Ver ALAS ERPRONYRT TE ert Library of Che Theological Seminary PRINCETON - NEW JERSEY <)> PRESENTED BY The 8 r oe, 4 dot a UCL VW Tm ° BX 9178 .V2 G6 Vance, James Isaac, 1862- God's open - ips ~h RAP rn: Ua a ee hie the va ead: ‘eine: Tow IE ah Ay hv: a4 GOD’S OPEN: SERMONS THAT TAKE US OUT-OF-DOORS By James I. Vance, D.D. God’s Open. Sermons that take us out-of- doors . } PSTSO Being a Preacher. A Ae of the Claims of the Christian Ministry In the Breaking of the ae A Volume of Communion Addresses .. . ‘$7.25 The Silver on the Iron Cross. A Record of Experiences Overseas . . By is The Life of Service. Some Christian Doc- trines from Paul’s Experiences in the ae eh to the Romans. 12 mo, cloth Royal Manhood “An inspiring book, a strong, forcible ielsanene presentation of the characteristics of true man- hood.” —The Living Church. Tendency: The Effect of Trend and Drift in the Development of Life. The Eternal in Man “‘An appeal to the dignity of manhood, a call for the awakening of the highest in humanity. si —Newark Evening News. The Rise of a Soul. A Stimulus to Personal Progress and Development A Young Man’s Make- Up. 12mo, cloth A study of the things that make or unmake a young man. The Young Man Four-Square. In Busi- ness, Society, Politics, and Religion. 12mo, cloth .» Life’s Terminals . A clarion-noted call to conscience and Christ- ian unity. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/godsopensermonst0Ovanc GREAT WHITE OAK Standing on country estate, ‘‘ Tanglewood,”’ of Mr. Wm. N. Reynolds, near Winston- Salem, N. C. It is 98 feet high, 28 feet circumference at base, 102 feet spread of branches. Fa IE 2 aor ae ae er “ry Corsi OF PHINGRS Brae? "ME nS fy e {* > GOD’S OPEN: Sermons That Take Us Out-Of-Doors By JAMES I.*VANCE, D.D., LL.D. Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tenn. New Yorrk CHICAGO Fleming H. Revell Company LonpON AND EDINBURGH Copyright, 1924, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY Printed in the United States of America New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street To my sons, in memory of the many happy days we have spent together in the open along the trout streams and on the mountain heights in the Land of the Sky. GOD’S WORLD O, world, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide gray skies! Thy mists, that roll and rise! Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, World, I cannot get thee close enough! Long have I known a glory in it all, But never knew iu this ; Here such a passion is As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year; My soul is all but out of me,—let fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call. —Epna St, VincENT MILLAY. . A MAN AND THE WILDERNESS . Fapinc LEAVES . . ANOTHER VILLAGE . THE ForcoTTEN WATER-POT . . THE WHITE FIELDS . . MOUNTAIN-TOP AND VALLEY . . A SENSE OF Far Horizons Contents . Curist’s LiFE IN THE OPEN . . Like A TREE . A MAN AND A Brook . Tue First BREAKFAST . THE Sprinc By THE SIDE OF THE ROAD . . Gomnc FIsHING . BN NG . Tue CrRooKED TREE THAT STRAIGHT- NED. PAWN-BROKERS . Tur PLacE WHERE THEY Latp Hm . . 101 fai DR pals . THE PauMs, THE TEARS, AND THE . 139 11 23 39 oo 67 i) 89 149 Shh Ob wy Ao Ad ads, whos For the use of the following copyrighted material included in this volume, permission has been secured either from the author or from his authorized publisher: “God’s World,” from “ Renascence,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, published by Mitchell Kennerley. “Trees,” from “‘ Joyce Kilmer’s Poems,” by Joyce, Kilmer, published by George H. Doran Co. “Toil of the Trail,” from “’The Long Trail,” by Hamlin Garland, published by Harper Bros. “ Church in the Wildwood,” from “ Rodeheaver’s Collection of Male Voices,” by Dr. Wm. A. Pitts, published by Rodeheaver Co. “In the Cool of the Evening,” from “ Collected Poems,” Vol. L., by Alfred Noyes, published by Fred- erick A. Stokes Company. I CHRIST’S LIFE IN THE OPEN A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent, Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to Him: The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods He came. Out of the woods my Master went, And He was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, Content with death and shame. When Death and Shame would woo Him last, From under the trees they drew Him last: *T was on a tree they slew Him—last When out of the woods He came. —SIDNEY LANIER. I CHRIST’S LIFE IN THE OPEN “He went into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.’”—MatTtHEw Oia 23. HE, shadows of evening are falling. There is that stillness in the wood which comes at the close of the day, when creature life seeks repose. The trees and the rocks, the bloom- ing flowers and climbing vines, are waiting for Him. Then the hush of nature is broken by a foot fall, and into the woods the Master comes. Up the mountain side He climbs to His oratory. He is alone. He has left the world behind Him. He has turned from the great crowds that thronged Him. He has sent His disciples by boat across the little sea, and now He seeks and finds, not solitude, but fellowship, in God’s open, for He has come to the woods to pray. Not to some synagogue or temple, not to a shrine that man has built, not to an altar some priest has consecrated, but under a tree that God has grown and on a stone that nature has fashioned, the Son of man kneels for His com- -munion with God. He has come from achievement. ‘There on the lake shore where the crowds gathered, He. has 11 12 GOD'S OPEN been giving Himself without stint. High on the mountain side above the noise and tumult of the seething, needy world, He seeks rest and quiet. Soon He is to return to achievement. Already the boat that bears His disciples across the little lake is in the midst of a stormy sea, tossed by contrary winds, and in the gray dawn of the fourth watch of the night, He must hasten to them. But the feet that climb the mountain will as easily walk the sea. Then when the boat comes to land yonder at Genessaret, the people “ from that country round about ” will be waiting for Him with all that were diseased, and He will stand among them, and they will touch the hem of His garment, and as many as touch His robe shall be made perfectly whole. And so the Saviour has come into the wood for more than rest. He has sought the mountain for renewal, for endowment, for power. He must be furnished afresh for His great ministry to the needy world. He must have a new contact with the Source of strength, a period of undisturbed and unbroken communion with His Father. He seeks and finds it in God’s great out-of-doors. One wonders what Christ prayed for that night in the mountain oratory, when He was alone with God. What was the burden of His supplication as He poured out His soul to His Father? On other occasions the words of His prayers are preserved; here, it is merely the recital of the fact that He went into a mountain apart to pray, and that when CHRIST’S LIFE IN THE OPEN 13 the evening was come, He was there alone. His loneliness was not solitude. Never was there such companionship. The quiet of the woods was about Him. The stillness of God’s great cathedral lay on His soul. God was in His holy temple. The Eter- nal was “ closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.” And so we think of that night of prayer in the chapel of the hills as a night of communion, of fel- lowship between God the Father and God the Son. Is not this the essence of prayer and the soul of religion itself? Prayer is something other than a scheme to acquire, to induce God to change His mind or His method, to persuade Him to bestow what He is disposed to withhold. Prayer is not wrestling with God, as Jacob found that weird night by Jabbok. Prayer, instead of overcoming God’s reluctance, lays hold of His willingness. Prayer is giving one’s self up to God without con- ditions, as the Master did that night in the garden: “ Not my will, but thine, be done.” There is no greater prayer. As He goes down the mountain in the dim light of early dawn from that night among the friendly trees, from the flowers and the rocks and the warm earth so kind to Him, He is ready. THE LIFE OF JESUS OUT OF DOORS Enlarging this incident, we shall have a picture of much of the earthly ministry of Jesus. A large 14 GOD’S OPEN part of His time was spent in the open. Palestine is a country with a climate so kind that for eleven months in the year one may sleep on the ground and live with nature as a close and kindly friend. Doubtless