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 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 Shelf 
 
 Division 
 
 Section 
 
 Number 
 
4V 
 
M EMORIAL 
 
 Rev. J. H.Worcester, Jr., D. D. 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A Brief Biography 
 
 AND 
 
 SELECTED SERMONS. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE SIXTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 of Chicago, III. 
 
 1893 
 
EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 This volume has been prepared by order of the 
 Sixth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, as a memorial of 
 its love for the memory and grateful thanks for the ser- 
 vices of its former pastor, Rev. J. H. Worcester, Jr., 
 D. D. and is respectfully dedicated to all those, every- 
 where, who were instructed by his preaching, inspired 
 by his example, and comforted by his counsel. The 
 committee acknowledges, with gratitude, the kindness of 
 Rev. Albert Warren Clark, D. D., Rev. P. F. Leavens, 
 D. D., and Mr. B. C. Ward for their contributions to 
 the biographical part of the volume. The permission of 
 Pres. M. H. Buckham of the University of Vermont, and 
 Rev. S. J. McPherson, D. D. of Chicago, to use their ad- 
 dresses, will be appreciated by all readers. 
 
 The sermons herewith presented are in no sense 
 selected as superior to his ordinary efforts, but as repre- 
 sentative of all in style, and as exemplifying the con- 
 sistent unity of purpose in all his preaching. 
 
 Chicago, Sept. n, 1893. 
 
 Alexander Forbes. 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 John Hopkins Worcester, Jr., was born April 
 2, 1845, at St. Johnsbury, Vt. He was of the Vermont 
 branch of the eminent family whose name he bore. 
 His grandfather was the Rev. Leonard Worcester, who 
 was for nearly half a century pastor of the Congrega- 
 tional Church at Peacham, Vt. His grand uncle was 
 Dr. Samuel Worcester, first secretary of the American 
 Board. His father, Rev. J. H. Worcester, D. D., 
 eldest- son of Rev. Leonard Worcester, was pastor of 
 the church at St. Johnsbury when John Hopkins 
 Worcester, Jr. , was born. His mother was Martha P. 
 Clark, daughter of Deacon Luther Clark of St. Johns- 
 bury. She was a remarkably lovely woman, of fine 
 intellect, of a sweet spirit, and of devoted piety. She 
 was the youngest of three sisters; the other two are 
 still living (1893). 
 
 When but little more than a year and a half old 
 his father was called to the pastorate of the First 
 Church in Burlington, Vt., and thither he removed 
 with his parents in the month of December, 1846. On 
 the 23d of August, 1848, his mother died, and his boy 
 heart had its first sad, deep sorrow. Although so 
 young when thus bereaved, he never forgot his mother. 
 Her bidding him goodbye and telling him to " love the 
 dear Saviour," left an impression which he never lost 
 nor ever disregarded. 
 
 6 
 
On the Hopkins side he was descended from John 
 Hopkins, who came to this country from England in 
 1634, first living in Cambridge, Mass. In 1636 he re- 
 moved to Hartford, Conn., "being one of that com- 
 pany which made the notable journey from Cambridge, 
 with Mr. Hooker at the head." In the fourth genera- 
 tion, Samuel Hopkins, D. D., married Esther, sister of 
 the eminent Jonathan Edwards. His son, also Samuel 
 Hopkins, D. D., was the great grandfather of the sub- 
 ject of this sketch. With such an ancestry we are pre- 
 pared to understand the life of Mr. Worcester. He 
 inherited intellectual gifts which, used as he used them, 
 made him conspicuous for his mental grasp and ' ' grip. 
 But not less did he inherit moral and religious tendencies 
 making attainment of a high order possible. Education 
 and training can do much, but they can create nothing. 
 The most they can do is to develope the native powers — 
 to aid in realizing the potentiality which has its limit 
 set before education and training begin. 
 
 Mr. Worcester's father being obliged, on account 
 of his health, to spend the winter of 1850-51 at the 
 South, the boy was left in charge of Rev. and Mrs. Ruf us 
 Case ; Mr. Case supplying his father's pulpit in his ab- 
 sence. Before his father's return he went with Mr. Case 
 to West Lebanon, N. H., and remained there until his 
 father's marriage, Oct. 1 8 5 1 , to Miss Catherine Fleming, 
 a woman of fine intellectual attainments, and beautiful 
 Christian character, then principal of a select school for 
 young ladies. To her watchful and loving care and judi- 
 cious training, the boy was greatly indebted, and the fond 
 affection with which he repaid her care, was very re- 
 markable. Being a frail child, it was not thought ex- 
 
 6 
 
pedient to send him to the public schools, and so in 
 
 his mother's school, of which, later, his father became 
 
 associate principal, the boy was fitted for college. 
 
 He had learned the alphabet from picture blocks 
 
 by the time he was two years old, and by the time he 
 
 was three years old he had learned to read. A friend 
 
 carrying him home on his shoulder one evening, when 
 
 very little over two years old, was pleased to see him 
 
 look up at the stars and repeat : 
 
 " Twinkle, twinkle, little 'tar, 
 How I wonder what you are, 
 Up above the world so high, 
 Like a dimont in the 'ky." 
 
 At his mother's funeral he was taken to the grave, 
 and as he saw the body laid away, he burst into tears, 
 saying, "Now I shan't have a mamma any more." 
 
 When he was about five years old, a minister's 
 association was held at his father's house. As they 
 were at dinner, and he was in the kitchen with the 
 housekeeper, he opened the door and looked in. On 
 the housekeeper's remonstrating, he replied: "It's cus- 
 tomary, in Burlington, for little boys to peek just a little. " 
 
 It seems that very early in life he had his mind 
 set on preaching, for as a little boy it was a great de- 
 light to him to stand on the stairs and "preach." 
 
 The atmosphere with which he was surrounded in 
 early life conspired to early maturity of his intellectual 
 powers. Being an only child, educated in a young 
 ladies' school, there was little to call forth or to give 
 room for the development of those traits which usually 
 characterize the boy. But he grew rapidly and solidly 
 in mental strength. The spring before he entered col- 
 lege, as the snow was thawing, his father found him 
 
 7 
 
playing in the water as it rushed down the street, and 
 laughingly said, "Oh, John, aren't you ashamed to be 
 dabbling in the water, and you almost ready to enter 
 college?" "Oh, no, " was his reply, " I'm illustrating 
 the principles of Hydrodynamics." The few anecdotes 
 here given of his childhood and boyhood show the 
 maturity of his mind as well as the fine sense of humor 
 even then which charaterized his mature years. 
 
 He entered the University of Vermont at the age 
 of 1 6, and graduated in 1865 at the age of 20. During 
 his college course, Jan. 4, 1863, he united with the 
 First Church in Burlington. He never knew when he 
 became a Christian, but his Christian life in boyhood 
 was marked, positive, aggressive. He was one of the 
 founders of the Y. M. C. A. in Burlington. Of his 
 college life the following is from his classmate and 
 warm personal friend, Rev. Albert Warren Clark, D. D. 
 
 The college Life of Prof. J. H. Worcester, Jr., D. D., 
 at the University of Vermont, 1861-1865. 
 
 The invitation to write a sketch of Prof. Worces- 
 ter's college days has brought up many delightful 
 memories. While deeply regretting that great pressure 
 of missionary work forces me to write in marked haste, 
 I cannot put aside the privilege and honor of writing 
 a brief account of Professor Worcester's life at the 
 University of Vermont. He was my most intimate 
 friend at college. Our friendship from the beginning 
 of our "Freshman" life, down to his last days in a 
 professor's chair was pure, intimate, golden, and un- 
 clouded by any misunderstanding. 
 
 An eminent Frenchman has said : "I always like 
 to know the domestic character and circumstances of 
 
those with whom I have to do in the world : it is a part of 
 themselves — an additional external physiognomy which 
 gives us a clue to their character and destiny." This 
 thought prompts me to say a word about the early 
 home, the college home as well, of my dear friend 
 John. An eminent divine in Connecticut once remarked 
 at one of the annual Conferences of the Congregational 
 Churches : ' ' The first right of every child is to be 
 well-born." The friend of whom I write was in every 
 sense "well-born." Character is no accident. Blessed 
 is he whose education began a hundred years before 
 his birth. 
 
 A well known professor, now occupying a chair 
 similar to the one vacated by Professor Worcester, re- 
 marked playfully one day, as he looked at his first little 
 boy: "It takes six generations to develop full and 
 noble manhood." Behold the sixth generation of 
 Worcesters in America : Dr. Samuel Worcester, first 
 corresponding Secretary of the American Board, and 
 Rev. Leonard Worcester, the grandfather of our friend, 
 an editor, and for nearly fifty years the beloved and 
 successful pastor of the church in Peacham, Vermont. 
 
 The seventh generation is still represented in the 
 person of the noble and venerable Dr. Worcester of 
 Burlington, Vt. Gifted, cultivated, conservative and 
 yet progressive — just the man for father, guide and 
 companion of our Professor Worcester. In his delight- 
 ful home in picturesque Burlington, John Hopkins 
 Worcester Jr., found invaluable help and inspiration 
 in the presence and companionship of that modest yet 
 highly cultivated lady who was to him from his seventh 
 year a genuine mother. 
 
 9 
 
In such a home, and in a town whose natural 
 scenery is almost unrivalled, and at a university, 
 small but grandly strong, I became intimately ac- 
 quainted with the eighth generation of American 
 Worcesters. 
 
 Professor Worcester was indeed "well-born", 
 and well prepared for the college he entered in 1861. 
 How well I remember the first recitation of the class 
 of '65! Thenow eminent president of the University of 
 Vermont met us — eighteen in number — for the first 
 time on Thursday, Sept. 5th, 1861. He was at that 
 time professor of Greek. At the head of our class, 
 alphabetically, sat Atwater, now professor at Wes- 
 leyan University, Middletown, Conn., at the foot sat 
 Worcester, younger in years than some of us, but even 
 then wearing a calm, collected air, as of one who had 
 a purpose before him, one who would reach it undis- 
 turbed by other aims. It was soon evident that one 
 of these two men would be our class leader. From the 
 first the boyish, yet manly, cultured face of Worcester 
 attracted me. As a young man from the country, I was 
 too shy to make any advances to the city youth, who, 
 from the cradle, had lived in classic atmosphere. When 
 on Sunday morning, the 8th, our class held its first 
 prayer-meeting, I was glad to see among our number 
 the fellow student, who was, so unconsciously to him- 
 self, attracting me. His exact scholarship in every 
 department increased my admiration, and made me 
 realize how imperfect was my preparation for college 
 life. Although at graduation I had the honor to rank 
 next to my friend, there was little in my first recita- 
 tion to awaken in his bosom more than pity. 
 
 10 
 
He seemed first drawn to me by the successful 
 issue of a game of foot-ball. 
 
 When the Sophomores gave us the usual chal- 
 lenge for such a contest, no one was more enthusiastic 
 in the line of acceptance and victory than he. In the 
 severe and final struggle that followed, my well trained 
 country muscle served me so well that John Worcester 
 declared that the victory was largely due to me. 
 From that hour our friendship was mutual. He was 
 no athelete and yet no one enjoyed more than he our 
 atheletic sports. He was equally enthusiastic in the 
 class room and on the campus. 
 
 I recall with interest a vigorous game of base-ball. 
 With more than usual eagerness he had ' ' acted well 
 his part." At the close I said to him "John where is 
 your Society pin " ? A look of pain shot over his face 
 as he exclaimed : "Oh, it is lost somewhere on the 
 campus". But, weary as he was, he exclaimed with 
 his usual perseverance : ' ' That pin must be found if 
 we search for it a week." And found it was, to his 
 intense joy; he was a great admirer of our college 
 society. 
 
 Entering college, as he did, without a full exper- 
 ience of Vermont academy life, and as some thought, 
 with a few airs from the girls' seminary, there was, at 
 the start, a certain lack which was noticed not only 
 by his classmates, but by the Sophomores. In those 
 days many upper-class men believed in hydropathic 
 treatment, and so, among the Freshmen, Worcester 
 was one, who, according to the diagnosis of Sopho- 
 mores, needed "water-cure." Entering the mathe- 
 matical room one morning we were surprised and in- 
 
 11 
 
dignant at the question in large chalk-letters : "Who 
 ducked John Worcester ?" The next day he called at 
 my room looking very thoughtful : " Clark", said he, 
 "tell me honestly why you think the Sophs, selected 
 me for hydrophatic treatment." Some months later, 
 referring to the same subject he remarked: "That 
 pail of cold water was a blessing in disguise, it has led 
 me to ask myself some serious questions, and as a re- 
 sult my little wisdom has been the gainer." In the 
 summer of 1862 a large number of Vermont students 
 responded to the call of President Lincoln for volun- 
 teers to serve nine months. Patriotism sadly depleted 
 the attendance at the University at Burlington. Had 
 my friend's patriotic heart rested in a more vigorous 
 frame he would gladly have been with his classmates 
 "at the front." 
 
 When I returned from the war and found him on 
 his back with a broken leg, he greeted me with a 
 smile, remarking as he seized my hand : "Well, Ser- 
 geant, you see that Burlington is more dangerous than 
 a Gettysburg campaign ; you come home without a 
 scratch, while I am on the list of the wounded." 
 
 The students from the University of Vermont who 
 had served nine months in the army expected, of 
 course, to join the class below them ; but the faculty 
 graciously responded to the petition of the students, who 
 had remained in the college, and allowed us to rejoin 
 our old classes, with the condition, that we pass an 
 examination, in due time, in the studies pursued by 
 the class in our absence. His great kindness in help- 
 ing me to keep step with the "Junior" class, while I 
 was at the same time making up "Sophomore" stud- 
 
 12 
 
ies, I shall never forget. He was now the recognized 
 leader of our class, not only in one department, but in 
 all departments. This position he kept with great ease, 
 and whoever was second to him, was so, " longo in- 
 ter v alio. 
 
 Secretary Clark of the American Board, who 
 taught us Latin, would commend the graceful transla- 
 tions of our "dux" ; professor, now President Buck- 
 ham, says among those, in the last thirty years who 
 have had a most promising and brilliant college career, 
 John Worcester stands easily among the first ten. 
 Professor Marsh regarded him as one of the best scien- 
 tific scholars. President Torrey listened with delight 
 to his answers in philosophy. Professor Petty, if living, 
 could tell you how the minutiae of differential calculus 
 attracted him, could tell you how, when volunteers 
 were called for to compute the time of the next local 
 solar eclipse, Worcester, with one other student, per- 
 severed to the end, while others, discouraged, stopped 
 at the "Half-Way House." 
 
 In college he was one of the most effective writ- 
 ers and speakers, and yet at that time he needed the 
 unrelenting pruning knife of President Buckham. Ah ! 
 but he was thorough with us. Did he not refuse to 
 accept my first oration, quieting my wounded pride with 
 the remark : "A fine essay, Mr. Clark, but I expect 
 something more from you when we ask for an oration.'' 
 Did he not say to Worcester : ' ' You do not lose sight 
 of your mark, but in your march to the goal you 
 stretch out both hands and sweep in many things not 
 needed." Our friend was man enough to feel the jus- 
 tice of the criticism, and from that time on his fellow 
 
 13 
 
students noticed marked progress ; he became in style 
 more like Tacitus and less like Livy. 
 
 In our weekly debates in society-rooms he was 
 gladly heard. The discipline of those days was one of 
 the foundation stones for his historic speech at Detroit. 
 
 Professor Worcester's intense loyalty to his col- 
 lege, to the society of which he was a member, and to 
 his special friends must not be overlooked. 
 
 As a student he was most loyal to the University 
 and to its faculty. I do not recall one act that could 
 be classed with the littleness and meanness that some- 
 times show themselves in college days. He was too 
 noble to be small but he could be indignant, and he 
 joined heartily in rebuking the class of '67 for an in- 
 sult to our class. 
 
 In the various societies, religious, social, and liter- 
 ary to which he belonged, no one was more loyal and 
 faithful than John Worcester. His love and loyalty 
 to special friends should be mentioned even though it 
 seem too personal for the writer of this article. It 
 illustrates one phase of our friend's character. During 
 the Spring term of Senior year the principal of the 
 Vermont Episcopal Institute, at Burlington, was ob- 
 liged to dismiss his first assistant. He applied to the 
 President of the University for permission to engage 
 one of the seniors to help him. The salary he offered 
 for assistance in the forenoon was a temptation to a 
 poor student. It was accepted very reluctantly by 
 the writer, because of the necessity of living at the In- 
 stitute. This did not sever connection with the col- 
 lege, but with the class-room and the daily life at the 
 University. Worcester came to my room when I was 
 
 14 
 
packing my trunk, threw his arms around my neck 
 and wept like a child : "Clark, this cannot be, you 
 must give it up, the war has bereft us of some of our 
 best men, and now you are going, this must not be ; 
 what is college with you away from it ? " 
 
 Similar devotion was manifested at the time of 
 our graduation. An effort was made by some to 
 secure, at my cost, a place in the honorary society, 
 " Phi Betta Kappa. " College marks gave the place 
 to me, but on the ground that I had not been all the 
 time in college, another tried to displace me. Wor- 
 cester was indignant, and exclaimed: "I utterly re- 
 fuse to accept the election to the ' Phi Betta Kappa 
 unless justice is done to Clark." 
 
 I beg pardon for introducing such personal mat- 
 ters, but the sketch of Prof. Worcester's college life 
 demands their mention. 
 
 Nor can I forget that his first public lecture was 
 delivered in a school-house in Franklin, Vt., where 
 the writer was teaching in the winter of 1864. 
 
 This very imperfect sketch of Professor Worces- 
 ter 's college days must not be closed without additional 
 reference to his religious life at the University at Bur- 
 lington. An eminent Scotchman has well said : "In 
 some, religion is like a gradual, general growth — the 
 growth of something that was always within them, for 
 they cannot go back with distinct consciousness, to 
 any time when they they had it not." This remark is 
 eminently true in the case of Professor Worcester. He 
 could not name the year, much less the day, when 
 he became a Christian. To myself more than to any 
 other fellow-student was given the privilege of know- 
 
 15 
 
ing and watching the inner-life of our friend. From 
 the first he was chivalrously honorable in his dealings, 
 intolerant of everything in the shape of falsehood, and 
 ready, in the spirit of love and kindness, to act as ser- 
 vant of all. 
 
 It was a pleasure to see, all through his college 
 days, a steady and helpful growth in all that pertains 
 to spiritual life. In freshman year the sense of 
 "ought" was very marked. His religious life at that 
 period was, in a word, a conscientious reverance for 
 the ' ' ought. ' ' 
 
 Joy in Christian life and duty was much more to 
 be seen in our last college year. At the Sunday morn- 
 ing class prayer-meeting, Worcester was never absent 
 without a good excuse. There is a room in South Col- 
 lege that was witness to many of his earnest prayers 
 for unconverted classmates. That room could tell of 
 many a "still-hour" which helped to mould and guide 
 our lives. God be praised for such blessed memories. 
 
 The student's Bible-class taught with such ability 
 by Professor Worcester's father, was our first theologi- 
 cal Seminary. Instruction adapted to our spiritual 
 needs and wisely calculated to promote symmetrical 
 growth was welcomed by none more heartily than by 
 the admiring son. When, towards the close of our 
 college life, the Y. M. C. A. was organized in Burling- 
 ton, John Hopkins Worcester, Jr. was, of course, one 
 of its active members. 
 
 Does it seem strange that such a man at the time 
 of graduation was not yet clear that God was calling 
 him to preach his gospel ? He had a consecrated am- 
 bition and at the same time felt sure that law would 
 
 16 
 
afford him a life of usefulness and success. His ora- 
 tion at the Junior Exhibition on "The future of 
 eloquence in America," and his "Valedictory" on 
 "Political Consecration," justly praised at the time 
 by the New York Times, were in harmony with a 
 struggle that for a time promised to America an 
 able judge and statesman. He was a born leader, 
 and could have won success in any professon. 
 
 Professor Buckham's baccalaureate sermon to our 
 class on the text : " Behold I send you forth as sheep 
 in the midst of wolves ; be ye therefore wise as ser- 
 pents and harmless as doves," made a deep impression 
 on Worcester's mind. With some of its stirring words, 
 still ringing in my ears, I will close this hasty sketch. 
 "The work of a Christian apostle is no pastime ; it is 
 a life-long struggle with a foe, whose energy it will be 
 hard to match, and whose cunning no wise man may 
 dare to despise. We send you forth — Christ sends you 
 forth — not to enjoy the luxuries of lettered ease, but 
 to enter upon the severe campaign which truth is wag- 
 ing against error ; to receive hard blows and deliver 
 harder ones. Meet the perversions of unsanctified intel- 
 lect by superior intellect, sanctified. Go forth then, in 
 Christ's name into the fields where truth is maintain- 
 ing stern conflict. 
 
 Above all things, first, last, midst, and without 
 end, aspire to that knowledge which will give both im- 
 pulse and direction to all other knowledge — the true 
 knowledge of God, by faith in His Son Jesus Christ." 
 Albert Warren Clark, 
 
 Missionary of the American Board, and Senior Pastor of the Free 
 Reformed Church, Prague, Bohemia, Austria. 
 
 17 
 
Professor W. O. Atwater, of Middletown, Conn. , 
 mentioned by Dr. Clark, writes as follows : 
 
 My first recollection of John Worcester dates to 
 the time we were boys of 14 or thereabouts, in Bur- 
 lington. I did not know him very well, as he lived at 
 one end of the village and I at the other, but I remember 
 him as a rather sedate and earnest, but kind and, 
 withal, genial boy. Our family left Burlington shortly 
 after and when I returned to enter college he was one 
 of the very few in our class whom I had seen before. As 
 the recollections of our college days come back to me 
 I think of him in the Latin recitation room with Pro- 
 fessor Clark taking notes of lectures ; in the Greek ex- 
 amination in Herodotus with Professor Buckham, the 
 first examination which we passed and with regard to 
 the result of which we were all pretty anxious ; and in 
 the mathematical room with Professor Pettee where 
 John's ability and industry were especially prominent. 
 
 I remember very well how a fire broke out one 
 evening in the machine shop by the lake shore, not far 
 from where Worcester lived. The boys hurried down 
 there, of course, I with the rest, and as we were rushing 
 through Pearl street and had got nearly to the fire, we 
 heard that a boy had just broken his leg, and a moment 
 after we learned that it was Worcester, who in the 
 scramble had been tumbled over the steep sandbank 
 just above where the building was burned. He was 
 brought home and of course was kept in the house for 
 a number of weeks. It was shortly before the summer 
 examinations. I saw him a few days afterwards and 
 remember very vividly how he lay holding his analyti- 
 cal geometry, of which we had finished the larger part 
 
 18 
 
in class, and said with a sort of grim determination in 
 his voice : ' I am going to learn all there is between 
 the covers of that book before I get out of this bed', and 
 I have no doubt he did it. I shall never forget a com- 
 position which he read one day, in class, on the char- 
 acter of Paul. I thought then that he would become a 
 minister and was sure he would be a good one. 
 
 Some years after graduation we were in Europe 
 at the same time and met in Leipsic and later in Swit- 
 zerland. His purpose in life had ripened with his 
 character and I saw then that there was in him that 
 which makes a noble, strong, and influential man. 
 His later career verified the enthusiastic hopes of his 
 friends, and in the unhappy struggle which has been 
 going on for some time past in one of our great relig- 
 ious organizations, a struggle which, I fear, is not soon 
 to cease and one in which Christian wisdom and Chris- 
 tian tolerance are so sorely needed, his influence on 
 what, seems to me the right side, was already great 
 and growing greater. 
 
 It is hard for us short-sighted mortals to under- 
 stand why such men should be cut off in the midst of 
 their very best activity in life, but it is not for us to 
 question the rulings of that Providence in whom Wor- 
 cester so firmly believed. We should rather be in- 
 spired by his example, as I certainly am, to labor with 
 increasing diligence and increasing faith. 
 
 I hope some folks in the world may be helped to 
 be worthier, more useful and happier, for this life and 
 for the next, by what comes from the lives of some of 
 the little company of good friends who were together 
 in the class of 1865 at the University of Vermont. Of 
 
 19 
 
that little company the name of one will certainly be 
 beloved and honored. That one is John Worcester." 
 
 Rev. P. F. Leavens, D. D., of Passaic, N. J., 
 says : 
 
 " I perceive on reflection that I shall best comply 
 with your request concerning the boyhood of our de- 
 parted friend, if I simply summon my best recollec- 
 tion and write — currente calamo — what comes. For 
 it breaks upon me with force that I was not a man 
 when he was a boy, but only another boy. To be sure 
 I was a few years older, as the calendar runs, but he 
 had advantages which set him up even with me, if not 
 ahead, in knowledge — at least in spiritual knowledge. 
 
 I am impressed with what our mutual friend, Rev. 
 Albert W. Clark, now missionary in Austria, writes as 
 to himself : ' What a host of recollections rise up in 
 memory as I think of our dear John. In a thousand 
 ways our lives have touched and always in the line of 
 blessing to myself.' Yes, that tells the story. He had 
 a favored youth and he made it — probably uncon- 
 sciously to himself — a blessing to the rest of us. 
 
 I must have come to know him when he was four- 
 teen. I think it began in Sunday School. I sat in the 
 class of the elder Dr. Worcester and listened to re- 
 markably instructive exposition of St. Paul's epistles. 
 In course of time I was drawn out to act as a teacher 
 and the boy was one of the number to whom I was 
 presented. He certainly knew more than I of the 
 sacred Word, and we were fellow-students. 
 
 At length I knew him in his home, and there it is 
 I try in memory to reproduce my friend. There was 
 everything finely intellectual in that atmosphere. Mrs. 
 
 20 
 
Worcester's school for Young Ladies was justly fam- 
 ous. Both teachers and pupils there were the bright- 
 est of minds. This lone boy among them, — sometimes 
 pitied, sometimes envied, I suppose — took a clear 
 course and derived the utmost intellectual advantage 
 from the situation. The father seemed to me in those 
 days both a sage and a saint. As I see it from this 
 distance he must have been in the prime of his years. 
 He had been pastor but was not now : he had passed 
 through much affliction, but now was in cheerful sur- 
 roundings : he was grave in manner and measured in 
 speech, yet keenly witty betimes, and so, taken all in 
 all, he seemed a great father for the one child. 
 
 And every loop that opened to let a guest into 
 wider knowledge of the family relations brought to 
 sight learning, character, and aggressive religion. To 
 me it meant glorious things that the father's father had 
 been one of the pioneer ministers of Vermont. To this 
 day I bare my head and do obeisance before the name 
 of any among the first settlers of my native state. 
 And the learned man who should have gone into the 
 woods and shared the lot of the clearers of the forest, 
 and had been their minister, and built their House of 
 God, would seem to me worthy of triple honor, 
 and sure to bequeath choice benedictions to son and 
 son's son. My friend had a heritage above most of 
 the children of the Green Hills, a heritage far beyond 
 price. 
 
 On every hand in the family were preachers, 
 evangelists, and missionaries. If it stirred my blood 
 to read, how must it have stirred the blood of all that 
 Worcester family to realize that one of them, the 
 
 '21 
 
uncle of our dear friend, gave his life to the Cherokee 
 Indians, and, in defense of their outraged rights, suf- 
 fered imprisonment until he could maintain and secure 
 his due privileges in the highest courts of the nation ! 
 These things were the heir-looms of the family and the 
 stories must have been the wonder-land of the glowing 
 soul in the radiant boy. Have not the tales told at 
 the fireside left lasting marks on all of us ? On no 
 American boy could finer, nobler family traditions cen- 
 ter than on the golden head of this fair child. 
 
 When the long summer vacations came and the 
 girls were out of the way, he drew his friends to the 
 house. That was grand for us. The spacious, ramb- 
 ling buildings ; the luxuriant gardens ; the absolute 
 freedom ; the leisurely and uplifting talk — no wonder 
 it rises in memory and starts a thrill of gratitude even 
 at this late day. Here and there a distinct recollec- 
 tion stands out, like a glimmering light on a far-off, 
 receding shore. Once the conversation ran about 
 Chaucer and the father was telling us how to drink from 
 that fountain head of English literature : again the 
 drift was metaphysical, and he suggested that we 
 would do well to read a certain new book which he 
 pointed out, remarking that it was by an author over 
 the sea named McCosh. It was the first mention I 
 ever heard of that name which was to become so famil- 
 iar. And here is a line from a letter in which the boy 
 at another date is saying : ' My study is confined to 
 French mainly, which I am seeking to familiarize my- 
 self with, in the thought that I may go to Europe some- 
 time, in which case I shall need it.' 
 
 Can I not recall anything religious ? Nay, but I 
 
 22 
 
cannot recall one single thing that was inconsistent 
 with religion. It was taken for granted, and I do not 
 remember that we urged him to give his heart to God. 
 I cannot make it seem to me that I ever thought of 
 him otherwise than as a child of God. And I am sure 
 now, as with all the might of memory I bring back 
 those days, that I was brought into contact with him, 
 not for anything I had to give him but that, in his 
 felicitous youth, he might be, as Clark says a ' bless- 
 ing to myself. ' ' ' 
 
 Mr. B. C. Ward, an attorney at Newton, la., 
 says of Mr. Worcester as a collegian : 
 
 "As to my impressions of the man, Dr. Worces- 
 ter, while associated with him during Freshman year, 
 I can say this : He was the most brainy man in the 
 Class of 1865 and stood at the head in all scholarly at- 
 tainments. There was good reason for this, because 
 he came from good stock. His father and mother 
 were cultured and intellectually strong, and they 
 spared no pains to give him the very best advantages. 
 Being brought up from boyhood under the very shadow 
 of the Vermont University ; accustomed to mingle only 
 in cultured society ; coming into contact daily with lit- 
 erary people, it was no wonder that he became manly 
 while yet a boy, and was inspired in his early years 
 with noble impulses and lofty aspirations. 
 
 With all his literary attainments, he was also 
 spiritual, having consecrated himself to the service of 
 the Master in early life. He was thoroughly conscien- 
 tious, and nothing could swerve him from the path of 
 duty a hair's breadth. He abhorred meanness and 
 
 23 
 
duplicity, and had no patience with one who was dis- 
 honest or insincere. 
 
 His serious mien and very dignified manner, which 
 was natural to him, caused some of his classmates to 
 think that he regarded himself as their superior, and 
 that they were not worth his notice. Such, however, 
 was not the case. The most humble member of the 
 class, coming to the College from his country home, 
 with but little culture, poor in purse, and so poorly 
 equipped in literary attainments that he felt dis- 
 couraged when he measured himself with such a brill- 
 iant student as Worcester, even this humble student, 
 the writer of these words, found in Worcester, a warm- 
 hearted, genial friend, and a friend who was ever 
 ready to help, to encourage, to sympathize with those 
 who were placed in less fortunate circumstances, 
 Every student who proved himself worthy could have 
 Worcester's friendship. 
 
 Every member of the Class, now living, will ac- 
 knowledge that by coming in touch with this noble 
 young man during those college days, his own ideals 
 of life's duties were raised, and his own life exalted." 
 
 Through these words from men who knew him 
 well in his boyhood, we are enabled to account for the 
 man which Dr. Worcester became. It needs but little 
 study to be well convinced that he inherited gifts of 
 mind from a gifted ancestry ; that his home surround- 
 ings were well adapted to bring forward to symmetri- 
 cal maturity his inherited endowments, and that his 
 personal purpose was early formed to make the most 
 out of his native ability. 
 
 24 
 
Noticeable among the traits which characterized 
 him as a boy we find those sterling virtues, fidelity to 
 duty, unflinching honesty, a readiness to help others, 
 a prompt condemnation of every form of injustice, and 
 of everything false, a courage and perseverance which 
 rested only with duty done, — with victory won. 
 
 After graduating from the University he was for 
 two years a teacher in the Seminary of which his par- 
 ents were the principals. At this time he was much 
 exercised about his future. He had marked out for 
 himself the law as a profession. He certainly had un- 
 usual qualifications for success in that calling. His 
 was preeminently a legal, a judicial mind. He also 
 felt urged on by a demand from within him to take up 
 the work of the Gospel Ministry. A genuine conflict 
 raged in his mind. He did not wish to be a minister. 
 Indeed, he very much wished not to be, but he was 
 loyal to duty as it was made plain to him, and when 
 duty became plain, personal preferences and regrets 
 were at an end. To let himself speak of this struggle, 
 at this time, the following from the pen of Dr. Leavens 
 says : 
 
 Before my eyes now lies a letter written under 
 date, Dec. 27, 1865. He had taken his college de- 
 gree at the previous commencement, and had just 
 recovered from a "long and severe illness." His 
 observations about his illness have a tender interest, 
 now that he has experienced the last trial on earth. 
 
 ' ' Though very sick, ' ' says he, ' ' I was never so 
 low as to appear to myself, or, I think, to the doctor, 
 as likely to die. Still I was brought more nearly face 
 to face with death than at any time before within my 
 
 25 
 
recollection. Of course I was led to think much of 
 religious things, and, as it seemed to me, I gained 
 some ground in religious experience which I hope I 
 may never lose." 
 
 My young friend was now twenty years old. I 
 was in my last year at Union Seminary, in its old loca- 
 tion on University Place. I was feeling the stimulus 
 of the course, under Dr. Henry B. Smith, as the most 
 powerful uplift in my intellectual experience. I know 
 not what I may have written to Worcester, but he re- 
 plied very freely about his thoughts and plans. I 
 quote his words literally as then written : 
 
 ' ' As for my future prospects they 
 
 are still uncertain. I suppose, however, that I have 
 pretty much given up the idea of law, and with it, 
 most of my ambitious dreams. The question now is 
 mainly between teaching and preaching. My con- 
 science, I confess, sometimes suggests the query, 
 whether it is any the less a contest between selfishness 
 and devotion than before, the selfishness having taken 
 the form of a desire of ease, instead of a desire of dis- 
 tinction. I do not say that this is so, for I am not 
 certain that it is ; I say that it is a query merely which 
 sometimes suggests itself and one which I shall not 
 seek to evade. I shall hardly attempt to settle the 
 question, however, probably, until some experience in 
 teaching and a year or two in a Theological Seminary 
 have enabled me to judge better than I can at present 
 of my qualifications for either profession. But I do 
 feel, I will not seek to disguise it, an extreme reluc- 
 tance to enter the ministry such that nothing but a 
 sense of duty would lead me to think of it, and that I 
 
 26 
 
should be very glad to find that duty pointed in some 
 other direction. It is not (mainly at least), that I 
 recoil from the probable obscurity of the work, nor 
 altogether that I dread its pressure. It results from 
 an utter incapacity to realize, to feel, that any souls 
 can be won to God, by anything that I can do or say, 
 that have not been influenced already by other motives. 
 
 It is of no use to reason against such a feeling as 
 this ; of course, I know the unreasonableness of it, and 
 that the Spirit of God can impart efficiency to the 
 weakest, as it must to the most powerful human 
 agency ; but the feeling is one over which reason has 
 no control, and which can only be removed by pray- 
 ing : 'Lord, help mine unbelief,' and struggling 
 earnestly for a higher standard of piety and a deeper 
 faith. It is in this way substantially that I am strug- 
 gling to overcome it, and hope that when the time 
 comes that demands a decision, I may not only be en- 
 abled to see my way clearly, but also, if it should be 
 toward the ministry, to enter upon it joyfully and cor- 
 dially. But however this may be, I feel satisfied that 
 whether eagerly like Paul or reluctantly like Moses, I 
 shall do whatsoever my Master shall show me that 
 he would have me do." 
 
 This was from the young man at twenty, written 
 to be read in one of the rooms of that seminary, where 
 afterwards he was a brilliant student and an honored 
 professor, and from whose chapel his body was re- 
 moved to the very house from which he had penned 
 these forecasts of his lifework. 
 
 It is well that they spoke praises of his twenty 
 years of noble service in the office of pastor ; well also 
 
 27 
 
to honor both his work and the promise of his career 
 in the professor's chair. May his thorough and honest 
 dealing with himself in choosing the ministry help 
 other young men now in the throes of that strenuous 
 debate to find the sure and joyous way ! " 
 
 Although not consciously to himself, his future 
 career was settled for the ministry when, in 1867, he 
 entered Union Theological Seminary. In 1869 he 
 went to Germany, where his time was spent chiefly in 
 the study of the German language, and in attendance 
 on theological and other lectures, first at Berlin, where 
 he attended theological lectures of Professor Dorner, 
 and afterwards at Leipsic. 
 
 In 1870, after the close of the University Semster, 
 he visited Vienna, and then went from Germany 
 through Switzerland to Milan, returning through Swit- 
 zerland and Holland, (Paris being at that time besieged 
 by the Germans,) to England, and after short tours in 
 England and in Scotland, to his home in America. 
 
 In the autumn of 1870 he re-entered Union Semi- 
 nary, from which he graduated in 1871. In the fall 
 of this year he was employed as an instructor in the 
 University of Vermont, and "after proving his ability 
 to succeed as a teacher he was called to a permanent 
 place in the Faculty" of that institution. But this in- 
 vitation he felt compelled to decline. He still felt that 
 he was called to the Ministry. Before graduating from 
 the Seminary he had preached at South Orange, New 
 Jersey, and in January 1872 he was settled as pastor 
 of the Presbyterian Church there, having some time 
 before accepted the call given him by that church. In 
 this, his first pastorate, he remained until he was called 
 
 28 
 
to become the pastor of The Sixth Presbyterian 
 Church of Chicago. 
 
 He was married on October 29, 1874, to Miss 
 Harriet W. Strong, a daughter of Edward Strong, 
 M. D. of Auburndale, Massachusetts. The union was 
 a most happy one. Mrs. Worcester was eminently 
 worthy of Mr. Worcester. In mental and moral traits, 
 in earnestness of life and intensity of purpose they 
 were much alike. It is no discredit to his memory to 
 say that to her sweet spirit and womanly character he 
 owed not a little of what distinguished him for strong, 
 virile manhood. 
 
 During their stay in South Orange there were born 
 to them four children, Edward Strong, Martha Clark, 
 Leonard, and Katherine Fleming. Here, too, they 
 were called to mourn the first break in the family 
 circle, in the death of little Martha Clark, when a 
 babe of only seven weeks and two days old. She died 
 April 30, 1878. At this time and in this bereavement 
 we get a glimpse of his home and his own heart. 
 Writing to his friend Dr. Leavens, under date of May 
 1 1, 1878, he says : 
 
 "Yes, our home was very happy, wondrously 
 complete it seemed, for a few weeks. And it is very 
 happy still ; but a part of its sweetness has exhaled, to 
 
 gladden us no more here I have always 
 
 counted children one of the greatest blessings of our 
 
 earthly life Mrs. Worcester, I am 
 
 happy to say, has borne this sorrow well, both physi- 
 cally and spiritually, and though she gains strength 
 slowly still continues to gain steadily. 
 
 We both found our God unexpectedly near, and 
 
 29 
 
gained some precious experiences of his love and 
 power to comfort, which in a measure even now en- 
 able us to discern the light behind the cloud." 
 
 When shortly after this, Dr. Leavens was called 
 on to mourn the loss of one of his children, Mr. 
 Worcester wrote to him under date of June 15, 1879 : 
 "I saw with great pain in the Tribune that you 
 too have been called to pass through the same sorrow 
 which came to us a year ago, and my first thought on 
 seeing the notice was of your very kind letter written 
 then, and of the comfort it brought us. I wish that I 
 could say that now which would be as welcome and 
 helpful to you as your words then were to me. 
 
 Your loss is even greater than ours ; for you had 
 your treasure longer, and every day these little ones 
 stay with us twists a new strand into the cord that 
 binds us to them. Still there is no time when our 
 children are not unspeakably dear ; and so far, we can 
 say that we know what you are feeling now. 
 
 I rejoice to think that we also know what comfort 
 you will find and what precious lessons you will learn 
 in the valley of weeping. Some things I know you 
 will find that will be very precious. You will find 
 yourself bound by a new tie to your people, — to those 
 with whom you have prayed by the side of their 
 little ones fallen asleep, and to those whose sympathy 
 has been your earthly help and comfort in this trial. 
 
 You will find a new and precious power given you 
 to minister in such scenes in time to come. 
 
 You will find Christ dearer and his grace more 
 
 real and more sure, and all the promises concerning 
 
 them that sleep in Jesus more full of blessed meaning 
 
 than ever before. 
 
 30 
 
Such at least were our gains ; and I know that 
 yours cannot be less. And though I often wish that 
 my little girl were here, and as I see other children of 
 about the same age 'that she would be, cannot help but 
 think what a joy we have been missing all these months 
 in not having the unfolding of that baby life to watch, 
 yet those were experiences that I should be loth to 
 give up, experiences that make those days now as I 
 look back to them, seem days of holy joy rather than 
 of pain." 
 
 As showing the fidelity with which he discharged 
 all the duties of a Minister of Christ while with this 
 church, the following touching tribute to his tender 
 helpfulness to those who were not of his own church 
 seems most appropriate. It was written by one whose 
 heart he had touched and comforted, many years ago. 
 His position in the General Assembly at Detroit in 
 1 89 1, had brought him more prominently before the 
 public than he had ever been brought before. Here is 
 what is said of his quiet work while in charge of his 
 first church : 
 
 "While Dr. J. H. Worcester's name is so prom- 
 inently before our churches, will you permit me to add 
 a word of praise, not of his scholarly attainments but 
 of his character as a fearless, noble Christian. 
 
 About twelve years ago that dreaded scourge, 
 scarlet fever, entered our home and claimed two of our 
 little ones as its victims. After the death of the second 
 one, our pastor, an elderly, delicate man, naturally 
 feared to enter the house, so our physician, (a member 
 of Mr. Worcester's church,) kindly suggested our send- 
 ing for his pastor, saying he knew he would willingly 
 come to us in our trouble. 
 
 31 
 
Although an entire stranger to us, with a large 
 parish of his own, Mr. Worcester drove nearly three 
 miles to our home, and not only tenderly officiated at 
 the funeral, but aftewards called several times with 
 messages of sympathy and consolation from the only 
 true source of comfort in sorrow. 
 
 To us, in our deep grief and isolation, he seemed 
 as 'one sent from God,' 'an angel of light.' We re- 
 joice in the honor that has been conferred upon him." 
 
 S. D. B. M. in N. Y. Evangelist, summer of 1891. 
 
 In all of his pastoral work here as elsewhere he 
 never hesitated to go with his message of consolation 
 and hope wherever it was deemed safe for a physician 
 to go. 
 
 He was pastor of this, his first charge, for eleven 
 years. Under his faithful ministry the church was 
 greatly prospered ; its membership was increased ; its 
 members were lifted up in their Christian life. Be- 
 fore leaving it for his second and last charge, a fine 
 new house of worship was completed and dedicated. 
 
 When he entered on his duties as pastor of the 
 South Orange Church he was not fully convinced that 
 he had wisely chosen the right calling. Even as late as 
 May, 1879, he does not seem to have been altogether 
 clear. In writing to Dr. Leavens at this time about 
 his disappointment over the failure of the efforts of the 
 preceding winter ' ' for a higher standard of church 
 life," he adds: "You have greatly the advantage of 
 me, though, in one respect. You feel sure that you 
 are in the right track ; that you are doing the work 
 God wants you to do. I dorit. I never have got rid 
 yet of the uncertainty which attended my entrance on 
 the ministry, — whether that is my work. 
 
 32 
 
However, it appears to be my work just now. 
 
 So there is nothing to do but to work 
 
 on day by day, and hope that sometime I may find 
 that the work has not been quite so barren of results 
 as it now seems to be." 
 
 At what time in his ministry all doubt was cleared 
 away concerning its being the work God had chosen 
 him to do we cannot say. No declaration by himself, 
 no word from his pen has come to us on this subject. 
 That doubt had ceased before he became the pastor of 
 the Sixth Church in Chicago there is every reason to 
 believe. 
 
 The South Orange Church greatly regretted his 
 decision to leave, and only reluctantly consented to 
 unite with him in a request to Presbytery for a termina- 
 tion of the pastoral relationship to permit him to 
 accept the call of the Sixth Presbyterian Church of 
 Chicago. 
 
 The pulpit of the Sixth Presbyterian Church had 
 become vacant. Rev. Henry T. Miller had, on July 
 1 6, 1882, tendered his resignation to take effect 
 October 15th following, and Presbytery had taken ac- 
 tion to dissolve the relation of pastor and people. A 
 committee to secure a new pastor had been appointed 
 and for some time had been at work to find a successor 
 to Mr. Miller when the name of Mr. Worcester was 
 brought to their attention. A member of the church 
 being in New York, on business, was asked by the 
 committee to go to South Orange and hear Mr. 
 Worcester preach and make report. 
 
 This report was so favorable and so well agreed 
 with what had come to the committee from other 
 
 33 
 
sources that a meeting of the Church and Society was 
 called and the whole matter laid before it. Power was 
 given to the committee to call Mr. Worcester if deemed 
 best, and, clothed with this authority, two members of 
 the committee — Mr. J. W. Helmer and Mr. George H. 
 Wells, visited South Orange and called on Mr. 
 Worcester. From all that could be learned from those 
 whom the visiting committee consulted, as well as 
 from the judgment formed by hearing him preach, it 
 was deemed important to have him preach to the Sixth 
 Church. As he was to be in Chicago to preach the 
 sermon at the installation of the Rev. S. J. McPherson 
 as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, on Sun- 
 day evening, Nov. 19, the committee tried to get from 
 Mr. Worcester a promise to occupy the pulpit of the 
 Sixth Church on the morning of the same day. To this 
 he would not listen at all as the pulpit was vacant and 
 his occupying it under such circumstances would, or 
 could be interpreted as ' ' candidating. 
 
 He was informed that the church had clothed its 
 committee with full power to call him to the vacant 
 pastorate, and that call the committee then offered 
 him. This opened the way for less reserve in the dis- 
 cussion of the question, on his part, than he had, up 
 to this time, exercised. Mr. J. W. Helmer, a member 
 of that visiting committee, says : ' ' When the com- 
 mittee called on him to invite him to come to Chicago, 
 he seemed much surprised and not at all favorably in- 
 clined to consider the call. The committee presented 
 to him the field to which they invited him and urged 
 such reasons as they could to induce him to come and 
 see it for himself. In a very frank manner he replied : 
 
 34 
 
' I have thought the time might come when it would 
 seem desirable for me to make a change. This is my 
 first pastorate and I have been here eleven years. It 
 is generally thought better for a minister to change 
 once at least, in his life, but I have no wish to go to a 
 large city. I think I am better adapted to work in a 
 village, or a small city. It is difficult for me to make 
 new acquaintances, and the demands of a large city 
 upon a pastor are such that I do not think it would be 
 best for you nor for me to undertake them.' This was 
 said with such transparent sincerity and earnestness, 
 that the committee were still more strongly impressed 
 in his favor. He frankly stated that he did not be- 
 lieve he possessed the gifts which would win people to 
 the church. Whatever strength he had lay in the 
 direction of training, educating, and building up those 
 who had already been brought into it. So little did he 
 seem to desire to undertake the work to which he was 
 invited that, had it not been for the fact that he was 
 to be in the city at the installation of his personal 
 friend, Rev. S. J. McPherson, it was the opinion of the 
 committee, he could not have been induced to visit 
 Chicago for the purpose of looking over the field." 
 
 He finally consented to occupy the pulpit of the 
 Sixth Church at the morning service on Sunday, Nov. 
 19, 1882, and did so, preaching the least acceptable 
 sermon he ever preached from it. He spent a few 
 days in Chicago, and led the church prayer-meeting 
 on the following Wednesday evening, a practically un- 
 animous call having been reaffirmed in a vote by ballot 
 on the evening before. He would make no promises, 
 and gave no indication of what his decision would be 
 
 35 
 
until he should have returned home and considered the 
 whole matter with the deliberation which the gravity 
 of the question demanded. In all of his conferences 
 with the committee, with the Session, or with individ- 
 ual members, the question of salary was never men- 
 tioned by him, nor was any word spoken indicating 
 what amount he would accept. He did make careful 
 and critical inquiry about the work of the church as 
 indicated by its contributions to the various Boards of 
 the church and to benevolent objects. 
 
 In due time he communicated his acceptance of 
 the call that had been made, and entered upon his 
 work as pastor of his second and last charge, preach- 
 ing his inaugural sermon on the second Sunday of 
 February, his installation taking place February 13, 
 1883. He continued to be pastor of the church until 
 Sunday, September 6, 1891, when the pulpit was, by 
 order of Presbytery, declared vacant. He had resigned 
 in order to accept the chair of Systematic Theology in 
 Union Seminary, New York City, to which he had been 
 elected. During the eight and a half years of his pas- 
 torate and work in Chicago, it may safely be said that 
 the best work of his life was done. He had reached 
 the years of mature life when he commenced it. The 
 experience of his first charge was the substantial foun- 
 dation on which he began building in his second. He 
 was in the best of health during the whole time ; the 
 demands of a large church in a great city called for the 
 best which his matured power could give ; his personal 
 sense of obligation in view of greatly enlarged oppor- 
 tunity, all united to secure from him the best and the 
 largest work of his life. 
 
 36 \ 
 
What he was, and what he did, therefore, in Chi- 
 cago will be the best exponent of the man. But the 
 man is more than what he does, — greater than any 
 phase of his work. It will therefore be in order first 
 to note what manner of man he was. 
 
 Much has already been said of his inherited intel- 
 lectual power, of his moral and religious bias, derived 
 from a gifted and pious ancestry. It is a great thing 
 to be the heir to such a patrimony. It is greater still 
 to live so as to prove one's self worthy of it, and to 
 improve it by greatly increasing it through well 
 directed use. 
 
 In many respects Dr. Worcester was a remark- 
 able man. His personal presence was striking. His 
 face told the story of great thoughtfulness, intense 
 earnestness, and frank, downright honesty. His re- 
 serve of manner probably led to greater misunderstand- 
 ing of the man than anything else about him. He was 
 judged by many as without warmth of sympathy, by 
 some as haughty. He was neither. By a few he was 
 judged as caring little for the company and the con- 
 fidences of ordinary people, less gifted than himself. 
 The exact opposite of this was the simple truth. 
 
 He was exceptionally modest in the best sense 
 of the term. His modesty often amounted to 
 embarrassing timidity ; and in miscellaneous society 
 his diffidence was extreme to the last degree. He 
 shrank from every avoidable publicity at all times. 
 This diffidence was unquestionably a great hindrance 
 to him in many departments of his work. Young peo- 
 ple, and people timid and diffident like himself, 
 unavoidably misunderstood him and reached conclu- 
 
 37 
 
sions regarding him which prevented his acquiring the 
 influence over them he otherwise would have gained. 
 Thus judging there were those who delighted to hear 
 hi-m preach who yet shrank from meeting him face to 
 face. When the University of Vermont, in 1885, con- 
 ferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity, he 
 shrank from accepting it, and urged his own people to 
 continue to call him Mr. Worcester. From his friends 
 he never wished to hear the title applied to him, and 
 called the writer of this to task for having had D. D. 
 printed on a pamphlet of his sermons. He had very 
 little use for titles or for the personal pronoun of the 
 first person. 
 
 He was an intensely earnest man. Life, with him, 
 was a mission at all times. Opportunity amounted to 
 obligation. Time was not money as so often falsely 
 put, — it was life, it was opportunity, it was high re- 
 sponsibility. This intense earnestness,— this habitual 
 looking on the side of responsibility left little time for 
 the trivial things which fill up so large a space in the 
 life of many. It is possible that it sometimes led him 
 to judge small things as trivial which were really im- 
 portant, thereby preventing his wielding the influence 
 over some whom, had he judged otherwise, he might 
 have reached. 
 
 With all right thinking people time is precious. 
 With him it was sacred. To use it, and use it all to 
 the best advantage was his high duty. Every day had 
 its duties, — every hour its share. Fully alive to 
 the importance of every moment, he was always 
 prompt in meeting his engagements. He would allow 
 no one to waste time waiting for him to meet an ap- 
 
 38 
 
pointment. Failure on the part of others to be 
 equally prompt tried his patience and vexed him as 
 scarcely anything else could do. 
 
 He was eminently an honest man. His abhorrence 
 of all pretense and sham led him at all times to guard 
 his words as well as his actions. This accounted for 
 much of his reserve in speech. He would not over 
 state his feelings, nor pretend to what he did not feel. 
 He had no supply of ready-made compliments ; no set 
 form of greeting ; no meaningless terms of endearment. 
 He was too honest for anything of the kind. This 
 often prevented his saying much. He could not 
 "gush." But he was not cold, he was not indifferent 
 to the interests, or even to the judgments of others. 
 Beneath a calm, but not a cold exterior he had a 
 warm, a tender, a sympathetic heart. His known 
 moderation of speech as well as his acknowledged 
 honesty and sincerity gave added force to his expressed 
 sympathy in time of trouble. His words spoken in the 
 sick room or in the house of mourning are yet cher- 
 ished as precious memories. If his words of praise 
 were few, words of dispraise from him were still more 
 rare. Charity was a foundation element of his hon- 
 esty. If his sincerity led him to speak guardedly, his 
 honest purpose forbade his judging hastily or unjustly. 
 He was more severe with himself than with any one 
 else, and much more severe than any others ever 
 thought of being toward him. Frank commendation, 
 when stated in terms of moderation, he appreciated 
 and accepted. Adulation, or fulsome praise he could 
 not endure. Criticism he always accepted with the 
 best grace if honestly made. That it rarely led him to 
 
 39 
 
change was not because he did not consider it, but be- 
 cause he had so thoroughly considered what was criti- 
 cized before it was done and had followed what to him 
 was the only right course that, honestly, he could not 
 change. There was no disrespect intended nor was 
 there any want of appreciation of the value of the 
 criticism from the position of the one who offered it, 
 but simply an inability to accept it as his position had 
 been clearly taken on the best judgment he could com- 
 mand. When he became satisfied that he had not 
 chosen wisely, none could be more frank in promptly 
 admitting it, nor could any one have been more grate- 
 ful to those who led him to see it. His iron will made 
 him exacting of himself, sustaining him in the perform- 
 ance of all that he conceived to be duty. He was natu- 
 rally of an exceedingly nervous temperament although 
 presenting an unusually calm exterior. It was sheer 
 strength of will-power which preserved his outward 
 calmness and which impelled him and sustained him 
 in all that he did, and which ever made him complete 
 master of himself. He was no petty tyrant as many 
 men of strong will are apt to be. Indeed he was un- 
 usually considerate of others and readily found excuses 
 for their failures which he would in no way have coun- 
 tenanced in himself. In the home circle he was tender, 
 loving, confiding. He took peculiar delight in his 
 children and entered into their amusements and diver- 
 sions with great delight and enthusiasm. He took the 
 greatest interest in their school work and always took 
 delight in helping them. His clear explanations, with 
 his ready power of illustration, lifted them over their 
 difficulties. But he was equally considerate of their 
 
 40 
 
wishes where only gratification of harmless desire was 
 involved. It was no small trouble to take their pet 
 cat all the way from Chicago to New York, but he 
 could not consent to leave it behind when his children 
 wished to take it along. 
 
 He was naturally a student. His classmates in 
 college bear testimony to his thoroughness in every 
 department of college work. Others have made equally 
 good records in college work, stimulated by a desire 
 to excel their classmates, who, when the stimulus was 
 withdrawn, ceased their effort and failed to distinguish 
 themselves in after life. Dr. Worcester's ambition 
 was to excel himself, — to bring his actual self up to his 
 ideal self. This is only another phase of his honesty 
 of character, Nothing short of complete mastery of 
 his subject, — the fullest obtainable information on all 
 its details would satisfy himu One whose constant 
 purpose is to excel himself can never cease to be a 
 student and consequently never ceases to grow in 
 mental strength and mental furnishing. With those 
 whose ambition is only to excel others, study usually 
 ceases when opportunity for comparison is at an end. 
 With Dr. Worcester study was a constant delight. 
 Knowledge concerning a new subject, increased knowl- 
 edge of an old one were always eagerly sought. So it 
 came that when he spoke on any subject he spoke 
 clearly, forcibly, orderly, logically, exhaustively, for he 
 had compassed the subject in his own mind ; he under- 
 stood it, and spoke from the fullness of one who was 
 able to hold the subject up for view, for discussion;, 
 usually for settlement. 
 
 His wonderful power of analysis, his mastery of 
 
 41 
 
clear statement were too much regarded as native en- 
 dowments of mind. No doubt his mind had an original 
 analytical and logical bias, much beyond that of most 
 men, but it was also well furnished for its task by care- 
 ful study and patient research. It may be assumed 
 that he believed the maxim of Seneca "All are suf- 
 ficiently eloquent in that which they understand." 
 That he might understand he read widely, but he also 
 thought patiently and critically. Through this thor- 
 ough study and complete mastery of the subjects to 
 which he gave his thought, he was usually ready to 
 call up at once all he knew and had thought on a 
 subject, and to state all so clearly, so forcibly, so com- 
 prehensively that he rarely failed to carry his hearers 
 with him. In a degree not at all common, even among 
 trained scholars, his mind seemed intuitively to brush 
 aside all irrelevant questions, to eliminate all non-es- 
 sentials, and to state the simple problem thus freed 
 from its cumbrous surroundings, so clearly that his 
 statement of the problem was very generally its 
 solution. 
 
 He was a true friend. He gave his heart in full 
 measure when a worthy heart was given in return. 
 None prized ingenuous friendship more highly than he. 
 His whole being spoke when he unbosomed himself to 
 one who could understand him and who thoroughly 
 sympathized with him. In the intimacy of friendship 
 his natural restraint was forgotten, and he was 
 sprightly, full of keen but always kindly humor. Few 
 men had greater capacity for genuine friendship. 
 
 As a- preacher Dr. Worcester was peculiarly gifted. 
 His oratory was of a high order. His thought was 
 
 42 
 
always clear and strong, his choice of language through 
 which his thought was expressed was of the finest. 
 His treatment of his theme was comprehensive, logi- 
 cal, exhaustive. His appeal was very largely to the 
 intellect and the conscience. He made comparatively 
 rare appeal to the emotions. His wide reading and 
 careful study enabled him to flash light on the discus- 
 sion of his theme by illustrations from nature, science, 
 art, and literature, as well as from the daily duties and 
 ordinary every-day experiences of the people whom he 
 addressed. His rhetoric was elegant, — always pure, 
 always strong. With great gift for rhetorical embel- 
 lishment he never indulged it except for the most 
 direct and pertinent purpose. His figures were drawn 
 from a very wide range and were always strikingly ap- 
 propriate. Figures and illustrations were used by him 
 for their legitimate purpose only, and he never pur- 
 sued either a single step beyond the point where it had 
 served its purpose. He was not and could not have 
 been what is regarded as a "popular preacher." He 
 had few of the gifts which attract large audiences, none 
 of those which attract the purely curious. He was too 
 close a student, too severely logical a thinker with too 
 much of a metaphysical bias in his habit of thought 
 and form of statement to entertain or to please. But 
 he was an unusually clear and forcible speaker. In his 
 masterful ability to analyze a complex and difficult 
 question, strip away all irrelevancies, place the several 
 parts in their proper order, and hold up and enforce 
 that which is essential, he had few equals and no supe- 
 rior in the Chicago pulpit. In handling a text or 
 a theme he wasted no time on the surface questions 
 
 43 
 
and obvious truths. His penetrating mind dug deep 
 and brought to view the richer jewels of thought which, 
 but for his penetration, would have been overlooked. 
 More than most ministers he confined himself 
 within what many would call a comparatively narrow 
 range in his preaching. His inaugural sermon in the 
 Sixth Church had for its text ' ' I seek not yours, but 
 you" ; and his farewell sermon, from the text " For I 
 determined not to know anything among you save 
 Jesus Christ and him, crucified." All of his preaching 
 during the years between these two sermons was true 
 to the spirit and declaration of each. He not only 
 felt, but he publicly said : ' ' Christian preaching is 
 concerned with but one thing, to make Jesus Christ 
 known to men and bring them into touch with his liv- 
 ing personality." If it is claimed that this view is a 
 narrow one, here are his own words on the subject : 
 "A narrow theme ? Very well. But narrowness means 
 concentration, and concentration means power. There 
 are many things, in themselves worthy objects of 
 study — history, science, statesmanship, literature — 
 with which the preacher as a preacher has noth- 
 ing to do. As a man they may interest him. And 
 the more he knows of them, in other words the 
 broader his culture, the better preacher, other 
 things being equal, he will make. But these 
 things are no part of his message. There are 
 many public affairs in which as a citizen it is the 
 preacher's business to be interested. But as a preacher 
 they constitute no part of his mission. Just in propor- 
 tion as he forgets the limitations of that mission and 
 seeks to turn his pulpit into a lyceum platform for the 
 
 44 
 
discussion of the sundry 'topics of the day,' just in 
 that proportion will he rob his ministry of all its dis- 
 tinctive power. The secret of that power lies in 
 keeping before the minds of men immersed in worldli- 
 ness, distracted with doubt, beset with temptation, 
 burdened with care, in all its sweet attractiveness, its 
 manifold sympathy, and its divine majesty, the person 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 And the more intensely he feels the power of that 
 personality, and believes in its divinity, the less incli- 
 nation will he have to do anything else. The ages of 
 gospel conquest, the ages of faith, have always been 
 marked by this sort of narrowness. It is when preach- 
 ers begin to lose faith in a divine Christ and in an aton- 
 ing cross, that they are impelled to resort to Shakesper- 
 ian readings and lectures on art and courses in history 
 and science for the improvement of their hearers. So 
 when a jet of steam issues from the safety valve of an 
 engine, so long as the expansive power which drives it 
 forth continues, it is narrow, almost cylindrical. Only 
 as that impulse is exhausted does it spread itself out 
 in all directions, a cold damp cloud, without form and 
 without force." 
 
 But the narrowness is apparent rather than real. 
 Closer study will easily reveal its breadth. It is wide 
 enough to embrace all of man's relations to God ; all 
 of God's love for man. But on this it will be best to 
 have his own words also. They are as follows : 
 
 ' ' But if, at first view, we are struck with the nar- 
 rowness of the preacher's work, we are even more im- 
 pressed on a second view with its breadth. ' Nothing 
 save Jesus Christ ' ! But the infinities and the eterni- 
 
 45 
 
ties are in that theme. God and man are there. 
 
 In Jesus Christ we have the ideal manhood ; and 
 all that concerns the building up of such a manhood 
 comes within the compass of this theme. The whole 
 domain of character, the whole sphere of morals, is 
 embraced within the scope of that spotless life and 
 those perfect precepts. 
 
 But Jesus was also ' God manifest in the flesh '. 
 All that we can comprehend, all that we shall ever 
 know of God we shall know in him and through him 
 as the Word, the Revealer. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the Redeemer from all evil. He is 
 the great Comforter, the great Burden-bearer, the 
 Friend by whose sympathy every sorrow is soothed, 
 and whose sustaining arm supports under every cross. 
 
 In Him is the power of victory over sin. The 
 tempted, the struggling, the slaves of vice, the out- 
 casts from society, aye, even ' the devil's castaways ', 
 all may find in him the hope and energy for a new 
 life. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the conqueror of death. The mys- 
 teries of the endless future are unfolded through Him 
 who brought life and immortality to light. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the head of a perfected society, the 
 founder of the kingdom of God in whose triumph lies 
 the only hope for the reform of governments, for the 
 reconciliation of the antagonism of labor and capital, 
 for the bringing together of rich and poor, for the 
 elevation of the masses, and for the solution of the 
 desperate problems at which social science stands 
 aghast and which sometimes threaten the overthrow of 
 the existing civilization." 
 
 46 
 
He was preeminently an educating preacher, lead- 
 ing those whom he reached to examine, compare, 
 judge, and determine largely after his own method. 
 He readily brought his people to view duty, in a 
 measure, as he did. Thus it came about that his 
 church was so thoroughly educated and trained that its 
 strength could promptly be united and directed to any 
 worthy undertaking. The year just preceding his 
 first year as pastor of the Sixth Church, the total con- 
 tributions of the church to the various Boards was 
 $1486.00. The last year of his pastorate the contribu- 
 tions amounted to $3083.00, and certainly with no 
 increase of contributing wealth represented in the con- 
 gregation. Large increase of contributions for various 
 objects as well as wholly new objects of church activ- 
 ity, not through the Church Boards, had also been 
 made. Dr. Worcester's ideals of Christian life and re- 
 sponsibility were high. Courageously and persistently 
 he pressed these ideals upon his people, until, in good 
 measure, they accepted them. The great increase in 
 benevolences was directly the result of the education 
 which he had carried forward by his preaching, by his 
 pastoral labors, and above all, which he had enforced 
 by his personal example of systematic giving. His 
 earnestness of spirit and directness of purpose together 
 with his admitted sincerity made his preaching impres- 
 sive. The orderly and natural arrangement of his dis- 
 courses ; their careful division into propositions for 
 consideration ; their logical structure and compactness 
 made them easily remembered and easy to call up 
 months, and even years, after their delivery. 
 
