salvation, to rise liigiier. It lifts iiim in the time of his 
 emergency, slielters him in danger, guides him in his be- 
 wilderments and his perplexities, and brings him to that 
 rest which does not depend upon conscious purity, but de- 
 pends upon a sense of God's love, and upon trust and faith 
 in him. 
 
 Dearly beloved, many of you have turned out of the bois- 
 terous ways of the world, and are new-come into the church 
 of Christ here.* God has dealt very bountifully with many 
 of you. You have escaped a thousand snares which were 
 set for your feet. You liave gone past the danger, now, of 
 many temptations which otherwise might have had do- 
 minion over you. You have had set before you the vision 
 of something better than mere external, physical prosperity 
 in this world. You have a hold to-day upon the church of 
 Christ by fellowship, by the privileges and the ordinances 
 of the Gospel ; and you have a hold upon the Lord Jesus. 
 Christ in whom you have placed your confidence and trust. 
 If ever there was a day when one might say " Return 
 unto thy rest, O my soul, for God hath dealt bountifully 
 with thee," it is when one is conscious that he has built his 
 faith and his trust in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Parents, you who have children, who have early turned 
 into this glorious pasture-ground of the Gospel to-day, may 
 well say, "Return unto thy rest, O my soul." Those who 
 have lived many, many more years than they should with- 
 out God and without hope in the world, but have hope in 
 their souls to-day — let them write it and hang it up where 
 memory shall see it; "Return unto thy rest, O my soul, 
 God hath dealt bountifully with thee." How many, many 
 there are in whose minds will spring up in the utter- 
 ance of these words instances, thousands, which I cannot 
 recount or discern or know ! how many of you if you turn 
 your thought to the way in which you have been delivered 
 and guided, may have occasion to say to-day with all, your 
 heart: "God hath dealt bountifully; I will rest in him; 
 
 * A large number on this Communion Sabbath united with the church. 
 
THE REST OF GOD. 243 
 
 I will build my nest and brood hereafter in the bosom 
 of my Saviour." In this spirit let us draw near to the 
 simple but joyful ordinance of communion of the Lord's 
 supper, where by simple symbols we are brought to recog- 
 nize that Christ suffered that we might go clear of suffer- 
 ing; that he died that we might live; that he was troubled 
 in order that we might know how to rise above our troubles 
 by his strength. I congratulate those who for the first time 
 are to partake of this solemn service. I congratulate those 
 who have long waited for the conversion of their children 
 and of their friends, that the blessed day is come, and that 
 these have entered into the communion of the saints. I 
 bless God that there are so many who in our Sabbath 
 schools and missions have labored faithfully for these souls, 
 and who to-day see their reward or are at rest in Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 I affectionately invite all those who are, in the providence 
 of God, among us to-day, to remain and join with us in this 
 very simple service of love, though they be not members 
 of any church. This is not a church privilege; it is a 
 Christian privilege. Whoever loves Christ, and desires to 
 be guided by him, has a right to the communion of the 
 Lord's Supper. It is not a technical church institution. 
 It is administered by the church because of convenience, 
 fitness; but you have a right to the Lord's Supper in your 
 own house, among your own family, administered by your 
 own hands. You have as much right to the Lord's Supper 
 as you have a right to the Lord's Bible. There was a day 
 when the Church owned the Bible. It has gone by. Every 
 man owns it who wants to read it; it is his. And the Lord's 
 Supper belongs to every one who desires to lead a Christian 
 life, and puts his hope and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 whether he belongs to another communion or whether lie 
 belongs to none. If in your inmost soul you desire to live 
 Christ-like, and desire to avow the Lord as your Saviour, 
 and to follow him faithfully, you have a right to partake 
 of this bread and this wine; and I give you an affectionate 
 invitation to stay with us, and to partake of these emblems 
 of the suffering and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
VI. 
 GOD'S LOVING PROVIDENCE. 
 
 " Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us 
 also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. 
 
 "For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might 
 through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For 
 which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the 
 inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is 
 but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
 weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at 
 the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are tem- 
 poral; but the things which are not seen are eternal." — 2 Cor. iv : 14-18. 
 
 While men are investigating the origin of the race and 
 the philosophy of human evolution — let them do it: it is 
 for us, more empirically, to recognize the great fact that 
 the whole creation in this world has been groaning and tra- 
 vailing in pain until now, and still is. The sorrows and suf- 
 ferings of men are a theme that has engaged the thought 
 of every moralist, of every philosopher, of every sentimen- 
 talist, the world over. Whatever may, however, be other 
 philosophies, the New Testament has one of its own. That 
 is the book that looks out primarily upon the whole world, 
 and recognizes not alone the sinfulness of men, but the in- 
 firmities of the human race, the sorrows and the sufferings 
 that perhaps cannot come under either of these other heads. 
 
 Mankind, taken together, are to a large degree sinful, 
 and enveloped in a continual succession of sorrows and 
 sufferings. That is the primary and fundamental fact upon 
 which all recuperative effort is founded, and without which 
 
 Sunday Morning, October 21, 1883. Lesson : Romans viit : 16-39. 
 
 244 
 
GOD'S LOVING PROVIDENCE. 245 
 
 it would scarcely be worth while to have religious organi- 
 zations. Men do not seem to feel a need of consolation 
 such as is held out to them in the Word of the Lord when 
 they have health and strength and youth and success. Na- 
 ture gives such men all they consciously need; and if every- 
 body were young, and kept so; if everybody were strong, 
 defying weakness; if everybody were happy — it would al- 
 most entirely vacate moral influences. 
 
 Men begin, usually, at the best end of their lives, in some 
 regards. The young are surrounded by an atmosphere 
 of love. They are met by sympathy. As they grow up 
 they are in nobody's way; that is, as competitors, rivals in 
 the struggles of life, ambition, and pleasure; and until they 
 enter upon the serious business of life, I suppose the amount 
 of pleasure in human existence is very much greater than 
 the amount of pain or disaster. 
 
 Men need no comfort, then, that have health and youth 
 and success. They may need a superior wisdom, a nobler 
 view of life and destiny; but to carry consolation to them 
 is to carry consolation to those that laugh and rejoice. 
 
 But as it respects those that are in trouble (that is to say, 
 almost all men that have passed the meridian of life, to- 
 gether with multitudes that have only entered upon life), — 
 the trouble that comes from weakness, from wrong- doing, 
 from oppression under the hand of wrong in others, from 
 disappointments, from sicknesses, from all forms of resist- 
 ance to the development of a superior life — what consola- 
 tion has nature for them ? None. The conditions of life 
 which secure happiness are limited in their sphere. 
 
 Then come the mixtures of sorrows and mistakes, of sick- 
 ness, of ill-success, of blighted ambition, of poverty, of over- 
 throw, of declining forces and old age, and of death itself. 
 
 Life, to many men, begins as if it were a comedy, and 
 ends as if it were a tragedy. What has nature for these ? 
 What, ever, had philosophy for them ? All that philosophy 
 could say was, in its desperation, on the one side, " Eat, 
 drink, to-morrow you die;" as much as to say, " Well, since 
 all these troubles are on you, and you cannot help your- 
 selves, make the best of it; get as much out of life as you 
 
246 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 can." To them the world was like a sinking ship in which 
 every passenger tried to take as many valuables as he could 
 before the ship sunk. 
 
 Then came the Stoics, and said: " Well, since these things 
 must happen, it is becoming for a man to steel himself 
 against them; not to allow himself to be disappointed; to 
 harden his heart; to render his feelings as harmless as pos- 
 sible, and shut his teeth, and hold on to the end. Every- 
 body has suffered, everybody is going to suffer, everybody 
 does suffer; and you must take it as bravely as you can." 
 That is the comfort that philosophy gave. One was the 
 consolation that was given to the swine: " Eat, drink, to- 
 morrow you die." The other was the consolation that you 
 might give to the stone; that would ask a man to petrify 
 himself, and crowd down his sensibilities, aspirations, hopes 
 and desires. Poor philosophies, both of them. 
 
 The Old Testament was a book that sought after right- 
 eousness; that is, it was a book that undertook to say to 
 the world, " The upper man is the profitable man and the 
 best man;'' that is the law and tendency of Divine govern- 
 ment. But it had not very much consolation for those who 
 were failing in the endeavor. 
 
 The New Testament, just as much a book for righteous- 
 ness as the Old, may be called the book of consolation to 
 the men that are making this brave struggle in life, and 
 that are experiencing the oppositions, resistances, failures, 
 sufferings, and sorrows that are incident to mixed human 
 life. There is no other book like it. It never "derides suf- 
 fering. It never derides sorrow. It never tells men that 
 they must petrify themselves in order to bear the necessary 
 lot of humanity. 
 
 The New Testament is as full of light as it is of consola- 
 tion. Joy and hope flash through every page of it. There 
 never was so unmorbid a book. There was never a book 
 that was keyed so high, and that so maintained itself 
 through all its parts up to the grand culmination of the 
 apocalyptic vision, where you see the drama of human life, 
 its conflicts, its wails, its disasters, its amazing triumphs, its 
 victories, and its rapturous vision of the other life. 
 
GOD'S LOVING PROVIDENCE. 947 
 
 This consolation of the New Testament rests upon two 
 unspeakable truths, — three, for that matter, — upon the dec- 
 laration of the love and sympathy of God with the human 
 race; upon such a conduct of nature in the hands of God 
 as makes it a Providence ministering to and looking after 
 the welfare of men; and upon the reality of living again in 
 a higher sphere and with a nobler experience: these three. 
 
 And first, God's minute thought and sympathy and love 
 is for the race, not only, but for its individuals — a love that 
 has little regard, primarily, to character. Although there 
 is a Divine love that takes cognizance of character, yet 
 prior to that, and as a fundamental part of Divine nature, 
 is that which Christ himself described when he said. Be ye 
 perfect, as your Father is, who makes the sun to rise and 
 shine, and the rains to descend upon men, the good and 
 bad alike. The universality of Divine sympathy and love 
 is a transcendent fact. Nature does not reveal it. I think 
 it is very doubtful whether God's goodness can be proved 
 by Nature to ordinary minds. By and by, when we are 
 better instructed, and can rise to a great deal higher leVel 
 than that at which we now stand, I think it probable that 
 we shall be able to see, in a final and glorious harmoni- 
 zation with nature herself, that her superior testimonies 
 teach the goodness of God. But so far as we, uneducated 
 and low down in nature, are concerned, I doubt if that can be 
 shown. There can be much shown of God's skill. There 
 is a great deal of Divine goodness evidenced in the world. 
 There is a great deal of happiness in the world. Those 
 things can be shown; but when you balance them with the 
 other side, and come to a judicial decision, I believe it is 
 more than doubtful whether nature has any testimony that 
 can much influence us. A larger view of nature enabled 
 holy men of old to believe in Divine goodness; not as to 
 individuals but to mankind generically. 
 
 Now this is the special truth, developed in Jesus Christ, 
 and is the very central meaning of the atonement. God's 
 wisdom, God's power, God's skill, and, in a minor degree, 
 God's goodness, were made manifest by nature; but they 
 lacked the voice that should proclaim everywhere that over 
 
248 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 and above these, and indeed as the very fountain of them, 
 God had particular and personal affection for every indi- 
 vidual of the race. And as the race was consciously deficient 
 in wit and wisdom, in skill and refinement, in obedience to 
 known laws, natural and civil ; as every man's conscience, 
 more or less enlightened, bore witness that he was before 
 God a transgressor ; and as some men had consciences that 
 made remorse poignant and poisonous and hopeless — there 
 needed to be some testimony to the human race as they 
 came up to this point of moral sensibility that the Divine 
 nature was not malignant, but that it was fatherly; that is, 
 was patient, gentle, upbuilding, forgetting and forgiving, 
 and that it knew how to wipe out trangression, and how to 
 elevate men out of all the exigencies of their lives on to a 
 plane where they should be reconciled, trustful, hopeful, 
 and happy. That is what Christ did. 
 
 I believe in the atonement. I do not believe in that ma- 
 chine atonement of the mediaeval ages, invented to help the 
 Jews, but without any such relation to the Gentiles. If I 
 believed that Adam had fallen, and that the human race 
 fell with him, then I should undertake to set up an 
 atonement that should mend a law that had been broken 
 by the race; but mankind did not fall. They had their 
 start, by the Divine decree, at the lowest point ; and the 
 method of creation is, working up from zero, higher and 
 higher in degree. So that what we need in the element oi 
 the atonement is not so much to mend a law that was not 
 broken; is not so much to be the apparatus of reconcilia- 
 tion upon facts that never happened: we need just such a 
 disclosure of God as summer needs to help the lagging roots 
 develop the juices and stimulate the growth of all natural 
 objects, and ripen the fruit that hangs upon heavy boughs. 
 That was what Christ came to do — to make a disclosure 
 of the interior economy of the Divine nature that should 
 be a power such as never fell before upon immortal hearts 
 to reconcile them to God; that is to say, to bring them out 
 of their own selfishness, their own passions and appetites, 
 into a higher regimen, and on to a nobler platform, where 
 their upper nature should recognize God, and enter into 
 
GOD'S LOVING PROVIDENCE. 249 
 
 communion with him, and feel the whole interchange of 
 the Divine nature moving upon theirs. In that atonement 
 — marvelous, beyond all count wonderful — I believe. I be- 
 lieve in the great reconcilement of mankind to the supreme 
 will of God through the manifestation of Divine purity, 
 truth, love in Jesus Christ, and the making known of Divine 
 sympathy and purpose to the whole human race. Standing 
 in the center of that Sun, as an angel, and looking down 
 upon the petty machinery and narrow commercial trickery 
 of the atonement of the mediaeval theologies, one must look 
 upon it with compassion, and when it is made a form of 
 orthodoxy, with contempt and indignation. 
 
 The Divine convoy is the second element — the making 
 known to man that he is a creature cared for by God. Thus 
 comes that which every man needs as a staff, or as a sword 
 with which to fight doubt and fear. While God has this 
 generic love to the human race is it of any use in the con- 
 duct of life? It will manifest itself, perhaps, by and by. 
 What will it do for me now? What will it do for the poor; 
 for the ignorant; for those that are out of the way; for 
 consciously sinning persons that still sin, and that run to 
 evil as a brook steadily runs down declivities ? Is there any- 
 thing that will help me in my mortal struggle? Do you 
 tell me that I have a bland God far away, who sits looking 
 at me work out the problem of life, and who at the end of 
 it will show some benignity to me? That is all very well ; 
 but what I want to know is how to bear the yoke. I am a 
 manacled prisoner dragging a chain. I am suffering, on 
 the other hand, because I deserve suffering. Nevertheless, 
 I am a man; and I would do better, but mightier are the 
 passions that work witliin against me than the help with- 
 out. The nature of purity is not mine. I have been over- 
 thrown again and again in the battle of life. I have lost 
 the sympathy of mankind. I am tabooed by society. All 
 its laws are like so many batteries by which, when I strive 
 to regain integrity, I am swept with indignation. What 
 shall I do? Can I get out of my sins? Can I learn how 
 to live by my upper manhood, and not by my animal- 
 hood ? I know there is nothing in me that is good. I 
 
250 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 know that I want to be good, and cannot. I know that not 
 a day goes over my head that I do not regret the loss of my 
 modesty and my virtue. Is there any Christ that can look 
 upon me and forgive me ? I would break an alabaster box; 
 yea, I would break my own heart as a sweet perfume of grati- 
 tude, if I could believe there was any succor and any help 
 in God for me. Everything turns against me when I try 
 to go up, and when I try not to go down I yet go down. 
 
 We have, therefore, in the teachings of Christ, formally, 
 and in the recognition of his disciples, this grand truth : 
 The hairs of your head are numbered. Not only is your 
 individuality known of God, but so minutely does he know 
 you that he has counted the very hairs of your head, as 
 though they were precious. Every hair is precious. 
 
 Ah, that figure ! I bear in my wallet a little wreath of 
 hair. It was my mother's. It came to me, and I carry it 
 with me, and money could not buy it. Every hair of my 
 mother whispers something to me of comfort and consola- 
 tion. The hair of our heads is God's keepsake. 
 
 How often do you go, friends, made wise by troubles, 
 and look upon that little babe's lock of hair which you pre- 
 serve ? Oh, how precious to love ! Often and often pre- 
 cious beyond silver and gold is a little lock of hair. And 
 God says that the very hairs of your head are numbered. 
 He is tender to that extent. He has an infinite sphere of 
 those delicate attentions and sensibilities which we also 
 have though veined with selfishness and imperfection. Not 
 a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's notice. 
 Are ye not of much more value than the sparrows ? What 
 cheer this is to those that feel the trampling necessities of 
 life ! Take no anxious thought about it. Let to-morrow 
 take Care of itself. This is not to be interpreted in the 
 largest range or sense of philosophical utterance, as teach- 
 ing the doctrine of ignoble lack of enterprise and industry. 
 It is addressed to men who are brought to the very end ot 
 their own power and endeavor. It means, " Remember that 
 God, who takes care of the insects and birds, loves you and 
 cares for you." It is a balmy teaching of Providence, not 
 for indolence nor for despair, but for those who buffet 
 overwhelming distress. 
 
GOD'S LOVING PROVIDENCE. 251 
 
 When the philosopher says, "God governs the world 
 by laws : he will not interrupt the flow of natural law 
 to suit you," I do not argue ; I merely say that he is 
 philosophizing, and not I. All that I know is, that God 
 created the system of the world, and that all the forces 
 in creation are but manifestations of him. The pulses 
 of the universe are simply the beatings of his heart. The 
 word law is a misnomer, if you think of it as something 
 outside of the universality of the divine presence, of 
 the pressure, as it were, of God upon matter and mind, 
 upon experience and action, everywhere diffused through- 
 out the world, diffused in the heavens above, everywhere 
 power and everywhere wisdom. All I believe is this, that 
 the continual and universal presence of the divine Spirit 
 is the forces of nature, and that they are so administered 
 that it shall go well with the righteous, and that they 
 shall show the wicked and unrighteous that they are out of 
 the path, and shall so far correct them and bring them 
 back to the right way; — nay, more, that they are all so ad- 
 ministered so as to be comfort and consolation to all that 
 need help in distress. The providence of God is over you 
 all. Your sorrows and troubles are not necessarily a testi- 
 mony against sin, nor of divine rejection ; nor are they to 
 stand in your way as so many bulwarks that you cannot 
 overleap. God has a providence, I say, by which he takes 
 care of men. It is such a gentle, tender care, that it is 
 worth your while to derive consolation from the belief that 
 God is governing. Most men think that God and nature 
 are governing, and as nature is pretty much all they under- 
 stand, they think it has the first hand at governing, and is 
 the principal thing. But God and nature are one. Not 
 that they are one in the sense of the Materialist, nor in that 
 of the Pantheist ; but nature is simply the manifestation of 
 the universally diffused power that is making for righteous- 
 ness everywhere — a power that is on the side of all men 
 who want to do better, especially if they have done worse 
 hitherto. 
 
 Then the third element is that of immortality. It re- 
 lates to the doctrine of another life following this, whose 
 
252 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 initial conditions are not miraculous. We go out of this 
 life witli a determinate character and element. We enter 
 another life at just that point at which we left this — with 
 some changes. I do not believe that we carry this body 
 into the other state. We shall not have a material body, if 
 Paul is to be believed, but we are to have an equivalent. 
 There is to be what he calls "a spiritual body," though he 
 does not define what spirit is. In other words, we are to 
 carry away our personal identity. We are to carry away 
 all that which is the blossom and bloom of love, of reason, 
 of moral sense, of imagination, of affection, of devout aspi- 
 ration and worship. All the purified and upper man we 
 carry with us, I think, into the upper life. The bodily ap- 
 petites and passions cease when the body which they 
 served dissolves. It is very well for one to have bodily ap- 
 petites as long as he is to be governed in his body by the 
 laws of matter, but when he rises to another sphere where 
 matter ceases and spirit begins, why does he need to carry 
 the instruments by which matter was served ? Strip off all 
 these things from men — hunger, gluttony, thirst, drunken- 
 ness, and the propagating instincts — and licentiousness is 
 gone. You give to man his higher moral nature, and he 
 starts again in the other life, with a better soil under his 
 feet and a better heaven over his head, with all the prob- 
 lems that he has wrought out in his old experience to guide 
 him in his new, with better teachers and with better en- 
 vironments. Men say tliat if a sinner will not repent and 
 turn to God, availing himself of all the means of grace in 
 this world, he will not in the other; but this is to beg the 
 question; you beg the argument, I say that a man may do 
 wrong in New York, but take him away to Oregon, where 
 he can have the benefit of the bitter experience of his 
 ; wrong-doing here, and where he can have a new, fresh 
 , start, and though he never would repent in New York he 
 may do better there. Take a man out of his lower sphere, 
 divest him of those propensities from which his sins have 
 come, and bring him into the upper region of moral light, 
 moral things, and moral influences to which he becomes 
 sensible by the dropping of the old material nature, and 
 
GOD'S LOVING PROVIDENCE. 253 
 
 there is hope where there would oiherwise be utter despair, 
 in the spirit life. 
 
 But — as quite aside from that question — the general doc- 
 trine that we live again, and that the other life makes up 
 for the inequalities of this, is a doctrine, I think, that 
 underlies all hope. If you should destroy the doctrine of 
 immortality, I believe that in two hundred years you could 
 not maintain liberty on earth. The materialism which de- 
 stroys the future life or the hope of it, and bids the soul go 
 out like a bubble, expanding and bursting, would lead to 
 the most disastrous moral results. It would feed selfish- 
 ness, arrogant pride, abuse of power from which men have 
 endured enougii already. The hope of the poor, the hope 
 of the desolate, the hope of refinement, the hope of every- 
 thing that is noblest in civilization, turns on this belief in 
 immortality. The race believe in it. Why does philoso- 
 phy want to take away that which has been the hope and 
 desire of mankind through many dreary ages ? Why dash 
 out the light of heaven, that is almost our only guide, and 
 our only hope? In this life flesh has been strongest. In 
 the other Hfe the spiritual element will be strongest ; and 
 there will be the final victory. 
 
 This is what I call a practical faith. It is a doctrine 
 based upon the consciousness of mankind — a consciousness 
 of their ignorance, their inferiority, and their infirmities 
 through sin. Men are all at a very low state in their own 
 deepest conviction. Now comes the theology of the New 
 Testament. God loves men. God has a divine convoying 
 providence to carry men through this life along the path 
 of righteousness. He has revealed also that there is a life 
 to come; that men shall rise to that life; and that there all 
 the mistakes, inequalities, injustices, unsatisfied desires of 
 this life will find themselves in some degree repaired, or on 
 their way to final repair. 
 
 We do not make the first and last experiment here. We 
 are not going to waste the whole of this life, dying at death 
 and going out into darkness. We shall live again, and live 
 under better influences. This iSj or ought to be, a conso- 
 
254 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 lation to those who have no opportunities here which are 
 fitting to their nature. 
 
 The adjustment of man's nature in regard to the crea- 
 tion is something marvelous. In the first place it is a 
 wonderful thing that such a God as ours is revealed to be, 
 and as we believe him to be, should never have spoken to 
 mankind as we are accustomed to speak to each other. If 
 he is a Father, why does he not act as a father in the way 
 we do ? We take our children in our arms. God never 
 took me in any arms that I know about. We speak to our 
 children, and explain to them whenever they go wrong. 
 God never told us, or explained to us. How about man ? 
 Did he tell us there was a brain and a nervous system, a 
 heart and lungs, a stomach and liver? Or did he think 
 men would find these things out for themselves ? Tiiey 
 have found them out. It has taken them many thousands 
 of years; and they have not found the whole out yet. 
 God never told man anything about the fundamental con- 
 ditions of his own body and his own soul. Why didn't he ? 
 Yes, why didn't he? There is a question that has not been 
 solved. It is not a question of infidelity, but it is a ques- 
 tion of wonder and great mystery. 
 
 When you come to look over the world, see how that is 
 carried out in the actual condition of the fifteen hundred 
 million men on the globe to-day. How many of them have 
 had any sanctuary, or any Bible, or any priest that was of 
 advantage to them, or any prophet that taught them any- 
 thing that it was worth their while to hear ? The hordes of 
 Asia — where are they ? Where they have been through 
 the rolling centuries ? All the darkling myriads of crea- 
 tures upon the continent of Africa — -what has been their 
 fate ? What has been done for them ? How grossly animal 
 they are yet! How through century after century no de- 
 velopment took place, and no instrument of moral force 
 was given them ! but men were still reproduced generation 
 after generation, just as dark-minded, just as uncurbed in 
 their passions, just as ignorant of civil and political econ- 
 omy, social philosophy, and even the rudimentary elements 
 
GOVS LOVING PROVIDENCE. 255 
 
 of true religion. Do you suppose that the end of such as- 
 tounding, apparent neglect of tribes of creatures upon the 
 face of the globe is here, and that after it there is to be no 
 better chance for them ? Believe it who may, not I ! In 
 behalf of every heart that ever beat in ignorance, in behalf 
 of every savage in the wood, in behalf- of every citizen of 
 the kraal, in behalf of races and generations innumerable, 
 in behalf of God whom I should want to respect, at any 
 rate, even if I did not love, in behalf of my own conscience 
 and moral sense, I say there is to be some other reckoning 
 for the races of mankind in the future than that which has 
 taken place in their initial experiences and beginnings here 
 in this world. 
 
 It is a great and glorious truth to me, and a great relief, 
 that there is another life. This world's march has not been 
 a dumb, dull march to execution. It has not been a march 
 to a sort of clouded victory. It has been a maixh to ethe- 
 real light by and by. 
 
 Look at those, again, in civilized lands. Look at the 
 neglected classes. What chance have the Africans had in 
 this nation ? Our very religion, as organized into benevo- 
 lent societies, would not let the negro have a Bible. It 
 would not let him learn to read. He was improved up to a 
 certain point by slavery; he learned to work; he imitated 
 many elements of civilization; but the moment he began to 
 rise, the snuffer was put over him. He was not allowed to 
 go beyond the point of expense. All he could learn that 
 did not increase the cost of keeping him was permitted; 
 but the moment it took more to keep him he was stopped, 
 and not allowed to go any farther. What chance has he 
 had ? Is it going to be unrepaired forever? 
 
 Look at the neglected classes, too, in civilized cities and 
 communities! Look in th'is city ! Do not glance over con- 
 gregations that come well dressed to a fat church. Look 
 at the people who never come to church, and to whom no 
 church ever goes. They are badly born and worse reared, 
 falling into such circumstances as the man did that went 
 down to Jericho. Vices and crimes haunt them. These are 
 actual facts. This is not theology; this is not metaphysics; 
 
256 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 this is not abstraction: it is the life that lives here, that 
 walks up and down your streets, that shows itself in every 
 form of neglect, and embraces, perhaps, the majority of the 
 population. Oh, thou God ! this is not the end for them. 
 There is an immortality for them beyond in which to work 
 up and out. 
 
 Then there are those who have capacity and sensibility 
 in this life, but are out of their sphere here. How many 
 are subordinates, but ought to be principals; as, on the 
 other hand, there are a great many principals that ought to 
 be subordinates. I do not say it in any sneering way, but 
 do you not know that servants are often vastly superior to 
 their masters and mistresses? Have you never seen a case 
 where the lady of the house was in the kitchen ? Have you 
 never seen a case where the mistress was arid as a desert, 
 and the servant full of all heroisms and generosities ? For- 
 tunately it does not happen every day; but I still think tliat 
 to a very large extent we see true heroism among the self- 
 denying servants. I read with admiration of the millions 
 of wages saved by tlie Irish. I am not a blarneying ad- 
 mirer of tlie Irish. We cannot live without them, and we 
 sometimes think that we cannot live with them ? When I 
 see the way they treat the Chinaman I feel a good deal 
 more like using the shillelagh than blarney. Nevertheless, 
 I am filled with admiration when I see that tliere is a 
 golden stream flowing steadily across the ocean from ser- 
 vants poorly paid, who save it and husband it for their old 
 fathers and mothers in Ireland, or to bring over a brother, 
 and then a sister, and then another brother or sister. 
 They labor patiently night and day for it, but not to ex- 
 pend it for self-garniture, or for their pleasure; and when 
 I see that I say, "Our heroes are all downstairs. What do 
 I, comparable to that?" 
 
 How many are there, also, in this life that are not fitted 
 to the business which engages them ! How many persons 
 have mistaken their calling ! They undertook to ride a 
 horse, and it threw them at the first go off. How many 
 persons are mismated ! Marriages are said to be made in 
 heaven. No; oh no ! There may be a world of difference 
 
GOD'S LOVING PROVIDENCE. 257 
 
 between the two who are joined together; and marriage is 
 a sphere for lieroism on that very account. What tragedies ! 
 What wondrous lives ! The story of Daniel in the lions' 
 den, and of the four in the burning furnace, are typical of 
 the angelic virtues that are found in women that walli in 
 the very midst of hell, for days and years and lives. I 
 cannot conceive of any life so horrible as that of a pure, 
 high-minded woman, a virtuous and aspiring soul, allied to 
 trickery, to lying, to all lecherous vices, to drunkenness, and 
 the worst forms of animalism. To sleep with swine, to 
 nestle with serpents, to be with loathsome insects that 
 gnaw and sting, is bad enough; but to be with them all 
 together in the shape of a man is hideous beyond concep- 
 tion. Dante, in his vision, never saw anything worse than 
 that which exists in some married lives. 
 
 Is this, then, the whole of life? Is this the whole of ex- 
 perience ? Is there to be no chance given, no otlier life, no 
 upper? If men do not pity, God does. If men do not 
 know how to help tliose that are stricken with weakness 
 and with imperfections, I thank God tlirough the Lord 
 Jesus Christ that heaven knows how. Alas ! that man 
 should be the most unmerciful and uncharitable to his fel- 
 lows of all creatures this side the pit. 
 
 Then consider those that are working wearisomely 
 through life with broken health. It is not what a man 
 suffers as he lies bedridden; it is not his pain; it is not 
 fear of death; but to see life going by, to be conscious of 
 uselessness, to be unable to speak, unable to carry the 
 paralyzed hand, to be compelled to lie bedridden all life 
 through and to be fed — there is something very bitter in 
 that. But if God whispers in the ear of faitli, "My child, 
 I have use for contentment and for happiness in one that 
 is situated just as you are; be patient under this only a 
 little while; though you are so useless, you shall soon come 
 where you shall have life and vigor for evermore," — what a 
 comfort is given to those that are disappointed and baffled 
 by reason of their infirmities. 
 
 Look at old age ! A friend said to me, a lady, " I hate 
 old age ;" and there was a vehemency in it that left me no 
 17 
 
258 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 doubt as to the sincerity of the expression. A 3'oung 
 friend wrote to me, " I can't bear to think that I am grow- 
 ing old." Such have no horizon. They have no foresight. 
 I am growing old. Do I not know it? Do I not rejoice in 
 it.' I have had my life; I have had my opportunities; 
 and I thank God for such as it has been. I thank God 
 that my eye grows dim. I thank God that my steps are 
 not as alert and strong as once they were. If it please God 
 that I shall live after my usefulness has gone, I shall sub- 
 mit: I may repine at first, but I will submit. Why should 
 men mourn that beauty which must fade before the glori- 
 ous beauty of holiness settles upon them forever? 
 
 When I see in the spring the trees full of bud, and ready 
 to bloom in the orchard, I hear complaint in the outside 
 green coating of the bud, tliat has wrapped it up like an 
 overcoat, and carried it through the winter. As the balmy 
 atmosphere begins to expand the bud, I hear the sepal 
 mourn, and say:. "Alas, alas ! I am being expelled and 
 pushed down; the hinges are breaking off, I have got to 
 drop." And go it does in some high wind; but it goes in 
 order that the blossom may live. Then after a little while 
 I hear the blossom say, "I must fall;'' and fall it does, to 
 the ground, in order that the fruit may spring forth. And 
 when men mourn that they are losing this faculty and that 
 faculty, they forget that they are failing here in order that 
 glorious virtues and perfect holiness may emerge to ripen 
 forever in heaven. Yes, it is a glorious thing to believe in 
 a life to come. This is what I call the true practical the- 
 ology of human life. 
 
 I hear men disputing about the nature of the Bible. 
 Some are for it, and some are against it. Some are laying 
 their lances in rest about the inspiration of the Bible. I 
 am a great deal more anxious that they should practice the 
 Bible than have theories about it. The thing we need is 
 the doctrine of the divine love for every one of us; the 
 doctrine of the divine providence in the midst of which we 
 are acting our lives, and in which influences are exerted 
 upon us of which we know nothing; the doctrine of an- 
 other life into which we shall rise with all the advantages 
 
GOD'S LOVnXG riiOVIDENCE. 259 
 
 we have had here, and with supreine advantages that we 
 never dreamed of. 
 
 These are the great truths that lie at the foundation of 
 hope, of happiness, of virtue, of morality, of piety, of rev- 
 erence, and of adoration. You may defend the Bible, and 
 not care for the contents of it. You may defend the ana- 
 tomy of the Bible, and condemn the practice of it. But 
 nothing can ever destroy it, so long as it has in it consola- 
 tion for the weak, for the wounded, for the poor, for the 
 oppressed, for tiie infirm and for the sinful, and promises 
 resurrection out of this lower life into one that is tran- 
 scendently higher. These are the primary elements of the 
 Bible, enforced by such great examples and in such won- 
 drous ways brought home to the moral sense, to imagina- 
 tion, to hope and to aspiration. These are our Bible. It 
 is not the binding that makes the Bible, but what is under 
 it. It is not the paper and type that make the Bible, but 
 the living truth of God for us, of nature for us, and of a 
 future for us. We set up these elements of hope, desire, 
 and faith, and live by them. 
 
 Hear, then, what the apostle has to say on this matter : 
 
 "For this cause we faint not." 
 
 What cause ? This: 
 
 " Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus Christ shall raise 
 up us also, by Jesus, and shall present us with you." 
 
 Do you see what a little delicate touch is there? Ah, 
 mother, when your babe comes to you in heaven, when 
 God brings it there, he will bring it with you. When the 
 old father emerges to your eyes, he will present him with 
 you. We shall be united together. We are not going to 
 lose anything. We are all joined in the immortal hope; 
 and God will bring us with each other — families, friends, 
 parents, lovers. We shall all come together. 
 
 " For all things are for your sakes." 
 
 That is the meaning of the universe. That is the very 
 genius of creation. 
 
260 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 " For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, 
 yet the inward man is renewed day ty day." 
 
 The commerce of our thought, the purposes of our will; 
 all that is most celestial in us: heroic and noble graces; 
 grace under the ministration of pain in the bodily life — all 
 these are for our good. 
 
 " For our light affliction, which is but for a moment — " 
 
 O ! where is the Stoic that teaches men to harden them- 
 selves because we must suffer anyhow? Where is the Epi- 
 curean who says, " Take it easy; let us eat and drink, for 
 to-morrow we die " ? Listen to the divine wisdom: 
 
 " For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a 
 far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at 
 the things which are seen [the world, and all its ruling elements], but at 
 the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are tem- 
 poral [they are world things, secular things, transient things, perishing 
 things], but the things which are not seen [higher than our physical 
 senses] are eternal." 
 
 In this great hope, then, let us strengthen our weakness, 
 and let us bring courage to our despondency, patience to 
 our troubles, perseverance to our faintness of heart. Trust 
 in the Lord and do good. Trust in the Lord. When every- 
 thing is against you He is for you; and if He be for you, 
 who can be against you ? 
 
VII. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear 
 what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be 
 like him ; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this 
 hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." — I John iii : 2, 3. 
 
 There is the most striking contrast between the spirit of 
 modern scientific thought in regard to man, and the spirit 
 of the New Testament; and nowhere is this found more 
 than in the views which are taken of the ri^ature of man. 
 Science tends almost entirely, just now, to think of man as 
 he was. The New Testament thinks of him as he is to be. 
 The spirit of the one and that of the other are not neces- 
 sarily antagonistic. These two ways of looking backward 
 and forward may be only complements of each other; but 
 at present one is seeking very diligently the origin, and 
 the other has descried the destiny, of man. The one is 
 looking for man's physical genesis, and the other has 
 pointed out his spiritual regenesis. The one looks at the 
 planting of the seed: the other follows, with the same eye, 
 the flower and tha consummate fruit which that seed is to 
 bring forth. 
 
 There are, therefore, heard two voices crying aloud. 
 One says, " Man is of the dust;" and the other says, " Man 
 is immortal.'' One declares, " Man is derived from the 
 animal;" ihe other says, "Man is the son of God." One 
 says, " We came from beneath, by long ascension, to our 
 
 Sunday Morning, October 5, 1873. I.krkcn ; Col, i : 1-22. 
 
 261 
 
562 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 present place;" the other says, "We still ascend; and it 
 doth noi yet appear to what heights of glory." 
 
 Though these are not necessarily in conflict, they are 
 made to be so, unwisely and unskillfully. 
 
 It is of great use, certainly, to know of man's oxigin, 
 and'a true philosophy will undoubtedly clear many ab- 
 stractions from the way of men's thoughts; but it is_tran- 
 scendently more important to know one's destiny. It is well 
 to know what man came from: it is far better to know 
 what he is going to. " It doth not yet appear what we 
 shall be;" but tiow, even, we know that "we are the sons 
 of God." What the amplitude of the meaning of that is 
 we cannot tell; and if the apostle could not discern the 
 scenes that lay beyond the veil, certainly we shall not be 
 able to do so. 
 
 The fundamental and universal fact derived from obser- 
 vation and experience is the physical and animal condition 
 of the race, as a pi'imary one. There are two theories: 
 one, that man fell from a much higher estate to this low 
 and rude one; and another that man came from a low and 
 rude beginning, and has been working toward a higher 
 condition. Either theory comes to the same thing, as to 
 the matter of treatment. The first man may have fallen. 
 His posterity could not very well fall, for they began at 
 the bottom. They were there. And any change, as men 
 are born into life, must be a change for the better. 
 
 But this matters little. The New Testament does not 
 look back. It but glances in that direction. There are 
 only the merest hints — hints on the way to something else. 
 
 The New Testament has two sights, as we should say 
 speaking of firearms; the present is the hind-sight, and the 
 foresight is the future. It assumes things as they are, 
 and then goes on to things as they are to be. The whole 
 spirit of the New Testament is a spirit of going forward. 
 It holds the present to be important only in the light of the 
 future. It assumes, as from history and from philosophy, 
 that man comprehensively is low and erring and sinful. 
 Now, it is worse than folly to undertake to say whether 
 this means total depravity, whether it means Adamic ile- 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 263 
 
 pravity or whether it means depravity at all. The fact 
 remains that men are universally so low and so sinful that 
 they need divine interposition, that they need some other 
 unfolding than that which comes by the forces of ordinary 
 nature, that they need divine succor and divine help to 
 lift themselves up out of this low, sordid, animal condition, 
 into that state in which they can call themselves, with any 
 considerable degree of spiritual consciousness of the fact, 
 sons of God. 
 
 That man is susceptible of gradual change, and in the 
 divine providence, of an unfolding which we call civiliza- 
 tion, and of which centuries are the term, all know, and 
 all admit; but can that unfolding be accelerated ? Can it 
 be in part induced by man himself? Is there in nature a 
 new development- theory of the spirit ? That is the present 
 question. That is precisely the ground which the New 
 Testament takes. It does not ignore, it certainly does not 
 argue against, the gradual unfolding which takes place by 
 the visible process of nature; but it does declare that 
 there is introduced into this econom}^ a new disclosure 
 by which, under the influence of the divine Spirit, whatever 
 is low in man may be lifted up; by which whatever is dull 
 and of the flesh may be spiritualized; by which whatever 
 could not come together except through long ages of de- 
 velopment (if it came together at all, which is a matter of 
 more than doubt) may come speedily together. 
 
 There is, in other words, a doctrine of a new birth in 
 Christ Jesus. By the power of the Holy Spirit men are 
 transformed, inspired, and brought into a state in which 
 it is not mockery to call them sons of God. So that it is 
 the avowed opening of this new kingdom of influences, it 
 is the direct inspiration of the human soul by divine contact, 
 that constitutes the peculiar operative element of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 We are not to suppose that this was revealed as absolutely 
 new truth; for one might conceive of sporadic cases as 
 occurring before there was any known impulse of this 
 divine influence exerted upon the human consciousness. 
 The two-leafed gates seem to have been thrown wide open 
 
264 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 before there was this knowledge, or where it was but in 
 twilight. The Sun of righteousness arose in Christ Jesus: 
 and tills truth of the juncture of God's nature with man; 
 this truth of such an inspiration by the Spirit of God that 
 men are lifted liigh when it has its action upon them — this 
 is the transcendent revelation of the New Testament, so far 
 as man is concerned. The human race was joined to the 
 Lord Jesus Christ by his incarnation. Not that he was 
 thought to be so worthy that as a reward God gave him 
 the race, as it used to be said; but our relationships to God 
 as those of children to a father were so disclosed through 
 Christ, through his life, through his suffering, tlirough his 
 death, as to become potential upon the race forevermore. 
 
 The truth that the holy spirit of God, acting upon the 
 human soul, develops it in all those qualities which are far- 
 thest from the animal and nearest to God is that one truth 
 of the New Testament which inspires the most activity, the 
 most rational hope, and the most practical development of 
 Christian efficiency. For while we do not undervalue those 
 causative influences which take hold upon the individual, 
 and at large upon society; while we behold, as it were, 
 secondary influences at work, through the family state, 
 through the community generally, and through all indus- 
 trial avocations; while we feel that the providence of God 
 includes all the social frame-work; while we regard man's 
 interest in man, in some sense as a means of grace, 
 yet the central and distinctive principle of the New 
 Testament is that over and above it is the down-shining 
 power of God, and that that power, acting in the human 
 soul, kindles the imagination, fires the reason, creates a 
 moral enthusiasm, and gives to the latent or undeveloped 
 resources in man power by which he becomes a son of God 
 in disclosure, as he was before potential in his undeveloped 
 condition. We are not to exclude secondary and natural 
 influences; but there is, over and above these, as their 
 consummation, a distinctive power, a direct approach of 
 the soul to God as a Being present and consciously near to 
 us. 
 
 This is the true doctrine of tlie New Testament. It is a 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 265 
 
 doctrine which cannot be tested by weights, by measures, 
 by the alembic, by scales; nor will it be destroyed by re- 
 mote analogies. It is a fact of consciousness ; and facts of 
 consciousness areas much facts as any other facts of nature. 
 Men seem to think that that is nature which is farthest from 
 God^that trees are nature, that soil is nature, that elec- 
 tricity is nature, and that attraction of gravitation is nature; 
 but that imagination, reason, inspiration, and moral con- 
 sciousness, which are the higiiest reach to which creative 
 force has carried the race — that these belong to nature, 
 men do not believe. These are not, they say, "scientific." 
 
 Now I believe that nature, beginning with the clod, ends 
 with man — no, not with man: it goes higher than that; for 
 man, as ordinarily contemplated, is the physical body com- 
 posed of bone, blood, muscle, and nerves; but the man that 
 God is looking upon is a son of God, nascent, increscent, 
 evermore developing. And I aver that the upper forms of 
 nature are more nature than the lower forms, if so I may 
 speak. That is to say, the reality of the invisible con- 
 nected with man is a more stubborn and rational reality 
 than the reality of man in the body, and connected with 
 the terraqueous globe. 
 
 Science is doing its good work outside of the Bible, in 
 detailing anthropology as it is seen and heard with exter- 
 nal eyes and ears; while revelation discloses anthropology 
 as it is seen with tiie inside eyes, and revealed to the 
 spiritual understanding. By and by, when the centuries 
 have rolled clear over, that side which is now opposite the 
 sun, and groping in the dark, will be turned round, and 
 man will recognize this higher disclosure of human nature, 
 its approaches to the divine Spirit, and its dependence 
 thereupon. 
 
 The fruits of the Spirit are very beautiful, even as we 
 now contemplate them — though I think we have seldom 
 seen any ripe ones. You will find in Galatians that famil- 
 iar passage which contains the inventory of the fruits of 
 the spirit — "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
 goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." These, however, 
 are only specimens. As one goes into a garden and brings 
 
266 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 out a bouquet, and yet does not pretend to take every- 
 thing that is in the garden, but only enough to represent 
 what is there; so these fruits of the spirit do nothing more 
 than suggest tlie multitude of those that exist, but are not 
 mentioned in this passage. For what do we know of love ? 
 You will say, " If there is anything of which we have a 
 knowledge, it is love. We who were born in Christian 
 households; we whose earliest remembrance is of looking 
 into the face of father and mother; we whose features take 
 unconsciously the lineaments of our parents; who saw 
 their watchings; who saw how much they gave up for our 
 sake; how sweet was their approbation, and how reluc- 
 tant was their censure; we who saw their life, which was 
 woven of the silver and golden threads of affection — we 
 surely know about love. Then, we have seen the rapture of 
 the young lover. We have seen how love triumphed over 
 • death itself. The noblest gems which history wears are 
 those v\?hich love has disclosed; and if we know about any- 
 thing, we know about love." And yet we know nothing 
 about it. We know as much about love as a child knows 
 about a diamond that it has seen in the rough, but has 
 never seen ground, with its facets flashing light in every 
 direction. We know as much of love as men know of gold 
 who have seen it in the quartz, and discerned the difference 
 between it and the quartz, but who have not seen it in its 
 pure state. We have never seen love in such a sense that it 
 dominated everything, in one man, in a single household, in 
 a whole neighborhood of households, in an entire town or 
 city, everywhere regnant, so that the human mind threw 
 out all the radiant glories of disinterested and true affec- 
 tion; so that justice took on the garments of love; truth 
 clothed itself in love; all forms of suffering were enshrined 
 in love; so that everything wore its colors, and was true to 
 its allegiance. We have here and there seen it as golden 
 particles in sand; but we have seldom seen it as nuggets of 
 gold; we have never seen it in its amplitude, as one com- 
 plete golden orb, governing all things, and harmonizing 
 all things. 
 