Christ’s body was often wet with the dew, and the moon and stars shone down on His face as He fell asleep. He must have loved the trees and fields, the hills and valleys and lakes, the streams and roads, the flowers and the sunshine, the winds and the blue skies and the shining stars. He was priest of the house not made with hands. The great events of His life and ministry were nearly all out-of-door experiences. His birth was so close to nature that the nearest companions of His first night on earth were the beasts of the stall. When the hour came for His baptism, it was not from some sculptured urn or chiseled font that the water was taken, nor under some templed dome that heaven’s dove descended. It was by the river- side from the waters of a living stream under the open skies. There out of doors a man from the wilderness baptised the Son of God, and a voice from the firmament said: “‘ This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” To the two disciples who met Jesus shortly after His baptism, and who asked: “ Master, where dwellest thou?” Jesus replied: “Come and see.” And they went and spent the day with him. Where? Christ never owned a house. We won- der if it was not to some quiet spot in vale or CHRIST’S LIFE IN THE OPEN 15 wood, to the bank of pool or stream, under the cool shade of a great rock, that Andrew and his friend were taken that day by Him Who was to become their Master, and Who was to lead them on to world conquest and martyrdom. Of Christ’s sixty-four parables, thirty-two take us out of doors. He utters the profoundest truths of religion and interprets them with the common- est facts of nature. He saw that “earth was crammed with heaven, and every common bush aflame with God.” So far from any contradiction between God’s word and His works, to Jesus nature was luminous and musical with the divine. The fig tree, the wind, the clouds, the rain, the mustard seed, the vine and its branches, the tares, the treasures hid in a field, the fishing nets, the lost sheep, the wheat fields and husbandmen, are all packed with messages from God. When Jesus would preach, His pulpit was a mountain top or a lake shore, a dell or a street, and His text a blade of grass from some green field, a flower blooming by the roadside, a gushing spring, a singing brook, a cloud or a star. Of the forty-eight miracles recorded of Jesus, thirty-seven call us to the open. There He not only stilled the tempest and walked the sea and fed the crowds, but healed the sick and cleansed the lepers and opened the eyes of the blind and cast out devils and raised the dead. It was in the wilderness that Jesus won His first 16 GOD’S OPEN victory over Satan. It was as He walked by the sea that He found and called Peter and Andrew, James and John. And it was out in the mountains that the ordination of the twelve took place. He was an open air preacher, and His greatest sermons were delivered out of doors, one on a mountain-top, another beside a well. It was not in some stately temple nor sombre cathedral that the transfigura- tion as well as the temptation occurred, but on the top of a high mountain, with common earth under foot and the sinless heavens overhead. ‘There in the clear, bold light of open day Moses and Elias appeared, talking with Jesus. The “dim religious light ” does not come to us from the ministry of Him Who lived and taught out of doors. Thus they followed Jesus when He was on earth. The people found Him in God’s great out-of-doors. He is to be found there still under the open skies, beneath the shade of trees, along the beaten high- ways or dim trails or beside stream and lake not less than in the churches man has built. JESUS’ RELIGION AND THE OPEN All this bears in a striking way on the religion Jesus brought to men. It confirms its genuineness. Jesus did not clothe Himself with mystery nor hide in the shadows. He did not house Himself in a hermit’s cell or sacred crypt or holy retreat. He did not shun publicity. He dwelt in the full glare of day, where all He said and did can be tested and CHRIST’S LIFE IN THE OPEN 17 investigated and scrutinized. His ministry was in the open where concealment was impossible. He was a priest of the street, a preacher of the high- way, and any who would could come to His side and touch Him and look into His kind face and hear His gentle voice and be blessed. In this Christ stands singular and alone among the found- ers of great religion. It reveais its simplicity. Nature takes us away from the ornate and the artificial to the simple and the sincere. It hates shams and veneer. It needs no make-up. Jesus was simplicity incarnate, and His gospel the religion of sincerity. Nature never poses nor affects, is never artificial. The same is true of Jesus as a teacher. He was never grandilo- quent, never studied nor dramatic, never a mere actor. Anyone could understand Him. The truths He revealed were eternal, but they were uttered in the language of the common people, and expressed in metaphors of daily life. It also bears on its interpretation. Jesus brought religion and nature together. He is a poor disciple of Jesus who shuns science and is afraid to know God’s world too well. Nature will never defame God. It will never betray its Master. In his study of nature, man may often fall short of the facts and reach unwarranted conclusions, but if he will be reverent and patient, the lost path will be re- discovered, and it will be found to lead to God. It aids, too, in the experience of the religion of 18 GOD’S OPEN Jesus. Much that God would give us is to be best had in the open. There is a delightful contact out of doors with Him Who made and rules the world. ‘There is rest for tired nerves, renewal of courage, recovery of poise, correction of values, and emanci- pation from the vain show. He is to be pitied who never has a chance to return to the wild and get acquainted with the world as it was when it came from its Maker’s hands. The man who said of vacation: “ Whatever choice you make, you are pretty sure to regret it,’ was evidently a tender- foot, and confined his recreation periods to hotels and Chautauquas and tailor-made parks. I am sorry for city children who never get off pavetnents, who never see a flower unless it is cut or growing in a pot, who never wade a stream nor climb a tree nor go swimming and nutting in the open. When you are worn out, take to the woods. When your great temptation is on, hurry to the wilderness. Get away from people. Get close to nature. Get a rod and hunt for a trout stream. Get a stick and some walking shoes and be off on a hike. Get a horse and ride out of storm into peace, out of worry into heaven. Get a boat and push out on lake or river, and as the ripples fall from your paddle or the winds play with the sails, forget your troubles. Are your nerves on edge? Get your tackle and come with me to a laughing stream. ‘The banks CHRIST’S LIFE IN THE OPEN 19 are dense with rhododendron, and above the brook the trees put their heads so close together that only here and there is the glint of the sun on the shining water. We wade the stream, and let the fly drift with the current. Now on a gleaming ripple, now in a dark pool, now in the lee of a fallen log the trout leaps, the line stiffens, and the electric current charges up arm and spine. The creel fills. Ona rock that lifts from the brook or on a patch of mossy bank we eat our lunch, and at the same time feed on the beauty of the world. Then another mile with the brook. Then home. Then a night of dreamless sleep, and when morning wakes, “ God’s in His heaven, Alls right with the world.” Have you soured on life? Come, let us visit our big brothers, the trees in the forest. Let us stroll among the ferns and galax and wintergreen. They are all waving a welcome. A rabbit jumps from cover and scampers across our path. A gray squirrel barks from a dizzy limb, and the birds sing. Your ugly mood is lifting. The evil spell is broken, and soon you are in tune with the beauty of the world. Have you lost courage and faith? Mount a horse and let us ride. I will take you up a bridle path under the shade of trees, across limpid fords whose crystal waters splash your stirrups, by the side of murmuring waters riding toward the sky- 20 GOD’S OPEN line, from whose heights you may see the blue ranges of the mountain world for a hundred miles, and the deep green of far valleys, and the curling smoke of cabins long removed, and hear now and again the sound of an axe or the deep baying of a hound or the shout of a mountaineer