 His preaching was mainly from manuscript, al- 
 47 
 
though he often preached without. It cannot be said 
 that he was, as a rule, as successful in his unwritten 
 discourses as in those that were written. Still even 
 here he was remarkably strong. In all of his preach- 
 ing and in his prayer-meeting talks he made large de- 
 mands on his hearers. Everything he said was so 
 organically related to the rest that no one could hear 
 portions of what he said with interest or with profit. 
 One must hear it all, — must think it all, feel it all to 
 get what was meant or even to become interested in 
 it. Neither a lazy nor a listless hearer would or could 
 keep up much interest in his preaching. It has some- 
 times been said, possibly truly, that Dr. Worcester's 
 preaching and teaching demanded more of his hearers 
 than can be given by many people of every ordinary 
 congregation. Whether this were true or not, those 
 who tried to follow him and strove to appreciate him 
 soon found their interest growing and made very rapid 
 progress in ability to profit by his teaching. His ser- 
 mons never disappointed. He often surprised those 
 even who admired his preaching most. As a result 
 many of his sermons, by special request, were printed 
 and distributed among his people. He delivered sev- 
 eral courses of sermons and these were exceptionally 
 strong. Very many beyond his own congregation read 
 with great interest as well as with much profit his 
 ' ' Sermons on Womanhood ' ' and ' ' Sermons on 
 Money." So careful was he in the preparation of his 
 discourses that, when he was asked to furnish them for 
 printing, no material change had ever to be made to 
 prepare them for the compositor. 
 
 As a pastor Dr. Worcester was a model of fidelity. 
 48 
 
He constantly sought the highest good of all whom he 
 was called upon to counsel. His reserve of manner 
 coupled with a hereditary bashfulness and timidity, not 
 common with one of his recognized ability, prevented 
 his making acquaintances and friendships as quickly as 
 might have been desirable. His thorough loyalty to 
 his own heart forbade any effusiveness of expression 
 and made impossible a display of feelings which he did 
 not entertain. It also, many times, prevented the full 
 expression of deepest feelings which he did entertain, 
 and led to judgments concerning him, by those not 
 fully acquainted with him, which did him injustice, and 
 made them the losers. 
 
 He was a man of very tender heart, and of very 
 keen and deep feeling. He loved his people with a 
 fervency which he had little power to put in words. It 
 was in times of trouble and sorrow or bereavement 
 that his lips were opened and the fulness and tender- 
 ness of his heart had free expression. He had learned 
 in the school of experience what it is to have the family 
 circle broken. Out of this experience he could speak 
 words which often calmed the tumult of grief and grew 
 sweeter and more sustaining when the overwhelming 
 tempest of acute grief had passed by. 
 
 He had no time for mere visiting, — no taste for 
 idle gossip or fruitless chatter. He was intensely in 
 earnest and awake to the importance of time and the 
 responsibility of his ' ' calling ' ' even in his pastoral visits. 
 Formal religionists and those who lived on a low plane 
 of experience undoubtedly did not appreciate or highly 
 value his society, but the hungry soul he fed, and gave 
 courage to the fainting heart. 
 
 49 
 
It is not necessary to deny that had he possessed 
 in larger measure the faculty of becoming more inter- 
 ested in the ordinary affairs of people less gifted and 
 thoughtful, as well as less earnest than himself, it 
 would have increased his usefulness. Could he have 
 removed some of the restraint and spoken, at times, 
 more freely of his feelings and sympathies, it cannot 
 be doubted his influence and helpfulness would have 
 been greater at the time. It will not be questioned, 
 however, that his pastoral work, even more than his 
 preaching, survived his separation from his people. No 
 scepticism can brush aside his consistent life and ex- 
 ample. No doubt can long live in the presence of the rec- 
 ollection of his steady faith. No shocks of faith from 
 the failures of fulsome professors can triumph over his 
 transparent, downright consistency. He will be longer 
 remembered for his sincerity than for his power of 
 logical statement ; longer for his consecrated earnest- 
 ness than for his gifts of oratory. 
 
 He was always and on all occasions a consistent 
 minister of the Gospel. His " daily walk and conver- 
 sation " never belied his pulpit ministrations. An 
 every day Christian, his influence is felt and acknowl- 
 edged as much as it was when he walked our streets 
 and went in and out before us. 
 
 His service to the Church at large was the same 
 in kind as for the individual church of which he was 
 pastor. He had come to feel an intense interest in the 
 great city where his lot had been cast. He saw its need 
 of Christ as the solution of all the problems growing 
 out of the conflicting interests which disturb its 
 peace. He saw the danger of its great wealth, beget- 
 
 50 
 
ting selfishness and tending to indulgence ; the perils of 
 its wretched poverty, breeding hatred and tending to 
 despair or lawless rebellion. 
 
 Firmly did he believe that the religion of Jesus 
 Christ accepted in the heart and lived in conduct, and 
 nothing else, could make rich and poor live together in 
 loving bonds of brotherhood, mutually helpful to one 
 another. This, and this alone, would make the pros- 
 perous awake to their responsibility ; would nerve the 
 poor and the unfortunate to bear their burdens. As a 
 Presbyter, therefore, he was prominent in all the work 
 which the Church undertook for the evangelization of 
 the city. An enthusiast on the subject of Missions, 
 Home and Foreign, he was equally energetic in his 
 work for the needy, the ignorant, and the vicious 
 directly about his own door. 
 
 The Presbyterian League has for its object the 
 support of the Gospel in communities which, but for 
 its assistance, would be in danger of abandoning church 
 work already begun. It helps feeble churches by timely 
 assistance until they can meet their obligations and 
 carry on their work without such outside help. Into this 
 important work Dr. Worcester put his heart and his 
 energy. In its service he spent much time. All asso- 
 ciated with him in this branch of work greatly regretted 
 his departure from the city. In the regular work of the 
 presbytery he was noted for his promptness, regularity 
 of attendance at meetings, punctuality in meeting en- 
 gagements for committee work, fidelity, clear judg- 
 ment, and exceptional ability in the discharge of all of 
 the duties required of him by his brethren. He was 
 not given to much speaking in the public deliberations 
 
 51 
 
of presbytery, but when occasion demanded he was 
 prompt to respond, and was listened to with the great- 
 est respect, and by most of the members with decided 
 deference. His judicial habit of mind, his judicious 
 treatment of men and measures ; his great candor and 
 admitted fairness ; his clear statements and forceful 
 style won the closest attention of his associates. He 
 was regarded as one of the ablest debaters and sound- 
 est thinkers among the very able men who make up 
 the presbytery of Chicago. 
 
 In 1 89 1 he was chosen one of the Commissioners 
 to the General Assembly which met at Detroit, in 
 May of that year. It was a meeting of great and grave 
 importance to the church. Questions affecting the 
 peace of the denomination were to come before it. The 
 relation of one of the great theological seminaries to 
 the General Assembly must be considered. It was a 
 time when clear heads and dispassionate judgment were 
 at a premium. He was known to possess both. It 
 was a time for courage and for moderation and he was 
 an embodiment of both. It was every way fitting that 
 the great presbytery of Chicago should send this man 
 of iron will, calm judgment, clear mind, and loving 
 heart to share in the responsibility and to perform his 
 share of the grave duties of the hour. 
 
 The church had been disturbed by certain utter- 
 ances of Dr. Briggs of Union Theological Seminary. 
 Many thoughtful men had grave fears regarding the 
 effect of these utterances. There seemed to be serious 
 danger of the church becoming divided into Briggs and 
 anti-Briggs factions. Revision of the Standards had 
 been a prominent question in the presbyteries and must 
 
 52 
 
come before the General Assembly. So important a 
 meeting brought together leaders in thought of the 
 Presbyterian denomination. The gravity of the situa- 
 tion was felt by all thoughtful men. The " Interior 
 sounded the note of warning in its issue just preceding 
 the meeting as follows : 
 
 ' ' The contending brethren agree upon the Scrip- 
 tures as the only and infallible rule of faith and 
 practice. 
 
 They agree upon the Confession of Faith as con- 
 taining the system of doctrine taught in the Holy 
 Scriptures. 
 
 Both parties in the terms of warmest affirmation 
 declare their loyalty to the Scriptures as the supreme 
 and to the Confession as the subordinate, standards of 
 our faith. Neither the one party nor the other can 
 with any Christian propriety challenge the sincerity of 
 the other in these affirmations. 
 
 Now it seems plain to the plain and unlearned 
 Christian that here is a platform of agreement upon 
 which we may stand with sufficient harmony, calmly to 
 consider, reduce to a minimum, and adjust within lim- 
 its of toleration and forbearance, all existing real differ- 
 ences. Or failing in this, that, having reduced those 
 differences to the minimum, we can calmly and as 
 charitably consider whether any of them are beyond 
 the limits of safe toleration." 
 
 Whatever part Dr. Worcester took in the deliber- 
 ations of the Assembly, he did not appear prominently 
 before that body nor the world until the discussion came 
 up on the report of the Committee on Theological Sem- 
 inaries, through its chairman Dr. Patton, of Princeton. 
 
 53 
 
That report proposed to disapprove, by refusing to 
 sanction, the action of the directors of Union Seminary 
 in transferring Dr. Briggs to the chair of biblical theol- 
 ogy. The directors held that as the original appointment 
 of Dr. Briggs as a professor in Union Seminary had 
 been submitted to the Assembly and had been approved, 
 there was no need of seeking approval in a matter of 
 transfer from one chair to another in the same institu- 
 tion. The committee contended that the transfer 
 needed the sanction of the Assembly as much as though 
 it had been an original appointment. 
 
 It would not be in place here to review the pro- 
 ceedings of the Assembly. Many speeches had been 
 made on both sides of the question under discussion. 
 Extreme positions had been taken on both sides. Judge 
 Breckinridge, of St. Louis, had made an argument the 
 day before on the legal aspects of the case, supporting 
 the report of the committee. At the close of his speech 
 Judge Breckinridge fell from an attack of heart trouble 
 and expired before he could be removed from the 
 church. 
 
 It was under these sad and subduing circumstances 
 that Dr. Worcester took the floor at the opening of the 
 session on the following morning. He had been im- 
 portuned to take part earlier, but he kept hoping that 
 some moderate measures would be proposed by some 
 one else, and that wiser counsels would prevail. He 
 only spoke when he felt that he must. As showing the 
 temper and the spirit of the man this speech will be of 
 interest. He first offered a substitute for the amend- 
 ment proposed the day before by Dr. Logan, and then 
 addressed the Assembly on the question of adopting his 
 
 51 
 
substitute. We give the whole as reported in the 
 ' ' Interior : " 
 
 Mr. Moderator : I desire to offer a substitute in 
 place of the amendment of Dr. Logan. I desire also 
 to move this paper as a substitute for the entire report 
 of the committee: 
 
 The Assembly recognizes that the present relation 
 of our theological seminaries to the General Assembly 
 was brought about through the voluntary and generous 
 concession by Union Seminary of a portion of its inde- 
 pendence, in the interest of a better adjustment for all, 
 and it recognizes that in the recent transfer of Professor 
 Briggs to the chair of biblical theology, the directors of 
 Union Seminary acted in perfect good faith, upon a 
 possible construction of their powers under the act de- 
 fining those relations. It recognizes also that the pres- 
 ent widespread uneasiness and agitation in the church 
 has grown out of utterances of Professor Briggs subse- 
 quent to that transfer. At the same time it regards these 
 utterances as certainly ill-advised, and as having seri- 
 ously disturbed the peace of the church and led to a 
 situation full of difficulty and complication ; yet the As- 
 sembly desires to act in the spirit of the largest charity 
 and forbearance consistent with fidelity to its trust, and 
 of the most generous confidence in the directors of Union 
 Seminary. Therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That a committee be appointed by this 
 Assembly, consisting of eight ministers and seven ruling 
 elders, for the following purposes, to-wit : 
 
 i. To confer with the Directors of Union Theo- 
 logical Seminary in regard to the relations of the said 
 Seminary to the General Assembly and report thereon 
 
 55 
 
to the next General Assembly. 
 
 2. To request the directors of Union Seminary to 
 reconsider the action by which Dr. Briggs was trans- 
 ferred to the chair of biblical theology. 
 
 3. To advise that in any case Professor Briggs be 
 not allowed to give instructions during the year pre- 
 vious to the meeting of the next Assembly. 
 
 On these propositions Dr. Worcester said : 
 Under the circumstances under which we are met 
 this morning, any attempt at excited rhetoric would be 
 out of place, even if I were capable of it. In the pres- 
 ence of that solemn providence by which our hearts 
 have all been startled and I trust calmed, the only kind 
 of discussion that seems to be in place is quiet, dispas- 
 sionate, matter of fact reasoning together. I do not 
 stand here as the advocate of Dr. Briggs, though I honor 
 his learning and respect his piety. Still less do I stand 
 here as an opponent of Dr. Briggs, though as my 
 brethren of the Presbytery of Chicago know, he has 
 said many things with which I totally disagree and the 
 spirit of which I utterly disapprove. I stand here as an 
 advocate of peace. From the day I was elected a com- 
 missioner to this Assembly one word of Holy Writ has 
 come to my mind as often as I have thought of the 
 responsibilities which would confront me here, — " Study 
 those things which make for peace and things where- 
 with one may edify another. " Most earnestly have I 
 hoped and most sincerely have I prayed that this As- 
 sembly might be guided to a conclusion in this grave 
 and painful affair which would unite this Assembly, 
 which would unify this agitated church, which would 
 allay this threatening bitterness of strife, and which 
 
 56 
 
would send this church forward, a united phalanx, to 
 more glorious and peaceful victories under the banner 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I do not believe Mr. 
 Moderator, that in this hope and in this prayer I stand 
 alone. I believe there are multitudes of calm and 
 thoughtful men on both sides of this question, if you 
 call them sides, so far as men's sympathies with Dr. 
 Briggs are concerned, that there are multitudes of calm 
 and thoughtful men in this Assembly who have been 
 looking and who have been longing and have been pray- 
 ing for some safe middle course which should avoid ex- 
 tremes and keep the church in harmony. And when I 
 heard, as I did on arriving, necessarily a day late at the 
 meeting of the Assembly, that this matter had been in- 
 trusted to some of the clearest brains in this Assembly 
 or in the Presbyterian Church for their report, I felt re- 
 assured — I felt that we should get just such a deliverance, 
 moderate, mediative, on which we could all stand. And it 
 was with profound disappointment and sorrow that I lis- 
 tened to that report when it was presented to this Assem- 
 bly. Because, Mr. Moderator, say what you will, the 
 course proposed in this report is an extreme course. It 
 strains the authority of this Assembly over Dr. Briggs to 
 its utmost limit. 
 
 Dr. Patton told us yesterday that this was the 
 very least this Assembly could do. Mr. Moderator, 
 what more could this Assembly do ? You cannot hang 
 Dr. Briggs, you cannot imprison him, you cannot cast 
 him out of the church, you cannot depose him from 
 the ministry. You cannot, in this Assembly, impeach 
 his orthodoxy or touch his moral character. The one 
 thing that you can do is to veto, bluntly, absolutely, 
 
 57 
 
without a reason, his appointment as professor of bib- 
 lical theology in Union Seminary. That is the utmost 
 you can do. Even upon your power to do that, the 
 committee themselves admit that there rests a shadow 
 of a doubt, a shadow sufficiently distinct and percepti- 
 ble to make them think it necessary to appoint fifteen 
 wise men before another year, to clear it away. 
 
 But in the meantime — and I wonder if I am the 
 only commissioner to whom the relation of the two 
 resolutions in this report was a surprise — in the mean- 
 time while we admit that there may be some question 
 about our authority to do this thing, we will behead 
 the man and then we will confer with the directors of 
 Union Seminary as to whether we had the right to 
 do it. 
 
 And I object to this report because it is an arbi- 
 trary report, because it says simply that we disapprove 
 of this appointment, and gives no reason for this dis- 
 approval. Judge Breckinridge said yesterday, and we 
 all recognized its force, that a judge might often give a 
 very wise decision founded on very poor reasons, and 
 that, therefore, it was better never to give reasons if 
 you could help it. But in a matter which touches 
 the standing of a man, in a matter which affects the 
 reputation of a man, in a matter which may prejudice 
 an ecclesiastical trial already in progress, you cannot 
 help it ; you have no right to help it. If I remember 
 rightly, it is not a great many years since there was a 
 great political controversy in the United States over the 
 question whether the President of the United States 
 had a right to behead even a postmaster without giv- 
 ing some reason ; and we propose to behead officially 
 
 58 
 
a theological professor without giving any reason what- 
 ever. Now we are told that a great many reasons 
 might be given. Why didn't the committee give a rea- 
 son ? Mr. Moderator, I fear it was because they knew 
 that no one reason that could be given would carry a 
 majority of this Assembly with it ; I fear that had some 
 influence on the minds of the committee ; at all events 
 I believe that to be true. 
 
 I listened with the greatest attention when Dr. 
 Patton set forth the reasons, the possible reasons that 
 might have been assigned. He admitted that it would 
 not do to say that it was on account of the idiosyncra- 
 cies of the professor that we disapprove this appoint- 
 ment ; he said that theological reasons, not amounting 
 to a charge of heresy, might have been given; but he ad- 
 mitted with all his power of lucid statement, in which 
 he has not in this Assembly a peer, those theological 
 reasons would be so intricate and so obscure that very 
 few would be able to distinguish them from a charge 
 of heresy. He admitted that it would not do to disap- 
 prove of Professor Briggs on the ground that he is not 
 sound in the faith, because that would be anticipating 
 the Presbytery of New York; and the only reason that 
 I could discover that he would urge as a practical rea- 
 son that might have been given, was that Dr. Briggs is 
 under suspicion. He is under suspicion, and Mr. Mod- 
 erator, shall we disapprove of this appointment because 
 the professor is under suspicion, when we know that 
 steps have already been initiated to sift this suspicion 
 and ascertain whether it is right or wrong ? Is it not 
 the part of an Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, is it 
 not one of the foundation principles of the Presbyterian 
 
 59 
 
churches, to stand by a man who is under suspicion un- 
 til the suspicion has been sifted to the bottom ? 
 
 At all events, Mr. Moderator, I protest against the 
 bare, blunt disapproval of this election without any 
 reason given, and I protest against it because, as Mr. 
 Ramsey has just so eloquently said before you, it will 
 inevitably, say what you may and do what you may, 
 have an influence upon the judicial proceedings already 
 initiated in the Presbytery of New York. The world 
 will know, will believe, the Presbytery of New York 
 will believe, that if this Assembly had not, down in its 
 heart of hearts, suspected Dr. Briggs's serious departure 
 from the faith, it would never have taken this action, 
 and the only way in which you can prevent this im- 
 pression being made on the mind of the church and on 
 the mind of the country is to give some other reason 
 with those resolutions. Now, the committee feel this ; 
 the committee see that it would be very desirable to 
 take some milder course if it were possible. They have 
 said so in their report. Dr. Patton said the same thing 
 in his address, and Judge Breckinridge said the same 
 thing in tender words of deep feeling, in that dying 
 speech that he made to us yesterday. It is simply a 
 question whether any middle course is possible. I can- 
 not believe that a great Assembly like this, desiring to 
 avoid extremes, desiring to do nothing which can in 
 any way cast a shadow of unjust suspicion upon a man 
 who is under trial, desiring to find some middle path 
 out of this difficulty in which we are all involved, will 
 sit down helpless before a problem like this. 
 
 It must be possible for this Assembly to find some 
 middle way out of this difficulty. I would have been 
 
 GO 
 
satisfied personally, notwithstanding the technical ob- 
 jections of Dr. Patton, and notwithstanding the legal 
 argument of Judge Breckinridge, I would have been 
 satisfied personally to vote for the amendment of Dr. 
 Logan, and I would not have introduced this substitute 
 for Dr. Logan's amendment at this stage if I had not 
 perceived that the technical difficulty really weighed 
 upon the minds of many judicious men of this Assem- 
 bly, who have just the same desire for peace for which 
 I stand here. But I saw that there were technical 
 questions involved here. I felt the force to a certain 
 degree, although I did not feel that it was absolutely 
 conclusive, of Dr. Patton's point that we must approve 
 or disapprove simpliciter, that it is not possible for us 
 to interpose a qualified veto. Therefore, I propose that 
 we reach the same result in another way, about the 
 legality of which there can be absolutely no question. 
 The only question that can arise is about its safety, and 
 on that question I will touch in a moment. 
 
 Certainly it is within the power of the Assembly, if 
 it chooses to waive its authority in this case, not to ex- 
 ercise, in view of the position in which Dr. Briggs 
 stands before his own presbytery, the power of disap- 
 proval which under other circumstances there might be 
 no peril in exercising, and instead of that to go to the 
 directors of the Union Seminary and say to them, ' ' In 
 view of these utterances which have been made since 
 your action and since the inauguration, we ask you to 
 reconsider in the light of the present this whole matter 
 of your appointment." Now, what do you gain by this 
 course ? You avoid, as I have already pointed out, 
 prejudicing Dr. Briggs before the Presbytery of New 
 
 61 
 
York ; and Mr. Moderator, I think this Assembly ought 
 to heed very carefully the words of Mr. Ramsey. As 
 he has pointed out, the prosecutors in this case are in a 
 trying and difficult position ; they stand for those who 
 object to anything that may seem to be novel or hereti- 
 cal in the utterances of Dr. Briggs ; they stand for the 
 faith once delivered to the saints. Shall we as an As- 
 sembly, who stand for that same faith and who are 
 animated above all things by loyalty to the hearts of 
 the church and to the Word of God, shall we do any- 
 thing to prejudice their position and to make their task 
 more difficult ? You make your action consistent 
 with itself in that you will confer with the directors of 
 Union Seminary as to the relations of that Seminary to 
 the General Assembly before you act upon your own 
 construction of those rules. You take a course fitting to 
 conciliate Union Seminary rather than to alienate it. 
 Mr. Moderator, the directors of Union Seminary are loyal 
 Presbyterians ; they are wise and calm men, and they 
 are waiting with intense anxiety, as has been said, for 
 the deliverance of this Assembly on this subject. Never- 
 theless, as I know from personal conference with two 
 or three of them, they are not waiting for such a de- 
 liverance as is proposed in the report of this committee. 
 They feel — what shall I say ? They feel pained, 
 they feel hurt, they feel aggrieved at the haste of this 
 Assembly to rush to such an extreme action, as if it had 
 no confidence in . their wisdom in this case. You con- 
 ciliate the directors of Union Seminary by going and 
 asking them to do in their own wisdom and in their 
 own loyalty to the church what you claim that you 
 would have the right to do if you chose to exercise it ; 
 
 62 
 
and above all, you give time for a calm and thought- 
 ful consideration of this case, and you give time for a 
 great deal of new light to be thrown upon it. 
 
 But what is the objection to this course ? I was 
 touched with the way in which Judge Breckinridge put 
 this matter yesterday. He referred to this very 
 course. He said: "There are two courses before us, 
 to approve or disapprove. Now, " he said, ' ' It may be 
 suggested that we take a third course, to refer this 
 matter back to the directors of Union Seminary, and," 
 he added, ' ' I have wished that such a course might be 
 taken ; I have tried to see that it was possible, but it 
 does not seem to be possible." Why? Because in 
 that case we would lose our control here of this mat- 
 ter. We lose our control! Now if we refer this mat- 
 ter back to them, there are but three things that the 
 directors of the Union Seminary can do. They can 
 reconsider it and revoke the appointment of Professor 
 Briggs. Then your whole difficulty is removed and 
 removed in a peaceful way. They can reconsider it 
 and re-appoint Dr. Briggs, we will suppose ; then he 
 comes to the next General Assembly in precisely the 
 same condition as he comes to this. That appoint- 
 ment being made subject to the approval of the Assem- 
 bly, will be subject to the veto of the Assembly then, 
 and you are in the same position as you are to-day, 
 except that by that time you will know a great deal 
 more about the theological views of Professor Briggs 
 than you know to-day, and that that Assembly will 
 have a report from this committee of fifteen making 
 clear the matter of the relation of the Union Theologi- 
 cal Seminary to this Assembly. The only other thing 
 
 63 
 
that they can do will be, in the face of this earnest re- 
 quest of this Assembly and its committee of fifteen, to 
 refuse to reconsider the case at all, and that is the 
 only peril this Assembly exposes itself to by this 
 action. 
 
 Mr. Moderator, is it possible that there are ten 
 men in this Assembly who are frightened by any such 
 specter as that ? Is it possible that this Assembly be- 
 lieves for a moment that men like Dr. Dickey and Dr. 
 Erskine White and Dr. John Hall and these other 
 men whose names were read over to you by Dr. 
 Dickey, that these men, when the Assembly says to 
 them, "We request you tore-open this matter, we 
 request you in the interests of peace, and in the inter- 
 ests of our church, to look again at the subsequent 
 utterances of Dr. Briggs," that they will snap their 
 fingers in the face of this Assembly and say : ' ' Gentle- 
 men, you have lost your control, and we will do as we 
 please." If that is the feeling we have in regard to 
 Union Seminary, the sooner it is cut loose from the 
 church the better. If we have not faith in the integ- 
 rity and in the honor, and in the character and wisdom 
 of the Presbyterian ministers and elders who compose 
 the directory of Union Seminary, then we had better 
 say : ' ' We want nothing more to do with Union Semi- 
 nary, and the sooner it is cut loose and turned adrift 
 the better for the church." But, sir, we have not only 
 the integrity and honor of these men as a pledge in 
 this case ; we have an action taken at the last meeting 
 of the board of directors of Union Seminary ; an action 
 which was an olive branch held out to this Assembly ; 
 an action which was taken unanimously, Dr. Dickey 
 
 64 
 
informs me, and which is spread upon their records. 
 What was that action ? We understand from this com- 
 mittee that there is, as I have said, the shadow of a 
 doubt growing out of the way in which Dr. Briggs was 
 inducted into this chair. There has been a question as 
 to whether this Assembly had authority over a case of 
 transfer like this, and some of the directors of Union 
 Seminary are very strongly persuaded that the Assem- 
 bly has no authority in the case ; and, yet by a unani- 
 mous vote and without reservation or qualification, they 
 agree to waive that matter entirely, and to come before 
 this Assembly without raising any technical question of 
 that kind. That overture of peace on the part of the 
 directors of Union Seminary, we submit, this Assembly 
 can afford to meet half way. We can afford to go to 
 the directors of Union Seminary and say to them, 
 ' ' Gentlemen, since you meet us in this spirit, since 
 you offer in this way to waive your views of your rights 
 under the compact which exists, we will meet you in 
 the same spirit, we will waive our right to the veto, and 
 now you sit down with our committee and together let 
 us come to an understanding in this business." 
 
 [The stated clerk said no such paper as Dr. 
 Worcester has referred to has ever been communicated 
 to this Assembly.] 
 
 Dr. Worcester: — I don't know whether it is be- 
 fore the Assembly. I give you the statement on the 
 word of Dr. Dickey that it is spread upon the records 
 of Union Seminary, and I think it is sufficiently before 
 the Assembly to refer to it. 
 
 But Mr. Moderator, I was about to say one more 
 thing. Even in that extreme case — that the directors 
 
 65 
 
in their haughtiness and in their independence, and in 
 their insolence, for it would be scarcely less than that 
 — should defy this Assembly and say, ' ' No, we will 
 not reconsider this election, though you ask us to do 
 it ; " still this case has not gone beyond your control, 
 unless Dr. Briggs can vindicate his soundness of faith 
 to the Presbytery of New York first, to the Synod of 
 New York second, to the General Assembly of 1892 
 third. If there is any real reason in the theological 
 opinions of Dr. Briggs, if there is anything beyond 
 those idiosyncrasies of Dr. Briggs which Professor Pat- 
 ton says are not a sufficient reason for such a measure 
 as this, if there is anything in the theological opinions 
 of Dr. Briggs which in 1892 shall seem to call for the 
 interference of this General Assembly, this Assembly 
 will have all that before it, and set before it in a regu- 
 lar way ; it will have it before it under all the safe- 
 guards and under all the light secured by a triple 
 judicial inquiry. And that will be your advantage in 
 settling this question in 1892. And so it comes to 
 this : Have we confidence enough in the directors of 
 Union Seminary to waive our right of veto and say to 
 them: "Brethren, we ask you to adjust this thing 
 yourselves ; you did not know when you appointed 
 Professor Briggs to this chair what his views were upon 
 many of these things ; you did not anticipate such an 
 inaugural address and such subsequent utterances as 
 have so disturbed the church. You see into what a 
 state of agitation the church has been thrown ; now 
 we ask you to relieve the church from its perplexity, 
 we ask you to do the thing which shall be for the 
 honor of God and foi the peace of the church of Jesus 
 
 66 
 
Christ." Mr. Moderator and brethren, I beseech you 
 to take heed what you do to-day ; I beseech you to 
 remember that it is easy to do in a day what you can 
 never undo in a generation ; I beseech you to remem- 
 ber that the Presbyterian church has erred many times 
 in the past, with all its wisdom and all its prayerful- 
 ness, and it may err again. Let us not repeat here 
 the follies of our fathers ; let it not appear that we 
 have learned nothing from the repeated and bitter les- 
 sons of the past. I have often found that I have 
 erred through acting too hastily ; I have seldom found 
 that I have erred through acting too deliberately. The 
 Presbyterian church has never been wanting in cour- 
 age and loyalty to her Master. She has sometimes 
 been a little wanting in Christian charity and forbear- 
 ance and brotherly love, and that has been the secret 
 of the sad schisms which have rent her in the past. 
 Oh, brethren, it is a divine voice which bids us en- 
 deavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of 
 peace. We have listened to the thrilling appeals of 
 our home and of our foreign missionaries during these 
 days that we have been together. We have seen how 
 God has thrown wide open the doors of the whole 
 world for the introduction of his truth ; His own great 
 providence is calling us to march forward to grander 
 victories than any of the past, in his name and for his 
 kingdom. Let us take an action to-day which shall 
 deliver us from strife and from contention, and which 
 shall leave us hand free and heart free to respond to 
 this divine call." 
 
 No clearer idea of the man could be put in words 
 than is revealed in this characteristic speech. It is 
 
 67 
 
Worcester in every sentence. Whether it is to be set 
 down to the credit of the Assembly that his counsels 
 were unheeded need not be passed upon here.. The 
 press of the country, almost without exception, pro- 
 nounced it the greatest speech of the Assembly It is 
 no wonder that it was heartily cheered, and that at its 
 close a general call for the "question" was made from 
 all parts of the house. The manifest fairness and can- 
 dor of the man ; his clear comprehension of the sub- 
 ject under consideration ; his masterful power of 
 analysis ; his great love for the Presbyterian church, 
 and his desire to find an honorable way of settling dif- 
 ficulty and avoiding rupture in the denomination were 
 evident to all who heard him and appreciated by all 
 who had not already fully made up their minds to fol- 
 low another course. It was believed by many that 
 had a vote been taken at the close of Dr. Worcester's 
 address his substitute would have carried. It will be 
 clearly seen in this speech how earnestly he sought to 
 find an honorable middle ground where the contending 
 parties might meet and on which they could stand with 
 safety and honor. He had great faith in time as a 
 factor in solving difficulties. While he would not, 
 could not accept many of the utterances of Dr. Briggs, 
 and deplored the seeming belligerent tone in which he 
 expressed them, he could not, and would not be a 
 party to any action by the Assembly which must prove 
 in the nature of a decision prejudicial to his case which 
 was soon to be the subject of judicial inquiry. 
 
 This speech at once gave him a prominence which 
 hitherto he had not enjoyed. It is true that his speech 
 proved him to be a great man both in mental power 
 
 68 
 
and in moral purpose. But his speech was no surprise 
 to those who knew him best. They had been accus- 
 tomed to his clear statements ; had become familiar 
 with his generosity in stating the question under con- 
 sideration from the side of those he was compelled to 
 oppose ; were prepared to expect from him moderation 
 and pleading for charity and fairness. 
 
 The Theological Seminary of Hartford, Conn., 
 elected him to the chair of systematic theology for that 
 institution in May, 1891. After mature deliberation he 
 declined and decided to remain with his church in Chi- 
 cago. But this decision was soon disturbed by his 
 election, in July, to the same position in Union Semi- 
 nary, N. Y. The decision reached in regard to Hart- 
 ford Seminary would have enabled him to reach a 
 prompt decision in regard to Union Seminary had the 
 conditions been alike or nearly so. But the difference 
 was great. Hartford Seminary is under the control of 
 the Congregational denomination and Dr. Worcester 
 was a Presbyterian. He was under no special obliga- 
 tion to leave his church and abandon preaching, for 
 teaching, at the call of an institution under control of 
 another denomination. With Union Seminary it was 
 entirely different. That is Presbyterian. He had 
 been trained for the ministry there. Its relation to the 
 General Assembly was seriously strained. The peace 
 of the Presbyterian Church had been threatened. The 
 position which many of the great men of the church 
 had taken as to the right of the trustees of Union Sem- 
 inary, without submitting their action for the approval 
 of the Assembly', to transfer Dr. Briggs from one chair 
 to another, in the late meeting in Detroit, and else- 
 
 69 
 
where, prevented their being considered for the vacant 
 professorship caused by the death of Dr. Van Dyke. 
 The position taken by Dr. Worcester was acceptable to 
 the directors of the Seminary. It was no less satisfac- 
 tory to the most thoughtful men of the denomination 
 everywhere. It was known that he was thoroughly 
 loyal to the Assembly. Of his theological soundness no 
 shadow of doubt existed. He was therefore acceptable 
 to the Seminary and to the Assembly as well. 
 
 Leading men of the church, from all parts of the 
 country, urged his acceptance in the interest of peace. 
 Coming to him in this way his election presented a 
 question of duty. This, and this alone opened up anew 
 the question of his leaving his pastoral charge and en- 
 tering upon the work of teaching. 
 
 At one time he earnestly hoped that he might 
 find that God did not call him to the ministry, — had 
 seriously thought of teaching as a profession. But long 
 ere this all doubt about his proper sphere of work had 
 been cleared away. He was, and for long time had 
 been, entirely satisfied that preaching was his mission 
 and he felt highly honored that it was so. Teaching 
 in a theological seminary he had never sought — never 
 desired. It was a great struggle between choice and 
 duty which he was called on to pass through. Well 
 satisfied as he had been that he was where God would 
 have him when he was preaching, if it could be made clear 
 to him that it was duty to leave the pulpit for the pro- 
 fessor's chair, he would do that. The voice of duty is 
 the voice of God. That voice he had obeyed when he 
 entered the ministry, although then* he would have 
 welcomed a different work. That voice he would still 
 
 70 
 
follow when it called upon him to lay down the work to 
 which it had once summoned him and still obedient, 
 take up another. 
 
 As a child he had suffered from palpitation of the 
 heart, so that his parents did not dare allow him to 
 play as other boys did. But as he grew older and 
 stronger it was supposed he had entirely outgrown the 
 trouble. One year, shortly after he came to Chicago, 
 he had a slight return of it, but only for a short time, 
 and as late as 1889, when he was examined for life-in- 
 surance, his heart was pronounced perfectly sound. 
 
 Early in the summer of 1891 his old difficulty re- 
 turned in connection with the Detroit Assembly. The 
 necessity of deciding upon the two calls which have 
 been mentioned, aggravated the difficulty. The doctor 
 considered it simply the effect of nervous excitement, 
 and it entirely disappeared during the vacation which 
 soon followed, as the probable effect of rest and sea- 
 bathing. It has already been stated that he was a 
 man of highly nervous temperament, although he was 
 able, as a rule, to conceal from others its outward 
 manifestation. On his return to Chicago from his va- 
 cation, the trouble returned, and in addition to palpi- 
 tation, he suffered from oppression in the region of the 
 heart, and once or twice with such sharp pain as to 
 make it necessary for him to stop in walking. The 
 disease which had manifested itself in his childhood, it 
 will be seen, had only slumbered. It was not dead. 
 He had not been cured. 
 
 Probably few will understand what it cost this 
 man to resign from the Sixth Church to accept the 
 chair to which he had been elected in Union Seminary. 
 
 71 
 
Few knew him well enough to measure the struggle 
 through which he passed, but all who knew him at all, 
 knew that it was no ordinary conflict. He had become 
 satisfied that duty called him to New York. He 
 asked his church in the following letter to unite with 
 him in the request that Presbytery dissolve the pas- 
 toral relation to enable him to accept. 
 
 " To the Congregation of the Sixth Presbyterian 
 Church of Chicago, Dear Brethren and Friends : 
 
 When I declined a few weeks since a call which 
 would have taken me away from you and from the 
 pastoral work which is increasingly dear to me the 
 longer I remain in it, it was my sincere hope that I 
 might not soon be disturbed in this decision, but might 
 be left free to devote myself with undivided mind to 
 the preaching of Christ and the work of the ministry 
 among you. 
 
 The kind expressions which came to me from so 
 many at that time but strengthened this desire, and 
 knit closer the strong ties of many years, and made it 
 harder than ever to think of separation. 
 
 Yet, even then there were indications that this 
 wish to be left undisturbed in my work was not to be 
 realized, and after an earnest and prayerful study of 
 the question of duty, prolonged through several weeks, 
 I am now constrained to ask you to unite with me in a 
 request to Presbytery to dissolve the pastoral relation 
 existing berween us, that I may accept a call to the 
 vacant chair of Systematic Theology in Union Semi- 
 nary. 
 
 If this comes as a surprise to any, it is only be- 
 cause the expressed wish of the Directors of the Sem- 
 
 72 
 
inary that nothing should be made public prematurely 
 compelled me to consider the question mainly in 
 silence. 
 
 How hard it is for me to make this request I am 
 sure you cannot know. My heart is bound to you by 
 the strongest ties of personal affection, gratitude, and 
 Christian fellowship. The work of the gospel in 
 mighty, growing Chicago calls out all my enthusiasm, 
 and to preach Christ in a pulpit of my own is the thing 
 I love best in life. 
 
 Yet as far as I can understand the leadings of 
 God 's Spirit and Providence, he is calling me to leave 
 all these, and undertake a different service. And with 
 whatever shrinking from a work so difficult and for 
 which I feel myself so ill prepared, I must needs follow 
 His call. 
 
 May I not carry with me the assurance of your 
 loving prayers, which I shall so greatly need ; as you 
 certainly will have my most earnest prayers that God 
 will speedily fill my place among you with a man after 
 His own heart, richly endowed for the great work which 
 there needs to be done? 
 
 With deepest love and warmest gratitude for your 
 constant loyalty and your abounding kindness to me 
 and mine, 
 
 Your affectionate pastor, 
 
 J. H. Worcester, Jr. 
 Burlington, Vt, Aug. 3, 1891. 
 
 To this request the church made a prompt al- 
 though reluctant affirmative answer, as will appear in 
 the resolutions adopted. They are as follows : 
 
 73 
 
Your Committee appointed to present resolutions 
 appropriate to the resignation of our pastor, Rev. J. H. 
 Worcester, Jr., D. D., respectfully beg leave to re- 
 port : 
 
 The relation between pastor and people is, next to 
 that of the family, the most tender and the most sacred 
 of all our earthly relationships. When, as in the present 
 case, the relation has been one of uninterrupted har- 
 mony, growing stronger and more endearing every 
 year, an unmistakable call of duty can alone justify its 
 dissolution. We are fully convinced that such a call 
 has come to our pastor, and we should prove ourselves 
 unworthy his most faithful instruction during all the 
 years he has been with us, should we not reverently 
 and loyally bow to its demands. In consenting to the 
 separation of the tie which has bound us together, we 
 rejoice to know that we are called upon to make the 
 sacrifice only in what is believed to be the interest of 
 the whole of the great Presbyterian Church of which 
 our's is but a small part. 
 
 Dr. Worcester has endeared himself to us by his 
 simplicity, his open candor, his tenderness, liberality, 
 and eminent Christian consistency. He has com- 
 manded our admiration by his wonderful power as a 
 preacher and teacher. His. loyalty, sincerity, zeal and 
 devotion to his work as a minister of the gospel, ever 
 since he came among us, have been one continued 
 pleading for nobler living. Now therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That we consent to the resignation of 
 Dr. Worcester, as pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian 
 Church, only because we are fully persuaded that he 
 regards it as his duty to assume other labors in another 
 field. 74 
 
Resolved, That we bear cheerful testimony to his 
 splendid ability as a preacher ; to his wonderful power 
 as a teacher ; to his skill as a leader in Christian 
 work ; to his Christ-like character in every relation 
 he has sustained while living among us ; to his fidel- 
 ity as a pastor, tenderly sympathizing with every sor- 
 rowing one, and ever ready to ' ' rejoice with them that 
 do rejoice. ' ' 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize in the unity, har- 
 mony, and strength of our church the fruit of his faith- 
 ful preaching, — the result of his consecrated, unselfish 
 life. In him the poor and neglected have always found 
 a sympathetic friend ; the needy a prompt and ready 
 helper. By the bedside of the sick his words have 
 given courage, or have taught resignation. In the 
 house of mourning his counsels have ever been balm to 
 the wounded heart, while faithfully pointing out the 
 source of the only comfort that sorrowing hearts can 
 know. 
 
 Resolved, That the multiplied activities of our 
 church ; the increase in our beneficences, the greatly 
 increased interest in missions, both Home and Foreign, 
 are the result of Dr. Worcester's inspiring leadership 
 and faithful service as a minister of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Resolved, That we highly appreciate the efficient 
 work and noble Christian character of Mrs. Worcester, 
 and that we feel a personal loss in her removal from 
 among us. 
 
 Resolved, That we congratulate the Presbyterian 
 Church at large, on having secured so able a man and 
 so gifted a teacher, for such an important position in 
 one of our leading Theological Seminaries." 
 
 75 
 
It may seem strange that a man so greatly beloved 
 as he was, admired for his gifts of preaching and loved 
 for his sterling Christian manhood, should not have 
 been importuned by his church, or at least by many of 
 his personal friends, not to resign. The explanation 
 is not difficult, and is a tribute to the man. Every 
 member of the church knew that he never would have 
 asked to have the relation dissolved if he had not al- 
 ready become thoroughly satisfied that it was his ditty 
 to do so, and that he believed he was following divine 
 leading. So thoroughly had he trained his people in 
 the sacredness of duty that there was no word 
 which any one who properly understood him could 
 speak without flatly ignoring his teaching and his ex- 
 ample. The church regretted his leaving. The indi- 
 vidual members regretted parting with a personal 
 friend and beloved pastor and able minister, but what 
 could they do ? — all were convinced that remonstrance 
 would not only be unavailing, but unacceptable to him. 
 
 There can be no doubt but that his anxiety for 
 the peace of the Presbyterian Church, seriously 
 threatened as he believed, and the struggle through 
 which he had to pass to reach his decision to resign 
 his pastorate for a professor 's chair, had much to do 
 with the development of the old difficulty which had 
 been supposed to have been overcome. 
 
 When he finally left Chicago for New York his 
 heart difficulty increased so much on the train that the 
 first thing he had to do, on his arrival, was to seek a 
 physician. He was treated first for muscular rheuma- 
 tism and of course without success. He was finally 
 led to consult a doctor who was regarded as authority 
 
 76 
 
in heart troubles, and for a time, he was more or less 
 helped. Still the doctor never seemed able to deter- 
 mine just what was the matter. From this time on 
 there followed a constant succession of ups and downs 
 in health. Every indication of improvement inspired 
 hope in his family, and was hailed with delight by his 
 friends. 
 
 His work in the seminary was entirely new, and 
 was unavoidably a great strain upon him, for he could 
 not permit himself to do any work which was not thor- 
 ough and exhaustive. His ardent love for preaching 
 led him to continue to occupy some pulpit almost every 
 Sabbath so long as he was able to do so. Still he 
 claimed that this did not tire him especially when his 
 sermons were already prepared, and to those nearest 
 to him it seemed that it often did him good, physically, 
 to preach, as he would seem brighter and better after. 
 His general system was much run down as was shown 
 by carbuncles and boils during the winter of 1891-' 2. 
 Still his indomitable will would not yield or permit those 
 difficulties to interfere with any of his engagements. 
 He kept on with his work until the end of the seminary 
 year. It was hoped that the long vacation of four 
 months would restore him, but he gained little at any 
 time during this vacation, and toward the close of it he 
 was very sick, and for the first time since he reached 
 the years of manhood was compelled to absent himself 
 from service when the seminary year opened. He was 
 unable to take his place and begin his work until about 
 two weeks after the Seminary opened. He resumed 
 his regular work with his classes Oct. 13. 
 
 A change of physicians became necessary, owing 
 77 
 
to the feebleness of the one he had hitherto consulted 
 and his own inability longer to go to his house for treat- 
 ment. The new doctor was at first quite sanguine and 
 gave much encouragement. After a thorough examina- 
 tion he expressed himself as decidedly hopeful. Other 
 physicians, friends of Dr. Worcester, saw no reason 
 why he should not recover, and in time be as well as 
 he had ever been. He entered upon his work 
 with cheerful courage and did work outside of his regu- 
 lar duties. On November 7 he addressed the students 
 of the University of New York delivering one of the 
 monthly course of Monday lectures. His topic was 
 "Not Transferable" (relating to character.) As he 
 was to speak extempore he felt some anxiety, and had 
 a good deal of trouble with his heart at first, but after 
 he got started all went on well. 
 
 The next day — November 8, he was compelled to 
 stand in line for an hour in order to cast his vote, but 
 he endured the trial in order that he might discharge 
 his duty as an American citizen. November 13, he 
 preached his last sermon, at the Broadway Tabernacle — 
 the church of Dr. W. M. Taylor. He had not preached 
 before since August. He was assisted in the service by 
 Dr. Hastings of the Seminary. His theme was ' ' Bor- 
 rowed Burdens," from Matt. 6:34. Although enfee- 
 bled and suffering it would not have occurred to any one 
 who did not otherwise know, that he was not well. As 
 showing his great delight in being able to serve God in 
 the pulpit his diary record of this his last sermon will 
 be of interest. His diary had become a bare record of 
 facts. Of this, his last public church service he wrote : 
 "Had great comfort in being able to deliver this one 
 
 78 
 
more message, and was greatly encouraged to find that 
 no reaction followed." So late as the early part of 
 December his physician was hopeful and told him that 
 there was a fair chance of his being ultimately as well 
 as he had ever been. Christmas day was spent quietly 
 at home with his family and he enjoyed himself playing 
 games with his children as he always did. That night 
 he slept but little owing to the disturbed action of his 
 heart. From this time on he often had difficulty of a 
 like nature at night, It may safely be said that one 
 main reason for his unbroken health during most of his 
 life, as well as accounting in large measure for the great 
 amount of hard work he could endure, was that he had 
 always slept well at night. When wearied he could 
 throw himself down and sleep for ten or twenty 
 minutes at any time and awake refreshed. Now though 
 weak and weary he found it almost impossible to sleep 
 in the day time, and often difficult to sleep at night 
 owing to the pain in his heart. 
 
 The last day of 1 892 he read a paper before the Chi 
 Alpha, a gathering of ministers. His paper was a review 
 of Prof. Stearns's "Life of H. B. Smith". His diary 
 records : "It was more kindly received than I ex- 
 pected, but I had extraordinary difficulty in reading it, — 
 pain in my heart all the time, — a new experience and 
 very embarrassing. I had to stop once, and ask a 
 breathing space." At the urgent request of his pastor 
 he led the prayer-meeting one night during ' ' the week 
 of prayer" — January, 1893. He spoke on "Earnestness 
 of the Church ' ' and with much earnestness, although 
 then suffering much pain. This was the last time he 
 spoke in public. It was a fitting close to his public 
 
 79 
 
services that he, who had been so profoundly in earnest 
 all his life, should urge earnestness in the church as his 
 last message to its membership. The continuance of 
 pain in his heart and his inability to get rest and sleep 
 led to grave doubts in the mind of his physician. About 
 this time he told Mrs. Worcester, privately, that though 
 Dr. Worcester might be much better he would never 
 be really well again, but would always be at least, a 
 semi-invalid. 
 
 The brief Christmas vacation, instead of bringing 
 renewed strength, left him weaker than it found him. 
 He was now compelled to take a carriage to the semi- 
 nary, being unable to walk the short distance to the 
 horse cars. 
 
 He did not attempt to attend Faculty meetings, 
 but he felt that it was best for himself to have his mind 
 occupied with other thoughts than his own condition, 
 and he did not see who could take his place should he 
 drop out. He was particularly unwilling to give up his 
 work of instruction as several of the faculty were in poor 
 health. Several times the doctor called intending each 
 time to tell him he must quit work, but after talking 
 with him, changed his mind, feeling that for a man of 
 his temperament it was better to keep on as long as 
 possible. 
 
 He was advised, finally, to go to Lakewood and 
 his colleagues urged it. He consented to go for a lit- 
 tle rest, but several things had to be attended to first 
 so that it was a week after deciding to go before he 
 could do so. On January 25 a consultation of 
 physicians was held, and the decision reached that he 
 must stop work at once. 
 
 80 
 
" In view of the complications at the Seminary 
 and the number of others in the faculty who are hors 
 du combat, it is very hard for me to accept this ' ' is the 
 entry in his diary, and the last he ever wrote in it. 
 
 The doctors said he must stop for the present, 
 but he confidently hoped that after two or three weeks 
 at Lakewood he would be able to resume teaching and 
 at least be able to carry the Seniors through. His work 
 was growing in interest to him all the time. The students 
 could not realize how ill he was, as his mind was con- 
 stantly so active and alert in class. 
 
 Mrs. Worcester says: "We left New York 
 Wednesday, February ist. One of the students kindly 
 went with us to the cars, and Mr. Worcester was much 
 pleased to hear him tell how much sympathy the stu- 
 dents felt for him, and how they appreciated his hero- 
 ism in keeping up against such odds. Speaking of it 
 afterwards he said to me, ' I am glad if they think I 
 am practicing what I preached when I told them not 
 to whine if they were sick,' referring to an address on 
 • 'Manliness" he had given them. The long ride of seven 
 miles over the rough streets before reaching our ferry 
 was somewhat exhausting, and on reaching the boat 
 we had to give him stimulants, (although he hated to 
 take brandy) and apply smelling salts. He said it 
 was a new experience to have people look at him as a 
 sick man. After we were once in the cars it was less 
 fatiguing, but he felt much wearied on reaching Lake- 
 wood. 
 
 We sent for a doctor that evening and he changed 
 the medicines, and Mr. Worcester slept better, I think, 
 than he had for several weeks, five hours without wak- 
 
 81 
 
ing once, and his head on but one pillow. He had 
 been taking nitro-glycerine to relieve the pain in his 
 heart for some time, but now the effect was beginning 
 to pass off so soon that often he could not get to sleep 
 before another season of pain would come. Thursday 
 morning he felt so decidedly better that we both felt 
 greatly encouraged, thinking that perhaps the change 
 of doctors and of scene were going to work wonders. 
 As we had met a friend the day before who reported 
 that she had gained seven pounds there in two weeks, 
 Mr. Worcester proposed our weighing ourselves that 
 morning, that we might see how much we should gain, 
 and was surprised to find that, though he had lost 
 much flesh he still weighed 164 1-2 pounds. We 
 spent the day quietly, but pleasantly in the house, as 
 it was rainy, and hoped for another good night, 
 but were disappointed. Medicines seemed to have 
 very little effect upon him, or the beneficial effect was 
 very transient. Friday the Lakewood physician told 
 me that his condition was very serious, and that he 
 thought he would never be a well man again. But I 
 had no idea that the end was so near. Friday after- 
 noon we took a drive of four miles about the lake, and 
 Mr. Worcester enjoyed it, and did not get very tired. 
 He was in the reading room part of the evening, and, 
 for a little while, at a concert in the music-room, but 
 the effort of walking up stairs caused him severe pain. 
 Another bad night followed, and every day saw him 
 weaker, so that even in getting about the house he 
 used a cane. Saturday, though bright, was, to his 
 disappointment, too cold and windy to make it prudent 
 to drive out, but we spent the morning pleasantly in the 
 
 82 
 
sunny corridors, among the plants and birds, and I 
 read aloud to him. When Dr. Stone came in to see 
 him about 5 p. m. I begged him to give him something, 
 if possible, that would cause him to sleep, as I felt that 
 a few more such exhausting nights would break him 
 down utterly, and then, following him out into the 
 hall, I asked him if I should send for my husband 's 
 parents. But he said no, he saw no indication what- 
 ever that it was necessary. And then he pressed my 
 hand, and bade me be brave, and I never saw him 
 again. 
 
 In regard to Mr. Worcester 's parents coming to 
 Lakewood, we had thought of the possibility of it, but 
 thought it inexpedient, unless absolutely necessary, in 
 view of the inclement weather, and their age and lack 
 of strength. But Mr. Worcester cautioned me, if they 
 did come not to let them stay in the room more than 
 three or four minutes at first, adding, ' I don 't know 
 but even that would be too much for this poor heart 
 of mine.' Saturday night he again suffered much, 
 sleeping but a few moments at a time. It was early 
 Saturday morning, I think, that I was getting something 
 when he asked if I had just knocked over a vase, and 
 when I answered no, he said that his naps were so very 
 short he could hardly tell when he was awake and when 
 he was asleep, adding that he always meant to be 
 patient, and that he thought he should be, but if he 
 was not I must always remember that it was delirium. 
 All through his illness he was very patient and uncom- 
 plaining, though the marked change was a very sad 
 one, from such vigorous health to such weakness. 
 
 When I told him that Dr. Stone had given out 
 83 
 
through over-work, and another physician was coming 
 to take his place, he exclaimed, ' How everything 
 works against me ! ' He kept his room all day by the 
 new doctor's orders, being dressed after having his 
 breakfast in bed, but whether sitting up or lying on the 
 bed, he said he could find no comfortable position, 
 and his weakness increased rapidly. He said he 
 thought he had never felt so completely exhausted be- 
 fore. Retiring after a light supper, he said as he 
 wound his watch, that he couldn't wind it many more 
 times if he continued to grow much weaker. The 
 doctor came in four times during the day, being in the 
 house, and wishing to observe closely the effect of the 
 medicines (which were almost powerless,) but it was 
 not till his nine o'clock visit that he looked particularly 
 serious, and then when I questioned him he said that 
 he could not tell, but that he thought the end was very 
 near. 
 
 "Well, dear, you wont have much longer to suf- 
 fer.' ' " The doctor thinks that I am going, does he ?" 
 " Yes." " Then let us send telegrams." " Yes, this 
 is death. I hear the death-rattle." "There is so 
 much that I want to say, but so little breath to say it. * ' 
 "Oh, I didn't know it was so hard to die. Death 
 by suffocation is hard. Lord help me to be 
 patient. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. ' ' 
 
 When he first knew he was going, and Mrs. D. 
 asked if she should stay with us he answered with a 
 grateful smile, " No, we will watch it out together." 
 I could only hold his hand and wipe the moisture from 
 his forehead. He was drenched with perspiration, he 
 coughed a great deal so that it was impossible to 
 
 84 
 
speak, and his breath came like groans. But often he 
 looked at me and smiled, as if to cheer me. When I 
 asked if he were ready to go he said, ' ' Only as I 
 trust in my Redeemer." He sent messages to the 
 children telling them to trust in their father's God, 
 and adding that they had always been an unspeakable 
 comfort to him, and sent tender messages to his par- 
 ents. He began repeating ' ' Leave thy fatherless 
 children,' ' adding "you know the rest," and for me 
 he repeated in full the beautiful benediction, "The 
 Lord bless thee and keep thee : The Lord make his 
 face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee : The 
 Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee 
 peace.' ' ' 
 
 And so, just before midnight, Sunday, February 5, 
 1893, this servant of God closed his eyes on all 
 earthly scenes to open them on the beauties 
 of his celestial home. He, who had so patiently 
 suffered so much, passed through the gates and 
 into the city where there "shall be no more 
 pain ; for the former things are passed away." 
 
 Without murmuring, and without repining this 
 heroic soul ended its conflicts with disease and with 
 sin, and joined the "ten thousand times ten thous- 
 and, and thousands of thousands,' ' forevermore to 
 be numbered among those ' ' which came out of great 
 tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore 
 they are before the throne of God, and serve him day 
 and night in his temple ; and he that sitteth on the 
 throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no 
 more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun 
 
 85 
 
light on them nor any heat. For the Lamb which is 
 in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall 
 lead them unto living fountains of waters ; and God 
 shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." 
 
 When news reached Chicago that Dr. Worcester 
 was "very near home," it found Presbytery in ses- 
 sion, and produced a feeling of deep but chastened 
 grief. Although he had passed away before the report 
 that the end was near reached them, his former asso- 
 ciates in Presbytery suspended the order of exercises 
 and spent the time in most earnest prayer. The loss 
 was felt to be a personal bereavement to all who had 
 known him. 
 
 Brief memorial services were held at Union Sem- 
 inary on Tuesday, and the final funeral exercises were 
 held Thursday, February 9, 1893, at the home of his 
 father and in the church where as a child, student, 
 and young man he had worshiped. 
 
 Rev. Simon J. McPherson, D. D., and Rev. 
 James Lewis D. D. , represented the Chicago Presby- 
 tery at the funeral and participated in the exercises. 
 The Sixth Presbyterian Church of Chicago was repre- 
 sented by one of its members, sent by vote of its ses- 
 sion. The principal address was delivered by the 
 president of Vermont University, Rev. Matthew Henry 
 Buckham, D. D., and is as follows : 
 
 " There are times — and this certainly is one of them 
 — when our experience of life forces us back upon the 
 great primary verities of religion ; times when all our 
 little philosophies and theodicies fail us, and we are 
 driven into that final stronghold whose solid founda- 
 tion is in the wisdom and goodness of God. In our 
 
 86 
 
days of calmness and prosperity, looking out over the 
 calamities of men, we can, as we think, do something 
 to justify the ways of God to man, but the time comes 
 to us all when we shrink from a task to which we feel 
 no wisdom is equal save that infinite wisdom which is 
 forever associated with infinite love. When the fair 
 promise of a young life is suddenly broken, when 
 splendid powers of intellect, affection, and will, splen- 
 didly equipped for action are silenced just when they 
 have reached their highest point of efficiency, no mere 
 earthly vindications or compensations can bring to our 
 minds any repose or comfort. And our trouble only 
 increases when we take the large and unselfish view of 
 such a loss, when we take into the account its effects 
 upon the common welfare, upon the interests of virtue, 
 religion, and humanity. When we see a young man 
 thus fully equipped with the means of great power, go 
 into a certain city, not to buy and sell and get gain, 
 but to serve his generation, to teach and preach the 
 truth which the world needs, to help men and women 
 to find the true life, and when we see him gaining and 
 using more and more of this beneficent power, and vir- 
 tue going out of him on all sides round, and the hearts 
 of all good men full of cheer and hope and gratitude 
 because of the grace of God in him, and then when we 
 see this power suddenly brought, to a stand, this gra- 
 cious gift withdrawn, this beneficent career ended, this, 
 I say, brings to its supreme trial our faith in God. 
 More, almost, than any other experience in life, it 
 compels us to ask, ' ' Is God indeed wise, and is he 
 good." One of the worst possible answers to this ques- 
 tion is that stoical resignation which is more than half 
 
 87 
 
unbelief, which says, ' ' I will not think, and I will not 
 feel, because that way lies rebellion and despair." It 
 is good to give to our natural human feelings their 
 course and vent. Even as the tears of our Saviour 
 drew from those around him at the grave of his friend 
 the exclamation, "behold how he loved him," so let 
 our affection, our grief, our sense of love, have all that 
 flood of expression which nature prompts and which 
 religion approves. Let us tell one another, as not 
 feeling any restraint or rebuke from religion what vir- 
 tues he had, what good works he wrought, what love 
 he inspired, what example he left to his children, 
 what inspiration his life brings to all who will read 
 God's lessons in and through him. And so through 
 our natural human feelings shall be opened channels 
 through which the peace of God, and the comforts of 
 the Holy Spirit, and the assurance of divine love flood- 
 ing and driving out all doubt, and fears, shall enter in 
 and possess our hearts. 
 
 The company gathered here to-day doubtless con- 
 sists in large part of those who have known John 
 Worcester from his youth up. And it is one source of 
 comfort to us to recall that life, the whole of it — for I 
 am sure there is in our memory of it no single act which 
 we would wish to forget to-day. We remember his 
 boyhood, bright, and. pure, and hallowed ; we remem- 
 ber how in early life, through that process which is the 
 privilege of Christian nurture, almost unconsciously to 
 himself he entered into the Christian life ; some of us 
 remember the thoroughly boyish and yet thoroughly 
 serious spirit, with which in this very room he engaged 
 in biblical study : how before the establishment of 
 
 88 
 
Christian Associations and Young Peoples' Societies, 
 when the sentiment of youthful society in Burlington 
 was not as strongly Christian as it now is, he stood 
 with decision and enthusiasm, side by side with those 
 who, not merely by passive sympathy, but by active 
 effort, gave themselves to the promotion of virtue and 
 piety in our city, and how some of those youthful 
 activities are even now bearing fruit in the organized 
 Christian Institutions which are doing so much to bring 
 God's blessing upon our community. 
 
 Of his college course you will permit me to speak 
 with freedom and feeling. College men understand, 
 what others may not, how largely the intellectual and 
 moral tone of college life is dependent on a few lead- 
 ing men in the student body. It frequently happens 
 that a small number of such men, or even one man, 
 will impart so much of their or his individuality to their 
 class or their associates, that the whole life of the Col- 
 lege is affected thereby. John Worcester was such a 
 man. He lifted the intellectual level of the whole col- 
 lege of his time. Bright, facile, capable in all depart- 
 ments, susceptible of enthusiasm from great and inspir- 
 ing thoughts coming from all good studies, he set a 
 standard of attainment and of intellectual production 
 which the better minds strove to reach and which even 
 the less gifted were ashamed to fall far below. I feel 
 sure that every student of his time will bear me witness 
 that Worcester's brilliant career was then and still is 
 regarded as one of the not few careers of which the 
 Institution has reason to be proud, a success which, 
 not depending on mere facility in acquisition and repi- 
 tition, but based on solid attainments and revealing 
 
 89 
 
reserved power, gave promise of an equally brilliant 
 career in after life. 
 
 It was the natural outcome of such a scholarly 
 ambition and such a College reputation that after com- 
 pleting his theological studies and spending some time 
 in study and travel abroad, he was invited to an in- 
 structorship in the University, and after proving his 
 ability to succeed as a teacher that he was called to a 
 permanent place in the Faculty. But feeling that a 
 dispensation of the Gospel was committed to him, he 
 declined the invitation and entered the ministry in 
 which service he continued without interruption for 
 twenty years and until called to the chair of theology 
 a little more than a year ago. 
 
 Of his work in his two pastorates, first for eleven 
 years in Orange, New Jersey, and afterward for nine 
 years in Chicago, others will more fittingly speak. In 
 these fields the main work of his life was done, and any 
 adequate tribute to his memory should be mainly taken 
 up with this period of his life. That in the pastoral 
 office he steadily gained repute and influence, that his 
 pulpit ministrations attracted large audiences, that the 
 churches which he served and led became potent agen- 
 cies for good in their communities, this we know. 
 What we cannot know, what never can be estimated 
 by human standards of success, is the sum of his 
 spiritual influence ; the truth first vitalized in his own 
 heart and life and then scattered broadcast to germi- 
 nate and fructify in other lives ; the souls he helped 
 upward in faith and holiness ; the hopes, and inspira- 
 tions, and comforts of religion made real in human 
 hearts and homes and societies. Doubtless some small 
 
 90 
 
number of these fruits of his ministry will come to light 
 through personal letters and tributes of affection from 
 grateful and sorrowing hearts, but the largest and best 
 parts of them will never be known to men until the 
 time comes when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, 
 and when redeemed souls are permitted to acknowl- 
 edge their eternal debt of gratitude to those who led 
 them into the way of everlasting life. 
 
 It sometimes happens in the career of a man 
 whose life is not passed on the great stage of the world, 
 that in connection with some great critical event the 
 whole life of the man flowers out into some character- 
 istic which gives him henceforward the large place 
 in men's esteem which he had long merited. This was 
 eminently true of Mr. Worcester's action in the General 
 Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1891. The 
 occasion was one of those heated controversies which 
 show us how very far we still are from having attained 
 to that calmness of conviction which the conscious 
 possession of the truth always brings with it. Partisan 
 counsels were in the ascendant. Danger of serious 
 rupture was near and threatening. The time was ripe 
 for an irenic word. The hour had come for a large- 
 minded and sweet-spirited man to lift the issue into the 
 higher region of tolerance and comprehensiveness. Dr. 
 Worcester saw the crisis, seized the opportunity, and 
 did what one brave and clear-sighted man could to 
 turn thought and feeling into wiser and safer channels. 
 Those who were present tell me that his speech was a 
 great outburst of Christian magnanimity, which will 
 long be memorable in the history of the Assembly. 
 Defeated of its purpose by parliamentary tactics, it 
 
 91 
 
nevertheless even drew to its author the regard and the 
 hopes of all in the denomination whose supreme inter- 
 est was for the peace and prosperity of the Church. It 
 was therefore no surprise, when shortly after, Dr. 
 Worcester was called to one of the most important 
 positions in the Presbyterian Church, that of professor 
 of theology in Union Seminary. 
 