 But if it be so with love, which is, perhaps, next to hate, 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 267 
 
 the strongest feeling in the world; if it be true tjiat we 
 know so little of love, which is so strong and triumphant, 
 how much do we know of joy? A good deal, of a kind of 
 rough, bouncing, boyhood joy; but how much of joy as a 
 garment wliich one wears, shining like silver, ruddy and 
 radiant as gold ? Who knows what joy is, as an abiding 
 state of mind, such that it is by day and by night in him 
 uttering itself in all sweetness and all melody? Men see 
 joy flash; they see it sparkle; they know wliat it is as an 
 intermiUent, limited experience; but who knows it in its 
 sweet majesty and power ? 
 
 Shall he who has only heard a half-tuned instrument 
 played say that he knows what is the glory and power of 
 music ? And shall he who has only seen a moral quality in 
 a discordant heart, in a half-tuned human soul, say that he 
 knows what it is? I think thus of Christian graces. I have 
 seen graces that were like music on a clarionet, with a 
 learner at the other end of it; I have seen graces that were 
 like music on a violin out of which were drawn notes that 
 Paganini would never recognize; I have seen all manner of 
 Christian graces produced on one stringed instruments and 
 two-stringed instruments, -but they were in a discordant, 
 untuned, undisciplined state, so that they conveyed no con- 
 ception of the glory and power of the reality of this qual- 
 ity of joy. 
 
 Now take on the other hand the idea of various culture, 
 drilled, disciplined, infinitely fruitful — love, coupled as it 
 would be, of course, with joy, radiant, as on some bright 
 June morning the sun itself is, which, while shining in am- 
 plitude through the heaven, is also sparkling in every single 
 dewdrop on a million blades of grass, and on thrice ten 
 million leaves, every one carrying its little sun — like God's 
 nature, bountiful in universality, yet special in each individ- 
 ual experience; who has known of joy in any such way as 
 that? If there be any here who have known such joy, let 
 them speak. But in all the world there never was one 
 such — nay, not even the perfect Man; for it was " for the joy 
 that was set before him" that he " endured the cross, de- 
 spising the shame." 
 
263 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 If it be so of love and joy, how much more is it so of 
 peace! The ignominiousness of our conception of peace is 
 shown in this — that it is supposed to be merely absence of 
 suffering. Sleep is supposed to be peace-bearing. Then 
 annihilation is peace; for sleep is, substantially, annihila- 
 tion. What do men, after all, know of that higher moral 
 state, of that consummate condition of the soul, which con- 
 sists in the harmonization, the equalization of every faculty, 
 each one keyed to wholesome excitement — to that point or 
 pitch where it is not affected by mundane influences ? The 
 consciousness of living in a higher ether; the conscious- 
 ness of God's presence; the consciousness of being lifted 
 above fear and envy and jealousy; the consciousness of 
 the full activity of all the feelings; and yet, of their being 
 so harmonized together that the soul is carried up into per- 
 fect tranquillity, there never being so much of one's self as 
 when he is in that higher altitude — who knows of these 
 things ? We see glimpses of them in enthusiasts, in saifits 
 whose lives are written; we read of men who had this deep 
 peace; and we smile and think that what they thought 
 were experiences must have been dreams. No, they were 
 realities. Subtle, ethereal, hard to touch, difficult to an- 
 alyze, and well-nigh impossible to believe in, were they: 
 but many of the most substantial realities of the world are 
 the very highest experiences which men have. 
 
 " Long-suffering." There is a great deal of suffering, 
 but very little /^;zg--suffering. "Gentleness." There is a 
 great deal of weakness in the world; but that is not gen- 
 tleness. Soft touches, when a man cannot touch in any 
 other way than softly, are not gentleness. Gentleness is 
 power, intensity, vigor ; power made soft by the sweetness 
 of love is gentleness. " Goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
 ance" — how little does any one know in respect to these ! 
 
 If this, then, is fact, we see why it is that none of us know 
 our sonship to God in this world. Our relationship and 
 likeness to him are to be disclosed in those elements which 
 here are in their seed-form, or in the form of grafts loosely 
 joined to the stock. We have not yet come to such a state 
 of ampjitucje that we recognize ourselves in our higher 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 269 
 
 nature, in the power of it, in its range, in its lieight, in its 
 depth, in its length, in its breadth, in the fruitfulness of its 
 continuing and familiar experiences. It doth not yet ap- 
 pear what we shall be as sons of God, when we rise to our 
 higher moods, and come into possession of the great pos- 
 sibilities of the human mind. 
 
 Here we have the Christian conception of manhood. 
 Christianity does not greatly concern itself w'ith the origin 
 of things. Leaving that to tliose who look simply with the 
 eye of physical consciousness, it takes man as he is, declar- 
 ing that he has within him powers by which he may be 
 lifted above time and secular things — powers of reason, ir- 
 radiated, stimulated, and inspired of God, which lift him 
 into the sphere of that new and higher life in which he is a 
 son of God. In a general and loose sense, he is a son of 
 God always; but there are elements of his being, such that 
 when he is brought into the divine relationship he is by the 
 spirit of God lifted into a full and blessed consciousness of 
 his moral status. When one has once come to that high 
 consciousness, he has gained a victory over the world, not 
 in the sense that there are no further liabilities or imper- 
 fections, not in the sense that hereafter everything is to be 
 completely rounded out, but in a yet higher sense. He has 
 a new view of life and of destiny, a new idea of ambition, a 
 new sphere of activity. He has overcome the world, in that 
 he is no longer of it, though he is in it; and he feels that he 
 himself, and everything which belongs to him, is higher 
 than the tides of time can raise him, or than the atmos- 
 phere of the world can buoy him. " It doth not yet appear 
 what we shall be" when all these intimations and buddings 
 and beginnings come forth in the heavenly land. 
 
 I brought with me, when I came from the White Moun- 
 tains, a week ago, specimens of what is going on in nature 
 there — sprigs containing brilliant leaves of the scarlet 
 maple, I also brought down golden leaves, and mottled 
 leaves, and bronzed leaves, in colors so intense that a 
 painter's palette would blush with shame for its own in- 
 competency. I took them out, and laid them down, and 
 said, " Here are specimens of what T liave seen in the moun- 
 
270 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 tains." But would anybody get from these leaves any 
 conception of tiie vast ranges of tiie magnificence of the 
 side-hill; of the miles and miles of continued forest; and 
 of the fields and valleys and blushing shrubs, with their 
 gradations and variations of color? Any specification of 
 tliem which I could make would be utterly inadequate. 
 You cannot look upon the scene as it really exists and 
 realize it. You are overwhelmed by the sight. It sur- 
 passes all ordinary experience. In its presence, one seems 
 almost to evaporate and float in the atmosphere of its 
 glorious beauty. And when I bring this handful of leaves 
 and show them to another, how absurd it is for him to say, 
 "Now I have some idea of what you used to mean when 
 you talked about the Mountains." Poor creature! you 
 have no idea of it. 
 
 Our English friends have seen autumnal colors; "O 
 yes," they say, "we have seen them;" but when they have 
 once seen a color -autumn in America, when God has 
 drenched the earth in colors such that it seems almost as 
 though they mast have rained from above, how imperfect 
 do they find their conceptions to have been ! Who that 
 ever in autumn went from New York to Albany along the 
 Hudson, and saw on both sides the glory-sheeted magnifi- 
 cence of color which is presented all the way up, could de- 
 scribe the scene ? Language burns out, and comes to 
 ashes ! 
 
 In short, when nature is teaching us a lesson that we 
 never learn; when nature is emblazoning symbols of re- 
 ligious things that we never take the hint from; when 
 nature comes to die, and displays all her banners, and 
 goes trooping out in the majesty of most glorious aspects 
 — then is she grand beyond the conception of the human 
 soul. No man, be he poet; no man, be he artist; be he 
 never so learned or skillful or inspired, can describe even 
 matter in color; but if the inward soul, if all the wilderness 
 within man which has been made to bud and blossom as 
 the rose by the Sun of Righteousness; if all the summer 
 of grace as it is brought out in the human being, carried 
 up and made radiant as God and angels see it, with all his 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 271 
 
 self-denial, all his boundless capacity, all his love and meek- 
 ness and gentleness, in their lights and shades of every 
 kind — if these, when looked upon and descried by our dull 
 eye, seem to us nothing; if, when men look at the descrip- 
 tions which one gives of these things, they say, " You must 
 have a vivid imagination to conceive them," then I say, in 
 the language of Scripture, " It doth not yet appear what 
 we shall be." If all the images that belong to royalty, and 
 all the symbols that art can furnish, and all the images 
 that can be drawn from household and pastoral life, and 
 all the images that belong to triumphant experiences — if 
 these, in the day of the making of the revelation of Scrip- 
 ture, were inadequate to set forth the future of redeemed 
 man, what must the reality be — the transcendent develop- 
 ment upon which we are entering ! 
 
 Whatever you may think of the development-theory be- 
 hind, let me tell you that the development-theory before is 
 worthy of a life's attention. Transcendently glorious is 
 the outcome, no matter where the income was. 
 
 In view of the points which have been faintly suggested 
 by our discourse thus far; in view of this opening of the 
 apostle's thought as to the grandeur of our sonship, which 
 is not yet disclosed, on the way to the majesty and beauty 
 and glory of becoming kings and priests unto God, but 
 which the apostle descries something of, I remark : — that 
 dying and death ought to assume an entirely different 
 place in our imagination from what they have done in the 
 minds of a great majority of Christians. I do not mean 
 when we come to die; for ninety-nine men in a hundred 
 are not conscious when they come to die. That is not the 
 time for reasoning. Men are changing then. They are 
 letting go. Occasionally there are vivid realizations, but 
 they are rare. Our habitual contemplation of death while 
 we are in full life should be changed from that dark and 
 gloomy aspect to which we have been so largely bred, and 
 our thought of those who have gone out from us through 
 the portals of the grave should be divested of that sadness 
 and melancholy which envelop them. I know it is said that 
 nature will have its way, and that it is not possible to break 
 
272 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 off readily the associations, the friendships and the affec- 
 tions of life, and not have the soul suffer; and I would 
 not have souls fail to suffer; but I would not have an un- 
 healing wound created by death. I would not have death 
 thought of in such a way that the sufferer should look into 
 the grave for what is not there. 
 
 When the disciples went down to the tomb of Christ, 
 what did they see ? Him wiiom they sought as he lay 
 dead ? Or, raised by the power of God, did he sit there in 
 the fullness of restored youth and vigor? No. They saw 
 the linen garments and some napkins rolled together and 
 put in one place. And they saw angels whose voices they 
 heard saying, "We know whom ye seek: he is not here." 
 
 When mothers go down to look for their children in 
 Greenwood; when companions go, in some lonesome hours 
 in which the world goes hard with them, and sit in memory 
 upon the tomb of those who have been so much to them, I 
 would to God that they could look up, and not down. 
 Their dear ones are not in the grave. My children — why, 
 they have never ceased twinkling like stars down upon me 
 from the heaven above; and though for other reasons I 
 have often been where they are buried, I have never made 
 one purposed visit to their dust. I never shall go to the 
 napkins and the garments which Ciirist wore after his 
 resurrection, but to Christ himself; and I shall not look 
 for my children in the dust to which their bodies have 
 gone again. My children — so bright, so full of all promise, 
 so full of sweetness, so full of everything that the heart 
 craved — they rest with God, and my thoughts follow them 
 through the air, and not through the ground. If you are 
 sons of God, never look in the earth for your departed 
 companions. Whatever may be the truth of their origin, 
 let them come gradually, steadily up to manhood through 
 other forms, if you please; but when they have once 
 reached manhood's estate, never go back again to their 
 lower conditions seeking for them. You and yours, dying, 
 rise ! 
 
 Do you ever notice the dandelion when it first comes up 
 in the spring, and is nothing but a mat of little, flat and 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 273 
 
 notched leaves lying snugly on the ground ? A few days 
 of summer sun will bring out the plaited bud, nippled in 
 the soil. In a few days more it will lift itself higher, and 
 open it golden circle. It is now born; and so are our 
 children born to us. Wait yet a few days, and that blos- 
 som is shut up. Its beauty is gone. Wait a few days 
 again, and out it comes once more. But now it is an airy 
 globe, white as pearl, and exquisite in form as no compass 
 could score it. An ethereal globe it is ; the wind could 
 blow it away. And such are our children who have died ; 
 they have gone from us, beautiful to the last. Through all 
 ages they shall live, and bud, and blossom. They have 
 been wafted away to the "celestial sphere, where they are 
 singing, and shall sing forever and forever. Sons of God 
 are your children, and they are with God. 
 
 Whatever may have been our origin, this view of our 
 destiny ought to inspire in us a sense of personal worth. 
 It was the function of pride to do this. But pride has be- 
 come cold, and haughty, and full of conceits. Its ordinary 
 operations are to separate men from their fellows, or to 
 lift them above tiieir fellows, or to clothe some with 
 sovereignty. But now, if we are of the household of 
 faith; if we trace our relationsiiip, through moral experi- 
 ence and through moral equality, to the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, our Elder Brother, and if through him we 
 are the children of God, and can say, in sincerity and in 
 truth, "Our Father," then no man lives who may not in 
 that line develop a sense of personal worth that will be 
 of incalculable value to him. The want of suitable pride 
 is one of the curses of men. The race suffers for the want 
 of that sense of character, that sense of dignity, which 
 alone can hold men back from things little and low, and 
 keep them always in the line of things worthy, and which 
 is inspired by a sense of our relationship to God. 
 
 This view ought also to be a remedy for that sense of 
 loneliness which falls upon persons who are thrown out of 
 social life, or who have never had any rich social relation- 
 ships. Thousands and tens of thousands of people in 
 society are consciously alone. Now and then a nature un- 
 18 
 
274 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 like those about it is born into a household, and never 
 speaks its inward thoughts, and never declares its inner- 
 most feelings. Sometimes persons have by changes been 
 thrown out of society among strangers, or among acquaint- 
 ances who were no more to tliem than strangers, and natural- 
 ly have had a sense of loneliness. Our Master himself felt it. 
 He said that he was alone; and then, correcting himself, 
 he said tiiat the Father was with him. Our sense of rela- 
 tionship to God, our sense of its reality and glory, is the 
 legitimate correction of that sense of loneliness which men 
 so often feel. 
 
 This view ought likewise to overcome that sense of 
 waste and uselessness which is a source of unhappiness to 
 men. There is something sad in the feeling that one has 
 nothing to do. There is something sad in being thrown 
 out of one's regular occupation. Many a man dreads sick- 
 ness because it will make him a burden upon others. 
 Many a man dreads being thrown out of his trade or pro- 
 fession, or out of that position in society in which he has 
 thriven and been a blessing to others. Men feel that tliey 
 are not good for anything any longer under such circum- 
 stances. This is especially apt to be the case when- per- 
 sons contemplate old age before they are old. When 
 people get old, they often do not feel old; but as they are 
 drawing near to old age, and perceive the signs and tokens 
 of it, they dread the idea of being old. They shrink from 
 the thought of being useless or laid aside. 
 
 "They also serve who only stand and wait,'' John Milton 
 said; but there is something better than that. Those are 
 of as much worth whom God is holding in reserve, as 
 those who at the front of battle do the actual fighting. If 
 we are the children of God, and our destiny is influenced, 
 and our affairs are ordered, by a divine providence, then 
 we are not useless, though just now we may not be actively 
 employed. 
 
 On unrolling some of the old Egyptian mummies (and 
 the Egyptians were not so handsome, I think, that they 
 needed to take so much pains to transmit their beauty 
 through generation after generation), you will find wheat 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 275 
 
 three thousand years old. The Greek empire has risen 
 and gone; the Roman empire has risen, and its dust has 
 been blown away, and civilization has developed, since the 
 careful attendants rolled up that wheat; it has lain three 
 thousand years doing nothing but keeping unconscious 
 company with hideous mummies; and yet, when taken out 
 and planted in a field, it goes to work, comes up, develops 
 a stem, and brings forth fruit, as though it had not taken 
 a wink of sleep. And if wheat will keep as long as that, I 
 am sure that men will. Though they are for years and 
 years wrapped up, as it were, and kept from the soil and 
 from usefulness, yet when God unrolls them, the seed will 
 come out, and its germ will grow again. 
 
 Look more largely. Do not think of life as in the com- 
 pass of a pint or a gill. Measure existence on a broad 
 scale. How infinite the space ! how enormous the dura- 
 tion ! how transcendent the capacity which belongs to the 
 human soul ! We are sons of God begun ; once being 
 consciously under the divine favor and power, once having 
 felt the emancipation of God, it matters little whether we 
 wait a week, a month, a year, or ten years. We are going 
 to our home, and are sure to reach it; and then we shall 
 know as we are known, and shall be satisfied because we 
 shall be like God. 
 
 In the convulsions and the scatterings that are taking 
 place in the world; in the business distresses, the bank- 
 ruptcies, the sudden revolutions which are occurring, the 
 glory, the chiefest treasure, of man, cannot be touched. It 
 is true that a man's relations to his fellows are often rent 
 asunder; it is true that there is a great deal of suffering 
 and sensibility that should be guarded and respected, in 
 these changes which are going on in the conditions of 
 men; but what is the use of being a Christian if you have 
 nothing better than anybody else ? What is the use of 
 being rich if you have no money ? What is the use of 
 having a million garments if you are not allowed to take 
 one of them out and wear it ? What is the use of being a 
 horseman if you cannot ride ? Or what is the use of being 
 a hunter if you never draw a rifle ? 
 
276 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 Here is God's armory and wardrobe; everything that 
 men need is there; and why should not Christians equip 
 themselves for the duties of life, and guard themselves 
 against its evils ? Searching after treasures is good, but 
 it should be with higher motives, and with a higher con- 
 sciousness. Other men's treasures take to themselves 
 wings, and fly away; but a Christian man's treasures 
 ought to have wings of faith so that they shall fly heaven- 
 ward perpetually. Your treasure should be "where neither 
 moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break 
 through nor steal." And if, when you break down, if, 
 when all the property that you have been accumulating 
 for twenty years goes to the winds, if, when the earth- 
 quake shakes the city, you go shivering and saying, " I am 
 ruined," you might as well have had no Christ to die for 
 you. If, when the dirt falls from you, that ruins you; if, 
 when your garments fall off, you find that there has been 
 nothing of you but soil, or clothes, or money, then the 
 more you are ruined the better it is for the world. Are 
 you ruined — you, whom Christ thought of in Gethsemane — 
 you, around about whom angel bands have been hovering 
 ever since you were born — you. whose name is written in 
 the Lamb's Book of Life — you, who are waited for and 
 longed for in heaven — you, for whom there is laid up palm, 
 and crown, and scepter? 
 
 Ah ! the loss of things in this world is oftentimes great 
 gain. Have you noticed that frequently, in the abundance 
 of the leaves of summer, both the landscape and the man- 
 sion are hidden ? Though it is a sad time, and we do not 
 like to see the leaves turn sere; though we dread the com- 
 ing of the frosts, yet behold, when, in the morning after 
 the frost, every tree is bare, and not a leaf is left, as we 
 look there appears a house that we have not seen all sum- 
 mer. The leaves hid it; but now that the leaves are gone, 
 it shines out to our view. And the landscape — the moun- 
 tams and the distant river — which has so long been ob- 
 scured, is revealed to us. What a wonderful vision is 
 opened when the leaves fall ! 
 
 Many and many a man whose prosperity has been like 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 277 
 
 thick foliage before his eyes, could not see his Father's 
 house, had no view of Mount Zion, of the heavenly Jeru- 
 salem nor of the beautiful landscape beyond; but when 
 adversity came and stripped him bare, and people said, 
 "He is ruined ! he is gone !" — he was richer than he ever 
 had been before. 
 
 In these thoughts of a Christian manhood, in these aspi- 
 rations after a higher life, men should find their greatest 
 comfort. The truth of God present with us; the certainty 
 that he cares for us, and will not forsake us; the belief 
 that if he is for us no man can be against us; the doctrine 
 that physical and material things are transient — these are 
 the foundation on which a man should build his trust. In 
 the consciousness of these things he walks on the sea at 
 night as Christ walked, and rules the storm as Christ 
 ruled it. 
 
 Christian brethren, let us lay hold of these pillars of our 
 hope. You are the sons of God. It doth not yet appear 
 what you shall be; but when He shall appear you shall be 
 like him. Having these hopes, purify yourselves, and live 
 more by faith, and less by sight; more by the power of 
 God, and less by the power of the world; more by long- 
 suffering, and love, and all those holy conceptions which 
 call you from the thrall of the flesh into the emancipation 
 of ths spirit, and crown you with eternal rejoicing. 
 
VIII. 
 GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 
 
 "Ordespisestthou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long- 
 suffering ; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repent- 
 ance ? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasures! up unto 
 thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous' 
 judgment of God ; who will render unto every man according to his 
 deeds : to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, 
 and honor, and immortality, eternal life : but unto them that are conten- 
 tious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation 
 and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth 
 evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile ; but glory, honor, and 
 peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the 
 Gentile ; forthere is no respect of persons with God." — Romans ii : 4-.1. 
 
 The full force of this cannot be made to appear except 
 by reading that catalogue of terrible depravities and crimes 
 which fills up the first chapter of Romans, and which might 
 stand for an inventory of Sodom and Gomorrah. The 
 apostle goes on to say, substantially, that it made no differ- 
 ence whether these things were committed by the Jew or 
 the Gentile. Wrong is wrong — without regard to nation- 
 ality, without regard to government, without regard to re- 
 ligion, institutions, or anything else. God is no respecter 
 of persons. This truth rests on the ground that wrong is 
 the violation of great laws, universal, perpetual; and that 
 the laws defend themselves by penalties. The violation of 
 tlie laws of health punishes itself; no court need issue sen- 
 tence. If a man drugs himself, the drug vindicates its na- 
 ture; and if a man is selfish, the great moral law, in the 
 
 Sunday Morning, Tune 10, 1883. Lesson ; x John iv. 
 
 278 
 
GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 279 
 
 long-run, carries a penalty of selfishness. If a man is good, 
 the law blossoms and brings forth the fruit of goodness in 
 him. The only question is, how shall a man be restrained 
 from the violation of moral law; how shall he be devel- 
 oped so that he shall love the good rather than the evil that 
 is in him ? That is the great question, and the apostle here 
 declares that the presentation of the goodness of God is 
 that which constitutionally tends to restrain men from evil, 
 and to develop in them all goodness. Men should have 
 perpetually, as the result of the belief in the goodness of 
 God, an upward life, growing better and better, toward the 
 spiritual and away from the physical and sensual. Right 
 living and wrong living carry respectively reward and pun- 
 ishment, under the moral constitution of the world. Al- 
 though they are spoken of as being the result of a direct 
 divine sentence, we are not to interpret them as if the sen- 
 tence was immediate, and its execution like a blow from 
 God's hand. Everything in the ancient day, every law or 
 event, was supposed to be a direct act and decision of the 
 divine mind. Thus God made the grass grow— as if he 
 commanded individually every root to sprout and to come 
 up. Now it is true in a very general sense that great natural 
 laws are the expression of the divine will; yet when they 
 work out both good and evil, we are not to suppose that the 
 result of a natural law working good or evil proceeds from a 
 thought, a will, and a decision of God in his personal char- 
 acter and government in each particular case. The idea of 
 generic laws encompassing the whole world is compara- 
 tively of modern date, although now universally accepted; 
 and the substitute for this belief in the earlier day was 
 the idea that every event that took place on earth took place 
 under the immediate volition of God personally. Goodness 
 is the working force of God's nature, and is to be made 
 the working force of all government; but if that does not 
 take place, if God's goodness does not help men, his natural 
 law goes right on to penalties without trial or sentence; 
 the laws execute themselves, in the moral kingdom. 
 
 From this general exposition of this passage I remark, 
 first: God's goodness, in the aspect of loveliness, bounty. 
 
28o PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 mercifulness, is the grand presentation of him from which 
 the most influence and benefit is to be expected. It has 
 been a current idea that God's mercies are alternative, but 
 that his justice is primary; and ministers have not only 
 carried it out in their intellectual conception, but they have 
 also introduced it into their preaching; and thus all who 
 are acquainted with such things know very well how earnest 
 men, good and able men, revivalists, and others, have been 
 accustomed to say. Law works first; men must be dealt 
 with by God as a lawgiver ; God who is holy and pure 
 looks upon sin with utter disallowance: and when men are 
 convicted of sin by the law-work, then comes in the promise 
 of the Gospel. In other words, fear is tlie primary instru- 
 ment by which men are to work; mercy the secondary in- 
 strument. But this is in contradiction of the whole tenor 
 of sacred Scripture. There is not a representation of God, 
 nor one single representation of the method of carrying 
 out the Gospel, that does not contradict this. First, mid- 
 dle, and last, the Scripture teaches God's goodness as first to 
 be preached; and if that does not avail, then the alternative 
 comes, namely, the sure penalty of transgression. Good- 
 ness first, fear second; whereas the principle of current 
 theology has been fear first, as a preparative, and then, 
 when men are able to bear it, goodness, — reversing the 
 genius of Scripture. 
 
 For example, let us go back in history to that memora- 
 ble passage in Exodus, where Moses had gone forth, and 
 was about to legislate, frame the laws and the institutions- 
 of those three millions of barbarian Jews, who by slavery 
 had been carried down almost to animalism. Their laws 
 were to be enacted, their institutions were to be marked 
 out and established, and administration was to go on; and 
 this was all to take place in Moses' lifetime: it is no won- 
 der that he wanted divine help. And as the narrative in 
 the thirty-third chapter puts it, he says: "If I have found 
 grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know 
 thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that 
 this nation is thy people. If thy presence go not with me, 
 carry us not up hence." I want to know what view of thy 
 
GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 281 
 
 nature I am to employ, and I wish to be filled to overflow- 
 ing with that view. Then God said to him: "I will make 
 all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the 
 name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to 
 whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I 
 will show mercy." The implication is: I will not give you 
 the whole view of my nature, but in answer to your desire 
 that I should go up with you and enable you to govern right- 
 ly, I will give the predominant one. This is the view; a 
 God of goodness, having mercy where he will — having free- 
 dom in his goodness. Then comes the declaration in grand 
 dramatic form, as recorded in the thirty-fourth chapter; 
 the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed (now take 
 notice) — "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, 
 long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keep- 
 ing mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgres- 
 sion and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; 
 visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and 
 upon the children's children, unto the third and to the 
 fourth generation." And what is this? Only that God 
 makes a disclosure of his own interior being in such a way 
 that it may aid Moses in his administration. He says, 
 "Goodness is my nature, goodness preceding transgres- 
 sion, accompanying it, and following it. I am long-suffer- 
 ing, patient, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. 
 That is my goodness." There is the staple view of the 
 character of God. But if men will not see that, and go on 
 still in their animal transgressions, let them understand 
 that this goodness does not mean the abolition of distinc- 
 tions between right and wrong, between good and evil, be- 
 tween virtue and vice. The great law of the universe will 
 go on with its penalties, yea, not only on the transgressors, 
 but by heredity on generations to come. The guilty can- 
 not be cleared except upon their repentance and reforma- 
 tion. But here is the predominant view of the character 
 of God — goodness first, and goodness, too,- that watches 
 over sin as if it were sickness, which is patient with sin and 
 forgives it; and, it is said, as if there should be some pos- 
 sible loophole to doubt and fear, "forgives iniquity, trans- 
 
282 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 gression, and sin," — all sorts, everything. You cannot very 
 well enlarge the boundary of the definition more than that. 
 But the prime vievir is God's goodness, and then the alterna- 
 tive; if this is abused, then the other holds on in the con- 
 stitution of things with pain and penalty. It is not a good- 
 ness that will clear a man and let him do just what he 
 pleases, treating him as if he had been righteous and just. 
 
 When Paul and Barnabas were about to be worshiped 
 by the idolaters at Iconium, they ran out and stopped the 
 sacrifices and preached a very short sermon, and a very 
 striking sermon it was, too. "We also are men of like 
 passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn 
 from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven 
 and earth and the sea and all things that are therein; who 
 in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. 
 Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he 
 did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, 
 filling our hearts with food and gladness. And with these 
 things scarce restrained they the people." There was ex- 
 hibited the universal sign and token of God's existence — 
 his goodness. Paul had but this short sermon to preach, 
 and the whole of it is this: "Do not worship us, do not 
 worship the idols that you have been accustomed to wor- 
 sliip, but worship God; and the idea of God is that of 
 the goodness of God, seen in all the evolutions of nature, 
 in all the ways of providence and history and human ex- 
 perience." It was the goodness of God that had to be 
 preached to them first. 
 
 And our text is the same thing. Coming in through the 
 twilight and the darkness of that terrific record of vices 
 and crimes, Paul says that it was the goodness of God that 
 should have led men to repentance. The curative power 
 of God is to be found in his goodness. 
 
 And this is the doctrine not only of Scripture, but of good 
 reason or philosophy; for, secondly, goodness and fear 
 touch human nature on different and opposite sides. 
 
 The double being, man, the animal and the spiritual and 
 rational man, is approached on the upper and on the under 
 side of his nature. Goodness develops what is of its own 
 
GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 283 
 
 nature, and touches and influences those elements in us 
 tliat are good; in other words, touches the spiritual side of 
 man. The presentation of goodness to the spiritual, ra- 
 tional, and moral sense, to the fancy and to the whole af- 
 fections of a man's upper life, intensifies and develops them. 
 When you present duty to a man you tend to develop the 
 same quality in him. But the primitive man, the natural 
 man, the animal man, cannot see anything in duty. Such 
 a man has to be touched and influenced by fear. Yo'u can- 
 not teach duty to a horse or an ass, and so you put a bit 
 and a bridle in the mouth, and spurs at their sides, or goad 
 and make them afraid. The training of wild animals for 
 our menageries goes on wholly on the principle of fear; the 
 lion must be made humble and afraid by pain. A man in 
 his early states — predominantly an animal and sensuous, a 
 man of appetites and passions, a man in whom thrive all 
 these elements of inferior life — will not be affected by good- 
 ness, but will by fear. Therefore fear has in it a power of 
 restraint. But it has no power of development. It has a 
 negative, not a positive effect. You cannot develop men 
 into a higher or the highest form by fear. All the conver- 
 sions of men that have been the result of fear are hardly 
 worth the letters that spell the story. Whatever is devel- 
 oped in man is that which has been developed by some 
 thought of mercy, of love, of purity, of justice, of truth, 
 of moral beauty. Whenever, therefore, the character of 
 God is presented to us as comprehending everything that 
 goes under that generic term, goodness, it waters, stimu- 
 lates and develops that side of human nature which is most 
 like God and whereby we become the sons of God. But 
 when men do not respond to that, but live in their lower 
 and animal instincts and appetites, in their pride, their self- 
 ishness, their wanton cruelties, their hardnesses, their ani- 
 malisms of every lustful kind, then you must needs bring 
 in a restraint, and that restraint comes from fear, but it is 
 secondary and alternative. The primary aspect of the di- 
 vine nature, for the work of the renovation of the human 
 race, is his loveliness, his beauty, his glory in holiness. 
 These things tend to excite the seed and to sprout the 
 
284 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 best qualities in mankind. But where men are so low that 
 the goodness of God has no relation to them, and their 
 passions go bellowing on, then the thunder of the law, as 
 it may be called, comes in, not for the purpose of expand- 
 ing or fructifying anything, but simply as restraint — ^hold- 
 ing back. Convicts in a prison who are in insurrection, 
 and have burst open bars and locks, and are rushing out 
 for theirliberty, run upon serried ranks of bayonets. " One 
 step further and you are dead men, every one of you !" 
 They draw back — they stop trying to run away; but they 
 do not become patriots, they do not become law-keepers 
 and virtuous men on *that account. They are simply re- 
 strained from the vagabondism of iniquity, that is all. So 
 in the great moral government of God, men may be re- 
 strained from going further into transgression, but no man 
 is converted by abject fear, by what is called the law, and 
 law-work. If, therefore, human nature is to be developed 
 in the direction of spiritual excellence, you must develop it 
 by the presentation of those excellencies in thoir supreme 
 forms in God. If you wish merely to restrain men, then 
 fear will do; but it is the lowest agency. It has a necessary 
 office, but it is ignoble, and it may almost be said to be 
 the hangman of the divine government. It is very neces- 
 sary sometimes to hang a man, but the office of hangman 
 is not a very popular one — not a very desirable one. 
 
 No view, then, of God, no view of the Gospel, no view of 
 the atonement as an element in the Gospel, is a right one 
 which does not present the hopeful side, the winning and 
 the cheerful side. Any view which makes God so angry 
 that because man sinned he determined to slay him, is 
 false, it may be blasphemous. Any view of atonement is 
 false that makes God so vengeful that there had to be a 
 , propitiation, a placation, in the sacrifice of somebody or 
 "something, as if God thought that his law was unspeaka- 
 bly more precious to him than anything else, more precious 
 than man, more precious than the race; as if when the 
 law was once broken God rushed out to vindicate his law 
 until Christ came, and sprinkled it with his blood — as 
 Watts said in his hymn — and said; "If you want a sac- 
 
GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 285 
 
 rifice, Father, I will suffer," and so persuaded him to be 
 gracious. A monster! That doctrine is as infernal as if 
 it had been an inspired and revelatory doctrine coming 
 up from the pit itself. It runs beyond the Bible as much 
 as much as it runs overall human sense and common-sense. 
 God so Uved the world that he gave his Son to die for it. 
 There was no such palliation or placation needed in the di- 
 vine disposition as required any sacrifice of Christ Jesus. If 
 the revelation of God himself in the mercy, in the wisdom, in 
 the purity, in the truth, in the love of Jesus Christ, if the life 
 and sufferings and death of Jesus Christ wrought out such 
 a view of God as to make his goodness, his grandeur, and- 
 his glory more apparent to the comprehension of men, and 
 so more attractive than it was before, — that is reason enough 
 for the coming of Christ Jesus, that is atonement enough. 
 Any view of the divine nature that makes him first angry, 
 and then placated, is blasphemous. It is not only not 
 orthodox, but it is as heterodox as hell. God's brooding 
 love, not God's irritable law, is the doctrine of the Bible. 
 God avenging is not the doctrine of the Bible. God loving 
 and saving is the doctrine of the Bible. 
 
 The other view is petrified in some of the great mediaeval 
 confessions. It stands there to-day, and armies of young 
 ministers swear to preach substantially this doctrine, this 
 absolutely blasphemous system of representation, whicli is 
 unscriptural, false in philosophy and false in common-sense. 
 They swear to preach it, not knowing what they do. By 
 and by when they wake up to a consciousness of what that 
 system is, they are silent. There is grace enough in them 
 to prevent their attempting to preach it, but they are 
 silent. I have written on that subject and preached on 
 that subject, and have been criticised in this wise: " Mr. 
 Beecher knows when he is making these onslaughts 
 that he is beating down a man of straw." No, I am 
 not beating down a man of straw; I am beating a mum- 
 my that still stands in its environments in the confes- 
 sions of. the world to-day, and that every generation of 
 ministers swears to believe in and preach. But the point 
 that I make is not that these mummies are believed in very 
 
286 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 widely, it is that the popular impression is derived from 
 these representations of the creeds, and that the men who 
 are to preach them — nineteen out of every twenty, ninety- 
 nine out of every hundred — do not believe in them. Very 
 well, what kind of moral honesty is there in a profession, 
 in men sworn to preach a representation of the divine gov- 
 ernment, which they themselves do not believe? "It has 
 been modified, it has been changed, the church does not 
 hold it." Then if you believe one thing and swear to 
 preach another, it is dishonest. It is dishonest in seminar- 
 ies, it is dishonest in councils, it is dishonest in the candi- 
 dates who take licenses and ordinations to agree to preach 
 doctrines that they do not believe and that are radically 
 subversive of the very marrow and spirit of the whole 
 Bible. There can be nothing more disastrous to the moral 
 sense of the generation than for men to hold one view se- 
 cretly and to preach another view publicly. It is intellec- 
 tual dishonesty. I do not mean it is a dishonesty of 
 conscience, nor an intentional departure from duty, but it 
 is a very delusive course into which men put themselves: 
 the wriggling, the trying to go round, to tone-down, to 
 smooth off the hideous features of the mediaeval body of 
 theology, and yet to maintain their orthodoxy and their 
 place in the church by subscribing to all of it, can hardly 
 be condemned too severely. It is contrary to the simpli- 
 city of Scripture — the yea, yea, and nay, nay — and with 
 that is largely lost the power of the Gospel. 
 
 All interpretations of Scripture, I remark again, which 
 make toward hardness, cruelty and severity are false — false! 
 No mosaic of texts can be allowed to stand against the 
 stream of Bible testimony. God governs by his goodness, 
 and where that fails he restrains as far as possible by fear; 
 but fear of consequences of evil is the alternative and the 
 lowest motive. Goodness is the primitive principle for the 
 purpose of lifting men out of their lower state, and bringing 
 them up into communion with him. 
 
 All of you that read religious papers are doubtless conver- 
 sant with the fact that a discussion of "new theology" is 
 going on. Men are asking, "What is this new theology?" 
 
GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 287 
 
 There is not any; men are finding their way back to the old 
 theology. The philosophy of the movement tliat is going 
 on to-day is simply this: our conceptions of God are bor- 
 rowed, and practically the real views that we have of God 
 are all made up in ourselves. For example, God is said to 
 be just. Very well. Every man who hears that God is just 
 supplies the meaning of that word "just,'' out of his own 
 experience, out of his own realization of justice. If a man 
 is of very coarse fiber, or the age is of very coarse fiber, then 
 justice is a very low-toned thing; but it goes into their con- 
 ception of the divine character. Another age rises to a 
 higher stage of civilization, and justice then becomes a 
 much more enlightened and pure thing; and then when 
 men read that justice is an element of God's nature, God 
 is different to them from what he was to their forefathers 
 and to other ages. In a word, the very economy of God's 
 work, the very nature of his providence is changed, when 
 men are themselves refined and purified and developed. 
 They grow out of their own experience to a better judg- 
 ment and comprehension of the meaning of sacred Scripture 
 when it speaks of holiness, of love, or of purity. The earlier 
 and cruder experiences of goodness among men gave the 
 earlier representations of the divine character. These rep- 
 resentations, partial though they were, wrought benefit and 
 elevation and purification; or, in other words, as the inspira- 
 tion of God, shed abroad upon the whole race of men, and 
 upon the church in particular, is lifting up their conception 
 of character, duty, rectitude, justice and purity, so that the 
 world itself has risen in those qualities, there comes a period 
 when the attainments of the church and of mankind, and 
 the result of God working upon the hearts of men, make 
 and will make the attributes of God appear more glorious 
 and beautiful than they were in the earlier and primitive 
 day. To single prophets, men moved by the spirit of God, 
 men of genius in moral things, there have been granted 
 even in the earliest day these transcendent conceptions of 
 God — in them poetic and imaginative; but taking the whole 
 human family together, worthy thoughts of God grow 
 slowly. Later ages, if they are ages of growing refinement. 
 
288 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 produce purer conceptions of moral qualities, nobler, more 
 heroic; and then by necessity these are transformed and are 
 transferred to our idea of the structure of God's nature; so 
 that in every age tlieology is worlcing towards something 
 higher or different. In the Grecian age, at the time when 
 theology was in the hand of the Greek, it worked toward an 
 intellectual philosophy. In the Roman age theology worked 
 towards the forming of institutions and laws; external, 
 earthy. In the mediaeval period it worked toward super- 
 stition, in carrying out the behests of the Romish govern- 
 ment and theology, and to word-mosaics. In our day the 
 world is democratized. Kings are subverted, peoples are 
 lifted up. Privileges are taken away from the few, and all 
 things are offered to the many. The questions of the age 
 in whicli we live are questions of sympathy, of humanity, 
 of equity, of the rights of men; not only as between man 
 and the law, but as between man and his fellow man — the 
 question of the rights of labor, the great question of the 
 morality of wages and capital, the question of the rights of 
 small nations as against great ones. The whole world is 
 fermenting, and carrying on and up the great questions of 
 human life, of human duty, of the masses and of mankind 
 at large. Now it is impossible that these conceptions of 
 rectitude, of purity and of moral beauty, — the fruit of many 
 ages, but which have had a particular development and 
 expansion in our time, — it is impossible, I say, that these 
 should not act upon the imagination and the thought of 
 Cliristian men as respects the nature of God ^and divine 
 government. They have been taking the frown from the 
 brow of Jehovah, they have been kindling the light of love 
 in the eyes of God, they have been taking away the hard, 
 stern lips of vengeance and putting the lips of tenderness in 
 tlieir place. They are changing the popular conception of 
 God, bringing it back to the primitive and the Christian 
 idea, — the vision of Moses, the ideal presented by Jesus, — 
 that God's nature is primarily Goodness, and alternatively 
 only is it terrible and full of fear. 
 
 The new theology is simply an attempt to get back the 
 theology of the present age to the thought and the feelings 
 
GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 389 
 
 that belong to it in tlie sacred Scriptures. In the height of 
 Greel< art, tiie formative power of man was carried perhaps 
 to its greatest pitch. But after an age or two, Greelc art 
 descended and became exceedingly ornamental, and so 
 effeminate. Then it went down another grade and became 
 mere imitation, and men sought to reproduce art on the 
 models of a by-gone age. At last it went lower than that 
 and became mechanical, unillu mined, dead! At Byzantium, 
 the making of a picture was like a sum in arithmetic. If a 
 Madonna was to be painted, the rules were laid down how 
 her hair should be painted, what should be the color of her 
 robes, what should be the color of her scarf, what color 
 should be the other garments, and what should be the 
 accessories. It only wanted one more thing to make it 
 mere manufacturing. All life was gone out of it, all inven- 
 tion was gone, and men would make up their Madonnas and 
 their other sacred pictures on prescriptions, just as the 
 apothecary would compound a dose; and doses such pic- 
 tures were ! After some centuries had rolled away, there 
 came that period in art which is designated as the Renais- 
 sance, or the new birth. Men had found some remnants of 
 the old Greek statuary, taken out from the ruins of capitols 
 and temples. Those who had genius began to study them. 
 Having found these old memorials of the supreme age in 
 art, they were inspired by them. The soul of art awakened 
 from its long sleep. They forsook Byzantium, they forsook 
 all the intermediate periods, they went back to tlie fountain 
 days and so Art re-lived in this world. 
 
 We, in theolog}', are doing the same thing. Theology 
 had fallen from its primitive simplicity of a belief in the 
 love of God to this world, and of the goodness of God in 
 his essential nature and his administration. It had gone 
 down into mere metaphysical and scholastic forms, and 
 then it had gone down into the mechanical organization of 
 the church, and then down into barbaric superstitions. At 
 last there came, not just to-rday, but a hundred years ago 
 and more, shining brighter and brighter from Luther's day, 
 the renaissance of theology. It is going back to where the 
 tomb of Christ was, where the throne of God was, which 
 19 
 
290 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 the tomb illustrated. It has had many checks and stops 
 and reactions on the road ; but again and again has made 
 new starts, with fresh impulses, trying to found our con- 
 ception of God on a nobler view of his justice, purity, 
 mercy and administrative power, not upon a barbaric 
 model which is enshrined as the very genius of the mediae- 
 val creeds. The theology of Byzantium will go down; and 
 the new light will go up. 
 
 God forbid that I should say that the men who are seek- 
 ing tiiese views have come to the fullness of them, or that 
 there are not yet important advancements to be made, or 
 that there are not yet many errors to be purged out. There 
 are. The process is not definitive. I have not been ranked 
 among the new theologists, because I am not regarded as a 
 theologian at "any rate. I have been told that so often, and 
 by such high authority, that I have come to believe it my- 
 self. Therefore in all the muss and muddle that is going 
 on, I am not concerned; I am not a theologian. Neverthe- 
 less, I fight on my own hook. For more than thirty years, 
 as you yourselves are witnesses, I have been endeavoring to 
 re-illume the long darkened character of God, to bring 
 nearer to you the thought of God's love, and justice; to 
 bring to bear upon the conscience, reason and affections of 
 whosoever would hear, the goodness of God. I have stood 
 to hear men ridicule it, and say: " He is departing from the 
 old foundations." Yes, from those old foundations laid in 
 Babylon and transferred to Byzantium. I have heard men 
 say: " He is preaching a mush of divine benevolence." They 
 do not know what they say nor what they do. I am preach- 
 ing that royalty of God's goodness that was laid down 
 by him for the administration of Moses. I am preaching 
 that sense of God's ineffable goodness which comes in this, 
 — " Rather than see suffering, I will suffer myself." I am 
 taking away the barbaric notion, the aesthetic notion of the 
 Greek, the barbaric notion of the Roman, the old mediaeval 
 superstition that God is sitting in the perfection of eternal 
 happiness, being fanned by angels' wings and perfumed by 
 songs of sweet flattery. I have been preaching that of all 
 beings there is none so burdened, none so active, none that 
 
GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 2.ji 
 
 takes upon himself the garments of sorrow so universally 
 and continually as God. I have been preaching the father- 
 hood and the motherhood of God, — and what is there of 
 patience, of labor, or suffering or watciiing that father and 
 mother will not give rather than that the child should sicken 
 and die, or rather than that it should go wrong ? And if 
 the child be wicked and obstinate, all the more does pa- 
 rental love take care of that child, because he all the more 
 needs it. I find in the New Testament here the very fig- 
 ure: if we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our 
 children, how much more shall our Father which is in 
 heaven do so. I have preached continually this conception 
 of God as the great atonement of the world, as the one that 
 makes atonement for mankind, standing for men every- 
 where, and being made righteousness, and justification, and 
 sanctification to them all; giving to the scriptural words 
 a new meaning; holding to Scripture, not taking it super- 
 ■stitiously, but believing it to be the voice and revelation 
 of God in every age, of the best things that men in that 
 age could understand. I hold to it, and shall hold to it to 
 the end, for the purpose of bringing out a clearer, juster, 
 and nobler conception of God, founded on the primitive 
 and New Testament conception of God's goodness. God 
 is love. God is love. God is love. That is the first, that 
 is the middle, and that is the last echo of the sacred word. 
 But it never hides the fact that if all this mighty enginery 
 fails, natural laws will carry men on to their penalty. He 
 does not sit on the throne as a universal executioner; but 
 he will not clear the guilty unless they suffer themselves to 
 be drawn to him. Men who violate his laws and will not 
 be warned or drawn with long-suffering, kindness, and pa- 
 tience — men who will not withdraw from that which is evil 
 to themselves and others — must go on and take the conse- 
 quences. Those consequences are penal. How long they 
 will last I do not know; that they will last forever, I do not 
 believe; that the pit is fathomless I do not believe. That 
 there is an eternity of conscious torment, after all hope of 
 change and amelioration is gone, I shall never believe out- 
 side the bars of a lunatic asylum. I am pervaded with this 
 
292 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 one thought, living or dying, to bear witness to the glory 
 of divine love, and to bring to bear on that every thought 
 and illustration and image that is within my range. That 
 has been my happy work. I have rejoiced in it, if nobody 
 else has. I have not sought the honor of men in it, I have 
 not sought to rise higher among my brethren by it. But 
 I would not go to heaven with that infernal confession to 
 which I once subscribed — God forgive my ignorance ! I 
 have said, " Who shall deliver me from this body of death ?" 
 I abhor it because I love God, and there is hope between 
 God and living men. My work has been that of an evan- 
 gelical minister, trying somehow to make men better by 
 making the view of God more glorious to them, keeping 
 the summer of his love as far as I could round about them, 
 and on everything that is excellent in them, that good 
 might thrive in them and bring forth fruit. 
 
