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THE CLERICAL LIBRARY 
 
 Eight Volumes, Cloth, Each, $1.50, 
 Sent post or express paid on receipt of price 
 SpecIAL Price FOR CoMPLETE SETS. 
 
 For Students and the Clergy of all denominations, is 
 meant to furnish them with stimulus and suggestion in 
 the various departments of their work. 
 
 The best thoughts of the best religious writers are 
 here furnished in a condensed form. 
 
 J. Outline Sermons on the Old Testament. This 
 volume, containing 139 outlines of sermons by 46 emi- 
 nent English and American clergymen, is fully indexed 
 by subjects and texts. 300 pages. 
 
 2. Outline Sermons on the New Testament, Con- 
 tains 300 outlines by 77 eminent English and American 
 clergymen; fully indexed by subjects and texts. 284 pages. 
 
 The outlines furnished in these two volumes have been 
 arawn from the leading Pulpit thinkers of almost every 
 denomination in Great Britain and America. The sub- 
 jects treated are practical rather than controversial. a 
 
 3. Outlines of Sermons to Children, This volume 
 contains 97 outlines of sermons with numerous Anec- 
 dotes, fully indexed by subjects and texts. 302 pages. 
 
 4, Anecdotes Iilustrative of Old ‘Testament ‘Texts, 
 529 anecdotes and illustrations, fully indexed by sub- 
 jects and texts. Dr. Guturiz says his hearers often 
 remember the illustrations in his sermons when they had 
 forgotten the abstract truth. 338 pages. 
 
 5. Anecdotes Illustrative of New Testament Texts. 
 614 anecdotes and illustrations, fully indexed by sub- 
 
 ¥ects and texts. 392 pages. 
 
 6. Expository Sermons and Outlines on the Ola 
 Cestament. These sermons by distinguished preachers 
 are rich in application and will be an education and in- 
 spiration to many. 302 pages. 
 
 7. Pulpit Prayers by Eminent Preachers, These 
 prayers are fresh and strong; the ordinary ruts of con- 
 ventional forms are left and the fresh thoughts of living 
 hearts are uttered. 290 pages. 
 
 8. Platform and Pulpit Aids, Consisting of striking 
 speeches and addresses on Home and Foreign Missions, 
 the Bible, Sunday-school, Temperance, and kindred 
 subjects, with illustrative anecdotes. Just the book an 
 over-worked pastor who has many speeches to make, 
 with little time for study, will appreciate. 294 pages. 
 
The Glerical Library. 
 
 BS eee eC vi 
 
 4ND 
 
 merely Al bo, 
 
 vebae 
 
 tbartford, Conn, 
 THE S. S. SCRANTON CO. 
 
Sch. R 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Wuie the demands of the Christian platform are 
 constantly increasing, and, indeed, almost rival those 
 of the Christian pulpit, it is remarkable that help- 
 ful books for speakers are exceedingly rare. The 
 present volume is an attempt to supply a great 
 and obvious blank. It contains speeches by the 
 most eminent Christian orators of the present and 
 recent times, and a selection of fresh, pithy, and 
 sometimes humorous illustrations. The speeches 
 are taken from reports in the Church of England 
 Temperance Chronicle, the Christian World, and 
 other journals, local allusions being, so far as 
 
 possible, omitted. 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Prebendary Ainslie, 18a 
 
 Rev. W. Arthur, 165. 
 
 Rev. G. S. Barrett, 62. 
 
 Bishop of Bedford, 169. 
 
 Rev. W. Brock, 39. 
 
 W. S. Caine, Esq. M.P., 178, 
 186. 
 
 Very Rev. The Dean of Canter- 
 bury, 46. 
 
 Bishop of Carlisle, 130. 
 
 Bishop Boyd Carpenter, 159, 164. 
 
 Very Rev. Dean Close, 132. 
 
 Rev. Vernon J. Charlesworth, 279. 
 
 Very Rev. The Dean of Chester, 
 161. 
 
 Rev. J. P. Chown, 47, 125. 
 
 Rev. J. Hunt Cooke, 256. 
 
 Rev. J. Culross, D.D., 13%. 
 
 Rev. R. W. Dale, D.D., 43. 
 
 Rev. J. C. Edghill, D.D., 24a 
 
 Rev. Dr. Edmond, 95. 
 
 Very Rev. H. T. Edwards, Dean 
 of Bangor, 219. 
 
 Bishop Ellicot, D.D., 57. 
 
 Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, D.D, 
 F.R.S., 188, 206, 228, 249. 
 
 Rev. Canon Fleming, 172. 
 
 Rev. J. Comper Gray, 265. 
 
 Rev. Newman Hall, 22, 
 
 Rev. J. W. Horsley, 182. 
 
 Rev. R. H. Howard, 269. 
 
 Rev. H. Jones, 198. 
 
 Dr. Livingstone, 112, 
 
 Bishop of London, 176. 
 
 Rev. J. A. Macfadyen, D.D., 117. 
 
 Rev. R. Moffat, D.D., 107. 
 
 Sir W. Muir, K.C.S.L, 114. 
 
 Rev. A. Mursell, 30. 
 
 Rev. J. Parker, D.D., 18, 25, 129. 
 
 Rev. W. Morley Punshon, D.D., 
 I, 100, 127, 139. 
 
 Rev. Principal Rainy, D.D., & 
 
 Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, 71, 149. 
 
 Rev. C. A. Stark, 272. 
 
 Rev. A. Moody Stuart, D.D., 82, 
 122. 
 
 Most Rev. Archbishop Tait, 156, 
 
 Rev. Canon Tristram, 7, 
 
 Rev. E. Herber Evans, 16, 51, 168. | Rev. S. Vincent, 26a 
 wi 
 
I. HOME WORK. 
 
 I. The Power of the Christian Press. Sy 
 Dr. W. Morey PuNSHON. 
 
 I REJOICE in the operations of this Society because it affords 
 one of those opportunities which are none too many in this 
 age of ours, that tend to show how in our work for Christ 
 all Evangelical Churches have a substantial unity about 
 them which is the unity of the spirit kept in the bond of 
 peace. I rejoice inthe operations of the Society, moreover, 
 because it is a sort of moral telephone that makes men 
 heard at a distance from those to whom they are speaking, 
 annihilating all distance, and, as Winter Hamilton said, 
 “treading continents into contiguities, and making a neigh- 
 bourhood of the world.” I rejoice further, because it beats 
 the telephone, inasmuch as the telephone can only repro- 
 duce the living voice ; but by the operations of this Society 
 the worthies of the former time, being dead, yet speak. I 
 rejoice, too, because it asserts Christ’s right to reign in the 
 realm of literature. I wish it all success in its battle with 
 impurity and evil for the supremacy of the literature of 
 the world. I rejoice again because it seems to me to issue 
 those publications which are exactly suited to the wants of 
 this busy, bustling age. I am afraid that the remark made 
 has a great deal of truth in it, that the age of ponderous 
 tomes is gone. Men want something sharp and incisive— 
 something that a wayfaring man can read as he runs; for 
 running seems to be characteristic of the fast life which 
 now-a-days most of us have to lead. It seems to me as 
 though there were an exaggeration in the love of sharpness, 
 and incisiveness, and earnestness, which is rapidly growing 
 into an evil. Earnestness, especially, is the God of this 
 age’s reverence. It does not matter what a man may be; 
 earnestness, like charity, is made to cover a multitude of 
 B 
 
2 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 sins. But it is necessary to take hold of this, seeing that 
 it exists, and endeavour to meet the popular hunger for 
 something short, and sharp, and decisive, by the presenta- 
 tion of truth in a compressed yet attractive form. I fully 
 coincided in a remark about the effects which in former 
 times have been produced by these short treatises, I 
 thought of Peter Waldo, for example ; how he set to work 
 with his cargo of tracts among the Piedmontese valleys ; 
 and how, from his evangelical and tractarian (in the proper 
 sense of the word) labours, there sprang those Waldensian 
 Churches which, through thirty-five persecutions, held fast 
 the pure truth of Christ, although gashed by the spear 
 of Savoy and scorched by the fagot of Rome. Then I 
 thought of John Wycliffe, the grand tract-writer and dis- 
 tributor. And, my lord, I suppose you know that it is five 
 hundred years this very year, almost this very month, since 
 he was summoned by Bishop Courtenay to the Convoca- 
 tion at St. Paul’s when good John of Gaunt stood by his 
 side, and the controversy waxed so high as to whether he 
 was to stand or sit during the trial that the assembly broke 
 up in disorder. I thought of John Wycliffe as a tract- 
 writer and distributor, and I saw in vision one of his tracts 
 carried in the pocket of a Bohemian nobleman into Bohemia, 
 and lent by him to a man whose name was John Huss, 
 bringing him to the knowledge of the purity and power of 
 the truth as it is in Jesus. Then I came a little further 
 down,and | thought how the early champions of the Reform- 
 ation prized this form of usefulness ; and how Farrell, the 
 first French Reformer, first formed a Tract Society in Basle, 
 in order that he might thus gain a hold upon the under- 
 standinys and consciences of men. And then I thought of 
 Martin Luther, and of that remarkable incident when, in 
 one of his melancholy moods, he thought the Author of 
 vil was present in bodily shape when he was confined in 
 \Wurtemberg Fortress, and how he vanquished the devil by 
 flinging an inkstand at his head. I thought of the power of 
 a sanctifNed inkstand in the hand of such a man as that, 
 and although Luther’s work will live as long as the world 
 lives, and although some of his greater works are yet in 
 the hands of students who know how to praise them, yet I 
 remember that God has honoured some of his lighter and 
 similar works for the advancement of His kingdom in the 
 
POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN PRESS. 3 
 
 world. Why, he wrote about the most uninteresting thing 
 that could be written in all the world, surely, though it is a 
 necessary sort of thing ; he wrote prefaces to a great many 
 of the works that he published ; he wrote a preface to his 
 comment upon the Epistle to the Galatians, and that 
 preface found its way to the heart of a good Bedfordshire 
 tinker, named John Bunyan. And he wrote a preface to 
 his comment upon the Epistle to the Romans, and it was 
 while reading that preface in Aldersgate Street that John 
 Wesley became arrested. By the way, I had sent me 
 at our Wesleyan Mission House last week a translation 
 of “ Pilgrim’s Progress” into Chinese, with illustrations. 
 There was Christian, and Christiana, and Mercy, and the 
 rest all represented as Chinamen and Chinawomen, with 
 the customary pigtails, and all. Then I thought again of 
 that wonderful and bright succession which is noticed in 
 your “ Jubilee Memorial.” Here I rather want the oppor- 
 tunity of saying that John Wesley was a zealous tract- 
 writer, and an efficient tract distributor, fifty years before 
 the Tract Society was born. Yet, strangely enough, the 
 “Jubilee Memorial” does not mention his name—please in 
 the next edition to put itin. I say I thought how an old 
 Puritan doctor wrote a book years and years ago called 
 the “ Bruised Reed,” which fell just at the right time into 
 the hands of Richard Baxter, and brought him under the 
 influence of the enlightening power of the Spirit of God; 
 and then Baxter’s ministry was like the sun in his strength, 
 and he wrote a book called ‘ The Call to the Unconverted,” 
 which continued to speak long after Baxter himself had 
 ceased to speak with human tongue. That “Call to the 
 Unconverted” went preaching on until it got into the 
 hands of Philip Doddridze (prepared by his pious mother’s 
 teaching) from the Dutch tiles of a mantel-piece, with very 
 quaint Scriptural stories ; and it was the means of enlight- 
 ening him to a broader knowledge, and a richer faith, and 
 a deeper experience of the things of God. And then I[ 
 thought how Doddridge wrote a book called “ The Rise 
 and Progress of Religion in the Soul,” which, just at a 
 critical period in his history, fell into the hands of William 
 Wilberforce, who wrote a book called * Practical Christi- 
 anity,” which far down in the sunny Isle of Wight fired 
 the heart of a clergyman, who has attained perhaps in 
 
4 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 connection with this Society, the broadest and widest repu- 
 tation of all—for who has not heard of Legh Richmond ? 
 He wrote the simple annal of a Methodist girl, and pub- 
 lished it under the title of “The Dairyman’s Daughter ;” 
 and I should like to know into how many languages that 
 has been translated, and been made of God a power for the 
 spread of truth? Thus far the analogy and the sequence 
 of the “Jubilee Memorial.” But there is another sequence. 
 The same book on “ Practical Christianity” went right 
 down into a secluded parish in Scotland, and it found there 
 a young clergyman who was preaching a Gospel that he 
 did not know, and it instructed him in the way of God 
 more perfectly, and he came forth a champion valiant for 
 the truth upon the earth until all Scotland rang with the 
 eloquence of Thomas Chalmers. Look at it. Nota flaw 
 in the chain. Richard Sibbes, Richard Baxter, Philip 
 Doddridge, William Wilberforce, Legh Richmond, Thomas 
 Chalmers—is not that apostolical succession? Then going 
 abroad. I do not know whether we are sufficiently ace 
 quainted with some of the facts in the history of French 
 Protestantism. Admiral Coligny was wounded dangerously 
 at the siege of St. Quentin, and during the tedium of along 
 convalescence his brother brought him some tracts, and it 
 was by tract-reading that he was made acquainted with 
 the truth of the Gospel, of which he became a Huguenot 
 champion. Then some of these tracts went off and got 
 somehow or other into a convent, where the Lady Abbess 
 was converted by reading one of them, and, that so 
 thoroughly, that she had to flee from France and take 
 refuge at Heidelberg, in the Court of Frederick IIL, of the 
 Palatinate. And, by-and-by, she did as all good ladies 
 do—she married, and her husband was Prince William of 
 Orange. Who knows how much of the sturdy glorious 
 stubbornness, so to speak, of William of Orange of the 
 Revolution came from the blood of his ancestress, who was 
 thus marvellously converted? Oh, my lord, God has 
 various ways of working! “The wind bloweth where it 
 listeth ; we hear the sound thereof ; we cannot tell whence 
 it cometh or whither it goeth ;” but it is bearing seed upon 
 its wings, and lo! ripening grain there where sower never 
 trod, and lo! waving harvests ingathered where plough 
 was never driven. The bird sometimes, scared by the 
 
POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN PRESS. 5 
 
 tramp of feet, or by the hum of men, drops from its beak 
 something that it is carrying to its young; the seed is 
 lodged in the fissures of a wall, but, by-and-by, the in- 
 herent life becomes stronger than the incumbent masonry, 
 and upon the ruins of a dismantled temple a noble tree 
 arises. It seems to me the need is just as great as it ever 
 was. The ark of God was never carried out into a hotter 
 battle—it was never surrounded by fiercer antagonism than 
 it is to-day. And these still small voices in which the 
 Lord has so often revealed His presence are just as neces- 
 sary for the peoples to-day as in any former age of the 
 world. And, my lord, there is hunger of heart for them. 
 We have not to complain that the people do not like these 
 things ; the language is, ‘“ Evermore give us this bread.” I 
 wonder that anybody should be so foolish as to try to 
 satisfy hungry people by anything else than the Gospel. 
 Why flourish the weapons of the nursery when we have the 
 sword of the Spirit in our hands? I do believe there 
 never was more than at the present time a growing hunger 
 for this Word of Life. I wish it were as true of us now as 
 it used to be when one of the supporters of the Romish 
 Church in the Reformation period said, rather growlingly, 
 “The Gospellers of these days do fill the realm with so 
 many of their noisome little books that they be like swarms 
 of locusts which did infest the land of Egypt.” I do not 
 think we can do better than earn that reputation now, and 
 therefore it is that I wish all possible success and blessing 
 to the operations of the Religious Tract Society. Let me 
 say one word upon individual duty at this crisis. We want 
 more personal service. There is a growing tendency, per- 
 haps, in some quarters to condone for the lack of personal 
 service by the willingness to direct, or to criticise, or to 
 subscribe, as if a coin—the noblest that was ever minted 
 with the image of its Ceesar—could ever be an equivalent 
 for a living man—a man with a soul, a conscience, and a 
 will. No; we want the Lord’s freemen to work in the 
 Lord’s service ; everything around us seems to tell us of 
 the importance of this sense of personal responsibility. 
 The more we have of it the more we find that responsibility 
 is not dependent upon the riches or upon the poverty of a 
 man’s moral capital. Some men are royal both in oppor- 
 tunities and in resources ; to other men chances only come 
 
6 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK, 
 
 seldom of successful teaching ; but it is demanded of all 
 that the use which they make of what they have is the 
 wisest ; just as the life of an animalcule while its hour lasts 
 may be as complete and as busy as the life of the patriarch 
 of years; and just as the circle of an emmet’s eye may be 
 as perfect as the circle of the heavens. And we look to 
 the Master's life to see how the thought of responsibility 
 to His Father prompted Him to the most perfect conse- 
 cration. Listen as in the glow of His human youth He 
 announces His separation to a work so sacred and so 
 constraining as to be above the claims of home. “ How 
 is it that ye wist not that I must be about My Father's 
 business?” See the same spirit in His brief, bright 
 ministry, burdening His manhood with a yoke which His 
 loving oneness with the Father made it quite easy to bear. 
 Does He heal the man that was born blind? What is the 
 motive that makes the healing fly with swifter wings? “I 
 must work the works of Him that sent Me; for the night 
 cometh when no man can work.” Is He at the well’s 
 mouth at Sychar ready to open up the treasures of the 
 upper springs to His half-educated disciple? How 
 sublimely His purpose towers above the force of prejudice 
 and the force of passion? “My meat isto do the will of 
 Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” Ay, and if 
 we pass on to the unquiet eventide, when, instead of rest, 
 weariness and fainting came, and when the shadows of His 
 passion gathered around Him, and what does He say? 
 He says, with His head bowed already for the baptism of 
 blood, yet lifting itself for the moment in the consciousness 
 of a fulfilled mission, “I have glorified Thee on the earth, 
 I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” 
 That is the pattern of our consecration. We are to live 
 and labour after His measure. Our talents are to be laid 
 out for Him, and so laid out that in blessed using they 
 shall double themselves in their returns, and shall bring for 
 His blessed service the gold of holy character, and precious 
 stones gathered out of the world’s dark mine—dy our hands 
 —to sparkle in the Kedeemer’s crown. 
 
CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. J 
 
 II. Christian Literature. Sy Rev. Canon 
 TRISTRAM. 
 
 IN explaining the three-fold reasons which bound him to 
 the Society, said: “He felt bound to it as a missionary 
 man, as a scientific man, and as a Churchman. In the first 
 place as a missionary man he was especially bound to the 
 society. He could not conceive how it would be possible 
 for the Church Missionary Society, with which he was 
 principally connected, to carry on its work without the aid 
 of the Bible Society and its interpreter, the Religious Tract 
 Society. It would be the missionary without the literature. 
 To send their missionaries without literature would be like 
 sending workmen without tools, soldiers without a supply 
 of arms ; and to rely upon literature without the living voice 
 of the preacher would be to send the arms and make a ship- 
 ment of the military stores, but to leave the regiment behind. 
 They must have a living voice as well as a written word. 
 But there were places where the silent preacher could enter, 
 where the ear was adder-deaf to the voice of the living 
 preacher, and that was the work of this Society at home 
 and abroad. Book-hawking and colportage had done a 
 mighty work, and were still doing it, especially in those 
 countries where the living voice cannot be uplifted. The 
 work of the Society almost ranged from Pole to Pole, and 
 it had one message everywhere. He was bound to the 
 Society as a scientific man. He remembered hearing Dr. 
 Arnold uttering a favourite saying of his, that what they 
 wanted was not so much religious books as books on 
 secular subjects written in a religious tone. He (Canon 
 Tristram) was of opinion that they wanted both, and he 
 was bound to say that the Tract Society had solved the 
 problem of supplying secular literature with a religious 
 tone. It was a different thing to avow one’s belief in the 
 Word of God among scientific sceptics, from what it was to 
 speak before a sympathetic audience at Exeter Hall. By 
 -such publications the world is able to see that men can 
 grasp science without losing the grand old truth. The 
 third reason why he was bound to the Society was because 
 he was a Churchman, for it was the grandest Church 
 society in England, He would tell them why. It saved 
 him much trouble. He never dreamt of reading a tract 
 
8 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 with the imprimatur of the Tract Society upon it—that 
 was to say, he never read it to see whether it was fit to 
 give away. He had the greatest confidence in the Society, 
 and its imprimatur was enough. There were other societies, 
 but he would not circulate one of their books without 
 looking it through beforehand. They heard a good deal 
 in their days about unsectarian teaching. They were 
 all agreed on one thing, that Bible reading without Bible 
 teaching was an utter farce. While they did not want to be 
 sectarian it was impossible to teach truth and Christianity 
 to the youngest as well as the oldest without being dogmatic. 
 He liked every one of the books and tracts of this Society 
 because they were saturated with dogmatic teaching. 
 There was no sectarianism in any one of them, but they 
 were thoroughly dogmatic. If he wanted to teach the 
 doctrines of the Church of England, or prove anything 
 Protestant, Evangelical, and sound, he should go to the 
 Religious Tract Society’s works. He was sure he would 
 find no mistaking of the emotional for the devotional, He 
 would find no substitution of sensationalism, whether that 
 sensationalism took the form of spiritual emotion or sensa- 
 tional services. In fact he would find every need of a 
 parochial minister and Cathedral minister supplied by the 
 works of this Society. Their churches were multiplying in 
 the land ; everywhere they were rising, and they thanked 
 God for it. These churches and chapels were as so 
 many stationary lamp-posts, giving a bright light on one 
 side of the road; but only let the books and tracts get 
 into the home, and each traveller would be carrying the 
 lamp for himself, which would guide him in his right path.” 
 Canon Tristram concluded by quoting the words of a grand 
 old bishop who, while defending the Episcopacy, said, “‘ If 
 there must be outward difference and judgment in matters 
 of outward policy, why should not our hearts be still 
 one?’” 
 
 III. The Aggressive Work of the Church. 2 
 Rev. PRINCIPAL Ratny. 
 
 IT was a very great privilege to take part in this great and 
 pressing subject ; but though he had a sincere and warm 
 interest in the aggressive work of the Church, there were a 
 
AGGRESSIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH. 9 
 
 great many who had won greater distinction and success 
 in that work than any he could pretend to have, and who 
 could have spoken with far more power and instruction to 
 them upon it. He was, however, glad to speak upon this 
 subject, and no subject was better entitled to the best 
 thoughts and efforts of any. One thing that suggested 
 itself to him was that this was a work in which they often 
 met with difficulties. There were difficulties in it that 
 sometimes seemed to prove themselves to be insuperable. 
 It was quite certain that we cannot of our own hand or by 
 our own strength turn failure into success. We cannot 
 bargain that for so much pains we shall have so much 
 success, and yet in this work, he believed, ordinarily, we 
 should count that when difficulties are felt to be great they 
 are not meant to bring our work or our expectation to an 
 end, but to set us to find out the reasons why we do not 
 succeed. Sometimes, no doubt not unfrequently, it seemed 
 of some of the most honoured agents that they were as the 
 key which made the bolts fly back whereby a great door 
 and effectual was opened. But there were those who really 
 wanted to do work in this matter, but who felt they were 
 going round and round some impalpable wall, which they 
 could not get through. There were ministers and congre- 
 gations who had around them a population needing an ag- 
 gressive work, and they would like to do something in it, 
 and they have tried it and nothing seems to be coming of it. 
 But in this matter there were various ways of dealing with 
 difficulties. There was a way of dealing with difficulty in 
 which a man gives up and says “I have tried andI have made 
 nothing of it,’ and he consents to be discouraged. There was 
 another way—and he did not know if it were much better 
 —in which the effort is not in a certain sense thrown up. 
 The man and the congregation keep pegging away year 
 after year. They are doing not less than they were doing 
 before, but not apparently with any more earnestness or 
 intensity or agonising of mind or heart about it. They 
 just hope on, and go on in a certain cheerful temper with- 
 out any particular fruit at all. But he rather thought that 
 if success is being prepared for any of us in connection 
 with difficulties it is when these difficulties throw us back 
 in the line that is indicated by our Lord when He said 
 that there were some spirits that do not go out except by 
 
10 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 fasting and by prayer. When people are thrown back and 
 find out, as they had not found out, and as it was not easy 
 for flesh and blood to find out, what was the meaning of 
 that word referred to by the first speaker, “I believe in 
 the Holy Ghost,” it might be a necessary education for us, 
 with a view to our success, to be sent down into a vale of 
 humiliation to learn in a very special and new manner 
 what it was to believe in the Holy Ghost. With reference 
 to the work and the call to which Christ set His Church, it 
 was no light matter for our Lord Himself, and it was not 
 intended to be always a light matter for His servants 
 either. The name “ageressive work” we owed very much 
 to Dr. Chalmers. One of his distinctions—he had a great 
 deal to do in setting on the Church in Scotland to realize 
 the duty in this department—was the distinction between 
 aggressive work and attractive work. We were not to be 
 satisfied with hoping that the people would be drawn to 
 us, but go forth and strike out among them; go forth in 
 the way of aggression—Christian aggression. Now, the 
 methods which Dr. Chalmers suggested and practised in 
 the way of aggression were very much on the lines of what 
 we might call ordinary and even pastoral assiduities— 
 diligent visiting, not by the minister only, but by visitors, 
 who went forth bearing the message of salvation—seeking 
 to gather people into the congregations, where they might 
 be under the preaching of the gospel—faithful preaching ; 
 hold meetings, kitchen meetings, all sorts of meetings. 
 That, unquestionably, must be a great part—he would say 
 a fundamental kind of work if we were to have steady 
 continual, progressive aggression in this great field. He 
 was going to say that, in connection with the experiments 
 that were made, and had been made both in this country 
 and in America, various modifications of aggressive work— 
 evangelistic work—-had been suggested, and we were all 
 therefore familiar, and in many respects happily familiar, 
 with trains of meetings, the power of which both to draw 
 people together and the fitness of them to operate upon 
 the people when they came, was connected with a peculiar 
 character imparted to the whole aspect and character of 
 the meeting. Evangelistic meeting, in which everything 
 was concentrated on the work of awakening and conver- 
 sion, in which the reiterated solicitudes, the continued 
 
AGGRESSIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH. 1 
 
 wd 
 
 meeting after meeting, and the reiteration and pleading 
 went on, and the impression was more and more strongly 
 made that the meeting and those who were conducting it 
 meant business, that they were aiming at something, that 
 they were aiming at bringing persons presently to Christ, 
 was a kind of work which was unquestionably abused, 
 that was to say it was conducted in such a way that it 
 fell into ruts, and people were carrying it on in a kind 
 of imitative way that was just a harping on strings that 
 were worn out, but which we knew—and had specimens 
 of it of a very impressive kind—could be made in fit 
 hands singularly effective and singularly impressive. 
 Speaking of Mr. Moody, it appeared to him that his 
 power to draw, and to make his way to the minds and 
 hearts of men apart from his great natural capacity— 
 for Mr. Moody, it must be remembered, was a singularly 
 able man, a man who had natural ability, which must not 
 be underrated—lay in that gift of faith which seemed to 
 be given to him, in virtue of which there was always an 
 impression—if he might use an expression of that kind— 
 that he meant business, that he was aiming at something, 
 and that the something he aimed at was not shallow or 
 superficial, not a mere fit of excitement, but was nothing 
 less than repentance and conversion to God—worthily 
 conceived and earnestly enforced. He was convinced that 
 this kind of agency had an important place, and also there 
 were sections of the population which would seem some- 
 times to be—probably always to be—in a condition in 
 which work of this kind was peculiarly fitted to make an 
 impression, to bring them within the range of the activities 
 that are going on, as well as fitted to make an impression 
 of a favourable kind when people were got to come to the 
 meeting. Work of that kind had been going on, and very 
 _usefully and profitably going on, in a manner we mighit 
 describe in a general way as outside the Churches—outside 
 the denomination. But he would like to put this question 
 whether there ought not to be more of effort to connect 
 this work with their congregations, with their Churches, 
 and with their Church life, where it could be fitly and 
 fruitfully carried on. It might be that an individual con- 
 gregation could not supply all the materials that were 
 necessary for carrying on work of this kind in all its 
 
12 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK, 
 
 branches, sustaining it for a time with the energy and 
 multiplicity of operation that were required, but the agency 
 of a number of congregations might be turned on for a 
 time in connection with one congregation which was 
 situated in the midst of a district like that, and that per- 
 haps had been in a discouraged and mouldering condition, 
 in the midst of a population that greatly required Christian 
 work. He knew that in one congregation this operation 
 had been carried on with very marked and very hopeful 
 success. The people had been drawn to meetings in the 
 church—all this mission work had been going on in the 
 church—they had been impressed, they had been awakened, 
 many of them, by God’s grace, had been converted in that 
 church, and then the church became their religious home, 
 the place where they were to be instructed and built up, 
 where they were to be under discipline, where they were 
 to be under Christian congregation, and instead of being 
 lost in a sort of haze there, they were taken in hand and 
 placed under an energetic ministry. He thought that was 
 a matter that well deserved their consideration. Another 
 matter that he wanted to refer to was this—what was 
 necessary in order that evangelistic work, on whatever lines 
 it was to go and in connection with whatever view of the 
 agencies it was to be carried on, might be vigorous and 
 effective. Now, in order to this, we needed to have the 
 congregational life of our congregations roused and 
 strengthened ; we needed all of us to be brought to a 
 higher conception of what devolved upon each of us as 
 Christians. ‘There was a text which said that “to every 
 one was given his work.’ Now, it was quite true that 
 we were not all of us qualified to engage in exhortation. 
 There was a great variety of works, benevolent, kindly, 
 and helpful, in various degrees in which people, according 
 to their different gifts, might be engaged. It would be a 
 great thing if, in our congregations and in this aggressive 
 work, the members, according to their gifts, greater or 
 smaller, whether their work should bear more directly or 
 less directly on the precise point of instructing people in 
 godliness and bringing them into Christ—if they were in 
 connection with Church life and Church work, and under- 
 stood to be in the Church’s service, so that whatever they 
 were doing should have the stamp upon it, “ Whatsvever 
 
AGGRESSIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH. 13 
 
 I do in word or deed, I do it in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ.” We might not be qualified some of us to 
 go so directly to the main operations of evangelistic work, 
 although very likely if we began we should find that 
 aptitudes were produced or revealed that were not suspected 
 at first, but if we were found engaged in the service of the 
 Church, doing what we could do, whether it was greater or 
 smaller, in the service of Christ, and with the view of help- 
 tng on the work, then what we did would have the character 
 of Christian work ; it would be done in the name of Christ, 
 and we should be all of us combining and conspiring to 
 carry on the great work together. He heard the other day 
 of a meeting at which a man appeared who was not sober 
 and was giving some trouble, and they were getting him 
 disposed of when a person came and said, “If you please, 
 I am a very young Christian, and I am not able to do 
 much for Christ, but I could see that man home.” The 
 drunken man was put in this person’s charge, and he saw 
 him home, but he was not content with seeing him home. 
 He had stuck to him ever since, and had not let him go, 
 and he was at him, the speaker believed, at this time, and 
 what one hoped was that the result would be for great 
 good to both of them. He merely produced that as an 
 illustration of the importance of their being regimented 
 and embodied in the service. If that was to be the case, 
 it must depend very much on their ministers and leading 
 office-bearers devoting attention to providing work, open- 
 ing channels of work, and having work ready in the various 
 departments for the people that were willing to work. 
 There were a great many people, especially in the opening 
 stages of their Christian life, that would like to get some 
 work if they saw anything that they really felt they could 
 usefully do, and it was a wrong to Christ’s cause and to 
 such people if the members of their Churches did not 
 somehow contrive to get into connection with them and 
 to confer with them as to what they could give them to 
 do, and what they would be willing to do for the Church. 
 Another view in connection with this that he would like to 
 suggest was, that if this aggressive work was to go pros- 
 perously on, there would in a larger degree be needed the 
 operation and activity of all really earnest people who 
 were willing to do anything in the work. Probably it was 
 
14 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 true, with all the good that had been doing—and they 
 were not to undervalue it—that the methods were still 
 often too wholesale, and that there ought to be more 
 detail—more detailed care and more detailed work than 
 we have been able as yet to organize. He supposed—and 
 he spoke under correction of those that knew better and 
 had more experience—that if they had in hand the effort 
 to reclaim a drunkard who was in a state that was not 
 unhopeful, and yet was not delivered from vice and sin, it 
 would be a great thing if they could just put on to him 
 some one person, and make it that one person’s one busi- 
 ness first to look after that one man—to be kind to him, to 
 be patient with him, to be attentive to him, to be helpful 
 to him, and to try to do him good. There were many 
 cases in which something of the same principle might be 
 desirable to be carried out; and when a certain class was 
 come toof those who did not attend ordinances—he meant 
 that rather better class who did not choose to be dealt with 
 in the wholesale way, and did not choose to be visited and 
 dealt with in the same way as another class of people were 
 willing to be dealt with—he did not know how they were 
 to be reached individually, unless it were contrived to sort 
 them out one by one, and to find out individual people 
 that would get at them in a-quieter and more indirect way, 
 and endeavour to get hold of and influence them one by 
 one and man by man. On all these and on other grounds, 
 he was convinced that it was of great importance that 
 there should be realized all over the congregations of the 
 Church a livelier sense of personal responsibility and more 
 of a willingness to be personally employed—to have it 
 understood that we were willing to be personally employed 
 whether in the more conspicuous or in the more humble 
 and unconspicuous walks that belonged to this whole work 
 in general. Unquestionably if we were to have success 
 granted to us, that success would come in connection with 
 those who engaged in the work—not merely their mis- 
 sionaries whom they hired, and sent into the field, and 
 whom they expected to be prayerful, earnest, devoted men ; 
 not merely their ministers, in whom they hoped for the 
 same qualities; not merely even their elders that had a 
 turn for missionary work ; but when those who engaged in 
 this work and who sought to urge it on and whose desires 
 
AGGRESSIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH. 15 
 
 —— ee 
 
 were supposed to be expressed in the work were persons 
 who were really growing in fidelity and in love, who were 
 realizing what it was to be converted, what it was to be 
 delivered from worldliness and sin, what it was to be 
 raised from a low type of Christian living that was on the 
 borders of something else, and seeking to realize what it 
 was to follow the Lord fully. Christianity was meant to 
 exist and to signalise its triumphs in connection with the 
 walks and exercises and disciplines, and the ups as well as 
 the downs of this life on earth. It was meant to be the 
 Christianity triumphant, and signal of men of business and 
 of men of fortune, as well as of poor men and of men in 
 the lower walks of life, and there was a tribute to Chris- 
 tianity that was paid when a man who was in business, 
 and successful in business, was manifestly fervent in spirit 
 serving the Lord. But for all that, the men who were 
 really to gain the ear and heart of those who were outside 
 for Christ, must be men who had begun to learn, and were 
 going on more and more to learn, the unworldliness of 
 Christ and of Christianity. There would not be success 
 in this work if those belonging to the Church were to keep 
 all their idols in their heart, if they were going to be mainly 
 taken up about success in the world, about being rich, 
 about social success and precedency, and about the enjoy- 
 ment of all the recreations that were in the world. There 
 was a right use of these, but still the spirit that was to 
 succeed was the spirit that divorced itself in Christ’s name 
 and for Christ’s sake from the idolatry of these things, the 
 spirit of those who were learning in the school of Christ. 
 “One thing I do; I am here in this world, no doubt, to be 
 diligent in business among other things, but I am here a 
 man to live a short life for a few years, and the main thing 
 is, for myself, that I have the Kingdom of God within me 
 —and there is nothing else to compare with that—and, for 
 others, that I may bring men to the knowledge of Christ 
 and set forward the kingdom of God in this world.” It 
 was not enough that we should do what he was doing just 
 now—speaking about it according to the best gift of speech 
 he had; it was all right we should talk about it, but we 
 should believe it, and see that it was really a moving life 
 and power in ourselves, that we were ourselves under the 
 influence of the gospel and becoming unworldly men and 
 
26 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 women, and that a larger place in our hearts was being 
 got, and our hearts were becoming more sore and anxious 
 about those poor men and women who were out in the 
 dark and cold, against whom life was going hard, or who 
 perhaps were not finding life going so hard against them 
 but who, under the influence of a tolerable worldly pros- 
 perity, were living for this world, and forgetting that there 
 was or thinking that there was not any other world. It 
 was in connection with our learning the mind of Christ, the 
 great missionary, and of those apostles that followed Him 
 —it was in our coming to the unworldliness of spirit, no 
 doubt, that we should be qualified and prepared for any 
 honourable success. That was not exactly easy in this 
 age of the world. In the experience of the way in which 
 this world was plying its mighty engines on us all; the 
 noise it was making around us, the way in which it held 
 up to us on every side the splendour of its manifold 
 achievements and drew us, in every day’s news and news- 
 papers in every day’s recreation, and in every day’s busi- 
 ness excitement, to fall down at its feet and worship it, 
 and to give ourselves up, hands and feet bound, to its 
 influence and to its passions, it was not easy. 
 
 IV. Popery. Sy Rev. E. HERBER EVANS. 
 
 JOHN BRIGHT once said that there was one thing almost as 
 strong as truth itself, and that was persecuted error. We 
 have learned in Wales that the right way is not to persecute 
 the error, but to preach the truth. The Roman Catholics 
 carry on business in their own way. They are using their 
 horns. Iam reminded by this of an old Welsh minister, who 
 told us the other day that going through the Vale of Clwyd 
 he met a farmer who had hundreds of sheep in the vale 
 while others were grazing on the mountains. The minister 
 asked the farmer, “What is the difference between the sheep 
 which you keep down here in the vale and those on the 
 mountains?” “Oh!” he said, “the sheep that graze down 
 in the vale are those that give you the best meat ; but those 
 that graze on the mountains always have the best horns.” 
 Now, we feel that when men are too ready to use their 
 horns, they live on poor grass. We in Wales have con- 
 
POPERY. 17 
 
 quered Popery by preaching the Gospel, reading the Bible, 
 and by means of our Sunday-schools. It is quite fair that 
 if we in Wales find the men, you should find the means to 
 send them forth. Are we to tell them that for want of 
 funds we cannot send them forth? No; that would be 
 a shame to us, and by so doing we would do wrong to the 
 young men. We will do something to lift up those poor 
 benighted people in Brittany, and free them from the yoke 
 of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and make men of them. 
 The rev. gentleman, as a proof of what even one man 
 could do, related the wonderful success, of which he had 
 been witness, of Mr. McAll’s labours in Paris; and he 
 was glad to say that Mr. McAll had a splendid helper in 
 his wife, who had as great an interest as her husband in 
 the work. Inthe report he found the question, “Is a better 
 religion to be found?” He contended that there was 
 not a better religion to be found to teach contentment and 
 sobriety, and to teach people to be quiet, because there 
 was something to hope for better and further on. At the 
 present day in every country in Europe the working people 
 were being led more and more into scepticism, and one 
 great thinker had said that he believed the scientific scep- 
 ticism at the top of society, and the unbelief at the 
 bottom of society, were the two things that were yet to 
 crush Popery throughout Europe, and that infidelity was 
 to crush superstition. He did not know whether that 
 was true or not, but he hoped that the Society would 
 Christianize and evangelize, and that every one would 
 do his best by the influence he exerted in his own 
 circle. The rev. gentleman continued: We are told that 
 there is an animal in every man and an animal in every 
 nation—the tiger in one, the lion in another, the panther 
 in another ; and whenever the animal becomes the most in 
 a rage, it is “a reign of terror.” Now this Society’s object 
 is to bring out the spiritual in every man; and it is a gain 
 to every nation and every people if we can only win one 
 man and evangelize him, and get him to believe this Gospel, 
 which makes happy homes and peaceful hearths, simply 
 because we teach them something further on. A poor man 
 in South Africa once met Dr. Moffat with a pitiful face. 
 Dr. Moffat asked him what was the matter, and he replied, 
 “My dog has swallowed three leaves of the New Testa- 
 Cc 
 
18 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 ment.” “Why should you cry over that?” asked Dr. 
 Moffat. The man replied, “It will spoil the dog; he was 
 a capital hunter, and it will make him tame now, the same 
 as it makes all the people tame round here. It will spoil 
 him as a hunter.” There’s some philosophy in that. The 
 man had seen the effect of the Gospel all round him—that 
 it made the people quiet and contented, and he was afraid 
 it would have the same effect on the dog. We have all 
 seen the effect of the Gospel on people under sorrow and 
 trial. I have seen it myself. I have preached occasion- 
 ally in the workhouse in Carnarvon, half a mile from town: 
 and friends in the neighbourhood came in to join in the 
 service, and I have been delighted to see them singing 
 out of the same hymn-book of the same Jesus and His love, 
 singing about the same fountain that cleanses the one like 
 the other, about the same home that will welcome the in- 
 mate of the poor house as well as the inmate of the richest 
 mansion outside. Look at the poor man whose face has 
 been furrowed by the storms of life. I gave out a Welsh 
 hymn, which conveyed the idea that he is a child of God, 
 that he is not of age, but that his inheritance is coming. 
 Look how it affects him! He realizes that there is to be 
 for him—a poor, broken-down man, who has lost his wife 
 and two children and his all—something further on. Will 
 you blast his future by taking it from him? No; let him 
 sing away, full of that better hope that enabled Paul to 
 sing in the prison. Now, I want you to take this Book to 
 Brittany—to France—everywhere—to brighten the homes 
 of the poor, to show to those who are down, those that are 
 degraded, even those that are lost, that there is to be for 
 them something yonder. 
 
 WV. Christian Giving. Sy Rev. Dr. PARKER. 
 
 IT strikes me that we have in the Home Missionary Society 
 the outline of a very much greater institution than the 
 Society itself is at present. A great desire is expressed 
 here and there, and very fervently and sincerely expressed, 
 that the incomes of our ministers should be raised to a 
 very reasonable minimum, and that a good deal inore 
 should be done for the Christianization of England. We 
 
CHRISTIAN GIVING. 19 
 
 all sympathize with these two objects. If there is any 
 difference of opinion amongst us, it relates solely to the 
 method of accomplishing them. Now, I cannot but feel 
 that in the Home Missionary Society we have the begin- 
 ning of something which contains the solution of any 
 difficulties which may gather round these two questions. 
 We have an income, we have a staff of workers, we have 
 a field partially occupied, we have from fifty to sixty 
 years’ or more experience of this very kind of work. A 
 great deal has been done to animate county operations 
 and sustain zealous and intelligent men in various pro- 
 vincial positions, and I think we have only to increase this, 
 to carry out this idea to its highest possibilities, in order 
 to accomplish everything that is desirable or practicable 
 in the way of making ministers comfortable, and greatly 
 extending all evangelistic agencies. I would, therefore, as 
 this appears to me to be a serious meeting, and not a mob 
 of people gathered to hear about things that really have 
 no practical consequence or value—I address you rather as 
 a deliberative than a popular assembly—I would ask you 
 to think of this much, whether there is not in this Society 
 the framework and outline of a much greater institution 
 than itself, which might be wrought up to all that is re- 
 quired for the thorough accomplishment of the two objects 
 which I have now indicated. Of course, you will say, as 
 has been already said, that you have not income enough 
 in this Society to overtake the great work. That may be 
 our blame, not the blame of the Society. The Society, so 
 far as I understand it, is perfectly ready to receive and 
 administer any amount of income which we may supply. 
 It would be, therefore, I think, beginning the question 
 very pitifully for us to sit here and say this Society has: 
 not income enough to accomplish the two objects you 
 have specified. If we will supply the income, I am sure 
 the administrative ability of the Society will be equal to all 
 the exigencies of the situation. But if you have not the 
 income, I will tell you how to get it. I sympathize with 
 the appeal to a few people to give considerable sums of 
 money, but that is not the way to get the income. That 
 is one way of helping yourself out of a difficulty, stopping 
 a gap, helping yourself across a very ugly ditch; but the 
 way to get the income is for every soul to feel the principle 
 
20 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 — 
 
 and the responsibility of individual stewardship to the one 
 Lord and Sovereign of the Church. And unless each of 
 you lay by him in store on the first day of the week, as 
 God has prospered him, your giving will be spasmodic, 
 and you will feel that you are always giving because you 
 are not giving systematically and proportionately. No 
 man who sets down his gifts and adds them up from time 
 to time but will, I think, with rare exceptions, be found to 
 surprise himself with the paucity and poverty of his dona- 
 tions. Now the Christian Church ought never to meet, in 
 my opinion, without the worship of giving accompanying 
 the worship of getting. I am ashamed to see a thousand 
 people gathered together to sing hymns, and offer prayers, 
 and read chapters, and hear all the exceeding great and 
 precious promises lavished upon their life, and then go 
 away simply to pass an opinion about the service, or to 
 give some passing criticism about the sermon -that was 
 delivered. No sacrifice left behind, nothing stored on 
 the altar for the poor and the stranger, the widow, and 
 the fatherless, and the desolate; nothing left behind but 
 criticism, observation, remark upon what has been done. 
 Now if you believe in Dr. Chalmers’ principle of the power 
 of littles, we have it within the scope of our ability now to 
 surprise ourselves with the largeness and the munificence 
 of our gifts. What, then, would I urge upon you? This: 
 that every Sunday morning and every Sunday evening 
 something should be done for the cause of Christ—that 
 all-inclusive cause in which the poor man has a share, and 
 the sick child, and the far-away villager and the toiling 
 pastor—and all causes that come under the wide designa- 
 tion of Christian charity. If you do that, your income will » 
 be large enough to meet all the wants of this and every 
 other Society. I want something from every hand, a little 
 to accompany every act of worship, and I am confident 
 that all our reports will assume a very different colour and 
 a very different tone. I accompanied a minister to a little 
 village on one occasion, and I was standing by whilst the 
 leading man of the village was speaking to the minister, 
 and the leading man handed him the amount of the former 
 Sunday’s coliection on behalf of missions, and the amount 
 of that collection was two shillings and sixpence, and it 
 was given with the remark from this substantial farmer; 
 
CHRISTIAN GIVING. 21 
 
 “You see, sir, it comes heavy upon a few of us.” And 
 many people who enjoy that anecdote repeat the example. 
 Now, sir, allow me to say that I stand here as one who 
 personally and pastorally carries out the doctrine which I 
 have now ventured to lay down. We never meet in our 
 church without taking an offering for Christ, and the 
 church is not empty. You will see in some places this 
 Gospel announcement—but not in the gospel by Matthew, 
 Mark, Luke, or John; some other gospel—“ No collection.” 
 No sacrifice, no giving; all getting, sucking in all the 
 promises, absorbing all the similes and the parables, de- 
 lighted with the beautiful sermon about pearly gates, and 
 meandering rills, and jasper battlements, and hills of light, 
 and other things too numerous to mention—and that is 
 ‘called Gospel service and Gospel stewardship. No, no; 
 until we come to this—every man giving his little, however 
 little, and giving it regularly and in connection with an act 
 of worship—this question of money-getting will vex the 
 deliberations and put to perplexity the wisdom and the 
 patience of any committee that may be constituted for 
 Christian purposes. If you do your best for the people 
 the people will respond to you; if you constantly live for 
 them, in every prayer you offer and every sermon you 
 deliver ; if you preach with every limb, with the whole 
 man, body, soul, and spirit ; the people will know what you 
 are doing on their behalf, and they are not—TI bear this 
 testimony gladly and emphatically—slow to recognise any 
 effort that you may put forth on their behalf. Depend 
 upon it, that only as our men whom we send out know and 
 love the truth and speak it with force and tenderness will 
 they succeed in this business. I am glad that you praise 
 any kind of ministry, that you indicate with favour any 
 kind of men who are endeavouring to do good. Every 
 word you have said I accept, and would repeat with aug- 
 mented emphasis had I the power; but, at the same time, 
 this work is not given to any one man to do or any one 
 set of men todo. The great donor of all heavenly riches 
 hath given some to be pastors, and teachers, and evan- 
 gelists, and ‘servants of the Church in manifold and un- 
 nameable ways, and I do protest against anybody sneering 
 at or undervaluing any other agency in the Christian 
 Church than that which he represents. I welcome all 
 
22 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 service, and believe in all kinds of preaching that are true 
 to the Cross, and I say, “God bless you,” to every man 
 who speaks a word for Christ out of the energy and 
 conviction of his heart. I trust, therefore, that none of us 
 will be depreciated or undervalued. We labour in different 
 ways and methods, but our object is one. There is not a 
 man in this ministry who would not be gladdened beyond 
 all other joy by seeing men come in and confessing their 
 sins and giving themselves to the Saviour. Had I the 
 power, I therefore would speak to all men, of all kinds of 
 ability, and in all spheres of service, and say, “All ye are 
 brethren : do not undervalue one another’s labours, but be 
 
 ye helpers of one another in the strength of your common 
 Lord.” 
 
 VI. The Value of Tract Distribution. By Rev. 
 Newman HAtt, LL.B. 
 
 HE said: One man might sow sand, another weeds, and 
 another good wheat, but it was the value of the crop that 
 gave value to the work. What, then, was the seed which 
 the Tract Society sowed? The Bible was a book of 
 tracts. What grand old tracts were those that Moses 
 wrote. What sublime theology, what grand legisla- 
 tion, what noble purity and freedom in an age of such 
 degradation and slavery, were contained in those tracts! 
 What wonderful tracts were those David wrote, and Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, and the rest of the prophets! And then, in New 
 Testament times, what a little tract was the Gospel of St. 
 Matthew; but oh! what a heaven in it! And what an 
 effect the Epistles had! The tracts issued by the Tract 
 Society were reflections of the greater light of those original 
 tracts, for a little thing might reflect a great thing. A 
 drop of dew, a bit of broken glass or pottery, was enough 
 to reflect the glorious light of the sun; and small and 
 insignificant as tracts might be, they served to reflect the 
 glory of the Sun of Righteousness. God had big volumes 
 in nature, but He also had a multitude of little leaflets. 
 The gorse and the blue-bell mingling their delicious 
 essences, the harmony of the architecture of the trees, 
 though the styles were varied—the old gnarled oak and 
 
TRACT DISTRIBUTION. 23 
 
 the beech, so graceful in its stateliness, the drooping willow 
 and the pillared pine; the varieties of green, from the 
 tender tint of the early-budding fir-tree to the sober 
 raiment of the old yew-tree—all taught a lesson of unity 
 in diversity—a lesson which the Christian Church had been 
 so long in learning thoroughly, but which this Society 
 emphatically taught. . The lambs frisking and sporting in 
 the exuberance of mirth, the perch in mimic chase pur- 
 suing each other, the innumerable swarms of insects 
 dancing in the solar ray, the birds all so happy, the tender 
 tones of the blackbird, the cuckoo’s shout of joy that 
 summer was coming back, the lark soaring and singing as 
 if its little heart would burst, the nightingale with its liquid 
 trill of pensive gladness—all these told the world that the 
 great Author’s name was love, and that He rejoiced to see 
 all His creatures happy. And every tract in nature was a 
 truth. There was atruth on every blade of grass, and 
 every tree, and every stream—not all truth, but some truth, 
 rightly studied, that might lead man up to God. So in all 
 the publications of this Society there was some truth about 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes a man might hear a 
 sermon and doubt whether it was delivered in a Grecian 
 school of philosophy, a Jewish synagogue, a mechanics’ 
 institute, or a Christian church, because it contained 
 nothing about the central verity of the Christian faith ; but 
 all the tracts issued by the Society tended to lead a man 
 into the King’s highway of truth. Work for Christ was a 
 necessary part of the religion of Christ. He could not 
 understand the consistency of Christians whose Christianity 
 consisted for the most part in going to church once or 
 twice or three times a week, although once a week had 
 now become too fashionable, expecting if they were ill or 
 in trouble to be waited upon, visited, and comforted, but 
 never comforting anybody themselves. They seemed to 
 think that it was the business of the ministry to convert 
 the world, instead of the business of the priesthood—the 
 priesthood of all who believed in the Tord Jesus Christ. It 
 was the priestly duty and privilege of all Christians to say, 
 every one to his neighbour, “ Know ye the Lord.” No one 
 could know what real religion was until his religion was 
 developed and strengthened by some personal effort. 
 They must not suppose that because they were saved by 
 
=4 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 a 
 
 faith there was no such thing as a reward for good works. 
 He that sowed plentifully would reap plentifully ; he that 
 sowed sparingly would reap sparingly. Tract distribution 
 was valuable, because it increased and varied the oppor- 
 tunities of working for Christ. A mountain once said to a 
 squirrel, “Oh, you little prig!” but the squirrel replied, 
 “Oh! you may carry a big forest on your back, but you 
 cannot crack a nut.” There were many persons who could 
 write learned books or go forth as heralds of the Gospel in 
 foreign lands, but it was still something to crack a nut by 
 distributing a tract. Thanks be to God for an institution 
 which put the means of usefulness in the hands of every 
 one! When he was in Ireland recently, he was told that 
 it was scarcely possible to get Roman Catholics into the 
 churches to hear Scriptural doctrine, but that the hope was 
 in the distribution of evangelical books. An opportunity 
 was thus given to women to work for Christ. There were 
 some noble-gifted women who were capable of addressing 
 multitudes, and he, for one, would not say that the gift of 
 God was to be neglected ; but there were others whose 
 tastes and instincts caused them to shrink from such 
 publicity. In such cases the distribution of tracts was 
 suited to their modesty, gentleness, and retiring spirit, and 
 often a tract would be accepted when given by a gentle 
 woman, when it would be rejected if offered by a man. 
 Little children, too, who could do nothing else, could give 
 away atract. The results of tract distribution also showed 
 how valuable the work was. When he was in Paris, at 
 the Bible Stand, during the last Exhibition, a gentleman 
 connected with the Spanish department addressed him by 
 name, saying, “I was in a theatre at Madrid. A little 
 tract had been given me; and between the acts, wanting 
 to while away the time, I took it out and looked at it, and 
 I was so impressed with what it said, that I rushed out of 
 the theatre, and have never been inside one since.” He 
 was now a native evangelist, engaged in spreading the 
 Gospel. A man had lost his way in a wild moorland 
 region; he was far from his comfortable hotel; he was 
 perishing with the cold, but he saw some blue smoke, and 
 found a little hut. It was not his comfortable home, but 
 ae there gained instructions by which he could reach it. 
 rle was amongst Alpine snows, and the perilous fog had 
 
SUCCESS AND SECONDARY AGENCIES. 25 
 
 come on, and he had lost his way. There was a sudden 
 uplifting of the mist, and he saw a granite peak yonder, 
 which told him the direction he must take, and so he was 
 saved from the precipice. A fisherman was out fishing, 
 and the darkness of the night had come on; he knew not 
 how to reach the little harbour ; but there was a lamp at 
 the door of his cottage, and that little light was enough to 
 guide him home. A little pebble might bring down a big 
 Goliath ; a little maid might lead a rich and lordly leper 
 to the prophet of Israel and the river of life; and a little 
 tract might save a soul from death, and add to the many 
 crowns of Christ. 
 
 VII. Success and Secondary Agencies. Sy 
 Rev. IR. PARKER. 
 
 SUPPOSE that no man had achieved success, that every 
 man’s hand fell by his side, that every man’s bow was un- 
 strung, that no man could say, “The Word of the Lord 
 has been powerful in my mouth,” how then? Should we 
 resolve upon giving up the work and retiring from it in 
 dismay and despair? Far from it; it does not depend 
 upon our reports, we do not derive our inspiration from 
 our successes. Our marching orders are, “Go ye into 
 - all the world and preach.” As for the harvest time, I leave 
 it with Him to whom Paul looked and to whom Apollos 
 looked when they planted and sowed. We have not to do 
 with results, but with processes; we have to do our duty, 
 and to leave results entirely in the hand of God. We have 
 heard the word success from more speakers than one to- 
 night. Now, there are very few words which are so little 
 understood as the word success. It is a word which I do 
 not care very much for. No man knows the measure of it 
 in relation to spiritual energy and ministry. The older I 
 get, the more strenuously I believe that we have nothing to 
 do with success. If it comes, well and good, thank God 
 for it; but our place is to work, to toil, to suffer with 
 heroic patience, with joyful and expectant endurance, leav- 
 ing all the outcome to Him to whom the kingdom is infi- 
 nitely dearer than it ever can be to us. I hear men say 
 that their Churches are not in a very prosperous condition. 
 
26 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 I am afraid that the complaint is often made in a com- 
 mercial tone. I would to God I could drive the mere shop 
 out of the Church of Christ. Men come to me and you, 
 brother ministers, with a kind of balance-sheet, take the 
 very soul out of you, souring the very blood in your veins 
 by telling you you have not done so well this year as you 
 did last year. Who are they that they should draw a 
 balance-sheet, and then, with profound impertinence, tell 
 us what we have done? We are not their servants, but 
 Christ’s, and we shall know what we have done to the 
 uttermost farthing, and the furthermost limits, when we 
 stand face to face with Him into whose hands I would 
 rather fall than into the hands of any human judge. A 
 man says we have only added one member to the Church 
 this year. I say, “ What is the man’s name?” “TI do not 
 know his name.” “Describe the man.” “ Well, he has 
 got rather a high forehead, a nice dark, gleaming eye, raven 
 locks, spare in his frame, wiry in his constitution; but I do 
 not recollect his name.” “Find it out.” Then he goes, 
 and he found that it was Robert Moffat that was added. 
 I want to tell you that you may add one man, and yet 
 add a whole world when you write his name upon your 
 book. When you added John Wesley to the Church, you 
 added generation upon generation. Who are these men 
 —these statisticians—that come and tell us we have only 
 added one to the Church? Ah, sir, when you were added, 
 perhaps there was only one. I repeat that if the reports 
 had been exactly the contrary of what they are—dark and 
 gloomy, marked with failure from the beginning through 
 the whole course—still we should have had to double 
 our subscriptions and renew our prayers, and utter our 
 oath of dedication at the cross afresh, for the mouth of the 
 Lord hath bidden us go, and we are not determined in the 
 measure of our labour and the fervour of our energy by mere 
 numerable successes, by figures that can be tabulated and 
 reported in Exeter Hall. Now, as the reports were pro- 
 ceeding I have been holding another missionary meeting. 
 
 I have been in some far-off parts of the earth; I have been 
 addressing a meeting at Sierra Leone, and reading a report 
 tc the people there about English Christians—what they 
 say about one another, how they look, how they eat and 
 drink, the fashion that they patronize, the literature that 
 
SUCCESS AND SECONDARY AGENCIES. 297 
 
 they are most fond of, and I have made you out to be a 
 very pretty people. Oh, sirs, you should hear yourselves 
 reported on at the other end of the earth. I am confident 
 that a good many of us hadztués of Exeter Hall would be 
 quite amazed if we heard ourselves described even by the 
 friendless tongues. When we can read corrupt literature ; 
 when we can while away hours in idleness, in all but blas- 
 phemous indolence; when we can backbite and slander 
 one another ; when we can shrug the shoulder and look 
 askance, and drop the word of poison into conversation re- 
 specting one another’s standing and reputation in society ; 
 we are hardly the people to ask whether the blacks can 
 rule, and whether, if we had so-and-so in a distant colony, 
 such and such will not be the consequences. When we 
 have washed our own hands, and shown what we can do, 
 it will be time enough to look with suspicion upon nations 
 that are far away. Now, this resolution does not under- 
 value secondary agencies ; but it holds out, as I understand, 
 the doctrine that the truth as it is in Jesus alone can truly 
 save and elevate mankind. We have nothing to say to 
 secondary agencies ; but I have to suggest to you whether 
 those secondary agencies have not proved themselves to 
 be lamentable failures as addressed to great primary effects 
 and consequences. Within their own sphere, they are 
 everything we can desire; but, believe me, the world is 
 not going to be saved by better sewerage, by deeper drain- 
 ing, by whitewashing the walls of artisans’ dwellings more 
 profusely, by Saturday half-holidays, by bank holidays, 
 and by “nine hours at the seaside for 3s.” All that kind 
 of thing is right enough in its place; but it never touches 
 the grave, it never blows the trumpet of resurrection over 
 dead souls. You must look at these things in their own 
 place and in their own relationship, and value them highly, 
 and promote them all you can; but the truth as it is in 
 Jesus alone can touch the heart and renew the soul. Oh, 
 sir, we talk about an academy which is presently to be 
 opened, I have been at an academy to-night. Did you 
 observe one word that the venerable apostle used ? it was 
 the word “dawn.” He was speaking to a set of men about 
 the resurrection and the life of the world to come, and 
 what was it he saw on the countenances of those listening 
 men? It was the dawn. I would to God I could see the 
 
28 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 dawn myself. To be a man sent of God to speak such 
 truth as brings a dawn into the human face! When he 
 saw that dawn, he saw the heavens opened; he saw the 
 angel that is in every man, the God that throbs in every 
 heart ; he saw the morning of immortality! I have often 
 envied our missionary brethren when they have been telling 
 aman the truth as it is in Jesus, depicting the cross, ap- 
 pealing to his heart, to his best nature—I have often envied 
 him his view of the first calm, steady look. In the Bible 
 we often read such words as these—“ His eyes were 
 opened.” This was the case with our friend. He saw the 
 eyes of the man opened, beholding chariots of fire, angels, 
 and great hosts of ministering ones. If we could have 
 seen such a dawn on any human countenance as that, and 
 then have heard the argument that missionaries have been 
 a failure, we should have found the best answer in that 
 luminous, that indescribable spectacle. When I was in 
 New York some time ago, a man with turbaned head rose 
 at a missionary meeting, and said, in a soft, musical voice, 
 “You have heard that missionary enterprise has been a 
 failure; I am here to give the lie to that statement.” He 
 himself was the answer; and I felt, as I looked upon that 
 intelligent, Christianized Brahmin, who twenty-five years 
 ago would not have spoken to the proudest monarch in 
 Europe, standing there as a little child in the kingdom of 
 heaven, that if he alone represented the sum total of the 
 effects produced by missionary enterpriSe, every prayer 
 had been answered, and every penny had been well spent. 
 You have entrusted me with a solemn resolution. You 
 say, “This meeting earnestly prays.” Sir, is it possible ? 
 _“ This meeting earnestly prays””—all these young people in 
 the gallery, all these elderly people, these men of business, 
 and women who have families to guide and direct, is it 
 possible that this assembly “earnestly prays”? Why, 
 consider the import of the words; what is there to hinder 
 us from taking heaven by storm then? “This meeting 
 earnestly prays!” Consider what you are about to vote. 
 An uplifted hand is a prayer. This is no technical resolu- 
 tion or formal vow. It is solemn as an oath, it isan appeal 
 to heaven. Beware how you vote it. It pledges you to 
 your knees, to earnest crying and tears before God, and 
 mighty wrestling with the Omnipotent One. If we did 
 
 ——— 
 
SUCCESS AND SECONDARY AGENCIES. 2g 
 
 earnestly pray, the place wherein we are assembled would 
 be shaken, and Pentecostal winds and fires would attest in 
 our hearts and lives the presence of an ever-living God. 
 Now, let me tell you—and if I get the better of my cold, 
 and am able to fulfil my engagements, this would be 
 _ my speech all the month through—where you fail, where 
 
 I fail, where all Churches fail, is in this matter :—You 
 hear the sermon, you “ Hold the fort,” you “Ring the 
 bells of heaven,” you go away, saying, “ Beautiful sermon, 
 nice sermon; I enjoyed it so much,” but you leave no 
 sacrifice behind you. What, a thousand people coming 
 to sing hymns, and offer prayers, and hear psalms, 
 and make no collection! It is profanity; it is the vilest 
 anti-climax ; it is the cruellest irony. Why, every time we 
 meet we should give an offering to Christ. Knock at the 
 door openly, lovingly, with both hands, mayhap, now and 
 again ; always do this, and prove Him if He will not open 
 the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that there 
 shall not be room to receive it. The great secret of all 
 your successes in a mechanical and financial point of view 
 must come out of a deeper spiritual life, and this deeper 
 spiritual life will make you give every time you meet. We 
 have begun that in my place. I sometimes see it an- 
 nounced on the city walls (tell it not in Sierra Leone), 
 “Mr. So-and-So will preach at such a place—no collection.” 
 Oh, that we should have lived to see the day of “no collec- 
 tion,’—all getting, no giving; anecdotes, stories, tears, 
 singing psalms, ‘‘holding forts,” “ringing the bells,” and no 
 collection. Oh, sir, the Church has got wrong there. I 
 used to preach in this hall; I preached here for eighteen 
 months, and people used to say to me, “If you did not 
 collect as you do, you would have Exeter Hall filled down 
 the stairs, and into the Strand.” Well, sir, when we came 
 to pay £800 for the use of the building, where would the 
 people have been then? In the Strand? Now, that is 
 rather an awkward place for making a collection. But, 
 apart from that, I want the chairman, as a man of busi- 
 ness—I want all my ministerial friends, on the right 
 hand and on the left—to make some use of these May 
 meetings in their pulpit services, showing that there is 
 a worship of giving as well as a worship of getting; and 
 so long as the collection is always sneered at or referred 
 
20 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 to with laughter, even friendly laughter, so long as it is not 
 regarded as a serious sacrifice, a distinctly religious act, we 
 shall find our resources crippled and our deliberations 
 vexed with earthly considerations. “What will you give, 
 sir? What will you give to this object? I have called 
 upon yot, though I think you are too poor to give anything 
 to it; but what will you give?” “Well, what are other 
 people giving?” “So and so.” Now, that is a true state- 
 ment. Said a poor lJaundress to a clergyman to whom 
 she was speaking, “ Well, I cannot do as the great folks do. 
 I cannot give you a guinea a year, but I will give you 6d. 
 a week.” Unless we get the weekly offerings, regular, 
 systematic giving, all these resolutions will be so much 
 waste paper. I ask you to look at this; I say it more 
 emphatically because I venture to say that I am a minister 
 of a congregation which has done this, and is doing it, and 
 the church is not empty, and Christ does not forget to 
 send those to hear who are prepared to support His cause. 
 “This meeting earnestly prays.’ Now, does it? Stand 
 up, if you please, all of you, and I will pray with you, and 
 we will earnestly pray now. “Almighty God, Thou who 
 didst send Thy Son to die for us, baptize us as with the 
 Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. We have the bap- 
 tism of water; give us the baptism of fire. Drive out of 
 our hearts all selfishness, and all evil, and all idolatry ; give 
 us the spirit of sacrifice, and trust, and love, and loyalty, 
 and may we give ourselves a living sacrifice to Thee, 
 Thou Son of God.” 
 
 VIII. Sunday Schools. Sy Rev. A. Mursett. 
 
 My subject refers to means and appliances for aiding 
 Sunday-school teachers to qualify for their great work, 
 and to plans for testing their efficiency for its discharge. I 
 rejoice most heartily in these ways and means, not only as 
 indicating a stronger interest on the part of the Christian 
 Church, in the work undertaken by the teacher ; but chiefly 
 as a sign of an increased importance being attached to that 
 work by teachers themselves, and an enhanced sense of 
 its responsibility and privilege. Demand should precede 
 supply, and I take it that there has been a demand for these 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 31 
 
 agencies on the part of Sunday-school teachers, who are 
 beginning to discover that their work is a work, and not 
 a pastime; and that it consists in the systematic training ot 
 the nascent minds which are to influence the Church and 
 the world when we are gone, and not in simply keeping a 
 handful of children out of mischief for two hours every 
 Sunday. They feel that it demands the effort and concen. 
 tration of their best powers—not the perfunctory dedica- 
 tion of a few scraps of their leisure time ; and hence the 
 demand for such helps as these agencies indicate, a demand 
 which has been nobly and simply met by the zeal and 
 devotion of the Sunday-school Union. But the resolu- 
 tion speaks of fruits as well as means. I confess, sir, I 
 have always felt myself unable to enter into the enthusiasm 
 with which some people can become inspired at an agricul- 
 tural show. They will walk up and down amongst rows 
 and vistas of ploughs and harrows, and lawn-mowers, and 
 turnip-cutters, and hay forks, and thrashing machines, and 
 clod-crushers, and get as excited and inspired as if they 
 were threading their way amongst the lamps of heaven, or 
 walking amidst the golden candlesticks. But although these 
 are no doubt very useful things in their way, the stiff and 
 greasy cranks and wheels have no language to speak to 
 one’s imagination; one is willing to pay a passing tribute 
 to the ingenuity of the inventor, but one grows impatient 
 at the long explanations of how the thing works—how 
 a strap goes over there, and a cog fits in there, and a knife 
 sticks out there, and a pair of shears make their appear- 
 ance there, and how the whole business is done in a tithe 
 of the time of the old system. You hurry on to see the 
 fruits—the laden sheaves, the pouting grapes, the bursting 
 presses, the rich russet of the fecund field, the greenery of 
 the smiling garden, or the purple and vermilion of the 
 liberal orchard. And so one hurries over the clauses of 
 this resolution which speak about the zplements, to dwell 
 with grateful pleasure on that part which points to the rich 
 fruits. This may seem very ungrateful to the machinery ; 
 but one can’t go into ecstasies over a tool-chest. Hammers 
 and nails, and screws and saws, are capital things in their 
 way ; but flowers and leaves and berries are far mvre 
 delightful ; and the mind prefers the Garden of Eden to 
 Birmingham or Sheffield. Therefore it is that my note of 
 
32 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 rejoicing is reserved for that statement of my resolution 
 which speaks of 18,000 Sunday scholars added to Christ's 
 confessing Church during the year. The fragrance of 18,000 
 fresh young flowers let loose upon the garden; the juices of 
 18,000 clusters added to the wine-press, to exhilarate the 
 Church below, and stimulate the hosanna of the Church 
 above The incense of 18,000 new-tuned prayers rising from 
 the altar ; 18,000 fresh photographs of the Crucified printed 
 on the hearts of children ; 18,000 morning songs greeting 
 the spring-tide, and carolling to the flowers of May. Thank 
 God for that. Take courage while you can point to such 
 trophies of your work. It is in this, sir, that I rejoice with 
 joy unspeakable. And after all, it is not so shabby and 
 ungrateful towards the machinery as it seems at first. 
 Machines are very good things ; but they are useless with- 
 out the steam to turn them. And systems, and examinations, 
 and inspectorships, are first-rate arrangements, but they are 
 no use without loving hearts to fill the means with life. 
 The tonic sol-fa modulator may be a capital contrivance, 
 but it is a hideous-looking concern with its doh ra me, and 
 if it were not for the hymns and hallelujahs for which it 
 helps the channel, we should pack it off to Mr. Curwen’s 
 address by book-post, and wait till the angels gave us our 
 first singing lesson, with a sunbeam for the baton, and 
 heaven for the orchestra. It is a refreshing thing for those 
 of us whose faith and trust gets often warped and troubled 
 by all sorts of questionings and doubts, born out of the 
 problems of the day, and the puzzles of our lives, to think 
 of what an aggregate of simple and pure love for Christ 
 is represented by those 18,000 fresh won hearts. It is 
 delightful to dwell upon its freshness, and the fulness of 
 its simple faith. It is like coming from a hot and dusty 
 turnpike, where the hawthorn on the hedges is begrimed 
 
 with the vapour of the traffic, into a stream-watered dell, - 
 
 where the blue-bells and anemones catch the dew-drop and 
 _ smile amongst the moss and bracken. For childhood’s 
 faith and love is very strong and fresh in its simplicity. I 
 heard of a minister who went to preach somewhere in the 
 north, and he was directed to tell the driver when he got to 
 the station to drive him to “ Ebenezer” Chapel. He acted 
 upon these instructions, when the driver—who was not like 
 a London “cabby,” only to be guided by the names of 
 
 ——- 
 
SUNDAY SCHOCLS. 33 
 
 public-houses—but who was a quiet, civil old fellow, whose 
 kindness to his horse marked him as a good sort—turned 
 to his “fare,” and said : “Ebenezer? oh, you mean little 
 Charley’s chapel, don’t you?” “Little Charley’s Chapel! 
 no; I mean Ebenezer.” “Yes; we old folks know it as 
 Little Charley’s Chapel,” he said. “Why do you call it 
 Little Charley’s Chapel? Was it because the honourable 
 member for Salford laid the foundation stone?” “No; 
 but Little Charley laid the foundation stone. The fact 
 is, sir, a few years ago we wanted a new chapel, and 
 we thought a good deal about how the money must 
 be raised; but times were very bad, and the people 
 were very poor, and labour and materials were very dear, 
 so we resolved to give it up. But a day or two after 
 the meeting a little boy about nine years old came to the 
 minister's door and rang the bell. The minister came out 
 himself, and found the little fellow with his face all flushed, 
 and the perspiration standing on his forehead, and his little 
 toy wheelbarrow, in which there were six new bricks. He 
 had wheeled his load up a long steep hill, and was so out 
 of breath that he could hardly speak. At last he found 
 breath to answer the minister’s wondering question, ‘ Well, 
 Charley, what is it?’ ‘ Oh, please, sir,’ said Charley, ‘I heard 
 you wanted a new chapel, and were thinking of giving it 
 up ; so I begged these few bricks from some builders who 
 are building a house down the village, and I thought they 
 would do to begin with. The minister called the com- 
 mittee together again, and Charley’s little barrowful of 
 bricks was brought before them. The child’s enthusiasm 
 was contagious, and the desponding committee plucked up 
 heart ; and little Charley laid the first stone of the big 
 chapel, which will hold 1,000 people, and cost £6,000; and 
 now it is out of debt.” “And what has become of little 
 Charley?” The old man’s voice grew husky. “If you'll 
 let me pull up at the churchyard, sir, I'll show you 
 Charley’s grave. There’s a many graves there, but you 
 may always tell Charley’s by the bright, fresh flowers. He 
 was the pet of the Sunday-school, and the children never 
 let a day go by without putting fresh flowers on his grave. 
 He used to live close by the school, and he died the very 
 day the last pound of the chapel debt was paid. It was a 
 summer's day, and he made them set his window orfen that 
 P 
 
34 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 he might hear the children sing. He would have them 
 sing a happy tune, and he died trying to join them in it 
 from his little bed ; but though he could hardly begin the 
 hymn on earth, we all believe he finished it in heaven.” 
 Amongst the 18,000 trophies of your work, or of God’s 
 blessing on it, there is at least the force of a like precious 
 faith—new hope, new courage, new consecration. Sir, it 
 would enhance greatly the privilege of being permitted to 
 take part in this most May-like of all the May Meetings, if 
 one could but speak a word which should prove of living 
 and lasting encouragement to those bands of Sunday- 
 school teachers who congregate before me—a word which 
 should endear their work to them more fully, impart to 
 them a new sense of its importance, and inspire them with 
 fresh heart in its discharge. I would fain aim at the utter- 
 ance of such a word by reminding you of the reflex influ- 
 ence of your work, how it acts upon the child and reacts 
 upon yourself. There is no human mission or occupation 
 which carries with it more strong or striking proofs that it 
 is more blessed to give than to receive than Sunday-school 
 teaching. An earnest teacher learns more from his class 
 than he can ever impart to it. Not only do their inquiries, 
 when their minds are interested, prompt the teacher to a 
 study which is useful to himself, but their wistfulness and 
 wonder as the love-depths of the plan of human redemp- 
 tion open before them, begets a new interest in your own 
 heart, and reveal to you new charms in that Saviour of 
 whom you speak, as you take of the things of Christ and 
 show them to the child. You soon find out that the Bible 
 is a heart-book, and that to stop short at a critical study of 
 its canon will not quench the thirst which is panting for its 
 spirit. It is well enough for certain mechanical patentees 
 of asystem of “culture” to dissect the Bible as a botanist 
 dissects a flower or a surgeon dissects a body, but there are 
 better and truer apostles of “sweetness and light” to be 
 found amongst the children to whom it is your mission to 
 tell the story of a Saviour’s love, than in the studies of 
 savants or the cloisters of pedants. To these latter a 
 promise may be but a curious example of Hebrew and 
 Greek construction ; but to that child who has just begun 
 to catch the outline of the Cross, and on whose eye the 
 sheen of the halo of its wondrous love begins to shine, that 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOLS, 35 
 
 promise is a living flower, to be garnered like the violets of 
 spring. When they read the Bible they do not keep a pair 
 of scissors handy to snip out this passage, or an almanack 
 to challenge this date, but they read the vivid histories, 
 and see their heroes, and hear their voices, and believe 
 in them. They revel in its sceneries, climbing its crests 
 and setting sail upon its seas. Carmel and Lebanon 
 are not marks upon a map, but lungs which send breezes 
 through their flaxen hair, and coignes of vantage whence 
 they see the panorama and the landscape. The Psalms 
 are not the key-note for a critic snarl of doubt, but harp- 
 notes to which their own hearts keep tune. So you must 
 fling the light of nature on the page, till nature and 
 revelation blend in one rich shining. It is not your work 
 to do as many would-be learned preachers do, who air their 
 smattering of Greek instead of breathing the expirations 
 of grace, teasing and bothering people about the tenses of 
 a verb, or the force of an adjective; but you will show 
 them living things. Now you will take them through 
 the mountain gorge, and let them see it leap among the 
 boulders, flinging the golden text up in a hundred rain- 
 bows, as it plays through the fancy’s light. Now you will 
 carry them off to some Indian jungle, pig-sticking with the 
 future Emperor of India—and now they shall hear the 
 beagles baying in the bracken fern as they hunt the stag 
 in the Highlands or the chamois on the Alps. Parchment- 
 headed and parchment-hearted martinets, who call them- 
 selves philosophers, may call this shallow picture-painting. 
 Withered spinsters who take the chair at meetings for the 
 rights of women, and childless blue-stockings who wrangle 
 at parochial vestries, may call this uninstructive, but you 
 need not be ashamed of it. While we remember who it 
 was who held up a bunch of lilies in His sacred hand and 
 preached from them ; and pointed to the russet cornfields 
 and the reddening sunset; who drew his picture on the 
 easel of the shining East, and mixed his colours on the 
 palette of the sky; we may at least be as tolerant of 
 a teaching which keeps folks awake with poetry, as of that 
 which sends them to sleep with prose. Did your child 
 never come and ask you to tell it a tale? And when you 
 give it a choice, it will choose the one which it has heard 
 the oftenest, and with which it is most familiar. It can 
 
36 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 correct you if you leave out a word. And yet the tale 
 lacks no interest by repetition. So you need not be afraid 
 of exhausting the story of the Cross. The demand, when 
 it is once understood, will be— 
 
 * Tell me the old, old story, 
 Of Jesus and His love.” 
 