or the call of cattle and sheep. As you ride homeward and dis- mount from your horse, if you do not lay your hand on his neck and for a moment fondle him, if you do not feel that the burden has slipped from your shoulders and the load from your heart, if you have not come to believe that the world is kinder than you thought and people better and God surer and nearer, you had best write your will. “Into the woods the Master came.” “ He went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening was come, he was there alone.” We do well to follow the Master into God’s open. We have made religion too much of an indoors affair. We have taught people that if they would find God they must look for Him in a church. He is to be found in the church, but also in the moun- tains and fields and by the sea. The narrow streets of the cities of the old world hark back to an age of fear. As the world grows safer and kindlier, walls fall and streets widen. It is a good sign when man’s home is less of a house and more of a garden, and his worship less a ritual and more a life. il LIKE A TREE THE BRAVE OLD OAK ’ 'A song to the oak, the brave old oak, Who hath ruled in the greenwood long; Here’s health and renown to his broad green crown, And his fifty arms so strong. There’s fear in his frown when the sun goes down. And the fire in the west fades out; And he showeth his might on a wild midnight, When the storms through his branches shout. Then here’s to the oak, the brave old oak, Who stands in his pride alone; And still flourish he, a hale green tree, When a hundred years are gone! In the days of old, when the spring with cold Had brightened his branches gray, Through the grass at his feet crept maidens sweet, To gather the dew of May. And on that day to the rebeck gay They frolicked with lovesome swains; They are gone, they are dead, in the churchyard laid, But the tree it still remains. He saw the rare times when the Christmas chimes Were a merry sound to hear, When the squire’s wide hall and the cottage small Were filled with good English cheer. Now gold hath sway we all obey, And a ruthless king is he; But he never shall send our ancient friend To be tossed on the stormy sea. —HrnryY FotTuHercitt, CHORLEY. I] MIRE As DRE B, “ He shall be like a iree.”—-PSALMs 1: 3. Ah HE, Duke, in “ As You Like It,” says: “__our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” King David, in the first Psalm, sings the song of a tree that tells the life story of a man: “ And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” A PROMISE What a wonderful thing a tree is! Some day a tiny seed falls into the lap of Mother Earth, and resting its tired cheek on her warm bosom, goes to sleep. When it wakens, the miracle of being has been wrought, the door of destiny swings wide, and the world of light and song and sunshine calls. Think how a tree grows! With infallible instinct it feels out and finds what it needs. It 23 Re GOD’S OPEN gathers food from the soil. It extracts sustenance from the,rocks. It drinks from stream and sky. It imprisons the sunshine until its garments are living green. It bows. to the winds and bends to the storms and blushes under the warm gaze of the ardent sun. ‘Through all this, it grows tall and strong and. lusty, spreading its branches to bless the earth, and lifting its head to salute the heavens. Thirkk of how a tree serves! The birds come and build their nests in its boughs. Any bird that will-may come, for the gospel of the tree is: “ Whosoever will may come.” The beasts of the field, the cattle and the sheep, and tired men from the noisy town come to rest in its shade, and when its fruit grows to luscious ripeness, it says: “‘ Take and eat.” If you will not take, it will of its own accord drop its bounty in your hand, for the tree ‘lives to serve. Think of how a tree suffers! It bares its head to the tempest, its face is exposed to the ice and snow, it meets in the open the attacks of the storm wind, it is bruised and broken by the tempest, and when the woodsman drives the keen edge of his axe into its heart, the tree gives its life to feed man’s fire and warm his home. Think of how responsive a tree is! Nothing leaves it as it found it. It responds to the seasons. It stores up in itself the record of all it does and says and thinks and becomes. It draws a circle around its heart for each passing year. It carries LIKE A TREE 25 to its grave the kiss of every sunbeam, the baptism of every raindrop, the caress of every zephyr, the stroke of every thunderbolt, and the scars made by the sword of the ice-king. Think of how the trees bind the world together! Successive generations have the same tree for a friend. Yonder is a tree whose wide-spreading branches gave generous shade to father and mother. The children and the children’s children will come and sit there and talk to one another of how life fares. ‘The tree will listen, and laugh or weep or sing, according to the story. Sweethearts, for five hundred years, have been saying the same things to each other under that old tree, and the tree has never grown weary oi listening, nor has it ever betrayed a secret. If it could only speak our lan- guage, what scenes it would recite, what tragedies relate, what romances unfold! It could talk to us of the years that stretch back into the dim past. When a youth at college, I planted a tree on the campus. Now and then I make a pilgrimage to that tree and lean against its growing trunk and look up into its spreading branches and listen, as the tree talks to me of things I might forget, but should remember. Yes, a tree is a wonderful thing. It takes God to grow trees. It takes Him a thousand years to grow some trees. And yet a tree that required a thousand years for God to grow, a man in one brief hour may kill, It is wanton desecration needlessly 26 GOD’S OPEN to kill a tree. One cannot withhold a protest when he sees the forests destroyed. It 1s an infamy that is common in America, and it will bring down on our guilty heads the wrath of generations yet un- born who, when they go out to look for their trees, will find only the graveyards of the greatest forests the world has known. ‘Thank God for trees! I should hate to live whére there are none. “T think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree, “A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast, “A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray, “A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; “Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. “Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree! ” * The Psalm, however, is something more than the recital of the glory of a tree. It is a tree recit- ing the glory of aman. It is more than a plea for forest preservation. It is a plea for the preserva- tion of that which God made when He toiled at the summit of creation and made man in His image, * Joyce Kilmer. LIKE A TREE 27 and crowned him with the lordship of the world. Wonderful as is a tree, there is something more wonderful. It is a soul. It is personality. That we may know how wonderful a soul is, God seems to say: “ Sit down under the trees and let them talk to you. Listen, as down from their leafy boughs comes this line from an old song: ‘ He shall be like a tree!’ ” It is a glorious thing just to be like a tree, to come into being as a tree comes, to have God think your soul awake until for you the miracle of being has been wrought, and the door of destiny swings wide, and the world of light and song and sunshine calls you to God’s great out-of-doors. It is glorious to grow as a tree grows, to reach out into the world around you and lay hold of things which by the invisible processes of life build themselves into the fabric of the soul, to find in the earth beneath you, in the sky above you, and in the world about you the things which enable you to become, until all of God’s great universe is found to be just a garden in which the soul gets its growth. It is glorious to serve as a tree serves, to give yourself freely to all whose need stops at your door, to find that people seek you for the help you can give, to have the weary rest in your presence and see the troubled blessed with peace, to watch those who had lost happiness recover it, until they sing and shout in your company, to feed and succor 28 GOD’S OPEN and sustain until the worn of the world look into your face with the light of heaven in their eyes. It is glorious to suffer as a tree suffers,—to suffer, but not in vain, to take discipline without a murmur, to discover that pain is only a method of development, to be as happy in winter as in sum- mer, to be as confident when the snow is on the ground and the leaves are sere and dead as when the grass is green and the flowers are in bloom. It is glorious to have the world experience of a tree, to have the life of the race become a part of your daily experience, to hear the laughter of chil- dren and laugh with them, to behold the infirmities of age and slow down that you may keep step, to see the tears of grief and to weep with those who weep, to hear the sighs of the lonely and to make them your own, to be like a tree in your sympa- thies, taking the whole world up into your heart. This is the promise. This is the way God wants us to live. He would like man’s life to be as beau- tiful, as symmetrical, as useful, as responsive, as that of a tree. Here is a man’s salute to the trees: “Many a tree is found in the wood, And every tree for its use is good: some for the strength of the gnarled root, Some for the sweetness of flower or fruit, Some for shelter against the storm, And some to keep the hearthstone warm; some for the roof and some for the beam, And some for a boat to breast the stream. LIKE A TREE bo er) In the wealth of the wood since the world began, The trees have offered their gifts to man. “But the glory of trees is more than their gifts: *Tis a beautiful wonder of life that lifts From a wrinkled seed in an earthbound clod A column, an arch in the temple of God, A pillar of power, a dome of delight, A shrine of song and a joy of sight! Their roots are the nurses of rivers in birth, Their leaves are alive with the breath of the earth; They shelter the dwellings of man, and they bend O’er his grave with the look of a loving friend. “JT have camped in the whispering forest of pines I have slept in the shadow of olives and vines; In the knees of an oak, at the foot of a palm, I have found good rest and slumber’s balm. And now, when the morning gilds the boughs Of the vaulted elm at the door of my house, I open the window and make a salute: ‘God bles thy branches and feed thy root! Thou hast lived before, live after me, Thou ancient, friendly, faithful tree!’ ” For a human life to get from the tired and toil- ing of earth as fine a tribute as Henry van Dyke here pays to trees is not to have lived in vain. A PROMISE WITH A CONDITION The promise that man shall be like a tree is pre- ceded by a condition. In the opening verses of the Psalm, a portrait is painted. It is not the portrait of a tree, but of a man. “‘ Blessed is the man that walketh not in the 30 GOD’S OPEN counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” It is the portrait of a man living in harmony with his Maker. ‘This harmony obtains in every part and posture of his being. It has to do with the way he walks and stands and sits, with his pleasures, with the moments when he is shut in silent contemplation within the quiet seclusion of his own soul. He is living a life of companionship with his Maker. When he walks, he walks with God. Whether he stands or sits or plays, he feels the Divine Presence about him. When he medi- tates, his solitude is glorious because God is there. There is no promise to the man who is godless. There is nothing here for him to clam who re- pudiates and casts out of his life the God of the trees. Why should one think himself able to achieve a life of harmony and beauty by ignoring his Maker and despising every provision and vio- lating every law God has made for his growth and development? No tree was ever so foolish. ‘The trees worship and obey. There is no rebellion in nature. It is in the human heart alone that the Divine will is challenged. Man only of all God’s creatures would live his life with God left out. It cannot be done. The scientist who says it can, lies. Any sect that says it can be done is more clever than honest. Any student who Ai; out \ \ ) LIKE A TREE 31 of his laboratory to announce that he has discov- ered that man can live without God has a brain addled by the fumes of his experiments. Man was made for God. It is as natural for the soul to turn to its Maker as it is for the roots of a tree to seek the soil, or the leaves to reach up for rain and sun- shine. It takes God to make a soul. How long? If it takes God a hundred or a thousand years to make a tree, how long does it take Him to make a soul? As trees that required a thousand years for their growth may be slain in an hour, so swiftly may a soul for which the Son of God gave His life. One day, when a lad, I made a wonderful dis- covery about trees. It was that they grow great and live long in proportion to what is underground. I was spending the summer at my grandfather’s farm. On the hillside above the big spring stood a great white oak, a forest king, measuring some five or six feet in diameter at the base of its trunk. During the long years erosion has been at work on the soil around its roots, and on this summer day to which I refer, there was a cloud-burst and a landslide that left the great roots exposed to a depth of several feet. To my amazement I discov- ered that the tree was as big underground as above. This was the secret of its vigour and longevity. The same is true of souls. Souls grow greatest that strike deepest into God. It is not what you see, it is what you do not see, that gives the meas- ures of aman. The soul that has the biggest life 32 GOD’S OPEN is the soul that has the largest contacts with God. Hence the condition precedes the promise. When the condition is complied with, the promise may be claimed. HE PROMISE A PROPHECY A man who walks with God shall be like a tree. What kind of a tree? There are trees that do not amount to much. There are trees no one would want to be like, trees that are twisted, stunted, de- formed, sickly, dying. I have gone through for- ests in the Northwest, and seen huge trees eight feet in diameter cut down and lying rotting in the swamps. Who would want to be like these? Yet there are men of great gifts, occupying big posi- tions, but who are guilty of similar folly. Made to rule the world, they rot in vice and sin. God’s life is not in them. They are like a tree, but the tree they are like is dead. Its glory is gone. “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.” This is the prophecy. It is a tree in living contact with the Source of life. It is interesting to see what water can do for a tree. One summer a neighbour gave us a tree. She was making some improvements on her house nearby which necessi- tated the removal of this tree. The tree man came with his teams and workmen and transplanted the tree. It was a splendid hackberry. He guaran- teed that it would live, but a few days after its removal, the leaves began to fade and fall, and soon LIKE A TREE 35 the tree stood leafless. All summer long a basin around the root of the tree was kept filled with water, and eagerly we watched the next spring to see what would happen. To our delight, the leaves budded once more, and soon the tree was waving green. It has grown as no tree along that street has grown. ‘The water saved its life. It is so with a soul in living contact with God. It is “ like a tree planted by the rivers of water.” The burn- ing heat of summer cannot quench its life. “Tt bringeth forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not wither.” So with the man who ts like such a tree. His life is not barren nor de- formed. ‘“‘ Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” There is no defeat. He shall serve and live and triumph. It is a promise of prosperity, of happi- ness, and of usefulness. This is what God pledges life shall be when the soul is united to the Source of life. Such a tree has faith, and the faith of a tree never wavers. It takes God at His word. It trusts that the rain will come when it is needed, and that sunshine and soil will give what is required. Such a trust is easy to the soul that is planted in God. The reason doubt attacks us is that we are trying to trust a God in Whom we do not live. Such a tree can teach men how to pray. It says that prayer is not arguing with God, nor a scheme to get what He is reluctant to give. Prayer is merely contact and trust. About all the prayer a 34: GOD’S OPEN tree offers is: “ Thy will be done!” The fact of prayer is its answer. ‘The tree is not after things, but life. There is the story of a tree growing on a barren rock, but vigourous, and the secret of its virility was found to be a root that had run out along the foot-bridge over a