SERMONS 
 FOR LAY READERS 
 
 IN 
 
 THE AMERICAN CHURCH 
 
 BISHOP OF MARQUETTE 
 
OF Pfi//y^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 nCT 3 1928 
 
 "Logical st^ 
 
 BV 677 .P74 W35 1913 
 Williams, Gershom Mott 
 Human questions and divine 
 answers 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 DIVINE ANSWERS 
 

 HUMAN QUESTI0M~-2ii§^ 
 
 AND 
 
 DIVINE ANSWERS 
 
 Short Sermons Expressly 
 Written for Lay Readers 
 in the American Church 
 
 BV ^ 
 
 GERSHOM MOTT WILLIAMS 
 
 Bishop of Marquette 
 
 * 
 
 MILWAUKEE 
 
 THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN COMPANY 
 
 1913 
 
COPTBIGHT BY 
 
 THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO.. 
 191S 
 
TO 
 THE MOST BEVEBEND 
 
 Daniel Sylvesteb Tuttle, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 PBESIDINQ BISHOP, 
 THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE ANSWERS: 
 
 I. — Come and See 1 
 
 -* II. — Nathanael's Question 7 
 
 III. — The Hostile Jews 14 
 
 ,y^ IV. — NicoDEMUs' Question 21 
 
 V. — A Woman's Question 28 
 
 VI. — Faith is Work 35 
 
 VII. — The Reason for Fasting 42 
 
 V VIII. — The Traditions of the Elders ... 49 
 
 ir IX. — The First Stone 56 
 
 X. — No Faith, No Power 63 
 
 XI. — The Law of Forgiveness 70 
 
 XII. — Eternal Life 77 
 
 XIII. — The Way Home 86 
 
 XIV. — Profit Through Affliction .... 92 
 
 XV. — The Authority Over Us 100 
 
 XVI. — The Error of the Sadducees .... 108 
 
 XVII. — Our Lord's Self-Manifestation . . . 114 
 
 XVIII. — Our Own Duty First 120 
 
 XIX. — The Gospel to Abraham 126 
 
 XX. — The Coming of the Kingdom .... 132 
 
 XXI. — The Christian Ideal of Marriage . . 139 
 
 THE SHADOW OF PETER 148 
 
 FRAGRANT SERVICE 157 
 
 THE HEM OF CHRIST'S GARMENT 164 
 
 THE BUSINESS OF SERVING THE LORD ... 171 
 
viii HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 AN ADVENT WATCHWORD 177 
 
 BROTHERLY LOVE 186 
 
 MERCY, THE TRUE TEST OF RELIGION ... 192 
 
 THE TRAVAIL OF THE SOUL 200 
 
 THANKSGIVING DAY 208 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE SEVENTY 217 
 
 THE BLOSSOMING OF THE WILDERNESS . . 225 
 
 THE SINLESSNESS OF CHRIST 232 
 
 FOR EASTER-TIDE 241 
 
 THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN .... 249 
 
 DELIVERANCES 255 
 
 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 268 
 
 CONSECRATION 275 
 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER 283 
 
 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 290 
 
PREFACE 
 
 For many years the writer of these Sermons has 
 been obliged to call upon laymen to read occasional 
 services in small mission churches. In order to supply 
 them with sermons to select from, he has bought books 
 by many writers. There are a great many books of 
 excellent sermons, but most of them are not exactly 
 what is wanted for lay reading. They are either too 
 long, though not too long when the author delivered 
 them; or the note is too personal, though that might 
 also have been a merit when they were first preached; 
 or they are too elaborate and learned, making too great 
 demands upon the audience to follow them; or they 
 may be too English; that is, all the illustrations and 
 allusions are taken from English life. 
 
 Now such sermons may be useful in the hands of 
 persons competent to adapt them to the particular needs 
 of a small American congregation. But so few of my 
 lay-readers have had this power of adaptation, that I 
 have been forced to write many short sermons for them. 
 
 What I have kept in mind has been : as much brev- 
 ity as was consistent with a certain air of complete- 
 ness, simple language, clear statement, short para- 
 graphs and short sentences, so that the reader would 
 not be apt to make a mistake in the sense. Then I have 
 sought a certain obviousness. A lay-reader can hardly 
 
X HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 do justice to a sermon unless he can believe it to be 
 true, and adopt it as a statement of his own views. 
 Then I have purposely avoided the personal touch, and 
 let facts and illustrations speak for themselves. And 
 I have felt that the lay-reader's work ought never to 
 be put in the place of the clergyman's; it is purely 
 supplementary, so there is here no note of authority, 
 nor is there any controversy. Nevertheless, all the 
 sermons touch on personal religion, and keep close to 
 the Church's way, and it is my hope and prayer that 
 they may be of help in the forward work of the Church. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 I. COME AND SEE. 
 
 Where dwellest Thouf—St John 1:38. 
 
 HE place where John the Baptist was 
 preaching and baptizing when Christ 
 was ready to begin His ministry was 
 a spot across Jordan, near by the 
 southeast corner of Galilee. It is hard to realize 
 now that the country where so much of the Gospel 
 story was acted out was so small. But a strong 
 man could have walked in a day from Nazareth, 
 or Cana, to Bethabara, which is believed to be the 
 place of the baptism of Christ. The multitudes 
 who went out to John were coming and going. 
 
 There was probably a village there where light 
 entertainment could be had, but it is not probable 
 that in that country and climate men who were 
 naturally the visitors of the Baptist would make 
 much of sleeping in the open. The narrative 
 points to three days when our Lord was near 
 Bethabara. There was the day which, if we had 
 
2 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 no other account, would seem that of His baptism, 
 and on the following day John pointed Him out 
 to Andrew and his companion as "The Lamb of 
 God," and the day after that was the return to 
 Galilee, taking Cana, where the wedding occurred, 
 on the way. 
 
 The question can hardly refer to the home of 
 Christ, which had been, until then, at ^Nazareth, 
 and was soon to be for some time at Capernaum; 
 but to His temporary abiding place, perhaps a 
 little booth or tent, perhaps an open camp. At all 
 events, wherever it was, when Andrew and his 
 companion asked, "Where dwellest Thou ?" or bet- 
 ter, "Where abidest Thou?" our Lord answered, 
 "Come and see." So they followed Him, remained 
 with Him all night, and the next day went back 
 with Him toward Cana. 
 
 This reckoning does not quite fit in with the 
 story of the Temptation of Christ, which the other 
 Gospels place after the Baptism, and before the 
 public ministry. So it is more possible that the 
 first day mentioned in the account by St. John is 
 the first day after the return from the wilderness, 
 our Lord's immediate departure after His baptism 
 having given the Baptist no opportunity to make 
 a testimony to Him. Andrew and the other, 
 Simon Peter and Philip, were all disciples of 
 John, and all from the same town. The unnamed 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 3 
 
 disciple was probably St. John the Evangelist. It 
 is notable that St. John does not saj that our Lord 
 was baptized on that first day, but only that John 
 saw Jesus coming to him. 
 
 Most of us know very little of the sort of life 
 in the open in which the acquaintance of the dis- 
 ciples with their Lord began. It is a very inti- 
 mate life ; acquaintance ripens rapidly. It reveals 
 our Lord as extraordinarily accessible, ready to 
 share anything with those who seriously came to 
 Him. In the after days of His ministry He not 
 only welcomed people, even in the wilderness, but 
 He is not recorded as refusing entertainment from 
 anyone offering it, and yet some of the entertain- 
 ment was far from agreeable. But it all gave 
 Him an opportunity, and it gave His hosts a fur- 
 ther opportunity, to hear something that might 
 change the current of their lives. 
 
 Hospitality was easier then than it now is in 
 this land where living has become so complicated. 
 In the nature of things one would suppose that the 
 more we have to entertain with, the easier it would 
 be to entertain ; whereas, in fact, the more we have, 
 the harder it is finding guests to fit into the elab- 
 orate surroundings of modern housekeeping. Hos- 
 pitality is a virtue that is actually slipping away 
 from us. When angels came to Abraham he took 
 them in as a matter of course. But we would 
 
4 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 probably advise them to go to a hotel. For- 
 tunately, this virtue lingers in the rural part of 
 our land, and on the ranges where there are no 
 hotels, and it is there still realized that "a man^s 
 life consisteth not in the multitude of things that 
 he possesseth.'' 
 
 The house that never has a guest becomes the 
 home of routine, rather than of humanity. The 
 guest is usually not wanted because he would 
 break into the routine, and so such a house be- 
 comes a temple of selfishness. It does us actual 
 good to have to change our arrangements, and do 
 a little camping in our own homes, that we may 
 shelter strangers and friends. 
 
 For, think a little. If Christ should come, 
 would you think it possible to entertain Him ? He 
 certainly would come to you if you asked Him, 
 and bring into your house the real touch of home. 
 But if you thought it possible to entertain Him, 
 our modern customs would drive you almost irre- 
 sistibly to serve Him in Martha's spirit rather than 
 in Mary's : to try to fit Him to your ways, instead 
 of fitting yourselves to Him. 
 
 We can get our Lord's idea of home and a wel- 
 come, from various things He says in the Gospels. 
 Here is His widest invitation: "Come unto Me, 
 all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest/' When He sent His disciples to 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 5 
 
 evangelize Galilee and Judea, He told them to go 
 two and two, and when they came to a house to 
 say at the door, "Peace be to this house, and to all 
 that dwell therein.'' So a home ought to be a 
 place of peace, as well as of rest. A house ought 
 not to be "divided against itself.'' 
 
 It ought to be full of the acts of simple 
 charity. He speaks of the welcoming kiss, of re- 
 freshing water to drink and to cool the feet, of 
 eating "such things as are set before you," and so 
 of quiet contentment with plain living. 
 
 It would be a house with much prayer, or our 
 Saviour Avould have to leave it for a place to pray. 
 Eeligion would begin with early childhood, for 
 Christ took little children up into His arms, and 
 blessed them. He would bring Divine healing 
 and comfort if there were sick or mourners; He 
 would rejoice to be with us. 
 
 Our Saviour speaks of so many of the details 
 of housekeeping that it ought not to be hard to 
 think of Him as interested in all the things we 
 have to do; the lighting the candle, sweeping the 
 house, leavening the meal, grinding with the hand- 
 mill. Life was simple then; let us try to keep it 
 such as He could approve. 
 
 Let us try to enter into our Lord's love for life 
 in the open. He was at home there. "Consider 
 the lilies of the field." The wild flowers can help 
 
6 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 US to Christ. Kemember the great feast He 
 spread on the green grass. He spoke of the spar- 
 rows, the ravens, the eagles, the mothering, brood- 
 ing hen. He loved the sheep, the shade of the 
 olive trees, the high hills. 
 
 And then let us try to draw as near as we can 
 to Him in the home of the sanctuary, bringing 
 into it with our own hands all fair things to show 
 our love for Him, and to remind us of His love 
 for us, since all are His gifts. Bring the flowers 
 that He loved, the songs that He approved, the 
 light that symbolizes Him. Think of all His 
 homes. He inhabiteth eternity. He sitteth 
 above the water flood. He is in His Holy Temple. 
 Yet He dwelleth with the humble, the contrite, 
 and the lowly ; He makes His home in the purified 
 heart. The door of His house is always open; 
 let us open to Him the doors of our heart. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 II. — nathanael's question. 
 
 Whence hnowest Thou me? — St. John 1:48. 
 
 ERY little is known about !N^athanael; 
 even his identification with Bartholo- 
 mew adds practically nothing to our 
 knowledge. And aside from that 
 identification, and some traditions, of whose trust- 
 worthiness we really cannot pronounce anything, 
 we have just two mentions in the Gospel of St. 
 John. One is in the immediate context we have 
 chosen to consider, and the other is a mention in 
 the last chapter of the Gospel, which tells us that 
 his home was in Cana of Galilee. Cana was not 
 very far from iN'azareth, and its people had 
 evidently a very poor opinion of ISTazareth. This 
 was so true that l^athanael at once found it diffi- 
 cult to accept any one from such a place and 
 claiming to be the Messiah. But he had an open 
 mind, and was willing to investigate. 
 
 Coming to our Lord he is met by a testimony 
 
8 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 to his character which is one of the most remark- 
 able ever uttered by our Master. We recall no 
 other like it. "Behold an Israelite indeed, in 
 whom is no guile." That is, E^athanael's character 
 was free from all that made the character of the 
 real Israel so unlovely at first. Jacob made his 
 way at first by guile, deceit. He deceived Isaac, 
 he bargained with Esau, he was too sharp for 
 Laban. Of course he met with just about what he 
 dealt in, and, fortunately for him, became at last 
 a changed man. 
 
 I^athanael began his association with our Lord 
 with none of these unlovely traits to get rid of. 
 He had no guile, and he must have been therefore 
 a lovely character, full of a knowledge of the 
 Scriptures, that encouraged our Lord to speak to 
 him words which would have been mysterious to 
 anyone who had not thought deeply about Jacob's 
 life and call. Christ there reveals to Nathanael 
 that the Incarnation is the true Ladder of approach 
 to God, the true source of the ministry of angels. 
 It was when our Lord had described him as guile- 
 less, a saying of which Nathanael apparently 
 heard just enough to be sure that our Lord claimed 
 to know him, that the man enquired, "Whence 
 knowest Thou me?" 
 
 Our Lord's response was something that no 
 one but Nathanael himself could appreciate. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 9 
 
 "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast 
 under the fig tree, I saw thee." E"athanael had 
 evidently been quite alone when he was under 
 the fig tree, and it has been conjectured that he 
 was engaged in devotion; for he recognizes at 
 once the wonderful character of Christ's knowledge 
 of him, and confesses His Messiahship without 
 further delay. 
 
 A great deal has been written and enquired 
 about the limitations of Christ's knowledge while 
 He was here on earth. That there was some limi- 
 tation He Himself admitted, but there were signs 
 enough to mark His knowledge as super-human, 
 especially in His discernment of character. This 
 was not confined to any knowledge specially 
 born of sympathy with kindred souls. He knew 
 sinners as well as He knew saints, and He knew 
 the inmost recesses of being. He knew Simon 
 Peter much better than that impulsive character 
 knew himself; and as to Nathanael, He doubtless 
 surprised him very much by His characterization. 
 
 It is, however, our Lord's claim to have 
 knowledge of a man's most private moments which 
 is the subject we ought most to look at here. His 
 answer to I^athanael is the same as if He spoke 
 to us. You, too, said your prayers to-day. You 
 may have said them faithfully, thoughtfully, 
 humbly, spiritually, reverently, earnestly, just 
 
10 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 as prayers ought to be said for a blessing to fol- 
 low. Or it may have been formal prayer, per- 
 functory, with wandering mind, forgetful half 
 way through whether you had begun right and 
 were proceeding in the usual way. 
 
 The point is this : whether you were attending 
 or not, it is certain that Christ was. He sees, 
 He knows. He realizes. "All things are naked and 
 open before Him with whom we have to do." And 
 this does not merely apply to prayer, because we 
 have merely guessed that I^athanael was praying. 
 It applies to everything else. It applies to all 
 our needs, small or great. Cana was a little 
 town, Nathanael was not a widely known man; 
 a fig tree is a common tree, but not a big tree. 
 NathanaeFs affairs were probably no more im- 
 portant than yours or mine, and mine are of no 
 great consequence to anyone but myself. 
 
 But Christ knew, and, further. He knew in 
 the best kind of way. It was interested knowledge. 
 He appreciated the man, and all he was, and all 
 he thought. He knew his difficulties and limita- 
 tions; that he could not help his limitations, but 
 that he had no guile. And so He went the right 
 way to work to bring to this good man the chance 
 to be better, the chance to dedicate his sincerity, 
 his honesty, his spiritual perception to the right 
 Master. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 11 
 
 Could the Master say as much of you or me 
 as He did of Kathanael? No guile? Go back 
 over your life, and test it by Jacob's. You have 
 had a father and mother. You have had, perhaps, 
 brothers, uncles; perhaps you have dealt with 
 your family in a business way, perhaps only with 
 others. We don't get much justice in family 
 dealings generally. Partiality, jealousy, distrust 
 are apt to blind us. ^^Blood is thicker than water," 
 as the proverb says, but it isn't always cleaner 
 than water. The main question is, though. Do 
 you really think you are square, or would be 
 square, in dealing with people as Jacob dealt with 
 and battled with them by his wits? for he was 
 otherwise not a fighting man. 
 
 Most men are conscious in an unwilling way 
 of their own defects, but quite willing most of 
 the time to forget them. And sometimes we do 
 succeed for so long in forgetting them that we are 
 shocked when we again discover the guile lurking 
 hidden within us; what is picturesquely called 
 "the yellow streak." 
 
 Now all the time Christ knows, and all the 
 time Christ is either glad or sorry about us, and 
 all the time anxious to make us true Israelites, 
 purging away the guile, and bringing us into com- 
 munion with Himself. 
 
 It will be recalled that when Nathanael asked. 
 
12 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 "Can any good thing come out of I^azareth?" 
 Philip answered, "Come and see." Nathanael was 
 prejudiced, but he was unwilling to allow his 
 prejudice to prevent him from giving every ques- 
 tion fair consideration. He went to see. His 
 going brought him faith. ISTow, supposing you 
 have never fully yielded to the claims of Christ, 
 have you ever given Him His chance to remove 
 your prejudices? Whatever they are, they will 
 be met and banished if Christ is given His op- 
 portunity. It does not seem to matter much what 
 our prejudices are, as long as we can't help them 
 and are honest. Thomas had not the least right 
 to say, "I will not believe" except upon his own 
 conditions, but our Lord knew that Thomas loved 
 Him, and that he could not help his temperament ; 
 so He gave him exactly the proof that he asked 
 for. So too He met ^Nathanael's difficulty with 
 evidence which was all that could be asked. Only 
 ISTathanael had to be square, and Thomas had to 
 be square, and give up when the proof came. 
 
 It is not uncommon to see men fight strongly 
 against conviction, against Gospel assurance, as 
 if to surrender would mean defeat. It is the most 
 glorious kind of defeat. It ushers us into life. 
 It brings us to our Heavenly Father. 
 
 l^ow Christ not only knows us, our character, 
 and our need, but He knows all that we ought to 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 13 
 
 know. He has the Key of Knowledge, He has 
 the fulfilment of character. To be fair to ourselves 
 and Him is just to begin right. But we need long 
 discipleship before we are complete. Good man as 
 l^athanael was, his goodness had to be developed, 
 applied, consecrated, completed, and he himself 
 made absolutely the servant of God, the faithful 
 apostle. 'No present belief of ours that we are 
 innocent of this or that fault ought to content us, 
 until we have put ourselves wholly in the Saviour's 
 guidance. He sees us, but He wants us all to be 
 worthy to see Him, to see the full meaning, bless- 
 ing and salvation of the Incarnation; "to see 
 heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending 
 and descending upon the Son of Man." 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 III. THE HOSTILE JEWS. 
 
 What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou 
 doest these things? — St. John 2:18. 
 
 I HIS question is the first note of oppo- 
 sition encountered by our Lord in His 
 public ministry, and it was an oppo- 
 sition that never wavered until it had 
 killed Him. The temple in Jerusalem, Herod's 
 temple so called, was wonderful and glorious. 
 There was no break in the round of its services, 
 and it was thronged with worshippers. 
 
 But there was a business side to it, and the 
 chiefs in authority had an eye to this business 
 side, and profited greatly by it. They allowed 
 small hawkers to invade the temple courts to sell 
 there the doves for the sacrifices, and even the 
 sellers of the larger sacrificial animals, sheep and 
 oxen; and they allowed the money-changers to 
 set up their tables, so that foreign money could 
 be changed for the legal coinage of the sanctuary. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 15 
 
 Of course there was a profit on all this, and if we 
 look ahead at our Lord's words at the second 
 cleansing of the temple, we see that the profit was 
 not always honest. But our Lord says nothing 
 of that at this time. He simply expressed the 
 offense of turning the Temple of God, God's 
 house, into a house of merchandise, a shop. 
 
 It is noticeable that, though our Lord had no 
 other weapon than "a whip of small cords," He 
 had no real resistance from anyone of these in- 
 truders. He was entirely successful for the mo- 
 ment in getting rid of them, so that they must have 
 known that they had no business there. "'Tis con- 
 science makes cowards of us all." The opposition 
 came from the Jews, probably from the official 
 class, those really responsible, and this made its 
 importance. When they asked the Lord for a 
 sign, they had not yet fully determined to reject 
 Him, for they still thought they might find His 
 ministry useful to their plans. 
 
 But our Lord's answer was of a sort that would 
 have been useless to anyone with their unspiritual 
 views. His answer was, "Destroy this temple, and 
 in three days I will raise it up." And the 
 Evangelist's comment is, "He spake of the Temple 
 of His Body." The words spoken were remem- 
 bered by the Jews as if they were an attack on the 
 temple. This thought was still in their minds when 
 
16 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Stephen was tried, for the witnesses then said, ''We 
 have heard him say that Jesus of l^azareth shall 
 destroy this place, and change the customs Avhich 
 Moses delivered us." Truth cannot come into a 
 hostile mind ; it hears things warped and distorted. 
 
 The Jews answered our Lord, ''Forty and six 
 years was this temple in building, and wilt Thou 
 raise it up in three days ?" This exclamation our 
 Lord did not answer. 'No answer could have been 
 given; though doubtless He would have told them 
 all they could have understood. This was His 
 method. He never denied explanation to those who 
 were entitled to know because able to understand. 
 
 Our Lord's answer to the request for signs 
 was, hence, different in different cases. To these 
 Jews it was an enigmatic answer. But to John's 
 disciples, asking religiously, asking by authority 
 of John himself, who nevertheless sent to enquire, 
 we may believe, more on their account than on 
 his own, our Lord gave the signs which would be 
 plain to a student of prophecy, to a spiritually 
 minded man able to read "the signs of the times." 
 "Go your way and tell John what things ye have 
 seen and heard: how that the blind see, the lame 
 walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the 
 dead are raised up, to the poor the Gospel is 
 preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not 
 be offended in Me." 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 17 
 
 The order of these signs is reniarkable. In 
 every rhetorical judgment of good writing, it 
 would be taken that the last of them was con- 
 sidered by our Lord as the most important. That 
 the poor should find a helper and sympathizer, that 
 the Kingdom should be preached to them brought 
 in a marvel of marvels, a change affecting, not 
 this or that dead man, but the whole world of men 
 and ideas. It was the moral miracle that was the 
 most important, and in that sense, at least, there 
 is no reason why we should think that miracles 
 have ceased. 
 
 The miracle to which Christ mysteriously re- 
 ferred in His answer to the Jews, the miracle of 
 the Resurrection, is considered the central fact of 
 the Gospel. "If Christ be not raised, then is our 
 preaching in vain. Your faith is also vain." It 
 was sufficient for thousands at the first preaching 
 of it; it has sufficed for all true Christians since. 
 But it did not satisfy many of those who must 
 have had just as much evidence of it as those who 
 did believe. It did not convert some who were 
 at pains to invent a lie to explain it away. Truly, 
 faith is greater than knowledge, and the knowledge 
 of a sacred fact cannot save us from our sins, if 
 we cling to our sin by choice. 
 
 The evidence of Christianity does not get less 
 as time goes on. The sifting of documents has 
 
18 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 now gone its fullest possible length, and we have 
 all sorts of expert testimony to the genuineness 
 of our records. The beauty of the Christ, the 
 perfection of His life continues unique. The ages 
 of enlightment have brought nothing forward to 
 supersede it. Modern science heaps up detailed 
 illustrations of the sacred facts, of their credibility, 
 of the truth and strength and importance of the 
 unseen. 
 
 But none of the testimony is of any value to 
 a heart which does not wish to believe, to a mind 
 intent to have things its own way. Those who 
 seem to find the difficulties of faith too strong 
 ought to examine into their hearts for the source 
 of their preconceptions. Why is faith easy for 
 me, and hard, perhaps, for another ? Have I per- 
 haps less intelligence, or has he ? Is not humility 
 the necessary approach to the study of any subject ? 
 And may not some pride of opinion be destructive 
 of any possibility of really learning? Hlustra- 
 tions of this could be found in the history of 
 science as well as religion. 
 
 Or, it would be perhaps useful for the man 
 who is hesitating to look around at his companions. 
 The honest doubter must shudder ofttimes when 
 he finds himself in the ranks of the opponents of 
 Christ. For these opposers include and marshal 
 hostilely against the Master the proud, the envious, 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 19 
 
 the covetous, the violent, the unclean, the cruel, 
 the wilfully ignorant. No one denies that there 
 are honest doubters. But they certainly cannot 
 doubt that Christ came to advance "whatsoever 
 things are true, pure, lovely and of good report," 
 and that, allowing for all the evil in the Church, 
 it continues to be "the blessed company of all 
 faithful people,'' the "Communion of Saints." 
 
 What is shown in the text in conflict with 
 Christ is described by its modern name of "graft." 
 Graft creeps in everywhere. It would rule the 
 Church if it could, as well as the legislatures and 
 society. It does not believe in virtue when it sees 
 it, or that the good is the holy. It not only disbe- 
 lieves in virtue, but it hates it. The Jews hated 
 Christ, and disbelieved in Him chiefly because 
 they hated Him. His principles rendered the 
 supremacy of formalists, or worldlings, impossible. 
 The behavior of such people is governed, not by 
 right, but by expediency. "It is expedient that 
 one man shall die for the people," or else "the 
 Romans will come and take away our place and 
 our nation." We shall lose our advantages. 
 
 It would seem to me, considering all Christi- 
 anity has been able to do for the world through 
 such faithfulness to her Master's teaching as she 
 has been able to arise to, that any thoughtful man, 
 who may yet have some lingering doubts of dog- 
 
20 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 matic details in Christianity, must feel that he 
 would rather die with Christ than live with the 
 opponents of the Cross. 
 
 And there is this last best thing in the matter 
 of evidence: that no one who has ever made the 
 great surrender, and tried Christ for His Friend 
 and Leader, has ever been disappointed. The 
 answers cease to be enigmatic and dark when we 
 get into His fellowship. We get to know of the 
 doctrine, because we prove God's will in daily 
 life. We know answers to religious questions in 
 the long run just as we know them to our other 
 problems. When the answer is right it just fits 
 in. Just as food is food because it does the work 
 of food, so Christ is Christ because He is the 
 Bread of Life. He is the Answer, the Satisfac- 
 tion of the heart. And there has never been any 
 other. Every one knows perfectly well that it 
 isn't a question of Christ or Buddha, of Christ or 
 Plato, of Christ or Mahomet — it is Christ or 
 nobody. And that there should be no answer to 
 the heart in a rational world is just simply un- 
 thinkable. 
 
 Let us then seek Christ in a purified temple 
 with purified lives. It will lead us on not only to 
 know that Ho is raised, but to have the power 
 of His resurrection in ourselves. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 IV. NICODEMUS' QUESTION. 
 
 How can these things he? — St. John 3: 9. 
 
 HIS was the question of a thoughtful 
 man who was interested in truth, and 
 was much impressed with Christ. But 
 it shows that we create some of our 
 own difficulties. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, but 
 an earnest Pharisee. He was a man of culture and 
 position. That position had won him respect and 
 deference. He valued his position, and was afraid 
 to do anything to hurt the esteem in which he was 
 publicly held. So, in his caution, he "came to 
 Jesus by night.'' That he came to put himself 
 under instruction is clear from the fact that our 
 Lord begins at once to teach; and that our Lord 
 understood him perfectly is made plain by the 
 other fact, that the first words of instruction went 
 absolutely to the bottom of things, and practically 
 overthrew all of Kicodemus' idea of any progress 
 that he might seem already to have made. 
 
22 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 It is very hard for a man in the position of 
 Nicodemus not to feel and act toward truth in a 
 patronizing manner, not to regard himself as of 
 rather too much consequence, and not to think that 
 truth ought to satisfy him, instead of trying to 
 satisfy the truth himself. Our Lord begins at 
 once "to teach with authority," since Nicodemus 
 has confessed that He is a "Teacher come from 
 God.'' And the first statement of our Lord is of 
 the necessity and manner of the New Birth. Both 
 are involved in being "born again," for the text 
 has a double translation. It means, as well, 
 "born from above." 
 
 Nicodemus is very much astonished, and gives 
 some signs of wishing to argue the matter. While 
 our Lord is not teaching "as the Scribes," Nico- 
 demus is listening in their manner. And he asks, 
 "How can a man be born again when he is old?" 
 "Can natural birth be repeated?" But our Lord 
 shows him that, though natural birth could be re- 
 peated, it would just bring us back to where we 
 already are. We want something different: to be 
 "born of Water and the Spirit." Or else we 
 "cannot see," which must also mean understand 
 and appreciate, "the Kingdom of God." We 
 cannot enter into the spiritual life without this 
 New Birth. Any life has to be begun by birth. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 23 
 
 "Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be 
 born again." 
 
 Then Nicodemus shows that he has never 
 thought about such things before; for he asks, 
 "How can these things be ?" Our Lord practically, 
 though not unkindly, shows him that, though 
 holding the place of a teacher in Israel, Nicode- 
 mus hasn't the least idea of the essence of things. 
 He presses home upon His visitor the fact that the 
 world and life are full of mysteries, and that re- 
 ligion must necessarily have mysteries of its own, 
 though they are like other mysteries, because they 
 come from the same God. 
 
 There is no way of finding these deeper things 
 out without a revelation, and we will not be likely 
 to accept a revelation if we have too deeply rooted 
 ideas and prejudices as to what it ought to be, 
 and have minds closed to the beauty and mystery 
 of the things around us. "If I have told you 
 earthly things," like the wonder of the winds, "and 
 ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you 
 of heavenly things?" And besides, there is no- 
 body else to tell of heavenly things. Xobody has 
 ever been in heaven but the pre-existent Word, the 
 Son of God who is now Son of Man. There is no 
 safe message that He does not send or bring. 
 
 That this doctrine changed the first attitude 
 of I^icodemus is plain from the way in which 
 
24 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Christ went on to tell of His own uplifting, like 
 "the serpent in the wilderness," of Himself as the 
 object of faith, and of the Gift of God's redeeming 
 love, of the great condemnation which should con- 
 sist in refusing the light of this new truth, the 
 Light of the Avorld. 
 
 Nicodemus after this interview gradually 
 grew in courage and faith. He once raised his 
 voice in defence of Christ, or in deprecation of a 
 hasty judgment upon Him by the chiefs of the 
 nation. And when the Lord was dead, he and 
 Joseph of Arimathea, another great man, buried 
 Him. 
 
 There is only time now to touch on the first 
 part of our Lord's answer to Nicodemus, the 
 necessity of the new birth. It isn't in man to like 
 necessity when it is laid upon him. But we have 
 learned not to quarrel with the necessity of natural 
 birth. There is no other way to come into life, 
 than through the travail of another. And when 
 we are born we are always children; we can't 
 grow up in a day ; we can't take immediate care 
 of ourselves ; we do not know of ourselves what is 
 best for us ; we must be sheltered, guided, fed, and 
 taught until "the time appointed of the Father." 
 
 So our Lord does not give many sources of 
 spiritual life, or suggest the occasional necessity 
 of a new birth, or that only a few need it ; but He 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 25 
 
 says that everyone who would enter into the new 
 Kingdom, who would escape from bondage, who 
 would conquer the flesh, who would obey the light 
 must be born again, bom from above. He must 
 become a child all over again; be humble, simple, 
 obedient, dependent, bide his time, yield to the 
 discipline provided. He must "become a fool that 
 he may become wise," for the wisdom of the world 
 will only stand in the way of his learning any- 
 thing; so much of it is absolutely false. 
 
 ]^ot but what this necessity for a complete and 
 humble and fundamental new beginning can be 
 illustrated many times from things in the world. 
 There is nothing unreasonable at all in Christ's 
 position. And the further a man goes up toward 
 the top of society, the more illustrations we can 
 get. Suppose a boy has taken the first honor at 
 the local High School, delivered the valedictory, 
 and passed out of the school-doors with applause, 
 and then receives an appointment to West Point; 
 what, and how, is he regarded after he gets there ? 
 As anyone in particular ? ^o, just as a beginner, 
 who needs to forget that he ever knew anything, 
 or was honored, or graduated. He is a new cadet, 
 "a high private in the rear rank." He has entered 
 into another world with a new code, new methods 
 of study, new traditions. 
 
 ^ow after four years let him graduate from 
 
26 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 the Academy as honorably as he did from the 
 High School, and then what ? He has to begin all 
 over again to be the junior Second Lieutenant. 
 He must not volunteer too much of his knowledge 
 in a world of superiors. But these are only partial 
 illustrations, because, in these cases, the man does 
 know something after all, and only needs adjust- 
 ment, humility, and patience, to come into his 
 own. But suppose a man of literary culture, but 
 no scientific training, determines to learn some- 
 thing of science, how does he begin? Why, 
 nowhere but at the beginning! 
 
 Every science has foundations. You can't 
 begin up in the air. These funny modern sky- 
 scrapers, where they seem to put in the tenth 
 story first, are no real exception, for the building 
 is really carried on the steel frame. There is no 
 royal road to anything but the way of hard, careful 
 work. And it is true of every science, every art, 
 every business, as well as of our relations to God, 
 that "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'' 
 
 The Church interprets our Lord's words about 
 the l^ew Birth as bearing closely upon Holy 
 Baptism. The little babe is brought to the church, 
 and we are asked to make him a member of that 
 heavenly society, and we baptize him. A great 
 general, like General Grant, in his last days seeks 
 a new life, a new relation to God. He is baptized. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 27 
 
 A President of the United States retires to private 
 life after marvellous experiences and responsibili- 
 ties, and thinks of heaven. He is baptized. And 
 in some way the wisdom of the world is piqued, 
 and says, How can you possibly attribute spiritual 
 results to such a simple ceremony ? 
 
 Well, why not? Why does the apple fall? 
 Why doesn't it rise ? Why does our food nourish 
 us ? Why doesn't it choke us ? Why does a little 
 extra heat over the gulf of Mexico cause a Texas 
 storm ? Why is anything simple ? Or who under- 
 stands simplicity ? Let us go back to the servants 
 of E^aaman for sensible views. "My father, if 
 the prophet had bidden thee do some great thing, 
 wouldest thou not have done it? How much 
 rather when he saith unto thee, wash and be 
 clean?" 
 
 It should not be opposition, but gratitude, that 
 is aroused when we find that the Sacrament of the 
 'New Birth is so easy outwardly. It cannot be 
 easy inwardly, after a man is old. It is only "the 
 broken and contrite heart" that "God will not 
 despise," that is able to receive the birth of the 
 Spirit. Why God has linked things as He has is 
 not for us to say; but that He has done so, and 
 simply provided means for all of us to draw nigh, 
 we must believe ; for it is His Son who tells us of 
 heavenly things. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 V. A WOMAN^S QUESTION. 
 
 Sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well 
 is deep; from whence then hast Thou that living 
 Water?— ^t John 4:11. 
 
 ROBABLY no more interesting relig- 
 ious conversation was ever held than 
 that between our Lord and the woman 
 of Samaria. It is greatly to our re- 
 joicing and profit that He should have been willing 
 to talk with her, and the narrative offers us a great 
 study in making a spiritual approach. It is a 
 wonderful picture. Here is Jacob's well outside 
 the little town. The wayfarers have come along, 
 and one, wearied by long walking, is left sitting 
 and resting by the side of the well, while the others 
 go on into the town to buy food. The woman 
 comes out to the well alone, carrying her earthen 
 water- jar. She has probably filled it in silence, 
 and is ready to go back to the little city, when 
 the stranger Jew asks her for a drink. The in- 
 terest of the story leaps at once to higher meanings. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 29 
 
 and the drink is lost sight of. Did He get it, or 
 didn't He ? 
 
 One inclines to wish that the woman maj have 
 been a little kinder than her answer, and that she 
 may have put her first question while she was low- 
 ering the jar so the stranger could refresh Himsell:. 
 But His real thirst was for souls. ''How is it," 
 said she, "that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink 
 of me, which am a woman of Samaria ?" ''The 
 Jews," it is explained, "have no dealings with the 
 Samaritans." But something in our Lord's re- 
 sponse to this may indicate that the woman meant 
 to refuse Him, at least at first. "If thou knewesL 
 the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, 
 give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of 
 Him, and He would have given thee living water." 
 Perhaps the words "He would have given thee" 
 are meant to contrast Christ's willingness with 
 the woman's unwillingness. But from this time 
 on her interest is fully aroused. "Sir," she says, 
 "Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is 
 deep: from whence then hast Thou that living 
 water ?" Was she ironical in going on to ask, "Art 
 Thou greater than our Father Jacob ?" or did she 
 really begin to feel the wonder of Christ's Person ? 
 
 You all know the difference between what we 
 call living water, and dead, or stagnant, water. A 
 white rapid, or a bubbling spring would be living 
 
30 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 water in our sense, but not in Christ's. No matter 
 how cool, how pure, how light are the waters of 
 earth, no matter how freely we drink of them, 
 thirst returns. But he who has drunk of the true 
 living water has the fountain in himself, a spring- 
 ing well, "springing up into everlasting life.'' 
 
 Is it any wonder that this woman, to whom 
 water drawing from outside of the city was part 
 of her daily drudgery, should exclaim, "Sir, give 
 me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither 
 to draw?" But what are the next words of 
 Christ ? "Go, call thy husband, and come hither." 
 The woman replied, "I have no husband." We 
 cannot catch her tone exactly. But our Lord shows 
 instantly His perfect knowledge of her past life, 
 as well as her then present relationships, by say- 
 ing, "Thou hast well said, I have no husband: 
 for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom 
 thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst 
 thou truly." This was most unexpected to the 
 woman, who first tried to hide her confusion by 
 saying, "Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet," 
 and then to turn the conversation to another less 
 pressing topic by raising the question as to which 
 were right, the Jews or the Samaritans, in the 
 place they had chosen for their worship. 
 
 But our Lord would not be denied in carrying 
 the conversation to its proper end, that He might 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 31 
 
 lift the woman's soul to a realization of God as 
 Spirit, and of worship as spiritual and possible 
 everywhere. The Father was seeking for the 
 worship of His children. Our Saviour, in His 
 Father's Name, and in His own great weariness, 
 had come to seek and to save her. So by God's 
 mercy, this woman who had not been a good 
 woman, who wasn't a good woman when she came 
 out to the well, was transformed, as one of the 
 first fruits of the Gospel, into an obedient servant 
 and messenger. She went away to the city, told 
 her story to the men, and brought many to the 
 hearing of Christ's wonderful words, and to faith 
 in Him. 
 
 The first step in her conversion was asking 
 her to do a kind thing which was quite within her 
 powers. Even if that should not succeed, it, at 
 least, would have made her think whether she 
 ought not to do it. We must, if we take this 
 example, allow even bad people to do as much 
 good as they can, and willingly make ourselves 
 their debtors. The story is a great comfort and 
 inspiration to us. 
 
 But does it not raise the question, why the 
 Church in her ordinary organizations seems to do 
 so little work with people like this woman, who 
 need the Gospel so much. You see pleasing her- 
 self had still left her a drudge. Sin is never kind 
 
32 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 to its votaries. May we not be caring too much 
 for our reputations, and too little for sinners i 
 And may not our effectiveness be so small, not 
 only because we are so slow to begin such work, 
 but are also slow to make quick enough use of our 
 converts in extending it ? Who are converting the 
 Chinese now? Chinamen, who have been them- 
 selves converted to Christ. Who make rescue work 
 successful, where men are consecrated enough to 
 undertake it ? Rescued men and women. They 
 can do it, because, having been forgiven much, 
 and loving much, they can speak of love and for- 
 giveness. But do w^e love at all ? 
 
 When one compares the beautifid cathedrals of 
 England with those on the continent of Europe, 
 one notices that, while they are perhaps not so 
 large and not so high, they are not less beautifully 
 proportioned, and even more artistically finished 
 in some of their details. But they have so little 
 color in them. The great English churches once 
 had a great deal of color. But the painted glass 
 was an offense to some of our Puritan forefathers, 
 and they broke it, and then they whitewashed the 
 pictured walls to hide the saints and angels painted 
 there. Perhaps there were some things depicted 
 there liable to superstitious use, that it was just 
 as well to banish, but the coldness of the result 
 calls aloud for color. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 33 
 
 In a world of green and blue, of red and gold, 
 of orange and purple, of lilies and roses, of violets 
 and anemones, where God has set the temple of 
 His holiness among the shining stars, it cannot be 
 in anyway complete to have a cold, pale, flat or 
 formal religion. The water of life is sparkling 
 water, full of vigor and refreshment, full of joy 
 and energy. If you want to begin to feel what 
 this sparkle and bubbling life is, O man, O woman. 
 Go, call thy husband, friend, brother to enjoy it 
 with you, and quaff grace in sharing it. Our 
 Lord was really giving it to the woman of Samaria 
 when He was sending her as His messenger. 
 
 One would like very much to know what 
 became of that woman of the well-side. Of course 
 we do not really need to know, or we would have 
 been told. We know a good deal of other women 
 who learned of Christ. Mary Magdalene had been 
 a far worse woman than this one, and yet Mary 
 became a great saint, for she loved much. When 
 our Lord says to a social outcast, ^^Go, and sin no 
 more," He gives a hope as well as a command, and 
 strength to fulfil the command. 
 