 I have sometimes noticed a child trying to amuse itself 
 poring over a picture-book ; but the interest is soon gone. 
 At length it takes courage to put the book upon its 
 mother’s knee, and say, “ Will you show me the pictures ?” 
 and the dry book draws a new interest from the sacred 
 table where it has been set. When the table-cloth is the 
 pattern of a mother’s dress, all that is placed on it becomes 
 enchanted ; a new eloquence clothes the book when a kind 
 finger is the index which points to it. There is David with 
 the giant’s head. While the child looked at it alone, it was 
 an old legend, shorn of its interest and deadened of its 
 charm ; but now the finger points at it, the drops of blood 
 seem to trickle from its severed neck, and the triumph- 
 flash gleams in the young chieftain’s eyes, and the drama 
 starts into a living thing. The spears of Philistia seem 
 real, and the burnished swords begin to gleam, and the 
 picture leaps into a moving act of life under the spell of 
 that pointing hand. Let a dull and unobservant mind be 
 wandering through Alpine glories, absorbed perhaps with 
 other and meaner thoughts than the beauties around him 
 should suggest; all that he derives from the scene is a 
 general impression of magnificence or vastness, and nothing 
 more. But if a quick-eyed poet is his companion, with 
 his warm imagination, he will point out a hundred subtle 
 lights and shades he would not otherwise have caught, and 
 the panorama will be richer in all time to come in his 
 memory and thought. The flushing rose-light warming 
 the cold snow-wreath, like a blush upon a maiden’s cheek, 
 the silver minaret pointing at the sky as though some 
 giant mountaineer had drawn his sword to bathe and 
 burnish it in heaven ; the flying cloud spreading its wings 
 over the white glacier, and creeping down the cliff like the 
 shadow of a weird procession ; the myriad flora venturing 
 to spread their carpet and weave their broidered altar-cloth 
 at the very threshold of the snow-temple ; these, and a 
 
 — ee — 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 37 
 
 os ome: 
 
 volume of such things, would be passed hy in the dull 
 thought of the mere professional travellsr who goes to 
 “do” a district ; it needs a man who takes his soul as well 
 as his knapsack with him, to see the glories, and with 
 such an one to show the pictures, they live, and breathe, 
 and speak. The same thing has a different power and influ- 
 ence according to conditions. Let me walk alone by the 
 sad sea waves, or through the interlacing avenue, and it has 
 but small charm for me, and its whispers lack coherence ; 
 but let two beating hearts keep time to the footsteps which 
 press these walks, and the voice of whispering leaf and 
 murmuring sea is rich and eloquent. Let me pluck the 
 blue-bell from beside the stream, and I am ready to fling 
 it back upon the rippling tide with the next capricious 
 movement of my hand; but let one pair of taper fingers 
 gather the same nosegay and fix it in my button-hole, and 
 every flower is a stanza, and every bunch an epic hymn, 
 The man who gathers flowers alone, packs them up in 
 a tin box, classifies them and lectures about them; the 
 ferns grow grim as a schoolmaster’s rod as they are bran- 
 dished in the scientific hand ; it is not bracken, or maiden- 
 hair, or heart’s-tongue, but something which almost loosens 
 your front teeth to pronounce. But those who pluclr 
 flowers with their hearts see in them far more thar 
 botany discovers, and the blue star of the forget-me 
 not, and the tough fibre of the ivy speak more heart. 
 language at a glance. than the most long-winded lecture: 
 could get through ina day. A bunch of lilies shaking ir 
 a coy and trembling hand is like a chime of prophetic joy- 
 bells, and the scents of orange groves breathe to the long- 
 ing heart the thought of wreaths and unions. And so 
 when the proud human mind bends over the garden of the 
 Divine promises, it only botanizes among them; it criticises 
 the precepts, and seems to imply how much better it could 
 have made and grouped those flowers. Men won’t study 
 God’s truth as lovers, but as lecturers; they seek for the 
 botany of the Bible, but not its poetry; they dry its 
 growth between the leaves of books, instead of planting 
 them near their own hearts. If you want a violet to grow, 
 you must take up its root, not cut off the flower; and so if 
 you want a promise to endure, you must take it with the 
 fibres of a father’s heart adhering to it, a living, throbbing 
 
38 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 thing. “Show me Thy ways ;” let the lover’s hand gather 
 and present the flower, and then the scent is sweet, and the 
 colour radiant; let the poet’s finger point the landscape, 
 and then the lights and shades are harmonious, and the 
 glory is complete. Let the Master hand attune the harp- 
 strings, and the music will not jar. The reason why we 
 hear so many scientific and critical objections to the Bible 
 is that it is a book for the heart, while men only study it 
 with the head. It would be as absurd to try and sing 
 a proposition of Euclid, or set the multiplication table to 
 music, as to make the Bible exclusively a school-book for 
 the brain, instead of a hymn-book for the heart. It is be- 
 cause men sit down to the Bible as the botanist sits down 
 to the flower—to tear it up, not to admire its beauty, or 
 inhale its scent—that the learned or unlearned sceptic 
 sneers away its inspiration, the carper cavils at its authen- 
 ticity, and the fool snarls out of his shallow heart, “There is 
 no God.” Teachers may grow old and hoary ; but you will 
 never grow old enough to regret your interest in the little 
 children. It is said that when the sainted Dr. Guthrie lay 
 upon his death-bed, he asked that a little child might come 
 to him and sing. He said, “ My bonnie lamb, let me hear 
 one of the bairns’ hymns.” A child’s clear voice was the 
 bell upon the horses which bore his chariot to heaven. 
 The old man’s heart yearned after his child companions. 
 He wanted the bairns’ hymns. Those bairns had once sung 
 lewd and ribald songs, but he had dropped a new song into 
 their lips, and honeyed them to hosannas, and he wanted 
 to hear the new song in the young voices. It was a 
 pleasant sound to fall asleep to, and to rise to. It was 
 earth’s evensong, and heaven’s bright matin shout in one, 
 The bairns’ hymns, the hymns of childhood! Ah, ped- 
 ants may despise them, but angels love them. They 
 may have no music in the halls of theology or of learned 
 infidelity, but they fill heaven until seraphim grow ecstatic 
 at the sound. The bairns’ hymns! Thanks, gentle spirit, 
 for the gentle thought. Oh, when I die, let the doctrinaires 
 be mute, let the specialists be silent, and keep their fingers 
 from the curtain, and their shadows from the light; but 
 let the bairns sing to me. Let them sing of love, and 
 hope, and beauty—sing as the birds sing in the garden, 
 sing as the angels sing around the throne, sing like the 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN. 39 
 herald of the dewdrop and the carol of the dawn, sing like © 
 the morning stars that sing together, and the sons of God 
 that shout for joy. 
 
 IX. The Conversion of Children. By Rev. W. 
 Brock. 
 
 WHAT is the object that gives so much interest and im- 
 portance to our meeting? It is that God would take our 
 children and incline them to consecrate themselves to a 
 life of faith upon the Son of God, that He would deliver 
 them from the power of darkness and translate them into 
 the kingdom of His dear Son; and this, my dear friends, 
 supposes that our children are not naturally what they 
 ought to be, that they are not the sons and daughters of 
 the Lord Almighty by natural birth. We should put this 
 before our minds, and keep it there—not overlooking the 
 excellencies which no father or mother can fail to admire; 
 not overlooking the charming and attractive, which I think 
 it would be a parental sin not to admire. No; as we look 
 upon the noble, and the graceful, and the frank, and the 
 simple, and the ingenuous, at the various stages of our chil- 
 dren’s lives, I think it would be a great sin not to be thankful 
 to God for that with which our hearts are so delighted ; but, 
 at the same time, we must recollect that each one of those 
 children needs the renovating power of the Holy Ghost; and 
 whilst our neighbours may speak of their virtuous parentage, 
 and of their godly education, yet we must ever bear in mind 
 that they must be born not of the flesh, nor of the will of 
 man, but of God. It was not to profligate and licentious 
 Gentiles, but to those who had the highest parentage and 
 education in the world at the time—it was to Nicodemus 
 and his countrymen—that our great Lord and Master said, 
 “Ye must be born again.” So it is that we are here to- 
 day, knowing, let us hope, what it is to be ourselves the 
 children of God, fain to lay hold of Omnipotence and 
 bring down the same blessing upon our children, and being 
 determined to give God no rest till we have rejoiced over 
 their second birth even more exultingly than we did over 
 their first. We remember, besides, that there are great 
 obstacles and difficulties in the way of this new nature, and 
 
40 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 that sometimes they are apparently insuperable. The very 
 privileges of our children may operate to their prejudice, 
 and they may hear it said that we ought to go and preach 
 for the conversion of the savages of Africa, but not for the 
 conversion of children born, and bred, and educated as they 
 have been. There are books which teach them that, and 
 there are preachings which teach them that, if so be they 
 should be so unhappy as to hear them. There is a ten- 
 dency in the mercies themselves to suppress the proper 
 anxiety which they ought to feel; and, when once this 
 mistake is made, how many influences there are to confirm 
 it! The present is always more effectual than the future ; 
 things seen over-ride and shut out the proper force of things 
 which are unseen, and our children must strive, and contend, 
 and wrestle, if so be they break away from that which is 
 natural, so as to lay hold upon and practise that which is 
 spiritual. The very amenities of life,—and our children 
 must not be shut out from them in sour and repulsive tones, 
 or by stern and iron resolutions—become another decoy to 
 irreligiousness, and all whereby they are surrounded, even 
 the things in which they may properly engage, tend, unless 
 there be some counteracting power, to lead them captives 
 at the world’s will. Therefore it is that we are here to-day, 
 and it is only God who can give us the blessing we need. 
 We are here to acknowledge our dependence upon Him for 
 that choicest of all favours in which a father or a mother 
 can rejoice—to kneel down with your son, and hear him 
 pray, or to know what a messenger of mercy your daughter 
 is to the dying and to those who are dead in trespasses and 
 sins. I take it that this is the highest gratification which 
 even the regenerate heart can feel, and that it is hardly 
 second to heaven itself, but it may be hoped for despite all 
 difficulties, for “It is not by might nor by power, but by 
 My Spirit, saith the Lord;” and if we honour Him as we 
 are honouring Him to-day, we shall assuredly find that he 
 that honoureth the Spirit, the Spirit will also honour. If 
 He were capricious, as some people preach, it would be a 
 different thing; but Heisrighteous. If He were inexorable, 
 it would be a different thing ; but He is compassionate. If 
 He had no sympathy with parental solicitude, it would be 
 a different thing; but He is instinct with sympathy with 
 parental solicitude. If we were not sure of His presence, it 
 
 eas 
 
 — 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN. 4X 
 
 would be a different thing ; but we are here honouring His 
 promise, and He bids us not be afraid, but only to believe, 
 because, although there may be difficulties in our unregen- 
 erate nature, and though we meet with so much to dis- 
 hearten us, yet greater is He that is for us than all those 
 who are against us. Our coming here is to acknowledge 
 our dependence upon Him, to importune Him to grant us 
 the blessing, and then to abide in the full assurance of hope 
 that the blessing will be vouchsafed, for we are praying not 
 in the spirit of bondage again to fear, but with the spirit of 
 adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father,” not dreading 
 that we shall fail, but being assured that we shall succeed. 
 How pleasant and how Scriptural it was to offer thanks- 
 givings, as we did just now, for answers to prayer already 
 received, for we are told in everything by prayer and sup- 
 plication, with thanksgiving, to make known our requests 
 unto God. We are often so extremely importunate for a 
 blessing, and almost as extremely careless when the bless- 
 ing has come. We have thanked this morning as well as 
 prayed ; and let me say for the comfort of any friends here 
 who may be broken-hearted or dispirited, that in all my 
 ministerial life it has been a constant source of delight to 
 me to see how parental prayer has been answered. I have 
 known family after family where, without exception, the 
 whole have been brought to God, and are now walking in 
 all His commandments blameless. I have known instances 
 where there has been a long deferment of the hope, but 
 where God has made good His word after all, sometimes 
 even when the father and the mother have been among the 
 sainted ones in glory. I remember a group of nine of us 
 gathering, in my early life, at a prayer-meeting ; seven of 
 us on comparing notes had to attribute our conversion to 
 our mothers’ influence and prayers, and five out of the seven 
 were fatherless boys, of whom I was one. I say to widowed 
 mothers in this meeting to-day, Be of good comfort, my 
 dear friends ; there is a special blessing to the fatherless 
 and the widow, and that blessing has never been mani- 
 fested more signally than in the answer to maternal, 
 widowed prayer for the conversion of beloved sons. I know 
 aman now living in a green old age in Yorkshire, who, as 
 a boy, was brought up in the fear of God, but seemed to 
 be utterly unaffected by it. He was the only son of his 
 
q2 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 mother, and she was a widow. At last he determined to 
 run away from his mother; and nobody could tell how it 
 was, except that God’s hand was in it, but when he made 
 up his bundle of clothes to take with him, he must needs 
 put into it one of those square, old-fashioned Bibles which 
 we used to have as presents in our childhood. He hid 
 himself away in a ship at Bristol, and did not show himself 
 to the captain till they were out into the Channel, and it 
 was too late to send him ashore. He went to the Mediter- 
 ranean. It was at the time of the wars with Bonaparte, 
 and he was impressed on board one of the King’s ships. 
 He went on for years in a state of the most entire ungod- 
 liness, his poor mother having given him up for lost. One 
 day he was ill, and all at once bethought himself of his old 
 Bible, which he had not seen since he had been on board 
 that ship ; he read some of the passages which his mother 
 had marked, became a converted man, came back to Eng- 
 land, became first a minister of Christ, and then the tutor 
 of a college; and his name now is as fragrant ointment to 
 multitudes among us who know what that man’s character 
 is. If he were here, he would, with stammering tongue— 
 for he is very aged and full of infirmities—make you under- 
 stand what he owes to his mother’s prayers, to which, as he 
 has declared to me hundreds of times, he attributes his 
 conversion. Another case, and I shall have done. A man 
 well known on our London stage, not only as a dramatic 
 author, but as a man of high pre-eminence in the dramatic 
 art and practice, and who, thirty years ago, was in this me- 
 tropolis running an entire round of riot and of revelry, told 
 me, after he had become a preacher of Christ’s Gospel, that 
 through all those years of riot and revelry in connection 
 with the stage and the green-room at Covent Garden and 
 other places, he always heard his mother’s voice ringing in 
 his ears. Her very words, and the tones of her voice, came 
 to his recollection, and he was fairly followed by his mother 
 long after she had gone to heaven. It ended in his con- 
 version, and he bade me tell all men that that life of his 
 had been continually deteriorating his moral nature ; and 
 he also bade me tell all mothers never to despair of an un- 
 godly son, even if he should take to the boards, but to pray 
 on, and hope on, and believe on. Encouragement! There is 
 the amplest and the richest encouragement for all who will — 
 
SYSTEMATIC GIVING. 43 
 
 recognise their dependence upon God, who will earnestly 
 seek for the blessing, and whose example and influence at 
 home shall be in harmony with that blessing. Let us do 
 as David did when he “ returned and blessed his house.” 
 Our meeting here to-day is only subsidiary to our great 
 purpose: it is to home influence, and home prayers, and 
 home example that we must look. Christian brethren, 
 let your prayers in your household be genuine prayers ; 
 
 ‘transfuse them with earnestness for those who dre kneel- 
 
 ing with you. Let them not be mere utterances of words, 
 but travail in birth for the souls of your children, and you 
 shall find, as so many of us have done, that along with the 
 fathers there shall come up the children, a seed to serve the 
 Lord, and a generation to called Him blessed. 
 
 X. Systematic Giving. Sy Rev. Dr. Date. 
 
 IT was easy to secure a general assent to two of the 
 principles of giving—namely, that giving should be con- 
 scientious, and that it should bear a just proportion to a 
 man’s income. But when they proceeded to urge that it 
 should be systematic also, they were met with grave objec- 
 tions. It was urged by some that giving on impulse was 
 far nobler than giving mechanically and on system ; it was 
 urged by others that it was impossible for persons whose 
 income varied from week to week and from month to 
 month to devote a definite portion of their income to the 
 
 service of God and the poor. If a man gave conscien- 
 
 tiously, and gave proportionately, they could not complain; 
 but how was it possible for a man who believed that he 
 ought to give a fair proportion of his income to maintain 
 the worship of God, to diffuse the Gospel, and to alleviate 
 the sufferings of the poor, to feel certain that he did that, 
 if he did not give systematically? No one disputed that 
 the larger a man’s income was, the more he ought to give ; 
 but it seemed to him an inevitable conclusion that the 
 giving ought to be exactly proportionate to their means. 
 There were many persons of kindly spirit and generous 
 disposition, the amount of whose giving depended on 
 accidental circumstances, as, for example, an eloquent 
 sermon or a powerfully-written appeal. It was no proof 
 
+4 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 of a man’s having given enough that he had given when he 
 was asked, or even that he had given what was expected. 
 If he ought to devote a certain proportion of his property 
 to God and the poor, he ought to do it whether he was 
 asked or not ; he ought to have some standard below which 
 his conscience would not allow him to fall, and, having 
 fixed the proper proportion at the beginning of the year, 
 whether appeals were made to him or not, he ought to take 
 care that by the end of the year that proportion was fully 
 and completely given. Some persons thought it quite 
 enough to give what they could spare. That was the most 
 curious standard conceivable. Why, he never took up a 
 catalogue of books without seeing the names of some that 
 he sadly wanted. He never saw a map of Europe in the 
 summer without feeling that his health would be a great 
 deal more vigorous if he could see in the autumn the Rhine 
 or the Tiber, the Rhone or the Danube. He never passed 
 the window of a toy-shop without seeing something that 
 would make four pairs of bright eyes at home look a great 
 deal brighter. The question, What could be spared? was 
 one by which duty in the matter of giving could never 
 be rightly determined. As regarded the proper propor- 
 tion to be given, it must be interesting to every thoughtful 
 man to observe how widely the practice of tithing had pre-— 
 vailed among both heathen and Christian nations as well — 
 as among the Jewish people. That practice existed among 
 the ancient people of Rome, among all the various tribes | 
 of ancient Greece, in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, © 
 and in Carthage. Under the Mosaic economy every Jew — 
 had to give at least two tithes of his property for God and © 
 the poor. But he (Mr. Dale) did not feel bound by the — 
 law of tithes. It seemed to him that while, under the old : 
 
 dispensation, God gave definite rules for the ordering of 
 human conduct, He now required men to give from the 
 principle of love. In the absence of the law of tithing he 
 thankfully said that, “knowing the grace of Jesus Christ,” 
 it became them to consecrate at least as much as the Jewish 
 nation. About the fourth century the principle of tithing” 
 began to be recognised in the Christian Church: it was_ 
 carried out subseqently in various forms; and that Society 
 now appealed to the public whether the practice of the 
 Jews, at least as regarded giving, was not binding upon 
 
SYSTEMATIC GIVING. 45 
 
 Christians. It had been said that to stop giving by 
 impulse would be to rob it of half its glory. But how sad 
 was it to the impulse not to have anything to give whena 
 strong appeal was made! and on that account, if on no 
 other, he might advocate systematic giving. If he thought 
 the Society likely to close up the springs of impulse, that 
 was certainly the last time he should ever appear on its 
 platform. But there was danger in impulse if it did not 
 lead to suitable action. When Christ’s heart was moved 
 with compassion, He healed the leper and multiplied the 
 five loaves into provision for five thousand ; and there they 
 had an illustration of the manner in which compassion and 
 beneficence might be beautifully blended. As for impulse 
 and enthusiasm, he supposed that if, after the Corinthians, 
 in response to Paul’s appeal, had laid aside according to 
 their means, they had wished to give more, the Apostle 
 would scarcely have objected ; and, in the like manner, in 
 these days ladies who gave their two guineas for a new 
 bonnet, might, if they pleased, indulge a generous impulse 
 after they had done what they felt bound to do system- 
 atically. Systematic giving meant putting a loaf in the 
 cupboard where there was none; it meant circulating the 
 Bible in distant lands ; it meant sending more missionaries 
 to India and China. Let it not be supposed that in 
 establishing this Society its founders meant to bring a 
 charge of want of liberality against the English public 
 generally. On the contrary, they were proud of the 
 liberality of their country, and especially of the manner in 
 which Englishmen recently gave for the relief of Lanca- 
 shire distress. But the way to test this matter was to 
 consider the pressing wants of our own and foreign lands, 
 They wanted to secure the regular progress of the ship by 
 means of the screw and the paddle; and if impulse after- 
 wards filled the sails, they would joyfully hail that additional 
 aid. They had nothing to fear as a nation with regard to 
 their position in the earth; but now that the country 
 was absorbed in commerce, let its old enthusiasm be 
 renewed in the wide-world diffusion of the Gospel, and in 
 the alleviation of human misery wherever it was to be 
 found. 
 
\ 
 
 46 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 aR REE 
 
 XI. Wesleyans and the Church of England. 
 By the DEAN OF CANTERBURY. 
 
 IT gave him great pleasure to be present, as he had for 
 years entertained the greatest respect for their body. He 
 believed that to them was due very much of the life now 
 to be found in the Church of England. Were John Wesley 
 now to return, he would see in the Church an earnestness 
 and real godliness which in his time were crushed out by 
 formalism. . He felt that he was doing nothing more than 
 his duty in offering his tribute to the founder of their body 
 for the great good he had done to the Church. For him- 
 self he believed that a good deal was gained by difference 
 of opinion. They were treading close upon the heels of 
 the Church Missionary Society, but he had no narrow feel- 
 ing on the subject, and he should be very sorry if the two 
 societies did not work together in love. He hoped that 
 the Society’s income would advance to a quarter of a million, 
 but of course he or his friends would keep ahead if they 
 could. They had the Bible in common, and as long as 
 they followed the precepts of that book, they would not be 
 far apart. Speaking of the advances of the Papacy, the 
 Dean said: “ There is that wonderful revival of medizval 
 superstition amongst us, and here I may give a reason why 
 I am grateful to this Society. You know that in our city 
 of Canterbury we have lately had cardinals, and dukes, 
 and bishops, and all sorts of people come down to open a 
 chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas a 
 Becket, as we know him), and yet the Church of England 
 has not done anything to right herself. But your body 
 has, because you have done something at Rome. Under 
 the freedom that now exists in Italy, there are four com- 
 munities who have appointed missionaries at Rome; but 
 the Church of England is not one of them, therefore they 
 are not ‘avenging me of mine adversary, but you are. 
 Under the walls of the Vatican you have established in 
 Rome itself a mission in which you are holding up that 
 lamp of light which we trust both the Church of England 
 and your body are holding up in this country ; therefore 
 I thank you for carrying to Rome that light which those at 
 Canterbury are endeavouring, if not altogether to put out, 
 at least to darken. Therefore I thank you very much for 
 
MISSION WORK IN LONDON. 47 
 
 the mission you have opened at Rome.” He then referred 
 to his visit to America, where he said he had several means 
 of seeing the greatness of their position. At one of the 
 meetings of the Evangelical Alliance a bishop was called 
 upon to open the proceedings with prayer, and the person 
 who rose up and answered this was a negro gentleman, a 
 bishop in the Episcopal Methodist Church of America ; 
 and a more simple, well-arranged prayer was not offered 
 during the whole of the meeting of the Alliance, or one that 
 was more thoroughly Biblical. Although many little things 
 had happened from time to time ruffling tempers on both 
 sides, he trusted that the Wesleyans and the Church of 
 England would in faith, love, and charity unite in winning 
 the world to Christ. 
 
 XII. Mission Work in the City of London. 
 By Rev. J. P. Cuown. 
 
 I CANNOT refuse the demand which you have made upon 
 me, and in saying a few words to you I should like to take 
 as a text the resolution which has been put into my hands. 
 The text is the committee, and allow me to say the most 
 important thing that has to be done this morning is the 
 choice of the committee, because whatever may be said 
 about the work in which you are engaged, the committee 
 are the men to doit. I remember, in connection with the 
 late Arctic expedition, what wonderful pains \,ere taken 
 about the ships, their stores, and all appertaining to their 
 appointment; but the great matter was about the men by 
 whom the officers and ships were to be manned. It was 
 felt that the success of the expedition would depend entirely 
 upon them. We all know if there is any work of special 
 danger or honour, there must be picked men into whose 
 care it shall be entrusted, and who shall feel the responsi- 
 bility that is laid upon them. Now you are choosing the 
 committee for your work next year; I want you to feel 
 that in doing so you pledge yourselves to render them 
 constant and generous support. You ask them to do this 
 great and glorious work. ia the Bible order giving is put 
 before praying. It is written: “ Prayer also shall be made 
 for Him continually,” when the giving has been attended 
 
48 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 to; “Daily also shall He be praised,” for the spirit of 
 praise is sure to follow. I never knew a giving soul anda 
 praying soul that was not a praising soul. I never knewa 
 Society that had the grace of giving and the grace of pray- 
 ing, that laid its gifts upon the altar and then prayed 
 “Thy kingdom come,” that had not a soul full of praise, 
 inspired with thankfulness and animated with joy. I want 
 you to supply the golden sinews for the war in which you 
 are calling upon your committee to engage—a holy war 
 to which they are pledging themselves with every form of 
 evil with which they may have to grapple, seeking the 
 deliverance of sinful men, and the advancement of the 
 glory of God. Then I want you to feel another thing, and 
 that is that you pledge yourselves to sustain your com- 
 mittee by your sympathy and prayer. You send them 
 as officers to gather together your forces, and to marshal 
 them for the battle, and to lead them on under the standard 
 of the Cross. Be it yours to be upon the mountain of 
 communion with God, with arms uplifted in earnest im- 
 portunate prayer that shall bring down a blessing, without 
 which the bravest spirit may never win. It is according 
 to the prayer on the hilltop that the tide of battle is turned 
 in the plain; and it is as the arms are uplifted in petition 
 that the arms that wield the sword and wave the standard 
 are made strong in the mighty power of God, and triumphant 
 in the great and glorious work. You send your committee 
 and the noble band of labourers under their care into the 
 waste, the desert places of the wilderness around. Be it 
 yours to be like Elijah upon the slopes of your Carmel 
 Mount, whence you shall pray to God who sends the 
 showers of rain, that the Divine blessing may descend— 
 nay, that He may come of whom it is said, “ He shall fall 
 like rain upon the mown grass, and the wilderness shall be 
 turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be as a 
 garden of the Lord.” I ask for this, brethren, on behalf of 
 your committee, because they are men who are worthy of 
 it. They are tried men; you know it in their character; 
 you hear it in their words. I see most of them have the 
 very becoming sign of conventional regard in the Esq. 
 added to the name; very proper and right. Well, I would 
 give them a diploma this morning, and I would ask you to 
 acknowledge it, as I know you will. I would put at the 
 
MISSION WORK IN LONDON. 49 
 
 end of the name of every one of them 7. 7.—tried and 
 true. It used to be said of the knights in the olden time 
 that they won their spurs. Why, this noble band of 
 warriors do win their spurs and everything appertaining 
 to the noble work of Christian chivalry in which they are 
 engaged of devotedness to the Master to whom they have 
 given themselves. I ask this from you because they are 
 representative men, and they have the whole Evangelical 
 Church of Christ embodied amongst themselves. They 
 have within them the different departments of the living 
 Church of the living God; and there is not one of you but 
 may feel that the interests of your Church are represented 
 in them. And while they, therefore, from the centre of 
 their instrumentality and labour extend their instrumen- 
 tality, be it yours from the circumference in every part of 
 the circle to gather closely to the centre in loving sympathy 
 and prayer, and our Lord’s petition shall be answered when 
 He said, “ Father, that they may be one in us, as Thou in 
 Me, and I in Thee.” That is Christian union. Wedo not 
 always understand it—it is not merely one with another. 
 I do not think much of that uniess we are quite sure that 
 it is done in the right spirit ; but if we are one with Christ, 
 and draw down the light that comes flowing into our souls, 
 we are sure to be one with Him. May I remind you 
 of the greatness of the work you ask these gentlemen to 
 undertake as a reason why prayer should be given on its 
 behalf. The City Mission is a great work in any ordinary 
 city ; but the London City Mission is one the magnitude 
 of whose work no thought can conceive, and no passion or 
 zeal that is merely human can ever adequately estimate. 
 We feel that we are doing a Divine work in “‘ beginning 
 at Jerusalem.” We are to go to the distant parts of the 
 earth, but it must be “beginning at Jerusalem.” Has it 
 ever occurred to you to remember with what Divine sym- 
 pathy and interest God seems to look upon great cities ? 
 He would have spared the cities of the plain if only ten 
 righteous men could have been found, though in the lowest 
 cottage within their boundaries ; unknown, or, if known, 
 only to be despised by the myriads who were spared 
 because they were amongst them. Do you not remember 
 how He sent His servant down to ancient Nineveh, and 
 hew He accepted their repentance when they prostrated 
 E 
 
50 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 themselves before Him ; and though the poor weak servant 
 was offended, the infinitely holy God was pleased with their 
 repentance, and pardoned their sin, and saved them from 
 the threatening that had been denounced? Do we not 
 remember how the Divine Lord sat there upon Mount 
 Olivet, how tears streamed from those eyes for those who 
 never wept for themselves, as He thought of the doom that 
 was coming upon them? We know that God is interested 
 in London, and we know it as truly as we know it of those 
 ancient cities and of Jerusalem. The very state of things 
 proves it must be so, and God has shown it in His dealings 
 with us. And oh, remembering the vastness of the field, 
 one which no arithmetic can calculate, and no geographical 
 boundaries can ever fill up, calling to mind that though, 
 more than any city in the world, it may be famed for its 
 philanthropical and Christian institutions, still what far- 
 stretching wastes there are of dreary ignorance, and sufter- 
 ing, and sin, and death that scarcely seem to be touched, 
 and what myriads there are who seem to be living in the 
 midst of it all unnoticed by any save our missionaries! 
 Look at the wonderful growth of the city, to be computed 
 by millions almost within the memory of living men; and 
 if we feel that a great city commands our concern, what 
 shall we say of that which is a world rather than a city, an 
 aggregate of cities rather than a city itself, and which 
 absorbs a great city into its population every year? And 
 then remember the influence that appertains to London. 
 London won to Christ, the world is won to Christ. London 
 brought to the feet of the Saviour should be like the great 
 mountain the prophet spoke of, in our land and among the 
 nations of the earth, to which all nations should say, “Come, 
 and let us go to the house of the Lord ;” and, catching 
 the sun’s bright beams, shall flash them forth on all the 
 earth, and the showers of heaven and streams from the 
 mountain being poured in living torrents upon the earth 
 beneath, the Divine glory shall be manifested, the whole 
 earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, and all 
 men shall call Him blessed. 
 
 r 
 a ee ee 
 
HOME -MISSIONS. gr 
 
 XIII. Home Missions. Jy Rev. HERBER Evans. 
 
 ON my railway route up here I passed a very extensive 
 nursery-garden—a large plot of ground set apart for the 
 propagation of all kinds of plants, shrubs, and young trees. 
 This nursery needs constant care, incessant watchfulness, 
 and careful gardening. It contains the reserve stock of 
 young plants for supplying failure by disease, accident, 
 and death in all the surrounding gardens, and private as 
 well as public parks. They are all indebted and they all 
 look to the nursery-garden for their supply. You in 
 London have heard the cheering news of the success of 
 the missionaries in the foreign fields, in the British colonies, 
 and the distant isles. To-night, sir, we have met to look 
 after the nursery-garden, to which they are all indebted. 
 Neglect this, and when your missionaries, and colpor- 
 teurs, and Bible translators fall in the far-off field of 
 battle, who shall take up the weapons dropping from 
 their dying hands? We must now, as of old begin at 
 Jerusalem. The Home Church must first be endued 
 with power from on high, else she can only send forth a 
 vacillating Peter, and a doubting Thomas. But once the 
 Holy Ghost comes upon us at the starting-point, then the 
 very same men are witnesses, apostles, martyrs, ready for 
 all Judea, Samaria, and unto the utmost parts of the earth. 
 We in Wales have learnt not to neglect our most insig- 
 nificant, our most out-of-the-way little Bethels, because 
 although they cannot give us a large collection towards 
 our colleges and public movements, yet our greatest 
 preachers have come from our small chapels, from these 
 little flocks in Israel How can you expect young men 
 to commence preaching in these large churches, full of I 
 don’t know how many doctors and critics? I should like 
 to know how many of you have tried it. No, a man likes 
 to try his wings in the village chapel—the country sanc- 
 tuary. Trawsfynyd in the mountains gave us our Williams, 
 and Llansanan, that never heard a railway whistle, gave 
 us our Henry Rees, and if a collecting-book for one of 
 these little interests happens to come in your way—some- 
 times, we do a little in that way—well, don’t throw it 
 aside—it may be towards a smali cause which will nurse 
 a man who will shake the world. When a late candidate 
 
- 
 
 §2 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 for the representation of Liverpool—I wish I could have 
 said more—visited some landed property in the country 
 the other day, a faithful brother had been on the watch for 
 him, with his collecting-book ready. He saw him climb- 
 ing one of our hills, followed him, and caught him just 
 as he got to the “Rest and Be Thankful,’ and having 
 presented his book, Mr. Caine, like a noble-hearted 
 Englishman and a Christian, received it with glee, and 
 shouted to his father-in-law climbing after him, “See, a 
 collecting-book has found me on the top of a mountain 
 in Wales,’ and Mr. Caine can now, I believe, claim the 
 honour of having subscribed to a chapel cause on a higher 
 ground and nearer to heaven than any man in Great 
 Britain. I say again that these small nurseries of our 
 great preachers and greater missionaries must not be 
 neglected. Truro, in Cornwall, must not be neglected, 
 else there will be no Henry Martyn to translate the New 
 Testament to the Persians. If you wish another William 
 Jones for India, the nursery-garden at Llanwrin must not 
 be overlooked. A sickly and bedwarfed Christianity at 
 home will never furnish the requisite labourers or the 
 necessary funds for the work in the foreign fields. What 
 can we do, then, to make this Society a greater power ? 
 We can strengthen and intensify our own conceptions of 
 duty. Take a Monday morning provincial newspaper, 
 and see the amount of drunkenness, brutality, and wife- 
 kicking that takes place from Saturday night until Mon- 
 day morning. Let any one read the black list, and tell 
 me that this Home Missionary Society is not wanted! 
 Yes, with its power increased a thousand-fold. Why, sir, 
 the very men who despise our work are great glorifers 
 of every other attempt to lessen physical evils. They are 
 prodigal of their praise when speaking about vaccination 
 and chloroform reducing to one-third the physical evils 
 suffered by our fathers. But how niggard they are of their 
 recommendation where a Home Missionary gives his life 
 to lessen these brutalities, to diminish the immoralities by 
 leading men and women to a higher, nobler, Christian life, 
 which does and must bring with it freedom from suffering. 
 What can we do? We ought to endeavour to make all 
 our Churches—what, in fact, the first Churches were— 
 local missionary associations. There are the classes in 
 
 —- 
 
HOME MISSIONS. 53 
 
 our Churches of which much more can be made in this 
 direction. First, the children. Is it not possible to pro- 
 duce an enticing, fascinating missionary catechism to teach 
 all the children of our Churches ? We have Band of Hope, 
 temperance, and theological catechisms without number, 
 and they have done good service. I, sir, never could learn 
 history until I got it in a catechism. A question always 
 provokes a lad to look for the answer. Why should we be 
 more anxious that our children should know how America 
 became free and Germany became one, than to know how 
 Polynesia was civilized and South Africa civilized? Why 
 should they know about Prince Bismarck and George 
 Washington, more than about John Williams, George 
 Whitfield, and Robert Moffat? Let us get a fascinating 
 missionary catechism, giving all the heroic names and 
 deeds of all the missionaries of Jesus, not of one denom- 
 ination, not of the foreign field only, but of every field and 
 every name. Let us educate them in this historic creed, 
 and they will know, and they will feel, and they will 
 sympathise, they will help, and we shall neither want 
 money nor have failure. Then come our ladies, sir, a 
 great power, lying dormant in almost every Church. Is 
 it possible that we are afraid to call forth this powerful 
 female help, lest it overwhelm us or perhaps outshine us? 
 I am glad to see in your report a call for female mission- 
 aries to visit mothers to urge them to send their children 
 to the Sunday and day schools. Not, alas! as a minister, 
 but as a member of a School Board, I can say “Amen” to 
 that. We have no need to fear the light, and we wish 
 to see our children educated. A traveller once passed a 
 gentleman’s park, and saw a notice on a board, “ Every 
 dog found in this park will be shot at once.” “Upon my 
 word,” says the traveller, “it is a serious thing for dogs in 
 this neighbourhood if they can’t read.” The man had an 
 idea, sir, that even dogs ought to know the laws con- 
 cerning themselves. But it is far more serious for a man 
 if he cannot read the laws of heaven and earth that bear 
 upon himself. We call, then, for female missionaries every- 
 where, to try and teach them the laws of God and man. 
 Let our Protestant mothers and sisters give the lie to that 
 assertion that it is the Roman Catholic religion alone that 
 can kindle their charity, labour, and perseverance. Oh, 
 
54 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 for the love of Mary, blended with the diligence of Martha, 
 the spirit of holy women of old, of those true brave 
 women who followed Christ from Galilee to Jerusalem, 
 ministering to Him, and who wept at the cross, and watched 
 at the sepulchre when Judas had proved a traitor and Peter 
 a coward! Women who adhered, who clung to Him and 
 His cause when all the world had deserted Him—oh, that 
 God would fill our Churches with such women again! 
 There is another class lying dormant in our Churches, 
 possessing great unexercised power—I mean those religious 
 stewards who always have plenty of time to look after 
 others, because they have nothing to do themselves. They 
 always speak of Christian workers in the Church in the 
 third person plural. They never say “we;” no, they 
 keep themselves separate, in order to have the right to 
 grumble at the work of everybody else. Don’t you know 
 them? Blessed is your experience then if you do not. 
 Ask one of them to pray; and he will complain, and 
 whine, and grumble for five minutes before he thanks God 
 for anything. He has marked the weeds in the whole 
 garden, but has missed every flower with its sweetness and 
 beauty. He knows every Judas within a ten miles cir- 
 cumference, but he has not seen a single John anywhere. 
 Do as you will, you cannot please his class. They are like 
 that cross-grained old farmer who caught a young girl 
 going through his field. “Who gave you leave to go 
 through that field?” “I thought there was a path.” “A 
 path; no, there is not.” -“Vll go back then bac 
 indeed! I own back and fore.” So she could not move 
 to please him. So of these idlers who are at large in Zion 
 —the religious grumblers of our congregations. You can 
 never please them. If you come back you are not doing 
 right ; if you go forward you are doing wrong. Oh, that 
 they would all unite to start a cause of their own! I 
 seriously say that would be the only means of enabling 
 them to taste the joy of serving Christ, and to bless their 
 generation. All members of our Churches who are not 
 Christian workers are great hindrances to earnest labourers, 
 and as lookers on, they are miserable themselves. Bos- 
 well was once on board a vessel in a violent storm, and, 
 like myself, was a very indifferent sailor, and as the ship 
 began pitching and tossing he rushed from sailor to sailor 
 
HOME MISSIONS. 55 
 
 asking, “Are we in danger?” and, of course, hindering 
 them in their work. One of the sailors, who was a bit of 
 a philosopher, at last said to him: “ Yes, we are in terrible 
 danger. Hold this rope; the ship is nearly sinking.” He 
 held it with all his might until the storm was over. The 
 sailor released him, saying, “There, now, you have been 
 holding a useless rope; but it has kept you out of the 
 way, and made you happy.” If we wish to add to the 
 peace and joy of our Churches, if we wish to treble their 
 power of good, let us endeavour to get every member to 
 lay hold of a rope, to do some work. Let us all stand up 
 for Jesus. Every Christian worker should be like an 
 orange tree, fragrant as well as faithful. The constant 
 complaint is want of men, and especially want of the 
 right men—men who can talk, and men who have some- 
 thing to talk about. We had an old Welsh preacher, Mr. 
 Chairman, full of what we call Zwy/, and that word is, like 
 many other Welsh things, untranslatable into English ; 
 but ZwyZ means inspiration—in the spirit to speak; and 
 this old brother once said in the pulpit, “ Oh, I am in the 
 spirit, in the hwyl to preach, if I had only something to 
 say!” A man who can talk, and who has nothing to say, 
 soon becomes a bore. You want men who can think, and 
 who will dare to say what they think, though they have 
 never heard it, nor seen it in a book before—men whe 
 believe that the Spirit inspires now. It used to be the 
 custom in Wales years ago to accommodate the ministers 
 at the homes of all the well-to-do farmers in every Church 
 month by month, The children were then brought into 
 contact with the ministers, and there was no dearth of 
 splendid preachers. Now, however—and it is something 
 for you to get a Welshman to confess a fall off in any- 
 thing in beautiful Wales—we have now fallen to imitate 
 our English neighbours, by appointing a settled house to 
 accommodate the preachers, and having thought seriously 
 of this—I hope my words will ring through the Princi- 
 pality—I say, “Open your doors again to the men of God 
 who preach the Gospel among you.” Remember the 
 Divine admonition—“ Be not forgetful to entertain stran- 
 gers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” 
 When I was a lad I was a member of a small country 
 chapel. We could only afford to get one sermon a 
 
56 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 
 
 Sabbath, and the remuneration for that one was always a 
 shilling. Well do I remember my first sermon in that 
 chapel, and that wonderful shilling! Nevertheless, out of 
 that little sanctuary in my time have come forth over a 
 dozen ministers of the Gospel. We were all taught to 
 respect the ministers of the Gospel. They came to our 
 houses and spoke to us of Jesus, until it became our 
 highest ambition to serve the same Master. I rejoice to 
 think of the showers of blessing now descending on the 
 Churches connected with your Society, because I have 
 always found that every revival in the Principality always 
 replenishes us with a.new stock of ministers full of fire 
 and of faith in the Holy Ghost. Old Williams, of Troed- 
 rhiwdalar, who left us the other day—(I knew him well)— 
 after preaching the Gospel with great power for seventy- 
 five years: many a time I have heard him break forth in 
 the midst of his sermon, “ You must excuse my warmth 
 and enthusiasm; I am one of the children of the old 
 revival at Llanwrtyd.” He deemed it a sufficient ex- 
 planation. Why, he could not speak of Jesus in his 96th 
 year without bubbling over with love, joy, and hwyl. “I 
 am a child of the old revival at Llanwrtyd.” Oh, for 
 thousands of such children as the fruit of this revival now! 
 Men born into the kingdom in the midst of strong faith, 
 with the love of God kindled within them into a flame of 
 such inextinguishable brilliance and power that will glow 
 and burn unto the end of a long patriarchal life. This 
 resolution requests the prayers of the meeting. Then we 
 do still believe in prayer? Yes, more firmly than ever. 
 This revival wave is spreading; we have heard of it to- 
 night in Devonshire, Somersetshire, Hampshire, and Dur- 
 ham, and it is passing over parts of the Principality. The 
 challenge was boldly asked as in the days of Job, “‘ What 
 profit should we have if we pray to Him?” The answer is 
 coming down, sir, from the everlasting God as it always 
 will come down, if there are only men full of faith to 
 accept the challenge. Yes, the answer is descending in 
 showers of blessing throughout the land. The Lord of 
 Hosts is with us, blessing the evangelists as the flying 
 column sent forth to do quick and effectual service, blessing 
 also the standing army of the disciplined ministry needed 
 to carry on the continued warfare. Let each one con- 
 
MISSIONARY QUALIFICATIONS. 57 
 
 secrate his best to the Lord, believing that there is a day 
 
 of retrospect to come for us in this world, and a day of 
 reckoning, a day of grand review in the next. Let every- 
 one present say, in the words of Dr. Guthrie’s favourite 
 motto, 
 
 “T live for those that love me, 
 For those that know me true, 
 For the heaven that smiles above me, 
 And waits my coming, too. 
 
 “ For the cause that needs assistance, 
 For the wrongs that need resistance, 
 For the future in the distance, 
 
 For the good that I can do.” 
 
 II. FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 I. Missionary Qualifications. By the Ricut Rev 
 BisHop ELLicorr. 
 
 THESE are days in which we hear strange things indeed 
 said as to the qualifications of those who shall go forth 
 into the great mission field. I am sure that at any rate 
 I may unreprovedly say that there are two very serious 
 heresies on this subject—two real missionary heresies, 
 which here we cannot but deeply deprecate, and one of 
 them is this—‘Civilize first and Christianize afterwards.” 
 How often do we hear this heresy put forward, sometimes 
 
 with simple and good intentions, and with a belief—an 
 
 innocent belief—that in the natural order of things it must 
 be so; sometimes, I fear, with other and very different 
 motives. But, I ask, can we here tolerate any such senti- 
 ment? What! is Christ, our Master and King, to wait 
 until the merchantman has made the way before Him? 
 Oh, no, my friends, civilize first and Christianize after- 
 wards is one of those expressions in regard to missionary 
 labour which we shall all, and especially in these times 
 when we hear it produced in so many different ways, 
 utterly and distinctly disavow. It is quite right that 
 the Christian missionary should likewise be himself the 
 pioneer of civilization. Let civilization go forward with 
 
58 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 Christianity—blessed by Christianity—but never let the 
 one—civilization—be placed before the other. I may here 
 say that we are acting on the principle I have mentioned. 
 Our missionaries are now recognising that their duty is 
 first of all to preach Christ crucified, and then, also, to 
 do everything that God the Holy Ghost puts into their 
 souls in the way of raising the heathen people among 
 whom they labour. Both must go together, but Christian- 
 izing and Christianity ever, ever first. The second heresy, 
 as I may venture to call it, in regard to the missionary 
 labour, and against which the noble sentence I have read 
 to you is a distinct protest, may be thus briefly formulated: 
 “Teach those with whom you have to deal by showing 
 them that Christianity is somewhat better than the religion 
 that the people you are speaking to may profess.” This 
 is a more deadly heresy, my dear friends, than the one I 
 have just alluded to; for what is it but putting in com- 
 petition with other religions the one true and only religion 
 —the belief in our Lord and Master. And here I would 
 say, let no one think that I am, as it were, fighting 
 shadows. Have we not heard, not so very long ago, lec- 
 tures in time-honoured edifices pointing in this direction ? 
 Have we not seen Christianity often placed on a kind of 
 level very little above that of other religions, and are we 
 not told that the way in which our missionaries may most 
 successfully work is to acquire a full knowledge of the 
 ancient religions, and, in fact, to show how Christianity is 
 a kind of improvement upon them. Now, my friends, God 
 forbid that our missionaries should ever act in such a spirit 
 as this. Good it is, God knoweth, and useful is it to study, 
 especially in some of the more cultivated nations, the 
 forms of ancient faith. I will say at once, in regard even of 
 my poor self and my own poor thoughts on this subject, 
 that some of the most fruitful hours of my passing life 
 have been spent in reading, with a kind of wonder and of 
 awe, some of the ancient hymns, say, ina work now hoar 
 with the rime of forty centurics—the “ Rig-Veda ”—a book 
 of Brahmanic praise. I make no pretence, but through 
 the medium of translations I have read, and wondered as 
 I read, the marvellous ethics of some of the great Bud- 
 dhist treatises—say such an old one as “ The Pathway of 
 Virtue.” I have read and I have wondered, and I have 
 
 a 
 
MISSIONARY QUALIFICATIONS. 59 
 
 felt that God has never left Himself without a witness in 
 the human heart ; nay, I have read, too, and that not with- 
 out profit, some of those wondrous hymns and invocations 
 which the reader will find in that strange, strange book of 
 religion, the “ Zend-Avesta” of the now dying-out Par- 
 sees. I feel too much sympathy to denounce such studies 
 as those, but I do earnestly protest against that mode of 
 reasoning and thinking in regard to missionary matters 
 which places our own religion in any degree of comparison 
 or relation to others. My dear friends, let the missionary 
 acquire that knowledge, for I believe it will be good and 
 useful to him; but let him know that the knowledge for 
 which he has to work in the hearts of those to whom he 
 speaks is one only—it is Christ crucified. What he has to 
 preach is that to which every human heart will listen— 
 every human heart—redemption. Redemption is_ that 
 which the missionary must bear—redemption through 
 Christ crucified is His message, and this message he must 
 preach as though it were different in degree, in kind, in 
 everything from every other message that the world has 
 yet received. I think that of all the mysteriously strange 
 thoughts that can occupy our minds, none is more strange 
 Or more mysterious than this—how such a religion as 
 Mohammedanism can hold the sway over the millions that 
 it does, and how at this present time it can be making 
 even, as I humbly believe them to be, despairing and 
 dying efforts, but still efforts that are such as have never 
 been known in anything like the experience of the last 
 century. How strange that such a religion—a religion 
 that those who are friends to no religion at all denounce 
 as one of the most foolish forms of faith that can be con- 
 ceived—should at the present time thrive ; and strange, 
 too, that in West Africa, for instance, it should be to some 
 extent spreading. Think for a moment if we take a 
 hundred as the basis of our calculation, that thirty or so 
 will represent the Christians; but how many to the 
 hundred are the Mohammedans, think you? Half as 
 many as there are Christians. I believe in “ Howe’s 
 Physical Atlas,” from which I am mentally quoting, Mo- 
 hammedans are placed as fifteen parts, while Christians are 
 only put as two. Is it not then, my dear friends, right that 
 there should have been a conference on such a subject as 
 
60 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 this, and that those who are qualified to entertain the sub- 
 ject should have conferred together ; and may we not look 
 with the deepest interest to the results of that conference 
 as showing themselves in increased effort in the Moham- 
 medan world? For my own part I share the hope expres- 
 sed, I think, by Sir Bartle Frere, in his admirably-written 
 work on East Africa, in which he seems to ascribe such 
 progress as has been made by Mohammedanism to the 
 fact that Mohammedanism tends always, especially among 
 such classes as the African natives, to raise them in the 
 social scale, to civilize them, and to call them up into a 
 position superior to that which they at present enjoy; and 
 I learn from this most valued source that the converts to 
 Mohammedanism are received on the easiest terms. What 
 can be more captivating to one of those poor forlorn West 
 or East Africans than to find himself suddenly raised from 
 the lowest point of social degradation to share, as it were, 
 the honours of the masters of the country to which they 
 belong? These, I believe, are the reasons why Moham- 
 medanism is making some degree of despairing advance, 
 and we may thankfully rejoice that our Society has at once 
 seen the deep necessity of meeting the evil of this marvel- 
 lous, and in some degree mysterious, effort on the part of 
 a false religion. With all. thankfulness must we have 
 heard about the increase everywhere and the development 
 of the native pastorate. Oh, my dear friends, there is 
 nothing that can give us more true and real encourage- 
 ment than seeing that God the Holy Ghost is now speak- 
 ing to those darkened nations through people speaking 
 their own language. We may rejoice, too, at another sign 
 —a sign that perhaps we should pass over as scarcely 
 worthy of our notice, but it is a very important sign— 
 namely, that those native Churches are beginning to realize 
 the duty of being self-sustaining. We do not for one 
 moment take what I may speak of as a mere mercantile 
 or pecuniary view of the matter. It isa blessing that it 
 should be so that, taking a mercantile view of the matter, 
 the funds needed may be transferred elsewhere; but I ask 
 you to look deeper into it—look at the motives when those 
 poor souls with so little are ready to spend that little in 
 sustaining the Church to which they belong! What does 
 that say for their sincerity and their earnestness? We all 
 
MISSIONARY QUALIFICATIONS. 61 
 
 of us belong to a country that estimates, very often, a 
 man’s earnestness by his liberality, and in this case we see 
 that out of their deep poverty these native Churches are 
 beginning to glorify God by sustaining themselves. And 
 the report also reminds us that they are going one step 
 further, and God be praised for it, they are now beginning 
 to send out missions. This is the most encouraging thing 
 —they are beginning to send out missions to their own 
 poor darkened brethren. I might name many instances, 
 but I could perhaps hardly choose one more instructive 
 than that connected with the Yoruba-land Mission. There 
 we know very well the moral tone of the people is very 
 low. The poor inhabitants of Yoruba-land are very dark, 
 and yet amid all this they are struggling, through district 
 visitors and others, to go forth and teach their brethren. I 
 forget whether the words were read; but if they were, I 
 may venture to read them again: “ District visitors volun- 
 tarily labour as evangelists among their heathen and 
 Mohammedan fellow-townsmen.” And again, in another 
 portion of the same paper, it is said that “those poor crea- 
 tures are now going forward in the strength of the Holy 
 Ghost to preach and to do the duty of apostles and mis- 
 sionaries.” Do not, then, my dear friends, these things 
 give us all great and ever-increasing ground for thanks 
 that a future, and a mighty future, is opening before us. 
 Whether we look to the Church in Africa, to which such 
 deeply interesting allusions have been made by my valued 
 friend, our President, or whether we look at cultivated 
 India, we see and’ we read in the statements of those who 
 are qualified to inform us the same encouraging facts. I 
 read, for instance, in reference to poor uncultivated Africa, 
 this very, very fruitful remark of Sir Bartle Frere: “Tribes 
 seem only to need that moral bend which is supplied by 
 Christianity.” It is as though Africa was now wanting— 
 Africa was now appealing to us for help, as in the case of 
 that Nyanza Mission. Oh, how that speaks to earnest 
 hearts when the heathen King of Uganda sends for Chris- 
 tian missionaries to come to him, and when, thank God, 
 our liberality towards the mission that is fitting out has 
 not been wanting. If there is any mission that I might 
 venture to commend more particularly to your goodwill 
 than another, it is the mission which, as we have heard, is 
 
62 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 —— 
 
 working its way from the eastern coast of Africa towards 
 its centre—that Nyanza Mission which will very soon be 
 gathered together, and go forth to its mighty work. And 
 last of all, have we not also great encouragement from 
 what is going on in such a country as India? I do not 
 know that I could do better than to quote two or three 
 sentences from what has been stated by a most competent 
 and at the same time a most unprejudiced observer, a 
 distinguished professor of Sanscrit, Professor M. Williams, 
 who has lately come back from India, and published his 
 impressions of that country in a deeply interesting letter 
 that appeared in the Zzmes. In that letter I noticed these 
 words. He spoke of Christianity, and his remark was that 
 it was doing much by way of education. I venture to 
 think that the distinguished professor in some degree 
 undervalued what Christianity is now doing in India; but 
 at any rate he bore witness to this fact, that it is furthering 
 education, and education is causing a great upheaving of 
 thought and of old creeds. He adds further the encourag- 
 ing statement that the ancient fortress of Hinduism is 
 being undermined, and he says in addition to all this, that 
 our Indian missionaries know full well that the complete 
 disintegration of ancient faiths is in progress in the upper 
 strata of Indian society. What encouragement, my dear 
 friends, is there in words such as these. What calls now 
 seem to be addressed to us on every side. Persia now 
 opening herself to us; India gradually changing; more 
 readers than were ever known before in the Punjaub. 
 Our dear Lord and Master seems calling to us to go for- 
 ward to our mighty labours, and can we, I ask, resist the 
 call? There must be more men, more money, more en- 
 thusiasm. It is Christ our Master who calls; wherefore, 
 my dear friends, let us obey the heavenly calling, and as 
 well as we may, go forward. 
 
 II. Progress of Modern Unbelief, and Christian 
 Missions. Jy Rev. G. S. BaRRETY. 
 
 THERE are a great many signs in our modern English life 
 which seem to me to threaten the earnestness and vitality 
 of our Christian work. ‘The absorbing pursuit of wealth, 
 the undermining of the spiritual tone of our Churches by 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 63 
 
 the habits and luxuries of an advanced civilization, the 
 introduction into England of a great many things which 
 had far better have been kept across the channel, and, 
 above all, the prevalence of what threatens to be England’s 
 national vice, the love of drink, are all signs of evil omen 
 in our modern English life. But I refer to another danger, 
 when I say that Christian missions may be entering upon 
 a new and more perilous period of their history. I refer 
 to the perils to which Christian missions and the faith 
 which underlies them are exposed from the progress of 
 modern unbelief, and that is the subject on which I wish 
 to say a few words. I need not take up your time by 
 proving the existence of a vast amount of unbelief in 
 Europe at the present day. The signs of it you see every- 
 where. A very distinguished writer has assured us with a 
 confidence which, at least, proves that dogmatism is not 
 confined to theologians, that Christianity has been touched 
 by the spirit of the age, and is melting away. There can 
 be no doubt that our position in regard to Christian mis- 
 sions is very different from what the position of our fathers 
 fifty years ago was. They had to defend the preaching of 
 Christ to the heathen ; we are challenged as to the Christ 
 we preach. It is no longer a question of whether it be right 
 to send the Gospel to all nations; it is, “Have we any 
 Gospel at all tosend?” I myself think, however, that the 
 present phase of unbelief will not last very long; but the 
 religious atmosphere of Europe at present reminds me of 
 what some of us have seen in the morning when we have 
 been in Scotland, when the mist has crept up from the 
 valley, and very soon all the landscape—even the very 
 mountains themselves—have been hidden from view. 
 Something like that mist has been creeping over the land- 
 marks of religious faith to-day ; and I do not wonder that 
 a great many Christian people are very seriously concerned 
 about it. Will you permit me just to say this one word by 
 way of consolation? Do not forget that, though the mist 
 may conceal the mountains, it cannot remove them; and 
 though men do not see for a time the great realities of our 
 faith, though we are told that Christianity is melting away 
 —wait a little, wait till the sun shines again, wait till the 
 light of God’s truth bursts out upon this modern unbelief, 
 and then see if our Christianity is melting away. Like the 
 
$4 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 —_— 
 
 mountains, it stands fast for ever and ever. But though the 
 great fact of our Christian faith thus stands fast, our alle- 
 giance to it may be shaken ; and that is what I am afraid 
 of. And it seems to me that there are two ways in which 
 this spirit of the age may affect our hearty allegiance to 
 the great realities of the Christian faith. First of all, there 
 is a danger that we may hold with a slackened grasp, in 
 consequence of the discussions of recent times, the great 
 truth which, I venture to say, is the foundation of every 
 missionary society; that there is only one Saviour and 
 Prince of mankind, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 The way in which this doubt, this loosening of our faith, 
 begins is very gradual. Itis not denied that Christ is a 
 Saviour; it is not denied that Christ is one of the great 
 religious teachers of the race; but what is questioned is 
 this: Is He the only Saviour? Is He the only religious 
 teacher of the race? That is the way in which the doubt 
 begins, and then presently some one comes forward, and 
 suddenly parades before us the truth, as if it were a recent 
 discovery of the spirit of the age—that God reveals Himself 
 in many ways to man. Why, we had learned that long 
 ago. It lies on the first page of St. John’s Gospel—“ The 
 light is shining in the darkness; but the darkness com- 
 prehendeth it not.” And then books are written—and I 
 am not here to say a single word against these books 
 —on the religions of mankind. They are very learned 
 books; they are very charming books to read, but they 
 are books confessedly dealing, not with the facts—the 
 sad, terrible facts—of heathenism, as our missionaries see 
 them with their own eyes every day, but they deal with the 
 philosophy, the ethical teaching of the founders of these 
 faiths ; and let me say, they do not give us all their ethical 
 teaching. They take great care to pick out a few grains of 
 gold from amidst a multitude of sand. Books are written, 
 and then this doubt begins to feel a little more courage, 
 and stands up, and commences to quote Mr. Tennyson. 
 Doubt is very fond, by the way, of quoting Tennyson— 
 fonder than it is of quoting the New Testament—and it 
 says, “God fulfils Himself in many ways.” Here in Europe 
 is one way, there in China is another way, in India is 
 another way, and the result is this at the end, that even 
 though some reverence be retained for Christ as a religious 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 65 
 
 teacher, it is only the reverence given to Him as one 
 amongst many. He has no more exclusive claim on the 
 homage and faith of mankind than Confucius or Buddha, we 
 are told: He is one of the great religious reformers of the 
 race. Now, what is very remarkable is this: this kind of 
 unbelief is very much offended if you call it unbelief. I call 
 it unbelief, and unbelief of the deadliest kind ; but it prefers 
 to call itself broad theology. One thing at least is certain , 
 it may be broad theology, but it is not the theology of the 
 apostles of Christ. The men that lived with the Lord 
 Jesus, who knew most of His mind, did not believe for one 
 moment that religion was like food, simply a question of 
 taste, for a race. They did not believe that truth varied 
 with different degrees of longitude. All through their 
 writings, from first to last, you can trace this conviction 
 running, burning like a fire in their bones,—‘ Neither is 
 there salvation in any other, for there is none other name 
 given under heaven among men, whereby we may be saved.” 
 They may have been in doubt about a great many things 
 in connection with the revelation of* Christ ; there was no 
 uncertainty here. The rock on which they built everything 
 was this—not a philosophy, not an opinion, but a solid, 
 impregnable, historical fact. We have seen and do testify 
 that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the 
 world.” Other revelations from God to man? Why, they 
 never denied it. Their own Judaism was one of the prin- 
 cipal ones; but no other revelation of God, no other in- 
 carnation, save this, “ The Word was made flesh.” This is 
 the final, complete utterance of God’s will for man—‘“ God, 
 who at sundry times and in divers manners hath spoken 
 in times past, hath in these latter days spoken unto us 
 by His Son.” Now, I do not pretend to say how far this 
 so-called broad theology has become the theology of any of 
 our ministers or Churches; but I do venture to say this— 
 if it has become the theology of any of our Churches, do 
 not look to them for any very constant or considerable help 
 in the missionary enterprise—and if ever (which may God 
 forbid!) it should become the leading theology of our 
 Churches, I think you may date from that day the begin- 
 ning of the end of our missionary enterprise. I do not 
 say that our missionary societies won’t go on for a time. 
 Machinery does not stop all at once when you shut off the 
 i, F 
 
56 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 steam; nor do missionary societies; but they will sttp, 
 nevertheless. I am sure that there is no power, no spiritual 
 force, strong enough to drive the wheels of the mighty work 
 of the evangelization of the world, save that power which 
 springs from the conviction that as there is one mathe- 
 matics, one science, just as true in China as here in England, 
 so there is but one religion, one Saviour, one King, who is 
 King of kings, and Lord of lords. But we are told that all 
 this is nonsense. We have been informed that it is quite 
 possible for.our missionary societies to go on doing their 
 work, although we may not hope to convert the world to 
 Christianity. It is said to us, “ You forget that Christianity 
 is more than a religion; it is a civilization as well. Well, 
 now, let your missionaries take their printing-presses and 
 their books, and do not forget to put in a few copies of 
 Matthew Arnold’s work (he is growing now in grace and 
 peace)—the old St. Matthew is a little worn out—and let 
 them go out to the heathen, content with the humbler work, 
 but not less useful, of educating and refining and civilizing 
 these savage races.” Very well; but before we turn our 
 missionary societies into limited companies for the promo- 
 tion of civilization, I want to ask this question, “ Where are 
 the missionaries to come from?” Who is going to take the 
 printing-press, the books, and all these copies of Matthew 
 Arnold's works into the distant and rude nations of the 
 world? Why, you won't find the men. I never yet heard 
 of a band of cultured unbelievers, even though they might 
 have discovered the secret of Jesus, saying, “ We wili give 
 up father and mother, and houses and lands, and even 
 writing for the Contemporary Review itself. We will give 
 up all these things for the sake of civilization? We will go 
 to Cannibal Island, if you like; they may eat us, but it 
 won’t matter; we do not count our lives dear to us for 
 civilization’s sake.” I never heard the names of any of these 
 self-denying heroes of culture. The fact is, civilization is 
 just about as selfish as human nature is. It objects to be 
 eaten. It prefers (I do not blame it for preferring, because 
 it is civilization) the sweet reasonableness of society at 
 home to being called, as my brother is, a foreign devil in 
 Shanghai, or being cooked and eaten in some island of the 
 South Seas. On the other hand, who are the men of whom 
 the world is not worthy who have gone out leaving theif 
 
 —— 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 63 
 
 English life and English homes? They have not been 
 inspired by a passion for civilization—no, they are the 
 successors of the apostles, the true Apostolical Succession 
 this. I do not think we wanted a second in Madagascar. 
 They are the successors of Paul and Barnabas—men who 
 hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus. Ask 
 them the secret of their devotion to the missionary cause ; 
 ask them why many of them deliberately abandoned the 
 chances of intellectual distinction in England; ask them 
 why they have gone out, some of them to live in countries 
 where to live means to suffer—and they will tell you, not 
 for civilization, but for the sake of Him who, of His own 
 deep and infinite love, has looked down upon us and said, 
 “For My sake and the Gospel’s.” Of course they carried 
 something more than the Gospel with them ; or I would 
 -rather put it thus—because they carried the Gospel, they 
 carried something more with them. The missionaries of 
 Christ have always been missionaries of civilization. Asa 
 matter of fact, and it has been alluded to again and again 
 on this platform, the missionaries of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 have always been the pioneers in the work of civilization. 
 Who began the work in Madagascar? Our missionaries. 
 Who began the work in the South Seas? Not “The Earl 
 and the Doctor.” Earls and doctors, you know, go to 
 visit South Sea Islands; they do not go to civilize, but to 
 criticise. “I came, I saw (for a day), I criticised,” is their 
 motto. But who did the work there? Why, our mis- 
 sionaries. Who carried the printing-press into the heart 
 of South Africa? Who made the road there, along which 
 perhaps fifty years hence some conceited critic of mis- 
 sionary work will travel? Who, but that dear and honoured 
 friend Dr. Moffat, who seems like a tree planted by the 
 rivers of water, that bringeth forth fruit, not merely, in 
 season, but in old age? Who are doing the work of 
 culture and civilization all over the world to-day—who but 
 the missionaries ot Christ? All this istrue. But—lI say it 
 openly—I scorn to rest the claims of a missionary society 
 on the civilizing work which our missionaries are doing, 
 and I| say again, the faith, the only faith that is the inspira- 
 tion and strength of this missionary work; the faith that 
 animated such men as Henry Martyn, and Carey, and John 
 Williams, and our own Moffat—was not the faith that 
 
68 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 believed in the spelling-book and printing-press only: it 
 believed in them, but it believed in something far nobler 
 than them ; it believed that India, and China, and Africa 
 needed Christ as much as Europe did; it, believed that 
 Christ came into the world to save sinners, not in Europe 
 alone. It wasa faith that yearned with a changeless loyalty * 
 to the throne of Christ, to see Him crowned King of kings, 
 and Lord of lords. Touch that faith, weaken it, you weaken 
 the very mainspring of our modern missionary enterprise ; 
 abandon that faith, and our missionary societies will not 
 last twenty years. Of course this does not imply that we 
 think that our Christianity should take the same form of 
 intellectual expression or ecclesiastical organization in the 
 East that it does in the West. We do not care about the 
 form. Let the water of life take its shape from the vessel 
 that holds it. All we care about is this: it is the water of 
 life, and it is because we believe it is, because that river flows 
 from beneath the throne of God and of the Lamb; that on 
 its banks, and there alone, grows the tree of life, whose leaves 
 are for the healing of the nations; it is because we believe 
 this that we cannot but dig the channels into every land, 
 ay, into the desert and the solitary place, that into every 
 spot the life-giving stream may flow; and it shall come to 
 pass—for the old words are true to-day—that everything 
 which moveth, whithersoever the river shall come, shall 
 live. I have not left myself time to do more than just 
 briefly refer to the second danger to which our missionary 
 enterprise is exposed from the spirit of the age. I refer to 
 the temporary decay—for I believe it is only temporary — 
 which modern doubt is introducing in our belief in the 
 future punishment of sin. There was a time—lI daresay it 
 is within the recollection of most of us here—when the 
 principal motive appealed to at the public meetings of this 
 Society in the support of it was the eternal doom that 
 awaited the nations that knew not God. That time has 
 gone by. The very phrase, “the perishing heathen,” I do 
 not remember to have heard for years. We seldom hear 
 anything at our missionary meetings of the danger or the 
 judgment which the nations that die without Christ may 
 incur from Christ’s hands. Now, I say frankly, I do not 
 regret this. “We make no judgment as to the final and 
 eternal condition of the heathen.” But what I ask is this; 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 64 
 
 s 
 Is there no judgment being made—a judgment the reverse 
 of the old and terrible one? It was once assumed that, 
 because they were heathen, without a doubt they would 
 perish everlastingly. It seems now to be assumed equally 
 without doubt, that because they are heathen they shall be 
 saved everlastingly. I speak with great diffidence, and 
 with a sense of responsibility ; but I think I see indications 
 of a spirit amongst our Churches which, if it means any- 
 thing, means this: that the perils of moral probation in 
 England vanish when you reach China or India. We seem 
 to forget that there is quite as much danger in an unscrip- 
 tural charity as there is from an unscriptural severity. At 
 any rate, I am not sure that the deep and intense yearnings 
 which the founders of this Society felt for the souls of the 
 heathen, that intense longing for their salvation, the longing 
 which, in tears and prayers, laid the foundation of this 
 Society—I am not at all certain that that yearning and 
 longing are not becoming rare amongst us; and it is no 
 sign for good if they be. Whatever theory you may hold 
 as to the future state of the heathen—and I confess frankly 
 I have none—this is certain: that any theory that lessens 
 your concern to preach Christ to them is by that fact self- 
 condemned. Refuse, if you like, to speculate as to their 
 eternal condition, but do not refuse to preach Christ to 
 them. Whilst we are discussing, they are sinning—sinning, 
 it is true, without law; but I remember that there are 
 words—words dark and mysterious, I know, but whose 
 very darkness may cover some judgment for them—“ For 
 as many as have sinned without law shall perish without 
 law.” At any rate this is certain: whatever their respon- 
 sibility—and we can leave it with our God—our respon- 
 sibility is clear. We are entrusted with the Gospel, and it 
 is ours to obey Christ’s command, “Go ye out into all the 
 world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” I heard 
 the other day a simple but touching story—many of you 
 may have heard it; if so, you will forgive my repeating it 
 —which perhaps may serve not only to conclude these 
 remarks, but to deepen our sense of the enormous mass of 
 work that yet remains to be done. A company, I think 
 of gipsies, had encamped near a town. A lady who was 
 occupied in doing the Master’s work, and going to seek the 
 lost, asked permission to be allowed to enier one of the 
 
yo PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 vans. After some delay, she was allowed; and she found 
 upon entering, a poor boy lying on a wretched bed, and 
 evidently at the very point of death. She spoke to him 
 kindly, but she received no answer. Then stooping down, 
 she whispered in his ear the old verse, and oh, what a 
 biography God is writing of that verse! “God so loved the 
 world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life.” There was no reply. A second time she repeated 
 the same words, and a second time no notice was taken of 
 what she said; and then a third time kneeling down, she 
 whispered into his ear the same words; and then the eyes 
 already glazed in death opened, and the thin white lips 
 moved, and the whisper came out, “ Nobody never told me 
 this before, but thank Him kindly for it.” What a rebuke 
 to us, brethren, in those words. At this moment there are 
 myriads of men and women and little children for whom 
 Christ died, and whom He loves as much as He loves 
 you and me, who, if they were to hear that old verse, 
 “God so loved the world,” would say, “ Nobody never 
 told me this before.” There are hearts, dark and degraded 
 I know, foul with all the nameless vices of heathenism ; 
 but hearts that Christ's blood can cleanse, that might 
 turn to Him with a look of love, and say, “Thank Him 
 kindly for it.” I ask you, I ask myself, “What are we 
 doing to tell the world of the infinite love of God in 
 Christ?” Others will speak to you of the claims of this 
 Society ; but I, as the son of a missionary, and the brother 
 of a missionary, cannot sit down without saying one word 
 to the young men. I see numbers of young men present 
 here to-day. Many of you are hoping to become heads of 
 large business establishments in this city ; many of you, 
 I daresay, have the ambition to take your share in the 
 great political agitations of the State. It is an honourable 
 ambition; but a nobler ambition is before you. The 
 love of Christ may constrain you, and, filled with the 
 grandeur and glory of Christ’s kingdom, that kingdom 
 which shall have no end, you may to-day on your knees 
 say to Him, “Lord, thou hast said the harvest truly is 
 plenteous, but the labourers are few; Lord, wilt Thou take 
 me as one of the labourers for Thy harvest?” It may 
 require sacrifices, but you will not speak of sacrifice to 
 
 —_— ——————— 
 
WORKING WITH GOD. 7 
 
 Christ in the presence of His Cross. Men may sneer at 
 you, or blame you; even your friends may question your 
 motives ; but that will not move you. You have given up 
 your life to the noblest of all works; the work that an 
 archangel which surrounds the throne of God may well 
 envy—the work of preaching Christ to the heathen. That 
 is enough. And often and often when you go to your 
 work in the far-distant land amidst days of loneliness and 
 toil, away from all the English love and English home 
 which now surrounds you, Christ will come, and, oh! He 
 will come with that look and smile which means, “Well 
 done, good and faithful servant.” Talk of sacrifice with 
 Christ’s look thus upon you! You will say— 
 “Happy if with my latest breath 
 I may but speak His name ; 
 
 Preach Him to all, and cry in death, 
 Behold, behold, the Lamb !” 
 