 What Dr. Worcester would have accomplished in 
 this high and difficult position, had life and health been 
 spared to him, we can only conjecture. The bent of 
 his mind had not hitherto been in the direction of sys- 
 tematic theology, but rather toward religion on its vital 
 and practical side. Perhaps this would have given 
 him a great advantage in his approach to the study of 
 theology. Perhaps those who appointed him to the 
 chair hoped that the experience of a twenty years ' 
 pastorate, mingling itself with the studies of a man still 
 young and growing, might beget a style of theological 
 teaching which would prove eminently helpful to the 
 preachers and pastors of the new generation. Cer- 
 tainly we who knew him could easily believe that on 
 the one hand his sympathy with those essential and 
 vital doctrines of Christianity which have wrought 
 themselves into the noblest and holiest lives, and on 
 the other hand that spirit of sincerity and fidelity 
 which leads one to value truth beyond all traditions 
 and conventionalities, would have led him to 
 strive to work out in his own mind, and to teach to 
 students, a theology which would be at the same time 
 dogmatic and evangelic, at once Johannean and 
 Pauline. 
 
 Two great sorrows coming near each other cannot 
 
 92 
 
but associate themselves in our minds. It would be 
 flattery unworthy of him and of us to compare our 
 friend with the great Churchman whom all Christen- 
 dom mourns. No other man in our generation had 
 gifts and influence at all comparable with those of 
 Phillips Brooks. But as they have, both in the prime 
 of life, passed out of the Christian ministry so near 
 each other, it is a pleasing consolation to us to asso- 
 ciate them in our minds as fellow workers in this great- 
 est of ministries. Especially pleasant is it to think of 
 each of them as being in his sphere a representative of a 
 Christianity, large, tolerant, comprehensive, but none 
 the less clinging with life and death earnestness to that 
 essential Christianity which is the world's hope. Why 
 the Great Head of the Church takes to himself those 
 who, to our view, seem to be the most useful and the 
 most needed of all his earthly servants, is his secret 
 with which we may not interfere. 
 
 God is wise ; God is good ; what He does is best. 
 There we rest. Beyond this we cannot go. May he 
 help us to say, ' "thy will be done." 
 
 93 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 On Sunday evening, February 12, a memorial 
 service was held in the Sixth Presbyterian Church and 
 the house was crowded with a sorrowing congregation. 
 
 Mr. Charles J. Merritt spoke feelingly of his 
 former pastor as a man, recalling his strong personal- 
 ity, his remarkable loyalty to truth, his sterling hon- 
 esty of character, and his strong love for his pastoral 
 work. 
 
 Mr. John S. Ford, Superintendent of the Sunday 
 School, spoke of Dr. Worcester in his relation to Sun- 
 day School work, telling of his interest, sympathy, 
 helpfulness, and above all his constant watchfulness 
 for spiritual results from the labors of teachers and 
 officers of the school. 
 
 Mr. IV. B. Jacobs spoke in earnest and tender 
 words of the relation of the departed to Christian 
 zvork in general. His interest in work for souls knew 
 no parish boundary, but embraced every activity and 
 every form of service which had for its aim the rescue 
 of perishing souls. He was never too busy to give 
 time for any helpful service. He rejoiced in good done 
 for the cause of Christ by whomever done. 
 
 Rev. Simon J. McPherson, D. D., pastor of the 
 Second Presbyterian Church, spoke of his departed 
 friend's work in Presbytery. He spoke of his great 
 ability, his safe, clear judgment, his candor, rare fidel- 
 
 94 
 
ity, promptness, intense earnestness, and exceptional 
 modesty. He was a safe leader. He commanded at- 
 tention by his wonderful power for lucid statement, 
 and cleared the way for intelligent and loyal following 
 by his marvellous ability to set complicated questions 
 in a light so clear that they were made to appear 
 simple. 
 
 Mr. Alexander Forbes told the story of his last 
 illness and death. 
 
 A committee appointed by the Session presented 
 the following memorial, which was unanimously 
 adopted by the congregation, and ordered to be signed 
 by the Officers of the Church and the Church and So- 
 ciety, and a copy sent to Mrs. Worcester : 
 
 " In view of the recent death of our former be- 
 loved pastor, Rev. J. H. Worcester, Jr., D. D., the 
 Sixth Presbyterian Church of Chicago puts on record its 
 appreciation of his character and his services : Dr. 
 Worcester was preeminently a manly man. He exem- 
 plified in his whole life his deep-seated conviction, 
 often expressed, that ' Christianity is a virile religion ; ' 
 that it develops those traits of character, — courage, in- 
 tegrity, fidelity to duty, sympathy, and tender love 
 that unite to complete our idea of the manly man. 
 His exceptional loyalty to conviction relieved him, in 
 very large measure, from the paralyzing effect of con- 
 flict between desire and duty. When duty was made 
 clear to him, discussion ceased. This freedom from 
 conflict within himself was one of the elements of his 
 greatness. 
 
 As a preacher he was, beyond question, great. 
 Gifted with a mind naturally faultlessly logical, he 
 
 95 
 
readily comprehended the unity of his subject, and the 
 proper relation of all of its parts. He was thus enabled 
 to state his position with masterful skill and with sur- 
 passing clearness. The foundation for his argument 
 was always laid broad and deep on truths easily com- 
 prehended and indisputable. The discussion he always 
 conducted along lines obviously natural and generously 
 straight-forward. His premises being granted, his 
 conclusions were logical necessities. He was, at all 
 times, and everywhere, a preacher of the Gospel. His 
 great, controlling purpose was to lead to Christ and 
 then build up Christian character in those in whose 
 hearts a good work had been begun. So clearly, so 
 faithfully, so successfully did he point to the ' Lamb of 
 God ' that those whom he reached were always carried 
 beyond himself to the Saviour of men. 
 
 Thus it was (and it was to his greatest credit) 
 there never was a party calling itself by his name in 
 this church. He found no time or place, in this pul- 
 pit, for effort at mere literary display, polished and or- 
 nate though his discourses usually were. His whole 
 purpose and work as a preacher were truthfully 
 summed up in the text of his last sermon as pastor of 
 this church : ' For I determined not to know any- 
 thing among you save Jesus Christ and Him, crucified.' 
 
 In his pastoral work he was preserving, faithful, 
 and tender. He never wearied waiting on our slow 
 creeping, even when himself could soar, if only he 
 could know that we were trying. The tenderness and 
 the wealth of sympathy of his loving heart only those 
 who were called to pass through deep waters of afflic- 
 tion ever fully knew. The depth of his genuine sym- 
 
 96 
 
pathy was often obscured by an unusual modesty and 
 self-distrust. These qualities, together with his un- 
 swerving honesty, led him habitually to under-state 
 his feelings. To those only who live in an atmosphere 
 of over-statement could he ever have been regarded as 
 other than tender and loving. 
 
 In the death of Dr. Worcester this church pro- 
 foundly feels itself bereaved. We sorrow that we 
 shall see his face no more. We are grateful for the 
 legacy which this servant of the Master has left us of 
 loyalty to God ; unselfish devotion to duty ; a domi- 
 nating purpose to win men to Christ ; a firm belief 
 that the religion of Jesus Christ, accepted and em- 
 braced, is the only sure antidote for the benumbing 
 discontents which so try us amid the conflicts of life. 
 
 To the bereaved father and mother we tender our 
 sympathy in this hour of their sore trial. 
 
 Our hearts go out in loving sympathy for our dear 
 Mrs. Worcester, in this hour of her loneliness and sor- 
 row. We beg to assure her that she will ever be dear 
 to us for her own sake and for her work among us, no 
 less than for the tender relation which she sustained to 
 our beloved brother and former pastor. 
 
 To the children we can but say : ' Let your 
 father's God be your God ; his Redeemer yours ; and 
 his triumph shall finally be yours.' God's Word 
 abounds with special promises for the widow and the 
 fatherless, and we humbly invoke for Mrs. Worcester 
 and the children the richest fulfillment of all upon, 
 and unto them." 
 
 The memorial service closed with a tribute to Dr. 
 Worcester by the pastor of the church, Rev. Carlos 
 
 <J7 
 
Martyn, D. D. The excellent condition in which he 
 found the church after fourteen months without a 
 leader spoke in the strongest terms of the excellence 
 of the work of his predecessor. The church was thor- 
 oughly organized and all its activities carried forward 
 by a people who had been specially well trained for in- 
 telligent service. 
 
 The Executive Committee of the Presbyterian 
 Social Union appointed one of the members of the 
 ' ' Union ' ' to prepare a brief ' ' minute ' ' on the death of 
 Dr. Worcester and to present the same at the regular 
 meeting, February 20. The following was offered : 
 
 "The Presbyterian Social Union of Chicago has 
 been saddened by the death of Rev. John Hopkins 
 Worcester, Jr., D. D. — a member of this Union from 
 its organization until his removal from the city. In 
 view of Dr. Worcester's position in this Union as one 
 of its most valuable members and wisest counsellors, 
 as well as its third president, we deem it proper to 
 record our appreciation of him, and of his services. 
 
 In the death of Dr. Worcester the Presbyterian 
 Church has lost one of its choicest leaders, the cause 
 of Jesus Christ one of its most faithful and loyal ser- 
 vants ; and society, one of its purest men. 
 
 The greatness of Dr. Worcester consisted, in part, 
 in his surpassing clearness of mind ; in his marvellous 
 ability to analyze a complex problem, separating it into 
 its simple elements ; in his wonderful power of clear 
 and convincing statement ; in his supreme loyalty to 
 truth, and courageous advocacy thereof under all cir- 
 cumstances ; in his genuine humility of soul, never 
 seeking honor or prominence for himself ; in his sincer- 
 
ity and open frankness ; in his loving catholicity of 
 spirit, and, above all, in his thorough consecration of 
 himself and all his rare powers to the service of the 
 Master he so nobly served. 
 
 As Presbyterians we mourn the early death of one 
 so amply endowed, so richly furnished for large useful- 
 ness, so temperate in speech, so generously liberal, yet 
 so safely conservative,' so judicious and so judicial in 
 word and act, and at a time, too, when our beloved 
 church so greatly needs this combination of rare quali- 
 ties in its leaders. 
 
 As the best tribute we can pay to the memory of 
 our departed brother we here pledge one another more 
 thoroughly to imitate his example in all wherein he 
 imitated Christ Jesus, and more earnestly to strive to 
 emulate those virtues which endeared him to all who 
 fully knew him, and which made him so conspicuous 
 an example of dignified Christian manhood. 
 
 To his bereaved wife and children we tender our 
 sincere sympathy, mingling our tears with theirs, and 
 praying that they may ever have the assurance that 
 God's arms of loving care are underneath them to hold 
 them up ; that His gracious hand will dry their tears. 
 We humbly invoke for them the- comfort which the 
 abiding presence of God's loving Spirit alone can 
 give. ' ' 
 
 After a few remarks by the author of the minute 
 on the character of Dr. Worcester and the great loss to 
 the church and to the world, the minute was unani- 
 mously adopted by a rising vote. 
 
 The action of the Chicago Presbytery of which Dr. 
 Worcester was a member at the time of his death is 
 
 99 
 
recorded in the following, offered by a committee 
 through its chairman, Rev. J. G. K. McClure, D. D. : 
 " It is with a high sense of its privilege that the Pres- 
 bytery of Chicago records its admiration and affection 
 for the Rev. John H. Worcester, Jr. D. D. who passed 
 to the presence of his Lord, Feb. 5, 1893. 
 
 He was our dearly beloved brother and friend. 
 Coming into this Presbytery in February, 1883, to be 
 the pastor of the Sixth Church of Chicago, he imme- 
 diately became a leader in counsel and in work by 
 reason of his inherent worth. Every interest of each 
 and all of our churches was dear to him. He gave 
 himself without reserve to the consideration and help 
 of all subjects presented to our attention and left a 
 positive impression of wise, fair judgment upon every 
 matter to which he applied his thoughts. His charac- 
 ter was so strong and complete that it is not easy to 
 single out a special trait and say, this was the man. 
 And still his exemplification of faithfulness in every re- 
 lation of life, was most marked. In the family circle 
 a truer man as husband, father, and son never lived. 
 In the ties of friendship he was loyal with a loyalty 
 that loved without counting cost. As a preacher of 
 God's word he held to that word whithersoever that 
 word might lead him. As a pastor he served those 
 committed to his care with a watchfulness that made 
 their spiritual health his unceasing effort. As a pres- 
 byter his regularity, his punctuality, his readiness for 
 every duty, his conscientious attention to detail, were 
 recognized by all. As a minister of the Presbyterian 
 Church he responded to her needs with devotion and 
 was ready at any crisis to lift his voice in her welfare. 
 
 100 
 
As a seeker after truth he opened his life widely to the 
 light, and when he saw the light he obeyed his con- 
 ceptions of truth unmoved by praise or criticism. As a 
 believer in God he held to God with an unswerving 
 fealty even in the utter dearth of feeling, when life 
 seemed without a glow or an aspiration. 
 
 This faithfulness animated a man of great mental 
 power. He had an intellect that could weigh evidence 
 without haste and without prejudice ; that was cap- 
 able of long continued processes of analysis ; that 
 penetrated beneath the surface of words and things ; 
 and that reasoned with fairness, sureness, and force. 
 His ability for clear statement was commanding. 
 Whether he was explaining a matter of parliamentary 
 law, or a case of casuistry, or an exegetical difficulty, 
 or a philosophical problem, he always put his own 
 crystalline thought into terse, strong, crystalline ex- 
 pression. His mere statement of a question and what 
 was involved in it, often answered the question to 
 thoughtful minds. United with his intellect was a very 
 tender heart. He seemed strong enough in physique 
 and in mental force to be self poised. But no man 
 needed sympathy and trust and affection more than he, 
 and no man craved them more. What he desired from 
 others he stood ready to give to others. He loved and 
 he wanted to be loved. His great heart was keenly 
 appreciative of every expression of personal interest and 
 was even dependent for its joy upon such expression. 
 He died as a member of this Presbytery though 
 serving the church of God as Professor of Systematic 
 Theology in Union Theological Seminary, New York. 
 He went to that position urged thereto by the earnest 
 
 101 
 
solicitation of the members of this Presbytery who be- 
 lieved that a large opportunity awaited him in it of 
 advancing the intellectual and spiritual life of the 
 church, and who believed that he was sufficient, under 
 God, for that opportunity. He did not however sever 
 his connection with the Presbytery, for here were the 
 churches, the work, and the brethren to whom his 
 heart still cleaved. 
 
 It is with very tender and very lonely feelings that 
 we thus recognize the worth of this scholarly, conse- 
 crated, genuine man of God, who has gone home to 
 his master and his friend. We rejoice that he labored 
 among us so long, and that we knew him so well. We 
 rejoice that every memory of him will always appeal to 
 us to be earnest, to be brave, to be devoted. We send 
 our affectionate greetings to his parents, and to Mrs. 
 Worcester and her three children whose welfare will 
 always be our joy, and we bid the Saviour of mankind 
 bind up their hearts and ours and help us all to make 
 fresh progress toward the land of the vision of God. ' ' 
 
 The minute was adopted by a rising vote and Rev. 
 Herrick Johnson, D. D. led the Presbytery in prayer. 
 
 It is most fitting that this part of the volume 
 should close with the able address of Dr. McPherson, 
 at the Union Theological Seminary. 
 
 102 
 
MEMORIAL DISCOURSE 
 
 Delivered by invitation of the Board of Directors of 
 the Union Theological Seminary, April ij, i8pj. 
 
 Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, 
 And mine acquaintance into darkness. — Ps. lxxxviii. 18. 
 
 The memory of the just is blessed. — Prov. x. 7. 
 
 But . . . if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
 even so them that are also fallen asleep in Jesus will God 
 bring with Him.— 1 Thess. iv. 14. 
 
 We are a company of bereaved brethren. We at 
 once lament and celebrate a pastor, a colleague, a 
 teacher, who was a faithful lover and friend to us all. 
 For myself I can truly say that I never had, and I 
 never expect to have, a more valued fellow in the Min- 
 istry of the Gospel than he. From the day on which 
 I was ordained, through twelve happy years, to the day 
 when he became a professor in this honored institu- 
 tion, it was my favored lot in Providence to serve par- 
 ishes which immediately adjoined his own. I became 
 intimately associated and acquainted with him. The 
 better I came to know him, the more highly I esti- 
 mated him as a rare type of Christian manhood, and 
 the more warmly I loved him as a great-hearted com- 
 panion. I felt the loss seriously when he left my side. 
 Now, when communications with him are altogether 
 interrupted, I sadly realize that a blessing, irrecover- 
 able on earth, has been taken out of my life. Yet in 
 the consequent loneliness, which is a shadowy premon- 
 
 103 
 
ition of old age, it is consoling to think of him as a 
 vital attestation of Wisdom's words: "The memory 
 of the just is blessed." Friendship is heir to the rich 
 legacy of his life. Sweeter still is the white promise 
 of our hopes in him. As debtor through him alike to 
 the sacred past and to the unimaginable future, I am 
 thankful for the opportunity to place a handful of lilies 
 on his early grave. Do we not know that when the 
 perpetual Easter dawns he will greet us as radiant 
 "Angel" of the Lord and Giver of life ? Meantime, 
 may our motives be chastened and our lives conse- 
 crated by the vision of what he has already become. 
 
 Character is never an accident. Bringing forth 
 after its kind, it has so close a connection with ancestry 
 that the laws of heredity largely determine it. Influ- 
 enced by the atmosphere in which it grows, personal 
 and family and social relations give tone and color to 
 its developments. Formed by its peculiar discipline, 
 it is a cameo carved and polished by the lapidary arts 
 of education. Still more is it a crystalization of inward 
 disposition, choice, act and habit. These familiar and 
 fundamental facts have a fresh illustration in the deriva- 
 tion, life and character of that Christian gentleman 
 whom we are commemorating this evening. 
 
 He was of English and Puritan lineage, but in the 
 eighth of the generations who have been at home in 
 the New World. Four of his seven American fore- 
 fathers were ministers, and there is good reason to 
 hope that his gifted oldest son may become the sixth 
 in that sacred line. His name, which under two or 
 three different forms of orthography, is widely scattered 
 amongst Anglo-Saxons, is said to have, etymologically, 
 
 104 
 
a martial meaning ; but the family coat of arms, we are 
 told, "signifies the first bearer to have been a priest, 
 or some religious person ; or else one that had done 
 much for the church." The family itself has certainly 
 favored both the church and the school. 
 
 The original settler in New England, Rev. William 
 Worcester, is mentioned in the Magnalia of Cotton 
 Mather. ' ' A fugitive from persecution and tyranny ' ' 
 he came, apparently, from Salisbury, England, in 1637 
 or 1638. He was at once appointed pastor at Col- 
 chester, which, in 1840, became Salisbury, the oldest 
 town north of the Merrimac River. Its church was the 
 eighteenth in the Massachusetts Colony, of which he 
 was made a freeman in 1639. A man of liberal educa- 
 tion he is described as ' ' learned, wise, meek and 
 patient,'' — attributes distinctive of his descendants. 
 
 The next three in the line lived in Massachusetts ; 
 godly, industrious men, of stalwart character, devoted 
 to the public weal, and loving, as one of them said, 
 "to see a man manly.' ' Francis, of the fourth gen- 
 eration, after being some ten years a pastor, became an 
 evangelist and did thorough work in revival meetings, 
 part of the time with Whitefield. Noah, his son, a 
 farmer and shoe maker, who settled at Hollis, New 
 Hampshire, entered the army of the revolution with 
 two of his sons, but lived to gather around his table 
 eighteen children, of whom five were ministers. When 
 he died he left seventy-eight grandchildren. 
 
 Throughout these five generations, we are credibly 
 assured, ' ' one and the same character, essentially, ap- 
 peared from first to last .... There may be 
 ascribed to each an enlightened belief in God and his 
 
 105 
 
Word ; a confiding recognition of his Providence in all 
 things ; a fervent spirit and a constant habit of devo- 
 tion ; an undeviating reverence for the Sabbath and 
 every institution of the Gospel ; an irreproachable ver- 
 acity and honesty ; an erect manliness and an un- 
 daunted courage ; with an inflexible adherance to con- 
 victions of duty, and a benevolent forwardness to mul- 
 tiply and extend, in every appropriate and practicable 
 manner, ' the glory and virtue ' of the Church of God. 
 What an index to the personality of Professor Worces- 
 ter, and, indeed, to the Pilgrim race of New England ! 
 
 In the sixth generation, two members of the fam- 
 ily are of special interest to us. One of them, Dr. 
 Samuel Worcester, a graduate of Dartmouth and a 
 famous preacher of the day at Salem, was among the 
 most active of the organizers, and for about twenty 
 years the first Corresponding Secretary, of the Ameri- 
 can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
 The other, Rev. Leonard Worcester, was the grand- 
 father of our friend. He was a Trustee of the Univer- 
 sity of Vermont. At first an editor, he was after- 
 wards, for nearly half a century, the pastor at Peacham, 
 Vermont, where his memory is still reverently cher- 
 ished. 
 
 Four of his sons, as I make it out, were ministers. 
 One of them, Rev. John H. Worcester, D. D., whose 
 namesake and only child your professor was, still lives 
 in Burlington, Vermont, a noble and most venerable 
 figure. He was the pastor, first, at St. Johnsbury, 
 where his son was born, and, later, at Burlington. For 
 some years subsequently he was occupied in teaching. 
 Burdened with defective hearing at his great age he 
 
 106 
 
has passed his most recent years largely within his 
 spacious and well-filled library, in refined and studious 
 retirement. His patriarchal form, cast in the heroic 
 mould which has been common in the family, his intel- 
 lectual head and attractive face, his gentle and digni- 
 fied manner, and his pathetic and controlled sorrow, 
 too deep for tears and too great for words, would win 
 and touch any heart, especially if it loved his son. 
 His is a gifted and cultivated mind, stored with select 
 and classified knowledge, and trained to think upon 
 high and difficult themes. Withal, its forces are mar- 
 shalled by a reverent and independent judgment, con- 
 servative of ascertained realities and hospitable to fresh 
 aspects of truth from any quarter. We need not won- 
 der at what Prof. Worcester was when we remember 
 that he was not only the son but also, for a third of a 
 century, the close companion of such a man. 
 
 To this heritage and family, John Hopkins 
 Worcester, Jr., was born April 2, 1845. Clean, stim- 
 ulating blood flowed in his infant veins. When self- 
 consciousness dawned, he could look backward with a 
 sense of privilege and indebtedness, and forward with 
 a sense of opportunity and high obligation. He found 
 himself tenderly welcomed in the membership of a re- 
 spected, refined and unostentatiously affectionate 
 Christian home. He had parents to whom he could 
 look up, and who led his youthful vision towards the 
 Father in heaven. His mother, Martha P. Clark, was 
 the daughter of Deacon Luther Clark, of St. Johns- 
 bury. She was the youngest of three sisters, and the 
 only one that is not now living. One of her sisters 
 married the late Judge Redfield, for many years Chief 
 
 107 
 
Justice of Vermont. The other became the wife of 
 Rev. Joseph S. Gallagher, once the skillful and effi- 
 cient Treasurer of this Seminary. All accounts agree 
 that Professor Worcestor 's mother was a lovely 
 woman, with fine intellectual endowments and a sweet 
 Christian spirit. She died when her son was three 
 years old, entreating him with her latest breath to love 
 the dear Saviour. As he was carried away from her 
 grave, he burst into tears with the bitter cry : ' ' Now, 
 I shan 't have a Mamma any more. ' ' But it was oth- 
 erwise ordered. He was favored as few orphans have 
 ever been. When he was less than seven years old, 
 the present wife of his father became a genuine mother 
 to him. Of Scottish extraction, high attainments and 
 beautiful Christian character, her training was invalu- 
 able to him. 
 
 In Burlington, as in St. Johnsbury, he was sur- 
 rounded by a quiet, cultivated New England town. 
 The glories of the Green Mountains and of the Adiron- 
 dacks beset him round. The picturesque and historic 
 Lake Champlain lay beneath his eyes. Temptations, 
 like those of a great city, were nowhere obtrusive, and 
 there was a wholesome inspiration alike in the human 
 life and in the natural scenery environing him. The 
 climate, like the moral standard of his home, was hon- 
 estly severe, but the impulses of domestic, social and 
 religious life were warm, true and inviting. It was a 
 favored, happy lot, whose good influences abounded in 
 him to his latest hour on earth. 
 
 As a boy, he appears to have been precocious, as 
 he certainly was remarkably handsome. He knew the 
 alphabet from picture-blocks when he was only two 
 
 108 
 
years old, and by the end of his third year he had, with 
 a little occasional help, taught himself to read. But 
 his native capacity, industry and modesty, coupled with 
 wise training, kept him from being spoiled. The in- 
 tellectual and moral atmosphere of his home were 
 unusually stimulating, in some particulars, perhaps, too 
 stimulating for an entirely symmetrical development of 
 his boyish nature. It was at first a parsonage and 
 afterwards a school. He was constantly in the com- 
 pany of older minds. It may be a question whether 
 his early years had enough either of playtime or play- 
 mates for jovial mental health. At any rate, there are 
 indications that he attained uncommon maturity in his 
 youth. He became a member of the Church in his 
 seventeenth year. That step, however, was by no 
 means forced upon him. It was the natural thing for 
 him to take it, for he never knew when he became a 
 Christian. His faith blossomed out like a flower in 
 spring time. Its fruits, too, were prompt to follow. 
 While still young, he was one of the original founders 
 of the Young Men's Christian Association in Burling- 
 ton, and an effective leader in Sunday School and Mis- 
 sion Work. Nevertheless, his powers and his useful 
 activities continued to grow and to increase their 
 harmonious adjustments to the end of his life. 
 
 After completing his preparatory course under the 
 eye of his father, he entered the University of Ver- 
 mont, from which he graduated in 1865. His college 
 career was notable both as a key to his character and 
 on account of the influence which it exerted upon him. 
 Still living at home, as he did, he may have become 
 less fully identified with the social features of that 
 
 109 
 
microcosmic life than would have been good for him. 
 A cotemporary describes him as rather exclusive, genial 
 with a few friends, disposed to be choice in his society, 
 yet really warm-hearted and helpful towards all. 
 His mere acquaintances were disposed to whisper that 
 he had contracted a few harmless little airs from the 
 girls' school in his father's house, where he may have felt 
 semi-conscious superiority. I doubt the exactness of 
 the inference, but we can all understand the sort of 
 rallying to which this opinion of average college boys 
 would subject him, and which may not have been alto- 
 gether injurious to him. Then, too, he was a fine 
 scholar, studious in all departments and brilliant in 
 some. Alike more gifted, more cultivated and more 
 mature than most of his fellows, he had then, as ever, 
 what amounted to a passion for accuracy. He was 
 one of the most effective writers and speakers. Yet 
 at that stage he had not acquired the simplicity which 
 marked his later and fuller manhood. Human nature 
 around him looked up towards him and excused itself 
 by dubbing him sophomoric. There is a tradition that 
 he was one day to deliver an original declamation be- 
 fore his classmates. Every one of them entered the 
 room with a dictionary under his arm. At the first 
 polysyllable that Worcester uttered, they all with one 
 consent began to scurry sarcastically through their dic- 
 tionaries to find its definition. But he scarcely winced. 
 For him, the fun merely raised an issue of moral cour- 
 age, touched with indignation and pity. Yet, in spite 
 of such charring, the little college world admired him 
 as a gifted mind without conceit, a real scholar with- 
 out pedantry, an earnest Christian without cant, and 
 
 110 
 
an apostle of manliness without effeminacy. 
 
 It was one of the small colleges, set upon the 
 Acropolis of the Athens of Vermont. He was not only 
 well known to the unconventional students, but he 
 enjoyed also the advantages, peculiar to a small col- 
 lege, of intimate association with ripe professors who 
 gave him individual attention. He improved his op- 
 portunities and became truly educated. Indeed, he 
 has added distinction to the institution. The honored 
 president tells me that all who have known it intim- 
 ately for the last thirty years would be sure to name 
 him among the score, or even the ten, who have 
 had the most brilliant and promising collegiate careers. 
 As attesting her continued regard, the University of 
 Vermont gave him his doctorate degree in 1885. 
 
 After graduating, he taught for two years in the 
 school of which his father was principal. During this 
 period, especially after an interval of severe illness, he 
 laboriously debated with himself, like many another 
 young man, the question of what life-work he should 
 choose. He thought of the law, but abandoned the 
 idea as a dream of ambition. His choice then lay be- 
 tween teaching and preaching ; but he said at the time 
 that his conscience suggested the query whether it was 
 any the less a contest between selfishness and devotion 
 than before, " the selfishness having taken the form of 
 a desire of ease, instead of a desire for distinction.'' 
 Others thought that he ought to continue teaching. 
 But, although, after he had completed his theological 
 course, he acted as tutor, for three months, in his 
 Alma Mater, he declined its Chair of Rhetoric and 
 English Literature, to which he had been invited, and 
 
 ill 
 
determined to enter the Ministry. Even then, how- 
 ever, he went forward somewhat reluctantly, driven by 
 a pure sense of duty, not, as he said, that he recoiled 
 from its probable obscurity nor altogether that he 
 dreaded its pressure, but from an utter incapacity to 
 realize "that souls would be won to God by anything 
 that he could do or say." He set out upon his career, 
 trusting explicitly upon the Spirit of God, satisfied 
 that whether eagerly, like Paul, or reluctantly, like 
 Moses, he would try to do whatsoever the Master 
 should indicate. If more of us undertook the minis- 
 try of reconciliation after his manner, there would be 
 more ministers of the right kind. 
 
 He entered upon his theological course here in 
 1867. At the end of his Middle Year he went abroad 
 and spent a year or more in traveling and in studying 
 at Berlin and Leipsic. Returning, he graduated from 
 this school of the prophets in 1871 ; and up to the 5th 
 of last February, on every day of his life, he was both 
 an honor to Union Seminary, and an exalted type of 
 the ministers whom she has trained for the church of 
 God. 
 
 The chief work of his noble life was done in the 
 pastorate, preaching the living Christ to dying men — 
 to my mind the holiest and sweetest vocation on earth. 
 In these days of frequent pastoral changes, occasioned 
 in part, no doubt, by the exacting and exhausting de- 
 mands of the work, but far more, I fear, by the rest- 
 lessness of ministers and churches, let it be noted 
 that in almost twenty years he had but two charges 
 and that he left neither of them because he would or 
 because he must, but solely in response to an impera- 
 
 112 
 
tive summons of conscience. He was installed pastor 
 of the First Presbyterian Church of South Orange, New 
 Jersey, January 10, 1872, and left it in January, 1883, 
 to become pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian Church of 
 Chicago. His work as preacher and pastor was of a 
 uniform quality throughout, and the quality was uni- 
 formly high. It was all done on his honor as the ser- 
 vant of Jesus Christ. None of it was slighted, whether 
 it was public or private ; his study and his prayer-closet 
 were as faithfully devoted to their purposes as the pul- 
 pit or the platform. Every minister is master of his 
 own time. Every minister is likely to hear the effusive 
 praises of the friendly flatterer, and to be left out of 
 hearing by his average critic. Consequently the be- 
 setting sins of weak ministers are laziness and egotism. 
 But my brother was neither lazy nor egotistical, for he 
 was not weak ; he was faithful, sincere and virile. 
 For genuine fidelity towards God and man, he was 
 well-nigh matchless. 
 
 His preaching, as some of you know, was dis- 
 tinguished for thoroughness ; whether he read from 
 manuscript, or spoke extemporaneously, as he could do 
 with admirable completeness, clearness and finish, he 
 always brought beaten oil into the sanctuary. His 
 published sermons on " Womanhood ' ' are in evidence. 
 Unusually intellectual, yet with the white light of great 
 emotions, and with a passion for saving the whole of a 
 man, he made large demands upon his hearers, at the 
 same time that he gave them large supplies of thought, 
 feeling and purpose. Partly for that reason, he was 
 not, in the common apprehension of the word, a pop- 
 ular preacher. He dwelt in rather too high and rare 
 
 113 
 
an atmosphere for that. He appealed especially to 
 the somewhat select class of thoughtful and educated 
 minds. Yet he left indelible lines of life upon the 
 soul of all regular attendants, even when they were 
 unconscious of the fact. He was singularly unselfish 
 in preaching. It was not a great name nor a conspic- 
 uous place that he was seeking, any more than it was 
 a fat salary. His first desire seemed to be to fill the place 
 assigned to him, to make Jesus Christ conspicuous in 
 truth and love, and to leave permanent gracious im- 
 pressions. 
 
 He was a "house-going" minister, and he did not 
 confine himself to houses of any class, rich or poor, 
 personally friendly or personally indifferent. To his 
 great personal regret he could not easily win an en- 
 trance into the affections of a stranger or acquaint- 
 ance. He was too thorough for that ; at a time when 
 much of our pastoral visitation consists largely of small 
 talk, he had no small talk at all. He had to make 
 his way on his genuine merits, which he was not facile 
 in exploiting. But in times of stress and burden, 
 when death stood at the door or devastated the home, 
 he was most welcome. There was enough of him to 
 meet a crisis, and souls in critical situations had faith 
 in him, and found strength and peace in his ministra- 
 tions. I have often felt that if I were on my death- 
 bed, I should prefer his ministry to any other. He 
 would have told me the truth honestly, completely, 
 simply and affectionately. 
 
 A good general test of his pastoral efficiency may 
 be found in the condition in which he left each of his 
 churches. I fancy that one of the surest tests of any 
 
 114 
 
pastor's career comes to light after he goes away. If 
 a church then has parties who say I am of Paul, Apol- 
 los or Cephas, you may almost take it for granted that 
 there was something radically defective or selfish in his 
 teaching. For some pastors seem to brand the Mas- 
 ter 's sheep with their own initials. But our friend 
 left the Master 's high, unifying name in his parishion- 
 ers ' hearts. They thought of Christ rather than of 
 him. They remained united and prepared to offer a 
 common welcome to the succeeding under-shepherd. 
 
 Still further, he always did his full share in the 
 consecrated work of the churches of the vicinage, as, 
 for example, in the Presbytery. Two extremes are 
 possible : to neglect the individual church, which is 
 the pastor 's primary and imperative charge, and to 
 neglect the common cause. He did neither. Bear- 
 ing his own burden he shared the common burden. 
 This was true of him in South Orange, where he did 
 his initial pastoral work in a charming, quiet field. 
 When I went from Princeton Seminary into his neigh- 
 borhood, I was quickened by the example set by his 
 own parish, and I soon felt his personal sympathy and 
 brotherly helpfulness. But Chicago, as a larger, need- 
 ier, more exacting field, holds his greatest monument. 
 There he would neither stoop to degrading competition 
 nor neglect his own charge. But, at the same time, 
 he became in many ways easily the leading spirit in the 
 Presbytery, with the possible exception of that Nestor 
 of North-western Presbyterianism, the Rev. Dr. R. W. 
 Patterson. The Presbytery depended largely upon his 
 judgment, and followed usually in his footprints. He 
 loved our city and never tired of toiling for its evangeli- 
 
 115 
 
zation. He was always prompt in keeping appoint- 
 ments, and he never wasted time with needless talk ; 
 for, influential as he was in the later years, he would 
 speak only under the compulsion of duty, and then he 
 always spoke to the point and from his real heart con- 
 victions. His place is not yet filled, and we miss him 
 day by day. 
 
 Such a man needed human sympathy — he got it. 
 His brethren learned to love and trust him, and he had 
 a sweet and hallowed domestic life. On Oct. 29, 1874, 
 he married Miss Harriet W. Strong, a daughter of 
 Edward Strong, M. D. , of Auburndale, Massachusetts. 
 Four children, two boys and two girls, were given to 
 them, all born in Orange and all living still excepting 
 little Martha, who is with her father. Let him who 
 can believe in the celibacy of the clergy. Our friend 
 found almost an ideal of the kingdom of God on earth 
 in his family. Strenuous a man as he was, with deep- 
 seated convictions, he was so tolerant of the rightful 
 opinions of others, as I believe, he never once, during 
 their eighteen years of married life, crossed any real in- 
 dependent judgment of Mrs. Worcester's. Nor was he 
 ever dictatorial, unreasonable or merely suppressive 
 toward his children. A strong man will be consider- 
 ate and fair, if he be only strong enough. He was 
 strong enough, and he had sufficient reason. His 
 children are worthy of him. His wife was like-minded 
 with himself. With the same Puritan blood and New 
 England culture, with almost equal gifts of mind and 
 heart, she loved to be in his shadow, but, more than 
 she will ever acknowledge or even know, she directed 
 and inspired his life. He owed her much and, through 
 
 him, so do you and I. 
 
 116 
 
It is not strange that such a man, with such gifts, 
 such pastoral experience and such a home, should come 
 to love with unspeakable ardor the ministry of the 
 Gospel. He often said, to his nearest intimates, that 
 he thought no other work in life comparable to it. 
 He left it, therefore, with as much reluctance as he 
 entered it. When he was called in May, 1891, to the 
 Chair of Systematic Theology in Hartford, he was in 
 actual distress until he concluded that it was his priv- 
 ilege to decline. He loved the pastorate, and although 
 he had come from a Congregational family, he had an 
 intelligent and discriminating love for the Presbyterian 
 Church. Two months later came the call from you. 
 He appreciated the great honor of it, as his friends did ; 
 but he shrank from it, with characteristic diffidence, 
 and the acceptance of it required no small degree of 
 personal self-denial. It was not the line of life which 
 he had chosen, nor the department of theological in- 
 struction which he preferred. He consulted his close 
 friends and they, in spite of their wishes to keep him 
 in the pastorate, advised him to accept, because they 
 regarded him as an ordained leader of leaders and be- 
 cause they hoped that he, with his conservative tem- 
 per, non-partisan theological attitude and independent 
 yet progressive mind, might do something to aid a be- 
 loved institution, and to heal the existing lamentable 
 breach between brethren in the same church. Now, 
 that he has gone home, shall we not hope and pray that 
 the breach will be closed ? 
 
 During the last eighteen months of his life, as his 
 strength was failing and his life was fading away, some 
 of us have wondered whether his coming was not a 
 
 117 
 
mistake. But he did not feel any such questioning. 
 Trusting no human counsel for the final decision, he 
 had prayed fervently for divine guidance ; he fully be- 
 lieved that he had been led by God's spirit, and that 
 the transfer was a part of the gracious Father's plan 
 for him and for us all. He died as he had lived, bet- 
 ter than submissive, — acquiescent. Filial hearts, 
 therefore, will not be impatient or complaining that 
 his work here ended when it seemed only to have 
 begun. Its influence, I am sure, will not be transient. 
 I know his work among yon was rapidly growing in in- 
 terest to him. You know, as I cannot, how gifted, 
 cultured, genuine, devoted and open-hearted it was 
 becoming. It would naturally have special attractions 
 for strong, candid and manly students. Doubtless, he 
 was in the main a disciple of your epoch-making 
 teacher, Dr. Henry B. Smith ; so true a disciple that 
 he could be independent of his teacher in important 
 particulars. He had the same reverent, discerning- 
 spirit, the same firm, conservative and delicate grasp 
 of generic essentials, the same undisturbed sense of 
 liberty as to all undetermined and incidental matters. 
 Equally with that master, he spent his strength in 
 strenuous seeking after truth, and he would dare en- 
 courage his pupils to think for themselves, and to be- 
 siege him with all sorts of honest questions. If he had 
 lived, I am sure he would have filled his place with 
 ever-increasing power and with indubitable adequacy 
 and renown. 
 
 His faculty for criticism, analysis and inductive 
 logic was large. He valued conclusions neither be- 
 cause they were old nor because they were new, but in 
 
 118 
 
proportion as they seemed to comprehend the vital 
 truth. The bent of his mind was not negative, much 
 less destructive, but rather positive, constructive, and 
 at least in mode creative. In a trusted and congenial 
 company he had almost peerless ability to hear a dif- 
 ficult and complicated case, and then, instantaneously, 
 with comprehensiveness, exactness and finish of state- 
 ment, to point out its defects and make plain its in- 
 tegral significance. In this respect, he had the 
 endowment of a great jurist — an endowment far more 
 rare and valuable than that of the ready debater who 
 can seize upon and advocate one side of a question. 
 
 No one could accurately measure his intellectual 
 processes without noting his predominant moral qual- 
 ities. Remembering both, I call him a great man. 
 But, lest my own estimate of him may be partial and 
 faulty, let me adapt the words of another friend. His 
 greatness consisted in his surpassing perspicuity of 
 mind, in his rare capacity to separate a complex prob- 
 lem into its simple elements, in his wonderful power of 
 thorough and convincing statement, in his supreme 
 loyalty to truth and his courageous advocacy of it, un- 
 der all circumstances, in his genuine humility of soul, 
 which enabled him to see the truth easily, yet never 
 permitted him to seek prominence for himself, in his 
 sincere and unpretentious candor, in his loving catho- 
 licity of spirit and in the complete consecration of his 
 unusual powers and acquirements to the Light of the 
 World. 
 
 The key to his character, I believe, will be found 
 in the fact that moral considerations controlled him. 
 The chief defect which I have heard ascribed to him 
 
 119 
 
Was an apparent reserve of manner. His exterior gave to 
 the average person meeting him the impression that he 
 was cold. A few acquaintances have thought that he 
 was even haughty. But his intimate friends knew 
 that this view of his character was'radically mistaken. 
 His heart was always warm. He had an ample capac- 
 ity for true friendship. He depended upon the love of 
 friends, hungered for the good-will of all, and suffered 
 often because he could not facilely show his own good- 
 will. He could not tell you to your face that he loved 
 you. If his life did not show it, he was powerless. It 
 was one of his heavy burdens that he had to force his 
 way where many another could win an entrance to the 
 human heart. He was utterly unable to wear his 
 heart upon his sleeve. 
 
 This was due in part, perhaps, to his Puritan 
 blood. He was morally strenuous and never frivolous. 
 His eyes were so filled with the great duties needful to 
 to be done that, pushing straightforward, he over- 
 looked the allied little things which might be engross- 
 ing others. He hardly made enough of the com- 
 plaisant arts of tact. It may also have been due 
 somewhat to the intellectual pressure put upon his 
 early life in which his mind and conscience developed 
 rapidly. Besides, in early boyhood he was rather in- 
 valid. Possibly his boyhood was cut short because he 
 did not romp and play as much as healthy children 
 who have brothers and sisters. It was, too, the con- 
 stant habit of his accurate mind to state things mod- 
 erately and carefully ; whereas most of us are contin- 
 ually overstating and exaggerating. It must be added, 
 that unless his latest years, which mellowed him, be 
 
 120 
 
excepted, he was to some extent deficient in that sense 
 of humor which oils so many wheels in life and which 
 enables us instinctively not to fight the insignificant 
 things, but to pass over them with a convenient smile 
 or laugh. Nevertheless, the great reason for his ap- 
 parent reserve is not to be sought in any of these sec- 
 ondary influences. It came fundamentally from his 
 native modesty, which led him to depreciation of him- 
 self and to embarrassment before others. This bash- 
 fulness resisted, so stiffened his manners that they 
 misrepresented his feelings. If self-assurance or con- 
 ceit be a virtue, we may admit that he had one vice. 
 For he was meek and lowly in heart ; yet so that he dis- 
 dained the fawning of an Uriah Heep and was a 
 stranger to the false modesty which Emerson called 
 the haughtiness of humility. 
 
 As conscientious a man as I have ever known, he 
 was hard upon himself, but gracious and tolerant to- 
 wards the sincere moral postures of others. For this 
 reason, questions which belonged to the pure ethical 
 realm appeared to give him unusually little trouble. He 
 was simply above the reach of many of the ordinary 
 temptations of life. When he perceived that a thing 
 was right or obligatory, his doubts about it were 
 settled. 
 
 If, in matters of expediency or questions of the 
 reason, he would sometimes hesitate, you might be sure 
 that conscientious scruples were at the bottom of his 
 hesitancy, and that he could not as yet make out his 
 moral bearings. The moment that he discerned dis- 
 tinctly what he ought to do, he became as bold as a 
 lion. It was a curious combination, timid as to his 
 
 121 
 
own personality, even as to his judgment ; perfectly 
 fearless as to duty. The historic speech at Detroit is 
 an instance in point. To his intimates, it has always 
 seemed characteristic rather than exceptional in its in- 
 tellectual power, its Christian spirit, its moral weight. 
 For days he had been urged to speak. But he shrank 
 from the conspicuous responsibility. Though he passed 
 almost sleepless nights over the matter, he still refused 
 to say a word. But things appeared to him to be go- 
 ing wrong. Finally, alone, upon his knees, it became 
 plain to him that the Master summoned him to the 
 task. Then his lips were touched with fire, and, even 
 if the whole world had been against him, nothing 
 could have swerved him, more than Isaiah, from the 
 purpose to utter his convictions boldly, tenderly, 
 mightily, under the resistless inspiration of the sense 
 of duty. That is why my friend's speech will live and 
 quicken after the mere controversies of that hour are 
 the forgotten dust of logomachy. 
 
 Contrary to the opinions of some acquaintances, he 
 had an enthusiastic nature. His later boyhood in 
 Burlington furnishes a typical illustration. It seems 
 that one evening, shortly after dark, fire broke out in 
 a building down near the lake shore under the little 
 bluff. The boys started for it instantly on a run. He 
 outran the others, and, in going over the side of the 
 bluff, he made a misstep, fell and broke his leg. When 
 the others overtook him, they wanted to carry him 
 home at once. But he said : " No, no, leave me here ; 
 go and help put out the fire ; take me home after- 
 wards. ' ' 
 
 Under that calm manner and controlled temper, 
 
 122 
 
there was an intensity of conviction, of purpose, of 
 feeling, of courage, of ideal vision, which explains ap- 
 parent anomalies in his finished career and which 
 promised heroic achievements in the withheld second half 
 of his life-time. It will teach us why he was constant 
 and tireless in every form of faithfulness, to his con- 
 science, to his father, his wife and children and his 
 friends, to the churches which he served, to the Semi- 
 nary, to the Lord Jesus Christ. He was faithful in the 
 least and faithful also in much, faithful alike in service 
 and in suffering. 
 
 What is all this but to say, by way of summary 
 and pre-eminence, that he was a gifted, manly, true- 
 hearted Christian. His life amply exemplified the 
 title of one of my favorites among his sermons, 
 "Christianity, a Virile Religion." He exemplified it 
 also in the supreme hour. He died at Lakewood, New 
 Jersey, alone with his wife and his Saviour. When it 
 became plain to the physician about nine o'clock on 
 that Sabbath evening that he was soon to enter into 
 rest, she went to him and said: "Well, dear, you 
 won't need to suffer much longer." "Then," said he, 
 "you think I am going?" "Yes," she answered, 
 with the simple truthfulness of their life. He waited 
 half a minute, and then replied: "We should send 
 some telegrams ' ' ; that is, to his children and father 
 and nearest friends. Brave, self-forgetful, resolute to 
 the end ! A kind-hearted lady in the hotel came to the 
 door to ask them if she should not stay with them dur- 
 ing that awful ordeal. But it was he who, looking to- 
 ward her with a grateful smile, answered : ' ' No, we 
 will watch it out together." Love was sufficient and 
 
 123 
 
triumphant. Presently, Mrs. Worcester asked if he 
 felt ready to go. Observe the reply of that man of 
 white character and noble life. He just said : " Only 
 as I trust in my Redeemer." The Professor, like a little 
 child, had learned by heart the central essential of all 
 theology. Shall any of the rest of us, ignoring grace, 
 dare venture into the divine presence upon the rights 
 of our personal merits ? Conscious to the final moment 
 of earth, he suffered terribly during the three closing 
 hours from suffocation and the griping pain about his 
 heart. They prayed together — he for patience, and 
 she that he may be released from physical agony. I 
 shall never think of that man and that woman, their 
 children absent, sitting alone, hand in hand, before the 
 King who waited with the crown, not a tear in their 
 eyes, but praying with unbroken voices to God their 
 Father, without rejoicing that heroism still lingers upon 
 earth. He was a dying hero ; she was a living heroine. 
 No, character is not an accident. It is the be- 
 stowment and the evolution of the covenanting, aton- 
 ing, cleansing, emancipating and inspiring Christ. 
 
 124 
 
SERMONS. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A VIRILE RELIGION. 
 
 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power 
 and of love and of self-control. — II Timothy, i : 7. 
 
 The application of these words is a personal one. 
 They are intended as a gentle admonition to Timothy not 
 to be wanting in courage and firmness, and particularly 
 not to allow shame or the fear of personal risk to deter 
 him from visiting Paul in this his second imprisonment 
 and near prospect of martyrdom. 
 
 One sees from the whole tone of this most pathetic 
 and yet most triumphant of Paul's epistles, that, while 
 he tenderly loved his "son Timothy," and while he had 
 the utmost confidence in his ability, purity, and piety, 
 there was just a shade of anxiety in his mind lest he 
 prove deficient in manliness. And so throughout the 
 Epistle we find him guarding this weak point by admo- 
 nitions, — delicate as the admonitions of that consummate 
 courtesy always were, — affectionate, as from that great 
 loving heart they could not fail to be, — but unmistakable 
 in their significance. 
 
 " Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of 
 our Lord, nor of me his prisoner ; but be thou partaker 
 of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of 
 God. " " The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiph- 
 orus ; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed 
 of my chain." "Thou therefore my son be strong 
 in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." " Thou therefore 
 
 125 
 
endure hardness, as a soldier of Jesus Christ." "But 
 watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work 
 of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." 
 
 In our text he grounds the exhortation to Christian 
 manliness upon the very nature of Christianity. "God 
 hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of 
 love and of self-control." 
 
 The Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit that dwelleth 
 in us, is not a spirit that prompts to timidity, to caution, 
 to shrinking from scorn and danger, and to a weak yield- 
 ing to the tyranny of circumstances, but a spirit whose 
 fruits are "power" to do and dare, "love" that shrinks 
 not from self-sacrifice, and " self-control " that knows 
 how to endure. In other words Christianity is in its 
 very essence a virile religion, a religion that demands and 
 develops manliness. 
 
 The theme thus suggested to us : Christianity a 
 Virile Rkligion, seems to me not unsuited to an occa- 
 sion like this. * 
 
 We are here in the heart of a great city. And 
 what is a great city but a great throbbing center of mas- 
 culine life and energy ? When we think of a village we 
 think of a cluster of homes. Our imagination instantly 
 calls up visions of children at play and housewives busy 
 about their doors. But when we think of a city, though 
 indeed it is full of homes, it is not these that rise first to 
 our thought but rather the market, the forum, the ex- 
 change, with their throng of eager, jostling, earnest 
 men. 
 
 When therefore in the person of the ambassador of 
 Christ, Wisdom now, as of old, takes her stand " in the 
 top of the high places, by the way of the places of the 
 paths," when " she crieth at the gates, at the entry of 
 
 ♦Installation of Rev. S. J. McPherson, D. D., as pastor of the Second 
 Presbyterian Church, November 19, 1882. 
 
 126 
 
the city, at the coming in at the doors," her word 
 as of old must be : "Unto you, O men, I call, and my 
 voice is to the sons of men." 
 
 If it is not so, if the Christian preacher has not 
 something to say worth the while of hard-headed, keen- 
 witted, busy, practical men to stop and hear, if the relig- 
 ion which he teaches is not robust and virile enough to 
 lay its hand boldly and masterfully upon these currents 
 of manly activities, and give worthy scope and direction 
 to the energies which are here centered, then he is out 
 of his place in such a city and such a pulpit as this. 
 
 It is useless to conceal from ourselves that Chris- 
 tianity has sometimes fallen under suspicion, as though 
 it were wanting in those elements which should enlist 
 the sympathies and elicit the enthusiasm of the distinct- 
 ively manly character. Thomas Hughes, in his essay on 
 "The Manliness of Christ," gives a striking proof of the 
 existence of this feeling, in his account of a proposed 
 Society to be called " The Christian Guild," the mem- 
 bers of which, though they must be first of all Christians, 
 were to be selected as far as possible for some act of 
 physical prowess, the motive for such an organization 
 being that the Young Men's Christian Associations, 
 though increasing in numbers, were wholly failing to 
 reach the class which most needed Christian influence, 
 because of an alleged feeling that these associations, 
 however valuable in some ways they might be, "did 
 not cultivate individual manliness in their members, and 
 that this defect was closely connected with their open 
 profession of Christianity." 
 
 The same feeling has its silent but unmistakable wit- 
 ness in the marked preponderance of women to be seen 
 in the composition of any average Christian congrega- 
 tion, and in the membership of any ordinary Christian 
 church. It reveals itself in the conduct of those hus- 
 
 127 
 
hands and fathers, hy no means few, who encourage 
 church attendance and church membership in their wives 
 and daughters while themselves deliberately holding 
 aloof from the latter, at least, if not from both. 
 
 There is reason to fear too that the feeling that 
 religion, at least as represented by the Christian church 
 is an affair for women, is gaining ground just at the 
 present time. Things have not indeed reached the pass 
 with us to which they have come in Catholic France, 
 which may be roughly estimated as made up of a female 
 population of devotees and a male population of infidels, 
 but the tendency seems to be in that direction. The 
 church seems to be losing rather than increasing its hold 
 upon the masculine half of our population. It is an 
 ominous fact, e. g. which I find quoted from a circular 
 of the Brooklyn Y. M. C. A. that less than one-tenth of 
 the young men of that city are in the churches and Sun- 
 day Schools. 
 
 This tendency, if unchecked, must inevitably prove 
 fatal. If the defect be inherent in Christianity itself, 
 and if it be not in its power in some way to renew its 
 vigor and regain that lost hold, it must go to the wall. 
 No religion can permanently retain its power over society 
 through a hold on either sex alone. If missionaries 
 never feel that the gospel has a secure foothold in a 
 heathen land till it has gained the wives and mothers to 
 its side, we, in this land, must equally recognize that its 
 footing will be insecure from the day that it loses the 
 support of the husbands and fathers. 
 
 This is not to assume that the masculine nature is 
 superior to the feminine. I should be the last to make 
 such an assumption. Nor yet is it to make the contrary 
 assumption which in some quarters begins to be put for- 
 ward as one of the great discoveries of the age, — a step 
 forward in civilization. You may take either view 
 
 128 
 
you choose of that question ; or, better still, you may 
 say that there is no question here of superior and infer- 
 ior; but that either sex is the complement of the other. It 
 remains true that they are unlike, and that unless Chris- 
 tianity appeals to and satisfies that which is distinctively 
 virile, it must forfeit its hold upon men, and with that its 
 sway over the society and civilization of the future. 
 
 Nor yet is it anything to the purpose to say that the 
 reason why there are more women than men in our 
 churches is that the religious instinct is stronger in 
 woman than in man ; for that is only to say that, by 
 reason of that stronger instinct, she will be more easily 
 satisfied ; and that a more vigorous and perfect religion 
 is needed to command and mould the less impressible 
 masculine nature. Call it what you please then ; call it 
 a virtue or a defect in the masculine character, the fact 
 remains, that a religion which does not embrace certain 
 elements will not appeal strongly to that character, and 
 will not rally the manhood of an age beneath its stand- 
 ard. Does Christianity contain these elements? I an- 
 swer confidently, yes, in fullest measure. To the young 
 men before me to-day I say unhesitatingly : the religion 
 of Jesus Christ challenges your attention, challenges 
 your respect, challenges your unreserved surrender, and 
 hearty enthusiasm just because it is through and through 
 a virile religion. 
 
 Thus in the first place, Christianity appeals to man- 
 hood as a religion of fact rather than of sentiment. 
 It addresses itself to the intellect and not merely to the 
 emotions. It has been said, not I think without force, 
 that if the characteristic womanly virtue is love, the 
 characteristic manly virtue is truth ; that is, not that 
 women are more deceitful than men, but that while 
 men come behind women in unselfishness, women 
 come perhaps as far behind men in the capacity to 
 
 129 
 
deal with things as they are. That, at all events, 
 is your boast, that you are accustomed to act upon 
 fact, and not upon feeling. But that is the ap- 
 peal that Christianity makes to you. It comes to 
 you with a series of historical facts, the facts of the 
 life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and 
 back of these a series of spiritual facts of which these 
 are the attestation, and asks you to square your lives to 
 these facts. It does not say to you: "Believe in im- 
 mortality because it is dreary to think that death ends 
 all", but: "Believe in immortality, because Jesus 
 Christ rose from the dead." It does not say to you : 
 " Worship, you know what, and cannot know, simply be- 
 cause there is an instinct of veneration in your soul that 
 must have expression." It says to you:. "Worship 
 God, who in these last times hath spoken unto us by his 
 son and hath given the light of the knowledge of his 
 glory in the face of Jesus Christ." 
 
 It is indeed a strange thing that men should, like our 
 modern agnostics, capable of seriously proposing to se- 
 cure to religion a new lease of life and power by denying 
 to it all basis of fact and confining it wholly to the sphere 
 of the emotions, substitute, for the historic Scriptures, the 
 poetry of Tennyson and Wordsworth, and for the worship 
 of a crucified and risen Redeemer a "worship chiefly of 
 the silent sort " paid to an " unknowable First Cause." 
 Men want a religion that courts light, and does not shun 
 cross-questioning. They want a religion that touches 
 bottom somewhere. Such a religion they find in the 
 historic gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 2. Again, Christianity challenges your attention 
 and allegiance because it is a religion of conscience and not 
 of ceremony. Men in general take but little inter- 
 est in "ecclesiastical millinery ;" or to speak less dis- 
 respectfully, the love of ornament which is so strong in 
 
 130 
 
woman, is too weak in man to give mere ritual, however 
 imposing, any very strong hold upon his mind. It is 
 the ethical element that appeals to him. The gorgeous 
 temple, the pealing organ, the solemn chants, the splen- 
 did vestments, cannot save a religion from the neglect 
 and contempt of the masculine mind, if the moral ear- 
 nestness has gone out of it. 
 
 Give me a man, I care not how rude and ungrammat- 
 ical his speech, how uncouth his attire, though it be but 
 a garment of camel's hair, with a leathern girdle about 
 his loins, how primitive his pulpit, thought it be but a 
 dry-goods box at the street corner, or a rock by the 
 riverside, who nevertheless, like John the Baptist, 
 knows how to cut and clear his way through the veneer 
 of conventionalism, the husks of flimsy excuse and un- 
 conscious hyprocrisy, straight to men's consciences, 
 making them hear the thunder of the everlasting "Thou 
 shalt," and "Thou shalt not," and you shall see 
 the manhood of Jerusalem or of Chicago turning its 
 back upon the splendor of the temple and the pomp of 
 its ritual, and going out into the wilderness for to hear 
 him. 
 
 To this one element, I take it, more than to all else, 
 Carlyle owed his mighty influence over the most virile 
 thought and life of two generations. Now it is as a 
 preacher of righteousness that the Christian minister de- 
 mands your hearing. Christianity though never present- 
 ed with less of aesthetic adornment, never commanded 
 more of manly respect and devotion than in the days of 
 Knox, of Cromwell's Ironsides, and of the Puritans ; 
 and it did so by virtue of its vigorous assertion of ever- 
 lasting righteousness. 
 
 3. Once more, Christianity appeals to you as men, 
 because it is an aggressive religion. I lately heard a man 
 say that he could conceive of no life more distasteful 
 
 131 
 
than that of a soldier on garrison duty. It was an ex- 
 pression of the manly instinct for action, as against mere 
 waiting and enduring. A religion which does not ap- 
 peal to that instinct, — which does not offer a field of ac- 
 tion broad enough, and enterprise grand enough to give 
 scope to the intensest energy, is not a religion for men. 
 But where will you find these if Christianity does not 
 offer them ? Its field is the world, its enterprise, the re- 
 construction of society, the emancipation of mankind 
 from spiritual bondage, and the establishment of a uni- 
 versal kingdom of God. 
 
 It is sometimes laid as a reproach against the gospel 
 that it inculcates only the passive virtues, meekness, 
 patience, and resignation. It does inculcate the 
 passive virtues. It needs to inculcate them, for they are 
 the hardest to attain. It needed not only to inculcate 
 them but to place them in the foreground, under an over- 
 whelming emphasis of precept and example, in the face 
 of Roman pride and Jewish vindictiveness, in an age 
 when revenge was a duty, submission a weakness, and 
 humility a reproach. But if it be said that it fails to lay 
 stress upon the active virtues also, — courage, persever- 
 ence, benevolence, philanthropy, — where is the proof ? 
 God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, 
 not of tame submission but of energetic action. "I 
 have written unto you young men " not because ye are 
 patient, but "because ye are strong" — is its appeal. 
 Its metaphors are full of energy. It is a warfare, a race, 
 an athletic contest. Throughout, we hear the ring of 
 the martial cry, and see the clash of the contending 
 hosts of light and darkness. 
 
 It cannot have escaped any student of Old Testa- 
 ment history that religion had its strongest hold upon 
 Israel in time of war. One reason for this is that war 
 was its only mode of aggression. Spiritually it could 
 
 132 
 
not go forth to the conquest of the world till its Messiah 
 came to lead it. The weapons of its warfare were car- 
 nal. Only in the conquest of the promised land— in the 
 execution of Jehovah's wrath upon the worshipers of 
 false gods, were the religious feeling and the active 
 energy of the nation brought into union. And so in 
 times of peace religious enthusiasm was apt to wane. The 
 same is true of Mohammedanism to-day. It is decay- 
 ing, its hold upon its votaries is weakening because the 
 sword of Islam has fallen from its grasp ; and its only 
 hope of revival, as friend and foe alike bear witness, 
 lies in a new war of religious aggression. But Chris- 
 tianity with its spiritual weapons calls you to an unceas- 
 ing crusade and its appeal to your manhood is not less, 
 but more powerful, because this crusade is not one of 
 brute force, but of truth and of character. 
 
 4. Yet again, Christianity appeals to you as men 
 because it is a heroic religion. 
 
 What is heroism ? Not the mere power to face 
 danger ; that is courage. Not the mere power to endure 
 suffering ; that is fortitude. Heroism is more. A noble 
 motive is essential to make a hero. The hero is he who 
 faces danger, who endures suffering and hardship, for 
 duty or for love. 
 
 "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
 So near is God to man, 
 When duty whispers low, thou must, 
 The youth replies, I can." 
 
 That is heroism. 
 
 Where indeed will you find a truer analysis of it 
 than in these words of our text : " God hath not given 
 us the spirit of fear," the spirit of the coward, "but of 
 power ; " there is the energy to undertake a difficult 
 task; " and of love," there is the unselfish motive that 
 glorifies it ; " and of self-control," there is the victory of 
 
 133 
 
the willing spirit over the weak flesh, that carries it 
 through. 
 
 God has given us that spirit. The Apostle assumes 
 that by the very nature of his calling the Christian is a 
 hero. The Spirit of God makes heroes of men. 
 
 What indeed is the central principle of the Chris- 
 tian life, as Christ himself taught it ? Is it not self-sac- 
 rifice for others ? And is not that the very essence of 
 heroism ? 
 
 Far be it from me to picture such heroism to you as 
 an exclusively or peculiarly masculine trait. Were I to do 
 so the silent heroism of women's lives all about me would 
 put me to instant shame. Indeed it is but true, that, as 
 the conditions of life now are, while the demand for 
 heroism is an occasional thing in the life of an average 
 man, the life of many a woman is one long exhibition of 
 heroism ending only with the grave. 
 
 What I do say is, that there can be no true manli- 
 ness without this element ; and that if religion is to ap- 
 peal powerfully to men it must address itself to that la- 
 tent capacity for heroism which we find buried some- 
 where even in the man of flabbiest moral fibre. 
 
 Listen, O man, to that call as it comes to you to- 
 day from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth, the grandest 
 hero that ever trod the earth, a call to deeds of power, 
 to deeds of unselfish love, to the endurance of hardship 
 with manly self-control. Is there nothing in your bosom 
 that kindles in response to such a call ? Stirs there no 
 enthusiasm within you to follow such a leader ? 
 
 For turn with me now for a moment from consider- 
 ing Christianity as an abstraction to look at Christ him- 
 self. Is he a leader for men to follow, or not ? 
 
 I once read a Jewish sketch which purported to set 
 forth the experience of an Israelite youth who embraced 
 Christianity, but in a few years renounced it and re- 
 
 134 
 
turned to the faith of his fathers, because his manly in- 
 stincts could not brook the leadership of the meek and 
 unresisting sufferer of Calvary. 
 
