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Ne aie alta MBE pe ik pd at "i et ne d A be C 4 Pega * ak WD Pete i 1 oi er Les aan pat es cane te eae i 4 MiP Ba id iM ai i Me oo or fae a ce a aie nM a ivy ene a i Hous) in » 4 i ne can 3 it a fe i} ant : hf ‘aan Ty sie ; qa} fa of es Me iN TL UpEMMICHICE OUTRUN Ni Ar An tk Pen alvalitaleata yarhetnents Hiatus MUM ey thet chs MEH atti a don He i ae ma sda AINE ij Nia. ah ay ue a i ‘ Pata ies Sta Ree eR eet vl cate a6 ttn A Wee yah Raga tan F i ‘ a F iM ae = aie aor Se 2 Peis =a ee = is . os Fi ia) ii ; Mi an ie riya - sa = Soak Sia Seas s en ae ee ha eS Tee 5 pms shew 3 - 5 Se aa are 3 ~ “An ei Seco hts Rs 3 4 ui i i Waar 4 , } : a be Ab sy % t Phant's 7 eee SEAM OR ISTE austen aaah eh a eh eu i aaa i 7 ; : i ealaat Wap ei idan oh iia uy , sens ae =. ef iH ae ey > SS Bait he et Be Pe, ; aT own te ) Bila bh Veh ONG ae iy eth wi Hghindg 88 ny Mens 4 s ih: Ai Ney . he wisest AOAS 8 A Qdeain gy ig rt Ni t pr) a ah a SNL mls it hike 4 i & MSCPUPL EPO ta Me Ee ate MA a YE nibs i iat re Ms mt iN wih ¥s 4 a F Ah é Hata pt a A of HF ae iu Un oy? 4 Hn 5 SF q dency a? Na NG RIS i alate Me ‘a Ha RUNDE bet aL ty) 4 i 4.10 at Hy ‘a ae wale ty isha nine OFEE ‘i Ne Le IN aay } } oe aN; a Peay M4 4 nat 4 ; . Ve shiek eet ' ite i, ip bit PAE Wy Una Wa AN, i hi 4) 4) : ane Oran Ae wi aan fats sean ROU ae in PR NE bok a LAL * 19 GAY No Rade : sail mn) Ps a BY Ah : 4 + ee ae OF a ees fa 6 ee Z O rr = > Z, ee a] : ’ 7 vr s 2 - - ¥ po nee . a8 ~ 9 2 9 artes hI ay pon Wert ole ene eae ays of the Son of Man A Series of Sermons on the Great Days of the Christian Year by the Rev. W. Macxintoso Mackay, D.D., Sherbrooke Church, Glasgow Author of “ Bible Types of Modern Men,” etc. @o @ ae aw OY f ws, " { . abi ry \ fy % ¢ i 1% ra *, ‘ * 7 New George H. Doran Company Made and Printed in Great Britain. Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and Lond: TO MY PRESENT CONGREGATION WHOSE LOYALTY AND LOVE HAVE NEVER FAILED Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/daysofsonofmanse0Omack INTRODUCTORY THESE studies, undertaken at the friendly sugges- tion of a clergyman of the Church of England, may, it is hoped by their author, do something to advance the movement which is going on in all our churches towards a wider recognition of the great festivals of the Christian Year. Such recognition is surely to be commended, not only because it is in line with the Spirit of Him Who “ desired with desire to eat the Passover before He suffered,” but also because it brings the _ preacher in contact with the great themes of our Christian Faith. There is perhaps a tendency to-day to dwell mote on the fringe of revelation than on its great central verities. This is not always, or even we believe usually, due to any lack of faith in these. It is rather caused by the difi- culty of making them fresh and living in their 7 8 INTRODUCTORY interest to the people to whom they ate ad- dressed. It is hoped that these studies may in some small degree help those who ate thus embarrassed and bring them, by facing tasks which at first seem difficult, the great reward of finding that they are thereby led into closer contact with the Master Himself and made not only His preachers but His teachers as well. Matthew Arnold has pointed out in one of his essays that the great days of the Christian Year are all historical anniversaries, commemota- ting either the days of the Son of Man in His earthly or in His exalted life. The only excep- tion to this rule, he says, is that of Trinity Sun- day, which, he adds, should be kept as a Fast Day, “for the aberrations of Theological dog- matists.” Without at all agreeing with the critic’s char- acteristic hit at doctrinal religion, there is no doubt that his general observation is acute and correct. The great days of the Christian Year ate very largely “‘ days of the Son of Man”; and hence an observance of them, not only, as Phillips Brooks has remarked, gives variety to INTRODUCTORY 9 the Christian Message but concentrates it from time to time on themes which no faithful preacher can evade. And, as we have indicated when such a task is faithfully undertaken, it meets with an abundant reward. Personally, if we may be permitted the reference, we have often been thanked for such pronouncements and some- times the remark has been added, “‘I wish we heatd sermons on subjects like that more often than we do.” While, however, these studies are thus chiefly concerned with the great truths which gather round the Incarnation of our blessed Lord and the perpetuation of His work by the Holy Spirit, we have ventured to add one ot two sermons preached on special occasions of a different kind, which we trust may be helpful in a more general way. The Author has once again to express his warm thanks to the Rev. Kenneth B. Macleod, B.A., White Memorial Church, Glasgow, for helping in the revision of the proofs. W. MACKINTOSH MACKAY. GLASGOW, 1926. ee " if : Far ) CL t j 4ijf uw! Vib Wu II Til IV TABLE ;OF CONTENTS PAGE LiFe’s MippLE WATCHES : F Pvc te _ (For Advent) ““And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so” (watching), “blessed are those servants. ’—LUKE xil. 38. THE DAYSPRING . : : ‘ i 40 (For Christmas Day) “Through the tender mercy of our God ; . the dayspring from on high hath visited us.”’—ST. LUKE 1. 78. THE WONDERFUL CHILD , vane (For the First Sunday after Chas) “For unto us a child is born; .. . and his name shall be called Wonderful.”— IsAIAH ix. 6. Our Litre LIFE . : ‘ ; 58 | (For the Close of the eur “The time past of our life.’—1 PETER vous: 11 “ TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE V Tue CyristiAN MARINER’S COMPASS Bory; (For the New Year) “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”—PRov. iil. 6. VI THe Contrasts OF PALM SUNDAY . ve ae (For Palm Sunday) “* Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass.”—ST. MATT. xxi. 5. VII THE GRoupPs AROUND THE Cross . . febOU (For Good Friday) ““And sitting down, they watched him there.’—ST. MATT. xxvii. 36. VIII THE GARDEN OF SORROW AND VICTORY. II4 (For Good Friday) “* Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre. . . . There laid they Jesus.” —ST. JOHN xix. 41, 42. ' TX SEEKING CHRIST IN THE WRONG PLACE. 125 (For Easter Day) “Why seek ye the living among the dead ?”’—StT. LUKE xxiv. 5. X THE YounGc MAN at THE Empty Toms. 138 (For Easter Day) “Entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment.” —ST. MARK Xvi. 5. XI XII XII XIV XV TABLE OF CONTENTS THE FoRBIDDEN TOUCH (For Ascensiontide) ** Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended.”—ST. JOHN xx. tt THE SECRET OF POWER. x : (For Whitsunday) ** Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.”— ST. LUKE xxiv. 49. WANTING IS—WHAT? . : (For Whitsunday) “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed ?”—ActTs xix. 2 (R.V.). THE BENEDICTION OF THE Hoty TRINITY (For Trinity Sunday) ** The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.’’—2z Cor. Xlll. 14, THE ROSE IN THE HEART (For a Flower Service) ““T am the Rose of Sharon.”—THE SONG OF SOLOMON il. I. ““T have you in my heart.”—PHIL. i. 7. 13 PAGE 151 165 aad 209 14 XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX TABLE OF CONTENTS THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST e (For a Harvest Festival) << Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life ever- lasting.’ —GAL. vi. 7, 8. Curist’s CALL TO REST . (Before Communion) ‘““Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.’—ST. Mark vi. 31. THE CENOTAPH OF JESUS (Before Communion) “This do in remembrance of me.’—ST. LUKE XxXil. 19. Love’s ‘TENSES (Before Communion) “Unto him that loveth us and loosed us from our sins by his blood; and he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father; to him be the glory.” —REV. i. 5, 6 (R.V.). Worry. : ; : : (For the Close of a Holiday Season) “Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil-doing.”—PsaLM xxxvii. 8 (R.V.). PAGE ~ 220 235 249 262 274 I LIFE’S MIDDLE WATCHES (4n Advent Sermon) “ And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so” (watching), ‘‘ blessed are those servants.” —ST. LUKE xii. 38. BEYOND question the most striking feature of this parable is to be found in this verse, where our Lord adds a special blessing to those who ate found watching in the second or third watches. Why single out these for His peculiar benediction? ‘The question is interesting, and the answer to it contains, I think, a deep truth of the spiritual life. The Roman night, as you know, was divided into four watches. The first watch began with sunset and was called the evening watch. The second and third were more properly the night watches, for they lasted through the long dark hours before and after midnight. The fourth 15 16 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN watch was the herald of the dawn, and except in winter was largely lightened by the streaks of coming day. If we consider these things we shall see the significance of the Master’s commendation of those who ate watching in the second and third watches. It is obviously this, that it was more difficult to be faithful then. The tedium of the first watch was lightened by the memory of the day that was just gone and the hopes of a good rest when it was over. The darkness of the fourth watch was cheered by the rays of coming day. But those who were — called to stand on guard during the second and third periods had a task more difficult. They were neither defended by the past nor inspired by the future. They were summoned from a couch, warm with comfort, and half drowsy with insufficient repose. They had to stand in the cold when the night was coldest; in the dark — when the darkness was deepest. To those who were found faithful then, the Master’s commen- dationis most hearty. ‘‘ And if he shall come in | the second watch, or come in the third watch, and LIFES MIDDLE WATCHES 17 find them so, blessed are those servants. Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” Such is the benediction of our text. And now what is the implication suggested by it? Surely, it is this, that there are certain times when it is more difficult to be faithful than at others. The special commendation points to a special merit and the special merit to a peculiar diffi- culty. So our subject to-day may be entitled :— “ Life’s Middle Watches and their peculiar diffi- culty.” It is a common saying that the beginning of a thing is its most critical part. “ Well begun is half done.” No doubt this is partly true. The beginning of any enterprise is full of diffi- culties; but it is not on that account fraught -with danger. On the contrary the greatness of the difficulties constitutes the littleness of the dangers. The very fact that the beginner has more problems to face makes him therefore mote cateful and the result is that he seldom fails then. A man’s weakness becomes his 2 18: DAYS OF ‘THE-6ON DOF AiuARy strength because it throws him back upon him- self and we never know what is in us till our back is to the wall. Or better still, it may throw us back on God, and when a man stands there he can never fail. Perhaps there was no time when it was mote difficult to be a Christian than in the early years of Christianity, when to the hatred of the Jew was added the ridicule of the Greek and the intolerance of the Roman ; when the philosopher said, “ What will this babbler say?” and the judge presented the young disciple with the awful alternative to “ Worship the Emperor ”’ or “Feed the lions.’ . Yet; thetegwassnoussuc when Christian faith reached so high as then ; when the Church went on from triumph to triumph, until in three centuries she had con- quered the world. But when the first watch was over and the long dark ages marked the second and the third, how few were found faithful! ‘Then indeed the iniquity of many abounded, and the love of the few waxed cold. So too in the individual life; when a man LIFE’S MIDDLE WATCHES 19 begins the Christian race he does so with an atdour and enthusiasm which conquers every temptation and surmounts every trial; but this enthusiasm usually lasts only for a time. As Christ says of the seed sown in thorny ground,“ the cares of this world’’ and “‘the deceit- fulness of riches” often choke the Word and it becomes unfruitful. In that parable you will remember there were three kinds of sowing which proved a failure. One of these, which the fowls carried away as soon as it was sown, may well represent those who failed in the first watch. On the other hand, that which fell on rocky ground and that which was sown among the thorns as clearly point to the failures of the second and third watches. Both these promised a tich harvest at the first, but alas! they soon fell away. ‘The sun of evil passion and the thorns of worldliness destroyed the promise of May. For one found lacking in the first, there were two who failed in the second and the third watches. ‘The lesson clearly is that the perils of the Christian life are not chiefly to be found at the beginning of it. It is in the after days 20” “DAYS OR VTHE SON OR Myriam that faith is most tested and patience shows her perfect work. Peter’s fall is a striking illustration of the truth of this law. “‘ Master, though all shall be offended in Thee, yet will not I,” he con- fidently affirmed at the beginning of that long night of our Lord’s trial! And at first our Lord’s prophecy of his ultimate failure seemed far enough off from fulfilment. See that flashing sword in the garden of betrayal! Others may fly, but Peter stands firm. Yes; in the first watch Simon is faithful. But see, how the long hours wear out the keenness of that braggart steel. See him as he follows now so far off. See him as he stands among the servants in the High Priest’s hall, so weak and timorous in his testimony that no one knows what he is. The second watch is already telling upon his faith and oozing the courage out of his soul. But now the third watch is passing by. Soon his trial will be over. Soon the dawn will be breaking upon the hills, telling that the long night of temptation is past. Soon the “trumpeter of morn ” will be sounding his shrill clarion of the LIPE’S’ MIDDLE) WATCHES 21 dawn—yes, but not until Simon has fallen miser- ably before The Tempter’s power. “* And if he come in the second watch, or if he come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants’; but if He come and find them cursing and swearing and saying, “I know not the man,” ah then the fourth watch will sound only on a sleeping soul! There is a striking picture which represents Napoleon surprising a sleeping sentry. He has gone round his camp by night on the eve per- haps of a great battle and has come on this man prone upon the ground in profound uncon- sciousness. Instead of wakening him up, he just takes his musket which he has left lying on the eround and mounts guard himself, looking down from time to time with a grim look on the faith- less soldier. During one of these looks, the soldier suddenly awakes and you can see the terrible look of agony in his face as he starts up to see his great Commander looking down upon him. So the Lord looked on Peter in the hour of his betrayal and so He looks on many still. Beware of the dangers of the second and the 22, DAYS‘OF THE SON: OF “MAN thitd watches! It is in these that the ranks of God’s soldiers ate most thinned. It is in these that the fidelity of the faithful servant is most revealed. But the principle underlying our text may be broadened from individual instances to the whole of life. Life may be likened to a night of four watches. ‘There is first the watch of child- hood, then that of youth, then that of manhood and mid-life and last of all the watch of life’s declining years. Now of these four watches of life, the principle of our text is also true. The most dangerous watches of life are its middle watches. The dangers of youth are so obvious that they may be almost called a commonplace of the pulpit. One feels a reluctance in repeating what has been said so often. And yet their familiarity constitutes perhaps one of their dangers. We call it “ Parson’s talk,” something not to be taken seriously. But it is true talk nevertheless, and 1 only wish I could make it so real to you now, that you might realize it in your deepest LIFR’S ‘MIDDLE WATCHES 23 soul as something not to betrifledaway. Youth’s hot passion; youth’s dangerous curiosity ;— these are the temptations of life’s second watch and how many there are who are fatally injured by them | In his fine essay on Burns, Carlyle has spoken memorable words about the dangers of life’s second watch. Perhaps some of you who will not listen to me, will be more ready to take it from him. “ There are some,” he says, “ who declare vice to be the natural preparative for manhood, a kind of mud-bath, in which a youth must steep himself before the toga of manhood can be laid upon him. Itisnotso. We become men, not after we have been dissipated and disappointed in the chase after false pleasures but after we have ascertained what impassible barriers hem us in through life, how mad it is to hope for contentment to our infinite soul from the gifts of this extremely finite world; that a man must be sufficient in himself and that for suffering and sorrowing there is no remedy but striving and doing.” Yes, manhood begins in the power to say 24° DAYS OF “THE ASON TOR ayia ““Nol??. Watcher of the second watchipune vigilant! Your enemy like a roaring lion goeth about seeking to devour you! What I say unto all I say specially unto you, “Watch!” Be faithful in the second watch and then you will have gained half of life’s battle and won half of life’s crown. Half? » Yes; but not the whole; for note the words which follow, “ and if he come in the third watch.” Itis the watch of middle life and as hatd to be faithful there as any other. We hear a great deal about the dangers of youth and but little of those of middle life. Yet if we were to count life’s shipwrecks I believe we would find as many in the shoals of the thirties and the forties as on the rocks of the teens and the twenties. What are the dangers of the third watch? They may be described as a general drowsiness of soul, an ebbing of the moral enthusiasms of youth, a coarsening and materializine of the idealisms of opening life and above all an ebb- tide of faith which are so often seen in middle age. ‘The moral and spiritual springs of life TIFR’S MIDDLE WATCHES 25 run low. A man dwindles into a money-making machine or a worshipper of his belly. A woman becomes an ease-loving votary of pleasure and fashion or a household drudge whose soul has shrivelled up to a duster. You can see the victim of the third watch in what is known as nominal Christianity, the man who has a name to live but whose soul is dead. There was a time when his faith kindled with enthusiasm for Christ and the Church and he gave much of his money and sacrificed much of his time for the spread of the Gospel and the uplift of his fellows; but now his visits to the Church are few and far between. He prefers to spend the Sunday in an easy chair with the latest magazine or novel, or in a ride in a motor-car. He has fallen asleep. His loins are no longer girt. His lamp is no longer burning. Uncon- scious pethaps to himself, he has become a victim of what Bunyan calls “the enchanted ground.” He has fallen asleep in the third watch. I remember once hearing an incident told by a professor of Psychology. He was illustrating 26. ‘DAYS OF ;} THE VON OR VMAs the power of somnambulism. He told of a man who rose in his sleep from his bed and went down the stair to the door of his cottage and still he slept. He opened the door and stepped out into the street of the village where he dwelt and still he slept. He passed out into the silent country and still he slept. Not until his naked feet touched the cold waters of a stream that trickled across the toad did he waken to the darkness of the night and the strange unfamiliar scene. So in our churches there are men who sleep on through the strangest and most awakening experiences. The preacher tries to waken them with the message of the Apostle, “ Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light.” But stillthey sleep, God rings His warning bell by many an experience of joy ot sorrow in their life but still they sleep, Not until their feet reach the cold river of death will they waken to the darkness of a life that is lost and the morning of a Judgment day. One of the great lessons which the Advent Season, on which we have now entered, would LIFE’S MIDDLE WATCHES de | teach us is that Christ is coming. It was a lesson that was deeply impressed on the early Church. I fear it has grown too dim in ours. But it is a true lesson nevertheless. Christ is coming to His Church again; not as He came at the first as a little Child but as our King and Judge, to subdue all things to Himself. And the duty of you and me is that we should live under the influence of this promise, that we should be watchful and vigilant, not knowing when He will come but ready when He does so to say, “Even so come Lord Jesus, come quickly.” That coming may take place at the end of the world or it may take place at the end of our life ; but whenever it be, it will take place. Christ will come to us and say—What? If we are found watching, if we are found faithful, “ Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” ‘ Well done, good and faithful ser- vant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” How great the blessedness of such a faithful servant! Christ Himself has described it in language so exalted that I dare only quote it and 28°) (DAYS OF vTHE SGN NORE leave it to explain itself. “ Verily I say unto you He shall gird Himself and make them to sit down to meat and come forth and serve them.” What these wonderful words mean in all their fullness I do not pretend to understand. They have no doubt an immediate reference to Christ’s first Communion when the Master girded Him- self with a towel and washed the disciples’ feet ete He sat down with the twelve to supper ; but their real reference is to the greater and grander Communion with His people above, “‘ the Lamb’s ereat bridal feast of light and love”; when Christ shall welcome not the twelve only, but “ten thousand times ten thousand ” to the joy and the peace of His eternal fellowship. Meanwhile let us be watchful, watchful at all times but specially in life’s middle watches. And if it is difficult to be vigilant at such hours, let us remember this, that Christ is watching us as well; not with malevolent eye as Napoleon scanned the sleeping soldier, but with love and sympathy and that He will come to those who seek His aid when the night is darkest and the need is sorest. LIFE’S MIDDLE WATCHES 29 That is a beautiful touch in the story of the night-storm in Galilee, where it is said, “‘ And about the fourth watch He came unto them”’; not at it but about it; while the third watch lingered still. When the night was darkest and the need was greatest Christ came to them. So Christ ever comes to those who look for Him in their hour of trial. He is never so near us as when we need Him most. Only one thing is needed, that while we watch we should also pray, pray that ours may be the strength to endure to the end. ““ Hear we the Shepherd’s voice, ‘Pray, brethren, pray!’ Would ye His heart rejoice P Pray, brethren, pray. Weakness needs the strong One near, Long as ye struggle here ; Pray, brethren, pray!” IT WHE SDAY SERING (For Christmas) “Through the tender mercy of our God; .. + the dayspring from on high hath visited us.”—-ST. LUKE 1. 78. THE coming of Jesus into our World is pro- claimed in our text to be the dawning of a new day in human history. ‘The prophecy has been abundantly fulfilled. Whatever views men take about Christ’s person, it will be admitted by the vast proportion of civilized men, that since His advent, the world has taken a new start. It was by a true instinct that men have changed the Calendar in reference to that humble event which took place two thousand years ago, and one is safe to say it is a correction that will nevet be revised. 3B.c. and a.p. will remain till the end of time a monument of the greatness of the Man of Nazareth. 30 THE DAYSPRING 31 The Father of the Forerunner is therefore tight when he says of this lowly event, ‘ The dayspring from on high hath visited us.”” And he is so, not only because of the significance of the event itself, but because of the manner in which it took place. There are three ways to my mind in which the Dayspring suggests the Coming of Jesus into human history, first of all in its Beauty, secondly in its Quietness, and thirdly fin its Power. Let us dwell on these thoughts briefly on this Christmas day. I. Christ’s coming was like the Dayspring i its Beauty. There are few things more beautiful in Nature than a lovely Dawn. Its only rival is perhaps the Sunset. Each has its own charm and merits alike the eulogy of the Psalmist, “Thou makest the outgoings of the Morning Bidmthe ivenina’ to» -tejoice.”’ » Yet /each | 4s different from the other in its colours and the difference of colour is reflective of a difference of spirit. The colours of the morning sky are as a tule brighter than those of the evening. Homer speaks of the “ rosy-fingered daughter 32): DANS (OF: THESSONG OF iia 2 of morn,” and this is a true description. The white clouds of the dawn take on a most exqui- site rose pink, and its rays spreading with streamers all over the sky have the appearance of a gigantic hand stretching fingers flushed with life across the dark brow of night. The colours again of the sunset are usually deeper; tich crimsons and burning gold. They ate often more beautiful than those of dawn. But they lack the spirit of wonder and hope which characterizes the dawn. ‘They are pen- sive and even sad; reminiscent of a glory that has gone, prophetic of a darkness that is coming. To both the Dawn and the Sunset the life of Christ may be likened. In His life there was both a beauty of the Sunrise and the Sun- set. For beautiful as the rays of the Sun of Righteousness were when they shone forth in the zenith of His strength, they never shone out with such glory as when they set behind the blood-stained Hill of Calvary. But we are specially speaking to-day of the beauty of Christ’s opening life. That beauty was like THE DAYSPRING 33 that of the morning, fresh and unexpected in its charm. He did not come as men expected. They looked for a conqueror. He came as an infant. As George MacDonald puts it :— “They were all looking for a king, To slay their foes and lift them high: Thou cam’st a little baby thing, That made a woman cry.” Yet, when the world had time to think it out, it came to see that the “‘ foolishness of God ” was “wiser than men ”’ and that there was nothing more suitable and more beautiful than that the Lord of Glory should come to earth in the form of an infant of days, that “it became Him”? when He stooped to take upon Himself the form of a servant that He should do so in the humbleness and weakness and yet also in the purity and hopefulness of a little child. And since His day Childhood has taken on a new attractiveness and a new sacredness. Before His coming “there were,” as one has said, “no children, only undeveloped men and despised little women.” But when He came, the whole thought of childhood was elevated 3 34°. DAYS OF “VHEN SONG @EEMiaas and glorified and men learned to say with Wordsworth :— “Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God Who is our home.” Christ came with the beauty and hopefulness of a little child to this dark world and taught all men to see in His Cradle the hopes of a new and better day for the human race. He was truly “the Dayspring from on high.” When God was manifest in the flesh as a little child He came in the beauty of the Dawn. II. Once again Christ’s coming was like the Dayspring in that s¢ was very gentle in its approach. How quietly steals the light upon the Eastern sky! Morning does not herald its approach like the Lightning or the Storm by premonitory signs. It comes quietly, so quietly that you can hardly tell when it has arrived, when the first streaks of light begin to unbare to you the forms and colours of the sleeping land- scape. THE DAYSPRING 35 Tennyson has a fine description of the quiet- ness of the dawn :— “from out the distant gloom A breeze began to tremble o’er The dark leaves of the sycamore And fluctuate ali the still perfume ; And gathering freshlier overhead, Rocked the full-foliaged elms and swung The heavy folded tose and flung The lilies to and fro and said,— ‘The dawn! the dawn!’ and died away. And East and West, without a breath, Mixt their dim lights like life and death To broaden into boundless day.” And such was the rising of the Sun of Righteous- Pesswre tie (id vnot strive snot icty nor lift Upra iis, yOice "in... the streets.” ’ No secular historian takes note of His birth. All history dates from that wondrous night, yet few or none of earth’s great or wise, knew of it when it came. “‘ He was in the world and the world knew it not.” The light was shining in the darkness for years and yeats before the world “comprehended ”’ it. From which we learn, surely, that the greatest 36). DAYS TOR) THE) SONVOE Maan forces in history and experience ate not always the noisiest, that we are not to despair of apparent apathy in any age since there is always a a “ budding morrow in midnight,” and that when the shadows lie thickest on human affairs, there may already be shimmeting behind the eastern hills the first rays of a new day whose coming is to revolutionize the face of all things. So, too, in experience. We are not to ques- tion the reality of a brother’s faith because it can point to no cataclysmic experience. The light of Christ may steal upon a human soul as | it first stole upon the world, with the gentleness of the dawn. “ How silently, how silently, the wondrous light is given ! So God imparts to human hearts, the blessings of His — heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.” III. Once again and most truly of all, Christ’s coming was the Dayspring of History, because of its powerful effects in the world of human expertence. THE DAYSPRING 37 Gentle as the Dayspring is, there is a mighty power behind it. It ushers its presence into the sky by a few faint streaks upon “ the ebon brow of night”; but soon it begins to infil- trate all the clouds with the splendour of its licht. It turns the white into rose, the black into gold, and rising higher into the sky its warming beams create everywhere life and activity. The birds begin to sing. Man goes “to his work and to his labour until the even- ing,” until at last blazing in high heaven with ““ sunbeams like swords,” it becomes a force of terrible power so that no eye may dare look unveiled into its resplendent countenance. And so was it with Christ. Gently as He came, what power there was in His coming! Before him scattered the clouds of ignorance and sin. As Shelley says :— “A power from the unknown God A Promethean conqueror came With a triumphant path, he trod The Thorns of death and shame. Hell, sin and slavery came Like bloodhounds mild and tame To ptey no more because their Lord had taken flights 38 DAYS;OF THE SON..OF MAN ‘The moon of Mahomet ’ Arose and it shall set While blazoned high on heaven’s immortal noon The Cross leads generations on.” In the succeeding verse, the prophet dwells on these powets which ate thus to be let loose by this Promethean conqueror. In the first place He is to “ give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” As light reveals the objects of nature, so Christ revealed to man the realities of the spititual world. ‘The first of all these realities which He thus revealed was the love of God. No doubt there are hints of that revelation in the Old Testament. We can never forget the tender pathos of the 103rd Psalm: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” And some of the pro- phets give no less beautiful pictures of God. But while these chiefly dwell on His love to His own people, it was the unique quality of Christ that He revealed a divine love to all man- kind, irrespective of nationality or creed, of merit or demerit. ‘God commendeth His THE DAYSPRING 39 love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” In the forefront of His teaching there is this thought of a universal love, to the Prodigal as well as the saint, to the Gentile as well as the Jew. It was thus that the Daybreak visited Bethlehem, as a “light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” For thus also He cast a new light on the great mysteries of human life, sin and sorrow and death. You remember the beautiful story in English history about the introduction of the Gospel into Northumbria. When St. Colum- — ba’s missionaries reached Northumberland in their evangelization of the country, a council was held by the King—then a heathen—as to whether they should permit them to cross the Tweed. ‘Perhaps thou recollectest,” said a noble, “what sometimes happens on wintry nights when thou art seated at table with thy watriots. A good fire is burning on the hearth and the hall is warm; but outside it snows and there is a high wind. ‘There comes a little bird which flies across the hall with fluttering wings, — 40, ) DAYS OF THEY SON ROEM iviAy coming in by one window and going out by another. The moment of crossing is full of sweetness: it no longer feels either snow or storm. But it is quickly past and soon the bird flies into the night again. Such is man’s life on eatth. It comes from the night and goes out into the night. If the new teaching can shed light upon it, it behoves us to follow it.” “And that is ‘what \ Jesus did, ite tenga light upon sin, for He not only taught man what it was but how to get rid of it. He shed light upon sotrow, for He pointed to the love of God which was behind it and beyond it. He shed light on the last mystery of death because he revealed it to be to those who loved God but the dark avenue which leads to the many man- sions beyond. It is to this Zacharias refers when he closes his beautiful song by saying, “And to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Zacharias seems to have been constitutionally a rather timid man, very different from his intrepid son, The angelic vision had troubled him and he gave no ctedence at the first to the message THE DAYSPRING AI which it brought. But now these feats seem to have taken wings and fled away. He tells us expressly in this song, that the result of Christ’s advent was to be the deliverance of Man from fear, “that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies,” that is, sin and sotrow and death, “might serve him without fear, in holiness before him, and righteousness all the days of our life.” And it is with the same thought he closes, Christ is to give “ light to them that sit in the shadow of death” and * guide our steps into the way of peace.” Has that light shone upon you and me? Has the Dayspring from on high visited our sin-darkened souls? Is it not the case with many of us, even professing Christians, that the light of the glad tidings of great joy is still dim and uncertain? Instead of walking in the way , of peace we tread fearfully through a shadow- land of doubts and fears. Mr, Arthur Benson in one of his books } quotes an unpublished letter of Dr. Johnson written in his last illness, which is full of the 1 Where No Fear Was. 42. DAYS OF ‘THE SONY OR VAN most poignant pathos. “O my friend,” he says, “the approach of death is very terrible. I am afraid to think on that, which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and fancy that he, who has lived to-day, may live to-mottow. But let us try to derive our hope from God. .Meanwhile let us be kind to one another. Do not neglect me.” There is a simplicity and sincerity about such a cty from the depths as cannot but endear its writer; but one cannot but regret seeing a Christian so far from the light and comfort, which Christ came to bring to those who dwell in the shadow of death. It was not for this that the Dayspring from on high visited us and we ought more resolutely to realize our heritage and possess our possessions in Christ, by that faith which has been given us to guide our steps into the way of peace. “* Hast thou caused the Dayspring to know his place P ” asks God in Job. What Job could not do, Christ has done. He has caused the Dayspring to know its place; the Dayspring of history in the lowly place of THE DAYSPRING 43 a manger in the town of Bethlehem. Let us once again go in faith unto this wondrous place that we may tecapture the joy of the angelic hosts as they sang “‘ Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace toward men of good will.” “For unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given.” ‘* Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people.” He hath given “light to us who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our steps into the way of peace.” Ill THE WONDERFUL CHILD (For Christmas) “For unto us a child is born . . . and His name shall be called Wonderful.’’