 If the woman had to go on with her daily 
 tasks, drawing water at Jacob's well day after day, 
 we may still surely hope that she tried to live as 
 our Saviour had taught her, and to worship "in 
 Spirit and in truth." And surely, too, the old 
 
34 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 drudgery must have been lightened by the new 
 gift of grace. Drinking of the living water, we 
 may rest even while we work. 
 
 In that wonderful English romance, John 
 Inglesant, there occurs an epitaph on a country 
 clergyman which one may believe is not part of 
 the fiction in that beautiful tale. It records that 
 he was "full of cares and full of years. Of neither 
 weary, but full of hope and of heaven." This 
 would well describe a life lived in the refreshment 
 which our Master bestows, the gift of the fountain 
 within us, "springing up into everlasting life." 
 
 "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness, for they shall be filled." 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 VI. FAITH IS WORK. 
 
 What shall we do that we might work the works of Ood? 
 St. John 6:28. 
 
 UR Lord's discourse in the Synagogue 
 at Capernaum, with His revelation of 
 Himself as the Bread of Life, cannot 
 be taken out of connection with His 
 feeding the five thousand in the wilderness belong- 
 ing to Bethsaida. The miracle had immeasurably 
 astonished everybody. It had convinced the 
 beholders that Jesus was "that prophet" that 
 should come into the world, the one prophesied by 
 Moses who should resemble him. If our Lord had 
 chosen to go the path of popularity, the way the 
 people wanted Him to lead them, the path was 
 then immediately open to Him. The people would 
 have made Him a king. Instead of allowing this. 
 He slipped away quietly, and returned to Caper- 
 naum, and the people found Him in the Syna- 
 gogue. He had hidden His escape by another 
 
36 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 wonderful deed known only to His disciples, so 
 that the people could not imagine how He came, 
 nor did He try to enlighten them. 
 
 He takes up immediately the spiritual meaning 
 of His miracle, and tells them that their reasons 
 for seeking Him were quite unsatisfactory. They 
 were not interested in the matter of His preaching, 
 but they thought a person with such wonderful 
 powers could be a great reliance to them. They 
 did not have their eyes raised any higher than the 
 betterment of their condition ; there was no thought 
 of spiritual support. So our Lord urges them to 
 lift their eyes higher. But they can only think for 
 the moment how desirable it would be to be able 
 to work miracles themselves, so they ask, ^'What 
 shall we do that we may work the works of God ?" 
 
 Our Lord replies that the beginning of any 
 advance, of any achievement, would have to be 
 faith in Him. "This is the work of God that ye 
 believe on Him whom He hath sent." Faith is not 
 the slight thing some people might suppose, it is 
 not merely assent. The admission that Christ was 
 a great prophet did not help towards it; it was 
 rather in the way. Faith is so difficult, that the 
 Scripture always treats it as God's work in us. 
 And it is of more consequence than anything else 
 we can possibly attain to. The Jews respond by 
 asking for "a sign." Thoy had evidently seen a 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 37 
 
 connection between the miraculous feeding just ac- 
 complished, and the gift of Manna to their fore- 
 fathers in the wilderness. 
 
 But the likeness was not complete enough. 
 The feeding of the five thousand had been pri- 
 marily through a little bread put into Christ's 
 hands by a young by-stander. The Manna was a 
 real miracle, as they regarded it, substance and 
 all. So they in effect say, ''Do as much as Moses, 
 and we will believe on you." But our Lord was 
 not seeking to be accepted as the successor of Moses, 
 and shows that they were mistaken in making the 
 gift of Manna a work of Moses. It Avas a clear 
 gift of God, up to whom, and to the true Food 
 of souls. He was anxious to lead them. The 
 Manna came down from heaven, but it was 
 only a prophecy, a supply for the occasion. It 
 accomplished in the end no more than any other 
 daily bread. ''Your fathers ate it and are dead." 
 
 E'ow, Christ goes on, there really does come to 
 you the Bread, of which the Manna was only a 
 type. This Bread is "Living Bread." It is in 
 the Living Bread sent down from God that you 
 are asked to have faith. "I am the Bread of Life." 
 This seems to us now a perfectly natural claim 
 after the mighty deed which Christ had just 
 wrought. In whose power could He have done 
 that except in God's, and who must He be to have 
 
38 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 that power conferred upon Him ? But remember, 
 Christ was speaking in "His own city." He was 
 so well known there that He couldn't be known 
 differently from other people. And any claim to 
 be something in Himself was at once rejected by 
 many of His hearers. 
 
 They listened further, however, to a fuller un- 
 folding of His teaching. He explains that, not 
 only is He "the Bread of God," "the Bread of 
 Life," but that partaking of Him is necessary for 
 eternal life. The fruit of partaking of His Flesh 
 and Blood would be eternal life and the resur- 
 rection of the body; and without that partaking 
 there would be no such life at all. This, of course, 
 was a prophecy of the Holy Communion, and is so 
 understood by us. Taking Christ at His word to 
 Nicodemus, and believing what He says here, the 
 Church has announced that Baptism and the Holy 
 Communion are not only "means of grace," but 
 that they are "generally necessary to salvation." 
 This is not a doctrine ecclesiastically invented, but 
 a transcript of the scripture. 
 
 You will remember that a good many people 
 followed Christ up to a certain point, and that the 
 murmuring at His teaching is not always repre- 
 sented as the murmuring of the Jews, but some- 
 times as the murmuring of the disciples. There 
 was murmuring of this latter sort here. So it is 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 39 
 
 not therefore remarkable that there has always 
 been hesitancy in the Church about sacramental 
 doctrine. It seems to be as hard for some people 
 as it is easy and natural for others. 
 
 The doctrine Christ was expounding seemed 
 to the Jews and to His disciples extreme, and al- 
 most revolting. The temptation to many, now, to 
 get rid of the essential truth of our communication 
 in Christ's Body and Blood is too great. They 
 can only go part of the way with Him. Then to 
 make salvation hinge on this participation seems 
 strangely exclusive, and so one truth or another 
 is changed or avoided to make the Gospel fit ob- 
 jections, instead of fitting ourselves to the Gospel. 
 
 Sinners in need of salvation are curiously 
 captious. They are like men in danger of drown- 
 ing, who should object to the rope that was thrown 
 them, and should say, I don't like that rope; I 
 would rather have a life preserver. 
 
 This, however, ought to be added, for it seems 
 to be true: Our Lord was undoubtedly speaking 
 in advance of the institution of that sacrament, 
 wherein, after His Body had been visibly broken, 
 and His Blood poured out, He would make us 
 mystical partakers of the same, and continue these 
 blessed benefits to His Church for all time. But, 
 nevertheless. His words must have had a present 
 force. Those who had already given themselves 
 
40 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 to Christ must have seen great fitness in His state- 
 ment that He was the Bread of Life. They must 
 have realized that they could not live without Him, 
 that He was their daily support. 
 
 When other half-disciples went away, these 
 full believers foimd no one to go to. "Lord, to 
 whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of 
 Eternal Life." He was not only the one who 
 promised eternal life, but He may be said to have 
 been the only one who ever had the idea of it. 
 To whom, indeed, shall we go? 
 
 Now, when the Church preaches the "general 
 necessity" of the sacraments, she does not at the 
 same time disregard any portion of the truth, nor 
 conceal that the purpose of the sacraments is to be 
 means for effecting the general purposes of Christ. 
 If the Jews at Capernaum had been disposed to 
 accept Christ, they would not have had to wait 
 until the institution of the Lord's Supper to begin 
 to be partakers of Him. They would have been 
 united to Him by faith, at least in a measure ; but 
 when the sacrament came, it would have drawn 
 this union closer. Already His words could be 
 taken as "spirit and life." 
 
 So the Church does not doubt that many are 
 worthy communicants who yet do not visibly have 
 the tokens of Christ's presence before them. We 
 take great comfort on lonely death beds in the 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 41 
 
 thought of spiritual communion, and its reality 
 and saving character, even failing the visible table. 
 For then God spreads His own table to our faith. 
 And the Church is trying to train herself to recog- 
 nize goodness where she sees it. She sees people 
 feeding on Christ, though they do not appreciate 
 the sacraments. She thinks they are mistaken, 
 indeed, she knows that, and that they are queer in 
 their views; but has come to believe that queer 
 people can be good people, and that in some way 
 they are made communicants in spite of them- 
 selves. And, fortunately, the tendency of all real 
 acceptance of grace is to bring people back to the 
 use of normal means. It can be no accident that 
 so many Quakers have come into the Church. 
 They were seeking realities; the Baptism of the 
 Spirit, the true Fellowship and Communion with 
 Christ. Christ graciously accepted many of them, 
 and gave them what they sought, and this brought 
 to them the realization that whatever Christ in- 
 stituted must be real ; and because they came close 
 to Him they learned humility of Him, and bowed 
 themselves at the font and the altar. And we are 
 greatly enriched by their return. God keep us in 
 the way of faith: the sacramental way. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 VII. THE REASON FOR FASTING. 
 
 Then came to Him the disciples of John, saying, 
 Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, and Thy 
 disciples fast not? — St. Matt. 9: 14. 
 
 HE disciples of John were, at least, 
 serious people, though they had thus 
 far accepted only an introduction to 
 better things. There is evidence that 
 they were put forward, however, to ask this ques- 
 tion by others ; but, so soon as it was raised, they 
 naturally would seek the answer. Fasting was 
 considered a conspicuous virtue, an evidence of 
 sanctity. All eastern peoples so regard it. Al- 
 most all religions inculcate it, we really know of no 
 exception. 'Now Christianity from the very first 
 made larger claims than any other religion. How 
 could it be superior, as it claimed to be, if it 
 neglected anything so fundamental as fasting? 
 This seemed to be the state of mind in which 
 John's disciples found themselves. 
 
 Xow fasting does have its place in Christianity. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 43 
 
 Our Lord Himself fasted, He attached great im- 
 portance to it. He gave a number of precepts 
 about how it was to be exercised, He attributed 
 power to it. But He did not consider it important 
 except as a means to an end. To fast often, just 
 for the sake of fasting, that one might catalogue 
 the occasions and tabulate one's virtues, this is 
 quite the reverse of our Lord's view of fasting. 
 And so He explains to John's disciples that fasting 
 could be entirely out of place, just as much so as 
 if one should bring funeral thoughts to the house 
 of feasting. The children of the bride-chamber 
 simply couldnt fast! It would have been an 
 offense. And just so His disciples could not fast 
 as long as they were enjoying the presence of their 
 Lord. They might fast to prepare themselves to 
 enter His presence, but never in His presence. 
 
 'Now let us look closely at what fasting is, 
 and what it is not. Tasting is not merely going 
 without things. Our Lord's disciples went without 
 a great many things. They gave up home com- 
 forts, home occupations, in order to be with Him. 
 That was not counted fasting. They doubtless had 
 very plain fare while they were with Him, and 
 that was not counted fasting, though they probably 
 had less to encourage appetite at any time than 
 the most stringent Lenten rules would allow. That 
 men living chiefly on bread and water should not 
 
44 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 be considered as fasting, while others, having 
 three meals a day and a considerable variety, may 
 look upon themselves as doing it, seems at least to 
 call for some explanation. Let us try to find it. 
 
 There is no doubt that hardship of any kind, if 
 undergone purposefully in the line of our duty, 
 and cheerfully endured for the sake of any good 
 cause, is a real means of grace, and does resemble 
 fasting somewhat in principle. But enduring it 
 is a virtue in itself, which fasting hardly seems to 
 be. And description or definition of fasting has to 
 take into account its purpose. Its purpose is de- 
 tachment from the world, and approach to God, 
 laying ourselves bare and empty before Him, to be 
 filled with spiritual bounty and strength. And in 
 our Lord's life He always seems to have fasted 
 rather on account of others than for Himself. He 
 fasted to increase healing power. 
 
 So the details of fasting may vary about as 
 much as one pleases. But it has to begin in the 
 will. Whatever a man wills to go without for 
 the sake of teaching him direct dependence upon 
 God, for the sake of breaking down the power of 
 habit (not merely bad habits, but any habit that 
 limits the freedom of our service to God and man), 
 for the sake of grace that he may better spread 
 God's blessing, for the sake of revealing to him 
 what have boon his causes for thankfulness, for 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 45 
 
 the sake of telling him how far his apparent 
 virtues are bound up with his comfort, this is the 
 beginning of fasting. 
 
 The actual self-denial of fasting, therefore, 
 may be quite limited, as it may be fully in our 
 power to determine upon. The evidence of the 
 act may be symbolic, more than anything else. 
 Fasting which extends only to symbolic self denial 
 may, however, be extremely valuable, more so than 
 inexperienced prescriptions which we may make 
 for ourselves. For the Church knows a good deal 
 more about it than we do. And if we are to take 
 it up seriously we had better do it in her way, 
 under her guidance. For overdone fasting is no 
 better than no fasting at all, and is apt to be done 
 for imperfect reasons. 
 
 Remember clearly, therefore, that we are not 
 counted righteous or unrighteous for fasting or 
 not fasting, and we may so fast as to appear to 
 people who have to come pretty close to us any- 
 thing but heavenly minded; cross, mean, queru- 
 lous, unreasonable. What possible advantage can 
 that be to us ? And then if we begin real fasting, 
 it would be as unwise to begin with severity, as 
 it would be to demand that a young athlete should 
 try the hardest feats first, before he had been 
 duly exercised as a preliminary. 
 
 The Church's idea, therefore, following our 
 
46 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, is to give con- 
 siderable attention to such fasting as can be done 
 brightly and cheerfully in the eye of the world 
 without inconveniencing other people, without 
 calling their attention to us, without even being 
 noticed. It involves, if possible, the surrender of 
 some time. Friday is designated in every week 
 as a day of abstinence, measured, that is to say, 
 thoughtful abstinence. The thought involved, the 
 direction of the mind, is the most important part 
 of it. And Friday is chosen as the weekly me- 
 morial of the Passion of Christ. Thus the mere 
 thought brings us in the same direction that the 
 fasting is intended to carry us, into fellowship 
 with Christ. 
 
 Our Church says nothing specific about the 
 kinds of food we may allow ourselves on abstinence 
 days. But it seems well for us to consider ancient 
 customs. For while it is probable that the Church 
 meant to imply that the details were left to the 
 individual, and were less important than the 
 principle, it is also probable that it was thought 
 unnecessary to prescribe what everyone would be 
 likely to know without prescription. Everyone 
 for centuries had been in the habit of abstaining 
 from flesh meat, and eating fish where it was 
 obtainable. The fish was the ancient symbol of 
 the Christian. The Greek word for fish was com- 
 
~ DIVINE ANSWERS 47 
 
 posed of the words which, in that language, stood 
 for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour. 
 Thus, such food as custom permitted would accent 
 the purpose of fasting, the direct approach to 
 Christ. 
 
 Fasting undirected to any purpose is not re- 
 commended. All the holy men of old had the mind 
 directed toward the special benefit they sought in 
 drawing near. They simply could not conceive 
 of fasting without prayer. They knew "man could 
 not live by bread alone," but they also knew he 
 could not live without the word and communion 
 of God. So the saint, when he goes without 
 bread, seeks the Bread of Life; when he goes 
 without salt, seeks the savor of holiness; when he 
 takes time from his own work and pleasure and 
 goes apart, as it were, into the desert, he is seeking 
 Him to transform the desert into the Garden of 
 the Lord. 
 
 And in all things he is seeking for that mastery 
 of life, that spiritual contentment which makes us 
 perfectly happy with any thing we have, as long 
 as we are sure of our place with God. Then, 
 though "having nothing'' we are "possessing all 
 things." So the fruit of spiritual fasting is not 
 exhaustion but new power, a new view of things, 
 so that we see blessing in what we have, and do 
 not repine because we haven't them all at once. 
 
48 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 When Dean Hook, described as the greatest 
 parish priest the modern English Church has 
 known, was a young man, he made a trip to Scot- 
 land, and paid a visit to Bishop Alexander Jolly. 
 The Scottish Church was then very poor. Bishop 
 Jolly was living alone except for a young deacon 
 who was his companion and chaplain. The Bishop 
 invited the young English visitor to dinner. The 
 meal consisted of potatoes without any thing else. 
 There were no apologies. Hook has left it on 
 record that, so wonderful was the Bishop's con- 
 versation, he never enjoyed a meal more in his 
 life. This was not fasting. [N'or is any man con- 
 scious of privation when he has arisen to that 
 view of life our Saviour took when He said, "My 
 meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and 
 to finish His work." 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 VIII. THE TRADITIONS OF THE ELDERS. 
 
 Why do Thy disciples transgress the traditions of 
 the elders? for they wash not when they eat bread. — 
 St. Matt. 15:2. 
 
 OST of us do not do any very deep 
 thinking about what makes things 
 right or wrong. Two people get to 
 talking on the subject. "Why is this 
 wrong ?'' one asks ; and the other says, "It's against 
 the law." But what is the law? The word does 
 not always mean quite the same thing. 
 
 What do you mean, for instance, when you 
 speak of "the Law of Moses ?'' Do you mean the 
 Ten Commandments, or do you mean the careful 
 and elaborate ceremonial law, the details about 
 clothes, sicknesses, food, travel; dry enough until 
 you meet with such a wonderful flash of sentiment 
 as this: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his 
 mother's milk ?" 
 
 Go back to the books in which this Law of 
 
50 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Moses is contained, and you will see that the Ten 
 Commandments are Universal Law. There is 
 nothing there that can be superseded. Even the 
 Sabbath Law covers a principle as well as certain 
 details which we do not now apply. But the rest 
 of the laws, though they were founded on good 
 reasons, seem to have been all temporary. In our 
 Lord's time, however, these were by no means all 
 of the laws people were supposed to observe. 
 There had been added a mass of details known as 
 the tradition of the elders. And this was all 
 regarded as law. And men were not at all clear 
 that these added precepts were not just as sacred 
 and holy as the Ten Commandments. Further — 
 and this is very important — they were much easier 
 to keep than the Ten Commandments. The Ten 
 Commandments have a way of making you un- 
 comfortable. They aren't as simple as they seem. 
 But it is easy to be virtuous if it consists in small 
 ceremonies and observances. 
 
 There were even ritual details about this hand- 
 washing which really symplified the matter. You 
 put your fingers into water just so far, and that 
 was washing. You had obeyed the tradition. 
 Were your hands clean? Oh, that was another 
 matter. It made less difference. This was the 
 pass things had come to in our Saviour's time. 
 The Law was not only God's Law, but it was a 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 51 
 
 profession. Men were interested in seeing that 
 its professors had a good living. And it is always 
 the same story. A man might really be a holy 
 and spiritual man in those old days, but he 
 couldn't satisfy the scribes unless he were willing 
 to be enslaved to red tape. 
 
 If a man's ox or ass fell into a pit, and was 
 likely to be lamed or drovmed, he might pull him 
 out on the Sabbath day. But our Saviour was 
 faulted for making a little wet clay with His own 
 spittle in order to heal a man who had been born 
 blind. He did this on the Sabbath. The man was 
 counted as actually of less consequence than the 
 dumb beast, because he couldn't be sold for money. 
 Men who were keenly conscientious — if that is 
 not too large a word — about paying tithes of the 
 fruit of small seeds, who wore unusually wide 
 borders to their garments, for religious ostentation, 
 who would never omit a detail of ritual purifica- 
 tion, who fasted one hundred and four times a 
 year, instead of the one time decreed by the elder 
 law and the few times added on account of histor- 
 ical reasons later, who were punctual at the 
 synagogue, and all that, scrupled not at all to be 
 unmerciful, avaricious, treacherous, vindictive, 
 hard hearted. They did not want to be good, they 
 only wanted to be correct. 
 
 Our Lord takes men right back to reasons. 
 
52 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 The whole law was founded on the knowledge of 
 what was best for man. It was severe, but it was 
 also merciful and kind. There was always con- 
 sideration for the poor, for animals, for sentiment. 
 The sacrifices all meant great realities. Psalmist 
 and prophet had understood that the soul needed 
 purging with better things than outward sprink- 
 lings, that obedience and mercy were better than 
 costly offerings. But legalism grew up in spite 
 of the prophets. And our Lord struck directly at 
 the false root. 
 
 He dealt slightly differently with these sub- 
 jects when He was talking to the people themselves 
 than when He was questioned by the people most 
 responsible for these heavy burdens. He told the 
 people that they might go on observing these 
 precepts, if they only avoided imitating the iniqui- 
 ties of the formalist leaders. But when the issue 
 was raised He met it fairly, and does not hesitate 
 to show how entirely without moral meaning many 
 of the traditions were. 
 
 There was a law of clean meats, things which 
 might be eaten and things which might not be 
 eaten, that had come down from Moses' time. 
 There was a reason for this law. The forbidden 
 things were all either liable to parasites which 
 could be communicated to man, or were otherwise 
 unwholesome. Our Lord would by no means have 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 53 
 
 suggested that this law should not be kept. But 
 He did say that food could not of itself com- 
 municate defilement. The worst defilement was 
 from a bad heart. The Pharisees were only con- 
 cerned with the outside of things, the outside of 
 cups and platters, the outside of life. If a thing 
 had been ceremoniously washed, it made no dif- 
 ference to them whether it was clean or not. But 
 our Lord knew that it was the centre of life that 
 needed purifying. ^^Out of the heart," He said, 
 "proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, forni- 
 cations, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these 
 are the things that defile a man: but to eat with 
 unwashen hands defileth not a man." 
 
 Now does this mean that Christ would have 
 us break with the rules and conventions of society ? 
 By no means. A real Christian ought to have the 
 best manners in the world. The rules of good 
 society are many of them founded on the most 
 excellent reasons, reasons of respect, consideration, 
 cleanliness, and protection. But you cannot go 
 far without finding customs that are a snare. 
 Society — no, not society, but what falsely claims 
 to be society — ^will ordain things immodest, dis- 
 honest, and unkind. A Christian must be brave 
 enough to refuse these things respect. A most 
 beautiful courtesy can be built up out of the "New 
 Testament, which will be oj^en to no just criticism 
 
54 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 from anyone. If the heart be really right the 
 manners cannot go far wrong, and even the in- 
 experienced man, if he have fundamental kindness 
 as his inward guide, needs no time at all to adjust 
 himself to the slightly different details of what 
 pass for good manners in different walks of life. 
 
 And we do well to stop and think before we 
 criticize any manners that are different from our 
 own, until we are sure they are worse. They may 
 be better, though different. Country manners 
 differ somewhat from city manners, but they are 
 no worse. They are apt to be a great deal kinder 
 and therefore better. But their special suitable- 
 ness is just where we find them. There is no need 
 to drive out any other code. Keep to the reasons 
 of things, and keep the heart in the right place. 
 
 Every Church with a ritual, and with its o^vn 
 customs, needs to caution its members to keep 
 alive in their hearts a true instinct for essentials. 
 It is possible to grow very critical over the details 
 of our services, and more keen than kind in their 
 observance. They were made to help us, we were 
 not made for them. There is wide scope for 
 mutual consideration in such matters as the music, 
 the decorations, and the elaboration of the service. 
 Taste is a thing that can be offered in sacrifice as 
 well as wealth. Elaborate ceremonies can be con- 
 ducted without reverence, and reverence shown 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 55 
 
 by the very simplest forms. !6ut reverence is 
 certainly more important than forms. Still, 
 though we have plain tastes, the plain man must 
 remember that there are others with perhaps wider 
 culture, and with gifts which could be consecrated 
 to a more splendid rendition of our worship. 
 Eeverence will be their guide as well as ours. 
 And plain tastes may be sacrificed as well as 
 elaborate ones. 
 
 Under the inward guidance of Christ we will 
 "be pitiful, be courteous," we will "honour all men, 
 and love the brotherhood," we will be "kind one 
 to another, tender hearted and forgiving." The 
 truly clean hands are the hands of honesty, and 
 the hands of mercy. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 IX. THE FIRST STONE. 
 
 Moses in the Law commanded that such should le 
 stoned; hut what sayest Thou? — St. John 8:4. 
 
 HERE were a number of very extreme 
 penalties ordered for the grave of- 
 fences against the Mosaic Law. The 
 historical scriptures, however, which 
 may be regarded as a sort of commentary on the 
 Law, do not say very much about the actual in- 
 fliction of these penalties. A lesser punishment 
 seems to have been often regarded as substantially 
 satisfying justice. The death penalty of Achan 
 seems to have been the only instance of its kind, 
 and it was administered under conditions like 
 martial law. So, too, the case of the man put to 
 death for Sabbath breaking early in the Wilder- 
 ness sojourn is given as an isolated one, that, also, 
 being under the conditions of martial law. An 
 extreme penalty often expressed a weighty sense 
 of the present public need. We all know the 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 57 
 
 difference between punishment of desertion from 
 the army in time of peace, and of the same offence 
 in the face of the enemy. In one case it is im- 
 prisonment, and in the other death. But the 
 offence is the same. And a penalty to be inflicted 
 is always dependent upon being able to find some- 
 one to undertake the act of punishment. 
 
 We occasionally hear people advocate the re- 
 vival of the whipping-post for some class of cruel 
 offenses, like wife-beating. Well, who is going 
 to swing the lash ? He would have to be rather a 
 brute first, and if he wasn't, the act would have a 
 brutalizing effect, or, at least, make him very much 
 ashamed. A decent man would really have to be 
 sentenced to do it, and would feel worse punished 
 than the victim. 
 
 We are all familiar with clamors for reform 
 that shake the political world from time to time. 
 Then we have investigations, and grand juries, 
 and the like, but the pity of it seems to be that a 
 more vital interest is shown in getting people into 
 jail, than in purifying the springs of action. 
 Suppose every law, human or Divine, should be 
 enforced against us. You would then be judged, 
 not only on your present behavior, but account 
 would have to be taken of every thing that has 
 not been outlawed. And some things never out- 
 law. Or, suppose yourself to be made responsible 
 
58 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 for personally carrying out the sentences on all 
 the dishonest politicians whom you are anxious 
 to see punished. It would be sure seriously to 
 check your anxiety to have all penalties applied. 
 
 'Now, in the case before us, the question asked 
 our Lord was intended for a trap. It was in- 
 tended to involve Him in a contradiction. We 
 may suppose that the Jews expected some self- 
 assertion of Christ which would assume to modify 
 the Mosaic enactment. He had already claimed 
 to be what Moses was not, the Son of God. The 
 criminal was brought before Him, and there seems 
 to have been no defense possible, or attempted. 
 Moses had commanded that the guilty person 
 should be stoned, though just why the Jews had 
 not brought them both is hard to say, except that 
 good people are always harder on the woman. So, 
 after stating Moses' decree, they inquire, ^'But 
 what sayest Thou ?" 
 
 Our Lord does not make any answer in words. 
 He does nothing to modify the law. He leaves it 
 just as it was written. But He bent over till He 
 could touch the ground with His finger. You 
 know the old law was said to have been written 
 with the Finger of God. That, however, was 
 written on stone. TsTow Christ writes on the 
 ground, as though He did not hear what was being 
 said. Then, He rises and says to the circle of 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 59 
 
 men what is practically a confirmation of the sen- 
 tence, and a demand for its immediate execution 
 — if they can stand it! "Let him that is with- 
 out sin among you first cast a stone at her." And 
 again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 
 He went on writing apparently for some time 
 without looking at either the men or the woman, 
 and all the accusers fell under conviction. So 
 they all went out, one after another, beginning 
 with the eldest, until our Lord was left alone with 
 the woman, and He bade her, "Go, and sin no 
 more." 
 
 The thought is almost unavoidable that, when 
 our Lord said, "He that is without sin among 
 you," there was a real, though unexpressed, em- 
 phasis upon this sin. It can hardly be taken dif- 
 ferently, for nothing else was under consideration. 
 If they all were guilty, they had all condemned 
 themselves, to death, by that law to which they had 
 appealed to decide the fate of the woman before 
 them. True, they may not have meant to confess 
 such an extreme infraction of the law as would 
 have condemned them to death; but they did ad- 
 mit some degree of similar guilt. 
 
 And this is important for us to think about. 
 Our Lord extends each one of the moral command- 
 ments by showing us the principle involved. The 
 first breach of every commandment is in the heart. 
 
60 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 The sin of the heart may never be known, because 
 it is not in our power to carry the secret desire 
 out in action. But the sin is registered as sin, 
 and will so be declared in the judgment. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, we turn back to the con- 
 sideration of our great moral scandal, what we 
 call "grafting," and suppose we are leading the 
 hue and cry after the offenders. Just stop a mo- 
 ment. Did you ever graft? The practice runs 
 through almost all walks of life. It is half un- 
 consciously resorted to in private ways by many 
 who do not see the resemblance between their own 
 behavior, and what they object to in public officers. 
 No, very few people are absolutely honest. They 
 mean to be, but they don't think quickly enough; 
 they break down on the details. If there were no 
 such thing as mercy, most people would have to 
 go to jail. But jail is no place to send people to 
 reform them, not as jails are; and we believe in 
 reform. The main emphasis therefore ought to 
 be just where Christ put it: '^Sin no more." 
 
 And, because we realize that we are ourselves 
 the subjects of mercy, it ought to be unthinkable 
 that we should be careless of conditions that make 
 it almost impossible for people to accept this 
 merciful parole. There are agencies at work, 
 almost all bound up with sordid money getting, 
 that tend to render reformation in many cases an 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 61 
 
 almost impossible thing. To reform, you have to 
 fight your own evil passions. This is hard enough 
 without anything else working against you. But 
 suppose everything else seems to be against you, 
 and no helping hand is offered, and there is no 
 roof for you except to go back to the bad associa- 
 tions you came from. Then how desperate the 
 chances for you! 
 
 It takes a long time for us to learn that our 
 Lord really meant things just as He said them. 
 Sometimes it is hard for us to believe that we have 
 been forgiven, or can be forgiven. But it is even 
 harder to realize that God is interested in real 
 outcasts, and is willing to forgive them. But, un- 
 less we can be interested in all those for whom 
 Christ died, we may find our own hold on forgive- 
 ness slipping away. "We have left undone those 
 things that we ought to have done." 
 
 So do not be so anxious to punish sinners as 
 you are to help them to a better life. Sin often 
 takes care of its own punishment in a way that 
 even forgiveness does not much mitigate; some- 
 times forgiveness makes past sin pain us worse, 
 because then we realize that we have sinned 
 against love. Being forgiven yourself, "Sin no 
 more lest a worse thing happen unto thee"; and, 
 knowing that there is forgiveness for others, even 
 the worst, do your active best as a responsible 
 
62 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 member of society to see that it is made halfway 
 possible for great offenders to take the Saviour at 
 His word. What is written on the ground can be 
 washed out by the next rain. We must learn to 
 forget, to let the tears of nature obliterate the 
 past. We must learn to remember that good 
 people have been bad ; but that bad people, by the 
 mercy of God, can become good. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANWSERS 
 
 X. NO FAITH, NO POWEE. 
 
 Why could not we cast him out? — St. Matt. 17: 19. 
 
 HE miracle of the healing of the de- 
 moniac child, with which this ques- 
 tion is connected, occurred just as 
 Christ was come down from the Mount 
 of the Transfiguration. He had with Him on 
 the mountain three of His disciples, the three 
 who were always the closest companions He had 
 in supreme moments. He left the other nine at 
 the foot of the mountain waiting for Him. His 
 absence was probably for a night, and as long as 
 it took to go and come. These nine were not ab- 
 solutely alone ; they were accessible to whomsoever 
 wanted to come, and they were exposed to ques- 
 tions and objections by the scribes, as well as liable 
 to be called upon for works of healing. Judas 
 was, of course, with them, and it was less than a 
 year before he betrayed our Lord. But all had 
 had some experience of power over disease and 
 
64 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 unclean spirits. Judas himself, as we believe, had 
 had this experience, for there seems no history of 
 failure until this occasion. 
 
 An afflicted father brings to the nine his de- 
 moniac son ; it was an aggravated case. The symp- 
 toms as described read very much like a desperate 
 case of epilepsy. But our Lord treats it as a 
 demoniac possession, and indeed it was very piti- 
 ful. The case was also of very long standing. 
 
 The father had, we may suppose, intended to 
 bring the unfortunate youth to Christ Himself, 
 but found that He Avas absent. But as a next 
 resort he appeals to the disciples. They under- 
 took the exorcism, and, probably to their astonish- 
 ment, failed. Remember, it is the only case of 
 failure recorded, though, of our Lord Himself 
 it is said on a certain occasion, ''He could there 
 do no mighty work because of their unbelief." 
 But this means, Ave may suppose, that He knew 
 the conditions too Avell to make a failing attempt. 
 
 Our Lord's return Avas at a critical moment. 
 The scribes were making the most of the disciples' 
 failure, and no doubt increasing their dismay. 
 There had gathered a multitude besides. And 
 thus the Master's return Avas most Avelcome to all 
 who were distressed by the failure. The father 
 had begun to lose hope. But our Lord's kindly 
 interest draws the Avhole story from him, of the 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 65 
 
 sudden cruel seizures, and his own distress; and 
 then comes the desperate appeal, ''If Thou canst 
 do anything, have compassion upon us and help 
 us." Our Lord repeats this "if Thou canst" in 
 His reply: "li thou canst believe, all things are 
 possible to him that believeth." And then the man 
 cried out with tears: ''Lord, I believe, help Thou 
 mine unbelief." And at once the Lord heals the 
 boy with a Avord, charging the dumb and deaf 
 spirit to come out of him. 
 
 'No more elementary faith is expressed any- 
 where in the Gospel than the man's saying, ''If 
 Thou canst do anything." There is not enough 
 faith for a creed, but there is just enough for a 
 prayer. If there is enough for a prayer the Lord 
 will answer, and His first answer was to encourage 
 belief, as much as there was, and tell the father 
 that faith recognized no impossibilities. 
 
 Beyond the censure implied in the exclama- 
 tion "O faithless generation," when the boy was 
 brought to Him and He had been told of His 
 disciples' failure, our Lord said nothing to His 
 disciples until they asked Him privately why they 
 had failed. Then He answers that it was because 
 of their unbelief; that if they had "faith as a 
 grain of mustard seed," they would be able to "say 
 to this mountain, be thou removed to yonder place, 
 and it would remove, and that nothing should be 
 
66 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 impossible to them." Then He adds, "Howbeit, 
 this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer 
 and fasting. '^ 
 
 Let us take the parts of this answer in reverse 
 order. This Church has high ideas of the au- 
 thority of the ministry. That authority is stated 
 to be derived from Christ, and yet she is singularly 
 slow to have the ministry speak with authority. 
 The great acts of the ministry, like the absolution 
 in the Holy Communion and the Consecration of 
 the Eucharist, are done by prayer. "Prayer and 
 fasting" were frequent companions of our Lord's 
 ministry. If, then, the Church seems to be weak 
 in her conflict with the dark powers of evil, it is 
 because she is not using her two great engines. 
 Our services are so beautiful, our liturgy so ap- 
 pealing, that sometimes we forget that the Church 
 is not here just for us, and our delight in her. 
 There are those possessed with devils. And we 
 must enter into deadly conflict on their behalf. 
 
 Then as to the quality and power of real faith, 
 faith "as a grain of mustard seed." That, our 
 Lord says, is as "the least of all seeds." But a 
 seed is alive, and will grow if it has any chance 
 at all. The saying about the mountain and its 
 removal is, of course, a figure of speech, an at- 
 tempt to say how mighty faith is. If the Trans- 
 figuration was on Mt. Hermon, as is supposed, 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 67 
 
 then this miracle was in view of Hermon, and that 
 vast mountain was used to point the figure. But 
 taking it literally would meet with this difficulty: 
 faith only wants to act according to the will of 
 God, and we do not know anything of this will 
 which would encourage us to try to move an actual 
 mountain. But, figuratively, any difficulty is a 
 mountain, if it is a big enough difficulty. And 
 nobody removes difficulties who regards them as 
 impossibilities. 
 
 The Panama canal has been dug with steam 
 shovels, and faith. It never would have been 
 begun without faith. Plenty of people had no 
 faith, and they were opposed even to attempting 
 in any way to attack such a big undertaking; but 
 somebody furnished the faith. There were actual 
 mountains of earth, there was the mountain of 
 disease, there was the mountain of political oppo- 
 sition, there was the mountain of the record of 
 failure; all these have been moved, until now we 
 see the end. This has been done by men through 
 faith, not in God, but merely in the possibility of 
 the thing. But faith in God is faith in the 
 Almighty. 
 
 This is the difference between human faith 
 and real divine faith. The faith that it took to 
 dig the canal was really faith in man. It was just 
 something bigger than had yet been done. It is 
 
68 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 not an adequate illustration of the faith into which 
 Christ would have us enter. The disciples had 
 cast out devils before. They probably had a 
 human expectation that they would succeed this 
 time, faith in themselves, based upon their pre- 
 vious experience. But it wasn't enough. When 
 the Saviour says '^nothing shall be impossible" to 
 real faith, it is because nothing is impossible with 
 God, and faith unites to God and gives us access 
 to His power according to our union with Him, 
 that is, according to His love. 
 
 So prayer — the voice of faith, but the voice 
 of humility — and fasting — the keen test of motive, 
 the purifier of desire — are our best engines still of 
 moving the mountains of sin, of darkness, of evil 
 possession. When the Lord healed this boy He 
 came fresh from the contemplation of the Cross 
 which was waiting for Him. Let us also con- 
 template the Cross. This will give us the assur- 
 ance we may need that it is God's Avill to destroy 
 the works of the devil, that it is His will that we 
 should cooperate with Him; that no questionings 
 of scribes, no sense that too much has been asked 
 of us, may prevent us, or hold us back from a 
 whole-hearted surrender to God's service. 
 
 One man and God are always a majority. We 
 learn from St. Paul that he was for a time much 
 occupied with his own afflictions, but that finally 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 69 
 
 he had the message: "My grace is sufficient for 
 thee; for My strength is made perfect in weak- 
 ness." From that assurance it was not a very long 
 step to an outlook on the world and work com- 
 pletely in harmony with the words of Christ. 
 Christ said "nothing shall be impossible" ; St. Paul 
 confesses, "I can do all things through Christ that 
 strengtheneth me." If we cannot say that yet, 
 let us hope the grain of mustard seed will grow. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XI. THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS. 
 
 How oft shall my brother sin against me and I 
 forgive him? till seven times? — St. Matt. 18: 21. 
 
 E know the fundamental error which 
 underlay this question of Simon 
 Peter, but we do not often stop to 
 consider how great an advance it 
 marks in his mind. How many people are likely 
 to be put into such close relations to us that they 
 could have the opportunity of sinning against us 
 seven times in the same way ? 
 
 Humanly speaking, a seven-fold forgiveness 
 seems a very large one. But of course there are 
 relationships that are constant, or approximately 
 so, that do many times multiply the opportunities 
 for repeated complaint. Until a man is really 
 converted, he is morally sure to fail on his weak 
 side as often as the special temptation arises. The 
 Psalmist^s illustration of Israel's failure, "Start- 
 ing aside like a broken bow,'' shows what we mean. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 71 
 
 Every time you draw the bow you reveal the 
 defect. And family life is so hard at times be- 
 cause the faults we have to encounter and contend 
 with are habits, characteristics, which occur not 
 once or seven times, but are constantly recurring. 
 
 This illustrates of how little consequence a 
 seven-fold forgiveness could be as between real 
 brothers. But it is doubtful if Peter really meant 
 to limit the question to actual brothers. We can 
 believe that, not only would he have included, 
 according to Jewish custom, all his fairly intimate 
 relations among his brothers, but that he had been 
 long enough with Christ to have learned to read 
 brotherhood in a much larger sense. 
 
 The Jews used many numbers in a symbolic 
 sense. How widely this was done perhaps we 
 cannot easily find out. But seven was in a special 
 sense regarded by them as the perfect number, the 
 symbol of perfection. But it was easy to forget 
 that it was a symbol, and therefore easy to substi- 
 tute it for perfection itself. This was the trap 
 Peter had fallen into. Forgiveness, to him, was a 
 specific act. It had no necessary connection with 
 love. It need not be spiritual. And you can see 
 how its quality would be vitiated by thus limiting 
 it as a duty to a fixed number of repetitions. At 
 the sixth or seventh time the mind would have 
 begun already to expect the eighth offense, to be 
 
72 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 on the lookout for it, and to be in a subconscious 
 way occupied with the revenge. 
 
 Think, too, of the reasons underlying forgive- 
 ness. We forgive for our own sakes, our own 
 characters to a large degree. But it is also im- 
 possible not to think of people who sin against us 
 as either more or less deserving of forgiveness, 
 and this desert is a good deal connected with their 
 own attitude toward their offense. They might 
 commit it ten times in continued, deliberate ob- 
 stinacy, and on the eleventh time they might begin 
 to be sorry. Then would be the real time for 
 forgiveness. The previous leniency would have 
 been a good thing for the man exercising it, but 
 it would not have begun to do any good outside 
 until the offender was sorry. The main thing in 
 life is character. 
 
 Our Lord's answer to Peter took, as it were, 
 two steps at once. Peter could have hardly taken 
 it in without at least two mental actions. ^^I say 
 not unto you until seven times, but until seventy 
 times seven." The thought of seven as the perfect 
 number still runs through the figures given by our 
 Lord, but Peter is made to think at once, ''Why, 
 here is a perfect number, too! Here is a thought 
 of intensified, multiplied perfection, if such a 
 thing be possible ! And as there can be no such 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 73 
 
 thing as more perfect perfection, I must have 
 taken the thought of seven in a wrong way." 
 