 The test is a fair one. If Jesus is not a manly lead- 
 er, then Christianity is not a religion for men. If there is 
 in him anything weak, if anywhere in his career it is the 
 spirit of fear rather than of power and of love and of 
 self-control that shapes his action, then turn away from 
 him and find yourselves a leader of sterner stuff. 
 
 But where is the weakness ? where is the unmanli- 
 ness ? I grant he was womanly, too. And I grant that 
 the painter's art, startled at the discovery in him of all 
 those traits to which we are wont to do homage as the 
 peculiar glory of womanhood, has too often lost sight of 
 his manliness, and placed an effeminate figure upon its 
 canvas. But I deny that the gospels are responsible 
 for the portrait. I claim it the crowning glory of the 
 Son of Man that in him a complete humanity, both 
 compact strength and all womanly grace, found its con- 
 summate expression. 
 
 A meek and unresisting sufferer. Yes, but is that 
 all ? Is there no manly independence in his calm defi- 
 ance of bigotry, as in the synagogue amid lowering 
 glances he heals a palsied man or a crippled woman on 
 the Sabbath-day ? Is there no manly indignation in 
 those woes against the Pharisees, and in that glance be- 
 fore which the money changers in the temple quail and 
 flee ? Is there no manly courage in that unfaltering 
 step with which month after month he walked with open 
 eyes toward a cross ? Is there no manly breadth of 
 view in that plan for the establishment of a society to 
 last through the generations with no other foundation 
 than attachment to himself, and no other bond of union 
 than two simple rites ? Is there no manly power in that 
 life-work which in little more than three short years, with 
 
 135 
 
out arms, without numbers, without prestige, turned the 
 currents of history into new channels, and wins an en j 
 during supremacy over men for which Alexander) 
 Caesar, Napoleon waded in vain through seas of blood. 
 
 Is it then in the last tragedy that his manhood 
 breaks down? "The meek and unresisting sufferer" ! 
 And what then? He should have resisted? He should 
 have fought? He should, like Elijah, have called down 
 fire from heaven to consume the band that came out to 
 take him? Nay, there is something manlier than fight- 
 ing; it is to die willingly that others may live. It is to 
 have the power to save one's self and refuse to use it, 
 because to save one's self would be to leave others to 
 perish.- 
 
 The other day a railroad train was rushing at ex- 
 press speed toward its terminus but a few miles away, 
 when the passengers in the forward car were startled by 
 the bursting in upon them of the engineer and fireman, 
 followed by a rush of smoke and flame. The cab of the 
 engine had caught fire from the open door, and fanned 
 by the swift motion was almost instantly in a furious 
 blaze. The fireman tried to reach the air brake, but 
 could not for the press. A few moments only and that 
 train unchecked, uncontrolled, would have rushed to inev- 
 itable and ghastly wreck. The engineer turned, looked 
 a moment into the sheeted flame, then set his lips and 
 climbed over the tender. A tremor, a check, a stop, 
 and in two or three minutes a scorched and blackened 
 figure is seen slowly, painfully making its way over the 
 tender again. They did what they could for him; but it 
 was of no avail. The flame had done its work. For 
 duty and for the lives dependent on him he had gone 
 deliberately into fiery death. 
 
 That was manliness. But it was a grander triumph 
 of that same manliness when Jesus is seen walking for 
 
 136 
 
months straight toward a death more agonizing. And 
 when at last he came face to face with it, standing for 
 hours in calm dignity, silent and motionless, his flesh 
 laid open to the bone with the cruel scourge, while round 
 him raged a wild storm of blind, vindictive fury shower- 
 ing buffets and insults and jeers upon his head, yet 
 neither cringing nor cursing. Standing that, not because 
 he cannot help it, for there are legions of angels at his 
 call, and in his person slumbers a power which had 
 quelled the storm and trod the waves, — and when at last 
 the cruel cross finished the ghastly work, hearing un- 
 moved the challenge to save himself, because to save 
 himself would have been to leave a world full of perish- 
 ing men and women to a fate more dreadful and to 
 agonies more dire. 
 
 Where, if not here, shall we find the supreme 
 triumph of power and of love and of self-control? Take 
 from Agamemnon old Homer's noble epithet " King of 
 men." Here is one who claims it by a higher right in a 
 grander sense. 
 
 If, then, there is so much in Christ, so much in 
 Christianity as it came from him to appeal to manly 
 character and evoke manly enthusiasm, the fault, — if it 
 shall ever lose its hold upon men, — must lie in the 
 presentation. 
 
 And here, brethren in the ministry, this theme 
 comes home to us with the burden of a great responsi- 
 bility. The preacher of a virile religion has need to be 
 a manly man. 
 
 More than once of late have I come upon hints of a 
 popular impression that ministers are deficient in manli- 
 ness, "that they are not to be counted on in great 
 emergencies where physical courage and physical man- 
 hood are demanded " ; that, in short, there is a shade of 
 effeminacy about them. Brethren, we cannot afford to 
 
 137 
 
let such an impression prevail. God hath not given us 
 the spirit of fear but of power. Go over in your thought 
 the preachers of great power, the preachers who not 
 simply amuse but move and hold men, and you will find 
 that however they may differ in their theology, in their 
 ecclesiastical relations, in their style of eloquence, with 
 rare exceptions they agree in this that they are thoroughly 
 manly men. 
 
 More than this, our preaching, if it is to hold men's 
 attention, must abound in those elements of which I have 
 spoken. It must be thoughtful preaching. Flowers of 
 rhetoric, roseate clouds of mysticism, tender gushes of 
 sentimentalism, will not long hold men. They must have 
 hard, solid thought. Withal it must be intellectually 
 bold preaching. "The spirit of fear" is not God's 
 Spirit, in the pulpit any more than out of it. The 
 preacher who would make men listen to him must not 
 fear to grapple with their diffiulties. It will not do for 
 him timidly to hug the shore ; he must show them that 
 he has a compass with which he dares to sail the deepest 
 sea. But it must be intellectually bold in another sense, 
 he must not fear to take a position. I have no faith in 
 nebulous, non-committal preaching as an expedient for 
 holding the men who are drifting away from the church. 
 
 Our preaching again must be strongly ethical. If 
 like Paul we would make men tremble and yet come 
 again to hear, we must like him reason with them "of 
 righteousness and temperance and judgment to come." 
 The preaching of mere morality is a weak thing enough ; 
 it is a ball without powder, but the preaching that leaves 
 morality out is weaker yet ; it is powder without a ball, — 
 a mere flash in the pan. 
 
 Again if we would hold men we must set before them 
 something to do. We must preach an aggressive Chris- 
 tianity. Our sermons must be drum-beats. 
 
 138 
 
And finally we must keep before them the heroic 
 ideal. If we fear to preach sacrifice, fear to preach self- 
 denial, fear to summon men to endure hardness as good 
 soldiers of Jesus Christ, they may flatter but they will 
 not follow us. 
 
 But, fellow Christians, this theme has a broader ap- 
 plication than to the ministry. If there is any truth in 
 the impression that the men are drifting away from our 
 churches, it is not all the fault of the pulpit. A virile 
 Christianity must be lived as well as preached. 
 
 Fellow Christians, it is a grave question for you to 
 consider whether in Christianity as exhibited in the 
 ordinary church life of to-day there has been any loss of 
 power, any decay of manly vigor. 
 
 If a self-indulgent church settles itself in softly cush- 
 ioned pews to listen to an intellectual treat, to the 
 stirring tones of a manly minister, and thinks that he is 
 going to catch men and hold them, it might as well send 
 him in a straight jacket to save drowning men. He 
 might better, far better, so far as his spiritual influence 
 is concerned, go and take his stand like Whitefield in a 
 meadow with no responsibility but to God above. 
 
 Whenever and wherever the faith of the church be- 
 comes a tradition rather than a reasoned conviction, the 
 morals of the church an accommodation to conventional 
 standards rather than an uncompromising imitation of 
 Christ, the organization of the church a kind of sacred 
 club, rather a band of earnest Christian, loving souls 
 united for a sturdy grapple with ignorance and pauper- 
 ism and every other great social curse, and for resistance 
 unto blood if need be, striving against sin, — the life of 
 the church finally, a life of decent compliance with cer- 
 tain becoming observances, but without sacrifice, without 
 self-denial, without any high inspiration of unselfish 
 motive, — then and there it will have forfeited and justly 
 
 139 
 
forfeited all power of influence over the earnest manhood 
 of the time. 
 
 If these things or any of them are true in any degree 
 of the church life of to-day, (and whether they are so, 
 and how far, I leave it to you to judge) so far it has itself 
 to blame if it finds something of that influence already 
 gone. 
 
 What is it that enables the Salvation Army of Eng- 
 land to-day to exert such astounding power over masses 
 of men so low and so brutalized that the church had 
 given them up as beyond hope? Not its banners, not its 
 brass bands, not its queer terminology and queerer 
 hymnology, not chiefly its masterly organization even, but 
 these two things above all, that over against churches 
 which are content to stand mainly on the defensive, it is 
 a movement of intense, determined, deadly aggression 
 upon the very strongholds of Satan's kingdom; and that 
 over against the indolent self-indulgence which too often 
 gets itself called Christianity, it means, for every man 
 and woman who joins it, toil, hardship, and sacrifice, and 
 danger day by day, for Christ's sake and the gospel's. 
 
 But I have a word also to say before I leave this 
 inspiring theme to the men before me who are standing 
 aloof from Christ. Men and brothers, in vain do you 
 seek refuge, in such a position, behind any such blemishes 
 as these at which we have glanced, whether in church 
 life or in ministerial character. You know well that 
 Christianity is older than the nineteenth century and its 
 source higher than any church or any pulpit of to-day. 
 If you refuse to be on Christ's side it is not because 
 Christianity is not manly enough for you. Ah, I fear it 
 is because you are not manly enough for it. Not that you 
 are not summoned to a worthy enterprise under a heroic 
 leader, but that, taking counsel of "the spirit of fear," 
 you have not had manhood enough to grapple with the 
 
 140 
 
demon of Doubt until you could trample it beneath your 
 feet and take your stand upon everlasting realities, — not 
 manhood enough to break the shackles of conventional- 
 ism and be true to the response of conscience within you 
 to the words of Christ, — not manhood enough to throw 
 yourselves heart and soul into a determined fight with 
 sin, — not manhood enough to face ridicule, to bear to be 
 thought singular, to run the risk of hardship and sacri- 
 fice for such a leader and in such a cause. 
 
 God gives another spirit. He is ready to give it to 
 you, even the spirit of power and of love and of self-con- 
 trol. Come, seek and use it. 
 
 I am but a recruiting sergeant. In the name of the 
 man Christ Jesus, the conquering hero, "the captain of 
 our salvation, " " the prince of the kings of the earth," 
 I bid you come and enlist under his banner. Come, 
 bring a man's strong arm to his service; come, show a 
 man's courage in his battles ; come, lay the devotion of 
 a man's heart at his royal feet. 
 
 141 
 
THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 
 
 / indeed baptize you zvith water ttnlo repentance; but he that 
 eometh after me is mightier than J, whose shoes I am not worthy 
 to bear. He shall baptize you zuilh the Holy Ghost and zvith fire. — 
 Matt. 3: 11. 
 
 Fire! Mighty, mysterious word. There is some- 
 thing in that symbol which lays hold of the imagination 
 as almost no other is able to do. It stands for one of 
 nature's subtlest and most potent agencies, for one of 
 man's greatest blessings, and for one of his direst foes. 
 
 The geologist tells us that it is only through repeated 
 baptisms of fire that this globe has been fitted to be the 
 abode of the manifold joyous life with which it teems. 
 And were it cut off from the daily baptism of fire poured 
 upon it from the blazing reservoir of the sun, it would 
 soon roll through space a silent charnel-house of rock 
 and ice, without so much as a green leaf to adorn it or 
 an insect's wing to stir its air. 
 
 Terrible as fire is to man in its uncontrolled rage, — 
 agent and emblem of uttermost ruin and]devastation, 
 yet curbed and controlled it is his most indispensable 
 ally and servant, without which he would sink to a level 
 below that of the savage, and scarcely raised above that 
 of the brute. There is no myth of classic antiquity 
 more pathetic and suggestive than that which tells us 
 how Prometheus, moved with pity for the wretched race 
 of mortals, brought them the gift of fire in a hollow reed, 
 bringing upon himself by this deed of mercy the dire 
 vengeance of the jealous king of the gods. 
 
 The cloud of smoke which day and night hangs 
 
 142 
 
above our city is an offense both to the eye and to the 
 lungs; yet quench the countless fires in factory, in 
 warehouse, on hearthstone, in locomotive, and in 
 steamer of which it is the visible token, and how soon 
 would these thronging streets become a grass-grown 
 wilderness. 
 
 It is not strange that in revealing himself to man 
 God should have chosen this agent, so subtle, so resist- 
 less, so ethereal, verging so closely upon the spiritual, 
 as the symbol of his manifested presence. 
 
 Now, it is the smoking furnace and the burning lamp 
 passing between the divided portions of the sacrifice, 
 that reveal to Abraham the presence of the covenant 
 God. Again it is the bush in Horeb, burning but not 
 consumed, which makes known to Moses the awful 
 Presence before which he stands with unsandalled feet. 
 It is the fiery, cloudy pillar that reveals at once Jeho- 
 vah's mercy and his wrath, as it stands between Israel 
 and Egypt at the Red Sea. It is on fire-crowned, light- 
 ning-girdled Sinai that he gives forth his law to Israel. 
 In the Holy of Holies, it is a cloud of fire upon the 
 mercy seat that reveals his nearness to his covenant 
 people, to pardon sin and to answer prayer. It is in 
 the fire from heaven consuming the sacrifice on Carmel 
 that he answers the prophet's prayer for a revelation of 
 the living God. It is in chariots and horses of fire 
 encircling the horizon that he reveals to Elisha's 
 affrighted servant his protecting presence round about 
 his people. 
 
 When, then, in ears long familiar with such histories 
 as these John the Baptist cried: " I indeed baptize you 
 with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after 
 me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to 
 bear, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and 
 with fire," there was no misunderstanding these words. 
 
 143 
 
They spoke not of two baptisms, but of one, and that 
 divine, expressed first literally and then in consecrated 
 prophetic symbol. "He shall baptize you with the 
 Holy Ghost, and with fire." 
 
 It is true that as fire both purifies and destroys, so 
 this emblem of fire has two contrasted aspects, an aspect 
 of mercy and an aspect of terror. There is a fire of 
 God's wrath as well as a fire of God's love. " Our God 
 is a consuming fire." 
 
 And there are those who, misled by the words which 
 follow in the next verse, "He shall burn up the chaff 
 with unquenchable fire," would see here two contrasted 
 baptisms,— a baptism of the Holy Ghost for those that 
 believe, a baptism of consuming fire for those that 
 believe not. 
 
 But such an interpretation misses altogether the 
 force of the emphatic contrast which was the very reason 
 for choosing this word fire. " I indeed baptize you with 
 water, * * * but there cometh one mightier than I * * * 
 He shall baptize you with * * * fire." Clearly this is 
 one baptism in two-fold expression, the literal expression 
 interpreting the symbolic, and the symbolic vivifying 
 the literal, just as a description and a picture of the 
 same scene interpret and vivify each other. 
 
 He shall baptize you * * * with fire. Dwell a mo- 
 ment on that word. Not with water, but with fire. 
 Water and fire are both purifiers, but the latter how 
 much more searching and thorough. Fire penetrates 
 through and through and burns out the dross to the 
 very core. Water bears away the impurities without 
 destroying them, merely changing their place. Fire 
 consumes and makes away with them utterly. Water 
 must be applied again and again to the same surface to 
 remove new defilement. Fire does its work once for all. 
 A busy housewife years ago fixed this thought in my 
 
 144 
 
mind as a nail in a sure place. It was a morning of 
 early fall when grate-fires were beginning to be kindled. 
 She was busy about the room with broom and dust-pan, 
 gathering up the rubbish which had accumulated in this 
 corner and in that. At length she came with a pan full, 
 tossed it upon the fire in the grate, watched it a few 
 seconds first sizzle and blaze, then glow, then vanish, 
 and turning to me she said: "When you come to be a 
 housekeeper you will feel what the scriptures mean by 
 their frequent references to fire as a purifier." And 
 every housekeeper here will feel it. How much un- 
 sightly rubbish which it were hard to find a place for, 
 which else must needs be carried off and deposited upon 
 some heap of refuse, there to blow about and again get 
 under foot, or to pester and pollute the air with its 
 odors, does the fire take care of instantly and completely, 
 so that it is never heard of again. 
 
 You and I, my friends, need more than a surface 
 washing to make us clean. We need the searching of 
 the refiner's fire. Nothing short of this can consume 
 the earthiness and selfishness from our hearts, leaving 
 only the pure gold of a holy character. " Two things," 
 says McLaren, "conquer my sin; one is the blood of 
 Jesus Christ which washes me from all the guilt of the 
 past; the other is the fiery influence of that divine Spirit 
 which makes me pure and clean for all time to come." 
 
 But again fire warms, it melts, it enkindles. It is in 
 all tongues the ready symbol of zeal, of enthusiasm, of 
 aroused emotion. We speak of kindling affections, of 
 a soul on fire, of flaming eloquence, of a heart melted 
 with love. 
 
 And this, too, is what the baptism of fire brings to 
 the soul. Without this baptism the Christian life is a 
 cold routine of duty; with it an enthusiastic service of 
 love. 
 
 145 
 
This it was that burned on the lips of Savonarola 
 and in the heart of Luther, that sent Carey to India, 
 sustained Judson in that frightful imprisonment in 
 Burmah, brightened young Harriet Newell's dying bed 
 on the Isle of France, and made David Brainerd what 
 he so often prayed that he might be, a flame of fire in 
 the service of his God. To the heart that has received 
 this baptism, sacrifice for Christ is a joy, toil for souls 
 a privilege, and death, come in what grim form it may, 
 a triumph. 
 
 And, once more, fire energizes. To the chemist in 
 his laboratory, to the mechanic in his factory, to the 
 captain upon his vessel, fire stands for the compelling, 
 moving power. It is a conquering element. Kindle it 
 and it spreads. It seizes upon surrounding material 
 and makes it its own. The resistless march of a forest 
 or a prairie-fire is something never to be forgotten by 
 any one who has witnessed it. So this baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost is an endowment of power. "Ye shall 
 receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon 
 you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusa- 
 lem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the 
 uttermost part of the earth." When the Church received 
 at Pentecost that promised baptism, it went forth on a 
 career of world conquest which has never ceased. With- 
 out that baptism it could never have achieved that 
 work. All the resources of wealth, all the arts of 
 politics, all the charms of eloquence can never make 
 Christianity a conquering religion where that fire has 
 died out. Every revival is the fruit of such a baptism. 
 Every successful missionary, every mighty evangelist, 
 every true winner of souls is made so by the baptism of 
 fire. Take the sermons of Whitefield and read them. 
 You can find nothing there to account for the wonderful 
 effect of his preaching. The sermons are in no way 
 
 HG 
 
remarkable. It was the fire of the Holy Ghost that 
 made them a power. But that fire dwelt in the man; 
 you cannot find it on the printed page. So if you were 
 to pick up a spent cartridge from which the bullet had 
 just sped that laid low a noble stag, you might say, "I 
 see nothing here to account for that missile's deadly 
 work." No; for the fire which made it a power is no 
 longer in it. Such was the baptism of fire of which 
 John spake — a copious outpouring of God's Spirit, by 
 which souls were to be cleansed from sin, to be inspired 
 with zeal, and to be energized to victorious achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 Now see whence this baptism of fire was to come. 
 "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but 
 he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes 
 I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with 
 the Holy Ghost and with fire." 
 
 Christ alone can give this baptism. What humility 
 is there in the contrast which the forerunner thus draws 
 between himself and the One who was to follow him; 
 what comfort and instruction also for the disciple of 
 Christ. 
 
 The contrast as the Baptist presented it was two- 
 fold, a contrast on the one hand between man's work, 
 and Christ's work, and on the other hand between the 
 old dispensation and the new. There is a contrast be- 
 tween man's work and Christ's work. John could show 
 men their sins, he could lead them to a formal pro- 
 fession of repentance and outward amendment of life; 
 but he could not impart the Holy Ghost. He could not 
 melt the stony heart. Only God could do that. And 
 in this very prediction there is a virtual ascription of 
 divinity to the Messiah whom he heralded. 
 
 Ah, my friends, this is as true to-day as it was in 
 John's day. I can baptize you with water. I can take 
 
 W 
 
your outward confession of sin, and on the strength of 
 it can receive you into the visible church. But if that 
 is all that has passed you are in no happy case. I fear 
 the visible church contains to-day too many such man- 
 made Christians. Christians whose conversion, or what 
 passes for such, is a purely human change, based on 
 their own human resolves, brought about by human 
 motives, under the influence of human persuasions, 
 without one spark of the fire from heaven. No wonder 
 such Christians are hard to distinguish from the world 
 around them, sharing the same tastes, running after the 
 same vanities, and often returning after a little to the 
 world altogether, as so many of the multitudes whom 
 John baptized without doubt have done. 
 
 My friend, are you such a Christian? I charge you 
 seek without delay, from the only one who can give it, 
 the baptism with the Holy Ghost. "Except a man be 
 born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God." But 
 was not John a prophet of the Lord, and would not the 
 Lord set the seal of his own blessing upon his work? 
 Doubtless he would and did. The same spirit who 
 spake by the prophets did in all ages make their word 
 effectual to some real spiritual results. Still there was 
 a contrast between the work of the Baptist even con- 
 sidered as God's instrument and the work of Christ for 
 which it prepared the way. The contrast here was one 
 of degree. It was the contrast between a measure of 
 the Spirit's influence such as John's baptism with water 
 might fitly typify, and the overwhelming fulness of that 
 influence expressed as a baptism with fire. 
 
 The Baptist still stood in the shadows of that elder 
 dispensation whose characteristic instrument was the 
 law, whose characteristic grace was repentance. The 
 fulness of the Spirit, joy in the Holy Ghost, the spirit 
 of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father, these were 
 
 148 
 
among the better things reserved for those to whom was 
 preached the gospel of an incarnate, crucified, and 
 risen Redeemer. I know not how to illustrate this dif- 
 ference of degree between the measure of the Spirit en- 
 joyed by holy men under the old dispensation and the 
 fulness of the Spirit which is man's privilege under the 
 new, better than in the words of Wm. Arthur in that 
 book to which I gladly acknowledge my deep indebted- 
 ness, "The Tongue of Fire." 
 
 "A piece of iron is dark and cold; imbued with a 
 certain degree of heat it becomes almost burning with- 
 out any change of appearance; imbued with a still 
 greater degree its very appearance changes to that of 
 solid fire and it sets fire to whatever it touches. A 
 piece of water without heat is solid and brittle; gently 
 warmed it flows, further heated it mounts to the sky. 
 ***** Such is the soul without the Holy Ghost and 
 such are the changes which pass upon it when it 
 receives the Holy Ghost and when it is ' filled with the 
 Holy Ghost.' " 
 
 Thus to baptize men with the Holy Ghost, in 
 fullest measure, was the end for which Christ both died 
 and rose and ascended. John the Baptist said much 
 more, if we are to judge by the fragments of his preach- 
 ing recorded in the gospels, of this baptism of fire than 
 of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God for the sin of the 
 world. And with reason, Jesus himself ever led the 
 minds of his disciples onward from what he would do 
 for them upon the cross to what he would do for them 
 upon the throne. Every step of that life from Bethany 
 to Olivet, was a step toward that blessed consummation, 
 the sending of the Comforter. Forgiveness of sins but 
 opens the way to communion with God. The blood 
 shed on Calvary was, we may say it without irreverence, 
 but the price paid by the world's Redeemer for the 
 
 149 
 
privilege of baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire. 
 
 Suffer me then once more follow-Christian, to press 
 this question: Have you yet received the baptism of 
 fire? Granting that you are a true Christian, that you 
 have been born of the Spirit, still I urge this question, 
 Have you received this fulness of the Spirit, this puri- 
 fying, kindling, energizing, by that divine fire which is 
 your privilege in this gospel day? The tokens are not 
 hard to discern. The question is not at all whether 
 you are as good a Christian as you might be and wish to 
 be. Even the fire of God's Spirit does not consume sin 
 all at once. But are you a growing Christian? Are you 
 a happy Christian? Are you an enthusiastic Christian? 
 If not, surely there is something wrong. Why should 
 you miss the very distinctive blessing of the gospel? 
 Why in this dispensation of the Spirit should you still 
 be living on an Old Testament plane and painfully 
 plodding through an Old Testament experience. 
 
 The Christian life is too high a life to be lived suc- 
 cessfully without this baptism. The task set before the 
 wretched children of Jacob to make bricks without 
 straw, was nothing compared to the task he sets before 
 himself who essays to live as Christ calls him to live 
 without this fire in his soul. As well expect a glacier 
 to do the work of a river, clothing its banks with ver- 
 dure, and making the fields over which it passes rich 
 with the golden corn, as expect a disciple of Christ to 
 bless the world with his presence, and bear abundant 
 fruit to his Master's glory, whose cold, worldly, selfish 
 heart has not been thoroughly melted down under a 
 baptism of fire. 
 
 As American Christians we rejoice in our untramelled 
 freedom to work out our problem of "a free Christian 
 in a free state." As evangelical Christians we rest our 
 
 150 
 
hope upon a Christian membership based upon personal 
 experience of saving grace. As Calvinistic Christians we 
 exalt fidelity to the whole truth of God's Word. As Pres- 
 byterian Christians we lay claim to an ecclesiastical sys- 
 tem combining in a rare degree liberty with order, stability 
 with efficiency. Never perhaps in all history has a 
 church had a grander opportunity, freer scope, ampler 
 resources, or better facilities for fulfilling its grand 
 commission to preach the gospel to every creature. 
 
 But one thing is lacking, — the baptism of fire! Yes, 
 fire! That is what we need to solve the ever-recurring 
 problem of debt, which our Boards of Missions are so 
 often compelled to face. Improved schemes for revenue 
 are well, but though we scheme and scheme until we die, 
 nothing but fire from heaven will unlock the treasures 
 held fast in the icy fetters of selfishness and worldliness, 
 flooding the treasuries of the church with streams of 
 gold and silver till there shall not be room to receive 
 them, and making the desert to rejoice and blossom as 
 the rose. 
 
 Fire! This is the one remedy for the divisions of 
 Christendom — for the unseemly rivalries on mission- 
 fields, sometimes abroad and oftener still at home, 
 which waste the Lord's money and put a stumbling 
 block in the way of souls. In this fire the sects, which 
 like so many bars of iron, have lain side by side in frigid 
 isolation or smitten upon one another in the angry 
 clangor of polemic strife, would flow and fuse together 
 in a glow of brotherly love like the molten metal in the 
 fierce heat of the furnace. 
 
 My brethren, why have we not this baptism? Did 
 not Christ, when he promised his last best gift, promise 
 it as a comforter who should abide with us forever. Is 
 the gift of Pentecost exhausted? Is the energy spent 
 
 151 
 
that made the progress of the apostolic church such a 
 marvelous succession of victories? 
 
 Or are we, busied with our plans and our machinery, 
 forgetting that all these are inert and powerless till 
 energized by the fire of the Holy Ghost? 
 
 God grant that in answer to united prayer, that 
 baptism may fall here and now upon pastor and people, 
 to his glory and the salvation of multitudes. 
 
 152 
 
THE WORLD'S PREPARATION FOR THE 
 GOSPEL. 
 
 But when the fulness of the time zvas come, God sent forth 
 his Son. — Gal. 4: 4. 
 
 In this one sentence is contained the substance of a 
 true philosophy of history. It directs our thought at 
 once to the incarnation of the Son of God as the one 
 central and supreme event for which the ages waited, 
 for which all foregoing history was the preparation, and 
 which, brought to pass in the fulness of time, laid the 
 foundation for that process of redemption, issuing in 
 the elevation of humanity to the dignity of sonship to 
 God of which all subsequent history is but the un- 
 folding. 
 
 As this Christmastide turns our thought once more 
 to that great event, the sending forth of the Son of God, 
 "made of a woman," I have thought that we might 
 find a fruitful as well as a fitting theme for our medi- 
 tation in the suggestion of a single phrase in this far- 
 reaching utterance, — "the fulness of the time." 
 
 These are pregnant words. They point to a prep- 
 aration of the world for the gospel, which must be 
 completed even before the Son of God could undertake 
 his great work of redemption. They teach us that in 
 the fulfillment of God's decrees the element of timeliness 
 plays an important part. In his delays there is nothing 
 arbitrary, nothing capricious. 
 
 Four thousand years had passed away since the first 
 proclamation of the good news of a "seed of the 
 woman" who should "bruise the serpent's head." The 
 
 153 
 
joy of Eve over her first-born was perhaps inspired by 
 the belief that this was the promised seed in whom that 
 prediction was to have forthwith its fulfillment. But 
 alas, if this was her hope, how bitter her disappoint- 
 ment as she bent over the body of the murdered Abel. 
 
 When Abraham received Isaac, the child of promise, 
 and with him such great and precious promises of bles- 
 sing through him to the whole world, he may have 
 thought that this was surely the promised Redeemer by 
 whom the great deliverance should be wrought. But 
 God showed him that there was a long, dark story of 
 Egyptian bondage which must intervene. 
 
 When Moses led Israel out of Egypt dividing the 
 Red Sea with his rod, bringing bread from heaven and 
 water from the rock, and talking with God face to face, 
 as a man talketh with his friend, the nation may well 
 have supposed that now surely the fulness of time had 
 come and that this great leader and deliverer would 
 realize for it all that had been promised at the Fall. 
 
 But ere he ascended to his lonely grave on Nebo he 
 could only point them forward to another Prophet like 
 unto him whom at a late day God would raise up, and 
 to whom they were to hearken. When Israel returned 
 from Babylon and under Zerubbabel, the heir of the 
 promises made to David's royal line, rebuilt their ruined 
 temple many of them doubtless looked upon him as the 
 Anointed One, the very Messiah who was to come. But 
 it was not yet the fulness of the time. This restoration 
 was but one more step forward in a long preparation 
 which was not yet complete. Israel's peculiar mission 
 was not yet fully performed. The failure of Gentile 
 civilization, Gentile government, Gentile philosophy, 
 and Gentile religion was not yet complete. Five 
 hundred years must still roll away before the decree 
 going forth from the palace of Augustus that all the 
 
 154 
 
world should be taxed, strikes the hour, and sets in 
 motion that little caravan from Nazareth to Bethlehem 
 from which history is to date a new beginning and the 
 world to gain a new hope. 
 
 The preparation implied in these words, " the fulness 
 of the time," was two-fold, providential and moral. 
 
 i. Let us look first at the providential preparation. 
 
 Christianity was intended for the world. It was not 
 like the Mosaic dispensation, a religion intended for a 
 small and localized people, the very design of which 
 was to keep them separate and distinct. It was good 
 tidings of great joy to all people, a proclamation of hope 
 and deliverance for the race. 
 
 We should naturally expect therefore that in the 
 Providence of God it would be introduced into the 
 world at an era when its diffusion might be as speedy 
 and complete as possible. 
 
 The establishment of the Roman empire was the 
 opening of such an era, the like of which the world had 
 never before seen. What steam and electricity have 
 been doing in our own day to bring the ends of the 
 earth together and surmount obstacles to the comming- 
 ling of nations, Roman arms, Roman Government, and 
 Roman roads had done in the first century on a scale 
 quite as surprising in its advance upon preceding ages. 
 
 In the interest of that world-empire whose cohesion 
 and endurance they well perceived to depend upon the 
 maintenance of the most perfect facilities of intercom- 
 munication between the center and the remotest parts, 
 these great conquerors and road builders had been 
 literally, though unconsciously, fulfilling the prophetic 
 demand; "Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make 
 straight in the desert a highway for our God." From 
 the golden milestone of Augustus in the Roman Forum 
 radiated a net-work of imperial highways over which as 
 
 155 
 
far as the Danube, the Pillars of Hercules, or the Cata- 
 racts of the Nile, the traveler could journey over well- 
 built roads, and find all along his route post stations for 
 the change of horses, and inns for lodging over night. 
 Over these roads and over the highways of the Mediter- 
 ranean made alike safe by the protecting hand of a 
 strong government was carried on a vast commerce, 
 which poured the products of the whole world into the 
 imperial city, and bore back to the remotest provinces 
 the products of Roman art, learning, and civilization. 
 
 Still more powerful as a unifying bond was the com- 
 mon law, which insured to all the diverse races compos- 
 ing this vast organism a rude, indeed, but uniform and 
 measurably fair administration of justice. To Gaul, to 
 Spaniard, to Greek, to Alexandrian, to Jew, justice was 
 meted out under the same statutes, according to the 
 same forms, and with the same sanctions. 
 
 By such agencies as these, — roads, commerce, gov- 
 ernment, — the world was made one as it had never been 
 one before. A fusion of races took place. Narrow 
 national prejudices were broken down. A kind of cos- 
 mopolitanism took the place of the national exclusive- 
 ness which a few centuries before had made dwellers on 
 opposite sides of the same mountain or the same lake 
 regard each other as natural enemies. Men of all 
 races eagerly availed themselves of the privilege of 
 Roman citizenship now so extensively thrown open, and 
 boasted not that they were Greeks, or Gauls, or Jews 
 even, but Romans. 
 
 The soldiers recruited by the thousand from every 
 subjugated people, and assigned to service always at a 
 distance from the land of their birth soon came to know 
 no country but Rome, and no tie stronger than their 
 military oath. With this went also the diffusion of a 
 common civilization. Even in far away Britain Roman 
 
 156 
 
conquest was speedily followed not only by Roman 
 roads, Roman camps, and Roman courts, but by 
 Roman towns, Roman dwellings, Roman temples, 
 Roman theatres, and Roman baths. 
 
 With this fusion of races and civilizations, and of 
 more importance to the diffusion of Christianity than 
 these even, went also the spread of a common language, 
 not the Latin (though that of course was everywhere, 
 as the official language, more or less understood), but 
 Greek, the language of letters, the speech of that more 
 graceful, more finished civilization to which even in the 
 hour of her triumph the rude soldier nation had bowed 
 in homage and which it became her ambition to copy 
 and transplant. What French once was to modern 
 Europe, Greek was in the days of the apostles to the 
 civilized world. Whoever could speak it could count 
 upon making himself understood in any city of the 
 Empire, in Europe, Asia or Africa. Not since the dis- 
 persion of Babel had the world come so near to being 
 of one speech. 
 
 There is yet one more element to be considered in 
 the providential preparation, viz., the dispersion of the 
 Jewish people, following with the instincts of their race 
 in the track of commerce, not only of Rome itself the 
 great heart of the world of trade, but to the remotest 
 ramifications of that vast system, so that the geographer 
 Strabo declared: "It is not easy to find a place in the 
 habitable world which has not received this race and is 
 not possessed by it." Wherever they went they chal- 
 lenged attention by their peculiarities, their separate- 
 ness, by such things as their scruples in regard to food 
 and their Sabbath rest. And everywhere they carried 
 with them two things, the synagogue with its worship of 
 an unseen deity, and the Greek Scriptures of the Old 
 Testament, thus bearing their witness in the face of 
 
 157 
 
heathenism, the world over, to the spirituality of the 
 one living God, the holiness of his law, and the promise 
 of a coming redemption, and supplying the heralds of 
 the gospel wherever they went with a place in which to 
 begin their preaching, and a written word on which to 
 base their announcement of God's promise fulfilled and 
 redemption accomplished. 
 
 Thus the three great nations of antiquity were each 
 of them in the all-comprehending plan of God tributary 
 to the world's preparation for the gospel. Not till 
 Roman law, Greek letters, and Jewish Religion had 
 gained in some sense a world-wide diffusion, was it 
 " the fulness of time " for " the desire of all nations " to 
 appear. 
 
 Then how swiftly did the bearers of glad tidings, 
 under the sheltering wings of the imperial eagles, fly 
 over those roads built for far other conquests, seeking 
 out the synagogues of the Jews and there proclaiming 
 in the Greek tongue to Jews, proselytes, and heathen, 
 "Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God." 
 
 2. But side by side with this providential prepara- 
 tion there had been going on a moral preparation for the 
 gospel, not less necessary, and "the fulness of the 
 time " implies the completeness of this preparation also. 
 Indeed it is this to which this phrase of the apostle 
 more immediately refers, as we see from the context in 
 which he pictures man until the coming of Christ as a 
 child in his minority, subjected to a strict preparatory 
 discipline, not trusted as yet with the privileges of son- 
 ship because the fulness of time, i. e., the maturity 
 which should fit him for them has not yet come. 
 
 This moral preparation aimed chiefly at the devel- 
 oping of that profound sense of need without which 
 redemption would have been offered in vain. This end 
 
 158 
 
was reached along two lines, a positive and negative, a 
 a divine and a human. 
 
 God himself took one chosen people in hand, and by 
 the message of his prophets, line upon line, precept 
 upon precept,— and still more sharply by his own 
 dealings with them in their long history taught them 
 the two great lessons of his own majesty and holiness 
 and of the guilt and the desert of sin, so constraining 
 them to feel their need of a Savior who should free 
 them from the curse of a broken law and reconcile them 
 to a holy God. 
 
 Meantime he left the rest of mankind in great 
 measure to themselves, to learn by the utter failure of 
 all their efforts to improve themselves or to stay the 
 downward movement toward chaos and ruin, the same 
 great lesson of helplessness and need. When this two- 
 fold training was complete, and not till then, God sent 
 forth his Son. So far as the human side was concerned, 
 it would be hardly possible for human helplessness to 
 receive a more convincing demonstration, or human 
 despair to reach a deeper depth than in the gilded de- 
 bauchery and splendid misery of imperial Rome. There 
 was no human agency for uplifting the race that had not 
 been already tried and proved a failure. 
 
 a. Government, political institutions, had been 
 tried; and these had failed. The brilliant political his- 
 tory of Greece had ended in effeminacy and subjugation 
 to a foreign yoke. The vigorous organization of repub- 
 lican Rome had given it the mastery of the world but 
 could not give it the mastery of itself nor save it from 
 issuing in the wreck of the civil wars and the servile 
 cringing at last of a race of free men at the feet of a 
 despot, who himself found even imperial authority, put 
 forth in statute, after statute, powerless to check the 
 growing corruptions of the time. 
 
 159 
 
b. Civilization had been tried; and that had failed. 
 In a form of consummate grace and perfection it had 
 gone from Greece, and in the track of the Roman 
 legions had overspread the world. Yet as civilization 
 advanced, corruption kept pace with it; and elegance of 
 life and refinement of manners proved but a surface 
 adornment, which, like the iridescent film upon a stag- 
 nant pool, did but overspread a depth of putrescence 
 which it could neither heal nor hide. 
 
 In Rome itself, the center of civilization, a state of 
 morals had been reached of which a Seneca draws this 
 picture: "Daily the lust of sin increases; daily the 
 sense of shame diminishes. Casting away all regard 
 for what is good and honorable, pleasure runs riot with- 
 out restraint. Vice no longer hides itself, it stalks forth 
 before all eyes. So public has iniquity become, so 
 mightily does it flame up in all hearts, that innocence 
 is no longer rare; it has ceased to exist." 
 
 Gone were the ancient simplicity, the ancient in- 
 dustry, the ancient pure and sweet domestic life. 
 Marriage was despised, family life abhorred as a bur- 
 den, divorce an every day occurrence; the life of the 
 rich was passed in inane luxury and empty frivolity, 
 the poor clamored only for "bread and shows," and all 
 classes wallowed in a lewdness that forbids description. 
 
 c. Human religions had been tried, and these had 
 failed. The immoral gods and goddesses of the old 
 mythology had no restraining power over the conscience 
 and were fast losing their hold upon the belief of their 
 worshipers. Yet though the world has been ransacked 
 for new ones none have been found to take their place. 
 The sacred rites are kept up as a matter of public policy 
 by men who laugh in their sleeve while they perform 
 them; and the people betake themselves to the temples 
 there to learn, in the impure orgies performed as an act 
 
 160 
 
of worship, acceptable to the gods, new lessons in vice. 
 Till of the moral outcome of it all the Holy Ghost has 
 given the dark but sober picture in that terrible first 
 chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, every line of 
 which its readers could of their own knowledge abun- 
 dantly confirm. 
 
 d. As the power of religion waned, philosophy was 
 tried. But for the deep-seated moral hurt of the world, 
 wherewith the whole head was sick and the whole heart 
 faint, it had no remedy but words, words, empty words. 
 It could preach, but it could not practice, still less 
 teach others to practice. 
 
 The same Seneca whose precepts sometimes remind 
 us of the apostle Paul, was openly accused of adultery 
 and unquestionably initiated his imperial pupil Nero 
 into the vilest sins. Writing in praise of Poverty he 
 amassed an enormous fortune and had in his house five 
 hundred tables of citrus wood some of them worth as 
 much as twenty-five thousand dollars. Inculcating in 
 his essays clemency and truth, he connived at the 
 atrocities of Nero, and wrote for him the lying defense 
 with which he pretended to justify to the Senate his 
 cold-blooded murder of his mother. 
 
 In the face of life's mysteries and under the burden 
 of its sorrow it offered through the calm lips of a Pliny 
 such cold comfort as this: "There is nothing certain 
 save that nothing is certain. The best thing which has 
 been given to man amid the many torments of this life 
 is, that he can take his own life." That indeed was the 
 last crowning word of philosophy, its panacea for all 
 ills: "If life is too much for you, the way out of it is 
 before you." 
 
 In the face of this fourfold failure, of government, of 
 civilization, of religion as they knew it, and of philoso- 
 phy to make the world better or to keep it from growing 
 
 161 
 
worse an awful despair had begun to settle down upon 
 the heathen world; a despair which in thoughtful minds 
 found utterance in a gloomy pessimism which pro- 
 claimed existence itself a mockery, and in the unthink- 
 ing multitude dumbly wrought itself out in sheer reck- 
 lessness of living. 
 
 Out of this despair grew a dim longing for redemp- 
 tion. Men's minds turned to that mysterious Orient out 
 of which so many strange things had come and whence 
 were heard hints and presages of some expected de- 
 liverance. 
 
 Even the Scriptures of the despised Jew began to be 
 regarded with curious interest for their promise of a 
 Messiah, and the prophecies of Isaiah find a strange 
 echo in the poems of a Virgil. 
 
 On the other hand the divine preparation was also 
 complete. The Mosaic dispensation had done its work 
 for Israel and for the world. The revelation of law was 
 complete. Nothing now was left for those who had 
 learned its lessons, but to wait for the "consolation of 
 Israel." 
 
 The whole Old Testament, both as law and pro- 
 phecy, was condensed into the mighty proclamation 
 with which John the Baptist, last and greatest of the 
 prophets, shook the nation: "Repent; for the king- 
 dom of heaven is at hand." 
 
 There remained nothing more, nothing higher to be 
 said, till, pointing to Jesus as he walked, he could ex- 
 claim: " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away 
 the sin of the world." 
 
 As a witness to the heathen world, too, Israel's mis- 
 sion was fulfilled. Its testimony against idolatry had, 
 as we have seen, been carried throughout the world. 
 Beyond that it could not go. It could rebuke; but it 
 could not convert. There was no world-conquering 
 
 162 
 
power, no world-embracing universality in Judaism. It 
 had met the dim groping of heathenism for a redemp- 
 tion with the divine promise of a Redeemer; but the 
 connecting link was still wanting. Then it was, in that 
 fulness of time, when heathen despair had reached its 
 darkest depth, and Israel's longing its greatest inten- 
 sity, that God sent forth his Son. And as the heralds 
 of salvation went everywhere throughout the length and 
 breadth of that world-empire telling the story of that in- 
 carnate, crucified, risen Redeemer, the Son of God, yet 
 born of a woman, who had come into the world that he 
 might bear witness to the truth, who had borne its sins 
 in his own body on the tree, and who had risen from the 
 tomb, that, triumphant over the last enemy, he might, 
 to as many as received him, give eternal life, they gave 
 to a world weary of its old gods and incredulously ask- 
 ing: What is truth? a new faith to a world in despair 
 of the future, whether for this life or the life to come, 
 a new hope; to a world exhausted in its own fruitless 
 struggles, a new power. 
 
 My friend, whatever you think of Christ, whatever 
 you do with him personally, you owe as a modern man, 
 as an American man, an unspeakable debt to that event 
 which this day commemorates. This world is a different 
 world to-day; above all is this land a different land 
 to-day from what it would or could have been had there 
 not been born in Bethlehem of Judea a^ Savior, who is 
 Christ the Lord. 
 
 Yet the blessing which thus comes to you through 
 Christ's influence upon the world, through the new 
 direction he has given to the currents of human history 
 is as nothing to the blessing which will come to you if 
 Christ shall be born in your own soul. Has he been 
 born there? For that, too, there must be, in some 
 sense, a "fulness of the time." Christ will never be 
 
 163 
 
born in your heart, he will never bring to you the 
 unspeakable blessing of a personal redemption and a 
 personal sonship to God, till in the depths of your soul 
 you have felt your need of him, till the emptiness of life, 
 the uncertainty of the future, the failure of your en- 
 deavors or the burden of your sins have driven you to 
 cry out for help from above. 
 
 You have been tossing perhaps these many years on 
 a sea of doubt and unbelief, where neither sun nor 
 star has in many days appeared. Have you not drifted 
 far enough? Is it not the fulness of the time for you to 
 receive on board the pilot who will guide your soul into 
 the sure haven of a steadfast faith? 
 
 You are growing old. You have led a busy life and 
 played a part not unimportant in human affairs. But 
 you realize that each year that part grows less. You 
 feel that ■ you are being crowded off the stage by a 
 younger generation. And before you all is uncertainty. 
 You can look forward to no new and higher work await- 
 ing you, to no certain and lasting fruition of your life's 
 labors. Is it not the fulness of the time for you to 
 receive into your soul Him who said: "I am the 
 Resurrection and the Life. * * * He that believeth in 
 me shall never die." 
 
 You are saddened in these closing days of the year 
 by the memory of temptation, yielded to, high purposes 
 unfulfilled, and by a sad consciousness of moral failure. 
 Is it not the fulness of the time for you to receive into 
 your soul one who can change defeat into victory, and 
 who having begun a good work in you will not abandon 
 it till he shall present you faultless before the throne of 
 his Father. 
 
 Oh, if my voice reaches to-day one hopeless, despair- 
 ing sinner, who has lost all faith in his own goodness 
 and all satisfaction in the pleasures of sin, I say to such 
 
 164 
 
a one, Take heart! Your very despair is a sign of 
 encouragement, for this is the very fulness of the time 
 for God's salvation to come to you. 
 
 165 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF SIN. 
 
 Let no man say token he is tempted, I am tempted of God : 
 for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any 
 man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of 
 his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it 
 bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth 
 death. — Jas. 1:13-15. 
 
 The transition from the immediately preceding verse 
 to these which are now before us is sudden and start- 
 ling : 
 
 " Blessed is the man that endureth temptation for 
 when he is tried he shall receive a crown of life, which 
 the Lord hath promised to them that love him." "Let 
 no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God ; 
 for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth 
 he any man." 
 
 It is manifest that there has been a transition in the 
 apostle's mind not only from one aspect of temptation to 
 another, but from one class of readers to another. 
 
 Temptation has two sides, a good and a bad side. 
 Viewed from one side it is a test of character, a whole- 
 some discipline, leading to glorious and everlasting re- 
 sults. 
 
 It is this which warrants these congratulatory words : 
 " Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." 
 
 Viewed from another side, it is a seduction to evil, 
 which, if yielded to may issue in fatal consequences. 
 Which of these shall be the practical side depends upon 
 how it is met. Too often in our own experience, as well 
 
 166 
 
as that of others, we have found it passing over from 
 the former to the latter, and issuing in sin, by which 
 character is broken down instead of matured. 
 
 Too many of his readers, James well knew as they 
 read these words : " Blessed is the man that endureth 
 temptation " would be forced to say : "That blessing is 
 not for me — I have not endured ; I have miserably 
 yielded. How comes it so? is the question he now turns 
 to answer, and in answering it he traces in striking met- 
 aphor what may be called the Genealogy of Sin. Shall 
 those who failed to meet the test take warrant from this 
 view of temptation as God's appointed discipline to 
 throw upon Him the blame of their failure, who placed 
 them in such circumstances and exposed them to such 
 dangers ? Never ! To every such fallen one he cries : 
 Beware how you blaspheme a holy God by making him 
 responsible for sins which are your own act, prompted 
 by your own lusts, committed of your own will, and 
 bringing forth their own fruit in a death which is your 
 own work. 
 
 The answer covers the whole ground. It tells us 
 where the whole fault does not lie, and where it does. 
 It forbids us to put the responsibility of our own defeat 
 upon God, and fixes it where it belongs — upon our- 
 selves. 
 
 i. It forbids us to put the responsibility upon God. 
 With temptation considered as seduction, as solicitation 
 to evil, God has nothing to do. He cannot have ; for 
 he is a holy God. There is in his being no sympathy 
 with evil in any form. Too holy to feel its seduction 
 himself, much more is he too holy to become the seducer 
 of others. 
 
 It is natural to us all to make excuses for sin. We 
 seek to shift the responsibility upon some one else. 
 When the first man sinned, he laid the blame upon the 
 
 1G7 
 
woman ; and the woman in her turn laid it upon the* 
 serpent. So we all pass on responsibility from hand to 
 hand, laying the blame sometimes on our fellow men, 
 sometimes on our parents, — on " that rash humor which 
 our" mothers " gave " us,-^but with a constant tendency 
 to throw it back at last, consciously or unconsciously, 
 upon God. Practically, there is where in the end it 
 must fall, if we throw it off ourselves. One of Presi- 
 dent Finney's most powerful sermons is upon this theme: 
 "The excuses of sinners condemn God," in which, tak- 
 ing up one after another some score of the favorite ex- 
 cuses of sinners, he shows how each in one way or an- 
 other, really puts the blame upon God. We should all 
 be only too glad thus to fix the responsibility upon our 
 Maker if we could, for then sin would cease to be sin. 
 Then we should have a plea which we could boldly take 
 to the bar of last account and face with it the Judge 
 upon his throne. 
 
 It is not surprising therefore that human ingenuity 
 should exhaust itself in attempts to do this very thing. 
 
 Sometimes this is done under the learned guise of a 
 false philosophy. This is the secret fascination of some 
 of the forms of error which have maintained the most 
 powerful hold upon the minds of men. So it is e. g. 
 with that subtle form of thought called pantheism, 
 which has shown such marvelous vitality, which under- 
 lies some of the most powerful forms of heathenism, an- 
 cient and modern, and which is trying just now to make 
 good for itself a place in the Christian church. For in 
 making man himself a part of God, this system fixes 
 upon God the responsibility of all man's acts, and so 
 destroys the distinction between good and evil, saying 
 virtually : There is no evil. What seems so is but the 
 shadow of good. So the modern materialism, boldly 
 advocated by some of the present leaders in the world of 
 
 168 
 
science, which teaches that man is essentially an autom- 
 aton, that thought and will are but secretions of the 
 brain, whose character is determined by the brain's 
 structure and fibre, clearly throws back the only respon- 
 sibility for which it leaves room, upon the Maker of the 
 automaton. 
 
 The doctrine of moral evolution held by so many as 
 a natural sequence of the doctrine of physical evolution, 
 teaching as it does that sin, not simply temptation, is a 
 necessary step of progress, — the stumbling by which a 
 child learns to walk, — that, as it is sometimes put, " the 
 fall of man was a fall upward," puts all the responsibility 
 upon God, who has ordained such a mode of progress. 
 
 With others the Scripture itself is wrested to this 
 end. Perhaps it is the mystery of foreordination behind 
 which the guilty conscience seeks to shield itself. " It 
 was decreed. What could I do ? " Or, as the apostle 
 quotes the same excuse in his day : " Why doth He yet 
 find fault ; for who hath resisted his will ? " 
 
 Or it is God's providence on which we lay the 
 blame. Whenever we lay the blame of our sin upon 
 circumstances, we virtually lay it upon the Providence 
 which ordered those circumstances. So Adam hinted at 
 a responsibility lying back of the woman's, when he 
 said : "The woman that thou gavcst to be with me, 
 she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." 
 
 When we say as we often do: "I could not help it ; 
 in the circumstances in which I was placed, I had to do 
 it" what is that but to lay the blame upon Him who 
 placed us there ? 
 
 Or we charge all to the constitution which God gave 
 us. So Burns sang : 
 
 ''Thou knowest that thou hast made me 
 With passions wild and strong, 
 And listening to their witching voice 
 Has often led me wrong." 
 169 
 
Or we blame God for not surrounding us with greater 
 restraining influences ; like the rich man in the parable, 
 who, in pleading that Lazarus be sent to warn his breth- 
 ren, virtually accused God of allowing him to perish for 
 lack of timely warning. 
 
 These are a few of the ways in which we seek to 
 throw upon God the responsibility of our failures to 
 overcome temptation. To all such pleas the earnest, 
 practical James has one simple answer, a sweeping 
 denial, and one conclusive argument ; God is a holy 
 God. Here is no philosophizing over the problem of 
 God's government, no recondite speculation upon the 
 origin of evil, no metaphysical hair-splitting concerning 
 fixed fate, free will, ' 'fore knowledge absolute, " but simply 
 the direct appeal to conscience: "Beware how you at- 
 tempt to make a holy God an accomplice in your guilt." 
 It is sufficient. An aroused conscience instantly owns 
 the conclusiveness of the answer, and the fitness of the 
 rebuke. 
 
 2. Having thus seen where the fault does not lie 
 we are next shown where it does lie. " Every man is 
 tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and en- 
 ticed." The aim of the writer here is still intensely 
 practical. Therefore he does not concern himself at all 
 with the theological question, how sin first entered the 
 world. There is nothing here about the fall of the race. 
 It is your fall and mine, which he is accounting for. Nor 
 does he ever bring in the agency of Satan, real as that 
 agency is; because he is seeking to fix attention upon 
 that sinful inclination within, to which the tempter him- 
 self makes his successful appeal, and without which he 
 would tempt in vain. 
 
 a. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his 
 own lust. I hardly need to remind you that lust is used 
 here, not in its narrow sense, of sensual desire, but in its 
 
 170 
 
broad sense, of every form of sinful inclination. This is 
 what gives temptation its hold upon us. The enemy 
 without would never compel a surrender, did not the 
 traitor within the bosom open the gates. The scent of 
 carrion which is abhorrent to a dove, is sweet to a vul- 
 ture. Their nature makes the difference. A holy soul 
 might be tempted, but in a different way from that in 
 which you and I are tempted. When it is said that 
 Christ himself was tempted in all points like as we are, 
 it is not meant that he was tempted in the same way that 
 we are. The outward temptation is there, but not the 
 inward lust. 
 
 b. But this is not the beginning. This secret in- 
 clination to evil, while it gives to temptation its sinister 
 side, is not yet sin in the full sense of voluntary, respon- 
 sible transgression. To this something more is neces- 
 sary, viz: the consent of the will. "Every man is 
 tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and 
 enticed. Then, when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth 
 sin." The strong, albeit repulsive, image in the apostle's 
 mind is that of a man yielding to the embrace of a 
 wanton. The regal self-governing power listens to the 
 enticing voice of lust and from this unhallowed union of 
 will and lust there is begotten that loathsome offspring, 
 sin. 
 
 See how these steps are illustrated in the confession 
 of Achan (as you will find it Josh. 7: 20-21). "And 
 Achan answered Joshua and said : Behold I have sinned 
 against the Lord God of Israel. . . . When I saw 
 among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and two 
 hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty 
 shekels' weight, then I coveted them and took them." 
 "I saw "; there is temptation on its providential side, 
 the outward occasion which tested the man. "I cov- 
 eted " ; there is temptation on its seductive side, the 
 
 171 
 
inward lust of covetousness, roused into activity by the 
 outward occasion and alluring, enticing toward the for- 
 bidden treasure. " I took " ; there finally is the consent 
 to the enticement of lust, issuing in transgression. 
 
 c. But we have not done yet with this terrible gene- 
 alogy. Sin which is the child of lust, becomes in its 
 turn a parent. Sin when it is finished, when it is full 
 grown — " bringeth forth death." — There is something 
 startling in that expression: " Sin, when it is finished." 
 There is a parallel, which cannot have been undesigned, 
 with the foregoing : " When he is ^ried he shall receive 
 a crown of life." Evil, like goodness, has its maturity, 
 its consummation. Character is never stationary. There 
 is a law of growth in sin as in holiness. At first sin 
 seems like an infant, harmless in appearance, almost 
 winsome perhaps, easly managed. But it soon becomes 
 a full-grown master. See how the lust of covetousness 
 in Judas issued first in petty thefts, which doubtless 
 seemed to him of very small account, easily concealed, 
 easily forgotten, but soon that little sin grew to the 
 greater sins of conspiracy, treachery, murder and suicide. 
 So Cain's lust of envy, when it had conceived, brought 
 forth the sin of anger, and that sin was soon finished in 
 murder. 
 
 "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." 
 Here is no hint of any joint parentage. This final issue 
 is something with which our consent has nothing to do. 
 Lust conceives by the consent of the will. But sin 
 brings forth its issue alone. When it has reached its 
 maturity, it issues in death by a law which works inde- 
 pendently of us. 
 
 There is an Oriental fable which relates that the 
 devil once asked permission to kiss a certain king upon 
 his shoulders. The king consented and straightway from 
 either shoulder sprang up a serpent which fastened its 
 
 172 
 
fangs in his brain. So it is with ns. We consent to it 
 at first because we think it a little thing, almost or quite 
 harmless. And lo ! it leaps to life a full-grown serpent, 
 and slays us with its venom. 
 
 These words recall the words of Paul : " The wages 
 of sin is death." But they recall them with a difference. 
 Wages are earned. They point to a trial of some sort, or 
 an award. Paul's figure then suggests judicial penalty. 
 But this of James suggests natural consequence. Death 
 is what sin issues in by its own nature. The two are not 
 in conflict. The sentence of death is indeed God's, but 
 nature is made the executioner. Under God's govern- 
 ment things are so arranged, in other words, that sin 
 punishes itself. It brings forth its penalty. 
 
 O that men would learn that sin, when it has run its 
 course, brings forth death as naturally, as surely, as in- 
 evitably as fire brings forth heat, or as the sunrise brings 
 the day. If we could get this view of penalty as the 
 natural consequence of sin, rather than an arbitrary sen- 
 tence imposed like a fine or imprisonment, at the pleasure 
 of the Judge, we should be less easily deluded with hopes 
 of somehow evading the penalty while indulging the sin. 
 
 "Sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death." 
 But the death too, like the sin, is progressive. 
 
 You remember the melancholy words of Dean 
 Swift, when, pointing to a tree whose upper branches 
 were leafless and dry, he said : "I shall be like that 
 tree ; I shall die at the top " — words sadly verified in the 
 mental decay which made his closing years a blank. 
 The sinner too dies " at the top." His death is first of 
 all a spiritual death, the death of his higher nature, the 
 death of his nobler impulses and aspirations. First it 
 is his godward faculties, — that side of his being through 
 which he has fellowship with the unseen, which dies, 
 then the nobler human affections. See how the degra- 
 
 173 
 
dation of these is portrayed in that terrible first chapter 
 of Paul's letter to the Romans. There bodily decay and 
 physical death coming as the direct manifest result of 
 intemperance, of lust, or of other forms of "finished" 
 sin. Then, last of all, comes eternal death, the second 
 death, the casting of soul and body into hell. And this 
 too is just as truly natural consequence as spiritual death 
 and physical death. There are few more significant ex- 
 pressions in Scripture bearing upon that awful mystery 
 than Peter's word concerning Judas, "that he might go 
 to his own place," — his own place, — the place to which 
 his affinities draw him. Vice, even in this world, seeks 
 its own level. You do not find the hardened debauchee, 
 when free to choose his own surroundings, seeking the 
 house of God, or the happy fireside of the Christian 
 household. He chooses rather the saloon and the 
 brothel. He is more at home there. So in the world to 
 come the sinner will sink to his own level. His sur- 
 roundings will shape themselves to his nature. "Sin 
 when it is finished bringeth forth death." 
 
 Here you have a descending ladder with its three 
 steps corresponding exactly to that ascending ladder, 
 whose upward steps have been indicated in the previous 
 verses. These steps were : Temptation resisted ; 
 character perfected ; a crown of life. These are, tem- 
 tation yielded to ; sin finished ; death. 
 
 At the head of that ascending ladder, — as of that 
 which Jacob saw in his vision, — stands God, our Father, 
 reaching out his hand to all who will lay hold of it to help 
 them safely up. But if you take the downward road you 
 take it alone. That hand does not thrust you down, 
 and the ruin in which it ends will be your own work. 
 To-day I write opposite your name, my hearer, the word 
 temptation. Not one name in this company against 
 which must not stand that solemn word. But what am 
 
 174 
 
I to write after it, — yielded to ? Or resisted ? a step 
 up or a step down, — which shall it be ? Has the step 
 down been already taken ? Has lust already conceived 
 and brought forth ? Then make haste to slay thy sin, 
 ere thy sin, full-grown, slay thee. Some one has said : 
 " The life of sin and the life of the sinner are like two 
 buckets in a well, if one goes up, the other must go 
 down. When sin liveth, the sinner must die." But 
 make haste ! make haste ! You have not a moment to 
 lose. Every hour that you hesitate, sin is gaining 
 strength ; to break away is becoming harder ; and you 
 know not when the last fatal blow will be struck. 
 
 It is related by a French writer, that the captain of 
 a vessel was one day walking carlessly along a river's 
 mouth at low water. As he looked about him, not 
 minding his steps, he did not notice a great chain 
 stretched on the ground before him, one end of which 
 was fastened to a ring in a stone on the bank, the other 
 to an anchor sunk in the river. Not seeing it he 
 stumbled against it, and his foot passing through one of 
 the links, he could not draw it back again. For a time 
 he struggled to extricate himself, but in vain. He 
 turned his foot this way and that but could not draw it 
 out. Then he called for help and some men who were 
 passing hastened to his assistance. But their efforts 
 too were futile. The foot was beginning to swell and 
 could no longer be extricated. What was to be done ? 
 The chain was too heavy to be removed ; the tide was 
 coming in ; deliverance must be speedy or it would be 
 too late. "Let us call a smith to saw the chain " said 
 one. One of their number was dispatched to the near- 
 est village, two or three miles away, and at length re- 
 turned with a smith. But it was found that the tools 
 he brought were inadequate, and he was obliged to go 
 back for others. At last he returned j but in the mean- 
 
 175 
 
time the tide had risen, till the waves which at first 
 barely wet the feet of the unhappy victim now reached 
 to his waist The smith saw that he could do nothing. 
 But one resource was left. The unfortunate man must 
 part with his leg if he would save his life. O the agony 
 of that moment ! But there was no time to be lost. 
 Yes, yes, anything for life. Quick ! bring the surgeon ! 
 He is brought with utmost haste, his case of instruments 
 in hand. " O doctor," cries the wretched victim, 
 " make haste, save my life ! " But the tide is rushing in 
 with terrible force, the doctor must get into a boat, and 
 it is only by strong strokes of the oar, that he can reach 
 to the side of the perishing man, who is now in the 
 water up to his chin. "It is too late ! " cries the sur- 
 geon in despair, and before anything can be done, the 
 waves have gone over the man's head ; he is lost ! 
 
 Impenitent hearer, you are that man ; sin is that 
 chain, and you are fast in its links. If it holds you a 
 little longer the result will be death. You have tried to 
 break away alone, and you cannot. Sin is too strong 
 for you. Its grip is tightening day by day. 
 
 You must have help, help which only One can give. 
 But, blessed be God, that help has not to be fetched 
 from afar. It is at hand. You have not to wait till one 
 ascend into heaven to bring Christ down, nor till one 
 descend to bring Christ up from beneath. "The word 
 is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart," that blessed 
 word of faith and hope, " that if thou shalt confess with 
 thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine 
 heart, that God hath raised him from the dead, thou 
 shalt be saved." 
 
 But even with that help stern measures may be 
 necessary. Remember the word of that very Saviour : 
 " If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and 
 cast them from thee. It is better for thee to enter into 
 
 176 
 
life halt or maimed, rather than, having two hands or 
 two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire." 
 
 Whatever it be, be it the dearest thing on earth, 
 which keeps yon fast in sin's horrible chain, cut it off, 
 let it go. Stay not for parley ; seek not to compromise. 
 Cast yourself at once and altogether upon the saving 
 mercy of the divine Redeemer. 
 
 171 
 
THE UNKNOWN FACTOR OF LIFE. 
 