—Isa. ix. 6. Tue faculty of wonder is natural to man. It is strongest in the child and has been planted there by a wise Creator. For wonder is the parent of knowledge. Admiration is the mother of imitation. Show me a man who wondets at nothing, and I will show you one who does nothing wonderful. “We live by admiration, hope and love.” There are three things which naturally evoke wonder. The first is novelty. We all wonder at what is absolutely new. See a bird fly across the heavens and you will hardly lift your eyes ; but see a man do it and all eyes will eagerly gaze at the phenomenon. 44 THE WONDERFUL CHILD 45 Another source of wonder is the beautiful. Watch a crowd of children at some lantern exhibition and listen to the burst of exclam- ation that comes from their breasts as some exquisitely beautiful slide is thrown upon the screen, a ship sailing on a moonlit sea, the snow-white peaks of the Alps rising into a cloudless sky, a rose of rare loveliness spread- ing its delicate petals on every side. We are so made, that we cannot but respond to the beautiful as the harp strings respond to the player. But the highest cause of wonder is the sub- lime story of some great heroic deed, some- thing unparalleled in bravery or in sacrifice, which not only stirs and interests our minds ; but also elevates our souls, which lifts them higher, above the low levels of earthly desires and impels them to great and glorious deeds. This wonder is the vestibule of religion. It leads to awe and awe to reverence and reverence to faith. Wonder is not only the parent of knowledge: it is the nurse of faith. 46 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN It is the glory of Christianity that it stimu- lates this last kind of wonder. It does so by the grandeur and sublimity of its conceptions. “Without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.” It does so by the beauty of the character in which this Incarnation is revealed. ‘“‘ We beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” And it also does so by the novelty and unexpectedness of the source from which this revelation springs. It comes to man in the form of a little child. “Unto us a child is born and His name shall be called Wonderful.” There is something wonderful in any child. He is so fresh, so new, so beautiful, that when he first comes into any home he brings with him a new atmosphere. He makes old things pass away: he makes all things new. There has been nothing like him in the world before ; so the mother fondly says. And she is right. There are possibilities lurking there which you cannot estimate. That child may yet rule the nations. THE WONDERFUL CHILD = 47 But if there is something wonderful in any child, it was specially so with the child Christ. When we think of the lowliness of His origin and then contrast that with the wonderful re- sults which flowed from His advent into human history, we cannot but feel the truth of this ancient prophecy, “‘ His name shall be called Wonderful.” The prophet refers to four ele- ments in the life of Christ, His teaching—His Works—His Character—and His Legacy to Life and from each of these He is tight in saying that His name should be called “‘ Wonderful.” I. Christ is wonderful as a Counsellor. He came from the poorest class in the community. He was born in a stable and cradled in a manger. He had no schooling such as we give even to a promising lad among the poor. He never sat at Gamaliel’s feet. Like Shakespeare “ He had small Latin and less Greek.” He belonged to a race rich indeed in religion but with nothing else in the way of culture to boast of; with none of the Antiquity of Egypt or Babylon, with none of the Wisdom of Greece, with none 48 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN of the Majesty or Might of Rome.” “A Syrian teady to perish was His father”? and even in that Syrian land He came from a province famous neither for religion nor culture. “ Search and see, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” Nay, as if that were not enough, He came from one of the most despised cities in that province. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth P ” Yet it is from such a spring that there has issued a stream of thoughts the noblest and of ideals the highest that have ever inspired the mind of man. From that humble stock there has issued conceptions of life and duty which have moulded the counsels of men in every age and were never more influential than they are to-day. Justly prized are the words of the ancient sages; beautiful are the fancies which have sprung from the brain of a Homer or a Virgil, a Dante or a Shakespeare ;~ but it is safe to say that their thoughts and fancies have never breathed or burned in the heart of humanity like the words of Him “‘ Who spake as never man spake.” Lord Rosebery has spoken of libraries as being largely cemeteries of dead THE WONDERFUL CHILD 49 books ; but while that is an exaggeration it is true to say that all their books are dead and all their authors crumbling into dust compared with the life that throbs and the influence that thrills, in the words of Jesus Christ. Of Him we may truly say, “ He gives a light to every age, He gives but borrows none.” *“His name shall be called Wonderful, the Counsellor.” II. Again this Child may be called Wonderful not merely because of the words He spoke but because of the deeds He did. I speak not now of His miracles, though I might well speak of them, because whatever view we take about the possibility of miracles, thete must have been something wonderful about these mighty deeds which first drew the multitudes after Him. But lest they should be called in question by those who say that ““ Miracles do not happen,” let me point you to these “ greater works ” which He prophesied 4 so DAYS. OF THE’ SON OF MAN His disciples would do in His name and which they have been doing ever since. Let me ask you to think of the mighty power that slumbered in that humble child of Mary, as He lay weak and helpless in the cradle of Bethlehem. Think of the power which in three centuries conquered the mightiest Empire of History. - Think of the courage which in- spired His followers to meet unflinching the scorn of Greek Philosophy and the puissance of persecuting Rome. To accomplish that was sutely a wonderful feat, as Gibbon has freely acknowledged and tried to explain away in his Decline and Fall, And what shall I more say of the power that still continues, seemingly unexhausted, in the influence of His spirit to-day ? The institutions He has founded for the amelioration of human suffering; the philan- thropies He has inspired; the wonderful mis- sionaty enthusiasms He has originated, never more temartkable than in our own generation ; the influence He has exerted on the dread scourge © of War, the League of Nations, His last great THE WONDERFUL CHILD 51 wotk? Above all what shall we say of His work of regeneration in the individual? Paul was riot ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because it was “the power of God with salvation to evety one that believeth.” Have we any less cause to be proud of it to-day ? Only ignorance could say so. The works of Christ in saving souls from sin and sorrow ate as great to-day as they were when Peter said of his first miracle, “* His name through faith in His name hath made this man strong whom ye see and know: yea, the faith that is by Him hath given him this petfect soundness in the presence of you all.” His works no less than His words say of Him, His name shall be called Wonderful,” “ the “Mighty One, as God.” III. Once more this Child is no less wonderful when we look away from His words and works to the Personality into which He afterwards grew. He is not merely the Counsellor and the Mighty One: He is also “‘ the everlasting Father.” Greater than all He said and did was what He was. In that perfect life men saw a beauty 52 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN and a grace such as they had never seen before. It was not merely that it was a blameless life but that there was a tenderness and a love breathing out from it which was a new thing in the history of the world. History had freely told of men who wete gteat by reason of their strength in the past. It had spoken of Alexander the Great and Pompey the Great and it was yet to speak of Frederic the Great and Napoleon the Great. But none of these men were conspicuous for tenderness. Some of them were very cruel and all of them had waded their way to the throne of Empire through seas of blood and tears. Even Cesar, the greatest of them all, had a hard element in his character and led the noblest of his foes to a ctuel death. But what is remarkable about Jesus was the union in His character of gentleness with strength. There was nothing weak in the Man Christ Jesus. See Him as with scathing denunciation He lays bare the hypocrisy of Scribe and Pharisee. “Woe unto you, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?” See THE WONDERFUL CHILD 33 Him as with whip in hand he drives the false traffickers out of His Father’s House. See Him as in Pilate’s judgment-hall He stands forth calm before the storm of hate and passion. Well might Pilate say, “Behold the Man!” Was there ever man more manly than the Man Christ Jesus P Yes, but along with this there was a tender- ness, a compassion such as the world had never seen before. Who is this that takes the children in His arms and blesses them one by one? Who is this that takes the fallen woman by the hand and raises her to a new undreamed-of purity? Who is this that stands and weeps at Lazarus’ grave ? “It is the Lord, O wondrous story ; It is the Lord, the King of glory.” But what is most vital of all is this, that the same union of tenderness and strength which men saw in Him and which made some of them say He is a new Elias and others Jeremias, this He declared was a picture of God. “ He that hath seen Me,” he declared, “‘ hath seen the 54 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Father.” And this amazing assumption He commended to men in such parables as the Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son with such compelling beauty, that the world at once owned the surpassing splendour of such a conception and hailed Him as wonderful not merely as a teacher but as a revealer of “the everlasting Father.” Everlasting in might and majesty and yet like a Father who pities His children, so sttikingly does the prophet Isaiah from the far distance of centuries delineate the outlines of that character and personality, whose name was “‘ Wonderful.” IV. Last of all, Christ’s name is Wonderful because of “the unspeakable gift” He has be- gueathed to man. Of all the many gifts with which Christ has dowered the human race the best of all is peace. He made that clear by mentioning it alone in His last Will and Testament. ‘“‘ Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.” It was of that gift the angels had specially sung when the advent of the Wonderful Child was announced THE WONDERFUL CHILD 55 by the angelic song above the fields of Bethle- hem. “On earth peace and good will to men.” And that gift He Himself sealed to Man when on Calvary, He “‘ made peace by the blood of His Cross.” “There is no joy but calm,” says the poet, and there can be no permanent happiness where peace with God is not its centre and foundation. But this peace is to be won by faith in Christ. Multitudes found it so when first they looked to that Cross and “being justified by faith” found peace with God and multitudes have found it to be so since. “He is our peace” —peace with God, peace within ourselves and because of that peace with ourfellowmen. “‘ For there is neither Jew, nor Greek, there is neither Boucenor free.) .-yerare all One. in* Christ Jesus.” It must be admitted that the world is still a good way off from appreciating this last and best of the gifts of the Wonderful Christ. In spite of 1914 and its lesson, there is still much national selfishness and suspicion among the nations, still much rattling of the scabbard and 56 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN sharpening of the instruments of War by those who professedly sit at the feet of the Prince of Peace. ‘The ink of the Locarno Pact was scatcely dry before the air became thick with jealousy and secret diplomacy. The money which the nations are still spending on prepara- tion for war is a disgrace to our Christian civili- zation. Nevertheless, the League of Nations is a gteat fact and in spite of the selfishness of the West and the suspicions of the East we believe it will continue to be a great and glorious fact and that the day is coming, when the dream of the ancient prophet will be fulfilled and * Man to man the world o’er Shall brithers be, for a’ that.” To sum up, we have spoken of the wonderful name of the Child of Bethlehem. We have seen how marvellously the dream of the ancient prophet was fulfilled in Him whose name was “Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace.’ > And now what is the practical lesson we should learn from that wonder? Surely it is this—‘“ This THE WONDERFUL CHILD 57 is the Lord’s doing,” and therefore, because of that, ‘“‘it is marvellous in our eyes.” How wonderful that from the humble cradle of Beth- lehem there should come such a child as this ! What is the explanation of it? Surely there can be but one. “ The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.” Let us go now even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass. Let us bend in lonely reverence before this wonderful Child. Let us bring forth our gifts of reverence, of obedience, of love and pour them at the feet of our glorious King, saying, “ Blessing and glory and wisdom and power be unto Him who came to out poor world nineteen hundred years ago as a little child, the wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” IV OURSUEL AEE V UIE (For the close of the Year) “The time past of our life."—1 PETER iv. 3. THERE is a phtase we often hear used to-day in reference to gteat experiences through which we have passed. We are having “the time of 29 out life” we say,—speaking of red-letter days, halcyon days, days that are shining with joy _ and success. ‘“* Ah! that was the time of my life,’ we some- times sigh; “the time when our children wete young, when their merry laughter made music round our fireside, and health and vigour crowned our days. We did not realize it at the time; but that was the time of our life.” But Peter would remind us here that all our life is such atime. He is not thinking of special pottions of our life. He is thinking of life as 58 OUR LITTLE LIFE 59 a whole. He is thinking of that segment of eternity which is summed up in your little span of time. Small as it is, itis big with importance ; it is rich in opportunity. According as we live it, we make our characters and mould our des- tinies. It is “the time of our life.” f Now I wish to speak of three things, on this closing Sunday of the year, that are suggested by this little text, according to the different ways in which we emphasize its key-words, mime Pasi, and our fife. I We have brought before us here 4 PRECIOUS gift, the time of out life. II We are reminded that THIS GIFT IS SWIFTLY PASSING. It is “the time 22 past of our life,” that Peter asks us to think of here, and III We are encouraged by A PRESENT OPPORTUNITY. This gift, though passing, is present still. It is still our Life; outs to make something of in the future. J. First of all, we are taught here HOW pee COOUS Alt PATNG) I SoNTEED, GIB E 60 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN OF LIFE. You will say that is a very com- monplace reflection ; and so it is; but it is one of these commonplaces whose importance can never be too often hammered into our minds. Robertson of Brighton tells in one of his great sermons of a marble statue of a Greek - goddess he once saw in the public square of a Continental town. Art had fashioned her into a perennial fountain; so that through her lips and hands fresh water was evet flowing. But the marble image stood there itself impas- sive; making no effort to arrest the gliding water. So time seems to flow through the hands of some of us; swift and pause- less, till it has run out. And there the: man himself stands petrified into a marble sleep, not realizing what it is that is passing by him. Yes, if we only grasped it as we ought, this truth would be one of the most vivifying of all our thoughts. This present, with its moments and hours and days and years, is “the time of our life.” We see how precious a thing life is when we think of what happens to its possessor when OUR LITTLE LIFE 61 that gift is taken from him. You read the de- sctiption of some great funeral, the obsequies of some great monarch, or statesman or poet; the crowds that gather in the stately Abbey, the solemn setvice, the long procession, the gotgeous tomb, the plaintive music of the Requiem and then—then comes the end. The poor body is left there to loneliness and dissolu- tion, and in time forgetfulness. I have some- times thought as I read of these great funerals of that last act in the drama—the coffin left alone. We hear nothing of that. That does not come into the picture and yet that is the reality behind all these outward trappings of public lamentation. It is the committing of a dead body to the dust, the burying of it “out of sight,” as Abraham said with pathetic candour. It reminds one of what the great French preacher, Massillon, said at the funeral of “ Le Grand Monarque,”’ when looking down at the wizened and discoloured face of Louis XIV, still exposed to view as it lay in the chancel of Notre Dame, he burst into tears and, instead of preach- 2 62 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN ing the eloquent funeral oration he had prepared, could only articulate, “Only God is great! Only God is great!” And then, too, think of how precious a thing life is, in view of its vast potentialities. You read the life of some nobly gifted or generously inspited man. You are stirred with the record of its noble achievements ; you are moved with a noble admiration of his beautiful character, his goodness, his sacrifice, and you say to your- selfas you finish the last page: ‘* What a beautiful life! Would I could live a life like his! What a precious gift, if only I could use it as he cig iis Yes, life is a precious thing, if we only realized its possibilities. “Not many lives have we to live, One, only one. How precious should that one life be, This narrow span!” II. This leads me to the second thought of our text. The preciousness of our life is further emphasized by the Apostle when he reminds OUR LITTLE LIFE 63 us, that life is not merely a gift but is also A QUICKLY PASSING GIFT. Hence he speaks not merely of the time of our life but “ she time past of our life.” To St. Peter’s readers much of that gift was already gone. How much, none could say. Sometimes those who are soonest to lose it seem least likely to do so. But according to the law of averages, we can all estimate roughly how much of our life is already past. Some of us are in the twenties and that means that a third of our working life is gone; some are in the thirties and that means a half > some ate in the forties and only a third remains; while many are much near the end. The time past of out life is much greater than the time that is to be. And how has that time been passed ? In the case of those to whom Peter was writing it had been largely misspent; misspent in “ working the will of the Gentiles.” For that will was an evil will. The catalogue of its deeds as he recites it here is dark beyond conception. It 64. DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN gives us a strange picture of that early Church, when we tead that the time past of its members, had been spent in “ lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, tevellings, banquetings, and abomin- able idolatries.” Is it so with any of youP I should be sorry to think so. We live in a better age than that “hard Roman world,” and, except among the Salvationists, there are few Church Rolls, thank God, that could show such a catalogue of crime as is here disclosed. I say “thank God!” and yet, perhaps, we should not thank God so much for it. The fact is the Church is not touching the lowest strata of society as she ought. She is far too much the church of the respectable. But even among these, have not many of us to acknowledge with sotrow that the past time of our life has not been so vety different from those of Peter’s readers? Are there none of us, who ate not painfully conscious that their past life contains dark memories of such things as Peter writes here P Lasciviousness! Alas, if our secret hearts OUR LITTLE LIFE | 6; could speak they could tell of many a foul blot on the conscience even of God’s professed disciples by reason of this defiling sin! And lusts? The lust for Gold, the lust for Honour— is there none of that in the modern Church ? Why, if you were to purge out of your Church Rolls the names of the men and women who could not plead “not guilty’ to one of these sins, I am afraid you would leave behind a very attenuated list. And besides this waste of sin is there none of the waste of idleness? Peter mentions here things that cannot be called are not sinful in ? actual sins. “* Banquetings ’ themselves ; but when life is given up to ban- quetings, when all our days are passed in pleasure, when there is no record in it of generous service to others, then it is worse than sinful. It is the waste of life itself that brings the soul to that terrible awakening of which Rossetti has given so striking a picture. “The lost days of my life until to-day— What were they could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay ? ws 66. DAYS OF. THE SON; @R Mam Or golden coins squandered but still to pay, Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet, Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The undying throats of hell, athirst alway P I do not see them here, but after death, God knows, I know the faces I shall see Each murdered self crying with low last breath, ‘I am thyself! What hast thou done to me?’ ‘And I, and I, thyself ’—so each one saith, And thou, thyself to all eternity,” What is the lesson Peter would draw from this sad review? Is it, like the poet’s, one of despair? No; the tone of this” epistlevas everywhere one of hope. Hope is its keynote. With this it opens. “ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath begotten us unto a lively hope.” The past of your life is gone, but the future remains. Make use of it and it will atone for the sins and losses of that past. Ill. This brings us to the last great thought the Apostle would bring before us in our text, THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE EU as: Life for his hearers is not merely a precious OUNChTT FEE. TIPE 67 gift, and a passing gift: it is for them a still present gift. He speaks of it as owr life, ours to do something with yet, ours to make its future rich and noble. You remember the story told in Roman history of an ancient king, who went to visit the Sibyl at Cumz, in order to purchase from her her nine precious books of prophecy. But the price she asked was so exorbitant that the king tre- fused to give it and began to bargain. The only answer she gave was to cast three of the precious books into the fire, adding solemnly : “The price of the six is the same as that of the nine.’ The king again began to expostulate with her, but once again she cast three more of the books into the fire, saying again, “ The Merenor the three is thatyof the nine.’ )The king in consternation was now only too glad to give her any price and eagerly grasped what still was left. It is a similar thought Peter expresses here when he says, “ The time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.” The word “suffice” is ironical. 68 DAYS OF THE SON: OF MAN Enough has been consumed in the fites of time, nay, far too much. Let us prize and earnestly improve what still remains. To quote the fine commentary of the saintly Archbishop Leighton on this epistle, ‘“‘ The time past may suffice'us. Therefore, O corrupt lusts, look for no more. I have served you too long. The rest, whatever it be, must be given to my Lord. Ashamed and grieved am I to be so long in beginning. So much, it may be the most of my race past, before I took notice of my God. Oh! how I have lost and worse than lost all my past days.” Yet something still remains. Three books of the time of my life are still unconsumed. Let me purchase them at any cost if by God’s etace | may make some reparation for the years that ate lost, “ buying..up the opportunities ” because my days have hitherto been so “ evil.” As the dying thief was able even in the last hour of a wasted life to lay hold of “the hope set before him in the Gospel ” which Christ preached to him then; so may it be with you and me, if hitherto we have too little made use of the OUR’ LITTLE LIFE 69 opportunities of the past. On this closing Sabbath of another year, be it ours to hear the voice of Hope which says to us, the time past may suffice you *‘to work the will of the Gentiles.” ““ Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give’thee light.” Peene time! past “of your life)? (These words have a message for us at all times, but they have so specially at those anniversaries in our life when we ate admonished by their recurrence of the passage of the years. You remember how Milton makes use of his twenty-third birth- day for reflections and resolutions such as I have already referred to. “How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stolen from me my three-and-twentieth year |! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late Spring no bud or blossom shew’th.” - He resolves thereafter to live a more earnest life, ““ As ever in my Great Taskmaster’s eye,” —a resolution well kept. Curiously enough, the same occasion is men- tioned in the life of Gladstone, leading to a similar admonition. In his diary, 1 find this 40 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN written: “‘ This day I completed my twenty- third year. In future I hope circumstances will bind me down with a rigour, which my natutal sluggishness will find it impossible to elude.” ‘That resolve was also nobly fulfilled. He then entered on a life of service to the state which, whatever its other faults may have been, could never metit either from God ot man’ the condemnation of a slothful servant. Petchance I address some one here on a similar anniversary. May your natural birthday be to you a spiritual new birth, the birth in your mind and heart of thoughts and feelings which will affect all your after days. And finally, to bring to clear expression what has been the underlying thought of this whole sermon, is not the close of the year such an occasion and opportunity? To reflect with heart-searching regret on “‘the time past of our life,” to remember how large a segment is already gone, to do so in no sentimental or despairing spirit but with sincere repentance and resolute hopefulness, believing that ‘“‘ we may rise on step- ping-stones of our dead selves to higher things ” OURGDID TURE. LIBRE, 71 —this may be to us the beginning of days, the birth-hour of a high and holy incentive, that will make the prophet’s vision to be fulfilled by us. “* Behold, I create new heavens and a new eatth; and the former things shall not be remembered nor come into mind.” Let me close with the well-known lines of the greatest of the Victorian poets, lines written at a bitth-hour in his life too, when he resolved he would no longer live under the shadow of an old sorrow ; and make the coming of the New Year mark the beginning of a brighter and more useful poetic life in the future :— “Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring happy bells across the snow; The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, ‘The faithless coldness of the times, Ring out; ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. 