 For what would seventy times seven amount to 
 in numbers ? It would be four hundred and 
 ninety. So, as we would never be likely to have 
 as many opportunities for forgiveness with one 
 person as that, and as we couldn't possibly keep 
 count, and it would make us permanently unhappy 
 to try to do so, why, it is plain that we must 
 always forgive. That is, we must preserve the 
 same attitude toward the offender that God does, 
 or that a wise and tender and patient father does, 
 hoping for the day of betterment, the change of 
 heart, the work of love. 
 
 We often hear it said that first offenders ought 
 to be more leniently dealt with than old hands in 
 sin. But this has limitations. The time for pun- 
 ishment, if ever, is the first offense, and the pun- 
 ishment ought to be sharp, but then it ought to be 
 short. And when it is through with it ought never 
 to be mentioned again. Society has an unjust way 
 of making a short jail sentence last forever. But 
 if the punishment of the first offense does not 
 succeed in making the offender realize what he has 
 done, we may have to wait a good while before we 
 get results. In work with souls, as with minds, 
 we have to deal with something very like a time- 
 
74 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 lock. It may be the four hundred and ninetieth 
 time that counts. 
 
 There is a very simple chemical experiment 
 taken from the manufacture of friction matches, 
 which is sometimes used to make a little fun in 
 a school laboratory. Three substances are used in 
 some kinds of matches, but a match can be made 
 with sulphur and chlorate of potash alone. These 
 have to be combined in the most intimate propor- 
 tions before friction will set them off. In the ex- 
 periment, a green boy is brought in to mix a small 
 quantity of flowers of sulphur and chlorate of 
 potash with a mortar and pestle. He can mix, 
 and mix again for several minutes, and nothing 
 much happens — it all happens at once ! 
 
 This is what happens in family life. First 
 correction may have failed. A boy or girl ap- 
 parently settles into thoughtlessness of any im- 
 provement in promptness, in neatness, in consider- 
 ation for the law of the house. Correction can be 
 only gently applied, the friction of love. It may 
 take years to show improvement, and then conver- 
 sion, or something analogous, happens all at once. 
 The four hundred and ninety first time has come, 
 and brought the perfect result of forgiveness. 
 
 Our Lord enforces this lesson by the Parable 
 of the Unmerciful Servant. He has been forgiven 
 by an indulgent master a huge sum, too huge for 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 75 
 
 any man to pay in a lifetime. Immediately on 
 being declared free, he goes out and finds a fellow 
 servant who owes him a reasonable amount, which 
 could easily be worked off if some accommodation 
 were showed. But nothing is too severe for the 
 collection of the little debt. No mercy is given, 
 no facility or opportunity granted. This shows 
 that forgiveness has done the first servant no good, 
 and it is therefore withdrawn. Forgiveness stands 
 as an offer for us as long as there remains the 
 least hope of returning good. But it seems im- 
 possible for forgiveness to be truly accepted with- 
 out love. The love may be rudimentary at first, 
 but, as the sense of forgiveness grows, the love 
 should grow. 
 
 The man who owed the ten thousand talents 
 had no sense of what we may call the proportion 
 of virtue. The vast sum apparently meant nothing 
 to him; the hundred pence meant a great deal. 
 And so we hardly ever realize the greatness of 
 our debt to mercy. We are all really hopelessly 
 in debt. We have nothing to pay. All we might 
 try to pay with, already belongs to God. And yet 
 we accept the statement of the Divine pardon with 
 a sort of nonchalance, promising insincere and im- 
 possible things, if only we may escape from con- 
 demnation. We think more of God as the ordainer 
 of punishment than as the Author of Life. And 
 
76 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 we have no mercy for others. Was ever any image 
 more pathetic than this of Isaiah ? "All day long 
 have I stretched out My hands unto a disobedient 
 and gainsaying people." This describes both our 
 Heavenly Father and us. He has bestowed His 
 forgiveness unto seventy times seven. "Freely ye 
 have received, freely give." 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XII. ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 What shall I do to inherit eternal life? — St. Luke 
 10:25; 18:18. 
 
 F all the times that this important 
 question was put to our Lord, we have 
 the record of but two. The first time, 
 the question is represented as being 
 asked by "a certain lawyer." When we read in 
 our version that the lawyer ^^tempted" Christ, it 
 seems unnecessary to assume that the word means 
 any more here than testing, or proving. The 
 Queen of Sheba came to prove Solomon with hard 
 questions, but it was not meant in an unfriendly 
 way. This lawyer showed considerable spiritual 
 insight. For, when our Lord returned his ques- 
 tion by asking him what was "written in the Law ?" 
 the man went directly for an answer to those two 
 precepts which our Lord Himself elsewhere has 
 described as ''the First and Great Commanment," 
 
78 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 and ^'the second, which was like unto it," saying 
 at the same time that both the Law and the 
 Prophets hung upon those two. This answer our 
 Lord approved. Fortunately, the lawyer was 
 moved then to ask another question, "Who is my 
 neighbor ?" And to that question we owe the 
 beautiful parable of the Good Samaritan. 
 
 The second occasion we have recorded is 
 known as the episode of the Rich Young Man, or 
 the young Ruler, as he is described by St. Luke; 
 for we have three accounts of the story. In this 
 case there is no doubt of the choice character of 
 the person inquiring. He was greatly concerned 
 about salvation, and our Lord was so drawn to him 
 that He offered him what looks like the same 
 terms He gave His apostles. But at the be- 
 ginning He throws back the young man, as 
 He had the lawyer, upon his own stores of Scrip- 
 ture knowledge, and says, "If thou wouldst en- 
 ter into life, keep the Commandments" ; and when 
 the young man enquires for a supposed new law, 
 refers him to those old moral precepts which the 
 young ruler instantly asserts he has "kept from 
 his youth up." Then our Lord, who undoubtedly 
 recognized that this answer was made in good 
 faith, and had some basis of truth, is said to have 
 looked upon His visitor with peculiar love, and to 
 have answered, "One thing thou lackest. Go and 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 79 
 
 sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and 
 thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and 
 follow Me." The young man is said to have been 
 "sad at that saying," and to have "gone away 
 sorrowful," "for he was very rich." He could not 
 have accepted an apostleship on those terms. 
 
 I^ow it must not be supposed that our Lord 
 meant to say that the giving away of his fortune 
 was what would win eternal life for the young 
 ruler. What He did mean was that the fortune 
 stood in his way. It prevented him from having 
 full faith in God. To him it would have been 
 possible to say that God takes care of us, and he 
 would have been able to give it an apparently full 
 assent; but not so that he could have trusted him- 
 self to God so completely that he would have been 
 willing to try life without money in hand. 
 
 Our Lord had not asked him to do anything 
 that the twelve apostles had not done. And some 
 of them had not been exactly poor. Zebedee, the 
 father of James and John, had his own boat, and 
 his hired servants, and was probably esteemed 
 well off by people of his own trade. Matthew was 
 probably in the way of making considerable money 
 as a publican, if he had been willing to do as 
 other publicans did. They had left all and fol- 
 lowed Christ, and that was what Christ asked the 
 young ruler to do. And what Christ had to offer, 
 
80 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 even in this life, naturally considered does not 
 seem so small, that is, if you have had experience 
 of what life really offers that has a good taste. 
 When Peter asked, "Lo, we have left all and fol- 
 lowed Thee, what shall we have, therefore ?" Our 
 Lord answers, "Manifold more in this present 
 time," but "with persecutions," and "in the end 
 eternal life." 
 
 The young man here, and the lawyer before, 
 emphasized the idea in their own minds that 
 eternal life could be won by works : "What shall 
 I dof The answer to the lawyer, or the way in 
 which he was made to answer himself, is Love. 
 But Love is not a work. It is a condition of the 
 heart. It can be called a work, however, if it be 
 thought of as an effect, as well as the cause of all 
 good works. True love cannot exist without faith, 
 and true faith cannot exist without love. 
 
 The young man was serious when he asserted 
 himself to have kept all the commandments, for 
 he did not see so deeply as the lawyer did what 
 was involved in keeping them. And what our 
 Lord asked of him was also love. When you can 
 give up anything for another cause, you show that 
 you love that cause best for which you are Avilling 
 to make the sacrifice. If you love God above all 
 things, then you will not let f kings come between 
 you and God. If you love things better than you 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 81 
 
 love God, you are a practical idolater. God is not 
 your God. 
 
 Almost everybody nowadays has, either from 
 one point of view or another, great possessions. 
 People generally have the means of securing com- 
 forts which even the richest in our Lord's day 
 never had. A man is really rich if he can gratify 
 his principal tastes. But, of course, very few of 
 us think we are rich. But we have enough to 
 make a test case of our own condition. What the 
 Gospel sets before us is eternal life. The terms 
 on which this life is offered to us are really every- 
 where the same, though they seem to vary. What 
 makes them seem to vary is the fact that our pos- 
 sessions vary. But our possessions are not of so 
 much importance in the matter as our attitude 
 toward them. If we get so dependent upon them, 
 either mentally or actually, that they prevent us 
 from doing a loving duty to God and man, then 
 we do not own them, but they own us. The rich 
 young man thought he had great possessions, but 
 they had him. But possessions not only vary 
 between individuals, but the same man has more 
 or less property at different times. And most of 
 us have had enough experience of varying degrees 
 of fortune that we can really examine the question, 
 whether a larger salary, or bank account, has ever 
 made any substantial difference in our happiness. 
 
82 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 We really can't make an argument that true happi- 
 ness has anything to do with it. We can argue for 
 comfort as the result of riches, but every kind of 
 increase in property brings more anxiety than any- 
 thing else. 
 
 Take the same man at intervals five years 
 apart in his life. Suppose at the first date he has 
 a thousand dollars in the bank, and a salary of a 
 thousand dollars. His thousand in the bank shows 
 that he can save a little on his income, or we are 
 supposing that to be the case. Such a man has 
 very little anxiety about life. He can easily 
 satisfy his modest wants, as long as they stay 
 modest. If the call of God came to him to give up 
 his business, and devote himself entirely to God's 
 service, it would not be very hard for him to yield 
 himself up. He has had enough ; but not enough 
 to fetter him in turning to higher things. 
 
 Let i^ve years pass away. His salary has been 
 doubled. He has enough now in the bank to make 
 its investment a serious question. A special part- 
 nership may be open to him. The call to Divine 
 service comes again, and this time the money is in 
 the way. The equation looks alike in each case. 
 We call the man A. and his unknown amount of 
 property "x," because we can assign any value to 
 "x" that we please. Then A plus "x" minus 
 "x," equals A, no matter what value you give "x." 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 83 
 
 (The man, plus his property, minus his property, 
 equals the man.) That is algebraically true, but 
 not morally true, because morally the greater the 
 value of "x" the less is the proportionate value 
 of A in the equation. The man seems to shrink 
 in importance as compared to the money. So the 
 peculiar insanity that lurks for millionaires is the 
 fear that they may lose their money. "If riches 
 increase, set not your heart upon them" is not 
 only religion, but common sense. 
 
 Our Lord does not ask everyone to take Him 
 literally, as He did the rich young man. And 
 some of us might, even if we wanted to do it, have 
 some difficulty in disposing of all of our property 
 if the receivers had to take everything we had, our 
 liabilities as well as our resources, and we can't 
 morally give things except into responsible hands. 
 What, however, all of us are certainly required 
 to do is to use what we have as responsible to 
 God, and to strive to be just as good servants of 
 God through what we have, as we could possibly 
 be without it. We have to make the mental dedi- 
 cation of everything, if we are to keep on owning 
 it. We ourselves must be Christ's. If we are 
 Christ's, then what we have is Christ's. Under no 
 circumstances can we get more than our board 
 and our clothes out of it, no matter how we use it. 
 
 But it will certainly increase our peace of 
 
84 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 mind if we can approve, and think Christ would 
 approve, of where we put it. Christ apparently 
 says that money can go to heaven, not actually, of 
 course, but as a transferred account, a transferred 
 force. If it stays here, a man can die a hundred 
 million dollars poor; if it works for God, he can 
 go to heaven a thousand friends rich. So, from 
 a responsible point of view, a man ought to look 
 upon the rapid increase of wealth with a sort of 
 prayerful terror. ^'Let not me, O Lord, be 
 Sveighed in the balance and found wanting' with 
 these enlarged responsibilities. Let me not be 
 tempted to think of my wealth as having any 
 rights, my estate as anything that has claims in 
 itself. Let me not strive to increase it, or protect 
 it, by unlawful, unfair or unmerciful means. 
 Help me to pay my taxes as cheerfully as when 
 they were small; help me to look beyond, and to 
 Thee. Enlarge my love to Thy family, whether 
 mine be large or small. If riches increase, let my 
 outlook, my sympathy, my brotherly help, in- 
 crease. If it is hard to enter into the kingdom, 
 still let me enter; for it is dark outside." 
 
 Let us change the equation a little. We spoke 
 of A. plus "x," let us rather speak of A. plus 
 "x" plus "y.'' Let ^^y" be love. Then if "y" 
 be large enough, though ''x" be zero, a man can 
 work hard and sleep soft. But if "y" be too small, 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 85 
 
 though '^x" be ever so large, the man will have to 
 work just as hard, but he will sleep cold. 
 
 For love is life; and, because love is also 
 knowledge, we may say, "This is Life Eternal, 
 that they may (love) Thee the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.'' 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XIII. THE WAY HOME. 
 
 Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and how can 
 we know the way? — St. John 14: 5. 
 
 HERE are no questions oftener in the 
 minds of serious men who find them- 
 selves in the midst of mysterious life 
 without their volition, than the 
 Whither V and the "Way." Our Lord had just 
 begun a great discourse to His disciples alone, one 
 which, if pastoral experience proves anything, is 
 dearer to Christians than almost any other of His 
 utterances; and had begun to tell about His 
 Father's House, and the many chambers there for 
 the children when they came homo, and had said, 
 ^Whither I go ye know and the Way ye know." 
 The ^Whither" was, of course, to His Father's 
 House, to prepare for the coming thither of the 
 disciples who had believed on Him, and those who 
 should afterwards believe on Him ^^through their 
 word." 
 
 But Thomas was of a peculiar temperament, 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 87 
 
 sad and foreboding, and interrupts with a very im- 
 proper contradiction, which nevertheless, we can- 
 not help being glad that he made. "Lord, we 
 know not whither Thou goest, and how can we 
 know the way?" And to this our Lord answers 
 with one of His most wonderful utterances: "I 
 am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man 
 Cometh unto the Father but by Me. If ye had 
 known Me ye should have known the Father, and 
 henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him." 
 It takes a good while for words like these to sink 
 into men's minds, and Philip shows immediately 
 that, like us, he often needs to hear again. 
 
 But let us take the answer to Thomas as it 
 stands, for it is of very broad application. It is 
 hard, however, to put out of mind while we con- 
 sider it another wonderful description of Himself 
 by our Lord, made to the Apostle St. John in the 
 Isle of Patmos: "I am Alpha and Omega, the 
 Beginning and the Ending, which was, and is, and 
 is to come, the Almighty." 
 
 Of all seekers, none have done more service to 
 the world than those first of the ancient Greeks 
 who formulated, for the men of all time, the 
 questions which had to be. asked. At the dawn of 
 Greek philosophy, as far as we have the record 
 of the seekers, the first question that men asked 
 was, What was the Beginning of everything? 
 
88 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Their word for beginning was Arche,^ the very 
 word used by Christ in the Revelation. The phil- 
 osophers answered their own question, or guessed 
 at the answer variously. Some said it was water; 
 some said it was fire; some said it was number; 
 some said it was constant flux, or becoming; some 
 said it Avas Mind ; and by and by the question wore 
 itself out ; because men indeed thought some of the 
 answers clever, and interesting, but they did not 
 feel sure enough about any of them. And, besides, 
 they began to be more interested in another ques- 
 tion, and that was, What is the End? 
 
 In the Arche had been included all that is in- 
 volved in the search for reasons and first prin- 
 ciples, the nature of things. And, in the End they 
 sought was involved the destiny of man and every- 
 thing else, the purpose or goal of things, and 
 finally something like Virtue, or the thing that was 
 worthy to be sought for its own sake. And they 
 got so many answers to this that again they tired 
 out. The word they used for the End was Telos. 
 And that is the word used in the Revelation for 
 the Ending which Christ also claims to be. 
 
 When they had got to the point that they had 
 tried all answers to both these questions (and pure 
 philosophy has never foimd any more than they 
 
 * Pronounce it Ar-che. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 89 
 
 did then in the long ago), thej began asking a 
 third question, born partly of their perplexity, and 
 partly growing out of the search for virtue, What 
 is the true Way to live? This they called the 
 Ethos, from which we get our word Ethics, the 
 science of morals, or the Way. Just as the Arche 
 or Alpha was the study of the Past or Was, and 
 the Telos was the study of the Future or Is to 
 come, so the Ethos was the study of the Now, Life 
 to-day. 
 
 Put with this now our Lord's answer to the 
 perplexity of St. Thomas, "I am the Way, the 
 Truth and the Life," and you see that Life is the 
 Arche, or Beginning, and that Truth is the End 
 or purpose, and the Way being in the same Person 
 is both the True Way and the Living Way. These 
 very words are used in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 So that Christ claims to be the Satisfaction and 
 Answer of all the questions about life which can 
 ever be asked. It was no wonder that the old 
 philosophers were not satisfied with their own 
 answers. They were not satisfied, because they 
 did not have the right answer. 'Nor is it peculiar 
 that all the questions should have the same answer, 
 since it is plain that !N'ature is a Unity. And, if 
 it came from God, it must also go to God, and 
 constantly be considered in the light of the will of 
 God. 
 
90 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 There were two principal schools of Greek phil- 
 osophy which grew out of the study of Ethics. 
 One was called the school of Epicurus, and taught 
 that the right way to live was to regard pleasure 
 as the solution of life. We must live, according 
 to them, so as to get the most out of life. Of 
 course, some of them regarded higher sorts of 
 pleasure than the others, some looked to intel- 
 lectual and aesthetic pleasures with the rest. But 
 some were just sensual. So, in the main, this was 
 a very degrading theory in its results. It was well 
 expressed in a phrase as old as Isaiah, "Let us eat 
 and drink, for tomorrow we die." The other 
 school, much nobler, was called the Stoic school, 
 from the Stoa, or porch, where their philosophy 
 was first taught. They taught reverence for 
 virtue, the life of gravity, moderation and reason. 
 They had some great followers, but could not get 
 over the feeling that life was in some way bad; 
 and when they could not endure things any longer, 
 they simply killed themselves. 
 
 Now how different from "the Way" as set forth 
 by Christ! He would not have us live without 
 Pleasure, but He would not have us mistake what 
 pleasure really is. He teaches the delight of duty, 
 not merely the virtue of it. The Way is the path 
 of self sacrifice, but it is made sweet with love. 
 So life is not, as the Stoics thought, evil; it is a 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 91 
 
 precious gift, a probation, a good school of pre- 
 paration for higher things. So that suicide spells 
 defeat, whereas the Christian believes in victory. 
 Our Lord says, "In the world ye shall have tribu- 
 lation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the 
 world." 
 
 Everything, therefore, is, as we say, all of a 
 piece. The Beginning of everything, the first 
 letter of the Alphabet of Wisdom, the Alpha or 
 Greek A, is founded in the character of God, who 
 is Love. The End of everything, the Omega, the 
 last letter of the Greek alphabet, standing 
 relatively where our Z does, is in the Bosom and 
 Home of our God, who is Love, the manifestation 
 of the Eather, who is "the Brightness of the 
 Father's glory," and "the Express Image of His 
 Person"; or, as the Greek word puts it, the 
 "Character" of the Eather. This is why no man 
 Cometh to our Heavenly Eather but by Christ, and 
 there can be no other revelation. This is why we 
 need nothing but Christ, and He is the satisfac- 
 tion of the mind as well as the heart; sought by 
 the Wise Men, and sought by the Shepherds, the 
 Desire of All nations; Wisdom, Righteousness, 
 and Life. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XIV. PROFIT THROUGH AFFLICTION. 
 
 Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that 
 he was horn hlind? — St. John 9:2. 
 
 OW and then the disciples appear as 
 if they were standing, or trying to 
 stand, in the way of Christ's benefi- 
 cent purposes. They could not un- 
 derstand why He should allow people to impose 
 upon Him. At other times they were made the 
 ministers of His good will, but they never seemed 
 to initiate anything. See, for instance, with what 
 different eyes Christ looked upon suffering ! They 
 saw this man just as soon as Christ did, and He 
 appears to have waited for them to speak about 
 him. One would naturally suppose that they 
 would have suggested that our Lord should heal 
 the man. They knew from common report that 
 he had been born blind, but nothing seemed to 
 interest them, or to be suggested by the sight of 
 him, but a theological question. He was blind. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 93 
 
 he was a beggar, he always had been blind, he 
 would probably go on begging. That was all there 
 was to it, but this very interesting theological 
 question. 
 
 Our Lord does not decline the question, but 
 the man interests Him a great deal more than the 
 question. So He answers briefly, but does not 
 delay to heal, and in so doing enlightened, not 
 only the man, but all of us. 
 
 If the disciples had asked merely whether the 
 man was born so because of the sin of his parents, 
 we could have understood the question. We all 
 know the Second Commandment, and we know 
 that thousands of babies are born blind, and with 
 other terrible troubles, because of their parents' 
 sin. But it is hard to understand at first what 
 they meant by asking if the man were born blind 
 because he had sinned. He could not sin, we 
 would suppose, before he was born. It might have 
 put a different face on it if the Jews had believed 
 in transmigration, the successive existence of the 
 same soul in different bodies; but they didn't. 
 What they probably did speculatively imagine was, 
 that God had foreseen some sin that the man would 
 commit, and thought that His justice might punish 
 such a sin in advance of its commission, or His 
 mercy might prevent even the sin by taking away 
 the sight that might have led to it. Such ideas 
 
94 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 have really had considerable influence on post- 
 reformation theology. 
 
 Our Lord, however, silences the speculation at 
 once, and says that the cause of the blindness was 
 no specific sin. Of course, all our troubles go back 
 to sin, our sinful condition ; but a good deal of our 
 trouble can be laid at no particular person's door. 
 This it had been darkly felt before might be true, 
 and the Book of Job is an attempt to throw some 
 light on the subject. Nor is the book, although 
 very wonderful, altogether the full answer that 
 we now think we have. It is just as true that 
 "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,'' as it is 
 that "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the 
 children." And in this particular instance, and 
 in the case of the death of Lazarus, our Lord tells 
 us that the final purpose of it all was to make a 
 signal illustration to all who should behold of the 
 glory and works of God. 
 
 This blind man was not only a good man, but, 
 if we can judge anything about him from a few 
 strokes of delineation, he was a very good man. 
 Blindness so seldom seems to embitter people. 
 This man had great faith and great religious in- 
 sight. He knew, against the false view of the 
 Pharisees, that such power and mercy as Christ 
 showed upon him could not proceed from an evil 
 source. The Jews could not shake his faith that 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 95 
 
 Christ was good. He was no pessimist, which 
 shows that he had not been, on the whole, unhappy. 
 And, of course, you have to judge life as a whole. 
 You may judge maternity, if you like, wholly 
 by its pains. If you do, you judge wrong. And 
 so this affliction, which lasted from the man's 
 birth until he met Christ, then resulted in an un- 
 clouded view of the Saviour, and made the man 
 a disciple, as well as a noble example of con- 
 stancy under persecution. 
 
 The Gospels have not done away with the mys- 
 tery of suffering. They have added mystery to it, 
 for the Cross stands for the most mysterious of all 
 suffering. But the Gospel has certainly recon- 
 ciled us to it in large degree through the Cross. 
 It has showed how fruitful it is. It not only 
 has some uses, but far-reaching fruits. In heal- 
 ing this blind man the Saviour not only helped 
 him, but all who beheld, and all who have ever 
 heard the story of it. They show us that a man 
 may do good by bearing pain, and that God may 
 be doing good to him by allowing him to bear 
 pain, and this in more ways than one. Our pain- 
 ful limitations often deprive us of opportunities 
 to sin. They are temptations in themselves, but 
 a protection against other temptations. "He that 
 hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin," 
 is a text that probably refers to that extremity of 
 
96 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 suffering which is another way of stating death, 
 yet has a measure of truth in the case of any dis- 
 abling suffering. For suffering does introduce us 
 into the life of sympathy, which is a greatly 
 abounding life, as some here might be able to 
 illustrate. 
 
 The way in which the Lord healed this man 
 is deeply interesting. There was a sort of appeal 
 to the dead sense. He first said, and we may 
 believe the man heard Him, "As long as I am in 
 the world, I am the light of the world." Then 
 He spat on the ground, and out of the moist clay 
 made a lump which He smeared upon the man's 
 eyes, and then told him to do something for him- 
 self : "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam," a mystical 
 name, given as meaning "Sent." The man obeyed 
 exactly, and was at once restored. Our Lord 
 meanwhile had gone on His way, and we leave the 
 story here. 
 
 This raises the question whether the case, 
 though regarded by everybody as hopeless, may 
 not have been a very simple one after all. Per- 
 haps anyone might have healed him at any time by 
 using the same simple methods, but nobody tried. 
 It takes a great deal of knowledge to know when 
 a thing is simple. "Since the world began hath 
 it not been heard that a man hath opened the eyes 
 of one that was born blind." That was a state- 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 97 
 
 ment of fact. It is not said that anyone had ever 
 tried to. People are always stating, in advance 
 of experiment, that things are impossible. They 
 philosophized about the blindness, stated the an- 
 cient theory of impossibility, and offered no 
 remedies. 
 
 Why is it that so many physicians do not seem 
 to know that Christ, more than anyone else, opened 
 the eyes of the profession to the possibilities of 
 healing? And in old times it was not only that 
 men could not do things because they hadn't tried ; 
 they did not care to try. And Christ not only 
 taught that there ought to be a remedy for every- 
 thing, and that with God nothing should be im- 
 possible, but He made us want to imitate Him, 
 want to do good. How the zone of incurable dis- 
 eases has been narrowed in the last few decades 
 by men who, with a faith in the reasonableness of 
 nature, have sought the remedy which they felt 
 God must have provided, and refused to be satis- 
 fied until they found it! Whether all these men 
 were avowedly Christian or not, it was Christ that 
 emancipated the human mind and heart; it was 
 Christ that showed that God knows nothing about 
 incurableness, and if He doesn't know it, there 
 must be no such thing. 
 
 Your Christianity and mine can be reasonably 
 well tested by our attitude in the presence of suf- 
 
98 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 fering. Does it impel you most to detached re- 
 flection, or give you a desire to do something help- 
 ful? And if we have a desire to help, is it the 
 will to help, or just the wish? If it be just the 
 wish, it is not likely to amount to much. If it 
 be the will, it is sure to take us to the heart of the 
 difficulty. We will be moved to find out if God 
 didn't mean that we, rather than someone else, 
 should have the blessing of this service. It may 
 be, in spite of its gravity and pain, a very simple 
 case after all. 
 
 The verdict of society on much that it sees is, 
 ''It is a great pity." But who really feels the 
 pity? If a single person had the pity, it might 
 be all that was needed. But often it is so great 
 a pity that no single person has enough. The case 
 may be a little abandoned child. All that is 
 wanted is one mother heart. But society says 
 someone ought to suffer for abandoning this child, 
 and begins to spend money, not on the child, but 
 to apprehend the persons responsible for leaving 
 it. Then the child gets sent to an orphan asylum, 
 when all it needed was a mother. Just a mother ! 
 Why is it so much easier to get a home for a dog, 
 sometimes, than for a child ? If it be a great re- 
 sponsibility to take a child, isn't it a very much 
 larger one to refuse to do so ? 
 
 God grant to us to accept a helpful Gospel, a 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 99 
 
 Gospel with a heart and with hands, a Gospel full 
 of the simple remedies of practical kindness. For 
 such a life is full of the Saviour, and in it we will 
 often meet more than in more ambitious seeking 
 for truth: the Light of the Knowledge of the 
 Glory of God. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XV. THE AUTHORITY OVER US. 
 
 Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? — St. 
 Matt. 22 : 17. 
 
 HE Jews in our Lord's time were com- 
 pletely imder foreign domination, ex- 
 cept that hardly any interference oc- 
 curred in their worship. They had 
 never, with all their intense national feeling, had 
 more than a semblance of independence, except 
 perhaps for a few months under Judas Macca- 
 baeus, since before the first temple had been 
 destroyed. Even under the Judean kings there 
 had been successive tributes paid to Assyria, 
 Egypt, and Babylon. Then came the captivity 
 and the restoration under the Persians, but that 
 restoration to their own country brought no inde- 
 pendence. Then came Alexander's conquest, and 
 then the strifes between the dynasties of his suc- 
 cessors, which made Judea the shuttlecock between 
 Syria and Egypt, until just before the Uomans 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 101 
 
 came. Then, after the Romans came, there was 
 for a while the figment of a Jewish kingdom under 
 the Edomite Herod. But his son was so impossible 
 a ruler that, by the time the land was ready for 
 the Gospel, there was a Eoman governor there, 
 and they ''had no king but Caesar." 
 
 They hated Caesar, but they came to hate 
 Christ more. They hated to be holy more than 
 they hated to bow to Rome. And, as the first 
 temple had to be destroyed because men filled it 
 with idols while calling it a temple of Jehovah, 
 so the last temple fell because it had been turned 
 into "a den of robbers." 
 
 The Pharisees knew that the followers of our 
 Lord were intensely patriotic. Galilee was always 
 so. They knew that He had been preaching ''the 
 Kingdom of Heaven." They hoped that, if given 
 occasion, He would come out openly, and deny the 
 Roman authority. They had seen Pilate not long 
 before mingle the blood of certain Galileans with 
 their sacrifices. It would be easy to get him to 
 act decisively against Christ, if suspicion could be 
 aroused against Him. They themselves assumed 
 a patriotic pose, so they joined the Herodians, at 
 other times their opponents, in order, by words of 
 flattering deference, to betray Christ into an un- 
 guarded word against the government. "Master, 
 we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way 
 
102 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 of God in truth ; neither carest Thou for any man, 
 for Thou regardest not the person of men. Tell 
 us, therefore, Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, 
 or not?" Of course, this was entirely overdone. 
 Part of it was not true. Christ does care for 
 every man, and that is why He was impartial. 
 
 Our Lord not only knew their craft, but He 
 showed them that He knew. He said, ^^Why 
 tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites? Show Me the trib- 
 ute money." So they brought Him a penny. The 
 penny was a Roman coin. That it passed current 
 as lawful money in the country was an evidence 
 of the authority they were living under, and to 
 which they really owed a great deal. Our Lord then 
 asks them, "Whose is this image and superscrip- 
 tion" on the coin? They answered, "Caesar's." 
 
 Then our Lord says, "Render therefore unto 
 Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto 
 God the things that are God's." They had a coin- 
 age of their own for the purposes of the sanc- 
 tuary. 
 
 This partly explains the presence of money- 
 changers in the Temple; for they would have re- 
 garded the use of Roman money there as wrong. 
 Our Lord shows that there would be no necessary 
 conflict of duties until the Romans should try to 
 claim what belonged to God and His sanctuary. 
 If their worship were left free, the Jews might. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 103 
 
 and ought to, respect the constituted authority. 
 That the divine Providence might have made 
 strangers lords over them, was abundantly showed 
 in their history; and Eoman lordship was dis- 
 tinctly better for them than some they had en- 
 dured. Under the Empire, war never approached 
 Judea until they themselves rebelled. 
 
 The early Christians remembered faithfully 
 these words of Christ. They became the best cit- 
 izens of the Empire. They paid their tribute, 
 their taxes, obeyed the laws — all but one; and in 
 the nature of things they could not have obeyed 
 that. It was a law against secret societies, or 
 meetings. The law was, undoubtedly, first passed 
 against secret societies which practised abominable 
 rites; but it seemed to apply to the Christians, 
 who had no other way to meet except in private. 
 And, in addition, the Christians would not ren- 
 der divine honors to Caesar. That they could not 
 have done as Jews; they certainly could not as 
 Christians. !N'evertheless, they were the best and 
 most law-abiding of citizens, and this was recog- 
 nized with perplexity. 
 
 When the Christianizing of the barbaric world 
 began, it was the Church that often made the 
 State possible. England was one Church before 
 it was one State, and the kings could hardly have 
 governed without the Church. So England's 
 
104 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Church not only founded the State, but it pre- 
 served the national freedom. For the Great Char- 
 ter was wrested from a would-be despot by the 
 greatest prelate of his day. 
 
 In a great many European countries there is 
 an Established Church, the meaning of establish- 
 ment varying in many degrees. Some countries 
 regularly pay the clergy. In England there is no 
 State aid to the Church, and the Church does 
 much more for the State than she in any sense 
 receives ; for the State does interfere unreasonably 
 with her law. 
 
 Here we have no State Church, and cannot 
 have; but we are free to follow our own con- 
 sciences in religion. What can we say to our par- 
 ticular membership in behalf of the civil govern- 
 ment ? We can say there never was a government 
 under which taxes, customs, and public obligations 
 ought to have seemed more reasonable than here. 
 We ought to do our civic duties with the utmost 
 cheerfulness. And we can say that our duty to 
 the State is adopted as Christian dutj^, even 
 though the specific thing the State may ask of us, 
 through her statutes, may never have been thought 
 of before. 
 
 When St. Peter wrote, ^'Foar God, honor the 
 king," he was not stating principles which were 
 opposed. You honor "the king'' (which word 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 105 
 
 generally states the supreme authority, no matter 
 what the form of government under which you 
 live), because "the powers that be are ordained of 
 God.'' If you should take money to endow a 
 church which you had made by defrauding the 
 customs, you do not honor God at all. If you 
 successfully evade taxation till you have enough 
 money to endow a projected orphanage, you do 
 not do good — you steal. There is a deplorable 
 lack of conscience among our people about this 
 relation to the State. People who are caught 
 smuggling are not ashamed of themselves for 
 smuggling, but ashamed of being caught. Our 
 Lord makes the debt due Caesar religiously due. 
 
 Everything we get from the State ought to 
 be accounted for. The State bestows the suffrage. 
 Every right has a reciprocal duty. We owe that 
 vote to the State. The State gives protection in 
 various ways to the public health. We owe co- 
 operation, even to our own loss and inconvenience, 
 or else government would be impossible. We owe 
 this to our neighbors as fellow-Christians. Good 
 health is not only a blessing; it is a duty, as far 
 as we can promote it. 
 
 The State gives us important safeguards in 
 her judicial system. We owe our duty as jurors 
 when drawn. It makes us roads; we must obey 
 the laws of the road. But, alas, just to mention 
 
106 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 sanitary regulations, road laws, speed laws, game 
 laws, customs duties, smoke ordinances, is to raise 
 in everyone's mind an immediate illustration of 
 complete public indifference. This is not Chris- 
 tian. We should do these things for Christ's 
 sake. "Eender unto Caesar the things which are 
 Caesar's." 
 
 Then our religious duties are much greater 
 than we are accustomed to consider. Our dues to 
 God can be related to claims upon our time, our 
 belongings, and our personal services. We can- 
 not do our duty toward God unless we do our 
 duty toward our neighbor. It is not too much 
 to say that most Christians fall far short of pay- 
 ing their religious dues in every one of these 
 directions: time, money, and personal services. 
 
 Sundays are commonly rendered to the world, 
 or pleasure. But the world never gave us Sun- 
 day; it was a clean gift from God. The world 
 would never concede us a rest day. Without a 
 visible Church we would not have had it. With- 
 out using it rightly, we are in danger of losing it. 
 We do not really need a day to play, and if Sun- 
 day means just that everybody is idle, instead of 
 religiously occupied, we cannot say there are not 
 great dangers in having everybody idle at once. 
 
 Let any emphasis upon the giving of money be 
 passed here, except for the appeal to find out how 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 107 
 
 much you really owe. It will take some time. 
 Your debts will grow on examination. But the 
 matter of personal service to God needs far more 
 attention than we are apt to pay to it. Nothing 
 can take its place where it is really due. Such 
 duties are connected intimately with personality, 
 which is a non-transferable thing. Our talents, 
 our education, our tastes make us able to do things 
 with a touch much needed, but which no one else 
 has exactly. Hence we can not buy off our per- 
 sonal duties for a money compensation, and be re- 
 lieved of higher responsibilities thereby. 
 
 The real friends of Christ, who ask that they 
 may know, and not defeat His wisdom, will be 
 alert about these things; for they find both privi- 
 lege and duty best expressed in those words of our 
 Eucharistic prayer: "Here we offer and present 
 unto Thee ourselves, our souls and bodies, as a 
 reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice." 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XVI. THE ERROR OF THE SADDUCEES. 
 
 In the Resurrection, whose wife of them is she? for 
 seven had her to wife. — St. Luke 20 : 33. 
 
 HE Sadducees were, in our Lord's 
 time, in control of the great offices 
 and positions of the Jewish Church. 
 The importance of the rival sect, the 
 Pharisees, came from their influence on the peo- 
 ple. The Sadducees had influence with the Ko- 
 man authorities. They afford a curious illustra- 
 tion of how strangely we are constituted. How 
 could men absolutely without spirituality, with- 
 out even faith in spiritual realities, even desire to 
 hold offices which lost their meaning if unspirit- 
 ually exercised? But history duplicates this sit- 
 uation in the age of the Medicean Popes, when 
 thorough-going skepticism was not at all uncom- 
 mon among the highest ecclesiastics. 
 
 The Sadducees refused to recognize any of the 
 old Scriptures except the Torah, or Law of Moses ; 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 109 
 
 and you may remember that there is no explicit 
 teaching about immortality in the Law. There 
 are reasons why we do not expect to find it there. 
 What the Sadducees did not observe was that the 
 Law really took immortality for granted. Every- 
 body in the Egypt from which the Israelites had 
 escaped, believed in it, and the Law contains no 
 contradiction of it; while it did contradict and 
 oppose much that the Israelites had been used to 
 during their bondage. 
 
 The main body of the Jews sided doctrinally 
 with the Pharisees, though not all proceeded to 
 their extremes, and were believers in the Resurrec- 
 tion. Martha's confession after the death of 
 Lazarus, ^^I know that he shall rise again in the 
 Resurrection at the last day," was made as a devout 
 Jewess. 
 
 The Sadducees rejected all this. They be- 
 lieved in neither angel nor spirit; they admitted 
 no resurrection. N^ever were men more out of 
 place. 
 
 The question in the text was a manufactured 
 one. I^othing of the kind ever happened. But 
 they suppose a case where seven brothers in suc- 
 cession married the same woman, and all died 
 childless, leaving the woman a seven-times widow. 
 If there had been children by any of them, there 
 would have been no subsequent marriage; and it 
 
no HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 would have been another case. The question was 
 put to our Lord for the sake of confusing Him, 
 and also to show everybody that the Resurrection, 
 if it could be believed in, would result in some 
 cases in inextricable entanglements. 
 
 Our Lord's answer was very full and clear, 
 and gives us larger detail about the Doctrine of 
 the Resurrection than we get anywhere else. He 
 said, "The children of this world marry and are 
 given in marriage. But they that shall be ac- 
 counted worthy to obtain that world, and the 
 Resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are 
 given in marriage ; neither can they die any more ; 
 for they are equal unto the angels; and are the 
 children of God, being children of the Resurrec- 
 tion." It really was worth while that a foolish 
 question should be asked, for the sake of produc- 
 ing these words of our Lord, so full, and clear. 
 
 Then our Lord proceeds to refer the Sadducees 
 back to those parts of the Old Testament which 
 they recognized, and to show that immortality 
 was taken for granted. He says, "Now that the 
 dead are raised, even Moses showed at the Bush, 
 when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the 
 God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is 
 not the God of the dead, but of the living : for all 
 live unto Him." And so He concludes, "Ye do 
 therefore greatly err." They did not know, as He 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 111 
 
 said, either ''the Scriptures, or the Power of God." 
 There is no such revelation of Heaven, and 
 the life to come, as to answer all possible questions 
 about the conditions there. We never needed 
 such a revelation. If we have faith that God is 
 perfectly good, just, kind, wise, powerful, our 
 faith makes us happy in the prospect of Heaven. 
 And then common sense comes in to tell us that 
 any adequate description of Heaven could not be 
 made to our present faculties. We would need 
 to know the language of Heaven. What we can 
 do is simply to have confidence that it will more 
 than answer all possible expectations, be "exceed- 
 ing abundantly more than we can ask or think." 
 But nothing that our Lord said here justifies 
 us in thinking that people who have been truly 
 married have nothing to expect from reunion in 
 the life to come. For, that the spiritual side of 
 human relationships continues into the next world, 
 can safely be asserted. If God give to a wedded 
 pair here the mercy of coming to their golden 
 wedding day, they have by that time left behind 
 them a good deal that is earthly in their relation- 
 ship. They have become brother and sister, two 
 spiritually interpenetrating selves. They are more 
 one than "one flesh" signifies. They have, how- 
 ever, such a relationship that it could be shared 
 by more than two, for it has ceased to be after the 
 
112 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 flesh ; but it has become greatly precious. Indeed, 
 it has become so precious that we cannot think it 
 is meant to be terminated. 
 