 My labor will not run through a great many years more, 
 thank God. I do not know which to be more thankful for, 
 that I have been permitted to labor so long, or that I shall 
 soon be permitted to lay down my labor. But I leave this 
 testimony with you: by all the courage, by all the hope, 
 and by all the sincerity of my nature, I have attempted to 
 cleanse men's conceptions of God from their barbarisms, 
 from their clouds, and from their terrible misrepresenta- 
 tions, and bring about such a view of God as that every 
 child should love him. We have come to a period in the 
 history of the world when owing to the many changes in 
 thought, in the development of industry and the recon- 
 struction of society, one thing is certain, namely, that the 
 maintenance of belief in God at all depends upon the repre- 
 sentation of him as a being whom men want to love; a God 
 who, having created thousands of millions of creatures, 
 does not satisfy himself with making love to twenty or 
 thirty out of each million; a God who loves the whole 
 earth, a God who spreads the aroma of infinite love round 
 about the globe and all its inhabitants. I am for mankind, 
 for Christ was. I am for Christ, because he was the glory 
 of God's love. Living or dying, I am for God, because 
 God is love; and before none else will I sing praises, be- 
 
GOD'S GOODNESS MAN'S SALVATION. 293 
 
 fore none else will I bow my knee. Now, and in death, 
 and in the judgment day, forever and forever will I cry 
 with the redeemed, " Thou art worthy, for thou hast died 
 for us." 
 
 So I preach to you the love of God. Woe be to those 
 who reject God's love, which is the whole meaning of the 
 atonement, — the reconciliation,— the harmonization of man 
 with his Maker. Woe be to those wiio, sought after, reject 
 his love, prefer selfishness and animalism, and float on 
 down to the unmapped ocean of eternity. 
 
IX. 
 POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. 
 
 " And when he had opened the book he found the place where it was 
 written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed 
 me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken- 
 hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to 
 the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable 
 year of the Lord. And he began to say unto them. This day is this 
 scripture fulfilled in your ears." — Luke iv : 17, 18, ig and 2i. 
 
 " Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent 
 two of his disciples, and said unto him. Art thou he that should come, or 
 do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and 
 show John again those things which ye do hear and see : the blind receive 
 their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf 
 hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to 
 them. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." — Matt. 
 xi : 2-6. 
 
 Here was Christ's profession of his faith; here is the his- 
 tory also of his examination, to see whether he were fit to 
 preach or not. It is remarkable that in both these instances 
 the most significant indication that he had, both of his de- 
 scent from God and of his being worthy of the Messiahship, 
 consisted in this simple exposition of the line of his preach- 
 ing, — that he took sides with the poor, neglected and lost. 
 He emphasized this, that his gospel was a gospel of mercy 
 to the poor; and that word "poor," in its most compre- 
 hensive sense, looked at historically, includes in it every- 
 thing that belongs to human misery, whether it be by reason 
 of sin or depravity, or by oppression or by any other cause. 
 This, then, is the disclosure by Christ himself of the genius 
 of Christianity. It is his declaration of what the Gospel 
 
 Si-vuAV Morning, June 17, 1883. Lesson : Luke xv. 
 
Poverty and the gospel. 295 
 
 meant. It is still further interpreted when you follow the 
 life of Christ, and see how exactly in his conduct he inter- 
 preted, or rather fortified the words of the declaration. His 
 earliest life was that of labor and poverty, and it was labor 
 and poverty in the poorest districts of Palestine. The dig- 
 nified, educated and aristocratic part of the nation dwelt in 
 Judea, and the Athens of Palestine was Jerusalem. There 
 Christ spent the least part of his life, and that in perpetual 
 discussions. But in Galilee the most of his miracles, cer- 
 tainly the earlier, were performed, and the most of his 
 discourses that are contained bodily in the gospels were 
 uttered. He, himself, carried out the declaration that the 
 Gospel was for the poor. The very miracles that Christ 
 performed were not philosophical enigmas as we look at 
 them. They were all of them miracles of mercy. They 
 were miracles to those who were suffering helplessly 
 where natural law and artificial means could not reach 
 them. In every case the miracles of Christ were mercies, 
 though we look at them from a spirit totally different from 
 that in which he performed them. In doing thus, Christ 
 represented the best spirit of the Old Testament. The 
 Jewish Scriptures teach mercy, the very genius of Jewish 
 institutions was that of mercy, and especially to the poor, 
 the weak, the helpless. The crimes against which the 
 prophets thundered their severest denunciations were 
 crimes wrought upon the helpless. It was the avarice of 
 the rich, it was the unbounded lust and cruelty of the strong, 
 that were denounced by them. They did not preach against 
 human nature in general. They did not preach against 
 total depravity and the original condition of mankind. 
 They singled out violations of the law in the magistrate, in 
 the king, in rich men, everywhere, and especially all those 
 wrongs committed by power either unconsciously or with 
 purpose, cruelty upon the helpless, the defenceless, the poor 
 and the needy. When Christ declared that this was his 
 ministry, he took his text from the Old Testament; he spoke 
 in its spirit. It was to preach the Gospel to the poor that 
 he was sent. He had come into the world to change the 
 condition of mankind. Beginning at the top? No; be- 
 
296 PLYMOUTH PULPll. 
 
 ginning at the bottom, and working up to the top from the 
 botlom. 
 
 Wlien this view of the Gospel enters into our understand- 
 ing and is fully compreiiended by us, how exactly it fits in 
 with the order of nature, and with the order of the unfold- 
 ing of human life and human society ! It takes sides with 
 the poor, and so the universal tendency of providence and 
 of history slowly unfolded, is, on the whole, going from low 
 to high, from worse to better, and from good toward the 
 perfect. When we consider, we see that man begins as a 
 helpless thing, a baby zero without a figure before it; and 
 every step in life adds a figure to it and gives it more and 
 more worth. On the whole, the law of unfolding through- 
 out the world is from lower to higher, and though when 
 applied to the population of the globe it is almost incon- 
 ceivable, still, with many back-sets and reactions, the ten- 
 dency of the universe is thus from lower to higher. Why ? 
 Let any man consider whether there is not of necessity a 
 benevolent intelligence somewhere, that is drawing up from 
 the crude toward the ripe, from the rough toward the 
 smooth, from bad to good, and from good through better 
 toward best. The tendency upward runs like a golden 
 thread through the history of the whole world, both in the 
 unfolding of human life and in the unfolding of the race 
 itself. Thus the tendency of nature is in accordance with 
 the tendency of the Gospel as declared by Jesus Christ, 
 namely, that it is a ministry of mercy to the needy. 
 
 The vast majority of mankind have been and yet are 
 poor. There are ten thousand men poor where tliere is one 
 man even comfortably provided for, body and soul, and 
 hundreds of thousands where there is one rich, taking the 
 whole world together. Tiie causes of poverty are worthy 
 a moment's consideration. Climate and soil have much to 
 do with it. Men whose winter lasts nine or ten months in 
 the year, and who have a summer of but one or two months, 
 as in the extreme north, how could they amass property, 
 how could they enlarge their conditions of peace and of 
 comfort? There are many parts of the earth where men 
 live on the borders of deserts, or in mountain fastnesses, 
 
POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. 297 
 
 or in arctic rigors, wiiere anything but poverty is impossi- 
 ble, and where it requires the whole thought, genius, in- 
 dustry and foresight of men, the year round, just to feed 
 themselves and to live. Bad government, where men are in- 
 secure in their property, has always been a very fertile source 
 of poverty. The great valley of Esdraelon in Northern 
 Palestine is one of the most fertile in the world, and yet 
 famine perpetually stalks on the heels of the population, 
 for if you sow and the harvest waves, forth come hordes of 
 Bedouins to reap your harvest for you, and leave you, after 
 all your labor, to poverty and Starvation. Wlien a man has 
 lost his harvests in that way two or three times, and is de- 
 prived of the reward of his labors, he never emerges from 
 poverty, but sinks into indolence, and that, by and by, 
 breeds apathetic misery. So where the government over- 
 taxes its subjects, as is the case in the Orient with, perhaps, 
 nearly all of the populations there to-day, it cuts the sinews 
 and destroys all the motives of industry; and without in- 
 dustry there can be neither virtue, morality, nor religion in 
 any long period. Wars breaking out, from whatever cause, 
 tend to absorb property, or to destroy property, or to pre- 
 vent the development of property. Yet, strange as it may 
 seem, the men who suffer from war are those whose passions 
 generally lead it on. The king may apply the spark, but 
 the combustion is with the common people. They furnish 
 the army, they themselves become destroyers, and the 
 ravages of war, in the history of the human family, have 
 destroyed more property than it is possible to enter into 
 the thoughts of men to conceive. 
 
 But besides these external reasons of poverty, there are 
 certain great primary and fundamental reasons. Ignorance 
 br^ejis poverty. What is property? It is the product of 
 intelligence, of skill, of thought applied to material sub- 
 staices. All property is raw material that has been shaped 
 to uses by intelligent skill. Where intelligence is low, the 
 power of producing property is low. It is the husbandman 
 who thinks, foresees, plans, and calls on all natural laws to 
 serve him, whose farm brings forth forty, fifty and a hun- 
 dred fold. The ignorant peasant grubs and groans and 
 
298 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 reaps but one handful where he has sown two. It is knowl- 
 edge that is the gold mine, for although every knowing 
 man may not be able to be a rich man, yet out of ignorance 
 riches do not spring anywhere. Ignorant men may be made 
 the factors of wealth when they are guided and governed 
 by superior intelligence. Slave labor produced gigantic 
 plantations and estates. The slave was always poor, but 
 his master was rich, because the master had the intelligence 
 and the knowledge, and the slave gave the work. All 
 through human society, men who represent simple ignor- 
 ance will be tools, and the n>en who represent intelligence 
 will be the master mechanics, the capitalists. All society 
 to-day is agitated with this question of justice as between 
 the laborer and the thinker. Now it is no use to kick 
 against the pricks. A man who can only work and not 
 think, is not the equal in any regard of the man who can 
 think, who can plan, who can combine, and who can live 
 not for to-day alone but for to-morrow, for next month, for 
 the next year, for ten years. This is the man whose volume 
 will just as surely weigh down that of the unthinking man, 
 as a ton will weigh down a pound in the scale. Avoirdu- 
 pois is moral, industrial, as well as material, in this respect; 
 and the primary, most usual, cause of unprosperity in in- 
 dustrial callings, therefore, lies in the want of intelligence, 
 — either in the slender endowment of the man, or, more 
 likely, the want of education in his ordinary and average 
 endowment. Any class of men who live for to-day and do 
 not care whether they know anything more than they did 
 yesterday or last year — those men may have a temporary 
 and transient prosperity, but they are the children of 
 poverty just as surely as the decrees of God stand. Ignor- 
 ance enslaves men among men; knowledge is the creator 
 of liberty and wealth. 
 
 As with undeveloped intelligence, so the appetites of men 
 and their passions are causes of poverty. Men who live 
 from the basilar faculties will invariably live in inferior 
 stations. The men who represent animalism are as a gen- 
 eral fact at the bottom. They may say it is government, 
 climate, soil, want of capital, they may say what they please. 
 
POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. 299 
 
 but it is the devil of laziness that is in them, or of passion, 
 that comes out in eating, in gluttony, in drinking and 
 drunkenness, in wastefulness on every side. I do not say 
 that the laboring classes in modern society are poor because 
 they are self-indulgent, but I say tliat it unquestionably 
 would be wise for all men who feel irritated tliat they are 
 so unprosperous, if they would take heed to the moral con- 
 dition in which they are living, to self-denial in their pas- 
 sions and appetites, and to increasing the amount of their 
 knowledge and fidelity. Although conditions are not the 
 sole causes, they are principal causes, of the poverty of 
 the working classes throughout the world. It is their mis- 
 fortune as well as their fault; but it is the reason why they 
 do not rise. Weakness does not rise; strength does. 
 
 All these causes indicate that the poor need moral and 
 intellectual culture. " I was sent to preach the Gospel to 
 the poor;" not to distribute provisions, not to relieve their 
 wants; that will be included, but that was not Christ's 
 primary idea. It was not to bring in a golden period of 
 fruitfulness when men would not be required to work. It 
 was not that men should lie down on their backs under the 
 trees, and that the boughs should bend over and drop the 
 ripe fruit into their mouths. No such conception of equality 
 and abundance entered into the mind of the Creator or of 
 Him who represented the Creator. To preach the Gospel 
 to the poor was to awaken the mind of the poor. It was to 
 teach the poor: "Take up your cross, deny yourselves, and 
 follow me. Restrain all those sinful appetites and passions 
 and hold them back by the power of knowledge and by the 
 power of conscience; grow, because you are the sons of 
 God, into the likeness of your Father." So he preached to 
 the poor. That was preaching prosperity to them. Tliat 
 was teaching them how to develop their outward condition 
 by developing their inward forces. To develop that in men 
 which should make them wiser, purer and stronger is the 
 aim of the Gospel. Men have supposed that the whole end 
 of the Gospel was reconciliation between God and men who 
 had fallen — though they were born sinners in their fathers 
 and grandfathers and ancestors; to reconcile them with 
 
300 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 God — as if an abstract disagreement had been the cause of 
 all this world's trouble ! But the plain facts of history are 
 simply that men, if they have not come from animals, have 
 yet dwelt in animalism, and that that which should raise 
 them out of it, was some such moral influence as should 
 give them the power of ascension into intelligence, into 
 virtue and into true godliness. That is what the Gospel 
 was sent for; good news, a new power that is kindled under 
 men, that will lift them from their low ignorances and deg- 
 radations and passions, and lift them into a higher realm; 
 a power that will take away all the poverty that needs to 
 be taken away. Men may be doctrinally depraved; they 
 are much more depraved practically. Men may need to be 
 brought into the knowledge of God speculatively; but 
 what they do need is to be brought into the knowledge of 
 themselves practically. I do not say that the Gospel has 
 nothing in it of this kind of spiritual knowledge; it is full 
 of it, but its aim and the reason why it should be preached 
 is to wake up in men the capacity for good things, indus- 
 tries, frugalities, purities, moralities, kindnesses one toward 
 anotiier; and when men are brought into that state they 
 are reconciled. When men are reconciled with the law of 
 creation and the law of their being, they are reconciled with 
 God. Whenever a man is reconciled with the law of knowl- 
 edge, he is reconciled with the God of knowledge, so far. 
 Whenever a man is reconciled with the law of purity he is 
 so far reconciled with a God of purity. When men liave 
 lifted themselves to that point that they recognize that they 
 are the children of God, the kingdom of God has begun 
 within them. 
 
 Although the spirit and practice of the Gospel will develop 
 charities, will develop physical comfort, will feed men, will 
 heal men, will provide for their physical needs, yet the 
 orimary and fundamental result of the Gospel is to de- 
 velop man himself, not merely to relieve his want on an 
 occasion. It does that as a matter of course, but that is 
 scarcely the first letter of the alphabet. " Seek ye first the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things 
 (food and rainjent) shall be added unto you." The way to 
 
POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. JtSr 
 
 relieve a man is to develop him so that he will need no re- 
 lief, or to raise higher and higher the character of the help 
 that he demands. 
 
 In testing Christianity, then, I remark that it is to be 
 tested not by creeds, but by conduct. The evidence of the 
 Gospel, the reality of the Gospel that is preached in schools 
 or churches, is to be found in the spirit that is developed 
 by it, not in the technical creeds that men have constructed 
 out of it. The biography of men who have died might be 
 hung up in their sepulchers, but you could not tell what 
 kind of a man this one had been just by reading his life 
 there — while he lay dead in dust before you. There are 
 thousands of churches that have a creed of Christianity 
 hung up in them, but the church itself is a sepulcher full 
 of dead men's bones; and indeed many churches in mod- 
 ern times are gnawing the bones of their ancestors, and 
 doing almost nothing else. 
 
 The Gospel, changed from a spirit of humanity into a 
 philosophical system of doctrine, is perverted. It is not 
 the Gospel. The great heresy in the world of religion is a 
 cold heart, not a luminous head. It is not that intelligence 
 is of no use in religion. By no means. Neither would we 
 wage a crusade against philosophical systems of moral 
 truth. But where the active sympathy and humanity of 
 loving hearts for living men, and for men in the ratio in 
 which they are low, is laid aside or diminished to a mini- 
 mum, and in its place is a well-elaborated philosophical 
 system of moral truths, hewn and jointed, the Gospel is 
 gone. If you go along the sea-shores, you will often find 
 the shells of fish — the fish dead and gone, the shells left. 
 And if you go along the shores of ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion, you will find multitudes of shells of the Gospel, out 
 of which the living substance has gone long ago. Or- 
 ganized Christianity, that is the institutions of Christianity, 
 have been in the first instance its power; and in the second 
 instance, its damnation. The moment that you substitute 
 the machinery of education for education itself, the mo- 
 ment you uild schools and do not educate, build colleges 
 that do not increase knowledge in the pupils, you have 
 
302 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 ■ sacrificed the aim for the instrument by which you were 
 to gain that aim. In churches, the moment it is more 
 important to maintain buildings, rituals, ministers, chan- 
 ters and all the paraphernalia of moral education than the 
 spirit of personal sympathy, the moment these are more 
 sacred to men than is the welfare of the population round 
 about, which they were set to take care of, that very mo- 
 ment Christ is dead in that place; that very moment re- 
 ligion in the midst of all its institutions has perished. I 
 am bound to say that in the history of the world, while 
 religious institutions have been valuable and have done a 
 great deal of good, they have perhaps done as much harm 
 as good. There is scarcely one single perversion of civil 
 government, there is scarcely one single persecution of 
 men, there is scarcely a single one of the great wars that 
 have depopulated the globe, thei-e is scarcely one great 
 heresy developed out of the tyranny of the church, that 
 has not been the fruit of institutional religion; while that 
 spirit of humanity which was to give the institution its 
 motive power has, to a certain extent, died out of it. 
 
 Secondly, churches organized upon elective affinities of 
 men are contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. We may 
 associate with men who are of like taste with ours. We 
 have that privilege. If men are knowledgable and intel- 
 lectual, there is no sin in their choosing for intimate com- 
 panions and associates men of like pursuits and like intel- 
 lectual qualities. That is right. If men are rich, there is 
 no reason why men who hold like property should not con- 
 fer with each other, and form interests and friendships to- 
 gether. If men are refined, if they have become aesthetic, 
 there is no reason why they should not associate in the 
 realm of beauty, artists with artists, nor why the great en- 
 joyers of beauty should not be in sympathy. But all these 
 are not to be allowed to do it at the price of abandoning 
 common humanity; you have no right to make your nest 
 in the boughs of knowledge, and let all the rest of the 
 world go as it will. You have no right to make your home 
 among those who are polished and exquisite and fastidious 
 in their tastes, whose garments are beauty, whose house is 
 
POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. 303 
 
 a temple of art, and all whose associations are of like kind-, 
 and neglect common humanity. You have no right to shut 
 yourself up in a limited company of those who are like you 
 in these directions, and let all the rest of men go without 
 sympathy and without care. It is a right thing for a man 
 to salute his neighbor who salutes him; but if you salute 
 those who salute you, says Christ, what thank have ye; do 
 not even the publicans so ? It is no sin that a man being 
 intellectual in his nature should like intellectual people, and 
 gratify that which is divine and God-like in him; but if, 
 because he likes intellectual people, he loses all interest in 
 ignorant people, it convicts him of depravity and of moral 
 perversion. When this is carried out to such an extent 
 that churches are organized upon sharp classification, upon 
 elective affinities, they not only cease to be Christian 
 churches, but they are heretical; not perhaps in doctrine, 
 but worse than tliat, heretical in heart. "Come to our 
 church, we liave magnificent preaching, we have grand 
 music there. Our minister is one of the most perfect gen- 
 tlemen you ever saw, and you won't be troubled by com- 
 mon folk; you need not be afraid that you will be mixed 
 up with vulgar people. They don't attend our church. 
 We have a select congregation, all our people are refined, 
 our worsliip is beautiful. We are a beautiful church inside 
 and out — and our steeple is twenty feet higher than any 
 other in the city." Such persons look with contempt on 
 Quaker meetings and on Methodist churches — once did, 
 at least; but now Methodist churches are as ornamental 
 as any otiier. But the moment that men begin to associate 
 together as Christian cliurches, one representing the purely 
 intellectual element, another representing the social and 
 fashionable element, another representing the aristocratic 
 element, and another the aesthetic element, that very mo- 
 ment they have separated themselves from mankind. They 
 only want the folk around them that they like, on a worse 
 than a mere worldly principle of interest, for the Gospel is 
 preacliing to the poor, and that does not mean staying at 
 home and sending a missionary to preach to the poor. 
 A sympathetic heart doubles the value of a liberal hand. 
 
304 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 To relieve external trouble is less than half. Personal sym- 
 pathy is sometimes better than material relief. A man is 
 often more disordered than liis affairs. When both hand 
 and heart go forth the relief is perfect. So great is the sum 
 of misery, especially in great cities, that organization be- 
 comes indispensable. Tlie danger of organized charity, to 
 be watched and avoided, is the substitution of mechanical 
 help for personal cordial kindness. 
 
 The parable of the Prodigal Son is full of meaning as to 
 the genius of Christianity. The elder brother represents 
 the proud and scornful spirit of the exclusive and self- 
 righteous cliurch: tlie fatlier represents the democracy of 
 Divine Love; the younger brother stands for the weak, 
 over-tempted and sinful. While he was yet a great way 
 off, — ragged and vulgar, from gross dissipation, and with- 
 out any recommendation except his misery — the father ran, 
 fell on his neck, and kissed liim. He received liim because 
 he was wretclied and miserable. No reconciliation was 
 needed on the father's part. The boy was the father's 
 child, and it was the heart that took him back, not the criti- 
 cal judgment. But the elder brother says, " Wiiat, tliat 
 dissipated scoundrel ! He has come back; you never gave 
 me even a kid, and him you have given a calf. I never did 
 anything wrong. I have stayed at home. I have been 
 regular. I have earned and kept property. I am respect- 
 able. What have I to do with that vulgar fellow ? I will 
 have nothing to do with him. I am your son, but he is not 
 my brother. I will not give him anything. I will have 
 notliing to do with him." Such is the spirit of a selfish 
 elictive affinity in churches. Men get together because 
 they think they are good, polished, and know so much; they 
 have everything just as they want it; and they let the rest 
 of the world go. But if a Christian man's heart is the pul- 
 pit of Christ; no other sermon is needed, for there is no 
 act of his life that is not a sermon glowing with love. 
 
 The fact is that a church needs poor men and wicked 
 men as much as it does pure men and virtuous men and 
 pious men. What man needs is familiarity with universal 
 human nature. He needs never to separate himself from 
 
POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. 305 
 
 men in daily life. It is not necessary that in our houses we 
 should bring pestilential diseases or pestilential examples, 
 but somehow we must hold on to men if they are wicked ; 
 somehow the circulation between the top and the bottom 
 must be carried on; somehow there must be an atoning 
 power in the lieart of every true believer of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who shall say, looking out and seeing that the 
 world is lost, and is living in sin and misery: "I belong to 
 it, and it belongs to me." When you take the loaf of soci- 
 ety and cut off the upper crust, slicing it horizontally, you 
 get an elect church. Yes, it is the peculiarly elect church 
 of selfishness. But you should cut tlie loaf of society from 
 the top down to the bottom and take in something of every- 
 thing. True, every church would be very much edified 
 and advantaged if it had in it scholarly men, knowledga- 
 ble men; but the church is strong in proportion as it has 
 in it something of everything from the very top to the very 
 bottom. 
 
 Now I do not disown creeds — provided they are my own ! 
 Well, you smile; but that is the way it has been since the 
 world began. No denomination believes in any creed ex- 
 cept its own. I do not say that men's knowledge on moral 
 subjects may not be formulated. I criticise the formulation 
 of beliefs from time to time, in this, that they are very 
 partial, that they are formed upon the knowledge of a past 
 age, and that that knowledge pei'ishes while higher and 
 nobler knowledge comes in; that there out to be higher and 
 belter forms; and that while their power is relatively small, 
 the power of the spirit of humanity is relatively great. 
 When I examine a church I do not so much care whether 
 its worship is to the one God or to the triune God. I do 
 not chiefly care for the catechism, nor for the confession of 
 faith, although they are both interesting. I do not even 
 look to see whether it is a synagogue or a Christian church 
 — I do not care whether it has a cross over the top of it or 
 is Quaker plain. I do not care whether it is Protestant, 
 Catholic, or anything else. Let me read the living book, the 
 living book ! What is the spirit of the people ? How do 
 they feel among each other ? How do they feel toward the 
 20 
 
3o6 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 community? What is their life and conduct in regard to 
 the great prime moral duty of man, " Love the Lord thy 
 God and thy neighbor as tliyself," whether he be obscure 
 or whether he be smiling in the very plenitude of wealth 
 and refinement? Have you a heart for humanity ? Have 
 you a soul that goes out for men? Are you Christ-like? 
 Will you spend yourself for the sake of elevating men who 
 need to be lifted up? That is orthodox. I do not care 
 what the creed is. If it has a good creed, that is all the 
 more felicitous; and if it has a bad creed, a good life cures 
 the bad creed. 
 
 One of the dangers of our civilization may be seen in the 
 light of these considerations. We are developing so much 
 strength founded on popular intelligence, and this intelli- 
 gence and the incitements to it are developing such large 
 property interests, that if the principle of elective affinity 
 shall sort men out and classify them, we are steering to the 
 not very remote danger of the disintegration of human so- 
 ciety. I can tell you that the classes of men who by their 
 knowledge, refinement, and wealth think they are justified 
 in separating themselves, and in making a great void be- 
 tween them and the myriads of men below them, are 
 courting their own destruction. I look with very great in- 
 terest on the process of change going on in Great Britain, 
 where the top of society had all the "blood;" but the circula- 
 tion is growing larger and larger, and aciiange is gradually 
 taking place in their institutions. The old nobility of Great 
 Britain is the lordliest of aristocracies existing in the world. 
 Happily, on the whole a very noble class of men occupy 
 the high positions; but the spirit of suffrage, this angel of 
 God that so many hate, is coming in on them; and when 
 every man in Great Britain can vote, no matter whether he 
 is poor or rich, whether he has knowledge or no knowledge, 
 there must be a very great change. Before the great day 
 of the Lord shall come the valleys are to go up and the 
 mountains are to come down, and the mountains have 
 started already in Great Britain and must come down. 
 Tliere may be an aristocracy in- any nation, that is to say 
 there may be "best men;" there ought to be an aristoc- 
 
POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. 307 
 
 racy in every community, that is, an aristocracy of men 
 who speak the truth, who are just, who are intelligent: but 
 that aristocracy will be like a wave of the sea; it has to be 
 i-econstituted in every generation, and the men who are the 
 best in the State become the aristocracy of that State. But 
 where rank is hereditary, if political suffrage becomes free 
 and universal, aristocracy cannot live. The spirit of the 
 Gospel is democratic. The tendency of the Gospel is level- 
 ing, leveling up — not down. It is carrying the poor and 
 the multitude onward and upward. It is said that demo- 
 cracies have no great men, no heroic men. AVhy is it so? 
 When you raise the average of intelligence and power in 
 the community it is very hard to be a great man. That is 
 to say, when the great mass of citizens are only ankle high, 
 when among the Lilliputians a Brobdingnagian walks, he is 
 a great man. But when the Lilliputians grow until they 
 get up to ills shoulder, he is not so great a man as he was 
 by the whole length of his body. So, make the common 
 people grow, and there is nobody tall enough to be much 
 higher. When you cross the continent on the Union Pa- 
 cific Railway and reach the Rocky Mountains, you do not 
 know it. You have been running up a grade that seemed 
 almost a valley. It simply was because the grade was so 
 easy on this side that when you reached the top of the 
 mountains they did not seem any higher than the plains 
 below. But wlien you begin to descend on the other side, 
 and plunge down the gorges and canons, the mountains 
 seem very high from those low points. The general 
 tendency of Christian democratic institutions is to raise the 
 average of mankind, and as the average goes up it becomes 
 harder and harder for single men to stand as much above 
 the level of their fellow-men as they did formerly. When 
 you look back to history — to the history of the formation 
 of our constitution — it seems as if we have no such great 
 men as they had in those days. It is true. We had great 
 men then because the majority were not great men; but 
 our schools, and our colleges, and our churches have raised 
 the level of the average intelligence of the common people, 
 and the consequence is that when we look round for our 
 
3o8 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 great men ! The people are great, but the individual 
 
 men are not great; would to God they were a little greater ! 
 
 The separation of men in society is bad in every sense, — 
 bad in commerce, bad in social relationships, bad in gov- 
 ernment: there ought to be a constant stream going up 
 and a refluent stream going down among men; a circula- 
 tion, so that all the way through the blood that circulates 
 would find every member and every part. And as it is as 
 bad to stop this circulation in all these other relations, it is 
 especially bad to stop it in the church. The church ought 
 to be a fountain of good influence. Where the church is 
 aristocratic, the Gospel is made aristocratic, and where only 
 the more favored men get the best positions and the best 
 things, it is worse than anything else; and what you call a 
 great and prosperous church, a great fashionable church, a 
 church where everybody is like everybody else on account 
 of exterior prosperity and interior advantages is the con- 
 summation of evil. Men think not. They fan themselves, 
 they plume themselves, they flatter themselves, and praise 
 themselves, but they will be condemned. It is unchristian, 
 unsocial selfishness organized. It is Christ crucified. It is 
 the Gospel blown out and expunged. It is one of the worst 
 forms possible in which religious institutions can exhibit 
 themselves, as an aristocracy of goodness that separates 
 itself from a democracy of inferiority. 
 
 Intelligence and virtue are remedies for poverty. Schools 
 and churches are good instruments; they are the fountains 
 out of which go knowledge and virtue, and there is a reason 
 in political economy why churches and schools should be 
 everywhere multiplied. No class of people in the world 
 are so much interested as the poor in the development 
 of these institutions, provided they represent the genius 
 of the Gospel, compassion for the poor. There is no class 
 so much interested in them as the poor, as the day laborer, 
 as, what are called among us, the common people. The 
 remarkable people of this world are useful in their way, but 
 the common people after all represent the nation^ the age 
 and the civilization. Go into any town or city: do not ask 
 who lives in that splendid house; do not say. This is a fine 
 
POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. 309 
 
 town, here are streets of houses with gardens and yards, 
 and everything that is beautiful the whole way through. 
 Go into the lanes, go into the back streets, go where the 
 mechanic lives; go where the day-laborer lives. See what 
 is the condition of the streets there. See what they do with 
 tlie poor, with the helpless and the mean. If the top of 
 society bends perpetually over the bottom, with tenderness, 
 if the rich and strong are the best friends of the poor and 
 needy, that is a civilized and a Christian community; but 
 if the rich and the wise are the cream and the great bulk 
 of the population skim-milk, that is not a prosperous 
 community. 
 
 There is a great deal of irreligion in men, there is a great 
 deal of wickedness and depravity in men, but there are times 
 when it is true that the church is more dissipated than the 
 dissipated classes of the community. If there is one thing 
 that stood out more strongly than any other in the ministry 
 of our Lord it is the severity with which he treated the ex- 
 clusiveness of men with knowledge, position, and a certain 
 sort of religion, a religion of particularity and carefulness; 
 if there is one class of the community against which he 
 hurled his thunderbolts without mercy and predicted woes, 
 it was the scribes, Pharisees, scholars and priests of the 
 temples. He told them in so many words: ''The publican 
 and the harlot will enter the kingdom of God before you." 
 The worst dissipation in this world is the dry-rot of morality 
 and of the so-called piety that separates men of prosperity 
 and of power from the poor and ignoble. They are our 
 wards. When God looks out of heaven, he looks at the 
 bottom of things first and at the top last; and therefore he 
 says: He that will be chief among you, let him become 
 your slave. He that would stand highest, let him be the 
 man who has gone down to the very foundation of human 
 life and society, in order to lift men up. As God gave him- 
 self for the salvation of the world, so the follower of Christ 
 is to give his life-power for the salvation of the inferior and 
 the lowest throughout the whole world. 
 
 One word more. A tendency of our times is towards in- 
 fidelity among laboring men, particularly among mechanics. 
 
310 PLYMOUTH PULPJT. 
 
 In other words, the first result of a more intelligent educa- 
 tion and a more prosperous condition of things among the 
 laboring classes is to repudiate churches. Of course there 
 are a good many exceptions, and in some communities this 
 will apply much less than in other parts. I have noticed 
 that the workingmen who come from Great Britain to this 
 side are, to a very large extent, infidel. I notice this too in 
 our socialistic movements, and in all the questions of politi- 
 cal economy. The laboring classes wlio think are tending 
 to think themselves away from the house of God, from 
 Sunday, and are substituting arrangements of their own. 
 It is fatal. The hope of the poor and the laboring man lies 
 in the genius of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and if they will 
 throw away the church then let them save the Bible. Tlie 
 New Testament is the cradle of liberty, regulated and 
 therefore permanent. All aspirations after liberty in anti- 
 quity came to an end. It was not until there was the spirit 
 of God thus brooding humanity, that there began to be a 
 possibility of republicanism and democracy in any form. 
 The hope of the poor and the laboring man is in that Gospel 
 in which it is said: "I was sent to preach to the poor," that 
 Gospel about which, when John sent for the credentials of 
 the preacher, it was said: " Go tell him what you see — the 
 deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the sick 
 are healed, the dead are raised " — and the climax was even 
 beyond that — ''and the poor have the Gospel preached to 
 them." Yet out of that has come those very institutions 
 that have developed in men ambitions and lusts. Of all the 
 classes in the community they most need religion and the 
 spirit of Christ who are poor and needy, who are weak, who 
 are thrust low and trodden under foot. And so we see that 
 on the one side men are throwing away that which is their 
 very shield, and are deriding that very ark that is to carry 
 them over the flood, and are throwing overboard doctor and 
 medicine, while keeping the disease. And on the other, 
 that very class who are in peril from infidelity, are the men 
 who have accumulated power and property, using them only 
 for their own ambitions, for their own lusts and vain de- 
 sires, and are destroying the conservative influence in the 
 
POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL. 311 
 
 community, the influence that is to give permanence to them 
 and to their households. I am not a socialist. I do not 
 preach -riot. I do not preach the destruction of property. 
 I regard property as one of the sacred things. The real 
 property established by a man's own intelligence and labor 
 is the crystallized man himself. It is the fruit of what his 
 life-work has done, and not in vain society makes crime 
 against it amongst the most punishable. But nevertheless, 
 I warn these men in a country like ours, where every man 
 votes, whether he came from Hungary or from Russia, or 
 from Germany, or from France or Italy, or Spain or Portu- 
 gal, or from the Orient, — from Japan and China, — because 
 they too are going to vote ! On the Niagara River logs 
 come floating down and strike an island and there they 
 lodge and accumulate for a little while, and won't go over. 
 But the rains come, the snows melt, the river rises and the 
 logs are lifted up and down, and they go swinging over the 
 falls. The stream of suffrage of free men having all the 
 privileges of the State, is this great stream. The figure is 
 defective in this, that the log goes over the Niagara Falls, 
 but that is not the way the country is going or will go. 
 There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of 
 our God. There is a certain river of political life, and every- 
 thing has to go into it first or last, and if, in days to come, 
 a man separates himself from his fellows without sympathy, 
 if his wealth and power make poverty feel itself more poor 
 and men's misery more miserable, and set against him the 
 whole stream of popular feeling, that man is in danger. 
 He may not know who dynamites him, but there is danger; 
 and let him take heed who is in peril. There is nothing 
 easier in the world than for rich men to ingratiate them- 
 selves with the whole community in which they live, and so 
 secure themselves. It is not selfishness that will do it; it is 
 not by increasing the load of misfortune, it is not by wasting 
 substance in riotous living upon appetites and passions. It 
 is by recognizing that every man is a brother. It is by recog- 
 nizing the essential spirit of the Gospel, " Love thy neigh- 
 bor as thyself." It is by using some of their vast power 
 
312 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 and riches so as to diffuse joy in every section of the 
 community. 
 
 Here then I close this discourse. How much it unrolls! 
 How very simple it is ! It is the whole Gospel. When you 
 make an application of it to all the phases of organization 
 and classification of human interests and developments, it 
 seems as though it were as big as the universe. Yet when 
 you condense it, it all comes back to the one simple creed: 
 "Thou Shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy lieart, and 
 thy neighbor as thyself." Who is my neighbor? A certain 
 man went down to Jericho, and so on. That tells you who 
 your neighbor is. Whosoever has been attacked by rob- 
 bers, has been beaten, has been thrown down — by liquor, by 
 gambling, or by any form of wickedness; whosoever has 
 been cast into distress, and you are called on to raise him 
 up — that is your neighbor. Love your neighbor as your- 
 self. That is the Gospel. 
 
X. 
 
 GOD IN THE WORLD. 
 
 'Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." — Matt, vi : lo. 
 
 This is one of the petitions in the Lord's prayer. That 
 prayer has in it, brief as it is, the germs of all prayer. It 
 recognizes paternity; not a despot afar off, not a fate, but 
 our father, heavenly Father. Then comes reverence: " Hal- 
 lowed be thy name;" the outflowing of it from every indi- 
 vidual heart may be just as wide and various as the riches 
 or the exigencies of every heart require. "Thy kingdom 
 come;" that is, the outgoing of benevolent desire for the 
 uuiversality of God's government, inclining rather, I think, 
 to our conception of the benevolent development on earth 
 of the abounding wisdom and goodness of God as repre- 
 sented in his "kingdom." "Thy will be done;" that is, the 
 sovereignty of our Father; our allegiance, fidelity, loyalty, 
 together with a desire that it may be experienced by every- 
 one. Thus far is communion; it is the soul's conversation 
 with God upon the highest themes that can be brought be- 
 fore the human mind; God, his relation to myself; the laws 
 of his administration, the identification of ourselves with 
 them. Then come more particularly the petitions. "Give 
 us this day our daily bread." That is enough; support, 
 maintenance, everything that continues life, the germ of 
 all supplication for outward want. Then, " Forgive us our 
 debts as we forgive our debtors;" implorina; pardon from 
 a consciousness of sin; the germ of all confession and of 
 
 Sunday Morning, June 3, 1883. Lesson: 3 Peter i. 
 
314 PLYMOUTH PULFIT. 
 
 all imploration for forgiveness. '• Lead us not into tempta- 
 tion, but deliver us from evil;" the putting of one's self 
 into the guidance of divine providence in all the perils and 
 dangers of life. 
 
 This is the sum of the prayer, and it is also the summation 
 of all prayer; for almost every kind of prayer may be 
 traced back to one or another of these great elements. 
 
 I have selected only one for our meditation this morning, 
 namely — " Thy will be done." 
 
 Acquiescence in the divine will is the necessary result of 
 loving allegiance. Here it is not only an implied acquies- 
 cence on our own part, but it is such sympathy with and 
 confidence in the will of God as to make us desire that it 
 may be universally prevalent; that the law of God may 
 have^ no dissent among men, but that every one, all men, 
 may desire that the will of the Lord shall prevail. How is 
 the will of God made known to men ? Wliat is God's will? 
 The will of God is something more than what God is him- 
 self. It is his commands, it is his decrees; and the will of 
 God is made known to mankind in the first place through 
 the organic world, the material world. This is not the 
 doctrine of pantheism, — that the whole material universe is 
 the divine body, and that the laws of the universe are, for 
 substance, the mind of God. The laws of the material 
 universe are God's decrees, but he exists separate from and 
 outside and above the material universe. Nevertheless 
 they represent the mind and will of God. The. evolution 
 of society brings forth also the rule of life, or makes mani- 
 fest the will of God. The great material globe is one pro- 
 vince; then, human society and the results of its universal 
 experience become divine expressions; they are the evolu- 
 tion of the purposes of God, and of his will or command. 
 It is not that everything that happens in society is due to 
 it — but of this we shall speak more discriminatingly in a 
 moment. Then, besides these methods, there is the revela- 
 tion of record, or the making known to men with authority 
 in the sacred Scriptures the divine purpose, wish, and com- 
 mand. 
 
 So that we have the organic material world, the world of 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 315 
 
 nan society and experience, and the world of the sacred 
 ord; these revealing and authenticating to men what are 
 
 divine decrees, and what is his will, in so far as men 
 I this world are concerned. We are not to affirm that 
 re are other worlds with inhabitants; neither are we to 
 ly it; and if there be, then we are not necessarily to sup- 
 ie that they are just like us either individually or collec- 
 ;ly; or that there is no other revelation of the mind of 
 d and of his purposes in the universe than that which is 
 de known to us. So far as we are concerned, who utter 
 
 Lord's prayer, we must look upon the will of God only 
 it is made known to us in this world and its history, 
 jook for a moment, then, at each of these departments; 
 
 revelation in the natural world, the revelation in soci- 
 , and the revelation in the word of God. 
 The great natural laws of the world are decrees of God. 
 n are absolutely subject to them, and they cannot escape 
 m them. These decrees are at once their body-guard 
 1 defense, or their judgments, sentences, and punish- 
 nt. No man can with impunity transgress natural law, 
 ;n although there is a sliding-scale by which any natural 
 r adapts itself to the constitution of individuals, so that 
 t which in a slenderly-made man would be a violation of 
 r, in a stronger and more robust man is not a violation, 
 at is, though great natural laws take hold of men's bodies 
 :h a kind of sliding-scale, adapted to their nature and 
 ucture, yet substantially, all laws are universal, take 
 d of every man, and are bound to be obeyed. They are 
 ; the laws of Nature only; they are just as much the laws 
 God as were the sentences issued from Mount Sinai. A 
 ;ural law is a moral law. In their long operation and 
 their full effects upon the individual and upon human 
 iety, natural physical laws are moral laws; that is, they 
 rk out moral results as well as material and physical re- 
 ts. In one way they are imperious and irresistible over 
 men, but in another way they are the very means of lib- 
 y, of power, and of divinity in men. Whoever resists 
 :m is crushed; whoever accepts them is ennobled and 
 powered. In many earthly governments the man who 
 
3i6 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 resists power is crushed, but if he accepts it he is demoral- 
 ized; he can only go on with a tyrant by an unmanly sub- 
 mission: but under the great decrees and laws of God as 
 developed in the material universe, he who submits him- 
 self to them grows in strength, in wisdom, in power, in 
 safety, and in dignity. The knowledge which science gives 
 to mankind is wholesome, because the revelation of the way 
 in which God thinks and acts and conducts the material 
 creation js the making known of his will. Without that 
 knowledge, which is now growing broader and clearer, the 
 world would be given up to fantasies, imaginations, and 
 superstitions. One of the true elements of science, there- 
 fore, is to clear the ground of fate, and luck, and all sorts 
 of spirits, good or bad, or neither; to displace mere fantasy 
 by the introduction of the acknowledged presence and will 
 of God in the conduct of tiiat which concerns every man 
 and every creature born upon this globe. 
 
 God's will is manifest next in the final and fixed results 
 of life and human society. There is a popular impression, 
 not unnatural, but certainly very narrow, that the revela- 
 tion of God's will by his own voice would be a more sure 
 testimony to the divine will than the revelation of God 
 through human experience. Now, "Thou shalt not steal," 
 is the voice of autiiority, but men had found it out before 
 it was uttered from Sinai. It was legislated by human ex- 
 perience first, and then the governor signed it afterwards 
 to make it autlioritative and universal. The ten command- 
 ments did not spring immediately from the thought and 
 volition of tlie Divine, but every one was the fruit of fore- 
 going ages of trial and experiment; and men had come, 
 substantially, the best men and the wisest, to a common 
 version of these results; and then they were gathered up 
 . and made authentic under dramatic circumstances that 
 would impress the mind and the imagination of future days 
 and future generations. The unfolding of human life — its 
 negatives, or finding out what things are not proper; its 
 aflRrmatives or finding out what things are indispensable — 
 this is one of the ways in which God from the everlasting 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 317 
 
 Sinai is making known to mankind his will — what is right, 
 wliat is not right. 
 
