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MeL ry Bet ht rae te EN ae yea ’ hi aul WET Rto ee DEB Was bay es 6 } . 7 SALA ila dA oy Sot al La any i! ‘ ‘ TaN : ed, iat CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES é / grits. eA RY ail ur ley ; NOW Ld 1995 @ y, h By, 4 Soul-Searching Parables Evangelistic Sermons on the Parables of Jesus By, rath LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. “Author of Bible Soul-Winners;’ * Wonderful Bible Conversions;’’ ‘* The New Ten Commandments,” etc. New Yorre CHICAGO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH Copyright, McmMxxv, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY Printed in the United States of America New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street TO MY WIFE, FLORENCE AIKEN BANKS, MY MOST SYMPATHETIC AND INSPIRING CRITIC, THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED | AAV Awe Way aril Mey « Il. ty) IV. VIL. Contents Tue ARCHITECT, THE BUILDERS, AND THE TPooNDATION - Christ’s Story of the Two Buslaees Matthew 7:24-27 THe TRAGEDY OF A CHARACTER WITH- OUT IDBALS Christ’s Story of the Untruitful Fig Ties and of The Empty House Matthew 12:43-46; Luke 13:6-9 THE ROMANCE oF Gop’s FARM Christ’s Story of the Sower Matthew 13:3-9 THe YEAST OF CHRISTIAN WoOMAN- HOOD IN MopERN LIFE Christ’s Story of the Leaven that a aid Hid in Three Measures of eal Matthew 13:33 THe Hippen TREASURE AND THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE Matthew 13: 44-46 SALVATION CoMES THROUGH PRAYER Christ’s Stories of the Midnight Friend; the Importunate Widow; and the Phar- isee and the Publican Luke 1175-10; Luke 18:1-8; Luke 18:9-14 Gop’s TITLE To ME ‘ Christ’s Story of God’s Ownership of Man Luke 17:7-10 hs 36 /\ 82 VIII. IX. ATs XIII. XIV. CONTENTS ForGIVENESS—THE Most LovABLE OF ALL THE GRACES p 93 Christ’s Story of a Roreivies King aid an Unforgiving Servant Matthew 18 :23-35 THe Suy SINGER AMONG THE GrRAcEs' 107 Christ’s Story Illustrating the Beauty and Value of Humility Luke 14:7-14 Gop’s Catt TO MANHOOD. E ater Christ’s Story of the Two Sons Matthew 21:28-31 . Tue BANQUET OF GoD... gl Bes Christ’s Story of the King’s Wedding Feast Matthew 22:1I-14 THe FLaminGc TorcH oF A TRIUM- PHANT PERSONALITY , CO SO Christ’s Story of the Ten Virgins Matthew 25:1-13 Man, Gop’s STEWARD. ; : . 164 Christ’s Story of the Talents Matthew 25:14-50 THe Poputar MAN AT THE JuDG- MENT (03/1209, . 178 Christ’s Story of the Final Accounting Matthew 25:31-40 I THE ARCHITECT, THE BUILDERS, AND THE FOUNDATION: CHRIST’S STORY OF THE Two BUILDERS “ Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of mune, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand: and the rain de- scended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.’—MatrHeEw 7: 24-27. HIS story sounds very natural when com- ing from the Carpenter of Nazareth. Christ was at home here. From boy- hood He had worked in a carpenter shop and had to do with house-building. It ought to bring Jesus very close to working men and women who toil with their hands. Jesus knew what it meant to earn His bread by the sweat of His brow. In this day, when such tremendous advance and blessing in better wages and better hours and im- proved conditions of toil are coming all around the world, it is of the highest importance to remember that back of all these revolutions and upheavals which are giving voice and power to labor is Jesus 9 10 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES Christ, with His seed-corn sayings of love and mercy and justice, that have accomplished more in doing away with the brutality and cruelty of the earlier ages than all else combined. Edwin Markham is the author of a thought- provoking poem entitled The Toiler Thinks. More than twenty years ago I preached a sermon in- spired by The Man with the Hoe, by the same author. The Toiler Thinks is evidently a sequel to The Man with the Hoe, It is not often that a poet lives to write a sequel to a world-famous poem on a theme so momentous. We are told that Markham was inspired to write this poem from a study of Rodin’s statue, The Thinker, a crouched and slowly awakening figure. Naturally, to the poet, this brought at once the inspiring suggestion that the stunned, stolid “‘ man with the hoe” of his earlier poem was beginning at last to think. As he first glances at the statue he sees only “the man with the hoe,” and exclaims: “ Behold, this time-scarred Titan ts The man come down from centuries— Forever beaten as the ox, Forever silent as the rocks.” But as he studies the creation of the sculptor, he grasps something new; his imagination catches fire, and he cries: “ Behold, for Thought begins to stir This brain that was a sepulcher, Behold, this void abyss of night ARCHITECT, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 11 Struck by a timid beam of light— This terror-shape, all brute and brawn, This deep of darkness touched with dawn. A star breaks on the chaos—lo, The Shapes of Night begin to go!” Now the poet’s brain is all aflame with the in- finite possibilities that may come from such an awakening. He puts himself in the monster-giant’s place, and considers the questions that will natu- rally throb in that long-dormant brain. What questions he asks of the modern world!—he who so long has carried the world’s loads; who, for so many centuries, has been used for cannon fodder at the whim of kings and aristocratic lords!—now he begins to give voice to the dynamic questions that our own present age must answer: “Behold, O world, the Toiling Man, Breaking at last the ancient ban; For more than Eden’s curse was his— Mind-darkened down the centuries. But after ages of blind toil, Ages that made his soul the spoil Of tyrants and of traitors—see, He ponders . . . and the world is free! Hark, for his awful questions throng To thunder ’gainst the ancient wrong: “Why am I bent with brutal loads? Why am I driven on all roads? Where is the laughter and the light To cheer the workman in his might? Why should my Godlike toil destroy My world of beauty and of joy? Why, since I feed the mouths of all, Have I the careless crumbs that fall? Why with these labor-blasted hands Am I left homeless in all lands? Why is the one that builds the world Left as a dog in kennel curled? Why is the one that beautifies The kingdoms, robbed of seeing eyes? 12 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES Why am I hurled into hells of war, I who have nothing to battle for? Why should I fight for lords, indeed, I who have only mouths to feed— I who am only the earth’s old slave, Whose only gain would be a grave!’” It is a great and timely poem by a great-souled man. Let us study its problems in the light of the teaching of Jesus, who is the supreme type of the working man who thinks. I This story gives us a rare opportunity to remem- ber that our holy Christianity was, on the human side, the production of workingmen who actually earned their living by toiling with their hands, and that the roots of every tree of brotherhood that has proved a blessing to toiling men and women have their sprouting point in the New Testament story of Jesus Christ and His followers, who toiled for their daily bread, but whose brains were so productive in high and noble thoughts that they established Christianity among men and wrought a moral revolution in the world. Christ’s foster-father was a village carpenter, and Christ was brought up to that trade, and as a boy and young man, until thirty years of age, earned his daily bread and clothing by working in this manner. Bishop Robert McIntyre, who, until he became a preacher, was a bricklayer, and who proudly kept up his membership in his “ Bricklayers’ Local Union ” till the day of his death, has left us a song ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 13 revealing his thoughts about Jesus as a carpenter: “T wish I had been His apprentice, to see Him each morning at seven, As He tossed His gray tunic far from Him, the Master of earth and of heaven, When He lifted the lid of His work-chest and opened His carpenter kit And looked at His chisels and augers, and took the bright tools out of it, While He gazed at the rising sun tinting the dew on the opening flowers, And smiled as He thought of His Father, whose love floods this planet of ours. When He fastened His apron about Him, and put on His workingman’s cap, And grasped the smooth haft of Hts hammer, to give the bent woodwork a tap, Saying, ‘Lad, let us finish this ox yoke. The farmer must put in his crop’ Oh, I wish I had been His apprentice, and worked in the Nazareth shop. Some wish they had been on Mount Tabor, to hearken unto His high speech When the quick and the dead were beside Him, He hold- ing communion with each. Some wish they had heard the soft accents that sitlled the wee children’s alarms, When He won the sweet babes from their mothers and folded them fast in His arms. Some wish they had stood by the Jordan when holy John greeted Him there, And seen the white dove of the Spirit fly down o’er the path of His prayer. Some wish they had seen our Redeemer when into the basin He poured The water, and, girt with a towel, the servant of all was the Lord; But for me, if I had the choosing, oh, this would them all overtop, To work all day steady beside Him, of old in the Naza- reth shop. These heavenly wonders would fright me, I cannot ap- proach to them yet, But oh, to have seen Him, when toiling, His forehead all jeweled with sweat. To hear Him say softly, ‘My helper, now bring me the level and rule’ 14 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES To have Him bend over and teach me the use of each artisan’s tool. To hear Him say, ‘ This is a sheep gate, to keep in the wan- dering flock, Or ‘This is a stout oaken house sill. I hope tt will rest on a rock. And sometimes His mother might bring us our meal in the mid-summer heat, Nad it so simply before us, and bid us to sit down and eat. Then with both of us silent before Him, the blessed Mes- siah would stop To say grace, and a tremulous glory would fill all the Nazareth shop.” And the brilliant and versatile Dr. Charles M. Sheldon, whose graphic novel, /n His Steps, has given inspiration to millions of readers, also bursts into song at the sight of the Carpenter of Nazareth: “If I could hold within my hand The hammer J esus swung, Not all the gold in all the land, Nor jewels countless as the sand, All in the balance flung, Could weigh the value of that thing Round which His fingers once did cling. “Tf I could have the table he Once made in Nazareth, Not ail the pearls in all the sea, Nor crowns of kings to be As long as men have breath, Could buy that thing of wood He made,— The Lord of lords who learned a trade. “Yea, but His hammer still is shown By honest hands that toil, And round His table men sit down, And all are equals, with a crown Nor gold nor pearls can soil; The shop at Nazareth was bare— But brotherhood was builded there.” The