72 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Ring in the valiant man and free The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.” V. THE CHRISTIAN MARINER’S COMPASS (For New Year Sunday) “Tn all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.” —PROV. iil. 6. SarLors tell us that there is one constellation in the Northern Hemisphere which is known as the Mariner’s Compass. It is that of The Plough, the two pointers of which make a line that always points to the Pole Star. Looking at these the sailor can always know his way across the pathless sea on a clear night. In our text we have what may be called the Christian Mariner’s Compass. It is in one sentence, ‘“‘ to acknowledge God in all our ways.” Make God first in all your plans and purposes and then you can never go astray. But what, you will ask, is it to acknowledge 73 74 DAYS OF THE *SON OF MAN God? What do you mean by making God first in your life ? I. Well, in the first place I would say, z means to ask His blessing on any enterprise you may undertake. You all know what it means to ask a blessing on the food you are about to take. It means that you ate thanking God as the giver of that” food and that you ate praying that He will make it useful and wholesome to you. In other words, you ate acknowledging God in that act of eating and drinking. Now, so should it be in all you do. In all your ways you should acknowledge God by asking His blessing on everything you say or do. And of course that simple act carries with it a great implication. It means that the thing you ate going to do is such, that you can ask God’s blessing upon it. If you can’t do that then it is an indication that you should not do it. In other words it points to conscience as the first and the supreme guide of life. Con- science is the Pole Star of the Christian Mariner. CHRISTIAN MARINER’S COMPASS 75 The breastplate of the High Priest was said to have a wonderful jewel upon it, called the “‘ Urim and the Thummim,” which had the property “of glowing at God’s yes and dimming at God’s no.” You and I have each a Urim and Thummim in our secret heart; a voice which evet says to us, “ This is the way, walk ye in it.” To listen to and to obey that voice is to “acknowledge God in all our ways.” II. Once more to acknowledge God in all out ways is fo seek for the direction of His Spirit. Authoritative as the conscience is in moral questions, there are other matters on which it can give no deciding leading. Such are the perplexities of common life, those cases in which moral factors do not enter, or in which they cannot be so clearly discerned as to afford a decision to the question. ‘These petplexities are not alternatives of right of wrong, but of what is wise and unwise. They ate what the Greek Philosopher called the “adiaphora”’—the indifferent things from a moral point of view—and yet they are very 76° (DAYS: OF “THE “SON” OF CNizAIN far from being indifferent in regard to our success of happiness in life. Now we acknowledge God in all such moments of perplexity by bringing such matters before Him ia earnest and believing prayer. ‘This is what, you temember, Eleazer did at the well, when he came to the moment of his greatest per- plexity. “‘ O Lord God of my master Abraham,” he said, “I pray thee send me good speed this day and show kindness unto my master Abra- ham ” for guidance in the work he had in hand. Now ; and then followed a very definite prayer to acknowledge God in all our ways is to do that. It means, as the old catechism puts it, that we believe in God as a Father Who is able and willing to help us in every time of need, and that we are not afraid or ashamed to go to Him and ask for His guidance “in each perplexing path of life.” Although most of us are willing to do this in private, we are not so willing to do it in public. It is said of Abraham Lincoln that at a great crisis in the Civil War he was not ashamed to tell his Cabinet that he had made the matter CHRISTIAN MARINER’S COMPASS 77 a subject of earnest prayer and that he believed God had answered that prayer. If there were mote of this acknowledgment of God in public life it would be better for the world. But we should bring to God not merely the great things, but the little things of life, if we wish matters to go smoothly with us during the day. ‘There is far too little preparation for the day’s work by a quiet talk with God in the morning hour. Much of our prayers ate a hurried repetition of petitions learned long azo at a mother’s knee. What we ought to do, is to spread out the day before God as Hezekiah spread out the letter of Rabshakeh, and leave it there. In the life of Dr. Hunter, of Glasgow, there is a letter written him by a lawyer. This man had studied for the Church; but doubts assailed him and he became an agnostic. He turned aside to the law and for years never entered a chutch, but under the influence of Hunter he was led back to faith in a personal God; and this is what he writes: “‘I may tell you what I know you will care to hear. For about five 78. DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN yeats I have almost never prayed. Not that God was entirely unreal, but so far off that the answering of prayer in a universe of fixed laws seemed impossible. The influence of your ser- vices, however, has been to discover to me that there is possible a true communion with God, and since I have had a toom of my own, each morning I spend a minute or two in God’s ptesence quietly laying before Him my aspira- tions in the day’s work and I am sure it is the best way to begin the day.” To do that, is to acknowledge God in a// our ways. III. Once more, to acknowledge God is to persist in the path in which we beheve He bas directed us, no matter how difficult and unpopular it may be. The prophet Elisha once used a phrase which should be engraven on every man’s heart if he wishes to beastrong man. ‘“ The Lord God,” he said, -“° before’ whom] “stand. Hitsha felt always he was standing in the presence of the Lord and with that consciousness dominat- ing all he did, the fear of man became impossible CHRISTIAN MARINER’S COMPASS 79 for him. If you and I could only practise that presence of God in all our life, it would become energized by a new power and courage which would make us altogether different men. The Regent Morton said of John Knox as he was laid in his grave, ‘“‘ There lies one who never feared nor flattered flesh.” Knox feared God so much that he feared man not at all. Get into the way of realizing that there is always a Third in all your interviews, and it will make you stronger and better men. The path of life will lie clear cut before you. Acknowledg- ing God in all your ways, He will direct your paths. IV. And this brings me to consider the pro- mise which follows from the precept of our text, “ He shall direct thy paths.” Now as to this direction we must not expect it to be always or indeed usually one of mirac- ulous oft in any way remarkable intervention. No doubt we have such cases in Scripture. Paul had his vision of “the Man of Macedonia ” beckoning him towards Europe. Joan of Arc 86° (DAYS OF (THE) SON: OP Vay had her heavenly visitors leading her on to the deliverance of France, and no doubt often still there do come particular providences which we cannot but regard as divine signposts in | the path of life. Thus, there is the incident in Spurgeon’s life which deterred him from going to College, after he had begun to preach in the villages round Cambridge. ‘“ Knowing that learning is often a great means of usefulness, I felt in- clined to accept an opportunity of attending College, which was then opened by the visit of Dr. Angus of Stepney College. It was ar- ranged we should meet in the house of Mr. Macmillan, the publisher, at Cambridge. I entered the house exactly at the time and was shown into a room where I waited @ couple of hours, feeling too much impressed with my Own insignificance to ring the bell and inquire the reason of the delay. At length the bell was tung and I was informed the Doctor had waited in another room till he could stay no longer and gone off to London. The stupid gitl had shown me in, but given no information CHRISTIAN MARINER’S COMPASS 81 that I had called. I was not a little disappointed and thought of making another application, but that afternoon, as I was walking out to the country, I was startled by what seemed a loud voice, but what may have been only an illusion, saying, ““Seekest thou great things for thyself ? Seek them not.” Spurgeon believed God’s hand was behind the servant’s foolish mistake, and pethaps he was tight. He was one of those untutored geniuses called like Burns from the plough. College education might have spoiled the fulness and freshness of his message. But, while thus we gladly admit that God may direct us at great crises by special interpositions, the whole teaching of Scripture is against relying on these. Paul no doubt had his vision; but where would modern missions have been if every missionaty had to depend on a vision before he went? Carey of Kettering had no visions when he became the Father of modern missions. He came to his great resolution simply by read- ing his Bible and obeying his Master. Most significant of all, we read of no vision calling the Saviour when He left the home at 6 82 -DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Nazareth and went to join the Baptist at the opening of His Ministry. What Jesus relied upon for guidance was His own judgment as it moved in harmony with the Father’s will. His judgment He believed to be “ just ” because in all things He sought “ not His own will but the will of Him that sent Him.” Do not, therefore, fall into the habit of seeking visions and revelations at every decisive step in your life; but so live in submission to God’s will that your ordinary faculties, un- consciously directed by His spirit, may be sufficient to direct your paths. It; is told ofsthe Rev. J.» P/aStmthersaae Greenock, that he once had a conversation with the Rev. Principal Denney, as to whether it was tight to follow John Wesley’s habit of turning up the Bible and looking at the first text that fixed the eye, as a divine direction in special times of perplexity. Dr. Denney held it was not; that it was using the Bible as a magic book instead of studying it prayerfully and rationally. ‘* Suppose we make an experiment, then,” said Struthers, and he turned up the CHRISTIAN MARINER’S COMPASS 83 Bible, seeking direction on the matter in hand, The first words his eyes lighted on were: “‘ Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Struthers took it as a decision against the practice, and I think he was right. It is, of course, a different matter if we study the Bible patiently and seek to know its teaching on a perplexing problem. It is told of David Livingstone that one night he was sitting on a river’s bank in great perplexity, faced on the other side by enemies who seemed bent on his own destruction; he took up his old Bible for guidance and turned deliberately to the wotds that Christ gave to His disciples as a last love message before He went up to heaven, “Go ye and teach all nations... and lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” He closed the book and said, “ That is the word of a gentleman and He will never bteak it.” He went happily to bed and slept like a child. Next day he crossed the rivet, tight into the midst of his foes. They broke before him, amazed at his courage, and he went safely through. 84. DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN And this leads me to speak of the definite leadings of Providence which God will assuredly give to us if we acknowledge Him in all our ways. One of these is by the inclination of the will in a certain direction. “'Thy people,” says the Psalmist, “shall be willing in the day of thy power.” There is an old proverb which says, “If you doubt, don’t do.” It is a good tule for the man who has sought God’s guidance in prayer. He will make us willing to go in the path in which He wants us to go. Another definite leading zs the removal of obstacles in the path divinely directed. We have looked forward to some duty with much mis- giving. We have prayed earnestly over it and then gone forward in a certain path feeling that God was leading us, but feeling too, that a Red Sea crossing lay before us. But lo! When we: came to the’ shore,’ we tounge there was) no: sea, Or, «rather > Godwinae “made a way in the sea and a path in the great waters.” He had made all his moun- tains a way and the rough places plain and CHRISTIAN MARINER’S COMPASS | 85 the crooked straight, “making us to say with the poet, “My barque is wafted to the strand By breath divine ; And on the helm there rests a Hand Other than mine.” Last and best of all, we may be sure that God is directing us in a certain path by the consciousness of Christ's presence with us in it. Travellers in the backwoods of America tell us how difficult it is to make one’s way through the vast forests. The direction gets lost in the most extraordinary manner and the tenderfoot, even with a compass, finds himself in a dense wood plodding on and on for days and days, without striking the promised river or lake or settlement, until at last he falls down and perishes of thirst in the lonely wild. But the skilful hunter in these woods, has no such dif_i- culty. He knows the “blazed” trails running right through these woods and even if he has not taken them before, knows where to look for the marks which his fellow foresters have made before him. On every tree some twenty 86 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN ot thirty yards apart there is a notch cut high above the undergrowth so that he can always see it. Keeping his eye on that, he passes swiftly on. He follows “the blazed trail,” and is never deceived by it. In life’s perplexing paths, there is a blazed trail. It was blazed by a great Pioneer who made it two thousand years ago. He has left there the marks which you can see still, by which you will be infallibly guided to safety if only you follow them to the end. Thousands have used it since He made it and it has never failed anyone yet. Will not you take it as you enter on this New Year in the journey of your life? Will you not resolve to acknowledge God in Christ more in the future, than you have done in the past, and then step cheerily forward believing that He will direct your steps. “ See- ing we ate compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run the race set before us looking unto Jesus.” VI THE CONTRASTS OF PALM SUNDAY (For Palm Sunday) “Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass.”—ST. MATT. xxl. 5. WHEN a great general returned to Rome after a signal conquest, he was often Niaaraith to the city with what was known as “a triumph.” It was a wonderful spectacle, and its traces are still to be seen in the old Roman Forum, in those magnificent triumphal arches through which the conquetor passed on his way to the Temple of Jove, there to offer sacrifice to the gods for the victory vouchsafed him. Now this story may be truly called the triumph of Jesus. He was coming into the city, which He loved and for which He was soon to die. He was coming after a life of the most wonderful victories overt sin and sorrow and death; and 87 88 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN He was doing so to crown them with the greatest victory of all—the Cross. It was therefore seemly that He should enter His capital city in triumph. He wished it to be so because He claimed to be its Messianic King, but how different His triumph from that of an earthly King! Here is no pomp or worldly power. Here is no gaudy triumph or marble arches. Allis meek and lowly and unpretending. “ Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass,” yea, “upon a colt, the foal of an ass.” Now | this element of contrast between the eatthly triumph of the world’s Conquerors and the spiritual triumph of Jesus, is deeply impressed on this whole story, and I wish to concentrate yout thought on it specially to-day. It is a feature which, I think, gives a certain freshness and charm to the old story and is besides full of moral instruction. I. And first of all we are at once arrested by the contrast between the central Figure of the scene and the surrounding spectators of it; the contrast of CONTRASTS OF PALM SUNDAY 89 a sorrowing Saviour and a rejoicing multitude. It has ~ yi been suggested that the whole conception of this triumphal entry was distasteful to Jesus. “It was,” says Professor David Smith, “a piece of acting, and pleasing as it was to the multitude, it was very distasteful to Him.”? We cannot accept such a view. It is derogatory to the Master to think of Him as acting any part in which He did not believe. No, this was the whole meaning of the story that He did claim to be a King and that in this triumphal entry on the city of David He was asserting His right to be called the Son of David. The cheers of the multitude were, therefore, not distasteful to Him and still less were the Hosannas of the children. He welcomed them and said, “‘If these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out.” Nature would be outraged if there were no welcome for the Son of God as He entered on the last scene of the greatest drama that had ever been witnessed on the stage of history, the redemption of man. 1 In the Days of His Flesh, by Prof. David Smith, p. 394. go DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Nevertheless, though Jesus welcomed this triumph, there is this much truth in Dr. Smith’s view, that He himself was widely separated in feelings from those that gathered round Him to join it. Picture to yourself some great pro- cession to-day in which the central figure of its cheering thousands is Himself burdened by some sectet sorrow ot fear (such, for example, as attended the Archduke of Austria on the day of that fatal tide of his through the streets of Sarajevo), and you have a picture of Jesus as He listened to the resounding ** Hosannas ” of the multitude on that first Palm Sunday. ‘Ab | 7? He ‘said to. Himself, \° youteheams but Iam like to weep! You hail me as a king, but I am a king that is crowned only to die, You greet me with Hosannas to-day! Before the week is done it will be ‘ Crucify Him ! Cru- cify Him!’ ” And so, crowned as He was with palm-wreath and welcomed by the cheers of ten thousands, it was observed by those who were nearest Him, that, “as He drew near the city, He wept.” CONTRASTS OF PALM SUNDAY 91 Such is the first contrast which I see in the Triumph of Jesus, and what is the lesson I learn from it? Is it not this, that while p\v’’ the instincts of the multitude are tight, they 4, ‘need to be wisely Hiseérad'? MEMES Conon: iC “folk welcomed Jesus because they knew He was their friend. ‘They realized that His Gospel was a ttuly democratic one, inasmuch as it preached the infinite value of every human soul and thus made for three great words of human progress, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality before God. In acclaiming Jesus as a true prophet, there- fore, the multitudes were tight, as they usually ate in the long run. As Lincoln has said in oft-quoted words, “ You may fool some of the people all of the time; and you may fool all of the people some of the time; but you can never fool all of the people all of the time.” The instincts of Democracy are on the side of Christ, if only you can get to its deepest heart. The working man has no real quarrel with Christ. His quarrel is that the Church 92, DAYS. OF THE (SON? OF VMAX does not represent Christ, and while I think he is often sadly led astray as to what the Church teaches, I cannot help feeling that sometimes he has a good case to make out for his com- plaint. ‘There is far too much class-feeling in the modern Church. What we need is more of the spirit of the Democrat of Nazareth, Who, as He beheld the multitudes, had compassion on them. II. But in the second place I notice this further contrast in the Triumph of Jesus, @ contrast between a steadfast Saviour and a fickle crowd. Though the ctowd is usually true in its deepest instincts, it is very apt to be led astray by a noisy demagogue who can pander to its baser passions. Thus it is apt to be fickle in its attachments and ungrateful to its benefactors. This, as I have indicated, was in Jesus’ mind as He listened to the Hallelujahs of the mob. He rated them at their true value, which was very low. Yet that did not deflect Him by one hait’s-breadth from His purpose. That is finely brought out by Munkacsy in CONTRASTS OF PALM SUNDAY 93 his great picture called “ Ecce Homo!” On the one side there is the howling Eastern mob ctying out their execrations with distorted face and garments, torn by fanatical passion, and on the other there is the calm, steadfast counten- ance of Jesus as He looked across this angry sea to the joy set before Him. He “ heeded Rote rovilino *tones:7)) "As a’ lamb” dumb before its shearers, so He openeth not His mouth.” This contrast is deeply impressed on us by this story. It has no doubt been suggested that the multitudes who cried “ Hosanna” to Him on Olivet, were not the same as those who said @rucity “(on Calvary. The one» were. the _ people of Galilee who loved Him; the other, the Jerusalem mob, stirred up by Priest and Phatisee. This is true; but it cannot be denied that the former made no effort to save Him, but weakly and cowardly stood by when He was delivered into the hands of wicked men. Some of them may have even joined in the roar of execration at the last. It is nothing new for the hero of to-day to be the martyr of to-morrow. 94 SDAYS OP THE SON SOREN “T lived for my country,” said Louis Kossuth, “and therefore I die in exile.” Christ well knew how fickle were the promises of men. “‘ The hour cometh and even now is, when ye shall leave Me alone.” Yet there is no wavering. In contrast to a “ drivelling generation’? He went forward steadfast to the end. So in our battle of life, whatever it be, whether in a great public struggle for righteousness or in a private fight with some secret sin or fear, we too have need of “the Kingdom of Christ’s patience.”” In every such battle there are ups and downs, Olivets of ringing cheers and Geth- semanes of bitter tears. At one hour you will have the palm branch waving round you and at another feel the chill shadow of the Cross ; and what you need, to steady your soul in the midst of such contrasts of experience is to fix your eyes on this Christ of Palm Sunday—to watch His calm face as He rides on amid the palm-waving crowd and sees beyond it “a little hill called Calvary,” . . . sees it, but does not flinch. CONTRASTS OF PALM SUNDAY 95 Ill. Last of all there is a contrast here, between the Saviour approaching the most glorious, and Jeru- salem approaching the most shameful act in their respective histories. Christ was entering Jerusalem to die, but Puligettu was ) Elisa) ttiumph: frue sare athe Betas. Ob \the: »Apostles) to) the: Hebrews, “Now we see Jesus, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour.” The Cross was Christ’s Waterloo. I have spoken of these wonderful triumphal arches in Rome, how they stand in that old forum ‘almost the only things erect amid a scene of ruin. Christ had no triumphal arch of that kind. All the tributes He received were the rustic offerings of simple peasants and the untutored sone of little children ; and yet He had a monu- ment too. This is His triumphal arch, this story which will never die, so long as Humanity lasts. No time’s decay will ever obliterate its inscription, no distance dim its mighty music, “Hosanna to the Son of David—Hosanna in the highest.” 96 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN “Ride on! Ride on in majesty ! In lowly pomp ride on to die; Bow thy meek head to mortal pain, Then take, O God, Thy power, and reign.” It was Christ’s triumphal hour; but how different with the city through whose streets He was now passing. Little as she knew it, she was preparing for the darkest deed in her long history so mingled with glory and with shame. She was filling up the last drop in that cup which was to be poured out in terrible judgment on the coming generation. That city which had stoned so many of its prophets was now to make a final consummation of its wickedness by rejecting the last and greatest of all. ‘While Jesus, by the Via Dolotosa, was thus matching on to glory, the city by the same road was matching to its doom. What to the one was a “savour of life unto life’ was to the other a “‘ savour of death unto death.” This contrast of the twofold influence of Christ is one which is always witnessed as the Lord Jesus Christ passes on in His triumph CONTRASTS OF PALM SUNDAY 97 through the hearts of men. ‘That is the very lesson which Paul learns from the triumph of Jesus. You remember how beautifully he uses the pageant of a Roman triumph to illustrate the clory of the conquering Christ. “ Thanks be unto God,” he says to the Corinthians, “‘ Who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ . . . for we afe a sweet savour of Christ unto God, in them that are being saved and in them that are perishing ; to the one a savour from death unto death, to the other a savour from life unto mice: The twofold “ savour ” of those who ate led captive in the triumph of Christ is no doubt a reference to the most pathetic incident in the Roman triumph. Behind the conqueror there usually followed a train of specially selected captives, won by him in his wars. Some of these, when the journey’s end was reached, were set free to show forth the clemency of the | conqueror; while others were put to death to show his power. It is this twofold result of the triumph of Christ, Paul speaks of when he says, “‘ To them 7 98 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN that are being saved we are a savour of life unto life; to them that are perishing we are a savour of death unto death.” It was seen in Christ’s first triumph. ‘To Him and to His believers it was a savour of life unto life; but to Jerusalem and its priests it was a savour of death unto death. This is the last and greatest lesson we learn from the contrasts of Palm Sunday. ‘The Tri- umph of Jesus never ends. From age to age the King of Glory passes on His way; but still as in the past His triumph has a twofold signifi- cance. To some it is a savour of life unto life. To others of death unto death. Which is it with you and me? Are we to be among those cheering multitudes to whom He came as Saviour and Kine ; or are we to be among those scowling Priests and Scribes to whom His coming brought only death and destruction P “ Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, and he that believeth in Him shall not be con- founded; and whosoever shall fall on that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder!” CONTRASTS OF PALM SUNDAY 99 God give us grace to make the wise decision, and as He this day passes before us to the Cal- vaty of His life, may it be outs to crown Him = ord) of all.”’ VIl THE GROUPS AROUND THE CROSS (For Good Friday) “And sitting down, they watched him there.”—Sr. Mart. xxvii. 36. THESE wotds complete the story of the Cross. The last act of the brutal soldiery has been done. The last insult has been heaped on the uncom- plainine spirits. ‘The last nail has been driven into the tender flesh. The Cross has been set upright. And so tired of their grim work and wishing doubtless to enjoy the pleasure of a fine spectacle, “‘ sitting down, they watched Him theres: There is something peculiarly solemn in a dying hour, something that betters the spirit of the most degraded and quickens the interest of the most indifferent. For one thing, death is ¢he end of time. What- 100 THE GROUPS AROUND THE CROSS 1o1 ever of pretence or falsehood has marked the features of life’s actor till then, will now surely be laid aside. Now surely, if a man be real at all, he will, as he says good-bye to all life’s shams, be real. And then, for another thing, death is the begin- ning of eternity. I have tread somewhere of a man who committed suicide, urged simply by the motive of curiosity as to what would be “‘after it all was over.” A foolish and fatal adventure! And yet I must say that some- times as I have sat by the bedsides of the dying, this thought has come to me: “Soon, very soon, you too will know that secret which has bafled the minds of the wisest men in all ages, Lee. the secret of eternity But of all deaths which have engaged the interest of men, none has fascinated them like the death of Jesus Christ. What He prophesied about His death was wonderfully fulfilled, even at the moment when it took place, and it has been more and more fulfilled ever since. ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.” oz DAYS OF THE ’SON OF MAN Gathered round His Cross, when it was first set up, there was a great multitude, including the most varied types of men, and as His life had never failed to awaken the most varied feelings, indifference, love, hatred and fear, so much mote was it with His death. Like a magnet, attractive to some metals, indifferent to others, repellent to a third, so strikingly did the last hours of the Saviour’s life proclaim each heart to itself if not to another as “ Sitting down, they watched Him there.” Let us look at those groups around the Cross. Once again the Cross is set up in our midst. Once again we are called to go back in memory to that “ green hill, far away,” and as it was in the past so is it still, the death of Christ awakens in the breast of those who remember it the most vatied feelings and proclaims to each one of us, as nothing else can do, what we are and what we shall be, as “ Sitting down, we watch Him there.” I. Our subject of meditation to-day is, there- —_— ———OrrS o~ THE GROUPS AROUND THE CROSS 103 fore, the Spectators of Calvary ot the “ Groups around the Cross,’ and let us begin with that group to which our text specially refers, the Roman soldiers or the type of Indifference to the Cross. Had these soldiers had eyes to see, they would have realized that the spectacle before them was peculiarly sublime. He who was one of the noblest of characters in His age was now dying a death of the most unparalleled patience and heroism and love that they had evet witnessed in their long experience. They had seen many die, more or less bravely; but where had they ever seen a man who ptayed for his murderers and spoke no word but love to his torturers ? ) Soren times He spake, seven words of love ; And all three hours His silence cried For mercy on the souls of men. ] ?? Jesus, out Lord, is crucified Yet to all this these soldiers were absolutely indifferent. To them it was but the death of an ordinary Jewish fanatic. There was only one thing about Him in which they were inter- 104 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN ested. \ It. was His clothes. \ The sclothesmaan the Carpenter of Nazareth! And so taking a shield and turning it on its back they began to tattle the dice upon it, gambling for - His “vesture,” poor though it be, gambling at the vety foot of the Cross. A sttange contrast surely! Above hangs One, Who even in the world’s judgment has been reckoned one of the noblest of the sons of men. He is dying a death of the noblest character, the death of a Martyr to truth, and He is doing it in the spirit of the noblest for- titude and the most marvellous love; so that the very record of it read by malefactors in later ages has broken their hearts and brought them to God; and yet to all this, these men are so utterly callous that there is only one thing about which they can think of, who is to get the clothes which He leaves behind? “ They parted My garments among them, and for my vesture did they cast lots.” A strange contrast; and yet shall we say it 1 The story of ‘‘ A Gentleman in Prison,” by Rev. John Kelman, Ds THE GROUPS AROUND THE CROSS 10; is utterly without a parallel to-day 2. How many there are in this city to-day to whom the Cross of Calvary is a matter of no importance! Nay ; ate there not some who come to the Lord’s Table from deeper sins even than gambling and take into their hands that are red with crime, the symbols of His broken body and shed blood ? IJ. That then is the innermost group around the Cross, the citcle of absolute and even brutal indifference. The second is that of open and now triumphant hatred. A little out from the soldiers and yet gathered as Closely as the authorities will allow are the representatives of the Chief Priest and Scribes. Probably the High Priest himself is not there. It would be beneath his dignity; but all his party are there. And a very happy party they ate. Itis their hour of triumph. ‘Their highest hopes have been fulfilled. He Who was their adversaty in life and said such bitter things about them, He has now got His deserts. Let Him try to save Himself now as He was so able to do it before with his quick tongue and diabolical 106 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN miracles! But no, His power is all gone now. The self-styled Messiah! What a tragic end to His pretensions! “ He saved others; Himself He cannot save.” So they mocked Him and in their mockery gave Him an unconscious tribute of highest praise. As some of the noblest names that men have ever worn in history were originally nick- names, given in contempt or derision, as such epithets as “Christian,” ‘* Huguenot” and “* Methodist”? were at first flung in scorn at those who were afterwards to make them glotious names, so no truer word of praise was evet spoken of Christ in His death than this, ‘Hex saves. others; Himself He cannotmsamem: For this is always the mark of the highest love, that in saving others, it will not, cannot, save itself; cannot come down from the Cross, can- not turn away from these piercing nails, that Crown of thorns, that riven side. No: because He saves others, Himself He cannot save. Let us remember that great law of sacrifice, when we ate called on by Love to do a task that seems too hard. “‘ Without shedding of blood there THE GROUPS AROUND THE CROSS 107 is no remission.”? Without a sacrifice that is 33 “supreme ”’ the highest victories of love can nevet be achieved. III. And now we come to the third group of those who gathered round that Cross, the circle. of his friends and disciples. One is glad to think that in the hour of His dying agony Jesus was not all alone. Although the disciples had all forsaken Him at the supreme hour of His need, and, with one exception, we read no record of them being present at the Cru- cifixion; there was one section of His followers which did not fail Him. ‘The women, as has been said, were more manly than the men, and we ate told that “many women were there beholding Him afar off.’ Among these ate mentioned ““ Maty Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the less and Salome.” These holy women had followed Him from Galilee and did the cooking for the band when they were camping out for the night. They now beheld Him “ afar off.” ‘Timidity prevented them mingling with the crowd but love prevented them from going 1o8 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN away. Fascinated, terrified, broken-hearted, they form the third circle around the Cross, that of Love without Hope. And there was one, who was yet to come yet nearer and whom no terror was to withhold from pressing close to the bleeding Saviour. This was the New Testament Rizpah, with a sorrow deeper than hers, because she was there to witness not only His corpse but His dying sufferings and the sufferings of a malefactor as well, the sufferings of one who was “ numbered with the transgressors.” And so we tread in the sublimely simple words of John: “And there stood beside the cross of Jesus his mother.” John says no more than that. But it is sufficient. It presents before us the most poig- nant picture in all the Bible, the Mother of Jesus beholding the dying sufferings of her Son. She had apparently come later than the other women to the scene. Probably they had tried to keep it from her, till hearing of it accidentally she had rushed to John and pled with him to take her to her Son. Perhaps she might save THE GROUPS AROUND THE CROSS 109 Him yet! At all events let Him not die without a Mother’s kiss! Alas! it was all too late. When they had reached the spot the Cross was already set up. Christ was already lifted up far beyond her reach in other arms than a mothet’s, in the arms of a cruel cross. But she would be near Him and so, pressing through enemies and soldiers alike, she makes her way, followed by John and Mary Magdalene to the Cross. “‘ There stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother!” It was a poignant situation; too poignant for Jesus long to endure. Signing to John to take her away He gave her a majestic and yet loving farewell, resigning her into the trust of the man He loved most on earth. “ Lady’ behold thy son!” “ Son, behold thy Mother ! ” It must have been sweet to the Saviour on the Cross to see that these women were so loyal and loving to the last and yet there was one thing He missed in their loyalty and love. He missed the note of faith. As He looked into their faces He could see there only the note of commiseration and hopeless anguish. tio. DAYS: OF ‘THE: SON: OF Mal This was not the note Christ wanted to hear from His followers as He went forth to die. Except for a moment near the last it was not the note He heard from His own heart. Nos; it was the note of triumph. ‘“ Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me!” “‘ Father, for- give them, for they know not what they do!” “ Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit.” ‘“* It is finished ;”’ these are not the words of a hopeless man. On the contrary they speak of calm and peace and victory. That He must die as the Sacrifice for sin, as the Divine Paschal Lamb, He had been trying to teach them for many months. And now it was all in vain. It was vety disappointing. IV. Was there then none at all in all these spectators of the Cross, who entered into its meaning and saw beyond its sorrow and seeming failure to the joy set before it, and to the triumph it was to win? Yes, there was one. One only; and he per- haps the unlikeliest man in all that crowd, aye, in all Jerusalem, to penetrate into the mystery tiie GROUPS AROUNDYTHE CROSS riz of the Cross. “ And there was crucified with Him two thieves.” And one of them reviled Him saying, “If Thou be the Christ, save Thy- Bem@eandrus 7; but the other said, *? Lord: re- member me in that day when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom.” And Jesus said unto him, “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” Of all the wonders of the Cross, there is per- haps none more wonderful than the faith of the Penitent Thief. It is wonderful when we think of its source. As Tholuck says: “ Never did the new birth take place in so strange a cradle.” It is still more wonderful when we think of its greatness. “How clear,” says Calvin, “ was the vision of these eyes, which could thus see in death life, in ruin majesty, in shame glory, in defeat victory.” It must have been a tare cordial to Christ on the Cross; better far than the wine they put to His parched lips, better far than the sympathy of those who sorrowed for Him as if they had no hope. As Luther says, “ This, for Christ, was a comfort greater than the angels gave Him at Gethsemane, When 112 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN the faith of Peter breaks down, the faith of the dying thief begins.” What is the lesson which these several groups around the Cross leave with us to-day? Surely this, that the only true approach to the Cross is the Approach of Faith, We have seen that there are four ways in which we may regard the Sacrifice of Calvary, Apathy, Antipathy, Sympathy and Faith. There are but few to-day who are hostile to the historic Christ, though there are not a few who write things about Him which are full of contempt of His claims, while they profess to admire His character. But there ate not a few who, while they are nominally sympathetic to the Story of the Cross, are sadly apathetic to its message and its challenge. ‘The wotds of the prophet represent too much the attitude of multitudes to-day both inside the Church and out of it: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? Come, behold and see! Is there any sorrow like unto My sorrow ?” Sympathy with the story of the Cross there may be and is; but a sympathy for one who THE GROUPS AROUND THE CROSS 113 died two thousand yeats ago is too apt to become a practical apathy, if not a cold indifference. What we need to kindle enthusiasm at the Cross is, the faith that He Who died there died for me and that He lives still to bless me as He did those who gathered round His Cross with believing love in the days of His flesh. Such a faith has sofrow in it no doubt to begin with, but it is a sottow that passes into joy; it is a sorrow whose tears end in a song; “ Unto Him that loveth us and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood, unto Him be the glory.” May such a faith be yours and mine as “ sit- ting down, we watch Him there.” VIII THE GARDEN OF SORROW AND VICTORY (For Good Friday) # Now inithe place where he yras crucified thersiyaananeeeae and in the garden a new sepulchre . . . there laid they Jesus.”