 How to live peaceably and profitably together is the 
 problem of this world. There is also a perspective beyond 
 tliat, how to live for the world that supersedes this and 
 comes after; but in this world, while men are here, the 
 grand business of life is to learn the art of living profitably 
 and happily together. All the commandments of God that 
 respect human voluntary conduct maybe said to be aiming 
 at tliat. It is an experiment and always has been an ex- 
 periment. Men have found that selfishness did not enable 
 men to live wisely and happily; that a certain amount of 
 benevolence was indispensable. The boundary between the 
 one and the other, where care for one's self ended, and care 
 for others began to come in, has been a mutable line; and 
 as men have unfolded and grown larger, so the power of a 
 true benevolence has been more and more augmented. In 
 the instincts of the animal kingdom there is the kindness 
 shown to offspring, but in a very limited degree and never 
 beyond that. In the human family, the fountain and origin 
 of a true disinterested benevolence is the inspiration of 
 parental love; but that same love works not only in the indi- 
 vidual family, but gradually in those that are connected 
 with it by blood, and by neighborhood, and little by little 
 in the tribe, and finally it takes in the nation. Christianity 
 has thrown its illumination upon it until it begins to take 
 in all who live upon the earth, and to call the wliole human 
 family, of every race and nation, one household before God. 
 How to live so that, while a man discharges his duty to 
 himself and his immediate dependents, he shall also be able 
 to live with all his fellow-men in the full exercise of reason, 
 of moral sense, of physical power, in all the fruitful develop- 
 ments of interest, business connections, governments; how 
 a man shall be enabled to live peaceably with his fellow- 
 men, and profitably, so as to get and give like benefit — that 
 is the great end of human life. A man who does not know 
 how to live here, probably will not know how to live here- 
 after, until after a probationary period, at any rate; and a 
 man who knows how to live here so that his mind is kept 
 
3i8 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 in harmony and benevolence with all his fellow-men, seeking 
 their interest, their good, their peace, their comfort, their 
 ennoblement, has the very training by which a man knows 
 how to worsliip God and to dwell with the pure hereafter. 
 All governments have been schools to teach men how to 
 live peaceably together. They liave been perverted and 
 have become despotic, but the plea upon which even despotic 
 governments stand is, that they are necessary for tlie gen- 
 eral good, that the billowing passions of men working up 
 would destroy society, and that unless tlie moral feelings 
 are so developed that they can be governed through the 
 reason, there must be arbitrary and absolute power. 
 
 The art of war itself, as a hand of government, is but 
 another mode of revealing what are the divine laws neces- 
 sary for the living together of men. All arts, all architec- 
 ture, all commerce, all manufacturing, all enlargements of 
 life by riches, the whole scope of knowledge, are only the 
 serial development of the law of God, as it respects the har- 
 monization of the whole human family. These things are 
 slowly learned, easily forgotten, reviving again, coming and 
 going; for the world has never advanced in straight lines, 
 but by spiral— going back on itself as it were, but still ad- 
 vancing on the whole. 
 
 The whole range of history, too, is the range of the un- 
 folding will of God — the unfolding of God, not by sending 
 down manuscripts saying abstract truths to men, but by in- 
 spiring the whole human race; opening them, enlarging 
 them, complicating their relations, teaching them how to 
 live together, marking their mistakes, authenticating their 
 accuracies and their rectitudes, finally producing a convic- 
 tion in the minds of ages and nations that certain great 
 lines are safe lines of conduct, that certain great qualities 
 are safe qualities, that truth is a universal law of God, that 
 fidelity is a divine law and not a mere human felicity, that 
 all those methods are God's which profit a man physically, 
 profit him socially, profit him in his natural relations. 
 Marking the way of growing strength and gi'owing peace, 
 these are every one of tliem indications of the divine will, 
 just as much as if they had been proclaimed amidst thunder 
 
GOV IN THE WORLD. 319 
 
 and lightning, and spoken by the voice of God from Mount 
 Sinai. The final results of human experience are divine 
 volitions — the manifestation of God's thought and God's 
 will among men. Wliatever, everywhere and always, har- 
 monizes man with his fellow-men, develops his forces, and 
 secures order, happiness and growth, is the divine will. I 
 might call all the angels to the fore-front of heaven, and 
 God himself might advance in all the splendor of unimagin- 
 able dramatic elements of power and glory; and he might 
 say: "Truth and honesty are my decree and are eternal:" 
 but it would not be a bit truer than if a man should say it. 
 It might be more majestic. It might have more power by 
 which to propagate itself in men's thought and imagination, 
 but in so far as it is a revelation of tlie will of God, it would 
 but affirm tiiat which has been found out by men and put 
 into practice, authenticated by practice so wide as to include 
 specimens of universal human nature, and continuous 
 enough to show under all governments, changes and insti- 
 tutions, that it is adapted universally, and that it is a reve- 
 lation of the will of God. It becomes sacred. 
 
 Social laws, therefore, that promote universal good are 
 divine laws, as divine as any that are mentioned in the word 
 of God, as divine as any that were authenticated by mira- 
 cles. Men run a sharp distinction between human laws and 
 divine, but human laws are nothing less than the transla- 
 tion of divine laws, and their special application to the exi- 
 gencies of human life. No human law exists or can exist 
 any great length of time that has not really received its vital 
 element from the foregoing law or will or mind of God 
 himself. How men shall live well, how men shall be built 
 up, was not a question of human invention. The knowledge 
 how men shall get along with each other has never been 
 the result of any human will or wisdom foregoing the occa- 
 sion itself. Men have always got to suffer first before they 
 can know the proper course. They find out something that 
 is wrong; and generally m.en find out what is not right be- 
 fore they find out what is. When a man ate poisonous 
 roots, and had all the fiends loose in his stomach, that taught 
 him that such roots were not wholesome, and therefore he 
 
320 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 avoided them. When an esculent root was discovered that 
 was palatable and nourishing, he thus found out another 
 thing. He did not make one or the other, or their relations 
 to mankind, but he found out what the relations were, of 
 things wholesome and not wholesome. Soon that informa- 
 tion enlarged and spread, and it became knowledge of 
 natural law in the vegetable kingdom. When men tried to 
 live together, and one man bruised the other, by pride, and 
 the other sought to compensate himself by operating 
 through selfishness in the same way, they very soon found 
 that tliat would not work, that there was perpetual feud 
 and uneasiness. Looking at i: in tlie long-run, we see that 
 thousands of years ago it was found out that honesty was 
 the best policy, that truth promoted human happiness better 
 than falsities and lies. In the earlier stage of the progress 
 of the human family, I suppose that cunning was the only 
 wisdom. They had no experience. You will find that re- 
 corded in a most emphatic manner in the Homeric history 
 of the gods. They were glorious beings that knew how to 
 cheat each other. Cunning at that early stage was the sign 
 of manhood. Ulysses, wandering all over the world, trick- 
 ing everybody and outwitting everybody, was the hero. 
 But the world after a little while began to slide off from 
 that. It was found that men were greatest who were not 
 cunning, and that wisdom was better than cunning, for 
 wisdom is cunning converted, going into a higher sphere. 
 But all these things had to be learned. There was no book, 
 before the human race was on the earth, that told them 
 anything. The world itself was the only book they could 
 read, and human life and human experience were the school- 
 masters, educating slowly. But time is vast if not endless, 
 and little by little knowledge unfolded itself among men, 
 as of their relation to matter, as of their relation to each 
 other. Through infinite mistakes, through infinite suffer- 
 ings, through all manner of dwarfing influences, mankind 
 still on the whole inspired by that spirit of aspiration and 
 development, the yeast of the ages, could not withhold 
 themselves from that force that was perpetually lifting 
 them up and on, pushing them forward; and they found out 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 321 
 
 as they went on, that the results of human experience as 
 they are made known in social customs, in civil law, in great 
 commercial elements, are the laws of God. There are no 
 i^ore sacred laws in the sanctuary than in the market, in 
 the neighborhood, and in custom tliroughout society. I do 
 not by tlius reasoning degrade the laws of God, bringing 
 them down to an equality with social custom. I elevate 
 the universally accepted line of customs, and lift them up 
 to the dignity and the imperious universality of divine pur- 
 poses and divine laws. 
 
 God has ordained the church and ministers and bishops 
 and deacons. Yes, he did. He did not call them by such 
 names, nor did he put them out of relation with the uni- 
 versal course of affairs. Whenever a body of men seek 
 moral purity, tliey are an assembly that seek moral purity; 
 and if such an assembly as that started down from the 
 Apostles it was apostolic. Just so far as pure men sought 
 higher purity, and organized themselves with all manner 
 of educating influences for that sake, so far they were as- 
 semblies, or churches, although the word church was not 
 known in the apostolic age. No matter what tiie instru- 
 ments are; men may baptize or refuse baptism; men may 
 partake of the Lord's supper or not; men may have bishops, 
 or only pastors and deacons, or be witliout all of them; 
 they may have a visible economy, and a legal apparatus: 
 or they may be without, — but all gatherings of men who 
 are united together for better living are churches of God, 
 coming under every promise and command of the New 
 Testament; just as much so as though a voice every single 
 week spoke out and said in the sanctuary: "You are the 
 true church of the Lord Jesus Christ." Many churches 
 calling themselves Christian have nothing in them. Though 
 they have stood in a certain historic line, they were lan- 
 terns without any candles in them. But on the other hand 
 every great living body of men of any denomination, of all 
 denominations, where the purpose is to worship God and 
 to live in loving harmony with their fellow-men, and where 
 they seek this — they are a church, they are Christian. 
 They are built upon the faith of the prophets, and of the 
 
 21 
 
322 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 apostles, and upon the will of God; and they stand on the 
 great natural laws of the universe. Men say that the Con- 
 gregational church is nothing but an unorganized rabble. If 
 outward organization is meant, that is to say, the whole 
 apparatus of laws and precedents put together to tell men 
 what to think, how to believe, what to do at four o'clock, 
 at six o'clock, at nine o'clock and twelve; reducing the 
 volition of man, his freedom and expansion down to me- 
 chanical measures, and times and seasons — if that be meint, 
 then certainly a Congregational church is not a clmrch. 
 But it may be a body of men organized on the principles 
 that are within, and not on the mechanical external princi- 
 ples of life. They are just as solidly organized as the others; 
 only the machinery is insideof them and notoutside of ihem. 
 "But there are many things," it is frequently said, "that 
 have come down to us from the days of the apostles: as, 
 for instance, the ordination of men; tlie laying of hands upon 
 their head ; and these things are sacred." Nothing is sacred 
 because it has "come down." It must have an intrinsic 
 sacredness in it, which it brings down with itself; that is 
 the reason in it: and if there is no reason in a thinsf itself, 
 none can be given it by the length of time for which it has 
 been continued. If a thing promotes men's welfare, it is 
 right; but if not, it is not obligatory. "But then the 
 apostles said so and so." Yes, they did a great many things 
 we do not do now ; and nowhere is there any command 
 that says that we are obliged to follow the primitive ex- 
 ample except in regard to moral things. The whole ap- 
 paratus of external life in the church is like the apparatus 
 of society. It is said: " Honor the king," but tiie very men 
 who demand we shall go exactly as the apostles said, jump 
 over that very nimbly when they live in a democratic coun- 
 try like ours. True apostolicity is of the heart and dispo- 
 sition in God's people. There is no authority in Scripture, 
 some men say, for great central organizations like Sunday- 
 schools. Such narrow men think that for anything that 
 is ordered in Scripture there is an authority, but I never 
 heard that they run vehemently after circumcision, nor 
 after offerings and altars or anything of that kind, which 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 323 
 
 certainly are authorized there. In the ordinary run of things 
 they seem to believe that there is a sanctity in something 
 tliat had a primitive example, which does not belong to 
 anything found out in modern times to be useful. Now, 
 anything that is found in the church or out of the church 
 to promote the welfare of men, has the signet of God stamp- 
 ing it as right, and making it divine. The common schools 
 are divine. It should be enough that experience proves 
 the benefit of any custom, usage, or ordinance. News- 
 papers are divine (though they do not always carry their 
 divinity on the outside of them). Taking them compre- 
 hensively, they are diffusers of light and knowledge. They 
 are the wings that carry human experience, order and law 
 all over the community. Taking them comprehensively, 
 they are so beneficial that if they were dropped, society 
 would fall back a thousand years. 
 
 A special authentication is not needed for anything that 
 promotes the welfare of men. As the human race ascends, 
 and the faculties of men are developing newer and newer 
 wants, and higher and higher elements, so new things that 
 are divine become discoverable,— things that a thousand 
 years ago would have been of no use to man if known. In 
 the growth of mankind we have come to such a stage that 
 things which are absolutely new may be divine laws, not- 
 withstanding: that is to say, they are found bv experience 
 to promote the welfare of individual life, of social life, and 
 of national life. Whatever does good to man has the pre- 
 sumption in it that it is the divine will; and whenever any- 
 thing that does good to man, on being tried among all 
 nations and under all conditions in which men live together, 
 is found to prove everywhere and always beneficial, you 
 want no thunder on Sinai to prove that that is the command 
 of God. 
 
 In the same way, the same reasoning brings us to see the 
 dignity and divinity of a thousand little things that are 
 called etiquette — sometimes the politeness of life. There 
 are thousands of observances that smooth away the rough- 
 ness of life. Men say they are courtesies; they are not duties 
 but courtesies. Anything, however, that tends to make 
 
324 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 men finer, that tends to rub away the causes of friction, 
 that oils the joints of human intercourse in society, and 
 promotes the sum of universal happiness — there is in that 
 the indication of God's having made it law and command- 
 ment. There are a great many customs that may be ob- 
 served, or not observed, as the case may be. I do not 
 suppose that when men salute each other with a wave of 
 the hand, it is in violation of the old custom of lifting your 
 hat as a token of reverence, as a token of superiority. The 
 mode in which you salute your brethren may be infinitely 
 varied, but salutation, the act of recognition, and the ex- 
 pression of kindness, if only among the minor laws, is 
 nevertheless a divine law. Men are brought up oftentimes 
 to say; " O, politeness, all that sort of thing is all very well 
 for folks who are rich, but we are plain folk; we are bluff 
 men, and may sometimes seem, and probably are, a little 
 rough; but what then?" What then? That is the differ- 
 ence, you know, between a thistle and a flower. The this- 
 tle thrown into a man's bed might argue with him in just 
 the same way. " O, you have a dainty skin; I admit that 
 I am a little rougher than you are, but that doesn't make 
 much difference;" yet it does make considerable difference. 
 One man may be a rasp or a file, and another man may be 
 a smoothing-iron, and it makes a considerable difference. 
 Whatever tends to degrade men, to make men more gloomy, 
 to waken in them their passions, is against the will of God; 
 and whatever, on the other hand, tends to allay their irrita- 
 tion, to develop good-nature and good-humor, to bring to 
 the surface the more favorable elements in human society, 
 — is all in accordance with the commands that lie deep as 
 creation itself, with the law of benevolence and the will of 
 God. Whatever shall succeed in making life easier and 
 pleasanter, and the intercourse of men more auspicious, is 
 of divine authority, though never organized into legislative 
 form among men, nor put into any declaratory form even 
 in philosophy. After all, the movement of society, of the 
 particles, easily upon each other, is one of the fruits of the 
 universal civilization carried on through numberless ages, 
 and these things should be taught to the young as matters 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 325 
 
 of duty, as obedience to the great laws of God, as ac- 
 quiescence in the divine will, in every mode in which it can 
 be developed. 
 
 If these views of the universality of the will of God and 
 of the sanctity of every part of it, are correct, it gives a 
 very different color to human life. It gives dignity to 
 every part of this great experiment that is going on with 
 such numberless elements in it. It is to me a statement 
 that we are living in a world whose depth we have never 
 half sounded, that we are living among elements that per- 
 tain to human life and human development unknown to 
 us; that are vital and divine, and that far exceed those 
 known and found out. This world has never yet reached 
 its summer. The heat and the light have never long enough 
 shone on our earthly days to develop all the germs that 
 are to be developed. Little by little they come out, often 
 most humble in their appearance, neglected frequently and 
 persecuted. But after all, the whole sum of human life 
 through the rolling ages is one grand experiment of un- 
 folding in a higher and better way, a way tliat is conform- 
 able to the divine will. It gives dignity to human life, it 
 gives grandeur to it. It ought also to bring the conscious- 
 ness of this even to the lowest and least things that tend to 
 harmony, to peace, to purity, to truth — and to love, for 
 love is tlie mother of all. 
 
 All real laws that are beneficial to human society are 
 God's laws. They may be enacted at Albany or Washing- 
 ton, and the very enactors may in themselves not be 
 specially dignified nor worthy of our particular confidence; 
 but where law gathers up usage, where law authenticates 
 what has already been demonstrated by experiment, and 
 gives to it the sanction of the universal judgment and con- 
 science, that law is divine. It is divine no matter whether 
 it touches a man's body, or his intellect, or his soul. There 
 IS relative importance or gradation of importance in it, but 
 whether it touches men nearly or remotely, it is a divine 
 moral law. Men think that man-made laws are of no great 
 account. All good man-made laws are God-made, and 
 they come to human conscioiisnpss from a long school of 
 
y2^. PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 trial and of experience; and they ought to be considered 
 just as venerable, and just as obligatory, as if they had 
 been written ten thousand thousand years ago in a book, 
 and had been handed down to us as the maxims of heaven 
 itself. The question is, are they good ; do they work 
 benefit ? 
 
 In the great unfolding which is going on, God expands 
 himself and develops himself. History is the great revela- 
 tion of him. While God acts with greatest force and most 
 fruit upon minds that are enlarged and unfolded, so that 
 there is a major inspiration arising from the character of 
 the persons inspired, there is also a minor inspiration, or 
 the mind of God acting upon everything that lives, having 
 reason and moral sensibility. That inspiration of God is 
 the leaven of the ages. It is the secret feeling that has been 
 working in men, and through them working out into ex- 
 periment and endeavor, on some sides with disaster, and on 
 some sides with success, and that through the sole medium 
 of experiment through myriads of ages has attained to 
 relative perfectness of social usage, of wise legislation, of 
 successful civil government, of organized and progressive 
 industries throughout the world. All these elements are 
 divine. They are from God. They are working along 
 that great line, by which men are to be brought back to 
 God. Nothing that concerns a man is to be deemed un- 
 important; nothing that concerns a man's life, nothing that 
 concerns men's industry, nothing that concerns men's re- 
 finement, nothing that concerns their legitimate happiness, 
 there is nothing that concerns men's prosperity in all the 
 realms of human life, that is not affected by his will; and 
 everywhere God broods the race. Whatever thoughts of 
 God, coming into the souls of men, are unfolded in conduct 
 and echoed and re-echoed until they become general truths, 
 and whatever works toward plenitude of truth and purity 
 and peace and joy — all this is according to the will of God. 
 
 "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." There 
 faith is gone; vision is in the place of it. There men think 
 not; they see, they know. There all souls harmonize, and 
 in thp vast invisible populations there is not one discord, 
 
GOD IN THE WORLD. 327 
 
 there is not one unknowing soul. And the day is to come 
 when tlie earth itself shall be harmonized. The great mil- 
 lennial day, whenever it comes, and whatever it may be, is 
 to be that day in which the will of the Lord shall have been 
 fully found out by human experience, when all men shall 
 have become obedient to it, and the prayer is fulfilled, 
 "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." 
 
XI. 
 JESUS THE TRUE IDEAL. 
 
 ' ' Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of 
 witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily be- 
 set us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking 
 unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith; who, for the joy that was set 
 before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the 
 right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such con- 
 tradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your 
 minds." — Heb. xii : 1-3. 
 
 Our Version and the Revised Version err, I think, in the 
 rendering. In italics, in both instances, the word "our" is 
 inserted: 
 
 " Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." 
 That "our" transfers the meaning to us; but it is not in 
 the Greek, though it was supposed to be implied. It is a 
 great deal better rendering to say that Christ was " the 
 author and the finisher of faith;" for there passes in array 
 that illustrious procession; and the one theme that runs 
 through the whole grand symphony of so many performers 
 was their faith. Then, says the apostle, let Jesus Christ 
 stand in the place of all those; for he is the author and the 
 finisher of faith. He is the fountain out of which they all 
 drew; and that fountain is open to you as it was to them. 
 This gives new force; and it is not the less desirable be- 
 cause it is contained in the original, and is not inserted by 
 the misplaced judgment of commentators. 
 
 There is an antithesis between a man's life of his body 
 and the life of his spirit; and the things that are shocking 
 in regard to the body are supernal and most gracious in 
 
 Communion Sbrvice; Sunday Morning, March 2d, 1884. Lesson: Heb. xi. g 
 
JESUS THE TRUE IDEAL. 329 
 
 regard to the spirit. Is there anything more shamefully 
 shocking than cannibalism, than the eating of men by men? 
 And yet the best men of the wOrld have been the food of 
 all after times. Man's spirit feeds on man's spirit; and the 
 highest deeds, the noblest qualities, the achievements of 
 one or another in the long round of history have been the 
 food of those that came after. We live, as it were, by eat- 
 ing the spirit of our ancestors; thus the soul thrives. 
 
 It was a certain form of this very illustration that Christ 
 gave of himself as bread, saying that we were to eat him, 
 and drink his blood; not bodily, his outward form, but in- 
 wardly and upwardly, his life. 
 
 Children feed upon their parents so soon as they begin 
 to discern their moral qualities. Scholars instinctively 
 come to lean upon their teachers. The pupil follows the 
 artist master. Aspiring soldiers look to the illustrious 
 officers that led them, and to those that in other ages 
 have led brave men. The best deeds of those that have 
 gone before in every department of life are embalmed and 
 transmitted as legacies unspeakably precious. Pearls and 
 diamonds and precious stones of every name are not to be 
 compared with those richer jewels of the soul which here 
 and there, though too rarely, have flashed out their light in 
 days gone by. 
 
 This is the necessity of life. It clothes one with the gar- 
 ments slowly woven through successive ages. The past is 
 the great granary of the soul where the seed of ages is col- 
 lected. It is not a mausoleum of dead men, nor is it a store- 
 house of mummies, nor a cave in which ancestral forms lie 
 slumbering. There is an undying multitude of spirits who 
 in ages gone by have added to knowledge, to virtue and to 
 heroic deeds. Above our heads, in the air, as in a realm 
 of light, dwell innumerable souls who have broken through 
 the hindrances which limit ordinary life, and have risen to 
 heights far above the rude forces of animal existence. 
 
 The mere physical events of life — poverty, hunger, pain, 
 or fulfilled prosperity — all these go down to dust. The 
 things that men universally think of and strive for, mourn 
 for if lacking or rejoice in if possessing — these, when you 
 
330 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 read the lessons of the ages, are of the least value, though 
 they are valuable. They are the lowest and most perish- 
 able of good things; but imperishable are hope, buoying 
 men up in adversity, and aspiration, that seems to have 
 had no fruit at all, and yet blossoms out in character. 
 What is character in the hurry and whirl of ambition, in 
 the push and thrust of violence? What matters it that a 
 man is heroic, that he abstains from evil, and that he main- 
 tains his integrity at the sacrifice of every one of the treas- 
 ures that the world calls good? What are these in the 
 time of them? And yet, let a hundred years roll on and 
 away, and nothing but these evanescent things, valueless 
 in the market, remain. All those things for which men sell 
 their honor, their truth, their purity and their loyalty are 
 sunk into the dust. Whatever there is of purity, of hope, 
 of generous sentiment, of courage, of magnanimity or of 
 fidelity, never dies. As the sun draws invisible particles 
 from the river and the sea, and holds them in the air, cloud- 
 treasures from which the earth supplies itself, so each 
 generation finds itself compassed about with this " great 
 cloud of witnesses," that rain down moral influence upon 
 generation after generation. All that men call real, prac- 
 tical and substantial is the most perishable. That which 
 men call imaginary, impracticable and theoretic often lives 
 forever. 
 
 There is, therefore, this process of airy resurrection from 
 age to age going on of all that is greatly good in eminent 
 natures, stored up, overhanging as, raining down influence 
 upon us. It is a Gothic legend that great battles are every 
 year fought over again in the air by the spirits of those that 
 contested above the battle fields. Rather let us say that 
 virtues and moral victories are celebrated in the air every 
 day, and not alone over the fields where they were 
 wrought, but over the whole earth. 
 
 Thus, when national life furnishes no histories worthy of 
 record, men feel the want of them, and they embellish, 
 stories, and even invent them. The hunger of the soul 
 wiU have some food. These legends of heroes or saints or 
 benefactors do serve a heroic purpose, even when they are 
 
JESUS THE TRUE IDEAL. 331 
 
 mythical. They reveal at once the want that creates them, 
 and the power which they have through the imagination 
 upon men. Often imaginary beings are more powerful 
 over men's life and conduct than real beings. Dry, ab- 
 stract moral principles have little force, ordinarily. Per- 
 sonify them. Let them live, think, strive and conquer, 
 and all the world sympathizes; and admiration changes to 
 imitation. 
 
 The length of national life will determine the richness of 
 this assembly of invisible heroes, and also the literature of 
 their history, real or imagined. Young nations have but 
 very little behind them. We have but very little. Our 
 romance is a very slender stock. Nature we have in every 
 form, admirable and inexhaustible, but heroes very few; 
 and those that we have we are obliged to use until they are 
 threadbare. Theimmortal Pilgrims, and the Puritans of Ply- 
 mouth and New England — men turn the lip and smile that 
 every year we seek to weave new legends, new histories and 
 new conceptions of them. But it is all we have. When 
 was a mother ever tired of exhibiting the beauty and the 
 charms of her babe? From that golden spool she will 
 draw out more thread than would reach from earth to 
 heaven. And since we have but little it is necessary that 
 we should make the most of it. Older nations, running 
 through the centuries, find the clouded past a cloud of 
 witnesses, real or imaginary; and the imaginary and the 
 real are almost indistinguishable. 
 
 Hence the real or imaginary saints of the Church have 
 prodigious power; and those forms of church organization 
 which are recent are relatively bare. The stars do not 
 shine much in such firmaments — especially if they are 
 churches that have given themselves to the Greek form of 
 civilization, and that live on ratiocination, on solid truth, 
 on intellectual elements pure and simple. All these things 
 tend to produce a state of educated mind that looks down- 
 ward; whereas the venerable old mother-church, that has 
 rather cultivated sentiment and imagination, is rich in the 
 treasures of the past. Were it not that every child has a 
 right to despoil its mother, and every Protestant a right to 
 
332 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 all the glories that belong to the older form of church or- 
 ganization, Protestantism would stand in a poor compari- 
 son with the old Roman Catholic Church. How full is its 
 galaxy of stars of the first magnitude! What sweet his 
 tories of vestals or of saints! What royal persecutions! 
 What baptisms of blood! How many are the names in the 
 Calendar that the world would not let die, quite independ- 
 ent of any religious dogma, organization or faith! By 
 virtue of her long continuance she is the fruitful mother 
 of heroes. 
 
 This great chapter which I have read already in your 
 hearing is a chapter of Hebrew heroes. It is quite in vain 
 to turn back with historical criticism upon this one and 
 upon that. This is remorseless, unless it be accompanied 
 by that spirit of romantic faith which accepts them as 
 poems are accepted — for thousands of poems are more real 
 than are realities in human life. This chapter of Hebrews 
 turns upon the deeds of their noble men and women, or of 
 men and women not noble, but made so by some single 
 deed. They hung above the horizon of the Israelites an 
 invisible influence, nevertheless the most potent. Even a 
 harlot is not forgotten — Rahab, whose life was dedicated 
 to sensuousness, yet who, on one impulse, dared to peril 
 life and everything dear to life on the unseen future that 
 had impressed her with being noble. As the roughest and 
 rudest of all possible shells carries in it the pearl, though 
 but one, that one heroic deed shines through all the dark- 
 ness of the ages, and Rahab is remembered when a million 
 matrons are forgotten. 
 
 Consider not what such a gallery in the clouds opens to 
 us alone, but if you can place yourself in the position of the 
 Jews, proud of their nation, proud of its heroes, and whose 
 whole literature is colored through and through by the 
 element of patriotism; whose law enjoins upon parents to 
 teach their children of the patriarchs, of the Egyptian bond- 
 age, of the glorious release, of the incursion upon the 
 Promised Land, of the wars and the battles; whose whole 
 psalmody is but the historic rendering of the real or sup- 
 posed events of antiquity. The people fed on this past and 
 
JESUS THE TRUE IDEAL. 333 
 
 its heroes, and were to rehearse to their children the deeds 
 of national renown, early and late, rising up or sit- 
 ting down, going out or coming in. So effectually did 
 this injunction work upon Israel to instruct their chil- 
 dren, and to instruct them in the history of their people, 
 that the power of one single element — moral instruction in 
 national heroism — held that wonderful people together 
 through such a persecution as all the rest of the world 
 combined never has felt. Israel has travailed in fire and 
 blood almost from the day of the destruction of the Tem- 
 ple down to our own hour, and is but at last coming to 
 that liberty and that renown which belong legitimately to 
 this great people. When men asked how the Jews have 
 sustained themselves as they have done through the ages, 
 the reply is that it has been by their moral instruction. It 
 has been by bringing their children up in the memory of 
 the noblest heroic deeds of their ancestry. The secret of 
 Israelitish eminence and excellence was, and is still, family 
 life feeding upon all the sources of heroism that belong to 
 their national life. 
 
 Put yourself in the position of such, to whom this un- 
 known apostle wrote, who goes through the eleventh chap- 
 ter of Hebrews calling up name after name, as when the 
 harper strikes chord after chord ; and, at last, as the tide 
 rolls deeper, calls off with enthusiasm, one name after 
 another, until, the whole crowd rushing to the front, in the 
 inspiration and under the memory of all, there flashes out 
 Jesus Christ as the substitute, as he was the author and the 
 fountain of all these. 
 
 " Looking unto Jesus " — this is the word to the Jews. 
 Looking back to all their ancestry, and seeing that at 
 every step it pointed down to some coming Messiah, who 
 was their hope and belief, the apostle says: "This is he 
 that gave to all the men and women of days gone by that 
 which the world would not let die — the imperishable 
 qualities of the soul. He is yours. Jesus is the IMessiah, 
 your Christ. Now, look unto him, look unto him ! 
 
 "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so 
 great a cloud of witnesses, and have therefore learned to 
 
334 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 feed on the things which are invisible and past, let us lay 
 aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset 
 us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before 
 us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, 
 which is that element by which the souls of men have been 
 translated out of the body into the ethereal realm, where 
 they exist, and whence they send down influence as the 
 clouds do rain. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher 
 of faith, not our faith, but a/l ia.ith, everywhere and to the 
 end of time, who, for the joy that was set before him, en- 
 dured the cross, despising shame, and is set down at the 
 right hand of the throne of God." 
 
 This whole concentrated light, therefore, is flashed upon 
 Jesus, who is declared to be the inspiration, the very author 
 and finisher, of all that is great and illustrious in this pic- 
 ture gallery of history. In him alone we have all that is 
 in this cloud of witnesses, only we have it in a nobler form. 
 Where but in him was there ever such poverty and labor ? 
 Born in ignorance, of ignorant parents, in a land without 
 schools ; born so poor that he had not where, literally, to 
 lay his head in birth, and scarcely afterwards; untaught as 
 the Jewish doctors declared that he was, ignorant of 
 letters; where is there a poverty, and where was there ever 
 a labor, that had such instruction in it for mankind, and so 
 rises above physical conditions ? In one of the most disas- 
 trous periods of human history, in a nation captured and 
 oppressed, in a province into which had run all the slime 
 of creation, in the house of a carpenter, bound to the coars- 
 est labor and the least remuneration — there dwelt the one 
 Name above every other name upon earth, known among 
 men, Jesus. That his poverty was endurable, that the 
 flame was fed, and that the genius of this man who called 
 himself the Son of God rose illustriously above all the in- 
 fluences and besetments of poverty, is a word for the great 
 majority of the human family, that groan and travail to- 
 gether until now. His patience in his limitation, as he felt 
 the swelling godhead within him so early as even at twelve 
 years, the consciousness of his origin occasionally luminous 
 in him, and knowing himself to be superior to men, destined 
 
JESUS THE TRUE IDEAL. 335 
 
 of God to be the light of the world, and filled with courage 
 —how is he a witness to the great majority of mankind 
 that are conscious of being something higher, they scarcely 
 know what, though thralled with weakness, and swept 
 hither and thither as swimmers are before the mighty 
 tides ! Behold his gentleness! Behold his exquisite sym- 
 pathy! Behold how little children ran to him by the in- 
 stinct of confidence; how parents longed for the touch of 
 his hand as a benediction on their children; how he was 
 grieved that any one should throw a shadow between him 
 and little children ; how he took them up in his arms, and 
 caressingly laid his hand upon them, and blessed them 
 and returned them with double worth to the loving mother's 
 bosom; how he not only cared for little children, but for 
 widows, for mourners, following the last prop and stay of 
 their life; for lepers and miserably possessed creatures! 
 All the sordid sorts of men, defiled within and without, 
 were as companions to him ; and how the nobility and 
 sweetness of his nature, miracle-working as it seemed to 
 them to be, raised up neither atmosphere nor influence of 
 repellance ! Then first, perhaps, in all the ages, truth, 
 purity and the divine were so represented that by an irre- 
 sistible enthusiasm the corruptest and the wickedest came 
 toward him, and depravity bowed itself down and wept in 
 the presence of divinity. The very harlot wept when she 
 was in the presence of supreme purity. Where is there 
 such sympathy in any human being as existed in the loving 
 nature of Jesus Christ with the poor, the suffering, and the 
 unworthy ? 
 
 What joy, also, was there in him ! 
 
 " Who for the joy that was set before him." 
 
 There were no songs; there were no bands of chanting 
 and triumphant music. What was the joy ? His face was 
 steadfastly set going up to Jerusalem, and the premonitions 
 of his coming danger were such that his disciples shrank 
 silent from his presence and dared not speak with him. 
 When the day came of arrest and betrayal, when all the 
 mockery of a trial was upon him, when he performed that 
 wondrous journey but once made in the whole history of 
 
336 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 the ha.man race, when, bearing his cross, he went forth 
 toward Calvary, and all the world, even his enemies, pitied, 
 and women wept, so that all subsequent a2;es have set 
 apart days of commiseration and sympathy with the suffer- 
 ings of Christ — those were luminous days to him, " for the 
 joy that was set before him, enduring the cross and despis- 
 ing the shame." Of all things that could touch a man's 
 reputation or body, the crudest and the most degrading 
 was the cross; but he despised it. As one armed in war 
 despises the ant-heap and crushes it with his foot, so all 
 that men regarded as sorrowful and sad, the spirit that 
 towered within him looked down upon. He despised the 
 cross, and in the fullness and volume of the joy that was 
 set before him he endured it all. They were there — the 
 tears, the sadness, and the outcry; and yet, they were as 
 experiences moving within the radiant cloud of a greater 
 joy. 
 
 What an example is that, too ! Where in the Greek 
 Mythology, where in ihe mixture of the Roman Mythology, 
 where in any Oriental records, where in any history of the 
 whole human family is there to be found such a leader ? 
 This looking unto him that rises above the ages is the 
 cause and reason of all that is excellent in the whole human 
 family ; and he is now made to be the Captain of your sal- 
 vation, your Leader, your Forerunner and your Comforter. 
 Looking unto him — how glorious is that message and that 
 call! 
 
 This it is to undertake to be a Christ-man. They that 
 must have some model, some ideal hero; they that have 
 some conception, often formed out of the loom of their own 
 imagination, woven of the noblest threads that they can 
 select from among human things — here they have the ap- 
 pointed ideal, Jesus, the Saviour of the world, joined insep- 
 arably to mankind, representing to men what is that last 
 estate to which religion and civilization shall bring the 
 race, the model of the best that is to be, the mark to show 
 the highest point of tide to which moral excellence shall rise 
 in the ages yet to come. Jesus, the Name above every name 
 that is named in heaven or in earth — he is set forth to every 
 
JESUS THE TRUE IDEAL. 337 
 
 one of us. Look to him, " lest ye be weary in your minds." 
 You have not suffered unto blood as he did — the universal 
 Comforter, the Illuminator, the Instructor, the Inspirer, the 
 Joy in sorrow, the Strength in weakness, the Hope in de- 
 spondency, the Love where hatred has been, the Life where 
 has been inertness and death, the Inspiration of the whole 
 human family. He is yours. The poorest man owns Christ 
 as much as you. The most ignorant one owns Christ as 
 much as the wisest. The most despised and obscure own 
 the glory of Christ as much as if they were kings' sons. 
 He is the Light of the world. Thank God, while the soil 
 may be parceled out, the heavens cannot be. Nobody's 
 stars, but everybody's. Nobody's air, but everybody's. 
 Nobody's rain, but everybody's that needs it. It is the 
 world's ocean. And there is that one possession, the 
 proudest and the noblest that the earth has ever seen or 
 dreamed of, made known to every single one. 
 
 " Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of faith; who for the 
 joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set 
 down at the right hand of the throne of God. For, consider him who 
 endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and 
 faint in your minds." 
 
 Your life is a struggle. It is hard for a man to live up to 
 his purposes. It is very difficult for a man to live up to 
 that ideal which he forms in his brightest hours. There is 
 not one who cannot bear witness that however favorable 
 his situation may be, to live upon the higher planes of our 
 desire and our purpose requires a perpetual battle. Do not 
 be discouraged nor lose patience. Look to Jesus, for he is 
 the appointed inspirer, the power of God that is to work 
 out salvation in you. 
 
 Will you accept his leadership ? Will you be guided by 
 it ? He knows how feeble and how weak you are, and he 
 accepts every one that will trust in him. Will you, to-day, 
 anj' of you, join with us in the commemoration of that love 
 by the simple service that sprang from his command, the 
 eating of the bread as the symbol of our feeding upon him, 
 the drinking of this wine as the symbol that he is our very 
 life-blood and our hope ? 
 
 22 
 
338 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 I do not ask you to partake with us of these emblems 
 because you are a member of this church, though that 
 ought not to discourage you ; nor because you are a mem- 
 ber of any other church, though that does not necessarily 
 qualify you. I separate the Lord's Supper, this holy sacra- 
 ment, from every external thing whatever, and say that 
 this is the soul's feast ; and that in churches and out of 
 churches, and in any kind of church, you who feel the need 
 of the inspiration and the salvation that come from Jesus 
 Christ, and who feel that you would be fed and strength- 
 ened by some such ceremony of loving remembrance as 
 this — you I invite, for your inward manhood, for the sake 
 of encouragement and hope, without superstition, not on 
 any conditions that men's churches have imposed, but be- 
 cause you are a sinner and Christ is a Saviour of sinners — 
 in remembrance of Him. You who cordially and earnestly 
 desire to be saved by him, and are willing to undertake to 
 lead Christ-like lives — on this ground I invite you, man, 
 woman, and cliild, to partake of the Lord's Supper. 
 
XII. 
 THE GROWTH OF CREATION. 
 
 " Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see : The 
 blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and 
 the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached 
 to theni" [which is the climax]. — Matt, xi : 4, 5. 
 
 ' Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name 
 which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should 
 bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; 
 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
 glory of God the Father." — Phil, ii : g-ii. 
 
 In the order of nature, and in its primitive state, strength 
 is the lord, and weakness is the victim. All matter that is 
 yet under the dominion of mere physical forces goes by 
 the way of weakness, followed by compelling strength; 
 nor is there in mere inorganic nature a glimpse of any 
 other thing. It is compulsion. The weak go under. 
 When the lowest, the foundation forms of existence begin 
 to spring up — -both plants and animals in their lower con- 
 ditions — the struggle for existence begins, and still the 
 weak go under, the strong prevailing. It has been said 
 that this is an evidence of benevolence, so that in the end 
 they who remain will all be strong; but this is a poor con- 
 solation to any man asking, " Why were there any weak ? 
 Why were they not all strong to begin with .?" The deer 
 are so organized that by speed they can get away from a 
 lion; but that only brings up the question again, "What 
 was there any lion for ?" And still we fall back into trouble 
 and doubt in looking for the evidences of benevolence 
 throughout the earth. 
 
 Sunday Morning, Dec. 14th, 1884. Lksson ; Luke iv : 1-30 Hvmns: 339 
 
340 PL YMO UTH P ULPTT. 
 
 At last there emerged from the developing processes in 
 the world, when the earth was ripe enough, the parental 
 instinct, in the ascending line of animal life. Here we 
 have the first faint twilight of a further development; for, 
 whereas the law had inexorably been that of strength over 
 against weakness, everything giving way to strength in 
 every department, now there comes in a new phenomenon. 
 The development of life had reached a point where strength 
 and wisdom took care of weakness. The loveof their ^off- 
 spring in the lower animal kingdom, and still more in the 
 human race, stopped the universal course of weakness 
 going down befbre"s'tTehgth. It was a great period, and 
 there was a great prophecy in it, though men did not under- 
 stand it. Most prophecies are better understood after 
 things have happened than before. 
 
 At this point of parental care, then, there is a twilight 
 hint that something else is advancing, and that there is 
 another meaning in creation than that which has made 
 itself apparent up to this point. 
 
 But at this stagethe care of the weak works in a very 
 narrow groove, and is very brief in its duration. Just so 
 soon as the child goes on and out into society, and is no 
 longer under the tender parental care, it finds tliat it has 
 entered into the general arrangement of creation; and 
 the weak begin to go down again before the strong, the 
 inexpert before the experienced. The result is, and has 
 been for thousands of years, the mournful question, "Is 
 there any God that discriminates between the good and 
 the bad, and that stands the defender of the weak as 
 _against the strong ?" This growth evidently, then, has not 
 perfected itself; but, nevertheless, the sight is shown of a 
 new and glorious constitution. 
 
 Further on in time there arises a larger influence in favor 
 of weakness — namely, the State. The first break in the 
 law of violence is the parental instinct in animals. Then 
 this develops and unfolds until it comes to the human race ; 
 and that is larger and more various and far-reaching in its 
 details. Then, still further, men come into social relations; 
 and although the earlier are of the rudest and most barbaric 
 nature; yet, at a certain stage, agglomerated men, meninthe 
 
THE GROWTH OF CREATION. 341 
 
 mass and in civil relations, begin to take care of the weak 
 too. We know not exactly what were the steps by wliich 
 this tendency advanced; but, for instance, among the Isra- 
 elites under the care of Moses, the progress of the State 
 in interposing its collected strength between the rude and 
 strong and tlie peaceable and weak had made a long ad- 
 vance. You will be struck, if you take the pains to read 
 the Institutes of Moses, to see what care there was — never 
 more, not even now — to defend the weak and the poor 
 against the aggressions of the strong and the rich. The 
 care of the laborer is pathetic. You are not allowed to 
 take his implements of labor. You are not allowed to take 
 his garments, in which he sleeps. You are to look out 
 for men because they are poor — this is Moses' command. 
 Ye are to look after the stranger, and remember that once 
 ye were strangers in the land — this is the Mosaic order. 
 Usury is forbidden, by which the full-handed exact from 
 the poor unmerciful conditions of lending. The prompt 
 payment of wages, and the payment of wages in full tale; 
 the ■ right of men to glean the fields; the forbidding 
 farmers to clean up their harvests absolutely; the inculca- 
 tion of general benevolence; the promotion of hospitality; 
 cheerful relief of men in pressing want; the permission of 
 men as they go through the fields or orchards to supply 
 their urgent appetite with fruit or with grain — all these 
 are found in the national code of the old Israelites. Such 
 nascent elements were founded expressly on the declara- 
 tion that that was the will of God. That is, they portended 
 a new view of the genius of creation. For by and by, as 
 we shall see, these things are seen to be the foreshadowing 
 of other and grander elements. 
 
 At length this twilight, as I may call it, breaks forth into 
 sunrise. Christ comes, as it is said, "in the fullness of 
 time." What was it that brought him into life ? Read, 
 now, that part of our text which is in Philippians: 
 
 " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in 
 the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made 
 himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was 
 made in the likeness of men, being found in fashion as a man, who hum- 
 bled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." 
 
342 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 What an elaborate description of sovereignty and illimit- 
 able glory descending of itself into this world for purposes 
 of mercy! Look at the history. To all human appear- 
 ance Christ was born in the most humble conditions. We 
 believe that he was of the Godhead. We know the manner 
 in which he came into life, as it is taught especially in the 
 Evangel of Luke : his mother conceived, of the spirit of 
 God, and there is around about the birth of that child, in 
 the sanctified imagination of believing men, a halo of glory. 
 But, looking at it from the outside, men of the world de- 
 clare that he was born out of wedlock, and that though he 
 had a mother of note he had no known father. He was 
 born lower than men usually are, in the thought of men at 
 that time, and in the thought of scoffing and sneering men 
 now. 
 
 There is precious moral meaning in that, too; for no one 
 ever was born lower. The lowest conceivable birth was 
 his. He was the child of working men, himself brought up 
 to labor, weak among the weak, refusing to dissociate him- 
 self from his fellows, or to join the strong. When he opened 
 his ministry, the text that he gave — I have already read it 
 in your hearing — is contained in Luke, where he says : 
 
 "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to 
 preach the Gospel to the poor." 
 
 That was his ministry, and that was his mission. 
 
 "Hehathsentmetoheallhe broken-hearted ; to preach deliverance to the 
 captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are 
 bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." 
 
 There is the test, the theme, nay, the very charter with 
 which Christ opened his ministry. Men have been accus- 
 tomed to think that this was simply a prophecy of the 
 ultimate condition of things. In one sense it is; but bear 
 in mind that we are following the fine line of that nerve 
 which, beginning in absolute force, is to terminate in abso- 
 lute love and mercy, and which runs through time and the 
 structure of the world. 
 
 When he opened his ministry his text was, "I am of the 
 poor, and am come to preach to them, and to relieve them." 
 He refused, all the way through, to separate himself from 
 
THE GRO WTH OF CUE A TION. 343 
 
 them, and was despised of his countrymen, and cast out of 
 the Temple, and betrayed and condemned. He that had 
 been born so strangely, died yet more characteristically, 
 hanging between two thieves! Never was anything on 
 earth like the voluntary submission of Christ who came by 
 this symbolization of his life, and by the emphasis of 
 facts, to declare that the ulterior counsel of God was not 
 that strength should always prevail over weakness, but that 
 there was coming a time — and the dispensation was slowly 
 unfolding — higher and grander than anything in physical 
 nature. 
 
 Now consider the consummation which is given in the 
 Philippian part of our text; for that is now prophetic: 
 
 " Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him [as the reality, as the an- 
 nunciator, as the emblem of God's everlasting purpose in the revelation of 
 that supreme goodness and strength yet to prevail over all lower forms of 
 evolution, and that finally should be triumphant in the scheme of creation 
 and the universe], and given him a name which is above every name: that 
 at the name of Jesus [who represents all this] every knee should bow, 61 
 things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that 
 every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glorj' of God 
 the Father.'' 
 