illustrations Jesus used throughout His ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 15 ministry were all of a type and character to give honor to labor and dignity to workingmen. Just glance at the parables or stories of Jesus. Take this: ‘‘ Behold a sower went forth to sow.” In it Jesus proceeds to tell how some fell on hard- packed ground, and the crows and blackbirds got it; and some fell on stony ground, and some among thorns, and some in good, mellow soil. But the toiler is the center of the picture. Look again! This time it is a hard-working woman: “ The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three mea- sures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” Evi- dently Jesus had seen His own, sweet mother, Mary, doing that again and again in the house of the carpenter in Nazareth. Next time it is a fisherman: ‘“‘ Again, the king- dom of heaven is like unto a net, which was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind.” Then again it is the story of a sheep-herder—a lonely job. This man had a hundred sheep and one strayed aside during the day and was lost. And after dark, the brave. herder risks his life to find that lost sheep. But I could go on for an hour simply reciting the condensed stories by which Jesus, in His great teaching, gave honor and dignity to the humblest toilers of his day. And the men and women whom Christ chose to follow on and establish the Christian Church were 16 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES of the same type. He called four of them at one time—they were all fishermen—Peter, James, John and Andrew. The first three became, under the inspiration of Christ’s teaching and example, strong and notable personalities. Peter became one of the most effective orators, in swaying great masses of people, the world has ever known; and all three of them wrote books the circulation of which has a thousand times exceeded that of the best sellers of our day and will last as long as humanity shall endure on the earth. The greatest of all the great missionaries of the Early Church was Paul, and he was by trade a tent-maker. Paul had had better opportunities for education and culture than any of the others, and was easily the peer of the greatest minds of his own or any other age of the world’s history, but he gladly worked at his trade as a tent-maker for years at a time, in order to earn his living, while he constantly used every opportunity to spread abroad the Gospel of the Carpenter of Nazareth. So we are certainly within the truth when we claim that Christianity has been, from the begin- ning, the religion of workingmen and women who think. II The latter part of The Toiler Thinks gives us a vivid and inspiring prophecy of the awakening of the great unthinking mass of toilers in all lands, ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 17 and the results that shall flow from it. It is an inspiring vision: “ Behold, O world, the Toiler thinks! Now these old questions of the Sphinx Will have their answers. In this pause Are epochs, institutions, laws— The fall of Anarchy and Chance; The crumble of Brute circumstance ; The building of the Comrade State, To be a new benignant Fate; The rise of Beauty to her throne When she shall make all hearts her own.” But we must pause right there in the flight of our poet’s fancy and remark that everything de- pends on who leads these toiling thinkers whether Beauty is to come to her throne or no. If Christ leads the thought of the awakening world of toil- ers, then we may be sure of a new and noble ap- preciation of beauty; but if some unfeeling mon- ster of selfishness, like Lenine, who devastated Russia, shall dominate the thinking of the world of toilers, we shall have a far different future for the world. A Russian writer, Alexander Kuprin, contrib- uted to The Atlantic Monthly a searching and critical study of Lenine when he was still living and was the loudest bidder for Christ’s place as leader of the toiling millions of the world. Listen to this carefully drawn verdict: “Beauty and art do not exist for Lenine. He has never been interested in the question why some people are moved to ecstatic joy by Beethoven’s Sonata, or a Rembrandt paint- ing, or the Venus of Milo, or Dante’s poetry. Listening to 18 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES such effusions, he would say with the condescending smile of a grown-up man speaking to children, ‘Men sometimes waste their time on trifles. All these works of art that you speak of—what relation do they bear to the class-struggle and the future power of the proletariat? ’” Suppose these toilers, newly-quickened into thought, fall into the hands of a leadership like that, will Beauty rise to the throne? No, indeed! Christ must lead the thought of the toilers if the beautiful in life and art shall find its rightful appreciation. Markham goes forth on his vision to watch the crumbling thrones of tyrants destroyed by the dynamite in these new thoughts of the toiling masses, and finds the consummation of the vision in the building of a new world government in ‘““comrade song.” It is a splendid conception, worthy of the author of The Man with the Hoe: “ Chained to the earth his body seems, And yet his soul rides forth on dreams! Tyrants, beware, for there is might In dreams to shake the pillared might, A power more potent to compel Than all the dark decrees of hell. He ponders, and the moment awes; For the world’s fate is in that pause. All destinies are in that hush; For in it is the power to crush All the old battlements of wrong And build the world in comrade song. Ages the night was round him furled: Behold the morning of the world! “ Tyrants, the morning is your doom: Day yawns about you as a tomb; Day is your cavern of the night. Flee, then, before the coming light! Flee, flee! This is the Toiler’s hour: Behold God coming down in power! ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 19 ze Tiina the Tools begin to think: Now all your lawless thrones will sink. And a new world will sofily rise With laughter and with lyric cries. Thought is God’s thunder at the gate, The Rhadamantine voice of Fate. Today is judgment day: awake, Upstart, O toiling millions, break The shackles, lift the flag unfurled, Rise, outcast monarchs of the world!” This is a sublime finish to a great poem. But again I would emphasize that it all depends for its realization on whether Christ or a Lenine is to lead this new dynamic force. We all must realize that there is immeasurable power in these “ outcast monarchs of the world ” of whom Markham writes with the eloquence of genius; but whether that power shall be used as the Hebrew giant, Samson, used his in his outcast state, to pull down the tem- ple of life upon himself as well as his enemies, or whether it shall be used to uplift the whole race and usher in the golden age of humanity, depends on the leadership which shall be followed. If the Christian churches of America will rise to their full power in the spirit of the Carpenter of Nazareth, the tent-maker of Tarsus, and the fish- ermen of Galilee, and will seize for their divine Lord the leadership of the toiling world, the vision of Markham, and the earlier visions of Isaiah and Christ, shall come true, and “ the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ.” . J 4 “er 20 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES III One thing, which is the breath of life in the poem we have been studying, and which Christ made very clear in all the work and teaching of His life, we ought never to forget to emphasize— that the most dignified life in the world is that of the worker. Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” John Greenleaf Whittier was as noble and hon- orable a personality when working at his trade as a shoemaker as when writing poems that helped to free the slave; and Abraham Lincoln was as wholesome and noble a specimen of lofty manhood when splitting rails in the Sangamon bottom in Illinois as when writing the Emancipation Procla- mation that gave freedom to millions of ground- down toilers. Work,—honest, needful work,—to bless the world and help humanity up the steeps of time toward God and heaven, is all honorable. Work of the hands, the brain, or the heart is alike divine, if serving a noble purpose. No one in our day, or, so far as I am able to recall, in any other day, has written with more inspiration and good cheer and enthusiasm the song of the worker than Angela Morgan. It has all the thrill of the bugle note calling to heroic and glorious combat for noble conquest: “ W ork. Thank God for the might of tt, The ardor, the urge, the delight of it— ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 21 Work that springs from the heart’s desire, Setting the brain and the soul on fire— Oh, what is so good as the heat of it, And what is so glad as the beat of it, And what is so kind as the stern command, Challenging brain and heart and hand? “Work. Thank God for the pride of 1t, For the beautiful, conquering tide of it, Sweeping the life in its furious flood, Thrilling the arteries, cleansing the blood, Mastering stupor and dull despair, Moving the dreamer to do and dare, Oh, what is so good as the urge of tt, And what is so glad as the surge of it, And what is so strong as the summons deep, Rousing the torpid soul from sleep? “W ork. Thank God for the pace of it, For the terrible, keen, swift race of tt, Fiery steeds in full control, Nostrils aquiver to greet the goal. Work, the power that drives behind, Guiding the purposes, taming the mind, Holding the runaway wishes back, Reining the will to one steady track, Speeding the energies faster, faster, Triumphing over every disaster, Oh, what is so good as the pain of tt, And what is so great as the gain of it? And what is so kind as the cruel goad, Forcing us on through the rugged road? “Work. Thank God for the swing of it, For the clamoring, hammering, ring of it, Passion of labor daily hurled On the mighty anvils of the world. Oh, what is so fierce as the flame of it? And what is so huge as the aim of tt, Thundering on through dearth and doubt, Calling the plan of the Maker out, Work, the Titan; Work the friend, Shaking the earth to a glorious end, Draining the swamps and blasting the hills, Doing whatever the Spirit wills— Rending a continent apart, 22 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES To answer the dream of the Master heart, — Thank God for a world where none may shirk— Thank God for the splendor of work.” IV And let us not forget that we are, each one of us, builders. If we build on the rock of the great sayings of Jesus about God, His hatred of sin, His love and mercy to every sinner that repents, our temple of life will stand secure under all the storms of temptation or sorrow or disappointment that may beat upon it. But if we build upon our pride in the strength of our bodies, the brilliancy of our minds, the energy and