— Sd. JOHN XIX.’ Ar. Ir is surely not without significance that the Apostle John tells us here that where Jesus was crucified there was a garden.” Ge Ss in the place We read in Scripture of many gardens. It was in a garden, the Bible placed man at the first, thereby signifying his primeval innocence. ‘The beauty of the fair environment without was meant to be appropriate to the moral love- liness within. But there was a serpent in that garden, and so it became a wilderness. Thus in the story of redemption we come naturally to another garden. It is the garden of Gethsemane, where fainting under the shadow 114 THE GARDEN OF SORROW 115 of the olive trees, Jesus won the great victory of the spirit and planted the Passion-flower of resignation to the Father’s Will. It is natural that as the first Adam lost his birthright in a garden, so the second Adam “ should in a garden win it back.” That, we say, is appropriate; but is it quite the same, when we read here “ in the place where he was crucified there was a garden”? Is not our first thought, as we read these words, one of disharmony ? How unsuitable, that the gentle flowers should fill the air with their fragrance and beauty in the place where, amidst the clamour of wicked men and under the shadow of a great darkness, our Lord was put to a cruel death. Surely, there is a sense of incongruity in such a thought ? It is as when some great sorrow has darkened yout days and “all that life seemed meant for fails,’ you awake next morning to find the sunshine flooding your room as if nothing had happened! Nature seems so unresponsive to your pain! So as we see this garden round the Cross and watch the flowers blooming gaily, 116) DAYS OF THE SOND OF DOAN where the greatest tragedy of History is being enacted, we are tempted to say, “O flowers, shut your bright petals! Hang your flaunting heads! ‘This is no place for you! Rather bid thy fragrance become a wilderness and thy rose a desert, for this is the place where thy Lord was crucified | ” | At least it proves one thing—does it not >— that they greatly err who imagine that the sove- reign cure for man’s ills is just a fair environment and that parks and picture galleries and music will make man good by simply thinking of the beautiful. These things have a place in human culture, and it is a large one, but that place is not to be a cure to the sins of the human heart. As an antidote to evil in the past, they have been, as in Ancient Greece and Renaissant Italy, an utter failure. You cannot cute cancer with a flower. But while our first thought as we tead these words is one of incongruity between the scenery and its scene, is not our second one, and the best, one of és essential harmony and fitness ? THE GARDEN OF SORROW 117 Wherever the Cross has been planted in the soil of human life, it has always made it a garden. Jesus was mistaken for a Gardener long ago and there is, as Spurgeon has said, a deep truth in the superficial error. “ Christ is the true Gardener of human souls and wherever His Cross has been uplifted, there have bloomed around it the Passion-flowets of repentance, the Roses of Love and the Lilies of Purity. The planting of the Cross in the midst of a garden long ago, has been a true prophecy of all the ages. Bring Him into your life and it shall be fulfilled in yours, If it has been made a wilderness by the scorching winds of animal passion or by the wintry blasts of pain and sorrow, yet even so to you the old prophecy will be fulfilled, “ The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.” But our text reminds us further that there was not only a Cross in this Garden but a Sepulchre as well, “a new sepulchre where never man was laid.” Once again our first impression is one of 118 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN disharmony. We should scarcely expect to find a grave in the midst of a garden. The . two do not correspond. Yet after all is it not true to life? Death lurks everywhere ; beneath the beautiful as much as beneath the ugly. Huxley writes in his biography to a friend, “Tam staying amongst some of the fairest scenes of nature. All around is beautiful. It speaks of a good God; but yet I suppose if I listened closely, I should hear beneath this beauty of life, the cry of pain and death.” Perhaps, on some fair morn, you have climbed an eminence in a beautiful landscape and looked out across a scene of tare beauty. Wood and water, forest-clad hill and flower-spread valley, combined to a perfect whole. Yet on reflection you knew that beneath all “death was busy evetywhere.” The spider was catching the unwary fly, the serpent unhooding his poisoned fang, the hawk swooping on the gentle dove. Animal was preying on animal and man upon all. And Death was preying on man! See yonder flower-embosomed cottage. Could there be a THE GARDEN OF SORROW 119 fairer spot for human life to dwell in? Yet, note, how from its portals, the black coffin issues forth and the slow funeral procession creeps to the quiet churchyard. Yes, as Huxley says, you may not hear it; but it is there to hear if you bend closer, “the still sad music of humanity.” In every garden of the world there is a sepulchre. Yet, while that is true, thank God it is not all the truth. Look closer and behold this sepulchte. Is it a grave of hopeless sorrow ? Nay, it 1s a grave that has been rifled of its tenant ! Its gates have been broken down and by its portals sits an angel, saying: “ Why seek the living among the dead? Behold the place where the Lord lay ;” but where now He lies no mote. Yes, this grave in the garden is no symbol of despair. Its situation here is no mockery of human joy. Rather does it speak of triumph and comfort. As we see the flowers blooming round it, we see no incongruous sight; rather one of beautiful harmony. “Bloom on, ye flowers,”’ that empty grave seems to say, “ and 120 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN bloom round all human graves that have been sanctified by Me.” This empty sepulchre empties all other Chris- tian eraves of their blank despair, turning them indeed into gateways of Life and Hope and Immottality. I have mentioned Huxley and how he only heard the cry of pain beneath the loveliness of nature; but the deeper science and philosophy of to-day teaches us a nobler hope. According to Bergson, amid all this loss and pain a vital force is steadily working through nature up to man and through man to immortality. ‘The faith of Tennyson is being more and more justified by the doctrine of creative evolution : “That nothing walks with aimless feet, That not a worm is cloven in vain, That not a moth with vain desire, Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire ; Or but conserves another’s gain.” Yes, it was in the highest degree suitable that in the place where Jesus was crucified there should be a garden, and that in that garden there should also be a sepulchre ; an empty sepulchre THE GARDEN OF SORROYW _. 1a1 saying to all mourning hearts: ‘“‘ O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. But thanks be unto God Who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In closing, note one practical thought. This grave was a gift of love. It was provided by Joseph’s loving hands and he gave the best he could give, for it was a new sepulchre. No corruption had ever soiled its dark precincts before and none after- wards spoke of its brief tenancy. Jesus gave it back to Joseph as fresh as He got it and in- finitely more glorious. He always does so. Whatever we give to Him, He returns fifty-fold. Brothers, there ate many gifts we can give to Christ; but there is one of which perhaps you have never thought before. It is the one suggested by our text: You can give Christ your graves. “A grave!” you say. How can any- one give Him that? He needs no gtave. He is the ever-living One. He needs no gift of that kind any mote. 122 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN No, not in that sense. Not as denizen of it. Not as one to fill it, but as a Gardener to tend it and beautify it and adorn it. Mary was right when she “ supposed Him to be the Gardener.” He is the Gardener of all human graves ever since. Give Him then the grave in which your loved ones are lying. He will care for it. He will cover it over with the flowers of faith and hope. He will give it you back, made beautiful with this word written over it—‘‘ Because I live ye shall live also.” And there is another deep grave, too, which we can give to Jesus, it is the grave of sin, the sepulchre in which our past sins are lying. In Bunyan’s Story of the Cross, you all remem- ber the striking picture of the burden breaking from Christian’s back, as he caught sight of the Cross, and falling down and down the hill till it reached an open grave, “‘ where it fell in,” says Bunyan, “and I saw it no more.” Then was Christian glad and sang: ““Blest Cross! Blest Sepulchre! Nay, blessed be The Man that there was put to shame for Me.” Bunyan is tight. I have said, “ Give Him THE GARDEN OF SORROW © 123 the grave in which your past ones are buried ” ; but it would be truer to say, that Jesus Himself provides that grave. We only give Him the cotpse to fill it. For that grave is the new sepulchre from which He rose for our Justifica- tion. When our sins fall into that grave we see them no mote. They are buried deep in the grave of God’s forgetfulness. Do you feel the burden of your sin heavy to-day ? Look then to that Cross where so many thousands are looking to-day all over the wotld in faith and love and finding peace by that look. You, too, will find that He can heal you of your “ Self-despising.” “ The blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth thee from all sins.” That is what God’s voice is saying to you in the Garden of the Sepulchre to-day. Or is your burden not so much one of sin’s guilt and shame as of its cruel crushing power ? You have been bearing perhaps for years a cottupting corpse of evil habit on your back, saying, like Paul, “‘O wretched man, who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Come then, weaty struggler, to this grave. 124 DAYS’ OF THE SON OFVMAN Climb up the hill to where the Cross is standing, casting its shadow deep upon it. Look to that Cross in faith and as you do so say, “‘ He was wounded there for my transgressions. ‘The chastisement of my peace was upon Him. With His stripes I am healed”’; and it may be that God will manifest the power of His blood to you in such a way that these galling thongs of habit will crack their strings from your emanci- pated shoulders and from your spirit will fall that burden of death which has bound itself to you for so many years. Oh, the joy of that vision! Then indeed shall you feel how appropriate it is that Christ’s Cross and Sepulchre should have been placed in a garden. Fora garden it is to you, whose memory will ever cheer you as you journey along life’s dusty way, and enable you to say to yourself, “Tn the place where my Lord was crucified, there was a garden, and its flowers never fade.” IX SEEKING CHRIST IN THE WRONG PLACE (For Easter Day) “Why seek ye the living among the dead ?””—ST. LUKE xxiv. 5. THERE is a comfort in these words all the more exultant in that it is couched in the language of remonstrance. Sometimes the best comfort you can give to a mourner is a tender rebuke. Tell a man that the fears he fears are foolish ; reproach him with incredulity in refusing to credit what he longs to believe ; chide him with hypochondria for cherishing a nervousness he ardently desires to telinquish and you often administer the wisest medicine you can give toa mind diseased. ‘Thus, when the angel chides these poor women with this question, we can well believe it was sweeter than all music to their souls. It turned for them “the shadow of death into the morning.” But have these words no message for us? 125 126° DAYS OF THE SON; OF Whi Surely they have. ‘Though so many centuries have gone by since it was first proclaimed to an astonished world that Christ was risen, there ate still not a few within our churches and multi- tudes outside of it, who seek the living Christ among the dead. ‘They bring their spices and ointments to a corpse, instead of their joyous love to a living Lord. They seek for a Christ Who should be living, among the dead. I. Is not this, for example, the case with those who ask us to believe in a Christanity that has no room for miracles in it? '“ The great Companion is dead,” was the rematk of Prof. Romanes to a friend, speaking out of a time when the impact of scientific law on his mind had driven the possibility of miracle out of his beliefs. ‘The great Companion is dead.” ‘To him Nature was now robbed of one of its sweetest Presences. ‘There was no room for the working of a living, loving Personality amidst the phenomena of matter. All was cold mechanical law. There was no mind, no pur- pose behind it all. It was a great emptiness to SEEKING CHRIST 127 him. Though his thinking compelled him to believe it so, he felt bereaved of the sweetest thought which had before informed his study of Natute. “The great Companion is dead. tes There are many ‘like him in all our churches. They follow Christ to His Tomb with rever- ential love. They admire His teaching and may even imitate His example. They are moved by His Cross but further they cannot go. The Christ they honour is a dead Christ. ‘“‘ Upon His grave the Syrian Stars look down.” “ His dust is blown about the desert sands.” And thus bereaved, the thought of Christ gives them no teal comfort. He was a great teacher like Socrates or Buddha: nothing more. To speak of inspiration from His present fellowship is to use the language of faith but not of reason; of love but not of truth. The novelist De Morgan tells in one of his stories of an old lady who after the death of her husband read only two books, the Vicar of Wake- field and the New Testament. When her friend found her reading the latter, she would look over her shoulders and observed it was always 128, DAYS OR “STHEVSON: OF iA one part of it she was reading: the last two chapters of St. John. “ You see, darling,” she _ said, “‘it may really be true. Not just like going to Church to listen to what you don’t believe always.” The main current of her thoughts was this: “‘ Would she meet her beloved hus- band in the future world again?” Was all this true of only jan idiestale si In the uncertainty of her faith she is a type of many to-day. Oh, that to such honest doubters, one might say in tones not of severity but of earnest entreaty, ““ Why seek ye the living among the dead?” Why love a Christ Who taught you such noble comforting truths and yet tefuse to believe Him when He plainly fore- told His Resurrection? Why honour His dis- ciples and yet regard them as fools or knaves when they bore witness to that Resurrection ? Why believe in a Power working for Righteous- ness in the world and yet conclude that the grandest movement for Righteousness in history is a lie? Why shut your eyes to the Salvation from Sin and Sorrow, which this Gospel of a risen Saviour has brought to many like your- SEEKING CHRIST 129 selves, and yet steel your minds against its accep- tance by your heart and will? So long at least as you do so, you will receive no comfort from reading about Christ. ‘To such seekers He must say as He said of old: ‘‘ Ye search the Scriptures because ye think that ye have in them eternal life and ye will not come to Me that ye might have life.” He is not there, not even in the last two chap- ters of St. John’s Gospel! “ Heistisen. Why seek ye the living among the dead?” ‘You can find Him only, if find Him you would, in the experience of your own heart; in the revelation which the Holy Spirit can alone give you there of a Christ Who is as living to-day as when the Angel voices said to the Holy Women long ago —“ Why seek ye the living among the dead ?” II. Once again, the remonstrance of our text may be directed against those who while accepting a Risen Christ in their creed, treat Him as if He were dead in their daily life. Their conduct gives the lie to the faith which their creed expresses. The Christ they worship 9 130 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN has no more influence on their lives than if He were a mummy as old as the corpse of Tutunk- hamen. Christ is buried for them in a grave of formalism and their hearts are as arid as the valley of dry bones which the prophet saw in his vision. They pay outward honouts to the creed of Christendom but the Christ they wor- ship is a corpse. Travellers to the Holy Sepulchre at Eastertide tell us that the scene which is enacted there every Easter morning is one of the most extraordinary caricatures of Christianity that could be wit- nessed. Beneath a vast dome is a grotto, where the reputed sepulchre of Christ is declared to be. Thither at midnight a vast crowd of pil- erims from all lands are gathered. Each of these has supplied himself with a huge candle, which he has bought from the Priests-in-charge, at an exorbitant price. Exactly at midnight a light is seen to burst from the dark tomb. It is declared by the Priests to descend from heaven, though every intelligent man knows this to be a lie. But the poor peasants devoutly believe it is a sacred fire sent down by God to SEEKING CHRIST 131 verify the ancient miracle. Each one presses forwatd to get his candle illuminated at the sacred fire and great is his joy when often at the tisk of being crushed to death he does so. Yet the strange and the sad thing is that these poor people know as little about the teaching of Jesus as that of Mohammed. Their lives are unclean; their habits are degrading. They are filled with spite and hatred of their fellowmen and sometimes there are the most terrible riots at the tomb ending in bloodshed between the tival sects. It is a sad sight to see soldiers keep- ing guard over these Christians lest they should love one another so much as to cut their throats. They worship a Christ of a kind; but while one would not care to judge them too harshly, one cannot but feel it is a dead Christ, a Christ of dogma ;—orthodox but inoperative, buried in a grave of formalism and in some cases of hypocrisy. But not different is it with ourselves, if the Christ we profess to serve has no real influence on our life. Such a Christ for us is dead. If Christ be living for us He must be a Christ we 132) DAYS OF THE) SON (OF MAN setve and follow. “If ye then be risen with Christ, set your affections on the things that ate above, where Christ is seated at the right hand or Godin III. Once more we may seek the living Christ among the dead, by imprisoning His Spirit in a grave of unprogressive traditionalism, that has no outlook to the future. If Christ is living, this surely means that He lives in the Church of to-day and is therefore leading her on to ever higher and grander con- ceptions of His truth. When John Bright was growing old he became increasingly reminiscent in his style of address and was always dwelling on the triumphs of the days of Free Trade. After one of these speeches, a man was heard to say: “ All right, Mr. Bright ; but tell us something about to-day. That’s what we want to know.” If Christ is to be a living force in the life of to-day, He must have something to tell us about the present. And Hehas. ‘There is no preacher so up-to-date as the Lord Jesus Christ. Men SEEKING CHRIST 13.2 ate only beginning to learn how modern He is. Tolstoi once said of the Russian political situa- tion: “ What is needed for Russia to-day is fresh application of the teaching of Jesus.” The same is true of the present political situation. If men could only stoop down to listen to the living Christ half the evils from which our poor wotld is suffering to-day would disappear. Yet what do our ecclesiasticisms do too often with Christ? They wrap Him up in the grave- clothes of the past. They imprison Him in a hoaty tomb nineteen centuries old and say, “ All we can know of Christ is there. What is new cannot be true. What is true cannot be new. You must go back to the teaching of the Refor- mation, or the Ante-Nicene Church, or the New Testament disciples. There and there alone can you find the truth.” There is, of course, a certain truth in such an attitude. The principles which Christ im- planted are final. As one has said, “ They no more need tevising than the Multiplication Table. Take the principle expressed by St. John in the words, God is love, and tegard it 134 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN as one which is to govern conduct and educa- tion. We cannot really see in it some partial expression of truth which human wisdom will outgrow. Common sense compels us either to think that it is definitely misleading, as it has actually been said to be by philosophers recently, or that it is the whole truth and that there is nothing more to be said about the subject for ever. If we hold it true we hold it final.” 1 \ Nevertheless, all this is aside from the fact, that religious truth requites a new restatement in every age. The categories of thought vary in every generation and what satisfied the mind of the sixteenth century or the third century cannot satisfy the mind of to-day, and to think that it must, seems to me to be nothing less than imptisoning a living Christ amid the sepulchres of the dead. Believing, as we profess to do, in a living Christ, we ought to believe in a Christ Who is moving in the minds of men to-day, leading them on to new and higher conceptions of the Truth. To believe in anything less is to disbelieve in the Holy Spirit. He has come 1Lord Charnworth, According to St. Fohn. SEEKING > CHRIST 135 to the Church to be the interpreter of Christ, and to fetter Him with the grave clothes of tradition is to seek the living among the dead. TV. Last of all we have in these words a temonstrance with shose gloomy and melancholy Christians who while they profess to believe in this Faster Message, bring none of its victory into their life. The Resutrection note is one of joy and peace. The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. They returned from the Ascension Mount where they had bidden His earthly presence farewell, “with great joy ”’ and that joy prevails through- out the whole New Testament. “ Whom having not seen ye love,” says Peter, “in whom though now ye see Him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Great then is the disservice we do to Christ, when we minister to Him only with the spices of the dead and fail to give him the flowers of the living. Great is the evil we do not merely to ourselves but also to others if we go about our duties with gloomy, sour and downcast 136 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN faces instead of serving the Lord with gladness. Matthew Arnold tells in one of his sonnets how one hot August afternoon he wandered down to the wilderness of East London. It was a weaty day and every face he saw there in that joyless land “looked thrice dispirited.” But as he wandered on from one unlovely street to another, he suddenly encountered a face that was happy and strong. It was that of an old college friend and he could not help asking him what it was that made him so happy in these depressing surroundings. “‘T met a preacher there I knew, and said, ‘ Tired and o’erworked, how fare you in this scene P ’ ‘Bravely,’ said he, ‘for I of late have been Much cheered with thoughts of Christ the living Bread) And then he goes on to add his admiration of a cteed he cannot accept : “© human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow, To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam— Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! _ Thou mak’st the heaven thou hop’st indeed thy home.” - SEEKING CHRIST Tey Let us make the risen Christ the living bread of our daily life and then we will know some- thing of the joy which filled the hearts of the eatly disciples when they saw their risen Lord and believed that He was speaking the truth when He said to them, “ Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the world.” x THE YOUNG MAN AT THE EMPTY TOMB (For Easter Day) ‘«¢ Entering into'the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment.” —ST. Mark xvi. 5. As the holy women drew near the sepulchte on that first Easter morning they were troubled with this question, “‘ Who shall roll us away the stone?” For the stone was very great and it was sealed with the Royal Seal, placed there at the exptess desire of the Priests, lest the dis- ciples should steal away the body and pointing to the empty tomb declare that the prophecy of their Master had been fulfilled, “ On the third day He shall rise again.” Who shall roll us away the stone? It is a significant question and its echoes reverberate through hearts bereaved in every age. That stone, exceeding in its greatness, is a symbol of 138 ATY THER EMPTY LOMB 139 the grave stones which lie over all the graves of human love which are spread over the vast cemeteries of the world. Philosophy and Science have alike tried to roll that stone away and tell us what shall be—“‘after death.” But all in vain. The answer they give is at best “a solemn hope.” ‘They are well represented in the dying words of John Sterling in his last letter to Carlyle, “‘ I tread the common road into the great darkness, without any thought of fear and with very much of hope. Certainty I have none.” But what is too great for Philosophy to accom- plish, is not too much for faith. “ And when they looked, they saw that the stone was tolled away, for it was exceeding great.”’ Notice that curious conjunction “for.” We would natur- ally write “although.” And some critics have indeed tried to make better sense of it by placing the clause, after the question, ‘‘ Who shall roll us the stone away? for it was vety great.” But I like the treading as it stands. Mark knew what he was doing. He means to tell us that it was the very fact of the stone being so 140 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN great that caused the Angel not only to roll it away but to keep it thus unrolled. God helps those who cannot help themselves. And the lesson is, that if we go straight up to our dif—i- culties, however great they may seem, with unfaltering faith, we shall find them dissolve away on our nearer approach. “‘ The stone was tolled away, for it was very gteat.” But the special point in the story on which I would dwell this Easter morning, is Mark’s picture of the Annunciant of the Resurrection. He is described as “‘a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment.” Mark is the only evangelist who tells us this, and we are glad he has done so because it teaches us certain truths about the Gospel of the Resur- rection which are fresh and beautiful and inspir- ing. I. First of all we note che youthfulness of the first preacher of the Resurrection. Is there not something significant in that factP When Christ came to our world He AT THE EMPTY TOMB IAI found it very old and weary. ‘The best days of Israel and Greece and even of Rome seemed to many to have passed away. It was an age of sad disillusion to the patriotic Jew. The glorious times of David and Solomon and even of Ezra and Nehemiah seemed to have for ever passed away. ‘The nation was held fast in the thraldom of Rome and groaned under the cruelties of Idumean foreigners and the rapacities of Roman Govetrnots. Greece too looked back on the glorious times of Salamis and Thermopylae, on the splendid genius of the days of Sophocles and Euripides, of Socrates and Plato and felt sadly that for all the patronage of Roman Governors, it was “living Greece no more.” And even Rome itself, though she sat on the throne of universal power, groaned under the sinister sway of a Tiberius whose datk soul plotted death upon every free-born spirit and looked back amidst the corruption of the times to the freedom and vittue of the Republic. “Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell.” 12 DAYS OF THE SONORA And her best writers looked back regretfully to a golden age in the past, and forward with gloomy feats to a future in which all that was best in human life would perish in a cataclysm of blood and fire. “The world was very evil, The times were waxing late.” But with this death hour of history there came the message of a new tesurrection from the dead past, which changed it all. ‘‘ Thou hast turned our sunsets into sunrises,” says Clement of Alexandria, speaking of the new hope which had visited all their hearts by the message “‘ He is risen.” “ Young men saw visions.” “Old men dreamed dreams.” Old things had passed away. All things were made new. Now it is in testimony to this rejuvenating power in the Christian Gospel that Mark paints the first preacher of the Resurrection as a young man. It is meant as a symbol and a prophecy of what the faith in the risen Christ was to accomplish in the hearts of all who accepted it. “ Even the youths,” it seems to say, “ shall faint AT THE EMPTY TOMB 143 and grow weaty and the young men shall utterly fall, but they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint.” And is not that a message for every age? Is it not one for us peculiarly to-day. There is a sense of gloom and disquietude in many pro- phecies about the future of our face to-day. The problems which lie before the nations seem to many too great for mankind to solve. Ques- tions of race and colour, problems of population, industrial difficulties and above all a feeling in many quarters that the Religious instinct is growing weaker in the elder races—all contri- bute to a certain depression in the minds of those who would try to read the “ signs of the times.” But as Canon Liddon once said here, “‘ History is our best cordial,” and if we have regard to what Christianity did for the world in the past, we shall see no reason to doubt its capacity to solve the problems of the future. The young man at the empty tomb is with us still. Only let us hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints 144 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN and we shall see the same rejuvenescence in the world which began nineteen hundred yeats ago when, standing by an empty tomb, a man with a heart eternally young, said to a terrified world, “Be not afraid.” II. Once more we learn from this young man seated at the empty tomb a lesson in the health and virility of the Christian Gospel. A young man is the type of strength and manliness, and when the first preacher of the Resurtection is depicted in such a form, it is sutely meant to teach us that Christianity is emphatically a religion for the strong. There is a tendency in some quarters to make religion only a resource for the weak and the broken-hearted. I remember once at a Con- ference of Ministers held in Glasgow, to discuss the question of the preaching for the age, Dr. Parker closed the Conference by saying in his own dramatic way, “‘ What is the preaching for the age? Iteply, The preaching to broken hearts.” Of course there was truth in the reminder, but AT THE EMPTY TOMB 145 sutely it was not the whole truth. We want a Gospel for the whole-hearted and the strong and the happy, as well as a Gospel for the sad and the heavy-laden. James Russell Lowell, singing of the Religion of the future, says it will be more than “.. » an ambulance To fetch life’s wounded and malingerers in, Scorned by the strong.” There is perhaps a truth in what even Nietzshe says when, in his burning accusation against Christianity, he charges it, among other things, of worshipping weakness where it should wor- ship strength. me recent writerin: a littlev book! on) Christ, called The Man Whom Nobody Knows, complains that the Jesus he was introduced to in the Sabbath School was a weak, effeminate, sorrowful Being, whom no boy could be attracted to. It was only when he studied the Gospels for himself that he saw that the Church’s conception of Christ was all wrong. Christ was a strong, bright, joyous figure in the Gospels, the best diner out in Capernaum, the friend of publicans 10 146 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN and sinners and the lover of little children. He was absolutely brave and fearless; adored by women and loved by all young men. The true Christ, the Christ of the Gospels, was a man whom nobody knew. There is truth in this, though it is exaggerated by the author. As a matter of fact, there have been multitudes in every age who, like St. Francis, have been “‘ merry men of the Lord,” and have found in Him no “killjoy” but One Who has come to give them life and that more abundantly. This is the Christ who is foreshadowed by the Young Manat theempty tomb. “Ihave written unto you young men,” he says, “ because ye ate strong and ye have overcome the wicked one.” Don’t be afraid to give yourselves to Christ under the false idea that He wants you to narrow your life or deprive it of any pleasure that is healthful and innocent. Such a presentation of Christ is false to Him who said, ‘‘ Can the children of the Bridechamber fast so long as the Bridegroom is with them?” Christ is the Bridegroom of the soul that loves AT THE EMPTY TOMB 147 Him, and they that are united by faith to Him, ate invited to a wedding feast of unfading glad- ness, so that even at the close of life they can say, “‘ Thou hast kept the good wine until now.” III. Last of all, this young man at the empty tomb emphasizes the eed of moral purity as the condition for recewing the full gladness of the Easter Message. For he is further described, you will notice, as seated “‘on the right side of the tomb and clothed in a long white garment.”” Why white ? Because, I answer, white is the emblem of ce¢ purity. ‘‘ Wash me,” says the Psalmist, “and I shall be clean: purge me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” So the investiture of the first Herald of the Resurrection is one of snow-white purity, in order to teach the truth, that before we can enter into the message of the Resurrection Gospel, we must be cleansed in heart and pure in thought. Thete is nothing that destroys faith like an unclean life. It is only the pure in heart that can fully see God. If we are cherishing unclean 148 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN thoughts in our secret soul, we can never get to the right side of the empty tomb. So long as we live a life of compromise, so long as we feed with the swine, we shall never see beyond the walls of our swine trough. It is only when we come back from the far country that we can see the Father’s face and hear the Fathet’s voice and enter into the joy of our Lord. If we would sit with the young man on the right side of the empty tomb, we must be clothed in the long white garment of repentance and cleansing in the blood of Christ. Perhaps I address some whose faith in the Resurrection message is dim and feeble. The message of this young man has no meaning for you. It is only an idle tale, a cunningly devised fable. Why is it? I would not say that in some cases it may be due to intellectual difficulties. But in others, is it not due to this, that your eyes ate dim because of the life you are living? Waith- out being utterly bad you are not living the life of moral self-discipline that is necessary to the vision of the living Christ. A young man once came to me and said he could not believe AT THE EMPTY TOMB 149 in miracles and therefore could not join the Chutch. I pointed out to him that Christ’s wotd was “ Follow me, if any man will do my will he shall know of the teaching whether it be of God.” Two years after he came back and confessed that the real reason why he could not believe in a miraculous Christ was because he was living a double life. There was a secret unconquered sin inhissoul. But one day he was praying that God, if He existed, would give Him the power to overcome this sin and then he would believe. In a moment, he said, the light of Christ seemed to shine into his soul with a sense of overpowet- ing reality, and a voice seemed to say, “ Believe that I am and thou shalt know that Iam.” In that faith he went forward with a new and over- coming might. His old sin fell conquered before him, and since that day he had rejoiced in a moral freedom such as he had not known for years. Clothed now in the white garment he could look joyfully into the tomb and say, ‘Christ is living; I know it because He lives in me.” 1530 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN May such a faith be yours. ‘‘’To him that ovetcometh will I give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” XI THE FORBIDDEN TOUCH (For Ascensiontide) “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended.” —ST. JOHN xx. 17. ** ‘TELL me whete thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” This was the sad cry of Mary when first she dimly saw through her tears Him Whom “she supposed to be the gardener.” The empty tomb had conveyed to her mind none of the faith which it had given to Peter and John who had entered its precincts and seen the well-ordered garments. She only saw in it another cruelty of the enemies of her Lord. Not content with taking His life, they now wished to desecrate His poor body. But “the Gardener” speaks again, and now she realizes Who it is. Gardener indeed! Yes, Gardener of souls in that garden of the Lord whose richest tree is the Cross and whose 151 152. DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN sweetest flowets are faith and love. “ Jesus saith unto her, Mary!’ She saith unto Him, “ Rabboni ! ” and in her rapture she flings herself at His feet, intending doubtless to bathe them with teats of joy as once she had washed them with tears of penitence. But this time the offering of love is not ac- cepted. Jesus saith unto her, “ Touch me not, for 1 am not-yet ascended unto my Father ; but go unto my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God.” 3 Let us notice the word “for” in this pro- hibition. It is the key-word in the text. It means that while there is a touch which is forbidden there is also a touch that is permitted, that while she is no longer permitted to touch Jesus in the old familiar way, there is a touch which is still more blessed, that will be open to her and to all true disciples after her Lord’s ascen- sion—the touch of faith, the touch of spirit with spirit. “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended,” but after My ascension you may touch Me, nay, hold Me fast with a grasp which THE FORBIDDEN TOUCH 153 may never be relaxed, “for lo, I am with you ” then ‘‘all the days.” Here then are the two thoughts our text sug- gests, thoughts which are not unsuitable to this Ascension Sabbath; the touch which is for- bidden and the touch which is permitted, the earthly and the spiritual touch of Christ. I. Let us first consider why Mary was forbidden to touch her Master with a human touch, Some have suggested it was because she lacked sufficient reverence. That is the explanation of St. Chrysostom for this apparent coldness on | the part of Christ. But this is not satisfactory. Jesus did not forbid Thomas to touch Him before His ascension. “ Reach hither thy hand,” Petsaidy and thrust it into) my side’; and sutely Maty was as reverent as a doubting disciple. Others have suggested the need for haste. ‘This was no time for lingering endearments,”’ says St. Gregory. “The King’s business re- quired haste. Touch me not, but go unto my brethren.” But surely a touch would not have taken very long. 154 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN A truer explanation is suggested by St. Augus- tine. “It was meant,” he says, “to teach Maty that there was a far better way of touching Christ than by the hand of flesh. The true way to lay hold of the Saviour was with the spiritual etasp of faith.” Hitherto, the Magdalene had known Christ only “ after the flesh” as a human friend who had made sunshine in her life, and perhaps with her worship of the Saviour there had mingled a cettain love for the man. Nor had Christ refused this affection, knowing that in due time He would educate it into something nobler. That time has now come. Christ can no longer be an object of earthly affection. Soon His visible Presence will be hid from their gaze by the Ascension cloud. He can be no longer an object of human sight but only of divine faith. “JT ascend unto my Father.” But there is another Christ, the Christ of the Spirit, not of the Flesh. He will never leave His own. “Learn then,” says Christ to Mary, “to touch Me, no longer with the human touch ; but pre- pate for the time when you can hold Me with THE FORBIDDEN TOUCH © 155 the hand of faith, nay, become one with Me in a spiritual union.” Such is the lesson Christ would teach Mary now; and has it no application for us? I venture to think it has. We have no temptation to know Christ “ after the flesh ” such as Mary had; but there are certain attitudes to Christ into which faith is apt to fall in every age, which are not dissimilar to the materialism of Mary. There is, for example, au aesthetic or artistic attitude to faith which, with all its beauty and, within limits, its truth, is apt to degenerate into a mere “ knowing Christ after the flesh.” Iam not of those who think it a sin to allow any pic- torial representation of Christ in the Church, I think that Art may have a high sacred function in interpreting Christ to men. Nevertheless there is a distinct danger in its use in worship. We may make Art too prominent. We may make it the mistress of religion instead of being its handmaid. Certainly the crude realism of many pictures of the sufferings of Christ and the extent to which they are spread all over the walls of Roman Catholic Churches, especially 1456 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN on the Continent, seems to me to be detrimental to a spiritual worship. It tends to degrade the faith in a glorified Saviour into a mete senti- mental pity for a dying man. It is an appeal to the feelings rather than to the conscience and the intellect. That is partly the reason why the churches in Continental cities are so largely deserted by men and the worship is left only to women and children. I remember once visiting a large pilgrimage church on the Rhine. Its entire interior was covered with grottos representing scenes in the life of Jesus. At the western window was a Birth Scene; a stable with life-sized cattle standing by and waxen figures of the Mother and Child. Then came the Baptism and some of the leading incidents in the life of Christ, such as “‘ Christ blessing the Children,” and the “Raising of Lazarus ”’ from the dead; until at the great altar the Crucifixion was reached. It was, in its crude way, an impressive spectacle, with all the leading actors in the drama tfepre- sented. Above, rearing itself high into the roof, was a tough wooden Cross some twenty feet THE FORBIDDEN TOUCH 157 in height. On its beams was impaled the Sacred Victim. Splashed all over with blood, the body hung in an attitude of agony, and with the two thieves contorted into even mote terrify- ing shapes, presented a horrifying sight. At the right side of it was the grave of Jesus. Its eravestone was a huge slab of crystal through which you could see lying on a bier the almost naked body of our Lord, a pallid form. The whole effect was depressing in the highest degree. But I said to myself, “The Resurrection will telieve its gloom ; and yet I wonder how plastic att will describe that scene.” For a moment I thought the question had been beautifully answered ; for on the other side of the altar I saw another crystal grave, but this time empty. It was, as it seemed to me, a fine symbol of the Resurrection, but on looking closer I saw I was wtong. Above the grave there was a wax fisure of a woman rising up to heaven. It was a representation of “‘ the assumption of Mary ”’! So far as I could see there was no Resurrection scene at all. The builders seemed to have finished their tableaux of the life of Jesus, without 158 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN that which should have been the crown of all. As I wandered round I saw a lady kneeling before the high altar, weeping bitterly. I could not help thinking that if she had more truly grasped the message of the New Testament, her sotrow might have been turned into joy. “Weep not,” it might have said. “Ye seek Jesus, Who was crucified. He is not here, He is risen, Why seek ye the living among the dead?” Perhaps I was wrong. There is no doubt a_ sorrow for the Crucified which is proper and indeed at times inevitable; but the highest attitude to the Cross should be one of gratitude and praise. ‘‘ God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of my Lord Jesus Christ.” To mourn over the sufferings of Christ as we would over a human sufferer is not the prevalent note of the New Testament. “If I have known Christ after the flesh,” says St. Paul, “‘ how know I him 2 no morte.” ‘There is a child’s hymn which says : “T think when I read that sweet story of old, When Jesus was here among men, How He called little children as lambs to the fold, I should like to have been with them then ! thy FORBIDDEN TOUCH 159 I wish that His hands had been placed on my head, That His arms had been thrown around me, And that I might have seen His kind look when He said, “Let the little ones come unto Me. > 99 It is no doubt a pretty child’s hymn; but it is childish after all. We have a better way of knowing Christ than they, who knew Him only in the flesh. ‘“‘ Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; if any man hear my voice, open the door and I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me.” The other touch of the human Christ which is discouraged by Christ in these words is she touch of Doubt, the touch of materialistic Rationalism, That is tepresented by the touch of Thomas: “Except I put my fingers into the print of the nails . . . I will not believe.” Christ humoured it mote than Mary’s touch, for He had sympathy with the doubter’s distress ; but, as He did so, He pointed out its inevitably temporary character. ** Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” 160 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Thete ate men to-day who will not believe in ptayer, unless you can measure its results by ‘a table of statistics. “Give me a hospital watd,” said Huxley, “in which they pray for the patients and another in which they do not pray; and if the results in the first ate better than those in the second, I will begin to think about the value of prayer.” To such a hard materialism Christ refuses to make any teply. He comes to the soul that seeks Him through other avenues than those of formal logic. He comes to the faith that believes though it has not seen; to the heart that cries out for the living God, saying, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” On such Christ pronounces His final benediction: ‘‘ Blessed ate they that have not seen and yet have believed.” Il. But though the materialistic touch of Christ be forbidden there is another touch which is open to all true believers ; it is the touch of faith. “ Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended.” Some one has said, ‘“‘ You can take out the nega- tives from these words and understand theit THE FORBIDDEN TOUCH 161 meaning just as well.” “Touch me, for I am ascended.” What do we mean by the Ascension? Is it merely a tising of Jesus into the skies? That is but the picture of the Spiritual truth it is meant to teach. The true meaning of the Ascension is what Paul understands by it, ““ He hath ascended . . that he might fill all things.” The Ascen- sion of Christ is the resumption of His Spiritual Glory. So long as He had not ascended, He was still a Human Christ. Though His body had miraculous powers about it, it was essentially a human body—a body you could touch and handle. “ Handle me and see, for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as yesee mehave.” And this human- ity limited its access to all but a chosen few. A human body cannot be omnipresent. Now Christ’s Ascension was the putting on of His Omnipresence, the fulfilment of His promise, “Lo, I am with you all the days.” This marks Him out as different from the immortality of the world’s great leaders. Dante died and tose again. Shakespeare died and tose again, Burns died and rose again. These 3 162 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN men tose in the sense that they came to their own after death. They live in history. “ They tule the generations from their sceptred urns.” They have a Resurrection but not an Ascension. You cannot say of them as you can of Christ, “Lo, He is with me all the days.” You cannot speak to them or get an answer from them. You cannot feel their arms bearing you up when you “fall upon the thorns of life and bleed.” You cannot lean on them in the hour | of death’s awful dissolution. But this you can do with Christ. Just because He is your Ascended Lord, you can touch Him with that lifegiving touch, with which the woman who had the issue of blood touched the hem of His garment long ago and was made whole ; touch Him in every state of life in which you may be; touch Him in the city and the field; touch Him in your going out in the morning and touch Him when you come in at night; touch Him in the roar of the busy street and the clanging factory, and touch Him in the quiet of the closet or the solitude of the mountain-top. Yes; there is no place where you cannot touch THE FORBIDDEN TOUCH 163 Christ and whenever you really do touch Him, the miracle of grace is still repeated, “ As many as touched Him were made perfectly whole.” One way in which you may get into closest touch with Christ, I may specially mention, as it is referred to in our text. ‘* Touch me not,” said Christ to Mary, “but go to my brethren and tell them.” It is in telling other men about Christ that I am often most touched myself. You remember the old legend of St. Christopher ; how the strong man touched Christ by carrying the little child across the raging river. So we, 100, touch Christ when we taise the fallen; support the weak, bring salvation to the lost. Longfellow has a fine reference to the legend. He was standing one evening on the Massa- chusetts beach. It was a stormy night, and as he looked out across the foam-crested waves, he saw the lighthouse rising from the reef far off in the sea, casting forth its beams on every side, to warn the ships as they passed by. To the poet it seemed a modern setting of the old story of the Christian Giant 164 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN “Tike the great giant Christopher it stands, Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave, Wading far out among the rocks and sands, The night-o’er-taken mariner to save.” There are human lighthouses like that; and these are the men that most often “ Zouch Christ. XII "VHEV SORE TAOrt POW LR (For Whitsunday) “ Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.”—ST. LUKE xxiv. 49. WHEN Jesus spoke these words He was taking farewell of His human life on the earth. He who had been with the disciples for three happy yeats of human fellowship was now to leave them alone, to send them forth into a hostile world without His guiding presence to comfort and sustain. Before them loomed the mighty forces of Judaism, Helenism, Rome. Entrenched against them is all the might of ancient faiths, of intellectual culture, of military power. On their side, there is nothing but the enthusiasm of a few fishermen and the devotion of loving women. How can they hope to win in a battle in which the odds are so unequal ? No wonder 165 f60) DAYS) OF tHE 75 ONT © Having then He speaks of power. Power is what they need. Without power His life and teaching will be lost; perished in an ocean of obscurity, like so many brave and generous thoughts before. But power there is—all power in heaven and on eatth, though now His people seem so few. That power shall yet be theirs if only they wait for it. “‘ Ye shall receive power, not many days hence, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” .. . “Tatty in Jerusalem untilpyemian endued with power from on high.” That was the Fathet’s promise, and we know how gloriously it was fulfilled. When Pentecost came with its “mighty rushing wind,” the cowatds became Titans. A new equipment of strength was so visible in every attitude of their tone and message that even their enemies were amazed and “‘ took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” “ But,” as one has said, “it was more than that. It was not merely that they had been with Jesus, but that Jesus was still with them.” His Resurrection power had endued them with such strength that before them ancient empites crumbled into dust. THE SECRET OF POWER 167 Brethren, we too need power. We have not the same battle to fight as Peter and the Apostles had. But we have our own, and it is often hard enough. We need power to conquer self, to meet the crushing weight of an anti-spiritual world, to assert the Church’s right to make its testimony known in the perplexing problems and. situations of to-day, power to be brave and true, power to confess Christ when we are tempted to be ashamed of Him, power to face calamity, bereavement and death like brave men. Yes, we all need power. There is no gift more useful ot necessary than that which gathers round this great Pentecostal Sabbath: “ Tarry until ye be endued with power from on high.” Hete, then, are the two thoughts which lie on the sutface of this text and claim our consider- ation. First, what is this “ power from on high’’? and, second, how shall one get this power ? Outside an engineering shop I used to read the words, whenever I went by rail to Aberdeen : “Machinery for the transmission of power.” What is Heaven’s machinery for the transmission of power P 168 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN I. What is the “ Power from on High” ? It is a difficult question to answer. It is easier to say what it is not, than to tell what itis. It is not mete intellectual power. Not that we depreciate ¢hat. There ate people who do so under the pretext of honouring the Holy Spitit. You will usually find that they ate men who do not possess what they depreciate. They are sometimes lazy preachers, who won’t wotk at their sermons and try to substitute a cheap dependance on the Holy Spirit for honest labour. God is not deceived by that and in the end few men will be. And yet the power from on high is more than intellect. There have been men who possessed great intellectual power and great oratotical charm and yet they have been destitute of spiritual power. Their lives were often unclean, or their ministries were ineffective. In the life of D. L. Moody, it is told that when he first preached there were no results. He put strength and brains into his sermons, but he pteached for effect and so there was no effect. A woman one day said to him, “ Mr. Moody, THE SECRET OF POWER 169 you don’t seem to have power in your preaching.” The remark threw him back on God. He thought over it and finally prayed over it until one day, which he always called his Pentecost, a new spirit seemed to pass over him. He had a new sense of being an instrument in Christ’s hands, to use only for His glory. Thence- forwatd he was transformed. He became the great and mighty power for God that he after- watds was in the new world and the old. “It was the same sermons,” he says, “ that largely I preached as before; but now they were all different in tone and purpose and result. They had a new aim, a new outlook, a new love.” In a wotd he had “ power from on high.” And perhaps that is the nearest description we can get of this power. It is a new aim and that aim is the complete glorifying of Christ in all we do instead of the old glorifying of self. You remember how Christ Himself described it: “He shall glorify we; for he shall take of mine and show it unto you.” “ He shall glorify me” —yes, worldly power is always power sought for its own sake, even when it masquerades r7o DAYS OF THE SON’ OF WEAN under the name of Christ; as Simon Magus showed when he offered money for it; thinking it would greatly enhance his own glory. But the man who would have the power from on high must have another Spirit. He must not think of self at all, and it is in the measure that self and its glory pass out of sight that he becomes filled with the Spirit. He must be able to say with John the Baptist, ““ He must increase but 1 must decrease,” or with St. Paul) ““Ilive; yes not I, but Christ liveth in me.” II. And this brings us to the second thought suggested by our text, What is the secret of this power? What is the machinery for the trans- mission of “the power from on high ” ? Now that secret according to our text appears a vety simple one. It is just to wait till you getit. “* Tarry ye until ye be endued with power from on high.” Tarry | that word of course means more than simple inactive quiescence. It is the tarrying of prayer. It is the tarrying of earnest entreaty, entreaty such as Jacob offered up at Peniel when HibropCn + Oly POWER: I7I he cried, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.” It was said of David Dickson of Irvine, a famous Scottish minister, that one Sabbath after- noon before service his beadle heard him in his vestty, saying in passionate expostulation, “I cannot go alone. Unless you go with me I cannot go.” Wondering who could be in the vestry at a time when the minister was always alone, preparing for his service, he waited for a while, but there was still no answer from his unseen interlocutor, and at last the beadle knocked to say that the hour for the service was due. But there was no answer, and he entered to find the minister on his knees in prayer; the sweat rolling over his brow as he repeated the passionate entreaty, “Come with me! Come with me! For I cannot go alone!” It is out of such prayers that the power from on high is born. It was so that the first gift of the Spirit’s power was vouchsafed to the Early Church. ‘These wotds were spoken on Ascension Day. Pente- cost Sabbath, as you know, did not come until 172 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN ten days after it. So there was an interlude between the promise and its fulfilment. And how was it filled? It was filled in prayer. “These all with one accord continued stead- fastly in prayer, with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus.” So they “tarried ” in a ten days’ ptayer meeting, till on that glorious Sunday morning, the birthday of the Church, came the sound of the mighty wind, the tongues of fire and the gift of utterance and then the marching forwatd which has never ceased and never will cease, “ till the kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.” So, brethren, if we too would have this gift of heavenly power, we must wait for it, wait for it in “‘the secret place of the Most High,” and wait for it still more in the common worship of the Sanctuary. There is no fact of the spiritual _ life we are so apt to forget as the power of prayer. And there is no prayer we are mote apt to forget than the prayer for the Holy Spirit. “ Before out Lord shuts up His sermon on prayer He touches in one word,” says Dr. Whyte, “the top and perfection of all prayer, that is for the THE SECRET OF POWER bi Holy Spirit. It is no longer for bread, or a fish, or an ege. It is no longer for long life or tiches. It is for the Holy Spirit and the Holy - ‘Spirit alone. We have all wrestled at midnight, when we saw Esau coming to meet us with atmed men. We have all made our couch to swim with tears when our sin found us out. We have all fallen on our face when death with his torches was seen crossing our Kedron. But have we ever prayed for the Holy Spirit ? If your heart is carried on to pray for the Holy Spirit alone, you may have to continue all night in prayer until the morning. But then,—when the day breaks P ‘What are these which are atrayed in white robes and whence came they ?’ They are these who prayed for the Holy Spirit.” But our text suggests that there is another condition for this reception of the power from on high than that of prayer, mighty and effectual though it be; this namely that there should be no obstacle of sin or self in our life to bar Ets coming into our hearts. ‘This is brought out by the word “endue”’ in our text. The word in the original means literally “to be clothed upon.” So that 174 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN our text might be put thus: “ Tarry ye until ye be clothed with power from on high.” Now before a man can put ona new garment, he must put off the old one and so we ate con- ducted to another and deeply suggestive thought that ere anyone can be clothed with the power of God’s Spirit, he must be unclothed of the old garment of self and sin. ‘‘ The Holy Dove,” as one has said, ‘‘ cannot descend on an unclean place.” God’s Spirit cannot dwell in a heart that cherishes sin in its secret recesses. We cannot of course be perfect. ‘That is impossible, and no one feels it more than the Spirit-filled man. But we can have what the Bible calls 29 ““a perfect heart,” that is to say, a heart that yields itself to God with no reservation and says to Him, “I am thine, O Lord, save me.” “Thou art my king, O God; command de- liverances for Jacob.” I have said that the great distinguishing quality of Spiritual power is its selflessness. It is lost in love to Christ and seeks only His glory; and we see this here in the condition for receiving the Spirit’s power. The two are indeed one; THE SECRET OF POWER 175 the abnegation of self and the entire consecration of life; when the first is given up the second follows-and the result is always a power and energy in character and service that no other talent or quality in life can equal. ‘ In the life of Leonardo da Vinci there is a beautiful story told in connection with his great painting, “The Last Supper.” When he had ‘nearly finished it, he asked a friend in to see it. The central beauty of it all is,.as I dare say you know, the exquisite face of Christ, which came to the artist in a moment of inspiration after years of seeking. But this friend, though admiring it and many things, seemed to be specially taken up with a beautiful chalice, all jewelled and ccatved which the artist had put into the hands of Jesus. “ What an exquisite cup,” he said, “‘ you have put into the hand of our Saviour!” But the poet was displeased at the remark, and after his _ friend had gone out, he took up his brush and painted out the golden flagon replacing it by the simple glass tumbler which you see now in the picture. In a few days his friend came back 176 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN to get another view of the wonderful picture. He at once noticed the change and said: “ What have you done with my lovely cup? You have spoiled the picture for me.” “Nay,” said Leonatdo, “I did not wish you to look at the cup, but at the Christ Who holds the cup.” That is the true attitude for receiving power from on high. ‘Too often we desire men to look at our own little cup, at our gifts and graces, out eloquence and intellect, instead of at our Lord Who holds us in His hand only as a cup of setvice to others. Thus unblessed we too often remain unblessing. The cup is empty. It comes with no divine vintage to those who, if we would only listen to the deep yearnings of their hearts, would say, “It is Christ alone | we want; no other name but His.” On this glad Whitsun morning, let us seek afresh to learn this secret. Let us “ put off the 39 old man” that we may put on Him “ Who after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Let us come with empty vessels | to His infilling. So shall we know that great enduement of power, which is promised to | THE SECRET OF POWER 177 those who ate willing to repeat this ancient experience in their lives, who are resolved to tarry in Jerusalem until they are “‘ endued with power from on high.” XII WANTING IS—WHAT? (For Whitsunday) “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed ? ”»—-AcTs xix. 2 (R.V)). Two things ate obvious from this question of St. Paul to these men. First of all it is clear that they were true Christians, else Paul would never have spoken of them as believers. He would have been the first to spurn a metal that was not genuine. From the context we learn they were disciples of Apollos and while previous to this time that mighty preacher had only known “ the baptism of John,” it does not follow from that, that he was ignorant of Christ. The preaching of John the Baptist, according to the Fourth Gospel, was full of Christ and independently of that, it is expressly said in the previous chapter that, 178 WANTING IS—WHAT ? 179 before he met with Aquila and Priscilla, to whom he owed so much for a deeper knowledge of the Gospel, he “ expounded the things con- - cerning Jesus Christ.” And if Apollos knew Christ, we may be sure his disciples did so also. But in the second place it is no less obvious from this question of the Apostle, that there was something not quite satisfactory about the faith of these twelve men. It was evidently different from the faith of the other Ephesian converts, and it differed evidently from theirs in a way that was not vety pleasing to the Apostle Paul. If it had not been so, there would have been no meaning in his question. What that difference was, we ate not told. Most probably it was a lack of results. When they spoke they were perhaps, like Apollos, very eloquent, very inter- esting, perhaps very sincere; but their speaking was never accompanied with those conversions or consolations which were the accompanying “demonstrations of the Spirit’ in the case of the other disciples. Or the defect may have been im their walk and 180 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN conversation. "There may, for example, have been a lack of joy in it. They did not “eat their meat with gladness of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people.” Spurgeon once said that “ some Christians seemed to him to have been baptized in vinegar.” It may have been so with these disciples of Apollos. There may have been a lack of sweetness and blithesomeness about their conversation, which made them unattractive. They had none of the sunny winsomeness of Galilee about them. ‘They lived still in the wilderness of Jordan. Or, most significant of all, there may have been a lack of victory in their life. Some of them may have come to St. Paul, confessing sadly that their experience echoed rather the doleful wail of Romans vii.: ‘‘O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death ?” than the triumphant assurance of Romans viii. : “There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” Hence it is that the Apostle puts to them the WANTING IS—WHAT P 181 question of our text: “ Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed ?”’ Notice the change in the Revisets’ translation. Paul does not say as the Authorized Version makes him: “ Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed ? ” The original will not bear such an interpretation. No doubt it might have been so with them, as it was with the twelve. That blessed experience came to Peter and the other Apostles long aitere they ‘first believed.’ “It was)“ a far cty? from the call by the Lake of Galilee to the “mighty rushing wind” of the day of Pente- cost. | But since that great event, it had been the tule for the two events to synchronize. As soon as a man believed, he was encouraged to pray for the mysterious gift of the Holy Spirit ; hence it is said of Cornelius and his company that “while Peter yet spake the Holy Ghost fell on them which heard the word.” No sooner was a man baptized, or even before it, was this divine seal conferred as a mark of the reality of his experience. The Spirit of peace and power descended, giving evidence 182 DAYS: OF THE SON OF MAN to all around that the work of regeneration had begun. That had been Paul’s own experience and this is the question he now puts to them, “‘ Had it been theirs P”’ “‘ Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?” The word “ receive”? is a special word. It is always associated with the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. There is a sense in which every man is influenced by the divine Spirit when he “believes” in any Christian sense of that word. We cannot have faith at all without the aid and guidance of the Holy Spirit. But above that and beyond that there is here suggested a special reception of the Holy Spirit. This is what the disciples “received” at Pentecost. They had believed in Christ long before that event. But when the Spirit came down upon them with tongues of fire, they were transformed into different men. They who had been as craven as deer became boldas lions. They were endued with irresistible eloquence. ‘They went forth conquering and to conquer. So, suggests the Apostle, there must be something wanting in the experience of these WANTING IS—WHAT ? 