 First, on this basis, I remark upon the genius of the 
 Gospel. It is anew stem developed upon old nature. The 
 law of force is, as it were, the trunk ; the law of love and 
 mercy is the ascending branches, the blossom and the fruit. 
 As the fruit-tree cannot spring in an instant into bearing, 
 but runs through periods of its lower organization, and 
 finally unfolds into its higher elements, so this great world 
 went through its lower period of physical organization 
 and physical force, with beginning germs and buds and 
 some_blossoms,_and is by and by, in the end, to spread its 
 infinite width and glorious boughs, radiant with flowers 
 and rich with fruit. We are only in one little section of 
 time, at one stage or period, in an infinite progress. It is 
 not a reversal of the law which we see in the Gospel; it is 
 simply an unfolding consummation of the law, much mis- 
 understood, or at any rate not well understood. All the 
 stages of human life are to be studied as hints of prophecy; 
 and when we study the history, the very slow unfolding, 
 
344 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 of the race, we are not to stop at any one point and say, 
 "Why did God do thus and so?" It is all a grand march 
 from the lower to the higfher stages. If we only under- 
 stand what we are coming to, and judge of the whole by the 
 consummation, I thinli the difficulties that men have felt 
 will be very largely removed. 
 
 Second: There was the gradual unfolding among men in 
 divine providence, of the purpose of God, that the weak 
 should not be destroyed by the strong. In other words, 
 there was a working, not only from inorganic matter up 
 to organic, but in organic matter and in cerebral life from 
 the lowest plane, steadily onward and upward to the very 
 highest stage. Christ's religion first found a lodgment 
 among the poor. This was the historic fulfillment of his 
 ministry and iiis message. The poor accepted him where- 
 ever he went. Not only did it give new life and an impulse 
 to development among the unbefriended and the ignorant, 
 but it gave tlrem also the ability to endure. It created a 
 resisting force in them, and for the first three hundred 
 years of the primitive church men might see poverty sing- 
 ing and rejoicing, triumphant over persecution, and all the 
 lower orders of uncultivated society doing for themselves 
 what no philosophy had been able to do for the scholars of 
 antiquity. That spectacle of the strange energy and spirit- 
 ual superiority of poverty and ignorance was the convert- 
 ing power of the Gospel. It was that which arrested the 
 attention of the old Roman and the old Greek, and made 
 men marvel how God could perfect praises out of the 
 mouths of babes, as it were — babes in knowledge. 
 
 As soon as it gained any degree of power in society, this 
 tendency of humanity began to soften the hatreds among 
 men. It began to take away cruelties, wanton crueltisB, 
 the worst cruelties that have ever been inflicted upon 
 mankind — the cruelties of pretended justice. It began to 
 ameliorate slavery. It began to breathe humanity into 
 the laws of men The history of two thousand years is 
 the history of growing kindness to the weak and ignorant 
 on the part of the strong and wise in the community. 
 
THE GROWTH OF CREATION. 345 
 
 In our day the dawn is well advanced ; for it must be 
 said that sympathy with the suffering is to-day a domi- 
 nant mental phenomenon. Philosophy itself is searching 
 and striving to understand the reason of pain and evil in 
 this world. It was the old work of mythical and mediaeval 
 theology which gave a child's explanation of how pain and 
 sin came into the world; but to-day science has joined 
 hands with philosophy, aside from the old religious theo- 
 ries, toTeaFchToiinhe means of softening the lot of men. 
 -The^tTTought of the world is moving in that direction. In 
 literature it is asserting itself. Even in the days of our 
 ancestors, and down to a comparatively recent period, the 
 literature of the English language was full of scoffs and 
 sneers and contempt for the condition of the uneducated 
 poor. That has all passed away, and no man of any po- 
 sition would now dare in that way to insult the human race, 
 or any part of it, or to treat any — especially those that are 
 underneath him — with derision. Such men as Thackera)' 
 and Dickens ; such women as George Eliot and the autlior 
 of "Jane Eyre" ; such great writers as Victor Hugo and the 
 pseudo-moralists Eugene Sue and Dumas and Georges Sand 
 — all tlie great writers of civilization to-day are inspired by 
 the genius of humanity, and have given their whole souls 
 to the work of softening the lot of those that are in inferior 
 conditions. 
 
 Even selfishness, even the power of robbery — the commer- 
 cial selfishness whicli seizes Tonquin, Madagascar, Egypt 
 and China, as it has seized India and otlier portions of the 
 globe — no longer takes unapologetic dominion as the Span- 
 ish hand of wrongl,ookrdominion over the South American 
 peoples, but bows to this tendency. No civilized nation 
 on the earth dare take possession of land not belonging to 
 it, except in the name of the Lord, and with the promise of 
 " protection." The tyranny of the world is a " protectorate" 
 to-day. 
 
 So, then, you trace from the days before the flood this 
 latent tendency which has been growing stronger and 
 stronger, up through the family, then into the State, 
 thence into all the forms and processes of nations, and at 
 
346 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 last it is working its way througli commerce itself; and all 
 the ends of the world are being touched with the spirit which 
 Christ represented, and which is the hidden interior mean- 
 ing of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ to mankind — 
 that the day would come when those brute forces which 
 begin with mighty energy in nature should be tamed and 
 taken out of the sphere of humanity; and when in place of 
 them the golden shower of love should come down to en- 
 rich the earth.-- 
 
 At last it is respectable to be poor ; at last it is not a 
 misfortune for a race to be poor ; for just as soon as men 
 understand what Christianity means, just as soon as we 
 pattern our piety upon the example of Jesus Christ, who 
 descended from all power and glory to humble himself to 
 death as a servant and as a slave, just so soon as that is 
 admitted into our creeds, or rather into our practice — just 
 so soon it is as blessed to be poor as it is to be a child on 
 the mother's bosom, or under the father's protecting hand. 
 
 But one step beyond this. So long as it was taught that 
 for the sin of one man the whole race was blighted; so 
 long as it was believed that, the race left in ignorance, un- 
 tended, oppressed, was yet emptying itself every thirty 
 years into hell, and that this terrific work was going on 
 from generation to generation — while this was the doc- 
 trine, no man could justify God on any principle of justice, 
 of truth or of humanity. You might call it a mystery; you 
 might say that it was something which should be revealed 
 hereafter; but the hereafter will not do for men who are 
 already in the bonds of despair on account of what they 
 think and feel now. And when you put in the place of 
 that hideous dream of an explanation which the mediaeval 
 theology borrowed from the Roman, and the Roman from 
 the old horrible Tuscan, whose deities had not one spark 
 of anything but cruelty in them — when you put in the 
 place of that hideous dream the conception of an orderly 
 and regular progression, beginning as it were in the atom 
 elements, set on fire of God, beaten on the anvil of creation 
 into solid worlds, going on from change to change, per- 
 fecting even its material and visible forms, bringing up the 
 
THE GROWTH OF CREATION 347 
 
 lower forms of creation, advancing them step by step, at 
 last bringing them into the human ranks, , and thence in all 
 their combinations onward and upward, until the consum- 
 mation, how beneficent, how glorious the vision ! And in 
 the view of that, how do our hearts swell with grateful joy 
 as we anticipate the wondrous chorus of the Apocalypse: 
 "And every creature which is in the heavens, and on the 
 earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and 
 all that are in them, heard I saying. Blessing, and honour, 
 and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the 
 throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.'' 
 
 He that sits at the foot of a tree in April and May to eat 
 the green apples that fall down, can afford to rail at po- 
 mology. That is what the old church has always been 
 doing — eating green apples, and worm-bitten ones at that! 
 But when the rounding seasons have ripened the fruit, and 
 every bough hangs low for the hand of the hungry to 
 pluck from, men will not rail at the acerb fruit, or its bitter 
 rind. And the view of those unexplained processes that 
 have been going on from Creation up to the present time 
 now grows brighter and brighter with every age; and in \ 
 the perfection of them we shall see that brute force has 
 been converted at last by gradual transitions and transfu- 
 sions into the bounty and blessing of the eternal God. 
 All creation shall be a benefaction and a joy. Groans 
 shall be turned into chants and all longings into ineffable 
 rejoicings. Then, how worthily shall we join in the de- 
 claration, "God hath highly exalted him, and given him a 
 name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus 
 every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
 earth, and things under the earth," — all creation rising to 
 rejoice in the victorious issue of this sublime experiment 
 in time. 
 
 I know not whether we alone shall be there to celebrate 
 it — the saved inhabitants of this earth. We do not know 
 the road thither. Tiie future is, as yet, very imperfectly 
 defined. We do not know what the instruments are b)' 
 which God will accomplish this ripening of nature, and this 
 triumph of the cross of love. We know that this is a cam- 
 
348 PL YMO UTH P ULPIT. 
 
 paign with Christ, and that he is the Captain of the world's 
 salvation in thi^ great battlefield of time. We do not 
 know how it will be, but we are sure that it will be. 
 
 This is an unspeakable joy to those who have been 
 troubled with the mystery of life; and who has not, that 
 ever thinks ? Who has not, whose children have died, or 
 who have seen war in its gorgon hideousness, and known 
 what has been the suffering of mankind ? Who does not 
 cry out, " How long, O Lord; how long!" It is the moan of 
 the old prophet. It is the moan, also, of the philosopher, as 
 recorded both in the Psalms and in Proverbs. The wise 
 men of that day, all of them, had been stumbling, as well 
 as Job, the dramatist, over this strange mixture of things on 
 earth. But if now, through the fulfillment of history, and 
 also by the suggestions of science, we discern the line of 
 direction in which the universe is traveling, and the final 
 prophecy of its consummation and ineffable glory, we have 
 a treasure for thought and for faith that can never be 
 measured nor weighed. 
 
 Now then, who will join in this onward and upward 
 march ? Who will enlist under the banner of him who is 
 bringing forth this salvation among men on earth ? Who 
 is there that would not rejoice to write himself a disciple 
 of that lordly Saviour who represents the Eternal God, 
 and. unveils the eternal purpose of God, growing brighter 
 through every age, and to be consummated with a victory 
 compared with which the greatest victories on earth are but 
 as sparks compared with the sun itself ? 
 
 In this work the infinite multiplication of instruments is 
 also a source of some cheer to me. When you take a com- 
 plicated web of silk from the loom, you cannot draw out 
 one single thread without leaving its place a blank ; every 
 part of it is necessary; yet they who wear the garment 
 ■give no credit nor heed to any single thread, but only to 
 the whole completed stuff. But when God shall have 
 brought to pass the salvation of time and the world, there 
 will not be one single solitary worker in this grand scheme 
 who will be forgotten. Everyone that has been a laborer 
 together with God will stand and partake of his share of 
 
THE GRO WTH OF CREA TION. 349 
 
 this universal triumph of God over time, and sin and suf- 
 fering in this world. 
 
 When great structures are to rise, bands of workmen are 
 deep down in the soil, digging; or with hammer and trowel 
 working as the pile goes up, and at last is enclosed and 
 completed. The men are paid and dismissed, but they 
 will never forget as they go past it that they have worked 
 on that building, although those who see the building will 
 not know it. But when the temple of time shall have been 
 completed, there is no man that ever carried shovel or hod, 
 no man that ever worked at the foundation, or any part of 
 the superstructure, that will be left out. Everybody that 
 has sought righteousness and humanity and love will wear 
 the decorations that Christ will give forth In that mil- 
 lennium of love, in that grand judgment exposition of love, 
 — when you take the perspective of time, and look back, 
 and see all cleared away that long and weary course which to 
 us now looks as tumultuous as a heap of stones, or as barren 
 as a wilderness, we shall understand all. It will be the last 
 grand interpreting sight as we look back and see the regular 
 unfolding, stage by stage, long protracted because God is 
 long-living, not measuring it by the term of human life, 
 which is mis-measurement, but measuring it by the scale 
 of him that dwelleth in eternity and has time enough for 
 the unfolding of thousands of years and ages. When we 
 shall look back from that consummation, I think every doubt 
 and strife and groan that we had on earth will be remem- 
 bered only as children grown up remember the little troubles 
 and trials of their early years. 
 
 God is wise, God is great, God is love; and time at last 
 will bear record of his wisdom and power and love and 
 universal victory in the midst of chanting worlds and re- 
 joicing saints. May you and may I so develop the power 
 and energy of love in ourselves that we shall be there, and 
 not have fallen through and gone out as things worthless, the 
 rubbish of creation, unrecognized, unexistent. 
 
XIII. 
 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 
 
 " Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand ag;ainst 
 the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
 against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness 
 of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore 
 take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand 
 in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having 
 your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of 
 righteousness ; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of 
 peace ; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able 
 to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of 
 salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God ; praying 
 always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there- 
 unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." — Eph. vi ; 
 11-18, 
 
 This is the representation of a literal state of facts, al- 
 though it is thrown into a dramatic form. There has been 
 a line of division running through the human family from 
 the very beginning to this day. Right and wrong have 
 been in conflict from the very first developments of human 
 existence ; and the conflict has not died out, and is not 
 likely to die out for ages. Although where the two sides 
 come together there is a wide belt of uncertain and varying 
 elements, yet the two extremes are so marked as never to be 
 confounded or mistaken. There appears in the religious 
 philosophy of every age some sort of explanation of them. 
 
 Sunday Evening, Jan. 9, 1881. Lesson : Eph. vi : 10-20. 
 
 3S0 
 
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 351 
 
 The basis of one form of the ancient philosophical heathen- 
 ism was the notion that there were two gods, or two 
 great principles, one representing the good and the other 
 the bad. They presented two oppugnant affections in the 
 regnant powers of the universe. 
 
 The same element, in a less distinct form, is found in the 
 Jewish theology. A dramatic representation of it is given 
 in the book of Job, as between Jehovah and Satan. In the 
 time of Christ, without losing the root element, it took on 
 the form of two dynasties — the Lord and the Devil, with 
 their respective kingdoms — at war with each other. They 
 have been represented as two great parties existing in the 
 universe, and in collision. 
 
 Modern science undertakes to give another version of it, 
 ^nd declaies that the nature of evil, or sin, arises from the 
 very method of divine creation. It presents the theory 
 that the human family, by a decree of God, was brought 
 into life originally in a low condition of animal develop- 
 ment, with preponderant appetites and passions; that then 
 there was, in the process of time, the development of reason 
 and moral sense; and that evil consists in the conflict, in 
 each man, between the superior and the inferior — between 
 those tendencies which are working toward a spiritual and 
 rational being and those animal tendencies that are draw- 
 ing men down toward the appetites and passions. Sin is, 
 under such circumstances, a kind of remainder or residuum 
 of'the animal life. One school of philosophers think that 
 at one step backward men were animals; that at one step 
 forward there were developed in them and upon them the 
 germs of the higher faculties; and that these nascent germs 
 of intelligence, morality, and religion have been steadily 
 striving to work upward. As corn is choked by weeds, 
 so these higher elements, it is asserted, are choked by the 
 interference of men's lower instincts. It is declared that 
 this royal battle, which began at the outset, and has kept 
 on through the ages, has been simply the conflict in men 
 between reason and passion; between moral sense and ap- 
 petite ; between benevolence and selfishness ; and that it 
 
352 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 has sprung from the very method of development appointed 
 by God. 
 
 Something of this view is found in every one of the old 
 heresies. I suppose it may be said that nothing ever lasted 
 from generation to generation that had not in it somewhere 
 an element of truth, as the secret of its continued exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Now, all philosophies, all religions, all sects, and all 
 churches are agreed as to the fact that this life is not a 
 life into which men are born perfect. It is a life of sti'uggle. 
 It is a life of such struggle that without it men are zeros. 
 They are born zeros; and education consists in putting be- 
 fore the zero figures that count. No child can have more 
 than a tencj^ncy to develop by reason of what his ancestors 
 were. The hereditary tendency gives a certain aptitude, 
 but the development of that aptitude lies in the child. No 
 person is born great. If a man becomes great it is by that 
 struggle in life by which he develops himself. 
 
 The same struggle runs into society, and becomes a con- 
 flict there; and it goes on developing more and more until 
 it is actually a warfare. A man's life may be, almost with- 
 out figure, called a battle. It is a campaign of battles. 
 Some persons, like some soldiers in an army, are more, and 
 some are less, exposed; but all are fighting somewhere, on 
 the one side or on the other. 
 
 Look, for instance, how this battle develops itself in the 
 individual. Each man struggles for knowledge. That is 
 not a birthright. Varying aptitudes for knowledge there 
 may be; but it must be struggled for if it is possessed. A 
 man can transmit pride to a child, he can transmit selfish- 
 ness to him; but he cannot transmit to him knowledge or 
 habit. This belongs to each individual. Knowledge is 
 gained by struggle. The way to it is a way of self-denial. 
 It is a putting aside, for the sake of learning, things that 
 may be more pleasant. It is the reduction of a man's 
 time, for a period at any rate, to a state of bondage, that 
 afterwards he may have that which is more than a compen- 
 sation for the drudgery through which he must go. Men 
 are struggling for condition in life; they are struggling for 
 
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 353 
 
 character; they are struggling for reputation; and they 
 meet with struggle all the way through. As in war, dif- 
 ferent men have different arms and different positions; but 
 all are engaged in a great struggle if they are engaged in 
 developing themselves. 
 
 Men are figliting against ignorance, against indolence, 
 against poverty, against opposition, against that fortune 
 which would keep them under. The whole individual life 
 of a man is a perpetual contest with something exterior to 
 himself, or something in himself. There is not a man liv- 
 ing, probably, who will not acknowledge that he is obliged 
 to fight in order to maintain the ascendency of reason in 
 his affairs. There is not a man who does not know tliat he 
 is constantly tempted to violate his own ideal and the wis- 
 dom of his own experience when the passions, such as envy 
 and jealousy, rise. There is not a man who can deny that 
 when temptations of self-indulgence are very strong, the 
 reason stands over on the other side, oftentimes, and lets 
 the conflict go on, and allows the animal desires to prevail 
 over the sober sense of what is wisest and best. Every man 
 knows that he is defeated many times, while he gains a vic- 
 tory only here and there. The sun does not go down on 
 any man who will not say, if he is candid, that in many 
 things the reason is put down in order that less noble parts 
 of him may triumph. A man looking through his whole 
 life must needs adopt the apostle's declaration, " That which 
 I see and pursue I attain not; that which I would I do not; 
 and that which I would not I do." The more a man looks 
 at himself, the more he has a sense of character and person- 
 ality, and the more he attempts to develop them — the more 
 conscious he is of this struggle, that goes on between his 
 upper self and his under self; between himself at his best 
 and himself at his worst; between the flesh man and the 
 spirit man. 
 
 Beginning here, the struggle goes on into the social world. 
 We find that as the elementary forms of society are in con- 
 flict, so society itself is in conflict. It divides itself up. 
 There are in all societies two extreme parts. There are 
 men that devote the whole force of their life to that which 
 23 
 
354 -PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 they think best for society; and there are men who devote 
 themselves to that which is evil. These two extremes are 
 distinctly marked. Men at one extreme never care what 
 is the effect of their desires, of their character, or of their 
 career. They do the thing they want to do; and to appeal 
 to them on the ground of reason is like appealing to a light- 
 house, the lamps in which have gone out. It is no guide to 
 them. They conduct their affairs without reference to the 
 benefit of society, and without reference to their own high- 
 est benefit. They follow their own present inclination. On 
 the other side are men that govern themselves by what is 
 best for the age, for the nation, for the community in which 
 they live, and for their own highest good. 
 
 Between these distinctly marked extremes come the great 
 fluctuating class of men that in many things side with the 
 right, and that in many things are lukewarm, in a cowardly 
 way siding with the wrong. They vibrate, and sometimes 
 are on one side, and sometimes on the other. 
 
 But the line of strife goes on still further. In business 
 there are also the two sides developed. There are the up- 
 riglit men, who sincerely mean to do right things, in right 
 ways, and from right motives. They pursue a legitimate 
 business, and pursue it in the ways which experience has 
 shown to be the best, on the whole. Then, at the other ex- 
 treme, there are rlien who do not care what their business is, 
 and they do not care wliat means they employ for the prose- 
 cution of tiiat business. There are men whose business is 
 founded upon benevolence, as all legitimate business is. I 
 do not care what a man's business is, I do not care whether 
 he is a tiller of the soil, a manufacturer, or a man engaged in 
 some commercial pursuit, that business, if it be a legitimate 
 one, is a benefaction. He is increasing the tlungs which 
 are for the sustenance and embellishment of life. Though 
 he may be working for himself primarily, he is secondarily 
 working for everybody tliat lives in the community. Every 
 man should learn to look upon his business as a calling 
 that, while it brings to him support, and it may be afflu- 
 ence, and even distinction, in the main is a factor of benevo- 
 lence, and is developing him by methods that very largely 
 
THE BATl^LE OF LIFE. 355 
 
 multiply the happiness, the convenience, and the welfare of 
 his fellow-men. 
 
 Then, on the other side, are men that trade on the pas- 
 sions; that buy and sell lusts; that oi)en houses of perdi- 
 tion; whose whole business is dealing in the fuel of hell. 
 There be men wlio care not whether their fellow-men go 
 down under the cup which they hold out to them or not. 
 They do not care whether tlieir property is consumed or 
 not. There are men who live on the misfortunes of others, 
 and are willing to do it. Tiiere are men who lurk round 
 about the unfortunate, and watch for the time when they 
 are at the greatest pinch of need, and then pounce upon 
 them. There are men that, like spiders, spin gauzy nets, 
 hover about the mouths, and when necessity drives their 
 victims in, seize them, and speedily devour them. There 
 aie men that destroy order and morality, and build their 
 business upon the ruins thereof. 
 
 Then there are, intermediate between these, men that 
 shade off, with every degree, from the extreme bad upward, 
 and from the extreme good downward, toward the middle 
 line. There is a large class that are inclined to the right, 
 and there is a large class that are inclined to the wrong; 
 and these two great extremes in society are forever in con- 
 flict. They meet each other in combat. Business clashes 
 against business. A large proportion of the troubles of 
 society in business affairs are troubles that spring from 
 the animal side of the human brain. If men were not 
 violent, cruel, murderous, half of the penal measures in 
 the community might be suppressed; there would be no 
 need of them. If men were not avaricious, secretive, and 
 furtive, how much of the machinery of courts and govern- 
 ments might be laid aside! If every man were honest, the 
 necessity for means of security in New York would be 
 reduced one half, and the lock business would go into 
 bankruptcy. If men could only be trusted, the civil offices 
 in town and country might be diminished one half. There 
 is no such tax as that which the animal man in the long run 
 puts upon individuals — upon the bad as well as upon the 
 good. 
 
356 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 Tlie trouble with men doe« not generally spring from 
 their reason. They make mistakes, to be sure, but they are 
 not thus led into collisions and conflicts. It is not from 
 their moral sense, it is not from their imagination, it is not 
 from their sympathy or benevolence, that the difficulties of 
 men spring; it is not from the moral side of their nature: 
 it is from the animal side. They arise from the fact that 
 men seek first themselves, as every animal does; and that 
 when they can do it by violence they do it by violence. 
 When they are restrained, and cannot do it by violence, 
 they do it secretively and furtively. When their passions 
 are up they are like the behemoth, that, with vast jaws, 
 pastures himself on whatever comes within his reach, and 
 tramples down what he does not devour. It is the animal 
 side of man that fills life with all its trials, and business 
 with all its hindrances. Men are perpetually fighting in 
 one direction or another. 
 
 Then there is the struggle that is going on all the time 
 in civil affairs. Men must have government; and govern- 
 ment must have officers and institutions; and the whole 
 community is divided into those that desire to control gov- 
 ernment for selfishness, and those tiiat desire to have gov- 
 ernment for the benefit of the community; into men that 
 are seeking their own party as a means of serving them- 
 selves, and men that are seeking their own party as a bene- 
 faction to the commonwealth. This conflict needs no de- 
 scription. It is going on all the time. The conflict is going 
 on too between good laws and bad laws, good policies and 
 bad policies, benevolent influences and selfish influences, 
 good men and bad men. 
 
 Lastly, there is a conflict between the men of the world 
 who do not believe in restraints, and the men of the world 
 who believe in tying everybody up by restraints. The 
 word religion means to bind, to tie up. Men are said to be 
 bound by their allegiance. And the world is divided into 
 those men that are seeking to reform, and those that are 
 seeking to unreform, to demoralize. There are, in a Chris- 
 tian community, a vast number of men relatively indiffer- 
 
THE BA TTLM OF LIFE. 357 
 
 ent or actively opposed to all forms of i-eligion. They pick 
 at the mistakes of the church, and have a merry good time 
 over them. 
 
 Then, on the other side, there are those that are seeking 
 to hold men up and to stimulate tliem with a sense of their 
 responsibility, and to open before them a higher and better 
 life. They seek to bring down a conception of God and 
 of the government of God upon the reason and conscience 
 of men, not for the sake of riding them, as in superstitious 
 days priests rode men's reason and conscience, but for the 
 sake of giving them freedom, largeness, nobleness. Any 
 form of religion that inspires a higher ideal of life, and 
 that fortifies the moral sense and the reason, is, witli all its 
 mistakes, worthy of any man's embracing. Errors tliere 
 may be, multitudes of errors there are, in eveiy religion. 
 As there is no garment that has not its seams, so there is 
 no religion that is without flaws. But there is this conflict 
 between those that would hold men in a harness and build 
 them up by customs and methods, and drill and train them, 
 and those that would take the opposite course. For here is 
 religion, here are the churches, that would enlighten them, 
 and there are men who are continually attempting to main- 
 tain the Sabbath, the church, instructive doctrines, all the 
 reformatory institutions of the day, and whatever tends to 
 lift mankind up from selfishness and animalism; while on 
 the other hand there are men who want to cut the cords 
 that are drawing them out of degradation, and to put out 
 the light that is beaming in upon every household; and 
 more and more is this so as 3'ou go down to those that have 
 greatest need of that light. 
 
 In short, wherever man is, there are to be found all the 
 incidents of human nature, and there is a perpetual fight 
 going on between the top of the brain and the bottom of 
 the brain. All the developments of society that take place 
 at the hands of men reproduce the same personal conflict. 
 As the apostle says, we war not against flesh and blood. 
 That is not our battle, although the world has had enough 
 of such battles. We are called, as Christian men, to war 
 against principalities, against powers, against the lulers of 
 
358 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 darkness. Ours is a spiritual warfare. No matter what 
 shape it takes in the external affairs of human society, the 
 root of it is in the spirit man. When, therefore, the apos- 
 tle speaks of putting on the whole armor of God, and pre- 
 paring himself for war, you see that it is more than a mere 
 rhetorical figure; that it is more than an ornamental flash 
 of eloquence; that it strikes the great key-note of life — the 
 fact that a man is made up of elements that are in strife 
 with each other. 
 
 And which shall gain the victory? On the whole, we 
 can say the higher manhood is gaining. It is gaining 
 slowly, gradually, in limited territories here and there; but 
 the averages of manhood have gone up. We have no men 
 ihat are greater than Plato and Aristotle; but we have fifty 
 millions of men that are better than the average men that 
 lived in their time. We have no better men than appeared 
 in the church in mediaeval days, or in days when the most 
 profound superstition prevailed; but we have a common 
 people that are inconceivably higher than were the great 
 ma!ss of common people in those days. And, on the whole, 
 the battle is working toward victory. 
 
 It is a long conflict. Why should it be ? Ask God. He 
 may tell you. He has never told anybody else. And what 
 is to be the whole history of it .' Ask some prophet. No 
 one that has ever been born yet could foresee the remotest 
 end. But we know that all the bells are rung, and all the 
 trumpets are blown, and all the choirs have sung, announc- 
 ing that there is to be a final victory for that which is right, 
 and that the righteousness of God and tlie purity of the 
 human race shall be celebrated in another sphere, with 
 mighty demonstrations of joys; but all the steps of provi- 
 dence from now till then are unrevealed to us. 
 
 In regard to this great conflict let me say, then, first, that 
 every man is enlisted in it — that is, if he has been born ! 
 It is uncertain whether some men ever were born. It is un- 
 certain whether the world would really lose a genuiue 
 human being if they should die. There are some men 
 that are so vaporous, so unsolid at the center, that it is 
 doubtful whether they have a plenary existence. But every 
 
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 359 
 
 one who is a man, by the very act of birth was born into 
 this great conflict. And no man can get out of it. Every 
 man is for truth, or he is for error. Every man is for right, 
 or he is for wrong. Every man is for benevolence, or he is 
 for selfishness. Every man is for the spiritual, or he is for 
 the animal. 
 
 Therefore, secondly, to make up life on the theory of 
 mere avoidance is to go in the face of nature, and of the 
 decree of divine providence. Every man who is bringing 
 up his children on the supposition that they are to get 
 rid of this conflict; every man who has the ideal of life 
 that it is to be a level road, that he can ride or walk, ac- 
 cording to his own pleasure, and that if he rides he will 
 ride in a carriage with springs, and move along easily 
 without a jolt — ever}^ such man is very greatly mistaken 
 in his calculations. These things might be true to you 
 if you were a sponge, but they are quite otherwise if 
 you are a man. You can take your choice as to whether 
 you will be a man working downward, or whether you 
 will be a man working upward; but that is the only choice 
 you can have; and he who thinks that the way to bring 
 up his children is to shield them from harm and care all 
 through their blessed, sweet lives does not know what is 
 best for them. 
 
 How many men that have worked themselves up from 
 poverty in boyhood, through toil and hardship, to an im- 
 pregnable position late in life, have determined that their 
 boys shall never carry burdens! and therefore the backs of 
 those boys are forever weak. They have determined that 
 their boys shall never have to pull and haul; and therefore 
 those boys are always dainty, and have cogent motives 
 taken away from them. And the consequence is that such 
 children grow up saying, "Why should I work? Father 
 has enough for all of us. Why should I not take pleasure ?" 
 And so they go shirking and skulking through life, and fall 
 into all manner of secretive, furtive, and destructive ways. 
 They say, "Life is a garden for us; we have enough; and 
 we will have a good time." The very ways which men often 
 
360 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 take to save their children from trouble and suffering result 
 in damning them. 
 
 The true method is to bring up every child under a sense 
 of responsibility, by one motive or another; to put a pi'es- 
 sure upon every child; and, if it be needful, to throw him 
 out into the world, and compel him to look after his own 
 welfare. Boys are taught to swim, sometimes, by being 
 pitched overboard, and made to swim for their life; they 
 learn very quickly; so many a man, having brought his child 
 up to the threshold of life, either intentionally or of neces- 
 sity, sends that child adrift. 
 
 The man who plans for himself in life that there shall 
 not be any hills in his road, that he is going to travel on a 
 level plain, that there is not going to be any gravel in his 
 shoes, that there are not to be any stones in his wa)^, and 
 that he is not going to have any color taken out of his 
 serene face — that man has an antagonist that he does not 
 suspect; it is God — who has decreed that he shall bear bur- 
 dens, and that he shall work out his own salvation, and 
 develop his own manhood. 
 
 Men who refuse, I remark thirdly, to join in this battle 
 for good are not, therefore, out of the battle. There are a 
 great many things going on in the community that some 
 do not wish to disturb themselves about. One set of men 
 are working to ameliorate the condition of the poor. Here 
 is a man who does not want to take a hand in that, because 
 it brings him into vulgar society. There are the sick, 
 there are the neglected, there are the dying; but then, 
 some men say, "Why should I go among them when I am 
 in danger of catching something if I do ' One might come 
 back with the itch, with the measles, with the whooping- 
 cough, or with some dirt on his shoes." " But," say others, 
 " somebody has got to go down and rescue those that are 
 suffering." Yes, somebody must fight the battle against 
 misery. 
 
 Are you in this army of fighters ? Are you doing any- 
 thing to relieve the unfortunate? O ! you are fighting on 
 your own hook, are you ? and will step out when you have 
 a mind to, will you ? Why, yon are worse than the militia; 
 
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 361 
 
 they can be made into regulars, but these guerrilla fighters 
 are but one step from robbers — these men that are all the 
 time criticising what others do, and never doing anything 
 themselves. 
 
 There are those who are seeking to restrain the terrific 
 evils that come from intoxicating drinks; and they are 
 called enthusiasts, impracticable men. What are you doing 
 to restrain those evils? Have you ever put forth one single 
 influence to stop a grog-shop ? There is one of these dens 
 of iniquity to about every fifteen men in this city— I had 
 almost said that there was one to every man. What effort 
 have you ever made to do away with them ? What personal 
 exertion have you put forth in that direction ? Did you 
 ever throw a javelin, did you ever draw a sword in that 
 cause? Have you ever sought in any way to promote tem- 
 perance ? You read your paper that ridicules temperance 
 workers; and you sneeringly remark that they will never 
 accomplish anything, that they are running their heads 
 against a wall who attempt to suppress the sale of intoxi- 
 cating drinks. All you have ever done, so far as this cause 
 is concerned, has been to find fault with men that were 
 doing something to advance it. 
 
 There are those who are trying to regenerate tenement 
 houses — those magazines of combustion where we slaugh- 
 ter by the wholesale. What have you ever done, what in- 
 fluence have yon ever cast, in that direction ? In the labor 
 of society to redeem itself, to train itself to purity, what 
 part have you taken? Have you had any active interest 
 in it? You have been building up your own property, 
 your own position, yourown family. That is all very well; 
 you ought to have done that; but these other things you 
 ouglit not to have left undone. 
 
 God is at work, and is inspiring his children; and those 
 that feel his influence, and are impelled by it, and are work- 
 ing for righteoiisness, are tending onward and upward; but 
 liow many men there are who do not sprout — who lie dead 
 in the ground ! Some men come with the early violets, and 
 blossom all summer long; but how many men there are 
 that go through their whole life without, from begin- 
 
362 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 ning to end, having blossomed into one promise, let alone 
 giving any fruit ! What a life ! What an account to 
 render up when one presents his spirit at the judgment ! 
 Do you suppose that because you read the Bible, and sing 
 hymns, and pray, you will be exempt from blame? Do 
 you say, "Lord, you cannot find any blood on my hands ; 
 I never stabbed a man in my life "? No ; but when he 
 turns to you and says, "I have been carrying on in human 
 life a great campaign, with all good on one side and all evil 
 on the other, and I put you into this world to take sides 
 with the good: have you done it?' what reply can you 
 make ? 
 
 Do you remember that tremendous chapter which is 
 given in Matthew ? 
 
 "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy 
 angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and be- 
 fore him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one 
 from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he 
 shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then 
 shall the King say to them on his right hand. Come, ye blessed of my 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and 
 ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye 
 clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came 
 unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw 
 we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 
 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and clothed 
 thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 
 And the King shall answer and say unto them. Verily, I say unto you, 
 inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
 ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left 
 hand. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the 
 devil and his angels; for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I 
 was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me 
 not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited 
 me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we 
 thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in 
 prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, 
 ?aying. Verily. I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the 
 least of these ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into ever- 
 lasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." 
 
 In this great conflict every man must bear a part ; and 
 
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 363 
 
 he who goes through life with an unbeating heart and an 
 unhelping hand, refusing to take sides for the ignorant, the 
 poor, the despoiled, the suffering, is fighting against God, 
 ijecause he is figliting against his fellow-men, having taken 
 sides against them. " He that is not with me is against 
 me." There is not a line in which that terrible thing is 
 not true. 
 
 On the other hand, every one that is working for men, 
 patiently and generously, no matter how humbly, is work- 
 ing for God. The fact that 5'ou are working for God 
 brings all things to a level. The lowest thing is exalted 
 when it is for God, and the highest thing, when it is for 
 God, is not much higher than the lowest. The last shall 
 be first, and the first shall be last. 
 
 Many men think they can sneak out of this battle. They 
 may in their own sight, and in the sight of their fellow-men ; 
 but not in the sight of God. We are bound to take sides 
 for the right everywhere. At every step, in every depart- 
 ment of life, we are bound to be on the right side, and to 
 give our whole influence for the right, and against the 
 wrong. It is not optional. It is a thing for which you 
 were born, and for which you are to give account. 
 
 Suppose, now, that you should make the rest of the ap- 
 plication of this sermon to yourself ? Suppose you should, 
 to-night, with pencil in hand, consider your own case, and 
 ask yourself, facing the matter honestly, " What am I doing ? 
 what am I doing for myself ? what am I doing to make my- 
 self better?" Are you on the right side in the conflict be- 
 tween good and evil ? In your person and in your rela- 
 tions to your fellow-men, to your household, to those whom 
 you employ, to human societ)', and to the civil government 
 under which you live, are you conscious that you are putting 
 forth whatever influence you have against wrong and for 
 right ? 
 
 Oh, what emptiness do we see on every hand in the lives 
 of men cut out for great things ! How men scuffle through 
 life, and contrive to avoid the best things ! How fruitless 
 and poor are their lives for tiie most part ! 
 
 When I observe seedling apple-trees in my neighbors' 
 
364 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 fields and in my own, I see that the trees are worm-clad, 
 that the fruit is small, and that there is very little of it — 
 which is the best thing about it; for if you pick it and taste 
 of it you find that it is sour as vinegar. And yet those 
 trees, if they had been grafted, might have hung glorious 
 as sunset with rich fruit in autumn. But they were never 
 grafted. There is nothing of them except that which 
 nature gave to them. 
 
 Now, what nature gave to you was a body, with animal 
 passions, and with the germs of reason and of the higher 
 moral sentiments. But grace is perpetually attempting to 
 overcome the lower nature by the grafted nature, or new 
 development, which is of God. By the Holy Spirit, that 
 in you which is divine is brought up into power, and made 
 luminous; and the Holy Spirit is given without measure to 
 all. It is given as the sunlight or the summer is given, and 
 a man can appropriate it just as he can the sunlight, or he 
 can neglect it as he can the sunlight. 
 
 What a great work is going on in life ! and in it all how 
 few men have an aim that is high and noble! How many 
 are seeking selfish ends ! How many are living for the 
 things of this life that are not manly; that are not benevo- 
 lent; that are not right ! 
 
 There are a great many young men that come here; there 
 are a great many here to-night; and this is a very serious 
 question for every young man, as it is a very serious ques- 
 tion for very many others, "Which side am I on in this» 
 great conflict ?" Do not delude yourself by saying, " I am 
 not on either side." You are on one side or the other. 
 Your influence is working for light or for darkness, for 
 purity or impurity, for good or for evil. And if in review, 
 to-night, there comes upon you the consciousness that in 
 regard to these higher ends of life it is a fact that you have 
 been recreant, is it not a good time to-night, and now, for 
 you to change your course ? Is it not a good time for 
 you to say, " By the help of God, from this hour I will 
 throw my whole conscious being into the great battle for 
 righteousness and for God ?" Will you register that vow? 
 Will you sit down to-night, and enter in some form to be 
 
THE BATTLE OP LIFE. 365 
 
 kept, the solemn promise and covenant that you will give 
 more positiveness, more decision, and more direction to all 
 the powers which you possess, that you may live for God, 
 and give your life to his work ? Is this unreasonable ? Is 
 it not rational ? Is it not a thing which commends itself to 
 the intelligent judgment of men? 
 
 I pray you, do not let this opportunity go by. You know 
 that I never take any advantage, that I never play off any 
 tricks, that I never use any sophistication, in my efforts to 
 bring men to Christ. The things that I want you to believe 
 I believe myself with all my heart. I never try to cover up 
 anything by the old philosophies. I tell you the truth so 
 far as I know. I deal honorably with you. I ask of you 
 nothing for the sake of this church; nothing for the sake 
 of any sect; nothing except for your own sake, for Christ's 
 sake, and for the sake of the world which he is redeeming, 
 I urge honest things in an honest way; and I have a right 
 to an honest response; there are many here to-night whose 
 judgments and consciences go with me; and I say to you, 
 Ratify this vow; come to the decision to-niglit, " As for me 
 and my household, henceforth we will serve the Lord." 
 And may God ratify it ! 
 
XIV. 
 THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. 
 
 "Standfast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us 
 free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." 
 
 " For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty 
 for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." — Gal. v : 
 I. 13- 
 
 The transition from Judaism to Christianity was not 
 facile. It was not upon smooth water nor under a balmy- 
 sky. There was involved in it nearly every one of those 
 elements of resistance and of contention which have ac- 
 companied growth from that day to this. As human life 
 begins in throes and labor-pain, so every successive step 
 of development in the individual is by the throes of self- 
 denial. It would seem almost as though suffering and sor- 
 row were godmothers to every step upward in this world. 
 No enfranchisement among men in citizenship, no liberty 
 of men in moral things, no largeness in organization toward 
 liberty, and no clearer light in matters of religious faith 
 and religious duty have taken place, except through con- 
 tentions, resistances — largely the resistance of good men; 
 good in other things, not wise in that. 
 
 We are living in a time when we know that there is a great 
 change going on. I do not allude to the long past ten- 
 dencies in Germany, and the lapse of faith in France, but 
 to the tendencies in our own motherland, in England, where, 
 if there is a learned conservatism in the world, it abides. 
 There is a great change going on there in almost every 
 
 Sunday Morning, April 29, 1883. Lesson, i Cor. xiii : 27-31. 
 
 366 
 
THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. 367 
 
 point of theology and of eschatology. Quietly it has drifted 
 across the sea, and there is a change in men's thoughts 
 that does not seem likely to cease — a change that if resisted 
 improperly and blindly will be for woe, but if encouraged 
 and treated Christianly will bring forth the peaceable fruits 
 of righteousness. A great many people are alarmed. A 
 great many have an impression that the church is like a 
 ship, that never should leak or change its form on the voy- 
 age. If anything happens on board everybody expects 
 fire, or flood, or some great disaster. They have got into 
 the church from fear, and they want it to carry them into 
 heaven; but they want to go on as they started. They 
 want to feel that they are safe, and so they trust in organ- 
 ization and in old convictions. They are afraid of the 
 New. The timid are, the cautious are, and the hierarchy 
 are of course; because the power of these men depends 
 upon the continuity of faith in the things that they have 
 taught, and to which they minister. 
 
 I wish to take a somewhat large view of this subject of 
 liberty in the matter of thinking and speaking, to-day. The 
 Pauline doctrine of personal liberty has never been realized 
 except in single cases, never has been realized in whole 
 churches nor in whole denominations in any age; and if it 
 were stated in full it would alarm, I fear, even the wisest 
 among us. The doctrine of Paul, howfever, is not that a 
 Christian man has a right to liberty in conduct, thought, 
 and speech in and of himself, without regard to external 
 circumstances, interests, organizations, and without refer- 
 ence to his own condition. Paul's conception of the rights 
 and liberties of men stands on the philosophical ground 
 underneath all those things. Rights and liberties belong 
 to stages or states of condition. The inferior has not the 
 right of the superior. A stupid man has not the right of 
 an educated or intelligent man. He may have the legal 
 rights, but the higher ones that spring out of the condition of 
 the soul must stand on the conditions to which they belong. 
 A refined man has rights and joys that an unrefined man 
 has not, and cannot have, because he cannot understand 
 them, he does not want them, and he could not use them. 
 
368 PLYM0U7'H PULPIT. 
 
 Rights increase as the man increases, — and as the man in- 
 creases not merely in physical stature or in skill of manual 
 employment or material strength, but in character. So, as 
 men work up higher and higher toward the divine standard 
 of character their rights and liberties increase. The direct 
 influence of Christ is to bring the human mind into its 
 highest elements— reason, conscience, and all of them 
 emancipated by love, such love as Christ's was, or God's 
 as interpreted by Christ. The power of the divine nature 
 upon the human soul is to lift it steadily away from ani- 
 malism or from the flesh — the under-man — up through the 
 realm of mere material wisdom and accomplishment, in the 
 direction of soul power, reason, rectitude — such reason and 
 such rectitude as grow up under the ordination and inspi- 
 ration of the Holy Ghost, or Love. When love has per- 
 meated the whole man, he then has perfect liberty, — liberty 
 of thought, liberty of speech, liberty of conduct. A perfect 
 Christian is the one and only creature that has absolute 
 liberty unchecked by law, by institution, by foregoing 
 thoughts of men, by public sentiment. Because a perfect 
 man is in unison with the divine soul, he has the whole 
 liberty of God in himself, according to the measure of his 
 manhood. But he has liberty to do only what he wants to 
 do, and he wants to do nothing that is not within the bounds 
 and benefit of a pure and true love. He becomes a law to 
 himself; that is, he carries in himself that inspiration of 
 love which is the mother of all good law. He is higher 
 than any law. For you and for me, riding across country, 
 there are metes and bounds, fences, rivers, ditches; but for 
 birds there are none. They fly higher. For low men, low- 
 toned, there are metes and bounds of custom and public 
 sentiment or institutions, laws and restrictions; but for one 
 who has gone up higher than all these into the universal 
 and divine, there are no such things. He thinks what is true, 
 he does what is benevolent. His will is with God's will. 
 He has liberty, not to do anything on his own judgment 
 and desire, but anything that is not contrary to reason, con- 
 science, and the desire of a soul wholly controlled by the 
 spirit of love, which is the spirit of Christ. 
 
THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. 369 
 
 This doctrine is simple enough in enunciation, but it is 
 complex and difficult in application. Paul was well aware 
 of all this. Again and again he meets almost every emer- 
 gency. Thus, in the First of Corinthians, he meets the 
 very charge which is the fear of conservative men. " Now, 
 as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we 
 have all knowledge." We are advanced thinkers. We are 
 not tied up by old Jewish fables. We are not held back 
 by old Jewish practices and prejudices. We have all the 
 knowledge we want. "Ah!" says the Apostle, "mere 
 knowledge puffs up." A man who has nothing but clear 
 thinking and clear knowledge is a bladder puffed up. 
 But love buildeth up. One is air, the other is substance. 
 You have liberty of thought and liberty of speech, but if 
 that is all you have, those tend to swell you with pride and 
 vanity, and run to hardness of heart and to mischief of al- 
 most every kind. If you are accurate, if you are widely 
 knowledgeable, that does not bring liberty; for the very vi- 
 tal element is left out of it. Love edifieth, — that is, buildeth 
 up, whereas mere knowledge pufieth up. Puffeth up, yes! 
 We do not need to go far to see that. How swelling are 
 men that are "sound in their belief," as they say and think! 
 They are sound with their contemporaries. They are 
 sound as heritors of past genertitions of thought. They 
 are the orthodox of the orthodox. Pharisees of the Phar- 
 isees. Paul said he was. They not only hold that they 
 are sound, and therefore have the rights of authority, but 
 that men who disagree with them are under their rod to 
 be chastised, to be excluded, to be punished — not always 
 by the civil law, thank God, now. We have gained so much, 
 that men shall not be touched nor harmed by law for their 
 variations of belief and faith. But there is something 
 crueller than the law. A man's name may be disfigured, 
 a man's reputation may be soiled, a man's social relations 
 may all be broken off; a man may find himself crushed to 
 the wall, shut out from all the amenities and honors and 
 enjoyments of human society, by those who have no right 
 to punish him for his belief, but who say that if he does 
 not believe as they do he must take the consequences, and 
 24 
 
370 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. . 
 
 who, without the element of love, have lost the element of 
 liberty as well. 
 