narrow stream, and imbedded itself in the rich soil on the far side. So the soul by prayer invades the eternal and feeds on the infinite. Think of standing as a tree stands. ‘The winds blow, but the tree stands. One day from the win- dow of a railroad train, I saw a lone tree standing in what had been, a few days before, a wood. There had been a tornado, and all the trees had gone down but this one, which still stood upright saluting the heavens. It was a picture of the man whose strength is in God, who trusts and prays. God is able to hold him up. This was the secret of the dauntless courage of John the Baptist. The tree tells men how to suffer. Suffering is part of its growth. Suffering is God’s discipline by which the soul becomes. As you have sat by a wood fire on a winter evening, and the flames have lapped themselves around the log, you have heard the wood sing. Different kinds of trees sing different songs. It is so with the life God touches in pain and discipline. Think of how a tree serves. It never fails, be- cause it is planted by the rivers of water. When life is barren of service, it is because there is no contact LIKE A TREE 35 with God. If it would serve, it must be served. If it is to give out, it must take in. If it would minister to others, it must be ministered to itself. It is great just to be like a tree. This is the promise. It is great to meet the conditions of the promise, until the promise becomes a prophecy that daily translates itself into a life experience. When you pass a tree, if you will listen, you can hear it speaking to you. When you lie on the grass, or swing in the hammock under the shade of trees, if you listen you will find a song in the tree-tops. When you drive past the trees on the roadside, if you look you will see their branches waving to you in friendly fashion. And the thing they are saying and singing and waving is always the same. It is this: “ God loves you, and if you will live in Him, you shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. Your work shall never fail, and your joy shall never wither, and all you do shall prosper! ” Hy \ be i f} iH, Ill A MAN AND A BROOK SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE Out of the hills of Habersham, ‘Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall, Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover’s pain to attain the plain Far from the hills of Habersham, Far from the valleys of Hall. All down the hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried: Abide, abide, The wilful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling grass said: Stay, The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed: Abide, abide Here in the hills of Habersham, Here in the valleys of Hall. * * x x x But, O, not the hills of Habersham, And O, not the valleys of Hall Avail: I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices of Duty call— Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main. The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o’er the hills of Habersham, Calls through the valleys of Hall. —SIDNEY LANIER. iit A MAN AND A BROOK “ And he drank of the brook.’—I Kincs 17:6. HIS is the story of a man and a brook, two of the best things in God’s world,—a man, God’s best in the world of animate nature, and a brook, God’s best in the world of inanimate nature. For if man were to perish from the earth, existence would return to the jungle; and if the brook should cease to run, the desert would reign. How wonderful man is! ‘“‘ How nobie in rea- son! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god!” Man is at the summit of creation. God made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour. When God toiled at the top of the world, He said: “ Let us make man in our image.” Man is the portrait and philosophy and promise of all God’s plans and purposes and activities. “‘A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” 39 40 GOD’S OPEN There in the wilderness, beside the brook Cher- ith, down under the broad plateau. on which the snowy walls of the temple gleamed in the eastern sun, hard by the famous road which ran from Jerusalem on the mountain to Jericho in the plain, was aman. ‘The glen is quiet. Around are the rocks and trees and stillness of nature. In the midst of such solitude sits God’s prophet Elijah. All is quiet save for the man’s own thoughts and the voice of a brook. How wonderful a brook is, too! Where does the brook come from? It is fed from a hidden source whose plenty never fails. The brook defies the drought, and conquers and transforms the desert. What a song it sings as it goes on its way! There is no hate nor fear, nor are there any vain regrets, in the song of the brook. It sings of the beauty of the world, of the glory of life, of the shining stars and the radiant sun, as its silvery waters murmur over golden sands. What wonders it works as it goes on its way! It gladdens the world. It fertilizes the soil. It blesses and beautifies forest and field. It waters the grasses and the flowers. It reflects the day, and lets the night go to sleep by its side. The clouds rain down their tears, and the brook opens its arms and makes the rain-tears of the weeping sky its own. What a way the brook has! It comes like a A MAN AND A BROOK 41 silver rill from under the roots and rocks, and starts down the hill through gorge and glen, falling in a shimmering veil of waters from some high ledge, resting like a star-eyed goddess in some deep transparent pool, giving all and claiming naught in return. May we not say of the brook as of the man: “A brook shall be as an hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tem- pest; as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land”? What a journey is before it! It will go where man has never been. It will see sights and hear voices he has never seen nor heard. It will go into unknown lands. It will meet the mighty ocean, and embark on sea tides to distant shores where people of strange customs will come down to greet it with curious welcomes, and wonder what the waters of the brook can tell them of that world of distance and mystery that dwells beyond the low gray screen of the skies. And the brook will live on after the man is gone, after his body has crumbled into dust. Genera- tions will rise and pass and vanish, but the brook will still be singing in the glen: “Men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.” There they are, the man and the brook. ‘The man is lonely, but he has the brook. It would comfort his loneliness and cheer his solitude and 42 GOD’S OPEN strengthen his worn body. It seems to be saying: “Let us be friends! There are just the two of us out here in God’s open.” Elijah stooped down to answer the salute of the waters gliding by. “ And he drank of the brook.” What does the brook say to the man? Elijah has been saying things himself. He has been preaching to the nation. The time has come for him to listen, to have things said to him. God’s preacher is a brook. He has sent his servant to sit beside Cherith and listen and meditate and prepare. Such seasons come to us all. There are times when we need not so much to be telling others as to be told ourselves, not so much to talk as to listen, to hear the inaudible and elemental voices of the world. “ Come ye yourselves apart and rest a while.” What did the brook say to the man? NEEDS I think it said to Elijah: “ You do not need as much as you think—yjust a drink from the brook and a morsel of bread from a raven’s beak or a widow’s table, and your needs are met.” We can get along with far less than we imagine. Many of our needs are artificial. We manufacture appetites. The joy of life is destroyed by our restless quest for things we do not need. Life would be happier if it were simpler. A rich man once said to me: “Could I have my way and follow my tastes, I would live very simply in a little house, with A MAN AND A BROOK 43 furniture to meet actual needs, and plain fare on the table.” ‘Why not?” I replied. “ Why not live as you prefer?” With a sigh he said: “It would not please my family.” But why should we not train our children to the truer estimate of what is best in life? | This same complexity crowds into all life. It gets into the church. How much of the energy of God’s people is absorbed with organizations, and how little is given to the one supreme thing God wants done, the leading of other lives into fellow- ship with Him through Christ!) Many a church is organized until it is actually inefficient. Its ener- gies