 Go to now, ye that say : To-day or to-morrow we will go 
 into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell 
 and get gain. Whereas ye know not ivhat shall be on the mor- 
 row. For ivhat is your life ? It is even a vapor that appeareth 
 for a little time and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to 
 say : If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now 
 ye rejoice in your boastings : all such rejoicing is evil. — James 
 4: 13-16. 
 
 After the discovery of the planet Uranus in the lat- 
 ter part of the last century, astronomers found them- 
 selves much perplexed by the irregularity of its move- 
 ments. It was found repeatedly to disappoint their cal- 
 culations and to appear at some other than its appointed 
 place. It was evident that there was some unknown 
 factor concerned in the problem of its motion, which 
 must be found and determined before its place could be 
 successfully predicted. The hypothesis that this dis- 
 turbing force was another and more distant planet led to 
 a search and eventually to the discovery of the planet 
 Neptune on the outermost rim of the solar system. 
 
 Life, like astronomy, has its calculations. There 
 can be no wise conduct of life without plan and fore- 
 cast. The greater part of our activities look toward the 
 future. The higher we rise in the scale of intelligence 
 the more distant are the results for which we toil. But 
 this toil for the future involves some sort of a plan and 
 anticipation respecting results. The incentive to effort 
 is measured not merely by the value of the results aimed 
 
at, but also by the measure of certainty with which we con- 
 template them as attainable. Unless man could look for- 
 ward with reasonable assurance to such and such results as 
 the reward of such and such efforts he would remain a sav- 
 age subsisting upon the spontaneous fruits of the earth, 
 and the products of the chase, living from hand to mouth, 
 seizing the good of the moment and leaving the future 
 to take care of itself. No man would plow or sow in 
 the spring, had he not a right to look for a harvest in the 
 summer. No man would invest his capital or send forth 
 his ships in the ventures of trade and commerce had he 
 not a reasonable prospect of profitable returns. No one 
 would curb the frolicsome impulses of youth to years of 
 laborious study, had he not strong confidence that the 
 education so acquired would prove in after years a source 
 of power, influence, and emolument. Present sacrifice 
 for future good is the law of all life. 
 
 In life-plans however, as in mathematical calcula- 
 tions, absolute certainty is impossible unless all the fac- 
 tors that enter into the problem are known. So long as 
 there remains a single unknown element, it is liable to 
 upset all our calculations, and lead to a result widely 
 different from that to which we looked forward. But in 
 human plans the unknown element is never absent. 
 However perfect our science, however consummate our 
 shrewdness, however ripe our experience, there will al- 
 ways remain something which defies calculation and 
 which is liable at an unlooked for moment to upset and 
 bring to naught the best laid plan. 
 
 This is the theme which our text suggests to us : 
 The Unknown Factor in Life. 
 
 i. We shall appreciate this better if we trace it, by 
 way of illustration in some of the common affairs of life. 
 Look at it e. g., in agriculture. However good the seed 
 which the farmer employs, however careful his attention 
 
 17'J 
 
to the proper conditions of soil and season, however un- 
 remitting his industry in cultivation, he is never abso- 
 lutely sure of his harvest. Because that harvest depends 
 not simply on what he does, but on what he does and 
 what nature does taken together, and because in the 
 workings of nature there is an element of uncertainty as 
 much beyond his forecast as it is outside his control. No 
 weather prophet, no government bureau, no science of 
 meteorology, within the reach of man, can forwarn him 
 of the drought which may parch his wheat, of the pre- 
 mature frost which may cut off his corn, of the hail storm 
 which may bring to nought in half an hour the labor of 
 months. No entomologist can forecast for him the sud- 
 den increase of some species of grasshopper or caterpil- 
 lar against the onset of which he shall be as powerless as 
 against a destroying flood, and which in a single day 
 may leave his green and flourishing acres as bare as the 
 valley of the Nile after Pharaoh's plague of locusts. 
 There is an unknown factor in the workings of nature 
 that is liable to defeat all the plans of the husbandman. 
 
 See the same thing again in navigation. 
 
 The most thorough seaman, in command of the 
 staunchest vessel, is never sure of reaching the port for 
 which he steers. In the hurricanes that sweep the 
 ocean, in the icebergs that drift with its shifting cur- 
 rents, in the fogs that gather and disperse, and in the 
 uncertain workings of the human brain at outlook and 
 helm, are elements of uncertainty against which no 
 human skill or vigilance can guard. Few thoughtful 
 men, I take it, entrust themselves even to that thing of 
 power, that masterpiece of human invention, an ocean 
 steamer, under, it matters not how tried and trusty a cap- 
 tain, without a vivid consciousness of the unknown pos- 
 sibilities which that captain can no more forecast than 
 can the little child that toddles about the deck, — with 
 
 180 
 
which that mighty floating castle can no more cope than 
 could an egg shell. 
 
 A few years ago the " Ville du Havre " was return- 
 ing to France with a full complement of passengers, in- 
 cluding many choice men who had been attending as 
 delegates the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in 
 New York. They were nearing port after a prosperous 
 voyage, the sea was calm, the night was clear and illum- 
 ined by a brilliant moon, the passengers had retired in 
 the best of spirits, when suddenly at dead of night, there 
 was a crash; a sailing vessel which had been seen for an 
 hour by the officer on the bridge struck the steamer 
 amid-ships, and in less than half an hour she went down, 
 bearing scores of her passengers to a watery grave. It 
 was all the result of a moment's bewilderment, such as 
 will sometimes befall the most expert and cautious. The 
 officer, a seaman of long experience, had miscalculated. 
 Thinking that he had plenty of time, he had disregarded 
 the rule of the sea which gives to the sailing vessel the 
 right of way, and had undertaken to cross her bow, 
 thereby steering his ship to inevitable destruction. 
 That was the unknown factor in the working of the 
 human brain, against which it is impossible to guard in 
 any affair which depends upon man's control. 
 
 Our railroads are multiplying and perfecting their 
 precautions against accident every year; but the worst 
 accidents are the accidents which arise from this uncer- 
 tain working of the human brain, the momentary heed- 
 lessness of a switch-tender, the one blunder in twenty 
 years perhaps, of a telegraph operator, the sudden reck- 
 lessness of a careful conductor; and against these acci- 
 dents no system of checks and automatic signals within 
 the power of man to construct can provide a safeguard. 
 "Until General Sherman came to New York to 
 live," said a friend of the General the other day, "and 
 
 181 
 
was wrapped up in business and social life, he spent 
 much of his time reading military history. As an army 
 officer he was compelled to travel a good deal about the 
 country, and in his trunk he always took several volumes 
 when about to start from St. Louis to Washington or 
 New York. One book was taken in his hand. I remem- 
 ber in the summer of 1875 coming with him from St. 
 Louis to Utica, where he was to preside at a big gather- 
 ing of war veterans. He wore a long linen ulster, and in 
 a pocket was a heavy book that pulled it down on one 
 side. We were the only passengers in the palace car. 
 After a few minutes' conversation the General pulled the 
 book out of his pocket, settled himself in a corner of the 
 seat, and didn't speak for hours. The book was 
 O'Meara's "Letters from St. Helena." How many 
 times he had read the book the General said he didn't 
 know. He had read everything he could find to read 
 about Napoleon, for whose genius he expressed the most 
 enthusiastic admiration. As I remember our desultory 
 conversation he held the opinion that Bonaparte was the 
 greatest military commander the world ever saw. His 
 admiration of the strategy the Emperor showed in the 
 later years of his career, when he was fighting on the 
 Rhine, before his first abdication, and in the struggles in 
 front of Paris, as well as his arrangements for Waterloo, 
 was unbounded. "Napoleon ought to have won at 
 Waterloo," he said, " if there was any faith to be placed 
 in human foresight." 
 
 In commerce the unknown factors are almost beyond 
 numbering. When Bassanio would dissuade his friend 
 from risking his life by acceding to Shylock's demand of 
 a pound of flesh as the forfeit of his bond, Antonio re- 
 plies : "Why fear not, man; I will not forfeit it ! Within 
 these two months, — that's a month before this bond ex- 
 pires, — I do expect return of thrice three times the value 
 
 182 
 
of this bond. " Yet within that three months his ships have 
 all miscarried, his creditors grown cruel, his estate has run 
 very low, and he has nothing but his pound of flesh to 
 pay. It is a poet's picture of the uncertainties of com- 
 merce — uncertainties arising from elements, from temp- 
 est, fire, and flood — uncertainties arising from the weak- 
 ness of human character, the breakdown of which in the 
 presence of temptation may ruin the strongest bank and 
 sweep away the profits of the largest business, — uncer- 
 tainties arising from the fickleness of fashion, suddenly 
 revolutionizing the conditions of supply and demand and 
 reducing a costly stock to practical worthlessness, — un- 
 certainties arising from the very genius of man leading 
 ever and anon to inventions and discoveries which by 
 introducing cheaper substitutes for certain necessaries, or 
 cheaper methods of production, may render worthless a 
 manufacturing plant representing the accumulated wealth 
 of a life time, or reduce to nothing the industry of a 
 whole community. All the business sagacity of the world 
 has never yet eliminated the unknown factor from busi- 
 ness nor found the secret of so clipping the wings of 
 riches that their possessor can be sure that in an un- 
 looked for moment they will not fly away as an eagle 
 toward heaven. 
 
 In war, the most skillful generalship cannot ensure 
 victory. A storm rendering the ground too heavy for the 
 manouevres of artillery, a sudden panic seizing the best 
 disciplined troops, the treachery of a trusted officer, are 
 contingencies against which human foresight can never 
 guard, and which may change the fortunes of a campaign. 
 
 Science is perpetually striving to extend the area of 
 the known and the calculable by bringing the irregular 
 and the uncertain under some formula of law; but there 
 will still remain, after her best endeavors, an unexplored 
 region whose boundaries she may narrow but cannot 
 abolish. jg3 
 
The unknown factor can never be eliminated ; for if 
 we found it in nothing else we should still find it con- 
 fronting us every where in the uncertainty of human life. 
 
 "Go to now ye that say: To-day or to-morrow we 
 will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and 
 buy and sell and get gain. Whereas ye know not 
 what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It 
 is even a vapor which appeareth for a little time and then 
 vanishes away." 
 
 When you can build a castle of clouds, can quarry 
 them, hew them, and lay them up in solid, enduring 
 walls, then and not till then may you fashion a certain 
 and lasting success out of that fleeting vapor, a human 
 life "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth 
 plentifully, and he thought within himself saying : 
 ' What shall I do, because I have no room where to be- 
 stow my fruits? And he said, this will I do, I will pull 
 down my barns and build greater, and there will I bestow 
 all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 
 Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take 
 thine ease, eat, drink and be merry.' But God said unto 
 him, ' Thou fool ! this night thy soul shall be required of 
 thee ! Then whose shall those things be which thou hast 
 provided? ' " 
 
 Here is an unknown factor which confronts every 
 man in the working out of his life plans. He does not 
 know how long time he shall have to work in, or whether 
 he shall live to reach the goal of his desire. 
 
 What would not the capitalist, busied with his great 
 railroad scheme, the statesman, working out his national 
 policy, the scholar ardently pursuing some great discov- 
 ery in science, give to be sure of twenty years of life in 
 which to complete his work? But that assurance he can 
 never have. To-morrow even he cannot count on as his 
 own. "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou know- 
 
 184 
 
est not what a day may bring forth." Science has nc 
 secret for measuring the length of a human life. Death 
 comes unannounced. And he waits for no man. 
 
 2. Now for this omnipresent unknown factor men 
 have invented a name. They call it luck. It makes no 
 difference, they will tell you, how hard a man may work, 
 if his luck is against him. In other words the unknown 
 factor may neutralize all his industry. Success, they will 
 tell you, is the resultant of pluck and luck, i. e. of indi- 
 vidual energy plus a happy turn of those conditions which 
 are beyond individual control. But the Bible has another 
 name for it, to-wit, the will of God. " For that ye ought 
 to say: If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or 
 that." 
 
 Have you ever asked yourself why God puts this con- 
 stant element of uncertainty into human affairs? It is 
 because God chooses to reign. He does not choose to 
 put into the hands of finite, fallible man the power to 
 shape events at his will, either on a large scale or a small. 
 He does not choose that man shall say: " This, that or 
 the other having been done, this result must follow." The 
 unknown factor is God's reserved power of veto. 
 
 Two hands are busy in the working out of every life- 
 plan, a visible and invisible. All the unknown factors, 
 the unknown workings of the human brain and the hu- 
 man heart not less than the movements of the earth- 
 quake and the hurricane, are in that invisible but overrul- 
 ing hand; and on the movement of that hand depends the 
 final outcome. 
 
 A Sisera gathers a mighty host and goes forth to 
 subdue and make an end, once for all of the people of 
 God ; but " the stars in their courses fight against" him. 
 The unknown factor, this time in the shape of unlooked 
 for panic, scattering his mighty host, and a woman's 
 unsuspected treachery ending his life, frustrates his design 
 and Israel is free. jg5 
 
A Belshazzar, secure in the impregnability of Baby- 
 lon's walls, laughs in the face of the invader and feasts 
 in anticipation of his assumed victory; and the invisible 
 hand becomes for a moment visible, to write before the 
 eyes of the trembling monarch the sentence of doom : 
 "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Peni." 
 
 A Hainan weaves his snare with consummate art for 
 the destruction of the man he hates; and so near is he to 
 success that the gallows is already erected which is the 
 destined instrument of his vengeance ; when the unknown 
 factor, the measure of a woman's influence over the fickle 
 mind of a despot, frustrates the plot and sends the plotter 
 to die on his own gallows. 
 
 A Sennacherib prepares to lay siege to Jerusalem, 
 and, confident in the overwhelming strength of his re- 
 sources, rejoices in his boastings over the little city which 
 he thinks soon to devour ; and lo! in the night, death, the 
 unforseen, unheralded confounder of the mighty, stalks 
 in some mysterious form of pestilence through his camp ; 
 and on the morrow he is in retreat, his army annihilated, 
 his prestige gone, hasting homeward to meet an igno- 
 minious death at the hands of his own sons. 
 
 But whatever the agency, — from broken pitchers in 
 the hands of Gideon's three hundred to the mighty death- 
 angel that swept over the Assyrian camp, — back of them 
 all is ever the will of God. 
 
 " In the battle of Waterloo," exclaims Hugo, " there 
 was more than a cloud, more than a storm. God was 
 passing by." " Was it possible," he exclaims, " for Na- 
 poleon to gain this battle?" We answer no. Why? 
 Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No. Be- 
 cause of God. 
 
 The shadow of a mighty hand hovers over Water- 
 loo. It is the day of destiny. A force above man 
 decided that day. 
 
 186 
 
3. Now then, this being so ; that there is always 
 this unknown factor entering into the working out of our 
 plans, and that this is nothing else than the invisible 
 hand of God, working either with us or against us, it is 
 plain that we can make no greater mistake in life than 
 to leave that factor out of the account, — to reckon with- 
 out God, — to assume that we are masters of the situation, 
 that we hold the key to the future in our own hands, and 
 to go on planning and executing with no reference to any 
 higher will than our own. This is the mistake and the 
 sin which God rebukes in the words of our text : " Go 
 to now ye that say : To-day or to-morrow we will go 
 into such a city and continue there a year, and buy and 
 sell and get gain. Whereas ye know not what shall be 
 on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a 
 vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth 
 away. For that ye ought to say : If the Lord will, we 
 shall live and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your 
 boastings. All such rejoicing is evil." Aye, verily; doubly 
 evil ; evil in its impiety, as well as in its folly. It is an 
 evil, withal, which sometimes meets with startling 
 rebuke. 
 
 In a cemetery in Central New York, so it is said, 
 stands a row of eight grave stones which tell a strange 
 story. A physician of the place during an epidemic of 
 diphtheria, had such success in the treatment of the dis- 
 ease, that he believed himself to have mastered the prob- 
 lem, and even went so far as to say that he would "defy 
 the Almighty to produce a case of diphtheria that he 
 could not cure." Within a short time the disease at- 
 tacked his youngest child. He fought it with all his 
 skill, but in vain. One after another his eight children 
 from the youngest up to a married daughter succumbed 
 to the dreadful scourge, and were laid side by side in the 
 graveyard. The community looked upon it as a direct 
 
 187 
 
judgment of God for his impious boast. Whether they 
 were right or not, certain it is that that row of grave 
 stones is a monument of warning to any who presume to 
 boast that they hold the key of the future in their own 
 hands. 
 
 4. But then how shall we take into the account an 
 unknown factor? What is there to do but to ignore it, 
 do the best we can with the known factors and take our 
 chances? If the unknown factors concern simply the 
 hidden form of nature, the waywardness of man, and the 
 uncertainty of life, — if, in short, what we had to reckon 
 with were merely luck, — we could do nothing more. But 
 if all these run back at last to one, — and that one the 
 will of God, — then there is much more that we can do. 
 We do not indeed know what God wills, but we know 
 what God is. We cannot read the book of his decrees ; 
 but we know the principles upon which they rest, and 
 the goal toward which they tend. We cannot forecast 
 the movements of the unseen hand which weaves with 
 ours the web of life, but we can have that hand with us 
 or against us, as we choose. 
 
 We can take God's will into the account by allying 
 ourselves with it, through the great Reconciler, Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 How then shall we ally ourselves with that will? 
 (1) By choosing God's ends as our ends, entering our little 
 life-plan into God's great world-plan ; by obeying God's 
 command ; and by submitting ourselves to God's ap- 
 pointments. This is the pith of the exhortation in the 
 text: "For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we 
 shall live and do this or that." Of course there is noth- 
 ing in the mere saying by itself. The mistake of leaving 
 God out of the account in our life-plans cannot be recti- 
 fied by the repetition of any formula, however pious. 
 But there is everything in cherishing the spirit of which 
 
 188 
 
such language is the natural and instinctive expression. 
 The rebuke here is aimed not simply at a boastful 
 confidence regarding the future, but at the worldly spirit 
 which underlies that confidence. Such a spirit is forget- 
 ful of dependence upon God because intent upon things 
 with which God has nothing to do. But he who sets 
 himself to work for God, will be constantly reminded that 
 he must work with God, and he will be willing, nay de- 
 sirous, that God's unseen but unerring hand should work 
 with his own, furthering what is wise, frustrating what is 
 foolish, mending what is imperfect, and bringing out of 
 all, the desired results,— God's glory and the triumph of 
 God's kingdom. 
 
 So long as God's hand and yours are at cross pur- 
 poses, what can you expect but confusion and failure? 
 But when the two are working together for the same 
 great end, what can the issue be but harmony and 
 triumph? Then your working out of your life-plan be- 
 comes like the writing of the little child, too young to form 
 its own letters, whose father takes the tiny hand in his 
 own, and guides it across the page, letter by letter, syl- 
 lable by syllable, till the child's whole thought stands, 
 expressed in letters fair and round. 
 
 If we thus ally ourselves with God, entering our life- 
 plan into his greater plan, morning by morning, asking : 
 "Lord what wilt thou have me to do? " offering the day 
 to God and asking him to direct and bless all its activi- 
 ties, we shall still be no nearer than before to eliminating 
 the unknown factor, in life; but without eliminating we 
 shall have secured it. We shall be no nearer than before 
 to knowing whether life is to be long or short, whether 
 health or sickness, gain or loss, is to be our portion, 
 whether the friends whom we trust will prove true or 
 disappoint us, but we shall know, that, come what may, 
 "all things work together for good to them that love God." 
 
 189 
 
Like Paul we shall be sure that the unknown factor, 
 however it may turn, " shall turn to our salvation," that 
 Christ shall be magnified in our body, whether it be by 
 life or death. 
 
 "He always wins who sides with God, 
 To him no chance is lost." 
 
 The unknown factor will thus be robbed, not only of 
 its danger, but of its sting. 
 
 What matters it to one whose prayer of prayers is: 
 "Thy will be done," if his own plans are crossed, if his 
 own work is undone? What are such things but the 
 erasure of the false touches in the pupil's picture by the 
 more skillful hand of the master, by reason of which the 
 finished work will show the fairer at last? 
 
 " For me it cannot be! It is too late! I have lived too 
 entirely for myself. I have left God out of the account 
 too long " ! 
 
 Nay, my friend, but it can be; God has made a way. 
 " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself," 
 and he now beseeches you by us, his ambassadors: "Be 
 ye reconciled to God." Throw away the old plans. Let 
 the old life go. Begin anew with Christ for your corner- 
 stone; and beyond and above all the uncertainties which 
 overhang the earthly future, you may like behold, a 
 mountain peak, rising clear and glistening above the 
 clouds through which your path must lie, an assured and 
 eternal triumph. 
 
 The key of the future is in Christ's hand, and if that 
 hand is with you, then "Whether the world or life or 
 death, or things present or things to come, all are yours, 
 and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 
 
 190 
 
THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 
 
 Exalt ye the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; 
 for he is holy. — Ps. 99: 5. 
 
 There is no one word more characteristic of the Bible 
 than this word holy. There is no one declaration con- 
 cerning God which means so much as this: "He is 
 holy." It is the central truth in that revelation which 
 he has made of himself to man. It is the most exalted 
 thought of him which the mind of man can form. It is 
 his supreme title to adoration and worship. " Exalt ye 
 the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; for he 
 
 is holy." 
 
 The very loftiness of this attribute makes it hard to 
 define. Holiness is the one word which sums up God's 
 moral perfections. It expresses all that God is as a 
 moral being. Negatively, it denotes his absolute free- 
 dom from the least taint of impurity or moral evil; 
 positively, it describes his possession of love for and 
 delight in all good. This quality of holiness attaches 
 to all God's attributes. God's love is a holy love; his 
 justice is a holy justice; his patience is a holy patience; 
 his wrath is a holy wrath. 
 
 The seven colors of the rainbow are all different, but 
 they are all light, and together they make light in its 
 perfection. So the various moral attributes of God, 
 which shine through the prism of his word, though all 
 distinct, are all holy; and together they make up his 
 perfect holiness. 
 
 191 
 
As a holy God, the God of the Bible stands alone. 
 This is his distinction when contrasted with the gods of 
 the heathen. Heathen religions may be searched in 
 vain for such a deity. Their gods are often monsters of 
 depravity, from whose immoralities as portrayed in 
 myth and legend even their own philosophers have 
 recoiled in loathing. The vile armours of Jupiter, the 
 barbarities of Odin, the lies and thefts of Kirshna, are 
 familiar examples which need but to be hinted at. No 
 wonder that Plato declared the popular mythology of 
 Greece unfit to be taught to the citizens of his Ideal 
 Republic." 
 
 Or if, here and there, a purer conception of the deity 
 has been formed, still it has hardly risen above that of 
 a just governor, — an impartial judge. The idea of that 
 intense moral purity which we call holiness as consti- 
 tuting the very brightness of the divine glory we owe to 
 the Bible. The word holy in the classic tongues plays 
 but an inconspicuous part in religion and bears no deep 
 significance. It has rather an external meaning, of 
 something separated, set apart to sacred uses. The 
 overwhelming weight of meaning which it bears in the 
 song of the seraphim: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God 
 of hosts," is poured into it by God's use of it in that 
 Word in which he makes himself known to man. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that even Mohammedanism, 
 though founded on ideas borrowed from the Old and 
 New Testaments, so much so indeed as to have been 
 sometimes called a corrupt Christianity, and retaining 
 many very exalted ideas of God, has almost lost the 
 conception of his holiness. 
 
 The title "Holy" which is given to God almost 
 oftener than any other in the Scriptures, is applied to 
 him but once or twice in the Koran. His holiness is 
 there quite thrown into the background by his power. 
 
 192 
 
Still less does the modern philosophy of unbelief 
 find its way to the conception of a holy God. In seek- 
 ing to maintain God's infinity, that philosophy loses its 
 grasp upon his personality. But an impersonal God 
 cannot be holy. Such a God may be indeed "a power 
 that makes for righteousness." But that power cannot 
 be itself righteous. Before the mystery of an "Un- 
 known First Cause " we may stand in awe; but we can 
 no longer "give thanks at the remembrance of his 
 holiness." 
 
 In its subtlest, most fascinating form of Pantheism, 
 philosophy identifies God with nature, — and then pro- 
 claims the indifference of nature to all moral distinctions. 
 Look where we will, we look in vain for that God 
 "whose name is holy," till we come back to this Word. 
 But here we not only find his holiness clearly revealed, 
 we find it his supreme distinction, his crowning glory. 
 He names himself "the Holy One of Israel. " The praises 
 not only of earth but of heaven find in his holiness their 
 sublimest inspiration. "Where," exclaims Charnock, 
 "do they find any other attribute trebled in the praises 
 of it, as this? 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts.' 
 Where do we read of the angels crying out, eternal, 
 eternal, eternal, or faithful, faithful, faithful Lord God 
 of hosts? Whatever other attribute is left out, this God 
 would have to fill the mouths of angels and blessed 
 spirits forever in heaven." 
 
 Only this of all God's attributes is wrought into the 
 Triune name itself, the most sacred and most wonderful 
 of all the names of God, "the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Spirit." His holiness is that which makes God 
 worthy of the zvorship of his creatures. A God of power 
 might be feared. A God of wisdom might be admired. 
 Only a God of holiness might be adored. "Exalt ye 
 the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; for he is 
 
 193 
 
holy." Without holiness God would cease to be God. 
 Were that holiness marred with the least taint of evil he 
 would become an infinite monster before whom we 
 might cringe, but whom, though he should blast us with 
 all his lightnings, we could never sincerely worship. 
 
 This holiness of God is no mere passive purity and 
 stainlessness. It is an intensely active principle. It 
 determines all that God feels, all that God wills, all that 
 God does, as Creator, Ruler, Judge. " He is righteous 
 in all his ways and holy in all his works." 
 
 His holiness is a consuming fire, at once of love and 
 of wrath. It makes God by the very necessity of his 
 being, — a necessity which can never change and never 
 cease, — the enemy of all sin, of all evil, wherever in the 
 universe it is found, and it makes him by the same 
 necessity to desire and delight in the holiness of his 
 creatures above everything else in earth or in heaven. 
 
 Let us remember this. There can be no such thing 
 as holiness without hatred of sin. The intense expres- 
 sion of his word, "I, the Lord, hate evil," "Do not 
 the abominable thing which I hate," are no mere figures 
 of speech, no mere accommodations to human modes of 
 thought. They are expressions of an awful reality, a 
 reality inseparable from the very nature of holiness. 
 Between moral opposites there exists an inevitable 
 repulsion. 
 
 On the other hand God can find no work more 
 worthy of himself, none in which he shall take greater 
 delight than to call forth, to foster, and to perfect in his 
 creatures the image of his holiness. To this all the 
 processes of grace converge. In this all the resources 
 of the God-head are expended. To form this image in 
 the lowliest is a diviner work than to create an orb like 
 Sirius. 
 
 If holiness is such an active principle in God it 
 
 194 
 
must impress itself upon all His works. And so it does. 
 It impressed itself upon nature. It is only a superficial 
 view that nature seems indifferent to moral distinctions. 
 A closer study of her laws reveals indeed a "power 
 that makes for righteousness." The laws even of 
 nature, work in the long run on the side of good and 
 not of evil. 
 
 It impressed itself yet more clearly upon man. 
 "God made man in his own image," and though the 
 fall has defaced that image, yet in that inner voice 
 which we call conscience and in all those laws of our 
 moral being which make it a costly and a bitter thing to 
 do wrong, we have still the witness that we are the 
 offspring of a holy God. 
 
 Holiness has impressed itself most clearly upon 
 God's Word. We may indeed say that it is the one 
 purpose of that word from beginning to end to show 
 men God's holiness and to persuade them to imitate it. 
 The Mosaic revelation began, it is true with very much 
 that conception of holiness which we recognized a 
 moment ago as the heathen conception, an external 
 separation or arbitrary sacredness, attaching to certain 
 persons, places, times, set apart for Jehovah's use. 
 Thus we read of holy utensils, holy garments, etc. 
 But it began there only to lead Israel on and up from 
 that point to a view of holiness essentially moral. The 
 whole design of that ritual, with its elaborate and varied 
 sacrifices, its distinctions of clean and unclean, its wash- 
 ings and purifications, its guarded approach to God in 
 the awful mystery of the holy of holies, was arranged to 
 impress upon the worshiper the conception of a God of 
 moral purity, to whose presence sin was the great bar- 
 rier that needed to be removed. 
 
 As we pass on from the giving of the law to the pro- 
 phetic period in Israel's discipline, we find this revela- 
 
 195 
 
tion of the divine holiness growing more and more 
 intense and spiritual, till at length it bursts forth in all 
 its splendor in him who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, 
 and separate from sinners," and who "gave himself a 
 ransom for many." 
 
 The cross is the highest revelation to the universe of 
 the holiness of God, on both its sides of love and of 
 wrath. Never could there have been conceived such a 
 manifestation of the awful evil of sin in the sight of 
 God as was found in the necessity for the sacrifice of 
 God's only begotten Son before it could be forgiven. 
 Yet never could there have been conceived such a proof 
 of God's longing desire to redeem men from sin and to 
 make them sharers of his holiness as appeared in his 
 willingness to make that sacrifice. 
 
 Now I have brought this thought of God before you 
 not only because it is in itself one of the sublimest 
 which can occupy our minds, a thought of which the 
 angels in heaven never weary, but because I believe it 
 to be one of which our age, even the Christianity of our 
 age, peculiarly needs to be reminded. That which is so 
 supreme in God and so central in his Word, should 
 have the supreme and central place in our religious 
 thought and experience. Has it that place? I fear not 
 altogether. On the contrary there seems to be a dis- 
 tinct tendency in the thought of our day to undervalue 
 and to slur over the word of God. " There is something 
 in the air," one has expressed it, "which predisposes us 
 to think lightly of sin." Ours is an age of sentiment- 
 alism. We may see it in the mawkish sympathy 
 expended upon unrepentant criminals, in the disposi- 
 tion to regard vice as mere disease or misfortune, in 
 the excessive recoil from physical pain. On all ques- 
 tions the appeal is apt to be to feeling rather than to 
 conscience. To many it seems a worse thing that men 
 
 196 
 
should suffer than that they should do wrong. Moral 
 suasion, too often ineffectual, crowds out penalty wholly 
 from the school and largely from the home. We begin 
 to hear the hospital suggested as a substitute for the 
 house of correction. Our theology and our morals are 
 both subjected by this current sentimentalism to a gel- 
 atinizing process. We never weary of dwelling upon 
 the love of God, but we too readily forget that it is a 
 holy love. The love of God as it is often presented in 
 the literature, and even the sermons of the day, is a 
 mere desire to see his children have a good time, of 
 which a. human father of any strength of character 
 would be ashamed. 
 
 How different the love of God as presented in his 
 word! That is a love the whole scope and aim of which 
 is to make his children holy, and which spares no dis- 
 cipline, however sharp, that will lead to that result. 
 The very forms of our devotion too often betray, in 
 their tone of easy familiarity and excessive endearment, 
 an utter absence of that profound reverence for a holy 
 God which thrills through the heavenly song, as it 
 caught the ear of the rapt seer of Patmos. 
 
 We need to come back to the Bible and to study 
 God as there revealed alike in the Old Testament and 
 the New; we need to linger before the cross and read 
 its inmost meaning till our whole souls are filled with a 
 sense of the unspeakable holiness of Him "with whom 
 we have to do." 
 
 For indeed this truth that God is holy means every- 
 thing to us. Here is a searching test of our spiritual 
 state. How am I affected, let me ask myself, by the 
 thought of God's holiness? Am I in sympathy with 
 that joyous outburst of the Psalmist in another Psalm, 
 " Rejoice in the Lord ye righteous and give thanks at 
 the remembrance of that holiness. "? Does the remem- 
 
 197 . 
 
brance of his holiness fill me with thankfulness, or 
 with dread? Would an eternity in the presence of a 
 holy God be to me an eternity of blessedness or of tor- 
 ture? These, these are questions that we cannot afford 
 to put by. Sooner or later we must face the answers to 
 them. For unless we do indeed love to think of God 
 as a holy God we could never attune our voices to the 
 harmony of heaven and could never breathe in its 
 atmosphere. "Without holiness no man shall see the 
 Lord." It is only the true Christian who can give 
 thanks at the remembrance of God's holiness. But he 
 can and will, even though he seem to see in himself as 
 yet an utter lack of conformity to it. 
 
 There is indeed nothing more humbling than a clear 
 view of God's holiness. When Isaiah had a vision of 
 it, it wrung from him the cry: "Woe is me, for I am 
 undone; because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell 
 in the midst of a people of unclean lips." And when 
 Simon Peter got a glimpse of it in Jesus Christ his 
 first impulse was to cry: "Depart from me, for I am a 
 sinful man, O Lord." 
 
 It is not uncommon in these days to hear sneers at 
 the language of intense self-abasement in which many 
 of the holy men of Scripture speak of themselves, as 
 exaggerated and unbecoming. Unbecoming it certainly 
 is in those who repeat it without feeling it, as a mere 
 cant of devotion. But for my part I have no doubt, 
 that could we but see the holiness of God as those men 
 saw it, we should find the intensest of their utterances 
 none too strong to express our feeling of our own 
 unworthiness. A God before whom even seraphs cover 
 their faces is not a God before whom of sinful men 
 can stand unabashed. Yet, humbling though it is, the 
 thought of God as Holy is at the same time full of com- 
 fort. What a terrible thing for the world, could there 
 
 198 
 
be the least suspicion of unholiness in its Ruler and 
 Governor. Who then could lean upon his promise? 
 Who could trust himself in his hands? Who could bow 
 to his disposal of events? But because he is holy, we 
 know that he doeth all things well. Because he is holy 
 we know that all things work together for good to them 
 that love him. Above all, because he is holy we know 
 that we can lean upon him in our own battle with sin. 
 
 There could be nothing more hopeless than that 
 battle, did we not know that God cares infinitely more 
 for our victory than even we ourselves. But, knowing 
 that, there is nothing more hopeful. With the Father's 
 love to enfold us, with the cross of Christ to redeem us, 
 with the indwelling Spirit to sanctify us how can we 
 fail? We cannot if we seek. 
 
 Here then is the conclusion of the whole matter. 
 "Be ye holy," so God speaks to us in the Old Testa- 
 ment. "Like as he which hath called you is holy, be 
 ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living," so he 
 speaks to us in the New. 
 
 "The sum of all religions," it has been said, "is to 
 be like the God we worship." A holy God must have 
 holy worshipers. Since the least taint of sin is hateful 
 to him, our fellowship with him cannot be complete till 
 the last trace of it is gone from our souls. Salvation, 
 as the Word of God presents it, is God's way of cleans- 
 ing us from sin, and restoring in us his holy likeness. 
 The promise of a salvation which shall free us from 
 penalty while leaving us to wallow in sin is the devil's 
 lie. While God lives, while eternity lasts, no power in 
 the universe can separate forgiveness from holiness, so 
 that it shall be possible to possess and enjoy the one 
 without seeking and beginning to possess the other. 
 
 For this Christ died; for this therefore we should 
 live. For this his Spirit dwells in our hearts. If we 
 
 199 
 
do not work with that Spirit for this end, we are working 
 against him; and no insult to God could be greater than 
 to resist the work on which he has set his heart. 
 
 O, for more of the spirit of William James when he 
 wrote, "I want holiness so much that I might say I 
 want nothing else. One additional grain of holiness 
 * * * with the consciousness that God was pleased 
 with it would outweigh a universe of every other kind 
 of good." 
 
 Is this your longing my brother? Then there is a 
 precious promise for you. "Blessed are they which do 
 hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be 
 filled." Then with the Psalmist you may sing: "I 
 shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." 
 
 200 
 
GOD OUR MAKER. 
 
 Know ye that the Lord he is God. It is he that hath made 
 us and we are his. We are his people, and the sheep of his 
 pasture. — Ps. ioo: 3. R. V. 
 
 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God 
 created he him; male and female created he them. — Gen. 1: 27. 
 
 Short as it is, this 100th Psalm is truly a wonderful 
 Psalm, of which it has been said, with as much truth as 
 beauty : "This Psalm contains a promise of Christian- 
 ity, as winter at its close contains the promise of spring. 
 The trees are ready to bud ; the flowers are just hidden 
 by the light soil ; the clouds are heavy with rain ; the 
 sun shines in his strength ; only a genial wind from the 
 south is wanted to give a new life to all things." 
 
 This is no exaggeration. From out the bosom of 
 the Jewish Church, with its national sanctuary, its sepa- 
 rating rites, its exclusive call, comes this voice of uni- 
 versal religion, bidding all the earth rejoice in Jehovah. 
 Paul himself did not preach a broader gospel. Here is 
 no word of the Abrahamic covenant, no word of the 
 Levitical sacrifices. The temple is here indeed ; but its 
 gates seem to stand wide open to the nations. And the 
 appeal by which men are summoned to worship is that 
 simplest, most elementary appeal which comes home to 
 all alike, the claim of God as Creator. 
 
 Last week we listened to an inspired invitation to 
 worship God for what he is in himself. " Exhalt ye the 
 Lord our God and worship at his footstool, for he is 
 holy." Here we are again invited to worship him for 
 
 201 
 
what he is to us. " Serve the Lord with gladness ; 
 come before his presence with singing ; know ye that 
 the Lord he is God ; it is he that hath made us and we 
 are his ; we are his people, and the sheep of his 
 pasture." 
 
 It is this claim of God upon us as our Maker, that 
 I ask you to consider this morning. 
 
 Where did the Psalmist learn this truth ? He 
 learned it from an old book, already venerable and al- 
 ready sacred when he penned this song of praise, 
 wherein it stands written : "So God created man in 
 his own image : in the image of God created he him ; 
 male and female created he them." How grandly does 
 that record stand out in its simple dignity, whether 
 against the grotesque and puerile myths of heathen an- 
 tiquity, or against the speculations, now degrading, now 
 presumptuous, concerning man's origin, even of this 
 boasted century of enlightenment. 
 
 Ever since there have been upon the earth beings 
 who could think and question, one of the questions 
 which has deeply engaged their thought, has been the 
 question, Whence. Whence am I ? How came I here ? 
 History is preforce silent upon this question. Its begin- 
 nings find man already here. How he came here it can 
 no more tell than our memories can carry us back to our 
 own entrance upon life. Science is silent upon the 
 question. In vain the chemist in his laboratory labors 
 to bring life out of dead matter. He cannot bring so 
 much as one tiny animalcule into being, save from a liv- 
 ing germ. In vain the geologist searches the rocks for 
 some trace of a "missing link." In vain the biologist 
 labors to effect some transmutation of species which shall 
 show us man in process of becoming. We trace back 
 our ancestry, link by link, into the remote past ; but the 
 first link we shall never reach, save by a doubtful guess 
 
 202 
 
or the sure witness of One who- made us. 
 
 Such a witness is offered us here. " But how do I 
 know," you ask me, " that this record of man's origin is 
 true ? I want it demonstrated, I want it brought to the 
 test of science, before I can believe it." My friend, how 
 do you know that she whom you call by the sacred name 
 of mother, whose gentle hand soothed your fevered 
 brow in childhood, whose loving arms were your refuge 
 in every trouble, whose serene face is the benediction 
 of your manhood, and whose silver locks are a very halo 
 of sainthood in your eyes, was indeed the author of your 
 being ? She told you so ? But what if after all you 
 have been the dupe of selfish imposture practiced to gain 
 reverence and filial duty ? Will you not demand some 
 crucial test, before you again breathe that sacred name 
 and bestow that filial kiss ? Will you not at least have 
 the physician and the nurse brought into court and put 
 upon their oath to confirm that unsupported testimony ? 
 "Ah, " you say, "it needs no such confirmation. That 
 transparent sincerity and truth which I have learned to 
 know all these years, those tender tones that have so 
 often thrilled my very heart, that exhaustless fountain of 
 mother-love which no waywardness or ingratitude ever 
 checked in its flow, that self-sacrifice without weariness 
 and without end, which have followed me all my life 
 through, these are their own sufficient confirmation. I 
 ask no other warrant of her claim to all the devotion due 
 from a son to her from whom he has drawn his life." 
 
 Well, then, here is a book that speaks to me in the 
 name of God, a book that bears upon its face the stamp 
 of sincerity, a book that searches my very heart, that 
 appeals to my inmost being as no other book ever did or 
 could, a book whose very pages seem to throb and glow 
 with paternal love, and which culminates in a revelation 
 of uttermost sacrifice for the race of man, such as had else 
 
 203 
 
never entered the heart of man to conceive ; and that 
 book tells me God is my Maker, that my humanity came 
 from his hand and bears his image and likeness. That 
 answer satisfies the highest demands of my reason and 
 meets the deepest wants of my heart. It imparts a 
 meaning to the confused riddle of history, and pierces 
 with a beam of prophetic light the dark mystery of des- 
 tiny. Accepted as true it raises man to the loftiest moral 
 stature of which he is capable. What other confirmation 
 does it need or could it have? 
 
 ' ' God created man. " 
 
 Look first at the fact itself ; then at its bearings for 
 us. 
 
 I. The fact. God created man. "Stop! stop!" 
 cries the materialist, "that is mere unscientific mythol- 
 ogy. Matter evolved man. That is the scientific ac- 
 count of his origin." And what then is this matter out 
 of which have come the thoughts of a Milton, the dis- 
 coveries of a Newton, the visions of a Raphael ! Noth- 
 ing can be evolved from matter which was not in matter 
 to begin with. An acorn could never develope into an 
 oak if all the potentialities derived from a foregoing oak 
 were not wrapped up in that germ. If man is the spon- 
 taneous outcome of matter, by however long a process, 
 then thought, feeling, will, personality, all must have 
 been properties of that matter from whence he sprung. 
 If they were not, that matter was wrought into form and 
 quickened into life by a living God. 
 
 "God created man." Nay, says the Buddhist cate- 
 chism, which has already gone through two editions in 
 Germany, there is no God. The Bible idea of creation 
 is "a delusion." Man was his own maker. "Every- 
 thing originates through and out of itself, by virtue of 
 its own will, and according to its own inner nature and 
 constitution." Such is the boasted " light of Asia," for 
 
 204 
 
which some, it seems, even in Christian lands, are im- 
 patient to forsake the " light of the world ! " How vain 
 are such imaginations ! Man himself, even as he is in 
 this, his fallen condition, is still a witness for the being 
 of a Creator. Intelligence, personality, conscience in 
 man witness to a First Cause, intelligent, personal, holy. 
 
 " Where then is this Creator?" cries the sceptic 
 again. " Show him to me and I will believe." And 
 yet this same sceptic tells us of the atoms of which mat- 
 ter is composed, estimates how many there are in a cubic 
 inch of gold, how many in a cubic inch of hydrogen ; 
 pictures their groupings ; describes their motions. Has 
 he ever seen an atom ? No. Has any man ever seen 
 one ? No. Can any man ever see one ? No. Why 
 then affirm their existence ? Because they explain the 
 phenomena which we see. O strange infatuation, that 
 can believe in invisible atoms because they account for 
 a few things, and cannot believe in an invisible Creator, 
 though he accounts for all things ! 
 
 But again, " God created man." Man then is a dis- 
 tinct being. He is not an emanation of the divine es- 
 sence itself, "co-existent and co-eternal with God," as 
 the Christian science (falsely so called) of our day in ex- 
 press terms declares ; building its whole system upon 
 this primeval falsehood, centuries old, that God and man 
 are one, "inseparable, harmonious, infinite and eternal." 
 
 In vain does this old falsehood of pantheism, which 
 always in all its forms strikes at the foundation of respon- 
 sibility, destroys the distinction between good and evil, 
 and makes man the object of his own worship, seek thus in 
 these days by tricking itself out in detached phrases of 
 scripture, to pass itself off as God's truth. It founders 
 upon the immovable rock of this declaration imbedded 
 in the very first chapter of divine revelation, " God cre- 
 ated man." This sets man over against God, the creature 
 
 205 
 
over against the Creator, the finite over against the In- 
 finite, as a distinct being with a distinct responsibility to 
 the God who made him. 
 
 "God created man." Again I look at this declara- 
 tion. I open my Hebrew Bible and I find that this word 
 created is a word used in this form only of God. I find 
 it sparingly employed even in this story of beginnings. 
 It occurs here only at three points, which are confessedly 
 the greatest crises of the story ; — at the beginning of all 
 things — "In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth," at the first appearance of animal life, and at 
 the appearance of man. Elsewhere, even in this creation- 
 story, a commoner and broader word, formed ox fashioned, 
 takes its place. There must be a significance in this. It 
 seems to mark the introduction of something new. It 
 introduces man to us as a new order of being, not a mere 
 link in a chain of evolution but the product of a distinct 
 creative act. But this view of man does not turn upon 
 the testimony of a single word, or upon a possibly doubt- 
 ful point of lexicography. We turn to the next chapter, 
 and there we read : " And the Lord God formed man of 
 the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the 
 breath of life, and man became a iiving soul." Here is a 
 new life, a soul, direct from God. Even if science shall 
 sometime succeed in proving, as by its own confession it 
 has not yet done, save by doubtful inference, the deriva- 
 tion of man's body from the lower orders of creation, 
 still the soul, which reaches out into the infinite, which 
 feels and owns the eternal law of righteousness, and even 
 in its blindness gropes upward toward "an unknown 
 God," witnesses to another origin and points upward to 
 a divine original. 
 
 "God created man in his own image." It were mere 
 childish trifling to interpret this sublime declaration which 
 underlies the whole Scripture, forms the basis of every 
 
 206 
 
appeal to man's conscience, and marks the goal of the 
 
 whole stupendous scheme of redemption, as having refer- 
 ence to man's body, form and features. God is a spirit ; 
 and it is in the spirit of man that we must seek his like- 
 ness, in that spirit which " thinks God's thoughts after 
 him," as it reads them in the rocks and in the stars, that 
 spirit which knows what it is to delight in goodness and 
 to be indignant at wrong, that spirit which is capable of 
 truth, of justice, of benevolence, and which rises to its 
 highest glory in self-sacrificing love. However sadly de- 
 faced, traces of that divine image may still be found 
 everywhere. I see them in the aroused conscience of the 
 trembling Felix, in the penitent tears of the woman who 
 was a sinner, in the trustful prayer of the thief on the 
 cross. Wherever the spiritual nature of man asserts 
 itself above the clamor of his animal passions, there I 
 catch a glimpse of that divine image in which he is made. 
 But I find that image in its unmarred completeness only 
 in the man Christ Jesus, the one perfect man, and there- 
 fore the perfect image of the invisible God, through whom, 
 I, too, may be "renewed in that image," "putting on 
 the new man which after God hath been created in right- 
 eousness and holiness of truth." 
 
 II. What now does this truth that God is our Maker, 
 and that he made us in his own image, mean for us? It 
 means, first of all, that we belong to God absolutely. " It 
 is he that hath made us and wc are his." No right 
 of ownership can be more absolute than that which comes 
 by creation. Even that claim has its limits. God has 
 no right to deal unjustly, even with the work of his own 
 hands. But neither can he deal unjustly, for he is holy. 
 Within the limits set by his own holiness the Creator's 
 sovereignty is absolute. He made us for himself. He 
 had a right so to make us, and the being that we received 
 from him we are bound to devote unreservedly to his 
 
 207 
 
service. Go where we will, this claim follows us. We 
 can shake it off only by ceasing to be. Not a breath we 
 draw is our own. Not a faculty we possess is ours to 
 dispose of at our will. Each one is his gift, and he is 
 entitled to its use. Though we despise his authority, 
 trample upon his law, deny his being, still the unalter- 
 able fact remains : "It is he that hath made us, and we 
 are his." 
 
 He made us for himself — but how? That we might 
 know him, love him, serve him, rejoice in him, reflect his 
 image, and share his glory for ever and ever. The crea- 
 tive impulse was an impulse of benevolence; God made 
 man that there might be those upon whom he could pour 
 out the rich treasures that are in himself and who could 
 share his own ineffable blessedness. Since this is the 
 end for which we were made, we can only be happy in 
 fulfilling it ; and it is suicide as well as robbery to set 
 ourselves against this purpose of our Maker and the laws 
 of that being which he gave us. 
 
 Since God is our maker, again, we have no right to 
 complain of the way in which he has made us or the lot 
 to which he has appointed us. " Woe to him that striv- 
 eth with his maker ! Let the potsherd strive with the 
 potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that 
 fashioned it, What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath 
 no hands? " If God were not holy as well as omnipotent 
 this reasoning would not hold. But since he is not only 
 our Maker, but a Maker in his very being incapable of 
 wrong or injustice, every mouth is stopped, every mur- 
 mur is silenced. Criticism by the creature of the 
 Creator's work is blasphemy. Unquestioning submission 
 is all that is left us to whatever that act of creation 
 involves. 
 
 It is easy to complain, Why did God make me thus? 
 Why did he impose upon me this weakness, that limita- 
 
 208 
 
tion? Why did he subject me to this terrible law of 
 heredity? Why did he place me amid such surroundings 
 of temptation? It is easy to say, If I had been offered 
 my choice to be created such as I am or not to be created 
 at all, I should have chosen rather not to be. Easy! But 
 how useless and how sinful! "It is he that hath made 
 us and not ourselves," as the old version has it. He 
 made us in wisdom. He made us for good, but he took 
 counsel therein with none but himself. He made us 
 " according to the good pleasure of his will." How much 
 chafing at our limitations, how much fretting at our lot 
 might we spare ourselves, did we but remember this. 
 
 The old monk, Roger of Wendover, tells this story 
 of one of the German emperors : " The Emperor Henry, 
 while out hunting on the Lord's day called Quinquages- 
 ima, his companions being scattered, came unattended 
 to the entrance of a certain wood, and seeing a church 
 hard by, he made for it, and feigning himself to be a sol- 
 dier, simply requested a mass of the priest. Now that 
 priest was a man of notable piety, but so deformed in 
 person that he seemed a monster rather than a man. 
 When he had attentively considered him the emperor 
 began to wonder exceedingly why God, from whom all 
 beauty proceeds, should permit so deformed a man to 
 administer his sacraments. But presently, when mass 
 commenced and they came to the passage, "Know ye 
 that the Lord, he is God," which was chanted by a boy, 
 the priest rebuked the boy for singing negligently, and 
 said with a loud voice, ' It is he tliat hath made us and not 
 we ourselves.' Struck by these words and believing the 
 priest to be a prophet [/. e. , I suppose, inferring from 
 what seemed the reverent significance of the utterance 
 an unusual holiness in the man,] the emperor raised him, 
 much against his will, to the archbishopric of Cologne, 
 which see he adorned by his devotion and excellent vir- 
 tues." 209 
 
But on the other hand, since God is our Maker we 
 can trust his care. " We are his," is a word of twofold 
 meaning. It means not only that our Maker is entitled 
 to our service, but that we are under his protection. 
 Even the relation of Creator and creature, reverently be 
 it said, is a relation of mutual obligation. God is not a 
 drowsy Brahm, who in a moment of disturbed repose 
 has called a race into being, straightway to forget them 
 in profounder slumber. "We are his people and the 
 sheep of his pasture." 
 
 It is natural for the maker of anything to feel a 
 peculiar interest in his own work. The author confesses 
 to exceptional tenderness for the creatures of his own 
 fancy. The sculptor looks with almost paternal fond- 
 ness on the statue conceived in his own brain and 
 wrought by his own chisel. The poet loves his own 
 verses and hears with a thrill of joy that they have found 
 lodgment "in the heart of a friend." So God delights 
 in the works which he has made. " His tender mercies 
 are all over his works." Even the birds of the air and 
 the lilies of the field are the objects of his care, because 
 he made them. How much more that one creature 
 whom he made in his own image, and who is therefore 
 not only his creature but his child. Surely we need 
 never urge in vain the plea of the Psalmist : " Forsake 
 not the works of thine own hands ; " and we need never 
 fear to rest in that assurance of the Saviour : " Fear ye 
 not, therefore, ye are of more value than of many 
 sparrows." 
 
 The only conceivable danger that can threaten us in 
 the hands of a Maker who is also our Father is the diso- 
 bedience to his will. So long as we obey that will, so 
 long as we yield to that control, we are secure. The 
 power that made us may be trusted to keep, and the love 
 that made us for a destiny of glory may be trusted to 
 
 210 
 
work out that destiny, unless we defeat its purpose. 
 
 For with perfect power and perfect love goes perfect 
 knowledge. Because God made us, he knows us through 
 and through. All our thoughts, all our motives, all the 
 labyrinthine windings of our natures, all the unfathomed 
 depths of our hearts are "naked and open " to him. 
 Thus he understands just how to deal with us. Are our 
 souls disordered by sin, he alone can be trusted to pro- 
 vide an adequate remedy. Is his image in us defaced 
 and lost, he alone knows how it can be restored. 
 
 Let us suppose that in the rummaging in some 
 neglected attic you have come upon an unpublished 
 symphony of Beethoven, but alas, in a sadly mutilated 
 condition. Many leaves are gone, and what are left are 
 so stained and blurred and torn that it is only here and 
 there a fragment of the score that is legible. You play 
 these fragments and you are entranced with the power 
 and beauty of the theme. You are tantalized beyond 
 endurance by the hints of harmonies that you can no 
 longer reproduce. You take the fragments to musician 
 after musician, to composer after composer, asking them 
 if they cannot divine the master's thoughts sufficiently to 
 complete the work. But each, in turn, declines the task. 
 Only the master himself could complete the fragments, 
 fill the gaps, and restore the broken harmonies. Human 
 nature in you, in me, in the race, is like that mutilated 
 symphony. It is blurred, defaced, imperfect. Call it 
 what you will, the ruin of a once perfect creation, or the 
 fragments of a creation, still unfinished, the fact of in- 
 completeness is beyond dispute. It meets us everywhere. 
 We catch here and there a hint of a majestic theme, a 
 broken strain of a divine harmony. But only he who 
 made us can complete these fragments and restore the 
 perfect music. 
 
 One more thought and I have done, but this the 
 
 211 
 
grandest, blessedest thought of all. Because God made 
 us in his own image it is possible for us to know God. Not 
 indeed thoroughly, as he knows us. The less can never 
 comprehend the greater. The creature can never 
 measure the Creator. Yet we may know him truly, as 
 like is only known by like. Many things he has made, 
 living, conscious things, which can never know their 
 Maker. His image is not in them, and therefore they 
 have no glass in which to see him. But you and I may 
 find in every whisper of conscience, in every noble im- 
 pulse, in every high aspiration, in every hard-won virtue, 
 in every pure affection, a voice to interpret to us that 
 Father in heaven who said: " Let us make man in our 
 image, after our likeness." 
 
 And when we see all these scattered traces gathered 
 together in our elder brother, who is bone of our bone 
 and flesh of our flesh, and who is yet " the brightness of 
 the Father's glory and the express image of his person," 
 when we hear him say : " He that hath seen me hath 
 seen the Father," then indeed we feel with awe of what a 
 blessed and perfect union between the Creator and his 
 creature this divine image in man is the foundation. And 
 coming to God through Jesus Christ we find every stain 
 removed, every defect supplied, every weakness strength- 
 ened, every longing satisfied, every aspiration realized, 
 and in a blessed and ever growing experience we learn 
 the deep truth of our Saviour's own word : "This is life 
 eternal, that they may know thee the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." 
 
 212 
 
THE MERCY OF GOD. 
 
 And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there 
 and proclaimed the name of the Lord; and the Lord passed by 
 before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and 
 gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, 
 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgres- 
 sion and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting 
 the iniquity of t lie fathers upon the children and upon the children's 
 children unto the third and to the fourth generation. — Ex. 34: 5-7. 
 
 This is one of the most wonderful scenes of the 
 whole Old Testament. Exactly what took place in the 
 solitude of the cloud-wrapped mountain top language 
 was inadequate to describe and imagination is powerless 
 to picture. But this we know, that it gave Moses an 
 insight into the innermost being of God which it took 
 the whole Old Testament to unfold, and which only the 
 incarnation of God in Jesus Christ could fully express. 
 
 It is indeed one of the striking proofs of the divinity 
 of the Scripture, that here, away back in this early time, 
 amidst the crude religious ideas which prevailed over 
 the whole world, we have a description of God which 
 to this day has never been surpassed. Moses could 
 never have reached such a conception if God himself 
 had not revealed it to him. 
 
 Moses you remember was at this time in an extremity. 
 He had just passed through a terrible struggle. He had 
 come down from Mt. Sinai to find the nation which 
 Jehovah had just redeemed from bondage and taken 
 into solemn covenant with himself, in flagrant apostasy. 
 With all the severity of a righteous indignation he had 
 
 213 
 
first rebuked and punished their sin, and then with all 
 the intensity of a yearning compassion he had interceded 
 for their forgiveness. His intercession had prevailed; 
 the coveted assurance of reconciliation had been given. 
 But now for the first time Moses recognized the full 
 magnitude of the task he had undertaken. He had to 
 stand as mediator between God and a people not only 
 ignorant and undisciplined, but stiff-necked and rebell- 
 ious. The burden of responsibility was overwhelming. 
 He felt that he must sink under it unless he could have 
 the support of a vision of God, of an insight into God's 
 "way " such as he had never yet obtained. 
 
 It was this, and no mere idle curiosity, which forced 
 from him the entreaty, "I beseech thee shew me thy 
 glory." 
 
 Already Moses had one great revelation of God to 
 prepare him for his mission to Pharaoh. In the name 
 proclaimed to him at the burning bush, " I am that I 
 am," God had made known his majesty as the one 
 infinite, eternal, uncreated Deity, high above all the 
 gods of Egypt. But now he felt that he needed some- 
 thing more. God understood his prayer. He saw the 
 need and so he granted the request, so far as it could be 
 granted to a sinful mortal. 
 
 There is an intensity of light which the human eye 
 cannot endure. To attempt to gaze upon it would 
 destroy the sight forever. So there is a glory of God 
 which the flesh could not support. Under the disclosure 
 of it this mortal frame would sink. No man shall see 
 God's face and live. 
 
 What Moses saw when that request was granted, he 
 does not tell us. Perhaps he could not. It seems 
 probable, that here, as before in Horeb, the revelation 
 was accompanied with some manifestation to the senses. 
 But that was mere drapery. The substance of the 
 
 214 
 
revelation was in what he heard. It was in that won- 
 derful "name" of God, which was there proclaimed: 
 "Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, long- 
 suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping 
 mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgres- 
 sion and sin, and that will by no means clear the 
 guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
 children and upon the children's children unto the third 
 and to the fourth generation." 
 
 The "name" of God in Scripture stands for his 
 being, and in this "name" we have God's highest 
 attributes, his inmost essence, disclosed to us. 
 
 And in that disclosure Mercy occupies the fore- 
 ground. The whole import of this revelation was to 
 assure Moses that Jehovah was before all else a God of 
 mercy. We have justice here also it is true, justice in 
 its sternest form of retribution, but it appears only as a 
 qualification of mercy, put in to guard against confound- 
 ing the divine mercy with a weak indiscriminate indul- 
 gence. First we have an accumulation of all the words 
 by which mercy in its various aspects can be described, 
 "Merciful, gracious, abundant in truth, keeping mercy 
 for thousands, forgiving," and there, only as the back- 
 ground against which this seven hued bow of divine 
 mercy may shine the brighter, the dark cloud of retrib- 
 utive justice. 
 
 These words are the key note of the whole Old 
 Testament revelation of God. Law, ritual, history, 
 prophecy, from Moses to Malachi are but the unfolding 
 of this precious name of God. This text sustains the 
 same relation to the Old Testament that the correspond- 
 ing text, Jno. 3:16, "God so loved the world," sustains 
 to the New Testament. 
 
 Mercy then is the very "glory" of God. 
 
 But what is mercy? Mercy is that particular mani- 
 
 215 
 
festation of God's love which is called forth by sin. If 
 there were no sinners in the world there would be no 
 room for the exercise of mercy. Though it would still 
 be an essential part of God's perfection, it would lie 
 unrevealed in the unfathomable depths of divinity. 
 For there would be nothing to call it forth. When a 
 jury have found an accused criminal not guilty, they 
 never "recommend him to mercy." Justice is his need 
 and his sufficient protection. It is the guilty one for 
 whom mercy is needed. So to a world of sinners the 
 mercy of God is the great concern. It is their only 
 hope and their only plea. Thus mercy differs from 
 goodness and from compassion. Goodness has refer- 
 ence to need, compassion to suffering; mercy has 
 reference to guilt. It differs from forgiveness, because 
 it is broader. Forgiveness is a part of mercy, but not 
 the whole. Mercy is shown even to the impenitent and 
 obstinately guilty, in the forbearance which suspends 
 their sentence, in the providential blessings daily 
 showered upon them, in the offer of salvation made to 
 them, in the helps to a better life afforded them, in the 
 tender pleadings with them of God's Spirit. All this is 
 mercy, pure mercy. "It is of the Lord's mercies that 
 we are not consumed." There is not a sinner upon 
 earth who does not experience God's mercy to the last 
 hour of his life. Yet it is in forgiving and justifying 
 that mercy finds its fullest and sweetest exercise, and it 
 is only the forgiven and redeemed sinner who can know 
 in all its length and breadth what God's mercy is. 
 
 No wonder then that in a book for sinners, such as 
 the bible is, mercy should have the central place. 
 There is no attribute of God which it so much concerns 
 us as sinners to understand; while at the same time 
 there is no other attribute upon which, till God himself 
 speaks, we are more in the dark. 
 
 21G 
 
We need no Bible to assure us that God is just. 
 Conscience tells us that. Such a book as Plutarch's 
 treatise on the "Slow Retribution of the Deity" is the 
 voice of natural religion, witnessing to the absolute 
 certainty with which the guilty conscience looks for- 
 ward to a meeting with a righteous judge. But there 
 is no such certain looking for of mercy. There cannot 
 be; for mercy is in its very nature spontaneous and not 
 necessitated. 
 
 So as a matter of fact this is the side of God's being 
 respecting which natural religion and heathen systems 
 are most shadowy and unsatisfying. The tendency 
 indeed is to shut out mercy altogether, and to insist 
 that in his dealings with man God gives each in the end 
 just what he earns, nothing less and also nothing more. 
 But even though we should be persuaded that God is 
 merciful, this would not meet our need, since we could 
 never tell without his own assurance how far his mercy 
 would go, and whether it would reach as far as the full 
 forgiveness of all our sins or not. A vague hope in 
 some possibility of divine mercy would be, apart from 
 any clear word of God himself, the utmost length to 
 which we could go. 
 
 In this great uncertainty — and what uncertainty 
 could be sadder — God himself steps in and proclaims: 
 "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- 
 suffering, "and abundant in goodness and truth." 
 
 Through the whole Old Testament (which only those 
 who are unacquainted with it conceive as harsh and 
 vindictive) runs this unfolding of God's mercy. 
 Nowhere have I seen the spirit of the Old Testament 
 better expressed than in certain sentences of Prof. 
 Briggs, which many of you no doubt have lately read: 
 
 "The mercy of God is the theme upon which the 
 historians and the prophets, the singers and the sages 
 
 217 
 
alike delight to dwell. The greatest of the theophanies 
 granted to Moses was in order to reveal God as the 
 gracious, compassionate, the long-suffering, abounding 
 in mercy and faithfulness. The love of God rises to its 
 heights in the fatherly love of Deuteronomy, and the 
 earlier Isaiah and Jeremiah; in the martial love of 
 Hosea, Zephaniah, and the second Isaiah — a love to an 
 unfaithful wife, who has disgraced her husband and her- 
 self by many adulteries; and a chil'd who rewards the 
 faithful father with such persistent disobedience, that 
 he must be beaten to death and raised from the dead in 
 order to be saved. The love of God as taught in the 
 Old Testament is hard for the Jew or the Christian to 
 understand. It transcends human experience. 
 
 None could have taught such love who had not seen 
 the loving countenance of God, and experienced the 
 pulsation of that love in their own hearts. The love of 
 God in the Bible is an invincible, a triumphant author- 
 ity, that invokes the loving obedience of men." 
 
 And when in the New Testament we see this mercy 
 of God actually stooping from heaven and making its 
 abode among men in the incarnate Son of God, breath- 
 ing itself out upon the guilty in words of sweetest, fullest 
 forgiveness, lavishing itself upon the unworthy and 
 ungrateful, in every form of unwearied kindness, and 
 finally offering itself upon the cross, a priceless sacrifice 
 for the sin of the world, then we know indeed what 
 Moses dimly perceived and what prophets and Psalm- 
 ist vainly struggled to express. This glorious name 
 which God proclaimed to his faithful servant finds its 
 only complete interpretation in the cross of Calvary. 
 
 The sceptic who would close this book little thinks 
 that in doing so he would blow out the only light that 
 sheds upon our pathway here a beam of hope. He 
 fondly supposes that he can retain the beam while 
 
 218 
 
extinguishing the lamp from which it streams, — as I 
 can remember trying, when a child, to grasp and 
 imprison in my clenched fist the beam of light that 
 streamed through the room from a crack in a closed 
 blind. But he cannot. Quench the lamp, and we are 
 left in darkness, shut up to the one immovable cer- 
 tainty that God is just. 
 