 The rights and liberties of man are, however, negative 
 and positive. When we speak of a man's rights we are 
 very apt to think of them simply in their primitive form. 
 " I have a right to think, to speak, and to do;" but you have 
 the other right too; you have a right to hold your tongue. 
 You are not bound to speak whenever you have a mind to. 
 You have a right to think and to investigate; and you have 
 a right to form a Christian judgment whether in your age, 
 in your conditions, it is best for you to speak your thought. 
 This is particularly so in the case of all men who stand in 
 a pastoral or teaching relation. There are a great many 
 men in the world who cannot understand this. I some- 
 times think they have so few ideas of their own that when- 
 ever they get one they cannot help firing it off, just like a 
 child with a Chinese cracker. What is it good for unless 
 they fire it off ? There are men who have an idea, and 
 they do not know what is the matter with them, and they 
 make it known everywhere, and they ride it, and ride it to 
 death. It is not large; it has no connections one side or 
 the other; but it is a little different; and it may and it may 
 not be a little better than has been held before; and so 
 they proclaim it. Looking upon those whose business it 
 is to advance the cause of truth, and who are supposed to 
 have had some advanced views, they say, "Why don't these 
 men speak out ? Why don't the pulpits, all of them, utter 
 their views ? These men have knowledge and don't let it 
 out. They believe a good deal further ahead than they 
 preach, and they are not sincere." They think every man 
 is to put a trumpet to his mouth, and every moment he has a 
 new idea, rush to proclaim it without waiting for the truth 
 to ripen, or without thinking of what the effect will be. 
 For although the general fact is that truth is safe in the 
 long-run, there is also an intermediate stage in which truth 
 is to be used as physicians use medicine, and just as nurses 
 use food. A woman in a hospital or amongst orphans does 
 not undertake to exercise all her knowledge and all hei' 
 skill of every sort and kind. Her thought is, all the time, 
 
THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. 371 
 
 what will the children bear ? Christ says, " I have many- 
 things to tell you, but you are not able to bear it." 
 
 There are two obstructions to the progress of truth. 
 One is the natural obscurity of the teacher's own mind, his 
 moral condition; the other is the condition of those to 
 whom he brings it. It is oftentimes true that truth is a 
 lie — truth in your mouth and a lie in the ears of your con- 
 gregation. They do not understand it; they misunderstand 
 it; they are not prepared for it. In school we bring chil- 
 dren up through the primitive branches, little by little, that 
 by-and-by they may take hold of higher truths which are 
 at first to be adumbrated; and it is eminently so in all 
 moral instruction. There are two considerations: one is 
 the clarity or the elevation of the man himself; and the 
 other is the condition of mind of the community to which he 
 ministers. It is a perpetual practical compromise. It is a 
 perpetual unfolding of the truth to the teacher, and through 
 him to his people, little by little as they digest it, bringing 
 them at last to that condition in which they shall be fed, 
 not any longer with milk, but with meat, because they are 
 full-grown. All these practical elements are involved in 
 the Pauline history. They break out and show themselves 
 here and there all the way through the writings, especially 
 of the Apostle Paul, the great organizer of antiquity. 
 
 A man, therefore, may speak or withhold. He may stand 
 in his own liberty, or he may withhold for the good of 
 others. He has a right to speak and a right to be silent. 
 This liberty is founded upon love, and appertains unto no 
 other condition, so that the first grand element of liberty 
 is a heart transformed unto the temperature of heaven, 
 unto the divine benevolence, so that a man shall not be so 
 sensitive about himself, nor about the future of his own 
 name, nor about his standing, nor about the opposition he 
 may bring upon himself, nor about anything that is low 
 and personal whatsover, but may hold all his rights in the 
 sublime and most beautiful temperature of universal be- 
 nevolence and Christian love. 
 
 Our rights are founded on that. A malign man has not 
 the rights of a benign man, an,y more than an ignorant man 
 
372 PL YMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 has the rights of an intelligent and educated man. All 
 men have general rights of citizenship, as I have said; but 
 that is on the implied condition of a state of mind which 
 makes it possible to be citizens. The men who cannot be 
 made to be citizens have not the rights of citizens. Rights 
 develop with the advance of moral excellence. A brute 
 savage has just the rights of the savage, and none other. 
 The twilight barbarian has the rights of a barbarian, and 
 those are all. If he wants higher ones, then he must first 
 go higher himself. They are the rights which belong to 
 stages of higher development in men and mankind. If he 
 is semi-civilized, his rights are greatly increased; but a man 
 must go up first in himself. His rights are evolved from 
 the state of mind or condition in which he lives; and in 
 civilized communities no man can have rights belonging to 
 qualities which he does not possess. 
 
 How much more is this true, then, in the moral common- 
 wealth! Liberty of investigation, liberty of knowledge, 
 liberty of speech — all these belong to the higher stages of 
 moral development in the teacher and in the church. 
 
 Now, what are the obstacles and hinderances to perfect 
 liberty of thought and perfect liberty of speech in our 
 times ? There is a great deal being said or implied, a great 
 deal being counseled and attempted on this matter; for 
 thinking has broken out. You may save a seed from 
 sprouting by proper care, but when a seed has sprouted no 
 human power can crowd it back again into the stage in 
 which it was before it sprouted. You may prevent an egg 
 from hatching; but when it is once hatched you cannot get 
 it into that shell again. And the light has dawned that is 
 at once light east and west, all over the world, on all sides; 
 and you cannot shut it back, in material science, sociology, 
 and civil government, equities of every kind, moralities and 
 spiritual religion, historic elements and vital elements, 
 contemporaneous. It is up and out. Men are restless, un- 
 easy. " What shall we do?" This is the question that is 
 to-day tremulous in the minds of thousands and thousands 
 of good men. 
 
 I remark, then, in regard .to the obstacles in the way of 
 
THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. 373 
 
 truth, that the relatively low moral condition of individual 
 character is the one greatest obstacle. Pride, selfishness, 
 vanity, intolerance, cruelty in one's self, extinguish love; 
 and with the extinction of that is lost the right to be an in- 
 terpreter of truth. No man can touch the hidden truths 
 of God with unclean and vulgar hands. That man has be- 
 come God's priest who has risen up into the divine spirit. 
 It is the spirit of true living such as is in creation; such as is 
 in the divine service of all created things; such as is made 
 known in the redemption of Jesus Christ and in the inter- 
 pretation of his Father's nature; such as is provided to 
 minister the providence of God. It is the disposition for 
 well-doing, the disposition out of which springs blessing, 
 blessing, blessing, and not cursing. 
 
 Now, in the individual, and in collective individuals, 
 truth is withstood both in discovery and in propagation, 
 by the fact that men are so largely under the domination 
 of their animal passions and appetites. Holiness enlarges 
 a man, enlarges his authority and his influence. We are 
 not good enough, pure enough, patient enough. If indi- 
 viduals are, collective bodies are not. 
 
 Was there ever a sweeter nature than that of Dr. Thomas, 
 of Chicago? But he differed in some respects from his 
 Methodist brethren; and when they came together to dis- 
 cuss it, they gnashed their teeth upon him because he held 
 views contrary to Methodism. He was Christ-like, he was 
 sweet-minded and pure-lived, but they cast him out. Was 
 there ever a man whose simplicity of life and perpetual aim 
 in sweetness, in knowledge, and in light surpassed that of 
 Professor Swing ? His piety was universally recognized, 
 and his disposition. Yet Presbyterianism could not con- 
 tain him within its bounds, because his thoughts traversed 
 the lines of Presbyterianism. But a bird has the right to 
 fly just as high as its wings will carry it. A mole has the 
 right to go just where its nature carries it. If birds were 
 subject to the control of worms and moles, what a time 
 there would be ! Wings would be at a discount, and he 
 would not be orthodox that did not creep and crawl. The 
 
374 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 liberty of intelligence, of purity, and of love surpassing is 
 absolute and universal. 
 
 Low intelligence of the community is another difficulty; 
 that is to say, it is inexpedient to attempt to teach truths 
 for which the times are not yet prepared; but it is perfectly 
 right to take the steps by which the community shall be 
 conducted, little by little, upwards. It is perfectly right 
 for some men to take the fate of martyrs if they feel that the 
 blood of the martyrs is to be the seed of the Church. There 
 are men who throw themselves out of their pulpits and out 
 of their professorships that they may bear testimony to the 
 truth- which their generation will not receive, but the next 
 one will; men who have done in a humble, miniature way 
 as the Saviour did. They have given their life for their 
 kind and for their generation. It would be impossible for 
 one to take the higher truths that are being disclosed by 
 the Holy Spirit into a drudging, dull, and unthinking con- 
 gregation with any profit. Rights and liberty go with de- 
 velopment; and where people are clod-like you cannot 
 make known to them the truths that only come through 
 the ministry of higher intelligence and riper spiritual con- 
 ditions. 
 
 More than all these, I think that this perfect liberty 
 which comes from perfect purity and elevation of spirit is 
 thwarted and hindered by organization. It is so in civil 
 society, and always has been so; but that battle has been 
 very nearly fought out, with here and there an exception. 
 The fundamental misery, the world over, has been that 
 men could not be trusted. Rulers, whether they were in 
 the form of privileged classes, or monarchs, emperors, 
 whatever they might be, have governed men as brutes are 
 governed — by fences, by mechanical and material hin- 
 derances; and, generally speaking, the business of govern- 
 ment has been to prevent men from doing wrong — not to 
 lift them up where they would be fruitful of good. In 
 those early stages, when governments were purely nega- 
 tive, manhood made but very small progress; but with the 
 rising light of knowledge, and the study of knowledge,- 
 larger and larger lives were developed, until by-and-by the 
 
THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. 375 
 
 State was not the supreme thing. A few centuries ago the 
 king could do no wrong; but there was no wrong that the 
 people were not held likely to do. The majesty of heaven 
 was supposed to have fallen upon the shoulders of kings, 
 and the common, the vulgar people were trampled under- 
 foot, as we trample the dirt under our feet in the streets. 
 Almost all lower civic employments were defiled by con- 
 tempt. 
 
 One of the old pagan philosophers, Plato, would not al- 
 low a mechanic in his ideal republic. All the way down 
 from him until even within this generation, occupations of 
 a manual character have been considered, if not as posi- 
 tively dishonoring, yet as preventing a man from being 
 ranked among the honorable classes. Steadily the rights 
 of the people have increased, just as their knowledge in- 
 creased. Just as they were lifted higher and higher with- 
 in themselves, they began to have more and more of the 
 rights which belong to this higher stage of the brain, until, 
 to-day, Italy is governed by her people, France is governed 
 by her people, Germany semi-governed by her people — 
 Germany, the nation which has given to the world more 
 fundamental ideas of liberty and right than any other, and 
 has had fewer liberties and rights than almost any other 
 European nation; but that is only for a generation. Look 
 out for lively times when the reigning government dies. 
 England is now being governed by her people more and 
 more. She is in transition. There is dynamite under her 
 soil, and there will be a good many elements of difficulty 
 and of trouble before she comes to a perfect comprehension 
 of the rights of the people. Their will, their knowledge, 
 their sense of right, will have expression in the whole or- 
 ganization of government. We are going to have the 
 finest pyrotechnics in Russia, that this world has ever seen; 
 and as, when the Fourth of July comes, people like to have 
 dark, stormy clouds against which rockets may go up, and all 
 manner of exhibitions be made, as it brings out the light, 
 so the dense darkness around that great empire is one 
 which in the changes that are near at hand will show up 
 the revolt by which the people will refuse to be brute ani- 
 
376 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 mals any longer, and by which they will assert the rights 
 of manhood in spite of laws, ordinances, precedents, or any 
 other thing. There is going to be a world's spectacle. 
 
 Well now, we see that things pertaining to the State for 
 the most part all over the world are moving in this direc- 
 tion. A man may write on political economy everywhere, 
 and no government thinks of meddling with him. He could 
 not have done it once; he was not safe. A man may write, 
 safely, a national discourse on the structure of civil govern- 
 ment anywhere, in Italy, in Spain, in France. Castelar 
 may stand in old Spain, and with eloquent orations de- 
 scribe what is the realm of republicanism, and defend it, 
 and neither priest nor king lays hand on him any more; this 
 marvel of the world, this Castelar, who stands, as Lazarus 
 stood, evoked by the power of God from the grave, bound 
 with napkins; but even now the head-bands and the shrouds 
 are taken off from him, and he stands in life with the back- 
 ground of the old grave behind him, the most impressive 
 man, perhaps, of the century. 
 
 We see in this land the furthest product and the ripest 
 fruit of liberty when it is based upon intelligence and mo- 
 rality, or virtue and religion. Liberty will grow wider and 
 wider just as mere morality takes on itself spiritual forms. 
 Good neighborhood, live and let live, co-operation, so that 
 the weak may have the benefit of the strong — all these are 
 but elements in the lower phases of the royal doctrine of 
 divine benevolence. Helpfulness, sympathy of men with 
 men, goodness, the spirit of blessing and not of cursing — all 
 these are getting emancipation in our land. Moreover, all 
 round the world it is safe for a man to be a scientific man to- 
 day. There is no danger of Galileo's recanting now; no 
 danger of the astrologist now being pounded in a mortar 
 because he is an astronomer; no danger of the chemist any 
 longer being considered as a worker in the black arts and 
 sorcery. Whatever there may be in the laboratory, what- 
 ever in the observatory, and whatever in the whole round 
 of investigation, any man who has discovered the truth has 
 a right to proclaim it, and he is perfectly safe; nay, he is 
 honored. If it be something in advance of that which has 
 gone by, he is honored. 
 
THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. ^ri 
 
 How comes it to pass, then, that the place where there 
 is the least liberty is the place where there should have 
 been the most ? Organized Christianity is in such a pe- 
 culiar condition that everywhere it withstands and estops 
 absolute liberty. The church that was founded for the 
 protection of spirituality, the church that was meant to be 
 the very Eden of love, is that growth which has attained 
 to so small a stature and has so little liberty, that it is more 
 afraid of investigation, and discussion, and advanced views 
 than any other organization in the world. 
 
 Heber Newton is a good Christian, and nobody doubts 
 it. He is of a sweet and temperate spirit. Nobody says 
 a word about that. He has laboriously made himself ac- 
 quainted wiih all that has been thought on the subject of the 
 inspiration of Sacred Scripture in the whole wisest scholar- 
 ship of Germany, England, and America. As a part of his 
 pastoral duty in instructing the people of his church he has 
 made known these views of advanced thought, some of 
 which I should not agree with, but with, the major part of 
 which I should agree. Many excellent men loudly demand 
 that he be cited to appear before his bishop. What for ? 
 Neglect of church duty ? O, no! For an untoward spirit ? 
 O, no! For rashness ? O, no! Because he has expressed 
 the scholarship of a hundred years' ripening as a part of 
 his duty to his church. What is the charge ? He has vio- 
 lated his ordination oaths. How came a man to have im- 
 posed on him ordination oaths that take away from him 
 the divine liberty of thought and speech ? It is the church 
 that is the criminal, and not the man of light. No organi- 
 zation has a right to exist that cannot hold within its 
 bounds a man who gives evidence that he is the Lord's in 
 his temper, and in his whole disposition and life. Sweet- 
 souled, beautiful in love, temperate in action, considerate, 
 he has a right to stand in any organization. If he is cast 
 out, woe to the synagogue that casts him out, and bless- 
 ings on the man for his fidelity! When the man testifying 
 that Christ gave him sight was cast out of the synagogue, 
 Jesus sought him and blessed him. He goes out with 
 Christ, who is cast out of the church because the exercise 
 
378 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 of his Christian rights condemns him within the bounds of 
 the organization. I say that there are no Congregational 
 churches that have the right to exclude any man who shows 
 that Christ has received him, and who is living in the Christ- 
 like spirit. No Presbyterian organization has a right to 
 exist, no matter how long it has existed, and no matter 
 how necessary it seems to be, in which there are such limi- 
 tations as stand in the way of that perfect development of 
 liberty which is in Jesus Christ; and the time will come 
 when there will be revolution under its foundations. To- 
 day it is reformation taking the place of revolution in the 
 Presbyterian church, which I love, and in whose ministry 
 I began my career, — though it would not let me in now ! 
 
 A hundred questions are coming up. Some persons 
 do not want to disturb themselves, and they let it all 
 alone, and go on with their Sunday Schools, and their 
 teaching. They say, " I do understand ethics and moral- 
 ity; my business is to teach those things." And these men 
 glide under and get along. They are useful men. A great 
 many more men, however, think of these things, and think 
 strongly of them; and the first sign of fruit is this, — that 
 they do not preach any more as they used to. Hundreds 
 of men who once made damnation roll through the arches 
 of the church, never say " damnation" any more; and if 
 you ask them, "Do you believe in eschatology just as it 
 used to be taught ? do you believe that men perish for ever 
 and ever in an endless round of suffering ?" they say, 
 "Well! there are many opinions on that subject." They 
 dodge. I know men (and I should not have to go a great 
 way for them) who have had a perfect revolution on those 
 and many other cognate subjects ; but they devote themselves 
 to pastoral life. They say they are not reformers of theol- 
 ogy, and they keep silent. But here and there is a man 
 who cannot keep silent. Maybe he is foolish. He speaks 
 his mind. If it is done effectively, it disturbs the de- 
 nomination; it disturbs the church. He may have 
 a better interpretation of Scripture than the old, but 
 it is not authorized. He may have a better philosophy, 
 or new facts, but it is not the traditional doctrine. Men 
 
THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. 379 
 
 say to him, in counsel, first gently, " Now, we think well of 
 you; would it not save a great deal of trouble if you 
 quietly slipped out of the denomination ? We do not want 
 to hurt you, but still your views are such that they clash 
 with the views of the old men that are in the church. They 
 are likely to make controversy and disturbance, and we 
 want peace. Had you not better go out?" "Well," he 
 says, "I don't want to go out. I was born in this church; 
 my fathers were here; I was brought up in it; and I feel 
 like being invited to go out of the commonwealth, or to 
 emigrate to a foreign country. I don't mean to make a 
 disturbance. I am going to preach only as far as in con- 
 science bound; I mean to preach according to the strictest 
 direction of the Apostle — in love; I have got my liberty of 
 thought and speech from the inspiration of divine love, and 
 I am going to minister in that inspiration." " O, well," say 
 they, " there will be trouble." 
 
 You know there is, in every large church or denomination, 
 a set of men whose business it is to hound their brethren. 
 They have a nose for heresy. Night and day they lay their 
 nose down to the track, and they follow up the scent. 
 These men think they are doing God service, just as Paul 
 thought he was when he was going to Damascus. In many 
 respects they are very good men. So a hangman may be 
 a good man, but his is not a very reputable office; and if 
 he elected himself to it, it would be still less reputable. 
 There are hangmen in religious organizations who run 
 round for victims, and who long to have the handling of 
 the cords, for the purity of the church. As if the purity of 
 the church lay in its outwardness! As if there was any 
 purity of the church without the indwelling of the Holy 
 Ghost in the hearts of all its members ! 
 
 There is another set of men who are out and at large. I 
 recollect in my youth men who were settled over churches 
 till they spoiled them, and, having addled their own eggs, 
 they ran around trying to sit on the eggs of every one they 
 found. They had the rarest talent in the world for rotting 
 eggs. These men are always busy in times of heresy. They 
 are thicker than flies in August. 
 
38o PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 Then there are the men of natural combativeness, who 
 love argument; and they do not care how far it smites and 
 cuts, they love it, and they love a controversy. Whenever 
 there are attacks upon their organization, and their 
 church, and their faith, they feel that they are called upon. 
 " Contend earnestly for the faith," is the sweetest text that 
 ever a combative man mouthed. If it was, " Suffer for the 
 faith," or if it was, "With meekness defend the faith," or 
 if it was self-abnegation and humility and sweetness which 
 was the duty imposed on them, that would be another thing. 
 But if some rugged angel comes to them at night, and 
 says, "Wake up, my brother, and defend the faith; fight 
 for the faith " — at once, " Lord, here I am; I am just fit for 
 that ; here am I." When there is any fighting to be done, 
 they have the graces. 
 
 There is, also, an esprit de corps in the church which is ap- 
 pealed to, and the pride a derfomi nation has in its own in- 
 tegrity; for you know there is not a denomination of 
 Christians on the earth that has not privately a league with 
 God by which they are his peculiar people, and all the rest 
 exist merely on sufferance. They have secured the last 
 thouglit of God. They have got the last authority in their 
 organization. Is not the mother Church of Rome fully 
 possessed of the belief that salvation is of her, and of none 
 other? Are not all Protestants agreed that she has not 
 any such authority ? But the Presbyterian says, " It is 
 with me;" and the Lutheran says, "It is with me;" and 
 the Episcopal Church rubs its golden spectacles, and 
 says, " It is with me ;" and the Baptist Church throws 
 water over the wliole of them, and extinguishes their 
 zeal, saying, " No, it is with me; I have been to the bot- 
 tom of Jordan, and you have not." They are all arrogant 
 at root and at bottom, contentious for the faith that once 
 was delivered to them and their lineal ancestors. 
 
 But we are coming to times in which, thank God, that 
 whicli has already taken place in the great civil organiza- 
 tions of the globe is going to take place in the church or- 
 ganizations. Men may resist it, and may in various ways 
 club together against it, but the light is too strong, the 
 
THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST. 381 
 
 scholars are too numerous. Men who are really Christ- 
 like, and men vvlio have in the liberty of Jesus Christ gained 
 more penetrating thought, deeper experience, and knowl- 
 edge of God deeper and truer — these men are beginning to 
 be so numerous in-England, in America, and in every part, 
 that they form an invisible brotherhood who comfort each 
 other; and a public sentiment is growing up. 
 
 Now consider tliat while this is taking place on one side, 
 there is en tlie other side a movement of disbelief, based on 
 scientific developments, that is bearing up against all 
 churches, bombarding them all, driving men away from 
 their internal disputes, driving them nearer and nearer 
 together. The presence of a common foe is tending on the 
 other side to drive men into closer communion with each 
 other; and the light from this side is working steadily an 
 amelioration of the interior consciousness. In other words, 
 God, by his power, is really changing the hearts of men, 
 lifting them into a higher moral perception and condition. 
 Love is giving them liberty on one side, and fear is press- 
 ing them toward the right ground on the other side. So 
 that the world, I think, stands on the eve of — what? Dis- 
 organization? utter ruin of doctrine? ruin of Scripture? 
 destruction of ordinances? dissolution of churches? No; 
 O, no. Every king that ever was dethroned by republic- 
 anism thought that anarchy would come. It did not come. 
 Civil organizations came, springing from the will of the 
 people; and there are no governments so stable and firm 
 "o-day as those that have been thus founded. It is knowl- 
 edge, virtue, and morality that have made this great nation 
 unwreckable either by intestine war or by foreign invasion; 
 and that which is taking place among men outside of church 
 relations is also coming inside, and spiritual liberty is being 
 developed because piety is being developed. 
 
 So you see this in every Sunday school organization, and 
 in these camp-meetings that go on from year to year, and 
 summer to summer, these temperance movements that are 
 cleansing men, and are bringing men of every sect together 
 in the common work of humanity. Everything that is 
 lifting men is lifting them in the direction of liberty. Men 
 
382 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 do not calculate on that. Men do not know what are the 
 various elements in the providence of God that are lifting 
 the whole State and the whole community higher and 
 higher along the line of greater virtue, wider reason, wider 
 liberty of speech, more evidence of the truth. 
 
 Do not be discouraged, then, when men cry out that we 
 are coming into an age of indifference and an age of infi- 
 delity. There never was a time when men were so little 
 indifferent as they are to-day. There never was a time 
 when father and mother cared so much how their children 
 were brought up as to-day. There never was a time when 
 churches were so anxious that the salt of salvation should 
 be strewn over the whole community as to-day. The very 
 willingness of men to try new views or new ways springs 
 from the developed desire for the renovation of human 
 nature. There never was so much sympathy; there never 
 was so much philanthropy; there never was so much active 
 benevolence, self-denial, and consecration of wealth as 
 there is to-day. All these things, while they are the 
 fruit of divine inspiration, are lifting the standard of human 
 existence higher and higher, and rendering men capable of 
 nobler thoughts, more perfect sanctification, and more 
 glorious achievements. 
 
 When men cry out, therefore, about laxity and infidelity, 
 I hear in these sounds the music of heaven. It is the sign 
 and the token that God has appeared in the world, and that 
 the light is growing stronger and stronger. 
 
 When the East in the morning grows radiant, and the 
 sun comes up above the horizon, I do not listen to the 
 squeaking bats nor the hooting owls that fly on every side 
 in scared alarm to their caves, and their nests, and their 
 holes. I listen to the robin and the blue-bird, and the 
 wren, and the phoebe, and the song-sparrow — sweetest of 
 them all. I listen to the birds of daylight ; for the air is 
 full of their song. Let the birds of the night disappear, 
 let the birds of the day spread their wings, open their 
 throats, and fill the whole air with praise to God that the 
 night is far spent and the day is at hand, and the glory of 
 the Lord shall shine overall nature. 
 
XV. 
 CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 
 
 " Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. And there 
 are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are 
 diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worlceth all in all. 
 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit 
 withal."— I Cor. xii : 4-7. 
 
 t^ While modern philosophy upholds and teaches an un- 
 folding series in nature that supplants the old notion of im- 
 mediatism in creation, it does not take away the idea that 
 God planned, and that men have an allotment, definite and 
 personal, in their gifts. For it is just as conceivable that 
 God should see, through a long chain of physical opera- 
 tion, a final outcome of a definite quality as well as every 
 antecedent step in that long series, as that he should have 
 conceived the idea and have executed it at once and with- 
 out any intermediate steps. So that all the declarations of 
 both the Old and New Testaments as to the creation, that 
 it was direct, are perfectly reconcilable with the theory of 
 God's method as it is taught in our day, called Evolution. 
 
 In the passage which we read, and of which the text is a 
 part, there is a recognition of diversity and of unity. The 
 world has been specially on the side of governments, ec- 
 clesiastic and secular, idolizing unity; and has been en- 
 tirely in the dark and in trouble about diversity. 
 
 Yet in this wonderful chapter, for it is wonderful in its 
 relations to human life, the unity is comparatively subor- 
 dinated: and with more reason, because the diversities 
 
 Sunday Morning, June 22, 1884. Lesson: i Cor. xii : 4-31. 
 
 383 
 
384 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 have been the occasion of so much quarreling and diffi- 
 culty, both speculative!}'' and practically; and the apostle 
 undertakes to show that they are part of one thing, unity, 
 made up by ilie harmonies of diversity; generic unity, 
 special and particular diversities; and by the harmonizing 
 element of divine love, made concordant. 
 
 The art of living togetiier constitutes one of Paul's con- 
 tinuous thougiits : — how, with all the various differences 
 and accomplisliments or diversities, men siiall be able to iii- 
 terbranch each otlier, interlock with each other, and not 
 tear and rend, and rasp, and quarrel; how, maintaining 
 their largeness, and their individuality, the)'' still shall by a 
 a spirit of love be moulded to perfect unity. 
 
 Everywhere we see througliout the external world this 
 law of diversity, flowing almost to the exclusion of every 
 other condition. The law of the vegetable kingdom is 
 variation. Like begets like; there is a tendency to per- 
 manence, or reproduction; but there is alongside of that an 
 equal tendency to variation, constant minute differences, 
 which by and by in many cases become permanent varia- 
 tions; and so from the one stock a great variety of 
 descendants, and through long ages so marked and set 
 apart, that they have constituted a great deal of debate and 
 discussion in the world, whether they ever had any unitary 
 connection. 
 
 The glory of the vegetable kingdom consists in its di- 
 versities, that is to say, it is a matter of profound interest 
 to know what the law of descent is; to know what the 
 biographies of the present reigning plants are. Who are 
 their fathers ? Who was the grandfather of the daisy or 
 of the grass; and who was his ancestor, and his, clear back 
 to some very primitive form ? This biography of the 
 plant has been but recently developed in scientific thought, 
 and promises to be a very much larger sphere of interest. 
 And that which is true of the grasses, and of the flowers, 
 and of the fruits, that which is the very glory of the vege- 
 table kingdom, is true of the lower animal kingdom, 
 unfolding or perishing according to its adaptation to its 
 environment. 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 385 
 
 The same law prevails still in the higher animal kingdom, 
 and when we reach the human family we see it more per- 
 fectly than anywhere else. While there is a race unity or 
 a particular family unity, or in other words, those elements 
 in which all have an inner agreement, yet there is a push- 
 ing out on this side and on that of a variation, so that in a 
 household of six or eight children there will be marked 
 differences which perpetuate themselves and become fixed. 
 There is a creative and creating principle of variation, put 
 there by the purpose of God; acting within narrow bounds 
 often, and yet through long periods developing extreme 
 differences. And the differing of one thing from another, 
 instead of being a sign of weakness, as theologians have 
 often taught us, is a sign of strength, or rather of riches: 
 and the glory of creation lies not altogether in its unities, 
 but in its differences as well. 
 
 Nature abhors organic unity, as she was said in old times 
 to abhor a vacuum. Nature is contriving after differences 
 all the time. She strives for harmony; never for monotony. 
 Harmony is not a monotone. Harmony is not unison. It 
 is concordant differences. A house is not simply a room, 
 but many — a hall, a parlor, a dining-saloon, closets, entry- 
 ways of minor importance and greater convenience, cham- 
 bers of all kinds; and so gathered together, that we call it 
 one house. It is a house of a good many passages, a good 
 many chambers; yet it is onfe thing, it is a great many things 
 grouped together, so that differences very wide have such 
 affinities that by and by the mind conceives them as unities, 
 though they are full of variation. 
 
 Nobody ever thinks of trying to make all the rooms in a 
 house just alike. No man wants to multiply the kitchen. 
 No man wants to carry the parlor into the kitchen. No 
 man wants all the chambers to be just alike. We glory in 
 the fact that we have halls, wide and ample passages — I 
 mean in the country, seldom in the city — and that there 
 are diversities of structure, and form, and altitude. ^ 
 
 Over all these differences the architect throws, as it were, 
 a shell, an exterior that seems to unite them all. But with- 
 25 
 
386 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 in that exterior unity, everything is diverse one from the 
 other; and we rejoice that it is so. 
 
 The want of right understanding of this genius of nature 
 has filled the world hitherto with mistakes, and has wasted 
 men's labors, and has been the fruitful source of interfer- 
 ences and of quarrels almost without number. For to-day, 
 the reigning idea in most of the churches is that we are to 
 labor for an ideal oneness; that we are to labor for oneness 
 in thought, oneness in worship, oneness in organization. 
 The idea of a church that all the world round is repeating 
 precisely on the same hour of the same day in every lati- 
 tude and everywhere one monotone: call that a grand and 
 glorious divine idea? It is the most preposterous folly that 
 ever entered into the hearts of wise fools. It is not a di- 
 vine idea, it is at a discord witli the divine idea. It is run- 
 ning against the genius of creation; and the sooner we can 
 get rid of it, and come to a better and larger philosophy, 
 the better it is for us and for all. 
 
 This idolatry of unity, by which the imagination con- 
 ceives identity, not the unity of variations, but unity in the 
 sense of suppressing variations until you have driven the 
 subject-matter back to identity, has taken possession of 
 the best men in spite of nature and Providence. "One 
 Lord, one Faith, one Baptism;" everybody has been run- 
 ning after that as if that taught suppression of all that 
 which God was doing in the spiritual realm, as well as the 
 visible and material globe. But it must be a unity, a one- 
 ness, that is capable of indefinite variation. 
 
 See our Lord's prayer for the unity of his people. What 
 is to be the unity of his people .' Are we to pray that they 
 may all have just the same eyes, of the same color, noses 
 of the same length and structure, and mouths of the same 
 expression, and ears of a definite length and alike ? Are 
 we to pray for a real unity, and are we to pray that all must 
 be pragmatical, or that all must be poets, or all philoso- 
 phers, or all scientific in their tendencies? Are we seeking 
 for any such unity as that ? Yet, ordinary preaching, liter- 
 ature, and popular thought are fed on it, and call for unity 
 in such sense as suppresses variations and diversity. Not 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 387 
 
 that the other fact has not been recognized, but that tlie 
 recognition is partial and occasional, whereas the popular 
 stream of tliought runs towards unity in the sense of ident- 
 ity, or the effacement of differences. 
 
 And there is to-day a fight that has come down to us 
 from days gone by. There is a conflict still on hand, mak- 
 ing itself felt in Christian literature, by honest men, that is 
 a fight against the liberty of diversity. 
 
 Now, God is forever producing difference. Men, stu- 
 pidly, are forever striving to rub it out. God never allows 
 anything to go through two generations just alike, and we 
 are coopering up the work of God, or trying to do it, and 
 to restore a certain sort of lost unity or identity. 
 
 Human life is a perpetual quarrel, therefore, with God. 
 It is a perpetual rowing against the stream of tendencies in 
 creation, as if to rectify God's thought and work. 
 
 In the sense of sameness, unity is the mortal heresy of 
 life and of society. It shears the glory off from the creative 
 idea, and the world would become like so many single 
 heads of wheat in the garner, one not distinguishable from 
 the other, and the bloom, and the blossom, and the fruit, 
 and the leaf, and the branch, and the endless variations of 
 all disappear and go out, if we should succeed by our sys- 
 tems of education in restricting diversity in favor of a fabu- 
 lous and foolish unity or sameness. 
 
 And as I have said, harmony can never be made up by 
 putting the same sort of things together. It is the differ- 
 ences in music that make the harmony, not the sameness. 
 That is monotone, monochord. 
 ^ I think the mystery of creation, as viewed from the relig- 
 ious standpoint, consists in the tremendous emphasis that 
 is put upon the great ends of life, and the absohite indif- 
 ference and apparent carelessness upon the beginnings of 
 it. When men are ushered into life it seems as though they 
 ought to have the charter of their existence given to them. 
 It seems as though the race ought to have had something 
 or other given to it. It had not. There is no Mount 
 Sinai; no table of commandments, no communication with 
 God; only nature, mute, indifferent, to tell a man what he is. 
 
388 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 For thousands of years men did not know they had brains. 
 For thousands of years they did not know that lungs had 
 anything to dowith breathing, nor the stomach with digest- 
 ing. Of all the diversified things that were under or on 
 earth there was not a word of communication. Men grew 
 up at hap-hazard. Individuals and races continued down 
 slowly through the primitive ages, and only in this genera- 
 tion are some of the most important things for morality 
 and intelligence and true development of mankind made 
 known; made known, too, by human endeavor. Not one 
 word spoken to the human soul as to what conscience is, 
 what the intellect is, what their laws are. Yet when you 
 look forward to the future, all the churches in creation are 
 sounding the doom of the race of man, unless he lives in 
 this world a spiritual life and is a child of God; unless he 
 fulfill the commandments of God. 
 
 Where are the commandments? The Ten Command- 
 ments are, in the main, meant to restrain simply the animal 
 passions of mankind with some slight variation; but in re- 
 gard to the commandments of God that reveal the struc- 
 ture of the body and the relation of its parts to morality, 
 and to life, and to happiness, there are none, except in the 
 silence of outward nature. The world has had to grope 
 for them, and has been without ttiem, mostly, for the thou- 
 sands of centuries past. 
 
 This indifference to the beginning, this tremendous im- 
 portance attached to the end of life, is among the greatest 
 mysteries. But gradually the light dawns, and as little by 
 little the true method of God shall be revealed in nature, I 
 think we shall hear the glorious harmony unbeset with 
 those tormenting doubts and difficulties which have affiicted 
 good men in days gone by. It is coming. It is to be the 
 blossom of the age that follows this age, I believe, and the 
 fruit will come in the millennial day. The individual finds 
 himself possessed, strangely, of the most contradictory 
 qualities. The sweetest love rises over against the bitter- 
 est hatred; the most profound and ecstatic peace, right 
 over against the stormiest temper and passion. His very 
 life he will give to save life; his very life he will risk to 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 389 
 
 destroy life. Made up of opposing compounds, warring 
 faculties, ever over against every human faculty, is an op- 
 posing one, as in a wheel the spoke running to the center 
 meets an opposing spoke coming in from the other side. 
 If there is benevolence, there is also combativeness. If 
 there is courage, there is also the timidity of fear and its 
 caution. If there be hope, there is also dread. One thing 
 over against anotiier, and the whole animal life strangely 
 connected with the social development, yet largely stand- 
 ing, not in opposition, but in antithesis, to each moral 
 quality. 
 
 When these things are in conflict you have the Seventh 
 of Romans over again. The two men, the animal man and 
 the spiritual man: and they are opposed to each other, says 
 Paul. In the ignorance of man they are opposed. Not 
 naturally, in conflict, but practically they are in conflict. 
 The upper and the lower endowments of the human soul, 
 one of tiiem belonging to this life and doubtless perishing 
 with it, the other belonging to the other life, disembodied 
 and spiritual, they do not know how to keep house together. 
 The upper and under man do not know how to get along 
 with each other; and the vain attempt is made, following 
 some of the vivid illustrations and figures of scripture, to 
 eradicate them, some of them; crucifying the natural man. 
 
 Now, the figure of crucifixion is a very vivid and power- 
 ful one, but interpreted as destroying or so limiting the 
 body that men become like bandaged mummies, — that pop- 
 ular conception which has gone out, that in order to have 
 peace within we must harmonize the most discordant facul- 
 ties by such a suppression of some of them as shall amount 
 to crucifixion, or destruction of them, — that has been tried 
 to the uttermost, and in vain. 
 
 How many men have dressed in sackcloth, hoping to get 
 grace through the skin ! How many men have sat down 
 on ashes,, hoping to find made of them thrones of exalta- 
 tion ! How many men are there that will never follow the 
 pleasure of the eye, for fear the eye will lead them into 
 temptation, and so. disturb their peace ! How many men 
 have gone out from the purities of life and the sacraments 
 
390 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 of life, and in various wanderings apart from society sought 
 to develop a higher temper and a grander unity of spiritual 
 life! 
 
 The individual is made up of many faculties; yet the 
 variation itself is the strength of the man, and the perfect 
 man must have something of everything thai God thought 
 of when he made him. God don't thank you for taking 
 away one single facult}^. 
 
 Is there any one part of the human soul that will bring 
 harmony and obedience everywhere else ? Y&s,Love! Love 
 is the fulfilling of the law. It is the point of crystallization 
 for character. No matter how strong the variant parts of 
 a man's conflicting nature, if once they all consent to receive 
 the law of love and bow down in allegiance to it, you have 
 harmonized the character, and the harmonization of it 
 makes it strong by the amount of its differences. 
 
 Following figurative expressions of Scripture, men have 
 sought to limit all activity, to suppress rather than regulate 
 the passions. They have fallen upon a negative condition, 
 in which, to prevent faults, they sacrificed virtues, they 
 have weakened the soul to prevent the dangers of activity. 
 To eradicate weeds they have kept the ground without 
 seed or harvest. God hates barrenness. No faults and no 
 virtues ! This is not holiness. Vigor is the blood of virtue. 
 
 Thus there will be many that take Paul's text. The 
 Bible is a livery stable, and in every stall a steed, and men 
 ride one or the other as the humor suits them. And be- 
 cause Paul, looking upon that idea of manhood which con- 
 sists in throwing the javelin, or the disk, in wrestling, etc., 
 thought " bodil)r exercise profited little," they do not be- 
 lieve in cheering the body, or taking exercise; they say the 
 body must be put under. Yes, you must put it under, 
 just as a man puts a horse under himself when he wants to 
 ride well and fast and far. But the body is part and par- 
 cel of God's gift to man, encasing the soul. The soul itself 
 depends much on what the body is. 
 
 Many men not only suppress the body, but they are 
 unwilling to use any but the perceptive intellect, they are 
 men of facts, they are much afraid of those reasonings 
 that run off hither and thither, they don't know where. 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 391 
 
 The moment .a man begins to reason, they say: " Hold fast 
 what we have been taught. Take the staple which grand- 
 father had and have a short chain tied to it, and revolve 
 around within its length, but don't commit yourself to the 
 vagrancy of your reason. Facts, facts?" Another man 
 rather despises facts. He believes in principles, and the 
 reflective reasoning, and he gives the full juice of the blood 
 to that part of his nature. One man thinks he ought to 
 deny this instinct, another that tendency. There is not a 
 single instinct or tendency that is to be denied in its right 
 place, and in that right proportion which is a constituent 
 of harmony. 
 
 The harmonizing element is introduced into the Word of 
 God ; and one of the most striking things which you will 
 find in it is not so much explicit statement as universal 
 usage. The attempt of the Bible to harmonize men in 
 society has never been by external organization. It never 
 put emphasis upon that. It recognizes the benefit of the 
 family, the benefit of civil government, the benefit of indus- 
 try, the benefit of political economy; it recognizes all these 
 great instrumental influences; but it strikes at the root of 
 the matter, and says, " The individual must be harmon- 
 ized." First you must harmonize the individual with him- 
 self and then you can harmonize society. You cannot 
 harmonize society except through the conversion of the in- 
 dividual. There must come into him such a divine power 
 as shall really amount to a new life, to a new arrangement 
 of all the elements of his being. Men's natures must be 
 changed. They must have self-control. They must come 
 under a common law that influences every man. 
 
 The whole man is needed to make a man, body and soul, 
 mind and disposition; and the more active ones you have 
 the larger you are. Not only is that so in regard to the 
 individual, but in regard to the artist, the poet, the orator. 
 
 There are the poets of society, that sound a few notes 
 very sweetly on their tinkling instruments; but the man 
 that can, as Shakespeare did, touch all the sources of hu- 
 man thought, and feeling, and will, and endeavor, rising to 
 the highest and sinking to the very lowest, and is familiar 
 
392 PL VMO UTH P ULPlt. 
 
 with the whole richness and out-branched fruitfulness of 
 the human soul, that is the great poet. 
 
 In my own profession, the church has been starved be- 
 cause ministers have been under the idea that the dignity 
 of the pulpit was so great, and the sanctity of the office 
 of preaching was such, that a man must only use the most 
 sacred parts of his nature; and reason has been supposed to 
 be that. "Not too much feeling, not too much; restrain 
 your feeling, but lay a solid foundation of thought. Weave 
 it together as links of iron are wrought into a chain con- 
 nectedly, and carry it to its legitimate conclusion, and then 
 if men are not held by it, it is their fault, not yours." And 
 so they shut down the windows that let in the light. They 
 are of a discursive imagination; but they don't think it 
 proper to bring in dainty figures, they-don't think it proper 
 to have pictures in their sermons; that is wandering into 
 by-paths. They starve themselves till they have scarcely 
 the substance of a mosquito, and then think they are 
 sacred. 
 
 Now, a man should introduce in his teaching something 
 of everything that belongs to mankind; its sacred rage and 
 passion, its abhorrence of things evil, its genius, all imagin- 
 ation, all the radiance and sparkle of its wit, all the 
 tenderness of its love, all that belongs to the sub-bass, also 
 all that belongs to the very highest stops, that seek to 
 rival the very bird notes. That is the greatest preacher. 
 There are not many of them. Ministers are afraid. They are 
 afraid to be true; they are afraid to be natural. They are 
 afraid to bring something of everything that belongs to 
 human nature into their pulpits, because their critics sit 
 before them. Men say of them: " O, you shall never hear 
 anything that violates taste; anything not perfectly pure. 
 He never makes a mistake." 
 
 The man that never makes a mistake is not fit to preach. 
 The man that never makes a mistake is a man that lives in 
 mediocrity. You may. furnish and decorate it as much as 
 you please, it is not possible for a man to be in earnest, 
 even in agriculture, mechanics or engineering, and make 
 no mistakes. That is to assume for men the attributes of 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 393 
 
 God himself. But it is the necessity of human nature to 
 find its way, a little at first, partially. And when the 
 Apostle looks upon all his long career, and the career of 
 all sainted men before him, and the summation of knowl- 
 edge that has come down through thousands of years, this 
 is his testimony: "We know in part." We only know a 
 little, a fragment here and there. Any man that arrogates 
 to himself the power of knowing as we are known is along 
 way before his time and before his precedents, the apostles 
 and prophets, who did not pretend to such knowledge. 
 
 In the individual, then, is needed not an individuality 
 that quarrels with itself, not a conscience eternally quarrel- 
 ing with benevolence, not a benevolence eternally at odds 
 with combativeness and destructiveness, but a character 
 that throws out in strength every part of the man and har- 
 monizes these around about the element of love; and who, 
 moreover, can lead men together by combinations, exterior 
 unions; for if every human career were individual to its 
 extremity, there would be no such thing as uniting in com- 
 mon labor for the purpose of forming communities and na- 
 tions. Therefore, the harmonization must be such that the 
 man is reconciled in all parts with himself, and by that same 
 love is able to suppress so much of himself that he can 
 march with others. 
 
 It is allowable for a man out of the ranks to caper, but 
 walking in military file he must lay aside capers for the 
 time, for there must be strength by consolidation. There 
 are generally in systems of instruction tendencies both 
 ways. The old worship of sameness, the worship of 
 identities, the worship of perverted unity — that is found. 
 Then, rebelling and reacting, intense individualism, on the 
 other side, so that men can't lay aside enough of their 
 rights to harmonize practically with their fellows. Denom 
 inations can't touch each other, more than the hand and the 
 nettle can be friends. The repugnances and quarrels 
 between men largely turn on undigested individuality. 
 Men's rights are a great deal of trouble to them. They 
 assert them and get them, and then they don't know what 
 to do with them. A man's rights, half of them, are meant 
 to give away. 
 