are used up in the effort to keep the machinery going. The best organization is that which work creates, not that which is supposed to create work. ‘This is the brook’s way. It makes its own channel. The channel does not make the brook. And the brook makes a beautiful channel for itself. I came on a stream one day which suddenly changed from wild beauty to tame monotony. First it was winding in and out among the trees between grassy banks, the stones in its bed making musical the falling waters, as the bydok went singing on its way. Then the stream suddenly emerged upon a section that ran straight across a field, the banks bare and the waters slow and sullen, flowing in muddy silence. A man had changed the course of the stream, and in doing so, had robbed it of its beauty. Nature is AAG GOD’S OPEN the great artist. If we would live closer to the simple heart of nature, if there were less of com- plexity and artificiality, we should find that what the brook said to the prophet is true. We do not need as much as we imagine. THE BEST THINGS FOR ALL The brook is saying that there are some things which cannot be monopolized. Many of the ills of life arise from man’s effort to corner the market, to monopolize instead of share. Some people are cleverer than others. They seem to suc- ceed. ‘They capture the best sites and the biggest incomes. But God is more clever than these clever souls who would monopolize the franchise of happiness. He has fixed life so that the best things are for all. ‘You cannot corner sunshine. You cannot monopo- lize air and scenery. You cannot bottle up the brook. One day a millionaire tried to buy a brook, and thought he had succeeded. But after a while, the brook said: “I am weary of the rich man’s lawn,” and it slipped away to run beside a poor man’s garden. It is thus with love, and peace, and faith, and with God Himself. ‘There is no such thing as a monopoly of the best. Hence there can be no real poverty in the world. We would understand this if we could only realize what we need and what we own. One has nothing in the bank, but he may have what no bank can A MAN AND A BROOK 45 hold. He may have the brook. He may have enough to meet his elemental needs. He may have the world. If so, why should he be unhappy? Elijah was not disconsolate there in the glen. He was happier than Ahab in his palace. Thank God for a world in which the best things belong to everybody! GOD'S CARE The brook tells the man that God takes care of those who trust Him. It said to Elijah: “God always takes care of me. I never worry. I never wonder where the water is coming from. Some- how it always comes. I merely trust. One day a man came and stood there on the bank and said: ‘Brook, you had better save; there is going to be a drought; you will need what you are giving away; you had better hoard some of the water while you can.’ But a lily on the bank said: ‘ The man speaks falsely. I do not toil nor spin. I simply trust in God, and He never fails me.’ Then a bird in a tree on the bank of the brook said: | The lily speaks the truth. God takes care of those who put their trust in Him.’ I believed the flowers and the birds instead of the man; and the water has never failed.” Nor did God fail Elijah. He had been predict- ing three years of drought. He had been saying that no rain would fall, but there was plenty of water in the glen where the brook ran. God was 46 GOD’S OPEN taking care of Elijah. To be sure, the man needed bread as well as drink, but God was supplying that, too. There was the widow of Zarephath, whose cruse of oil and barrel of flour failed not. The brook was in the barrel as well as in the glen. It told the same story of God’s unfailing care for those who put their trust in Him. It is always so. God can be trusted. He will not fail us. There may be years of famine. There may be exile and want. There may be hard times. They are sent to test faith. “TI know not where God’s islands lift Their fronded palms in air; But this I know: I cannot drift Beyond His love and care.” This covers all human need. There is a hunger which the widow’s cake could not feed, a thirst which the brook Cherith could not quench. But God has made provision for these, also. There is never a longing but He has an answer. If your hunger is holy, God will satisfy it. If your thirst is clean, God will send a limpid brook to splash its spray on your tired feet, and call to your parched lips: “ Stoop down and drink and live!” THE BROOK FOR THE SPIRIT There is a brook for the spirit as well as for the flesh. Man is more than flesh. He is immortal spirit. He has processes which cannot be reduced A MAN AND A BROOK AT to any ritual of the senses. He has powers which function in a realm whose reach transcends the sky-line. He has longings which cannot be teth- ered to earth and time. God is not oblivious of these. For the soul, there is the living water. For man’s eternal needs “there is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God.” For the immortal spirit there is the fountain of life. Isaiah was thinking of the spiritual when he said: “ Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!”’ John was calling us to drink of this brook when he wrote: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” And Jesus was proclaiming the living water when He said: . “Tf any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” It would be strange for God to provide for the body that dies, and not for the spirit that is im- mortal,—to be concerned for our lower appetites and to neglect the sublime and God-like part of our natures. But it is stranger still for man to drink of the brook that quenches physical thirst, and to decline to drink of the water of life. Yet this is what many are doing. Christ offers the cup of salvation, but some strangely thrust it aside and decline the chalice of life. The brook bids us drink and live. 48 GOD’S OPEN WORKING DAYS AHEAD The brook says to the prophet: ‘‘ There is work yet for you to do. It is for this that God has brought us together. You cannot die. There are great days ahead. Great deeds await you. Carmel is on the horizon.» Horeb is on the sky-line.” Elijah must be ready. And so the brook prepares the man for a new day of service. This is what it means when God gives us a brook, when He reinforces and rejuvenates. Days and deeds await us. It is pre-eminently so of the living water, for Jesus said: “ The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Is the brook springing within us? What are we doing for the world? God is generous to us. Are we parsimonious to others? If so, we have sinned against the brook. Some morning we may seek it and find that it has left us, for the brook will not dwell with a selfish life. DESTINY The brook speaks of destiny. The pulses of the ocean are beating in the brook. It has never seen the sea. It has never heard the roar of its waters, nor watched the tide as it breaks on the beach. But the sea is calling to the brook. In the ripples which eddy to its curving banks are the miniature tides of world oceans, and in the gurgle of the silvery waters as they slip around the smooth stones A MAN AND A BROOK 4,9 in the brook’s bed is the prophecy of the shouting waves of the wild, wide sea. In man’s soul the pulses of an eternal life are beating. Destiny calls. Somewhere on the far line of being, the brook and the sea meet in human experience. Death is not the end, It is merely escape from limitations. It is life widening out into the great beyond. “Ti I stoop into a dark, tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time; I press God’s lamp close to my heart, Its splendours soon or late will pierce the gloom, I shall emerge somewhere.” As we emerge, we find that the brook has not left us. It has only grown to a great river, which runs by the throne of God, and on its banks are gathered from all lands those whom love of God has blessed. “He drank of the brook.” ‘The man and the brook,—they are not all. There is God. He is ever with them. He has made the man and the brook for each other, but He has made both for Himself; and the brook never dies, and the man lives forever, because back of all seas, and bigger than humanity, is the God Whose eye “ slumbers not nor sleeps,’ and Whose kind care shepherds His flock by the banks of the river in “ the land o’ the leal.”’ las gay IV THE FIRST BREAKFAST THE PRESENCE Risen Master, fain would we, Sharing those unearthly days, Morn and eve, on shore and sea, Watch thy movements, mark thy ways; Catch by faith each