 If then we must go to God's word for our knowledge 
 of the very fact that mercy is God's peculiar glory, 
 much more must we go thither for our knowledge 
 respecting the quality and conditions of that mere)'. 
 
 There we learn that God's mercy is sovereign. None 
 can dictate its exercise. None can prescribe its terms. 
 When God was preparing Moses for this gracious man- 
 ifestation he declared to him: "I will have mercy on 
 whom I will have mercy and will have compassion on 
 ' whom I will have compassion." 
 
 In this mercy is unlike justice. There is a necessity 
 of justice; but mercy is in its nature free, else would it 
 not be mercy. When a condemned criminal stands 
 before a judge to receive his sentence, exact justice 
 demands a certain definite penalty, no less and no more. 
 But if mercy steps in, she may modify that penalty in 
 any one of a hundred ways. And how and how far she 
 shall modify it is optional with him who pronounces sen- 
 tence. It cannot be otherwise. Nothing is mercy which 
 the guilty can stand up and demand as a right. That is 
 simple justice. The only compulsion which God is 
 under in the exercise of mercy is from within. It is the 
 compulsion of his own fatherly love. 
 
 Moreover God's mercy is a righteous mercy. It is a 
 mercy not inconsistent with divine justice. That is the 
 significance of these last stern sentences of this won- 
 derful proclamation. They are a warning against pre- 
 suming upon God's mercy as mere weakness or 
 
 219 
 
indifference. There is a so-called mercy among men 
 which is cruelly unjust to society. It is that mercy 
 which refuses to punish crime, which deals lightly with 
 defiant lawlessness. Nothing is more dangerous, noth- 
 ing is more disturbing, than such indiscriminate indul- 
 gence toward wrong doers. We have had examples in 
 high places here in our own city of that sort of " mercy" 
 to criminals, — examples which make the cheeks of 
 honest men tingle with shame and indignation. Such is 
 not the mercy of God. He is and must remain forever 
 just, and unless he can find some way to reconcile mercy 
 with justice, mercy must stand aside. "Righteousness 
 and judgment are the foundation of his throne." 
 Mercy itself is cruel if it strikes at those everlasting 
 foundations. " Be just before you are generous," is a 
 saying which in principle holds true for God as well 
 as man. 
 
 But how can mercy be reconciled with justice? Are 
 they not in their nature contradictory and exclusive? 
 If we take justice in a narrow sense, yes. If we take 
 it in a large sense, no. Looking at the individual sin- 
 ner by himself, of course justice and mercy do exclude 
 each other. If he receives justice he can not receive 
 mercy and vice versa. But taking justice in the large 
 sense, of that which conserves the interests of the 
 whole and maintains the supremacy of righteousness, 
 there is no such necessary conflict. If God had not 
 found a way to show mercy to sinners without injustice 
 to the universe, he would have shown no mercy at all. 
 Such a way God did find, through the sacrifice of his 
 only begotten son, " whom God had set forth to be a 
 propitiation, through faith in his blood, that he might 
 be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in 
 Jesus." 
 
 God's mercy is a righteous mercy because it is not a 
 '220 
 
weak indulgence of sin nor an indiscriminate pardon of 
 the repentant, but offers forgiveness only on the right- 
 eous conditions of repentance and faith in an atoning 
 Saviour. 
 
 Is mercy narrowed by these conditions? Not by a 
 hair's breadth. On the contrary " that mercy is bound- 
 less." The mind of man cannot grasp it. It is as high 
 as heaven, " Thy mercy reacheth unto the heavens and 
 thy faithfulness unto the clouds." "As the heaven is 
 high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them 
 that fear him." Words like these assure us that if we 
 will but comply with the conditions of that mercy we 
 shall find it absolutely without limit. As the highest 
 mountains are overreached by the heavens, which are 
 still infinitely beyond them, so, though our sins were 
 piled mountain-high, the mercy of God still outreaches 
 and infinitely surpasses them. 
 
 What! are you afraid that your sins are too great 
 for God's mercy to blot out? Then are you not also 
 afraid that, as the earth turns over, Mt. Blanc will 
 knock down the stars from the sky? That mercy is 
 measureless in its results. " As far as the east is from 
 the west so far hath he removed our transgressions from 
 us." How far is that? So far that the breadth of the 
 universe lies between them. So far that the forgiven 
 sinner and his sins can never be brought together. 
 
 And God's mercy is measureless in its duration. " I 
 trust in the mercy of God forever and ever," sang the 
 Psalmist, and well he might, for "the mercy of the 
 Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that 
 fear him." The time will never come when a forgiven 
 sinner will have outlived his dependence on the mercy 
 of God. He has deserved an endless doom and he 
 stands in need of an endless mercy. But thank God 
 his mercy is endless, and no soul that trusts in it will 
 
 •221 
 
ever find that refuge to fail. 
 
 And now, my friend, what are you going to do with 
 this mercy of God? 
 
 There are but two things you can do with it, — accept 
 it, trust it forever, on God's conditions, just as they are 
 made known in his word, or reject it and trample it 
 under foot. 
 
 There is no third alternative. You cannot change 
 the conditions. You cannot dictate terms to the 
 divine mercy. This is what millions are trying to do. 
 But it is impossible. Mercy makes its own terms. 
 Take it as it is, or refuse it. To build your hopes 
 upon the mercy of God while persisting in sin or turn- 
 ing your back upon the cross, is as reckless as it would 
 be for a conquered army to expect amnesty while 
 deliberately violating the terms of surrender. 
 
 Surely you are not insane enough to spurn God's 
 mercy altogether. Surely your conscience is not so 
 dead that you will venture to throw yourself upon the 
 naked sword of God's justice. 
 
 Then there is but one thing left, to come penitently, 
 believingly to the foot of the cross and seek humbly as 
 a sinner for the mercy of God in Christ. Will you do 
 it? You cannot come too soon. To-day mercy invites; 
 to-morrow judgment may summon. The storm is 
 gathering. You need a refuge. Yonder is the Rock of 
 Ages. Hide in it now. 
 
 222 
 
GOD OUR JUDGE. 
 
 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to 
 God. — Rom. 14: 12. 
 
 Somebody once asked Daniel Webster what was the 
 most important thought that ever occupied his mind. If 
 there was anything trifling in the spirit which prompted 
 the question, the answer must have effectually startled it 
 away. "The most important thought that ever occupied 
 my mind," said Mr. Webster in his slow, solemn way, 
 "was the thought of my individual responsibility to 
 God. " That is the thought which here occupied the mind of 
 Paul, and which in these weighty words he seeks to lay 
 upon the minds of his readers, "So then every one of us 
 shall give account of himself to God." 
 
 This fact of accountability is indeed the most tre- 
 mendous fact of existence. Nothing in the future, not 
 death itself, solemn as it is, can compare in significance 
 with this certainty that sometime, somewhere, you and I, 
 every one of us, each for himself, must meet God face to 
 face, and give an account of every deed, every word, 
 every thought. 
 
 "This burden of responsibility, 
 Too heavy for our frail humanity, 
 Crushes me down as at His judgment bar. 
 Why ! death is naught to this ! If we should pray, 
 If we should tremble when that hour draws nigh. 
 So should our hearts be lifted all the way, 
 To live hath greater issues than to die!" 
 
 223 
 
There flits through your mind in a moment of reflec- 
 tion some memory of the past which you hastily brush 
 aside, saying to yourself: "That chapter is closed. 
 There was much in it that was bad enough ; but thank 
 God it is done with now!" Done with? No, not done 
 with. That closed chapter must be read again, every 
 word. Left behind? No, not left behind, but gone be- 
 fore to wait for you at the bar of last account. Your 
 whole past and mine, is there ; and every day brings us 
 nearer to the hour when we must face it. Buried? Aye, 
 but buried where? Buried in the bosom of God, who 
 will call it forth in his own time. 
 
 No wonder men shrink from this thought of ac- 
 countability and often seek refuge from it in Atheism, 
 Materialism, Pantheism, Fatalism, — anything, in short, 
 that effaces the personality of God, or destroys the free 
 agency of man, and so does away with this idea of an 
 account to be given. For in fact there is no other escape 
 from this thought. Accountability is involved in the 
 very essence of man's relation as a creature to God as 
 his Creator. Men talk sometimes as though judgment 
 were an arbitrary thing, a prerogative which God may 
 lay aside if he pleases, in fact a wanton exercise of 
 tyranny of which a God of love can hardly be thought 
 capable. Whereas, in truth God can no more cease to 
 be a Judge than he can cease to be a Sovereign. To lay 
 aside his prerogative would be to abdicate his throne. 
 Given a Creator, personal, holy, and a creature endowed 
 with a moral nature, i. e. , knowing good and evil and 
 free to choose between them, and judgment by that 
 Creator upon the conduct of that creature is an inevit- 
 able necessity. Judgment, I say, and remember that 
 this judgment by the Creator means two things, an 
 estimate, and an award based on that estimate. 
 
 Judgment in the former sense of an estimate is in- 
 224 
 
separable from the possession of a moral nature. You 
 and I cannot regard the good and the evil with the same 
 feelings, and the higher we rise ourselves in loftiness and 
 purity of character, the more impossible does such moral 
 indifference become. 
 
 Judgment in the latter sense of an award, is insep- 
 arable from the possession of authority. A father who 
 puts no distinction between the obedient and the dis- 
 obedient child, shirks the very first responsibility of 
 fatherhood. A government which deals a like with the law- 
 abiding and the law-defying earns for itself only the con- 
 tempt of both. A holy God who has brought into being 
 creatures capable of holiness and capable of sin cannot 
 regard the holy and the sinful with the same feeling, and 
 he cannot justly repress, (unless it be for a time, in the 
 exercise of a merciful forbearance,) the expression in his 
 dealings with them of the opposite feelings with which 
 he regards them. 
 
 The nature of man makes judgment a necessity. We 
 say of man that he is a responsible being. This is what 
 distinguishes him from the brutes. But responsible 
 means answerable. He is a being who can answer for his 
 conduct, who can be held to an account of himself, be- 
 cause he is free. But to whom is he answerable? To 
 himself? Yes, certainly. He must answer at the bar of 
 his own conscience for every choice he makes. But that 
 is not all. To whom else? To society? Yes, assuredly. 
 Society has a right to hold him to a reckoning, to exact 
 payment, to insist upon penalty for everything in his con- 
 duct which harms his fellowman. 
 
 But that is not all. Beyond both these tribunals 
 there is another, at which man can cease to be answer- 
 able only when it ceases to be in his power to do right 
 and avoid the wrong, — the tribunal of God his Maker. 
 This is his dignity, this is his distinction as a being made 
 
 225 
 
in God's image, that he is capable of good or ill desert, 
 and therefore answerable to the Judge of all. 
 
 Our own conscience demands that God should judge. 
 It demands this with regard to others. There is an in- 
 stinctive looking-for of divine vengeance to overtake the 
 wicked, so strong that when disappointed it recoils 
 against the very foundations of religious faith. The pros- 
 perity of the wicked is one of the potent arguments of the 
 atheist. So Diogenes long ago complained that the suc- 
 cess of Harpalus in his treachery would witness against 
 the gods, and the infidel lecturer of to-day points to his 
 own unpunished blasphemies as proof that there is no 
 God. The fact that in the world we see no equal and 
 exact judgment has always been one of the great stum- 
 bling blocks to faith. It is the difficulty stated with such 
 power in the Book of Ecclesiastes, for which the royal 
 sceptic found refuge only in the assured expectation of 
 such a judgment hereafter, so sure are we that a God who 
 does not judge, is really no God at all. And the same 
 conscience which thus demands judgment upon others 
 teaches us to look for it for ourselves. That deep fore- 
 boding of judgment to come it is which makes us shrink 
 back from the mystery of death, and clothes an unknown 
 eternity with dread. That voice within which utters its 
 stern "You ought, you must," witnesses to my soul of a 
 God above who lent to that voice its authority, and to 
 whom, sooner or later, I must answer for every deed, 
 every word, every thought. 
 
 Let us try to grasp this fact. There is much in the 
 drapery of it, in the plan, the time, the manner of this 
 accounting that is shadowy and mysterious. But the 
 fact is as simple and intelligible as it is solemn. Here 
 are two beings, God and I. We are not unknown to 
 each other. God knows me altogether, for he made me. 
 He gave me life and gave it for an end of his own. He 
 
 226 
 
gave me reason and endowed me with gifts and powers 
 in the use of which I might seek that end. And he has 
 made himself known to me in conscience and in his 
 word. He has given me a perfect law to be my guide. 
 
 And the time will come when for my use of that be 
 ing and those powers which he gave, for my obedience 
 or disobedience to that law which he revealed, for my 
 reaching or failing of that for which he made me, I 
 must give account to him. He is just. He holds the 
 balance exactly true. There is no bias, no partiality, no 
 respect of persons with him. 
 
 He knows all, — every act, every word, every 
 thought, every wish, every motive. All the palliations 
 of my conduct are known to him ; the inherited weak- 
 ness, the infirmity of the flesh, the strength of the temp- 
 tation. But so also are all the aggravations, the light 
 disregarded, the warnings of parents and teachers des- 
 pised, the pleadings of the still small voice unheeded. 
 
 He has all power. The sentence which he passes 
 he is able to execute. Resistance on my part will be 
 worse than idle. He is supreme. There will be no ap- 
 peal from his judgment. No power can reverse his sen- 
 tence and no hand can stay its execution. And he is 
 everywhere. Many a transgressor of human law gives 
 justice the slip by suicide. But God is on the other side 
 of the grave as well as on this. To seek by suicide to 
 escape his judgment would be as if one should betake 
 himself to the other side of the ocean to escape the pen- 
 alty of a crime committed in this land, only to meet, as he 
 steps ashore, the officers of the law, whom the telegraph 
 has informed of his flight and who are ready to hand 
 him over at once to offended justice. 
 
 Such is the Judge to whom we must give account. 
 And these perfections assure us that that judgment will 
 be just, searching, resistless, final, inevitable. And in 
 
 227 
 
that judgment every one of us must stand practically 
 alone. Though the whole universe should be summoned 
 together before that tribunal, it will make no difference. 
 Every one of us will have his own past to face, his own 
 soul to answer for, his own eternal destiny to be fixed by 
 his own decisions. " If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise 
 for thyself ; but if thou scornest thou alone shalt 
 bear it." 
 
 " Every one of us shall give account of himself to 
 God." Many influences may have helped to make or 
 mar us. Many others may be entitled to share in the 
 credit or in the blame. But ultimately each man's life 
 is in his own hands ; each man's character is the fruit of 
 his own choices, and each must give his own account. 
 If another has tempted me to sin he must answer for it, 
 and God will hold him to the same strict account, whether 
 the temptation was successful or unsuccessful. But I 
 must answer for myself alone as to whether that tempta- 
 tion was yielded to, or overcome. The man, the woman, 
 the serpent all shared in the guilt of the first sin, but 
 each had an individual account to render and an individ- 
 ual sentence to receive. 
 
 Now we must distinguish carefully between this fact 
 as it is in itself, and the aspect which it wears to a dis- 
 turbed conscience. To a sinner the thought of God as a 
 judge cannot but be a thought of terror. But in itself 
 that judgment is a thing to rejoice in. The criminal on 
 trial for his life, as he looks at the judge before whom he 
 is arraigned, may feel his knees smite together with fear. 
 That judge appears to him an enemy by whom his life is 
 endangered. But the citizens who watch the progress 
 of the trial, who observe how evenly the balance is held, 
 how calmly and dispassionately the facts are inquired 
 into, and how gravely and sorrowfully sentence is pro- 
 nounced, see in that same judge the embodied majesty of 
 
 228 
 
law, the refuge of innocence, the support of liberty and 
 order. 
 
 What sort of a world would this be to live in, if 
 there were no righteous Judge upon the throne ? Who 
 could endure the constant spectacle of unpunished vil- 
 lains and unrighted wrongs, if he did not know that 
 because God is a God of judgment these things must end 
 sometime ? 
 
 What would life be worth if instead of being a trust 
 from a Creator's hand to be accounted for to him who 
 gave it, and gloriously rewarded if rightly used, it were 
 a mere accident, so to speak, without purpose and with- 
 out result ? There is nothing which gives to life greater 
 dignity than the knowledge that it is a gift so precious 
 and so measureless in its possibilities that God himself 
 will make strict inquiry as to its use. Better a thousand 
 times the certainty of judgment with the possibility of 
 eternal life beyond, than the certainty of no judgment, 
 the irresponsible life of the sparrow or the butterfly, 
 with nothing beyond it but an infinite blank. And this 
 is the alternative. Privilege carries with it responsibil- 
 ity. Fellowship with God is possible only to beings en- 
 dowed with that moral nature which makes them ac- 
 countable. Eternal life is the crown of moral victory 
 won. 
 
 Society pays a tribute to the dignity of manhood in 
 every court of justice which it establishes. Why is it 
 that when a fox steals chickens or a tiger kills a man we 
 shoot it without ceremony, but when a man steals or kills 
 we put him on trial with every safeguard for the meeting 
 out of exact justice ? It is because we recognize the 
 worth of a man as an accountable being. And this is 
 what makes the sin and the shame of lynch law, that it 
 deals with accountable men as if they were dangerous 
 brutes to be put out of the way by sheer butchery with- 
 out law or justice. 229 
 
Not only does this fact of an account to be given to 
 God lend meaning and worth to life as a whole, but to 
 every trivial act and detail of life. Nothing is unimport- 
 ant which God thinks worthy of record in his book of 
 remembrance and of review before his judgment-bar. 
 
 You know the story of Huss, that when examined 
 by the inquisitors he at first answered carelessly and 
 without reflection ; but that suddenly hearing the scratch- 
 ing of a pen behind a screen, and perceiving that his 
 words were being written down, he began at once to 
 weigh them with the uttermost care. When Jesus said, 
 "For every idle word that a man shall speak he 
 shall give account thereof at the day of judgment," he 
 meant to teach and he did teach that there is nothing in 
 life so small as to be unimportant or unmeaning. 
 
 This thought of God as our Judge is not only an 
 ennobling but a liberating thought. It sets men free at 
 once from all forms of time-serving and sycophancy, 
 from the tyranny of majorities and bondage to public 
 opinion. 
 
 What a manly independence, what a noble freedom 
 was that of Paul when he said to the Corinthians, " To 
 me it is a small thing that I should be judged of you or 
 of men's judgment. Yea, I judge not mine own self ; 
 but he that judgeth me is the Lord." 
 
 Such independence is essential to any really worthy 
 life. The man who dares not stand alone, who dares not 
 be true to his own convictions of duty in the face of 
 popular clamor, is a coward and a slave. The vessel 
 that, without rudder, drifts at the mercy of winds and cur- 
 rents is destined to wreck at last. And the life that without 
 the government of a controlling sense of duty is swayed 
 this way and that by the shifting breezes of human opin- 
 ion is destined to the same fate. But the voice of the 
 multitude is powerful. To stand alone against it needs 
 
 230 
 
bracing by a mighty thought. Sometimes men gain a 
 measure of this freedom by setting over against the 
 clamor of to-day the thought of the calmer judgment of 
 to-morrow. But the judgment of posterity is uncertain, 
 and it has besides this drawback that he who appeals to 
 it will not be there to hear its verdict. It is the thought 
 of God's judgment that sets us truly free. He who car- 
 ries with him the ever present consciousness of an ac- 
 count to be given to God, will care very little for human 
 praise or human blame. 
 
 There is sustaining power also in this truth that God 
 is to be our Judge. There is no element of the unap- 
 ' proachable human character of Jesus more marvelous 
 than his patience. Never was he provoked by misrepre- 
 sentation, opposition, persecution, insult, anguish, to so 
 much as even a single revengful act or angry word. He 
 suffered unto death without once taking his cause into his 
 own hands or lifting a finger to strike back. Would you 
 know the secret of that amazing patience. His disciple 
 will tell it to you. " When he was reviled he reviled 
 not again ; when he suffered he threatened not, but com- 
 mitted himself to him that judgeth righteously." On the 
 certainty of that judgment he rested. For that he was 
 content to wait. 
 
 The communities in which there is least of private 
 revenge and lawless resort to force are those in which 
 the administration of public justice is surest and most 
 impartial. Men are willing to wait and to endure in pro- 
 portion as they see that they can safely leave their cause 
 in other hands stronger and steadier than their own. So 
 when we look above all human tribunals, even the most 
 august, to a throne of absolute justice and of infinite 
 power, before which every strife must be adjusted and 
 every wrong set right, then it is that we learn to suffer 
 wrong with meekness and in silence, and to wait in 
 
 231 
 
Calmness and in patience for the righteous judgment of 
 God. 
 
 Again the thought of God's judgment inspires char- 
 ity and forbearance in our judgments of our fellows. 
 This is the particular use the Apostle is seeking to make 
 of it here. "So then every one of us shall give account of 
 himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another 
 any more. But judge this rather, that no man put a 
 stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's 
 way." 
 
 There is a sense in which we cannot help judging 
 our fellowmen. We cannot help regulating our dealings 
 with them by some estimate of their character. But it is- 
 God alone to whom they are accoutable. He alone has 
 the material for a just judgment. The underlying mo- 
 tives, the stress of temptation, the earnestness of the 
 struggle, which must all be taken account of in such a 
 judgment are hidden from all but God. If there were no 
 judge up there, perhaps it might be necessary for us ill- 
 equipped as we are for the work to assume some pre- 
 rogative of judgment. But since there is such a judge 
 we may well leave our fellowmen in his hands. There is 
 responsibility enough for each of us in preparing for the 
 account we must render for ourselves. Aye, when we 
 consider what measure of clemency and forbearance in 
 that judgment we ourselves shall need, and remember 
 that word, "With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be 
 judged," how dare we be exacting and severe in our 
 judgment of our fellow servants. 
 
 It is clear then that if we could but be delivered 
 from those personal fears which to a guilty conscience 
 are inseparable from the thought of God's searching judg- 
 ment, that thought would bring nothing but comfort and 
 strength and inspiration to our souls. But ah, that iff 
 The past is past. No tears, no prayers, no promises can 
 
 232 
 
change one line of the unalterable record. And there is 
 enough in that past, even with the best of us all that may 
 well make us afraid when we think of meeting a holy 
 God. 
 
 Who of us dare say that, when called to that last 
 account, he can meet the summons in the confidence of 
 stainless integrity, and await as his due an approving 
 judgment? Not one. " For all have sinned and come 
 short of the glory of God." 
 
 Well then, if we cannot have this confidence, is 
 there any other confidence that can divest that great day 
 of its terrors? Yes, there is. Though the best of men 
 cannot hold up his head before that bar and plead "Not 
 guilty," the very chief of sinners may there hold up his 
 head and plead, " Christ died for me." The soul that is 
 hidden in Christ has nothing to fear even from the most 
 searching judgment of God. None need ever fear to face 
 God as his Judge, who has learned to know God as his 
 Saviour. You remember that when the three Hebrews 
 were cast, at Nebuchadnezzar's command, into the fiery 
 furnace, his servants beheld them with amazement walk- 
 ing in that white heat unharmed, and with them a fourth 
 like unto the Son of God. So the soul that has the Son 
 of God for its companion and protector will walk un- 
 scathed amid the consuming fire of that last tremendous 
 day. '• The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." 
 The soul that has been washed in this blood will stand 
 spotless as the purest angel before that bar. 
 
 And so, hidden in that refuge, washed in that crim- 
 son fountain, it is possible for the child of God to look 
 up and rejoice that God is a Judge, to say, as one did say, 
 when told that some were looking for the judgment as 
 close at hand, " If I were sure that the day of judgment 
 were to come within an hour, I should be glad with all my 
 heart. If at this very instant I should hear such thunder- 
 
 233 
 
ings and see such lightnings as Israel did at Mt Sinai, I 
 am persuaded my very heart would leap for joy." 
 
 With the Psalmist of old such an one can sing: 
 " Make a joyful noise before Jehovah the King. Let the 
 sea roar and the fulness thereof, and the world and they 
 that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands and 
 the world and they that dwell therein. Let the floods 
 clap their hands and the hills be joyful together before 
 Jehovah, for he cometh to judge the earth. With right- 
 eousness shall he judge the world and the people with 
 his truth." 
 
 234 
 
CALVARY INTERPRETED BY ITSELF. 
 
 JVozv from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land 
 unto the ninth hour. . lud about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a 
 loud voice, saying: Eli, Eli, lama sabaehthani? that is to say: 
 My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them 
 that stood there, when they heard that, said: 7 his man ealleth for 
 Elias. And straitway one of them ran and took a sponge and 
 filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. 
 The rest said: Let be: let us see whether Elias will come to save 
 him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded 
 up the Ghost. And behold the veil of the temple was rent in twain 
 from the top to the bottom'; and the earth did quake and the rocks 
 rent, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints 
 which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrec- 
 tion and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many — 
 Matt. 27:45-53. 
 
 Who can read this story of Calvary without feeling 
 that he is looking into a great deep of mystery. That 
 which caused careless on-lookers who no doubt had 
 gazed with morbid and unfeeling curiosity upon many 
 a public execution to turn homeward in silence and 
 with smitten breast, and drew from the stern Roman 
 centurion, inured to spectacles of judicial torture, the 
 awed confession: "Truly this was the Son of God," 
 was no common incident such as a thousand times had 
 stained the pages of history, of judicial murder to 
 appease a popular clamor. 
 
 Something is here unique, awful, —which constrains 
 us to pause before it and ask, What meaneth this? 
 One of the most impressive deaths recorded in history 
 is that of Socrates as it is drawn by the master hand of 
 
 235 
 
his great disciple. But place it side by side with this 
 story of Calvary, and who but must cry with unbeliev- 
 ing yet honest Rousseau: "Socrates died like a philos- 
 opher, but Jesus Christ died like a God." 
 
 One of the most painfully impressive things in life 
 is the indifference of nature to human anguish and 
 human guilt. Generation after generation has made 
 the earth to reek with crimes and cruelties the very tale 
 of which if told without concealment were enough to 
 freeze the blood in human veins; yet the old globe has 
 rolled on without a tremor, like the fairest planet in the 
 sky, and still the seasons come and go; spring spreads 
 over all its gay carpet of flowers, and winter shrouds 
 all in its mantle of spotless white; and from all nature 
 there is no sign of horror or of sympathy. While dun- 
 geon walls echo and reecho with the shrieks of tortured 
 victims the still glory of the dawn creeps up the sky. 
 The sun looks smiling down and floods with noontide 
 splendor the scene where martyrs breathe out their 
 souls in flame, and sets in all his glory of crimson and 
 gold upon battlefields where truth and justice and free- 
 dom have been crushed out in blood. And over the 
 field of carnage on which the wounded writhe in lonely 
 anguish and the dying call in vain for a cup of water to 
 moisten their parched lips, the stars look down with the 
 same undimmed eyes and the moon sails on in the same 
 silvery brightness as over the bowers where lovers 
 whisper their vows or the cottages in which mothers 
 croon infants' lullabies. 
 
 But here is one who dies and above his cross the 
 heavens veil themselves in blackness, and at his expir- 
 ing cry the earth shudders to its foundation! It is 
 nature's response to the supreme court of history. 
 And yet not nature's. 
 
 The skies had no eyes to see that uplifted cross. 
 236 
 
The earth had no ears to hear that dying cry. It is the 
 response of the God of nature, signifying by super- 
 natural signs his presence and his sympathy at the 
 death of His beloved Son. 
 
 In the threefold miracle, of the darkness, the rent 
 veil, the opened graves which accompanied the cruci- 
 fixion of Jesus we have God's witness to the supreme 
 importance and God's hints of the inner meaning of 
 that event. 
 
 Miracle I call it. For there can be no alternative 
 between denying the veracity of this narrative and 
 admitting the supernatural character of these three 
 accompaniments of the tragedy of Calvary. 
 
 It was no eclipse that darkened the heavens; for the 
 passover moon, then at its full, rose that evening in the 
 east as the sun was setting in the west. It was no 
 earthquake that rent the veil of the temple in twain 
 from its top to the bottom. Earthquakes rend rocks 
 and overthrow solid walls, but they cannot rend asunder 
 loosely suspended tapestry. 
 
 The earthquake itself, opening the rock-hewn 
 sepulchres round about Jerusalem was no mere natural 
 coincidence, frequent as such things are round that 
 Dead Sea region. For though a convulsion of nature 
 might rend the sepulchres, it could not reanimate the 
 dust they held, to walk the streets of the holy city. 
 
 These signs were supernatural, and they had a 
 meaning. They were not arbitrary signs, simply to call 
 the attention of the universe to what was there taking 
 place. They were a revelation from God, — answering 
 to the revelation of his book and through the lips of 
 Jesus himself, all pointing in one direction, all pointing 
 to the glorious mystery of vicarious sacrifice as the cen- 
 tral meaning of the cross, — and confirming the testi- 
 mony of the divine Sufferer himself: "The Son of Man 
 
 237 
 
came to give his life a ransom for many." 
 
 We may call them, taken together: Calvary inter- 
 preted by itself. It is true that these signs taken by 
 themselves would be an insecure basis on which to 
 build up a theology of the cross. When God wishes to 
 convey new truth, above all, truth on which the soul's 
 salvation hangs, he does it in words too plain to be 
 misunderstood. Yet when we find supernatural events 
 responding to the inspired words, the very heaven and 
 earth as it were pointing to the cross, and echoing the 
 words of the last of the prophets: "Behold the Lamb 
 of God, that taketh away the sin of the world," the 
 witness comes home to us with a solemnity and impres- 
 siveness that nothing else could give. 
 
 Look then with me at this threefold supernatural 
 witness to the meaning of Calvary. 
 
 i. It begins with that mysterious darkness. " Now 
 from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land 
 until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus 
 cried with a loud voice, saying: Eli, Eli, lama sabach- 
 thani; that is to say: My God, my God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me? " 
 
 Surely this darkness has been nothing else than the 
 frown of God, the outward symbol of his awful dis- 
 pleasure against sin. It might well seem to be directed 
 against the impious city that had rejected its King with 
 the cry, Crucify him! Crucify him! — to be the dark 
 shadow of the doom already hanging over that city for 
 this its crowning guilt, and soon to fall with crushing 
 weight. Or it might seem to be directed against the 
 world, the depth of whose fall and apostacy from God 
 was first fully revealed in this its impious murder of 
 one whose only crime was that he was sinless. But 
 that cry of Jesus himself, uttered just as the darkness 
 was passing away, and put by both Matthew and Mark 
 
 238 
 
in close and evident connection with it, points to a 
 still deeper and more awful meaning. It points to a 
 hiding of God's face from his own Son. " My God, 
 my God, why didst thou forsake me?" is the closer, 
 more literal rendering, which points to a darkness in 
 the soul of the Redeemer already passing away with the 
 outward darkness which was its mysterious reflection. 
 During that darkness he had been silent. What the 
 experience, what the inner struggle of that soul was 
 during those three awful hours no human imagination 
 can ever fathom. Only when it passed away with the 
 outward darkness that so fitly symbolized it, and there 
 came again to that mysterious and patient sufferer the 
 sense of his Father's presence and his Father's love, 
 did he give a hint of what it had been, uttering him- 
 self, as God-fearing souls ever love to do, in the 
 inspired words of that treasure-house of devotional 
 utterance fitted to every phase of spiritual experience, 
 the Psalms of David. But in that cry; " My God, my 
 God, why hast thou forsaken me? " there was more than 
 an apt use of Scripture language. There was an appli- 
 cation of Messianic prophecy. These were the open- 
 ing words of a Messianic Psalm, in which the agony of 
 the cross is portrayed with a minuteness scarce sur- 
 passed by the gospels themselves. 
 
 In that utterance then, thus deliberately supplied by 
 the Holy Spirit centuries before, and deliberately ap- 
 plied by Jesus himself to the unfathomable experience 
 of those silent hours, we have the interpretation of that 
 supernatural darkness. 
 
 That darkness was indeed the frown of God, the 
 outward symbol of his awful displeasure against sin, — 
 but a frown directed toward the sin-bearer, the symbol 
 of that hiding from him of God's face which was the 
 bitterest drop in the cup of vicarious suffering. 
 
 239 
 
Once lose sight of the truth that Jesus was there 
 offering himself a sacrifice, bearing our sins in his own 
 body on the tree, and a cry like this becomes inexpli- 
 cable, the one blemish in that matchless scene, the one 
 contradiction, utterly irreconcilable with the steadfast 
 courage, the unfaltering submission, and the unshaken 
 faith revealed in every other act and word of that heroic 
 sufferer. Either God did actually hide his face from 
 his Son, either Christ did suffer in that hour the sense 
 of separation from God, unspeakably more dreadful 
 than any bodily anguish, which is sin's supreme penalty, 
 or else we can make nothing of this cry but the inco- 
 herent utterance of tottering reason or of reeling faith. 
 
 Either God did actually withdraw from his Son the 
 sense of his presence and support, or else Jesus momen- 
 tarily lost his hold upon all this through the failure of 
 his self-possession or a temporary eclipse of his faith in 
 God. To say this would be to impute to him a weak- 
 ness to which many of his followers have risen superior, 
 who have passed triumphant through all the agonies of 
 martyrdom with songs upon their lips not for one 
 instant losing their consciousness of God's nearness or 
 their trust in his faithfulness. 
 
 But if that hiding of God's face was real, then but 
 one explanation of it is possible. Christ was taking 
 the sinner's place. He was suffering the darkness of 
 God's frown that you and I might walk forever in the 
 light of God's countenance. And that darkness over 
 the land was the symbol of the more awful darkness 
 enshrouding his soul as he tasted death for every man.. 
 
 2. If this was true, if our sins were indeed laid 
 upon this sinless Lamb of God, then they must have 
 been put away completely and forever. Then the way 
 must be fully open for sinners to return to God. So 
 indeed it was, and this, too, had its supernatural attest- 
 
 210 
 
ation following close upon the other. "Jesus, when he 
 had cried again with a loud voice yielded up the Ghost, 
 and behold the veil of the temple was rent in twain 
 from the top to the bottom." The words of that dying 
 cry Matthew does not give; but John has recorded them. 
 "When Jesus, therefore had received the vinegar he 
 said: 'It is finished!' and bowed his head and gave up 
 the Ghost." 
 
 " It is finished! " The veil of the temple was rent in 
 twain. Surely it needs no interpreter to unfold the 
 meaning of a sign so eloquent. We have only to recall 
 what this veil itself was, and what it stood for in the 
 God-given symbolism of the tabernacle to see in an 
 instant what was meant when God's own hand rent it 
 asunder. That veil was the curtain which closed the 
 entrance to the Holy of Holies, the presence chamber 
 of Jehovah, where on the mercy seat between the cher- 
 ubim rested, till the sins of the people grieved it away, 
 the Shechinah, the luminous cloud which was the vis- 
 ible symbol of his presence with the covenant people. 
 To that presence the veil barred the way. It was a 
 perpetual proclamation to the worshiping people in the 
 courts without, that sinful man is not fit to enter the 
 presence of a holy God. One hand alone might lift 
 that veil,— the hand of the high priest, the appointed 
 mediator for sinners, — and that but once a year, when 
 he entered with the blood of the sin-offering by which 
 atonement had been made for the sins of the people, to 
 sprinkle with it the mercy seat. Thus that veil, hanging 
 before the mercy seat as at once a doorway and a barrier, 
 shutting out the worshipers from the immediate pres- 
 ence of God, and yet admitting one to intercede for 
 them and present on their behalf the atoning blood, 
 spoke at once of reconciliation possible and of recon- 
 ciliation incomplete. It spoke of God's gracious pur- 
 
 211 
 
pose toward man, and yet it proclaimed man's need of 
 a more thorough cleansing from guilt than any which 
 those typical sacrifices could effect. After the sacrifice 
 had been offered, after the blood had been sprinkled, 
 the veil was still there. 
 
 "The Holy Ghost this signifying," says the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, "that the way into the Holiest was 
 not yet made manifest." 
 
 When then that veil was rent by God's own hand it 
 proclaimed more loudly than even a voice from heaven 
 could have proclaimed it, that atonement was at last 
 "finished," that a sufficient sacrifice had at length been 
 offered "once for all," that the old preparatory dispen- 
 sation was done away and that henceforth there was free 
 access for every penitent sinner to the mercy-seat of 
 the King of Kings. No need now for any farther 
 bloody sacrifices. No need now for any human priest. 
 The rending of the temple veil was God's response on 
 the instant, his seal set without delay to that cry from 
 the cross, " It is finished." If the darkness over all the 
 land proclaimed the awful reality of Christ's vicarious 
 suffering, the rent veil proclaimed its glorious suffi- 
 ciency. The penalty has been borne; the atonement 
 has been accepted; henceforth for all who trust in that 
 atonement the way to the mercy-seat is open and free. 
 
 3. But if these two things are true, if sin's penalty 
 has been borne, and if the way to God is now open and 
 free, then we look for a removal of the curse. The 
 sentence, "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou 
 return," must be revoked or the work of Calvary will 
 not be complete. 
 
 But here again God bears a mighty witness in the 
 third miraculous event of that wonderful day. "And 
 the earth did quake and the rocks rent, and the graves 
 were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept 
 
 242 
 
arose and came out of the graves after his ressurection. " 
 
 Here is more than a mere shudder of nature at the 
 expiring groan of its Lord. Here is the opening of 
 death's prison that his captives may go free. It is a 
 proclamation of victory through seeming defeat, of 
 death conquered by dying. If the veil of the temple 
 rent in twain showed us a dying Redeemer opening the 
 way for sinners to the mercy-seat, these opened graves 
 show us that Redeemer entering the very stronghold of 
 our last enemy, bursting its bolts and bars and leading 
 forth his captives into life eternal. 
 
 This is not only a proclamation but a prophecy. 
 These opened graves are the first trophies of a splen- 
 did triumph. These risen dead, (following, not antici- 
 pating Christ's resurrection) are the first fruits of a 
 mighty harvest still to be reaped. It was fitting that an 
 earnest should thus be given of the finished redemption 
 wrought upon the cross, a pledge also for all time of 
 "the power of Christ's resurrection." Could any mir- 
 acle bear plainer witness to Christ as the life-giver and 
 to the cross as a power to cancel the curse of sin? 
 
 Then my brethren we have in the supernatural 
 events which surrounded that scene on Calvary and 
 marked the death of the Sufferer as something strange 
 and apart from all other deaths, a kind of miracle- 
 gospel speaking to us of God's displeasure against sin 
 visited on the sinless, of a way thus opened for sinners 
 to draw near to God, of death vanquished, the grave 
 robbed of its prey, and life eternal won — for all who 
 follow that victorious leader. 
 
 And you too, fellow-sinner, this is the gospel which 
 I offer to you to-day, — a gospel whose three mighty 
 terms are atonement, reconciliation, eternal life. That 
 darkened heaven, that rending veil, those opening 
 graves, are God's mighty voices to you proclaiming 
 
 243 
 
that the debt is paid, that access to God is free, that 
 death is swallowed up in victory, inviting you to walk 
 henceforth in the light of God's countenance, to enter 
 boldly, not into an earthly holy of holies, but to the 
 very heavenly mercy-seat itself, to enter here and now 
 upon the possession of eternal life. 
 
 When the very skies and the very graves are thus 
 vocal will you be deaf to those voices? In the presence 
 of a tragedy of expiation and a revelation of divine 
 love at which the very rocks are rent asunder will your 
 heart, harder than the rocks, refuse to break? And like 
 those curious, careless, callous bystanders, awed but for 
 an hour, will you too, return to your house the same 
 unyielding, impenitent sinner as before? 
 
 244 
 
NEGLECT OF SOULS. 
 
 No man cared for my soul. — Ps. 142: 4. 
 " If I had ever heard as much about Jesus Christ 
 before I came to this place as I have since, I should not 
 be here." Such was the bitter reply of a condemned 
 felon as he lay in his cell awaiting execution, to the min- 
 isters, Y. M. C. A. committees, and devout women, who 
 visited him day after day, and pleaded with him to take 
 Christ as his Saviour before the hour came that should 
 launch him into eternity. Not only bitter, but probably 
 untrue. That he now would have nothing to do with 
 that Saviour but thrust him sullenly away, showed what 
 he would most likely have done had he heard of him be- 
 fore. 
 
 It is not hearing of Jesus Christ but believing on 
 him that keeps men from prison and gallows. But 
 however worthless a justification of himself, the words 
 were a severe arraignment of the Christian city that had 
 suffered him tc grow up within sound of its church bells, 
 yet had done nothing for his soul till he lay under sen- 
 tence of death in a felon's cell. 
 
 And they are startlingly suggestive of the reproaches 
 against Christian neighbors, friends, aye kindred even, 
 with which the walls of the most awful prison house may 
 one day resound. " If you had spoken to me of Jesus 
 Christ, if you had warned me of the wrath to come, I 
 should not have been here." 
 
 "No man cared for my soul." In the life of the 
 Psalmist according to a common Hebrew mode of 
 
 245 
 
speech, " my soul " meant simply " me. " He refers to 
 the neglect and indifference of his friends when he was 
 hard pressed by his enemy Saul. 
 
 But since the soul is the true self, since there are no 
 interests to compare with its interests, no perils to com- 
 pare its perils, it is not perverting the words, only intens- 
 ifying them to take them in the sense which they first 
 convey to an English ear. It is thus that I ask you to 
 consider them to-day, as the complaint of the sinner who 
 is left to take the downward road unheeded and un- 
 warned, when he at last awakes to the fact that he is 
 lost. 
 
 Three things concerning this complaint we have 
 need to consider. 
 
 i. Who have cause to make it. 
 
 2. Against whom it justly lies. 
 
 3. Why it is that souls are thus neglected. 
 
 I. Are there any in this day of missionary and 
 evangelistic zeal who can justly complain : " No man 
 cared for my soul ? " Alas, yes ! In heathen lands mil- 
 lions have cause to make it. The question asked by a 
 convert of a missionary: "Where was your father, 
 that my father died without the gospel ? " is a home 
 question for those Christians who are living at ease and 
 doing nothing to obey the Saviour's bidding to give his 
 gospel to every creature. I do not deny that a heathen 
 might be saved who had no distinct knowledge of Jesus 
 of Nazareth. But neither Scripture nor experience en- 
 courages the hope that many will be. And yet despite all 
 that the church has yet done for the spread of the gospel, 
 there are millions in the world to whom that name above 
 every name is an unknown sound. 
 
 The heathen too often have reason to think that 
 Christian nations care for everything else that is theirs 
 rather than for their souls. The black man found that 
 
 246 
 
the Christian cared for his bone and sinew. The red 
 man found that the Christian cared for his lands. The 
 Chinaman found that the Christian cared for his trade. 
 But alas, they are still only beginning to be convinced 
 that Christians care for their souls. 
 
 But it is not far-away heathen alone who have cause 
 to make this complaint. The unevangelized classes in 
 our own land, yes in this Christian city, have cause to 
 make it. That condemned felon whom I have just quoted 
 represented a class who though living within the sound 
 of church bells, and having dealings all their lives with 
 Christian people, have scarce so much as heard the name 
 of Christ, unless it be in blasphemy, much less have ever 
 heard from the lips of any disciple of Christ, a loving 
 invitation to come to him. 
 
 It seems incredible that in a land where missions 
 and churches abound, where Sabbath Schools and mis- 
 sion schools are scattered broadcast such can be found. 
 Yet they can be. 
 
 England is a land of as many churches and bibles, 
 of as much gospel light and Christian activity as our 
 own. Yet a minister walking across the fields in the 
 west of England one Sabbath day and pausing at a little 
 cottage to inquire his way found there a solitary old man 
 of eighty years, and falling into conversation with him 
 asked at length: " Do you know Jesus? " " Jesus? Jesus? 
 no I never heard of him. Do he live about here ? " "I 
 mean Jesus who lived eighteen hundred years ago and 
 died for you and me on the cross. You know him ? " 
 " No I don't. I never heard of him." And so the min- 
 ister sat down and told him that old story, from Bethle- 
 hem to the opened sepulchre, and behold it was all as 
 new and he listened to it all with as much wonder as if 
 he had been an untutored savage in the heart of Africa, 
 aye, and received it with the simple faith of a little child. 
 
 247 
 
His mind was clear. He could talk intelligently of his 
 own past life. He had heard of witches often enough, 
 could tell many a tale of their pranks, and had horse- 
 shoes upon his doors to keep them off. But of Jesus he 
 knew absolutely nothing. 
 
 Suppose ye, my friends, there is none such in this 
 land ? I tell you there are thousands, heathen, unevan- 
 gelized heathen, though living almost under the shadow 
 of church spires. And when from drunken deaths, starved 
 deaths, bloody deaths, they go up to their last account, it 
 will be a sad tale they will have to tell, albeit one that will 
 not cover their own sin, "No man cared for my soul." 
 But these are not all. The impenitent in our own homes 
 and congregations too often have cause to make this 
 complaint. To them the gospel message is indeed famil- 
 iar. They are taught it in childhood. They hear it 
 from Sabbath to Sabbath seated in their own comfortable 
 pews. The invitation of the gospel has been pressed 
 upon them from the pulpit not once but many times. 
 Oh they have light enough, opportunity enough. But it 
 has all been of a general sort. The invitation has come 
 to them as part of an undistinguishable mass, not per- 
 nonally with a warm grasp of the hand and a tender utter- 
 ance of their name. " No man cares for my soul," they 
 often say to themselves. No one takes any interest in 
 my individual salvation. 
 
 Let me give you an illustration of what some of 
 them are thinking. 
 
 A pastor called upon the daughter of one of his 
 church members to talk with her of the concerns of her 
 soul. Among other things he said to her : "It would 
 give your father great joy if you should become a Chris- 
 tian." "I do not think it would" she replied. Think- 
 ing she must have misunderstood him he repeated his 
 remark. "I do not think it would," she still replied. 
 
 248 
 
"You do not think so? Why not? " " Because T think if 
 he cared anything about it he would have spoken to me 
 on the subject, and he never has." 
 
 Not only is this indifference noticed, it is often 
 keenly felt, by those who are not Christians. They may 
 have no sense of personal danger, but they are sensitive 
 to the apparent want of sympathy and interest. It is no 
 uncommon thing for those who do speak of these things 
 to the irreligious, to be told in reply in a tone half grate- 
 ful, half reproachful: "you are the first person that has 
 ever spoken to me on this subject." For years perhaps 
 that man or woman has been wondering why it was that 
 among all these Christian friends and acquaintances no 
 man seemed to care for his soul. 
 
 II. But who is responsible for these neglected souls? 
 The parable of the Good Samaritan answers that ques- 
 tion. Those who might have cared for them and did not. 
 The guilt of this neglect lies at the door of every Chris- 
 tian who fails to show an interest in the souls of others 
 as he has opportunity. This applies even in the case of 
 those who know the way of salvation and will not take it. 
 That does not excuse us from seeking to win them, since 
 that very effort might be the one they needed to end 
 resistance. 
 
 It is no excuse to say: "They have churches and 
 bibles and sermons." These are not enough. What 
 every man needs above all things is to be made to feel 
 that the gospel is a personal matter, that Christ came to 
 seek his individual soul. And nothing helps him to feel this 
 like the pressure of the hand, and a word of personal en- 
 treaty from a Christian friend. He cannot lose himself 
 in the crowd then, and let the words aimed at his con- 
 science slide off upon some one else. It is no excuse to 
 say: This is the business of ministers, elders, Sun- 
 day School teachers. I am only a private Christian. 
 
 249 
 
Suppose a case like this. You are on board a vessel. 
 A man has fallen overboard. At your feet lie a pile of 
 life preservers; but you do not lift a finger to throw one to 
 your drowning fellow creature. When remonstrated with 
 you say: " I am only a passenger. It is the business of 
 the ship's officers to guard the lives of those on board." 
 But if this plea would not serve you in such a case how 
 much less in the case of a soul sinking into hell. It is a 
 question for each one of us to bring home to himself 
 then : " Do I care for the souls of the perishing around 
 me, and do I let them know that I care for them?" If 
 some soul from my neighborhood, within my reach, 
 should go up to the bar of God to-day to meet an awful 
 doom, and should cry out in its despair: " No man cared 
 for me," would any part of the guilt of that neglect and 
 ruin lie at my door? 
 
 Few of us can ask these questions without some de- 
 gree of self-reproach. Ours may not be a total indiffer- 
 ence to the souls about us; but in most cases how feeble 
 our interest when compared with the worth of a soul or 
 the greatness of its peril. 
 
 This being so we cannot help asking the third ques- 
 tion : 
 
 III. Why is there so little concern for souls among 
 Christ's followers? 
 
 Two words tell the story; unbelief and selfishness. 
 
 I. Unbelief. We cannot feel concerned for those 
 we do not feel to be in danger. Unbelief in the threaten- 
 ings of God is a chief cause for neglect of souls. That 
 old lie of the father of lies : "Ye shall not surely die " 
 is afloat still, doing the work of the burglar's chloroform 
 in stupifying the Christians who should be on the watch, 
 while the enemy makes sure of his booty. 
 
 It is not that the words are obscure. No warnings 
 could be plainer or more terrible than those of Jesus 
 
 250 
 
Christ. It is not ordinarily that Christians have reasoned 
 themselves into a definite belief that the words mean 
 something else than they seem to mean. It is simply a 
 feeling that such threatenings cannot be true. 
 
 I put it to you to-day, Christian hearer. Do you be- 
 lieve that at the last day the judge will say to those on 
 his left hand: "Depart ye into everlasting fire ? " If 
 you do, what are you doing to rescue souls from that fire? 
 If you do not, why do you reject the plain words of 
 Christ? 
 
 But souls are neglected too from unbelief of another 
 sort, unbelief in the promises of God. If too hopeful a 
 view of the case of sinners relaxes effort, too hopeless a 
 view paralyzes it. How often do we excuse ourselves 
 from effort for a soul by the plea, " There is no use. He 
 is beyond reach." Beyond whose reach? Yours? or the 
 Holy Ghost's? Have you a right to set bounds for God 
 or to limit the power of prayer? 
 
 O, for more faith in the power of God's truth attended 
 by God's Spirit to break the hardest heart! O, for more 
 of that faith for spiritual combats that David had when 
 with five smooth stones from the brook he went boldly 
 forth in the name of the Lord of Hosts to meet the Phil- 
 istine champion. Where would have been the work of 
 such a man as Judson or such a woman as Fidelia Fiske, 
 where the hundreds of Burman and Nestorian souls, that 
 now glitter as stars in their crowns of rejoicing, if they 
 had ever allowed themselves to know such a thing as 
 hopeless cases. 
 
 It might seem that these two kinds of unbelief are 
 at least not likely to be found together. Yet the reverse 
 is true. It is no uncommon thing to find doubt as to the 
 real danger of the impenitent united with doubt of the 
 possibility of doing them any good, — the two together 
 rendering the Christian a passive looker-on at the most 
 
 251 
 
Solemn of all tragedies, the ruin of a soul. 
 
 Yet our neglect is not all due to unbelief. The 
 irreligious sometimes, seek a false comfort here. They 
 say: Christians do not belive their own teachings con- 
 cerning God and eternity. If they did they could not be as 
 unconcerned as they are about their friends and neighbors 
 who must be in danger of the wrath to come. And if 
 they do not believe these things, why should we trouble 
 ourselves about them? But the reasoning is not sound. 
 All experience teaches that it is quite possible to believe 
 in the reality of an evil and yet do nothing to relieve or 
 avert it. The comfortable citizen unfolds his morning 
 paper and reads perhaps of a famine in Asia, so many hu- 
 man beings a week dying of starvation, babes pining to 
 death on their mothers' bosoms, men groping in the dust 
 by the wayside for a few grains of rice to keep soul and 
 body together a few hours longer. He does not say : 
 "This must be exaggerated! I don't believe a word of it." 
 He does not doubt the facts. He exclaims: "This is 
 horrible!" and then he falls to and eats his plentiful 
 breakfast with no loss of relish and then goes his way 
 not perhaps contributing so much as a penny to the 
 relief of that unquestioned suffering. 
 
 Such is the power of selfishness. And that, alas, is 
 the other great secret of our neglect of souls. Oh, there 
 is a fearful amount of this selfishness in the church of 
 Christ. The heartless answer of the priests to Judas 
 when he came to them in an agony of remorse crying : 
 " I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood,'' 
 "What is that to us? See thou to that," is what the con- 
 duct of too many who think their own salvation secure, 
 seems to say to the unsaved about them. Monstrous! that 
 one should not care what becomes of others if his own 
 soul is saved. Yet just this monstrous thing, I fear, is too 
 often actually realized. 
 
 252 
 
Even our concern for our own families, if it stops 
 with them, is proved to be only a selfish concern. They 
 are so much a part of ourselves, so necessary to our hap- 
 piness, that we may well be filled with distress at the 
 thought of eternal separation from them, on purely sel- 
 fish ground, without a particle of that love for souls 
 simply as souls or pity for the lost simply as lost which 
 drew Christ down to earth to seek and to save. 
 
 One may even be unselfish enough to feel some mo- 
 tions of sympathy for the impenitent and some desires 
 for their salvation, and yet be too selfish to do anything 
 for them. Effort for souls involves self-denial. Timid- 
 ity must be overcome for one thing. How often does the 
 Christian allow his nearest neighbors, whom he meets 
 every day, to gain the impression from his silence that he 
 cares nothing for their souls simply because he is not un- 
 selfish enough to be willing to risk repulse or a sneer. 
 
 Effort for souls, too, takes time, and we are econ- 
 omical of time in these driving days. Withal he who feels 
 the burden of a perishing world as the apostles felt it, 
 and esteems the rescue of souls the most important work 
 in which he can engage will have little money to spend 
 in pampering himself and little heart for the mere frip- 
 peries and frivolities of life. Yes, we must get rid of self in 
 all its forms, pride, covetousness, love of ease; we must 
 be ready with the Saviour of souls himself to deny our- 
 selves and take up our cross, if we would be free from a 
 share of the reproach : "No man cared for my soul." 
 
 IV. If these are the causes of the neglect we are 
 considering, they themselves suggest the remedy. It lies 
 in holding before our minds the facts by which unbelief 
 and selfishness may be overcome. 
 
 Three facts especially : 
 
 I. The worth of the soul. Do the bodily sufferings 
 of men appeal to your sympathies? If you stood on a 
 
 253 
 
battle-field, your ears filled with the groans of the maimed 
 and the dying, would you feci that you must do what you 
 could for their relief? Yet what are pains of body to soul 
 suffering? Even if the body were to last forever its well 
 or ill being would be a secondary matter. The true well 
 or ill being would be that of the soul. How much more 
 when it is but a handful of dust which in a few days will 
 return to the earth as it was? 
 
 Or are you interested in your neighbor's affairs, anx- 
 ious to see him prosperous, willing to make some exertion 
 to put him in the way of advancement? This, too, is 
 most praiseworthy. But what is outward prosperity to a 
 ruined soul? What is adversity to a soul sure of eternal 
 life? The career of the most successful will soon end, the 
 troubles of the most unfortunate will soon be over, un- 
 aided by wealth, unsupported by friends, unattended by 
 fame, the soul must go alone, a soul in Christ or a soul 
 out of Christ to the presence of its Judge. Would you do 
 good that will last; you must do it for souls. All joys, 
 all miseries, all pursuits, all studies, all relationships, all 
 things that awaken our interest and call forth our 
 sympathy for our fellowmen have meaning only as they 
 bear upon the destiny of their souls. 
 
 II. The second fact is the peril of souls. The 
 doom of the willful sinner is not a pleasant subject of 
 contemplation, but it is a needful one, if we would feel 
 that yearning for them which Christ felt. It was that 
 sight which drew him to leave, the bosom of the Father, 
 lay aside the glory of the godhead and endure the agony 
 of the cross. Are we more tender than he that we can 
 feel what he felt though we close our eyes to what he 
 saw? Look at the completeness of the ruin which awaits 
 an impenitent soul, banishment from God, exclusion from 
 heaven, the utter extinction of God's image within and 
 degradation to the level of fiends. Look at the misery 
 
 254 
 
of it, memory a worm that never dies, the star of hope 
 blotted out in the blackness of darkness. Look at the 
 eternity of it — endless remorse, endless self-loathing, 
 endless despair. O, my friends can you see a soul ex- 
 posed to such ruin, and care nothing for that soul? 
 
 III. But against this dark back-ground we need to 
 keep constantly in view the love of Christ. " The love 
 of Christ constraineth us." His love to us. Should not 
 that constrain us ? Shall angels take an interest in the 
 fate of human souls, shall they shout for joy when one 
 sinner repents and shall we alone their fellow sinners 
 bought by the same blood, rescued from the same bond- 
 age, look on without concern while they die in their sins? 
 But think also of his love for them. 
 
 Perhaps these souls are uninteresting in themselves, 
 besotted with ignorance or repulsive with vice. We can 
 find in them nothing to awaken our interest. But stay ! 
 These are souls for whom Christ died. Is there nothing 
 in that to invest them with interest? What, am I a dis- 
 ciple of Christ, a friend of Christ, and shall I care noth- 
 ing for that which he loved even unto death ? Nay, 
 shall I not rather go to the ends of the earth if need be, 
 or dig down into the lowest strata of society, anywhere, 
 everywhere in short, where there are souls to be found 
 that we may find these gems for which he came on such 
 a quest and lay them as our tribute of love and homage 
 at his feet. Surely he who brings one soul to Christ 
 makes a richer and more acceptable offering to Him than 
 he who lavishes a fortune in his service or rears the 
 most splendid temple to his praise. 
 
 Two or three practical remarks now, and I have 
 done. 
 
 i. The first is that if we are guilty of neglect of 
 souls w r e are neglecting the main business of life. What 
 is a Christian but a follower of Christ? And how can 
 
 255 
 
we be followers of Christ unless we live for that for which 
 he lived. But he came to seek and to save that which was 
 lost. That was his business here. And he has left that 
 work now to his people. Why is it that Christ does not 
 take his people to heaven as soon as they repent? You 
 say he leaves them here for their own discipline. True, 
 but not for that alone. He also leaves them here for 
 usefulness, that they may make known the glad tidings 
 to their fellow-sinners. And shall we busy ourselves 
 here and there, and neglect the very thing for which we 
 are left in this world of dying men? 
 
 2. If we are guilty of this neglect we are also 
 found false witnesses for God. "Ye are my witnesses," 
 said Christ. What are we to witness to? To the truth 
 of the gospel. And chief among these is that men have 
 immortal souls to save, and that these souls are lost 
 without Christ. Do we witness to any such truths when 
 we suffer souls to go to destruction without a word of 
 warning or an effort to save them? No, but the very 
 opposite. In that case we say to men by our lives that 
 their souls are of very little value, and that if they die in 
 their sins they run very little risk. 
 
 3. I remark again that it is useless to look for any 
 great awakening of sinners till Christians awake to a 
 real concern for their souls. If those who see are in- 
 sensible to the peril in which souls are lying, how shall 
 the blind be expected to realize it. As well expect a 
 temperance movement to begin among drunkards, as ex- 
 pect a revival to begin among the ungodly. "These 
 Christians know more about this matter than we do," 
 they reason "and if they are not alarmed for us, why 
 should we be alarmed for ourselves? 
 
 But while this is all true, I cannot dismiss this sub- 
 ject without an earnest word to those before me who are 
 neglecting their own souls. My friend, if it be true that 
 
 256 
 
no man cares for your soul, there is the more need that 
 you care for it yourself. You have but one soul to lose 
 or to save. If you lose it the misery will be yours no 
 matter on whom you throw the blame. " If thou be wise 
 thou shalt be wise for thyself but if thou scornest thou 
 alone shall bear it." 
 
 But it is not true that no man cares for your soul. 
 However it may be with others, One cared for it. He 
 sought it with many tears. He poured out his blood for 
 it. If you will go to destruction you must go over the 
 bleeding body of your Redeemer. How then, when you 
 have done that can you meet that Redeemer enthroned 
 upon the judgment seat, and looking upon those pierced 
 hands attempt to justfy yourself to his face with the plea : 
 " No man cared for my soul? " 
 
 257 
 
CHRIST MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUF- 
 FERINGS. 
 
 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by ■whom are 
 all tilings, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain 
 of their salvation perfect through sufferings. — Heb. 2:10. 
 
 The apostle is here dealing with " the offense of the 
 cross." He is seeking to remove for sincere but waver- 
 ing Jewish believers, the "stumbling block" which the 
 Jew always found in the conception of a suffering Messiah. 
 
 Such a conception was so perplexing to them, so for- 
 eign to all the ideas in which they had been trained that 
 they evidently felt lingering misgivings about it, even 
 after they became Christians. It is to meet these that 
 the apostle affirms that such a way of redeeming man 
 was every way worthy of God. " It became Him for 
 whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bring- 
 ing many sons unto glory to make the Captain of their 
 salvation perfect through sufferings." It was suitable, 
 it was worthy of God, and harmonious with his perfec- 
 tions, that he who had all ways and all expedients at his 
 disposal, who was not constrained or limited in his 
 choice of methods, should choose just this way of lift- 
 ing up sinful men to a share in his glory. 
 
 But with the change and growth of Christian senti- 
 ment in the lapse of centuries, it has come about that 
 these words introduced to remove one stumbling-block, 
 have themselves given rise to another. With our firm 
 belief in the absolute divinity, and the faultless perfec- 
 tion at every stage of his earthly life of our glorious 
 
 258 
 
Redeemer, it has come to be not a little perplexing to 
 us that He should be here presented as needing to bo 
 made perfect. We can easily see that a sinful nature 
 like ours needs the discipline of chastisement to correct 
 its waywardness, that the impure ore needs the refiner's 
 fire to purge away its dross. But He was pure gold 
 from the first. What could the refiner's fire do for 
 Him? This is the point for our study this evening: 
 Christ as our Redeemer made perfect through suffering. I 
 say Christ as our Redeemer for you notice that he is 
 introduced here not simply by a personal but by an 
 official title, the Captain of our Salvation; that is, the 
 author, or better perhaps the Pioneer of our Salvation. 
 The word here rendered Captain is one seldom used in 
 the New Testament and denotes not as our word cap- 
 tain would suggest, a military officer, but rather one 
 who is at once a leader and a model, breaking the path 
 in which others follow and furnishing the pattern by 
 which they regulate themselves. It is in this capacity 
 for this work, that he who undertook it was perfected by 
 suffering. 
 
 i. First of all, he was perfected as man. It was 
 assuredly worthy of God to redeem man through man. 
 The first condition for the Son of God in undertaking 
 our case was that he should assume our nature. And 
 throughout this epistle, particularly, you find great 
 stress laid upon this oneness of nature, this full brother- 
 hood between Redeemer and redeemed. This oneness 
 was entire. It is of the utmost importance that we 
 hold fast to the genuine and complete manhood of our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, and that we never allow his divinity 
 so to overshadow his humanity in our thought that the 
 latter shall cease to be real, or that we shall doubt or 
 lose sight of his full participation in everything that 
 belongs to an unfallen humanity. But the idea of 
 
 259 
 
growth, of progress from immaturity to maturity, is 
 inseparable from the idea of manhood. There are two 
 kinds of imperfection by no means to be confounded 
 with each other, the imperfection of blemish, of defect, 
 and the imperfection of immaturity. You pluck an 
 apple from the tree in early summer, and you say: See 
 how perfect it is! No worm has punctured it, no speck 
 can be found on its surface. Divide it with your 
 knife and you will find there all the parts proper to an 
 apple, — the flesh, the core, the seeds. But will you 
 eat it? Will you give it to your children? Will you 
 plant its seeds expecting it to grow? Why not? It is 
 not ripe yet. In that sense it is not perfect. It will 
 take many days of sunshine to soften its pulp, to 
 sweeten its juices, and to mature its seeds so that they 
 can germinate and grow. 
 
 You see a babe of six months old crowing on its 
 mother's knee, and you say: There is a physically per- 
 fect child. See how well formed its limbs, how regular 
 its features, how intelligent its expression. It lacks no 
 part, no sense, no faculty. Could you make it trans- 
 parent and study its brain and internal structure, you 
 would very likely find all as perfect as its outward form. 
 But will you give it an ax to wield? Will you bring it 
 a problem for solution? Oh no; it is still an imma- 
 ture babe. It has yet to be make perfect, physically by 
 years of study, spiritually by years of discipline. 
 
 Just so Christ was spiritually perfect at every point 
 of his life, perfect as child, perfect as youth, perfect as 
 man. Yet the perfection of the child was not the same 
 as the perfection of the man. There was no sin in the 
 child Jesus, but there was immaturity; and there was 
 advance from this to the maturity of the man who at 
 thirty years of age began to preach the kingdom of God. 
 This is not theory; it is the literal teaching of Scripture. 
 