 A joung woman is happily wedded to a fitting 
 mate. She becomes the mother of his children. 
 They seem perfectly at one, and perfectly in love. 
 He dies, and leaves her desolate. She thinks she 
 will die of grief, but she doesn't. Their mutual 
 dependence has been less than she supposed. But, 
 let the same two go on together for fifty years, and 
 then the "silver cord" which binds up life may be 
 the same for both of them. They are no longer 
 so dependent upon each other in the old sense, 
 but more in a higher spiritual union. Nor is 
 this less sweet. "All the world loves a lover," and 
 the sweetness of "love's young dream" is prover- 
 bial. But do they quite express so high a reality 
 as that charming old song, "John Anderson my 
 jo?" An old wedding wish, "May you live to- 
 gether fifty years and die on the same day" has 
 been more than a few times fulfilled. 
 
 God will surely bring together in a better 
 world our friends of earth, without any of the 
 troubles of earth, "l^either shall they die any 
 more" says more than it seems to, for so many of 
 the troubles of earth are just slow dying. Ex- 
 terior relationships do not amount to much unless 
 they go down deep, and call forth something in 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 113 
 
 the soul. And the deeper the source of things, the 
 more permanent they seem to be, the more they 
 seem to prophesy the realities of the ^life of the 
 world to come." 
 
 He who gave us that picture of personal 
 agency in future comfort, expressed by Lazarus 
 in Abraham^s bosom; He who chose serving dis- 
 ciples, that He might advance them to friendship ; 
 He who, for the sake of a mother here or brethren 
 there, raised from the dead those whom they had 
 hopelessly mourned ; He who was the Chief of 
 Friends, more than Brother, who loved "His own 
 unto the end," is the Lord of the world to come. 
 To Him, therefore, because He has been believed 
 by us to be Author of all the Sweetness of this 
 life, we dedicate ourselves in faith, looking, as 
 into a vast but glowing distance, for the promise 
 of the coming day, hoping not less for the reunions 
 of Heaven than for its perfection. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself 
 unto us, and not unto the world? — St. John 14:22. 
 
 |HIS is the solitary appearance of Jude 
 in the Gospels, except in the mere 
 lists of the Apostles. There were two 
 Judases, two Simons, two Jameses. 
 There were also three sets of brothers, and perhaps 
 other relationships represented. Jude is believed 
 to have been our Lord's cousin. There is nothing 
 in this question to show cousinly intimacy. It is 
 the question of a humble disciple. It is so simple 
 that one almost feels at first that it was unnecessary 
 to ask it; but it brought out a very full and sym- 
 pathetic answer. 
 
 If the Epistle we have, that is called by St. 
 Jude, is by the apostle, as we have most reasons 
 for supposing, it seems to be a sort of echo of 
 things said by St. Peter, except for one stirring 
 clause: "Earnestly contend for the faith once de- 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 115 
 
 livered to the saints." There are places where an 
 echo is all that is needed, and a simple soul needs 
 a simple teacher. So perhaps a great many people 
 have needed our Lord's answer just as it stands. 
 
 And the more Jude's question is looked at, the 
 more important it appears. We stand in great 
 need of the manifestation of Christ. We read 
 our Bibles, we go to church, we say our prayers; 
 but do we feel, after all the time we have been in 
 the Church, that we have really advanced in spir- 
 itual knowledge, that is, in personal knowledge of 
 Christ? Isn't St. Paul pretty bold according to 
 your experience when he says, "I know whom I 
 have believed ?" 
 
 ]N'ow, as diffident Christians, we have a peculiar 
 interest in our Lord's answer. He says, "If a 
 man love Me he will keep My words, and My 
 Father will love him, and We will come unto him, 
 and make Our abode with him. And the word 
 that ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's which 
 sent Me." In other words, this is God's truth. 
 
 So, then, the chief key to a personal revelation 
 is love. You will take no trouble to understand 
 any person unless you can respect him, nor hold 
 your interest if you do not like him. But if you 
 heartily do like, respect and admire him, if you 
 reverence his character, think of him as an in- 
 spiration and an example, you will not rest satis- 
 
116 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 fied with any lower degree of intimacy than the 
 most he is willing to grant. 
 
 'Now Christ is disposed to grant to us a re- 
 markable intimacy, so far as it is consistent with 
 the reverential awe and admiration and obedience 
 that we owe Him. We are not His equals, and 
 cannot be. Yet He "will come in unto us and 
 sup with us, and we with Him." That intimacy, 
 however, in this life has to be with an Invisible 
 Friend. It has to be apprehended now by a dif- 
 ferent organ than sight, or by faith, and it is the 
 office of the Holy Scriptures to help us do this. Xo 
 parts of Holy Scripture are more helpful to us 
 than the words of Christ Himself. 
 
 For have we not, after all, a very clear idea 
 of what Christ was like? The portrait has been 
 drawn in the mind. It was in his mind before 
 any artist drew it, for we have no authentic por- 
 trait of the Saviour. We have, however, wonder- 
 ful pen pictures of Him which, while they do not 
 give one single feature, nevertheless give the whole. 
 We cannot escape from the conviction that He is 
 working through the ages, and that we have seen 
 His work. We ask more than a realization of 
 Christ as a historical Person. We do not enter 
 into communion with historical personages. What 
 we seek is the niauifostatiou of the Living Christ, 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 117 
 
 and it is this which Christ really intended to 
 promise. 
 
 For the way to realize Christ is to live the 
 Christ life. Approach life in the way Christ did, 
 approach another life in the way He did. Fix 
 your eye on the personal need, the personal value 
 of another man. Approach him with the unselfish 
 idea of benefitting Him. Feed the hungry, give 
 drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, seek the 
 prisoner and afflicted, and do this, not in a casual 
 way of doing it, but with an honest desire to com- 
 mune with Christ in action, to keep His command- 
 ments, and you are surely due to receive a 
 revelation. 
 
 It is not possible to say that, with the best 
 desire to do so, you may always recognize the 
 revelation while it is present or coming. One of 
 Christ's parables of the Judgment seems to post- 
 pone the realization of present facts until the 
 very end has come. ^^Lord, when saw we Thee" 'i 
 and this though He Himself states His presence 
 through another. Nevertheless, it states those 
 facts as facts. And the waiting for realization 
 may not be so very long. 
 
 You remember that the walk to Emmaus was 
 what we would call a long walk, but it did not take 
 much time. It began with sorrowing thoughts 
 and conversation between two friends, all about 
 
118 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Jesus. While the two were walking and talking, 
 "Jesus Himself drew near." "But their eyes 
 were holden that they should not know Him." 
 It was really Jesus, though. Their ears were fully 
 open, too, and as they were going along with the 
 stranger who knew so much about the Scriptures, 
 they were filled to saturation with nothing but 
 the spirit of the Messianic promises. These were 
 being explained to them by the Incarnate Word 
 Himself. They did not know it was He, but their 
 hearts were burning. Then, with hearts and 
 minds saturated with this foredrawn picture of 
 their Lord, they sat down with the Man who had 
 thus so wonderfully taught them. They could not 
 let Him go. And as He broke the Bread, recog- 
 nition flashed, and — He vanished. "They knew 
 Him" and "He vanished!" How they must have 
 wondered why He did not stay! Perhaps it was 
 for something of the reason that St. Paul alludes 
 to when he says, "though we have known Christ 
 after the flesh, henceforth know we Him (thus) 
 no more." 
 
 Was it not true, therefore, that they had al- 
 ready entered upon the beginnings of the same 
 problem that we have ? He has vanished from us. 
 Our eyes, too, are holden. But let us keep to His 
 words. Let them flood our minds, let us take time 
 to consider them, let us seek the Lord in the Break- 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 119 
 
 ing of Bread. That flash of recognition is, we be- 
 lieve, certain to come to us, and will not fail us 
 when we need it most. It seems plain, though, 
 that we are not intended to have it always, or 
 much, but to find our communion in obedience. 
 "We walk by faith, not by sight." But if it never 
 comes before and we have been really faithful, by 
 the testimony of many, it comes in the Valley of 
 the Shadow. 
 
 Whether Stephen, the first martyr, really had 
 ever seen Jesus it would be impossible for us to 
 say. He was a Greek-speaking Jew. Perhaps he 
 was one of those who came to Philip just before 
 the last Passover, and asked to see Jesus. But 
 it is not there said whether they saw Him or not. 
 But there did come a time when Stephen was being 
 stoned to death for his faithfulness to the testimony 
 of Jesus, Saul of Tarsus looking on. And as 
 death rushed upon him he said, "I see Jesus." 
 
 Lord, though our eyes be holden here, hold 
 not back our hands and hearts from serving Thee ; 
 fill Thou our hearts with love for Thee. May all 
 our desires and powers be Thine. And when we 
 need Thee most, reveal Thyself and save us. For 
 we are Thine. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XVIII. — OUR ow:n duty first. 
 
 Lord, and what shall this man do? — St. John 21:21. 
 
 E are very much indebted to Simon 
 Peter for the questions he asked. 
 They v^ere not always wise, but, 
 though they sometimes were rebuked, 
 they always elicited important truth. We all ask 
 such questions, even if we do not ask them of any 
 one in particular, or ask aloud. We have them in 
 our hearts. 
 
 Thanks, no doubt in part, to our Lord's wise 
 answers to his impulsive questions, we observe that 
 the Peter of the Acts of the Apostles is a different 
 character, though the same person as the Simon 
 Peter of the Gospels. The other disciples knew 
 him perfectly well, defects and all. Is it not 
 strange that, after hearing him rebuked so many 
 times, and knowing all about his three-fold denial, 
 they yet should afterward have accepted him as 
 a conspicuously leading man among them ? May 
 it not have been a sort of confession on their part, 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 121 
 
 that they felt they were just like him on the inside ? 
 They didn't ask all his hasty questions, but they 
 might have done it if he hadn't. Our thoughts 
 are really registered as actions in the sphere of 
 thought. '^As a man thinketh, so is he." 
 
 The conversation of which this question was a 
 part was, in a way, a private conversation. The 
 occasion was that second miraculous draught of 
 fishes which introduces Peter's restoration, and the 
 question comes in, as soon as that restoration was 
 complete. They were possibly barely more than 
 aside from the others, and John seems to have 
 overheard a good deal, or all of what was said. 
 But he did not intrude into the conversation. And 
 he and Peter were always so much together that 
 his presence would not have seemed intrusive. 
 John probably rejoiced inwardly over Peter's 
 restoration, and the words 'Teed My lambs; feed 
 My sheep." 
 
 So solemn and searching were our Lord's ques- 
 tions, so piercing the repetition of ''Lovest thou 
 Me?" that one would think it would have kept 
 Peter quiet for a while. But the force of a great 
 thought sometimes brings a momentary sort of 
 rebound. So Peter has hardly received his abso- 
 lution and his new commission before he thinks 
 of John. He turns and sees him following, and 
 asks the question, "What shall this man do ?" 
 
122 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 The question was not quite so unnatural as it 
 would have been if Peter were not so used to being 
 and acting in company with John, but still it was 
 improper. We can do much for our friends, but 
 we must not do too much; we can not enter upon 
 their responsibilities, or have their deep experi- 
 ences. You have to let a man be as much of a man 
 as you can, and decide for himself what it is 
 his to do. 
 
 So our Lord's answer plainly indicates to 
 Peter the intrusive character of his question. "If 
 I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
 thee ? Follow thou Me." Peter was not the sort 
 of man to conceal what was said to him, the re- 
 proofs any more than the commendation. So this 
 saying was a good deal talked about, and gave rise 
 to the impression among some of the disciples that 
 St. John would not die ; in other words, would be 
 still alive when the Saviour returned to judgment. 
 
 But, though John was preserved to a very ad- 
 vanced age, and wrote his Gospel when he was 
 very old, he apparently had no expectation himself 
 of not sharing the common lot. He had his own 
 calling, his own experiences, his own work. This 
 is the case with everyone of us. We have respon- 
 sibilities about our brethren, but no considerations 
 about their duty should relieve us from seriously 
 and attentively considering our own. Christ says 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 123 
 
 in effect to each of us when we are mourning over 
 unsatisfactory conditions in the world, or the 
 Church, the lack of workers, the infrequency of 
 full consecration, ^'Follow thou Me !" 
 
 If you were the only person in the community 
 who seemed to be realizing vocation, the call to 
 help, you might still more limit the amount of 
 good you could do by wasting your active time in 
 lamenting the fevTness of the workers. It is often 
 a fatal temptation. You might think the little 
 you could do not worth doing if there were no 
 other at work. But this is not the case. 
 
 So we come to this clear point : no matter how 
 young or old you are, how rich or poor, however 
 large or small your endowments, duty is a personal 
 matter between you and Christ. This does not 
 mean that we have not duties in which we may 
 have to take the commands of others, but even 
 then our responsibility goes back to Christ. There 
 is nothing to discourage our direct prayers or ap- 
 peals. As far as your personal duty, your personal 
 need is concerned, though the sympathetic knowl- 
 edge of other disciples may be a help, it is just as 
 much between you and Christ alone as it was 
 between Him and St. Peter. 
 
 What our duty, full duty, to Christ is, what 
 it may become, we are never in a position to know 
 clearly until we have advanced some way toward 
 
124 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 the love of Christ. You can't trust people to act 
 for you, if they do not understand your mind and 
 intention. Their usefulness to you depends upon 
 their fitness to be trusted. To be sure, God makes 
 some use even of people who do not serve Him 
 willingly; but this is not the sort of work that 
 Christians ought to do for Christ. No commission 
 came to Peter until the threefold question had 
 pierced his heart so deeply, and brought forth his 
 confession of love. As God knew his heart, and 
 without deception, Peter could say that he loved 
 Christ. 
 
 Doubtless, he had thought before this many 
 times that he loved the Master. He had even made 
 some sacrifices for Him, but he had not then loved 
 Him enough to overcome his fears of what might 
 happen to him if he had confessed Christ in the 
 High Priest's palace. When we really love Christ, 
 following Him will be seen not to be wholly for our 
 own sakes. It is for the sake of Christ's lambs 
 and sheep. We are not all apostles, but every 
 Christian needs a Shepherd heart. 
 
 In the beginnings of the Gospel the Good 
 Shepherd is represented as going out alone to 
 bring in the lost sheep. But there are many lost. 
 And we are so made and constituted that, with 
 everyone of us, there is probably some person in 
 the world over whom we are likely to have more 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 125 
 
 influence than has anyone else. A child can often 
 do more with and for a playmate than the mother 
 can. So to everyone in his degree, and as far as 
 love makes him able to serve, Christ gives not only 
 food and grace, but a command to share it; and 
 when He commands us to follow. He gives us to 
 some degree to lead men to Him. 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XIX. THE GOSPEL TO ABRAHAM. 
 
 Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen 
 Abraham?— St. John 8:57. 
 
 HIS question voiced the great astonish- 
 ment of the Jews at the saying of our 
 Lord, ''Your father Abraham rejoiced 
 to see My day, and he saw it and was 
 glad." Our Lord was before them, plainly a young 
 man, as we know, little more than thirty, but 
 probably estimated as older from the gravity and 
 intensity of His life. Still, how could a man fifty 
 years old have seen Abraham? Our Lord's an- 
 swer was, ''Before Abraham was (born), I Am." 
 
 Then astonishment gave place to wrath, and 
 they took up stones to cast at Him, while He 
 eluded them. 
 
 You will notice two things in this answer : that 
 He there asserted His own preexistence, and also 
 used, as appears, what the Jews considered the 
 Incommunicable Name. This apparently was 
 what roused their wrath most. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 127 
 
 In order to look at this supposed knowledge of 
 Christ by Abraham, let us consider the patriarch 
 himself. 
 
 He was brought up in Ur of the Chaldees, a 
 great city of which, we suppose, the remains have 
 been found ; but he may have gone there first from 
 southern Arabia. A worshipper of One God, he 
 was impelled by a Divine message to leave Ur, 
 which was given over to a complicated idol and 
 nature worship, and went first north to Haran 
 taking some of his kindred with him, not all of 
 them, however, sharing his pure monotheism ; and 
 then, afterward, by a second call of God, and 
 taking only his nephew Lot, he goes to the land of 
 Canaan. There he was a stranger, and lived as a 
 wanderer. He mixed little with the people, though 
 maintaining peace with them. The chapters of 
 Genesis which describe his life are also a history 
 of his religious development. 
 
 His thoughts of God are shown in the ITames 
 he called Him. The religion of the Hittites and 
 Canaanites around him was also idolatrous, an 
 elaborate, cruel, and impure nature worship. In 
 the face of that, and in spite of the idolatry of 
 Ur, he had arrived at the belief that God was One, 
 that He was Almighty — for that is the meaning 
 of El Shaddai; that He was Supreme — for that 
 was the signification of El Elyon — or, in other 
 
128 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 words, the Most High; that He was Everlasting; 
 that He was the Kighteous Judge of all the earth ; 
 that He was merciful — witness the faith shown in 
 the prayer of Sodom; that He was the Faithful 
 Promiser and Covenant Keeper; that He held 
 communion with man through angels and sacri- 
 fices; that, out of Abraham's own family, perpet- 
 uated in a miraculous way through the birth of 
 Isaac, God was going to bless all nations, even 
 though the patriarch felt moved to make a sacrifice 
 of that very son who had been given him by 
 promise. 
 
 The ^ame given the Eternal Son before the 
 Incarnation was the Word. That the Word of God 
 came unto Abraham, no Christian would deny. 
 That one of the angelic visitors who came to 
 Abraham spoke words as if directly out of the 
 mouth of God, all devout readers have observed. 
 And, finally, the fact that Abraham believed that 
 the sacrifice of his only begotten son was right, 
 and not a defeating of the promise that all the 
 world should be blessed through him, draws our 
 attention closer to that marvellous drama on Mount 
 Moriah, with all its prophetic details of the later 
 sacrifice of One of Isaac's seed, God's only Be- 
 gotten, given by His own Heavenly Father. 
 
 Recall the journey from the place where Abra- 
 ham begins to ascend the mount of sacrifice. His 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 129 
 
 son is bearing the wood, as later Christ carried on 
 foot the wood of the cross. When Isaac, innocent 
 of the father's intention, asks where the lamb is, 
 Abraham says prophetically, "God will provide 
 Himself a lamb." And, at the supreme moment, 
 when the sacrifice is fulfilled in will, and the voice 
 of the angel has arrested it, then the lamb was 
 found, caught in a thicket by its horns, symbol 
 of the crown of thorns, manifold type of the sacri- 
 fice of Calvary. 
 
 Then came from heaven by the angel's voice 
 the fuller proclamation of blessing to the world in 
 Abraham's seed, a promise which Avas glad tidings, 
 which was a gospel, perhaps more deeply under- 
 stood by Abraham than we now suppose. 
 
 Wonderful faith of Abraham ! Not one of the 
 nations around believed in an Almighty God. All 
 their gods had specialties, the powers of nature 
 were divided between them. Not one of them had 
 a really Supreme God, for none of them could 
 alter fate. Not one of them had an Everlasting 
 God, for all the gods in every ancient Pantheon 
 were the offspring of Time. And none of the gods 
 was righteous. We recognize the God of Abraham 
 as our God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ : 
 that Abraham had communion with Him, and 
 was in covenant with Him; and, because no man 
 Cometh unto the Father except through the Son, 
 
130 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 therefore Abraham must have seen the day of 
 Christ. 
 
 The Jews had forgotten much of Abraham's 
 faith. They were careless of that ancient Gospel 
 that foresaw and exulted in the blessing of all 
 nations ; they did not realize that the true children 
 of Abraham would show Abraham's character, and 
 partake of his spirit, and share his faith. They 
 could not recognize a Messenger of God when 
 they saw him. They could not bow their wills, 
 and so they charged the Truth Himself with blas- 
 phemy, and turned from the Living God to serve 
 the idols of their hearts and minds. 
 
 What mysterious gift may yet have been Abra- 
 ham's after his death we do not know. But from 
 our Lord's parable, where He speaks of Lazarus 
 being "carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom," 
 there must have been some high place, some special 
 light provided for him in Paradise. Father of 
 hospitality, father of courtesy, father of worship, 
 father of the faithful; we are proud, as were the 
 Jews, to call ourselves after his name. But if we 
 are Abraham's seed, we must do the works of 
 Abraham and thus prove our sonship. We must 
 not take our privileges selfishly as the Jews did, 
 we must not be content to over value our race, 
 our communion and fellowship, and fall into the 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 131 
 
 bondage of pride, but remember the intercessory 
 life, and our duty to our neighbors. 
 
 The only absolute proof of sonship is character, 
 the family character. One of our Bishops once 
 went to a large south-eastern city to preach a series 
 of sermons. After several sermons had been 
 preached, an officer in the army, who had his sta- 
 tion there, was stopped every few days by strangers, 
 who, with Southern civility, would ask him when 
 he was going to preach again. When he said that 
 he hadn't preached at all, and was not expecting 
 to at any time, his questioners were entirely mysti- 
 fied. At the same time the Bishop was being given 
 the military salute. It was not so much of a 
 mystery after all; they were brothers. They had 
 lived more than thirty years apart, but — they 
 looked like their father. 
 
 Let us endeavor to show that, wherever we are, 
 we are one family in the faith. If we be Abra- 
 ham's seed, let us do the works of Abraham. 
 
 "The God of Abraham praise, 
 
 Who sits enthroned above. 
 Ancient of Everlasting Days 
 
 And God of Love. 
 Jehovah, great I AM, 
 
 By earth and heaven confessed. 
 We bow and bless Thy Sacred Name 
 
 Forever blessed." 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XX. THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM. 
 
 Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the king- 
 dom to Israel? — Acts 1 : 6. 
 
 UR Lord's Apostles were devout men, 
 but they were patriotic Jews. They 
 shared the intense distress of all the 
 best of their race at the domination 
 of the heathen over them. They had hoped that 
 the new King who had been proclaimed would 
 only have to wait a little while before His spir- 
 itual work would have prepared His people once 
 more to lift up their heads among the nations. 
 Of course, unspiritual men, zealous Jews, would 
 not have seen any need to postpone the coming of 
 the visible kingdom. 
 
 Christ might probably have had a great fol- 
 lowing if He had been willing to ascend a tem- 
 poral throne first, unprepared for by righteousness. 
 But the history of Judah would have shown the 
 futility of that. Hezekiah was a good king, but 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 133 
 
 his reign checked but a little while the national 
 apostasy. Josiah was, perhaps, the best king 
 Judah had, but his early death was perhaps the 
 most merciful thing that could have happened to 
 him; for his people were bad, and the Scripture 
 says ^'there was no remedy," except the lessons to 
 be learned through captivity. 
 
 So Christ said nothing to encourage those who 
 looked for glorious visible results from His first 
 coming. When the Pharisees asked when the 
 kingdom was coming He answered, ^'The kingdom 
 of God Cometh not with observation," that is, as 
 the margin gives it, 'Svith outward show." For, 
 He adds, "The Kingdom of God is within you." 
 There is where the kingdom must first be; after- 
 ward it will be time enough to talk about a royal 
 progress through the world. 
 
 He knew perfectly well that there would be 
 progress by the infant Church, but it would not 
 achieve a national reformation. So far from that, 
 the people go from bad to worse, until destruction 
 would once more have to be visited upon Jerusalem. 
 
 So, when the disciples ask Him just before 
 His ascension, if, now that He had conquered 
 death, He could not restore the kingdom — a ques- 
 tion possibly not unconnected with frail ambitions 
 — He decisively puts the question aside. His 
 disciples will have work enough, and they will 
 
134 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 have power enough, after the few days that He 
 bids them wait; and on the coming down of His 
 Promise, "they shall be witnesses unto Him both 
 in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and 
 unto the uttermost parts of the earth." 
 
 This answer must have both disappointed and 
 excited the disciples. For, though it postponed 
 the coming in of the visible kingdom of Christ, it 
 certainly did give a most wonderful horizon to 
 the field of the Church's progress. The widest 
 extent of Israel's empire in Solomon's peaceful 
 days bore no sort of resemblance or comparison 
 with empires such as had been seen after him, 
 and had treated Judea as only an insignificant 
 province. But Christ announces that the kingdom 
 was to begin to come, if they could understand 
 Him, as soon as His testimony could begin to be 
 spread, all over the world at once; and slowly, 
 very slowly, the faith, the intelligence, and the con- 
 science of the Church began to respond to His idea. 
 
 "The Kingdom of God is within you." This 
 was, and is, fundamental. Perhaps it should be 
 translated, "The Kingdom of God is in your 
 midst." But, carefully considered, this makes no 
 great difference. The growth of Christ's kingdom 
 begins quietly through testimony. Its great 
 characteristic is holiness. In every holy man 
 Christ is King. Where two or three are gathered 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 135 
 
 in the Name of Christ, where holiness has spread 
 from one life to two, and from two to three, there 
 the kingdom had grown. Old dynasties might 
 crawl down slowly into the grave, and be replaced 
 by newer ones, and all the time, through testimony, 
 through conversion, through the victory of faith 
 in individual lives, the body of the people might 
 be almost unconscious of their earthly allegiance, 
 though acquiescent in it, because the thought of 
 all was constantly uplifted to God the King above. 
 The laws would begin to be taken differently, the 
 movement of the people to be like that of a brother- 
 hood and a family. Each man would govern 
 himself by the laws of God, and the love of the 
 brotherhood. There need be no setting up of an 
 earthly throne, from which the armies of the Son 
 of David should go forth, as those of Mohammed 
 did afterward, to reduce a world to an unwilling 
 allegiance; but the armies of peaceful men would 
 go forth without observation, and in time trans- 
 form the world through an inward principle, so 
 that, no matter who sat upon the earthly thrones, 
 the kingdoms of the world should become "the 
 kingdoms of our God and of His Christ." 
 
 The throne of the Ascended Lord is fixed in 
 the heavens. Is there any doubt of the reality of 
 His reign over ever vaster regions? That much 
 remains for the heavenly conquest, though many 
 
136 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 of this world's potentates can hardly be said to 
 reign for Christ, yet it has come to pass that 
 hardly any one can reign without Christ. Those 
 who fail, in any high sense, to represent Him, do 
 not dare rule without Him. And the visible 
 power of His will is seen in many places where 
 He is not owned at all. 
 
 "It is not for you to know the times and the 
 seasons." There seems no doubt that the first 
 Christians did really expect an early return of 
 Christ, and a visible reign after that return. The 
 apostles note first that some of the new converts 
 looked for this too soon, and that, what seemed 
 like delay, shook the faith of some ; but they them- 
 selves never wavered in believing the return and 
 the victory sure, while they never ventured to set 
 the day. 
 
 Their work was joy enough. They knew that 
 they had the power promised by our Lord before 
 He ascended. They went on with their witness, 
 the witness of truth and the witness of character. 
 They wrought from time to time their signs as 
 had been promised. They confided in the wisdom 
 of the Master. They recognized that the work 
 they were doing was His work, that He still 
 worked; that His work before His Ascension was 
 just a beginning; it was what He "Began to do 
 and teach." And so, if there were any apparent 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 137 
 
 delay, what were they, that they should think God 
 unwise or weak? 
 
 The past hundred years has seen a great ap- 
 proximation of nations governed on apparently 
 different methods toward the same ideals. Eng- 
 land is a monarchy, a constitutional monarchy, as 
 it is called, but it is really a congeries — that is, 
 the Empire is — of allied republics. The power 
 is in the people with them, as much as with us, 
 and, owing to the more flexible character of their 
 constitution, sometimes it seems to us that the 
 people can register their will there more easily 
 than here, though we are nominally what they are 
 not. Parliamentary ideas have elsewhere made 
 gTeat progress. And there has been growth 
 toward international ideas. A common thought 
 has mitigated many of the horrors of war through 
 societies like the Red Cross. Arbitration has made 
 great strides. Nations, as such, seem to have more 
 of a public conscience. We do not say that we 
 are satisfied. We do not think the cause of mercy, 
 of truth, of peace, of health, all of which are 
 related to the cause of Christ, moves fast enough. 
 But it moves. And we ought to be stirred to co- 
 operation with "every good word and work." 
 
 But we do not want Christ's kingdom to ap- 
 pear too much like a world power, or too soon. 
 So we have to keep constantly returning to the 
 
138 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 real centres of His power among us. His power 
 is in life, and must be, before it is in law. The 
 Roman empire was Christian before it was de- 
 clared so. The transition was only recognized 
 after it came. That is, Christianity had already 
 become the strongest governing force. But, just 
 as soon as the empire accepted it openly, the spir- 
 itual power of Christianity began to decline. We 
 want no victories too easily. There will be no 
 kingdom until we are all fit to reign, and are 
 actually reigning over ourselves. It does not exalt 
 character to put it on a throne. If it is what it 
 ought to be, it needs no proclamation. 
 
 Thus, if Christ rules over the world increas- 
 ingly, it must be through the fact that His servants 
 maintain their testimony, and show the force of 
 the Ascension in themselves; that they "in heart 
 and mind" have themselves ascended, and live 
 here below as in the fellowship of the King ; walk- 
 ing with their feet indeed on the ground, but 
 treading in Christ's footsteps; and realizing that 
 Kingship and the kingdom were never more tri- 
 umphantly vindicated than when Pilate asked the 
 suffering Man before him, "Art Thou a King 
 then ?" and was answered, "Thou sayest that I am 
 a King. For this end was I bom, and for this 
 cause came I into the world, that I should bear 
 witness unto the Truth." 
 
HUMAN QUESTIONS AND DIVINE 
 ANSWERS 
 
 XXI THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for 
 every cause? — St. Matt. 19:3. 
 
 ! 
 
 VEEYTHING in the law of Moses 
 was regarded by the Pharisees as the 
 perfection of enactment, even where 
 there was plainly a need for an ad- 
 vance upon it. There was a divorce law there 
 which they hoped, by asking this question, to use 
 in showing a contradiction between Christ and the 
 great Lawgiver, which would hurt Christ with 
 devout people. But our Lord answered them by 
 an appeal from Moses to Moses; an appeal from 
 an enactment made to meet and mitigate a heart- 
 less and unhappy custom which had grown up, to 
 the history recorded by Moses of man's origin 
 and essential character. "In the beginning it was 
 not so." Divorce does not enter into the ideal. 
 
 Before the Exodus, under the intolerable con- 
 ditions of Egyptian bondage, and largely through 
 the wrong of slavery, men had become addicted 
 
140 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 to light separations. It had become common for 
 men to send their wives away whenever they tired 
 of them. A woman, turned adrift in this way, was 
 in a most pitiable position. Moses had to inter- 
 vene in many particulars to soften the lot of 
 women. And this regulation about "a writing of 
 divorcement" was not intended to facilitate 
 divorce, but, in some way, to protect the woman 
 who was sent away, often without her fault. If 
 she had such a writing, it gave her some sort of 
 legal status. If a woman went away of her own 
 accord, that was another matter. 
 
 The conditions of life in old times seem to have 
 been such that, if a woman left her husband 
 voluntarily, she left to go to another man. This 
 would put her entirely outside the law. There was 
 no provision for life apart from organized families. 
 A woman had to be either with one man, or 
 another. If she were driven away by cruelty, 
 that is, not told to go but forced to go, of course 
 that entitled her to compassion; but it would not 
 generally alter the fact that she would have to 
 go to another man. This is what our Lord meant 
 when He said that, when a man put away his 
 wife, he caused her to commit adultery. If a 
 woman went away deliberately therefore, without 
 compulsion of any kind, this was therefore because 
 she purposed to go to someone else, and would 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 141 
 
 therefore be unfaithful in her heart before she 
 left. If a law could have been always enforced 
 against such, she would have been punished with 
 death for such behavior; but then it could not 
 always be enforced. 
 
 In our Lord's answer here He goes back to 
 first principles, by showing that, on any fair con- 
 sideration of the purpose of the Creator in insti- 
 tuting marriage. Divorce ought not to he. In any 
 fair study of the question we ought, as Christians, 
 to begin with God's evident declared purpose. Let 
 the details of any particular case rest until we 
 have this firmly fixed in our minds, Divorce ought 
 not to be. A firm grasp of this by our civil 
 judges, who are given some discretion in certain 
 cases where they may or may not grant divorces, 
 would prevent them from acting lightly. Let 
 them put alongside the question, ^'Is it lawful?" 
 that other question, ''Would this be right ?" For 
 law and right are not always as close as they 
 should be. 
 
 The constitution of our nature tells us a good 
 deal about the purposes of God for us. We think 
 we are the crown of the animal creation. We are 
 more than that ; we are certainly not less than that. 
 We are all persuaded that we are the highest of 
 the creatures, but we must have reasons for so 
 considering. What do we mean by "high," or 
 
142 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 ^'higher?'' Man's logical faculty demands the 
 answer. Considering ourselves from the animal 
 side, we need animal reasons. We say some 
 animals are high, and some low. What makes 
 them high or lower ? 
 
 There would have to be the consideration of 
 many details before we could get that question 
 fully answered, but here is something we would 
 have to take into account. It would be impossible 
 for us not to regard animals that remain with 
 their mates as, in that respect, higher than those 
 that do not. We are formed mentally to admire 
 fidelity. A mating, therefore, that continued 
 through a whole season, in which the male helped 
 provide for his offspring, seems to mark a higher 
 animal than where the male, like some of the cat 
 family, is dangerous to his offspring. If the mat- 
 ing lasted beyond a season, from one year to 
 another, that would mark still higher things. 
 
 l^ow the need of the male as a provider in- 
 creases with the length of the time the young are 
 helpless. It is plainly greatest in man. Man has 
 the greatest natural reason for faithfulness beyond 
 a single season, as the dependence of his children 
 lasts until there may have been several successive 
 births following each other. For the man to for- 
 sake his dependent offspring is a crime against 
 his species, unless you can suppose it would be 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 143 
 
 more natural for a stranger to care for them, 
 which is absurd. And woman cannot be expected 
 to care for them alone. 
 
 A mother-hen has chicks who can begin to 
 pick up their own food, can run alone the day 
 thej are hatched. All they need is brief shelter, 
 hovering and defence. The hen is entirely free 
 of one brood before she has another. The hen 
 does not need a consort to help her except occasion- 
 ally to fight an enemy, and the male, though 
 polygamous, is never far away. 
 
 A mother-robin has to find food as well as give 
 shelter, so she needs a faithful consort; but she is 
 also free of one brood before she has another. She 
 only needs the male as long as the young are 
 nestlings ; nevertheless, her instinct of faithfulness 
 lasts beyond the single brood. 
 
 The mother-woman is described in the proph- 
 ecy, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrows and thy 
 conception." So far from being free from her 
 first care before the second comes, the first child 
 needs more care as a little toddler than when it is 
 in her arms. It can walk, but walk into danger; 
 it can eat, but eat dangerous things. And at the 
 very time it is thus needy, the coming of the 
 second child robs the mother of some of her 
 strength and quickness to help. 
 
 So the physiology of the race demands that 
 
144 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 the man should remain true. Leave morals out. 
 It is Nature that demands faithfulness. And by 
 the time the childbearing period is completed, any 
 reasonable couple simply could not separate. It 
 is too late, unless death has intervened, to begin 
 new relationships. This shows itself among those 
 animals we most admire. Those which could 
 change mates, and sometimes do, often remain 
 faithful through successive seasons, and show clear 
 signs of something that looks like love. When we 
 see cases like this there is an immediate outflow 
 of sympathy. Our heart approves. Simply then, 
 regarding man as the highest of the animals. 
 Divorce ought not to be, for the sake of the 
 children. 
 
 As the stability of marriage is demanded for 
 the sake of the children, it is plain that children 
 are the governing reason for marriage. A deliber- 
 ately childless marriage is unnatural, and a per- 
 version of nature. It is entirely an invention of 
 our own, and is "earthly, sensual," and careful, 
 scheming selfishness. This also has a Bible name. 
 
 A generally accepted statement would be that 
 the law of our American Church on the subject 
 of divorce has been growing in strictness. But this 
 is not correct. The Church has no law about 
 divorce at all. She cannot divorce people. All 
 she knows about it is that God did not intend it: 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 145 
 
 Christ deplored it. We have a law of Marriage, 
 not a law of Divorce. It is the State that divorces, 
 and the State is thereby busy in overthrowing her 
 own foundations, for she is founded on the family. 
 Overthrow the family, and you get anarchy. 
 
 Part of our marriage law has been made, 
 however, in consequence of the acts of the State. 
 We have to enquire as to the right of persons 
 divorced by the State to marry again in the life- 
 time of the other party. Here is where the Church's 
 discipline has been growing more strict, as she has 
 more and more recurred to her fundamental prin- 
 ciple. Divorce ought not to be. 
 
 Marriage is now apparently looked upon by 
 ^^emancipated women," as they are queerly styled, 
 as a sort of bondage. What has gone before shows 
 that it really saves her from abandonment. She 
 must have children ; her heart demands them ; she 
 is not fully blessed without them. But if she has 
 them she needs help. Christian marriage makes 
 her safe. Even Moses' apparently lax regulation 
 was in her interest, as against a worse custom. 
 But now, alas, it is the woman who is often at- 
 tacking her own purity and safety. Woman's 
 purity is her crown. We have been taught to 
 revere her. It is not woman, then, but pure Man, 
 our Lord Himself, whom we must listen to, to 
 understand our duties. 
 
146 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Let US state a typical divorce case in its 
 history. The facts answer to conditions in hun- 
 dreds of cases. 
 
 Mrs. X. is not altogether happily married, 
 nor altogether unhappily; but she is selfish, badly 
 taught, and does not know that love has no promise 
 of continuance unless it is real, and therefore self- 
 sacrificing. Mr. X. is just like his wife. Up to 
 this point the situation can be saved by giving it 
 a religious turn. Neither has yet been unfaithful, 
 nor yet fully devoted. Neither has fully realized 
 what Christian marriage really is. 
 
 Mr. X. begins to flirt, for it is always easy to 
 find somebody to flirt with. Mrs. X. observes, 
 and her cure for the situation is to revenge herself 
 by herself engaging in a flirtation. Neither thinks 
 of the soul of the other, or of his own. There is 
 no awakening of conscience. Finally Mrs. X. 
 gets caught by the superior attractiveness of "the 
 other man." It would never do to put herself in 
 the wrong publicly, so she draws back from her 
 husband, offering him nothing, in hopes that in 
 his estrangement he may go too far, and she may 
 get evidence against him that will entitle her to 
 a divorce as the "innocent party.'' Then she will 
 be in a position to marry the man she prefers. 
 Is she innocent ? 
 
 Or, if you are offended at supposing this of 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 147 
 
 any woman, begin again with Mr. X. Let the 
 man plan the divorce, neglect his wife, goad her 
 into impossible situations, lower her sense of 
 delicacy by coarseness in word and deed, throw 
 her with others until she falls, then let him sue 
 for a divorce as the "innocent party.'' Is he in- 
 nocent? Sit down if you think so, and try to 
 write what the devil would really be like. Such 
 a statement of facts as either of these could be 
 duplicated in real life a hundred times over. 
 
 'No person is "innocent" in the mind of the 
 Church, who, before a divorce has even contem- 
 plated and planned marriage with another. Un- 
 faithfulness in heart is just unfaithfulness, 
 nothing else. And divorces which are amicably 
 agreed upon between married people, either of 
 them having a second marriage in view, are a 
 deliberate wickedness, which our courts are con- 
 stantly sanctioning against the clear law of the 
 land. For collusion vitiates all proceedings of this 
 kind. 
 
 God help us, as Christians, to take Christ's 
 view as law for us, whether it is hard, in any 
 case, or not. Christianity has the same thing to 
 say to everybody, married or single, "ISTo cross, 
 
THE SHADOW OF PETER 
 
 They brought forth the sick into the streets and laid 
 them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow 
 of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. 
 — Acts 5 : 15. 
 
 HE large and immediate influence 
 gained by our Lord's Apostles over 
 the dwellers in Jerusalem so soon 
 after they began preaching the Gos- 
 pel of the Resurrection, is worthy of very close 
 attention. Any multitude, as a multitude, is more 
 easily swayed than are a few, and who has not 
 felt the pull and draw of a great crowd in action? 
 But if the crowd be hostile to begin with, then 
 the work is very hard. 
 
 Now it has been said that those who formed 
 the shouting chorus at Christ's triumphal entry 
 into Jerusalem were the same people as those 
 who, five days afterward, cried, "Crucify Him ! 
 Crucify Him !" This, however, can hardly be 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 149 
 
 more than sketchily true. There may have been 
 a few of the same people among the class most 
 easily influenced. But the procession which cried 
 ^^Hosanna!'' was largely composed of Galileans, 
 and other visitors at Jerusalem most favorable to 
 Christ; while those who cried "Crucify Him!" 
 were, more than probably, people who were under 
 the closer influence of the chief priest. Still it is 
 easy to be carried away. 
 