 III. Working with God. Sy Rev. C. H. Spurceon. 
 
 I AM always sorry when you cheer me at the commence- 
 ment, because you little know how you will be disap- 
 pointed. If you will read the report, I think you will be 
 greatly pleased with it. It is not only full of interesting 
 matter, but it is exceedingly well written. I cannot say 
 that I am a general admirer of reports. I usually find, 
 when I cannot sleep at night, that a report is one of the 
 best things I can take. But this report lacks the soporific 
 element altogether, and there are many admirable sentences 
 in it worth quoting. I shall quote one or two, perhaps, 
 before I have done, as I could not say anything so good 
 myself. The spirit of gratitude reigns supreme in the 
 hearts of all who have done anything for the Society ; but 
 I earnestly hope that you who have not done anything will 
 not feel much personal gratitude, but rather feel a little 
 shame at not having had a share in that for which the rest 
 have a right to be grateful. We will begin by being honest, 
 and every man who has contributed his mite will now bless 
 and magnify the Lord that there has been a somewhat 
 larger harvest. If we have not sown one single grain of 
 it, perhaps it were better that repentance should take the 
 place of a spirit of gratitude, and that reformation should 
 
72 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 follow, and that we should begin at once to do something 
 for the Master. Yet, even with you there may be gratitude 
 that others have done the work if you have not. So we 
 will altogether join in praising, and blessing, and magnify- 
 ing the Lord that somewhat better has been done this year 
 than last year, and that God has smiled upon our work, I 
 am grateful for the success of which the report speaks. It 
 is a great blessing to have success. Of course we all know 
 —at least, all those who have empty chapels know—that 
 large congregations are no criterion of success. Large 
 numbers of persons added to a Church are no evidence of 
 the Divine blessing whatever; in fact, there may be a 
 greater blessing resting upon empty pews than upon a full 
 house, and if a Church decreases sensibly from year to year, 
 that may be only a proof of the high faithfulness of the 
 man who would not condescend to a theology so popular 
 and so vulgar that it draws the multitude. You know how 
 the thing is done. Now I, who do not sympathize with 
 that, nevertheless say that I am thankful for success; but 
 I feel in my heart a deeper gratitude to God for permission 
 to work for Him. I could bow at His feet and bless His 
 name if He would only let me be a little ant, and live at 
 His feet ; if He only would not crush me, and let me live 
 there, and carry grains of sand for Him throughout eternity. 
 It seems to me to be one of the highest gifts of His grace 
 to be permitted to take any share whatever in His grand 
 enterprise of the salvation of the sons of men, and I invite 
 you to be grateful to-night that God smiles on our success ; 
 and even if there had not been any success, I should invite 
 you to be grateful that He’permits you to serve Him, I 
 think we lack one evidence of the perfect reconciliation of 
 our souls to God until we get to do something for Him. I 
 have pictured to my mind sometimes the younger son 
 coming home to his father, and his father falling on his 
 neck and kissing him, and waking that great festival with 
 music and dancing. But I can imagine the father when the 
 market-day came round, sending the elder son to market 
 to sell the corn and the fat beasts, and the younger son 
 being kept at home; and I can suppose the father saying to 
 himself, “ I don’t know ; I love my younger son, but I can’t 
 trust him. I don’t think it right to put him in any position 
 of responsibility as yet.” And I can suppose that might ge 
 
WORKING WITH GOD. 7 
 
 on for weeks and months, the younger son being always 
 kept at home, occupied upon such duties as might be al- 
 lotted to him, but never being allowed to do anything that 
 required trust, and at last the feeling came in his heart: 
 “ My father, I have no doubt, has gone as far in forgiveness 
 as he can, but he has not forgotten, and I can see that my 
 elder brother is always sent where there is any responsi- 
 bility and trust, and my father cannot trust me yet.” I 
 think he would feel it in his inmost soul. And it would 
 only be at last when his father would entrust him with 
 some treasure, some family heirloom, or send him out upon 
 some important work, that he would say : “ At length I have 
 the child’s place again ; I have got back full into my father’s 
 heart, and now I am as dear to him as my eldest brother.” 
 Paul seemed to feel something of that kind when he thanked 
 God that He had put Him in trust with the Gospel. It 
 was the grandest trust that can be given, and He trusted 
 such a sinner as Saul of Tarsus with it, and he thanked 
 God, saying, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all 
 the saints, is this grace given that I should preach amongst 
 the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” It becomes 
 a token of complete reconciliation when the Lord allows us 
 to get to work for Him in that department which is the 
 dearest to His heart, which He accounts as the apple of 
 
 His eye, for which, in fact, the Saviour shed His blood. ~ 
 Moreover, I do not see how our sense of oneness to Christ 
 could ever have been perfected if we had not been per- 
 mitted to work for Christ. If He had been pleased to save 
 us by His precious blood, and then leave us with nothing 
 to do, we should have had fellowship with Christ up to a 
 certain point, but (I speak from experience) there is no 
 fellowship with Christ that seems to me to be so vivid, so 
 real to the soul, as when you get to try and win a soul for 
 Him. Oh, when you come to battle with that soul’s diffi- 
 culties, to weep for that soul’s hardness; when you come 
 to set the arguments of Divine mercy before it, and find 
 yourself foiled ; when you are in a very agony of spirit, 
 and feel that you could die sooner than that soul should 
 perish, then you get to read the heart of Him whose flow- 
 ing tears, and bloody sweat, and dying wounds showed 
 you how much He loved poor fallen mankind. You must 
 have something of this sort to do. The Church wants 
 
74 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 mission work to lift her up to a proper elevation, in 
 which she may begin to know the great heart of Christ 
 in the right sense, and to understand something of Him 
 
 who came into the world to seek and to save that which was — 
 
 lost. I felt, when coming here, that I would give any- 
 thing to get off the task, because I feel utterly incom- 
 petent to deliver a missionary speech; but I question 
 
 whether any man ever spoke in a tone equal to the weight 
 
 or this wondrous subject—missions, the work of evan- 
 gelizing the world. Ah, ye orators! if this were a fit theme 
 fo. you, you might expend yourselves there. All human 
 eloquence and forcible speech might quail before such a 
 
 migh-y subject. I shall not attempt to measure it, but will _ 
 
 say a few words to you on the privilege which God has 
 granted to us in allowing us to be co-workers with Him in 
 the gati‘ering out of His elect from among mankind, and 
 in the ultimate conquest of the entire world for Christ. 
 For I believe to this moment in the ultimate win- 
 ning of the whole world for Christ. I cannot go in for 
 that theory of the ship breaking up out there and cannot 
 be saved, and that we have to snatch a few off the wreck. 
 It is a most pleasant theory, because it allows one to sleep 
 at night, and not be troubled about men’s souls. I like 
 nothing that makes me feel easy about my fellow-creatures’ 
 souls. I always denounce as error that which operates 
 upon my spirit to make me less concerned about the im- 
 mediate salvation of my fellow-men. It is a high privilege 
 that God has given us to be associated with Him in this 
 work. In the creation He made the world alone; yet when 
 He put the man into the garden, He bade him dress and 
 keep it; there was a little fellowship between man and his 
 Maker in creation—not much. Then came redemption, 
 and in the payment of that wondrous price by which we 
 were redeemed we could have no communion; He must 
 pay it all who has (blessed be His name!) paid it all. But 
 then in the application of that redemption there is an op- 
 portunity given us to have fellowship with Jesus. In the 
 telling out of the good news, and in being the instrument 
 under God of impressing men’s hearts, the Holy Spirit 
 working through us, we are enabled to have most extra- 
 ordinary communion with Christ, much closer fellowship 
 with Christ than some have ever yet attributed to human 
 
WORKING WITH GOD. 75 
 
 agency. It is a very wonderful thing that Paul should 
 speak of those who were begotten of him, and yet in another 
 place should say he travaileth in birth for them; as if, 
 taking the two sides of parentage, he became in all respects 
 the spiritual parent of men’s souls. It is marvellous to me 
 how much God can use us poor creatures, and how won- 
 derfully he deigns to put the treasure into the earthen 
 vessel, so that if you want the treasure, you must have the 
 earthen vessel too. Now, this enterprise of winning the 
 world for Christ is looked upon by some with a degree of 
 dread, if not of unbelief, because it is so stupendous. Oh, 
 sir, it is to me the very charm of the thing. If our Lord 
 had said, “My children, purchased with My blood, I will 
 give you some little tasks, some easy work to do,” why, 
 manhood had never been lifted up as now it is. The world, 
 with all its millions to be made to bow before Emanuel’s 
 feet through the agency of the Church of God !—the idea 
 is marvellous. Lord, what is man that Thou art so mind- 
 ful of him as to entrust him with such a work as this? or 
 the son of man, that Thou dost so visit him? Truly, Thou 
 hast made him lower than the angels; but Thou hast in 
 this thing, as well as in many others, in association with 
 Thy dear Son, crowned Him with glory and honour. A 
 small conflict! It would seem as if God had not trusted 
 us with His great heart. But a stupendous work like this 
 —a work which involves eternity—a work which takes in 
 countless multitudes of men throughout the ages,—to en- 
 trust us with this is a wondrous reincarnation of Himself 
 in His Church, and a living over again in His people the 
 life of soul-winning. I think if Christ had said, “My dear 
 children, I trust you with England ; go and evangelize it ; 
 take the British Islands, all of them,” I hope by this time 
 we should have been at His feet with many tears, and say- 
 ing, “ Lord, let us try France ; there are some people across 
 in Brittany very like the Welsh. Lord, include them.” 
 And I think after a while some bold brother would have 
 said, “Gracious Master, let us try all the Latin races. En- 
 large our commission; let us go to them.” And if our 
 brother Wall had succeeded in Rome, and other mission- 
 aries elsewhere, there would be some saying, “Let us pray 
 God that as India belongs to Great Britain we may go 
 there.” We should always have been asking to have our 
 
76 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 commission extended, I think, if we loved Him well ; and 
 as we do love Him well, (oh, that we loved Him better !) 
 let us be glad that the commission is so great; let us go at 
 ‘the work in His name with all the strength that we have, 
 and all the strength that He is prepared to give us. “ But 
 the odds are so deadly,” says somebody ; superstition is so 
 strong; the wisdom of men stands out so against the 
 Gospel, especially in India ; what can we do? Would you 
 like the battle to be less mighty than it is? Where is your 
 chivalry then? I think God is acting with us something 
 like the English king when his son was fighting with the 
 French. He felt that he was hardly driven, and he sent a 
 messenger to his father to ask for succour. “No,” said the 
 king, “he is doing very well, and I won’t mar the victory 
 by sending more help; let him fight it out.” Good Lord! 
 I would not have the battle of my life made less stern than 
 it is. Give me more strength. That is a far better alterna- 
 tive. We do not want the sceptic to be less wise: the 
 Lord make us to use better “the foolishness of preaching.” 
 We do not want the superstition of mankind, as far as we 
 are concerned, to be less fierce and strong than it is; nay, 
 but let us have greater courage in the blessed Gospel, and 
 hold up more light to scare these bats and owls away. A 
 thing that might be easily done would not show so much 
 of the Divine condescending trustfulness in us. “ But, be- 
 hold,” he seems td say, “I will give them this great, this 
 stern, this impossible task to do, and I will be with them 
 even to the end of the world, and they shall win the victory, 
 and great shall be the glory which they shall bring to My 
 name.” Let the odds, then, stand as they are, and the diffi- 
 culties be as stupendous as they are. “Butoh!” says one, 
 “the weary time! Here we have been nearly nineteen 
 centuries trying to convert the world.” No, you have not. 
 There were years in which missionary work was carried on, 
 but there was a long dark night in which nothing was done 
 and everything was undone, and Romanism was getting 
 darker and blacker, and clouding the light instead of 
 spreading it. It is eighty-five years—is it not ?—since 
 missionary enterprise began. And then, in the first years, 
 how little it was! We have not been long at it. Your 
 report says, “ Our Lord has put to a divinely generous use 
 the small efforts of His Church.” Iam sure that is true. 
 
WORKING WITH GOD. 77 
 
 —_—— 
 
 It is little that has been done—very little. And don’t talk 
 about time. What are eighty-five years? Little more than 
 one man’s lifetime. For such a work we must not begin te 
 talk about length of years. “ But where is the promise of 
 His coming?” say you. It is where it always was, where 
 she faithful rejoice in it; but they are not everlastingly 
 quoting it in impatience to complain of Him, or as an ar- 
 sument to desist from work or to become unbelieving. He 
 will come time enough ; but for my part I will rejoice if 
 He comes now: I will rejoice, if I live to see it, if He does 
 not come for ten thousand years, because one likes to know 
 that Christ gives to His Church now a long trust, a long 
 fight, and a long work todo, We shall be in heaven very, 
 very soon, (would God that all in this hall might be trans- 
 lated to the skies!) and one would like in heaven to have 
 something to recollect of what was done here below; and 
 if one could have fifty years of service crowded full of work 
 for Christ, one might praise the Lord for that, and think 
 over the incidents with grateful adoration for ever. The 
 Church must have some history as well as her history 
 written yonder in a blaze of light for her greatest honour ; 
 and the greatest honour she can do her Master comes from 
 the history written in blood, and the history written in toil 
 and sweat, by her missionaries among the sons of men, 
 Somebody has complained of the great expense. My 
 friends, this must not be. For who is he that will com- 
 plain save only one, who said, “ Wherefore is this waste? 
 This ointment might have been given to the poor”? If 
 the Lord Jesus had given us an enterprise which might be 
 safely carried out without any sacrifice, at the expenditure 
 6f a few pence per annum—which seems to me to be the 
 notion that some Christian men have of missions—we might 
 go on our knees, and say, “ Lord, give us something to do 
 that will take up more of our money; Lord, we have no 
 room for the alabaster boxes now; we cannot find Thee 
 here to break them on Thy head and pour out the sacred 
 nard ; we cannot find out what to do.” MHere you see, in 
 infinite condescending trustfulness, Christ has given us 
 work to do which will take up all the money we have got. 
 As much as we can possibly bring can be profitably used 
 in this work of the extension of the Master’s kingdom, 
 And so let it be. We ought to be glad of it, and thank 
 
78 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 Him for having given us such a work as this. Oh! what 
 a grand scale is that on which God hath made all things 
 that hath to do with Christ’s redemption! Sir, I believe 
 in immortal souls ; and I believe in redemption from death 
 and hell, and a redemption to heaven and eternal glory. 
 I believe that interests that will never know an end hang 
 upon the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 
 therefore, I thank God that in a work so wonderful as to 
 be nothing less than Divine, a work which will want all 
 the ages fully to develop it, He has been pleased to as- 
 sociate such poor creatures as we are, who, though we are 
 poor, are next akin to Deity Himself, for between us and 
 God there standeth but that One who is God, and, blessed 
 be His Name, He is Man, too! He has lifted up His re- 
 deemed people, and now, having made them sons, He bids 
 them do the Son’s work, and go forth for the conversion of 
 the multitude whom He hath redeemed with His precious 
 blood. Oh, that we could rise to the magnitude of the 
 scale in which God works, and begin to feel that— 
 
 “ Love so amazing, so Divine, 
 Demands our soul, our life, our all.” 
 
 I should like to express my intense satisfaction with the 
 missionaries of this society. I feel grateful to know that 
 the missionaries rise to a sense of the responsibility that 
 God has laid upon them. It has been in my way to meet 
 with a good many lately, and to have correspondence with 
 some more; and I can mention, too, some missionaries’ 
 wives that are worth their weight in gold. There isa work 
 doing in Calcutta that shall make the name of my dear 
 sister, Mrs. Rouse, famous among women. I bless the Lord 
 that there is a Divine, earnest spirit amongst our mission- 
 aries, who (if not all yet, such as I know) are the very men 
 that ought to be sent out, and they will, God helping them, 
 do their work right gloriously. But the Society wants more 
 men, and I have been running my eye over all the young 
 men here especially, thinking whether I should say to them, 
 “In the name of God, thus saith the Lord out of the thick 
 darkness wherein He dwelleth, Whom shall I send, and who 
 will go for us?” And I pray that the seraphim may touch 
 with the live coal from off the altar some lip here, that 
 some heart may lead up to the lip, and say, “ Here am I, 
 send me,” I hope there are many such. I dream of Carey 
 
 > 
 
WORKING WITH GOD. 79 
 
 still hammering at the last ; I dream of the village school- 
 master still willing to go forth and teach the heathen. I 
 dream of boys sitting at the chimney-corner who shall hear 
 of what God is doing, and as they grow up shall become 
 Marshmans and Knibbs. I pray God it may beso. Pray 
 for men, brethren. A man is more precious than the gold 
 of Ophir—a man who stands out with consecrated spirit. 
 O God, if we had such men! A few more fresh ones, how 
 they might stir us all up to do more than we have ever 
 dreamed of for the cause of Christ! Well, but we want 
 more money, too. Yes, and you have got it. God has 
 trusted His Church with money to a wonderful extent. I 
 am persuaded that we must rise to a higher style of giving 
 before the Lord will ever bless the nations through us 
 to any great extent. Was not that well said, that our 
 luxuries cost us more than our Lord? Will you think of 
 that, some of you? Will you try to see if it is not true? 
 Put down any one of your luxuries. Luxuries! Why, 
 there are some whose stockings cost them more in a year 
 than they ever give to Christ. More is spent on one’s neck 
 or foot, more sometimes on one’s little finger, than was 
 given in the year for Christ. Some of those diamond rings 
 ought to go into the plate to-night. And there are plenty 
 of other things we might do for Christ. I hear a brother 
 sometimes say that he gives his tithe. And what wonderful 
 sums people would give if they gave their tithes punctually 
 and regularly for Christ! But I hope there are some of us 
 who would never come down to a tithe, or to a half, who 
 would not dare to go to our beds if we had not given more 
 than half of what God has given to us. A tithe may be 
 heavy to a man of one estate ; but to another man it would 
 be but a trifle to give away half of what he has. The first 
 consideration of a Christian man ought to be, “How much 
 can I do for Christ?” He pays his way, of course ; but, 
 that being done, he says to himself, “ I must cut down every- 
 thing but my Lord. If I belong to Him, and all that I 
 have, for Him I must live” “Ah!” you say, “yours is 
 Utopian talk.” I know it is for some of you, but it is not 
 so for some who, having tasted and tried it, do confess that 
 the more they give the more they have ; and, better still, 
 they do not glory in having more, since it only brings more 
 responsibility ; but it gives them joy and peace to be able 
 
80 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 to consecrate their substance to their Lord. The heathen 
 are perishing! Are you going to accumulate money? The 
 heathen are perishing! they are sinking into hell! You 
 believe in no higher hope by which they will come out of 
 it ; you believe they are lost for ever, at least, most of you; 
 and shall the little account of consols be added, or souls be 
 saved? Shall you look out for accumulating a fortune, 
 getting your name in a corner of the /éustrated London 
 News as having died worth so much; or shall souls be 
 saved, or, at least, shall your part of the work of conse- 
 cration be done towards the work of their salvation? Let 
 each man answer for himself—not to-night, but in the quiet 
 of his soul before the living God. And, dear friends, we 
 must get up higher still in praying about missions. I know 
 some men can get anything they like in prayer. Oh, for 
 some five hundred Elijahs, each one upon his Carmel, cry- 
 ing unto God! and we should soon have the clouds bursting 
 with showers. Prayer! Yes, that was the right way to 
 begin moving that debt—to pray about it. Oh, for more 
 prayer—more constant, incessant mention of the mission 
 cause in prayer! and then the blessing will be sure to come. 
 Some mention was made of the sovereignty of God, and 
 the way in which it crippled some of our forefathers. I 
 believe in the sovereignty of God to the very full, and in 
 predestination. I believe God appoints us to work with 
 all our hearts for Him. I believe in the sovereignty that 
 gives to any one of us the opportunity of doing all we can. 
 But you know in the old days those very good people that 
 were so very sound, though they defended the faith and 
 held the fort, storming the fort did not occur to them. 
 They were like a pew that I saw in a parish church the 
 other day—very high, quite shut out, and spikes all over 
 the top—so that no irregular sinner should come in. Now, 
 we have got out of that system. We have taken the spikes 
 down ; the doors will open, and we invite others in. Well, 
 that is a right spirit. God grant that we may keep on with 
 it! not giving up precious truth, but having with it a noble 
 spirit for the glory of Christ. I meet with some few still 
 who are very firm and staunch, and very strong, who do 
 not go with any very active effort; and they are like a tree 
 that I saw in New Forest some time ago—an iron beech, 
 You could not possibly cut it; it would break your knife 
 
WORKING WITH GOD. 81 
 
 or your axe before you could make a mark upon it. There 
 are some few such, but it is a pity to waste knives and axes 
 upon them. The thing is to go on to some that can be 
 moulded and moved, and I would say to such, “ Dear 
 friends, you sometimes say, ‘ Will the heathen be saved if 
 we do not send the missionaries?’ I will ask you another 
 question, ‘Will you be saved if you do not send out any 
 missionaries ?’ because I have very serious doubts about 
 whether you will.’ Do not smile. The man that does 
 nothing for His Master, will he be saved? The man that 
 never cares about the perishing heathen, is he saved? Is 
 he like Christ ? If he be not like Christ, and have not the 
 spirit of Christ, then he is none of His. “ Well,” says a 
 young man, “I have been arguing with myself whether I 
 should go.” I will tell you another thing to argue. Take 
 it for granted that you ought to go, unless you can prove 
 that you should not. Every Christian man is bound to 
 give himself to the Master’s work in that department which 
 most needs him, and that is foreign missions, unless he can 
 prove to his own satisfaction that he ought not, and that 
 he has not the gift. I wish that could be learned by our 
 men. You want a call to the ministry. I believe that is 
 right, but those who can speak well ought rather to try 
 and show that they are not bound to preach, and if they 
 can show that, they are excused ; but they ought to go 
 through that process first. You are bound, brother, unless 
 you can show that God in His providence has utterly pre- 
 vented you. The other night I started up in such a fright. 
 I dreamed that my heart had stopped, and the sweat was 
 on my brow. I had my watch on the table by my side, 
 and it was very singular that the watch had stopped just 
 at that very minute. I suppose my ear missed the tick, 
 and had invented the dream that my heart had stopped. 
 Ah! I wish that some Christian, whenever he feels that 
 works of piety are not being carried on by him, would start 
 up in a fright, and say, “Ah! is my heart stopped? After 
 all, am I a Christian or not?” “By their fruits ye shall 
 know them ”—that is, other people. Don’t you think you 
 ought to know yourself very much that way? When you 
 are doing no more for Christ, ought you not to question 
 whether you love Him? When I was at Mentone, I heard 
 that the land before the English came there used to be 
 G 
 
82 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 valued by the number of olive trees on it. That is the way 
 to value yourselves, to value the Church—by productive- 
 ness. Do you produce anything for Christ. When at 
 Marseilles they were putting a fire in my chamber one day 
 for my rheumatism, I saw the man putting something in 
 the fire-place, and I asked him to let me look at it. It 
 was what I thought, vine branches. If a vine branch bear 
 no fruit, it is good for nothing. You cannot make it into 
 the smallest useful article. Shall a man even hang a pot 
 upon the fire thereby? It is good for nothing but to be 
 burned if it be not fruitful. The fruitless efforts of a pro- 
 fessor of science may have some sort of use; but a fruitless 
 Christian is good for nothing. ‘“‘Men gather them, and 
 they are cast into the fire, and they are burned.” I began 
 with the privilege of working for Christ ; I close with the 
 necessity of working for Christ. If you do not bear fruit 
 to Him, are you His disciples at all? Can you prove that 
 you belong to Him? Salvation is not of works, but sal- 
 vation produces works, and such works as those which show 
 themselves in our missionary operations. I speak as unto 
 wise men. Judge ye what I say. By the dying myriads 
 I do beseech you arise to work with Christ for their sal- 
 vation. By His blood and wounds, which brought you from 
 your own destruction, cease not both to pray and to labour 
 until the hymn with which my predecessor finished shall 
 be heard all over the world— 
 
 “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun 
 Does his successive journeys run.” 
 
 IV. The Jews. Sy Rev. Dr. Moopy Stuart. 
 
 I WOULD call attention to these four things—What others 
 are now saying of the Jews, what the Jews are now saying 
 of themselves, what they are now saying of us, and what 
 we may now think and say and do for them. 
 
 1. What others are saying of the Jews. On this I shall 
 read an extract from Scotland, from England, and from 
 France. In a number of the Eazuburgh Review we find 
 this passage :— 
 
 “The annals of Israel present, and have presented for 
 
 4 
 } 
 ' 
 : 
 
THE JEWS. 83 
 
 forty centuries, a unique phenomenon in history. The 
 Jews alone have emerged, living and unchanged, from the 
 remotest antiquity to the nineteenth century. Their present 
 power and influence in human affairs is perhaps greater 
 than ever it was before; and we doubt not, though 
 probably in some manner unforeseen by the interpreters of 
 prophecy, that the ulterior destinies of the Hebrew people 
 will continne to mark their track in the history of mankind.” 
 The Jews as a nation have “emerged ;” they have risen in 
 our own day out of the depths of contempt and neglect, 
 and have come to the surface again. Yet few are struck 
 with this change, which an English writer puts in these 
 words— 
 
 “Nothing in our time is more remarkable than the 
 change in the kind of interest which is taken in the future 
 and character of the Hebrew race. For ages Christians 
 have had rather an archzological heed of the people who 
 were their religious ancestors, and have limited their con- 
 cern to the religious books and the ancient doings of a 
 nation once the people of God, but who forfeited their 
 right by the rejection of Christ, and virtually became 
 heathen. Since that fatal act the Jews have been as good 
 as dead to a vast majority of the Christian world, and have 
 been known only as subjects of persecution and outrage of 
 every kind. But all that is strangely changed. The lost 
 honour of the Jews has been restored. The persecutions 
 have ceased. The Jews are in the high places of trust 
 and power—Ministers of Finance, Ministers of Education, 
 peers of the realm, mayors of great cities, senators in the 
 Assembly, close counsellers of the kings. But so silently 
 has this change in the position of the Jewish community 
 of late years been brought about, that it seems to have 
 attracted very little notice. It has been accepted as a 
 matter of course.” ‘* 
 
 Again, a thoughtful French author writes :-— 
 
 “The Jews attract at the present day, to a greater 
 degree than at any previous period, the attention of the 
 world. The cause of their long melancholy history with 
 no vitality is written in the Old and New Testaments. It 
 is the mystery of God’s justice—the most remarkable and 
 significant of all events recorded in the annals of humanity. 
 But with the Jews of our day there has arisen a new 
 
8&4 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 situation, evidently transitory—they float between the past 
 and the future. They do not wish for Christianity ; and 
 they pursue with an implacable zeal those few amongst 
 them who have believed this revelation. Yet everywhere 
 there is, as it were, a shaking of the bones amongst Israelites. 
 From every quarter of the globe where they are dispersed 
 they are agitating and aspiring after a new order of things. 
 The present time is evidently a transitionary state be- 
 tween the immobility of the past eighteen centuries and a 
 future regeneration, which can only be effected by the 
 gospel.” 
 
 2. What the Jews are saying of themselves. They say, 
 Jirst, that the present state of religious opinion in this and 
 other countries is a loud call to them to be the Lord’s 
 “witnesses ;”’ to testify for the God of the Bible against 
 materialism and atheism. This call they are constantly 
 urging in their publications, and in their sermons, from 
 which we quote a single example :— 
 
 “The Rev. Professor Marks preached at the Berkeley 
 Street Synagogue from 2 Chronicles xxx., taking into his 
 text the address delivered by King Hezekiah on the occa- 
 sion of the festival which the Scripture describes as ‘ the 
 memorable Passover.’ The preacher said—We move in 
 our own times amidst such an extraordinary transition of 
 opinion as regards the divine element in the Bible, that we 
 Jews require more than ever to be reminded of our sacred 
 mission as ‘witnesses of the Lord’ Rationalism and 
 positivism were rampant, and the popular scientific liter- 
 ature had become so disintegrating and destructive, that it 
 employed every artifice of speculation to discredit the idea 
 of a revelation of moral truth. Nay, more, it ignored the 
 bare conception of a great First Cause, denied the sovereign- 
 ty of mind over matter, and treated what we Jews have 
 reverenced as Biblical truths as things antecedently and 
 intrinsically improbable. Observing, then, on the one 
 hand, the credulity and extravagance of Ultramontanism, 
 and on the other hand, the open and profane avowal of 
 frigid Materialism, did it not seem as if the time were ap- 
 proaching when Jews should be reminded, as in the age 
 of Hezekiah, that it behoved them especially to be true to 
 their mission, and to maintain in the world the Divine 
 element of the Bible, as it became ‘the witmesses of the 
 
THE JEWS. 85 
 
 Lord.’ The Passover should admonish us, as it did our 
 ancestors, to be true to our mission, and to maintain, by our 
 teachings and by our practices, that faith in the Divine 
 Word which is Israel’s heritage; that faith which harmonises 
 with an inward revelation ; that faith which alone gives 
 a reasonable solution of man’s origin and end.” 
 
 They say vert, that it is not fair to the Jews that 
 Christians should condemn them for sins in their character 
 which have been burned into them by long ages of ill- 
 treatment and persecution by Christians,—the avarice and 
 the cunning which were once so associated with the name 
 of “ Jew,” and which they own to be characteristic of many 
 of their nation. But so far as in these respects they are 
 worse than other men, they lay the blame on the treat- 
 ment they have received from Christians. Of that treat- 
 ment Lord Macaulay said in Parliament that “300 years 
 ago the Jews had no legal right to be in England, and 600 
 years ago they had no legal right to the teeth in their 
 heads.” Of old God said of Israel’s treatment by their 
 enemies, “I was but a little angry and they helped forward 
 the affliction ;” and this was terribly brought out at the 
 time of the Crusades, when their severest persecution 
 began, as described in the following extract :— 
 
 “The massacre of the Jews ez masse commenced in the 
 Crusades ; in the year 1096 fourteen thousand of them are 
 said to have been killed at Mayence. These atrocities 
 increased in number and reached their maximum in the 
 fourteenth century. It was a common practice to fall 
 upon them unawares. If they fled into their synagogues 
 or houses, these were set on fire, and those who sought to 
 escape were hurled back into the flames. Even magis- 
 trates were seen joining or even heading mobs in the per- 
 petration of these crimes. The devastation by the black 
 death gave rise to a universal persecution of the Jews. 
 They were accused of having poisoned the wells, and they 
 were put to death amidst the most exquisite tortures. The 
 mob called ‘flagellants’ made it its special business to 
 fanaticise the multitude against them. A jubilee it was 
 thought could not be more fittingly celebrated than by a 
 massacre of Jews. The despair to which these unfortu- 
 nates were driven is betokened by the circumstance that 
 in many places, in order to escape the tortures of their 
 
86 PLATFORM AIDS--FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 persecutors, they threw themselves into the flames kindled 
 for them.” 
 
 In the harsh treatment of the Jews in Roumania the 
 old spirit of bitter hatred against them still remained, if 
 the following account can be credited :— 
 
 “In a collection of arithmetical problems, given by 
 Roumanian teachers to their pupils as exercises in the four 
 rules, is the following among other similar questions :—If 
 a small town contains 4000 Jewish inhabitants, of whom 
 800 are thrown into the Danube and drowned, goo killed, 
 and 1000 stabbed during the mé¢ée, how many after a 
 thorough pillage will there remain to be hunted down ?” 
 
 This seems incredible at the present day, but it is only 
 a faint shadow of the sufferings of Israel in the past. It 
 is said that Israel is the only people on the earth which 
 treasures up the memory of her calamities and keeps their 
 anniversaries. Even the Passover, with its joyful memo- 
 ries, was turned into a season of sadness. 
 
 “Naturally this festival should be the most cheerful of 
 all celebrated in Israel. And so it was for long centuries 
 until the outburst of fanaticism connected it with recollec- 
 tions of the saddest and most woeful kind. It was Pass- 
 over which the ferocious persecutors of the Jews selected 
 by way of preference for those terrible charges known as 
 the blood accusations. How often, alas! was the night 
 called in Scripture the night of watching transformed into 
 a season of restlessness, of unutterable woe and distress, of 
 spoliation, torture, and murder. The most cheerful festival 
 of the year was looked forward to with trembling and 
 terror.” 
 
 The words put into the mouth of the Jew have been 
 sadly justified—‘“ Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe; 
 no ill luck stirring but what lights on my shoulders; na 
 sighs, but of my breathing; no tears, but of my shedding.” 
 
 “Oh! weep for those that wept by Babel’s stream, 
 Whose shrines are desolate, whose land ’s a dream ; 
 Weep for the harp of Judah’s broken shell ; 
 
 Mourn, where their God hath dwelt the godless dwell. 
 
 And where shall Israel lave their bleeding feet? 
 And when shall Zion’s song again seem sweet? 
 And Judah’s melody once more rejoice 
 The hearts that leap’d before its heavenly voice? 
 
 _— 
 
THE JEWS. 87 
 
 a. 
 
 © Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, 
 How shall ye flee away and be at rest ? 
 The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, 
 Mankind their country, Israel but the grave !” 
 
 A Jewish writer says: “It is these persecutions which 
 have raised that terrible wall of partition which for cen- 
 turies has separated Jew from Christian, has isolated the 
 former amidst the teeming multitudes, and has excluded 
 him from the current of thought which went on vitalising 
 and invigorating the civilized world. It is these persecu- 
 tions which have given a twist to the Jewish character, 
 and have moulded his feelings and views.” On_ this 
 ground the Jews plead that their national character could 
 not escape deterioration. They say that the strength of 
 the Jewish character is that it does not despair; but that 
 the worst parts of their character have been fostered by 
 their being debarred from possessing or cultivating lands 
 in the country, or engaging in handicrafts in the cities, and 
 being shut up to the one resource of traffic; and that 
 in trading with their oppressors, it was no wonder if, in 
 retaliation, many of them learned to be money-loving, and 
 cunning, and even dishonest; but that now when the 
 oppression has generally ceased, the national character is 
 steadily rising. 
 
 Of themselves the Jews say further that there appears 
 to be the dawning of the day that will restore them to the 
 land of their fathers. The restoration of Israel to their 
 own land is not declared in the New Testament, and is 
 not an article of the Christian faith; but it is hard to 
 conceive that the promise was given to Israel that in the 
 latter day all nations shall sit under their own vine and 
 fig-tree, and that Israel alone, of all nations, shall have 
 been kept alive only to sit under the strangers’ vine, and 
 under a foreign fig-tree. But their restoration to their 
 land, though not an article of our creed, must be regarded 
 as one of theirs. The Rationalistic Jews in Germany have 
 deleted from their service the prayers both for their return 
 to the land and for the restoration of the temple; but, to 
 give up the idea and the hope of sacrifices in the temple, 
 is virtually to abandon the Jewish religion. In Russia the 
 old Jewish faith in these and all other respects remains for 
 the most part unchanged; but many also of the Jews in 
 
88 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 England look for their restoration to Palestine, and are 
 watching with intense interest what they regard as the 
 opening up of their way. But I shall speak of this under 
 my next note, which is— 
 
 3. What the Jews are saying of us. First, they speak 
 kindly of us as Christians. Last November, regarding 
 what they called “the day of intercession,” they wrote :— 
 
 “The 30th of this month will be a red letter day in the 
 missionary annals of this country. On that day, at the 
 recommendation of the Primate, intercession will be offered 
 up by the faithful all over the kingdom and the United 
 States for the success of the missions established for 
 effecting the conversion of mankind to Christianity. 
 Although we Jews may not participate in these prayers, 
 yet we may cordially sympathise with their object, for, 
 in comparison with the religions professed by so many 
 Gentile nations, Christianity shines forth with great splen- 
 dour.” 
 
 But ext, as endeavouring to convert them to Chris- 
 tianity, they look on us as enemies for the gospel’s sake, 
 and they write :— 
 
 “Ours is a time when all religion is endangered. 
 Science, divorcing itself from all positive religion, en- 
 deavours to drag the intelligence of the civilised world 
 after it. Everywhere attacks are made upon revealed 
 religion, and even theism is no longer accepted by the 
 rank and file of scientists. Materialism or nihilism is the 
 common watchword. Is this the time for the Church to 
 turn her weapon against a body which has a common 
 interest with her, and which in the hour of trial should 
 rather be treated as an ally than an enemy? Would it 
 not be wiser for Church and synagogue to unite in order 
 to repel the common foe and to avert the common 
 danger?” They also maintain that “the Jews are now 
 more numerous, more influential, better organised, and 
 more firmly devoted to their religion than they were 
 before the missionaries went to work.” 
 
 This may be true; they have certainly advanced in 
 number, influence, and organisation; and a greater devo- 
 tion to their own religion is sometimes an indirect fruit of 
 Christian zeal on their behalf. But it is also true that a 
 large number out of Israel have been gathered into the 
 
THE JEWS. $9 
 
 Church of Christ, and not a few of them have been exem- 
 plary Christians; and our missionaries have often said of 
 the Israelites amongst whom they laboured, that they had 
 little hope of their conversion to Christianity till they 
 saw them become more earnest Jews. And it is likewise 
 certain that since the missionaries went to work, there has 
 been widely diffused among the Jews, as there never was be- 
 fore, a knowledge of Christian doctrine and of our interpre- 
 tation of Old Testament texts which, by the blessing of God, 
 will prepare the way for the reception of Christ Himself. 
 But further, regarding what the Jews are saying of us; 
 notwithstanding our efforts for their conversion, which 
 they resent, the Jews speak of the British nation as their 
 best friends, not only for the liberty they enjoy in our 
 land, but also for the value which we set on their Hebrew 
 Bible. They partly mistake us in this from misappre- 
 hending how fully we regard the Old Testament as the 
 foundation of the New, and receive them both as the 
 halves of the one Book of God. They hold that the 
 _ Hebrew Scriptures are fitted to form heroes, and the 
 Greek Scriptures to form martyrs; and they say that in 
 our great national struggles for religious and civil liberty 
 we laid aside the Sermon on the Mount, and took for our 
 watchword “ The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” We 
 hold that the two halves of the Bible are one, and that, if 
 we receive the entire book, it will make both heroes and 
 martyrs; for “all Scripture is profitable for instruction 
 in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, 
 throughly furnished unto all good works.” But they respect 
 us because we reverence their Bible. In the report on 
 your table an account is given of a young Jew in Hungary, 
 who expressed unbounded surprise when he learned that 
 Christians study the Old Testament and know it well. 
 The English Jews are well aware of our esteem for thei: 
 Scriptures, and therefore they cannot withhold their 
 esteem from us. This is brought out in an interesting 
 way in the expression of their hopes for a speedy return 
 _ to theirown land. Six months ago their leading periodical, 
 . the Jewzsh Chronicle, wrote in these terms :-— 
 _ “The dreaded Eastern Question has at last really come 
 _ tothe fore. If an immediate solution is pressed, a fierce 
 _ struggle must and will ensue. The Turk will not tamely 
 
90 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MSSSIONS. 
 
 submit to the dismemberment of his dominions. He will 
 die hard. And what will be England’s part in this strife? 
 Not another Crimean war. She will not risk a second 
 time valuable lives and precious treasure, to aid those that 
 cannot or will not aid themselves. But one thing England 
 must and will do for her self-protection, The nearest way 
 to her Indian Empire must remain open to her. She must 
 obtain the suzerainty of Egypt, and the sovereignty of 
 Syria. And Palestine? Let it fora time remain in the 
 keeping of England. It is quite safe in her hands. Let 
 it remain in her hands until its savagery has been sub- 
 dued, its wastes built up, and it has become fit to be a 
 high-road for the nations of the earth. Let it remain in 
 the beneficent power of England until a highway is made 
 through the desert, and Jerusalem and Cairo be joined by 
 an iron path. We have no wish to penetrate into the 
 mysteries of the future until Providence be pleased to cast 
 another ray into the darkness, and light it up for the next 
 step. Sufficient for the day is the good thereof. We can- 
 not but follow with the greatest tension the complicated 
 movements on the grarid chess-board disclosed before our 
 eyes. Our interest is deep in the game. Our fervent 
 hope is, if the Turk is to be dispossessed of Syria, that 
 England and no other Power will be his heir, It would 
 be truly extraordinary if after eight centuries the days of 
 the lion-hearted king should come back and an English 
 army again tread the soil of Palestine. But as we have 
 said, we must patiently await the unfolding of the designs 
 of Providence. Thus much, however, we may Say; that 
 if Israel is to be indebted toany human agency for the 
 realization of her highest hopes, from none would she 
 accept this service with greater satisfaction than from the 
 Power which of all others in Europe has manifested the 
 profoundest veneration for the sacred records entrusted 
 to Israel, as also for the holy men who have been instru- 
 mental in their composition, and which has in modern 
 time exhibited such a warm and sincere interest in her 
 fate.” I make this quotation merely to show the feelings 
 of the Jews toward Britain, notwithstanding our efforts to 
 Christianise them. 
 
 Three weeks ago, after noticing some passing events, 
 they write again :— 
 
THE JEWS. 91 
 
 “There seems to be something providential, by way of 
 eminence, in all these coincidences. Devout minds will 
 not fail to perceive in this the finger of God. We will not 
 pry into the designs of Providence. In due time the veil 
 will be lifted and we shall see the fresh developments in 
 store for us. At the present moment it appears to us that 
 the design Providence seems to work at would be best 
 promoted if, in the dissolution of the Turkish Empire, 
 which cannot be so far off, England were impelled to 
 extend her protecting hand over Syria. No contingency 
 would be hailed by the Jewish people with greater satis- 
 faction than such a turn of affairs in the East. England 
 has given so many proofs of her friendly feeling towards 
 the Jewish people that they could not wish to see the land 
 of their forefathers under a safer keeping than that of 
 Great Britain. Whatever Government is in power, whether 
 it be Liberal or Conservative, there is no difference in its 
 behaviour to the Jews. And if the English are not the 
 brethren of the Jews in the flesh, as is contended by those 
 who maintain that the Anglo-Saxons are descended from 
 the ten tribes, they certainly act towards them as kinsmen 
 in spirit and feeling. We have given expression to our 
 heartfelt wishes in this matter. But Providence will, of 
 course, go its own way. We must quietly await the dis- 
 entanglement of the complications becoming thicker and 
 thicker in the East. The solution of the problem cannot 
 be delayed much longer.” 
 
 Next, when we cannot speak to themselves face to face, 
 let us speak to the Lord on their behalf. Prayer on their 
 behalf is increasing, but let it be more earnest and more 
 abundant; and especially on their Sabbath, on Friday 
 evening or Saturday morning. When they are reading 
 their Scriptures let us pray that their eyes ma; be opened, 
 to see that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of pro- 
 phecy.” Let us remember them also in their annual day 
 of sorrow and confession and supplication, the great day 
 of Atonement. Most touching to us is the sight of the 
 millions of Israel yearning for reconciliation, yet blind to 
 the one reconciling sacrifice, and confessing—“ Sovereign 
 of the universe! whilst the holy temple stood, if a man 
 sinned he brought an offering and made an atonement ; 
 but now because of our iniquities, we have neither sanc- 
 
92 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 tuary, nor altar, nor offering, nor priest to make atonement 
 for us. There is nothing left us but the commemoration 
 of them. Oh may that be our expiation.” 
 
 Before the day of Atonement last year they wrote :— 
 
 “In different houses of prayer, in many different and 
 distant lands, the same assemblage will be seen, the same 
 mingling of sunny youth and snow-crowned age, the same 
 blending of all the most opposite types of human character, 
 welded together on this day alone of all the year by the 
 one magic charm—the yearning for reconciliation. Nothing 
 can aid us but our own contrition, our own good re- 
 solves; with them we win everything. Before to- 
 morrow’s sun shall have set, may we lay our throbbing 
 hearts, with all their freight of failings, submissively before 
 the All-merciful, and pray for pardon, reconciliation, peace. 
 And when the shrill note of the trumpet rings out in the 
 evening stillness, it shall be echoed by the Voice which 
 speaks as with trumpet sound, in the peaceful hush of the 
 soul, its thrice welcome message— Forgiven.’ ” 
 
 How strange to us these words sound in the lips of a 
 Jew—“ Pardon, reconciliation, peace.” Oh that they knew 
 Him in whom alone they are found. The day of Atone- 
 ment falls this year on Thursday, 28th September, and we 
 trust that on it Israel will be remembered by many before 
 Israel’s God. Let us goto them; let us pray for them; 
 and further, let us think of them. Let us think of them in 
 whatever is best in their character and aspirations, and 
 fitted to draw out our Christian sympathies. In convers- 
 ing with Jews, it is very distressing to find how different 
 their views are from ours, even where we might expect to 
 meet on common ground, such as the conviction of sin, as 
 brought out inthe 51st Psalm. But, on the other hand, 
 an extract, such as the following, from a Jewish newspaper 
 illustrates the Bible quite in the same manner as we should 
 illustrate it :— 
 
 “One of the most interesting things in the Holy Land 
 is the fact that one meets everywhere in daily life things 
 that illustrate the Word of the Eternal. The streets of 
 Jerusalem are very narrow, and no one is allowed to go 
 out at night without a light. Throw open your lattice in 
 the evening and look out, you will see what ‘seem to be 
 little stars twinkling on the pavement. You will hear the 
 
THE JEWS. 93 
 
 clatter of sandals as the late traveller rattles along. As 
 the party approaches, you will see that he has a little lamp 
 fastened to his foot, to make his step a safe one. Instantly 
 the verse comes to your memory, written in that same city 
 three thousand years ago, ‘Thy word is a lamp to my feet, 
 and a light to my path.” Again, the following sentence 
 on the Passover has much in it to strike a chord in our 
 hearts :-— 
 
 “Never let us forget that the Passover, which is the 
 memorial of the first redemption of our ancestors from the 
 bondage of Egypt, is the type of the coming, though long 
 delayed, redemption from the bondage of a world of pas- 
 sion, sin, and fear—the promised redemption which shall 
 bring our people back to the land they won by faith and 
 lost in shame.” 
 
 In closing, I would quote a portion of some verses re 
 cited by three Hebrew boys in the Stepney Jewish schools. 
 They look forward to a Messiah that is to bring peace to 
 Israel and to the world, and they are blind to the Messiah 
 whom their fathers crucified, and who will bring peace to 
 them and to the world only when they look on Him whom 
 they have pierced, and mourn because of Him. But the 
 Christian’s own first desires for salvation, and many of his 
 subsequent desires, are fulfilled far otherwise than his 
 hopes, yet they had in them that which ended in salvation 
 through a strait gate; and there is much in these verses 
 with which we cannot but have a measure of sympathy, 
 and they are fitted to draw out a fellow-feeling for Israel. 
 Sir Moses Montefiore was present at the examination just 
 
 efore his departure, in his ninetieth year, and for the 
 seventh time to the land of his fathers. The schools are 
 in the east end of London, and a large number of Hebrew 
 parents were present, while there was a brilliant assemblage 
 of Jewish gentlemen and ladies, including many represen- 
 tatives of the intellect and rank of the Hebrew community. 
 The sentiments expressed, and especially the hopes for 
 the Messiah, were responded to with raptures of applause, 
 and the subject of the verses recalls the memorable words 
 of Herder, that Israel’s still uncompleted guidance is the 
 grandest poem of all time ”— 
 
94 PLATFORM AIDS--FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 THE PAST. 
 “When I forget thee, O Jerusalem |” 
 
 On distant shores in happier times, 
 
 In sterner days but brighter climes, 
 
 The banner of his Fatherland 
 
 The Few upheld with steady hand ; 
 
 The throne of Judah’s princely line— 
 
 The Temple on the height divine— 
 
 The pleasant homes where wife and child 
 Beneath the hallowed roof-tree smiled. 
 
 Oh ! lovely land; blithe, bright, and blest ! 
 Sweet cedars capped thy mountains’ crest— 
 What laughing fields ! what stately trees ! 
 What fragrant myrtles kissed the breeze ! 
 The purple grape, the golden grain, 
 Decked grassy glade and pleasant plain. 
 
 THE PRESENT. 
 “We hung our harps on the willows.” 
 
 Where are thine ancient splendours now ? 
 No circlet sits on Judah’s brow ! 
 
 No Temple rears its halls of state; 
 
 No high-born elders throng the gate ; 
 No laughing harvests crown the fields, 
 No sparkling wine the berry yields, 
 
 No trade-ships in the harbour dance, 
 No foeman fears our broken lance. 
 
 The raven flies o’er fields unsown, 
 
 To brood on Judah’s shattered throne ! 
 All, all is lost! Alas, no more 
 
 The sounds of life bless Israel’s shore— 
 Our harp is on the willow hung, 
 
 All voiceless, tuneless, and unstrung ! 
 
 THE FUTURE. 
 “The Sun of Righteousness shall rise.® 
 
 Allis zo¢ lost! In yonder skies 
 
 I see the gleams of hope arise. 
 
 Star of the East ! Thy glimmering ray 
 Is brightening ‘‘to the perfect day.” 
 Again shall Judah’s flag unfurled 
 Wave forth its signals to the world ! 
 Again shall cattle crowd the plain— 
 Her fields be rich with golden grain— 
 Her towns with busy voices ring, 
 
 Her swains rejoice, her maidens sing ! 
 
AFRICA FOR CHRIST. 95 
 
 See in yon Zas¢ the glowing gleam! 
 
 Faith is not false ; nor hope a dream ! 
 MESSIAH, come! Rejoice our eyes ; 
 
 And lo! in yonder Eastern skies 
 
 The “Sun of Righteousness shall rise,” 
 
 And on its healing pinions bear 
 
 Love, Peace, and Joy—for all the world to share. 
 
 V. Africa for Christ. Sy Rev. Dr. Epmonp. 
 
 THIS Society is called upon to rejoice in a certain fact, 
 which fact is that God has given it the hardest work to 
 do; that it has had put into its hands tasks the most 
 onerous ; that it has been sent to lift up the most degraded 
 specimens of the human family. Is that a thing to be 
 thankful for? I say most emphatically it is, and for many 
 reasons. It is more like God’s own work, for it is very 
 hard to stoop down to the very lowest. It is His prerog- 
 ative to “lift the poor from the dust, and the needy from 
 the dunghill, and to set them with princes.” It is His to 
 “give power to the faint ”"—ay, and to do more than that, 
 “to them that have no might to increase strength.” And, 
 therefore, when He sets His Church to this kind of work, 
 He honours them by asking them in their own sphere to 
 be fellow-workers together with Him. There is another 
 reason why I think we should rejoice when we get this 
 sort of work in the field of missions. We find a note of 
 time given in one of the Psalms that does somewhat, I 
 think, enable us to calculate the approach of times and 
 seasons which yet the Father keeps in His own hand. It 
 is said, “ The time to favour Zion has come, even the set 
 time,” and the proof is this, that “Thy servants take 
 pleasure in her stones and favour the dust thereof.” When 
 her absolute condition of ruin presses on the Church’s 
 heart, this Psalm seems to say that the time of favour is at 
 hand ; and if the Christian Churches, by such work being 
 given to them as this resolution refers to, are turning their 
 attention to the lowest position of the human race, 
 favouring the very dust thereof, then may we not hope 
 that the time to favour us is come—“ the time that Thou 
 hast set”? Then, further, in connection with this same 
 
96 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 = 
 
 thought, see how God honours His Church by giving her 
 the opportunity to have faith in Him, and in His truth, not 
 reckoning it effete and inept in these days, but as strong 
 for the salvation of the human family as ever, and therefore 
 we may apply it to-day to the lowest specimens that the 
 world can furnish. If there are some who say, “ That is 
 well enough for then, but we have outgrown the necessity ; 
 we have outgrown the applicability to us of that sort of 
 Gospel ”—I cannot concern myself much about any vaunt 
 of that kind, while I remember that the only time when 
 we read that our Lord was glad at heart it is said that He 
 rejoiced in spirit, and said, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord 
 of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things 
 from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
 babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy 
 sight.” J pass on, however, to the illustration of the 
 general principle which is in the resolution, and which 
 interests me—that is, the application of the principle to 
 Africa, and to certain missions specified in connection 
 with that continent. No thoughtful person in these days 
 can have failed to notice by what a singular concurrence 
 of forces various causes have conspired to rivet the atten- 
 tion of civilized men upon this same continent of Africa. 
 I know not from how many quarters the interest has been 
 aroused and fed. First of all we have it in consequence 
 of the ever memorable work of patient, heroic explorers, 
 with Prince Livingstone at their head, and shall I refer to 
 the youngest of the band, one who has been lately treading 
 in his footsteps, and has come back to tell us what he has 
 seen, crossing from séa to sea the African continent? But 
 I will not dwell on that. There are many other causes. 
 There are political causes that have brought Africa much 
 into the foreground. You have had war on the east and war 
 on the west. Swift, short wars, thrusting like rapiers into 
 the side of the continent ; and if we may regret their dire 
 necessity, we may yet, at least, be thankful that England 
 has been enabled, in connection with those two wars in 
 Abyssinia and Ashantee, to show that when she has 
 achieved the purpose for which the sword was drawn, she 
 can put it again into the scabbard, and go home with her 
 work accomplished. Then we have had the slave trade, 
 and slave circylars issued and withdrawn, and issued again ; 
 
AFRICA FOR CHRIST. 97 
 
 then the purchase of the Suez Canal ; then our interference 
 with Egyptian finance, and proposals coming from this 
 quarter and from that, that we had better take the whole 
 thing in our own hands and end it. Now, though I have no 
 sympathy seriously with any such proposal, I cannot but 
 say this—that reading an account of the condition of the 
 oppressed population in Egypt, I could not but feel that it 
 was a lawful thing under God’s good will and supreme wis- 
 dom, to pray for the overthrow of a despotism so abomin- 
 able. Then we have had grand engineering proposals, and 
 I wish them God speed. There is one that seems very feas- 
 ible that of joining the two rivers, the Congo and the Zam- 
 besi, with a suitable canal, to make them, like the Siamese 
 twins, joined by a band made out of their own materials. 
 Then there is a grander proposal than that—a proposal to 
 fertilise the great desert heart of Africa northwards, and 
 turn the Sahara into a new African Eden, by bringing in 
 the superfluous water of the great big Atlantic Ocean. 
 Only, if they do that, they must be cautious, according to 
 a warning that some one has sounded, that if you drown 
 the desert so that it can no longer do its work in heating 
 the atmosphere, and sending it over the globe, we shall be 
 driven out of these islands, and the Houses of Parliament 
 will have to be given up to the habitation and gambols of 
 polar bears. But then last and best comes a thought of 
 missionary work, and this Society, as has been noticed in 
 that most singularly eloquent report, has had some of its 
 finest trophies in connection with African evangelisation, 
 I need say nothing in illustration of that, for you have the 
 best illustration on the right hand of the chairman. But I 
 would like just so far to diverge from the main track as to 
 tell you that it has always been to me a matter for pro- 
 found thankfulness that the United Presbyterian Church, 
 to which I belong, began her foreign missions among the 
 negroes. She went to the West Indian Islands, and 
 having gathered together a large number of Christian 
 congregations there, there was a certain holy impatience 
 on the part of the missionaries to go to Africa and evan- 
 gelise the forefathers, so to say, of the slaves in the West 
 Indies—to evangelise the territory from which they had 
 been stolen. So in Calabar we have established a mission, 
 where there has been a work to which allusion has been 
 H 
 
98 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 made. It has checked inhuman practices ; it has abolished 
 some hideous customs, and it has given the people, by the 
 hand of two of our own missionaries, the Scriptures of the 
 Old and New Testaments, in one of the most important 
 languages of the Western African continent. Thus Africa 
 is coming to the foreground. Now, it pleases me some- 
 times to have a little dream. I am fond of little fancies, 
 and if you do not approve of mine, you will, perhaps, 
 indulge me in the utterance of it. I cannot help feeling, 
 sometimes, that in a rough way you may divide the con- 
 tinents of the earth among the faculties and powers of the 
 human soul. There is. vast Asia, teeming Asia, dreaming 
 Asia, splendid Asia; it is the imagination of the soul 
 opening a way out into limitless expanses, and beautiful to 
 see. And then, clear as her own cold Northern skies, or 
 frozen Alpine heights, comes Europe, the intellect of the 
 soul, thinking, understanding, beating out theories for the 
 use of men. Then, if you will put together the two great 
 English-speaking nations—though they be on opposite 
 sides of the great ocean; that same ocean severs them 
 both from the European continent—strictly speaking they 
 are the soul in its grand and impulsive enterprises of 
 activity. And as for Africa, it remains to be what its very 
 shape seems to suggest—the heart of the world, the heart 
 of humanity. Well, if it be so, and God is about to make 
 an appeal through His Church especially to the heart of 
 humanity—ah ! what blessed results may we not yet hope 
 to see when Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God, 
 and from that basest of kingdoms—Egypt by name— 
 God shall bring forth princes of Hisown. I have another 
 thought with which I will twine that and then conclude. 
 I think no one can look at the present state of missionary 
 enterprise and be satisfied altogether with the rate of its 
 progress. I am not under-rating it; it would be a very 
 foolish thing to estimate results by arithmetical statistics. 
 There are certain friths on this island of ours—the Solway 
 is one of them—which for a time will appear as if the 
 tide were making no progress, and then when it has 
 come just to a certain point, not the horseman spurring 
 his noble animal to the gallop can keep out of the way 
 of the advancing tide. So it may be in moral and spiritual 
 things too, but I cannot help thinking that there is some« 
 
a 
 
 AFRICA FOR CHRIST. 99 
 
 thing waiting that we can hardly gauge by our past 
 experiences or hardly conceive of. I read in the 15th 
 chapter of Luke three parables, in which there is, in fact, 
 a trinity—a three in oneness. I do not doubt at all that 
 the Trinity of the blessed God is there indicated; that 
 the Shepherd dispensation was that of Jesus closing with 
 Calvary, that the Spirit's dispensation is in the second 
 parable, and then in the other parable there is a kind 
 of distinction from the other two. There is no sending 
 into, there is drawing only ; but oh, what potent drawing. 
 The prodigal, far away in his destitution, feels the in- 
 fluence of his father’s memory and his father’s prayers. 
 and he says, “I will arise and go to my father.” I read 
 the old prophets, and I see a time certainly coming when 
 crowds shall flow to Zion such as were never seen before, 
 when the mountain of the Lord shall be established in 
 the top of the mountains, and all the nations shall flow 
 to it; when the aggressive which we are now prosecuting 
 will give place to the attractive. How is it to be brought 
 about? He only can tell who knows the times and the 
 seasons. It will need no new Saviour, that is settled; it 
 will need no new Spirit, that is quite clear; but it may be 
 that for the glory of God the Father, there is to be some 
 action yet upon the heart of all humanity which will 
 glorify the Son and glorify the Spirit, and bring out the 
 everlastingly glorious character of Him in whose bosom 
 was the fountain of human salvation. If so, then will that 
 beautiful parable come to have its fulfilment, and that 
 weary, woe-stricken, wretched thing, the human heart, will 
 begin to know its own emptiness everywhere, and be ready 
 to respond to the gentlest invitation; when the whispers 
 of that great old message, breathed into the ear will win 
 the response of the yielding heart, and the nations, moved 
 on and stirred as humanity was never moved on and 
 stirred before, shall rise with one consent and say, “I will 
 arise and go to my Father.” Our duty, meanwhile, is 
 aggressive, and the more we make it so, the sooner will 
 come the attraction, and the easier will be our work in the 
 end the more heartily we keep at it now. “God so loved 
 the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that who- 
 soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life.” Sir, in the text of gold, that text of texts, 
 
100 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 that amidst a thousand other brilliant texts seems to shine 
 like the sun amongst the stars, we have the prototype 
 model of our missions. God sent His only begotten Son. 
 Mark the scale of the giving, and mark the spirit of it. 
 It was love that counted even this cost not too dear. Look 
 at the text again, and behold you have the model of our 
 missions. What have you to do for Him who so loved 
 you that He sent His Son to save you? “Freely ye 
 have received, freely give.” There is nothing more aston- 
 ishing when’ one reflects on it than our slowness and 
 unreadiness to go anywhere, everywhere, to preach the 
 Gospel to our perishing fellow-men. To repeat the 
 text once more—lo, you have not only now the model 
 and the motive, but you have the very message of 
 missions to your hand. Let a man but understand the 
 text, and make his brethren understand it, and he will gain 
 them soul by soul. Christ is the key to all human hearts 
 —God’s love to men, God’s love to sinners, God’s love, of 
 such tenderness that He gave up the very best He had, 
 His own well-beloved Son, that whomsoever believes on 
 Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Whisper | 
 it if you will, in dying ears. Blow, trumpet, and thunder 
 it upon the storms till it surrounds the earth, and let the 
 whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen. 
 
 VI. Conversion of the World. Sy Dr. M. PunsHow. 
 
 “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth 
 rejoice in God my Saviour!” ‘What shall I render unto 
 the Lord for all His benefits towards me?” There is a 
 constraint upon me, to make my first appearance in this 
 hall to-day the expression of the gratitude I feel that I am 
 again permitted in my own land to join in the holy 
 - solemnities of the missionary anniversary. It is seven 
 years since I had this privilege. I feel as if I ought to be 
 a more effective advocate of the missionary cause than 
 ever, for he wou!d surely be a prejudiced fool who has not 
 learnt some lessons by 90,000 miles of travel, and by five 
 years’ residence‘on missionary ground. I used to think 
 that I valued this Gospel work, and that I believed, as 
 
CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. ror 
 
 earnestly as I could believe, in its wondrous adaptation ta 
 all classes of character and to all conditions of men. But 
 highly as I valued the Gospel before, I estimate its worth 
 very much more highly to-day. I have seen it exerting 
 its influence over the vast continent of America, from the 
 Gulf of Georgia on the borders of British Columbia in the 
 north, to the Gulf of Mexico in the south ; from Staten 
 Island on the Atlantic seaboard, to where the Golden 
 Gate opens to the wealth of the Pacific. I have seen it 
 leavening the young Dominion of Canada so thoroughly 
 that it has made it start upon its existence as a common- 
 wealth with fairer moral auspices than any State in the 
 history of the world. I have heard from the lips of happy 
 ‘negroes and Chippewas reclaimed from error not the ex- 
 perience merely, but the proclamation as heralds of the 
 truth as it is in Jesus. I have watched while a tribe of 
 Iroquois Indians have passed through the process of re- 
 nouncing Paganism for Popery, and finding that too near 
 akin to their former religion, have supplicated—4oo of 
 them—for a purer teaching, and have come under the 
 influence of our own Missionary Society, and amidst a 
 harassing persecution have remained steadfast to the faith 
 they have espoused. I have seen Chinamen aroused from 
 their apathy of ages, having found the pearl of great price 
 in a land where they went blindly only to seek for gold. 
 I have seen Japanese princes—shrewd, educated men, of a 
 nation proverbially incredulous, and in a former time in- 
 veterate in its opposition to the truth—bow their rank and 
 their intellect at the feet of Jesus, and ready, if needs be, 
 to become confessors of His name. I cannot doubt, there- 
 fore, the universal adaptation of the Gospel of Christ ; and 
 although in my early life accustomed, perhaps with too 
 much boldness, to speak of its triumphs—now that I know 
 how it can lift the lowest character, how it can place and 
 chasten and subdue the highest culture—now that I have 
 seen it as the pioneer of civilisation, the cons¢ervor of 
 morals, the destroyer of all evil and pestilent things, the - 
 true foundation of states, the individual salvation and 
 happiness of men—I rejoice to state it as the firm con- 
 viction of my mature manhood, that we have not followed 
 a cunningly-devised fable—that we may say of it as David 
 said of the sword of Goliath, “There is none like that,” and 
 
102 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 that we are not deceived when we believe with all the 
 fervour of honest and intelligent conviction that this old 
 Gospel of ours is the great instrumentality by which the 
 Holy Ghost proposes to convert the world to Christ. I 
 
 congratulate you that amidst all these things, with the 
 
 fluctuations of that public opinion which is changeful ever, 
 there is still a sound, healthy, confiding, increasing attach- 
 ment to the cause in the hearts of those to whom we have 
 to look for succour and for help. Sir, I believe in the 
 Word of God. I would fain have as my experience, what 
 was finely said by a great American preacher, that “he 
 was anchored to the Bible, and the anchor never dragged. 
 
 We have a sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to 
 take heed. Now I ask, What is the uniform doctrine, so 
 to speak, of prophecy? Do not the radiance, the fulness, 
 the power of the whole of prophecy centre in this one idea, 
 the reign of God over the world? When the seers saw, 
 was not this foremost in their vision? When the bard 
 sang, had he any other minstrelsy than this? When 
 patriarchs dreamed, was not their dream of an empire 
 springing out from their loins which should be diffusive in 
 its blessing, and which should extend into the very ends 
 of the earth? The ultimate theme of the prophets, what 
 was it but the £zmgdom of God? Nebuchadnezzar, who 
 may be taken as a symbol of the royalties of earth, saw 
 something in the visions of the night which troubled him. 
 Daniel, interpreting Daniel, who was beloved of the Lord, 
 felt no trouble whatever. What was it? “In those days 
 and in that time shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom 
 which shall never be destroyed.” And the last record of 
 the Old Book tells us that the scheme of heaven is accom- 
 plished when it is said : “ The kingdoms of this world have 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and 
 He shall reign for ever”; and then, and not until then, and 
 not a moment after then, will the voice from the throne 
 declare, “It is done.” Now, that is the uniform doctrine 
 of ancient prophecy. Well, come out of the Old Testa- 
 ment into the New. You are introduced to Christianity. 
 What is it? What is the first announcement of it? It is 
 the kingdom of God, which is righteousness, and peace, 
 and joy in the Holy Ghost. If that be so, there is nothing 
 heyond it. It is not a means to an end, it is the end itself. 
 
CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 163 
 
 The dominion of God the Father, through the Son, by the 
 Spirit, until God is all in all. Prophecy in the olden time 
 said, “I will set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.” 
 Christ taking to Himself without ostentation this royalty, 
 prays in the days of His flesh: “ Now Father, glorify Thy 
 Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee, for Thou hast 
 given Him power,’—that is, dominion, government— 
 “over all flesh.” John, in the rapt vision of Him, says, 
 in the beginning of the Apocalypse, “He is the true and 
 faithful witness, the Prince of the kings of the earth ;” 
 and the universal worship-song, in which all the convergent 
 strains of praise terminate, what is it? “All the creatures 
 that were in heaven above, and on the earth beneath, and 
 in the sea under the earth, and all that are in them, heard 
 
 _ I saying, Blessing and honour and power and might be 
 
 unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb 
 for ever.” If this thought be a true thought, and if the 
 establishment of the kingdom of God be the ultimate pur- 
 pose of God, and if Christianity perfectly embodied is that 
 kingdom, then, as sure as God is God, and as sure as truth 
 is truth, we must succeed. True, we see not yet all things 
 put under Him. Crime flourishes, honesty starves, kings 
 are scornful, nations are rebellious, truth languishes, error 
 is crowned, sinners transgress with a high hand under the 
 unheedful heaven, men trample upon every Divine restraint 
 and upon every Divine charity, and yet the Lord reigneth, 
 ever-ruling all things, guiding all things steadily and 
 majestically to one ultimate end—the crisis and the 
 jubilee of the world. I confess, sir, I like to dwell on this 
 thought ; it gives me the most exalted idea of the mis- 
 sionary enterprise. With a living Christ realized and a 
 Church that depends upon Him, there is sufficient to 
 hearten us into confidence and to cause us to put away 
 our fears. He lives, and He must reign until He has put 
 all enemies under His feet. Sir, I cling to this thought of 
 the Kingship of Christ; and I have need to do it in order 
 to preserve me from the despondency to which some of 
 the tendencies of the age would otherwise sink me. Christ 
 lives! But I am not so sure that we are as vigorous in 
 our life as we ought to be. I said just now that everything 
 was encouraging that you looked upon abroad, but I am 
 not so certain that I could have said the same at home. 
 
104 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 In the presence of subtle and encroaching foes, are we con- 
 tending earnestly for the faith which was once delivered te 
 the saints? You are evangelising the world—that is your 
 aim, your effort—you, the Wesleyan Missionary Society. 
 In the course of the last seven years you who are mission- 
 ing the world have added 160 missionaries to your stations. 
 Popery is missioning England, and in the same time has 
 added 200 additional priests in this little island of ours 
 alone. Is there not in the midst of us the influence of 
 that remarkable family that is mentioned in the Book of 
 Numbers, chap. xxvi. 44. Now I have puzzled you, I dare 
 say, but if you look you will find it is the family of the 
 Jesuites. You can verify the quotation if you like when 
 you get home. The spirit of encroachment is the same, 
 and it is endeavouring to regain its ascendancy ; the super- 
 stition is working in our midst. Ay, and already the 
 flush is on the cheek and the vaunt upon the lip in con- 
 sequence of victory certain and near. And what are we 
 doing? What are the Churches of the land doing? Some 
 contemptuously indifferent, and disposed to regard us as 
 timid alarmists if we raise the cry of warning. Some 
 too intent upon other things to regard the matter for a 
 moment; and one, the largest and the wealthiest, harbour- 
 ing many of the aliens within her fold. Once and again 
 England has been saved by her Christianity, and I hope 
 it will be so once more. Unpeered yet amongst the nations 
 of the earth, with all its faults, is this little island of ours. 
 Her balanced power, her freedom without licence, her 
 government without tyranny, her rare jurisprudence, her 
 practical philanthropy, and that benevolent Gospel which 
 is at the core of all her creeds—when were they born? It 
 is very easy for those who have studied history to fix the 
 date of her birth. England had no natural advantages 
 over any other nation of Europe. Her soil is not any 
 more fertile—her climate is infinitely more dismal—the 
 sun which is poetically said never to set upon her posses- 
 sions, unfortunately very seldom condescends to shine 
 upon herself. Why is it, I say, that with no native ad- 
 vantages over other nations she has outstripped them all ? 
 Ignorance, superstition, and barbarism, how is it that she 
 has successfully shaken them off from her as Paul shook 
 the viper in the fire? How comes it that when the map 
 
CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 10§ 
 
 was in the process of reconstruction, when thrones trembled 
 and when kings fled, when all that was venerable and all 
 that was novel changed places as in the glass of the 
 kaleidoscope—how comes it that England never wavered ; 
 and that when the revolutionary deluge submerged so 
 many places, she never knew of it except only by the 
 spent spray which dashed in harmless anger on her shore ? 
 Why, because while France, unhappy France, was drifting 
 into infidelity, England stayed herself sublimely on her 
 faith and in the principles of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ she found her safety and her strength. I have been 
 thinking of the last meeting I attended in this place, and 
 of the valiant warders who were present at it, but since 
 then have been struck silent upon our hill of Zion. Thomas 
 Jackson, and John Scott, and William Shaw were upon 
 this platform ; Dr. Hoole read the report; Robert Spence 
 Hardy gave his first and his last address in Exeter Hall ; 
 and the meeting was subdued and warmed, as meetings 
 were wont to be, by the godly fervour of Peter M’Owan. 
 Then, as the thought came upon me, I did not confine 
 myself within the limits of that meeting, but 1 seemed to 
 be wandering in the Campo Santo of our Church, and to 
 gaze into the graves of others—wise in council, brave in 
 self-sacrifice, eloquent in testimony, who since that time 
 have gone to their reward. Here is a knot of bony dust, 
 where missionaries of Christ are lying, and Male, and Field, 
 and Lord, and Burt, and Gostick, and Toyne, and Squance 
 await the adoption there. There are the tablets of some 
 whose voices have often been heard in this hall in advocacy 
 of the missionary cause, and there rose up before me the 
 forms of James Dixon and John Hannah, and George 
 Brown Macdonald, and Thomas Vasey, and Alexander 
 James. Here Wales is weeping over the eloquent Aubrey. 
 There Ireland over the astute and trenchant Father Maca- 
 fee, and Father Waugh, full of honours and of years; 
 Sweden, for the far north, keeps the memory of George 
 Scott very fragrant; and France lets its zmmortelles fala 
 lovingly upon the turf at Nismes beneath which the clay 
 of Emile Cook is resting until the resurrection morn. 
 There is something solemnising in losses like these. Only 
 seven years’ record! and I could mention numbers of 
 names hardly less illustrious. The first thought was, of 
 
106 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 necessity, “they are gone hence ;” but the second thought 
 came speedily to chide it—“ they are gone home” :— 
 
 “We sadly watched the close of all 
 
 Life balanced on a breath, 
 
 We saw upon their features fall 
 The awful shade of death ; 
 
 All dark and desolate we were, 
 And Nature, murmuring, cried— 
 
 ‘Ah, Lord ! if Thou hadst but been here, 
 Our brethren had not died.’ 
 