394 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 It is my right to have the best chair in my house — if any- 
 body contradicts it (except one!) It is my right to claim it 
 — and then to yield it, to age or to womanhood. The beati- 
 tude of your rights is, they are your benevolences. You 
 can yield them, give them awray. And the law of social 
 unity is this law of assertion of a man's individuality, and 
 the use of that individuality as a benevolence for those that 
 are around about him. 
 
 Over-intense individualism in society will never produce 
 unity in the larger sense of that term. 
 
 Again, education ought to be the development of every 
 part of a man's mind; the extinction of mammon, the 
 reconciliation of differences at present hardly dreamed of 
 in schools. Life teaches both differences and reconcil- 
 iation. But neither in the family nor in the academies, 
 as yet, is their teaching based upon a true mental philos- 
 ophy, and the very idea of education hardly has yet come 
 forth, namely, giving life and power to every side of a man. 
 Generally speaking, those faculties that are in themselves 
 largely developed will take care of themselves, and educa- 
 tion is the attempting to bring the weak ones up to the 
 measure of the strong, and to give them such a care that 
 there shall be some notes all around the whole mind that 
 will sound to the touch. I can conceive the day coming 
 when the human soul will be played upon by the master- 
 teacher very much as the instrument of music is. I can 
 conceive of a school in which a man looking upon a 
 scholar shall see him just as he is in his fundamental 
 mental qualities, take the measure of him and pursue the 
 course that shall reconcile all the parts within to each 
 other in the child. And then I can understand a moral 
 training that will act on the conscience and the temper, 
 and on all the more active qualities that human life 
 develops; I can understand a school by and by (a good 
 way yet ahead!), where you can drill men in grace. The 
 Indians have its seed already. They will make their boys 
 bear heat or bear cold. It seems to me that we might teach 
 children how to bear insult; not to flare out; how to have 
 the most provoking things put at their sensitive tempers. 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 395 
 
 and hold themselves as against their temper; how to bring 
 out the flood of indignation; how to repress it; thus play- 
 ing upon the fundamental qualities and training them 
 until the child in the school gets substantially the power of 
 self-control. 
 
 That word "temperance," in the Fifth of Galatians, the 
 closing words of that cluster or crown of graces mentioned 
 there — " temperance " is the word, but the true meaning is 
 self-control, the power of doing that successfully which one 
 has a mind to, and putting down one part and putting up 
 another part, having perfect control overall the man's own 
 nature. I think the days that precede millennial glory will 
 have some other way than rote teaching, or the mere stuf- 
 fing of a child with knowledge in some departments, 
 leaving life really to be his great educator; for when a man 
 goes out now into life too sensitive, he very soon is ready, 
 in the shop or in his profession, to repress the sensibility 
 that he has in over measure ; or he is too blunt and loses cus- 
 tomers until he begins to smile and become courteous; he 
 learns it behind the counter, this looking upon everybody 
 as if each was unlike everybody else, until by diversity of 
 experience he finds out how different men are. The road to 
 the front door of a man lies in a very different direction, 
 in different individuals. Some men have got no door but 
 a back door, and some men have got a side door, and some 
 a front door. Some men have got only a scuttle in the 
 roof; you have to go down that to get into them; and there 
 is no instruction provided for in our courses, in our schools 
 on these fundamental differences among mankind. Men 
 are left to pick them up; the stupid never do, and the 
 bright do, and use them to their own advantage, sel- 
 fishly. Do you suppose the human race is to go on for- 
 ever and forever in that way, and a man's internal structure 
 be an enigma, and the method of training it lag far behind 
 the training that the athlete gives to the bodily organs.? No: 
 the day will come when men will understand the inside 
 just as well as the outside. 
 n I Then, in the matter of religious belief. Teachers have been 
 striving and striving to joint men in such a way that 
 
396 PL YMO UTH P ULPIT. 
 
 they shall be all fitted together and believe everything just 
 alike. Was there ever such a mirage! Was there ever such 
 a fool's vision as the attempt to make men see everythijig 
 just alike! Did you ever hear a dozen witnesses on the 
 stand, that were spectators of the same event, howdifEerent 
 they will be in their accounts of it? From many reasons; 
 from observing accuracy or force, from emotion, from half 
 attention, from what might be called by the astronomer 
 personal equation; and every lawyer knows, and every just 
 judge knows that one witness may contradict point blank 
 another witness, although both may be honest men; and 
 that, on the general ground that eyes have men, and they see 
 not half the time, and ears have they, but they hear not 
 half the time. 
 
 Now, if it is so in regard to the more obvious external 
 organs, how much more is it so in regard to the subtle, 
 unknown, hidden, internal influences of a man's mind! 
 And if it be almost impossible for a man to come to the 
 knowledge of all the shades of dispositions in regard to 
 mankind around about him, how much more impossible is 
 it for him to come to all the shades and subtle lines of 
 light pertaining to the all-soul of God. But theology 
 begins with the assumption, ordinarily, that we know God; 
 and that being the fountain of knowledge, therefore all 
 other knowledge comes following down from him; that is, 
 until we get to man, and there it runs out, and we 
 have been left without a knowledge of human nature! But 
 of all minds, God's is the most difficult to understand. We 
 can say. It is goodness, it is justice, it is truth. Yes, we can 
 understand it generically. But is a man's portrait painted 
 because there is an eye in it, and a nose in it, and a mouth 
 in it ? There are a thousand ways to paint the eye and nose 
 and mouth to make a thousand different faces; and so 
 with the character of God; you may say it is conscience, 
 it is justice, and, therefore truth, fidelity, loyalty, benevo- 
 lence. But there are a thousand shades of benevolence. A 
 man's susceptibility to know it largely depends on the quali- 
 ties in him, that correspond to the qualities in the divine 
 nature; and probably no two men in this congregation 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 397 
 
 think of God alike. Wlien you undertake to express 
 therefore, by formal definition of theology, God and the 
 Trinity, and undertake to crowd men up to what you 
 believe, you disgust one part and they fall off and don't 
 believe anything; you repress another into indifferentism 
 or you mislead men into an endless bog of inquiries and 
 uncertainties and difficulties. It is not necessary that men 
 should believe just alike. It is necessary men should 
 believe in justice, — and what is justice? In ten thousand 
 relatifins in life it is necessary that a man should believe in 
 many generic truths, and men should all be in unity there, 
 but the diversities of many men cannot, — in these vast 
 numbers of variations and branchings out one side and the 
 other, — they cannot all be locked together in the same 
 view. And to attempt, therefore, to fortify orthodoxy by 
 forming definitions, and to think we have reached the 
 paradise of truth when we have a systematized view of 
 God and eternity, and that you can square a man to that 
 proportion, so that he shall or shall not teach, if he don't 
 hew to the line of orthodoxy, — that is the conception of a 
 fool's paradise: and yet, great, grand churches, to whom the 
 world is greatly indebted, are still fighting over and teach- 
 ing this supreme dogma of fanaticism — unity of belief, 
 unity of faith. But the voice of God in nature and in grace 
 is crying out: " Fool! Fool! harmonized diversity is the 
 tree when the seed has grown to its full." All the endeavors 
 now to go back again that the church is attempting in its 
 controversial pamphlets, magazines, and pulpits, all the 
 councils, inquisitional methods of attempting to carry men 
 all up and regiment them along the line of the old belief — 
 they are right in the face of God and Providence. Ortho- 
 doxy don't lie in that direction. 
 
 There is but one orthodoxy; that of the heart, that 
 reconciles everything in the individual, a heart that unites 
 itself to all one's fellows, high or low, bond or free, good or 
 bad; the heart that is in sympathy with that supreme Heart 
 whose vibrations are the light and the life of the universe. 
 
 Absolute unity, therefore, is not necessary to a true 
 Christian church. It is a pitiful thing to wade through the 
 
398 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 absurd books that have been written. It is a thing for 
 tears to read such books as Newman's "Vita Mea," or the 
 history of his own life ; the progress of his thought, of his 
 distresses; his alienations from the past; his adhesion to 
 his new church. It is enough to make one feel as though 
 he sat down in a hospital and heard the groans and 
 sorrows of sick men under surgical operations. 
 
 The structure of the mind forbids this absolute believing 
 alike, and yet we may believe in a substantial unity; we 
 may believe alike in a general way. 
 
 Jerusalem is pictured in the Revelations as having twelve 
 gates. Of course the idea came from the twelve tribes of 
 Israel and the twelve patriarchs (not one of whom I should 
 think got into Heaven, though, by the way they acted); but 
 one thing is very certain, that if a city has got twelve gates, 
 the men that cannot go in at one gate can go in at another 
 and opposite one, and they have to take different roads to 
 get into them. 
 
 Now, if a man wishes to go to Chicago, and wishes to go 
 by the way of Alabama, it is perfectly permissible; it will 
 take him longer and cost him more, and fatigue him more, 
 but when he has come to Chicago he has got there, just as 
 much as if he had gone in a straight line. 
 
 So, in regard to the great things of religion, and love 
 to God and love to man, if once they reach that! One man 
 can do it through the Catholic church; in God's name let 
 him do it, I don't care how far he travels if he gets there. 
 Another man can do it in the silence of the Quaker church; 
 let him, that is his lookout, not mine, only get there. 
 Another man goes through Presbyterian ism, Westminister 
 Catechism and all; the whole creation groans and travails 
 in pain until now, if he goes that way, nevertheless it is his 
 liberty, only so he gets there. The heavenly city has 
 twelve gates and there must be, at least, twelve different 
 paths to get there. 
 
 Now, all these variations among men are but incidental 
 to the great Christian element of unity, that is, unity in 
 yourself, harmony in your own make-up, harmony with 
 your fellow men, harmony with God. 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 399 
 
 Throw away that misleading word " unity." Put in its 
 place instead the word "harmonyi" and then all theology 
 will be reconciled and reconcilable. Then we can go all 
 together though we differ, yea, the more can we rejoice 
 going together that we differ. The infantry need never 
 envy the cavalry nor the artillery the infantry. They are 
 all composite elements of the one grand army and each 
 helps in its place to bring about the victory; and when the 
 victory is attained there are no diversities and no disputes 
 about the harmonized elements. 
 
 I do not believe there is ever going to be an abolition of 
 sects, though I trust that they will be enlarged in their 
 beliefs. I do not believe that the church can harmonize 
 on ordinances, or need to do so. I let men have their ordi- 
 nances if they please. They are playthings on a spiritual 
 ground. 
 
 No man has a right to say " I am the eye, and you are 
 nothing but the nose; " the eye and the nose and the 
 mouth are all necessary to the composition of the face. 
 Why cannot common sense prevail among men that are 
 divided into different cliques in religion, but are all seek- 
 ing one immortality, are all seeking the one disposition by 
 which they shall learn the thing that shall immortalize 
 them.' "Let every man be persuaded in his own mind." 
 Let one man govern himself as he pleases, and another as he 
 pleases. Simply say: "That is your right, I do not object to 
 it, take your own way. I tolerate your liberty amiably, and 
 you amiably look down upon my liberty." Do not let us 
 quarrel and steal sheep out of each other's pasture, and 
 then think it is a triumph and glorification over another 
 denomination. How preposterous all these things are in 
 the larger light of the Divine Nature, and when you have 
 them shown to you along the lines of the genesis of crea- 
 tion and of Providence! 
 
 One thing more. Do not be proud of your membership 
 in churches, because they are all rich, all educated, all 
 wise, all intelligent, or that they are all simple and not edu- 
 cated by much knowledge . The glory of the Church is 
 like the glory of the tree. I hate a tree that is like Hercules' 
 
400 PL YMO UTff P VLPIT. 
 
 club, one great stalk and no branches on it ; that shoots up 
 bare, and has no diversified forth-puttings. I like a tree 
 that begins low with branches, and then branches and 
 branches, all of them in coherence with the solid trunk 
 and fed from the same root. I admire variety and diver- 
 sity in the Church; and then, they should be in harmony. 
 Every man should feel, " I own all the strength of the 
 strong — I own all the grace of the weak — I own all the 
 gentleness and refinement — and I own all the courage and 
 dash and daring." The Church has a unity, not external 
 nor historical, but spiritual. It has a unity of love around 
 about which cohere all graces, all faculties, and all powers. 
 
 Does not this view lead to indifferentism ? Not at all ; 
 it leads just away from it It is a larger view by which 
 men can see that these quarrels are all meaningless. 
 These squabbles do not vitiate at all the evidence of a 
 grander harmony in religion. It shows men that they are 
 walking in the shade and are ignorant as yet of that great 
 unity which is harmony with God, with nature, and with 
 ourselves. 
 
 Would not these views, however, destroy government 
 and order in society? Yes, I think they would, and I trust 
 they will; not at once, but it will confirm the lesson that 
 absolute monarchy has been so long teaching the world. 
 You cannot compress men as you would a cheese within a 
 given measure. You cannot make all citizens act as the 
 theory of absolute government would desire to make them 
 act. The tendency to variety is irrepressible. Even so dry a 
 thing as a root planted along your curbstone, when it finds 
 itself circumscribed by the slabs of stone, lifts those stones 
 up in the silence of the night and expands itself. And there 
 is that spirit of diversity and variation infixed into creation 
 more largely in man than in any other part, since he is the 
 head of creation on earth that offers resistance to govern- 
 ments,so that they are all the time failing in their attempt to 
 bind their subjects down to such prescriptions and exactions 
 as that they shall be harmonious. You cannot put men togeth- 
 eras you puttogethera carpenter's logs when he has liewn 
 and jointed them. Society has to be made up of free men, 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON. 401 
 
 and a free man is a largely branched man all around. That 
 government is coming more and more into vogue which 
 rejoices in diversity, and which merely says that one man's 
 liberty shall not prevent another man's liberty, but that he 
 shall accommodate himself and his neighbor likewise. 
 
 That which is true in the State, is just as true in the 
 Church. We have got rid of the fear of trusting men 
 everywhere but in the church. People have the most anti- 
 quated and absurd notions about the organization of re- 
 ligion and the right of a man to stand in the pulpit of a 
 different denomination from his own.holdingto many things 
 differently. I should like to know if I should not be per- 
 mitted, as a physician, to practice in a family unless I be- 
 lieved in everything that that family believed in — I should 
 like to know if, as a physician or surgeon, I should be 
 turned out. Any man has a right to preach in any church, 
 if he is able to edify it, and the church wants him. It is a 
 simple matter. He is called to preach when folks are 
 called to hear him. If he thinks he is called to preach, 
 but folks are not called to hear — -he is not called. There is 
 reciprocity in that. But if a Baptist church wants a Paedo- 
 Baptist man to preach to them they have a right to him and 
 to his services. Nobody has a right to say a word to them 
 except themselves. Newspaper editors, even, have not a 
 right to say anything about it. If a Congregational church 
 wants a Methodist Dr. Newman and they hear him with 
 profit, he has a right to stay there. His exterior relations 
 may remain with the Methodists, and there is no harm in 
 that. I do not care where the roots of the tree pasture that 
 hangs over my wall and gives me all the pears. And if all 
 the glow and enthusiasm and life of our Methodist brethren 
 can be carried into the formalities of some of our other 
 churches I think it would be a great blessing. Free trade 
 between churches and ministers ! I am free trade on that, 
 if I am not anywhere else. Was there ever anything so fool- 
 ish, so squeamish, so absurd as all this talk about the sanc- 
 tity of the church, and about a man's loyalty to his denomin- 
 ation! You might as well talk about my loyalty to the fences 
 26 
 
402 PL YMO UTH P ULPIT. 
 
 round about my farm. Fencesare very good things against 
 wandering cattle, but you need not make a life-and- 
 death matter of them. Yet, some one of your crusty old 
 farmers will spend half he is worth on a lawsuit, because 
 a man has three inches of his territory. Life is too short 
 and too precious for these things, and when a man can go 
 into another denomination to preach to their acceptance, 
 and can hold them around about him, in the name of 
 Heaven, in God's name, and in the name of love, let him 
 be! I speak to newspaper, court, council, everything but 
 Devil — for of course he goes about making trouble every- 
 where. 
 
 Another thing. This doctrine of the rights of the indi- 
 vidual and the rights of variety and variation, and this 
 corrected notion of unity as being harmony and not 
 identity, and not sameness, — these ideas will not weaken 
 men, and will not weaken doctrine, but will cleanse them 
 and strengthen them. 
 
 The same is true in regard to doubt and unbelief. People 
 look upon a man that has said he is a sceptic, as though 
 he had the small-pox. He is so dangerous! A man has a 
 right to be a sceptic. He has as much right to be a scep- 
 tic as he has to be sick, and that is a universal right. 
 There is a higher view than that. A sceptic is nothing 
 but a man finding his way, oftentimes, to a higher level. 
 He is a man who is forsaking rubbish, with the object of 
 getting hold of the substance. He is a man who will not 
 eat hay, but wants fresh grass. He wants to be led by the 
 side of still waters and green pastures. Doubt and faith 
 are born twins, and you have no right to separate them. 
 They- ought to recognize each other. Doubt of things 
 past is simply clearing the way to a brighter and a nobler 
 future; and since with the spirit of knowledge old things 
 are passing away, let us thank God, and only ask that the 
 doubters may become the new men of a generation of 
 faith. 
 
 Right in front of my house I have a beech tree. All 
 winter long, because its leaves were so beautiful during the 
 
CONCORD, NOT UNISON, 403 
 
 summer, it holds on to them. In January they are there; 
 in February they are there ; in March they are there. In 
 May the tree begins to grow and one after the other the 
 leaves begin to drop. There is nothing that will undo the 
 old dead leaf that has no juice in it, so quickly as growth 
 in the tree. When men are growing, the old leaves begin 
 to drop off. It is not a sign of decadence; it is a sign that 
 summer is coming, that the tree is growing larger, and the 
 gloss on the old leaves is a mere prophecy of the coming 
 of new ones, fresher ones, brighter ones. 
 
 Meanwhile, if you believe in God, do not fret and worry. 
 God is going to take care of the universe. I know there 
 are multitudes of men who think they are sent into the 
 world as God's vicegerents. They tell God in their prayers 
 a good many things he never knew before, and he smiles at 
 their advice in many other relations. But one thought 
 ought to steady everj' man's heart. It is that God is per- 
 fectly wise and perfectly good, and is unfolding this earth 
 individually and collectively in the ages. Let us accept 
 God and rest in him. Let us not worry nor fret ourselves 
 at what men do, nor churches, nor nations, nor any other 
 thing, but " trust in the Lord and do good." 
 
 Write that over your desks. Write that over your cradles. 
 Carry it in your mind day by day. It is astonishing what 
 peace you will get out of it. 
 
XVI. 
 LIBERTY AND DUTY OF THE PULPIT. 
 
 " And he saith unto them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." 
 — Matt, iv : 19. 
 
 This is the call of the disciples to the discipleship, 
 among the earliest acts of Christ's ministry. It is the char- 
 ter of the Christian ministry, defining that, and giving us 
 the genius of the preacher of the gospel. He is to act 
 directly upon the reason, the conscience and the affections 
 of men. It is his business to bring men from wickedness 
 to righteousness by the presentation of truth ; to bring 
 them from indifference to moral sensibility; from godless- 
 ness to a perpetual consciousness of God. There are other 
 moral influences that exist in the world. There is a moral 
 influence in the natural mechanical laws of the globe. All 
 the drift of a true business — that is, a prosperous business 
 — carries with it, incidentally, a moral influence. All in- 
 dustries, all enterprises, all successes, have in their train 
 moral results, and so become moral influences. Govern- 
 ment and all institutions of society are incidental and col- 
 lateral moral influences, but it is not upon these that the 
 work of Christ was to rest. Quite aside from these, — as 
 separate from them as the steeple is from the body of the 
 cathedral, — there is to be an order of men whose business 
 it shall be to win their fellow men by the influence which 
 they can bring upon men, man by man. It has this pecul- 
 iarity, which separates it widely from all other influences, 
 that it is a. personal influence. It is not the influence of the 
 truth alone, abstractly, but it is the influence of the truth 
 
 Sunday Morning, Jan. 27, 1884. Lesson : Matt, xxiii : 1-39. 
 404 
 
LISERTV AND DUTY OF THE PULPIT. 405 
 
 of God, as it is made a living truth by the emotion and the 
 speaking of a man, — reduced to human conditions and in- 
 fluences. 
 
 It makes no difference who the man is that makes a 
 mathematical calculation, if he is correct ; he may be as 
 cold as a stone or as hot as fire, and it does not make the 
 slightest difference; but in moral truth it makes all the 
 difference in the world. If a man be stern, acerb, litigious, 
 and preach the truth of Jesus Christ, it goes down to zero; 
 but if a man is Christ-like, and covers up a heresy with all 
 the sweetness of a true Christian disposition, the heresy is 
 better for the world than the truth is under the opposite 
 manifestation. It is the personal element that character- 
 izes the Christian ministry. In two ways it is personal. It 
 brings to bear the life, the experience and the moral influ- 
 ence of one man upon another, and what a man preaches 
 ought to be what the man is. In one sense we are not to 
 preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ: but it is the Jesus 
 Christ that has dwelt in us, and been adjusted to ourselves; 
 so that although in one sense we are not to preach our- 
 selves, in another sense we are not to preach without 
 preaching ourselves. The Christian ministry is personal 
 in that way; and then it is personal in that it differs from 
 all other — indirect — influences, such as institutions, laws, 
 economies and books. It is a personal power upon per- 
 sons, in distinction from institutional power upon com- 
 munities at large. Such is the gospel of the ministry, the 
 genius of it, the heart of it. 
 
 Secondly, consider the scope and bound of ministerial 
 functions. There is a good deal of discussion to-day, in 
 newspapers and elsewhere, on the subject of what a man 
 can or cannot preach and teach; and it is worth our while 
 to get at the right things. The scope of a minister's action 
 is contained in Christ's word, as recorded in the 22A chap- 
 ter of Matthew's gospel, from the 37th verse to the 40th; 
 also in Mark: 
 
 "Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and 
 great commandment. And the second is like unto it; thou shalt love thy 
 
406 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the 
 prophets." 
 
 The law and the prophets signify the record and the 
 fruit of all the institutions of religion from the beginning 
 of the world, in that line of descent. This great law of 
 love to God and love to man is the root, the genius of the 
 whole Scripture. All laws recorded, all institutions estab- 
 lished, all influences, all ordinances, the whole priestly and 
 churchly influence, aim at one and the same thing — to 
 bring men under the full despotism of love in the soul. 
 Knowledge, reverence, hope, fear, pleasure and pain are 
 only aids on the staff. Love is the commander-in-chief, 
 and these are but its aids. 
 
 Consider it a little more in detail. Love to God is piety; 
 ' ")ve to man is morality. The root is the same in both 
 c-aies. Morality is a lower form of love to God. We show 
 our love to God by keeping his commandments. The love 
 of God is only a higher and more resplendent form of lov- 
 ing our fellow men. They are but different stages of growth 
 on the same substantial root. Both by precept and ex- 
 ample the Christian minister is to bring within the scope 
 and reason of men God's presence, his beauty, his love, 
 his desirableness and his proper authority. This requires 
 imagination, both in him that teaches and in them that are 
 taught, since God is not subject to the knowledge which 
 enters our minds by the physical senses, but must be un- 
 derstood wholly by the reason, quickened by the imagina- 
 tion. Anything that brings near to man the invisible must be, 
 of necessity, bound to do it through the imagination and 
 the reason co-operating. The soul that dwells in the love of 
 God is itself a gospel, quite aside from ministerial functions, 
 and itis the best argument, and the only example. Therefore 
 he who preaches, but so lives that men never think of God 
 when they see him, and by his arbitrariness, his pride, his 
 litigiousness, his temper and his conduct, lead men to 
 think rather of the devil than of God, is not, in a true and 
 proper Sense, a minister of the gospel, not though a thou- 
 sand councils or a thousand bishops had permitted it. He 
 chat teaches of God must teach of him by being like that 
 
LIBERTY AND DUTY OF THE PULPIT. 407 
 
 to which he would draw men up. That is a terrific meas- 
 ure with wliich to measure the ministry; but it is a just 
 one; and if it is so rigorous and severe, it ought to make 
 every man that preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ an 
 humble man, in view of his own unfitness and the poverty 
 of his life, in regard to the very virtues which he exalts. 
 We are to teach men, as ministers of the gospel of Christ, 
 the knowledge of God and the love of God. 
 
 Then comes consideration of the other side of it — 
 the love of man. We are to teach men how to dwell 
 among men in the full exercise of charity and love; and 
 this we are to do with the utmost liberty, limited by only 
 one thing, namely, the law which experience has shown of 
 influence, which is, that if there is one way of seeking 
 men which will repel them, that we are to avoid; and if 
 there is a way of preaching the duties between man and 
 man which will tend to draw them, we are to adopt that 
 way. 
 
 Fishers of men. I should like to see fish caught by the 
 charge of cavalry ! I should like to see fastidious, hidden, 
 sensitive fish caught by thrashing the pool with your rod 
 or fishing line. Ye are to be fishers of men; and as men 
 study the nature of fish — the pout, the eel nestling in the 
 mud, the fierce pickerel, the shining trout, the gamy black 
 bass, the salmon or the deep, sea fish— and adapt their 
 mode of fishing to the nature of the fish desired to be 
 caught; so men are to study ihe mode of influence of one 
 soul upon another, in such a way as to make the truth 
 which they would lay before men, and into the practice of 
 which they would draw them, efflcacious and successful. 
 All those men that put themselves on their high pride, and 
 say, " I am commissioned of God to deliver to you the 
 truths of God, and I am not responsible for anything that 
 you may think about it; here is the truth, and you are to 
 take it or be damned," — those men are themselves damned, 
 in the only sense in which that word is used in the New 
 Testament, condemned. Their example is the best indica- 
 tion of their nonsense. A man's truth is like bait on a 
 hook: it must be such a bait as fish will take, and it must 
 be on such a hook as will hold the fish. 
 
408 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 " Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." 
 
 The law under which the minister acts, therefore, re- 
 quires him to expound duty in all personal matters. It 
 is his business to know enough about men's bodies to 
 teach them what the law of morality is in that regard. If 
 I were to teach a body of theological scholars, I should 
 begin with anatomy and physiology, and the laws of hy- 
 giene. I would go into discussion of the best authenticated 
 laws of mental philosophy as seen in their physical con- 
 nections. 
 
 So a minister should have some knowledge of the per- 
 sons on whom liis whole ministry is to act. It is often said 
 that ministers know all about what is outside of the world, 
 and very little about what is inside of it. If that has 
 been a just allegation in the past, it is high time that it 
 were changed. A minister should be a student of men, in 
 their bodies, in their social connections, and in their civic 
 relations, as well as in their spiritual and eternal relations. 
 He has the liberty of judicious criticism and instruction in 
 all domestic relations, where so much of piety is culti- 
 vated, and where so much is lost. N.o minister is faithful 
 who does not to such a degree apply the truth as it is in 
 Christ Jesus, the great law of wisdom in love, that Chris- 
 tian men and Christian women find it helpful in their do- 
 mestic relations. It is his business, also, to introduce into 
 his ministry all the labors of love and humanity that are 
 going on through the community; all just reforms, which 
 are weakening the power of temptation and increasing the 
 power of morality. The day has gone by in which men 
 said they could not teach of Slavery in the pulpit, because 
 they were ordained to preach the gospel and not to go 
 into all the moral reforms which might be scared up. 
 This is as if a man, a physician, called to a case of desper- 
 ate disease — cholera, plague, or what not — should refuse 
 to consider that, saying, " I am educated to spread abroad 
 a knowledge of hygiene in general; but *[ don't meddle 
 with such cases in particular." A church that teaches 
 men in general, and jumps all particular instances, is as 
 dry as a thousand-year-old dead man ; and on that sub- 
 
LIBERTY AND DUTY OF THE PULPIT. 409 
 
 ject, there is nothing from Genesis to Revelation that had 
 not its contradiction in Slavery. Tliere is no element in 
 the whole yeast of the Gospel that was not more or less 
 involved in the question of Slavery; and there never was, 
 not in the Babylonian captivity, not in the darkness of the 
 middle ages, such an apostasy, such a gospel run out to 
 the very sand, as was exhibited by multitudes of the 
 American churches in refusing to bring religion to bear 
 upon the question of American Slavery. 
 
 The same is true about Intemperance. I believe that 
 the pulpit that will not give forth its influence on that 
 subject is already vacant and void. This pretence that a 
 man is to preach the Gospel, and not touch a single one of 
 the things which the Gospel is meant to heal — a wayfar- 
 ing man, though a fool, would understand the fallacy of 
 that; but there be many fools that are not wayfarers who 
 do not seem to understand it. 
 
 The minister is called to promote general intelligence. 
 He, therefore, as opportunity may occur, should set his 
 whole influence, as well as his public teaching, in favor of 
 that intelligence which comes through schools, and through 
 the diffusion of useful printed matter. It is wholly within 
 his function, as a teacher of men. To a certain extent, 
 the pu'pit also ought to uphold morality in political af- 
 fairs. If now, ere long, the question of Polygamy should 
 come up in a political form, is the pulpit to be dumb on 
 that subject because there is politics in it? There will 
 be politics in a great, free nation like this, first or last, 
 in every question of morality. To say that the pulpit 
 must not teach men on the subject of politics, is true, in 
 that it is not to be an intemperate or partisan organ — that 
 it is not to be unwise; according to the circumstances of 
 a man's congregation, and according to his own knowl- 
 edge, he must be discreet in the performance of his duties 
 in that regard; but still, there are exigencies (and the 
 American church, first and last, has been a striking illus- 
 tration of the wisdom of this matter) where the voice of 
 the pulpit should speak for God and for humanity, even if 
 it -J in politics. 
 
410 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 Preaching, I remark thirdl}^ like every other function or 
 instrument, must be an unfolding, and it must adapt itself 
 to the changing conditions of society, and to the larger and 
 richer conceptions of truth which God sends to mankind 
 from period to period. The preaching that is now existing 
 in the organized churches of the world is as far removed 
 from the preaching of the apostolic day as the almanacs of 
 to-day are different from the almanacs of that day. It is un- 
 folded in its matter, in its methods and in its relations to 
 human society, and it will yet further unfold, though exactly 
 in what direction it is premature to say. This must be said, 
 however, that it changes. Its fundamental aim and genius 
 are that it is an instrument by which a living man works 
 upon living men for the furtherance of their moral and 
 spiritual condition. That does not change; but the mode 
 of carrying it out changes from age to age. 
 
 I go further, and say that every minister called to make 
 known to men the counsel of God, as revealed in the record 
 of his will, as disclosed in the laws of nature, or as un- 
 folded in the experiences of human society, must be his 
 own judge as to how he shall make known the truths of 
 God; how he shall solicit, win and build up men in Christ 
 Jesus. Every man in that regard is his own Pope. Every 
 man shall give account of himself for ever}' act, and cer- 
 tainly for such a supreme function as that of fishing for 
 men. It scares some folks to say that every man must be 
 his own judge. It is said that the community would be 
 filled with ranting, rambling men if that view were to 
 prevail; that it is a piece of impertinence to suppose that 
 any or every single man is competent to judge for himself, 
 or that the average of men are competent to judge for 
 themselves; that so we must have presbyteries and bishops, 
 and rules and regulations, by which to cut off the head of 
 him who does not conform to the regular theology. We 
 must have presbyteries, and bishops, and creeds and church 
 regulations; and men that want a larger liberty must go 
 out of church organizations and find it in the wilderness, 
 as John did. We must have councils, and independent 
 churches. An " Independent Church," in the phraseology 
 
LIBERTY AND DUTY OF THE PULPIT. 411 
 
 of our time, would seem to mean a church that is 
 allowed to do just as it pleases under the dictation of a 
 neighboring church. The idea is that there must be 
 competent men enough to determine what the minister 
 shall do, and then^ obeying them fully, he may do what he 
 has a mind to ! If I were a Presbyterian minister, and my 
 presbytery would give me authentic certainty that they 
 would stand in my place at the judgment seat of Christ 
 and take all the odds there, I would preach as they told me 
 to; but every man shall give an account of himself before 
 God. If my bishop, kindly and calmly, would enter into 
 bonds satisfactory that he would take care of me in the 
 day of judgment, and say that I was his disciple, and did 
 what he told me to, that would ease my mind very much. 
 I have a right to ask a council information where I need 
 it, and I am grateful for it. I have a right to request a 
 presbytery to give me their wisdom if I need it ; a bishop 
 to give me his, when I need it: but neither council, nor 
 presbytery, nor any authority ruling in the church can take 
 my place, or any man's place, in the day of judgment. I 
 may make use of them, but they cannot make use of me; 
 and in the last resort it is my privilege and my duty to take 
 just such helps as I can find in all the experience of good 
 men. I cannot shift or shirk the responsibility. I must 
 give an account before God of every deed done in the body, 
 and of those highest deeds of the ministry of Christ Jesus 
 to a people that are dying in their sins without light. 
 
 It is said : "But would not this lead to all manner of 
 rash and false teaching ? Is it not necessary that there 
 should be councils, presbyteries, and other ecclesiastical 
 arrangements to strain out these wild and adventurous 
 men?" When will men learn that God meant liberty to be 
 the birth-right of mankind, and that liberty is always safe 
 just in proportion as it is accompanied by intelligence and 
 conscience ? All deprivation of liberty is suffocation. 
 Liberty is the cleansing of the atmosphere. Men in power 
 never will believe in liberty. They are always afraid of it. 
 They think it is bad for the individual citizen, bad for the 
 State, bad for the government, bad for morality, and bad 
 
412 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 for religion. All Europe disbelieves in liberty, except the 
 bottom parts of the population. Along down through the 
 ages nothing has been so much distrusted as the average 
 experience, wisdom and consciencfe of the great mass of the 
 common people; but in the experiment which our nation 
 has been working out, God has shown the world at last 
 that in all things commercial, in all things industrial, in all 
 things moral, in all things civic and governmental, it is safe 
 to trust the common people. Any man may proclaim, 
 from Greenland to the Equator, any doctrine of civil 
 government he pleases. Does it hurt anybody ? Any man 
 may proclaim new theories of sociology, high, low, middle, 
 everywhere. Does it hurt anybody ? In a generation men 
 always go to the man that has the most truth ; men gravi- 
 tate toward the truth in every intelligent community that 
 has perfect liberty; and the only one thing that men seek 
 to reserve is religion. 
 
 There is still the barbaric, despotic, monarchic doctrine 
 that tlie people are not to be trusted. It prevails in the 
 matter of religion, and in that only. But I hold that 
 God's will covers that ground just as much as it does every 
 other ground in human life and society; that if men, speak- 
 ing as they will, are left to their own responsibility, with 
 perfect freedom, they are safer; and that the truth is safer 
 with liberty than where any restriction whatsoever is laid up- 
 on it. For liberty corrects its own mistakes in a little time. 
 That which claims to be truth is on trial when first an- 
 nounced. When on trial, if it fails, it is not true, and men 
 reject it. There is a steady fermentation in an intelligent 
 and reasonably well-educated and moral population, that is 
 perpetually acting like a bolter of grain, sifting and leaving 
 the chaff behind. Liberty is more fruitful than restraint 
 can be. Truth never enters the world as an army a thou- 
 •sand men abreast. Truth always comes as John the Baptist 
 came, in the wilderness, clothed in camel's hair, and for tlie 
 most part eating locusts and wild honey. It cannot get 
 anything better. All great changes in the economy of tlie 
 world begin in humble sources. The way to keep the church 
 alive is to give liberty of prophesying to all its members 
 
LIBERTY AND DUTY OF THE PULPIT. 413 
 
 Of course that will lead to some disturbance. A good, 
 rich, fat soil always has weeds, but to refuse cultivation of 
 the soil because if you begin to cultivate it you will have 
 weeds, is not good husbandry. Keep down the weeds by 
 cultivation — not by refusing to sow grain. Where there is 
 liberty, especially in the earlier period of transition, of course 
 there will be difficulties; but the difficulties are fewer than 
 the suppression of liberty, and they cure themselves. On the 
 other hand, to subject perso nal liberty in the pulpit to of- 
 ficial repression, is to close that channel by which God 
 sends the light into the world. Was it better that Savon- 
 arola should have his mouth stopped by the halter, and his 
 theology cleansed by the flame, or that he should have been 
 permitted to talk on ? Was it better that Luther should be 
 silenced when he stood almost alone against the power of 
 the world ? Was it better that Tyndale should be hindered 
 wlien he sought to bring to light the truth, by a translation 
 of the Sacred Scriptures, at a time when it was considered 
 very dangerous to do it ? Was not his liberty for the good 
 of the world 1 Was it better that Wesley should follow the 
 orders of his bishop, or the motions of the divine spirit ? 
 In our own land, was it better that Hopkins, and Edwards, 
 and New Haven Taylor, and Finney, all of whom were bit- 
 terly opposed and sought-to-be repressed by the ecclesias- 
 tical authorities — was it better that they should have been 
 suppressed, or that they should have been permitted to go 
 on and give the world the light that God had given them ? 
 All this ecclesiastical repression is in favor of dead men. 
 God sends new light, and when he sends new light he 
 sends single stars. The star that overhung the Babe of 
 Bethlehem was an illustration as well as a phenomenon. 
 When God sends new light he sends it by single men. 
 There rise not galaxies, but single men. To shut the mouths 
 of these men is the modern way of stoning Stephen, and it 
 too often leaves the world to grope for generations after 
 the truth. If God inspires a man with the faith that he has 
 something to say, let all the community cry, " Brother, say 
 on." If, when he has said it, nobody wants it, that will 
 cure it. When God sends anybody to say anything, he 
 
414 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 always sends enough folks to hear him, so as to make it 
 effectual. That touches the whole question of ordination. 
 When God gives a call to a man to preach, he gives a call 
 to the community to go and hear him, and if he does not 
 call the community generally, he do'es not call the man. 
 
 This is so when living men in authority are determining 
 the liberty of the pulpit. How much more so when dead 
 men rule, as they do in the creeds and confessions of faith 
 that still are regnant ! If a council of living men, that 
 may be supposed to be more or less in sympathy vi^ith 
 the tendencies of concurrent thought, are inadequate, and 
 are more in danger of stopping the will of God than of 
 promoting it, may not be relied upon, how much less to 
 be relied upon is a book of dead men, of generations 
 gone by, an echo of ages past ! These creeds and confes- 
 sions, as helps and as histories are valuable, but as au- 
 thorities they are the hands of dead men. Mortmain has 
 been adjudged to be so dangerous in all secular affairs that 
 governments have restricted or destroyed it; yet mortmain 
 holds the throat of the church to-day, and a man may not 
 speak that which the dead men of three or four hundred 
 years ago told him he must not speak. That inspira- 
 tion, which began with the beginning, and has been really 
 the vital force that has created the growth of the human 
 race, and is to-day the brightest and noblest possession of 
 mankind — that inspiration, uttered by the faith of pro- 
 phetic single Christian men here and there, diverse or dif- 
 fering as it may be from the current theology, if it has any- 
 thing in it, is the voice of God; and no authority was ever 
 given to men or to mankind to rebuke it, or to strike it 
 dumb. 
 
 So much for liberty. Now a little on the other side, for 
 the restrictions. The very nature of the fundamental idea 
 of ministerial functions will prevent a clergyman from be- 
 ing an investigator in the general. A man might be a 
 clergyman at Oxford or Cambridge, or a preacher of the 
 Temple in London, or a preacher and president of a col- 
 lege, or an honorary preacher to scientific bodies, and de- 
 vote his time to the study of philosophy, or history, or sci- 
 
LIBERTY AND DUTY OF THE PULPIT. 415 
 
 ence, or whatever else he chooses to pursue, and might 
 perform the duties of an investigator, and become an ex- 
 pert and an authority; but these are exceptional instances. 
 It is perfectly proper for a man to be a preacher and yet to 
 be a scientific man — but not easy, with a parish. He has 
 been sent to catch souls. He is a fisher of men. He has a 
 right to ideas and truths and knowledges as the means of 
 catching men. But science and critical philosophy have 
 now attained such a condition that a man to be an author- 
 ity in them must devote his whole life to them — and that, 
 too, to a narrow part of any great subject. No man can be 
 a universal scientist. One may have a general knowledge 
 of the sciences, but he never can be an authority in all of 
 them. No man can any longer be an authority in the whole 
 of any single science. Lindley sa)''s (in effect) in the intro- 
 duction to his Botany, among his latest writings, "Botany 
 is so large in its sphere that no man can ever hope to be an 
 authority in all of botany. He must select some single de- 
 partment in it, and devote his life to that, and there he may 
 attain to the dignity of an authority." If that be so of some 
 single science, like botany, -how much more is it so of the 
 whole field of human knowledge to-day ! 
 
 This is not limiting the pursuits of men at all. This 
 doctrine is not for a man who wishes to study, and who is 
 placed so that he has not the care of souls, in the proper 
 ordinary sense of that term. If a man is a preacher to a 
 body of lawyers, if he is a preacher to a convention of 
 scholarly men that are explorers, under such circumstances 
 adaptation would require that he himself should become 
 very scholarly, if not expert, in the themes that belong to 
 the body of men over whom he is presiding religiously. 
 But this is not to be generally expected; and when it is 
 thrown up against the pulpit that it ought to be a leading 
 authority in all the departments of life, the man who as- 
 serts it does not understand the first elements, either of 
 the impossibility, on the one side, of being a leader in all 
 directions, nor, on the other, the peculiar functions of the 
 ministry among the various other influences in society. 
 The minister is called to fish for souls. That is his busi- 
 
4i6 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 ness. If he can do more than that, if he can throw abroad 
 generic influences, it marks him as an exception; and ex- 
 ceptions are never to be taken as if they were averages. 
 
 In the Dark Ages the pulpit led. Things were not un- 
 folded then. The old lights of the church had sought and 
 grasped pretty much all the knowledge there was in those 
 times, and there was not a great deal. So gross was the 
 ignorance of the community that the minister loomed up 
 as an encyclopaedia of knowledge. The same men in our 
 day would be pigmies. But, according to the law of evo- 
 lution, universal, and without exception, the unfolding of 
 knowledge required, demanded, created, other agencies. 
 The function created the organ. So that which belonged 
 to the pulpit exclusively ha-5 now been distributed to a 
 hundred other organizations, which, performing separate 
 functions, do the work better than when it was only per- 
 formed by the one ministry. 
 
 The ministry is changed in relation to the State, and to 
 the whole realm of life, from what it was a thousand years 
 ago. We must conform to the growth of things which are 
 just as much the testimony of God's creative idea as trees 
 are evidences of the nature of seeds. 
 
 The laws of distribution, or differentiation, have changed, 
 then, the relative position of the minister. In the great 
 sciences, in the wliole life of exclusive devotion required to 
 make one an authority, he cannot ordinarily and on the 
 average be at the head. He must follow other men in 
 them. He must use new knowledge, but use it sparingly. 
 He must employ and depend on his own judgment about 
 science and about philosophy largely, but with great limi- 
 tation and great forbearance, not excited by everything 
 that is novel and new, but bringing everything to the test. 
 Life is the test of everything. Let a man try a truth upon 
 the position and life of his congregation, carefully adapt- 
 ing it, watching its tendencies. Truth is food, and is to be 
 fed as men can bear it. 
 
 All truth in the beginning is very much like gold at 
 first. There is more rock than gold, and it is only after it 
 
LIBERTY AND DUTY OF THR PULPIT. 417 
 
 has been stamped and ground to powder, and has gone 
 through the chemical bath, that the gold is separated from 
 the dross. A people may not be enough grown and intel- 
 ligent enough to receive that which the preacher is well 
 assured of. The pulpit may be preaching new things de- 
 structively, in combating with the old, and a people may 
 be unsettled in the old forms of belief, without being 
 rooted in the new. I take it for granted that if I had 
 preached thirty years ago what I preach now, it would have 
 been a great mischief to you ; but for thirty years I have 
 been cautious, and have fed you as you could bear it. 
 When I think a thing to be true, and have proved it to 
 be true, God lias given me the courage of explicitness, and 
 of thunder if it is needed. Men think I am careless and 
 without caution; but until comparatively recent years I 
 have not preached truths that lay on the horizon in my 
 mind for thirty years. I am not afraid for my reputation. 
 That is not worth much. God might issue an order to 
 cut off my shadow to-morrow. I suppose I could get along 
 without a shadow. I should never feel the loss. Let men 
 that want to, go and hunt after the shadow, and take care 
 of it. But I am very sensitive to the preaching of things 
 that will unsettle faith. I am very sensitive about turning 
 up new ground in which there may be unlimited quanti- 
 ties of malaria, and of wantonly bringing in unbelief in- 
 stead of belief. I am sent of God to be a fisher of men; 
 but I am to win them by gradual approaches, by educa- 
 tion, and by giving them the light by which they shall re- 
 ceive the fullness of the new truth, see it, and feed on it. 
 To bring a man off from his old faith before he is estab- 
 lished at all, or prepared to be established, in the new, is 
 wanton; it is mischief-breeding; it is wicked. Therefore 
 no man should rashly and hastily take up new truths, or 
 truths that are new to him. But I don't wonder. See 
 a man go through the Confessions, and the old treatises 
 on divinity. They were dead when he began, and he gets 
 used to them, and there is no juice in them. He turns 
 them this way and that way, he preaches them that way, 
 and preaches them this way, and then he tries them 
 
4i8 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 again the other way, and takes no great comfort in them. 
 He goes through the week sighing, and saying, " What 
 under the heavens shall I preach about next Sunday ? " 
 and when, turning aside, he gets the light of a new and 
 living truth, and feels the inspiration of it, and gets out of 
 the sepulcher of his old dead theology, I do not wonder 
 that he goes off, and goes off too quick. When the man 
 that was born blind first had the touch of sight given him 
 I should not have blamed him if he had run shrieking for 
 joy, throwing up his hands, and with every fantastic ges- 
 ture excited the criticism of folks that never felt emotion. 
 When a minister has something that he really thinks is 
 true (instead of something that his forefathers thought 
 was true, but that he no longer can believe in) it is not to 
 be wondered at that he hastens to preach it. So, with a 
 preacher that has begun to be born again, we may excuse 
 some of the liberties that he takes in coming to feel as 
 though there was meaning in things that he has been 
 teaching in a humdrum way. But his people may not 
 be grown enough, or have become intelHgent enough, so 
 that he must have care for them. I have heard a great 
 many people criticise the ministry, and say, "They don't 
 preach all they believe." You may depend upon it they 
 don't. 
 