 Then it is worth noticing that, even where 
 men are drawn into a movement by reasons rather 
 than impulses, the reasons need not at first be of 
 the highest. Partial reasons may give place to 
 higher ones. It is inconceivable that our Lord's 
 disciples can have had the same full reasons for 
 obedience when He first said, "Follow Me," as 
 afterward, when He gave the same command to 
 Peter at the Sea of Galilee, after His resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 Those who heard Peter's Pentecostal sermon 
 were, doubtless, as many were converted on that 
 occasion, in a state of some preparation. Their 
 minds were like fuel, ready laid for the match to 
 be applied. And there were so many of these 
 first converts that there must soon have been an 
 enkindling effect on slower minds. And this in- 
 fluence must have grown, day by day, with the 
 miracles of healing, of which the one wrought by 
 
150 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Peter and John upon the lame man at the Beautiful 
 Gate of the Temple was probably no more remark- 
 able, except in its immediate publicity, than some 
 of the others. We may suppose it to have been 
 given as a type. It was, in its wonder and grand- 
 eur, like some of our Lord's miracles, and im- 
 pressed the people just as much. But our Lord's 
 miracles were done in the power of His own Per- 
 son, and those of Peter and John were wrought in 
 His J^ame. 
 
 It is not likely that those in need of help, sub- 
 merged in the great mass of suffering which then, 
 more than now, probably abounded, at first clearly 
 made this discrimination. They would be more 
 interested in deliverance than in the precise 
 method, and probably gave Peter some of the 
 glory which belonged to God. 
 
 But, equally with that man who was born 
 blind, and healed by our Lord, they would have 
 scouted the idea that beneficent works could come 
 from sinners. The influence of the Gospel, and 
 of the preachers of the Gospel, is meant to grow 
 through good works. This is the beginning of the 
 story of modern missionary success. It is hos- 
 pitals, homes, the children who have been saved, 
 the women who have been comforted, and rescued, 
 that have opened the hearts of China and of India 
 to the Gosped. These things are the more im- 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 161 
 
 pressive in the foreign field because it is easy to 
 see there that Christian hospitals were, at first, 
 the only hospitals. Over here it is not always 
 clear without thought, and a mental survey of his- 
 tory, that there would have been no modern philan- 
 thropy without an underlying Christianity. 
 
 The sacred narrative does not say how much 
 good was done by the shadow of Peter; it does 
 say that his influence was so great that, while nat- 
 urally his time and his personal attention had to be 
 limited, it was believed that he could do good with- 
 out bestowing a look or a word, without knowing 
 the persons to be benefitted. And it seems far 
 from impossible that this might have been the 
 case. At first the beginnings of many a cure are 
 grounded in hope. And this hope is powerfully 
 helped by the belief that God cares, and ^'has 
 visited His people." Many cures are wrought 
 by doctors in spite of their medicines. They need 
 a healing will, quite as much as knowledge of 
 medicine. And this is no modern discovery. It 
 is not beyond the possibilities that Peter's shadow 
 may have healed people that Peter himself would 
 not have known how to heal. The clergy have 
 often done good to the sick and afflicted by sym- 
 pathetic visitation until they began to talk; then, 
 sometimes, naturally, they blundered. 
 
 A true story is told of a quiet clergyman, large- 
 
152 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 hearted but not otherwise remarkable for talent, 
 who was minister of a plain little mission in a 
 crowded, poor neighborhood in a large western 
 city. Of course there was the usual large foreign 
 element, not very accessible to us, and the unap- 
 proachableness of many others, which is one of the 
 bitter fruits of separatism among Christians. He 
 had a great deal to do, but he had the will to do 
 more than seemed possible. His fundamental 
 thought was to spread the blessing of God. He 
 was observed to be a good deal on the streets, and 
 not often on the same streets. He rarely travelled 
 the same way twice in succession from his lodg- 
 ing to his mission. He became a very familiar 
 and much respected figure on the streets of the 
 whole district, known and observed by hundreds 
 of people who had no immediate connection with 
 his church. 
 
 He was asked curiously about these peram- 
 bulations, and answered that he got the idea from 
 the ^^shadow of Peter." There was not an atom 
 of conceit or self-assertion in his make-up. But 
 he felt that he was known to be somebody besides 
 himself, in other words, "a man of God." When 
 people saw him they thought instantly of the 
 Church, of the Christian ministry, perhaps of 
 God; superficially, perhaps, but superficial 
 thoughts sometimes introduce deeper ones. It is 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 153 
 
 no small thing to know when we see a man that 
 he is wholly occupied in proving God's good will 
 toward men, himself doing good as far as his 
 knowledge and strength go, being inwardly moved 
 thereto by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 It was a characteristic saying of Bishop Joseph 
 Butler, ''Things are what they are ; and their con- 
 sequences will be what they will be." If we are 
 good, it isn't necessary that we should say any- 
 thing about it. Nor is it necessary that we should 
 be highly placed, or highly talented. Very quiet 
 persons are often allowed to get into closer con- 
 tact with their neighbors than those who make a 
 louder appeal for notice. They do not disturb 
 or bump corners. And when you get close to 
 people they know whether you are good or not, 
 because good people are consistently self-forgetful, 
 and consistently kind. And kindness, meekness, 
 gentleness — what a large part of nursing they are ! 
 And they are not "born of the flesh." 
 
 When Peter and John restored the lame man 
 at the Beautiful Gate, you remember what Peter's 
 words were: "Silver and gold have I none, but 
 such as I have give I thee." Philanthropy now 
 is so connected with great givers, astonishing bene- 
 factions, that the private man is awed. Anything 
 he can possibly do seems so insignificant. And 
 yet the thought of the world is not altogether clear 
 
164 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 about these tremendous benefactions; for there is 
 no note of self-sacrifice about them. Nor could 
 they be put into actual effect without the quiet 
 assistance of thousands of faithful and devoted 
 lives. The world will never outgrow the need of 
 the "cup of cold water" personally administered, 
 or the touch of a sympathetic hand. There is need 
 just where we are, and the need is of something 
 in personality. Not by expecting great things at 
 first, and being dashed by failure into hopeless- 
 ness of doing any good, is our influence to be 
 effected. Knowledge of our weakness is incom- 
 plete knowledge; for God is strong enough, and 
 we must know that, too. If we only "grow in 
 grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ," then "we are what we are," 
 and our effects in our sphere "will be what they 
 will be." 
 
 And quiet goodness reaps, even in this life, an 
 exceedingly comfortable reward. Children are 
 very safe judges. The men and women who draw 
 children are apt to be pretty safe company for 
 anybody. The arms of little children bring great 
 comfort as they cling to those they trust. And 
 how often the true friend, Avho has neither talent 
 or eloquence, has the reward of standing by in 
 such words as "I like to have you around." 
 
 We see, then, that our character is not merely 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 155 
 
 our own affair. God meant us to carry and spread 
 His light, and there are dark places under the 
 stairs, and behind the door, where a candle can 
 be carried, but the moonlight will not reach. 
 
 It is impossible to limit closely the quiet effects 
 of character. Many a one is often deeply in- 
 fluenced by people very little known to him. The 
 brave bearing of a burden, the sanctifying of an 
 almost impossible home, the evidence of true 
 charity and forgiveness, the absolute patience of 
 some few people with what we call "chronic" and 
 unimproving cases of dependency, give us word- 
 less comfort, wordless admonition every day, 
 where there has been no thought of influencing 
 us particularly. But such people must think a 
 great deal about serving God. 
 
 And thus, as God gave the magnet drawing 
 power, and the wind its cooling touch, and the vio- 
 let its fragrance though it cannot speak, so He has 
 given us our shadows, the unconscious reach of 
 our influence. In the high noon of life the 
 shadow looks small, for our conscious activity is 
 then so high, and absorbs our thought. But when 
 we cannot do so much that seems to count, it may 
 comfort us to observe that in the early morning 
 and the late afternoon the shadows draw long. So 
 may the untainted, unconscious sweetness of child- 
 hood transform many a household, and so may 
 
156 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 God perhaps throw far behind us the shadowing 
 reach of a holy life, as the sun goes down. 
 
 One cannot avoid the thought, too, that the 
 strange companion, the shadow always sticking so 
 close to us, brings to mind the guardian angel God 
 sends to minister to us, by ministering fo?- us, and 
 thus fulfilling our really strongest desire. 
 
FRAGRANT SERVICE 
 
 She hath done what she could. — St. Mark 14 : 8. 
 
 IWL. 
 
 HE pious act of Mary of Bethany, in 
 anointing our Lord with the precious 
 spikenard a few days before His Pas- 
 sion, must not be confused with the 
 anointing performed by the unnamed woman, 
 who was "a sinner," in the house of one of the 
 chief Pharisees, as described in the seventh chap- 
 ter of St. Luke. 
 
 It is true that both anointings were done in 
 the house of a man named Simon, but this by no 
 means identifies the two Simons as the same per- 
 son. There were two Simons, even among the 
 twelve Apostles, and the name was extremely 
 common. All the other details were different. 
 Mary anoints the Saviour's head ; the other woman 
 His feet. The objector in one case was Judas 
 Iscariot, in the other the host himself. Simon 
 objected, not so much to the act of anointing, as 
 
168 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 to the character of the woman who was doing it. 
 But the objection made by Judas, in the house of 
 the other Simon at Bethany, was against the 
 wastefulness of the anointing. The ointment 
 ought to have been sold and given to the poor, or, 
 that was what he claimed, though insincerely. He 
 could not have objected to the person doing it, for 
 she was the daughter of the house. 
 
 The value of the ointment was very great; it 
 is given as three hundred pence. This, of course, 
 on the face of it tells us very little until by com- 
 parison with another scripture^our Lord's par- 
 able of the Laborers in the Vineyard — we learn 
 that a penny was considered a fair day's wage in 
 harvest time, when laborers were naturally in 
 great demand. Beckoning out Sabbaths, it would 
 have taken a man a full year to earn three hun- 
 dred pence, and of course a good many years to 
 save such a sum. It would be counted a small 
 fortune, and this was what was lavished upon our 
 Lord in an instant. 
 
 Hearing such an objection as that of Judas 
 stated, there are hundreds who at first blush would 
 be inclined to think he was right; so it is worth 
 while to look into the matter carefully. 
 
 Is the gift of money to the poor absolutely the 
 best use that can be made of it? Our Lord did 
 not seem to think so; and yet He certainly cared 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 169 
 
 for the poor as we do not. He intimates clearly 
 that we have plenty of opportunities for helping 
 the poor, and that what is lacking generally is not 
 so much the power to help them as the will. And 
 as we may easily lack the money to help them 
 when we are asked for it, our Lord's statement, 
 that we may do good to them whenever we will, 
 seems to indicate that the best help we can give 
 them may not be money at all. 
 
 We may soothe ourselves sometimes by giving 
 money where it isn't really asked, and is not the 
 true remedy. What may be needed is an investi- 
 gation, to show how to help the poor man earn a 
 better living, and save his self-respect, one of his 
 most precious treasures. Then, too, we have no 
 right to give in so-called charities money, though 
 we call it our own, if it really is due elsewhere. 
 Something certainly must be due to God, from 
 whom, first, all good things come. There is 
 plenty of money for everyone if it were distrib- 
 uted right, but no one knows how to do that. An 
 even distribution would hardly do unless virtue 
 could also be evenly distributed. 
 
 If the ointment was not to have been poured 
 out on Christ, what would have become of it, any- 
 how? Ointment cannot be used for any purpose 
 except one. If it were sold for money to be given 
 away, that would simply put the ointment into 
 
160 HPMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 other hands. It must still ultimately be used, if 
 at all, to anoint some other person less worthy to 
 enjoy its fragrance, or to be honored so signally. 
 The maker of it had been paid already, and Mary 
 put its beautiful fragrance at the disposal of the 
 Author of all beauty and fragrance; and all the 
 guests shared it, nor did its odor soon pass away. 
 The fragrance lingers yet, as our Lord said it 
 would, in the story that tells of it. Then, too, if 
 we consider the needs of poverty, our Lord Him- 
 self was the typical Poor Man, the representative 
 of all holy poverty. Things done for the poor are 
 always done for Him, if done in the right spirit. 
 If we give them thought enough, respect enough, 
 love enough, sympathy enough, we will find that 
 they, too, would almost rather have precious oint- 
 ment than bread; for they have hearts and souls 
 to be satisfied, as well as the bare needs of the body. 
 On the other hand, nothing done for Christ is 
 ever really taken away from the poor. All beau- 
 tiful things given to churches minister indirectly 
 to the poor. 
 
 But Mary was specially commended by our 
 Lord because her service of God went to the limit 
 of her powers. How many there are who are 
 doing some good, but doing it in a complaining 
 way, as if they were doing too much ! They would 
 never have wasted any ointment upon Christ. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 161 
 
 They certainly do not and cannot appreciate the 
 blessedness of giving, because ''The Lord loveth a 
 cheerful giver." The spirit in which Mary 
 wrought was precisely that of the poor widow who 
 gave her two mites to the temple Treasury, a gift 
 which was commended by our Lord not because it 
 was little, but because it was all she could possibly 
 give, being all she had. It really stood, as did 
 Mary's ointment, for the surrender of self, for 
 absolute, heart-whole devotion. 
 
 Now our Mother Church specially needs the 
 whole-souled attention of her children to her doc- 
 trine, and their duty. There are so many poor 
 Churchmen. And this is true in two senses. There 
 are many who call themselves Churchmen who do 
 not seem, really, to believe in the Church at all! 
 They do not seem to realize that an Apostolic min- 
 istry, or valid sacraments, have any exclusive 
 claim on their allegiance, and all they bring to the 
 Church's standard is weakness, dead weight, and 
 discouragement. And then there are some who 
 would be very much surprised to be told that they 
 were poor Churchmen. 
 
 "Why," say they, "we believe in the Apostolic 
 succession. We don't think that these modern 
 churches are any churches at all. Ours is, of 
 course, the right doctrine and the right way. We 
 have an incomparable liturgy," and so on. Still 
 
162 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 they hang back when asked to attend church, teach 
 in Sunday school, help in singing, work in the 
 parish, interrupt for a moment their plans to use 
 for themselves and their own pleasure God's good 
 gifts of time, treasure, talent or instruction. They 
 have the ointment all right, but it is neither for 
 Christ, nor the poor. There is no real love of God 
 in their hearts. 
 
 The Church seldom ventures to ask us to do all 
 we can. Usually very modestly and simply — be- 
 cause we have been so often refused — we just ask 
 people to do something, but to do it regularly, 
 reliably, cheerfully, and sympathetically. Some 
 people do things, thank God, that seem to carry a 
 fragrance. But who does now in the Church, or 
 for our Saviour's sake, as much as he can? And 
 who realizes the question of life and death that is 
 bound up here, or that we must answer for all 
 unused opportunities at the Day of Judgment ? 
 
 Christians are too often like moral bankrupts 
 trying to compromise with duty at about fifteen 
 cents on the dollar ; and trying to feel virtuous on 
 top of that. How much we need the splendid in- 
 spiration of Mary's example: for "she hath done 
 what she could," and many quiet Maries since 
 have followed her example. 
 
 The actual performance of the members of 
 this Church is most pitiful. It is of very little 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 163 
 
 consequence that we are probably not the wealth- 
 iest Church, 'per capita; we are wealthy enough 
 to lay just responsibilities upon us up to ten times 
 what we manage to do. The Church abounds in 
 talent, in education, in young people who have had, 
 or are having, every opportunity ; but a mere hand- 
 ful are doing the work in every parish. This does 
 not entitle them to complain of what they do; but 
 does give them a just right to indignation against 
 the idle. 
 
 How is the ministry of Christ to bring to these 
 idle members the comfort they will urgently de- 
 mand in time of trouble, if their weariness is not 
 from labor, if their poverty is from waste and not 
 misfortune, their sickness from excess, or their 
 bereavement from selfish neglect? We have had 
 to meet all these cases among those who profess 
 and call themselves Churchmen. 
 
 Then may God forgive us, the Holy Spirit 
 enkindle us, that Christ may at the last ap- 
 prove us. 
 
THE HEM OF CHRIST'S 
 GARMENT 
 
 // I may hut touch His garment I shall he whole. — 
 St. Matt. 9:21. 
 
 UR Lord's ministerial life was one of 
 constant interruptions. He was en- 
 gaged in answering a question about 
 fasting, put to Him, apparently in 
 good faith, by some of John Baptist's disciples, 
 when He was interrupted by the coming of one 
 Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue in Capernaum, 
 who begged Him to come and heal his daughter, 
 a girl about twelve years old, who was already in 
 a dying condition. 
 
 He went on His way toward the house of 
 Jairus without hesitation, but, while He was go- 
 ing, another interruption occurred. He had with 
 Him His usual disciples and a curious crowd, some 
 of them favorable to Him, some unfavorable, some 
 simply inquisitive. All those as they went were 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 165 
 
 much more observant of Him than of each other, 
 but many of them far from careful to refrain from 
 jostling Him. Our Lord was losing no time on 
 the way, and was probably improving it by speech 
 as He walked. 
 
 Unnoticed in the crowd, an unfortunate 
 woman, a chronic invalid, one whose infirmity, if 
 generally known, would have caused her to be con- 
 sidered legally unclean, and so forbidden to come 
 into contact with anyone else until purified, came 
 behind Him, and, bending over, touched the hem 
 of His garment. She had been sick twelve years. 
 She had tried hard to be cured, and physicians 
 were ignorant and brutal, many of them, in those 
 days. So we are told that she ''had suffered many 
 things of many physicians, and was nothing bet- 
 tered, but rather grew worse.'' 
 
 She observed that Christ seemed to be healing 
 everyone without price, and hurting no one. He 
 seemed to be perfectly unselfish, and nothing was 
 too hard for Him. Perhaps, being consciously 
 unclean, she feared to ask Him to touch her, but 
 that there was enough healing power in His Per- 
 son to flow out, even upon His garments, she had 
 not a doubt. But again, perhaps the secrecy of 
 her act was dictated entirely by modesty, and a 
 desire not to trouble or delay Him. She thought 
 He could bless without knowing it, and what He 
 
166 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 gave He would not miss. That she might not be 
 healed seems never to have occurred to her. And 
 she was healed instantly. She had come silently, 
 and withdrew silently with her blessing, but not 
 so great a one as she was destined to have. 
 
 Our Lord, however, stopped at once, and caused 
 very great surprise by asking, "Who touched Me ?" 
 He had been in a street crowd, a narrow street, and 
 not an entirely polite crowd, and even His dis- 
 ciples were very much surprised by the question. 
 Who hadnt touched Him? But only one per- 
 son had touched Him with faith, and so the con- 
 tact of His sacred Person had blessed but one ; and 
 of the virtue which had gone out of Him to heal 
 the poor woman He was perfectly conscious. So 
 He insisted, "Somebody touched Me !'' 
 
 So the poor woman, seeing that Christ knew, 
 though very much frightened, and not quite under- 
 standing, came and confessed her unclean sick- 
 ness, her secret boldness, her faith, and then that 
 she had been healed. And then our Lord showed 
 He had the kindest motives in stopping, and we 
 can bless Him for it, as doubtless she did ; for He 
 said, "Daughter, be of good comfort. Thy faith 
 hath saved thee ; go in peace." 
 
 !N'ow why should this woman have thought that 
 there could be any virtue proceeding from our 
 Lord's garments? Does not her attitude strike 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 167 
 
 us as being singular? But our modern attitude 
 toward clothes would have struck her, and every 
 one of her contemporaries, as quite inexplicable. 
 The Israelites were taught to consider their 
 clothes religiously. They wore them for warmth 
 or coolness, for protection, for modesty, and, in a 
 way, for religious recognition. All Jews in our 
 Lord's time dressed pretty much alike. That a 
 man was a Jew could be told by his clothes. It 
 could even be told if he were a devout Jew. ^N'o 
 good Jew would wear a garment made of wool and 
 linen mixed, because it was contrary to the law. 
 And every careful Jew would wear a fringe on 
 his garment, and on the fringe, whether run 
 through or tacked on, a blue ribbon, which you 
 will find commanded in the fifteenth chapter of 
 !N'umbers. This blue ribbon was to be a constant 
 reminder of God's Law. That was what it was 
 meant for, and so it was understood. Blue was 
 the color of the heavens, and was thus peculiarly 
 sacred. 
 
 The garments of the priesthood were so sacred 
 and so personal, that when the High Priest died 
 his successor was robed in the garments of the 
 dead man as a necessary part of his investiture. 
 Elisha too, you will remember, attached great im- 
 portance to taking up the mantle of Elijah which 
 fell from him when he was carried away, and 
 
168 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 smote the waters of Jordan with the wrapped 
 mantle to give him passage, as Elijah had showed 
 him how. Clothes, then, among the Jews were 
 national, personal, and religious in significance. 
 The hem of every man's robe being made specially 
 to remind him of the Law, his garments stood in 
 a sense for his personal righteouness. He would 
 be righteous if he did the works of the Law. The 
 most sacred thing, therefore, about a holy man 
 would be the hem of his garment, and they were 
 accustomed to sing, in one of the Psalms, that the 
 oil of Aaron's anointing had "run down to the 
 skirts of his garment." 
 
 So the poor woman's act curiously brought to- 
 gether the two thoughts: the Holiness of the Law 
 and the Kighteousness of Faith. Christ is "the 
 Lord our Kighteousness," and of His fulfilment 
 of the Law we lay hold. 
 
 It could be wished that the countries of the 
 world would not be so hasty to give up their na- 
 tional costumes. So far as we know they are all 
 of them beautiful, interesting, and modest. They 
 speak of a certain character, of the honor of the 
 race. They are a protection against the vagaries 
 and tyrannies of modern fashion. It seems to be 
 very hard for some Christians to resist when the 
 tyrants of modern dress decree the extravagant, 
 immodest, or absurd. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 169 
 
 The white robes of the clergy are meant to 
 symbolize the Righteousness of Christ. But the 
 fact that they are worn further symbolizes that 
 the righteousness of Christ can be imparted. What 
 the hem of His garment was to the poor woman, 
 the Sacraments are to us. Though they veil His 
 presence, they assure us of it, and they convey 
 to us His grace, if only we have the touch of 
 faith. 
 
 Christ as our example. His deeds as patterns 
 and inspiration for ours, carry us back again to 
 the thought of our garments as, in some way, 
 sacraments of ourselves. We testify to a man's 
 innocence when we say that ''he has kept his 
 skirts clean." That is, from his consecrated head 
 to the hem of his robe he has walked as God would 
 have him, rather through God's dew than man's 
 dust. The saints, too, ''have washed their robes." 
 
 This is not a reverent age, and is not likely 
 again soon to pay too much attention to the relics 
 of the saints. But that we may be impressed for 
 good by what they have left behind, that has been 
 in contact with them, or the instrument of their 
 service, every visitor to Mount Vernon would prob- 
 ably testify. Washington has not been canonized 
 by the Church, but he is no doubt a national saint, 
 and rightly so regarded. Everything that we see 
 that was his somehow speaks of him, and for him. 
 
170 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 His bed, his desk, his clothes, all somehow affect 
 us, and affect us for good, because they seem to 
 bring us into contact with his undoubted goodness, 
 his unselfish devotion to his family, his country, 
 and his fellow-citizens. "For righteousness is 
 immortal." 
 
 The desire to be remembered is natural, and 
 not to be condemned. Who is there, then, that 
 would not wish so to live that, when kind hands 
 come to fold and lay aside for charity, or perhaps 
 to be briefly treasured, the garments which have 
 warmed and in some way expressed us here, those 
 who do this service may in some way recall acts 
 and evidences of a consecrated life, of a helpful 
 walk, of an anointing which has overflowed upon 
 our relics, and has made them reminders of God's 
 goodness, in us, and through us, to those who have 
 been heirs with us of the grace of life ? 
 
THE BUSINESS OF SERVING 
 THE LORD 
 
 Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving 
 the Lord. — Romans 12 : 11. 
 
 F you should sit down to read the 
 Epistle to the Komans straight 
 through, you would probably find 
 many things hard to understand, 
 though there would surely be passages here and 
 there that would give you a real thrill. But this 
 twelfth chapter is just as practical as it can be. 
 It is full of directions how to live a good life. 
 And if you have been feeling pretty well satisfied 
 with yourself, and then take up this chapter, you 
 will be apt to say to yourself, "There is more in 
 religion than I had supposed. I haven't been so 
 good after all." 
 
 The chapter begins by showing us that religion, 
 which we have been taught is a matter of faith, 
 a matter for the soul, is not complete unless it 
 
172 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 includes the service of our bodies. They must 
 be dedicated, offered as living sacrifices to God. 
 We must serve Him, not only in sincerity of heart, 
 but with ^'all our strength," because Christ has 
 redeemed our bodies as well as our souls. We must 
 not only keep our bodies clean, but must make 
 them busy in God's service. So much for our duty 
 towards God. And as to our duty towards our 
 neighbor, we are given the best of reasons why 
 we should attend to that : 'Sve are all members one 
 of another," all bound together in one body. The 
 good we do others reacts on ourselves; the evil 
 others may do us hurts them even Avorse than it 
 does us. 
 
 Now of the many precepts which this chapter 
 contains let us consider only these three. They 
 could be taken separately ; but they have been in- 
 cluded in one verse in our translation : "Not sloth- 
 ful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
 They are really closely connected, and come nat- 
 urally in this order from St. Paul's lips. "Not 
 slothful in business." What is business? We 
 are very apt to say of our friends and neighbors, 
 John is a farmer, Henry is a blacksmith, James 
 is a railroad man, and then, Alexander is a busi- 
 ness man. But haven't these other people any 
 business? Why, yes, certainly. Anything you 
 can be busy about is business. And what you 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 173 
 
 ought to be busy about is your business. It isn't 
 the farmer's business to sit on the fence, nor the 
 blacksmith's to spend the day pitching horseshoes ; 
 they have, or ought to have, something else to do. 
 ^be^ German Bible renders the first part of the 
 text in an illuminating way. Translated back 
 into English it might read, ^'Do not neglect what 
 you ought to do," that is, fill up your time right. 
 Then comes in the second clause, ^Tervent in 
 spirit." Fervent is a word we connect with heat. 
 Boiling water is fervent water. But there is an- 
 other kind of boiling water. It is water from a 
 boiling spring, where you can look down and see 
 the bubbles rising up, and yet put your hand into 
 the water and feel that it is delightfully cool. This 
 is really what the text means. You can't keep up 
 your daily duties, and be up to the mark in them, 
 unless you have the freshness of God's Spirit in 
 your soul. St. Paul would not tell us to keep in 
 good spirits all the time, to have the freshness of 
 the soul serve as a support to us in heavy duties, 
 unless there was a Source outside of ourselves 
 where we might refresh ourselves, and go on being 
 refreshed. This Source is the Spirit of God, the 
 Gift which the Master calls Living Water. He 
 will always unfailingly give to those who pray for 
 His help and His presence. "If any man thirst, 
 let him come unto Me and drink." 
 
174 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 And this brings us to the third part of the 
 text: '^Serving the Lord." We are not working 
 merely for ourselves; we are not working for any 
 sordid or mean master. We are really working 
 for our Heavenly Father. Just think how hard 
 it must have been to realize this when St. Paul 
 wrote. The Eoman empire, of which he was a 
 citizen, was full of slaves in his day, over whom 
 their masters had the power of life and death. 
 They were never paid for what they did. They 
 were at the mercy of tyrannical whims. St. Paul 
 succeeded in converting many of these slaves to 
 Christianity, and in bringing joy and contentment 
 into their lives by making them feel that, in doing 
 their work heartily and well, they were serving 
 and pleasing God. 
 
 Nowadays, too, there are great complaints that 
 men do not get wages enough, that rich men always 
 get the lion's share, and so on. And some people 
 seem to think the remedy lies entirely in working 
 shorter hours, going on strikes, or taking the heart 
 out of what we do. St. Paul would say rather, 
 "Put your heart into it." You owe it to your 
 own soul to do your best work, the best you are 
 capable of; otherwise your powers and usefulness 
 will run down. But, more than all, you owe it 
 to God. He has put you here. He is Lord of all. 
 He is Judge of all. He knows what is important 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 175 
 
 — He knows that everything is important, but 
 character most of all. And every chance that 
 comes to you, or what men call chance, is an oppor- 
 tunity of serving God. 
 
 In old times great knights and lords used to 
 count it a great honor to be allowed to hold the 
 stirrup of the king when he mounted his horse, 
 something a stable-boy would do for you, if you 
 needed such a service. We would call that in 
 itself menial service. But it makes a difference 
 for whom you do things. Isn't it true that all of 
 us here would prefer to have an opportunity to do 
 a service to our President, or any distinguished 
 man, rather than just to have an invitation to a 
 reception where we could take his hand ? If you 
 took his hand it would be with a thousand others, 
 and he couldn't possibly remember you. But if 
 you did him a real service, he could not possibly 
 forget it, and that's a big difference. 
 
 It is always the proudest moment in a boy's 
 opening life when he finds that what he does really 
 counts, that he is regarded as useful. But un- 
 fortunately there is a great deal of foolishness 
 talked abroad among people that, because this is 
 a free country, where all have equal political rights, 
 we ought not to recognize any masters, and that 
 no one has a right, or can acquire a right, to have 
 us serve. But service is a grand word. We use 
 
176 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 it for this gathering here. We are assembled for 
 Divine Service. The test of life is truly faith, but 
 we must show our faith by our service, for all work 
 is in one way or another service. And we must 
 never forget what Christ said: ^'He that would 
 be chief among you must be the servant of all." 
 "1 am among you as He that serveth." 
 
 There is nothing too hard or too lowly for love 
 to do. There is no labor that God's Spirit cannot 
 lighten, and make it shine and glow. Christ 
 washed His disciples' feet, and still washes us 
 from the daily grime of our sins. With what 
 approval He speaks of "the faithful and wise ser- 
 vant," whom, as a reward for watchfulness and 
 diligence, his lord will make ''ruler over all his 
 goods." And thus He puts before us the splendid 
 ideal of service, usefulness, the desire to do all and 
 be all that our Heavenly Father would have us do 
 or be. And to those who are "not slothful in busi- 
 ness, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," He offers 
 companionship in life and labor, the rewards of a 
 good conscience, the favor of God, present support, 
 and final rest and refreshment in Him. "Well 
 done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into 
 the joy of thy Lord." 
 
AN ADVENT WATCHWORD 
 
 Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not 
 provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. — 
 Romans 13 : 14. 
 
 HIS text, standing as the emphatic last 
 word of the Epistle for the First Sun- 
 day in Advent, is thus, in a way, 
 chosen by the Church as a most im- 
 portant and necessary watchword for the season. 
 The Church, like a good mother, believes in rising 
 early, earlier than the rest of the world. It is 
 still night for the men of the world and of the 
 flesh. They are using the cover of darkness for 
 ungodly pleasure. Some, too, are sleeping from 
 weariness, and some from excess. But, for those 
 who are awake, the Morning Star has begun to 
 shine, and promises Day. 
 
 The Church has also light which she can kindle 
 early against the coming of the fuller glory, and 
 she arms herself against the "works of darkness" 
 and the enemies of the truth by putting on "the 
 
178 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 armor of light." Her children here are still in 
 the flesh, and subject to the strong appeal of the 
 flesh. The flesh, if left to itself, would lead us 
 to live a completely animal life. It endeavors to 
 make us regard it as our natural master, calling 
 always for food, sleep, and pleasure, and saying, 
 with regard to the evident shortness of the time 
 for these things: ^'Let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die." 
 
 Man is the best of the animal creation, because 
 he is the least animal. He seems, however, capable 
 of worse debasement than any other of the animal 
 creatures. All other creatures eat to live, and 
 mainly to live, and gluttony is everywhere the way 
 to an early death. So excess writes in clear char- 
 acters its sentence on the man or beast who yields 
 to it, destroying beauty, destroying efficiency, de- 
 stroying the power of attack and defense. In 
 spite of this clear sentence of I^ature man yields 
 to drunkenness, because he would "fulfil the lust 
 of the flesh." 
 
 He would let his passions do their worst with 
 him, and will even plan to have them do so. The 
 extraordinary gift of foresight, prevision linked 
 with provision, given him for an entirely different 
 purpose, is made to serve the lust of the flesh. 
 The Romans have left a record of elaborately 
 planned debauchery, which we hoped would never 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 179 
 
 be repeated ; but evil man still ingeniously devises 
 wickedness, even in a Christian land. These 
 things continue on from generation to generation, 
 because the actual constitution of human nature 
 does not change. 
 
 It was true in St. Paul's day that *^the flesh 
 lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against 
 the flesh." It is equally true now. And yet the 
 Christian is not taught to hate his flesh, or to treat 
 it unnaturally. He is not taught to deny its 
 reasonable desires. He may not even neglect it; 
 though mistaken religionists have so taught him 
 to do. Since work has become his law, and the 
 body is the instrument of his labors, he must spend 
 much care upon it, must feed it, cleanse it, rest it, 
 use it and not abuse it. 
 
 Even in the discipline of the body he must use 
 the light of wisdom. He may fast, but he must 
 not starve; he must exercise, but not overtax his 
 powers. There are lusts of the mind as well as 
 lusts of the flesh. In general, when we use the 
 word "lust" in our translation we mean, not de- 
 sires in general, lawful and normal, but over- 
 driven, imperious desires, that would leave a man 
 enslaved to the lower part of himself. And so, 
 too, we have practically agreed not to speak of 
 the "body that shall be" in the world to come as 
 "flesh." 
 
180 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 It is true that the creed early expressed the 
 resurrection as ''the resurrection of the flesh." But 
 it is clear that the word is used in the early creed 
 in a different sense from that which it bears in 
 St. Paul's saying, "Flesh and blood shall not in- 
 herit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption 
 inherit incorruption." The body here is the sub- 
 ject of progressive corruption, of which inoffensive 
 illustrations could be the falling of the hair, the 
 flaking of the skin. Flesh is heir to these things, 
 or rather, ''flesh and blood." 
 
 The mention of the blood recalls the process by 
 which our bodily life is sustained here, and, though 
 we believe firmly in a resurrection body, we cannot 
 think of it as sustained by a process like eating or 
 drinking, or by the circulation of the blood. We 
 live here of our Father's bounty, indirectly of 
 Him: in the life to come we are to be in imme- 
 diate touch with His life. But the coming life is 
 not to be thought of as maimed or unreal, by being 
 spiritualized. We are to be not so much "un- 
 clothed," as "clothed upon." 
 
 So the Christian man, because he is urged not 
 to make provision for the lusts of the flesh, is not 
 thereby advised against a true foresight for his 
 body, a true care for it here. By putting his body 
 into training and discipline, under the complete 
 control and command of the spirit, he is really 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 181 
 
 making provision for the body against the life to 
 come. Lust is fleeting. But the real man is ca- 
 pable of the loftiest desires. Lust, ^Vhen it is 
 fulfilled," gives no satisfaction ; torture begins soon 
 with the awakening. But man's high desires were 
 made for real satisfaction. ^^My flesh and my 
 heart f aileth : but God is the strength of my heart, 
 and my portion forever." 
 
 Our text stands as the turning point in the 
 life of St. Augustine, the greatest of the Latin 
 Fathers. Caught by the theories of the Mani- 
 chees, as well as attracted by the teachings of 
 Christ, he had been trying to make possible both 
 the service of Christ in his spirit, and the service 
 of his passions in the flesh. He had a long and bit- 
 ter struggle. He couldn't see how it was going to 
 be possible to live without yielding to his passions. 
 He was sitting in the garden reading, and the book 
 had fallen to the ground, and he heard near-by the 
 voice of a child, ^^take up and read." He did so, 
 and his eye fell first on this text we are following 
 to-day, and it changed his whole life, being fol- 
 lowed by his baptism, and ordination. 
 
 But if he had been powerless before to shake 
 off his chains, how could a single sentence have 
 changed him, especially as it seems to be just a 
 repetition of a command to do the impossible? 
 The answer is in the words, "Put ye on the Lord 
 
182 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Jesus Christ.'' We have spoken before of the 
 ^^armor of light." St. Paul elsewhere expands 
 this idea into the specifications of the girdle of 
 truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield 
 of faith, the sandals of the gospel of peace, the 
 helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 
 with prayer, which is the continual touch with 
 the Captain and Leader. This tells us to do things 
 which mean personal union with Christ. It puts 
 a new centre into life. It gives us new life and 
 new powers, because it gives us a new heart, and 
 "out of the heart are the issues of life." 
 
 To many of us, and perhaps to most of us 
 sometimes or in some degree, Christianity comes 
 as a collection of details, not always satisfactorily 
 related or explained to ourselves. It brings too 
 often a sense of limits, rather than a sense of 
 power. It falls back into the repetition of pre- 
 cepts, "touch not, taste not, handle not," always 
 with a mild feeling of resentment on our part, be- 
 cause we are somehow held back, we do not see 
 exactly why, from doing as others do. This view 
 will not hold us back from mischief very long. 
 
 The morals of our community suffer terribly 
 from this view of our religion, because Christian- 
 ity is really meant to be a related whole, all of a 
 piece, lived out from an inward principle, just as 
 consistent as the development of a rose. We rec- 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 183 
 
 ognize the Christ life as consistent. It fails in no 
 particular. And we are usually satisfied to take 
 the title of a celebrated book, The Imitation of 
 Christ, as a short definition of the Christian re- 
 ligion. But the exact imitation of Christ is not 
 possible to any one not placed in the exact circum- 
 stances of Christ. So imitation is not an exact 
 statement of what we are called upon to under- 
 take. 
 
 The real need is Union with Christ, and this 
 is set before us in many l^ew Testament phrases : 
 being "baptized into Christ,'' "abiding in Christ," 
 "putting on Christ,'' "rooted and grounded in 
 Him," "till Christ be formed in you," and many 
 others. So intense is St. Paul's sentiment of the 
 reality of this union — though nothing he says 
 points to any loss of individuality or responsibility 
 — that he regards our work as done by Christ, and 
 even our sufferings as His. Only our failures 
 are not His, that is, our real failures. For some 
 things are not failures at all that seem so to the 
 world. Our real failures always come by relying 
 too fully on ourselves, or from regarding our 
 interests as in some way different from His. They 
 would be impossible if our abiding in Him was 
 complete. 
 
 This solves our difficulty. We feel helpless 
 and go to the Scriptures, and are told to do more 
 
184 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 than ever. The further we read, for awhile, the 
 more impossible it all seems. But by and by it 
 appears that, along with the duty, we are offered 
 the power of Christ to do it. We are asked to a 
 complete surrender, which, after all, is easier than 
 partial surrender, and then life becomes "Christ 
 in us.'' 
 
 It may help us here if we consider what Christ 
 perfectly was in two of His chief relations. He 
 Avas perfectly the Son. Putting on Christ, there- 
 fore, is putting on Sonship. The Christian life is 
 so perfectly to act our sonship that the will of the 
 Father, the unity of the household, the brother- 
 hood of us all, are not for a single moment for- 
 gotten. It is not a relationship which can be 
 taken up and laid aside ; if we try to do that, life 
 becomes merely acting, play acting. Sonship is 
 a matter of Nature. Justifying faith, then, is an 
 incorporating faith, as well as an appropriating 
 faith. It accepts character as well as justifica- 
 tion. It would refuse justification without char- 
 acter. If Christ be really ours and we are His, 
 His merits are really ours, and He somehow really 
 bears our sins. 
 
 He was perfectly the lover of Men ; of all men, 
 absolutely devoted to their salvation. This made 
 His travail and pain, His passion and death, not 
 light — for they could not bo that — but joyfully 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 185 
 
 accepted as a means of fulfilling ^love's redeeming 
 work." To such, then, as put on Christ, the 
 whole of life is Divine Service. There is no 
 time for sin, and no will to sin, where all of our 
 time and will is already devoted. Consecrated 
 thought, consecrated will, consecrated work, con- 
 secrated pain, consecrated rest and waiting — these 
 all characterize the men who have put on Christ, 
 and so, having made the new beginning, have 
 received the 'New Creation. 
 
 "Christ be with me, Christ within me, 
 
 Christ behind me, Christ before me, 
 Christ beside me, Christ to win me, 
 
 Christ to comfort and restore me, 
 Christ beneath me, Christ above me, 
 
 Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, 
 Christ in hearts of all that love me, 
 
 Christ in mouth of friend and stranger." 
 
 "I bind unto myself the Name, the strong Name of the 
 Trinity ; 
 By invocation of the Same, the Three in One, the 
 
 One in Three. 
 Of Whom all Nature hath Creation, Eternal Father, 
 
 Spirit, Word: 
 Praise to the Lord of my Salvation, Salvation is of 
 Christ the Lord. Amen." 
 
 (St. Patrick's Breastplate.) 
 
 Mrs. Alexander. 
 
m 
 
 BROTHERLY LOVE 
 
 Let brotherly love continue. — Hebrews 13 : 1. 
 
 HAT conception have v^e generally of 
 brotherly love? Do we not usually 
 describe it to ourselves in terms of 
 friendship ? As if fellowship, mu- 
 tual good understanding and help, common rights, 
 a natural drawing together of hearts through kin- 
 dred tastes were sufficient illustrations? This 
 does describe friendship, and no doubt brothers 
 ought to be friends. But brotherly love demands 
 a better analysis. It differs from friendship be- 
 cause it has a different origin. Two men may 
 easily become friends who differ in blood, in edu- 
 cation, in talent, and adaptability, because, with- 
 out explanation needed or always possible, love 
 has grown up between them. Such love may be 
 born of admiration, gratitude, or pity. The love, 
 however, begins and effects the friendship. But 
 we are brothers by nature long before it is reason- 
 able to expect real friendly love. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 187 
 
 Brothers have, first, the same father, the same 
 nature, the same inheritance, the same family 
 honor. They share naturally in everything. Ex- 
 cept in the case of twin births, one is older and 
 the other younger ; one is usually weaker, and the 
 other stronger. What love there is between them, 
 prior to the awakening of mutual friendship, is 
 a sort of mutual inheritance in the regard of oth- 
 ers: they are wrapped up, as it were, in the same 
 blanket of fatherly and motherly love. Personal 
 affection may afterward arise between them for 
 exactly the same class of reasons as create other 
 friendships. But brotherly love as couched in 
 terms of duty — and it is always so expressed in the 
 Scriptures — seems to be equally a duty when it 
 is no pleasure. So here is where the breakdown 
 generally comes. 
 