efficiency of our own per- sonality, we are like the foolish man who built his house on the sand, for all these things are only loaned us by our heavenly Father and will soon wear out and disappear. My friend, you are a builder not for time only, but for eternity. You are building not for the warm, inspiring spring climate of youth, but for the hot, blistering winds and burning suns of the summer-time of middle age and the driving, freez- ing blizzards of old age and death. You are build- ing not for this world only, but for that other world that shall endure forever. Who is your architect? Is it Selfishness who is © laying out your plans? Then beware! No one ' ever gave over the building of his life-temple to that architect who did not find out afterwards that it was built upon the shifting sands. Is Greed your architect? Then beware! Jesus tells us of ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS, FOUNDATION 23 a man who employed that architect, and for a while he was very successful, until there came a time when he was so prosperous that his old archi- ~ tect, Greed, said, ‘“‘ We will have to build larger barns (Greed is a great barn-builder) to store your goods.” And that rich builder said, “ All right, go ahead, build what you see fit; and then, when the new barn is finished and filled in every granary and mow and stall, I will sit back satisfied and say to my soul, ‘ Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’”? But Jesus says that on that very night God spoke to that barn-builder and said: ‘“ Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou has prepared, whose shall they be?” And the comment of Jesus on that story is: “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” My dear friend, I recommend an Architect who never yet has failed on the home temple of any man or woman. No temple of His was ever over- thrown by life’s storms. He is an Architect of great experience. He once lived here on earth. He worked in a carpenter shop in Nazareth. The hand that holds His hammer has the prints of nails through the palm, nails on which He hung on the Cross on Calvary for you. Is He your Architect? If so, your building will stand forever. Oh, man— woman—choose Jesus as your Architect. He was Paul’s architect, and when the storms beat upon 24 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES him in Nero’s dungeon, he was able to shout with joy: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the right- eous Judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved his appearing.” He was the Architect of your Christian mother and mine; and, thank God, He is my Architect. Make Him yours now! Then you can sing tri- V umphantly with Grant Colfax Tullar: netted stranger to earth—but an heir to a throne, He lived in Judea with those of His own; With toil He grew wearied like many a one, A humble Judean, ‘The Carpenter’s Son? “Whence hath He such wisdom, such power to display? The dead raised to life, earth's night turned to day. They never could fathom the deeds He had done, For was He not only ‘ The Carpenter's Son’? “This man of great sorrow, acquainted with grief, Who bought earth’s redemption, from sin gave relief— He gave His life gladly ere scarce ’twas begun, The offspring of David, ‘ The Carpenter's Son, “Tm sure that the mansion He’s gone to prepare Over yonder for me will be wondrously fair, With nothing that’s slighted, all perfectly done, For is not the builder ‘The Carpenter's Son’? if THE TRAGEDY OF A CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS: CurRist’s STORY OF THE UNFRUITFUL Fic TREE AND OF THE Empty HOUSE “4 certain man had a fig tree planted in his vine- yard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found none. And he said unto the vinedresser, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why doth it also cumber the ground? And he answering saith unto him, Lord let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it: and if it bear fruit thenceforth, well; but if not, thou shalt cut ti down.’ —LuKE 13: 6-9. “The unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man, passeth through waterless places, seeking rest, and findeth it not. Then he saith, I will return into my house whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: And the last state of that man becometh worse than the first.’—MATTHEW 12: 43-46. T seems to me that these two stories go well together. They both very picturesquely and graphically portray a personality that is with- — out high ideals or purpose, a character that is only negative, without color or pep. In one story it is a tree that simply cumbers the ground and yields no fruit. In the other it is an empty house with no happy, vigorous life possessing it, a prey 25 26 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES to every wandering spirit of evil. In both cases there is nothing of that heroic spirit of adventure to which Jesus calls us in His appeal to follow Him. Hermann Hagedorn sings, I think, the greatest song yet sung by an American poet in recognition of the lofty ideals which in an unusual measure animated our American youth who gave their lives on a foreign field in the great World War. He hails them as Warriors of the Dream: , "4 “They pushed their glowing joys aside, They laid their shining hopes away; They hearkened, pale and starry-eyed, And closed the books and dropped the play. They said, ‘ There is a greater thing Than fame or golden harvesting. Out of the storm there came a cry And we will answer, though we die!’ “They answered from the seething plain, They answered from the reeling height, To the last reaching-forth, in pain, They sent their answer down the night: “Though hope allure and love enthrall, And precious youth and glory seem, Sweeter than all, greater than all, Is to give all to a dream!’ “ They will not come again to play The old games through the summer day, Or seek the cool woods or the brooks, Or open now thedusty books. Yet, where in crowds, with restless feet, The getters and the spenders meet, There is, at times, a strange deep sound Not from the sky, not from the ground, And voices such as music hath That shakes the heart and chokes the breath: “Though hope allure and love enthrall, And precious youth and glory seem, Sweeter than all, greater than all, Is to give all to a dream!’ CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS 27 “On its old orbit swings this earth; Day comes, night comes; the seasons pass; And holy memories, amid mirth, Are but as shadows on a glass. Men may forget and time erase Of name and deed the last faint trace; But in still hours, amid their joys, Unborn, undreamed of, girls and boys Shall of a sudden be aware Of something not of earth or air, A burning brow, a glowing eye, A flame, a presence and a cry: ‘Though hope allure and love enthrall, And precious youth and glory seem, Sweeter than all, greater than all, Is to give all to a dream!’” Jesus Christ calls every one of us to follow the most glorious dream of sacrifice and heroic en- deavor and achievement that ever inspired the mind of man. When I ask you to give yourself heart and soul to follow Jesus Christ, I am not in- viting you to enter on any commonplace journey. Rather I am offering you the privilege of entering on a career of romance and an experience of ex- citing interest. Paul, the dauntless hero of the Early Church, could never say enough to express his exultation in finding the Christian life more splendid than he had expected or could paint in human language. He was always coining new words to describe the glorious inspiration and en- joyment in his Christian life, despite all the things he endured for his Lord, often speaking about “the unsearchable riches of Christ,’ and “ the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.” Young man, young woman, dreaming of roman- tic adventure! You may find it in a real Christian 28° CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES life as nowhere else. The appeal which won David Livingstone to Africa and his immortality was that daring offer of Robert Moffat: “I will take you where you will see the smoke of a thousand vil- lages in none of which is the Gospel of Christ known.” But do not imagine that it is only in a missionary life like Livingstone’s that there is romance for a Christian. There is no walk of life anywhere in any land where the Christian cannot find romantic adventure as the servant and part- ner of Jesus. Think of good Doctor McClure in Beside the Bonny Brier Bush. Think of the good Bishop who brought back to God the soul of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. John Wanamaker did — not find his great Sunday school less interesting than his mercantile career. Heinz, the pickle- man, found his religious work more tasty and snappy than the ‘57 varieties” by which he earned his fortune. No, my friend, you may be sure that in business life, in the life on the farm, or in a professional career, your earnest, vital, Christian life will find glorious adventure every- where. These stories of Jesus make it very clear that — it is not in a life simply negative, taking no chances of being tested by positive, aggressive endeavor, that great manhood and noble woman- hood can be built up. “Safety first ” is all right in handling high-powered machinery and danger- ous explosives or in dodging automobiles; but is ee CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS ~— 29 not the motto by which great human personality can be made. That dean of American poets, Edwin Markham, who occupies in America, today, something of the same relation to Christian faith that Robert Browning did in England during the later years of his life, writes a strong poem in The Homiletic Review entitled J Must Test His Spirit: “When in the dim beginning of the years, God mixed in man the raptures and the tears, And scattered through his brain the starry stuff, He said, ‘Behold! Yet this is not enough, For I must test his spirit to make sure That he can dare the vision and endure. ““T will withdraw my face, Veil me in shadow for a certain space, And leave behind only a broken clue A crevice where the glory glimmers through, Some whisper from the sky, Some footprints in the road to track me by. “*T qill leave man to make the fateful guess, Will leave him torn between the no and yes, Leave him unresting till he rests in me, Drawn upward by the choice that makes him free— Leave him in tragic loneliness to choose, With all in life to win or all to lose.” Yes! it is the virile, positive life that develops character and personality, that does honor to God, and is fruitful in service to our fellows. Some one else sings: “The test of a man ts the fight that he makes, The grit that he daily shows; The way that he stands on his feet and takes Fate’s numerous bumps and blows. A coward can smile when there’s naught to fear, When nothing his progress bars, 30 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES But it takes a man to Stand up and cheer While some other fellow stars. It isn’t the victory, after all, But the fight that a brother makes; The man who, driven against the wall, Stands up erect and takes The blows of fate with his head held high, Bleeding and bruised and pale, Is the man who'll win in the by and by, For he isw’t afraid to fail. It’s the bumps you get and the jolts you get, And the shocks that your courage stands, The hour of sorrow and vain regret, The prize that escapes your hands, That test your mettle and prove your worth; It isn’t the blows you'll deal, But the blows that you take on the good old earth That shows if your stuff is real.” Our stories bring out that good resolutions and strong wills, able to restrain a man from outward sin, are not enough to make us pleasing to God or Christ. What a terrific, tragic message is conveyed in this colorful story of the fate of the man who has been possessed by an _ unclean, foul spirit. Through some uprising of conscience, some time of spiritual movement in the community, some oc- casion when revival flame quickened dead souls into attention, a time when a man like John the Baptist had thundered forth the message of re- pentance from sin, the man had been aroused and awakened to the foul, unclean nest of his soul, and by stern will he drove that dominating unclean spirit from his heart and life; but, alas, he puts no other tenant of aggressive goodness into his soul to take its place. He is like an empty house. He is no longer foully unclean; but he is empty. CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS 31 He is not a bad man; but he is not definitely, purposefully a good man. Do not some of you see in these lines a mirror of your own condition? But let us go on and note the tragedy that awaited this man. After a while, the unclean spirit comes back to the house from which he had been driven. If he had found a glad, brave, Christian life going on in that man’s soul; if he had found prayer there, and earnest purpose to obey God, to follow Christ, to help his fellow-men, that foul spirit would have gone away discour- aged; but, instead, he finds the place empty. That encourages the unclean spirit. But, he re- members that by himself he was not able to hold this man’s soul against an uprising of an awak- ened conscience, and he reflects. There comes to his evil mind the memory of a gang of evil spirits more vile and devilish than himself, and he hur- ries to them and says: “I have found a home for us all. It is an empty soul. I once lived there, but the man was too strong for me, and put me out in disgrace. But there are no new tenants yet, and if you seven will come with me, the eight of us will be strong enough to hold that man’s soul against all that he can do.” And so they came together with all their vile cunning and entered in and took possession; and Jesus says: “ The last state of that man becometh worse than the first.” Are there not many men and women in our churches, who once belonged genuinely to Christ, $2 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES but who have been turned from the current of their Christian career, or become submerged and lodged in the mud of worldliness, and will be lost forever unless some great freshet of heavenly flood shall give them a new start, or some grap- pling hook of a Christlike seeker after souls shall clutch them where they are marooned and lift them up again into the heavenly current? I am told that in the rivers of the Lake States there lie, today, millions of dollars’ worth of wealth in the form of pine logs which became waterlogged and sank during the drives of fifty years ago. These timbers when reclaimed from the river bottoms are virtually as good lumber as the day they were cut from the living tree. The lumber is slightly brittle, but its value is reduced very little. When the drives were on in the old days, the lumber- jacks and rivermen worked feverishly to keep the logs together that they might take advantage of the freshet water which was stored by means of a series of log dams in all the larger rivers and their tributaries throughout the pineries of the Lake States. Logs were banked on the river dur- ing the winter and in the spring break-up they went tearing down to the mills far below on the main streams. During periods of extremely high water many of these logs became hidden from view in quiet backwaters and bayous. Becoming water-logged, they sank to the bottom, where they have been preserved throughout the long years. CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS 38 This timber is the property of several lumber companies, many of which have gone out of ex- istence years ago. Each log, however, bears the stamp of the company which cut it, and under the law it remains that company’s property. An at- tempt to salvage these timbers would be, in the eyes of the law, theft, unless undertaken by the owners or their heirs, many of whom have died. It has been estimated that in the Menominee River alone there is more than 100,000,000 feet of lumber, worth in the aggregate today a vast sum of money. The Muskegon, Manistee and Au Sable rivers in Michigan, the Chippewa in Wisconsin, and many of the larger streams in Northern Minnesota have these golden hoards in their beds awaiting the inevitable day when the laws will permit the exploitation and utilization of their hidden treasures. But there are greater treasures than these in the souls of men and women all about us offering glorious adventures to Christian men and women to salvage for eternity. And I must not close without an earnest word to those who find themselves in the last state pic- tured by Jesus in this story of the repossession of the soul by reinforced spirits of evil. I have for you a glorious message of hope. You may not be able—indeed, I know that you are not able in your own unaided strength,—to cast out . s eZ ¥ i 84 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES these evil spirits which have intrenched them- selves in the fortress of your soul. But Jesus is more than a match for your enemies. He who died on the cross for your sins; He who went down into the grave and came out again in glori- ous resurrection, is able to come into your soul and cast out every evil spirit and become Himself a glorious Master there. And if you will let Him come in, He will lead you forth on a romantic life of glad and blessed adventure. There is no other leader like Jesus, no other leader who can so fill every longing of your soul and supply all your need for time and eternity. Brenton Thoburn Badley, a great missionary leader and a great soul-winner for Jesus Christ, writing from Calcutta surrounded by all the bril- liant and picturesque coloring of Eastern life both in nature and in human forms, finds Jesus far more attractive and satisfying than anything else. He sings to Jesus: ai “Thy face is my horizon; When twilight falls midst mango topes And bamboo clumps are wreathed in smoke, O’er village nestled in the green of rice or wheat, And far beyond show purple mountain slopes, I hear the coming of Thy feet,— Thou art my wide horizon. “ Thy voice is all my music; When mainas hail the coming of the day, And orioles flash music at still noon, And when at dusk the koels call my heart rejotce. And cooing doves put forth their plaintive lay, I hear the whispers of Thy voice, Thou art my lasting music. CHARACTER WITHOUT IDEALS = 85 “Thy name is all my glory; When men repeat the name of Ram, And temple bells resound in cloistered halls, And from the minarets muezzins voices raise, Revealing still the presence of Islam, I hear the angels sing ey praise — Thou art my name of glory. “Thy love is all my being; Not Kashmir’s flower-studded vale, Nor Jheelum’s banks nor Ganga’s breast, Nor palms nor pines, nor amaltas, Nor garden, snowy with the jasmine pale, Where bulbuls sing and sun-birds nest, Mean aught to me without Thy love,— Thou art my inmost heart, my all!” I call upon you now to let Jesus come into your heart and become your all-in-all. Iil THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM: CHRIST’s STORY OF THE SOWER “ And he spake to them many things in parables, say- ing, Behold, the sower went forth to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them: and others fell upon the rocky places, where they had not much earth; and straightway they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth; and when the sun was risen, they were scorched; and be- cause they had no root, they withered away. And others fell upon the thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked them: and others fell upon the good ground, and yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He that hath ears, let him hear.’—MatTrHew 13: 3-9. HERE is romance about the humblest farm. It is the romance of God’s open world, God’s glorious Out-of-Doors. The romance of the sunrise upon a world rested and refreshed; the romance of the hopeful morning, the restful noontide; the romance of the sunset, the wistful twilight, the curtains of darkness, and the glorious mystery of the moon and the stars. Then there is the romance of the changing sea- sons which no one knows so well as the farmer. It is the farmer boy or girl who knows where to look for the first spring flowers when the south wind blows softly. It is the farmer who knows that most delicious fragrance, the smell of newly- 36 THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM 37 plowed ground, while the robin-redbreast follows in his furrow for dislodged worms and bugs. The farm is glorified with the romance of growth. The farmer sees the green halo coming on the willow and oak and poplar. He sees the grain springing up to cover the signs of his toil with plow and harrow and drill with the gracious promise of harvest. The farm is full of the romance of birds and bees and wild life of every sort and kind. The farm is not only romantic in trees nurtured for their fruit, but glorious in pasture woods, where God’s wild orchards of hawthorn and crab-apple and wild plum and dogwood tell of God’s love for beauty and grace. It is the farmer who knows the joy of reaping; of full barns and huge stacks and bursting gran- aries; of lowing herds; of cellars filled against winter’s need. It is the farmer who has the ro- mantic joy of knowing that his toil feeds the world. In imagination he can see his grain and fruit feeding the governor or the judge in their far-away homes. As he dreams by his open fire, he sees the train or the ship that will carry his harvest to fill the empty tables in other lands than his own, may even dream that wool from his sheep and butter and cheese from his dairy may clothe the naked and feed the hungry thousands of miles away on the other side of the globe. ' The farm has always about it the romance of 88 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES adventure. Last year may have been despoiled by drouth or