183 men, else there had been present in their testi- mony something which is now sadly lacking. “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye be- lieved ?” Now, brethren, the question which Paul put to these men is pertinent in every age. Did we, did you and I, receive the Holy Ghost when we believed? If not, have we teceived Him since ? We may be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ up to our light. But is there not some- thing wanting, something defective in our life and conversation ? Have we the evidences, have we the marks of those who have been baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire ? You say, “ How can I know?” My friends, that is a question which is not difficult to answer. When the Holy Spirit comes down upon a soul, He sets His seal upon it. And it is a seal which all may decipher. What ate these marks of those who have thus teceived the Holy Spirit ? I. In the first place there will be in such a man a warm love to Christ. 184. DAYS OF “THE SON’ OF sMAN “The fruit of the Spirit is love ”—love to all men; but first and foremost love to Christ as Saviour and Friend. There will be such a love to the Master as Paul had when he said, “T count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” It is the function of the Spirit, as Christ Himself said, to reveal the Saviour to the soul. ‘“‘ He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.” This is one of the surest marks of a spiritual faith that its possessor has a new love to Christ, because a new perception of what Christ has done for him. Xenophon tells that when Cyrus the King of Persia had conquered Armenia, he offered its King three things as a reward for his bravery in battle, his own life, the independence of his country, or the freedom of his wife. The monarch replied, that he loved his own life very much and the freedom of his own country still more, but that if he were offered these in com- parison with the freedom and honour of his wife, he had but one answer: ‘“‘ Let my wife be saved and all else perish.” Cyrus was so WANTING IS—WHAT? 185 pleased that he gave the faithful husband all three. As he was going home with her, and descanting on the Emperor’s generosity, he asked her what she thought of Cyrus’ appear- aucrewew as) nis nota mobieytace sili was thinking so much of my dear husband,” she replied, “all the time, of your great love to me that I could see no other face in all that court.” It is such a love that the Holy Spirit produces in the hearts of those to whom He comes. He produces within them a sense of adoring grati- tude to Him Who has done so much for them that He becomes to them “ the chiefest among ten thousand.” Do we know anything of this love? If not, let us ask the Spirit to create it within us and He will not deny us. He will take from our eyes the veil which hides from them the beauty of Christ and repeat within us the experience of the early saints. “ We all reflecting as in a mirror with unveiled face, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to) slory, even as by the Lord, the Spirit’ (R.V.). 186 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN II. Again, another mark of the Spirit-filled soul is az ardent love for God’s Word. Charles Wesley sings in one of his hymns : “The Spirit breathes upon the word And brings the truth to sight.” It needs the Holy Spirit to give a man a loving interest in his Bible and this He does by pro- ducing faith in it, that it is God’s own word. Beautiful as the Bible is from a literary point of view, it is not until we believe that it contains a divine message to our souls that it attains to its highest preciousness. It becomes then our Guide-book ; telling us where we are and what we ought to do. Often dull and dry before, it now becomes to us the message of God, such a book as it was to Sir Walter Scott when on his death-bed he said, “‘ There is but one book for me now”; such a book as Luther found it to be when he discovered it in the old Augus- tinian monastery, disused and dusty, and found it to be the “joy and rejoicing of his heart.” III. Once more another common, though at WANTING IS—WHAT ? 187 times intermittent, mark of the Holy Spirit’s incoming into the heart, is the flooding of it with a joy and peace which pass all understanding. One of the commonest phrases of the Acts of the Apostles is that the disciples were filled “ with joy and the Holy Ghost.’ ‘The two ate put together as if they were constant companions. Whenever the one came the other usually followed. And this is a perennial experience. No doubt there are exceptions to it. There are moods of dullness and depression into which the best of people fall at times. There are defects of tem- perament which forbid us making it a tule, which has no exceptions. ‘The poet Cowper is a standing illustration of that. But on the whole it must be said, that if a Christian is not happy, there is usually something wrong with him. The prevailing temper of the Spirit- filled life is one of joy and peace. “‘ He went on his way rejoicing,” says the Evangelist of the Ethiopian Eunuch. It is the picture of evety Christian who “walks in the Spirit.” “The ransomed of the Lord shall return to 188 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Zion ” not with a dirge but “ with songs.” The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of gladness and they who have received Him have in their hearts a well of watet sptinging up to everlasting joy. IV. Last of all, there is Power. ‘This power was prophesied as one of the marks of the Spirit by our Lord-Himself when He said, “ Ye shall teceive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” This power is twofold. First of all, it is a power over ourselves, a powet to conquet our evil passions and to subdue our besetting sins. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Holiness and there- fote so long as we remain under His influence we live a victorious life. I do not of course say that we can do so always or to such an extent that we become sinless men. None but a hypo- crite or a self-deceived fanatic would say that. But I do say that when a man yields himself up fully to the influences of God’s Spirit he gains a new powet to deal with old sins which before left him helpless and vanquished. He enables us to reap some of these rich fruits of the Spirit WANTING IS—WHAT? 189 which the Apostle outlines in the Epistle to the Galatians when, after giving a dark catalogue of the works of the flesh, he says, “‘ But the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long- suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” ‘The Spirit-filled life is a victorious life. And then out of that victory within comes the power for testimony without. It is only the victor that can help the vanquished. How can I speak with any conviction, if the truth I teach has not been verified in my own experience. “Experience teaches fools, but it graduates saints.” Gideon could only conquer the Midian- ites when he had thrown down the Altar of Baal in his own village. But when we have conquered the foes in our own household we go out from that experience with a great gladness to help others to conquer theirs. So was it with these disciples of Apollos. When they had candidly confessed their defici- ency and taken the way of obedience, they were baptized with such a new spirit of testimony that a fresh revival broke out in the Church of 190 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Ephesus. Wondrous scenes took place ; among others a great bonfire of the idols of Ephesus, the “loss” of which was valued at £30,000. “So mightily grew the word of God and pte- vailed.”’ Such ate some of the marks of the Holy Spitit ? Do-we possess them? Surely there is not one of us who is not conscious of “‘ some- thing wanting” in our faith. It too often lacks that warm love to Christ and that joy and peace and power which accompany it. As Browning puts it: “Wanting is—what ? Summer redundant, Blueness abundant, Yet there’s a blot, Beaming the world, yet a blank all the same, Frame work which waits for the picture to frame: What of the leafage, what of the flower, Roses embowering with nought to embower ? Come then and complete incompletion, O Comer, Pant through the blueness and perfect the summer ! ” How shall we complete this incompletion ? WANTING IS—WHAT ? 19 How shall we make up this one thing that is lacking ? ‘The answer is found in our chapter. And the first thing we note in it is @ candid acknowledgement of our need. ‘That is what these twelve men did. Instead of getting angry with Paul, they frankly acknowledged their want, saying, ““ We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” It was a strange confession to make, and yet, I am afraid it is not far short of the truth about many in our churches to-day. At least, if they have heard of the Holy Ghost, they have only done so on the tarest occasions, and then only as a vague influence on their life, not as the third Person in the Trinity Who needs to be received into the heart just as much as the Lord Jesus is. ‘To put it plainly, there are many who know nothing of this experience and do not wish to do so. So long as a man is in that state we can do nothing for him. We can only pray that he may come to know how much he is missing in not receiving what is regarded in the New Testament as the crown of Christian experience, 192) DAYS OR THE SON TOR Gis These men confessed their need and their desire and then there followed their submission to the Apostle’s teaching as to how that gift was to be, obtained. That teaching involved two things: first of all a new baptism into the name of Jesus, and second the laying on of the Apostle’s hands. The first of these may have meant a cettain humiliation to these men. It was an acknowledgment before the world that their Christian life had hitherto been defective. Nay, it may have seemed to them a certain slight on their great Master, John the Baptist. Never- theless, they submitted it because they felt it was the only way to Blessing. They were will- ing to make any sacrifice of their pride in order that no obstacle might be left in the Spirit’s way. So if we would receive this gift, our hearts must be made tready to receive it. We must prepare the way of the Lord, by clearing out of our life anything that prevents the entrance of Him Who can only come on an altar made ready for the fire. WANTING IS—WHAT ? 193 And then there followed the laying on of Paul’s hands and prayer. There are times when the irnposition of hands is still retained in the Church as a channel of blessing, notably at the otdination of a minister. But for you and me, the great thing here is prayer, earnest prayer to Him Who has said, “If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your chil- dren, how much more will not your heavenly ‘Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.” Let us do it and do it now! Why should we go halting along in our feeble path, when the power of the Spirit is open to us all? I remember once hearing a minister tell a story of a gentleman who was sending off his boy to a boarding-school after the holidays. He went with him to the station, but being too busy to wait, gave him his ticket in the booking-hall and then said, “‘ Good-bye.” ‘The boy entered his train and went, as he usually did, third class. But what was his mottification to find at the end of the journey that his father had given him a first-class ticket! He had been travelling 13 194 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN third class when he might have enjoyed the comforts of the first. : How many of us are travelling third class to heaven, when we might be going first ! a XIV THE .BENEDICTION OF THE HOLY TRINITY (For Trinity Sunday) ““ The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.’”"—z Cor. xiii. 14. THERE ate no wotds in the Bible more frequently quoted than these. They form, as you know, that closing act of worship which we know as the Benediction. How little Paul must have thought that the words he was thus using at the close of this Epistle to the Corinthians were to echo on and on from age to age in the Church of Christ! He had been writing pretty sharply to these Corinthian Christians and only wished to make his good-bye to them one of kindness and Christian courtesy ; but the consciousness of the Church has instinctively laid hold on them as the most fitting way in which every Christian Service should cease and thus they have become 195 196 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN to us one of the greatest texts in Holy Scrip- ture. And when we come to consider them we see that they are well worthy of such an honour, for in the first place they sum up in brief, but exquisitely fitting form, the blessings of the Christian Gospel. I, There is first of all “‘ the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Ineed not tell you what “‘ grace ” means. There is no word more often on the lips of the Apostle. It occurs in epistle after epistle, often as the beginning and always as the end of his letters to the various Churches to which he had to write. And yet perhaps its very frequency has made its meaning dim to our minds; just as an old shilling may be so blurred with usage that what was once a clear image of the King or Queen upon it, is now hardly decipherable. Let me then remind you © that “ grace”? means, in the New Testament use of the word, a free and unmerited gift. Grace means a gift, but it means more than a gift. It means a gift bestowed on those who have no BENE DICTION: OF HOLY «TRINITY | 197 claim or merit to receive it. If you were to give a beautiful set of jewels to your daughter on her mafriage that would be a gift; but if you were to bestow the same or its equivalent on some poot beggar girl on the street that would be an act of grace. Now the Gospel comes before us here as ““ grace ” because it represents the free unmerited love of God to men who are without any claim to it—nay, in many cases totally unworthy of it. “ Scarcely for a righteous man will one die... but God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It was grace, grace from beginning to end, this Gospel that Paul preached, and so he calls it here “‘ the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Apostle calls this Gospel an act of grace, and he further prays that this thought of it as erace might always “be with them.” It was always with the Apostle himself. He never forgot that he was a sinner saved by grace. Right down to the close of his ministry it went with him, and when he was an old man he spoke of himself as once a “blasphemer and a per- 198 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN secutot?; but he adds, “ the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love,” for “this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” It was this thought of the Gospel as an act of free, unmerited grace, that filled his heart with adoring love_and made him unwearied in his setvice of the Master. ) And it will be the same with us, if we keep this thought of salvation as an act of grace ever before us. It will make us humble and loving and ever atdent in the desire to serve a Saviour who has done so much for us. Sir Walter Scott tells of a man whose life had been spared by another when he was seeking his death and when his sword had been restored to the dis- atmed antagonist, he gave him it back, saying, “ Henceforth I am your servant till life is done, You have made me yours by this act of grace.” So Paul prays for these Corinthians that the grace of the Lord Jesus might ever be with them, that they might never pass out of the conscious- ness that they were “not their own” but BENEDICTION OF HOLY TRINITY 199 “bought ” with the priceless blood of Jesus Christ. II. And then from this thought of Christ’s grace, Paul passes on to speak of the Love of God which that grace reveals. We might think that Paul would naturally have spoken first of God in this great benediction. But the reason of putting Him second is obviously this, that it is through the doorway of the grace of Christ that we pass into the perfect knowledge of the love of God. “ There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” “‘ No man cometh to the Father but by me.” In these and many other passages we are taught that it is only through the knowledge of the erace of the Lord Jesus that we come to know that “God is love.” But when we come to know Christ, then we do know it. Then we understand that the fore- shadowings of this truth which we find in the greatest thinkers of the Old Testament, of a God Who is not only a God of righteousness but One of infinite mercy and love, are fully 200 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN and glotiously confirmed in Jesus Christ. For this was indeed the great purpose of His love, to teach men that God was love, that behind the love of the Son there was as great and glorious a love of the Father, that it was “ the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world,” that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” and that no father ever loved a wayward child with more tender, patient, pleading love than the Father in Heaven Whom He came to reveal. Once again Paul prays that this love of God might be “with them.” ‘That is to say that they may never forget it. It is easy to believe in God at times—when the summer sun is streaming with brightness over our path and all the way is bespangled with the bright flowers of youth and joy; but when the winter storms beat on our heads and all is dark and desolate, then it is hard. And so Paul prays here that this love may ever be with them, and it will ever be with them when they remember “ the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”’ It is when we think of that greatest of all His gifts to us that we BENEDICTION OF HOLY TRINITY 201 refuse to doubt Him even when the dark days come, saying with the Apostle, “‘ He that spared not His own Son... shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.” To have the ? grace of Christ ever “with us” is to have the ¢ love of God ever “ with us.” III. And then last of all there is the third petition in this wondrous prayer—‘ And the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.” The word “communion” means what we mean by “fellowship” and what the Apostle suggests by it here is that these Corinthian con- vetts might be brought into that close intimate fellowship with God which alone is possible for those who have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. It was this, Christ Himself prophesied His disciples would receive when He told them on the last night of His life, that the Father would give them ‘“ Another Comforter” in place of the One they might seem to have lost, a “ Spirit of truth ” who had hitherto been “‘ with them ” but would then be “in them.” And that Holy 202) DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN ce¢ Spirit would so “ glorify ” Christ to them and so reveal the Father to them that instead of feeling “ orphaned ” after the death of their dear Master, their hearts would be filled with the joyful assurance that Christ not only lived, but that He lived in them and that through Him the Father lived in them as well. “ At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” This is the experience St. Paul describes here in one word when he says, “ The communion of the Holy Ghost be with you.” Could there be a richer, choicer blessing. But you will say, ““It is too high for common folks like me. The great Saints and Mystics may know some- thing about it; but it is not for me.” But it is for you! For notice the word he closes with. “‘ Be with you att ”’—all; every one of you, the poorest, meanest sinner in this audience may have it, if only you will seek it as the disciples sought it of old. ‘‘ The communion of the Holy Ghost be with you a//.” Such is the scope and wealth of this great BENEDICTION OF HOLY TRINITY 203 Apostolic Benediction. Feebly as I have out- lined it to you, you cannot surely but feel that in itself it is well worthy of the place it has found in the wotship of the Sanctuary. But there is another teason why this text has had such an important place in the history of the Church and that reason is this, that zt enshrines as no other passage in the Bible does the supreme doctrine of the Christian Faith, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. That doctrine does not of course depend on this text alone. On the contrary it is deeply rooted in Holy Scripture, especially in the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John, where the Personality of the Holy Spirit is clearly taught. It is also distinctly enunciated in Christ’s farewell message to the Church, “‘ Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” But nowhere is its meaning and comfort more beautifully expressed than in these farewell wotds of St. Paul. } The doctrine of the Trinity has often been stated in a dogmatic and metaphysical way, 204 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN which makes it not only repellent but even con- tradictory to human reason. But this is not the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity. It is not something which is apart from human reason, something cold and metaphysical, chopped out in blocks of ice by formal Logic. On the con- traty, as Paul describes it here, it is something very tender, something which grows out of Christian experience ; and though there is some- thing mysterious in it, there is nothing to my mind contradictory to human treason in its New Testament form. For what does it mean? Not that there are three Gods in One but shere are three different ways of approaching the one God. You have seen a gteat mountain, say the Rigi in Switzerland ot Ben Nevis in Scotland. From the point of view from which you look at it, it may seem comparatively easy of approach. Gentle pas- tures and beautiful forests accompany you far up its slope and it seems an easy climb. But if you try it on the other side, you will find it is steep and precipitous, impending over a dark and gloomy glen, while if you look at it from BENEDICTION OF HOLY TRINITY 205 a third side it is nothing but a sheer cliff thou- sands of feet high. It is the same mountain but it has different sides of approach, the one entirely different from the other. And so it is with the mystery of God. It has three different ways of approach, each suited to the different experience to which He manifests Himself. To some He _ reveals Himself as the Father of infinite power and love, the creator and preserver of all. That is how He chiefly revealed Himself in the child- hood of the race. ‘The earliest name for God in Atyan mythology is “ Father ”—Dyaus Pitar, the Father of gods and men. And _ this thought of God as Father, as we have seen, floats vaguely through the best of the minds of the Old Testament dispensation. “ Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” But there comes a time, both in the history of the race and the individual, when there is felt the need of something more than mete Fatherhood in God. We need a Saviour. Sin emerges in the consciousness as a tremendous 206 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN and crushing force. We need One Who can save us from that and so once again God reveals Himself to us as a Saviour. We are led to a Cross and made to see that it is only there that the mystery of God’s love can be fully revealed. We see “in the midst of the throne a Lamb slain from the Foundation of the world.” And then last of all there is the crowning revelation of the Holy Spirit. We need a God Who is not far off from us like the ancient deities; we need One Who is with us, help- ing our infirmities, strengthening us in our conflicts, guiding us in our perplexities, and this we have in the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. All these manifestations of God ate personal manifestations because it is only with persons that the human soul can hold fellowship; but they ate not persons in the sense that they are distinct individualities. They are not three Gods; they are only three personal manifesta- tions of One God. There is a mystery in that, you say. Yes, but nothing contradictory to human reason. BENEDICTION! OF HOLY TRINITY (207 Take an illustration from science. LEvety sub- stance in Nature has three different forms of manifestation. It may be a solid, or a fluid, or a gas. ‘Thus water is most familiar to us as a fluid, but under intense cold it becomes a solid, and under great heat escapes away in steam. It appears in three different forms, but in each it is the same substance nevertheless. And so God has revealed Himself in three different relations to us, each suited to the special experience we may be passing through as we approach Him. Now, we come to Him as our Father, our Creator, our Preserver ; now as our Saviour, out Friend in need and adversity ; now as out Comforter, our secret of power and light and joy. It is the same God but manifesting Himself to us in different forms according to the special experience through which we may Pempassing -at the time. ‘' The etace)'of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all,” for you all need Him and you need Him in all the ways He has revealed Himself to you in Christ. 208 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN To close, what is the lesson we should learn from this consideration of the deep things of God? Is it not one of adoring gratitude on this day devoted to His threefold Name? What a God is ours Who has thus so richly revealed Himself to our human needs! How great His condescension! How wondrous His love! “ Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable ate His judgments and His ways past finding out! For of Him” as our heavenly Father, “and through Him” as our divine Saviour, ~ “and to Him” as the Holy Spirit “are all things.” ‘To Him be glory for ever. Amen. XV THE -ROSE (IN THE HEART (For a Flower Service) **I am the Rose of Sharon.” —THE SONG OF SOLOMON ii. 1. “T have you in my heart.”—PHIL. 1. 7. My dear boys and girls, I got my subject for out Flower Service this year from a charming book about Roses, written by the late Dean Hole, a famous tose-lover. The very first sentence of the book strikes the key-note. “‘ He who would have beautiful roses in his garden, must have beautiful roses in his heart.” ‘“‘ Roses in the heart! ”—what a beautiful picture, and that is the picture I want to describe to you on this morning, when our church is so full of roses and many other flowers of summer. Dean Hole tells us in his book how he came tO wtite its opening sentence. He had gone to a flower-show to take part probably in the 209 14 210 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN opening ceremony along with a local magnate, whom we will call Sir Thomas. After going round the show, this magnate’s wife said to her husband, “O dear, we must really have a rosat- ium. We must erect a pergola in our gatden. These toses are simply enchanting.” So they got slips, some probably coming from very humble gardens. But they came to vety little. “TI say,” said Sit Thomas to Dean Hole a year after, “these roses have turned out a regular do. Cost a lot of money, nearly a tenner, and by jove, sir, our Curate came out at the County Flower-show and licked them all to fits.” “ Sir,” replied the Dean, “I never recom- mended a petson of your profound ignorance of roses to have anything to do with them. He who would have beautiful roses in his garden must have beautiful roses in his heart.” Which is true, not of roses only, but of anything that is of value. If you would have them in your hand, you must first have them in your heart. CHE SROSESINGTHEVHRARTE! 9 277 But what does it mean to have “roses in the heart”? If you want an answer to that ques- tion, you must turn to my text. “I have you,” says Paul to his beloved friends at Philippi, “I have you in my heart.” When Queen Marty of England, of unhappy memory, was dying of erief and disappointment, she said to a friend, “If you open up my heart after I am dead, you will find the word ‘ Calais ’ written there.” She meant that she was so vexed by the loss of Calais, which had recently been captured from the Enelish crown by the French, that if they could see into her broken heart, they would find that name engraved there. Well, I think she was rather foolish to make so much over the loss of a town to those who were its rightful ownets ; but you can see what she meant by it. She meant that Calais was so dear to her that its vety name was written upon her heart; and in the same way Paul meant that these Philippian Christians were so close to him that not merely their names but their very selves were gtow- ing like sweet flowers in the garden of his heart. 212, DAYS) OF THE SON TOE iyinwsy Now it is just so that I want you to gtow roses in your heart’s plot. There are other roses than those which grow in the gardens that some of you have round your houses, of which you see blooming so fair on our hedgerows in the lovely month of June. Fair as these roses are, there are better roses even than these, roses which have a sweeter fragrance and never fade. Such roses ate the white roses of purity, the ted rose of courage, and the golden rose of love. These ate the roses I wish you to gtow in the garden plot of your life; but in order to do so you must, as Dean Hole says, have them in your heart, that is to say you must love them so dearly and cherish them so carefully that they will flourish under your tender care; for “he who would grow such roses must have them in his heart.” | There is one Rose above all others I would have you to grow in your hearts. It is “the Rose of Sharon.” You know Who that is. It is the Lord Jesus Christ and there is no flower so fair in all the garden of the soul as He is. In THE ROSE IN’ THE SHRART.. 213 Him all the beauty, all the courage, all the love of which we have been speaking are perfectly combined, and to have Him growing in the soul is to fill it with fragrance and beauty. But in order to have this Rose growing in | your souls you must have it first of all in your heart. It won’t do merely to admire Him in a languid kind of way as that lady admired the roses at the Show and wanted to have them in her garden but put no further interest into the matter beyond the spending of a few pounds which she would never miss. No, you must put effort and sacrifice into your rose-growing, just as these rose-growers do who win the great prizes with their lovely blooms at the show. In the book to which I have already referred, - Dean Hole tells how he once went to a Wotrk- men’s Flower Show at Nottingham. He did not expect to find anything very remarkable there, for roses ate expensive flowers to buy when they are of the highest quality and delicate and costly to bring to perfection. To his joy, however, he met with the surprise of his life. “T have never seen better specimens of roses,” 214° DAYS OF THE SON OF -MAN he declares, “‘ than those which wete exhibited by these working-men.” He had the curiosity to visit some of the prize-winners afterwards and asked how they had managed to produce such blooms. ‘The answer was everywhere the same—Sacrtifice ! “How can you afford,” he said, “to buy these expensive varieties P ” “By keeping from the beer shop,” said one. Another walked two miles in the morning before work, in order to tend his precious flowers. A third had tumbled out of bed on a frosty night and stripped the very blankets from his bed, in order to wrap up his favourite rose- bush. Dean Hole left Nottinghamshire feeling he had been among the bravest knights of floral chivalry. He carried away a glorious bouquet from one of the cottages with “ the best respects to the Missus.” Now, boys and gitls, why do I tell you this ? Because, if they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, should not you and I do it to obtain THE ROSE IN THE HEART 21; one that is incorruptible. If for the sake of flowers that fade away in a few days, men bear loss and suffer hardship, should not you and I do it for a rose which will bloom for ever and sweeten all your life with an immortal fragrance. The Rose of Sharon costs no money to buy. No, but it costs something which is mote precious often than money. It costs your love: it costs your sacrifice. It may cost you tears. It may even cost your heart’s blood. He who would erow the Rose of Sharon in his soul must have devin his heart. If. any man follow me, ‘let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Christ’s Rose costs sacrifice, but is it not worth the cost? ‘Think of the fragrance and beauty it would cast on your life if you had it erowing there. There is a Persian fable of a man who picked up a piece of clay that had a delightful smell. remsaig tO mite. WW hat art) thou 2 Att thou Palskicem es NOs “it teplied)<; lam only'a) bit of worthless clay, but I have been near a beautiful tose and it has given me its own sweet scent.” 216 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN To live neat to Christ, to have Him growing in your life, is to make it fragrant with His sweetness, and when others mark you, they will see what a glorious thing it is to have Him gtowing there. Another thing about growing the Christ-rose in the heart is that it will do for you what no other rose can do, it will protect you from those temptations which might otherwise turn the beautiful garden of your soul into a noisome place of noxious weeds and foul worms. When a man has a beautiful rose in his garden he does what he can to protect it ftom harm. He pulls out the noxious weeds that would otherwise infect it. He puts a fence round it from all who would trample it down or steal its blooms. That beautiful rose in the centre of the garden is a kind of protector of all the other flowers which gtow around it. And so if you grow the Rose of Sharon in your hearts it will be a kind of invisible pro- tectot against all the enemies of your soul. ‘“‘ On all the glory will be a defence,” as the prophet says. MoE ROSE IN: THE HEART": 217 I once read of a missionary who was caught by some hostile savages. They hated the white man because of the evils he had done and decreed that whenever they met one of his kind he should die. But when the missionary was led out to die, he said, ““ You must not kill me, because I am not like these other white men who deceive you and enslave you and kill you. I on the contraty love you.” ““ How can we tell you love us ?”’ replied the hatives. “You may be just the same as the others who pretend to love us at first and then turn round and enslave us.” “TIl prove that I love you,” said the mission- aty, “and Til do it by showing you that I have you all in my heart.” “Have us in your heart? How can that be,” said the astonished chief. For answer the missionary took off his coat and showed him a little hand mirror, which he had cunningly stitched into his waistcoat just above his heart. He had done so the previous nicht with a view to this emergency. The native looked into the missionary’s breast 218 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN and beheld a great black face shining back at him there | “That is the window of my heart,” said the missionary. “See, you ate there. Come, all of you, and look in. See it for yourselves.” They wete amazed, and not only spared his life, but welcomed him as their friend and teacher. Perhaps you will say it was a bit of a ruse. And yet was it not the real truth after all? He really had these poor people “in his heart.” That was why he had come to preach to them. That was his true protection and power over them in the end. And so, my dear children, will it be with you. If you have Jesus Christ in your heart, He will be a shield of protection to you from these enemies which might otherwise enter there and destroy the fair garden of faith and love and hope which under His protection will flourish thus. Will you not seek to obtain His presence there ? Will you not buy this Rose of Sharon and plant it in your secret life? Will you not EROS IN REE Cr AR se 219 tend it with care and water it with sacrifice, so that it may bloom there and fill your life with that fragrance and beauty which are the marks of those who can say to Jesus Christ, in all sincerity, “I have you in my heart” P XVI THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST (For a Harvest Festival) ‘‘ Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” — GAL. vi. 7, 8. In these words Paul lays down the great truth that there is a germinal or seedlike principle in all human action. We are all “Sowers,” as Seton Merriman has it. The same relation that exists between the seed which the farmer sows in Spring and the harvest he reaps in Autumn, exists between the thoughts and deeds of your life to-day and the conduct and character of your life to-mortow. If you think for a moment, you will see how far-reaching that principle is. Take a simple illustration. Lay a polished stone in your hand and place beside it an acorn out of the forest. 220) THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST 221 The two may look very much alike. The stone may be polished and painted to look like an acorn, as I have sometimes seen it, and when it is so you can hardly tell the difference between them. And yet how vast the real distinction! Place that stone in the earth. Let the rain moisten it: let the sun warm it, and what happens P Nothing. Astoneitis. A stone it shall remain for evermore. But now take the acorn and place it there also. What happens to it? It at once begins to react on its environment. It swells and bursts and from its broken heart there emerges a spear of green which rises above the soil, erows in the fresh air and sunlight, and finally soats into a mighty monarch of the forest which lives generations after you are dead. What is the difference between the two? I answer in one word—“ Life.” The one is a dead stone: the other is a living seed. Nowso, says our text, is it with our actions. They are not dead things. ‘They are living seeds. They live after we ate apparently done with them. 222 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN They germinate in the soil of time. They may even bear fruit in the sunlight of eternity. Let us look mote closely at this great thought of the Spiritual Harvest. Common as it is, the Apostle develops it in one text with great fresh- ness and impressive emphasis. He points out three great analogies between the material and , the spiritual harvest :— I. In the sémilarity between the seed we sow and the harvest we reap. (“ Whatsoever .Githatte) I. In the divergence in the kinds of sowing we may do in the fields of ‘Time. “He that soweth to his flesh ” and “he that soweth to the Spirit.” And Il. In the certainty and multiplicity of our coming harvest, “‘He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” I. There is first of all the similarity between our sowing and our reaping. Whatsoever you sow that you teap. PAP SPiRTE UAT HARVEST?) ’.222 You all know how wonderful a law of Nature is the law of Reproduction. Every seed is endowed with the power to reproduce itself. It may take a long while, it may assume many a strange cycle of existence in doing so, but at the end it comes to whete it started—itself, only itself in a vastly increased amount. ‘“‘ God 99 giveth to every seed his own body,” i.e. the power to reproduce itself. Now, so says Paul, is it with all our actions. They too are seeds, not only in their power to produce life but in their power to produce their own life. And there are two ways in which they may do this. First of all they may do so by the influence they exert on others to do the same things, We are naturally imitative. We do what our neighbours do. Of course there are certain periods of life of which this is more true than others. It is specially true, for example, of childhood and youth. Of the child Words- worth has truly said that “‘ his whole vocation ”’ seems to be “endless imitation.” Hence the need of being careful as to how we act in the 224 DAYS: OF THE SON, OF MAN presence of the young. The seed of conduct you sow there falls on a vety receptive soil. If your child, for example, sees you drinking nothing but non-alcoholic liquor, he is likely to be a water- drinker himself. If he sees you making a habit of going to Church on the Lord’s Day, he is likely to be a Church-goer himself. If he sees you hate lying and dishonesty, he is likely to erow up an honourable man himself. The best legacy a good man leaves his children is himself. But what is true of children is true of all our actions. ‘They tend to reproduce themselves in others and the harvest they produce in that way may be a very blessed or a very bitter one. “‘ No man /iveth,” yes, and “‘ no man dieth to himself.” But there is another way in which this law of reproduction acts in human life. Our actions ‘not only influence others: they have a reflex influ- ence on ourseWes. Farmers speak of a second crop. They sow tye-grass among the corn and when the corn is reaped, the grass springs up. There is a “second crop”? in all our actions. Their first result may be on our neighbouts : their second is on ourselves. ‘This is what we THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST 225 mean by that great word character. Character is just the influence of accumulated actions on ourselves. It is the harvest of the feelings and the thoughts and the deeds of our past life. As George Eliot says in oft-quoted words, “‘ Sow a deed and you teap a habit: sow a habit and you teap a character: sow a character and you reap a destiny.” How careful then should we be of the deeds we sow in the field of our subconscious life! And not merely our deeds, but our shoughts as well. For it is the thoughts that give rise to the deeds. They ate the true seeds out of which the great and often terrible harvest of character springs. ‘“‘ Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts. These are the things which defile a man.” II. ‘This brings me to the second great thought Paul lays down here in his parable of the Spirit- ual Harvest, that of the divergence in the kinds of sowing we may do in the fields of Time. There ate two kinds of seed, “the seed of the flesh” and “‘ the seed of the Spirit.” “‘ He that soweth 15 226 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN to the flesh” and “he that soweth to the Spirit.” Of course from one point of view there are many different kinds of seed, which we may sow in out daily life, some good, some bad, some quite indifferent. It is not of these out text speaks when it says, ““ Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” As Dr. Dale says, it would not be safe to take our text as wniversally true of all our sowing. There ate many seeds of thought and deed which we sow in the soil of time that do not spring up. They rot in the ground. A man may sow the seed of diligent study in the days of youth. He may deny himself many a pleasure and starve himself of many a need in order to win success in his craft or science; and then just as he is about to reap the fruit of it all, he may die of disease or be carried off in battle or be drowned at sea. It is not true of everything that “‘ whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” But it is not of these things our text is speak- ing. It is speaking of the spiritual harvest. In CHEV SPIRITUAL HARVEST. ams that field of the soul there are just two kinds of sowing, the sowing “to the flesh,” by which Paul means our untegenerate human nature, and “the sowing to the Spirit,” by which he means that nature renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now what our text says in regard to these two kinds of sowing is, that the law of the Spiritual Harvest is a/yays true there. You may see exceptions to it in the other kind of sowing. “The lower levels of life may be swept by destructive floods, smitten by fatal blights, unfenced and unprotected and open to the incur- sion of marauding beasts. What we sow there we may never be quite certain of reaping. But the eternal fields are within our reach. In these we are sure of golden harvests. God is the Only Master Who always gives His servants the wages they work for ” (Dale). How often we are apt to forget this! We sow ‘‘ wild oats,” as we call them, and think we can evade God’s law somehow and win a harvest of good wheat. We sow idleness and folly in the fields of youth and think we can reap 228°’ DAYS ‘OF . THE ‘SON: OF MAN a harvest of competence and success in middle life. “* Be not deceived,’? my brothers. ‘“‘ God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also teap.” Would the farmer expect a field of good wheat in which he had sown tates or thistle-down? As little can you expect to teap a harvest of good crops when you have been sowing only wasteful weeds. No: “he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap cottuption.” He only “that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” III. This brings me last of all to speak of the solemn truth which is brought out by the final lesson of the Spiritual Harvest that she reaping which we obtain from our sowing is not only a sure one but one that is infinitely multiplied in its extent. “We that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life ever- lasting.” We sow in tens and we reap in hundreds ; we sow in bushels and we teap in acres; we sow in handfuls and we reap in cartloads; we THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST 229 sow to the flesh and we reap—what ? Corrup- tion. Corruption is the same thing as flesh, but flesh as you see it in an awful and repulsive form. Flesh that is dead, flesh that is decaying in the erave, flesh with the worm feeding upon it. That is the end of the sinner’s sowing, the harvest of moral and physical ruin. You can see it in the very face and form of the open libertine as he reels along the streets or falls in the gutter a helpless wreck of Humanity; no less real is it in the secret and respectable sinner, in that inward lack of peace and satisfaction which are the concomitants of a misspent life, in that remorse and misery of soul which come over a man in the later stages of a profligate’s careet, when the world and its joys are begin- ning to slip from his grasp and he is left alone to be “ filled with the fruits of what he sowed.” . Byron, who knew it well, has described it in terrible language : ““ My days are in, the yellow leaf, My soul is sere with sullen grief, It is as if the dead could feel The icy worm around them steal, 230 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN And shudder as the reptiles creep To revel o’er their rotting sleep, Without the power to scare away The cold consumers of their clay.” ““He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap cottuption.” On the other hand, not less multiplied in its blessedness, is the harvest of “ him who sows to the Spirit.” He shall reap “ life everlasting.” Life is the greatest promise of the New Testa- ment. “He that believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” Does this mean merely an existence beyond the grave of unspeakable glory and endless felicity ? It cer- tainly does mean that. Goodness cannot die. Divine love is eternal and its objects must be the same. Wherever therefore there is a sowing to the Spirit in the fields of time, there is assured the reaping of a harvest in the fields of eternity. “ How bright these glorious spirits shine ! Whence all their white array ? How came they to the blissful seats, Of everlasting day?” The answer is, “ Because here they sowed to ME SPIRITUAL HARVEST) 237 the Spirit. Their sowing was often hard and seemingly unproductive. It was often accom- panied by toil and tears; but they remembered that ‘ they who sow in tears shall reap with joy.’ And now they have gone to their heavenly Father’s great ‘ Harvest Home,’ bringing their sheaves with them.” But while the harvest of everlasting life has thus a special reference to immortality, we must not limit it to this. ‘There is Salvation here as well as hereafter. The life Christ bestows on the man who is sowing the good seed, is enjoyed even here in that peace “ passing all understand- ing ’’ which is the fruit of a good conscience and a heart devoted to high ideals. This is the “* earnest of the Spirit ” which enables its posses- sot even here to say at times, “‘ He that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together.” If this be true, how impottant is this present life! It is the Spring-time of eternity. It is sometimes said by secularists that Christianity belittles the present, because it postpones all its benefits to another world. It is not true; but even were it true, it would be no argument 232 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN fot a belittling of our present life. All the other way, Time is the sowing place for the harvest of eternity. How eatnest then should be our use of it, knowing that it holds within it issues so vast! A great artist was once asked, why he spent so much time over mete infinitesi- mal details in his pictures. ‘“‘ Because,” he teplied, “I paint for eternity.” If that be a fit motive for securing an earthly immortality, how much mote when we work for a crown “ incor- tuptive and undefiled”?! Let us put all the labour we can into our sowing here, assuted that if there may sometimes seem but little immediate retutn, “in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Above all, let us sow the seed of Christ in our hearts—the seed of the Kingdom, as He calls it in the parable of the Sower. None of us can estimate to what a tich harvest that seed may gtow if it be sown in good soil. Visiting Sun- derland not long ago, an alderman of that town told me of a man who had lived a useless and profligate life up till one New Year’s morning, when after a night of debauch he seemed to THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST 233 waken with a voice ringing in his ears, saying, “Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.” He rose at once, fell on his knees and gave himself up to Christ. He went to the kitchen and told his wife what had happened, and that day being a Sunday went to the church, the first time for many yeats. He lived a Christian life ever after; became a local preacher and was the means of saving many a soul. Some years after he became famous in his town by saving twenty- six lives. A diver in the harbour by trade, he went down into a flooded coal-mine and brought out twenty-six men who would have been drowned had not immediate assistance been broughtthem. After he had dragged the twenty- sixth man to the surface he fell back on the eround exhausted, almost overcome by the effort. Some time after, Mr. Carnegie came to that town, and hearing of his story asked to see him. He warmly shook his hand, saying, “ You have done more than I have done. You have saved twenty-six lives.” Mr. Carnegie gave him a pension of £100 for life for his brave act. It was a worthy reward, but I daresay our 234 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN heto, as he thought on his past life, would bless God as much for the souls as for the bodies he had saved from death, and most of all for that day when he had received and believed in the ptomise of Salvation, and the seed of eternal life had been sown in his heart. Sow that seed in your souls, my brothers, and it will be the best “ thanksgiving ” you can render to God. It will spring up in your lives and yield a glorious hatvest, “some thirty-, some sixty-, and some an hundtedfold.” XVII CHRIST’S CALL TO REST (Before Communion) “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.” —ST. MARK vi. 31. J HAVE chosen these words as the subject of our meditation to-day because they bring before us Jesus Christ as “a Man of rest.” Of Christ as a wotker you have often heard. Jesus was indeed a toiler above all men. His life was a short one. ‘Three-and-thirty years covered its brief span. Yet He put mote into it than a Methuselah with his nine hundred and sixty-nine. He never knew what it was to be idle. As soon as boyhood was passed, He went to toil at the catpenter’s bench, and when He left that it was to crowd into three short years the work of a life that was to regenerate the world. We talk of working eight or nine hours a day as if it 235 236 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN was something wonderful. How long did Jesus work? The early morning found Him praying on the mountain-top; the noontide found Him tramping wearily from city to city, and the evening found Him still at His healing work, until at last the tited body would stand it no longer and He would throw Himself into some friendly boat and put out for rest to the storm- tossed Sea of Galilee. Yes! Jesus was a worker, such as the world had never seen before, such as the world will never see again. And yet, though Jesus was emphatically a Man of work, He was also a Man of rest. There _ were times when in the very midst of His activities He would suddenly leave it all, pass into the solitudes and not return until His wonted calm of mind was restored. Such a time was this in the Saviout’s life. He was now at the very height of His activities. The multitudes were thronging Him, so that He had'time “not ‘so much as to’ eats ae must have been a real joy thus to see His work going forward from triumph to triumph. Yet it was just then that He stopped it all. A short CHRIST’S CALL TO REST 237 message is brought Him—John the Baptist is dead, slain by the cruelty of a vindictive woman. Jesus. recognizes in it a call to the solitudes, a call to rest, and meditation, and prayer. “‘ Come ye yourselves apart,’ He says to the disciples, “into a desert place and rest a while.” Now, brethren, this call Jesus addressed to His disciples is one He addresses to us to-day. We live, too, in an age of toil and care. The noise of its machinery is clanging in all our ears. The fever-throb of its tumult is in our very blood. Those of us who are in it are swept off their feet by a congestion of engagements and occupations so incessant that we have some- times no time almost to eat, while if we are not in it, if owing to some great industrial dispute the wheels are no longer moving and all is silent at the once busy hive of industry, the silence that is there does not mean for us rest. Rather the reverse. It speaks of anxious care to em- ployer and unemployed alike. It follows them into their hours of unemployment with a burden more heavy even than that of work. It is an age of work, or what is worse, of want of work. 238 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Now what is the danger of this fever and fret of our modern life? The danger is that in the midst of our work we ate apt to forget the worker, that our inner life becomes flat and stale and unprofitable, that we develop into mete machines. You have perhaps seen the looms in some gteat cotton of jute factory. They grind on hour after hour, turning out the web that passes through them. I have some- times thought, as I looked at them, that we our- selves ate apt to become like these, factory looms, and nothing more | Nay, is there not a similar danger in our religious lifer What is the great want in our religious life to-day? Is it not the lack of test ? the lack of depth? the lack of repose ? I suppose there never was an age of such Chris- tian activity as ours. You have only to compare our ecclesiastical buildings with those of an earlier century to see what a difference there is. Those old buildings were often beautiful as churches, but they had only one tiny vestry attached to them. ‘They had no halls. Think what a church to-day would be without a hall. CHRIST’S CALL TO REST 239 The activities of the former day were entirely concentrated on worship. Now we _ have societies of all kinds, for young and old, meetings all the week through, conferences and associa- tions of every kind. It is no doubt a vast improvement on the old type of Church life in many respects—a distinct line of advance in the direction of making religion appeal to the whole of a man’s life instead of as formerly to one part of it. And yet is there not a danger in it too? The danger of becoming mere spiritual machines— factory looms grinding out our yard of Christian wotk but with no hidden life, no deep experi- ence behind it? There is a type of religious character with which you are all familiar; that which lives on novelty and sensation, which flies from meeting to meeting, from conference to conference, much as a butterfly flies from flower to flower. The ordinary services of the Church it finds dull and lifeless. It lives on excitement. It has no restfulness, no medita- tion in its life. It has never gone with Jesus into the “‘ desert place to rest a while.” 240 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Now whenever that fever and jar come over our spirits, whenever the strain of life is threaten- ing to destroy out inward peace, Christ is saying to us, “Come ye apart. Come away from it all. Come into the solitudes with Me. ‘Then you shall regain the self-possession you have lost in the tumult of life.” In watching any rapid river you may have noticed a place in the stream where the boiling watets circle round until they ate quiet and still. So is it in the stream of life. There are eddies ” where Jesus bids us be refreshed ere we go forward in life’s current, “ quiet resting-places,’ to the fight again. J. Let us look at one. or two of these testing-places this morning, and let us begin with what is suggested by our text, the rest which is produced by any outward change in our surroundings. | “Come ye apart into a desert place.” It was away from the ordinary haunts of men that Jesus called His disciples, out of the current of life into some quiet place; where the boiling \ CHRIST’S CALL TO REST 241 watets had hushed their strife and all was calm and restful, Such a habit we know was familiar to Jesus. The night with its starry solitudes, when the sounds of garish day wete hushed and there was nothing to stand between Him and God; the mountains with their calm peace, even the stormy waters of Galilee’s lake, these were the testing-places of Him who had nowhete’ else fOr wrest’ his’ head,”’ Fven in Jerusalem, with its crowds, He had found a place where He could be quiet: “ There was a gatden called Gethsemane, and he often resorted thither.” This, then, is one of the resting-places of the tired spirit, a change in the outward environment of our life to the solitudes. Such a change indeed has now almost become a necessity of Out existence, so great is its strain and stress. Summer by summer our cities empty themselves far and wide; some to seashore and island, othets to quiet country-side or mountain glen. It isa great rest, a welcome break in the monotony of life. The salt sea-breezes bring back the | 16 242 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN > tone to the jaded nerve and the toses to the languid cheek. The vast solitude of our High- land hills, with their stillness broken only by the bleat of some lonely sheep, these have a most soothing effect on a mind and body jaded by a winter’s work. But while thus our bodies ate tefteshed, let us not forget that our spitits need refreshment too. “Come ye apart and rest a while” is what Christ says to out souls as well. See in the rest of nature a call to a deeper test than Nature alone can bestow. Sutely even to the most prosaic there is a ministry in nature, something that appeals to your deepest longings. That wild and restless sea, does it not speak to yout restless spitits of that troubled sea within, which can never be at peace till Christ says to it, “ Be Billie And these great mountains, always peaceful, have they no message to your souls of that “peace which passeth all understanding ” ? Yes, sutely God speaks to you in this resting- place, if only you have eats to hear, of that “rest which remaineth for the people of God.” CHRIST’S CALL TO REST 243 How great the calm which would thus come down upon our spirits did we only listen when God speaks to us in these quiet resting-places ! Our outward life may be jarred by a thousand cares; but alone in the solitude of nature you ate at test with God. As Robertson of Brighton puts it : “ Yes, thank God, thereis rest! Many an hour of sweetest rest, even here, when it seems as if evening breezes from that other land played upon the cheek and lulled the heart. There are times even on the stormy sea of life when a gentle whisper breathes softly as of heaven, and sends the soul into a dream of ecstasy which can never again wholly die.” II. Once again, worship, either the worship of the Sanctuary or the worship of “the secret place’ of individual prayer, is another of life’s resting-places. It is not always possible to change our out- watd surroundings, but there is one resting- place which is always open to the troubled soul, the resting-place of prayer. Some one has said that “ prayer is the well- 244 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN spring of character.” As the river draws its streams of refreshing water far off from the city through which it flows, in the solitude of the hills, so every strong character draws its supplies from the solitudes too, the solitudes of prayer and thought. A gteat man once said, “I am too busy to be in a hurry.” He meant that if he were in a hurry he would lose that quiet self-possession which is essential in doing work effectively. Jesus was never ina hurry. Worker as He was, ~ He had always twelve hours for His day of life. . And the sectet of it was prayer. Whenever He | had a great deal of work to do, He went up to the mountains to pray, and hence when He came: back to the excitement of daily life, it was with perfect calm. No hurry with Him. He did His great work as Nature does hers, quietly, without bustle or strain. We sometimes think we have no time to ptay ; no time to go to Church. Our life is sO” busy all the week that we need a holiday on Sunday. It is a vast mistake. Thete is no place where we can gain better rest both for CHRIST ’S* GALE TOCREST 245 body and mind than in the “secret place of the Most High.” Would you restore to your mind that calmness and self-possession which you have lost in the tumult of life? Then listen to the call of Christ every morning, and specially every Sabbath morning: “Come ye yourselves apatt into a desert place and test a while.” III. Last of all, let me speak of one more resting-place which comes most suitably to our thoughts to-day, the resting-place of Communion with God at the Holy Table. Of all earth’s resting-places, this, to the true Christian, is the sweetest and the best. Speaking in human language, I would call it the resting- place of sweet companionship. ‘There are some people who have the very ait of rest about them. They dwell in the House of Quiet. It is good to be with them. No matter how jaded your spirit may be when you go to see them, their presence exerts a healing influence on your whole being. Their smile and wise words, the very tones of their voice soothe you. To have 246 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN a talk with them is to bring your soul into an atmosphete of peace. 3 Of all who possessed this gift, Jesus is easily the best. ‘“‘ Come unto me,” He said not in vain, “and I will give you rest.” Men of all kinds and classes came to Him—cultured and ignorant, rich and poor, sinful and innocent— and they never went empty away. They found rest to their souls. They found quiet to their troubled breasts. Here was One who knew ‘them, through and through, who knew all their weatiness and their pain, One whose very look — and voice and healing touch chased away all their troubles as the morning sunlight chases away the shadows of the night. It is to such a fellowship that the Saviour calls us to-day. Weary, vexed and troubled as some of us may be, tired as we all are at times with the burden of life, this is what He says to us as we dtaw neat to the Lotd’s Table: “Come ye apart and rest awhile.” Perhaps there are some of us here who, like Christ and His disciples, are specially worried just now with toil and care. Things are not going so well with you in your CHRIST’S CALL TO REST 247 business of your homes as you would like them to do. You come home often worried and find it difficult to sleep. Here then is an opportunity of finding rest. Bring these cates to God. “Cast thy burden on the Lord.” Tell Christ about them and He will help you. 1 don’t know how. But I am sure of this: He will not fail you if you come to Him, as He wants to meet you at this hour of Holy Communion. You will find it good to be here. He will not break His promise: ‘“‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and ate heavy laden, and I will give you test.” Perhaps you ate like Christ also in this, that f you ate sitting under the shadow of a tecent bereavement. It was the death of His beloved Forerunner that drove Him at this time into the solitudes. So may it be with you. Some one vety deat has gone out of your life. It can never again be the same. But it is the same God, the same Christ. He will “never leave you nor forsake you.” Come to Him to-day. Tell Him your own heart’s need and you will not come in vain. He will heal your wounded 248 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN spirit. He will bind up your broken heart. Whatever be our need of condition, let us heat Christ’s call: “‘ Come ye apart into a desert place and rest a while.” Whether we are glad or sad, young or old, busy or at leisure, we all need Christ. There is not a soul here who would not be better for His fellowship. To have mote of His Spirit in our life, more of His peace in our hearts, this is the secret of rest to out souls. May we find it so to-day! May it be yours to say, “I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet unto my taste.” Blessed the man who hears the call of Jesus to such a testing-place. Sweet are the solitudes where Christ is present. The desert is no longer desert when He is there. ‘“‘ The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for him, and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the tose.” XVIII THE CENOTAPH OF JESUS (Before Communion) “This do in remembrance of me.”—ST. LUKE xxii. 19. SOMETIMES in going through a cemetery, the eye is arrested by seeing among the polished stones a broken pillar. Among the rest it stands conspicuous with ragged edges. And if you look nearer you find it to be a symbol as well as a monument; commemorating a life that was broken in the midst of its promise. Whether such a monument is a truly Christian symbol may indeed be doubted. ‘There are no broken pillars in the garden of God. Every life is complete in Him. He will gather up the fragments and nothing shall be lost. But I mention it, because it is an illustration of what the Lord’s Supper is meant to be. It 249 250 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN is the monument of Jesus. On its face you can trace the familiar inscription : *“*In remembrance of me.’’ But this monument is a symbol as well. The broken bread and poured-out wine are a parable of that heart that was once broken, of that blood that was once shed for us. Let us bend down to tead more closely the insctiption on this old tombstone. Though nineteen hundred years old, we can tead it as clearly as if it were written yesterday, “‘ This do in remembrance of me.” I. What do these words tell us about the Lord’s Supper P They tell us first of all that ¢ is the memorial of Jesus. ‘They ate a testimony to the fact that Jesus wished to be remembered and that this is the way He sought to be so. As we sometimes take out of some drawer the keepsake of a dead friend, as a mother will bind into a locket the hair of a child loved but lost, so Jesus gives us here a keepsake of Himself. This, He says, is “‘ for remembrance.” THE CENOTAPH OF JESUS 251 Why did He wish to be remembered ? No doubt there was a human side to His desire. We all like to be remembered. You recall Tennyson’s lines of the dying girl: “You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, And you'll sometimes come and see where I am lowly laid. Pll not forget you, mother; I shall hear you when you pass, With your feet above my head in the long and silent grass.” So Jesus, “ having loved his own, which were in the world, loved them unto the end,” and beyond it. He wished to be remembered by Peter, and John, and Thomas. He wishes it still. Jesus yearns fot us to remember Him, and when we gather to His table to do so, He sees of ‘the travail of His soul, and is satisfied.”’ But there is another and deeper reason why Christ wishes us to remember Him. He wishes it for our sakes as well as for His. Memory is the gateway of love, and as there is no feeling so elevating to character as love to Christ, so He bids us from time to time keep this feast of 252, DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN recollection, because by doing so our affection is kept vital and we are lifted by it from the enslaving lusts and corroding cares of this present world, into the atmosphere of what is high and holy and strong. That, then, is the first thing these words tell us about the Lord’s Supper. They remind us that it is a memorial feast. Christ had nothing to leave His friends. He left nothing but the clothes of the carpenter, and these wete appro- ptiated by the Roman soldiers. Nor, had He been as rich as Croesus, could He have left a tangible gift to the millions who in after years were to wish to remember Him. And so He left us this simple feast, this beautifully expressive tite, by means of which we can always make vivid His wondrous love to us and, in temembetr- ing it, be blessed. I], But in the second place these words teach us further, that the Lord’s Supper is not merely a memorial of Christ, but that # és so Specially of Hts death. “ This do,” He says, and when we ask LOE CEN DARHT OR JESUS) 294 “ What ?”? we ate pointed to a symbolism, not of /ife, but of death. The broken bread speaks of a body broken. The red wine tells of a blood shed. In this respect the Lord’s Supper differs from most human monuments. These memorials are raised to honour the lives of those they com- memotate rather than to dwell on their deaths ; and on their tablets are inscribed the deeds they did, the battles they won, the songs they wrote, the characters they created ; in a word, the great achievements of their life. For example, if you go to see Burns’s monument at Ayr, you see the poet standing in the fullness of his vigorous youth, while beneath are the happiest creations of his fancy. How different with Christ’s Monument! It is not the events of His life which it commemot- ates, but the fact and manner of His death. It shows Him to us in the article of death. Why is thisP Was it that there was nothing else in His life worth recalling ? Such a question needs no answer. Christ’s life was full of the noblest deeds and the most beautiful words. 