 “But when its glance the memory cast 
 
 On all that grace had done, 
 
 And thought of life-long warfare past, 
 And endless victories won, 
 
 Then Faith, prevailing, wiped the tear, 
 And looking upward, cried— 
 
 “Ah, Lord! Thou surely hast been here, 
 Our brethren have not died.’” 
 
 But these departures that we mourn are to us not a sorrow 
 
 only, but an inspiration. They were borne to the grave 
 as brave men bear a comrade-warrior who has fallen in 
 the honourable field, each one girding himself in the 
 moment of his deepest sadness for other battles in the 
 same holy war. And there are multitudes in this hall 
 to-day, some just proving their armour, some bearing the 
 scars of battle, who are prepared, beside the ashes of their 
 fathers and their brethren, to renew their fealty to the 
 cause of Christian missions, jealous with a holy jealousy 
 lest our burial-ground should become richer than our 
 Church. Oh, the sole remedy for all our woes, for all our 
 apprehensions, for all our sorrow, is just to come closer to 
 Christ—closer to Christ in personal experience, closer to 
 Christ in daily communion, closer to Christ in perpetual 
 reliance, closer to Christ in importunate prayer, closer to 
 Christ in honest and hearty work! When good Dr. Alex- 
 ander, of Princeton, in New Jersey, lay a-dying, some one 
 came to him, and quoted a passage for his comfort as he 
 lay half unconscious—“ I know in whom I have believed !” 
 A fire lit up his glazing eye, and the old Christian warrior 
 roused himself as if for an utterance of latest testimony, 
 and he said to his startled listeners—“ No; I cannot allow 
 even a preposition between me and my Saviour; ‘I know 
 
 ——— eee 
 
yr 
 
 WHAT THE GOSPEL HAS DONE IN AFRICA. 103 
 
 whom I have believed!’” Let us get up to that level; 
 let the great baptized heart of the Church get up to that 
 
 level of intimate, close, faithful union with Christ, and we 
 
 and our cause are safe! No fear of the confessional then. 
 Assuredly those who will not bear an intervening pre- 
 
 ‘position will never brook an interfering priest. No fear 
 
 of overweening sorrow then, for we shall remember that 
 although God buries His workmen, He carries on His 
 work. No fear of relaxed efforts then, for idleness will 
 be seen in its hatefulness as a sin against boundless love. 
 No fear of straitened means, and empty exchequers, and 
 niggard doles, and small-hearted liberalities then, for the 
 frost of every heart must melt that is so near the Saviour, 
 and men, putting away the large greeds and little givings 
 of their childish days, will, like Araunah, “as a king give 
 unto the king:” pouring out their treasures as brave 
 warriors their blood, and giving, or striving to give, in 
 some far-off and reverent manner, after the measure of 
 Him who, that we and the world might live, spared not 
 His only begotten Son. 
 
 VII. What the Gospel has done in Africa. 
 By Rev. Dr. Morrat. 
 
 My dear friends, the object for which we are met is 
 certainly one of the grandest that can occupy the mind 
 of man. The greatest men that ever trod the earth’s 
 surface have been engaged in it; the greatest minds have 
 
 ‘been exercised in it; and we have only to look to the 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ when He suffered and died, and became 
 the propitiation for the sins of the world, and listen to His 
 commission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
 gospel to every creature,” to be impressed in our inmost 
 hearts with the greatness, the grandeur, and the glory of 
 missionary enterprise. You know I have had a long ex- 
 perience ; and I wish that wonderful machine was here to 
 grind me young again, that I might sally forth once more 
 to the missionary field. It is fifty-eight years since I laid 
 myself on the missionary altar, and during all that period 
 my mind has been undivided in its devotion to the work. 
 I have had many opportunities of witnessing what the 
 
—— 
 
 108 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 gospel can do—that it is indeed the power of God to the 
 salvation of man, no matter how ignorant, or degraded, 
 or brutal they are. When we remember the obligations 
 under which we are laid, when we think of the perishing 
 millions who are dying day by day, and when we think of 
 the advantages which we possess, living in the light of 
 heaven and in the enjoyment of all that can make us and 
 others happy, we need to examine ourselves. The claims 
 upon us are very great. We know that the Bible is the 
 Book of God; we believe that the publication of the 
 gospel is the only remedy for this sin-stricken world ; and 
 we have innumerable testimonies to prove to us that the 
 work of missions is the work of God. It is a solemn 
 thought that God in His great mercy has provided a 
 salvation for a sinful, rebel world, and that the eternal 
 Jehovah who holds the reins of universal empire looks 
 down on all of us who bear the Christian name, and 
 desires that we should carry the news of that salvation 
 throughout the world. Oh, if every one bearing the 
 Christian name did his duty as in the presence of God, 
 as in the certain prospect of appearing before God, what 
 a change would be produced! What an abundance of 
 labourers we should find! What numbers would run to 
 and fro that knowledge might be increased! What are all 
 the sacrifices that we can make? I have had something 
 to do with sacrifices and hardships; I have been exposed 
 to savage men and beasts of prey; but what are all these 
 trifles compared with the great object of saving souls? I 
 am ashamed to use the word sacrifice, for what are all the 
 sacrifices we can make when we think of the great sacrifice 
 made for the sins of the world? But be it remembered 
 that whatever we do, be it much or little, in this great 
 work, whatever our self-denial, our prayers, our collections, 
 our subscriptions, they are all chronicled in heaven, never 
 to be forgotten. There is a day coming when the great 
 Judge of the earth shall say before an assembled world to 
 each one who has laboured for Him, “ Inasmuch as ye did 
 it unto these, ye did it unto Me.” Let me refer for a 
 moment to what the gospel has done in Africa. It was 
 my lot to be appointed to a mission in the interior of 
 Southern Africa, among the Bechuana nation. Now, in 
 other parts of the world there are, as we know, “gods 
 
WHAT THE GOSPEL HAS DONE IN AFRICA. 109 
 
 many and lords many”—idols innumerable—but among 
 the Bechuanas we could not find the shadow of an idol; 
 they had no kind of worship whatever ; there was no altar, 
 no priest, nothing of the kind existing among them. They 
 are an intelligent, manly race, but the thought of an 
 invisible being governing the destinies of this world never 
 entered into their minds. The question has been some- 
 times asked whether it is easier to convert idolaters or 
 those who have no religion at all. In the case of an 
 idolater the work of the missionary is to direct the mind 
 from one object of reverence to another ; but in the other 
 case you have a rock of adamant to deal with. But nothing 
 is too hard for the grace of God. Some people in this 
 country have thought that fruit ought to be seen after 
 the labour of a year or two. I have even heard of 
 some who have given up subscribing because there was no 
 success attending such and such missions. We have only 
 to look at the history of missions to see how long in many 
 parts of the world the faith of the servants of Christ has 
 been tried. Look at the South Sea Islands. For sixteen 
 years we witnessed the sufferings and trials of the mission- 
 aries who went there. Look now at the harvest! To such 
 an extent has Christianity spread that not long since a 
 missionary told me that wishing to bring home an idol or 
 two from one of the islands, he could not find one in the 
 whole island. It had been said that commerce must pre- 
 cede evangelisation. It has been altogether different in 
 my experience of Christian missions. Not an individual 
 dared to set a foot on those islands before the missionaries 
 went there; attempts were made, but the people were 
 eaten up by the savages ; it was not until the missionaries 
 went and laboured among them that the natives became 
 Christianized. It has been the same in the interior of 
 Africa. When I went among the Bechuanas I had a 
 difficult work to acquire the language without the help of 
 grammar or dictionary. I had to pick up the words as I 
 best could. Sometimes the people were puzzled as to the 
 object I had in view in collecting the words of their 
 language as I did. Whenever I heard a new word I 
 ascertained its meaning, and wrote it down, On one 
 occasion, when my fellow-labourer Hamilton and I were 
 féawing wood,a young man asked me to write down a 
 
tio PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 — 
 
 sentence that contained a word that was strange to m 
 and I asked him its meaning. He then told me to ask an 
 old woman who was sitting near, who had often helped me 
 out of similar difficulties. She could speak a little Dutch, 
 and I was familiar with that language. I repeated the 
 sentence, and the woman blushed. I knew something was 
 wrong, but I asked again. ‘“ Well,” said she, “ you say, ‘I 
 want to kiss you.’”” In order to become more familiar with 
 the language, I once went into the interior, 150 miles” 
 beyond the station, in order not to hear the voice of my 
 dear partner or my fellow-labourers speaking English, 
 'I remained there a considerable time, and I had great 
 difficulty in getting the natives to carry letters for me to 
 
 Mrs. Moffat. They were afraid the letters should speak 
 to them. More than once a man has said to me, “ Let me 
 put my spear through the letter, and then it will not speak 
 to me on the road.” After about nine years’ fruitless labour 
 among these people, a blessing was poured out from on 
 high. They were first arrested by my preaching to them 
 the doctrine of the resurrection, which gave a turn to their 
 thoughts, and showed them a dawn of heavenly light. 
 Now, men who were formerly startled at a bit of paper, 
 who had no idea of God or of futurity, are reading by 
 thousands the Word of God in their own language. Our 
 missions extend 1,500 or 1,600 miles beyond the Cape of 
 Good Hope. We have our principal stations and our 
 out-stations ; and there are native preachers who are able 
 to “hold forth the Word of Life.” I have seen a fierce - 
 warrior, whose hands have been dyed in human blood, | 
 give out a hymn, read a chapter, offer a fervent prayer, — 
 and press on his countrymen the necessity of repentance 
 
 towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. I have seen men — 
 of different tribes who formerly hated each other with 
 
 deadly hatred, and watched for each other’s destruction, 
 sitting together at the Lord’s table with tears trickling 
 down their cheeks. Yes, my friends, it is wonderful what 
 influence the gospel has had on the walk and conversation 
 of believers in that country. Let me give you an instance. - 
 I knew a chief who ruled over many thousands of men—_ 
 a man of great influence. He had witnessed the results — 
 produced by the gospel amongst his own people. He 
 admired the gospel, but had no idea himself of embracing 
 
WHAT THE GOSPEL HAS DONE IN AFRICA. 11% 
 
 it On one occasion he heard that two of his sons had 
 collected a number of warriors at a distance from head- 
 quarters, and had gone forth in order to attack a town. 
 Grieved at the intelligence, he ordered his horse, mounted 
 it with spear in hand and a tiger skin about his body, and 
 away he galloped, taking a shorter road than his sons took 
 in order to be before them at the town that they were about 
 to pillage. As morning dawned he arrived at the place, and 
 saw his two sons within a few hundred yards of him. He 
 shouted at the top of his voice. They were petrified, for 
 they knew the man. He galloped up to his eldest son, 
 sprang from his horse, put his spear in his son’s hand, drew 
 aside the tiger skin, and said, “ Plunge that spear into my 
 bosom; lay me on the ground, and walk over this body ; 
 then go and do what you please, but not till then. We 
 are now enjoying the peace that these men from a distant 
 land have brought us. We have buried our spear, and 
 shall we now take the torch and set fire to the towns 
 around us? It shall not be.” Were I to detail to you the 
 missionary successes in the interior of Africa, I should keep 
 you till to-morrow morning ; and I know that none of you 
 have brought your nightcaps. The Bechuana tribes were, 
 from time immemorial, engaged in war with each other. 
 No tribe dared to visit another; but now they constantly 
 interchange visits for the purposes of commerce, and can 
 go to any part of the interior without a finger being laid 
 upon them. The missionary was, for a long time, considered 
 the pest of society. Now he may go where he likes, and 
 all the tribes receive him with open arms. The harvest 
 is great, but the labourers are few. When, in my sleepless 
 hours at night, I think of the obligation of Christians in 
 this country to their Saviour, and when I think of how 
 far short they fall of what they ought to do, I tremble and 
 fear. Were an angel now to come from heaven and cry, 
 “In a month or in a week time will be no longer,” how 
 earnest would every one be! Let us make the best use 
 of the time God has given us. Let us feel identified with 
 all that has reference to the Saviour’s glory and the spread 
 of His kingdom. Let us not only sing, ‘“ Waft, waft, ye 
 winds, His story!” but let us put our hands in our pockets ; © 
 let our prayers ascend earnestly to God, and we have His 
 assurance that our labour wil not be in vain. 
 
112 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 VIII. Missions in South Africa. Sy Dr 
 LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 I HAVE been behind the scenes. I know something of 
 the missionaries, and I know a good deal about the con- 
 verts. Some people do not call me a missionary now, 
 but I do not care what they think of me if they will only 
 grant that I am an honest witness. I have seen the con- 
 verts and the missionaries both in South and in West 
 Africa, and I have formed a totally different opinion of 
 them from that which has been recently put forth to the 
 world. I believe that those who talk about either the 
 missionaries or the converts as being unworthy know 
 nothing about them. I had the pleasure of making the 
 acquaintance of a gentleman in South Africa who has had 
 an idea, ever since seeing the working of the mission under 
 Mr. Moffat, that Mr. Moffat and another missionary there 
 are the only missionaries in the whole world. He went 
 into a certain town, and was surprised to see no one there; 
 but when he got to the centre of the place he found a black 
 man preaching to all the inhabitants, and he admits now 
 that that black man must be a good fellow. That black 
 man you may see figured in a picture that has now become 
 pretty common, as standing by a missionary when he was 
 bitten by a lion ; he showed himself to be a man of courage 
 then, and he has shown himself ever since a brave and 
 good Christian man. Ever since then my friend has not 
 known how to show me sufficient kindness, simply because 
 he saw what I was doing; and I think that any man who 
 has seen the missionaries at work, and has talked with the 
 converts, will entertain as high an opinion of them as my 
 friend. Im my opinion, the missionaries on the West Coast, 
 and likewise in South Africa, seeing how often they are cut 
 off by disease, and how bravely they hold on to their work, 
 only want an air of antiquity thrown over them to decide 
 that they are quite equal to the saints and martyrs of old. 
 Ever since I was a boy I have heard a great deal about 
 the advance of Mohammedanism ; and in my own pretty 
 extensive travels I have always been looking out for the 
 ‘advance of that wave of Mohammedanism which I was led 
 to believe would soon spread over the continent of Africa. 
 Now, I never happened to meet with a Mohammedan till 
 
MISSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA. 113 
 
 two years ago, when I met two Arabs on Lake Nyassa, 
 who were very busy slave-traders. They were building an 
 Arab vessel to transport slaves across the lake towards the 
 east; and they were at the time as busy as they could possi- 
 bly be transporting the slaves by means of two boats. One 
 of their men understood the Makololo language; I found 
 him to be very intelligent, and we could converse readily 
 together. I was rather anxious to find out whether he had 
 been made a convert. He was the servant of these Arabs, 
 who had been there for fourteen years, but this poor fellow 
 knew nothing at all about Mohammedanism except that it 
 was wrong to eat an animal if its throat was not cut. Why, 
 the people knew as much of our religion as that in about 
 three weeks after our arrival, for they would not go to hoe 
 their garden on Sundays because they were afraid that if 
 they did they would have an unlucky crop. All the Mo- 
 hammedan proselytism that has come under my own ob- 
 servation, and all that I have been able to ascertain about 
 their converts, is simply this, that occasionally in the West 
 and North of Africa they make forays and capture num- 
 bers of people, and sometimes conquer large portions of 
 territory. In doing this they gratify their own selfishness ; 
 they get slaves, land, and other plunder ; but I find lately, 
 on making some inquiries, that the native Christians, the 
 men whom our missionaries have converted in West and 
 South Africa, and also in the West Indies, contributed up- 
 wards of £15,000 annually for the support and spread of 
 their faith. In the one case, the Mohammedans gratify their 
 selfishness ; in the other, the native Christians make large 
 sacrifices for the propagation of their religion. Now, I 
 think that the religion which teaches people to deny them- 
 selves and to make sacrifices, must be Divine, and, from all 
 that I can ascertain, the only religion that makes proselytes 
 is the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ. A very interesting 
 fact came to my knowledge on the West Coast. I was in 
 Sierra Leone in 1848, and a few years previously the con- 
 verts there belonging to the Church Missionary Society 
 had taken upon themselves the entire cost of the schools, 
 and had relieved the Society at home of an annual cost of 
 4800. I donot think so much of the converts actually 
 made as I do of the leavening process going on throughout 
 the whole country. I have had an opportunity of observ- 
 I 
 
114 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 ing this leavening process. Dr. Tidman referred at the © 
 beginning of the report to the mission among the subjects 
 of Moselekatse. Now, Mr. Moffat had been at the station 
 where Moselekatse lives about two months before I reached 
 a point up the Zambesi about 200 miles distant; and a 
 man came to me one evening and said that he had been to 
 that mission, and that the English had come, and that they 
 had told Moselekatse not to kill any more people, and that 
 he had agreed not to doso. That would be the most 
 prominent feature to the natives in Mr. Moffat’s opening of 
 that mission, and it shows, I think, that the leaven spreads 
 much further than the missionaries sometimes imagine. 
 When the slaves are at the public whipping-post,—for they 
 have institutions of that kind,—they often call out, when 
 undergoing the lash, “Oh for the English! when will the 
 English come ?”—making their masters, of course, much 
 more angry than they were before; but this again shows 
 that the good name which the English have, through 
 the missionaries and through the efforts of our Govern- 
 ment, extends a very long way inland. Thus the leaven- 
 ing process is going on; the men are being prepared for 
 much greater advances in Christianity than we shall ever 
 see in our day. The converts that I have seen I think to 
 be an honour to Christianity ; there are some—as there 
 is a good sprinkling among ourselves—who are no better 
 than they should be; but when the majority of them are 
 compared with the heathen around them—and it is not 
 fair to compare them with ourselves at home—I think 
 every honest, intelligent witness will admit that the mis- 
 sions of the Christian Churches in that country have been 
 a great success. The success will be much greater in time 
 to come because the work of propagation is now going on 
 in every country where we have missionaries ; and in the 
 course of time, though not, perhaps, till the days of our 
 children, the great avalanche of Christianity will be seen 
 spreading over the whole world. 
 
 IX. Indian Missions. Jy Sir W. Murr, K.C.S.I1. 
 
 IT affords me the highest degree of satisfaction, in return- 
 ing home after a long residence in India, to see the cause 
 
INDIAN MISSIONS. 195 
 
 of missions so warmly supported in a great meeting like 
 this, and I am sure it must cheer the hearts of missionary 
 labourers to perceive that so great an interest is taken by 
 the people of England in missionary enterprises. It is a 
 source of gratification to me to follow on this platform 
 my honoured chief, Lord Northbrook, and I may add my 
 witness to what has been said by him that in his private 
 capacity he unflinchingly supported the cause of Christi- 
 anity in India. .The length of my experience in India 
 exceeds that of his lordship. It is now some thirty or forty 
 years since I first landed in India. My first experience 
 there with regard to mission work was in connection with 
 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; but, as 
 many of you are aware, in North India there is only a 
 small station belonging to that Society, and my experience 
 for some time lay chiefly among the missions of the Pres- 
 byterian and the Methodist Episcopal bodies of America. 
 It is now about thirty-five years since I first had the 
 pleasure of becoming acquainted with any of the agents of 
 this Society. The first missionary that I knew is a man 
 whose name is honoured throughout Protestant Christen- 
 dom—Dr. Feinder. It may, perhaps, surprise some of you 
 to hear that your Society was indebted for him and some 
 other missionaries to Russia. Forty years ago, at least, 
 Russia would not tolerate Protestant missionaries in 
 Georgia, and hence she expelled them. The Russians are 
 very fond of Christianity, but it must be a Christianity of 
 their own type. The missionaries of this Society whom I 
 have met with in India have all been men of ability and 
 devotedness to their work, and men of high character, and 
 amongst those who have become most eminent in these 
 respects I may mention Dr. Feinder, one of the most vener- 
 able missionaries at Benares, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Leipold. 
 It is an honour for any Society to possess agents like these. 
 It is very much the fashion to say that the missions in 
 India had -made no real converts; but those who say that 
 cannot have inquired into the facts or visited the mission 
 stations as I have done. I have visited the stations at 
 Agra, Meerut, Umballa, Scindia, Allahabad, and Benares, 
 and have seen a great many of the converts at those places, 
 Let me tell you, by way of example, what style of convert 
 I have seen at Agra and Allahabad. There are gathered 
 
116 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 together at each of these places about four or five hundred 
 natives who are converts from heathenism to Christianity, 
 and if I am asked what is their character, I reply that they 
 would compare very favourably indeed with a village with 
 the same population in this country. The native Christians 
 there are, on the whole, temperate, moral, and respectable, 
 and I believe that a large proportion of them have in their 
 hearts the essence and the principles of true Christianity. 
 While I was in the North-west provinces I had the pleasure 
 of giving a grant of land for a village of native Christians, 
 and when I left they had for their minister David Mohun, 
 who conducts regular services, and who is much respected. 
 I know another native Christian who, during the Mutiny 
 in 1857, when a young European officer had a sword 
 pointed at him by the rebels, encouraged him in his 
 distress, he himself being at the same time exposed to great 
 peril on account of the sympathy which he manifested for 
 a brother Christian. I might also allude to Rumchunder 
 of Delhi, who wrote a very interesting work on the Atone- 
 ment, and whose abilities obtained for him the post of 
 Education Inspector of Putliana. At the court of the 
 king of that part of India, he was exposed to great temp- 
 tations, which are purposely thrown in the way of native 
 Christians at native courts ; but God enabled him to pass 
 through them all unscathed, like Daniel at the court of 
 Babylon. When I last saw him he had been in the service 
 of a native rajah, and had lost his post, not through any 
 misconduct, but because his Christian principles led him to 
 urge his master to abandon a vice, through continuance in 
 which he ultimately lost his life. I say that of such men 
 any Missionary Society might well be proud, and that 
 nothing but the real principles of Christianity could sustain 
 the mind under such circumstances. The success of mis- 
 sions is as yet small in the plains of India, but when we 
 think of the obstacles which lie in the way of conversion 
 to Christianity, when we think of the chains which bind 
 Hindoos and Mohammedans to their religion, we cannot 
 feel surprised. The position of matters is far less discour- 
 aging in the Neilgherries, where caste and the pride of race 
 are not predominant. In visiting the country of the 
 Santhals, I found thousands of people who had embraced 
 Christianity. There I saw in one place a beautiful church, 
 
 . 
 : 
 
as 
 
 PROGRESS. 117 
 
 with a congregation of from 800 to 1,000. The minister 
 was a German missionary, and although the mission in that 
 part of India had not been in existence more than twelve 
 or thirteen years, there were 7,000 converts, 2,000 commun- 
 icants, and about the same number of children attending 
 the schools. The children in those schools were found by 
 my daughter playing just like English children, being in 
 this respect very unlike ordinary native children. I see 
 nothing to prevent the whole of the Santhal community 
 from coming over to Christianity. But what is done to 
 bring about that result should be done quickly, because 
 the country bordering on that of the hill tribes is occupied 
 by the Hindoos, who are gradually creeping up, and if the 
 Santhals should become like the Hindoos, the difficulties 
 connected with caste will render mission work far more 
 difficult than it is at present. Lord Northbrook, after 
 visiting the country of the Santhals and the Kols, came 
 back with a most glowing idea of the prospects of Christi- 
 anity there; and there can be no doubt that if the natives 
 generally were converted, they would form, as it were, the 
 backbone of Bengal, and stand us in good stead in times 
 of danger. I earnestly entreat you, therefore, my friends, 
 to send forth more labourers to that part of the Mission 
 field. His Grace the Archbishop spoke of the improve- 
 ment which has recently taken place in Indian society. 
 That improvement is not, I think, due solely to the pre- 
 sence of an increased number of Christian ladies, but in a 
 great degree also to the improved position of missions. If 
 we forget the great spiritual weapon with which God has 
 entrusted us, He will cast us off in disgrace; but I pray 
 that that spiritual weapon may be more and more wielded 
 by this Society, and with greater and greater success, 
 
 X. Progress. Sy Rev. J. A. Macrapyen, D.D. 
 
 THAT traditional Welsh brother, who is said to have made 
 so many mistakes, used to say that progress was of three 
 kinds. There was progress forward, and there was pro- 
 gress backward, and there was progress standing still. 
 Well, sometimes there is progress standing still. You 
 have seen the canal-boat. It has come for a time to the 
 locks, and it was brought to a standstill there. The doof 
 
118 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS, 
 
 was opened and it slid in. Then the door was shut; the 
 door on the other side was opened again, and the water 
 came pouring in; and if you were on board the boat, you 
 might fancy for the time you were standing still, but really 
 every drop of water that was brought into the lock was 
 raising the boat, so that by-and-by it came to a higher 
 level; and then when it was raised to that higher level, 
 the door was thrown open again, and the boat was drawn 
 out to pursue its onward course. Just so is it with many 
 of the great enterprises that God entrusts to men. Just so 
 has it been with the mission work in general. Just so has 
 it been with the history of the London Missionary Society. 
 Men have been disposed to say that things were standing 
 still when in reality there was progress being made; only 
 for the time we needed faith to believe that the progress 
 was going on. Gradually it began to dawn upon us that 
 we were being raised to a higher level. Bless the Lord 
 to-day that the higher level has been reached, and that we 
 are moving on and that we can see it with sight as well as 
 believe it by faith. But it seems to me that this progres- 
 sive work of the Society is not a matter in which we are at 
 liberty to choose for ourselves. 
 
 “ And in old age when others fade, 
 They fruit still forth shall bring 3 
 They shall be fat and full of sap, 
 And aye be flourishing.” 
 
 Now, dear friends, we are bound to make this progress 
 and to take these onward steps for many reasons. For 
 one thing, our Lord’s command is certainly as imperative 
 upon us as it was eighty years ago. For another thing, 
 we have learned by experience that our own self-interest 
 demands that we at home shall labour heartily and ear- 
 nestly for the advance of this cause. The fact is the 
 Churches at home cannot afford to give up the contribu- 
 tions to mission effort. It all comes back to us in a 
 thousand ways, and we are to-day a thousand times 
 stronger and more intelligent and wiser and better Chris- 
 tians than if there had been no mission effort during these 
 last eighty years. Then we have to remember that this 
 is not a cause which lies, so to speak, in the outer court 
 of religion. It is not a matter which we are at liberty 
 
 - 
 . 
 i 
 | 
 ¢ 
 ) 
 
PROGRESS. rg 
 
 to exercise our own option upon as to whether we shall 
 or whether we shall not cultivate a missionary spirit. 
 A man cannot be a Christian in any sense worth the 
 mame who has not a missionary spirit, and who is not 
 prepared to do aggressive work against the great enemy 
 of God and man. Why, we commonly say, “To do 
 good a man must first of all be good;” but it is also 
 true that a man cannot be good without insensibly, 
 when he thinks not of it, doing good. Many of you 
 may have noticed during the last severe winter in the 
 houses that were opposite your own that the house- 
 tops one morning were covered with snow. Well, you 
 might have removed the snow by sending men to shovel 
 it up and pitch it down from the roof of the house to 
 the street. I do not suppose that was done in one out 
 of a thousand cases. All that you needed was to have 
 the servants kindle the fire, to set the family to work, 
 to begin the life, and motion, and activity, and brightness, 
 and love of domestic life, and insensibly, before you knew 
 it, before you had thought of snow at all, the snow had 
 melted —it had disappeared. And just so is it, dear 
 friends, with the frosts of selfishness, and worldliness, and 
 idolatry, and sin. If we could only get Christian men as 
 such to exemplify the power, and the love, and the life, 
 and the brightness of Christ, many a heart that is sealed 
 against all argument, many a spirit that will not respond 
 to the Master’s voice, would be compelled to surrender, 
 and would gladly say, “ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to 
 do?” But there is direct Christian effort involved as well 
 in all that Christ calls a man to when he enters into His 
 Church. Sometimes I have heard men say, when they 
 wanted to excuse themselves from direct personal effort, 
 “Why, look at Christ. When the leper wanted to pro- 
 claim all that He had done for him, did not Christ forbid 
 him?” My invariable answer has been, when the objection 
 came to me in that form, “Yes; and you may hold your 
 tongue when Christ forbids you to speak, and not till then. 
 Until you are prepared to do that, you are not prepared to 
 argue for the analogy of the leper.” Why, you have that 
 Christian spirit in Paul’s language when he says, “ Woe is 
 unto me if I preach not the Gospel.” You have it in 
 Peter’s language when he says, “ We must speak the things 
 
120 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 which we have seen and heard.” You have it in Luther’s 
 language when he said, “Here I stand; I can do na 
 otherwise ; God help me.” You have it in the martyr’s 
 language when he said, “If you cut out my tongue I will 
 speak of Christ with my fingers, and if I cannot speak of 
 Christ with my fingers I will speak of Him with the linea- 
 ments of my face ;” and it is impossible for a man thus to 
 be fired with Christian enthusiasm without at once feeling 
 that the surplus of energy, the surplus of effort, the surplus 
 of sympathy, ought to go right away to the mission-field. 
 The woman brings no credit to Christ who goes to a 
 prayer-meeting and leaves a pile of stockings undarned at 
 home; and the merchant brings no credit to Christ who 
 goes up and down preaching sermons and leaves a heap of 
 letters unanswered in his office. We must all of us stick 
 to the worldly post, as some people call it, to which God 
 has appointed us; but whilst honouring Christ in our 
 business we must honour Him with our substance, and to 
 the utmost of our power; by our sympathy, by our prayers, 
 by our efforts, by our contributions, support the men who 
 have gone far hence to preach the Gospel to the heathen. 
 I do not argue this question from any other point to-day. 
 Sometimes, I confess, I feel very cross, and feel very much 
 disposed to answer gruffly men who talk against the work 
 of our Missionary Society, and who talk against the work 
 of our missionaries. Not very long ago I met with some 
 such cases as these—men who were prepared to say that 
 they thought missionaries ought to go abroad, and ought 
 to support themselves, as Paul did, by the labour of their 
 hands. The answer to that seems to me very simple, so 
 far as an argumentum ad hominem is concerned. If you 
 rich, wealthy Christian men who bring that argument are 
 prepared to reduce yourselves to the same social level as 
 the men to whom Paul preached; if you are prepared to 
 sell your pictures, if you are prepared to part with your 
 furniture, if you are prepared to give up the appliances of 
 comfort and luxury in which you live, so that you are on 
 a fair social level with the men whom Paul gathered into 
 the Churches which he was called to found ; then I venture 
 to say for myself, I venture to say for the ministers at 
 home, I venture to say for every missionary in a foreign 
 field, we are prepared to take the position which Paul did, 
 
PROGRESS. 12t 
 
 Rather than that the Gospel should not be preached, we 
 are ready to go to the ends of the earth, and wear our 
 fingers to the bone that our bodily wants may be sustained. 
 But it is unfair and ungenerous in the extreme for men 
 who are living at ease and in comfort at home to bring 
 such an argument as that when they are not prepared to 
 take the other side of the analogy, and so to make things 
 level to the circumstances in which Paul’s case would be 
 an analogy. But that is not the point which I should like 
 to impress upon you, and which I try to impress upon 
 myself. Our friends who are labouring abroad are our 
 missionaries there, our representatives ; they are doing our 
 work ; they are standing in our place; they are accom- 
 plishing that work which we are not able to do because 
 God in His providence has placed and keeps us here, 
 because from external circumstances we are not able to go 
 ourselves to preach the Gospel to the heathen ; and I say 
 to have a niggardly Christian under such circumstances 
 is not simply a crying shame but is a gross impossibility. 
 I can understand a man being a niggard, a man who 
 gathers all into his own purse and strong box. I can 
 understand a man being a Christian, a man who believes 
 that as he has freely received, so he freely ought to give ; 
 but I cannot understand how, by any process of logic, or 
 rhetoric, or any sort of zsm, or any sort of ology, you can 
 bring the two things together, and make it possible for the 
 existence in the Church of Christ of a niggardly Christian. 
 A niggardly Christian is no Christian. He is disloyal to 
 Christ, he is recreant to all the promises which he made 
 
 when he undertook the work and service of Christ. 
 Brethren, the deepest truth in the question when we pro- 
 pose to discuss the opposition and opponents of Christ’s 
 work is this: Christ, not Satan, is the Lord and Prince of 
 
 * this world ; God, not the devil, is the King and Ruler 
 of men. When he offers the “kingdoms of this world and 
 the glory of them,” he is a liar and the truth is not in him. 
 They are not his to give. Not Satan, but 
 
 “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun 
 Doth his successive journeys run ; 
 His kingdom stretch from shore to shore 
 Till moons shall wax and wane no more.” 
 
122 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 XI. The Salvation of Israel. By Rev. Dr. Moopy — 
 STUART. 
 
 When we read of three or four baptisms in the course 
 of a year, our Christian progress seems extremely slow, — 
 but these swell into a goodly number in process of time. 
 When I was in Pesth many years ago, I learned there 
 had been a hundred Jews, young and old, baptized in 
 the name of the Lord Jesus. I addressed about thirty- 
 five of them shortly through an interpreter. It was an 
 affecting sight to see so many of the children of Abraham ~ 
 professing to be followers of Him whom their fathers — 
 crucified ; but I shall never forget one young man, about — 
 twenty-five years old, who did not speak formally in 
 the name of the rest, but gave utterance for himself and 
 for them to the irrepressible emotions of his heart. His 
 only object seemed to be that of the Samaritan leper, 
 who returned and thanked God with a loud voice for his 
 recovery. I could not but conclude that that young man — 
 had found for himself the pearl of great price, and that he 
 still retained the warmth and freshness of his first love. 
 While he pressed my hand in both of his, the burden of 
 his heart’s outpouring was, “ Thank the friends in Scotland © 
 for sending us the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Mr. Moody 
 Stuart then gave an account of a visit he had paid to a 
 Jewish burying-ground, over which was placed the inscrip- 
 tion, “ The house of the living,’ showing that Abraham’s 
 children retained a firm hold of Abraham’s faith in the 
 resurrection of the dead. He then described a visit he had 
 paid to a large diamond factory in the Jewish quarter, with 
 all its workmen Jews. The work is so extensive that the 
 diamond trade in connection with it is said to give subsis- 
 tence to about 10,000 of the Jews in Amsterdam, and the 
 skill of the workmen is so noted that some of them were 
 sent off to London to polish the Koh-i-noor diamond of 
 our Queen. Their knives are diamond chisels, and as hard 
 emery powder, which polishes the agate and the sapphire, 
 is too soft for their purpose, it gives place to diamond dust. 
 The flint cuts the marble, the diamond cuts the flint, and — 
 the diamond alone cuts the diamond. But they showed 
 us, among their treasures, one stone which there is no 
 other stone in the world hard enough to cut, and which 
 
THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL. 123 
 
 therefore lies there useless. The first thought was to plead 
 for one’s self to have the heart of stone taken away ; the 
 second was to remember that the heart of the Jew is com- 
 pared not merely to stone, but to the adamant stone, or 
 the diamond described elsewhere as the “adamant harder 
 than flint.” “For they made their hearts an adamant 
 stone, lest they should hear the words of the Lord, there- 
 fore cometh great wrath from the Lord of hosts.” But 
 again, what was this adamant of adamants to look upon— 
 this diamond harder than all the diamonds of the earth? 
 The Lord said to His prophet, “ Go, get a potter’s earthen 
 bottle, and break the bottle in their sight, and say, So will 
 I break this people as a potter’s vessel, because they have 
 forsaken me.” That adamant stone is believed to be of 
 exquisite lustre and of immense value if any man could 
 bring forth its hidden beauty. But meanwhile it is so like 
 Jeremiah’s broken piece of an earthen bottle that not one 
 man in 50,000 would stoop to pick it up from the street. 
 It is very like the broken stopper of a bottle of coarse 
 green glass, and surely this stone presents a lively image 
 of that people in whose charge it rests. A piece of old 
 broken pottery that cannot be mended, and whose use on 
 this earth is long since passed for ever, is the world’s 
 estimate of the Jews, and God Himself said that He would 
 make them such in the eyes of men. Yet the same Lord 
 God also charges them with making their hearts adamant ; 
 and, changing the image, by the same prophet says, “ The 
 Lord their God shall save them, and they shall be as the 
 
 _ stones of a crown,”—as the polished sapphire or the ada- 
 
 mant in a royal diadem. When once it has been fairly 
 seen that the heart of the Jew is too hard for the hand or 
 skill of men, the Lord Himself will take up their case, and 
 taking into His own hand, and putting forth His own skill 
 upon this despised fragment of a potter’s earthen bottle, 
 He will say, “ Thou shalt be called by a new name, which 
 the mouth of the Lord shall name; thou shalt be a crown 
 of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in 
 the hand of thy God.” I shall just read a few sentences 
 from a missionary’s letter, relating to a visit paid to a re- 
 spectable Jewish family in a village across the Bohemian 
 frontier :—“ The colporteur and I arrived about noon, and 
 remained till next morning; and literally, from the time I 
 
124 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 entered the house till eleven at night, I was not suffered to 
 be silent five minutes. With L. himself and his daughter, 
 I had long and earnest conversation ; the heart of the 
 latter is very tender, but Mrs. L. was the person to whom 
 I trust the visit was especially blessed. Our colporteur 
 contemplated her with wonder as she sat listening to the 
 word, and whispered to a neighbour that ‘such things as 
 these she had never heard before.’ When I touched on 
 the passage, ‘they shall look on Him whom they have 
 pierced,’ she asked her husband where that was. He took 
 the Hebrew Bible and translated it to her literally from 
 the Hebrew. She was much affected, and would seemingly 
 have sat up all the night. Next morning she said, ‘I 
 think the reason why our fathers did not receive Him was 
 that He came as a common man, and not as a prince or in 
 the clouds of heaven.’ This led me to explain Isaiah iii. 
 Her husband said, ‘It is the truth ; we cannot say a word 
 against it. She burst into tears and said, ‘To think that 
 we are thus straying and wandering like lost sheep, crying 
 and praying, and not knowing whether we are heard, and 
 the Messiah is there” Jt was an affecting sight, this 
 Israelitish family thus bowing their hearts before the Re- 
 deemer. There is still something to forbid water, till the 
 Holy Ghost come down with His baptism of fire; but I 
 left with a heart full of thankfulness to God, and hope of a 
 full blessing through the prayers of God’s people.” With 
 regard to the schools at Pesth, they had the interesting fact 
 of a large number of Jewish parents, not only sending their 
 children to a Christian school, but paying Christian mis- 
 sionaries for giving their children an education in which 
 the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ is daily 
 taught, explained, and enforced. No doubt their object 
 was that their children should get on better in the world ; 
 but there must be a wonderful removal of prejudice on the 
 part of parents to induce them to go so far. These boys 
 and girls would leave school with their prejudices against 
 Christianity weakened or removed, or probably turned into 
 prepossession in its favour. Now, these children, grown to 
 be men and women, read in their Bibles, or hear in their 
 synagogues, the 22nd Psalm, the 53rd of Isaiah, or the 
 12th of Zechariah, and I think I may venture to say that 
 many of them will never all their lives be able to hear the 
 
CHRISTIAN LITERATURE IN INDIA. 125 
 
 words, “They pierced my hands and my feet,” “He was 
 led as a lamb to the slaughter,” “They shall look on me 
 whom they have pierced,” without awakening the thought 
 of Christ, and Him crucified. 
 
 XII. Christian Literature in India. By Rev. 
 J. P. CHown. 
 
 IT was seventy years since Carey, Marshman,and Ward took 
 their stand at the meeting of four cross-roads at Serampore, 
 where they joined in singing some Christian hymns, and, 
 after having done so, distributed copies of those hymns 
 among those who were present. That was, he believed, 
 the beginning of circulation of Christian literature in 
 India. In the course of the year there had been distributed 
 a thousand Christian tracts ; at the end of fifteen years the 
 number had been increased to nearly a million, and mani- 
 fest blessings had followed ; and from the commencement 
 of the work up to the present time, ten millions of religious 
 tracts and other publications had been circulated in India 
 through the influence of this Society. There had been 
 many indications of satisfactory progress in the diffusion of 
 Christian truth through the medium of tract distribution. 
 It was not merely that tracts had been received, but it 
 appeared that many natives had come to the missionaries, 
 and, flinging themselves at their feet, and embracing their 
 knees, had entreated in terms of pathetic supplication that a 
 tract might be given tothem. That showed an appreciation 
 of the work by those for whom it was intended, which 
 could scarcely have been surpassed in any country. Fur- 
 ther, not only had tracts been received, not only had many 
 of the natives shown an earnest and eager desire to obtain 
 them, but great numbers of tracts had been bought, as it 
 were, from the poverty of natives. The increase in the 
 money received for tracts had for some time past been 
 constant and rapid. As regarded the character of the 
 publications of that Society he would observe, that as it 
 had been said that there was not a village in the country 
 from which there was not a road leading to London, so 
 there was not a tract of that Society, which did not lead 
 the way to Christ. The committee had throughout the 
 
126 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 — 
 
 Society’s career taken care that the publications should 
 
 always be in harmony with the great keynote which was — 
 
 struck when the Society was founded. At the same time : 
 
 there was great variety in the Society’s works, and he 
 liked them also for that. Its publications did a great deal 
 in the way of teaching in secular or scientific matters. 
 They took the student in botany through the various 
 classes of plants, but they also spoke of the Rose of Sharon; 
 they taught lessons in geology, but they also pointed to 
 the imperishable Rock of Ages; they taught the truths of 
 astronomy, and showed how “the heavens declare the glory 
 of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork,” but 
 they stopped not with material spheres and systems, but 
 bore the spirit up to “The Bright and Morning Star,” 
 “The Sun of Righteousness,” in whose living beams the 
 Society wished to see all men rejoicing. Again, he had 
 been struck with the fact that though the publications of 
 the Society were good, they were not dull—that they were 
 interesting, attractive, and genial. As the poet said of 
 “ Divine philosophy,” that it was “not harsh or crabbed, as 
 dull fools suppose ;” so it might be said of the publications 
 of that Society—that they had a sweet ring about them, 
 and that their music was like that which was heard around 
 the throne of God. Further, the tracts and books of that 
 Society were missionaries, and missionaries of no inferior 
 order. They had been reminded that evening that among 
 the books sent out was the “ Pilgrim’s Progress.” John 
 Bunyan was a missionary in India. He found, too, that 
 “Jessica's Prayer” was out there. The living words struck 
 like an electric spark from the soul of a Christian woman 
 had, it might be hoped, entered the hearts of many of the 
 natives, and set them on fire with the truths embodied in 
 that little work. He also perceived that Legh Richmond 
 was in India, and of course he had with him “The Dairy- 
 man’s Daughter.” Although the authors of these works 
 had gone to their rest, they were still labouring for Christ 
 through the works themselves, and as the missionaries 
 preached, these tracts and books were exercising their 
 silent power. If missionaries told tales connected with 
 religion to the heathen, so did these tracts ; if missionaries 
 led the devotions of those who listened to them, and taught 
 them songs of Zion, so did these tracts. One tract taught 
 
GO FORWARD. 127 
 
 _ the hymn, “Shall we gather at the river?” Another taught 
 the hymn, “Just as I am, without one plea.” Another, 
 _ “The hour of prayer.” It was delightful to think of the silent 
 influence which was thus being exercised, and it surely 
 became them all to indulge feelings of devout acknowledg- 
 ment for the past, and of earnest confidence and anticipation 
 for the future. 
 
 XIII. Go Forward. Zy Rev. Dr. Morey Punsnon. 
 
 Two things had struck him in connection with the report: 
 they rejoiced, for the first time, he believed, in the annals 
 of Methodist missions, in having a station at Lucknow; 
 and that there, with the memories of their slaughtered 
 countrymen and countrywomen, butchered by heathen 
 cruelty, they had been permitted to show them the nobility 
 of Christian revenge. The other thought which occurred 
 to him in connection with the report was the suggestive 
 character of the statement that public discussion had been 
 commenced in India. Anything in the world rather than 
 the stagnation which did not know a throb! Idols were 
 less often and less largely propitiated now with blood than 
 formerly ; the priests were not princes now, but jugglers 
 and conjurors in their hold upon the people, and if that 
 everlasting New Zealander who cropped up so often in 
 speeches of all kinds ever did take his seat on the broken 
 arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s, in 
 order to furnish a picture for the Academy, they would at 
 least have the consolation of knowing that it was they who 
 first taught him to draw. Gotthold, the German, told a 
 beautiful fable of a river of which the horses drank, and, after 
 having slaked their thirst, trampled it with their feet; but 
 the river sped on and the heaven smiled gratefully upon its 
 rippling waters, as it flowed through the corn-beds and the 
 dwellers upon its banks. So with the missionary cause. 
 Captain Burton dared not have gone to Dahomey if the 
 missionary had not gone there before him. It was their 
 missionary who had opened up the way for European 
 civilization and European commerce into those dark and 
 benighted regions of the earth, and although those who 
 were indebted to the mission for their power to do mischiei 
 
128 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 turned against it—slaking their thirst and then fouling 
 the residue with their feet—onward in calm kindliness, un- 
 heeding, should flow the river, and everything should live 
 “whither the river cometh.” They were charged with 
 failure: failure meant inability to meet one’s engagements; 
 now, they had engaged to do nothing except to obey the 
 Master. They had not engaged the success; but success 
 had been given them, and, comparing the state of the 
 mission Churches with those at home, and the description 
 given of the Churches of old, he contended that the success 
 in the mission field had been as great as of old, and as in 
 this country. They had had success in comparison with 
 anybody else. Model farming, colonisation, education— 
 these were things of which they had often heard as the 
 means which were to affect the mighty change. It did not 
 appear that the gentlemen who supported missions were but 
 bankrupts in originality ; their works would bear comparison 
 with those of the discoverers he alluded to; and they 
 might go to them, of course modestly, and say, “ Gentle- 
 men, it would ill become us to be unmannerly (although 
 they call us so) ; we may be pardoned for intruding ourselves 
 into your company. We are poor; we are uneducated, 
 comparatively uncultured ; we are not members, most of 
 us, of the Anthropological Society; we scarcely dare to 
 come between the wind and your nobility; we have failed, 
 you say; but where are your successes? Where are the 
 nations that you have turned about from barbarism to 
 civilization ? Where are the garlands that crown the altars 
 upon which you have made your votive offerings to the 
 Pan of human self-sufficiency? What reason have you to 
 sneer at us for the apparent failure of our plans? We have 
 written few romances ; we have shot no gorillas ; we love 
 life, most of us; but we trust none of us would turn 
 Mohammedans to save it. We have not done all we want 
 to do, we have not done all we should have done, we have 
 not done all we shall do; but, by the grace of God, we 
 have done something ; and, hark you! we tell you in the 
 face of the world, and to your beard, we have done better 
 than you.” Their duty was based upon the command, 
 “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
 creature.” In the words of Burke, at Bristol, to his con- 
 stituents, he would say to them—“ Applaud us when we 
 
CONCRETE CHRISTIANITY. 12g 
 
 run, cheer us when we fall, console us when we recover, 
 but, above all things, let us go on: for God’s sake let us 
 go on.” 
 
 XIV. Concrete Christianity. ZBy Rev. Dr. Parker. 
 
 Most of us have to do with concrete Christianity, with 
 its history, its facts, its ascertainable effects upon human 
 temper ; and we find upon the side of the great argument 
 not only relief from the noise and pressure of con- 
 troversy and restlessness of self-amending philosophies ; 
 but proof upon proof, in happy and endless succession, 
 that Christ Jesus is the healer of man ; that to be in Christ 
 is to be a new creature, and to be at the cross is to walk 
 not after the flesh but after the Spirit. “Where is the 
 healed man?” must be the constant cry, and when the 
 healed man is produced he must be weighed as part of the 
 great argument. In 1832, Charles Darwin took his voyage 
 in the Beagle. Coming to Tierra del Fuego, he said: “I 
 believe in this extreme part of South America man exists 
 in a lower state of improvement than in any other part of 
 the world.” Again, he says: “These poor wretches were 
 stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed 
 with white paint, their skin filthy and greasy, their hair 
 entangled, their voices discordant, their gesticulation 
 violent” ; and Darwin, in 1832, pronounced the inhabitants 
 of that part of South America all but, if not wholly, 
 hopeless. What can Christianity do with a case like that ? 
 A little child was found in the streets of Bristol. He was 
 taken to the workhouse; found on St. Thomas’s day, he 
 was called Thomas; found between two bridges, he was 
 called -Bridges—Thomas Bridges. In due time he be- 
 came the Rev. Thomas Bridges. He sought to become a 
 missionary in South America. He went to Tierra del 
 Fuego just as described by Charles Darwin; he studied 
 the tones, he gave them shape on paper, he exerted his 
 utmost ingenuity in the case, and gave himself night and 
 day to the severe labour, till he was able to translate part 
 of the Word of God into the language which he had largely 
 himself created for the people. He put that word of God 
 into their hands, explained it, lived a Christian life amongst 
 K 
 
130 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 them. The people became civilized, Christianized, and 
 when the facts were brought to the attention of the great 
 traveller and the great naturalist, he sent a donation to the 
 Society whose agent had been the means of doing this 
 noble work. Beholding the land that was healed he could 
 say nothing against it. Our own Admiralty had issued 
 orders that English vessels were not to go near that part 
 of South America. Intelligence of the Christian result 
 was brought to the Admiralty, and the orders were quite 
 recently revoked. What did that work? Let us be just; 
 let us be decent if we cannot be great—what did the work? 
 In the name of simple honour, justice, fairness, we are 
 bound to say that this work was undertaken by Christian 
 beneficence, was conducted by Christian heroism, and, if 
 any one is to be crowned in view of this most glorious 
 result, who will deny that the crown is due to Him who 
 bowed His sacred head and died, tasting death for every 
 man ? 
 
 XV. Gospel Victories. Sy Tue BisHop or CARLISLE, 
 
 THE blessing of God was to be expected to incline to 
 the side of doctrinal truth. The victories of the gospel 
 in early days were won by the blood of the Lamb and by 
 the Word of His testimony. When Paul encountered the 
 men of Athens or of Rome, he did not set before them 
 rationalism or asceticism; not words of wisdom such as 
 man teacheth, but the teaching of the Holy Ghost. When 
 Christ was set forth by him it was not in carving of ivory 
 and ebony, it was not in gorgeous ceremonialism, but in 
 the simple oral teaching of the Word of God. The 
 weapons of apostolic warfare were those which recognised 
 those two great principles, the value of the atoning blood 
 and the sovereignty of the regenerated Spirit. If, leaving 
 the victories of apostolic days, we came down to triumphs 
 spoken of by the report, the successes obtained in New 
 Zealand and Sierra Leone were all obtained by the preach- 
 ing of the gospel of Christ, by the exhibition of Jesus 
 Christ and Him crucified. The motto of the missionaries 
 had been, “ The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but 
 mighty to pull down the strongholds of sensualism, of 
 sensuousness, and of scepticism.” However dark the day, 
 
IN 
 
 THE ROOT IDEA OF GOSPEL PROPAGATION. 131 
 
 let men, with David of old, stick to the testimonies of the 
 Lord; and thus the only course of safety would also be 
 taken. The signs of the time all seemed to point to some 
 great on-coming battle. Forces were being gathered 
 against the Lord and His Christ, and the day was coming 
 when, figuratively speaking, the mountains would be cast 
 into the midst of the sea. When that day came, only that 
 layman would be safe, only that clerk would be safe, who 
 continued true to the fundamental principles of the gospel 
 of Christ. Being on the side of Christ, they would be on 
 the conqueror’s side. Happy the men who did not look 
 upon the weapons used by Romaine, Whitefield, Scott, 
 Venn, Simeon, as mere curiosities that might hang up like 
 pieces of armour in a hall, but as weapons that were as 
 good and true now as they were in the days of old. 
 
 XVI. The Root Idea of Gospel Propagation. 
 By Rey. Dr. Cuross. 
 
 IN the course of a sermon on this subject, Dr. Culross 
 said: A considerable amount of home mission work is done 
 over the country by single Churches and associations in 
 their own proper localities ; but when it is all summed up, 
 there still remains a great deal that is not overtaken, and 
 a wide field for the general Society where the surface is 
 merely scratched. He then proceeded to exhibit some of 
 the first principles of home mission work, taking for his 
 text John i. 41, 42. Andrew first findeth his own brother 
 Simon, and saith to him, “We have found the Christ ;” and 
 then he brought him to Jesus. In this transaction was to 
 be found the root-idea of gospel propagation, whether at 
 home or abroad ; and he set forth three lessons. Find, Tell, 
 Sring: these three words mark out the line of the Society’s 
 work, It is a concerted seeking of the lost, in which we 
 keep in intelligent and sympathetic connection with one 
 another, and combine our efforts, in order that we may 
 bring them to the Saviour. The scope at home for evan- 
 gelistic labour was illustrated by an affecting anecdote of 
 a gentleman in London whom the preacher lately attended 
 on his death-bed. The gospel, as he drank it in, seemed 
 altogether new and wonderiul to him ; when told about the 
 
132 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 magnificence of Divine grace, he exclaimed, “Do the 
 people of London know that ?” There was a church at the 
 end of his street, glorious in its Gothic architecture, with 
 saints in its stained-glass windows ; Christian men had 
 met him in business week after week ; and yet the story of 
 the holy Love was as strange to him as if he had spent his 
 life in Central Africa. There, then, in green and quiet 
 country villages, and in our great cities, beneath the shadow 
 of our steeples, is field enough for such a Society as this, 
 to seek our brother and bring him to Jesus. In one of the 
 closing passages of his discourse, Dr. Culross set forth the 
 aim of the Society to have each convert and member of the 
 the mission-church a missionary. The Christian is not a 
 marble statue chiselled by a Divine Sculptor to show his 
 skill; but a fresh and living force thrown into the battle 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Il]. BIBLE DISTRIBUTION 
 L The Word of God. Sy THE Very Rev. DEAN CLOsE. 
 
 IT was in the winter of 1812 that I became a collector of 
 a penny a week for the British and Foreign Bible Society, 
 under the direction of the eldest son of Bible Scott, and 
 the lesson which he often imparted to me I have never 
 forgotten. I may truly say that from boyhood to youth, 
 and from youth to manhood, and from manhood to old 
 age, I have ever loved and never deserted, and never failed 
 to support, to my utmost ability, this glorious and blessed 
 institution. I have supported it in fair weather and in 
 foul. There have been occasions, in past years, when 
 I was very much more frequently able to attend your 
 great anniversaries, when this room was not more than 
 two-thirds full, if so much. Division and strife, always the 
 curse of the Christian Church, had found its way even into 
 the bosom of this benevolent and Christian society, and 
 hence falling off, and weakness of heart. But there was 
 something in her which I shall endeavour to show before 
 I sit down that prevented the good ship from foundering. 
 And now I come before you after the lapse of years, feeling 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 133 
 
 differently from what you, my lord,! must feel, who have 
 presided here, year after year, for twenty-five years, and 
 God grant you may be spared much longer. You are inured 
 to the changes and fluctuations of this society. I live in 
 a far country, in North Britain, according to the direc- 
 tion on many of my letters, far away from the influence 
 of these great anniversaries, and I have been little able 
 to attend them, and therefore I regard them from a 
 different standpoint to that from which your lordship will 
 regard them, and they strike me as most wonderful in- 
 stances of Divine Providence. I speak here not merely 
 of this great institution, but of all its kindred institutions, 
 and I express it as my deep conviction, from long obser- 
 vation, that the persistency of these institutions, their 
 consistency in their work, their gradual increase in all 
 their proportions and all their usefulness, is a constant 
 miracle and evidence of the truth of God in an evil and 
 sinful age. There is one text in the Scripture which 
 appears to me to describe in three lines the remarkable 
 position of the Christian world at the present moment— 
 “They shall fear the name of the Lord from the West.” 
 When that was written, and when the Gospel was first 
 propagated, the pillars of Hercules formed the West ; but 
 now beyond those, and far across the Atlantic, another 
 world exists, and they fear the Lord from Western America, 
 And a fifth quarter of the world, if I were not using an 
 Irishism, the great country of Australia, has come amongst 
 us. ‘They shall also glorify the Lord from the rising of 
 the sun.” I do not know where the sun rose then, but it 
 seems now to rise very much further east than it did in 
 those days, and it shines upon vast countries then unknown. 
 Here, I say, is an expression of the wide diffusion of the 
 Gospel, both written and spoken, and I affirm it constantly 
 that since Christ came into the world there never was 
 anything like the present diffusion of the Gospel. The 
 miracle of Pentecost was a trifle compared with the miracle 
 of the Bible Society that speaks in 220 languages. I 
 wonder how many there were at Pentecost—very few 
 indeed, comparing, I say, the work of God then and now; 
 
 1 The speech was delivered in Exeter Hall, and the meeting was 
 presided over by the late Lord Shaftesbury. 
 
234 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 it is most wonderful, and the fact cannot be denied. I am 
 not speaking of its success, or of the number of conversions, 
 but of the extraordinary historical fact that if you take a 
 map of the world and put a red cross wherever the Bible 
 is, and wherever the missionary is, you will have a reflec- 
 tion like the starry heavens, although there may be a 
 deep-dark sky beyond. This, then, is one remarkable 
 feature ; but my text goes on to say that when this great 
 diffusion takes place “The enemy shall come in like a 
 flood ;” and you will agree with mein that. The enemy 
 does come in upon us undoubtedly like a flood, whether 
 it be in the wild and boisterous waves of a mountain sea 
 coming over tremendously to deluge us with noise and 
 tempest and storm, as I might say in the violence and 
 boisterousness and drunkenness which threaten to deluge 
 the land,—may I not say licensed drunkenness ?—and 
 prostitution—must I say licensed prostitution ?—fearful 
 things! And these are evils which in Scripture lan- 
 guage are like the troubled sea when it casts up mire and 
 dirt. But there is such a thing as a still flood, like the 
 solemn rising of your Thames, calm and tranquil ; but how 
 they watch its rise inch by inch! A few more inches, and 
 the calm flood shall deluge 10,000 houses and destroy 
 on every side. So we have the deluge of infidelity and 
 the deluge of superstition quietly creeping into our houses, 
 stealing our families and our children; one stolen off te 
 infidelity and another to the lies of the apostate Church 
 of Rome, and thus it is that there is unquestionably an 
 enemy, the devil. Men may deny his very existence; he 
 holds them fast, and then they say, “There is no such 
 thing as a devil at all; we do not believe a word of it.” 
 But I say he thus comes in like a flood. But what then? 
 “The Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against 
 him.” I believe the history of the world from the days of 
 Paradise until now will tell the same story, that whenever 
 the Spirit of the Lord is upon the earth, whenever the 
 people of God rise to their duties, then the devil stirs up 
 his people either to direful opposition or to work side by 
 side. Now as this is the case, I believe, looking from 
 that standpoint of forty, fifty, or sixty years ago, the 
 great Pilot of the Christian Church foresaw this great, 
 direful flood that was coming in, and put His Spirit intc 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 135 
 
 the hearts of little bands of men here and there at the 
 close of the last century, and the beginning of this, to pray 
 and think, “What can we do for the glory of God? how 
 can we circulate His Word? how can we send out mis- 
 sionaries?” They did not know what they were doing, 
 but they were doing a great work, and they have done a 
 great work, and God has blessed that work. But that 
 work has done muchmore. I believe that every missionary 
 society, every Bible society, every evangelical society of 
 every kind, is the Spirit of the Lord lifting up a standard 
 here at home to drive back infidelity and superstition. 
 When we are working for this Society, and circulating the 
 Bible in lands and languages, the names of which I should 
 be very sorry to attempt to pronounce, and when we are 
 having statistics and figures, which I have abhorred from 
 my school days even to the present moment; and when 
 we read of these great many Bibles and great many 
 missionaries, we think we are only sending Bibles or send- 
 ing missionaries to Russia and I know not where; but we 
 are planting the standard of God’s truth to defend us at 
 home, and to save us from the incursions of infidelity and 
 superstition. But to return to our own Society for a 
 moment. I said that I had stood by her in fair weather 
 and foul, and she has had some very foul weather, and 
 received some very heavy shocks. I may mention, for 
 instance, when I was young the wiseacres used to say, 
 “Oh, those poor fellows at Exeter Hall; let them alone ; 
 they will talk themselves quiet, and soon be tired; the 
 thing will evaporate, and it is all momentary superstition ;” 
 but fifty, sixty, seventy years have gone on, and I find this 
 big room as full as ever of men with hearts and hands 
 determined to promote the glory of God—and notwith- 
 standing this Bible Society has been so nearly lost, and 
 had such bad weather, I see her not only righted, but fully 
 equipped, and she is now laden with this Word of God in 
 all languages and tongues ; she is going down channel 
 with every stitch of sail set, with her stun’sails out and 
 the breath of heaven wafting her, and I am sure, despite 
 Mr. Plimsoll, with a deck cargo, and all crowded upon her 
 deck ; and above her floats, I will not say the Royal or 
 Imperial standard, but I will say the standard of the Lord 
 of Hosts, the flag which He flies, and under which flag 
 
136 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 there must eventually be victory. But, allow me for a 
 moment to ask the question, what is the cause of this 
 great success, especially of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society? I daresay very few of you have looked as you 
 ought to do into the big book of the report. Why, it isa 
 volume! I cannot read it a quarter through; I have not 
 time to do so; but I skimmed it over, and what a wonder- 
 ful report it is! What extraordinary facts are produced ! 
 And then we come to another wonderful thing. Where 
 does all the money come from? When I go round the 
 country I hear very few people talking about the poor old 
 Bible Society. It is preached for in fewer pulpits than 
 any other society I know of, but yet it does not fail—nay, 
 it increases. And it is, as it ought to be, the parent society 
 of all societies, and takes the lead in money matters as in 
 everything else. But what is your strength? Where is 
 it? No doubt there have been great skill, great learning, 
 deep piety, and many prayers—I would not undervalue 
 human agency—and I confess, as an old friend of this 
 Society, I felt a little proud—I do not know whether it 
 was right or wrong—when the /teratz and savanus could 
 not find what they wanted in the Bodleian Library, or the 
 libraries of Oxford, or the British Museum, and were ob- 
 liged to come to the depdt of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society. There must be some learning, there must 
 be something worth looking at, when the scientific con- 
 descend to visit our stores. Yes; I rejoice, and I believe 
 that all the best of human learning and human piety has 
 been devoted to this great work of translating and circu- 
 lating the Word of God. But even this is not the reason 
 of your success. Why has not your ship sunk under these 
 storms? It is because. of the cargo which she hears ; 
 it is because she bears the Word of the living God and 
 the truth of God, and the ship swims because of her 
 cargo. You recollect many of those Northern timber 
 ships ; they suffer tremendously in bad weather, and some- 
 times they have all their crew swept off their decks ; but 
 they cannot sink, because they are laden with timber ; and 
 so it is with the Bible Society. Beat her as you will, abuse 
 her as you may, find fault with her as you choose, she will 
 swim in spite of all, because she has the cargo of the Word 
 of the living God! And what is that cargo? Let me be 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 137 
 
 a Custom House officer for a while, and go and examine 
 
 the cargo of this ship. Perhaps you will tell me it is a 
 
 very old story, a very old Book, that you all know what it 
 _is—the Bible. Yes. What isthe Bible? God’s written 
 
 Word, or, as we call it in the Church of England, God’s 
 
 Word written. I do not like that definition altogether. 
 
 It is true, but not the whole truth by a great deal, and it 
 
 is a definition which some are disposed to take advantage 
 
 of. There are some folks amongst ourselves who sneer at 
 
 _ the written Word, and they say, “ Oh, the world will never 
 
 _be converted by a book; it was not the written Word that 
 
 the apostles and the prophets and our Lord circulated, but 
 it was the voice of man that did it.” Some folks build 
 that pyramid with the apex downwards in my judgment ; 
 
 _ they put the Bible upon the Church, instead of the Church 
 
 A 
 _ by the voice of man and not by the Word?” They found 
 
 ( 
 
 upon the Bible. But that is not the Protestant or the 
 
 _ Article view of it. I say to those who advance that argu- 
 
 ment, “ How do you find out that the Gospel was circulated 
 
 it in the Bible. They would never have known anything 
 
 about it if it had not been there; and what they know 
 
 beyond that I do not care much about or have much 
 
 respect for. Here we come to the grand point—the view 
 that you take of this blessed Book, what is it? It is not 
 
 { i 
 
 merely and simply the written Word of God. The Epistles 
 and the New Testament are the written Word of God. 
 
 _ Perhaps the Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and Ecclesi- 
 
 astes are the written Word of God, but the rest of the 
 Bible is not the written Word of God. It was all spoken 
 
 before it was written. It is the record of the oral Word 
 
 of God inallages. Our Lord speaks of it, and echoes back 
 the Old Testament, “ Every word that proceedeth out of 
 
 the mouth of the Lord.” That is not written—it is spoken. 
 
 And I look at the source of this, and see it magnificently 
 exhibiting the idea. Amidst the thunders and earthquakes, 
 
 and sounds, and sights of Sinai, it is there said, “God 
 “spake all these words ”—with a voice that made the nations 
 hhear—and when He had spoken them He wrote them, 
 
 wrote them twice with His own finger on tables of stone. 
 It was first spoken, and then written. And that is the 
 
 history of the great bulk of this blessed Book. It is the 
 
 written record of what God said to Adam and Eve in 
 
138 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 Paradise ; what God said to Abraham in the dark and 
 thick night ; what He whispered in the ear of Jacob whe 
 He wrestled with him; what He spake to Moses eigh 
 days and nights on that Mount. It was all spoken befor 
 it was written. And the prophecies of God, they were al 
 spoken before they were written. It is the record of what 
 was spoken. And the beautiful Psalms—what do yo 
 think of them? Were they spoken? No; they were 
 prayed and poured out from the voice of the penitent 
 believer ; they were said, they were sung; I do not know 
 whether they were intoned until modern times—that I 
 cannot answer for; but I am certain they were said, and 
 sung, and prayed, and then they were recorded by the 
 Spirit of God in the Book for your edification and mine. 
 And what are the Gospels? What are the Acts of the 
 Apostles? Are they merely writings written from God to 
 us? No, they are the records of the very voice, and word, 
 and action of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, so that when © 
 you hear this Book read, you hear the very words of the- 
 Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This gives me an idea of the 
 dignity and power of this Word that I never gained till I 
 saw it. It seems to me a kind of double inspiration. I 
 have no longer to quibble about the degree of inspiration — 
 of this or that, but I have this first of all as our blessed 
 Lord said Himself. “Holy men of old,” as the apostle, 
 “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” They 
 all spoke. Yes, it is the oral tradition of the Church of 
 the living God recorded by a Divine reporter for our 
 edification to the end of time. Therefore it is that this 
 Society is as prosperous as it is; therefore it is that I feel, 
 in my departing address to you,—it may possibly be my 
 last—it will be my comfort and consolation that though 
 one generation of advocates pass away, another will rise 
 up. I feel almost to-day as if I was the last of a special 
 race. Your fathers, where are they? Where, where are 
 the men who for years and years pleaded with you in this” 
 room? Where are the mighty dead who have died in the 
 Lord? They are gone. I believe few in this room will 
 equal even myself in age, and in devotion to your Society. 
 They are passed away, but I bless God that there are 
 young men rising up among you, and I have no fear for 
 God’s cause nor for His word. His glory is wrapt up in 
 
THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 139 
 
 it. Do you but circulate His pure and unadulterated word, 
 and the Lord will bless it to the salvation of His people, 
 and the gathering together of His Church. I pray God to 
 pour His abundant blessing on you all. My friends, I 
 pray for you sincerely. You have had great advantages 
 in London since I knew it; you have been roused and 
 stirred up by American piety from far lands. The spirit 
 of the Lord is there, It is all working to oppose the power 
 and dominion of Satan, and I pray God that you may 
 know the day of your visitation, and that every man, 
 woman, and child here present to-day representing an 
 interest in the circulation of the Scriptures, may represent 
 a witness and a testimony to the power of the Word in 
 their own souls, that they may feed upon it day and night. 
 As an old man, now long experienced, I can say to you 
 that the longer you study, and the deeper you study, and 
 the more you pray over that Blessed Word, the more rich 
 discoveries you will make of God’s grace. Instead of its 
 being a stale or a dry book, or a heavy work, the light 
 shines brighter and brighter on every page; and when you 
 want it most, when your flesh and your heart fail, and those 
 around you fail, you will find God the strength of your 
 heart, and your portion for ever. 
 
 II. The Silence of the Bible. By Dr. Mortey 
 PUNSHON. 
 
 _ A SENTENCE of Archbishop Trench’s has been ringing in 
 my ears repeatedly this morning. In one of his Hulsean 
 Lectures, I think, he says something like this: “That it 
 was observed by one wise man to another that his ques- 
 tions taught more than other people’s answers;” and he 
 refers back, if I remember rightly, to the Scripture in this 
 aspect of it: “That the silence of Scripture is often more 
 instructive than the teaching of other books.” Now that 
 silence, as it appears to me, may not be inaptly quoted as 
 an evidence of the Scriptures’ inspiration. It is silent, not 
 by inadvertence ; it is silent by design. The same spirit 
 which prompted the writers to write withheld the writers 
 from writing when the Lord did not will the inspiration. 
 And so it is true, as Boyle says, that the Scripture is like 
 
140 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 a dial in which we are informed by the shadow as well ag 
 the light ; and, again, in the words of the lamented Archer 
 Butler, “ What we see is holy; but what we see not is holier 
 still.” It is the glory of God, we are told, to conceal a mat- 
 ter. And sometimes to repress an unhallowed curiosity, © 
 and sometimes to exercise His people’s faith, and some-— 
 times to vindicate His own prerogative, and sometimes— — 
 nay, always—to evolve His own plans into clearer and . 
 grander harmony, God mingles obscurity and brightness ~ 
 in the revelation of His will. There is no obscurity, mark ~ 
 you, upon the matters that concern salvation. They are — 
 all as clear as the morning. There is no theorising upon — 
 truth. In the Scripture, truth is dogmatically asserted. — 
 We do not get hold of the processes in which the results 
 are arrived at; we do not see the reasons of things as © 
 they present themselves to the Divine mind. And if it 
 be God’s Word, it must be so. If it be God’s Word, we 
 must take it because God says it, and we must not be 
 disposed to seek out irreverently what it is His pleasure to 
 hide. Human silence, you know, may be broken by human 
 tests. It is recorded that when the oracles of old were 
 rather chary of response, Alexander politely compelled the © 
 priestess to the tripod and made her speak. And on 
 another occasion, when the blood of St. Januarius did not — 
 liquefy as it ought to have done—when the priests were ~ 
 either unable or unwilling (I give them the choice of the — 
 dilemma)—a message came from one whose position gave © 
 him power, that it must liquefy in half an hour or the high : 
 priest should be hanged. But in spite of royal will, and in — 
 spite of military insolence, the silence of the Scripture re- 
 mains inviolate. The seal of that silence cannot possibly © 
 be broken by the touch of any human hand, and it is note- © 
 worthy—and I shall come to my point very shortly (I do 
 not know that I am very far from it now)—it is noteworthy 
 that the subjects upon which Scripture is silent are pre- 
 cisely the same subjects where irreverent curiosity would 
 fain probe to the uttermost, and where speculations have 
 been multiplied almost without end. Weask about the 
 creation of the world ; it is dismissed in a sentence, almost © 
 in a word. We ask about the angels—those vast and 
 lofty intelligences who are so powerful for good or evil. 
 We do not know much about them from the Word. 
 
 siete 
 
THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 141 
 
 We ask about the existence of other worlds; we would fain 
 know something of the conditions under which they 
 _ live—whether there is sin among them— 
 
 “ Whether they have felt above, 
 Redeeming grace and dying love.” 
 