flood, but this is a new year, fresh from the hand of God, and may break all records for fruitfulness and blessing. So it is not without warrant that I have named my theme the romance of the farm. But Jesus told this story to illustrate God’s farm in our human hearts. Later, when the dis- ciples had Jesus alone to themselves, they asked Him about it, and the Master said: “ Hear then ye the parable of the sower. When any one hear- eth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the evil one, and snatcheth away that which hath been sown in his heart. This is he that was sown by the wayside. And he that was sown upon the rocky places, this is he that heareth the word, and straightway with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straight-_ way he stumbleth. And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he that heareth the word; and the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruit- ful. And he that was sown upon the good ground, © this is he that heareth the word and understand- eth it; who verily beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” So you see that it is the soil of our minds and ————— ee THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM 39 hearts God is seeking to cultivate. This is what Paul meant when, writing his first letter to the Corinthians, he says, ‘‘ Ye are God’s husbandry.” There is a marginal rendering in the revised edi- tion of the New Testament which makes that sen- — tence of Paul clearer yet, which makes him say: “Ye are God’s tilled land.” What dignity it adds to our human nature when we realize that each one of us is a separate and individual farm of Almighty God! And we can never achieve the highest character and career that is possible for us unless we give God the right-of-way in the cultivation of the spiritual farm in us. For there is a difference between an earthly farm and a spiritual farm in this: that it is not the fault of the wayside ground for being hard, or the stony places for not having much earth, or the thorny places that the soil is not free of thorn roots. But with us it is different. We can by our own attitude mellow the wayside strip and create or clean up the rocky places and make or mar the thorny nooks. It is possible for us to thwart God’s beneficent plan for our cultiva- tion, or, on the other hand, aid in the fitting of our mental and moral or spiritual soil to bring forth flourishing crops to the glory of God and the blessing of mankind. Thinking of this, no doubt, Robert Louis Ste- venson says: ‘‘ No man can truly say that he has 40 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES made a success of life unless he has written at the top of his life-journal, ‘ Enter God.’ ” What marvelous romance there is about God’s farming of the souls of men and women! God meets a man on the way to Damascus full of hate and bitterness and fairly revelling in the sorrow and ravage of his hands; and after He has plowed and harrowed that ravisher and murderer, there comes forth a new man—not Saul the persecutor, but Paul, the tender-hearted and loving saint. God meets a young Englishman and calls him forth from a humble home, and though he has only modest ability, He so cultivates his mind and heart that he is able to bear fruit in blessing millions of humble, impoverished men and women in every part of the globe. William Booth stands forth at the head of his Salvation Army as one of the great- est soul-winners of the Christian era. God lays His hand on a sodden tinker like John Bunyan, or a drunken lawyer like John G. Wooley, and cultivates their hearts and minds until the desert blossoms as the rose before their feet. God meets a prairie girl in Illinois, and takes possession of her pure heart and sturdy brain, and step by step cultivates her personality, until Frances Wil- © lard charms multitudes from their cups and quickens a nation’s conscience and gives world- wide prohibition a mighty onward impulse toward a sober America and a cleaner world. God meets a drinking, reckless, baseball player THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM AY like Billy Sunday, and runs the Gospel plow deep into his stony heart, and drives His saving harrow over that reckless youth, and a new Billy Sunday, fruitful in the conversion of tens of thousands of men and women, shines forth. God’s farming has all the charm and romance of virile life and growth. The great purpose in God’s farming is to produce fruit, and over and over Christ lays the accent on much fruit. Neither a nation nor a man or a woman receives God’s approval unless attaining a vigorous life of goodness. I am in hearty sympathy with the wave of thought and feeling sweeping over the world just now, seeking to outlaw war. But we must not for- get that it must be a righteous peace. Peace may be as bad as war if it is not built up and main- tained in a spirit of aggressive goodness. John Drinkwater, the English poet, was one of the first to see that what mankind needed to win out of the World War was something far greater than a vic- tory of arms on the field of battle. His great poem, making an impassioned plea for nobler ideals, written before the war ended, still remains unanswered. He sings in soul-stirring earnestness: “if ae is most Abie ihy r; /\ May See ta tect than War’s foulest hell, Unless some strong new soul of life Rise up to stay— To stay, if need be, with the knife— The slow, insidious dry-rot of decay, 42 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES Which no whit less than war doth Christ betray; Rise up to charge all life with quickened gest For things not only better, but the best. “ Peace that means laxing of the soul’s upreach, Peace that means but an ever-widening breach °"Twixt man and man—and so ’Taixt man and God; Peace that means tolerance of obvious wrong, Peace that means safety only for the strong, Peace that means heedlessness of others’ woes, Peace that means chance new burdens to impose, Peace that means wealth outsweated from the poor, Peace that means God’s perfidious coveriure, Peace that means palaces on pigstyes reared, Peace that means gold with brave men’s blood besmeared, Peace that means virtue offered out for hire, Peace that means honor trampled in the mire, Peace that means ill division of life’s good, Peace that means ill adjustment of life’s load, Peace that means brimming bowls and ruined lives, Peace that for sake of gain at shame connives, Peace that maintains the standards of the past, Peace that still leaves the Lord of all outcast, That is no peace! A mocking parody of peace, It shall not last. eee OATS Be “ Peace without God as base and cornerstone, Peace without Right concreted in its frame, Peace without Truth up-pillaring its dome, Peace without Justice buttressing its walls, Peace without Grace as its fair furnishings, Peace without Honor as its golden lamp, Peace that is all unfortified with Love— That is no peace! “Get back to God and fundamental Right! Build His new house with patience infinite: Resolve Life’s vast complexities to ways More simple, and exalt the days! Let all Life’s warp and woof be interwove With gold of noble thought and radiant love; So—only so—shall Life’s New Temple stand.” That is true of God’s greater farm of the world, but it is just as true in God’s farm in your soul and mine. | | THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM 43 There is a peace of death that has no worthy life and bears no fruit for God or man. A year or so ago in a Western city a murder was committed, and the man against whom the blame stood clearly was arraigned in court. The corpse seemed good evidence of a crime, and it looked like a certain conviction. The defense, however, made a strange demand. It was contended that before any man could be proven a murderer it would be necessary to prove that the victim had ever lived. The court sought for evidence. None could be found, and the accused man was set free, because there was no proof that Sam Sperling had ever lived. Dr. M. S. Rice of Detroit, comment- ing on this strange event, says: “‘ That bit of news troubled me when I read it, and I carried the item in my pocket and have filed it for keeping. I won- dered if it would be murder if some one should stop me in my all too small way in this world. I would hate to die out of such an exacting day as is this, and have it said there is absolutely no proof available that I had ever lived.” Mere refraining from outbreaking sin is not enough. It is not enough that no poisonous weeds of evil-doing grow on God’s farm in your soul; there must be fruit unto the serving and blessing of your fellows about you. If God has the right of way to run our farms as He wills, we shall not only be happy, but our homes and our neighbors as well will have happiness in 44 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES the beautiful and delicious fruits God will grow in the fragrant garden of our cultivated hearts. Do you remember that wild man of Gadara whom Jesus tamed, and when he in gratitude wanted to go with Jesus, the Master sent him home instead? Dr. J. H. Jowett, one of the sweetest Gospel preachers of our time, now transplanted into the Heavenly Gardens, comments on that man of Gadara in a most helpful way: “Just go back home! That was the Master’s counsel. I thought He might have made much larger use of a man who had been so sensationally healed. I thought He might have given him a more imposing stage. He might have sent him abroad on some pilgrimage of witness, commanding him to go north, south, east and west, to exhibit himself as one of the marvelous trophies of the Nazarene. What a phenomenal advertisement it would have been! What curiosity he would have kindled! In every village how folk would have left their fields to gaze upon him, and crowds would have gath- ered around him in the towns! But no. The Master told him to go quietly home. But what a home-going! He went back a new man, renewed in Christ Jesus, and his commis- sion was to move about in commonplace ways, a miracle of the Lord in ordinary spheres. That is it! He was to be a miracle at home.” And is it not true some of you will read his further comment with blushing face and accusing con- science? Dr. Jowett goes on to say: “And this is the witness which today is demanded more than anything else. It is not spectacular beacons that we need; it is just ordinary street lamps. We want the trans- figured presence in the common lot. We need lamps of the Lord to light up inconspicuous spheres and bring something of heavenly radiance into the workshop and the home. And especially we want the witness of men and women who have been renewed by Jesus, and who take an absolutely new spirit into places where hitherto they have been a burden or a nuisance. Think of a man going back to his old home with THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM 45 a sweetened temper! He has been sour, gruff, irritable, ex- plosive, and