glad surprise Of thy footsteps drawing nigh; Hear thy sudden greeting rise, ‘Peace be'to you! Itis Dh” Secrets of thy kingdom learn, Read the vision open spread, Feel thy word within us burn, Know thee in the broken Bread. —Jackson Mason. IV THE FIRST BREAKFAST “ Jesus saith unto them, Come and break your fast.” —JOHN 21:12, FTEN the Church speaks of the Last Sup- per, occasionally of the first breakfast. We feel that Jesus is with us when we break bread in sacramental remembrance of Him, but we are not so conscious of His Presence in the common meal, when we eat to satisfy our hunger and to strengthen our bodies for the daily task. Jesus is present at both meals. There are those who recognize His Presence at the communion table in the sanctuary, but who never think of the unseen Guest at the table in their own homes. There are Christians who are most devout as the sacramental emblems are passed, but they have no word of thanks to Him Who gives us unfailingly our daily bread. “ Jesus saith unto them, Come and break your fast.” What a lovely scene the closing chapter of John’s gospel presents! The purpose of this gospel, as John tells us in the closing paragraph of the twentieth chapter, is to present the deity of Jesus, 53 54 GOD’S OPEN “that we might believe that Jesus the Christ is the Son of God; and that believing, we might have life through his name.” But could anything be more human than Jesus as the curtain falls in the twenty-first chapter? He is standing on the lake shore. He is building a camp-fire. He is cook- ing the fish and calling tired men, wearied by a night of fruitless toil, to come and eat. It is as though John would say: “ He is divine because He is human.” It is as if he would make His humanity the climax of his argument for His deity. The Last Supper was holy. The first breakfast is also holy. We have pictures of the Last Supper. I wish someone would paint a picture of the first break- fast. Great masters have glorified their art by placing on canvas that scene in the upper room when Jesus instituted the Holy Supper. I wish some master hand would mix the colours and set brush to canvas that we might look upon that little group gathered about the camp-fire on the sands of Genessaret in the gray light of the slow dawn. The same faces are in both pictures. There are not quite so many in the first breakfast as in the Last Supper. Judas Iscariot is not there, and there are four others who are absent. But seven are present, —Peter, dripping wet, because he could not wait for the slow boat to land him at Jesus’ feet; and John, the first to recognize that it was the Lord; and James; and Thomas, with his doubts gone for- THE FIRST BREAKFAST 55 ever; and Nathaniel, and two others. There they are around the camp-fire, with the boat yonder dragged half way out on the sand, and the miracle catch of fishes piled up where the curious can see them, and the breakfast waiting, and over it all the glory of the risen Christ, Who has come back for a bit of old-time fellowship in God’s open with the men He loves. The Last Supper has its lessons, but surely the first breakfast also has its lessons. What would it teach us? OUT OF DOORS It takes us out of doors. That is one thing that makes it great. Thank God for the open, for the fields and forests, for the hills and plains and the tall peaks that seem so friendly with heaven, for the grasses and trees and rocks, for running rivers and shining lakes and the bounding sea, for flowers and the scent of new-mown hay and the tang in the morning air! Thank God for all that makes the world so beautiful, and for the chance now and then to.get off of the metal pavements man has made, and away from the ugly houses men have built, out into God’s open! It was Charles Dickens who said: “ There is a soothing influence in the sight of the earth and the sky, which God put into them for our relief when He made the world in which we are all to suffer and strive and die.” I love a book that takes me out of doors. I love the story of Jesus for the 56 GOD’S OPEN same reason. It is arresting to notice how much of Christ’s life was spent in the open. What a scene is this by Galilee’s murmuring waves in the dewy morning! Yonder in the dim distance are the eastern hills, and beyond the hills, the reddening sky, as the sun comes on to bring the waiting world its new day. ‘This side the hills are the deep blue waters of the little lake, some- times lashed into storm, but placid now, and dark with that strange colour which tells of birth amid the snows. Yonder and there perhaps on the sea are other sails where fishermen are at work, but without Christ to show them how; and here on the shore are the trees and rocks, and maybe the song of a bird, and certainly the merry crackle of a blaze and the delicious odour of the waiting break- fast, and His own dear voice saying: “ Come and dine!” Yes, I like God’s book of nature. I like the shrine that is to be found out of doors. No one can be very wicked who seeks God there, but if you are to find God there, you must have Him within. You can find God on the golf links, but you must first have Him in your heart. You will not find Him in the church unless you have Him in your heart. Merely admiring the beauty of nature is not worship. “God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Therefore, we are not prepared to wor- ship in God’s open until we have shut the door and THE FIRST BREAKFAST 57 prayed to our Father in secret, and “the Father Who seeth in secret shall reward us openly.” THE MEAL JESUS PREPARED The first breakfast was a meal prepared by Christ Himself. Everything was ready when the disciples reached the spot. For the sake of good comradeship, Jesus took of the fish which they had caught and added them to the meal He had pre- pared. Christ had a breakfast of bread and fish waiting. He knew His friends would be hungry. He had anticipated their physical needs, and He was ready. Jesus is not above thinking about and planning for and providing for our common needs. It is something to Him that people get tired and hungry and broken down in health, that they need clothes and shelter and bread. He was thinking of these things as He went about doing good. He fed the multitudes. He did not stop at this, He started with it. And He does not stop when He becomes the risen Christ. That is the point to be noticed at the first breakfast. One might conclude that Christ had gotten past all this. He is too spiritual now. When He was a poor man and walking the dusty road and sitting tired and thirsty beside Jacob’s well, it was to be expected. But surely He is past physical hunger now. Yes, but His dis- ciples are not. And so there is religion in feeding the hungry, 88 GOD’S OPEN in giving a cup of water to the thirsty, in nursing sick people, in visiting prisoners, in contributing to famine relief, in pushing in between little children and starvation. ‘These were the cries moaning there as the waves of Galilee broke on the sands. Jesus heard them, and still hears them, and He wants His followers to hear them and build their camp-fire and call to the starving of earth, in the name of the risen Christ: ‘“‘ Come and break your fast!” SEVEN DEFEATED MEN The guests at the first breakfast were seven de- feated men. They have lost their vision. A while ago they were thinking of a kingdom and a king. They were dreaming of returning glory for their nation. ‘They had a vision so fine and fair that they had left all to follow Jesus. ‘They were fol- lowing the gleam. They, too, had seen a star, and the star had summoned them from their old tasks to a world career. But the star is gone now. The sky is black as midnight. Their dream is dead. Peter said: “Iam going fishing. I have idled long enough. I will play the fool no more. It is high time we were getting back to work.’’ And the others said: “ We are going with you.” What a journey it was back to the old life! What a dismal hour when they tried to get out the boats and the nets once more! These are the things they had cast aside. This is what Peter meant when he THE FIRST BREAKFAST 59 said: “‘ Lord, we have left all to follow thee.” They have come back to this!) What a collapse! They have failed even as fishermen. They can- not so much as do what they used to do. They have forgotten how. They have toiled all night and caught nothing. ‘Time was when their boats led the way on Galilee, but they are coming in empty this morning. They are not only not apostles, they are not even decent fishermen. They are the laughing-stock of their old competitors. This is not all. They are worse than failures. They are sinners. Each man is conscious of his shame. Certainly Peter was. He has denied his Lord. He can never hold up his head again. And the other men are not much better, for in the Saviour’s darkest hour they all forsook Him and fled. Every one of them had deserted his Master. Even John could do no better than to follow afar off. This is the defeat that was most bitter. It is where all of us fail, for all have sinned. ‘These are the men who are climbing out of the boat and coming toward the camp-fre. What does Jesus want with them? What can He do with such men? They have had their chance and failed. Ah, but Christ is calling, and still calls to defeated men: “Come and break your fast!”’ THE CONQUERING CHRIST While the guests are defeated, the Host is 60 GOD’S OPEN victorious. In the Last Supper it was Christ on His way to the garden, to Gethsemane, to arrest and trial, Christ on His way to Pilate’s judgment hall, to the cross and to the tomb. But in the first breakfast it is Christ Who has been to Calvary, Who has risen from the tomb, Who has conquered death, and Who is now on His way to ascension, to enthronement and coronation. The men are de- feated, but their Leader is not. A new day is dawning for Christ’s disciples. The first breakfast tells us of the conquering Christ. He is with us always. He is equal to our needs. We cannot make our demands too great. Already for the seven He has changed the night of fruitless toil into a morning of unprecedented suc- cess. ‘This is what He is doing all the time for His followers. Let us not be afraid to put Him to the test. Sir Walter Raleigh had gone to Queen Elizabeth with some new request, and she said: “When are you going to stop asking for things? ” sir Walter replied: “When the queen stops giv- ing.’ And so with our sovereign Saviour. All power is His. He bids us put Him to the test, and the promise which is bright with victory abides for His disciples in all ages: “Lo, I am with you alway.” It used to be a custom in the colleges and uni- versities of England and Scotland when honorary degrees were conferred and the candidate was present for his doctorate, to indulge in horse-play. THE FIRST BREAKFAST 61 When the university conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws on David Livingston, the custom was not carried out. The students were there with their peas and pop-guns, and lungs loaded for the usual performance, but as the lank, gaunt figure of the missionary stood up before them, his face tanned by the hot African suns and furrowed by sixteen years of exposure to the wilderness, and his arm limp at his side from the bite of a lion that left him lamed for life, a hush fell on the student body. ‘They were in the presence of a man bigger than any honour their university could confer. Suddenly Livingston began to plead with the students to give their lives to the service of God in the Dark Continent, and then in a voice tense with the deepest feeling, he said: “ The thing which has sustained me through all these years, and has kept me at my post, was the promise of my Leader, ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’” There is as much for every missionary, for every follower of the conquering Christ. THE NEW CAMPAIGN Jesus was starting a new campaign that morn- ing by the lake. He was talking to the seven, but He was thinking of the world. He was looking past the lake, past the distant eastern hills to the needy world, to those in darkness and in the shadow of death. They must be reached, and He 62 GOD’S OPEN is telling these men whom He has invited to break- fast that He does not want them to be fishermen, but evangelists. He proceeds to equip them for the campaign. They have finished breakfast, and now Jesus turns to Peter and says: “ Peter, do you love me?” ‘The othes are listening. Peter hangs his head in shame. If Christ had only taken him to one side and talked with him in private about his disgrace, about his apostasy on that awful night! But, no, He is dragging it out there before them all. I think at first it was in a whisper that Peter replied: “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” But Jesus will not have a whisper. He keeps at him until he shouts it out so that all can hear: “ Thou knowest that I love thee!” ‘They have their les- son. Love is what they need. If they are to go to the needy world they must go in love, and if they go in love, they will not fail. Love is the power that is to transform the world, and it is not just love for the work, it 1s love for Christ. In the city of Stargard, Germany, there is a great cathedral, St. Mary’s, and it is said that if a speaker wants to be heard, he must keep his eyes fixed on a picture of the Christ attached to a column in front of the pulpit. Jesus is telling the men around the camp- fire that if they are to reach the needy world they must keep their hearts fixed on Him. This is the message of the first breakfast. In the Last Supper Jesus said: “‘ Remember me.” In THE FIRST BREAKFAST 63 the first breakfast He said: “ Feed my sheep.” He wants us to remember Him that we may feed His sheep. He would have us love Him that we may bring the lost world back to Him Who loved it and died for it. “Feed my sheep.” Christ wants the world shepherded. “I could make a better world than this, myself,’ said some petulant skeptic. “That is precisely what we are for and why we are here,” was the reply. The new campaign that started from that camp-fire by Galilee was a cam- paign for the new heavens and the new earth, and Christ will not be satisfied until His sheep are shepherded and the last lamb of God’s great flock has been safely gathered into the fold. PR A Wa He taal Rah Le iM Vv THE SPRING BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD A WISH Mine be a cot beside the hill; A bee-hive’s hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook that turns a mill With many a fall shall linger near. The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch And share my meal, a welcome guest. Around my ivied porch shall spring Fach fragrant flower that drinks the dew; And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing In russet gown and apron blue. The village church among the trees, Where first our marriage vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze, And point with taper spire to heaven. —SAMUEL ROGERS. Vv THE SPRING BY THE SIDE, OF THE ROAD “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.’—JOHN 4: 14. LONG journey, a hot day, the blistering sun, and the stifling dust; weary, spent; then, there by the side of the road a crystal spring gushes from the rock, and you stoop down and drink and live. Your thirst is quenched. Your tired body revives. Rested and refreshed, you are ready for the road again. This is what the spring by the side of the road has been doing through the long years. It was there before you were born, and it will be there long after you are dead. It has been doing this for all who came its way, for the rich and the poor, for saint and sinner, for citizen and criminal. It asks no questions. It makes no charge. It seems to say: “ Come again!” Don’t you remember the day you stopped beside such a spring? Poor indeed is he who does not know a spring by the side of the road, who has not somewhere hanging on memory’s wall this picture! 67 68 GOD'S OPEN If you would know the value of a spring or a well, you must go to a desert country. You must cross what used to be called “the great American desert,” and see how, slowly, but surely, its sterile sands have become waving green fields of wide- stretching, fertile farms, and its arid wastes have blossomed into productive gardens. Irrigation is the magician’s wand that has brought about the transformation. After a long ride of many hours one hot sum- mer day through the stifling heat and baking sand, across the barren desert which stretches for miles on either side of the Santa Fe railroad before it reaches Southern California, suddenly in the midst of that dead world our train pulled into a station where for a few acres there was a perfect oasis. Trees cast grateful shade as a protection from the blistering heat. Flowers were blooming, and vege- tables growing in the gardens. The green turf spread a carpet of velvet over the station yard. About the doorway and windows vines were cling- ing and climbing in trellised beauty and luxuriance. What had created that little Eden hard by death’s valley?