 We know nothing about it from the Word. We ask in 
 reference to the origin of evil; we find scars upon the 
 earth ; a sickly and wailing child, volcano and pestilence, 
 tyranny and wrong; and if God be God, and if He be love, 
 and if He be pure, whence? why? Scripture is silent. It 
 is more concern to discover the remedy than to account for 
 the disease. We ask about the dead. What are the con- 
 ditions of their existence in the world to which they are 
 gone on, and in that paradise which is but a suburb of 
 heaven? We do not know; the Word is silent. Who, 
 awed by the loving ministry of the Lord Jesus, and loving 
 Him intensely, as I trust we are getting to do as a 
 personal Christ—as a personal Redeemer—who of us has 
 not wondered what He was like? We know all about 
 heroes. We know all about poets and artists. Every 
 great man who is noteworthy enough to live in memory at 
 all—either the pen or the pencil has brought him before 
 us to the very buckskin, or to a ribbon. Many painters 
 have essayed to paint Christ ; but then it is left to the 
 imagination entirely. Raphael, and Correggio, and Caracci 
 can give us no light, nor Matthew, nor Mark, nor John. 
 Nay, Luke even,—for he was, as a tradition says, painter 
 as well as physician—has not essayed to draw for us upon 
 
 canvas the features of the Master whom he loved. Now, 
 
 mark where Scripture is silent, and where Scripture speaks; 
 silent upon matters that are subordinate—rich with a 
 speaking fulness upon matters that are supreme, silent 
 where irreverent curiosity would probe or arrant fancy 
 would wander; abundant in its revelation where the in- 
 tellect thirsts for knowledge and where the hunger of heart 
 would be satisfied with the fulness of the Word ; rich in its 
 proclamation of everything that can Jead the tottering steps 
 of a wayfaring man to Jesus ; abundant in its revelation of 
 the one way to God and of the honours that are to be given 
 to the Redeemer and to the Holy Spirit in the salvation of 
 sinners ; free and unrestricted in its offers of mercy, and 
 
142 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 with such a power in its words that the lame man leaps ag — 
 a hart and the tongue of the dumb sings; yet there isa 
 silence—an unmistakable, inviolate, painful silence—where 
 misgivings, or rather scepticism, would inquire, or where — 
 unhallowed curiosity would probe. The Bible is like the 
 Master who talked freely about the mysteries of His king- — 
 dom to blind beggars, and to fallen but penitent women, 
 but who uttered not a word to the blasphemous audacity of 
 Caiaphas and the insolent impiety of Herod. Now I should 
 just like to ask, Is not there something in this that may 
 be quoted as a collateral evidence of inspiration? If 
 an impostor, or a set of impostors, had gone about to 
 write a book, shrewd, skilful men, knowing human nature, 
 and knowing how much of the Athenian there is about 
 human nature still—for all the Athenians, you remember, 
 and the strangers that were at Athens, were bent upon 
 nothing else but either to hear or tell some new thing—if a 
 shrewd impostor had tried to write a book, would he not 
 have just been keen to satisfy the hunger of curiosity, 
 which is, I venture to say, as rife in human nature to-day 
 as it was in the time when the inspired writer wrote those 
 words? Have not impostors uniformly done so? The 
 Apocryphal Gospels, the heathen mythologies, the Book of 
 Mormon—do not they all peer underneath the surface, and 
 give ridiculous and impious details in their endeavour to 
 be wise above what is written? It is the Bible alone that 
 preserves a dignified and majestic simplicity. Reticent 
 upon all those matters that might, perhaps, have settled 
 controversies with a word, but that are not necessary to 
 make us wise unto salvation ; and so, in the strong words 
 of a former dignitary of the Church of England, a grand 
 man—Archbishop Whately—no impostor would, and no 
 enthusiast could, have written the Scriptures. They are 
 not of man’s device, therefore, but they are the words of 
 the living God. Now, it has struck me, that we are 
 sometimes in danger in these days of ours of conceding a 
 great deal too much to our adversaries. Iam afraid that 
 one cause of the apparent hold which some of the fashion- 
 able scepticism of the present day has got among the peo- 
 ple is a sort of hesitancy which Christians have come to 
 have in speaking with such men about their belief in the 
 inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Now, if we show them 
 
THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 144 
 
 that we begin to doubt we have lost half the battle. Have 
 we faith? That is just the question. Have we faith in our 
 ‘own cause? For my part, I am not disposed to yield a 
 hair’s breadth to impudent unbelief. For my part I am 
 disposed to claim, that the Bible should be the great intel- 
 lectual educator of the age. Yes, I say the great intel- 
 lectual educator. I know that witlings will sneer at this. 
 It is good, they say, for feminine instincts—though that 
 is a grand compliment to the ladies, by the way—good 
 for feminine instincts, good for emotional satisfactions, but 
 altogether out of place—a laggard behind the age—in 
 reference to the manly growth of the intellect and of the 
 reason of man. Well, Sir William Jones did not think 
 so; Robert Boyle did not think so; Isaac Newton did 
 not think so; and I think we may let that matter pass 
 until we get a modern sceptical philosopher half as big. 
 Guizot has put that strongly in his lectures on civil- 
 ization, where he claims that from the Reformation— 
 which, by the way, was the very first thing which put the 
 Bible into the hands of the common people—was the start 
 in that race for intellectual progress which gave the first 
 wholesale impulse to English literature, and which filled 
 the spacious times of great Elizabeth with sounds which 
 echo still. And so with the social life of England, for 
 the argument might be almost indefinitely extended. I 
 am not at all concerned, however, at this meeting, to 
 defend the Bible. I want to encourage ourselves in our 
 adhesion to it—to its principles, to its precepts to its 
 hopes, and to stimulate our personal endeavour to circu- 
 late it unto the very ends of the earth. In my best 
 “moments, in my calmest and most trustful moments, I am 
 not afraid. Ido get a little fretful and impatient some- 
 times. I suppose that is in consequence of the infirmity, 
 or of the lack of my faith; but I am not afraid in my 
 highest and most trustful moments at all as to the future 
 destiny of the Bible and of the Christianity which it em- 
 bodies. I have marked how God has been in connection 
 with it from the beginning. It isa marvellous thing to 
 think about—that from the beginning of the world there 
 has been a special need ; there has been a special interposi- 
 tion. I think I could trace out, if I had time, that God 
 had a purpose of mercy towards Britain. Now, I am not 
 
144 PLATFORM AIDS--BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 going into ecclesiastical history. I do not know, certainly, 
 whether Paul was ever in Britain or not; but I do know 
 that Paul was in Rome. I do know that Eusebius tells us 
 —and he is rather an authority, you know, as an ecclesias- | 
 tical historian—Eusebius tells us that Paul was in Rome 
 in the second year of the Emperor Nero. I do know 
 this, that Caractacus, the Christian King of Britain, was in» 
 Rome as a hostage at the same time. At any rate, we 
 know that Caractacus and Paul were both in Rome, and it 
 was at the time when Paul was acting as a local preacher 
 —when he preached, not at St. Peter’s, but at his own 
 hired house, just as some of us do at the present time, who 
 are not favoured with large endowments, and that sort of 
 thing. He preached in his own hired house, and Carac- 
 tacus and Paul being in Rome together, and Caractacus 
 coming home, as some say, and establishing, or, at any 
 rate, aiding in the establishment, of Christianity—that 
 shows that just as God sometimes sends the heathen to 
 the Gospel, when the Churches will not send the Gospel to 
 the heathen, there is a providence over all the affairs of 
 men that works all things steadily and surely to the ac- 
 complishment of His own great and gracious ends. Well, 
 then, if you come down a little further still, there was John 
 Wycliffe preaching away at Oxford with most wonderful 
 vigour and success—with such wonderful vigour and suc- 
 cess that the mendicant friars hated him, and they got up 
 a persecution against him, and drove him away from Ox- 
 ford. Well, that was not the only time that a grand and 
 good thing has been done for the world by a man that has 
 been driven away from Oxford. I am not sure” that we 
 should have had that grand battering ram against Rome if 
 somebody had not been driven away from Oxford. How- 
 ever, God had a much greater work for Wycliffe to do 
 than he could ever have done in Oxford. He had a work 
 that required the seclusion and the quiet of Lutterworth 
 Rectory. And so he was driven away from Oxford and 
 silenced from preaching, that he might do the grander, 
 nobler, better work of translating the Word of God. His 
 preaching would have died with him. When the tongue 
 of the orator is silent the voice of his persuasiveness is 
 over, and the effect only exists as a dream of exquisite 
 memory, But the labour of Wycliffe is a labour that will 
 
THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 143 
 
 stand for ever. After Wycliffe had done his work, and 
 after he had gone home, they disinterred his bones. The first 
 experiments of burning that were made in a certain locality 
 were made upon bones—a very harmless sort of thing 
 though, and Wycliffe suffered posthumous martyrdom— 
 the most pleasant sort of martyrdom, I should fancy, in- 
 asmuch as there was not much personal feeling about it. 
 But you know what has been said, that the ashes were 
 taken from the Swift to the Avon, and from the Avon to 
 the Severn, and from the Severn to the sea, and were scat- 
 tered all over the world. Well, then, by-and-by came 
 Erasmus, and he entered upon the same work, too, under 
 the same disadvantages. Henry VIII. who, with all his 
 contradictions of character, knew a strong man when he 
 saw one, and had rather a respect for strength, was dis- 
 posed to be his patron. There was a monk, or rather a 
 bishop, who was, proh pudor, ignorant enough to say that 
 Paul’s epistles were written in Hebrew, who did not like 
 Erasmus at all, and who waxed very wroth both with him 
 and his book; upon which King Henry VIII. whispered 
 in his ear one day, “It is not quite safe for a beetle to at- 
 tack an eagle.” That was a wise saying, and if we may 
 quote Royal authority for it, there are a good many people 
 in our day who would be none the worse for listening to 
 that savoury comparison. It is not safe yet for a beetle 
 to attack an eagle. Well, then, Erasmus did his work of 
 translation for the cultivated. Then there was wanted one 
 to do it for the vulgar. Who was to do that? Why, Tyn- 
 dale was raised up of God just at the proper time, and he 
 went to Oxford, and he met with Wycliffe’s Bible there, 
 and it inspired him to do what Wycliffe had done for the 
 cultivated on behalf of the common people. And so he 
 printed and published his edition of the Bible—what he 
 thought a very incorrect one; and Tunstal, who was the 
 Romish bishop at that time, bought up every copy that 
 he could find of Tyndale’s Bible. “Gentle Mr. Pakington,” 
 he says to the merchant, “do your diligence, I pray you, to 
 get them. I will pay you whatsoever they cost you. The 
 books are naughty books, and I intend to get them and 
 burn them all at Paul’s Cross.” There is the second ex- 
 periment of burning, you see. They began with bones, and 
 then they went on to books. That was the next step 
 L 
 
146 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 There was the burning of bones, and then the burning of 
 books. That is the comparative degree. Well, Tyndale’s 
 reply is quaint, almost arch. He says, “I shall get money 
 of him for these books to bring myself out of debt, and the 
 whole world shall cry out at the burning of God’s Word, 
 and the surplus of the money that shall remain shall make 
 me more studious to correct, and newly to imprint the 
 same.” And so, out of the burning of books, just as the 
 devil and all his emissaries are accustomed to outwit them- 
 selves in their craftiness, there came the new and corrected 
 edition of God’s Holy Word. And that sort of thing is 
 continued yet. I hold in my hand here a report of the 
 Canadian Bible Society. That is not three years old, and 
 in this there is the veritable statement that one of the 
 colporteurs has distributed thirteen copies of the Holy 
 Scriptures in the district just between Lake Huron and Lake 
 Superior, and that, by the connivance or at the instigation 
 of the Romish priests, twelve of those copies were publicly 
 burnt—within the last three years publicly burnt. And 
 yet there is a change. Everybody is getting liberal, and 
 tolerant, and merciful now-a-days, and they did not believe 
 in the burning of the books. But it is continued still where 
 there is a chance of doing it without an outrage upon public 
 feeling, because the principles of the hostility are the same. 
 Then, you know, by-and-by the great witness himself was 
 arrested and imprisoned, and multitudes were burnt with 
 the libel or little book round their necks, and suffered for 
 the truth of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ, 
 and there came the superlative degree—the burning of 
 bones, the burning of books, the burning of men. And yet 
 what has come out of all this? Why, wherever there has 
 been a determined opposition, wherever the forces of evil 
 have gathered to a head, and concentrated force and effort 
 for a decisive struggle, God has brought good out of evil ; 
 just, for instance, as when Rome sent forth the merciless 
 Alva, or lit the fire of Lollard martyrdoms, or whetted her 
 sword for a St. Bartholomew massacre, or gilt the prows of 
 the invincible Armada. What was the result? Only to 
 show the indestructibility of persecuted truth, for 
 
 “Truth pressed to earth will rise again— 
 The eternal years of God are hers ; 
 But Error wounded writhes with pain, 
 And dies amid her worshippers.” 
 
THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 14) 
 
 And just such an head has infidelity made when she mus- 
 tered the wits and sages and philosophers of the ency- 
 clopadia for their marvellous and pronounced atheism. 
 What was the result of that? Why, to rouse Christian 
 people from a passive holding of their hope to a determined 
 purpose to spread it to the uttermost ends of the earth, fort 
 we must never forget that in the throes of that great revo- 
 lution the missionary enterprises of the Churches were born. 
 Well then, in a few years, the greatest historic attack—the 
 most subtle, sinister, acute attack upon Christianity—came 
 from South Africa. How did God manifest His power 
 then? Why just in the way that He always delights to 
 manifest His power—by making mercy triumph over judg- 
 ment. In the very same region, in the very diocese from 
 which that attack came, there was one of the mightiest 
 revivals of pure and undefiled religion that has ever been 
 known in this world. And now to-day, in the midst of us, 
 at our very doors, when Herod and Pilate are made friends, 
 when there is the most subtle and determined opposition to 
 the truth, when science, falsely so called, is putting on all its 
 energies, when superstition on one hand and infidelity on 
 the other are setting themselves against the truth, God has 
 shown us how that He can work by simple men coming with 
 a directness of aim, with a purpose grand in its simplicity, 
 and, above all, with a firm, thorough, hearty belief—for that 
 is the secret of it—with a firm, thorough, hearty belief in 
 God and Christ, and His power tosaveat once. God is wak- 
 ing up the masses of hitherto embalmed life inthis metropolis 
 of ours in a way such as we have not known in our gene- 
 ration. I believe that God is a match for His enemies— 
 that He is always on the alert, and that His providence is 
 neither dead nor sleeping. He is in no haste to vindicate 
 Himself ; He is in no unseemly hurry, He knows the end 
 from the beginning, and He can wait through the patient 
 years, assured that the recompense shall come. But I do 
 feel to-day that it should be ours, in the midst of all this, 
 to give ourselves more thoroughly than we have done to 
 earnest, hearty, Christian work. There is a tendency, I 
 know, to leave old beliefs behind, and press to some im- 
 agined beyond of truth and beauty that nobody has ever 
 yet tracked, much less explored; and there are many 
 quarters in which it is not scrupled to say with the distin- 
 
148 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 guished German philosopher that the desire for truth is a 
 better thing than the possession of truth—a brilliant fal- 
 lacy, but a fallacy, notwithstanding its brilliancy. And it 
 is considered a proof of manliness—alas! that it should be 
 so, for it is one of the most hopeless signs of our times—to 
 have outgrown the faith of our childhood, which, after all, 
 is the sturdy faith upon which the bold manhood of our 
 fathers grew. But surely it were a weary world if at this 
 time, in this age, nothing were settled. Surely life is of 
 the shortest to be spent in dreams. While we battle out 
 our great world problems, men are dying, and if the old 
 faith be true—and in no battle-field has it ever been 
 worsted yet—they go somewhere. Yes, and we are dying, 
 too ; and are we to have no fringe upon the cloud of the 
 sepulchre? Are we to pass away, as we must do, if you 
 take from us our Bible—to pass away with the cheerless 
 conviction that life is a balance of chances, and that death 
 is a leap in the dark, and all this when the light awaits our 
 summons—all this when we may be at any moment sum- 
 moned into a glory that is richer than golden—all this 
 when Christ, our Surety and our Saviour, sits unmoved and 
 expecting upon His throne! Oh, I know that there is a 
 great deal of impermanence attaching to all human systems 
 of teaching. I know that the test of inquiry, and the test 
 of more accurate scholarship, and the crucial test of the 
 last assize, may sweep away some of the inscriptions of 
 frivolity and vanity that men have carved over the old 
 truth ; but the truth that God has. written remains upon the 
 face of the rock undefaced and permanent for ever. “ The 
 grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of the 
 Lord endureth for ever.” I pray that the conscience of this 
 large assembly may be bound under a spell from which 
 they know not how to be disenchanted, and from under 
 whose power they shall pass to their eternity—that each 
 one of them may labour, and pray, and give as if the whole 
 of the work depended upon his single contribution, at the 
 same time resting implicitly upon the blessing of God the 
 Holy Ghost as if he knew—which, indeed, he does know— 
 that we can do just nothing at all, and that it is only God 
 who can make our work to prosper. 
 
THE MOTIVES TO BIBLE CIRCULATION. 144 
 
 ——— 
 
 III. The Motives to Bible Circulation. Sy Rev. 
 C. H. SPURGEON. 
 
 I BELIEVE that we have arrived at the “good old times ”— 
 the times were never so old as they are now—and I very 
 much question whether they were ever one-half as good as 
 they are now, and they are going on to be better, thank 
 God, and that, I trust, by very great strides. My spirit 
 would be indicated by a little story which occurred to me 
 while Mr. Richardson was speaking, as happening to my- 
 self some three years ago. Sitting in the Colosseum at 
 Rome with two or three friends, I said, “Is it not glorious 
 to look at this old ruin and see how Christ has conquered 
 here; how all these ruins tell what desolations He hath 
 made in the earth; how He breaketh the bow and scat- 
 tereth the spear in sunder?” So I said, “ Let us have a 
 tune,” and we sang the verse— 
 
 “ Jesus’ tremendous name 
 Has put our foes to flight 3 
 Jesus, the meek, the humble lamb, 
 A lion is in fight.” 
 
 Up came two strangers, and said, “ What is that you 
 are singing? Let us join you.” One was an American, 
 and the other an English clergyman, and we sang together 
 the next verse— 
 
 By all hell’s hosts withstood, 
 We all hell’s host o’erthrow ; 
 And conquering them through Jesus’ blood, 
 We still to conquer go.” 
 
 And so we shall mark our track by the ruin of our adver- 
 saries ; they shall only be remembered by the place which 
 they once inhabited, which shall bea desolation and the hab- 
 itation of the bittern for ever and ever. I want to speak 
 practically now. I think the time has gone for defending 
 the Bible against anybody, whoever he may be; whether he 
 happens to be a bishop, or to come from the opposite side, 
 wherever he may happen to come from, let him come! 
 The Bible really has been so often defended, and the 
 defences are so admirable, that I must look upon her now 
 as the other day I did upon a little village church which J 
 
r50 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 came across in the middle of a wood—Oakwood Chapel in 
 Surrey—a church subjected to a great many changes of the 
 weather and buttressed, and there are about twice as many 
 bricks in the buttresses as there are in the church. There 
 seems to me to have been twice as much done in some 
 ages in defending the Bible as in expounding it, but if the 
 whole of our strength shall henceforth go to the expound- 
 ing of it and spreading it, we may leave it pretty well to 
 defend itself. I do not know whether you see that lion— 
 it is very distinctly before my eyes; a number of persons 
 are going to attack it, and there are a number of us 
 who would defend the British lion with all our strength. 
 Many suggestions are made and much advice offered. 
 Will you open the door and let the lion out? He will 
 take care of himself. Why, they are gone! He no sooner 
 goes forth than away they fly. The way to meet infidelity 
 is to spread the Bible. The answer to every objection 
 against the Bible is the Bible. Meet any man who raises 
 objections against it, and it is very rare that you will find 
 that he has candidly studied it, and sought to understand 
 it. It does sometimes occur, but even in his case I think, 
 if he would read it again, and if he would ask the Author 
 what the meaning of it is, and the Author is still accessible, 
 he would soon come to a knowledge of the truth; at any 
 rate, I shall not convince him much by argument. You 
 have heard the story of the good clergyman who attended 
 the Bampton Lectures—a very excellent course of lectures, 
 no doubt—and thanked God, after hearing them all, he did 
 remain a Christian. After reading some of the defences of 
 the Bible, it really is a grand thing to find oneself a Chris- 
 tian at all. Spread the Bible every one of you, and spread 
 the Bible for this reason—that, first of all, it will help to 
 keep us all right—I mean the different ministers here be- 
 longing to different Churches. It is an admirable law 
 which forbids the adulteration of milk, and it is a capital 
 plan to keep a lactometer. The Bible is every Christian’s 
 lactometer ; he may just see how much of adulteration 
 there may be in the milk. You know I am never afraid of 
 the Bible myself on Baptist grounds, and when any young 
 person comes to me and says: “Can you recommend a little 
 book which sets forth your views of baptism?” I always 
 say, “ Yes, there is a little book which you may buy fot 
 
THE MOTIVES TO BIBLE CIRCULATION. 151 
 
 twopence—the New Testament—a wonderful Baptist book” 
 —in fact, I never give them any other. If they cannot see 
 it there, well, then, I must love them all the same, if they 
 love the Lord Jesus Christ. We all of us try to spread the 
 Gospel and to preach Jesus Christ fully and freely ; but we 
 are something like those water-carriers in Venice who cry 
 out, “ Aqua! Aqua!”—and it is avery pleasant sound. I 
 thought once I would have a little water, and he gave me 
 a glassful for my halfpenny. Well, it tasted of the glass ; 
 I did not like it. There is a good deal of the Gospel that 
 tastes of the glass. I am afraid there are few of us that 
 hand it out quite pure. What a grand thing it is that the 
 people can keep a fountain at home to which they can go 
 and draw for themselves. When you give them the Bible 
 there is no necessity for their getting the Episcopalian 
 twang, which is not very sweet to me, nor for their having 
 the Dissenting twang, which is not very sweet to other 
 people ; they can just go and draw from the living foun- 
 tain itself the pure Word of God ; therefore spread it, for 
 it will help to keep us all right. I cannot believe it of my 
 countrymen that after all they will go sheer over to Popery. 
 I do see very hopeful signs among those who have got to 
 be very High Church indeed, that they love the souls of 
 
 - men and mean to preach the Gospel. I believe that is be- 
 
 cause the Bible is open, and when it is open, men may go 
 a long way in their tag-rags and ribbons, and the like, but 
 there is something or other that will hold them to the 
 Gospel; there is a centripetal power which will not allow 
 them, after all, to go right away into the wild dark regions 
 beyond, which are said to be under the dominion of his 
 Holiness the Pope. Spread the Bible, dear friends, because 
 that will bring us together. If anything will ever unite the 
 entire Church of God, it must be around Holy Scripture 
 that we shall unite,—certainly never anywhere else. I 
 would rather say, I believe, the whole Church of Jesus 
 Christ is, and always has been, one in the sense in which 
 our Saviour prayed it might be one; for I find myself 
 incapable of believing that the petitions which we have 
 offered to-night were unheard of God. I believe there is 
 a deep, secret, essential vital union between all the elect 
 of God who have been quickened by the power of the Holy 
 Spirit, and have been washed in a “fountain filled with 
 
152 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 ee 
 
 blood.” I think we keep each other alive a bit, and wake 
 each other up—not always in the right spirit, perhaps, 
 ourselves, but yet God overrules it for the right. But if 
 any man shall say of any other man beneath the stars 
 that he loves Jesus Christ, and denies that I am his 
 brother, he lies in his throat. I am his brother, and there 
 is my right hand. If I be one with Christ, it is no credit 
 to me to say, “I will meet him on the platform of the 
 Bible Society.” Why, I cannot help it. If my little finger, 
 because it is more properly than the rest of the body—I 
 am alluding now to the Baptists who are just that—if my 
 little finger were to say, “I will have no communion with 
 the rest of the body ”—well, it can only get out of the body 
 by death, but as long as it lives in the body it must really 
 commune, because the vitality of the whole body neces- 
 sarily causes a communion between all the members of 
 the body. It must be so, we cannot help ourselves. You 
 shall reach down from your shelves a book, and not know 
 who wrote it, and find your heart warming and glowing 
 towards the man who wrote it, and when you look at 
 the title-page you say, ‘‘ There, now! I believe that man 
 spoke at the Liberation Society.” Or else on the other 
 hand, you will say, “That is the man that said those tre- 
 mendous things there in favour of Church and State at the 
 Church Defence Association.” Well, my dear friends, I 
 think there is room enough in this great world, and plenty 
 of room enough in a land of liberty, for us to speak our 
 own minds, and love each other just as well after we have 
 done. I for one feel sometimes just like Robin Hood, who 
 never received a man into his company till he had played 
 him at quarter-staff. It is a little exercise sometimes ; be- 
 sides, it tries the joints of our harness, and lets us know 
 where our weak points may be. But if ever we are to meet 
 —and God grant we may!—that in the movements of 
 Providence Christians may come more closely together, it 
 must be through our all coming nearer and nearer to the 
 great standard of truth, which is the Word of God. Dear 
 friends, I would urge very especially that we all try to dis- 
 tribute the Scriptures just now, because a very large num- 
 ber of persons have been converted—there can be no doubt 
 about that—and they will want instruction, and no instruc- 
 tion will suit them but that which comes from the Book, 
 
THE MOTIVES TO BIBLE CIRCULATION. 153 
 
 I feel great confidence in the present religious movement 
 because, you will notice, the Bible is to the front. One of 
 the marks of a convert now, is, that he or she is carrying a 
 very unwieldy Bible of Bagster’s best edition. I am afraid 
 it will happen to be rather like a phylactery, if you do not 
 mind ; but I am quite satisfied if the Bible is really brought 
 to the front. The teaching given is Biblical exposition, and 
 very much more of Scripture is given in those addresses 
 than will ordinarily be given in ourcommon services. Then 
 the spreading of the Bible may avert a great many evils. 
 The danger of an excited time of revival is, of course, fan- 
 aticism. I like a white heat; I am rather a salamander. 
 I long for the day to come when all the newspaper press 
 will call us fanatics. I should like to hear them hiss be- 
 tween their teeth, ‘‘ You are fanatics and fools.” I should 
 think we were getting to be wise then, and getting some- 
 thing near the point. It is an evil day for us when men 
 speak too well of us; but when they begin to talk of us 
 disparagingly it may be that then we are having honour in 
 the sight of God. There is no fear, however, of fanaticism 
 ever doing mischief if we keep the Bible always to the 
 front. That will be the master of the fire, and the fire will 
 be a good servant to us. Above all, do keep your Bibles 
 multiplying to arrest the progress of Popery—that must be 
 stopped. You perhaps have seen upon the Arch of Titus 
 in Rome the seven-branched candlestick. We are told 
 that, after the triumph, that seven-branched candlestick 
 was lost in the Tiber. The Church of Rome has never 
 had that seven-branched candlestick; she has lost it. 
 I am rather glad of the idea of purifying that muddy 
 stream. Perhaps they will find it by-and-by. I should not 
 wonder that; by God’s blessing, by the help of Garibaldi, 
 they may find out several little things that they have lost. 
 And now that the Bible Society has a place in the Corso, 
 the way to find out the true seven-branched golden candle- 
 stick which is to illuminate the world is straight before 
 the eyes of the Romans. We have got the lamp; let us 
 carry it. Do not find fault with the darkness, light the 
 candle Do not begin to complain about there being error 
 in the world, proclaim the truth. And by what means can 
 we better proclaim it, than by scattering the Word of God 
 on all hands? Dear friends, what are you doing towards 
 
154 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 scattering the Bible? Do you give it away? Somebody 
 may Say it is very little use giving away Bibles and Tes- 
 taments. That is a very great mistake. I have very 
 seldom found it to be a lost thing to give a present of a 
 Testament. I was greatly astonished about a month ago. 
 A cabman drove me home, and when I paid him his fare, 
 he said, “ A long time since I drove you last, sir!” “ But,” 
 said I, “I do not recollect you!” “ Well,” he said, “I 
 think it is fourteen years ago;” but he says, “ Perhaps you 
 will know this Testament!” pulling one out of his pocket, 
 “What,” I said, “did I give you that?” “Oh, yes!” he 
 said, “and you spoke to me about my soul, and nobody 
 had done that before, and I have never forgotten it.” 
 “What,” said I, “haven’t you worn it out?” “No,” he 
 said, “I would not wear it out; I have had it bound !”— 
 and he had kept it very carefully indeed. It encourages one 
 to give books in that way. Sometimes people won’t value 
 a tract. I believe it is often the cheapest thing to give 
 a better thing; that which costs you rather more will be 
 more highly treasured, and—“ a Testament for twopence!” 
 —who would not scatter such a thing broadcast? And 
 should you be unable to give away the book itself, quote 
 the Scriptures often. A colporteur last Monday said there 
 was aman in the habit of addressing him upon religious 
 subjects when he was half seas over, as they call it, or 
 something of that kind. Whenever he had plenty of drink 
 in him he always came up to the colporteur to talk about 
 religion. He said “ He came and knocked at my door, 
 and I felt vexed that he should so often come to me in 
 that condition, and I hurled four texts at his head out in 
 the street with all my might.” He quoted the four texts. 
 They were very appropriate to the man’s condition, and 
 contained a full statement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 He said : “I do not know whether I did that man any good 
 or not, but there was a woman next door, who just opened 
 her door to put two dirty children off her doorstep. She 
 stood still and heard all the four texts, and the Spirit of 
 God carried them home to her heart and conscience ;” and 
 he added, “I have been awakened at night many times, and 
 glad to be awakened, by hearing her sing, whilst she lies 
 dying upstairs in the room next to mine.” I wish every 
 person here who knows the power of the Scriptures on his 
 
THE MOTIVES TO BIBLE CIRCULATION. 15§ 
 
 own soul would incessantly be trying to spread the Word 
 of God and to expound it. Never associate the Bible with 
 anything that is dull and unhappy in the minds of your 
 children. I think one of the wickedest things in the world 
 is to make a child learn a chapter for a punishment. Make 
 the Bible a sweet, dear book to your children ; give them 
 plenty of pictures, and try yourself to make pictures of the 
 Bible by your conversation. A little boy once was at his 
 mother’s side, and she was reading to him. “ Mother,” he 
 said, “would you let me go out and play for a quarter of 
 an hour?” “ What for James?” said she. ‘“ Because then 
 you will please read that book to yourself, and then, when 
 I come in in a quarter of an hour’s time, I will listen so 
 nicely if you will tell me what the book says.” That is the 
 thing ; read the book yourself, and get the meaning of it; 
 then talk it out again to the children ; they will receive it 
 so much the better. We want subscribers to the Bible 
 Society, but we want readers of the Bible and expounders 
 of it, so that even the little ones may understand. I wish 
 this to go hometo every one here. There is asomething for 
 all to do. I believe there is a somebody in the world that 
 God means to bless through you and nobody else. He has 
 given to His dear Son power over all flesh that He should 
 give eternal life to as many as His Father gave Him, and 
 I think He has divided that power out among us, and given 
 to some of us powers over certain flesh, and others power 
 over others. There are some who never will enter heaven 
 through my preaching, but they will enter heaven perhaps 
 from your private admonitions, or through the little New 
 Testament which you intend now to put in their way, and 
 the gentle word which you mean to add to it. Beloved 
 friends, look at the great city that is now before you, which 
 God is visiting. Now that we are speaking about the Bible, 
 assist in the visitation of this city, house to house, all of 
 you, and connect with it the trying to discover whether the 
 Bible is in the house, and if it be not there, let every house 
 in London be supplied with the Bible. I wish the Bible 
 Society would join, if it could, with that organization, and 
 determine that every house in London should have a Bible 
 at once. Let us all help in doing the work of visiting and 
 scattering the Word of God, and let this be your motive: 
 if we love the Lord Jesus Christ there is an intimate con- 
 
156 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 nection between us and everything that has to do with 
 Him. Years ago, when servants used to be servants, there 
 was a certain lord who was greatly amused with the way 
 in which his old body servant always used to talk. They 
 were down in the country, and there was a wagon stand- 
 ing at the door of the country seat, and his lordship said, 
 “John, whose wagon is that?” ‘“ Oh,” says he, “that is 
 ours, my lord; it has brought some of our goods down 
 
 from town.” In a minute or two he said, “John, what 
 coach is that coming up the drive?” “ Well, my lord,” he 
 says, “don’t you know—that’s our carriage.” “ But,” he 
 
 said, “I see some children in it; are they our children, 
 John?” “Qh, yes, my lord,” he says, “bless their hearts, 
 they are our children, and Iam going downstairs to bring 
 them in,” and he went downstairs to bring them in. Now 
 whenever we look upon poor, lost sinners, and look upon 
 any whom Jesus Christ would look upon with love, let us 
 say, “ Oh, blessed Lord, these are our children, these are 
 ours; we seek them because they belong to Thee.” It 
 looks rathér daring to call what is Christ’s ours, but his 
 lordship was not vexed with his servant for entering into 
 such a unity of interests with him, and our Lord above will 
 not be aggrieved with us if we call this Society our Bible 
 Society ; and as we call the Bible our Bible, we will try to 
 spread it amongst our poor citizens all around us, in whom 
 we have an interest, because Christ has an interest in 
 them. 
 
 IV. The Perils of the Age. Ay THe Most Rev. 
 ARCHBISHOP TAIT. 
 
 SOME think that the Christian Church throughout the 
 world is at this time approaching a great crisis. I do not 
 know that we are approaching one of those sudden revolu- 
 tions which often come on persons when they least expect 
 them, and produce great and vast outward changes; but 
 there are revolutions and changes in the social condition 
 of mankind, and in the civilized world, which often come 
 very silently, and look, when they are accomplished, more 
 complete than even the changes which come by great 
 revolutions. And comparing the statements now with 
 what I remember a few years ago, 1 cannot help think- 
 
THE PERILS OF THE AGE. 15} 
 
 ing that the great cause which this Society has in hand 
 has difficulties to contend with now which were not known 
 then. No doubt, our fathers were exposed to perils quite 
 as great as any which threaten society now; but in the 
 years which passed during my youth, things had become 
 quieter. The great French revolution of the last century 
 had apparently cleared the air, and men were settling down 
 quietly to the old beliefs and the old state of things. Again, 
 the symptoms of great changes among the nations are to 
 be heard and seen. Again, new modes of thought are 
 making themselves felt amongst intelligent men; and no 
 one who looks carefully at the present state of public 
 opinion can doubt that a more determined set is now made 
 against the simple belief in the power of the Word of God 
 than we remember forty or fifty years ago. Therefore, I 
 say, this is a time for all men who love the Word of God 
 to cast aside—as far as they may, without a compromise 
 of principle—the differences that keep them asunder, and 
 to rally together for the defence of the Christian faith, 
 which, thank God, we all rejoice in, and that Word of God 
 on which the doctrines of that Christian faith are built—to 
 know as few distinctions as possible between those who 
 serve one common Lord, and take the Word of that com- 
 mon Lord as the rule of life—as the charter of their hopes 
 for eternity. Therefore, I, for my part, think it wise that 
 we should in these anxious days, as much as possible, join 
 hand in hand; and no cause so completely and so naturally 
 unites us, and forbids any sacrifice of principle, while, at 
 the same time, it calls us to the other points on which we 
 agree, as that cause to which the Bible Society has been so 
 successfully devoted during these many years. I say that 
 there are great dangers with reference to the reverence 
 which we all desire to pay to the Word of God. Great—I 
 will not call them insidious, for they are very open—great 
 efforts are made to persuade the rising generation that we 
 have all, for these many centuries, been under a mistake in 
 believing that the Word of God is what we believe it to be. 
 Great attempts are made; a circulation—not, thank God, 
 equal to that circulation of the Scriptures of which you 
 have heard in this report ; but, still, great and well organ- 
 ized—of books, the object of which is to shake our faith in 
 the Scriptures, is going on, not only in this metropolis, and 
 
158 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 throughout all the great towns of this kingdom, but in our 
 rural districts also. And not in this kingdom only, but 
 throughout the whole of Europe; and if we are wise we 
 shall not, by any unnecessary divisions amongst ourselves, 
 play the game of our common adversaries, and expose that 
 great Word, and that Christian religion with which we are 
 put in trust, to the assaults of our enemies while we are 
 quarrelling amongst ourselves. This Society has always 
 appeared to me to recommend itself to the good sense of 
 Englishmen by many qualities—by none more than by the 
 simplicity of the work which it takes in hand. All Chris- 
 tians, nominally at least, allow that the canon of the Old 
 and New Testament contains the Word of God. All 
 Christians, however they may practically neglect it, theo- 
 retically bow to this Word of God; and, therefore, by 
 undertaking that work which all Christians, if they are 
 worthy of the name, must allow to be the work of our 
 heavenly Master, we cast aside points of difference, and 
 practically—not merely in theory, but practically—find that 
 we can act together; and this is a great recommendation 
 of the efforts of this Society to all common-sense and prac- 
 tical Englishmen. The very fact of our circulation of the 
 Scriptures appears to me to show that we have adopted 
 a wise course in answer to the cavils of those who would 
 shake our reverence for the Sacred Volume. But we are 
 exposed not only to the arguments of infidel writers. We 
 are exposed to attempts to secularise the whole system of 
 our education, and the whole system of our government, in 
 this land; and our answer to all such attempts is this :— 
 
 Remembering that the word secular speaks of the world 
 
 and things worldly, that the very name means a worldly 
 system, and that the system which we desire to inculcate 
 is a spiritual and religious system, we say we shall best 
 meet the attempts of secularists by placing in the hands of 
 all who can read this great charter of our spiritual rights, 
 and enabling men to understand that it is not for a short 
 life in this world, but for an eternal life in the land of 
 spirits, that the human soul has to be prepared by educa- 
 tion; and that the affairs of this world can only be well 
 conducted if there is a distinct reference to higher sections 
 than secular, and to higher truths than any which secular 
 knowledge can convey. I think, then, that we do adopta 
 
FITNESS OF SCRIPTURE FOR DESIGNED END. 153 
 
 wise course as to both speculative and practical attempts te 
 shake our religion by circulating as widely and freely as 
 possible the Scriptures of truth. I, for my part, believe 
 that the civilization of Europe rests upon the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. I believe that during these past centuries it has been 
 the perpetual appeal to the truths which these Scriptures 
 include that has made the nations of Europe different from 
 the degraded races of mere savage countries, or from those 
 old, worn-out barbarian nations, who, never having been 
 blessed with these Holy Scriptures as their charter, have 
 been obliged to turn to mere human books as their au- 
 thority, and that authority has failed them. 
 
 V. The Fitness of Holy Scripture for its De- 
 signed End. Zy BisHop Boyp CARPENTER. 
 
 IT was of the first importance to remember that the 
 judgment which they passed upon any work must be 
 measured, not by what they expected it ought to con- 
 tain, but by what means and in what degree it attained 
 the ends for which it existed ; and in measuring, therefore, 
 the fitness of Scripture, they were not to look for any 
 results which it did not proclaim as its intention and 
 design. To look for any elaborate opinion, for any ex- 
 haustiveness of treatment, even of those subjects which it 
 took up and dealt with, was to look for that which God 
 had not intended it to convey. The Apostle reminded the 
 readers of Holy Scripture of that fact when he pictured 
 the state on earth as one in which the knowledge of 
 persons was on all points an imperfect knowledge. The 
 Apostle said, “We know now in part;” and as if to give 
 the assurance that he did not mean those words to apply 
 merely to the limitation of scientific knowledge, but that 
 it was also intended to refer to sacred subjects, and that 
 even there some limitation was to be expected, he added, 
 “We also prophesy in part.” And the Apostle continued, 
 that “ We shall be seen then as we are seen, and known as 
 we are known.” To impress that upon the minds of the 
 audience, it was only necessary to add, what no doubt they 
 would be led to adopt upon reflection, that they did not 
 expect, when they heard of a man who was perfect as a 
 painter, that he also possessed the qualifications of a 
 
160 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 physician; they did not expect that a man whom they 
 consulted about their bodily ailments could also write a 
 good essay or compose a fine poem. Exactly the same 
 measure and principle ought to be adopted in dealing with 
 Holy Scripture. He would ask what God really intended 
 when He gave His people the Bible—its purpose must be 
 understood in order that its fitness might be appreciated. 
 Its purpose was clearly defined in many parts of the book 
 itself to be the moral elevation and the spiritual restora- 
 tion of mankind. And if, then, that construction was so 
 given unto the world, then they were at liberty to examine 
 it upon the grounds of its own claims. If any individual 
 contemplated the works of God in a captious spirit, he 
 might make numberless objections. The Word of God 
 claimed to convert the heart; it claimed to enlighten the 
 eyes; it came to rejoice the soul of man. Besides having 
 a clear view of what the object of Holy Scripture was, 
 they should have some knowledge of the object itself. 
 The rev. speaker then supposed that a person was present 
 at a surgical operation, and was desirous of seeing how 
 the operation began; to the mind of the witness the sur- 
 geon dealt very roughly, and hacked in directions which 
 he thought unnecessary; but the surgeon would answer 
 that the operation was not understood by the person who 
 was present. And so with the Word of God; there were 
 difficulties about it which were perplexing, and those wlio 
 doubted should ask themselves whether they understood 
 the disease with which the Scriptures were intended to 
 deal. The rev. speaker often thought that there was a 
 wonderful harmony between the growth of knowledge on 
 one side, and the growth of religious feeling on the other ; 
 and that that harmony was not without a purpose—that 
 the Almighty had so arranged the économy of history, 
 that often great discoveries fitted in at a fitting moment 
 for the advancement of spiritual or moral truth. His 
 hearers might hear more and more of the scientific difficul- 
 ties without being disturbed, if they could say that as for 
 God His work was perfect, and as His work was perfect, 
 so they were content to measure Scripture by the end for 
 which it had been sent—the regeneration of the heart. 
 They saw that under the influence of the Spirit the Word 
 of God was controlling sin, and they saw its power fot 
 
THE BIBLE ON THE CONTINENT. 161 
 
 good, and the high work it was carrying out, for there 
 could be no higher evidence of that given than that it was 
 fitted by God for a great and glorious end, for a great 
 elevation of the hearts and minds of those who were under 
 its direction. 
 
 VI. The Bible on the Continent. By Tue Dean 
 OF CHESTER. 
 
 I EARNESTLY advocate the claims of this Society on the 
 ground that it provides the help which is essential for al! 
 other religious agencies without hindering any one of 
 them. We find it essential in all our efforts in doing 
 religious good to use the Bible—at all events, we should 
 make very sorry work of it if we made the attempt with- 
 out that Book. Now, this Society does precisely this, it 
 gives to us a Bible in whatever form we may find it most 
 useful. It aids every other Society which labours for the 
 spiritual good of mankind. For instance, the missionary 
 operations of the Church of England could not be carried 
 on without the assistance which comes from this source. 
 In this country itself, of the five languages which are 
 spoken within our islands, the Holy Scriptures are to be 
 obtained in three of those languages only from this Society. 
 And if we turn to foreign missions, I believe nearly twenty 
 of those translations which the committee of the Church 
 of England Missionary Societies employ would_ not be 
 found at all unless it were for the efforts of the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society. Hence it is a most obvious act of 
 justice, as well as of gratitude, that a Church of England 
 clergyman should stand here to urge the claims of this 
 Society on the generous support of the whole community. 
 Another consideration which has weighed very much with 
 me is this, that the work done by this Society supplies 
 we might almost say, the whole of Christendom with the 
 means of correcting religious error when that error arises. 
 I am not at this moment alluding to any special errors 
 which surround us. I am alluding to the fact that error 
 is sure to arise. The Christian religion in contact with 
 human nature—and we have nothing to do with the 
 Christian religion in any other connection—is sure to be 
 liable to corruption and distortion. It is of the utmost 
 M 
 
162 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 ——= 
 
 importance that we should have at all times within our 
 reach the means of purifying such corruption and correct- 
 ing such distortion, and this is precisely what is done for 
 us through the parental precepts of the Holy Scriptures. 
 I know it may be said, in answer to this argument, that 
 even in the direct study of the Scriptures, we are all liable 
 to make mistakes. No one denies this, but unless we do 
 directly study the Bible, we are sure to make mistakes. 
 Thus, on the ground that this Society puts within our 
 reach the Holy Scriptures for the direct study of all men, 
 we are bound to do all that we can to promote its interests 
 by our prayers, our’ exertions, and our contributions. 
 Another argument is this—that in our English Bibles we 
 have a most precious bond of union amongst us here in 
 England. It is quite true that we are sadly divided, but 
 we have in the English version of the Scriptures a bond 
 of union, the value of which can only be understood by 
 reflecting upon what the state of things would be in this 
 country if every religious community owed allegiance to 
 separate versions of the sacred volume. It is often said 
 that on the platform of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society compliments are paid one to another with regard 
 to our religious harmony and unity, and as soon as the 
 meeting is over those very persons proceed to take part 
 in bitter and acrimonious controversy. I dare say this is 
 very true, but I imagine the remedy for such an evil is 
 not to be found in diminution of our common interest 
 in the Holy Scriptures, but in an increase of that common 
 interest. In fact the cure is to be found in coming back 
 again to the platform of this society. We must not for- 
 get that it is also a Foreign Bible Society, and permit 
 me, in using this word “foreign,” to carry your thoughts 
 across the streak of silver sea to the continent of Europe. 
 It has been my fortune to be brought somewhat closely 
 in contact with the Old Catholic movement, not only in 
 Germany, but in other places, and I could furnish you 
 with illustrations of the increased importance which the 
 Scriptures are assuming on the Continent in consequence 
 of this movement. It has many sides, each one very in- 
 teresting and deserving careful study. But the one fact 
 that comes pre-eminently before the view is that there is 
 an increasing sense of the necessity for the Bible, and 
 
x jinn —o 
 
 THE BIBLE ON THE CONTINENT. 163 
 
 of the great harm which results from secluding it from 
 the common people. The words in the report with regard 
 to Italy were somewhat discouraging, but allow me to 
 say the great political changes in that country have in- 
 dicated a very Protestant character in the Italian mind, 
 and I am very much inclined to believe that these will 
 end, under God’s blessing, by producing similar results 
 with regard to religion, though not at present. Pre- 
 liminary movements have been going on for many years. 
 
 _I was present at a very remarkable meeting in a cathe- 
 
 dral city of Northern Italy, with about a dozen Roman 
 Catholic priests more or less interested in the question 
 of Church Reform, and priests with whom I had the 
 great happiness of joining in prayer. We all knelt down 
 and used an Italian version of one of those prayers 
 for unity contained in our Prayer-book. One of those 
 men spoke to me privately of one great distress which 
 weighed upon his mind. He was a most energetic young 
 man, and a professor in the Ecclesiastical seminary. He 
 expressed his great grief that the training in the seminary 
 was casuistical and not biblical. What he craved for was 
 a training for the young priests in the Bible, but he said, 
 “If I say this to my colleagues, not one of them agree 
 with me. I ama marked and a ruined man.” In another 
 cathedral city in the northern part of Italy, a priest ex- 
 pressed his earnest desire to have a Bible suitably edited 
 for circulation in his parish, and he begged us to use our 
 best efforts to provide it. These, I think, are hopeful 
 signs. I turn now to a different side of the subject, 
 though it is one which also has been touched by the 
 Bishop of Ripon. An Italian statesman came to this 
 country to examine our system of education, his attention 
 being specially directed to the education of the middle 
 and upper classes. When his report was presented in 
 Italy, he called attention to this remarkable fact, that 
 wherever he went among those middle class and higher 
 class schools, he saw the Bible. I dare say he did not 
 fully enter into all that we are thankful to see in the pages 
 of the Bible, but he used language of this kind about this 
 Book, which he spoke of as though it were a startling and 
 delightful novelty to him. I do most earnestly join with 
 what has been said, and I do implore all those who have 
 
164 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 — 
 
 any doubts upon this subject to think once, twice, and 
 many times more, before they do anything which tends to 
 dissociate the close connection of the Bible with the educa- 
 tion of the young in this country. 
 
 VII. Christian Union. Sy Bishop Bovp CARPENTER. 
 
 IT was a satisfaction to find that the operations of this and 
 kindred societies were making real progress amongst the 
 great Latin races, and all the more so, because something 
 like a taunt had been flung out by an eminent historian, 
 that Protestantism could never take anything like deep 
 root in the Latin mind. In the report a denial is given to 
 that proposition ; and the auspices to be drawn from the 
 past promise progress for the future. A gladness would 
 cross their minds when they turned to these western sides 
 of the Latin race, and took their stand where the atmo- 
 sphere teems with recollections of the grand and inspiring 
 heroes of the past. The shade of Dante seemed to ac- 
 company them amidst all the splendid palaces, and they 
 remembered the spot where Michael Angelo conceived his 
 splendid thoughts, to leave them for a legacy to humanity. 
 They were told the spirit of the Italian mind was oscillat- 
 ing painfully away from the dark superstitions under which 
 it has long groaned, and that the natural rebound will be 
 the dreary waste of doubt and infidelity; but there are 
 other symptoms to be noticed, and one is that this Society 
 is going forward, and giving out clear, simple, Divine 
 declarations of the truth as it is in Christ, and the influence 
 is beginning to spread. He was glad that, in the method 
 adopted by their Society, they were not content to give 
 merely religious tracts, but were determined to call the 
 attention of those to whom they came to the great facts of 
 history. He felt assured that an inducement to the study 
 of God’s Word was to be found in spreading abroad clear 
 and definite knowledge of historical facts. In the report 
 they would see that amongst those most anxious to 
 maintain the cause of truth, there is a great desire that all 
 Christian people should be united together and organized 
 against that splendid organization whose very power of 
 confederacy was one of their greatest obstacles. He often 
 
Z & re Shea ag 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE PRIEST. 165 
 
 thought of a story he had heard told by one whose name 
 
 should be mentioned with reverence, the Rev. Hugh 
 
 McNeile. He was landed on the Kingstown Pier, six 
 miles from Dublin, where he wanted to go. A large 
 number of cab-drivers gathered round him, all contending 
 for the honour of carrying his lordship (as they called him) 
 to Dublin. He was attracted to one rude vehicle, because 
 the driver said it was drawn by a poetical horse; but he 
 found the animal the sorriest jade he ever met with. At 
 length he was landed in the dirtiest capital in Europe, and 
 he asked the man why he called his horse a poetical horse. 
 “Well, your lordship,” said the man, “I will tell you now 
 you are landed. It is just because his perfections are 
 more in imagination than in reality.” And though they 
 cannot boast such a magnificent appearance of union in 
 the Protestant Church as can be found in the splendid 
 organization of Rome, they might perhaps doubt whether 
 what is boasted of has not more virtue in imagination than 
 in reality. Tuney claimed that which would make them 
 true to one another. Men will be drawn together by the 
 bands of brotherhood, which distance of time and space 
 can never dissolve or annul. The peace of righteousness 
 was that which they prayed for, for the help of the people 
 to whom they sent the Gospel of God. 
 
 VIII. The Bible and the Priest. By Rev. W. 
 ARTHUR. 
 
 THERE is a saying that “ of making books there is no end.” 
 Be that as it may, it is very certain that of making books 
 there was a beginning. Wedonot exactly know when the 
 beginning occurred, or where, but we have no reason what- 
 ever to believe that the first beginning of making books 
 was away somewhere about the roots of Mount Sinai. 
 Very probably upon the beautiful banks of the Euphrates 
 or those of the Nile, or on other more fertile places there 
 had sprung up books before that time. But there came a 
 root out of a dry ground, a book beginning in the desert, 
 written by one who had the double disadvantage of being 
 under the training of heathen priests full of false doctrines, 
 and having only to address a community of ex-slaves whe 
 
166 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 had never been organized to the habits or illuminated with 
 
 the ideas of freed men. I do not know what other doc- — 
 
 trine than that of the survival of the fittest will enable us 
 
 to account for the fact, that while all other attempts to — 
 
 begin books in those ancient times, telling of such things 
 
 as the creation, the first being, the first act, and so on, 
 have passed away, the Bible still remains. I challenge its © 
 
 enemies to say whether there is in the world one power to 
 be compared with that of the Bible. Twenty years ago, 
 you thought that in twenty years from that time, the 
 fact which they had always been proclaiming, that the day 
 of the Bible was beginning to go down, would become 
 apparent to the most purblind. Very well, the twenty 
 years are passed ; is its circulation more restricted? Are 
 its doctrines more discredited ? Are its morals less sound ? 
 Are its prospects less bright? Are there fewer of the 
 nations that are valuing it or not? The fact is I do not 
 know that its enemies can point to any part of the world 
 where the Bible is thought to be declining, except that the 
 Romanists say that they are sure to triumph in England 
 presently. They are not saying that of any other country. 
 They admit that in Asia, in Africa, and upon the continent 
 of Europe, Bible ideas and institutions are making way 
 against all their power. They say that here it is not so, 
 and that here they have a clear prospect of winning us 
 back and locking us all up again within that wonderful 
 enclosure where there shall be a Bible—but where? Not 
 in the pulpit, not in the school, not on the family table, not 
 in every man’s closet, not in every child’s hand ; but it 
 shall be in the keeping of the confessor, and with the 
 accredited notes of the church. Take the case of Von 
 Schulte, hear his testimony—that in all his schooling he 
 never had a Bible lesson. Had he not a religious lesson ? 
 was he not religiously educated, and was not the first 
 postulate of religious education in the hands that had 
 to handle him—the exclusion of the Bible? The design 
 of the Vatican is to substitute the word “religious” for 
 “ Scriptural,” to exclude the Bible and exalt the priests. 
 Now, I say, never surrender the old English word, the 
 Bible—the Bible and teaching out of the Bible, and no 
 priest, no pope above us ;—the Bible and the Queen! no 
 other power to be acknowledged. Alluding to the efforts 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PRIEST, 167 
 
 _ of this Society in the various spheres of labour, one feels it 
 very hard to say where we have most to encourage and 
 most to stimulate. I do not at all feel discouraged by the 
 gloomy statement of the Report about Italy. It is per- 
 fectly true that as yet the number of truly godly men in 
 Italy is very small ; but it is equally true, considering the 
 time and the agency, it is, I believe, as great as you can 
 find on record in any other country in the world. Let us 
 not be discouraged there. Bible meetings have been held 
 in Rome, and Bibles are sold in Rome, and the Bible is 
 being read in Rome. At the last census 2,900 people 
 within the walls of that city returned themselves as 
 Protestants. That is not a matter to be despised. Then 
 if we look to that great Germany, of which so much has 
 been said, I do trust that Previdence is so over-ruling it 
 that the Bible shall become more and more the symbol 
 of international sympathy between the great Protestant 
 countries, Germany, England, America, England standing 
 between the one and the other, between the old world and 
 the new, having ties with both and claim upon both, a 
 union not against the world but for the world, for I believe 
 that our dear friends in France the best thing that could 
 happen to France would be to have neighbours all around 
 her as strong that she should ask nothing better from them 
 than to be let alone, and they ask nothing better from her 
 than to be let alone. When it comes to that all the world 
 round, we may hope for the time when men may begin to 
 learn war no more. As to the great work in India, thank 
 God that it is going on. Many thousands of towns and 
 villages your colporteurs have reached, in many a place 
 _ the Bible has been its own witness. Africa wants the 
 
 Bible. The heart of Livingstone is in Africa, though the 
 
 clay of Livingstone lies yonder in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 When I saw that clay laid there, and saw the President of 
 
 the British and Foreign Bible Society following it, and saw 
 
 the veteran missionary who sits there, Robert Moffat, I felt 
 
 as if there were an undercurrent of voices—the voice of 
 
 the great scientific world, and the voice of the historic 
 
 world, and the voice of the literary world—that passed so 
 
 softly; and then, as if there was the great social voice, 
 
 mother Britannia, saying with satisfaction, “He has been 
 
 restored to my bosom,” and Scotia saying to daughter 
 
168 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 Albion in the sight of mother Britannia, “ Well, well, he 
 shall sleep in your bosom, but he was my bairn.” And 
 
 above all to me came the voice of Africa saying, “I must 
 
 have the light! I must have the light! The deserts and 
 the crimes of men have shut me off long enough from the 
 light, but I must have the light!” And another voice 
 saying, of England, “Which is committed to my trust.” 
 We often speak of our trust in God, and ought to do so; 
 we seldom think of that solemn act in which God puts 
 trust in us, “Committed to my trust.” What is committed ? 
 a message—a message of glad tidings. Every one re- 
 members that event in the history of old time, when news 
 reached Athens of the fall of Mitylene, and in a fit of 
 madness and pride the Athenians decided that every man 
 of Mitylene should be put to death, and sent off a swift 
 galley with the doom. But in the night they repented, 
 and sent off another galley with the command that the 
 people should be spared. The gospel of life was com- 
 mitted to them ; they had to row for dear life. They were 
 in time, for the people were saved. England! England! 
 it is committed to thy trust, for India, for Africa, for many 
 another land. May God give thee faith to fulfil it ! 
 
 IX. The Power of the Bible. Zy Rev. E. HERBER1 
 Evans. 
 
 HE had gone through North and South Wales for several 
 years as a deputation for this noble Society, and he had 
 always found that when he could get audiences to see their 
 indebtedness to the Bible personally, and socially, he had a 
 contribution exceeding the one of the previous year. The 
 Bible took with it everywhere a standard of morality 
 simple enough to change the life of the inmates of the 
 humblest cottage home, and high enough to transform a 
 world with a Paradise regained. There were three Bibles 
 that were great powers in the formation of character in 
 Wales, the Family Bible, the Teacher's Bible, and the 
 Mother’s Bible. Having illustrated the power exerted 
 under these forms by the Scriptures, the speaker dwelt 
 upon the varied influences exerted by the religion of the 
 Bible, and the failure of all efforts to destroy its power, 
 
 | 
 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND TEMPERANCE. 163 
 
 The Bible still remained, he added, on the study table 
 as an unsolved problem, with a self-conscious sense of 
 power, seeming to say to all the other volumes in the 
 library— 
 
 “ Books may come and books may go, 
 But I go on for ever.” 
 
 IV. TEMPERANCE. 
 
 I. The Church of England and the Temperance 
 Movement. Sy Tue BisHop or BEDFORD. 
 
 WE are here as a Branch of the C.E.T.S., and as a Bishop 
 of the Church I feel very keenly desirous to promote its 
 interests in every way I can, and I think that as I am 
 addressing Church people to-day, I will venture to say, 
 Let us try to work as far as possible upon Church lines. 
 We love our dear old Church of England, and I do not 
 think we can do better than stick to her and work on her 
 system and on her lines. I mention that, because I think 
 it will be a great advantage to this part of our work if as 
 many Branches in various parishes are not only parochial 
 movements confined to a particular parish—there are a 
 certain number of such—but that they should be definitely 
 and distinctly affiliated to the Parent Society. I believe 
 myself that the Society is not aware of the great number 
 of Branches, because those Branches have never taken the 
 ‘trouble to make themselves known and to go through 
 the very simple process of declaring themselves Branches 
 of this Society. I think it will be very desirable if, as far 
 as possible, the Juvenile Branches, wherever established, 
 ‘should be affiliated to this Society in order that we may 
 have the strength of sympathy and fellowship, that we 
 may know what large numbers there are all working in 
 the same cause, and that we may feel that our cause is not 
 an isolated thing, not a mere movement circumscribed by 
 the boundaries of any one parish or district, but it is a 
 great national movement as well as a Christian Church 
 movement. With regard to the juvenile part of the work, 
 certainly my great hopes for the improvement of the 
 
170 FLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 country lie with the young. I have heard a great deal 
 during the last year with regard to the state of our poorer 
 fellow countrymen, the homes especially in which they 
 live, and have listened to a good deal of painful evidence 
 upon the wretched and disgraceful state of those homes— 
 if you can dare call them such, for one is ashamed ta 
 give the beautiful word “home” to such places—and this 
 evidence makes one feel that there is a great deal to be 
 done before one can look upon this country as in at alla 
 fit and proper state for the training up of the next genera- 
 tion. The places in which so many of our poorer brethren © 
 live are so hopelessly crowded, and the apartments of those 
 places are so wretched, the rooms so dirty and ill-adapted 
 for cleanliness and for healthfulness, that one feels pity for 
 the poor children who are brought up there, and one knows 
 as a matter of common experience that the ill-ventilated, © 
 crowded, and unwholesome rooms, in which so many are 
 brought up, are amongst the greatest incentives possible to 
 those habits of drinking which we deplore, and against 
 which we are fighting. For my part, I grieve with all my 
 heart over the way in which strong men and strong women, 
 who feel the sinking of such a life, and even little children 
 too, are often driven to the public-house. It makes one’s 
 heart bleed to know it, but at the same time one feels that 
 if one lived in such places as have been described before © 
 the Royal Commission to inquire into the housing of the 
 poor, one’s wonder is really taken away—not one’s pity. 
 It is sometimes a wonder that people will stop in of an ~ 
 evening in such places at all. I say that my hope is in 
 the young, and it is so because we must train them to 
 better habits, we must teach them cleanliness, pari 
 some sanitary matters, to know how to make their homes — 
 healthful, and we must so train them that when they 
 become the generation of fathers and mothers of our land © 
 they may be in a far more wholesome state than the — 
 present generation isin. If we are to do this work, surely © 
 that Branch in which we are engaged is a most important : 
 Branch, and one that must stand in the very forefront of — 
 all our endeavours. I do not see how children are to be © 
 trained to any better life than that in which they will come — 
 to unless they find an escape from the perils of drink. 
 Unless they really are trained up to fight against it, to 
 
 : 
 
* 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND TEMPERANCE. 171 
 
 NE ETI TEE aE SEE nISnEEnE EEE 
 
 resist it, to flee from it and save themselves from the 
 misery it brings—I say, I do not see what hope there is of 
 better homes for the future or better habits amongst our 
 people. I hope that, looking at it from that low point of 
 view, we may see this movement progress and prosper. 
 But, then, we want to rise to something higher. I want to 
 feel not only that we are bound to do all we can to train 
 up our people socially, and civilize, and brighten, and 
 humanize their lives, to give them something more to 
 interest them than they have at the present time—all that 
 is true, but beyond that surely what we do want most of 
 all is to teach them the fear of God, to follow the Saviour, 
 and to lead religious lives as well as pure and cleanly lives. 
 I believe that as the drink is the great enemy of purity 
 and cleanliness in the habitations of the people, no less 
 certainly is it the great enemy of all religious life and 
 character. It seems to me that the familiarity not only 
 with drink itself but with all its surroundings is one of the 
 most deteriorating things to the whole moral atmosphere. 
 The children cannot be expected to be brought up to lead 
 the lives we should wish with such surroundings, and 
 therefore every single child we can enrol in our Bands of 
 Hope, and who joins this Juvenile Section, is one more on 
 the side of hopefulness and on the side of what we are all 
 fighting for—the rescue of our people from degradation, 
 from poverty, from misery, from irreligion. Therefore, 
 I do hope that God will bless this work very much indeed. 
 Children sometimes fancy that they can do very little 
 themselves. They can be trained, helped, and guarded by 
 others, but they often think that there is not much that 
 they can do themselves. Now, very little children, do 
 remember this, that you can do a great deal more than 
 you think. The example of a little child joining such a 
 Society as this, and steadfastly refusing to enter into 
 temptation—because that is really what you are doing— 
 is of the greatest possible benefit. We pray, “Lead us 
 not into temptation,” and I cannot imagine anything much 
 better for people to see and to know than that little 
 children not only pray this, but as far as possible act up 
 to it by avoiding temptation. They reason, “I say every 
 day such a prayer as that, but how can I say it if I allow 
 myself to go into temptation?” Therefore, you are doing 
 
172 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 a good deal in the way of example. I will tell you a story 
 which will show you how an example may be blessed. 
 There is a large hospital in the East of London, and in — 
 one of the wards where a good many men are always 
 
 lying in their beds, there was quite a little boy brought in” 
 one day. There were several other boys there. He was 
 not so ill that he could not get up and down from the bed | 
 himself, so at night, before he went to sleep, he knelt down ;_ 
 and a rough man called one of the nurses and said, “ What - 
 is that lad doing?” “Saying his prayers.” “ What does 
 he belong to?” asked the man. “I will ask him when he 
 is done,” said the nurse. She went to the boy and asked 
 him where he came from and what he belonged tu. He 
 said, “I am Church of England.” She went back to the 
 man and said that the boy belonged to the Church of 
 England. “Then,” said the man, “I should like to see 
 the parson of the parish he comes from.” So they sent for 
 
 the parson, and he came; but before he did so that little” 
 boy had been a missionary in the ward. He had been 
 telling the men and the other boys that they ought to say 
 their prayers; and he had so prepared the way for the 
 clergyman that he was astonished to find what one little 
 boy had done by his example. Now, dear children, you” 
 try and do the same. | 
 
 II. The Picture Reversed. Sy Canon FLEMING. 
 
 WE have all perceived by the delight we have received 
 that this is the Scotch evening, and I read in the Zesmper- 
 ance Record that an Irish evening has preceded it, and so’ 
 we all féel that the rose, the shamrock, and the thistle have 
 been united in this, and in every good work of the past and > 
 the present, and we believe it will be so in the future. 
 There is no time at which we could be better reminded of | 
 the fealty and loyalty of the United Kingdom than at a 
 time when we have just heard from our good Queen of the 
 betrothal of her youngest daughter, and in a week when all 
 England has celebrated, not with pageant as in olden days, 
 but with the quiet respect and homage of their hearts, the 
 coming of age of our young Prince Edward, reminding us 
 that, no matter what may be the clouds upon the horizon 
 for old England, the throne of this country rests fast and_ 
 
y 
 
 \ 
 
 THE PICTURE REVERSED. 1975 
 
 : strong and deep upon the foundation of national loyalty. 
 
 It also reminds us—does this rose, shamrock, and thistle— 
 of three bonds of union in reference to the Temperance 
 cause which brings so many of our hearts together even on 
 
 _ this wet and inclement night ; I mean that in the past days 
 
 when it had its hard beginning there were three things that 
 were dead against this cause—Science, Experience, and the 
 Church. Science, so called, was opposed to this cause in 
 the shape of the doctors, and the wives joined the doctors 
 in those days, and that made science so much the worse for 
 the married men. The consequence was that whenever any 
 of us dreamed of becoming a teetotaler, the wife got the 
 doctor on her side, and science was dead against us. But 
 now what a wonderful change! Modern wives dare not 
 say a word on that side now, because, though there are men 
 
 here and there who no doubt hold fast to the old drinking 
 _ customs and the good the drink is supposed to do to their 
 
 patients, more than 2,000, you will remember, long ago, of 
 the ¢zte of the medical profession signed in favour of total 
 abstinence, and we have such men as Dr. Richardson and 
 
 other eminent scientists of the day all declaring that stimu- 
 
 lants are not necessary for bodily health and daily work. 
 Then we had in those days Experience against us. That is 
 to say there was no experience at all. People had not tried 
 it long enough. The good men who were the pioneers of 
 this cause first began it; then old friends came to them 
 and asked them very crucial questions about how it would 
 suit them, and they could not quite answer, so that formerly 
 aman used to sign the pledge as if he were going to be 
 
 _hanged, or going to be married, and sign it with a far more 
 
 unsteady hand than we clergy are accustomed to see some 
 of you sign your names to the register when you are 
 married. If a man now comes and says, “I want to know 
 
 _ how this will suit my constitution,” then, of course, you can 
 
 hear from him—because you must sympathise with his 
 constitution—you can hear from him what kind of a con- 
 stitution he has, and then say that “for many years there 
 have been hundreds and thousands of just such a constitution 
 as yours who have done without it and have done very 
 well.” And then if a person comes and says, “ You must 
 remember that I am no longer young ”—we do not always 
 like to acknowledge, men as well as women, our age—“ but 
 
 » 
 
174 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 how do you think it will suit my age?” Of course you 
 must let a man tell you in a general way. Do not ask a 
 lady her age, but let a man tell you in a general way, and 
 you can say, “ There are hundreds and thousands exactly 
 your age and older too, who have done a long time without 
 it, and done very well.” Hence we have now got experience 
 as well as science ; and then there is the third thing which 
 makes up the rose, the shamrock, and the thistle in this 
 great cause, the Church of God is on our side. In the 
 early days of this movement there were hardly any of the 
 clergy—twenty years ago when I joined it there were 
 hardly any, and hardly any of the Nonconformist ministers, 
 comparatively speaking, who were on our side, but now the 
 Church of God, and by that I mean the whole Church of 
 God—I do not mean any particular section of it, but I 
 mean the universal Church—for I desire to remember in 
 this, in every cause, that every Christian is my brother, 
 and if we cannot learn that here below, and if we cannot 
 learn to shake hands over God’s good cause, it will be a 
 very bad thing for us because we shall have to shake hands 
 when we meet in heaven. Well, the whole Church of God 
 is taking hold of this cause, and the consequence is that 
 there is a wave of Christian temperance going over this 
 land, and we have these three things, which were once 
 against the cause all on our side—Science, Experience, and 
 the Church of God. And now, friends, another year has 
 just turned with all of us. We have come here to listen to 
 charming music, we have come here to have the infliction 
 of a ten minutes’ speech, but we are not met either to listen 
 to music or to talk only. If we are honest, and if we are 
 sincere in our purpose, in our work, and in our duty, we 
 meet to consider how each of us ought to act, and what we 
 ought todo. As Longfellow said: 
 
 “Act, act in the living present, 
 Heart within, and God o’erhead.” 
 
 What are we going to do this year for this good cause? 
 ‘ Let us all find out something we can do to advance it. If 
 we have not joined it let us do so this year. Give your 
 influence, your example, your name to it; you will never 
 regret having joined this cause, and if you have joined it, 
 then strive to bring others along with you this year. Strive 
 
is 
 
 THE PICTURE REVERSED. 17§ 
 
 to make your influence and example more felt than they 
 have been yet. Remember, we are united in God’s cause. 
 God is on our side. You will never hear men get up now 
 and defend this thing as they used to do long ago. There 
 is not a father to-night who, if his son were going out into 
 the world this New Year, would not rejoice to know that 
 he went out as a total abstainer. There is not a mother in 
 London to-night who, if her young daughter were going 
 out into the world far away, would not rejoice to think she 
 went out as a total abstainer. There is not an employer in 
 London to-night—I care not whether he be a moderate 
 drinker or an abstainer—who would not be glad to employ 
 a young fellow of whom it is said, “He is a staunch 
 teetotaler,” in his business. So, brethren, we are banded 
 in a good work. It is God’s work. God is on our side, 
 and let us recollect that we are banded against a terrible 
 evil—the great curse of this country, because it is one of 
 the most widespread. You have heard a great deal in the 
 last year of the cholera. You know how many thousands 
 that plague has swept off. We have all just heard of that 
 terrible earthquake and the shocks that are still felt, as it 
 were, beneath the feet of the living, and you know how 
 many lives that earthquake has destroyed ; but recollect 
 that the cholera and the earthquake together, yes, and war 
 and other things added, and disease and sickness—they have 
 not slain more in comparison than this evil and curse of 
 strong drink is doing in the homes of this land. And then 
 remember that this is an evil of ourown creating. It is an 
 evil of man’s creation—not an evil of God’s dispensation. So 
 
 let us be united in our fight against this evil. The victory is 
 
 not won yet. The battle has only begun. Let us be united 
 in our purpose and in our effort, and remember that we shall 
 never desist while there are drunkards still to be rescued, and 
 
 while there are homes—miserable homes—still to be filled 
 
 with the gladness and the sunshine of Christian joy. 
 
 “In the Name of God advancing, 
 Plough, and sow, and labour now; 
 Let there be when evening cometh, 
 Honest sweat upon the brow.” 
 
 “And the Master shall come smiling 
 When work stops at set of sun, 
 Saying as He pays the wages, 
 * Good and faithful man—well done?® 
 
176 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 III. Temperance Arguments. Sy THE BisHop oF © 
 LonpDon. 
 
 THE Bishop remarked that the arguments used in the 
 Temperance cause must be repeated again and again. It © 
 was only by gradual process that the practices of mankind — 
 could be changed. Long after they had convinced men’s © 
 reason they would cling to their own customs, and do- 
 things which they professed to regret while they did them. 
 The advocates of Temperance did not profess any magical © 
 method, and they must persist in their work so long as bad © 
 customs were persisted in, and must let people know they 
 did not intend to be defeated by the slowness of their own 
 progress. Indeed, though their work might be called slow, 
 there was enough of it to show God’s blessing was with ~ 
 them. Work of this sort must take the labour of more — 
 than one generation. But this would not daunt those who © 
 had taken up the cause of Temperance. They were grow- — 
 ing in numbers as they were growing in resoluteness. The 
 young were growing up who had never known the taste of ~ 
 drink, and with the princely heart of innocence walked in — 
 the midst of temptation without harm. And those who © 
 hesitated to join the Total Abstainers were joining the ~ 
 General Section in large numbers, and that was a very © 
 strong evidence of the growth of the cause in public 
 opinion. It meant that though there were a great many 
 not yet convinced, it was the duty of every one not yet — 
 convinced to take part in the work. And by joining the 
 Society they showed they did not disapprove the methods 
 of Total Abstainers. He looked upon the growth of the 
 general section as a remarkable phenomenon in the history ~ 
 of the Temperance cause, although he himself had long 
 joined, and joined with all his heart, the cause of total 
 abstinence. The general section was a proof that they 
 endeavoured to force no man’s conscience in spite of their — 
 enthusiasm. Anda large number of those who began in 
 the general section had ended in the total abstinence sec- — 
 tion. In this way also all society was penetrated. They — 
 were leavening the whole of society from the highest to 
 the lowest. At many a gentleman’s table now there was 
 no intoxicating liquor at all, and at almost every table one 
 sat down to the quantity had diminished and diminished ~ 
 
TEMPERANCE ARGUMENT. 179 
 
 _ year after year, until it was very rare indeed to see now 
 __ what ten years ago was exceedingly common, namely, men 
 _ who never got drunk in their lives, but who yet, neverthe- 
 less, indulged very foolishly indeed. Then, what had been 
 done by this enemy of all good? How had it ruined our 
 ' trade far more than any other cause? Let them think 
 how this evil had interfered with our faith far more than 
 any other cause. Scepticism and infidelity—what could 
 they do, evil as they were, in comparison with that indul- 
 gence which robbed a man of his reason to begin and 
 degraded him body and soul at last? Or how could they 
 deny that the souls that had been lost by any such cause 
 as this could be numbered against the souls perishing be- 
 cause all religious life was dying out through indulgence 
 in this dreadful sin? There were many other things doing 
 mischief, but there were no others that could be compared 
 with, or that could be set by the side of, this monarch in 
 the kingdom of wickedness. They meant to go on and 
 fight to the end, and they were sure to win. It was true 
 that at present it seemed as if they had as yet only dealt 
 with the fringe and surroundings of the mass of mischief. 
 There was, as it were, a hard and solid core of evil that 
 they had been unable effectually to reach, and which they 
 could not touch as yet. They wanted more workers; they 
 wanted more devotion to the cause, more entire self-sur- 
 render, and they would surely get that. For, as the cause had 
 gone on, this had occurred—that whereas at the beginning 
 there were but a few earnest men who made themselves 
 conspicuous by their labours in the endeavour to deal with 
 this evil, whose names would never be forgotten, now the 
 work was taken in hand by thousands upon thousands 
 whose very number obscured their fame. This was indeed 
 a matter which perpetually gave him the deepest delight— 
 that go where he would he found amongst all men, and in 
 every rank, and most of all in the ranks of those who toiled 
 with their hands for their daily bread, champions of the 
 cause who were fighting hard—who were unknown to the 
 _ world, but who would not lose their reward either in this 
 world or the next. 
 