 That is as if a hardy old trapper, from the borders of the 
 continent, living in the open air, capacious of mouth and 
 capacious of belly, should walk into a hospital, and, look- 
 ing at the diet of the sick man there, should say, "Good 
 heavens ! these doctors are not sincere. See how they 
 themselves eat, and then see what stuff they give to these 
 creatures here ! Why, they ought to give them plenty of 
 beef!" Ought they.? Ought a man to teach his little 
 children as he teaches grown folks? Ought a man to diet 
 sick folks as he diets well people ? 
 
 A man's business is not to show himself off in the pulpit, 
 nor to tell how much he knows. A man's business is not 
 to tickle the fancy of his audience. A man's business is to 
 bring men to a knowledge of the truth for the sake of mak- 
 ing men in Christ Jesus of them. A minister is a teacher. 
 
LIBERTY AND DUTY OF THE PULPIT. 419 
 
 He is the educator of his people in all knowledge that 
 directly pertains to godliness, but with a wise consideration 
 of their state. 
 
 One of the great difficulties in preaching is, how to 
 preach so as to meet the wants of that part of your con- 
 gregation which is enlightened and refined, and not to 
 cause the other part of your congregation that is unen- 
 lightened to stumble. How to discriminate is a part of that 
 supreme wisdom that no man has perfectly, but that all 
 men ought to seek for both by prayer and study — how so 
 to preach the truth, either at one time, or time after time, 
 as to give every one a portion in due season. This does 
 not mean to give every man regularly all the items of the 
 confession, but so to present truth and the way of life that 
 men of every stage of receptivity in the congregation shall 
 be able to accept it. That is difficult. You may cheat the 
 top for the sake of helping the bottom, or you may cheat 
 the bottom for the sake of helping the top; but you are 
 bound to be a fisher of all men — of all classes. 
 
 In regard to the circumstances which have called up this 
 particular line of thought, allow me to say that though I 
 am in perfect sympathy with what is known as the school 
 of advanced thought, though I have for twenty years had 
 a gradual change, corroborated year after year by investi- 
 gation of opinions upon the structure of the Old Testament 
 particularly, so that I have long been prepared to accept 
 the ripe and now almost universally accredited changes 
 that have taken place over the old notions of a literal, plen- 
 ary, verbal inspiration, yet I have thought that to be a 
 truth about which every minister of the gospel should be 
 cautious, and exceeding careful. It seems to me to be wiser, 
 first, that that which the Old Testament is good for should 
 be clearly and fully taught, so that everybody should see 
 and feel that there is a reason of gratitude to, God for the 
 Old Testament, and a reason of use and of power in it. 
 Then, when once all fears were allayed, and the reasons 
 were rightly understood, a congregation could bear the de- 
 struction of hereditary notions without feeling that they 
 were losing anything — nay, with the consciousness that they 
 Were gaining a great deal. 
 
420 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 There are men who believe in the word of life, but who 
 believe we ought to teach it just as it has always been 
 taught. That is the way the Pharisees of old taught. 
 They saw the disciples going through the wheat-fields, and 
 plucking the heads of wheat and beginning to eat them, 
 rubbing them in their hands. Pharisees nowadays would 
 say like them, speaking out of the fullness of their mind, 
 " You ought to eat the whole thing — chaff, wheat, straw, 
 everything there is of it, and not rub out the wheat alone." 
 The Old Testament has a great deal of straw on which the 
 wheat grew. I don't think we are bound to eat the straw. 
 A judicious and careful minister could separate the con- 
 stituent elements of the Old Testament so that the part of 
 it that remained, the foundation ground of belief, would 
 injure no man's belief in inspiration. One theory may be 
 wrong, and yet there be a true inspiration. 
 
 Besides so much for care and for caution, I must add one 
 thing. The pulpit has no longer that absolute jurisdiction 
 in morals and religion which it once had. A thousand 
 books are doing that which the church ought to have done. 
 A thousand scientific men are doing that thing which, if 
 the church will not do, they will do for it. There are a 
 thousand young men that do not hear preaching where 
 there is one that does; they are reading Huxley, and Tyn- 
 dall, and Spencer, and Darwin, and Mivart; they are read- 
 ing many of the French and German writers on religion. 
 If you will not help them, they will help themselves. If 
 our Sunday-schools go on using books that are founded on 
 the notions of five hundred years ago, and do not explain 
 to our young men and women what is the actual truth of 
 these things, they will grow up outside of the church, and 
 being dazzled by tlve light that they get outside of the 
 church, and feeling that they have been deceived in the 
 church and not instructed, they will be infidel. It is not a 
 question whether we will take a new view or not; it is a 
 question whether we will instruct the young men of the 
 community, or let them be instructed by the unbelieving. 
 I object to the mode of hiding the light agreed to and ac- 
 cepted by the great body of scholars in France, in England 
 
Liberty and duty of the pulpit. 421 
 
 and in America; and if our Sunday-schools and churches 
 never bring one ray of that light, wliich is now universal 
 among scholars, to the minds of common people, they are 
 preparing them for infidelity. The greatest thing that we 
 have to do in the religious instruction prepared for the 
 young is to make judicious instruction in relation to the 
 nature of the Bible, and the history of it, and the value of 
 it, and to show wherein that value consists. It is to be 
 done reverently and helpfully, by men that are in sympa- 
 thy both with the best scholarship and in sympathy with 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 That is the great need of to-day. If a man under- 
 takes to do it, who does it with comparative lack of accept- 
 ance, he should not be derided. When old ministers of 
 the Gospel, for the most part reverent and excellent men, 
 say that a man who would preach sermons that honestly 
 try to discriminate between the straw and the wheat in the 
 glorious field of the Hebrew Scriptures, must be insane, 
 they are saying, "Stone him, stone him!" the modern 
 equivalent of which is, turning a man out of the church. 
 When I hear such things as this I marvel whether the light 
 of God's spirit has gone out, and whether reverend and 
 wise, and in many respects admirably good men, cannot 
 see the signs of the times. What if some live man has car- 
 ried his discussions and criticisms out too far? That 
 is not so great a sin as not carrying them out at all. A 
 dumb pulpit is a heretical pulpit. To-day God is in the 
 world. He comes to his own, and his own receive him 
 not. To those that receive him, he gives the power to be- 
 come sons of God — to be great truth-revealers, in sympathy 
 with the truth; and then the authorities turn round and 
 stone them ! Let there be liberty of thought, liberty of 
 expression, liberty of preaching, with the only responsi- 
 bility laid on a man that he is responsible to God for the 
 souls to whom he is preaching. 
 
 That thought — what man is sufficient for it! What man 
 really has before him the vision of the open heaven, and 
 the majesty of divine love, so that, standing before his con- 
 gregation, he can give them an account of God, the Lover! 
 
422 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 What man must not tremble in the presence of such a 
 thought ! If God judged as man judges, we might tremble 
 in despair; but God is the All-lenient and the All-forgiving. 
 Therefore, though we be borne down with the conscious- 
 ness of imperfection in teaching, we are not afraid to meet 
 the judgment-seat of Christ. I am not; for I dare say, to- 
 day, in the presence of God, that I have not preached for 
 honor, nor for reputation, nor for pride, nor for self-seek- 
 ing, but in all honesty with the desire that men should be 
 made better; and it has pleased God to endow me with 
 liberty. Liberty ! When I was called, I was called to be a 
 fisher of men, and I have demanded and exercised the I'ight 
 of "using whatever I believed was best adapted to call men 
 to Jesus Christ. 
 
 May God direct his church, and make his wise men 
 wiser, and make all those that are seeking a nobler way 
 cautious and yet courageous. May He increase the light 
 more and more until that day shall come when the sun 
 shall stand shining for a thousand years, and the earth be 
 full of the glory of God. 
 
XVII. 
 THE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. 
 
 " For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my 
 ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so 
 are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your 
 thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and 
 returneth not thither, but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth 
 and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so 
 shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth ; it shall not return 
 unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall 
 prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." — Isa. Iv : 8-11. 
 
 These are imperial words. They befit the majesty of the 
 universal supreme government. The word of God is the 
 truth of God. His will is declared in various ways among 
 and to men. Inspired speech sometimes declares it. The 
 laws that are framed declare the thoughts of God, and are 
 substantially his speech. Nature, if rightly apprehended 
 and interpreted, is the speech of God. Experience, when 
 sufficiently guarded and sifted, so that its full form may be 
 fairly known, is also a word of God. Whatever we find 
 out to be true is God's truth, whether in the highest or in 
 the lowest spheres. All the truths which relate to men 
 and society may be said to be superior truths. The word 
 of God as expressed in matter is important only in the re- 
 lation which matter sustains to human life and destiny. 
 Science has no value at all, abstractly. It is that to which 
 it shall come that gives it value. In making investigation 
 and study of what is true, a scientific man must not allow 
 himself to be Ijiased or disturbed one way or the other by 
 supposed applications. He must be colorless in his inves- 
 
 SuNDAY Morning, January 20, 1884. Lesson; Psa. Ixxiii : 1-28. 
 
 423 
 
424 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 ligating faculties; but when he snail have ascertained the 
 truth, the value of that which is ascertained can only 
 be known by its immediate or remote relations to the 
 welfare of man, in time and in eternity. The truths which 
 relate to morality, or the rule of life in society, and the 
 truths which pertain to religion or the law of life in rela- 
 tion to God and eternity, these we call moral truths. In 
 regard to these, from the earliest day, when man was more 
 nrarly an animal than he is now, there was not only ob- 
 scurity, but great doubt. We see it expressed in every 
 form. Purity was not the necessary attribute of a god in 
 the old mythologic heavens. The heroes of Homer would 
 be States-prison birds with us. The men that had power 
 (physical power), and passion (boundless passion), and suc- 
 cess therein; the men that could deceive; the men of craft, 
 of blood, of violence, and of riches, were the heroes of an- 
 tiquity: and when over against them, the milder qualities, 
 the humane qualities and the profitableness of virtue, in- 
 tegrity and manly morality were set forth, people did not 
 believe in them. Either they were opaque to them as moral 
 truth, and the cause of happiness, or they were incredulous. 
 It was not better to be a good man than a bad man. The 
 law of life was not safer along the lines of integrity than 
 along the lines of craft and greediness. Men did not be- 
 lieve, and to a large extent the population of the globe to- 
 day does not believe in the truths of a universal morality, 
 as being sounder, safer, and more fruitful of good than the 
 law of self-indulgence. Still less do they, or did they, be- 
 lieve in the higher forms of moral and spiritual conscious- 
 ness. No more pathetic rendering of that state of mind is 
 to be found in literature than the Seventy-third Psalm, 
 which I read in the opening service, where that child of 
 God, looking out, saw everything going wrong. The rude, 
 the coarse, the greedy, the unscrupulous, the passionate, 
 the self-indulgent, had the cream of life; everything went 
 their way. He could not understand it till he went into 
 the sanctuary of God; that is, he there got a»view far down 
 to the ends of things — a conception of what was to be the 
 final result of such courses and such conduct. Uncertainty 
 
THE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. - 425 
 
 men have felt from the earliest ages; good men have felt 
 uncertainty as to the prevalence and victory of truth in 
 this world; they have needed something to set them up, 
 and this is the sublime imperial utterance, saying: " Truth 
 may be in the vocative now; it shall be in the ascendant. 
 It may be feeble now, but it shall come to power. It may 
 seem overwhelmed and destroyed, but its regency is as- 
 sured." On the way down from the earliest age to ours, 
 there has been a strife in good men's minds of fear, and 
 doubt, and uncertainty, as it regards the highest conditions 
 of the human soul, and the highest truths that belong to 
 mankind. 
 
 Now look at the figure: 
 
 " As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth 
 not thither — " 
 
 It disappears instantly; it is gone. So was it with the 
 word of God, apparently. It burst out, and came down 
 upon the earth, and disappeared, until the moss, the grass, 
 the shrub, the vine, and the forest sprang up. It only per- 
 ished that it might renew itself in finer forms and nobler 
 aspects. The rain was wasted, that the harvest, which was 
 its child, might flourish. It went out of sight and out of 
 reach; but it was to bring forth something better as a sub- 
 stitute for itself. The rain is the blood of the growing 
 vegetable kingdom. You lose your rain, but you get that 
 which is better than the rain. So God's word shall sink 
 away and disappear; but it shall reappear again in a nobler 
 form by and by. 
 
 ' ' As the rain cometh down from heaven and returneth not thither, but 
 watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give 
 seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be." 
 
 Is there anything in this world so absolutely pure as the 
 drifting flake of snow ? No fuller's soap can add whiteness 
 to that. Is there anything in the world that is more power- 
 less? A child's finger can annihilate any flake that comes 
 down. It has no voice nor cry. It has no arms, no feet. 
 It knows not its own way. It comes floating through the 
 
426 - PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 Still air as if it were a disabled insect, and were falling in 
 its lightness, yet under the power of gravity, down to its 
 place upon the earth. Is thei'e anything more beautiful 
 than its crystallization, anything more helpless in its self- 
 guided direction, anything that can so little suggest the 
 law of power as snow? Yet, a whole village, in a moment, 
 was suffocated by the thundering descent of the avalanche. 
 It was nothing but snow that did it. There was in it the 
 power of God's thunder and the mightiness of God's right 
 hand, weak as it seemed to be. 
 
 All night long the show charges down without clash or 
 sound of trumpet. In the morning, fence and forest, hedge 
 and herb and the low-growing grasses all over the field are 
 covered by it. Is that the sign of summer.' Is this fioccu- 
 lent descent, that lies upon the white bosom of the field in 
 all the region round about, a token of a harvest? Harvest 
 out of snow? Yes, for it broods softly upon the earth, and 
 keeps it warm. It is indeed a good thing for all the hid- 
 den roots that are waiting to grow and develop. And as 
 the sun sails northward, and the days and nights grow 
 warmer it changes its form and flies away, some of it to 
 the air to keep the sponge moist yet, and some of it down- 
 ward, carrying not alone itself. As the air is filled with 
 gases everywhere, that have ascended from decaying vege- 
 tation and from human habitations, ammoniacal vapors, 
 the snow catches them and carries them down, and has 
 come thus to have the name of the poor man's manure. 
 So, as it melts, it distributes through all the ground its 
 health-giving, restoring and reviving properties. By and 
 by the shoots of grass begin to come, and the early flowers 
 come, and along in the spring, especially in the further 
 northern regions where there is but a short summer, things 
 make haste to jump and grow, and these are the children 
 of the snow. It came as death comes; its appearance was 
 that of a shroud, but it bore in its bosom a silent life — a 
 life not unfolded. It gave itself to the earth, and when by 
 and by in vapors, little by little, it comes up again to hang 
 as beautiful clouds in the summer — hang throughout all 
 these regions, it has not returned unto God void. It has 
 
THE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. 427 
 
 gone as a missionary goes, and has borne its message of 
 life and growth to all the fields, and has accomplished that 
 whereunto it was sent. 
 
 "So shall my word be," saith God. It seems, as it comes 
 down, as simple as rain-drops, that are as far removed from 
 the strength of wine as the sun is from the earth, or the 
 east is from the west. Yet wine can do nothing compared 
 with the raindrop in its simplicity. There is no power in 
 it. Though it drench the earth with its red flood, nothing 
 would grow the better therefor. But the simple rain, the 
 very emblem of nothingness apparently, or organized rain, 
 the wingless snow that can drop and fall, but cannot fly, 
 why, what power is there in that ? What Hercules' club is 
 there ? What is there in it that shall represent the power 
 of an organized agriculture ? Nevertheless, the rain and 
 the snow have their work, and they are among the mighti- 
 est agencies of God to produce vitality in the animal king- 
 dom, and life through the vegetable kingdom in this world. 
 What a fit figure it is of that invisible truth, the regency of 
 God's morality, and of God's spirituality, as they are de- 
 veloped feebly and scatteringly among men ! No wonder 
 that the old philosophers, looking upon these things, 
 doubted whether there was any force of good in the simple 
 ordinary moralities that men see. How feeble they were ! 
 How they went down before temptation ! How the weak, 
 that sought to live by truth, and virtue, and rectitude, and 
 justice, were overwhelmed by the predominance of tTie Her- 
 culeses, the Theseuses, and the other great groups of abom- 
 inable creatures like Samson of old. Behemoths among 
 men ! Yet, after all, in the long battle of time, which has 
 survived ? Which has grown in the thought of men, and 
 in influence over men ? The animal has been steadily re- 
 treating, and the spiritual and invisible has been steadily 
 rising, growing and prospering. 
 
 "So shall my word be. It shall not return unto me void. It shall 
 accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing where 
 unto I sent it." 
 
 If men shall say, " It was a long time, and God is a dila- 
 
428 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 tory worker,'' the reply is, " I dwell in eternity. The scope 
 of my plans is not limited by the clock, nor by the revolu- 
 tion of a petty globe. Dwelling in eternity, my plans are 
 large, spreading through vast periods, unknown to the rev- 
 olution of time. I have leisuie enough. It is the work of 
 God, though a thousand years pass as a day." 
 
 The application is for our time, and our immediate 
 wants; and, applied to the progress of the great truths of 
 justice, of conscience, of right and wrong, there is much 
 that this has for us to-da)'. 
 
 Evolution, as a mere natural force, not lying on the 
 bosom of God, is full of contradictions. It would be very 
 difficult, if man evolved from the inferior stages of bar- 
 barism, and still more difficult if he evolved from the lower 
 animal kingdom, to show how there should ever have been 
 given any birth to moral qualities, that stand confronting 
 the vehemence and universality of animal passions. 
 
 The first great law of life is production, generation; and 
 the second great law of life is defense, both by enlarge- 
 ment and by violence; and the third great law of life, that 
 we read in nature, is destruction, or the clearing of the 
 old out of the way to give rise to the new. And how the 
 subtleness of truth, how the equities, how all the brood of 
 the household of Conscience, how the truths that are born 
 of it ever had any chance, or what there was in the early 
 primitive animal, who can say ? Who can imagine the pro- 
 cess? It is said to be very difficult to find the connection 
 between man even in his lower animal forms and the ani- 
 mal from which many suppose he sprang. There is a long 
 and deep gulf between the one and the other. The missing 
 link, it is said, cannot be found. 
 
 But if there is to be a godless theory of evolution, there 
 is a wider gulf and there are more missing links between 
 the animal appetites and passions below, and the higher, 
 finer, nobler conceptions both of the reason and of the 
 moral sentiments. 
 
 How man got away from the coarse vulgarities and forces 
 of his lower nature, against the whole tide of time, the 
 ivhole custom of the world, and the mightier laws that 
 
THE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. 429 
 
 were perpetually beating upon him as the ocean beats upon 
 the shore; how he unfolded and came up, it would task 
 any man's imagination to suppose. But if the whole theory 
 of evolution is but a slow decree of God, and if He is be- 
 hind it and under it, then the solution not only becomes 
 natural and easy, but it becomes sublime, that in that 
 waiting experiment which was to run through the ages of 
 the world, God had a plan by which the race should steadi- 
 ly ascend, and the weakest become the strongest, and the 
 invisible become more and more visible, and the finer and 
 nobler at last transcend and absolutely control its control- 
 lers, and the good in men become mightier than the animal 
 in them. 
 
 If this, therefore, be added to evolution, the Evolution- 
 ary philosophy itself becomes not only an e.xplanation, so 
 far as the world is concerned, of the course of time and the 
 manner of human growth, but also a contribution to faith 
 — faith in the existence of the universal God, who tliinks, 
 plans, and executes: not as a man would; but yet man is 
 the only image that comes near enough to explain to our 
 comprehension a personal God that lives in such a scope of 
 time and with such universal power. It gives revelation 
 and rest to many a doubt as to why the world was left as it 
 was. Suppose an ant looks upon a mountain, if he ever 
 does, and learns, if he ever can learn, that it required two 
 thousand years to build that mountain ? "Two thousand 
 years ! Well, why didn't he build it as quickly as I build 
 my hill? I can build it in a night. What is the meaning 
 of this long delay in building a mountain ? Tell me there 
 is a God ! If there is one, he ought to do just as the ant 
 does." That is what men say. They judge of the divine 
 processes in life by a too close analog}' with their own 
 conditions. But we are born of weakness, and live in twi- 
 light, and perish before the moth. God lives in eternity, 
 and is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, without 
 change or variableness in himself; and the pitiful experi- 
 ences of men are not to be formed into any analogy or in- 
 strument of measurement by which to determine the reality 
 of God. 
 
430 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 Goodness and spiritual excellence, contrary to expecta- 
 tion, rationally formed, have developed steadily though 
 slowly, with many retrogressions and vast waste, through 
 long periods; and the tendency in the direction of good- 
 ness, and refinement of goodness, and variety of goodness, 
 and harmony in the various forms of goodness, is giving to 
 our later day a character that the world never had before. 
 Something has steadily worked its way; and the way of 
 men has grown finer and finer. Something has had a power, 
 invisible and undeclared, working the way of the human 
 race upward. I call it God. When truth in any age has 
 apparently been destroyed, it has only died as the seed 
 dies to come up again a hundred-fold. He that smites the 
 thistle, replants the thistle over broad places. He that 
 smites the ripe barley head and the ripe wheat is a sower of 
 the seed, though he may destroy the seed-bed in which it 
 ripens. The apparent destruction of influences for good 
 buries them only that they may come up again. The per- 
 secuting of them is only that they may be scattered every- 
 where. How the thrashing-floor contrasts with the sowing 
 of the seed ! The tender nurture of the one process, the 
 violence of the other ! Yet the flail separates wheat from 
 straw and chaff ! 
 
 I cannot trace it, though it might be easily traced and 
 looked at from period to period in the Old Testament, in 
 the history of the progressive Jewish church. When the 
 Temple perished, and the altar was subverted, and the 
 Jews were driven into a captivity that almost covered the 
 whole globe, it would seem as though everything that had 
 been gained through the centuries was wasted and lost; 
 but the scattering of the Jews was the carrying of the 
 synagogue into every civilized capital of the world; and 
 the Apostles first found the moral sense prepared for their 
 message in the minds of these scattered and captive Jews. 
 The destruction of Israel was the salvation of the world. 
 So, from period to period, God destroys only that he may 
 multiply. A great nature springs up, and the world seems 
 to pivot on him; and men, when they hear of his decease, 
 hold up their hands in panic, and say, "All the strings of 
 
THE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. 431 
 
 affairs were tied to liim, and now they are broken loose." 
 If a man is a great man, he prepares the way for twenty 
 men, each of whom is perhaps not equal to him, but the 
 twenty together are five times as great as he was. He dis- 
 tributes himself, and is buried and lives again in the ten- 
 dencies which he has educated. 
 
 So in the elucidation of the whole movement of the human 
 race : the whelmings, the darknesses, the destructions of 
 things that were apparently necessary to the salvation of 
 the race have been found, upon a larger investigation, and 
 with patient waiting, to be the divine mode of increase. 
 Destruction has been propagation. 
 
 All the assaults that have been made upon religion have 
 in the end exalted it, purified it, and made it more fruitful. 
 The corruptions of the church seemed, at one time, to have 
 dissolved the spiritual power of the globe. Take the periods 
 when religion was mostly confined to the Roman Catholic 
 Church. In those times of vital decline, when she sank 
 apparently, into the earth, it would seem to one who judged 
 upon ordinary and material considerations, as though relig- 
 ion had gone to pieces. Then, later, sprang up the fierce 
 infidelities, such as that which was led by the philosophers 
 of the French Revolution. It seemed as though the reason 
 of men was gaining tlie advantage over religion. No; it 
 was gaining an advantage over the corruptions of religion, 
 and over the corrupted institutions of religion. Voltaire 
 was not a skeptic of true religion, for he never saw it. He 
 was an unbeliever in religion as he saw it organized before 
 him. It seemed as though his hand was turned against the 
 spirit of the Lord. It was not. He was removing the ob- 
 structions that overlaid the soil; and if there was to be a 
 new growth, it was necessary that in some way these things 
 should be removed that had ceased to be a help, and were 
 become really an obstruction to human development. 
 
 Every period in which the world makes a transition from 
 the old to the new, from the lower to the higher, from worse 
 to better, is a period of wraste. The old pastures lie fallow 
 for ten years without plow or seed. When the farmer at 
 last wakes up to root out the old turf, and turn it bottom 
 
432 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 side up, what a perishing there is of roots ! What a perish- 
 ing there is of the old inhabitants of the globe ! What abso- 
 lute waste it is ! But it is waste that is laying the founda- 
 tion for a new crop, and for a better and healthier one. When 
 the minds of men that have been following institutions and 
 particular mechanical methods are broken loose from them 
 by the assertion of something newer and higher, the first 
 process is apt to be a breaking loose from the old without 
 taking root in anything else. Then comes the era of doubt — 
 " agnosticism" it is called. Men do not know. That is the 
 aboriginal condition of mankind. They are Know-Nothings, 
 all of them, from the cradle; and it prevails variously in 
 different individuals. The transition from worse to better, 
 from lower to higher, is always like the track of the Israel- 
 ites toward the promised land, there being a desert between. 
 Not until all who were twenty years of age when they left 
 Egypt had perished in the sand could Moses see the prom- 
 ised land, or the people enter into it. 
 
 Ours is a time of loosening of faith, a time when men are 
 beginning to feel as though they had been fooled, a time 
 when men are letting go the ruder and more imperfect pre- 
 sentations of the truth. It is not therefore a presumption 
 that the truth as now stated is not truth, because it is wast- 
 ing. Waste! The name of God might be called Prodigality. 
 Of all wasters there is no such waster as he, in nature, 
 in human society, everywhere. He creates to express his 
 abundance. Many are called, few are chosen; and the 
 major part of the forces in this world go back, as it were, 
 simply to constitute, b)' their decay, a soil out of which, by 
 and by, better things shall grow, It is not a sign that the 
 great truths of God are not growing in our day because 
 there is such unbelief, such skepticism, such indifference, and 
 such agnosticism. It has been so many times before: 
 
 " My word shall not return unto me void. It shall accomplish that 
 which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." 
 
 The folly of that remedy which men propose is made very 
 plain. Those who have not an understanding of God's 
 way, and cannot tell what the signs of the times portend, 
 
THE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. 433 
 
 often, seeing this progress and development, think the 
 remedy is to go back to the old forms and institutions. 
 Screw up your machine a little tighter. "They have been 
 liberalizing a little; but now," say the deacon, the elder and 
 the minister, grave, good and ignorant, "we must go back 
 to the old days." That is tlie best way to get over ophthal- 
 mia — put your eyes out, or never let them see anything, or 
 never use tliem in any way ! They are more particular 
 about the ordinances, more particular about the holy days, 
 and more particular about their theology. 
 
 All real progress is more or less surrounded by trouble. 
 It is the interest of men that truth should live; and after 
 men's cares are over, and the truth has had some time given 
 it to blossom and bring forth its fruit in new and higiier 
 forms, men find that it is not wasting, but that it has really 
 led on to something better and higher. They get over their 
 panic; and the next generation hearing the truth from the 
 cradle, and seeing none of the objections that their fathers 
 did, they accept it, and the world goes on and goes up. 
 
 This is taking place to-day. To-day there are great 
 topics about which the minds of men are unsettled. I do 
 not know that there ever was a period in which thinking, 
 educated men were so unsettled as they are now concerning 
 the nature and existence of God. 
 
 There is no use of hiding tliese things. It is of no use to 
 say that a man must be a fool who does not believe in a 
 God. I tell you that the question is a profound one. I 
 have both sympathy and respect for any honest man whose 
 mind labors on that question. When men say tliat you 
 cannot prove the existence of God by science, I say " Amen," 
 and only subjoin that it never was pretended, either by 
 prophet, by seer, by apostle, by the Saviour, or in the word 
 of God, anywhere, that it could be proved in that way. God 
 is a spirit. Science deals with matter. You cannol demon- 
 strate the existence of God in any such way as you can 
 demonstrate the existence of matter, or even the fruit of 
 organized matter in human constructions. Who would 
 ever undertake to demonstrate the quality of one of Raph- 
 ael's pictures by any scientific process, or in any court ex- 
 28 — 
 
434 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 cept the court of a man's taste ? You might scrape off the 
 paint, and chemically separate it, and give the proportions 
 of red, and yellow, and blue, and green and gray, but all 
 that would not come anywhere near to a demonstration of 
 the superb artistic genius of Raphael or Titian; nor would 
 any test, by alkali, by acid, by reagent, by measurement, 
 by inches, by lines, or by any mechanical means approach 
 a proof. I should like to see an engineer's report on 
 Rubens' pictures. An engineer can tell you everything that 
 belongs to altitude, width, and extent. He can give you a 
 picture of a fort, and tell you where its weakness is or where 
 its strength lies. He can gauge a mountain; he can weigh 
 it in every way; he can tell where to cut off and where to 
 fill up; he can lay down beforehand the yet unaccomplished 
 result in a picture that shall be as the thing is to be when 
 it is really executed; but what would be an engineer's re- 
 port on John Milton's poetry? I should like to see Mr. 
 Huxley, Mr. Tyndall, or any other man, give a scientific 
 account of King Lear, of Hamlet, or of Shylock. Yet the 
 world does measure and appreciate these things. How ? 
 By a laboratory process that is more subtle and a great 
 deal higher than any that deals with mere matter. The 
 evidence of thought is before the tribunal of thought. The 
 evidence of quality is in the presence of the tribunal of 
 quality. A man standing before a magnificent scene, and 
 not seeing anything in it, is not a judge of the man that 
 stands before the scene and is thrilled in every faculty of 
 his nature by it. I know that there is the existence of 
 a God — well, not exactly as I know that it is summer be- 
 cause I feel it; yet that, perhaps, is as near an illustration 
 of it as is possible, though it is not an analogy. I stand in 
 tiie presence of God and of the facts that are poured in 
 upon me. I do not undertake to say it is just so much; 
 but I am in the presence of a power that is not represented 
 by the air, the earth, the water or any chemical elements. 
 I am in the presence of a Spirit that encompasses me, that 
 inspires me, that lifts me out of myself. No human being 
 ever did it. Nature never did it. It is God; it is God. 
 Moral intuition is the great evidence of the existence of 
 
THE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. 435 
 
 God. Yet we are not to despise men who having had the 
 ordinary and conventional teaching of the existence of God, 
 look into it philosophically, or search it scientrfically, and 
 are overwhelmed with doubt. They are yet in the desert; 
 but they are on the way to the promised land. 
 
 The anatomy or structure of the Bible also is undergoing 
 very great research. Men used to read the Bible for the 
 most part as if it were a book carved out in heaven. If it 
 had been printed there, or written in manuscript and then 
 dropped right down, and men had taken it up, and it had 
 the signature and token of God on it, and they had read it 
 as coming directly from God, all made out, that would have 
 represented about the notion many people have had about 
 the inspiration of the Hebrew Scriptures. Now we begin 
 to find out that the Bible was not a thing inspired in that 
 sense, and in that way; that while God has used the seeis 
 and prophets in the construction of the word of God, the 
 Bible was lived, first, It is the record of long centuries of 
 steady unfolding of men in truth. The Scriptures are 
 truths as far as they are true, and no further. Tliey repre- 
 sent an unfolding series of developments through the shin- 
 ing and stimulating influence of God upon human con- 
 sciousness. We have in them the earliest infantine idea of 
 the human race. We have there progressive development 
 and growth under the divine influences. We have truth 
 growing higher and higher until we come to the culmina- 
 tion — the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. 
 
 Well, now, a great many men feel that if you take away 
 from the common people these old views, and substitute 
 new ones, you will have destroyed their faith, I tell you 
 that you are a great deal more in danger of destroying faith 
 by not explaining these things. If class after class in Sun- 
 day-schools and Bible-classes and churches are still taught 
 by the pulpit the old doctrine of inspiration about the na- 
 ture and structure of the Bible, they will read the truth 
 outside of the church, and outside of the pulpit, and will 
 find that things are not as taught, and will say, "We were 
 imposed upon in that, and doubtless in everything else,'' 
 and will reject the whole matter. If there is any danger of 
 
436 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 separating men from their belief, it is not by giving them 
 the truth. It is a thousand-fold more dangerous to sepa- 
 rate them ♦from their faith by concealing from them the 
 actual historical facts. As to the question whether the 
 Bible is lost to us if the old theory of its origin and struc- 
 ture and its anatomy is changed, why, ye slow of heart and 
 unbelieving, is the Bible true because it had a historical 
 sequence and origin, or because of the truths that are in it — 
 because of the unfolded spirit and nature of God, developed 
 through institutions and long generations ? They are 
 truths immutable and indestructible. The true Bible is 
 not a dead book, but a living reality, developed by the 
 spirit of God in the conscience of mankind. It is not a 
 printed thing. The printed thing is the memorial of it, a 
 souvenir of it, a mere chart; and the chart is not the ocean. 
 The attempt is made to raise men's conception of the 
 divinity of Christ, and of the real nature of the atonement. 
 This is a word which I dislike, because it is not a New 
 Testament word as applied to Christ at all. It is a theo- 
 logical word applied to him. It is so full of controversies, 
 and disputes, and prejudices, and sectarian differences, that 
 I think it would be very wise to drop it, and put Christ's 
 own name instead of it. The origin of Christ, the true na- 
 ture of Christ, the power of his nature upon the world, the 
 conditions of that power, whence he came, what he was 
 as far as we can comprehend it, what is his relation to weak 
 broken men, why he draws men unto himself — all these 
 are questions now developed in what is called "the new 
 theology;" but the essential truth is tlie same — Ciirist, the 
 wisdom of God, and the power of God to salvation. The 
 question of the atonement, or that scheme by which men 
 undertake to interpret when and how he was a sufficient 
 (Saviour, will surely be modified; it is changing; it has gone 
 under, with multerings as of distant thunder, but that will 
 not destroy anything The form of the incarnation of a 
 great truth may be changed, but that truth springs out 
 more clearly than ever before. 
 
 Do you suppose that the stars were destroyed when as- 
 tronomy was corrected by Copernicus and Galileo ">. Men 
 
THE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. 437 
 
 had their notions about the whole planetary heavens, and 
 those notions were all swept away; but it did not destroy 
 the orbs. Men had their idea of the origin of the earth. 
 That idea was swept away, and new ideas came in its place, 
 and we are the better for it. And because the philosophy 
 that has surrounded the name and work of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ is rising from an obscure and relatively false basis, 
 or method of explanation, because it is clearing away these 
 obstructions and giving us a vision of God manifest in the 
 flesh more noble, more regal, for which we have been edu- 
 cated, and for wliose reception we have been prepared, do 
 you suppose that it will destroy Christ or the power of his 
 Gospel? It is going to make him stronger; not to-day nor 
 to-morrow, because at present we are in controversies about 
 him; but in the next generation the truth will prevail. 
 There will be no controversy about it. From the cradle 
 up, people will take a higher and better view, and the re- 
 sult will conform to the experience of mankind from the 
 beginning. When we rise from the lower to the higher 
 truth and conditions, we lose something on the way, but 
 the world on the whole gains. 
 
 Tlie question of immortality, also, has come up for con- 
 sideration as it never came before. It relates to conduct 
 and character in this life, and to destiny. There never was 
 a time when it needed more investigation. There never 
 was a time when it was having more investigation in every 
 degree of wisdom, of doubt, or of skepticism. There is no 
 theme about which, I suppose, the human conscience is or 
 ought to be more concerned than about this. Am I but an 
 animal? Is the cold house in the grave my whole house ? 
 Is there no existence after death? Is the fruit of this life 
 thrown away and sacrificed? Is there another existence? 
 If there is, how many can gain it, and what is the way of 
 gaining it? Is the major part of the whole human family 
 going to be destroyed? Is death the hideous altar on 
 which the great proportion of the human family are to be 
 Sacrificed ? Is there hope for the imperfect ? Is there hope 
 for men that are sinful — that is, for all men? for all are sin- 
 ful, from the very best to the very lowest. If so, what are 
 
438 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 the conditions of it? These questions are undergoing in- 
 vestigation. The immediate and first fruit will be the 
 shocking of t-he faith of a great many; but the next result 
 is going to be a larger, purer, and more stimulating view 
 of the reality of the fact of immortality. 
 
 " If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable." 
 
 Have I forever lost my father and my mother? Have I 
 lost my children ? Have I lost the great spirits to whom I 
 have looked all my life long for stimulation and for truth? 
 Have I lost that which I have been gaining for four-score 
 years? Have I lost everything? God forbid! The uni- 
 versal and underlying law of God will not suffer the great- 
 est truth of the universe to be extinguished or long hid. 
 
 " My word shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that 
 which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." 
 
 This subject, therefore, gives, or ought to give, a great 
 deal of comfort to men that are working in hard places, in 
 frontier settlements, in missions, in new places. It would 
 seem as though the work of myriads of men was really 
 squandered. They seem to be sowing seed, not upon the 
 Nile, to find it again abundantly, but in mid-ocean, where 
 it sinks, and rots, and comes to nothing. But the word of 
 the Lord nas a vitality that will not be extinguished. Men 
 may work on through their whole lifetime, and their suc- 
 cessors, their posterity, may reap the legitimate fruit of 
 their faith in the sowing of spiritual truth. We are not to 
 think that the word of God is to be measured by what we 
 see here and now. The trirth in Armenia, the old sphere 
 of the origin of the race; the truth of God in Asia Minor, 
 among tlie cliiirches that once had life and beauty and 
 power; the truth in Jerusalem itself; the truth in the gar- 
 den of civilization, in Africa, has still a root; and if there 
 be but a blade that is springing above, it propiiesies by and 
 by a harvest all round the world. If you judged by the 
 darkness, by the passions, by the confusions of men, you 
 would say, "The world drudges yet and groans in pain, 
 
l^HE VITALITY OF GOD'S TRUTH. 439 
 
 and there is no hope for it;" but if you believe in God, and 
 in that decree which has been fulfilling itself with variable 
 scope in every age from the beginning; if you believe in 
 Jesus Christ, the manifestation of God in the flesh and God 
 in us; if you believe in these things, no darkness, no length 
 of night, no winter, can bury the faith that the world is 
 marching on the royal way toward the Millennium and the 
 day of ransom of the race. 
 
 This subject also has application to the household. How 
 many parents there are that carry unnecessary burdens, 
 whose watching and instruction seem squandered ! They 
 sow on a perpetual desert, they think; but I think that if 
 one takes statistics of experience it will be found that the 
 ripest men in every profession and department of life are 
 the children of Christians, of faithfully instructing parents. 
 I know it used to be thought that ministers' and deacons' 
 children were generally very wild and wasteful; but actual 
 inspection and count in New England lias revealed the 
 very contrary, namely, that the chief public men in almost 
 every one of the professions have directly or indirectly de- 
 scended from parents that lived in righteousness, and 
 brought up their children in the full faith of the righteous- 
 ness of God. Whatever you may see that is hopeless in the 
 nascent period of your child's life; however the ebullition of 
 the passions may seem to withstand the final fruit and re- 
 sult of your instruction; however far away they may go from 
 you in rebellion and vice, or even into crime, there is one 
 thread that is seldom broken — the silver cord that is spun 
 by a mother's and a father's heart, and that unrolls and winds 
 itself around the globe. It is holding the child through the 
 memory of his innocent childhood and the love of his father; 
 and by and by, even through storms and confusions, the 
 hand of God will draw upon it and bring back the man, 
 though he be wasted and worn, and only the empty years 
 of an impotent old age remain, will bring him back again 
 to the truth of his infancy. 
 
 Do not be discouraged. Do not on the one side depre- 
 cate the progress that is being made by free thinking. Do 
 not be afraid that God's majestic decree is going to be 
 
440 PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 
 
 overthrown by any amount of mistakes in the investiga- 
 tions of men. Do not doubt that truth v>?ill prevail in every 
 way. As the Apostle said: "Some preach Christ of con- 
 tention, hoping to add to my bonds. What then ? Every 
 way Christ is preached, and therein do I rejoice." I rejoice 
 that the men who make mistakes, who are giving partial 
 views, and who seem to be going away from the truth, are 
 doing things which, by and by, the great Architect, when 
 he puts all the materials together, shall build into a tem- 
 ple that shall redound to the glory of God and the honor 
 of Jesus Christ. Therefore, dearly beloved, be not turned 
 away easily from your faith. Stand fast, and having done 
 all, stand. 
 
A CHOICE BOOK FOR WOMEN. 
 
 THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS. 
 
 'a. GericB of popnlar fiettttrcs. 
 By rev. henry C. McCOOK, D.D., 
 
 Of the Tabernacle PTesbyterian Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 I Vol., crown 8vo., 450 pp. Cloth, decorated, $s ; Cloth, gilt, $1.50; Full 
 Turkey Morocco, $5. 
 
 "T^HIS is a hook earnest in its religious spirit, interesting 
 ■^ in scholarship, rich in poetical feeling, excellent in prac- 
 tical good sense on womanly topics, and singularly attractive 
 in literary form. 
 
 Dr. McCook has here taken up in succession the women 
 mentioned in the Gospels as the friends and associates of Jesus, 
 and striven, by a thoughtful study of the history and character 
 of each, to draw from their lives lessons for the women of 
 to-day. Not the least attractive element in the work is the 
 careful scholarship by which all possible light is thrown upon 
 the detailed history of the subjects. 
 
 In each sketch, and especially in the opening lecture on 
 Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the scanty scriptural narra- 
 tive is pieced together, and interpreted so as to present an 
 unbroken story. In tracing the analogies between these friends 
 of Christ and the Old Testament heroines, the author exhibits 
 to the full his careful study of the Scriptures and his sympathy 
 with the poetic spirit of Jewish sacred history. 
 
 The lessons of the book deal largely with the present office 
 and duty of woman, and illustrate these questions by teachings 
 from the lives of those who lived nearest to the presence and 
 example of Christ. 
 
 The book is written in a style always interesting and often 
 thrilling, and will find a warm reception among thoughtful 
 women. 
 
 FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT, 
 
 at Parh Place, New Tork, 
 
LIFE STUDIES FROM THE GREA T REBELLION. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln: 
 
 The True Story of a Great Life. 
 
 SHOWING THE INNER GROWTH, SPECIAL TRAINING, AND PECUL- 
 IAR FITNESS OF THE MAN FOR HIS WORK. 
 
 By WILLIAM O. STODDARD, 
 
 ONE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S SECRETARIES DURING THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 
 
 SiattTj Kllttstrationfi. 
 
 *' The public life of Hampden . . . resembles a regular drama which can be 
 criticised as a whole, and every scene of which is to be viewed in connection with 
 the main action." — Macaulay's Essay on i^itt. 
 
 "His account of Mr. Lincoln's youth is 
 very striking, and he gives a minute and 
 interesting narrative of theslov/ and careful 
 steps by which he fitted himself for polit- 
 ical life. He brings out distinctly A,.r 
 Lincoln''s sagacity and patience in critical 
 periods of ^reat enterprises ; he expLins 
 admirably his intimate acquaintancewith 
 the popular sentiment and disposition, 
 and shows what shrewd use was made of 
 that knowledge ; and he sets in strong 
 light the President's patriotism, unselfish 
 ness, tenderness, and religious spirit." — 
 New York Tribune. 
 
 " Careful an-l exact in details, where de- 
 tails are accessible : expressing at every 
 point a profound acmiration — nay. rever- 
 ence— for the individuality of its subject, 
 yet glossing over no defect, no uncouth- 
 ness of manner, no fault of temper; keep- 
 ingalways to the true historical perspective, 
 and setting forth the person of Lincoln 
 in higrh rehef against the dark background 
 of the times; summing un the evolution 
 of political parties, the history of a military 
 campaign, in a page or a pararrraph : wri;- 
 ten in terse, clear-cut LnGfli'-h ; and in- 
 tensely readable from beginning to end- 
 Mr. Stoddard's, in our opinion, approaches 
 closely to the ideal biography and scarcely 
 will be superseded by the efforts of any 
 subsequent ■author.'''— iiVtfrflrj' World] 
 Boston. 
 
 _'' It is in truth the sio-y of Abriham 
 Lincoln's life, rather than his mere biof^ra- 
 phy. Mr. Stoddard has told his _*story' in 
 the most entertaining way. It is a book 
 to lie on the family tabU and to be often 
 
 and enjoyably perused." — Christian 
 Standard, Chicago. 
 
 *' Contains much new and valuable in- 
 formation in regard to Lincoln's life and 
 personal character. From it we get a defi- 
 nite impression of life at the "White House 
 during the first four years of the war, as 
 well as some idea of Executive methods 
 during those troubteus times. The author 
 has been very judicious in the selection of 
 anecdotes and has compressed within rea- 
 sonable limits the great mass of material 
 at his command. His book is very reada- 
 ble and deserving a wide circulation." — 
 Evening Journaly Chicago. 
 
 "Mr Stoddard's is the best, because it 
 faithfully relates the facts and attempts 
 no fulsome eulogies. Abounds in senti- 
 ment so happily blended with history as 
 to make it as attractive as any romance. 
 There is no better book to place in the 
 hands of boys and girls."— CA;V«^(? hiter- 
 Ocean, 
 
 *' It is not invidious to say that as yet 
 no other thai has been written can be 
 cowpared to this, were it only because no 
 other biographer has seen Mr. Lincoln so 
 near and so completely."— A'ifw York 
 Times. 
 
 ^'Has strong claims upon the interest 
 and attention of everyAmerican. . . . 
 A graphic and entertaining biography, as 
 rich in incident as any romance, and spark- 
 ling with wise wit and racv anecdote. It 
 comprises a larsce mpss cf valuable and 
 judiciously epitomized information." — 
 Harper's Monthly. 
 
 1 Vol., I-arj^e Svo. Illustratefl. English Drake-Neck Cloth, S3.75. 
 
 FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT, 
 
 211 Parle Place, New York,