254 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN His miracles drew thousands to His side. He “spake as never man spake.” His character is the most beautiful combination of tenderness and strength that has ever been represented in human history. Yet when Jesus bids us remember Him, He turns aside from all this and bids us temember only His death. As Professor A. B. Bruce has put it, “He seems to say, ‘Fix your eyes on Calvary and watch what happens there. That is the great event in My earthly history. Other men have monuments, because they have lived lives deemed memorable. I wish you to erect a monument to Me, because I have died. ‘The memory of other men is cherished by their birth- days, but in My case better is the day of My death than the day of My bitth. My birth into the world was momentous, but still more is My death. Of My birth no festive commemor- ation is needed; but of My death keep alive the memory till I come again. Remembering it, you temember all, for of all it is the secret, the consummation and the crown.’”’ Why is this, brethren? Is it because, noble THE CENOTAPH OF JESUS 25; as the things in Jesus’ life are, His death is incompatably the noblest of all? For us, there ‘is no doubt truth in such an explanation. As in the life of Socrates there is nothing so grand as the hour in which he drank the hemlock cup and passed intrepidly forward into the great unknown ; as in the life of Nelson there is nothing so splendid as the day when, having flashed out the signal, ““ England expects every man to do his duty,” he himself gave a signal illustration of that by laying down his own life in the hour of victoty ; so in the great life of the Man Christ Jesus there is nothing so sublime as these last houts on the Cross when He breathed out His life in prayers of forgiveness and love. As the ~ sun never shines so beautifully as when it sets, so the Sun of Righteousness never shone out so erandly as when it set behind the blood-red hill of Calvary. | All that is true; but then we cannot think of Jesus as asking us to remember His death because of that. ‘To do so would be derogatory to His meekness. It would jar on our con- ceptions of the “lowly in heart” to think of 256 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Him as asking us to remember something in His life because it was specially fine. It would be like a man building his own monument. No, that is not the reason why Jesus asks us to temember His death. He Himself has left us in no doubt as to what that reason was. It ~ was because His death was a sacrificial death. It was His body that was to be broken for us; it was because His blood was to be shed for the remission of our sins. As the Paschal lamb, of which the disciples had just been eating, was sacrificed as a call, to temembrance of that night when the destroying angel had “ passed over ” every house in Egypt whose lintel and doorposts were dyed with its blood, so Jesus was the Paschal Lamb of God, whose shed blood was to deliver man from a deeper slavery than that of Egypt. “ Bchold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” “He was wounded for our transgressions : He was bruised for our iniquity.” “He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin.” These were the truths which this Sacra- ment was meant to proclaim, and it was to he CUNOTAPES OFF ESUS >” 254 enshrine that faith and deepen it into adoring love and joyful assurance that our Saviour said, “This do in remembrance of me.” One of the truths that the Great War revealed to us in letters of fire was that righteousness has sometimes to be bought at a mighty cost, the cost of agony, and blood, and tears. That is what our soldiers did for us; they died that our countty might live; they died that Righteousness and Freedom might not die. And in a sense in- finitely grander, that is what Jesus did for us. He died that we might go free. He died that God’s peace might be ours. He died that we, being justified by faith in that atoning blood, might have peace with God. It was for this that we might comprehend with all Saints “the length and breadth and depth and height ” of the love of God when He *“sent the Son to be the Saviour of the World,” that Jesus said to His own on the night in which He was betrayed, “ This do in remembrance often.” IiI. Once mote, the Lord’s Supper is not 17 258 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN merely a memotial of Christ’s past love, zt as also a reminder of His present love. That is implied in the striking words with which He accompanied this act of remembrance : “ Take, eat, this is My body, which is broken for you”; “ This is My blood, which is shed for you. Drink ye all of it.” Romanists, as you know, base their doctrine of Transubstantiation on these wotds: ‘They assert that during the con- sectation by the priest, a miracle takes place ; the bread and the wine are corporeally changed into ‘‘the very body and blood of Christ”; and in support of their claim we hear from time to time of the “ dripping wafer ” in certain Italian towns. Of course all true Protestants reject this doc- trine as the grossest materialism. Nevertheless, they do not teject the truth of which it is a distortion; this, namely, that ¢hese words speak to us of a real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, that when Jesus says to the believing Communi- cant, “ This is My body,” He means something mote than “This bread stands for My body.” No! as Christ declared in the sixth chapter of THE CENOTAPH OF JESUS 259 John, there is a sense in which the Lord Jesus does give us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink. He does so spiritually. He communi- cates Himself to the believing soul, and it is in testimony to this Communion, which is also a Communication of Christ to our souls, that Jesus says to us here, “ Take, eat, this is My body. Drink ye all of it, for this is My blood.” This is the third and highest truth proclaimed in the Lord’s Supper. It speaks to us of an Eternal Presence. No doubt that truth is not confined to the Lord’s Supper. But it is there that it is most specially revealed. As an old Scottish minister has said, “* We get nae ither thing in the Sacrament but the same thing thou hadst in the Word. What new thine wouldst thou have? But suppose thou get that same thing better, is not that better ? Thou gettest a better grip of Christ in the Sacra- ment than thou hadst in the Word. Where I had but a little grip of Christ before, as it were between my finger and thumb, now I get Him in my whole hand.” It is this that redeems this joyful service from 260 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN being a funeral feast. It is no mere remembrance of One Who died. It is a holy Communion with One Who ever liveth and Who in it fulfils His promise: “If any man open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with 99 me.” If in its outward form it is a monument over a gtave, it is not like other monuments, fot it 15 a monument over an empty grave. It isa Cenotaph, telling us that He Who died is dead no longer, that He ever lives to bless His people with the gift of Himself, and that to those who receive the bread and wine in faith, they ate in very truth His body and His blood. Let us seek this morning afresh to avail our- selves of this glorious offer and privilege. Let us draw near once mote to this altar of Divine love with full assurance of His presence there, so that He may refresh and strengthen all our hearts; saying as we do so: “ According to Thy gracious word, In meek humility, This will I do, my dying Lord, I will remember Thee. THE CENOTAPH OF JESUS = 261 Gethsemane can I forget? Or there Thy conflict see, Thine agony and bloody sweat, And not remember Thee? Remember Thee, and all Thy pains, And all Thy love to me; Yea, while a breath, a pulse remains I will remember Thee.” XIX LOVE'S ‘TENSES (Before Communion) “ Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood ; and he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father; to him be the glory.”—REv. 1. 5, 6 (R.V.). On the grave of Charles Kingsley and his wife at Evertsley there stands inscribed this beautiful inscription, designed by himself—“ Amavimus ; Amamus; Amabimus”: ‘‘ We have loved; we do love; we shall love.” It is his pardon- able boast of that love which was the star of his life and which his biography, written by his wife, shows to have been wonderfully vindicated. In this text we have enshrined in letters “ more lasting than brass ” the past, present, and future of the love of Christ. That is well brought out in the Revised Version, which changes the word “ loved” into “ loveth,”’ in accordance with the best MSS. It is not merely a past love for which 262 LOVE’S TENSES 263 John is taising his doxology here. It is also a present love. “Unto Him that loveth us now.” And it has also a future beforeit. “ He made us to bea kingdom, to be priests unto God.” That is its destiny in the eternal future. Let us look at love’s three great tenses as they ate set before us hete. As we sit at the Lord’s Table, we remember first of all a past of Christ’s love ; but if our Communion is to be a teal one, we should also remember that it is a present love, and that it has also a future before it as well. I. Look fitst of all at the Past of Christ’s great love. It is true of every human love that is worthy of the name, that it can give account of itself by reference to its past. It can point to some great experience, or experiences, out of which it was born and by whose memories it is fed. Sometimes that past experience comes in a moment or two, as it was of Kingsley himself when he said of the first day in which he saw his future wife, “That was our marriage day.” But mote often love slowly matures itself in 264," DAYS ,OF “THE SON “OF: MAN a seties of gentle happenings, culminating in some gteat crisis. It was so with John’s love to Christ. It took its rise in those beautiful experiences of which we read in the Gospels, which tell of how the disciples first learned to love Him “who fitst loved” them. But it culminated in the Cross when He died to save us from sin’s guilt and power. Hence John says of it here, ““He washed us or loosed us from our sins in His own blood.” “He washed us”; the Revised Version tran- slates it “loosed us.” The first thought is that sin is a stain on the conscience which Christ washes away. ‘The second is that sin is a chain upon the will which He breaks, by shedding His own blood for us on the Cross. Both of these figures are scriptural. Sin is a stain on the conscience, and though the super- fine would discard from our hymn-books one of the greatest Christian lyrics of one of our gteatest poets, I for my part rejoice to sing: “There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.” LOVE’S TENSES 265 But the Cross not only cleanses the soul from the stain of sin, it also looses it from its chain. It says to the demons of lust and passion, ‘“‘ Loose him and let him go.” At the Cross we hear a voice saying not only “ Thy sins are forgiven thee,’ but “‘ Go and sin no more.” And this is pethaps the more common thought in this book. The other thought of the cleansing of the blood of Christ is indeed present in it; but the more favoutite thought is this: “They overcame by the blood of the Lamb.” It was a time of conflict and persecution. Again and again, therefore, we hear John saying, “‘ To him that overcometh will I give the blessings of my grace.” And here, probably, John’s great thought is this: that love sets us free from the thraldom and tyranny of sin. “Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us: from our sins by his blood.” That is love’s great part and that is why Christ wants us always to remember it; because it keeps fresh and vivid that deliverance from the horrible pit which it gave us when first we re- ceived it by faith, a memory which we always 266. DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN need to renew in our conflict with the great enemy. II. But while the love of Christ has thus a gteat past, zt has also a still more glorious present. A love that is merely a past love is a sad love. It is sweet to recall the past of love and look back on scenes and places whose memorties haunt us still; but if these memoties are only memories, if they have no present and no future, then love has already dug its grave; for “Sotrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things,” But there is no such shadow testing on the love of Christ. Forty or fifty years have passed since first that love had shone upon the glowing heart of the youthful John. The head that then was pillowed on the breast of the Saviour and listened to the beatings of that heart which was broken for him, is now white with years of struggle and suffering. But time has made no diminution in the ardour of that first attachment, nor does it cast any cloud over his assurance LOVE’S TENSES 267 that he is loved as much in turn. Time makes no change in the love of Christ. Though far away from these eatly days of his espousals, still as he stands on the shores of Patmos he can hear the voice of his Lord saying to him: “I am he that liveth, and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore.” Time writes no wrinkle on the brow of that love of Christ. And as time does not change it, so neither does circumstance alter it. You cannot read this book of Revelation without seeing how vastly changed is the Christ of the Apocalypse from the Christ of the Gospels. The Christ of the Gospels is a lowly Carpenter, a suffering dying man. The Christ of the Apocalypse is an exalted Lord. On His head are many crowns. His counten- ance is as the sun when it shineth in his strength. His voice as the sound of many waters. But yet in spite of that, to John He is still the same, the same yesterday and to- day, “Unto him that loveth us ”—still. Now, what John said of himself, you and I may also say, if we believe in Jesus as He did. Notice the glorious plural of our text. Unto 268 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN Him that loveth ws—not one only, but us all. John associates himself with us in a great co- partnership of love. No lapse of time, no change of condition can alter the heart of Him who “loved us from the first of time” and “ loves us to the last.” Tennyson, in “In Memoriam,” points out how the friends of youth may be divided by the circumstances of age. He paints before us a man— ““ Whose life in low estate began And on a simple village green; Who breaks his life’s invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star ; And moving up from higher to higher, Becomes on Fortune’s crowning slope The pillar of a people’s hope, The centre of a world’s desire.” And then he describes this man in some quiet hour going back in thought to the old hill and stream where he played at “counsellors and kings,” LOVE’S TENSES 269 “With one that was his earliest mate, Who ploughs with pain his native lea And reaps the labour of his hands Or in the furrow musing, stands ”’ and wonders, “Does my old friend remember me?” Does he? It must be answered not often. Thete are indeed exceptions. It is told to the credit of Sir William Robertson Nicoll that he kept up to the end of his life unbroken his friend- ship with his two earliest college friends. They remained all their life simple country ministers, while he rose to be one of London’s great men. Yet every year they met and renewed the bond of old friendship. But in the majority of cases, we fear, it is not so. Love cannot survive so great a change of circumstance. ‘The exaltation of the one begets neglect; or more often the depression of the other arouses suspicion of neglect, and the result is a withering of affection. It is perhaps a feeling akin to this that has made the devotee of the Roman Church transfer 270 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN so much of his prayers, if not his love, from the Saviour to His mother. “She is a woman. She will hear us. Christ is too exalted to be approached by such as me.” However natural such a feeling, it is a gtievous wtong to Christ. Still, as of old, when He sighed the human sigh or wept the tear, does Jesus love His own. The crown of glory on His head, has not dimmed love’s lustre in His eyes or dulled the sympathy of His heart. The doxology of John may be sung by all the ages and out of every rank and condition of men, “‘ Unto him that loveth us.” | And being so, what should be our attitude to it? Well, of course we should rest in it and rejoice in it. We should join with the Apostle in praising a love so great and so divine, and trust in it as our hope and security in time and in eternity. But should we not do more than this ? Jesus says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” and if we are truly to respond to the love of Christ we should do so by a life of practical obedience to its behests. As the flower responds LOVE’S TENSES 2at to the sunshine by bursting forth into the forms and colours of beauty, so should we to the love of Christ ; by yielding to that love and allowing it to work out in our life the flowers of likeness to it and the fruit of service for it. Ill. It is to this John refers when speaking of the future of Christ’s love: “and he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father.” By the Kinghood and Priesthood of believers John refers to the character and service to which the love of Christ conducts a man who yields himself freely and fully to it. Christ makes us kings unto God; this too is a favourite thought of the Apocalypse. Again and again John refers to it, speaking of their reign as one which is to go on for ever and ever. What does it mean? It means their glory, of coutse. But what does glory mean in the New Testament as applied to a Christian man. It evetywhere means their character. “We all, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, ate changed into the same image from glory to 272 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN glory,” i.e. from character to character, ever gtowing higher, and better, and stronger. It is told in Roman history that when Pyrrhus sent ambassadots to the Roman Senate, he asked them when they returned if the Romans had no king. “No,” was the teply, “they had no king ; but every one looked as if he were a king.” There was a majesty of character about them better than ahy crown of gold. It is this majesty of character that the love of Christ creates in a man when it is responded to. It gives him the regality of self-control and makes him a king of men because he is first of all a king over himself, 2 ruler of his fears and passions. And then having made them kings, Christ also makes them Priests. The Priesthood of believers refers to their service to the community. The function of a priest is by his prayers and sacrifices to bring his fellow worshippers neat to God. In that sense we can be all priests unto God. ‘Ye are a royal priesthood,” says St. Peter. By our characters and our service we can be priests to God in our day and genera- LOVE’S TENSES oe tion, making lives sweeter because we have lived, standing for Christ as an ‘“‘ incarnation up to date,” as Hugh Price Hughes used to say. In his Story of My Life, Mr. Ford tells a remark- able story of industrial success from a human point of view; but what is more beautiful by far in the book is that this thought of “‘ service ” runs through it like a golden thread. In all he did Mr. Ford strove to think that he was serving his employees and the community as well as himself, and thus he was led into many beautiful adventures of industry. Shall we not open our hearts afresh to this love of Christ which comes to us to-day amid the bread and the wine, saying, “I am among you as one that serveth’”? As we remember the past of Christ’s great love, shall we not rejoice in the fact that it is here present with us to-day as fresh and real as when it poured itself out for us on Calvary’s Cross. And shall we not resolve again to let it have its way with us, developing our life with true manhood under the spell of its constraining power, and so making © us “kings and priests unto God for ever.” 18 XX WORRY (For the Close of a Holiday Season) “ Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil-doing.”” —PsALM xxxvil. 8 (R.V.). THIS may seem a small thing, but, after all, life is made up of small things, and life is not small. It was not too small for the Psalmist to devote a whole psalm to, for you will notice that no less than three times over he advises men not to worry. “Fret not thyself because of evil- doets,”’ he says in the first verse, and again in the seventh, “Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way,” and then in our text he repeats the injunction, adding what is a vety good reason for it. It does no good to anybody. You won’t make things a bit better by fretting, rather ten times worse, making youtself and everybody else miserable. “‘ Fret 274 WORRY 275 not thyself, it tendeth only to evil.” But, indeed, the whole Psalm is just about worry, the causes, the evil and the cure of it. And if it be, as the inscription says, by David, he had many reasons to write it, when he looked at poor Saul, fretting his soul to madness in jealous hatred, and many reasons to lay its lesson of quiet waiting to heart as the angry javelin of the revengeful King quivered past into the wall ot he was hunted from place to place by his relentless hatred. ‘“‘ Commit thy ve unto aa Lord and He shall bring it to pass.” But who that has had amy experience of life, and any acquaintance with the human heart, will deny that the ancient poet was right in thus Wwatning men against fretfulness ? Times change, but the heart of man remains the same, and how many there are in this twentieth century of ours, with its worry and bustle, with its fever and fret, that are wearing their souls to pieces and making all around them miserable by giving way to this evil tendency. How many homes all atound us are being jarred all to pieces by this bad spirit! Perhaps it is the husband that is 276 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN the slave and the tyrant of worry, for fretfulness is a disease that makes its victim both a slave and a tyrant. He comes home every other night with his soul like a porcupine, ready to bristle up at every moment. Either the cooking is not good, ort the dishes are too hot or too cold, or the children ate making a noise, or something else is wrong. Or perhaps it is nothing at all, for fretfulness can be roused without any cause apparently and the wotse it is, the more shadowy itsoccasion. Possibly it is the wife that is fretful ; and when the husband comes home at night, instead of a welcome he gets a wail if not a growl. She does not like this house, the people in this place ate not what she was accustomed to, the servant is very trying, the children have been unusually naughty, things are all going wrong. We need not prolong the story. The picture is too familiar ; but the result is that the bright- ness of home is gone, and if fretfulness grows into a habit it will invade the whole soul and make the heart like Saul’s, a chamber of gloomy thoughts from which faith in God and love to man ate alike expelled. WORRY 277 Let us then on this Sunday when many of us return to our winter’s work with its thousand cates and worries, look at this subject which the Psalmist has brought before us—following out very much the thoughts which he suggests in his beautiful meditation; considering she causes, the curse and cure of Fretfulness. I. As to the cause of fretfulness, it must be said that, unlike anger, to which it has a feeble resem- blance, it has often no real cause at all. Anger may be worse than fretfulness because it is more violent, but it may be better than it because more just. A man may do well to be angry; he can fevcrmcG well eto be fretful) Anger, like” a thunderstorm, is soon over, but fretfulness dribbles on for ever like a leaky pipe. Therefore, though the Psalmist mentions here why men fret, he does not do so to excuse them, but only to show how foolish they are in so doing. One of the reasons, for example, why people fret is because of prosperity of others. TEnvy is a fruitful cause of fretting, and that is specially the case if those who are beating us in the race were 278 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN much on a level with us at the start. It is a little hard to see our quondam equals shoot ahead while we are left behind, and still more so, if this success of theirs is won by illegitimate means. The boy or girl at school who sees another get a prize which they have a pretty good reason to think was won by cheating or undue favouritism, has a big fight not to be fretful and say “I won’t try again. That is not fair.” And that is just a picture of life. When we see the man of business rise to favour and fortune by unscrupulous if not dishonest means, when we see the success of the shoddy and the gains of the shady, when by foregoing what is mean and low we remain poor and un- noticed while he who never scruples at these things, who fawns and cringes on his employer, flatters and cajoles his clients, sails as close to the wind as it is possible for a man to sail without actually sailing into prison, when he, I say, stows gteat and rich and honoured, then it is alittle hard “to fret not because of evil-doets,” to tefrain from being envious at “ the prosperity of the wicked.” WORRY 279 Hard, and yet as David says, What is the use of it? What do you ever gain by fretting ? Nothing but needless misery of soul. Wait till the end and the balance will all come out tight then. ‘The poet says he saw it in this life: “I have seen the wicked like a green bay tree— but he passed and was not and could not be found.” I must confess I have not myself seen it come out so neat as that. I have indeed seen the wicked pass in some cases, but, in most, he seemed to remain. He founded a family, built churches and orphanages, got into the Peerage and died at a good old age and had a long obituary notice in The Morning Post. But then, if I may say it without irreverence, I look further and deeper than this Psalm; I look further and deeper because I stand in the new light which my Master has cast on life. I remember that great word “ character,’ which Jesus exalted into such prominence when he said, ““ A man’s life consisteth not in the abun- dance of the things he possesseth ”—not in what he has, but what he is. I remember too that still greater word “immortality”? which He 280 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN “brought to light.” Can we tell absolutely and confidently whether life has been a success till we look at it in that light? When I think on these things, I find it no difficult matter not to fret at the prosperity of the wicked. I say what He said of such people, “‘ They have their reward.” But it is much more difficult when the case is not merely the prosperousness of another but pain and poverty in ourselves. How many there are who spend their lives in a long fight with pain. How many who have a weaty battle to keep the head above water, the wolf from the door! One must not be too hatd on such people if they fret a little. The wise nurse does not scold her patient if she frets a little now and then. She knows that fretfulness is the fruit of sickness and tties to remove its cause. Yes, and yet even in these cases we must say with David, “ What is the good of it?” What do you ever get by it? Surely it only makes you wotse. “It tendeth only to evil.” II. Now that brings me in the second place to speak of the Curé of Fretfulness. WORRY 281 Fretfulness not only does no good, it does positive harm. I have already spoken of the pain and misery which a fretful person spteads in a home, whether husband or wife, a son or daughter. Such folk come into a toom like a gust of East windand one is glad when they depart. But much mote serious tesults follow to the fretful man himself. It destroys his soul. It sours his spirit. It makes faith in God imposs- ible. It takes away all power of work and finally it may end as it did in poor Saul’s case in darkness and utter alienation from God. ‘Thete is an old Greek story of a man who was killed by envy. It was the custom then to erect statues to men in their lifetime, and one had been erected to a statesman who was this man’s lifelong rival and at length successful antagonist. He was filled with bitterness and one night determined to go out and knock it down. He pushed and pushed and at last got the thing shifted from its pedestal, crashing down on the city square, but as it fell it entangled himself and next morning they found his dead body beneath the object of his hatred. It is a patable of how envy destroys the soul * | 282 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN of him who harbours it. I have known people, nominally Christian, who are living really in hell, a hell of misery kindled by their own murmuring and gloomy spirit; while there are others, not perhaps so bad as these who live in a kind of wailing, puling condition ; that makes you indeed sorry for them but glad when you ate able to say “‘ Good-bye.” How hurtful such lives ate as a witness for Christ! If your fretful man or woman ptofesses to be a Christian, and perhaps is a Christian, what a poor witness he is to the faith he pro- fesses!_ How can you expect others to sing the new song if you ate always drawling out on the minor key ? What a misery a fretful Christian is in a chutch if he happen to be much engaged in its wotk! He is never contented with any- thing. This man is not a Christian and that man is not a Christian, and there must bea com- plete weeding out of ninety per cent of the wotkers before things will be right. Perhaps he is not recognized ; he thinks he deserves and pethaps does really deserve more recognition WORRY 283 than he has got; but the result is bitterness and uselessness. For such a spirit is not only hurtful to the man himself but it is hurtful to the work. Cheerfulness is the oxygen of the service of God, and without it there can be no healthy church. “‘ Stormy weather,’ says Spurgeon, “curdles the very cream of humanity,” and fretfulness in temper spells failure in service. III. And now I come in closing to speak of the Cure for Fretfulness. Rabbi Duncan used to say, “ When I am tempted to be despondent I go out to my garden and look at the flowers. Then I say with my Master, ‘ consider the lilies of the field,’ ‘ Begone, dull care, thou fruit of unbelief!’ ’? There is no doubt that a little more exercise, a little more of the open air, even if it did not suggest these thoughts of Rabbi Duncan, would do much to cure the fretfulness of many a man to-day, and especially many a woman. Fretfulness has as often a physical as a spiritual cause, and it is good Theology as well as good common sense to suggest that to many a little more fresh air, or even a cold bath, 284 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN would do much to restore a cheerful spirit. But of course while we do not forget these lesser helps we do not forget also their limitations. These only touch the surface of things, some- thing more is needed to reach the root. Spiritual maladies need spiritual remedies, and it is trifling and wotse than trifling to suggest that these things alone can ever minister to a mind diseased. Miss Cholmondeley in one of her books well remarks that there is something overdone in the way in which people nowadays suggest a change as the only means of comfort to a mind diseased. “You would think,” she says, “that the only Book of Consolation nowadays is the Tourist’s Guide Book and that Murray was the Modern Bible. They change their skies but not their souls who cross the distant ocean.” Fretfulness will not be cured by these things alone. Some- thing more than that is needed if the peace that passeth understanding is to come down upon the soul. What is that P Perhaps the beautiful incident about Christ in the home of Bethany can put it better than any words of mine. ‘“‘ Martha, WORRY 285 Martha, thou art cumbered about many things,” said Jesus to the worried Martha. ‘‘ But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen the good patt which shall not be taken away from her.” Christ never uses the word fretfulness at all in that conversation. He was too wise to sug- gest such a thing. But He has it clearly in His mind as the trouble of the elder sister and as clearly has He its remedy. It is, in a word, a deeper faith in God, a closer fellowship with } Christ, a stronger grasp of the comfort of the/ Holy Ghost. | There are men and women all around us who have ten thousand causes for fretfulness if ever there was a true cause for it, and yet they never fret. Someofyouhaveseenthem. Mournerswho have sutvived everything, even hope itself; incur- ables who daily pace the long corridors of pain in the vast hospital of this world; women like her who wrote that exquisite hymn of resignation : “When I survey life’s varied scene Amid the darkest hours, Sweet rays of comfort shine between And thorns are mixed with flowers.” 286 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN The author of that hymn was a woman whose life was a ttiad of bereavement, disappointment and weakness; and yet was able to sing at the endsonits ““ Give me a calm and tranquil heart, From every murmur free, The blessings of Thy grace impart And let me live to Thee.” When we reflect that her resignation was no sentimental outburst of momentary emotion, but the daily litany of a life which to the end made God’s statutes “‘ her songs in the house of her pilgrimage,” we are conducted to the sovereign cute for wotty. It is faith that cures fret. Other subsidiary helps may be tried and are well worthy the trial, but it is faith in God, in His love revealed in Jesus Christ that brings the soul to that peace, which garrisons the believing soul and keeps it calm amidst the encompassing hosts of life’s cates and sorrows. You all remember that young man in ancient times who came rushing down from the top of the house crying out to the prophet, “ Master! Master! We ate undone. The Syrians have WORRY 287 suttounded the city. All hope that we can be saved is taken away. Prepare for death or slavery!” But the prophet calmly answered, “Open the young man’s eyes that he may see,” and “Behold the mountain round about was filled with chariots and hotses of fire.” ‘“‘ There are mote with us,” he added, *‘ than are with them.” That is the way to meet your frets. Meet them with prayer. Pray that God may open your eyes that you may see the spiritual forces that are all on the side of those who look to God. 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