178 PLATFORM AIDS--TEMPERANCE. 
 
 IV. Temperance in the Army and Navy. By 
 Mr. W. S. Caine, M.P. 
 
 MR. CAINE said : “ In bygone times it was supposed that an 
 Englishman, like the denizen of any other country, could 
 not fight unless he were primed with intoxicating liquor, but 
 the National Temperance League had taught the world that 
 English sailors and soldiers at least did not require ‘ Dutch 
 courage’ to enable them to do their duty. On the contrary, 
 the experience of every day was demonstrating in both 
 the army and navy that the greatest hardships could be 
 endured, the most difficult campaigns carried through, and 
 the hardest work achieved by men who wholly abstained 
 from intoxicating liquor. In the campaign up the Nile, 
 Lord Wolseley knew well what he was about, and the 
 country was persuaded that he was carrying to a successful 
 issue one of the most difficult campaigns it had ever fallen 
 to the lot of a British general to conduct. The greater 
 portion of his army had already traversed the worst part 
 of the desert route, and done it upon water. That water, 
 he regretted to say, was of inferior quality, being largely 
 tinctured with mud, and the ration was only one quart per 
 man per day, but still so successful had the march been 
 that there was scarcely an invalid. Again, the most brilliant 
 infantry charge of modern times—that of Tel-el-Kebir— 
 was carried through on cold tea, and not upon the spirit 
 ration ; while every day they were proving in the navy— 
 the finest service in the world —that the seamen and marines 
 could do all the miscellaneous work that fell to them in 
 campaigning and at sea infinitely better as teetotalers than 
 under other circumstances. As regarded the bluejackets, 
 8,000 of them were teetotalers. Add to these the 4,00¢ or 
 5,000 teetotalers in the training ships and in the naval 
 schools, and they had a grand total of about 12,000 men 
 and boys in the Royal Navy who were abstainers. In- 
 telligent officers were glad to see their men becoming 
 teetotalers, knowing perfectly well, whatever might be their 
 own opinion as to moderate drinking, that their men could 
 do their work better without intoxicating liquors than with 
 them. The agency by which this satisfactory state of 
 things had been brought about was the National Temper- 
 ance League. They began with the boys in the Greenwich 
 
TEMPERANCE IN THE ARMY AND NAVY. 17 
 
 Hospital School, where there was a flourishing Band of 
 Hope, and where Captain Burney, the superintendent, 
 gratefully recognised the service Temperance work had 
 done to his charge. When the lads entered the training 
 ships they were still encouraged to persevere in Temperance 
 principles, and finally, when they went on board the men- 
 of-war, they found the Temperance Society, which existed 
 on nearly every ship, ready to receive them, and there they 
 made friends with abstainers older than themselves, For 
 the first two years after entering a man-of-war, instead of 
 drawing the spirit ration, the boys were allowed cocoa, 
 coffee, and other substitutes. These substitutes they lost 
 if at the end of the two years they elected to have the 
 spirit ration. This change also was largely due to the 
 National Temperance League. The Temperance education 
 these boys received in the Greenwich Hospital School, 
 afterwards in the training ships, and finally in the Temper- 
 ance Societies on board the men-of-war, encouraged these 
 lads to persevere as teetotalers, and hence the remarkable 
 change which had been brought about. In this great 
 improvement the work of Miss Weston should not be for- 
 gotten. She had the largest public-houses in Devonport 
 and Portsmouth without intoxicating drinks, for they were 
 for the elevation and not the debasement of the sailor, and 
 they were self-supporting. No one could tell what the 
 British navy owed to the successful efforts of the League 
 to improve the morale of the sailor both at sea and on 
 shore. The way the League proceeded was by persuasion 
 —not by compulsion. He might claim to have helped it 
 in the House of Commons in getting certain concessions 
 made to the abstainers in the fleet. When, not long ago, 
 he was seeking re-election at Scarborough, his opponents 
 asked the question of the people, ‘ Will you vote for a man 
 who is going to rob poor Jack of his grog ?’ and the answer 
 of the electors was to return him by a large majority. He 
 explained to them, as he wished to explain to this meeting, 
 that he never proposed to ‘rob poor Jack of his grog;’ all 
 he wished to do was to give him every possible facility and 
 encouragement to give it up voluntarily and become an 
 abstainer. He did not believe in compulsion; that would 
 be a great mistake; but all he desired was that the full 
 facts of the case should be laid before the sailor, and that 
 
180 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 then he should judge for himself. If in a few years they © 
 had been able to persuade 12,000 men and boys in the 
 navy to become teetotalers, need they despair of a time ~ 
 when the majority, if not all, of them would be voluntarily — 
 abstainers from that which, in his opinion, degraded and 
 debased the men who used it, whether they were sailors or 
 landsmen? He had shown that the Temperance cause 
 was marching on in the navy as elsewhere, and all he 
 asked from his hearers was that they should give to this 
 subject their impartial consideration as to whether it was 
 not their duty as Christians and as citizens to abstain from 
 that which, more than anything else, was inimical to the 
 peace, the prosperity, and the happiness of the country.” 
 
 V. Licensing Laws. Sy PREBENDARY AINSLIE. 
 
 Our present licensing laws are an attempt to place some 
 control upon the liquor traffic, and of attempts, not to 
 make men sober by Act of Parliament, but to prevent 
 that impoverishment of the country which was the result 
 of excess in drink. Some of you know that there was a 
 special fine upon drunkenness in a public-house, because 
 the licensing of that public-house was supposed to make 
 it a place where the drink could be sold without drunken- 
 ness, and if the holder proved himself unworthy of that 
 license, there was a heavy fine upon drunkenness in a 
 public-house. I will say one word upon the definite 
 position of total abstinence in reference to this great 
 movement. I will say that, to the inebriate, total abstin- 
 ence is a necessity. Those in trades which bring them 
 into danger and temptation, which we may believe to be 
 irresistible—to such total abstinence is a necessity. Why 
 do I mention this? Because I know that we are often 
 prejudiced against the Temperance movement by the ex- 
 travagant, enthusiastic, and fanatical language employed. 
 But do you know perhaps that some of the most extrava- 
 gant utterances are made by those who are working men 
 themselves, and who know the absolute necessity of total 
 abstinence as the only security for their fellow working 
 men. I have already given you one instance of not per- 
 haps very brilliant logic. You do not expect these men to 
 
LICENSING LAWS. 187 
 
 be very brilliant logicians, but they know what they are 
 about. They know that the young soldier who has just 
 enlisted, if he be not an abstainer, his chances are a thou- 
 sand to one against his remaining sober and keeping out 
 of the punishment lists. You may remember that at the 
 meeting held in this room last year Lord Napier of 
 Magdala told you that he had taken the trouble to in- 
 vestigate 18,000 cases of offences of soldiers, and not one 
 single one was committed by a teetotaler. What does 
 that show? It shows that to the young soldier entering 
 upon his dangerous career—the danger from the drink is far 
 greater than the danger from the bullet. His only proof 
 armour is, under the grace of God, total abstinence. When 
 the working man then says that nothing but total absti- 
 nence will do, try not to be offended. Try to put yourself 
 in that man’s position, and look at him in his earnestness, 
 and see whether you cannot take him by the hand and 
 say, “Nothing you can say will offend me. I know it will 
 not be universally acceptable to the country, but God help 
 you to do good as you are doing it.” Be very patient. 
 How do you know the reasons why these enthusiastic 
 advocates speak as they do in burning words. Do any of 
 you know what it is to have intemperance in your own 
 families, to have a home desolated, to have a home that 
 the world would call respectable, destroyed by intemper- 
 ance? And then, do you think that a man who has seen 
 that, and who believes that he can, by earnestly pleading, 
 prevent it in the case of others—do you believe that such 
 aman can measure his words? You do not know human 
 nature if you think he can. You have never felt what it 
 is to be enthusiastic; God grant that you may feel it. 
 Therefore, do not be hard upon those who will, perhaps, 
 offend your ‘fastidious ears by the burning enthusiasm of 
 their words. Turn your thoughts into your own memories. 
 Do you not recollect a time in your lives when you were 
 enthusiastic, when you used words, perhaps, a little too 
 strong—I mean the time before you were married. Were 
 there no little exaggerations in your little methods of ex- 
 pression? Why was itso? Because you felt very deeply 
 and you were apt to express yourselves a little bit warmly. 
 Those people feel deeply, and no wonder that they express 
 themselves warmly. I turn to my total abstinence friends, 
 
182 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 
 
 — 
 
 for Iam a total abstainer, and I say, do you be patient 
 with those who are abstainers. Instead of snubbing them, 
 try and show them how can they help you. A branch 
 that has a good general section is a strong branch, and do 
 
 not discourage it. You remember what we read, “Is thy © 
 
 heart right with my heart? if it be so, give me thine 
 hand !” 
 
 VI. What Doctors Say. By Tue Rev. J. W. Horstey, 
 M.A., Chaplain of H.M. Prison, Clerkenwell, £.C. 
 
 For good or for evil the power and influence of the medical 
 profession in the matter of the use of alcoholic drinks is 
 equalled and limited only by the paramount claims of duty 
 on the one side, and of the wzs zmerti@ of perversity and a 
 vicious appetite on the other. 
 
 It is honestly admitted, though the denial of every 
 doctor in the world would not alter facts, that infinite and 
 often irremediable harm has been done by the well-nigh 
 indiscriminate prescription of alcohol as a panacea for 
 every ailment, by the unscientific way in which the amount 
 taken has been practically left to the patient, and by the 
 continued neglect of many doctors to inform themselves 
 by experiment or even by serious reading of the chemical 
 and physiological effects of this narcotic and irritant 
 poison. It is doubtful if more harm has ever been done 
 in the name of science than by the eminent physician who 
 popularized the port wine treatment of disease, with results 
 that generations yet unborn will lament, but lament in vain, 
 until under the influence of better fashions and better 
 science the physical evil has gradually died out. Who has 
 not heard the excuse of the immoderate tippler, “My 
 doctor orders me to keep my constitution up by stimulants, 
 by some generous (?) wine”? Who has not met with the 
 excuse, “I only take it asa medicine”? True, these ex- 
 cuses are often known, even by those who depend on them, 
 not to be reasons ; true, there is as much dishonesty on 
 the part of patients in the use they make of a palatable 
 prescription as there is carelessness on the part of doctors 
 in the way that prescription is given, its effects watched, 
 and its disuse ordered ; yet still the medical grounds for 
 or against the use of alcoholic beverages (the question of 
 
WHAT DOCTORS SAY. 183 
 
 the retention of alcohol as a drug is entirely separate and 
 not yet ripe for settlement) must always be seriously 
 examined, whatever be our predilections or habits. And 
 it is worthy of note that the examination of the properties 
 and powers of alcohol has been largely forced on medical 
 men by their patients, and perhaps still more by the ex- 
 istence and health of those who rarely become their patients. 
 It is not so long ago that the medical officers of Insurance 
 Societies to a man advised their Boards not to accept the 
 proposals of total abstainers, who must, z/so facto, be mori- 
 bund or chronic invalids at the best; now the perversity 
 of teetotalers in retaining their health and proving their 
 comparative longevity has forced such officers to enquire 
 most closely into the Temperance of every would-be in- 
 surer, and to assent to the declarations of many an actuary 
 that from a purely business point of view the life of a 
 teetotaler is better than that of a moderate drinker. 
 Nothing should more excite our thankfulness than that 
 the medical profession has been obliged to study facts 
 instead of evolving baseless theories, to minimise the pre- 
 scription of alcohol to an extent that almost amounts to 
 a revolution in therapeutics, and especially that many have 
 studied deeply and spoken as clearly, as strongly, in favour 
 of the strictest temperance. The disease of intemperance 
 can only be prevented or cured by the co-operation of the 
 physician with the priest and the teacher, for it attacks 
 the body as well as the spiritual and mental faculties, the 
 whole man, in fact, in his tripartite nature. Grace is mighty, 
 and prayer guides the hand of Omnipotence, but yet a 
 physical disease needs physical remedies, as our’ Lord 
 pointed out when He said, “this kind goeth not out but 
 by prayer and fasting,’ which latter term may be taken to 
 comprehend all physical remedies as prayer would include 
 every means of grace. We thank God, therefore, for the 
 inestimable advantage given to our work as Temperance 
 reformers by the labours and works of such men as Drs. 
 Richardson, Carpenter, Kerr, Parkes, Edmunds, Ridge, 
 Acland, Clark, Drysdale, and Greenfield ; Professors Miller 
 and Bernays, Sir H. Thompson and Sir W. Gull, and we 
 pray that their brethren may more, and that speedily, 
 cemie to see the responsibility that lies upon them to learn 
 exactly the nature and effects of the alcohol they “ex- 
 
184 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 
 
 hibit,” to be more careful in prescribing it, and more care= 
 ful when it has been prescribed, that the intended remedy 
 does not induce a habit and even a disease worse than that 
 it was intended to alleviate or cure, 
 
 But as the evil as well as the good that men do lives 
 after them, so, unfortunately, if the medical profession 
 were to abandon entirely the prescription of alcoholic 
 beverages, and dispense simply the pure drug from their 
 toxicological cabinets instead of from the cellars of their 
 patients or the public-house, there would remain, for a ~ 
 generation at least, the tradition and the acquired habit — 
 which would seek to justify the use and even the abuse of | 
 alcoholic drinks by the quotation of medical advice, dating | 
 from a less enlightened era, and given under different cir- — 
 cumstances of health or even to different persons. | 
 
 It is then to aid those who would create a more healthy 
 and honest public sentiment in the matter that I have read 
 some hundreds of papers or reports of speeches (my ~ 
 labour being largely facilitated by the excellent Medical — 
 Temperance Journal), and extracted from them brief and — 
 pointed utterances on points as to which instruction is 
 still obviously needed in the face of the ignorance, pre- 
 judice, and interests which exist about the use of alcohol 
 in health or sickness, and its effects upon the normal or 
 occasional conditions of the human frame. 
 
 These heads of instruction will be on alcohol and health, 
 alcohol and .nutriment, alcohol and strength, alcohol and 
 warmth, alcohol and digestion, alcohol and the brain, 
 alcohol and maternity, alcohol as a medicine, and alcohol 
 as a poison. 
 
 Doctors will disagree no doubt as long as doctors exist, 
 and my aim is not to give both sides of the question, for 
 the simple reason that that side which falls in with the 
 inclinations and habits of a nation in which drinking 
 customs have held sway in every class is but too well known 
 and too eagerly quoted. I shall but attempt to make it 
 clear to the most prejudiced or ignorant that our side is 
 supported by the clearest testimony of eminent doctors, 
 and thus haply to remove a stumbling block from the weak, 
 and a cause of reproach from a noble profession whose 
 attitude and teaching is but too frequently quoted as a 
 justification for innumerable follies and ills) But as one 
 
ALCOHOL AND HEALTH. 185 
 
 pin with an indubitable point will humble a windbag, how- 
 ever solid it may seem, so one clear demonstration of 
 Science, one dictum logically deduced, may cause each one 
 of the fallacies about the use of intoxicants which are 
 popular in both senses of the word to be seen in their true 
 colour as absurdities and untruths, until of all the argu- 
 ments and reasons for drinking none remain save the last, 
 though most honest, refuges of the advocates of alcohol— 
 “T like it,” and “It’s the fashion.” 
 
 I would only add that I shall be grateful to any who will 
 bring to my notice such additional dicta of medical men 
 of the same character and length as those I shall quote, 
 and on the points enumerated above, as may have escaped 
 myeyes. This, with a view to the collection of the articles 
 into a small pamphlet hereafter, which I would have as 
 complete as possible. 
 
 VII. Alcohol and Health. Atconot not NECESSARY 
 OR BENEFICIAL TO HEALTH. 
 
 “THERE seem no useful effects to be anticipated from 
 the use of alcohol in health."—Dys. Parkes. 
 
 “ Alcohol is never beneficial to a person in health.’— 
 Dr. H. Lee Norris. 
 
 “People in ordinary health do not require alcohol in any 
 form, and are not benefited by it even in very small 
 quantities.”—Surg.-Major H. Cayley. 
 
 “A healthy man, with healthy surroundings, not only 
 
 requires no alcohol, but, daily taken as an article of diet, it 
 is in the end pernicious."—M/7. H. Weekes. 
 _ “Neither spirit, wine, nor malt liquor is necessary for 
 health.”—J/usp.-General Sir J. Hall. 
 
 “As for the old opinion that people in health, or living 
 in ordinary conditions, could not live or work without wine, 
 it is an opinion no careful or thoughtful physician thinks of 
 maintaining.”"—Prof. Acland. 
 
 “Upon the whole the human race would be situated just 
 as favourably if the use of alcohol did not exist.”—Drv. 
 Bardon Sanderson, 
 
 “To a person in good health alcohol is not in the least 
 necessary or beneficial; he will do harder and sounder 
 work without it.,.—Dr. A. Maudslay. 
 
186 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 . 
 
 “Health cannot be benefited by alcohol in any degree.” 
 —Dr. A. Clark. . 
 
 “Fermented and distilled liquors are never necessary 
 for any purpose, except in certain persons in whom habit 
 has created a need of them truly morbid.”—2oyer- 
 Collard. : 
 
 “A man or woman who abstains is healthy and safe. 
 A man or woman who indulges at all is unsafe. A man 
 or woman who relies on alcohol for support is lost.”—Dr. 
 B. W. Richardson. . 
 
 “JT have in no case met with a single instance wherein — 
 abstinence has exercised a prejudicial influence upon the 
 individual in any way.”—Dr. Fergus Ferguson. 
 
 “Disease is much less frequent among teetotalers, and 
 disease is much less troublesome.”—J/r. A. J. H. Crespi. 
 
 “A man finds that he enjoys best health when he ab- 
 stains altogether from wine and spirits,and drinks plain | 
 water.’—Dr. Murchison. ! | 
 
 “There can be no excuse on physical grounds for reject- 
 ing the practice of total abstinence.’—Declaration of 43 
 Army Doctors in India. 
 
 VIII. A Teetotaler in the Slums. Sy Mr W.S. 
 Caine, M.P. 
 
 IN the course of a sermon Mr. Caine related the following 
 incident :-— 
 
 “They knew it was sad when a lad was never to be 
 found at home; and it proved the necessity of parents 
 making their homes as bright and cheerful as possible. 
 No harm could come to the boy who loved his home, and 
 the girl who loved home would never go wrong. Where 
 home was an attraction the devil found it impregnable. 
 The chief result of the public-house was to deprive the 
 home of its pure family life. Some time ago he was talk- 
 ing to Mr. George Russcll, the Under-Secretary of the 
 Local Government Board, who told him that he was not 
 going to the country that summer, but was going to spend 
 his holidays in the slums of London. He asked, in a 
 joking way, ‘Is there nothing I can do in the slums for 
 
THE BEST STIMULANTS. 187 
 
 you?’ He (Mr. Caine) said: ‘Yes, there is. Will you find 
 me a teetotaler in the slums?’ Four months afterwards 
 Mr. Russell came to him and said he had fulfilled his com- 
 mission. He had found a teetotaler, but he lived in a 
 bright and cheerful room in one of the most wretched of 
 all the slums in London. On inquiring into the cause of 
 the cheerful aspect of the room, Mr. Russell was told by 
 the wife of the teetotaler that both she and her husband 
 had signed the pledge. Once let such people break that 
 pledge,” said the preacher, “and it would prove the de- 
 struction of all their bright and cheerful homes.” 
 
 IX. The Best Stimulants. 
 
 I was deeply impressed by something which an excellent 
 clergyman told me one day, when there was nobody by to 
 bring mischief on the head of the narrator. This clergy- 
 man knew the literary world of his time so thoroughly that 
 there was probably no author of any mark then living in 
 England with whom he was not more or less acquainted. 
 It must be remembered that a new generation has now 
 grown up. He told me that he had reason to believe that 
 there was no author or authoress who was free from the 
 habit of taking pernicious stimulants, either strong green 
 tea or strong coffee at night, or wine, or spirits, or lauda- 
 num. The amount of opium taken to relieve the wear and 
 tear of authors was, he said, greater than most people had 
 any conception of, and all literary workers took something. 
 “Why, I do not,” said I; “fresh air and cold water are 
 my stimulants.” “TI believe you,” he replied; “but you 
 work in the morning, and there is much in that.” I then 
 remembered, when I had to work a short time at night, 
 a physician who called on me observed that I must not 
 allow myself to be exhausted at the end of the day. He 
 would not advise any alcoholic wines, but any light wines 
 that I liked might do me good. ‘You have a cupboard 
 there at your right hand,” said he; “keep a bottle of hock 
 and a wineglass there, and help yourself when you feel 
 you want it.” “No, thank you,” said 1; “if I took wine, 
 it should not be when alone, nor would I help myself toa 
 
188 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 glass; I might take a little more, till my solitary glass 
 might become a regular tippling habit. I shall avoid the 
 temptation altogether.” Physicians should consider before 
 they give such advice to brain-worn workers, 
 
 X. The Duty of Governments. Sy Tue VEN. 
 ARCHDEACON Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. “And He looked for 
 judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold 
 @ cry.” —ISAIAH V, 7. 
 
 WITHOUT an apology, I shall speak of those questions 
 as being essentially religious. We are citizens of no 
 mean city, and though, like St. Paul, we were free-born, 
 yet with a great price obtained we this freedom—the 
 price of agonies and energies, the price of the sufferings, 
 the courage, and the blood of our fathers. Get rid, I 
 beseech you, of the ignobly feeble notion that when we 
 - have observed the proprieties, and scraped up a pittance 
 for our families, we have done our duty as men or as 
 citizens; or that we are saints, or even true Christians, if 
 we have merely adopted a censorious profession, the 
 mother of ignorant Pharisaism and the daughter of shiver- 
 ing fear. We are not units, made merely to clutch each 
 of us at our own plank amid the weltering deluge. We 
 are brother men in the great family of God. We are the 
 children of an imperial country, which, if we do not im- 
 poverish its traditions, and degrade its ideal, may yet bear 
 asplendid part in the history of nations. We are heirs of 
 a mighty past, rich in liberty and in heroism. As English, 
 we speak the tongue of Shakespeare, and hold the faith and 
 the morals of Milton. We are the trustees of posterity ; 
 we are the children of a pure and holy Church; we are the 
 redeemed sons of God, and heirs of Heaven. We must be 
 mean indeed if we feel no gratitude for these advantages, 
 and derive no inspiration from them. They are lent to us, 
 not given, and it is our plain duty to hand on the kindled 
 torch of our great empire, with undiminished lustre, to 
 those who shall come after us. There is nothing su 
 revolutionary, it has been truly said, because there is nothing 
 so unnatural and convulsive, as the strain to keep things 
 fixed, when all the world is, by the very law of its being, 
 
THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS. 189 
 
 in eternal progress ; and the course of all the evils in the 
 world can be traced to that natural, but most deadly, error 
 of human indolence and selfishness, that our business is 
 to preserve, and not to improve. 
 
 Here, of course, I shall not touch on any question of 
 party politics. What I would rather aim at is to press 
 home the eternal truths by which all questions of policy 
 must be ultimately decided. The saying of the old judge, 
 that the Bible is part of the common law of England, may 
 now be derided and disputed. It may be stigmatised as 
 only a phrase to speak of Scripture as the statesman’s 
 manual, yet certain laws there are which it behoves not 
 statesmen only, but all citizens, to keep solemnly in mind. 
 Laws they are not of to-day, nor of yesterday, but they 
 live for ever, and none knoweth whence they dawned. 
 Heaven was their birthplace; God is their Author. They 
 spurn the force of oblivion. The whirling wheel of time 
 cannot destroy them, nor the disdainful cavillings of 
 worldlings, Strong are they as adamant; immovable as 
 the granite basis of the hills. The nation, no less than the 
 man, which stumbles against them, shall be broken, and 
 on whomsoever they shall fall, they shall grind him to 
 powder. Of these the humblest servant of God may speak 
 to the highest sovereign. Such service is above such 
 sovereignty. 
 
 My friends, in time of coarse, material prosperity, states 
 may perish of slow decay, if men content themselves with 
 the passive enjoyment of sordid and spiritless comfort. 
 It is not so many years ago since M. Guizot, as Prime 
 Minister of France, said, with conscious or unconscious 
 cynicism, to the bourgeois of Paris, “ Enrich yourselves ! ” 
 Has the spirit of self-enrichment done much for France? 
 But when the times are rife with serious problems, then if 
 the rich and the privileged dwell on their rights, and 
 forget their duties, states may perish, not of slow corrup- 
 tion, but of swift catastrophe. We need at this moment 
 while yet there is time, the action and the reaction, the 
 play, and counter play, of two great forces at their fullest 
 power, the force of the individual and the force of society, 
 the liberty of the citizens and the strong hand of the state. 
 When the individual is passive and paralysed, the vital 
 powers of the nation are sapped. When the state is with- 
 
1go PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 out courage and without initiative, it will be overthrown 
 sooner or later in deluge and earthquake. The air and 
 the wings are equally needful for the eagle’s flight; and in 
 the nation the wings are the individual effort, and the 
 Government should be as the controlling and supporting 
 air. Take two pictures by way of illustration—Issachar 
 and Israel. “Issachar is a strong ass crouching between 
 two burdens, and he saw that rest was good, and the land 
 that it was pleasant, and he bowed his shoulder to the 
 yoke, and became a servant to tribute.” There is passivity 
 and serfdom. On the other hand, in Israel “there was no 
 king in those days ; every man did that which was right in 
 his own eyes.” There is individualism and anarchy. 
 Should nations follow individualism, they sink into the 
 Issachar condition, they stagnate into impotence, they sink 
 into the condition that has been described as atheistic do- 
 nothing-ism, the philosophy of the breeches pocket, the 
 comfortable, lazy creed of the good man who never, indeed, 
 cut a throat or dishonoured a bill, but who ground the 
 last stroke out of the puny, pallid children in the factory, 
 and defrauded the hireling of his wages. When, on the 
 other hand, nations become like Israel under the Judges, 
 when states are palsied and the passions of men are let 
 loose, there you have the orgies and the madness of 
 revolution, the guillotine reeking with the blood of the 
 virtuous and the noble, cities blazing with petroleum, and 
 tumbrils rolling through their streets. Nations may avert 
 these if taken in time. We want men, men who will set 
 their faces as a flint against tyranny and against oppres- 
 sion, but who will be obedient as children to all 
 beneficent and noble laws; men of independent minds 
 who let the crowd chatter at them and are silent; God’s 
 children by election, God's image by beneficence. On the 
 other hand, we want ruling powers which, indifferent to 
 the bickering of factious and selfish interests, will maintain 
 the weal of peace, and the godliness of the people. We 
 want the state to be the Pallas Athene of a Christian land, 
 who, while on the one hand she smites down crime and 
 anarchy, and cleaves the hoary head of inveterate abuse, 
 with the other flings her zgis over the suffering, and pro- 
 tects virtue with the terrors of her Gorgon shield. 
 
 It is rather of the State than of the individual that I 
 
THE DUTY QF GOVERNMENTS. 191 
 
 would speak this morning, and J would point out that 
 _ while we would religiously retain what belongs to individual 
 liberty, we have a right as citizens that the State do for 
 us, at our bidding, things which we have no power to do 
 for ourselves. It is the plain duty of governments to pro- 
 tect the interests of the poorest and of the weakest who 
 are least represented in them, to save us from that deadliest 
 and most despicable of all forms of rule, the tyrannies of 
 strong and united fraud ; to protect men from the wrongs 
 of others, and, if need be, even from the vices of them- 
 selves. Men talk of a dazssez-faire policy, but a dazssez-faire 
 policy is, in plain English, a do-nothing policy. In other 
 words, it is no policy at all. It consists merely in not 
 doing, and not letting others do. It is to throw the reins 
 loose upon the neck of headstrong selfishness. It is to 
 leave us victims to powerful rings of organised monopolists, 
 supporting by ill-gotten wealth immoral interests. Those 
 who would have government inactive for moral protection 
 and for social advancement, stigmatise state control as 
 interference, and philanthropic legislation as grandmotherly. 
 Well, I pity the man, and I pity the state, that is daunted 
 by epigrams. The strongest ruler whom England has 
 ever seen was the one whose principle it was to strike 
 directly at political evils, regardless of private interests, 
 and to supply public needs without reference to prejudice 
 or to precedent. Is it, or is it not, true that what is morally 
 wrong cannot be politically right? Is it, or is it not, the 
 duty of governments to make it easy to do right, and 
 
 dificult to do wrong? If that be grandmotherly, I say that 
 such legislation has given us some of the noblest orders in 
 the statute-book, that it has been entirely beneficent, and 
 entirely Christ-like. It was such legislation which emanci- 
 pated hundreds and thousands of miserable slaves. It was 
 such legislation which declared that our brave sailors should 
 not be sent to sea in floating coffins; that women bent 
 _ double when still young should not be harnessed tu trucks 
 like beasts of burden in the galleries of our black collieries 
 and mines ; that little children should not be blighted 
 before their time by ignorance and slavery; that the many 
 should not be robbed of rights, eternal and indefeasible, by 
 the greed of the few; that the bread of the poor should 
 not be scanted for the gains of the farmer; that brutal 
 
£92 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 sports should not demoralize the callous hearts of the 
 multitude ; that the leprosy of impure literature should not 
 be disseminated broadcast among corrupt thousands ; that 
 gambling houses should not be the portals of ruin and of 
 suicide, nor haunts of vileness flaunt themselves like the 
 gates of hell. Whether that be grandmotherly legislation © 
 or not, I know not, but if it be, I for one prefer it to the © 
 legislation of the prodigal and of the publican; I prefer it — 
 to the careless legislation which fosters want; to the cruel 
 legislation which is indifferent to misery ; to the interested 
 legislation which would sacrifice the million to the 
 millionaire ; to the unjust legislation, which, while it loudly 
 proclaims that the poor have no right to the property of the 
 rich, does not proclaim with equal loudness that the rich 
 have no right to the property of the poor; to the blind 
 legislation which will not cut off the entail of a nation’s 
 curse ; to the Moloch legislation, which slays yearly the 
 lives of thousands of children, sacrificed to the brutality of 
 drunken parents ; to the Mammon legislation, which will 
 not ruffle one feather of the gilded plumage, but which is in- 
 different to the agony of the dying bird ; to any legislation 
 which leaves us stake-holders in a nation’s sin, and therefore 
 subject to the ruin of a nation’s expiation. Yes; and if 
 the policy of /azssez-faire were indeed adopted and per- 
 sisted in, as I trust it never has been, or never will be, then 
 one of two things would speedily happen—either the pent- 
 up forces of discontent will raise the shout of anarchy, and 
 shake all social order to the dust ; or the people, weary of 
 empty forms, of wasted hours, of sterile recriminations, of 
 party watchwords—weary of a franchise which only mocks 
 them with the semblance of power joined to the reality of 
 wretchedness—weary, most of all, of a constitution which 
 staggers hopelessly beneath the load of its difficulties, with 
 no ear to hear, with no heart to sympathize, and with no 
 arm to save, will listen at last in time to some strong voice 
 which shall rescue them from moral and physical destruc- 
 tion, even if that voice shall sound as stern as that of old: 
 “Take these things hence!” 
 
 Let me point out two spheres of action in which the 
 nation may look to its Parliament to save it from dangers 
 which individuals are not strong’ enough to cope with. 
 Those dangers are partly physical and partly moral; but 
 
THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS. 195 
 
 the two are inextricably intertwined. The physical evils 
 are the result of the struggle for existence—the pressure 
 of population, the huge abnormal growth of unwieldy cities, 
 the spread of manufactures, the limitations of land, the 
 indifference of encroaching selfishness to national rights, It 
 has been said that we live by three immaterial things—by 
 admiration, hope, and love; and by three material things 
 —pure air, pure water, and pure earth. Pure earth. Many 
 of us have never possessed, and never will possess, one 
 inch of our native soil; not even a corner for our graves. 
 So it must be. The good sense of Englishmen will show 
 them the utter folly of socialism, and the crime of confisca- 
 tion, however plausible the euphemisms under which they 
 may be disguised. But we should do well to remember 
 that at the back of every social problem lies a social wrong. 
 It is not Mr. Henry George, but it is the prophet Isaiah, 
 who has said :—“ Woe unto them that join house to house, 
 that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may 
 be placed alone in the midst of the earth!” It was not 
 Karl Marx, but James, the Lord’s brother, who wrote to 
 callous oppressors :—“ Go to now, ye rich men, weep and 
 howl for the calamities that shall come upon you.” The 
 state can and may watch over the rights of the many and 
 of the poor. It can, directly or indirectly, discourage the 
 aggregation and facilitate the partition of these vast estates, 
 which were the ruin of ancient Italy, where one man 
 bestrode the narrow earth like a Colossus. It can watch 
 jealously at least that open places be not filched away, 
 that fields are not absorbed, that commons are not en- 
 croached upon, that peasants are not driven from their 
 humble tenements, that roadsides are not stolen from them, 
 that field paths are not wantonly blocked up, that river 
 sides and sea shores, that glens and mountains, the natural 
 property of the world, be not greedily monopolised, and 
 that, if but few can own, yet all nevertheless can enjoy 
 God’s common earth. 
 
 And pure water. Who but Governments are strong 
 enough to restore the rivers and streams of England, God’s 
 priceless gift to us, to the condition in which some of us 
 remember them in our youth, when the thrushes sang amid 
 the wild roses which blossomed over their crystal windings, 
 as they slipped over shining pebbles or golden sand? It 
 
 1°) 
 
194 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 is impossible for us; but is it too late for Governments 
 to save them from being what most of them have now been 
 made—foul ditches of putrescent scum? Is it too late to 
 Save our great rivers from being sewers of filthiness, 
 in which the fish die, poisoned by the refuse of manufac- 
 tures? 
 
 And pure air. Is it impossible to hope any longer that 
 what should be the bright, invisible atmosphere, which 
 makes it a luxury to breathe the breath of life in these huge 
 cities in which so many of us are pent up through life— 
 is it too late, is it impossible, for Parliament to save us 
 from the foul air amidst which our spirits always falter in 
 
 the mist caused by these noxious gases vomited by privi- 
 
 leged manufactures—which yearly cost you £2,500 merely 
 to replace the crumbling away of your new Houses of 
 Parliament? Is even the Parliament of the nation power- 
 less now to right these wrongs to our teeming multitudes, 
 or, as in the Apocalypse, disgusted with the greed of an 
 ignoble race, has one angel of God poured forth his vials 
 upon the earth, so that the plague spot has broken forth on 
 all the worshippers of Mammon; and has another angel 
 poured forth his vial on our fountains and rivers of water, 
 so that they have been turned into poison ; and has a third 
 angel emptied his polluting vial into the air in which we 
 gasp, so that over half of England, for many days, men 
 breathe nothing but soot, and gaze on nothing but gloom ? 
 Often it seems as if the sun were turned for us into black- 
 ness, and the moon into blood, before that great and 
 terrible day of the Lord. Is it beneath the dignity of 
 legislators to toil for these high ends? Would they not 
 be more useful than most of the things they do? Or is 
 this nation to perish with the curse of its unlawful desires, 
 when, as one has said, all the old green places have been 
 monopolized, when all the sky is full of smoke, and the 
 rivers reek with poison; when forest and stream, and moor 
 and meadow, are banned and forbidden; when every gentle 
 and timid being of brake and bush, of air and water, has 
 been killed because it robbed men of a berry or a fruit ; 
 when the earth is one vast mill, whose children hear no 
 sound but the hiss of the steam, and know no music but 
 the roar of the furnace ; when the old sweet sights, and the 
 old, sweet songs, and the old, sweet fall of midsummer 
 
THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS. 198 
 
 showers, and the green of hedgerow buds, and the glow 
 of purple heather, and the notes of cuckoo and of cushat, 
 and the freedom. of waste and wild, are things dead and 
 remembered no more? Then the world, like the Eastern 
 king, will perish miserably of famine and of drought, with 
 gold in its stiffened hands, and gold upon its “withered 
 lips; gold whith can do nothing for it, and mocks it. 
 horribly ; gold for which we have bartered peace, and 
 holiness, and happiness ; gold that has won but a grave. 
 
 But, besides, are there no moral, no social dangers? I 
 shall not ask you whether the condition of the poor is 
 better or worse than it was. I only know what it is. None 
 of us can plead ignorance of this ; for if we have never seen 
 it, we have been told of it of late in hundreds of voices. 
 Your leading newspaper has said that the people who live 
 in our slums and rookeries, to call them by the hideous 
 names with which we are now familiar, are really examples 
 of the retrogression of mankind towards savagery, almost 
 towards the condition of the brute creation. In their filthy 
 habits, their restlessness, their destructiveness, their love for 
 strong drink, their cunning, their ferocity, and’ their moral 
 obliquity, it is necessary to recognise that they belonged to 
 a different type from that which is possessed by reasonable 
 men. And remember that in the brutality of these criminal 
 classes multitudes of the innocent are dragged down to 
 misery. It is not to die, said Thomas Carlyle, or even to 
 die hungry, that makes a man wretched, but it is to die 
 slowly all his life long with the thought that he lies im- 
 prisoned by an infinite injustice. Can we find nothing 
 _ serious to think of in the recent speech of one of the most 
 eminent men of science, who, having first lived in the 
 East-end of London, and then having travelled all round 
 the world, deliberately told us that, contemplating the 
 supernatural and astonishing deadliness and deadness of 
 these poor people’s lives, with no amusement except the 
 public-house, with nothing but miserable toil, rewarded by 
 slow starvation, he should deliberately prefer to theirs the 
 life of a’savage; and that this state of things, if not 
 amended, would be a great Serbonian bog, which, in the 
 long run, would swallow up the surface crust of our 
 civilization, 
 
 Notice too, once more, the boundless superfluity of wealth 
 
196 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 by which this grim people is touched and jostled, and then — 
 
 say whether the warning voice may not be true which tells 
 
 you that if some jar or shock dislocate the system, the — 
 fountains of the great deep will be broken up, and that it is — 
 
 not the deserts and forests as of old, but roadsides and city 
 slums which are nursing the barbarians which may be to 
 
 the new civilization what the Hun and the Vandal were © 
 
 to the old. It is idle to say that these terrible evils are 
 irremediable, but if they be indeed irremediable be sure that 
 they will be fatal. In every country, said a living states- 
 man, you find the nation in the cottage; and if the 
 light of your legislation does not shine in there, your states- 
 manship is a failure, and your system is a mistake. Indi- 
 vidual effort, individual beneficence, say rather the love of 
 Christ burning in individual hearts, has done something, but 
 without state aid it cannot do much more. The social 
 dangers are summed up in the words vice and pauperism. 
 Every one who knows anything at all about the subject 
 tells you, and has been telling you for fifty years ; all your 
 judges with one voice, all your police, all your gaolers, all 
 who have really mixed among, and seen for themselves, 
 the condition of the poor, are telling you, that the chief 
 cause, both of vice and of pauperism, is drink. For more 
 than a hundred years, good men, stung to the heart by pity, 
 have been telling you to stay the plague, and heal the cause 
 of drink,—as yet in vain. Here is one thing which you 
 might do, you might if you had the heart to do it, and the 
 courage and the moral insight to do it; and so save Eng- 
 land from what the ablest prince of our Royal house the 
 other day designated as the only terrible enemy whom 
 England has to fear. You may be deceived by epigrams 
 —you may be afraid of wealthy monopolists—you may be 
 afraid of custom—you may be paralysed by immoral 
 acquiescence in long-continued evils—you may be eager 
 ibout political combinations which neither increase our 
 happiness nor improve our morals ; but so long as we find 
 ourselves surrounding the minimum of strength with the 
 glaring maximum of licensed temptation to work the curse 
 and ruin of men, will vice multiply and pauperism spread. 
 We plead with you for the sake of our country, The masses 
 of our poor countrymen have long been pleading with you 
 to save them from their miseries, and to save them even 
 
 f 
 
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 : 
 : 
 
 i 
 
THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS. 197 
 
 from themselves. Will you once more lift no finger to helg 
 them? Which do you really think will make the people 
 better, and which do you seriously believe will add to their 
 happiness and reduce their degradation ?—the possession of 
 some forty-millionth fraction of political power, or some of 
 these strong and simple measures, the work of a people 
 which fears God, which might rescue them from the in- 
 tolerable and interminable malignity of corroding vices. 
 Other nations and other empires have fallen each in turn, 
 undermined by their own sins, or blasted by their own am- 
 bition, They have been choked in blood, or unmanned by 
 lasciviousness, or clogged with greed. Where is the cedar 
 of Assyria, and the lion of Greece, and the eagle of Rome? 
 Did the gold of Spain save her, or the fleet of Venice? 
 What has happened to the trampled golden lilies of France? 
 And, is England safe except by her faithfulness to the 
 eternal morallaw? “Is not Calno as Carchemish? Is not 
 Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samariaas Damascus? Shall 
 I not,as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to 
 Jerusalem and to her idols,’—yea, and to England and to 
 her idols? 
 
 Two of those idols have to be destroyed, let me but 
 mention in conclusion. One is the idol of vested interest 
 in national wrongs. Inthe days of the slave trade some 
 one said to an abolitionist, “What! would you stand be- 
 
 tween a man and his vested interests?” “I started,’ he 
 said, “as if one had trampled on my grave, and exclaimed, 
 ‘A vested interest in a human being!’” Let it be under- 
 
 stood, once for all, that there can be no vested interests in 
 
 that which is the source of a nation’s ruin, and a nation’s 
 wrong. Other selfishness may be as intense, but none is 
 so unblushing, because none is so much tolerated as the 
 selfishness of monopolists claiming a vested interest in 
 public infamy. 
 
 And the other is the idol of spurious liberty, which thinks 
 that freedom consists in unlimited licence to do wrong, and 
 that we ought to be allowed to do what we will though 
 the result may be the injury of our neighbours. The liberty 
 to do wrong is the mother of bondage. No man is free, 
 and no nation is free, which is free from righteousness, and 
 a slave tovice. The impulse of appetite is slavery, and the 
 obedience to salutary restraint is the only liberty. Till 
 
198 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 
 
 England learns this, so long as her liberty is the spuriou: 
 idol of selfish individual licence, her glory is built upon th 
 sand, . 
 “Who are the free? 
 
 They who have scorned the tyrant and his rod, 
 
 And bowed in worship unto none but God ; 
 
 They who have made the conqueror’s glory dim, 
 
 In chain, in cell, though manacled in limb. 
 
 Unwarped by prejudice, unawed by wrong, 
 
 Friends to the weak, and fearless of the strong ; 
 
 They who will change not with the changing hour, 
 
 The self-same men in peril as in power ; 
 
 True to the law of right, in spite of frown, 
 
 To grant another’s as maintain their own ; 
 
 Foes to oppression, wheresoe’er it be— 
 
 These are the proudly free?” 
 
 This is what the sons of England should be. This is 
 what the High Court of Parliament, at this time assembled, 
 might help to make them. Thus, and thus only, can all 
 things be so ordered, as we pray by “their endeavours, 
 upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and — 
 happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be 
 established among us for all generations,” 
 
 XI. The Law of Temperance Higher than the 
 Rule of Total Abstinence. Ay Rev. Harry 
 Jones, M.A., Vicar of Great Barton, Prebendary of Sz. 
 Pauls. 
 
 DRUNKENNESS must be reckoned as a great social curse 
 of this land. It is the greatest which can be anywise freely 
 spoken of. It is so notoriously mischievous an evil that no 
 one ventures to plead for or defend it. Though excuse 
 may sometimes be found for his indulgence, that excess in 
 drink which makes a man for the time into another sort of 
 being, not to be trusted as man, unfit for speech or act, for 
 work or play, can never be deemed right. The worst 
 drunkard, the man who deliberately intoxicates himself, 
 would not like to be judged by what he said and did while 
 he was drunk, and thus he virtually admits drunkenness to 
 be a state of degradation, or humiliating ecstasy. He may, 
 indeed, so indulge his appetite as to lose all power of self- 
 
TEMPERANCE HIGHER THAN ABSTINENCE. 199 
 
 control, and rapidly excuse his act, when the thought of 
 restraint presents itself, or he may have become such a 
 slave to the repeatedly-tasted sensation as to court and 
 hail its recurrence greedily, but intervals of sobriety arrive 
 in which even he curses his own curse. 
 
 No doubt there is excuse for some whose homes are 
 narrow and foul. Their blood is starved. Their morning 
 pulse pleads importunately for help. People who have 
 every comfort about them, who eat good food and breathe 
 good air in roomy houses, should be the last to rail at a 
 poor man who is so depressed by unwholesome monotony 
 of business and continuous home stench as to seek relief in 
 alcohol, and so contract the habit of drinking to excess. 
 But even in this case, if he is thus mastered, he is willing 
 to allow that excess brings mischief along with it. How- 
 ever bad a home may be, drunkenness makes it worse. 
 However trying a trade may be, it becomes harder to 
 follow when a man has weakened himself by intoxication. 
 I wish there were a mission against the material misery of 
 poor homes, and the needlessly exhausting circumstances 
 of some trades. I wish men would totally abstain from 
 any agreement with a landlord who did not produce a 
 warrant from an accepted officer of health that his house 
 was in good sanitary condition. As it is, many sin and 
 suffer in ignorance, and, both among the rich and poor, 
 need to have their eyes opened to their defiance of God’s 
 laws of health. 
 
 It is not my purpose now to attempt the drawing of a 
 repulsive picture which shall display the drunkard’s home 
 and household, nor to dwell upon the mischief done to his 
 business, credit, and health. Examples of misery and ruin 
 arising from excess in drink, in every class of society, are 
 too familiar to all. In each man’s circle of acquaintance 
 there are sure to be some who have destroyed their power, 
 position, and prospects by habits of intemperance. 
 
 I would, however, notice one form of excess which is 
 widely committed, and grievously harmful, but which 
 does not cause the same shameful offence as when a man 
 gets openly and grossly drunk, and in that condition is 
 a spectacle of humiliating degradation. I refer to that 
 species of sot which does not drink enough at any one 
 time to destroy consciousness, but into which the stream 
 
200 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 
 
 of alcohol is continually trickling. Here the man takes 
 “drops” rather than draughts. He is not caught wholly 
 
 incapable. He is able, after a fashion, and for a while, to — 
 
 give attention to his business. He does not create a 
 riotous uproar. He is not seen reeling in the streets. 
 But silently, selfishly, almost respectably, he is poisoning 
 the powers of his life. Here is a prevailing form of intem- 
 perance, which, though it may not .shock society with 
 examples of disgusting helplessness or brutal violence, is 
 yet a great social curse, and may really be classed under 
 the head of drunkenness as well as the more degrading 
 forms of this evil. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that associations as well as 
 individuais have arisen so profoundly penetrated with a 
 sense of the mischief that comes from excess in drink as to 
 lose all patience with the matter, and distinctly to affirm 
 that no real cure can be found for the evil except in total 
 abstinence from all kind and strength of alcoholic mix- 
 ture. This is, anyhow, intelligible ground to take; and 
 such as are not total abstainers are able, honestly enough, 
 to apprehend and honour the motive of those who look at 
 the evil in question as it appears to the advocate of com- 
 plete prohibition. He should be treated with respect, not 
 ridicule. Of course the man who rules his own life and 
 tries to rule that of others by hard and fast lines, and is 
 occasionally unscrupulous in the importunity with which 
 he seeks for proselytes to his inflexible regulations, is likely 
 sometimes to find himself in a position which seems absurd 
 to others, and which may be allowed to provoke a smile 
 in them; but genuine total abstinence is no mere laughing 
 matter. 
 
 Some men cannot be temperate. They have gradually 
 lowered themselves to a state in which the merest taste of 
 alcohol drives them to break down all purpose of modera- 
 tion, however sincere. But they can bring themselves 
 wholly to bar their lips against its entrance. And they 
 are obviously much helped. by such societies as I have 
 alluded to. The power of sympathy is incalculable. A 
 man who has been drinking to excess, and cannot mod- 
 erate his cups, though he may be able to put them aside 
 altogether, finds the performance of his resolution easier 
 as he is joined in the effort by men of like weakness with 
 
TEMPERANCE HIGHER THAN ABSTINENCE. 201 
 
 himself. Possibly, even, he cannot alone unaided pass 
 from excess into abstinence any more than into temperance, 
 though the former be the easier step of the two. Then he 
 is much helped by the hand of such as had fallen, but 
 afterwards stood upright. Anyhow, it is a great protection 
 for him to belong to a society where he is supported by all 
 the members in his determination to have nothing whatever 
 to do with the power which had overcome and humiliated 
 them and him. If he finds it better to desert, than to dis- 
 obey the tempter, he feels his determination more prac- 
 ticable when shared by an army of recusants. Thus, 
 though I look on temperance as a higher condition of life 
 than that which peremptorily denies every one the use of 
 any stimulant whatever, lest it should be used to excess, 
 all reasonable men must admit that total-abstinence 
 societies are most valuable as an escape for the intemperate 
 who cannot pass from excess into moderation. We may 
 be thankful that they exist, though we may be radically 
 convinced of the unfairness with which some insist on 
 thrusting their treatment on the sound as well as on the 
 sick. However, fortunately, all is not fanaticism which 
 fanatics have laid hold of. 
 
 Total abstinence societies, moreover, not only find a 
 harbour of refuge for the sot, but they are national protests 
 against a great national sin; for though, no doubt, if the 
 truth could be told, more would be found to be laid at the 
 door of alcohol than it deserves, it is often perverted into 
 an engine of terrible mischief, and drunkenness may truly 
 
 be called a great national sin. Against this, associations 
 of total abstainers, feeling safe only in abstinence, are 
 national protests. They are historical reproductions. They 
 represent, in our day, the religious societies of the early 
 and middle ages. In those times there was an abundance 
 of open licentiousness and glaring social depravity which 
 it is not easy for some to realize now—though society be 
 not yet purifed. Thus there arose bands of men and 
 women who virtually said, “ We will deny ourselves all the 
 enjoyments of domestic life. We will vow celibacy. We 
 will wholly shut ourselves off from an evil world. Common, 
 even home, society is so degraded that we will withdraw 
 from it altogether. The family is so tainted, the honour 
 of woman is so insecure, that we will deny ourselves the 
 
PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 
 
 pleasures of family life. We will stand apart from out 
 fellows; mateless, childless. We will drop even ou 
 names, and be brothers and sisters in a separate and pe- 
 culiar sense. Thus will we fight against excess. Thus, 
 vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, will we 
 make a stand, and, instead of attempting to live in do- 
 mestic purity, deny ourselves all domestic intercourse, and 
 band ourselves together against that ordinary social life 
 which has become full of degrading abuses.” 4 
 
 This was, really, the protest made by the monks and 
 nuns of early ages ; and while society was roughly impure 
 and unsafe, we appreciate this form of remonstrance and 
 escape, involving, as it often did, much self-denial. We 
 may think that households, sturdy in their pureness, might 
 have been better protests; and indeed they have shown 
 greater vitality; they have survived long after the dis-' 
 appearance of religious houses. But these last did a grand 
 work, They made a strong protest till the day came when 
 they were bound to pass away ; in some instances exhibit- 
 ing the very kinds of impurities from which they were 
 created to provide an escape, and indulging in excesses” 
 which it was their original mission to restrain or make 
 impossible. 
 
 Now I look on associations of total abstainers as occupy-_ 
 ing, in the present day, a similar place in the community 
 to that claimed by the early religious houses, and really - 
 filled by them whilst they remained pure and self-denying. 
 They afford an escape for such as cannot trust themselves, | 
 and they give scope to the zeal which sometimes passes _ 
 into fanaticism, but for which, in every people, there should” 
 be working room. Teetotallers are the real modern monks 
 and nuns. They are the present conspicuous takers of life- 
 long vows. Still, though we may credit them with a keen” 
 perception of social abuses and a certain self-denial, and 
 though they hold out a hand to such as struggle in the 
 slough of excess, my ideal of an excellent world is not_ 
 composed entirely of them, any more than of monks and 
 nuns. For that which isa wise rule and precaution for 
 some must not be forced into a law for all. I repeat that 
 a nation of total abstainers, with not one temperate man 
 among them, is not the highest ideal of national excellence, 
 A wholly temperate people, having realized that dominion 
 
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 | 
 } 
 . 
 } 
 
TEMPERANCE HIGHER THAN ABSTINENCE. 203 
 
 ver the fruits of the earth which God gave to man, is 
 ‘really the loftiest aim of humanity. Indeed, a nation 
 ‘entirely ruled by, and obedient to, an imperative law, 
 excluding, eg. the use of any stimulant, would, I fear, 
 endanger that perception of tolerance which marks national 
 health. Indeed, we have an example, not altogether wide 
 of the mark, in the Turks. They are a nation of professed 
 total abstainers. They are also fanatics. Probably their 
 fanaticism is deepened because they have sought to govern 
 themselves by rules and regulations instead of great prin- 
 ciples capable of adaptation and application to the ex- 
 perience of years and the discoveries of time. 
 
 One of the risks that threaten the future of any societies 
 which take some stiff social rule as the basis of their exis- 
 tence is that of their becoming radically intolerant. They 
 
 are in danger of becoming so pleased with and proud of 
 their exclusiveness as to lose their original singleness of 
 character and spirit of self-sacrifice. They may become 
 puffed up, and eventually spoiled, like the religious houses 
 I have spoken of. It is possible to exchange carnal in- 
 ‘dulgence for spiritual pride, and then the man or the 
 society comes clearly under the warning “ Let him that 
 thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Then the 
 old devil that was turned out possibly transforms himself 
 and returns with fresh power of mischief in his train. 
 
 In short, no mere va#/e can be laid down for all time, and 
 very seldom for the whole of a man’s life. A rule, however 
 severe, may be recognised as useful and wholesome for a 
 season, like that given by St. Paul for the conduct of a 
 particular society in which he said that even marriage was 
 unadvisable; but there is a risk in the procedure of all 
 ‘restrictive associations, whatever purpose or aim they set 
 before themselves. They certainly call marked public 
 “attention to the danger of excess. They help the weak to 
 ‘escape it. They may be and are useful for a time, but 
 cannot, without eventual loss of true Christian liberty, be 
 made bodies of perpetual obligation. They do their work. 
 They are corporate protests against popular evil. They 
 are refuges for the weak, but must not be made into prisons 
 for the strong. They provide wholesome restraint for such 
 “as cannot restrain themselves, but must not be forged into 
 chains for those who are capable of freedom. They assert 
 
204 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 that certain excesses are intolerable, but they themselve 
 must not be allowed to grow into centres of intolerance. 
 
 There is a higher course than the complete prohibitior 
 of anything that is easily capable of abuse; I mean the 
 law of Temperance, which applies not merely to the use 
 of drink, but of all that God has given to man. All ou 
 tastes, appetites and passions are obviously implanted in 
 to be exercised. There is no shame in the possession and 
 employment of our bodily senses. Shame comes in with 
 their abuse. We become degraded as we do not contro, 
 them, but allow them to control us. They are given to be 
 our servants, not our masters. Cases may arise in which 
 it is needful to take the most extreme measures with af 
 appetite which the man feels to be too strong for him 
 But the man who has power is bound to exercise that 
 power. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast i 
 from thee; but surely do not pluck it out unless it be a 
 cause of offence, though others so look on what they ough 
 not as to deserve blindness. If thy hand offend thee, cut 
 it off and cast it from thee; but remember that the ma 
 thus saved is after all, at best, a maimed man. It is well 
 to save the whole body at the loss of so precious a gift of 
 God as the eye or the hand, but it is better to use the eyé 
 and hand as God would have them used. It is well to 
 save the ship at the cost of the cargo, but it is better ta 
 bring both into the haven where you would be. 
 
 The true saint, the righteous man, is he who uses body, 
 soul and spirit truly, righteously. Holiness is not eccen 
 tricity. It is not best seen in exclusiveness or asceticism. 
 The body fulfils its purpose best when had in such subjec- 
 tion that it obeys all orders, not when it is, in some respects, 
 so prohibited from obedience as to be therein incapable of 
 disobedience. You may keep a man from some kinds of 
 mischief by locking him up, and occasionally he may be so 
 mischievous that he must be locked up. But we do not 
 imprison a man who has done no wrong for fear lest he 
 may be tempted to be hurtful. It is absurd to say that 
 because A burns his fingers at the fire, B may not be per= 
 mitted to warm his hands. But if he cannot be kept, of 
 cannot keep himself from burning his fingers, he had bettet 
 sit in the cold. We demand liberty of action for those wha 
 have not abused their freedom. That is the great law, and 
 
4 
 
 TEMPERANCE HIGHER THAN ABSTINENCE. 203 
 
 Brcty it holds in the case of those who use any of God’s 
 gifts in moderation. The knife is for the diseased, not for 
 the whole ; medicine is for the sick, not for the sound. This 
 is common sense and Christian truth. “I came not,” said 
 — “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 
 We will give our measure of respect—some good men 
 -are able to feel more of it than others—to those who, in 
 | all sincerity, forego the legitimate use of anything because 
 they think they ought so to deny themselves, and that the 
 cause of humanity” is eventually benefited by their self- 
 denial. If a man thinks so, let him bravely live up to his 
 thought. But let us admit the presence and force of a yet 
 higher thought and deeper conviction, and believe that a 
 “man who rules himself by the great principles of righteous- 
 “ness and temperance, and looks to God for light and strength 
 ; so to live, is really in a higher condition of life, both as a 
 “man, and an example. Possibly he may be flouted, 
 especially by the religious world, as merely self-indulgent. 
 : Thus Jesus was sneered at when the question of total 
 abstinence was talked of in His day : “ Behold” the people 
 said “a man gluttonous and a winebibber.” And He felt 
 the sneer. He always suffered when tried. He was even, 
 on a rare occasion, tempted—for the taunt was specious— 
 to defend Himself with the retort “But Wisdom is justified 
 ‘of her children.” We may, indeed, believe that such as 
 would honestly use this liberty of Christ in the conduct of 
 _ their own lives are thus justified. 
 _ But as weclaima higher state than subjection to any code 
 ‘of expediency, as we strive to rise above the materialistic 
 ’ rule “touch not, taste not,” let us recollect that we claim a 
 state which is very high indeed. It is not the easier course. 
 ‘To some it is the strait path, while to others the life of rules 
 j is the broad way. It is simpler, and may be easier to kill 
 than to command; and sometimes the suicide of an 
 appetite is needful. But power over the whole being is 
 best ; it is nearest to the measure of the stature of Christ, 
 whose liberty is not spiritual licence, but such freedom from 
 
 mere ceremonialism as enables us to know and do the 
 will of God among the manifold temptations to intempers 
 ance, in word and deed, which surround us all. 
 
PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 XII. Individual Responsibility. By THe Ven 
 ARCHDEACON Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. “ How long shall th 
 land mourn ?”—JER. xil. 4. 
 
 THE thoughts of us all are, probably, more or less ex 
 ercised with that shocking series of crimes which horrifie 
 and agitated us yesterday afternoon. The attempts o 
 these dynamitards are one of the most frightful signs of th 
 times. In their aimless malignity, in their atrocious reck 
 lessness, in the extent of alarm and of burning indignatio 
 which they kindle, in the brutality of hatred which the 
 exhibit, in the deadliness of criminal insult to the Majes 
 of England who has desired with all her heart to be jus 
 and generous to their country, they are the crimes not o 
 men but of human fiends. These cold-blooded murderers 
 of the innocent are the shame and abhorrence of mankind, 
 the common enemies of all the race. God has over-ruled 
 and frustrated the possible results of conspiracies so 
 devilish ; but some of the blackest crimes which history 
 record, look pale before the insane wickedness of these. 
 Whatever else may be their message they surely call upon 
 us as a nation to watch and be sober, to seek God while 
 He may be found, to repent in dust and ashes for our sins, 
 I cannot now speak further of these. It is my duty this 
 morning to plead the claims of the Church of England 
 Temperance Society, and that means that I must try to 
 bring before you once more the deadly evils which are now 
 being wrought in this land, and which for more than a 
 century have been wrought on this land, by its national 
 temptation of drink, by its national sin of drunkenness, | 
 My task is neither an easy nor a pleasant one—not on 
 because I have often had to speak on this subject before ; 
 not pleasant, because it never can be pleasant to touch on 
 facts which fill one of the darkest pages of human ex- 
 perience. On such a subject I have nothing new to tell 
 you. All eyes may read, all hearts estimate, the awful 
 evidence which is accumulated day by day in the records 
 of misery and crime. It might well seem as if, on this” 
 subject, the conscience of the nation had become hard with 
 a terrible callosity, and needed the probing of some terrible © 
 calamity ; as if the day of warning had passed ineffectu- 
 
 i 
 
 1 etna 
 
. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 207 
 ally by, and nothing remained but to await the day of 
 retribution. 
 i 1. To trace the effects of drink—to set before you the 
 _ issue and outcome of our present system, with its making 
 of ill deeds by the sight of means to do them ; to watch the 
 _ ever widening ripples of fire on this great lake of ruin—we 
 _need never, alas! go beyond the limits of our own parish. 
 People who talk of “exaggeration” in this matter talk 
 with inexcusable ignorance. The evils are always close 
 beside us, too glaring and too terrible to be ignored. Here, 
 even in your own parish of 4,000 souls, under the shadow 
 of the Abbey, under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, 
 in the course of a few short years I have seen in drink and 
 _ drunkenness—again and again, and day after day—the 
 direct cause of the most foul brutality, and the most 
 amazing wretchedness. I have seen widows who have 
 _ become widows through drink, and children fatherless 
 through drink, and homes desolate through drink, and 
 _ suicides, and murder, and deaths by delirium tremens, and 
 _ the sacrifice of children, and brutal assults of husbands on 
 their wives, and sons on their mothers, and pecuniary loss, 
 and individual ruin, and spiritual wreck, and family de- 
 _ struction, and social degradation, and places where human 
 beings live made worse than the lairs of wild beasts—and 
 ' all through drink! And to know what drink and the 
 drink system is doing in England, you must multiply by 
 hundreds of thousands this which is daily going on within 
 _ the limits of a single parish, until you have a festering 
 _ mass of crime, lunacy, and despair, and guilt, and disease, 
 -and anguish such as no imagination can conceive and no 
 tongue name—a festering mass of sin, and shame, and 
 curse ; which your own Prime Minister has told you pro- 
 duces results more deadly, because more continuous, than 
 those of war, famine, and pestilence combined. And 
 - against this evil demon which glares in the midst of us, 
 and daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, in our very sight, slays 
 silently, yet with intolerable and interminable malignity, 
 its tens of thousands of miserable victims—against this 
 evil spirit, against this pestilent and rotten system, thou- 
 - sands have appealed, There is scarcely a Judge on the 
 _ Bench who has not told the nation in his most solemn 
 tones—there is scarcely a Recorder, or Prison Chaplain, of 
 
208 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 Vicar of any large parish, who has not emphatically de- 
 clared, that the present drink system, and its reckless 
 
 multiplication of public-houses, means on a vast scale the — 
 injury of the community; and yet, year after year, and © 
 decade after decade, not a finger is lifted to provide and — 
 
 adequate remedy, till even a fool can see that the pleasant 
 
 vices of the nation are being turned into her terrible and — 
 cruel scourge ; and it has come to this—that England must © 
 
 amend her ways—that she must get rid of this curse and 
 crime, or she must gradually perish by the class of paupers 
 
 and criminals who are poisoning her national life, and who, ~ 
 so long as our present drink system continues, will remain ~ 
 
 untouched by the amenities of civilization and much more 
 by the influences of religious faith. 
 
 2. I cannot express—I never have been able to express 
 —half so forcibly as it should be done, the results which 
 force themselves upon my mind from the long and re- 
 peated observation of the universal horror and destruction 
 caused not here only, but in India, in Africa, in Australia, 
 in America, in the islands of the Pacific, all over the world, 
 alike of civilization and barbarism, by this master fiend of 
 Intemperance. From London, from Liverpool, from 
 Glasgow, from Dublin, from New York, from San Fran- 
 cisco, from Melbourne, from the Mauritius, from Mada- 
 gascar, alike from Scandinavia and from Switzerland, 
 alike from the banks of the Congo, and of the Hudson, 
 rise the groans of the ruined and the perishing against this 
 Moloch, on whose altar we offer as holocausts the bodies 
 and the souls of men for whom Christ died. The evidence, 
 if only you would take the trouble to regard it, is immense, 
 accumulated, damning. The defenders and monopolists of 
 the drink system cannot refute it—never attempt to refute 
 it. They know that there is not a cask of the ardent 
 spirits which they sell which does not contain in it a freight 
 of potential misery, and which may not do, more effectually 
 than any other fiend could do it, the work of hell. They 
 rely on paltry sophisms about liberty and the rights of the 
 minority. Liberty! as if liberty meant the unlimited 
 power of doing wrong! Liberty! as though liberty meant 
 the leaving defenceless of poor besotted victims who have 
 palsied the very will to protect themselves! The rights of 
 the minority! as though, in these hard days, the rights of 
 
 | 
 : 
 
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 209 
 
 the minority included the right to burden the sober, the 
 
 honest, and the thrifty, with the intolerable burdens en- 
 
 tailed upon them by the crime, the infamy, and the 
 
 _wretchedness to which they inevitably doom the weakest 
 
 and the worst. You might as well talk of protecting the 
 vested interests of a cancer, as protecting the existing con- 
 
 _ dition of a system which, in the language of the President 
 
 of one of its own Defence Leagues, gives us at least 64,000 
 too many, out of our 107,337 licensed public-houses, of 
 which he describes some as “seething hells of vice, immor- 
 ality, and crime.” Every one is crying out that trade is 
 depressed ; that it is hard even for honest men to get a 
 living. Why is it hard? I will tell you with confidence 
 one reason. lt is because we have to support in the 
 United Kingdom 1,000,000 paupers, of which very few 
 would have been paupers but for drink. It is because the 
 nation yearly spends in drink a sum which would be 
 enough to give each of these 1,000,000 paupers an annuity 
 of £100a year. It is because the working classes alone 
 spend at least 436,000,000 every year—as much as all that 
 they pay for rent—in drink. Talk of luxury! The de- 
 magogue and the socialist rail at the luxury of the rich; 
 and all luxury is an evil; and the days are coming, yea, 
 have now come, when the duty of perfect simplicity and 
 stern self-denial will be incumbent on every class of the 
 community. But I, who have often spoken plainly enough 
 of the faults of the rich, declare that their luxury is in no 
 respect so deadly and so outrageous as that of the drunken 
 poor. There is many a working man in these streets, many 
 a cabman, many a labourer, who spends, every day of his 
 life, on drink, a sum which I could not afford, and which I 
 should think it criminally luxurious and disgracefully 
 extragavant in myself to spend. And when these drinkers 
 and drunkards thus poison their very lives and their very 
 souls by wallowing in the depths of self-indulgence, they 
 will come and clamour for charities, and we, out of the 
 sweat of our brow, shall have to pay for the prisons which 
 punish these atrocities, and the workhouses in which they 
 end their worthless and wasted days. Here is a specimen 
 —one of hundreds. At the police court a married woman 
 (and the case is not at all uncommon) makes her sixty- 
 second appearance for drunkenness and wilful damage ; she 
 P 
 
210 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 is the daughter of a man now in the workhouse, who has 
 
 undergone more than I00 terms of imprisonment for 
 drunkenness, and whose single family of shame and worth- 
 
 lessness has cost the ratepayers of his parish over £1,000. — 
 
 We pay this money, thus miserably wasted, and who profits 
 
 by the manufacture of these wretched drunkards? Some 
 
 one, I suppose, must profit by, some must gain their wealth 
 from, a system which to many means childhood without 
 innocence, youth without shame, manhood without honour ; 
 from a system which involves the plunder of many a home, 
 and the starvation of many a little one; which ministers, 
 in some at least of its patrons, to every vile and vicious 
 passion and propensity; which makes drunkards, and 
 thieves, and embezzlers, and gamblers, and wife-beaters 
 and murderers ; which brutalises and degrades, which de- 
 bauches, impoverishes, and injures, if not (as a leading 
 American newspaper has said) all who are brought into 
 contact with it, yet the multitudes who succumb to its 
 temptation and become its victims. The prosperity of 
 the drink trade means the misery of the people by which 
 it thrives. 
 
 3. In these later days tens of thousands of Englishmen 
 and of English women, and a very large number of the 
 Clergy of all denominations, have become total abstainers, 
 and most of them have become so because they hate to 
 have anything to do with that which, from the days of 
 Noah down to this day, has proved so blighting a curse 
 to millions of their fellow men. They have become total 
 abstainers because they believe that any form of alcohol 
 is needless for those in health, and because they can furnish 
 proofs to show that, while their main wish is to help and 
 influence others by their example, they themselves, in 
 every normal case, gain rather than lose by total absti- 
 nence—gain in purse, in health, in strength, in longevity, 
 in clearness and peace of mind. But I would remove a 
 misconception. We who are abstainers do not dictate to 
 others; to the untempted, to the old, to those who are in 
 weak health, to all we say—-With your moderate use of 
 stimulants we have neither the right nor the wish in any 
 way to interfere. Only this we say, that we do not repent 
 of our decision, because we know that tens of thousands, 
 and in the world’s history millions of mankind, have had 
 
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 211 
 
 to rue the effects of drink in their own persons, and in the 
 persons of those whom their example has influenced. I 
 will give you an instance of each kind. Through one 
 single common lodging house, in one of the London slums 
 through which men and women file into the workhouse, 
 recently passed a paymaster in the Royal Navy, a Cam- 
 bridge man, a master of the hounds who had once inherited 
 a fortune, a physician’s son (himself a doctor), a Sunday 
 School Superintendent, a member of the Stock Exchange, 
 a clergyman who had taken high honours, the brother of 
 the Vicar of a large London Parish, the brother of a scholar 
 of European reputation, whose wife also was drinking her- 
 self to death, and whose three beautiful children were 
 rescued by friends from a miserable den in the neighbour- 
 hood—themselves, alas! but too likely to suffer from the 
 awful heredity of crime. So much for personal peril in all 
 classes. And is example nothing? A father tells us how 
 
 he once started alone to climb a steep and perilous hill, 
 purposely choosing a time when his children were at play, 
 
 and when he thought that they would not notice his ab- 
 sence. He was climbing a precipitous path, when he was 
 startled by hearing a little voice shout, “ Father, take the 
 safest path, for I am following you ;” and on looking down 
 he saw that his little boy had followed him, and was 
 already in danger; and he trembled lest the child’s feet 
 should slip before he could get to them, and grasp the 
 warm little hand. “Years have passed since then,’ he 
 writes, “but though the danger has passed the little fellow's 
 cry has never left me. It taught me a lesson, the full 
 
 : force of which I had never known before. It showed me 
 
 the power of our unconscious influence, and I saw the 
 terrible possibility of our leading those around us to ruin, 
 without intending or knowing it, and the lesson I learnt 
 that morning I am anxious to impress upon all to whom 
 my words may come.” Again I ask, Is example nothing? 
 Let me give you another instance. The other day ata 
 meeting a clergyman got up and won the usual applause 
 by the usual deplorable platitudes about alcohol being a 
 good creature of God and so forth. When he had ended, 
 there rose in the meeting an old white-headed man who 
 said, “I once knew a fine youth who had been persuaded 
 to become a total abstainer; one day he went to the 
 
212 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 house of a clergyman, who told him that total abstinence 
 was fanaticism and I know not what. The young man 
 thought that the clergyman must be right; he began to 
 drink ; for him, as for thousands of others, it was impossible 
 to be moderate ; he died in a few years of delirium tremens 
 —a wasted life. The clergyman who spoke thus,” added 
 the old man, “was the gentleman who has just addressed 
 you ; the young man ”—and here his voice was broken by 
 a choking sob-—“ the young man was my only son.” 
 
 4. Well, then, to all who feel themselves safe, whose 
 habits are formed, whose years have passed their zenith, I 
 do not say a word about total abstinence; but to you young 
 men, and young women, of the poorer classes especially, I 
 do say—with all the strength of my convictions, and with 
 any authority which my office gives me, to you I do say, 
 plainly and distinctly, you cannot do a better, a wiser, or a 
 safer thing ; you cannot do anything which would be more 
 likely to save you, or some about you, from peril, shame, 
 and misery hereafter; you cannot do anything which 
 would be more likely to secure you a more honourable 
 life, and a more happy home, a filled purse, a clear head, 
 a more perfect health, a more untroubled peace. Life is 
 full of temptation which you cannot avoid, but there is one 
 awfully blighting and destroying temptation which you 
 can avoid with perfect ease—it is the temptation to drink, 
 If any interested person talk to you about liberty, say that 
 you will part on the very cheapest term possible with the 
 liberty to destroy yourselves. There is not a doctor, how- 
 ever inimical to total abstinence, who, if he did not say 
 to you, in the words of Sir Andrew Clark, “Fly from the 
 enemy of the race,” would not at least tell you “that if 
 you eat well and sleep well you do not need strong drink, 
 and are better without it.” I would say it, especially to 
 all of you who are servants, and to all of you who belong 
 to the poorer classes, and the working classes. To suppose 
 that beer or spirits is necessary, either to your health or 
 your work, is the merest delusion. It is not necessary. It 
 has been proved again and again that the very best work, 
 and the work which requires the severest strain, whether 
 mental or bodily, can not only be done without it, but 
 done better without it. Whether you be youth or maiden I 
 say to you, Never enter the door of a public-house. Never 
 
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 213 
 
 marry any one who drinks. If you are fond of drink give 
 it up for your own sake; if you are not fond of drink give 
 it up for the sake of others. If you are fond of drink give 
 it up now, and at once, for good habits must be gradually 
 built up, but bad habits can only be blown up; and no 
 moral dynamite can be too strong with which to blow 
 them up. If you are fond of drink, or getting fond of 
 drink, even if you have never actually disgraced your man- 
 hood or your womanhood by the loathsome infamy of 
 drunkenness, then I say to you, in God’s Name and as 
 God’s message, if you do not want a diseased and degraded 
 life, if you don’t want to hand down to your children after 
 you the seeds of your disease and degradation, if you don’t 
 want to drift from the street to the slum, and from the 
 slum to the workhouse, or to the felon’s dock, or to the 
 cell of the lunatic, or to the grave of the suicide; if you 
 do not want to become one of the fresh recruits in the 
 miserable army of dishonoured drunkards, who, from 
 generation to generation, ruin their own life and make 
 terrible their own death—then come this very day to the 
 Vestry after the service, either this morning or this even- 
 ing, and I will give you the pledge of total abstinence, in 
 God’s name; which, if you keep it, by God’s grace sought 
 in prayer, and strengthening the concentrated resolution 
 of your own manhood, may save you from one at least of 
 earth’s self-chosen and preventible evils, which might 
 otherwise bring fatally upon you the wrath to come. 
 
 5. For let me give you but one or two illustrations of 
 what drink means ; what drink, which is always, of course, 
 begun in moderation, has been to millions, and therefore 
 may be to you, or to some of those whom you most dearly 
 love. 
 
 What does drink often mean to ¢he zndividual? Here 
 is a passage, given me by a parishioner, copied from a 
 paper found in the case of an old watch :—“ Drunkenness 
 expels reason, drowns the memory, defaces beauty, dimin- 
 ishes strength, inflames the blood, causes internal, external, 
 incurable wounds, is a witch to the senses, a devil to the 
 soul, a thief to the purse, the beggar’s companion, a wife’s 
 woe, children’s misery, the picture of a self-murderer and 
 a beast, who drinks to others’ good health, and robs him- 
 self of his own.” And here is a passage from a recent 
 
814 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 book upon taxation :—“ The gin palace,” says Mr. Dudley 
 Baxter, “allures its throng of monomaniacs, Emaciated, and 
 in rags, the drunkard gulps down the wages which should 
 have supported his children, calling for glass after glass, 
 till his earnings are exhausted, and then staggers off to a 
 poverty-stricken home to wreak his madness upon his 
 wife. Thousands and tens of thousands are merely fun- 
 nels for drink, and divide the sweat of their brow between 
 the distiller and the State.’ “Mere funnels for drink.” 
 Could there be a reproach more infamous for men made 
 in the dignity of God’s image, with the sign of their Re- 
 demption marked visibly upon their foreheads? Will any 
 of you young men or young women who hear me, will you 
 be hereafter of the unhappy wretches whom our present 
 drink traffic reduces into a thing so abject as a mere fun- 
 nel for drink? 
 