 When we lose admiration or respect, when we 
 have to blame a natural brother, when he has be- 
 come so burdensome that we have lost patience 
 with him, then brotherly love is apt to disappear, 
 and show that it wasn't really genuine. For broth- 
 erly love, being part of our inheritance as sons, 
 ought in the elder son to resemble fatherly love, in 
 the younger love of a son. 
 
 Fatherly love is characterized by self-sacrifice 
 and devotion to the young and helpless, the unde- 
 veloped and undisciplined. The son repays some- 
 
188 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 thing by and by, but never to the person bestowing 
 most. He repays the debt due his father gen- 
 erally in caring for his father's grandchildren. 
 But love of the right sort pays for itself. Its 
 blessedness is not in the return from the child, but 
 from something divine in the act of loving and 
 giving. And, in perfectly ideal fatherhood and 
 motherhood, even a bad son is beloved, while he 
 may be mourned; the prodigal, before he thinks 
 about returning; even the idiot and helpless, in- 
 capable of response. ^^We love Him because He 
 first loved us.'' He first loved us, and His fatherly 
 love was independent of our desert. 
 
 So brotherly love is not particularly virtuous 
 when it is only the affection between congenial 
 brothers, but only when it is like the love of Christ, 
 who came "to seek and save the lost." All this 
 bears most importantly upon our relation to other 
 classes, other races, and other churches ; upon the 
 view we take of our responsibilities to and for 
 criminals, delinquents, and those usually counted 
 outlawed, or outcast. The common Fatherhood, 
 the common redemption, ought to be enough. We 
 draw the lines of help and duty entirely too close 
 to our own known race, to the circle of our own 
 intimates. "Mercy to thousands" is God's motto, 
 and should be ours. 
 
 According to the teaching of the Gospel, as 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 189 
 
 we read the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, 
 we realize that Lazarus was the brother of Dives, 
 though unknown and unrecognized. Dives recog- 
 nized but five. He could not see brotherhood in 
 one more, even though that one more was laid at 
 his gate. This unrecognized brother or sister is 
 the condemnation of our modern society, our mod- 
 ern churches, as well as of the type of Dives. 
 
 There are, of course, undeniable temptations 
 to us in the common life of the household. Jacob 
 showed favoritism, and was in a sense as much to 
 blame for Joseph's misfortunes, human nature 
 being what it is, as some of the unloving brothers. 
 Joseph himself was not superior to giving Benja- 
 min as his guest five times what he gave anyone 
 else. And Joseph had been extremely conceited, 
 and must have been very hard to live with, if we 
 read Genesis right. Brotherly love is, therefore, 
 expressed in terms of duty, because it is often very 
 hard. 
 
 And there are going to be just as great diffi- 
 culties in doing our duties to the brotherhood of 
 the Church, to that of the local community, to the 
 larger one of the nation, and the supremely great 
 brotherhood of humanity. There are always 
 troublesome members in every congregation. This 
 makes less discomfort for others if the congrega- 
 tion is pretty large, but usually because we can 
 
190 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 then neglect the disagreeable brother. It isn't 
 because our duty is any easier, but because we 
 neglect it, that we seem to have an easier time. 
 
 The one necessary factor is the Cross. The 
 Cross marks the death of the Elder Brother for 
 the whole brotherhood. It is the very reverse of 
 the behavior of that other elder brother in the 
 parable of the Prodigal Son. It marks the real 
 crowning of character. For no crown was ever 
 nobler than the Crown of Thorns. And when we 
 see the crown of gray hairs which we are taught 
 to regard as so honorable, it is by no means always 
 the fruit of age, but sometimes of loving care and 
 trouble, and of sorrow which, nevertheless, has her 
 blessing. 
 
 Let us learn that the true way of family life 
 is the way of forgiveness, of long suffering, of 
 continuous welcome. That a family outcast should 
 remain outcast after repentance shows that there 
 is somebody else who ought to repent ; it should be 
 unthinkable in pure Christianity. Where our own 
 have shamed us, we ought to think of the Shame 
 of the Cross. We ought to remember how much 
 our Saviour has had to bear from us, how much 
 our own parents and brothers have had to put up 
 with during the long course of our own upbring- 
 ing. "Let brotherly love continue," that is, let it 
 stand the test of time, the test of sacrifice, the test 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 191 
 
 of temptation. Let it rise superior to false pride, 
 let it stand as a refuge for the returning sinner, 
 that the joy of heaven may be ours in welcoming 
 the wanderers home, in seeing them restored and 
 happy in their Father's house. 
 
MERCY, THE TRUE TEST OF 
 RELIGION 
 
 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neigh- 
 bor unto him that fell among thieves? 
 
 And he said. He that showed mercy unto him. Then 
 said Jesus unto him. Go, and do thou likewise. — St. 
 Luke 10 : 36, 37. 
 
 HILE the learned class among the 
 Jews was almost a unit in its opposi- 
 tion to our Lord Jesus Christ, there 
 were honorable exceptions; and now 
 and then a man who seemed, even while in oppo- 
 sition, to have a deeper conception of truth than 
 his fellows. This lawyer, whose questions to 
 Christ gave occasion for the Parable of the Good 
 Samaritan, and thereby did us all a wonderful 
 service, was able to see what was the very core 
 and centre of the Old Law; this, from Deuter- 
 onomy 6:5: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
 
 I 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 193 
 
 all thy strength, and with all thy mind," adding 
 from Leviticus 19 : 18, ^^and thy neighbor as thy- 
 self." It was no small thing to have thus an- 
 swered. But the lawyer shows how much easier 
 it is to state a principle than to apply it, and also 
 the tendency we all have to limit our duty to a 
 very narrow field, when he further questions, 
 ^'Who is my neighbor?" 
 
 Then our Lord tells the story of the Good 
 Samaritan, who had rescued the wounded man, 
 who was not his friend, nor even of his nation, 
 and with whose misfortune he had nothing to do ; 
 while the priest and the Levite, who were devoted, 
 at least nominally, to the service of religion, took 
 no responsibility for the suffering they plainly 
 saw, and hastened away on their own affairs. The 
 Samaritan had been brought up in an inherited 
 hostility to all Jews, but he had a tender heart. 
 He had not been taught in an orthodox creed; he 
 did not frequent the true temple, but he was 
 moved with compassion. And being so moved, he 
 let his love for humanity and his tender pity for 
 distress turn him aside from his own intended 
 business, delay him, make him the servant of a 
 stranger, and cause him to provide shelter and 
 healing for him in advance. In place of trying 
 to limit what he would be willing to do for mercy's 
 sake, he says to the host at the Inn, "Take care of 
 
194 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 him, and whatever thou spendest more, when I 
 come again I will repay thee.'' This might 
 possibly have been a great sum, and worldly pru- 
 dence would have dictated a limit; but mercy and 
 compassion do not know any limits. 
 
 Then our Lord asks the lawyer, "which now 
 of these three thinkest thou was neighbor" to the 
 wounded and plundered man? And he has to 
 answer, whether he would or not, "He that showed 
 mercy on him." This is the world-long test. This 
 is the principle by which we are to guide our- 
 selves, for the Master tells us all in the person of 
 the enquiring lawyer, "Go and do thou likewise." 
 
 Let us observe that nothing whatever is said 
 in the sacred narrative against the Priest and the 
 Levite, except the simple record of their lost op- 
 portunity for mercy. We are not told that the 
 Priest was a man of corrupt life, it is not said that 
 he was a particularly selfish person. He may have 
 been entirely respectable and law-abiding, and far 
 from having any sympathy with robbers, such as 
 infested the Jericho road. He may have feared, 
 perhaps, that, lingering too long there, he himself 
 might be just one more victim of lawlessness. 
 There is no suggestion that he saw his duty differ- 
 ent from his interest, or that his conscience 
 troubled him, or that the Levite was regretful over 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 195 
 
 things undone, wlien they went on their ways 
 without stopping for a rescue. 
 
 On the contrary, I think our Lord means that 
 the Levite and the Priest were fairly typical of 
 what the people of better station would be likely 
 to do under the circumstances. 
 
 And, of course, the purpose of relating the 
 history now, as part of a divine message, is not 
 chiefly to entertain or interest us, but to have each 
 one ask himself the question. How would my pre- 
 judices and principles have led me to act ? What 
 fellowship have I in spirit with this Samaritan? 
 Do I not more easily find excuses for things left 
 undone, than time and means for unselfishness 1 
 
 And is it not worth touching in passing, that 
 in the Wonderful Picture of the Last Judgment 
 given in St. Matthew 25th, those who are there 
 described as the fearfully reprobate are all guilty 
 of simple neglect ? So in the parable of the Kich 
 man and Lazarus; Dives was in hell and in tor- 
 ment, because of opportunities for mercy rejected 
 or overlooked; and these last, these overlooked 
 things, cannot be overlooked habitually, if our 
 eyes and heart are alive to the call of mercy and 
 true brotherly love. 
 
 What the Priest saw was something like this: 
 bad policy, danger, perhaps imprudence in the 
 victim, what we call "a deplorable occurrence." 
 
196 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 But it was not his fault, not his business: time 
 was pressing, delay was inconvenient, and help, 
 probably, would do no good. And this is the way 
 of the world. 
 
 We Churchmen are in the habit of saying 
 solemnly before God when we come to Church, 
 "We have left undone those things which we ought 
 to have done.'' But what are those things ? Do 
 we express them in this general way because it is 
 enough to recognize the fact ? Why, certainly not. 
 We speak out our neglects in these general terms, 
 because we wish to bear witness that neglected 
 duty is a constant sin, and that we all neglect our 
 duty more or less. We could not stop to put in all 
 the particulars in a common prayer, but we ought 
 each to find out, and for himself to deplore his 
 own particular neglects. And if we have them to 
 deplore once, and then again have the same story 
 of the same neglect to tell our Maker, where has 
 true repentance been ? Or, if we are so self- 
 satisfied as to suppose we have not neglected duty, 
 must it not be that we do not read duty with the 
 largeness with which it is written in the Gospel, 
 and that we are formally religious just for our- 
 selves? 
 
 Go out into any street of any American City, 
 and a short promenade will be sure to introduce 
 you to countless things which want mending. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 197 
 
 Leave out of consideration the average reformer's 
 way of remedying any evil, which is to go out and 
 break something, or have some one arrested; and 
 take up the matter in the Good Samaritan's way. 
 Here is suffering. Whose fault is it? This was 
 not any question which we can read in the Good 
 Samaritan's mind. Perhaps he knew without ask- 
 ing. The question might also have come up. Why 
 had not someone of the sufferer's own people 
 helped him? But the Samaritan wasted no time 
 with that. His question was. How can I help him, 
 and get him to a place of safety? He does not 
 stop over the fact that the victim's sufferings were 
 not caused by his discoverer, that other people were 
 more responsible, that other people of more means 
 might soon come along, but simply puts his own 
 personal services at this unknown's disposal. He 
 becomes the incarnation of helpfulness. Mercy 
 absorbs him. His regrets were not that business 
 was delayed, convenience interfered with, that 
 another was riding while he had to walk, that 
 good money was being thrown away — his regret 
 was only over the calamity, the pain of another. 
 He would have felt much worse had he been unable 
 to help. 
 
 Two pence seems a small gift to a landlord to 
 care for a wounded stranger. But when a day's 
 wages were a penny, a penny would pay for more 
 
198 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 than two days' care. It would keep a family two 
 days, and a single person many more. So it stands 
 for great liberality. 
 
 This church building was erected and opened to 
 the honor of Almighty God. It is occupied by a 
 very ancient communion, claiming an Apostolic 
 commission, and believing itself called upon to con- 
 tinue what Jesus "began to do and teach, before 
 He was taken up" into Heaven, and what His 
 disciples were to continue to do and teach till the 
 end of the age. 
 
 ^Nevertheless, it has come somewhat late into 
 many parts of our country. What excuse has it 
 for coming at all? Has it a more beautiful and 
 aesthetic service? We may question whether the 
 services of those interesting people, commonly 
 called the Irvingites, are not even more aesthetic- 
 ally beautiful. Does it offer a more moderate and 
 rational view of religion? Possibly this idea is 
 due to some misconception of what is really the 
 freedom of the Church, and in the Church. No. 
 The Church comes with a special authority, and 
 with special claims. But people are not all equal 
 to an unbiased consideration of these claims. 
 They would be far more easily won to us, if they 
 saw us come as the Good Samaritan, to do good, 
 to heal morals, protect virtue, always do those 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 199 
 
 useful, disagreeable things which lie before our 
 very gates, but which we elect not to see. 
 
 Until compassion has a chief place in our 
 hearts; until mercy stirs to action; until we feel 
 we can't afford to do a selfish thing; until we 
 realize that a man's character is all he can take 
 before the judgment seat of Christ, and that the 
 final condemnation of a Christlike man is im- 
 possible ; until these things move us actively, there 
 is much to be hoped and prayed for in the Church 
 and world. 
 
 And who are we? Are we indeed an outcast 
 race? Have we not rather promises, blessings, 
 riches of hand and heart ? Is not God our Father ? 
 Are we not called to be like Him ? 
 
 Awake us. Almighty God! Awake us. Lord 
 Christ, to the call to a deep and characteristic 
 likeness to Thee. Make us to thank God every day 
 that Thou hast said, "Blessed are the Merciful; 
 for they shall obtain Mercy." Amen. 
 
THE TRAVAIL OF THE SOUL 
 
 He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall he 
 satisfied. By His knowledge shall My Righteous Ser- 
 vant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities. 
 —Isaiah 53 : 11. 
 
 ANY of you, watching the approach 
 of what threatened to be a gloomy 
 evening, growing dark from low 
 western clouds before it ought to, 
 have been delighted to see the sudden breaking 
 forth of the sun, just before it went below the 
 horizon, and the day faded away with a smile. It 
 reminds one of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, just 
 before the night of His career shut down upon an 
 apparent failure. 
 
 We have to say apparent failure for more 
 reasons than one. For, even if death had really 
 finished Christ's career as a Preacher of Right- 
 eousness, one can believe that, as soon as clear 
 mindedness had come to make men realize by 
 comparison with all other teachers the grandeur 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 201 
 
 of His precepts, His influence would have begun 
 to grow again. There is a saying, *^You could not 
 have built a Living Church on a Dead Christ," 
 but men would have built something, for what 
 Christ gave them was the best they had ever re- 
 ceived. Many people now admire Christ, quote 
 Him, in some way try to imitate Him, who yet do 
 not believe as we do in the Resurrection from the 
 dead. Their soul, their conscience, cannot say 
 Him nay. Though in their belief He is still 
 numbered with the dead, they count Him worthy 
 of the highest immortality they think possible. 
 And though dead, as they mournfully feel, yet 
 still He speaketh with the noblest and most in- 
 spiring voice of history. 
 
 And this introduces us to a fact that may at 
 first seem strange, but manifold experience 
 verifies, that human failures often seem to involve 
 more moral success, and afford more inspiration 
 to posterity, than the so-called successful lives. 
 
 Too many successful lives could be epitomized 
 or judged in the words of Christ, ^'Verily I say 
 unto you, they have their reward." Such lives 
 come to a full stop here. The inspiration of 
 failure goes on forever. The American Revolu- 
 tion gives two shining instances; the death of 
 ISTathan Hale, and the glow of patriotism that 
 comes to us when we read of the sufferings at the 
 
202 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Valley Forge. Hale's enterprise was absolutely 
 unsuccessful. He was hanged as a spy. But Hale 
 was a man and a patriot. ^'I only regret that I 
 have but one life to give for my country" has been 
 the inspiration of many devoted deeds. 
 
 Saratoga was glorious, Yorktown and Appo- 
 mattox; but the real glory of Appomattox was in 
 the magnanimity of Grant, and the self-forgetful- 
 ness of Lee. Lee's greatness as a citizen gains 
 greatly from his behavior in defeat. Let an old 
 soldier move along a line of captured trophies as 
 he may do, and they stir his pride; but let him 
 stop before a monument like that at West Point 
 to "Dade and his Command" — that little army that 
 left no unwounded survivor — and he seizes at once 
 upon their behavior then as exemplary, as what a 
 soldier ought to do. And what more precious me- 
 mories has the E^avy than Lawrence's, "Don't give 
 up the ship," or the thought of the Cumberland's 
 flag still flying over her sunken hull, or Craven's 
 courteous words, "After you, Sir!" There is no 
 real success if a man fails to be a man, and no 
 failure if he does. 
 
 Christ had failed by His life to accomplish 
 the salvation of His people. He had not failed in 
 what He came to be. No one had convicted Him, 
 or could convict Him, of sin. He had never failed 
 any man or woman who had come to Him for 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 203 
 
 truth or comfort. No limit can be assigned to the 
 outflow of His benevolence. It was only that "in 
 the sight of the unwise He seemed to die, and His 
 departure was taken for misery." He was at rest, 
 and consecrated the grave for every man by His 
 rest. 
 
 When the woman who was a sinner wept out 
 her penitence and love over the Master's feet; 
 when the lepers were cleansed, and the dead raised 
 up, and the poor heard the Gospel ; when children 
 ran to His arms, and the grasping publican began 
 to restore fourfold; when sightless eyes opened 
 first to behold their Saviour — a type we may well 
 believe of our own resurrection — then Christ 
 already had a partial return for the travail of His 
 soul. He certainly put some of the joy of His 
 earthly labors into words when He said, "I thank 
 Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that 
 Thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
 prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." The 
 fruitage that remains to be manifested is in "the 
 multitude that no man can number." "Thanks 
 be to God who giveth us the victory," through 
 Him who was willing to fail in human eyes. 
 
 We would all like to succeed. How many 
 do succeed in the plans they make for life ? How 
 many lawyers are successful in their profession? 
 How many physicians make a name beyond a 
 
204 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 most limited circle ? How many business men go 
 through life without a failure; without the need 
 of a fresh start, and a good deal of accommoda- 
 tion? Exact figures are not what we need. We 
 only need to know that there is always plenty in 
 life to explain discouragement, even if not to 
 justify it. Discouragement is the worst fruit of 
 failure, sometimes its prophecy. To keep sweet 
 and hopeful, in spite of all, is the great thing. 
 
 Hence, if anyone is planning to become a 
 merchant, we cannot promise him success. All we 
 can promise is, that virtue will be a great comfort, 
 if he be honest. We cannot promise the doctor 
 fame, but we do know that he will receive the 
 blessing of the poor, if he be diligent and kind. 
 We cannot promise a bride that her husband and 
 children will make her happy, but we can promise 
 her that she can make herself into a blessing, and 
 a refuge, and a holy name, if she be worthy. 
 
 It is the Christian life that has the promises. 
 It is the only career that carries along with it a 
 cure for daily mistakes, weakness, and even sin. 
 "These things write I unto you that ye sin not. 
 But if any man sin, we have an Advocate with 
 the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He 
 is the Propitiation for our sins, and not for ours 
 only, but for the sins of the whole world" — the 
 whole world! 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 205 
 
 In the Christian life we have sometimes set 
 before us the figure of competition : "Kjiow ye not 
 that they which run in a race run all, but one 
 receiveth the prized' But this is a metaphor 
 which can not be driven too far. In the business 
 worldj another man's success may mean our failure. 
 But not so in the service of Christ. The more we 
 help others to succeed, the greater our own success. 
 A selfish effort, even after character, defeats 
 character. And how much it adds to our hope that 
 something may be accomplished by us when we 
 see with what faulty materials God has elsewhere 
 won His successes. 
 
 We ai:e not intended to win all the fruits of 
 character here, but God intends us to see enough 
 to confirm our souls, to give us that experience 
 that ^Vorketh hope." 
 
 This is the true sphere of labor, the labor or 
 travail of the soul. In too many of us the soul 
 can hardly be said to be awake at all, much less to 
 be at work. And one great use of our failures 
 in this life is to call our attention to the real op- 
 portunities we have in this higher sphere. Our 
 material failures are the more accented when they 
 happen now, because other men do so much. Life 
 is so spectacular; we talk in millions, nothing 
 surprises us. But tremendous as are the successes 
 .and the failures of modern life, the flatness of 
 
206 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 earth's greatest successes was never more plain. 
 If it be happiness a man seeks and he does not 
 get it, what difference does it make what else he 
 gets? Even his gold is "fool's gold," if he be a 
 fool. It is the soul that counts. 
 
 Holj Week brings before us a group of friends 
 whose chief mutual concerns were with the soul. 
 We have friendships, but have they gone as far 
 as that? What have we done with our friends? 
 Are their souls anything to us, or have we ever 
 done anything for them? We have met them, 
 walked and talked with them, exchanged tolerant 
 views, shared kindred tastes, been mutually help- 
 ful, perhaps, in study and business. All this is 
 very much. How sweet many friendships are, 
 and yet how much sweeter they might be if they 
 went on to the matters of the soul! There may 
 come a time when a real friend faces death, per- 
 haps disgrace, perhaps is threatened through temp- 
 tation and is, alas, weak; then the heart of his 
 friend begins to cry, "I am distressed for thee, my 
 brother." "I would help, but there is no help in 
 me." 
 
 Man goes to his trouble chiefly alone, unless 
 God be with him. When the example of our cor- 
 rect morality, our cool temperance, cannot hold 
 up a friend, our spirit, if it would effect anything, 
 must cry mightily to God. So can men be led by 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 207 
 
 their friendships to the feet of Him who alone 
 can save their friends. How Christ labored for 
 His friends ! How He taught them, led them, had 
 patience with them, showed them their errors, 
 served them! He, their Master, bore their mis- 
 understandings and forsakings. He never forsook 
 them ; He lived for them ; He died for them. He 
 taught us that a friend is worth dying for, that 
 this is the test. And through His greatest sacrifice 
 He won them as He had ever won them before. 
 Thej were really won; He saw of "the travail of 
 His soul." 
 
 Let us all realize that a man's work ought to 
 call on all of his powers. If a man has the gifts 
 to be a great artist, he ought to be one. If we 
 have souls, we ought to work with them. Work 
 with the soul, and for the soul, is the highest work. 
 It was the way Christ worked for us. It is the 
 way we should work with Him and for Him, and 
 He will turn our travail into joy. 
 
THANKSGIVING DAY 
 
 There is a lad here that hath five barley loaves and 
 two small fishes; hut what are they among so many? — 
 St. John 6 : 9. 
 
 KEVIEW of current events, with a 
 view to selecting those things which 
 we may regard as most important 
 among our causes for gratitude, has 
 its disadvantages as well as its advantages. It 
 overlooks the possibly different standpoints of 
 different people toward the same happenings. 
 Political events may leave one man sore, and make 
 another happy just before Thanksgiving Day. A 
 Free trader and a Protectionist can never worship 
 comfortably together after a tariff war unless they 
 have in common other reasons for gratitude to 
 God. And then, the Scriptures make it clear that 
 a Christian is expected to be happy, and to give 
 thanks anyhow, no matter what has happened. 
 For our real happiness is grounded in eternal 
 verities, and nothing can shake them. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 209 
 
 Would it not, therefore, be a good idea to go 
 back to the simplest idea of prosperity — ^physical 
 prosperity, we can find, and analyze that — and 
 see if both rich and poor cannot discover a common 
 ground on which to join in an act of thanksgiving ? 
 
 As a general rule, we here do not have to take 
 v^ery anxious thought about provision for the day. 
 While we recognize with a great deal of concern 
 (hat our dollar is continually losing purchasing 
 power, there are plenty of people to remind us 
 that, even in the days when it would purchase a 
 great deal more of certain commodities than it 
 now does, there were some of them that we now 
 buy pretty cheaply that formerly, and not so long 
 ago, could not be bought at all by most people. 
 They were only to be had occasionally, and ex- 
 ceptionally. Life is, in many ways, on a more 
 liberal scale than formerly. 
 
 But it is easy to conceive of occasions now 
 when a whole community might be very glad of 
 very simple supplies. We are so used to rapid 
 transit, to bring to us all we need on short notice, 
 that a complete stoppage of transportation for a 
 very little while might induce us all to put our- 
 selves on an allowance. 
 
 The ^ve thousand people who went out to seek 
 our Lord in the desert place belonging to Bethsaida 
 undoubtedly included persons of various condi- 
 
210 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 tions of life. The majority were, of course, poor, 
 and most of the poor do not worry half as much 
 about what is likely to happen, or not to happen, 
 as those whom we call more fortunate. But there 
 must have been a good many there who had not 
 been accustomed to limit their fare entirely by 
 necessity, to eat as little as they had. So, finding 
 five thousand people without food all at once threw 
 into relief the question, "what are the necessaries 
 of life?" How much, or how little, could we do 
 with? 
 
 Our Lord raises that question at once when He 
 says to Philip, "Whence shall we buy bread that 
 these may eat ?'' He did not propose anything but 
 the satisfaction of a real want. If that were met, 
 the green grass and the fresh air ought to count 
 something for the luxuries otherwise missed. 
 Philip calculates for the most modest provision; 
 a little for everyone, he says, would cost two 
 hundred pence, a very large sum in those days, 
 and among poor people, and evidently stated by 
 Philip as something quite beyond the possibilities. 
 It would cost as much as that, and therefore it 
 couldn't be done. 
 
 Then comes Andrew's introduction of the lad 
 with the five loaves of the coarse bread of the 
 country, the food of the poor, and the two little 
 fishes of the lake. And the lad was prepared to 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 211 
 
 give them up. We may infer that the Lord's 
 company at least offered to buy them, for that was 
 the original question, ''Whence shall we buy?" 
 At any rate, they would not have given away what 
 did not belong to them, though that is not un- 
 known now, and masquerades as liberality. 
 
 i^ow here is the very simplest fare that you 
 and I can conceive, and a multitude getting that 
 when they were very glad to get it. Common as 
 it was, it was enough. Now what was involved 
 in getting it at all? The miraculous part of the 
 story may be set aside for just a moment. What 
 concerns us is the thanksgiving part of it. When 
 these men got bread enough, from whom did they 
 get it? Who cooperated? They got it from the 
 hands of the disciples, who were acting as unpaid 
 assistants of our Lord's munificence. The dis- 
 ciples got it from a boy, who had brought it there, 
 if we know anything about conditions then, in one 
 of the common country baskets. There were 
 baskets there, anyhow. 
 
 The boy got the bread from his mother, who 
 ground the grain in her little hand mill, mixed 
 the dough and baked it. She got the grain from 
 her husband or some farmer, and to get the grain 
 to her, there had been ploughing, harrowing, seed- 
 ing, reaping, thrashing, winnowing, carrying, and 
 storing. Somebody had to make the plough and 
 
212 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 the harrow, and somebody cut the wood and 
 smelted the metal which entered into the makeup 
 of the tools. Somebody, a smith, had to make the 
 reaping hook. Somebody had to breed the ox that 
 trod out the grain on the threshing floor. Some- 
 one had to gather the rushes that made the boy's 
 basket, and then the basket had to be made. Then, 
 in the fishing there had been necessary the fisher- 
 man, the boatbuilder, the nailsmith, the net maker, 
 the flax spinner, the farmer again, and the one 
 who cured the fish. It was the simplest fare, but 
 not so simple, after all; for all these hands were 
 necessary, and everyone added something to the 
 
 gift. 
 
 And, more than this, the seed that was sown 
 had been through the same process, year after 
 year, since the first time that barley was dis- 
 covered to be good for food. It was not the feed- 
 ing of ^ve thousand that was so much in evidence, 
 as the feeding of a hundred successive generations, 
 four thousand years of people, and the still having 
 enough at the end of four thousand years to plant 
 the fields for more. 'Now with all this, how much 
 of the work was done from necessity, and how 
 much from love ? Depend upon it, a very large 
 portion from love. Wages are not paid for half 
 that is done in this world that adds liberally to 
 our pleasure and support. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 213 
 
 ;N'ow turn from the common things of our 
 Lord's time to the common things of to-day. The 
 veriest commonplaces of the table would be bread, 
 butter, sugar, salt, potatoes, tea, coffee. Your 
 breakfast this morning — and breakfasts are getting 
 a little simpler — was perhaps porridge, cream, 
 coffee, bacon, toast, and marmalade. !N'o trouble 
 to get a breakfast like that! What, no trouble? 
 1^0 trouble to you, perhaps, but somebody had to 
 take trouble ! The marmalade is marked Dundee, 
 and had to come from there in a steel ship, built 
 on the Clyde from American steel. They do not 
 grow oranges in Scotland, so those oranges found 
 their way there from Spain in another ship. The 
 toast was made from Minnesota flour, the bacon 
 cured, wherever gro^vn, in Kansas City or Chicago, 
 drawn to the stock yards over miles and miles of 
 railroad. The coffee came from Southern Brazil, 
 the sugar from Honolulu. If less than a thousand 
 different hands have been busy getting you your 
 breakfast, it cannot be enough less to make tho 
 lesson of our mutual dependence less important. 
 
 Most of this work, mind you, was done with 
 good will; some of it paid and a lot unpaid; and 
 for all that wasn't paid for, we owe, at least, 
 thanks. 
 
 !N'ow most of us fail to realize that this is 
 the way God normally works. It is easier, some- 
 
214 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 how, to believe a thing comes from God if the 
 wind blows it into our laps, than it is, if some 
 man walks up and hands it to us. But that is 
 quite incorrect as a mental attitude. The man is 
 certainly more like God than the wind is, even 
 granting that the winds are mysterious. God Avaits 
 on us, and serves us, surely, sometimes by the 
 winds and rains, and the disciples owed those five 
 barley loaves to the rains no less than the seed ; but 
 He also waits on us by these thousands of hands. 
 Your mother, when she nursed you, was doing 
 God's work. Some people do not believe in special 
 Providences, and some people do not believe in 
 Providence unless it is special. But God's Provi- 
 dence is working all the time. The five thousand 
 saw a wonderful miracle, but they saw only a 
 very small part of it. 
 
 Now, just as all these many generations before 
 Christ's time had been busy with getting that 
 barley bread ready for that miracle, and all the 
 time it was God that was at work ; so our thanks, 
 when once we are roused to offer them to God, 
 do not amount to much unless we begin to offer 
 them to Him through man, who has been serving 
 us. Here are all these working men. The most 
 that we see in the labor market is the struggle of 
 the laborer to get better wage. But, whatever he 
 gets, he does not seem to get any gratitude. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 215 
 
 Here is our table served with fish from the 
 Grand Banks. It would do every one good who 
 ever eats a piece of cod-fish to read Kipling's 
 "Captains Courageous." All these fish taste of 
 danger and hardships, and many of them of 
 heroism. 
 
 Here is a community really supported by an 
 invisible industry, it might be by the mines. It 
 would then make no difference how a few of us got 
 our incomes; in roundabout ways it all goes back 
 to the mines. That would be true of Pittsburgh, 
 true of Birmingham, just as Omaha is all sup- 
 ported by farms; and the miner, again, could not 
 work without the farmer. Are you grateful to the 
 miner for his share in the food you eat, and the 
 clothes you wear? Do you ever think about him, 
 do you care anything about him? Does he not 
 do infinitely more for you than you do for him ? 
 Would you take his job and be contented and smil- 
 ing about it ? All my bread is salted by his danger. 
 There is blood on some of the coal I burn. And 
 if we do not thank the miner, how are we to get 
 our thanks back to God? He does not accept 
 them unless they come through the proper chan- 
 nels. You can't throw them up into the air, and 
 have them stay there. The right way to send 
 thanks to God for His support of such a com- 
 
216 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 munity, is to send them down a mine, or thank 
 His servant, the farmer. 
 
 Indeed, the lesson of Thanksgiving Day may 
 be briefly expressed in this general conviction, that, 
 whenever you meet anyone whom you know to be 
 active in his duty, you can make up your mind 
 without much fear of being mistaken that you 
 owe that man something, that he is, in someway, 
 ministering to you, and that any man who is half 
 a man is glad of it. And so, be glad yourself of 
 every opportunity to share the blessing which 
 comes when you willingly lend your hands to 
 Christ to help along the miracle, the daily, per- 
 petual miracle of the feeding of the world. 
 
 It is only when we refuse to pass along our 
 blessings that men have to go away without food. 
 Oh, may we show forth our thankfulness, ^^not only 
 with our lips, but in our lives." 
 
THE MISSION OF THE SEVENTY 
 
 Many prophets and kings have desired to see those 
 things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to 
 hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard 
 them.— St. Luke 10 : 24. 
 
 HIS forms the conclusion of our Lord's 
 comment on the success of the Mis- 
 sion of the Seventy. First vt^ent forth 
 the twelve, and they v^ere successful 
 beyond their hopes and expectations. Then fol- 
 lowed the seventy, our Lord's second choice of His 
 disciples. They knew what had happened before, 
 and were, no doubt, encouraged to look for some 
 fruits from their own ministry, even though they 
 were the second sending; but they also were 
 astonished at the power they could exercise 
 through the ISTame of Jesus. "Even the devils," 
 they reported, "are subject unto us through Thy 
 'Name.'' 
 
 What was rejoicing to them was also rejoicing 
 to our Lord. "He rejoiced in spirit." He said, 
 
218 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 ^'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and 
 earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the 
 wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
 babes: even so. Father; for so it seemed good in 
 Thy sight.'' 
 
 The text is part of a private communication 
 to the disciples. He does not say to every one, 
 but simply to them the words, ^'Blessed are the 
 eyes that see the things that ye see." He will not 
 bless them publicly, and thus attract attention to 
 them. He does not hesitate to remind them that 
 they are babes. This that they have just done has 
 come from Him because all things have been given 
 to Him from the Father, and because the Son 
 willed to reveal Himself to His simple-hearted ser- 
 vants and friends. It did not mean that they could 
 think themselves wise or prudent, or even great, 
 in themselves. What they had done had been 
 given them. We might infer that the gift might 
 be lost if they lost their simplicity. 
 
 Let us go back a little, and look over the 
 prophets and kings. 
 
 With all the greatness of the prophets, they 
 leave on our minds a general impression of having 
 fallen on evil days. They were sent "because the 
 days were evil." It was not good that sin should 
 pass unrebuked, though in high places. And we 
 hear very little from the prophets when the kings 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 219 
 
 were good, except when they rise to rebuke the 
 sins or follies of the good; for the best of men 
 need correction. The triumph of the prophets was 
 not in the success of their predictions, which they 
 generally did not live to see; but it was the tri- 
 umph of sustaining faith. They did not see the 
 power of righteousness visibly bring in the rule of 
 healing and deliverance from evil. Even when 
 they were wonder-workers, the miracles seemed 
 hardly to postpone the final judgment on a dis- 
 obedient people. 
 
 The kings were good and bad. The bad kings 
 naturally are not alluded to by this text. It is 
 only the good kings who had the desire to see such 
 things as our Lord's simple followers afterward 
 wrought. But there were a number of good kings ; 
 and even some of the bad kings had good points, 
 and, in some way, advanced the purpose of God. 
 The good kings of Judah (there were no good 
 kings of Israel) were Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, 
 Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah, and Josiah. They had 
 their faults, and those faults are not concealed 
 from us. Some of these faults were the common 
 infirmities of other men who can be called good, 
 and others were due to a yielding to temptations 
 that came with power. 
 
 But no one can doubt that the sacred historians 
 have done right to call these kings good, as human 
 
220 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 goodness goes, in both their relations to God and 
 to men. They looked up to the King of kings. 
 They had a will to do good to their people. But 
 often they appear to have been powerless to ac- 
 complish much, though they were supposed to have 
 all the power that absolute monarchy could give 
 them. They began reformations, they broke down 
 idols, but it all came to nothing; because the 
 people whom they wished to serve, elevate and 
 convert, had no real heart for holiness. 
 
 A good king cannot save a bad people. The 
 progress of righteousness, of the true kingdom of 
 God, must affect the unseen mass of the people to 
 amount to anything real and lasting. This is one 
 reason why the true kingdom of God is so quiet 
 and secret in its working. It is so much easier 
 to see badness than goodness, even though badness 
 tries to hide itself. And this, it seems, should 
 encourage us about the present, which always 
 seems hopeless to so many. 
 
 The success of the mission of the seventy seems 
 to have had other noticeable attendants. 
 
 We know that the ruling classes generally in 
 our Lord's day were opposed to the recognition of 
 His mission. He had enemies among the Pha- 
 risees, Sadducees, and Herodians: most of these 
 were His enemies. But there must have been a 
 vast multitude of plain people who were either 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 221 
 
 His friends through all that happened, or were 
 only thrown into temporary and apparent hostility 
 by excitement, panic or delusion. What visible 
 success He had was helped by the many distressed 
 people, who were neither fit to help in the saving 
 work which Christ began, nor to do anything to 
 save themselves; but were, at least, willing to be 
 saved. And it is simply astonishing to us now, 
 who have so little experience of willing help from 
 people who have long known the Gospel and its 
 privileges, that our Lord could have put so many 
 simple workmen into the field, and have sent them 
 out so soon. Evidently we have much to learn in 
 principle, and very much to add to our practice. 
 
 We are trying to show the world that the real 
 Kingdom of God is possible in a democracy. We 
 ought to realize that it can only be possible in a 
 Christianized democracy. There is much explana- 
 tion in the apparent failure of democracy, its 
 graft scandals, its special privilege scandals, its 
 judicial scandals, for the way in which men dis- 
 cuss the possibilities under a benevolent aristoc- 
 racy, or a good king. There is much explanation 
 also, for the attraction which some find in a 
 Socialistic programme. There is very little room 
 for a salvation such as Christ proposed, and still 
 proposes, in either of these programmes. Social- 
 ism proposes to save itself. But it seems to have 
 
222 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 all the exclusive spirit of the narrowest Judaism, 
 and much of its self-righteousness. It has no 
 room for Christ, and does not really propose self- 
 sacrifice. That many of its votaries mean well, 
 cannot be gainsaid. That their alienation from 
 the Church has apparent justification, or at least 
 easy explanation, is also clear. And why ? 
 
 It seems to be because we haven't those who 
 answer to the seventy. It can hardly be doubted 
 that our Lord made secret use through the Holy 
 Spirit, which has always been at work in the 
 world, of all the possible material for remedying 
 the evil He would overthrow. He cast out devils ; 
 the twelve cast out devils; the seventy did the 
 same; and there were others who did so who had 
 no visible call, but whom our Master did not dis- 
 dain to commend, and to bless with visible success. 
 
 The trouble with the Church, with democracy, 
 just now is that so few realize the call to help. It 
 is all left for specialists to do. But Christianity 
 without helpfulness is unthinkable; and, more 
 than that, a fruitless Christianity is going to lose 
 its vision. "Blessed are the eyes that see the 
 things that ye see," is a text which really has to 
 be explained to most hearers nowadays, whereas 
 it probably explained itself to all those who heard 
 it in the infancy, the active infancy, of the gospel 
 dispensation. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 223 
 
 The uncertainty about several of the deeper 
 mysteries of our religion, which is so characteristic 
 of our age (so that we hardly know how to answer 
 the question, "What think ye of Christ?"), has a 
 close connection with our inactivity in the work 
 of the Gospel. We do not get close enough to ask 
 our questions of the Only One who really knows. 
 We have no real religious experience. Our lives 
 are correct, but little different from those of decent 
 pagans and philosophers. We ask our wisdom, 
 and it has nothing to tell us ; we consult our pru- 
 dence, and it falls short. God has hid these things 
 from such, and has revealed them unto babes. The 
 answer sought from the new power we are learn- 
 ing through science to exercise over nature, is not 
 going to comfort us. "We must be bom again." 
 
 And thus it seems that the strongest use that 
 can be made of our text for to-day's need is to 
 encourage every man, every plain man, every 
 young man, to enlist first and foremost in the 
 fight against both the evil within him, and the evil 
 outside of him. We must realize that we might 
 easily have been the members of the seventy, and 
 may still do a work not second to theirs. The 
 poorest of us has received power, and may receive 
 more power. Faith and power both grow with 
 the use. The things we see that ought to be done 
 are the things we are called to do. The whole 
 
224 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 body must work ; and '^je are the Body of Christ, 
 and members in particular/' 
 
 J^ow if we were to stop at just this point we 
 might have stirred someone to a desire to help, 
 but have failed to accomplish much because those 
 we have exhorted do not know how to help. But, 
 if that desire be burning enough, we will be sure to 
 find a way to be of use. The fight against the 
 demon of intemperance has many places where 
 the common man may take hold, working on his 
 next friend. We do not have to go far to find 
 a field, nor must we forget the E^ame of Jesus. 
 Our very helplessness and ignorance, if recognized 
 and confessed, will help us, for they send us out 
 of ourselves and back to Him. 
 
 Oh, may God stir us up to help the tempted 
 and the defeated with a whole devotion ; and may 
 He grant us to see, even in this day, some of the 
 joy and blessing of those who can say : "Even the 
 devils are subject to us through Thy IN'ame." 
 
THE BLOSSOMING OF THE 
 WILDERNESS 
 
 The desert shall rejoice and hlossom as the rose, — 
 Isaiah 35 : 1. 
 