now Jesus Christ has transformed him. What a home-going! “The call to multitudes of such people is not to carry their sweetened life to the Fiji Islands or to India, but to their home and their workshop and their office, where their very presence has robbed the day of its sunshine and silenced all the songbirds in their neighbors’ hearts. There need be no fuss about their witness; there is no necessity for loud talk- ing. Everybody knows the difference between a vinegar cask and a vine. The vine requires no label, especially when the grapes are rich and ripe; we can take and eat them. A fine royal mood in place of a bitter mood, and the transfiguration of the work of Jesus! It would be a miracle in the home. “Or think of the pessimist going back home shining with radiant hope. The funereal garb of melancholy has been changed for the bright wedding garment of Christian confi- dence. Or think of some fretful, complaining spirit turning up one day clothed in the garment of praise. What an angel in the house! All these may seem to be very commonplace ministries as compared with the romance of going to Green- land’s icy mountains or India’s coral strand, but this is the sort of service which is going to transform the world. Re- turn to thy house! Go and make a heaven of home, and God’s kingdom will come with mighty power and grace.” If we give God the right of way to do heaven’s best with our farm, people far away will be blessed by our fruits. James Maxon Yard, a missionary in China, who came home to America to stir the home church of Methodism in that great era of sacrifice and devo- tion, called in Methodist circles ‘‘ The Centenary,” tells in a little poem entitled Rain From America Rains on Us what his Chinese people said to him when he went back to his mission field in far-away West China: “TI was just back from the, Centenary. They met me at the gateway with fire-crackers and a red banner. It was covered all over with marks of a Chinese brush pen; Every line shone with the glimmer of gold—beautiful. 46 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES It was a glorious welcome back by friends and neighbors. The golden words on the banner said: ‘The rain from America rains on us’ Hospitals for the sick and lame and blind; Schools for boys and girls, kindergartens for the kiddies; Libraries and movies; places for worship, And places for play ‘Rain from America rains on us. pda A | And his own happy heart responded: “Dry as a desert it sometimes Seems, But the seeds of a thousand harvests lie buried here. Let the rain flood down And the miracle called life— The Life more abundant— Shall bloom before our eyes.” My friend, how about your farm? Has God the free right of way there? If not, bid Him enter now. Some one, commenting on that great sen- tence of Jesus Christ, “‘ Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” aptly says that Jesus never stands knocking at the door of a sinner’s heart alone. Satan stands there also, peering over the Saviour’s shoulder, leaning forward, seeking to tempt the wavering soul to reject the blessed Master’s tender invitation. Satan was a liar from the beginning. Do not listen to him. Turn to the Saviour in ten- der prayer, and the lying deceiver will flee. Noth- ing will put the devil to flight like real prayer. A Pennsylvania state trooper tells how he ar- rested a merchant suspected of burning his store to get the insurance money. The business man was indignant. ‘‘ See here, young man,” he told the trooper, ‘‘I want you to understand that I stand high in this community; I am a Christian and a THE ROMANCE OF GOD’S FARM AT praying-man.” Promptly the trooper answered, “T am a praying man myself; I used to be with Billy Sunday. Let’s get down on our knees and pray about this.” And that youthful officer prayed so earnestly and powerfully that the merchant, when it came his turn to pray, acknowledged be- fore the Lord in broken sobs his absolute guilt. The devil cannot stand honest prayer to God. Yield now your mind and heart and all your ran- somed powers to be God’s farm forever. Yield to Christ and you will realize with Henry Burton that the best of all gifts is Jesus Himself: ‘ é “T do not ask Thee, Lord, for outward sign, For portents in the earth or flaming sky; It is enough to know that Thou art mine, And not far off, but intimately nigh. “No burning bush I need to speak Thy name; Or call me forward to the newer task; Give me a burning heart, with love aflame, Which sees Thee everywhere, is all I ask. “No pillar-cloud I seek to mark my way Through all the windings of the trackless years; Thou art my Guide, by night as well as day, To choose my path, and hush my foolish fears. “T do not look for fiery cloven tongues, To tell for me the pentecostal hour; The Father's promise for all time belongs To him who seeks the Spirit’s quickening power. “T do not ask for voices from the sky; e The thunder-peal I might not understand; But let me hear Thy whisper, ‘It is I! Fear not the darkness, child, but take My hand!’ “What can I ask but Thine own Self, dear Lord? Omniscience and omnipotence are Thine. Let but my will with Thy sweet will accord, And all Thou hast and all Thou art is mine!” IV THE YEAST OF CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN MODERN LIFE CuRIst’s STORY OF THE LEAVEN THAT A WOMAN Hip IN THREE MEASURES OF MEAL “The kingdom of heaven ts like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.’”—MATTHEW 13: 33. aA: HIS is peculiarly the woman’s story among the parables of Jesus. True, there are other woman’s parables. There is the story of the ten virgins—five wise and five foolish —but the bridegroom is a dominant figure there. Then there is the story of the woman who lost one of her ten pieces of silver and went searching and sweeping until she found it and then went rejoic- ing to her neighbors. But a man can lose money as well as a woman, even if he cannot find it as well. But here in this story of the leaven we have woman as the dominant figure. . It is a home-picture staged in the kitchen where, in Christ’s day at least, woman reigned supreme. Many a time in His happy boyhood at Naza- reth, as He played about the floor of the cottage, and later when he worked for many years in the 48 CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 49 carpenter shop of Joseph, Jesus had seen His sweet mother Mary take out from the flour-bin the three measures of meal which was about what was needed in an average-sized family such as Mary presided over, and watched with a boy’s in- terested eye as she put the yeast or the leaven into the meal and kneaded it, and worked with it, until the dough was ready to set away in a warm, safe place to wait while the leaven went on silently working through the night until it permeated every atom of the meal and brought it all into a har- monious whole ready for baking into the appetiz- ing, wholesome bread that was to feed and nourish her growing family. How many times as a boy out in the then new pioneer Oregon country when there was not a pub- lic bakery within hundreds of miles, only little log cabin homes hewed out of the forest, have I watched my own mother Mary, as sweet, and pure, and wholesome as the mother of Jesus, doing the same thing, and watched with all my boyish, romantic, curious wonder as the strange life in the yeast lifted the dough until it grew larger before my eyes and showed strange bubbles in its burst- ing sides as the loaves swelled into fulness ready for the baking. The work of the yeast in every week’s baking in the old tin reflector before the open fire, or in the great round skillet oven on the broad hearth with its glowing heaps of oak coals beneath between its three legs or piled on its lid 50 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES above it, was as great a miracle to me as the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand with the little peddler lad’s loaves and fishes. It was the same miracle of mysterious, invisible life working mar- velous transformations. Now Jesus Himself is the leaven, the yeast that is to dominate and transform the life of the world, to master all humanity and bring it into one great harmonious whole. Man has never yet, anywhere, at any time in any climate of earth, been able to rise by himself. It has always required the leaven of Christianity to permeate his being and quicken him into upward look and effort. Man left to his own devices has always degenerated, gone down and not up, grown worse and not better. Man needs the divine yeast from heaven which Jesus brought to the world. We need, in order to be- come good men and women, that this heavenly yeast from God which Jesus brought shall enter into our lives and dominate and control our entire personality. You cannot have a perfect loaf of bread unless the yeast brings every atom of the meal or flour into cooperation and into submission to the yeast. The yeast is life—virile, active, working life. Weare the loaf. The yeast of God in Christ must control our thinking. ‘“ As a man thinketh,” says a wise man of old, ‘‘ so is he.” Our thoughts, our planning, the pictures painted in our imaginations, must be clean and pure and whole- some and Christian. CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 51 Christ must dominate our hearts as well as our heads. ‘‘ Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” ‘The fountain must not only be cleansed, but must be the source—the spontaneous source—of pure, sweet water of life that flows forth in wholesome speech and conversation. This divine yeast must permeate our consciences and make the “‘ Thou shalt ” and the “‘ Thou shalt not” in the court room of our own souls Chris- tian. Then the divine leaven will control our deeds and work forth in our habits and rise into a whole- some, nourishing loaf of character to feed and bless the world. But I do not wish to go astray from the thought with which I began: that this is peculiarly the women’s parable. It is a woman story. Christ was a manly man whom the greatest men who have ever lived have respected and honored and revered. But this is also true, that in a more complete sense than any other man in all human history, Jesus is a woman’s man. Christ’s relation to womanhood is one of the most beautiful things in all history and in all literature. This Man who had no wife, no sweetheart, no sister, whose whole manhood stands out pure and stainless in thought as in deed, is the matchless hero of womanhood around the world through all time. The attitude of Jesus toward womanhood is not only beautiful and ideal, but unique among the great men of history. He was born into a world 52 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES where woman was accustomed to submission, to take a back seat and hide in obscurity, and He threw open the gates to every noble avenue of career for her expression of her noblest self in blessing the world. Jesus learned to respect and revere