 To society. All history has taught us that there can be 
 no direr curse to a nation than a criminal and pauper 
 class at once vicious and miserable. Now that is just the 
 class that drink creates. Here are some actual scenes, 
 They will horrify you; yes, but can there be a more shock- 
 ing hypocrisy than to be horrified at things which are 
 going on almost at your very doors, and to be too finely 
 fastidious, too delicately reserved, too daintily sympathetic 
 even to hear them mentioned? Is it not shocking that 
 you should dislike these slovenly, unhandsome things to 
 come between the wind and your nobility, and yet not 
 only not throw the whole force of your influence into the 
 cause of those who would die to amend them, but not even 
 lift one finger to help them? A few months ago all 
 London was ashamed at the bitter cry of the outcast, and 
 there were Royal Commissions of Princes, Cardinals, and 
 millionaires to improve the housing of the poor. Why, 
 Temperance workers had not only been telling you for 
 fifty years about the infamous housing of the poor, but 
 they had also told you the cause ; and until you are brave 
 enough and wise enough to cut off the cause, we tell you 
 from the beginning that your efforts are foredoomed to 
 miserable failure. Leave the cause, and you will never 
 appreciably alter the horrible effects. 
 
 Again I quote the testimony of an eye-witness :—“ More 
 than one-fourth of the daily earnings of the denizens of 
 
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. art 
 
 the slums goes over the bars of the beer shops and the 
 
 gin palaces. On a Saturday night in a particular thorough- 
 
 _ fare there are three corner public-houses which make as 
 
 much money as the whole of the other shops on both 
 sides of the way put together. Enter the gin shops and 
 you will see them crammed—labourers drinking away the 
 wages that ought to clothe their little ones; women 
 
 _ squandering the money which would purchase food—for 
 
 lack of which their children are dying.” There is cause, 
 here are effects: ‘‘ Turn out of the main thoroughfare into 
 the dimly-lighted back streets, and you come upon scene 
 after scene of grim and grotesque horror. Women with 
 hideous, distorted faces, shrieking -vile songs ; men inter- 
 changing with them foul oaths and evil jests; a cry of 
 murder; a woman pursued by her drunken and furious 
 husband ; the yell of an injured wife, or of some drunken 
 fool entrapped into a den of infamy, robbed and hurled 
 into the street by some professional bully; the heavy 
 groan of a drunken man, and then stillness; he has stag- 
 gered up the stairs to his attic, has missed his footing, and 
 fallen heavily. Spend any Saturday night in a slum, and 
 say if one-tenth of the habitual horrors have here been 
 catalogued. And all these people who can spend so much 
 in drink are the abject poor!” Can you wonder at it, I 
 ask, when year after year you acquiesce in the system 
 which leaves in one block of wretched houses 1,082 families, 
 and 41 public-houses; in another 2,225 families, and 38 
 public-houses. And here you shall have one or two of the 
 stories of the children told by themselves. , 
 
 M. L.—Father drunk ; struck her mother and hurt her 
 skull. The mother went raving mad. The father slipped 
 off a barge when drunk and was drowned. 
 
 R. S.—Father gets drunk and beats mother, and is now 
 in prison. Children dread his coming back, he is so cruel. 
 
 C. L.—Mother drinks awfully. Dropped baby on the 
 pavement and it died. This is the second which she has 
 “accidentally ” killed. 
 
 M. A. H.—Comes to the school with arm broken by her 
 father ; who “didn’t mean it, only he was drunk.” 
 
 Read these facts, face them, dare to face them, try to 
 take them in; try before God to understand what they 
 mean. Read that in the single town of Liverpool, 150 
 
216 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. ‘ 
 infants are yearly overlaid, for the most part by drunken 
 mothers, and then ask whether the fires which were lit to 
 Moloch, in the Valley of the Children of Hinnom, were 
 one hundredth part so hateful as this holocaust of her 
 children which England yearly offers to the fiend of drink! 
 Talk of crime, talk of pauperism, talk of Horrible London; 
 it is nonsense to dream of any remedy, or any ameliora- 
 tion, till the conscience of England is aroused to deal with 
 this question of drink, as it was once aroused to deal with 
 the infinitely less ruinous and damning curse of slavery. 
 Talk of the Franchise, of Redistribution, of Land Laws; 
 for any real good they will do to the people, for any real — 
 help which England will gain from them in her hour of 
 
 need, they are of an importance absolutely infinitesimal 
 
 compared to the urgency of the necessity to repress, con- 
 
 trol, and limit with a strong hand this curse of drink. I 
 
 say, with the late lamented A. M. Sullivan, that if this 
 
 question be much longer sacrificed to the mean doctrine 
 
 of political expediency it will be a perfidy and a treason 
 
 against the rights of man. A drunken people can never 
 
 be a wise people. The victims of demagogues—uncon- 
 
 trollable passion their temptation and their guide—who can 
 
 safely trust the future, and the institutions secured by toil — 
 and blood, to a race making and groping its way amid — 
 such evils and such weakness? If you desire the safety of 
 
 England educate the moral sense of her people by placing 
 
 new and more stringent laws for the repression of drink 
 
 upon her Statute Book, and Englishmen will soon grow as 
 
 much ashamed of the horrors caused by the present con- 
 
 dition of the liquor traffic as they would be ashamed to 
 
 renew the slave trade with all its agonies and crimes. 
 
 6. If any of you, wrapped up in supercilious acquies- 
 cence, are so ignorant of the whole subject as not to be 
 aware that every syllable which I have spoken, and ten 
 times more and worse, could be supported with overwhelm- 
 ing demonstration ; if you do not know that I have had 
 no time to tell you a millionth part of the dismal and 
 ghastly tale; if you do not know that an indictment far 
 stronger than I have uttered has been uttered for years 
 by multitudes of our deepest thinkers and our greatest 
 writers—from the days of Shakespeare and Milton to those 
 ef Ruskin and Carlyle—yet at least you will, perhaps, 
 
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 217 
 
 listen to what one or two responsible statesmen have said. 
 _ Here, then, are the words of one of our Cabinet Ministers 
 _—Mr. Chamberlain—spoken eight years ago :—“ Drink is 
 the curse of the country. It ruins the fortunes, it injures the 
 "health, it destroys the lives of one in twenty of the popu- 
 lation, and anything that can be done to diminish this 
 terrible sacrifice of human life and human happiness is 
 well worthy of all the attention and study that we can 
 give it. If we are silent the very stones will cry out. If 
 I could destroy to-morrow the desire for strong drink in 
 the people of England what changes should we see. We 
 should see our gaols and workhouses empty; we should 
 see more lives saved in twelve months than are consumed 
 in a century of bitter and savage war.” Here are the 
 words of another Cabinet Minister, Mr. Trevelyan, spoken 
 three months ago :—“ There is nothing which rulers are 
 _ prepared to give you which has one twentieth part the 
 importance of this. Here is a question which is, indeed, 
 the question of the people. The people lose everything 
 _ that is to be lost by this traffic and gain absolutely nothing. 
 The time has arrived when we could postpone every- 
 _ thing to the task of wringing from Parliament the instant 
 suppression, by Imperial legislation, of a vast proportion 
 _ of the drink shops of the entire country, supplemented by 
 _ the concession of your undoubted right to be yourselves 
 the custodians of the morality, the prosperity, and the 
 peace of your own streets and homesteads. Do not flag 
 _ in your efforts until you have obtained that great measure, 
 ee pared with which all other reforms are but as dust in 
 the balance.” And you, if such there be, who think it 
 ' More important that brewers and gin distillers should be 
 _ millionaires than that the sons of your country should be 
 _ saved by thousands from themselves, and from the glare 
 _ of deadly temptation with which you surround their 
 , homes ; you, if such there be, who, wrapped in the serene 
 _ Epicureanism of your own comfort, would pass by these 
 _ drink-wounded wanderers who strew the highways of all 
 _ the world ; you, who think that you show all your worldly 
 , intellect by pooh-poohing with a sneer the Temperance 
 _ cause—I warn you that your selfish /azssez-faire policy is 
 _ fapidly becoming a desperate anachronism. When Cabinet 
 Ministers use such language as you have heard; when 
 
 at 
 
 eas 
 
218 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 your Prime Minister tells you that it is true for us, and it 
 is the measure of our discredit and disgrace, that greater 
 calamities are inflicted on mankind by intemperance than 
 by the three great historical scourges—war, famine, and ~ 
 pestilence ; when a man like Lord Cairns tells you that 
 there is no question which so deeply touches the moral, — 
 the physical, and the religious welfare of the world ; when - 
 a Lord Chief Justice like Lord Coleridge declares and re- 
 iterates that the vice of drunkenness debases and brutalises 
 the people of these islands; when Sir W. Harcourt, with - 
 all his experience as Home Secretary, tells you that the 
 evils of the liquor traffic are immense and intolerable; 
 when such a man as Mr. Cowen, of Newcastle, tells you 
 that on the side of drink you must put “criminality, 
 pauperism, the woes which cannot be measured by arith-— 
 metic, the tears of broken-hearted wives, the cries of 
 perishing children, the wrecks of noble intellects” ; when | 
 it would be most easy to multiply testimonies a hundred- | 
 fold—the day for callousness, and sneers, and sophisms, | 
 and for a logic which despises charity, and for a fatal gild- 
 ing of the licence to do wrong with the name of liberty, is 
 past. Yes, and has not the day for action come? Woe 
 to England if she entrust the reins of her destiny to “the 
 unspiritual god, circumstance!” Postponement of the 
 duty of right action is a sin against the supremacy of God. 
 7. Let me, then, in conclusion, most earnestly beg your 
 aid to the wise, noble, but—unhappily—struggling Church 
 of England Temperance Society. It has played no small 
 part in the forefront of the battle against this vice of in- 
 temperance, and all that causes it. If you want any testi- 
 mony, Lord Shaftesbury, with all the weight and wealth of 
 his noble experience, has said, “The more I examine and 
 travel over the surface of England the more I see the ab- 
 solute and indispensable necessity for Temperance Associa- | 
 tions. Iam satisfied that, unless they existed, we should 
 be immersed in such an ocean of immorality, violence, and 
 sin, as would make this couniry uninhabitable.” If you 
 can help in no other way as patriots to deliver your coun- 
 try from this clinging curse, as Christians to rescue the 
 perishing souls for whom Christ died, you can help—I 
 hope you will help with noble generosity—by your gilts 
 to-day. . 
 | 
 
THE VISION OF THE KING. 219 
 
 XIII.—The Vision ofthe King. By Tue Very Rev. H 
 T. Epwarps, M.A., DEAN or Bancor.—“ Zhen said I, woe 
 #s me! for Iam undone ; because [am a man of unclean lips, 
 and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine 
 eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. Then flew one of 
 the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which 
 he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he laid 
 st upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; 
 and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I 
 heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and 
 who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.”— 
 IsalaH vi. 5-8. 
 
 THIS passage records a new view of existence that was 
 seen by Isaiah, and the effects of it upon his soul. Every 
 man’s course is shaped by the view that he forms of the 
 Supreme Ruler. If a man has no such view, he has no 
 principle, and he is living either in anarchy or in slavery to 
 some other mind. There are hours in every earnest life, 
 and especially in every powerful leading life, when new 
 truths or new views of old truths breaking in upon the eye 
 of the soul change all the aspects of being and give an 
 impulse that never loses its force. Such an hour of insight 
 as came to Jacob at Bethel and afterwards at Penuel now 
 came to Isaiah in the temple. 
 
 Let us consider this evening, in the first place, the 
 Prophet’s view of the Supreme Ruler, “ Mine eyes have 
 seen the King,” and, in the second place, the effects of that 
 view upon the soul as recorded in this passage—first, pro- 
 ducing an abasing sense of personal sin ; secondly, quicken- 
 ing the sense of social sin; thirdly, bringing to bear upon 
 the life a, purifying power ; and, lastly, giving to that life 
 an ardent mission. 
 
 I. Let us consider, then, in the first place, the view of 
 the Supreme Ruler. 
 
 Isaiah now passed through a great spiritual excitement 
 such as marks the hours of conversion, the chief turning 
 point in the careers of great souls. The leading idea is 
 described in these words, “Mine eyes have seen the King.” 
 
220 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 A new real power had risen within his life. Now in his 
 first natural, unenlightened, unregenerate state a man sees 
 no supreme authority that has a right to rule his inner and 
 his outer being. He is rather like the wild ass used to the 
 wilderness that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure, and 
 he lives as he likes, according to his impulses, as far as — 
 social and physical necessities will permit. But when the 
 light of God dawns upon his soul then man becomes con-— 
 scious of a personal will that claims to rule his life, and ox 
 a personal mind that knows his downsitting and his uprising — 
 and understands his thoughts afar off. We have heard this 
 evening in the first lesson that “God made man after His 
 own image.” As man, therefore, must reflect that image 
 when it is seen by him in the light of knowledge, no less 
 truly than the water must reflect the splendour of the sun 
 that shines above it, so man cannot fail to bow to the 
 sovereignty of God except by refusing in blind self-will to 
 see God. Man can only be alienated from the life of God — 
 through the ignorance that is in him, because of the insensi- 
 bility of his heart. In the natural world we have sometimes — 
 seen on a dark and cloudy day the mist suddenly lifted 
 and the landscape revealed in a flood of light. In the 
 world of intelligence, fields of inquiry that have been, © 
 through the ages, hidden in darkness, have sometimes been 
 discovered by the sudden flashes of genius, and at once, in ~ 
 a moment, added to the mental dominion of man. So in 
 the spiritual world ; sometimes Divine realities that have 
 been hidden through the ages in mystery are unveiled as if 
 by the rolling away of a cloud or the rising of a curtain, © 
 and the secret of God shines upon the tabernacle of life. 
 
 In this vision of the Triune Godhead Isaiah saw the 
 Divine life now more fully and more clearly than he had 
 ever seen it before. In words he paints for us the impres- 
 sions made by it upon his soul. The sight of the Lord 
 sitting upon a throne is the image that he uses to*represent 
 to us the conception that he now formed of the immovable 
 authority of the Divine life sending forth its unfailing laws. — 
 Hitherto God had been to him a dim floating idea, far away 
 in the clouds, like a distant monarch exercising no constant 
 Sway over existence ; but now he recognises that the Divine 
 life is everywhere ; that all things are united to God ; that 
 all the duties, all the energies and the scenes of existence 
 
THE VISION OF THE KING. 221 
 
 are, as it were, parts of the royal train, wide as the world, 
 filling the vast floor of the temple of being. 
 
 This change in the spiritual ideas of Isaiah seems to have 
 been very similar to the change that was wrought in the 
 disciples by the power of the resurrection, the sight of the 
 ascension, and the inspiration of Pentecost. They had 
 before acknowledged Jesus as their Master, but their ideas 
 of His Divine authority were dim and uncertain. His form 
 had not been lifted up before the eyes of their souls so as 
 to become to them “The Most High”; His majesty had 
 not been settled and established, as it were, upon a throre 
 within their consciousness. They had seen His glory 1) 
 glimpses through the veil of humiliation, but His influence 
 local and partial to their minds, had not as yet, like a royal 
 train, filled all the sanctuary of their universe. But when 
 He rose from the grave, when He ascended above the 
 clouds into realms out of sight, when He sent down the 
 light and the heat of His Spirit into their hearts and minds, 
 then they recognised Him with the sight of the soul as the 
 King ; they then realized that all power was given to Him 
 in heaven and in earth, that the height and the depth, that 
 life and death, that sickness and health, that the cross of 
 suffering and the crown of sovereignty, that the earthly 
 course and the silent grave, the temporal home and the 
 great hereafter, were all subject to the sovereignty of His 
 Divine human sceptre. 
 
 Similar to that is the change that is wrought in every 
 human soul when religion comes instead of a misty, cloudy, 
 speculative theory, as a living power to rule our daily 
 being. This revelation of Jesus as the King, is going on 
 for ever through the ages. It comes to various men in 
 various forms. To Isaiah in the Temple, to Thomas as he 
 touched the wounds of sacred suffering, to Saul as he came 
 near to Damascus the light shone that revealed the King 
 of Life. Through the ages it is the work of the ministry 
 of the Church to unfold by her teaching the features of 
 Jesus. The work of the ministry of the Church through . 
 the ages is to pray the Apostle’s prayer, that the “ God of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto 
 you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge 
 of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; 
 that ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His 
 
222 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of | 
 His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He 
 raised Him from the dead.” 
 
 II. Let us proceed to consider the effects of this vision 
 upon the soul. The first effect upon Isaiah was to give 
 him an abasing consciousness of his own personal sin, 
 “Woe is me! for 1 am undone; because I am a man of 
 unclean lips.” The lips being the outermost organ of that 
 speech which expresses the thoughts and the feelings of the ~ 
 mind and the heart, represent all the inner life ; and there- © 
 fore when Isaiah says that the lips were unclean, he meant 
 that the whole stream of life required purification. Why © 
 did the vision of the King create this sense of guilt and 
 misery? In the King is the law of our life; it is only when 
 we see the King’s life that we know what our own life — 
 ought to be. Because we are created in the image of God 
 we are not in our true state until we reflect that image; 
 therefore the sight of the Divine character must create in 
 man a sense of moral failure, that is, a consciousness of sin. 
 As the seraphim cried before God, “ Holy, holy, holy,” 
 there is created in man a bitter consciousness of his own 
 want of holiness. 
 
 So it is for ever. Where there is no vision of excellence 
 there can be no pangs of self-reproach. The village artist, 
 who has never seen any works better than his own, is self- 
 satisfied in his ignorance; but the man who has seen the 
 master works of sovereign genius, recognises in the light 
 his own nothingness in the presence of an ideal unap- 
 proached, high-throned and lifted up: he cries, abased, 
 “ Woe is me! I am nothing, I have everything to learn.” 
 
 So is it in the moral world. When the vision of a pure 
 life breaks in upon the eyes of the impure it creates bitter 
 self-reproach, and at first rebellious impatience. When the 
 frenzied, debased, ferocious slave of the demons of lust saw 
 Jesus, the Lord of the moral life, drawing near, the sight 
 of the most High and Holy One was agony to him, and he 
 cried, “ What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, thou Son of 
 God Most High.” So it is with us. The sight of God’s 
 perfection for ever creates in us pangs of penitence. 
 
 But the vision of the King not only makes us unhappy 
 about our own sins, but it also makes us unhappy about 
 the sins of the society of which we are members, Man is 
 
THE VISION OF THE KING. 223 
 
 a social being ; we men are members of one body. If one 
 member suffer all the members suffer with it. We cannot 
 separate our personal life from our social life ; therefore, in 
 the moment when we begin to desire a nobler personal 
 life we desire also to create around us a nobler social state. 
 So Isaiah, when he saw the King, looked with agony upon 
 the sin and the depravity of the society of which he was 
 a member, and he cried, “ Woe is me! for I dwell in the 
 midst of a people of unclean lips.” And what were the 
 sins that defiled the lips of Israel in those days? We have 
 a description of them in the five preceding chapters. The 
 fountain of all uncleanness, ever the same, is the self-will 
 of our lower nature, that rebels against the King whose 
 higher law is that love which constrains man to sacrifice 
 his baser instincts for the Divine glory and the social good. 
 Isaiah, in his first chapter, tells us that men in his days 
 lived without the thought of God, to please themselves. 
 God said of them, “I have nourished and brought up chil- 
 dren, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth 
 his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth 
 not know, My people doth not consider.” That godless 
 spirit of self-will assumed different forms in different classes 
 of society, as the prophet teaches us. It made the upper 
 leading class corrupt, unprincipled, self-seeking, tyrannical, 
 luxurious. “Thy princes are rebellious and companions 
 of thieves; every one loveth gifts, and followeth after re- 
 
 wards.” “Their land, also, is full of silver and gold, neither 
 is there any end of their treasures; their land, also, is full 
 of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots.” “The 
 
 Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of His 
 people, and the princes thereof; for ye have eaten up the 
 vineyard ; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What 
 mean ye that ye beat My people to pieces, and grind the 
 faces of the poor?” And the same godless spirit made 
 men eager to be monopolists of riches, to the detriment of 
 the common weal. “ Woe unto them that join house to 
 house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that 
 they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.” The 
 same godless spirit made the women of Israel heartless, 
 thoughtless, shallow, frivolous. The prophet has painted 
 the contrast between the woman of the world as she shines 
 in the finery of her short-lived fashion, and as she lies in 
 
224 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 the noisome decay of the shroud and the sepulchre. “The — 
 daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched © 
 forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they © 
 go. . . . The Lord will take away the bravery of their 
 tinkling . . . the chains and bracelets, and the mufflers, — 
 the bonnets . . . the changeable suits of apparel . . . | 
 the glasses . . . the wimples, the mantles, the crisping — 
 pins . . . the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails — 
 
 : and it shall come to pass that instead of sweet ~ 
 smell there shall be stink, and instead of the girdle a rent, — 
 and instead of well-set hair baldness;.. . . and burning 
 instead of beauty.” But as if to give two-fold emphasis 
 the prophet twice repeats that the ruinous root of the 
 godless spirit of his age was its drunkenness. “ Woe unto 
 them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow 
 strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame 
 them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret . . . and 
 wine are in the feasts; but they regard not the work of the 
 Lord, neither consider the operation of His hands. There- 
 fore My people are gone into captivity .. . . hell hath 
 enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure. 
 
 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and 
 men of strength to mingle strong drink.” And in this 
 chapter the prophet tells : us what were the effects of these 
 sins upon the tone of the nation—making the heart fat, the 
 ears heavy, and the eyes blind to truth and beauty. 
 
 Sin is not peculiar to any age. The man who has “seen 
 the King,” the man who has the highest idea of life, must 
 for ever say, “ Woe is me! I am among the men of unclean 
 lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” 
 Every one of us knows the plague of his own heart when 
 he stands in the presence of the King. Our nation has its 
 great social evil. Britain, thank God, is not like Israel— 
 unsound from the sole of the foot even to the head. Down- 
 fall, let us hope, is not impending here as it was there. 
 There is virtue in British homes. Society amongst us here 
 and there has its hollow fashions, its tinkling frivolities, its 
 haughty, overbearing arrogances, and its hidden festering 
 vice, but the women of Britain—our wives and mothers and 
 sisters—are not, thank God, the false, tawdry, bejewelled 
 wantons that ruined the life of Israel by corrupting its 
 homes, There are, amongst us sometimes, men who defile 
 
THE VISION OF THE KING. 225 
 
 their lips with commercial fraud, but still, thank God, the 
 motto of the British merchant is “Integrity,” and “Thorough- 
 ness” is the boast of the British workman. 
 
 But there is one fountain of uncleanness that pours forth 
 a poisonous stream to defile the lips of the nation. The 
 curse of strong drink is an overflowing well of shame, of 
 sin, of vice, of woe. The national lips in the Parliament 
 of the people have been too often defiled with sophistical 
 apologies for this great national sin, this baneful sin that 
 for a time feeds the finances while it starves the morality 
 of the nation. A false social opinion has palliated it, has 
 failed to frown, as it ought to have frowned, upon the 
 fosterers of depravity. Men, as it is, are not ashamed 
 amongst us of great fortunes built up, having their founda- 
 tions down in the depths of human degradation; their 
 houses are literally filled with the spoils of virtue; they 
 deck themselves with jewels that have cost many a soul its 
 purity, and many a home its peace. This sin is defiling 
 our lives. Oh! how this cursed stream defiles the lips of 
 human nature amongst us. The lips of the father, of the 
 husband, formed by God for tenderness and love, are defiled 
 with cruelty and cursing, with foulness and ferocity. The 
 lips of the mother that God formed for words of purity and 
 peace, to teach her offspring to lisp the lessons of life in 
 accents of prayer and praise and love, are too often made 
 unclean by the fiendish flight of the wicked eis blas- 
 phemy, obscenity, and despair. 
 
 If the prophet were to come amongst us; were he to 
 visit the cheerless hovels where the drunkards’ children 
 are withering in hungry, ragged wretchedness ; if he were to 
 go through the courts where the cursings of the blasphemer 
 mingle with the blows of the wife-beater ; if he were to 
 watch the crowds of men and women that carry under a 
 fatal spell their hard-won earnings to the shrines of sen- 
 suality ; if he were to stand in our gas-lit streets when the 
 countless taverns open their unwilling jaws to pour out 
 their midnight stream of besotted, half-frenzied human 
 beasts to swell the torrent of shame that well-nigh chokes 
 at certain hours our proudest thoroughfares, would he not 
 say, “Hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth 
 without measure;” “ Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and 
 of the fields of Gomorrah ; their grapes are grapes of gall; 
 
226 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 their clusters are bitter, Their wine is the poison of dragons, 
 and the cruel venom of asps” ? 
 
 Now, my brethren, we feel pain at social evil in exact 
 proportion to the clearness with which we have seen the 
 King—in other words, to the strength of our religious con- 
 victions, and the sincerity of our religious emotions. If we 
 take low views of human destiny, if we think of ourselves 
 and others as only short-lived animals, breathing away our 
 brief day, and going down, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, © 
 into the cold, dark earth, to rise no more, then we do not 
 feel much pain when existence around us is without high — 
 ends here, or high hopes of hereafter ; then we can bear to 
 look with calmness on the masses of human misery, upon 
 the homes that God meant to be the Paradises of earthly 
 rest, turned into the fiery ante-rooms of hell; upon the young 
 man, formed for knowledge, for virtue, for moral dignity, © 
 for princely self-control, for immortality, transformed by the 
 demon of drink into the heavy, dull, soulless, or the wild, 
 furious, savage human beast ; we can bear to look upon the 
 saddest of all sights, upon the young, blooming girl, once 
 in her childish prime, pure as the spotless flowers of the 
 early spring, blasted and blighted by the spoiler’s breath, 
 sliding down the fatal slope into the dark, deep, social abyss, 
 out of which there rise to our ears the hollow laughter of . 
 the harlot’s drink-forced gaiety, the pitiful moaning of the 
 worn-out, sinking hospital patient, the last gaspings, the — 
 lonely agonies, the few hurried footsteps of the friendless, © 
 tearless, unattended funeral, dying away into the silence of — 
 the unremembered pauper’s grave. 
 
 But if we have seen the King; if, in the light of His face, © 
 we have learnt what life is to be, and what by His royal . 
 grace He will make it to be, then we never can look at these : 
 social evils without feeling our own share of responsibility, ~ 
 without feeling a bitter, salutary self-reproach and crying © 
 out, ‘‘ Woe is me! for I dwell in the midst of a people of | 
 unclean lips.” 
 
 My brethren, the vision that brought the pains of repent- 
 ance brought also the gladness of renewal. So it is always. 
 There is no birth without birth pains. So in the moral 
 world. The vision that brings the agony of self-condemna- 
 tion brings also the strength of reform and the ardour of 
 inspiration, That cry of woe from the prophet’s lips brought 
 
THE VISION OF THE KING. 227 
 
 down into his life a new power from above. “Then flew 
 one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his 
 hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar ; 
 and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath 
 touched thy lips ; ; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy 
 sin is purged.” 
 
 Now, what is the meaning of that live coal from the 
 altar? The altar is a place of sacrifice; sacrifice is an 
 expression of love, and love is a leading feature in the 
 countenance of the King, and therefore the power that 
 redeems us into the likeness of the King is the Spirit that 
 brings to bear upon us the burning influence of love from 
 the altar. The altar is the cross of Calvary, on which the 
 Son of man gave Himself for the good of many. Love is 
 the source of all personal and of all social good. Nothing 
 purifies us like sacrifice—sacrifice of thought, of care, of 
 time, of toil, of money, for the good of others. We cannot 
 have our life purified unless we are touched by the fire from 
 the altar. If we look at the King, if we welcome the 
 seraphim in prayer and praise and the sacraments—f, then, 
 there comes through the power of God’s Spirit into our 
 lives day after day the fire of enthusiasm and the light of 
 principle, it takes away all our iniquity and it purges all 
 our sin. 
 
 In conclusion, let me remind you that this vision which 
 purifies gives also a life mission. When Isaiah had received 
 the vision of enlightenment, and had been touched by the 
 fire from the altar, then he heard a voice saying unto him, 
 “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Now that 
 voice had been sounding through the ages, but it was only 
 the men who had seen the King, and been touched by the 
 sacred fire that could understand the voice, and say, “ Here 
 am I, send me.” That is the voice that ‘alw ays comes to 
 those who look at the King, who believe in Jesus Christ. 
 Wherever there is misery and illness, wherever there is hard 
 bondage and grievous affliction, there this Divine voice 
 comes to those who see the King. It was the voice that 
 came forth out of the burning vision in the wilderness of 
 Midian to the lawgiver and liberator, and sent him forth to 
 deliver his brethren from the brickfields of the tyrant; it 
 was the voice that came to Clarkson and to Wilberforce in 
 our own land, sending them to break the chains that cruelty, 
 
228 PLA TFORM -AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 greed, and arrogance had forged to deprive souls of the — 
 liberty that God had'given them; and it is the voice that — 
 calls to-day to earnest men to go "forth under the banner of 
 temperance to break the chains ofa darker slavery that is 
 destroying the glorious liberty of souls: There is in this — 
 land darkness and sin; there are myriads in this land to- 
 night who are'suffering a bondage harder than that of Egypt, — 
 and a servitude worse than that of the West Indian negroes © 
 —a bondage that binds not only the body but the soul, a 
 servitude that robs man not only of the citizenship of earth, 
 but shuts him out from the franchise of that city of free — 
 spirits, the Jerusalem above, into which there shall enter 
 nothing that defileth. 
 
 Brethren, let us live in the sight of the King. In the 
 Church He unveils His presence. Let us turn our eyes to 
 the King ; let us welcome the seraphim of grace, that He 
 may fire our hearts with love; that we may not, in our day, © 
 stand with closed eyes and cold hearts, acquiescing in the — 
 ruin and moral misery of men, but that we may look to 
 the Throne and say to the King, “Thy kingdom come ;” 
 that we may have our ears opened 'to every call of duty; — 
 and that we may, with loyal hearts, say, whenever the © 
 King calls, “ Here am I, send me.” 
 
 AIV.—The Shadows of Civilisation. By Tue Ven. 
 ARCHDEACON Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. “ And slaves, and { 
 souls of men.”—REV. xviil. 13. 
 
 1. THE Bible, in its marvellous treasury of thoughts uttered — 
 by men whose souls were inspired and dilated by the Holy © 
 Spirit of God, contains some lurid pictures of the downfall © 
 of guilty cities and guilty nations. On the Cities of the 
 Plain God rained fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, 
 and, seizing Lot by the hand, the angels hurried him and ~ 
 his from the ghastly overthrow. On Babylon the burning © 
 lips of Isaiah pronounced its doom; on Nineveh the 
 Prophets Nahumand Zephaniah; on Tyre the magnificent — 
 scorn and irony of Ezekiel; on Jerusalem—the religious 
 murderess of the prophets—on her sham religionism, on 
 her heart of cruelty and shame hidden under the gorgeous — 
 cope of ceremonial profession, the Lord Jesus Himself 
 
THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 229 
 
 uttered His pathetic feeden: as ie sat soe sunset on the 
 ‘slopes of Olivet. And here the mighty Angel of the 
 _ Apocalypse, who lightens the earth with his clory, pro- 
 “nounced the doom and. dirge on Rome, as the type of the 
 _ great guilty cities of the world. And what was the cause 
 of the catastrophe and conflagration of these great homes 
 _ of human magnificence and power? The answver is simple. 
 _ It was cruelty and luxury and lust; it. was. pride, fulness 
 _ of bread, and abundance of idleness ; it was the wantonness, 
 _ the petulance, the insolence of corrupted wealth ; it was 
 godlessness, and. the vice which invariably. follows in the 
 _ wake of godlessness, and the avenging misery. which dogs 
 _ the heels of vice. Cities and nations, in the days of their 
 visitation, recognise not their peril, and laugh to scorn the 
 prophecies of their overthrow. What did Rome care— 
 _ Rome, the eternal city, the lady of the nations, sitting on 
 _ her golden throne, and declaring that. she could. see no 
 _ sorrow—what cared she for the wild cry of.a persecuted 
 | Jew? Ay, but behind the voice of the persecuted Jew 
 ' was the cry of the souls under the altar “ How long, oh 
 _ Lord, how long?” and the voice of the mighty angel, 
 “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!” and the fiat of the 
 Eternal God, speaking in the still small accents of His 
 irrefragable: laws.’ And in one hour had her judgment 
 come! She held in her hand the jeweiled cup of the wine 
 of her seductions, and her own people and the many 
 nations drunk of it; it at once intoxicated and stupehed 
 them ; it inflamed their passions and dulled their con- 
 sciences, and now that cup was becoming for her the cup 
 of the wine of the wrath of God ; even-handed justice was 
 already beginning to commend the ingredients of the 
 poisoned chalice to her own lips. 
 
 2. In this chapter we have the lament of the kings and 
 merchants of the earth, as, with dust upon their heads, they 
 gaze on the desolation of the Imperial City.. Standing afar 
 off, for fear of her torment, they recount her treasures, they. 
 bemoan her sudden destruction, First, among her stores 
 of wealth, they celebrate the splendour of her jewelry—the 
 gold and silver, and precious stones and pearls; and next, 
 the materials of rich attire—the fine linen, and purple, and 
 silk, and scarlet ; and then the costly furniture—the tables 
 of citron, the vessels of inlaid ivory, and scented wood ; 
 
230 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 
 
 then the precious spices—cinnamon, and fragrant perfumes, 
 and aromatic gums ; and then the luxuries of the palate— 
 wine and oil, and fine flour; and then the vast droves of 
 oxen and sheep for food ; and then the magnificent equip- 
 ages, horses, and chariots inlaid with silver ; and then, in 
 
 terrific climax—that which was the crushing cost of all | 
 
 these things in the sight of God—the blood and the misery, 
 the sweat and the anguish, the fraud and oppression, the 
 robbery and wrong, the groan of over-wearied bodies, and 
 the anguish of neglected spirits ; the merchandise of persons 
 and lives; “and slaves, and souls of men.” And God’s 
 judgment had come upon it all! 
 
 3. Yes! for all this worldly pomp and circumstance—this 
 wealth and wantonness, and delicate luxury—was only the 
 iridescence over the deep stagnation of her decay. You 
 will remember how when Satan, in the Paradise Regained, 
 shows to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and the glory 
 of them, He answers that He knows 
 
 “ Their sumptuous gluttonies, and gorgeous feasts 
 On citron tables or Atlantic stone, 
 
 Their wines of Setia, Cales, and Falerne, 
 
 Chios and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, 
 Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems 
 And studs of pearl,” 
 
 And He adds that He was not sent to free 
 “ That people, victor once, now vile and base, 
 
 Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still, 
 And from the daily scene effeminate. 
 
 What wise and valiant man would seek to free 
 These, thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved, 
 Or could of inward slaves make outward free ?” 
 
 The contrast thus presented between the prosperity of 
 nations outwardly and their inward rottenness, the different 
 aspect they bear to the eyes of men and to the Eye of God, 
 is far more forcibly expressed in this apocalyptic chapter. 
 The world saw in Rome a queen of the world, a home of 
 splendour rarely equalled—never surpassed; the Apostle 
 saw in her a doomed criminal,a fallen power. The tawdry 
 magnificence, which dazzled all eyes, shrivelled up to 
 nothing under one ray of Heaven’s pure light, which re- 
 
THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 231 
 
 vealed the festering sores of her squalor and degradation 
 Her riches were corrupted, her garments moth-eaten ; her 
 gold and silver were cankered, and the rust of them, witness- 
 ing against her, eat her flesh as it were fire. She had lived 
 in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; she had 
 nourished her heart in a day of slaughter. Her sins had 
 reached unto Heaven, and God had remembered her ini- 
 quities. Her palaces had been polluted; unclean wings 
 flapped about their gilded roofs. She had become the 
 habitation of demons, and the home of every foul spirit, 
 and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. And in the 
 midst of the wail of the world’s children over her destruc- 
 tion, like a flash from the blue heaven, the seer interposes 
 his own calm epitaph of retribution: “ And the fruits that 
 thy soul lusted after are departed from thee ; and all things 
 which are dainty and goodly are departed from thee; and 
 thou shalt find them no more at all.” 
 
 4. My friends, the luxury and gorgeousness of civiliza- 
 tion, the splendour of imperial cities, casts a very dark and 
 deep shadow. The Angel of St. John’s vision sums it all 
 up in that tremendous close of his catalogue of magnifi- 
 cence, “And slaves, and souls of men.” Dante, in his 
 intense way, expresses the same truth. In traversing the 
 grim circle of hell, he comes to a stream whose waves of 
 red blood make his hair stand on end. It is Phlegethon, 
 one of the four infernal rivers that disgorge 
 
 “6 Into the burning lake their baleful streams— 
 Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate ; 
 Sad Acheron, of sorrow black and deep ; 
 Cocytus, named of lamentation loud, 
 Heard on the rueful stream ; fierce Phlegethon, 
 Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.” 
 
 Only that to Dante Phlegethon is a river of loathly gore, 
 not of flame; and plunges into the abyss in a Niagara of 
 boiling blood. And his guide tells him how these awful 
 rivers are formed. There stands, he says, in Crete, within the 
 mountain Ida, the colossal image of an old man, whose head 
 is of gold, but the rest of iron and brass, and who stands 
 mainly on a foot of miserable clay ; and from a fissure which 
 runs throughout that image, except its head of gold drops 
 a stream of tears which form these rivers of anguish, and 
 of hatred, and of blood, which streaming ever downwards 
 
232 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 mingle and coagulate at last in the icy pool of misery, in 
 which stands Satan, the author of all sin. And the allegory 
 is this—that metal colossus of the old man, standing on its 
 foot of clay, is the image of human civilization of the king- 
 doms of the world, and the glory of them; and the stream © 
 which trickles through its fissured hollowness is the stream of 
 anguish and remorse which flows from their sins and vices , 
 and that stream of vain tears, and sullen passion, and 
 abhorrent blood wrings the agonies of infernal torment, — 
 because men’s vices become their punishment; and sin, and 
 the remorse of sin, is the hell of vitiated humanity ; and 
 the tears of that remorse, which brings no repentance, do 
 but sting, and burn, and form the true Inferno of the guilty, 
 and leap down at last into the place where Satan’s seat is 
 —the icy Cocytus of despair. It is a marvellous allegory 
 worked out with supreme imagination, but the whole tenor 
 and pathos of it, the burning conviction that sin and misery 
 are the Mvariable shadows of human pomp and pride, are 
 compressed yet more forcibly into these verses of St. John, 
 when he says: “And the merchants of the earth shall weep 
 and mourn over her; for no man buys their merchandise 
 any more: the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious 
 stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, 
 and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels 
 of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood 
 and of brass, and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, and 
 odour, and perfumes, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, 
 and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and 
 horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.” 
 
 5. My friends, read over this chapter, and mentally put 
 England, put London, for the great world-city of the seer’s 
 apocalyptic vision. The details of it, says one of the 
 ablest and calmest of modern commentators, “far more 
 nearly suit London than Rome at any period of her history.” 
 Is our merchandise less memorable than this? Have we 
 not ransacked all the world for our luxury and splendour— 
 the silver of Potosi; the gold of Australian rivers; the 
 spices of Arabia; the amber of the Baltic shore; the furs 
 of the Arctic ; the looms of India; the bazaars of China ; 
 the workshops of Japan? Are not the creatures of the 
 earth becoming gradually extinct, from the elephant who 
 bears for us his load of ivory, to the silver fox of the prairies, 
 
 7 
 q 
 : 
 ; 
 
THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 233 
 
 and the kingfisher of our English streams, and the little 
 feathered jewels of American forests, which are slaughtered 
 in myriads for our adornment? Is not the toiling life of 
 the many spent for the self-indulgence of the few? Is it 
 less true of us than of those Florentine brothers in the 
 
 poem— 
 
 “ And for them many a weary hand did swelt 
 In torched mines, and noisy factories: 
 Many all day in dazzling river stood, 
 To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood ; 
 For them the Ceylon diver held his breath 
 And went all naked to the hungry shark ; 
 For them his ears gushed blood ; for them in death 
 The seal on the cold ice, with piteous bark, 
 Lay full of darts ; for them alone did seethe 
 A thousand men in troubles deep and dark: 
 Half ignorant they turned an easy wheel 
 That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.” 
 
 It seems as if it were an inevitable adjunct fo men’s 
 progress in wealth and prosperity, that there could be 
 merchandise not only in objects of splendour, but also in 
 the bodies and souls of men. “ History,” says a great 
 historian, “is indeed little more than the register of the 
 crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” Slaves? you 
 will say. “Did not our fathers abolish the slave-trade ?” 
 Yes, they did! by the noblest and most Christian act that 
 ever emanated from a Christian Legislature! And would to 
 God we were not content merely to praise the deed of our 
 fathers, but would ourselves diversify the pettiness of end- 
 less political janglings by some heroic deeds of beneficent 
 
 Christian legislation, as might yet prove that we are a 
 ‘great and God-fearing nation. But you will say, “ At any 
 rate we have nothing to do with slaves now. Is it not 
 our proudest boast that no slave can ever set foot on 
 English soil, for the soil of England sets him free? That 
 no slave can tread an English ship—that in any port, all 
 over the world, the touch of its plank has set him free.” 
 Yes, and I say again, Would to God that the example of 
 our fathers were ever a fresh inspiration to the courage 
 -and bold initiative of our statesmanship in social re- 
 formation! for meanwhile our merchandise, like that of 
 Rome, still includes the bodies and souls of men. Bodies, 
 for that is the literal word for slaves. The slave tends to 
 
234 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 become a body, to become what the ancients called him, “a 
 live chattel,” “a talking instrument.” And tens of thou- 
 sands among us—tens of thousands, whose interests we 
 ought most tenderly, most anxiously to consider—are 
 forced for daily bread to lead very hard, and wretched, and 
 servile lives. Look at the poor storm-beaten fishermen of 
 our coasts, often barely able to snatch food, as they are 
 tossed day and night on the stormy surge, and wrapped in — 
 the blinding spray, while their children stare out into the 
 storm, and their wives weep out their aching hearts. Look 
 at our police standing for long hours of the night, exposed 
 to frequent peril, bearing the lonely darkness, the streaming 
 rain, the biting wind, the stinging hail. Look at the poor 
 seamstresses— 
 
 “ Work, work, work ! 
 From weary chime to chime ; 
 Work, work, work ! 
 As prisoners work for crime. | 
 Band and gusset, and seam, 
 Seam and gusset, and band, 
 Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, 
 As well as the weary hand.” 
 
 Look at the 200,000 shopmen and shopwomen in London 
 alone, of whom many are employed between 80 and 90° 
 hours a week, standing with cruel fatigue in bad gas-poi-' 
 soned air, 13, 15, sometimes even 18 hours a day, till the 
 brain swims, till the eyes are weary, till they are worn out 
 physically, mentally, and spiritually, afflicted with spine 
 diseases, smitten in growth with premature old age, through 
 the thoughtlessness of men and women, ever multiplying 
 among us a feebler and sicklier progeny, and making our 
 great cities the graves of the physique of our race, till one 
 who has seen the conditions of many millions, even in 
 countries where despotism is untrammelled, says that even 
 under bad governments, and amid horrid superstitions, he 
 has never seen a more grinding drudgery. Listen again to 
 the cry of the unemployed in this great city who cannot 
 get work in these hard times; read the heart-rending 
 accounts of men, faint and weak from lack of food, gaunt 
 and haggard, with hollow eyes and famished faces, besieg- 
 ing the dock gates from three o’clock in the morning to get 
 ene poor day’s job. Look at what a living man of science” 
 
THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 235 
 
 has called the great Serbonian bog of deadness, and dul- 
 “mess, and misery, and degradation, worse than that of the 
 savage, which may some day swallow up the surface crust 
 of our civilisation, and then ask whether we in this city also 
 have not our hapless slaves? Slaves often more wretched 
 and more hard-pressed by far than those of ancient days; 
 slaves for whose refuge, unlike the ancient Athenians, we 
 erect no altar of Pity; slaves who, night after night, in 
 hunger and misery, without one ray of comfort, await as 
 their chiefest hope the day when God shall curtain their 
 staring eyes with the merciful film of death. Is it not 
 “lamentable to think how great a proportion of all the 
 efforts and talents in the world are spent in neutralising 
 one another?” Can any thoughtfulness of ours and of our 
 tulers be too deep to prevent this wretched waste? Ought 
 we not daily to pray, “ Oh, let the sorrowful sighing of these 
 prisoners come before Thee. Through the greatness of Thy 
 power save Thou those that are appointed to die?” And 
 praying ought we not, individually and nationally, to labour 
 also for that end? 
 
 6. “ And slaves, and souls of men.” For there are forms 
 of slavery more pitiable, of thraldom more abject, of self- 
 chosen serfdom to demon masters far worse than the yoke 
 of poverty and toil. The fact is, but for sin and self-indul- 
 gence there would be but little pauperism. Look at our 
 slaves to drink! Can any slavery be more hideous, more 
 grinding, more dehumanising, than that of our hundreds of 
 thousands of drunkards, and persons fond of drink, whose 
 lives are ruined, whose powers are blighted, whose health 
 is poisoned, whose brains are maddened, whose wives and 
 families are trampled down into unspeakable degradation 
 in consequence of this deadly crave which drink creates ? 
 Who slew all these? Who is it who plunges so many 
 bodies and souls of men into the cell of the madman, and 
 the grave of the suicide? Who is responsible for the 
 execrable system of multiplied temptation which causes so 
 many to be rather damned into the world, than born into 
 the world ; and which, now for so many, many years, has 
 cried aloud for vengeance to a long-suffering God, because 
 of the disease, the curse, the crime, the misery which it 
 entails upon slaves and the souls of men? I say it with 
 the whole fulness of knowledge, with the whole strength of 
 
236 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 conviction—England will never be out of deadly peril til 
 she has had the moral courage to deal adequately with the 
 question of drink. And are there not also among us 
 myriads of men and women who are slaves to their lowes 
 passions? How awful is the thought of the tens of thou 
 sands of men, who, by violation of God’s high, beneficent 
 eternal law of purity, fill their whole being with the seed 
 of death! Their bones are full of the sin of their youth 
 which shall lie down with them in the grave. Physicians 
 —so I am assured by some of the most eminent amongs 
 them—are coming more and more to the conclusion, that 
 apart from accident and a few epidemics, there is scarcely 
 a single form of the terrible diseases which scourge man- 
 kind which does not find its origin or its intensification i 
 drink or in uncleanness ; in the vice and self-indulgence of 
 men, or of their fathers. And how terrible is the fact that 
 in generation after generation, new victims of sin and self 
 indulgence, pouring oil of vitriol on the roses of their youth, 
 recruit the miserable army from the ranks of blighted 
 womanhood and ruined manhood, heaping on themselve: 
 the sore retribution which, unknown perhaps to any b 
 
 God, shall yet lie down with them in the grave, and be 
 handed by hereditary transmission to blast the happiness 
 and help in destroying the souls of their innocent children! 
 How terrible is the fact that, generation after generation, 
 men, like natural brute beasts, made to be taken and 
 destroyed, corrupt themselves in the things that they 
 know, and utterly perish in their own destruction! Oh, as 
 we walk these streets of London, so beset with horrible 
 pitfalls for the inexperienced ; so polluted with manifold 
 temptations for the innocent and the young; when we 
 witness the shameless efforts of the inventors of evil things 
 to entrap to their ruin unwary souls; when the great 
 thoroughfares are crowded with those most wretched and 
 most degraded of all earth’s daughters of an unutterableé 
 shame, matched by a yet more unutterable misery, which 
 selfish, heartless, corrupted men trample down into the 
 horrible mire and clay of earth’s deepest anguish for the 
 sake of their own violent passions, receiving into their own 
 blood the recompense of death; when one knows that 
 under the very shadow of the greatest monuments of th 
 faith of our fathers, are places so tainted with sickening 
 
; THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 233 
 
 immorality as to be like great plague spots of temptation ; 
 when we see the poor so huddled together in foul streets 
 that scarcely a public opinion in favour of chastity is left 
 ‘among them, and the young girl who has sold to the 
 enemy of man the eternal jewel of her soul, comes back 
 ‘without one touch of shame, with the baseborn child 
 doomed in its turn to drink, and infamy, and death ; when 
 we know all that we do know of the working of all these 
 mysteries of iniquity ; when, amid the tide of being which 
 surges past us in the street, we see so many wrecks, so 
 many bodies wanting soul, so many base ignoble faces of 
 the lost, so many who have sold themselves to drink and to 
 the devil, and to work all uncleanness with greediness ; 
 when through the hollow clay of our civilization we watch 
 the dribbling of these streams of tears and blood—of tears 
 that are not the tears of penitence, of blood which is not 
 the blood of atonement—must we not admit that London 
 too is in part a habitation of demons, and a cage of every 
 unclean and hateful bird, and that among us, too, amid all 
 our splendour and luxury, there is a merchandise of the 
 bodies and souls of men? 
 7. I have said nothing of the countless slaves of Mam- 
 mon, and of the countless slaves to the lying voice of 
 public opinion. My object has only been to point out 
 how solemn is our need for thoughtfulness, for personal 
 and for national self-humiliation, for deep repentance, for 
 consideration alike of our public and private duties. Par- 
 liament has met once more under circumstances of deep 
 seriousness. There is gloom abroad; there is depression 
 at home. We waver and are divided, and hardly recognise 
 what we ought todo. Our thoughts are so full of Egypt 
 that no one has any time to consider the awful needs of 
 England ; our feelings are so harassed about our poor 
 soldiers in Korti that no one can attend to the social 
 wreckage wrought on hundreds of thousands by drink, 
 and vice, and fraud, and oppression here in London. Who 
 knows what may be in store for us? Are we being swept 
 on irresistibly to some great catastrophe which shall decide 
 for a thousand years our national destiny? Shall the sun 
 of England set in the desert of Egypt as the sun of Athens 
 set in the Bay of Syracuse? Have we by our shame and 
 ‘sins of so many kinds, by our want of Godliness and our 
 
238 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 want of manliness, by our immoral acquiescence in pre- 
 ventable evils, by our Mammon-worship, and our injustice, 
 and want of love to God and man—have we deserved God’s 
 judgments? Or alone of all nations and kingdoms shall 
 England be exempt from the doom of the mighty Angel 
 of Justice? Have no cities, great as this, promised them- 
 selves immortality? Where are Palmyra and Thebes? 
 Where are Nineveh and Carthage? Where is the Tower 
 of Belus and the hanging gardens of Semiramis? Are 
 they not the stories of emptiness? Has not the line of 
 confusion been stretched over them? What became of 
 the Rome of the Pagan Czsars ? 
 
 * The abhorred form 
 Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, 
 Who drank iniquity in cups of gold, 
 Whose names were many, and with blasphemous 
 Oaths met the horrible judgment !” 
 
 Shall no harm ever come nigh us? Shall the rich ever 
 grow richer, and the miserable ever grow with a more 
 eternal hunger? Shall we still surround the steps of the 
 drunkard with flaming pitfalls? Shall greedy owners still 
 huddle the poor into infamous slums and lairs, and shall 
 no voice cry, and no brand smite ? 
 
 Two points there are of brightness among the gloom. 
 One the spontaneous loyalty of our great colonies, which, 
 like angels many and strong, have sprung forward to the 
 aid of their weakened and troubled motherland. The 
 other, that this age has produced among her conspicuous: 
 sons at least one man—one man of high purity and noble- 
 ness—who, in this decadence of all England’s old heroic 
 simple virtues, has shown a sovereign self-possession, a_ 
 supreme contempt for the death we all fear, a supreme 
 contempt for the money we all worship, a supreme con- 
 tempt for the babbling and blatant voices which we all 
 take for fame. We had him and we knew not how to 
 preserve him; we put him in the forefront of our battle 
 and retired, and he has been slain. And he, at least, has” 
 proved to us that the heart of the world, while it cares 
 nothing (why should it care?) for whole armies of idlers, 
 and chatterers, and gilded youth, and smooth ecclesiastics, 
 and self-seeking politicians, and Churchmen with the view 
 
THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 239 
 
 of worldlings, and worldlings with the thin veneer of 
 Churchmanship—the nations, while they care nothing for 
 the facing-both-ways, and the pickers and stealers, and 
 liars and slanderers, and luxurious self-seekers, and fools 
 grown insolent with fooling, have known how to recognise 
 a true man, at least when he is dead; and from the banks 
 of the Guadalquivir to the Seine, yea, from Pekin to 
 Moscow, in all the five great continents, and in the islands 
 of the sea, have been able to discriminate between the 
 glitter of mere tinsel and God’s own gold. Among the 
 slaves of our wealth and of our iniquity, oh! may God 
 give us more such men as he! Among the multitudes 
 of souls taken captive by Mammon, and eaten away by 
 pride, and selfishness, and vice, may God give more of us 
 grace to walk as he did in the steps of his Master, Christ, 
 working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. 
 Only in the righteousness of good and holy men shall be 
 the deliverance of England. Then, and so, shall all perils 
 be averted, when our sons and our daughters grow up in 
 the fear of God and the service of His Christ; when we 
 ourselves learn above all things to do justice, and love 
 mercy, and walk humbly with our God ; when we halt no 
 longer between two opinions ; when we burst the bondage 
 of Mammon, and drink, and lust; when we learn to hate 
 and abhor lies, and to control our passion and mortify 
 our selfishness ; when we turn to God with all our hearts ; 
 when we learn to love righteousness and hate iniquity ; 
 then shall iniquity not be our ruin; then shall the axe, 
 uplifted haply to its backmost poise, be checked in mid 
 air; then though clouds dark and ominous loom on the 
 horizon, they shall not blot out our sky; and though the 
 lightnings begin to flicker overhead for our warning, the 
 day may yet be averted (may God grant it) when they shall 
 smite, and blaze, and burn as those which fell on the Cities 
 of the Plain, 
 
240 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 XV. Launch into the Deep. Sy Rey. J. C. Epcum1, . 
 
 D.D. 
 
 “ Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch 
 
 out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. 
 
 . . And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we — 
 
 have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; neverthe- 
 less, at Thy word I will let down the net.”—LUKE Vv. 4, 5. 
 
 IT was a very hard command; it was unexpected and 
 unexplained ; it was a special trial to St. Peter’s faith, for 
 he was a fisherman, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who 
 gave the command, was a carpenter. Peter had been 
 fishing all his life, he knew the likeliest time and the 
 likeliest place for a draught. It is very difficult to yield 
 up oneself, in what we feel we certainly know, to one whose 
 ‘knowledge we are doubtful of, and of which we have no 
 evidence. I think this is what Jesus Christ demanded 
 when He said to Peter, “Launch out into the deep, and 
 let down your nets fora draught.” It was a hard com- 
 mand, and it came just when they were worn out, tired 
 and disappointed. During the night they had worked with 
 a will, they had put forth all their powers, all their skill 
 and strength, and now the morning came, and their toil 
 was still unrewarded; they were unsuccessful and dis- 
 appointed, yet Jesus Christ came to them at this moment 
 and said, “ Launch out into the deep, and let down your 
 nets for a draught.” Now, when it is most unlikely ; now, 
 when the sun is clear in the sky; now, when the stillness 
 of the lake is disturbed by many a boat; now, when there 
 is a hum of voices off the shore—“ Now, launch out into 
 -the deep, and let down your nets in the expectation and 
 certainty of a draught.” Is it not natural that Peter should 
 say, “ Master we have toiled all night and have taken no- 
 thing, we have worked, we have striven hard, we did not 
 cease to work till every effort seemed fruitless, and now 
 Thou sayest launch out into the deep?” Wecan almost 
 see into St. Peter’s soul; he is an open and a frank man; 
 there is a struggle going on, he looks at the lake, and he 
 feels that another venture will be but another failure, and 
 he looks at Jesus, and there is something in His face and 
 something in His word which tells of supernatural power, 
 
LAUNCH INTO THE DEEP. 241 
 
 and Peter says “‘ Master, in spite of my experience, in spite 
 _ of all probabilities, in spite of the fact that all the fishermen 
 _ of this lake will laugh at us, at Thy word I will let down 
 i the net.” And so they launched out into the deep, and let 
 _ down the nets at Christ’s command, and the shoal of fish 
 was so great and mighty that their nets were beginning 
 to break, and Peter’s soul is won to the Lord ; the Master 
 becomes the Lord. That scene on the Sea of Galilee has 
 long since passed away, but Jesus Christ speaks to us 
 through it to-day. He no longer confronts Peter by that 
 flashing water, but He stands face to face with us—wearied, 
 disappointed men and women, and gives His command to 
 launch out into the deep and let down the nets for a 
 draught. Let us take this word of Jesus, this command of 
 Jesus, and this answer of Peter, first with reference to our 
 own souls, and then with reference to our own work; 
 especially the work of the Society, which we lay before 
 God to-night. 
 
 First, then, with reference to ourselves. Life for most 
 of us is profoundly disappointing and discouraging ; we 
 determine to give ourselves to Christ, to put down the 
 sins that do so easily beset us, we repent of them, we turn 
 from them, we turn from darkness to light, and from the 
 power of Satan to God, and when we have turned, we 
 behold the figure of Jesus on the Cross, and there comes 
 to us from His lips words of comfort. We cannot gaze on 
 that figure without feeling “ He loved me, and gave Him- 
 self for me. He can, He will, He does forgive all my 
 guilty past,’ and then we start out in the joy of that 
 
 - assured forgiveness with high hopes of holiness, perhaps, 
 
 and with thoughts of continued advance, and then soon we 
 find ourselves in the midst of battle and strife in the 
 wilderness, We find that our view of the Christian life is 
 a mistake, and we are disappointed—depressed. We lose 
 heart and hope, and we say—it is wrung from us by bitter 
 experience—“ Master, we have toiled all night and have 
 taken nothing.” Now, to such disappointed souls, the 
 words of Peter to Christ convey the secret of life and hope. 
 Master, we acknowledge it all. We have failed. Oh, how 
 utterly ! Oh how terribly ! ! We have lost heart in the strife. 
 It seems as if these sins will pursue us to the bitter end ; 
 but, nevertheless, in spite of failures, let us again renew the 
 
 R 
 
242 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 attack. Christian life is indeed a perpetual warfare with an 
 undying foe. Nevertheless, we will go on. Our troops in 
 the Soudan have been longing in these last weeks that they — 
 might meet the enemy face to face, and in one battle, how- 
 ever great the loss, complete the work. Is it not so with 
 us? Do we not long to have some upstanding fight with — 
 that terrible foe, and then to have it over? Instead of 
 that we are harassed on every side by his attacks, and 
 they seem never to end. Nevertheless, in spite of this, 
 though we are so often defeated, let us in the power of 
 Christ never yield, but still go on hoping, even if it be — 
 against hope, and in the end we shall be more than con- 
 querors. 
 
 And then surely, dear friends, this word of St. Peter and 
 this message of Christ does bring to us in reference to 
 the work of this Society lessons which we need to learn. 
 ‘ Jesus Christ spoke to St. Peter, and to those that were 
 with him, as to His workers. They were workers, they 
 were those whom He was now to send in His Church to 
 work for Him, and this miracle is the miracle for workers ; 
 it tells us what to expect and how we are to work. 
 “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets fora 
 draught,” is the message of the Lord to all who work for 
 Him. It came home years ago to the hearts of those men ~ 
 now honoured in the Church, who founded this Society, 
 and bade the Church launch out into the deep, and let 
 down their nets for a draught, and they have handed it on © 
 to us. Surely, dear friends, when we look out into this 
 world we are struck by its misery, by the marvellous con- 
 trasts there are in it, by the sad inequalities. Side by side — 
 with the marvellous material progress that there is around 
 us, there is abject misery and wretchedness. Side by side 
 with all that is grand and beautiful, there is much that is 
 hideous and dispiriting. Men are utterly victimised by © 
 their own weakness, and women are sacrificed in thousands 
 by the lusts and passions of men. There can be no doubt 
 about the misery, we see it on every hand. We may in- 
 deed close our eyes to it thoroughly if we will, and refuse — 
 to see anything outside the closed sanctuaries of our own 
 luxurious peace, but if we do we are none of Christ's, for 
 He faced evil. He gathered around Him every kind ‘of 
 evil, so much so, that when He was on earth you know He 
 
LAUNCH INTO THE DEEP. 243 
 
 looked up to heaven, and sighed as He saw the misery that 
 abounded. And when the command comes to us, as it 
 does come, to launch out into the deep of this world’s 
 wretchedness and misery, do we not find, if we attempt to 
 do so, that the one great cause of the many causes com- 
 bined is the drink? We go into our prisons, and we ask 
 the chaplains and the governors of the prisons, what has 
 brought about the misery there? It has been my lot, in 
 the last few years, to be stationed in a garrison town, 
 where there is a large convict prison, and every day well- 
 nigh, I used to meet hundreds of these men being marched 
 to the public works, and when I spoke to the chaplains 
 about it, the answer came back that directly or indirectly 
 this drink had much to do with bringing about the misery. 
 It is a fruitful source of misery, who does not know it? 
 Which of us, especially amongst the Clergy, does not know 
 many a man of our own order who has lost everything 
 simply and solely through this sin? Which of us cannot 
 recall some brother who has stood before us, and begged, 
 ‘it may be, for another trial, and the sweat has come upon 
 his brow as we have had to tell him the impossibility of 
 recall? Which of us is there that has not sighed for a 
 face haunting him in the silent night, when he wakes up 
 and his thoughts wander? Oh, the misery it brings. The 
 letters that come from wives and mothers, beseeching and 
 entreating that husbands may again be tried in the battle 
 of life where they have before so grievously failed, how 
 they wring the heart! Misery! what misery the drink 
 brings? There stands by the coffin of a dead child, a 
 mother. Her heart is well-nigh broken ; she is taking the 
 last look at the child that has been her comfort and stay, 
 when suddenly the door is pushed open and in comes the 
 husband. Surely he has come to comfort and console. 
 Surely he will take her by the hand, and kneel down 
 and say, “ Wife, we must be all in all to one another 
 now.” What does he do? Within a few moments blows 
 are heard in that room, and a husband, brutalised by drink, 
 in the presence of his dead child, batters and beats his wife 
 because she cannot tear herself away in a moment to fetch 
 for him some of her own hard-earned money, that he may 
 spend it in drink. Oh! the miseries that come from drink! 
 There lies a dying woman, her face is that of an angel; she 
 
244 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 has learned patience in suffering, she has learned to look 
 upon the Saviour’s face until her own has something of 
 His unearthly glory. Gradually she is sinking away under 
 that fell scourge of consumption. Her husband comes in 
 day by day from his work, his question is, “You here still?” 
 Brother men, is that what we are? Can we come to that? 
 Is there anything in this world to make us like that but 
 drink? Worse remains. I speak that which my own eyes 
 have seen, my own ears have heard. A brother sends to a 
 dying woman a few delicacies to cheer her last moments, 
 and one who lived in that house, with that wonderful 
 charity and love that comes out from the hearts of the 
 poor, making us understand how they may be God’s elect, 
 leads her to give up her time to attend to this poor dying 
 woman for nought. But the mother and the sister of the 
 dying woman come to see her, and they take the little 
 ‘delicate food which had been sent to the woman just about 
 to sink into the grave—they take it and eat it before her 
 eyes and refuse to give her one morsel of it, and when the 
 poor soul, in her utter weariness, sinks to sleep for a 
 moment, they take a purse from beneath the pillow and 
 rob her of the single shilling she has. We talk of the 
 inequalities of life, and sometimes we cannot understand 
 them ; but, dear friends, God never meant them to be as 
 they are. It is the passions and the lusts of men that have 
 made them so. Take away the drink and the evils that 
 come from it, and you have done much, very much, to rid 
 life of these awful, piercing, painful inequalities that make 
 us sometimes wonder whether there is a God that judgeth 
 the earth or not. 
 
 Well, then, dear friends, we can understand why the 
 hearts of men, who founded this Society years ago, were 
 moved with pity as they looked out at the wretchedness 
 of life—moved with pity to found this Society to rescue 
 men from this terrible foe. God be thanked that they did 
 so. It was the Holy Spirit that inspired them to give 
 this command to the Church—“ Launch out into the deep, 
 and let down the net for a draught.” We need the com- 
 mand now almost as much, for no services, however 
 beautifully rendered, and no sermon, however eloquently 
 preached, can touch those whose Church is the public- 
 house and whose prayer-books have handles to them, 
 
 4 
 
LAUNCH INTO THE DEEP. 245 
 
 “Launch out into the deep,” is the command, and this 
 Society helps us to do it. Go where the fish are—catch 
 them for life and not for death. The command is needed 
 now, for this Church of ours has not altogether risen up 
 to it. 
 
 In the last few months three militia regiments have 
 been employed on permanent service. They came from 
 English counties and English towns. Four-fifths of them, 
 to say the least, were members of this National Church by 
 name, by profession, so that in those three regiments there 
 were above 2,000 men. Now, we chaplains have, in one 
 sense, a very accurate gauge of the influence and power 
 the Church of England has on these masses of people from 
 whom the recruits are drawn. There were 2,000 men, mil- 
 itia, and yet on Easter-day there was not one who knelt 
 before the altar of God. More than that, out of those 2,000 
 men there was not one who was commended to the chap- 
 lains of the stations to which they were sent, either by 
 clergyman or layman, by any Church Society, or by any 
 Temperance Society. Having gone a little into the matter 
 I have good reason for stating that these men were in the 
 main uninfluenced by the Church of England, and are 
 untouched as yet by those influences that have done so 
 much to gain souls for Christ. I am sure of this, that if we 
 want to touch that class we must go on the lines of this 
 Society, and launch out into the deep, and try and win 
 them to Temperance first, and to God afterwards ; preach 
 the preaching of John the Baptist first, and then the loving 
 words of Jesus Christ. We are thankful that this Society 
 has put this bounden duty plainly before the Church. You 
 have something else to do in the National Church besides 
 providing for the comfort of your respectable worshippers ; 
 you owe a duty to those who are not yet touched. It 
 is your business to seek and to save that which was 
 lost. If you would justify your position as a National 
 Church, you must go out and catch these fish where they 
 are to be found, and bring safe to land for life and not for 
 death. I suppose if we have ever tried to carry out this 
 command, we have been met, as St. Peter was, by want of 
 success, disappointment, and failure; and the more earnest 
 our efforts have been, the more we have been disappointed, 
 and the more we have had to confess before God our utter 
 
246 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 weakness and insufficiency in ourselves. “ Master,” we say 
 “we have toiled all the night and caught nothing.” 
 
 Well, dear workers in this Temperance movement, let me 
 speak a word of encouragement. Do not despair because 
 there has been apparently a want of success. Jesus Christ 
 has been looking at you all through the night. His eye 
 has been upon you, and now, at the most unlikely time 
 —in the most unlikely place—He will give you the bless- 
 ing you have so long been seeking. Do not despair; let 
 us gather up the principles upon which we must work 
 successfully. First of all, Temperance work must be done 
 at the bidding of Christ. We welcome many other at- 
 tempts to win men to higher things. We look not with 
 jaundiced eye upon anything that tends to men’s material 
 improvement ; we rejoice at it. We are glad to find that 
 the dwellings of the poor will probably be bettered. We 
 - delight to know that education is spreading. We cannot 
 but rejoice in the uprising everywhere of coffee palaces, or 
 in the spread of the refining influences of music and art. 
 We rejoice at all this, but our principle is: At Thy bidding, 
 O Christ, we let down the net. We do not want merely 
 to reform man’s outward condition, but we want to con- 
 vert man to God. Temperance work is but an accessory, 
 so to speak. We aim at the man’s reformation really 
 through his conversion. Dear friends, it must be with the 
 word of Christ, the word which tells of His love, the love 
 of the loving Father, to every child, however wandering 
 he has been from Him. This must be our strength; this 
 our power,—at Thy word. We love this C.E.T.S. because — 
 it has dared to put in the forefront this truth—it is at : 
 
 | 
 | 
 
 the word and with the word of Christ alone that we can 
 succeed. Let us not merely remember that saying of St. 
 Peter, “At thy word,” but let us never forget the ‘‘ Never- — 
 theless” of Peter. Oh! we want that word in Temperance ~ 
 work more than in anything else—Nevertheless. We say 
 to those filled with despondency, or often dismay at the 
 magnitude of the evil—and when men go back again like ~ 
 the sow that is washed to her wallowing in the mire— 
 Nevertheless is our motto, in spite of it all we will not 
 yield. In spite of it all—at the word of Christ we will 
 persevere. “Nevertheless, at Thy word.” Though we | 
 have been disappointed, though we have been over and ~ 
 | 
 { 
 
LAUNCH INTO THE DEEP. 247 
 
 over again met with thanklessness where we anticipated 
 gratitude—nevertheless, Jesus Christ has taught us the 
 infinite preciousness of every soul, and so we will not 
 yield in the strife with evil. ‘“ Nevertheless, at Thy word, 
 we will let down the net.” First of all, those of you who 
 can help to do it, let down the net of restrictive legislation. 
 As Mr. Gladstone said, we want to make it easy for the 
 people to do right, and difficult for them to do wrong. 
 We want alteration of the law; and now as power has 
 descended to those who feel the need of aid in the strife, 
 doubt not that we shall be able to do something in the 
 way of prevention. Let down the net of rational amuse- 
 ment. We want to fill men’s lives with greater brightness 
 than they have known before. Much has been done, but 
 there is room for much more. Oh! ye who have the means 
 and the heart to do it, take this as your net and let it 
 down. Do something to relieve the lot of the poor. Do 
 something to do away with the infinite misery that God 
 never meant should exist. Do something to justify to 
 men your own possession of those gifts which God has 
 given you. Let down the net of total abstinence from 
 intoxicating drinks as beverages. This is the mission net 
 of this Society. It rescues the fish from the element of 
 death, and brings them into life. If you want to do 
 anything to rescue the drunkard, we believe it must be 
 on this line. Many other things you cando. We cheer- 
 fully accept every help. We do not wish to lay another 
 commandment to God’s ancient ten. We do not wish to 
 bind the conscience of any Christian man or woman, but 
 for the special work of reclaiming the drunkard we hold 
 that total abstinence is almost a necessity. I know what 
 it is with soldiers, and soldiers are men, and I feel that the 
 chaplain who goes to them, even with the general plat- 
 form of this Society, which we welcome and rejoice over, 
 nevertheless will have but little power, because men want 
 to know that you are bearing the cross; that you want to 
 put upon them that which you are willing to help them to 
 bear, that you are saying, “ Come with us, and we will do 
 thee good.” This is what they expect us tosay. Dear 
 friends, let us be sure of this, that in laying down this net 
 of total abstinence we are but doing that which Christ 
 would allow, for Christ would approve every means whereby 
 
248 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 we might save some. We do not want to discuss in this 
 place the different platforms of the Society. We acknow- 
 ledge the wise liberty it gives. We thank God that it has 
 raised this Temperance question to a higher level than it 
 ever reached before through its wisdom, but we do claim 
 the right, and we urge the privilege and the blessing of 
 total abstinence for those who wish to do missionary 
 work—the actual reclaiming work upon the drunkards— 
 the slaves of drink. And, again, I think this total abstill 
 nence net ought to be let down, especially in this day, to 
 bear a protest, simple though it be, against the abounding 
 luxury that meets us on every hand. Is it not true that ™ 
 men and women are living beyond their means—spending 
 upon their food, drink, and dress, that which they have no - 
 right to spend? And surely one protest may well take 
 the form of total abstinence ; abstaining, not because we - 
 believe it to be absolutely wrong, but because it is ex 
 pedient in the present distress to abstain from that upon 
 which so much money is so unwisely and wickedly ex- 
 pended? A protest—and who ought to bear it but we 
 Christians? Are we not to be a peculiar people? Has 
 not Christ called us to this? Ought we not in society to 
 bear the same protest? Ought we not, when we know of — 
 this abounding luxury which is ruining so many homes, by 
 the very simplicity of our lives to show men that we are 
 followers of Jesus Christ? Let down the net of restrictive 
 legislation, rational amusement, and better dwellings for 
 the people, and of total abstinence; and let them all 
 down in faith fora draught, expecting God to do some- 
 thing, and God will do something. Has He not done 
 much? Has He not answered the prayers of our fathers” 
 in this movement? Has He not, by their influence, 
 touched the whole mind and heart of the Church? Is it 
 not marvellous? And now it has come to us to help 
 and uphold their hands. Let us let down these nets for 
 a draught. 
 