 HAT a wonderful flower the rose is! 
 It has attracted the admiration of 
 flower lovers from the very first. As 
 soon as they talk about anything, they 
 talk about roses and lilies. Some florists practi- 
 cally devote their lives to roses, endeavoring to 
 develop new varieties which shall be even more 
 beautiful than any seen before. And so now we 
 have hundreds of varieties in nature, and the 
 florist has developed hundreds of others. These 
 are standard roses, climbing roses, dwarf roses, 
 white, blush, pink, red, and roses nearly black. 
 There are changeable roses. They vary in fra- 
 grance from none, or almost none, to what is a 
 revelation of sweetness. 
 
 Some of the most beautiful varieties seem to 
 bring all their power and life to a focus in a few 
 
226 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 wondrous blooms, and others, like what we call the 
 common roses, absolutely run riot over the fences 
 and along the garden paths, all beauty and profu- 
 sion in waves of pink or white. The bushes live 
 a long time; some are very, very old. It takes 
 the buds a long time to open. They are like 
 human beings in this. And of all the flowers they 
 leave the longest memories. 
 
 There is fragrance in the world to-day of 
 roses that blushed and bloomed a hundred years 
 ago. But they have thorns, and some of the most 
 beautiful have the sharpest thorns. N^or is it 
 possible to say that what we call the improved 
 varieties are so absolutely more beautiful than the 
 wilder ones. The wild rose is not so very beauti- 
 ful, if you look at it with a gardener's eye. But 
 where it belongs it exactly fits, it is just what we 
 went there to see, and a finely developed garden 
 rose would look out of place in the wilderness. 
 
 There are these two flowers that have always 
 been thought of as sacred to our Lord: roses and 
 lilies. "I am the Kose of Sharon, and the Lily 
 of the Valley,'' has always been interpreted of 
 Christ. But the Bose is especially His flower. 
 
 "Fruit of the mystic Rose, 
 
 True Branch of Jesse's Stem, 
 The Root whence mercy ever flows — 
 The Babe of Bethlehem." 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 227 
 
 The lilj on the other hand always appears in 
 representations of the Blessed Virgin. The angel 
 of the Annunciation is always holding it in his 
 hand. But it is sacred to Christ as well. 
 
 Come back, though, to the rose, the wild rose 
 as we shall have to take it here, because only the 
 wild rose grows in the desert. How does the wild 
 rose make us think of Christ? Look first at its 
 home. 
 
 It is a little hard for many of our people to 
 picture to themselves what is meant in the scrip- 
 ture as a desert. But, if they have ever travelled 
 over our great West, they have seen practically 
 everything that could describe or illustrate it. 
 There would be three general sorts of deserts. 
 There would be deserts like Sahara, the bottom 
 of ancient ocean, nothing but a wide waste of 
 drifting sand. There was little of that in Judea, 
 and the text probably does not refer to it at all. 
 But there are even places in that vast Sahara of 
 death where blossoms can be found. 
 
 Then there are the deserts where it almost 
 never rains; but some plants, specially adapted to 
 arid conditions, can be made to grow; and other 
 half way deserts, where it rains, at least a little 
 every winter, but where everything dries up 
 and turns brown early in the season, and where 
 there is then hardly any evidence of plant life at 
 
228 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 all. If an inexperienced observer saw it he would 
 think there was no hope of growing anything 
 there. 
 
 The prophet probably had in his mind a 
 picture of things as they really happen, and this 
 is what does happen. The wilderness is bro^vn 
 and bare, no grass, no trees, nothing but the 
 colors of the rocks and the blue of the sky, the 
 play of light and shade to tell of beauty. Then 
 the season changes and the rain begins. ^N'obody 
 lives there, but flocks are pastured there sometimes 
 in the season. It has hardly begun to rain before 
 greenness begins, and before very long, it isn't so 
 much grass that we notice but that the whole plain 
 is carpeted with flowers. It is a world of flowers. 
 And all this beauty is practically for nobody to 
 see, unless we are carried up to the essence and 
 nature of things, and realize that He who created 
 beauty loves to behold beauty. And so it is per- 
 fectly according to His nature and His mind, that 
 He who comes as the fruit of the Mystic Rose, 
 should be "the Chiefest among ten thousand, and 
 altogether Lovely." 
 
 'Now the rougher the wild country, the more 
 apt you are to find that the wild flower is a rose. 
 It isn't the flower of the flat plains. It loves slopes, 
 and climbs over the rocks. Wherever the seepage 
 of water between the rocks gives any hope of 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 229 
 
 lingering moisture, there the wild roses luxuriate. 
 
 Christ reminds us of the Rose springing in the 
 desert, because He comes forth out of an appar- 
 ently hopeless national history. If you had been 
 looking for a Redeemer, would you have looked 
 to the little arid conquered country of Palestine 
 to find Him? There were greater nations, there 
 were people who seemed more wonderful. But 
 the Rose came out of the Desert of History, the 
 wilderness of Judea. 
 
 Then He was first found in the wilderness. 
 Men went out to hear John Baptist, away from 
 the city and its artificialities, and he showed them 
 Christ. 
 
 Then the doctrine and life of Christ are both 
 as beautiful as they can possibly be, and they are 
 yet so natural. How natural is goodness when 
 Christ proclaims it! It is not slavery to precept 
 or rule; we just surrender ourselves into God's 
 hands, and let ourselves grow, and God makes oui 
 lives beautiful, like the Saviour's. Then the ros^ 
 multiplies in a way that makes us think of the 
 wonderful birth of Christ. It can grow from the 
 seed haws, but it does come up from the root, 
 shooting up some distance from the parent stem. 
 That is the way Christ comes by a new kind of 
 birth, to be "the Branch out of the Root." 
 
 And then the thorns remind us that we are not 
 
230 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 worthy to touch this beauty that we can see. 
 ^'Draw nigh" ^^to see this great sight." But come 
 not too nigh. Even in the Resurrection, of which 
 the springing up every year of new life in the 
 wilderness is such a wondrous type, Christ says, 
 "Touch Me not." And there is this other curious 
 possible reflection from the thorns. It has been 
 thought that the thorns of Christ's crown were 
 taken from a very rough and wild member of the 
 rose family. When the primeval burden was laid 
 upon the ground for man's sin it was said, 
 "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to 
 thee." And this would include the thorns of the 
 rose, but also contained the Promise of the Rose. 
 So Christ, the perfect Man, was crowned with 
 thorns by other men of wild propensities ; His own 
 race run wild. They had run to brambles, He 
 was the perfect Flower. 
 
 And, finally, these old fragrances that we meet 
 among the relics of our great-grandmothers — these 
 rose-leaf beads — they came from the blooms of a 
 hundred years ago. What do they remind us of? 
 Why, they bring to mind the refrain of many a 
 psalm that Israel used to sing, and we ought never 
 to forget: "His Mercy endureth forever." The 
 beauty of holiness cannot die, or disappear without 
 leaving some other reminder. The fragrance of 
 last year's roses lingers till long after the next 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 231 
 
 year's blooms have taught again the Resurrection. 
 "For His mercy endureth forever." 
 
 Oh, lavish beauty of the wild rose ! We are of 
 the same creation; why should we not try to bring 
 forth plenteously the fruit of good works? The 
 lavish flow of the sunlight, the vast volume of the 
 cataract, the ocean of the winds, the infinities of 
 the heavens, and the whole west waving with wild 
 flowers, these all tell us not to "be weary of well- 
 doing," not to stint our sacrificial outpouring of 
 our powers. E'othing is lost. It all goes back to 
 God. And He is good, and "His mercy endureth 
 forever." 
 
 But it is the Gospel which makes the desert 
 bloom. And the world is still, so much of it, a 
 wilderness. Is there any great work of our govern- 
 ment which has so much attracted us of late years 
 as Reclamation? And is not this just the other 
 word for Redemption? If man can work at Re- 
 clamation for the sake of agriculture, why cannot 
 we work for Redemption for Christ ? For, where- 
 ever the Gospel goes, there come "showers of bless- 
 ing," and "the wilderness shall rejoice and blossom 
 as the rose." 
 
THE SINLESSNESS OF CHRIST 
 
 Which of you convinceth Me of sin? And if I say 
 the truth, why do ye not believe Me? — St. John 8:46. 
 
 HE Gospels show how much easier it 
 was for Christ to get a friendly hear- 
 ing among the poor of Galilee, than 
 among the wise and great, who should 
 have been the first to welcome Him. Whether the 
 hearing, glad though it was, that the common 
 people gave Him, was always so fruitful in the 
 long run, is another question. Our Lord warns 
 us that quick hearers have not always depth of 
 earth. 
 
 But, as soon as our Lord met the professedly 
 religious at Jerusalem, He met enemies. And yet, 
 if He were what He claimed to be, the Scribes 
 were teaching Llis law, and the Chief Priests were 
 His ministers. But they cast Him out and 
 killed Him. 
 
 As His course at Jerusalem was more difficult, 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 233 
 
 SO His sayings there are harder to follow. We no 
 longer have simple narrative, but deeply argued 
 and spiritual reasoning. But, thoughtfully read, 
 they are mines of instruction and admonition. 
 
 What impression do the wise men of Christ's 
 day make upon us ? Were they admirable ? No, 
 indeed! They were dead conservatives, unable to 
 give new truth a fair hearing. Such dead unbelief 
 and prejudice has little to say for the intellect or 
 souls of those in bondage to it. The Sadducees 
 denied the spiritual because they had no experi- 
 ence of the spiritual. How could they have, when 
 they had lost the organs to perceive it ? 
 
 Have we less faith in the world to-day than in 
 old times ? We hardly believe it. The world has 
 always had some faith, and some unfaith. And 
 the unfaith of to-day is not very unlike that of 
 our Lord's time. E'ow, as then, there are the 
 commercial spirit, the class spirit, the sensual 
 spirit, the unimaginative, lowered gaze of the 
 routine man. These are opposed to faith. They 
 never mark discoverers. Those who think that 
 scepticism is dignified and intellectual, do not 
 welcome the Gospel now any more than when it 
 came to earth. But the sceptics of our Lord's 
 day do not appear either dignified or worthy. 
 
 Education in the best sense is fine. But it 
 does no good to clog the mind with the undigested 
 
234 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 results of other men's faith or works. Moses had 
 faith, but minds clogged with traditions tried to 
 quote him against Christ. We need an open soul ; 
 we need to avoid all forms of partisanship or 
 bigotry. We need to be warned against degeneracy 
 in the ideals of all organization, either in Church, 
 State, or education. 
 
 Our Lord's crucifixion was carried out by or- 
 ganized society. All organizations, unless care- 
 fully watched, tend to forget what they are for, 
 and to live for themselves, instead of their original 
 purposes. Our Lord could have been crucified in 
 any country, or in any Church, if the same ele- 
 ments as were in control in Judea could have 
 there had their way. God's people have been al- 
 ways killing prophets. 
 
 Our Lord recognized from the first that there 
 was only one outcome of His struggle with the 
 Chiefs of Israel. They could not change their 
 type. He came to save sinners. They could not 
 recognize themselves as sinners, until their sin 
 had gone just as far as it possibly could. It was 
 not only necessary for Christ to die, but that He 
 should be killed by just such people. If we have 
 any tendencies like those of the Jews, we know by 
 observation how far they could carry us. Even 
 the cool scientist can become a persecutor some- 
 times. There seems nothing really bloodthirsty 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 235 
 
 about Caiaphas. One just thinks of him as a 
 managing person, who says, "It is expedient," and 
 rubs his hands. There is modern politics for you ! 
 Where could such a class get the faculty to judge 
 of sin? But, nevertheless, our Lord submits His 
 claims to just this class, this prejudiced court, and 
 His claims gain power because they were not able 
 to condemn Him fairly. He asks them, as He 
 asks the world, "Which of you convinceth Me of 
 sin?" Let them do their utmost. If they can 
 condemn Him, there will be no need of Pilate. 
 
 The Sinlessness of Christ is, with us, a dogma 
 of the Church. We have arguments that convince 
 us. But let us first go outside the Church. What 
 has the world thought about Him? What has 
 history to say ? History is neither friend nor foe, 
 it is just a record. The facts are impartial. His- 
 tory has crowned Him King of Virtue. 
 
 And then let us note our own impressions 
 from the bare record in the Gospel. The sinless 
 Christ, if He were what He claimed to be, was 
 essentially and fundamentally so. He must have 
 been a sinless child. Little of His childhood is 
 recorded, but nothing inconsistent with the rest of 
 His life. He was subject to His mother and foster 
 father. But they never fully understood Him. 
 If His answer to them when they sought Him in 
 the Temple, "Wist ye not that I must be about 
 
236 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 Mj Father's business?" jars on anyone's feelings, 
 it would be because a note of pertness or im- 
 patience was read into it. But it is not really 
 there. After the ministry began, some have felt 
 a measure of discourtesy in our Lord's response to 
 His mother at the wedding feast at Cana: 
 ''Woman, what have I to do Avith thee ? Mine hour 
 is not yet come." But a sufficient acquaintance 
 with the manners of the Jews, and the fact that 
 His mother seemed perfectly satisfied with the 
 answer, show that the answer was perfectly 
 courteous. 
 
 When our Lord is said to have been angry, it 
 was because He was ''grieved at the hardness of 
 men's hearts," and He signalizes that anger by a 
 work of mercy. Surely, no fault can be shown 
 in Him from the sacred records, as looking deeply 
 removes every trace of word or deed that could 
 justly be criticized. The recorded character of 
 Christ stands. 'No flaw can be found in it, unless 
 it is assumed that He was fundamentally a de- 
 ceiver. In this case we have the inconceivable 
 contradiction: Here is the teaching of a morality 
 so high that it allows not the slightest deviation 
 from truth ("let your yea be yea, and your nay, 
 nay,"), built on a deception. 
 
 Or, if you assume that He was Himself de- 
 ceived, how can we believe that God intrusted to 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 237 
 
 a deluded man the revelation of the highest mo- 
 rality the world has ever known? If there is no 
 Christ, is there any God ? or is there any righteous- 
 ness? 1^0, there was no fault. Pilate said so, 
 even while he condenmed Him to die, because 
 they sought false witness against Him. If they 
 had had a true witness, they would not have 
 needed false witness. The men who knew Him 
 best, the early apostles, said He was sinless; for 
 they called Him the spotless Lamb of God. And 
 God witnessed to Him; for He raised Him from 
 the dead. 
 
 His testimony to Himself was indirect. He 
 claimed sinlessness by submitting Himself to 
 judgment. If we hesitate at His self-assertion, let 
 us remember that His sinlessness belonged to His 
 Gospel. That Gospel would have been radically 
 different, far less of a blessing to us, with that 
 sinlessness left out. We needed it, and we needed 
 His calm assurance of innocence, as well as all 
 other testimony. 
 
 What then follows if we take this sinlessness 
 as practically admitted by all? For history has 
 never ceased to admire Christ, whether she 
 crowned Him as Man or God. 
 
 Why, first. He is an example. He has "left 
 us an example that we should follow His steps.'' 
 He has not only told us how to be good. He has 
 
238 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 showed us how to be good. It is all in the Book. 
 We can see there the concrete instance of how He 
 would face the emergencies and labors and trials 
 of life. He is the New Law, the Way. And He 
 is Life, power to fulfil the law. He will work 
 still in us as He worked before. 
 
 Next, He is the Sinless Victim. Such a sacri- 
 fice had been sought through the ages. To sacri- 
 fice goats for men, bodies for souls, sinners for 
 sin, these were, and must remain, fruitless, except 
 to signify man's longing for reconciliation, or 
 God's mercy in drawing him. But the Perfect for 
 the imperfect, the "Just for the unjust," such 
 could be accepted and avail forever. Such could 
 be accepted, but, because Justice could not con- 
 demn Him, sinners did. And His own Will came 
 to make Him our Sacrifice, our Kedeemer, and 
 the Author of Everlasting Life. 
 
 Further, He is our Head. We are"complete 
 in Him." He has not won for us a fruitless 
 pardon, but restored to us a perfected humanity. 
 Human nature came first good, but untried. He 
 comes now good, and perfectly tried, perfectly ex- 
 perienced, that He may be "Just and the Justi- 
 fier," Saviour "to the uttermost," because He was 
 "in all points tempted," and hath "tasted death 
 for every man." 
 
 But He must be something more than we are, 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 239 
 
 though as we are. If He were born like us, of 
 human generation, He could not have been sinless. 
 He must be a JSTew Man, untainted by any Fall. 
 We can not believe in the perfection of His life, 
 His sacrifice, His redemption, the finality of His 
 judgment, unless He is all pure, and born, as the 
 Scriptures say, of a pure Virgin. So His sinless- 
 ness is that of the God-Man. If we let the In- 
 carnation slip, we may retain certain outward 
 forms and garments of Christianity. But a mere 
 sentiment of admiration will hardly sustain us in 
 dark days. He must be Divine, or He has not 
 saved us, cannot save us. 
 
 "If I tell you the truth, why do ye not believe 
 Me?" It may be true that the formal arguments 
 for Christianity have been left incomplete, as 
 some complain. It is a question whether they 
 have. If they had been as full as some men might 
 demand, can it be shown that an overwhelming 
 demonstration of truth would have benefitted us? 
 The evidence we have is a cry to our spirit to 
 awake and answer. It is an appeal to faith. If 
 the stupendous facts were too plain, might they 
 not crush us ? 
 
 Christ asks for faith. Science will come along 
 by and by, we may well believe, with her demon- 
 strations of things we have long been sure of by 
 faith, but have not demonstrated. While she has 
 
240 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 been getting ready, "These all died in faith." 
 Science will prove many things after we are dead. 
 Do not wait. Listen to the Holy Ghost, to the 
 Sinless One. He is "the Way, the Truth, and 
 the Life." 
 

 FOR EASTER-TIDE 
 
 Purge out, therefore, the old leaven. — 1 Cor. 5 : 7. 
 
 F one should visit a wholesale bakery 
 now, he would find that the means in 
 use there for raising bread were almost 
 all chemical. Bread is raised now by 
 generating certain gases which have been found 
 convenient. A man, who had been brought up 
 entirely under these modern methods, might not 
 know what was meant by "leaven!" 
 
 Even so the modern housewife uses various 
 kinds of baking powders, which produce chemical 
 raising of the dough. Or, she buys a cake or two 
 of ready, prepared yeast, much different from that 
 prepared and kept with great trouble by our grand- 
 mothers, and so raises her bread. She hardly 
 knows what is meant in the Bible by "leaven." 
 What did they use in those old days ? Yeast was 
 practically unknown; baking powders were un- 
 known; how did they raise their bread? Well, 
 
242 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 in a good many cases they did not raise it at all, 
 except as thorough mixing, a pinch of salt, and 
 the heat, would raise it. They mixed up their 
 flour and water into a batter, and baked it on hot 
 stones, and it came off in the shape of a crinkly, 
 brown cracker, quite palatable. 
 
 The Arabs to-day use the same kind of bread, 
 and call it blanket bread, and you may buy it 
 around Passover time in the Jewish quarter of our 
 great cities. There they call it Passover Bread. 
 It is like the unleavened bread of the Bible. But 
 for raised bread, they had discovered that old, sour 
 bread or dough would ferment, and act just like 
 yeast. That is, it would give out the gas, carbonic 
 oxide, which would raise the dough, if a piece of 
 the sour dough were hid in it. And it need be but 
 a very small piece, for, "a little leaven, leaveneth 
 the whole lump." Hence we find God's kingdom 
 compared by our Blessed Lord in one place to a 
 seed, "a grain of mustard seed,'' because, though 
 small, it had within it life, and growth, and power ; 
 and in another place to a piece of "leaven," on 
 account of its secret, hidden influence on the whole 
 of society where it is present. An immense 
 number of persons are thus influenced by Chris- 
 tianity and the Church who are quite unconscious 
 of its influence on them. 
 
 But, because this old fashioned leaven was in 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 243 
 
 itself not at all a nice thing, looking, tasting, and 
 smelling the sour mass that it was, St. Paul uses 
 it figuratively in another way, to express the evil 
 influence on society, and especially on the Church, 
 of the bad principles, or bad customs, of even a 
 few of her members. 
 
 It was a strict commandment among the Jews 
 not to use any leavened bread at Passover time. 
 They even had a custom of searching their houses 
 thoroughly with candles just before the feast, to 
 find and cast away the least, last scrap of leaven. 
 This was a memorial of the fact that the deliver- 
 ance of the Jews from Egypt came in a very 
 hurried way. The last great plague upon the 
 Egyptians was the death of all the first born among 
 them, and it was while their enslavers were suffer- 
 ing the first paralyzing effects of grief at such an 
 appalling calamity, that the Israelites made their 
 escape. They had no time to finish making their 
 bread. Those who were making it took their 
 kneading-troughs with the dough in them, before 
 it was leavened, or raised. It takes time to raise 
 bread, and they had no time. And ever after- 
 ward, at Passover time, they ate their food with 
 their ^%ins girded up, and their lights burning,'' 
 and ate the feast in haste, or, as if in haste, in 
 memory of a hasty deliverance. 
 
 !N^ow a new meaning and a new deliverance 
 
244 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 have come to us at Passover time. "Christ is the 
 very Paschal Lamb which was offered for us, and 
 hath taken away the sin of the world." He, "by 
 His death hath destroyed Death, and, by His ris- 
 ing again to life, hath brought life and immortality 
 to light through the Gospel." This Passover has 
 all the meaning of the first one, and yet the added 
 meaning of that other great Passover which the 
 Israelites celebrated after their wandering in the 
 wilderness was completed, and they had crossed 
 the Jordan into the promised land. For our Lent 
 is over, and we seek to live in newness of life. 
 
 All through Lent we were trying to find out in 
 ourselves the tastes and habits which remind us 
 of leaven, the sour dough, the mass of corruption, 
 of which a very little could leaven the whole lump, 
 especially if it were well hidden. Thus we were 
 properly seeking the secret fault, the hidden 
 trouble which was perverting our lives, and making 
 hypocrites of us. The Germans have some de- 
 lightfully strong expressions. They call the 
 Biblical leaven simply "sour dough," and the un- 
 leavened bread is the "unsoured" bread. This is 
 the kind of life the Christian passover asks us to 
 live, the unsoured, unspoiled life. We are bidden 
 to keep the great feast with "the unleavened bread 
 of sincerity and truth," since "Christ our Passover 
 is sacrificed for us." 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 245 
 
 The true purpose of the Christian Lent is to 
 help us to get rid of evil propensities which we 
 are not again to resume. 
 
 Unfortunately, this is not the way many people 
 look at it. They do, indeed, make some sacrifices, 
 and some effort to overcome besetting sins, as long 
 as Lent lasts. But they go into the fast with the 
 express intention of going back to worldliness after 
 Lent. ;N'ow, of course, a good part of a rational 
 Lenten discipline has to do with things which are 
 perfectly innocent. We have gone without good 
 things because we desired, perhaps, to make a 
 Christian economy, and make an offering of the 
 fruits of self-denial. Or, we sought fellowship 
 with Christ through the lack of creature comfort, 
 or, we were trying to teach ourselves to say "IN'o." 
 This is not what we refer to, although it is plain 
 that this age is always too prone to luxury, and is 
 consequently enfeebled in self-mastery and dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 But too many people give up only had habits in 
 Lent, and then take them up again after Easter. 
 And this is far worse than if they had never given 
 them up. It turns what may have become a weak- 
 ness, and a pitiable failing, into a deliberate sin, 
 and makes us miss the whole purpose of reform 
 and of life. The Risen Life is the new life. It is 
 a life with changed and uplifted desires. It has 
 
246 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 seen the effect of the Eesurrection, has begun to 
 appreciate what there is in Heaven for us. It has 
 hope of higher possibilities. It sees that, by union 
 with Christ, one may "die to sin" before one really 
 dies in the body, putting the old life behind one 
 with strong resolution and complete renunciation, 
 by the help which comes from communing with the 
 Risen Lord. 
 
 But for this purpose we do need good prin- 
 ciples. We do need to give up all delusions of the 
 flesh and spirit. 'No matter how apparently in- 
 significant the self-delusion, the self-indulgence 
 may be, it may be to us that "little leaven which 
 leaveneth the whole lump,'' and turns ultimately 
 the whole life sour and bad again. 
 
 Can we not try to realize profoundly that all 
 sin is bad ? The so called "pleasures of sin" symp- 
 tomatically considered are equally bad, and have 
 seeds of death. Even the little sin we do not much 
 account of, may grow with unsuspected rapidity 
 into something dangerously destructive, unless we 
 from the start realize its danger. The little leaven 
 leaveneth, soureth the whole lump. 
 
 And there is this other view: Why should we 
 not desire Christian perfection ? Is there any fear 
 that we can ever be too good ? And yet the little 
 fault certainly becomes conspicuous in proportion 
 as virtue is great. Great faults make us forget 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 247 
 
 little ones, and great virtues throw small faults 
 into prominence. But shall we not nevertheless 
 seek to eradicate all faults ? Then ^^purge out the 
 old leaven." 
 
 There is another powerful thought which comes 
 from regarding ourselves as bread, unleavened 
 bread. Bread is all any man needs. Christ is the 
 Bread of Life because He is all we need, and has 
 provided means sacramentally by which we can 
 feed on Him. But in a lower sense every man is 
 bread for another man, because we are mutually 
 dependent, mutually influential. It is impossible 
 for the most solitary, self-centered man in the 
 world to live absolutely to himself, though he may 
 easily absorb more than he creates. But good, ac- 
 tive men particularly find their joy in the amount 
 of support they can give. Their gladness comes 
 from supporting wife, children, and helping 
 friends, now one, now another. 
 
 Hence, as long as we must really be bread, let 
 us be good bread. Our principles, our actions, 
 either elevate or depreciate the community in 
 which we live. Every word we speak carries. 
 Everything we do is weighed. Every time we say 
 goodness is impracticable, we hurt the ideals of 
 some soul. Some persons affect to believe the 
 whole Christian religion who have one standard in 
 business, and yet another in politics, and a third 
 
248 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 at home. There is leaven in all of them. And yet 
 the true life demands sincerity and truth; sincer- 
 ity and truth with God, sincerity and truth with 
 men, sincerity and truth with ourselves. And 
 this last is most important, because we often de- 
 ceive ourselves most seriously of all, and put our- 
 selves in all sorts of false positions because we are 
 not thus square with ourselves. There is absolutely 
 nothing that can compare in importance with the 
 genuineness of our Christianity. Let us, therefore, 
 seek, all through this Easter-tide, for the effect 
 in and on ourselves of sincerity and truth. Dis- 
 honesty is sour, impurity is sour, meanness is sour, 
 bad temper is sour, covetousness is sour, and all 
 will sour everything with which they come in con- 
 tact. But light and truth, peace, and charity, and 
 self denial, all are sweet things, and make life 
 sweet for ourselves, and all around us. Thus 
 Easter-tide will become a festal season, indeed, 
 because we constantly commune in character with 
 the Kisen Lord, and have "set our affections on 
 things above." 
 
THE SEPULCHRE IN THE 
 GARDEN 
 
 In the 'place where He was crucified there was a 
 garden^ and in the garden a new tomh, wherein was 
 never man yet laid. — St. John 19 : 41. 
 
 X all the eastern countries gardens 
 have to be made where they can have 
 water. There is not enough rain to 
 depend on that alone. Sometimes the 
 necessary water comes from a long way off. There 
 is the right to use some of what flows by in the 
 channels of a great irrigation system. Sometimes 
 there is a spring or well. And gardens of the sort 
 that depend on a small but sure supply of water 
 are everywhere common in the East, and some of 
 them are very small, and occur where we should 
 hardly expect them. 
 
 Christ was crucified in a place called Calvary, 
 or Golgotha, or "the place of a skull." The rock 
 must have come right up through the surface. 
 We have all seen these outcrops, as they are called, 
 and they seem most unpromising places for a 
 
250 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 garden. But often at the foot of small, rocky 
 hills, flowing from deep seams in the rock, is just 
 the place to look for a spring. So here were life 
 and death together. There must have been "living 
 water" near "the place of a skull." 
 
 The Greek word for garden has passed into 
 theology with a meaning much greater than it has 
 by itself. It is Paradise. All over Christendom 
 you find how deeply the situation of Christ's tomb 
 has impressed itself upon His followers, and how 
 it shows in the care of our dead. See in the dis- 
 tance a park full of gorgeous shrubs and flowering 
 plants, but it takes no near approach to show the 
 tombs among the lilies. The gardens in our Lord's 
 time were not around the homes, as they lie here. 
 That would have been often impossible. Gardens 
 were not easy to have. They were outside, 
 generally in sight, and near enough to watch over 
 them; but still they were resorts for coolness, for 
 rest and refreshment, as well as places where men 
 labored with their tools and watering devices. 
 
 The garden seems to have belonged to Joseph 
 of Arimathea, or, at least he had secured the right 
 to provide himself a tomb there, hewed out of the 
 solid rock. The face of the rock was probably 
 made quite vertical, and the great stone which 
 closed it was, it is thought, round, like a mill-stone, 
 and rolled in a groove, so that when it reached the 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 251 
 
 bottom of the groove it completely closed the face 
 of the outer chamber of the tomb. It would be 
 easier to roll it into place than away again, if we 
 understand the construction of the tomb. It was 
 but a step from the cross to the tomb, the garden 
 lying just under Golgotha. And so Joseph and 
 ]^icodemus, who had both been secret disciples of 
 our Lord, now come out and beg His body and 
 lay it in Joseph's tomb, wrapped in an envelope 
 of precious spices, and leave Him — in Paradise, 
 the garden. His soul went to another Paradise, 
 God's garden, and along with Him went the soul 
 of the penitent thief. 
 
 The garden lay quiet over the Sabbath. But 
 in the night that followed the Sabbath it was the 
 scene of the greatest Fact of history. The Divine 
 Sleeper rose from the dead. And after the Sleeper 
 rose the angels came, and the soldiers fled who had 
 watched there. One angel, mighty and strong, 
 rolled away the stone and sat upon it, and others 
 went and sat where the body had been laid; and 
 it was their ministering hands we may believe 
 that wrapped the linen clothes in order before they 
 said to the women, "Come, see the place where the 
 Lord lay.'' When Peter and John afterward could 
 bring themselves to enter, they found, not indeed, 
 the angels as the women had seen, but the beautiful 
 order which they left behind. 
 
252 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 We, too, bury our dead out of our sight, be- 
 cause in the order of nature it is necessary to do 
 so. But we love to bury them in a garden. We 
 know that our Saviour's body saw no corruption, 
 and we know that our bodies do see corruption. 
 And so, when we look upon the places where our 
 beloved lie, we do indeed see around us evidences 
 of peace and rest, inscriptions of faith and victory. 
 But we do not look within. Corruption hinders 
 us. 
 
 Has then the view of the order within the 
 grave of Christ nothing to say to us, in the differ- 
 ent circumstances of our deaths? Yes, indeed; 
 for what is corruption? It is not a pleasant 
 thought, but it need not be a blow to faith or com- 
 fort. It is a simple word, meaning merely "si 
 breaking up." As the body of Christ was separated 
 from His soul, so the various elements of our 
 bodies are separated from each other in the grave. 
 But the process is not disorderly. It follows the 
 laws of E'ature which are the laws of God. 
 
 When the seed that is to "bring forth much 
 fruit" is hidden in the ground, it moulders away, 
 just as surely as do our bodies, and gives us in 
 one process the mystery of life, and the mystery 
 of death. There is no disorder in the grave. 
 There is no loss. What you hide from your own 
 eyes you do not hide from God. You scatter things 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 253 
 
 throughout the universe, but they never get far 
 from God. The last breath of a man goes straight 
 to God, though the man freeze to death on the 
 Labrador or fall in the Sahara; all winds that 
 sweep away the failing breath bear it home. 
 
 Turn now to the garden outside. This is 
 beautiful. Is a dead body beautiful? It has a 
 certain beauty not in life, lasting a brief space, 
 because death wipes away the traces of conflict 
 always going on while we live. Peace always 
 seems to touch us first, after we go. But this is 
 brief. Look now at this seed; is it beautiful? 
 'Not unless you see things deep. It is small, weak, 
 insignificant, apparently dead. But what are 
 these roses, lilies, vine blossoms? What is the 
 source of all this beauty and fragrance ? It has 
 all come from buried things, from little seeds that 
 seemed dead, and then irreparably dead. It is 
 the resurrection of the dead. "It is sown in cor- 
 ruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown 
 in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown in 
 dishonor, it is raised in glory :" mortality has been 
 swallowed up in life." 
 
 Take up a handful of the churchyard mould. 
 Under this we shall sleep. But what says the 
 Psalmist? "My flesh also shall rest in hope." 
 Take a strong glass and look at this handful. It 
 seems even to be alive. What is this that is cover- 
 
254 HUMAN QUESTIONS 
 
 ing the fall sowing ? Is it soil ? May we not call 
 it hope? There would be no hope if there were 
 no covering. 
 
 "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," that 
 you may learn from its heavenly order the sense 
 of God's power to keep His promises, so that you, 
 too, may rest in hope. 
 
 "I will lay me down in peace and take my 
 rest''; "when I awake after Thy likeness I shall 
 be satisfied with it." 
 
DELIVERANCES 
 
 We have heard with our ears, God, our fathers 
 have told us what Thou hast done in their time of 
 old.— Psalm 44:1. 
 
 HEIST the Jubilee Singers from the 
 South first made us familiar with 
 the real negro melody, as distin- 
 guished from the light songs so popu- 
 lar before the Civil War, men became conscious 
 of a new impression. It was undeniably gro- 
 tesque, what they then listened to, but it showed 
 genuine religious feeling and a rude dignity, at 
 which many were surprised. It is not so many 
 years ago that a leading European composer, al- 
 ready most favorably known in this country for 
 his sacred music, came over the sea to us, and 
 examined this genuine negro music with great in- 
 terest. Dr. Dvorak, to whom is the reference, is 
 said to have prophesied that if any peculiar school 
 of music ever rose up in America, it would be 
 
256 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 founded upon the negro music of the old slave 
 days. 
 
 One of these melodies comes to mind in be- 
 ginning to consider this subject. It ran, as the 
 Hampton students used to sing it: 
 
 "The Lord delivered Moses, 
 The Lord delivered Moses, 
 The Lord delivered Moses, 
 
 Why can't He deliver me?" 
 
 This is a modern and simple expression similar 
 in all respects to the petition in the English 
 Litany, where the words of the forty-fourth Psalm 
 are used as a prayer for the whole Church : 
 
 '^We have heard with our ears, O God, our 
 fathers have told us the noble works which Thou 
 didst in their time, and in the old times before 
 them." 
 
 Arts. "O Lord, arise, help us, and deliver 
 us for Thine honour." 
 
 Eight through this runs the same feeling as 
 in, ''Why can't He deliver me?" 
 
 Have we, in our greater wisdom, gotten past 
 things like these? The Conception of ^N'ature, 
 through which and above which the Lord deliv- 
 ered Moses, Gideon, and other worthies, told about 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews as living in days of 
 faith, Avas formerly very different from that which 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 257 
 
 is now held ; but does this make any real, necessary 
 difference in what Ave may call the fundamentals 
 of a practical theology ? Let us examine. 
 
 It was a very simple age, mechanically con- 
 sidered, when the angel of God appeared to Gid- 
 eon to tell him that he must be the deliverer of 
 Israel from Midianitish oppression. Israel, too, 
 was perhaps the least mechanical of all nations. 
 It was always so. The line of Cain was more 
 mechanical than the line of Seth, the chosen one, 
 and the Israelites had to go to the Philistines to 
 find a blacksmith. This is why we still call the 
 man who translates everything into terms of dead 
 practicality, and has no use for the idealist or 
 seer, a Philistine. Gideon was doing his thresh- 
 ing in a way now strange to us, on a dry, smooth 
 dirt floor, with hardly the idea of a tool about the 
 work. He was driving oxen around the floor 
 upon the straw, possibly with some kind of a 
 drag, and possibly relying mainly upon their feet 
 to loosen the grain. To him appeared the heavenly 
 messenger. And when he seeks a sign from God 
 that he is actually the chosen one, he seeks a very 
 simple one, very direct, implying the nearness 
 and direct providence of God to his mind. He 
 put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor, and 
 asked that there might be "dew upon the fleece 
 and none on the floor" ; and again, that there 
 
258 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 might be "dew on the floor and none on the 
 fleece" ; and these signs were given. Thus he 
 doubted not of his direction. 
 
 Is there anything in the discoveries of the 
 present age to weaken our faith in the power, the 
 will, and the reality in the dealings of Him whom 
 we call God with humanity, and individual men? 
 
 For we live in a very mechanical age. The 
 modern Gideon when he threshes to-day, uses other 
 and wonderful means. He draws, by its own trac- 
 tion, his steam engine and threshing machine to 
 his field, where already his combined reaper and 
 binder has done its work, gathering the harvest 
 of a square mile of wheat without a man's hand 
 to anything but a lever, or a line. These ma- 
 chines are marvels of ingenuity; cog, and wheel, 
 lever and belt, ratchet and bevel, are all at work, 
 and doing almost as wondrously as the angel did 
 with Gideon's sacrifice. Man and his machine 
 have become so wonderful that — what has become 
 of God ? We might answer that the wheat would 
 sufficiently testify to Him; but let us get to the 
 bottom of our mechanics. 
 
 At the same time that man is so greatly de- 
 veloping his own tools, a greater realization of the 
 mechanics of the universe has surely grown upon 
 his mind. His telescope has brought coimtless 
 worlds close to his sight and ken, about which he 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 259 
 
 speaks in terms of millions of miles and thousands 
 of years, jet has reduced them all to terms of 
 mathematics. He understands all their curves, 
 and cycles, and they are like the lines which he 
 draws on his blackboards, or text-book pages. He 
 looks down into his mines, and finds nature work- 
 ing there in the same forms which are axiomati- 
 cally forced upon his own mind by that power 
 which made it, however made. He goes into an 
 iron mine, and finds a crystal of iron, which made 
 itself — if you listen to child's talk; but which the 
 mathematician made — if you listen to reason — a 
 perfect octahedron; yet all its edges are flattened 
 just a little and just alike, save where perhaps 
 some overlapping pressure has made just enough 
 inequality to emphasize the regularity of the rest. 
 They call it magnetite, whether accurately or not. 
 By any name it is wonderful. 
 
 Then as man's telescope, so also his spectro- 
 scope, and his microscope, have revealed to him 
 the wonders of nature. Geology and astronomy 
 both have changed his chronology, and put back 
 far beyond any human computation, the beginnings 
 of things we see. Has not all this driven the 
 Creator far away from us? Must not His in- 
 itiatory work have been so long ago that He has 
 ceased to take knowledge of the motes which peo- 
 ple this insignificant planet ? 
 
260 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 But would not all this world get strangely out 
 of order, like the best human machines, without 
 Him? Why is the rainbow the same in the little 
 fly's wing, as on the sunny side of the nimbus? 
 Why is it always there Avhen there's light enough ? 
 Why are the lilies of the field still worth consid- 
 ering ? 
 
 In an old picture of the weird sisters, The 
 Fates, one is seen holding the primitive spinner, 
 the distaff, and twisting the thread without a 
 wheel. What a change to the spinning- jenny ! In 
 a modern cotton mill one sees a child tending a 
 thousand threads. Her hand starts the frame in 
 motion, and controls the belt ; her watchful eye is 
 upon the moving frame. If a thread breaks, she 
 springs and checks the motion, and ties it up. It 
 needs somebody to watch. And as we look at 
 man's mechanics, the same passage of Ezekiel is 
 suggested to us, ^'The spirit of the living creature 
 is in the wheels." 
 
 They tell us that the more machinery we have, 
 the more power we need; and that is so. But 
 when we see enormous lines of shafting whirling, 
 we know that the power must be there ; and when 
 we behold exceedingly intricate machinery, like a 
 type-casting machine, we know that it isn't the 
 machine we admire, but the mind that thought it 
 out. And no matter how vast, and strong, and 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 261 
 
 far-reaching, the mechanical operations, the man 
 must not only start them but stand by them; for 
 the man is more wonderful than the machine. 
 The man controls the law of the machine. He 
 does not break its law, but he serves himself by 
 its law. 
 
 And thus the pious man sees that God controls, 
 works in and through His own machine. We 
 glorify God because He seems to us as near as in 
 the old times before us He must have seemed, and 
 infinitely more powerful than when men appreci- 
 ated the infinite so much less than we do now. 
 Once we said: "He holds the seas in the hollow 
 of His hands." ^ow, were we to write of His 
 power, we would say. He holds in His constant 
 thought the atoms and the inter-astral spaces; 
 while He loves the souls of men. Yes, He is 
 powerful. He is Mighty, "the Mighty God, the 
 Everlasting Father." 
 
 So, since man became a mechanician it is fit- 
 ting that his growth in this department should 
 lead him to a fresh revelation of God. To the 
 simple man comes the direct revelation; to the 
 complex man, God may still speak more directly, 
 even, than we can describe, but He speaks in every 
 way with more power, with more majestic mind. 
 
 But some who have studied deeply may say. 
 Are there not flaws in the universe? And, par- 
 
262 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 ticularly, are there not flaws in man ? Not, 
 merely, in what we call his moral make-up, but 
 in his physical make-up ? What are these odd, 
 disused organs, survivals of some former stage, un- 
 less evidences that nature was groping; that her 
 pathway was hedged up here, and opened there, as 
 if she were repenting of her mistakes, and seeking 
 for some excellence yet unknown ? 
 