womanhood in the arms of His sweet mother, Mary, and He welcomed and blessed every woman He touched throughout His life. Good women like Martha and Mary of Beth- any; like Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward; and Salome, the mother of James and John, adored Him; and poor unfortunate women like Mary Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven devils, followed Him to the Cross and beyond, as the day-star of their lives. Poor, sinful women of the streets, like the woman who came unbidden to Simon’s dinner and broke her precious vase of ointment to perfume Christ’s head, who wetted His feet with her tears and wiped them with her flow- ing hair, and that other woman brought to Jesus in the Temple on the way to be stoned to death, went out from His presence to love and worship Him evermore as the God who had lifted them into life and hope. And we must never allow it to be overlooked that Christian civilization and all the glorious uplifting of humanity through the Christian leaven that has transformed the world, has been largely the work of Christian womanhood. I know all the big CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 53 names in the Acts of the Apostles are men’s names —Paul and Peter and John and James and so on— but behind them was a multitude of unnamed women. | I quite agree with Nixon Waterman when he sings: “T calculate I’ve been around about as much as anybody, ees all the ways of folks, aw after purty careful stuay, It’s my conclusion that the men secure *bout all the credit due ’em, While women as a rule don't get the praise that should be comin’ to ’em, “Test take the leaders o’ the world—they'll tell you in some way or other The strength that made ’em win their fame was borrowed from a wife or mother. An’ if the truth is ever known—the hull truth—how they got so noted— Jest lots of statues made fer men will be rebuilt an’ petti- coated. mi AA beta pe all women folks are perfect, an’ I never said 1t, Yet I believe they're doin’ good for which the men are get- tin’ credit. An’ when I see a monument with some man’s figure up above it, I sie that jest as like as not a woman’s at the bottom of it.” Let us never forget that the whole history of Christian civilization is in a very large degree epitomized in this parable of the leaven. It is very largely true that Christian womanhood took the Christ yeast and hid it in the meal of humanity, and that she deserves credit for an immense pro- portion of the good it has accomplished. As the leaven has permeated the dough of human life, cer- ts ae 54 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES tain great evils have been thrown off and destroyed, and Christian women have figured largely in all such reform. Take the overthrow of slavery. Men’s names, mostly, are inscribed on the roll of fame; but what multitudes of Christian women stood behind them in the shadows with flaming hearts lifted to God and inspired their men for their work. | On one occasion Wendell Phillips was due to speak for human freedom in Boston at a time of great bitterness, when his life had been threat- ened, and he was going out to face a mob that would make most men cower. He went into the bedroom of his home to say good-by to Mary Phil- lips, his wife, who was an invalid, and she hid her fears back in her heart, and reaching out her thin white hands she took his big hand in her delicate fingers and lifted it to her lips and said, ‘‘ Wendell, don’t shilly-shally.”” Women like that bred and inspired the heroes of that age. Among the great leaders of that epoch that tried strong men’s souls was Henry Ward Beecher. But he, himself, would have been first to say that he did not do one tithe as much to destroy African slavery as did his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, by her powerful novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, that captured the imagination of multiplied thousands of men and women hitherto indifferent, and roused the country as sermons and lectures and political campaigns had never been able to do. CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 55 And then came the rising swell of the yeast of Christian thought and feeling against the inde- scribable evils of the open liquor saloon. Men fought, too; the world will never forget men like John B. Gough and Neal Dow and John G. Wooley, John P. St. John and Howard Russell, and Purly Baker who has just gone to be with God; but the fairest, sweetest name in all that list of heroes is Frances Willard, who was born out of the woman’s crusade and whose career was a benediction from heaven. The charm of her elo- quence, matched by the purity of her soul and given irresistible power by the burning passion of her Christlike enthusiasm for humanity, lifted the whole campaign into a higher realm of discussion and prepared the way for the united team work of the Christian churches in the Anti-saloon League, which brought victory to the temperance hosts in the constitutional prohibition of the foul liquor traffic. We must remember in recounting the victories of the Christian Church in the world, that woman- hood deserves the major credit, for she has been in the majority and has furnished far more than one-half of all the fighting soldiers of Jesus Christ. Far more than one-half of all the membership of the Christian Churches has always been and is today furnished by women. The Methodist Epis- copal Church, at its last General Conference held in Springfield, Massachusetts, reports that among 56 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES its many millions of members sixty-two out of every hundred are women, and that percentage would no doubt run very closely through all the Churches, and the majority of women grows in im- portance when we consider that an army is power- ful only in proportion to the number of active sol- diers ready to be thrown on the firing line. There the women far surpass the men. No man who has been pastor of large churches through many years but knows that when the call to colors is sounded for prayer-meeting night, and in great evangelistic Campaigns, a pastor counts himself happy indeed if he can marshal on the firing line half as many men as he has women. And on Mothers’ Day we do not fail to record with thanksgiving the service of multitudes of noble Christian women often held in reserve by the duties connected with home keeping and child- hood’s care. Next to the name of God comes that of mother, to most if not all of us. When “God thought to give the sweetest thing In His almighty power Lo. earth 58 = * * kK Kk * * kK Kk He moved the gates of heaven apart And gave to earth—a mother.” No other class of people in this world has done so much to spread the yeast of the Christian faith and hope and life in the heart of humanity as Christian mothers. In memory of my own mother, CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 57 who still lives on earth in joyous fellowship with Christ, and who carries her eighty-six years of faithful service as a crown of imperishable glory, I salute in sincerest honor and reverence every Christian mother in all the world. There is no man eloquent enough to tell ade- quately of the beauty, the courage, the fidelity, the glory of holy motherhood. If I were asked to put a wreath of glory upon the brow of the one per- sonage of the Bible roll of heroes whom, aside from Jesus Christ, I count most worthy, on what brow do you think I would place it? Not Abra- ham or Moses or David or Joshua. Not Elijah or Elisha or Isaiah or Daniel. Not Paul or Peter or John—none of these, greatly as I admire and revere them. But I would go straight to that par- ticular throne in heaven where today sits Rizpah, dear old faithful Rizpah, who, when her sons were taken prisoners in battle and crucified, and were left to waste away on their crosses, wrapped her- self in her shawl of sackcloth upon the rocks near them and remained on guard for one hundred and eighty days and nights. From May until October she kept the vultures from their dead bodies by day, and with blazing torch kept the hyenas and the lions from them by night, until at last her story reached the ears of David and roused his poetic soul to a worthy response, and the wasted bodies of her dead were taken down and buried in honor and she could rest. On Rizpah’s brow in the holy 58 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES name of motherhood everywhere would I place the noblest crown for human heroism. Great responsibility rests on the shoulders of Christian womanhood today. God never gives great blessing or privilege to any one without a corresponding duty. The last half-century has been like a miracle in its opening of the gates of opportunity to women. When I joined the campaign to fight for woman suffrage, there was then not a country on earth where a woman could vote as to the government that should rule over her. Today woman suffrage is practically universal. Even the Turk has given suffrage to his women. ‘There was not in those earlier days a single great university open on equal terms to boys and girls. Now it is all changed. In those days only three or four means of earning a livelihood were open for women, and they were very poorly paid; but all that is passing away, and equal wages for equal work will soon be the rule everywhere. What is womanhood going to do with the sharp tools of life? Thoughtful, earnest men today are hoping and praying that Christian women bring into the meal of our political and civil life the Christ leaven, the yeast from God, and transform it into a new and wholesome world—make the world safe for humanity. I once spoke in Tremont Temple in Boston, many years ago, on the same platform with Fred- - CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD IN LIFE 59 erick Douglass, in a great woman-suffrage meet- ing, and I remember Douglass said, ‘“‘ You say we must not bring women into the dirty pool of poli- tics. Who made the pool dirty? There have been no women playing in it.” The women of America have it in their power to transform politics. If they will put the virile yeast of Christian faith and righteous purpose into the dough of our time, they can leaven the whole lump. They can make it impossible for the foul liquor saloon ever to come back. They can drive the prize-fight off the platform forever, and they can bring to the official life of the nation a new and holy view of public office and service that will make marvelously for the righteousness and purity of modern life. In the name of all Christ has meant to woman- hood through all the centuries for nearly two thou- sand years, I call on every woman to be a sincere Christian. And I cannot but feel that peculiarly in these days Christ in a new earnestness is stand- ing knocking at the door of every woman’s heart where He had not already been made welcome, and is saying tenderly, pleadingly, “‘ Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” And if you will open the door and welcome Him, He will come in and make your personality and life a great and glorious benediction from heaven on all the life of your time. V THE HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE. PEARL OF GREAT PRICE “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls; and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.’