 260 
 
"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in 
 favor with God and man." It could not be otherwise 
 and Jesus still be true man. 
 
 And following out this same thought, if Jesus was 
 perfect as a man at his baptism he was perfect in a still 
 higher sense at his crucifixion. And this highest per- 
 fecting was the fruit of the sufferings and struggles of 
 those years of struggle with Jewish unbelief and Phari- 
 saic bitterness. This is exactly what is said a little 
 farther on in this Epistle, (5:8) "Though he were a 
 Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he 
 suffered." Though he had from the first the filial 
 spirit, the steadfast purpose of obedience, that Spirit 
 was intensified, that purpose of obedience was con- 
 firmed and solidified by the discipline of suffering. 
 
 You watch a smith tempering a piece of steel. He 
 alternately heats it in the fire, and cools it by a sudden 
 plunge in cold water. For what? Not to purify the 
 metal; that has been done already; but to toughen it 
 that it may be bent double without breaking, so that it 
 may be driven against the flint rock without turning its 
 edge. It is this temper, this toughening of character, 
 which is wrought by the discipline of suffering. And 
 we know no other way in which it can be wrought. 
 Other ways God may have for the angel, for the little 
 child who dies before it has encountered any ol the 
 storms of an earthly life. But if so, we know not, nor 
 can we even imagine what they are. No man's char- 
 acter is ever throughly welded, here, till it has been 
 through the fire. There is no robust, stalwart virtue 
 which has not been beaten upon by storms of temptation. 
 
 And this was as true of the ideal man Christ Jesus 
 as of any of his brethren. And only then when he was 
 thus perfected as man was he ready for that final victory 
 over the powers of darkness by which he set Satan's 
 
 261 
 
Captives free. " Though he were a Son, yet learned he 
 obedience by the things which he suffered, and being 
 made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation 
 unto all them that obey him." 
 
 As our Example, again, Christ was made perfect by 
 suffering. This is an important part of his work as 
 Saviour, which is by no means to be overlooked, because 
 it is not the sole or the chief part. Christ saves us 
 by making us holy, and one of the influences by 
 which he makes us holy is the influence of his own 
 holy example. We needed to have the law embodied 
 in a life. We needed to have the ideal manhood set 
 before us in a personal form. In the example of Christ 
 this has been done. And in this sense he is peculiarly 
 the leader, " the pioneer " of our salvation, bringing us 
 to glory by the path of obedience to the Father which 
 he has trodden unfalteringly before us. 
 
 But it is easy to see that as an example he must needs 
 grow to perfection. He could not have furnished us 
 the example we need in a single act. Had he appeared 
 from heaven for a single day and then gone back again, 
 that day however perfectly lived, would not have given 
 us the needed example. That example must be a life. 
 And it must be a life long enough and varied enough to 
 touch our lives at all vital points. Now one of the 
 most vital points, one; of the crises at which we most 
 need the encouraging influence of example, is the 
 experience of suffering. This is a phase of life which 
 we have all to pass through. It is one which peculiarly 
 tries our faith and submission. Of how little use to us 
 in that experience would be the example of one, how- 
 ever pure, however sinless, who had known nothing of 
 sorrow or of struggle, who had been always happy, 
 always prosperous, always outwardly successful and 
 f (J rtu^3-te. Such an example would fail us at the very 
 
 262 
 
moment of greatest emergency. And so you find that 
 the appeals to Christ's example in the New Testament 
 are chiefly to this very aspect of it, his endurance of 
 suffering. "Consider Him that endured such contra- 
 diction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied 
 and faint in your minds." " Christ also suffered for us, 
 leaving us an example that we should follow his steps." 
 
 3. But not only was our Redeemer thus made per- 
 fect through suffering as man and as example. He was 
 also made perfect as Propitiation. We stand here in the 
 presence of a great mystery. The necessity of propi- 
 tiation in order to forgiveness, I, for one, do not profess 
 to comprehend. Here and there I see a ray of light 
 upon it. But it lies deep in the counsels of the God- 
 head, one of those things which the angels desire to 
 look into. But the fact is as clear as God's word can 
 make it that a propitiation was demanded, i. e. , that 
 something was needed, not to incline God to forgive, 
 that inclination is as eternal as his fatherhood, but to 
 make it fit, to make it consistent with his attributes for 
 Him to forgive. 
 
 Over and over again in language the most varied, 
 does God's word set forth that forgiveness could not be 
 bestowed until in some way the ill desert of sin had 
 been fully manifested and the holiness of God com- 
 pletely vindicated. But this can only be through the 
 suffering of some one for sin. Propitiation and suffer- 
 ing therefore go together. Even had it been possible 
 for Christ to be perfected as man and perfected as 
 example not suffering, he could not have been a perfect 
 propitiation. He could not have been a propitiation at 
 all, had He not "suffered for sins," the just for the 
 unjust. We need a blood-bought pardon. Only by 
 another's stripes can we be healed. Call it purchase, 
 call it substituted penalty, call it what you will, the fact 
 
 263 
 
stands sure upon the testimony of the Saviour himself 
 that not till His body had been broken and His blood 
 shed could remission of sins be offered in His name. 
 The Scriptures everywhere link together these two 
 things, a suffering and an atoning Saviour. All the 
 sufferings of the Redeemer contributed toward the 
 efficacy of this propitiatory work, but it was not till the 
 cross had been endured that He could cry: It is fin- 
 ished, and offer with pierced hand a free pardon to all 
 who would receive' it. 
 
 4. Finally; not only was the Captain of our Salva- 
 tion by his sufferings made perfect as man, made per- 
 fect as example, made perfect as propitiation: He was 
 also made perfect as Priest, i. e., as Mediator between 
 God and man. When we speak of Christ's priesthood 
 we include under that term all that Christ is now doing 
 at God's right hand to carry on the work of redemption, 
 all that he is doing in reclaiming the lost and reconcil- 
 ing them to God, all that he is doing in strengthening 
 the weak and encouraging the despondent. But in 
 order to be perfectly qualified for this helpful office, he 
 must have something to commend him to men's confi- 
 dence. He must be presented to them in such a way as 
 to draw out their faith and love. And this he is able to 
 do because he comes to them as one who has suffered as 
 they suffer, who has been tried as they are tried, and 
 who has come off victor through the conflict. A suffer- 
 ing Redeemer appeals to our love and to our confidence 
 as no other could. "For in that He Himself hath 
 suffered being tempted he is able also to succor them 
 that are tempted," (Heb. 2:18). " We have not an high 
 priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our 
 infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are." 
 (Heb. 4:15). These two passages distinctly ground 
 Christ's helpfulness and perfection as a sympathizing 
 
 264 
 
high priest upon his sufferings. Yet there is always 
 something a little perplexing as we read them. For we 
 cannot help asking how after all divine knowledge 
 could gain anything from the teachings of experience. 
 If Christ was the Son of God what can he have known 
 of human need after his sorrowful sojourn in this world 
 that he did not know before? 
 
 But the difficulty is relieved when we consider that 
 it is needful not only that He should be able to sympa- 
 thize, but to make us feel his sympathy. And to this 
 end He must have suffered himself. To whom do we 
 go among our earthly friends in our times of trial. Is 
 it not to those who have had the same trials? Here 
 and there you find a man who is justly called "a Son of 
 Consolation," who is a sort of unordained minister of 
 comfort to all the children of want and sorrow. 
 Instinctively the burdened turn to him for relief; the 
 perplexed and troubled open their hearts to him without 
 persuasion. And when you come to inquire what it is 
 that gives him this hold upon men you always find that 
 he is one who has been through deep waters himself. 
 This was his ordination. By these experiences he was 
 prepared for his blessed ministry of comfort. 
 
 Just so it is with our great high priest. Whatever 
 our sorrow we can always go to Him with the certainty 
 that He knows all about it, with the assurance of 
 sympathy which comes from the knowledge that how- 
 ever deep the waters through which we are passing He 
 has passed through deeper still. He is a perfect 
 Refuge, a perfect Support; and He was made perfect 
 through suffering. 
 
 Thus as Man, as Example, as Propitiation, and as 
 Priest was the Captain of our Salvation made perfect 
 through suffering. 
 
 It only remains that we linger for a moment in con- 
 
 265 
 
 I 
 
elusion on those opening words: \' It became Hint.** It 
 was worthy of God when he would bring sinners to 
 glory to do it through the mediation of a suffering 
 Saviour. 
 
 It became Him; for even if we suppose some other 
 method had been possible, no other could have so 
 gloriously manifested His love. Where else than in the 
 sufferings of His own Son could God have given us a 
 true measure of His condescension and the intensity of 
 His yearning toward the work of His own hands! 
 
 It became Him; for no other way would have 
 been so consistent with His Fatherhood. Suppose a 
 choice had been open between such a method as this, 
 and some other more external and mechanical, would 
 not God as a Father, have chosen that which would 
 show men most of His heart, and come home to them 
 with the most force of personal appeal? 
 
 It became Him; for no other way is it conceivable 
 that He could, so fully, have shown us the intense evil 
 of sin. When we see it reaching in its effect even to 
 the throne of God and dragging down the eternal Son 
 of God from the bosom of the Father to a temporary 
 share in the suffering which it has brought upon the 
 race, then only do we realize how monstrous and how 
 terrible is the thing of which we are so ready to make 
 light. 
 
 Two questions now, growing out of this theme sug- 
 gest themselves for our earnest thought. 
 
 If it became the infinite and Holy God to prepare 
 for us a Saviour through such costly processes of suffer- 
 ing as this, how does it become us sinners to treat such 
 a Saviour? 
 
 Remember, thoughtless hearer, ready now to dismiss 
 this offer of salvation, as you have so often done before, 
 with Felix's promise of attention at some more con- 
 
 266 
 
venient season, it is no uncostly gift with which you 
 thus trifle. He whom you are content to leave thus to 
 stand at your heart's unopened door went through fire 
 and water to rescue your soul. For that He wrestled 
 in the wilderness with the arch-enemy, for that He was 
 wrung with anguish in the garden, for that He cried 
 upon the tree, "My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
 saken me? " 
 
 Was it worthy of God to give up His Son to such 
 suffering for you, was it worthy of Christ to go through 
 all this that He might qualify Himself to be the Saviour 
 of your soul, and is it worthy of a man to treat such a 
 Saviour with neglect? Oh, surely there is but one 
 becoming reception for such a Saviour as this, and that 
 is the reception which enthrones Him forever in the 
 contrite heart, and serves him with all the powers of a 
 consecrated life. 
 
 2. And then the other question. If it became Him 
 for whom are all things and by whom are all things; to 
 make the captain of our salvation perfect through 
 suffering, how shall we expect the saved themselves to 
 be made perfect? If the one man who through his 
 whole life was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate 
 from sinners, could, nevertheless, attain the perfection 
 of His victorious manhood only by this discipline of 
 trial and temptation, shall we whose very natures are 
 stained through and through with sin think to be made 
 perfect at any less cost, or by an easier process? 
 
 Christ was the Pioneer of our Salvation. He 
 opened the path by which the "many sons" are to be 
 brought to glory. There is no other path to glory for 
 us than that which is marked by the prints of His 
 bleeding feet. It was a hard and thorny path to Him. 
 Shall we expect it to be made smooth and strewn with 
 flowers for us? 
 
 267 
 
Always, always these two things are put together, — • 
 a share in Christ's sufferings, and a share in His glory. 
 The one is never to be separated from the other. 
 
 But then there is this other precious thought, that if 
 we thus share in Christ's sufferings, we shall come to 
 share also in the glory to which they lead, but, what is 
 better, in the fruit which they bring. If there is a 
 sense in which Christ's sufferings were unique and sepa- 
 rate from all other suffering in God's universe, there is 
 also a sense in which they are the pattern of what every 
 one must pass through who would be made a helper and 
 a comforter to others. There is but one anointing for 
 that holy priesthood. It is the anointing of pain and 
 sorrow. Do you remember with what eagerness Paul 
 seemed to reach out after his Lord's cup of suffering 
 that he too might drink of the same? And why? That 
 he too might have some share in that unspeakable joy of 
 leading many sons of God unto glory. "Therefore," 
 he exclaims, "I endure all things for the elect's sakes 
 that they may also obtain the salvation which is in 
 Jesus Christ with eternal glory." Ah, was not that 
 worth while? 
 
 Dear friend, has God put the cup of suffering to 
 your lips? Has He laid the cross upon you? Take 
 this high consolation — there is none higher — for your 
 own, that He who thus prepared the Captain of your sal- 
 vation for His great work is preparing you for some 
 share in that same blessed ministry of healing and help. 
 He is initiating you into the holy priesthood of com- 
 forters. He is conferring upon you an ordination that 
 no human hands can give, and presently He will send 
 you forth with a heart throbbing with sympathy, and 
 lips touched with the fire of love to comfort others with 
 the comfort wherewith you yourself have been com- 
 forted of God. 
 
 268 
 
MEDIOCRITY. 
 
 " And likewise he that had received two, he also gained 
 other two."— Matt. 25: 17. 
 
 This parable recognizes, without pausing to debate 
 or justify it, the universal fact of inequality in the distri- 
 bution of God's gifts. Look where we may, this ine- 
 quality confronts us. In surroundings, in opportunities, 
 in health, in physical powers, in intellectual keenness 
 and grasp, in gifts of genius, in everything that tends to 
 happiness and honor in life, men enter life with the most 
 various equipment. One is born in a filthy cellar, to an 
 inheritance of squalor and misery, another enters life in 
 a home rilled with all comforts and refinements. One is 
 doomed to struggle from birth against the hopeless odds 
 of inherited disease, while another begins his career en 
 dowed with the soundness and vigor of an infant Hercu- 
 les. To one, study is the weary, ineffectual struggle 
 of a dull mind with problems that perpetually elude its 
 grasp, to another, the exhilarating play of a keen intel- 
 lect which finds only pleasure in the exercise of its 
 strength. A Raphael at twenty, paints pictures which 
 bring the world to his feet, while another goes from mas- 
 ter to master, from school to school, and labors through 
 a life-time of painstaking diligence, only to spoil every 
 canvas he touches and win the derision of the critics for 
 his pains. 
 
 So the Sovereign Giver of all has disposed it, and 
 who shall dispute his decree? Whatever men may say 
 about election as a religious doctrine, the principle of 
 
 269 
 
a diffeaence put between men by God's sovereign dis- 
 posal, a difference with which their merit has nothing to 
 do, and for which he gives no reasons, runs all through 
 life. There is no man who does not find himself hedged 
 in from the cradle to the grave by limitations absolutely 
 fixed by the measure of endowment and opportunity 
 with which it pleased God that he should enter upon the 
 race of life. 
 
 Now the result of this inequality is that most of us 
 find ourselves, when we come to measure ourselves 
 against our fellowmen, in the competitions of life, just 
 where this man who received the two talents found him- 
 self, somewhere between the extremes, that is, in a posi- 
 tion of mediocrity, neither extraordinarily gifted, nor ex- 
 traordinarily lacking, neither giants, in other words, 
 nor dwarfs, but, as the phrase goes, just " average men." 
 
 And yet though it is the very nature of the case the 
 lot of the immense majority of the human race, this lot 
 of mediocrity is one against which we all more or less 
 rebel. We chafe under it as one of the hard conditions 
 of life, and even find excuse for not doing what we might 
 with the two talents entrusted to us, in the fact that they 
 are but two, and not five like some fellow-servant's. 
 
 Mediocrity ! The very word has the sound of a re- 
 proach. We say in a tone of disparagement concerning 
 this one or that one: "He never rises above midioc- 
 rity. " If this be the fault of his own indolence it is in- 
 deed a reproach. But what if God never meant him to 
 rise above mediocrity? What if He himself did not raise 
 him above mediocrity in the measure of endowment with 
 which He sent him into the world? I think we may 
 find in this subject of Mediocrity a theme of practical 
 value for us as Christians to reflect upon to-day. 
 
 I. In the first place then, let me remind you that 
 in the nature of the case the vast majority of the race 
 
 270 
 
must needs be mediocre people. Mediocrity is the un- 
 avoidable result of the variety in uniformity which is the 
 underlying plan of the whole creation. The trees of a 
 pine forest are all alike, and yet unlike. There is a uni- 
 form type or plan tending to the production of a tree of 
 a certain shape and size ; yet each tree has its own in- 
 dividuality. And the result of this variety in uniformity 
 is, that, while here and there a tall tree will stand out 
 above the rest and here and there a short one fall below 
 them, the great mass will vary but little, one way or the 
 other, from an average line which marks the height of 
 the forest. 
 
 The only escape from this phenomenon of medioc- 
 rity, would be by the sacrifice of variety to an absolute, 
 unvarying uniformity. The condition called mediocrity, 
 in other words, could be made to disappear by the intro- 
 duction of absolute monotony in its place, and in no other 
 way. If all men were equally brilliant, equally strong, 
 equally well-balanced, there would be an end of emi- 
 nence and of mediocrity at once, and we should have a 
 world like a boy's company of pewter soldiers, all run in 
 the same mould. This would be no gain in interest and 
 picturesqueness of life certainly. It may well be ques- 
 tioned whether it could be any more of a gain in whole- 
 someness, in intellectual and moral vigor and develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Opinions differ as to landscapes. I have heard some 
 men say that to them a level prairie with neither hill nor 
 tree was more beautiful than the Alps. But the general 
 consent of mankind still awards the palm both in 
 beauty and in healthfulness to the landscape diversified 
 with mountain and valley, hill and plain. There is a sig- 
 nificance in that phrase " a dead level " by which we 
 characterize the absence of inequalities. Such a level is 
 "dead," in more senses than one. But if there are 
 
 271 
 
mountains, there must be valleys ; if there are hills there 
 must be plains. Raise all alike and you have but a table- 
 land instead of a prairie, the one is flat and monotonous 
 as the other. 
 
 Society is like a landscape, unspeakably better and 
 richer for "the diversities of gifts" which it presents in 
 such endless variety. Yet among these diversities emi- 
 nence in any direction must needs be rare, else would it 
 cease to be eminence. The majority cannot rise above 
 the humbler levels of mediocrity. For again we must 
 remember that mediocrity is a sliding scale. What 
 seems eminence within a narrow horizon, becomes medi- 
 ocrity the moment the horizon is broadened. 
 
 Mt. Mansfield (at which I used to gaze in my boy- 
 hood) is a monarch as he stands among his fellows of 
 the Green Mountain range, but put him with his 4,200 
 ft. of elevation, by the side of the mountains of the 
 world, the Alps, the Andes, the Rockies, and he is a 
 very humble and commonplace mountain after all. 
 
 Shall we then say that the many are sacrificed to the 
 few, — that mediocrity exists simply as a foil to eminence? 
 This seems to me to have been the idea of the Greek 
 philosophy. The multitude was to toil and spin that phil- 
 osophers might study and scintillate. But a more 
 thoughtful view of life shows that the few exist rather 
 for the many. The mountain pierces the clouds and 
 confronts the storms, that from its sides may burst the 
 springs whose streams make the valleys laugh with ver- 
 dure and the meadows teem with flocks. It is on the 
 plains that the world's harvests are reaped. So it is by 
 the many, the unnamed, unpraised multitude of "com- 
 monplace " men and women, that the world's great work 
 is done. 
 
 Officers are needful to an army, but an army of offi- 
 cers would be a laughing-stock. It is the common 
 
 272 
 
soldier who does the hard fighting that wins victories. 
 It is the solid phalanx with fixed bayonets that is irre- 
 sistible. 
 
 The solid fabric of civilization does not owe half so 
 much to the men who make speeches and go to congress 
 as it owes to the men who follow the plow in the furrow 
 and the women who bear and rear the children at home. 
 These are commonplace things but they make the world. 
 And it is well that it should be so. There is safety in 
 such life, if there is no glory. Few can bear the steady 
 glare of the footlights. To be always on exhibition is 
 a severe moral strain. For the most of us it is better 
 that our work be done quietly and with as little of the 
 theatrical as possible. 
 
 2. Well, we can agree to this without much 
 trouble ; we can see that mediocrity is a necessary and 
 useful thing in a perfect world ; we can admit that a 
 world in which all were heroes and generals, poets and 
 prodigies, would be a queer world to live in ; we are 
 quite satisfied that the majority of the Lord's servants 
 should receive but two or three talents, some of them 
 even but one, provided only we can have five. 
 
 We have no quarrel with the principle of inequality, 
 so long as that principle is so applied that it enables us 
 to look down on others. It is only when, from the 
 height of an eminence we have striven in vain to reach, 
 they look down upon us, that it is hard to bear. There 
 is something in us which chafes at the consciousness of 
 being lost sight of in a herd. The desire to excel, the 
 love of preeminence is rooted deep in human nature. 
 Competition, the struggle to be first, is almost the first 
 law of life. It is a useful instinct. Though few can 
 realize their ambition, though but one in a thousand at- 
 tains the eminence to which the thousand have alike as- 
 pired, still the whole thousand advance farther and 
 
 273 
 
achieve more than if no such strife to be first had urged 
 them on. 
 
 A company of swimmers were enjoying themselves 
 in the ocean at some distance from shore, when a friend 
 who stood watching them from the beach, saw some 
 distance beyond them the sharp dorsal fin of a shark 
 protruding above the water. Not wishing to confuse 
 and paralyze the swimmers by telling them of their dan- 
 ger, yet eager to bring them to land as quickly as pos- 
 sible he snatched his watch from his pocket, and holding 
 it up cried, " I will give this to the one who first reaches 
 the shore. " Supposing themselves challenged to a proof of 
 their skill, the swimmers struck out lustily, and reached the 
 shore before the shark overtook them. But one gained 
 the offered prize; but when they turned and saw the 
 danger from which they had escaped, those who lost 
 were more than consoled for their disappointment. 
 
 So it is that in life, for one who gains or has the 
 power to gain prizes of distinction for which so many 
 seek, hundreds are saved by the endeavor to gain it, from 
 miseries of ignorance, poverty, and even vice, to which 
 they had else inevitably fallen victims. 
 
 In youth we all hope to excel. We dream of some 
 eminent attainment, some rare achievement, some heroic 
 deed, which shall set us far above the common level. So 
 be it ! Properly curbed it is a wholesome ambition. I 
 would not give much for the future of the youth who had 
 never felt it. And yet, almost without exception, we are 
 doomed to disappointment. For a time perhaps, we may 
 easily distance the little circle with which we measure 
 ourselves ; but as we grow older and measure ourselves 
 against larger and larger numbers of our fellows in tasks 
 more and more serious and difficult, as from the top of 
 each height that we succeed in scaling we discover others 
 farther and farther away, — the conviction is at last forced 
 
 274 
 
upon us that we are not and never can be anything more 
 than mediocre people, after all, — much better endowed, 
 much more successful, doubtless than some, perhaps than 
 many others ; but not better than thousands upon thou- 
 sands of our race, not preeminent enough in any sphere 
 to be conspicuous above the multitude of others whose 
 measure of ability and achievement is fully equal to our 
 own. 
 
 It seems a hard fate — to see others climbing the 
 heights we hoped to climb, winning the prizes we hoped 
 to win, shining with the brilliancy of stars of the first 
 magnitude, and to accept for ourselves the lot of the un- 
 distinguished, the ordinary, the commonplace. It brings 
 a sharp temptation, a temptation which appeals with 
 power to the bad side of the universal desire to excel — 
 the temptation, viz. to conclude that our work, because 
 not conspicuous, is not worth doing, — the temptation to 
 imitate, not the wisdom of this servant who received the 
 two talents but the folly of that other who received but 
 one, and refuse to turn to any account at all an endow- 
 ment which is not large enough to yield brilliant results. 
 What use, we exclaim, in wearing life away in the per- 
 formance of these commonplace tasks which the world 
 would never miss if they were undone, which it will 
 never praise be they done never so well? No doubt there 
 is something discouraging here. As Bishop Brooks has 
 well said, the hero's is not the hardest task, for he works 
 in the eye of the multitude, with their huzzas to cheer 
 him on. Harder is the task of the common man who 
 works on unheeded, with no consciousness of unusual 
 achievement to sustain him, and no expectation of ap- 
 plause at the end. 
 
 3. What antidote can we find to this disheartening 
 influence of the consciousness of mediocrity? The anti- 
 dote lies in the very thought suggested by this parable, 
 
 275 
 
the thought of the relation of our life-work to God, first as 
 being his appointment, second as being for his glory, 
 third as being under his eye. 
 
 a. First as being his appointment. The sovereignty 
 of God, once grasped with hearty acquiesence, is a won- 
 derful moral tonic. It puts iron into the blood. It has 
 made the men who have believed it profoundly, always 
 and everywhere men of grit, men of moral fibre; staunch 
 as heart of oak to face the hard things in life. " May I 
 not do what I will with mine own?" "Shall the thing 
 formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made 
 me thus? " are the questions which have power to silence 
 repining and rebuke envy. "God wills it," is, to one who 
 recognizes God's absolute authority and believes in his 
 perfect wisdom, a sufficient reply to all questionings con- 
 cerning the fewness of the talents with which God has 
 been pleased to entrust him. You and I are soldiers on 
 the battle-field of life. As such it does not lie with us to 
 select our posts or choose our duty. If the commander 
 bids us lead a company in a brilliant charge which will 
 cover our names with glory, it is well. If he assigns 
 us to unnoticed duty at the rear, or bids us take our 
 place in line with a hundred others to receive a cavalry 
 charge and roll in the dust with the unnamed multitude 
 of the wounded and dying when it is over, again, it is 
 well. 
 
 b. For, again, we are not giving this warfare in our 
 own name or for our own glory. If the disposal is God's, 
 the cause is God's also. The servants who received the 
 talents, whether five or two or one, received them not to 
 enrich themselves withal, but to administer for their 
 master. To him each task had its value, the small and 
 obscure no less than the conspicuous. 
 
 This is the evil side so rarely absent from the ambi- 
 tion to excel, that that ambition centers so largely in 
 
 276 
 
self. That by which we can win glory for ourselves We 
 account worth doing, and nothing else. In a race, those 
 who see that they are hopelesssly distanced, soon drop 
 out. Why should they run it to a finish, when no glory 
 can come to them as the result. Not so the mowers in 
 the hayfield. He who cannot cross the field with the 
 swiftest, still swings his scythe as he can ; for he knows 
 his labor, too, will count in the harvest, and share, ac- 
 cording to its sum in the reward. If life were a race run 
 for glory, as many seem to take it, here too, it might be 
 wise for the slow of foot to drop out. But life is a far 
 other thing than that. It is serious work under God's 
 leadership, which aims at his glory in a harvest of eter- 
 nal value, in the bringing in of an everlasting kingdom, 
 and in which each laborer, conspicuous or unnoticed, 
 each task, great or small, has its distinct plan and worth. 
 So that to one who has come to look at life from this 
 point of view, to live it with this thought of God's glory 
 as its end, this whole question of eminence or medioc- 
 rity drops out of the account. To him the important 
 thing is the 7vork done, not the glory reflected on the 
 worker. 
 
 Charles Kingsley, in all the ardor of youth, thrilling 
 with energy and conscious of intellectual power, finds 
 himself set down on a bit of English moorland, scattered 
 over which, in three little hamlets are some 800 souls 
 mainly stolid, lumbering farmhands and laborers, among 
 them all not a grown man or woman who can read or 
 write. And is this to be his work? Surely there is not 
 much chance for honor or distinction here! A mere 
 country rector, one among hundreds, that is all. There 
 are men in the ministry who are spoiled for life by such 
 an experience as that. What is the use, they say to them- 
 selves, of trying to do anything or be anybody in a place 
 like this? Kingsley has told us how he felt about it. "I 
 
 277 
 
will confess to you," he says, " that in those first heats of 
 youth this little patch of moorland in which I have struck 
 roots as firm as the wild fir trees do, looked, at moments, 
 rather like a prison than a palace, — that my foolish young 
 heart would sigh ; oh, that I had wings, — not as a dove, 
 to fly home to its nest and croodle there, but as an eagle 
 to swoop away over land and sea in a rampant and self- 
 glorifying fashion on which I now look back as something 
 altogether unwholesome and undesirable. It is not 
 learnt in a day, the golden lesson of the old collect, to 
 love the thing which is commanded and to desire that 
 which is promised, — not in a day ; but in fifteen years 
 one can spell out a little of its worth." 
 
 And so accepting this obscure commonplace task in 
 this spirit of desire to love the thing which was com- 
 manded, and doing it as unto the Lord, and not as unto 
 men, he made of that prison a palace, as he himself 
 bears joyful witness, transformed that golden commun- 
 ity into a community of intelligent and reverent worship- 
 ers, and found his lowly task, accepted first for duty's 
 sake, rich in unlooked for joys and abounding in soul- 
 satisfying rewards. 
 
 c. And lastly, the antidote to this discontent bred of 
 the consciousness of mediocrity lies in the thought that 
 we are doing our work under God's eye. It takes no em- 
 inence of gifts to win his attention. He watches as 
 closely and reviews as carefully the work of the servant 
 to whom he gives two talents, as of him who has received 
 five. For what to him is the difference between five tal- 
 ents and two which seems so immense to the servants 
 themselves ? The loftiest pinnacle of human fame to 
 Him is but the summit of an anthill, scarce visible 
 above the plain on which it stands. 
 
 To him fidelity, in tasks great or small, is the one 
 concern. For this he watches ; on this he smiles ; and 
 
 278 
 
this and this alone he will reward. The thought of his 
 interest and commendation can well console us for that 
 absence of human attention and praise which is insep- 
 arable from the common, every day lot. 
 
 To him it matters not how splendid or how humble 
 the endowment. What he asks is that we make the 
 most of it. If we do that, then whether we have received 
 five talents or two, or even but one, we shall be alike 
 sure of a reward which will lift us to a glory above the 
 highest pinnacle of earthly praise, and ensure to us an 
 increase of gifts, an enlargement of opportunities beyond 
 the scope of the loftiest earthly ambition ; the reward of 
 hearing from the lips of Him who fixed the grade and 
 set the measure of our work the word of approval : 
 "Well done, good and faithful servant! Thou hast 
 been faithful over a few things ; I will make thee ruler 
 over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
 
 279 
 
DEBORAH'S ASTROLOGY. 
 
 They fought from heaven. The stars in their courses fought 
 against Sisera. — Judges 5: 20. 
 
 Have we then astrology in the Bible? Were our 
 fathers right after all who believed a few centuries ago 
 that human destiny was linked in some strange manner 
 to the movements of the stars, that the life of every man 
 was ruled by the influence of the planet under whose as- 
 cendant it began, and checkered with good or evil for- 
 tune according as the planet formed conjunctions with 
 its fellows, now baleful, now benign? 
 
 Abraham, we know, when at the call of God he 
 forsook the Chaldees, turned his back on a nation of 
 star-gazers. Indeed from these very kinsmen of Abra- 
 ham it was that, centuries later, through the medium of 
 the Saracens our forefathers themselves learned this oc- 
 cult science, (and learned it so well that some of its 
 technical phrases still have currency in our daily speech.) 
 But the children of Abraham learned no such arts either 
 from their father or their father's God. It was no such 
 vain superstition as this which drew from victorious 
 Deborah this exultant shout. In truth it was no defined 
 influence of the stars which was present to her mind. 
 We must not forget that we are here with poetry, and 
 oriental poetry at that, and nothing more can safely be 
 assumed than an intention of the poet to declare in the 
 strongest possible form of speech, that Sisera, as the 
 enemy of God, against God in the endeavor to oppress 
 God's people, had all things in God's creation, whether 
 
 280 
 
things on earth or things in heaven, even to the very 
 stars in their courses, arrayed against him. 
 
 But this was not mere poetry. It was truth, literal 
 and exact truth. The imagination of the poet even in 
 this loftiest flight has been quite overtaken by the 
 patiently advancing steps of science. 
 
 I ask your attention this evening then, to the truth, 
 veiled under this sublime poetic imagery ; that he who 
 opposes God has nothing less than the resistance of the entire 
 universe to overcome. The stars fought against Sisera be- 
 cause Sisera fought against God. But there are other 
 ways of fighting against God than by leading forth an 
 armed host to oppress and persecute God's people. 
 Every man fights against God who undertakes to accom- 
 plish what God disapproves, — whose ends conflict, wit- 
 tingly or unwittingly, with God's ends, — whose life says 
 to God, reversing the words of Jesus in the Garden ; 
 " My will not thine be done." 
 
 That man fights against God, for instance, who 
 seeks to found an empire in duplicity and bloodshed ; 
 that man fights against God who seeks preferment by 
 tortuous methods of political chicane ; that man fights 
 against God who seeks to make a fortune or rise to 
 power by corrupt use of the machinery of a city govern- 
 ment ; that man fights against God who attempts to 
 build up a successful business by methods other than 
 those of strict integrity ; that man fights against God 
 who seeks to give currency to a false doctrine in religion 
 or a false principle in government. 
 
 You and I, my friends, whenever we do these or the 
 like of these things ; whenever we aid or abet those who 
 do them ; whenever, in any way, we seek what God dis- 
 approves, or seek ends in themselves worthy by methods 
 which God disapproves ; plant ourselves in opposition 
 to him, and in so doing array against ourselves the resis- 
 
 281 
 
tance, not passive merely, but active, — resistance which 
 may properly be called a fight, — of the whole material 
 universe. Observe, I say, the material universe. In the 
 world of mind there are powers of darkness which fight 
 on the side of such a man. But the world of matter and 
 of force, in all its grand totality, — earth, water, air, fire, 
 sun, moon, and stars, gravity, magnetism, heat, — all 
 things and all forces that are, — combines in one unceas- 
 ing movement toward his defeat and destruction. 
 
 To see that this is no unfounded or extravagant 
 representation we have only to consider that stupendous 
 truth which it is the glory of science in our day to have 
 set forth in such clear light as it never stood in before : 
 the oneness of 7iature. Take e. g. , the new doctrine 
 known to scientific men under the name of " correlation 
 of forces." The limits of this correlation are not yet 
 fully defined, nor is this the place to expound them in 
 detail. But without attempting to do this, it is enough 
 to say that many forms of force which were formerly 
 supposed to be quite distinct, such as light, heat, elec- 
 tricity, the momentum of moving bodies, the expansive 
 force of steam and gases, and the like, are now known 
 to be so many interchangeable forms of one thing, viz. 
 motion ; and that instead of force being ' ' generated and 
 lost," as it used to be said, in the various natural and 
 mechanical processes that were all the time going on, 
 there is really only a change from one form of force to 
 another ; as when the heat of a fire is transmuted into 
 the expansive form of steam, and that into the motion of 
 a fly-wheel, which in its turn moves the flying lathes or 
 spindles of a factory. 
 
 A step farther in this direction shows us that the 
 ceaseless activity and change which is going on upon the 
 earth is kept up by the steady supply of this force of mo- 
 tive power, in the form of light and heat, from the sun. 
 
 282 
 
What the heat is to the body, keeping in motion a cur- 
 rent of blood through every part without which the vital 
 processes could not go on ; — what the sea is to the world, 
 supplying in the form of clouds the water which, de- 
 scending as rain and gathering into streams, waters the 
 crops, turns the mill-wheels, and bears the commerce of 
 the nations, that is the sun to the earth, and to all the 
 planets which circle around it. There is not a form of 
 motion or of life that is not dependent upon its rays. 
 Were its fire put out every living thing would die ; the 
 seas would freeze to their very depths, and the bare 
 earth, one mass of rock and ice, its very vapors con- 
 gealed, its air stirred by no breeze, its echoes waked by 
 no sound, would go careering on its way through night 
 wrapped in the silence of eternal death. 
 
 But not only is the earth thus linked with the sun 
 into the inseparable unity of a single system ; the moon 
 also at whose bidding the tides ebb and flow ; the planets 
 that, circling with it round a common center, by their at- 
 tractions influence its motions, and thus its seasons, 
 temperature, climate, are all parts of that same unity. 
 This whole planet is, as it were, a single organism per- 
 vaded with a common life. 
 
 But surely in speaking of the universe as a unit, we 
 must stop here. Surely when we have reached the orbit 
 of the outmost planet we have reached a rim that 
 shuts us in, — sun, planets, satellites together, an isolated 
 island in the great deep of space, with no relations to 
 what lies beyond, — nothing to bridge the chasm of empti- 
 ness which separates us from the fixed star. Nay, not 
 so. Across this chasm messages come and go on a 
 bridge of light, and by the chains of that subtle thing that 
 we call gravity this island of ours is securely moored to 
 all those other countless isles that crowd the shoreless 
 ocean. Here, too, science is delighting us with ever 
 
 283 
 
fresh revelations. 'Tis but a few years since an instru- 
 ment, the spectroscope, was invented, by which the 
 messages that light brings us from those worlds so im- 
 measurably far away, can be interpreted ; and thus we 
 have learned to recognize the presence in those distant 
 orbs of the very same substances, the iron, the sodium, 
 hydrogen, and so on, of which our own mountains and 
 seas are composed. 
 
 In our own day, too, astronomers have learned that 
 as the planets circle around the sun, so the sun itself is 
 moving among the stars, swayed by some mightier at- 
 traction, in cycles that must be measured by aeons around 
 some center yet unknown ; a center which devout astrono- 
 mers, like Mitchell, have sometimes conceived of as the 
 very pivot of the universe, the throne of the Creator. Yet 
 sublime as is such a thought, it is more likely that that 
 far away star itself, together with all the glittering host 
 that stud our sky, forms but a subordinate part, a wheel 
 within a wheel of a still vaster universe, the bounds of 
 which thought itself faints in the attempt to reach. 
 
 But why dwell on these revelations of physics and 
 astronomy? Simply to bring in as strong relief as pos- 
 sible the unity of nature, the oneness of this vast creation 
 of God, to make not only clear, but vivid, if I may, the 
 truth that this little earth, significant as indeed it is, — 
 mere speck of dust in the wide waste of shining sands 
 with which space is strewn — is yet the focus of influences 
 radiated to it from every corner of the universe, even from 
 the remotest star. 
 
 The error of the astrologer was not in his notion that 
 the heavenly bodies influence human affairs, but in his 
 notion of the nature of those influences, in supposing 
 them occult, magical, supernatural. In rational, natural 
 and to a large extent discoverable ways they do influence 
 us daily. Not in those rare cases alone when sun and 
 
 284 
 
moon stand still that a Joshua may complete the rout of 
 the enemies of Jehovah, or a star in the East guides the 
 wise men from the Chaldean plains to the cradle of the 
 new-born King, are these shining ones made the minis- 
 ters of God's Providence. When the silent sunbeams in 
 the faces of one of two contending armies defeat the 
 plans of a skillful leader, when the pole star's steady light 
 guides the discoverer on his way, when the moon brings 
 in her wake the tide that floats a stranded bark, then it 
 is that the stars in their courses become executors of the 
 purpose of God. 
 
 Mark you, it is the stars in their courses that play 
 thus their frequent part in aiding or in crossing human 
 plans, not miraculously arrested or hastened or turned 
 aside, but moving steadily forward in the appointed path 
 which from their creation they have held unswerving. 
 Thus not the stars only but the winds and seas and clouds, 
 thus all nature in its uniformity acting always and only 
 in conformity to its unvarying constitution is still work- 
 ing out in the life of man the purposes of God. 
 
 I do not overlook the objection to all this, arising 
 out of this very uniformity. But let us defer the con- 
 sideration of this objection till we have considered the 
 unity of nature in another aspect. This unity is a unity 
 in tune as well as in space. In other words, just as all 
 worlds, all created things, are bound together by the 
 forces of nature into one whole, so all events that have 
 happened, are happenings and are yet to happen, are 
 linked by the law of cause and effect into a single chain, 
 rather let us say into a network of cbains, crossing and 
 recrossing, uniting and dividing, so as to form a single 
 web, stretching without a break from the dawn of crea- 
 tion to the last syllable of recorded time. The events of 
 history must be looked at, not as so many distinct drops 
 of a falling shower, but as the drops of one broad, un- 
 
 285 
 
broken current issuing from the throne of God and merg- 
 ing in the ocean of eternity. 
 
 It is a mistake therefore, to regard any event, or 
 group of events, as standing by itself, disconnected from 
 other events or groups. It is a mistake to speak of one 
 fact as the cause of another in such a way as though the 
 latter had no other cause. A profound theologian has 
 called attention to this error in these words : " The talk 
 so often heard about great events from small causes is a 
 mere play of fancy, idle, but not so surely harmless, inas- 
 much as it withdraws the attention from that universal 
 connection of things in which the cause really lies." 
 
 The practice here condemned is one familiar to us 
 all. We speak thus, proverbially, of "great oaks from 
 little acorns." But the acorn is no more the cause of the 
 oak than is the foregoing oak of which the acorn itself is 
 a product. 
 
 Just consider what an acorn is. Consider that it 
 took an oak to produce it, weeks of sunshine and rain to 
 mature it, that earth and air were both laid under contri- 
 bution to furnish materials for it, and that even so it 
 cannot produce another oak without the aid again of 
 earth and sun and dew and rain, toiling with the little 
 germ for years. Not a great result from a small cause, 
 but one small part of the result of the unceasing labor of 
 great causes, is the majestic tree which we admire. And 
 this instance from the natural world represents fairly the 
 fact regarding human affairs^ Then, too, we are accus- 
 tomed to speak of the merest trifles as effecting the most 
 enormous changes, sometimes even as changing the 
 whole course of history. But the trifles in question are 
 themselves but parts of the result of previous events — if 
 you please of the whole previous course of history, and 
 again these trifles would not have the effect we ascribe to 
 them but for the co-operation of a great many conditions 
 
 286 
 
which are just as truly part of the cause as that to which 
 we arbitrarily apply the name, since to change any one 
 of them would just as surely change the effect. We can 
 all of us recall instances, if not of our own experience, 
 certainly within the range of our observation, where a 
 very little thing, the merest accident, as we say, an un- 
 expected encounter with a friend in the street, the sudden 
 occurrence of some text of. Scripture, a bit of paper spied 
 in an out of the way corner, the flight of a bird, the fall- 
 ing of a leaf, the picking up of a pin — has seemed to 
 change the current of a life. But none of these things 
 occurred itself as it did without a cause, without a net- 
 work of causes, in fact, so intricate that omniscience 
 might trace it. Nor would any of them have had such 
 effects, happening to another person under other circum- 
 stances. These attendant circumstances, the character 
 and state of mind of the person, and the foregoing events, 
 must all be taken together before we fairly arrive at the 
 cause of the events which seem so important. 
 
 There is a book entitled "The Fifteen decisive Bat- 
 tles of the World," wherein are described fifteen great 
 battles, by which the destiny of nations and the subse- 
 quent course of human history seems to have been 
 changed. Yet a writer in the columns of some news- 
 paper a few years ago showed clearly enough that the 
 battle of Bennington— a mere skirmish, we may almost 
 say, between a British foraging party and a handful of 
 Green Mountain Boys, should be reckoned as a sixteenth 
 in this list, since it decided the Battle of Yorktown. 
 which, as virtually decisive of American Independence, 
 is reckoned among the fifteen. And why not ? In 
 such a process, where are we to stop? Who is to say 
 what have been and what have not been decisive battles? 
 Rather, was there ever a battle fought that was not decis- 
 ive, could we but trace with the eye of omniscience all 
 
 287 
 
the effects that flowed out from it in every direction? 
 There is absolutely no limit to the illustrations that 
 might be given of this subject; but enough for our pur- 
 pose. Now for the application. 
 
 This one great system of things, this universe that 
 has been, is, and shall be, a vast, enduring, organic 
 whole, one without a break, this is God's instrument. 
 For his ends it was made. Its ponderous machinery 
 moves in execution of his plans. In this system man is 
 placed with the power of choosing his own ends. If he 
 chooses God's ends as his own, he has all this vast 
 machinery on his side. If he chooses ends that clash 
 with God's, he has it all against him, and its whole mo- 
 mentum must be overcome before he can succeed. What 
 a railway train is to him who takas his place in it, wish- 
 ing to go just where it is going, that is the universe to 
 him who seeks God's ends. What the same train mov- 
 ing at full speed would be to him who, taking his stand 
 in front of it, should attempt to turn it about, that it 
 might carry him in an opposite direction, that is the uni- 
 verse to him who seeks ends other than God's. 
 
 For since nature is one it must be all for, or all 
 against. Since it is God's it must be all for his friends 
 and against his enemies. 
 
 And now with this oneness of nature in view we are 
 prepared to notice the difficulty before referred to, viz. 
 that as a matter of fact we find nature in helping or hin- 
 dering man's design quite indifferent to the goodness or 
 badness of them, — that the friendly veil of night is spread 
 as often over the thief as over the refugee ; that the same 
 unsetting star and the same favoring winds that guided 
 the Mayflower, guided also the slave-ship to our new- 
 world coast ; that the same remorseless flames devoured 
 Chicago's churches with her gambling hells, and over- 
 whelmed in a common ruin the upright, liberal dealer 
 
 38« 
 
and the grasping knave ; that whether the sun's blinding 
 rays defeat the one or the other army depends not at all 
 on the cause at issue but solely on the time of day and 
 the position of the battalions. This is all true. So, long 
 ago, the perplexed philosopher complained that "all 
 things come alike to all," and many a thoughtful mind 
 since his day has stumbled at that stumbling-stone. 
 
 But the solution lies in that very view of nature as 
 one whole which we have been developing. This seem- 
 ing confusion arises from viewing events piece-meal, dis- 
 regarding their relations to the one great whole. It is no 
 part of God's purpose that at every step, in every in- 
 stant, right should triumph and wrong should fail ; that 
 every good deed should be rewarded, and every evil deed 
 punished on the spot. Christ himself declares that God 
 makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
 sends rain on the just and on the unjust. This seeming 
 injustice, this delay of justice— makes up a part of our 
 probation here. In this very thing, therefore, nature is 
 but God's instrument. And when this ceases to be his 
 purpose, when in his wisdom the time arrives to bring to 
 nought evil counsel, he knows how to do it, and to do it 
 through the instrumentality of nature without the slight- 
 est interference with her unvarying laws. 
 
 And be sure that time is coming. 
 
 "Though the mills of God grind slowly 
 Yet they grind exceedingly small. 
 Though with patience he stands waiting, 
 With exactness grinds he all." 
 
 But if still it is said that God's plans develope so 
 slowly that meanwhile there is a chance for any amount 
 of success and triumph in fighting against him, — if it 
 is said that greedy men do get wealth, ambitious men 
 power, and bad men of every sort their wicked ends, in 
 defiance of God; let it be remembered that "the tri- 
 
 289 
 
umphing of the wicked is short," and that inexorable 
 nature, if she does not triumph over them before, will 
 very soon triumph over their graves. Thither the robber 
 cannot carry his gold. There the usurper cannot wear 
 his crown. 
 
 And as with themselves, so with the works they leave 
 behind them. These, too, must all wax old and perish. 
 The same inexorable nature will not rest till it has oblit- 
 erated them all. Every revolution of those mighty 
 wheels unravels a thread of the web which it took a life- 
 time to weave. And this is real defeat. Consciously or 
 tacitly all men build for eternity. It would have been 
 small gain to Sisera to have won his battle with Israel 
 with the certainty that the next day or the next year he 
 must fight it over again and lose it. Let not appearances 
 deceive you then. When you make the stars in their 
 courses do your bidding, when you can stop the earth in 
 her career, pluck the moon from the sky, and quench 
 the light of the sun, then, and not till then, may you 
 hope to win enduring victories fighting against God. 
 
 Is this what you are doing my friend? Oh, then, be- 
 think you how near at hand is the night when these 
 revolving stars shall look down upon your grave! Cease 
 building breast-works against the ocean which the next 
 tide must sweep away, and set your life in harmony with 
 the music of the spheres. Plant it so in the line of God's 
 purposes that you may triumph over nature in her last 
 triumph over man. Cease pulling down God's building 
 in the vain hope to rear with the stones some miserable 
 monument to your own glory which the mighty torrent 
 of events moving in the eternal channels of God's pur- 
 pose will soon sweep away, and build with God, that so 
 your work may remain, glorified forever in that fair city 
 which shall stand unmoved when the heavens themselves 
 shall be rolled together as a scroll. 
 
 290 
 
But if this theme has thus its warning, it has also, 
 for the friends of truth and right its mighty inspiration. 
 Deborah and Barak and the people of the Lord who 
 fought with them sang this song of triumph after a hard- 
 fought battle. You may be in the thick of the fight to- 
 day, my hearer, and to you it may seem that things move 
 very slowly and that Satan wages still a most successful 
 war. Have patience! Wait! The stars still swing on- 
 ward in their courses, the great wheels of the universe 
 are ever turning, and presently the hour of your deliver- 
 ance will strike. "It is good for a man to both hope 
 and quietly wait for the salvation of God." What though 
 you do see evil triumphant and unchecked in the walks of 
 trade, in the pursuits of politics, in the places of power? 
 What though a foe assail you of tenfold Sisera's prowess, 
 and with ten thousand times his host, and though the 
 battle has lasted long and you are tired and faint? Yet 
 wait ! The hour is at hand when all this shall be re- 
 versed ! And when the fullness of the time is come, 
 when the favorable conjunction of the stars take place, 
 when the right point is reached in this great unfolding 
 which since the beginning of time has been going on, 
 some weak woman, it may be, and with a hammer and a 
 nail will finish the work. Behold the husbandman wait- 
 eth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long 
 patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. 
 Be ye also patient ; stablish your hearts ; for the coming 
 of the Lord draweth nigh. 
 
 291 
 
THE ALLEGED WASTE OF FOREIGN MIS- 
 SIONS. 
 
 To ivhat furposc is this zuaste? — Matt. 26:8. 
 
 Comparing John's account of this incident with that 
 of Matthew it is plain that this question was asked by 
 different persons for different reasons. John speaks 
 only of Judas as the fault-finder and tells us plainly 
 what his motive was. "This he said not that he cared 
 for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the 
 bag, and bare what was put therein." 
 
 Matthew gives to understand that the disciples gen- 
 erally chimed in with the murmur, yet certainly they 
 neither shared in nor suspected its real inspiration. 
 The criticism had a plausible sound, and they evidently 
 caught it up and echoed it in mere thoughtlessness. 
 
 It did seem like a waste, when there were so 
 many hungry and naked ones whom it would have 
 clothed and fed, to make this lavish expenditure as the 
 mere expression of a love which might have been 
 shown in some less costly way. Nevertheless, Jesus 
 himself did not so look upon it. He promptly silenced 
 both classes of objectors with the words: "Why 
 trouble ye the woman? for she had wrought a good 
 work upon me. Let her alone. She had done what 
 she could." 
 
 In our own day the question is often repeated in 
 circumstances like these. "To what purpose is this 
 waste," the question is often asked, even by sincere follow. 
 ers of Christ, concerning various forms of self-sacrifice, 
 
 292 
 
and of expenditure of life and treasure, in Christ's name — 
 to what purpose is this waste when the same expenditure 
 might have been made to do so much more good in 
 some other way. Especially is it said of the expendi- 
 ture of life and treasure in the work of foreign missions, 
 "to what purpose is this waste" when there are so 
 many .poor at home to be cared for, and so many 
 heathen at home to be brought to Christ? When a 
 youthful Bishop Hannington, on the threshold of the 
 service for Africa to which he had given his life, falls 
 a victim to the rage of jealous savages, instantly the 
 finger of criticism is pointed, " to what purpose is this 
 waste" when the same zeal expended in behalf of 
 England's unchurched masses might have been crowned 
 with years of fruitfulness. 
 
 When our own church calls for a million of dollars 
 to be expended in carrying out her marching orders, 
 " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to 
 every creature," we hear it again. To what purpose, — 
 when there are such multitudes still unevangelized in 
 our great cities, and such fields yet unoccupied in our 
 own newly peopled states. 
 
 Now, too, as of old, this question is asked by differ- 
 ent classes of objectors for different reasons and in a 
 totally different spirit. It is asked by many from 
 motives as sinister as those of Judas. When the testi- 
 mony of travelers and residents in foreign lands to the 
 waste and failure of missions is glibly quoted as conclu- 
 sive, it is forgotten how far from disinterested is much 
 of this testimony. It is not to be wondered at. that men 
 of immoral life who rejoice in the freedom found in a 
 heathen community to indulge passion and revel in vice, 
 should seek to discredit the missionary who does more 
 than any one else to thwart their iniquity and expose 
 their vileness. 
 
 293 
 
Half a century ago the islands of the Pacific were a 
 paradise of lust for the seamen of every civilized nation. 
 Is it strange that when the missionaries came teaching 
 chastity, and turning those abodes of unrestrained 
 license into orderly, God-fearing communities, they 
 should, by such men be pilloried as hypocrites, their 
 work branded as a failure, and the money expended in 
 it jeered at as a waste? 
 
 As Richard H. Dana said after a visit to the Sand- 
 which Islands, in which he did his best to arrive at the 
 truth in regard to the work of the missionaries : " The 
 mere seekers of pleasure, power, and gain do not like 
 their influence ; and those persons who sympathize with 
 that officer who compelled the authorities to allow 
 women to go on to his ship by opening his ports and 
 threatening to bombard the town, naturally are hostile 
 to missions." 
 
 To a young man who was expatiating to him on the 
 inefficiency of missionaries in China, Dr. Ellinwood 
 said: "Whom did you see in China principally?" 
 "Oh, the young men of Shanghai and other ports, 
 clerks in warehouses, and others." " Do you not think 
 some of those young men were leading lives which 
 threw them out of sympathy with missionary opera- 
 tions? Were not some of them a little lax in their 
 morals?" "Some of them! Every one of them," 
 was the quick reply. "I do not know of any excep- 
 tion." "Well, but do you think that such testimony as 
 theirs is quite conclusive in regard to the work of 
 missions? " 
 
 Some years since a noted English traveler and 
 author stated in one of his books that the missionaries 
 at a certain African station had accomplished nothing 
 and that their station was useless. Whereupon the 
 leading missionary at the station referred to, wrote in 
 
 294 
 
reply that his station could hardly be considered 
 entirely useless, since it had been a refuge for the native 
 women from the drunken attacks of the traveling com- 
 panions of this very critic. Instances need not be 
 multiplied to prove what the well-informed have long 
 understood that much of the testimony to the ivaste 
 of missions by which many are misled would be found, 
 if sifted, to be inspired by the Judas spirit. 
 
 Then again this criticism is often prompted by 
 selfishness. There are those who do not like the pres- 
 sure upon their own conscience of the claims of the 
 heathen world, and so they are ready to welcome and 
 accept without examination any alleged evidence of 
 waste which may justify them in shirking self-denial. 
 There is still much professed sympathy for the poor, 
 which in reality, as in Judas' case, is but tenderness for 
 one's own purse. When I hear Christian people put 
 aside the appeal on behalf of foreign missions with the 
 response: " I do not believe in wasting money on the 
 heathen, when there is so much to be done at home," 
 and then those same people, (as sometimes happens, 
 though not always) dole out of their abundance for the 
 cause of home missions an insignificant pittance, one- 
 tenth, perhaps, or one twentieth of what they would 
 expend to build a new club house, I am involuntarily 
 reminded of the words: " This he said not because he 
 
 cared for the poor, but because he had the bag." 
 
 But while this cry of tuaste is often originated in some 
 such sinister or selfish motive, I have no doubt that the 
 vast majority of Christians at least, who take it up, do 
 so in mere ignorance and thoughtlessness. 
 
 The first two classes of objectors, the malignant and 
 the selfish, it is of little use to try to convince; but the 
 other and larger class need only to have the case fairly 
 put before them to see how unjust is such a criticism. 
 
 293 
 
To do this as it should be done, — to tell in language 
 worthy of the theme the thrilling story of heroism and 
 sacrifice, of patience and triumph, under equatorial suns 
 and amid poplar snows, on fever stricken coasts and on 
 cannibal islands, face to face with the hoary civiliza- 
 tions of Asia and with the naked savagery of Borneo 
 and of Pategonia, — would demand a tongue of fire. 
 Only the inspired pen which recorded the Acts of the 
 Apostles could worthily attempt this nineteenth century 
 continuation of the same stirring story of the cross. 
 
 Yet let me give you, as best I may, four reasons why 
 this work of foreign missions is not a waste either of 
 money or of life. 
 
 i. And the first is the same with which the Master 
 Himself silenced this ill-timed cavil of the disciples. 
 "Why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work 
 upon me." That alabaster box of ointment, very 
 precious, was not wasted, because it was poured upon 
 His head, as the expression of a love that would give 
 Him its best. Where in our day should we look for 
 the highest expression of this same supreme love to 
 Christ, if not in the treasure poured out, in the lives 
 devoted to this work of making Him known to the 
 world for which He died? Other causes appeal to a 
 variety of motives, motives of self-interest, of patriot- 
 ism, of natural compassion. Even the irreligious, out 
 of mere humanity, give freely to build hospitals for the 
 sick or to buy coal for the poor. Even the skeptic will 
 give toward the building of a church in his own com- 
 munity, as a safeguard to property and a bulwark of 
 order. But here is a work which appeals to one 
 single motive, love for Him who gave His life that a 
 lost world might be saved. 
 
 If one were asked to name the highest expression in 
 this our day of that love to Christ which is willing to 
 
 29G 
 
lay all at his feet, he Would instinctively turn to the 
 lives of those devoted men and women who, leaving 
 home and native land, turning their backs forever upon 
 the delights of culture and the allurements of ambition, 
 have gone only for the love of Christ to bury themselves 
 for life among filthy savages or sordid Asiatics, endur- 
 ing the daily spectacle of their physical squalor and 
 their moral leprosy, that so they may win jewels for His 
 crown. In such lives Christian consecration touches 
 its high-water mark. And he- to whom no fragrance is 
 so sweet as a consecrated life does not count the 
 precious ointment wasted. 
 
 When Henry Martyn died at thirty years of age 
 alone in the heart of a heathen land, the flaming 
 soul which had known but one thought, one passion 
 fairly consuming the frail tenement in which it was con- 
 fined, while as yet scarce one convert had rewarded his 
 earnest toil, it seemed indeed like a waste of precious 
 ointment; but who will doubt that He who said of Mary 
 as the highest praise: " She hath done what she could," 
 has written over against that devoted life the same satis- 
 fying eulogy? 
 
 2. This work is not a waste, again, because of the 
 mighty impulse which the church has drawn from the 
 examples of heroism and consecration it has called forth. 
 "Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the 
 whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath 
 done be told for a memorial of her." Surely that was 
 not a waste which, like a seed dropped into the ground, 
 should have power to reproduce in other lives gener- 
 ation after generation the same devotion to the Master 
 and the same spirit of sacrifice. But is this not also 
 true of these missionary lives and offerings, which are 
 mourned over as so sad a waste? What life next to 
 that of Christ has done most to impel Christians to a 
 
 297 
 
high standard of fervor and sacrifice? What but the 
 life of Paul, the great foreign missionary of the prim- 
 itive church? When the pure soul of Harriet Newell, 
 dying, a young bride of nineteen on a foreign isle, ere 
 she had so much as set foot among the people whom she 
 longed to tell of a Saviour's love, left its frail tabernacle 
 and exhaled heavenward like the perfume from the 
 broken box of alabaster, even devout souls, staggered 
 by the mystery of God's ways, cried out in their per- 
 plexity: "To what purpose is this waste? " 
 
 Yet was it a waste, when that short and simple story 
 of a woman's love and sacrifice touched the heart of all 
 England and America, and moved hundreds out of 
 lukewarmness and lethargy to be up and doing for the 
 Master? When whole communities, even, are revived 
 and churches are brought into being as the result of the 
 reading of that simple story? Who shall say that the 
 longest life of service among the heathen would have 
 been as fruitful of results as was that early death 
 through its influence upon the Christian- Church? 
 
 When Theodore Parker, certainly no blindly partial 
 critic of evangelical enterprise, laid down the life of 
 Adoniram Judson he said, and justly, that if the mis- 
 sionary enterprise had done nothing but produce that 
 life, all its costs were repaid. But Judson does not 
 stand alone. This work has produced scores of other 
 lives as noble, as inspiring as his. With equal emphasis 
 may it be said that if the missionary spirit had done 
 nothing for this nineteenth century but to illumine it 
 with one such heroic life as David Livingstone's it would 
 have been worth all its cost. But what a galaxy of 
 heroes and heroines has this enterprise of foreign mis- 
 sions given the church! We need not go back to the 
 early centuries for our saints and martyrs. They have 
 lived and walked with us, they have gone forth from our 
 
 298 
 
houses and our churches, men and women of whom the 
 world was not worthy, who even though dead, still 
 " * * * speak in reason's ear 
 And in example live." 
 Yea, and will live to rouse the careless, to convince 
 the doubting, to stimulate the half-hearted till the 
 church's last battle is fought, her last victory won. 
 
 What Christian has ever laid down the life of Fidelia 
 Fiske, or of Dr. Grant of Nestoria, of Dr. Calhoun of 
 Syria, of Dr. Morrison of China, of Carey or Duff of 
 India, or of Bishop Patteson of Melanesia, without a 
 new conception of the grandeur of the Christian life 
 and a new impulse to more thorough consecration. 
 
 3. Once more, this work is not a waste because of 
 its general tip lifting and civilizing effects. 
 
 The critics of missions have one standard of 
 measurement by which they assume that their value is 
 alone to be gauged, the statistics of conversions. Are 
 these in any given case but small; the question is 
 triumphantly asked: "To what purpose is this waste?" 
 But the standard is too narrow, granted that conver- 
 sions are the result at which this whole work aims, yet 
 if this were never attained, there would still be, in the 
 indirect results alone, compensation many times over 
 for their cost. We have already seen how true this is 
 of their effect on the churches at home. It is no less 
 true of their effect upon heathen communities abroad. 
 
 The passengers and crew of a California vessel 
 wrecked among the Fiji Islands, when daylight came 
 found themselves to their indescribable horror ashore 
 upon what they took to be a cannibal island. Knowing 
 that the)' must perish if they remained where they were, 
 they summoned all their courage to face an unknown 
 fate, and made for the nearest hut. On entering, the 
 chief officer saw lying on a board a dark colored object 
 
 299 
 
that fixed his attention. It was neither a spear nor a 
 club, it was — yes, it was a Bible. Turning to his com- 
 rades: "We are safe," he exclaimed. "Where that 
 book is there is no danger." 
 
 And so it proved. The influence of the missionaries 
 had transformed these whilom cannibals into hospitable 
 friends, who showed the shipwrecked crew no little 
 kindness and sent them on their way rejoicing. Think 
 you that crew needed to enquire for statistics of church 
 membership before deciding whether the missionary 
 money expended on that island had been wasted? 
 
 If missions in the Pacific had done nothing else 
 than make savage and cannibal islands safe for the 
 sailor and the castaway, — and that they have done in 
 fifty years for substantially the whole of Polynesia, that 
 alone would be worth all their cost. 
 
 And such results have followed in the track of the 
 missionary all around the globe. Do you ask where are 
 the witnesses? They are at hand, a great cloud of 
 them, men who can speak that they do know and testify 
 that they have seen. Shall we summon a few of them? 
 We will call no missionary, no secretary, no minister, 
 lest their testimony should be suspected of bias. We 
 will call only scholars, travelers, diplomats, who shall 
 tell us what they know of the influence of missionaries: 
 Shall we call scholars? 
 
 Few names carry greater weight for candor than that 
 of Charles Darwin. In his voyage around the world 
 he visited Terra del Fuego and found its savages "the 
 lowest of the human race," scarce one degree above the 
 brutes, so degraded, indeed, that when he heard that a 
 mission was to be attempted among them he pronounced 
 it a hopeless undertaking. But when a British admiral 
 told him of what he had seen of the fruits of that mis- 
 sion, this man who had abandoned all his faith in Christ 
 
 300 
 
and the Bible conceived such faith in missions as an 
 elevating power, that he made haste to enroll himself as 
 a subscriber to a work which he pronounced next to 
 the renaissance of Japan, the greatest wonder of the 
 century. 
 
 From the other side of the globe we may bring his 
 co-laborer in science, Alfred Russel Wallace, to tell us 
 how in the island of Celebes the missionaries have 
 changed "a wilderness" of "naked savages " into "a 
 garden." 
 
 Shall we summon such travelers as Henry M. Stan- 
 ley and Emin Bey to tell us why they call so loudly for 
 missionaries as the great hope of Africa? Shall we call 
 government officials to the stand? From India with its 
 hoary and inflexible civilization comes Sir Charles 
 Aitchison, governor of the Punjab to tell us that mis- 
 sionary teaching and Christian literature are leavening 
 native opinion in a way and to an extent quite startling 
 to those who do not take the trouble to investigate, and 
 declares that, " apart altogether from the strictly Chris- 
 tian aspect of the question " he would as an administra- 
 tor "deplore the drying up of Christian liberality to 
 missions in this country as a most lamentable check to 
 social and moral progress, and a grievious injury to the 
 best interests of the people." 
 