 Let us be sure that success will attend our efforts if we 
 make them at His word, and if, in the spirit of that 
 “ Nevertheless,” we let down all the nets that He puts 
 into our hands. So, dear friends, we call you to renewed 
 efforts on behalf of this grand Society. It is the Church 
 of England herself in her aspect towards the misery that 
 
A NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS. 249 
 
 comes from drunkenness; it is the Church launching out 
 into the deep, not being contented with her glorious 
 services on the edification of her worshippers, but going 
 out like her Lord and Master to seek first, and then ts 
 save, those that were lost. Christian workers, men and 
 women, members of this grand Society, “ Ye are the light 
 of the world, ye are the salt of the earth, ye are workers of 
 God.” Let no discouragement damp or dull your faith, 
 or diminish your efforts. In spite of them all, go on at 
 the word of Christ, at the bidding of Christ. The result 
 is certain, for Jesus lives; only work on, work ever. Set 
 before you the immense value of any soul, and when you 
 have reclaimed it, know, realize, that by God’s grace you 
 have been able to do a noble work—a work that Christ 
 approves, and that Christ will reward. This Society, to do 
 this work, appeals to you for an income of 410,000 a year. 
 If London would give up its banquets for one night, how 
 easily this sum would be raised. I read an appeal from 
 this Society, in which it was said that more money was 
 spent every hour in the United Kingdom on drink than 
 this Society wants to do its blessed work ina year. Is it 
 not scandalous that in Christian England this should be 
 the case? That the work of launching out into the deep 
 should be stopped and hindered for want of a few pounds, 
 when every hour throughout the year that which it asks 
 for, and does not get by one half, is spent on useless drink, 
 and drink that could be done without ; and on luxuries for 
 which God will demand an account? Let us help it by 
 active work, by our simple lives, and by being more and 
 more a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Let us 
 help it by our alms, as God has given us the blessing, and 
 so let us give it to them that this reproach may be wiped 
 away—that the money spent in drink in one hour may not 
 ex.ced that which is given to this grand work of the 
 National Church, 
 
 XVI. A New Year’s Address. Sy THe Ven. Arcu- 
 DEACON Farrar, D.D., F.R.S, 
 
 THE reason I came here to-night is because the Secretary 
 told me I should meet a number of those engaged earnestly 
 and heartily in the work of Bands of Hope. Now several 
 
250 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
 
 ite 
 
 members of my own family are extremely earnest workers 
 in Bands of Hope in various parts of England. I therefore 
 know a good deal about the work, and the more so because 
 there are two flourishing Bands of Hope in my own parish 
 for different classes of the children of the poor. I know 
 also that the work is very self-sacrificing, often very monoto- 
 nous, and I fear that in many parishes it is a work carried 
 on not only gratuitously but without, at any rate, marked 
 sympathy from those who are the authorities in the parish. 
 If that be the case I can only say that in Christian work, 
 in the beneficent work of the Church, which is carried on 
 simply for its own sake, and because you feel it to be great 
 and useful, is exactly the most beautiful and precious kind 
 of work that you can do, because, obviously, it is work 
 undertaken largely out of love to God and a belief that 
 love to God is best shown by love to man. Therefore, that 
 being the case, I feel that I could not possibly spend a few 
 moments more usefully than in speaking to you a word of 
 encouragement, if, indeed, any word of mineis at all needed, 
 to inspirit you in what I feel to be a great and admirable 
 cause. If I were to ask you the reasons why so many of 
 you, no doubt engaged as you are in laborious occupations 
 of one kind and another, are willing to give up your 
 evenings and spend them among the children of the poor, 
 you would reply, first of all, that you feel in the very 
 strongest way the infinite value of the soul of every child 
 of man; and, secondly, that you feel the infinite perilous- 
 ness of the temptation to drink. Let me say one word 
 about each of those things. First, as to the infinite value 
 of every human soul, and, above all, the souls of children. 
 If I were to ask where it was that we learned that lesson, 
 you would, with one voice, truly say that we learned it from 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. If we look at the 
 history of other nations, and if we look at ancient times, 
 there was little or no respect for childhood and infancy. 
 You know that among the Greeks and Romans, though 
 they were the most polishec people the world has ever 
 seen, yet the custom of infanticide was frightful. Once 
 before the full Senate of Rome a noble Roman senator got 
 up and, addressing the four or five hundred senators present, 
 said :—“ You know very well that there is not one of you 
 who has not got rid of, who has not exposed, at some time 
 
 ee 
 
A NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS, 251 
 
 or other, one or more children whom you did not wish te 
 rear.” That simple fact will show you how cheaply the 
 lives of infants were valued even in a country so great, sa 
 polished, and so civilized as that. It is the same now in 
 heathen countries. I was very much struck once to read 
 what was said by the Count de Beaufort who travelled in 
 China with one of the Orleans Princes. In the course of a 
 single walk round the walls of Canton they had seen the 
 bodies of no fewer than seven deserted infants, and the 
 French Missionary (Roman Catholics) women constantly 
 come out in the morning witha basket, in order to rescue 
 the children they might find living to train them up in the 
 Catholic faith. Thus you see that it is not in heathenism 
 that the respect for children can be learned, but you know 
 that that was the very lesson which our Lord constantly 
 inculcated. When the Apostles were disputing for prece- 
 dence He took a little child and set him in the midst of 
 them, that from that little child they might learn the lesson 
 of humility. When they were disputing He chose a little 
 child to teach them the lessons of purity and innocence, 
 and said that unless they would receive the kingdom of 
 God as a little child they should in no wise enter therein. 
 You know also, how, when the mothers brought their 
 children to Christ and the disciples rebuked them, our Lord 
 was much displeased. He took them in His arms, laid His 
 hands upon them, and blessed them. In these days, be- 
 cause of that great lesson which Christ has taught us, a 
 child has become infinitely precious in the eyes of every 
 Christian man, and perhaps in those of many who have 
 not retained a strong hold on the Christian faith. The 
 lessons of Christian truth and Christian morality often last 
 long after there has been a loss of any real hold upon the 
 doctrines of the Christian faith, In the great French 
 Kevolution a celebrated prisoner, who was every mcment 
 expecting to be hurried off to the guillotine, wrote these 
 words :—“ Even at this incomprehensible moment, when 
 patriotism and morality and everything that is best and 
 greatest seems only to lead more certainly to the scaffold 
 or to the prison, yes, and even on the fatal tumbril, if I 
 were being taken on my road to the guillotine with nothing 
 free but my voice, I could still say ‘Take care’ to any 
 child who came too near the wheels. Who knows but 
 
252 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE., 
 
 what I might save his life, and who knows whether he 
 might not live to save his country.” That was the case of a 
 French philosopher whose hold upon the Christian faith 
 was, very probably, in those dark days, weakened ; but we 
 find among Christian people, even among the very lowest, 
 humblest, and poorest, the sanctity of the children is 
 infinitely respected. There are stories of modern warfare 
 where contending armies on the verge of battle have paused 
 until a little child, who happened to have strayed between 
 the lines, has got out of the way. There are stories of 
 disaster at sea where much heroism has been displayed to 
 save infant life, as read for example the case of the loss of 
 the Grosvenor, told by Charles Dickens. You can see in 
 all this how the lesson of Christ as to the sacredness of 
 every human soul, and of the sacredness of the charge 
 _ which a nation and all the good men of a nation ought to 
 take of its children, has been learned very widely among 
 all Christian men. I think I need say no more about the 
 preciousness of the lives, the characters, and the souls of the 
 immense number of children whom you have under your 
 charge in the Bands of Hope. Let me say a word about 
 the peril from which you are trying to save these children 
 —strong drink. I will tell you a sight that very much 
 affected me lately. On Christmas Day I happened to be 
 walking along the Embankment, and I saw a fine young 
 sailor lad of about seventeen, hopelessly intoxicated and 
 utterly unable to walk. He was supported on either side 
 by friends—possibly brothers—but he invariably sank 
 down and rolled in the mire of the street. The first 
 thought that struck me was the possible ruin of a human 
 soul; and the second was—-what a way to spend Christ- 
 mas Day. What must have been the feelings of the 
 publican who supplied that young man with drink? And 
 that was all that he could do—trained, no doubt, in a 
 Christian country, and in Christian ways—to express his 
 joy, or to join in the common joy we all feel at the birth 
 of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It reminded me at 
 once of those ghastly records that have now been published 
 for three consecutive years by the United Kingdom Alliance 
 of the events that take place in the United Kingdom 
 during the week from Christmas Day and the first week of 
 the new year. I am speaking to you the language of truth 
 
A NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS. 253 
 
 ro 
 
 and soberness when I say that I do not believe any country 
 in the world, or any epoch of history, could possibly furnish 
 so ghastly and terrible a record of every kind of human 
 crime and human misery as this. The record is for the 
 week of the year when we most celebrate our home gather- 
 ings, and when the hearts of most of us are filled with joy 
 and hope; and the week of the year when we ought to be 
 making our best resolutions for the conduct of another 
 year—these weeks are so filled with crime of all kinds that 
 it becomes almost impossible to feel that we are living ina 
 truly Christian land. I would stake the whole Temperance 
 cause simply upon that evidence, which has nothing 
 whatever to do with Temperance argument, but is simply 
 made up of cuttings from various newspapers published in 
 all parts of the United Kingdom. In that record you will 
 find a great number of cases of cruelty to children, and of 
 the deaths of children due to drink, making up a ghastly 
 and unparalleled total of human vice and misery solely 
 owing to this one cause. As I looked at the young sailor 
 T thought of the disgrace he had brought upon his uniform, 
 of the disgrace he had brought upon his religion and upon 
 his family, and, lastly, thought of the home to which he was 
 going. What a fearful thing it must have been for any 
 home of which that lad was the son. And then I thought 
 of the lad’s future. Possibly, a fine young fellow like that 
 might rise in his profession, and might become commander 
 of a ship, but what would be the safety of lives entrusted 
 to one like that? If ever you go round Westminster 
 Abbey and look at the tomb of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, whe 
 lived in the reign of Queen Anne, you will see a sculptured 
 imitation of a shipwreck. Many of you know that he was 
 returning home with his vessels from a very successful 
 voyage indeed, when in all the joy of conquest his fleet was 
 wrecked upon the Scilly Isles, and every soul on board 
 three of the vessels perished, including Sir Cloudesley 
 Shovel himself. History says that the reason of that loss 
 was that the greater part of the crews of these magnificent 
 vessels were in astate of brutal intoxication in the joy of 
 their coming home. Reason enough, therefore, why one 
 with the tastes of that sailor lad should not be entrusted 
 with precious lives and property. 
 
 After taking a gloomy outlook in regard to foreign 
 
254 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 
 
 matters, the speaker proceeded—I hope that none of us 
 may live to see the weakening of the great name, or dimi- 
 nution of the splendid heritage of England, but I must 
 remind you that not once or twice England has been in 
 danger far less from her foreign enemies than from her own 
 vices, and if there be one thing that will ever humiliate 
 England and drag her flag down in the dust it will be 
 exactly with her as it has been with nation after nation in 
 
 the long course of history, that her vices will be made the ~ 
 
 instrument to scourge her. 
 
 “Vain mightiest fleet of iron framed, 
 Vain those all-conquering guns, 
 Unless proud England keeps unstained 
 The true hearts of her sons.” 
 
 I do not think we should be guilty of anything short of 
 judicial blindness if we fail to recognise that in times of 
 war again and again England has been more seriously 
 endangered by the national vice of drunkenness of her 
 soldiers and sailors than she ever has been by the forces of 
 the enemy. I was reading only yesterday morning in the 
 life of Sir John Moore that in that famous retreat to 
 Corunna—which has been so magnificently described in 
 “The Burial of Sir John Moore ”—he was so horrified with 
 the drunken demoralized British troops, that he called them 
 all together and told them that he was absolutely ashamed 
 of them, and that rather than they should continue as they 
 were, he would prefer to die by the bullets of his own fol- 
 lowers. He said he regarded them as being a greater 
 disgrace and injury to the cause of their own country than 
 the enemy against whom he was fighting. Inthe Burmese 
 War the British were constantly surprised. Not a single 
 regiment could be brought into action because the soldiers 
 had been indulging in drink. There was one exception—a 
 man who had a total abstinence regiment. That man was 
 one of the best, one of the greatest, one of the bravest, and 
 certainly one of the holiest whom England has had the 
 honour of producing—that man was Sir Henry Havelock, 
 The General in that extremity of danger made this remark- 
 able speech—‘ Call Havelock, his men are never drunk 
 and he is always ready.” I dare say you remember a still 
 more emphatic and striking warning than that, when the 
 
A NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS. 255 
 
 whole Empire of India trembled in the balance, and that 
 was in the great Indian Mutiny, when, after infinite diffi- 
 culty, and courage, and fighting battle after battle, out 
 army had at last advanced to Delhi and taken the out- 
 posts; then the Sepoys, having left all the drink which we 
 ourselves had imported into India, knowing what the temp- 
 tation of the English soldier is—the English under the very 
 guns of the enemy, when they had only partially conquered 
 that stronghold of the mutiny, rushed upon the liquor 
 stores, broke open every possible place where there was 
 gin, rum, brandy, beer, or ale; and the next day, with the 
 whole cloud of the Sepoy army hanging around the environ- 
 ments of the town, with its fortress actually frowning upon 
 them, the whole of the British army were in a state of such 
 disgraceful intoxication—Sir John Kaye tells the story, 
 and there is the testimony of those who were there—that 
 not a single stroke could be made and not a single step 
 undertaken on the second day after the British army had 
 reached Delhi. The historian says, that if ever there was a 
 time when it seemed likely that we should lose entirely the 
 whole results of every conquest which had taken place 
 since Clive, more than 100 years before, won the battle of 
 Plessy, that was the day, and the cause was the national 
 vice of the British soldier. If these warnings of history are 
 no warnings to us then we are either very blind or not 
 patriots. If, therefore, at this hour I still feel hope in the 
 name and in the destinies of England, it is because I feel 
 that although this terrible vice is the danger of our armies, 
 there is at any rate a vast band of persons engaged heartily 
 in the endeavour to put it down. We may not conquer it, 
 but our efforts do tend to repress it, and since every great 
 movement must, in the long run, win the victory, I do not 
 despair of ultimately keeping down (especially through the 
 agency which you yourselves put in force) this deadly vice. 
 The work in which you are engaged is both beneficent and 
 Christian. The peril of drink which hangs over hundreds 
 and thousands of children is more frightful than death in 
 any form, and you are to the best of your power endeavour- 
 ing to save them from this overwhelming danger and 
 temptation. All I can say is that you could not possibly 
 be engaged in a more sacred or blessed work, and that 
 every one of you, in proportion as you carry on the work 
 
256 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 in the same spirit of self-sacrifice and singleness of heart — 
 you have hitherto shown, will hear one day from the lips of 
 your Saviour, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
 the least of these ye have done it unto Me.” 
 
 V. MISCELLANEOUS SECTION. 
 
 I. Anent “Taking the Chair.” Sy Rev. J. Hunt 
 CooKE. 
 
 THE chairmanship of a public meeting sometimes involves 
 grave responsibility. In the majority of cases it is merely 
 a position of honour, but at times it may require much 
 skill, and an important meeting may fail for want of 
 efficient conduct. Every gentleman who is likely ever to 
 be called to such a position ought to make himself ac- 
 quainted with those precedents and practices which have 
 such general acceptance that, if attended to, they will pre- 
 serve order and give fair opportunity to all who desire to 
 speak. On this question there is no written law, but a 
 recognised method of procedure to which it is well to 
 adhere. 
 
 The chairman should be assured first of all that he has 
 the confidence of the meeting. If he has been advertised 
 to preside, that is sufficient. If not, he should be elected 
 by a show of hands from those present ere he accept the 
 post. He should determine to act with strict impartiality, 
 and resolve that every one who has a right to speak or 
 vote should have that right unimpeded. And, further, 
 that no ore else shall take part except by the clearly 
 expressed wish of the meeting. He should see that the 
 secretary, or some other qualified person, sits at his right 
 hand for reference on any subject peculiar to the society 
 in whose interest the meeting is held. 
 
 His first duty is to open the meeting. This should be 
 by a brief statement of the object, made either by himself 
 or some other person appointed todoso. He then calls 
 
ANENT “TAKING THE CHAIR* 257 
 
 on the secretary to read minutes, or any communications he 
 may have. Ifthe meeting be of a religious character, these 
 should be preceded by a short act of worship—at the least 
 a prayer for Divine guidance. It is well tohave an agenda 
 paper previously prepared, containing a list of proceedings. 
 This should be rigidly adhered to, and the business taken 
 in the order laid down, unless any unforeseen circumstances 
 render a departure desirable. As a rule, the less a chair- 
 man says, the better. There may be occasions on which it 
 is his duty to put life and energy into the proceedings ; 
 but in a business meeting it shows wisdom to keep to the 
 routine, and rarely to express an opinion on the topics 
 discussed. 
 
 When any one rises to propose a resolution, the chairman 
 should demand a copy in writing; he may, however, 
 consent for some one present to prepare it whilst the pro- 
 poser is addressing the meeting. The resolution must 
 then be seconded, or it comes to nought. But any one 
 present may second it formally by merely bowing to the 
 chairman, and reserve his right to speak and to vote against 
 it if he please. After a resolution has been proposed and 
 seconded, the chairman should read it to the meeting, and 
 must allow free speech to all who desire to speak on the 
 subject, for or against. He may check, and even stop, any 
 speaker who does not confine his remarks to the matter of 
 the resolution, although on this considerable latitude has to 
 be allowed if no objection be raised. No one may speak 
 twice on the same resolution, except the proposer, who has 
 the right of reply. After his reply the debate is at an end, 
 and the vote must be taken. The chairman decides as to 
 the result, but must not object to his decision being chal- 
 lenged, when tellers should be appointed—one or more 
 from each side—and the vote taken a second time. 
 
 At any time during the debate, before the proposer’s 
 reply, an amendment may be proposed ; this, too, needs a 
 seconder, and may then be discussed, and those who have 
 spoken to the original motion may speak on the subject of 
 the amendment. The proposer of an amendment has a 
 right of reply. Then the chairman reads the amendment, 
 and takes a vote for or against. But this vote is simply to 
 the effect that the resolution be thus amended ; the amend- 
 ment has to be put again, for and against, as a substantive 
 
 Ss 
 
258 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 resolution. This is frequently neglected, but ought not te 
 be, for, strictly speaking, the acceptance of an amendment 
 only alters, but does not pass the resolution. 
 
 After the amendment is settled, before the resolution 
 (amended or not) is put to the vote, another amendment 
 may be proposed, seconded, and proceeded with in a 
 similar way. But no amendment can be admitted that 
 will alter any amendment that has been previously carried. 
 It is not even considered proper to admit an amendment 
 affecting the former part of the wording of the original 
 resolution, if one affecting any of the latter clauses has been 
 previously considered. 
 
 Two amendments cannot be before the meeting at the 
 same time. A chairman should insist on this. If any one 
 present wishes to alter an amendment, he can only do it by 
 ‘advising the meeting to reject the one before it, and under- 
 taking after its rejection to introduce the amended form in 
 the regular way. 
 
 But, if no objection be raised, the chairman may some- 
 
 times simplify business by permitting the proposer of a ~ 
 
 resolution or amendment (with the consent of the seconder) 
 
 to alter its wording, to meet some difficulties or desires ~ 
 
 expressed during the debate; but this ought not to be 
 done if any one object. Although not quite regular, it is 
 frequently found to secure the unanimity desired. 
 
 At any time during the meeting, even whilst some one ~ 
 
 is speaking, any one may stop the proceedings by “rising 
 
 to order.” This sometimes tries a chairman. He must at | 
 once insist on the supposed disorder being stated as briefly — 
 
 as possible. If need be, he should appeal at once to the 
 
 secretary, if the question refer to any rule of the society, © 
 and then announce his decision, and proceed in accordance ~ 
 with it. If any one object, the aggrieved person should © 
 only be allowed to hand in his objection in writing, to be © 
 afterwards considered, when, if correct, it renders the sub- © 
 sequent proceedings null and void. This is just the case — 
 
 in which good chairmanship is important, and he who 
 
 undertakes the office ought to be prepared with prompt — 
 
 and definite action for the emergency. 
 
 A debate may be stopped at the close of any speaker's © 
 
 address, by one of the three following proposals :—1st, 
 That we now adjourn the meeting. 2nd, That the vote be 
 
ANENT “TAKING THE CHAIR»? 259 
 
 now taken. 3rd, That we now pass on to the next 
 business. But no one of these may be moved by any one- 
 who has previously spoken to the question before the 
 meeting, but when raised any one may speak upon it. 
 
 If the first, “That we now adjourn,” be carried, that 
 brings the meeting toaclose. If the second, “ That the 
 vote be now taken,” be carried, that brings the discussion 
 to a close, and the proposer of the resolution should be 
 called upon to reply, and the vote be then taken. This is 
 a very undesirable way of terminating a discussion, but 
 under certain circumstances it may be found necessary. 
 The object of introducing the third, “That we now pass 
 on to the next business,” is to avoid coming to any decision 
 on the question. This is a far better way of leaving the 
 matter undecided than by what is called “the previous 
 question.” 
 
 There is a method of superseding a question before the 
 House of Commons, which is called “meving the previous 
 question.” It is found useful there because well under- 
 stood. The resolution really is, “That the question be now 
 put,” and the object sought is the reverse, being that the 
 questions be zo¢ now put; but the rules of the House do 
 not permit a negative resolution, therefore the proposer 
 votes against his own resolution. It cannot be introduced 
 when there is an amendment before the House, and it does 
 not stop the debate on the main question. The fact is, 
 that it is not generally understood, and frequently when 
 introduced leads toa discussion as to its meaning. So 
 that a chairman would show wisdom by objecting to its 
 introduction, and requesting the proposer to state his pro- 
 position in terms all can understand, such as “ That we 
 at once pass on to the next business, and leave the con- 
 sideration and decision of the question now before us to 
 some future time.” 
 
 It is an open question whether a chairman has both a 
 vote and a casting vote. In some Parliamentary proce- 
 dures he has, and in others he has not. Asai rule, it is 
 more dignified for a chairman to remain neutral, and if his 
 casting vote is needed, to give it in that way that will bring 
 the lesser change, which will generally be against the 1eso- 
 lution. 
 
 If two persons rise together to address the meeting, the 
 
260 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS, 
 
 —— 
 
 chairman should select the one he noticed first, and should © 
 not allow his decision to be questioned. Decision and 
 impartiality are the two pillars of a chairman’s strength. 
 Whatever his private opinions and feelings may be, the 
 rule has been placed in his hands, and he deserves double — 
 honour if he rule firmly and well. There is a time to 
 be humble and submissive, and a time to be regal and 
 authoritative. 
 
 II. A Parable. Sy Rev. SAMUEL VINCENT. 
 
 THERE was once a man, no matter when and no matter © 
 where, who was neither well nor ill, but out of sorts, as we © 
 say. He came of a healthy stock, lived in bracing air and © 
 on wholesome food, but appetite, vigour, and cheerfulness © 
 were all gone. He was not suffering from consumption, © 
 fever, gout, paralysis, or epilepsy ; there was no organic or ~ 
 acute disease, but he had fallen into a low, melancholy, ~ 
 lifeless condition, and in body and mind was a man “in — 
 doleful dumps.” He pitied himself, of course; felt his — 
 pulse, looked at his tongue in the glass, and complained to 
 his neighbours, who gave him advice enough to fill a book, © 
 But none of them seemed to understand his case. . 
 
 One night he “dreamed a dream which was not all a_ 
 dream.” He heard all the principal members of his body 
 talking together on the low state of the general health. - 
 He was not at all surprised at this conference, for the most — 
 wonderful things seem natural in dreams. They were all” 
 complaining with one consent that there was “no life”; 
 and each shook his head, so to speak, as if toimply, “If all 
 were like me, what life would there be!” Then they began © 
 to boast, as people do who are conscious of deserving blame; © 
 and the Feet began it, the lowest members of “all first. 
 They said :—“What a weight we have to bear up under all © 
 the day long! and what with walking and running as fast © 
 and as far as the Body wishes, with all the other members. ; 
 pressing down upon us from above, and the rough dusty © 
 roads pressing up against us from below, we are a “constant _ 
 wonder to ourselves.” i 
 
 And the Hands said :—*We have to do all the hard , 
 work of the world; and then the care of the Body, too, ~ 
 
A PARABLE. 261 
 
 comes chiefly upon us, for the face can’t be washed nor the 
 mouth supplied without our aid, and what more can we 
 do?” 
 
 And the Brain said:—“I am out of sight, and I keep 
 silent, but what a General is to his army, or a King to his 
 kingdom, ¢iat am I to the Body. I sit scheming and 
 planning all day long, and often far into the night, and ali 
 for the general good.” 
 
 “You are very much like me,” the Stomach said to the 
 Brain, “unseen, studying the good of all; you give guid- 
 ance, and I give food; you are the General, and I the 
 Commissary, and as the Eye and Ear bring you stores of 
 information, so Hand and Mouth bring me my stores of 
 food. Yes, you and I play a large part in making the 
 Body what it is.” 
 
 And the Lungs said :—*“ We never think of taking rest 
 by day or night, but every moment and every movement 
 we use to draw the freshness and brightness of the air of 
 heaven into the blood.” 
 
 And the Eye said :—“If it were not for us what would 
 the Body know of stars or sunny fields or friendly faces? 
 We are like watchmen on a tower, or like lamps that ‘ give 
 light to all that are in the house’; and always we are 
 looking out on every side for whatever may prove an 
 advantage or pleasure for the other members of the Body.” 
 
 And the Ears said :—“ We are always listening day and 
 night, and when the Eyes are shut in sleep, we are open, 
 and stand like sentinels to guard the slumbering members 
 that need rest, and rouse them at the first sound of 
 _ danger.” 
 
 And the Tongue, who talked more than all the rest of 
 the members put together, and mistook himself for an 
 orator, rattled on at a great rate of the service he did in 
 giving expression to all the complaints of all the members, 
 and, indeed, in acting as their spokesman whenever they 
 wanted to communicate their wishes to the outside world, 
 and he boasted that his devotion to their interests was so 
 great that he was “ never still.” 
 
 And yet all these boasting members agreed as one in 
 saying, “ There is something = wrong with this Body.” 
 
 Then the Heart spoke :—and the voice was like rich 
 music, for the voice of the Heart is the voice of love and 
 
262 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 and loved to hear it, too. “I have been thinking,” the 
 
 Heart said, “for I have thoughts like the Brain, but — 
 humbler thoughts than his”—“ No, no,” the Brain said, 
 “your thoughts are clearer than mine, and have more of 
 heaven in them. I often have to come to you to help me © 
 out of my difficulties.” Then the Heart thanked the Brain — 
 and said, “I know that God is love, and that God is light, © 
 and that He has made me the seat of love, and so my — 
 thoughts may shine with heavenly light, but if they do, 
 
 truth ; and all the members could hear this central voice, 
 
 they come from Him; they are not mine, and I should be — 
 grieved to seem to boast of them as though I had not — 
 received them.” Already, even in this moment, a won- — 
 derful change had passed over the spirit of the various — 
 members ; the disposition to boast had vanished quite — 
 away, and they seemed half ashamed—but the Heart © 
 went on:—“I was thinking, that the whole Body is 
 nothing else but the union of us members. The Body is 
 nothing without us. If the Body is wrong, we must be 
 wrong. Now, simply from my central place, 1 am in a 
 good position to observe where the blame lies, and I will 
 tell you the conclusion that I have come to, with sorrow.” 
 
 Then all the members were silent; even the Lungs 
 stopped after a deep sigh, while the Heart beat stroke after 
 stroke without speaking. At length he said:—“I don’t 
 think I have been beating quite heartily enough.” 
 
 “Oh yes, you have,” the members all said in chorus; 
 “Oh yes, you have—the fault has not been with you.” 
 
 And the Heart replied :—“ It is very kind of you to say 
 so, but I know that a feeble Heart spreads languor and 
 listlessness through all the frame; if I have been sluggish 
 in the past, forgive me, and trust me that in the future I 
 will beat my very best.” 
 
 Then a confessing mood fell upon all the members. 
 
 The Feet said :—“ We might have moved more briskly 
 many a time, and when the Body needed exercise, we 
 were reluctant, but now that we see that the Body is 
 nothing but the living union of the various members, and 
 how much depends on even the least and lowest of them, 
 you shall walk on willing Feet.” 
 
 And the Hands said :—“ Whatever we find to do shall 
 be done henceforth with all our might ; you shall have ne 
 
A PARABLE, 263 
 
 grudging work from us, you shall never complain of folded 
 Hands, or of ‘Hands that hang down’ when there is 
 anything to do for the general good.” 
 
 And the Brain said :—“ On reflection, I can see that I 
 did not keep myself to profitable thoughts, but indulged in 
 day dreams like an idle apprentice; and yet I compared 
 myself toa General and a King! How could the Body 
 profit under my care? I was too proud to think true, 
 quiet thoughts of daily duties, and to marshal the willing 
 members to useful work; but I see at last that, if I am 
 above all, ’tis that I may serve all. Forgive me for the 
 
 ast.” 
 
 : And the Stomach said :—“ Hereafter I'll do my very 
 best to tackle any tough morsel that may come, and not 
 turn up queer at every little thing that hardly suits me, 
 and upset the whole Body. I fear that the ‘often 
 infirmities’ of the Body have been largely due to my 
 ’ careless work, but from this hour I will endeavour to send 
 timely supplies of wholesome nutriment to every member, 
 and I will not be puffed up with my stewardship any 
 more.” 
 
 And the Lungs said :—“ We have been too much given 
 to sighing, and that is depressing; but we'll take deeper 
 draughts of the pure air, and send brighter blood to the 
 Brain, and purer, fuller floods of. life to the languid 
 members, and spend no more breath in sighs.” 
 
 And the Eyes said :—“We see clearly now that we 
 ought to look longest at cheerful sights, and so bear 
 cheerier impressions of outward things to the Brain. We 
 never saw it so before, but the melancholy and gloom of 
 the mind may have been produced or prolonged by us, but 
 you shall never find us from this time gazing at sad sights, 
 and only glancing at the gay and happy ones; we have 
 looked down to the earth too much, and up to the heavens 
 too little; we have forgotten too long a pleasant saying 
 that the Ears once reported to me, that ‘ Daysprings are 
 from on high.’” 
 
 And the Ears said :—‘ We have often listened more 
 willingly to slander and blame than to commendation and 
 praise ; to what was base and bad in men, rather than to 
 what was noble and good ; and this we see would make the 
 mind morbid and sour, and ¢ka¢ the Body, as vinegar will 
 
264 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 sour the cask. Hereafter we will give the preference to 
 things pure and good.” 
 
 And the Tongue confessed :—“‘I have forgotten that 
 there is ‘a time to be silent, and I have often spoken so 
 unadvisedly as to ‘set on fire the whole course of nature,’ 
 and more frequently still I have grumbled at small 
 grievances when I ought to have been singing of great 
 mercies. But I pray that hereafter 1 may never cease to 
 interpret this ancient saying to all the members, ‘ A whole- 
 some Tongue is a tree of life.’” 
 
 So the members resolved that night, without an hour’s 
 delay, to co-operate unanimously for the general welfare, 
 and this they agreed could only be done by each member 
 doing quietly, thoroughly, cheerfully, and constantly the 
 work that God had fitted him for. 
 
 Just before the conference of the members of the Body 
 broke up, the Brain said that one of his faculties, Memory, 
 had suggested to him a fragment of quotation from an old 
 Book held in the highest reverence amongst men ; and that 
 if the Tongue would aid Memory, this quotation might 
 fitly conclude their conversation; and so these words 
 were heard :—“ The Body is not one member, but many.— 
 And the Eye cannot say unto the Hand, ‘I have no need 
 of thee’; nor again the Head tothe Feet, ‘I have no need 
 of you.’ Nay, much more those members of the Body 
 which seem to be more feeble, are necessary.—That there 
 should be no schism in the Body; but that the members 
 should have the same care one for another. And whether 
 one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or 
 one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with 
 it, 
 
 Instead of applause, there was silence, for each member 
 was thinking of the peculiar honour and usefulness of Zzs 
 own work, and yet how utterly useless z# would be alone, 
 without the work of many co-operating brethren. And 
 each was heartily content to be a useful part of an har- 
 monious whole. 
 
 In that silence, the man himself fell into a deep, dream- 
 less sleep. 
 
 When he awoke in the morning, he had forgotten what 
 he had heard upon his bed at night, but he was conscious 
 of unusual vivacity and cheerfulness ; his brain was active, 
 
 So 
 
 ee 
 
WE KNEW THAT BEFORE. 265 
 
 and his walk was brisk. There was no melancholy, nor 
 dyspepsia, nor sluggishness—the man was all alive. 
 
 To friends who inquired for his health, he replied that 
 he felt altogether a brand-new man ; but could not in any 
 way account for the change. Nor did he ever unriddle the 
 happy mystery, till one day the recollection of his dream 
 gave him the missing clue. 
 
 But the several members of the Body, as they compared 
 notes that night on the doings of the day, said, with the 
 heartiest satisfaction they had experienced for many a 
 long year, “ We can account for the change, if 4e cannot ; 
 we are now working happily, and harmoniously, and 
 helpfully together, each doing well his part.” And all 
 agreed that from this simple cause, a happy and surprising 
 change had come to pass, both for the whole Body and for 
 each several member. 
 
 Let each member of our Churches consider this matter 
 well. And may we al/“grow upinto Him in all things 
 which is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole 
 Body fitly joined together and compacted by that which 
 every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in 
 the measure of every part, maketh increase of the Body 
 unto the edifying of itself in love.” 
 
 III. We Knew that Before. Jy the Rev. James 
 ComPER GRAY. 
 
 ONCE upon a time,—so we read in most veritable bird- 
 history,—the feathered tribes sent a deputation to their 
 exalted neighbour, the magpie, humbly requesting his 
 highness to give them a few lessons in the art and science 
 of building. Having just dined most luxuriously, and 
 being, therefore, in an excellent humour ; feeling, moreover, 
 a little proud of the attention shown him,—for to whose 
 stature does not a humble deputation add at least a cubit ? 
 —Sir Pie replied, that he would be only too glad to place 
 his gifts, in the architectural line, at the service of his 
 friends, whose homeless condition he had often deplored. 
 The annals of the woodlands state that the hour at length 
 arrived when representatives from all the tribes assembled 
 at the trysting tree to take their first lesson. “ First,” said 
 
266 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 the noble teacher, “ you must take two sticks—thus; and — 
 lay one across the other—so: and then ,” but before 
 he could proceed, a blackbird on a neighbouring bough 
 twittered out— We knew that before.” With a look that 
 cought to have annihilated his sable brother, Sir Pie con- 
 tinued,—“ And then you must be prepared with fibres and 
 moss wherewith to bind the sticks together and to the — 
 bough on which you have placed them,—in this way.” 
 Hereupon there was a vast chirruping all round. The 
 birds wagged their tails, and nodded their heads know- — 
 ingly to each other, and said, “ We knew that before.” As 
 soon as silence was restored, the august teacher continued — 
 but only to be assured at every step that all he showed 
 them was known before. Rendered at last indignant by 
 these repeated interruptions, the honourable baronet 
 angrily exclaimed—*“ Why, then, if you knew it all before, 
 did you send for me?” Hereupon he took his departure 
 in a great dudgeon, advising them, as he went, to finish 
 the house which he had only half built. This they were ~ 
 unable to do, “and that,” says the chronicler, “is the 
 reason why, to this day, Sir Pie lives in a ceiled house, 
 while all his neighbours’ dwellings are open to the sky. 
 They were so proud of what they thought they knew, that 
 they had not patience to wait for the explanation of things 
 they did not quite understand.” 
 
 Now, all good stories of the old-fashioned order finish 
 with a moral. And if, in this case, the moral is longer — 
 than the story, the fault is his who recorded the history. 
 What right had he to write a parable so pregnant with in- 
 struction and practical uses? He should have considered 
 his readers, and made it less suggestive. Our moral is 
 this. We are building for eternity, and are anxious to 
 build well. We know a little of our craft as builders, but 
 we do not know all. We have, so we think, begun in the 
 right way, and on the right foundation, and are anxious 
 to continue right, and bring the topstone on with shouting. 
 To make sure work, as we proceed during this new year, 
 we propose to call to our aid the wisdom and experience 
 of master builders. We want their advice as to the site 
 we should choose, the materials we should select, and the 
 best method of combining them. We want our edifice to 
 be, when finished, one harmonious whole, such as we can 
 
WE KNEW THAT BEFORE. 267 
 
 contemplate with satisfaction. Entering on this new year, 
 we will not, therefore, despise the things we knew before ; 
 but use them as so much vantage ground for the future. 
 That is how the world has advanced in knowledge and 
 civilization. Each to-day has used the knowledge of yester- 
 day as the standing-points for to-morrow’s achievements. 
 If the world were to despise things known before it would 
 each day begin de novo, and make no progress. Christian 
 men, and Sunday-school teachers, too, may apply the 
 lesson. Calling to our aid these master builders, as we 
 enter this new year, they may see the wisdom of reminding 
 us of well-known facts and acknowledged principles. It is 
 not for us to cry out, “We knew all that before,” but 
 rather to note the process, while observing their instruc- 
 tions, by which things already known are to help us for- 
 ward to the acquisition of unknown information, and the 
 performance of hitherto unattempted works. The mathe- 
 matical student, while pushing his investigations into the 
 mysteries of numbers, constantly refreshes his memory of 
 the elementary rules. The more frequently he does this, the 
 more unerring is their application, and the more faultless 
 his reasoning. The same rule applies to religious study 
 and teaching. To advance ourselves, and to take others 
 with us, first principles must be ever remembered, fre- 
 quently applied, and often enforced, and illustrated by 
 well-known facts. Recapitulation is the secret of success- 
 ful study. Now we are very anxious that to all Sunday- 
 school friends this year should be an eminently successful 
 one. Therefore, we say, take all the good of the past with 
 you; use it, and keep on adding to the store and in 
 harmony with it, that the finished structure may be homo- 
 geneous. Some time ago we saw a mansion of quite palatial 
 dimensions, but of most grotesque appearance. In some 
 remote age it had been commenced by some one whose 
 means were limited, or who did not live to complete it. 
 The next heir, rejecting the previous design—as who 
 should say, “I knew ail that before”—commenced at one 
 end of the original edifice with a new and more elaborate 
 idea of his own. He was followed by another, and yet 
 another, each regardless of the past, each ambitious for the 
 future. We presume the mansion may now be regarded 
 as finished. But what a strange conglomeration of material 
 
268 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 and style : brick, stone, marble, Gothic, Tudor, Corinthian ; 
 certainly composite in every respect! The whole stands a 
 stupendous monument to the folly of successive builders, 
 who slighted “things known before.” 
 
 IV. Good Listening. 
 
 MUCH is said now-a-days about the art of preaching, and 
 very little of the art of listening. It is often assumed that 
 good preaching will command good listening; but if good 
 preaching is that which converts sinners and builds up 
 Christians, there must, be something more than mere pas- 
 sivity on the part of the hearer. Moral good cannot be 
 poured into a man like water into a barrel. 
 
 Good listening requires attention 5 and to attend to any- — 
 thing means to hold one’s self to it, and to abstain from — 
 doing other things. Don’t count the rafters, nor the © 
 
 arches, nor the pillars in the chapel. If you remember 
 the number of rafters, you will be pretty sure to forget the 
 
 sermon. Never mind the embellishments on the walls or © 
 
 in the windows. The inscriptions can be read at any time, 
 the sermon can only be heard now. Buy a hymn-book 
 and read it at home; don’t open it in chapel except when 
 the hymn is given out, and then be sure and keep the 
 
 place. It is amazing how many hymns some people read © 
 
 during sermon-time. A thorough inspection of your 
 neighbours’ bonnet, cloak, dress, overcoat, and the parting 
 of their back-hair must be deferred until another time. In 
 
 short, don’t allow your eyes or your thoughts to be — 
 
 “wandering, like the fool’s, to the ends of the earth.” 
 Remember you are in God’s house, where inattention fs 
 irreverence, and irreverence is sin. 
 
 Besides these things which are to be left undone, there © 
 
 are certain things which ought to be done. Bear in mind 
 that you are to be benefited by what you hear, and under 
 
 stand, and remember. You are to be benefited, not the © 
 
 preacher, nor your neighbour principally, but yourself. 
 The effect of good listening upon the preacher is simply 
 
 incalculable—in fact, it is one of the prime factors of good — 
 
 preaching. Some one has said that three things are neces- 
 
 sary for a great speech—a great theme, a great occasion, ~ 
 
 and a great man. A preacher always has a great theme, 
 
 eS 
 
 a ee 
 
WE KNEW THAT BEFORE. 269 
 
 but a great occasion can only grow out of the mental and 
 moral attitude of his audience. No man can do his best, 
 preaching in an empty house ; and the effect of indifferent 
 listeners is often even more depressing than empty benches. 
 No one who is accustomed to teach a Sunday-school class 
 has failed to note the painful and almost paralysing in- 
 fluence of listless and inattentive scholars. We demand 
 that the preacher shall declare the truth with earnestness, 
 with tenderness, with affection; but how can a man be 
 earnest, or tender, or affectionate, towards people, many of 
 whom are as insensible to what he is saying as blocks of 
 wood? We have known speakers who have declared that 
 they were obliged to select men, here and there in the 
 audience, who gave attention, and preach to them, in 
 order to feel that they were preaching to living beings, 
 and thus avoid the depressing influence of an inattentive 
 audience. 
 
 Nor is it in the pulpit alone that good listening helps to 
 make good preaching. Say what we will about inward 
 motives which should prompt the minister to make care- 
 ful preparation, if he feels that he is preparing to say what 
 few care to hear, he will lack that vital inspiration which 
 the knowledge of another’s want can alone supply. Open 
 opposition arouses, indifference shrivels his powers. Even 
 God does not teach His most precious truths, nor impart 
 His choicest blessings, save to those who seek them; and 
 the man who continually preaches to inattentive hearers 
 either becomes hardened to it, and does his duty per- 
 functorily, or he wears himself out with anxiety and self- 
 accusation. 
 
 V. Our Unseen Allies. Zy Rev. R. H. Howarp. 
 
 A GOOD story is told of a certain English officer who, 
 during Wellington’s campaign in Spain, with a mere frag- 
 ment of his original, but now sadly decimated -command, 
 was ordered at a given signal, during the progress of an 
 important and decisive engagement, to attack a certain 
 French battery that with terrific effect was pouring shot 
 and shell into the ranks of the English. At the appointed 
 moment, with the most desperate valour, the English officer 
 
270 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS, 
 
 at the head of his slender column flung himself on the 
 seemingly impregnable position of the enemy. He antici- 
 pated nothing but to be cut utterly to pieces. He felt 
 confident that he was leading a forlorn hope. 
 
 “His but to do and die.” 
 
 What, therefore, was his surprise, not to say amazement, as 
 he neared the battery, but just now flaming and thundering 
 in a manner most formidable and appalling, to find it silent 
 and deserted. How was this? Though he had not been 
 advertised of the fact, yet the prudent, far-seeing com- 
 mander had taken care to order several other companies 
 from as many different points to charge the same position 
 at the same moment with the one afore-mentioned. The 
 result was, the stronghold was carried almost before the 
 valiant soldier, who had showed himself so ready to lay 
 down his life for his country, had had an opportnuity to 
 strike a blow; and all because those who were for him 
 were so much more numerous, as well as invincible, than 
 he had himself had any conception of. His unseen allies 
 greatly outnumbered the members of his own command, 
 and actually fought his battle for him. 
 
 Thus let the believer always bear in mind that, however 
 dificult or perilous the task or duty assigned him, and 
 however seemingly inadequate his own means or resources 
 for its accomplishment, he has yet no occasion on that 
 account for despondency or despair. There are always 
 more, in every crisis whatever, to sympathize with and to 
 help him than he dreams of. His unseen allies, as in the 
 case of the gallant captain above referred to, vastly out- 
 number his own visible forces. The very stars in their 
 courses fight for him, and hence of course, against his 
 enemies. All the activities of nature and providence con- 
 spire to give effect to his deeds. The mightiest angels in 
 heaven, we are assured, are enlisted under his banner— 
 encamp nightly round about, and deliver him. We believe 
 that the old Revolutionary patriot uttered no less truth 
 than sentiment when in a moment of inspiration he cried: 
 “ Besides, sir, we shall not be left to fight our battles alone. 
 There is a just God in heaven who, if we do our duty, will 
 fight our battles for us.” 
 
 ——— a 
 
CONSISTENCY. 271 
 
 VI. Consistency. 
 
 CONSISTENCY is a jewel. There is a good story told 
 which has passed from mouth to mouth until it has become 
 public property, of a clerical meeting not a hundred miles 
 from New York. A certain temperance movement was 
 under discussion, and it was Brother A.’s turn, and he said: 
 “These brethren mean well in their imposing of total 
 abstinence upon us under penalty of not being regarded as 
 Christians ; but the fact is I do not believe in their cause 
 nor their principles. I very much doubt, in fact, if the 
 practice of total abstinence is a duty for us. That is all I 
 have to say.” Then it was Dr. B.’s turn, who began, 
 solemnly and slowly: “I am profoundly grieved to hear 
 the brother express himself so. I believe the practice of 
 total abstinence would be of advantage for the world, for 
 the Church, and I may say for the brother himself. I have 
 made total abstinence my practice for forty years, and—” 
 Here Dr. C. broke in: “Why, Dr. B., you don’t mean to 
 say that you do not drink a glass of wine at awedding? I 
 have seen you do it myself.” ‘ Well—hem! hem !—I have 
 sometimes made an exception of a wedding.” “ But, Dr. 
 B., do you mean to say that you do not now and then 
 take a sip of cognac? You certainly do.” “Ah! well— 
 hem! hem!—perhaps I do occasionally—hem! hem !— 
 when I think—hem! hem!—it would do me good. But, 
 as I was saying, for forty years total abstinence has been 
 my practice, gexerally!” It was another Dr. C., who 
 knew how to use the English language vigorously and who 
 was once reading a very strenuous paper on total abstinence 
 before the same clerical club—so the story goes—when the 
 entertainer went out to tell his wife how many she was to 
 provide for at supper. ‘“ What are they doing ?” she asked, 
 and was told the subject of the essay. “ What shall I do?” 
 she cried, “Here I have brandied peaches, and it is too 
 late to change.” “Make no change,” said her husband. 
 “Tt will be all right.” The essayist had the post of honour 
 at the right of the lady of the house, and she presented 
 him with a dish of the peaches. After a while she said to 
 him: “ Dr. C., won't you allow me to give you some more 
 of these peaches?” “Thank you,” he replied. “They 
 are very excellent.” A little later she said : “Dr. C., may I 
 
272 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 — 
 
 not give you another peach?” “No, I thank you,” said he, 
 apologetically, “but I will take a little more of the gravy.” 
 How different the story of President Fairchild, of Oberlin, 
 who was about to visit Europe, and a guest at the table 
 told him that there he would certainly have to drink wine. 
 “No,” cried out Dr. Fairchild’s little son, “my father can 
 be trusted when he is away from home.” And he did not 
 taste wine on the trip. He would not disappoint the con- 
 fidence of his boy. 
 
 VII. The Religious Mosquito. Sy tue Rev. C.A. 
 STARK. 
 
 WHO has not been tormented at some time by that pesti- 
 lent, persistent fellow whom, for want of a better name, 
 we will call the Religious Mosquito? The Religious 
 Mosquito is very small, but he has a wonderful sting. He 
 is hard to see, but you can always hear him. Here he 
 comes. What a contemptible, vicious song he sings— 
 hum-m-m, buz-z-z. You put out your hand to brush him 
 away ; he has gone; no, he has only shifted to the other 
 side. You make another pass at him; but he has eluded 
 you, and there he is back again. You catch yourself a 
 ringing slap on the cheek, but you did not catch Azm. 
 There is silence a moment ; and here he is again, singing 
 his dreary song louder than ever. You will not get rid of 
 him till he has had his fill of your blood, or you have fled. 
 The Religious Mosquito is a man who has got lodged in 
 his head a small idea (generally erroneous) on some point 
 of doctrine, experience, or practice which he hums over 
 and over, and makes the accompaniment to a vicious attack 
 on his fellow Christians. There are many beasts of prey en- 
 countered on the road to heaven, but nothing so bad as the 
 Religious Mosquito. The lion, the loud-defiant infidel ; 
 the wild boar out of the woods, fierce, headlong passion ; 
 the tiger of revenge ; the stealthy, gliding serpent of secret 
 sin ; all these may be met and vanquished ; but who ever 
 came off more than second best from an encounter with 
 this contemptible, buzzing unwearied fellow? He has an 
 army of texts, a whole artillery train of wonderful, plaus- 
 ible comments, arguments, and explanations of the simplest 
 
 _— ——— 
 
 oe 
 
 a 
 
 —<— 
 
THE RELIGIOUS MOSQUITO. 273 
 
 passages of Scripture, that he dexterously draws up and 
 manceuvres till we would not be surprised to see him prove, 
 by skilful exegesis of the Scriptures, that the moon is made 
 out of green cheese. 
 
 Is there any profit in the Religious Mosquito? Can we 
 discover any possible design in his creation or permission ? 
 Dr. Bushnell, an American writer, says that gnats, wasps, 
 sandflies; and all the small stinging tribes, were designed 
 to read us a sharp lesson on the pestilent, irritating char- 
 acter of sin. Surely here, if anywhere, do we find the end 
 served by the Religious Mosquito. He teaches us by a 
 most painful practical lesson what a plague a diseased petty 
 worrying of some small fragment of truth may become. 
 Each of these pestilent fellows has got hold of a piece of 
 truth, sometimes an infinitesimally small piece, yet a bit of 
 truth. With this he makes a sting and a song, and goes 
 after his fellow-Christians, probing their patience, poisoning 
 their hopes, spoiling their peace. The Religious Mosquito 
 teaches us to prize the breath and light of the whole 
 truth. 
 
 He is also a means of grace. Possibly Paul’s “thorn in 
 the flesh,” his “messenger of Satan sent to buffet him,” was 
 a Religious Mosquito. Certainly he met the tribe; for 
 does he not ask the prayer of the Church that he might be 
 delivered from “unreasonable,” or, as the margin has it, 
 “absurd men”; and what can be more absurd than a full- 
 fledged Religious Mosquito? Still he may be a means of 
 grace. It is a trial of patience and faith to have the 
 Religious Mosquito come with his venomous sting, turning 
 the sweet savour of the noblest passages of God’s Word 
 into the vapidness or bitterness of some small theological 
 crotchet. When the harpies in Virgil’s description came 
 down on the feast of the Trojan refugees, they defiled more 
 than they ate; and the Religious Mosquito has spoiled 
 many a good morsel of the bread of life, There are some 
 texts that insensibly bring to mind these imitators, so that 
 one can hardly taste the mind of the Spirit in them any 
 more : 
 
 The Religious Mosquito prepares us for heaven. There 
 will be no more buzzing, stinging, pertinacious propagator 
 of small doctrine there. Zere will be rest from theological 
 Criticism and pious vagaries. “The inhabitant shall not 
 
 T 
 
274 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 say, I am sick” ; how often the Religious Mosquito makes 
 us say that here! He also makes us sick at times of the 
 name of religion. Among the many scourges which drive 
 us away from our resting-places here, this whip of very 
 small cords, the Religious Mosquito tribe, may prove at 
 last not the least efficient. 
 
 Let us bless God for his permission even of the Religious 
 Mosquito. Does he not often make us take up the longing 
 cry of the Psalmist, who must have met this pestilent tribe 
 in his day—“ Oh! that I had wings like a dove; for then 
 would I fly away and be at rest.” 
 
 VIII. Zeal. 
 
 RICHARD NOLLY was a famous prairie preacher, and often 
 came upon bands of white heathen in his work. On one 
 occasion he discovered the track of an emigrant family, and 
 followed it. “What!” said the man who was leading it 
 into the wilderness, “a Methodist preacher! I quit Vir- 
 ginia to be out of the way of them, but in my settlement 
 in Georgia, I thought to be beyond their reach. There 
 they were, and they got my wife and daughter into their 
 church. Then I come here to Chocktaw, find a good piece 
 of land, feel sure that I shall have some peace from the 
 preachers, and here is one before I’ve unloaded my wag- 
 gon!” “My friend,” said Nolly, “if you go to heaven, 
 you'll find Methodist preachers there; and if you go to 
 hell, I’m afraid you'll find some there; and you see how it 
 is in the world. I’d advise you to come to terms with God, 
 and then you'll be at peace with us.” 
 
 IX. Youth. 
 
 A MINISTER may be young, but “let no man despise thy 
 youth.” The youth of William Jay was not despised ; nor 
 was the youth of John Angell James. When a testy old 
 gentleman said to William Jay, when he first began to 
 preach, he ‘‘had no notion of beardless boys becoming 
 preachers,” he said, “Pray sir, does not Paul say to 
 Timothy, ‘Let no man despise thy youth.’ You remind 
 me, sir, of what I have read of a French monarch, who had 
 received a young ambassador, and complaining said, ‘ yout 
 
TEXTUAL PREACHING. 295 
 
 master should not have sent a beardless stripling.’” “Sir,” 
 said the youthful ambassador, “had my master supposed 
 you wanted a beard he would have sent you a goat.” 
 
 X. Pioneer Preachers. 
 
 VERY wonderful is the story of the progress of the gospel 
 in the varied regions of the United States. From some of 
 the outlying parts they wrote thus for a preacher: “ Be 
 sure and send us a good swimmer.’ There was consider- 
 able wonder as to what this could mean, till it turned out 
 that the district was full of bridgeless streams, and the 
 last minister had been drowned because he could not swim. 
 George Roberts was one of these intrepid and heroic 
 preachers. “George,” said Bishop Ashbury to him on his 
 appointment to a circuit, “Where are your clothes?” 
 “ Bishop, they are on my back. On receiving my appoint- 
 ment at your hand, sir, 1 am not compelled to return to 
 my circuit for my clothes, but Iam ready at a moment’s 
 warning to go whithersoever you direct.” 
 
 XI. Doctors of Divinity. 
 
 JACOB BRUDER was a Methodist preacher of the American 
 prairie, and was a witty, eloquent, Lancaster man. On 
 being asked “ How is it you have no Doctors of Divinity,”, 
 he replied, “Our divinity is not sick, and does not need 
 doctoring.” 
 
 XII. Textual Preaching. 
 
 Mr. BRISBANE, minister of Dunlop Church, was a remark- 
 able character, who lived in the beginning of this century. 
 Many stories are told of his peculiarities. He had a great 
 dislike of all preaching that was not textual. On one 
 occasion after hearing a weak sermon from a young 
 preacher, and being asked how he liked it, he exclaimed 
 with great point, “ The man might have said to the text at 
 the beginning what he said to the folk at the end, “ We'll 
 maybe meet again and maybe no.” On another occasion 
 he heard a sermon by a young minister on the text, “ The 
 angel did wondrously, and Manoah, and his wife looked 
 
276 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 on.” Some one said, “ What did you think of the sermon?* 
 Mr. Brisbane said, ‘The sermon was not unlike the text, 
 the lad did wondrously, and the text lookit on.” 
 
 XIII. Profession of Religion. 
 
 THE pioneer preachers of America are a remarkable race, 
 men of stamina and men of humour, urgert men whose 
 souls are on fire with their message, speaking right out 
 what they have to say. They have their faults. They 
 are inferior in the eloquencies, and refinements, and 
 beauties of civilized society, but withal are men mostly of 
 great hearts. James Craven was one of these preachers, 
 and a man who had an intense hatred of slavery and of 
 alcohol. One day when preaching in Virginia he spoke 
 thus, “ There are many professors of religion here to-day ; 
 you are sleek, fat, good-looking, yet something is the 
 matter. You have seen wheat, which was plump, round, 
 and good-looking to the eye, but when you weighed it you 
 found it only came to forty-five pounds to the bushel, 
 instead of sixty-three. Take a kernel of that wheat between 
 your thumb and finger, hold it up, squeeze it, and pop goes 
 the weevil. Now for good-looking professors of religion, 
 you are plump, round, but you only weigh some forty-five 
 pounds to the bushel. What is the matter? When you 
 are taken between the thumb of the Law and the finger 
 ‘of the Gospel, held up to the light and squeezed, out pops 
 the whiskey bottle.” 
 
 XIV. Peter Cartwright. 
 
 PETER CARTWRIGHT was one of the pioneer preachers of 
 America, and a remarkable character. One day on ap- 
 proaching a ferry, he heard the ferryman swearing terribly 
 at the sermons of Peter Cartwright, and threatening that 
 if he ever had to ferry the preacher across, and knew him, 
 he would drown him in the river. Peter, unrecognised, 
 said to the ferryman. “I want you to put me across.” 
 ‘Wait till I’m ready,” said he, and pursued his conversation 
 and strictures on Peter Cartwright. Having finished, he 
 took the preacher on board, and on reaching the middle 
 of the stream, Peter told him to let go his pole. “What 
 
 . 
 | 
 | 
 
DR. MOFFAT. 277 
 
 for?” asked the ferryman. ‘ Well, you’ve just been ill- 
 using my name, and now you have a chance of doing what 
 you threatened.” “Are you Peter Cartwright?” “Yes.” 
 Instantly the ferryman closed on the preacher, but he did 
 not know his strength, and he quickly had the worst of it. 
 Plunging him into the river, Peter asked, “Did you ever 
 pray?” “No.” “Then it’s time you did.” “I never will,” 
 said the dripping wretch. Splash, Splash, and down goes 
 the ferryman again. “ Will you pray now?” asked Peter. 
 The gasping man cried “I'll do anything you bid me.” 
 Then follow me—“Our Father, which art in heaven.” 
 Having repeated the prayer, the ferryman cried, “Now 
 let me go!” “Not yet, you must promise me three things. 
 1. That you will repeat that prayer morning and evening, 
 as long as you live. 2. That you will hear every pioneer 
 preacher that comes within five miles of this. 3. That you 
 will put every preacher over free of expense. Do you 
 promise?” “I promise,” said the ferryman; and, strange 
 to say, that same man became a shining light in that 
 district. 
 
 XV. Dr. Moffat. 
 
 On Dr. Moffat’s revisiting Carronshire, the home of his 
 boyhood, many amusing incidents occurred. He was told 
 of an old tailor, Andrew Johnstone by name, who remem- 
 bered him. He called and found the old tailor cross-legged 
 on his board, busy at work. An old woman, a schoolmate 
 of Moffat’s, acted as guide, and introduced him thus, 
 “ Andrew, man, here’s Moffat come to see ye, the great 
 missionary frae Africa” “Aye, aye, maybe he is,” replied 
 the cautious Andrew, “ but there are plenty of folks gang- 
 ing about the country noo-a-days, passin’ themsel’s aff 
 as great men, and they are just a wheen impostors.” This 
 was rather staggering, but it was met with, “O man! 
 Andrew, are ye no believin’ me, and I’ve kenned him 
 mysel’ a’ my days.” On this, Andrew stopped his needle 
 for the first time, looked round on Dr. Moffat, and in an 
 oracular tone said, “ Are you aware, sir, that if you were 
 really the person you say you are, you would be the father- 
 in-law of Livingstone, the African explorer?” “And sc 
 I am.” This quiet reply from Dr. Moffat roused the 
 
278 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 tailor. Andrew got up, raised his spectacles to get a better 
 view of his visitor, and exclaimed, “Is it possible that the 
 father-in-law of Livingstone stands under my humble 
 roof?” His doubts were dispelled, and he tried by 
 effusive expressions of respect to make amends for his 
 rudeness. 
 
 XVI. Religious Differences. 
 
 LORD MACAULAY made the remark, on his return from 
 India, that he had been living so long in a country where 
 the people worshipped cows, that he was unable to attach 
 any deep importance on the minor questions which sep- 
 arate Christians, 
 
 XVII. The Sleepy Hearer. 
 
 IN the most conspicuous seat in church! A rough-headed, 
 good-natured brother, fat and forty-five. When he sings, 
 his eyes open as wide as his mouth—a/most as wide—and 
 his voice, smooth as a file, is heard above the notes of the 
 silver-tongued choir. But when the text is announced, 
 how marked the change! His eyes close devoutly, and 
 his head nods a gentle approval of every sentence. Happy 
 brother! the cares of the world do not worry, and the 
 greatest trials fail to ruffle his inward peace. It does him 
 good, he says, to dwell under the refreshing sound of the 
 Gospel. He leaves the church, if not a wiser, certainly a 
 stronger man. 
 
 A kinder critic you will never find; though you may a 
 more intelligent one. He likes the way the gospel food is 
 served. It is more to him than food ; it is soothing syrup, 
 such as no druggists’ shops contain. We met the other day, 
 along the dusty road, not far from Fletcher’s barn. He 
 took my hand and kindly said: “ Sorry you are going to 
 leave us. I never yet have heard you preach a sermon 
 that was poor.” 
 
 “True, indeed ! nor a sermon that was good.” 
 
 He took the hint ; he smiled a curious awkward smile, 
 and silently he vanished. 
 
 What makes a man sleep in church? Come right down 
 to the practical question without further preliminaries. 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS. 279 
 
 My dear underpaid sexton, it may be your fault ; would 
 that your brains were equal to your hands. You keep out 
 the fresh air as though it were a deadly poison. You keep 
 the stoves too hot in early spring and autumn; sometimes 
 in winter. In such an atmosphere as this, Gabriel might 
 blow his trumpet, and, after the novelty of the first five 
 minutes, people would grow drowsy. Air! dear sexton! 
 give us fresh air, sexton! and keep the foul, close air for 
 your own consumption. You are welcome to it! It may 
 be that the sleepy brother is sleepy from disease. Like one- 
 half of creation he is the happy owner of a torpid liver. 
 He must be active, or he cannot keep awake. To be quiet 
 is to be sleepy. Quakers never suffer thus, for they always 
 keep awake in their silent meetings. Such a sleeper do 
 not scold; but have for him a world of charity. What he 
 needs is not a withering rebuke—only a box of pills! 
 
 Sometimes the people sleep and it is the preacher’s fault. 
 Not always. Under Paul, one man fell asleep, and in 
 consequence gave his name to history, and became the 
 immortal patron of all church sleepers. Not always the 
 preacher's fault, but sometimes. When the voice is low 
 and monotonous, and the matter heavy, and the manner 
 dull, it is hard to keep awake. “ Which,” as Lincoln used 
 to say, “reminds me of a little story.” Archibald Drowsy, 
 D.D., was once prosing over his sermon in the pulpit. In 
 the middle of it he looked up, and all his hearers had 
 turned to sleepers, save one staring idiot in the front seat 
 in the gallery. “Too bad!” cried Mr. Drowsy; “all are 
 asleep save this poor, grinning idiot.’ Then came the 
 unexpected response: “ An’ if I were not a poor, grinning 
 idiot, I’d be asleep too.” 
 
 XVIII. The Faults and Foibles of Sunday 
 School Superintendents. Jy the Rev. VERNON 
 J. CHARLESWORTH. 
 
 HAVING seen a great many superintendents at their work, 
 and believing they will be glad to have their faults indi- 
 cated in a kindly spirit, I have ventured to write a few 
 peges upon the subject. It is not my intention to wound 
 their feelings, and that suspicion may not fasten upon any 
 
280 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS, 
 
 individual in particular, I have avoided the mention of 
 names and localities. To every reader who sustains the 
 honourable office of superintendent of a Sunday-school, I 
 would suggest the exercise of that charity which “beareth 
 all things,” and a determination to “wear the cap if it 
 - fits well.” 
 
 1. The first of the series I shall designate Mr. Fastman. 
 He seems to have received his inspiration from telegraphs 
 and express trains. He is always in a hurry, meet him 
 where you will, and comes as near perpetual motion as 
 anything you are likely to see for the present. He never 
 feels the sweet sense of repose, and despises slippers and 
 an easy chair. Meditation and reflection are terms to 
 which he is a total stranger, and the habits they define 
 have no place in his arrangements. 
 
 As Sunday brought no rest to his unquiet spirit, he 
 entered the school as a teacher, and soon got promoted to 
 the office of superintendent as a man of marvellous activity. 
 He prides himself on his reputation, and justifies it by the 
 speed with which he prosecutes the duties of his office. 
 Entering the school, out of breath, he rushes up to the 
 platform, bangs the desk with his Bible two or three times 
 in rapid succession for order (?), gives out the opening 
 hymn, and before any one has had sufficient time to find 
 it, leads off the tune in true vigoroso style. The result is 
 a very irregular fugue, as the teachers and scholars take 
 up the various lines. Before the school has resolved itself 
 into order he is some distance ahead with the prayer, and 
 before the eyes of the more devout are opened he is at the 
 end of the room to welcome a new teacher and conduct 
 him to his class. “Glad to see you, my dear sir, amongst 
 us. That will be your class. Boys, this is your new 
 teacher.” And before the bewildered novice is duly seated, 
 Mr. Fastman has almost been the round of the school, 
 which he succeeds in keeping in a state of ferment during 
 the whole time of teaching. The teachers wish he could 
 be chained up for awhile or made to sit still, but he, good 
 soul, thinks his activity most exemplary, and regrets his 
 teachers are very slow. Could he but see himself as 
 others see him, his crowning virtue would lose its charm, 
 and he would come to the conclusion that all this haste 
 hinders true progress, and that a bustling superintendent 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS. 281 
 
 destroys that peace and quiet which are essential to order, 
 devotion, and successful teaching. 
 
 2. Ina neighbouring school is Mr. Fogey, a man about 
 fifty years of age, short and thick-set, and very round- 
 shouldered. The advancing tide of improvement has 
 rolled on leaving him altogether unaffected. He wears a 
 swallow-tail coat, with almost enough stuff in the collar 
 to make a vest to match. Being a staunch conservative 
 in everything, he deprecates change, and believes it as im- 
 possible to improve the methods of our ancestors. His 
 habits are regular, and his movements so uniform that he 
 has worn a deep rut from which he never deviates. Pre- 
 cedent is everything with him. His creed has been aptly 
 defined as “ As-it-was-in-the-beginning-is-now-and-ever- 
 shall-be-ism.” Faithful to his trust, he preserves every- 
 thing as he found it twenty years ago, and denounces the 
 new-fangled notions of his juniors. So dull and lifeless is 
 he in the school, that the scholars are forced into a very 
 natural protest by their playfulness and vivacity. The 
 teachers find him a great obstructive, for he is opposed to 
 the introduction of new class books, the rearrangement 
 of the classes, and the modification of the dull routine of 
 the school. In his own mind he regards himself as a 
 martyr, and holds the belief that, after he has gone, the 
 school will become the hotbed of infidelity, or be shut 
 up with “Ichabod” written on the walls. Alas! poor 
 man, could he but see the reflection of his own image 
 as projected upon the minds of those around him, he 
 would be convinced that his modes of thought and action 
 are too antiquated to be of service, that old-fogeyism 
 hinders prosperity, and that it is time enough to be con- 
 servative when there are no improvements possible. 
 
 3. The next on our list is Mr. Fidgets, a man of slender 
 proportions, with razor-like features, and a restless eye. 
 He took the fidgets when he was a child, and they have 
 never left him. Few people give him credit for his good- 
 ness, because he fails to give it expression. All about him 
 feel uncomfortable for his presence. He is satisfied with 
 nothing, and is always introducing alterations, which he 
 ‘calls improvements. During the teaching hours he annoys 
 the steady-going teachers by his fidgety ways—altering 
 the blinds, re-adjusting classes, directing attention to the 
 
282 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 most trivial affairs, which might be left till the school was 
 closed, and in a thousand ways meddling with the teachers, 
 to their discomfort and disgust. Our fidgety friend boasts 
 that he has never been absent from school excepting on 
 two or three occasions, when he was unwell, and then he 
 made his family unhappy by his irrepressible fidgets. We 
 scarcely like to pronounce his disease incurable, for “while 
 there is life there is hope,” and “it is a long lane that has 
 no turning.” We would advise him to “study to be quiet,” 
 and to “let well alone.” Should this advice be refused, 
 then we think he should be called upon to resign, for his 
 fidgets and fussiness have proved him incompetent for the 
 discharge of the duties of his office. Our judgment may 
 be deemed severe, but we contend it is just. Why should 
 voluntary teachers suffer unnecessary discomfort in their 
 work, and be thwarted in their earnest endeavours, by a 
 superintendent who lacks that calm and quiet dignity so 
 essential in a ruler? 
 
 4. Mr. Fretful must not be omitted from the catalogue. 
 He was born early in the month of April, 1823, and was 
 brought up by a teetotal nurse, a member of a “ Hyper” 
 church. He had water on the brain when he was very 
 young, and was treated hydropathically for the disease. 
 He was thus surrounded by the aqueous element from 
 infancy, and always had a large reserve of tears for every 
 occasion. From the age of fourteen he entered the employ 
 of his maternal uncle, who brought him up as a hair- 
 dresser, and ultimately left him his business. When he 
 joined the church he undertook to teach the seventh girls’ 
 class. His addresses were based upon pathetic narratives; 
 and, being delivered in a most melancholy tone of voice, 
 converted the school into a juvenile Bochim. On the death 
 of the old superintendent he was elected successor. From 
 the day he took office a gloom settled upon the faces of 
 both teachers and scholars, which was rarely relieved by a 
 smile. He moves about the school with the slow, 
 solemn, measured step of an undertaker at a funeral 
 on a dull November day. An awful sense of the solemnity 
 of his office is depicted on his countenance, and he is 
 always brooding over the darkest phases of human life and 
 character. He has had the school walls hung with such 
 texts as these :—“ The wicked shall be turned into hell,” 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS. 283 
 
 “Flee from the wrath to come,” “Prepare to meet thy 
 God,” etc. The hymns most frequently sung are funereal 
 in their character, the changes being rung on the follow- 
 ing :— 
 There is a dreadful hell, 
 And everlasting pains, 
 Where sinners must with devils dwell 
 In darkness, fire, and chains; 
 and— 
 Oft as the bell with solemn toll 
 Speaks the departure of a soul, 
 Let each one ask himself—am I 
 Prepared should I be called to die? 
 
 These are generally sung to minor tunes, written in semi- 
 breves. The annual treat has been dispensed with, and 
 entertainments are no longer tolerated. The school is 
 about the dullest place in creation, and the children as 
 miserable as they can well be. If the superintendent sees 
 a boy playing at marbles, or leap-frog, he has a suspicion 
 in his mind that he is not a Christian, and takes an 
 opportunity the following Sunday of giving a homily on 
 the sin of trifling, and concludes with the story of the chil- 
 dren who left off playing to mock a prophet of God and 
 were torn in pieces by two she-bears. Under such treat- 
 ment the children associate religion with tears, and their 
 idea of heaven is, that it is an awfully dull place, where 
 they must sit still and be eternally singing uninteresting 
 hymns. All this is pernicious in the extreme, and only a 
 miracle of grace can prevent a reaction towards infidelity 
 and ungodliness. But our good friend does not see the 
 mischief he is working, he even ventures to hope the good 
 seed may bear fruit “after many days.” It is a lamentable 
 mistake to put a hypochondriac into such an office, and no 
 delusion can be more fatal than that which expects chil- 
 dren to become disciples of Christ through the influence of 
 those who have no sympathy with childhood. 
 
 5. The last I shall introduce to your notice is Mr. For- 
 getful He is in love with his work, and on good terms 
 with the teachers, but he has a fatal facility for forgetting 
 things. One facetious friend suspects him of having 
 swallowed a piece of sponge, which, having got into his 
 head in some mysterious way, erases from the tablet of 
 
284 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 memory every impression that is made. He is quick in 
 promise, but tardy in fulfilment. Many of his scholars 
 have been promised books, but they have been disappointed 
 so often that they do not expect them. Lectures and 
 entertainments have been promised but never given. The 
 teachers have been led to expect books and seats and other 
 necessaries, but, alas! how rarely has their expectation 
 been honoured! The order of school is frequently for- 
 gotten, and sometimes the prayer is omitted from sheer 
 forgetfulness. Notices are left on the desk until the school 
 is dismissed, and the teachers are annoyed that an impor- 
 tant meeting has passed by which they would have gone 
 to had they known it in time. The anniversary is for- 
 gotten till the time has gone by for making due prepara- 
 tion. This weakness, or disease, or call it what you will, 
 makes the teachers’ work difficult and annoying. Were 
 they not gifted with a large measure of charity, they would 
 throw up the work in disgust, or seek a more congenial 
 sphere. If a man cannot remember his duties, how can 
 he possibly discharge them ? 
 
INDEX OF 
 
 Africa for Christ, 95. 
 
 Alcohol and Health, 185. 
 
 Allies, Our Unseen, 269. 
 
 Anent “ Taking the Chair,” 256. 
 
 Bible and the Priest, The, 165. 
 
 Bible Circulation, The Motives 
 to, 149. 
 
 Bible on the Continent, The, 161. 
 
 Bible, The Power of the, 168. 
 
 Bible, The Silence of the, 139. 
 
 Cartwright, Peter, 276. 
 
 Children, The Conversion of, 39. 
 
 Christian Giving, 18. 
 
 Christian Literature, 7. 
 
 Christian Press, The Power of, 1. 
 
 Christian Union, 164. 
 
 Civilization, The Shadows of, 228. 
 
 Concrete Christianity, 129. 
 
 Consistency, 271. 
 
 Conversion of the World, too. 
 
 Differences, Religious, 278. 
 
 Doctors of Divinity, 275. 
 
 Duty of Governments, The, 188. 
 
 Giving, Systematic, 43. 
 
 Go Forward, 127. 
 
 Gospel in Africa, What it has 
 done, 107. 
 
 Gospel Propagation, The Root 
 Idea of, 131. 
 
 Gospel Victories, 130, 
 
 Hearer, The Sleepy, 278. 
 
 Holy Scriptures for its Designed 
 End, The Fitness of, 157. 
 
 SUBJECTS. 
 
 Home Missions, 51. 
 
 India, Christian Literature > 
 125. 
 
 Indian Missions, 114. 
 
 Individual Responsibility, 20% 
 
 Israel, Salvation of, 122. 
 
 Jews, The, 82. 
 
 Launch into the Deep, 24a, 
 
 Listening, Good, 268. 
 
 Licensing Laws, 180. 
 
 Missions in South Africa, 112. 
 
 Mission Work in London, 47. 
 
 Missionary Qualifications, 57. 
 
 Moffat, Dr., 277. 
 
 Mosquito, The Religious, 272. 
 
 New Year’s Address, A, 249. 
 
 Parable, A, 260. 
 
 Perils of the Age, The, 156. 
 
 Picture Reversed, The, 172. 
 
 Pioneer Preachers, 275. 
 
 Popery, 16. 
 
 Preaching, Textual, 275. 
 
 Profession of Religion, 276. 
 
 Progress, 117. 
 
 Progress of Modern Unbelief and 
 Christian Missions, 62. 
 
 Stimulants, The Best, 187. 
 
 Success and Secondary Agencies, 
 25. 
 
 Sunday Schools, 30. 
 
 Superintendents, The Faults and 
 Foibles of, 279. 
 
 Teetotaler in the Slums, A, 186. 
 98s 
 
286 
 
 PLATFORM AIDS—INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 
 
 Temperance Arguments, 176. 
 
 Temperance higher than the Rule 
 of Total Abstinence, The Law 
 of, 198. 
 
 Temperance in the Army and 
 Navy, 178. 
 
 Temperance Movement, The 
 Church of England and the, 
 169. 
 
 Tract Distribution, The Value of, 
 
 Vision of the King, The, 219. 
 
 “We Knew that Before,” 265. 
 
 Wesleyans and the Church of 
 England, 46. 
 
 What Doctors Say, 182. 
 
 Word of God, The, 132. 
 
 Work of the Church, The Aggres- 
 sive, 8. 
 
 Working with God, 71. 
 
 Youth, 274. 
 
 22. ‘Zeal, 274. 
 DIVISIONS. 
 
 PAGS 
 
 Y. HOME WorRK . ° ° ° ° ot Neb hit I-57 
 II. FOREIGN MISSIONS. e ° e * e §7-132 
 III. BIBLE DISTRIBUTION . 7 * ° 132-169 
 IV. TEMPERANCE . oven), haan a i 169-256 
 V. MISCELLANEOUS SECTION . 5 e : 256-284 
 
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