—MattTHEWw 13: 44-46. HE scenes portrayed in these stories are very suggestive to the imagination. It was long ago, before the days of trust companies or banks or building and loan associa- tions, when men and women hid their gold and sil- ver and precious treasures in the earth for safe keeping. So, as the years and the centuries passed, many treasures were lost. A man or a woman dies suddenly, without disclosing the hid- ing-place, and the treasures go back again to be a part of the unowned treasures of mother earth which belong to whoever finds them. Let us try to make the old story live again be- fore our minds and yield its divine lesson. There was a rich farmer in the fertile Jordan valley beyond the Jordan river from Jerusalem, the - Mecca of Jewish worship and power, who had 60 HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL 61 many fields and was rich in flocks and herds. Not far away from the lordly home of gracious old Barzillai, the friend of David, there lived a poor man, by the name of John Seeker, in a very hum- ble little cottage. Seeker was poor in everything except his house full of children. He had the Psalmist’s blessing of a “ quiver full” of children. But it was very hard to find enough to feed them all. However, John Seeker was a hard worker and was often employed on the wide-reaching farm of Barzillai. So it happened that one morning he was sent to plow up a field that had been lying out for pasture for a long time. It was a stony, rough field, and when Barzillai sent John Seeker out there to plow, he laughed and said, “ John, I am going to give you a hard job today. I want you to take the heaviest yoke of oxen on the place and go over to that stony pasture stretching up beyond the creek and begin plowing it up. My grandfather used to live over there, and all that pasture was cultivated; but when my father came over here and built the new house where I live, the buildings were all moved away, and that field was turned into pasture and has not been plowed for nearly a hundred years. It has had a long rest and ought to bring a good crop.” So John Seeker took his oxen and plow and went to work at the old field. The strip where he began to plow was so rough and rocky that. constant at- 62 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES tention to the plow was required lest it break on a big stone. So John Seeker’s eyes were contin- ually glued to the plow and the soil he was turn- ing up to the sunlight for the first time in nearly a century. Sometimes the point of the plow would strike a stone too large to overturn, and he would cry ‘“‘ Whoa!” to the oxen, lift the plow over, and start in anew on the other side. Suddenly the point of the plow went under a good sized stone, and John Seeker was just puck- ering his lips for ‘“‘ Whoa!”’ when the stone up- heaved and the quick eye of the plowman caught a glimpse of a treasure-box beneath, a box full of gold and silver and precious jewels. Then he did shout ‘‘ Whoa!” with a vengeance. He fell on his knees by the open treasure-box and dug out the clods and loosened dirt that had fallen in and feasted his eyes on more money and jewels than he had ever seen before in all his life. Now John Seeker thought quickly. He knew that according to the law these hidden treasures belonged to the man who owned the field. So he heaved the big, stone cover back into place and covered it over carefully. It was about time to stop for dinner, so he drove his oxen in to water and feed and went at once to see Barzillai. When he met Barzillai he said, “‘ What will you take for that oid field where I am plowing? ” “Why, John, what do you want with that field?” - ‘Well, it is very low where I live and there is HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL 63 a good, high building place and a good spring of water in that old field across the creek, and it would give more room for my children to work at home.” “Well, Seeker,” said Barzillai, ‘you are a hard worker and I like to have you near where I can have your help. If you can raise that much, I will sell you that field for five hundred shillings.” It was a big sum to poor John Seeker, but he just had to have that field, for he had seen enough in that treasure box to make him rich for life. So John said, ‘“‘ Barzillai, I hope I can raise it. I am going to try. Let me off for a day or so and I will see what I can do.” ‘“‘ All right, John. Good luck to you,” laughed good-natured Barzillai as John Seeker hurried away. Into the village he went. He sold his home, his cow, and his donkey. John and his wife then dug up what little savings they had hid- den away. They stripped themselves of every- thing they had in the world, until at last he had the five hundred shillings and went back and bought the old field with its hidden treasure. That is the story Jesus gave us. Let Ruth Wooley Laws guide us to His meaning. “ Treasure there was, hid away in a field, In a stony field and rough; An unknown hand had buried there, And the rocks concealed the stuff. A man came walking through the field, On other errands bent— From the sun, a beam; from the earth, a gleam; 64 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES He knelt, he dug, content. Through the streets of a neighboring town he went, Crying his goods for sale, And when eventide came softly down, He had sold his all—the field was his, And the treasure he had found. “ He lifted the treasure from the earth, Free from the dirt and the sand; He drew the gold and the jewels out, And held them in his hand, He said to himself as he stood in the light, And watched the wondrous glow: ‘Who would have dreamed, from this stony field To have taken a treasure so?’ The field was stony, the dirt was grim, But rare were the jewels held therein. “Treasure there was, hid away in a heart, In a stony heart and rough, An unseen hand had buried there, And sin concealed the stuff. Men went by and touched the sleeve. Of the outer garments worn, Or stumbled over the rocks within And passed on bruised and torn. The years went on and no one knelt, And no one dug the scum, And the rocks still waited a lifting hand, And the field was still unowned. Until one day came a heavenly beam, Then from that heart a feeble gleam, And the Master paid the blood-bought price, And that heart was all his own. “ He lifted the treasure from the earth, From flesh and dust and clod, And back to the treasure house he took The jewel home to God. And he said to himself, as he stood in the light That streamed from the throne above, “I knew that in that stony ground There was treasure to be found, Within was light—without was night, And sin was all around; But up above—all-seeing love And mercy doth abound!” And such glorious treasures are waiting to be et a HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL 65 dug out of their hiding place in every land on earth today. My dear friend, Dr. William L. Stidger, himself a great treasure-hunter for Christ, tells this story of his travels in the Philippines: “In the Philippines the romance of a church is followed always by the Christian romance of individuals; romances of the moral regeneration of men which, in the hands of a more skilled writer, would make material for a George Eliot’s Tito in Romola, or a Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, “There was Thomas Altemara. What a spiritual-looking young Filipino he is! It had lines—that face—that thrilled me, as sO many of these brown people do have. “Thomas comes of that small race they call the Ibinags. They live up north on the main Island of Luzon. There are only about one hundred thousand of them left. Other tribes and races are crowding them out of the little valley they have occupied for centuries. “ Altemara came to Dr. Huddleston as a cook. When he came into this missionary’s home he asked but one thing. “Dr. Huddleston told me this story one morning, during the Filipino Conference. A boy had just testified in a few thrilling, brief words. Then Dr. Huddleston arose. “«Ten years ago that boy, who has just testified, came to my home as a cook. He said to me that morning, “I have just one request to make.” ‘ What is that?’ I asked him. “<«« That I do not want to have ‘ Protestanti’ preached to me. I am a Catholic, and I know what I want. I havea Bible of my own, and I know what to do. I do not want you to interfere with my religion.” “<* All right,’ I said to him. ‘All we want now is a cook. We'll let the rest take care of itself.’ “*T made just one provision, as Thomas will remember,’ and the big man smiled back at his “ boy in Christ” across the church. It was a beautiful friendship; as beautiful in a way as that between a father and a son. “* That provision was that he should kneel with us in our family worship each morning. That would not interfere with his religion. He agreed. We lived over the church, and each Sunday Thomas could hear the children singing. I used to see him stand still to listen.’ “There was an electric atmosphere in the church as he continued this remarkable human-interest story, with the subject of it sitting back in the rear seat, embarrassed to tonfusion, modest fellow that he was. 66 CHRIST’S SOUL-SEARCHING PARABLES “* A year and a half later,’ continued the missionary to that tense, waiting crowd in the Conference, ‘Thomas came to me and said, “I want to ask your forgiveness for what I said when I first came to be your cook. I am ashamed. I want you to baptize me into your church and your religion, for I have watched your lives and I want that kind of a church.” Then he said, “ And I want one of those papers ! 4 wi why Sal, » Ine OL what papers, my boy?” sai atk replied, “One of those papers so I can preach.” “*T found that what he wanted was an exhorter’s. license, so I gave it to the boy. He has been preaching ever since. He has won thousands to Christ. “*But the test came a year ago. He was offered an op- portunity to go to America to school.’ “Then the big man, with tear-red eyes, turned to that crowd of young Filipinos and said, ‘A thing that every boy here would give his right arm to do is to go to America.’ They smiled back an affirmative. He continued: ‘But Thomas came to me and said, “I shall not go!” ““Why?’ I asked him, surprised. “*“ Because,’ said he, “I am the only man in my race of a hundred thousand Ibinags who has been called to preach. If I go to America, I may forget my people. I may get proud, as I have seen many of my kind do. I will stay with them. Five years with them may do much. God tells me to do this. I must stay with my people.” “