 Sir Barth Frere, late governor of Bombay, steps 
 forward to declare that the teaching of Christianity is 
 effecting in India "changes moral, social, and political 
 which, for extent and rapidity of effect, are far more 
 extraordinary than anything witnessed in modern 
 Europe," But these (and they are representations of a 
 great number in like position to judge) are Englishmen, 
 and themselves Christians, at least traditionally. 
 
 Let us hear a Brahmin, the Hindoo reformer Chun- 
 der Sen who, while deliberately rejecting Christianity as 
 
 301 
 
inferior to the old Vedic Theism which he seeks to 
 restore, still proclaims: "It is not the British army 
 that deserves the honor of holding India. If any army 
 can claim that honor, it is the army of Christian mis- 
 sionaries headed by their invincible captain Jesus Christ. " 
 
 There is no harder mission field, none where direct 
 results have been more tardy, than China. 
 
 A certain Lieutenant Wood of the United States 
 Navy after studying the missions there from the deck of 
 a man of war, has sent broadcast through the news- 
 papers the sad intelligence that they are a total failure. 
 We may leave him, however, to settle matters with our 
 minister to China, Col. Dinby, who says, "the tourist 
 who sneers at the missionaries or fails to give them his 
 unqualified admiration and sympathy, is, if earnest, 
 simply ignorant. He has not taken the trouble to go 
 through their missions as I have done. It is idle for 
 any man to decry the missionaries or their work. I 
 do not address myself to the churches, but as a man of 
 the world talking to sinners like myself, I say that it is 
 difficult to say too much good of missionary work in 
 China." 
 
 But time fails to name even the witnesses of like 
 character and standing who might be summoned from 
 all parts of the globe. I add the testimony of but one, 
 General Lew Wallace, ex-minister to Turkey, who from 
 the position of unbeliever in Christianity was brought by 
 the examination of the New Testament to that attitude 
 of mind which reveals itself in Ben-Hur and who, from 
 a like unbelief in the work of missions, was won over in 
 a similar way, and confessed on his return that though 
 he went to Turkey prejudiced against the missionaries, 
 he had found them an admirable body of men doing a 
 wonderful educational and civilizing work outside of 
 that which was strictly religious. 
 
 302 
 
4- But finally ami above all, this work is not a 
 waste because of its direct and eternal results, in souls 
 turned from darkness to light and from the power of 
 Satan unto God. 
 
 Is it a waste of life and treasure that has given us in 
 India one hundred thousand native communicants, 
 thirty-five thousand in China, some thirty thousand in 
 Japan, one hundred thousand in Polynesia, a million in 
 the heathen worlds; to say nothing of those already 
 gone, some of them from the dungeon and the martyr- 
 flame, to join the great multitude whom no man can 
 number before the throne of God and the Lamb? 
 
 Is it waste which, according to the showing of the 
 government census of India, multiplies the native 
 Christians by 6y% while adherents of other religions are 
 increasing from 10% to 13%? It looked like waste in 
 China while Morrison was waiting for seven years for 
 his first convert; but it did not look like waste to our 
 missionaries when they found that during the last 
 decade the increase in all the Protestant missions had 
 been almost one and one half fold or 140%. It may 
 have seemed like waste to the Moravian missionaries in 
 Greenland during the fifteen years that they labored 
 without one convert but it does not seem so now to 
 those who find not a single avowed pagan in the district 
 covered by their labors. It seemed also like waste for a 
 time to the Baptists of the Lone Star Mission in India 
 as years of labor passed by with almost no visible result, 
 that they were almost ready to withdraw from the field 
 in despair; but when in 1878 ten thousand converts were 
 baptized in three months there was no more thought of 
 waste then. 
 
 Judson, as he sat by the wayside waiting wearily day 
 after day for even a listener, must often have been 
 tempted to ask of his own life "To what purpose is 
 
 303 
 
this waste? " had not his been the mighty faith which to 
 the question, "What are the prospects of success?" 
 could answer "As bright as the promises of Almighty 
 God." But even Satan can hardly have tempted him to 
 ask such a question after he had been permitted to 
 welcome two hundred in one year to the church of 
 Christ. 
 
 Foreign missions a waste! Then was the blood shed 
 on Calvary wasted. Then were the labors of the apos 
 ties wasted, then were the lives of the martyrs wasted, 
 then was it waste when Latimer and Ridley lighted 
 with their flaming bodies England's candle which has 
 never been put out, then is all sacrifice for Christ and 
 all toil for souls a waste, the gospel itself a fable, and 
 heaven a dream. 
 
 But if at God's right hand there sits a Christ to 
 whom the Father has promised the heathen for his 
 inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his 
 possession, and who will accept and crown every deed 
 of love and every sacrifice laid at His feet as He 
 accepted and crowned this deed of a loving woman of 
 Bethany there is then no work on earth which holds the 
 promise of larger, more glorious, or more imperishable 
 returns! 
 
 301 
 
WHAT SHALL WE DO ? 
 
 Now when they heard this they were pricked in their 
 heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles : 
 Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said 
 unto them: Repent and be baptized every one of you in the 
 name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. — Acts 2:37-8. 
 
 The day of Pentecost was a day of wonders. It was 
 a day of power, — the manifested power of the Holy 
 Ghost. But of all the manifestations of that power which 
 was the mightiest? Was it the mighty rushing wind? 
 Was it the flames of fire resting on the heads of the dis- 
 ciples? Was it the new tongues in which these unlearned 
 men were heard to speak? No : far beyond either of 
 these was that which is here recorded. "Now when they 
 heard this they were pricked in their heart." "And the 
 same day there were added about three thousand souls." 
 The wind and the fire were phenomena of matter, the 
 tongues a phenomenon of mind, but here was a moral 
 miracle, an exhibition of divine power over the spiritual 
 creation. 
 
 It is the tendency of our minds to wonder at the out- 
 ward and spectacular rather than at the inward and 
 spiritual. As in our Saviour's life-time the multitudes 
 wondered far more at the multiplication of the loaves in 
 his hand than at the gracious words which proceeded out 
 of his mouth or at the sinless life he led, so still we are 
 prone to appeal to his miracles, rather than to his life 
 and teachings in proof of his divinity ; and yet it is in 
 the teachings and the life far more than in the miracles 
 that the full splendor of the Godhead is revealed. So, 
 
 3QS 
 
too, the Ten Commandments given to Moses upon Sinai 
 at the first glance excite our wonder far less than the 
 spectacle of the mount itself quaking and smoking and 
 thundering, amidst which they were given. Yet it is in 
 that law itself infinitely more than in any of these mar- 
 velous accompaniments of its delivery that we see the 
 proof that Moses had indeed talked with God, and that 
 he spake by a divine authority. One can hardly fail to 
 be reminded in this succession of phenomena, the mighty 
 wind, the fire, the outward miracle of the tongues, fol- 
 lowed by the inward prick of compunction in so many 
 hard hearts, of that impressive lesson, so like in the pro- 
 gress of its events, — the earth-quake, and after the earth- 
 quake a whirlwind, and after the whirlwind a fire, and 
 after the fire a still, small voice, — in which Elijah was 
 taught the same great truth, that God is seen more in his 
 secret workings than in spectacular displays; more in the 
 voice with which he speaks inwardly to the heart of man 
 than in the mightiest convulsions of nature or the most 
 overwhelming judgments upon nations. 
 
 What is it to teach the unlearned to utter his thoughts 
 in a strange language compared with teaching a hardened 
 sinner to see himself in a new light, to feel toward God a 
 new affection, and to shape his life by a new purpose. 
 " Behold he prayeth " was a more wonderful thing to say 
 of the fierce persecutor than if it had been said that he 
 spake with all the tongues under heaven. The piercing 
 of a hard heart is the greatest miracle God ever works. 
 
 And consider how hard were these hearts, — how 
 against all human probability it was that they should be 
 pricked with anything like compunction under this ser- 
 mon of Peter's 
 
 Remember this was in Jerusalem. These are in part 
 the very men who had often listened to wonderous words 
 of Jesus himself in their temple and in the streets of their 
 
 3U6 
 
city. Some of them had seen his miracles. They had 
 heard of what had happened at Bethany within the last 
 few months, how he had there raised to life one who had 
 lain four days in the grave. Some of them had joined in 
 the cry : "Crucify him ! crucify him ! " of that tumultu- 
 ous throng before Pilate's judgment seat, and had gazed 
 upon the cross, had felt the earth-quake, had stood 
 under the shadow of the darkness, had smitten their 
 breasts and returned, awed but still unconvinced. Surely 
 hearts that had resisted such influences as these, must 
 have become hard indeed. And accordingly we find them 
 running together out of mere curiosity at this new sight, 
 and some of them like the mockers who in our day gather 
 to make fun wherever the Holy Spirit's presence is 
 specially manifested, — with irreverent sneer, attributing 
 his work to the effects of new wine. 
 
 Shall we expect such hearts, hearts which had suc- 
 cessfully hardened themselves against the life and the 
 words of the divine Master himself, to be penetrated by 
 the preaching of his unlettered disciple? Yet behold 
 these men now, pricked in their hearts, — their contempt 
 all gone, their indifference all gone, their scepticism 
 about the claims of Jesus to be their Messiah all gone, 
 turning to his disciples with the intensely earnest ques- 
 tion : "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" What 
 but the almighty power of God could have wrought such 
 a change? The ax does not cleave the tree without an 
 arm to wield it. Peter's sermon could never have so 
 cleft these hard hearts had it not been applied by the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 But let us attend more closely to the nature of this 
 effect. "They were pricked in their heart." Their com- 
 fort was gone. Their peace of mind was gone. Insensibil- 
 ity had given place to uneasiness, to anxiety, to alarm. 
 Their question, "What shall we do? " is the expression 
 
 m 
 
at once of conscious guilt and of conscious danger. As 
 one who in a transport of rage has murdered a fellow- 
 being, awaking suddenly to a sense of what he has done, 
 cries out with a thought at once of the mischief which he 
 cannot undo, and of the penalty which he cannot 
 escape : "Oh, what shall I do? what shall f do?" so 
 these men were pricked in their heart, they felt "com- 
 punction ", — that is the exact force of the Greek word, — - 
 as Peter's words brought home to them what they had 
 done. And what was it that his words thus brought home 
 to them ? One sin alone. He had not sought to convict them 
 of theft, of blasphemy, of idolatry, of licentiousness, of 
 any sin but this that they had spurned their Messiah 
 and crucified their Lord. This was what they now per- 
 ceived. The pain of self-reproach for this was what they 
 now felt. Blessed, hopeful pain! When, by diligent 
 chafing and cautious warming, sensibility has been re- 
 stored to a frozen limb, you cry out with pain when no 
 pain was felt before. Yet you rejoice in that pain as a 
 promise of returning life. So there is hope for any man 
 so soon as he is pricked in his heart for refusing his 
 Saviour and resisting the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Would to God my impenitent friends, that Chris- 
 tians about you could see you pricked in the heart. 
 Would to God that my words might be made effectual by 
 the Holy Spirit to the awakening in you of compunction 
 for just this sin. I doubt not a thoroughly aroused con- 
 science would convict you of various sins, some of you 
 of sins against purity, some of you of sins against truth, 
 some of you of sins against the law of love to your neigh- 
 bors. But there is one sin greater than any of these of 
 which I know that it would convict you all. It is the sin 
 of rejecting a Saviour, of despising his love, of harden- 
 ing your hearts against the calls of his spirit. Could we 
 see you pricked in your heart for this sin, oh how should 
 
we rejoice, — not at your pain ; but at the hope it would 
 give that the hard heart might be softened and the lost 
 soul saved. 
 
 Still it would be only a hope. Many a soul feels the 
 prickings of compunction for its treatment of its Saviour, 
 yet stifles them again and so becomes more hardened 
 than before. Therefore I ask you to note it again as a 
 still more hopeful feature in the case of these men that 
 they asked just this question: "What shall we do?" 
 They could have asked no question more to the point 
 than this. They saw that this was a case that called for 
 action. They were in a state of guilt, — something must 
 be done about that ;— in a state of danger, — something 
 must be done about that. Theirs was no case for idle 
 waiting, no case for theological hair-splitting. It was a 
 case for action, — prompt, energetic action. 
 
 My friends, it may be there are some of you who al- 
 ready feel compunction for your neglect of the gospel and 
 ingratitude for a Saviour's love, but you are doing noth- 
 ing about it. You are just waiting for things to take 
 their own course. You keep your feelings to yourself 
 and meanwhile go right on as before. I forewarn you 
 that compunction so treated will not last long. It will 
 soon give place to a state of things worse than before. 
 
 Satan does not care how many sermons you hear, 
 how many tracts you read, how much you think about 
 religion, how much emotion you feel, if only he can be 
 sure that you won't do anything. In that case all these 
 things will but help to rivet his chains by making your 
 heart harder and more insensible. 
 
 "Nothing either great or small 
 Remains for me to do," 
 
 is true as it was written and meant, but not true as it is 
 sometimes quoted and sung. It is true that we have 
 nothing either great or small to do toward atoning for 
 
 309 
 
sin, but it is not true that we have nothing to do towards 
 turning from sin, it is not true that we have nothing to 
 do toward fleeing from the wrath to come. " Nothing to 
 do," thought the antediluvians when Noah warned them 
 of the coming deluge, till at length the flood came and 
 destroyed them all. "Nothing to do," thought Lot's 
 sons-in-law when Lot warned them that God would de- 
 stroy their city, till the fire and brimstone fell and they 
 perished in the flames. 
 
 But the awakened jailer at Philippi thought other- 
 wise when he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas 
 crying: "Sirs ! what must I do to be saved?" The 
 awakened Saul of Tarsus himself thought otherwise, 
 when, startled to find against whom he had been fight- 
 ing, he cried : " Lord what wilt thou have me do?" 
 
 And Jesus taught otherwise when he said : "Strive 
 to enter in at the strait gate ; for strait is the gate and 
 narrow is the way that leadcth unto life, and few there 
 be that find it. " 
 
 I spoke to you last week, my friends, of the thing 
 that God exhorts you not to do. "Harden not your 
 hearts." I tried to show you something of the fearful 
 responsibility and peril of such a self-hardening. But 
 you remember I pointed out to you that so long as you 
 simply do nothing that process goes on. You delude your- 
 self wofully if you think that while you are doing nothing 
 things will stay where they are. 
 
 A little swelling has made its appearance on your 
 face. You heed it not at first ; but it increases, and at 
 length you decide to show it to the physician. He ex- 
 amines it, shakes his head, and advises you to have it 
 removed. You reply: "Oh, no; I don't think I'll do 
 anything about it. I only want your opinion as to what 
 it might be." Seeing that you are not sufficiently awake 
 to your danger he tells you plainly that it is a cancer, and 
 
 310 
 
that if it extends beyond a certain point it will be certain 
 death. You are greatly agitated, and see the gravity of 
 the situation, but you cannot make up your mind to the 
 painful operation, so you decide to let it go, to do noth- 
 ing about it at least for the present. Think you that while 
 you do nothing that fatal growth will stop? Think you 
 that if you simply let it go, it will heal itself? Never! 
 While you do nothing that enemy will eat your life away. 
 In prompt action lies your only hope. Oh, my friend, 
 that is after all but a faint emblem of the fatal processes 
 going on in your soul while you do nothing, processes 
 which no anxiety, no compunction, nothing but right ac- 
 tion will arrest. Do you see that you are in the wrong, — 
 that you are in danger? Lose no time, then, in asking 
 this question : " What shall I do "? 
 
 But of whom shall you ask it? This leads us to take 
 note of another hopeful feature in the case of these men. 
 They went to the right place to push their inquiry. They 
 addressed themselves to "Peter and the rest of the 
 Apostles." 
 
 Why did they not undertake to prescribe for their 
 own case, to decide for themselves what was the best course 
 to pursue? Or why did they not go away to their old 
 teachers, the chief priests, the scribes, the doctors of the 
 law? Ah, they had a good reason for doing neither of 
 these. They realized at least that they had been impli- 
 cated in the guilt of crucifying one who was their Mes- 
 siah, and who would come to be their Judge. And they 
 saw that he alone, who was at once their accuser and their 
 judge, was to be trusted to tell them what to do. The 
 way that he pointed out, and that alone, they would be 
 safe in taking. And therefore they applied to his ac- 
 credited representatives, to the men who had been with 
 him as his disciples, and who stood now as his apostles, 
 or ambassadors, to tell them from him, what they 
 must do. 311 
 
Was not this the part of common sense? But, alas, how 
 many an awakened sinner fails here ! He has sinned 
 against God, yet he will not let God tell him what to do. 
 He has rejected Christ, yet will not take Christ's way to 
 be reconciled. He has grieved the Holy Spirit, yet he 
 will not listen to the Holy Spirit's voice telling him how 
 he may obtain his blessing. 
 
 Some think they can answer this question for them- 
 selves. " My own reason," they say, "is guide enough. 
 That will tell me what to do." Some resort to this and 
 that human authority for advice and obtain advice 
 as various as the authorities to whom they apply. But 
 God's answer is the only safe answer, and that is given 
 in his word. Is there one here pricked in his heart, and 
 thoroughly roused to the fact that something must be 
 done to escape from the wrath to come? My friend, 
 trust the Bible alone to tell you what to do. Go to 
 Christ's ministers, go to Christian friends, if you will. 
 They have traveled the road themselves and it is to be 
 presumed they can give you wise direction. But trust it 
 not even at their lips unless you see that it is grounded 
 on the word of God. See that you have a " Thus saith 
 the Lord," for every step. For just so surely as only 
 God's instructions could guide Lot to a place of safety 
 from the fiery rain that was about to descend upon the 
 cities of the plain, just so surely can these alone guide 
 any sinner to a place of safety from the judgment that is 
 yet to come upon the world of the ungodly. 
 
 Many an awakened soul has been fatally misled by 
 trusting to well meant but mistaken and unscriptural ad- 
 vice of some sincere Christian friend. 
 
 You see too, my friends, that though this question 
 was put to all the eleven apostles, there seems to have 
 been no disagreement about the answer. The reply of 
 Peter spoke the sentiment of all. Eleven men but only 
 
 312 
 
One mind. So you will find it in the word of God. God 
 spake by many messengers, but he gave but one gospel. 
 The Bible is made up of many books, but they all give 
 but one answer to the question : " What shall we do? " 
 More rudimentary indeed in the earlier and incom- 
 plete stages of religious development, and endlessly 
 varied in form according to the needs of the particular 
 individual who asks the question, that answer in its com- 
 pleted gospel-form never varies in substance from the one 
 here given. I pray you mark it well, inquiring soul, for 
 it tells you exactly what you must do. 
 
 " Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the 
 name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." Re- 
 pent! At this very first word occurs an instance of the 
 danger of trusting to any guidance but that of God's own 
 word. Open a Roman Catholic Bible and you will read 
 there "Do penance." This is Rome's perversion of 
 God's way. But you may say : The Roman Catholic 
 Bible is a translation, and yours is a translation. How 
 am I to know that theirs is not true. My friend, you 
 may know it almost as certainly if you do not read Greek 
 as if you do. You may learn what Peter meant by see- 
 ing what these men did. Do you read of any penance 
 here, any scourgings, any vigils, any mortifications? 
 None. "Then they that gladly received the word were 
 baptized, and the same day there were added unto them 
 about three thousand souls." When a German emperor 
 insulted Pope Hildebrand, the so-called successor of St. 
 Peter, the would-be vicar of Christ, he was compelled to 
 stand for three days, barefoot and clad in hair cloth, in 
 the cold of midwinter in an outer court of the castle at 
 Canossa, ere he could receive absolution. But here are 
 men whom Peter himself has just charged with complic- 
 ity in the crucifixion of Christ, offered an instant pardon, 
 baptized and taken into the full fellowship of the church 
 
 313 
 
in one day, with no hint of penances of any kind. Not 
 
 only so, but look all through the New Testament and 
 you will find not one trace of such performances from 
 beginning to end. Of repentance you will find enough, 
 of penance nothing. Rome, after diligent search through 
 the Protestant Bible of King James, has detected some 
 half dozen errors of translation to which she triumph- 
 antly points as exhibiting a doctrinal bias which dis- 
 credits the whole work. Yet not one of these is an error 
 half so vital, or so monstrous, as this which, for the sake 
 of bolstering up an evil practice, received by tradition 
 from a corrupt age of the church renders by such a word 
 as " Do penance " a word which every Greek scholar 
 sees for himself to mean "change your minds." But if 
 Peter did not bid these inquirers, "Do penance" 
 neither did his answer mean "Feel sorrow." They felt 
 that already. They were already pricked in their heart. 
 That was sorrow. And out of that deep sorrow of com- 
 punction they had asked : " Men and brethren what shall 
 we do? " It was to some new step Peter directed them, — - 
 something to which this sorrow and sense of guilt must 
 lead them, but which was more than these. That some- 
 thing was repentance, literally a change of mind — i. e. , 
 not a change of views or a change of feelings, though it 
 includes both these ; but precisely what we mean when 
 we say: "I planned to go on such a journey, but I 
 changed my mind," viz., a change of purpose. They had 
 rejected Jesus as their Messiah. When Peter said 
 " Repent ! " he bade them reject him no longer, but ac- 
 cept him, and bow to him as their Saviour and their 
 Lord. " Repent" in the Bible is a word of action. It 
 rests on feeling ; it presupposes the sense of sin and 
 sorrow for sin as the motive to action, but he who stops 
 with sorrow and turns not from sin stops short of repent- 
 ance. John the Baptist came preaching repentance, and 
 
 314 
 
when the people asked him what he meant he told them 
 very plainly, and it was neither to do penances nor to feel 
 sorry; but to the publicans it was: "Exact no more 
 than that which is appointed you ; " to the soldiers : " Do 
 violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be 
 content with your wages ; " to all the people : "He that 
 hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, 
 and he that hath meat let him do likewise." 
 
 My friend, you have been resisting God's Holy 
 Spirit. Repent, by yielding to his influence and doing 
 whatever he prompts you to do. You have been reject- 
 ing Christ. Repent by accepting him as your Saviour, 
 your Sovereign, your all. 
 
 There is an Old Testament precept which expresses 
 the exact nature of that which is here required. You 
 will find it in Is. i : 16-17. " Cease to do evil; learn to do 
 well." But repentance will not make amends for past sin. 
 It was a startling discovery to those Jews to realize that 
 they had crucified the Lord of Glory. No repentance 
 could undo this deed. And therefore they needed, to 
 withdraw the iron that was rankling in their souls, 
 another word beside this word Repent. And it was 
 given. ft Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the 
 remission of sins." To be baptized in the name of Jesus 
 Christ was an act of faith in Christ. It was a personal 
 acceptance of him as their Lord. To be baptized for the 
 remission of sins was still more specifically an act of 
 faith in his atonement, an appropriation to themselves of 
 the benefits of the sacrifices of that " Lamb of God that 
 taketh away the sin of the world." 
 
 But this was not all that the apostles bade these 
 convicted sinners do. Here again I ask you to notice 
 the contrast between the inspired prescription for the 
 healing of troubled consciences and many of the prescrip- 
 tions of men. "Repent," says the rationalist, "and 
 
 315 
 
that is enough. God is bound to forgive upon repent- 
 ance." Not so say the apostles of Christ. 
 
 The deed is done. Repentance will not undo it. 
 The guilt of a crucified Messiah is on their souls. Re- 
 pentance will not cancel it. Something else is needed, 
 some more potent solvent than tears to erase the record 
 in God's book of remembrance. That most potent thing 
 is the blood of Christ. Guilt calls for atonement as well 
 as for repentance. Therefore to the command " Repent" 
 is added the command : " Be baptized in the name of 
 Jesus Christ for the remission of sins," a command which 
 finds its commentary in the words of this same apostle in 
 another sermon preached a few days later. Neither is 
 there salvation in any other, for " There is none other 
 name under heaven given among men whereby we must 
 be saved. " To be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ 
 is an act of faith in Christ. To be baptized for the re- 
 mission of sins is specifically an act of faith in the atone- 
 ment of Christ, an appropriation to one's self of the sacri- 
 fice of "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of 
 the world." 
 
 But baptism was more. Since it was an outward, a 
 public act, it was not only an act of faith but of confes- 
 sion. It was an open acknowledgment of sin, an open 
 acceptance of Christ, an open vow of allegiance to him. 
 Before friends and foes alike, it committed those who re- 
 ceived it to the side of Jesus Christ. 
 
 So then we have in Peter's answer to the question , 
 "What shall we do?" these three things : repentance, 
 faith, confession. It is God who has joined these three 
 together ; and what God hath joined together let no man 
 put asunder. You cannot be saved by turning from sin 
 without an acceptance of Christ's atoning sacrifice ; you 
 cannot be saved by accepting Christ's atoning sacrifice 
 without turning from sin, and neither your repentance nor 
 
 316 
 
your faith will approve themselves genuine and complete 
 without open acknowledgment before the world of Him 
 by whom you hope to be acknowledged at last before the 
 Father and his holy angels. " For with the heart man 
 believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confes- 
 sion is made unto salvation." "Every one of you," so 
 Peter made answer to the various multitude who 
 thronged upon him with their anxious question " There 
 is no difference." " All have sinned and come short of 
 the glory of God." There is no softening of the condi- 
 tions for the Nicodemuses who may wish to become dis- 
 ciples secretly. There is no exclusion from them of the 
 priests who may have had a personal share in the guilty 
 plot against God's holy Son. And those words are just 
 as applicable to-day and in this congregation. " Repent 
 and be baptized, every one of you." 
 
 But you have been baptized already. Your parents 
 gave you baptism in your infancy. Then you have had a 
 great advantage and trifled with it, a great opportunity 
 and missed it, a glorious birthright and despised it. 
 You ought to have grown up a Christian child trusting 
 Christ and following him from your earliest years and 
 you did not do it. What you have now to do is not to 
 be baptized anew. When Peter found that Simon Magus 
 had been baptized without a true conversion he said 
 nothing about a new baptism, but he bade him repent. 
 What you have to do is to supply the reality which is yet 
 lacking, and without which your baptism remains an 
 empty form. Faith and confession, this is the spiritual 
 part of baptism, and these duties remain unfulfilled. Do 
 not think there is for you some new. some easier, some 
 peculiar way. Repent, believe, confess, every one of 
 you. Turn about, change your mind from rejection of 
 Christ to submission to him. Appropriate to yourself 
 the blood shed for many for the remission of sins, and 
 
 :U7 
 
lay your burden of guilt on him who was wounded for 
 your transgressions and bruised for your iniquities. Own 
 him before the world as your Lord and Saviour, number- 
 ing yourself with his people here that he may make you 
 to be numbered with his saints in glory everlasting. 
 
 It is not recorded that all those who asked this earn- 
 est question accepted Peter's answer. In the form of the 
 record : "Then they that gladly received his word were 
 baptized," the contrary is rather implied. It is one 
 thing to be awakened and another to be converted, one 
 thing to ask in all earnestness: "What shall I do?" 
 another thing to do as we are bidden. Many a Naaman 
 has come to the prophet's door, and gone away in a rage. 
 Many a young man has come saying : " Good Master, 
 what must I do to inherit eternal life," and gone away 
 sorrowful. 
 
 It is midnight. The streets are deserted. The dis- 
 tant foot-fall of the watchman alone breaks the stillness. 
 What is this crouching form that I see lingering near the 
 steps of that quiet dwelling, hugging about her shoulders 
 a scanty shawl. She was a woman once. Let us not 
 name her now. And this was her childhood's home, and 
 weary of sin and shame she has come back to cast her- 
 self at her mother's feet and beg to be taken in. See, 
 she ascends the steps ; she lifts her hand to the knocker. 
 One moment more and the door will be opened, and she 
 will be clasped to a loving bosom. But no, she hesitates, 
 she withdraws her hand. Overwhelmed with the dread 
 of meeting those pure eyes, of facing brothers' and sis- 
 ters' questioning looks, her courage has failed her, and 
 leaving the knocker unlifted she turns and glides away 
 into the darkness. Oh, had she but heard the voice at 
 that moment pleading within those walls for the erring 
 one ; had she but been told to take that one decisive 
 step! So near to rescue yet unsaved! 
 
 318 
 
Awakened, inquiring, seeking soul, not far from the 
 kingdom of God to-day, do not draw back from this one 
 last step. " Knock, and it shall be opened unto thee." 
 
 319 
 
THE ELEMENT OF DOCTRINE IN RELIGION. 
 
 Till I come, give attendance to * * * * doctrine. — 
 I Tim. 4:13. 
 
 It is characteristic of the religious tendencies of the 
 day to depreciate doctrine. Doctrinal preaching, doctri- 
 nal study by Christians for themselves, doctrinal teach- 
 ing of children in the Sunday school or at home, all 
 these are decried and disused. "The life! the life!" is 
 now the cry. 
 
 Preaching should be the exhortation of men to a 
 good life. Let us study the Bible only for its pure 
 morality and its good examples, skipping the hard 
 places such as the fifth and ninth chapters of Romans, 
 just as we skip the hard names of the opening chapters 
 of Chronicles. We accept the Scriptures as profitable 
 for "reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
 eousness," but not " for doctrine," since doctrine itself 
 is no longer found profitable. And we say of the indi- 
 vidual, "No matter what he believes if only he is 
 sincere." 
 
 This is a natural reaction from an extreme of doctri- 
 nal rigidity and polemic heat, but, like most reactions, 
 it is itself an extreme. The pendulum has swung too 
 far. Of course, if religion be only a sentiment, if to 
 stand in rapt admiration before the Sistine Madonna; 
 to apostrophize the soaring lark; to compose a melting 
 symphony; to grow pensive at the sunset, if this — 
 though all the while you be a liar, or a profligate — is 
 religion; — if to love — anybody or anything, no matter 
 
 3aq 
 
whether worthy the devotion of a rational spirit or 
 not, is religion, then religion has nothing to do with 
 doctrine. Poetic rhapsodies on the divinity of beauty- 
 are the preaching it demands. Or if religion be a mat- 
 ter of conduct alone, the practice of virtue as be- 
 tween man and man, — honesty, integrity, doing as 
 we would be done by, — then doctrine has no place 
 there. Panegyrics upon the virtues, in the manner of 
 Seneca, are the preaching for such a religion. 
 
 But if religion is an affair of the whole soul — if 
 intellect, feeling and will are all concerned in it; if it 
 includes our relations to God in even a higher degree 
 than it does our relations to each other, if religion con- 
 sists in knowing, loving, and obeying God — and noth- 
 ing less than this is worthy to be called religion, — then 
 the great doctrines concerning God and man, concern- 
 ing sin and redemption, concerning eternity and retri- 
 bution, are its very bone and marrow. 
 
 Therefore we find the Scriptures replete with doc- 
 trinal teaching, and insisting strenuously on doctrinal 
 study. 
 
 The shorter catechism sums up truly the substance 
 of Scripture in the statement " The Scriptures principally 
 teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what 
 duty God requires of man." 
 
 This exhortation of Paul to his son Timothy was 
 consistent with his own practice. His epistles are doc- 
 trinal sometimes to abstruseness. His sermon to the 
 Athenians on Mars' Hill is full of doctrine. 
 
 John, the apostle of love, whom we are wont to con- 
 trast with Paul as expressing the emotional, rather than 
 the intellectual side of Christianity, rivals Paul in the 
 prominence he gives to doctrinal teaching, and furnishes 
 perhaps the severest denunciation of doctrinal heresy to 
 be found in the New Testament (2 Jno. 9-10), a denun- 
 
 m 
 
ciation which would win for any theologian who in these 
 days should repeat it literally, the titles of bigot and 
 fanatic. 
 
 But, it is claimed, that in this particular, the disci- 
 ples swerved from the example of the Master. This dog- 
 matism was their great mistake. Jesus himself taught 
 precepts, not dogmas. We hear much from those who 
 reason thus of the Sermon on the Mount ; but less of 
 the discourses to Nicodemus, to the woman of Samaria, 
 to the multitude that followed him for the sake of the 
 loaves, to Martha on the way to the grave of Lazarus, to 
 the disciples as they sat together at the last supper, of 
 such chapters as the 25th of Matthew beginning with the 
 parable of the Two Virgins and ending with " These shall 
 go away into everlasting punishment ; but the righteous into 
 life eternal,'''' and of the Great Commission with which, 
 after his ascension, he sent his disciples forth, " All power 
 is given unto me in heaven and in earth." 
 
 The truth is that a careful analysis of even the few 
 fragments of the Master's teachings which these four 
 brief gospels have preserved to us, reveals there the 
 germs of all the doctrines wrought out in more systematic 
 form in the epistles. No narrowing of the limits of in- 
 spired Scripture can eliminate the doctrinal element. 
 Not only does it remain in the gospels when you have 
 rejected the epistles, but even when in the desperate at- 
 tempt to get rid of it you have tampered with the gospels 
 themselves throwing out the fourth and mutilating the 
 others till, if you choose, the Sermon on the Mount alone 
 is left, which is exalted by many as the sum total of the 
 Gospel, even then you shall find the same interweaving 
 of the two elements, the woof of precept inwrought and 
 held in place in a warp of doctrine. The being of God, 
 his personality, his perfection, his power, his providence, 
 the possibility and power of prayer, man's sin, his ac- 
 
 322 
 
countability, the rewards and punishments of a future 
 state, and the possibility of forgiveness, all these doctrines, 
 either presupposed or directly asserted, are, in this one 
 discourse, appealed to as motives for the observance of 
 those precepts which it is the main drift of the discourse 
 
 to inculcate. 
 
 Those who raise this protest against doctrine, do 
 not seem to realize that questions of doctrine are in 
 reality simply questions of fact. We have a great respect 
 for the scientific man who devotes his life to a laborious 
 investigation of the facts of chemistry, of geology, of 
 astronomy. We dwell with delight on Franklin flying 
 his kite to determine whether it is a fact that the light- 
 ning is caused by electricity, and read with enthusiasm of 
 the new discoveries that are made in our own day in the 
 rocks and in the stars. Shall we then regard these facts 
 with profound interest, and hold the investigators of them 
 in deserved esteem, yet treat as indifferent and even im- 
 pertinent all inquiry into the facts of the spiritual world? 
 Whether there is or is not a God ; whether if there 
 is, he is a person or only an essence ; whether, if a per- 
 son, he concerns himself at all with our affairs ; whether 
 it is of any use to go to him with our needs, our troubles, 
 our requests ; whether he holds us accountable for our 
 conduct ; if so, whether we are just now in a position to 
 gain his approbation ; whether we are in reality good at 
 heart, or bad ; and whether what we need is a develop- 
 ment of our characters as they are, or, before all, a radi- 
 cal change of character ; if any change is needed, how 
 it is to be brought about ; whether there is a life beyond 
 this, and whether our conduct here will make any differ- 
 ence with our condition there ; and if so, precisely 
 what are the conditions of future happiness ; whether the 
 Bible is the word of God, containing his own authorita- 
 tive answers to these questions, or whether it is a simple 
 
 •m 
 
human production containing "guesses at truth"; 
 whether Jesus was a teacher worthy of belief, and if so, 
 what he was ; whether or not he rose from the dead as 
 his disciples claimed ; whether he was or was not some- 
 thing more than a man; whether we may or may not pray 
 to him now ; whether he is or is not at this moment gov- 
 erning the world and answering the prayers that are ad- 
 dressed to him ; these are all questions of fact. In refer- 
 ence to each one of them there is a truth and there is a 
 falsehood. 
 
 And, more than this, it is of the last importance that 
 we should know what is the truth and what the falsehood. 
 Not only is it facts that are at issue here, but they are the 
 facts of all facts that it most vitally concerns us to know. 
 
 The human mind is so made that all facts interest it 
 whether they seem to have any practical bearing or not. 
 Questions concerning the laws of electricity, the motions 
 of the stars, the constitution of the sun, — all these have 
 an interest, an absorbing interestfor us, but what are all 
 these questions, what are all the discoveries of science and 
 all the inventions and the strides of material civilization to 
 which they lead, compared with these vast, these wide- 
 reaching, these infinite questions which affect our im- 
 mortal spirits? By so much as spirit is higher than 
 matter, and the unseen world more real and more endur- 
 ing than the world that is seen, by so much are these 
 questions touching the spiritual and the unseen, these 
 questions of theology, these questions of doctrine, the 
 vital and overshadowing questions of human life. No 
 man releases himself from the dominion of facts by in- 
 difference to them. The facts remain and they govern his 
 life. If he does not accommodate himself to them, they 
 will make him miserable. We are all of us in the spirit- 
 ual world, whether we will or not. Shutting our eyes to 
 it will not take us out of it. The only effect of shutting 
 
 324 
 
our eyes will be to make us stumble and fall. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that in this respect 
 the conditions of our spiritual life are in any wise differ- 
 ent from those of our natural life. In both worlds there 
 are laws, to violate which, is to bring certain penalty upon 
 themselves. A man cannot afford to be ignorant of any 
 of the laws of his being. There are certain laws of health, 
 the observance of which promotes soundness and 
 strength of body, and the neglect of which .begets dis- 
 ease. Just as truly are there laws of spiritual health, the 
 observance or neglect of which is attended with corres- 
 ponding results. 
 
 In neither case does the sincerity of one's error make 
 any difference with the result. The inflexibility of law is 
 a truth that science is bringing ever more and more into 
 relief. A certain course of conduct is followed by cer- 
 tain effects, which depend not at all on the design of the 
 action but wholly on the nature of the act. The man who 
 takes a draught of corrosive sublimate because he finds 
 it in a bottle labelled sulphate of quinine, and believes it 
 just the medicine he needs, will die just as quickly as the 
 man who deliberately pours it out and drinks it, knowing 
 what it is, with intent to kill himself. The man who 
 overtaxes his system, in a self-denying struggle to keep 
 his wife and children above want, will fall a victim to 
 apoplexy or paralysis as quickly, as though he did it out 
 of a selfish greed to fill his coffers with a miser's hoard. 
 The deluded wretch who, in all sincerity, abandons him- 
 self to the lewd rites of an obscene religion, to the 
 worship of the Cyprian Venus of the Syrian Ashtoreth 
 will end by making himself as much a beast, and sinking 
 as deep in the slough of moral pollution, as he who gives 
 himself up to like practices in conscious defiance of all 
 religion. 
 
 Mr. Beecher used to be pointed out as a shining 
 325 
 
example of the improved style of preaching which leaves 
 out the doctrines. Yet listen to his own statement and 
 illustrations: "It is often said", — I quote his words — 
 "It is no matter what a man believes if he is only sin- 
 cere. This is true of all minor truths, and false of all 
 truths whose nature it is to fashion a man's life. It will 
 make no difference in a man's harvest whether he think 
 turnips have more saccharine matter than potatoes, 
 whether corn is better than wheat. But let the man 
 sincerely believe that seed planted without plowing is 
 as good as with, that January is as favorable for seed- 
 sowing as April, and that cockle-seed will produce as 
 good a harvest as wheat, and will it make no dif- 
 ference? " 
 
 But there are no truths which have in them such 
 power to fashion the life, as the great truths about God 
 and Christ and the hereafter. 
 
 A man often falls below his creed, just as he often 
 falls below his ideal. But he seldom or never lives above 
 it. One may indeed put his creed away in some closet of 
 his mind, lock it up, and never look at it. But so far as he 
 uses it, — and a creed is made to be used and not locked 
 up, — it shapes his life. 
 
 Will it make no difference with a man's life whether 
 he acts on the belief that there is a God, that he is a sin- 
 ner needing a Saviour, that Jesus is the incarnate Son of 
 God who came into this world to save sinners, or 
 whether he acts on beliefs the opposite of these? 
 
 Nay, it will make a difference, such a difference that 
 if he acts upon the wrong beliefs in these matters, his 
 life will be a blunder, a well meant blunder, if you choose, 
 but a fatal and an irretreivable blunder, nevertheless. In- 
 deed the more sincere one is, i. e. , the more intense his 
 convictions, the worse, if his convictions are wrong. For 
 they will impel him the more powerfully in the wrong 
 direction. 326 
 
One of two things we must do. Either we must 
 shape our life according to some definite plan or we must 
 drift. To drift, beside being unworthy of a creature with 
 intelligence, is certain shipwreck. But to form a plan, 
 we must have made up our minds concerning great 
 spiritual facts, to form a judicious plan we must have 
 made up our mind upon them according to truth. Sail- 
 ing by a chart is no safer than drifting, unless the chart 
 be true. 
 
 But some would put it another way. Instead of say- 
 iug : no matter what one believes, so long as he is sin- 
 cere, they say : no matter what one believes so long as 
 his life is right. Very well ; be it so. Without doubt 
 character is ultimate. It is the life, not the belief, that 
 is weighed in the balance. But will the life be right, can 
 it be right when belief on fundamental points is wrong? 
 "Oh God, though he doubted thy being, he lived thy 
 law," was the prayer of a so-called "liberal" minister, 
 by the grave of one who had said in his heart, "There is 
 no God." Lived God's law ! that law of which the first 
 great commandment is: "Thou shall love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all 
 thy strength and with all thy mind." 
 
 The word of God itself says: "Without faith it is 
 impossible to please him; for he that eometh to God must be- 
 lieve that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that dili- 
 gently seek him." 
 
 There, then, are at least two articles of creed laid down 
 as indispensable to the very beginning of a right life. It 
 is by first narrowing the definition of a right life so as to 
 leave out some of its most essential features that we so 
 easily persuade ourselves that the creed has nothing to 
 do with such a life. Life is shaped by motives; and 
 motives grow out of convictions. The aim of religion, it 
 is urged, is not to teach men what they ought to believe, 
 
 327 
 
but what they ought to be. No, not that either. The 
 aim of religion is not even to teach men what they ought 
 to be, but to make them what they ought to be. 'Tis 
 one thing to make men see their duty, and quite another 
 thing to make them do their duty. For this, mighty mo- 
 tives are needed. And nowhere are motives so mighty 
 to be found as in the great realities of the spiritual world 
 as set forth in the doctrines of the Bible. 
 
 Socrates believed that sin was the result of igno- 
 rance, and that men only needed to be shown the better 
 way to walk in it. But when he and his followers, — the 
 wisest and purest philosophers of Greece, if not of the 
 world, — had been pointing the way for four hundred 
 years the world was no better than before ; and we still 
 find the cultivated Roman poet, with all these teachings 
 before him, cooly confessing : "I see and approve the 
 better ; I follow the worse." And you and I, my friends, 
 know only too well how many wise and earnest exhorta- 
 tions to duty we have heard and approved of and — 
 neglected. 
 
 Mere exhortation will always be received so by the 
 mass of mankind. Preaching which consists simply in 
 imploring men to " be good", will always fail. Trying to 
 move men so, is like trying to move a boulder by a direct 
 push of the crowbar. First throw down a solid block of 
 doctrine as a fulcrum, and then resting your lever of ex- 
 hortation upon that you may work to some purpose. It 
 was the boast of Christianity that she brought a purer 
 morality to men ; but it was her prouder boast that she 
 brought men to a purer morality. It was something to 
 have given the world a more perfect code of ethics than 
 all the philosophies and all the religions of antiquity 
 could furnish. But often as her first defenders against 
 the assaults of heathenism and scepticism appealed to 
 this, they appealed yet oftener and with greater triumph 
 
 328 
 
to her success in reducing that sublime code to practice, 
 and purifying a society that was festering in its own rot- 
 tenness. And this achievement she owed to her doctrines 
 of God, of man, of sin, of redemption, of the Holy 
 Ghost, of heaven and hell. It was the tremendous and 
 accumulated weight of these behind her exhortations, 
 driving them home to the very core of men's souls that 
 made them take hold as no exhortation of the mere 
 moralist had ever taken hold. 
 
 Armed with the power of these doctrines her mis- 
 sionaries have gone hopefully among the most debased 
 and imbruted of mankind, among savages so ignorant 
 thai they could scarce grasp the simplest processes of 
 multiplication, and so vile that the last vestiges of the 
 family had disappeared ; and there, where the moralist 
 would have stood aghast, when the most sanguine of 
 philosophers would not have had the hardihood to put 
 his system to the test, — there, waiting for no prepara- 
 tory process of civilization, nor of education other than 
 education in these same doctrines which some think too 
 abstruse and recondite to be of profit to an American 
 congregation, they have wrought results by the side of 
 which there is nothing more wonderful even in the open- 
 ing of the eyes of the blind and the raising of the dead to 
 life. 
 
 You may think, my friend, that you are so in love 
 with purity and virtue that you need no such goad to 
 your pursuit of them. Have you then found it so? Are 
 you making such rapid strides towards the goal of moral 
 perfection, and do you find the steep ascent so easy that 
 you can afford to dispense with anything that would sup- 
 port and quicken your steps? 
 
 " Give attendance to doctrine" ! It is a charge not 
 for the preacher only, but for every man and woman, yea, 
 and child. "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue, 
 
knowledge. 1 '' " Whatsoever things are true — think on 
 these things. " 
 
 The spiritual world is too real and too near for you 
 to put aside all question about it with easy nonchalance. 
 Its possibilities of evil and misery are too tremendous to 
 be dismissed with the sluggard's confidence that "some- 
 how all will come out right." "Give attendance to 
 doctrine ; " and let it be a reverent and earnest attend- 
 ance. This is no field, and your brief lite gives no time 
 for a dilettante scepticism. The great questions about 
 God and the soul, the solemn questions that men ask in 
 the shadow of the cross, and in the shadow of the grave, 
 are no riddles for an after-dinner exercise of wit. They 
 are questions to be pondered and wrestled with and 
 prayed over till the fulfillment of the promise is obtained : 
 " When he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide 
 you into all truth." 
 
 330 
 
SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 
 
 " By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out; 
 They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty; 
 But none saith, where is God, my maker, 
 Who giveth songs in the night? "-Job 35: 9-™- R - v ■ 
 The book of Job unfolds in a dramatic dialogue of 
 unsurpassed power and beauty the struggle of the human 
 mind with the problems presented by the divine govern- 
 ment of this world. On the one side are Job's three 
 friends, contending stoutly for the proposition, that under 
 th- government of a just God suffering is always the pen- 
 alty and therefore the proof of guilt ; and that when a 
 good man (in appearance) is overwhelmed with calamity, 
 it stamps him as a cunning hypocrite, who beneath a 
 mask of piety conceals a character rotten to the core. On 
 the other side is Job himself, in his conscious integrity, 
 repelling with indignation the conclusions of his mends, 
 vet so far accepting their premises that he is involved in 
 a hopeless mental conflict, in which he is brought once 
 and again to the very verge of an impeachment of God. 
 After Tob has thus by his vehemence silenced his friends 
 without satisfying himself or finding a solution of the 
 problem, another party to the discussion presents him- 
 self, in the person of Elihn, the son of Barachc the 
 Buzite, who, despite his youth, essays to play the role of 
 umpire in the strife, and give a solution which shall place 
 both Job and his friends in the wrong. This he accom- 
 plishes with but indifferent success, suggesting indeed 
 one important truth which the former disputants had 
 
 331 
 
Overlooked, and which does much to relieve the difficulty, 
 to-wit, the disciplinary aspect of trial, yet leaving the 
 matter still involved in darkness, till God himself draws 
 near in the awful majesty of the storm, and speaks the 
 final word. 
 
 It is in this discourse of Elihu that we find the words 
 to which I have drawn your attention. They are a reply 
 to the complaint of Job (set forth at length in chap. 24 : 
 1-12,) that God allows so much oppression and misery to 
 go unrelieved and unavenged. ' ' They pluck the fatherless 
 from the breast," Job had complained, "and take a 
 pledge of the poor, they cause him to go naked without 
 clothing and they take away the sheaf from the hungry. 
 . Men groan from out of the city, and the soul 
 of the wounded crieth out, yet God layeth not folly to 
 them " — that is, he does not bring them to account for 
 their cruelty. 
 
 Looking back to these words Elihu declares, that if 
 the oppressed cry out in vain and obtain no deliverance, 
 it is because they do not turn to the true source of relief. 
 " By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out. 
 They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty ; 
 but none saith : where is God my maker, who giveth 
 songs in the night? " 
 
 "Songs in the night" — let this then be our theme, 
 and let us learn ever from Elihu's imperfect wisdom this 
 great lesson, that he who would learn these songs must 
 have God for his teacher. 
 
 Night! It is God's symbol of all painful and gloomy 
 things. It stands in his word for sorrow and loss, as the 
 light and the day for prosperity and joy. And as there 
 is no land under the sun on which the shades of night do 
 not fall, so there is no human life which has not its night 
 of weeping, its deep shadows of trial. Of one land alone, 
 and that a "land that is very far off," is it written, 
 
 332 
 
" There shall be no night there," a prophecy which finds 
 its counterpart and its interpretation in those other 
 words : " God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." 
 Life here is a checkered experience, of mingled light 
 and darkness, smiles and tears. Sooner or later the 
 brightest sun of prosperity, of happiness, goes down, and 
 it is night. It may be the lonely night of bereavement, 
 when one listens in the awful silence for a voice that is 
 forever still. It may be the chilly night of misplaced 
 trust and disappointed affection, when one sits in sack- 
 cloth by the ashes of a desolated hearth. It may be the 
 restless, tossing night of pain and sickness. It may be 
 the bleak and wintry night of poverty and unsuccessful 
 struggle. It may be the stormy night of oppression and 
 persecution, in which the lightnings flash and the rain 
 beats pitilessly on a defenseless head. In one guise or 
 another the night comes to all. " Man that is born of 
 woman, is of few days and full of trouble." 
 
 But while the experience of trouble is common to all, 
 men differ widely in their way of meeting trouble. These 
 words of Elihu suggest this difference. They describe a 
 common way of meeting trouble, which brings no relief ; 
 they point out a better way ; and they show the effect of 
 meeting trouble in that better way. 
 
 Elihu makes first of all a sweeping assertion respect- 
 ing the way in which men are wont to meet trial, in that 
 particular form of it to which he was then referring — 
 "By reason of the multitude of oppressions, they cry out; 
 the cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty ; but 
 none saith, where is God my maker? " That is, few say 
 this. The mass of men, when trouble comes upon them, 
 meet it simply with groans and complaints. They turn 
 every way for relief but the right way. They cry out, 
 now in rage and now in despair, but they do not pray. 
 They look upon their troubles perhaps as an ac- 
 
cident, perhaps as an injustice, rarely as a lesson 
 set by a loving hand ; moaning in mere pain, as the brute 
 might, rather than asking after a deeper meaning. ' ' None 
 saith, where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the 
 night, who teacheth us more than the beasts of the field 
 and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven? " 
 
 This is too true a picture of human life. Few things 
 are sadder than the rarity of true religion among those 
 who seem most to need its consolation. Take, for in- 
 stance, the condition of the laboring classes in England 
 to-day. It is a condition of great, often abject misery. 
 It is misery resulting in great part from oppression, the 
 oppression of an unjust land system, and the oppression 
 of soulless capital. By reason of the multitude of these 
 oppressions the oppressed cry out. Yet none saith, 
 " Where is God my maker?" For if there is one thing 
 sadder than the physical condition of these masses it is 
 their spiritual condition. Of all classes in England they 
 are admitted to be the most destitute of religion, the 
 most inaccessible to the comforting message of the 
 gospel. This misery, when it has not hardened them 
 into a bitter hatred of a religion identified in their minds 
 with the oppressions under which they groan, seems to 
 have crushed out their susceptibility to spiritual influence. 
 
 The cry of "Bread, bread," which inaugurated the 
 French Revolution with its wild carnival of atheism, — 
 the cry of nihilism to-day, proclaiming on behalf of the 
 oppressed masses of Europe that " the first lie is God, 
 and the second lie is right," and demanding the destruc- 
 tion of all religion as well as all social order as the only 
 remedy for the ills under which they groan ; the cry of 
 communism, telling the toil-worn and the hungry that 
 Christianity has nothing to say to them, and preaching to 
 them a gospel of anarchy leading to a millenium of idle- 
 ness, — these are examples of the cry of which Elihu 
 
 334 
 
speaks, a cry as old as the groaning of thelsraelitesunder 
 their Egyptian task-masters, when they bade Moses and 
 Aaron go their ways and let them alone, because they had 
 made their case worse than before ; — a cry which brings 
 back no answer but its own wailing echo. If I have gone 
 abroad for illustrations, it is only because there the con- 
 trasts are a little sharper, the lights and shades a little 
 more pronounced. Turn to our own city, go into its 
 wretchedest quarters, where the poverty is deepest, the 
 toil hardest and most ill-paid, the surroundings most 
 squalid and repulsive. You may see misery enough there. 
 You may hear groans and curses till your soul is sick. 
 But how few you will find asking : "Where is God my 
 maker?" How long must you listen for the "Song in 
 the night?" 
 
 Or turn in another direction. Go up the marble 
 steps of yonder mansion. Pass through that stately 
 portal. Enter those richly tapestried parlors. Without, 
 the sun is flooding the world with glory ; but within is 
 night— deep, dark night. For the voice that once made 
 those walls echo with glee is still. The golden hair that 
 once flashed like sunshine through those rooms is pil- 
 lowed in a coffin, and now this is a childless home. It is 
 night here ; but you listen in vain for any song in the 
 night. For this is a prayerless home. That mother is 
 weeping her life away in despairing grief. That father 
 is going to and fro, making no sign, mastering and lock- 
 ing up in his bosom by sheer force of will a dumb anguish 
 that is making him old before his time. But neither says : 
 "Where is God my maker?" Neither looks above for 
 comfort or strength. And so the blessings are all missed. 
 The sweet songs that that night of sorrow might have 
 taught are all unlearned. 
 
 Oh, the pity of it ! The pity of it ! Of all wastes of 
 which the world is full— wasted hours, wasted riches, 
 
 335 
 
wasted labors, wasted loves, — what other so pitiful as this 
 untold mass of wasted sorrows, — sorrows that teach no 
 lesson, sorrows that bring no higher comfort, sorrows 
 that come as heaven's messengers to bring back wander- 
 ing souls, but that only end in driving such souls farther 
 into darkness and rebellion? 
 
 Trouble so met sometimes leaves men bitter and de- 
 fiant ; sometimes it renders them stolidly indifferent ; 
 sometimes it drives them to despair and self-destruction ; 
 never does it leave a blessing behind it. Now and then 
 one tries to rise above it, to sing in the night. But the 
 song soon dies away into a wail or breaks into a sob. The 
 broken heart cannot make its own music. The song in 
 the night is a gift. 
 
 In contrast, then, with all these ways of meeting 
 trouble, — the dull way, the defiant way, the despairing way, 
 the humanly self-reliant way, there is but one true way 
 of meeting it, but one victorious way, one way which can 
 wring joy and blessing out of the very sorrow itself, and 
 make music out of pain, and that is, to inquire after 
 God. 
 
 To inquire after Him as teacher. Trouble is God's 
 messenger. "Affliction cometh not forth of the dust; 
 neither doth trouble spring out of the ground." We are 
 in the hands of our maker. Day and night come to us 
 by His command. There is no chance about them 
 therefore, but divine meaning. The night comes for a 
 purpose. It hides a lesson. It is part of the discipline 
 by which immortal souls are trained. Hence no man meets 
 sorrow rightly who does not seek to hear God speaking 
 to him in it. When the voice came from heaven in 
 answer to the prayer of Jesus in the temple, some of 
 them that stood by said that it thundered ; but Jesus 
 himself heard the words of strength and comfort spoken 
 to him by his Father. O brother man, on whose head 
 
 336 
 
the storm is breaking to-day, do not be content to hear 
 in it merely the thunder of nature. Listen ! Inquire ! 
 and you shall hear God's voice speaking its articulate 
 personal message of instruction to you. 
 
 This is not saying that we are to try to trace in 
 every trial some distinct connection with our own past 
 conduct, some rebuke of specific sins. That was the very 
 error of Job's friends, by which he steadfastly refused to 
 be misled. It is not saying that we should seek to un- 
 ravel all the mystery of Providence, and know why we 
 are led in one way, others in another, why we suffer 
 while others rejoice. These are questions it is vain to 
 ask. Eternity alone holds the answer to them. It is 
 one thing to ask such questions, and another to ask, 
 What spiritual truths would God reveal to me, what les- 
 sons of experience would he have me make in this dark- 
 ness into which he has led me apart? These are 
 questions that will never be earnestly asked without 
 finding an answer. They are questions the asking of 
 which is essential to the right use of sorrow, and to true 
 comfort in sorrow. For sorrow is endurable in propor- 
 tion as it is intelligible, in proportion as we can hear in 
 it a kindly voice, and see beyond it a beneficent aim. 
 
 God is also to be inquired after as Helper. There is 
 a specific for the bearing of trial as distinct as any specific 
 against a fever or a poison, and more sure. That specific 
 is prayer. There is relief in it, there is strength in it, 
 such as can be found nowhere else. Trials cannot be 
 successfully borne alone, because they were never meant 
 to be borne alone. They were meant to be cast upon 
 God. They were meant to throw us upon His strength 
 and to teach us its sufficiency. He who attempts to bear 
 his trials without prayer makes the same mistake that one 
 would make who should attempt to carry a heavy load 
 all day without food. If every trial is God's messenger, 
 
 337 
 
a part of its message always is to call us nearer to Him. 
 If every trial has its lesson to teach, one of these lessons 
 is sure to be the lesson of our dependence upon strength 
 from above. 
 
 See now what the gain is of thus coming to God. To 
 one who thus comes to Him to be taught and to be sus- 
 tained, He gives songs in the night. He does not at once 
 dispel the darkness, perhaps, but he comforts in it. And 
 so in the night, where nature can only weep, grace sings. 
 
 Songs in the night He gives ; not one song only, but 
 many. 
 
 He gives the song of peace : "Thou wilt keep him 
 in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." "In 
 everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 
 let your requests be made known unto God, and the 
 peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall 
 keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." 
 
 He gives the song of trust. Listen to that song as 
 it comes from the lips of the sweet singer of Israel : 
 "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
 of death, I will fear no evil ; for Thou art with me, Thy 
 rod and Thy staff they comfort me." " God is our refuge 
 and strength, a very present help in trouble ; therefore 
 will not we fear though the earth be removed and though 
 the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." 
 Listen to it as it comes in strains scarcely less sweet from 
 uninspired lips : 
 
 I know not if or dark or bright 
 
 Shall be my lot, 
 If that wherein my hopes delight 
 
 Be best or not. 
 
 My bark is wafted from the strand 
 
 By breath divine, 
 And on the helm there rests a hand 
 
 Other than mine. 
 
 338 
 
One who has known in storms to sail. 
 
 I have on board. 
 Above the raging of the gale 
 
 I hear my Lord. 
 
 He holds me when the billows smite, 
 
 I shall not fall. 
 If sharp, 'tis short: if long, 'tis light. 
 
 He tempers all. 
 
 This song of trust is peculiarly a song of the night. 
 We can scarcely learn to sing it from the heart till the 
 darkness gathers about us. And if the darkness brought 
 us no other blessing than to teach us that song, it would 
 re worth all it costs. 
 
 But He gives also the song of hope. No night for 
 the child of God is eternal. In the deepest darkness hope 
 catches glimpses of a coming dawn. The horizon is 
 bright with promises, which, like morning clouds, glow 
 with the light of approaching day. And so in the deep- 
 est gloom the Christian can sing of heaven : "I shall be 
 satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness." " Thou wilt 
 show me the path of life ; at Thy right hand there are 
 pleasures forever more." 
 
 Finally he gives — noblest song of all — the song of 
 triumph. "Not only so, but we glory in tribulation." 
 " Our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh 
 for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 
 " In all these things we are more than conquerors through 
 Him that loved us." He enables us not only to rejoice 
 in the face of trial, but to rejoice over trial, to "count it 
 all joy when we fall into divers temptations," because we 
 see before us not only deliverance from the trial, but 
 gain through the trial, purer, more Christ-like character 
 and a greater weight of glory as its result 
 
 And so God's children have always been known in 
 the world by their songs in the night. 
 
 339 
 
Hark ! And you will hear them coming faintly 
 through the barred casements of many a dungeon ; as at 
 midnight they come from the heart of that dungeon at 
 Philippi where Paul and Silas lay with feet fast in the 
 stocks. Hark again ! You will hear them as they ring 
 out cheery and full of praise from the humble cottages of 
 the poor. Hark again ! Can you not hear them rising 
 in weak and tremulous tones, yet sweet and full of 
 patient trust, from beds of pain? Aye, can you not hear 
 them, sinking almost to a whisper, but that whisper a 
 whisper of triumphant hope, on the lips of those who are 
 fast passing into the shadows of the last night of death? 
 
 I hear one of those songs now, a glorious, a triumph- 
 ant song. It is the voice of an apostle, and it comes 
 from a Roman prison, where he lies waiting for the exe- 
 cutioner to lead him forth to martyrdom: "I am now 
 ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at 
 hand. I have fought a good fight ; I have finished my 
 course ; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid 
 up for me a crown which the Lord the righteous judge 
 shall give me at that day." 
 
 I hear another, coming sweet and clear from behind 
 the bars of the Bastile. This time it is a woman's voice 
 that I hear, the voice of Madame Guyon, imprisoned 
 there for her faith. 
 
 "A little bird am I, 
 
 Shut from the fields of air; 
 And in my cage I sit and sing 
 
 To him who placed me there ; 
 Well pleased a prisoner to be, 
 Because, my God it pleases Thee, 
 Naught have I else to do ; 
 
 I sing the whole day long; 
 And he whom most I love to please, 
 
 Doth listen to my song, 
 He caught and bound my wandering wing, 
 But still He bends to hear me sing. 
 340 
 
My cage confines me round, 
 
 Abroad I cannot fly ; 
 But though my wing is closely bound, 
 
 My heart's at liberty ; 
 My prison walls cannot control 
 The flight, the freedom of the soul. 
 
 Oh ! it is good to soar 
 
 These bolts and bars above, 
 To Him whose purpose I adore, 
 
 Whose providence I love ; 
 And in Thy mighty will to find 
 The joy, the freedom of the mind." 
 
 I hear that song again ; this time from the dying 
 bed of a minister of Christ, the venerable Dr. Payson, as 
 amid the bodily sufferings and agonies indescribable of his 
 last days, he exclaims: "The celestial city is full in 
 my view ; its glories beam upon me ; its breezes fan me ; 
 its odors are wafted to me ; its sounds strike upon my 
 ear and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing 
 separates me from it but the river of death, which now 
 appears but an insignificant rill that may be crossed 
 at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. 
 The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing 
 nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he 
 approached ; and now He fills the whole hemisphere, 
 pouring forth a flood of glory in which I seem to float 
 like an insect in the beams of the sun." 
 
 Ah what havoc would it make with our Bibles, what 
 havoc with the poetry of Christian experience, were we 
 to take out of them all the songs of the night. 
 
 There is a peculiar sweetness in the song of the 
 night, a depth, a tenderness, a heavenliness, which other 
 songs do not bear. The groves of old England are full of 
 sweet songsters, which make the day vocal with their 
 cheerful notes. But when the sun has gone and the 
 
 341 
 
gathering shades of evening have hushed the chorus into 
 silence, then it is that richer, clearer, sweeter than all, — 
 its notes thrilling with a passionate ecstacy, — the song of 
 the nightingale floats out upon the dark. It is nature's 
 parable of the priceless lessons of affliction, of the song 
 in the night, surpassing all other songs. 
 
 My friends, the night will come first or last, to us 
 all. We cannot keep it away. I once read a pretty little 
 conceit of two children who had been at play in the 
 meadows and who had found the day so beautiful and per- 
 fect that they could not let it go, and so that the sun might 
 not know his going down, they stole in and turned back 
 the hands on the great clock in the hall. But while they 
 were still rejoicing in their beautiful day, they found that 
 the sun was sinking behind the hills, and the long, long 
 shadows were creeping across the meadows, and the day 
 was gone. As vain are all our efforts to put off the night 
 of adversity. It must come. To some here doubtless it 
 has come. Others may not suspect it. There are blind 
 men whose eyes, like Milton's, are 
 
 " clear, 
 
 To outward view of blemish or of spot," 
 
 and give no hint to the observer of the darkness in which 
 the soul sits within. So there are lives seeming serene 
 and cheerful enough to those who know them only from 
 the outside, which are yet wrapped in the blackness of 
 darkness. The night has come, and you cannot help it. 
 You cannot bring back the lost joys. You cannot change 
 your night to day. 
 
 But there is one thing you can do. You can say, 
 Where is God my maker? You can listen for his voice. 
 You can grasp His hand. You can sit down humbly at 
 Mis feet to learn the lessons He would teach you. You can 
 cast yourself in prayer upon the everlasting arms. Then 
 He, who giveth songs in the night, will give them to 
 
 342 
 
you,- — songs that nodarkness can silence, songs that will 
 rise ever clearer and richer through the night watches, 
 till the\" are swallowed up in the glad shout of the resur- 
 rection morning, when "the day breaketh and the 
 shadows flee away." 
 
 343 
 

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