 It seems that there is also an analogical an- 
 swer here. Nature is not merely mechanical! 
 Mechanics and morals are inseparably related. 
 Man does not make his sense of the moral; it 
 comes to him from without, though it finds an 
 answer in him. Morals seem to flow on around 
 us just as Nature's laws do; through us indeed, 
 but also around us, so that modern thinkers postu- 
 late "a stream of tendency not ourselves, which 
 makes for righteousness." Man, then, as moral, 
 and as a physical part of a physical creation which 
 is also moral, has to face this curious experience 
 of life and mentality: that we only acquire a real 
 grasp of knowledge and virtue through experi- 
 ment. We can only enter exactly into another 
 man's knowledge through his experiences. This 
 accounts for the unfruitful character of many 
 traditions. They are not touched with life until 
 something happens to give them reality. 
 
 So the doctrine of the Fall of man has been 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 263 
 
 sometimes paradoxically stated to have been a Fall 
 Upward; though whatever truth there is in the 
 paradox is through the operation of an overruling 
 Providence. (There could have been a religious 
 experience, without an experience of sin.) But, 
 nevertheless, the experience of sin has worked 
 very strongly upon many minds, and one arising 
 and coming to his Father, has to come to a home, 
 and a sense of home, which those who have con- 
 stantly abode there have never realized. This is 
 what Tennyson doubtless means when he sings — 
 
 "That men may rise on stepping stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 That was written before evolution was in the 
 air, though Tennyson and Darwin were, never- 
 theless, friends. 
 
 The physical and moral are so closely related 
 (with modern cranial physiology it is going to be 
 impossible to separate them, and why not ? What 
 God hath joined together, let no man put asunder) 
 — that we ought to be prepared to see this same law 
 of experimental approach to truth come out in 
 both. The apparent mistakes of nature need not, 
 therefore, confound us. We look upon them as 
 showing that, constituted as we are, we can not 
 merely be told the truth, we must find it out. 
 Faith is mightier than facts. Facts may lie heavy. 
 
264 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 but faith moves. The north pole no longer stirs 
 the adventurous since it has been found. 
 
 So God can help, and the indications of our 
 nature are that He ivill and does help. Remedies 
 are all around us in nature. 
 
 Then, as we come down to the declarations of 
 the Gospel for corroboration, and turn to Him 
 whom we believe to have been the chief of all Re- 
 vealers of the Divine character, we find Christ 
 answering the leper who did not doubt God's power, 
 but only His will, thus: The leper cried, ^Tord, 
 if Thou wilt. Thou canst make me clean." And 
 our Lord, acting as representative of God, an- 
 swered, "I will, be thou clean," showing His 
 exceeding earnestness to impress this Avillingness 
 upon all who should hear the story, by even going 
 so far as to break with a ceremonial law. If it 
 had been possible for Him to have contracted de- 
 filement by touching the leper. He must have 
 done so. But He was not defiled; the leper was 
 cleansed. And St. Paul echoes this Will of His 
 Divine Master when he writes, ^'This is the Will 
 of God, even your sanctification." 
 
 The next and most important question is, Does 
 He help? It is probable that there would be 
 several answers to this question. But assuming the 
 character and integrity of witnesses, one thing is 
 always demanded in our courts: that they should 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 265 
 
 know the things about which they testify. A mere 
 statement that one has never had a given experi- 
 ence, does not weigh against the statement of men 
 of reputation and sanity that they have themselves 
 experienced such and such things. That three 
 men saw the prisoner at the bar at such a time and 
 place, will be hard to outweigh through testimony 
 from many that they did not see him. So a 
 Christian is alert in many ways in which the 
 man of the present is not. He has his eyes open, 
 because he is looking for God and Christ. He is 
 taught to find Christ in the crowded city, or alone 
 upon the house-top. He is trained to listen both 
 to silence and voices. He believes in the Unseen. 
 He does not think it unphilosophical, supposing 
 there is a God, to observe in Him the chief agent, 
 in all things that happen, rather than to lay the 
 great stress upon the inferior agency, or the 
 mechanical process. To him, what matters it how 
 God does it, if He does it, save as for food for 
 admiration, because "He doeth all things well." 
 
 The Christian man is full of faith in special, 
 in overruling, in remedial providences. He there- 
 fore believes in prayer, because God is standing 
 by. The Lord, as the psalmist says, "shall stand 
 by" His saints, "and deliver them, because they 
 put their trust in Him." When a man believes, 
 as taught by St. Paul, that his very body is a 
 
266 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 temple of the Holy Ghost, it is not far to a special 
 providence, not far from a God who can, will and 
 does help. 
 
 We must, of course, expect to have the objec- 
 tion from lack of experience numerously urged. 
 In the multiform divisions of modern life, how- 
 ever, we ought not to lack simple illustrations of 
 the illogical character of this. The story is told 
 of a great traveller who was relating to the dwellers 
 in Central Africa, tales of his experiences in 
 other lands, and giving many descriptions of life 
 as it is in the Europe of to-day. They accepted all 
 that he said, or seemed to, until he told them that, 
 in the country he came from, there was a time of 
 the year when all the rivers became so hard that 
 men could walk on them. To this their chief 
 replied: "ISTow we know you are lying. We were 
 disposed to believe you before, but this proves that 
 you have been lying all the time." And all this 
 for a matter as simple as ice ! 
 
 ISTow St. Paul says, "I know whom I have 
 believed." Who can testify against him ? Who 
 can say anything against the Christian who echoes 
 the Psalmist, "Praised be the Lord, for He hath 
 heard the voice of my humble petition?" 
 
 Let us keep up the traditions of our fathers. 
 They who have testified what God did in their 
 days have been an illustrious line, worthy of all 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 267 
 
 admiration. Thank God for the men, as well as 
 for the deeds. Let us be the men they were. Let 
 us not think of God as outside the sky line, the 
 star line. Let us not think of Him as an unknown, 
 outside the limits of the known. And not as our 
 first parents tried to hide from One who was 
 "walking in their garden in the cool of the day," 
 let us, confessing our sins and imploring His help, 
 fly to meet Him who can, will and does help His 
 children, in secret places of the soul, in the high 
 places of nature, and in the assembly of the faith- 
 ful, because "He is good, and His mercy endureth 
 forever." 
 

 CHRISTMAS-TIDE 
 
 THE LEADING OF THE CHILD 
 
 A little Child shall lead them. — Isaiah 11 : 6. 
 
 S there anything born so helpless as a 
 young child? And yet is there any- 
 thing so powerful ? It is true that 
 there are different kinds of power. 
 There is the power that a strong man exercises 
 when he lifts great weights, or engages in athletic 
 contests, wrestling, boxing, and the like. But 
 this is a single man's power, and cannot affect 
 anything far from the place where he stands. And 
 there is the other power that can compel obedience, 
 not only of the arm to the single will, but of many 
 wills to one. One is simple physical force, but 
 the other is something vastly higher and more 
 effective. 
 
 A king may be a young man, not by any means 
 grown to his full vigor, yet the arm and the weapon 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 269 
 
 of every man in the kingdom belongs to him, and, 
 were he a child, his power might be even greater 
 in a certain way. For against a young man or a 
 half-grown boy a man might rebel, who could not 
 lift his finger to resist the imperious will of a 
 helpless babe. 
 
 When a child comes to us for the first time, it 
 becomes the master of the house. And where hus- 
 band and wife have not been well agreed, and 
 where the will of the other was hard and bitter for 
 the wife to yield to, or the husband to satisfy, 
 where a disrupted home has been threatened, and 
 all the wisdom of friends or persuasion of the 
 Church has not been able to avert the threatened 
 breach, into that home has come a child, and with 
 baby fingers has drawn together cords that no one 
 else could draw, and with a soft hand held down 
 an earthquake. 
 
 There is something else in nature, too, that 
 shows the power of the child. Where do those 
 wonderful stories come from, like the story of 
 Romulus and Remus, the wolf-suckled twins who 
 founded Rome ? Is that a pure invention, or did 
 things like that ever happen? Things like that 
 have happened, wise men tell us, many times. 
 The wolf-mother would have attacked or fled 
 from a man, but she obeyed and nourished the 
 child. Little children have played with entire 
 
270 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 safety with many sorts of wild animals; a child 
 may be made the absolute lord of a great dog 
 which could pull down a stag. If, then, these wild 
 beasts which Isaiah's prophecy tells about are ever 
 to be brought to peace, if ever they are to share 
 in mutual peace the food of those that would be 
 otherwise their prey, if the enemy is ever to be 
 tamed, it must be done by the compelling power 
 of innocent, dependent, and helpless love. The 
 world cannot be made good by force, but it can be 
 blessed everywhere by the power of the Child 
 Jesus. 
 
 When Christ was born in Bethlehem, the 
 Father of all put His hand upon the heart of the 
 world. The dumb domestic beasts who sur- 
 rounded the manger must all have been glad to 
 see His Son. They always are. Ko finger would 
 have been raised against the peace of that manger 
 had it not been for Herod, perhaps the most un- 
 natural monster of which history knows. Had 
 he been but like a lion, or a bear, or a leopard, 
 or even a venomous serpent, he might have been 
 tamed; but he was the foe of his own flesh, and 
 his own children had been put to death by him. 
 There was no name fierce or hateful enough 
 whereby to describe him. But over the rest of 
 the world Christ began to reign from the manger, 
 from His mother's arms. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 271 
 
 The gift of the Saviour in this form also shows 
 the amazing confidence and trust God places in 
 man. Every child that is born is some mark of 
 this confidence, because it is God's child, too, lent 
 to us. But there God put His Only Begotten 
 into the hands of little understanding men, to 
 nurse for Him. ^'God so loved the world that He 
 gave His Only Begotten Son." He gave Him, in- 
 deed, to die for us, but first of all to live for us, 
 and the giving of the Infant was a step in redemp- 
 tion. To a holy soul it seems to have been 
 enough. The benefits of Christ's death are not 
 denied to those who loved Him and yielded them- 
 selves to His charm, even before the Eedemption 
 which came by His blood. The babe was holy 
 Simeon's Saviour. "Mine eyes," he said, "have 
 seen Thy Salvation." 
 
 Then if the Saviour had come from heaven as 
 the angels come, in the fulness of their beauty, 
 without coming in through the doorway of all 
 human experience, what would the children have 
 done for a Saviour? For we are saved through 
 the experience of the Lord. If He had never been 
 a boy, how could He be to the tempted boy what 
 He can be now ? Perhaps it wasn't so much that 
 He needed what sympathy could bring to the help 
 of His saving work, but oh, we needed to know 
 that He had first tasted every man's cup, and laid 
 
272 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 His hand upon every man's work. It was of God's 
 great mercy that Christ could be born a child. 
 
 And how, without this gift, could we have 
 learned what we now know of the character of 
 God? Men had been so afraid of God that they 
 were afraid to know Him at all. They were 
 afraid of Him, though they had no true fear of 
 Him. They were afraid of His presence, when 
 they ought to have feared His absence. But 
 Christ is laid in His mother's arms, and offered 
 to the sight of wise men and shepherds, and all 
 are taught by this spectacle that God is meek and 
 gentle, pure and holy, whose Kingdom is the king- 
 dom of Love. Christ was in all His ministry 
 the Revelation of the Father, but He was that as 
 well in infancy. 
 
 Why could not this Divine Child have saved 
 those babes who died for Him by Herod's sword? 
 He did save them. He had given them life, a 
 life most brief because of Herod's guile, and then 
 an entrance into eternal life, perhaps as uncon- 
 scious at first as their entrance into this life, per- 
 haps not more painful. One cry, and then came 
 life for ever with the Child of Bethlehem. 
 
 As God is, so must we be. We must never 
 outgrow our childhood in God. [N'o man, however 
 so old, can really be old in God's sight. May we 
 pray that the wisdom of this world, the hardness 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 273 
 
 of life's experiences, may never prevent our child- 
 like attitude toward our Heavenly Father. 
 
 And in all our work for God and men, whether 
 it seem to be our work alone, or work in the unity 
 of the Church, may we never forget the power of 
 gentleness. May we realize that regeneration 
 must precede everything in the spiritual life, that 
 no amount of apparent success amounts to any- 
 thing without love, that there is no failure if there 
 be love, that true love will keep us innocent, that 
 gentleness is the method of power. ''Thy gentle- 
 ness that made me great." 
 
 What is it that the world really wants? Is 
 there anything lacking that cannot be spiritually 
 expressed? Do we not desire to know that our 
 happiness and life are dear to Him who made us, 
 that He always will send us peace, if we are men 
 of good will ? 
 
 The true relations of family life are to us not 
 only a great blessing, but full of instruction. Our 
 part in them is far from perfect. Our fatherhood 
 sinful and incomplete. Even in pious Mary, 
 Jesus had something to forgive. One may some- 
 times think our children are more forgiving than 
 we are. May God show us all, by the contempla- 
 tion of the Babe of Bethlehem, the conditions of 
 holy family life. And looking upon children as 
 His special Christmas representatives, especially 
 
274 HUMAN QUESl^IONS 
 
 poor children who find little room or a poor wel- 
 come here, let us strive to make the Saviour wel- 
 come, and rejoice as He does in the happiness of 
 the tender, innocent, and young. 
 
CONSECRATION 
 
 That Thine eyes may he open toward this house 
 day and night, even toward the place of which Thou 
 hast said, My Name shall he there. — 1 Kings 8 : 29. 
 
 HEEE are two services in our Prayer 
 Book called services of Consecration: 
 the Consecration of a Bishop, and the 
 Consecration of a Church building. 
 Another service, the Office for the Holy Commun- 
 ion, contains a Prayer of Consecration, without 
 which a priest never attempts to celebrate the 
 Blessed Sacrament. These are the most authori- 
 tative documents from which to see what is meant 
 in this Church by the word Consecration. 
 
 In the order in which these services occur in 
 the Prayer Book, we find ourselves naturally most 
 familiar with the service for the Holy Communion, 
 which is for everybody to look forward to; for no 
 penitent person is excluded. Whereas, one may 
 well live a long life without ever seeing a Bishop 
 
276 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 consecrated, or a church thus set apart more than 
 once or twice. 
 
 In the Office for the Holy Communion, we 
 first set apart bread and wine which, although we 
 may have labored to make or earn them, we recog- 
 nize and acknowledge to be the gifts of God, and 
 place them on the altar as an offering at the same 
 time with the other gifts which we dedicate to 
 God, and His service. Once offered, these ele- 
 ments no longer belong to us, except to use in 
 accordance with the Divine institution. Accord- 
 ing to our Lord's o^vn saying, "The altar sanctifies 
 the gift." That is to say, the altar is God's: it, 
 in some way, signifies His Presence, His ^ame, 
 and His right. With an invisible God, the Xame 
 becomes the most important symbol, and an object 
 like the altar, which assumes to be no image or 
 likeness of anything, is a constant reminder of 
 God's Presence and claims, and presses home Sacri- 
 fice to our souls every time we behold it. 
 
 After we have presented the Bread and Wine, 
 and have endeavored to prepare ourselves by con- 
 fession, absolution, prayer, and praise, for the 
 great Act which is to follow, we, through the ap- 
 pointed minister of the Sacrament, say the Prayer 
 of Consecration, by means of the recital of our 
 Lord's wo-ids of Institution, identifying this Bread 
 and Wine with all His ineffable sacramental pur- 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 277 
 
 poses, and putting them ministerially outside the 
 category of common things. And we further in- 
 voke over them the benediction of Almighty God, 
 that they may become to us all that our Saviour 
 intended, and communicate us in His own way 
 with His Body and Blood, and make us fully par- 
 taker of all those good things which He obtained 
 for us through His Passion. 
 
 After this is done, we never permit any portion 
 of what has been thus set apart, and blessed, to go 
 back to ordinary uses. As far as we can, we have, 
 by God's assistance, fixed its condition as Holy. 
 It is reverently distributed, reverently consumed, 
 any portion remaining reverently replaced upon the 
 altar until the conclusion of the service, and then 
 reverently consumed, not as a new sacrament, but 
 as a conclusion to what has been done, that no pos- 
 sibility of irreverent treatment of a consecrated 
 Thing may cloud the rite and its fulfilment. 
 
 It is not necessary to emphasize any particular 
 theory of the Holy Communion in order to make 
 clear the Church's mind as to what she means in 
 this Consecration. Things are what they are be- 
 cause God made them so. We do not make them 
 better, or worse, by anything we personally do, or 
 attempt. But they are always in their Creator's 
 power. He is the Eeal Consecrator, and our part 
 in it is through obedience and prayer, prayer which 
 
278 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 has the promises. The two chief steps are the sep- 
 aration, and the special hallowing through Divine 
 Benediction, which adds whatever sacred proper- 
 ties as may be necessary for the rite. 
 
 In the Consecration of a Bishop, both these 
 ideas are plainly to be seen. The man designed 
 for the office has been long separated from the com- 
 mon life of men. His occupation, responsibilities, 
 means of support, all indicate separation. His 
 amusements are curtailed, even among innocent 
 things. He must be good, do good, and not let his 
 good be evil-spoken of. He must ''avoid the ap- 
 pearance of evil," as well as the evil. Xot that 
 he does not touch the common lot as few others 
 can ; for the common lot is sorrow, and he is dedi- 
 cated to sympathy as much as to truth ; but no one 
 can deny that the ministerial life is a separate one, 
 and that through its separation comes much of its 
 power. 
 
 Then he has been gradually admitted, by steps 
 or degrees to certain uncommon functions, which 
 he exercises not by his own mind or invention, not 
 for his own purposes, but strictly according to the 
 terms of his commission. And these things are 
 such that it seems impossible to say whether they 
 would have any validity if voluntarily performed, 
 without the special commission which the Church 
 is empowered by her Founder to continue and per- 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 279 
 
 petuate. The question will remain no matter 
 which side of it we prefer to espouse. The safe 
 position is the historic one. 
 
 And hence it has been always believed that the 
 man who is ordained is not only separated and 
 limited, but something is done to him which is 
 indelible, and cannot be undone. This is some- 
 times called The Grace of Orders. It means on 
 one side that God powerfully acts with His min- 
 ister to validate his functions, and to sustain his 
 words and deeds, so far as true to the Divine will ; 
 but further this, that every right act, to govern, to 
 administer, being also a burden and a care — and 
 this more than ever in Divine things — God will 
 give every one of His faithful ministers all the 
 grace and help they need to be better men, in spite 
 of their added temptations and difficulties, more 
 than if they had failed to heed their higher calling. 
 Of necessity, the minister of Christ has to try to do 
 many things which others may not think of doing : 
 he has to aim high; and he runs, humanly speak- 
 ing, more chance of failure in his ideals, or from 
 his ideals, than the man who seeks no more than 
 respectable performance. 
 
 But God helps those whom He calls. ]^ot that 
 they do not fail sometimes, but God does not fail 
 them. His word to them is the same as that 
 spoken to encourage Moses: '^Certainly I will be 
 
280 HUxMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 with thee." The minister of Christ must remain 
 human, very human, but he must enter, as God 
 would have him, into the capabilities and charac- 
 ter of a new world and a new man. 
 
 And then the service for the Consecration of a 
 Church. Still we have the idea of separation. We 
 are setting something apart which, architecturally, 
 indeed, is not fitted for any or many other pur- 
 poses than that which we intend, but could be 
 changed or modified, and so applied. Though in 
 material it is the usual building of the region, we 
 have remembered God and eternity, and have sep- 
 arated it. It is not for every innocent use, if 
 common. It is separate, and belongs to God and 
 the soul, to the truth and its proclamation. It is 
 no longer ours to do as we please with it — it is 
 ours, however, as the children of God, a place in 
 which to meet Our Father. Whatever change may 
 be connected with the thought of consecration fol- 
 lowing this separation, we do not think of it as 
 mysterious, as in the case of a sacrament, or a 
 person. But there is this change: we can never 
 escape from the force of association, more espe- 
 cially if this association be personal, and, most 
 of all, if the association call up something Divine. 
 
 "The altar sanctifies the gift." Your mother's 
 picture is just so much paper with the sun's handi- 
 work thereon, or canvas and oil, and the artist's 
 
DIVINE ANSWEES 281 
 
 success. But it is more to you than to the man 
 who painted it. It is in a manner holy. 
 
 Go in thought to a mother's treasure-house, 
 and see the baby's shoe, the lock of fair hair, the 
 things intrinsically worthless but, to her, priceless ; 
 it is what remains to quicken the pulse, and bring 
 back the memory and form of those gone, but not 
 forgotten. 
 
 Round an old consecrated church cluster mem- 
 ories of sacraments and warnings, experiences of 
 penitence and hope, vows to God and vows to man, 
 love, tenderness, and aspiration. 
 
 Visible memorials are there in stone, brass, or 
 storied pane; sacred emblems of the passion and 
 victory of Christ. The names of old and new 
 saints are there displayed, or easily recalled. But 
 chiefly, there is the thought, This is my Father's 
 house. His ^ame is there. His mysterious Pres- 
 ence is there. 'Not that we can ever be absent 
 from Him, but He does, in special ways, put Him- 
 self before us, and make places sacred to His wor- 
 ship and revelation. And where He is specially 
 thought of as present, there also is the thought of 
 Him, not as alone in a distant universe, but as 
 surrounded by His *^ ^ministering spirits," "the 
 armies of heaven," the priests of His inner sanc- 
 tuary, as represented to us in St. John's Reve- 
 lation. 
 
282 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 ^The Lord is in His Holy Temple." I know 
 that means primarily more than appears. Had 
 man erected no temple, still it would be true. His 
 character is temple enough. Where He is realized, 
 no visible fabric is needed or much heeded. But 
 it is, nevertheless, true here. Let us keep silence. 
 Let the world be hushed. Let not passion speak, 
 or worldly wisdom raise its voice. Let God speak 
 to us, and then let what we say be the words of 
 penitence, worship, and love, few words, but sin- 
 cere; the words which our Mother has taught us 
 to say, when we meet our Heavenly Father. 
 
 ^'Mj Name shall be there." Father, Saviour, 
 Divine Helper, Jesus Christ, sanctify Thy Name 
 in us. Save us from every thought which may 
 dim in our minds the lustre of Thy Presence. Be 
 Thou a hiding place for us. May the church be 
 ever a shelter where we may find Thee, the answer 
 to our prayers, and the assurance of Thy love. 
 Grant that men may love it, seek it, and find the 
 door as open as Thy mercy. 
 
 May we emulate Thy Great High Priest, Thy 
 Son, our Saviour, who was Holy, Harmless, Un- 
 defiled, and Separate from sinners. Help us to 
 be separated from sin ; then consecrate us, O God, 
 in time, for eternity, to dwell forever in Thy Holy 
 Temple. 
 
THE LORD'S PRAYER 
 
 HE literary perfection of the Prayer 
 Book services has its drawbacks. We 
 are insensibly tempted to dwell too 
 much on the outward form. And 
 then, our familiarity with the beautiful phrases 
 is apt to carry us along faster than we really ought 
 to go, in order really to work through the service. 
 Tor, of course, every time you repeat the prayers 
 of the Church, you are supposed to be, not only 
 worshipping, but working. For this reason we 
 ought to go to our prayers with as much self-recol- 
 lectedness as a machinist beginning to operate his 
 machine. He knows that the thing is not only 
 serviceable, but dangerous. His mind has to be 
 on his lathe, and the work in it, or it may be 
 spoiled in an instant. And he has to spend, from 
 time to time, considerable work on the tool itself, 
 to keep it in order, to correct its adjustment, to get, 
 as we say, ^^the hang of it" so perfectly, that it 
 
284 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 will work for him like an extension of his own will 
 into a longer arm, with more delicate skill. 
 
 The most perfect thing we have in the service 
 is the Lord's Prayer. It is just possible that you 
 do not think so, that is, you do not really think 
 so, but you know you ought to. And you would 
 hardly dare admit that you have lost some appre- 
 ciation of it, because it would make you seem to 
 yourself unorthodox. In other things we often 
 have our off days, when we are dissatisfied with 
 ourselves; so, it is not surprising if, in our re- 
 ligious life we sometimes have to recognize that 
 there is something wrong with our taste or feeling. 
 
 If the Lord's Prayer has become less to us 
 than it ought to be, is there anything we can do ? 
 Do we need to go to a doctor for the spiritual dul- 
 ness from which we are suffering? Xo, the 
 remedy is right in our own hands. All it needs is 
 a little time, a little thought, a little concentration, 
 a little reverential composure of the spirit to the 
 purposes of prayer. 
 
 The prayer has suffered, not more from its 
 rapid rendition in public worship but from its 
 almost universal use, at least by our Church people, 
 in their private prayers, which are apt to be hur- 
 ried and made as short as possible, and just 
 handled the way a conductor punches a com- 
 muter's ticket. We are apt to be prejudiced 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 2«5 
 
 against the rosary, just because Roman Catholics 
 use it; but really, we fall into exactly the same 
 false way of praying as may go with telling the 
 beads, only with us there is a good deal more 
 room between the beads. 
 
 'Now for our simple remedies. First, stop and 
 say. What is this that I am trying to do? This 
 is Prayer, an attempt to come into Communion 
 with God. Therefore, I must not try to read a 
 book and listen to a lecture at the same time. I 
 therefore need detachment, except that I ought to 
 think, first, not only of prayer in general, and of 
 the Person whom I am approaching, but specially 
 ivhy I am coming to-day. 
 
 Then next, this prayer is the Lord's Prayer. 
 It is given as the perfect model. The separate 
 petitions are complete in themselves. They are 
 like chapter headings under which we may, if we 
 have time, group our special needs. The}^ are, 
 further, a restraint to keep us from wild thoughts 
 and desires ; for there are many things we have 
 no right to ask for. And many of the difiiculties 
 that men find in believing in prayer come from 
 not recognizing its limitations. Christian prayer 
 is more powerful because of these limitations. 
 
 Then take the prayer slowly, petition by peti- 
 tion, and see what it means to you, and afterward 
 put it together again in different combinations. 
 
286 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 You know what a kaleidoscope is. And you know 
 that it gives you many combinations of the same 
 materials, and it is difficult to say which is the 
 most beautiful. But the things wouldn't combine 
 at all unless they were perfect in detail. This is 
 something like the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 In Dean Stanley's last days somebody asked 
 him about prayer, and he replied that he had 
 almost stopped saying any prayer but the Lord's 
 Prayer, going over it very slowly, petition by 
 petition. And this illustrates the fact that even 
 advanced and proficient persons in any walk of 
 life have to stop from time to time, and go back 
 to first principles. First principles contain every- 
 thing else. 
 
 These words are not intended to supply you 
 with the thought that might properly come with 
 meditative use of each petition. Some of the 
 benefit would be lost if the thinking should be done 
 in advance for you. But if, at first, the result 
 seems barren, try reading over a psalm, a canticle, 
 an epistle or gospel from the Prayer Book, and 
 then see how much easier it is to say the Lord's 
 Prayer. 
 
 Then comes putting the petitions together 
 again, and perhaps we can give here a few of the 
 results of our kaleidoscope. It will perhaps yield 
 other beautiful results to our own mental revolving 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 287 
 
 of the careful words of our Lord. The method, or 
 something like it, was used ofttimes in the mo- 
 nastic services, before the Keformation. They 
 would take a part of the psalm they were singing, 
 or of some other psalm, and use it as a refrain all 
 through, after every verse. It often made things 
 very much more beautiful. They called it ^^farc- 
 ing," a word that now is only used in cookery, and 
 means a sort of stuffing, or dressing. 
 
 Begin then with the idea of Fatherhood as 
 the controlling thought. Using it as a sort of re- 
 frain, the Lord's Prayer would go something like 
 this: Our Father, Who art in Heaven (^'My 
 Father's House has many mansions"). Hallowed 
 be Thy ^N'ame (the Father's I^ame ; "Holy Father, 
 Great Creator"). Thy Kingdom come (the 
 Father's Kingdom) ; Thy Will be done (the 
 Father's Will), on earth as it is in Heaven (by 
 the children as well as by the angels). Give us 
 this day our daily bread (the children's bread) ; 
 and forgive us our trespasses (Thy children's tres- 
 passes), as we forgive those who trespass against 
 us (for they are our brothers and our flesh). And 
 lead us not into temptation (Carry us. Father, 
 rather than lead us over the rough places), but 
 deliver us from evil (Thy children fly to Thee). 
 For Thine is the kingdom (the Father's King- 
 dom), the power (the Father's power), and the 
 
288 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 glory (the Father's glory), for ever and ever 
 (Father Eternal!). Amen. 'The [N'ame of the 
 Lord is a strong tower: the righteous fleeth unto 
 it and is safe." 
 
 Or, use the first petition as the controlling 
 thought, Hallowed be Thy Name. Then think 
 God's N'ame is hallowed by the doing of His will. 
 "Do all for the glory of God." God's Xame is 
 hallowed in giving us our daily bread ; His merci- 
 ful Providence is part of His glory. God's Xame 
 is hallowed by the Victory over Temptation, in the 
 Triumph of Kighteousness. "With His own right 
 hand and with His Holy Arm hath He gotten 
 Himself the victory." 
 
 Or, lastly, take the Will of God as a text. We 
 are too apt to think of resignation to the Will of 
 God as implying that it provides for us nothing 
 but discipline. Charlotte Elliott's beautiful hymn, 
 
 "My God, my Father, while I stray 
 Far from my home on life's rough way," 
 
 is an invalid's hymn. We could suggest other 
 verses for a more cheerful, full and true view of 
 life: 
 
 1 My God, my Father, by Thy Will 
 
 Green wave the groves on yonder hill ; 
 The stars Thy heavenly Law fulfil: 
 Thy Will be done. 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 
 
 2 My God, my Father, we confess 
 Before the world Thy holiness; 
 With inward grace Thy children bless: 
 
 Thy Will be done. 
 
 3 My God, my Father, daily bread 
 Before Thy waiting world is spread. 
 
 'Tis by Thy Will that we are fed; 
 Thy Will be done. 
 
 6 My God, my Father, mercy, too. 
 Comes every morning, fresh and new. 
 Thou dost forgive the wrongs we do : 
 
 Thy Will be done. 
 
 7 My God, my Father, in the field 
 
 Where danger lurks, Thou art our Shield. 
 Praise we the Will our souls hath healed; 
 Thy Will be done. 
 
 8 My God, my Father, Thou our King, 
 Thy power. Thy glory now we sing. 
 Come, and Thy blessed Kingdom bring. 
 
 Thy Will be done. 
 
wSSl rani 
 
 ^!3 @^ 
 
 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 
 
 "The same which God spake in the twentieth chap- 
 ter of Exodus." 
 
 T is sometimes said, nowadays, that 
 we make a mistake in reading the 
 Mosaic Law in Church, or in looking 
 upon it as a proper and useful part 
 of the Catechism. This objection is made on some- 
 what technical grounds, by people who recognize 
 that we are the better for having good laws, and 
 knowing about them; but they think that the 
 Mosaic Law is antiquated, and has outlived its 
 authority. Now the way in which we use the 
 Mosaic Law in our system is answer enough to 
 these objections. We do not use it by itself, but 
 with a very clear Christian construction, indeed, 
 with the very words of Christ Himself about the 
 older Law added to the recital of that Law. 
 
 We make it, I think, very clear that we put 
 a completely Christian construction upon what we 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 291 
 
 recite, and that, apart from the Christian con- 
 struction, we would not use the commandments as 
 we do. 
 
 The N^ew Testament is full of applications, 
 explanations, and paraphrases of the older Law. 
 The Sermon on the Mount, and many other teach- 
 ings of our Lord and His apostles, might be quoted. 
 
 There is just one point, however, about the 
 way in which the Prayer Book refers to the 
 original authority of the commandments, which 
 needs some comment. That is, we continue there 
 to claim that these commandments really came 
 from God, and at the time they were said to have 
 come from Him. This does not mean that they 
 had no authority before they were published 
 at the time of the Exodus. They had, at least 
 some of them, almost universal authority. But it 
 was, to speak reverently, necessary that they 
 should be republished as a system in connection 
 with Jehovah's claim to be the absolute Lord of 
 Righteousness. Religion and Morality are not in 
 any of the old religions connected with the same 
 closeness as they are in the religion of the Israel- 
 itish people. In other words, it is a great discov- 
 ery that the duty towards God and the duty to- 
 wards the neighbor are two tables of the same Law. 
 
 In the descriptions of the giving of the Law 
 which we read in Exodus, there is a halo of glory 
 
292 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 and mystery about the whole story. The two 
 tables are said to have been written with ^'the 
 Finger of God." Whatever I believed about this 
 in my early studies, I should now say that this 
 statement does not necessarily mean that man had 
 no hand in the preparation of these tables. They 
 were, at least, brought to light by Moses. They 
 were in his hands when first seen. His employ- 
 ment to do the luriting would not anymore con- 
 tradict the Divine authorship, than his employ- 
 ment to bring out the tables to public view. In- 
 deed, our Lord furnishes us a valuable com- 
 mentary on the words, ^'The Finger of God," by 
 using them in controversy with the Pharisees as a 
 name for the Spirit of God. Hence, to say a 
 thing was done by the ^'Finger of God," is no more 
 than saying that it was done by Divine inspiration 
 or Divine authority. 
 
 The universal conscience at any rate endorses 
 this ancient law. though it certainly did need the 
 illumination which Christ threw upon it. 
 
 The improper use of the ten commandments 
 overlooks that they were accompanied, at the time 
 they were given, by a large amount of other legis- 
 lation which enforced, illusiraied, and explained 
 them. In every age and community they have to 
 be enforced, illustrated, and explained, and their 
 spirit made clear as against a too literal reception 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 293 
 
 of them : not that in speaking of them as sometimes 
 taken too literally we would justify in any sense 
 their rejection. Liter alness makes for a more 
 limited and restricted reception than does spir- 
 ituality. ^^Thou shalt not kill/' taken with ab- 
 solute literalness would not exclude any bodily 
 injury less than killing; "Thou shalt not steal/' 
 would not include certain kinds of artistic fraud, 
 where the personal responsibility is concealed al- 
 most from the worker of it. 
 
 Every age, therefore, has a right and is even 
 bound, to put its commandments into such other 
 form, not less explicit than the ten words, as will 
 make the spirit of the law perfectly plain. Christ 
 turned the ten words into tiuo, which enormously 
 extended their range. St. John says about the 
 same in his gospel, where he records that our Lord 
 gave an eleventh commandment, just like the two 
 in scope. There is an interesting story in one of 
 Gilbert Parker's tales, where the French Half 
 Breed, Pretty Pierre, says he has just three neces- 
 sary principles: "Thou shalt keep the faith of 
 food and blanket," "Thou shalt judge with the 
 mind of ten men and the heart of one woman," 
 "Thou shalt pity the sorrows of thine own wife." 
 I do not say that these exhaust the real law. They 
 cannot, for they are the code of an undisciplined 
 and self-willed man, but they make not nearly so 
 
294 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 meager a set of principles as is implied by being 
 only three. A man who would thoroughly and 
 thoughtfully live up to them, would probably live 
 up to more good principles than he set out to hold ; 
 for all these three are kindly and wise. 
 
 But the burning need is that we should never 
 yield to the temptation to make duty less broad 
 than it is; that we should never refuse to advance 
 to meet it as it enlarges. For duty does unques- 
 tionably enlarge, as we live our life, and learn of 
 love and what love really is. The love of a child 
 is not the love of a man. The love of a lover is 
 not the love of a husband or a father, and neither 
 one is that of a woman. And the love of a Chris- 
 tian father is different from what it would be if 
 he were not a Christian, supposing his Christianity 
 to be real to the point of sacrifice. We can get 
 almost too familiar with our formularies. The 
 Lord's Prayer is the most perfect prayer, and the 
 most misused prayer, I had almost said the most 
 unused prayer, for it is said over thousands of 
 times without any movement of the heart or will. 
 Yes, a man will say it, and then, because he can 
 not remember whether he has said it or not, will 
 say it over again. This is one reason why we 
 ought to be careful not to say our ]^iil)lic service 
 too fast. 
 
 And this is why it does us good to try to put 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 295 
 
 the commandments in other words, for fear we 
 should get to thinking that we had really perfectly 
 kept them. The rich young man, whom our 
 Saviour is said to have loved, thought he had kept 
 them, and was made to see what he really was, by 
 our Lord requiring of him complete charity and 
 faith enough to make a perfect surrender of his 
 life. If God's law means anything, it cannot 
 possibly mean less than perfect charity and com- 
 plete surrender. Christ Himself made the com- 
 plete surrender, and is the Image of Perfect Love 
 Himself. If we are to keep His Law, we recognize 
 that His precepts must have really the same mean- 
 ing with His character. Or else, in a sense, He 
 could be said to deny Himself. 
 
 Thus, not to take up too much time, if we 
 begin with faith enough, which brings insight, we 
 will see that the First Commandment is not more 
 directed toward preserving the idea of the Divine 
 Unity than it is toward making us really devout, 
 that is, devoted to the service of God. To have a 
 God means that we really do nothing without God 
 and the remembrance of Who and What He is, 
 and what His character demands of us, who are 
 made in His Image and Likeness. 
 
 And Taking God's l^ame in vain is not con- 
 fined to any particular ITame which we are ac- 
 customed to use for Him, but extends to the whole, 
 
296 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 question of reverence about holy things. Many 
 people are desperately irreverent who have in- 
 vented a new terminology in order to he irreverent, 
 and not break, as they think, the third command- 
 ment. But you can't be irreverent and not break 
 it. That is what it is meant to prevent. And 
 irreverence is an awful injustice to one's self, 
 because an irreverent man has destroyed his capac- 
 ity for approaching God. And he has also 
 destroyed in some degree the capacity of those 
 other people whom he has made the hearers of 
 his foolishness. 
 
 And a man who never saw a heathen idol, and 
 has not enough mechanical ability to make a 
 graven image, can be an idolater by simply falling 
 in love with things, rather than God, refusing to 
 look up and consecrate the good things, which God 
 has given him, to his heavenly Father. You see 
 this goes very deep. 
 
 And the Fourth Commandment goes a good 
 deal deeper than just the Sunday question. The 
 Sunday question can never be settled by itself 
 alone. It involves the whole purpose of industry, 
 the whole business of the responsible care of our 
 time. The man who lives an idle, fruitless life, 
 cannot keep it, though he goes to Church twice 
 every Lord's day. The meaning of this command- 
 ment, no less than the second, is consecration. If 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 297 
 
 there be no consecration, we cannot keep this law. 
 And unless we render responsible account of our 
 whole time, as well as of our Sundays, we have 
 not kept it. There is no selfish answer to this. 
 And until we love to serve God we cannot find the 
 answer. The Love of God changes everything. 
 And note, that the commandment puts a com- 
 pletely unselfish view uppermost: It talks about 
 servants, and strangers, and dumb beasts, as hav- 
 ing their right to rest. Depend upon it, that the 
 present organization of manufacturing and com- 
 merce needs to be changed before our country can 
 always be sure of a blessing upon her civilization, 
 or uncivilization, just as you please to call it. 
 
 In other words, you have really to have a God 
 before you can keep the first table of the law. To 
 have God so that He is more real, important, 
 necessary, than anything else you can think of. 
 Or else, though He is God, he isn't your God, and 
 your religion is just a veneer that will come off 
 when it is scratched. 
 
 And so the Fifth Commandment goes into the 
 region of self-sacrificing love for your parents, the 
 Church, the country, the government. It is a 
 virtue which, if anyone is, is its own reward. It 
 certainly makes good days and happy homes, and, 
 without these, what is life ? 
 
 And the Sixth Commandment is the law of 
 
298 HUMAN QUESTIONS AND 
 
 perfect kindness, meekness, and gentleness; and 
 the Seventh means that you must be pure and clean 
 in thought, word, and deed, that you must re- 
 member that the body is given you, not to rule but 
 to be ruled, raised, and sanctified, and to become 
 the temple of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 You must not play with unclean things even 
 in your heart, and then think that you can easily 
 raise the heart again to God. You see how large 
 it is. But we say most perhaps by saying least. 
 
 And honesty, too, is the law of kindness. So 
 is our view of the Eighth Commandment. The 
 great reason for work is that we may have some- 
 thing to give away. We must be honest, we must 
 tell the truth, because truth and honesty are kind, 
 because we are all brethren, God's children. The 
 Law is not nearly so great as the Eeason for the 
 Law. That reason is the Divine love and the 
 Divine kindness. 
 
 And so, we see that this is meant to be a kind 
 world, and everyone to have love and blessing in 
 his measure. Covetousness is idolatry, and very 
 debasing; but it is also unkind, and it dwarfs the 
 soul and blinds to the true beauty, goodness, and 
 love, which are already ours. 
 
 Take now, slowly, the Duty towards God and 
 the Duty towards your neighbor in the Catechism, 
 and see how fine they are instead of thinking 
 
DIVINE ANSWERS 299 
 
 merely how hard to remember. Fine, they are! 
 There is nothing better for self-examination before 
 Communion. Read the twelfth chapter of 
 Romans, which is another fuller exposition of the 
 Law. And read the Beatitudes. For all the Law 
 is there ; or, rather, look at Christ, for He Himself 
 is Righteousness. 
 
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